Sarahschauer: Not What I Usually Post But Worth Sharing! Credits Go To @/ Dollarfor On Tiktok, This Video

Hey, happy halloween!

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Tagging randomly for reach! Lmk if you want to be left off 👍

@heritageposts @dykeredhood @iwtv @kibumkim @enfranchisement

James Baldwin, talking about living his life based on observable fact, instead of white liberal promises. [link]

You are a literal one man army, facing the full force of the invaders. They don’t know how screwed they are.

still not over how much I love this

Conveying Worldbuilding Without Exposition!

(As requested by both an anon and @my-words-are-light​)

One of the hardest parts of writing speculative fiction is presenting readers with a world that’s interesting and different from our own in a way that’s both immersive and understandable at the same time. 

Thankfully, there are a few techniques that can help you present worldbuilding information to your readers in a natural way, as well as many tricks to tweaking the presentation until it’s just right.

Four basic techniques:

1. The ignorant character. 

By introducing a character who doesn’t know about the aspects of the world building you’re trying to convey, you can let the ignorant character voice the questions the reader naturally wants to ask. Traditionally, this is seen when the protagonist or (another character) is brought into a new world, society, organization. In cases where that’s the natural outcome of the plot, and the character has a purpose in the story outside of simply asking questions, it can be pulled off just fine. But there’s another aspect to this which writers don’t often consider: 

Every character is your ignorant character. 

In a realistic world, no person knows everything. Someone will be behind on the news. Someone won’t know all the facts. Many, many someones won’t have studied a common part of their society simply because they aren’t large part of that fraction or don’t have the time for it.

Instead of inserting an ignorant character and creating a stiff and annoying piece of expository dialogue, find the character already existing in the story who doesn’t know about the thing being learned.

2. Conflicting opinions.

A fantastic way to convey detailed world building concepts is to have characters with conflicting viewpoints discuss or argue about them. Unless you’re working with a brainwashed society, every character should hold their own set of religious, political, and social beliefs. 

Examples of this kind of dialogue:

Keep reading

types of fantasy subgenres - writing help

high / epic fantasy - a genre of fantasy that holds its own world and creatures. examples of this could be J.R.R. Tolkien's LOTR, or C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia

low fantasy - a genre where there are regular magical happenings in "our" world—such as a magical school, or people with magical abilities. this could be found in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, or Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away

urban fantasy - essentially low fantasy, only it takes place in an urban setting such as a big city. an example of this is Cassandra Clare's City of Bones

sword and sorcery - fantasy that is centred around swords, magic, and witchcraft. it is a subgenre of high fantasy. a book is Robert E. Howard's Conan series

dark fantasy - fantasy elements mixed with horror. The Atlas Six, by Olivia Blake

fable - a story with a moral lesson

arthurian fantasy - anything derived from the tales of King Arthur (the Sword in the Stone, etc.)

crosswords fantasy - essentially where the main character crosses between their world and a fantasy world. an example of this could be Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

dragon fantasy - what it sounds like.

historical fantasy - a cross between the historical fiction and low fantasy subgeneres. it could be set in a royal court filled with goblins, for example, in a time that was once present on earth.

i don't buck how long DOES it take to shoot a scene

It wouldn’t be historically accurate for my story to include BIPOC!

This is an argument often made about European-style fantasy media like Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and Disney’s Frozen. Audiences, often white, assume that due to the majority-white setting, adding any visible number of BIPOC to the story would be unrealistic.

What these critics fail to realize is that BIPOC do in fact live, and have lived, in these settings, and records of BIPOC presence in places assumed to be majority-white have been buried, written out, or not taught due to white supremacist and/or colonial bias in the field of history. There are historical European settings that were far more diverse than is often portrayed. Consider:

The Moorish Empire exerted an extensive influence over life and culture in Southern Europe from Spain from 711 to 1492

The Ottomans were heavily involved in European affairs up until the treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, but still considered a part of Europe even through the 19th century

The sheer size of the Roman Empire ensured the continued movement of people from various backgrounds within the Mediterranean well until the end of the Byzantine Empire.

“Historical accuracy” should not be used as an excuse for media to be exclusively white in its casting. While there are places which are or were predominantly white, there will always be factors like global trade and immigration that bring multiculturalism to their doors.

And even if the presence of a certain demographic is unrealistic for a certain setting? Consider that we’ve accepted far worse inaccuracies in historical fiction in the name of artistic license. Consider that our understanding of human history is, and will always be, incomplete.

Further Reading:

Historically Diverse London, “Historical Accuracy,” and Creator Accountability

Making a Black Pride and Prejudice Resonate

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This Q&A is an excerpt from our General FAQ for Newcomers, which can be found in our new Masterpost of rules and FAQs. If you're new to Writing With Color and/or want more writing resources, check it out!

-Writing With Color

[ID: A video recording of Bisan Owda, filming herself standing still and speaking in front of a car underneath the morning sky in Gaza, with the sun visible above her head. Loud sirens can be heard around her as she says:

"Hey, everyone. This is Bisan from Gaza. We're still alive, and we wish you a merry Christmas in the Christmas eve. Wish you a merry Christmas despite the churches of Gaza are closed, full of displaced people, and surrounded with snipers. We wish you a merry Christmas despite the children, women, men, Christians and Muslims of Gaza are murdered and under genocide. We wish you a merry Christmas despite that we cannot exchange gifts or spend our holidays in our homes because they are completely destroyed, and merry Christmas despite there are hundreds of killed, decomposed bodies in the the north of Gaza Strip in the streets, at least 137 them are field executed by the Israeli soldiers in front of their children. Merry Christmas, but pray for Gaza."

End ID.]

Please think about why these videos are coming out in English. In your tongue, so that you can understand them. Don't ignore them or get tired of seeing them or call them guilt-trippy. Don't stop talking about Palestine. Make Palestine impossible to ignore. Even at the cost of "disrupting" your celebrations.