The Only Real Thing

This is a great idea and it looks so pretty!

What have I been up to, you ask?

Oh, I've started a bullet journal for what else my WIP, Forsaken Gods. It's the first time I've tried it since I'm not very artsy or crafty and my color coordination sucks,

If you have the time and resources, I encourage you to try it!

Pros:

Fun and relaxing!

Helps you keep track of your WIP

And keeping it organized!

Gets your creative juices flowing

Passes time while you're trying to get your writing mojo back

challenges your artistic skills especially if you're someone like me who badly needs improvement

Doesn't have to be expensive unless you want fancy stuff

Cons:

you're still gonna need a couple of things so a budget might be required.

Time consuming esp if you want to make it pretty

Messy. So messy.

Right now I'm making character spreads for the Main Squad, which I might also post here or a second tumblr idk yet.

Calling a Character by Their Title or an Epithet

Would you refer to your best friend as “the redhead” or “Kristen”? Is your favorite teacher “the teacher” or “Mr. Small”? An epithet is an adjective or descriptive phrase used to refer to a person. Referring to a character by a trait or their title is called an “amateur mistake” when used incorrectly, but “good perspective writing” when used well.  What makes title of epithet a mistake is when it creates a sense of distance that doesn’t make sense given the narrator’s perspective.

These three sentences are written using different methods of reference, and the method is very telling of how the narrator perceives things.

The doctor waved to the nurse as she passed him in the hallway.

This reads as very impersonal, like the narrator doesn’t know either of these characters. This is the kind of sentence I’d expect from a narrator who just met those two people, or never met them and is just observing some hospital interaction.

Dr. Martinez waved to Nurse Merther as she passed him in the hallway.

Now the narrator is familiar with these characters, just not close enough to use a first name. Maybe they don’t know it, maybe they prefer to be professional with medical personnel, or perhaps they’re a colleague who doesn’t choose to socialize with either of those people.

Angela waved to David as she passed him in the hallway.

The narrator clearly knows these two people well enough to drop any formality at all. Perhaps the narrator is a close friend, a social colleague, or just a rude patient who somehow figured out all the names of the hospital staff.

The point is, the method of reference can show perspective and creates distance when used incorrectly. A narrator familiar with a character almost always uses the character’s name unless the situation is one where there is a power difference or there’s a good reason for it. You don’t think of your best friend as “the (hair color)” and wouldn’t refer to them like that, so you narrator isn’t going to do that to their best friend either. If they do, it often sounds odd and distances the reader.

Now, the line does get fuzzy when a narrator is omniscient 3rd person, but that still ties into the idea of perspective. How the narrator refers to someone shows what they think of the person. This can be used to show growing familiarity: perhaps “the doctor” becomes “Dr. Martinez” after a nice conversation, then becomes “Angela” when the narrator really gets to know her.

“Show, don’t tell” is often used to describe character action, but it applies just as much to perceptive. Instead of narrating how much someone likes their doctor, perhaps opt to use a less formal character reference in scenes. Consistent perspective is the mark of good writing and often a good story. Some  writers use epithets or titles to avoid repetition in their writing, but it’s an incorrect use of impersonal character reference. Swapping out ways to refer to characters because you think your writing is repetitive has two outcomes:

The writing is fine and the pronoun/name use is a non-issue.

The writing is repetitive, and in that case you’re only creating a different problem by swapping pronouns and names for something else. The solution is to work on the repetitiveness of the writing rather than trying to patch it up with nicknames or other ways to refer to people. That “solution” is only creating an additional problem because the underlying writing is still repetitive and now your narrator suddenly seems to have forgotten their friend’s name.

Unnecessary use of titles, epithets, and monikers are a telltale sign of a novice writer. They don’t exist to “spice up” writing or fix an issue of repetitiveness– they’re for showing the reader how the narrator thinks of the character, the level of respect, and personal distance via word choice. Much like many aspects of improving at writing, learning why something is an issue is key to becoming more effective at the craft.

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Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

I love that excerpt!

cocaine, a car wreck, and an apple pie recipe. 

a modern retelling of sophocles’ ajax, wintersong is 18-year-old and terribly wayward hollis knox’s aching love letter to all the good in the world: grocery store aisles’ uneven green-and-white flecked tiles, shared secrets behind calloused hands, and little brothers’ sunday morning swim meets. all the good that atrophies too fast. 

goal words: 50,000

current words: 21,000

weheartit board

here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:

let me know what you think!

p.s. i follow from studylikeathena. 

Never mow the same grass twice — How to improve faster as a writer

One of the most important writing lessons I ever learned came, surprisingly, from my college trumpet instructor.

“Michael,” he’d say with a heavy sigh, pulling off his glasses and rubbing the lenses with the bottom of his shirt. “You know I hate to mow the same grass twice.”

It was a phrase he used a lot, in band and private lessons, whenever someone made a mistake he’d already told them to correct. Because in his mind, once he’d identified a mistake in your performance, you needed to do everything you could to keep it from happening again, for two reasons.

First, because as he said, he doesn’t like to mow the same grass twice. And second (and more importantly), because if you let yourself repeat a mistake, that mistake will start to become a habit.

A bad habit.

And the more you let yourself repeat that habit, the more deeply ingrained it becomes, making it increasingly difficult to fix and slowing your progress as a musician (or artist, or writer). So his suggestion was this: Identify what needs to change, and firmly commit to fixing it now.

Confession Time

So. I was a very average trumpet player. My instructor and I had a great rapport, but he had to tell me to mow the same grass twice, three times, and more often than he ever would have liked, because I just wasn’t focused or passionate enough about trumpet to fully commit to his advice.

But I was focused and passionate enough about fiction to commit to his advice when it came to writing. So I applied his mindset in my creative writing workshops, particularly when I started my MFA.

And I tell you what, everybody. It worked wonders — helping me improve enough in that first year alone to win our MFA program’s top fiction prize and to earn a teaching assistantship.

3 Steps to Quickly Improve Your Writing

With my trumpet instructor’s advice in mind, I put a 3-step process on loop throughout my time in the MFA:

Share a short story with your fellow writers. (A workshop is great, but online writing friends work too.)

Sift through everyone’s feedback to find one high-priority “bad habit” in your writing that they seem to be honing in on.

When you sit down to write your next story, commit to breaking that habit at any cost, even if it means making other mistakes because of it. (New mistakes are better than old mistakes.)

This is How it Went for Me

The first short story I shared in my MFA workshop had a clear issue: the narrator was passive and underdeveloped. One of my classmates called him a “window character,” someone through whom we could observe the other, more interesting characters who actually drove the plot. The rest of the workshop agreed, and looking back at some of my past stories, I realized that passive narrators had become a deeply ingrained habit of mine.

So the next time I wrote a story, I strictly committed myself to writing a more active narrator.

The Result?

A moderately active narrator. Not perfect, but better than I’d done in a long time. It was progress — me chipping away at the bad habit.

The next story I wrote showed much more progress. It had a highly active narrator, and so did the story after that. And that’s when a new, better habit formed: writing active narrators without even thinking about it. And that let me shift my focus to improve upon something else (such as making all my narrator’s actions stem from their core emotional struggle). And something new again after that (using more figurative language, loosening up my writing voice, etc.).

And that’s how you can improve, too. The goal, again, is to use peer feedback to identify habits in your writing you don’t like, and then to mentally commit to replacing them with habits you want, one by one.

It’s a slightly different way to approach feedback. We tend to primarily use feedback as a way to help us improve an individual story — but it’s also a fantastic opportunity to improve your future first drafts.

You’ll be surprised how quickly your writing improves when you do this.

The key, though, is to commit to tackling just one major habit at a time. Why? Because writing is hard, friends, and fiction is a complex tapestry of various techniques, all coming together at once. That means your attention is always inevitably split while writing, so if you try to fix multiple habits at once, you’ll likely spread your attention too thin to succeed.

So identify a single change you want to see in you writing. Make it happen the next time you write a story, no matter what. Then, before you sit down again to write the next story, find something new you want to change or improve.

You’ll love what happens to your writing when you commit to never mowing the same grass twice.

And when you do, far away, in a brightly-lit college band room in Minnesota, my old instructor will raise a hand to conduct a trumpet ensemble, pause — and smile.

— — —

For writing advice and tips on crafting theme, meaning, and character-driven plots, check out the rest of my blog.

And if you’re feeling discouraged, remember this: Every story has something wonderful inside it, including your own.

blooming blossom: lockdown

@flashfictionfridayofficial

the world is silenced by a virus it is scarily quiet in my town even the station is calm because of the lockdown on the road I see only an empty bus   my whole world is turned upside down captured between these walls I feel lifeless how do you stay all right in such a crisis? so alone and so scared of this new crown   but through my window I see the blossoms of my cherry tree even now not everything is wrong I take a picture to remember nature is still growing normally   I send it to my sister, who works in a hospital all day long I send it to my grandma, who I now cannot visit safely I send it to you, I hope you stay safe and fine and strong

Random Question Time! Do you make art of any sort (mood or aesthetic boards, playlists, face claims with minor quick changes) for your characters?

Thank you for the question!

I often make aesthetics and playlists and sometimes edits with face claims.

I also like to play scenes and background stories out in my head while playing a piano piece with the right mood.

I hate to break it to ya, guys, but

You’re all so creative and everything you wrote, drew and created made the world a tad bit more beautiful

Don’t ever stop, you little chunks of mess and fabulousness, because in this world today, we need every single drop of beauty we can get

This sounds so interesting! Could I be added to the tag list please?

WIP Intro: Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist

Genre: Adult literary fiction // Status: Drafted Several Times Over // Themes: Relationships, healing, mental health, self-image // Word Count: 101,476 // Pinterest Board // Playlist // WIP Page 

When I was 12, I thought something along the lines of “yeah, I can write a novel”, made a bunch of cringey characters, and slapped the name We’re All Dead After All on it. Oh boy, was that a ride. Now, six years later, I’m still working with these characters, but I have changed literally everything about WADAA, including the name. 

Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist is my oldest and most loved work. It’s grown as I have, in complexity and quality. It can be an absolute disaster, at times, but I still love it dearly.

What is this?

Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist is an adult novel that follows Kam Suzuki, a physics major and a NASA enthusiast, as he deals with the traumatic aftereffects of his brother Vic’s mental health issues, his repressed emotions, and other problems related to mental health, all while supporting Zach Amsel, his best friend and fellow NASA enthusiast, as they begin their first year at their prestigious university.

In short: Lessons in Humanity is a novel about relationships and healing.

It’s probably my favorite work (don’t tell any of the others because they’ll be jealous) just because I’ve had it the longest. I know these characters better than I know myself some days. I’m constantly thinking about this work in particular, because I’m so attached to it.

Who are these people?

I’ll do some proper character introductions later on, but here are some rapid-fire mini intros!

Kam Suzuki (Lawful Good, ISTJ, Hufflepuff, Libra) is the protagonist, a NASA-obsessed science nerd who loves Star Trek and loves to repress his emotions. 

Zach Amsel (Neutral Good, ISFJ, Ravenclaw, Aquarius) is Kam’s best friend, a high-achieving, neurotic young man who’s looking for love in all the wrong places. 

Nikki Espinosa-Jasso (Lawful Neutral, INFP Gryffindor, Capricorn) is the Mom Friend of the group. She’s more than done with the boys’ bullshit, but she loves them regardless.

Kevin Espinosa (Chaotic Neutral, ESFP Slytherin, Gemini) is a fun-loving guy who really only cares about living a hedonistic lifestyle in the now.

Vic Suzuki (Neutral Good, ISTJ, Ravenclaw, Libra) is Kam’s twin brother. He’s dealing with his mental health issues and learning how to take care of himself.

Gerard Shimmish (Chaotic Good, ESFP, Gryffindor, Leo) is Vic’s long-term boyfriend and one of Kam’s closest friends. Despite his childish habits, Gerard is profound and loves caring for others.

Ruth Spencer (Lawful Good, ESFJ, Ravenclaw, Virgo) is a brilliant young woman who loves to read and always gives out good advice.

Jessica McClain (Chaotic Good, ENFP, Gryffindor, Cancer) is a naive goofball who wants to be nice to everyone.

Chai Watson (Chaotic Neutral, ESFP, Slytherin, Aries) is someone who’s been through some hard times and is slowly becoming what she hates most- her mother.

What are the jams?

My playlist for Lessons in Humanity has a lot of awesome songs on it! It’s got some decent space-themed vibes. The songs I listen to the most are:

Twin Size Mattress - The Front Bottoms

Saturn - Sleeping at Last

Hurt - Oliver Tree

Venus - Sleeping at Last

3rd Planet - Modest Mouse

Meteor Showers - Andy Kong

Morning in America - Jon Bellion

Neptune - Sleeping at Last

Stressed Out - Twenty One Pilots

Excerpt

“Xenon.” Kam straightens himself, pulling his shirt and hoodie from his chest and fixing his glasses. He doesn’t say we are noble gasses. He doesn’t say we’re both lonely, but I think that’s why we get along. He doesn’t say I wish I understood people like you do. 

“Xenon,” Zach repeats, sounding like Kam. He almost reaches out to touch Kam’s face, run the backs of his fingers over Kam’s jaw. Almost. He holds himself back from the inappropriate touch that Kam won’t appreciate and clears his throat. “Did you like your ramen?” 

Kam nods wordlessly. 

“Good.” Zach nods. “Good.” He chews on the inside of his mouth and rubs the back of his neck. “Good,” he repeats, then shuts himself up. 

Kam sits, self-contained as always. He is his own universe, detached from everything and everyone else. Maybe he isn’t krypton, but helium, unable to form any bonds, floating alone in the vast nothingness of the universe. Helium is the loneliest element.

Who’s interested?

You can always ask to be added or subtracted from the tag list!