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sam-glade · 13 hours

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I think some people forget that some literature and some media is meant to be deeply uncomfortable and unsettling. It's meant to make you have a very visceral reaction to it. If you genuinely can't handle these stories then you are under no obligation to consume them but acting as if they have no purpose or as if people don't have a right to tell these stories, stories that often relate to the darkest or most disturbing parts of life, then you should do some introspection.

#this.

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sam-glade · 13 hours

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find the word

tagged by @bardic-tales, thank you! (im gonna do this on my writing blog, thespacelizard is my main) my words are sorrow, light, fear. Since one of the words is sorrow, i simply have to go back into Renegade Prince for this.

no-pressure tagging @talesfromaurea @kaylinalexanderbooks @sam-glade and @jmhwritesstuff with the words return, allow, flee and away

sorrow

(it’s a character name, so that’s what this is, which kinda feels like cheating, but also i do love him very much so…)

Arcanist Rivaanlehnim was, therefore, thoroughly awake when Sorrow and his trio of Vetusak K'zinla climbed in through the window of his fourth-floor study in the middle of the night. He did not look up from the crystals spread out on his desk at their arrival. “Someone should teach you how doors work, Prince Sorrow,” he said, flipping a stronger magnifying lens down over one eye. “I had very little desire to be transformed into a toad this evening,” Sorrow said. At his left shoulder, Excellence was scanning the room, taking note of the additions Rivaanlehnim had made to his protections since last they’d visited. “Skellin, actually,” the arcanist said. “Much like the one your lieutenant has for some reason tucked into her shirt. Are you aware they’re venomous?”

light

Her feet were light again on the stairs as she hurried back down. She needn’t have worried – there was so much noise from back room and taproom alike that no-one would have heard her if she’d danced a jig down the banister and sounded a fanfare to finish.

fear

(three guesses who’s saying this line)

“You need not fear. Our little ghost is the most mercenary man I have ever met – so long as his purse is full of my coin, his murderous intent will be turned elsewhere than you.”

Valloroth taglist: @cherrybombfangirlwrites @memento-morri-writes @foxboyclit @lawful-evil-novelist @at-thezenith @morganwriteblr @fayeiswriting @serenanymph @sam-glade (ask to be +/-)

#oh the first one is so fun!#other people's writing

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sam-glade · 17 hours

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the concept of “plot armor” has done irreparable damage to media analysis and literacy. “oh the only reason this character didn’t die is because they need to be alive later in the story” you don’t fucking say.

#writing #writing tips

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sam-glade · 1 day

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My new favourite thing is when I reread my own writing and realise I accidentally foreshadowed something important

Wait sorry “accidentally” was a typo it should have been “geniusly and with considerable forethought knowing exactly what was going to happen and all of my intentions being very clear”

#writing

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sam-glade · 1 day

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heads up everybody who uses taglists: tumblr's made a change where you can only tag 5 people per line of text. so if you have a taglist like this:

@persononeee @persontwoo @personthreee @personfourr @personfivee @personsixx @personsevenn

the last two people won't be tagged at all! in order to make sure everybody gets a notification, you can do it like this:

@persononeee @persontwoo @personthreee @personfourr @personfivee

@personsixx @personsevenn

remember to check your taglist after posting, preferably on the mobile app, where the difference between tagged and untagged users will be visually obvious.

#Tumblr #meta #can confirm #it happened on a post i made a few days ago #as i was writing it all people seemed to be tagged in the editor #but after posting the tags disappeared from the later ones

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sam-glade · 2 days

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it's immensely tragic and fucked up but also a little funny when someone is so incapable of accepting that they're worthy of love and affection without any kind of justification or ulterior motive that you have to wrap it up in some kind of practical reasoning like hiding a pill in ham and peanut butter to make your dog think they're getting a tasty treat. come closer, sharing body heat will help us both keep warm [waits until you're settled comfortably in my arms] and i like spending time with you and just being near you. lmao. get loved idiot.

#trope thoughts #Gullin

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sam-glade · 2 days

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I've got some examples of worst-case scenarios, which published authors wish to avoid.

Neil Gaiman wrote a concise summary here.

There was also this mildly ridiculous case: Copyright claim against Tolkien estate backfires on Lord of the Rings fanfiction author

Wait, why are tradpub authors not encouraged to read fanfiction of their works for legal reasons?

So I'm certainly no expert and I don't know how hard and fast of a rule this is (I feel like it probably depends on the agent/publishing house/etc. to an extent, but I might be mistaken on that), but I've heard from multiple traditionally published authors and agented writers that they're discouraged from reading it mainly for issues around idea theft - basically, if a fanfiction writer knows you read their fic and you later end up putting something similar to something in the fic in your own work, they have grounds to sue you. This probably depends on jurisdiction, but I know that's how it works in the U.S. and Canada.

But also, imo - and again, I could be mistaken - this isn't really that enforceable in most cases? I feel like it's more a matter of not directly interacting with fanfic of your work or going around publicly saying you've read fanfic of your work if you're a tradpub author. Honestly this might be applicable to small presses as well - not as familiar with how that process works as of now.

Anyone with more direct experience around this pls feel free to chime in.

#writing #fanfiction

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sam-glade · 2 days

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Hi verdance

I'm hugging you! Which of your blorbos needs a hug the most, and will you give it to them?

Hi Sleepy💜

Ianim, my precious anxious cinnamon roll always needs a hug. Objectively, he doesn't have it as bad as the others, but anxiety doesn't exactly make people objective. And yes, he'll accept any and all hugs. He considers the fact that hugs are often inappropriate one of the major drawbacks of being a prince.

I also want to give Lissan a hug before @i-can-even-burn-salad bites my head off for the dark, whumpy AU I put him through, which they've read. It's an alternative ending to Gifts of Fate, about 40k words, where a character making a different decision sends the plot tumbling in a very different direction.

#ask and i shall answer #days of dusk #writeblr

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sam-glade · 2 days

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What No One Tells You About Writing Fantasy

Every author has their preferred genres. I love fantasy and sci-fi, but began with historical fiction. I hated all the research that historical fiction demands and thought, if I build my own world, no research required.

Boy, was I wrong.

So to anyone dipping their toe into fantasy/sci-fi, here’s seven things I wish I knew about the genres before I committed to writing for them.

1. You still have to research. Everything.

If you want any of your fantasy battle sequences, or your space ships, or your droids and robots, or your fictional government and fictional politics to read at all believable.

In sci-fi, you research astronomy, robotics, politics, political science, history, engineering, anthropology. In fantasy, you have to research historical battle tactics, geography, real-world mythology, folklore, and fairytales, and much of it overlaps with science fiction.

I say you *have to* assuming you want your work to be original and unique and stand out from the crowd. Fanfic writers put in the research for a 30k word smut fic, you can and will have to research for your original work.

2. Naming everything gets exhausting

I hate coming up with new names, especially when I write worlds and places divorced from Earthly customs and can’t rely on Earthly naming conventions. You have to name all your characters, all your towns, villages, cities, realms, kingdoms, planets, galaxies, star systems.

You have to name your rebel faction, your imperial government, significant battles. Your spaceships, your fantasy companies and organizations, your magic system, made-up MacGuffins, androids, computer programs. The list goes on and on and on.

And you have to do it all without it sounding and reading ridiculous and unpronounceable, or racist. Your fantasy realms have to have believable naming patterns. It. Gets. Exhausting.

3. It will never read like you’re watching a movie

Do you know how fast movies can cut between scenes? Movies can balance five plotlines at once all converging with rapid edits, without losing their audience. Sometimes single lines of dialogue, or single wordless shots are all a scene gets before it cuts. If you try to replicate that by head-hopping around, you will make a mess.

It’s perfectly fine to write like you’re watching a movie, but you can’t rely on visual tricks to get your point across when all you have is text on a page – like slow mo, lens flares, epically lit cinematic shots, or the aforementioned rapid edits.

It doesn’t have to, nor should it, look like a movie. Books existed long before film, so don’t let yourself get caught up in how ~cinematic~ it may or may not look.

4. Your space opera will be compared to Star Wars and Star Trek

And your fairy epic will be compared to Tinkerbell, your vampires to Twilight, your zombies to The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead, World War Z. Your wizards and witches and any whisper of a fantasy school for fantasy children will be compared to Harry Potter. Your high fantasy adventure will be compared to Lord of the Rings.

You can’t avoid it, but you can avoid doing it to yourself. When people ask about your book, let them say “oh, you mean like Star Wars” to which you then can say, kind of, except XYZ happens in my book. These IPs will never fade from the public consciousness, not while you exist to read this post, at least, but Harry Potter isn’t the only urban fantasy out there. Lord of the Rings isn’t the only high fantasy. Star Wars isn’t the only space opera.

Yours will be on the shelves right next to them, soon enough, and who knows? You might dethrone them.

5. Your world-building is an iceberg, and your book is the tip

I don’t pay for any of those programs that help you organize your book and mythos. I write exclusively on Apple Notes, MS Word, and Google Suite (and all are free to me). I have folders on Apple Notes with more words inside them than the books they’re written for.

If you try to cram an entire college textbook’s worth of content into your novel, you will have left zero room for actual story. The same goes for all the research you did, all the hours slaving away for just a few details and strings of dialogue.

There’s a balance, no matter how dense your story is. If you really want to include all those extra details, slap some appendices at the end. Commission some maps.

6. The gatekeeping for fantasy and sci-fi is still very real

Pen names and pseudonyms exist for a reason. A female author writing fantasy that isn’t just a backdrop for romance? You have a harder battle ahead of you than your male counterparts, at least in the US. And even then, your female protagonist will be scrutinized and torn apart.

She’ll either be too girly or not girly enough, too sexy, or not sexy enough. She’ll be called a Mary Sue, a radical feminist mouthpiece, some woke propaganda. Every action she takes will be criticized as unrealistic and if she has fans who are girls, they will be mocked, too.

If you have queer characters, characters of color, they won’t be good enough, they won’t please everyone, and someone will still call you a bigot. A lot of someones will still call you a bigot.

Do your due diligence and hire your army of sensitivity readers and listen to them, but you cannot please everyone, so might as well write to please yourself. You’re the one who will have to read it a thousand times until it’s published.

7. Your “original” idea has been done before, and that’s okay

Stories have been told since before language evolved. The sum of the parts of your novel may be original, but even then, it’s colored by the media you’ve consumed. And that’s okay!

How many Cinderella stories are there? How many high fantasies? How many books about werewolves and witches and vampires? Gods and goddesses and celestial beings? Fairies and dragons and trolls? Aliens, robots, alien robots? Romeo and Juliette? Superheroes and mutants?

Zombies may be the avenue through which you tell your story, but it’s not *just* about zombies, is it? It’s about the characters who battle them, the endurance of the human spirit, or the end of an era, the death of a nation. So don’t get discouraged, everyone before you and everyone after will have written someone on the backs of what came before and it still feels new.

#writing #writing advice

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sam-glade · 2 days

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Hey, writers, you know that voice that pushes you to write more even when you're burnt out and just need to take a step back and take a break?

You know that voice that says "wow, that's all you did today?"

Do me a favor. Block that voice out for a second and listen to mine.

You did enough. What you've gotten done is absolutely enough. You are enough. Your work is enough. You're doing great. Take that break, take a rest. You're all good.

Love you guys. Take care of your minds so it can sustain your creativity the rest of your life and doesn't burn out <3

#writing #keeps me motivated

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sam-glade · 3 days

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Heads up, 7 up

Taking @author-a-holmes up on the open tag!

I’ll tag @authorlaurawinter @words-after-midnight @dyrewrites @stesierra @sam-glade @ettawritesnstudies @writernopal and anyone else who wants to play!

I just started my second attempt at a book set in Halara, and this is the opening scene. Keep in mind everyone here is 9:

“It’s true! The dragon swept over the walls and sent fire burning through the streets!”

Luwel rolled their eyes hard and took another spoonful of stew. “F’le doesn’t even have walls.”

Ko’a leaned on the table and answered confidently, “Every city has walls.”

Aru’a, tucked in the shadows at the far end of the bench, ventured quietly, “Why didn’t we hear about it in the news?”

“Because it didn’t happen here?” Ko’a tried, less confidently.

“That’s a good point,” Luwel agreed with their mouth full, “Where did you hear about this?”

#oh that's a fun dynamic #I'm also fascinated by the names #other people's writing

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sam-glade · 3 days

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Some critical rules for writing coherent genre fiction, courtesy of my writing teacher, who is very wise. I don't pretend to have mastered all of these, but their application can do wonders for a story, their lack can cripple it:

Employ the causal chain - every action must be connected to what comes before and after. Each action and beat needs to have impact. They don't all need to be shown but the author needs to know what they are. It is impossible to build suspense without this principle. Things can't happen "just because" or there's no reason for the audience to become engaged with your sequence of events or do things like make predictions. All subsequent rules follow from this principle.

When showing a new type of fictional magic or science, you must show it work before you can show it break. For example, if a character has the ability to summon objects into their hand, we need to see them do so successfully and see how it works, before we see it break at a critical moment during the climax. Otherwise, the audience can't be expected to follow why this situation is unusual because they don't know how it works during normal circumstances.

When claiming a character is good at something, you must show them succeeding at it before you show them failing at it during a moment of pressure. Otherwise, we don't believe you when you establish your character's competence or badassery. For example, when saying your character is an excellent military commander, we need to see them win a fight using those skills and tactics. We can't open with a fight they lose, or else the character and author lose credibility. By all means, show the experienced hero/military leader/ruler/assassin/mage etc break down during a moment of intense pressure, fall down sobbing in terror at a truly insurmountable foe, or otherwise fail to meet the moment, but don't do this before we've seen them succeed at least once, or the moment loses impact.

During the build-up of tension, coincidences should hurt the hero and help the antagonist. This plays into the causal chain rule. Coincidences that help the hero feel cheap. Coincidences that help the villain raise the tension.

Every beat, whenever possible, should be connected to conscious action by central characters (hero, love interest, or villain). The more events are connected to purposeful action by key characters, the more satisfying the causal chain for the reader.

Avoid things that happen "just because" whenever possible. You can have one or two, sure, but the more often things happen "just because" the less interesting the story is, especially if those "just because" moments are core to the story. Fiction is not real life. Audiences are drawn to stories where purposeful actions dictate the success or failure of the characters.

#writing #writing advice

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sam-glade · 3 days

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Purple Silk Robe à la Française, 1770-1775, English.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

#clothing #historical #dress #for reference

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sam-glade · 3 days

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tag the oc that is somehow still standing after all their trauma

.

#all of them #trope thoughts

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sam-glade · 3 days

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Build a Pokemon team tag

Tagged by the wonderful @i-can-even-burn-salad here - thank you💜 I'll tag @tisiphonewolfe and leave an open tag for anyone who wants to do this.

Rules: list what would be your OCs' Pokemon teams.

I spent way too much time digging into strategy, until I decided that Anthea and Gullin would be better than me at it anyway. This team builder was linked, but I found the UI very clunky, so I just looked them up on Bulbapedia and used the team builder to generate the pictures.

Lissan

Spheal, pidgeotto, bulbasaur, poochyena, mareep, wigglytuff

All of Lissan's pokemon are friend-shaped. He also gets very attached to them very quickly so these are pretty much the first pokemon he caught, and he'd never consider releasing them. He probably avoids fights, and treats them as pets.

Ianim

Wyrdeer, espeon, Galarian rapidash, chansey, altaria, cobalion

He composed this team by vibes and appearance first of all; he isn't a big fan of competitive activities, so they don't see many fights. And yes, he rides the rapidash.

Gullin

Gyarados, blaziken, beedril, tyranitar, golem, absol

He takes the training very seriously and takes good care of his team. They aren't the fanciest pokemon out there, but he's willing to upgrade when the opportunity arises. Anthea and Erya are insanely envious of his absol.

Varré

Venusaur, blastoise, charizard, snorlax, dragonite, steelix

They're too old and done with it to keep up with the newest strategies and adjust their team all the time. They stuck with these six for a long time, it's a solid team, which they make work well together. The venusaur is their pride and joy. The snorlax was a gift/trade from Erya, as a joke, but they kept it out of sentimentality.

Anthea

Glastrier, lugia, giratina, ditto, mega gyarados, dialga

She's poured a lot of resources into assembling this team, and has quite a few backup pokemon, which she switches to depending on what her opponent is likely to use - she'd probably do some research into their strategy before any duel. She has also perfected a combination of moves and items that ensures her victory. And yes, she rides the glastrier.

Erya

Brambleghast, alakazam, gengar, seviper, darkrai, weezing

She doesn't have much time to spare on pokemon, but she does keep a team just in case. She caught most of them herself - hence they're primarily urban pokemon.

#writeblr #writeblr tag game #tag game #poketeam tag #days of dusk

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sam-glade · 3 days

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OC in 15 tag

I've been tagged by @talesofsorrowandofruin here - thank you💜

I'm slightly out of the loop with who's doing tag games now, so I'll randomly tag: @flock-from-the-void @sarandipitywrites @acers @sleepyowlwrites and leave an open tag.

So I just post 15 direct quotes from a character, right? Let's do it for Lissan from Days of Dusk (mostly The Prince's Shadow, the second book which I have open right now).

“Can I please check that the kids made it home safe, before you take me—?”

“At least they didn’t put a Dark One in my head without asking me first.”

“You really are the Prince Successor,” Lissan blurted out.

“I’ve been staying in the old herbalist’s hut, away from Dad and Marta. At least there, the thing doesn’t tell me all the creative ways in which I can kill my sister as soon as I look at her.”

“At this point I’m not expecting to live long enough to travel.”

“Are you afraid of me too?”

“My attitude?”

“You… know who I am, right?”

“I promise not to tell anyone, because it’s the right thing to do.”

“It’s a good thing I can’t die then.”

“What would I even write?” he grumbled, not looking at her. “Hi, this is the guy who got you locked up and ruined your careers, wondering how you’re doing?

“But you’re…” safe? “not in any trouble, right?”

“I don’t accept a king like you.”

“He is also sitting right here, so can you please explain what on Earth you’re talking about?”

“I don’t want to kill you,” Lissan reminded himself.

#oc in 15 tag #tag game #writeblr #writeblr tag game #days of dusk #lissan

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sam-glade · 3 days

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Happy birthday, Saran! Have some anxiety!

so, today's my birthday, and i decided to. start posting full chapters of Dead Roots, Dark Water? because i like stress, i guess?

anyway this thing's been in the works for a couple years now. i've worked very hard on it, it means a lot to me, and i'm actually really proud of it but, you know, the horror of being perceived and all that. so if you enjoy Jak & Daxter, fucked up dystopian sci-fi fantasy, or my writing in general, you can read DRDW on Ao3.

in case my incredibly nervous sales pitch didn't convince you, have a teaser:

"By order of the crown, you are under arrest. Come quietly, and no one needs to die today." "Under arrest?" Daxter's throat constricted, reducing his voice to a strangled squeak. "What did he do? What did you do, Jak?" Jak only shrugged and shook his head. "You are trying my patience." The soldier flicked a switch near the gun's trigger. The resulting click split the air. "You have ten seconds to comply." Daxter's fingers twitched. Ten seconds. The soldiers blocked the only walking path back down to Sandover. Climb down? No — too steep, no cover. They could hide in the jungle, if it weren't twenty feet down and across the river. All that, and a sheer drop to the ocean behind them. They were fucked. Daxter's mouth filled with ash. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. Arrested for gods-knew-what, taken to gods-knew-where, alone— Alone. No. His knees still shaking, he stood taller. His hands still trembling, he squared his shoulders. He glared into the dead space of the soldier's visor. Fuck that. Fuck them.

DRDW taglist: @sam-glade, @televisionjester, @surroundedbypearls

general taglist: @innocentlymacabre

#oh I love this #the pacing the action the emotions #other people's writing #jak & daxter

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