#the great glavenisean theater
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🎭 THE GREAT GLAVENISEAN THEATER BETA CALL 🎭
It’s here! The time has come! With a complete and polished first draft, I am looking for betas to give reader feedback on TGGT. What I am looking for primarily are thoughts and reactions to the plot, characters, and relationship dynamics, and not line editing/grammatical work.
Before we go any further, here are the basics~
📕genre: speculative fiction in the vein of The Night Circus (fantasy elements in a historical setting)
📗audience: adult
📘wordcount: 94k
📙wip tags: #the great glavenisean theater #tggt excerpt (where you can view writing samples mostly from tag games)
📖summary:
When Morgan arrives in the infamous City of Spires with his twin sister, the last thing he expects is to be swept up in a glittering world of velvet curtains, beaming lights, and gleaming interdimensional portals in the belly of the stage of the Great Glavenisean Theater. Thank goodness for Zachary, who’s lived his entire life in the rigging and knows the ins and outs of the theater better than anyone—anyone, except maybe Ariel, the ethereal prima donna. But someone—or something—is creeping around the theater causing dissent, and the longer Morgan spends in the theater as their new seamster, the more he suspects that Ariel isn’t of the same plane as the rest of them—that maybe, they came out of the portal one night and have yet to go back.
If you want to see if my writing style is for you, you can read the first chapter of TGGT here, (thank you very much to @theskeletonprior for formatting this!). The version of this chapter in the beta draft has undergone some minor alterations, but it’s nearly identical. The gist of it is all the same.
Content warnings are available upon request, though I can safely assure you that there is little to nothing in TGGT that would be found outside a PG-13 movie. Gore and explicit sexual content is absent. It is friendly to teen readers, though this book is absolutely adult and not intentionally geared toward a YA audience.
If you’re interested, go ahead and fill out the google form here, and I’ll be in touch with you shortly!
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TGGT taglist 🎭 Ask to be added or removed!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons @flowerprose @bebewrites @hysteriwah @the-void-writes @carrotblr @tananaphone @mr-writes @monstrousfreedom @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @saphoblin @theskeletonprior @midnight-and-his-melodiverse @perasperaadastrawriting
#writeblr#writers on tumblr#writeblr community#beta reading#fantasy writers#speculative fiction#the great glavenisean theater#beta call
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Digital interview with @pinespittinink
Catherine Hellens orders a chai latte and sits down in the corner of Writeblrcafé. She writes poetry and a book. Her favourite genres include fantasy, fiction, science-fiction and speculative fiction. We start chatting about her writing.
What got you into writing?
Being exposed to really excellent authors as a child and realizing that writing stories was something I could do! I was filling notebooks and tapping out on my mom’s computer from such an early age. I’ve always had ideas inside me, and as a kid inspiration came to me very easily and frequently.
What inspires you to write?
I get inspired by visuals, music, nature, and dreams, predominantly. Also, reading other excellent writers’ books encourages me to keep going.
Which are recurring themes in your writing?
Oh boy—themes are actually something I never set out to write specifically, but they do crop up in my works. The biggest and most common one is devotion—specifically, how much will you do for love. I’m a romantic at heart, and nearly all of my works have a love story or a variant of one at the heart. Questions of identity also arise from time to time. Who we are, who we’re perceived to be, who we become. But they are always unique to the characters and never intended to be messages.
How would you describe your writing style?
Romantic. Prosey. Lush, as overused as that word is now. I’ve had it described as vivid and cinematic; I like to paint pictures and I love love love details. Setting is incredibly important to me and one of the first things I think of when I begin writing or conceiving ideas, so it has a large feature.
How do you deal with writer's block?
I just have to trudge through it, really. Even if when I sit down to write, I only write a few hundred words or fewer, it’s still something, and eventually I’ll create the groove again. Going on walks and mulling everything over also helps a lot.
Do you have a wip? Tell us about it:
My current wip is a queer standalone adult speculative fiction novel called The Great Glavenisean Theater. It’s about a man named Morgan who comes to the City of Spires and ends up working at the titular theatre as a seamster, where there is an interdimensional portal in the belly of the stage that moves the shows through multiple planes during the performances. But there are weirder things going on in the theatre, and as Morgan investigates them, he begins to suspect the prima donna Ariel of the attempted sabotages of the portal, and suspects that maybe they aren’t like the rest of them. I’m currently doing minor edits on the first draft and will be looking for betas during the month of April!
Tell us more interesting stuff about you:
I live in New England with my queer platonic partner, whose writing I love more than anyone else’s in the universe. We have two stupid rag doll kitties named Eurydice and Napoleon, and I collect crystals and special editions of certain books I love. I have patience with temperamental printers and put up tapestries across ceilings, and I’ll be building a sofa soon when it arrives. I’m also a classically trained mezzo-soprano who misses singing in a choir and contents myself with my car instead. Also, I’m a Capricorn.
Thank you for the good talk and keep writing!
Get interviewed by Writeblr Café!
Any writer can participate. Just fill in this form by clicking on the link below. Maybe we will host interviews in an audio format if you are more interested in listening to an interview than reading it.
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.................................................................
Bro I just saw a post asking for volunteer proofreaders for what appears to be an honest to goodness professional novel, without compensation.
FUCKING DON'T DO THAT???
HIRE A GODDAMN EDITOR YOU WONK!!!
DON'T ADVERTISE TO FANS ON TUMBLR THAT YOU WANT TO EXTRACT FREE LABOUR FROM THEM YOU WEIRD LITTLE FREAK?????
DO NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE BARTER SYSTEM FANDOM OPERATES ON TO GET FREE SHIT FOR YOUR CAREER!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH Y'ALL!!!!!!
EAT SHIT AND DIE WEIRDO!!!!!!! PAY YOUR TESTERS PAY YOUR EDITORS DO NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF FANDOM IN THIS WAY BY LITERALLY USING FANDOM TERMINOLOGY LIKE THIS IS A FIC TO TRY AND TRICK PEOPLE
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!!!
YOU ARE TWENTY! SEVEN! YEARS OLD!!!!!!!
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From @novel-emma
🥐Croissant: pass it forward. Describe a WIP from the writeblr community you love. What’s it about? Make us all want to read it!
aw thanks for the ask @novel-emma!
okay a writeblr wip that i absolutely LOVE is @pinespittinink's The Great Glavenisean Theater and I only know as much as what Catherine's posted on her tumblr but like it's SO COOL!!! mysterious theater?? 1920s-ey vibes?? a portal to another place?? morgan the protagonist apparently almost loses his mind?? what's not to like!! it's got a lovely mix of mystery and character focus that is absolutely the sort of stuff i like to read
as someone who is a major fan of the night circus by erin morgenstern i feel like the vibes of this wip are definitely very in line with my personal tastes and i'm always so hyped to see more of it on my dash!!
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“I’m about to open my mouth to say something—to ask where his mother is now, or about what he remembers from all those years past, when something shifts among the shadows of the wings. The only light source between those tremendous dark dividing curtains are the faint industrial lamps high above among the catwalks and railings, but their light seems so far away, barely penetrating to the floor.
An eerie sensation itches at my spine, and I feel the urge to turn around for a moment, despite the fact that there is nothing behind me but exposed brick and mirror and the makeup counter.
I do not turn around, and a willowy figure steps out from the shadows into the amber light.”
[introducing...]
🎭🥂ꕥ ARIEL ꕥ🥂🎭
@saplingdraws did this lovely commission of Ariel from The Great Glavenisean Theater, and I’m so thrilled with how it came out!
I’m in the process of implementing my line edits and some ending tweaks to the first draft, but I’ll be putting out a beta call by the end of April, so keep an eye out!
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TGGT taglist 🎭 Ask to be added or removed!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons @flowerprose @bebewrites @hysteriwah @the-void-writes @carrotblr @tananaphone @mr-writes @monstrousfreedom @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @saphoblin @theskeletonprior @midnight-and-his-melodiverse @perasperaadastrawriting
#writeblr#the great glavenisean theater#writing community#writers on tumblr#writeblr community#art for me#oc: ariel#original art#idk what my commission tag is#how about just#commissions#lmao#anyway#tggt excerpt#my writing#is midnight the right time to post this? probably not who gives a fuck
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“You must be almost done,” Zachary says, ushering me through the silent sets from past shows to the chaperoning wings of the mainstage. “Lottie will live. Come, you need to see the portal open.”
He looks back at me, leaning close to speak in a lower, more appropriate tone. His smile is beaming, as though he holds enough beautiful secrets to flood the sun.
“When you look through it so closely, I think it might just be another universe.”
🎭 welcome to the glavenisean theater 🎭
hello again, i am back with another moodboard as i figure out how to find images on unsplash! also here to say that i've sent out over fifty queries so far for TGGT, with a handful of requests out at the moment too!
what's this wip about? would i like it? aside from TGGT's intro post right here, this story is about a tailor who joins the crew of a phantasmagorical theater, falls for a Very Handsome Man, and quickly gets struck by hallucinations and dreams about the theater itself. because something....something just isn't quite right there, beginning with the mystery of why there was a job opening for Morgan to take to begin with.
there's also my ridiculous list of "if you like these things you might like TGGT"
Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus, The Starless Sea), Hotel Magnifique, Weird Literature™️, ergodic writing and unreality (à la House of Leaves), found family, awkward gay main characters, elusive genderqueer characters, Moulin Rouge, the Phantom of the Opera, anyone who’s a nerd about backstage theater, Black Swan by BTS, the aesthetic of the Roaring 20s, rollercoaster plot twists, setting as a character (Piranesi), lush, tactile descriptions, and lyrical prose.
.
my taglist is seven months old so let me know if you want to be removed or added!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons @flowerprose @bebewrites @hysteriwah @the-void-writes @carrotblr @tananaphone @monstrousfreedom @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @saphoblin @theskeletonprior @midnight-and-his-melodiverse @perasperaadastrawriting
#the great glavenisean theater#writing community#writeblr#writeblr community#writeblr edit#my edits#seriously if you want off the taglist let me know! it's going to be sparser going forward anyway as i'm not exactly pumping out#new tggt material right now
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🎭Welcome to the Great Glavenisean Theater🌹
I trail off into nothing, gazing into the dark. I can’t imagine what it would be like to work here amid the costumes both florid and divine, the great sets and musical scores, the cast and crew themselves. I can’t imagine it, and yet now, I want to. There is nothing on the ceiling above me, no prickling sensation at the back of my neck, no sensation of anyone watching me but Zachary’s mild eyes, studying me with benign intrigue.
“Will you?” he asks. “Come back?”
“Maybe,” I answer. It feels like a lie. I can taste the green memory of absinthe on my tongue.
“You should,” Zachary tells me. I look down at him spread out on the stage, his legs hanging over the edge. “You must know by now that we’re an odd family, but you wouldn’t regret it. There’s something enchanting about this place, so they say. Something magical even.”
an excerpt from The Great Glavenisean Theater, Chapter Four: Zachary
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Would you look at that! At 95k, seventeen chapters and four interludes, TGGT has a complete first draft!
I’m so pumped to have this accomplishment under my belt. Keep an eye out in the coming couple months for a beta call~ I’ve got to reread everything, tweak some continuity bits and do a little trimming, but first I’m giving myself an immediate break to read a book or two and work on some other projects. Thank you to everyone who’s stuck around while I’ve worked on this weird, weird story!
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TGGT taglist 🎭 Ask to be added or removed!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons s @bebewrites @flowerprose @the-void-writes @hysteriwah @carrotblr @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @saphoblin @monstrousfreedom @midnight-and-his-melodiverse @theskeletonprior @mr-writes @tananaphone
#the great glavenisean theater#writeblr#writers on tumblr#writeblr community#my edits#my writing#WE'RE DONE BABY#DONE FOR NOW#tagged a few discord folks on this too
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I lift my hand near the center of the curtains, hesitating a moment. My fingers brush the teal grain, and I palm the heavy fabric, the tactile creature in me seeking out the feeling of something luxurious and other.
In the dark of the theater, the prickling sensation still at the back of my neck, I slip my hand between the curtains and step inside them.
In a strange way, it is how I imagine stepping into the sea itself might be, or walking into midnight itself. The curtains do not give way to the empty backstage immediately. I am surrounded instead by the swells of the curtains, cloistered by fabric stretching high, high, high over my head. The world seems even more silent here, all sound muted out entirely. For a moment, I stand there in the dark, the curtains brushing my back, my elbows, the tip of my nose. The prickling sensation is gone from my skin. I blink into the dark, and the sight of my closed eyelids is just the same as the curtains around me.
“Ariel,” a voice says into the silence. It fills my senses like a drop of perfume into stale air. I freeze amid the curtains, all my attention honed on that single sound.
“You can’t come to me like this, Zachary.” The second voice is low, quiet and emphatic. It sounds as velvet as the curtains themselves.
“No one will find us here—”
“That’s not what I mean.” The second voice is measured and soft. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
They are in the curtains, I realize, just as I am. Closer to the wings than centerstage.
“Why do you ignore me so?” the first voice says. There is hurt layered into the sound, entirely unhidden. “Ariel. Everything I do; why do you ignore me?”
an excerpt from The Great Glavenisean Theater, Chapter Four: Zachary
TGGT taglist 🎭 Ask to be added or removed!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons @bebewrites @flowerprose @the-void-writes @hysteriwah @carrotblr @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @saphoblin @monstrousfreedom @midnight-and-his-melodiverse
#I’m so close to the end guys#the great glavenisean theater#tggt excerpt#my edits#writeblr#my writing
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“You’re working hard, Morgan,” Ariel says at one point, voice a lighter, pensive sound.
“Someone has to,” I reply, squinting as the fabric seems to drip through my hands again, again, again, as I touch it a dozen times and see my fingers multiply. Claudia has hired additional help at my behest, a flurry of women to cut the pieces from my patterns and assemble the myriad garments. Yet I still work more than all the rest of them it seems, overseeing every detail, every pearl and gem and bit of lace.
Ariel shifts on the stool, an infinitesimal movement, but it is enough to make me bite my tongue in frustration. From the corner of my eye, something stands out among the chorus girls trying out their floaty tutus. I turn my head and see someone standing in the shadow by the end of the makeup counter, where Christina and Lingyu are once again playing chess before the mirror. Neither of them notice the stranger. I cannot see their face.
an excerpt from The Great Glavenisean Theater, Chapter Eleven: Dollar and Dime and the Violinist's Child
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TGGT taglist 🎭 Ask to be added or removed!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons @flowerprose @bebewrites @hysteriwah @the-void-writes @carrotblr @tananaphone @mr-writes @monstrousfreedom @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @saphoblin @theskeletonprior @midnight-and-his-melodiverse
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The usher frowns at me. She totes me bodily away from the edge and shoves me back toward the amorphous corridors beneath the stage. The chorus girls are flitting above me in green and gold, some of them dressed as bluebirds, as paradise flowers. I shake my head, and they appear a hundred. I remember the dress in my hands with a jolt. I rush up into the wings, and it feels for a few moments that they are miles long, stretching out before me in a dark distortion. The costume nook blossoms before me like a peony, an overabundance of white, and I launch into it, pricking my finger on the needle behind my ear as I retrieve it, hurriedly running fresh thread through the eye. I prick my finger again, again, again, but there is only one mark on the pad of my thumb.
an excerpt from The Great Glavenisean Theater, Chapter Seven: Through the Portal
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TGGT taglist 🎭 Ask to be added or removed!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons@flowerprose @bebewrites @hysteriwah @the-void-writes @carrotblr @tananaphone @mr-writes @monstrousfreedom @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @saphoblin @theskeletonprior @midnight-and-his-melodiverse
#i can't stop making these i guess happy march lmao#my edits#writeblr#my writing#tggt excerpt#the great glavenisean theater
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instagram
Ever wondered what an opera-ballet hybrid performance that travels through an interdimensional portal might look like? Give this a look 👀🎭
(Frankly I had a blast putting it together)
#the great Glavenisean theater#writeblr#writers on tumblr#writeblr community#my edits#regular reminder that I have an Instagram#Instagram
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ꕥ if you were extended a ladder out of the light, would you not take it? ꕥ
The Great Glavenisean Theater is at 75k and counting, and this line has been there from the very inception. Enjoy a tease~
TGGT taglist 🎭 Ask to be added or removed!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons @bebewrites @flowerprose @the-void-writes @hysteriwah @carrotblr @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @saphoblin @monstrousfreedom @midnight-and-his-melodiverse
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“Look who’s returned!” Seonghwa says, the moment I arrive at the back of the theater. He’s accepting deliveries of new bouquets and ample flower arrangements from a truck backed up to the door; I spy a few of the children discarding wilting roses and browning carnations in the trash, diligent as worker bees chattering amongst each other. Seonghwa smiles at me, out of costume for once and handsome as ever, and I notice one of the delivery boys give him a less than covert look, his expression bordering on something hungry.
“Welcome back,” Seonghwa says, dark eyes glittering, and I cannot help but give him a half-smile. The exhilaration I was missing from Lisa Rollins has risen now, frothing with anticipation at this new path I am stepping onto; not paved in pearl, but in velvet and glitter and gold.
🎭 The Great Glavenisean Theater🧵
#the great glavenisean theater#writeblr#my writing#my edits#idk about this excerpt but whatever#tggt excerpt
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My eyes lift when someone swings into a seat on my right, only a single stool left separating us at the bar. The man looks around my own age, hugging his early twenties, but he wears it better than I do, the handsome beige of his suit crinkling at his shoulders. His hair is clean cut and sandy, like the golden amber of the plains before the city, shining beneath the sun, and I nurse the cold glass of my lemonade as the man leans one forearm with casual ease on the counter, ordering a sidecar from the bartender.
My gaze drifts back toward him as I work on my sandwich, covert glances that are not covert enough as the man gets his drink, picking the citrus garnish off the glass and tending the orange segment from the peel with his teeth. I busy myself with swallowing as the man glances over at me, keeping my head bent toward the grain of the bar.
“Got your eye on something, stranger?” the man says. “I’m afraid I’m taken.”
🎭 The Great Glavenisean Theater 🥂
I’m currently revising my most recent chapters (right on the 40k mark, of course), but hopefully I’ll be cresting this hurdle soon! I love working on this story and cannot WAIT to share more of it as I can 👀✨
#fantasy wip#writeblr#writers on tumblr#writeblr community#the great glavenisean theater#my edits#don’t look at the graphic too closely I made it on my phone at work like an imbecile#my writing#CRESTING NOT CREATING GOD I hate autocorrect#tggt excerpt
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It’s reading time
#sap spill#the great glavenisean theater#first step: read it#second: red pen edits#third: implementing#fourth: betas 💝
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in light of me reaching the first biggest milestone in The Great Glavenisean Theater at 67k, here are the chapter titles and wcs for the first fourteen chapters.
just for funsies, if you send me a chapter, i’ll share a line or two from it
TGGT taglist 🎭 Ask to be added or removed!: @sentfromwolves @cabaretofwords @antique-symbolism @muddshadow @florraisons @bebewrites @flowerprose @the-void-writes @hysteriwah @carrotblr @phantomnations @inkingfireplace @call-of-void @saphoblin @monstrousfreedom @from-midnight-with-love
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