I'm Trying To Prove A Point To My Brain: Reblog If You Think Fanfiction Does Not Need Sex To Be Good.

SAY NICE THINGS TO PPL

The best part about being asexual is knowing that you will never be honeypotted. I often picture myself as a mark in a James Bond movie who has information or something and Daniel Craig saunters up in his sexiest tux to seduce me and I’m just like “No thank you” no matter what he does and then he has an existential crisis and walks away in a daze then sends in Moneypenny cause maybe I just like women and I’m like “hey girl, no thanks” and send her away as well and they just never get the information. I am an immovable plot piece without even knowing it. Sorry James but I defy the tropes of your genre.

Hey I was re-reading ECM and I noticed how awesome your the writing style was and wanted to know if you'd be willing to share how you write like that?

(I've got exams and have to really work on my english lmao)

Thank-you very much! I'm glad you've enjoyed my writing so much!

(I want to preface any notes here by saying I started seriously writing when I was 12 and I am now... not that. So I have almost 20 years of writing under my belt)

I've actually done a post about writing that gives a few pointers so I won't re-hash those points, but will add a few extras about crafting 💖💖

I know I said I wouldn't re-hash things, but this point always bears merit in saying: the first thing you write is the worst thing you write. It's called a first draft for a reason and you shouldn't be precious about it. That means don't go stressing about getting your phrasing perfect. Rewriting your draft can do wonders (and that doesn't mean you have to completely change things on the rewrite!), especially if you're not a confident writer.

Vary the start of your sentences. It's a very easy habit to fall into (I still do it all the dang time); you write sentence after sentence starting the the subject ('It was...'; 'Peter did...'; 'She saw...' etc). It makes your writing feel repetitive. We fall into patterns in our writing and forcing yourself to think about how you can change up the way your sentences begin within a paragraph is an invaluable challenge. Consider your paragraphs too: when I'm on my first edit, I pay close attention to how they start to ensure they don't all begin the same way. That doesn't mean every sentence has to start differently, but keeping things mixed up adds variety.

Avoid info-dumping. Exposition (where you give relevant background information) is a useful feature but it slows the pace of your story significantly. What I see a lot of fanfic writers do is freeze time (quite often at the very start of the story) to give us 500+ words of information that could have been drip fed over the chapter (or several chapters). I'm absolutely not saying I'm innocent of this - I do it all the time, including the opening to ECM! - but something that I find can help is to a) make it interesting by setting up a mystery that the exposition doesn't answer, b) intersperse exposition with description to keep up the pace or c) try to make your exposition feel as authentic as possible to your narrator.

Be decisive: avoid phrases like 'seemed to' and 'felt like' etc. Instead of, "She seemed to glow with happiness' make it 'She glowed with happiness'. Simple changes like this just make you seem more sure of yourself as a writer because you're committing to the image. Again, this kind of indefinite phrasing is an easy habit to fall into but it's a very easy fix! Very often, the sentence will still make perfect sense if you simply delete these phrases (although sometimes it will need a few minor tweaks).

Metaphors, not similes. Honestly this is just a continuation of the previous rule! Rather than, 'It looked like an ocean of silver', 'An ocean of silver swelled before them' is much more interesting and committed to the bit! Again, that's not to say you can't use similes at all! They're great, but you should ask yourself if a metaphor would be better.

Don't be afraid to extend your metaphors. Extended metaphors are such fun. Consider my earlier example : 'An ocean of silver swelled before them'. If I was to extend this, I'd think about other images associated with the ocean. Waves, tides, sea creatures, the scent and sound of the water. And since I've compared it to silver, I'd also consider things that are semantically connected: gold, copper, jewels like emeralds, sapphires, pearls etc. Then I'd start crafting additional clauses/sentences to build upon that original metaphor.

Brush up on a wider range of writer methods. Honestly, teaching English helped me out a bunch here, but here are a few of my faves: polysyndeton: this is where you list with the same coordinating conjunctions (and, but, so, for etc) rather than commas. If you look at my writing you'd see I do this all the damn time. Anaphora: in the typical form I use it, it's where the start of successive clauses begin with the same opening word/phrase (think like MLK's 'I have a dream speech). Best used in a group of three in my experience. Again I use this all the time. The opposite of this (where successive clauses end in the same word/phrase) is called epistrophe. Oxymoron: a fun one. It's a paradoxical phrase (e.g. burning cold, loving hate etc) Hyperbole: an over-exaggeration (e.g. It's boiling hot. I walked a million miles to get here!). Very fun to use with an unreliable narrator or you want to get across just how unbearable/significant something is (but the key here is that it's got to be obvious you're over-exaggerating!) Synaesthesia: where you mix different senses together (e.g. The lights sang in harmony; the room smelled cold).

Planning does wonders for your story structure. For the longest time I was a 'pantster' and would just throw myself in writing on vibes only, but now I find that knowing where I want to take my story makes it much easier to place critical themes and the much loved foreshadowing.

I hope at least some of these can be helpful to you! These are methods that have helped me over the years, but the beauty of writing is of course that all of us over time develop our own 'voice'! Just because I say these are things I do doesn't mean that's what everyone has to do!

Good luck on your exams too!! 💖

reblog to give warm bread to your mutuals

Post is set for a week, let's see how it goes...

FINAL UPDATE FOR THE SPIDER WEB SWEATER:

I FINISHED IT YALL!! wore it for the first time ever and it felt absolutely amazing. I didn't think I would love it that much but it is now my child. Thank you for coming along on this mini journey, I want to start a new top soon so stay tuned for that <3

pattern is made by @/aperpetualmess on youtube!!

Okay I’m currently furious that migraines are often so blindly easy to treat and I had to find this out myself at the age of 26 when I’ve been to a neurologist since I was 11 lol so I’m about to teach you two neat and fast little tricks to deal with pain!

The first is the sternocleidomastoid muscle, or the SCM muscle.

This big red section is responsible for pain around the eye, cheekbone, and jaw, as well as some temple pain. Literally all you have to do is angle your head down a little, angle it away from the side that hurts, and then you can gently pinch and rub that muscle. I find it best to start at the bottom and travel upwards. The relief is so immediate! You can increase pressure as you feel comfortable doing so.

Here is a short and easy video showing this in action

The second is a fast and easy stretch that soothes your vagus nerve, which is the nerve responsible for calming you down. The vagus nerve, for those unfamiliar, is stimulated by deep breathing such as yawning, sighing, singing, or taking a deep breath to calm your anger in a tense situation.

You can stretch this out by sitting up as straight as possible (this does not have to be perfect to work) and interlacing your fingers. Put your hands on the back of your head with your thumbs going down the sides of your neck and, while keeping your face forward, look all the way to one side with just your eyes. Hold that until you feel the urge to breathe deeply or yawn, or until you can tell there’s a change. Then do the same thing on the other side. When you put your arms down, you should clearly be able to turn your head farther in both directions. If the first session doesn’t get rid of your migraine, rest and repeat as many times as necessary. I even get a little fancy with it and roll my eyes up and down along the outer edge sometimes to stretch as much as I can.

If you need a visual here’s a good video on it. I know some of the language they use seems questionable but this is real and simple science and should not be discarded because it’s been adopted by the trendy wellness crowd!

I seriously cannot believe I didn’t hear a word of this from any doctor in my life. Additionally, if you get frequent recurring migraines, you may want to see a dietician. Migraines can be caused by foods containing histamines, lectin, etc. and can also be caused by high blood pressure in specific situations such as exercise, stress, and even sex.

If any of this information helps you I’d love to hear it btw! It’s so so fast and easy to do. Good luck!

Creative & DIY

I wish I had words to go with this.

this happened months ago. i cannot keep it in any longer. a while ago i went on a porn site ive never been to and it asked if i was over 18 and i misclicked and said no and it automatically sent me to google images of puppies and kittens. i still cannot get over how funny this is.