People argue that wars bring about advancements in science, medicine, industry, that would never have been brought about any other way, without the money and urgency of a state in battle. I'd think that the widows and orphans could do without cars if they had their fathers and wives and husbands and children back.

I've been watching a lot of Firefly lately. I think Jayne is my favorite character - but the most interesting relationship is between Simon and River. This happened accidentally this afternoon. It's okay. I do like River's justification, though. I hope the non-con is clear.

Title: Divergence
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: Simon/River
Rating: R
Summary: She needs to show him, and this is the only way she knows.

 

( Divergence )


Firefly people: do you think she's in character? Non-Firefly people: become Firefly people.

 

 

"Sylvia is writing a poem, I think – judging by the sharply indrawn breath, and her endless cigarettes. She is curled up on the chair next to her writing table, elbows on the table, and one leg curled under her small buttocks. Her hair looks very black against her pretty pink coat. How narrow her hands are – How deeply I love her. My eyes constantly stray from this page, across to her. How much, and how completely I love her."

I'm really, really, really tired, so this is going to be brief. Normally, I'd try to preface this a little more, beg for attention. I do like attention, that's true. (ZOMG COMMENTS.) As it stands, though, I wrote this in approximately four hours and I'm not sure if it's any good. Maybe it is.

If you've read the apocryphal Bible story of Judith, this will probably make a tiny bit more sense. But, you know, maybe not. One note: I'm considering whether "Holofernes" really has to die at the end.

Anyway:

 

( Poison )

 

Writing slash in 140 characters or less:

Ianto wrapped a shaky hand over Jack's neck and hitched himself closer. Not bad for a first time, Jack thought, and then Ianto moved again.


For all his beauty, all it took for Ianto to make Jack's invulnerable heart stop beating was to stand at his sink, in boxers, flossing.


A cool laugh fluttered across Zuko's overheated skin and he gulped down air, eyes closed, trying not to scorch the sheets in his fists.

He ran slow fingers along the sweat-damp spine.



(Also: I just saw an unmarked white van... with portholes. So the kidnapping victim can at least see some light? ...OR SO THEY CAN GO TO SEA?)

William Shakespeare
29, poet and playwright

Henry Wriotheseley, Third Earl of Southampton
20, courtier and literary patron


in Shakespeare's rooms in St. Helen's Bishopsgate, London, 1593


William

proud Nature humbled by the work of its own hand: his azure eye, his auburn trees, the chest it hangs on white as the sun can seem when veiled in silken cloud, his silken doublet white as cloud cast off to bare the fire beneath, and if his heart be sun and his chest be sky then his eye be heaven and his earth below be forested lush around a great high oak that stands stripped clean of limbs from the lightning strike: I give my limbs to this land and touch his beating heart and burn, and yet he is night as well as day, a well as well as tree, a well dug deep and dark and I send my vessel down: he is, in flesh, the world inconsonant made one: my young man, my dark lady

Henry

I soon will lie alone and he will cross the room and sit at his table and once again he will take up his goose quill and find it blunt and take up his knife and bend and squint and turn slightly to the light from the window and begin his sweet circumcision, playing at the tip with the blade, making it less blunt, then sharp, then sharper still, and he will pause and touch the tip to his tongue and he will pull the ink pot nearer to him and dip the pen, dip it deep, the tip growing wet and dark, and he will withdraw and let it drip and drip till it stops, and then he will bend to his paper and his words will come and the tiny scratch of his quill will shudder its way up my thighs and I am pen and I am ink and I am his words

Romantics: Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann
-          Lisel Mueller

 

The modern biographers worry
“how far it went,” their tender friendship.
They wonder just what it means
when he writes he thinks of her constantly,
his guardian angel, beloved friend.
The modern biographers ask
the rude, irrelevant question
of our age, as if the event
of two bodies meshing together
establishes the degree of love,
forgetting how softly Eros walked
in the nineteenth century, how a hand
held overlong or a gaze anchored
in someone’s eyes could unseat a heart,
and nuances of address not known
in our egalitarian language
could make the redolent air
tremble and shimmer with the heat
of possibility. Each time I hear
the Intermezzi, sad
and lavish in their tenderness,
I imagine the two of them
sitting in a garden
among late-blooming roses
and dark cascades of leaves,
letting the landscape speak for them,
leaving us nothing to overhear.

Feeling pretty fuzzy and at peace with the world this morning. Last night (and this morning) BB whileintucson  and I played violent videogames, drank girly alcohol, and talked about ladies we find attractive until my brain was going to leak out my ear. Pretty awesome, even if my stupid internal clock did wake me up at nine today. But I don't care, because now I have a warm mug of Earl Grey and some PB&honey on toast, and my kitties are sleeping on either side of me. I mean, it doesn't get much better than that.

And it's even better than that, actually, because BOB IS IN ARIZONA YAY HOORAY FUNTIMES. He'll be staying with various members of the Clan around the state until we go to Los Angeles to scoop up Mike/get ready for the wedding. So exciting! I mean, I do feel bad that bb Amanda has to languish in Ann Arbor without her Bobby, but... well, he was my Bobby first, and sometimes I get a little selfish. Plus, on August 9th he'll go back to Michigan and be legally, officially transferred over to her. So I feel like I get to hoard him a little in the interim.

I'm not really sure what'll be happening for the next few weeks, except that I need to seriously get some hours in at work. Paying the full share of the bills is depleting bb Z's bank account too damn quickly. I know I'm going to be paid back, it's just... ack. On August 2nd I may have three dollars left to my name.

Hm. Now thinking about watching the Airbender cartoon, in hopes that it'll be a little better than the movie. Here, by the way, is the problem with the movie: it was made for children. Now, normally that's not an issue - it is a cartoon, right? - but where Nickelodeon failed was in not recognizing that humans have pretty sophisticated narrative minds almost from birth. Pixar knows this, which is why their "for children" cartoons are routinely nominated for Oscars - their directors, writers, and editors know that even young children can recognize tropes and themes extremely quickly, and so they can present the plot in intelligent and refreshing ways. Nickelodeon (I can only assume) made the tragic mistake of thinking its viewers were morons, so every single step in Airbender's plot was broadcast about twenty minutes before it happened, and the audience spent the whole movie waiting for the pace to pick up. I wonder what Ebert thought about it.

I should probably go to the grocery store today, but I'm probably just going to end up watching Netflix and drinking tea. Tragedy!

 - kisses

So, uh. Yesterday was Kelly's birthday, and I thought - hey, what does Kelly like? She likes slash! I could write her some slash. And since I've been obsessing about Final Fantasy VII lately, I remembered my perfectly laser-focused idea for a piece of fanart, revolving around Cloud in his drag outfit. (If you aren't familiar with the game - at one point Cloud has to dress up as a woman to sneak into this mansion, and for some reason you carry the dress, wig, undies, tiara, and cologne all the way through the game, including into THE FINAL DUNGEON.) Since I can't draw for shit, I thought, "Hey, well, I could just write it."

It started off mildly humorous, or at least as humorous as I can get, and then... changed.

Honestly? This is the most shameless piece of porn I've ever written. I don't know what happened, but - well, let's just say Kelly liked her birthday present. And I'm going to need to spend some alone time in my bunk, to turn a ONTD phrase.

Fic: Disguised
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII (original game)
Characters: Barrett, Cid/Cloud/Vincent, cast
Rating: REALLY NC-17, or possibly lemon.
Warnings: Can be considered mild D/s or maybe dub-con if you squint, though with people this ridiculously powerful it's hard to imagine any consent being dubious. Oh, and cross-dressing.

 

( Disguised )

 

Today is bb Kelly's 20th birthday! Man, time flies when you're loling all over the place. Sadly, I'm stuck at home feeding the cats (cute, but needy), so I didn't get to actually help sing for her. On the other hand, I do get to talk to her all day via Gchat. (...We're dorks.)

Also spent a great deal of time writing (or, at least, procrastinating because of writing, which any writer knows amounts to the same thing. "What are you doing?" "Writing." "Looks like Freecell to me." "...You don't understand.") Now I'm a little obsessed with the image I wrote of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII in drag, and really really REALLY wishing I could draw worth a damn.

Let's see. This weekend I'll be in San Jose/San Francisco/Napa for our buddy Mario's wedding. I'm excited to see him and Janelle (his soon to be wife) and especially my brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law (look at all those hyphens!), but I'm also really excited to take my new shoes for a spin. Go figure.

This post is mainly about rambling. Not-so-go figure.

Hm.

Attempting an actual journal post, á la whileintucson , despite the fact that I can't seem to help watching myself type. Most of my entries become meta way too fast (cough, like this one). I was actually keeping an honest-to-God paper journal for a little while, trying to write a bit every night before bed, but - well, you can imagine how that turned out. In a creative writing text I have somewhere, one person recommended just - typing. Whatever comes into your head, throw it down, eyes closed so you won't be able to think about wording/spelling mistakes, etc.

I'm not going to do that right now. Right now I'm going to talk (bitch?) a little about something that's been bugging me for a very long time.

The problem seems to be enthusiasm. There are many, many pop cultural topics on which I am extremely knowledgeable and on which I can expound - for much longer than my listeners would like, in most cases. (I'm reminded particularly of an early Nick Swardson bit in which his nephew tells him all about the looks and abilities of every single Pokemon, and Nick retaliates by taking him into the bathroom and telling him every ingredient in every bottle of shampoo/conditioner.) Nevertheless, I can't seem to help it - I get enthusiastic about things, often very enthusiastic, and can't avoid wanting to share it with my friends. Or even just my acquaintances.

Lately, though, I've found myself trying to hold back - not out of trying not to bore the person I'm talking to, by any means, but because I've noticed that if you show too much enthusiasm people don't take you seriously. "Oh, she's just a fangirl," seems to be the thought. "She's probably just obsessed. [Fill in the blank] probably isn't actually that great. No need to take it seriously." This, I feel, is unfair. And not just for me - this happens to too many people. Hell, I do it occasionally - my mother has been trying to get me to read A.S. Byatt for years, and I never do.

I suppose part of the problem would be that people don't know if they can trust your taste. I mean, I've had people go on and on at me about certain TV shows - Desperate Housewives comes to mind - but since I do know a little about the show, and what little I know I don't like, I'm not sure whether I should trust that the fangirl to whom I'm speaking actually knows her shit. For obvious reasons, I have a pretty inflated opinion of my own taste. If I think something is good, well, obviously it is good. (To be fair, I do have a little more training in analysis and what makes shit good than the average person. It's basically my whole major. But I digress.) And the people who know me extremely well (and who are willing to indulge in their own rabid bouts of enthusiasm [mostly Kelly and Alma]) are willing to trust my taste and, for the most part, will at least taste whatever fandom/film/book/game I'm offering.

But here's my plea. Even if you don't know if the fangirl to whom you're speaking actually knows good TV from bad TV, or good writing from bad writing, and so on, at least hear him or her out. (Yes, men can be fangirls.) First, because maybe s/he actually does know what they're talking about, and they're going to hook you on something friggin' awesome that you never would've found on your own. Second, if you already have a firm differing opinion on what they're talking about and yet you trust their taste, try to reconsider. After all, I'd heard only trash talked about Heroes, but when Kelly and Alma got on board I did give it a shot, and the first season was wonderful. (I admit I did wait for Alma to also give it the green light, because Kelly may have been blinded by the Pathan. It happens to the best of us.)

Third, though, and most important - listen to the fangirl with the light in her eyes just because the light is there. I remember once - oh, it must've been something like ninth grade - I had been talking to (at) my mother about Tool and she was being a little curt, and I could tell she didn't care, and I was all of a sudden extremely angry. Because my mother and I have the kind of relationship in which we can talk frankly, she asked me why I was pissed, and I realized - it wasn't that she didn't have the same appreciation for the lyrics or rhythm or whatever that I did. It was that I cared about this admittedly insignificant thing, and she didn't care that I cared. I know that sentence sounds stupid, but it's really the essence of this whole post. It's the same as the thing I wrote for Alma, once - sure, I don't actually care about ichthyology or octopi or crotchet, but I should listen when she tells me about it just because how much she knows is impressive, and because she cares.

I guess it just boils down to - care about each other. It's funny how many things do. Listen, and even if you don't care about Desperate Housewives, appreciate the fact that your friend does.

Hello, tiny constituency.

Now that summer has come and my responsibilities are limited to work and going to weddings, I'm hoping I'll be able to write a little more freely. Some things have slipped out, but nothing planned, never when I sit down with a (terribly long but unfinished) Word file and think, "Okay, now, how was this supposed to go?"

Ah, well. I'm guessing that if I do ever eventually continue posting things you-all will forgive me for the hiatus. Until, of course, the next one occurs. Hm.

Anyway, to the fic.

Ever since the last single moment of Heroes: Redemption, I've had an idea for a fic in my head. Nothing particularly slashy, though of course it could be, but rather -   Remember the look on Sylar's face, when Peter gave him that scrounged copy of Pillars of the Earth? Remember the... terrible, terrible vulnerability there? Yes. That. My wild imagining over this long waiting period was kept mostly to myself, as we were waiting to hear if they'd actually cancel the series. Now that they have, I feel free to let the imagination run wild. Like the people who write Potter next-gen.

Imagine. Sylar is all alone. He's been tamed, neutralized. With Peter, he has something that's... not friendship, exactly. It's the kind of connection a slash writer could only dream of (making me wonder exactly who sat in the Heroes writers' room for the last season), something hard-edged and born of pain and misery and shared sorrow. Peter couldn't leave him alone after that, surely? At the very least, there'd be a meeting or something with Mr Bennet, maybe with the much-absent Mohinder, the people who knew Sylar before. Peter will insist he's changed, but he can't be left alone. What if something - happened?

The very first thing I pictured, before the credits rolled and I turned to my friends to exclaim and carry on, was some kind of strange roommates relationship, like unto the one Matt and Mohinder had - except the person being babysat is Sylar himself. Just to make sure. And Peter, of course, would have a tremendous amount of power over him, because Sylar trusts him. Because Sylar can't trust himself.

All this has been roiling in the back of my mind for months, now, and then this afternoon I was watching wafflesnbrains' fanvid "Oh No You Didn't" and this popped out. It almost made me late for work. It's not a complete fic, by any means, but it's something.

 

( Peter + Sylar drabble )


Please tell me what you think. Even if you're not in-fandom. Heck, maybe even especially then. Should it be expanded? Should I bow to my better instincts and leave it alone? Should the initial conditions change? - that is, should the girl be someone important, should... ?

I hear cooing and scuffling as I stand on the steps of my building
and at first, with the fluttering, hope for an angel, a visitation, but
then realize I am listening to pigeons, crammed in a window box,
mating over my head. I’m glad I don’t have to have sex like that,
in a window box! I’m sure Peter is too — glad, that is.
Peter’s my husband, and we have sex, fun sex, in a bed,
under the off-white comforter with blue floral trim.
We are lucky; we are blessed; we are happily married —
both of us for the second time — although last night in the car
he mentioned how they sang “The King of Love My Shepherd Is”
at our wedding, and I had to say, “Jesus, damn it to hell, that was
your first wedding”; pouting and so forth. Peter bit his lip and said,
“Oh, I’m so sorry, baby,” as he drove from West 79th to West 53rd.
I stared out the window, and people looked blurry and stupid.
I thought how nice it would be to live alone in a little Hell’s Kitchen studio.
But then I remembered that his first love letter, which quoted Hart Crane,
came with a box of Jujubes (my favorite!) taped to the side, and
I forgave him. After all, I once called him “Sam,” my first husband’s name.
We reached the diner at West 53rd, and Peter parked like a duke —
no one parallel-parks like my husband — and we smooched, sadness over,
as a spaniel, undocked plumy tail aloft, strutted by.

How To Write Badly

 

1.       Use the phrase “a dance as old as time” to describe sex. Or use any flowery metaphor to describe sex. This includes use of euphemisms for body parts, movements, sensations, et cetera. (Love rocket: not okay.)

2.       Pay no attention to the way a person speaks. Forget all about contractions, because “I am here” and “you are not afraid?” is rhythmically accurate. Yeah, didn’t think so. (Note contraction use.)

3.       Force your characters to have long conversations during which they talk about their feelings. Real people tend to avoid those, because they’re uncomfortable. If your characters absolutely have to have a discussion about how they really do love each other, at least make it stupendously awkward. (This does not include using the phrase, “Jim felt super awkward, but continued speaking anyway.”)

4.       Pay no attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation, rhythmic flow. (Actually, that last one should be a point all to itself, but – no need to digress.) Regardless of the way you can tell yourself that people will pay attention to the ideas and not the execution, it’s bullshit. People absolutely pay attention to the execution. If you can’t take the time to make the story technically perfect, even if it is essentially perfect, people whose opinions you respect aren’t going to pay much attention. Think of it this way: if you’re going to work in a respectable office, you don’t show up in sweatpants with morning breath. You doll yourself up a little. Careless mistakes aren’t just distracting – they’ll stop you from getting the metaphorical corner office, regardless of how excellent your job performance is.

5.       On that note, the most tragic and terrible “minor” error you can make – misspell one of your character’s names. I mean, really? Really.

6.       Back to rhythm – a really fantastic way to write badly is to forget all about rhythm. I don’t know why the concept is so difficult, but if it’s tough for you to hear what you’re writing – stop. Go back. Read it aloud to yourself, see what’s causing the problem. It might be that your punctuation has gotten a little sloppy and there are suddenly commas all over the place, plopping pauses where no pause should go. On the other hand, it might be that your punctuation (and grammar, to a lesser extent) have gotten a little too rule-perfect. It’s okay to use “and” after a comma. Throw in a long dash for that sense of halting interruption. Hyphenate. NEVER EVER use all-caps or italics or bold or underline, though (unless it’s a conscious form choice that you’re really, really sure about). See item four – it’s like decorating an all-office memo with smileys and flowers when you should keep it to just what’s necessary to communicate what you mean to say. (And if you’re thinking of snarking that I’ve been italicizing, et cetera, note that this isn’t a story. It’s a rant. So nyah.)

7.       Overdo violence or sex. Seriously. Both violence and sex are really handy for adding intensity, but… Well, think about Saw. Heck, think about Saw II. There are some people (people I don’t talk to, but I’m assured they’re out there) who love those movies. However, there aren’t many people who think they’re great cinema. Somehow, the hunks of oozing flesh littering the set kind of divorce the films from the subtlety one might find in, say, The Godfather. Or even Die Hard. Similarly, I’ve never heard anyone refer to Debbie Does Dallas as a great love story. Sure, Debbie has some screaming (actually, more like whimpering [side-note: never use the verb “whimper” in a sex scene unless you’ve got fucking fantastic justification]) orgasms. But is this an interesting film? That said, if you can make violence and sex subtle, meaningful, or even funny – go right ahead, bang it right in there. If the sex/gore are just in there to be shocking, well, reconsider.

8.       Ellipses: avoid them.

9.       NOT BEING ABLE TO STAY IN THE SAME FUCKING TENSE. Unless it’s an artistic choice or you’re flickering back and forth between present day and flashback (or, more interestingly, present day and the future!), dear God in heaven – keep it consistent. There’s nothing sillier than reading a sentence like this: ‘Jack knew he needed to keep everyone safe.  “Everyone okay?” he says, and Ianto responded…’  Jeez. Come on.

10.   Make your villains actually villainous. You know who’s not interesting? The Emperor. You know who’s way, way more interesting? Darth Vader. And which one did George Lucas (of all people) choose to focus on? Yeah. See, the thing is, a 2D caricature of a bad guy is good only for scaring little kids in a bedtime story. The Boogieman doesn’t really get a lot of fleshing out, and for good reason. However, if you want us to actually think your Villain is frightening, fucking humanize him already, will you? Now, you don’t want to go too far in the other direction – Sylar can’t really be accused of even being a minor bad guy anymore, you know? – but you do need to show the audience what’s making your villain tick. Let’s say you have a crazy psychokiller. Why is he crazy? We don’t need to get a big long explanation, no detailed scenes, certainly no Bond villain monologues. All you need to do is have your psychological profiler stand in a corner of the bullpen, her hands clutched tight on the manila folder, say, “Oh, God,” and look up at the team with wide eyes and explain, haltingly, just what happened to the killer when he was nine. Sympathy with the murderer is far more interesting than unthinking horror.

11.   Not knowing the differences between there, their, they’re, or too, to, two, or affect/effect. This should be part of item four, but for some reason even quite intelligent and able people screw this up. Don’t. (Subpart: it’s and its. COME ON. FIGURE IT THE FUCK OUT ALREADY.)

12.   Explain everything. Here:

“Actually,” Ianto said, “I was wondering if you and Rhys would come as well. You three are my family now; I want to be able to say goodbye properly to the old Torchwood and to move on with you three.”

“Of course we will sweetheart.” Gwen replied. Rhys just nodded quietly. He was shocked and touched that Ianto had included him as family. He knew that the three of them had grown even closer since they had lost Tosh and Owen, and that he’d also spent a lot more time with all of them, but for Ianto to want to include him – well that meant a lot.

Aside from various technical issues, this is an extremely bad passage. Why on Earth did this writer decide to explain to us that Rhys was shocked and touched? From the context of the story, we understand that Rhys is somewhat of an outsider in this group. Ianto including him at all should tip off the intelligent reader that, “Wow, I guess Rhys really is part of the family.” One can still include Rhys’s reaction, but it shouldn’t be “Rhys was shocked and touched.” Rhys’s shock and touched-ness can be conveyed through a widening of eyes, a brief line of surprised dialogue, an obvious pause before he nods and agrees to go. Anything but spelling it out for your audience, because it implies that they’re too stupid to figure it out for themselves. (This is something that every writer EVER is guilty of from time to time. The difference comes in taking the time to go back and weed these instances of ‘treating the audience like morons’ out.)

13.   Leap from perspective to perspective without any warning. You really should consider the point of view you’re using. First, third-limited, third-omniscient, the fabulous and underappreciated second –they all do something for your story, and you need to figure out what it is the story needs. If you’re trying to create a kind of emotional distance, third omniscient can work nicely. If you want it to be EXTREMELY personal, second person can work to shove your readers right into the character’s situation. And so on. However, bouncing around from third limited to omniscient is super confusing. If we’re supposed to be getting a third-person limited from the point of view of, say, Batman, it’s very odd if suddenly Robin’s thoughts are splayed across the page. More importantly, if you can’t stick to a perspective then it’s difficult for a reader to stay grounded in your story. That’s never good.

14.   Speaking of points of view: use the first-person ineffectively. Listen, lots of people really like the first-person point of view. That’s fine. What’s not okay is writing it extremely badly, which lots of people also do. Usually these are the same people. For some reason, when it comes to writing first person, would-be authors tend to forget that what they’re basically writing is dialogue. Pages and pages of dialogue. If your narrator is, say, Tony Stark, and he’s describing a meeting with a general, he won’t say “I then met a mustachioed older gentleman, deeply in love with his career and a true patriot.” No. Tony Stark would not say that. He might say something like, “So then we ran into this old guy with about fifty stripes on his shoulder, practically frothing when I didn’t salute the flag.” (I realize that many things are wrong with that sentence, too, but bear with me.) The point is that your narrator still needs to be in character, even if he’s not actually doing any “real” dialogue. Also, it should be remembered that people rarely examine their own thoughts in depth, nor do they describe their own looks and their own emotions in detail, because they’re feeling them. They know what those things are like already. And you’re not allowed to get around that by having the narrator look in the mirror and think about his pretty blue eyes – that’s a really awful, hokey, sixth grade trick which no one should stoop to. Now, that’s not to say a first-person narrator can’t call attention to looks, emotions, et cetera, but he has to be careful with it. E.g.: “Tatiana looked up at me and my stomach turned over. God, she was beautiful. Not even fair. I swallowed and tried to take a step closer.” This conveys some of what the narrator feels about Tatiana without dragging out a huge long explanation that makes the reader want to stab herself in the eye. Something to think about.

15.   Make your characters scream. Think about it – how often to people really scream? Yelling, sure. Shouts. Raised voices. But screaming? Now, if they’re being chased by a psychokiller (possibly one who lived through an atrocity when he was nine), then screaming might occur – but, more likely, terror will force their breath to catch in their throats and they’ll be so frightened, so focused on getting away, that they won’t be able to scream. It’s a lot less cheesy that way.

16.   Use cursing for comic effect. That’s not to say you can’t do it sometimes, especially if the cursing is used sparingly, but just throwing an f-bomb in hasn’t been that funny since Carlin did it in the ‘70s. (Some people would argue that it wasn’t even funny then.) That said, I’d challenge anyone to tell a “clean” version of Eddie Izzard’s English vs. American pronunciation bit and get the same laugh. Just – be cautious.

17.   ‘“Sure, whatever,” he laughed/joked/sighed/giggled/tossed out/moaned/roared.’ (Good) writers are naturally against redundancy. You don’t want to do the same thing over and over again, use the same words ad nauseum. That’s fine. However, there’s one area where that’s not at all fine – dialogue tags. When you get to the he said/she said business of writing, there is exactly one verb you should use: say. Now, like everything, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but… it’s also pretty much a hard-and-fast rule. It’s really interesting to read down a conversation and realize that the writer hasn’t let a single character say anything. Every word is mocked or chuckled or murmured. Have you ever tried to chuckle out a sentence? Not conducive to making yourself understood, I can tell you. And what the hell is a murmur, anyway? Not quite a whisper, obviously, but not a mumble – it seems to be something that only exists in writing. Now, creative writing books will tell you that your dialogue should be telling the reader how it’s said. If someone says, “My God, Doreen, you’re fucking pregnant!” the reader should be able to tell that this is somewhat momentous. Whether it’s a good or bad thing can be deduced from context. What we don’t need is for you to tag it like, ‘“…you’re fucking pregnant!” Doug roared.’ We get it. He’s angry (or excited, maybe, but I wouldn’t be yelling like that at a pregnant woman I liked).  Effectively, what you’ve done by using the Exciting Verb is avoided redundancy by being redundant – we already get that Doug is feeling intense. You didn’t need to spell it out for us.

18.   Call a character by a half-dozen different names. This one goes pretty well with item seventeen: in an attempt to avoid redundancy in her dialogue tags and narration, the careful writer refers to Adam, the 78-year-old retired police officer from Australia, as: ‘Adam,’ ‘the old man,’ ‘the Australian,’ ‘the ex-cop,’ or something even more oblique. Why is this a problem? Well, in addition to being potentially confusing if you’re a fast reader, it just sounds kind of stupid. If Adam is having a conversation with his wife, why on Earth would the dialogue be tagged with ‘said the old man’? Generally speaking, the best thing to do is pick one name for your character – even if it is ‘the old man’ – and stick with it 87% of the time. This way, if your form allows for a different narrator or point of view to examine the character, you can use a different name and it’ll be, you know, effective. Whatever you do, for heaven’s sakes, NEVER alternate “names” for your character within the same conversation.  If you scan it and realize there could potentially be seven people talking when you only mean for there to be two, you’re doing it wrong.

19.   Adverbs. We all know how handy they are, but… just use sparingly, okay? Like, so sparingly you hardly use them at all. I realize I just used two adverbs in a row, but you know what I mean. If you’re reading a story and there are adverbs after every verb – especially after every dialogue tag – then it just reads as amateur, kind of, even if the story itself is quite good. Think about it this way: -ly is your weird friend that you don’t actually like to hang out with that much, but sometimes he can tell a good joke, so you keep him in your party invite list.

20.    When you’re writing a torture scene, more is not more. Less is more. (This flies in the face of the actual fact that less is less and more is more, but I digress. Sorry, Master Craig.) If you detail every frickin’ second of blood gushing and blades caressing flesh and all that crap, I’m sorry, but we’re going to get tired of it. It comes off as trying too hard – torture porn, basically – when it’s actually much scarier to not know. Remember Jaws? You don’t actually see the shark for most of the movie, up to the point when your anticipation is stretched tight and you end up throwing your popcorn in the air with the shock of it. Remember Jaws 4? Not scary at all – because the shark was everywhere. Less shark is more fright, guys.

So I'm in creative writing classes, as some of you know (or have guessed?). I try not to slash it up while I'm there, because you're supposed to be thinking of original content, right? I mean, it's not called creative fanfiction writing.

Nevertheless: time came for me to write another short story and I just could not get this one out of my head. It's VERY VERY inspired by Peter/Nathan - hell, the younger brother is even named Peter - but there aren't powers and the relationship dynamic is... different. I would really appreciate it if anyone who follows the journal could give it a read. It exists on its own, so even if you aren't familiar with Heroes at all it should be understandable.

Note - because it's for a creative writing class I was trying to stretch myself a little. You might notice that only Peter is directly named by the narrator. You might also notice (I hope) that it's in the second person. 14 pages is the longest I've ever stretched in that format, but I really, really love it. Blame Switchknife.

Love you guys. (kisskiss)
 ( Gravitation )