i don’t think we give enough credit to that “has anyone ever told you… that you’re under arrest” line. the plot twist. the delivery. 10/10. iconique
I think about this scene all the time and it makes me lose it he knew THE WHOLE TIME that he tried to steal the mask but waited until after they were done making out to arrest him
Every year on the eve of candlenights Kravitz has the misfortune of getting a call from the Raven Queen saying he has to go tell some dipshit he’s going to die alone if he doesn’t get his shit together
I’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunity to explain this and show everybody my inverted pyramid 😀 😀 😀
I present, The Inverted Pyramid of Revising a Book
Now I’ll explain each section of the inverted pyramid:
THE FIRST DRAFT
This should be self-explanatory. You write the first draft. For novels, 75-150,000+ words of the world inside your head.
PLOT, CONTENT, SCENES, AND MAJOR CHARACTERS
Go back and fix it all up. Did you tell the story you wanted to tell? Did you include scenes and events that add up to the conclusion you present?
Are there any unnecessary scenes you could delete, or scenes that are redundant to other scenes? Get rid of them. If this means entire chapters have to go, wave bye-bye.
Do your main characters have believable back stories and arcs, and do they act appropriately in character at all times?
Is there any point in time when your characters do something that they literally WOULD NOT DO? Change that up.
WORLD-BUILDING, CHARACTERIZATION, HONING IN PLOT POINTS
Now pay attention to the deeper aspects of the story. Delve into the world your characters live in. Do they react appropriately? Does any part of society influence them more than others?
What does your world look like? Delve into the setting. The cultures, the technology, the history.
Work with your secondary characters and how they interact with your main characters. What role do they serve overall? Does the main character’s journey affect them at all, or vice versa?
Tighten up plot points. Stay concise if possible.
SENTENCE STRUCTURE, FLOW AND PACING OF SCENES
Now that the major parts of your story have been patted down, you can begin focusing on the technical stuff. Start broad.
Do you have redundant sentences? Do you start multiple sentences the same way?
Throw in short sentences.
Drop the pronoun from the beginning of a sentence every now and then.
Use commas instead of ‘and’ if you find you use ‘and’ a lot.
Does the flow of sentences and paragraphs fit with the tone of the scene?
Chop sentences apart. Use quick, sharp words.
Or combine sentences and flowery language and soft words.
BETA READER CRITIQUES AND SUGGESTIONS
Now that you’ve really patted this thing down, find people willing to read your work (hopefully for free).
Ask them to point out inconsistencies. Are they confused by anything?
Beta readers can tell you when things are boring or exciting. They’ll laugh. They’ll fangirl. They’ll beg you for more chapters.
Your brain is soft from so much revising. Beta readers are fresh, and will pick out things you’ve glossed over from seeing it so many times.
Shake things up and host a video chat for you and your betas! It’s a great way to make friends 🙂
PUNCTUATION AND MISSING WORDS
NOWWWWW you’ve finished all the major revisions and your story makes sense!!! All that’s left to do is get the broom and sweep it up (or the vacuum cleaner, or generate a black hole from the Large Hadron Collider to suck out all the errors because that’s super-effective**).
This is the nitty gritty stuff, and I highly recommend either forcing yourself to read really, really slow, or better yet, read your book out loud, start to finish.
You’ll trip up over misplaced commas and periods.
You’ll literally hear when a sentence is awkward.
Your brain will get confused when there’s a missing word.
Fill in the gaps, hammer down the boards, tidy up the place like you’ve got guests coming over.
THE FINAL DRAFT
OMG
OMG
OMG
OMG IT’S FINISHED AND YOU CAN SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD AND BUY PHYSICAL COPIES THAT YOU CAN HOLD AND SMELL AND RUB ALL OVER YOUR FACE AND DRAW IN AND DOG-EAR AND TOTE AROUND TO SHOW PEOPLE AND SIGN AUTOGRAPHS AND BECOME YOUR OWN LITTLE CELEBRITY!!!
Email the newspaper (I’ve appeared multiple times).
Email the local TV station (I’ve appeared on live TV).
Email book talk radio shows (I’ve had a Q&A for an hour on live radio).
……..Marketing is hard.
I hope that helps!
N.B. **please do not ask CERN for permission to use the Large Hadron Collider to create black holes that suck out all the errors in your book. You’ll look silly, and you might destroy Earth in the process.
It’s messy drama all the way down, with the time lords. None of them have even an ounce of chill, and every last one of them is my favorite problematic child.
“It was an honor” are possibly the strongest parting words.
“It was an honor” can be a cordial farewell without any essence or meaning behind them beyond cordiality. Parting words for the sake of just that: Parting. Something short, polite, perhaps a simple fulfillment of the status quo, an apprentice tying the ribbon of his future and likely continuous absence from hereon to a mentor that couldn’t teach him. A facsimile of a show of respect the real objective of which is to maintain an obligatory sense of respect expected from the context, society, the craft, however you wish to call it. It can be, and it often is.
But that’s not all “It was an honor” can be.
“It was an honor” can be the last words you expected out of anyone. Indeed, just as the silent student rising their voice calls attention or the thug standing up for the weak invigorates the hearts of many, so can a genuine show of respect from someone who dabbles not in such endeavors be. The rogue, the swashbuckler, the implacable troublemaker, they who clashed with you over the important and the not so important, let no one call it trivial, serving as leather belt to unsharpened dagger, both benefiting from this friction in a different way from the other as imperfections are shaved away while the blade grows honed. From the one that wanted to not be there, to the one that wanted to be there with anyone else. “It was an honor” can be recognition, acknowledgment, four paltry parting words that perhaps unveil everything a clumsy comrade couldn’t after months or years of conflicted presences. “It was an honor”, armed with all of its meaning, is a set of words that are only loosed from the lips of certain individuals, and only land a bullseye on certain ears, a truer arrow never before nocked.
“It was an honor” is a clear message, charged with meaning from the one that emits it for the one that receives it. Clear meaning. Pure meaning. No one can read minds, but with just four words, reading minds becomes meaningless anyways. Four words said in two seconds can re-contextualize months or years, just like that.
“It was an honor” are words with exactly the potential most people don’t realize words can have. Some say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think that saying came from someone that didn’t know how to use words in the first place.
…so i was going to reluctantly toss a coin and go with romancing Alistair or Leliana
and then i found out you don’t HAVE to romance ANYONE
Heres my personal headcanon as to why Duck is such a terrible liar: You know how shonen protagonists and hero-type chosen ones are very blunt and tend to just get to the point/the fight? I think Duck’s inherent inability to lie well is a side affect of that trope in that his destiny compells him to always tell a passionate, fiery truth, and his shitty lies are just another way of him rebelling thanks for coming to my ted talk
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