Q: The natural sarcasm in Wit, is that just purely natural? Or do you have inspiration for all of those sarcastic comments?
A: I often, if I have to write a lot of the character, will look for a similar humor style, and see if I can channel it. If I’m writing Wit, for instance, I’ll go to somebody more biting. Some modern comedians, or occasionally Oscar Wilde. If I’m writing Shallan, I’ll try to look for something softer and more wordplay-ish, like Jane Austen. And just kind of read a bunch of it, and try to get the feel. It just depends. If I’m writing Lopen, I will try to look for the kind of uplifting humor, self-effacing style. Like, I just kind of have a different style for each type, and I try to find a person or writing in the real world that has that type of humor and try to use it.
I have a mute character in the story I’m writing and one of my beta readers suggested I use italics when they sign so that I don’t have to keep peppering “they signed” or “their hands flashed” throughout the piece.
But like…I always read italics in a different tone like they’re thoughts. It seems quieter than using normal quotations which makes what they say look less significant on the page than other character’s dialogue.
I really don’t think my audience needs me to use completely different punctuation around a mute character. There’s no need to act like they’re speaking a different language since their muteness isn’t a focal point in the story.
So really this reader’s comment has done the complete opposite of what they intended. Now I’m actively taking out as many of my “hands flashed” notations as possible and just writing in normal body language because, clearly, the other characters understand them and my audience doesn’t need to be coddled.
As an HOH reader and writer I can affirm that once the signing has been established it can just be treated like “said”.
You can add little things for emphasis though, like how fast or flippant a sign is given, also a lot of our “punctuation” is in facial expressions, so wild looks is kind of normal. Also messing up signs and just.. pushing them aside. Like, you mess up a fingerspell and just take both hands and shove the air in front of you to your side, people who sign eventually end up doing this for other things, like a “forget it” motion. It’s like a “wave it off” gesture.
Body language for someone who signs is a lot more animated than someone who speaks, as we use our upper body a lot in our conversations, so the act of “signing” is more than just hand signals.
Yes….yes GOOD this is the good stuff right here. I’m going to incorporate some of these ASAP ESPECIALLY the pushing the air but to clear it of your mistakes
donjon has tons of generators. for calendars. for demographics of a country and city. for names (both fantastical and historical) of people, nations, magics, etc.
this site lets you generate/design a city, allowing you to choose size, if you want a river or coast, walls around it, a temple, a main keep, etc.
this twitter, uncharted atlas, tweets generated maps of fantasy regions every hour.
and vulgar allows you to create a language, based on linguistic and grammatical structures!!! go international phonetic alphabet!!!
How do you write healthy parent-child relationships?
this might be more response than you want, but interesting (and kinda depressing when you think about it) fact: there’ve been a bunch of research studies where parents have been asked what they think makes a healthy parent-child relationship, and they tend to like…not answer the actual question because they think they’re being asked what good parenting is, which is not the same. so they talk about things like helping kids with homework and making sure they eat well. children, on the other hand, usually respond to the same question with stuff that’s literally just the definition of healthy relationships generally. affection, honesty, respect, spending time together, sharing interests. and the real kicker is, objectively, we know that’s the kind of stuff that actually has a much better impact not only on whether or not the relationship is strong and positive but also the kid’s overall happiness and psychological health.
so, if you want to write a character who’s really intent on being a Good Parent you’d have them putting massive effort into making their kid Grow Up Right, worrying about shit like if they have The Right Friends and they’re spending Enough Time Outside. but if you want to write a good relationship, just make parent and kid laugh together and respect boundaries and be emotionally supportive, like you would when writing a solid pair of friends or romantic couple.
No that was actually really helpful and I’m glad you took the time to give a serious response
Why do (esp white) men love having fights about politics where they change topics 6x to confuse you and then try and make you look dumb because you can’t jump between the points bc you’re too busy arguing the separate distinct points bc you thought that’s what the fight was about
“The Gish gallop allows a debater to hit their opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate. In practice, each point raised by the “Gish galloper” takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place,[4] which wastes the opponent’s time and can cast doubt about their debating ability in an audience unfamiliar with the technique, especially if no independent fact-checking is involved.[5] …If one is familiar with an opponent who is known to use the Gish gallop, the technique can be countered somewhat by preempting and refuting their commonly used arguments before they have the chance.[7]“
Or sometimes it could help to point out that they’re doing it, though I suspect the kind of person who does this is the kind of person who responds to “Wow, you’re Gish galloping” with “ad hominem!”
People who do this know they look like they’re winning to the audience. They make lots of short snappy inaccurate points and you’re fumbling to refute with full facts and explanations.
I just went to a new hairstylist and I made sure to style my hair so she could see its texture and I asked her to cut it dry bc my last stylist didn’t even Know what a diffuser was and always wanted to straighten it
So she gets out a brush which is when I knew I was in trouble and just started at the roots and started ripping through my hair lmao!!!!
When will I ever get to rest
I really shoulda just gotten up and left when she got out the brush but I got too little sleep to advocate for my own scalp
Hair-stylists are so hard to communicate with. They so rarely understand “not straight”. Show ‘em a men’s cropped haircut, they give you a Hilary Clinton bob. Show up with curls and they bring out the brush.
I interview stylists. I state that I have curly hair and then ask a few questions. If I don’t like the answers, I politely decline the service.
Interesting trend I noticed? Curly haired stylists tend to be better at managing the curls. And African American stylists are even better about it.
My hair is more “extremely wavy” than curly, and I wear it long and down, so white hairstylists can usually figure out how to do it—but only after complaining loudly, being visibly distressed, or even berating me for having the kind of hair I do.
I go out of my way to find non-white hairstylists at this point….
I had to go waaaayyy out of my way and pay extra for a hair stylist who was Officially Certified To Cut Curly Hair (apparently it’s called DIVA??? lol) bc no regular ones have been able to fathom what to do w my hair.
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