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.
Alright, here we go– I put together a list of questions about OCs that you can reblog and have people send in asks for you! I set it up so you can be like, “A3″, “D2″, et cetera… Keep checking in here to the original post in case I add some more to the list! In the meantime, I hope y’all have some fun with this and maybe use it to learn a little bit more about your OCs or get to share things about them!!
A. Psychology
What of the Meyers-Briggs personality types they most fit into? INFP, ENFT, et cetera…
What alignment are they? Chaotic neutral, lawful evil, et cetera…
Do they have any emotional or psychological conditions? Are they aware of it? Do they try to treat it?
Are they a pessimist or an optimist?
Are they good at handling change in their life?
Does your OC tend to assume their interpretation of events and reality is correct, or do they question it? I.e., “I’m sure that’s what you said” versus “It’s possible I misheard you.”
Is your OC confident in their reactions to life in general, or do they get embarrassed or easily shamed for it? I.e., if something startles them, do they insist it WAS scary? When they cry, do they feel like they overreacted?
Is your OC a martyr?
Does your OC make a lot of excuses? For themselves? Others?
Does your OC compromise easily? Too easily?
Does your OC put others’ needs before their own?
Does your OC have any addictions? If so and problematic, have they admitted it to themselves?
Does your OC have any phobias? If so, where did they come from?
Is your character empathetic?
Is your character observant?
Does your OC have to go through their own trials to learn a lesson, or do they listen and learn from observation and lecture? I.e., does your OC listen when someone tries to tell them the importance of budgeting, or do they have to go experience what happens if you don’t budget first?
What’s one of your OC’s proudest moments of themselves?
Do they get jealous easily? Do they feel bad if they do?
What instantly irritates them or puts them in a bad mood?
Are they harsh on themselves?
Do they make excuses often?
Is your OC intended to be found generally attractive? Unattractive? Average? Is there a reason why?
Does your OC place much importance on their appearance? Do they feel confident in it?
What are some of your OC’s biggest personal obstacles? This could be emotional, physical, social… Are they aware of it? Are they trying to overcome it?
B. Social
Do they believe you have to give respect to get it, or get respect to give it?
Do they get frustrated when lines at places like pharmacies, check-outs, delis, banks, et cetera, are moving slowly?
Under what situations would they get angry at servers, staff, customer service, et cetera?
Do they tip well? How easily can they be moved to not leave a tip?
Do they hold doors open for people?
Would your OC let someone ahead of them in line if your OC had a big cart and the person behind them had very few items?
How do they respond to babies crying in public?
Is your OC considered funny? Do they believe they’re funny?
What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…
Does your OC find any “bad” or “mean” humor funny? Do they wish they didn’t?
Your OC is running late to meeting someone: Do they let the other person know? Do they lie about why they’re late?
Your OC orders something to eat and gets their order done in a pretty wrong way, something they can’t just pick off or whatnot to correct, or something major is missing. What do they do?
Do they have a large or small group of friends?
Do they have people they are genuinely honest with about themselves?
Does your OC enjoy social events, such as parties, clubs, et cetera..?
Does your OC like to be the center of attention or more in the mix?
C. Morality
Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?
Would your OC feel bad if they acted against their morals? If not, would they find a way to excuse themselves for it?
Is it important for them to be with people (socially, intimately, whatever) whose major ideological tenets align with their own?
Do they consider themselves superior or more important than anyone else? Lesser?
Do your OC’s morals and rules of common decency go out the window when it comes to those they don’t like, or when it’s inconvenient? Aka, are their morals situational?
What do they do when they see someone asking for money or food? If they ignore them, why? If they help, how so?
Do they believe people change over time? If so, is it a natural process or does it take effort?
Is your OC more practical or ideal morally? I.e., do they hold people to high expectations of behavior even if it’s not realistic for the situation, or do they have a more realistic approach and adapt their morality to be more practical?
D. Religion and Life and Death
How religious is your OC? What do they practice, if anything? If they don’t associate with any religion, what do they think of religion in general?
Do they believe in an afterlife?
How comfortable are they with the idea of death?
Would they like to be immortal? Why, why not? If they are immortal, would they rather not be?
Do they believe in ghosts? If not, why? If so, do they think they’re magical/tie into their religion, or are they scientifically plausible?
E. Education and Intelligence
Would you say that your OC is intelligent? In what ways? Would your OC agree?
Which of the nine types of intelligence is your OC strongest in? Weakest? (Linguistic, existential, naturalist, et cetera)
How many languages do they speak?
Did they enjoy school if they went to it?
What’s their highest education level? Do they want to continue their education?
Do they enjoy learning? Do they actively seek out sources of self-education?
Are they a good note-taker? Are they a good test-taker? Do exams make them nervous?
What’s one of your OC’s biggest regrets?
F. Domestic Habits, Work, and Hobbies
What sort of home do they live in now, if at all? How did they end up there?
What’s their ideal home look like? Where is it?
Could they ever live in a “tiny home”?
How clean are they overall with home upkeep?
How handy are they? Can they fix appliances, cars, cabinets, et cetera?
How much do they work? What do they do? Do they enjoy it?
What’s their “dream career” or job situation?
How often are they home?
Are they homebodies and enjoy being home?
Do they engage in any of the arts? How good do you intend them to be? Would they agree they are?
What are some of their favorite things to do for recreation? How did they get into it? What part of it do they like the most?
Would they enjoy a theme park?
G. Family and Growing Up
Is your OC close to their family?
Who makes up your OC’s family, at least the more important members to them?
Does your OC find their family supportive? If not, what would be an example why not?
What kind of childhood did your OC have?
Did they go through any typical phases growing up?
Do they have any favorite childhood memories?
Do they have any childhood memories they’d rather forget or be less affected by?
H. Romance and Intimacy
What is your OC’s orientation, romantic and/or sexual? Has it ever been a source of stress for them? Have they always been pretty sure of their orientation?
Is your OC a thoughtful partner, in whatever aspect of that you want to cover?
Does your OC believe there’s only one ideal partner (or multiple ideal if not monogamous) for everyone, or that there are many people who could be right?
Does your OC believe in love in first sight?
Does your OC believe in marriage (or their culture’s equivalent)?
Has your OC ever cheated on anyone or been cheated on?
What do they look for in partners? (Emotionally, mentally, physically..)
What’s your OC’s idea of a perfect date?
What are some things that your OC finds to be an instant turn-off in potential partners?
I. Food
What are their favorite kinds of flavors– Sweet, salty, sour, spicy, creamy, et cetera?
Do they have any eating requirements or preferences? Allergies, vegetarian, organic-only, religious restrictions…
Are they vegan/vegetarian (if their overall culture/species generally aren’t)? If so, why? Do they think animal products are wrong in all circumstances?
How often do they cook? Do they order out a lot?
Are they a good cook?
Could they eat the same thing they enjoy over and over and not get bored of it quickly?
J. Politics, Current Events, Environmental Aspects
Where does your OC stand most politically? What would they align with most?
How politically aware are they?
How politically active are they?
Is your OC the sort to fall for fake news? If not, do they ignore it or make a point to clarify that it’s wrong?
Are they or would they protest for a cause they’re passionate about?
How do they react to people whose political viewpoints are very opposite of theirs?
How much interest in environmental health do they have?
In reality-based or applicable worlds, do they believe in global warming? Do they recycle?
K. For OCs in Reality-Based Worlds Who Are Unusual in Paranormal Ways (such as magical abilities, being another species, having a curse like lycanthropy, sci-fi abilities, being from another time, et cetera)– Also for OCs where the scenario is similar even if their universe isn’t based on reality
Does your OC have to keep their paranormal aspect (PA) a secret from general society? If so, how? I.e., they can’t discuss their abilities, they have to hide a tail, they have an alter-ego, et cetera. What would happen if society found out about it?
Are there others in their universe with the same or a similar PA as your OC? I.e., others from different dimensions, others of their same species. Do they know about it?
Does your OC have any friends who know about their PA? Any enemies?
Does your OC ever use their PA to get an advantage? I.e., use their ability to be invisible to steal or get out of things, compete in track while their species is a naturally superior runner, use their invulnerability in careers like police work… If so, do they have any hang-ups about it?
Does your OC feel isolated or unrelatable due to the experience their PA brings with it? If so, how do they deal with it?
Does their PA cause issues in daily life? I.e., if they’re inhuman in a human universe and they can’t go to a doctor or risk the doctor realizing they are not human, super abilities with physical drawbacks, they don’t have control of their abilities and must keep to themselves, et cetera… If so, how do they feel about it?
Does your OC’s PA affect their dietary habits so that they are unusual or problematic by their society’s standards?
What are some routines, if any, of self-care that your OC must engage in that are not typical of their society? I.e., having to file their teeth, maintaining magical rituals, drinking blood…
Does your OC have knowledge that they can’t share with the rest of their world that could improve it if it didn’t cause chaos? I.e., a character from the future knowing about technology not yet invented, but they can’t reveal themselves by sharing it?
Would your OC give up their PA if they could? Why or why not?
L. For the Writer/Owner
How have your characters changed since you created them?
What do you consider the biggest themes in your character, if any?
Did you create the character to be like yourself, did they end up being like yourself, or are they very different from you?
Would you hang out with your OC if you could?
Which OC do you think is the most decent morally or behaviorally?
AKA, which is supposed to a “good guy”?
Which OC do you think is the worst morally or behaviorally?
Expository dialogue techniques that don’t rely on characters randomly explaining things to each other that they should already know, but do rely on your characters being obnoxious gits:
1. Character A fucks something up hilariously; character B upbraids them at great length about exactly what they did wrong.
2. Character A wildly misreads a situation; character B corrects their misconceptions.
3. Character A tells a complicated and implausible lie; character B points out the obvious holes in their story.
4. Character A can’t find their destination; character B provides rambling and discursive directions.
5. Character A has a straightforward question; character B requests a series of extremely pedantic clarifications.
There’s a lot of writing advice on the internet, and a lot of writing prompts, but something I see relatively little of is an idea of how to actually practice.
The thing about learning a skill is that it requires practice – but practicing will only get you so far if you’re just doing the same thing over and over. you might get better at doing that specific thing, but it can seem really difficult to get over a specific hurdle to accomplish some new thing you’ve never tried. I think a really common frustration is wanting to do a thing, and knowing what your end goal looks like, but not knowing actually how to accomplish it.
So that’s where practicing specific skills can really help you to feel more comfortable with your abilities.
Here are some skills exercises I recommend experimenting with to gain proficiency and comfort in writing things.
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Write the Same Scene from Multiple POVs
Write a scene in 3rd person POV. Then go back and rewrite it from scratch in 1st person. Repeat for a 3rd person omniscient. Go deeper than just swapping out pronouns. Think: How does this scene change if I’m writing through the eyes of a single character vs over their shoulder? How does this scene change if I’m narrating the events through Character B instead of Character A?
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Write a Scene in Present Tense
Present tense bumps up the immediacy level of whatever you’re writing. I think it also helps to break you from more passive sentence constructions. Try taking a scene you’ve written and rewrite it in present tense. Combine it with the above – try switching a 3rd person past to 1st person present, or even try writing in 2nd person.
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Try Mimicking Another Writer’s Style
Sit down with a piece of writing from an author you enjoy, and pay attention to the writing itself. Ignore the plot and characters and story elements – look at just the nuts and bolts of vocabulary choices and sentence construction. Try to pick it apart. Is there a specific way the author tends to use commas? Certain words, or types of words, that they use more often? Longer sentences or shorter ones? Longer paragraphs or short? How is white space handled?
Study that and make yourself a little cheat sheet if that’s helpful to you. Then try writing a short piece – just a couple paragraphs, even – in their writing style.
—-
Describe an Entire Scene Without Using Visual Description
Imagine you’re writing a blind character, if it helps, or someone who’s been blindfolded. Describe a whole scene built entirely around the way things sound, smell, taste, feel. Try to make it clear what’s happening through description alone.
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Eliminate All Words like “Thought” or “Felt”
Write in deep-3rd or 1st person without any filter words. Make a character’s opinions and emotions obvious through the way things are being described without explicitly saying what they’re thinking or feeling. If you struggle with this, it might be easier to start in first person – write as a diary entry or even a Tumblr post from that person’s perspective – and then try it in 3rd person after you’ve had a bit of practice.
——-
Set Yourself a Specific Goal, and Write a Drabble to Achieve it
When I wrote “Happy Ending,” my entire goal was to write something that was highly descriptive in the most viscerally gross way possible. When I wrote “Mothman,” it was an exercise in writing something sexualized without explicitly being sexual, in the most disturbing way possible.
This is an exercise in word choice. It’s an excuse to bust out your thesaurus, not to sound fancy, but to nail a specific meaning. It’s also an exercise in choosing what details to focus on and which to exclude.
One way to approach this exercise is to describe something common and mundane that you’ve experienced, and write it in several different ways. Let’s say, eating a sandwich. How can you make eating a sandwich sound sexy? How can you make it sound disgusting? Which details do you focus on, and which do you omit? What words do you use to evoke the meaning you’re looking for?
—————————————————————
I hope these writing exercises give you some inspiration on things to try out to flex your creative wings a bit!
Uncanny valley=things that aren’t normal almost getting it right
Third person limited view
Limited explanations
Rot, mold, damage, age, static, flickering, especially in places it shouldn’t be
Limited sights for your mc -blindness, darkness, fog, refuse
Real consequences
Being alone -the more people there are, the less scary it is
Intimate knowledge, but only on one side
I don’t know I just write scary things but I don’t know what I’m doing.
Rule of Thumb: your reader’s imagination will scare them more than anything you could ever write. You don’t have to offer a perfectly concrete explanation for everything at the end. In fact, doing so may detract from your story.
I feel like when you’re writing, organizing chapters and dialogue is easy
but jfc, the amount of time it takes to constantly keep people moving and make sure they’re in the right spaces and trying to come up with wording for it is always such a shock.
Like, fuck, I made you pick up a coffee cup, you need to put it down at some point. also I can’t remember what I dressed you in, can you push up your sleeves? I don’t remember if you even have your shirt on.
and YOU. YOU OVER THERE, you got out of your chair earlier, but did you come back yet? Are you coming back? Where did you even go and why’d you get up? Fuck, I can’t make you sit down again already, you just stood up, go…over there. go get more coffee. Did you bring your mug with you? fine. bring the pot to the table and—wait, wasn’t the coffee pot already over here? shit, hold on, I need to go back and re-read and re-write
this is the most relevant thing i have ever read.
I think one of the most wild things as a writer is the sensation that you’re not actually directing your characters– they’re sort of directing themselves, and you’re scrambling around attempting to copy down whatever it was that they just did, but they don’t wait for you to finish copying. They just keep walking and talking and moving around and existing of their own volition and at some point you look up and you’re like “WHOA OKAY EVERYBODY BACK THE FUCK UP WHERE ARE WE”
It’s kind of like trying to write sheet music for an orchestra while it’s playing
High heeled shoes don’t become flats if you break the heels off.
The posts of earrings aren’t sharp.
Nail polish takes a long time to dry and smudges when wet.
You can’t hold in a period like pee.
Inserting a tampon is not arousing or sexual in any way, ever.
Feel free to add your own.
– Bras leave red marks on the skin under and around boobs and it is a magical experience when taken off.
– Make up can take anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes depending on how skilled you are.
– Taking hair out of a ponytail after wearing it for hours does not make it perfectly straight when it comes down.
– Hair when wet sticks to the skin it no longer flows, idiot.
-When women with long hair kiss, turn around, do anything, their hair falls in the way.
– Stockings are itchy and tear like wet paper bags.
– Pantyhose, tights, leggings, and stockings are each different.
– Waxing hurts and leaves red skin for a while afterwards while shaving leaves stubble
– Most can’t run in heels unless they have been VERY worn
– Insecurity in appearance doesn’t mean “buy me a drink”
– EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT TASTES IN EVERYTHING
-Having large breasts sucks. It sucks beyond belief. If a garment happens to fit your large chest, odds are it won’t fit the rest of you. Underboob sweat is real and terrible. Bending over for extended periods of time will tweak your back out. Running can be painful due to boob turbulence. Bras are hella expensive. Big breasts are not fun.
Putting a tampon in isnt a quick bend-poke-done kinda deal. It involves cubicle yoga, messy hands, numerous curse words as you realise it isnt in correctly and have to take it out and start again with a new one.
Yes to all of this. But also:
If her hair is in an updo, one does not simply remove a hairpin to send her hair cascading down her back. No. If her hair is an updo, it will take at least an hour and an extra set of hands to remove the 137 bobby pins that are holding her hair in place. Furthermore, there’s probably a can’s worth of hairspray in there, intended to withstand category 2 hurricane winds. There’s no cascading happening here – the best you can hope for is a misshapen nest of hair to clump and poof unattractively in the back while it still remains flat against her scalp.
This is one of the funniest posts I’ve seen in a while (especially if you read all the comments), but also really depressing because at 42 I still judge myself as having failed for not matching up to all these mythical stereotypes despite knowing they’re impossible
^^^This though
The odds of a woman having smoothly shaved legs and armpits are directly proportional to the amount of skin her clothing bares and/or the amount of fucks she gives at that particular moment.
GLASSES ARE NOT COSMETIC. If we whip them off, we do not become gorgeous fashion models. We become squinty.
-most women wear bras. Yes, even when they are trying to dress sexy. Because bras make boobs look perkier and rounder, which is something men apparently find sexy, so being a seductress or femme fatale is not an automatic reason for a female character to not be wearing a bra.
-a good bra will hide headlights, or at the very least drastically reduce their noticeability. A women with enough pointy nipple issues will opt for a padded or molded bra to hide them.
-women’s nipples do not automatically become hard pyramids visible through any and all layers of clothing the second they become even slightly aroused. They are not the female equivalent of boners. And even if their nipples do get hard, the bras they are almost certainly wearing (because even a goddamn succubus with big, honkin’ knockers for seducing men is gonna have those painful puppies in some kind of boob sling) should keep those pointy nipples from being visible to every other character in the scene, JIM BUTCHER. YES, EVEN LARA RAITH WOULD WEAR A BRA ONCE IN A GODDAMN WHILE.
if you’re being tied up and tortured in a freezing underground dungeon, then you probably have more important things to pay attention to than how hard somebody’s nipples are, jim butcher
– Wearing a bra that doesn’t fit HURTS. It’s not sexy to wear a bra that’s “two sizes too small”, it’d make your clothes hang oddly and you’d have a weird, uncomfortable “quad-boob” effect and your back would hurt, BEN AARONOVITCH.
Also, after removing a too small bra, there’s gonne be angry red lines on the boobs and ribs and the lady is not going to want them to be touched by anyone for a good long while
-Not all women wear heels. Those things hurt and are hard to balance in. They can also mess up your feet and back pretty bad.
-Lips aren’t just naturally red “as if she’d been drinking wine but they were just like that without makeup cause she’s so perfect,” my dear little Kvothe from ‘Name of the Wind’. Also, girls do not naturally smell like fruit or flowers, it’s either perfume or something she’d been eating recently.
I’ve been appreciating this post but now it’s back very specifically calling out my problematic faves and I don’t think those male authors realize how much it totally takes me out of the story for a moment when they commit these errors. It does nothing useful for the plot and is annoying for half of the audience
Is it weird that I’m female and wasn’t aware of a solid third of these?
I mean, all writes take note. I basically live in man land when it comes to protagonists so I don’t know half these things despite being a woman
(Most) Women do not look at themselves in the mirror and compare their breasts to fruit. Any sort of fruit. Especially melons. Please save us from the melons.
Also we are not aware of our breasts at all times. I do not walk down a flight of stairs and think “oh golly my breasts are bouncing so much right now”. They are as much as natural part of our bodies as arms. Do you constantly think about how your arms are moving? Sure you may be aware of them, but paying full attention? Doubtful.
Also: women working out are almost never sexy. They’re not glowing or glistening or (kill me) *sparkling*. They are red and sweaty and gross just like all the dudebros doing their time with the dumbbells. Stop ogling fictional women at the gym, TOM WOLFE.
Alright so since some people seem to need help with these things, I’m gonna do a PSA on common fanfic turns of phrase and what they’re actually driving at:
‘Humming’, as in, when a character ‘hums in agreement’ or ‘hums happily’, isn’t them suddenly breaking out a tune. It’s referring to an inarticulate sound, usually with the lips closed. ‘Mmhmm’ for example is a hum. ‘Hummed a question’ is less common, but generally means something along the lines of ‘hmm?’
If someone ‘moans in appreciation’ of something, like food or a good massage, that is usually indicating a lower ‘mmm’ noise than ‘humming’, with the tone being defined by the context of the situation. At some point actually writing out ‘yum’ or ‘oooh’ or similar became unpopular in fic, so describing the noise took prominence. The ‘mmm’ sound is fairly indistinct, and is technically a moan. It’s not actually an inherently sexual term, even though it’s used overwhelmingly in sexual contexts. (In older stories characters would even moan in pain, though that’s less common now).
Toeing off your shoes refers to taking off your shoes without bending down and using your hands in any way. You’re using your toes instead. It’s actually more common with slippers (which are designed for this) but can apply to any footwear that doesn’t need untying or unbuckling or something in order to come loose. Related to ‘kicking off your shoes’ but less dramatic in terms of the implied action involved.
Carding your fingers through something (i.e. hair, feathers) comes from a process (carding) for disentangling cloth or wool fibers (usually a special type of card-shaped tool was used for this, hence the term). It’s got nothing to do with playing cards or shuffling, and here’s the wikipedia article on the process, just for the skeptics. It basically means ‘gently disentangle’ in the fanfic context.
Thus concludes the PSA.
I always love it when people, who apparently aren’t familiar with frankly kind of common vocabulary words and turns of phrase, make fun of writers for completely straightforward and ordinary word choices.
And if you mock them not because you think the phrases are wrong/silly but just because you see them used too often in fandom… hey, no one’s stopping you from reading stuff other than fan fiction. Knock yourself out.
“if it’s not plot relevant, cut it!!” is such awful writing advice
if JRR Tolkien had cut every bit of Lord of the Rings that wasn’t directly related to the central plot, it would have been just one book long, COLOURLESS and DULL AS DIRT.
all the little worldbuilding/character details are what draw you in and give the central plot weight, FOOL
The plot is not the same thing as the story. The plot is the mechanics of how one thing causes another.
Some classic stories have no plot to speak of – the characters just wander from one situation to the next. Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz are examples.
Some stories have partial plots, where some things in the story cause other things, but other things come out of the blue and pass away without consequence. This category includes classics too: Huckleberry Finn, The Wind in the Willows.
Even in stories with a strong plot, sometimes the most iconic moments fall outside that plot. Think of the No-Man’s-Land scene in Wonder Woman or the dying dinosaur in Jurassic World II.
Ah, but those aren’t classics, I hear someone say. Well, I disagree in the case of Wonder Woman (although time will tell), but let’s go right to the top of the English canon, Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
What’s the most iconic scene, if you had to pick one to illustrate for the front cover or the playbill poster? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s the Yorick skull scene. What does that have to do with the plot? Precious little. It’s just a way to keep Hamlet busy until Ophelia’s funeral arrives. And even there it’s not very well fit for purpose, because it doesn’t explain why Hamlet is hanging around in a graveyard anyway.
That’s because, tight though the plot of Hamlet is, the story of Hamlet is not reducible to its plot. Hamlet is a three-hour exploration of death and skulls and murder and corpses and funerals and ghosts and “what dreams may come”. The plot is just there to drive you around between the features of that mental landscape.
So the question isn’t “Does this serve the plot?” The question is “Does this help explore the idea that the story is about?”
(Why yes, I have written all this somewhere before.)
One really helpful thing I learned- and I can’t remember if it was from a writing class or a lit class, so I don’t even who to thank for it- is that each scene should move at least two or three aspects of what you’re writing forward.
That can be plot. It can be story.
It can be worldbuilding. It can be theme. It can be character. It can be relationships. It can be any number of things, but it needs to be more than one.
If a scene does nothing but move plot forward, it’s not accomplishing enough to earn its real estate on the page, any more than a scene that just builds character does.
When I look at it not as prioritizing plot, but as not prioritizing any one aspect of the story above all others, it makes it easier for me to figure out what strengthens my writing and what doesn’t, or,at the very least, how to make a scene that’s important to me more useful to the story as a whole.
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