Writing Is Wild Because You’ll Plan A Perfectly Structured Scene And Then Your Character Is Like

It’s not even funny how relatable this is.

Fanfiction is great because you can see so clearly how people learn to write.

Some people, it's clear, learned almost entirely through absorbing the world around them. Grammar and punctuation will be all over the place, spellings are approximate, but the voice of the narration will come through so clearly. You can hear the dialect of the people around them as of they're telling the story. It's not a written story, it's a transcription of how they talk in their day to day life.

Some people learned through reading a gazillion books as a kid. Grammer and spelling will be rock solid, formatting occasionally based on the single tab of physical books rather than the double tab of online scrolling, but dialogue is often stilted and overly formal. You might notice a lack of contractions and very rigid rules they made for consistency that actually have a lot more flexibility than they think. They tend to have a fantastic grasp of sentence flow, though.

And other people formally learned how to write. This could be anywhere from taking school classes seriously because they enjoyed writing stories as a kid to literal certifications and jobs in the field. Grammer is flawless. Punctuation is triple checked. Foreign words are in italics. Characters have distinct voices. But their self indulgence is tempered by perfectionism. They know precisely what they want from a fic. Authors notes often feature mutterings about their happiness with the chapter. Kaomojis often appear! They seek a style to their writing, and it makes for some wonderfully clever plots! These are the ones most likely to get fun with formatting!

And some people.... Some people examined it all. They dissect dialogue, people watch, cross reference behaviours and compare characters to people irl. You can tell almost immediately who had formative experiences with Terry pratchett and/or ghibli, because it's these people. While others see writing as fun, expression, craft, they see it as art. Plain and simple. Sure, the grammar is occasionally sacrificed on the altar of creative freedom, and the occasional sentence might miss a full stop, but these people seem to self reflect on themselves as part of the art making process. On occasion, these people have the most masterful grasp of dialogue and invocation and hand sewn characterisations. Formatting is pretty standard because all the focus is on the actual words. These fics can be edited to the moon and back!

All of these can vary wildly in forethought and quality, and betas can often catch individual problems before they hit post, but just. Isn't it so cool? What's that one Oscar Wilde quote about every mask just being another fragment of yourself?

Did you recognise yourself?

Another AoD book fest! Honestly, if I was going to share EVERY book that's influenced my AoD sequel novels, we'd be here all week. But here's a few more that have had a significant impact! Enjoy 🥰

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So if you're in the UK you have probably heard about the proposed changes to disability benefits. If not, here is a BBC News article (link) about it, and the Big Issue (link) have been running basically non-stop articles about it since the announcement.

Crucially, the government is holding a consultation. Will as many of us as possible weighing in change the outcome? Possibly, though it's far from guaranteed. Will not filling it in help the situation in the slightest? No. So let's all have a go.

You can find the full Green Paper here: (link) and the options to respond are at the bottom of it, including the link to respond online, which is also here: (link)

It's also always worth contacting your MP to let them know what you think, if only to get a response on fancy Commons stationery. You can find your MP here: (link)

So, have at it, UK folks! (These proposals don't apply to Northern Ireland as benefits are transferred, but they are still taking NI comments and sharing them with the Department for Communities, so you may be able to influence whether this approach is taken up in NI in future, too)

And if nothing else, please reblog!

no you have to contribute to your fandom if you don't want it to die. most fandoms die because people say 'it's so sad watching the fandom die when the hype dies' without doing anything about it. I'm not saying you have to push out 100k word slow-burn fic, I'm not saying you have to make fan art or gif sets or edits or anything. I'm just saying we as a community should contribute to our fandom if we don't want it to die, and by contributing, I'm talking about giving kudos, commenting on your favorite fics, reblogging your favorite art and just talking about your favorite characters. that's enough to keep a fandom alive. that's the most effective way to keep a fandom alive in my humble opinion.

fandoms die because people stop talking about it, fandoms die because people stop engaging with fan content once the hype is gone. what I'm saying is, mainstream media's hype may be gone, but our fandom can stay alive and thriving if us as a community don't let it die.

“I can’t write without chatGPT” actually I believe you can. every writer writes by their own hands and brain before AI becomes a thing in our daily lives. and many, many writers continue to write by their own hands and brains even in the AI era. I mean sure, I get that AI can make things more convenient for us; we don’t have to do the works ourselves, we just give AI our prompts and sit back. but is some convenience really worth it when the art we get is robotmade with no soul in it? is some convenience really worth sacrificing the joy of writing and creating for? yes, writing can be extremely hard, but as a writer who never uses AI to write for her and has no interest in using AI to write for her, the joy of getting to write and create is worth the effort and difficulty of writing.

I believe you actually can write without chatGPT. you are either just used to the convenience of having robots create soulless works for you or are too scared to start writing by yourself. but as hard and scary as writing can be, trading the joy of getting to write and create for soulless robotmade works will always be such a shame.

remember; writing is art, and it takes practice to master your craft.

This third book will be the death of me, I swear...

Aka: "Meanwhile, in this episode of Jenni's Keyboard Drama..."

*finishes chapter after 3–4 attempts*

"Hey, I really ought to write *key conversation*, even though it happens off-screen for 💯-legit narrative reasons"

*writes conversation*

*realises that whole ****ing chapter needs re-writing again*

*cries*

I will close commissions soon! :) Giving the post a few more rounds and closing until next month or so

We all know AoD is bursting with unique lore, courtesy of the one-and-only Murti Schofield, but what other places do I draw inspiration from when writing my sequel novels? Here's a few...

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Ladies and gentlemen, D.M. again.

Probably the best TRAOD review I’ve ever read. I can’t resist to highlight some awesome bits.

“I cannot for the life of me understand those who felt Core’s Lara had no depth or motivation, especially compared to the wangsty, ham-and-cheese sandwhich Lara of Crystal Dynamics. Jonel Elliot has her limitations, of course, but there is more humanity expressed in the way Lara touches Kurtis after he’s been knocked into the pit with her than there is in Keeley Hawes shouting “WHERE! IS! MY! MOTHER!?” or “No, no, no, my mother’s dead. My mother died a long time ago. You’re not my mother.“ 

“And I loved the interplay between Lara and Kurtis. I understand some people hated it, either because Kurtis has sucky control, because he got grope Lara in the Louvre, or because they object to the notion that Lara could ever have a man play an important role in her life, or that she could age. Just look at her expression when Kurtis disarms her and steals the Obscura painting–say what you want about how ‘mature’ the scene is, but the fact remains that it’s presented to us from Lara’s point of view. She’s ****ed because he stole the painting, but perhaps as much because he didn’t finish what he started. He’s on the same playing field. When he backs away, she’s almost looking at him as if to say, “Now what? You started this.” I think she expresses this when she takes her “revenge” by disarming and searching Kurtis later in the game, though less suggestively. This is the only TR game I’ve seen/played that acknowledges Lara’s sexuality in the sense that she actually reacts to something rather than simply being made the enticing object of our oggling from atop an unreachable pillar. That makes her more human than giving her a wangsty past. Profoundly more so. Just watch her body language during all the scenes in which she interacts with Kurtis. It’s fascinating. “

Agree or disagree with me all you like, but I found their chemistry to be more convincing than the chemistry between Lara and Alex West in the first Tomb Raider movie, and more convincing than chemistry between Lara and Terry Sheridan in the second. Why did it work for me? There was no obligatory banter, flirting, or arguments one would expect. Kurtis very much inhabits Lara’s world, and is just as internally driven as she is. I would have disliked Kurtis if he were a macho stereotype or a braggart (which is why that image of Duke Nukem cupping Lara’s breasts makes me ill, and so do all suggestions that she and Larson had chemistry as well), but instead, he’s a kindred spirit, caught up in the same struggle against the same enemy as Lara, and about as close to a soul mate as she has ever had. Or at least, potentially. Their connection seems to stem, not from something as arbitrary as the attraction of opposites, but something as deep as the symmetry of souls. Once the guns are holstered (and perhaps before), they have an instinctive understanding of each other, and I thought that was fantastic. Kurtis Trent is far and away the best sidekick Lara has ever had, IMHO.”

“Though the game doesn’t make a point of this, Lara is perhaps more invested in Kurtis than she knows, because later on, she does something I have never seen her do once in six games: She forefits the macguffin she has just retrieved for the life of another person. And almost seconds later Kurtis does something similar: He forefits his chance for revenge/justice (and possibly, his life) for the sake of helping Lara. Again, no questions are asked, because the two understand each other.”

Now I’m crawling to a corner to cry and die.