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please, untitled document was my father, call me untitled document (1)

The drink in Laila’s hand sloshes crimson and ribbon thick when she picks it up, the metal of her prosthetic hand clinking against the shot glass. The taste of copper and nickel coats the roof of her mouth as she downs it in one go, and then sneers at the way her tongue tries to chase the taste again. She quickly sneaks a glance to find no one watching.

The TV blares—the brightest object in the room, the fluorescent bulbs and lights content to mingle in the dark. Clad in glamour and glitz, the throng of people on the dance floor shake and grind, rake their hands up their bodies and others in a psychedelic haze of sweat and spit.

Through the crowd, a fairy’s wings shimmer as he clashes his mouth against a translucent man. Their pulse hammers to the beat of an indie rock song by the Vampire Weekend. She snorts at the irony.

Then, a scream pierces through her head. She exhales sharply, clutching her head in her hands. Spots of color block her vision, and she slams her eyes shut, only to see an inverted image of a man. Please, not again.

She scrambles to throw a wall in her mind and forces her eyes wide open. One moment, the man is sitting in front of her tangible and in full technicolor, a cut splitting his cheekbone and water dripping down his blue lips. The next, he flickers out until she is staring at the rows of wine bottles.

Another person, dead. Nine in the past fortnight.

antigone was right

concrete circles ⚪️

there’s wip (active development) and wip (stuck in development hell) and wip (oh you’re not even getting funding for this one)

Writing Resources: WORDS ARE HARD

60 Synonyms for “Walk”

A list of sounds/onomatopoeias for writers

American vs British terms

Descriptionary

Insult names to use instead of "idiot”

Looking for a word you can’t remember

OneLook Reverse Dictionary

One look thesaurus

Power Thesaurus

Researching for WIPs : A Collection

Reverse Dictionary

Synonyms for Very

Using the appropriate vocabulary in your novel

Wild vs feral

Words to use instead of: cry/cried/crying

Writing websites

Writing Tips

Descriptions in Between Dialogue

✧

⤠ how characters interact with the environment

⇝ moving something, picking something up, looking somewhere

⤠ how the environment interacts with the characters

⇝ weather, other character’s actions or movements

⤠ gestures

⇝ facial expressions, body language

⤠ shifts in position

⇝ standing, sitting, leaning, shifting weight, crossing arms/legs

⤠ physical reactions

⇝ body temperature, fidgeting, heart rate, character quirks

⤠ environmental descriptions

⇝ descriptions using the five senses, setting, character’s appearances

⤠ internal dialogue

⇝ emotional reaction to what was said, reflection of past experiences, connections to other characters/settings/actions

➵ I want to reiterate… descriptions using the five senses ; when in doubt, think of the five senses your character is experiencing and pick what best moves the story forward

A lot of fiction these days reads as if—as I saw Peter Raleigh put it the other day, and as I’ve discussed it before—the author is trying to describe a video playing in their mind. Often there is little or no interiority. Scenes play out in “real time” without summary. First-person POV stories describe things the character can’t see, but a distant camera could. There’s an overemphasis on characters’ outfits and facial expressions, including my personal pet peeve: the “reaction shot round-up” in which we get a description of every character’s reaction to something as if a camera was cutting between sitcom actors.

When I talk with other creative writing professors, we all seem to agree that interiority is disappearing. Even in first-person POV stories, younger writers often skip describing their character’s hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, memories, or reactions. This trend is hardly limited to young writers though. I was speaking to an editor yesterday who agreed interiority has largely vanished from commercial fiction, and I think you increasingly notice its absence even in works shelved as “literary fiction.” When interiority does appear on the page, it is often brief and redundant with the dialogue and action. All of this is a great shame. Interiority is perhaps the prime example of an advantage prose as a medium holds over other artforms.

fascinated by this article, "Turning Off the TV in Your Mind," about the influences of visual narratives on writing prose narratives. i def notice the two things i excerpted above in fanfic, which i guess makes even more sense as most of the fic i read is for tv and film. i will also be thinking about its discussion of time in prose - i think that's something i often struggle with and i will try to be more conscious of the differences between screen and page next time i'm writing.

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