#female writers
A Brief Intro To This New Blog
Basically, this is a secondary blog I made for flash fiction, snippets, prompts, aesthetics and writing stuff in general. The original primary blog is @thecenturybookworm.
I’ll be posting my work really soon. Follow me if you want to see it!
Here’s the link to my Inkitt account: https://www.inkitt.com/maryam178
Also, I’ll be making a taglist when I’ll post my first work, so notify me if you want to be tagged, or want to get off the taglist, in case I tag you.
The people on my list are mostly only fellow writers on #writeblr and such.
Anyway, thank you for actually bothering to read this!!!
there are tons of different types of governments - mostly, as a pattern in fantasy, the government is either in the form of a monarchy or extremely corrupted. so i’ll be sharing some cool methods to write this, again, its just the way I want, do your own research if you want more in-depth info. (also, not a historian, these are things ive studied in history class!)
#1. Totalitarian states
These governments are extremely right-wing (conservative) usually, and impose strict censorship laws and usually have a very active secret police and intelligence systems made up of informants, militants and spies. A lot of the time, they also tend to brainwash their people into believing them using propaganda and silencing dissenters. They often use terror tactics like making the entire population distrust each other, as no-one is sure who is working for the government. Its using systemic terror and the fear of not knowing who to trust that creates very efficient (and terrifying) government systems.
#1a. Revolutions & Freedom of Speech
The reason why a totalitarian states rules in the first place is often because of having a great amount of military power, which subdues the people and is an efficient way to take away rights without having a massive protest or revolution. The only effective way for a totalitarian government to be taken down is if the head of state or an important general is murdered, throwing the lower governmental ranks into chaos. That usually culminates in a breakdown of the economy and politics and the chance for a new government to take power.
#2. Monarchies
A monarchy is a form of government where there is Monarch at the head of it. There are a bunch of different ways it can be organized, but usually there is a council of ministers in charge of different things (i.e Defense, Health, Education, etc) that meets and consults with the monarch, who is in charge of all the ultimate decisions. They monarch also deals with important foreign relations - meeting with monarchs or heads of other governments would be their job with advisory from the Foreign minister. Monarchies are more old-school, and also have no democratic election system.
#2a. Puppet rulers
A lot of monarchs in history - and in fiction, have been puppets controlled by a much more powerful person behind them. Whether this be because they’re old and powerless, or are blackmailed into it, they have no actual autonomy and are overridden by the person controlling them. Puppet rulers are especially useful as plot twists in fantasies, because the person who was built up to be the “big bad enemy” was actually being controlled by AN EVEN WORSE ENEMY⁉️
#3. Some questions to ask yourself about your governmental system
- Is it corrupted? To what extent?
- What factions exist within it? (eg: conservatives, liberals, etc)
- What do the people support/think?
- If there was an emergency crisis at the same time as a war was being fought, would the government prioritise its people or its soldiers/territory?
- Who was the previous government? How did the current government succeed it?
Not all of these require long answers, even a couple of lines to understand how the government did xyz would be enough context! hope this helped <3
writing high fantasy: a series ~ part 1; language
am i using this an excuse to rant about my new fixations? yes.
I genuinely feel like linguistics is SUCH a cool worldbuilding aspect but it just isn’t?? explored enough?? LIKE GODAMNIT do you not understand the possibilities of different dialects and just differences in regions? imagine character a asking a question in dialect A and character B giving a long-winded explanation in dialect B which character A just nods along too, but when asked to explain to the other members of their team they’re just like “bold of you to expect me to understand that”
disclaimer: this is stuff my mom and i talk about while watching gujarati cooking shows im not a linguist and this is my own personal experience!!
#1. If there’s a nationally spoken language, it ORIGINATED from a certain region
so, basically, spoken (and written) language differs over regions. mostly, the region where it originated from will have the most “pure” and “original” version of the language, with a lot of high-level words other people may not understand. this is so useful for comedy because a lot of people may just go ??? like what are you saying man use simpler language.
#2. Vocabulary!! and Accents!! Differ!! Depending!! On!! Where!! You’re!! From!!
if there are multiple languages spoken in your country/world, its ineviable that languages will mix. words from another lanuage may be modified and added to another one. it really annoys me when languages are treated as untouchable “wholes” as if they aren’t growing changing evolving things?? some examples of books where different languages aren’t written that well are the Grishaverse. inej learnt kerch but she NEVER used suli words in it by mistake?? or the fact that ketterdam a motherfucking PORT CITY never had misunderstandings due to different accents and vocabulary?? wild. unrealistic.
#3. the implications of language
okay. lmao. there are studies that show how you literally think differently when using different languages (re: the movie arrival) and ITS SO COOL. maybe a character switches to a different language when bargaining with murderers and talking to their s.o?? or maybe they choose to speak really formally in one language and only knows slang in another. its extremely varied and fun to experiment with!
#4. SOCIOLINGUISTICS and honorific systems
essentially, the way society affects language. when is formal language used? when is informal language used? do women talk differently from men? how many levels of politeness/rudeness are there? additionally, honorific systems are some of my favourite things - an honorific system exists in some languages like Japanese, for example, in which a suffix is added to the name of a person for formalness and is a social norm. there are so many implications of it, and can be used in so many different ways.
#5. an example (last point i swear)
one of my favourite books that incorporates language SO WELL is these violent delights by chloe gong. the incorporation of different Chinese dialects, switching of languages between English to Russian to French, all with diffrent connotations and implications. it was a DREAM reading it, because i have literally never seen a book have so much detail in languages.
anywayyyyy be glad i deleted all my rants of my personal experiences witih the amalgamation of gujarati and marathi, you really dont want to know.
I love talking about books with strangers; one time I was buying the Starless Sea and the cashier told me how good the book was, and that her friend loved it so much that she got a tattoo of the bee on the cover. Another time I was reading Kafka on the Shore while volunteering at a charity shop; this girl came up to me and asked me if the book was good since it’s on her book list, and I told her it was really good.
- And for you I will live a thousand life’s time, will haunt millions of houses, will wait to every dawn, every night, if that is what I need to do. - She mumbled within her honey lips, I gazed me with her earth eyes, so I took a long breath and touched her face.
- But my dearest one, I’m only and ever yours already.
- Quotes from a book in my head, with no ending nor beginning.
Alright you beautiful people.
Several months ago, I mentioned that I was working on my first book. And I would love y’all’s input.
It’s a story about witches and I need some help deciding on character names.
The main character is a 40ish year old woman with 3 younger sisters. (Ages from 20 to 35). They are all witches. I want their names to reflect their personalities.
In order to vote, you will drop a comment below and tell me do you prefer group a or group b.
Group A-
Main character - Ivy
Her sisters - Rose, Lily, and Violet.
Group B -
Main character - Winter
Her sisters - Autumn, Summer, and Spring.
Shoot me a comment down below and I’ll tally the votes in a month from now to see who the winner is.
Soul Searching: Katie Hims.
We ask five of the playwrights undertaking a feminine Faustian interpretation for the Globe’s Dark Night of the Soul a series of questions about the project and their approaches.
Katie Hims is a writer and has written for both theatre and radio. She has spent time on attachment to the National Theatre Studio and has recently written Variations for National Theatre Connections 2019. She is currently working on The Stranger on the Bridge for Postcard Productions at The Tobacco Factory, Bristol. Her previous stage work includes Billy the Girl for Clean Break at Soho Theatre. Her radio work has won several awards.
Three Minutes after Midnight
by Katie Hims
A writer and her niece are waiting. While in the room next door a nurse attends to the writer’s sister. The sister is dying and the writer finds she cannot resist scribbling down a scene about her sister’s death. A scene which reveals the secret of her sister’s life. And then the writer’s niece finds the scene in a notebook and accuses the writer of selling her soul.
What made you say yes to Dark Night of the Soul?
I was completely delighted to be asked to write for Shakespeare’s Globe. I’m afraid I would have said yes to anything that Michelle Terry asked me to write! But the fact that there’s a gang of us and that to a certain degree we’re developing the material together made it very appealing. Also, I think the brief is actually very open, so we should all be able to find our own quite different stories that we’re keen to tell.
What interests you about the Faustus myth or Marlowe’sFaustus? And what are you hoping to explore with your piece?
I’m still getting my head around what the Faustian bargain might mean for a female character. Faustus is about ambition and what he will sacrifice to achieve. Traditionally men have been expected and encouraged to be ambitious and women haven’t. I’ve always felt embarrassed by the idea of my own ambition like I want to disown it. I’ve often felt like I should be pursuing something more worthwhile and less selfish. I don’t know how many male writers are plagued by this feeling. I’m sure they are out there – and of course, I might be entirely wrong – but I imagine they are greatly outnumbered by women.
And yet I really do want to write. It’s the only ambition I have. So where does that leave me when it comes to writing about the Faustian bargain? I don’t know yet… Voltaire said: “One must be possessed of the Devil to succeed in any of the arts.” There are plenty of clichés around success coming only with sacrifice and what could be a greater sacrifice than your soul?
But what is a soul anyway? It means different things to different people. We talk of writers selling their souls and it usually means writing something terrible for a lot of money. But what’s so wrong with that? Maybe nothing. Maybe it depends on the nature of what was written. But I can imagine a story in which a woman sacrifices her soul for a lot less than absolute power and all the world’s riches. Which is potentially a story about equal pay…
How do you start to write something?
It depends what I’m writing and who I’m writing for. I’m happiest when starting with a character or an incident or some other small detail, and then following the trail of where that detail leads. One of my favourite ways to begin is to overhear something someone says in the street or on the bus. When starting with a broad theme I struggle more to find my story. The canvas is so big and you don’t want the theme to be writ large across the work. Whereas if you begin small you discover your theme and you don’t need to go hunting for a story to fit.
What made you want to be a writer?
I loved writing stories as a child but it never occurred to me that a writer was something I could actually be. Then in the final year of my drama degree, we did a playwriting course and I immediately lost interest in every other element of degree because I just wanted to be writing plays all day.
How important is storytelling?
I think it’s incredibly important. I think we’re telling each other stories all the time. They’re part of our everyday lives.There is a need to tell them and a need to hear them. I’ve got the writer’s guilt about not doing something more useful with my life, but my husband says to me imagine the world without any books and plays would you want to live in that world? And of course, I wouldn’t.
Would you say that there are any themes you are particularly interested in across your work?
Lost children who somehow make it home again seem to recur again and again even when I’m actively trying not to repeat myself. I’m a fan of a happy ending if I can get away with it.
Do you like to be involved in the rehearsal process?
My absolute favourite rewrites are the ones that get done in the rehearsal room. Hearing the actors say the lines tells you everything about what’s wrong and what needs to change and what ought to be said instead. It’s urgent work and removes all the doubt and umming and aahing. But I think you can drive the actors mad if you keep changing material too far into the rehearsal process. I think I need to stay away after a certain point because I would just keep rewriting.
What’s it like seeing your work being performed?
That depends! There’s something very nerve-wracking about it. At its worst, it can be cringe-worthy; like listening to your own voice on tape. But when you are sitting among an audience who are watching a play you’ve written and they are really really laughing or crying – that’s pretty amazing, it’s probably the best bit of the whole strange business.
What’s it like to be working on a production in chorus with other writers?
We’ve spent one workshop day together and I absolutely loved it. There’s a contradiction that writing is very often an isolated process and yet storytelling demands an audience. Stories grow and get better in the telling. So during the workshop we kind of functioned as an audience for one another.
On four evenings we will perform a selection of the pieces together as Anthology Performances. Check the website to see when Katie’s response, Three Minutes after Midnight will be performed.
This interview first appeared in Globe Magazine, available to buy in the Globe Shop. Become a Member of Shakespeare’s Globe to receive the magazine three times a year.
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The mornings are my favorite, especially on these dreary spring days, and the cold winter mornings. The notes of classical music swelling and shrinking like a pulse, a tide, filling every room with a beauty that does not fade. Music in the room over like a memory, ringing into existence over and over, hauntingly beautiful. Each note of For Alise adds grace elegance meaning to every movement, every drop of rain sliding down the windowsill, every sigh that escapes from my mouth. These moments are my sanctuary, my solitude. The sound of the coffee machine hissing and chugging, the wind and the rain, the patter of Luna’s paws on the stairs, the creaking of this old house, these are my own melody, the instruments in my life, beginning the first movement, the gentle sweet swell of the Sonata. I am not the conductor, I am the single member in the audience enraptured with the music, the empty cathedral to music with only me to add warmth to it all. No, God is the composer, every note another step in my life towards Him, for Him, from Him. My face turned up, worship on my lips, I live for these moments of simplicity and grace.
These are the moments that we live for
I could feel the hate radiating from her. I could see it in her eyes. I knew she didn’t recognize me anymore. Of course she didn’t. Who was I? Nothing. I had known it for quite a long time. I had seen the flashes of that monster inside of me, gradually becoming more prominent day by day.
I was sure though. I was sure that I would never hurt her, my princess, my girl. Yet here she was, standing in front of me, begging for mercy, asking to let her go.
“Show her what you can do. Show her the power you hold over her.” Said the voice I had been trying to fight for months. It always got the best of me.
Not today. I thought. With my heart breaking and my soul dying, I asked her to leave. I couldn’t look her in the eye. But I saw the hurt cross her face. Like she was expecting me to stop her from leaving.
*Trust me baby, I want to.*
I didn’t say a word though. She stood there for a few minutes, trying to find the person she had loved her whole life. I had been trying to find that person as well. And then suddenly, she started walking away. Her footsteps matching the pace of my heart breaking into tiny shards.
Yes, I loved her.
Yes, I had let her go.
“If love could save you You would have lived forever.”
And in the end, we are just mere human beings. Drunk on the idea of love, living on broken pieces of affection. Pretending to have the time of our lives, trying to love the life we have even though we all know, that when the end comes, it’s all going to turn to dust.
~Shubhaa
His touch burnt on my skin
And I, craved for more and more
It was a sin to want him
For, he was never mine to hold.
~shubhaa
And when thousands of years from now
Our story will be told
To the lovers
Their souls will be pierced
The pain would be immense
As fate would be feared
The trust would break
These ink stains
On my letter
Will tell the tale
Of love and hate
Oh, everything would perish
For, noone would love again
Because if we couldn’t make it
Neither would they.
~Shubhaa
#escapril2022 day four. a strange behaviour.
If I stay one more day
Maybe it will all be ok
༄
Finally
I didn’t chase what was walking away from me
I resisted the urge to beg and plead
I felt the pain
And accepted rejection
Time and tears gave birth to my resurrection
The answer to every question
Came in the stillness of disassociation
I am more than enough
And do not need male validation
To prove I am worthy to exist in this world
As a woman
༄
Down
Down
Down she goes
Into that endless black hole
No ladder
No hand of a friend
Nothing can make the darkness end
༄
Hurting and healing
Like the rise and fall of my breath
༄
The way I found God
Is the same way I lost him
On my knees
Head down
Ready to bleed
Crying so hard
And grinding my teeth
Desperate to taste
The mercy and relief
That they promise you will have
If you only believe
༄
Her face split open from his fists
Her heart split open from his cruelty
Her mind split open from the inability to understand it all
༄
A Confession
When I told you it didn’t matter
That your eyes went sharp and hot
When you spoke her name
I lied.
When I told you I was happy
With these scraps of your heart
I lied.
And I guess when I told you I loved you
I lied then, too.
But you’ve been telling me
All these same lies lately
And I didn’t think
You’d notice
Ghost Town
I took my love with me into a ghost town
I left it there so it would know the lost sound
A panicked heart, a silenced tomb
It’s the exact same thing I would have done to you.
I’m not a prophet, I’m not a source
I’m just a girl growing all these thorns
I never wanted to let you down
Yet here we are, walking to a ghost town
Boxes
I pack it all up in boxes
I lug it from place to to place
It weighs down on my spine,
The toll this life will take.
Our lives are packed in kindling,
The world will take its tithe,
We wait in silence together
For the match to strike the grease
I can’t remember sunshine
My hurts cast too long a shade
What’s it like to drop my defenses,
Leave my hurts, erase my hate?
I want to know the feeling,
But I’m scared of what I’ll find
Will this really feel like freedom,
Or just another shackle bind?
Author Vent
I’ve been struggling with writing. It’s been going on for a while, as you know if you follow me still and are waiting for updates to my works. I’m still trying, and have every intention of continuing to write and complete each piece and bring new stories.
To try and boost myself a little, I decided to post my completed series, Night Changes, onto WattPad. If you’ve done this, you know how tedious it can be. It’s one thing when you go one part at a time, but I was uploading the entire series. I had to ensure each chapter copied, add a cover and chapter covers, I rewrote the summary. I spent several hours doing this and when I finished publishing each part, saw the confirmations as I did, I felt so damn good.
But then I went to look at my page and see how the cover looked, and it wasn’t there. No story. Refresh, nothing. Close and reopen, nothing. Log out and back in, nothing. Delete app, reinstall, log in, nothing. It literally vanished into nothing and this is the only place that will understand just how upsetting this is. I worked hard to get my work up on a supposedly amazing app and all my time and effort is gone, and more importantly that feeling I was chasing is long gone. I just wanted to publish my work, feel that pride, and continue writing new stuff.
Anyway, I’m still here. I’m trying really hard to write and post, but real life has been shitty and the best I can do is tell you I won’t let you down.
Thanks for all the support.
—Bookish of Alder
ALTSometimes you’ve just gotta get it all down on paper.
I turned out the way I am because I read The Bell Jar when I was 15.
