some highlights from my writing seminar with honestly one of my favourite authors of all time who shall remain nameless bc i dont want her to know i was spilling her secrets online
The first trick is to detach yourself from your idea. You don’t have just one novel inside you, and it’s not a big deal if you don’t finish this novel.
She was skeptical of the common advice “just write!!1!” - she talked about how long ideas for her most popular novels were marinating inside her before she properly wrote them
As a continuation of that, she was a big believer in knowing what you want to write before you write it. Not what you’re goingto write, what you wantto write.
The first thing she decides about a novel is what the mood is going to be, and this informs every other decision (e.g. the mood for Shiver was bittersweet)
Ideas should be personal, specific, exciting and they should exclude secondary sources. A personal idea isn’t necessarily autobiographical (which should be avoided), but it speaks to your emotional truth.
She said she had been read Ronsey fanfiction and she couldn’t view her car in the same way since.
Story is the thing that seems most important to reader but is most changeable to the author - story is subservient to your mood and your message. Change what you like in the plot as long as your book retains its sense of self.
Story is conflict, exploration and change. A good story has active tension -the characters want something, instead of just wanting something not to happen (e.g. wanting to kill an enemy instead of simply defending a stronghold against an enemy)
A story needs to have a concrete end, something to be done.
Satisfaction is important - deliver what you promise to the reader. The other shoe has to drop. Ronan Lynch doesn’t ever talk about his feelings, so its rewarding when he does.
Earn your emotional moments (she threw shade at Fantastic Beasts lmao)
Forcing a character to be passive is dissatisfying to the reader.
Characters are products of their environments, consistent/predictable, nuanced and specific, moving the plot, and subservient to other story elements.
She always starts with tropes for ensemble casts like sitcoms. Helpful for building good character dynamics.
Write scenes with characters saying explicitly what they’re thinking and then go back and make them talk like real people in the edit.
An action can also prove what they’re thinking, instead of making them say it or another character guess it (e.g. Ronan punching a wall).
Move the reader’s emotional furniture around without them noticing.
All her books follow the three act structure. Established normal -> inciting incident -> character makes an Active Decision -> fun and games -> escalation -> darkest moment -> climax.
Promise what you’re going to do in the first five pages.
Read your book out loud. Record yourself reading it.
If you have writer’s block, it’s because you’ve stopped writing the book you wantto write. She likes to delete everything she’s written until she gets back to a point where she knew she was writing what she wanted to write, and then carrying on from there.
I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.
* A pointless rambling of the relationship and parallels between Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd.
Picture this opening scene: There are two boys in a dark alley.
One is dressed in an expensive suit with a tie his dead father helped him with only earlier that evening. His hands are stained red with the same blood now puddled on the grimy cement. His face is in shock.
The second boy is dressed in tattered jeans and hoodie. His hands are stained with tires grease and are clutching a tire iron. His face is in shock.
Decades later, there are two more scenes to consider.
A seriously injured man sits slumped over in his father’s study. Without warning, a bat crashes through the window, and everything falls into place. He now knows what he needs to do.
Elsewhere, an emotionally distraught teenager is curled up into a fetal position on a hotel room floor. Heart wrenching cries can be heard from him. But it is only momentary. He now knows what he needs to do.
These two individuals are Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd. While they are both broken and determined men, Batman is a hero. The Red Hood is not. He is the anti-Batman and this is why.
Two Boys in an Alleyway
Despite similarities in their stories’ early themes and elements, Bruce and Jason came to walk down very different paths. One of justice, and the other vengeance. Batman is determined to protect the innocent and Jason more so on punishing the guilty. Both their ideologies have intrinsic flaws, of course, and will naturally clash often. But this wasn’t always the case.
Before they became a father and son perpetually in mourning for who they once were and what could have been, Bruce and Jason were remarkably similar. The two are cut from the same cloth and Bruce knows this better than anyone else.
In the Dumpster Slasher three-part story line, (Batman #414, #421, #422) Bruce becomes emotional. Violent. He sits in the batcave alone that night and contemplates his emotions.
“Nearly blew it. I let it get too personal. Lost my detachment…nearly lost control. Almost beat Cutter to death. Wouldn’t have been any big loss.”
Only one issue later, at the end of this story arc, Robin is out on the streets and becomes angry when he happens upon a pimp is threatening a prostitute with a knife. Now, I want you to compare his line here to Bruce’s and note what Jim Gordon said to him as well.
Batman: “I think he’s had enough, Robin. What were you trying to do, kill him?” Robin (Jason): “Would it’ve been that big of a loss if I had?”
It is important to note here that Batman is not worried or upset just because Jason roughs up a pimp. That would be hypocritical considering his own earlier actions. If anything, it’s because one of the main reasons Batman even takes in these kids, these ‘robins,’ is because he doesn’t want them to be like him.
And Jason was acting just like him.
Jason can and has screwed up and failed due to his own actions, but it was never the reason Batman became upset with him. His reactions in the comics when Jason does things like running ahead and ‘jumping the gun,’ are more like this:
He either makes a teaching moment out of it or is attempts to understand Jason’s reasons in doing any such thing. When Bruce does become harsh in his discipline, it’s either when he feels as though Jason has endangered his own life or as I said, he acts too much like him.
While there are quite a few more similarities between Bruce and Jason that makes them alike, such as both being introverted and interested in obtaining all sorts of knowledge that they might not even feel is relevant, they are both, at the core of their characters, deeply caring and compassionate people.
The differences only start to show with how they acton it.
The Not-So Dynamic Duo?
“What happened to you as a child, the terror, the pain, the horrors (…) you were broken, and I thought I could put the pieces back together. I thought I could do for you what could never be done for me. Make you whole.”
Hot take. Jason Todd is a villain and is best written as a villain.
Not in that campy way like he’s written during Dick and Damian’s Batman and Robin run while wearing that stupid pill-headed hood, (although, I grant he has a few lines that are enjoyable to read) but in all his serious, vengeful and downright brutal motives.
The Red Hood is the perfect Batman villain because he’s so different from what the widely perceived perfect foil to the controlled and disciplined Bat is…the Joker.
The Red Hood was vengeance at its purest. It is justice without being tempered by mercy. It is the rage of victims who were forgotten to become statistics. While other vigilantes wait for a cure, hope for rehabilitation, and pretend their system works, the Red Hood is a man of no such faith.
And this makes him a villain. And a damn good one.
During the Red Hood’s time as a crime lord in Gotham, he goes around blowing up buildings. He throws grenades into trucks. He mows down his competition with gunfire. Batman comes upon the bloodied hanged corpse of a man he was finished interrogating.
But what is so compelling about this all is that before all the murder, all the guns and explosions, Jason Todd was a very different little boy. And all the great and memorable villains start that way.
The Joker is not someone you’re meant to sympathize with or even understand. In fact, I find him more terrifying because he’s unknown. He has no backstory (unless you want to believe the one he gave in Killing Joke, but the clown has a new story for every face he meets) and seemingly does what he does for a laugh of all things.
Jason Todd is in pain. He’s traumatized. Betrayed. Buried. Replaced. He is no one’s son because his father abandoned him.
Once upon a time, Jason Todd was a boy who saved himself. One of the biggest lies that Batman himself perpetuates is that hesaved Jason from a life of crime. He tells Alfred that Jason was always dangerous. Bruce simply took him off the streets before he could be any worse.
But I don’t believe that’s true.
Jason grew up surrounded by crime, poverty, substance abuse and yet this amazing kid saved himself everyday by making a conscious choice to be kind and care about school, care about keeping his mother alive for over a year when he was just a child himself. That amazing kid was magic.
Jason Todd as Robin was magic.
“Jason smiles. A bright smile. The kind Robin, the Boy Wonder should have.”
A good portion of his character’s assassination was in order to push the Tim is the perfect Robin idea. It was editorial decisions. The same ‘suits’ who insisted that Tim Drake be the Robin in the New Adventures cartoon despite having Jason’s backstory and personality. But I digress on that.
Jason Todd was an introverted, studious, and emphatic person. He wanted to make friends with other kids his age even though he was a loner at heart. He joined the school baseball team and was a class officer, even if his training kept him from most social interactions.
He was also very much in tune with non-verbal cues and small changes in the environment around him. He was a thoughtful person who could be found admiring the stars or passing by scenery. When he teams up with the New Teen Titans, we get to see these aspects of his personality:
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful before. We’re actually riding above the clouds.”
“Every so often, I notice you become awfully agitated…like something was going on you didn’t want to be part of. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
It didn’t take Bruce long to fall in love with this boy and ask to legally adopt him. He found him to be smart, thoughtful, quick at learning and funny as hell. Their first meeting opens with Batman laughing in the very same alley his heart was ripped out decades earlier.
Even in the Rebirth canon, (RHATO #48) we see that Bruce is already set on taking in Jason while he’s still with Ma Gunn’s school. He likes this kid. A lot.
“Butler, actually. You’ll meet him someday, I’m sure.”
Jason Todd was happy. Mostof the time. Unfortunately, he still wrestled with depression and would sleep all day on occasion and could be found crying hidden away on his own, withdrawn from the concerned Bruce and Alfred.
In A Death in the Family, Alfred and Bruce sit down and discuss Jason’s worsening mental health, particularly after the Diplomat’s Son where Jason becomes witness to sexual assault, suicide and the failings of both Batman and the GCPD to protect innocent people. Barbara, his tutor, someone he cared about and got along with, is also shot a few months earlier.
Bruce thinks Jason has become suicidal. Alfred does not disagree with this theory and supplements it with things he’s observed himself about the ‘lad.’
“I’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying. When he’s seen me, he’s hidden the picture and left the room, refusing to talk.”
It is then that Jason discovers the truth about his mother at the worst possible time, when he’s not even thinking straight, and thus leads way to the tragedy that will be his murder at the hand’s of the Joker.
The Curse of Jason Todd
“Do you have any idea what you have done?! Do you? You have no inkling of what you’ve created – what you have unleashed! You have set free a curse upon this world!”
Red Hood: Lost Days, which depicts Jason’s dark post-resurrection origin, opens with Ra’s al Ghul bellowing this line, the steam from the Lazarus Pit still rising off of him.
I’m not going to analyze this line, I’m just using it to supplement a point of mine I hope I’m getting through well enough. The Red Hood is a compelling, tragic villain. He is similar to Batman in ways that Bruce always knew and may have even feared because of how intimately he knows his own deepest, darkest thoughts. Jason is the perfect foil as an antagonist for him because of what he represents to Bruce.
And it’s not his anger, or his rage, or even his brutality.
It’s his compassion. His caring. His emotions. And how they can open up the worst parts of themselves.
Both are motivated by preventing whatever trauma happened to them from ever happening to anyone else. They both trained for years with this motivation. And they’ve both acted out on the very person who inflicted their trauma onto them.
Here’s where their paths start to differ, however, and what separates them with a line of morality.
They both get angry. They both care so damn much. About Gotham, about innocents, about each other. They both get too emotionally invested and deal with consequences related to that. To manage with that, Bruce shuts down. He creates all these choices, rules and symbols. He uses every ounce of his self control to keep them.
Bruce Wayne is not a good person. He forces himself to be with discipline and will. He chooses to be a good man and constantly pushes himself to live up to that. Because it’d be too damn easyto be just like the Red Hood.
Jason doesn’t understand that. Because no matter what Bruce had done or will do, he doesn’t hate him. He can’t. Despite his denial of the fact to different people, he still thinks of Bruce as his father. This great figure that so many others revere and are even intimidated by.
He’s not the only bat-kid to think of Bruce in this light despite the fact that the man is not. It took Dick years to overcome that perception. Tim only just started to begin understanding this true nature after his own father was murdered.
But even if he did understand his (once)father, he still became the complete opposite of him despite so many early parallels. He doesn’t hold back his words and emotions, he doesn’t go into a state of controlled dissociation or emotional disengagement.
Jason Todd—the Red Hood—is Batman without all his rules and control. In a way, he’s what the darkest part of Batman himself wants to be. Jason does what Batman can’t do when it’s needed.
Because in Batman’s book, life beats out justice. Even if he could take down abusers and murderers, he won’t. He will choose saving and protecting lives over the apprehension of killers…he always does.
Batman is justice. Red Hood is vengeance.
Jason is a victim’s fantasy. He punishes and kills the guilty. Something Batman won’t do.
OHMIGOD ITS FINALLY OUT!!! This took forever to do. Way longer than I expected. This is of course mainly due to my massive lack of self-discipline. Sorry to keep you guys waiting xD
Anyways, Nirlock is An AU webcomic with the scope of merging the characters and ideas of Zootopia with the brilliant series Sherlock. It is NOT supposed to be a Sherlock remake with Zootopia-skins slapped onto the characters. What we want to do is imagine what Nick and Judy would be like if they were to take on the roles of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson!
Ok so when YOU put on skits for your family, your parents think you’re cute and show you “love” and “affection.” But when I do it, it’s all “what means this play?” and “u have to go to england for committing treason”
Amelia Richardsongenfic, 1.2k: Perhaps this is going to be a regular thing, Amelia thinks. Once every five years a total babe is going to crash into her office and mess around with her life.
I wrote something for Spring Fling this year! My prompts came from @why-this-kolaveri-machi and I ended up (as is Spring Fling tradition) with something short and sweet and (I think?) a little unusual.
Went into town for the first time in a while to get a surprisingly rare library book and was chilling in the library for a bit.
This woman in a niqab was chillen and sharing a table with me and this tiny little kid wandered away from his mom and sort of dinked around before slowly coming up to her.
I was waiting for the usual “what’s that on your face?” Thing but this kid taps her on the arm and whispers “Are you a Mandolorian?”
She was laughing and the little boys mom came over and apologized for him bothering her studies. She repeated his question to his mom and they both chuckled a bit. This little boys mom asked her to explain to her son why she wore a niqab so he could learn about it.
And guys it was a GOOD moment. His eyes were so big while she was explaining her religion and he asked so many cute little questions and I could tell it made that woman’s day.
what if they did an intermission interview but the questions were like super fucked up and stressful. “the arenas on fire and you can only save one teammate who would it be?” “whats your biggest fear?” haha alright thanks for the time have a good second period
“The prince just fell in love with Cinderella because of her looks!”
Wrong. Okay, picture this–
So there’s the prince, okay? He’s like, smack dab in the center of the ballroom, and he is like, horrifically aware that this whole ball thing is a result of his dad falling into a panic about the royal lineage or whatever and he’s stuck listening to highborn girl after highborn girl, all lined up, introducing themselves like, “Oh yeah my family’s been a longtime supporter of the crown, and I think you’re cute, *cough* I’ve been told I have child-bearing hips *cough* Who said that? Anyway–” and Princey boy is just smiling through it, he has been the center of attention for entirely too long, he misses his emotional support horse, and is just internally like “Someone please kill me now.” And then… he sees her–This isn’t a love at first sight thing, this is a ‘what the hell is going on over there’ thing, because this girl has not gotten into the Debutante line for a solid 45 minutes.
She’s just at the hors d’oeuvres table going HAM on the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, and like, she’s polite about it, she’s happy to move aside for other people grabbing punch and canapes (and she’s really so sweet with the wait staff, it’s kind of cute because they’re like… definitely not used to being acknowledged) but it’s like, “Damn girl, did you not eat today?” and then the prince is kind of stuck with the uncomfortable thought of ‘how many girls starved themselves to fit into a corset for this.’ And then the Prince realizes he’s missed the past 4 Debutante introductions because he’s watching Mystery girl hork down crab rangoons. So he’s like, “Excuse me” and manages to break free from the never-ending parade of girls who will hop on his dick for status.
And as he’s approaching Mystery Girl, it’s kind of hitting him that something’s not quite natural about her. Not fake, but not quite real. But at the same time this whole evening’s been just a whole circus of people acting fake as hell, so like, someone seeming a little off doesn’t seem bad, necessarily. And he sidles up to her like, “Hi,” and she’s like, “Oh–hey, have you tried the tapenade?” and she points to one of the plates, and at this point, he could hit her with the “You don’t know who I am, do you?” deal or the “Very funny, I see your play” deal, but at this point it occurs to him that, no, he hasn’t had anything to eat throughout this whole damn ball, partially because of being stuck in the debutante parade, partially because of nerves, and there’s something so disarming about the question that he grabs a crostini and she still seems so food-focused that it doesn’t seem possible that this is a play. So they both grab little plates and ditch the party.
She pretty much clears her plate in under two minutes and then has half of his plate, he’s cool with it, mostly he’s just absolutely fascinated listening to her.
See here’s the thing about Cinderella:
1. She doesn’t know he’s the prince. Like yeah, he’s been at the center of the room, but she’s kind of spent half the party eagerly looking around everywhere she’s allowed to go (”Have you seen rose garden? Have you seen the solarium??” further confirmation that she doesn’t know who she’s talking to) and the other half stuffing her face with food.
2. She assumes she’s never going to see anyone here tonight again, and no one recognizes her, so she has no filter.
So she’s just talking about whatever with this guy. He seems cool. She talks about her friends, who are rats. She makes little outfits for them. Sometimes they bring her little gifts. She is already the coolest person the prince has ever met because of this. She pretty much offhandedly talks about whatever is fucked up about the kingdom that would take his advisors two hours of hemming and hawing and watering down to address. She just says it like it’s nothing, just funky little things she’s observed, and again, she’s not aware that he’s the prince, but it’s still pretty damn bold to bring up at a literal royal ball.
She…seems to have the majority of graces that lots of girls from Respectable Families™ have, but there’s something strange about it, something simultaneously broken and hardened, like the way you can see where ice has thawed and re-frozen. Also the way she talks about her family, and the way she avoids talking about her family– is raising several red flags, not in the “Oh this is another person trying to take advantage of me” sense, but in the “Oh fuck, something’s gone really wrong and you need help” sense and also lowkey a ‘damn is she even getting fed?’ sense. But he can’t say, ‘Hey, that’s not fucking normal for people to say that to you or treat you that way. We need to get you out of there,’ without sounding crazy himself, so for now, he’s just going to chill, make sure she’s comfortable, and keep enjoying the evening. She’s somehow befriended like 4 of the waitstaff so they’re willing to cover for them while they disappear for a little bit, and they get plenty of time to talk, but eventually it hits her that she hasn’t danced yet and she’s like “Come on! I bet we can make the prince jealous!” and he just bursts out laughing at that like “hell yeah, let’s make the prince jealous. He’s a real asshole.” Like clearly she’s having a good time, so who is he to make it weird? So they head back to the ballroom and they dance. And our girl, Mystery Girl, Cinderella, while they’re dancing, becomes acutely aware that everyone is staring. That doesn’t seem quite right. Like, yeah she’s hot, she knows she’s hot, but at least a good third of the party should still be focused on the prince, right? Where is that guy, anyway?
Oh.
Oh wait.
Ohshit.
And Princey Boy actually picks up on her realization and they whisper argue for like 3 minutes. “Why didn’t you tell me?! Now I feel like a goddamn idiot!” “I dunno it was nice being treated like a normal person” “Well metreatingyou like a normal person makes me a goddamn felon or something did you consider that?!” “Hey–Hey–it’s cool–you’re cool–I think you’re amazing, and if anyone says shit about you, I can shut it down.” “Well I don’t like that! That’s fucked up!” “I agree. It is fucked up, but I believe in you, and I think you should have a chance, and I’m here to back you up. I know power is fucked up right now. I know. But are you cool with working with me to change that?” And our girl Cindy pauses on that for a couple seconds, because.. she’s just spent hours with this guy and like.. she knows he’s a good guy, she knows he means well, so she’s like, “I don’t know how long I can actually work with you.” and the prince is like “Look, I know your home situation is complicated right now, but I really think we can–”
And then the bell starts ringing.
It’s midnight.
And then she takes off in a panic, and our prince just met the coolest person ever, and like, he’s pretty sure whatever situation they’re headed back to is fucked up, and all he’s got going to find her is a shoe. A shoe.
