Tag: writing

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

archwrites:

lenaleaderoftheresistance:

aaronbutterfield:

teashoesandhair:

peccaviofthesparrow:

doebarnes:

mugsandpugs:

jottingprosaist:

shredsandpatches:

hedwig-dordt:

naznomad:

martingoresangst:

Thats the weirdest erotic sentence i’ve read all month

this fucking post singlehandedly ruined my life

You don’t really appreciate how fucking great fan fic is when it comes to writing sex untill you stop to recognise how Serious Literary Stars fail at writing sex.

DO A BARREL ROLL

#in all my years of reading fic i have never encountered a sentence this terrible #did he just say that his dick smacked EVERY MUSCLE in her body except you know her vagina? #like I’MMA SMACK YOU IN THE CHEEK I’MMA SMACK YOU IN THE SHOULDER I’MMA SMACK YOU IN THE CALF #what is your dick doing?? #how do you think sex works morrissey??

Forget what his dick is doing, what are her breasts doing? How do a pair of fat sacks attached to a ribcage barrel-roll anywhere? Let alone across a man’s mouth and then his wanger immediately after? Sir, why is your mouth so dong-adjacent? Is your weiner detachable, is that it? Do you have your joystick clutched in your hand so that you can score a sweet schlong-to-titty-roll immediately after a kiss and then proceed to beat your banana all over her body in the world’s most failed attempt at erotic massage??? HOW DO YOU THINK SEX WORKS???

… guys

….. Are the sex scenes in My Immortal better than this?
“HE PUT HIS THINGY IN MY YOU-KNOW-WHAT AND WE HAD SEX.”

… I mean. Comparatively…

Like, in My Immortal, it’s at least implied he knows where he’s supposed to put it. It’s very simplistic, Ikea-style sex (insert tab A into slot B) but that’s better than this vague, useless composition of random, nonsensical placement and movement of body parts.

So yes, the sex in My Immortal is, in this sense, better.

@master-of-strings

OK so I’m sure people are aware of this, but just in case you’re not: there is an annual ‘award’ given every year by the Literary Review for bad sex scenes in fiction. The above entry (sorry) by Morrissey won this illustrious award in 2015 (and yes, he threw a massive tantrum about it, because he’s Morrissey):

The best part of this is that the 2016 nominations were just announced, and OH BOY, there are some absolute crackers this year:

And in case anyone is interested, these are some of the entries that Morrissey beat to the top prize last year:

I agree. We are spoilt by fanfiction. 

I literally never want to hear anyone badmouth fanfiction again, I have never in all my years of internetdom read anything as troubling as, “Under that sling, her breasts were like young fawns, sheep frolicking in hyssop – Psalms were about to pour out of me.”

tag urself i’m “Come, sonny boy!”

I kind of see what the fawn thing was going for – imitating Song of Songs – but (a) it does so badly, (b) it then brings up the Psalms INSTEAD OF Song of Songs. If you’re going to do literary allusions at least get them right, my dude

My worst (first) written sex scene is like literary gold compared to what I’ve just writnessed with mine own two eyeballs.

I suck at writing sex scenes and… well. I feel positively gifted, compared.

Microsoft Word/AO3 writing tip:

deluxekyluxtrashcan:

You may have already seen my Google Docs/AO3 post, explaining how to get around the odd formatting that occurs when you copy and paste from Docs to AO3. Here’s a guide for Word!

This will help avoid the paragraph spacing becoming messed up when you copy from Microsoft Word (2007 and later) to AO3′s Rich Text editor box. Basically, you want to only hit return ONCE when typing, regardless of your line spacing (single, multiple, etc).

I’m using 2007, but these steps and commands will work in newer versions too.

First, check if you need to change your paragraph spacing.

– Press CTRL+SHIFT+8 or click this button (found in the Home ribbon): 

image

This will show/hide the ‘formatting symbols’, which are little symbols that tell you which buttons have been pressed (space, tab, enter, etc). You can keep it turned on if you like – none of these symbols will print, or be copied when you copy and paste.

You want one ¶ symbol at the end of each paragraph.

– If you have one ¶ at the end of the paragraph, you’re fine!

image

– If you have two (or more) ¶ between paragraphs, see below.

image

.

Now, let’s sort your paragraph spacing

– Highlight everything. CTRL + A will do this nicely for you.

– Locate the ‘Paragraph’ dialogue box.

image

– In the box that comes up, go to the ‘Spacing’ section.

image

Your best bet, aesthetically, is to change the ‘After’ value, but it’s up to you! Line spacing doesn’t matter.

– Change the ‘After’ spacing to 12pt* using the up arrow.
*if your font is 18pt or larger, use 18pt spacing.

image

– Save the spacing as default if you like.

image

This will save you doing this step every time!

– Delete the extra lines. This is the sucky part. Hopefully you don’t have too much to correct! Remember: you want just one ¶ at the end of each paragraph.

image

– Write your thing! Now, when you copy into AO3′s Rich Text editor, the paragraph spacing will play nice.

I hope this was helpful! 

If you have any questions about this, or about Word or Google Docs in general, please feel free to ask! I’m always happy to help.

thegirlinthefandom:

My kinds of ships are the ships where the men know their women are powerful forces of nature and that they could fuck up entire armies in a matter of seconds and THEY EMBRACE IT AND TAKE PRIDE IN IT???! “Oh… It’s not me you should be worried about… It’s my WIFE.“ *smirks* YAAASSSSSSSSSS GIVE ME MORE.

varkarrus:

winterwombat:

When magic starts to return to the modern world, barely anyone notices. It doesn’t look anything like what we imagine. People don’t suddenly start developing magic powers, casting spells, or turning into elves and dwarves. In fact, people don’t really change at all, not at first.  It turns out that the magic isn’t even here for us. It’s here for what we’ve built. 

The change is slow, and subtle, and strange, as the magic works its way into our institutions. You mail letters to dead relatives, and the post office starts delivering their replies. Late-night bus routes stop at places never seen on any atlas. Libraries suddenly include subterranean archives where you can look anything you’ve ever forgotten, from the names of your favorite childhood books to the precise flavor of your first-ever chocolate chip cookie. 

The people working at these places take the changes in stride. The letters from the dead just show up every morning, sorted and stamped and ready for delivery, so why not carry them? Bus drivers follow the maps they’re given without trouble, and learn to accept even small gold coins as more than adequate fare. Electricians get used to seeing warding symbols in circuit diagrams, while clerks at the DMV find a stack of forms for registering ghostly steeds as personal vehicles, and sigh in relief at finally having that particular bureaucratic headache solved. The firefighters are shocked the first time they see a giant of living water burst out from a hydrant, but after it rescues several of them from a burning building, they decide not to ask questions. They tell their stories to others, though, and soon word of the changes is spreading. 

There’s no single moment of realization where everyone discovers that magic is real; the knowledge just creeps into day to day life a bit at a time, and society adapts. Cyber-safety programs teach people to never accept a file from the electric fairies without sharing one in return, and to never accept their Terms and Conditions without searching for the subsection on Souls, Forfeiture Thereof. Students leave offerings of coffee and boxed wine to petition the School Spirit for lower tuition or exam deferrals. Nurses learn the hours when Death stalks the hospital hallways, and keep bedside vigils in the children’s ward. They bring board games and cards for when the reaper is feeling playful, and well-worn baseball bats for when he isn’t. 

There are problems, of course, like the vicious monsters of blood and fire spawned from age-old hate groups, or infestations of the writing many-mouthed worms that literally feed on governmental corruption, but really, they were already there before the change. Magic only elaborates on what we’ve made, good or ill, manifesting the latent modern mythology underpinning our society. It doesn’t offer solutions to all of life’s problem, but for a few hurting people, guarded by the concrete arms of a neighborhood come to life to protect its community, or flying away on wings of copper wire and fiber-optic cable, it’s exactly the change they needed. 

#good grief the mental image of a nurse socking death in the face in order to protect a little kid is the most metal thing ever

A boy sprawled next to me on the bus, elbows out, knee pointing sharp into my thigh.
He frowned at me when I uncrossed my legs, unfolded my hands
and splayed out like boys are taught to: all big, loose limbs.
I made sure to jab him in the side with my pretty little sharp purse.
At first he opened his mouth like I expected him to, but instead of speaking up he sat there, quiet, and took it for the whole bus ride.
Like a girl.

Once, a boy said my anger was cute, and he laughed,
and I remember thinking that I should sit there and take it,
because it isn’t ladylike to cause a scene and girls aren’t supposed to raise their voices.
But then he laughed again and all I saw
was my pretty little sharp nails digging into his cheek
before drawing back and making a horribly unladylike fist.
(my teacher informed me later that there is no ladylike way of making a fist.)

When we were both in the principal’s office twenty minutes later
him with a bloody mouth and cheek, me with skinned knuckles,
I tried to explain in words that I didn’t have yet
that I was tired of having my emotions not taken seriously
just because I’m a girl.

Girls are taught: be small, so boys can be big.
Don’t take up any more space than absolutely necessary.
Be small and smooth with soft edges
and hold in the howling when they touch you and it hurts:
the sandpaper scrape of their body hair that we would be shamed for having,
the greedy hands that press too hard and too often take without asking permission.

Girls are taught: be quiet and unimposing and oh so small
when they heckle you with their big voices from the window of a car,
because it’s rude to scream curse words back at them, and they’d just laugh anyway.
We’re taught to pin on smiles for the boys who jeer at us on the street
who see us as convenient bodies instead of people.

Girls are taught: hush, be hairless and small and soft,
so we sit there and take it and hold in the howling,
pretend to be obedient lapdogs instead of the wolves we are.
We pin pretty little sharp smiles on our faces instead of opening our mouths,
because if we do we get accused of silly women emotions
blowing everything out of proportion with our PMS, we get
condescending pet names and not-so-discreet eyerolls.

Once, I got told I punched like a girl.
I told him, Good. I hope my pretty little sharp rings leave scars.

‘My Perfume Doubles As Mace,’ theappleppielifestyle. (via

theappleppielifestyle

)

thejovianmute:

rage-quitter:

I was getting pretty fed up with links and generators with very general and overused weapons and superpowers and what have you for characters so:

Here is a page for premodern weapons, broken down into a ton of subcategories, with the weapon’s region of origin. 

Here is a page of medieval weapons.

Here is a page of just about every conceived superpower.

Here is a page for legendary creatures and their regions of origin.

Here are some gemstones.

Here is a bunch of Greek legends, including monsters, gods, nymphs, heroes, and so on. 

Here is a website with a ton of (legally attained, don’t worry) information about the black market.

Here is a website with information about forensic science and cases of death. Discretion advised. 

Here is every religion in the world. 

Here is every language in the world.

Here are methods of torture. Discretion advised.

Here are descriptions of the various methods used for the death penalty. Discretion advised.

Here are poisonous plants.

Here are plants in general.

Feel free to add more to this!

An exceedingly useful list of lists for writers.

ohthatconnor:

drinkmasturbatecry:

nudityandnerdery:

the-fandoms-are-valentines:

grandtheftautosanandreas:

Douglas Adams is the best when it comes to describe characters

they need to teach classes on Douglas Adams analogies okay

“He leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis.”

“Stones, then rocks, then boulders which pranced past him like clumsy puppies, only much, much bigger, much, much harder and heavier, and almost infinitely more likely to kill you if they fell on you.”

“He gazed keenly into the distance and looked as if he would quite like the wind to blow his hair back dramatically at that point, but the wind was busy fooling around with some leaves a little way off.”

“It looked only partly like a spaceship with guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches and so on, and a great deal like a small upended Italian bistro.”

“If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly – again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.”

And, of course:

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”

the one that will always stay with me is “Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath,” i feel like that was the first time i really understood what you could do with words.

Writing Goals

blakesmilitia:

i’m always a slut for a christmas au 

  • “i know we hate each other but it’s christmas eve and your flight was cancelled please come inside”
  • “i got you for secret santa so i got you this really expensive but sentimental gift that you’ve always wanted, hoping you’ll never find out it’s from me – and that i’ve been in love with you 1234567 years”
  • SNOWBALL FIGHTS
  • “hi we’re neighbours and omg are you alright i could smell cooking burning – whoaaa now that’s just embarrassing? step aside i’ll handle this”
  • person a seducing person b into taking a few steps back/backing them against the wall (”oh look, how did that mistletoe get right there????”)
  • “you’re in the hospital for the holidays so i came in while you were sleeping to decorate your room i love you merry christmas”
  • “YES I BOOBY TRAPPED THE PRESENTS BECAUSE YOU DO THIS EVERY FUCKING YEAR”
  • “i live below you and i was minding my own business watching the snowfall out the window WHEN I SAW A BODY FALL ARE YOU REALLY PUTTING UP CHRISTMAS LIGHTS NOW”
  • I KNITTED YOU A JUMPER
  • MY MOM KNITTED YOU A JUMPER
  • “we’re strictly ‘platonic’ but we’re snowed in omg we’re gonna have to repopulate the earth”
  • “i slipped on ice outside your house and you ran out barefoot to help me quick let’s get inside under a blanket”
  • “’it’s a wonderful life’ aww it sounds so cute babe sure we can watch it! *30 mins later* “YOU MONSTER”
  • “we were playing in the snow and you suddenly tackled me to the ground and now…we’re just…staring… at each other…”
  • “YOU DON’T LIKE MARSHMALLOWS IN YOUR HOT CHOCOLATE? WHY DO YOU HATE LOVE”
  • TREE DECORATING (bonus points if one of them is doing it completely wrong omg why am i in love with you) 
  • “we took our kids to santa’s workshop and they both wished we would get together”
    FRIENDS AU – “our christmas party turned into a tropical theme because the radiator is broken and it’s hotter than hell in here – damn you look good without a shirt i never noticed before asgdhfjgkhl” 
  • “we’re co workers who hate each other but you had too much to drink at the staff christmas party and admitted your love for me i don’t know how to act around you now” 
  • DRUNKEN CAROLLING (”that’s not a thing” “oh yes it is”) 
  • TEACH ME HOW TO SKI (lol jk i know how you’re just so fucking cute)
  • “there’s a storm and omg i’m losing signal are you okay?? hold on let me drive 489432 miles to get you the night before christmas” 
  • PULLING YOU IN FOR A KISS WITH A SCARF 

  • “i did that annoying thing where i put loads of smaller boxes inside one big box and you’re getting really mad but you don’t know that the ring is in the smallest box and i can’t wait to see your face”

Another, less serious, coping post (but also a little bit serious)

lauramkaye:

And the other things that I am doing, in no small part because the Republicans would HATE IT:

  • Read a lot of slash
  • Write a lot of slash

Partly because, yes, it’s a relaxing thing where I can read about love and feel better. And partly because I like doing things that would make James Dobson clutch his pearls.

But also because slash was a huge part of what made me question my conservative Evangelical upbringing, become a liberal, vote for and support progressive causes, and eventually realize that I was bi myself.

How so, Laura? You ask. That’s just silly. They’re only stories.

I am the daughter of an Evangelical minister, raised in the deep South. I went to religious school. All of my activities were either church or school-focused. Everyone in my social circle was from either church or school. I knew a tiny handful of people who weren’t white and nobody at all who was openly LGBTQ. I was told very little about sex and what I was told was steeped in sexist, racist, homophobic rhetoric. (The curriculum my school used for sex “education” was called “Sex Respect.” Look it up; it’s horrifying.) I was literally taught that Christians could only vote for Republicans. (”What about Christians who vote for Democrats?” I asked, and was told, dubiously, that they MIGHT not go to hell, but that they were certainly not following the Lord’s will. I was also raised to view other, more liberal Christians with skepticism.) One of my proudest achievements in 10th grade or so was when I wrote an anti-abortion poem (called, I shudder to recall, something like “the cries of the murdered children”) and it was published in the school newsletter and put up on the main bulletin board, right outside the office.

So I went away to college, a wee Christian Republican, and landed in a dorm with free broadband internet. I met people who weren’t like me, and made friends with them, for the first time in my life! I was still in the South, and still keeping pretty squarely to religious college circles, but I was at least meeting people of other races and religions, and liberal Christians who showed me a different side of my faith. I still didn’t know any out LGBTQ people, but I was scandalized by my RA, who I thought was super cool, being in both Campus Crusade for Christ and Straight But Not Narrow. Eventually, I had a gay computer science TA, and I remember looking at his rainbow jewelry with wide eyes, like I was seeing an alien. (Hopefully, he just thought I was confused by the homework.)

(Note: I was VERY confused by the homework, and he was a FANTASTIC TA, and I would never have passed that class without him. Bless you, gay CS TA.)

 Anyway, at the same time, I started devouring fanfic for the shows I loved, X-Files and Star Trek and Star Wars. 

And I discovered… so much.

I had been so sheltered that I was rabidly curious for ANY information about sex. Before college, my best sources had been Harlequins and medical dictionaries and old sex manuals from the 70s I snuck peeks at when browsing the used bookstores. I learned at church camp that “fellatio” meant “oral sex”, but I didn’t know what that WAS. I was eighteen years old, and I thought that how sex worked was that the man stuck it in, came immediately, and then pulled back out again. (Somehow I guess the Harlequins had been too purple-prose in their sex scenes to convey the idea of thrusting?) And here was the information superhighway, ready to give me not only information, but lovingly crafted stories of Mulder and Scully (my obsession at the time) falling in love. And falling into bed.

I was scandalized the first time I discovered slash. It was a Mulder/Skinner, and it was super tame – nobody even did anything physical, it was just an acknowledgement of an attraction. But it seemed like the most transgressive thing EVER to me. And we all know about the erotic charge of the taboo, right?

I started reading slash. Lots of slash. X-Files and Star Wars and Star Trek and Highlander and Sentinel and Due South and Pros and Buffy and Starsky and Hutch and anything else that was well written or had characters I even halfway cared about. At first it was because, honestly, it was hot, and I felt guilty every time even though I wasn’t going to stop. I reasoned that it wasn’t real, right? Just stories. No real people were doing anything wrong, and masturbation was only a sin if you fantasized about real people while you did it. 

And then, over time, I got more and more uncomfortable with the sorts of things my church said about “homosexuals.” Because even though I still didn’t have any close friends who were gay, I’d spent several years reading gay love stories, and you know what happened? I loved those characters. I identified with them, I felt for them, I wanted them to live happily ever after and get married if they wanted to and have families if they wanted to and they weren’t doing anything wrong by loving each other.

And if Ray and Fraser, or Jim and Blair, or Kirk and Spock, weren’t doing anything wrong and should be protected, then the real live actual LGBTQ people in the real world weren’t doing anything wrong, and they should be protected, and my family and my school and my church had been lying to me all along.

That wasn’t an easy conclusion to reach. It was hard. It hurt. I sat in my room desperately Googling “can Christians support gay rights” and “what does the Bible say about being gay” and sobbing. I was afraid. What if this was what my mother, my teachers, had warned me about, that I would go away to school and lose my way, lose the truth, backslide, lose my salvation? Would my family love me anymore if they knew? I had started drifting a little leftward politically and testing the waters with relatively minor things like opposing the death penalty and my mother had harangued me about it until I cried; I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for something like this.

But once my eyes had been opened, there was no going back. I was afraid, but I had to be honest with myself.

I left my church. I went to a more liberal church that some gay people went to, and that used gender-inclusive language and didn’t preach about “homosexuality”. It was still Baptist, though not Southern Baptist, and they had a brick church and a steeple and choir robes, so it passed well enough to get my mom off my back.

I stopped hanging out with only church people and made fandom friends, and many of them were LGBTQ. 

Today, I’ve moved churches again, and now I’m happily to go to a social justice-promoting Episcopalian church with a sweet, grandmotherly priest. I have many dearly loved friends who are LGBTQ, and I’ve realized that I myself am bisexual, though I don’t think I’ll ever come out to my family or to anyone who might tell my family. I am solidly progressive in my values and my charitable spending and my letters to Congress and the things I speak up for.

Eighteen-year-old me would have probably voted for Trump, even after all the ugliness, because Trump was the Republican and good Christians vote Republican and I was a good Christian.

Slash was the thin end of the wedge that cracked open my perspective so I could entertain the thought that maybe the things I’d been taught weren’t true. I’m not saying that’s the only way it could have happened, but that’s the way it did happen.

So I’m going to keep voting and speaking up and donating to progressive causes. I’m going to give all the support I can to the marginalized and oppressed in the real world. Of course I am. But also? For all the kids growing up in conservative and Christian families, who have an uneasy sense that some things don’t quite ring true? For the ones who are struggling with questions and doubts, as well as the ones who are smugly sure of themselves? For the ones who know they don’t believe but aren’t safe to say so? For the ones who know they’re different but they’ve never met anyone like them and feel so alone? For all of the kids who are like I was…

I’m going to keep writing slash.