Not too long ago, I talked on my blog about how epithets (”the taller
man,” “the younger man”) are not only bad, but completely unnecessary.
I got a couple of responses that were, shall we say, a bit rich in sodium chloride. I
was accused of not understanding that some people have to write scenes
with two characters of the same gender. LOL well I’ve only written two
hundred M/M fics, so yeah, I guess I wouldn’t know anything about those
struggles XD
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Epithets are a non-solution to a non-problem.
They are speed bumps in prose, forcing a reader to discern which
character is being referred to – just for a fraction of a second, but
long enough to be disruptive to the experience.
Also, although I love that fan fiction is not bound to the standards of
commercial fiction, I do think it’s telling that no professional author
uses epithets, and any publisher or editor who receives a manuscript with epithets
in them will tell the writer to remove the epithets and try again.
Nevertheless, some people believe that epithets are a preferable
alternative to using a character’s name or their pronoun “too much,” on
the grounds that this can also be distracting. So I’ve decided to make
this post, wherein I, with the help of two characters of the same gender, will show you some sentences that have epithets,
and then demonstrate how and why the epithet is unnecessary.
“Bob shoved his hand down the back of Mike’s trousers, cupping the other man’s ass.”
“The other man” is not needed. Just use “his” instead. In the first half
of the sentence, we made it clear who was shoving their hand down whose
trousers, so in the second half of the sentence, the reader doesn’t
need a “hint” about who’ll be doing the groping.
“Bob placed his hands on Mike’s thighs, which thrilled the taller man.”
Okay, I just had to stop reading, go to IMDb, and find out who is
taller, the actor who plays Bob, or the actor who plays Mike. Turns out
Mike is one inch taller. This could all have been avoided if the
sentence had instead read, “It thrilled Mike to feel Bob’s hands on his
thighs.”
“Mike heard a gasp from the brunette, the only sound he could muster.”
Super simple: “Bob gasped, the only sound he could muster.” In the
original sentence, filtering the action through one of the character’s
senses added nothing to the prose. If you wish to use a filter like this, try something a little more evocative instead, like “Bob gasped, the only sound he could muster, and it was music to Mike’s ears.”
“As Bob entered the taller man, the brunette cried out at being
penetrated. The florist was worried that he had hurt the barista, but
Mike assured the older man that everything was alright and he could keep
moving.”
Is this an orgy? How many people are here right now? And why does
it matter at this particular moment that one of them is a florist?
Perhaps the above example is a
bit exaggerated. But watch as I re-tell this exact action, removing all
epithets, without having to use names to an annoying degree: “The penetration was so intense, Mike couldn’t help but cry out. Bob froze, fearing he
had proceeded too quickly. With a deep breath, Mike assured him that
everything was alright, and to keep moving.”
Hopefully, Mike and Bob have helped me convince you that, if you feel that you have
a problem with using the characters’ names and pronouns too many times,
epithets are not the solution. Instead, try changing up your sentence
structure. Sometimes things can be simplified by breaking a more complex
thought into two sentences. Alternately, sometimes a compound sentence
will allow you to retain a continuity of action that eliminates the need
for naming the characters over and over.
But whatever the case, I always recommend erring on the side of using
more pronouns. Once you’ve completed your first draft, give it a couple
days (that is, forget the fic a little bit), then go back and re-read.
If you have trouble discerning who is doing what to whom, then it might
be a good idea to put the character’s name in instead of their pronoun.
Names, like the word “said,” are pretty much invisible to the reader.
Yes, you can use them too much, but it takes a quite a lot to notice the
repetition.
And if you believe that hating on epithets is just “the new trendy thing that’s
in vogue right now,” I would like to refer you to this amazing post from 2004
about how epithets are bad.
Happy writing, and feel free to message me if a particular sentence or paragraph is giving you trouble; I’d be glad to take a look at it. 🙂
My main piece Berlynn lays down the law about epithets. Listen to her. Please, for the love of all that is good and horny in the world, do not send me a manuscript with epithets. Do not. Please. I’m literally begging you.
Thank the good lord. Epithets are my #1 pet peeve (as y’all know, I’ve harped on it often enough) and I backarrow like a mothefucker when I encounter them.
Just a heads up, AO3 deleted one of my original works because someone reported it for “not being fanwork” despite original work being a “fandom” with over 35k fics.
“Under Section IV. of the Terms of Service, which you agreed to when opening your account, prompt requests, prompt lists, squee posts, notices about meetups, non–fanwork fiction or nonfiction, fic searches, rec lists, letters to other users, reactions to episodes, blog or Tumblr-appropriate posts, and other ephemeral content (i.e. content meant to be temporary), are not allowed to be uploaded on the Archive of Our Own.”
If you have multiple original works on AO3, you very well could be permanently suspended for violating the terms of service.
Be careful.
I have no fucking clue, especially since they hired people to wrangle the tags, meaning that they’re well aware that original work is an option
IS this true? D: AO3 what the heck?
Here’s the email I got, so yeah, it is true
Can everyone reblog this? AO3 has been dealing with a lot of abuse in their invite system, and if they’re cracking down on other areas like original works, this could affect a lot of writers.
Literally why is this the line they draw? I really do not get it. Heads up, though, I guess
The arguments pointed out things like, if you wrote “fanfic” in the world of Jane Eyre, using the names of a couple of characters mentioned in passing or even a couple of characters hypothesized from canon (like, Jane’s grandparents) – there’s no way to tell that apart from original fic. And there was a long history of BL/Yaoi being part of fandom, and that was all original fic.
While Original Fiction was indeed a tag, many people were using it for “fiction set in a canon world but not using canon characters.” Some used it for things like “events in the SPN universe that don’t connect to Sam and Dean.” Some used it for retellings of fairy tales, or new fairy tales. And so on.
At first, the official rule was, “must be fanfic in some way; we’re not checking for not-fanfic works, but we’ll review them if they’re posted.” Eventually, that was relaxed.
The idea was, it’s okay to have fannish original fic, but not non-fannish original fic. And yeah, that’s a blurry-as-hell line, may require reading to figure out, and so on. (Most of the content policy rules are designed to be implemented without the need to interpret much of anything; they’re supposed to be as objective as possible. Like, you can’t sort out “is this non-con explicit porn” by list of keywords, but we can pretty much all agree on what that is. “Is this fannish-style origific or is it mainstream-style origific” is nowhere near as obvious, and I’m very glad I’m not involved in decisions like that.)
TL;DR – some forms of Original Fiction are fanworks. Some aren’t. AO3 doesn’t want to be Wattpad or Fictionpress; it wants to remained focused on fanworks. It really doesn’t want to be another version of nifty.org. (Very NSFW.) It’s got a very broad definition of fanworks – I’m pretty damn sure that both Neighbor Steve and Grandson Todd the Demon tumblr threads would be acceptable – but not every bit of fiction is a fanwork.
If you think your original fic was some form of fanwork, send them a note and discuss it.
I’m interested in the kinds of fanwork that goes on in the production of fanfiction; there’s more than we usually articulate, and I’ve often felt like we haven’t got the language to differentiate between the different kinds of beta work that goes on behind the scenes. So I’ve given a shot at articulating and classifying the various kinds of beta reading I’m familiar with.
SPAG Beta. Spelling, punctuation and grammar. This is your basic line edit. This is the person who catches your typos and silly mistakes.
Dropped Words Beta. Some people might be both a SPAG and a dropped words beta, but I feel this one deserves pulling out. I don’t know about you, but I can’t write a damn sentence without dropping at least a word or two. I think the word is there, I can practically see it there, but it’s not there. Many (if not most) people will add the lost at or an or the in there for you in their minds and not notice, but the laser eyes of a dropped word beta will put you to rights again. To be a dropped words beta you need to be able to look at the text without getting drawn into the story, and that’s both a special skill and a sacrifice for someone who actually likes your story. So anyone who can do this: you are a treasure, a gift, and made of gold.
Plot Beta. This is work that happens at the very beginning, as well as throughout a story. A plot beta is the person you talk your story out with, she’s your sounding board in the creation process. She may not be into SPAG or dropped words, and might not be a britpicker or formatting genius, but that doesn’t matter. Your plot beta’s not really there to worry about your word choice. She’s there to help birth a story with you. I write very long stories, so plot betas come in early go through my outline with me as I construct it. A plot beta is one of the few who end up beta reading an outline, in my experience. Many betas I’ve worked with don’t want to know what’s going to happen next in a story. They don’t want to be spoiled. So you can keep the spoiling conversations between you and your plot beta, and keep surprising a SPAG and formatting beta.
Research beta. This person works with you to help you pin down the bizarre facts you need to get your story right. Like a plot beta, they can act as a sounding board and help you construct the fine details.
Character Beta. This is someone who will act as a north star for you on a particular character. This is helpful if you’re writing about a character you don’t feel entirely certain about, or you just want someone to argue with you about the actions of a particular character so you can feel confident that s/he is at least close to being in character. It’s actually hard to keep the canon core of a character in your mind as you morph and change him/her, so having someone around who isn’t off on your flights of fantasy with you can be helpful in that respect.
Emotional Flow Beta. This is someone who reads your story for its emotional flow. Is it working? Does it ring true? They’re not there to debate whether the characters are OOC, just to tell you if the actions you’re describing feels real. This is related to a plot beta, and can be related to a character beta, but is different than both. Your emotional flow beta might have no idea where you’re story is headed and is just reacting to what’s on the page right now, which is useful. (hiddenlacuna suggests: whump!beta.)
Settings and Location Beta. This is someone who is attuned to the places you’re setting your stories, works well with Google Maps, and is anal retentive enough to correct you if you say it takes forty minutes to walk to that Tesco when it actually takes about twenty-five. This person is often also your Britpicker, but this is a separate service, I’d say.
Britpicker. Everyone knows what a Britpicker is, right? The person who tells you you’ve used the word “gotten” again, and that “recognize” doesn’t have a z in it in the UK. Also it’s a lift for God’s sake, not an elevator! In other fandoms, you may need an Americanpicker or other. (I’ve yet to be asked to act as a Canuckpicker, much to my disappointment.)
*-picker. You can call in an expert on anything, really. If you have violins in your story, call in a violin expert! Cricket? The inner workings of the BBC? Find a picker for that! It never hurts to call in someone with specialist knowledge.
Smut Beta. The person who helps you sort out those insanely complicated sex scenes. This is someone you trust not to laugh their bums off at you as you stumble through this terrifying territory.
Canon Beta. Someone whose inner knowledge of the canon in question is exquisite, and who can make sure you haven’t made any egregious mistakes.
Formatting Beta. This is a person who makes sure your code is clear to be posted. In more complicated stories, this might be a bigger deal than usual.
One person can be many of these things; obviously they’re not mutually exclusive. I think you could merge a few of the pieces and end up with a sort of sounding board beta you talk to before and during the writing, and then the person with the laser eyes you call in once you have something to actually look at. But these are (at least some) of the work that is behind the scenes of a fanfiction story.
If you are someone who would like to be someone’s sounding board, but you don’t really want to be responsible for line editing, you can still offer to beta. It’s just a different kind of relationship, and different expectations on both sides! All kinds of betas are welcome, useful, and intensely valuable!
No problem! And sorry about not answering sooner, I was on vacation. To make it up to you, I’ve made one of my trademark Long Posts about it.
TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE PAIN (FOR BOTH ORIGINAL CONTENT WRITERS AND FANFICTION WRITERS)
When I first started writing, about eight years ago, I had the same issue as @imjustafuckinggirl.
How are you supposed to write about pain you’ve never experienced before???
The characters in my book suffer through all sorts of terrible shit, and in no way am I writing from experience, which is marginally easier to do than write about something that has never happened to you.
However, with time, I managed to gather up a few strategies on how to write pain.
1. Don’t Write Paragraphs About It
I know, it’s tempting. You want to convey to the reader just how much pain the character is in, and you think that the pain will be emphasized the more you write about it.
This, however, is a lie.
As a reader, when I’m reading a book or fanfiction where, whenever the writer uses agonizingly long paragraphs to describe when a character is hurt, I skip it.
Entirely.
It’s boring and, quite frankly, unnecessary, especially during a fight or huge battle, which are supposed to be fast-paced.
When it comes to writing about pain, it really is about quality and not quantity.
In my own writing, I stick to short, quick paragraphs, some of them which are barely a line long. This gives it a faster pace and sort of parallels with the scattered, spread out thoughts of the character as they suffer.
2. Describe it Right
Many times, usually in fanfiction, writers over-exaggerate certain injuries.
This partially has to do with the fact that they’ve never experienced that injury before and are just thinking about what it might feel like.
As a girl with two brothers and who often participated in rough play-fights, I can assure you that getting punched is not as painful as you think it is.
(However, it does depend on the area, as well as how hard the punch is, on top of the fact that you have to take into account whether or not the punch broke bones)
I’m reading a high school AU where a character gets punched by a bully (Idk where they got punched it wasn’t stated) and the author is describing it like they’d been shot.
It was to the point where I was like Did the bully have brass knuckles or something????
It was very clear that this author had never been punched before.
When describing the pain of an injury or the injury itself, you have to take into account:
– What object was used to harm the character
– Where the injury is
– How long the character has had the injury
– (For blades) How deep the cut is
– (For blunt force trauma) How hard the hit was
– Whether or not the wound triggers other things (Ex: Concussion, vomiting, dizziness, infection, internal/external bleeding).
There’s also the fact that when some authors described wounds caused by blades such as knives, daggers, and swords, they never take into account the anatomy of a person and which places cause the most blood flow.
Obviously, a cut on your cheek will have less of a blood flow than a cut on your wrist, depending on what the blade hits, and I hope that everyone consults a diagram of veins, capillaries, arteries, etc. when they’re describing blood flow from a certain place.
There’s also the fact that you have to take into account where the blood is coming from. Veins? Arteries?
The blood from arteries will be a brighter red, like vermilion, than the blood from veins, which is the dark crimson everyone likes to talk about.
Not all places gush bright red blood, people!
3. DIFFERENT INJURIES HAVE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAIN
Here, let me explain.
A punch feels different from a slap.
A broken arm feels different from getting stabbed.
A fall feels different from a dog bite.
I’ll give you a list of all the kinds of things that can be described for the three most common kinds of injuries that happen in stories:
Punch/Blunt Force Trauma
How it feels:
– Aching
– Numbness (In the later stages)
– A single spike of pain before it fades into an ache
– Throbbing
Effects:
– Vomiting (If the character is punched in the gut)
– Swelling
– Bruising
– Broken bones
– Unconsciousness (Blow to the head)
– Dizziness (Blow to the head)
– Concussion (Also a blow to the head)
– Internal bleeding
– Death (In the case of concussions and internal bleeding and broken bones- ribs can pierce lungs)
Stab Wound/Cut
How it feels:
– Stinging (only shallow wounds have just stinging)
– Burning
– With stab wounds, I feel like describing the effects of it make it more powerfully felt by the reader
Effects:
– Bleeding (Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be)
– Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)
– Unconsciousness
– Infection (if left unattended)
– Death
Gunshot
How it feels:
– Depends on the caliber bullet, from how far away they were shot (point-blank range is nothing like being shot from a distance), and in what place. Do careful research and then make your decision.
Effects:
– Bleeding
(Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of
blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be. Also take into effect the above variables for blood flow as well.)
– Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)
– Infection (if left unattended)
– Death
Some things that a character may do while they’re injured:
– Heavy/Harsh/Ragged breathing
– Panting
– Making noises of pain
gasping
grunting
hissing
groaning
whimpering
yelping (when the injury is inflicted)
screaming
shrieking
wailing
– Crying/ Weeping/Sobbing/Etc.
– Clenching their teeth
– Unable to speak
– Pressing their hands against a stab wound/cut to try and stem the bleeding
– Eyesight going out of whack (vision blurring and tilting, the room spinning, black spots consuming sight)
I had a nonny ask me a question last night – how do you
write a good Omegaverse story, and I gave as good an off-the-cuff answer as I could.
It’s a good question, and one of course that applies to all writing, and I
think it deserves a longer answer. How do you write a good story?
I think good stories start by asking the question “what if .
. .” After watching S4, Sherlock fans might ask “What if Mary faked her death?”
or “What if all of TFP was really John hallucinating in a fever dream, and then
he wakes up?” I think some good Omegaverse questions might have started with “What
if men had to have babies?” or “What if men were considered the weaker sex?” Once
you’ve asked a question that challenges the status quo, you’re off and running
with a story.
Everything you write needs to rotate around your “what if”
question. What kind of people need to inhabit the world of this “what if?” Even
if you are using established characters from a fandom like John and Sherlock,
you have to ask yourself, what is THIS John and Sherlock like? How did this
world or scenario shape and crack them? If you are creating a new world, you
have to ask how is it different, and also the same to our world? Creating some
ground rules helps a lot. Some authors like
to keep a file on their world, a fact cheat sheet they can refer to. If you are
writing a SF or fantasy or Omegaverse fic, what are the basic rules that make
up this world? Jot them down for future reference.
Next, you need a good conflict. What is getting in the way
of your character’s finding peace and fulfillment? What is blocking them from getting
where they need to be and how do they get there? A popular way of writing
stories is in three acts, the set up, the crisis, and the wrap up. Often
writers will build the tension, having character face a few minor problems
before the biggie, and then they are on to the resolve and the ending. How did
the big problem or the crisis change things? Are the characters different? Is
the situation different? Each story will answer this their own way.
Then you need your details, the small things that make this
story come alive. When people give advice for writing and say “write what you
know” I don’t think they mean just write stories about your day job, and
waiting in traffic, and going to the grocery store. They mean bring your
thoughts, and feelings, and experiences to this story and breathe life into so
it feels like things happening to real people in the real world. If your
character is remembering their childhood, remember YOUR childhood. Put the
smell of your gran’s apple pie, or that mean kid who made you afraid to go to
lunch, or the realization that you were probably never going to actually BE a
famous rockstar one day into your story.
Also, it’s fine to write about things you know nothing about.
Learning weird new stuff for a fic is part of the fun in writing I think. I’m
old. There wasn’t even an internet when I was in school. Now we have so much
fabulous information at our fingertips. Some will say don’t use Wikipedia, it’s
often wrong, but I would hazard to say that for fanfic, close enough is close
enough. Put a note in your fic that this probably isn’t an accurate
representation of neurosurgery or the British law system. You can always update later if more accurate
info comes your way.
Don’t be afraid to write crap your first go around. When you
write, you have at least two hats you need to wear – the creator and the
editor, and they are very different jobs. Many talk about writing not a first
draft, but a zero draft when they first start a story. Write the worst thing
you possibly can that just gets you started. When you aren’t sure of a fact or
a name or whatever, leave brackets in your story (fancy breed of dog) or (city
in the south of Wales) to be filled in later when you start editing. Your beginning
draft doesn’t have to be or do anything beyond just existing. It’s a beginning.
You build from there.
Don’t give up, and keep going. No one runs a marathon their
first day. It takes days and days of stretching and training and smaller runs
before someone works up to big race. So it is with writing. Write your
drabbles, and your awkward poetry, and your half-baked ideas, and keep going. With
practice, it all gets easier and your writing gets better.
AO3 has reached 25,000 fandoms! To celebrate, we’ve put together info about fandom tags and how all tags work: https://goo.gl/W4wPxH
Hey folks who use AO3 – please read and reblog widely. In addition to the celebration of our 25,000th canonical fandom, this post contains some great tips for making our tagging system work for you.
As a Support Staffer and Tag Wrangler for AO3, I beg you:
Among the tips:
Separate your / and & ships / is for romantic and/or sexual
relationships. & is for platonic relationships only – ones that are
neither sexual nor romantic. (Pre- and Post-Relationship are still /.)
& was created for those Gen fans who don’t want anything
non-platonic in the ships they’re searching for. You can help both Gen
fans and shippers by carefully choosing the tag that matches your work!
Look, I know you’re writing a slow burn where the friendship aspect of the relationship is important. I applaud that; I love it in my romantic pairings. But it’s a /, not a &. Please save & for those of us who want to find the three truly and purely gen fics for a popular romantic ship.
Folks, I LOVE AO3, please read and share!
As someone relatively new to using AO3, I did not really realise this. *goes back to check tags* THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS.
Sherlock Fandom Archive 