asktjandamal:

There’s nothing in TJ and Amal that’s meant to have larger significance. (Like, the guys and their journey aren’t supposed to ~represent modern American society~ or anything; I’m not smart enough to write decent allegory.)

…But there are some things I’ve intentionally used to relate to the central theme of the story and to the characters’ relationship and individual development arcs. Things like where they’re sitting in relation to each other (“driver side” vs “passenger side” depending on who has more power/control in a situation), how they address each other (did you notice Amal has just switched back to “T.J.” instead of “Teej”?), certain body language, the use of clothing/accessories to accent emotional states (glasses/no glasses, open shirt), etc.

marciellesmusings:

verifascinating:

raktajino-hot:

Link to quote source (x)

“Slash is what happens when you take away the glass.”

THIS IS PERFECTION!!!!

(via agentsex)

(Source: scribnerbooks, via samwinchestercriesthroughsex)

beautyandterrordance:

“I just want [people] to remember me a hundred years from now. I don’t care that they’re not able to quote any single line that I’ve written. But just that they can say, ‘Oh, he was a writer.’ That’s sufficiently an honored position for me.”

-Rod Serling (1975, via), via oldhollywood.

(via moxyfrolicboutique)

My Life In Living Colour: stannisbaratheon: downtothelastbullet: tywinning asked you: 2012-08-09...

stannisbaratheon:

downtothelastbullet:

tywinning asked you:
2012-08-09 03:37

As a professor, may I ask you what you think about fanfiction?

I think fanfiction is literature and literature, for the most part, is fanfiction, and that anyone that dismisses it simply on the…

(Source: onlyalittlelion)

Top 10 Most Misunderstood Lines in Literary History

amandaonwriting:

10.  Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

Famous Quote: “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

The United States’ most famous poet’s most famous poem is a timeless ode to the American ideals of “individuality” and “forging your own path.”  It’s one of those poems that’s so famous, even people who hate poetry can quote it.  These are the reasons it appears on The Academy of American Poets’ list of top poems for college graduation.

Except aside from that last part, everything we just said isn’t true.  Frost is actually using an old technique known as the “unreliable narrator,” and he isn’t even being all that subtle about it: in spite of the famous quote’s insistence that one road is “less traveled by,” the second stanza of the poem clarifies that both roads are “worn… really about the same.”  Oh, and also, Frost himself admitted that he was actually mocking the idea that single decisions would change your life, and specifically making fun of a friend of his who had a tendency to over-think things that really weren’t that big a deal.

So what you thought was life-affirming was really just another poet/hipster condescendingly saying “you think you’re an individual, when really you’re just a cog in the machine, man!”

9.  William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

Famous Quote: “Star-Crossed Lovers”

Aww, Romeo & Juliet: two teenagers in the throes of what could possibly be the most pure love in literary history.  This is why when a magazine wants to comment on, say, Justin Bieber’s love life or the relationship between a little boy and his horse, they’re likely to reference the sonnet that opens Shakespeare’s most famous play by calling them “Star-Crossed Lovers.”

And sure, this is totally appropriate, if you’re expecting these people to die.  ”Star-Crossed” doesn’t mean “brought together by fate,” it means “fated to die,” because the stars (fate) have “crossed” you.  Shakespeare is intentionally reminding everyone at the beginning of his play that this is a frickin’ tragedy, you guys, and you’re in for a miserable ride.

8.  Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

Famous Quote: “Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes the world go round.”

This is an amazingly misunderstood line from an amazingly misunderstood writer.  Pretty much everything about the life of Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) is shrouded in confusion and slander; rather than being about drugs, Alice in Wonderland is most likely a criticism of then-new forms of mathematics that were becoming popular at Dodgson’s own Oxford College.  In addition, though he was commonly accused of pedophilia, The Annotated Alice and The Carroll Myth makes the argument that Dodgson was actually asexual, and preferred the company of children because he was extremely uncomfortable with courting and any form of sexual innuendo.

Finally, and perhaps fittingly, his most famous quote is the one here about love making the world go ’round, and it is directly contrary to all of his pessimistic and strictly logical real-world values.  In context, this quote is said by The Duchess, a character who is introduced as a potential child murderer.  Hardly the kind of character a writer would want to speak the moral of his story.

Finally, need we remind you that Dodgson was a mathematician?  Almost every detail of his biography — as well as the actual context of this story — show that this idea of love as a geo-revolutionary repellant is supposed to be scoffed at, not adored.

So it’s true that you might believe this to be true, but if that’s the case then it’s also true that one of history’s greatest writers is making fun of you.

7.  William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Famous Quote: “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

No, this is not the last time Shakespeare is appearing on this list.  You can probably guess why this line has become popular: it’s a simple platitude, and it’s attractive because it deals with individuality (just like the Frost example).  However, if you look at who’s saying it and really analyze the content of the play, it becomes quickly obvious that Willy Shakes is making fun of this whole concept.

As anyone who’s read Shakespeare knows, the English language has evolved quite a bit since these plays were first performed, and what now seems like new-agey self-acceptance actually meant something quite different in Elizabethan times: Polonius is telling his son to work for himself, and only for himself, and to put everyone else he encounters second.  He’s not encouraging individuality, he’s encouraging selfishness.

Furthermore, Polonius spends the whole play being a complete nitwit, and even Wikipedia’s basic description of him includes pointing out that he is “wrong in all the judgments that he makes during the play.”  In most versions, Laertes (Polonius’s son,and the character he’s talking to) isn’t even listening — lots of stage directors will have the character roll his eyes and scamper off quickly to avoid the avalanche of clichés his father is dumping on him.

So what sounds like the kind of cutesy nonsense you’d roll your eyes at is really just bad advice given by a dumb character to someone who isn’t even listening.

6.  John Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn

Famous Quote: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”

Of all the examples on this list, this is probably the most likely to be misunderstood.  After all, whether or not Keats was being serious when he said that, beauty = truth is basically the Kirk v Picard of classic English Literature.  Unlike that controversy, there has actually emerged a begrudging consensus, and that is “that Keats did not, in fact, believe that beauty is truth.”

The controversy boils down to whether Keats thought art was a) supposed to represent the real world, or b) was better than the real world, with most scholars eventually deciding that Keats believed the latter.  Not only does this cast a strange shadow over the rest of Keats’ work, which is described here as being “way over on the idealistic side of the sliding scale of idealism versus cynicism,” but it’s also just kinda fun and quirky that the most stereotypically pretentious comment in English Literary History was actually a sarcastic quip.

5.  William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

Famous Quote: “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”

“Wherefore” means “why,” as in, “why is your name Romeo?”  The central conflict of the play is that R & J can’t be together because they are members of feuding families.

Juliet isn’t asking where Romeo is — that’d be stupid.  He’s standing right in front of her.

Also, we told you Shakespeare would show up on this list again.

4.  Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of East and West

Famous Quote: “Oh East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.”

It’s usually just the last couple lines here that are quoted, usually to describe two things that, you know, won’t ever meet.  Memorable instances are from Raising Arizona (“There’s what’s right and there’s what’s right and never the twain shall meet,”) and the first episode of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, if anyone cares at all about that.

The problem is that Kipling isn’t just being sarcastic here — it’s blatantly obvious that within the context of the poem this is just a straw man argument, and only stated at all so he can immediately point out why that statement doesn’t apply.

“Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”

In addition to having some confusions about how capitalization works (silly nineteenth century, amirite?), Kipling is taking the blatant stance that colonialism pretty much rules and East and West are going to meet pretty hard despite all that physics stuff.

3.  Robert Frost, The Mending Wall

Famous Quote: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Hey Robby Frost, good to see you on this list again.  Privacy is the theme this time, and while the phrase “good fences make good neighbors” is not quite so famous as some others (though you’ve certainly heard it), The Mending Wall gets launched up to number 3 on this list for one simple reason: it’s misunderstood by federal law.

“Separation of powers, a distinctively American political doctrine, profits from the advice authored by a distinctively American poet: Good fences make good neighbors.”

That’s United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, literally creating hard law from thin air, and not understanding the thing he’s talking about.

The Mending Wall does include the line “good fences make good neighbors,” but it also paints the character speaking that line as a bit of a twit.  ”Something there is that doesn’t love a wall… (nature) sends the frozen groundswell under it.”  The poem tells a story of two neighbors with a wall between them, but every winter the wall falls apart, so the neighbors have to meet and mend the wall, spending more time together than they otherwise would have and growing increasingly frustrated with the each other.

Remember that the Supreme Court has nine justices, and at least one (Stephen Breyer) actually pointed out the error in his concurring opinion, but Scalia decided to leave the mistake in anyway.

2.  Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Famous Quote: …at the bottom of all these noble races the beast of prey, the splendid blond beast, prowling about avidly in search of spoil and victory…”

We’re not going to put the whole quote up there because Nietzsche was a philosopher and therefore pretty longwinded, but we’ve highlighted the important parts.  Or rather, we’ve highlighted the parts that the Nazis thought were important, when they were all Nazi-ing around and committing the first ever industrialized genocide, trying to live up to the standards that Nietzsche, apparently, set for them.

The problem is that’s not what Nietzsche meant at all.  The original quote ends like this: “the Roman, Arabian, Germanic, Japanese nobility, the Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings — they all shared this need.”  Everyone’s a blond beast because blond beasts are a metaphor for lions.

So if you’re going to use a philosopher as the backbone of your political movement, you might want to make sure you finish reading his sentence before you get the war machine up and running.  Also, the fact that you thought he was advocating genocide was probably a pretty good hint that you shouldn’t have been listening to him anyway.

You stupid Nazis.

1.  William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Famous Quote: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

This is definitely the most quoted line in all of English literature, so much so that you’ve probably seen it as a parody more often that you’ve seen it written out straight — for example, “Shall I compare thee to a bale of hay.”  It’s one of the few poems that is just so cliché that, if a guy recited it to his girlfriend on a date, even the most love-sick of recipients would roll their eyes in disgust.

But when Shakespeare’s talking about “love,” he’s not talking about romantic love or feminine beauty– the first 126 sonnets in Shakespeare’s work are generally understood to be addressed towards a man, and many of the surrounding pieces are actually encouraging procreation.  Shakespeare isn’t wooing a beautiful woman; he’s telling a wealthy young ponz exactly what he wants to hear: that he’s just so damn sexy that it’d be pretty much the worst thing in the world if he didn’t have kids.

So if you’re a lady reading this, if any guy offers to compare you to a summer’s day, say “no, ’cause I’m not a dude.”  If you’re a guy, don’t offer to compare your lady to a summer’s day.  If you’re a man whose wife is trying to convince you that it’s time to have kids then…uh, that’s actually fine.  Nicely done.

Written By JF Sargent

(via homoerotics)

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”

• Interviewer: So you have always had an amazing ability to write compelling female characters, what is it that allows you to do this?
• George RR Martin: Well I have always considered women to be people.

John Green's tumblr: On Having Figured Out the Twist

fishingboatproceeds:

“Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening. Look at a point of land over which the sun is certain to rise, Coleridge…

ianbrooks:

Quotable Arts by Evan Robertson / Obvious State

High quality giclée prints available at etsy. Distilling literary quotes from a handful of the masters down to a single graphic representation, Evan captures the raw concept of the sentence and makes it damn purty to look at as well.

(via: fab)

(via winterofcontent)

Line Editing in 10 Easy Steps

amandaonwriting:

1. Eliminate unnecessary modifiers. When I say unnecessary modifiers, I’m talking about both “weasel” words that lessen the impact of your prose and useless modifiers that emphasize for no reason. Words like possibly, simply, really, totally, very, supposedly, seriously, terribly, allegedly, utterly, sort of, kind of, usually, extremely, almost, mostly, practically, probably, and quite. Why write “It was quite hot out that day” or “It was extremely hot that day” when the sentence “It was hot that day” accomplishes the same thing? The more clutter you can get rid of, the better your sentences will be.

2. Eliminate clichés. What’s a cliché? A cliché is any phrase so commonplace the reader speeds right past it without even realizing they’ve done so. The metaphor is wasted. When you say someone’s scraping the bottom of the barrel, do you actually picture someone scraping the bottom of a barrel? When someone’s monkeying around or driving like a maniac, do you actually think of monkeys or drooling lunatics? Better to have plain, unadorned prose than prose filled with clichés. This doesn’t mean you need to strike out every last familiar phrase from your manuscript; you just need to be conscious of what each word in your story is doing. Microsoft Word’s grammar checker has a helpful feature that will automatically underline clichés with a green squiggly line. Give it a try.

3. Eliminate repeated words and phrases. I’m not just talking about redundant phrases that are redundant. In going through my book, I discovered my characters were rasping things every two pages. A certain character was constantly described as panther-like. And every time people stopped to think, they would “fold their arms before their chest” or “roll their eyes.” Use your word processor’s search function to hunt these repeated phrases down, and then use the thesaurus to find replacements. They don’t have to be fancy words, just different ones. My rule of thumb is that really striking words shouldn’t be repeated at all within the same chapter, and only repeated a few times in the same book. For more common words and phrases, just make sure they’re not repeated too close together.

4. Search for extraneous thats and hads. Perhaps this is just a shortcoming of my own prose, but I’ve noticed that I tend to stick in way too many thats and hads. Quick example: “He had been talking about how he had needed to get new glasses” could be phrased better as “He talked about how he needed new glasses,” or even “He talked about needing new glasses.” That often sneaks in between clauses in a sentence when it’s not really needed. “I knew that I was robbed” can be tweaked down to “I knew I was robbed.” (Often this is a function of choosing a better tense; see #9 below.)

5. Straighten out your mixed metaphors. Jumbling metaphors together in a big stew of words is my Achilles’ heel. I actually like the effect that comes from clobbering the reader with a smorgasbord of different metaphors. But you have to know when to stick to your guns and when to cool it. If you’re riddled with doubt about a particular sentence, try treating every word absolutely literally to see if the sentence pans out. Make sure you’re conscious of every metaphor in your prose; they shouldn’t slip in there unbidden.

6. Look up any word you’re not positive you know. I don’t care if that word only has one syllable and your eight-year-old kid uses it every day. You absolutely need to know what every word in your story means (and you need to make sure you’ve spelled it correctly). There are free online dictionaries aplenty, not to mention Google, so you have no excuse for using words improperly.

7. Use that thesaurus. Some writing experts will tell you the thesaurus is a dangerous tool. Phooey. Find a thesaurus you’re comfortable with, whether it be paper-based or CD-based or online-based, and use that sucker. That doesn’t mean you need to start throwing obscure words into the text where they don’t belong; as a general rule, you should only use words you were already familiar with anyway. (See #6 above.) If you’re writing about a baseball game, your players can’t always throw the ball every time. They need to toss, hurl, lob, pitch, fling, and even fire off that ball too. Once in a while, they might actually catapult, flick, or chuck it.

8. When in doubt, try the Delete key. Sometimes I’ll find myself stuck on a particular sentence I can’t quite wrestle into submission. I’ll scan through the thesaurus, I’ll rearrange the words half a dozen different ways, and it still doesn’t work. Then I’ll just start hitting the delete button and suddenly, like magic, the whole thing comes together. Don’t get so attached to any particular piece of prose that you’re blinded to its shortcomings. Sometimes the perfect sentence can be used in the wrong place, and you need to be able to slice it out if necessary.

9. Try changing tenses. It’s very easy to slip into certain tenses that needlessly complicate your prose. Tenses like the past progressive (“I was doing something”) and the present perfect (“He has done this forever”) tend to get very confusing very quickly. You can’t always avoid the more complicated tenses, but the less you use of them the better. See if you can switch the scene/sentence/paragraph to simple past instead (“I did something”). Consult this handy Verb Tense Chart from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab. Perfect example: the original version of the first sentence on this page. Originally it read, “Having just completed revising the manuscript for my second novel, I’ve got line editing on the brain at the moment.”

10. Rewrite, rephrase, reconfigure. Unfortunately, despite the Romantic picture many of us have of the writing process, prose does not just flow down from the Muse and magically burst through your fingertips. Even the best artists need to constantly rework and revise what they’ve written. It’s work. Of course, for most of us writers it’s fun work. But just because you’re an artist doesn’t mean that you don’t have to worry about your craft. Piano players practice scales, painters make preliminary sketches, and writers go through lots of drafts. That’s just how the process works. If you want to know the most important lesson I’ve learned about making art, it’s this: the stuff that looks the easiest is usually the hardest to pull off. Jackson Pollock? Raymond Carver? Ernest Hemingway? Andy Warhol? These dudes worked their asses off to put together works of art that look effortless.

that70srpc:

I find that, when writing bios, it’s really helpful to look at a list or a chart like the one above. Picking two or three traits from each chart and building a character based around them will give you a really interesting bio, because they will serve as a reminder that characters need depth and dimension.

Independent and clever.

VS.

Independent, clever, pretentious, and stubborn.

The first combination doesn’t come with any flaws, whereas the second will provide a more dynamic character.

(Source: dunst-rph, via homoerotics)

writer-b:

The transcript above from the third writer’s draft of “A Few Good Men,” by Aaron Sorkin, helps perfectly illustrate a win in the development process, specifically in scene, character, and story evolution. 

Throughout the film, assistant defense attorney Sam Weinberg ( Kevin Pollack) makes the argument, (referencing the Nazi’s trial at Nuremberg and Calley’s Officers’ defense of the massacre at My Lai) that, blindly following orders of a superior officer, even if ethical in the context which the orders were given, may be immoral and in fact, unethical and illegal in a greater context. Simply, “I was just following orders,” is not an excuse:

KAFFEE: You don't believe them. You think they should get life.

SAM: I believe every word of their story.  And I think they should get life.

In the above-cap’d final scene Dawson and Downey (the Marines accused of murder) have been found “not guilty” of all charges but one: they are dishonorably discharged for “conduct unbecoming a U.S. Marine.” As written in the early third draft, after the decision Dawson, still in denial of his moral duty as a Marine, can’t understand the verdict and Sorkin makes it incumbent upon Sam to explain to him what, in fact, his honorable duty was. Again, we’ve heard Sam make this argument repeatedly and as such, this late in the third act, it falls a bit flat. What we want, and what Sorkin and director Rob Reiner ultimately give us, is Dawson making the realization on his own, having learned from Kaffey’s stunning and courageous examination of Colonel Jessep in the face of potential court martial. This ability to empathize and learn on the part of Dawson demonstrates growth in his character arc, at the same time further validating and underscoring Kaffey’s growth and the overwhelming risk he took on Dawson and Downey’s behalf. Compare the cap above to the scene which made the film:

Downey: We did nothing wrong!

Dawson: Yeah, we did. We're supposed to fight for people who can't fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willy.

What Reiner gives Sam - and us - immediately following this is a look for a couple of beats, a moment of acknowledgment, and we get it all.

I have no idea how the change was made from this draft to that finally shot, but it really nicely demonstrates the difference between good and great filmmaking.

Just a wonderful job of elevating material by two masters.  

30-Day Original Story Development Challenge

moosifer00:

farwin:

30-Day Original Story Development Challenge

Here is a 30 day original story development challenge. It can be filled by prose or illustration or comic or even just script, whatever works for you and how you’ll be displaying the setting. Feel free to reveal as much or as little as you want.

Day 1- A main protagonist, their bio.

Day 2 - A Main protagonist’s love interest(s), their bio(s).

Day 3- A main protagonist’s best friend(s), their bio(s).

Day 4 - A main antagonist, their bio.

Day 5- The place a character sleeps.

Day 6- The place a character works/goes to school/hangs out whatever.

Day 7- A major story location.

Day 8 - A character’s parent(s) or guardian

Day 9- A minor antagonist.

Day 10- Your character when they were young(er)

Day 11- What kind of people show up in the background in your world?

Day 12- How does a character comfort themself?

Day 13- What kind of foods are popular in the setting?

Day 14- What is a character’s biggest regret?

Day 15- What are a character’s bad habits?

Day 16- What was a character’s first romantic and/or sexual encounter like?

Day 17- What are popular sports and hobbies in your setting?

Day 18- What would your protagonist do if they saw your antagonist on the street?

Day 19 - What would your antagonist do if they saw your protagonist on the street?

Day 20 - Demonstrate a character and their best friend and/or love interest interacting as they most commonly do.

Day 21- What is a character’s deepest desire?

Day 22- What animals appear in your setting?

Day 23- A unique place in your setting.

Day 24 - Where did you draw inspiration for the setting/story from?

Day 25- A character’s proudest moment.

Day 26- What special talents or abilities does a character have?

Day 27 - Describe/Illustrate is an average day to a character.

Day 28- A character’s most embrassing moment.

Day 29 - Describe/illustrate an important thematic element.

Day 30- Describe/Illustrate a major event in the setting’s history.

Ooh, I like this one. I can do it for nagaverse. Or any others, really, though nagaverse is the most developed.

Okay I’m gonna make sure I do this and stick to it…starting tomorrow!

I shall start this once I get back from vacation :I

(via moonspotted-deactivated20120804)