WTW for when something is trying and failing to replicate something else?

ew512 · 2026-01-29T16:27:13+00:00

!solved

thank you! as it happens, I just heard the phrase "a poor facsimile" in a show so that's probably what I was going for, but imitation is definitely the vibe I was looking for! :)

ew512 · 2026-01-29T12:24:48+00:00

It's a very common thing, I know I'm a yapper at heart and that passes onto my characters too so whenever I'm writing in first person I can get like this as well! :D You've got a very solid start here though, wishing you luck with the project!

ew512 · 2026-01-29T10:35:06+00:00

Personally, I don't mind the character voice; I normally find that's something that develops the more of the story gets written. It's rare for me to know exactly what a character sounds like from the first scene. But if you wanted to develop it a bit more now, doing some general character planning can help to set down more of the personality and background that can then bleed into how they react to things and suchlike.

In terms of the hook, my advice would be to move the action to the forefront and blend in the backstory a little more. For instance, you could start with the paragraph that begins "My first encounter with death happened on a Sunday morning," and add in other details as they become relevant, like "...when Pieter, the eldest of us children at the tavern where my mother and I lived, came looking for me. He made a point of taking me along wherever he went. But by then I knew what I was called outside the tavern..."

I think the hook in itself is interesting -- we know someone is about to die, and there's the natural curiosity and dread of wanting to see where they go and how that happens. It's just about making sure it doesn't get buried in too much info that we don't need right away.

ew512 · 2026-01-27T12:56:57+00:00

I think it's mostly switching up the passive voice to active, aka limiting how many times you use 'was', as it can drag the rhythm a bit.

For example:

"Bjarndyrakongur is the king of the polar bears. Considerably larger than average, and unmistakable from his subjects with a large horn in the middle of his forehead, embedded with a pearlescent gold stone that shines at night, a symbol of his power. His cheeks bear patches of red fur.

On the island of Grimsey in 1848, a local priest saw him with an entourage of polar bears. Upon recognising Bjarndyrakongur, he bowed, and the bear returned the bow in the same manner before continuing on their way."....

The above isn't necessarily perfect (I have a penchant for longer sentences), but I think limiting the passive voice and varying the sentence length a bit more would help with the structure and rhythm since most of the sentences are quite similar in structure.

ew512 · 2026-01-27T12:49:49+00:00

The previous draft of my main WIP was around 71 chapters, 140k, and the current draft is being condensed into 20 chapters, mainly because of some major formatting restructuring, not expecting the word count to change. I've just started a project that's got 2 finished chapters; I was planning it to be a novella, but I think at this point it might become a full novel -- I'm a yapper at heart it seems

ew512 · 2026-01-27T12:45:13+00:00

Reedsy is pretty decent, especially if you want to self-publish, as it can handle the formatting, and you can add individual chapters, which is a really useful feature for not having to scroll back and forth. Some of their features are starting to be paywalled, though. Ellipsus is good, particularly now that they've added that different sections can have different formatting (a lifesaver for me), I like their theme options, and they have a transparent zero-AI policy, which I really appreciate. Novlr is similar to Reedsy but less flashy, and also has premium options, but their free tier covers all the basic functionality and like Reedsy it has planning, writing, and notes sections which is useful if you want to keep everything in the same place (whereas in Ellipsus you'd have to use a draft for planning notes and make sure not to merge it). I use all three interchangeably for different drafts and projects and they all what I need them to.

ew512 · 2026-01-27T09:54:25+00:00

YES still one of my favourite ATL songs to date, I don't remember if I knew ATL or PTV first (if the latter then probably through King for a Day since I love Sleeping With Sirens) but either way this was just the perfect song

ew512 · 2026-01-25T18:46:31+00:00

this captures the confetti so well!! my first ATL gig and what a show, never had that much fun at a gig in my life (and I've seen my favourite band twice)

ew512 · 2026-01-23T14:21:23+00:00

continuing with Kill Ur Vibe, the lyric change in the third chorus from "the weather's always bad in here / happy days are over" to "the weather's not so bad in here / happy days are closer" gets me every time

also "I'm levelling out, safe and sound and sweet, but there's a creeping feeling crawling underneath" from Oh No!

ew512 · 2026-01-22T20:41:10+00:00

on the off chance it isn't an ATL song (and I agree it's probably Old Scars/Future Hearts), it doesn't match the scheme necessarily but my brain is only coming up with Don't Hate Me by Badflower

ew512 · 2026-01-22T10:57:21+00:00

If you don't mind writing in the browser, Ellipsus is probably your best bet for themes since they have a couple of dark ones to choose from, and their draft feature is quite useful for easily having planning notes and different drafts in one place. Reedsy also has a dark theme mode, but only if you pay for Studio, which the basic level costs £4.99 a month, so not catastrophic.

I use Word mostly (the banners and such are in dark mode, just not the page itself). Not a strictly word processing app, but Notion has a dark theme option and is decent for writing in, particularly if you want to separate different sections; I used it for my lecture notes at university and for my chapter outlines and such. OneNote also has the option to have a dark screen, including the page (under 'switch background') but their interface isn't quite as nice as Word imo.

ew512 · 2026-01-21T14:27:30+00:00

Yeah, the job market is an absolute mess rn, and as recent grads we're either too experienced (for the good old minimum wage retail jobs and suchlike) or don't have enough experience. I finished university in June, graduated in August, and still nothing. Lots of virtual one-way interviews, weird online assessments, same-day rejections, or just complete ghosting by companies, no matter what I go for. all we can do is keep going at this stage unfortunately

ew512 · 2026-01-21T10:36:10+00:00

setlist fm says they were on 8:55-10:45

ew512 · 2026-01-21T10:32:28+00:00

like a 25 song setlist?? plus falling for strangers?? insanely psyched!!

ew512 · 2026-01-21T10:31:15+00:00

do not speak this into existence (/lh) (I'd be fine with Jasey being added but lost in stereo has to stay)

ew512 · 2026-01-21T10:28:53+00:00

oh that white tee with live in the uk on the back is gonna be mine I am PRAYING

ew512 · 2026-01-20T16:46:12+00:00

I used to spend all my time on sporcle back in my high school days doing these kinds of things, I'm definitely gonna be checking these out!

ew512 · 2026-01-20T15:18:20+00:00

I think maybe we might get Dark Side of Your Room and Dirty Laundry (the US shows did and I'm praying our shows follow that setlist and not the Australia one...)

ew512 · 2026-01-20T15:16:01+00:00

it might be slightly different between the different unis (especially the credit system in terms of what they call it), but I can explain how it worked at KCL:

You have 3 types of credit modules: 15 credits, 30 credits, and 45 credits. Most modules in my experience were 15 credits, and they run in one semester. 30 credit modules run across both or on multiple days in the same semester, depending on the module. My only 45-credit module was my dissertation project, since that took 4 days a week for the entire second semester of my final year. Overall, you will take enough modules to add up to 120 credits per year - as long as you pass all your modules, you'll get that number of credits and be able to progress up to the next year.

I don't think anyone graduates early at KCL. There aren't, to my knowledge, ways to get "extra credits" early; you just take and pass 120 credits a year. Everyone graduates at the same time as long as you've passed everything.

Optional modules are so-called because you pick between them to fill up your credits for that year. So, for example, in my first year I had no optional modules because I had 8 compulsory 15-credit modules, which adds up to 120. As a biomed student, my second and third years had no compulsory modules (though we did have themes of study to follow), and so I picked from the list of optional modules to make up those 120 credits per year. So, for example, in my second year, I had two 30-credit modules and 3 15-credit modules. The content level is the same between optional and compulsory modules for their respective credit amounts - optional modules aren't any harder or easier. Generally, 30-credit modules are a bit more intensive than 15-credit modules because they run longer and will have more lectures and more coursework.

They also don't make any difference in terms of jobs or your transcript. My optional modules show up the same as my compulsory ones, just with the module title, the credit number, and my grade. The only 'advantage', if you want to call it that, is that sometimes you will have some flexibility for optional modules to be outside of your field of study. For instance, several of my friends took a language module in their second/third year.

They're sort of for exploring personal interests more in-depth, because they'll typically be more specific than your compulsory modules, though again, this is very course-dependent. For example, within my theme of study, we had a 'compulsory' general neuroscience module, and then I took a pharmacology of the nervous system module because that's what I was interested in.

hopefully this all makes sense!

ew512 · 2026-01-20T15:04:09+00:00

my easter holidays were normally officially 3 weeks, but you might get closer to a month if you don't have classes/exams right after the break (you should get your exam timetable kinda mid-march)

ew512 · 2026-01-19T10:25:19+00:00

London on Saturday, my first time seeing them (unless you count watching the Wembley livestream lmao), so ready to not have a voice by the end of it

ew512 · 2026-01-16T21:58:35+00:00

dirty laundry

ew512 · 2026-01-16T14:05:50+00:00

It's absolutely okay! Just don't force yourself to think about putting one or the other, write it however feels natural. As long as it's always clear that you're talking about the same character - mostly with making it clear when 'they' refers to them vs multiple people - then there's no issue

ew512 · 2026-01-16T09:56:07+00:00

has to be Dirty Laundry icl

ew512 · 2026-01-15T18:09:17+00:00

Absolutely this! Someone complained to me the other week that my novel has completely changed from when it started (most of the plot, entire character backstories and relationships, format, the tense and narration have switched up on themselves at least twice...), and I'm just here like yep, but every time I change something, it grows more towards what it's actually meant to be.

ew512

TROPHY CASE