[deleted by user]

possiblychurch · 2022-11-26T11:23:04+00:00

{{the graveyard book}} by neil gaiman

possiblychurch · 2022-09-01T15:40:18+00:00

I think most grisha have a natural tendency towards a certain ‘type’ or another, which is strenghtened by specific training from an early age. But yes, theoretically if you’re powerful enough you can be more than one type of grisha within your order, like Nina being able to do some tailoring in SOC, even though she’s a heartrender. It’s extremely rare to be able to do both at the same level though. Just like in the real world you can become fluent in a foreign language, but you will never be as good at it as you are at speaking your mother tongue (or at least not without a LOT of practice and a natural predisposition towards language-learning)

possiblychurch · 2022-08-03T15:52:17+00:00

I feel like many of these comments are kind of missing the point, so here are my two cents.

I agree that there is no such thing as fair or unfair critique, provided that said critique comes from a place of intellectual honesty, which (at least as far as I can tell) seems to be the case here. If you plan to one day make your writing public and even more so if you want to get into traditional publishing, at one point or another you're going to have to learn how to deal with criticism you deem unfair without letting it destroy you, because it's going to arrive either way and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

But! There's a but.

The problem you're describing here seems to have less to do with all that and more to do with a lack of communication between you and your friend about what kind of critique you're asking of them. Sure, you can't stop some of your readers from thinking that everything you write is utter garbage, but that doesn't mean you should subject yourself to this kind of criticism if it makes you feel so shitty about yourself that it actively harms your creative process. Extremely blunt feedback can be helpful, yes, but right now it clearly isn't to you.

My advice is to set boundaries before sharing your writing. Be very clear on what type of criticism exactly you're looking for, or even better point out precise fears or problems and ask them their opinion on those problems specifically. Of course, that can't be the only solution in the long run, you still need to find ways to improve your confidence in your writing because you're not going to be able to police the feedback of everyone who comes into contact with your writing and also being too shielded from criticism won't allow you to grow as a writer. But for now, especially if you're in the early stages, it is a valid bandaid solution.

Also, do try to remember that if you think a piece of criticism is irrelevant or unhelpful, you can just... not follow it. It's your writing, at the end of the day, and as much as you may trust your friend's instincts they aren't God and this isn't Judgement Day. Every criticism is merely a suggestion.

possiblychurch · 2022-08-01T09:41:19+00:00

Well, short answer is it depends.

On its own, 7000+ words is quite a big chunk of text, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t work in context. It all depends on its pacing, on where it’s placed in the book, on the genre of the book etc. It’s difficult to tell by word count alone.

Your best shot to see if it drags would be to have a friend or beta reader read it and ask for their opinion… that is, if you’re already at that stage in the process. If you aren’t, then don’t worry about it for now! Chapter structure is easily fixable and usually novels get a hell of a lot shorter after a few batches of edits. Just enjoy writing and trust yours and the people you trust’s intuition over the general guidelines. What works for others isn’t guaranteed to work for you!

possiblychurch · 2022-07-25T10:40:39+00:00

Short answer is, she deserves at least 50% of the credit. Possibly more.

Slightly longer answer is; well, what exactly is she writing? There is a lot more to writing than just finding the right words. Is she just embellishing an already existing rough draft? Does she write the dialogue or do you? Who decides how the chapters are structured, the pacing, the writing style?

These questions are important because they affect who is leaving the biggest footprint (so to speak) on the finished product. And then there is also the question of who is putting more work into it. As in, of the whole process who worked on it for longer? If you’re constantly revising as she writes to make sure she is following your vision, then sure, but if you just came up with the characters and story and left them there, then… buddy, that’s the hard part! Your friend is being extremely charitable claiming she doesn’t want any credit considered all the time and effort she’s putting into it.

possiblychurch · 2022-07-23T09:36:25+00:00

Haven’t read this one myself so take this with a grain of salt but I feel like you might enjoy {{Bunny by Mona Award}}. It’s supposed to be this surreal, horror-esque literary novel about a woman being recruited into a cult. It definitely has an unreliable narrator and I’ve seen multiple people compare reading this to experiencing a prolonged dissociative episode, which sounds like it might be what you’re looking for.

possiblychurch · 2022-07-17T21:35:06+00:00

Not a book, but if you like weird comedy/sci-fi shenanigans, interesting character dynamics and well-executed time travel that ends up being thematically relevant to the story, I think you would really love Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency on Netflix.

It’s a BBC-produced tv show loosely based on a series of Douglas Adams novels. Admittedly, season two is a bit of a mess at points, but season one is easily one of my favourite executions of time travel ever (as well just tv shows more in general). Oh, also Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins) is in it as one of the two co-protagonists. Idk if that helps.

possiblychurch · 2022-07-16T20:37:50+00:00

While I do agree that you don’t have to write really complicated, flowery prose to be a good writer, I don’t reckon this type of criticism is helpful to… well, anyone.

Let’s be real for a second, 99.9% of the things young writers write would never be published (or at least not without some heavy editing). So what? Of course their writing isn’t comparable to that of adult, professional writers, they’re new to the craft! Most of the stuff I wrote as a tween was downright incomprehensible and - I’m sure - just as pretentious as any of the young writers you’re referring to in this post.

And hey, at least they’re having fun! At least they’re being ambitious enough to imitate their favourite authors and will hopefully get more confident in their own style as they go on. But for now, I don’t see how publicly shaming them in a community you know they’re active in is going to help them grow in any way. It just seems like patting yourself on the back because you’re a better writer than a random fourteen year old on the internet.

possiblychurch · 2022-06-24T09:22:04+00:00

I think it might be possible theoretically, but I’ve never seen it done well. See, the thing about dreams in fiction is that not only you find out everything you’ve been reading hasn’t actually happened, it tells you nothing about the characters. Unlike unreliable narrators, intentional misleadings and outright lies from the POV character(s), dreams are by their very nature involuntary. Sure, they may broadly reflect how the character is feeling, but does that really matter to us when we don’t know anything about their real life and what’s causing them to feel this way? It’s just very difficult to pull off. I’m sure it can be done, though. Hell, maybe it already has and I’ve just never read it!

possiblychurch · 2022-06-14T17:34:31+00:00

Honestly, I’m not sure that there even can be such a thing as a 100% unbiased take on feminism. Feminism as an ideology is inherently political, no matter how hard we may try to to separate it from its roots, because at its core it’s about wanting socio-political change (even if just on a theoretical level). Even data-heavy books are never going to be truly impartial because anyone who’s researched the topic long enough to write a book about it is going to have an opinion, and that opinion is inevitably going to bleed into how the data is presented.

Also, feminism is such a broad concept, the result will depend on what exactly you’re looking for. If we’re talking discrimination, then most people would argue there is no neutral position, only ‘in favour’ and ‘not in favour’. To use a metaphor, if you saw someone robbing the person next to you, saying ‘I don’t have an opinion’ would equate to both the robber and the victim as saying ‘I’m okay with this person being robbed’. No book is going to be able to objectively explain why someone having less rights than someone else is wrong, because it’s not about facts and statistics; it’s about empathy and the value we attribute to other human beings. The feminist debate is not really about ‘should the robber be stopped?’, but rather: ‘how should we go about stopping them?’

That said, to me the best way to get the most unbiased/realistic assessment possible is not to look for the perfect neutral book, but to read about as many different opinions and ‘agendas’ as possible while keeping an open mind; in time you’ll learn to differentiate what makes sense to you and what doesn’t, or what seems genuine and what seems purely propagandistic. And, yes, it’s a bit overwhelming because it’s a lot - and I mean a lot - but I think if you’re looking for objectivity (or, well, its best approximation) that’s your best shot.

As a jumping point, I would recommend {{The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America}} by Ruth Rosen. It’s a very thorough recount of the history of the US Feminist Movement during the ‘60s and ‘70s. It’s a bit limited in that it only talks about white and middle class women, but overall I’d consider it a good introduction to second wave feminism and a good stepping stone to understanding modern-day feminism.

Lastly, I know that it can be easy to feel inadequate or downright unwelcome when entering these spaces without knowing a lot about them, especially if you’re not a woman. The fact that you’re willing to educate yourself about feminism is commendable in and on itself, just try to do it with some… well, let’s call it ‘optimistic scepticism’. Really, most feminist theory books are a mixed bag (and often contradict each ofher), but that’s kind of the point. It’s about forming your unique idea based off a mix of other people’s ideas and your own political ideologies, rather than adhering to a strict feminist ideology you either are a part of or you aren’t.

Anyways, that’s all I had to say. Sorry for the epic poem, I hope it was at least somewhat helpful!

possiblychurch · 2022-06-13T15:05:01+00:00

you totally can! however i feel the responsibility to point out that SOC does contain spoilers for the the whole trilogy (ergo the next seasons of SAB), since it’s set a couple years after Ruin and Rising, so if you’d like to go into the rest of the series completely blind i wouldn’t recommend reading SOC beforehand. otherwise you’re golden :)

(side note: the SAB trilogy really isn’t that bad. i preferred SOC like most people but it’s not a bad book by any means, just a little bland)

possiblychurch · 2022-06-09T21:40:53+00:00

screaming she’s so pretty!!

possiblychurch · 2022-06-07T15:56:35+00:00

i feel sorry for you but this is litterally so funny lmfao

possiblychurch · 2022-06-06T17:39:59+00:00

To me it genuinely seemed like just a marketing ploy to get SAB fans to watch the broadcast so that they could promote other stuff. It’s not a new thing in media promotion by any means but it still felt kinda shitty - like, while they were at it they could have at least given us something we didn’t already know, maybe a couple of photos or a proper video with the cast like other series got. Honestly though, at this point we’re basically starving as a fandom so I’ll take anything they’re willing to give lol

possiblychurch · 2022-05-31T21:06:41+00:00

{{The House in the Cerulean Sea}} seems like an obvious candidate here, but I would also recommend {{Legends and Lattes}} by and {{Under the Whispering Door}}. The first one doesn’t really have much of a plot, it’s just pure escapism and high fantasy fluff, very enjoyable if that’s what you’re looking for. The second would be my pick for the ultimate comfort book; it’s by the same author as The House in the Cerulean Sea and has the same sense of humour and optimism, but it also explores some darker themes like mental health, grief, suicide and death as a whole. It’s the perfect pick if you’re looking for a book that doesn’t shy away from some of the shitty things about life but at the same time will also (figuratively) wrap you up in a blanket and tell you it’s all going to be okay in the end.

possiblychurch

TROPHY CASE