forum Virtual Creative Writing Club, anyone?

Started July 06, 2019 by @ninja_violinist

tune

Holy shit. That was amazing, Amber

Holy shit. That was amazing, Amber

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thank you both!! It came from this random piece of music that shuffle picked out but I’m pretty happy with it :)

@amber_is_a_starchild
fjfhjsj this is so beautiful and winsome?? for some reason I'm getting a few Lindsey Stirling vibes (Lost Girls, perhaps?), idk. either way. I'm absolutely here for the concept and the execution - it's descriptive vivid and achingly sad, but also vague enough to wonder about the exact mechanics and whether it's maybe all just one big metaphor. it's in that time honoured tradition of "poetry but a little bit to the left" which I'm trash for

favourite line: "dancing keeps the desperation out of the beauty"

I couldn't think of much to criticise? So I'm going to be particularly nitpicky and wonder if the transition from "If I stop, the world will catch up and the world will hurt me again" to "There's simply not enough left of me to hurt" is as smooth as it could be? I feel like the content and tone shift quite remarkably there. so maybe a new paragraph would work better?
(wow. it somehow took me 4 sentences and 70 words to suggest adding a new paragraph break. you can tell I'm grasping at straws here)

thanks so much for sharing!! It's cool to hear from you again!

this week's prompts:

song: "Nina Cried Power" by Hozier

image: a tourist in front of the Erta Ale volcano in the Afar region of Ethiopia. photo by Eric Lafforgue [html has decided not to cooperate??? sorry about that. the link does take you to the picture in a new tab]

words: from "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[I'd highly recommend you look up the context for this poem as well if you're interested, because the writer's life and circumstances do add entirely new layers of interpretation.]

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

i am alive! for those of you wondering, at least. anyway, i've got a page or two of a quick writing drabble for y'all, this time it's more hopeful and sweet than. ykno. gutwrenching. might have more later, who knows

!!!! My babies!!!!
First of all, even if he was briefly mentioned, Rhydar was spot-on.
Second of all, Carsyn was also and I love them so much. Her and Lily are both Babey and Lily is such a protective 'sister' to Carsyn, I love it

hghdfhre carsyn was insta-adopted and lily would now do anything for her

@crocs-to-a-knife-fight hey not to be dramatic but I would die for carsyn
this was so soft. so pure. so wholesome. I did notice some slight sprinklings of angst in there but all in all the ratio of angst to softness was very very enjoyable.
I don't have that much to say, tbh? I noticed in one line it says "They kay" and I puzzled about it for a bit so I'm pretty sure it's meant to say "The key". Other than that, I think there's my usual general points in prose - looking out for "was" and "ing" constructions. Nothing stuck out to me per se, not negatively. and it's probably fine as is. but for example, in the paragraph that starts with "Carsyn’s room was in the servant's building", every sentence has "was" as its primary verb. which isn't inherently wrong at all! there's just the danger of it getting repetitive.
but yeah. this was very soft and just what I needed today. thanks so much for sharing!

prompt time!

music: Waloyo Yamoni by Christopher Tin (definitely recommend listening to the whole thing!!!)

image: "11" by Drew Z

word prompt: "KKS XI: 544" [alright. ok. listen. this is weird. but I genuinely don't know what the proper title is? it's a translation of a historical Japanese poem, and this site classified it that way. idk. there's probably a central archiving system that I'm too stupid to understand and too tired to look up. so yeah sorry about that]

Just as the summer insects
Heedlessly their bodies
Treat,
So I, in the flame of a single passion
Do…

carsyn is actually kayla's character, and both lily and I share the same sentiment you do

I wrote it late and night and didnt edit so that would explain the typos, and I'll have to go through and look at the was and ing issues. thanks!!

*by Kayla Crocs means me

gay gay gay gay gay

Should I post my gay?

yes

I'm going to post my gay and angst once I finish angst

So here's the Gay

definitely softer than what's coming up in here, the Angst

I recommend reading Angst first and then softening it with Gay, but hey, it's your choice

!!tw!! spoilered for your convenience !!tw!!
okay so
this is a lil scene i wrote for my character, ember's backstory
it's set in another world of my frens
so facetiming becomes using a magic mirror
and yes she has to yell out the window bc phones and computers and all that dont exist in this world

poem time!!

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

djdjhsd

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

^^^^^^^^^^^^

hey guess what it's Saturday! brace yourselves for the questionable feedback incoming!

@crocs-to-a-knife-fight
fhdjks ok that Catori and Caroline thing was too sweet. my heart couldn't handle it. very very well done.
One thing I noticed is that sometimes you forget to keep actions sequential? generally, I recommend presenting actions within a sentence in the order that they happen in unless you want to specifically emphasise one. otherwise it can get difficult to keep track of things. for example,

"The smile that graced his lips, soft and strangely refreshing, brought one to Catori’s features as well, following the ‘thank you’ as she accepted the small handful of quarters. " reads a bit awkwardly - when does she smile? when does she get the quarters? when does she say thank you?

or

"Catori said, sticking her tongue right back out at Cisco when he made the gesture."

but yeah. other than that, this was too pure for this world. I just want Catori to be happy please

the poem - excellent message and concept.
favourite line: "At least you don’t look like a corpse - /Unless that’s what you’re going for of course -"
this is a very weird structural question, but would it make sense to switch the order of the first and second stanza? idk why it occurred to me but it's a thought I guess? on one level it feels like the advice gets increasingly more personal that way, but that's also my impression, I think. so idk.
also I'm guessing you mean to put an em dash instead of a hyphen there? you probably know all this, but there is a difference between the two. Hyphens connect words, em dashes detach out phrases from sentences. (and just for completeness' sake, en dashes are the weird middle ones that connect inclusive numbers like dates or page numbers). they're a pain to format and borderline unnecessary but if you like to feel powerful by nitpicking punctuation they're a fun group of signs to know.

so yeah. thanks for sharing this week!

@strangebird
ah that's ok I didn't need my heart anyway??
the angst was very intense, but also very tastefully written, I find. it's obviously a very distressing moment, so I'm glad that the rape was kept at implications rather than lingering on it or even explicitly naming it. it almost feels like it's more respectful to the character that way?
two things where I'd revise for more consistency are the tense and the pov. It makes sense for us to get both Theresa and Emyr's perspective on the level that both are insightful and add to the story? but it seems a little bit inconsistent with the limited pov narration that's going on. it might be a fun writing exercise to go for a more omniscient voice, or to rewrite it while fully commiting to one of the two? idk. it's not egregiously wrong or anything, just a bit jarring.

the gay was already very good and then Carsyn showed up and it became fabulous. I don't know her, but I love her. she deserves the world.
the tense issue comes up a bit more in this one, along with something that I guess is a pet peeve of mine, so feel free to disregard it. but epithets along the lines of "the male" or "the human" always seem a bit odd to me? I absolutely feel ya with the pronoun issue, but it seems like a very vague characteristic to identify someone by. idk. it's very far removed from a big deal but I figured I'd mention it.

both of these were lovely to read though!! thanks so much for sharing!

@izzy-the-vampire-ghost
I really appreciate the worldbuilding in this! the letters, the mirror facetime, the yelling out of the window - they're all quite subtle but they add a bit of flavour to the whole text.
I'm assuming since this is meant to be a backstory, it wasn't meant to be super drawn out and delicately paced and stuff? but I would definitely recommend splitting it into a few more paragraphs, just to slow the action down a little bit and improve readability and flow. other than that, I noticed a few things that could probably be reworded for a bit better flow (for example, the phrase "was kept at bay with her concern").
but otherwise, this was… fun is not the right word, because the content is pretty heavy, but it was an interesting and intriguing read!

and prompt time!

music prompt: "Miracles out of Nowhere" by Kansas

image: the recent solar eclipse projected onto a man's hand in Kenya, by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP

—
word prompt:
YOUR BRAIN IS NOT A PRISON by Sasha Debevec-McKenney

hey guess what it's Saturday! brace yourselves for the questionable feedback incoming!

@crocs-to-a-knife-fight
fhdjks ok that Catori and Caroline thing was too sweet. my heart couldn't handle it. very very well done.
One thing I noticed is that sometimes you forget to keep actions sequential? generally, I recommend presenting actions within a sentence in the order that they happen in unless you want to specifically emphasise one. otherwise it can get difficult to keep track of things. for example,

"The smile that graced his lips, soft and strangely refreshing, brought one to Catori’s features as well, following the ‘thank you’ as she accepted the small handful of quarters. " reads a bit awkwardly - when does she smile? when does she get the quarters? when does she say thank you?

or

"Catori said, sticking her tongue right back out at Cisco when he made the gesture."

but yeah. other than that, this was too pure for this world. I just want Catori to be happy please

the poem - excellent message and concept.
favourite line: "At least you don’t look like a corpse - /Unless that’s what you’re going for of course -"
this is a very weird structural question, but would it make sense to switch the order of the first and second stanza? idk why it occurred to me but it's a thought I guess? on one level it feels like the advice gets increasingly more personal that way, but that's also my impression, I think. so idk.
also I'm guessing you mean to put an em dash instead of a hyphen there? you probably know all this, but there is a difference between the two. Hyphens connect words, em dashes detach out phrases from sentences. (and just for completeness' sake, en dashes are the weird middle ones that connect inclusive numbers like dates or page numbers). they're a pain to format and borderline unnecessary but if you like to feel powerful by nitpicking punctuation they're a fun group of signs to know.

so yeah. thanks for sharing this week!

on the drabble, i'm glad you pointed out what was wrong with those sentences because they bugged me so much and i hated it. i couldn't figure out, in the moment, how to rearrange the sentences to make them sound decent, but now that i know the problem it should be so much easier, so thank you!

and thats an interesting point on the stanza, i'll have to try that. as for the em dashes thing, whichever one i meant to do there–while trying to separate things like this, to make the thoughts sort of disconnected in the way i would actually speak about things like that–i didn't know how to get lmao. i figured i'd just do that, and know what i myself meant. forgot to specify there though, which probably would have been helpful

So I'm trying a character development thing where I write some sort of letter from one of my OCs to another. I low-key hate this but I can't figure out why, so I put both versions (sorry). If you're interested it's Lysia writing it. Have fun tearing it apart! I might do more in the future.

You left me alone, how could you possibly do that? You promised me that for as long as I was fighting myself you’d be there to counteract all this darkness I was born with. That was a promise that you had no right to break.
I can’t live without you, you know that, none of us can. Yanni and Kohmir are fighting, and winning, they're going to be okay.
Your brother isn’t. Diego, the brother who never killed a single human being in his entire career as a soldier, slit a woman's throat the other day without a second look. That’s what you’ve created. Wherever you are, I hope you saw that, and are hurting at least twice as much as me.
I don't know why you left, I don't know how you could have left. I can't live without you. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, you’re all I have. I’m nothing without that goddamn smile of yours. Yanni can’t braid my hair the way you did. I can’t feel the way I did without you near me.
Every breath I draw that I'm not sharing with you tears me to pieces. I need to see you again, up there. I need to do whatever it takes to see you again, and I will. I'll see you again.
I guess you know what I'm going to do. I’ve been fighting it my whole life, with you anchoring me. You’re gone now and I have no strength left of my own to fight it. I’m dying.
It won’t happen for a while. I’ll fall slowly, gradually. No one but Kohmir will realize for a long time. Diego will be too drunk on his grief to notice. Then Yanni might notice, but won’t know what to do. You're the only one who knows me, remember? No one will know how to help me.
Once everyone has realized they’re helpless, I’m going to leave them behind and come meet you.
I need you to be ready when that happens. Be there, ready to fight me. I won’t be the same. Be ready, and smile for me. I’m going to need to see that smile.
With all the love I have left, my goddess,
Lysia

I figure you can see me from where you are. I’m hoping you didn’t expect anything different.
You left. You left the people who can’t live without you. Wherever you are, I hope you’re hurting.
Diego is the kindest person around me. He has never killed a human being, which is a feat for a soldier. Yesterday, he slit a woman’s throat without flinching– that’s what you’ve done. As for me, I think you knew I can’t survive with the half-life you’ve left me with.
For as long as I’ve been fighting myself, you’ve been there. You’ve never not been my source of good. Well, the dark took over surprisingly fast after you left. Brave as I was with you, I’m helpless without you.
I’m about to die. I have no choice. I’m walking to my death, under the sky I think you’re controlling. Watch me, it’ll be fun.
What’s left of me after this is going to be intent on your death, I need you to be ready. I need you to slaughter whatever part of me you face. No one but you can handle what I’ll have become.
This is my goodbye.
To you, my goddess, with all the love I have left.

okay so. i love the second one. like the second one is so bitter and accepting, lysia doesn't seem to care one bit that she's(it sounds like a feminine name? correct me if i'm wrong tho) going to die, but a part of her is still pissed at the other character for being gone. that last bit? the goodbye and the 'to you, my goddess, with all the love i have left'? iconic and so poetic but also really again that accepting and calm goodbye and it's GREAT

the first one, however, and i hate to say this, paints lysia as co-dependent instead of someone who lost someone they loved. it sounds like she's blaming the other character, for everything happening around her in a way that's more toxic than just a natural stage of grief. often times, when someone loses someone close to them, they might reach a point where they hate that person, for leaving behind them and the people they loved, and they'll blame other sorts of mishaps and issues on that person leaving/passing. in the first letter, however, it sounds like lysia was so dependent on the other character that she's gone beyond natural grief, if that makes sense. idk, maybe that's why you didn't like it?

also, one rec, try making it longer! if it feels like a lot is crammed into a couple paragraphs, then just try spreading it out more

otherwise i really do like it, and i think it's beautiful writing!

@crocs-to-a-knife-fight tysm! that's actually pretty sound advice, I'm going to use all of that. As for the toxicity of the first letter, I think there is a dependency on the person she lost, but I see what you mean. I'll have to find an in-between I think, I'll come back with another version :)

oh everyone depends on someone! that's perfectly normal and absolutely okay. i just think in the first bit of writing it somehow came off as codependent? in my defense i did just get out of a relationship with someone who was incredibly so, so i might be looking too deep into things

if you do, i'd gladly read it!