Two identical infants lay in the cradle. “One you bore, the other is a Changeling. Choose wisely,” the Fae’s voice echoed from the shadows. “I’m taking both my children,” the mother said defiantly.
Once upon a time there was a peasant woman who was unhappy
because she had no children. She was happy in all other things – her husband
was kind and loving, and they owned their farm and had food and money enough. But
she longed for children.
She went to church and prayed for a child every Sunday, but
no child came. She went to every midwife and wise woman for miles around, and
followed all their advice, but no child came.
So at last, though she knew of the dangers, she drew her brown
woolen shawl over her head and on Midsummer’s Eve she went out to the forest,
to a certain clearing, and dropped a copper penny and a lock of her hair into
the old well there, and she wished for a child.
“You know,” a voice said behind her, a low and cunning voice,
a voice that had a coax and a wheedle and a sly laugh all mixed up in it
together, “that there will be a price to pay later.”
She did not turn to look at the creature. She knew better. “I
know it,” she said, still staring into the well. “And I also know that I may
set conditions.”
“That is true,” the creature said, after a moment, and there
was less laugh in its voice now. It wasn’t pleased that she knew that. “What
condition do you set? A boy child? A lucky one?”
“That the child will come to no harm,” she said, lifting her
head to stare into the woods. “Whether I succeed in paying your price, or
passing your test, or not, the child will not suffer. It will not die, or be
hurt, or cursed with ill luck or any other thing. No harm of any kind.”
“Ahhhhh.” The sound was long and low, between a sigh and a
hum. “Yes. That is a fair condition. Whatever price there is, whatever test
there is, it will be for you and you alone.” A long, slender hand extended into
her sight, almost human save for the skin, as pale a green as a new leaf. The
hand held a pear, ripe and sweet, though the pears were nowhere ripe yet. “Eat
this,” the voice said, and she trembled with the effort of keeping her eyes
straight ahead. “All of it, on your way home. Before you enter your own gate,
plant the core of it beside the gate, where the ground is soft and rich. You
will have what you ask for.”
you ever accidentally create a recurring theme in your writing. you start putting together an outline for something you’ve never written before and get partway through planning, rearrange the pieces, and go “GODDAMMIT THIS IS ABOUT GRIEF AGAIN”? because let me tell you,
I’ve seen this before, but it’s been years and it just came across my Twitter in its dying days. The words are from a favorite author of mine, Maggie Stiefvater, and they are the words I most need to hear when it comes to dealing with chronic pain and illness. I didn’t need this the first time I saw it, six years ago. I need it now. Maybe you do, too.
Want to avoid the action movie effect and make your character’s injuries have realistic lasting impacts? Have a sick character you’re using as hurt/comfort fodder? Everyone has tips for how to write Dramatic Intense Agony, but the smaller human details of lasting or low-level discomfort are rarely written in. Here are a few pain mannerisms I like to use as reference:
General
Continuously gritted teeth (may cause headaches or additional jaw pain over time)
Irritability, increased sensitivity to lights, sounds, etc
Repetitive movements (fidgeting, unable to sit still, slight rocking or other habitual movement to self-soothe)
Soft groaning or whimpering, when pain increases or when others aren’t around
Heavier breathing, panting, may be deeper or shallower than normal
Moving less quickly, resistant to unnecessary movement
Itching in the case of healing wounds
Subconsciously hunching around the pain (eg. slumped shoulders or bad posture for gut pain)
Using a hand to steady themself when walking past walls, counters, etc (also applies to illness)
Narration-wise: may not notice the pain was there until it’s gone because they got so used to it, or may not realize how bad it was until it gets better
May stop mentioning it outright to other people unless they specifically ask or the pain increases
Limb pain
Subtly leaning on surfaces whenever possible to take weight off foot/leg pain
Rubbing sore spots while thinking or resting
Wincing and switching to using other limb frequently (new/forgettable pain) or developed habit of using non dominant limb for tasks (constant/long term pain)
Propping leg up when sitting to reduce inflammation
Holding arm closer to body/moving it less
Moving differently to avoid bending joints (eg. bending at the waist instead of the knees to pick something up)
Nausea/fever/non-pain discomfort
Many of the same things as above (groaning, leaning, differences in movement)
May avoid sudden movements or turning head for nausea
Urge to press up against cold surfaces for fever
Glazed eyes, fixed stare, may take longer to process words or get their attention
Shivering, shaking, loss of fine motor control
If you have any more details that you personally use to bring characters to life in these situations, I’d love to hear them! I’m always looking for ways to make my guys suffer more write people with more realism :)
People think “gray morality” in fiction is about Both Sides Are Partly Right Actually but so much more often it’s about choices having inescapable negative outcomes that have to be weighed against the benefits, or it’s about having to choose between a series of bad options, or it’s about making hard decisions about what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve the outcome you believe is good.
So often, I seem to see people angry that a story in a video game didn’t present a Good Option with no collateral damage and no negative outcomes whatsoever, and if there are any downsides it’s seen as the writers punishing you for the decision, because they see the primary purpose of stories to be moralizing rather than exploring the complexities of human experience. Or they argue that the collateral damage didn’t really happen, or that the negative outcomes weren’t really that bad actually, and thus miss the point altogether.
And I feel like it’s important to remember that a narrative telling you a decision is difficult is not the same thing as the narrative telling you it is wrong.
1.) Commaful – a friendly and supportive writing community, smaller but denser than Wattpad, and far more active and engaging.
2.) FictionPress – original fiction’s answer to FanFiction.net. If you’re familiar with that format, you’ll be familiar with this.
3.) Smashwords – an ebook publishing platform that also welcomes short stories, and collections thereof.
4.) WritersCafe – old-school but solid, with an active community and plenty of contests/challenges to get the creative juices pumping.
5.) Medium – a place where you can post, essentially, anything and everything. Articles and non-fiction are its biggest market, but fiction is welcome as well.
6.) Booksie – less community-based, with fewer interactions and comments. However, it still attracts great talent, and can be great for authors who are shy and don’t want to get bombarded with interaction.
7.) RoyalRoad – a rich community, with a strong emphasis on mutual support between authors. Focuses on web novels, fanfiction, and original stories.
8.) FanStory – an oldie but a goody. Don’t be fooled by the name – it seems to be predominantly original fiction, and offers contests with cash prizes.
9.) Young Writers Society – as the name suggests, oriented towards writers in their teens and twenties, but is by no means exclusive to authors of this age bracket.
10.) Wattpad – Wattpad provides users with the opportunity to post original fiction and gain a loyal following. It’s not for everyone, but some people swear by it.
On that note, you can also post original fiction to AO3 and FanFiction, but as they are predominantly for fan works, I decided not to include them on this list. What’s your favorite way to post original fiction?
yknow if romeo had just Cried on juliets corpse for a couple hours instead of drinking poison Right Then they would have been Fine
The moral of the story is: always take time to cry for a few hours before making important decisions.
So I’m more or less being facetious here, but this is actually a thing.
Hamlet is genre savvy. Hamlet knows how Tragedies work, and he’s not going to rush in and get stabby without making absolutely certain he’s got all the facts.
Except once he thinks he has all the facts – once he’s certain that it really is the ghost of his father and Claudius really did kill him, he rushes in and stabs the wrong guy, which starts a domino line of deaths and gets Laertes embroiled in his own revenge tragedy and ultimately results in the deaths of nearly every character other than Horatio.
That’s the irony and the tragedy of the story. Hamlet knows his tropes and actively tries to avoid them, and the tropes get him anyway. It’s inevitable, the tropes are hungry.
I want a sticker that says the tropes are hungry so I can put it on my laptop
i met a scholar once who said that tragedies aren’t about a silly “flaw” or anything, it’s about having a hero who’s just in the wrong goddamn story
if hamlet swapped places with othello he wouldn’t be duped by any of iago’s shit, he’d sit down & have a good think & actually examine the facts before taking action. meanwhile in denmark, othello would have killed claudius before act 2 could even start. but instead nope, they’re both in situations where their greatest strengths are totally useless and now we’ve got all these bodies to bury.
The tropes are hungry and the hero is in the wrong goddamn story.
The tropes are always hungry and the tragic hero is just somebody trapped in the wrong damn story.
“The tropes are always hungry and the hero is trapped in the wrong story.” is a phrase I want made into a gorgeously designed giant poster I can hang on the wall.
He is called simply The Surgeon, and everyone knows that his OR is neutral ground. Heroes and villains alike seek his aid when injured. You’re a hero, just in for some stitches, but waiting in the lobby is a villain you’ve tangled with before, and they’re weeping.
“Long time no see.”
The villain jolted upright, tears still falling down their cheeks. Two splattered in their bloodstained lap, one after the other, and rolled slowly down the waterproof material. They’d probably end up pooling in their socks with the rest of the blood. Gross.
Their eyes widened, black pupils swallowing their irises. Blue? Green? The hero had never seen them without their mask before. The villain had freckles too, a deep coppery-brown against the sudden pallour of their skin. They weren’t usually that pale–oh god, were they sick? Dying? Maybe that’s why they were crying, maybe the Surgeon had told them-
“Hero?” they whispered.
“That’s me! No need to look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I think I am seeing a ghost.”
The hero twisted to look over their shoulder. Nothing but fluorescent lights and bright white corridors now dotted with blood. Definitely no ghosts. “No, just me. Am I missing…something?” Oh. Ohhhhhhh. “Wait, am I a ghost?” They bunched their hands into fists, their nails biting crescents into their palms and their bruised knuckles threatening to split. They seemed pretty solid, but weirder things had happened.
this was so cute. on one hand, if my resurrecting nemesis failed to resurrect for several days when their average was a couple minutes, i would also hold a burial; in the other hand, if would seem like the BIGGEST dick move to wake up buried alive by your nemesis who should damn well KNOW you’ll come back 🤣
Supervillain rested their chin on the back of their hand, staring at Henchman dreamily as they took a dainty bite of creamed potatoes.
“Please, have some more.” They waved at the long table covered with food, from hot honey buttered rolls to slick roasted pork, falling off the bone.
“Um…one bite is enough,” Henchman said, passing yet another tasting spoon to the server at their shoulder and selecting a new, clean one for the next dish. When Supervillain did not lift their gaze, they nervously murmured, “You may begin eating the food I’ve already tested, Excellency, they’re perfectly safe.”
“If I do that, you’ll sneak off as soon as you’ve finished, and I so wished to invite you to dine.”
Henchman bowed their head, avoiding Supervillain’s sharp eyes and carefully scooping up a spoonful of sweet potato pie. “I always dine with you; I’m your poison taster after all.”
Supervillain raised their eyebrow and grinned. “Clever. Very clever. But I was thinking something…closer, with your own plate and glass. What do you say to that?”
“I would assume,” Henchman said carefully, “that I’m being accused of poisoning your food.”
Supervillain’s eyebrow arched higher. “How so?”
“I try my best to be above suspicion, but it’s natural for someone like Your Excellency to mistrust. Maybe you believe I’m only tasting the foods I know are safe?” They didn’t look up, didn’t let their spoon shake. “Please, order me to eat anything you like.”
Supervillain followed up on their threat of their own plate and glass, both worth more than the Henchman’s annual salary. Next came choice cuts of meat, steaming buns, honeyed vegetables, a glass of deep red wine, and on and on and on. Henchmen tried not to notice how often they received the best part of every dish, and failed.
This was even worse than they’d thought. To be accused of doing a job badly was halfway to a death sentence. To be accused of betraying Supervillain, of trying to poison them…god. They couldn’t imagine the punishment in store.
Eventually Supervillain sat back, satisfied. They gestured with their too-sharp knife. “Eat.”
Henchman ate.
It was the best last meal anyone could ask for. The pork melted in their mouth, and the buns were the fluffiest they had ever had. Even the vegetables were good enough to make them crave vegetables, and the wine complimented every morsel. Henchman let their eyes flutter shut in bliss.
“And?” They could hear the smugness in their boss’s voice, the sharp-edged delight. “Your thoughts?”
“You were right,” Henchmen said. “It was in the pork.”
Supervillain’s cutlery clattered; their chair hit the floor. Then all of a sudden there were hands against Henchmen’s shoulders, nails biting crescent moons through their shirt. “What do you mean? Henchmen, what do you-”
Henchmen cracked their eyes open. The room was already blurring, but Supervillain’s bright eyes stayed crystal clear. “Well,” they slurred, “half right. I had nothing to do with it. I would…I would never…”
“Henchman, that wasn’t what I meant. Look at me. Look at me, Henchman, that’s an order, I’m telling you to- stay with me, stay with me, come on, don’t do this to me, this isn’t what I wanted, no, no, no no no- Henchman!”
oh fuck i love this!! the henchman being so sure it’s an accusation and then just the DELIVERY of “you were right, it was in the pork.” and then the supervillain’s panic!!! i loved it.
You are a small god, with very little power or influence. But you are happy, and take care of your few worshippers as much as you are able. An extraordinarily powerful being stumbles bloodied into your sacred place, and cries “Sanctuary.”
I sense them coming from a thousand miles off. They move like a tear through the fabric of reality, stitching and unstitching, leaving a trail of fifth dimensional embroidery in their wake. Lots of Great Ones pass this way—Death is not so far over my horizon, and many seek their lands for rescues and redemptions and respite. Few return. But that is not my concern.
What is my concern: this Great One is not heading down the well-trodden path to Death. They are heading towards me. Towards my little temple, safe and sequestered at the edge of all things. Defensible. But not particularly escapable.
Ten minutes later and my acolytes can feel it too. The few temporarily sheltering here cluster around my altar. They are all too well-practiced to tremble or cry, even as the approaching onslaught threatens to pop their ear drums and crack the marrow from their bones. Instead, calloused hands curl around favoured weapons. “Boss?”
“Yeah, this one’s not for you guys. Not sure it’s for me, either, but I have a slightly lower chance of going ‘pop’. Get your butts to the catacombs and prep for evacuation.” I scrabble together enough power to materialise, so I can look each of them in the eye. “Which means if you feel me die, or flee, you run. Got it?”
A chorus of affirmatives that only half of them mean fill the cloister, the echoes still bouncing as they file down through the secret passages in the floor. I lock the trapdoors behind them. It won’t keep them out forever, but hopefully it’ll hold long enough to keep them from doing anything completely stupid. Like coming back to rescue me from certain death.
Like they haven’t done that before.
The Great One hits the foot of my mountain, brushing through the meagre wards like fragile spider webs. They jerk up the rockface, not quite walking, not quite climbing, just…moving upward. Raking pitons and claws and wings through the fabric of space-time, and sealing it behind them in flares of sunlight and gold. Still, they don’t clean everything. I can feel their blood splattering my domain.
Author’s Note: I mentioned in an earlier post that I was starting an urban fantasy WIP called Empty Names. I’ve decided to go ahead and post the rough drafts for chapters as I go, and this is the first one. It’s a bit different in tone and style from The Archivist’s Journal, but I’ve enjoyed the experimentation and practice thus far. Masterpost with table of contents here. Word Count: 3,594 Content warnings: Brief mentions of violence, but nothing shown “on screen” in detail. Brief mention of blood. Misgendering.
And with the warnings out of the way, let’s get started…
The fact that she’d given her address to a stranger on the internet is probably an even greater testament to Lacuna’s lack of sleep for the past three days than the dark rings around her eyes. As it turns out, it’s hard to get much sleep with a demon growling out increasingly detailed descriptions of all the gory things it’s going to do to you once it escapes the computer-drawn summoning circle projected into the middle of your studio apartment. A predictable enough causal link between death threats and sleep deprivation, but then again, Lacuna hadn’t even believed in magic until the ritual she’d attempted out of just the wrong mix of boredom and desperation actually worked.
What’s your address? I’ll be there in an hour.
She checks her phone. It’s been forty seven minutes since she replied to that direct message on the forum. May as well step outside and see if her would-be savior is actually going to make good on their promise. A promise that should be near-impossible to keep unless they somehow already knew where she lived and happened to be in the same city. Not completely out of the picture she supposes, what with IP address tracking being a thing and all. But even without that, she’s more than willing to believe in the impossible right now.
this seems really cool! i especially like the premise of anchor worlds where people can’t know about magic for the sake of their collective beliefs staying roughly the same, that’s such an interesting idea. also wow, how unknowing of pop culture must Road be to not even recognize the red pill/blue pill joke??
i really liked the specifics of using the projector to cast the circle and thus bypassing a lot of pitfalls of physical circles, and Lacuna just cleaning up the image a bit in photoshop cuz it looked wonky lol. also the fear of the power momentarily going out when you have a demon trapped sheerly by the light of a projector in your house… damn!!
Ages ago you discovered immortality and then had the time to learn the strongest magics. But the gods were jealous and banded together to smite you. To escape their wrath, you hid in another dimension, coming back for only short, safe periods of time, to help people in their time of need.
You carefully poked your head out of the dimension gateway, kept as small and unobtrusive as possible, before you gingerly stepped into your beloved world. And you did love it, from its many, complicated and messy people to the wide array of animals and places. There was nothing more beautiful than nature, nothing more raw than emotions and nothing more mesmerizing than watching people grow in their attempt to grasp for the stars.
There was a reason why you risked your neck every time you came back, why you couldn’t stop returning to this place where gods hunted relentlessly for you.
The thing was, you entirely understood pissing off Death, that probably hadn’t been your smartest move. They had your full respect for being saddled with the shitty job of maintaining a balance between all things and you really hoped Life hadn’t nagged them to, er, well, death yet about your pesky existence.
You didn’t plan to ever share your immortality spell with anyone, however. The only people you had ever offered it to had been your two closest friends, back when the three of you had been known as the Miracle Trio. But Brenan had preferred to grow old with his family and the day he died, you had grieved with his grandchildren, hiding when Death came to take his soul to its final, eternal resting place.
Liesel was a different story. She had refused your offer for immortality as well, but she had been as brilliant a mage as Brenan and you and one day she had just…faded. Dissolved like smoke in the air. You knew she was still alive somewhere, you could sometimes feel her presence like a whisper of air, but she was unreachable for you, living in whatever place she had discovered with her magic.
So, no, you would not share your immortality with anyone else, not even you were that dumb. Humanity’s potential would wither if they didn’t have to fear Death, if they didn’t have to worry about time and what to make of their lives. But, you know, maybe Death could let it go this once? Probably not, though.
“The stone corrupts all those who wield it, it is fueled by their ambitions and dreams. So we need someone with no ambitions, no dreams, someone who doesn’t care about what the future holds for themselves. That’s why we found you.”
The first thought, in a moment like this, probably should not have been what came to your mind. Well, fuck you too, you thought, half incredulous and half apathetic. You leaned against the doorframe with one shoulder and eyed the group of three wizened people before you. Why was it always the elderly who came with big quests or brought important items that had to be hidden away?
Also, if you didn’t care about the future, didn’t that mean you didn’t care about the stone either? You might as well give it to someone else. Maybe someone better suited than you. There was this little girl across the street who had an acorn necklace and played in puddles and always sat very still until the every last stray cat felt safe enough to eat what she brought them. Maybe the stone should go to her, she at least gave a shit.
You debated arguing or refusing, but your disinterest won out in the end. “Sure,” you answered, holding out a hand for them to plop the stone into. You weren’t scared of it, especially since it looked utterly unremarkable. If you tossed it into a river, no one would be able to tell it apart from the other rocks.
The three wizened elders, apparently the smartest of their magic circle, exchanged grave looks and you waited until they were done with their silent communication and their leader stepped forward.
“We entrust you with the Stone of Possibility, never use it and always hide it,” they said, voice solemn and carrying the sort of undertone that spoke of great importance. You blinked slowly. “Give it to no one, no matter how noble their hearts, how pitiful their tale or how silver their tongue.” You couldn’t help but imagine a genderless person sticking out their tongue dripping with mercury.
and it’s a zeugma where one of the words is literal and one is metaphorical which is the BEST KIND
I didn’t know about zeugmas until just now! That is so awesome, everybody:
zeug·ma
ˈzo͞oɡmə/
noun
a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (e.g.,John and his license expired last week ) or to two others of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts ).
Summary: Marigold Fletcher is a good witch. However, when her dark past comes knocking, her reputation is on the line.
——
Marigold Fletcher is a good witch.
“No, not a good witch,” she tries to
explain to the knight on her doorstep. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I
mean good in the sense that I excel in my craft. Morally, I’m more
gray.”
“Oh, good,” the man says. He puts the hat he’d
been wringing in his hands back on his head. The leather pops back into shape
and the desperation he’d been wearing like a cloak melts away. He looks ten
years younger when he smiles. “I can drop the act then.”
Marigold gapes. “You were lying? To a witch?”
“I’m a knight,” the man says with a shrug. “We
aren’t known for being smart.” He nods towards her living room. “Do you mind if
I come in, or…?”
Wordlessly, Marigold lets him duck past her.
He finds his way into her living room with prompting and sighs when he sits on
her couch.
“Sorry,” he says, tipping his head back
against the backrest. “It was tough getting here. I had to climb three separate
mountains and fight off at least a dozen griffins. And you were the easiest
witch to find, believe it or not.”
Marigold believes it. Most witches are
nomadic. Those who put down roots, like her, usually do so in the most
inhospitable places. Marigold is lazier than her brethren. She doesn’t live too
deep in a forest, though she does live so high on her mountain that the
air is a little too thin for most human’s comfort.
“You didn’t give me your name,” she says. She
shuts her door and picks a seat in an armchair across from the knight, right by
the fireplace. If this turns out to be an elaborate plan to dig out her heart,
she’ll throw him into the flames head first. “Awfully rude of a guest.”
“Alas,” the man says gallantly, “I can not give
you my name.” He winks at her. “But you may call me Jax.”
Rather than be charmed, Marigold is irritated.
“I’m not fae, idiot. I can’t take your name even if you said you were giving it
to me.”
