There are pretty words and ugly words. There are sentences that are coy and charming, and others that are harsh, or hectoring. There are paragraphs that seduce, and others that repulse. And good writing makes use of them all.
#writingCommunity #WriteSky #Writers
😢😢😢😢
When we write, it's like shining a flashlight into the darkness. People, incidents, fleeting moments are illuminated and then disappear back into the dark. The reader glimpses what the story shows, but the writer knows what's hidden in the dark.
#WritingCommunity #WriteSky #ReaderSky
Child: I know your name. Mamdani.
Obama: What’s his first name?
Child: Mayor.
That sounds intriguing
I've been writing a lot of stories set from the 1860s-1960s. So, war is hovering in everyone's mind. One of my favorite shorts I'm trying to find a home for is about a Choctaw man who gets his draft letter while he's part of the Occupy Alcatraz movement.
#pretendpanel
#PretendPanel 4/18:
If I explore war at all in my writing, it's typically the aftermath or prevention of it. I dabbled more when I was younger because it seemed inherent to SFF genres, but I understand too much about the horror of it now to take it lightly, and not enough about it to do it justice.
A big war doesn't really fit my more intimate genre, so I always thought it wouldn't be something I write. Laymen is set in the years after a war, so it does discuss the political fallout, but there's zero (martial) conflict. I'm also not studied in war enough to write it well. BUT..🧵
#pretendpanel
I'll mostly use it as backstory or background to a setting. My big war stories are fantastical, allowing for cleaner results than real war. Like Aroi House being able to avoid slaughtering hundreds of soldiers in the Rykal sequence of NICEF. #pretendpanel
Unless we're talking 'bout the wars one fights inside their own head... you won't find it in my books, #PretendPanel. TBH, I don't know enough about it to write anything worth reading. Nor do I think I have the skills to capture people's attention in that way. I'll stick to mental health & BDSM. 🤷♂️
#PretendPanel
The only time I’ve made more than a passing reference to war was in a fanfic I wrote about ten years ago, and that was because it was part of the canon.
Otherwise, I may make a reference to set context, but it’s unlikely be a focus of my story—although never say never!
#PretendPanel in Fallen Star, war is a fresh scar a few decades removed. For Maira, it's something to be avoided. It's coming back, not out of some inevitable escalating tension, but because thousands of sailors on hundreds of navy ships get antsy if they don't have a target...
#WritingCommunity
The MMCs in one novel and a novella I’ve written are both veterans of war, which has left them changed. The fathers and uncles of many friends were WW2 vets, it did not make them easy to live with.
#pretendpanel #WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #WritingPrompts
#PretendPanel Apr 17: Wars and battles crop up pretty often in fantasy fiction, so I run into it fairly often -- but it's also always through that genre lens, which I feel is very different in tone and flavor from, like, WWII historical fiction.
I'll be honest #PretendPanel, I've never been interested in reading about war. History never captured my attention. But, I recently read 'Border & Rule' after getting it in a promo bundle & WOW... I've sheltered myself into a place of ignorance. So, I'm expanding my interests for personal growth!
It's a fact of life, but not one that I enjoy...
#pretendpanel
It used to have a place when I was young. Now, not anymore because "fuck war". I write it when the story asks for it, but that's it.
#PretendPanel: I don't know that war stories are something I intentially seek out very often, but it definitely comes up! Fantasy and Scifi do tend to have war as a common story element, and I grew up loving historical fiction. I devoured the Dear Canada books as a kid, which had a lot of wars.
#pretendpanel 17: I suppose war is a common theme in the genres that I read, like high fantasy. My feelings are mostly neutral; I don't specifically seek it out or avoid it.
Most books I've read regarding war deal withaftermath
The Tenth Man by Graham Greene for one stuck with me, but not as much as A Canticle for Leibowitz
How conflict affects people is more powerful I find
The most direct "war" books I've read though?
David Gemmell's "Troy" trilogy
#pretendpanel
Interesting! I think a lot of what I read has many characters and plots affected by the wars that just finished (see: the entire Regency era; the modern era [between the World Wars]), since I read a lot of historicals. But also: contemporary stuff can't help but be affected by war. #PretendPanel
I don't seek out books about war, but plenty of my reading material deals with battles and the threat of war. At the moment I'm reading @aptshadow.bsky.social 's Shadows of the Apt series which deals with world-spanning conflict. Dragonfly dogfights, Spider politics, Fly bombers. Fascinating stuff.
I've read a lot about wars. As I get older it gets more painful.
#pretendpanel #WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #WritingPrompts
RIP Moya Brennan 1952-2026
Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten.
May Herne the Hunter guide you home
To be perfectly honest, #pretendpanel, religion doesn't have much of a place in any facet of my life. I'm not a religious person, and not very interested in it to boot, so I spend very little time thinking about it.
I actively avoid having to develop religion for my fiction unless I have to.
🧵 1/2
#WritingPrompts I usually write fantasy stories where gods are very real. In reality I'm an atheist who was raised in one of the more mainstream cults.
Now, if the question is: do my personal beliefs/religion play a part in my writing, I suppose the answer is “sort of.” It’s all rather pagan but yes, I think it peeks through. There is a concern with balance, Justice, and nature.
Happy #caturday, #PretendPanel!
I'm not sure what place religion will have in the novel [yet to be named, outlined, or started]. But, I know it has a HUGE place in our memoir [currently being reworked in the headspace... notes jotted down as they come]. Mainly explores shame as a form of control.
#PretendPanel April 11
It is front and center. Having grown up deep in fundie Christianity, I have a lot of trauma to unpack & toxic beliefs to brutally deconstruct. At the same time, I'm still a very spiritual person & believe in the good that can come from religious beliefs & community, so I
1/5
Surprisingly little, for someone who is super interested in religion as a thing and has a daily spiritual practice. I've never focused on it in my writing and it really only appears as part of a wider cultural context, like mentioning Christmas decorations in a character's home.
🏷️ #PretendPanel
