Me, reading most of a piece: Outstanding! I love! Fabulous!
Me, reading said piece’s dialogue: That’s not- that’s not how people… talk.
Few tips for anyone writing something very difficult: dialogue.
1. Awkward people do not confidently proclaim heavy statements.
If your character is awkward, anxious, or easily gets nervous, they will not smoothly declare “I love you with all my heart, and I have family issues”. If they’re uncomfortable in social situations, they won’t magically turn confident. Now don’t get me wrong, I love love love a well-portrayed outspoken, confident character. And those characters can probably state emotions easier. But an awkward character cannot.
2. Nervous stuttering (unrelated to a speech impediment) d-does not s-s-sound like t-this.
Try talking to yourself (I’m not crazy) and seeing how this would really sound. A good way to do an aggressive stutter is to fall back and repeat a couple of words. Ex. “What if- what if we- what if we just…” Another trick is to remember that there are varying level to a nervous stutter. If you’re hardly nervous you won’t have an aggressive stutter like that.
3: It’s okay to say “said” every once in a while.
Good god, please don’t avoid it like the plague. It shouldn’t be common, but it shouldn’t be your worst fear. We don’t want another case of “Slughorn ejaculated,”
Feel free to reblog with any corrections, or your own tips!
Edit: Dear god please check the notes. They’re SO helpful.
Ivan Markov painting circa 1870. this girl is lovely, if not trying very hard with her maenad costume
this woman is probably some sort of performer, judging by her many tattoos, but there are plenty of photos floating around of thin Victorian performers, so here’s some representation of a less-than-proper larger lady
more on the average-sized side, but she has a taxidermied cat on her head and I feel that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible because I’m so confused
my beloved French fashion dolls, while their waists are fairly slender, almost always have little molded double chins that suggest a more ample size contained by a corset
actually all of the women in the photos above are wearing corsets. so why don’t larger corsets and garments survive in the same numbers as their smaller counterparts? for the same reason that mediums and larges are harder to find than smalls when shopping- more people wore those sizes, so they got snapped up quickly and worn until they gave out. larger clothes were more expensive then as now, so they would have been kept until they pretty much fell apart
you’re absolutely right, anon. as today, Victorian women came in all shapes and sizes
Um. Does the woman with a taxidermied cat on her head also have a choker that says “pussy”? (Was that even a term back then?) Cuz if so…that makes that photo soooo much better.
There is an old belief in Serbian villages and small towns that certain pumpkins (and watermelons), when left outside during a full moon, will turn in to a vampire.
While Writing: I’m so creative right now, it’s like all the normal constraints have been lifted. Wow I wrote 2,000 words in 30 minutes! This is going to be great.
Rereading the Next Day: I used the word ‘Beautiful’ 8 times in this sentence and instead of ‘reassuring’ I wrote ‘refrigerator.’ Also the tenses switched 3 times in one paragraph and I started writing about a character who isn’t even in this story.
Despite halloween coming up, this is an important issue to look into.
This is an important video.
However, I feel like I should add to this because I thought this video was going to go in a completely different direction – Forms of self harm that might not always be obvious, because they don’t occur externally.
Let me explain.
I self harmed in High School to cope with parental abuse. I made a promise to myself that I have yet to break on Christmas Eve, age 17, that I would never do that to myself again. I am now 23 and happier than ever, having moved out, graduated from college, and found the love of my life.
However, even tho no blade came to my wrist, I continued to self harm in ways that did not manifest in cuts or bruises for a good 5+ years afterwards.
I would self harm in words. Saying things to myself and others like “I’m a piece of shit,” “nothing I do matters,” “I’m worthless,” etc., and although those words never leave a mark, they’re still hurting you on the inside.
I know people who have, by the physical definition, have never self harmed, but by my definition self harm every single day.
In short, we need to expand the definition of self harm.
My grandmother is the first person that comes to mind.
She is on her way out of this world, she’s 81 atm, her husband is losing his memory, and in that way, she is losing her husband.
She is arguably the closest thing to a perfect person I have ever met in my entire life. And I don’t just say that because she is my grandparent. She is incredibly talented, keeps her house cleaner than a hospital, cooks incredible meals, is sharp as a tack and has enough intelligence for the next 10 people, and has the cutest highland Scottish accent you’ve ever heard, especially when she swears ❤
There’s only one problem. She’s never been mean to another living soul, but she’s mean to herself every day.
Every mistake she may make, she says “I’m so stupid,” “I’m just a waste of space,” and other things that just make me wanna cry on the spot when I hear them.
I finally told her, ”Grammy, you don’t have much time left. And if I have one wish for you, it’s that before you go, you see how truly amazing and incredible you are. I look up to you. In my mind, you are the best at everything in the entire world and the adult I could only dream of ever being.”
She started crying. (My Grammy does not cry in front of people first of all so this is already a huge deal.) I could tell this message really resonated with her.
Because she lives in Scotland and I live in America, I can only afford to see her once a year. I came back the next year and she was still treating herself the same way.
I still wish, before she leaves us, that she will stop hurting herself the way she does.
When we expand the definition of self harm to include people like my grandmother, we can start bringing awareness to how harmful words can be not only to others, which is discussed all the time, but to ourselves, which is very rarely discussed.
We have already thoroughly acknowledged that words from others can hurt, words can even kill in the form of suicide from bullying, but we never talk about the harm that negative words used for ourselves can hurt or even kill.
Listen to how people talk about themselves. Observe if they express pride in their achievements, or dismiss them onsite. You’ll start to see patterns of self harm in a lot of people this way. Under my definition of self harm, a lot more people self harm than meets the eye. And nobody is talking about it.
TLDR: We need to expand the definition of self harm to include words and actions towards the self, because those wounds, although not visible, do not mean they don’t exist or don’t cause pain.
Okay, this made me cry. I’m glad someone’s out there acknowledging this. I’ve never physically hurt myself on purpose, but I hate on myself every freaking day. I usually feel like a piece of shit trash human being who barely qualifies as a human being.
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