This Is The Iconic Singularity Performance Which Granted The Biggest And Best Audience Reaction In The

Japanese Linocut Pokemon Posters made by AndiiusPrints

8 Ways to Improve Your Writing

I got a great anonymous ask last week from someone who wanted to know how to identify weak spots in their writing. One of the things that comes with time and experience is finding the language to identify, discuss, and address the feeling that something isn’t quite right or that a story is “missing something.” Not knowing them or their writing, of course I couldn’t help them figure out what specifically the problem was. But I did share with them a list of things I’ve done over the years to be able to identify weak spots and improve my writing. 

1. Analyze your favorite writers.

Figure out why you like the writing that you like. Ask yourself: What are they doing here? What are they doing that I’m not doing? Why do I love their writing so much? Take notes on their stories. Plot them. Write in the margins. Read them slowly. Read their reviews—both good and bad. Did that writer you love once write something you hated? Great, even better. Figure out why that particular book was different from the others.

2. Analyze your own writing.

Do you have an older story you wrote that you love? Figure out why. What did you do differently in that story that you’re not doing in the current story you’re writing? Make notes. Draw maps. Reverse engineer everything.

3. Develop a language to talk and think about writing.

Read craft books, blogs, anything you can get your hands on. Learn about point of view, conflict, character development, dialogue, story structure, syntax, metaphors. Get your advice from good sources, and don’t believe everything you read. If something doesn’t sit right with you, throw it out. But be open to everything.

4. Journal and write about your writing.

Over time, you will identify consistent weaknesses that you have. Then, in the future, when you feel like “something is missing” from your writing, you can reference your notes and remember, for example, that you often have difficulty with your protagonist’s motivation, with theme, with dialogue, etc., and you’ll have a better idea about where to go looking.

5. Share your writing with someone you trust, ideally a more experienced writer than you or an editor or mentor.

Be very careful about who you share your writing with. Friends and family are not always the best choice. You don’t want someone who’s just going to throw around their uneducated opinion about your work, who has a big ego, or who won’t be honest with you. Remember: “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it” are useless pieces of feedback. You want someone who can read your work and say, “Your protagonist’s passion for music made them really likeable to me. I was dying to know whether they would get into the conservatory or not!” or “My attention wandered on page two, when you described the couch upholstery for three paragraphs.”

6. Analyze the areas of your writing which are commonly problematic for new writers (and writers in general).

In my experience as an editor, the most likely culprits are unclear character motivation and lack of conflict. There are a lot of good resources (books and blogs) about this. Try a Google search for “most common mistakes beginning writers make.”

7. Trust your intuition.

Do you keep coming back to the same page or scene in your story, feeling like it isn’t right? You’re probably onto something.

8. Take time away from your writing.

You’d be amazed how much more clear everything will be after a break. Give yourself at least a week for a short story, 3-4 weeks for a novel. It could also be the case that your ambitions for this particular story don’t yet match your skills, and that you’ll have to wait even longer to successfully finish it. I’ve known writers who have given up on a story only to come back to it months or years later once they’d gained the skills and insight to complete it. And then suddenly writing that story seemed really easy!

//////////////

The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, check out my Free Resource Library or get The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. xoxo

[Hubble telephone Twitter account]

▬ ᵗᵃᵉʰʸᵘⁿᵍ ’ ᵃʳᵗ ˢᵗᵘᵈᵉⁿᵗ’ ᵐᵒᵒᵈᵇᵒᵃʳᵈ 🎨 for @taescuit happy birthday cutie!!♡ u r a very nice and talented person mmh love uuu baby

⇝please like or reblog if you save/use

⇝don’t repost

light it up like dynamite 🧨✨

I died! Source (X)

🥵

[POSTED FROM THE GRAVE]

reblog money jimin for good fortune

the thing about fandom’s framing of steve as this rebel without a cause type of reckless idiot who is just incapable of following orders is that, like “angry chihuahua” pre-serum steve, i get where it comes from. it’s funny and meme-able, and, most importantly, it’s a way to distance steve from the boyscout image so many people associate him with, and that so many of his fans hate.

but, just as angry chihuaha steve, reckless idiot steve is also upsetting because it takes the most sincere, earnest, good things steve has done in the mcu and twists them to be not the actions of a noble hero, but the stupidity of a manchild who challenges everything and everyone for no reason. it bastardizes the very core of steve’s character, and, above all, equates making steve more cynic/less idealistic with making steve better and cooler.

and that sucks because, no, he’s not a boyscout, but, guys, the very core of steve’s character is cheesy. steve as a character represents an ideal, and he does so in the most sincere, earnest way possible. steve’s superpower is his heart and his bravery. he’s a hero because he’s a good person, not because he’s snarky, because he’s a genius, because he’s super powerful or because he was chosen by fate or a prophecy. he’s just… the ultimate Good Guy. it doesn’t get much cheesier than that, unless your name is Clark Kent. 

and if that isn’t interesting to you, it’s cool. anti-heroes are the norm in the mcu and in most superhero movies for a reason: they’re fun to watch and very relatable. but, i’m sorry, steve is just not one of them. steve is that guy who walks old ladies to cross the street, not the guy who cracks a bunch of jokes while kicking a villain’s ass. and you’re free to find this boring and lame as much as you want to, but that’s IT. that’s the character. and i feel like a lot of people are not comfortable just letting steve be that way - they need to twist his actions to make him seem much more of a rebel badass than he actually is, and since i’m so attached to this stupidly sincere portrayal of sheer goodness and bravery, it becomes upsetting.

like… streve crashed the Valkyrie into the water not because he’s an Extra™, Dramatic Bitch or whatever, but because it was the only chance to land the plane without killing tons of innocent people. TFA is the ONLY origin movie in the mcu that doesn’t end with a triumph, but with a tragedy, and fandom somehow thinks it’s fun to turn steve’s sacrifice into a laughing stock, to act like he did so because he’s stupid or missed bucky’s dick too much or anything of the sort, instead of seeing the fact that steve did what he did because he valued other people’s lives above his own, because he valued doing the right thing over getting what he, personally, wanted.

and i guess to me it’s upsetting because this is something that resonates so deeply with my values and the person i want to be, and so to see fandom turning it into something small and petty just hurts, even if it’s just a joking shitpost. because when you act like steve is just some insolent dude who challenges everything and everyone just because he can, you end up turning his character from a hero to an idiot with poor impulse control. when you make headcanons of his friends being annoyed and bored by his constant idealism and desire to do the right thing, you turn him into a burden to sam or bucky or natasha or whoever, ignoring how he’s actually a leader and an inspiration to the people around him - you ignore how he broke through bucky’s brainwashing through sheer loyalty, how he made sam want to suit up for the first time in years, how he gave natasha trust when no one else would have. 

basically, you take away the beautiful things about his character and turn into something that, yeah, might be funnier, but it’s just so cynical it’s almost depressing. it turns something that is genuinely idealistic and optimistic into a pessimistic, shallow thing, and that’s just not what steve rogers is meant to be.

Honoring the lives lost in the Atlanta shooting

Xiaojie 'Emily' Tan, 49

Tan, 49, was the mother of Jami Webb, a recent graduate from the University of Georgia. She was a licensed massage therapist and the owner of Young’s Asian Massage, along with other businesses in the area, including another spa and a tanning salon, according to state records. She was “the sweetest, most kind-hearted, giving, never-met-a-stranger person,” a friend told Atlanta’s WSB-TV. Just one day away from her 50th birthday when she was killed, according to USA Today, Tan was described by her daughter as thoughtful, devoted to her family, and looking forward to traveling in her retirement.

Hyun Jung Grant, 51

Hyun Jung Grant was a Korean immigrant who worked at Atlanta’s Gold Spa. Her son Randy Park, 23, shared a tribute to his mother on GoFundMe: He said his mother was a single parent who “dedicated her whole life to providing for my brother and I.” She loved dancing and sushi, according to Park, who told The Daily Beast, “She wasn’t just my mother. She was my friend.” Park, who now has to raise his brother alone, is not buying law-enforcement officials’ suggestion that the attack was motivated by a supposed sex addiction, not racism. “That’s bullshit,” he said.

Delaina Ashley Yaun Gonzalez, 33

Yaun Gonzalez, 33, was a mother of two — 13-year-old Mayson and 8-month-old Mia. She had worked all day on Tuesday at the Waffle House a few shops down from Tan’s spa business. She had been looking forward to having a relaxing night out with her husband, Mario Gonzalez, whom she married only last year, and the couple had reportedly never been to Young’s Asian Massage before. According to Fox 5 Atlanta, family members say that Mario Gonzalez, who survived the shooting, is “taking [the situation] hard.” Delaina Ashley Yaun Gonzalez’s friends and family have set up a GoFundMe to address her funeral costs.

Paul Andre Michels, 54

Michels, 54, was a handyman at Young’s Asian Massage and the owner of an electric company. He was only recently hired for the role and excited to take it on after looking for more work during the pandemic, according to a friend who spoke with CBS46. An army veteran originally from Detroit, Michels is one of nine siblings and is survived by his wife of more than two decades. In an interview with the Guardian, his brother John Michels emphasized his kindness. “He was just a regular guy, very good-hearted, very soft-natured,” he said, while noting that Michels had expressed an interest in getting involved in the massage business.

Yong Ae Yue, 63

A licensed massage therapist, she was laid off at the start of the pandemic last year and was excited to finally start shifts at the spa again, her son Elliott Peterson, 42, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday morning. Yue’s youngest child, Robert Peterson, 38, agreed, recalling their mother as a kind and deeply caring woman. If you stopped by her house, she’d sit you down, ask if you’d eaten, and then insist on a trip to H Mart grocery store so she could make a meal.

Daoyou Feng, 44

Daoyou Feng, 44, began working at Young’s Asian Massage in recent months, according to Tan’s friend Hynson. She was kind and quiet, he said. Her relatives could not be reached for comment.

Soon Chung Park, 74

Soon Chung Park, 74, was also a worker at an Atlanta spa. Her family didn’t respond when reached for comment. Park previously lived in New York, where she has relatives, her son-in-law, Scott Lee, told the New York Times. “She got along with her family so well,” Lee told the newspaper.

Suncha Kim, 69

Suncha Kim, 69, worked at one of the spas in Atlanta. Her family could not be reached for comment. Kim, a grandmother, was married for more than 50 years, a family member told the Times. She enjoyed line dancing and worked hard, the relative said.

Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, 30

Hernandez-Ortiz, 30, was the only survivor of the victims who were shot on Tuesday, and he remains hospitalized for multiple gunshot wounds in his “forehead, throat, lungs and stomach,” according to the Washington Post. He was shot while standing outside in the shopping center where Young’s Asian Massage is located. “He came from nothing and has come a long way; that is why I have faith he will survive this,” his wife Flor Gonzalez told the Washington Post. Gonzalez has also set up a GoFundMe to help with the costs of Hernandez-Ortiz’s medical care.