Is it more important to preserve racist language or to reach current readers? I would say the latter all the way.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 24
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 24: When older novels use outdated or racist language, should they be edited for the modern world or left alone and viewed in context?
Racist language in particular will stop me reading a book. If you want me to appreciate the book's merits, edit out the racism. It's easy to imagine ppl my age and younger repulsed into avoiding books that contain racist language. Publishers are editing it b/c they want current readers to appreciate "classic" books' merits.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 23: What's your strangest source of writing inspiration?
For years, I tried to make a hardboiled ending work for a story. I planned for a wife to butcher her husband in self-defense, but I couldn't write it to my satisfaction. Then I watched the 2020 Rachael Leigh Cook/Damon Wayans Jr. Netflix romcom Love, Guaranteed and decided on a nonviolent ending. That version of the story was accepted and published as "Say Cheese":
#WordWeavers Apr 22: What two senses are the most natural for you to include in your description?
Hearing - including dialogue - and touch. I describe what characters see, too, but I don't go into great detail (height, weight, age...). I purposely leave some to readers' imagination, coincidentally letting different-looking actors play one of my characters. Re smell and taste, I think about how things would smell and taste to characters as opposed to myself. It's not intuitive.
@aurora I don't think there are shortcuts to overcoming #ImpostorSyndrome. One has to build self-confidence and self-esteem to the point one no longer feels like a fake but recognizes that achievement came from real talent and effort.
It may help to realize we all collect ourselves and put on our best faces for the world. It may feel like faking, but if it helps one through times of doubt, it's actually valuable and doing something constructive, not wrong.
A question for my fellow folks at #WordWeavers and #WritersCoffeeClub, since I had this talk yesterday night and we're looking for new ideas: What are your tips against imposter's syndrome?
If you discussed it before and can find the post links are welcome.
I think the constructive gist of Tremain's rule is: Don't cling to the ending you've always had in mind and always wanted when strong signs in the rest of the story point you toward a different, more plausible, more effective ending.
If she'd written it more clearly as such, I would've agreed.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 21
IMO, general and short-term planning works best. Make a general plan of what you want a story to do, but as you write/execute toward each checkpoint along the way, check whether you need to make any adjustments, and change your working plan accordingly so you don't run into bigger problems when it may be too late to solve them.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 21
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 21: Quoted in the post I boosted, Tremain's rule reads, "In the planning stage of a book, don’t plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it."
To my mind, writers contrive their stories through the entire writing and editing process; it's all the planning phase. And I don't think you can gear all that goes before the ending to earn the ending unless you've thought out, planned, the ending.
#writersCoffeeClub 4/21: Do you agree with Rose Tremain, who says you shouldn't plan a book's ending; it must be earned?
This is very much in line with the way that I write. I usually don't know how a book is going to end until I'm well into the MS. Also, I write very linearly, and find if I write the ending too much ahead of time, the emotional colors don't match up well.
You can find all of Dame Rose's rules here, if you're curious: https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-rose-tremain-c10b6026d1b9
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#WordWeavers Apr 21: If your MC's main skill evaporated, would they survive the story.
My MCs' main skills usually generate stories. If they didn't have the skills for the story, I'd call on different characters.
If the Q is, would the MCs survive if their skills went away mid-story, I'd say yes. Protagonists as a rule survive/get through stories. The times they don't can feel like hoodwinking readers. They've invested all this time in the MC only for the MC not to survive the story?
Also, planning is different from execution. You can plan an ending, plan what you want to accomplish, or not. Either way, you earn the ending, your goal/intent, by executing successfully. Personally, I'd regret unintended, unforeseen, negative consequences of not planning.
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 21
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 21: Do you agree with Rose Tremain, who says you shouldn't plan a book's ending; it must be earned?
No. I think the published final form of a book is entirely planned. In the process of writing the book, the writer may not know how plot points turn out, but as the book takes shape, more and more of it becomes a deliberate decision. If a book doesn't surprise, it can still move readers w/ the quality of its writing. The latter is arguably more important to accomplish.
#PennedPossibilities 290: How do you find time to write?
I make writing a higher priority than other things I have to do, in other words, making time to write.
We could be doing any number of things at any time and we choose to do much of what we do: exercise, eat, read, watch TV... The only reason there's time for it is we choose to do it instead of other stuff.
@Grail @kemra102 If Starfleet policy were based on letting ppl stay and serve where they'd naturally be most physically comfortable, every crew would be race-based, and that's not the case. Most crews that feature on the TV series are diverse beings living and working together.
@Grail @kemra102 Having race-organized crews may say something about letting ppl do what they're best at or letting the crews coexist, but Starfleet is already made up of beings of all races. Whole worlds may be UFP members, but not everyone on those worlds wants to join Starfleet, just like not everyone wants to join the U.S. military.
@Grail @kemra102 I'd prefer it if all Starfleet duties were diverse, embodying its mission of inclusiveness. Having race-organized crews is bound to foster racial bias instead of making every crewmember constantly aware that their differences are their strength.
#StarTrek #DS9 Moreover if the UFP and Starfleet are the inclusive organizations we hope, once Solok's Vulcan superiority bias were discovered, he would've been drummed out of Starfleet, nipped in the bud.