"Remember When We Met

personally, i definitely think that these phrases stand out a lot more to the writer than to the reader, but if you feel like those comparison phrases are adding up too much or getting a bit clunky, I’d recommend experimenting with metaphors rather than trying to look for replacements for “like” or “as”

to a reader, something like “her smile was like the rising sun” is super easy to read and can do a lot of work communicating theme and mood and details about the character (or narrator, depending) but switching it up to something more complex like “her smile was akin to the rising sun” can make a reader pause and go ‘huh that’s a little awkward’ unless that’s the style of language you’ve been writing in the whole time

that said, i think the simplest way to cut down on similes if you have too many (or don’t enjoy how they affect the flow of your sentences) is to use metaphors. they can help cut down that barrier between a character comparing two things (e.g. her smile & the rising sun) and instead appeal directly to a reader’s senses or their understanding of the world, so that the comparison just becomes part of the scene itself

for example, I was reading Sally Rooney’s Normal People during the unit on comparisons for a writing course I took and some that stood out to me were how she described “rain silver as loose change in the glare of traffic” and how that rain “[whispered] on slick roof tiles”

the first quote is a simile while the second is a metaphor, but both of them are making comparisons (the first comparing rain & loose change, leaning on a readers visual reference for shiny coins and implying that the narrator thinks these two things are alike) while the second one compares the sound of rain to the sound of whispering by making it part of the scene description directly. rather than say “it was as if the rain whispered on slick roof tiles” Rooney broke down the barrier that similes sometimes put up by directly appealing to the reader’s senses instead (sound here, instead of sight) and that’s effective bc a reader can very easily understand what it means for rain to whisper without the author having to put in a lot of work looking for a natural way to say “the rain seemed as if it was whispering on slick roof tiles”

and sometimes similes just work better than metaphors. it really depends but, as the author, you get to choose what works for you and what doesn’t

these kind of considerations can be hard to remember when you’re in the middle of writing, too, but the editing phase can be a great place to turn some similes into metaphors (or to decide that you like all your similes and to leave them be!)

i know a lot of my writing involves me writing exactly what I mean, and then scaling it back in the editing phase so that I’m showing what I mean instead of stating it all outright- and in that process a lot of similes end up incorporated in different ways (either by using metaphors instead or by dropping the comparison altogether and leaning more on body language and or theme to draw out the ideas and impressions i want a reader to get) so maybe that strategy could work for you too?

i got a little long-winded here but I hope this helps!

As a newer writer, I'm struggling to use similes in more ways other than by phrases like "like", "seeming as", "as if" or other versions of these three.

What are some of the other, if any, ways to compare something to something else, to avoid a book turning mundane?

Chilchuck and Marcille are so sibling-coded in this scene lmao

Chilchuck, embodying the well-known rage of being forced into an apology by your mom only to get a smartass response:

That is the face of a man who swallowed his pride and then choked on it

March 50k challenge update

Okay so tumblr overwhelmingly won the poll so I made a sideblog (@bi-focal15) to keep everything organized once the actual challenge starts. I'm putting together some posts to keep everybody engaged with one another and with their writing and I'll share the posting schedule on March 1st on that blog so we're all on the same page! No need to follow the sideblog either since I'll just carry over the taglist, but I wanted to let everyone know ahead of time since my user will change slightly!

I hope everybody's getting excited about their writing, whether you have a detailed WIP in mind or just some characters you wanna play around with!!

If you'd like to be added or dropped from the taglist, please leave a comment on this post :) everybody's welcome to participate!

(and if you're looking for more details about the challenge, you can find the original post here)

taglist for participants: @queengmine2crayon @bluedaelyn @caffinatedcastiel @spookylittlemegan @brightshaw-shipper @superabi1997 @lauravanarendonkbaugh @relentlesslycravingsummer @mayarii-darling @laineydelainey @madisonofthesouth @theghostinthewardrobe

I like Bokuto who can comfortably rely on Akaashi

MHA tweets pt.14

“Be curious about what you’re writing about” is not stock Common Writing Advice but it really, really should be. There are a lot of written works that fail due to the authors just being obviously incurious about what they are writing about.

the dialogue I write in my head as I’m falling asleep is always so great, I wish they’d invent a me who remembers it in the morning

Imants Tillers (Australian,b.1950)

Kangaroo Blank, 1988

Oil stick, gouache, oil paint and acrylic paint on 78 canvases

I’m pretty sure they never show in the anime how they got to class?? But I love the idea that Denki used to show up to UA in his skateboard before they stayed at the dorms, also idk I feel like Bakugo it’s his dad’s baby and he used to take him to class when he wasn’t busy like PLEASE

24hr Novel Challenge: Day 1 results

Goal was 8hrs, I managed 4 (note to self: start earlier in the day and do longer bursts, lol)

Also, writing for that long is hella hard and with all the little breaks for stretching/eating/water it's also pretty long but I managed to keep a pretty even pace of 1-2k words per hour which is fairly solid for me

Total WC for the day: 5,029

2,948 words towards my original WIP called Sealed (info below) and 2,081 for a bkdk post-war fanfic WIP

Sealed WIP info:

Title: Sealed Genre: thriller/mystery, queer romance, coming-of-age

One line summary: In a town where ghosts abound and mediums are detested, four teenagers are thrust into the heart of a deadly mystery that forces them to decide who they are, who they want to be, and how much they’re willing to risk for it.

Slightly sillier one-line summary: Toss together a shunned medium, a secret-keeping prodigy, a spitfire Catcher-in-training, and her boyfriend who really doesn’t wanna be involved, then sprinkle in a string of mysterious attacks and watch as shit hits the fan. *in this WIP “Catcher” is the term for ghost hunter

Characters: Nishtha- a young medium living by herself who is only ever acknowledged by her neighbor

Veronica: a new transfer student from a very long and very talented line of Catchers who keeps her cards close to her chest

Cherry: A Catcher-in-training who’s struggling to become stronger even while her boyfriend pulls away and her leader keeps ditching her to Catch solo

Carter: A conformist that’s afraid of change and whose family is forced to take in the medium cousin who almost killed him as a child