Quotes From My WIP

“It’s only recently that I’ve come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all our thinking for us, that we are writing myths and our myths are believed, and that old myths are believed until someone writes a new one.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

Returning to writing after a break is like having the old Windows startup sound playing on a loop in your head.

Hi, I’ve been considering starting a book in the fantasy genre. I really wanted to give some Native American representation in it, since it's something that I rarely see. However, this story wouldn't take place in America, it would be in a completely different world (though one loosely based off of earth in the 14 hundreds ish?) This is similar to your mixing cultures post, but I wanted to know: is there a good way to give Native American representation in stories that aren’t historical fiction?

Representing PoC in Fantasy When Their Country/Continent Doesn’t Exist

The core of this question is something we’ve gotten across a few different ethnicities, and it basically boils down to: “how can I let my readers know these people are from a certain place without calling them by this certain place?” Aka, how can I let people know somebody is Chinese if I can’t call them Chinese, or, in your case, some Native American nation without having a North America.

Notes on Language

As I have said multiple times, there is no such thing as “Native American culture”. It’s an umbrella term. Even if you are doing fantasy you need to pick a nation and/or confederacy.

Step One

How do you code somebody as European?

This sounds like a very silly question, but consider it seriously.

How do you?

They probably live in huts or castles; there are lords and kings and knights; they eat stew and bread and drumsticks; they celebrate the winter solstice as a major holiday/new year; women wear dresses while men wear pants; there are pubs and farms and lots of wheat; the weather is snowy in winter and warm in summer.

Now swap all those components out for whatever people you’re thinking about.

Iroquois? They live in longhouses; there is a confederacy and democracy and lots of warriors from multiple nations; they eat corn, beans, and squash (those three considered sacred and grown together), with fish and wild game; they wear mostly leather garments with furs in winter; there are nights by the fire and cities and the rituals will change by the nation (remember the Iroquois were a confederacy made up of five or six tribes, depending on period); the weather is again snowy in winter and warm in summer.

Chinese? They harvest rice; there is an emperor appointed by the gods and scholars everywhere; they use a lunar calendar and have a New Year in spring; their trade ships are huge and their resources are plenty; they live in wood structures with paper walls or mud brick; they use jade and ivory for talismans; their culture is hugely varied depending on the province; their weather is mostly tropical, with monsoons instead of snow on lowlands, but their mountains do get chilly.

You get the gist.

Break down what it is that makes a world read as European (let’s be honest, usually English and Germanic) to you, then swap out the parts with the appropriate places in another culture.

Step Two

Research, research, research. Google is your friend. Ask it the questions for “what did the Cree eat” and “how did Ottoman government work.” These are your basics. This is what you’ll use to figure out the building blocks of culture.

You’ll also want to research their climate. As I say in How To Blend Cultures, culture comes from climate. If you don’t have the climate, animals, plants, and weather down, it’ll ring false.

You can see more at So You Want To Save The World From Bad Representation.

Step Three

Start to build the humans and how they interact with others. How are the trade relations? What are the internal attitudes about the culture— how do they see outsiders? How do outsiders see them? Are there power imbalances? How about greed and desire to take over?

This is where you need to do even more research on how different groups interacted with others. Native American stories are oftentimes painful to read, and I would strongly suggest to not take a colonizer route for a fantasy novel.

This does, however, mean you might not be researching how Natives saw Europeans— you’ll be researching how they saw neighbours. 

You’ll also want to look up the social rules to get a sense for how they interacted with each other, just for character building purposes.

Step Four

Sensitivity readers everywhere! You’ll really want to get somebody from the nation to read over the story to make sure you’ve gotten things right— it’s probably preferable to get somebody when you’re still in the concept stage, because a lot of glaring errors can be missed and it’s best to catch them before you start writing them.

Making mistakes is 100% not a huge moral failing. Researching cultures without much information on them is hard. So long as you understand the corrections aren’t a reflection on your character, just chalk them up to ignorance (how often do most writers get basic medical, weapon, or animal knowledge wrong? Extremely often). 

Step Five

This is where you really get into the meat of creating people. You’ve built their culture and environment into your worldbuilding, so now you have the tools you need to create characters who feel like part of the culture.

You’ll really want to keep in mind that every culture has a variety of people. While your research will say people roughly behave in a certain way, people are people and break cultural rules all the time. Their background will influence what rules they break and how they relate to the world, but there will be no one person who follows every cultural rule down to the letter. 

Step Six

Write!

Step Seven

More sensitivity readers! See step 4 for notes.

Step Eight

Rewrite— and trust me, you will need to. Writing is rewriting.

Repeat steps seven and eight until story is done.

Extra Notes

I’ll be honest— you’re probably going to need a certain amount of either goodwill (if you’re lucky enough to make friends within the group you’re trying to represent— but seriously, please do not make friends with us for the sole purpose of using us as sensitivity readers. It’s not nice) and/or money to get to publishing level. 

The good part is the first three steps are free, and these first three steps are what will allow you to hurt others less when you approach. While you’ll still likely make mistakes, you’ll make a few less (and hopefully no glaring ones, but it can/does happen) so long as you do your due diligence in making sure you at least try to understand the basics.

And once you feel like you’ve understood the basics… dive down even deeper because chances are you’re about to reach a tipping point for realizing how little you know.

People will always find you did something wrong. You will never get culture 100% accurate— not even people who were born and raised in it will, because as I said in step five: cultures have a huge variety of people in them, so everyone will interact with it differently. But you can work your hardest to capture one experience, make it as accurate as possible, and learn more for next time.

~ Mod Lesya 

Parry: to block an attack

Beat: the striking of swords

Thrust: to straighten your sword arm as you can without having to move/ lunge forward

Lunging: extending your sword arm during a lunging motion/while moving forward

Cut: an attack where the sword is thrusted downward or across to hack at the opponent/their blade

Disarm/envelop: capturing the opponent's weapon near the hilt and tearing it out of their hold/locking it in place so they can't move it or fight back

Lock: when two swords come together at the hilts to make an "y"

Break: to push off, circle around, or disengage from the fight

Attack: the strike of a sword

Caress: the strikes of the opponents blade on both sides of it

Advance: to move forward

Retreat: to move backwards

En garde: the stance before combat

Sweep/swipe: to swing the sword around the opponent's head/shins

Front guard: where the sword sits in front of your face

Pivot: rotating 180 degrees with one foot planted in place

Pass back: moving the front foot into the rear position

Pass forward: moving your rear foot into the front position

Shed: to let a sword slide away from your without fighting back or changing it, so you're then free to move or attack

Slope: moving backwards from left to right

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

-George Eliot, letter to Maria Lewis, Oct. 1, 1841

This is a tumblr hug, or a tumblr high five, or a tumblr sitting in the same room together, pass it on to your ten favorite followers or mutuals <3

aww thank you 🥺 <3

soft asks to get to know people

what song makes you feel better?

what’s your feel-good movie?

what’s your favorite candle scent?

what flower would you like to be given?

who do you feel most you around?

say three nice things about yourself (three physical and three non-physical).

what color brings you peace?

tag someone (or multiple people) who make you feel good. 

what calms you down?

what’s something you’re excited for?

what’s your ideal date?

how are you?

what’s your comfort food?

favorite feel-good show?

for every emoji you get, tag someone and describe them in one word.

compliment the person who sent you this number.

fairy lights or LED lights?

do you still love stuffed animals?

most important thing in your life?

what do you want most in the world right now?

if you could tell your past self one thing, what would it be?

what would you say to your future self?

favorite piece of clothing?

what’s something you do to de-stress?

what’s the best personal gift someone could give you (playlist, homemade card, etc.)

what movie would you want to live in?

which character would you want to be?

hugs or hand-holding?

morning, afternoon or night?

what reminds you of home (doesn’t have to mean house… just things that remind you of the feeling of home)?

Bitches rant over cliffhangers in the books they read, and then turn around and cackle with Evil Writer Glee ™ every single time they put one in their own WIP

It's me, I'm bitches

“There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape.”

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Art: Gust of Wind (La Bourrasque) Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer 1896

Writing a Unique Fairy Tale Retelling

Credit: https://lindsay-elizabeth.com/how-to-write-a-unique-fairy-tale-retelling/

Intro

Fairy tale retellings are one of my absolute favorite genres to read, so I had to make a post on it! Retelling a story is addressing the original one with your own love letter and homage. A retelling is also a deeply personal experience, because whatever you want to retell is something that you find worth returning to, over and over again.

This post is primarily for fairy tale retellings, but any of these elements can be applied to folklore, mythology and other literary retellings as well!

1. Get to know the original story

We all know the most popular fairy tales well because we’ve been told them so many times in a variety of ways. However, the original stories were penned centuries and even thousands of years ago, so there are a lot of things you’ll probably want to leave behind, like misogyny, racism, and underage/toxic/inappropriate relationships. There are many other interesting story details, though, that you can pick up from the original text that can make your retelling richer and more layered.

Every writer interprets things differently. You never know what detail could spark your imagination and turn out to be something few others have used, so definitely take the time to read the original works. You can find pretty much all of the classic fairy tales for free online since they’re in the public domain (meaning the original copyright has expired).

2. Pay attention to themes

What makes fairy tales timeless and so pervasive in every culture are the underlying themes that we all relate to. They’re the truths that we connect with and instantly recognize on a deeper level. They explore topics like transformation, self-discovery, justice, judgment, class, and love. We’re inspired by the main hero’s will, spirit, and perseverance as they face challenges and ultimately overcome them on their journey to finding true love and happiness.

These are deeply human feelings and experiences, which is why they resonate with people of all generations and backgrounds. Fairy tales (and the best stories in general) make us examine these truths and help us understand them more deeply.

When writing a fairy tale retelling, look for the core of the story that you’re putting a spin on. What human experience is at the heart of it? As long as you have this, you can get as creative as you want with the rest of it!

3. Take note of your favorite elements

Besides the themes, what else do you love about the fairy tale you want to retell? Take some time to examine the story and take notes on what draws you to it over and over again.

If it’s the love story, what is it specifically about the love story that captures your heart more than others? The dynamic between the characters or a particular trope?

Keep pulling back the layers. The more you understand what you’re drawn to about this particular fairy tale, the more creative license you’ll be able to take because you’ll know what needs to stay the same to maintain the core of the story and what you can play with to make it unique.

4. Look at existing retellings

Take some time to go through the books currently available in the fairytale retellings genre to see how other people are playing with these stories and what the common threads are. Some places to check are:

GoodReads Lists of Fairy Tale Retellings

BookBub’s lists like this one of 20 Magical Fairy Tale Retellings for Adults

Amazon’s Best Sellers List for Teen & Young Adult Fairy Tale and Folklore Adaptations

What is missing? What hasn’t been done that you would love to read? Just one twist on the story can be the starting point for something completely fresh and intriguing.

5. Take note of what you like and don’t like

In all of the fairy tale retellings you’ve read and watched, what were your favorite things about them? What did you love about the characters, the scenes, the plots, the dialogue? What inspired you and pulled you into the story? And what didn’t you like? What did you think could’ve been done better? What did you feel was missing? All of these answers could be the first spark and building blocks to your own unique retelling.

6. Read reviews from other readers

Take a peek at the reviews for some of the most popular fairy tale retellings. What did other readers like and dislike about them? You’ll learn a lot about genre expectations here, as well as expectations for each individual fairy tale, and pick up a lot of valuable information you can use when crafting your own.

You never know what could spark your imagination; something someone says they “wishes” had been different in the story or that they never see in fairy tale retellings could be the impetus for a whole new story idea!

Keep in mind, writing is completely subjective, so just because someone else likes or doesn’t like something doesn’t mean you can’t tell the story you want to tell! This is just a way to get different perspectives on the genre and individual fairy tales to get your own creative juices flowing.

7. Take liberties with the plot

Following the original plot (or the most popular adaptation of it) too closely can get boring and predictable because your readers will know what’s coming. This offers a great opportunity to subvert expectations with unexpected twists on them.

8. Ideas for twists

Besides playing with the plot, there are a lot of other ways to put a twist on a fairy tale. To make it really unique, combine multiple twists.

New genre

Different time period and/or location

Gender-swap, role swap, combine roles, change roles

Switch to a different POV

Crossover/mix stories

Prequel or sequel to the original story