Pet Peeve: Scythe vs. Sickle

     This is purely a personal pet peeve; I often see people using the terms "scythe" and "sickle" interchangeably.  It comes up a lot in stories about the grim reaper, or fanfiction about canons wherein characters use sickles or scythes as weapons, and once in a great while when discussing the communist flag.  Thankfully, people writing stories about farms tend to know the difference.

     Usually.

     So for all of your edification, and to get this off my chest, this is a sickle:

And this is a scythe:

Scythes are long-handled and meant for reaping wheat and other crops from a distance, so that one needn't bend down to slice.  They're typically two-hand.

     Sickles, on the other hand, are short-handled, meant to be wielded with one hand, and require the user to bend closer to the crops/target in order to get the job done.

     So!  Just to recap, the Grim Reaper uses a scythe:

     ... But Karkat Vantas uses a sickle.

     This has been Pet Peeves with Maggie C. and you have been Edified.  Hopefully this has been helpful to some of you.

     If anyone out there has any pet peeves about commonly mixed-up words or phrases, please comment below.  Maybe I'll use your suggestion for a future article. ;)

Shout Out To The Kids Who Tic

I posted this on my Tumblr a few days ago, but I figured I might as well post it here, too, because it's important to me, and may be important to some of you, too, so here, have some positivity:


Shout out to the autistic kids with Tourette’s

Shout out to the allistic kids with Tourette’s

Shout out to the kids with Tourette’s that have no comorbid disorders

Shout out to the kids who have so many comorbid disorders it sometimes feels like you’re drowning

Shout out to the kids who have very soft, tiny tics, and shout out to the kids who scream and punch things when they tic

Shout out to the kids with self-injurious tics, shout out to the kids with palilalia, echolalia, coprolalia, shout out to the kids who don’t fit into any pre-determined categories and shout out to the ones who fit in ALL the pre-determined categories

Shout out to the kids whose doctors try to de-diagnose them, shout out to the kids still waiting for a diagnosis, shout out to the kids whose parents or teachers or classmates tell them they’re faking, to the kids who are starting to wonder if maybe they are faking, shout out to the kids who are happily and firmly diagnosed and who are fortunate enough to have supportive kith and kin, shout out to the kids who never have to doubt that they’re telling the truth

Shout out to the kids who’ve been ticking since age 2, shout out to the kids who didn’t start ticking until sixteen, shout out to the kids who grew up and don’t tic anymore, shout out to all the adults who were told they’d stop ticking at eighteen but never did, shout out to the kids whose whole family tics and shout out to the kids who happen to be the first Tiquer in their family line

Shout out to the kids on medication, to the kids who never took medication, to the kids who tried medication and decided it wasn’t for them, shout out to all the kids who were prescribed medication they never should have been offered and ended up worse off because of it, shout out to the kids on medication who love their meds, shout out to the kids on medication who still tic because suppressing and managing isn’t the same thing as curing

Shout out to the kids with 504s and IEPs, and shout out to all the kids who live in a school district that won’t acknowledge them, shout out to the kids who can’t afford a diagnosis, shout out to the kids whose parents don’t believe them when they say they can’t help it, shout out to the kids who made their parents listen

Shout out to the kids who have to educate others every day of their life, to the kids who have to explain their disorder to every substitute so they don’t get yelled at, to the kids who are raising their voices and forcing the world to take note, and shout out to the kids who are shy or timid, to the kids who would rather blend into the background and not have to fight to be accepted.  

Shout out to the kids who laugh at their own tics, who cry about their tics, the kids who hold it all in until they explode at the end of the day and the kids who just let everything flow and don’t care who sees.  Shout out to the kids who struggle to get by, and shout out to the kids who are living well, and shout out to all of you living in between.  

Shout out to all my fellow Tiquers out there, the ones that have Tourette’s and the ones that Tourette’s is trying to take–you are strong and beautiful, and every day that you get through, no matter how difficult, no matter how strenuous, is a day that you become stronger and more vibrant.  There’s no wrong way to have Tourette’s, there’s no wrong way to respond to your overactive nervous system, you are doing you, and the you you are doing is perfect just as it is.  I believe in you, and you should believe in you too.

I am here for the kids who tic

Things I Learned Making My First Two Podcasts

1.  Websites are dicks

     Before I put up my podcast I tried to make a website, and I bought a one dollar domain from GoDaddy, because I'm a broke idiot with stars in my eyes who didn't realize that you had to pay extra money to attach that domain to a website, and since I have no steady income right now I basically can't use my own domain.  Lesson learned.

2.  No one cares

     As with any project placed into the public realm, it's an uphill battle to get anyone besides yourself to care.  My first podcast sat for an entire month before anyone deigned to listen to it once, and I didn't honestly expect much different--my writing persona is relatively new and no one is going to be as interested in your work as you are, at least not for a long time.  Sometimes you're an overnight hit, but much much more often, it'll take a lot of work to get yourself off the ground.
     (But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.  You just have to push harder.)

3.  You'll put in more hours than you'll get out

     I knew this going into it, of course, but I didn't realize quite how much time would go into it.  I figured I might have to spend two hours on a half hour episode, and I was wrong; between writing and rewriting the script, rehearsing and recording it, and editing it all together, I'm fairly certain I put somewhere between seven and fifteen hours into that first episode.  The second episode took me nearly ten hours, and it was only seven minutes long!
     The time you put into it will increase the quality, of course--if I didn't want to put in the time, I wouldn't have started the podcast in the first place.

4.  There's no need to be afraid to show your kith and kin

     In general, I feel better about sharing things I care about with strangers than with people I know.  Part of this is because, yes, I know, consciously, that we are allowed to ask for attention, but I grew up in a society (and environment) where it was frowned upon, and it's a lesson I've internalized very deeply, so I try not to talk too much about what I'm working on except in passing.
     Another part is that disapproval from people you care about hurts more than it does from strangers.  And, the biggest deterrent for me, I grew up in a small mostly-white farm town in upstate New York, which means I know a lot of conservatives, which, if you've spent a lot of time on my blog (or any time on my twitter), you know I'm not.  By a long shot.  To that end, I write a lot of not-conservative things, with a lot of liberal themes and characters.
     My mother's family is also extremely religious, so they frown on things like cursing, which I do often, both as a matter of neurology and as a conscious mood/character choice.  To that end, I'm often reluctant to share anything I write with them.
     But in order to show the podcast to one of my friends who wanted to listen to it (and who co-starred in the most recent episode), I had to post it on facebook, where all of those fears were just waiting to come screaming up to devour me!  ... and didn't.  Actually, I got a pretty positive response from my friends, both the ones I've made out here and the ones I left back home.  It's really nice to know that my efforts are appreciated, and no one's said anything negative at all.  Just goes to show that sometimes people can surprise you for the better!

5.  My voice is higher than I thought

     This makes sense, since I'm hearing my own voice as it sounds echoing inside my skull, but it's still jarring, and since my MC is supposed to have a deeper, more gruff voice, I have to keep that in mind whenever I record.  It helps to listen to do a test recording or listen to each take once its finished to remind myself that I need to go higher/lower.
     Basically, as a general tip when listening to yourself in recording, be prepared for your voice to sound different from the way it usually is.

6.  Screwing around with Audacity is sometimes the best way to get stuff done

     Honestly, sometimes tutorials won't give you what you need.  I found a number of tutorials for creating a robot voice effect when I went looking for it, and none of it worked--they all sounded like robots, to be sure, but they weren't clear enough, and I wanted the character to be well-understood, and also to retain some of the flavor of her voice--not too robotic, in other words, just robotic enough.  So I had to mess around with things until I did, and it turned out great!
     Never be afraid to mess with your equipment--just make sure you save the pre-editted version, just in case.

And that's some of the stuff I've learned podcasting so far!  It's an adventure.

Some Quick Tips For Writing Scripts

1.  1 Page=1 Minute

     When you write a script, whether for stage or podcast or screenplay or teleplay, the given rule is that one page of dialogue, properly spaced, will yield one minute of stage or screen time.  If there's a good deal of action going on, or the page is full of three-word quips it'll be longer or shorter of course, but generally speaking those instances tend to balance each other out.
     If it's a full page of monologing though, as is the case with something like an audio book or a one-man podcast, my experience is that it tends to be closer to three minutes per page.

2.  Keep An Eye on Length

     There's a reason vines are six seconds; that's the length of a vine.  Vines are like visual haikus, an artform built up around limitations and how to make the best of them.  If you're writing a script for a vine, it's probably only going to be a page long at the most.  If you're writing a short film, it could be two to ten pages long, and if you're writing a full out musical it's probably going to be at least nintey pages, if not more so.
     Know your genre, know your limitations.  Most of the time, people prefer scripts that are sixty-to-ninety minutes for full plays and movies, a hundred and twenty tops, and while I'm certainly not going to hold you to that a hundred percent of the time (Les Mis is like four hours long, The Sound of Music is three and a half, and the first play I ever wrote was a resounding five hundred pages long so I'm one to talk), it's good to keep in mind what you should probably be aiming for.

3.  Write It How It Makes Sense--Format Later

     Formatting with scripts frustrates me.  Primarily because no one uses the American formatting for their finished copies, it's all done with the UK style, yet we're expected to submit using American and--blagh!  Blargh, I say, blargh!
     Regardless, while you'll eventually get the hang of formatting, when you're starting out, write it how it makes sense to you.  As long as it flows smoothly, you can bother with the format when you go to submit it.

4.  Read Scripts

     Read a lot.  So many.  Drown in scripts. It's important that you read scripts to see how different playwrights work their magic, and it'll help you figure out what you want with your work.  Are you more of a modern minimalist?  An Arthur Miller expositionist?  A Shakespearean skelenator?  Somewhere in between?  All of the above?
     Reading scripts helps you know what kinds of things to put in the script, too--what works and what doesn't work.

5.  Read It Aloud

     This is important with all your writing, but ESPECIALLY with script writing.  For the love of all your Gods, read your words aloud, get a group of actors together if you can so they can play off each other.  More than with any other written piece, a script needs to flow, it needs to sound natural in the mouths of the speakers.  It can look beautiful on paper, but that won't do you any good once it's in the mouths of your actors.

     Now go forth, my burgeoning playwrights, and bring your dreams to life!

Maggie C's 7 Commandments For Writing Diversity

     White cisheteronormative wealthy able-bodied, neurotypical males; we all know how to write 'em and they're not hard.  They're literally the most vanilla character to write and read about, and yet we keep cranking 'em out like they're Mountain Dew and we're Bros and/or emotional teenagers dealing with their problems by self-medicating with sugary beverages in an effort to not completely destroy themselves while they self-destruct.
     And I get it.  Writing diverse characters is a scary prospect.  It's not as difficult as we make it seem when we talk about it--it's work, yes, but it's not like you're driving screw drivers into your eyeballs in an effort to excise your spleen.  You're writing about a person.  And writing about people is kind of your job, friend.
     I don't pretend to have all the answers.  I'm an eighteen-year-old with no current profession pursuing an education and career in the arts.  What I have to offer are my own life experiences, the research I've done, and fifteen or so years of experience writing fiction.  I'm not perfect, and I can only do so much.
     But diversity in fiction is important to me.  It's supposed to be the goal of an artist to reflect real life, to, as Shakespeare hath proclaimed, "hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
     Modern art doesn't even reflect half of the human experience.  It's white-washed and full of narratives about the wealthy and/or middle class, usually about men trying to succeed and/or get their dicks wet.  When women are included, it's usually as props, or as thin paper creatures that don't really know what they want until a man comes and tells her; when LGBTQ characters are involved, it's usually G, sometimes L, and the entire narrative typically revolves around how difficult it is to be queer, or else they become a stereotypical gag; when a person of color is included, they usually have few speaking lines, or are also stereotypes; when a person with disabilities is included, it's either a cure narrative or an acceptance narrative or a pity-me narrative, and they're usually a stereotype.  By and large, diverse fiction these days is largely made up of stereotypes people pass off as characters to try and reach some sort of quota, and it's not good enough.
     I've been writing fiction featuring diverse protagonists since I was eleven.  I've learned a lot, I've unlearned a lot, I've done a lot of research, I've done a lot of research that negated that research, I've done a lot of researched that negated the negation of that research--and I've come to develop a personal code to write by, compiled here for the first time ever.
     Maggie's Laws of Fiction Diversification:

6.  Thou Shalt Never Assume That You Know Everything: Do Your Research

     Never assume that you're qualified to write a story about someone or something you don't fully understand.  Even if you think you understand it, do some research; trust me, you'll benefit.  Find some surveys, get books out at the library, read articles online, binge relevant tv shows on Netflix, spend hours scanning relevant pages on Wikipedia and eye-guzzling related tropes on tvtropes; the more you can take in, the better equipped you'll be, and the closer to the source these things are, the better.
     Read articles straight people write about the gay experience, sure, that'll help you write relationships between gay and straight people, but always give more credence to first-person reports, because in the end, no one knows something as well as the one who's lived it.  Abled people can totally understand and sympathize with disabled experiences--they just usually don't, and they'll never be as intimately familiar with the teeter-totter of acceptance and resentment, or societal stigma, or the physical/emotional sensations as someone who's lived it.  Any source is valuable, if only because it gives you some idea of how different people see the issue in question, but some are more credible than others.
     And no, that stuff you learned in school about the Civil Rights movement is not enough; I could go on forever about subpar nature of the public school system, but suffice it to say you have an internet, so use it.

5.  Thou Shall Ask Questions; Get Involved

     Routinely ask yourself questions as you write; is this respectful?  Is this accurate?  Does my research support this?  What do other people think?  Is this portrayal stereotypical?  Is this stereotype justifiable, or would people take offense?  Don't be afraid to reach out to people who know what they're talking about and ask questions or contribute to discussion; follow @WeNeedDiverseBooks on Twitter, or keep an eye out for the #DisChat tag, follow authors that frequently discuss life as a marginalized person, and don't be afraid to DM someone from an advice blog or an advocate who welcomes questions (such as myself).

4.  Thou Shall Get Betas

     Okay, so you did a great job, you used your research, you asked questions, that's wonderful; now get Betas that belong to the groups you've casted your characters into.  You protagonist is a black paraplegic?  You should have both black and disabled CPs/Betas, paraplegic if at all possible.  You may not be able to find a beta or CP for every demographic you cover, but the closer you can get, the better--and absolutely do not assume that you don't need this step.  You can do all the research, avoid stereotypes like the plague, and still make a mistake--it could be something simple and stupid, a mistranslation of a language you don't really speak, you used the name of the wrong tribe, you used a term or grammatical structure that only seems offensive to the people to whom it would actually refer.
     There are a lot of things you can get wrong and never realize, and a lot of other people might not realize either--which is why it's important to fix them before your MS goes anywhere near print.  Just because most people won't notice doesn't mean it's okay not to fix it.
     Make sure the right people are betaing your work.

3.  You Will Get It Wrong

     It's inevitable.  No matter how much you rake over that MS with a fine-toothed comb, you're gonna fuck it up somewhere along the line.  It's inevitable.  That's why we have CPs and Betas and Editors and Agents and more Editors and Publishers and more Editors; humans err.  That's kind of our thing, and it's to be expected.
     You're gonna fuck up.  Just like I fucked up the 10 Commandments theme right here right now.  That's life.  Sometimes you screw the pooch.
     Don't let it get to you.  Don't let it scare you.  Every mistake is something to learn from, a lesson you needed but just got a little late, and it's okay.  As long as you don't close yourself off and insist that you're infallible, things will be okay; you'll figure out where you went wrong, apologize to whoever you offended, and get it right the next time.
     Also:  If you've done the research and you did your best, anyone who screams at you for making a mistake isn't worth your time.  Listen to the people who critique your work, but don't bother trying to please everybody because

2.  Someone Will Always Be Offended

     There was that "Trans-Ginger" episode of South Park a while back that stirred up quite a controversy; I knew a lot of trans people who were really pissed off about it, but I also knew some who were really pleased with the way it turned out.  Likewise, I'm sure there were people who were offended by the South Park episode featuring Tourette's, but I personally have found it to be the most accurate depiction on television I've ever seen.
     I've also seen a number of cases where people were offended by someone's story only for it to come out that the experiences of the marginalized character were based off of the experiences of the like-marginalized author.  Actually, that one's not uncommon--I can't tell you how many times I've seen long, drawn-out arguments on Twitter break out because so many people don't want to hear autistic stories written by autistic authors.
     Point is: there's always going to be someone who likes what you write, no matter how terrible, and no matter how factually and emotionally accurate, there will always be someone who takes offense.  You can't let it get to you.  Consider the reactions of your audience, take them into consideration, ask yourself if you could have done better, but if you honestly wouldn't change a thing?  Don't sweat it.
     I, for one, fully expect people to be offended by the way I write characters based off myself.  I certainly won't like it, but I expect it.  That's how the internet often works these days.

1.  Everyone is human

     As I see it, this is the most important thing to remember when writing diversity--no matter who they are, no matter what they look like, no matter where they come from or what their motivations or limitations are, this character you've chosen to create is a human being.  They have thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams; they are three dimensional, with hobbies and passions and friends and complex relationships with those friends or families and hopes and dreams; they're the best at something, they're the worst at something, they're decent at some stuff, they're bad at other stuff, they have things they do for profit and things they do for others and things they do just because it makes them happy, they have virtues and vices, talking points and flaws.
     Your characters are not just what makes them diverse, and forming their entire arc around that one (or those multiple) thing(s) is a failure on your part as a writer to impart life into your character.
     Before anything and everything else, I make sure that my characters are three dimensional; the rest will follow.  People are people are people are people, and that's what it all comes down to.  You might get things wrong--your research might be from the wrong sources, you might have conflated two groups on accident, you might have played into stereotypes without realizing it, and if that's so, you fix it--if you can--and apologize and learn from that mistake; you make better decisions next time.  But at least you'll know that you created something real.  Maybe not perfect, maybe not fully accurate, maybe not what everyone wanted!  But you didn't steal away anyone's humanity in the process.

0.  Do No Harm

     I don't do stereotypes; I don't half-ass my research; I don't pin "types" into certain categories, and I try my damnedest to make sure that I'm not accidentally demonizing diversity (and since I have a soft spot for writing objectively terrible, immoral, and amoral protagonists, I have my work cut out for me) or giving in to harmful tropes and plots.
     As writers, we have an obligation to be honest and hard-working, well-researched and goodwilled, because artists determine the fate of mankind.  That may seem a little overdramatic, and maybe it is, but who would you say has been most influential to you over the course of your life?  After your parents (for good or for ill) and possibly your siblings or extended kin, it's probably an artist--a writer, a movie-star, a photographer, a director, a comedian.  Artists have immense power in this world--we are the voices children are listening to, we are the modern philosophers.  Science teaches kids the how and the what; we deal with the whys.
     Doctors and psychologists take an oath to Do No Harm, and it's my firm belief that it's our job to do the same.  We can't promise we won't accidentally do harm, but we should strive, at all times, to make sure we aren't making life hard for ourselves, our kith, our kin.
     Art is exceedingly influential, and we should never use that influence for evil.

Fixing Talking Head Syndrome

What it is:

     "Talking Head Syndrome," as it's known in literary circles, is a condition characterized by the metaphorical detachment of your character from a physical form during dialogue or monologues, especially if world-building or info-dumping is involved.  Essentially, the monologue or dialogue goes on for so long with so few indicators of what's actually happening in the scene that the reader gets lost and confused and, worst of all, bored.

Why it's bad:

     Talking Head Syndrome results in a couple different things, but most importantly, it's boring.
     When THS creeps in, all that's left is words, words, words--words that usually aren't that interesting, don't hold our attention, and make us want to skip over everything to get back to the action.  We lose track of what's going on with the characters, where they are physically, emotionally, etc, and you lose opportunities to really get in touch with the character, advance the plot further, or entertain the audience.

How to fix it:

     There are a couple things you can do to try to cure your MS of Talking Head Syndrome.

• Action Tags:  Action tags are essentially what they sound like; the action that goes on during and between dialogue, and they might be the simplest way to cure your THS.  Instead of saying, "she said," which is a dialogue tag, you cap the end of a sentence (or interrupt the sentence, when it flows that way) with action.  

  For example, instead of, "'I hate this,' she said," you'd use, "'I hate you.'  She put down the clock and crossed to Henry.  

  This is a relatively quick way to let your reader know what's going on while your characters are chatting, which, when done right, won't interrupt the conversation and will keep the details clear in your audience's heads.  Plus, it's more interesting to read.
• Dialogue Tags:  Dialogue tags ("she said," "he asked," "they inquired," etc) are the Action Tag's annoying cousin.  A necessary cousin, who isn't always annoying, but can be.  These don't help terribly much with THS (you can load your MS up with them and still have talking heads as far as the eye can see), but they do help the reader keep track of who's speaking at any given time.  And not knowing who's speaking is a dangerous side effect of THS.
• Slash and Burn:  Another solution is to cut down your dia/monologues.  Instead of having those long-winded passages of speech that take up six pages, you can make it more of a back-and-forth to break it down into more manageable chunks, which can help create space for action and narration.

      Talking Head Syndrome is tricky; it's one of those issues that just keeps coming back around and around and around.  I'm 99.99999% certain that there are talking heads somewhere in your first draft, because it's endemic, and it's natural; when you get in the dialogue flow it's hard to break out of it.  It's not spilled milk, it's nothing to cry about, just try to keep things interesting, and remember to balance your dialogue, action, and narration, lest you end up with more of a play than a novel.

The Rajaqweet: Up and Kicking!

     As of last week, as promised, The Rajaqweet is up!  


















A proper banner will be crafted as soon as I can get to it, but in the meantime there's this.  As mentioned before, The Rajaqweet is a thrice-weekly-updating webcomic about immortal universe-hopping aliens, the species they've conquered, and what happens when those species revolt.
     The greater comic that is The Rajaqweet is composed of the three following arcs:

Hail To The Noose:  Updating Mondays, Hail To The Noose follows a Rajaqweet enforcer of the law of His Badass Glorification as she seeks to bring order to an unruly newly-conquered planet called Ceril, and to dispose of any traitorous scum she might come across while there.

Hiding Heinrik:  Updating Wednesdays, Hiding Heinrik is about Mav, Mave, Desna, Fera, and X, a bunch of queer kids (where 'kids' is a relative term, seeing as they're all in their twenties) who somehow find themselves harboring an alien refugee from both shady government agencies and the Rajaqweet  he was running from to begin with.  Hijinks ensue.

Shithouse Maggots:  Updating Fridays, Shithouse Maggots begins with Sklor, a Rajaqweet Conqueror, being put on a new assignment a little earlier than she expected, much to her distaste.  It's a crummy little planet called Earth, and it shouldn't take too long to grind it beneath her heel--except that her Enabler is the worst in the world, and he's making her infiltrate the planet from the ground up.  Oh yeah, and those little tiny humans, the ones that are squishy and don't have all their teeth yet?  She now has two.
     Thanks Fearlobe.

The Rajaqweet can be found on both Tumblr and on Tapastic.