Read More

Invisible Ink
Sentence Sophistication: Chicken vs Egg

Knowing how to write good prose is one thing, but sometimes it is just as important to make sure that barriers to good prose aren’t of our own making.

Read More

Invisible Ink
Conflict of Interest: Interlude

Just a quick drive-by post as I’ve been out all day today:

Read More

Greetings my dear friends and Eli's followers. I have asked Eli to post this note for several reason. One reason is to say I'm sorry. I am so sorry that I had to leave like that, out of the blue with no warning. It was never my intention to leave that day. I had no warning that I would be forced, and I mean forced, to leave you all. I am sorry that I did not reply to any of the comments on my last blog, but I was not allowed to do so. I know that my blog was vauge and that I did not answer as

Read More

Invisible Ink
Conflict of Interest: Narrative Mood

Read More

Invisible Ink

Sentence Sophistication: Active, Passive, or Just Weak?

One of the roads to tight, streamlined prose is to minimise wording and always use the active voice. Today, I want to talk about a kind of writing that I see an awful lot of authors use, and I’m not just talking the newer ones, that I think needs the gentle caress of a little sophistication.

Read More

Invisible Ink
Sentence Sophistication: Backfilling

Following on from yesterday, I made a connection so something I was warned about a long time ago: backfilling.

Read More

A Certain Point of View: First or Third?

So, the comments on my last post successfully predicted where I was going next, so let’s just dive right into that (he says, already a day late).

Read More

Invisible Ink
Conflict of Interest: Controlling Intensity

Read More

Invisible Ink
Conflict of Interest: Agency

I was thinking that I really needed to talk about this now, but as I considered what was worth saying about it, I realised just how much of a clever – and insufferably smug – bastard I am.

Read More

Just something that happened to me today that I thought was funny and worth sharing:

So there's this girl that really gets on everyone's nerves, and she's doing the school play with me. Yesterday at rehearsal, we had a conversation during break with a few other people from the cast.

Her: So you know the English project?

Me: What about it?

Her: Our poster is the most... excuse my language... trashy thing ever.

Me: ...

Me: ...

Read More

Ahhh big performance tonight. >.<

Wish me luck? :3

//flies away

Invisible Ink
Conflict of Interest: Abstracting Conflicts

Like all things in writing, there’s knowing the rule, understanding the rule, then knowing when to throw it straight out of the window. As such, I want to focus on when most of what I’ve said about narrative conflict can take a long walk of the proverbial short pier.

Read More

A Certain Point of View: The Opinionated Narrator

First person, second person, third person, limited, omniscient: that’s all we need to know, isn’t it?

Of course not, and I’m going to kick off with something I mentioned in yesterday’s formal review: the opinionated narrator.

Read More

Invisible Ink
Conflict of Interest: One Portion of Conflict, Please!

Time for a topic shift. I have a plan for a long-form post on Friday, so I’m going to try and cover all the groundwork before that’s ready to be published. The first thing I need to do is talk about what makes a conflict, and just how much can the concept be broken down to its simplest form.

Read More

Okay fans of Dragonfire, here's that preview of the next chapter I promised!

***********
S1E5: "The Torture of Tantalus"

Wearing a simple ensemble of blue jeans, a white shirt and a black jacket, Spike strode into the Solar Lounge, the area of the Celestia often used for relaxations and amusements of varied types; from a bar with drinks, to games and holo-tables. The Draconian's original plans had been for some solo R&R, maybe a game or two if any of his friends were there.

Read More

Ladies and gents, it's that time again. The Pleasant Commentator and Review Group got about 90 stories submitted this time, and I'll be attempting to tackle one per week – at least until I run out of relatively short ones that fit this format. As always, I will reproduce all such reviews here.

I'm hoping to have a few words on what I call the 'opinionated narrator' up here tomorrow to resume my Invisible Ink posts.

Read More

Hey y'all;

NorthernLights8 is holding a raffle for her DA watchers~ and the first place prize includes a story request from me if you're interested.

Here's a link.

Apparently, if you have an opinion the author doesn't like, they simply delete your comment then block you from posting. That is what Inked Moongleam does, at least. Their latest story "Vitale" is supposedly trying to "bring more trans representation"... in the form of a 12 year old girl prostitute. Everything about the story is trash. Worse, the flip flops the author has made in the comments leads me to believe the story is a massive troll. It sounds like it is intended to hate on trans, not

Read More

Hello Everyone, this is Grand-Galvatron,

Well, Bendy and the Dark Revival came out today...IT IS AWESOME!!!

The story is great, old characters return, and we finally get a Good Bendy.

The game also has a lot of vibes from the Bioshock games.

Bendy and the Dark Revival, in my opinion, is superior to Bendy and the Ink Machine.

That's all I wanted to say, have a great day everyone.