The Skellingcorner

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
writingwithcolor

thecrystalwolf asked:

Wip is a fantasy world with a "Viking/Celtic" vibe, traditional clans etc. Clans arn't one "Color", but a mix of all different skin types/features, divided instead by cultural skill set/differing way of lifestyle. Protagonist is a PoC as well as decent portion of the other characters. My question would be is this set up racist? Can PoC be included without including their real world culture/ not address racism issues because they don't exist within the wip society? Is this ambiguous brown trope?

PoC with European Culture 

People tend to assume representation doesn’t “count” unless the person in question displays overt markers of the culture in the geographic region associated with that skin tone.

This is false.

PoC vikings existed, or, at least, could plausibly exist. Vikings had fairly extensive trade with North Africa, and were pretty socially open from what we’ve been able to recover. So historically, you’re not incorrect that this situation is something that very well could have happened.

But beyond that, the concept that skin tones relate to what culture people should display helps perpetuate xenophobia.

PoC can hold any culture they want, even if they don’t “look the part.” Yes, the traditional mould of a Viking is white— but so what? Why do they have to be white? Why does anyone from Europe have to be white? 

Rome was a multicultural empire and brought people from all reaches of Africa and Asia Minor to Europe, and they stayed; these people formed communities that are just as European as white people. Immigration happened (such as Japanese people who came to Spain in the 1600s, who hold the last name Japón as markers they were descendants of original immigrants). Migration happened. Some of these cultures stayed independent, while others blended in. Curry, for example, is one of the most popular foods in the UK.

Ambiguously Brown comes from primarily not having any distinctly identifying features that make a person a specific ethnicity. So if somebody is described in a way you can tell they would be considered Arab, or Black, or Indigenous, it’s not ambiguously brown (in my opinion— others are allowed to disagree).

Now, if you wanted to be sure to avoid it, have some of them with scraps of tradition that come from immigration various generations ago. It doesn’t have to be overt, but little markers would show “this people is multicultural and has a lot of immigration.”

At the same time, it’s not necessary. It just shows that immigration happens. There’s no consensus on whether or not this is preferred. And it doesn’t have to be every character with a certain skin tone. Showing individual nuances is purely about immigration.

But in terms of general principle, not everyone from Europe can be or even should be white. It’s a multicultural place and has been since the dawn of time; no sense in shying away from that.

~ Mod Lesya

Viking Vikings Europe xenophobia culture characters Characters of Color character design asks
writingwithcolor

Struggling to Research Cultural Atrocities

I wanted to write a story that featured native americans in a positive light. It was set in this futuristic sci-fi alternate universe with like aliens and stuff, done to death i know but i had these native characters, and while they weren’t featured early on in the story they were to be more major later, one of them even becoming a main protagonist. i was happy with this, really happy. I knew stuff about the past and now and i decided i was going to make this a world where they had successfully taken back everything that was theirs. i wanted to portray them very positively, as strong, mighty people who were forced into hard times and had to find their way through love for their people, perseverance, and resilience.. i mean it sounded like a good idea at the time, ya know?

I’ve always been an emotionally sensitive person. I’m softhearted, okay? I just can’t do this. And now ever time i look at or think of my characters, i just think of that stuff, and it’s ruined them for me. it’s ruined everything. maybe i should be stronger i don’t know, but it’s hard to be strong with the idea of of… THAT.

This submission has been cut because it contains a lot of self-centric language, which will put a high emotional labour burden on our Native and PoC readers. If you feel that way researching our history, imagine how we feel living our history.

That being said, this concern is a legitimate one, so we’re addressing it. Any future questions along these lines will be directed to this question.

Breaking this down in two major parts:

How To Research

Brace yourself.

If you imagine history as the general worst case scenario, you’ll be generally in the right mindset. You have to remember we’re at 1% of our former numbers. You have to remember there was an active effort to erase our connection to our culture. This means a lot of death. This means a lot of war crimes. This means a lot of administrative coverups. This means genocide. Four centuries of it.

It will not be pretty.

Once you’ve steeled yourself for the fact this will be bad, stick to generalities unless necessary. No, you don’t need to research the exact body count and gory details of illnesses. You need to learn broad tactics that were used in genocide, and you can lock the door on diving in too deep.

The only time you’re really going to need specifics is for individual character backstories, to know what sort of wounds the culture would have carried. Again, you can stick with summarized accounts.

This goes for any type of nastiness in any background. Black, Jewish, East Asian, South Asian, Muslim— there’s something in every group. So long as they’re marginalized somewhere, it can get terrible.

How To Gain Hope Back

Look for resistance efforts and lift them up. Idle No More, NoDLAP, SaveTheInlet. Those three are good starting places for Native issues, and show we will not die. We might have had genocide, but that will not kill us.

Because in the end, we are still here. Every people who has been killed and had active efforts against them is still here. No matter what horror has happened, there are resistance efforts.

You can also add to the voices of lifting people up. Have Natives reclaim their land. Have Wakanda. These idealistic worlds exist because somebody said “hey, we want to imagine a paradise where these people grew strong.”

Be careful not to speak over those in the group, of course. A white person creating Wakanda would be out of place. But you can ask us what our paradise would look like and respect its existence. You can learn about how stories in there would look like and write Black people being Black and displaying their African culture proudly.

In the end

You can’t isolate yourself from the fact these painful things happened.

The dominant group needs to realize these sorts of systems are in place and are still actively oppressing others. You can take breaks, you can surround yourself with fluffy things, but if you completely shut it off with “that only happens out there”, then you end up complicit. 

No, you don’t have to go out and be an activist. But you need to know the basics in respecting us, which starts with recognizing marginalization is a two way street. If the dominant group doesn’t start to dismantle its internal mechanisms, marginalization will continue.

Ignorance is supremacy’s biggest weapon, followed by fear. The dominant group wants you to be too afraid to look into this, because so long as you are too afraid to break ignorance, you do not know when or how to resist its efforts in continuing to oppress those people who you already over-empathize with. 

You can use your own pain to help us ease ours. Because in the end, that pain comes from helplessness. That pain comes from not knowing how to stop it, not knowing how to help others.

You can learn how to help us. 

Only then will all our pain stop.

~ Mod Lesya

General submission creator responsibility White guilt white privilege White fragility asks
writerswritecompany
writerswrite.co.za

Spotting The 6 Big Shifts Digital Brings To Publishing - Writers Write

In a crowded, noisy, and often fractured market, to stand out and make a name as an author, take heed of these six big shifts digital brings to publishing.

The Market Did What?

As fiction becomes more and more digital, writers have a wider scope for new platforms on which to publish – from Amazon imprints to Smashwords and everything in between.

The World Wide Web has, in fact, become our deliciously smoked digital publishing oyster.

Or has it?

With independent authors and smaller imprints and presses giving traditional publishing houses a solid run for their money, there is far more diversity and opportunity in the market.

For hungry new authors, this means that publishing your novel electronically is an affordable way to enter the market.

But, there’s a flip side. Competition. A lot more competition. And clutter. Lots of clutter.

You’ll be fighting for your voice. You won’t have the marketing megaphone of the bigger publishers to amplify your voice.

How to breakout?

In a crowded, noisy, and often fractured market, to stand out and make a name as an author, you may want to take heed of these six big shifts digital brings to independent and self-publishing.

publishing writing advice Anthony Ehlers
its-a-writer-thing themerrywriter-deactivated20200

Idea To Realisation; How To Write A Novel

themerrywriter

Idea To Realisation; How To Write A Novel

PART ONE; DEVELOPING THE IDEA

A while ago I put out a tweet on my account asking if anyone, anyone at all, would be interested in live updates about what the process of writing a novel looks like start to finish.

Well, the answer was yes (as you can imagine, given you’re reading this now), and I’m a balls-to-the-wall kind of person…

So here it is; ground zero. That moment when you have an idea,…

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writing advice
sweetlittlevampire

I haven’t been drawing much lately, and there are a few reasons for it.

1. I’m sick - apparently my mother passed something nasty on to me. I can’t stop coughing. Thankfully my fever’s disappearing, and the doctor said it should be fine in a week or so.
2. As you may have read, I’ve got a new laptop because my old one died. Along with it, I got a new tablet and a new Photoshop version, and…let’s say I still need to get used to them (where the heck are all my tools?!)
3. This week and next week will be my last two official weeks of class. After that, I’ll have three weeks off to write my thesis, and - needless to say I’m terrified. So between finishing projects for the last classes and planning out my thesis, my mind wasn’t really set on drawing.

But I miss drawing, and I will get back to it eventually, at the latest in a month, when all this thesis nonsense will be over, and I can dedicate time to art without having to worry about other stuff.

In the meantime, I’ve been crocheting to unwind (just started a new blanket), and I sometimes DIY small things, like the above piece.

The girlfriend and I recently went to an art supply store - it was heaven. Since I want to get back into watercolour drawing, I bought a spiral-bouund DIN-A-4 / letter-sized watercolour paper pad. I initially wanted a watercolour sketchbook, but they were a tad too expensive for my taste. So I decided to turn the pad into my own sketchbook.

I followed SeaLemon’s tutorial to do the Coptic stitch binding. This type of binding is ideal for sketchbooks since it allows the book to lay completely flat when opened. SeaLemon has a variety of tutorials on Coptic stitch binding and other bookbinding methods; they’re all very easy to follow and fun to watch. She also discusses althernatives to professional bookbinding tools. Her channel is full of fun DIYs and doodles. Plus she has a cute dog. :D

The stitching isn’t perfect and the paper isn’t perfectly aligned, but it works for my needs, and I think it gives the book a bit of personality. I used the back piece of cardboard that came with the pad for the covers, and I am probably goinf´g to paint or draw on them at some point.

Sweet is taking pictures DIY sketchbook watercolour sketchbook coptic stitch
mariah-wants-to-live briishere
owlsofstarlight

I literally only have one rule in my writing and it is this:

No matter what I put my characters through, they make it. They get to make it to the end of the story and have everything work out and be ok.

Because that’s the story I need. So it’s the kind I write.

owlsofstarlight

If you want a piece of writing advice: write a story that is what you needed to hear at whatever age your target demographic is. I can guarantee you there’ll be someone out there who needs to hear it as much as you did. And maybe you’ll help them the same way someone else’s story did for you.

boothewriter

For some reason, this hit home and I never realized it that I did this for my stories too

Source: owlsofstarlight
writingwithcolor

nochillpokemon asked:

Hello! I’m writing a fantasy story about dragon riders where two of the main characters are black. The first one (A water priestess), I’ve been reading through your posts and think I’m good with her. I am, however, have questions/worries about my second one. He is the second prince of the kingdom and love interest of the protagonist boy and his childhood friend/rival. My worry is the way I’m portraying him. Oberon (the prince) witnessed the protagonist’s “death” early in the story and when (1/2)

(2/2) they meet again, he has no idea that the protagonist is his “dead” childhood friend and he reacts a badly because of the reminder of his friend and crush so soon after the death. Lots of arguing and fighting between the two for a while. I don’t want to play into the aggressive black man with dreads stereotype, and the prince is already a part of a military school so should I find a different way to show how badly he was effected by the protag’s “death”? Thank you for your time. 

Black man reacts in anger to reminders of dead friend/lover

Your character is grieving. Grief may come out in the form of anger, especially at reminders of such a painful experience. His upbringing, unresolved feelings, self-blame, all these things could lead to such reactions.

There could very well be other non-anger reactions and vulnerability you could show as well.

Personal Experience Time: When my father died, one of my sisters and I (whom i’m quite close with) fought a lot for no good reason. Not so much with others, just each other, not that we blamed the other for the circumstances at all. Grief just does strange things to people and it’s hard to control. We were going through the same thing and took it out on each other. There were other moments of denial, depression, and so on during the grief, but anger was one way it was expressed, and it was very specifically-directed anger. It didn’t define the whole of our grief, though.

Grief is not one-toned. There would likely be tender moments and vulnerability that slip out. Show that, too. At some point, it should be clear his anger isn’t just randomized aggression towards this person either, but because of the painful reminders and the emotion it pulls from him against his will.

Allow him to grieve, to be human! If he were constantly seeking a fight with everyone, unrelated to the “Dead” friend, i’d feel more reluctant about this characterization. However, it’s clearly a focused aggression (ultimately reflecting his hurt). 

It doesn’t mean he’s justified in the harm he may cause during his pain, but no one said all Black characters had to be perfect either. They just have to be human (when they’re in fact, humans). 

~Mod Colette

nochillkiller Black men death scary black man stereotypes angry black man asks