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Novella November 2024 Announcement Post
Hate AI, but love writing challenges?
Want to take part in a global, fun project to write a Novella in one month?
Grab some friends, and take part in Novella November, by writing 1,000 words a day for the month of November, ending with a 30,000 word Novella to test and stretch your novel-writing skills!
Your goal is not perfection, but merely getting into the habit of writing a litte bit every single day :D
No website, no sign-ups -- Just a community initiative to write using only your own word!
What are the rules? Just Three so far!
#1 - No AI
#2 - No Plagiarizing
#3 - Wordcount for the month should only come from what you write during the month.
What does that mean?
Only words written during November should go towards your Wordcount for the month... but! Feel free to use your 30k words as a continuation of previous writing, or just make it the first 30k words in a longer novel!
Don't think you can write a whole entire 30k word story? Write a series of short stories that total up to 30k!
Not ready to write original works yet? Write a 30k word fanfiction that you can post after the month is over!
Share your writing experience, tips, encouragement, and questions in the #Novella November tag!
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EDIT, from the tags: Want a progress tracker? Track your progress with TrackBear!
https://trackbear.app/
Don't have a word processor? Use LibreOffice , the free and open-source alternative to Microsoft Word!
Want to organize/storyboard your Novel and don't want to pay a subscription? Try 7writer by Simon Haynes!
Want to be able to listen to your story aloud for proofreading using TTS (text to speech)? Try Balabolka!
Or, create some custom progress / Goal Cards in advance you can fill out as you reach word goals! For ideas and templates, search this blog for "goal cards" :D
Want to do a writing challenge in more than just November? Check out my ideas here for year round challenges to keep you writing consistently! Got feedback? Send it in, I'd love to see everyone's ideas!
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EDIT 2: I almost forgot to mention, if you are unable to write/type your story, you can also narrate/dictate your story to your preferred recording device!
If you're doing a Recording only and it doesn't automatically generate a transcript, it would obviously be hard to judge the word count -- but you're also working with a lot of obstacles, so I'd say if you're able to complete your story via voice recording from start to finish, you've definitely achieved the goal!
Edit #3: added the title "Novella November 2024 announcement post" to the top to make it more standard with my Ominous October and Drabble December posts (will be updating Outline October shortly) , added "Official Announcement Post 2024" to the tags so people can easily find the monthly events for 2024, and added a bit of bold to the third bullet point in the original post from September 2nd 2024 for emphasis.
Here's a WIP list of my ideas for a full year of monthly writing events!
If you have any suggestions *please* feel free to send them in :D
Not everyone has free time to do a full 30k in November in particular, and the key of learning to write consistently...... is consistency!
Writing in earnest for just one month out of the year doesn't give you much practice, does it?
But 30k every single month can be exhausting an daunting!
So, here's my WIP proposal....
------
January [15k total / 500 each day]-- Public Domain-Day Dash -- On January 1st, pick a brand-new Public Domain work, read/study it for a week while brain storming, then spend the next three weeks writing 5k words to make by the end of the month a 15k word short story, adapting that PD Work into another genre / time period / etc. February [20k total / ~714 Each day ] -- Freedom February -- Black History Month. Each week, write 5,000 words each week celebrating freedom from tyranny in all its forms. March [9,300 total / 300 each day] -- Spring Equinox -- Each day, write 300 words based on the concepts of warmth, renewal, rebirth, changing of the guard, etc. April [8k total / ~285 per day] -- April Fools -- Each week, write 2k words of a comedy short story, to end the month with 8k words of comedy. May [6,200k total / 200 each day] -- International Workers Celebration -- Each day, write 200 words about a character in your line of work (or a nonfiction diary/article) and what you enjoy about it and how it keeps the world turning, or saving the world in some emergency, then take some time to relax, you've earned it! June [15k total / 500 each day] -- Pride Month -- write 500 words each day, either fictional or nonfictional, about queer history, pride, solidarity, or intersectionality. July [15.5k words total / 500 each day] -- Disability Pride Month -- Each day, write 500 words about your favorite genre, from the perspective of a disabled character (or a character with your own disabilities), and what kind of accommodations they use in their daily lives, without magically erasing their disability. August [15.5k words total / 500 each day]-- Alien August -- Aliens have invaded! Pick your favorite genre, and each day, write 500 words of that genre, with a plot that gets interrupted by an alien visitation! September [60-100 Pages / 2-3 each day] -- Scripting September -- Each day, write 2-3 script pages for an audio-drama, stage-play, or movie/tv show, to end the month with a 60 to 100 page script. October [20k total / 714 each day] -- Ominous October -- A choice of themes will be decided on before October, two options for each week, and everyone will write a 5k word short horror/spooky story each week, that all get posted on October 31st / Halloween
November -- Novella November [30k total / 1k each day]-- Write 1k words a day to reach 30k words by the end of the month. You can write a 30k word novella, use it as the start of a larger novel, write a series of short stories (such as writing a 7.5k word short story per week), etc. [30k total / 1k each day] December -- Don't Touch It December [6,200k total / 200 each day] -- this is your month of relaxation! Write just 200 words per day about anything you enjoyed / are proud of from the past year, and what you are looking forward to in the future! [6,200k total / 200 each day]
If you prefer to focus on just the longer challenges and spend the other months editing, we can also have mirror events each month for different ways of editing with community support!
Things like Beta reader swaps, doing cover mockups, localization help for those not writing in their first language, etc!
Oh, and here's some feedback already received--
(if you voted to you 'didn't like' or 'hate' any of the options, don't forget to send in feedback with your suggestions!)
For those who prefer not to write Scripts for September, a secondary theme / challenge could be either a "Fall" theme (whether that's fall weather or a fall from grace) or, and I think this would be really fun and go well with the Scripting challenge
September Secondary Challenge-- Write 500 words per day [15k total] as though you were novelizing an existing move/show. Imagine your work as a movie in your head, and ask yourself - how would you novelize it?
What scenes would be basic dialogue and summaries of the action on screen, and where would you offer fascinating glimpses into the world-building or characters that didn't or couldn't happen with a visual media?
Another option for yearly writing challenges would be Mirror Events for Editing and prep for the longer challenges!
Only want to work on a big writing goal in November for now?
Use September to brainstorm your story-- what plot do you want? who are your characters? What kind of themes do you want your story to have? Where is it set? When is it set?
Use October to Outline your story! try to decide how many chapters you want, and what you want to accomplish (either for the plot or characterization) for each chapter or segment. If you're doing a series of short stories instead of a novella, what do you want the plot and theme to be for each story? Are they interconnected?
Don't Touch It December means not looking at your finished November project for a full month, so you can look at it with fresh eyes in January to begin editing properly when you no longer have every word burned into your brain.
January can be "Just Read It January", where you take however long you need to sit down and reread your first draft from start to finish; no backtracking, just going through and reading from start to finish, taking notes along the way about things you notice that are off or need fixing,
then in February, take that first draft, duplicate it in a new document, and fix all those things you noticed in your notes! Once you're satisfied with your second draft, read it out loud or use a text to speech engine (like Balabolka, or any ereader on your phone) to listen to it out loud, share it with friends, family, or beta readers, and see what kind of feedback you get!
Here's a WIP list of my ideas for a full year of monthly writing events!
If you have any suggestions *please* feel free to send them in :D
Not everyone has free time to do a full 30k in November in particular, and the key of learning to write consistently...... is consistency!
Writing in earnest for just one month out of the year doesn't give you much practice, does it?
But 30k every single month can be exhausting an daunting!
So, here's my WIP proposal....
------
January [15k total / 500 each day]-- Public Domain-Day Dash -- On January 1st, pick a brand-new Public Domain work, read/study it for a week while brain storming, then spend the next three weeks writing 5k words to make by the end of the month a 15k word short story, adapting that PD Work into another genre / time period / etc. February [20k total / ~714 Each day ] -- Freedom February -- Black History Month. Each week, write 5,000 words each week celebrating freedom from tyranny in all its forms. March [9,300 total / 300 each day] -- Spring Equinox -- Each day, write 300 words based on the concepts of warmth, renewal, rebirth, changing of the guard, etc. April [8k total / ~285 per day] -- April Fools -- Each week, write 2k words of a comedy short story, to end the month with 8k words of comedy. May [6,200k total / 200 each day] -- International Workers Celebration -- Each day, write 200 words about a character in your line of work (or a nonfiction diary/article) and what you enjoy about it and how it keeps the world turning, or saving the world in some emergency, then take some time to relax, you've earned it! June [15k total / 500 each day] -- Pride Month -- write 500 words each day, either fictional or nonfictional, about queer history, pride, solidarity, or intersectionality. July [15.5k words total / 500 each day] -- Disability Pride Month -- Each day, write 500 words about your favorite genre, from the perspective of a disabled character (or a character with your own disabilities), and what kind of accommodations they use in their daily lives, without magically erasing their disability. August [15.5k words total / 500 each day]-- Alien August -- Aliens have invaded! Pick your favorite genre, and each day, write 500 words of that genre, with a plot that gets interrupted by an alien visitation! September [60-100 Pages / 2-3 each day] -- Scripting September -- Each day, write 2-3 script pages for an audio-drama, stage-play, or movie/tv show, to end the month with a 60 to 100 page script. October [20k per day / 714 each day] -- Ominous October -- A choice of themes will be decided on before October, two options for each week, and everyone will write a 5k word short horror/spooky story each week, that all get posted on October 31st / Halloween
November -- Novella November [30k total / 1k each day]-- Write 1k words a day to reach 30k words by the end of the month. You can write a 30k word novella, use it as the start of a larger novel, write a series of short stories (such as writing a 7.5k word short story per week), etc. [30k total / 1k each day] December -- Don't Touch It December [6,200k total / 200 each day] -- this is your month of relaxation! Write just 200 words per day about anything you enjoyed / are proud of from the past year, and what you are looking forward to in the future! [6,200k total / 200 each day]
If you prefer to focus on just the longer challenges and spend the other months editing, we can also have mirror events each month for different ways of editing with community support!
Things like Beta reader swaps, doing cover mockups, localization help for those not writing in their first language, etc!
What's your favorite thing to write about?
I love fantasy and scifi!
One of the Big Works I'm planning on doing in the future is a big old series set on the same planet across multiple eras and stages of development, which starts off as your typical Fantasy setting, full of various species of people in a lower-technology era of settlements, kingdoms, and a few bigger cities in each region, up to steam technology, then "modern" equivalent, all the way up to space-faring times, etc.
One of my biggest issues with xenofiction (any fiction where the main character is Not Human, usually in fantasy settings but also scifi with Aliens) is that people come up with these really cool designs and concepts that are interesting, but they usually have some form of Biological Essentialism baked into them that is never actually addressed, or if it is, its ultimately dismissed as
"We evolved this [oppressive culture] eons ago, therefore we cannot [do not want to] change it ,and it is in fact *correct* and *natural* for our kind to be this way."
Like, as an example:
Say a fantasy series where there's cool fantasy animals inspired by hyenas with extremely rigid gender roles and abilities, where its matriarichal and the males of the species are commonly beaten up by the females who are asserting their dominance? Neat, I wonder what kind of role they play in the fantasy ecosystem!
But if you take those same hyena-inspired fantasy animals and make them a fantasy sentient species who are *People* and their behavior stays the same...
.. you do, in fact, have to actually put in the work to say that just because their ancient animal ancestors behaved in this way does not make it right or just for them to continue to beat down and oppress literally 50% of their population, and what kind of movements are going on either currently to change the status quo, or decide at what point in the past they mostly stopped such Explicit Behavior, while they perhaps continue it is more subtle ways, much like how misogyny, heteronormativity, and associativity are still widespread even in ""progressive"" countries.
TL;DR:
My favorite thing to write about is taking a generic trope and *Actually Thinking About The Implications* if it were something in an Actual Society of living people.
My other, less complicated favorite thing to write is I am planning on writing some (*cough cough* A LOT *cough cough*) original Arsène Lupin stories in the future once I have finished reading all of the books that are currently Public Domain in my country :D
If you are curious about Arsene Lupin, here is a link to the first book on Project Gutenberg, and here is a link to a fantastic audiobook on youtube made by Games and Gutenberg :)
The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity
(Even when life beats you down)
Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.
So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.
Focus on having fun, not on the outcome
This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.
I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.
But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”
So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.
Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it
I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.
I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.
Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.
I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.
I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.
Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.
I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.
Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.
Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.
It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.
I lowered my definition for success
When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.
A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism
Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.
I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.
Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.
The more I do it, the more I do it
The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.
Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.
Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.
The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.
Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.
No pressure
Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?
These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.
Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)
Don’t wait for inspiration to hit
There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.
Accountability and community
Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.
The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.
Your toolbox
The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.
After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.
Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!
I hope this was useful. Happy writing!
This isn't going to be another "you hate fanfiction!!" because very obviously you do not, but it is prompted by the discussion of branching out into original work, since it's something I often struggle with when trying to make that jump. Do you or any of your followers have any good resources on beginner worldbuilding? I really struggle with it.
Thank you!
If you check out my post where I made a "Prep Calendar" for Outline October (Which is a November-prep alternative/ supplement to Ominous October, the spooky short story event), I actually made a rather rough calendar outline of how to go about world building in advance for November;
The basic first steps for me are usually just three things:
Who are your characters
What kind of world do they live in (aka setting)
Whats your main plot/conflict?
To start worldbuilding at its lowest level, start with number one and work your way up; figure out what kind of character you'd like to write, where they live, and go from there!
Here is the prep calendar I threw together in MS paint, I definitely reccomend downloading it on desktop to actually zoom in to see what all it says lol.
And as a bonus, I will even make a fun, silly little exercise for anyone who'd like to get some practice in!
If you want to join in, grab a pen and pencil, or open up your favorite note-taking app :D
Here we go....!
Let's start out by saying that my basic concept for a character is *spins mental wheel of random ideas*....... a talking deer! 1) So now that I have decided that I want a talking deer character, now I have to decide: A) do *all*deer talk? B) Do *all* animals? C) Or is it just this one singular deer who is special? 2) If it *is* just this one singular deer who can talk, are they: D) otherwise a perfectly normal deer who just happens to be able to talk? E) Can they talk because they used to be human? F) Can they talk because they used to be an Alien or encountered Alien Tech (scifi) ? G) Can they talk because they used to be a Magical Creature or ran into a Magical Spell (fantasy) ? 3) Now you get to decide, mostly if you chose A or B from #1 but also useful for C : H) Is your story a more personal nature documentary, with realistic interactions between predators and prey? I) Is your story going to be a unique world where deer have built a society with technology and know how to defend themselves from predators? J) Is your story a unique world where all animals can talk and are equally sentient, therefore predators are revered as gods or keepers of the dead, who bring all back to the circle of life and prevent the spread of illness and disease, with older animals proudly going "to the wolves" to give their life to their brethren who consecrate the bones of the dead and keep resources plentiful? K) Or are predators the monsters in the dark, the teeth that bite, the slavering jaws that kill to live and *cannot live any other way*, so has learned not to regret? L) Or even, predators who feed from the already-dead when they can, and eat their fill of berries, nuts and fruits when they cannot, because they do not wish to take the lives of others for their own sake?
*clears throat* ahem. Drama done (can you see why I love worldbuilding) ,
go ahead and pick a letter from each of the above options, and jot them down on your paper or note-taking app.
You now have: A basic character, their backstory, and a basic setting!
From three-ish questions from a basic idea, you can spawn multiple possibilities, each of which can branch off into their own unique iterations!
Here's a few more, if you'd like to continue the exercise as further practice:
What is your deer's name?
What do they look like / what kind of deer are they? (deer of various species are found over almost the entire world, so there is tons of variety! :D )
What kind of world do they live in?
How do they interact with humans?
*are* there humans in your story?
What kind of zany or terrifying adventures would your talking deer and a human go on?
What kind of adventures would your talking deer go on with other deer or other animals?
How does your deer get along with other species?
Do they have friends from other species?
Do they have rivals from other species?
Do they have *sworn enemies* from other species?
Do they have a *love interest* from another species?
etc!
I am hoping this game/exercise is helpful, my brain being both autistic and ADHD means I am, at the drop of a hat, ready to start spouting more and more ideas sparked from a single concept at any given moment!
And yes, if you did this exercise, please feel free to use your deer character in a story, draw art of your deer character, etc!
If this exercise was helpful to you or fun, please feel free to tag any deer creations with "NovellaDeer" , I'd love to see them!
You can easily adapt this exercise to any story concept you need to worldbuild; pick what basic idea you have for a main character, and start asking yourself questions about them and their circumstances, and let yourself come up with multiple, contradicting answers for each question; the more the merrier!
After you've decided which starting answers you like the most, you can work your way down the list, asking follow-up questions, and before you know it you will have your very own original character :D
And do not feel like you need to keep your character exactly the way they start out as; characters evolve over time, and you may find yourself changing their "base" character to suit your story or to suit your tastes as you get more experienced with writing and world building!
Fantasy Discrimination, and The Implications
A post on my dash reminded me to share some more writing advice, so here is a very good article by @mythcreantsblog , about how to make sure you're not dehumanizing a species or culture in your writing, which is a good guide on how to avoid accidentally writing racist or ableist tropes:
In particular, I want to talk about the ever-present racist trope in a lot of fantasy and scifi fiction, and that is the decision a lot of creators make where the villains are not just a single person, a faction, or a kingdom -- *its an entire species* who is not only the villain, but are outright, inherently *evil*.
To start out, here's a political cartoon by Tom Gauld you've probably seen all around tumblr with the name cropped out:
[ID: a political cartoon by Tom Gauld, showing two identical cities and boats mirrored on a river, each with a purple or yellow flag; one side is labled "Our Blessed Homeland, Our Glorious Leader, Our Great Religion, Our Noble Populace, Our Heroic Adventuerers", The other side is labled "Their Barbarous Wastes, Their Wicked Despot, Their Primitive Superstition, Their Backwards Savages, Their Brutish Invaders. End ID]
This political cartoon is a very good tool for testing your writing for the trope of demonizing/glorifying your fantasy/scifi species.
Let's use a classic example: your fantasy setting is made up of the following species: Elves, Dwarves, Humans, and Orcs.
Your Elves are a long-lived, ethereal people who live in secluded, perfect cities, all of them tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, who are extremely wise and making plans that can stretch out over dozens of human generations, and they're the deciders of 90% of politics in your world. Your Dwarves are a short, squat, species who spend their lives working in forges, mines, and laboratories, tirelessly toiling (because they enjoy the hard work, of course!) and selling their products to the Elves who are their largest and wealthiest customer base; Dwarves work hard and studiously for decades at a a time to complete a piece of work in order to fufill the intricate orders from their Elven customers, which is how the majority of them provide for their families, working 16 hour shifts each day for decades per order. Your Humans are far more seperated, and often live on the fringes of what their longer-lived compatriots consider "Civilized Society", often living as Subsistence farmers and hunters, not out of choice, but often due to poor land and lack of resources; the wealthiest of Human cities are usually the capitals where the royals reside and may live in luxury with rich markets and high-quality products and running water, but the vast majority of Humans live in small, poor villages that must rely on traveling merchants to sell what produce and livestock they can spare from their farms in order to buy the supplies they need to live out another year. Your Orcs.... well, they don't really live anywhere, do they? Orcs strongholds can only maintain their grip in hellish wastelands where living is nigh impossible, with all food and water only obtained from outside sources; occasionally, Orcs will attempt to establish base camps in more fertile land, invading neighboring Human, Dwarf, and Elven territory to do so, who quickly unite to expel these vile, dark, brutish invaders lest they steal their daughters, destroy and taint all of the natural resources and steal the few jobs available to the Humans in Dwarven and Elven cities as manual labour and servants.
And Now, take a step back from this world, and take a long, hard look at these species (outside of humans who are just kinda there in the middle and the only ones capable of change because Humans Are Always Special) and societies and what ideas are being reinforced here, especially when the above descriptions are framed as Hard Facts which are both Just and True?
(archived read-more Here)
Elves are morally superior and are always Perfect and Correct,
Dwarves are happy to spend their entire lives toiling in the forges and mines to please their Elven patrons,
and Orcs are Evil Monsters who will rob, murder, and rape any hapless victim who comes their way, so it's better to slaughter them all on sight and kick them out of your cities and towns, and this is the 100% correct morally right choice every single time and the narrative and characters themselves support this?
Did you spot them already, or does the above just seem like a cool, fun fantasy world where Elves are the cool wise good guys and Orcs are the devil's army and can be used as canon fodder any time your main character needs to mow down some enemies for a Badass Scene?
Let's retrace our steps a bit, shall we, and examine this "perfect" world through a critical lens?
When your elves are all portrayed as Perfect Ethereally Beautiful Blonde and Blue-Eyed wise leaders of the civilized world, what idea is being reinforced here? Who does it harm, and what real world ideas is this mirroring and enforcing? Who is going to have their own biases reinforced by this narrative?
When only the longest-lived people are allowed to decide politics, what group biases are being enforced? Is portraying "young people" as "being incapable of making political decisions" as a correct, logical choice in your story something you wish to enforce? Are there any real world issues this trope mirrors?
When your Dwarves are all Happy Workers and Slaves, bound to and reliant on the superior Elves to live, spending the majority of their life purely in service to these Superior Beings while happy to do it, what idea is being reinforced here? Who might see themselves in the plight of the Dwarves and feel alienated and insulted by the Dwarves happily slaving away in the dark? Who might have biased ideas reinforced by seeing the Dwarves treated in such a way?
When your Orcs are portrayed as evil, dark skinned, brutish savages who will kidnap and rape poor helpless women from the "pure" species, when Orcs are incapable of creating anything of their own and can only steal, what racist messages are being enforced and upheld? Who are the real people and cultures being demonized when you perpetuate this? What real world peoples and cultures have faced *decades of propaganda framing them as such*?
If you spotted these harmful messages in the initial indented description, good job!
But if you didn't, it's time to find and read critical reviews and essays written by marginalized communities of works that include these damaging tropes, because if it your Evil Species are Weird Aliens, because when you characterize and describe your Evil Species, you are undoubtedly going to be drawing heavily on your own internal biases of what makes people Other and Wrong.
Are your Evil Species all dark-skinned, physically-strong and animalistic? Congrats, you have just regurgitated centuries-old racism that justifies slavery, segregation, and discrimination *to this day*
Are your Evil Species all nomadic ~cannibals~ who are incapable of creating anything of their own and have to loot and steal from others to have anything of value? Congrats, you are once again regurgitating racist propoganda that has been used against countless cultures and minorities for centuries.
Are your Evil Species reknowned for kidnapping and raping the women of your Good Guys in order to create Evil Twisted Halfbreed Offspring for ....uh, reasons? Congrats, once again, this is literally just racist propaganda being reinforced by your writing.
Anything you come up with to make your Species Inherently Evil is going to most likely be something that is weaponized against real world minorities that you are now reinforcing with your writing, from racism to ableism to queerphobia and all the ways they intersect.
How do you fix this?
It's incredibly simple!
Don't make an entire Species be Inherently Evil.
They need to be just as varied as real living people.
Your Species should not be a Monolith, let alone of *Evil*.
Your Species should not have their only "decent/civilized/kind people" examples come from ""crossbreeds"" [and this term itself should be used only by bigots as a deragatory term] or random orphans who were raised by one of the Good Species(tm)-- this is how your story starts advocating for *eugenics*, which is not something you want to do!
So, instead of having an entire Species be "Inherently biologically" Evil, consider instead:
Making your villain group diverse instead of all one Species.
if your villain group is a Species Supremacist, they're probably still going to have underlings and lower castes who do their dirty work, or have been taken in by the cult ideology.
Making the villains of this Species be a small fraction of a larger whole, who are part of a violent cult, ideology, or political party that not only puts them in conflict with your main characters, but also with the rest of their Species.
Having your main character or their friends be the same Species as your villain group, and they represents the vast majority of the Species, instead of hailing them as "the Paragon of Goodness who emerged somehow pure from of a species forged in hell" or anything similar.
You should also sit down and not only think about the harmful, racist tropes that would come from writing Inherently Evil Species, but also consider:
Why do you want to include an entire species of people who are inherently evil in your novel?
Is your novel gaining anything for including these tropes uncritically?
Does it make it a better, more interesting story to include these tropes uncritically?
What message are you trying to send with your story?
Does including these tropes uncritically in your story *undermine* your intended message?
Another trope in the opposite direction, is talking about "Oppression" and "Fantasy Racism" from the perspective of a character who is part of the oppressed minority, only to spend the entire novel talking about how your Opressed Class are Literally and Factually threats to the population that "discriminate" against them, usually by being rightfully wary in their prescence.
if the Oppressed Minorities in your story in anyway resemble the Orcs in Bright, the Predators in Zootopia, or the Khajiit in the Elderscrolls, where the Racism these peoples face in based on hard proven facts that these people have been and still are threats to most of the population..
... you're less writing a story about how "Racism Against Vulnerable Minorities is Bad"
and sound more like you're saying
"It's bad to be "mean" (afraid of) Nazis who literally want you dead and who can kill you with impunity and no consequences."
If you are writing a story about Fantasy Discrimination, and the basis of your Fantasy Discrimination is based on *cold hard facts that your narrative supports and upholds*, instead of actually basing it on and talking about what leads to discrimination in the real world
(xenophobia and the fear+hatred of The Other, economic gain, mainly),
then you are not making the progressive stance that you think you are, and instead are enforcing the ancient propoganda that racism is based on fact, that racism is "for a good reason", and you need to take care that you are not upholding this idea in your works.
TL;DR:
Instead of making an entire Species of people a trope of Wise Good Guys or Evil Incarnate, consider using *Factions not Races* for your groups, and think long and hard about the implications of your world's politics and how it mirrors our own world, especially in ways *you may not intend it to.* If your story is meant to be progressive and inclusive, but your villains are an entire race of black orcs who slave and rape the good guys species, you need to go back to the drawing board.
Tiny Tip #2
So, you've decided to take up creative writing! You open up your preferred writing program and go to open up your last file, which is your 20,000 word first draft of a novel-- until, uh oh! An error message pops up, saying the file is corrupted, can't be retrieved, etc!
Or, say lightning strikes your house, and fries your computer--!
Or, a cat comes scampering across your computer desk, sending your computer crashing to the floor where it promptly explodes in a million prices --!
How to you avoid losing all your hard work in these scenarios?
✨By Backing up your work regularly✨
You should take steps right now with any important documents you have on your computer!
Here's some very simple ways you can back your work up, from completely free to paid services:
Each day that you make changes to your main writing document(s), make a brand new copy with the "Save-as" function, and label each one with that day's date, so you have a complete timeline of documents from day one to current day, instead of all being one single document.
Email the Docx / ODF file to yourself once a day, and if you have more than one email, or a trusted friend/family member, email it to them as well in case you somehow lose access to your account.
use Google Docs to back up your documents or for cross-platform writing, or if you use Google Docs as your main writing program, back up your writing locally to Libreoffice and all other methods mentioned above. It only takes 1 issue with logging into your account or a service outage to lose access to your work on google docs!
Use 4thewords as another online cloud service to back up your writing and write cross platform
Use A cloud drive service to back up your works once a day, such as Google Drive, Mega, One Drive, IDrive, Sync Drive, etc to back up your works once a day
Use Calibre to convert your document into an ebook format or PDF, and send it to your phone as an extra backup, and a handy way to reference your writing on the go.
use Google Docs to back up your documents or for cross-platform writing, or if you use Google Docs as your main writing program, back up your writing locally to Libreoffice and all other methods mentioned above. It only takes 1 issue with logging into your account or a service outage to lose access to your work on google docs!
1 day left til Ominous / Outline October !
If you need a basic framework to start outlining your novel, you can start with just a few bullet points and slowly expand it from there:
How does your story open, aka, what are the opening scenes?
...
Where does the main plot start is your novel aka What brings your main character into the main drama?
...
What is the climax of your story?
...
How does your story close out, aka, what are the last few scenes?
Now that you've decided on these four base points, you can now slowly but surely fill in the blanks in between each of these!
Decide how your story opens, and how your main character gets pulled into the main plot, then start deciding what happens in between those two points --
-- you're going to need to do some build up, and get your readers invested or interested in your character before they get pulled into the drama, but you also don't want to wait until halfway into your novel to actually start the plot; so, decide what you want your opening chapter to be, and sprinkle in some foreshadowing for the larger plot as you are introducing your characters and setting, then spring into the action in the next chapter or two!
If you need some help visualizing and don't want to draw by hand, I also recommend using a character creator, such as Hero Forge to design your characters and give you some kind of visual reference
[ID: a link preview of a stock image coffee table with a laptop with the facebook logo on the screen with text on top that says 'anyone who used facebook in the last 16 years can now get settlement money. here's how." end ID]
Time Sensitive- Apply before August 25th, 2023 (8/25/23)!
Filing a claim takes less than ten minutes, and can be done HERE
Excerpt from article:
Anyone in the U.S. who used Facebook in the last 16 years can now collect a piece of a $725 million settlement by parent company Meta tied to privacy violations — as long as they fill out a claim on a website set up to pay out money to the social network's users.
The settlement stems from multiple lawsuits that were brought against Facebook by users who claimed that the company improperly shared their data with third-party sources such as advertisers and data brokers. The litigation began after Facebook was embroiled in a privacy scandal in 2018 with Cambridge Analytica, which scraped user data from the site as part of an effort to profile voters.
Meta denied any liability or wrongdoing under the settlement, according to the recently created class-action website. However, the agreement means that U.S. residents who used Facebook between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, can file a monetary claim as long as they do so before August 25, 2023.
Please reblog to signal boost this! As many people as possible should know about this to make their claim, if you don't do anything you don't get anything. It takes less than ten minutes to file and pick your payment option including pay/pal and ven/mo .
A PSA
DO NOT REPOST ART.
DO NOT REPOST ART.
I know this fandom is kind of dead and a lot of the art is old and hard to find.
DO NO REPOST IT.
REBLOG IT.
This is not a difficult concept.
Support the artists. Don't commit art theft. Reblog.