Okay so and Ariel Brouillette (author of the Diabolic Hearts series) have been kind enough to let me show you guys what some of my comments look like as an example. This is more to give you an idea of what it feels like to work with me, and to show y’all that editing doesn’t have to be crushing—it can be fun!!

My copy edits are also serious (in fact, that is the majority of them, given that comments are used to clarify, suggest, and confirm)! But these give you an idea of what my editing personality is like.

So, buckle in. Also, just for context, I promise I can withhold the cussing. This is just something both people were comfortable with. If you’re not someone who swears, just let me know! Communication is key ;)

I reached the email limit :( There’s definitely more, but yeah, maybe this is enough lol. Anywayyyss. See ya next time! Let me know if you’d like more (or want to see the more serious comments)!

Share

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

A sparkler burns for about forty-five seconds. That’s your scene.

Not the length of your piece; the length of the moment inside it. Whatever happens has to begin when the sparkler is lit and end when it burns out.

It has to be night. There has to be a sparkler. The piece ends when the sparkler does. 400 words - shorter might be better.

Include the smell of smoke. Anywhere in the piece.

Share

I’m celebrating. I’m celebrating. I’m happy.

He hands it to me lit and spitting, ushers me into the dark woods behind our house. “You were born for this.”

I choke on a snarl, bare my teeth at him. He takes a step back, another, through the door, slams it.

My cheeks are wet, my legs are wet, I have to go, but my hands and feet are also wet, and really, the ground is wet, and in my arms is the wet thing, the water, and she is dead.

The sparkler hangs from between my trembling fingers, sparks flying into the ground, as I stumble into the woods. No sun to make even shadows of shadows. Dirt silent beneath my feet and such. Trees opening into each other like so many sunflowers. My feet are moving, but I could not say if I was running, walking, or falling.

Flashes of vision, in and out, smoke drifting past my senses like incense.

How I sung to her when she was mine, how I spun heritage and home into music, how I taught her the original sin of man: to love, and be loved.

And now to sing would be dogs at my feet, snapping their teeth, men that I surely once knew close behind.

I feel something weighty slide down my leg and drag in the soil.

I look down and think at first, oh, someone shoved a dinner plate up there.

But it is the color of rancid fat and blood. I am the feast.

A police siren sings off in the distance, and I know: It is for me.

I have run out of time.

I grab the dinner plate off my foot and thrust it underneath her like a pillow. Perhaps the scent will comfort her—for it came from within me as well.

My eyes chase darkness, the crevices of the forest that are far from the human eye so that she can avoid the shame of what we have become. So that she can belong to the earth.

The siren comes closer and then cuts off. Seconds, I know.

The earth is dewy when I begin to dig, sparkler barely lighting the way. It is soaked in blood when I finish. I tear off my jagged nails with my teeth—even a scrape…!

There is no time for ceremony.

She is still mine.

My breaths start to come faster and faster as I look at the cord connecting us in narrowing flashes of spitting light. The exact distance between you and I, I think.

The dogs begin to bark.

In a blink, I put it in my mouth and chew and chew and gag and chew and then finally, it is free.

There is only time to kiss your head and lay you safely down, and cover you with placenta and swaddle you in dirt.

The barking comes nearer. I look up, come to my feet unsteadily. The forest is still dark, but there are trees flashing white and yellow to my left. I look behind me. The house is feet away from the little grave. I swear I ran. I swear, sweet girl, I ran in my head.

I begin to cry. The sparkler is fizzing out.

I limp from tree to tree, drawing the dogs to me. I was hit by a car, I will say. I was attacked by a mountain lion. Anything but the truth that a man can reach a hand up in you and rip your heart out, no problem.

The sparkler falls from between my fingers, dead, and I slow for a second.

They are looking for proof that I am who they said I was. They are looking for something to bite down on.

But I cannot let them have you. I will be the feast.

Subscribe now

Hi! My name is Ani, and I’m an editor, poet, and writer here on Substack.

Welcome to my self-indulgent little poetry & writing page. I separated these out so I could write more polemic poetry but also so you guys could pick & choose between editing content and writing content and not get hammered with emails w/o any distinction. I hope this page sparks fires within you. I even hope you get a little burnt.

Wow, you guys! That’s it for Porch Prompts for this run.

We were so, so inspired by and grateful for all the people that turned out to participate in this. From Week 1 to 4, we had people popping in where they could, regulars, and everything in-between, and we see and appreciate all of you. Writing prompts can’t exist without, you know… writers. Getting to read your stories was just the highlight of our weeks (I’m speaking for Liza too. Sorry, Liza).

And your stories! Whew! You guys had us laughing, crying, delighted, and dizzy with the overwhelming presence of CHAOS. It was amazing.

I was even more impressed by the way you guys built community from this prompt. Thanks for being such cool human beings and making this a collaborative exercise the whole way through. It’s a great reminder: Art doesn’t come out of isolation. Our writing is filtered through the world around us, and we can’t (and shouldn’t!!) escape how necessary we are to each other. This is the whole point of Substack, in my mind. Or at least, what I want Substack to be.

All that said, let’s do a quick recap of Week 4!

Share

Developmental Theme for Week 4:

This week’s prompt was as follows:

You have spent the last three weeks crafting fun, sad, scary, [insert relevant modifier here] stories. Our prompts nudged you in a direction, and you took off running.

The best part? Our prompts were designed to help you write short stories, and you all came up with some incredible drafts.

Your challenge this week? Select your favorite story line, channel your inner Ani Beeler, and edit your work!

As you finalize your short story drafts, keep in mind all the different developmental themes from Porch Prompts.

You have alllllll week to work through this. And the best part? We are all here to help. If you want feedback as you are working, drop it in the chat and you have an army of writers willing to reply :)

Post your edited short stories on Friday, share with us all, and feel proud of your accomplishments! 😎

Several of y’all stepped up to the plate, and I’m so excited to share quotes from this last week (!!!) of Porch Prompts with you guys.

Our participants (and quotes from their finished product) are as follows:

’s Corsets & Keanu

’s Porch Prompts: The Final Week

’s A Story of You, Revisited

’s Prompt & Circumstance

Subscribe now

I can’t believe we’re done! But that is indeed it. Till next time, you guys. And may you stay safe from clowns, South African paramedics, and Keanu (all equally fatal) in the meantime.

See you next time ;)

Liza & Ani

Ani Beeler

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Eliza James

I’m Eliza James, but you can Call Me Liza. If you like video games and random takes on life, you’re in the right place.

Again, this was written in three days. I refuse to edit it anymore because… well, I’m lazy. Be nice, please :)

Without any further ado:

These contrapuntals are simultaneously Shakespearean sonnets, involving fourteen lines with an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme. This is particularly impressive in face of the alternating single and double lines, which makes for, at times, up to four ending words requiring rhyme. These sonnets also employ a strict meter, rarely straying from pentameter.

This form is responsible for the musicality of the contrapuntals, which reinforces the blackness of the McKoy twins and revives their beautiful voice by way of “song[, which] offer[s] a means of escaping the processes of social isolation and intellectual and emotional negation” specifically for post-bellum black folk (McCracken 2). This musicality feels like an opening into possibility, a recursiveness and infiniteness that the contrapuntals begin and is then continued here.

The five contrapuntal sonnets telling the story of the McKoy twins are no exception. The beginning of the McKoy twins series leads with a shaky drawing of a butterfly. Each poem is separated by a page with a quote of theirs taken directly from their autobiography. The series ends with a fold-out poem: on one side, a prose poem written in the voice of a stage presenter ushering the audience to “step right up”; and on the other, the previous five contrapuntals arranged with four on each corner of the fold-out page and one centered poem—again in the shape of a butterfly (Jess 60). It is on this final page that the extent of the use of the em dash can be seen: it litters the page—prefixing, suffixing, infixing.

Because the contrapuntals in Olio are written to be read “antigravitational[ly],” it is difficult to discern exactly how many multitudes each em dash contains, but this paper will restrict its possibilities to linear readings in lines of threes and fours (Marshell). The content (the joining of the twins) leads to a representative form (alternating contrapuntal pairings and single lines)^[1]. L₁, read linearly (NOT diagonally), will have three connecting “chunks” (L₂, L₃, L₄) that an em dash could possibly lead to. An em dash at L₂ R_E leads in two directions, conversely: L₃ M_S and L₅ R_S.

This doesn’t even begin to touch on Bishop em dashes: em dashes placed at the beginning of lines. These allow for retroactive punctuation, which is often a strategy to exercise concision in punctuation, but also allows for multiple punctuation readings simultaneously. This could look like L₃ M_S leading to L₁ L_E and L₂ R_E retroactively: this can create two separate punctuation marks possible at L_E and R_E, which is extraordinary.

For example: “Listen to how we’re bound / —one body crooning two notes.”; “Listen to the grace we have / —one body crooning two notes” (Jess 53). These two separate readings consolidate the punctuation of the parallel lines above the conjoined line down to a single, retroactive colon (in the form of an em dash). Another example: “We’ve mended two songs into one dark skin / bleeding soprano into contralto / —we’re fused in blood and body . . .” (Jess 41); “We ride the wake of each other’s rhythm / beating our hearts’ syncopated tempo / —we’re fused in blood and body . . .” (Jess 41). Here, the em dash takes up the retroactive function of both comma (lefthand side, first quotation) and period (righthand side, second quotation). This works to allow the breath (as discussed above) of the third readings of these lines to shine—breathlessly: “We’ve mended two songs into one dark skin / We ride the wake of each other’s rhythm / bleeding soprano into contralto / beating our heart’s syncopated tempo / —we’re fused in blood and body . . .” (Jess 41). And both of these examples all thanks to the strength and flexibility of the em dash. Further, there is Jess’s revelation that these contrapuntal sonnets are “syncopated,” which adds an entirely separate lens to view the em dash through (Jess 221). Syncopation is an essential element of black music, such as that the twins performed. Part of the twins’ performances included song; Christine was a soprano, and Millie a contralto, so they often sang duets in front of rapt audiences. Clément elucidates the nature of syncopation—“syncope”—in Syncope: The Philosophy of Rapture:

“Syncope” is a strange word. It pivots from the clinic to the art of dance, tilts toward poetry, finally ends up in music. In each of these fields, syncope takes on a definition. At first there is a shock, a suppression: something gets lost, but no one says what is won. Suddenly, time falters . . . Syncope—here syncopation—is evident in the backward dip, inherent in the step itself: three steady steps, at a trot, then nothing. Suspense. It is in the missing beat that one can falter. Obscenity” (2).

This hesitation, this missing beat perfectly describes the experience of these contrapuntal sonnets. The McKoy twins’ contrapuntal sonnets exceed time, find a circularity of hesitation and silence and movement that truly wanders into the obscene. And crucial to this syncope is the aforementioned space, the breath provided by the em dash. The em dash presents itself as the circular element of the contrapuntal, the blush of adaptability reddening the soft cheeks of the syncopated sonnets with sensual breaths and pauses.

Further, the syncopation in these sonnets relates the McKoy twins to the black radical as described by Moten:

“Syncopation, performance, and the anarchic organization of phonic substance delineate an ontological field wherein black radicalism is set to work” (85).

These syncopated sonnets therefore bring together the McKoy twins with defiance, with the “cutting and abundant refusal of closure,” which aligns well with how Jess refers to these poems: “Strike your own path through their lines. Circle round their stories to burrow through time” (Moten 85, Jess 222). These poems are an assertion both of the McKoy twins’ blackness in a time when blackness was oppressed, denigrated, disallowed, and of the twins’ continuing life. As a result, they are reanimated, “revivif[ied],” by the syncopation established by the em dash and brought into the realm of the radical and the defiant and the alive (McCracken 4).

Olio in particular uses the contrapuntal form to take up arms with what we have recorded of the voice of Millie-Christine while simultaneously struggling with the truth of her reanimated voice. Notably, the first poem in the series of five contrapuntal sonnets following Millie-Christine’s journey is titled “Millie and Christine McKoy,” immediately separating them in identity and personhood. Meanwhile, Millie-Christine herself said, “Although we speak of ourselves in the plural, we feel as but one person; in fact as such have we ever been regarded, although we bear the names Millie and Christina^[2]” (McKoy 17). Two parts of this quote draw the eye: first, the assertion that their use of the plural does not indicate their separate personhood; and second, the brief insertion of “as such have we ever been regarded” (McKoy 17). This immediately inspires the question, does the second half inform the first? That is to say, do they view themselves as “but one person” as a result of society’s regard?

Further, “Millie-Christine’s Love Story” alternates between the first-person singular and plural with intention, drawing the eye: “Each sung sound / airborne, shook and shimmering through my head, with Christine’s voice at my side. I have sung / with Millie’s embracing contrapuntal, / in a way very few could comprehend—” (Jess 53). In every other poem in this series, only the first-person plural is used, but the contrastive alternation here reinforces a separation of identity, a plurality of being, that Millie-Christine herself did not ascribe to.

The evidence from these two poems would suggest Jess’ stance on the matter: Perhaps the McKoy twins were indeed separable in soul, if not body. There is not much similar evidence to suggest that Jess wanted the reader to believe anything with complete certainty. Nor does he seem to push to contradict the twins’ own word. Rather, Jess seems to hint at the possibility of a reality underlying the one that Millie-Christine give us, perhaps under the pressures and consequences of being permanently in the public sphere. That is to say, he asks the question: Without the presence of significant privacy, can one’s “inner thoughts”—being continually degloved by the scrutiny of others—truly reflect the reality of one’s experience in the world?

Here is the rub: if Jess does indeed reanimate and liberate the voices of Millie-Christine, he partially does so by erasing what we know they have in fact already said. There remain two options: Do we remain faithful to historical evidence, or do we extrapolate from the obvious humanity of the subjects?

Olio does the latter, and in doing so, liberates the twins’ souls from the rigidity of their generationally appropriate happinesses and contentments and into defiance, into the black radical.

However, this liberating push involves a sort of violence that seems inevitable. Just as the twins refused to be separated from each other, so should we consider that separating the twins from their well-documented perspective and desires itself is a violent wrenching from their history, from their lived experience. Is defiance an acceptable addition to the twins’ personae? In response, this paper suggests that this violence can only be unraveled with an inquiry into the difference between the twins’ subjective, professed reality, and their “performative reality,” or a reality shaped only by others.

Without straying into objectivism—as the time for that theory has long come and gone—the interplay here between subjective reality and “performative reality” deserves exploration. Aside: this paper at no point intends to assert that the twins’ lived experience should be dismissed. However, following in Foucault’s footsteps allows for another layer of analysis in support of Jess’s gentle suggestion about the experience of Millie-Christine. Foucault’s famous expansion of the panopticon into a lens of analysis for society proves actually to be too abstract here. Millie-Christine are not being observed unconsciously by society; they are instead the only prisoner in the entire panopticon, and the guard tower points directly at them at all times. Lights, camera, etc. Without any illusion of privacy, one must think that the effects of “perfect individualiz[ation] and constant visib[ility]” would be even greater (Foucault 5). Foucault argues that the panopticon primarily ensures an “automatic functioning of power” (Foucault 6)—and here, the importance of the phrase “as such have we ever been regarded” comes back into play (McKoy 17). With the full weight of society and its individualizing powers upon their shoulders, the only recourse they had (being, of course, hale of mind and body), was to assert their collective: We are one! We cannot be individualized! We will not let this prison-world separate us and by doing so steal our power!

As a result, the twins’ lived experience—their subjective reality—is that of happy oneness. But this assumes that they can be a reliable narrator in face of their wholly public life (to the reasonable extent of such, since they were not enslaved in the latter half of their life). If the pressures of being on constant display greatly influenced their interactions with the world, they may be instead living a “performative reality.”. Perhaps their happiness was indeed their usual countenance; perhaps it was a result of the weight of being on constant display; perhaps an insistence on the presence of defiance in their stories is a reanimation of their souls rather than their experiences (consider the confession of their biography—which is also quoted in Olio: “We are indeed a strange freak of nature, and upon the success of our exhibition does our happiness and the well-doing of others depend.”[15]). This is a topic to be treated with care, because any confident assertion of one truth or the other threatens the autonomy of the woman at hand.

This continues in the series of McKoy twins contrapuntals—and Jess uses this form to continue to interrogate this central question: subjective or performative? For example, one of the unifying lines of the five contrapuntals: “We sing straight from this nation’s barbwired heart . . .”; and in the next in line: “We prove we’ve endured faith’s storm every time we rise to face the crowd’s face as we pay our dues”; and the next: “entertainment at the age of three”; and the next, “I love this burden that we’ve been given—”; and the final: “Thus, we buy liberation from each gawking crowd” (Jess 41–57).

From the first to the last comes a voice that may feel not entirely the twins’ own, given what little we know of what they have said. In the first, a perspective presents itself that identifies a sort of anti-nationalistic sentiment, a discomfort (at least!) with the state of things in America that does not align with the Christian, politically absent professions of the twins. Nowhere do we have any indication that the twins felt themselves involved politically; instead, they followed the constraints of their times. Given the phenomenon they were, they had more power than the average black person at the time. They performed for Queen Victoria, high-ranking officials, large audiences; in fact, an audience once turned against the women’s kidnappers when they were but girls, according to various reports (“Biographical Sketch of Millie Christine…” 8). While this paper absolutely does not assert that they should have pushed for the advancement of black folk, or more generally, society, it seems possible that they could have. As such, any statement of anti-American sentiment feels a little disingenuous, given what we know. But again, we may not be able to trust what we know.

The next line indicates the presence of a struggle with performance, particularly audience, a feeling that seems reasonable, but again, is not present in what little information we have on the twins.

And on, and on.

This may not be the end of the matter, however.

There is another lens through which to look at this.

Olio, throughout its unfolding-chrysalis Millie-Christine poems humanizes and uplifts the voice of Millie and Christine McKoy. By creating an elaboration on their thoughts and feelings, we learn that happiness can be conditional, that public thoughts may not be congruent with those had in private, that two black women can defy the perceptions of the public and protect an incredible complexity within themselves from the panopticonic eye of society. Olio takes their blackness, their whole humanity, and liberates it from the constant visibility they were exposed to. From light to light. “We are just / two women singing truths we can’t forget . . .” (Jess 41).

Even with the contrast between the historical record and Olio’s imaginings, Olio endeavors to create a new history, a whole history, a history of human feeling, a history of being black directly after the (supposed) end of slavery in the United States. Additionally, given Tyehimba Jess’s blackness, this paper moves to ascribe more weight to his analysis, which likely would have more bearing on this subject than that of non-black critics.^[3] Further, he does in fact assert the happy, graceful voice of Millie-Christine, for the most part: “I love my song and dance and family— / the way you love your own blood. Twice as much. / I’ve double the cause to celebrate life. / I love this burden that we’ve been given— / to ride the shared wake of one blood’s rhythm . . .” (Jess 53).

And here, we arrive, finally, at liberation.

The humanization of Millie-Christine McKoy’s voice, with the poems’ subtle hints at a depth not attributed to the twins in the historical record, leads this paper to conclude that Tyehimba Jess aims—and succeeds—to liberate the twins from the constraints of their audience, from the constraints of their own selves to uplift the humanity of their souls and give voice to what could not be said to any single body in the 19th, post-slavery century. Like the butterfly the series of poems starts and ends with^[4], Millie-Christine rises above the atmosphere and into the softness of space—reminiscent of the form of the poems themselves.

In Olson’s “Projective Verse,” he claims that “breath allows all the speech-force of language back in—and truly it is the em dash that allows for this speech-force in the contrapuntal form. It is the em dash’s “separate energies” that bind, pull, and liberate the form from the necessities of syntax, of punctuation, of rigidity and introduce breath; separation; hesitation; thought; syncope. It is thus that a final realization presents itself: with the form of the syncopated contrapuntal itself liberating Millie-Christine, lifting her above the humdrum existence she was submitted to and into light, and life, the most significant elements of the contrapuntal itself absorb the responsibility for this light; and thus, by extension, this paper lays at the feet of the em dash both gratitude, and acknowledgement.

^[1] See Appendix A for diagram for following discussion.

^[2] Most sources refer to Christina as Christine, so for consistency’s sake, this paper references her as Christine. However, note that this is a direct quote from presumably the women themselves.

^[3] E.g., (“Biographical Sketch of Millie Christine…”).

^[4] See Appendix A

Works Cited

Chai, Yeow Kai. “Begone dull care: twin cinema comprising bolts and nuts of unrelated scenes, some pilfered.” Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, vol. 9, no. 3, 2010. http://www.qlrs.com/poem.asp?id=783

Catherine Clément. Syncope: The Philosophy of Rapture. Translated by Sally O’Driscoll and Deirdre M. Mahoney, University of Minnesota Press, 1994, Minneapolis. p. 2.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Pantheon Books, 1977, New York.

Gold, Sarah. “Millie-Christine McKoy and the American Freak Show: RACE, GENDER, AND FREEDOM IN THE POSTBELLUM ERA, 1851-1912.” University of California at Berkeley, 2010.

Jess, Tyehimba. Olio. Wave Books, 2016. pp. 41–60.

Marshell, Kyla. “Voicing Counterpoint”. 2016. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/89226/voicing-counterpoint Accessed 6 December 2025.

Molly McCracken, “Rebellious Enthusiasm, Ambivalent Forms: On Freedom and Bondage in Tyehimba Jess’s Olio.” European Journal of American Studies, 2024. Accessed on 15 December 2025. http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/22155; https://doi.org/10.4000/11xaz

McKoy, Millie-Christine. “History and medical description of the two-headed girl : sold by her agents for her special benefit, at 25 cents / told in ‘her own particular way’ by ‘one of them’.” Warren, Johnson & Co, 1869, Buffalo. pp. 15–18. Wellcome Collection. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/vj7y5hww/items?canvas=25. Accessed 6 December 2025.

Moten, Fred. In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition. University of Minnesota Press, 2003, Minneapolis. p. 85.

“Biographical Sketch of Millie Christine, the Carolina Twin, Surnamed the Two-Headed Nightingale, and the Eighth Wonder of the World”. Hennegan & Co, 1902. https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/carolinatwin/carolinatwin.html. Accessed 6 December 2025.

Olson, Charles. “Projective Verse”. Poetry New York, 1950. Republished in Poetry Foundation, 2009. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69406/projective-verse. Accessed 6 December 2025.

“Contrapuntal”. Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. “https://poets.org/glossary/contrapuntal#:~:text=Contrapuntal%20comes%20from%20the%20Italian,weight%20where%20no%20melody%20dominates. Accessed 6 December 2025.

“From ‘Monsters’ to Modern Medical Miracles – Marvels on Exhibit (15th through 18th-centuries)”. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2013. www.nlm.nih.gov. Accessed 12 December 2025.

Again, Part One here.

Thanks so much for reading. Next week: I give you a peek into a typical edit with me. And provide some unhinged comments for your reading pleasure.

Share

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Here we are: the final week of Porch Prompts! You have dedicated three weeks to responding to our prompts, and we are so grateful. We hope you enjoyed responding as much as we enjoyed reading your responses.

*if you’re new, check out the details to our challenge here

This week is going to look a little different than prior weeks. For our final prompt, you get to take the reins completely.

Final Challenge = Final Edits!

You have spent the last three weeks crafting fun, sad, scary, [insert relevant modifier here] stories. Our prompts nudged you in a direction, and you took off running.

The best part? Our prompts were designed to help you write short stories, and you all came up with some incredible drafts.

Your challenge this week? Select your favorite story line, channel your inner Ani Beeler, and edit your work!

As you finalize your short story drafts, keep in mind all the different developmental themes from Porch Prompts.

You have alllllll week to work through this. And the best part? We are all here to help. If you want feedback as you are working, drop it in the chat and you have an army of writers willing to reply :)

Post your edited short stories on Friday, share with us all, and feel proud of your accomplishments! 😎

Instructions for posting:

1. Create a draft of your favorite story line.

2. Take the work you have already done, mash it together.

3. Do your edits, keeping in mind all the dev themes you have focused on the last three weeks. remember, if you want feedback as you work, rely on Ani’s sub chat

4. On Friday (the earlier the better), post your final work.

5. Share it with the class (aka, Ani’s group chat)!

Share

Ani Beeler

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Eliza James

I’m Eliza James, but you can Call Me Liza. If you like video games and random takes on life, you’re in the right place.

Subscribe now

Aaaaand that’s it for Week 3!

You guys killed it, as always, and I’m so excited to show off your fantastic stories here.

But first, the theme & the prompts!

This week, your character had a secret, and they worked to keep it! This prompt lent itself most naturally to fantasy, but it was so interesting to see all the different ways it could go!

Share

Developmental Theme for Week 3:

Check out the prompts from our Week 3 post:

Day One:

Your unnatural abilities are showing—how embarrassing for you. Someone has picked up on this. How is this person onto you? How can you tell? Where did it happen?

Remember, don’t you dare tell us your secret! But give us some hints at least, come on… we sure are curious.

Bonus: [at the end of your piece quickly tell us why you chose the POV you did]

Day Two: Dialogue

Great, you have a plan for how you’ll maintain your secret. Only one problem. That plan isn’t going to work now… because you fumbled hugely.

Leaning heavily into dialogue, your character slips up and partially reveals their secret.

Day Three: Action

The one thing your character cares about/needs is in danger! (something inanimate or animate, up to you) No big deal, you can save it… problem is, you are surrounded by a crowd of people.

How is your character going to solve this one?

Day Four: The Big Reveal

The day is here. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Due to the events of yesterday, you must choose one person to confide your secret in.

Tell it all. Who are you? Where did you come from? Do you have a grand plan?

Day Five: Resolution

What now? How does it feel to have someone know your secret? Are you going to have to deal with them, or can you trust them?

Through inner monologue, walk us through your character’s thinking process.

What did you conclude?

You made your characters live in fear of the truth being revealed; here, we put them on the grand stage. No escaping the truth now! ⬇️

From ’s response to Day 1:

From ’s response to Day 2:

From ’s response to Day 2:

From ’s response to Day 3:

From ’s response to Day 4:

From ’s response to Day 5:

Thank you so much to everybody who participated! You guys are amazing. In no particular order:

Vincent Daniel

Penn Locke

Evyn

Lake Filter/Rain P. Filter

Rosa Romero

Eliza James

(This list was pulled from Ani’s subscriber chat. If you haven’t posted there, make sure to dm me with your prompt responses so I can be sure to add you!)

Next week will be a little different to switch it up for the very last week of Porch Prompts! Keep an eye out—and we’ll see you there!!

Liza & Ani

Subscribe now

Ani:

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Liza:

I’m Eliza James, but you can Call Me Liza. If you like fantasy, video games, random takes on life, or if you wish you were a witch, you’re in the right place.

Not to be lame, but we’re not doing an in-depth review of the history of the romance genre because I sunk way too much time into trawling the internet for a good source to use to discuss this, but there were none, and I don’t have time to read a whole-ass 257 pg. nonfiction analysis on it. We will do a brief summary of what’s going on in the romance and publishing world, though, before we dive into the meat of the essay.

Here, have a picture of a bodice ripper cover just because they’re amazing. Fabio in all his glory (apparently??)

Romance is an EXTREMELY oversaturated genre, which explains how it has such an indie following as well—there’s just no way to traditionally publish the sheer amount of content that comes through, so even the self-published stuff will frequently be up to trad “scuff.” It’s “recession-proof”: It sells well no matter the contexts of the world at the time. I mean, if you take a look at BookTok, it seems to be the genre that has the most screen rep, so to speak. Colleen Hoover dominates that side of TikTok.

There are three metadata points for romance: genre, spice level, and tropes. It might as well be a suburb with how precisely it’s subdivided. There are three gazillion & counting subgenres: dark romance, sports romance, rom-com, historical romance, holiday romance, paranormal romance, etc. etc. etc. Spice level (aka explicit content meter) is usually represented using little chili pepper emojis, which has still not grown on me. (Stop. Please.) The more chili peppers, the more intense the explicit content. Tropes are a whole topic unto themselves. An essay on that is on its way, worry not. Beware: Anything can be a trope so long as it can be summarized in a couple words. For example, say you have a werewolf romance, and the werewolf says “fuck!” one time. A trope pulled from this could be “werewolves that make swearing sexy!” or something. Idk. Genuinely, though, nothing is sacred or safe. Tropes are basically just tags. They’re descriptors of plot actions or points in books that tend to reoccur in the genre frequently. For example, touch her and die: This is extremely common. We love a possessive man (I guess??).

Now, these metadata are currently being used as the foundation of advertising. All good things come in threes, right? Haha. Wrong.

Advertising in this way leads to what I would call a “character customization” approach to reading romance. That is, I can customize my reading experience based off the individual pieces of this book that appeal to ~me~. You know what this leads to? Circular, limited thinking. Reading is meant to expand the world. It is a result of imagination and diversity of experience and a love of a craft that allows for literally anything to be a topic of interest. You don’t have to read nonfiction to learn—all you have to do is be open to the potentiality of something new. When you choose a book knowing beforehand that you absolutely will like everything in it (back to this later), you remove from yourself the option to discover not only that you like something new but also the option to experience more of the world. Not to be dramatic or anything but this is how you encourage closemindedness, were you ever in the mood to do that, you know? (Circling back—) Funnily enough, too, you might go through all this trouble to customize your reading experience and then still find that you don’t actually like the book—because of any number of reasons, though I’d guess it’d be because of inconsistent character development. As a result of this type of advertising, though, we have seen the degradation (ha) of the actual quality of literature, because new authors are writing with these metadata in mind, not letting stories accrue naturally.

This is where slop thrives. Let me explain.

Note that I am not bashing any indie authors. I think this is a conversation that needs to be had, but I’m not about to come after any person in particular. Any examples I use (other than large trad pubbed books, who can totally take the L) will be left unnamed. Basically my sources list will just be “Trust me.”

Romance has experienced a LOT of commercial success for a variety of reasons that we will discuss shortly. This commercial success has been consistent since practically the beginning of the genre hitting mainstream in the late 1800s to early 1900s. The long and short of it is basically it turns out that when people (women) confined to tiny little spheres of domestic existence were given the chance to do a little escapism, it turned out to be extremely popular. Shocker. But things have (obviously) changed in recent years. Now, the rise of book influencing and short-form video content have led to books being stripped down to be sold for parts, which is in fact a new one in the genre’s history of uttered “what the f*ck”s. This is how we ended up with stuff like “fated mates x touch her and die. Coming 2027.” Or, my ~favorite~, “What does this mean? Only the book girlies will get it ;)” and then a string of random letters that are an acronym for the filthiest thing you’ve ever read (great fun, I hate it, here’s an example: “STFUATTDLAGG.” Please don’t translate this. And please don’t ask me to). Like ffs, y’all. You seriously need to be thrown into a library with all the titles taken off the spines & be forced to read one of your choosing. Experiencing the unknown is how we grow! This distillation of novels into their individual attributes to use for sales turns my stomach. It takes what could be art and turns it into capital. And to me, this is what slop is: writing that’s become so commercialized that it starts to self-cannibalize. And by “so commercialized” I mean it’s created ONLY for its commercial success appeal. It’s “oh, this did well, and therefore I shall create something like it because I know it will sell.”

When every other element of a story is neglected in favor of only its proven-to-be-commercially-successful ones to sell it, when the novel has been threshed and then fed to the pigs, I must in fact call it for what it is.

Is all romance slop? HEELLLLLLLL no. There are a couple of words that float around as potentially negative descriptors of romance—and I actually don’t think slop is one I’m hearing about the genre a lot right now. Mostly, I hear “trashy” and “smutty.” Neither of those words are ones I use with ~hate in my heart~. They are in fact dear friends. When I say the word “trashy” in reference to a romance novel, it’s always ironically, always to poke fun at myself for airing out my, uh, tastes? to any audience. And I mean, one man’s trash is another man’s erotica, right? It all just depends on perspective. Smutty just means “oh btw there is 100% explicit sex in here.” Neutral for me. Very descriptive, though. But yeah, slop isn’t one. My thesis, however, is that the romance genre is starting to slop-ify, and it’s worse than it was even a couple of years ago. I’ve been on Kindle Unlimited for a long time, you guys.

Okay, but what distinguishes romance as slop vs. not slop?

So, let’s talk about why romance sells—and why it doesn’t. I’m pulling this from actual human beings talking about this on reddit (link). People gravitate to romance for the certainty of the HEA (Happily Ever After), for escapism, for the emotional up and downs, and yes, for the sex. For several of the people talking about reading it for spice (sexual content), it seemed to provide some sort of healing or relief for them. With this in mind, I would like to say: Romance DOES NOT sell because it’s all about sex. This just isn’t true. Low- to no-spice romance exists and does fine. Cozy romance exists and does fine. Etc., etc.

However.

Sex does sell.

I have an author in my broader circle that I know put her kids through college writing bodice-rippers. Sex sells, man, and more power to her for it.

And I mean, how much did Fifty Shades of Gray make again?

It’s $1.32 BILLION. Just in case you forgot like I did.

Don’t even get me started on the sex in that because it boils my BLOO—

So, the sex in Fifty Shades of Gray revolutionized the public sphere. This pulled erotica out into the public eye in a way I would suggest had never been done before—people WEREN’T afraid to talk about the erotica they were reading in public, and I’m not convinced this had ever happened at the scale it did with FSOG. This is BEFORE the concealed carry romance novel covers, remember, please. People were reading this in public! This is today’s “watching Heated Rivalry on a plane,” y’all. All the og fanfic people talking about different types of citrus and meanwhile FSOG is just like COME SUCK MY—

This to me is the beginning of slopification. I mean it’s literally a copycat moment because FSOG is twilight fanfiction which, itself, is basically 9/11 fanfiction (don’t ask). What’s the thing where like the more replicas you make of something the less like itself it becomes? I don’t remember. Either way, the more estranged it becomes from the source material, the more it loses its shine, for sure. Can’t rub that one back to life. haha. ha.

This has gotten worse, though. FSOG was one thing. I can sort of forgive that. Yeah, it’s poorly researched, but welcome to accountability-free white women’s publishing spaces. This isn’t quite slop so much as it is just annoying. I guess maybe it got some people to safe, sane, and consensual, but my guess is that it wasn’t many.

But I have read a number of romance books recently (for myself, not for work, though I guess there is no distinction between those two things now that I have the appropriate training given that I can’t turn my brain off when I read ever lol), and believe me, I would have thrown them across the room in frustration if I hadn’t been reading them on my phone at points. I went through like four different ones in one night, just praying some author had cared enough to actually put time into storytelling rather than just leaning into tropes and sex as plot. There’s nothing wrong with porn as plot! That’s not the problem! The problem is that you can write porn (which smut is not, but using an extreme to illustrate the point) and still have an obvious love for the craft. You can craft characters with care. You can have them behave in ways that make sense given their motivations! Characters should not be packaging for tropes, and plot should not be packaging for sex. Erotica can be really fun when written well! Sex is a human experience, and there’s no reason we can’t explore it in public spheres, so long as we do so safely, consciously, and ethically. As soon as we stop exploring sex and start repackaging it, though, it’s pretty much over. Sex is something to approach with curiosity[AB1] . There is so much variety to sex & intimacy & physicality—and romance attempts to capture either imagined or real experiences, both of which will vary significantly from author to author! Now, there will certainly be overlap in experience, given that the current Western outlook on sex is a bit bleak, which means extremely restricted sexual acts. But for the most part, romance books are just a compilation reel of women & queer people saying “okay, but what about this?” Sometimes there’s a haha added at the front of that. (Not to exclude men. Open invitation for men to join the mix, so long as it’s done with respect.)

Instead, a lot of the indie books available today are asking questions like “how big can a top’s dick be before the person bottoming for them just pops like a balloon?” You know. The important questions. Or, a genuine one from the other day, “how can I make a man evil so that it’s hot when they fuck but not actually evil in real life so I don’t have to deal with the consequences of the characters I’m creating purely for hot sex purposes?” The question length is representative of the number of words I read into the first chapter before I DNF’ed. Commit to the bit!! Commit to the bit!

A lot of my work as a developmental editor is teasing out what the emotional core of the piece I’m working on is. Without an emotional core, a story will flop every time. These cannot exist separately of each other. And thus lies the problem with slop: It ignores its own heart—and denies its own heritage. Romance is enjoyable because of its emotional core—almost more so than any other genre!!! People read romance for the certainty & the hope & the joy it will likely bring them. But you’re telling me that the 7th omegaverse book you’ve churned out with no real story, characters, or setting is totally gonna inspire that same sort of longlasting, rewarding, welcoming emotion? Oh, but it has enemies to lovers?

Yeah. I don’t know about that.

If you take anything from this essay, let it be this: Put your heart into what you write as well as your words. Everything else will come.

But yeah. This is where we shall pause for today. I think there’s a lot more to be said here, but I just got off a plane and I’m ready to go take a nap. Let me guys know if there are any particular bits you want me to elaborate on in Part II.

Share

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

We have sure had fun the last few weeks. Ani Beeler and I can’t begin to TELL you how amazed we are with the amount of energy y’all have been pouring into this challenge. We are on Week 3, homies! Two weeks left to go.

Roll up your sleeves, and let’s get to work.

Share

Queue theme song [probably something with a sweet sax solo].

Previously on Porch Prompts…

• First, directions for the challenge were posted (here)

• Then, five prompts a week were posted for two consecutive weeks (both weeks had a hidden developmental theme)

• Some writers completed all prompts, some didn’t… that isn’t the point. All writers wrote, had fun, and when they pieced their prompt responses together, they got a story out of it

• All writers wrote at least 200 words, as per the ONE rule of this challenge

Tune in this week for another season of Porch Prompts

DUH-DUHN-DUHHHHHHN!

(Okay, normal person speaking now… If you have questions about how to post, see footnote1)

Welcome to Week Three of Porch Prompts:

SETTING THE SCENE

[Before we begin, I want to call out that you can write in any POV. Just because I am referring to your character as “you” doesn’t mean you have to write in 1st person. For this week, really think about which POV you want to use for your story.]

You know what you are. You know where you come from. This is a secret you have kept your entire life. Now, something, or rather, someone is threatening to unravel your web of lies.

They are onto you, you can sense it (can you sense it through incredible mind-reading abilities? an acute awareness of bodily signals? because you are smart like that? I dunno, that part is up to you)

We, the readers, have no idea what you are, and like I said, you have kept this secret your entire life… you aren’t about to just reveal it to us.

Throughout this week, you will give us hints and clues as to what unnatural, inhuman thing you are without ever defining it.

Day One: Set-up

Your unnatural abilities are showing—how embarrassing for you. Someone has picked up on this. How is this person onto you? How can you tell? Where did it happen?

Remember, don’t you dare tell us your secret! But give us some hints at least, come on… we sure are curious.

Bonus: [at the end of your piece quickly tell us why you chose the POV you did]

Day Two: Dialogue

Great, you have a plan for how you’ll maintain your secret. Only one problem. That plan isn’t going to work now… because you fumbled hugely.

Leaning heavily into dialogue, your character slips up and partially reveals their secret.

Day Three: Action

The one thing your character cares about/needs is in danger! (something inanimate or animate, up to you) No big deal, you can save it… problem is, you are surrounded by a crowd of people.

How is your character going to solve this one?

Day Four: The Big Reveal

The day is here. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Due to the events of yesterday, you must choose one person to confide your secret in.

Tell it all. Who are you? Where did you come from? Do you have a grand plan?

Day Five: Resolution

What now? How does it feel to have someone know your secret? Are you going to have to deal with them, or can you trust them?

Through inner monologue, walk us through your character’s thinking process.

What did you conclude?

Remember, if you need a refresher on how to post check out the footnotes!

Looking forward to seeing what you all whip up this week!

Subscribe now

I’m way too tired rn to explain so I’m just gonna pop the days in and hope for the best.

Day One: Our beloved characters are hanging out in the local pub when the town gossip busts down the door. The Hemingway-or-bust high school English teacher reads romantasy???? Oh, and also, she’s dead.

Thursday nights were fucked for several reasons, first among them being that it was pub night with Eleanor’s insufferable friends, closely followed by the fact that they always ended with her laughing at the top of her lungs (unrelated to the first, of course). This was undignified, and as her aunt always said, “Indignity is the first cousin of inferiority.” Eleanor of course didn’t believe this, except for when it suited her. She couldn’t possibly be inferior to any person. In any way. So it didn’t apply to her. Of course.

Still, she couldn’t help herself.

When she arrived at Hole in the Hall, Denshire City Hall’s newest pub, Dave and Remington were already waiting for her at the bar. The air was alight with some sort of distressing warmth. It was cozy. The wood floors were practically radiant with absorbed good will. She couldn’t wait to leave.

“David. Remy.”

Remington glared at her as she slid onto the barstool. “It’s Remington, and you damn well know it,” receiving in response nary but a raised eyebrow and a poorly hidden scoff.

Eleanor flagged the barkeep subtly.

Dave coughed lightly. “Hi, Eleanor. What’ve you been up to? We missed you last week.”

“Last week? Oh, I was washing my hair last Thursday. Couldn’t make it, sorry.”

“Yes, Eleanor. We know. You didn’t show, so we did in fact figure out that you couldn’t make it. Thanks for the advance warning,” Remington said with a scowl.

Eleanor grinned. “You’re so easy to antagonize. What should I have to drink? I kind of want to try something new.”

The barkeep had been waiting for several seconds now, his brows moving from their usual kindly set to something increasingly frustrated as Eleanor took her time.

Dave mumbled something under his breath.

“Why are we friends indeed,” Eleanor replied.

Remington leaned forward. “Perhaps it has something to do with how we–”

“SHHH,” Dave and Eleanor said in unison.

Eleanor opened her mouth, and the table shuddered in anticipation, only to be left hanging.

The doors burst open with a BANG, and Jennie Smith ran in, practically aflame with some sort of news.

“EVERYBODY!” she yelled. “Come quick! They found Mrs. Levins dead-ass reading a romantasy book in the library!” Jennie Smith was no older than 16.

The pub held a sort of confused silence.

“Oh!” Jennie said. “My mistake! I meant: Come quick! They found Mrs. Levins’s dead ass reading a romantasy book in the library!”

The confused silence continued.

“Get it? Cause she’s dead? Like her dead ass—” Jennie paused. “Whatever. Tough crowd, man.”

The confused silence became a permanent fixture in the pub, and someone got up to frame and hang it.

By the time the crowd understood that yes, their beloved 11th grade English teacher was, in fact, dead and then erupted like a rodeo audience at a rider on their descent arc, Eleanor, Dave, and Remington were nowhere to be found.

Day Two: Character One did it. Carefully choose your viewpoint character to tell us how and why.

Your clue for the day: Your viewpoint character of choice visits the crime scene to check it all out (how do they get past the police? Who knows). When they remove the book from her face, a cavity within its pages becomes visible—but it is empty. What could have been hidden within? Search for the item that has been lost. It is near her body, and it may be a crucial clue.

Dave and Remington crept under the section of chain-link fence that Eleanor was holding up.

“Keep up, motherfuckers. We only get one chance at this. We need to know which one of us did it, and fast.”

Dave and Remington looked at each other. Remington then looked at Eleanor.

“You ever wonder why it is that the only friends you could find were people whose only similarities to you included trying to murder the same person?”

Eleanor looked him dead in the eye. “No,” she said and carried on confidently into the underbrush behind the library. “Do you?”

Remington rolled his eyes.

The trudge to the emergency exit located on the back of the ground floor of the library had been conveniently propped open, and they thanked the author for the easy access to the scene of the crime.

Up the stairs & to the romantasy section, where they came across the unfortunate woman, skirts spread as if in the middle of a salsa. Her hands echoed music.

They circled the body like dirty water going down the drain.

“A letter opener? Cliched, don’t you think?” Eleanor said. For indeed, a letter opener had quite speared the poor woman in some poor imitation of the crucifixion.

Dave blushed.

“shcrhvfln,” Dave murmured.

“Speak up,” Eleanor demanded.

“She could have fallen,” Dave repeated. The toppled step ladder & scattered books seemed to confirm this as possible.

Remington was still staring at the body. Blood had soaked the carpet, which was certainly not opposed to soaking up more. This was the first attention it had received in twenty years, goddamnit!

“Where the fuck did the gun come from?” he said, staring at her open hand, wherein lay a gun, smoke drifting from the muzzle. “That wasn’t part of the game.”

Eleanor frowned and kicked Mrs. Levins.

A book that had previously lain directly across Mrs. Levins’ face slid off and splatted face up on the ground, revealing a cavity within.

Dave picked it up with a grunt. Old knees and all that.

“I think we have a bigger problem on our hands.”

Eleanor and Remington turned fully his way, surprised at any strong assertion coming from his mouth.

“Someone’s got the cock.”

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

But this is a new week. There will be new prompts (!). New prompt responses (!!). New quotes to be restacked (!!!). And I am so excited.

As said last week, we shan’t be giving away the developmental theme of the week. If you’re truly curious, we’ll reveal it in the sub chat once the prompt week is over for discussion. We have full confidence that you’ll pick up some dev editing tricks & tips along the way no matter what.

Last week, we nearly died.

This week, somebody else definitely did.

Welcome to Week Two of Porch Prompts: Give Me Murder or Give Me Death!

(Look, it’s a new week’s image!)

Linking the intro post (here) for anybody who needs to revisit how this is going to work, but the quick rundown is below:

• there will be five prompts per week for a total of four weeks

• each week will have a sneaky developmental editing technique as the hidden theme :)

• each porch prompt should make sense when combined no matter how many of the prompts you did (or didn’t) do.

• there are no rules on your writing form of choice! Use this challenge to compile a new chapter, a collection of poetry, essays–whatever you want, do it!

• i lied, one rule. Oops… Write at least 200 words per prompt response (exception: Poetry. We don’t need you to write another Odyssey). Don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed. This isn’t supposed to be stressful, and if it is, change your approach! Just have fun with it.

Example of what not to do:

(not that this wouldn’t be cool, just that I would be worried that you might be dead on the floor after consuming too much caffeine, foregoing three days of sleep, and suffering a well-earned heart attack. don’t make me worry. don’t be that person.)

Re: how you’ll post it, I’ve re-linked the video here as well to give you the recap on that:

Again, quick rundown:

• make ONE post for the week

• use the edit function each time you have a new prompt response to add and then just update that week’s post one prompt at a time.

• share your post with us either in DM form or through Ani’s sub chat thread.

Liza and I will take all the single week posts you guys have made and, at the end of the week, WITH YOUR CONSENT!, curate them into a single post that we will share widely on Substack! Hopefully, this will get your guys’ excellent writing out there!

Share

SETTING THE SCENE

Night has set across the library in [insert your hometown of choice here], which, during the day, intimates the warm allure of the sun; and at night, the distance. Within, across the high call desk, through the wooden stacks, and into the deep middle of the romantasy section, lies on the floor a woman in a long dress, arms laid vaguely about her head as though dancing, the blood seeping from her body making a mess of the worn carpeting. Several details in her vicinity reveal themselves: First, a step ladder fallen nearly on top of her, a toppled book settled perfectly upon her face. Second, a letter opener covered in something… sticky? lodged into her left lung. And third, of course, resting within her open hand: a literal smoking gun.

Each day, you will be given a new clue. Each day, you will be asked to solve the crime. And if you don’t solve it in time… you’ll be next.

To get started, let’s build our characters! (Mentally OR on paper OR however your heart desires.)

Our characters as defined by their differences:

~Character One~

~Character Two~

~Character Three~

Day One: Our beloved characters are hanging out in the local pub when the town gossip busts down the door. The Hemingway-or-bust high school English teacher reads romantasy???? Oh, and also, she’s dead.

This can be done in 200 words, I promise, but feel free to write more if you’re feeling inspired! This is the set-up prompt for the rest of the week, so it’s a little hefty. Trust that it will be worth it, though!

Day Two: Character One did it. Carefully choose your viewpoint character to tell us how and why.

Your clue for the day: Your viewpoint character of choice visits the crime scene to check it all out (how do they get past the police? Who knows). When they remove the book from her face, a cavity within its pages becomes visible—but it is empty. What could have been hidden within? Search for the item that has been lost. It is near her body, and it may be a crucial clue.

Day Three: No, actually, Character Two did it. Carefully choose your viewpoint character to tell us how and why.

Your clue for the day: The stickiness on the letter opener tastes like honey? Strange. Thankfully, it was something semi-edible and not horrendously disgusting, since someone chose to taste it.

Day Four: No, actually!!! Character Three did it. Carefully choose your viewpoint character to tell us how and why.

Your clue for the day: When the gun is pulled away, there rests a piece of paper with something written on it in the woman’s hand. Now your character must find out: What does it say, and how did it get there?

Day Five: The police are floundering, the town is flummoxed, and I mean obviously the woman herself is finito. So. How does this story end? Who murdered Ms. [—]?

Each new prompt will be dropped the morning of at 6 a.m. (PST). We can’t wait to see all the crazy ways poor Ms. Hemingway-or-bust was killed!

Liza & Ani

Ani:

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Liza:

I’m Eliza James, but you can Call Me Liza. If you like fantasy, video games, random takes on life, or if you wish you were a witch, you’re in the right place.

This post is just going to be a glimpse into what my editing process looks like. I’m going to include two screenshots of a manuscript w/Track Changes turned on so you can see what’s been changed. I’ll provide the original as well, of course. I’ll then justify each edit I made, so you can see the reasoning behind it.

These excerpts will be pulled from Ariel Brouillette’s new release, Pride & Treason, which y’all dark supernatural romance fans should go check out.

A couple of notes. There are several overarching guidelines I kept in mind while editing here that you’ll see pop up a couple of times:

First, word economy. This is genre fiction, and as a result, there need to be no spots where the reader can even consider dropping their attention. This involves tightening the prose so that every single word is in this manuscript for a reason. Sometimes this means cutting down sentences that Ariel wrote until they say the same thing in as few words as possible. This is just a genre fiction thing in my mind, but every editor will have a different approach to this sort of thing. This is mine (and I stand by it). This is not how I would approach something like literary fiction, obviously.

Second, stylistic considerations. Ariel likes em dashes. So do I. Sometimes I’ll add them in where appropriate, especially when they’re not used much in proximity.

Third, and finally, suggestions vs. requirements. None of these edits are absolutely “right” or “needed.” Sure, a lot of them would improve the prose or manuscript, but ultimately, this is NOT MY IP. I DO NOT OWN THIS. I DID NOT CREATE THIS. Don’t look at these as harsh ultimatum if-you-don’t-do-this-you’re-stupid type changes. These are suggestions, and the author has final say!

Ariel took what she wanted, and we discussed beforehand what exactly that was to make sure we were on the same page so she didn’t have to keep too close an eye on every single change. She knows that I know what her intent is, which makes it easier to trust my suggestions. This is what I do with every author I work with.

Additionally, this is the LEVEL of editing intervention Ariel asked for.

Every author will want a different weight of intervention—I’ve worked with authors who ask for more heavy handedness than others and vice versa.

I’m going to let the excerpts do the talking:

Edit 1: “Neon” to “Neon lights”

An edit for image clarity. Establishing setting relies on clear, precise detail, and “neon” in the context of “in a way cities always were” doesn’t quite conjure the glow I know Ariel is intending here. “Cities” can’t be “neon”—unless they were poisoned with radiation of some sort, I guess. Or they’re under the sea. (Not making fun, just illustrating the point). Thus, “neon lights.”

Edit 2: “in a way cities always were” to “—”the usual city ways”

This is more of a copy edit than a line edit. It’s partially based on my knowledge of the author: I know that Ariel enjoys a good em dash. I also know here that “in a way cities always were” has an awkwardness to it that isn’t shaken even with a good ole’ “the” added in: “in *the way cities always were.” To me, the awkwardness is centered on “always were.” This phrase ends up modifying “heartbeats stacked too close together” alone because “way” is singular, but the intent seems to be the collision of all these things at once. As a result, there needs to be some separation from the collection of descriptions (”neon lights, exhaust, heartbeats…”) and the conclusion (”in a way cities always were.”) Thus, the em dash. Then, “the usual city ways”: This is a rephrasing of the original to capture more precisely the intent I had to interpret from this without losing some key words (”city,” “ways,” and “always were”—>”usual”.) There are several different ways this could have been edited, but to me, this reads smoother and is more interpretable than the original.

Edit 3 (combo): “Demons scuttling through alleys like rats pretending to be kings.” —> “Demons scuttled through alleys like rats pretending to be royalty.”

The change from “scuttling” to “scuttled” changed this from a sentence fragment to a sentence. This is a matter of preference, and for her books, I tend to remove the occasional sentence fragment, because they have a transience to them that is useful on occasion but destabilizing when used frequently. This is just one of the ones that happened to be shifted into its more solid sentence form. “kings” to “royalty” is just cause it sounds nice :) yay alliteration.

Edit 4 (whew): “One breath he was reverent, distant, almost gentle. The next he became something precise and merciless, a blade that didn’t shake or hesitate.” to “He could be reverent, distant, almost gentle, but in the next breath, he could become something precise and merciless, a blade that didn’t hesitate.”

There are a couple of things here. The biggest change is the replacement of “One breath” with “He could be,” which has a domino effect upon the rest of the sentence. In the original, the simple past tense was used to describe this characteristic of Crow’s. I edited this to the subjunctive: Given that this is describing an imagined scenario, the subjunctive is more appropriate. Establishing the subjunctive right away preps the reader for the imagined scenario. One breath is still fine, but for the sake of word economy, “the next breath” conveys both the first and the second, so “One breath” can be cut. This is just a tightening, and the author could totally stet it if they hated it. Remember—edits are suggestions. They are not the Word of God handed down from on high. I guess I’m saying, I’m not a heretic? Word economy is the same reason that I removed “shake” at the end of the second sentence.

Edit 5: “Watching it happen never got easier” —> “Watching it happen never got less disturbing”

“Never got easier” in what sense? For who? This isn’t about difficulty or ease. This is about the jarring nature of the change between his two natures, his Jekyll & Hyde effect, so to speak. Thus, “less disturbing.”

Edit 6: “restraint” to “his restraint”

Say this one out loud in context of the sentence. Pretty self-explanatory.

Edit 7 (Comment): “thick as fog”

I just liked this. That’s all.

Edit 8: “She has to tilt her chin…” to “She’d had to tilt her chin”

This edit reflects the timeline context. This is a memory of something that happened in the past prior to the current point in the timeline. Since this base timeline is written in the immediate past, this means that this should be conveyed in the pluperfect. (The tense occurring before the immediate past is the pluperfect tense: “had [blank]ed.”)

Edit 9: “How fucking adorable” to “Fucking adorable”

Word economy. The second conveys exactly the same as the first, just tightened. Keeping the reader’s attention with every single word—nothing that serves no purpose.

Edit 10: “but she had so much fight in her” to “but so full of fight”

Same as edit 9. If this can be said in fewer words, then I will.

Edit 11: “That spark of defiance” to “That spark of strength”

Because I’ve edited the other books, I know that “defiance” is a word typically associated with one of the previous FMCs, so I left a comment here that this might be more appropriate as “strength,” a word that is more appropriate for this FMC.

The rest of the edits are tense and punctuation corrections (according to CMOS 18).

Here’s a second excerpt from the same book:

Edit 1: “’Anything else,’ he dipped his head…” to “’Anything else?’ He dipped his head…”

These two edits establish that (1) this is in fact a question and (2) the sentence following the question does not use a dialogue tag, and as a result must be disconnected from the dialogue.

Edit 2: “do not” to “don’t”

This dialogue is casual. “do not” is too formal here.

Edit 3: “while I made out with a man…” to “while I’d made out with a man…”

Tense correction in the context of “The worst of the storm had passed while…” This could also be changed to “while I’d been making out…” and would be fine as well.

Edit 4: “made” to “make”

Yes, this story is told in the immediate past, but direct interiority can present as present tense. The distinction of the italics is enough to switch us into the present tense. This is a wobbly edit, in my mind. It may stick out to a reader, which might be enough to swap back to immediate past, but it’s technically correct. That’s a tricky balance, sometimes, and the final choice is of course up to the author.

Edit 5: “No testing the water” to “No testing the waters”

Merriam Webster establishes that the official phrase uses “waters” not “water.” There ya go.

Edit 6: “and his hands slid to my hips” to “pulling me toward him”

This sets up the staging for this scene. Before, she was a distance away (on the page before), so he can’t lift her unless she’s a little closer.

Edit 7: “as he lifted me, easy,” to “as he lifted me easily”

I’m down for adjectives playing as adverbs on occasion (and I left several of these in her novel cause it’s fun and stylistic), but this one is distracting, so I swapped that shit out posthaste.

Edit 8: “grip firm but not pushing” to “grip firm but not digging in”

The distinction of “firm but not pushing” doesn’t quite match internally. What does “not pushing” mean in context of “firm”? If you have to think about it for very long, it likely won’t convey its meaning OR the author’s intent to the reader quickly, which to me doesn’t fit the genre fiction style. This doesn’t mean you haven’t complexity! It just means that this is likely imprecise. To tighten it, I changed it from “not pushing” to “not digging in.” This provides immediate meaning and image to the reader.

Edit 9: “He did not. Choice stayed in my hands” to “He chose not to. He left that choice in my hands.”

The second option more clearly conveys that he delivered the choice to her, rather than making “Choice” the subject. With “Choice” as the subject, the human to human contact is obscured, and since this book is a romance, that human to human contact is sort of the whole point. The repetition of “chose” and “choice” is fine. It functions as emphasis here.

Ignoring “edge” to “edges.” Self-explanatory.

Edit 10: “that if I did not slam a brake” to “if I didn’t slam on the brakes”

This corrects the phrase to the standard usage and reduces a little awkwardness.

Edit 11: “Forehead pressed to his, because distance…” to “I kept my forehead pressed to his, because distance…”

The first is technically just a matter of style, though the comma would need deleting to standardize it, but it has a momentum to it that trips over itself rather than streamlines it. So, instead, I stabilized the rhythm by changing the first from a noun phrase to a full independent clause.

Edit 12: “felt” to “was”

Because “felt” was used previously in a separate independent clause, I used a separate verb to emphasize that the clauses had separate subjects.

I’m stopping here because I’m tired lol but also because reviewing your own edits is TERRIFYING. Have you heard of the editor’s curse? It is fated that the first time you open up a document you edited after editing it that you will immediately encounter an error. It’s always scary looking at work you’ve already done because of how intensely you (it’s me, I’m “you”) will beat yourself up about the tiniest little thing once it’s done and dusted and over with.

Anyways, we’re good in these excerpts, thank god.

But I’m stopping here. I have confidence in my work! I swear! Fate just has a funny way of being an asshole at the most inconvenient times.

Anyways, thanks for reading, etc. etc. I hope this was enlightening or at least interesting for y’all! Let me know if you have any questions OR if you disagree with my edits! That doesn’t threaten me—I appreciate the engagement. Feel free to start arguments in the comments hehe. I’ll be there ;)

That’s it for me for the night. This is still technically Wednesday, right? Anyways. See ya ‘round!

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Buy me a chai if you'd like :)

I’m going to be getting to these all at or by the witching hour, so I’ll always be down to write with you if you feel like it’s too late (it’s not) (i’m awake almost certainly) (haha).

Day One: Describe being run over in five or fewer run-on sentences (remember: minimum 200 words). Feel free to have your character’s whole life flash before their eyes in the process. Alternatively, feel free to let your story do a hit-and-run on its own character, if you so desire.

it was a tuesday what other way is there to say it if I shake my hands and instead yell IT WAS A TUESDAY will you hear what I’m trying to get to you that is the sheer SOMETHING HAPPENED of it all the unbelievability the blow your eyes wide open the water overflowing the sink type shit? He hit me so fast that days of the week didn’t matter anymore though so I guess it doesn’t make a difference in the end nor do most things for example the way Sorrel looked at me in the dark when he thought the moon wasn’t bright enough to see him by or the way mom chopped carrots when she was angry or the way the skipping stones always looked like planets to me though only for mere seconds because in the end something always comes along and smoothes out the wrinkles be they ‘round eyes forehead or face. I am one long wrinkle now I am cracked right in two and shifted up one hole like one of those adjustable hiking poles that pinch you when you undo them I have been laid down across the road like a mountain I have been laid down across the road like a man and I just need one second to lie here and count stones and carrots and days of the week and frown. A car door slams and a face I know well by the moon bleeds into the sky above me and actually I think it may have been a Wednesday?

Day Two: Using punchy, short sentences (you’re in too much pain to speak for long), describe dragging yourself home after the accident (what is public healthcare anyways). Do you take the bus? Do you taxi? Do you bum a piggy back ride off someone? If you died in Day One, well, I guess “home” is a lil bit farther away for you. Good luck!

It was definitely a Wednesday. the moon fled from the face fled from the sky. I knew. I had to get home. Before the stones were skipped. Before the carrots chopped. Before the face, seen and unseen.

Why should it be upon me. Why should I be learned that the world can be so unfair. Unfavorable. Unforgiving.

The road quickly became laid across me. Snow started to fall. The chips of gravel that the car had kicked up pressed love marks into my skin.

The work began in picking them out, one by one. My fingers like dew frozen into crippling frost. Thousands of stones, thousands of lovers. I was the most loved in all the world. But loved or not, I had to make it home. Loved does not needs must also mean alive.

There were little parcels of blood being couriered across the divots of my body. I avoided them. No need to touch the blood of the sinner. I had failed at my only religion. Be unrepentant, be unashamed.

Bless me father, for—

He bled back into sight. Sorrel.

He sighed. “Sorry.”

I craned my head up at him, reclined on my elbows, gravel lining my body in funereal rows.

I nodded. “Fine.”

“Need a hand?”

I shook my head. “I could use a drink, though.” I groaned. Tried to rise. Discovered a certain terror of brokenness.

“Home?” he said. He bent like a weeping willow to pull me over his shoulder. I succumbed to the susurrations.

My turn to sigh. The blood rushed to my head, my limbs hanging limply from his slight frame. How I loved him. “Home.”

Day Three: Your exceedingly apologetic driver’s excessive apologeticness was in fact a cover for the fact that they were on the way to some nefarious ambition. Using only the purplest of prose, convey to us (through any lens you would like!) what their bad intentions were and why!

Sorrel pressed his foot expeditiously upon the pedal of the accelerator. ’Twas four and thirty, ever increasing, and his ambition was yet to be realized—absence on the clock, absence, absence! For he must aspire to some greater existence than that of the present. He must exceed the bounds of his current delights. How could he proliferate his ideations across the earth in the context of a small life? And that was indeed the constitution of his day to day. Smallness. Decrease. A rejection of excess, of greed, of selfishness. And yet, were not some small selfishnesses were necessary for a life of true pleasure? Surely, there was no pleasure solely in the land, in connection, in quiet? He was made for more, he knew within his very essence, sheltered in his procured shade to protect from the sun of disapproval.

His beloved could not satisfy him alone. Guilt wracked Sorrel, and yet it could not be helped. He must seek something more, and elsewhere. Everything was solidifying into inertia. They had loved each other for so long that the sun of their devotions had gentled behind cloud cover. Sorrel desired. He desired!! His many waters pulled together into a flood of want.

And thus, he sped away from the house of his heart, descending into a betrayal guided by selfishness. A betrayal of love. A betrayal of want. He could no longer rest in solitude.

He had to get a job.

Share

Day Four:

Day Five:

Super excited to be writing with y’all! Check back in here for each day’s update ;)

Bye for now!

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Linking the intro post (here) for anybody who needs to revisit how this is going to work, but the quick rundown is below:

• there will be five prompts per week for a total of four weeks

• each week will have a sneaky developmental editing technique as the hidden theme :)

• each porch prompt should make sense when combined no matter how many of the prompts you did (or didn’t) do.

• there are no rules on your writing form of choice! Use this challenge to compile a new chapter, a collection of poetry, essays–whatever you want, do it!

• i lied, one rule. Oops… Write at least 200 words per prompt response (exception: Poetry. We don’t need you to write another Odyssey). Don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed. This isn’t supposed to be stressful, and if it is, change your approach! Just have fun with it.

Example of what not to do:

(not that this wouldn’t be cool, just that I would be worried that you might be dead on the floor after consuming too much caffeine, foregoing three days of sleep, and suffering a well-earned heart attack. don’t make me worry. don’t be that person.)

Re: how you’ll post it, I’ve re-linked the video here as well to give you the recap on that:

Again, quick rundown:

• make ONE post for the week

• use the edit function each time you have a new prompt response to add and then just update that week’s post one prompt at a time.

• share your post with us either in DM form or through Ani’s sub chat thread.

Liza and I will take all the single week posts you guys have made and, at the end of the week, WITH YOUR CONSENT!, curate them into a single post that we will share widely on Substack! Hopefully, this will get your guys’ excellent writing out there!

Share

Okay!! For this week, let’s keep it light and breezy. Consider this a warm-up. Remember… light and breezy. So with that in mind… in our first Porch Prompt, we get hit by a car.

Below are the Daily Prompts. Each new day’s prompt will be revealed at 6 a.m. PST., day of.

Because this is the first week, we’ll give you the developmental theme for free, no guessing required: How to harness stereotypically “bad” writing to write good stories. Exaggerate the writing rule-breaking here as much as you would like! The more farcical, the better, in my (Ani’s) opinion.

Day One: Describe being run over in five or fewer run-on sentences (remember: minimum 200 words). Feel free to have your character’s whole life flash before their eyes in the process. Alternatively, feel free to let your story do a hit-and-run on its own character, if you so desire.

Day Two: Using punchy, short sentences (you’re in too much pain to speak for long), describe dragging yourself home after the accident (what is public healthcare anyways). Do you take the bus? Do you taxi? Do you bum a piggy back ride off someone? If you died in Day One, well, I guess “home” is a lil bit farther away for you. Good luck!

Day Three: Your exceedingly apologetic driver’s excessive apologeticness was in fact a cover for the fact that they were on the way to some nefarious ambition. Using only the purplest of prose, convey to us (through any lens you would like!) what their bad intentions were and why!

Day Four: WHY were you on the highway in the first place? Tell me. Shout, emphasize, be serious—use every piece of p.u,n-c!t?u<a>t@i#o(n) and stylization possible to give me the deets.

Day Five: Your story has taken shape, and even exceeded the bounds of your very imagination. Now, you must decide: What is the natural conclusion of the chaos that has taken shape? Using as many made-up words as possible, tell me: How do your characters’ stories end?

Now that the week’s prompts have ended, make sure you’ve submitted your Week One post to us, whether that be on the chat, in DMs, or in comments sections somewhere, to ensure that you get represented in Saturday’s curation! If you get missed, just shoot us a DM or chat message, and we’ll be quick (& happy) to help. Also, if you’d like to send us your favorite quote you’ve written out of this entire week of prompts, we would love to put that up on the curation post!

We’re glad you joined us for this week of chaos & fun!

Liza & Ani

Ani:

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Liza:

I’m Eliza James, but you can Call Me Liza. If you like fantasy, video games, random takes on life, or if you wish you were a witch, you’re in the right place.

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ~Picasso

Ani: Hi guys! and I are so excited to share with you what we’ve been planning for the past couple weeks. We teased it a little bit, and several of y’all were kind enough to be game for a little test audience, which we so appreciate. But it’s finally May, and we thought we’d go ahead and get started so you have the weekend to ponder.

Liza: When I first started my Substack, I found the hardest task was figuring out what to write. Seriously, I would sit there chewing on the end of a pen for what felt like hours. Some days, the inspiration would flow. Others… not so much.

Ani: I’m an editor more than I am a writer, but tbh, that balance needs to be equalized. I’ve found it so difficult to establish a writing practice just because setting up a business makes me feel like I’m constantly at my max. You guys keep me busy ;)

Liza: So what do we do on those not-so-inspired days? We push through and get a little help from… a prompt!

Ani: Okay, now, hold on, hold on, guys. This isn’t just any series of prompts. Stick around for like the next minute? And you’ll get a feel for what’s going on and WHY it’s worth giving a try. We know. There’s lots of prompt challenges out there. But we promise, there is a reason we started this, and there’s a difference between us and all of the other daily prompt challenges being run. (No disrespect meant at all! We’re just on a different side of the genre :)

Okay, so wtf even is this?

Ani: For the next four weeks, we’re going to be hopping on the prompt train. Each week will have a theme, and there will be five prompts within the theme to keep you writing. The minimum word count (obviously, you’re adults, so do whatever you want, but if you’re game…) is 200 words per prompt response. If you’re writing poetry, then 100% ignore that and do whatever.

and I will be writing alongside with you, so don’t worry—we’re not all admin, no suffering. Plenty of suffering will be had.

Furthermore:

You can do ANY, NONE, or ALL of the prompts, and they will remain totally comprehensible. FURTHERMORE, if you would like to combine prompts to create one story, one chapter, or one poem, that will also work no matter which prompts you choose. If you want to write five, three, two short stories or chapters, that’ll work too! If you want to write a whole book by the end of the next few weeks, I mean, technically, it’s possible! Basically, the floor is yours.

And the best part is still coming…

By doing these prompts, you will trick yourself into learning developmental editing techniques. So like. Homework-free, fun-full learning.

Each week will have a dev editing theme that ONLY Liza and I will know. You’re welcome to guess, but not guessing will actually make it more fun, we think—it’ll make it feel less like homework, and more like exploration. At the end of the week, we’ll throw the reveal into the sub chat, and we can all talk about what was easy, hard, unexpected; what problems you ran into; what you learned!

At the end of each week, Liza and I will curate a post comprising everyone who would like to be spotlighted (we don’t choose, you opt in or out!!), and we will post that on Sunday mornings! This way, your writing for the week gets exposure, and maybe you find new friends, followers, or subscribers that way! Win-win.

This might be a little janky for the first little bit, but we’re all learning together! Myself, I’m super excited to try this out and see what y’all think!

But I’m Busy…

Liza: Trust me, we get it. Being busy isn’t always about the amount of time you have, but the amount of energy you have, too.

That is why for this daily writing challenge, we strongly suggest that you spend no more than 30 minutes a day on your writing. Think 15 minutes for your draft, 15 minutes for editing. And if you feel like it, you can skip the editing stage entirely.

The goal here is to get you writing, unapologetically.

I’m Down! What Next?

Ani: Yay! Welcome!

Liza: We are so excited to see what you write! To get started you’ll want to:

1. Subscribe to both Ani and I to make sure you don’t miss any communications, prompts, or shoutouts!

2. Bookmark or get familiar with navigating to porchsparroweditorial.substack.com. This is where we will be posting the prompts every Monday.

3. Join Ani’s Sub Chat. Ani and I will be posting updates, discussion topics, and curation threads here.

4. Wait for the Weekly Theme & Day One prompt to drop. These will drop each Monday in a single post, with upcoming days hidden until the morning of that day (PST). These should be scheduled so that each prompt drops in timezones accessible to most everyone.

How Do We Answer the Prompts on Substack?

Great question! We brainstormed this for a while, because the issue is always: how do we do this so as to (1) not flood your subscribers’ emails and (2) have something for us to show off to the world (if you would like, of course ;).

Our solution: Posting once a week, and adding on prompt days by editing said (SINGULAR) post.

So! What this looks like:

In video form first:

And explained below:

Say I am a writer, and I want to post my responses to Substack, but my subscribers will hate me if I add five posts a week to my current content.

So, I make a post responding to Day One, and title it “Week One: Ani & Liza Writing Challenge” (lol, this is very presumptuous of me, title it what you want).

Then, I put in the body text “Day One,” and underneath that respond with my prompt answer for Day One.

On Day Two, I would go to my Dashboard, click on the three dots next to the Week One post I just made, and then click edit. Then, I would go beneath the Day One response and put in the title “Day Two,” and respond to the Day Two prompt beneath that.

Make sense? No? Great! There’s a video up above for you. Take a look.

The idea, though, is that you will have a single, compiled post for as many of the prompts as you did and/or wanted to do. That way, Liza & I can take your post & throw it in our curation post without having to throw five(ish) individual posts per participant in.

Remember!: You only need to do as many or as few prompts as you want to! And you can mix and match, Build-a-Bear style, to create whatever monster you would like, and it should all patch together well enough. (It’s alive!!)

Most of all, this whole challenge is meant to be a fun dive into the world of writing’s many possibilities! Rather than writing experience, we want you to gain writing mechanics experience! Become an editor! Make my job pointless! Do it, I dare you.

Ending Thoughts

Liza: The image cover for this post is totally open for you to use when you post to keep everything organized, should you want to! If you have any questions, post them in the comments down below. Someone else may have your exact same question but not feel comfortable enough to ask it—so you’re doing everyone a favor by giving us the chance to answer it publicly.

We’re so excited to do this with you! It’s gonna be great fun.

Thanks friends,

Liza & Ani

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

Share

Hi! My name is Ani, and I’m an editor, poet, and writer here on Substack.

Welcome to my self-indulgent little poetry & writing page. I separated these out so I could write more polemic poetry but also so you guys could pick & choose between editing content and writing content and not get hammered with emails w/o any distinction. I hope this page sparks fires within you. I even hope you get a little burnt.

It is academic. Be prepared. There’s probably some lacking word economy. I wrote it in three days. Oh well. Be nice.

We’re gonna do this in two parts. Full essay available (for free, ofc) for anyone who wants it!

Without any further ado:

Syncopation & Liberation: Olio, the McKoy Twins, and the Antigravitational Em Dash—Part One

Tyehimba Jess’s Olio, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and gravity- and form-defying force of nature utilizes a variety of poetic forms and conversational monographs to relay a complex history of vaudeville and the consequences of black performers being on permanent display. The collection orbits its namesake, the olio, defined in the front matter as “a: a miscellaneous mixture of heterogenous elements; hodgepodge” and “b: a miscellaneous collection (as of literary or musical selections) [;] also: the second part of a minstrel show which featured a variety of performance acts and later evolved into vaudeville” (Jess). This collection is primarily a history of those whose voices were constrained and complexified by their blackness in a post-emancipation era and by their life of constant performance.

In turn, Olio reanimates and re-dignifies the voices of this generation of black folk that were nearly lost to history. The McKoy twins in particular are rebirthed in these poems in the contrapuntal sonnet form—or as Jess names it, the “syncopated sonnet”—both giving them voice and acknowledging the duality (and constriction) of their existence by reflecting content in form (221).

The em dash here serves as the entrance fee to liberation: the offbeat of the syncopated sonnet, the primary punctuator of the contrapuntal, the mover and shaker of breath in the reader; therefore, based on an analysis of the contrapuntal form incorporating Jess’s established axis of syncopation, the em dash presents itself as the essential element to Jess giving voice to the McKoy twins, liberating and elevating her^[1] to a type of personhood disallowed her in the 19^th century.

Olio scatters throughout the collection several contrapuntal series, one of which tells the story of the McKoy twins, Millie and Christine (who were known as Millie-Christine), two women from Alabama who were born conjoined at the lower spine.

These women were, across their lives, enslaved, kidnapped, paraded, put on display, scientifically examined, and generally encroached upon in every aspect of their life. And yet, they professed to being glad to share their life and the “marvel” of their existence with the rest of the world (McKoy 18):

*

‘Tis not modest of one’s self to speak;

But, daily scanned from head to feet,

I freely talk of everything,

Sometimes to persons wondering…

*

Two heads, four arms, four feet,

All in one perfect body meet;

I am most wonderfully made

All scientific men have said…

*

I’m happy, quite, because content,

For some wise purpose I was sent;

My maker knows what he has done,

Whether I’m created two or one.

*

It is difficult to determine the truth and genuine feelings of Millie-Christine. On one hand, everybody who encountered her attested to her unequivocally cheerfulness, intelligence, and enchanting nature (“Biographical Sketch of Millie Christine” 15). But these women were on public display at all times.

From the moment she was born, hordes came to see the child (“Biographical Sketch of Millie Christine” 4). They were displayed in England and Scotland, and, upon returning to the states, continued to perform for audiences practically until they passed at the age of sixty-one from tuberculosis (“From ‘Monsters’ to Modern Medical Miracles”).

What can be said of a life on continual display? Especially a life influenced by the as-God-wills-it attitude of Christianity (Millie-Christine was devoutly Christian as a result of their enslavement)?

Are they reliable narrators of their own experience?

And what would it mean to even gently contradict them in assumption of what their life meant?

Olio takes this difficult task on by way of beautiful, illustrative, syncopated contrapuntal sonnets. Tyehimba Jess, in interview, refers to his contrapuntals as “antigravitational,” “interstitial,” in that they were able to be read down, across, backwards . . . (Marshell).

And indeed, these poems sweep you off your feet, lift you gently into the atmosphere, and then return you to fallow ground. Several variables in these poems work to establish and mirror the lives of Millie and Christine. The contrapuntal poetic form aligns perfectly with the content: the lines weave back and forth, at times separate, at times conjoined, perfectly mirroring the constraints of a disabled life in a time of exploitative freak shows and exhibitions held alongside the happy inseparability of the two.

The scaffolding of Olio’s contrapuntals is necessarily complex, wherein various techniques allay the needs of the form: verbals and prepositional phrases placed at the beginning of lines, carefully settled punctuation, and thoughtful tense and number usages all coming together to build intricate poems. The use of the em dash in particular rises above the rest, which this paper will explore. But first, an instructional on the contrapuntal so as to fully understand how the form so beautifully fits the content.

The contrapuntal form centers on an interactive concrete poem, wherein two poems are abutted to create three separate readings: the first poem (column one, reading one), the second poem (column two, reading two), and across both columns at once (reading three). Syntax and semantics interact in this form to play with reader expectations and synthesize wildly unrelated metaphors, imageries, and meanings.

The contrapuntal form is widely assumed to derive from music, with the seemingly self-explanatory connection between the musical concept of contrapoint and the name of the form. The Academy of American Poets claims that the form arose in 1921 with Andrei Bely’s Pervoe Svidani (“Contrapuntal”).

However, this is difficult to substantiate, given that, at a cursory glance, the text (1) is nearly impossible to decode for English-speaking audiences due to its language of choice—Russian—and (2) does not seem to exhibit any examples of even the barest imitation of the shape of a traditional contrapuntal.

Another possible origin of the contrapuntal is spoken word, but there is no written documentation of this if true. These explanations certainly seem possible, but an alternate history—and moniker—of the form is available: “twin cinemas” poetry, a form that arose in Singaporean literary circles after appearing in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore^[2] in 2010. Now, contrapuntals are a well-established poetic form in literary circles across the world.

To create a technically functional contrapuntal, which this paper will define as a contrapuntal that has cohesive readings among all three possible readings (down, down, across), several variables come into play. First and foremost, punctuation: Punctuation in free verse, blank verse, or prose poetry may often be neglected to the benefit of the breath and movement in the poem. Charles Olson’s “Projective Verse” hints at this with its emphasis on breath:

If a contemporary poet leaves a space as long as the phrase before it, he means that space to be held, by the breath, an equal length of time. If he suspends a word or syllable at the end of a line (this was most Cummings’ addition) he means that time to pass that it takes the eye—that hair of time suspended—to pick up the next line.

The em dash in particular is this “symbol” of “the typewriter,” this paper argues, in that it creates hesitation, separation, pause: the em dash, essentially is breath.

Here also, follow the brief reference to punctuation (this being in the context of writing free verse, of breaking free from the formalities of the past, etc.) and note that breath can be denoted with “symbol[s from] the typewriter,” i.e., punctuation—though perhaps not typical punctuation; perhaps spacing, (again, perhaps em dashes [Olson]).

In formal poetry, however, punctuation is the bread and butter of meaning. It proves crucial to meaning-making in contrapuntals in particular: for example, say you have three lines—two lines from column two and one line from column one directly abutting line two of the second column in this selected segment:

Here, the ending word of column two line one is a noun; additionally, the ending word of column one line two is a transitive verb (which immediately requires a direct object—another noun). The punctuation at the beginning of column two line two is crucial: how do you reconcile the transition from noun to direct object without losing meaning or syntax? Here, the em dash is essential. (We will discover as we continue that the em dash is indeed the primary punctuation mark of the contrapuntal—but let us rejoin the argument at hand.) Because the em dash is able to function as multiple punctuation marks simultaneously, we can use an em dash to indicate emphasized breath as well as a comma!

Here, column two lines one and two are as follows: “the ablaut of this word a descent into death / —the head of the lazy tiger curled in my chest…”; and column one line two continues: “—Jesus!Jesus!Jesus! CHRIST (panted) as my ancestors anointed…” Together, we have the following reading: “the ablaut of this word a descent into death——Jesus!Jesus!Jesus! CHRIST (panted) as my ancestors anointed—the head of the lazy tiger curled in my chest.”

Finally, we have harmony! The reading with all three lines in it uses the em dash (twice!) as both an appositive (i.e., a comma), and a breath (emphasized space). Column one lines one and two utilize the em dash as a comma, in contrast. This means that the em dash is functioning simultaneously as a comma and a breath in the first full reading, which demonstrates a flexibility unlike any other punctuation mark. In a sense, the em dash liberates the contrapuntal: freed from the bounds of conventional punctuation, the contrapuntal can become—anything.

[Fin Part One]

^[1] Per the twins’ preference, I will occasionally reference them in the singular as well as the plural. For more on this and a discussion of identity, see Gold, 2010.

^[2] See Chai, Yeow Kai.

^[3] Emphasis my own.

Share

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

shelf piled high with memories that

the children will never know, the incense-

burnt birds and friends she’d almost forgotten.

Her shelf is piled high with geneses that

wrap her in linen and gauze and hold her like

burnt birds, like friends she’d almost—

We left her in a room that was filled with flowers,

we wrapped her in women and moss and held her like

that, mourn and unmourn, worn and unworn.

We left her room, filled with flowers

and honey. She left to us her quiet breath.

That mourn and unmourn worn and unworn

the children should never know—the incense

and honey left us. Hers was a quiet death

that stole by us that night, nearly morning.

~

Hi! My name is Ani, and I’m an editor, poet, and writer here on Substack.

Welcome to my self-indulgent little poetry & writing page. I separated these out so I could write more polemic poetry but also so you guys could pick & choose between editing content and writing content and not get hammered with emails w/o any distinction. I hope this page sparks fires within you. I even hope you get a little burnt.

A: Quick introduction before we begin: I am incredibly excited to be able to say that and I co-wrote this, and it is now my favorite essay that I’ve helped put on here, so be nice to it pls & ty. (🤺)

I bring the reader of fanfic/editor side, and Courtney brings the (also) reader of fanfic/ anthropology side.

So, to put this essay together, we’ve intermingled some history, some drama, some anthropological analysis, and some editing/writing stuff. Feel free to jump around as you’d like! This can totally be done out of order.

Let’s start with some history:

C: Fan fiction is perhaps one of the earliest forms of storytelling. We see people grabbing onto the same stories and riffing on them to fit a personal narrative, going back to some of the earliest stories. Even stories like Moses in the basket or Noah and the ark have links to older stories in Mesopotamian culture at large. This doesn’t make these stories invalid in any way; rather, it shows us how culture was viral even before the internet. We love to take a story and make it our own. We hear something good, and it starts showing up in our work, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes that looks like retellings of the same stories, sometimes that looks like taking characters from one world and putting them in your own, and other times that looks like a good old-fashioned making your favorite characters do it. Shakespeare was famously big on retellings (existing IPs), and Dante famously self-inserted into The Divine Comedy to tell a story about arguably the most famous story of the time (heaven and hell). So while fan fiction is not *new*, it certainly has gotten stranger alongside the rise of the internet.

A: This segues nicely into some drama: things have gotten a little weird on the fan fiction side of the internet, and it’s relevant to the story I want to tell, so we’re going to dive in a bit. Long story long:

Fan fiction is by definition fiction that is written by fans, for fans, for free. It is illegal to make money off this shit. I like to call it the “you buy it, you break it” rule. That is, if you try to profit off this, you will destroy the entire world of fan fiction by inviting hellbent lawyers and angry authors into your bedroom, and I promise you, you do not want that.

That’s all well and good, but enter the world of traditional publishing. Some fanfics get a lot of attention. And I mean a lot. So what does tradpubbing do? Well, they reduce, reuse, and recycle, baby! All they have to do is rebrand and recast the characters & world, and then they’re presented with a new, fresh, perfectly usable book—that comes with a ready-made fanbase. This is what has happened with The Love Hypothesis (Star Wars ff), City of Bones (Harry Potter ff apparently??? This one’s new to me), Fifty Shades of Gray (Twilight ff), etc. Either agents go looking in AO3, or authors creatively reinvent the wheel and bring the results to agents. This ignores Wattpad. I’m going to continue to ignore Wattpad. Don’t worry about it.

This seems like it would violate IP laws?

Welp. I sure think so. But apparently it’s a gray area. The lawyers are too busy reading the books to file lawsuits against them. I mean, who doesn’t love a good crossover?

Cue teenagers being teenagers on the internet and “discovering” AO3 (wow, really! tell me more!) and trying to make money off book binding these fics. Anyways. That’s another story that I won’t be telling since they’re, you know, teenagers. Weird, though. But you know what, anthropologically, there’s some interesting things to tackle here, so Courtney’s got it here:

C: In her dissertation, Culture and Community Online: How Fanfiction Creates a Sense of Social Identity by Reshaping Popular Media, Kellye Ann Guinan talks about how fan fiction is more than just creative expression through writing, but also creates connection. “Fanfiction is not just fanfiction. It is a medium through which people can connect to each other and share pieces of themselves that would otherwise be kept out of sight. Fanfiction allows authors and readers to challenge preconceived notions of what our culture deems appropriate” (Guinan 2017). It is here that fan fiction represents a place for many people to land, especially those who may not be represented in other forms of media. The fanfiction conversation is truly not complete without the girlies and the gays, but when it comes down to it, a large portion of the fanfiction community are teens. Teens who are learning about themselves and their burgeoning sexuality. Teens who are trying to challenge that preconceived notion of what is appropriate, because the line might be hazier for them than for adults. On the one hand, this is incredibly unique and helps a lot of people feel that their voices can be heard and expands our ideas of what narratives can (and should) be told. But on the other hand, without the restraints of many traditional publishing boundaries, people let their freak flag fly, and they let it fly HARD.

When we look at fanfiction, it is helpful to realize that this culture is shaped by the idea of taking someone else has made and remixing as your own. Because of this, we often see fan fiction communities, such as those on Wattpad or AO3, making up their own cultural mores. Because the community is, in many ways, defined by its constant pushback against normative culture, we can see a kind of literary founder effect. Things get weird, they merge with other weird things, and boom, things get weirder. (I am definitely looking at you, Morning Glory Milking Farm!) While that is not inherently wrong, it can shock readers who aren’t immersed in the fan fiction world by what is common. Some critics of the genre look at that constant boundary pushing to be a dangerous thing, especially because of its ease of access to minors.

Literarily this also creates a sort of funny bubble where things that don’t fly in traditionally published works are completely fine in fan fiction. We see new vocabulary being developed through abbreviations. We see the use of common slang and shorthand, which might not be used as widely in a more traditional piece. We see digressions away from traditionally used grammatical forms. Fan fiction shows us not only how minorities and young people think about sexuality, but also acts as a guide to understanding how language is used in communities that may not conform to academic or traditional forms of speech.

A: This is all relevant because to understand fanfiction, you need to understand the contexts surrounding it. And now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me assure you:

This is only a FRACTION of the fanfic world.

For the most part, fan fiction is a vastly overpopulated planet. Wikipedia claims that AO3 alone currently hosts over 17 million works of fanfiction across 77,000+ fandoms. That’s… okay, yeah, that’s a lot.

And let me tell you:

The vast majority of this is exceedingly bad.

What does bad mean?

As an editor, I rarely use this word. It doesn’t matter how much work a manuscript may or may not need, there’s just no such thing in my mind as “bad” or “good.” It’s not a useful metric. “Bad” does not tell me what I need to work on. All it does is make an author feel, you guessed it, bad. “Good” is even less helpful, because this is a word that brings things to a stop rather than pushing them forward. And there is always, always a forward.

But when I’m reading for myself?

Pfft. I’m only human. I can’t help it.

C: What even makes art *good* or *bad*? In American culture, we often separate things like Joey Chestnut swallowing down copious amounts of hot dogs on camera in the *not art* category, while we might put a video of Andy Warhol eating a cheeseburger into the *art* grouping. Why is this? While this isn’t a truly anthropological question, in many ways, a key feature of good art should always come back to its intentionality. We can ask ourselves, did the person making this have a goal in mind? Did they know what they were doing while they did it? Was it premeditated? In many ways, this is what shows true creativity in humans and animals alike. I thought about this. I came up with a goal for it. I know what it is saying and why it is saying it. Some fan fiction does this exceedingly well. But others, well, they fall short. Andy Warhol eats a cheeseburger to talk about mundane life experiences and the way consumerism affects all of us. Joey Chestnut is part of that same discussion of capitalism, overeating, and mundane foods, but he enters the competition without the explicit goal of speaking about them. It turns out good fiction, like good art, also needs this driving factor.

A: As a reader, “bad” to me is defined by the inattentiveness the work inspires. This could be a result of (extremely) incorrect grammar, punctuation that’s all over the place, dialogue that doesn’t feel realistic, setting that’s contrived, a lack of real emotional resonance, and plots that obviously exist to serve the author’s nefarious purposes. (by nefarious, I mean PWP) (but when it’s not tagged PWP specifically) (if it’s TAGGED then it definitely does actually have a plot. The PWP tag is ironic, I have learned.)

This is extremely informative! It inspires several questions that are useful to editing and writing both:

1. To what extent can we push grammar before everything falls apart?

2. What defines “functional” punctuation?

3. How does one create realistic dialogue?

4. What makes a setting “contrived”?

5. How do we create emotional resonance?

6. How do we build un-indulgent plots? And at what point does “writing what you know” fail to help?

Let’s work through these!

1. Grammar!
   Okay so like. Stream of consciousness exists. McCarthy, Woolf. And frequently, it breaks syntactic rules. I mean, idk, technically using sentence fragments is ungrammatical. So, take this passage from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: “He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”
   All these sentence fragments provide a choppy feeling to the paragraph, but their brevity also gives the reader a moment to chill out between the more complex sentences that surround these fragments. They are both restful and incendiary.
   A good writer knows how to masterfully weave these syntactic troublemakers within their sentences. Done well, they bring pacing breaks to the writing and allow rhythm and lyricism to appear. Done poorly, they stick out like a sore thumb and disengage the reader. For example, if I wrote only in sentence fragments, if I neglected verbs (how dare I), I would end up with a piece with very little forward momentum, and likely my reliance on verbals (gerunds, infinitives, participles) would end up clunking around in the sentence.
   For example, my least favorite thing of all time: gerunds in dialogue. “I was riding, the wind pressing into my body with an unexpectedly intimate warmth: it was summer, and the world had decided that I was welcome. ‘Galloping into the unknown,’ I shouted to the universe!”
   Not to out myself as a horse girl but whatever I literally work at a horse therapy place, I can’t help myself.
   There’s lots of things wrong with this sentence, but wow oh wow does that fragment stick out like a sore thumb.
   This is only one example of ways that syntax can be broken. There’s blatantly wrong stuff, though. This isn’t wrong so much as it needs a careful hand. Let’s look at something entirely wrong, though:
   “I walks into the door.” Subject-verb (dis)agreement. Nope.
   “He pushes along the quarry.” Wrong preposition. Nope.
   “Looking up, the sun rises above him.” Dangling modifier. Nope. (Rarely, I might actually leave one or two of these in, but ONLY intentionally. They should not appear unintentionally.)
   There’s a lot of grammatical rules that can be broken and then called “stylistic,” but the biggest thing is always consistency, because consistency indicates intention.
   This segues nicely into punctuation, so:

2. Punctuation!
   Easiest answer of all time. Consistency, consistency, consistency. Also, you can do literally anything you want with punctuation UNTIL it makes it confusing. For example, a fun garden path sentence: “When Fred eats food gets thrown” can be fixed with a little bit of punctuating: “When Fred eats, food gets thrown.” Done. Dusted. But yeah. So long as your punctuation is intentional, you’re good to go. Don’t punctuate every three or four FANBOYS conjunction and expect me to follow along.

3. Dialogue!
   This one is difficult, because it relies on your ability to inhabit a persona, a character, a perspective. Similarly to what we’ll talk about in 6, realistic dialogue is all about taking yourself out of the work and finding your character. A cool piece of advice I’ve heard in regard to getting to know your character is have your character take a personality test! (Credit to Jennifer Lawler from Club Ed!) Once you’re comfortable with who your character is, write nothing scenes—scenes that have nothing to do with your plot, scenes that you will not use (excepting maybe a good line you accidentally come across or something), scenes that will take up zero space in the actual story. This teaches you how your character might react in different situations and helps you stabilize their voice.
   Speaking of, voice is important. Voice is the cornerstone of good characterization. Do you know who your character is and can you communicate how that appears in the way they present themselves to the world? In the way they can present themselves to themselves? In the way they present themselves to the reader??
   All of this will stabilize the more you write from their perspective. But the less you interact with your characters yourself, the less realistic your dialogue will be because it’ll be you speaking, just in a different world—not them.
   One other aspect of realistic dialogue: Ask yourself the question “Would they say this at this time, in this place, with these people about them?” If the answer to any of those is no, it’s time to backspace and start over.

4. Setting!
   Setting is the least important of these crimes against literature, I think. However, it still made the list, so let’s talk about it. Fanfiction has this category called “AU”: “Alternate Universe.” So, it takes whatever setting the book built and then transfers the characters to a different setting &/ context. So, for example, Maximum Ride fanfiction (don’t judge me, my childhood was strange) might take the ragtag group of flying kids out of their “save the world” context and just throw them in high school. Setting change = whole world —> high school. This changes their interactions, their limitations, and their characters in significant ways! So yeah actually I guess this category is important in the grand scheme of this list. But see, if they don’t put actual effort into the transferred setting (say, for example, they go to high school every day, but it’s not really important to the character’s interactions—nothing happens in the high school context that affects the characters, no conflict is established because of their setting, etc.—then why even bother changing it? Setting should ALWAYS influence goals, motivations, and conflicts within any particular book. The characters should be changed &/ challenged because of their contexts. And if this doesn’t happen, the setting will feel contrived.

5. Emotional resonance!
   This is one of my favorite things to talk about. Emotional resonance—or the emotional core of a piece of literature—is created by meaningful character arcs. Character arcs have the most potentiality of any category on this list. You can do ANYTHING with a character arc. The range of contrast available to you is infinite. And this is because humanity is capable of infinite change! We are malleable. We move from hand to hand and context to context and become challenged and become better or worse. And we need to see this in a piece of literature! How do the challenges and conflicts a character experiences change their behaviors, motivations, goals, and interactions with other characters! But the reason that this is responsible for the emotional resonance of a piece is because this is the area of story that we are able to most see ourselves and other people in. And that! Is how interest in a story is built. Because humanity is inherently egoistic. And I mean that not in a critical way. We are innately bent upon survival, and to me that is neither good nor bad. I mean, it drives us to build community! It drives us to collaborate, to cooperate, to coexist. Because that is useful to our continued existence! It does mean, however, that any piece of art, media, etc. only really works if we’re able to see ourselves and our worlds within it. And I really love this. It’s kind of beautiful. Because seeing ourselves in this means we’re teaching ourselves all the different ways we can change. All the ways we can become. This is expansive, vast to me. We are all waiting for something to push us into something more. Or something less! At least we’re going somewhere! Because going somewhere means we can go anywhere—and isn’t that a beautiful type of freedom?
   I am not a philosopher. I apologize for my trite little dreamings.
   No emotional core, no humanity. Simple as that. Make your characters CHANGE. Show me MYSELF! Show me who I COULD BE!

6. Plots! & Writing What You Know!
   This should be pretty quick and simple. If you’re inserting your life story, you’re writing memoir, not fiction. I get it—”write what you know.” But this is sort of similar to the advice to “show not tell.” It’s not worthwhile advice when you take it all the time.
   Plots are built upon the authenticity, conflicts, goals, motivations, interactions, and challenges the character experiences. Plots are just… characters. Brought together. Doing things. And that’s… it?
   So if you’re inserting yourself into the plot, if you’re ONLY “writing what you know” then your characters all just become… you. Which means they have no voice. Which means there’s no distinction between them, and at that point, why even bother having characters? And then your setting falls apart because your characters aren’t having conflict that relates to it and then your dialogue falls apart because your characters don’t have separate perspectives, and then your emotional core is gone because it’s not about potential, it’s a set journey to an experience you’ve already lived, and etc., etc., you get the gist.
   Write what you know when you need to reach for your common human experience, when you need research to inform your writing, when you need access to your knowledge of the world. Don’t write your life story. That is not what that means.
   Don’t insert yourself. I want to know what could be. Not what was. Save that for nonfiction!

All this to say, this is a lot of developmental editing information. And all of it from the many ways my attention was lost while reading bad fanfiction! Thank you to emergent authors for your public service!
Also, let me just say: There is no such thing as a bad author. Everybody has learning and growing to do, even trad pubbed authors, and you do not need to identify yourself in any camp—all you have to do is dedicate yourself sincerely to the craft, and do it in community, and good things will come.

C: In her video essay, The Case for Fan Fiction, Lindsay Ellis says, “Part of the human fascination with narrative is the desire to expand upon the stories we hear,” and ultimately, that is the thing which fan fiction is doing. As people, we are drawn to others’ narratives and to the things they spark in us. So yeah, go wild. Write. Follow in the tradition set by countless generations before us. We are made to tell stories, and we are meant to find communities where we belong. Write, write, write. And maybe also, edit, edit, edit? Oh, and maybe a little less about being sold into sex slavery to One Direction? I think we all can agree on that.

Share

Courtney offered to make a bibliography but I said hell no. Why would I do that to either of us. You get links.

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

Good? Good.

A: Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!

The Glimmerstone Enigma by : 2026, Substack (for now…), part of The Unexpected Vanguard series. Imminently binge-able.

I giggled my way through this whole thing (is laughed more dignified of me? Scratch that, I laughed my way through this whole thing). The good humor of the author was visible throughout, and I found myself guffawing into a quiet house late at night on several occasions, which was admittedly a little awkward, but also entirely justified.

TGE follows a cast of characters taken from Bryn and his friends’ own D&D campaign who come together to take on an unknown (unfortunately for them) foe and grift an unknown (eventually fortunate for them?) item. The cast, which comprises a drow, a monk, a druid, a wizard, a dwarf, a bard, a rogue, and a ranger, team up at first out of convenience’s sake and then find themselves tied together by necessity, friendship, and a quite reasonable concern for the fate of the entire world.

TGE used this large cast of characters to provide an informative look at how to visit each character and explore a genuine range of emotion while also never diving so deep into one perspective that the reader couldn’t be retrieved for a new one. This led to some fun hijinks that couldn’t have been done without a revolving door of perspective.

Beneath the thrilling action and scary (oh yeah, btw) demons, this is a story about what it means to find community where none was expected, about the lengths you must go to when the places and people you love are being threatened, about the moment you discover the world broader than you once thought it to be. You don’t have to first be alone to appreciate and love new people as they come into your life! You can be braver than you ever thought! You can have explored the entire world, stolen from every wealthy patron, safeguarded precious knowledge, and still there be more!

This brought lightness to my heart during a hard week. Hopefully, it will for you as well.

For Substack serial Quick Bites, I’m dropping words I would eat and replacing it with Actual Food I would eat (my review of the tastiest thing mentioned in the book).

Thank you for your openness to letting me review your book! I had such a lovely time :)

Share

Hi! I’m Ani, a fiction editor specializing in and loving all things romance, fantasy, and lit fic. I’m a cheerleader for indie authors, a reader, writer, and poet myself, and a prolific chai drinker. Reach out, and let’s talk editing!