It is very important that the language in your novel reflects the time and place in which the story is set.
For example, my story is set in Italy. My characters would never “ride shotgun”, a term coined in US in the early 1900s referring to riding alongside the driver with a shotgun to gun bandits.
Do your research! A free tool that I found to be very useful is Ngram Viewer.
You can type any word and see when it started appearing in books. For example…one of my characters was going to say “gazillion” (I write YA) in 1994. Was “gazillion” used back then?
And the answer is…YES! It started trending in 1988 and was quite popular in 1994.
Enjoy ^_^
This is really important, especially because language can change in very unexpected ways.
For example, did you know that before 1986 people never said “I need to”?Instead, they were far more likely to say “I ought to”, “I have to”, “I must”, or “I should”.
Don’t believe me?
Anyway, most people won’t notice subtle changes like that. But your reader will notice and be confused when characters in your medieval world use metaphors involving railroads and rockets.
One of the things you can do besides use Google Ngrams is to read books or watch movies written in the time period you want to set your story. The key here is that they can’t just be set in that time period, they have to have been made in that time period.
Also, there’s a Lexicon Valley episode on this very topic which I highly recommend. It’s called Capturing the Past.
Absolutely vital for writing any period piece, and it goes back for centuries. I use it frequently when writing my Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell prose, to find out what was common usage in the Georgian/Regency era.
watching regular starfleet people try to adjust to how things work on ds9 is so funny. worf shows up and nearly has a conniption because yOU GUYS KNOW THIS GUY IS ENGAGING IN CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES, WHY ARE YOU JUST LETTING IT HAPPEN. and literally everyone, security chief included, is like “lol that’s just quark”
This is my son, Chester, who is nearly 4. He was invited to his friend Chloe’s birthday party today, the theme was prince and princesses. He asked if he could go as Sleeping Beauty, so I bought him a dress and put a cute little clip in his hair.
We arrived at the party to the following comments from the adults present: “Oh that is just cruel.”
“Why did you make him wear a dress?”
“Poor little man, what’s your mummy playing at?”
“He’s going to hate you when he grows up.”
“No way I’d let my son dress like a girl.”
The fact is, Chester is almost completely gender neutral. I let him wear what he wants, be it boys or girls clothes, and he plays with whatever toys he likes. This usually involves him holding tea parties while wearing his pink Minnie Mouse top, jeans and a tiara. The guests are more often than not a mixture of Winnie The Pooh characters, dinosaurs, Barbie, Dora and solders, and they’re usually transported in his favorite fire engine.
When my husband arrived at the party later on, he was subjected to endless ridicule from the other dad’s present about how I must keep his balls in my back pocket because otherwise he would have put his foot down and not allowed Chester out like that. Oh, and by the way, our other son dressed as Ariel. When my husband pointed out that the boys were happy, and the mother of the birthday child made a point of saying how wonderful she thought it was that we allowed them freedom of choice and expression, they then stopped talking about it to our faces and started muttering about us behind our backs.
Interestingly enough, not a single child said a word about their choice of costumes, other than to compliment Chester on his new dress.
Controversial opinion, but ur allowed to like things that suck
Like, sometimes there are just shows or books that are so goddamn awful for any number of reasons… But ya still like ‘em somehow, and that’s fine
It’s not required to write a 20+ page essay defending why you enjoy something shitty, you can just… Enjoy shitty things
Not all content is made equally and you’re allowed to like things that are far from perfect
Like, just, “This show sucks, but I like it anyway” is a totally valid response
“It’s comforting,” is a legit answer.
“I like reading about clothes,” is a legit answer.
“it’s brain popcorn, and I don’t feel like delving into something deep,” is a legit answer.
“I’ve read it so many times I can basically recite it, and it relaxes me by being familiar,” is a legit answer.
You don’t need to justify your taste. Stop feeling guilty about liking things, or liking the “wrong” things. Life is hard and bleak right now, get fun where you can.
I’ve been around for a really long time in various fandoms, and no one ever writes this stuff down. I’ll start. Please add to the list. We can’t expect people to follow “rules” they don’t know exist.
if you like something, reblog it. Help the artist get their work out there in front of more people. Share the joy that it brought you.
if you want more of it, support it. This can be via commissions, reblogs, recommending the artist to other people, shouting in the tags, or sending the artist asks/messages.
if you hate it, keep scrolling. Keep the hate in a message window with a friend, not in the artist’s notes.
if you want to use it, ask permission. Artwork is beautiful and you want to show it off. But please ask the artist before you throw it into your header or your icon.
if you use it, give credit. And not just a post where you say “Do you like my new icon? X made it!”. Put it in your blog description, that way when someone rolls around your blog three months from now, they also know where your icon/header came from.
Fanfic
if you like something, reblog it. Help the author get their work out there in front of more people. Share the joy that it brought you.
if you want more of it, support it. Kudos are fine, but if you want more of the thing you like, you should comment. Subscribe to the story or the author. Send them a message about how much you like what they wrote.
if you read it, kudos it. Or give it a thumbs up. And this is just if you managed to get all the way to the end. If you finished the story and you actually liked it? Comment and reblog.
don’t demand content. Be patient. Stories take time. You can encourage without being demanding. Show your love for what’s there without telling them to post more often.
be gentle with criticism. Some people want it and some people run away from it. If you don’t know what type of person the author is, it’s best not to go there. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.”
Fandom
ship and let ship. You love your ship and other people love theirs. No one needs to “win” when we’re all going to end up in tears anyway.
if you hate it, stay out of the tag. This has two meanings: 1) don’t deliberately put hateful commentary in a tag and 2) if you hate a tag, don’t go and read through that tag just to make yourself angry
if someone makes you something, appreciate it. Read and comment the fic. Like and reblog the artwork. Pimp it out and tell them how much you loved it. It’s a gift, treat it like one.
if it’s a gift, put some effort into it. You signed up for that exchange three months ago and now it’s a week before you have to send the gift and you don’t have the time or the inclination to do the thing. Well too bad. Someone out there has been working hard in your gift, so you should do the same for them.
none of us are “better” than anyone else. We’re all trash for our particular show/film/book/ship/artist/what-have-you. My fave is no better than yours and yours is no better than mine.
actors are not their characters. They are people. Treat them like people.
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