i don’t know if that’s the case with other writers but whenever the connections between my mind and thoughts decide to manifest themselves and writing just … comes naturally, i’m always a little bit stunned. like, half-cautious that it will blow away and cut me off mid-next sentence devoid of this easy feeling, but also half-exhilarated than it happens. what i mean is; writing feels so odd when it comes this easy, almost like i’ve drunk something. this hazy state of mind, and you can’t really believe it
yes! this is exactly what I experience! Sometimes it’s such a rush I can’t properly remember what I’ve written??
As someone who absolutely *loves* stories that are their own ARGs (House of Leaves, Doki Doki, Graham Base’s Eleventh Hour as a kid), it’s actually *important* that authors not feel pressured to write stories like that.
It’s also important that all those stories I named, as well as intricate open worlds like Dark Souls and Skyrim, *can* just be explored as a basic linear storyline—not everyone thinks in layers, and a *bad* story gets Lost in them (pun intended). The extra stuff is nice for those obsessed with detail, but that extra stuff should always be an optional treat at most. Best part is, if the lore isn’t there (or not to your satisfaction), you can just make it up on your own—plenty of people have, some have found great success doing so.
Morlene: can we talk?
Vale: whatever this is about, I apologise immediately.
“I love people,
they’re my favourite, some of my best friends are people.”
“I found a dead marten in the shitter.” is where I peeked as a writer.
“But tell your friend Salami that I won’t be joining the rebellion anytime soon.”
“Not a bleeding-heart liberal, I know.”
“I called him Salami, Cephas.”
“I know.”
“His name’s Celami, I was making fun of him.”
“I know.”
“Oh, you just… didn’t react and I
wanted to make sure you got that.”
“I got it, I just thought it’d be funny
to not react and see how you like it.”
“That’s fucking rude, man.”
how about u change ya damn attitude
“How tragic would it be if both changed colour?”
“No, no, it would be way more tragic if
only one changed!”
Will I ever stop foreshadowing? Stay tuned to find out.
I also realised something interesting in my stories. Or you know, the tendency is interesting that my stories rarely end with finality. Like they never get to a point where things are either a-ok or completely horrible. My stories always seem to end when things are put on the track and it can go either way from here, or at least most of them do.
Spoilers to whom it may concern but The Rains Come ends with them defeating the militia but the only plan is to make camp where they are, gather themselves and try to do something. Sure they have ideas and initiative and they seem organised but even the characters themselves are sure it will all fall apart in a few weeks.
In Static ends with the three characters coming to an agreement about what to do but you don’t know when it will happen if it will happen at all. It’s actually canon that it’s taken hundreds and hundreds of attempts just to get where the story begins.
The ending of Reminder is like that too because the last scene when Howard writes on the whiteboard you don’t know what it means just that it makes the ending of Leaper not final.
In a way the ending of July 14th is also like that because the story is still happening when it ends (I know, it’s weird, time travel is my thing) and now with Vale it’s like that too. Things are all put on track and in a classic movie you would see it flourish and "T E N Y E A R S L A T E R” you see them married with babies and jobs and everybody has their dreams fulfilled and that is not to say it doesn’t happen in these stories but you don’t know that.
I hope it wouldn’t feel unfulfilling to people because to me it’s kind of cathartic that for the purposes of the novel the character’s story ends but it’s a reminder that the world will keep changing around them and so nothing that I could write, even if I wrote something definitive, will be final.
Unless I write that they lived happily ever after but I don’t do that.
Pass Through Fire 