For newby writers, a quick and dirty word count guide:
— Brit E. B. Hvide (@bhvide) May 27, 2019
short story: <7500
novelette: 7,500-17,500
novella: 17,500-40,000
Fantasy/Space Opera novel*: 80,000-130,000
SF novel*: 70,000-100,000
*but don't be afraid to break the rules if you want to! Exceptions are made all the time.
Two things I didn’t know until I was yesterday years old:
— Mira Jacob (@mirajacob) May 27, 2019
1) Memorial Day was started by African Americans honoring fallen Union solders
2) The Statue of Liberty was gifted to America to celebrate freed slaves, not immigrants.
Erasure is real, you all. But that part we knew.
Picard management tip: Improve your vocabulary by reading books. Words can be your most powerful tools.
— Picard Tips (@PicardTips) May 26, 2019
There it is. pic.twitter.com/mTl6iJI9sU
— Joanna Robinson (@jowrotethis) May 24, 2019
A few words written is better than no words written.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) May 21, 2019
Thirty minutes in the chair is better than no time in the chair.
Ten minutes of grappling with a scene and getting nowhere is better than not thinking about it.
Books get written in struggles.
We should try holding our politicians to the same standard we've set for producers of Game of Thrones.
— Molly McNearney (@mollymcnearney) May 20, 2019
Me: I’m a writer
— Ginny Hogan (@ginnyhogan_) May 20, 2019
Them: so you write?
Me: well I wouldn’t go THAT far
Female politicians deal with daily death and rape threats, male politicians ban the sale of ice cream near their events. Real life is highlighting the men fear laughter, women fear murder proverb. https://t.co/XKQxaKAeD9
— Caroline (@LineyHunt) May 18, 2019
When a guy says, "You're not like other girls," he's admitting that he has a generally low regard for your entire gender but is willing to make an exception for you. This is not a compliment. Girl, run.
— Shannon Hale (@haleshannon) May 20, 2019
Worth noting you don't need a gubernatorial pardon to shop at Walmart, nor has there ever been a registration deadline for shopping at Walmart, nor does the location of Walmart change in the weeks before you need to shop there, nor do you need ID. https://t.co/np4IgZP0Fk
— Rae Hodge (@RaeHodge) May 20, 2019
Dear all writers: Callbacks are NOT character arcs. That’s it. That’s the whole lesson.
— Matt Wallace (@MattFnWallace) May 20, 2019
All any writer in the world wants is to know that their work affected someone. Tell them. Write a review. Draw fanart. Send a kind email or letter or tweet.
— Brit E. B. Hvide (@bhvide) May 19, 2019
Picard management tip: Exercise makes you smarter. Don't just sit there thinking.
— Picard Tips (@PicardTips) May 18, 2019
Get up.
Politics=people disagreeing about how to govern. I’m trying each day to be part of the human bulwark against a slide into religious barbarism and oligarchy. PEOPLE ARE DYING. CHILDREN ARE IN CAGES. What I’m doing is survival not politics. I care not one bit if you don’t like it. https://t.co/O0DbNry5mr
— Adam Savage (@donttrythis) May 16, 2019
Super-engaged liberals are better at seeing the world from the perspective of a super-engaged conservative — and vice versa — than either side is at seeing the perspective of someone who doesn't know or care much about politics, but votes.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) May 13, 2019
It's not a storyteller's job to give their audience EXACTLY what they want.
— Dan Slott (@DanSlott) May 13, 2019
It's a storyteller's job to keep them INVESTED in the story.
You may NEVER give them what they wanted, but there's a caveat:
At the story's END, they need to feel that the journey was worth it.
Sometimes I wish people would take it on good faith that when someone tweets “I enjoyed [thing]” they’re not implicitly stating “...And I found none of it problematic and would defend every part of it to the death!”
— Kate Leth (@kateleth) May 11, 2019
"Plotting" and "pantsing" are useful terms for what writers do, but irrelevant terms for what writers are. Nobody is wholly one or the other. It's a false binary. Story construction techniques are just tools, not biometric identifiers.
— Scott Lynch (@scottlynch78) May 11, 2019
See... the version of this I'd agree with is "Don't write like the narrative is a competition between you and the fan-theorists." https://t.co/dkomLsGb0w
— Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) May 11, 2019
"..And whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.."(Quran 5:32)
— Maliha| some spoilers (@malihaness) May 8, 2019
And without realizing the MCU manifested the most heroic act a Muslim could do, saving Tony Starks life that one day on May 2, 2008, Ho Yinsen indirectly ends up saving the whole universe in 2023. pic.twitter.com/ZSoyOjJvad
Picard management tip: Admit ignorance and ask a question rather than blunder forward out of pride.
— Picard Tips (@PicardTips) May 10, 2019
The desire among "moderates" for a politics without conflict is one of the most authoritarian impulses in American political life.
— Kevin 💾 Baker (@kevinbaker) May 9, 2019
Picard diplomacy tip: Peace begins with the choice to reject your own anger.
— Picard Tips (@PicardTips) May 8, 2019
Dystopia is an emergent side-effect of kakistocracy.
— Charlie Stross (@cstross) May 7, 2019
(Actual COMPETENT tyranny is … rare … because tyranny is usually a product of incompetence; when it’s competent we tend to call it something else.) https://t.co/D7w7Ccsu9n
"Joe Biden" is how you say "Jeb Bush" in Democrat. https://t.co/Oa9bLQYKyM
— Harry Turtledove (@HNTurtledove) May 5, 2019
Trump didn’t gut the Voting Rights Act
— Stephen Wolf (@PoliticsWolf) May 4, 2019
Trump didn’t blockade Merrick Garland
Trump didn’t invade Iraq on a lie
Trump didn’t threaten a financial crisis by taking the debt ceiling hostage to slash Social Security
Trump is but a symptom of a far greater disease within the GOP https://t.co/iSoOXfd3tT
I'm re-writing a novel. A week ago I was in despair and convinced I had taken on more than I can handle. But in last few days I've gotten a handle on it again. Note to aspiring writers: It doesn't get easier. The trick is to remember that.
— Jack Skillingstead (@JSkillingstead) May 4, 2019
Picard management tip: If your crew is afraid to talk to you, they won't always give you the information you need. Be approachable.
— Picard Tips (@PicardTips) May 4, 2019
Lord, keep an eye on any plates I've briefly forgotten I'm spinning
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) May 1, 2019
Evidently a “policy wonk” is any white guy who rolls up his shirt sleeves before 5:30
— Dad (@fivefifths) May 2, 2019
“i don’t know enough to have an opinion about that” is the most underrated sentence in the world
— J. Jennifer Espinoza (@sadqueer4life) April 30, 2019
If the source of your biggest rage in this world is that a movie about space wizards didn’t turn out the way you would have liked, you badly need to unfuck your priorities.
— Marko Kloos (@markokloos) May 1, 2019
