Tag: writing

jawnwats:

prismatic-bell:

cj-amused:

tenoko1:

evildorito:

onewordtest:

trikruwriter:

“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during the dialogue of your story,” she said with a smile.

“Unless you are following the dialogue with an action and not a dialogue tag.” He took a deep breath and sat back down after making the clarifying statement. 

“However,” she added, shifting in her seat, “it’s appropriate to use a comma if there’s action in the middle of a sentence.”

“True.” She glanced at the others. “You can also end with a period if you include an action between two separate statements.”

Things I didn’t know

“And–” she waved a pen as though to underline her statement–“if you’re interrupting a sentence with an action, you need to type two hyphens to make an en-dash.”

You guys have no idea how many students in my advanced fiction workshop didn’t know any of this when writing their stories.

Fantasy Birth Control

roachpatrol:

a-spoon-is-born:

crockpotcauldron:

crockpotcauldron:

How come there are so few magical birth control options in fantasy settings?

There is Jewelry Of Contraception, Miscarriage Hex, and Abortion Potion, and that’s it.

But come on, guys, it’s magic. Those are both things we can accomplish in the real world with science.

Why not “as long as this knot remains tied, your pregnancy will not progress any further. The embryo is fine, just frozen in time until you’re ready to become a parent!”

Or “I have turned the baby into a berry. get the father of the baby to eat it, and it’s his problem now”

Or “I’ve hexed your gonads, you won’t have any kids at all ever until you do a favor for a witch, preferably me”

Or “lol, I stole your dick in the middle of the night and put it on my tree with all the other dicks in the village”

Come on, guys, get creative!

man, I was thinking too small. it’s MAGIC, guys

“I have put the baby inside this seed. when you plant the seed, a flower will grow, and your baby will be inside it. your baby might be the size of a mouse, or uh look like a mouse, but hey, we can’t have everything. it can still talk and wear clothes, and those are the important things, right? it’ll save you a ton of cloth over the years, trust me”

“I have sent the baby into the future. the NEXT time either of you has a kid, it will be this baby, regardless of who you have it with. this baby will always be top of the queue until one of you lets it be born.”

“I took your womb, and put it in an eggshell in a duck in a chest in a tree guarded by a dragon at the end of the world. so the next time you get pregnant, it will definitely be on purpose.”

“I turned the baby into a cat. everyone likes kittens, right?”

“the baby isn’t “dead” so much as “turned back into an egg and a splash of jizz.” magic is cool, isn’t it?”

“you will only ever be fertile immediately after you eat turnips. and by immediately, I mean, put a turnip on the nightstand, if you catch my drift.”

“I have donated your fetus to the fetus lottery that witches draw from for infertile couples. it’s, uh, currently in this cauldron. yes this looks like leek and potato soup, but trust me, it’s a fertility potion.”

“here is your baby. a stick. I definitely turned a real human child into a stick, and didn’t give it to the fairies. this stick is for you to keep.”

honestly these r great but none are as weird as Hans My Hedgehog

‘i meant to put your baby in a duck’s egg but i was drunk so now you just lay eggs. im pretty sure they’re duck eggs. we’re just gonna have to see’

allthingslinguistic:

panda-robot:

justindennis4:

the verb “can” is so fuckin weird

for starters, most verbs have a “to” like “to love”, “ to want”, “to fight”, but you can’t say “to can”. in fact, you’d say “to be able to”.

which brings me to the fact that “can” is basically a random substitute for “to be able to” depending on the indicated time ???

like for example:

Past: I wanted
Present: I want
Future: I will want

Past: I was able to (or I could, it depends)
Present: I can
Future: I will be able to

like you can say “I can go to the store” but you can’t say “I will can go to the store” you have to say “I will be able to go to the store”.

and like technically I guess we could replace the present “can” with “to be able to” and it would work but just sound hella awk like “I’m able to go to the store”

PLUS it doesn’t get conjugated AT ALL

ex:

I want, he wants
I fight, she fights
BUT
I can, he can
You can, she can

IT NEVER GETS AN “ S” it’s never “he cans” or “she cans”

like I’m sure there’re very logical yet bizarre and fascinating linguistic reasons for all this but just like whatthefUCK “can” ????!??!??

“Can” isn’t a “full-fledged” verb. It’s a modal/auxiliary verb like could, would, should, may, must, might and will. All of these have the same quirks that you talk about.

They generally have specific temporal meanings so they can’t be used in some tenses. They don’t conjugate for person either!

they all have to go with another verb, even if the verb isn’t pronounced. Generally if you say “I can”, it’s understood that you can X because of context

My favourite thing about modals is that they originally come from full verbs (”can” has the same root as “know”, “will” is related to “be willing”), but we also have a set of currently-being-created modals that still have a pretty transparent relationship to their full verbs: gonna, hafta, wanna, gotta.