Tag Archives: advice

How do I make a character’s death really sad? (For a VC fic.) (-Memnoch, The Devil.)

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I think there are many ways to make a character’s death really sad, and bc we can all have different feelings about a given character, any individual reader will be very sad about the death, when another reader might be totally indifferent (or even glad!). I’ve only written fanfic myself, and I know what makes me sad when I read/write character death, that’s about as informed as I am on the topic, DISCLAIMER: I’m not a professional writer and this is not professional advice.

💀 Some things that come to mind re: making a character’s death really sad: 💀

  1. How they die, 
  2. How preventable their death was, 
  3. How other characters feel their loss and/or the loss of their potential, 
  4. And how much that character meant to the reader/audience, did they like the character?

I don’t know what specifically you’re doing in the Memnoch timeline… I won’t use any examples of deaths from that book in case of spoilers (Idk sometimes I’m more respectful about spoiling ppl than other times *shrugs*)

In IWTV, it was a very sad death when Claudia died. It’s portrayed differently in the book(s) and the movie, but I’m just going to address it re: the points above generally and drawing from both.

1. She died by sunlight exposure and it seemed extremely painful. 

Louis would not have seen it, so he can’t describe the moment of her death in the book, but it’s shown in the movie. Leading up to the death, the tension builds and builds, all these moments where Louis, Claudia and Madeleine are hoping for Armand (or some other deux ex machina) to swoop in and save them all. It doesn’t happen. Probably one of the last shreds of hope they had was when the troupe pull Louis and Claudia apart, from that point on, he can no longer protect her ;A; 

As it was so painfully underscored in Claudia’s Story, the last name Claudia hears Louis call for is “Armand,” bc calling her name won’t do them any good. But to her, it feels like a final betrayal, that he’s calling for Armand bc he cares more about him ;A;

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Claudia and Madeleine get locked in the well, and when Claudia sees the sunlight approaching, she’s already starting to cry, trying to wake Madeleine to try to figure out a way out… there is none and then they can only brace themselves bc there IS NO ESCAPE ;A;!! The acceptance of their own deaths is part of the tragedy.

It’s a pretty universally nightmarish situation, even though sunlight is not fatal for ppl (most, anyway), but we can all relate to the experience. It’s like being pushed onto subway tracks and not being able to escape in time ;A;

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2. Her death was a failure in diplomacy, basically. The Theatre des Vampires, led by Santiago, held a kangaroo court (although they may have felt that they were within their rights) in which they found Claudia guilty of attempted murder of her maker, and decided to punish her with the death penalty. 

Louis tried to protect her from it as best he could, he tried to make a deal to save her life, but failed. In the book:

“ `Listen to me, Lestat,’ I began now. `You let her go, you free her… and I will… I’ll return to you,’ I said, the words sounding hollow, metallic.

3. It kills a part of Louis when Claudia dies. His immediate reaction is extremely sad (not even factoring in the revenge he takes after).

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I have a more thorough commentary on this scene here. It’s in this moment that Louis has lost the most precious person, the one who’s told him what to do, someone he could worship and follow, someone who metered out his doses of happiness with her approval. In the movie, he calls her “my child,” Armand tries to correct him: “Your lover,” and Louis compromises with “My beloved.” 

In the book, the next night, Louis finds Lestat clutching Claudia’s bloody dress and sobbing over her death, too. Even though he was the very person who testified against her! Even he could not prevent their “justice.”

“And then I saw the thing in [Lestat’s] hands. I knew what it was. And in an instant I’d ripped it from him and was staring at it, at the fragile silken thing that it was – Claudia’s. His hand rose to his lips, his face turned away. And the soft, subdued sobs broke from him as he sat back while I stared at him, while I stared at the dress. My fingers moved slowly over the tears in it, the stains of blood; my hands closing, trembling as I crushed it against my chest.

Louis was expecting Claudia to go on and live with Madeleine, that he would still be in touch with her and see her occasionally. So that potential continued relationship was destroyed, too ;A; 

4. What did Claudia mean to the audience/reader… 

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I know I sympathized with her and very much enjoyed her overall, and I like to think that other readers/viewers agreed, and don’t totally blame her for her actions against Lestat… after all, she was a victim herself. Lestat doesn’t blame her when he speaks of her in canon. We saw the love they both had for her ❤

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Is that enough to convince the readers/audience to care enough for her that her death is sad for them? All those factors help!

~💀I hope that helps, Anon! Now make us cry!💀~

Do you know of any vampire clichès? (I know that you may not have read that much vampire fiction, but I need to know all the clichès to avoid, it’s for a book.)

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Oh man, that is a lot to ask, and you’re correct in that I have not consumed a wide range of vampire media, especially in terms of historical/geographical/etc. 

@thebibliosphere, @annabellioncourt, @gothiccharmschool, @forthegothicheroine, @fyeahgothicromance might have a post with this or similar info.

TL;DR: I don’t think you need to worry about avoiding

clichés, tho. I think you should take Anne Rice’s advice and “write the book you want to read.” It worked well enough for her!

What exactly is a cliché? Wiki says: 

“A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.”

Vampire fiction is so varied and has so many different rules compared to its first inception that I think it’s pretty free of ideas/elements that have “become overused to the point of losing their original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating.”

One cliché is the “I vaaant to suck your blooood!” line that a vampire might say to a victim, originating in vampire movies from decades ago, but it’s more of a comical thing now. It can also be modified slightly to increase the comedy:

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[^X piece of a comic by @heckifiknowcomics]

I will say that some of my fave vampire media takes existing clichés and/or rules/conventions about vampires, and interprets it in a different way or ignores it completely.

I think it’s more important to consider existing conventions/rules, and how your vampires will operate within them, if at all. I have some stuff mixed into my #vampire physiology tag, but not a complete list.

A few conventions/rules are already widely varied in different vampire media:

  • Vampires can’t walk around in sunlight –

    In most vampire media, vampires exposing themselves to sunlight will get them severely burned or killed immediately.

    In Byzantium, I think they can walk around in sunlight with no problems at all.

    In Twilight, the vampires are physically able to do so, but they’re dazzling in the sunlight, so they stand out as non-human when they do (and that’s bad bc revealing themselves as non-human could risk harm from mortals). 

  • Vampires require blood to survive, but they are immortal, so “survive” is more like, “a healthy vampire is one that is feeding on a regular basis, but it’s not a requirement.” – I can’t think of an example of vampires that die from not drinking blood regularly… but I think the What We Do in the Shadows and Only Lovers Left Alive vampires will rapidly weaken if they don’t feed often.
  • Vampires don’t have reflections in mirrors – the Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), What We Do in the Shadows, and

    Only Lovers Left Alive

    vampires

    don’t have reflections, but the Interview with the Vampire ones definitely do.

  • Vampires have to be invited into their victim’s home – Only seen this being an issue in the two adaptations of Let the Right One In.
  • Vampires are harmed by crosses/crucifixes – Saw this as an issue in the What We Do in the Shadows vampires, that it frightens Deacon that he might be in close proximity to a cross, but it’s unclear what would happen if he touched it. In Fright Night, a vampire touching a cross ignites it in flames but it doesn’t seem to stop him from continuing to attack.
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[^X by @horroredits]

So what I’m saying is that you can explore different conventions/rules of vampires and then pick and choose which you’ll incorporate into your vampires, or invent whole new rules! 

Instead of giving way to despair, I took the way of active melancholy as long as I had strength for activity, or in other words, I preferred the melancholy that hopes and aspires and searches to the one that despairs, mournful and stagnant.

Vincent Van Gogh, from a letter to his brother. (via sheepskeleton)

Beauty is, in some way, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages… a beautiful object must always follow certain rules. A beautiful nose shouldn’t be longer than that or shorter than that, on the contrary, an ugly nose can be as long as the one of Pinocchio, or as big as the trunk of an elephant, or like the beak of an eagle, and so ugliness is unpredictable, and offers an infinite range of possibility. Beauty is finite, ugliness is infinite like God.

Umberto Eco, On The History Of Ugliness (via nenafichu)

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trickztr:

Friendly reminder that fan-made content (fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc) are:

  • extremely time consuming. Remember someone actually took time out of their life to create that, time they could’ve used to, idk, sleep, for example
  • entertainment you’re consuming for free. I can’t stress this enough: you’re enjoying someone else’s craft for free. You paid exactly zero money to look at/read/watch it.
  • S H A R E D  with you, not made for you. This is the most important point: someone created that, put it online and you found it. No one forced you to consume that fanwork, you C H O S E  to do it. 

Whenever you feel like leaving a mean comment, anonymous hate or make a ~clever post about how ‘lol look at all of these overused tropes every fic writer crams into their fics’ remember you’re being a dick to someone who shared their work with you. You’re not being funny, you’re not being edgy, you’re not being brave for calling something out – you’re being a dick.

Can I tell you a secret? You don’t have to be in a relationship. 
 
I mean it. I know they force it down your throat until you choke on it. Girls aren’t pretty unless they’re wanted. Boys aren’t men unless they’re having sex with someone. People aren’t lovable until they’re dating someone. 
 
But a relationship won’t always make you happy, and as wonderful as romance is, it isn’t the only love that exists. I have seen friendships that are deeper and more pure than couples who swear it’s forever – and yet the friendship is the one people ignore. 
 
I have heard so often “nobody loves me” out of the mouths of people who are single. And it kills me because if you ask them: where are your parents, your teachers, your classmates, your pets – they say, yes, okay, but it doesn’t count. Of course it counts, love doesn’t diminish just because someone doesn’t want to have sex with you. In fact, doesn’t it sort of make that love more real that they want nothing – not even a date – out of you?
 
It is pretty to be in love. It’s magical, I’m sure. But it’s also wonderful to stop for ice cream in your prom dress with six other girls. It’s also wonderful to go visit the world with nothing but a bunch of buddies who are really excited about learning. 
 
The problem is: we’ve made everything about “the one”. But maybe “the one” is just you, loving yourself, having fun, and being happy. Maybe instead of looking for our other halves, we should be piecing ourselves together.
 
Maybe I wasn’t born unfinished. Maybe I am the one who makes myself better.

Single serving size // r.i.d (via inkskinned)

My nine year old daughter is showing serious interest in art and is always drawing. I have zero talent, however, so feel limited in how I can help her. I thought I’d ask you for advice on the best way to encourage her? What should I be doing?

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:

1. Praise her work ethic, not her innate talent. That’s the biggest mistake parents make.

2. Do stuff with her. You don’t have to be an artist. Just show her it’s normal to work and improve. 

The joke in my family is that I’m the least talented artist among us. I draw people, and that’s pretty much it. My parents are ten times the artists I am. They’re not Michelangelos or anything like that; they just go for it, whatever it is. They’re always always always making something, learning something new, and mastering everything they touch. I never felt afraid of failure growing up because I was always around people who were never good at anything yet but who eventually got there and cared deeply about working for it.

Be in creative company with your kids. Let them see you learn. 

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kyraneko:

elfwreck:

des-zimbits:

Hey!!!

That thing you wrote that isn’t “good enough” to put up on the AO3. You can put it up there! The AO3 isn’t meant to be The World’s Classiest Showcase. It’s an archive. It exists because most other forms of hosting fannish work eventually degrade or disappear. Accounts get deleted. Websites shut down. The AO3 preserves those things.  Ten years from now you’ll be like, “Shit, there was this really great tag essay, but the person changed their Tumblr URL and then Tumblr closed up shop…” (look, even Tumblr will die eventually) and your only hope of finding it will be if the page was cached, or if somebody uploaded it to the AO3.

The AO3 exists to preserve ephemera as much as substantial works. You know how valuable it is for archaeologists to be able to read the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii? The little things, the notes, the headcanons, the notfics, the meta, the back-and-forths, are all important too.

YES YES YES THIS.

Tumblr’s likely to die sooner than you expect, and suddenly – it’s owned by Yahoo. (Anyone remember
del.icio.us, later delicious.com?) Yahoo’s trying really really hard to squeeze money out of tumblr and it’s not working, for all the reasons discussed in  synec’s post and because a huge portion of its userbase is 13-18 years old and HAVE NO DIGITAL MONEY so can’t buy things online even if they wanted to.

There is no “worthy to be on AO3.” None. The early fics were often really well-written; it was a high-standards archive – not because “it strove for high standards” but because the only people who knew it existed, who cared about a new multifandom archive, were the ones who’d been around watching archives disappear for years; they were veteran fic writers who wanted a permanent place to share their stories. It took a long time for AO3 to have enough server capacity to allow open invites; in the early days, it was friend-of-a-friend for invite codes. (They wanted more people; they couldn’t handle a flood. So they handed out a few codes at a time)

We even talked about it while setting up the original terms of service – knowing that by saying, our standards are less restrictive than ff.net, less restrictive than LJ, we were going to eventually have HUGE amounts of really bad fic. FF.net got the nickname “pit of voles,” and AO3 was going to outdo that… eventually.

And. We wanted it ALL. All the reader-insert Mary Sue “date with hot dude” fic; all the “quiz to find out which power ranger you would be” fic; all the “band came to my home town and their bus broke down in front of my house and they needed a coffee and…” fic. And later, all the meta: the thinky character analyses; the “who’d be best on a first date” discussions; the “why the new movie sucked rocks and should never have been made because they ruined my favorite sidekick” rants.

ALL. WE WANT IT ALL.

AO3 is not about “the best of fandom;” it’s about “the truth of fandom.” And the truth is, fandom is not comprised of 90% well-written tightly-plotted carefully proofread fic. Fandom is comprised of people who love their favorite shows and books and characters and want to share that love with others.

AO3 are not the fanfic standards police. We’re the ones cheering for the “GLOWING BLUE SKELETON DICKS” tags.

Someday, some fandom archaeologist (and yes, there will be fandom archaeologists, isn’t that awesome?) will sift through the badfic, the quick drabbles, the Mary Sues, and write articles for peer-reviewed journals chronicling the complete collected works of some of the 21st century’s greatest authors and how you can see in THIS self-indulgent Protagonist/OC clusterfuck the origin of those characterization tactics and flow of prose that make your subsequent masterworks truly shine as beloved classics, and THIS short character drabble gives THAT story arc in your well-known later story an exceptional poignancy and depth if one considers it backstory.

Also that fandom archaeologist’s teenage daughter will think the self-indulgent Protagonist/OC clusterfuck is the best thing she’s ever read.