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Apollonian Gasket Forge

@apollonianforge.bsky.social

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Writing and worldbuilding. Plotting chauvinist. Strong opinions about sentence form. Sci-fi/fantasy. Crank worldbuilding opinions. Craft practice. Regrettably, we cannot forge Apollonian Gaskets at this time.

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 10d

Thread of threads for #Prosetober so it's all in one place. This should be my pinned post into November, for those looking to reference it during that time

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, I posted this instead of examples from my own prompt game, I am guilty your honor, and deserve the maximum

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

Oh, hello Lovecraft, I see you still have a grip on my psyche!

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

when soon it accelerated, with buildings warping in on themselves, taking fantastical shapes where floors intersected themselves, the inhabitants lost without reference to the mundane directions until finally they were relieved from their Hell when the Old God rose and irrevocably altered the world.

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

The change was slow at first, little tears opening in reality, ghosts in the night, strange dreams haunting learned people, unease in the poorer parts of town, growing into corporeal terrors like a voydoch beneath the midday sun, selkies grabbing men from the shores at dusk, [cont]

Penstricken @penstricken.bsky.social · 2d

#writingprompt #writing #inspiration

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

I'm beginning to form a hypothesis about your interests, but more study is warranted before we reach any certain conclusions

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

Agency and clarity of purpose are two things that make people latch onto villains, even when they are being despicable, and I think that goes a long way when you want to do an unlikeable protagonist

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

If you have not read An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler, let me recommend it to you *twice*; once as person who cooks, as it never fails to inspire me to cook something good for myself, and once as a person who writes, because it is a masterclass in what the sentence can do in talented hands

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

#Prosetober Day 9: Climax

Another tool you doubtless reach for without too much thought, but it can give your writing a real sense of forward motion, accomplishment, or conclusion when you take the time to consider its uses

Climax is arranging any series, though let me shepherd you towards modifiers again, so that it ends with the strongest. It is a very natural thing to do, but attention to it is likely to pay off in both your writing and reading.
“If we were taught to cook as we are taught to walk, encouraged first to feel for pebbles with our toes, then to wobble forward and fall, then had our hands firmly tugged on so we would try again, we would learn that getting good at it relies on something deeply rooted…” (Tamar Adlar, An Everlasting Meal)
Notice how she climbs from grasping pebbles towards being tugged into walking!
Add a sequence of phrases with a climax to these sentences:
The wheel came to rest at the bottom of the hill.
The hull of the ship failed.
Marcus was a cruel boy.

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 2d

Surely we agree that's one of the fae (920?)!

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 3d

Not that there's anything *wrong* with a metaphor that is simply evocative for it's own sake, but it's such a good chance to link your

The growing red motif seeping through the titular Night Circus is maybe a little obvious, but it hits hard when the gun finally goes off

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 3d

#Prosetober Day 8. You probably don't need an introduction to metaphor. But I think it's often overlooked how much room there is for subtlety, and you may find a reintroduction makes you see your acquaintance in a new light

As we shift into a week of rhetorical devices, we start with an old friend to most of us: Metaphor.
Treebeard says of Saruman, “He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings)
Notice the way this links his mind to the destructive industry he’s creating, not simply using it for variety.
Add a metaphor (and other modifiers!) to the following base sentences:
Pollux was lost.
The sun rode high. (Already a metaphor!)
The vase wobbled.

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

I do think if one is getting feedback about too many adverbs, then it might be worth fiddling with some modifying phrases in their place, but where I agree with the two of you wholeheartedly the prescription to cut all of them is also a vice

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

Incredible work by the Thinking Machines. (I am fully pro-Butlerian Jihad now)

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

I will *gladly* die on the adverbs hill

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

*banging harder on the sign*

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

In short, we must kill Hemmingway

Reposted by Apollonian Gasket Forge

Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 4d

#prosetober hot take 🔥
Filter words have their place. You lose an element of voice if you press yourself to get rid of every last one of them. Same with adverbs. Same with telling rather than showing.

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

#Prosetober Day 7: There is rest for the wicked---what's your hot take about sentence craft?

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

I remain fascinated by how many ads for "AI" have art that is both very gaudy and displays the many shortcomings of this kind of generation. (Look at the perspective issues on that monstrosity! Don't look at the colors too long lest they are seared into your eyeballs!)

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

In short, we must kill Hemmingway

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

Popular fiction doesn't have enough literary verve

It doesn't need to sound like an MFA being self-indulgent or a verbose 19th century landowner as the pendulum swung away from those modes with good reason, but the sentence can do so much more than what a lot of otherwise very good authors do

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

#Prosetober Day 7: There is rest for the wicked---what's your hot take about sentence craft?

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

Yes I just double-posted to catch up. No, I did not know literal sparks would fly out of my computer when I decided to do this, but I did know I (and maybe you?) would like something easier to take a breather at regular waystations

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

#Prosetober Day 7: There is rest for the wicked---what's your hot take about sentence craft?

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

Happy spooky season on this #Prosetober Day 6. Please write a monstrously long sentence, as big as you can grammatically muster!

If you're following the trail Prosetober trail, the challenge is to only use coordinating and subordinating modifiers (no conjunctions) but all chonky sentences will do!

Yesterday we tried to write some tasteful subordinate-coordinate sentences. However, we might notice this method lets us write looooooong sentences, admittedly something of a vice in our fiction. But let’s cut loose: Let’s write a monster sentence using the subordinate-coordinate techniques. Just one clause, stuffed as full as you can bear. And consider sharing---we all want to see some monstrosities!
Exercise: Write a monster sentence with the base clause, “The servants placed the feast on the table.” You may move “on the table” as it suits you. Consider writing propositions to help you gorge this thing like the (presumed?) feasters being served.

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 4d

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 6d

#Prosetober Day 5! Combine both of the last two techniques together

Day 5: Subordinate-coodinate

n Day 3 we went wide, on Day 4 we went deep, so now we explore both dimensions at once. These are sentences that use both strategies in tandem.
“Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anticlimax.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.)
Exercise: Create subordinate-coordinate sentences from the following base clauses:
Still love waits.
She said, “Absolutely not.”
There’s something about Sarah.

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 6d

Apologies again for the lateness, my computer charger LITERALLY sparked at me D:

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 6d

Look, I'm not saying I picked the example because Fitzgerald reading a certain kind of jock to filth amused me, but, ope, I just said that

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