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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 7h

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 · 7h

#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.

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 1d

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 · 1d

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

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 1d

I will *gladly* die on the adverbs hill

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 1d

*banging harder on the sign*

Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 1d

In short, we must kill Hemmingway

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Reposted by Apollonian Gasket Forge

Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 1d

#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 · 1d

#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 · 1d

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 · 1d

In short, we must kill Hemmingway

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 1d

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 · 1d

#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 · 1d

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

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 1d

#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 · 1d

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.

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 1d

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

#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 · 3d

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

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

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

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

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

My computer power cable developed a fault and sparked, so I uplugged my computer until I could get a new cord. We're back, haha

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

How your email finds me

A drawing from the Voynich Manuscript on vellum, presumably of the sun, with 18 rays pointing towards 17 lines of radiating, undeciphered text. The sun has an inscrutable expression

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

Two things I come back to over and over again:
-A person's capacity for violence is terrifying and sometimes barely restrained by society
-Magic is an awesome power that is barely restrained and there are terrifying wilds in magical knowledge

Hiria Dunning @hiriadunning.bsky.social · 5d

Hello #pretendpanel! I've been on the road all day so I have a bunch to catch up on from yesterday, but here's the next question...

October 4th: How have you explored fear in your writing?

#WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #WritingPrompts

#pretendpanel
a daily prompt tag hosted by @hiriadunning.bsky.social
October 4th: How have you explored fear in your writing?
Please support your fellow #pretentpanel posters with replies, likes and reposts
New #pretendpanel questions every Friday and Saturday. Hop in any time!

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

#Prosetober Day 4, a bit late!

The difference from Day 3 (coordinate) is that here we are drilling down, finding more specifics for the reader's mind, becoming more focused on what the writer is focused on, thinking on the precise point that they are making.

Day4: Subordinate Modifiers
If yesterday we went wider, today we go deeper with subordinating modifiers. Instead of modifying the base proposition, we modify the one that came before. Example:
Sabriel...turned as quickly as she could,
skis sliding one way and stocks the other,
framing her head in a St. Andrew’s Cross.” (Garth Nix, Sabriel)
Exercise: Elaborate each base clause with a chain of subordinate modifiers. Use propositions as necessary:
Beverly noticed Miranda.
The ocean roiled.
Eduardo sprung into action.

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

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

#Prosetober Day 3 brings us to coordinating modifiers! The trick here is to keep elaborating, making the ideas *wider*

The modifying phrases can go before or after or both, but if you're doing this strictly (you don't have to!) they should only modify the base clause

We now begin adding to base clauses more purposefully. We’ll see several ways to do this, but today we are coordinating them, giving multiple modifiers at the same layer.
The elated Girl Scout went home,
having sold all of her boxes of cookies,
having knocked on every door in her neighborhood,
so excited she could barely explain her success to her mother,
so proud of her accomplishment she immediately wanted to get more cookies to sell. (Brooks Landon, Building Great Sentences)
Write your own sentences in the pattern using these base clauses:
The witch cackled.
Lawrence steadied himself against the table.
The wind rose.

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

If you are being strict with the exercises, you should have no coordinate modifiers. My "example" in the body of the post above has a few extra relative clauses, so I will be casting no stones if you are a bit loose 🤷

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

#Prosetober Day 4, a bit late!

The difference from Day 3 (coordinate) is that here we are drilling down, finding more specifics for the reader's mind, becoming more focused on what the writer is focused on, thinking on the precise point that they are making.

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Apollonian Gasket Forge @apollonianforge.bsky.social · 5d

Due to a migraine, I will post Prosetober in the morning local time