Trimming your writing has the benefit of getting your point across to readers without using stuffy sentences and filler phrases. Those are the training wheels of beginning writers, but seasoned professionals can pick them out easily.
One such weakness to cut from your writing so it sounds more professional is the word “give.” Here are some examples taken from my own writing.
Example 1:
Original – She gives me an appraising look as I enter the room.
Revision – She appraises me as I enter the room.
Example 2:
Original – She gives a long tired sigh, but smiles at the
end of it.
Revision – Her
tired sigh ends with a smile.
The meaning stays the same, but less time is needed to read and understand the sentence when that awkward “give” is taken out. Unfortunately for me, both of these examples came from the same scene, making a scene that should last only a few seconds take longer than that to read through.
I know that reaching out for help is scary. Maybe you’re not ready to admit that you can’t handle things on your own. Maybe you’re scared of being a burden on someone, or of upsetting them when they learn about your struggles. Maybe you’re afraid they’ll brush you off as attention seeking and not take you seriously. Maybe you’re worried that that help won’t be enough. But it’s okay if you can’t do it alone. Your true loved ones wouldn’t want you to suffer in silence, they’d want to be there for you. You know that you aren’t just seeking attention and with time, people will see that. And given time, you will get better when you get help.
Dont @ me but if ur a white content creator u should probably examine your brown characters (especially the darker skinned ones) and see if u aren’t following a certain trend of making them all aggressive, violent, surly or otherwise outwardly angry
Honestly this comes insidiously in subtle ways I think
Are your brown characters always scowling in the art u draw? How about emotionless asians? Do u have white antagonistic characters that get to be cute or beautiful, while ur brown characters ONLY get to be confrontational?
one of my ex-friends once asked me and my sister (both of us being filipino) how to say rude or mean things in filipino for her character and never asked anything else about being filipino-american
Stop thinking: “I’m not talented enough to execute this concept.” Start thinking: “I’m going to be a stronger artist when I’ve finished this piece.”
This is a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset.
Your abilities are not static, and any challenges you have, anything that turns out different from how you imagined, is not evidence of failure, just a struggle towards improvement.
poc isn’t an adjective – i’m not a “people of colour blogger”, i’m a blogger of colour
don’t say poc if you mean a specific group of people. black lives matter isn’t about all poc. it’s about black people
you don’t need to tell us about every instance of racism you see. if someone’s said something racist about us & we weren’t there, sure, we probably do want to know. but if it’s along the lines of “can you believe this person was racist”? yeah. we can. we don’t need you to remind us
if you have a friend of colour, please don’t expect them to give you the rundown on every racialised issue you see. i’m black. that doesn’t mean i’m automatically an expert on how the modern beauty industry is influenced by india’s colonial history. i don’t speak for all poc – ask someone who’s affected by it
remember that talking about race is tiring. wanting to be more aware of it is great, but discussing exactly how white supremacy affects our lives is frankly depressing. please respect that we don’t always want to do that
if you ever say you’ve “got an [ethnicity] friend” so you can’t be racist to try and sidestep being genuinely called out for racism, i’m stealing your friend. you’re tokenising & they deserve better
poc aren’t a monolith & individual ethnicities can trivialise the racism they don’t face. just because you’ve heard a brown person say the n word or a black person be anti-asian doesn’t mean it’s suddenly okay
talking about our relationship with whiteness ≠ “making everything about race” & anyone who says that from now on owes me £150
this is okay to reblog even (especially) if you’re white
the point of this post is not to be a performative ally and act as if you as a white person have to endorse it for it to be worth reblogging. i do not need your commentary about how you, someone who will never be affected by racism, think this is important. i know damn well it is! adding things like this:
is incredibly patronising – and this is just a small example of the nonsense i’ve had in tags, responses, and my inbox. if you don’t think a black person telling you something about racialisation is believable or important without your saying so, you are part of the problem, and you need to self-reflect before you start trying to contribute to the conversation.
bullshit central 