riptidepublishing:

operahousebookworm:

megan-cutler:

iamalwayswriting:

suburbanmomromanceclub:

File this under “super obvious yet I always seem to forget it.”

I don’t write romance (I totally respect people who do, though!) but this is also great writing advice in general! What is preventing the protagonist from achieving their goal?

Why can’t these two people be together now?

Why can’t the mystery be solved now?

Why can’t they overthrow the evil overlord now?

If you don’t have a solid answer for these questions, that’s a good indicator that the plot could use some more work.

Also test your answer a little bit. If it’s as thin as they’re just refusing to sit down and have a simple conversation, you might want to re-think how things are going.

As a beta reader/editor, I tend to ask this question a lot: “Why are they doing it this way when there’s a much easier path available?” That’s not to say that they should take the easier path, because that would usually be boring. Instead, the point is that the question needs an answer–either eliminate the easier path or give them a very clear reason for not taking it. (And if I’m asking the question, that reason isn’t as clear as you think it might be.)

I find it very difficult to root for characters who have a sensible option available and just don’t take it. If the only reason is “Because there wouldn’t be a story otherwise,” you haven’t actually found the story yet.

And this is why the Big Misunderstanding as a primary plot device is almost universally disliked.

jabberwockypie:

ignescent:

the-tin-dog:

cerula:

joanspoliticalposts:

aeonlamb:

krysthebear:

femoids:

femoids:

Another epic fail for the free market

Dumb bitch in the notes arguing planned obsolescence is necessary to keep costs down,

I thought planned obsolescence was to prevent your phone from just suddenly turning off and never working again? Like it’s meant to be an “oh, my thing isn’t working, I should invest in a new one soon.” Kind of thing?? Like shits gonna break either way, I just thought this let us know like a month earlier than it would otherwise.

I mean… that’s kind of what they want you to think?

Sure, throttling your phone’s cpu so that the battery doesn’t wear down faster is certainly… a thing that’ll extend battery life… but, uh………… Hey, why don’t we just allow customers to replace their old batteries, you know, just like batteries were originally designed to do?

This extends far beyond phones/computers/etc as well. I recall, there’s light bulbs that exist from around the time of their invention that can still burn to this day. But companies only manufacture light bulbs that degrade and burn out over a few years, so that they can keep selling more light bulbs and turn a profit.

There’s a lot of examples of this, really. But, no, the main purpose of this is simply to make people continually have to replace their old “““broken”““ products for new ones, when the only reason they break to begin with is because they purposefully build in deficiencies that cause the product to degrade over time. It’s capitalism, baby

My mom had one vacuum cleaner all through our childhood. That first generation of vacuum cleaners was made to a very high standard because the companies were trying to convince people who had never seen one to buy them. Now, unless you buy the very high end models, they break in five years.

Can confirm, once helped my dad paint a client’s house interior and needed to vacuume after due to all the sanding we did. Dad’s shop vac would have taken us hours to clean since it was made for small messes and not whole carpets. Dad dug out the client’s home vacuum (with permission) which was this ancient heavy metal kirby from the 70s and holy shit not only did it still work but it had the strongest suction I have ever seen in a vac and it was that day that really hammered into me that planned obsolescence was A Thing.

I can literally go to a junk mall, but a 1920s sewing machine, oil the moving parts, replace the rusted needle and sew on that damn thing for the rest of my life.

And if one part or piece breaks, literally takes the mechanical knowledge of a 3yr old with plastic tools to fix it. I can access every part of that machine and fix it with a screwdriver and needle nose pliers. No special screws so only a “””professional””” can fix it. No parts that can be “so hard to fix you might as well buy a new one”

Corporations CAN make functioning lasting products. They just choose not to.

Some of this is price though. A 1920s sewing machine ran around $35, which is like $450 today. And most people would /not/ accept a $450 sewing machine that broke in a few years. It’s like clothes – cheap clothes are extremely fragile and barely last, but they’re cheap enough. A lot of folks tolerate that. If you spend a lot of money on clothes, they last a lot longer (thinking nordtroms, not high fashion).

Planned obsolescence drives some of the consumable nature of things in today’s world, but so does the urge to not have to spend a whole lot of money on something.

$450 is not actually all THAT much when it comes to new sewing machines these days.

There are plenty of $450+ sewing machines that STILL break fairly regularly, or that you have to pay substantial sums to a professional to do basic maintenance, and they can make you stupid-high amounts for repairs and the repair person will tell you “OR we can waive the bench fee and trade it in and take X amount off the price of this new shiny sewing machine” – which is DEPRESSINGLY common and is what happened to me when I took my all steel Singer 337 from the 1960s in to be repaired last summer.

When it became clear that I DIDN’T want them to take a perfectly good machine for $50 credit only to pay another $100 for the cheapest model they sold, they told me it was “impossible” to repair *AFTER* charging me for not fixing it.

So I took it home, paid $10 for the SERVICE manual online, and repaired it myself.

And it worked.

It is VERY much a planned obsolescence thing.

is no one going to point out the right most icon in that banner is the fucking onceler

mollyjames:

secretmellowblog:

It’s hilarious how Rupphire and Bubbline are the Literal Opposite of the “Bury Your Gays” trope (the trope where writers tend to aLWAYS kill off their gay characters, usually right after revealing their sexuality) 

Ruby, Sapphire, Marceline, and Princess Bubblegum are all centuries-old immortals who will live forever unless they’re killed—and no one will ever be able kill them because they’re all undefeatable warriors

I guess the only thing that could defeat “Bury Your Gays” was a powerful NEW trope– the “Unkillable Immortal Gay Warrior Who Literally Cannot Die” Trope

This is a thing I would like to contribute to yes