#ScribesAndMakers 2025.11.19 — What's a useful bit of feedback you've received? I ran a poll. Do not include exact temperatures in °C or °F in a fictional work, even if it's science fiction, unless there is a specific scientific or engineering reason to do so. Instead, relate what the POV is feeling to describe how hot or cold they perceive it to be. This obviates the need to choose a scale—which, trust me, is controversial†—or make the text harder to read, possibly throwing the reader out of the story. =-=-=-=--=-= † The discussion in this poll went sideways:

Eldritch Café

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist (@sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe)

Question for #writersOfMastodon, #writingCommunity, and #SF #ScienceFiction writers *and readers*. A beta reader is complaining about me using Cent...

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.] #BoostingIsSharing #gender #fiction #writer #author photographer chef cooking #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers #RSdiscussion

#WordWeavers 2025.11.19 — Are there any emotions that are hard for you to write? I write in first person. There is a distinction between emotions I will write and those toxic things I won't write—and subject the reader to a cesspool. Of those emotions I will write, perhaps jealousy is the hardest. Terms Jealousy is the emotion (anger or resentment) felt or directed outward when the ownership of a resource you think you own is questioned. Envy is, by contrast, the same emotion elicited by a resource owned by another. Jealousy, famously, equates the owned resource to a human being. The projected anger, and subsequent fear of that anger, serves to frighten the subject of the emotion into submission, making them chattel. When jealousy is directed at a loved one, it worsens the feeling between partners. It does nothing to work through the perceived problem. To the extent that the partners see being jealous as displaying their love—and certainly you've met at least one couple who does this—it irritates the living heck out of me. I'd dump a jealous partner like a hot piece of iron, and my spouse and I have helped friends out of abusive jealous relationships, once just a few months ago. I can't empathize with the emotion, which makes writing a character experiencing it 1st person problematic. It's not that I haven't felt it, but what little pangs of jealousy I've felt, I've logicked away by reflex–or actually worked on my problem. As a result, any jealous character I'd write would come off as stereotypical and hackneyed. Frankly, I've better things to write. [Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.] #BoostingIsSharing #gender #fiction #writer #author #Cozy #mystery #thriller #romance #fantasy #sf #sff #sciencefiction #writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers #RSdiscussion #RSstory #RSInklingsStory #RSReluctanceStory #microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory