Marion Norindale
-
For the most part, I’ve come across extremely supportive people on social media who just want to enjoy the craft of writing. But the writerly and fan communities suffer from at least one notable issue when it comes to internet etiquette (which, to be fair, is true of most of social media): how to initiate…
-
We need to understand there’s a difference between not making an FMC “one of the boys,” and allowing characters to explore gender expression without limit. No, we shouldn’t be implying that following traditional (and often also toxic) standards of masculinity is better than following anything attached to traditional femininity. But many discussions nowadays don’t understand…
-
Every week since Christmas, someone disappeared from the village. They always came back—a bit dazed, not really scuffed, and with no memory whatsoever of where they’d been. They were gone for two or three days at a time—just long enough for their friends and family to start fearing the worst. In a way, the returning…
-
It was just for one night, Becky told herself. Whether that was to reassure herself she’d never do something like this again, or a bittersweet commemoration of the momentary joy she was about to feel, she wasn’t quite sure. Either way, Becky let Jasper grab her hand and pull her towards the lobby doors with…
-
On the edge of the cliff, she had only a second to decide. In only a moment, the other initiates would be upon her. Sabrie didn’t exactly want an audience if this failed; but the fear still curdled in her stomach whenever she thought about attempting the jump anyway. Voices shouted through the trees. Each…
-
What does it actually mean to claim that “men and women are different”? There’s a lot that goes into it—a cornucopia of biology and genetics, personal lived experience, the influence of external opinions, and thousands of years and hundreds of cultures’ worth of social conditioning. I see many people trying to use this statement as…
-
Harry Potter may be a series in the technical term; but I’d like to argue it wasn’t initially meant to be one coherent saga, and the transition hindered the story more than helped it. How could that be, you ask? The series is clearly the journey of the chosen one to defeat the feared Dark…
-
It’s impossible to live without bias. Merely by existing, we’re exposed to other people, other media, and other ideas. We have experiences that shape what we think and how we behave. We spend our entire lives forming, sharing, and breaking our opinions. As such, no written work (or any creative work, really) can ever be…
-
Old houses creak. The mantra wasn’t working. Neither were the blankets tucked up to Erin’s nose, suffocating everything but a stubbornly persistent fear. She’d left her bedroom door open out of habit, but she’d begun to wonder if it would be worth it to escape the safety of her bed to slam it shut. Another…
-
The plants liked her the most, she knew. And she wasn’t really angry at them. As she knelt, her knees sinking into the dirt, she reached for the ground; the browned vines wreathing across the ground, preparing to fall dormant for the winter. Even when they weren’t growing, they needed nourishment—one last send-off before Abigail…
