Tag: ella speaks

Do you have any tips for writing for people who can’t write

Anyone can write, it’s just a matter of whether or not you want to commit to the most tedious, irritating, and yet occasionally pleasurable and rewarding experience out there.

Writing is very much a continuous process. We all start out as weak, awkward, and uncertain writers. The uncertainty doesn’t quite leave most, but there are a few tips I’ve found that have worked (and still work) for me. 

1) Read a lot. You’ll absorb lots of extra words that way. 

2) Keep a journal, and write down new words you learn. Bonus points if you include an example sentence. Personally, like a total nerd, I’ve dedicated myself to learning five words every day.

3) Practice your grammar. There’s lot of sites you can test yourself with. I also recommend plugging in your drafts into online grammar checkers.

4) Recognize that your old writing will always look awful in retrospect. That’s the point of writing. You’re always improving. What I try to do is focus on how much I’ve improved rather than how much I lacked. (Admittedly, I struggle with this as a perfectionist).

5) Try to write something every day. Start small, such as a paragraph, and then gradually begin pushing yourself to write more. It’s something similar to building up cardio, but with your mind. 

6) Also remember that quality should be prioritized over length. Don’t be fancy, be concise. Think to yourself about whether the reader would want to read that large chunk of fluff you just constructed. Chances are, they don’t. Get to the point. Be active through action and dialogue, and balance it with complementing (not overriding) descriptions.

7) Don’t push yourself. Not everyday is going to be the same. I’ve found that mood has been a big factor in the quality of my writing. If you know your writing’s not going to be up to par, stop, take a break, and come back to it with a fresh eye and mind. 

8) Enough with the overcomplicated language. Yes, we get it! Perhaps you know big words! But if a sentence is so dense that I have to question life itself, cut it out. This is different from private writing in that you have to consider what level of language your readers will be able to appreciate and understand.

9) Said is your friend. There’s literally nothing wrong with it. As you begin writing more, you’ll grow more comfortable using it. Using too many synonyms to overcompensate is something I’ve seen in writers who lack confidence in the rest of their writing.

10) Break up your paragraphs. A wall of words guards against a coherent structure and flow to the writing. 

How long does it typically take you to get to an ask depending on its content?

It ranges from a few days if it’s a quick and easy answer to months. (My ask box is piling up exponentially, not that I mind. I actually really appreciate it).

I also find that people ask me things that are not even touched upon in the manga. I work with the strips, so I can’t answer or even interpret those sorts of things. I need something concrete to base a post on.

There are other posts that require research that I don’t have the time presently to invest in, but would be happy to complete once I’m out of school. There’s also requests where I have all the relevant strips marked down, but since it’s so long, I’m not sure how I would break it down into shorter posts.

For example, one of the most heavily requested things for me to do is Russia and England’s interactions. I have an answer, but it’s LONG. It could easily be a 5000-6000 word post, which again, I simply don’t have the time to do right now. Also, I don’t think anyone would want to read a post that long.

I do get to most of the requests, but I wouldn’t expect a fast response. I’m one person, and these things take time 😉

Dear Mean Anon, please feel free to show some freaking common decency! Love, someone who’s been harassed online and it freaking sucks. Dear Ella, We love you to death. Ignore Mean Anon. YOU ARE NOT A SELF-ADVERTISING HOE. You’re a self-advertising writer. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. (Dear god knows I self-advertise my own content wayyy too much. #BlessThisMess)

❤ Omg guys, I can’t. I just choked on
my apple and made the ugliest squeaking sound. I coughed so hard I almost lost
a contact lens, oops. Euthanize me.

I’m really sorry to hear that, though. Personally,
things like this don’t phase me; I can’t be bothered. I know what I want, and I’ll work as hard as I
need to in order to get it. Hopefully that time of your life is behind you, and if
not, ignore those punks.

Oh
lol. I just have a weird sense of humour. I like poking fun at myself. There’s
nothing wrong with self-advertising at all!

image
image

Beep. Boop. My followers are being supportive as usual ❤ 

No worries, guys. Talking about this stuff doesn’t make me uncomfortable, I just don’t really see the need to do it all the time. I prefer speaking through the medium of my stories.

To the first anon, thank you, my heart goes out to you too. Stick it to them the minute you leave and never look back. Let your success be the ultimate way of taking away the power they hold over you. 

To the second anon and third anon, thank you too! I really appreciate comments like this. It lets me know that I’m doing A-OK somewhere else. 

Tbh, I don’t how I keep this up either, I just know why. I guess it’s just because I’m really motivated to abandon this unhealthy environment with its equally unhealthy people. I’m only now starting to learn how to trust others, but one thing I’ve always refused to do is repeat their mistakes. The stubbornness in me has made me my own person, one who doesn’t swallow everything they’re told; who knows how they don’t want to be treated and will never treat others in a similar manner. 

That said, while I do work hard and try to set a good example, I also use my platform to teach from my mistakes. I’m being a self-advertising hoe again, but yes, most of my later stories are like that. Ew, I’m totally becoming a melancholic grandma… 

Either way, I’m not going to give up. You can best believe that I’ll keep aspiring for bigger things, with the help of you guys of course 🙂

Hey Ella are we allowed to tag you into stuff related to the fandom (so you can give your opinion on it or maybe spread it a little, if you want) or, if we know that somebody has already written an analysis/theory you’re planning on doing, can we point them out to you? (not sayin that you shouldn’t write that theory in any case, because you’d probably have a different spin or more complete view, however seeing the other one could be an insight on some common misconceptions)

Okay, woah. If this is a
packed ask if I’ve ever seen one haha. Here’s the packed answer:

By all means, feel free
to tag me. Although, I have trouble keeping up with my notifications, so
that’s where a message would probably come in handy. I’m very limited in my
capacity, though, and am not online for long periods of time.

Yay! Someone finally
gets it! One of my biggest pet peeves is when people think that if a topic’s
been covered, then others aren’t free to talk about it. NO! NO! NO! That’s not a discussion; it’s
an entitled dictation. The whole point of a fandom is to offer more voices and
thoughts, not close them off.

As long as you’re not merely repeating what
the other person said and have nothing new to offer, then anyone should feel
inclined to talk about the same subject. There is no “original” theorist in
this fandom. People have been coming up with headcanons and interpretations
ever since its inception, let’s be real here. What matters again is if original ideas are
added to complement or oppose the already existing ones.  

That said, anything I
talk about is 100% free game for other people to discuss, analyze, and
interpret.

As for the
misconceptions, I’m ambivalent. I think people have to understand that slight alterations in the interpretations
of the characters are inevitable. Overly strict “canon-police” types bug me in the sense that they feel the need to dictate and rudely scrutinize
every trivial detail of another person’s depiction of the characters. People like that have
no right to impinge on how others enjoy the fandom, nor do those who take
artistic liberties have the right to force their interpretation onto others.

Don’t like the
interpretation? Show some maturity and ignore it. Not everyone is going to
share your opinion and it’s not up to you to control what they do or don’t do with the characters.

On the other hand, if
the misconception is so huge that it completely botches the character/plot and either
spreads misinformation or hate, only then do I believe it’s important to step
in, politely. There’s also a difference when someone acknowledges that they’re departing from canon and gives the correct information before doing so. 

Also… I don’t want you guys to think of me as some kind of holy expert or anything. I’m not and haven’t ever claimed to be. My word isn’t law: I want you guys to think for yourselves and show some discretion of your own 🙂

Hetalia Manga Q & A

Does the manga volumes have every Hetalia
Webtoon Hima’s made??

[Anon is talking about
volumes 1-6, not World Stars]

Oh dear God, no. There’s
so many more unpublished strips available online. (That’s not including the
card games, RPGs, etc.)

The Hetascanlations/ Hetarchive team is your
best friend in that regard, trust me. They do a tremendous service for this fandom and I cannot thank them enough.

There, you can find the original main story, extras, non-linear strips (although, some of them have been re-drawn in the
published manga), events, transcripts from the drama CDs, comic diary entries,
character notes, translated chapters of World stars, and translated posts from Hima’s
blog (Bamboo thicket).

Hetarchive.net
(main)

 Ex
sub-page:  http://www.hetarchive.net/scanlations/nonlinear.php

 Where can you get World Stars?

From what I’ve seen,
there’s only Japanese (it was originally published in Japan by Shueisha)
versions of World Stars with the occasional German translation of the volumes.
I have yet to see any physical copies containing an English translation, but I
could be wrong.

***Beware: I’ve often
seen the mistake of people buying World Stars volumes without checking the language
it’s written in. That’s the FIRST thing you should be searching for when
looking at the product summary.***

Again, the
Hetascanlations team has translated most of World Stars (from Hima’s blog), and
continues to do so. There’s slight differences in the volumes regarding
the ordering of the chapters, but it’s concretely the same material.

http://www.hetarchive.net/scanlations/worldstars.php

So what do you do if you want Hetalia manga but
you live in the UK. And Rightstuf’s shipping fees are insanely ridiculous
because of that?

[Right Stuf anime is
where you can purchase English translations of the first six volumes.
Admittedly, the shipping fees are extremely high as they’re sent out from
Japan]

Buy an English
translation of the first six volumes here: https://www.rightstufanime.com/

Unfortunately, I don’t
have much of an answer for that. Right
Stuf is the only website I’ve found that distributes directly from Tokyo
Pop. If anyone has found a cheaper route, feel free to let me know.