Looking at movies and books like a sleuth, looking for correlations, is not my thing. That is a very cerebral way to look at stories. I prefer letting them take over me with all they got, symbolism included but mixed with everything else. When it comes to fiction and magic, I wanna watch the trick, not figure it out. Much like magic tricks, I firmly believe that, when dissected, fiction tends to die.

By that I mean that it becomes less appealing.

I'm a little annoyed by the view that, if you don't look for "hidden meanings", your engagement with art is of a lesser quality. As if there was only one acceptable and elevated way to read things.

Much to my delight, people have built interesting symbolism from my writing that I never intended to create. I don't write symbolism, but I tend to use elements that are universal, well-known, and easy to interpret as symbols.

I'm not sure why I wrote this. I just wanted to organize my thoughts about this subject in a place where people are nice.

I guess that is it.

What do you think of symbolism?

The other day I realised I should have used a disclaimer on a comment.

It is a comment that is supposed to be light hearted and fun so I started to amuse myself in a way that I haven't done in quite some time.

I've "always" enjoyed breaking down words (preferably in the "wrong" place), finding synonyms or sound-a-likes or second meanings and their synonyms or sound-a-likes or second meanings, etc, etc...

So I would like to invite you to build on my example below, bring your own examples or tell us about ways that you play with words.

Example:

I was reading this post about the Tildes hierarchical tag system and it got me thinking about possible tags with double meanings.

For example, the gooning tag could be interpreted in a sexual way, or interpreted as the act of being a goon/villain. To clear up the misunderstanding, you could make a gooning.baddies tag, but that also has a double meaning.

What are some tags that could be used for serious topics that can have a less serious interpretation?

I know! It seems obvious, right? We are a hot, humid, colorful, vibrant Latin American country. Of course, our literature is the same! But that wasn't always the case! In the 1990s, Rubem Fonseca was a huge hit with his dry, ruthless Brazilian noir. Luís Fernando Veríssimo often mirrored Ernest Hemingway with long dialogues with little to no explanation.

Well, for better or worse, this is how I write most of the time. Trying to get the most from a minimal amount of words and not many adjectives and adverbs.

That seems to confuse paid Brazilian readers. There's never any consideration of style or why I choose to write the story that way. They stamp my writing for infringing on half a dozen rules and proceed to completely ignore the content.

The idea is that writing must be riddled with metaphors, poetic language, and sensorial anchors through extensive descriptions. Something I only do when I feel that it is necessary.

I sent a dry, minimalist story written in language that reflected the harshness of those people with an equally dry open ending. One reader essentially suggested turning it into an emotional journey with a Black Mirror ending.

That is often what happens with Brazilian readers: they just don't get it.

English speakers, on the other hand, get everything, including the style. They understand that the ideas are the important bit, speculate on them, and bring their own references. They seem to get everything I do easily.

I am starting to think that I should make writing in English my priority.

Just curiosity as I idly work through details on a project that has a larger "opening" cast than usual. I have a lot of ways I come up with characters and flesh them out (just write them, make them in dress-up games and the like, build them up in daydreams, etc.), but I'm curious about other people's methods.

So, how do you flesh out characters?

1. Announcement

The second Tildes Short Story Exchange is now open to submissions!

Everything stays the same, with one exception: the submission form now includes a field for you to inform if your story should be included in the EPUB file I will generate down the line. The purpose of the EPUB file (an ebook format) is to make the stories more convenient to read for those who use e-readers. More on that here and on item 4 of this post.

Click here for the original announcement containing more information. In case of conflicting information, this very post should be considered the most current.

2. Quick info

This is a short fiction workshop on Tildes! Anyone is welcome to post their short stories and get feedback on them. For more information, please click on the information box above or visit the introduction post.

The TSSE will feature one post on the 1st day of each month. This edition will be up until July 1st, 2025, when it will be replaced.

During that period, everyone will be free to post their short stories and their feedback at their own leisure.

3. How to submit your short story

You may use any website, blog, format, or platform to share your story!

If you are inclined to share a PDF, please also share your story in a format that is open, allowing it to be easily converted and better displayed on mobile devices such as phones, tablets, Kindles, etc. Some good formats for that are .docx, .rtf, .odt, .epub, .mobi, .txt, .md (markdown).

If you are sharing your story on something like Google Drive or Microsoft Office Online, make sure to set the appropriate permissions!

You may also use detail markdown blocks to paste your story on Tildes itself (see "Expandable sections" in the Tildes docs here).

Whatever you choose, I strongly encourage you to share your story in more than one format.

4. Example submissions

All short story submissions should be top-level comments on the TSSE posts.

I drafted below an example submission that I encourage you to use. You are not forced to follow this model—feel free to add any information you want in your submission.

Clarification on the question about having your story on the EPUB.

**Title**: My Super Cool Story  
**Word count**: 949
**Genre(s)**: Science fiction, romance  
**Expected feedback**: In this story I need feedback on story, language, everything. You can be as ruthless as you want. I can take it!  
**File or link**: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/
**Should your story be on the EPUB?**: Yes.

**Title**: The Day My Dog Died 
**Word count**: 1500
**Genre(s)**: Drama  
**Expected feedback**: I'm really insecure about the ending. This is a very personal story—be gentle with me!  
**File or link**: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/
**Should your story be on the EPUB?**: No.

5. How to provide feedback?

All feedback should be a direct response to short story submissions.

Feedback should always follow the guidelines put forth by the writer, but anything that is not explicitly prohibited can be understood to be allowed. There will be no strict rules on how feedback must be written, but I would suggest that everyone provide something potentially helpful to the improvement of the story. That is, of course, highly subjective.

UPDATE: This post will be active for an additional month!

I previously talked about the possibility of postponing the next post of the Tildes Short Story Exchange depending on the level of activity. That will be the case for this month. Due to reduced activity, this post will remain up and active until August 1. Hopefully, that will give everyone time to both write reviews and post their own stories! That includes myself, since I was unable to comment on any story yet.

In mythology the phoenix is an immortal bird that, when it's time, burns to death. In some versions of the myth, it's intentional. Sometimes things happen to it and it's forced to begin the cycle anew.

I admire the phoenix so much. After all, immortality is just another way of expressing the will to endure.

But sometimes I also wonder. I wonder if the phoenix, in the moments of burning, regrets it's choice, secretly hoping to prolong it's current pace because it's happy where it is. I wonder if, the moments before it's forced to start the cycle, it looks back at it's choices that lead up to it, and wishes it chose differently. I wonder if it regrets it didn't do more in that life. I wonder if it looks forwards to it's new life.

When it's done burning, I wonder if it can look back at it's old life. Would it look and wish that it burned again, hoping to get back it's old life? Is it able to carry it's old memories and grow and be a better phoenix? Would it hope that some of it's old life comes with it? Does it look at it's next burning with dread, or hope?

I don't know where to put this, was thinking in ~creative or ~health.mental or ~misc. I've been pretty out of it and super depressed still, but this is just some of the things I've been thinking about.
I wrote a bit about where I've been here

1. Announcement

The first Tildes Short Story Exchange is now open to submissions!

As previously announced, the first edition of the Tildes Short Story Exchange is now open to submissions!

Title: My Super Cool Story  
Genre(s): Science fiction, romance  
Expected feedback: In this story I need feedback on story, language, everything. You can be as ruthless as you want. I can take it!  
File: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/

Title: The Day My Dog Died  
Genre(s): Drama  
Expected feedback: I'm really insecure about the ending. This is a very personal story—be gentle with me!  
File: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/

2. Quick info

This is the beginning of a permanent short fiction workshop on Tildes! Anyone is welcome to post their short stories and get feedback on them. For more information, please click on the information box above or visit the introduction post.

The TSSE will feature one post on the 1st day of each month. Exceptionally, this first edition will be up from today (Monday, May 5th) until June 1st, when it will be replaced.

During that period, everyone will be free to post their short stories and their feedback at their own leisure.

3. How to submit your short story

You may use any website, blog, format, or platform to share your story!

If you are inclined to share a PDF, please also share your story in a format that is open, allowing it to be easily converted and better displayed on mobile devices such as phones, tablets, Kindles, etc. Some good formats for that are .docx, .rtf, .odt, .epub, .mobi, .txt, .md (markdown).

If you are sharing your story on something like Google Drive or Microsoft Office Online, make sure to set the appropriate permissions!

You may also use detail markdown blocks to paste your story on Tildes itself (see "Expandable sections" in the Tildes docs here).

4. Example submissions

All short story submissions should be top-level comments on the TSSE posts.

I drafted below an example submission that I encourage you to use. You are not forced to follow this model—feel free to add any information you want in your submission.

**Title**: My Super Cool Story  
**Word count**: 949
**Genre(s)**: Science fiction, romance  
**Expected feedback**: In this story I need feedback on story, language, everything. You can be as ruthless as you want. I can take it!  
**File or link**: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/

**Title**: The Day My Dog Died 
- **Word count**: 1500
**Genre(s)**: Drama  
**Expected feedback**: I'm really insecure about the ending. This is a very personal story—be gentle with me!  
**File or link**: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/

5. How to provide feedback?

All feedback should be a direct response to short story submissions.

Feedback should always follow the guidelines put forth by the writer, but anything that is not explicitly prohibited can be understood to be allowed. There will be no strict rules on how feedback must be written, but I would suggest that everyone provide something potentially helpful to the improvement of the story. That is, of course, highly subjective.

Ever since I was a kid, I thought planetary rings were cool, and whenever I scribbled a non-specific alien planet I would give it rings. Lately I have been worldbuilding for a story, and naturally I gave the world rings. But since I made that decision, I've paid more attention to rings in other sci-fi I watch.

There's a lot of sci-fi planets out there with their own Saturn-esque rings. Very often it's just there for the vibes. In the opening to Rogue One, for instance, Galen Erso's farm is on a planet with rings, but this doesn't really come up or affect the plot in any way. I forgot this until I recently rewatched the movie. Similarly in the Foundation series on Apple TV+, even though the protagonist is from an ocean planet with rings (that are beautifully rendered), the rings never really come up. The endless ocean ends up driving both plot points in the show and the superstitious culture of the people who live there, but the ring does not. Maybe this is discussed more in the Foundation books but I'm not familiar with those.

Sometimes rings end up being plot relevant, like in Alien Romulus, where instead of being set dressing, the rings are an obstacle that can cause the space station to crash. Still, the rings don't directly impact the planet or the people who live there. The thing that more directly affects the colonists' lives is the atmosphere blocking the sunlight instead.

What really got me thinking was when I saw this Sci-Show video a few months ago about research that Earth possibly had rings about 450 million years ago. The rings lowered the overall global temperature and caused more extreme summers and winters due to light reflecting off of them. This made me realize rings can add quite a lot to the actual worldbuilding, since besides from the obvious cultural impact on any humanoid life, it can cause big environmental changes as well. This is pretty obvious when you consider how The Moon can do many things that affect life on Earth such as the tides.

Of course there's nothing wrong with stories hand waving away these types of questions, but it's interesting when stories like Three Body Problem take these tropes like living in a multi-star system and consider how that would mess with the people living there.

Astronomy nerds and sci-fi fans of Tildes, are there any other interesting ways rings would affect life on a planet?

1. Introduction

I have, on many occasions, considered creating a fiction writing and feedback exchange workshop on Tildes. As these things often go, I exaggerated in my plans, detailing them endlessly without ever putting them into action. This post is an attempt to break the cycle of procrastination, and I am doing so by forcing myself to adopt a much simpler approach.

2. Goals

The main goal of the Tildes Short Story Exchange is to allow people to get feedback on their short stories. Is it any good? How can I improve it?

3. Why only short stories?

Although there are many writing genres people like to share, short stories are among the most practical. They can be read much more quickly than novels and novellas, and their evaluation is simpler than what poetry requires. A simple, defined, and easy-to-understand prompt is conducive to creation. Every month, participants will know that the Tildes Short Story Exchange is a place to get feedback on short stories. They will feel compelled to write as a result.

4. Position on LLMs

This is a workshop for humans. Producing human connection is one of its main goals. Because of that, all submissions must be human-generated, both in full and in part. That said, LLMs can be used for the same things traditional tools such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word have been used for in the past: proofreading. Additionally, it is allowed to use LLMs to assist in the translation into English of text that you wrote yourself.

5. About the submissions

For the purposes of the TSSE, a short story is a work of fiction with 7,500 words or less. This is based on the classification by both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Stories that go a little above that will, of course, be accepted within reason. All submissions must be in English.

6. How to submit your short story

You may use any website, blog, format, or platform to share your story!

If you are inclined to share a PDF, please also share your story in a format that is open, allowing it to be easily converted and better displayed on mobile devices such as phones, tablets, Kindles, etc. Some good formats for that are .docx, rtf, odt, epub, mobi, txt, md (markdown).

If you are sharing your story on something like Google Drive or Microsoft Office Online, make sure to set the appropriate permissions!

I will make an effort to read and provide feedback on as many submissions as I can, and if you share it in an open format it will at the very least have me as a reader!

You may also use detail markdown blocks to paste your story on Tildes itself (see "Expandable sections" on Tildes docs here).

7. Example submissions

All short story submissions should be top-level comments on the TSSE posts.

I drafted below an example submission that I encourage you to use. There are a few additional suggestions in there!

Title: My Super Cool Story
Genre(s): Science fiction, romance
Expected feedback: In this story I need feedback on story, language, everything. You can be as ruthless as you want. I can take it!
File: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/

Title: The Day My Dog Died
Genre(s): Drama
Expected feedback: I'm really insecure about the ending. This is a very personal story—be gentle with me!
File: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/

8. How to provide feedback?

All feedback should be a direct response to short story submissions.

Feedback should always follow the guidelines put forth by the writer, but anything that is not explicitly prohibited can be understood to be allowed. There will be no strict rules on how feedback must be written, but I would suggest that everyone provide something potentially helpful to the improvement of the story. That is, of course, highly subjective.

9. How are rules going to be enforced?

Given that I am a regular Tildes user with no administrative privileges, all rules in this project will serve merely as guidelines that I suggest participants follow. There will be no enforcement or consequence for not following the guidelines. That means there will be no score, and no “feedback points” will be awarded. It is suggested that everyone seeking feedback provide at least one piece of feedback prior to posting their own story. But that will be entirely based on the “honor system” and no admonitions will be made toward those who seek feedback without providing it.

10. What will be the schedule?

The TSSE will feature one post on the 1st day of each month. This is to help with mnemonics so people always remember when it will happen. That will help them get their “creative mojo” working every month.

Exceptionally for this first edition, given that it is already May 3rd, the Tildes Short Story Exchange – First Edition will go up next Monday (May 5th) and remain as the current post until June 1st, when it will be replaced.

Within that period, everyone will be free to post their short stories and their feedback at their own leisure.

The schedule may change to once every 2 months if there is not enough activity.

Welcome to the April Tildes Writing Prompt! Hopefully the first installment of many monthly writing prompts.

This is an offshoot of the writing contests hosted by @TheMeerkat, but a bit less formal and running all month long. Though we'll still have a contest, with a prize of a $20 gift code for Proton or Tuta courtesy of Meerkat. That said, the ultimate goal is to just have an excuse to write.

Among the changes: we have two options for prompts this time!

The Traditional Prompt: The arrival of spring brings a clearer mind, and new revelations.

The Keywords Prompt: Rain, Spring, Renewal

You can choose to do either one, combine them, or do both in separate stories! The keywords are a bit experimental, so while ideally you should aim to incorporate all three, you can choose to use just one or two. I chose words that can be interpreted in a few ways, so don't feel like you have to write about renewing library books on a rainy day in spring.

General Guidelines

1. Creative writing only. Any format is allowed—prose, poetry, fanfics, creative nonfiction, branching narrative, what have you. Just keep it creative!
2. The contest is optional. Some of us just want to dip our toes into writing or share our creations with no pressure or interest in prizes. So just state if you want to opt in or out.
3. Length. Soft rule of 1,000 to 7,500 words, especially if you opt to enter the contest. However, any length is acceptable. Got a two-sentence horror story? Go for it! Somehow hammer out a full 60,000 word novel in a month? No guarantees many people will have time to read it, but that sort of effort deserves to be shared! (Seriously, you'd earn those bragging rights.)
4. The contest winner will be decided via a poll. @TheMeerkat will post a link when the time comes. We'll be doing ranked voting rather than picking just one. So please read all the stories you can!
5. You can write multiple stories, but only one can be entered in the contest! This rule was particularly made with shorter entries in mind, but the big goal is just to write. So if you've got multiple ideas, don't feel like you need to pick just one!
6. Formatting notes. As with the contests, please use collapsible formatting if posting directly to the comments. If posting externally like with Google Docs or a PDF, just keep in mind that people are reading this on all sorts of screen sizes so fixed formats may not work the way you like.

The contest deadline is Saturday, April 26th, at 11:59:59 EST.. This should hopefully give everyone plenty of time to write and read entries before voting starts, and enough time to announce a winner before the end of the month.

And as a final note, please leave feedback on other stories when you can! Getting feedback is one of the best parts of being a writer. I know I always get a big grin at even just simple heart emoji, though you should probably leave a bit more than just that in your feedback here.

Happy writing! I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!