I used to really value the art of essay writing. There seemed to be such a richness in the different ways people would construct arguments, structure those arguments, then deliver those arguments stylistically, not just from the perspective of being persuaded as a reader but also from the perspective of seeing how a given writer thinks, relates to the living tradition of language, and understands the world conceptually. But it's basically lost most of its meaning to me in this age of LLMs. The reality is, LLMs are capable of writing texts that, if you gave them to a seasoned reader 5 years ago, they'd say it was well written and indicative of a truly thoughtful mind. Even if there currently exist certain tells with LLMs, those styles certainly existed in different ways in real human writing beforehand. Now, those perfectly reasonable set of styles are verboten and we have to dedicate half our deep focus to figuring out whether, or to what extent, an essay or article was written by AI. It's difficult to enjoy, let alone care, about essay writing and the writers behind them now.

I can still find value in books, though, because they were written in the past and I don't mind never reading any non-scientific book published after 2022 if it comes down to it.

You know the trope: an epic fantasy world with magic materials that have strange properties or give people superpowers or what have you. It seems half of the time, this material is a type of crystal with some kind of electric power, and the other half of the time it's a type of metal that's basically steel, but stronger or something. The main examples that come to mind are Marvel, where you have the Soul Stones, Adamantium, and Vibranium.

Are there any other cool types of materials to use for this type of resource? Like maybe an obscure type of material that certain scientists study, but the general public doesn't know much about?

I’m in the process of helping someone come up with lore and I was wondering if there was a website to help with suffixes related to lore and mythology. Things like adding ist, kin, age, folk, etc to try and make new words for beings or creatures.

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