Bite-Sized Editing Tip: Peopling Your World

 This is a concept I've talked about briefly but not with much detail.

Often in romance fiction genres, but others as well, the author might find themselves hyperfocusing on the male and female leads, while leaving the other characters as cardboard cutouts. They're around just to root on the protagonists and have no lives of their own. It's serviceable for a novella or a sitcom, but this doesn't make the characters distinct.

This occurred to me as I was reading Emily Wilde's Map to the Otherlands. The main couple, and the only main characters carried over from the first book Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries grow closer in the second book. The stakes for their relationship and frankly their lives have increased, and I'd argue that structurally, it's a stronger book for having this focus. 

I loved the first book, of course. I was prone to love it thanks to the scholarly bent of the prose, the focus on fairies, and Emily's absolute nerdery and awkwardness. But talking about how much you love a protagonist is for another day. What Heather Fawcett does in addition to having a pairing I actually like is add side characters who can fill out the world in addition to Emily and Wendell.

In the first book, this role was taken up by the townspeople, and it flowed alongside the episodic nature of Emily's research. She's simply trying to gather information about the types of fairies seen in a Scandinavian town. This means the bulk of her interactions, and hurdles, come from the various denizens of Ljosland before Wendell even shows up. Emily's brusque, professional personality puts the people of Ljosland off at first, leaving her without their help in an extremely unforgiving environment. There are plenty of saves in the novel, but the biggest one has to be when Wendell is able to help her get along with the townspeople better thanks to both his charm and inadvertently getting injured and causing her to beg for their help. Life gets so much easier afterward.

Notables here include Aud, the leader of the village that Emily offends on day one. Also Thora, who is an elder who doesn't mince words, which makes her the easiest person for Emily to get along with. Additionally we have patient and woodchopping Lilja, who Emily takes to help save her fiancé Margret from the faeries. A major shoutout has to go to Poe, though, a tree-dwelling brownie who Emily befriends early on and who proves to be incredibly helpful to this Noser asking him all these questions.

I have to love Poe. It's a testament to her worldbuilding that Fawcett can indicate both the ethereal beauty of the fairies as well as describe ones like the brownie as so ugly to our eyes they might be cute. And DANGEROUS. Even the tiny Poe has sharp, needle-like fingers. I cannot tell you my delight when he showed up again in the next book. I hope he continues doing so.

Since Emily is a researcher, our next book demands a different setting, first in Cambridge and then off to their next research location, which appears to be also cold, but not nearly as cozy as Ljosland since Emily and Wendell don't bond with the locals as well as they did before. This leaves us with a new cast to fill out, lest the interactions only develop between Wendell and Emily, and as entertaining as they are, it would get one-note before we can reach the resolution. Thus, we are introduced to Ariadne, Emily's niece, and the head of her department, Farris Rose. 

Ariadne is a great foil for Emily, possessing the single-minded scholarly obsession but with a youth and cheerfulness that makes her almost an annoyance to Emily more than anything else. Since Emily is so bad at social interactions, Ariadne gets along better with Wendell, actually. Rose, on the other hand, provides another type of conflict: he's older and has more authority in the department. He's introduced wanting to fire both Emily and Wendell, but then worms his way into their expedition because he's as ambitious as she is. Unfortunately, his methods are a bit... dated. 

These new characters provide Emily people to bounce off of who aren't just... there. They challenge her, frustrate her. Part of her arc in this book comes to learning to deal with the other scholar and her niece. This is on top of the problems she already has. 

What we an learn from these uses of additional characters is thus:

1) Take your time. Rose and Ariadne are influential and important characters, and they don't even show up in the first book.

2) Allow secondary characters to connect to your characters' backgrounds. Ariadne's existence perpetually reminds us of Emily's social difficulties and enables us to think of her in a more complex way than a disembodied scholar or love interest. 

3) Repeat when necessary. I was overjoyed for Poe to come back. He's not the only lesser fairy that Emily interacts with. She finds one of the creepy, carnivorous fox fairies to help her return to Ljosland briefly so she can meet with Poe. This fairy comes back around later on to help them. 

4) Piggybacking off #3: These secondary characters have their own goals and motivations. With the fairies, it's helpful that Emily as a scholar understands their rules more so than with the people. The fox fairy (who she names Snowbell) follows them just because he's curious, but that doesn't mean that he cares about the quest itself. He's perfectly happy for Emily to be eaten if he can continue the quest with Ariadne. 

But then you have the human characters and their motivations are clear enough, since both are scholars and would want the chance to observe what Emily is finding. Still, Rose manages to be more of a hinderance at times, and Emily becomes conflicted about Ariadne's presence because it is dangerous to seek fairy doors in the way they are. 

Each character always has their own point of existing outside of the protagonists. But at the same time, they provides ways to stymie or push your character forward. It's complex, but the longer your series goes on, the more people there will make the world feel full and real. Try to consider both as you add secondary characters to your world. Who are they? What do they want? Need? Fear? Test them as much as you test your protagonists. We need them to hold up their end of the plot.

Bite-Sized Editing Tip: I Want an Ending

 Someone, somewhere is out there plotting against me.

And they're plotting to make sure I tear my hair out and throw a book across the room.

Unfortunately, they're not plotting their own book. I don't know who is giving out the advice to stop books in the middle of a scene to increase "readthrough," but this is terrible advice for a couple of reasons. It destroys the pacing beyond recognition of any regular beats that a reader might expect. Since I see this primarily in genre fiction wherein the readers expect to have some familiarity with the pacing and not say, experimental literary forms, it ends up disrupting any enjoyment you might get.

I'm even going to be so bold as to say that these books are doing are NOT cliffhangers, really. I'd forgive you a cliffhanger in a second or third book. Once you've already secured an audience, you can fuck with them a bit. However, you can't do it before you've proven to them that you can write ONE fully realized narrative.

I just call this a Drop-Off Ending. Some of the problems can be enumerated thusly:

1) For some writers, they think it's easier to just write ONE BIG BOOK instead of three and then chop it into parts. After said dismemberment, they toss it out like chum to the water. 

The problem with the dismemberment technique is that any changes that you need to make to the first third should impact the second and third installment of the series. 

Are you going to be okay with substantially revising each book because you chose to write it this way Or are you going to give your dev editor a thumbs up and send them the next one? Since writers often do this to beat the algorithm and have books come out, they are less inclined to put out their best product and do the revisions necessary between books.

It just seems like a terrible waste of resources in the name of speed. If your first book isn't very good, why do I want to keep reading? You get very few chances as an author to make a first impression on your audience.

2) A number of those books are written as though they don't have any plot to sustain them at all. The author draws out what little plot there is, having the characters piss around, describe the act of walking around a car in minute detail, and eat pancakes multiple times. As a result, very little happens until the end, when a plot FINALLY emerges, picks up, and then ends without any resolution.

This is the most annoying, unsatisfying way to conduct the plot. Moreover, readers can see this behavior as a cash-grab. If you don't want to progress the characters too far because you're working on a slow burn, fine. But why is there no movement on the plot until the end? And then there's no end?

If I'm meant to wait two more books to find out whether you can write a satisfying resolution, I'll just opt out. I can't trust you to end a book, how can I trust you to end a series?

3) It doesn't necessarily have to be this way, but in books like these, I often find serious problems with character progression and development. How does this inhibit character progression? 

The characters are overly reflective, meditating on events, repeating their emotional reactions ad nauseum... until the last 20 minutes when actions start to happen, but then... it's over. So when the Book Two picks up, we're back to the reflecting and thinking and eating pancakes. The character is a bump on a log, waiting for their cue to do something.

These leaves the characters flat and passive and their revelations repetitive. 

4) The last option is the worst to me. What if you had great characters and great character progression? What if I couldn't put it down until the very last page? 

In that case, I'd be even angrier that the author didn't see fit to offer a semblance of an ending. It casts a pall over the previous pages, one that I can't necessarily go back to enjoy again because I'm pissed I spent money on a book you didn't see fit to finish.

Some might be complaining at this point that their readers don't mind. You can't read the review of the person who dropped you a low-star review and noped out on your work forever. Regardless, I've seen one-stars on books specifically because of this "strategy." You don't want that.

Consider, instead, that while you don't have to resolve the Big Plot, you need to consider what the first arc of your series needs to be. What point does each main character need to reach by the end? How far should the main couple have progressed? What is resolved by the end?

After that, what unresolved elements lead into the larger plot? How much farther does the protagonist need to go before they can face the final obstacle? You can look to a number of popular series to recognize how authors will open and close various threads throughout their series. Katniss wins the titular Hunger Games, but the Capitol is still in charge. In V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic, Kell and Delilah save the prince and stop the magical takeover of Red London. Some bad guys are killed, and some will rise in the sequels. 

That's the tension you need to get to the next book. Not "what will happen at the end of this battle I just stopped writing" but "how will my characters resolve their larger internal and external conflicts?"

I'm not going into more detail here because these posts are meant to be short. We might pick up other pacing issues on another day. However, my partner is doing a workshop later in the summer that deals with pacing and plot. It's called Pancakes are Not Plot and will address how to keep tension going throughout.

Bite-Sized Editing Tip: Trends Aren't God

Although I've been running a romantasy class this month, I think it's important for writers to know that just because a genre is trending doesn't mean you have to stop everything and bow to it. I've seen complaints in social media from agents noting that no, not everything is romantasy. 

Obviously, if you have some ideas about whatever is trending, you can give it a shot. Readers are voracious beasts. Once they're hungry for something, it'll be hard to satiate the reading binges for whatever the trend du jour happens to be. However, if you're strictly urban fantasy or paranormal, you want to avoid trying to bend a perfectly functional story out of shape.

Trends come back around. Vampires are making a comeback. And romantasy, trust, existed before the portmanteau. Fantasy readers just didn't have a means by which they could directly indicate a blend of fantasy with a major romance plotline. This means that whatever you actually want to write will probably come back around as well. Thus, creating a strong backlist might be a better choice in the long run, if your offering for romantasy was going to actually be an urban fantasy wearing fairy wings.

If you DO want to try your shot at romantasy, here are few notes on the genre:

1) Look on some online forums where they talk about romantasy. Try Reddit and watch a few Booktubers who list their favorites. Read a few of the recommended books that you might like and fit your brand and style. 

This isn't to COPY but rather to recognize where you might fit and what tropes YOU enjoy enough to sustain you through a writing project.

2) If you aren't used to writing fantasy, take extra care in your worldbuilding. This is where "doing it for the clock app" books fall apart. The worldbuilding is thin. It doesn't make sense. It contradicts itself. 

Consistency is critical in worldbuilding. And fantasy readers expect to be able to get lost in your world.

3) As a consequence of all this worldbuilding, romantasy may have more information to convey to the reader than you're used to if you're not coming in with some fantasy background. Be careful about either dumping too much information or not being clear enough. 

4) Remember also that while romances have trended first person, fantasy has long trended in third person, especially third person with alternating perspectives. Keep this in mind and choose what will help you fully convey your story.

5) Determine the level of spice and romance in your romantasy and make a distinct effort to 1) balance this within your narrative and 2) indicate this to your readers. Books range from the flaming hot to the completely chaste, and not just the YA. 

Everything's fair in love in fairies.

Upcoming Workshops

 It's Midnight at SavvyAuthors in 2024!

... AGAIN

Some of my workshops are brand spanking new. I've added a workshop coming up at the end of April that focuses on worldbuilding and romantasy. July brings us the end of the world (with dystopian and apocalyptic fiction) and way off in November, we'll be talking about monsters. 

Below are the ones you can sign up for now.

Creating Your Wildest Romantasy 04/29/24 - 05/27/24

Now that romantic fantasy has gotten its own portmanteau, there are more opportunities for you to get your stories in front of the hungry romantasy reading public. For both the dedicated fantasy enthusiast as well as those just dipping their toes into the genre, making sure you've built out the wonder of the fantasy side of your romance is important to creating a story that not only serves the love story of your characters but leaves your reader satisfied.

In this workshop, we will start with your characters and build the world outward. We will question what world would've created characters like yours and how the world would in turn shape your characters. We will speculate what your characters' habits and behaviors imply about the world. Finally, we will address how a deeper understanding of the world's dynamics should help create the obstacles and tensions that hinder or drive your characters. 

Sign up before April 22nd for $5 off!

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The End of the World and the Beginning of Your Dystopian Novel 07/1/24 - 7/29/24

After the success of The Hunger Games, publishers and moviemakers were eager to recreate the success with other YA dystopias. However, none had the same kind of cultural impact. This workshop will tackle the issue of writing in dystopian fiction while trying to make your critical take stand out.

In this workshop, we will discuss some of the history of utopia and dystopia, dissect the most critical components of writing a dystopia, and rigorously evaluate how the elements of your dystopia are working towards the important social or political critique that you've intended to highlight in the story alongside your characters' individual arcs.

Sign up before June 24th for $5 off!

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With Ivy Quinn

When Two Authors Are Better Than One 05/27/24-07/01/24

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Stephen King and Peter Straub, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith— Although writing is often a solitary exercise, bringing the strengths of two writers together can be extremely rewarding in a number of ways: You can have a partner in crime, you can highlight your strengths and hide your weaknesses, and you can increase your readership.

In this workshop, we will cover the basics of collaborating, from initial conception through drafting and editing. Learning to use your co-writer as a source of ideas, as well as learning to settle differences of opinion regarding story direction, will be key to your successful novel. Finally, while this workshop will primarily be geared towards structuring and planning the co-writing process, there will be some tips along the way for pantsing-style writers for those who need a more spontaneous approach but want to avoid writing your partner into a corner.

Sign up by May 20th for $5!

2023 Workshops

It's Midnight at SavvyAuthors in 2023

(For those who have taken my workshops before, the following will be similar in content. However, each will include a specific focus and edited lessons and handouts. Further, if you've taken a class with me before and would like to keep developing that project, you can either take this class and ask more specific questions, or elect to sign up for a coaching package.)



How to World-Build through Your Characters 

03/27/23-04/23/23


The process of world-building can go on forever. However, using character as your defining touchpoint in world creation can help to tame your creative impulses and focus them in a way that will make your world feel like a living landscape.

In this course, we’ll discuss how to think about your world-building in a way that will keep it internally consistent. Moreover, you’ll learn strategies to filter your world-building through character and the cause and effect of interaction between the people that live in your world.

Together, we can create worlds that readers won’t want to leave.


Syllabus: This is a four week course that will meet twice per week with discussion and exercises. We will cover the following topics:

• The difference between elements within and without your world
• Using causal ripples to move between character creation and world-building
• Critical questions for creating belief systems and intergroup conflict
• World-building within contemporary settings
• Layering details about your world into your manuscript

Creating Distinct Character Voices

08/07/23-09/03/23


Have you gotten feedback that all of your characters sound the same, or that your characters aren’t distinct? There’s hope!

In this workshop, we split the rendering of character into two parts: Development of character and dialogue/description. First, to craft your characters, you must explore your character as a fully-realized person, and then, you have to put that person down on the page for the readers to experience.


Syllabus: This is a four week course that will meet twice per week with discussion and exercises. We will cover the following topics:

• What is character voice?
• The difference between and purposes of various types of dialogue.
• How to layer distinct details into character personality
• How to depict detail through voice and action
• How to pace and cue dialogue
• How to use conflict to better distinguish character traits

Spinning Gold from Old Yarns: Adapting Fairy Tales and Public Domain Classics into Original Fiction

11/06/2023-12/02/2023

From well-worn fairytales to far flung fantasy, the tradition of drawing from beloved stories to create new and striking iterations has a long history. At the core of this story obsession are familiar tropes and relationship dynamics that keep us coming back to similar stories time and again.

In this class, we will break down some of these tropes and discuss various strategies for spinning your own versions of these yarns and making them golden. Furthermore, throughout the class, we look at case studies of books and occasionally visual media that employ different methods for adapting older stories into an engaging tale that will draw in readers and keep them wanting more.


Syllabus: This is a four week course that will meet roughly twice per week with discussion and exercises. We will cover the following topics:

• How often-retold stories come to “feel true”
• Ways of working with or against “narrative fidelity” in a familiar story: Reinvention, Recreation, Subversion, and Kitchen-Sink
• Making use of emotional resonances within stories from affect saturated symbols and objects
• Familiarizing yourself with major tropes used in fairytales
• Creating a coherent in-narrative world for your adaptation
• Planning your adaptation through structure, theme, and reference

 I offer both standard workshops through discussion-board venues such as SavvyAuthors as well as personalized workshops and author coaching. For the latter, please contact me with your interests, and we'll see how we can best get you on track.

Workshops and Presentations

 I've been doing workshops for some time as my means of engaging with the writing community at large. It seems like the best way for me to do so, since I'm not terribly savvy with social media and I am, let's face it, incredibly awkward in person. 

Recently, I did my first "talk" instead of a workshop. This was the Worldcrafting presentation with Central Valley Fiction Writers. We'd attempted to get together for a workshop, and I do think that world-building as a topic deserves that level of attention. However, at the time they scheduled my workshop, they couldn't garner enough interest to make it worth the students paying. I tend to agree. While I enjoy workshops, I also don't want people to pay for something that they aren't going to get something out of. 

This talk brought about my first use of Zoom for presenting, as well as my first "live" discussion of writing with other writers in a professional setting. That is, outside just chatting with my other aspiring author friends. Along with it came no small amount of impostor syndrome. I've not had as much time to write my own fiction, due to working on finishing my degree, and therefore, I felt a little like... who am I to tell other people how to think about worldbuilding? They've written books! And published them! Meanwhile, the only fiction publication I had going for me was in an anthology, with my diligent co-author, and it has since been taken from Amazon. Boo.

Regardless, I found the attendees to be engaged and very interested. They rolled with the terms I have created for understanding the parts of world-building a bit better. And afterward, we opted to, instead of doing activities like in a workshop, just talk. This was helpful in that the attendees could get a second clarification on my schema. I'm a bit abstract sometimes, and I'm glad ultimately helped them mentally encompass the differences between moves we make as writers while creating. It also allowed for the attendees to talk about parts of their projects, ask questions and get ideas, and create a bit of a wishlist for things they would like to create for authors, if they had the time or money. 

Needless to say, in spite of my anxiety regarding speaking... It worked rather well. I'd do it again. And I might consider it in lieu of creating another workshop, if I can get the audience. That's definitely in the works, the workshops. However, since Ivy and I pulled away from the RWA for all the reasons, it's harder to commit in that way. 

Upcoming, Ivy and I have planned to take the co-writing workshop and simply turn it into a book. While it was often a requested workshop, it was never one we got much interaction for. I'm not shocked. It's hard to know what to ask, unless you happen to be taking the workshop together. We figure, an e-book at maybe $5 a pop would be more worth people's hard earned (and potentially able to be written off on taxes) dollars.

Things like character development and point of view, though... Things like worldbuilding and adaptation and subverting trope... It's just more fun in a group? I understand why people tend to drop out of workshops. We're all busy. But the interaction is the reason you're paying to spend any time with me. 

I may do another post, or a static page with some handouts, for the terminology I've invented for understanding worldbuilding. Until then, I know this month's speaker is Ivy Quinn, who is, frankly, awesome. And a lot more focused than I am, let's be honest.

Check it out and sign up here:

September 10th: “Short but Sweet: How to Write Novellas Quickly and Efficiently”

Music Round-Up: Jan-Feb 2020

In the past week, a lot of high profile music has dropped, but life isn’t all Swift and Gaga. Since the beginning of the year, women artists have been putting it out there, and it’s worth our time to see what they’re up to. Originally, I was only going to review the videos dropped in the past two weeks, but I wanted to throw a larger net and catch Sa-Roc, so I just made it a broader stretch of time.

Keep in mind that I’m not the target audience for anyone, and no artist is under obligation to market to me anyway. However, I don’t want these artists to go unnoticed, and once I got started making notes for them, I figured I should do it for everyone.

Rapsody, “Afeni”

Laid over a clear narrative of a black women finding out that she’s pregnant and not getting any support from her partner, Rapsody spits bars on a very direct message asking black men to treat black women better and not project their self-hatred imposed by a racist society onto them. One of the most lucid social commentaries to come out lately, no one can claim they don’t get what Rapsody is on about or that she’s coming out of nowhere. Socially conscious rap ftw.

Furthermore, I’ll say that while I don’t always appreciate the “featured” on women rappers’ tracks, PJ Morton’s vocals blend pretty seamlessly into Rapsody’s work here. Nicely done.

Sa-Roc, “Hand to God”

Sa-Roc is a freakin’ flow MASTER. I don’t know how else to describe it. She rhymes Dracula with octopi without skipping a beat. Coming up after “Forever,” which got a lot of attention and analysis from people who actually know what they’re talking about when it comes to rap, and “Goddess Gang,” which is heart-pumping killer anthem, this track has the mellow of “Forever,” but expounds on a smaller message within one of its verses. Throughout the video for “Hand to God,” Sa-Roc is being posed and bound up, buried and thrown away, and praying before candles, trying to keep from becoming a plastic, fake rapper or pushed out of the game, trying to convince her audience that she is and always has been the real deal and she’s come too far to ever give up.

She’s so tremendously good that it’s hard for me to understand why Sa-Roc isn’t considered the best rapper in the game, and yet here we are. She’ll be going on tour with Rapsody, for which I’m grateful. I snatched up this track as soon as I saw it!

Snow tha Product, “Perico”

This video makes me feel like I’ve had three glasses of wine and some shrooms. And I don’t speak enough Spanish to follow what she’s saying. It seems like a pretty standard brag track: She’s better than those pencil-dicked rappers over there, or something like that. It is just REALLY fun to listen to.

I’ll do a list of tracks that are tight later, but one of my current favs from her is “Butter,” in which she raps about how she’s more interested in getting girls than taking your man, and there’s a break in which some guys come over and won’t believe that she’s out with her girlfriend trying to get home to have some fun. ;)

Taylor Swift, “The Man”

Tay-Tay’s take on Bey’s “If I Was a Boy,” except she takes it in a different direction, by going full drag king to become Tyler Swift and directing the video herself. Ty-Ty is a steam-roller of toxic masculinity, flashing dollars on a stripper, fistbumping only the men in the room, and manspreading all over the subway. Then pissing graffiti onto the wall.

The track itself is kind of catchy, although not as emotionally arresting as “IFWAB” (song and video). It’s pretty standard Swift fare in beat and lyricism. In fact, without the gimmick of the video and the message, it would be forgettable. I won’t be hearing it as I’m going about my day. However, the lyrics pretty strongly reflect some the stupider criticisms that Swift has dealt with during her career. For example, complaining that she writes about her exes and dates too much. Is that not pretty much the topic for most pop musicians?

Other gripes, about how people would let her succeed without constantly questioning whether she deserves it, come a bit close to self-pity and myopia, but are fairly relatable to most women, especially in regards to the way women-led media are often heavily criticized before even coming out. (This sort of ignores how women of color get it but… moving on.) Regardless, unlike some songs like “Bad Blood” or “Look What You Made Me Do,” the tone is not angry, but wistful. All in all, I liked “Bad Blood” better.

Kesha, “High Road”

Coming out after some absolutely ethically bankrupt court decisions, Kesha’s “High Road” celebrates moving on from assholes by um, I guess going to have a party out in the desert at an abandoned waterpark in the desert. There’s shots of wildlife and at one point… chickens. At one point she’s in a Miss America crown sitting in the back of a pick up filled with the balls from a ball pit.

Okay. I’m not wild about this video. It’s kind of messy and all over the place. That may be the aesthetic they were going for, fallen Miss America/outsiders. But whatever. I really enjoy the song itself. In a way, Kesha is not as inclined as Swift to just put out song after song about herself, even though her latest tracks suggest she’s been compelled to comment on all of the press surrounding these events, or at least use her music to process some of it. “My Own Dance” does this more so (while still being fun), and “Praying” very famously did in a raw way. This track is a good mix between commenting on her new direction as an artist and the kind of songs people can enjoy and have fun with which she has always said she wanted to do.

All in all, I think both strategies are worthwhile, and Kesha is underrated.

Lady Gaga, “Stupid Love”

“Born this Way” and “Perfect Illusion” joined a thruple with “Edge of Glory” and gave birth “Stupid Love,” a bouncy pop track that cries out to be loved, dammit. If the sound didn’t give you enough bubblegum, Gaga wears pink top to bottom in the video, including her wigs.

The concept is that the world is overcome by division, and while others passively pray to make things better, the “Kindness Punks” fight for it. So they dance battle in the middle of a wasteland, trying to make things better. It’s like if Fury Road became a musical.

The positives of the song are that, in spite sounding a mash-up of Gaga’s early work, the messages of love, shedding shame, letting people see you, and protecting yourself from pain via love are decent. And sounding like a mash-up of Gaga’s early work… it does evoke a lot of nostalgia. This song will be in your head forever, and I’m sure it was designed specifically to be an anthem for gay and young people in the way her earlier works were.

(Doesn’t mean I don’t wish we could get more experimental works from her. Sometimes, I think I’m the only person who liked Artpop.)

The video has a lot of movement and reads clearly as a concept, but it isn’t terribly deep. There was a time when I waited to see the next one because there so many layers of symbolism, and since then, Janelle Monae has far surpassed her in the futurism department for videos. In the end: I expected more?

Doja Cat, “Say So“

While everyone else is jacking off to 80s nostalgia, Doja Cat takes us all the way back to the 70s, complete with period outfits and fonts, and cinematography mimicking home videos from the time. And of course, by the end of the video, they head out to the disco. In interviews, she describes the choice as something she built up from the song, so it really was a sharp way to make her video completely cohesive with her song.

Apart from the visuals (which are just… neat), I really enjoy the smooth vocal of the main hook in contrast with the bars that Doja throws into the middle of the track. It’s infinitely re-listenable.

In short: Sa-Roc, autobuy. Kesha and Doja have extremely enjoyable tracks, and Rapsody continues to queen. Okay song and video from Gaga, but I’m expecting more from the next releases. Swift is… Swift. In pants.