Writers of the Revolution, April 5th

Featured by doughboycafe

VFreie's writing has two standout traits; their historical fiction is in-depth and carefully researched, and it's good. Often they take smaller battles or lesser known historical events and then tells us a story, letting the history unfold without an infodump, and making it live and breathe for us. Usually coupled with information or links in the artist's comment area, the stories are well researched and often serve as a stepping stone for readers to take greater interest in the topic.

But it's always story first, history second. What you get from VFreie is never a text book, always a tale, an interaction, a meaningful take away from fully realized characters with unique mindsets and motivations.

Read on and you'll see what I mean.


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Butcher Billy

" I thought William had fallen asleep; as for me, I couldn't. I had missed touching him. I tried to be as delicate as possible, but his hand stopped mine over his collarbone.

"I smell like a butcher," he said."

What is so impressive about VFreie's work is that it covers so much of a topic in one go. Often, they write about war, but this piece is an example of how careful they are in crafting the story. While the central focus is on a Captain and his wife, the effects of the war on the civilians, the land, the surrounding towns, is subtly but accurately in the text. It is constant. It makes us remember that war touches soldiers first but everyone in its turn.

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An Echo Within

" Others should've stayed put and forgotten, his feet treading up a stony hill and brambles tearing at his coat, his voice screaming to get at the bloody rebels, get at them for God's sake, something in the tone that was like a laughter."

Some of layinthedead:'s short pieces sound lyrical, and this is a good example of that. In an artfully done flashback, a Captain falls in battle and relives several moments that mix together with the present fluidly and naturally, capturing the character's delirium perfectly.

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Parting Gift

" There always is something to save, the doctrine teaches. But, here's a secret of the confession: I am a philosophe at heart, therefore I dislike the doctrine."

A lot of VFreie's material is dark, but I would not say it is dark in terms of horror, only that it never shies away the uglier parts of human kind. VFreie crafts characters with realistic intentions and feelings, even if they are not fit for a Sunday afternoon special. But, that doesn't make them villainous. VFreie always does a good job of giving us balanced characters who make bad choices for bad reasons without being wholly evil.


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This is a Beginning

"My best friend was in Spain. During the civil war, in the thirties. I forgot where exactly, so... So. Do you want geography? For all you care and all I know of Spain, let's say Catalonia."

This piece was hard hitting and definitely one of my favorites by layinthedead:. It is a less common topic for English language military fiction, and it is done well, giving us a powerful scene, one we can imagine could have been true, in a short vignette. It is admirable in that most of the story, or at least the consequences created by the story, are all implied, but they are not vague; we get a very clear understanding of a great and terrible topic that is just under the surface of what is actually written.

We VFreie

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on A Counted Blessing by H0lyShitttt

I'm a prose writer and you should keep that in mind, though I've written lots of lit crit on poetry, too. I would capitalize the "c" in the title, even though it's part of the word play you mention (I'd say so), because it's equally important as the other words there. This work is carefully done and so it's effective in the way you want it be.
[Read more here]

on where there's smoke by quantumponies

i often cringe when people write about topics like mental disorders because - on top of it being a terribly personal and sensitive topic - the piece either borders on glamorization, cliche, or so focused on the subject that the poetry is lost. this, however, worked really well, i think.

[Read more here]

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Only one resource this time around because actually, this is one of many well written, exemplary articles on basic writing, and all are worth a writer's time to read. You can find the link to the whole series in the artist's comment of this article.

English 101: Sentence BasicsBreaking Down a Sentence
Just like any language, English sentences are formed of a subject and a predicate. The subject is the person or object doing something. Subjects are always nouns: people, places, or things. The predicate is formed of the action taking place, and any objects the action is happening to, called the direct object.
I punched my brother.
In this sentence, "I" is the subject, the noun that is doing something. The rest of the sentence, "punched my brother", is the predicate. The verb here is "punched", and the direct object (the one getting punched) is "my brother".
With me so far?
Required or Optional?
The pieces of a sentence described above, the subject and predicate are required for any complete sentence. It can be as simple as "I yelled" or as complex as you can make it--"I ran forward and punched my brother in the face, breaking his nose." But the noun (I) and the verb (yelled, ran) are required.
So what's not requi