duckprintspress

“Aim For The Heart” Cover Reveal!

We are only SIX DAYS out from our next Kickstarter, launching on June 15th, 2023, so what better time than now for a cover reveal!!

AIM FOR THE HEART: QUEER FANWORKS INSPIRED BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS’S THE THREE MUSKETEERS is an all-new anthology of queer works of fiction and art, including 20 stories, 19 full-page grayscale art works, and a 12 page comic! This gorgeous collection is printed A4 size – 8.25 in. by 11.75 in, or 21 cm x 30 cm. It is absolutely full of all the melodrama, laughs, and feels of the source material – just much, much queerer!

We are SO EXCITED to finally share our spectacular cover with you, featuring the gorgeous work of the incomparable Pallas Perilous (Tumblr | Twitter).

You’ll be able to get this book for as little as $15, and higher-level packages include the book in print, a bookmark, an enamel key chain, a magnet of the cover art, and our newest dux sticker! We’re also offering scads of add-ons, including an exclusive opportunity to get some of the few remaining print copies of our first Queer Fanworks Inspired By… anthology, And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” You can learn more about the backer levels, merch, pricing, and add-ons by reading our FAQ.

Make sure you don’t miss your chance to back this awesome collaborative project! FOLLOW OUR KICKSTARTER PAGE NOW!

And – people who support us on Patreon and back the crowdfunding campaign will get an EXCLUSIVE EXTRA MAGNET! So if you love what we do, this is a great time to become a monthly backer!

Who We Are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. We help fancreators publish their original (mostly queer) work! Want to always hear the latest? Sign up for our monthly newsletter!

ombreblossom

This anthology has such a great breadth of excellent writing in it, and I can’t wait for others to start reading it!

The Kickstarter begins on June 15th, and you can set up an email notification to remind you if you click through the link above.

Thank you, everyone!

abalonetea

my writing fundamentally changed forever ten years ago when i realized you could use sentence structure to control people’s heart rates. is this still forbidden knowledge or does everyone know it now

dreamtofswallowingcoins

??????
*raises hand* I’ve been writing for years and don’t know this trick by these words!
do tell?

abalonetea

Okay, so a few people have asked for me to cite the dark magics at them, and i’m super happy to share because it’s my favorite thing ever. 

so, let’s see if i can explain this the same way that i learned. read a sentence out loud. you come to a full stop when you hit the period, and you take a normal, breath. but, when you hit a comma, you take a slightly longer pause. and when you hit a dash - you take an even longer pause. 

this is a natural rhythm that we pick up when we’re first taught to read; we do it without even thinking. but when you start to think about it, you realize that it can become a tool.

think of your heartbeat. a period is badump. a comma is badump-dump. and a dash is thump badump. one breath. a longer breath. two breaths.

that means what you read automatically affects the rhythm of your breathing and your heartrate. which means that you can control the amount of physical tension your reader feels… by altering your punction and your sentence structure.

for fast paced scenes, you use short sentences. a lot of hard stops. mostly periods, with just a few comma’s thrown in for the full breath. your reader’s heartrate accelerates. their breathing is slightly and unintentionally, on their end, quicker. you hit the dramatic ending of the scene - and your reader’s body phsyically feels the gasp, the breath of fresh air, of these longer sentences.

now, read that paragraph again ant take note of your natural pauses, and how it subtly affects your breathing. 

the same thing can be said of comma’s and dashes. while they can be used as a breath of fresh air, they can also cause a new line of tension as they lead your reader to hold their breath. during this section, you should use longer sentences; breaking up the harshness of the pauses by using variations of punction. read this paragraph out loud from the start and take note of how long you go between pauses and full breaths. 

and then, comes the biggest trick.

the hard stop.

the paragraph.

because while the periods, commas, and dashes are variations on a short stop, the paragraph is a hard stop. you take a full breath. you pause for a moment, then move to the start of the next paragraph.

which means you can create an entirely new sort of dramatic tension. read the sentences that are in bold. see how you take a naturally longer pause at the end of each paragraph?

see how it makes you feel? 

how it makes you breath different? 

how doing it once, twice, or three times creates a different line of tension? 

this little magic trick can be used to cause a reader’s heartrate to speed up during a fight or chase scene. it can be used to cause their breathing to slow down during moments of dramatic tension, sorrow, or softness. and it can be used to create hard breaks that add a new level of physically felt emphasis to your written work.

i hope these examples make sense! it’s my favorite writing trick!

forget-me-not-semicolon

🩷🩷🩷

duckprintspress

Celebrate the End of May by Meeting Us!!

The US is celebrating Memorial Day this weekend, and all around the northern hemisphere, we’re enjoying the warming weather and the end of a lovely May!

And what better way to enjoy the end of the month than getting your book on?

For only the second time ever, people involved with Duck Prints Press – the independent press founded by fandom folks to publish the original work of fancreators, with an emphasis on works featuring LGBTQIA+ characters – will be attending cons and book events to (officially and unofficially) share more information about the Press!

Interested in learning more by meeting folks involved with the Press? Well, if you’re going to either of these events this weekend, you can!

The Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, Wales, UK

Rachael L. Young, Press staff editor, will be attending The Hay Festival today, tomorrow, and Sunday! We have no official presence at the Festival, but you’ll know Rachael by her awesome Press swag, including several of our books, our pins, our bookmarks, and this amazing Dux tote bag she got custom printed! If you see her, stop by and say hi – and don’t forget to grab one of our business cards before you leave!

-

Balticon, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Author Tris Lawrence is attending Balticon tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday, where she’ll be promoting her own work and her work with the Press, including participating in multiple panels and doing a reading from her novel Commit to the Kick. She’s also got several of our anthologies for you to take a look at, a pile of business cards, the last unsold print copies of the first print run of Commit to the Kick (we’ve got a reprint in the works, though…) and the debut of our first-ever entirely free Duck Prints Press zine, assembled by author and editor Alec J. Marsh!

Want to meet Tris? Here’s her panel schedule:

• Sunday 11:30am – Spear Carriers and Background Characters
• Sunday 2:30pm – Works I Wasn’t Ready to Write
• Sunday 4:00pm – How to succeed as an ND (NeuroDiverse) creative
• Sunday 5:30pm – Reading (with Elektra Hammond)
• Monday 11:30am – Small press or self-publish?

If you’re going to either of these events, we really hope to meet you there!

Not able to attend either of these events? You’ll have other chances! We’re still fleshing out our 2023 convention schedule, but we know for sure we’ll have people – and tables! – at these events:

NordCon, Hamburg, Germany – June 2nd – 4th: Alessa Riel and possibly other German Press folks will be attending NordCon! We’ll have a table there, along with cards, stickers, and some other fun freebies.

FlameCon, New York City, New York, USA – August 12th – 13th: we might be attending FlameCon! We are on the waitlist for a small table, and if we’re able to get a table, we’ll be there with bells on (possibly literally). If not, we’ll skip this year, but we’re definitely going to try to make it next year!

FandomFest, Schenectady, New York, USA – August 26th – 27th: I (Nina Waters/unforth), Tris Lawrence, Catherine E. Green, Shea Sullivan, Willa Blythe, Nova Mason, and possibly other Press authors and contributors will be attending this convention, local to where the Press is based! We’ll have a vending table with merch and books for sale, and we’ll also be hosting a panel about transitioning from writing fanfiction to original fiction. We’ll post more about that, including scheduling, once the con organizers formally announce the schedule.

Albacon, Albany, New York, USA – September 8th – 10th: Tris Lawrence and I will be at Albacon in Albany, and we’ll be vending too! We don’t yet know about panels and readings, but we’re definitely looking to get involved. When the event is closer, we’ll absolutely be sharing more information.

We’re looking to expand our con attendance in the future, so be on the look out! And if you know a local con you think would suit us, do let us know!

What about y’all – attending any fun cons or book-related events this summer?

unforth

if for some reason you've ever wanted to meet me, FandomFest and Albacon this summer are your best bet... just sayin'...

nonsensicalghosts

“denied the catharsis of punishment” is an underappreciated but hugely effective narrative consequence imo 

unabashedlyseveresandwich

#it’s so tasty and it comes in so many flavors#does the character self-loathe and feel anguished by what others intended as an act of forgiveness and grace?#does the character know they need to change but sort of madly wish they could trade the unceasing exhausting improvement journey#for a flash bang of slate-clearing repentance so they don’t have to *think* about it anymore?#is is a creeping horror as the character realizes no one is going to punish them because everyone else still thinks what they did was okay?#does the character have to live the rest of their life just feeling ever so slightly untrusted by everyone with no way to stop it?#sorry for leaving pretentious tags on tumblr dot com it will happen again 

Peer-reviewed tags by @annabelle–cane

isabellaofparma

‘don’t you want your favourite character to be happy???’ no? i want my favourite character to be interesting. i want me to be happy. which sometimes involves my favourite character being in exquisite agony

shirouogaymi

rb with whether people assume you’re older or younger than your actual age

saintjosie

i’m 32 but people tend to think that i’m as young as my early 20s

scenesandscreens

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

Director - Hayao Miyazaki, Cinematography - Koji Shiragami, Yukitomo Shudo, Yasuhiro Shimizu & Mamoru Sugiura