The Five Most Commonly Used Writerly Abbreviations (that make me want to barf my cookies into a plastic bag)

Good evening, Cyberspace!

Today I am here–in my full pixie glory–with a deliciously spontaneous smudge for you all!

Because who am I if I am not both delicious and spontaneous?

my soul is made of cookie crumbles. obviously I am delicious.

Now, it has been a constant thought brewing in the back of my marshmallow mind that there is a remarkably wonderful community of writer-bloggers out there in the world–some of which I have had the amazing opportunity to communicate with through my own smol blog–and it finally occurred to me that there are two things in the bloggerly world that never seem to be addressed:

1. There is absolutely no name for the writer-blogging community, which is–if you ask me–severely lame-o. (book bloggers have a name, for pineapple’s sake. WHY SHAN’T WE???)
2. The abbreviations that writers use in comment sections, actual posts, twitter, Instagram, real-life converstations, etc. are UTTERLY CONFUSING AND MAKE ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to the common mortal. Or even me. And I’m a writer. (you know. in case you didn’t already know this.)

But seriously. When I was new to the writer-blogger (WE SERIOUSLY NEED A NAME, GUYS) community, I was severely confused by all of the strange abbreviations being hurtled at my face like a freshly buttered bagel.

that made no sense and I am keeping it

And I’ll be brutally honest here–most of these (with a few minor exceptions) continued to confuzzle my brain until I finally gave in and asked my very knowledgeable and arrogant friend known as The Internet.

And if these strange little abbreviations confused me (a writer [in case you forgot in the past two seconds]), then I can only imagine what they are doing to the fluffy little minds of non-writers.

Although, if you’re not a writer, I’m not exactly sure why you’d be reading this blog as all I talk about is writing and reading and writing and paper. But hey. Perhaps you’re here for the cookies and sarcasm. If this is the case, you may carry on undisturbed, my good sir.

Anyway, today I shall be compiling a list for you (shocking, I know) of all the strange and confusing abbreviations that I have stumbled across in both my writing and blogging careers.

And to those of you who are currently suffering under the extreme amount of embarrassment that I felt whilst not knowing what these strange little jumble of letters mean when you’re supposed to be a writer–this list is for you.

Believe me. I know from personal experience how terrifying it is to read something that is obviously writing-related, but you just let your bulging eyes skim over it again and again and it makes absolutely no sense to the point where you really just want to ask “WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????”, but you don’t want to seem like an idiot, so you just sit there in front of your screen, blinking at the word that can’t possibly be a real word and suffering a horrible death of introvertedness and pain.

And so, in order to save both you and your dignity from this most treacherous fate, here is my list of writerly abbreviations that make absolutely no sense whatsoever–

— Abbreviation One – WIP —

Now, this one is actually sort of self-explanatory. WIP stands for ‘Work In Progress’. Pretty simple, right?

Of course it is. But where in the world did this even come from?

Is it supposed to be a pun on how painful writing is, like a thorned whip digging into our flesh?

Did someone just decide that they were going to whip their current manuscript around their head so that hopefully it would take off like a helicopter?

Who knows.

— Abbreviation Two – MS —

No. This does not stand for Multiple Sclerosis, which is actually something that my grandma had before she passed away a few years ago. At least, this is not what it means in the writerly world.

In the writerly world, this little number means ‘Manuscript‘.

Because this obviously makes perfect sense.

Perhaps some smarty-patooty person just wanted to shorten it to the first letter of each part of the word. However, if this be the case, could they please explain to me what a ‘Manu’ is, for now I am highly intrigued.

— Abbreviation Three – MC —

Ah, yes. Unlike our friend, Mr. MS up there, this particular abbreviation does not stand for ‘Manucrypt‘, which is a very unfortunate turn of events, if you ask me.

Instead, MC stands for ‘Main Character’, which is perhaps rather obvious to the mortal human. If someone is talking about how their MC has a severe chocolate addiction, or the fact that their MC does not know how to wear socks without first cracking their toe-knuckles, you can probably guess that MC stands for their main character.

However.

This is not where this particular abbreviation ends.

Oh no.

— Abbreviation Four – MMC —

Now, if MC stands for Main Character, then obviously MMC stands for the Main Main Character. 

Or the M&M Character.

Or the Mmmmm, this person smells like a cookie character.

BUT NO. Because these pathetic mortals refuse to seek my personal opinions on such delicate matters, we are left with an actual definition that is both uncreative and also quite grammatically incorrect.

The Male Main Character.

And before you roll your eyes at me and say, “Obviously it is MAIN MALE Character, Kenzie. Fix your grammar, please, you uncultured swine,” allow me to thrust this steaming crumpet at your face–

— Abbreviation Five – FMC —

And before your eyes light up with maniacal glee, my dear peasant, allow me to crush your bubble and say that this does not, in fact, stand for the Final Main Character, which would be quite convenient for books such as my own in which there can and will be only one survivor.

*initiate creepy chipmunk laughter*

Alas. Despite the fact that having an abbreviation for Final Main Character would help give my poor smol inventions a will to survive, this is not what FMC stands for.

Nor does it stand for FM Radio Station Character. (which obviously makes more sense than any other possibility)

No no, my dear bean. This particular abbreviation means Female Main Character, and, as you can see, this blows every theory surrounding Main Male Character out of the salty waters of my confused tears.

Because not only is my brain spinning from such a glaringly annoying flaw in syntax, but also because of how confusing all of these similar abbreviations are when sprinkled throughout an unnecessarily long paragraph.

And once the writer begins to go in depth about their characters’ lives–all while blatantly refusing to give us either A) the characters’ actual names, or B) a name placeholder in lieu of their actual names, every single ounce of normalcy and sanity that I have accumulated over the past 3,948 years gets tossed to the wind as the following nightmare is vomited across my page–

“My FMC was trying to persuade my MMC to go get ice cream TASTYTREAT13, but my MMC doesn’t even like TASTYTREAT13, so my MMC told my FMC that they didn’t want to get TASTYTREAT13, and instead suggested to my FMC that they go get a pizza FOODSUBSTANCE63, but my FMC’s BFF thought that my MMC was being too pushy, so my FMC and their BFF&EGOI decided to brutally murder my MMC with a SHARPOBJECT99, and now my MMC is lying in a dumpster behind Coney Island BUILDING42 and I don’t know what to do because my MMC was supposed to bake my FMC a cake TASTYTREAT15 for her 23rd birthday, but now he’s dead, so I don’t know how to continue with my WIP MS MC MMC FMC ASDDLDKFJDLFDJSDDFLKDSFSDFLKDJF…”

Do you understand my pain? Do you?

DO YOU??

And why even have FMC‘s and MMC‘s in the first place? What happens if you decide to forego the annoying relationship stigma that is found in every single novel since Romeo and Juliet and choose instead to write a post-apocalyptic tale of two young boys who get abducted by aliens, only to discover that they were the actual aliens?

WHAT THEN?

The answer is simple. Obvious. Not confusing at all.

We begin numbering them.

Because having an MMC1, MMC2, MMC3, and FMC is obviously SO much easier than saying Timmy, Ichabod, Charles Benedict, and Martha the Intergalactic Saleswoman.

Obviously.

And thus, in conclusion, I have relinquished unto you the definitions and origins of some of the most complex abbreviations known to the mortal man. You now know how to decode a writer-blogger’s posts.

You’re welcome.

But before I go, I would like to leave you with a single question, my dear readers:

If we can look at the above example of the horror that is writerly abbreviations and actually have our brain meats understand such complex coding…THEN WHY IN THE WORLD CAN WE NOT HAVE A NAME FOR THE WRITER-BLOGGER COMMUNITY?

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Well, that’s all I’ve got for today, Cyberspace! What do y’all think? Can you name any other writerly abbreviations that you’ve seen floating around in the Swirling Vortex of Infinite Insanity? (I pretty much exhausted my abbreviation vocabulary in this list, so GIVE ME MORE, PEASANTS!) Have you ever had to decode a complex paragraph full of the MC’s and WIP’S? Did you have fun decoding MINE? What do you think SHARPOBJECT99 is??? Have you eaten a biscuit in the past thirty days? Let us discuss ALL OF THE THINGS down in the comments below!

Until the seven suns rise again…

*flings cookies in the air and disappears*

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