Chapter Endings and Jokes that don't Land

I recently read a blog post from BookFox, in which they categorized twelve different kinds of chapter endings.  They gave an example of such a chapter ending for each of their categories, which was illuminating.  It's worth reading, and I'm not going to repeat what they said.  Instead, I'm going to talk about what I got from it. 

Namely, however you end a chapter should have some pull to draw the reader further into the story.  A cliff hanger is the obvious one, but there was also ending in a question or a mystery or having someone enter the scene who you know will carry forward the action in the next chapter. 

On the other hand, the end can be a breath, or a moment of pause, and that's fine as long as the rest of the chapter sets up action pushing the reader forward.  Let's say something very exciting happened in the chapter, but then the chapter ends with a description or a character moment or reminds you of the main themes.  It's fine to take that pause because the reader is propelled through it and into the next chapter.  I found that to be a relief, because I find it exhausting to ready when every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, and even more exhausting to repeatedly write cliffhangers.  I'm reminded of feeling manipulated while reading The Divinci Code.  I'm reminded of getting bored reading weekly Shōnen manga, that attempt to have to have a cliffhanger or a reveal at the end of every issue.  The issues are so short that there are hundreds of reveals and therefore they all blur together until none of them are important.

But the main take away I got from this blog post was that I could go through the chapter endings in my novel and identify what I was trying to do in each one.  It gave me a vocabulary.  And with that vocabulary, I was able to pin-point what was going wrong with the endings that felt weak.

There are four chapter endings that I'm unsatisfied with.  In all four of them, I try to end on a joke that doesn't land.

Keep in mind, a lot of my jokes do land, and make for great chapter endings.  As pointed out in the chapter ending blog post, a good joke can elicit an emotional response that will connect your reader to the work so that they carry on reading.  Jokes can also be surprising, which can draw a reader along.  There are several good jokes in this novel (as far as I'm concerned).  And the ones that weren't working are good jokes that I hadn't set up to be "chapter ending jokes."  They aren't set up so they end in a cymbal sting.  They're set up like jokes thrown in during a longer dialogue.  I need to recenter the conversation leading up to them so that the conversation actually leads up to them.

If you have chapters, I encourage you to try this exercise, because it's a good one.

Characterization through a Lens

Spring Fling, a conference for the Chicago North Romance Writers of America, was the other weekend.  I didn't know about it, but a friend of mine attended virtually and had nothing but rave reviews about it.  Since it was virtual, participants got to see every presentation and panel, instead of having to chose to fit a schedule.  That sounds very very cool. 

"I'm so smart now," she told my critique group.  "I learned about tension and character arcs and--Oh!  There was this thing!" She dug into her copious notes, which shows better than anything what a great time she had.  "Okay," she explained, "so you can assign every character a movement."

There's a theory from anatomy and kinesiology called Laban Movement, created by a dance choreographer.  He said that any human movement has four parts: Direction, Weight, Speed, and Flow.  Each of these can is on a polarity: Direction is either direct or indirect, weight is either heavy or light, speed is either quick or sustained, and flow is either bound or free.  Or, as Wikipedia explains it: Both punching someone in anger or reaching for a glass are done by extending the arm.   But the strength of the movement, the control of the movement and the timing of the movement are different.  So basically, there end up being eight broad categories of movement:  Float, Punch, Glide, Slash, Dab, Wring, Flick, and Press.

Now you can assign each character a characteristic motion.  This character who is direct is a Punch Guy.  This anxious dude is a Wring Guy.  Then if you write your character through this lens, their physical stances and their motions will set them apart from one anther.  This will also trickle into their dialogue, because a Flick Person and a Float Person will speak differently.  Then it will affect their thoughts and motivations.  Looking at your characters through this lens will color every aspect of their characterization.

I think this is a helpful thing to think about.  Not because I believe there are eight type of people.  That rings of explaining everything you do through the lens of your astrological sign or your Myers-Briggs type, which I generally find reductive.  But I think this could be helpful because 1. it is descriptive enough to be an easy visualization to keep your characters from all sounding and acting the same.  And 2. if you keep referring back to this lens, it can keep your characters on target and in character.

A while back, a friend of mine was trying to explain a theory that I now see is remarkably similar: every character is a color and the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) are aspects of a character that I have now forgotten.  I think red was active and blue was thoughtful, so a red person acted before they thought and a blue person thought very hard but never acted and a purple person would both think and act.  My friend then proceeded to tell me that the main character of my story was red, and I got a bit miffed, decided this framework was unhelpful, and didn't think of it again until now.

But now, I'm working on revisions for a novel, and I'm reading through and constantly asking myself "What does this scene have to do with this central theme?  How can I bring the theme out in this section?  How can I tie it all back together?"  It's kind of like I'm looking at my whole novel through a lens and making sure everything lines up and stays on target.  And suddenly these methods of forming a character through a lens make more sense to me.

It doesn't matter what lens you look through: movement types; elements like water, air, fire, and earth; or even zodiac sign.  Simply having a lens, even if you only use it during one round of revision and not through the entire writing process, can be useful.  Just coming back to one central visualization, one solid idea throughout a story can pull things tighter and cut out extraneous bits that wander away from the point you're trying to make or the idea you're trying to express.

Am I a Failure?

This was previously posted on the Chicago Writer's Association Write City Blog.

***

“Mama. I have a question. Four plus six is ten.”

I stare at my four-year-old son for several beats before I say, “That’s right,” and then ask, “Was that a question?”

He trots off. I turn back to my Word document. What was I doing?

Right, I’m doing revisions on my novel. There’s an important theme at the end that isn’t fleshed out well enough at the beginning, so I’m reading through and looking for opportunities to make it more prominent. Several of those opportunities involve adjusting the world-building, so I need to hold it all in my head enough to make sure I don’t contradict myself later.

“Mama.”

“I’m working, sweetheart.”

“I have a question. When caterpillars’ skin gets too small, they build a cocoon.”

I have no idea if that’s how that works. “Okay. Can you go play by yourself?”

He trots off. I open my homeschooling document and add a note that we need to talk about what questions are.

Okay, what was I doing?

Just before the Illinois shelter-in-place order, I launched season six of my short story podcast, meaning I had to write, record and edit audio in order to put out an episode a week for the next few months. I was also outlining in preparation for writing a second draft of a novel for Camp National Novel Month in April. And then I heard back from my agent with what I hope will be the last round of revisions before we begin submitting another novel. Things were busy, yet hopeful. Fulfilling.

And then Covid-19 hit.

In addition to my writing, I’m CFO of a small not-for-profit, which had to close its doors in March. I’m scrambling to maintain payroll while we’re bringing in less income, and I’ve taken over responsibilities I don’t usually have in an effort to keep our more at-risk employees at home. Meanwhile, on top of his full-time job, my husband has a teaching position at the University of Chicago this quarter, which is suddenly all online with pre-recorded videos and extra office hours over Zoom. Both of our workloads have doubled.

All that, and we have no childcare.

“Mama, I need a Band-Aid.”

Suspiciously, I ask, “Why?”

“No reason. Don’t look at my foot.” He tries to hide his torn toenail behind some blocks. I wrap his toe in a pikachu Band-Aid, and he tells me all about pikachu.

No work is getting done.

I cling to my writing. Should I only do eight episodes of the podcast instead of twelve? No, people have told me that they’re looking forward to the distraction, and consistently putting out content helps my brand. Should I not do Camp NaNo? That would throw off my whole timeline for this novel. Should I write to my agent and tell her that the revisions that are so close I can taste them—the revisions about to launch my career—will have to wait? Because I’m busy? Absurd.

How could I possibly justify not doing these?

“Mama, do all animals have eyes?”

Hey, that one is a question! And I know the answer. “Coral don’t have eyes. Or jelly fish. Or some salamanders that live in caves where it’s too dark to see.”

He trots off.

A New Yorker cartoon scrolls across my timeline. There’s man in a small boat, rowing on a troubled sea, a thunderstorm raging overhead. The caption reads, “This is it…The time to finish your novel.”
I stare at it far too long. I print it out and tape it to my computer. I write my agent an e-mail.

It’s so easy to see the ridiculousness in this cartoon. So much easier to see than the ridiculousness of the expectations I’ve put on myself.

“But!” the internet says, “Shakespeare wrote during a plague.” Tolstoy wrote with something like a dozen kids in his house. If I don’t finish these revisions in quarantine, it’s not because I lacked the time, it’s because I lacked the discipline.

Maybe if I stay up late. Maybe if I get up early. Maybe if I’m better at setting limits about not being disturbed while I’m working. Maybe if I do mindfulness exercises before I start writing so I can be entirely focused on it, then I can have a truly productive fifteen minutes before I’m interrupted. Maybe if I drink more coffee so I don’t collapse with exhaustion as soon as my son goes to sleep.
None of these work, because—obviously—I am a failure. I don’t want it badly enough.

And then someone posts an internal memo from the Canadian federal government on Twitter. I read it and cry. Crying is not uncommon these days. I print it off and tape it to my computer beside the cartoon.

It says, “You are not ‘working from home,’ you are ‘at your home, during a crisis, trying to work.’”

I am trying. During a crisis.

It goes on, “You will not try to compensate for lost productivity by working longer hours…Your team’s success will not be measured the same way it was when things were normal.”

“Please don’t worry,” says the reply e-mail from my agent. “You aren’t disappointing me.”

As painful as it is to let go, right now is not the time for my revisions. Right now is the time to fight for my employees’ safety and livelihoods. Right now is the time to check on my mother who had, and then recovered from, Covid-19. Right now is the time to check on my husband, who’s been working in the other room for six straight hours. And right now is the time to be present for my son, who has slept with the light on for the last two months.

“Mama, I want to see a sloth. Can we go to the zoo tomorrow?”

“No, sweetheart. The zoo is closed, and we need to stay inside. Maybe we can go next month. Okay?”

“Okay. Write it on the list.”

I add it to the whiteboard list of the things we’ll do after quarantine: visit the zoo to see a sloth, visit the aquarium to see animals with no eyes, go to the playground, do my revisions.

Mostly Ghosts: The Spirit of Boyfriends Past

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 6: Mostly Ghosts

Episode 8: The Spirit of Boyfriends Past

Mostly Ghosts: The Matchmakers

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 6: Mostly Ghosts

Episode 7: The Matchmakers



This week, I'm lifting up 57th Street Books.
Support their Go-fund-me with $5 or more, send me your receipt to twentypercenttrue@gmail.com, and I will:
*Give you a shout-out in the next episode
*Tell you which object in your home is haunted.  You need that.

Mostly Ghosts: The Traveler

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 6: Mostly Ghosts

Episode 6: The Traveler



This week, I'm lifting up 57th Street Books.
Support their Go-fund-me with $5 or more, send me your receipt to twentypercenttrue@gmail.com, and I will:
*Give you a shout-out in the next episode
*Tell you which object in your home is haunted.  You need that.

Mostly Ghosts: The Secret Society

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 6: Mostly Ghosts

Episode 5: The Secret Society



This week, I'm lifting up 57th Street Books.
Support their Go-fund-me with $5 or more, send me your receipt to twentypercenttrue@gmail.com, and I will:
*Give you a shout-out in the next episode
*Tell you which object in your home is haunted.  You need that.

Mostly Ghosts: Ghost Cat

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 6: Mostly Ghosts

Episode 4: Ghost Cat



This week, I'm lifting up 57th Street Books.
Support their Go-fund-me with $5 or more, send me your receipt to twentypercenttrue@gmail.com, and I will:
*Give you a shout-out in the next episode
*Tell you which object in your home is haunted.  You need that.

Mostly Ghosts: The Ghost in the Kitchen

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 6: Mostly Ghosts

Episode 3: The Ghost in the Kitchen



This week, I'm lifting up 57th Street Books.
Support their Go-fund-me with $5 or more, send me your receipt to twentypercenttrue@gmail.com, and I will:
*Give you a shout-out in the next episode
*Tell you which object in your home is haunted.  You need that.

Mostly Ghosts: The Drummers

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 6: Mostly Ghosts

Episode 2: The Drummers

Mostly Ghosts: The Elevator

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 6: Mostly Ghosts

Episode 1: The Elevator

Someday I'll Write a Book about Cider Apples

I went to a cider tasting workshop on Friday night.  We learned about what to look for when tasting a cider: the balance between acidity, sweetness, tannins, and alcohol.  We learned a little bit about the process of making cider, and then we learned some history.  And now I'm obsessed with the history of cider.

So cider comes from one specific kind of apple: the cider apple.  Cider apples are bitter and dry and basically inedible.   You can't really use them for anything other than making cider.  When prohibition hit the US, the vineyards could all continue to make grape juice.  The beer brewers could still use all their barley fields.  But there was nothing the cider makers could do with their cider apples.  The only choice they had (besides keeping an orchard full of useless cider apples that they couldn't sell) was to rip out the trees and replace them with (usually) culinary apples.

When prohibition was lifted, the vineyards and brewers got back in business, but the cider makers had no apples.  Cider in the US has never recovered.  The few cider makers in the US were mostly hobbyists, who started experimenting with culinary apples.  They combined different apple varietals of culinary apple with crab apples, which are tiny little apples that are too tart to eat raw.  Eventually, they developed what's called New World cider, which through sheer ingenuity manages to make a fun refreshing cider without the use of cider apples.  It also means that American cider has a foundation and ongoing history of experimentation that you don't feel as much in beer or wine making.  It embraces Americana ideals of innovation and preserveering through rough times.

They still use cider apples in England and France, and you can taste the difference if you try them.  They have complex tastes, and sometimes they're left to age just like wine, so they have the vintage stamped on the label.  How fancy!  They're much more like wine than New World cider, which I think of more like fun time apple juice that comes in a can.

There's a story in here.  There's a story about having to rip your life's work out of the ground because of a declaration from the powers that be that you're no longer allowed to do that work.  There's a story in here about trying to rebuild from culinary apples.  There's a setting of an apple orchard and a chronic tension.  It's not enough to carry a whole story, but it's enough to be the set up for a story.  Even though I'm overwhelmed with how much I need to get done and how many projects I already have going, I've spent the last several days overlaying story ideas onto this and seeing if I can get anything to fit. 

On Endings

If you're following the podcast, you might notice that I just end the episode when I'm done.  Maybe threads are left unresolved, because life is messy and I can't solve all this character's problems in twenty minutes.  Sometimes I leave a listener wanting more.  I consider this a victory, because it's far better than the alternative when a listener is thankful that the episode is over and they are 100% done with these characters.  Sometimes the resolution a listener thinks they want would be super dull if I actually gave it to them.  They would turn against me by the time I was done.  "Well, it was fun episode about kelpies until Carolyn stated talking about the process of getting a restraining order."  Maybe the lack of conclusion will eat at them until they start a conversation with my work by creating their own.  (That would be rad, but to my knowledge has never happened.)

This method of stopping when I'm done works for the podcast (or at least, I've decided that it works) because episodes are short.  Hopefully if a listener finds an ending unsatisfying, they won't feel cheated because they've only "wasted" twenty minutes.  Hopefully, their appreciation of the brevity will outweigh their disappointment that there's not more story. 

It does not work for a novel. 

In reading a novel, a reader has devoted hours to a single story, and they will feel betrayed if they are left unsatisfied at the end.  A reader has given an author's work their valuable time and valuable attention, so not providing they a payoff is almost aggressively rude.  Some novelists like breaking that implicit contract that they will resolve a problem (or at least not resolve it in a satisfying way), but I don't want to be one of those writers who purposefully frustrates their reader and purposefully makes a novel difficult to read.

So this is all a way of saying that endings are hard.  When my agent read my last novel, she asked if I planned a sequel.  I had not.  "If you're not going to write a sequel, you need to tie up these loose ends," she said.  "This reads like there's going to be more." 

Of course, I'd intended for it to be like "everything's not always tied up in a neat bow!  Life goes on and chronic issues take time to work on!  Whishy washy wishy washy."  But she was absolutely right, and what she said has stuck with me to the point where I've gone through other novels looking for this, and sure enough, it's there.  I tie up the main plot is a satisfying way, with some big show pieces and some drama and some fireworks, but what about all those other threads that flushed the novel out along the way?  I've just let those hang, thinking they'd fade into the background after the big showpiece climax!  But you know what?  If you let too many threads hang, you just end up with a frayed looking edge.

In trying to improve, I've been looking at my manuscripts and asking myself, "What story threads feel like they're leading into a sequel?"  And then working on those.  I've been removing them completely.  I've been altering how they play out so they end up with a conclusion, which is hard when I know how the story goes and this isn't it.

The other thing she said, that I'm trying to keep in mind is that I need to be mindful of y themes.  Those themes I've been bringing up like motifs throughout the novel, need to come back at the end.  I need to bring those back up at the end so that when a reader thinks back on the book, they think back on its themes.  That's hard for me because I want a reader to think back on the big, exciting explosion at the end, and I have to wrestle that desire under control because it's not helping.  And if the themes are tied to the explosion, then they both stand out.  They're both more rooted into the story.

Someday, I'm going to nail an ending, and it's going to be great.

Tension and Paw Patrol

Lately, my son has been watching a whole bunch of Paw Patrol.  For those not in the know, Paw Patrol is an animated show from Nickelodeon with two fifteen-minute episodes, or the occasional half hour episode.  In it, there is a team of dogs, called the Paw Patrol, and each dog is a kind of community helper (police officer, firefighter, bulldozer driver, recycling truck driver, etc.)  Each episode, doofy townspeople have an issue and call up Ryder, the little boy who coordinates the Paw Patrol, and he sends the dogs that would be helpful out to fix the problem.  It teaches about community helpers and problem solving and teamwork.  It's also very formulaic, which kids like, and the theme song plays a lot and is super catchy. 

If you still have "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" stuck in your head, I know how you could fix that.

There are a couple things that absolutely fascinate me about Paw Patrol.  The first is how quickly the stakes escalate. 

There's one episode (we tend to watch the same episodes over and over) where this kid, Alex, has a big-wheel that he's McGuivered together out of duct tape and spare parts.  He hits a curb and the big-wheel falls apart.  Pieces of his big-wheel are in the street, and it wouldn't be safe for him to get them, so he calls the Paw Patrol for help.  Ryder calls the dogs together and sorts out that the Police Pup will stop traffic around the scattered parts and Recycle Pup will help put the scattered parts back on the big-wheel.  They explain this plan, then follow through on the plan, and huzzah!  Fixed big-wheel!  But then, Alex takes off on his newly fixed big-wheel and careens down a hill straight toward a busy intersection.  What will the Paw Patrol do about this?  Well, Police Pup can block off traffic in the intersection and Helicopter Pup can help bring Alex to a stop.  Okay, that's a good plan!  Which they execute and it succeeds, and Alex learns a lesson about going slow on his big-wheel so he's not hit by a car.

There's another episode where there's been a bunch of snow, and the Mayor's car swerves off the icy road into a snowbank and gets stuck.  She calls the Paw Patrol to help tow her out.  Ryder calls the dogs together and decides that Bulldozer Pup will clear the roads like a snowplow and Police Pup will use the winch on his Police Pup Car to haul the mayor's car out of the snow.  This plan is successful, and everyone feels good about themselves.  Or at least they do until Ryder gets a call from a train engineer.  There's a bunch of debris on the track and the train is going to hit it and derail, and he can't slow down because the tracks are too icy.  Oh no!  Well, what should the Paw Patrol do about this imminent emergency?  They can have Police Pup clear some of the little debris and Snow Rescue Pup remove the big debris and Bulldozer Pup scrape the snow off the tracks with his bulldozer.  Does that sound like a good plan?  Good!  Yay!  They execute this plan and the day is saved and there's no train derailment.

Sometimes Paw Patrol makes me anxious.  There is a boy on a big-wheel hurtling towards traffic, and you're going to call a dog in a helicopter in from across town and talk about your plan before running after him?  Ahhhhhhhh!  But the other thing that's fascinating about Paw Patrol is how much it doesn't freak out my easily freaked-out kid.  By stopping the ticking clock, which is essentially what happens in this time dilation moment when they have time to make a plan--as my kid sees it--that means the ticking clock must not exist.  They have all the time in the world to decide on a step-by-step plan about what they're going to do.  And that step-by-step plan is comforting even in the face of a train derailment or an erupting volcano or a sinking boat.  The Paw Patrol's calm is comforting.  While taking their time makes me (an adult) anxious that they're not going to get to that kid in time, it actually lowers the stakes as my son understands them.

The episodes are also set up to mimic the way kids play.  You can think of it like there's a group of kids and they each have a different pup toy, and one of them comes up with a problem.  "Oh no!  There's a tree on the tracks and the train can't stop!" and the other kids jump in and say, "Police Pup can use his wench to move the tree!"  "Let's call in Snow Rescue Pup!  She can shove the rest of the trees off the track!"

It's the opposite of what you would do in a story written for adults, where you want the tension to be high and you want the reader/viewer to feel the danger.  For instance, I would have Police Pup tear after Alex the second he started going too fast down the hill, and Police Pup would rolling tackle him off the street right before he drove into the intersection.  So in a way, this show is demonstrating things not to do when storytelling: Don't stop and talk about your plan in the middle of an action scene.

But also, maybe I have such problems watching this show--maybe the reason it makes me so much more anxious than it should, is that it doesn't follow traditional story telling structures that appear in adult stories.  The beats are off, and I find that jarring and stressful.  So maybe that's a lesson too: do something jarringly to disrupt story beats to create a different kind of tension.  Get back to the story!  Oh my God!  Ahhhhh!

Trying to Cut back Ablist Language

 Ablest language is tricky.  I personally find it confusing, and I could explain what I don't get about it, but that would take away from the point, which is: some words hurt people.  When someone tells me, "This hurts me," it's my job to do better rather than explain why I don't get it and how their feelings are incorrect.  I don't need to understand.  I just need to try to do better, and I'm trying, even if I'm not perfect.

Using these words hurts people.  And wouldn't you rather not hurt people? 

Isn't not hurting people worth being mildly inconvenienced?

It's hard to cut words out of your vocabulary.  And these words are SO ingrained, that it makes it extra hard.  (Don't use the word "superfluous"?  Sure thing, boss!  Don't use the word "st*pid"?  ...Well, crud.)  There's the added bonus that as I try to cut words from my vocabulary, I also try no to expose my son to these words so he'll start life a step ahead of me: being a kinder person and not having to prune his vocabulary in the future.  And it's impossible.  These words are thrown around so causally on even the most wholesome kid's shows.  These words are thrown around casually at school and by neighbors and by the ladies in the Jewel checkout line. 

If you successfully don't use these words, no one notices.  You're not losing anything.  No one is offended by you not saying something is cr*zy.

In the last few years, I feel like I've done a good job taking cr*zy out of my vocabulary.  I think it's been relatively easy because when I used to say, "That's cr*zy!" I didn't mean, "That's illogical and counter-productive to the point of mental illness/disability."  I meant, "That's wild!  I can't believe it!"  So there's a pretty direct 1:1 between "cr*zy" and "wild," so I can just say "wild" instead.  Which I do now.  All the time.

I've had a lot more trouble with "b*nanas" and "n*ts."  I think that's because there's a subtle difference in my brain between something being wild and something being b*nanas. There's an component of endearment and playfulness to calling someone a n*t that doesn't exist in calling someone wild. In my experience, "You n*t," is like a soft way to say, "What you're doing is goofy.  You probably should stop, but I know you won't because you can't control your feelings or reactions.  I accept this about you and love you, but we both know it's still weird."  This connotation doesn't exist in the word "wild."  "Goober" or "Goofus" work pretty well, but I'm much more likely to call someone a "pine cone" and have them look at me funny, not knowing what I mean.

I just did a pass on my novel where I tried to search and destroy ablist language.  Yeah!  Doing good! 
The problem wasn't with these above examples, but with "st*pid."  When I say, "That's st*pid," I mean "That was poorly thought out."  I cannot think of a shorter way to say that.  Sometimes I mean "careless," or "reckless," or "thoughtless," which are shorter, but the problem is that in written dialogue, if one character just called someone out for acting "st*pid," changing that to "thoughtless" can mess up the voice.  It doesn't sound like a real person talking, or at least not like this character talking.

Then the huge hold up for me was "id*ot."  In this novel, there are multiple multiple times when one character will do something so thoughtless and poorly planned that it puts other people in danger and the main character is upset about it.  "You put people in danger by not thinking through your actions and I'm upset about it!" does not have the same immediacy and tension and anger as "You id*ot!"  I think the problem is that here I do mean it to be insulting.  And "id*ot" is meant to be insulting.  So I have trouble substituting, because this word is exactly what I want to convey: they were not smart and that is bad.

And that's the real problem with these words.  They actively compare lack of intelligence with a decrease in human value.  Our culture values being "smart," so when people do unintelligent things, that's viewed as bad.  This means that people with learning or intellectual disabilities are seen as having lesser value than someone who doesn't.  When I went looking for synonyms I found a list that included not just words like "thoughtless" and "nonsensical" and "outrageous," but also "bad," "contemptible," "gross," "horrible," and "evil."  When you say "st*pid," someone with an intellectual disability hears these synonyms, even if going that far is unintended. The very existence of these words says a lot about our cultural values, and who we value and why.

In this novel, I was mostly able to change "id*ot" to "damned fool."  But I'm worried about my next novel, in which the main character wrestles with her self-worth, which she (and people around her) have tied to her perceived level of intelligence.  She calls herself "st*pid st*pid st*pid," several, several times.  So I'm concerned, because it doesn't seem right to soften her negative self-talk and cut her a break, but at the same time, it doesn't seem right to drop ablist slurs left and right, harming readers.  So this is an ongoing issue for me to work through.