My Arm is My Paintbrush

Toris/Avian | 27 | writeblr | bsky: avianwrites "We're urban explorers, not ghost hunters!"

[avian-writes]

Where the Vagrants Gather: Chapter 1 - Eclipse

Where the Vagrants Gather: Chapter 1 - Eclipse

Theo is a vulture; not the actual bird but someone who finds and preserves dead animals. So when his uncle told him about a dead deer on the

Theo is a vulture; not the actual bird but someone who finds and preserves dead animals. So when his uncle told him about a dead deer on the side of a nearby road, he takes his best friend Kenny on the day of the full solar eclipse to collect. But something's not right with this one and the eclipse is approaching too quickly…

[avian-writes]

Worst assistants ever BTW. Asked one to spellcheck a name for me IGNORED! Very politely asked the other to refill my drink and he had the audacity to snap back DEMANDING early dinner! Ffs

[wizardarchetypes]

I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.

I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.

Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.

Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.

[pixelartpeach]

Are there any other particularly egregious examples?

[theglintoftherail]

This book already exists, sort of! Or at least, it’s a biology textbook but I bought it for writing purposes:

It starts with a chapter about freezing to death, and it is without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve read in years (and I read a lot of horror fiction).

[wandercuriosity-deactivated2024]

This book can be downloaded for free on Researchgate, posted there by the author himself:

The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in Extreme Environments

[avian-writes]

Harvest: Chapter 1

Haven left home 3 years ago and didn't look back. After a major fallout with her parents that left her alienated from the whole family, she moved out of state and made a life of her own. But after a letter arrives saying her grandfather was dead and she was needed at the will reading, she arrives back in Georgia to a horror she remembered and a new one she's yet to uncover.

Harvest: Chapter 1

Haven returns to Georgia after 3 years for her grandfather's funeral. She has a plan: attend the service, listen to the will reading, then t

[avian-writes]

Harvest: Chapter 1

Haven left home 3 years ago and didn't look back. After a major fallout with her parents that left her alienated from the whole family, she moved out of state and made a life of her own. But after a letter arrives saying her grandfather was dead and she was needed at the will reading, she arrives back in Georgia to a horror she remembered and a new one she's yet to uncover.

Harvest: Chapter 1

Haven returns to Georgia after 3 years for her grandfather's funeral. She has a plan: attend the service, listen to the will reading, then t

[avian-writes]

Ever wanted to resist a physical temptation of death representing your intense want to die?

Same with these guys.

New short story up on my site! https://torisavianking.wixsite.com/avianwrites/post/the-day-we-decided-to-live

[avian-writes]

Hell's Coming With Me

"Strangers show up in a small valley town with ulterior motives."

A short story inspired by the song Hell's Coming With Me by Poor Man's Poison.

Hell's Coming With Me

Strangers show up in this small valley town with ulterior motives. Word Count: 4687

[avian-writes]

Hell's Coming With Me

"Strangers show up in a small valley town with ulterior motives."

A short story inspired by the song Hell's Coming With Me by Poor Man's Poison.

Hell's Coming With Me

Strangers show up in this small valley town with ulterior motives. Word Count: 4687

[pastelpiggielol]

[ur-best-cryptid-friend]

the homoeroticism of best friends is just 💪💪💖💖

[abalonetea]

Hey. Hey, guys. Hey.

Did you know I have a website?

Did you know it's right here?

fullmoonfiction.com

[abalonetea]

Did you guys know I also have a ko-fi store?

Ko-Fi Store

[abalonetea]

How about a patreon?

Did you know I had one of those too?

Patreon

[abalonetea]

I also have some cool books published.

Books Be Here

[abalonetea]

Did you guys know you can buy a physical snail-mail epistolary horror story (mailed out on April 1st) from both my Ko-Fi store and my website?

[completelylegal]

Things I’ve noticed are essential in plotting and would probably have saved me a lot of time if I had considered it earlier

The START of your story - how fucked up flawed is your premise/character at the start? what do they have to change? why are they HERE?

The END of your story - How do you want your main character/theme/universe to change after your story? Does it get better or worse? THIS SETS UP THE TONE DRASTICALLY.

What you want to happen IN BETWEEN - the MEAT of it. What made you start writing this WIP in the first place. Don't be ashamed to indulge, it's where the BRAIN JUICE comes from. You want a deep dive into worldbuilding and complex systems? Then your start and end should be rooted in some fundamental, unique rule of your universe (what made you obsess over it?). Want to write unabashed ship content? Make sure your start and end are so compelling you'll never run out of smut scenarios to shove in between scenes (what relationship dynamics made you ship it in the first place?).

The ANTE - the GRAVITY of your story. How high are the stakes? Writing a blurb or interaction? start with a small day-in-the-life so you can focus on shorter timelines and hourly minutiae that can easily get overlooked in more complicated epics. Or you can go ham on it and plot out your whole universe's timeline from conception to demise. Remember: the larger the scale, the less attached your story may get. How quickly time flies in your story typically correlates with the ante (not a hard rule, ofc, but most epics span years of time within a few pages, while a romance novel usually charts out the events of a few months over a whole manuscript.)

Everything else follows….?

[onamountaintop]

[roane72]

Best trick I ever picked up. Seriously.

[catastrophe-jones]

I have also learned this is great for [PICK A COOL NAME FOR A SHIP] and [LOOK UP THE FACTS ABOUT OXYGEN LEVELS] and [WHAT’S THE WORD] and [DOUBLECHECK CHARACTER’S EYE COLOR] and ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

Anything that isn’t critical in the moment, and could be filled in later while I’m currently trying to burn through writing pages that will be lost if I don’t get them out right now? Brackets.

[betweentimeand42]

This is seriously the best advice, and it really helps put it into perspective that the first draft is just that- a draft. There’s no reason to agonize over a particularly tricky bit of writing when you could just leave it in brackets and skip to the good parts, the parts you’ve visualized. I also use brackets for [fact-check this], [use a stronger verb], [is this in character?] and other notes as I write, just so I don’t forget what I want to work on when I go back and edit. 

[petermorwood]

Note the good sense of [brackets] not (parentheses).

Parentheses AKA round brackets can appear in fiction, usually as an afterthought in a character's thoughts or narration (as I saw them used just recently), but square brackets hardly ever do.

[dat-physics-gal]

Good post op. {need to remember this for later}

[avian-writes]

"I don't know if I'll remember this, I need to write it down." Proceeds to forget to write it down and also forgets what it was.

I'm on chapter 26 out of 33 for my first draft of The Trees Who Call Our Names and multiple times I've thought of something that needed to fixed/amended during editing. And instead of writing them down as I go, I keep THINKING that I need to write them down then forget to do that exact thing.

I remember some of them! Mostly mannerisms of characters that presented themselves as I've gotten closer to the ending and will help with developing dialogue. I've also realized a not necessarily BIG plot hole but an annoying one. Plus a possible second one.

First time ever I'm looking forward to the editing stage lol

[avian-writes]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! Do your OCs have any interesting speech patterns? Feel free to share some snippets!

LIZZY! LONG TIME NO READ!

For The Tress Who Call Our Names (such a long title, why did I do this), first to come to mind would be Austin. And that's because I made sure he has that Appalachian drawl that I love and miss.

The typical dropping g's and idioms my in laws don't understand such as the devil beatin' his wife. But also the nonsensical contractions like "wouldn't've" in place of 'would not have', "hafta" in place of "have to", and of course "y'all'd've" instead of 'you all would have'.

Gosh I love my accent. I had to give it to him.

He also says Spirits instead of God, gosh, or geez!

[avian-writes]

happy storyteller saturday! what's your character's moral compass like? how do they determine what's good and evil? what would make their morals sway?

Thanks for the ask, Monday! I'll go with my new WIP for this one (empty title pending) and answer for Dagrun. He's a cleric so his moral compass mostly comes from the church and their views, though when it comes to certain things he can swayed on, specifically how to raise Emanuel and how to do his job.

Even though his job is WITH the church, his sensitivity with spirits makes the ethics of what's right or wrong when it comes to dead bodies not always align with the church's. In those cases, he fully believes it's more morally sound to do by the spirit and how things were from their time than to go by current standards.

[albatris]

storyteller saturday!

I remember when this was a big thing on writeblr, but it seems to have died down a lot so

reblog this post if you'd like STS asks about your story and characters! send an ask back to the people who send an ask to you.... and look through the notes and pick some people to send asks to as well!

you can ask anything you like! how someone came up with their ideas, how their characters would fare in a haunted house, what kinds of symbolism is present in their work... get creative! get silly if you'd like!

I'll be reblogging this post every saturday and sending out asks to people who share it :]