B. Lucine

Fantasy writer with a penchant for tiny wonders. Chaotic good on main. (((more about me)))

[clevergirlhelps]

Biology

Biology

Creating a Race (2)

Creating Animals (2)

Disease (2)

Ecosystems (2)

Evolution (and Space)

Flora and Fauna

Genetics

Inventing Species

List of Legendary Creatures

Night Vision/Color Vision

People

Constructed Language (Conlang)

Basics/Phonology (2) (3)

Conlang

Conlang Guide

Conlang vs. English

Creating a Language (Revised)

Culture + Language

Curse Words

How to Create Your Own Language

How to Create a Language

IPA Pronunciation

Making Up Words

Culture Guides

7 Deadly Sins

Alien Cultures (2)

Alternative Medieval

Avoiding Cultural Appropriation

Avoiding Medieval Fantasy (2)

Avoiding One-Note Worlds

Avoiding Utopia

Change (2)

Class/Caste System (2)

Culture

Designing Intellectual Movements

Everything (2) (3)

Fantasy

Gender-Equal Societies

Historical Background for Ideas (2)

History

Matriarchy (2)

Nationalism

Nations

Slavery

Static World

Structure

Wandering Peoples

Economy

Basic Economics

Capitalism

Currency (2) (3)

Current Global Economies

Economic Systems

Economics (1500-1800 AD)

Economics and Government

Economics for Dummies

Economy

Inflation

International Trade (2)

Marxist Communism

Medieval Economics

Schools of Economic Thought

Socialism (2)

Types of Economic Systems

World Economy (2)

Everyday Life

Art

Ceremonies

Clothing

Clothing Terminology (2) (3) (4)

Clothing Reference

Demographics

Disease

Drugs

Education (2)

Fame and Infamy

Family

Food (2)

Food Timeline

Immigration/Emigration

Literature

Marriage

Months

Music

Sex

Slang

Stories

Travel

Government

Collective/Traditionalist Societies

Creating a Government

Diplomacy

Empire (2)

Fancy Latin Names for Government

History and Politics

International Relations (2)

Justice System

Lawlessness

Non-monarchical (2) (3)

Oppressive Government

Political Ideologies

Propaganda

Republic

Rise and Fall of Civilizations

Secret Societies

Shapeshifter Society

Totalitarianism, Atmosphere Necessary For

Tribal Society

Types of Government

Utopia

Writing Politics

Read More

[1000storyideas]

Ambient sounds for writers

Find the right place to write your novel… 

Nature

Arctic ocean

Blizzard in village

Blizzard in pine forest

Blizzard from cave

Blizzard in road

Beach

Cave

Ocean storm

Ocean rocks with rain

River campfire

Forest in the morning

Forest at night

Forest creek

Rainforest creek

Rain on roof window

Rain on tarp tent

Rain on metal roof

Rain on window

Rain on pool

Rain on car at night

Seaside storm

Swamp at night

Sandstorm

Thunderstorm

Underwater

Wasteland

Winter creek

Winter wind

Winter wind in forest

Howling wind

Places

Barn with rain

Coffee shop

Restaurant with customers

Restaurant with few customers

Factory

Highway

Garden

Garden with pond and waterfall

Fireplace in log living room

Office 

Call center

Street market

Study room from victorian house with rain

Trailer with rain

Tent with rain

Jacuzzi with rain

Temple

Server room

Windmill

War

Fictional places

Chloe’s room (Life is Strange)

Blackwell dorm (Life is Strange)

Two Whales Diner (Life is Strange)

Star Wars apartment (Star Wars)

Star Wars penthouse (Star Wars)

Tatooine (Star Wars)

Coruscant with rain (Star Wars)

Yoda’s hut with rain ( Star Wars)

Luke’s home (Star Wars)

Death Star hangar (Star wars)

Azkaban prison (Harry Potter)

Hogwarts library with rain (Harry Potter)

Ravenclaw common room (Harry Potter)

Hufflepuff common room (Harry Potter)

Slytherin common room (Harry Potter)

Gryffindor common room (Harry Potter)

Hagrid’s hut (Harry Potter)

Hobbit-hole house (The Hobbit)

Diamond City (Fallout 4)

Things

Dishwasher

Washing machine

Fireplace

Transportation

Boat engine room

Cruising boat

Train ride

Train ride in the rain

Train station

Plane trip

Private jet cabin

Airplane cabin

Airport lobby

First class jet

Sailboat

Submarine

Historical

Fireplace in medieval tavern

Medieval town

Medieval docks

Medieval city

Pirate ship in tropical port

Ship on rough sea

Ship cabin

Ship sleeping quarter

Titanic first class dining room

Old west saloon

Sci-fi

Spaceship bedroom

Space station

Cyberpunk tearoom

Cyberpunk street with rain

Futuristic server room

Futuristic apartment with typing

Futuristic rooftop garden 

Steampunk balcony rain

Post-apocalyptic

Harbor with rain

City with rain

City ruins turned swamp

Rusty sewers

Train station

Lighthouse

Horror

Haunted mansion

Haunted road to tavern

Halloween

Stormy night

Asylum

Creepy forest

Cornfield

World

New York

Paris

Paris bistro

Tokyo street

Chinese hotel lobby

Asian street at nightfall

Asian night market

Cantonese restaurant

Coffee shop in Japan

Coffee shop in Paris

Coffee shop in Korea

British library

Trips, rides and walkings

Trondheim - Bodø

Amsterdam - Brussels

Glasgow - Edinburgh

Oxford - Marylebone

Seoul - Busan

Gangneung - Yeongju

Hiroshima

Tokyo metro

Osaka - Kyoto

Osaka - Kobe

London

São Paulo

Seoul

Tokyo

Bangkok

Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)

Alps

New York

Hong Kong

Taipei

[arahir]

use comic sans to write

i hate this so much but this knowledge is too powerful to keep from you all.

last night @phaltu discovered that setting your font to comic sans in google docs improves writing speed and creativity by an insane amount. “no” i said and “die” but then i tried it and god. i wish it wasn’t this way. i wish it wasn’t true. i wish i could protect you all from this but it’s real. 

something about this font is so disarming. something about this font lets you look past the shape of the words and into their soul. i’ve never written so much as i did last night, on my phone, at 2am, in comic sans.

if you have writer’s block. if you lack inspiration. if you need this. don’t be afraid to use it. sometimes the things we find most horrifying are also the things we need the most. trust me. let comic sans into your life.

[books-read-in-nooks]

Me: “I think I’ll read a book from by TBR pile instead of buying a new one.”

The books in my TBR pile:

[allisonilluminated]

The best piece of writing advice I’ve read today - Writing never gets any easier but you do get better, exponentially.  Once you really get into the swing of things and you keep at it, you’ll be surprised how much your stamina and skill increases.  Consistency and determination are all that matters and you’ll get where you’re going, even if it takes some time.

[b-lucinewrites-blog]

I’m sorry that I’ve been out of touch with everything here recently, but moving to another country for job is... challenging. (Especially when there is a festival [related to that job] going on when you arrive and your boss wants to smuggle you around to meet everyone. And I mean, everyone.)

[lmorasey-deactivated20230917]

Reblog if you’re a writeblr!!

I’m pretty new here and looking for some more writers to follow (and of course I’d love if you followed me back!)

A little about me: I’m a college student who writes under the name Lyssa Morasey. I am currently a few months (I hope?) away from publishing my first-ever novel, a YA fantasy called The Sentry. Basically it’s about a bunch of different supernatural races of people who are locked in a war that’s been going on for so long, no one even really knows how it began, and some teenagers from both sides who are forced to come together and confront each other. I haven’t posted anything about it on my blog so far, but I’ll definitely be starting to in the next few weeks!

[zagreus]

“if it’s not plot relevant, cut it!!” is such awful writing advice

if JRR Tolkien had cut every bit of Lord of the Rings that wasn’t directly related to the central plot, it would have been just one book long, COLOURLESS and DULL AS DIRT. 

all the little worldbuilding/character details are what draw you in and give the central plot weight, FOOL

[veryrarelystable-deactivated201]

The plot is not the same thing as the story.  The plot is the mechanics of how one thing causes another.

Some classic stories have no plot to speak of – the characters just wander from one situation to the next.  Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz are examples.

Some stories have partial plots, where some things in the story cause other things, but other things come out of the blue and pass away without consequence.  This category includes classics too: Huckleberry Finn, The Wind in the Willows.

Even in stories with a strong plot, sometimes the most iconic moments fall outside that plot.  Think of the No-Man’s-Land scene in Wonder Woman or the dying dinosaur in Jurassic World II.

Ah, but those aren’t classics, I hear someone say.  Well, I disagree in the case of Wonder Woman (although time will tell), but let’s go right to the top of the English canon, Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

What’s the most iconic scene, if you had to pick one to illustrate for the front cover or the playbill poster?  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s the Yorick skull scene.  What does that have to do with the plot?  Precious little.  It’s just a way to keep Hamlet busy until Ophelia’s funeral arrives.  And even there it’s not very well fit for purpose, because it doesn’t explain why Hamlet is hanging around in a graveyard anyway.

That’s because, tight though the plot of Hamlet is, the story of Hamlet is not reducible to its plot.  Hamlet is a three-hour exploration of death and skulls and murder and corpses and funerals and ghosts and “what dreams may come”.  The plot is just there to drive you around between the features of that mental landscape.

So the question isn’t “Does this serve the plot?”  The question is “Does this help explore the idea that the story is about?”

(Why yes, I have written all this somewhere before.)

[b-lucinewrites-blog]

Exactly! Rather than “not plot relevant,” it’s best to think it in terms of “not theme relevant.” Every story explores a theme, and as long as a scene or a detail further deepens that theme, then you can add it.

In Wonder Woman, Diana repeatedly does what others people cannot do. It’s the role she’s growing to understand as her own. The scene in No-Man’s-Land doesn’t serve the plot, and yet it’s the iconic moment of the whole movie because it perfectly symbolizes Diana’s personal theme.

In Jurassic Park it’s a bit different because the triceratop scene does serve the plot - Grant and the others delay their return and thus get stuck in the middle of the park during the storm. But, and here I’m quoting an interesting video by YouTube channel Lessons from the screenplay, Jurassic Park’s theme is progress. Grant is definitely against any kind of progress, and one of the ways he displays it is his dislike for children (which represent future, again, progress). In the triceratop scene, Grant openly says that it felt like being a kid once again. It helps him reconnect to his own inner kid, and thus, to look differently at the two siblings making the tour with them. (And afterwards, he is the one looking after them when everything goes to shit.)

And don’t even let me started on Hamlet.

So, yes, everything should serve the story. But the story is more than its plot. It’s also theme. And if what you want to add enriches that theme, please please please keep it.

[avelera]

How to Write a Twist

I’m finishing up Detroit: Become Human and I’m going to have some story-writer thoughts on that later but here’s a non-spoilery, writerly, unrelated to DBH rant about How to Write a Twist (according to Avelera):

- A good twist should illuminate the story backwards and forwards in time.

Example of a good twist: (Spoilers) Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” reveals that our main character was dead the whole time. This recasts the story and invites us to take a second look at the nuances of the scenes before the reveal. We become suddenly aware of elements we were willing to ignore before because of storytelling conventions, such as camera angle, leaps forward in time, and who Willis’s character has spoken to throughout (Hint: no one except the little kid except in flashbacks). The director invited us to ignore these elements the first time as mere film conventions, playing with time and POV. The movie is re-watchable beyond the initial shock of the twist as we look for clues that we missed the first time that reveal the story from an entirely different angle.

Example of a bad twist: (Spoilers) Shyamalan’s “The Village” reveals that the monsters that have terrified this village throughout the story were always in fact the elders putting on silly costumes to scare everyone. It’s a Scooby Doo style “It was old man Jenkins in a mask the whole time!”. This makes the film un-rewatchable, because all the tension has fled. Scenes that scared us initially because we thought there was a monster become ridiculous in retrospect. We also learn that we were never in the past, this is a weird commune of hippy LARPers who decided for some reason to pretend they were living in the goddamn 1600s and decided randomly to talk as if they lived back then, meaning besides there being no supernatural element there was actually never any danger to this community at any point that they didn’t bring on themselves by being dumbasses.

Continua a leggere

[thecollectibles]

Art by Madalyn McLeod

[the-knights-who-say-book]

different types of “i’m a famous author” daydreams:

on a panel at a book convention with other famous authors (we are all friends with a great dynamic and they think i’m cool)

what the about the author section looks like (author picture is black and white but casual, i’m not looking at the camera and look semi-mysterious but in a cool and approachable way)

the dedications of the books (definitely implies to the reader that there is an inside joke with the person it’s dedicated to here)

book covers (if i imagine too many kinds it’s just because they get cool re-released covers and special editions)

trailer of the movie adaptation (and that moment in the movie credits when it says based on the book by my name)

not “i’m a famous author” daydreams:

having this be my job when in reality i procrastinate so much

[ferntastic-m]

That’s what I daydream whenever I actually move forward in my writing.

[sprigofbasil-archive]

Me: yeah I love most all my characters

That one character that literally never gets a break:

[poppycat-writes]

Shout out to all my OCs who would react like that gif (they know who they are)

[b-lucinewrites-blog]

You mean the whole cast (except for you, Acanthe, you’re an angel and we’re thrilled to have you here)

[andercas]

I feel like when you’re writing, organizing chapters and dialogue is easy

but jfc, the amount of time it takes to constantly keep people moving and make sure they’re in the right spaces and trying to come up with wording for it is always such a shock. 

Like, fuck, I made you pick up a coffee cup, you need to put it down at some point. also I can’t remember what I dressed you in, can you push up your sleeves? I don’t remember if you even have your shirt on.

and YOU. YOU OVER THERE, you got out of your chair earlier, but did you come back yet? Are you coming back? Where did you even go and why’d you get up? Fuck, I can’t make you sit down again already, you just stood up, go…over there. go get more coffee. Did you bring your mug with you? fine. bring the pot to the table and—wait, wasn’t the coffee pot already over here? shit, hold on, I need to go back and re-read and re-write

[julystorms]

this is the most relevant thing i have ever read.

[thlayli-rah]

I think one of the most wild things as a writer is the sensation that you’re not actually directing your characters– they’re sort of directing themselves, and you’re scrambling around attempting to copy down whatever it was that they just did, but they don’t wait for you to finish copying. They just keep walking and talking and moving around and existing of their own volition and at some point you look up and you’re like “WHOA OKAY EVERYBODY BACK THE FUCK UP WHERE ARE WE”

It’s kind of like trying to write sheet music for an orchestra while it’s playing

[kjsama]

#thatwritinglife

[lifeandlovesofemmalinethewriter]

@cats-galactic @kyleandthekids

[sassy-un-classy-blog]

It’s kind of like trying to write sheet music for an orchestra while it’s playing 

Oh my god its in words

[caffeinewitchcraft]

“Listen,” my main character says reasonably, “I’m not just gonna sit still while he goes on spouting that nonsense.”

I, the writer, frantically scribble down a rough map and route. “No, obvious now, but I still have to write the part where he yells–”

“I’M BEING IGNORED,” the antagonist yells and begins to flap his arms. “LOOK I AM ALSO DYNAMIC.”

“Whoa there,” the main character says mildly and begins to do squats. They pull out a weapon. “Take a look at this escalation!”

“No!” I cry, “he took your gun, like, five minutes ago–”

“Second gun,” the main character says and cocks it. Pauses. “Was I on a low squat or a high one just now?”

“HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN BLOWING RASPBERRIES?” the antagonist wants to know, still spinning.

“When did you start spinning?” I ask in despair.

There is no escape.

[omgkatsudonplease]

Sometimes it feels like I am a hollywood director and the characters are particular rowdy cats

[nuwanders]

them: all girls remake of lord of the flies

me, an intellectual: all girls remake of dead poets society

[teacupwriter]

Worldbuilding is all fun and games until you realize you have to somehow convey this information in the Actual Story.

[thewritingwarrior]

STOP

Every time you see this post on your dash, open up your WIP and write one sentence. It doesn’t matter if the sentence is good, makes sense or works perfectly with your story. You can go back to edit it later. 

Congrats, you made some progress on your WIP!

Make sure to reblog to help fellow writers make progress on their wip!

[b-lucinewrites-blog]

Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 59: Overly Complex Plots - Helping Writers Become Authors

The problem of overly complex plots is really the problem of authors writing stories they either fail to fully understand and/or aren't in control of.

Since I’ve been dealing with this problem recently, I thought it was worth to share this article! The author makes some very good points, especially when it comes balancing complexity and readability. Hope it helps someone else as much as it’s helping me!