Hidden In Darkness

Just trying to live life. Ever got anything to ask or just want to have a chat, drop me a message!

[thewritersarchive]

This is an ultimate masterlist of many resources that could be helpful for writers. I apologize in advance for any not working links. Check out the ultimate writing resource masterlist here (x) and my “novel” tag here (x).

✑ PLANNING

Outlining & Organizing

For the Architects: The Planning Process

Rough Drafts

How do you plan a novel?

Plot Development: Climax, Resolution, and Your Main Character

Plotting and Planing

I Have An Idea for a Novel! Now What?

Choosing the Best Outline Method

How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method

Effectively Outlining Your Plot

Conflict and Character within Story Structure

Outlining Your Plot

Ideas, Plots & Using the Premise Sheets

✑ INSPIRATION

Finding story ideas

Choosing ideas and endings

When a plot isn’t strong enough to make a whole story

Writing a story that’s doomed to suck

How to Finish What You Start: A Five-Step Plan for Writers

Finishing Your Novel

Finish Your Novel

How to Finish Your Novel when You Want to Quit

How To Push Past The Bullshit And Write That Goddamn Novel: A Very Simple No-Fuckery Writing Plan

✑ PLOT

In General

25 Turns, Pivots and Twists to Complicate Your Story

The ABCs (and Ds and Es) of Plot Development

Originality Is Overrated

How to Create a Plot Outline in Eight Easy Steps

Finding Plot: Idea Nets

The Story Goal: Your Key to Creating a Solid Plot Structure

Make your reader root for your main character

Creating Conflict and Sustaining Suspense

Tips for Creating a Compelling Plot

The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations

Adding Subplots to a Novel

Weaving Subplots into a Novel

7 Ways to Add Subplots to Your Novel

Crafting a Successful Romance Subplot

How to Improve your Writing: Subplots and Subtext

Understanding the Role of Subplots

How to Use Subtext in your Writing

The Secret Life of Subtext

How to Use Subtext

Beginning

Creating a Process: Getting Your Ideas onto Paper (And into a Story)

Why First Chapters?

Starting with a Bang

In the Beginning

The Beginning of your Novel that isn’t the Beginning of your Novel

A Beginning from the Middle

Starting with a Bang

First Chapters: What To Include @ The Beginning Writer

23 Clichés to Avoid When Beginning Your Story

Start Writing Now

Done Planning. What Now?

Continuing Your Long-Format Story

How to Start a Novel 

100 best first lines from novels

The First Sentence of a Book Report

How To Write A Killer First Sentence To Open Your Book

How to Write the First Sentence of a Book

The Most Important Sentence: How to Write a Killer Opening

Hook Your Reader from the First Sentence: How to Write Great Beginnings

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing and the Red Hering

Narrative Elements: Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing and Suspense

Foreshadowing Key Details

Writing Fiction: Foreshadowing

The Literary Device of Foreshadowing

All About Foreshadowing in Fiction

Foreshadowing

Flashbacks and Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing — How and Why to Use It In Your Writing

Setting

Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life

Write a Setting for a Book

Writing Dynamic Settings

How To Make Your Setting a Character

Guide for Setting

5 Tips for Writing Better Settings

Building a Novel’s Setting

Ending

A Novel Ending

How to End Your Novel

How to End Your Novel 2

How to End a Novel With a Punch

How to End a Novel

How to Finish a Novel

How to Write The Ending of Your Novel

Keys to Great Endings

3 Things That End A Story Well

Ending a Novel: Five Things to Avoid

Endings that Ruin Your Novel

Closing Time: The Ending

✑ CHARACTER

Names

Behind the Name

Surname Meanings and Origins

Surname Meanings and Origins - A Free Dictionary of Surnames

Common US Surnames & Their Meanings

Last Name Meanings & Origins

Name Generators

Name Playground

Different Types of Characters

Ways To Describe a Personality

Character Traits Meme

Types of Characters

Types of Characters in Fiction

Seven Common Character Types

Six Types of Courageous Characters

Creating Fictional Characters (Masterlist)

Building Fictional Characters

Fiction Writer’s Character Chart

Character Building Workshop

Tips for Characterization

Fiction Writer’s Character Chart

Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills 

Males

Strong Male Characters

The History and Nature of Man Friendships

Friendship for Guys (No Tears!)

‘I Love You, Man’ and the rules of male friendship

Male Friendship

Understanding Male Friendship

Straight male friendship, now with more cuddling

Character Development

P.O.V. And Background

Writing a Character: Questionnaire

10 Days of Character Building

Getting to Know Your Characters

Character Development Exercises

✑ STYLE

Chapters

How Many Chapters is the Right Amount of Chapters?

The Arbitrary Nature of the Chapter

How Long is a Chapter?

How Long Should Novel Chapters Be?

Chapter & Novel Lengths 

Section vs. Scene Breaks

Dialogue 

The Passion of Dialogue

25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue

Dialogue Writing Tips

Punctuation Dialogue

How to Write Believable Dialogue

Writing Dialogue: The Music of Speech

Writing Scenes with Many Characters

It’s Not What They Say …

Top 10 Tips for Writing Dialogue

Speaking of Dialogue

Dialogue Tips

Interrupted Dialogue

Two Tips for Interrupted Dialogue

Show, Don’t Tell (Description)

“Tell” Makes a Great Placeholder

The Literary Merit of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Bad Creative Writing Advice

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do

DailyWritingTips: Show, Don’t Tell

GrammarGirl: Show, Don’t Tell

Writing Style: What Is It?

Detail Enhances Your Fiction

Using Sensory Details

Description in Fiction

Using Concrete Detail

Depth Through Perception

Showing Emotions & Feelings

Character Description

Describing Your Characters (by inkfish7 on DeviantArt)

Help with Character Development

Creating Characters that Jump Off the Page

Omitting Character Description

Introducing Your Character(s): DON’T

Character Crafting

Writer’s Relief Blog: “Character Development In Stories And Novels”

Article: How Do You Think Up Your Characters?

5 Character Points You May Be Ignoring

List of colors, hair types and hairstyles

List of words to use in a character’s description 

200 words to describe hair

How to describe hair

Words used to describe the state of people’s hair

How to describe your haircut

Hair color sharts

Four Ways to Reveal Backstory

Words Used to Describe Clothes

Flashbacks

Using Flashbacks in Writing

Flashbacks by All Write

Using Flashback in Fiction

Fatal Backstory

Flashbacks as opening gambit

Don’t Begin at the Beginning

Flashbacks in Books

TVTropes: Flashback

Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear: Flashback Techniques in Fiction

3 Tips for Writing Successful Flashbacks

The 5 Rules of Writing Effective Flashbacks

How to Handle Flashbacks In Writing

Flashbacks and Foreshadowing

Reddit Forum: Is a flashback in the first chapter a good idea?

Forum Discussing Flackbacks

P.O.V

You, Me, and XE - Points of View

What’s Your Point of View?

Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid “Stepping Out of Character”

How to Start Writing in the Third Person

The Opposite Gender P.O.V.

LANGUAGE

 How To Say Said

200 Words Instead of Said

Words to Use Instead of Said

A List of Words to Use Instead of Said

Alternatives to “Walk”

60 Synonyms for “Walk”

✑ USEFUL WEBSITES/LINKS

Grammar Monster

Google Scholar

GodChecker

Tip Of My Tounge

Speech Tags

Pixar Story Rules

Written? Kitten!

TED Talks

DarkCopy

Family Echo

Some Words About Word Count

How Long Should My Novel Be?

The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test

Writer’s “Cheat Sheets”

Last but not least, the most helpful tool for any writer out there is Google!

[emotionalmilkshake]

So so helpful

[melindawrites]

Dunno if I’ve reblogged this.

[logically-devonian-blog]

How the Geneva Drive (the mechanical step that makes the second hand on a clock work by turning constant rotation into intermittent motion) works.

[thelynnfiles]

Oh snap!

[cutlerish]

As an engineer, this makes me happy.

[thefurrynerd]

If only one loop of this gif were equal to one second…

[endoshan]

easy peasy

[aibohphobia]

watching this while listening to a clock ticking is the best decision i have ever made

[fayescarlet]

Man this is rather fascinating.

[curlicuecal]

an entomologist rates ant emojis

Beautiful big almond eye, realistic and full of expression as she gazes gently at you. Elbowed antennae and delicately segmented legs and body. Gorgeous pearlescent sheen like she is glowing. This ant moisturizes. This ant is round and huggable. This ant is a star. 11/10.

Beautifully detailed, lifelike pose but with an unexpected neck and odd antennae, perhaps scared straight. Her eyes suggest she has seen things. Her expression confirms she has seen too much. She is haunted and I want to know more. 7/10.

Floppy antenna, pointy muppet face, oddly posed legs. What is she? She has no waist. May be she is some kind of bee in disguise? I find her unsettling. 3/10.

This ant has an unexplained, double-jointed thorax, and no evidence of a waist. Her four-footed pose suggests that she a centaur rather than an ant. Centaur ants would be cool. I’m not sure what was intended here. 2/10.

Good first impression, kind of bland in the details. This ant has no particular waist to speak of, floppy rather than elbowed antennae, and an inexpressive face. Her color scheme is soft and hazy. I like the sharp angles of her stylishly sophisticated legs. This ant may not know quite were she is going, but she knows how she is getting there. 6/10.

Were you even trying. 0/10

Gasp! This ant is elegant. This ant has a beautiful tapered thorax, a segmented abdomen, alert, elbowed antennae, and a light-footed pose. This ant’s face suggests curiosity and a desire to explore the world. This ant inspires me. I want to be like her. 10/10

3-legged, waistless centaur-ant with strange, limp antennae and a beak. I don’t know what this is? It kind of reminds me of a Hork-Bajir. 1/10, not an ant.

This ant… makes me sad. All of her legs are broken. The MS Paint art style and gradient abuse convey distress. She has a duck beak. Despite this, her expression suggests perseverance and determined cheerfulness. I want this ant to have a better life. I am rooting for her. 3/10

This ant is a bold and challenging mixture of photorealism and caricature. She is broad and low-built and seems very sturdy. She looks like she would help you move. This ant is a dependable friend. 9/10

A picture of an ant from a children’s book.  She is wearing little boots.  This ant is wrong in every way, and yet I can’t stay mad at her.  7/10

An interesting, top-down view of an ant; her legs are positioned with slightly jarring symmetry.  Nevertheless, her overall impression is that of a graceful, stylized design, like a pictograph.  She is suitable for adorning fine garments and jewelry or perhaps gracing the walls of a tiny ant church.  I like this minimalist ant.  8/10.

This is a termite. -10/10

[argonianbum]

why are these all marked as “she”? don’t female ants have wings??? why bother adding the pronoun???

[curlicuecal]

Alates (male and female reproductives) have wings. The queens shed their wings after they mate. The males die. The daughter workers do not have wings. If you see an ant without wings, it’s a she.

And honestly—why bother panicking about things being called “she”? It’s not like I need a reason to gender a bug. I do it all the time. It’s fun. It’s humanizing. They don’t care.

I’m calling this spider she right now. 🕷️ her name is delanie. she’s a lesbian.

[kalex-corner]

This post was such a delightful trip from beginning to end.

Growing up in an abusive household is a fucking trip dude……If you’ve never had someone angrily wash a dish at you or fold a sock in your direction then how are you gonna understand why I get nervous when you quietly do the laundry, or why I ask “are you mad at me?” when you set the bag of groceries down too hard? It’s a totally different way of living and it impacts you long after you’ve left the situation.

[sothisistherapy]

This is so important.

[notsafevorework]

Abused kids speak a language you can’t learn

[kittyinhighheels]

I’ll never forget the people who threw a fit about this post because they didn’t understand the anxiety when someone just seems angry while in your proximity

[aromantic-spinda]

My friend: can I ask you for relationship advice?

Me: *prepares a wheel of fortune where the only two options are "communicate" and "break up"* yeah sure go ahead

[astronomyparkers]

i PERSONALLY would like to FALL IN LOVE please!!!!!! and have the SAME PERSON fall in love with me BACK!!!!!!! could i get some MUTUAL AFFECTION out here!!!!!!!!!!

[anthracoceros]

some of y'all didnt grow up as the person nobody has a crush on and it really shows

[daglout]

some of yall never have to deal with the constant doubt in your own ability to be loved to the point where you get second hand embarrassment at the idea of someone being in love with you and finding you attractive because you’ve been diagnosed with ugly and cringy your whole life and it really shows

[heavensickness]

[miyaluvvsyou]

My fucking life

[lobodascolinas-deactivated20150]

[ninoport]

WOW

[supamuthafuckinvillain]

I’m pretty sure you’ve reached Legendary Status when the God of Skating, Tony Hawk looses his shit

[eveltal-deactivated20151217]

That’s literally the move Christ Air from the first tony hawk pro skater game

[nosdrinker]

HE REALLY DID IT

[tuesdaey]

holy

FUCKING SHIT

[rilgon]

so wait

someone literally had the balls of vibranium it takes to attempt christ air

in front of Tony Hawk

AND STUCK IT

jfc

[comic-canary]

Tony Hawk literally says “Are you kidding me” because that move from the video game is a made up move that know one thought would be humanly possible

[blackphoenixincorporated]

Wow

[deinodrinkspixels]

imádom ezt

[dannysphototherapy]

Makers of Tony Hawk Pro Skater: “Okay let’s do some silly shit called the Air Christ. It’s just a cool looking move no one will ever try it for real.”

Skater in the future: “I don’t even need you to hold my beer. Just get the camera ready….”

[homoz]

[rockinpaco-deactivated20210125]

[animation-s]

[221cbakerstreet]

lion roars are not as powerful as some guy named frank with a trash can

[satandotgov]

how can you post that and not include the video

[moved--306389]

I’M FUCKING WHEEZING

[guardianbastard]

*several seconds of feral snarls*

“great, great yeah that was good”

[transm3d]

I liTERaLLY CAnT BTeAtHE

[toastbutteregg]

[just-shower-thoughts]

Baby gates are essentially blocked off areas due to the characters low level

[titobeauvis-deactivated20190513]

[keggerrrr]

4.24.19

Onto Round 2!

CAR 4 | WSH 3

[assidsex-deactivated20180815]

Weight should be like virginity. Once you lose it you can’t get it back.

[built2bulk-blog]

Ohhhh. I thought you were gonna say “Weight should be like virginity: a societal ideal by which we shouldn’t measure our personal worth.”

[p0kemina]

B A M

[aaitwo-deactivated20250816]

the impulse to just make weird noises for no reason is something i have to ignore like 24/7

[brnsknsol11]

Thought it was just me