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My name is Devan, this blog is for writing advice, resources, and inspiration. Sometimes I post my own work

[slitheringink]

Plotting Methods for Meticulous Plotters

A Guide for the Seasoned and the Not-So-Plot Savvy

This is a subject that a lot of writers tend to struggle with. They have ideas, great ideas, but are uncertain how to string them together into a solid plot. There are many methods that have been devised to do so, and most seem to be based on something you might remember:

The 5 Point Method

This is your basic plot diagram:

Exposition – This is the beginning of your story. This is where you introduce your character (s), establish a setting, and also present your main conflict.

Rising Action – Your story now begins to build. There are often multiple key events that occur where your main character may be faced with a new problem he has to solve, or an unexpected event is thrust at him.

Climax – Everything you’ve been writing has been leading up to this moment. This is going to be the most exciting part of your story where your main character faces the main conflict and overcomes it.

Falling Action – This is mostly tying up loose ends after your main conflict is resolved. They are minor things that weren’t nearly as important as the main conflict, but still needed to be dealt with.

Resolution – The end of the story.

This is probably the easiest way to remember how to string together a single (or multiple) plots. It may be easier for some to define the main plot as the central conflict: the thing that’s causing your main character a huge problem/is his goal.

The 8 Point Method

This method is used to write both novels and film scripts, and further breaks down the 5 Point Method. From the book Write a Novel and Get It Published: A Teach Yourself Guide by Nigel Watts:

Stasis – The opening where the story takes place. Here you introduce your main character and establish a setting (Watts defines it as an “everyday” setting, something normal, but it can be whatever you want).

Trigger or Inciting Incident – The event that changes your character’s life and propels your story forward. This is where you introduce the main conflict.

The Quest – The result of the event. What does your character do? How does he react?

Surprise – This section takes place in the middle of the story, and involves all of the little setbacks and unexpected events that occur to the main character as he tries to fix the problems he’s faced with and/or achieve his goal. This is where you as an author get to throw complications, both horrible and wonderful, at your protagonist and see what happens.

Critical Choice – At some point your character is going to be faced with making a decision that’s not only going to test him as individual, but reveal who he truly is to the audience. This cannot be something that happens by chance. The character must make a choice.

Climax – This is the result of the main character’s critical choice, and should be the highest point of tension in the story.

Reversal – The consequence of the choice and climax that changes the status of your protagonist, whatever that may be. It could make him a king, a murderer, or whatever else you like but it has to make sense with the rest of the story.

Resolution – The end of the story where loose ends are tied up. You’re allowed to leave things unresolved if you intend to write a sequel, but the story itself should be stand alone.

Three Act Structure

While this method is usually for screenplays, it is also used in writing novels (for instance The Hunger Games novels are split up into three acts). From the The Screen Writer’s Workbook by Syd Field: Acts 1 and 3 should be about the same length while Act 2 should be double. For instance if you were writing a screenplay for a two hour film Acts 1 and 3 would be 30 minutes each while Act 2 would be 60 minutes.

Act 1, Set Up – This contains the inciting incident and a major plot point towards the end. The plot point here leads into the second act and is where the protagonist decides to take on the problem he’s faced with.

Act 2, Confrontation – This contains the midpoint of the story, all of the little things that go wrong for the protagonist, and a major plot point towards the end that propels the story into the third act. This is the critical choice the character must make.

Act 3, Resolution – This is where the climax occurs as well as the events that tie up the end of the story.

Another way to look at this method is that there are actually three major plot points, or disasters, that move the plot forward. The first is at the end of Act 1, the second is in the middle of Act 2, and the third is at the end of Act 2.

The Snowflake Method

A “top-down” method by Randy Ingermanson that breaks novel writing down into basic parts, building upon each one. You can find his page on the method here. His ten steps:

Write a single sentence to summarize your novel.

Write a paragraph that expands upon that sentence, including the story set up, the major conflicts, and the ending.

Define your major characters and write a summary sheet corresponding to each one that includes: the character’s name, their story arc, their motivation and goal, their conflict, and their epiphany (what they will learn).

Expand each sentence of your summary paragraph in Step 2 into its own paragraph.

Write a one page description of your major characters and a half page description of less important characters.

Expand each paragraph in Step 4 into a page each.

Expand each character description into full-fledged character charts telling everything there is to know about the characters.

Make a spreadsheet of all of the scenes you want to include in the novel.

Begin writing the narrative description of the story, taking each line from the spreadsheet and expanding the scenes with more details.

Begin writing your first draft.

Wing It

This is what I do most of the time. I tend to keep in mind the basic structure of the 5 Point Method and just roll with whatever ideas come my way. I’ve never been a fan of outlines, or any other type of organization. According to George R.R. Martin, I’ve always been a gardener, not an architect when it comes to writing. I don’t plan, I just come up with ideas and let them grow. Of course, this may not work for some of you, so here are some methods of organization:

Outlines

Notecards

Spreadsheets

Lists

Character Sheets

And if all else fails, you can fall on the advice of Chuck Wendig: 25 Ways to Plot and Prep Your Story.

Remember, none of the methods above are set in stone. They are only guidelines to help you finally write that novel.

-Ash

Updated as of 12/6/2018

Another note: While I still do the ‘Wing It’ method for a lot of shorter works, I’ve settled into actually outlining my novel using the three act structure as a guide and a ton of bullet points. It’s completely okay to adopt a new plotting method when you’ve been using the same one for years. I’ve got 7 pages of outline for Act 1, and it was probably one of the best writing decisions I’ve made. Don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t click. Instead, try something different.

[ghostflowerdreams]

Awesome Sites and Links for Writers

Just about every writer out there has several go-to websites that they use when it comes to their writing. Be it for creativity, writer’s block, to put you in the mood or general writing help. These are mine and I listed them in hopes that you’ll find something that you’ll like or find something useful. I’ve also included some websites that sounded interesting, but I haven’t tried out yet.

Spelling & Grammar

Grammar Girl – Grammar Girl’s famous Quick and Dirty Tips (delivered via blog or podcast) will help you keep your creative writing error free.

The Owl – is Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL), an academic source from Purdue University (which is in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.). It’s contains plenty of grammar guides, style tips and other information that can help with your writing, it’s especially great for academics.

Tip of My Tongue — have you ever had trouble of thinking of a specific word that you can’t remember what it is? Well, this site will help you narrow down your thoughts and find that word you’ve been looking for. It can be extremely frustrating when you have to stop writing because you get a stuck on a word, so this should help cut that down. 

Free Rice – is a great way to test your vocabulary knowledge. What’s even better about this site is that with every correct answer, they donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. So, please disable your adblock since they use the ads on the site to generate the money to buy the rice.

HyperGrammar – is from the University of Ottawa (a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) that offers up a one-stop guide for proper spelling, structure, and punctuation. Being that this comes from a Canadian university, that means that they use standard Oxford English Dictionary spelling. Basically that means you’ll get British English, which differs slightly from formal American English.

AutoCrit – the AutoCrit Editing Wizard analyzes your manuscript to identify areas for improvement, including pacing and momentum, dialogue, strong writing, word choice and repetition. It also provides a number of other writing resources as well. It’s not free, but they do offer 200 characters for analysis at no charge. It’s $29.97 per month or $359.64 for an annual membership. 

Virtual Writing Tutor – is a free online grammar check website that helps writers count words, check spelling, check grammar and punctuation, check paraphrasing, and improve word choice. This website is free to use, and membership is also completely free. Non-members are only able to check 500 words though.

ProWritingAid – is another automatic editing tool that analyzes your writing and produces reports on areas such as overused words, writing style, sentence length, grammar and repeated words and phrases. They offer a free sample, but you have to make an account to try it out. It’s $3.33 per month ($40 annually, or less if you purchase a longer license).

Scribens – is a free English spelling and grammar checker. This spellchecker corrects also detects stylistic elements such as repetitions, run-on sentences, redundancies, and more. It even suggests synonyms for every word.

Writer’s Digest – learn how to improve your writing, find an agent, and even get published with the help of the varied blogs on this site.

Paper Rater – uses Artificial Intelligence to improve your writing. It includes grammar, plagiarism, and spelling check, along with word choice analysis. The basic version is completely free, but they do offer premium subscription for people seeking more advanced features. If you’re interested it’s $14.95 per month or $95.40 per year if you decide to get it.

Syntaxis – it allows you to test your knowledge of grammar with a ten-question quiz. The questions change every time you take the quiz so users are sure to be challenged each time around. It definitely helps writers know if there’s something that they need to brush up on.

Word Frequency Counter – this counter allows you to count the frequency usage of each word in your text. This is especially good when you have a bad habit of using certain words like ‘really’, ‘very’ or ‘a lot’ in your writing.

GrammarCheck – is a free, easy, and secure online tool to proofread any English text.

EditMinion – is a free robotic copy editor that helps you to refine your writing by finding common mistakes.

Proofreading for Common Errors – this is a simple tutorial on proofreading your writing by Indiana University.

BBC – has a section for helping you with your skills, especially in writing, from grammar to spelling, to reading, to listening and to speaking.

Tools

Copyscape – is a free service that you can use to learn if anyone has plagiarized your work. It’s pretty useful for those that want to check for fanfiction plagiarism.

Plagium – is another a copy detection system, that provides a very similar service to Copyscape and uses Yahoo! rather than Google to perform its searches. Just keep in mind that searches for simple text up to 25,000 characters remains free of charge, but any larger requires credits to be purchase.

Write or Die – is an web application for Windows, Mac and Linux which aims to eliminate writer’s block by providing consequences for procrastination. It lets you try it for free, but the desktop version is available for $10. The Write or Die iPad app is $9.99 in the App Store. If you’re really old school, the original web app can still be launched with its modest settings.

Written? Kitten! – is similar to Write or Die, but it’s a kinder version and it’s completely free. They use positive reinforcement, so every time you reach a goal they reward you with an adorable picture of a kitten.

Fast Fingers – offers you an easy way to improve your typing skills. It’s puts you through a quick typing game that tests your typing speed and improves it at the same time. It’s also a great way for writers to warm up.

Information & Data

RefDesk – it has an enormous collection of reference materials, searchable databases and other great resources that can’t be found anywhere else. It’s great to use when you need to find something and/or check your facts.

Bib Me – it makes it easy to create citations, build bibliographies and acknowledge other people’s work. This is definitely something that academics will love. It’s basically a bibliography generator that automatically fills in a works cited page in MLA, APA, Chicago or Turbian formats.

Internet Public Library – is a non-profit, largely student-run website managed by a consortium, headed by Drexel University. Currently this online library is inactive, but it’s still full of resources that are free for anyone to use, from newspaper and magazine articles to special collections. Just keep in mind that it’s not up to date, since they stopped maintaining it on June 30, 2015.

The Library of Congress – if you’re looking for primary documents and information, the Library of Congress is a great place to start. It has millions of items in its archives, many of which are accessible right from the website.

Social Security Administration: Popular Baby Names – is the most accurate list of popular names from 1879 to the present. If your character is from America and you need a name for them, this gives you a accurate list of names, just pick the state or decade that your character is from.

WebMD – is a handy medical database loaded with information. It’s not a substitute for a doctor, but can give you a lot of good information on diseases, symptoms, treatments, etc.

MedlinePlus – is the National Institutes of Health’s web site that contains information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues in language you can understand. It also offers reliable, up-to-date health information, anytime, anywhere, for free. You can use the site to learn about the latest treatments, look up information on a drug or supplement, find out the meanings of words, or view medical videos or illustrations. You can also get links to the latest medical research on your topic or find out about clinical trials on a disease or condition.

Mayo Clinic – is a nonprofit medical practice and medical research group.

World Health Organization (WHO) – is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. Its current priorities include communicable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis; the mitigation of the effects of non-communicable diseases; sexual and reproductive health, development, and ageing; nutrition, food security and healthy eating; occupational health; substance abuse; and driving the development of reporting, publications, and networking.

Google Scholar – is an online, freely accessible search engine that lets users look for both physical and digital copies of articles. It searches a wide variety of sources, including academic publishers, universities, and preprint depositories and so on. While Google Scholar does search for print and online scholarly information, it is important to understand that the resource is not a database.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac – this classic almanac offers yearly information on astronomical events, weather conditions and forecasts, recipes, and gardening tips.

State Health Facts – Kaiser Family Foundation provides this database, full of health facts on a state-by-state basis that address everything from medicare to women’s health.

U.S. Census Bureau – you can learn more about the trends and demographics of America with information drawn from the Census Bureau’s online site.

Wikipedia – this shouldn’t be used as your sole source, but it can be a great way to get basic information and find out where to look for additional references, which is at the bottom in the citations section. 

Finding Data on the Internet – a great website that list links that can tell you where you can find the inflation rate, crime statistics, and other data.

Word References

RhymeZone – whether you’re writing poetry, songs, or something else entirely, you can get help rhyming words with this site.

Acronym Finder – with more than 565,000 human-edited entries, Acronym Finder is the world’s largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initials.

Symbols.com – is a unique online encyclopedia that contains everything about symbols, signs, flags and glyphs arranged by categories such as culture, country, religion, and more. 

OneLook Reverse Dictionary – is a dictionary that lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word. 

The Alternative Dictionaries – is a PDF, that contains a list of slang words in all types of languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Norwegian and many, many others. There use to be a website, but it’s not there anymore and this is the next best thing I could find.

Online Etymology Dictionary – it gives you the history and derivation of any word. Etymologies are not definitions; they’re explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.

MediLexicon – is a comprehensive dictionary of medical, pharmaceutical, biomedical, and health care abbreviations and acronyms.

Merriam Webster Online – the online version of the classic dictionary also provides a thesaurus and a medical dictionary.

Multilingual Dictionary – it translate whatever you need from 30 different languages with this easy-to-use site.

Collins Online Dictionary – is a free online dictionary and reference resource draw on the wealth of reliable and authoritative information about language, thanks to the extensive use of their vast databases of language; both in English and in other languages.

Writing Software

Open Office – why pay for Microsoft products when you can create free documents with Open Office? This open source software provides similar tools to the Microsoft Office Suite, including spreadsheets, a word processor, the ability to create multimedia presentations, and more.

LibreOffice – is a free and open source office suite. It was forked from OpenOffice.org in 2010, which was an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite comprises programs to do word processing, spreadsheets, slideshows, diagrams and drawings, maintain databases, and compose math formula.

Scrivener – is not a free program, but it’s certainly a very popular one. It's great for organizing research, planning drafts, and writing novels, articles, short stories, and even screenplays.

OmmWriter – is for Mac OS X, a free simple text processor that gives you a distraction free environment. So you can focus only on your writing without being tempted or distracted by other programs on your computer. They are currently working on a Windows version of their software as well, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested.

FocusWriter – is a completely free full-screen writing application designed to immerse you in your writing. It keeps your writing space simple and clean without sacrificing functionality. It includes a daily goal tracker, work count and time spent writing. There’s also spell checking, real-time feedback on variables like word and page count, and tabbed document browsing. It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Q10 – is a free portable distraction-free writing tool for Windows. The interface includes nothing but a tiny bar at the bottom that displays the character, word, and page count—you can toggle the bar off for a totally distraction free workspace. 

Evernote – is a free app for your smartphone and computer that stores everything you could possibly imagine losing track of, like a boarding pass, receipt, article you want to read, to do list, or even a simple typed note. The app works brilliantly, keeping everything in sync between your computer, smartphone, or tablet. It’s definitely a useful app for writers when you have ideas on the go.

ScriptBuddy – is a full-fledged screenplay software program. It handles the proper screenplay format automatically, so you can concentrate on your story. It is easy to use and the basic version is free.

TheSage – is a free application, which is a comprehensive English dictionary and thesaurus that provides a number of useful and in some cases unusual search tools.

Sigil – is ideal for e-book authors because it's a free EPUB editor with a stack of essential features.

WriterDuet – is a collaborative screenwriting app for working with writing partners in real-time. It also lets you copy text written in Fountain, or other screenwriting programs (Final Draft, Celtx, etc.) and paste it directly into WriterDuet with the correct formatting most of the time. They offer the basic version for free, WriterDuet Pro ($9.00 monthly, $79 yearly and $199 lifetime) and WriterDuet Premium ($299 yearly). WriterDuet works on Mac, Windows, Linux, Chromebooks, iOS, and Android. It gives identical page counts on all devices, and PDFs.

ZenWriter – is a program that gives you an open, peaceful place for composing your thoughts without any distractions. It’s a fullscreen text editor that offers customizable backgrounds, music, and a nifty word count at the bottom of the window. It’s not free, but it does offer a free trial for 15 days. It is available for Windows, and after the 15-day trial period you can choose to purchase it for $17.50 if you want.

WriteMonkey – is a Windows writing application with an extremely stripped down user interface, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your words. It is light, fast and free. It’s also an portable app, so you can stick it on a USB drive and use in on whatever computer you happen to find yourself at.

YWriter5 – is a free word processor and is designed for Windows XP, Vista and beyond. It's a small but very comprehensive tool which helps you to plan your story. It breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you to keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create. You can set up deadlines, for instance, and the program’s Work Schedule report will let you know how much you’ll have to do, each day, to finish on time. You can even enter your characters, locations and items and freely organize them into scenes. This definitely sounds like it’ll be useful for NaNoWriMo writers.

Kingsoft Office (WPS Office) – is an office suite for Microsoft Windows, Linux, iOS and Android OS. The basic version is free to use, but a fully featured professional-grade version is also available. This software allows users to view, create and share office documents that are fully compatible with dozens of document formats, including Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Excel. In other words, the format is similar to a Microsoft Word document (.DOC or .DOCX file) and supports formatted text, images, and advanced page formatting. Kingsoft Writer documents can be converted to Microsoft Word *.doc files in the software.

Creativity, Fun & Miscellaneous

National Novel Writing Month – is one of the most well-known writing challenges in the writing community. National Novel Writing Month pushes you to write 50,000 words in 30 days (for the whole month of November).

WritingFix – a fun site that creates writing prompts on the spot. The site currently has several options—prompts for right-brained people, for left-brained people, for kids—and is working to add prompts on classic literature, music and more.

Creative Writing Prompts – the site is exactly what it says. They have 100+ and more, of prompts that you can choose from.

My Fonts – is the world’s largest collection of fonts. You can even upload an image containing a font that you like, and this tells you what it is. Just keep in mind that not all of the fonts are free.

DaFont – has lot of fonts as well, most of them are completely free to download. However, some are demo versions or are only free if you used it for personal use and not commercial use.

Story Starters – this website offers over one trillion randomly generated story starters for creative writers.

The Gutenberg Project – this site is perfect for those who like to read and/or have an e-reader. There’s over 33,000 ebooks you can download for free. 

The Imagination Prompt Generator – click through the prompts to generate different ideas in response to questions like “Is there a God?” and “If your tears could speak to you, what would they say?”

The Phrase Finder – this handy site helps you hunt down famous phrases, along with their origins. It also offers a phrase thesaurus that can help you create headlines, lyrics, and much more.

Storybird – this site allows you to write a picture book. They provided the gorgeous artwork and you create the story for it, or just read the stories that others have created.

Language Is a Virus – the automatic prompt generator on this site can provide writers with an endless number of creative writing prompts. Other resources include writing exercises and information on dozens of different authors.

Background Noise/Music

SimplyNoise – a free white noise sounds that you can use to drown out everything around you and help you focus on your writing.

Rainy Mood – from the same founders of Simply Noise, this website offers the pleasant sound of rain and thunderstorms. There's a slide volume control, which you can increase the intensity of the noise (gentle shower to heavy storm), thunder mode (often, few, rare), oscillation button, and a sleep timer. 

Coffitivity – a site that provides three background noises: Morning Murmur (a gentle hum), Lunchtime Lounge (bustling chatter), and University Undertones (campus cafe). A pause button is provided whenever you need a bladder break, and a sliding volume control to give you the freedom to find the perfect level for your needs and moods. It’s also available as an android app, iOS app, and for Mac desktop. If you go  Premium it’s $9 and you’ll get 1 year of unlimited listening to their audio tracks and access to three more sounds: Paris Paradise, Brazil Bistro and Texas Teahouse.

Rainy Cafe – it provides background chatter in coffee shops (similar to Coffitivity) AND the sound of rain (similar to Simply Rain). There’s also individual volume and on/off control for each sound category.

Forest Mood – is background noise of the forest.

MyNoise – is a website with multi-purpose noise generator that is completely free. It helps you to focus while working in a noisy environment or to help settle your anxiety and it’s also useful in cases of insomnia or tinnitus. It has so many sounds to choose from: Fish Tank, Clockwork, Gregorian Chants, Traffic Noise, and so on.

MyNoise: Online Fire Noise Generator – is also from NyNoise, but it’s a short-cut link for those that only want to hear the sound of fire crackling in a fireplace.

Snowy Mood – is a noise generator that plays sounds of boots walking through snow on an endless loop. It’s simple and straightforward, and perfect for those days when you feel like being snowed in.

Noisli – is a background noise generator that helps you to drown out annoying noises in order to create your perfect environment for working and relaxing. You can mix different sounds together, such as rain and a train or fire and the night sound of crickets or with the waves at a beach. 

Purrli – is a white noise generator that recreates the sound and the presence of a cat purring next to you.  

Ambient Mixer – is a free online audio mixing tool in which you can create and edit your own ambient music or background sounds. You can even listen to other people’s mixes such as Gryffindor Common Room, Riding with the Winchesters, Mr. Tumnus’ House, A Day in Camp Half-Blood, and so on.

8tracks – is an internet radio website and everyone can listen for free, well it use to be completely free. Unlike other music oriented social network such as Pandora or Spotify, 8tracks doesn’t have commercial interruption (that’s if you get 8tracks Plus). Users can create free accounts and can either browse the site and listen to other user-created mixes for as long as they like, and/or they can create their own mixes. It’s a perfect place to listen to other writer’s playlist, share yours or find music for specific characters or moods. Note: Joining is still free, however you’re now limited to 1 hour of free listening for each week (or more depending on how much people like your mixes, but I’ve been told the limitation is for those in the US only). If you want unlimited access it’s $30 per year or $5.00 a month.

Playmoss – with 8tracks no longer having free unlimited listening and no commercial interruptions many people looked for an alternative and Playmoss is what 8tracks use to be. Playmoss is free to join and it has all the same basic features that 8tracks has, only with extra goodies like unlimited skips, able to see the entire tracklist before playing, start at any point in the playlist, see how many playlists contain a certain song and even collaborate playlists with other people.

[whimsicallytwisted]

I don‘t suppose anyone has a link to a guide for how to write appropriate Victorian dialog/speech?

Cause that would be awesome. An ‘18th Century Speech for Dummies’ if you will.

[thewritershandbook]

How to Write in an Authentic Historical Voice 

Turning a Phrase: How to Write Historical Dialogue 

Victorian Era English Language 

Etiquette Of Conversation Victorian Era (Of Era Etiquette Guide)

These might help. The most suggested research is to read fiction works from the era. :)

[sweetiepie08]

Trying to find the perfect name for a character, but you only have a vague idea of what you want, like “he feels like a 2-syllable kind of guy” or “It need a hard consonant at the end.”   

[ofvisitorsthefairest]

May I recommend nameberry.com? I’ve sung its praises before, but you can search for specific lists of like “three syllable girls names” or “names ending in a.” You can also input names with a similar vibe to what you want and it’ll give you suggestions.

[bifrostiron]

I have been looking for this site since I first started plotting out my novel, god bless you

[dnd-one-shots]

Have the party start in a tavern

Have the party start in the tavern, which is in fact a giant mimic they had just been devoured by moments before and must escape before they are all digested.

Have the party start in tavern, but its a themed tavern; the theme being ‘a tavern you would find in the mortal realm’.  Clearly visible from the windows is not the mortal realm.

Have the party start in a tavern, as it is where the X on their treasure map lies.  Somewhere within is 20,000 gold worth in stolen jewels.

Have the party start in a tavern with a famed magic mirror on the wall that shows the room 5 minutes in the future .  Eventually a party member looks over and sees them-self being murdered by assassins.  The party now has 5 minutes to prepare in order to change their fate.

Have the party start in a tavern.  The lights go out and when they come back on the baroness is dead.  One of the party members is a murderer..  

Have the party start in a, tavern, which is currently on fire.  The fire is wielding great-swords.  Roll initiative.

Have the party start in a tavern.  They were born here, grew up here, and the tavern is all they know.  Today, the front door opens for the first time.

Have the party start in a tavern.  It was the only thing that survived the great flood and is now floating on the surface of a vast ocean.

Have the party start in a tavern.  On the wall is a portrait of one of the taverns founders, one who looks suspiciously like one the party members; the founder was rumored to be an immortal vampire who disappeared long ago.  The serving staff grow suspicious of the party, and try to dispose of them in the night by an angry mob.  

Have the party start in a tavern.  It is a surprise birthday party for one the party members.  Orcs jump out of the cake.

Have the party start in a tavern.  They own and operate the tavern (bartender, cook, etc).  The low level adventuring party that promised to rid the rats out of the cellar come running up the stairs, dropping their adventuring equipment in panic as they flee screaming into the streets.  Something very not-rat comes skittering up the stairs towards them.

[definitelybeholderrpgideas]

Do the murder one, but before the campaign, reach out to each player and ask if they’d like to be the murderer. Imply that you’re only reaching out to that player. Get them to agree. Ask them how they go about the murder.

In short, set it up so that EVERY member of the party was the murderer, but each thought they were the only one.

[hallownest-archive-deactivated2]

imo the best way to interpret those “real people don’t do x” writing advice posts is “most people don’t do x, so if a character does x, it should be a distinguishing trait.” human behavior is infinitely varied; for any x, there are real people who do x. we can’t make absolute statements. we can, however, make probabilistic ones.

for example, most people don’t address each other by name in the middle of a casual conversation. if all your characters do that, your dialogue will sound stilted and unnatural. but if just one character does that, then it tells us something about that character.

[jauntylittlefrillyboy]

[aletheiawriting]

Ways to find a plot when you have characters and a setting

… but only characters and a setting. 

You have a world. A universe. A setting. Good! Describe what happens in it normally - describe your main character(s)’s daily life. Now, what would destabilize this routine completely? If many things could, write them all down. Pick your favourite idea(s). Plots are born from change: everything was going normally… until it wasn’t.

Make a list with all the goals/motivations of your main characters. Can the plot revolve around your characters going after these goals? 

Which goals are more important? Focus on those. 

Are different characters’ goals in conflict with each other? Conflict is usually what propels a story forward. 

What could go wrong in your character’s pursuit of their goal? Make it go wrong.

If you don’t know your characters’ goals, go back to the drawing board; they probably need more development.

If there’s not enough conflict of different motivations, make a new character who creates conflict!

How do you want your main character to have changed by the end of the story? Do you want them to be less selfish? To have come to terms with a part of themself? To have learned something new? Write down ideas that could accomplish this change. 

If you can’t think of any way your character could be changed (read: improved) by the end of the story, go back to the drawing board. They might be “too perfect”.

Notes: 

The change that triggers your plot can be anything. It doesn’t have to be the start of an epic war that will bring forth the apocalypse, it can be your character meeting a new person who shakes things up in their life, or anything you want!

Motivations can be anything. It doesn’t have to be something grand - if your character’s motivation is to just live a quiet life, you can still come up with a plot that will get in the way of that goal! 

Character development can be anything, as well - you don’t need a cliché moral to the story; your character doesn’t even need to change in a good way, if that’s not what you want for your story!

This is what I’ve found works for me, but if you try it and it doesn’t, or if it sounds way too sententious and strict for you - that’s okay! Take it with a grain of salt! Maybe you think your characters are just fine and don’t need more developing even in the situations in which I recommended you “go back to the drawing board”, or maybe you have better ways of coming up with a plot. That’s fine, the writing process can be very personal!

[mythcreantsblog]

Unreliable narrators need to add something to the story. They aren’t an excuse for poor storytelling and inconsistencies.

[gracebeereblogs]

If you have an unreliable narrator, you should be doing twice as much work in your plotting! At every turn of the story, you need to know both what’s actually happening AND what your narrator thinks is happening. 

[emptymanuscript]

When you’re right, you’re right. And you’re right.

Not only does the author need to know what’s happening on both layers of story, they need to actually write in clues for the reader to telegraph the lower, “true,” layer of the story so the reader is capable of figuring it out if they choose to read closely. Without that double work, an unreliable narrator cannot perform its literary function.

It is the evidence of the truth, not the lie the narrator tells, that makes a narrator unreliable. Otherwise they are just a liar which the audience is incapable of catching due to the hobbling imposed by the medium. Which means the lie may as well be the truth, making it serve no function as a lie. 

[vensulove]

aida 🌸

[ @mafuki ]

[thecaffeinebookwarrior-deactiva]

Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters

Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between deaf characters

Mute Characters

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye

4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye

Learning to Live With One Eye

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision

Monocular Depth Perception

Deaf-Blind Characters

What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?

Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

Deaf and Blind by 30

Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)

Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)

A Day of a Deaf Blind Person

Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind

How the Deaf-Blind Communicate

Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

Raising a DeafBlind Baby

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

[thecaffeinebookwarrior-deactiva]

Updated with more resources, specifically for characters who are blind in one eye.

[theroundbartable]

Oh damn, i need this

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to Writing to Forgeries, Spying and Defections

When writing intrigue, one must look at some of the ways intrigue can be written and explored. How can you beat an enemy or rival without picking up a sword? Play dirty.

Letters

As Lord Varys put it, the contents of a man’s letters are more valuable than gold. In worlds without texts and phone calls, letters are sometimes the only communication. But letters can be read, intercepted, stolen and forged. In fantasy and history, some people seal letters with wax. Consider how to open a letter without evidence that you have opened it.

Accounts

Money runs the world. A business may be doing well on the surface but may be running at a deficit. Discrepancies with the government accounts can raise questions of treason and betrayal. Sudden increases in wealth raises questions about ill gotten gains. Think about the Lannisters, a moment. Their gold mines are gone and they are in debt. They are hiding behind lies. If the real accounts and figures were found, the Lannisters are fucked.

Spies

No, not James Bond. Political spies or domestic haunt fantasy kingdoms. The servants who pour your wine or make your bed, could be informing your words to an enemy. A courtier you trust could be spying on the king’s movements. Beware of people around you.

Pensions

Not OAP monies. These are sums paid to spy or courtier to serve a cause or persons. Not all pensions are paid to spies. Some are simply paid to a person to promote an interest. Let’s say that Person X likes pineapples. X pays money to person Y to talk about and support pineapples.

Networks

Sometimes groups of people can be working together to achieve an end. One guy knows another guy who knows a guy around and around it goes. They don’t have to be buddies. Sometimes they are people working to achieve an aim. The Maesters are theorised as doing this. Though all employed around Westeros, their allegiance is with the Citadel. Archmaester Marwyn the Mage claims the Maesters brought down House Targaryen and the Dragons. This makes sense if the maesters first began the Dance of the Dragons, supported the Storming of the Dragonpit and then arranged for high lords to inter marry (Brandon Stark and Catelyn Tully. Robert Baratheon and Lyanna Stark). A lot of whatifs but a lot of coincidences can all be explained by the Networks of the Maesters.

[redhawke-deactivated20170628]

heartbreaking da2 + impressionism

[maramahan]

Literally THE most useful thing you can learn as a writer is how to pitch a story

A good pitch can turn strangers into readers—who might then become fans

[incandescent-creativity]

Allow me!

Five Elements of a Good Novel Pitch

Common Problems in Pitches (ie what to avoid)

How to Pitch Your Novel in Under a Minute (there’s even more links at the end of this one, too!)

[heroineimages]

Potentially useful.

Warning to writers

While you are worrying about whether beta readers will steal your ideas, there is a more genuine threat on the horizon.

When offered a publishing contract, please do all your research before you sign. There are a number of fakes and scammers out there, as well as good-intentioned amateurs that don’t know how to get your work to a wide audience. I won’t tell the heartbreaking stories here - there are too many.

Being published badly is worse than being never published.

It can destroy your career and your dreams.

The quick check is to google the publishing house name + scam or warning.

But, to be sure, check with these places first. They aren’t infallible (nothing is) but they can help you protect yourself. They are written and maintained by expereinced writers, editors, publishers and legal folks.

Absolute Write: Bewares and Background Checks

Preditors and editors

Writer Beware

and the WRITER BEWARE blog

Keep yourself and your work safe.

This is really important, so if you are a writer or have writer friends, or you are a writing blog, please reblog it.

[rosey-buddy]

Just to let you know, PublishAmerica changed their name to America Star Books.

[lunamax1214]

HEAD’S UP, WRITER TYPES: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT PSA!

[oldmanyellsatcloud]

Also applies to many so-called freelance sites that are just content mills, and may not pay unless your work is used, even if the contract seems designed otherwise.

[konekat]

Listen, reading these is like legit reading horror stories.  When it comes to publishing your writing, always, always, ALWAYS do your research.  Not only will it help you avoid scams, but it will also be likely to help you land a much better fit for an agent/publisher/whatever.  Knowing more is never going to hurt.

[glorious74-deactivated20181211]

Omg!!! Thanks for the warning! Writers— reblog!

[thegirlwiththebook]

I’ve heard stories like this that are scarier than horror stories. This is an all time worst nightmare for a writer. Everyone reblog and make sure you keep your work safe! 

[the960writers]

Always, ALWAYS check Writer Beware. Let me also recommend Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog about contracts and contract scams for authors in her section Business Musings.

[more-legit-gr8er-writing-tips]

Reblogging again for the links. Also check pred-ed.com and the Absolute Write forum. Then google Publisher’s name + scam and see what comes up. Do NOT use the BBB ratings, they are wholly unsuitable for rating publishers and regularly give A ratings to well-known publishing scams. You can also read my own post on publishing scams, have a link on the left of my blog ( can’t link here, I’m on mobile, sorry).

[bodaciousbanshee-deactivated202]

@korrigu

[breelandwalker]

SUPER IMPORTANT PSA!

Equally important to know is that you can SELF-PUBLISH through a number of platforms these days. @ean-amhran and I used Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing to publish both of our books. No editors, no contracts, no finagling with publishers who want to change your materials. Just direct-to-market material.

(Granted, it means you’ve got to do a LOT more work yourself with editing and formatting and cover art, but it’s worth it to miss the headache of trying to bargain with publishing houses or avoid scams.)

Be vigilant, fellow writers!

[jenniferrpovey]

If you choose to self publish then HAVE A PLAN and think things through.

And hire an editor. Please, for the love of all that is holy, hire an editor. It’s expensive, but you will get a better book out, a better reputation…

[athelind]

If you’re going to publish electronically, make sure you also get someone who can LAY AN EBOOK OUT PROPERLY.

I have spent money on Kindle books, many of them reprints of older works, whose formatting is so messed up as to render them unreadable.

[jenniferrpovey]

I actually recommend using the Smashwords Style Guide even if you don’t use Smashwords.

It lays out how to neatly format an e-book in a wonderful step by step format, and you can get it free from Smashwords. Just leave off the couple of things that are (very obviously) Smashwords specific.

If you can’t stand dealing with the meticulous detail, then by all means hire somebody, but most people can learn to format an ebook correctly and once you’ve done it a couple of times it takes about an hour tops.

[freshest-tittymilk]

@ghdos spread the knowledge

[vorpalgirl]

Because the redirects aren’t working for me, I’m going to assume others might have trouble with these links, so for those who need it the URL for the website to Writer Beware is: www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/ As stated on here: “Writer Beware is sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, with additional support from the Mystery Writers of America, the Horror Writers Association, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors.” These are not publishers’ guilds, notice; you sometimes see scammers trying to defend themselves against Writer Beware exposes by claiming that they’re “small press” or “indie” and Big Publishing is somehow out to get them - but all of those guilds are run by and for writers, to help support them and represent them in the field. It is the closest writers have to having unions, and there’s no direct competition between them (you could literally be an in any of those guilds are the same time as each other, in addition to others, and I believe a number of authors are).

Writer Beware is a wonderful resource, and I highly recommend it. It’s both a good general guide to the scams people run/red flags to watch out for (such as giving up your copyright entirely as opposed to specific rights, or being charged to publish something or have it edited, when they’re trying to act like they’re a “normal” publisher), and a frequently-updated list of the latest specific known scammers, both in “fake agents” and fake/scammy publishers categories. (The company formerly known as Publish America is one of the most famous and egregious cases, but by far not the only one)

Additionally, for SF and fantasy writers, the SFWA’s own list of qualifying markets that one can be published in as a prerequisite to be able to get into their guild (remember, it IS a profession-based guild), is a great guide to normal markets for those genres that have standard contracts that aren’t abusive or scammy, and their guidelines include some of the industry-standard minimums for “per word” etc rates, so even if some new magazine market isn’t on their list, you can tell if it’s suspiciously far outside the usual per-word or whatnot standards. (It’s likely the guidelines for Mystery Writers of America etc also would be useful in that vein) Even if you’re unpublished or don’t want to join their guild, they’re a wonderful group and resource, and I highly recommend their site and Writer Beware in particular! The other sites mentioned above, such as “Preditors and Editors” should be still valid if you Google them, and are often rec’d by Writer Beware, but Writer Beware is the one I’m most familiar with. :)

[hookslovelyswan]

Also, you should never have to pay an agent or anyone a  “reading fee”! DO NOT PAY PEOPLE TO READ YOUR WORK!!! Run away from so-called agents that charge a reading fee! They are considered unethical in their own industry!

Also related to agents: Should you go this route and seek one, DO NOT PAY ONE DIME TO THEM upfront! A real agent only gets paid when he sells your book to a publisher! The average cut is about 10-15% of the first sale profits, if I remember right, with cuts of film and other rights maybe being more, when sold. At most, writers should only be responsible for the costs of phone calls and postage.

For more information see: How Literary Agents Get Paid. Standard Commission Practices and Payments for Literary Agents

Edited to Add: Some other great, highly respected resources for writing and getting published are:

Writer’s Digest

The Writer

Writer’s Market

[thatdisasterauthor]

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT PRO WRITING AID BEFORE?! THIS THING IS FUCKING GLORIOUS. HOLY SHIT. LOOK AT THIS.

IT GIVES YOU A WHOLE DAMN REPORT ON YOUR WRITING AND WALKS YOU THROUGH HOW TO MAKE IT BETTER AND WHY IT IS SUGGESTING CHANGES. THIS IS JUST A TINY CHUNK OF THE HUGE REPORT IT GAVE ME ON THE FIRST CHAPTER OF ONE OF MY PROJECTS. I AM IN LOVE.

AND IT WORKS WITH SCRIVENER. AND IT IS AFFORDABLE.

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME?!

[thatdisasterauthor]

Seriously, a couple hours with this and my first chapter is so much better. It helped me see problems I KNEW I had (passive voice, showing vs. telling, adverbs) but was having a hard time sussing out. It has made editing so much more fun and easy because now I know what the hell I’m doing and what to look for instead of stumbling around blind shouting “adverbs? adverbs?” like a town crier. I can already tell I’m getting better at seeing things without the program having to show me too.

I officially worship this thing.

[caainhurst]

it’s ProWritingAid in case anyone missed it

[coramo]

Does it do essays?

[thatdisasterauthor]

It does have an academic mode, yes!

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to Addressing Nobility

It can be hard to remember how to properly address your noble or royal characters when writing a fantasy court. Here is a quick guide:

1. King/Queen:

Usually addressed as either “Your Grace” or “Your Majesty”. Consort (married to a ruler and not reigning in their own right) can be addressed the same. Sire or Madam can be used also.

2. Prince/Princess:

They are addressed as “Your Highness”. They are NEVER addressed the same as a King or Queen

3. Duke/Duchess:

These are addressed with “Your Grace”. This was a common term also used by royalty before Henry VIII got to big for his codpiece.

4. Earl (Count)/Countess:

Are almost never referred as the “Earl of Narnia” but “Lord Narnia”.

5. Lord/Lady:

An easy one. They are called “My Lord” or “My Lady”.

6. Emperor/Empress:

These may be equal to a King/Queen for status but the have a grander title. They are only addressed as “Your Imperial Highness/Majesty”

I hope this helps when writing your court or fantasy novel.

[dynamicsymmetry]

Good stuff.

[eerian-sadow]

This. This is good fiction writing advice. I really appreciate how it was formatted as “this is a common problem, here is a solution to try in your own work” and not “oh god, don’t do that!” without any extra help. And I extra appreciated the “don’t rely on adverbs” bit, because they do have their place but they aren’t the only way actions can be emphasized.