Or Just Daydream Instead?

A side blog for writing tips and storylines

[random-questions-fairy]

Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

[theredscreech]

Heads up that this is a very extensive questionnaire and might be daunting to a lot of writers (myself included). That being said, it is also an amazing questionnaire and I will definitely be using it (or at the very least, some of it).

[heroineimages]

Bookmarking this…

[caffeinewitchcraft]

I have a mute character in the story I’m writing and one of my beta readers suggested I use italics when they sign so that I don’t have to keep peppering “they signed” or “their hands flashed” throughout the piece.

But like…I always read italics in a different tone like they’re thoughts. It seems quieter than using normal quotations which makes what they say look less significant on the page than other character’s dialogue.

I really don’t think my audience needs me to use completely different punctuation around a mute character. There’s no need to act like they’re speaking a different language since their muteness isn’t a focal point in the story.

So really this reader’s comment has done the complete opposite of what they intended. Now I’m actively taking out as many of my “hands flashed” notations as possible and just writing in normal body language because, clearly, the other characters understand them and my audience doesn’t need to be coddled.

[fanarchoslashivist]

As an HOH reader and writer I can affirm that once the signing has been established it can just be treated like “said”.

You can add little things for emphasis though, like how fast or flippant a sign is given, also a lot of our “punctuation” is in facial expressions, so wild looks is kind of normal. Also messing up signs and just.. pushing them aside. Like, you mess up a fingerspell and just take both hands and shove the air in front of you to your side, people who sign eventually end up doing this for other things, like a “forget it” motion. It’s like a “wave it off” gesture.

Body language for someone who signs is a lot more animated than someone who speaks, as we use our upper body a lot in our conversations, so the act of “signing” is more than just hand signals.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Yes….yes GOOD this is the good stuff right here. I’m going to incorporate some of these ASAP ESPECIALLY the pushing the air but to clear it of your mistakes

[quousque]

YOU KNOW WHAT BOTHERS ME

when fantasy books describe the cloth of Quant Farmpeople’s clothing as “homespun” or “rough homespun”

“homespun” as opposed to what??? EVERYTHING WAS SPUN AT HOME

they didn’t have fucking spinning factories, your pseudo-medieval farmwife is lucky if she has a fucking spinning wheel, otherwise she’s spinning every single thread her family wears on a drop spindle NO ONE ELSE WAS DOING THE SPINNING unless you go out of your way to establish a certain baseline of industrialization in your fake medieval fantasy land.

and “rough”??? lol just because it’s farm clothes? bitch cloth was valuable as fuck because of the labor involved ain’t no self-respecting woman gonna waste fiber and ALL THAT FUCKING TIME spinning shitty yarn to weave into shitty cloth she’s gonna make GOOD QUALITY SHIT for her family, and considering that women were doing fiber prep/spinning/weaving for like 80% of their waking time up until very recently in world history, literally every woman has the skills necessary to produce some TERRIFYINGLY GOOD QUALITY THREADS

come to think of it i’ve never read a fantasy novel that talks about textile production at all??? like it’s even worse than the “where are all the farms” problem like where are people getting the cloth if no one’s doing the spinning and weaving??? kmart???

[systlin]

THANK U

[rosslynpaladin]

pro tip: what do you say instead? I gotcha.

 In Ye Olde Medieval Fantasy Dayes, everybody’s layer against skin (shirt tunic or shift) is gonna be linen. it’s almost never wool except stockings or hose (like pant legs). Say “undyed cloth” if you wanna make them sound simple and peasanty. Comment on how you can tell it wasn’t made for them (the fit is off) and has had probably eight owners before. 

Outer clothing is gonna be either wool, or a blend called Linsey-woolsey, and again you could say Undyed, but dyes are not only common they are CHEAP and relatively easy. (innerwear is often left undyed or bleached to white because it gets washed to heck- like beaten by a wooden stick on a stone by the river- and dye would just fade out a lot so why bother. Ths is also why innerwear has ties, rarely buttons, unless you are so rich you have people doing your washing delicately because they’re hired to do only that. Buttons would get broken in the washing)

A poorer person is often seen in “russet”, a kind of rusty orange-brown color. Purple was famously reserved for royalty in many times and places, but its  also just hard to do. We see a lot more magentas and fuschias for nobles or common middle class folks than we ever see of Purple- and not many of those. Deep blue was more likely on very rich people, but a light blue was common for even poorer folks. Yellow was popular with everyone, and so was green, and many shades of reds, including the color we now call orange (they did not- this is why redheads are called redheads and not orangeheads). Your vision of everyone in very drab brown and mud colors is from Hollywood- most medieval-ren folks have clothing with colors. Sometimes garish colors, to the modern eye. Traffic cone Orange and acid green was a popular combo in the 13th century.

[elfwreck]

Example medieval dye colors. Lots of yellows and orangey-browns. Woad gave a range of blues that are basically what we think of as “denim colors.” There were purples - royal purple was a specific color from a specific source - but if you mix wine-dye and woad-dye, you get purpleish dye. (Getting the color to stay that way may be more difficult. Everything worn by peasants fades; they couldn’t afford the really good fixatives.)

More examples and explanations here: 

Plum, dusty purple, lavender, burgundy, chestnut, blood red

Walnut, chocolate, tan, linen, pale apricot, spice, dark spice

Peasant clothes were often more colorful than the nobility. Nobles could afford bright, clear colors that peasants couldn’t - but one mark of wealth was being able to buy all 4-8 yards of fabric for an outfit at the same time. So nobles would have a full outfit, including hat, stockings, even shoes, of one type of fabric (with ornamentation of a contrasting type, and as many buttons or bits of silver as they could get away with wearing), while peasants would often have a shirt, bodice or jerkin, skirt or pants, stockings, and hat of all different colors.

Dying or re-dying any one piece of clothing was within most of their cost limits - dye itself is cheap; fixatives cost. But boiling your shirt for an hour with onion skins in a copper pot would re-color the fading fabric.

[lloerwyn-deactivated20201104]

And yet more medieval dye colour samples:

[historic-old-guard-lover]

While centered on medieval Europe for the finer points, this is broadly true for any clothing needs

[gethporno]

if anyone is interested in way too much information about the spinning, weaving, dyeing, and trading of cloth in ye olden days, pls see these lecture notes by my old economic history prof, who knew more about the textile industry in pre-modern europe than any reasonable person should. they’re old at this point but still pretty reliable.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

I'm wondering, how do you show that a mute character is "talking" using sign language? Do you just put them in single quotation marks instead of double to signal that? Or do you show it in another way?

Disability in Kidlit has a great post for you, and you should check out more of their work if you have more questions about writing a deaf or signing character.

[amazonpoodle]

also seriously if a character isn’t white, i promise your only descriptive options aren’t food words and varying degrees of tan. it’s okay to say brown. pale brown! light brown! golden brown! medium brown! dark brown! deep brown! so many kinds of brown!

BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN

[laffbending]

#brown is not a bad word #you do not need euphemisms #B R O W N

[lgbtqiafeminism]

This post by writingwithcolor might help in picking good words to use plus reading about why not to use food words! In general if you’re writing a character of color I highly recommend @writingwithcolor

[cukibola-deactivated20200917]

Thank you!

[mjmnorwood]

Hi! I’m currently writing a historical fiction story with a black protagonist. Do you think you could share tips for a white person to write a black character? Thank you ☺️

Hi anon! I love historical fiction, and it’s always great to see books with more rep. :D

Right off the bat, let me say I am white. I therefore am not and cannot be an authority on this subject. I have written a lot of characters of colour including Black characters, but I am still liable to get things wrong. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s go ahead...

There are a few ways I go about writing Black characters, but they all boil down to one key idea: listen to Black people. As white writers, we do not have the perspective to get it right without doing our research (and even then we can still mess up). Here’s my list of absolute basics:

Follow blogs run by Black people. @writingwithcolor​ is fantastic (just make sure to specifically look at posts relevant to writing Black characters, PoC are not a monolith).

Read books by Black authors, and see if any authors you admire have published advice!

Talk about this stuff with Black friends—just make sure they’re okay with it, you really don’t want to be giving folks unasked-for mental labour. It’s not Black people’s job to educate us, and they get put in that position all too often.

Read up on specific harmful stereotypes and tropes to avoid. Here’s a good place to start.

Conversely, look at examples of what Black people would love to see represented more. This is a good list to get you going.

Having Black representation in your work is fantastic, but avoid writing stories focused on the experience of being Black, because that’s not our story to tell.

Sensitivity readers are also a thing, though I understand that professional critique is not financially feasible for a lot of people (including me aha).

Finally, try not to stress too much. Sometimes white writers can get so tense about writing Black characters to some perfect unproblematic ideal that we forget to make them proper characters. Yes, remember that there are specific things you should bear in mind while writing Black characters, but don’t let that overshadow writing them as people.

This is by no means a complete guide, but I hope it’s a helpful jumping-off point to get you started! Happy writing! :D

[brah3280]

Looking for Medusa Like Stories :)

Greetings folks! Does anyone know of Medusa like stories/myths/legends (woman/people who were villainized despite being a victim or even an unfortunate bystander) in their cultures? I’d greatly appreciate being pointed in the direction of such stories! Thank you for your time & have a great day! <3 ^^ 

Illustration by Jacqui Oakley

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Random mansion generator

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/random-mansion-generator.html

[something-from-elsewhere]

Oooooh! Saving this

[lady-feral]

That’s fun

[vesperlionheart]

Hey, but don’t fall asleep on this Medieval Fantasy City Generator   

[awrenthatwrites]

Reblogging for the last!

[writingquestionsanswered]

NEAT.

[lesbian-toddhoward]

:D

[deus-est-bae-deactivated2018120]

speeding sand dollar

[eif1e]

i love her

[sirobvious]

Oh Lord Sir! A question if you will about Knights. I'm writing a fantasy-esque story where Knights(Men and women in full plate) are seen as the protectors of the peace and such. However I have to ask, is full plate or plate-mail easier to move around in? To add to that, what is the most effective way to kill a Knight in plate armor?

Firstly, “plate mail” and “full plate” are the same thing and also “mail” is a misnomer because it doesn’t mean just any armor, it specifically refers to chain armor. I’m taking my best guess at what you mean and assuming you mean the difference between this 

and this 

and they both handled about the same. Plate armor is a bit restrictive to your movement, but not so much that it actually hinders you in combat. The protection offered far outweighs the loss of dexterity. 

The difference between these two suits of armor is a difference of about 50-75 years, but you could call them both full-plate(although it may be more accurate to call the first one “transitional plate” or something like that). Both of them are made up of many individual plates strapped to the body over chainmaille which is worn over a thick coat called a gambeson. The plates provide most of the protection while the chainmaille covers all the flexible parts that the plates can’t cover. The gambeson provides cushioning(but you can also wear a gambeson as armor by itself; they’re very protective on their own). 

The bottom one is obviously a bit heavier because it has more solid plates, but not so heavy that you can’t get up if you fall down, and both give you decent freedom of movement because, if you look, you’ll see that none of the rigid plates actually cover the wearer’s joints. Also, in the second suit of armor, to cut down on weight, that knights in that period often wore something like this

instead of a full shirt of chainmaille underneath. What is most important is that the joints are protected by chainmaille. The breastplate will take care of your organs. Oh also, in most cases, plate armor was custom-made for the man wearing it, so that it fit perfectly. This makes for even less restriction of movement. 

In summary, they’re both decently easy to move in, but I would consider the second one more protective.

Another point before I answer your second question is that while pretty much every knight wore plate armor to battle after plate armor was invented, not every man in plate armor was a knight. 

Your second question. 

Ways to kill a man in plate armor: 

1. Don’t. 

In most cases you actually wouldn’t want to kill him. It’s a better idea to capture him and sell his armor, then ransome him back to the enemy for an extra box of gold. Plus, it’s the chivalrous thing to do. 

2. Longbow or crossbow.

Even though plate armor isn’t something you can just cut with a sword like they do in movies, pretty much nothing can stand up to a longbow or heavy crossbow at close range. If the arrow doesn’t pierce all the way through his armor, which it probably still won’t, it’ll dent it and hit so hard that it might break his ribs through concussive force alone. 

Just don’t miss, because men in plate armor aren’t the slow turtles they’re made out to be. If you miss at that range, he’ll be on you before you can load a second arrow. 

3. Big blunt weapon. 

Just like above, it’s basically impossible to actually get through a piece of plate armor, but with enough concussive force you can still injure the wearer underneath. That’s what maces and warhammers were for. 

Obviously these hit pretty hard because they’re heavy-ended, but their shape is actually also very important. Plate armor is smooth and rounded on purpose, and this makes weapons glance/slip off to the side without delivering their full force. This is also why boobplate is a bad idea. It creates a groove which can ‘catch’ weapons and allow them to deliver their full force instead of glancing off harmlessly. 

To counteract this, weapons like these above were shaped like they are so that they would ‘grip’ the plate armor as they hit and not slip off. It’s kind of hard to explain unless you see it in action compared to something not designed this way. 

With these you’re going to want to target the head mostly, but they’ll hurt just about anywhere you swing them. 

4. Half-swording. 

Swords are were effective weapons against unarmored opponents, but not as much against armored opponents because even though they’re sharp and fast, they hit much lighter than maces and will just glance off plate armor harmlessly. However, if all you’ve got is a sword, you’re not completely defenseless against a man in full armor.

“Half-swording” is a technique where you grip the blade of your sword in one or both hands. This can be done for two reasons: 1. If you grip the part just above the crossguard, that part is usually not even ever sharpened because that’s not the part you’re supposed to hit with anyway. 2. Even though medieval swords were very sharp, contrary to what weebs will tell you, they weren’t lightsabers. If you grip the sharp part very tightly and don’t let it slide across your hand, it won’t cut you, especially if you’re wearing gloves. 

I mentioned earlier that the solid plates of the suit left the joints unprotected, but those are still pretty small targets and they’re probably protected by chainmaille as well. In most cases a sword can’t even thrust through chainmaille, it’ll just flex and wobble if you try, but if you put one hand on the blade to keep it from bending, it’ll usually make it through if you put some force behind it. Additionally, putting one hand on the blade essentially means you have a longer lever with which to control your sword tip, which means it’ll be much easier to aim it into those tiny gaps. Many fully-armored knights also did this with their swords when they were fighting pretty much anyone, because it’s hard to control a sword the normal way when you’re wearing bulky gauntlets. You can see this in the second picture and in the video I’m about to post.

Another way to do it is to hold the sword completely backwards, with both hands on the blade. It’s kinda awkward, but this way you can use the sword like a makeshift warhammer by striking with the hilt. See Option #3. 

Also, this video explains Option #4 much better than I did, and provides an excellent demonstration, which also happens to be one of the most realistic and intent-y swordfights I’ve ever seen on video. In this video you can also really see just how wrong those myths are about how plate armor slowed knights down. 

[sirobvious]

I completely forgot something very important!

5. Grappling.

Even though it’s a total myth that armored knights couldn’t get up if they were knocked down, if you do manage to knock a fully armored man down, it’s pretty easy for you to actively prevent him from getting back up. You can then get a dagger into his viewport or in between one of the armor gaps. 

(Do not try this unless you’ve got at least some armor on yourself.)

[armthearmour]

@sirobvious​ has asked me to address a small bit of misinformation in this post which has been shown recently to be inaccurate. New research done my Mike Loades for his book War Bows

and the series of videos by Tod’s Workshop testing Agincourt period armor against a 160 lb warbow have proven the efficacy of armor to be even greater than previously imagined.

These tests have shown that armor of a quality which would have been considered mid-range at the time can easily withstand the powerful blows of even a bow drawn at 160 lbs. Mike Loades’ book is available online here or here (I do recommend it) but you can also see Tod’s test (for free) here.

If you watch the video, you can see that the bow often doesn’t even dent the armor (there are a few blows which leave shallow dents), and typically barely leaves a scratch.

Equally, given the space between the wearer’s body and the actual breastplate, as well as the padding worn beneath, it is unlikely that the wearer would be wounded at all by a blow like those we see in the video.

It is true that on other parts of the body (like the arms and legs) the steel tends to be quite a bit thinner, however these parts of the body also have tighter curves and thus greater glancing surfaces, so it is likely the effect would be the same. Ultimately, against a fully armored knight, the bow is only properly effective against those areas which are vulnerable to swords as well; areas protected only by maille and padding, or perhaps only by padding.

This information is relatively recent, and the rest of this post is filled with great info should you ever find yourself filled with the pressing need to kill a late medieval knight. I hope this has been informative, cheers!

[sirobvious]

This is a perfect addition to my post.

Remember that what was correct about history a few years ago may not be correct about history today. New research is constant.

[writerswritecompany]

Understanding Editors

[raevenlywrites]

Things to keep in mind when asking for feedback. Additionally,

Beta readers: Give their basic impressions of the piece. Emotional responses, questions while reading, overall satisfaction, Etc.

Sensitivity readers: Read over your work with an eye to representation to help avoid stereotyping, tokenism, etc.

Writers and readers both, save yourselves frustration by learning to be specific when going over a manuscript.

[deafmic]

i honestly really do appreciate the way aizawa is received by the people around him in the bnha world. 

aizawa is a weird guy. everything about him is abnormal. even in the context of the bnha world where everyone is weird, aizawa’s still very different. he’s someone who looks, acts, talks, and thinks a lot differently than other people, to the point where many people don’t understand his thought processes at all. he’s a literal person who runs everything in his life through a filter of what he considers to be logic and doesn’t seem to understand things as well that he doesn’t think are logical. 

he’s someone who owns many copies of the same outfit, who prefers to only eat energy jelly packs, who just can’t seem to understand the stock others’ put into their daily appearances, who is most comfortable in his sleeping bag on the floor. he’s someone who obviously looks and acts and thinks very very differently than everyone around him–and it is very, very easy to tell. aizawa makes no attempts to try to fool people into thinking that he’s similar to them. in fact, he doesn’t actually seem to realize why other people might care about that sort of thing.

aizawa is a successful adult character whose every trait sets him apart from others, even other adult pro hero teachers. 

and all those other adult pro hero teachers happily accept him.

yeah, there’s some teasing occasionally (in one of the light novels: “i bet you suck in bed aizawa” “actually i sleep in a sleeping bag”) but all of aizawa’s coworkers genuinely love him and he’s never like… a mockery or anything. even with the teasing, aizawa is incredibly well liked and no one actually gives aizawa shit over him being different from everyone else and they’re all willing to die for him. even at the beginning of the series, when a reporter went after aizawa for his appearance (mocked? i’d say mocked) aizawa didn’t give much of a shit but he did have to tell his best friend to not very badly injure said reporter and the other media.

there’s just something about the way that aizawa’s treated that’s very comforting.

aizawa is very very easy to read as autistic. like i said before, any character can be headcanoned as autistic, but with aizawa in particular, you can read every single thing he does as autistic. 

the whole logic thing is a huge example of this–a lot of autistic people connect with a worldview of rationality and logic because it’s something that basically has a right or wrong answer. yes that’s logical. no that’s not logical. it’s easy for us to understand. and a lot of good portrayals of autistic characters use that a lot. bones, a show that i’m a huge fan of, has an autistic woman main character and through all the seasons of the show, it’s very clear that she views the world through a lens of logic and rationality. it’s her thing. and she reminds me so, so much of aizawa because logic and rationality is also aizawa’s thing, and like her, he’s portrayed as ‘fundamentally different’ but not lesser and still very well loved by colleagues.

i really like the way he’s treated in canon. everyone does have the initial reaction of thinking he’s strange and cold, but once people get to know him even a little bit, they immediately go in the opposite direction. every single person in bnha who has spent more than a few minutes talking to aizawa immediately likes him and people very easily get attached to him. he’s different socially, but he still has a lot of friends–not to mention more than a class worth of kids who’d follow him no matter what he says.

so i guess what i’m saying here is that aizawa as a character makes me happy. he’s refreshing to see. he’s a character who’s ‘weird’ and looks and acts nothing like other characters do or ‘should’ do, but he’s not humiliated and ostracized for it. 

no, instead of being mocked for it, we are instead given a successful main adult mentor character who is one of the best at what he does and has an entire group of friends willing to back him with whatever (dude literally has a best friend who took 0 seconds of hesitation to tell him that sure, he’d love to defy the government with him). 

it’d be really easy to make aizawa into the butt of a joke, to constantly mock him for the way he acts and appears, but every time he has been mocked in canon–once by the reporter with his appearance and then during the press conference–it’s portrayed as negative and horrible and not deserved at all. ESPECIALLY during the press conference–when aizawa was being zeroed in on and taking the blame for everything, the media and people mocking him there were rightfully demonized and the villains of that scenario. 

aizawa isn’t treated badly, but he’s also still clearly different from other people, and that’s something that’s nice to see. he’s successful, very well liked, extremely well respected, and seen as a parental and authority figure–while still retaining all the traits what make him ‘strange’ in the first place. aizawa is very easily read as autistic and seeing someone who can be read so easily as autistic portrayed as one of the most respected people in the series is comforting.

it’s 1 in the morning and idk if this makes any sense but tldr, this is why autistic aizawa is very important to me.

[legoclowncar]

you know what trope i just go maximum apeshit for every goddamn time?

when a character has to improvise a weapon under urgent circumstances.

im talking characters in handcuffs using them to garrote enemies

characters swinging objects that are WILDLY un-aerodynamic (a table, a a garden gate.)

or throwing objects that are wildly un-damaging (an inflatable chair, a bunch of flowers)

throwing something soft and light over someones head as a brief distraction

using the ENVIRONMENT against their adversary (pulling a rug from under them, slamming a door in their face)

using weapons that are broken or not working properly, or using them the ‘incorrect’ way (using an empty gun as a bludgeon, Elizabeth Swann pulling that sword off the wall but it still being attached to the wall display)

swordfights using anything BUT swords

people macgyvering wildly ‘low-tech’ improvised contraptions to defeat massively high-tech and well organised attacks

loading a blunderbuss or shotgun with something commonplace and either not-at-all dangerous or surprisingly lethal (sand, cutlery, buttons)

i love this trope so much

[fan-art-ic]

ive seen some posts lately about drawing diversity with actually diverse features, aka instead of just having a black character, drawing the character with nigerian features or instead of just drawing a vaguely indigenous character draw them with features from a specific tribe/area and in any case i figured you might want to check out this site because its a world map where you can click anywhere and it’ll show you different human phenotypes based on region and really goes into showing many types of people. like im making a chilean character so clicked on chile and it showed me this

which pops up this and this 

its just a pretty neat website to really become better at diversifying and strengthening your character designs

[wrenrouge]

[basket]

ANIME THERAPY LOVE

[does-thou-write]

Gay

Anime

Therapy

🤷🏼‍♀️

[writing-tips-for-dummies]

A Guide to Writing: Making New Cultures

Cultures, like anything, take time to build. They are what define a people and what make their customs. It’s complicated and integrated into their society. It changes as the people change but the fundamentals often remain unchanged even centuries and millennia into the future.

When creating new worlds, if it’s not set in the world that we know, then the people, while being similar, will be different. What they hold as value will be different. That’s where new cultures come in. countries will be define by something and way out of the way towns will have things that are connected to them. Making new cultures can be a messy process, and I am by no way an expert, but there are at least five things that define a culture and should be present and known.

Customs

Customs are a traditional ways of doing something specify to a set of people or place. If you can’t think of any, think of some traditions that are from where you’re from. For example, in America and many other countries, it’s traditional to put up a tree for the winter holidays. 

If the story you’re writing centers around a new culture, then the customs of its people is something that should come into play, even it’s something small. Maybe it’s someone coming of age. Maybe it’s someone passing away. Whatever the case, customs are a personal thing that people share. Be sure to not overlook them.

Arts

Art is a way people share their thoughts that are hard to convey. A way to pass on knowledge and to capture the emotions. Perhaps they capture their history in tapestries and artisans make paintings for a living.

Not only that, body art is an important part of many cultures. Maybe tattoos mean something at a certain age or it’s something like a brand. Perhaps they’re just decorative and meant to look flashy.

Social Institution

A social institution is a group of people who are together for a common purpose such as economy and government. These institutions are a part of the social order of society and they govern behavior and expectations of individuals.

For example, a charities and other nonprofit organizations fall under this category. In this culture you’re writing about, how do they feel about such organizations? Are the promoted? Frowned upon? Not only that, but this includes the education system, cultural groups, how families are defined, health care, market values, politics, and religions.

Each of these things may not hold equal value, or perhaps they all have the same weight. Are the church (in this instance used only to refer to religion) and state separate or together? Is the market, trading goods and services, more important than anything else? What’s the health of the people like and what methods do they use for healing?

Achievements

Achievements, in this case, are defined as things the people have done to better and further themselves. What are some of the things these people have done since they became a people? Was something medical? Was it something that benefited not only them, but the people around the as well?

However, the achievements don’t always have to grand. It could be something small like finding an easier way to make paint or a way to make their weapons. Achievements are things that are well earned and come from something small like inconvenience or big like a fight.

And not all that glitters is gold. An achievement can benefit the majority, but what about everyone else? Is it useful to everyone? Does it need to be? More importantly, what was the reason? It doesn’t always need to be known in detail, but things happen for a reason. As the writer, you, are the very least, need to know.

Behavior Characteristic

We all know that there are somethings that are frowned upon in modern culture. Things like people with breasts going around topless or anyone walking pants-less through the streets. There are certain things people just don’t do because of the consequences and the culture.

What are some of the things that are okay for people to do? What are things that are harmless yet frowned upon? There are things that are widely accepted and if these normal things are challenged then it should be explain if it’s not something carried over from a real culture.

If there are things that are carried over from real cultures, then that’s a tricky ground to walk on if you don’t know anything. Research and asking are an important part of this process if you want to do this. Carrying over form real cultures is fine as long as it’s not a bastardization of it.

Of course, like I said in the beginning of this, I’m not an expert. I don’t really know everything there is to know but this is what I’ve realized when making new cultures myself.

See ya, kiddos

[writingwordsoup]

Hey guys I just wanted to take a second to talk about some of the hastags on Twitter you should be following if you’re a writer!

1: #MSWL stands for manuscript wishlist. This is a tag used by agents and editors. Basically they tell you what they want to see in their inbox. It is NOT a tag for pitching. Today 9/12 is MSWL day so agents and editors are flooding that tag today so go check it out. Don’t forget to the check the agents requirements before you query them.

2: #Authorconfessions is a hashtag game that is done every month. Basically what you do in this game is you go find the prompt and you tweet your answer to the question. It’s run by two super sweet women who also host a weekly chat.

3:#WIPjoy is another hashtag game. It’s not run monthly and the next one actually is in October.

4:#1linewed is another game but it’s different than the previous two. Each week a theme is given and can be found using #1linewedtheme. You then take a line from your current WIP and tweet it using the hashtag.

5:#ThursdayAesthetic is for people who like to make aesthetic post. You look at the theme and then make an aesthetic photoset and post it using the hashtag. It’s a lot of fun.

6: #QueerSpec is a monthly chat for people who are queer and or writing queer stories. It takes place kind of around the 3rd Thursday of the month but if you follow Alex Harrow on Twitter you’ll get the updates.

Thats the six I participate in but if you follow enough writers on twitter you’ll find there are tons of different ones.