RequiemofDust @earthlyandconscious - Tumblr Blog

10 Ways to INTENSIFY your stories Plot

Add a second problem that won’t stay in its lane. While the main conflict grows, introduce another issue that keeps interfering and making choices harder.

Give every victory a cost. Let each solution create a new complication instead of clean relief.

Turn side characters into sources of pressure. Their needs, secrets, or mistakes should actively affect the main plot, not sit politely in the background.

Reveal information at the worst possible time. Timing alone can make a simple twist feel devastating.

Force the protagonist to choose between two things they want. The plot thickens when there’s no option that feels “right.”

Let past actions come back ugly. Consequences that arrive late hit harder and deepen the story’s layers.

Complicate the antagonist. Give them leverage, allies, or a point that almost makes sense.

Change the stakes midway. What the story is about shifts, even though the conflict stays connected.

Introduce a secret that reframes earlier scenes. Not a random twist—one that makes the reader rethink what they already know.

Let the character’s inner conflict sabotage the plot. Their flaws should actively make things worse.

KEEP READING!

solarsthoughts

your !! comments !! on fics !! are !! important !! to us writers !!

i’ve been seeing a lot of people saying they feel bad for leaving comments, especially on older fics, because they’re afraid to bother the author.

but i’m here to tell you this: BOTHER US!! you have no idea how much writers appreciate the interaction. every single time i get a comment on one of my fics, it makes my entire WEEK. it’s how we know if people resonated with our writing. writers love talking about their work and about the original media! so please, BOTHER US. even if it’s just emojis. don’t ever feel bad for interacting! that’s literally how you keep fandoms alive.

mycroftrh

I think a lot of autistic taking-things-literally goes under the radar because what the diagnostic tests and shit ask about is not what that generally looks like in an adult and often not in kids either and much more importantly it’s not what generally actually causes problems in real life instead of being irritating for caretakers or funny to bullies or easy to diagnose

I have absolutely no issues understanding metaphors or idioms. When someone says their heart is on their sleeve they mean they’re emotionally expressive and openly display their feelings, not that they have a chunk of cardiac tissue on their shirt. I very rarely have issues with sarcasm. I sometimes have issues telling when someone who’s said something mean is about to say “just kidding”, but tbh I think that’s more on them than me.

BUT

My grandmother asked me “Do you know when the trash was taken out last?” and I said “I think Eliot took it out yesterday” and a few hours later she yelled at me for “not taking out the trash when I asked you to” and I was like???? You didn’t ask me????

I dread filling out forms and am crap at filling out diagnostic tests or personality quizzes because there are always questions I don’t know the exact answers to (how am I supposed to know what day I got dental surgery seven years ago?) or don’t understand exactly what they’re asking or the wording’s unclear and they could mean this or the wording says this but I’m pretty sure what they actually meant was this and should I answer what they said or what they meant, and how does everyone else just whip through the form when surely they can’t know all the answers either? Does everyone else remember the day they got dental surgery seven years ago?

I get tangled up by bureaucracy because the rules on the website say that for this you need that and for that you need the other and for the other you need something else for which you need the first thing, and I go in circles for hours or days or weeks or months or years because their stated rules say there is no way to get what I need, and when I talk to somebody else they’re like “just call them?” and I’m like “how could that help? the rules say that what I’m trying to do is impossible”

And all of that? That’s how “taking things literally” ACTUALLY affects your life as an adult. It’s not “haha you think ‘getting under your skin’ means parasites”. It’s “you have real difficulty functioning in the world because everyone else is conveying things through implication and assuming that you know that rules are flexible and questions are approximate and you’re supposed to lie on job applications, and you don’t”.

spaceraptor

@andtheladyknight it me!

pantserspen

How to write HATEABLE Villains

1. Give them power over something the reader cares about A villain who can’t actually hurt anything important is just annoying. Give them control over a person, a system, a truth, or a resource the protagonist and reader are emotionally invested in.

2. Make them punch down, not up Readers hate villains who abuse people with less power. Targeting children, the vulnerable, the innocent, or the desperate instantly signals moral rot.

3. Let them feel justified The most infuriating villains believe they’re right. They don’t see themselves as cruel, they see themselves as necessary, logical, or “doing what must be done.”

4. Make them calm while doing terrible things Cold politeness, soft voices, or pleasant manners paired with cruelty feels far more disturbing than loud rage. It creates emotional whiplash that sticks.

5. Give them small, petty cruelty on top of big evil Genocide is abstract. Stealing someone’s last comfort, humiliating someone publicly, or enjoying another person’s fear feels personal — and that’s what makes readers angry.

6. Let them win more than feels fair A villain becomes hateable when they keep getting away with it. Let them succeed. Let them walk free. Let them hurt people without consequence — for a while.

7. Deny the reader catharsis Cut away before justice. Interrupt revenge. Delay consequences. The lack of emotional release builds frustration that gets attached directly to the villain.

8. Make them emotionally invasive They don’t just hurt bodies — they manipulate, gaslight, shame, isolate, and reframe reality. They make the protagonist doubt themselves.

9. Let them corrupt something good They twist love into control, faith into obedience, loyalty into fear, or law into cruelty. Watching something pure rot because of them creates hatred fast.

10. Don’t soften them with too much sympathy A tragic backstory can explain behavior, but if you want them hateable, don’t excuse it. Let the story clearly show that their pain does not justify their harm.

crypticgoose3

how non-writers think writing works: creating a detailed outline and plan, writing each section carefully and weaving in all the different story threads like a master creator, expertly creating a masterpiece with care and precision

how writing actually works: daydreaming that one scene, creating a half-formed plot in a daze all around it, swearing at characters that don't magic themselves into existence, becoming absolutely obsessed with the story for a solid week, it becomes your entire life, you sit down open a blank word document and write approximately two and a half chapters, lose interest, daydream an entirely new idea for a new story, rinse and repeat

Doodles