Trippy man

Just another anti social potato like everyone else

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

Pretenders

So I was listening to September and it's like "changing the mind of pretenders" and the first thing I thought of was pre-teen chicken nuggets. I promise I'm not on drugs!

[stephaniegrand]

Editing Your Novel

1. DO SOMETHING ELSE FOR A WHILE.

Don’t edit immediately after finishing the novel. Let it hibernate. Write another book. The goal is to give yourself as much time between I Finished A Book! and I Am Editing That Book! as possible. You need to place some distance between yourself and the book to approach it as if someone else wrote it. That will give you cold clarity about the story, the characters, the language, everything. You won’t feel nearly as much irrational hatred and absurdly protective love over it.

2. MAKE SURE SOME OTHER HUMAN ACTUALLY READS IT AND OFFERS NOTES.

Other human beings are essential to the editing process. Otherwise you’re operating in a vacuum. This other person might be an agent, an editor, a friend, a spouse, a beta reader, whoever. Just have them read it and get their notes. Pay them if you must.

3. RE-READ, AND READ OUT LOUD.

You need to re-read your book. Do this quickly. You’re not reading for pleasure. The object behind reading it swiftly is to see the entire picture. The faster you read, the larger the picture becomes, and the easier it is to see all the little and large fuck-ups that will drag your story down. Reading it out loud (even in a mumble) lets you listen for rhythm and pacing. Words on a page are just proxies for words spoken in our heads and from our mouths. Reading your work aloud isn’t a universal catch-all, but it will highlight a lot of places where the language sounds bumpy, where it hitches and slews toward an awkward, muddy decline.

4. TAKE NOTES.

Your own notes should be merciless. No emotion. Don’t only use the time to highlight stuff that doesn’t work. Highlight the things that do work, as well — stuff that, to you, counts as components of the story that do what they were designed to do.

5. OUTLINE THE BOOK YOU WROTE.

Maybe you used an outline to write that first draft. Maybe you didn’t. Whatever happened, now you’ve got this giant 300+ page leviathan whose individual components are hard to discern as separate from the whole. So: outline the book you just wrote. The goal is to see what’s there in terms of story beats, character arcs, plot moments.

6. OUTLINE THE BOOK YOU’RE GONNA REWRITE.

Now it’s time to take that outline and re-outline so that you have the book you intend to end up with. It’ll save you a whole lot of work later on. If you just dive into your edits, everything will end up far messier than you like. It’s easier to have a plan and some idea about what’s going to happen next.

7. HAVE A PLAN.

The outline is only one part of the plan. You should have some sense of how you intend to approach the edits. Are you just going to pick a page and dive in? Are you starting from the beginning? Are you changing the end? Figure out what comes first and what comes next. IMPORTANT: Always make sure you have a record of what you’re changing. You’ll appreciate it later.

[stephaniegrand]

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE THAT SUMS UP ALL TEN: If it sounds like writing, re-write it.

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. 

2. Avoid prologues. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. Because “said” is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”… …he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.” This rule doesn’t require an explanation. Writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things. Long descriptions often bring the action and the flow of the story to a standstill.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. In those moments, the writer is often writing for the sake of writing, perhaps taking another shot at the weather or going into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care.

[legit-writing-tips]

Very good rules. Except they can all be broken, and occasionally should be broken. Here are some examples that can help you identify when to break these rules. 

1. Don’t open with the weather - unless you have a very good reason to do so. 

For example, you might expect a funeral scene to be dark and dreary, overcast, even raining. But what if you open on a bright, sunny, summer day - with a group of people gathered in a cemetery wearing all black? That immediately subverts the readers expectations and creates an interesting dynamic. And of course, if the weather is very unusual or extreme, like a tornado hitting your MC’s house, that works too.

2. Avoid prologues - unless the prologue helps create an interesting dynamic or atmosphere, relays info that couldn’t be relayed any other way, or is in a different POV/setting/etc. than the rest of your novel.

Maybe your prologue reveals information that your MC wouldn’t or couldn’t know, but you want the READER to know that information to create dramatic irony. Maybe the prologue takes place 1000 years before the main story takes place. Maybe your prologue is like a mini “history lesson” that helps set up the atmosphere for the rest of the novel. A prologue isn’t always a bad thing - you just have to use prologues judiciously. 

3. Said is dead - unless you use other, unobtrusive dialogue tags.

I’m really a fan of just using said. But sometimes, characters do speak in other ways. Don’t use something other than said just to create a more “dynamic” reading experience, but do use it if you really need to point out the way a character is speaking - for example, “he whispered,” “she murmured,” etc., are all fine and most readers won’t take much note of them, so it won’t pull them out of the reading experience like other dialogue tags might.

4. Don’t modify “said” with adverbs.

I’m mostly in agreement with this one, but the occasional modifier doesn’t hurt if you only do it occasionally, and to really highlight the way a character is speaking - for example, if it’s very unusual and doesn’t fit the actual words. 

“He’s dead,” said James giddily. 

5. Use exclamation points sparingly. 

In total agreement with this one, unless you’re writing a book for small children.

6. Don’t use “suddenly,” etc.

In total agreement with this one as well, but I’d like to explain why it’s a bad idea. “Suddenly” is usually a form of telling rather than showing, and avoiding it forces you as a writer to describe the scene in more detail and actually show what’s happening.

7. Use regional dialect sparingly. 

This is honestly something that comes down to readability. But in most cases you do want to avoid it, and especially avoid writing out accents, especially when this could be potentially offensive. My French friend absolutely hates “ze accent” used by Fleur Delacour in Harry Potter.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Again, in most cases this is true, but there may occasionally be a moment when it works to describe a character in detail. For example, if your MC is taking notice of a very odd or out of place character. Even here though, it’s best to pick out one or two striking characteristics. We don’t need to know every minute detail down to their hair color, eye color, height, weight, etc.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

…unless it’s to create mood, to slow down pacing, to show that a character is fixated on something… This works best if the place or thing has a striking or unusual appearance, same as describing characters. And also like describing characters, it’s still best to pick out the most striking aspects appearance-wise of the thing you’re describing. 

10.  Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

This is very good advice and I won’t touch it. I’ll just point out that the best way to find these sections is to reread your writing and take note of what you’re skipping as you reread.

[agwitow]

In general, if someone tells you “it’s a mortal sin” to do something in your writing, then they simply aren’t a good enough writer to know when to use that tool appropriately

[radicalrevisions]

This is all great. Especially @legit-writing-tips‘s exceptions. 

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

This is so helpful if you like to write 😂

[curiousscientistkae]

50 Questions for your oc

(i got bored and made some questions to ask for ocs. Not much but something to get gears going. Ask away please).

Personal

1)      Age?

2)      Gender?

3)      Romantic/Sexual Orientation?

4)      Height?

5)      Race?

6)      What do they look like? (i.e, hair color, eye color, etc).

7)      Any disabilities?

8)      Is there a meaning to their name?

9)      What makes them, them? 

10)   What do they want to be when they grow up/what do they want to do with their lives?

Family

11)   Do they have parents? What are they like and how do they act with their child(ren)?

12)   Do they have siblings? How do they interact with them? If not, do they wish they had siblings?

13)   Extended family? Do they see them often?

14)   Do they like where they live? (Is it a safe place?)

15)   Where do they live? Are they wealthy? Poor? Middle-Class?

16)   Do they have a lot of expectations/pressure on them from family to do great?

17)   Do they have pets?

18)   Who do they look up to the most/are the closest to in their family?

19)   This there anything special about their family?

20)   Do they wish they lived in a different family/household?

Friends

21)   Best Friend(s)?

22)   Who was their first friend?

23)   What is their friend group like?

24)   Do they have a love/hate relationship with any of them?

25)   Do they consider any of their friends to be like siblings?

26)   Have they ever hurt a friend or lost one?

27)   Do they have a crush on any of their friends?

28)   Do they share classes with good friends?

29)   Whom do they go to the most when they need a shoulder to cry on?

30)   What would this person do without their friends in their lives?

School

31)   What grade are they in? If they aren’t in school, how come?

32)   Do/Did they like their teachers? Was there a good one? Bad one?

33)   Do/Did they listen to their teachers or are/where they goofing off a lot?

34)   Are/Where they a good student grade wise?

35)   Do/Did they need extra help?

36)   What is/was their school like?

37)   Do/Did they have bullies in school?

38)   Have they ever gotten into a fight at school?

39)   Have they ever done something stupid/embarrassing at school?

40)   How far do they plan to go with school? If they dropped out, do they want to go back?

Other

41)   Are they dating anyone? Do they want to date? Are the married? Divorced? 

42)   What is their favorite hobby? Do they keep it a secret?

43)   If they could have one thing in life, what would it be?

44)   Do they work? If so, what is it? If not, are they looking for one or even want one?

45)   Do they use social media?

46)   Have they ever been in the hospital?

47)   Do they believe in the supernatural, that there is more than the eye can see?

48)   What do they do when they get angry, stressed, or upset?

49)   Would they consider themselves as a good person, bad person, or morally grey?

50)   Does this OC have any part of you in them? (I.e, personality traits, similar background, etc)

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

I'm gonna use this

[hypergiox]

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

Me eryday

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

Is it just me or

Is it just me or do you just randomly dinosaur walk through the mall while screeching for fun? The reactions of people are priceless!

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

Am I a Nom?!?

[ragefullove]

why do people stay longer in my head than they do in my life ?

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

Am I tripping?

Am I tripping or like whenever you are remembering something or dreaming about something that's happened to you, you see it in third-person pov?

[kelslaylayisanalien-blog]

The real questions

Okay so why do they call it a foot, if not all feet are a foot long?