Literary Head Space In The Stars

Writing all the time. What's better than that? You'll find all of the things that inspire me and I'll even post some of my own stories. Send me things you'd like to see posted here, or just send me links to your work. If you submit here, make sure to credit yourself. Credit me too if you decide to reblog anything of mine. OK! On to the good stuff!

[daily-prompts]

Prompt 1947

Okay! So, this one is a little different: here is the link for TV tropes’s random story generator. Enjoy :)

Story Generator

Story Generator

[vergak]

[dualumina]

DON'T HIDE THE BEST PART OF THE POST

[writingwithfolklore]

Movement Kills Pacing

                Something my screenwriting prof told us that really stuck with me was “avoid just moving bodies through space”, as in—movement on its own isn’t storytelling. I sometimes get into this habit where I get so caught up in where my characters are spatially that I forget to tell the story in favour of clearing up who is where and what each movement is, ala:

                Anna walked over to the kitchen, picked up the pitcher and paused, deciding whether or not she wanted water, before crossing back through the living room and looking out the window, then walked back towards the kitchen yadda yadda yadda, you’re bored, I’m bored, this isn’t a story, this is someone walking around.

                As with everything in writing, I’m not saying movement should be cut out entirely, but I am saying that it works best when it’s used intentionally. In any normal scene, other than a quick set up of who is generally where at the start of the scene: (Anna sat in the driver’s seat, staring down at her phone as John fell into the passenger seat beside her), we don’t need to know every little movement they make—readers will assume and fill in the spaces where movement may seem obvious.

                Then, the best time to bring up movement again is either for a dramatic motion (Anna leapt from the car window, tumbling across the concrete), or a dramatic shift in emotion/psychology. (John’s brows furrowed tightly. Turning on his heel, he stormed from the room.)

                Essentially, if you can take it out, you should. We have to trust our readers that they will fill in all the spaces we leave—we don’t necessarily have to write it out for them.

                Good luck!

[rontology]

i started writing original fiction because of a comment i got on a house md fic i wrote when i was 12 years old. someone said “this is out of character, house and wilson would never act like this.” so i thought, “if i make my own characters, no one can ever tell me they’re out of character, because i decide,” and i started planning my first novel. now i’m 23 and i’ve written 4 novel-length works, i have a degree in publishing and i work at a literary magazine, largely because someone insulted my house fanfiction. follow your dreams.

[startledoctopus]

succeed out of spite

[rtgrl]

[lotrlocked]

I have a degree in Publishing too and let me tell you, it was motivated by spite as well. 

[ao3commentoftheday]

always refreshing

[kiwianaroha]

Spite is just weaponised stubbornness 

[thatwritergirlsblog]

Dealing with time in your writing

This is going to be quite an eclectic post, but I’ve received a few questions relating to time in creative writing. So, I thought I’d just make a post to address a few things.

1. Keeping track of narrated time

You as a writer need to keep track of the time that passes in your story and what happens when. Inconsistencies and incontinuities will pop up if you don’t have a good knowledge of your WIP’s time-line.

The easiest way to do this is to keep track via a visual time-line. If you outline, you can use that to make a rough time-line ahead of time. If you’re a pantser, then you can fill in the time-line as you go along.

Use this time-line to keep track of holidays, seasons, lunar cycles, healing time, travel time etc.

This is especially crucial for parallel storylines, where you might want to draw separate time-lines that you can hold up next to each other to ensure that everything matches up.

In certain instances it might also be necessary for the reader to keep track of the passing of time. You can either ensure this subtly within the writing (by sprinkling in little references to the season/date/time) or expressly by getting creative. Maybe each chapter starts with the date or the phase of the moon. Maybe your book is divided into seasons etc. If you do something like this, though, you have to be sure that the information plays a crucial role in your story.

2. Time-lapses between scenes

Time will inevitably pass in-between your scenes. But how do you communicate that time to your readers?

Firstly, you have to ask whether it’s relevant. If all your character did in the in-between time was brush her teeth and put on a nightgown, you don’t have to tell the reader that. You can use a simple sentence at the start of the next scene to familiarize your reader with the time of that scene e. g. “The next morning” or “After a night of tossing and turning”. This way the reader knows that time passed, but that nothing particularly important happened during that time.

If there are important points that you don’t want to dedicate an entire scene to, you can use the technique of telling. This should be used with circumspection, but can be a great way of relaying lots of information in a few sentences. E. g. “That morning after breakfast she had decided to head to the library to continue her research. She’d combed through shelves upon shelves of manuscripts only to end up back at square one.” Then, you can truly start the scene with the character sitting in the library, despondent. This way, the reader gets a quick catch-up as to where the story is at that moment, but you don’t have to spend too many words on it. You can also use this technique for deeply emotional events that the character may not want to spend a lot of time talking about e. g. “Lorna did not wake up that afternoon. She would never wake up again. And all Nancy had done all evening was weep.”

Comment if you guys want me to do a post about showing vs telling.

3. Flashbacks

I love flashbacks, but they have to be done well and they have to be necessary.

Flashbacks are a great way of telling a long, complex story in less words. It’s also a very valuable tool for revealing plot twists and character backstory.

Ensure that your flashbacks are adequately separated from the rest of your scenes. I don’t mean that they have to exist in a separate chapter (although this is an option), but at least use a different formatting style so that it’s clear to the reader when they’re dealing with a flashback.

Make it as easy as possible for the reader. Achronology can be disorienting and confusing. So, if you’re working with different timelines, make sure the reader knows which timeline they’re reading at the moment. You can do this by clearly indicating the time of the flashback at the beginning or woven into the writing of the scene.

Remember that these flashbacks should be relevant to your story/character arc. Don’t just throw in flashbacks for the hell of it. These scenes should reveal something important about the character or the plot.

4. How do the characters tell the time?

This is a bit of a weird one, but it should be taken into account nonetheless.

If you write contemporary fiction or historical fiction set in recent(ish) history, you don’t have to worry about this. However, those of us writing in made-up worlds or ancient/futuristic times have to think about this shit.

Have wathes/clocks been invented? Do your characters have micro chips in their brains that have them knowing the time automatically? Do they use a sundial? Are there calendars (and do they differ from the contemporary one) etc.

If your characters live in a Stone Age world, but they know when it’s 13:45, you’re gonna have to explain how the hell they know that.

Keep historical accuracy in mind if you’re not writing your own world e. g. if you’re writing a book set in Ancient Rome, you should do some research to figure out how they told time.

5. Consistency in time periods

This cannot be stressed enough. Keep healing time, travel time, seasonal changes etc consistent and realistic.

If you’re writing something set in the real world, you should research how long it takes to heal from certain wounds or how long it takes to travel between places etc.

Even if you made up your own world, own creatures and own laws of physics, you should keep the times consistent throughout the work.

That’s all I have for you on time. I hope that this very random post can be helpful.

Reblog if you found these tips useful. Comment with your own questions/ideas around time in writing. Follow me for similar content.

[aelin-godkiller]

The tea is that when George RR Martin includes the rape of a 13 year old girl and Pat Rothfuss writes 100+ pages of boring fairy sex it’s “just sex” and they still get considered part of the serious fantasy canon, but when a female fantasy author does it suddenly it’s “gratuitous smut” and their books can never be considered Serious Fantasy Literature™️ because they wrote about female orgasms and powerful women finding love, and their readers are derided for enjoying the sex scenes and wanting the romance because only Stupid Silly Women™️ care about these things and besides, haven’t you heard that the only accepted literary sex is unhealthy sex that is Painful But Somehow Still Hot™️ because the only valid, serious type of relationship involves a man abusing a woman for the delectation of a male audience!!

[aelin-godkiller]

this post is still relevant and the tea is still piping 

[sassycolortheorist101-blog]

some fucking resources for all ur writing fuckin needs

* body language masterlist

* a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

* a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

* 550 words to say instead of fuckin said

* 638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

* some more body language help

(hope this helps some ppl)

[secludedsenpai]

Damn thanks bro this could save a life!

[normal-horoscopes]

Once upon a time, there was a city ruled by three sister princesses. They were much-loved in their kingdom- the eldest with eyes of brightest blue, the middle with lips of sweetest pink, and the youngest with hair of deepest red. They were incredibly close, acting as each other’s friends and confidantes. They were just, and kind, able to balance the people and keep the peace in their land.

For a time, all was well.

And then it wasn’t.

Mother?

Shh.

A neighboring kingdom, jealous of this city’s prosperity and peace, sought to disrupt it. They dragged to its gates hideous war machines, made of magic and steel and human skin. The king, a man of great magical learning and power, demanded the princesses surrender their city to him, and if they did not, he said, he would raze it to the ground.

Mother, I’ve never heard of this story.

Then listen when I tell it to you.

The youngest daughter, when she heard, did up her deep red hair, put on a delicate crown, and clothed herself in a beautiful dress. “I will offer him an alliance,” she told her sisters. “I will give him my hand in marriage for our kingdom’s safety.”

The other sisters wept, understanding the sacrifice that their youngest was making, and held her close until dawn. They saw her off at the castle gates, and watched until she disappeared into the still city.

When the youngest daughter reached the enemy’s camp, she stood tall, and did not show her fear. She spoke kindly to the weary soldiers, curtsied before the cruel sorcerer-king as custom demanded. She was brave, oh, my darling, she was so brave.

And the king spat at her fine words, and spoke the words that drew all the light from out of her, until she went mad with despair. As the sun set on the day, and on the youngest sister, who lay despondent in the middle of the camp, a soldier came upon her, and killed her in a fit of mercy.

But you said that she was brave.

Yes. She was.

When the other sisters heard, the middle sister donned silver armor, borrowed from the guards in the castle, and took up a crossbow. “I go to kill the king,” she said. “I go to avenge our youngest.”

And the eldest held her close, and wept, until she let her go and watched her disappear from sight into the streets.

When the middle sister arrived at the camp, she moved quietly, looking through the tents with eyes and a heart made cold with fury and grief. She reached the king’s tent- asleep, inside was the enemy, and she raised her crossbow to finish the job. And she would have, darling, she would have, had she not seen, hanging from the post of the kings fine bed, her sister’s delicate crown.

The king awoke when she sobbed at the sight of it, and spoke words that caused her to wither and decay where she stood, crumbling to rotted remains inside a suit of armor.

Mother, I don’t like this story.

You must hear it.

The eldest sister heard the news and she did not weep. She drew her courage about her, and set off into the forest to find her and her sister’s mother, who was a powerful witch.

Her mother answered the door and bade her come inside, offering her condolences about her sister’s fates. Once the door had closed, her mother hesitated, then spoke.

“I left you in that castle long ago, and I will give you your answers, and then I will give you your vengeance against the king.”

And so the daughter listened.

Mother, I don’t want to hear this.

Listen, daughter.

Long ago, there had been a queen with great magickal abilities, but she was never able to find a love, so she used those powers to create three daughters.

One, she formed from a bottle of light captured at the sun’s violent surrender to night. It woke last, a child with beautiful red hair, and so it was the youngest.

One, she shaped from a gentle pink anemone, the last in her castle’s courtyard to survive winter’s onslaught. It woke second, a child with curved pink lips, and so it was the middle.

One, she carved from a piece of sapphire the size of her fist, and as she did, she cut her finger with the blade, so it was made with blood, as well. It woke immediately, with bright blue eyes, so it was the eldest.

The sun took her first child home, she told the sapphire-girl. Her body turned to light, and then to nothing, what it always was. The body of her second daughter rotted in the encampment like a flower decayed beyond its lifespan. “All the king can do is turn you back to what you were before,” she told her daughter. “He will turn you back to stone if you are unprotected.”

She gave her daughter a vial full of black liquid. “This will turn your heart forever to sapphire. The king will be unable to change you- but you will never feel again. No blade shall pierce your skin, but no joy or grief will stir within you. You will never be warm, or cold. I offer you not immortality, but a half-life of invincibility.”

The daughter regarded the vial, and uncorked it. She brought it to her lips, but before she drank, she asked her mother, “Why did you leave us?”

And then she swallowed, so she would not care about the response, and she left her mother in her home before she found the answer.

But why did their mother leave them?

Because she knew, daughter, even then, that her eldest child was capable of committing this act, and she was afraid.

The eldest daughter marched to the encampment, and to the kings tent. She was attacked, but nothing drew blood, and so she went forward. The king, upon seeing her, spoke the words that would have crumbled her to so many sapphire shards, but nothing happened.

She pulled out the king’s heart through his armor, and she felt no relief at having killed him.

She felt nothing.

The end.

Mother?

Mother, that can’t be how the story ends.

Mother, that is not how the story ends.

Do you want another ending?

Yes.

Very well, then.

The people saw what their queen had done, and began to fear her. The queen, unable to feel love or even affection, went back to her mother to find a way to make a child that her people would adore, because, without emotion, she saw that that was what they needed.

The child was made of ice over a pond, and her hair was the orange-white color of the fish, still alive in the cold.

And the queen raised her daughter to love the kingdom, to rule well, and to one day overthrow her mother.

Is that better?

No, mother, it’s- it’s not.

I am sorry.

Why did you tell it to me?

Because you deserved to know, daughter.

You deserved to know what I did.

[goawfma]

[denisvileneuve]

There is a reason this is the last scene in which Okoye appears before the credits roll. It speaks volumes about the power black women possess. Seeing anyone, let alone a black man, submit to a black woman on screen in this way is a rarity.

Gurira thinks the message in that scene is vital for everyone, especially women and girls.

“You expect to use your love for me and our love for each other to actually get me to betray my nation, and I would kill you first. I love that,” she said. “I think women don’t often get to portray that sort of nobility and that sort of integrity, especially [choosing that] over their love.” – Danai Gurira on The Scene™

[cartiercocaine-blog]

https://www.instagram.com/tabriamajors/

[spearmint-milkshake]

i just saw a fb post where a man was arguing with a woman about the best way to make macarons and he kept insisting that she was wrong, and then eventually he was like “I’ve never personally made macarons, but if you think about it what I’m saying makes sense, i’m simply stating the obvious. i’m sure there are plenty of youtube tutorials that would show you the same thing.” and the woman replied by linking him to her instagram business page and she makes fuckin macaron towers for parties for a living and i’ve been laughing about it for a solid 5 minutes.

[cocksmasher69]

Men automatically assume they’re more of an expert on something than any woman on account of their dicks. I’ve never met such an ignorant and narcissistic creature as a male

[cheekless0nion]

I’ll never forget a time when a fb friend of mine posted that she’s on her way to hospital to give birth. Women commented with “good luck” and other encouraging messages. A man’s comment was advice on how to give birth. 

[celean0]

You have got to be kidding me

[wreathedinscales]

So I was talking about Jekyll & Hyde (the book) at a writer’s museum while we were looking at an Robert Louis Stevenson exhibit. I was giving my take on Jekyll, and my brother tried to counter it. I countered back easily, and then he said “well I’ve never read the book”

My dude………..stop

[coffeebuddha]

my ex, whose baking experience was pretty much limited to frying premade biscuit dough in boy scouts to make ‘donuts’, would constantly try to correct me or give me advice on baking

i’m a fucking pastry chef

[gotlostintheuniverse]

met a dude at a party who was talking about physics and asked if i’d ever listened to any online physics lectures bc he listened to all of this one series and they were so helpful and maybe i could learn some physics too

i have a degree in physics

and am a published coauthor in astrophysics

[sxpositive]

the best part is that the woman who invented the term ‘mansplaining’ (her name is Rebecca Solnit and i highly recommend her collection of essays) came up with it when she was at a party one night and a man tried to explain a book to her, and wouldn’t let her speak long enough for her to tell him that

she wrote the bloody book he was mansplaining to her

[saltiestsoprano]

You know I have plenty examples of this but that last one takes the cake so imma just let it be.

[gahdamnpunk]

I can’t bREATHE 😂😂😭😭

[blvckgeezus]

Lmfaooooooooo

[allsonargent]

Titus Andromedon + moodboard

[oddhour]

pick-me-ups for writers

for the self-conscious beginner: No one makes great things until the world intimately knows their mediocrity. Don’t think of your writing as terrible; think of it as preparing to contribute something great.

for the self-conscious late bloomer: Look at old writing as how far you’ve come. You can’t get to where you are today without covering all that past ground. For that, be proud.

for the perfectionist: Think about how much you complain about things you love—the mistakes and retcons in all your favorite series—and how you still love them anyway. Give yourself that same space.

for the realist: There will be people who hate your story even if it’s considered a classic. But there will be people who love your story, even if it is strange and unpopular.

for the fanfic writer: Your work isn’t lesser for not following canon. When you write, you’ve created a new work on its own. It can be, but does not have to be, limited by the source material. Canon is not the end-all, be-all. 

for the writer’s blocked: It doesn’t need to be perfect. Sometimes you have to move on and commit a few writing sins if it means you can create better things out of it.

for the lost: You started writing for a reason; remember that reason. It’s ok to move on. You are more than your writing. It will be here if you want to come back.

[hourlywritingprompts]

Writing Prompt

Writing prompt of the hour: consensual

[rulesofthirds]