Two highlighted selections from the referenced book. They read:
To understand the difference between a good adverb and a bad adverb, consider these two sentences: “She smiled happily” and She smiled sadly". Which one works best? The first seems weak because “smiled” contains the meaning of “happily”. On the other hand, “sadly” changes the meaning.
Remember the song “Killing Me Softly”? Good adverb. How about “Killing Me Fiercely”? Bad adverb.
Look also for weak verb-adverb combinations that you can revise with stronger verbs: “She went quickly down the stairs” can become “she dashed down the stairs.” “He listened surreptitiously” can become “He eavesdropped.” Give yourself a choice.
Tears are powerful, but do you know what's more impactful? The struggle to hold them back. This post is for all your hard-hearted stoic characters who'd never shed a tear before another, and aims to help you make them breakdown realistically.
The Physical Signs of Holding Back Tears
Heavy Eyelids, Heavy Heart
Your character's eyelids feel weighted, as if the tears themselves are dragging them down. Their vision blurs—not quite enough to spill over, but enough to remind them of the dam threatening to break.
The Involuntary Sniffle
They sniffle, not because their nose is running, but because their body is desperately trying to regulate itself, to suppress the wave of emotion threatening to take over.
Burning Eyes
Their eyes sting from the effort of restraint, from the battle between pride and vulnerability. If they try too hard to hold back, the whites of their eyes start turning red, a telltale sign of the tears they've refused to let go.
The Trembling Lips
Like a child struggling not to cry, their lips quiver. The shame of it fuels their determination to stay composed, leading them to clench their fists, grip their sleeves, or dig their nails into the nearest surface—anything to regain control.
The Fear of Blinking
Closing their eyes means surrender. The second their lashes meet, the memories, the pain, the heartbreak will surge forward, and the tears will follow. So they force themselves to keep staring—at the floor, at a blank wall, at anything that won’t remind them of why they’re breaking.
The Coping Mechanisms: Pretending It’s Fine
A Steady Gaze & A Deep Breath
To mask the turmoil, they focus on a neutral object, inhale slowly, and steel themselves. If they can get through this one breath, they can get through the next.
Turning Away to Swipe at Their Eyes
When they do need to wipe their eyes, they do it quickly, casually, as if brushing off a speck of dust rather than wiping away the proof of their emotions.
Masking the Pain with a Different Emotion
Anger, sarcasm, even laughter—any strong emotion can serve as a shield. A snappy response, a bitter chuckle, a sharp inhale—each is a carefully chosen defence against vulnerability.
Why This Matters
Letting your character fight their tears instead of immediately breaking down makes the scene hit harder. It shows their internal struggle, their resistance, and their need to stay composed even when they’re crumbling.
This is written based off of personal experience as someone who goes through this cycle a lot (emotional vulnerability who?) and some inspo from other books/articles
Name another movie that does exposition as well as Lilo & Stitch.
Nowadays if you need a scene where Character A establishes through dialogue with Character B that Character B has relationship problems with Character A, and there's a main conflict rapidly approaching, and establish both Character A and Character B's motives and cares...
...nowadays that scene would just look like those two characters arguing with bizarre dumps of information. "Why were you late? I had a bad day at school, it would've been nice if my SISTER was there to pick me up on time! Especially now that mom and dad aren't here." "I know it's been hard since their car wrecked, but now is not the time to deal with it; you have to show that you're well-adjusted and I have to show that I can handle you, because that's what the social worker is looking for, so get it together!"
But that's not how they did it in Lilo & Stitch.
In Lilo & Stitch Nani runs home recklessly, we're shown she knows Lilo is already in there, we're dropped into a situation that's very unfamiliar to us —little kid locked her sister out and bailed the door shut—but the way the characters are acting, this is almost a semi-normal thing to find.
Nani mentions the social worker, not in a regular scrambling-to-clean-up-over-the-shoulder lecture, not with talking heads—but with her head through a doggy door.
While the kid is lip syncing to Elvis and barely responding to anything she says. No explanation of where their parents are. No explanation of why a social worker is coming over. No explanation of why Lilo is doing any of this.
Except for what is shown. And you gotta figure it out. And because the audience is engaged by having to figure it out, they're already more than halfway to believing it. You don't deduce something without first getting invested in it.
Live Action Version is not going to be able to do that. They won’t be able to show-not-tell.
I think I’m starting to believe one of my old professors who told me it’s bad luck to tell other people about the plot of your novel before you finish the first draft.
writing isnt even like a hobby to me anymore its just that theres images trapped in my head and if i dont get them out fast enough they start rotting in there and stinking up the place
Writing a novel when you imagine all you stories in film format is hard because there’s really no written equivalent of “lens flare” or “slow motion montage backed by Gregorian choir”
You can get the same effect of a lens flare with close-detail descriptions, combined with breaks to new paragraphs.
Your slow-motion montage backed by a Gregorian choir can be done with a few technques that all involve repetition.
First is epizeuxis, the repeating of a word for emphasis.
Example:
Falling. Falling. Falling. There was nothing to keep Marie from plunging into the rolling river below. She could only hope for a miracle now, that she would come out alive somehow despite a twenty-foot drop into five-foot-deep water.
Then there’s anaphora, where you write a number of phrases with the same words at the beginning.
There were still mages out there living in terror of shining steel armor emblazoned with the Sword of Mercy.
There were still mages out there being forced by desperation into the clutches of demons.
There were mages out there being threatened with Tranquility as punishment for their disobedience, and the threats were being made good upon.
Mages who had attempted to flee, but knew nothing of the outside world and were forced to return to their prison out of need for sustenance and shelter.
Mages who only desired to find the families they were torn from.
Mages who only wanted to see the sun.
This kind of repetition effectively slows the pace of your writing and puts the focus on that small scene. That’s where you get your slow pan. The same repetition also has a subtle musicality to it depending on the words you use. That’s where you get the same vibe as you might get from a Gregorian choir.
For more neat tricks (aka figures of rhetoric) like epizeuxis and anaphora, read THE ELEMENTS OF ELOQUENCE by Mark Forsyth. It’s both educational and delightful, not to mention overflowing with wry wit. Great book.
Did I daydream this, or was there a website for writers with like. A ridiculous quantity of descriptive aid. Like I remember clicking on " inside a cinema " or something like that. Then, BAM. Here's a list of smell and sounds. I can't remember it for the life of me, but if someone else can, help a bitch out <3
estranged siblings is such an underutilized trope. i stand firm in this. they grew up together. in some ways they know each other better than anyone else ever will. and in other ways they don't know each other at all. it's tragic and awkward and tense and i want so so much of it
big fan of characters with abandonment + attachment issues so profound that they leave claw marks in everything they touch but would sooner gnaw off their own leg than admit they just want someone to stay for once. in a totally normal well adjusted and not at all projecting way of course.
big fan of characters who are always leaving. who constantly have a suitcase in their hand. characters who start planning their exit the moment they arrive and get nervous when the people in their lives start to Know them. in a totally normal well adjusted and not at all projecting way of course
Also, I don't know if I've ever said this, but sometimes I feel it needs to be said—no human-made story is ever going to get Christianity exactly 100% right, whether in metaphor or in allegory or in symbolism.
Because Christianity is reality. It the framework upon which everything else hangs. So it would be like if I made a movie about elephants. I could go out and document an elephant's whole life from start to finish. I could produce a faithful account of what the elephant was feeling and thinking. And I could dramatize it without fudging the facts or skewing the truth observed about that elephant in any way.
But when you look at it, it'll still just be A Story About an Elephant. It won't be the elephant. And because it's not all-inclusive, because it's not everything there is to know about the elephant right down to its atoms and ancestry and how many breaths it took and what every other animal thought of it, etc., it won't even be a perfect explanation of the elephant. It'll just get super close.
Because stories are communication. But communication has nuance and suffers from limitations. Especially clear and impactful communication. So, while I might say something true about elephants by making a story about them, I'll never be saying the whole and perfect truth about elephants.
Just like you can use a story to say something true about Christianity (or any truth) but you'll never be saying the whole and perfect truth about Christianity.
Besides, God already did that. So relax and be earnest--you're just shining a spotlight on truth. You're not inventing it or breaking it down exhaustively.
Here are a handful of tips on how to write intriguing and strong *no pun intended* fight scenes!
1. Give your character a meaning behind their actions. Are they fighting to survive? Are they the aggressor or the victim? Are they defending someone they love or hunting down someone who hurt them? Makes sure the audience knows why this action scene is important to your character. Unimportant and nonmeaningful actions can be boring!
2. Short sentences. Generally speaking, longer more detailed scenes slow the pace of your novel down. This is because the reader has to take more time to read and absorb all the details. Quicker, brief sentences make the pace move faster because there is less for the audience to read. Most fighting happens quickly and instinctively— without too much thought or anticipation. When things are happening fast, we have less time to take in details.
🏃♀️ Fast-paced with minimal details: "He punched me in the cheek, my back molars ripping open my fleshy skin. By the time the next punch came, I was already choking on a mouthful of blood."
🐌 Too many details/thoughts that slow down the action: "His large fist hurled towards me with insane speed. I could hardly believe it. He punched my cheek so hard that my sharp, back molars ripped open my fleshy skin. It hurt so bad, but I couldn't stop the next punch from coming. Blood filled my mouth, the irony taste causing me to choke and for my face to wilt."
3. Use all five senses. When adrenaline is pumping, the body can become hyperaware! Touch and sight are the senses that most people focus on... but don't forget about smell, hearing and, taste. Does your protagonist hear dogs approaching? Do they taste the blood from their busted lip?
4. Don't' slow down the pace by adding too much detail. Try to keep an ebb and flow in your action scene. When the action is happening, keep the details quick and short— no one has time to think about their next move when in the heat of danger. However, you can balance the scene out by giving your character a chance to breathe and think and observe
5. Research/study. Watch famous fight scenes in movies or anime to see what is realistic and what is exaggerated. Pay attention to the pacing or what keeps you on edge. When does the character get a chance to think or come up with a plan? What makes this action scene so enthralling?
6. Consider what is at stake. Stakes always make a scene more tense. What does your character have to lose and how does this affect their mental state? Does it aid in their energy, or does it distract them from the fight?
7. Develop characters/the plot. Consider how this action scene will either further your character in the plot or set them back. Does this scene give them a lasting injury that follows them throughout the story, or do they lose an ally that they desperately loved? How does this affect them moving forward?
I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw, a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently
The Watson: is present for the event but does not have the same level of perception as protagonist
The Lemony Snicket: isn't present for the event, reconstructs the facts based on later research, can get things wrong or incomplete
The Ted Moseby: is present for the event but has romanticised and embellished their memory of it through nostalgia to an extent that you cannot fully believe it; is also prone to misremembering or outright forgetting details.
The Katniss Everdeen: is present for the event, is the protagonist, but is completely foreign to the world and out of their depth so they don't quite understand a lot of what is going on.
The Rose Quartz: is present for the event, but due to their personal agenda or feelings of shame hides and embellishes what actually happened in favour of a version that paints them in a better light.
The Big Brother: overwrites what actually happened in favour of propaganda.
The Jonathan Harker: is absolutely clueless about what is going on around them and the genre they're in so their perception of events is tinted by their own naivety.
The Goob: the narrator's own emotional bias clouds their judgement of what really happened.
The Tyler Durden: the narrator is suffering from hallucinations and doesn't realise it.
The Pi: the narrator has survived a traumatic experience and copes with it by turning it into a wonderful tale.
The Humbert: The protagonist-narrator is actively lying to you to cover up or reframe his bastardry.
The Truant: It is entirely unclear if the narrator is lying to you, going insane, experiences some profoundly eldritch shit and narrates to the best of his ability, or is merely fucking with you.
The Eugenides: The narrator knows what's going on and accurately relays it to the reader in the moment, but has left out some crucial background information that would reframe the entire story if you knew it.
Misdirection in storytelling, through foreshadowing and other techniques, is a powerful tool that can enhance suspense, surprise, and engagement in your narrative and make plot twists more unexpected.
Remember to maintain coherence and avoid contrivances that may undermine the integrity of your storytelling.
Here are some techniques you can use to effectively misdirect readers:
Red Herrings: Introduce elements or clues that suggest a certain outcome or plot direction, only to later reveal that they were misleading. These false leads can divert readers' attention away from the true resolution.
Selective Detailing: Highlight certain details or events in a way that implies their significance, while downplaying or omitting others that might be more relevant to the actual outcome. By controlling what information readers focus on, you can steer their expectations.
Character Misdirection: Use characterisation to mislead readers about characters' true intentions, motivations, or identities. Create multi-dimensional characters who may behave ambiguously or inconsistently, leaving readers unsure of their true allegiances, motivations, or goals.
Foreshadowing: Employ foreshadowing to hint at future events or outcomes, but do so in a way that misleads interpretation. Provide clues that could be interpreted in multiple ways or that lead readers to expect one outcome while delivering another. (See my previous post about foreshadowing for more!)
Misleading Narration: Utilise an unreliable narrator or perspective to present events in a biased or distorted manner. Readers may trust the narrator's account implicitly, only to discover later that their perceptions were flawed or intentionally deceptive.
Subverting Tropes: Set up situations or scenarios that seem to follow familiar narrative tropes or conventions, only to subvert them in unexpected ways. This can keep readers guessing and prevent them from accurately predicting the story's trajectory.
Parallel Storylines: Introduce secondary storylines or subplots that appear unrelated to the main narrative but eventually intersect or influence the primary plot in unexpected ways. This can distract readers from anticipating the main storyline's developments.
Setting: Manipulate the setting or environment to create false impressions about the direction of the plot. For example, presenting a seemingly idyllic setting that harbors dark secrets or dangers.
Timing and Pacing: Control the pacing of your story to strategically reveal information or developments at opportune moments, leading readers to draw premature conclusions or overlook important details. (See my post on pacing for more tips!)
Twists and Reversals: Incorporate sudden plot twists or reversals that upend readers' expectations and challenge their assumptions about the story's direction. Ensure that these twists are logically consistent but sufficiently surprising to catch readers off guard.
Hey so I am sort of new, or more like re-introducing myself after so long a way I may as well be a new person, to writing side of tumblr. Do you have an recommendations on people or tags that be cool to follow?
Yep, sure do!
@writingquestionsanswered
@fixyourwritinghabits
@keepcalmandwritefiction
@wordsnstuff
@writingwithcolor
@theliteraryarchitect
@thewritinghole
@the960writers
@bookishdiplodocus
@thewritersspotblog
@questionprompts
@writtentelepathy
@the-write-type
@elumish
@insanitysilver
@howtofightwrite
(below blogs are inactive/on hiatus but good references)
@scriptshrink
@scriptmedic
@scriptcriminaljustice
I also have a side blog to this one @hey-writers for writer promos and the occasional posted fiction or poetry. I don't update it often, but it is there if you want to peruse other writeblrs.
Followed tags are touch and go as people will "tag spam" things that aren't relevant, but check these out anyway!
#writers on tumblr
#writeblr
#writing
#creative writing
Make use of the "Latest" and "Top" categories when checking tags.
A Guide to Historically Accurate Regency-Era Names
I recently received a message from a historical romance writer asking if I knew any good resources for finding historically accurate Regency-era names for their characters.
Not knowing any off the top of my head, I dug around online a bit and found there really isn’t much out there. The vast majority of search results were Buzzfeed-style listicles which range from accurate-adjacent to really, really, really bad.
I did find a few blog posts with fairly decent name lists, but noticed that even these have very little indication as to each name’s relative popularity as those statistical breakdowns really don't exist.
I began writing up a response with this information, but then I (being a research addict who was currently snowed in after a blizzard) thought hey - if there aren’t any good resources out there why not make one myself?
As I lacked any compiled data to work from, I had to do my own data wrangling on this project. Due to this fact, I limited the scope to what I thought would be the most useful for writers who focus on this era, namely - people of a marriageable age living in the wealthiest areas of London.
So with this in mind - I went through period records and compiled the names of 25,000 couples who were married in the City of Westminster (which includes Mayfair, St. James and Hyde Park) between 1804 to 1821.
So let’s see what all that data tells us…
To begin - I think it’s hard for us in the modern world with our wide and varied abundance of first names to conceive of just how POPULAR popular names of the past were.
If you were to take a modern sample of 25-year-old (born in 1998) American women, the most common name would be Emily with 1.35% of the total population. If you were to add the next four most popular names (Hannah, Samantha, Sarah and Ashley) these top five names would bring you to 5.5% of the total population. (source: Social Security Administration)
If you were to do the same survey in Regency London - the most common name would be Mary with 19.2% of the population. Add the next four most popular names (Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane) and with just 5 names you would have covered 62% of all women.
To hit 62% of the population in the modern survey it would take the top 400 names.
The top five Regency men’s names (John, William, Thomas, James and George) have nearly identical statistics as the women’s names.
I struggled for the better part of a week with how to present my findings, as a big list in alphabetical order really fails to get across the popularity factor and also isn’t the most tumblr-compatible format. And then my YouTube homepage recommended a random video of someone ranking all the books they’d read last year - and so I present…
The Regency Name Popularity Tier List
The Tiers
S+ - 10% of the population or greater. There is no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. 52% of the population had one of these 7 names.
S - 2-10%. There is still no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. Names in this percentage range in the past have included Mary and William in the 1880s and Jennifer in the late 1970s (topped out at 4%).
A - 1-2%. The top five modern names usually fall in this range. Kids with these names would probably include their last initial in class to avoid confusion. (1998 examples: Emily, Sarah, Ashley, Michael, Christopher, Brandon.)
B - .3-1%. Very common names. Would fall in the top 50 modern names. You would most likely know at least 1 person with these names. (1998 examples: Jessica, Megan, Allison, Justin, Ryan, Eric)
C - .17-.3%. Common names. Would fall in the modern top 100. You would probably know someone with these names, or at least know of them. (1998 examples: Chloe, Grace, Vanessa, Sean, Spencer, Seth)
D - .06-.17%. Less common names. In the modern top 250. You may not personally know someone with these names, but you’re aware of them. (1998 examples: Faith, Cassidy, Summer, Griffin, Dustin, Colby)
E - .02-.06%. Uncommon names. You’re aware these are names, but they are not common. Unusual enough they may be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Calista, Skye, Precious, Fabian, Justice, Lorenzo)
F - .01-.02%. Rare names. You may have heard of these names, but you probably don’t know anyone with one. Extremely unusual, and would likely be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Emerald, Lourdes, Serenity, Dario, Tavian, Adonis)
G - Very rare names. There are only a handful of people with these names in the entire country. You’ve never met anyone with this name.
H - Virtually non-existent. Names that theoretically could have existed in the Regency period (their original source pre-dates the early 19th century) but I found fewer than five (and often no) period examples of them being used in Regency England. (Example names taken from romance novels and online Regency name lists.)
Just to once again reinforce how POPULAR popular names were before we get to the tier lists - statistically, in a ballroom of 100 people in Regency London: 80 would have names from tiers S+/S. An additional 15 people would have names from tiers A/B and C. 4 of the remaining 5 would have names from D/E. Only one would have a name from below tier E.
Women's Names
S+ Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah
S - Jane, Mary Ann+, Hannah, Susannah, Margaret, Catherine, Martha, Charlotte, Maria
A - Frances, Harriet, Sophia, Eleanor, Rebecca
B - Alice, Amelia, Bridget~, Caroline, Eliza, Esther, Isabella, Louisa, Lucy, Lydia, Phoebe, Rachel, Susan
C - Ellen, Fanny*, Grace, Henrietta, Hester, Jemima, Matilda, Priscilla
& Men were sometimes given a family surname (most often their mother's or grandmother's maiden name) as their first name - the most famous example of this being Fitzwilliam Darcy. If you were to combine all surname-based first names as a single 'name' this is where the practice would rank.
*Rank as a given name, not a nickname
+If you count Mary Ann as a separate name from Mary - Mary would remain in S+ even without the Mary Anns included
~Primarily used by people of Irish descent
^Primarily used by people of Scottish descent
>Primarily used by people of Welsh descent
I was going to continue on and write about why Regency-era first names were so uniform, discuss historically accurate surnames, nicknames, and include a little guide to finding 'unique' names that are still historically accurate - but this post is already very, very long, so that will have to wait for a later date.
If anyone has any questions/comments/clarifications in the meantime feel free to message me.
Methodology notes: All data is from marriage records covering six parishes in the City of Westminster between 1804 and 1821. The total sample size was 50,950 individuals.
I chose marriage records rather than births/baptisms as I wanted to focus on individuals who were adults during the Regency era rather than newborns. I think many people make the mistake when researching historical names by using baby name data for the year their story takes place rather than 20 to 30 years prior, and I wanted to avoid that. If you are writing a story that takes place in 1930 you don’t want to research the top names for 1930, you need to be looking at 1910 or earlier if you are naming adult characters.
I combined (for my own sanity) names that are pronounced identically but have minor spelling differences: i.e. the data for Catherine also includes Catharines and Katherines, Susannah includes Susannas, Phoebe includes Phebes, etc.
The compound 'Mother's/Grandmother's maiden name used as first name' designation is an educated guesstimate based on what I recognized as known surnames, as I do not hate myself enough to go through 25,000+ individuals and confirm their mother's maiden names. So if the tally includes any individuals who just happened to be named Fitzroy/Hastings/Townsend/etc. because their parents liked the sound of it and not due to any familial relations - my bad.
I did a small comparative survey of 5,000 individuals in several rural communities in Rutland and Staffordshire (chosen because they had the cleanest data I could find and I was lazy) to see if there were any significant differences between urban and rural naming practices and found the results to be very similar. The most noticeable difference I observed was that the S+ tier names were even MORE popular in rural areas than in London. In Rutland between 1810 and 1820 Elizabeths comprised 21.4% of all brides vs. 15.3% in the London survey. All other S+ names also saw increases of between 1% and 6%. I also observed that the rural communities I surveyed saw a small, but noticeable and fairly consistent, increase in the use of names with Biblical origins.
Sources of the records I used for my survey:
Ancestry.com. England & Wales Marriages, 1538-1988 [database on-line].
Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 [database on-line].
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