Maddiefandommess' Writing Blog

a 20 y/o writer who loves working with her favorite characters. Feel free to send requests I primarily write Marvel and The Shadowhunter Chronicles content. I love writing about Bruce Banner! My main ships are sciencebros, Hulkeye, Thorbruce and really any combination of the three All of my works will be tagged maddiewrites

[bearsplash]

send me a number (1-100) and a character and I’ll draw them based off of my spotify top playlist

[missmaddiewriting]

I would love to do this as a writing challenge as well, fair warning though I probably won't get to this for a few weeks as I'm a college student and finals are coming up

[leupagus]

by Resonant

I haven’t read this essay in… twelve years? I think? But someone (ETA: that someone was @whetherwoman who deserves the credit) linked it today and rereading it was a) a treat and b) honestly really helpful. If you, like me, want to write smut but often find it difficult, this essay may help a LOT.

[leupagus]

Reblogging this as I periodically do because it’s still relevant (especially with so many new writers coming into fandom spaces who are SO ENTHUSIASTIC but maybe need some pointers?) and because I myself need the reminder. Wherever you are, Res, I hope you’re doing great.

[digitalkiddo]

If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.

[mumblingsage]

Using a Reverse Outline to Understand Your First Draft’s Structure Before Editing

I've been using versions of this tool for years, for both my own self-editing and when I work as a developmental editor for clients. Now I'd like to share a template and a hopefully not-too-long explanation of ways you can work with it!

First off: congratulations on finishing a draft of your story! Now, as you get ready to revise it into a second, improved draft, it helps to see what the story is currently shaped like. Even if you aren’t a “planner” who outlines stories before writing them, you can benefit from a reverse outline after completing the story. It's lower-pressure and often easier than a planning outline because you just need to describe what you’ve already written. In fact, writing about your story can be pretty fun! And it will give you a sense of direction and increased confidence as you begin editing.

A reverse outline can be as simple or as detailed as you like. I’m going to give directions (and a sample file) for a fairly detailed one, which you can use as-is if it works for you, or adapt to be simpler, or adapt to include additional elements if that’s better for your process.

Here's the link to the reverse outline template in Drive. I've filled out the first few rows with example information from one of my own stories. Please go ahead and make a copy for your own use! One tip: under the "View" tab, there's an option to "Freeze" columns or rows so they move with you as you scroll in the file. I've already frozen the top row; you may also want to freeze columns A and B for ease of reference when you scroll horizontally. There are quite a few columns, and you don’t need to use all of them at once—different elements are more relevant to different writers and in different stories. In the rest of this post, I’ll explain what each column can do for you.

(The second tab of the file includes a sample reverse outline for nonfiction, with examples from a book of advice on editing that I'm writing at the moment and which this post may become a chapter in. Exactly what columns you’ll want in a nonfiction reverse outline will depend on your overall structure. Narrative nonfiction and memoir use similar techniques as fiction and could benefit from the standard reverse outline.)

Column A: Chapter number and title, scene

Some writers make their reverse outlines chapter-by-chapter, but since each chapter can include multiple scenes, and each scene deserves TLC, let’s give each scene a row.

(My reverse outline sample is for one of my short story collections, so I've given the title of the short story instead of a chapter number. Again, the template is adaptable!)

Among other benefits, filling out this column shows if you've acquired two Chapter 20s by accident. Or if you've given some chapters too-similar titles. Or if one chapter has way more scenes, or way fewer, than any other—which isn’t necessarily a problem, just something to observe right now.

While I’m giving advice: using the “Heading” style to mark your chapter titles/numbers makes it easier to find things your manuscript. Headings get their own space in the Navigation toolbar that comes up when you hit “Control + F” in Microsoft Word or click the “Document Tabs” option in Google Drive.

Column B: Action summary

Write about what happens in the scene. How much detail to include depends on your personal taste and memory. You don’t want to crowd the box with information or take a very long time at this. But it can be useful to spell out not just what happens, but some of why it happens and what results. This helps you follow the chain of logic and spot where links might be weak or missing.

A quick example of how an action summary can include cause and effect: “Overhearing Jason’s phone call, Miranda begins to suspect he was involved in the murder. She confronts him, he denies everything, and he leaves the house and doesn’t come back that night.” If you feel comfortable with shorter action summaries, you might just write this as “Miranda confronts Jason about the murder. He leaves.”

If you're going to write a synopsis to query this novel to literary agents or publishers, the reverse outline can help you get started. (I made my first reverse outlines for synopsis-writing purposes, before adapting them for other uses as both a writer and a freelance editor.) It accomplishes the major step of turning a novel into a few pages. You’ll still need to edit those few pages into something shorter and smoother, and I'd write the actual synopsis after you've given the book a structural edit, since elements of the plot may change in the process!

Speaking of summary, if the action in the story draft is told in narrative summary rather than shown as it happens, it’s often helpful to make a note of this. Summary has its uses: it can convey a lot to the reader quickly and it adds variety to pacing. Whether you have too much narrative summary or too little is something to consider once you have the outline filled out.

Column C: Scene wordcount

Use words, not number of pages, because the same amount of words can fit on more or fewer pages with different formatting. In publishing and professional editing, there’s still the convention that 1 page = 250 words, but in my experience, 12-point Times New Roman font that’s double spaced often fits 300+ words onto a page.

Column D: Cumulative wordcount

I’ve entered a formula here to sum up column C to the current row. This gives you a sense of when each scene takes place on the scale of the story, and also how your pacing is. (You can click the corner of a cell and drag it down to extend the formula as you add more scenes.)

That's the simplest version.

If you just want to fill in the first three columns and let the formula fill out the fourth for you, that gives you a one-sheet "map" of your story that can make the full manuscript easier to navigate, and it can be sufficient to get started on evaluating your story. But you’re missing half the fun.

Column E: POV character

To avoid both reader and writer confusion, I recommend sticking to one POV per scene. Some editors and publishers insist on it. But if you want to risk omniscient POV, that can go here too.

This column reveals when POV changes and whose perspective we spend the most time in. In one story I’m working on, I've added notes in this column about alternative POVs I could narrate the scene from, if I decide to change things up in the second draft. You don’t need to divide POV equally among all your characters, even if you have multiple protagonists. However, if one POV evaporates from the story partway through, or one takes over a long stretch of chapters, it’s good to spot this. And readers may be distracted if you have one or two scenes that make atypical POV choices without clear reason.

Columns F and G: Location; Date and time

These may help you catch continuity errors, like if a character returns home from the same trip twice, a minor character is in two places at once, or a particular evening in August winds up way too busy.

Column G is especially helpful for stories that span a long time—or a very short time. Even if you don’t have exact dates, a note such as “three days after the previous scene” can help avoid logistical tangles. (When timeline is especially important to a story, some writers fill out a virtual or physical calendar with their story events. You can often get print calendars for the previous year cheaply at an office supply or stationary store in January/February.)

If your story takes place in a single location or timeline is not a big concern, you don’t need to use these columns—this reverse outline is always customizable!

Column H: Plot and subplots advanced

There’s a lot going on in a story, and often a lot going on at the same time. This column lets you track where and when different plotlines are developed. You may find it useful to label your plots and subplots with categories like “External” (dealing with the world around the protagonist), “Internal" (psychological change that drives character arcs), or “Interpersonal” (rivalry, romance, and more).

Column I: Conflict of the scene and character desires

Conflict doesn’t have to be violent or flashy. But stories generally include a goal and some friction that prevents the goal from being met. In this way, desire and conflict are often closely connected.

If nobody wanted things to change, there wouldn’t be much to write a story about. If everyone immediately got the change they desire, the story would be very short. Adding friction will make events feel more realistic and engaging to readers. Conflict creates suspense: if there are opposing forces, we can’t predict who will win (or how they’ll manage to win, even if we trust the story will end well for a character). Conflict also lets you explore multiple sides of a situation or theme.

Depending on how you fill out the action summary in Column B, you might cover much of this information there. But I suggest filling out Column I for at least a few scenes to get the hang of evaluating conflict and motivation. If these are missing, a scene can feel directionless and emotionally flat.

Splitting information across multiple columns can also prevent any one part of the outline from getting too swollen. Especially if you write long or action-packed scenes, you may find yourself writing a lot in each cell. A few solutions: one, you may prioritize only the most significant developments of each scene. You can always come back and add more information later. Two, you may realize a scene would work better as two shorter or simpler scenes. (Though don't do this just because it's busy in the outline: consider how the scene itself reads in the story.) Three, you may adapt the outline to give each scene multiple rows evaluating different elements. Just put the wordcount in column C as 0 for the added rows, and it won’t mess up the cumulative wordcount formula (I've given an example in the template).

If the protagonist does get what they want, you’ve either reached the happy ending of the story (or at least a subplot) or you need to give them something else to want, another itch to satisfy. Maybe solving one problem makes them realize there’s an additional problem. Or it’s a question of short-term vs long-term goals: Frodo has made it to Rivendell, but then he takes on the new goal of reaching Mordor.

Column J: Reader emotional response

One reason we write stories is because we want to make people feel things. Here’s where you can talk about what you want the reader to feel. This gives you ideas for what to punch up and enhance in revisions. If you want them to be sad, what is the line they’ll start crying on?If you want them to be hopeful, what should they hope for and why will they feel hope that it will happen?

You may update this column after getting beta reader feedback on an early draft (but not a first draft—the first draft is for you): where and how did your beta react? Was it the way you hoped for, or were there surprises? You could even ask your beta reader to fill out a version of this chart.

Column K: Questions raised or intensified

A powerful emotion to draw readers in is curiosity. And every story will involve some exposition and explanation as we learn about the characters, the setting, and the plotline. Some writers use the term Dramatic Question or Narrative Question to refer to the single biggest and most crucial question that keeps the story going. Once that single question is answered, the story wraps up. Others use the term Story Questions for the various mysteries on different scales that keep readers turning pages—and not just in mystery novels. Whatever you call them, you can track in this column the questions you expect readers to ask with each scene.

In general, when a question is answered, a new, larger or more intense one should take its place. Or the answer to a still-lingering question becomes more urgent. By the end of the story, the majority of questions are answered. You may include a sequel hook, and writers often leave some small, tantalizing details open-ended to make a story feel more realistic, more vivid, or more haunting—or because we don’t have space to chase down every loose end. But if your biggest questions aren’t resolved, the story doesn’t feel over.

I find story questions hugely exciting because curiosity is what most often sucks me in as a reader. But a story isn’t just an intellectual exercise. It’s fatal if a reader ever decides, “I don’t care about learning the answer to this question.” Make sure your other columns are providing reasons for readers to care (especially column J).

You don't want this column to be empty. But you may not want it to get too full, either. It’s possible to draw out a question for too long, leaving readers confused or frustrated. It’s also possible to raise too many questions to easily keep track of. If they’re asking too much and learning too little, some readers might give up on ever finding answers. So be sure to consider both new questions and the weight of the questions already hanging over the readers' (and characters') heads.

As for where to track the answers, it’s dealer’s choice—you could put them in this column, or the answers might be described as part of the action summary or another column. Use this outline in a way that matches how you think, since it's organizing your story.

This is another column it can be useful to ask your beta readers to fill out (or "What questions do you have at the end of this chapter?" could be something to ask them in another format.) You may be surprised by what piques your readers' curiosity!

To reiterate, the mysteries that draw a reader to the next page or chapter—or sentence—don't have to be big. Jack Hart’s guide to narrative nonfiction, Storycraft, provides two excellent examples of opening lines with tiny mysteries that hook you. Joan Didion begins a piece with “Imagine Banyan Street first, because Banyan Street is where it happened.” Right away we wonder: what is “it”? And where is Banyan Street? The second example was written by Spencer Heinz in the Oregonian: “Pat Yost was in bed when she heard the sound.” Most readers will give Heinz’s next few sentences their attention to learn what the sound was, and Yost’s vulnerability makes the question feel urgent. You can get a bit too obviously manipulative with tiny questions (so that the reader asks “For crying out loud, what is it now?”), but it’s a useful technique to keep in mind.

The other beauty of these questions is that they can make the need for exposition work for you. Rather than being bored to tears by an infodump, the reader is intrigued by hints and glimpses, then satisfied to receive more context and explanation.

Column L: New characters and concepts introduced

This column can help you pace your exposition and introductions. (It overlaps with the previous column, but different writers find different angles helpful for analyzing a story, so I’ve included both. You may not fill out this column for every chapter, especially shorter chapters or chapters later in the story.) Tracking this can prevent you from introducing the same person in two different scenes. It also reveals opportunities to energize any doldrums in the middle of your story by adding a new idea.

Column M: Notes (and whatever else you desire)

I use this column to make revision suggestions to myself. You can also use it to track elements you find important but which don’t fit in other columns. Again, please feel free to add more columns and delete ones that aren’t a priority for this story or your process!

Mystery writers may want a column to keep track of where clues or red herrings appear. Romance novelists may want to track beats. A kinky romance novelist may want to keep track of which toys the characters use in which sex scene. Other writers may want to track what Robert McKee calls the “value charge,” measuring how much closer to or farther from their goal a character has moved.

Using the Outline

You don't have to fill out the entire spreadsheet in one sitting. You might do a few chapters/scenes at a time. You might get one or two columns completely filled out in one go (I do columns A and C together) but take time to do the rest. Some columns may never get entirely filled out. My tip is to try every column to start with, because you never know what will make something click for you. It’s better to fill out half the columns than none.

Some authors create reverse outlines as they write the first draft. After completing each chapter, they end their writing session by filling out a row with a summary of what they’ve just written. This has the benefit of your memory being fresher, and if it sounds like it’d work for you, please try it! It may help you spot issues early and course correct. However, some authors find too much analysis paralyzing in the first draft stage. Personally, I find it easier and fun to do my outline at the end, in a sugar rush of triumphant celebration at finishing a story. I write it up, stand back dusting my hands, and go “Well, what do we have here?”

And what do we have here?

Things a reverse outline can reveal:

Where does your climax—the peak of suspense, intensity, and emotion—happen in the story? How close to the end? How do you build up to it and climb back down? Are there mini-climaxes earlier in the story to keep readers engaged? Your main plot will have a climax, and so will your subplots and your character arcs. These may be located in different places, or they may all climax together. (Stop snickering, you in the back!)

What’s left unresolved at the end of the book? (For traditional publication, you’ll have the best luck if your first book is a “standalone,” though it may have opportunities for a sequel if it sells well. You might think self-publishing is more forgiving, but in fact, readers may greet a cliffhanger ending with bad reviews if they feel you’re trying to trap them into buying more books for unclear payoff. They may even return the book and demand a refund. However, in both traditional and self-publishing, books later in a series may end in cliffhangers once the author has won readers’ trust by finishing earlier stories in a satisfying way.)

How do the character arcs develop? Anything important enough to write a story about will probably change a person—how are each character’s actions and desires different at the end of the story than they were at the beginning?

How long are questions left unanswered or conflicts left unresolved? You generally want these to last for at least a few chapters to let suspense grow and keep the story flowing. (The author Benjamin Percy, in Thrill Me, speaks of his failed early novels: “I treated chapters like short stories, introducing and resolving trouble in fifteen pages. The containment, the stand-aloneness of my chapters, gave my books a stop-start quality that destroyed any sense of momentum.”) At the same time, each scene should make a little progress, whether positive or negative. It will end with the character a little better off or worse off (or better in some ways, worse in others) than they were before.

Friction, tension, conflict, and struggle make a story richer and more vivid. Even for small and simple goals, let the readers and characters yearn just a bit before you give them what they want. Make sure your payoffs each have setup.

Do you have scenes without action? Or where the action is all internal rather than external: does your protagonist sit around thinking until they change their mind about something? This isn’t fatal—I’ve done it myself on occasion. But try not to make these static scenes too frequent (and internal action is better than no action at all: beware scenes that are pure exposition).

Do you have scenes that are overgrown transitions, moving characters from Point A to Point B? In particular, you have an overgrown transition rather than a proper scene when there aren’t enough questions, conflict, stakes, urgency, or emotional engagement. Make your story more vivid by fleshing out these transitions or removing them (a transition can often become a paragraph or sentence at the beginning of the next scene).

Do any significant events happen off-page or between scenes? Would it be clearer or more impactful for readers if they happen on-page?

Do you spend a lot of wordcount introducing a particular character, setting, or detail that doesn’t go on to play a significant role in the story? Be wary of one-offs: characters, POVs, locations, and apparent subplots that only appear once may be a sign you should develop them further—or take them out entirely. Not always! But make sure it’s clear to readers why you break your story’s pattern. Sometimes, an author will give a character one flashback scene to share backstory. However interesting the backstory, be sure the events of that flashback are relevant to their present-day storyline!

How does each scene fit into to the larger story? How do the subplots connect to each other? If something doesn’t connect, does it belong? Can you flesh it out and connect it more? (Whether you connect it more tightly or delete it often depends on if your story is longer or shorter than you want it to be—see next section.)

You can color-code rows by subplot if that makes things easier for you. The reverse outline can become a very visual document, helping you see things it’s harder to find in a manuscript of text.

Look at scenes that only advance a single plot or subplot, and see how strong they are in the other columns. One way to punch up a sagging scene is to combine it with a second scene and do two things at once. Maybe the scene in which Miranda overhears Jason’s suspicious phone call is also the scene where she reels from the revelation that she’s about to be fired from her dream job (which she learned in the previous chapter). As our friend writing at the Cincinnati Enquirer in February 1947 said, “Life is just one damn thing after another, is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.”

Do tensions and stakes rise over the course of the story? This is often phrased as “things have to get worse and worse for your characters,” but that isn’t the only option. Giving your characters an occasional “break” provides hope, which, for you literary sadists, gives characters more to lose when things get worse again. Hope raises the stakes. And building a character up lets you continue a story for longer because it gives them farther to fall. The occasional achievement can give your character new abilities and resources to make future scenes exciting. Also, alternating hope with loss or disappointment creates a variety in tone and texture; most readers find variety welcome. (This also means you should beware of too many scenes of unmitigated success, even if your story's tone is one of cozy wish fulfillment.) In some genres, both your character and your audience may need occasional injections of hope to be motivated to see the story through. There are exceptions—a short horror novel may be nothing but things getting worse—but overall, don’t worry that you’re failing at suspenseful storytelling if your characters are sometimes happy! But there still should be something missing, an unanswered question, an unachieved goal, or an unresolved risk that keeps the story going. And generally, these risks, goals, questions, and unfulfilled desires should get bigger as the story goes on.

How's the length of your story?

Some writers end up with first drafts way longer than they want. Some wind up with first drafts that are too short. For some authors, each story causes them wordcount-related stress in a different way. And in every manuscript, whatever its overall length, some scenes will go on a bit longer than they need to, while several character details and plot threads will tantalize with their ability to be developed further.

Too long/too short is also a question of the audience you’re writing for. Young adult novels tend to be shorter than adult historical epics. If you’re writing fiction to publish in magazines paying pro rates, you'll often have a better short with a 4,000-word short story than a 9,000-word novelette. And if you don’t intend to write a novella (I love them, but they can be tricky to sell), then a 40,000-word “novel” probably needs more development.

If your story or scene is too long, either:

Too much is happening

You’re giving too many details about what’s happening

(It may be both at once, of course.)

You’ll want to make changes in that order: first, decide what needs to happen in the story. As I advised earlier, making some of it happen simultaneously can reduce the number of scenes and make each scene more intense. But upon consideration, and with the help of your reverse outline, you may find one or two excess subplots. Save them for a different story.

Once you’ve reduced your number of scenes, if you’re still longer than you want, look at each scene and tighten paragraphs and lines. But that fine-tuning is something to work on later, in the line-editing rather than organization or structural edit (what I'm calling the second draft in this post, and which we editors also call developmental editing).

If your story is too short, either:

Not enough is happening

You’re not giving enough details about what is happening

Should you add a subplot, or draw out a subplot you currently have? Do the characters’ problems get resolved too quickly? Have you raised enough narrative questions? Given enough answers? Is the conflict strong enough and are the stakes high enough? Have you shown how high the stakes are? Look at where you’ve used narrative summary. Would any of this be more interesting or dramatic as a scene? Are there sentences you could expand to paragraphs, or paragraphs into chapters? Don’t pad the story, but flesh it out.

You may want to do more research, especially if you put research aside to complete your first draft (which you've done—congratulations!) Learning about your characters’ jobs, the world they inhabit, and processes within it can open up lots of avenues, many of which you wouldn’t have predicted.

Or you may write short because you know so much about the story. You’ve been developing this magic system since you were in high school, so you don’t realize how weird and wondrous it is to your readers and how much they’d enjoy a (vivid, active, non-lecture) tour of it. Now’s the time to add some more scenes of your protagonist learning to use magic! Or, switching genres, a mystery writer may have meticulously planned the crime—but they need to add enough description that the reader can follow the logistics.

The emotions of revision

Personally, I think adding more scenes and details is great fun. You get to write fanfiction of your first draft—and publish it! However, expanding a story can take time and requires you to keep track of what you’re doing. The record in the reverse outline will help with that.

Cutting scenes, plot threads, characters, and even favorite sentences can be melancholy. I encourage writers to save what they cut in case it can fit in a future story—even if it doesn’t, this feels less like a final execution. However, sometimes cutting something is a relief. You’ve had a feeling that element wasn’t working out, and now you can let it go.

Some writers may get a little too eager to cut. It might seem like the easy way out, but if you delete everything that causes you trouble, the story will get smaller and smaller, and it might wind up less interesting as a result. You’re also depriving yourself of the chance to stretch your creativity and try new things. (Mary Oliver in A Poetry Handbook warns that “deletion teaches nothing.”) It’s a judgment call: does this troublesome bit have enough potential that it’s worth rescuing through revision? Try sleeping on it in case your subconscious offers a new solution you hadn’t expected. If that doesn’t pan out, you can always save the idea to try again in a different story. As Matthew Salesses says in Craft in the Real World, “Some encouragement (hopefully)! The bulk of successful writing is in the fact that you have an endless number of tries. Persistence is key.”

To wrap up, a few more uses of reverse outlining:

Reread your story in light of the outline. Going between the outline and each scene, consider this question: does your outline describe what’s actually on the page or what you intended to write? If your outline is more wishful than actual, that's still progress: it's helped you express your intentions, which is a step that brings them closer to reality. Now the reverse outline has become a planning outline for your next draft.

Similarly, some authors find it tricky to revise existing scenes. Instead, they write the second draft more or less from scratch in a new file. They trust their memory to give them back the best parts of the stroy and to drop or rework what wasn’t succeeding. If you want to use this approach but still need some guidance, the reverse outline can be made into a new outline.

You can reverse outline other people’s books! It's fun and insightful to examine how a favorite author works on a scene-by-scene level. Heck, it can also give insight into how an author you can’t stand, but who is undeservedly successful, works on a scene-by-scene level. Maybe you can learn from their success after all.

Again, here’s the reverse outline template in Google Sheets, with an example from one of my own stories filling out the first few rows. Make a copy and make it yours!

[sh-kira]

Black Folklore Resource.

I’ve been thinking and researching a lot about the (Black) Southern Gothic style/aesthetic and African American folklore, so I put together a list of books for myself and thought it might be helpful to someone else. 

-;-;-

FOLKTALE COLLECTIONS

The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales by Virginia Hamilton | Thrift Books Amazon

Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton | Amazon

Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston | Amazon Thrift Books

Every Tongue Got to Confess : Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States by Zora Neale Hurston | Thrift Books Amazon

Go Gator and Muddy the Water : Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers Project by Zora Neale Hurston | Thrift Books Amazon

Lies and Other Tall Tales by Zora Neale Hurston and Joyce Carol Thomas | Thrift Books Amazon

FOLKLORE AND STORYTELLING

Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom by Lawrence W. Levine | Thrift Books

Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans | Thrift Books Amazon

A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore: The Oral Literature, Traditions, Recollections, Legends, Tales, Songs, Religious Beliefs, Customs, Sayings and Humor of Peoples of African American Descent in the Americas by Harold Courlander | Amazon

The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness by Kevin Young | Amazon

Talk That Talk: An Anthology on African-American Storytelling by Linda Goss | Amazon

African American Folktales: Stories from Black Traditions in the New World by Roger Abrahams | Amazon

Deep Down in the Jungle: Black American Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia by Roger Abrahams | Amazon

Singing the Master : The Emergence of African-American Culture in the Plantation South by Roger D. Abrahams | Thrift Books Amazon

From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom by John W. Roberts | Amazon

Black Folklore and the Politics of Racial Representation by Shirley Moody-Turner | Amazon

Black Folktales by Julius Lester | Amazon

Folk beliefs of the southern Negro (1926) by Newbell Niles Pucket | Amazon

Black Folklore and the Politics of Racial Representation by Shirley Moody-Turner | Amazon

HUMOR

African American Humor: The Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today (The Library of Black America series) by Mel Watkins, Dick Gregory | Amazon

Honey, Hush!: An Anthology of African American Women’s Humor by Daryl Cumber Dance, Nikki Giovanni | Amazon

STYLE

The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora by Carol Tulloch | Amazon

 Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness by Rebecca Walker, Henry Louis Gates Jr. | Amazon

MAGIC/MYSTICISM

African American Female Mysticism: Nineteenth-Century Religious Activism by Joy R. Bostic | Amazon

Working Conjure: A Guide to Hoodoo Folk Magic by Hoodoo Sen Moise | Amazon

Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition by Ifalaye Books | Amazon

FOLK HEALING

Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing by Michele Elizabeth Lee | Amazon

African American Slave Medicine: Herbal and nonHerbal Treatments by Herbert C. Cove | Amazon

African American Folk Healing by Stephanie Mitchem | Amazon

ADDITIONS: 7/27/2019 (NOTE: As I continue to add books, some of these may deviate from folklore and focus on Black history and/or Black experiences)

Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison by Trudier Harris | Thriftbooks Amazon

The Skull Talks Back: And Other Haunting Tales by Joyce Carol Thomas & Zora Neale Hurston | Thriftbooks Amazon

Passed On: African-American Mourning Stories by Karla FC Holloway | Thriftbooks Amazon

Black Bodies and the Black Church: A Blues Slant by Kelly Brown Douglas | Amazon

This is absolutely not a definitive list and if you have more information or recommendations please feel free to add it! 

[luna-azzurra]

Quick Tips for Writing Descriptions

⟢ PICK THREE DETAILS MAXIMUM! your reader doesn't need to know every piece of furniture. Give them the broken clock on the mantle, the smell of cigarettes embedded in the couch, the water stain on the ceiling shaped like Italy. Their brain will fill in the rest. You're not writing an insurance inventory!!!

⟢ Use the senses people forget. Everyone does sight and sound, but what about: the metallic taste of fear, the way humidity makes your clothes stick, the phantom itch of being watched, that gross feeling when you touch something unexpectedly wet. GET WEIRD WITH IT

⟢ MOTION IN YOUR DESCRIPTIONS!! (Please?) don't just tell me the curtains are blue, tell me they're "shuddering in the AC blast" or "hanging limp like they've given up." Static description is a sleep aid. Make things MOVE

⟢ Your narrator's voice should COLOR everything! A depressed character won't describe the sunset as "beautiful mauve and amber streaking across the sky," they'll think "the sun's dying again, doing its whole performance art thing with the clouds"

⟢ Stop with the mirror descriptions! :( "She looked in the mirror and saw her auburn hair and green eyes" NO. Banned. Forbidden. Find literally any other way. Have another character notice. Show through action. Slip details in naturally. The mirror thing is lazy and we all know it

⟢ Similes and metaphors: COMMIT OR DON'T DO IT! "like" is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. "Her anger was like a storm" is BORING. "Her anger rolled in with the methodical inevitability of a hurricane, and he was standing in a trailer park in Florida" now we're TALKING

[a-queer-writer]

Writing Masterlist

I'll keep updating this as I post more writing content!

Character Building - Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Character - How to Get to Know Your Character - Get to Know Your Main Character - Aesthetics For Your Characters - How to Write Queerness in Characters Before They Know - Make a Blog For Your Characters - Know Your Characters - Family Trees For Your Characters

Romance - Romance Dynamics to Try - Dramatic Confessions - Arguments

General Tips - Create a Writer's Notebook - Don't Edit Too Much - Have a Physical Presence of Your Writing - Stop Scrolling and Go Write

[a-queer-writer]

Writing Tip

Create a writer’s notebook

Get a physical composition book. Mark it with tabs, and jot down important notes for whatever you’re writing to go back to.

Make notes on your characters. Write down writing tips and hacks. Have a physical reminder of your work in your space.

Your notebook isn’t just a great way to keep track of your notes, it’s also a reminder to write. It’s a physical touchstone for your progress.

Now write!

[fozmeadows]

Watching my toddler figure out how to language is fascinating. Yesterday we were stumped when he kept insisting there was a “Lego winner” behind his bookshelf - it turned out to be a little Lego trophy cup. Not knowing the word for “trophy”, he’d extrapolated a word for “thing you can win”. And then, just now, he held up his empty milk container and said, “Mummy? It’s not rubbish. It’s allowed to be a bottle.” - meaning, effectively, “I want this. Don’t throw it away.” But to an adult ear, there’s something quite lovely about “it’s allowed to be a bottle,” as if we’re acknowledging that the object is entitled to keep its title even in the absence of the original function.

[legit-writing-tips]

Another good post to read for those writing small human characters. 

[jennytrout]

My son was about three when he came to me in the middle of the day and said, “Mommy, there’s a knight behind the bush.” I thought he meant a toy knight or something. So I follow him outside and he goes, “Listen. Do you hear it? It’s night behind the bush.” It was a cricket. A cricket was standing in the little patch of shade under the bush, chirping. So, my son saw this dark area with accompanying nighttime sounds and decided, okay, well, that is a night right there. Their brains are incredible.

[deleted20211121]

My little bean knows she’s two, constantly saying proudly ‘I’m two!’ And the other day she saw this very frail old lady who looked one foot in the grave, pulled a face and said ‘oh shiiiit. She’s three.’ I almost screamed.

[cantnotknope]

I live in Korea and have a lot of international friends, and the same is true with language barriers in adults. 

*Looking at a bowl of pears* “Can you please pass me the… apple’s friend?” 

[imsopopfly]

Oh my favorite language based one was back when I was still in law school I was talking to this old Japanese man one time and he called me a “lawyer egg” instead of a law student and I still think about that turn of phrase

[cruzfucker]

[writingwithfolklore]

Writing Resources to use instead of AI

For coming up with character names:

Behind the name (my absolute fav)

Allows you to choose the origin of where you want the name to be from, whether you want a more feminine vs masculine vs androgenous name (as voted by users), random surname generator, and clicking on the name gives you important info like if there are any famous people with the same name, where it’s from, how common it is, and how people tend to see it, etc.

You can also search their name database by letter or meaning or origin, so if you know you want a character who has a name/surname that starts with an A from Ireland, there’s a whole list for you to choose from.

Census sites

Especially useful if you’re looking for a name from a specific place and/or time period. Just search “(country) census (year)” and you’ll find a database of real people who lived in that place at that time. No one can ever call your names unrealistic again.

For coming up with place names:

Fantasy name generator

This site can basically come up with any name for any person, place, or thing you might ever need. There are also specific generators for different fandoms if you’re looking to make an OC in an established world.

For finding that one word on the tip of your tongue:

One Look Thesaurus

This is my go-to. Not only can you find synonyms like a regular thesaurus, but you can also describe words like “unhappy smile” or “quiet laugh” to find the more specific word you’re looking for.

WordHippo

Works as a thesaurus (very similar to One Look) but also includes search options for words that rhyme, words that contain a specific letter or are a specific length, different word forms, sentences with a specific word etc. etc. It's like Thesaurus++

For coming up with ideas:

Word cloud

When I need to inspire a new idea, I write down all the things I’m interested in (hauntings, academia, lesbians, etc.) and put them into a word cloud to shuffle them next to each other. Sometimes seeing a concept in a new context can spark new ideas!

WWF Discord

This is my discord channel (shameless plug) for when you need to brainstorm off other people but don’t have anyone irl to talk to. We’re also happy to read and give feedback on writing, answer writing questions, or just chat!

For visualizing places and characters:

Pinterest

Pinterest can at times be a bit too sterile for my tastes, but if you use the right words, you can find more realistic photos of places. For example, adding “aesthetic” after basically any word will bring up a more broad collection of photos to help you flesh out places.

This is also a great way to find photos of people and fashion to help visualize characters. I’m bad at describing clothes, so I usually collect photos of outfits to help me know what my characters are wearing. Searching up “character inspiration” will collect more interesting photos and drawings of people who might not exactly be of our world.

(However, to make Pinterest not show you AI results, you have to go into your settings and check the “reduce AI” box. Luckily, it does mostly work.)

Death to Stock

Like pinterest but completely AI free (hooray!) Only drawback is that you have to pay a monthly subscription (about $20 CAD).

Cosmos

Very similar to pinterest but slightly more "artsy". I'm not super familiar with this one but I believe all the photos are human and you can save them and create collections with a free account.

Dupe Photos

Royalty-free stock image site with very Pinterest-core photos!

Minecraft

If you haven’t built your entire fictional city in Minecraft instead of writing, why not? It’s fun.

The Sims

This one is dual purpose because you can not only create your characters in Create a Sim, but you can design their houses. If you really want to go for it, you can bulldoze all the lots in your town and build your world from scratch.

Hero Forge

This character creator is intended for making D&D minis, so it has more fantasy-like options over the Sims if your characters are a bit out of this world.

House Plans.com

I was introduced to this resource through the comments on this post and it has quickly become one of my favourite things to use. If you struggle with the layout of buildings, this site lets you choose beds/baths/sq ft etc. and will show you house plans created by designers that most closely match your specs. You can also search by style instead if you're more interested in the aesthetics.

For checking grammar:

Grammar Girl

Easy to follow definitions and examples, and if you learn better by listening, every article comes with a podcast to follow along with instead.

Grammar Monster

This one is my favourite for checking grammar rules because there’s tons of examples in graphics that helps for any situation.

Reedsy

Among other things, reedsy can connect you to professional editors within your budget.

For writing advice:

One Stop for Writers

This one was recommended from my discord channel and has all sorts of tutorials and resources for the writing craft.

My Blog Directory

Another shameless plug, but if you need writing advice on something specific, you can search through my directory to see if it’s there. If it isn’t, you can always send me an ask about it!

For an alternative to Google Docs:

Ellipsus

Think google docs but without AI. Yay!

Scrivener

A more comprehensive writing software created specifically for writers, however there is a one-time payment to use ($80 CAD).

(will update this list with any more suggestions or resources I discover 😊 Thanks to everyone for your recs!)

[writingwithfolklore]

Just updated with some of the recs you've all been sending in! Thanks for your suggestions!

[aesterea-archived]

more on writing muslim characters from a hijabi muslim girl

- hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves - they also like to collect pins and brooches - we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased - common questions include: - “not even water?” (referring to fasting) - hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually) - “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable) - “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable) - “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)

- “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable) - people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead - long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up - hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing - that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why) - henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun - henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing - henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings - there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet - five daily prayers - most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively - muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran - there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book - muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience - don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously - Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”) - Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature) - Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework - In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)

- Astaghfirullah means “i seek forgiveness from Allah” and it’s like “god forgive me” - Alhamdulillah means “all thanks and praise belong to God” and it’s just a little bit more serious than saying “thank god” (example: i passed my exams, alhamdulillah; i made it home okay, alhamdulillah) - when i say we use them casually, i really mean it - teacher forgot to assign homework? Alhamdulillah - our version of “amen” is “ameen” - muslims greet each other with “assalamu alaikum” which just means “peace be on you” and it’s like saying hi - the proper response is “walaikum assalam” which means “and on you be peace” and it’s like saying “you too”

[missandaei]

As a Muslim this post is so very important and it makes me so happy that it gives the small facts and details that one might be unaware of or confused about.

[blackcharacterpolls]

Masterlist Of Black Focused Resources (1)

Donate To Black Trans Groups A Diverse Discussion Playlist Black Comic Creators Masterlist Black Led Indie Projects Playlist Black Queer\Sapphic Women Playlist | BLACK MUSIC COLLECTION | 100 Black Punks (& more) You Could Be Listening To | Black & Indigenous Goth & Alternative Bands\Artists | Alt Black Artists 1 | Alt Black Artists 2 | Black Alternative Canadian Bands\Artists | Black Artists you need to listen to Disabled Black Creators | Collection of Sci-fi and Fantasy Books by Black Authors | READ BLACK BOOKS ALL YEAR LONG Black Voice Claims Playlist Decolonizing Games Resource List World of Black Heroes Center for Black Literature & Culture (CBLC) Zairoo Nappy The African American Voice Actor Database Feast Afrique Blacktober (Official Carrd) | 2025 Blacktober Prompt List (Unofficial) Black N Animated Black Punk Black & Brown skin The National Association of Black Bookstores NAACP AAVE Glossary Afro-Linguistics Black Girl Gamers Black Webmasters Blerdcon Diverse Books Afro Hair Library Black Doctor.org Melanin Library Sainttheron Black Nerds Create Curlsondemand Black Autism Flag Black Userbox | Black Userboxes | Black Jirai Userboxes + Sparkly Juneteenth Deco | Black Queer Banners | Black Queer Flags | Lgbtq Black Flags | Blk Mogai Support Black Women Eating disorder resources for the BIPoC community BlackLivesMatter BIPOC Mental Health Blackliveswillalwaysmatter What It Means To Be a BIPOC Student: Resources & More 65 Black, Indigenous & POC Outdoor Organizations to Support IMAGINE BLACK National Black Women's Justice Institute Buy from a Black Woman Sundown Town Map | Hate Map | Ice In My Area (ICE Activity Tracker) Master List of Black Revolutionary Readings Black Woman Savior Trope Toolkit WHAT IS WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE? Jim Crow Museum Racial Justice, Racial Equity, & Anti-Racism Reading List Antiracist Reading Lists The Black Music Project Black Music Matters Timeline Of Black Music The African American Folklorist Black Native Americans: What To Know About Afro-Indigenous Peoples Intersectional Indigenous Identities: Afro-Indigenous and Black Indigenous Peoples Afro-Indigenous Intersectionality Black American Sign Language Black ASL Black, Deaf, And Extremely Online

[actingwithportals]

Alright, because clearly some people need it, let's talk about writing blind characters (again).

So. You want to write a blind character for your story or AU, but you yourself are sighted and don't know any blind people irl. The media is not your best outlet for finding good or accurate portrayals of blind people, and you're a little stumped on doing your own research. Maybe I can help fill in a few gaps?

(Note: I AM a blind person but I am only one blind person with one blind experience. There will be others with different backgrounds, different acuity levels, different overall conditions, different points in their lives of when they lost their vision, all of these things that will color how their blindness impacts their lives. Please when doing any research into representing a minority group ALWAYS seek out multiple experiences to gain a better, fuller understanding. I will be offering a viewpoint as someone who was born blind (ocular albinism), uses a cane, grew up relying on old school screenreading and magnification tools (and mainly just uses magnification now), reads and writes Grade 1 Braille (but has begun Grade 2), and has participated in many blind programs and communities since I was a young teenager. There is no "correct" way to be a blind person, there are just "different" ways, and they are all equally true and valid.)

First things first, canes:

Give your blind characters a cane!!! Most blind people are very interested in being self-sufficient and independent, and one of the best ways for us to achieve this is the freedom to navigate our own surroundings. Your cane is your best tool for this!

A lot of blind folks will also want a guide animal and that does take place of a cane, but also there will be a lot of instances where you will not be using your guide animal! They will take breaks!! They will need to sleep or rest!! They will not be suitable for every outing or excursion! Blind folks, even with guide animals, will still own a cane for these instances.

(There is also an instance where a blind person will want to use sighted guide. It's most comfortable doing this with people you are familiar with, but it works in a pinch with strangers too who are willing. However, a lot of folks don't know how sighted guide works. So to explain, essentially all it entails is the blind person will hold onto the space just above your elbow, and will walk about half a step in pace behind you. You do not need to do anything with your arm besides leave it relaxed (do not fold it up), and give out some verbal cues of changes in direction, warnings of upcoming steps up or down, or pauses for other passerbys or traffic. Reading out signs or keeping the blind person informed of what street you're on might also be helpful, but ask the individual what it is they desire from the sighted guide. Sometimes we don't need much, just someone to keep us from running into things if the sun is in our eyes.)

(Relatedly though do not do not DO NOT grab a blind person without their consent. DO NOT grab them, move them around, or any other nonsense like this. Do not TOUCH THEM without asking first, and if they say no, that means FUCKING NO.)

Now, how do canes work?

Most blind folks will use a white cane that is about to the height of reaching your chin standing up straight, so that when you extend it outwards it will reach far enough ahead of you to anticipate things at a distance (and you can also just as easily pull your cane in a little more to better reach things closer up).

Canes are most commonly made of metal or fiberglass, and these days a lot of them are folding canes (easy for stowing away while in transit on a car or bus or when seated anywhere).

The grip is soft with a cord hanging from its top that is used to loop around and hold in place the cane when folded, and when you are holding your cane outward in use your pointer finger will extend downward for best control over your tool.

The tip is made of hard plastic that can be slipped on and off because it will need to be regularly replaced as frequent use will wear it down, and these tips can come in a number of shapes, but the most popular you will see are a marshmallow tip (large and, well, shaped like a marshmallow), or a pencil tip (long and thin, this tip is my preference). People might switch out which tip they use depending on the terrain as well.

When in use, you hold your cane extended outward in front of you, and while you want the tip on the ground to be angled centered to your body, you are going to want the grip resting somewhere off to the side around your hip or just above (this way if you encounter a crack or something else in front of you that your cane will snag on, you will not wind up stabbing yourself in the gut with the grip. That shit hurts, avoid at all costs).

Depending on your specific needs, the terrain, and other factors such as lighting, crowds, or space available, there are a few different ways you'll actually use the cane. You can either have it running straight in front of you, tapping to the sides of you at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, or shorelining (where you keep a regular tap at your center and then at whatever edge your are walking by, whether it be the edge of the sidewalk or a wall, etc). When at rest, your cane should be pulled to stand up straight and held close so that it does not become a tripping hazard for others.

Your cane is an extension of your arm, it is a part of you. Treat it kindly, and if you see a blind person with their cane, do not touch it!!!! Even when folded up, leave that cane alone!!!!!

While not all blind people will want to use a cane, especially those with higher visual acuity, it is HEAVILY ENCOURAGED that all at least own one just in case they ever find they need it. Your blind character SHOULD own a cane and know how to use it. The likelihood of your blind character being one of the few who do not use one/do not find a need for one is so unlikely that at this point if you choose to go that route it's uh. It's just kind of insulting, that us needing such a tool is seen as so unnecessary, by sighted people no less. Give your blind character a cane.

What about Braille?

Braille is a tactile way of reading and writing, and it is very useful for a lot of blind people! There are a couple of different ways to write Braille: with either a slate and stylus, or with a Brailler.

Slate and Stylus:

This (older, but still useful) method is simpler in that it is much less cumbersome than a Brailler, but it does take a bit of brainpower as it requires essentially writing upside-down. How it works is your slate is sort of like a long metal sleeve that opens for you to slide a piece of paper in between the two sides of the slate. On the slate itself is the shape of a Braille cell (two columns of three rows of dots), and with your stylus you poke holes into that cell to make up whatever shape constructs your letter/word/number/punctuation. Most slates will have several cells along a line, and several lines to work with so that you do not have to move your slate around the page too often.

Brailler:

A Brailler takes the job of the slate and stylus and makes it a bit more streamlined, but it is more cumbersome to transport as a Brailler is not too different from the size and shape of a typewriter (don't worry, it IS smaller, at least, and has much fewer keys). You roll your paper in and clamp it down just like on a typewriter, and you have six main keys that make up the six dots within a Braille cell. When typing, you will press down whichever of those six keys at a single time that makes up whatever letter/word/number/punctuation you are trying to write, and then move on to the next (there are also keys for entering down, a spacebar, and one other that, I will admit, I have never once used so I do not know what it does lol. I think it is some kind of backspace for if you miss something? Backspacing is very difficult to do in Braille, for obvious reasons, so there are more limited scenarios in which backspacing is going to be beneficial).

Braille, being what it is (a tactile form of written language that requires the reader to run their fingers over the words repeatedly, allowing for erosion of those shapes overtime) necessitates using paper of a thicker size and shape than normal 8.5x11 printer paper. And even with the use of contractions (you begin learning these in Grade 2 Braille, and it is A LOT) Braille takes up a lot of space to write, so Braille books themselves are often very large and weighty.

This often means that a lot of blind people will prefer audiobooks over Braille books, as that is simply more practical in this day and age, but Braille is still an incredibly important resource that we should not be quick to overlook. We can read and write our own Braille, and this freedom of accessibility should not be taken for granted. Though a lot of blind people who still have residual vision might not be taught Braille growing up (I myself was not put in Braille classes outside of the few things here and there that my vision teacher taught me — it was not until my teenage years of spending more time around other blind people that I started self-teaching), I think this is a massive disservice to the community, that EVERYONE (sighted people included) could benefit from learning Braille.

What else do blind people use to help them in their daily lives?

Your mileage may vary on what you as an individual might need, but I will try to break down a few other helpful bits of information that you might find useful in writing blind characters!

Magnifiers:

(Side note: Not every blind person is totally blind. In fact, most blind people do have some level of residual vision. This might only be some small perception of light and shadows, but sometimes it is a usable amount of vision. There is some relativity in what is considered "legal blindness" depending on where you live, but if you find yourself with vision even at its most corrected with glasses or contacts to still have an acuity that falls below a certain point (for example, in the US this point is 20/200), you would probably benefit from considering yourself blind and seeking out resources to help!!!)

But yes, magnifiers. Whether they be glass ones you hold, or digital software on your various devices, magnifiers can be useful for both looking at things up close, and even perceiving things far away! A magnifier with built-in lights for reading, a screen magnifier with various contrast options for browsing your computer, a stand magnifier you can jury rig with a shoelace to tie around your good eye for hands-free Lookin (shoutout to 13yo Awpie on this one lol), bioptics for watching live theatre or films or even reading a menu at a coffeeshop (designed as tools to help people with low vision drive, these binocular lenses mounted onto normal glasses lenses have countless uses beyond their original intent), or, yes, even your standard everyday binoculars if you wanna sight-see beyond your usual scope. Most blind people with some amount of residual vision will have an arsenal of preferred magnification tools to choose from, so you should put a fair amount of consideration into what your character might most enjoy!

Screenreaders:

Used by both blind folks with total vision loss and blind folks with some residual vision, screenreaders have been around probably a lot longer than you think, and are indispensable tools that almost every blind person has at least some experience with, even if they do not prefer to use it in their daily lives. Most magnification software comes with its own built-in screenreader, but there are plenty that have existed on their own without being part of a magnification software (shoutout JAWS), but even devices and operating systems now are being designed with screenreaders built in-house too. The quality does vary from program to program, and people who use these regularly are going to Have Opinions on what they prefer, but if your character has low enough vision that using magnifiers would be more tricky than helpful, then they are GOING to make a lot of use out of screenreaders. I recommend attempting to use the screenreader on your phone sometime, just to see what it's like. It's actually a lot of fun!

Large print, tactile tools, color-coding, etc.:

There are a lot of ways in which blind folks will help themselves navigate the world without/with limited sight. Whether it be large print/Braille labels put on all of their household appliances, everything in their bedroom or office organized by color/in specific orders/marked with something tactile (puff paint was a popular go-to when I was a kid), or otherwise, blind folks will make their spaces heavily curated to their needs, and if we've been doing it for a long time (years or even our whole lives) we're going to be very good at it. Don't move a blind person's things in their space around without their explicit consent — everything has a place and we for the most part are going to be very used to keeping together a carefully constructed mental map of our surroundings, DO NOT INTERRUPT THAT.

And on the subject of mental maps...

Orientation and Mobility!!!

Not every blind person has gone through some degree of O&M training, but if you grew up blind and had access to resources in education to accommodate your disability, you are probably familiar with this class. What this entails is essentially being taught the tools and tricks for navigating out in the world independently, and if you've already spent years of your life needing to do this, you likely already have learned plenty of things on your own without the instruction.

But what the instruction does often cover is using your cane, identifying landmarks around you (whether by sound, smell, keeping mental track of how many right and left turns you make from a specific location you can remember), how to navigate crossing streets, keeping track of what other pedestrians are doing to assist in your own understanding of the flow of traffic, and how to orient yourself in a situation when you find yourself lost.

Not every blind person is going to have the best memory or mental map, but it is something we do have to more heavily rely on than sighted people, so the likelihood of your blind character being pretty adept in navigating familiar stomping grounds or adjusting quickly to new terrain after going over it once or twice with assistance is, all things considered, going to be pretty high.

And while we're talking about what blind people are and are not likely good at...

Heightened senses???

Blind folks, and I cannot stress this enough, do NOT. HAVE. SUPER. SENSES. Our hearing is AVERAGE. Our taste buds are AVERAGE. Our sense of smell and touch is AVERAGE. What MIGHT be above average is the amount we rely on these things, and thus our proficiency in utilizing them is going to be HIGHER THAN PEOPLE WHO DO NOT. But even still blind people are not immune to comorbidity of disabilities. Sometimes blind people are Deaf as well!!!

Do not write your blind characters with super hearing. Do not write your blind characters with supernatural abilities to tell who a person is by smell across an entire fucking room (unless that person is particularly known for being...odorous (in a good or bad way!!!). Do not write your character able to feel a piece of cloth and know exactly what its weave and fiber is unless they HAVE REASON to be so familiar with textiles. DO NOT WRITE YOUR BLIND CHARACTERS TO MAGICALLY HAVE VISION (METAPHORICAL OR LITERAL) UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS WHEN THEY OTHERWISE DO NOT. Commit to your character Being Blind, or do not bother at all.

And on this note, if you want to supply your blind character with some magical ability that allows them to bypass some pretty average blind person needs like using a cane/sighted guide/guide animal, reading Braille (or otherwise utilizing magnification or audio tools), or taking the time to put in the effort to learn how to navigate, organize, plan ahead, or customize their space to be accessible to them to their specific needs, If Your Blind Character Can Essentially Pass For Sighted Except When Being Blind Will Look Cool, you need to rewrite your character. Full stop.

What else are bad stereotypes, inaccuracies, or otherwise offensive mischaracterizations that should be avoided when writing blind characters?

We do not, have never, WILL never, want to touch your face. Cut that shit out right now.

Barring very specific conditions, a lot of blind people do not have white/cloudy eyes. For a lot of us our eyes look not too different from how a sighted person's eyes will look. But please please PLEASE actually research what condition your blind character has that caused their blindness so you can accurately portray what that would look like (for example, my albinism doesn't really effect the color of my eyes beyond they do SOMETIMES look red under certain lighting due to how easily light passes through to reflect off the blood vessels in the back, but this is under specific conditions and is not ALWAYS. Also people with albinism often have nystagmus, a condition that causes the eyes to constantly shake in a specific direction (mine shake from side to side). Knowing these details will allow you to most accurately describe/draw your character's features).

Also barring specific conditions/light sensitivities/personal self-consciousness in how the eyes might look (again, depending on very specific conditions), blind people typically do not walk around in sunglasses outside of any same reason a sighted person would have them on. A blind person with total vision loss will, quite frankly, probably not a give a fuck about ever paying for a pair of sunglasses that they do not need. It is so uncommon for blind people to needlessly rock a pair of sunglasses that at this point it's just a weird trope that y'all need to slow the fuck down on. We have pretty eyes that we will want to show off too!!!

Characterizing blind people as not having opinions on looks and appearances or even being above racism/colorism (????) is uh. Not true. Just not true. There is a degree to which blind people will not care about theirs or others appearances, especially to the point of really small details that a blind person might not even be remotely aware of if it does not come up in regular conversation (your clothes being wrinkled in a certain way being very easy to miss on a social level vs. something like, fatphobia), but we are just as capable of bigotry and prejudice. We do not have to see a person to have biases about them, and we are not immune to sucking in this way.

Characterizing blind people as being "wiser" or more open-minded about others and the world around them, having an "inner vision" of beauty or some shit... also Big Fucking No. Being disabled does not make you a more patient and understanding person. It does not make you smarter or more kind-hearted. It does not make you gentle. Cease this. We are all Just Some Guy like any other non-disabled person.

This is a lot of information, but I really do hope more people take the time to get to know what real blind people in real life are like. I hope that more sighted people take the time to care about viewing blind people as people, and not an interesting commodity to put in their stories for angst or spice or whatever the fuck. I hope that sighted people start pointing out ableism and bigotry in their communities so that we are not always left to do it ourselves, where other sighted people are less likely to listen to us, anyways. I hope that more people think about inclusion of blind folks in their spaces, of accounting for translating visual mediums into something we can engage with too, of acknowledging that we are just as likely to exist on the web and irl as sighted people are. I hope that including us is seen as less of a burden, less as something to complain about, less as something that sighted people feel the need to get our sympathy over when we simply ask to be given just as much of a chance to participate as anyone else.

I hope that you see us, and you treat us as one of your own. Not as something other. We are far more alike than we are different. So wise up and start acting like it.

[writingwithcolor]

Avoiding Orientalist Language While Writing MENA Characters in Historical Setting

Anonymous asked:

I have a question around linguistics within dialogue: my story is set in the early crusades with a character list that include European Christians, Middle Eastern Muslims, and Middle Eastern Christians. As - particularly during this time period - characters coming from different backgrounds would have different linguistical styles, I’m trying to avoid my Middle Eastern characters using expressions that are clearly of English origin, note which characters are speaking which language where necessary, and include transliterated Arabic words/phrases when appropriate. (Your ‘how to convey arabic language in a specific dialect is being spoken without lengthy descriptions of how words/specific letters are pronounced?’ answer was really helpful here, thank you!) However as a non-Arabic, English speaker I’m also wary of ‘over-peppering’ these Arabic idioms to the extent that the Europeans’ dialogue comes across as ‘standard’ and the Middle Eastern characters’ as ‘exotic’ (I’m conscious that overly formal and ornate language has been a pretty orientalist trope in the past, which I’m trying to avoid). Would you have any recommended rules of thumb on how to keep a good balance, or anything to be wary of/outright avoid here? Thank you so much for any advice you can share!

Love this. I’d try the placeholder method (just made this up.) Honestly, the best thing to do is just write the story first using whatever English expressions come naturally — even if you know they’re super modern or wouldn’t make sense in the time period and setting (like “a dime a dozen” or “barking up the wrong tree”). Don’t stress about making everything historically or culturally perfect right away. That’ll stall the writing process. These non-suitable phrases become ‘placeholders’ to switch out later. 

So keep track of those lines (you can highlight them or jot the the page/line # down somewhere), and then later on, if you know someone who speaks Arabic or is familiar with the culture, ask them to help swap in more fitting phrases, and do a sensitivity read overall. They might not translate word-for-word, but they can help you find alternatives that still match the vibe or emotion of certain idioms. They can also find spots for Arabic idioms that you wouldn’t have expected. 

I found this list from Reddit user AgileCzar about gulf dialect idioms from a decade ago:

خيرها في غيرها - "a better (one) in another (one)". Kind of like better luck next time, but without sarcasm

انا في وادي وانت في وادي - "I am in a valley and you are in a valley" - describes a situation where you and the other person are on different pages, not seeing eye to eye etc...

يوم عسل ويوم بصل - "A day of honey, a day of onions" - a response when someone asks how you're doing. Basically saying some days are good and some are bad.

شو لونك (shoo lunak) - "What's your color" - used in Kuwait as a greeting (like what's up)

I would never have thought to do any of these, but they’re really fun! Scouring the internet for options and figuring out where these go is a total second-pass sort of edit. You don’t want to put pressure on yourself to get it all right on the first draft. It's a lot easier to fix language stuff when you already have the story down.

I do this in scripts a lot when I know something needs to be in Spanish or Arabic, but I’m not clear on the exact wording because finishing the story is more important at that moment.

Good Luck and Happy Writing!

-Melanie 🌻

(Note: this ask has been reviewed and approved by a MENA WWC mod)

[glorious-spoon]

honestly i think the selling point of romance for me (and where it usually fails to land) is 'can i imagine these people sharing an in-joke'

like, are they in cahoots. can they laugh together. do they have a similar enough or at least complementary enough outlook that they can connect over something being funny (even if it's funny in a fucked up way! sometimes those are the best in-jokes!)

that's not necessarily true love in and of itself, but it does feel like an essential component to me

[creatingblackcharacters]

Promoting Black transmasc artists:

Shamir Bailey (his song Straight Boy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OHAe8r3-zo

Tunde Olaniran (his song KYBM): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q-8304BYm8

Anjimile (their song Like You Really Mean It): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Iov6m0WNs

And an underrated Black transfem musician Liniker (her song CHARME): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps3VhxIxRhg