Random Writing

Another writing blog for my random ramblings or ideas. Feel free to send me any cool prompts or ideas or give me constructive criticism. Any feedback is welcome and appreciated. You can also submit your own writing :)

[old-screnwriter-deactivated2022]

a plot twist tip you don't hear very often

Sometimes suspense is worth it, even if it means serving your audience the entire plot on a silver platter:

In Romeo and Juliet, the audience knows Juliet isn't dead. Romeo does not. It's a tragedy.

In the TV-show Breaking Bad, a DEA agent is looking for a crystal-meth producer who calls himself ''Heisenberg,'' not knowing that ''Heisenberg'' is his brother-in-law.

In the play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus tries to expose the murderer of King Laius, not knowing that he himself is the murderer.

That my friends, is what we call dramatic irony. A literary device in which the audience's understanding of certain events or individuals in a story surpasses that of its characters.

What I mean by that is simple — not every plot twist or plot line that occurs in your story has to come as a surprise to your audience.

It's not in any way wrong to drop important information ahead of time. Sometimes the best way to tackle a twist is simply to let your audience in on what's happening. Let them anticipate the emotional reactions of the characters. In certain cases, that can be torture. Which is a good thing. Storytelling wise.

You'll still have your audience at the edge of their seats, not out of suspense of what's going to happen, but out of fear, and excitement, of how the characters they've grown to love are going to react to it.

For all they know, the plot twist, and I am using plot twist loosely, it can just as well be a secret big enough to destroy a relationship, but not something that is going to affect every character, could potentially ruin everything.

It can turn characters against each other, massive consequences to follow. Maybe a certain character is heading towards a certain death, maybe their partner is falling in love with someone else, unaware of their partner’s infidelity.

Maybe a character is enjoying a nice day out at the park, not knowing that previous night a herd of zombies marched through. Instantly alarm bells starts ringing — the apocalypse is upon us. When is the character gonna find out? How are they gonna to find out?

Worst part — a close family member of the character has already fallen victim to the undead, and now, having been missing for a couple days, is approaching said character from behind, reanimated as a zombie. We’ve already seen this person bitten and turned, but for the character, it's a different story.

Your audience are emotionally invested in your characters. Use that to your advantage.

To have your audience sit on a a piece of information, not knowing how it's going to affect their favorite characters and relationships, can have just as much of an emotional impact as a ''regular'' plot twist.

From Alfred Hitchcock:

"There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”

[creatorweek]

hello everyone! creatorweek is excited to announce that we’ll be hosting creator week 2021 from june 23rd to july 1st. during this week, we invite all creators to choose one day and dedicate it to only posting your creations! this can be new creations and/or self-reblogs of previous creations you’d like to share again. each day, we’ll pin a post listing participating creators with their creation tags. july 1st, the extra eighth day, will be dedicated to creator shoutouts where you can share creations from other creators that you love or that inspire you.

for creators interested in participating, please sign up here! for more information, please check out our about, rules, and FAQ pages.

don’t forget to use the tag #creatorweek2021 so we can reblog it! if your post doesn’t appear in the tag, please let us know.

any help boosting this post is appreciated as we hope to reach creators of all fandoms! we are looking forward to seeing all of your creations and, most importantly, to share the appreciation for all the wonderful creators here on tumblr!

[thewritersarchive]

This is an ultimate masterlist of many resources that could be helpful for writers. I apologize in advance for any not working links. Check out the ultimate writing resource masterlist here (x) and my “novel” tag here (x).

✑ PLANNING

Outlining & Organizing

For the Architects: The Planning Process

Rough Drafts

How do you plan a novel?

Plot Development: Climax, Resolution, and Your Main Character

Plotting and Planing

I Have An Idea for a Novel! Now What?

Choosing the Best Outline Method

How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method

Effectively Outlining Your Plot

Conflict and Character within Story Structure

Outlining Your Plot

Ideas, Plots & Using the Premise Sheets

✑ INSPIRATION

Finding story ideas

Choosing ideas and endings

When a plot isn’t strong enough to make a whole story

Writing a story that’s doomed to suck

How to Finish What You Start: A Five-Step Plan for Writers

Finishing Your Novel

Finish Your Novel

How to Finish Your Novel when You Want to Quit

How To Push Past The Bullshit And Write That Goddamn Novel: A Very Simple No-Fuckery Writing Plan

✑ PLOT

In General

25 Turns, Pivots and Twists to Complicate Your Story

The ABCs (and Ds and Es) of Plot Development

Originality Is Overrated

How to Create a Plot Outline in Eight Easy Steps

Finding Plot: Idea Nets

The Story Goal: Your Key to Creating a Solid Plot Structure

Make your reader root for your main character

Creating Conflict and Sustaining Suspense

Tips for Creating a Compelling Plot

The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations

Adding Subplots to a Novel

Weaving Subplots into a Novel

7 Ways to Add Subplots to Your Novel

Crafting a Successful Romance Subplot

How to Improve your Writing: Subplots and Subtext

Understanding the Role of Subplots

How to Use Subtext in your Writing

The Secret Life of Subtext

How to Use Subtext

Beginning

Creating a Process: Getting Your Ideas onto Paper (And into a Story)

Why First Chapters?

Starting with a Bang

In the Beginning

The Beginning of your Novel that isn’t the Beginning of your Novel

A Beginning from the Middle

Starting with a Bang

First Chapters: What To Include @ The Beginning Writer

23 Clichés to Avoid When Beginning Your Story

Start Writing Now

Done Planning. What Now?

Continuing Your Long-Format Story

How to Start a Novel 

100 best first lines from novels

The First Sentence of a Book Report

How To Write A Killer First Sentence To Open Your Book

How to Write the First Sentence of a Book

The Most Important Sentence: How to Write a Killer Opening

Hook Your Reader from the First Sentence: How to Write Great Beginnings

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing and the Red Hering

Narrative Elements: Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing and Suspense

Foreshadowing Key Details

Writing Fiction: Foreshadowing

The Literary Device of Foreshadowing

All About Foreshadowing in Fiction

Foreshadowing

Flashbacks and Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing — How and Why to Use It In Your Writing

Setting

Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life

Write a Setting for a Book

Writing Dynamic Settings

How To Make Your Setting a Character

Guide for Setting

5 Tips for Writing Better Settings

Building a Novel’s Setting

Ending

A Novel Ending

How to End Your Novel

How to End Your Novel 2

How to End a Novel With a Punch

How to End a Novel

How to Finish a Novel

How to Write The Ending of Your Novel

Keys to Great Endings

3 Things That End A Story Well

Ending a Novel: Five Things to Avoid

Endings that Ruin Your Novel

Closing Time: The Ending

✑ CHARACTER

Names

Behind the Name

Surname Meanings and Origins

Surname Meanings and Origins - A Free Dictionary of Surnames

Common US Surnames & Their Meanings

Last Name Meanings & Origins

Name Generators

Name Playground

Different Types of Characters

Ways To Describe a Personality

Character Traits Meme

Types of Characters

Types of Characters in Fiction

Seven Common Character Types

Six Types of Courageous Characters

Creating Fictional Characters (Masterlist)

Building Fictional Characters

Fiction Writer’s Character Chart

Character Building Workshop

Tips for Characterization

Fiction Writer’s Character Chart

Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills 

Males

Strong Male Characters

The History and Nature of Man Friendships

Friendship for Guys (No Tears!)

‘I Love You, Man’ and the rules of male friendship

Male Friendship

Understanding Male Friendship

Straight male friendship, now with more cuddling

Character Development

P.O.V. And Background

Writing a Character: Questionnaire

10 Days of Character Building

Getting to Know Your Characters

Character Development Exercises

✑ STYLE

Chapters

How Many Chapters is the Right Amount of Chapters?

The Arbitrary Nature of the Chapter

How Long is a Chapter?

How Long Should Novel Chapters Be?

Chapter & Novel Lengths 

Section vs. Scene Breaks

Dialogue 

The Passion of Dialogue

25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue

Dialogue Writing Tips

Punctuation Dialogue

How to Write Believable Dialogue

Writing Dialogue: The Music of Speech

Writing Scenes with Many Characters

It’s Not What They Say …

Top 10 Tips for Writing Dialogue

Speaking of Dialogue

Dialogue Tips

Interrupted Dialogue

Two Tips for Interrupted Dialogue

Show, Don’t Tell (Description)

“Tell” Makes a Great Placeholder

The Literary Merit of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Bad Creative Writing Advice

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do

DailyWritingTips: Show, Don’t Tell

GrammarGirl: Show, Don’t Tell

Writing Style: What Is It?

Detail Enhances Your Fiction

Using Sensory Details

Description in Fiction

Using Concrete Detail

Depth Through Perception

Showing Emotions & Feelings

Character Description

Describing Your Characters (by inkfish7 on DeviantArt)

Help with Character Development

Creating Characters that Jump Off the Page

Omitting Character Description

Introducing Your Character(s): DON’T

Character Crafting

Writer’s Relief Blog: “Character Development In Stories And Novels”

Article: How Do You Think Up Your Characters?

5 Character Points You May Be Ignoring

List of colors, hair types and hairstyles

List of words to use in a character’s description 

200 words to describe hair

How to describe hair

Words used to describe the state of people’s hair

How to describe your haircut

Hair color sharts

Four Ways to Reveal Backstory

Words Used to Describe Clothes

Flashbacks

Using Flashbacks in Writing

Flashbacks by All Write

Using Flashback in Fiction

Fatal Backstory

Flashbacks as opening gambit

Don’t Begin at the Beginning

Flashbacks in Books

TVTropes: Flashback

Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear: Flashback Techniques in Fiction

3 Tips for Writing Successful Flashbacks

The 5 Rules of Writing Effective Flashbacks

How to Handle Flashbacks In Writing

Flashbacks and Foreshadowing

Reddit Forum: Is a flashback in the first chapter a good idea?

Forum Discussing Flackbacks

P.O.V

You, Me, and XE - Points of View

What’s Your Point of View?

Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid “Stepping Out of Character”

How to Start Writing in the Third Person

The Opposite Gender P.O.V.

LANGUAGE

 How To Say Said

200 Words Instead of Said

Words to Use Instead of Said

A List of Words to Use Instead of Said

Alternatives to “Walk”

60 Synonyms for “Walk”

✑ USEFUL WEBSITES/LINKS

Grammar Monster

Google Scholar

GodChecker

Tip Of My Tounge

Speech Tags

Pixar Story Rules

Written? Kitten!

TED Talks

DarkCopy

Family Echo

Some Words About Word Count

How Long Should My Novel Be?

The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test

Writer’s “Cheat Sheets”

Last but not least, the most helpful tool for any writer out there is Google!

[emotionalmilkshake]

So so helpful

[an-drom-eda]

So let's talk about the Lost Generation.

This is the generation that came of age during WWI and the 1918 flu pandemic. They witnessed their world collapse in the first war that spread around the globe, and they -- in retrospect, optimistically -- called it the "war to end all wars". And that war was a quagmire. The trenches on the Western Front were notoriously awful, unsanitary and cold and wet and teeming with sickness, and bloody battles were fought to gain or lose a few feet of territory, and all because a series of alliances caused one assassination in one unstable area to spiral into a brutal large-scale war fought on the ground by people who mostly had no personal stake in the outcomes and gained nothing from winning.

On some of the worst-hit battlefields, the land is still too toxic for plant growth.

And on the heels of this horrific war, a pandemic struck. It's often referred to as "the Spanish flu" because Spain was neutral in the war, and so was the first country to admit that their people were dropping like flies. By the time the warring countries were willing to face the disease, it was far too late to contain it.

Anywhere from 50 to 100 million people worldwide would die from it. 675,000 were in the US.

But once it was finally contained -- anywhere from a year to a year and a half later -- the 20s had begun, and they began roaring.

Hedonism abounded. Alcohol flowed like water in spite of Prohibition. Music and dance and art fluorished. It was the age of Dadaism, an artistic movement of surrealism, absurdism, and abstraction. Women's skirts rose and haircuts shortened in a flamboyant rejection of the social norms of the previous decades. It was a time of glitter and glamour and jazz and flash, and (save for the art that was made) it was mostly skin deep.

Everyone stumbled out of the war and pandemic desperate to forget the horrific things they'd seen and done and all that they'd lost, and lost for nothing.

Reality seemed so pointless. It's not a coincidence that the two codifiers of the fantasy genre -- J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis -- both fought in WWI. In fact, they were school friends before the war, and were the only two of their group to return home. Tolkein wanted to rewrite the history of Europe, while Lewis wanted to rebuild faith in the escape from the world.

(There's a reason Frodo goes into the West: physically, he returned to the Shire, but mentally, he never came back from Mordor, and he couldn't live his whole life there. There's a reason three of the Pevensies can never let go of Narnia: in Narnia, unlike reality, the things they did and fought for and believed in actually mattered, were actually worth the price they paid.)

It's also no coincidence that many of the famous artists of the time either killed themselves outright or let their vices do them in. The 20s roared both in spite of and because of the despair of the Lost Generation.

It was also the era of the Harlem Renaissance, which came to the feelings of alienation and disillusionment from a different direction: there was a large migration of Black people from the South, many of whom moved to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Obviously, the sense of alienation wasn't new to Black people in America, but the cultural shift allowed for them to publicly express it in the arts and literature in ways that hadn't been open to them before.

There was also horrific -- and state-sanctioned -- violence perpetrated against Black communities in this time, furthering the anger and despair and sense that society had not only failed them but had never even given them a chance. The term at the time was shell-shock, but now we know it as PTSD, and the vast majority of the people who came of age between 1910 and 1920 suffered from it, from one source or another.

It was an entire generation of trauma, and then the stock market crashed in 1929. Helpless, angry, impotent in the face of all that had seemingly destroyed the world for them, on the verge of utter despair, it was also a generation vulnerable to despotism. In the wake of all this chaos -- god, please, someone just take control of all this mess and set it right.

Sometimes the person who took over was decent and played by the rules and at least attempted to do the right thing. Other times, they were self-serving and hateful and committed to subjugating anyone who didn't fit their mold.

There are a lot of parallels to now, but we have something they didn't, and that's the fact that they did it first.

We know what their mistakes and sins were. We have the gift of history to see the whole picture and what worked and what failed. We as a species have walked this road before, and we weren't any happier or stronger or smarter about it the first time.

I think I want to reiterate that point: the Lost Generation were no stronger or weaker than Millennials and Gen Z are today. Plenty of both have risen up and fought back, and plenty have stumbled and been crushed under the weight. Plenty have been horribly abused by the people who were supposed to lead them, and plenty have done the abusing. Plenty of great art has been made by both, and plenty of it is escapist fantasy or scathing criticism or inspiring optimism or despairing pessimism.

We find humor in much the same things, because when reality is a mess, both the absurd and the self-deprecating become hilarious in comparison. There's a reason modern audiences don't find Seinfeld as funny as Gen X does, and many older audiences find modern comedy impenetrable and baffling -- they're different kinds of humor from different realities.

I think my point accumulates into this: in spite of how awful and hopeless and pointless everything feels, we do have a guide. We've been through this before, as a culture, and even though all of them are gone now, we have their words and art and memory to help us. We know now what they didn't then: there is a future.

The path forward is a hard one, and the only thing that makes it easier is human connection. Art -- in the most base sense, anything that is an expression of emotion and thought into a medium that allows it to be shared -- is the best and most enduring vehicle for that connection, to reach not just loved ones but people a thousand miles or a hundred years away.

So don't bottle it up. Don't pretend to be okay when you're not. Paint it, sculpt it, write it, play it, sing it, scream it, hell, you can even meme it out into the void. Whatever it takes to reach someone else -- not just for yourself but for others, both present and future.

Because, to quote the inimitable Terry Pratchett, "in a hundred years we'll all be dead, but here and now, we are alive."

[petermorwood]

THIS.

Reblogging, signal boosting and complimenting a piece of damn good writing.

[aquestionofcharacter]

there’s going to be a difference sometimes between the stories that you find masterfully crafted and the stories that mean a lot to you personally and those two things don’t have to overlap completely or even at all to make that story worthwhile

and that’s a good thing to remember as a reader/viewer/etc but also as a writer because even if whatever you ultimately write is full of mistakes, someone out there is gonna take it so to heart that it fundamentally changes them as a person. and that is. Huge.

[writing-in-the-grave]

ATTENTION WRITERS

Google BetaBooks. Do it now. It’s the best damn thing EVER.

You just upload your manuscript, write out some questions for your beta readers to answer in each chapter, and invite readers to check out your book!

It’s SO easy!

You can even track your readers! It tells you when they last read, and what chapter they read!

Your beta readers can even highlight and react to the text!!!

There’s also this thing where you can search the website for available readers best suited for YOUR book!

Seriously guys, BetaBooks is the most useful website in the whole world when it comes to beta reading, and… IT’S FREE.

[shinningstarz]

HEY! BECAUSE OF OP, THEY CREATED A SPECIAL WELCOME IF YOUR FOUND THEM THRU A TUMBLR WELCOME, ITS A YOUTUBE VIDEO.

[writing-in-the-grave]

They also sent me this; which was super cool

[writingonjupiter]

*slams reblog button*

[cianmars]

@findingtallahassee holy shit! This is cool!

[lalalandlala123-deactivated2021]

“Authors retain all rights to works posted on BetaBooks, and can add or remove content at their discretion. BetaBooks makes no claim to any of the work posted on the site.”

Incase anyone was wondering

[the-tired-tenor]

If you use this, please invite me to read y'all’s writing

[aeaea-writes]

Does anyone know how this works if you are looking to try the traditional publishing route? Would it be an issue if you tried to get an agent if the book was on the internet on a site like this?

[the-starlit-muse-deactivated202]

@extraterrestrial-bibliophile

I looked it up, coz it sounds really cool! It seems like your book stays private, so you can only invite people to look at it, like you would a Google Doc. I imagine there’s no issues with agents then, as it’s not available to the general public.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Reblogging from the previous note, because if you want to be professionally published, you MUST be very careful in how you share your work online. If it is readily available in full for all to see, it may be viewed as previously published and therefore rejected.

As long as this company ensures you content is private and not considered published in any way, it may be safe to use, but always check these things out thoroughly before you use them if you want to go the traditional publishing route!

[djdangerlove]

“You’re Not a Good Writer.”

I once received a DM comprised of just that sentence. Nothing else. No constructive criticism or any reason as to why this person clearly agreed with my own view of myself.

For someone who has never told anyone in their real life that they write anything, reading something like this from an anonymous user only solidified in my mind the fact that this person was right.

I’m not a good writer.

After an embarrassing amount of minutes passed, in which I thought about deleting every story I ever posted, I decided to delete the message instead. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean I could delete the feelings it caused or change the fact that I’m not a good writer.

Two weeks went by and I didn’t write anything, let alone post. Then I received a comment on a story I had posted three years prior, one I’d written after a death in our family. The comment read, “Thank you for sharing this heartfelt story. I really needed this. I just lost my mom and this really got me today.”

I stopped thinking about being a good writer after that. I thought instead, “what if I had deleted my stories and that one person three years later hadn’t read it that day?”

Here’s what I realized: no one is a good writer.

Good means to be approved of, but stories aren’t created from approval. They’re built from life experiences, feelings, and emotions Therefore, the impact of anyone’s story isn’t good or bad. It’s a million other things.

Heartfelt.

Sad.

Funny.

Inspiring.

Romantic.

So to all the story writers out there, hold your head up, write what is in your heart, and never doubt that there isn’t at least one person out there that needs to read your story.

So, no.

We’re not good writers, but why would we want to be?

[blake-belladonna-defence-force]

Holy shit did I need to read this today

[teatops]

Never doubt that there isn’t at least one person out there that needs to read your story.

[belle-of-the-battle]

And if that person is just yourself, that’s okay too. I mean it, literally the only reason I started writing is that no one was writing what I wanted to read, and let me tell you, my writing may be a mess, but it’s a lot of fun for me to read. :)

[stuffman]

People have written a lot of touchy-feely pieces on this subject but I thought I’d get right to the heart of the matter

[sqbr]

[The artist, putting a simple cake next to a much fancier one: “Aw man, that guy’s cake is way better than mine.” The Audience, gleefully holding up a knife and fork “HOLY SHIT! TWO CAKES!”]

[elvencantation]

additions from the og artist (credit)

[qbanalras]

So is reblog is also not permitted?

That’s the difference. Reblogs are good! You promote the artist and their work.

At least for me repost is ok only in one condition: you asked permission and the artist said “yes”.

[willhavetheirtrinkets]

see also “credit belongs to the artist”. Stop that. Reblog the original posts from the original artists.

[hains-mae]

This is very important

[writing-prompt-s]

A group of female and non-binary adventurers go around exploiting poorly worded curses/prophecies/enchantments proclaiming that “no man” shall do this or that thing.

[meg-moira]

Letta crouched, half hidden behind the wooden hen house, as the party of adventurers passed. Hands braced on the rain dampened wood, she peered around the corner, stealing desperate glimpses at the elite troupe. Their clothes were many colored; the road was bright with rich reds, deep blues, and eye-catching yellows. Letta’s hungry gaze took in gleaming breastplates and polished leather armor and weapons which ranged from sensible to downright intimidating.

“The Cursebreakers,” Letta whispered, voice all but swallowed by the incessant clucking of chickens.

The Cursebreakers were famous. Practically everyone had at least heard of them. Stories of their great deeds stretched from the Riann Salt Flats to the Shifting Isles and beyond. Letta had been little more than a child when she’d first heard whispers of them. A group of nonbinary and women warriors who, through acts of great skill and daring, overcame the curses and prophecies which no man was able to break.

With frozen breath and a fierce longing in her chest, Letta watched the warriors pass. Her greatest wish was to join them.

A voice snapped wretchedly behind her. “What are you doing?”

Letta’s head whipped up, heart already sinking. She recognized the voice.

Gormund, the butcher’s son, loomed above. He was nineteen (a year older than Letta) and exceedingly tall and broad for his age. His face was pinched in an expression of joyful cruelty.

When Gormund next opened his mocking mouth, it was to call Letta by the wrong name. Then, with a sneering look, he followed her gaze to the passing procession. His eyes lit with glee, and Letta instinctively hunched her shoulders, already guessing at the next topic of his teasing.

“Oh. That’s cute. You actually think you could join them?”

Letta clenched her jaw, and she reminded herself that punching Gormund in the face would only earn her a beating from Gormund and a lecture this evening from her mother.

“I don’t know,” Letta muttered. “Maybe if I could wield a blade.”

“You could have all the blade training in the world and still not belong with them,” Gormund mocked, and again called her by the wrong name.

Sometimes Letta actually hated him.

Having heard enough, Letta rose from her hiding place. The Cursebreakers were staying in town (a great beast whom no man could slay had nested in a nearby abandoned keep), and Letta hoped she might get another glimpse of the warriors if she stopped by the inn later.

After losing Gormund in town (Gormund might be larger, but Letta was much faster), Letta made a beeline for the inn. After sneaking in the bustling kitchen’s back door, she begged Sylvie to let her help with the serving for the evening.

Sylvie, bracing two muscular arms on either side of her apron wrapped hips, frowned. Her dark hair was wound up in a messy bun and wild strands fell loose as she shook her head and tsked. “You’d better not be planning on trying to join up with that lot. Your mum would have a fit.”

“Oh! I’m not - I mean…” Letta paused to fretfully tug at her pale hair. After nearly two years, it was finally shoulder length and her hands tended to reach for it when nervous. “It’s not that I don’t want to join up. I’ve always dreamed - but I know mom would kill me. And besides…” Her fingers twisted in her hair. “I don’t know if they’d even, you know…” take me.

Sylvie’s heavy hand pressed over her shoulder. “Is that Gormund being awful again?”

“His stupid face is awful,” Letta muttered.

Sylvie sighed, and her great calloused fingers lifted Letta’s chin. “If those warriors wouldn’t take you, then they don’t deserve you, Letta my sweet.” And with a second, deeper sigh, she said, “Well go ahead and grab a spare apron. You’re on serving duty, girl.”

The afternoon passed in a blur of hot plates and burnt fingers - until finally, a thundering of boots sounded upon the inn’s stairs. The Cursebreakers descended on the tavern proper, laughing and joking with a lighthearted air. If it weren’t for their warrior’s dress, it would have been easy to forget they’d come to town with the express purpose of doing battle with a three headed serpent.

Letta fetched ale first. With trembling fingers, she held her breath and began setting drinks before the warriors. The liquid sloshed in the mugs, but she prayed to her favorite gods, and then her least favorite for good measure - and not a drop was spilled on any of the legendary warriors.

When she returned with steaming bowls of stew, Letta’s nerves had settled enough that she chanced a glance at the warriors she was serving. She nearly dropped the soup when she saw short, fiery red hair. Fortunately, her fingers were quick, and Letta saved the bowl from dropping in Arna Swiftfoot’s lap.

Arna Swiftfoot, a wiry, muscled woman with crows-eye wrinkles and a rakish tilt to her lips, was the leader of the Cursebreakers. As Letta set the sloshing soup before her, Arna’s sharp gaze settled upon her.

“I thought you were going to dump that in my lap,” Arna Swiftoot remarked.

“I nearly did,” Letta blurted, and wished she could swallow her tongue.

Keep reading

[megabexzy]

My dissertation part 2

Hi guys, so not to be the person constantly asking favours but I’m just gonna quietly put the link to my dissertation research study here for people to take part in. 

https://research.sc/participant/login/dynamic/437C2628-22F9-48CB-BB4A-0A4181B634F6

Study Name: The Relationship between Mood State and Performance on Creative Thinking Tasks.

Description: To explore the relationship between mood and creative thinking, participants will be asked to watch mood related video clips and then rate their mood. This will be followed by a variety of creative thinking task questions from the remote associates test (linking 3 words together with a 4th) and the alternative uses task (coming up with multiple uses for everyday objects). This will then be followed by rating their mood again. This is estimated to take between 30-45 minutes.

It’s also completely anonymous, I will have no way of identifying anyone who does the study.

I’m not sure how it works on some phones, so computer/laptop might be better, but let me know if you have problems working it. 

Also once it’s done, if anyone is interested in what I find, let me know and I might make a small post about the results.

(Also if you did the other one I posted but want to do this one as well, you can I just had to put on that one that you can’t because of the uni’s requirements).

[megabexzy]

Reblogging again to test different time zones

(It may say you need to live in the UK but again that’s uni requirements and if you lie I have no way of knowing so go ahead

[not-in-the-box]

Please help me out

[hoardofhyperfixations]

In case anyone was wondering why I don't write as much anymore...

The last writing piece I did, an anxceit thing, got this.

Which....is better than I usually get. I'm genuinely pissed about this. Reblogs > Likes, fucking fuck.

[waitingforheatdeath-deactivated]

I really dislike this way of thinking. When you tell your readers “hey I stopped writing because you didn’t appreciate me enough” it comes across as really entitled.

It’s hard because you wrote something, you poured your whole soul into it, and then when you don’t get the acclaim you think you deserve... that’s really hard. But you’ve also got to understand that your readers aren’t obligated to reblog your stuff, they’re not obligated to like your stuff, they’re not even obligated to read it in the first place.

This whole “likes are worthless, only reblogs count” is kind of bullshit, and very rude. Somebody read your story and had the decency to react to it (a lot of people who read stories don’t even bother to do that) and when your response is: “no, that’s not good enoug, do something better, I deserve more” that doesn’t send a great message, and it doesn’t paint you in a very good light.

Dude, people like your shit, people pay attention to your shit. Maybe... be a little more respectful to them, and a little more grateful for them? Because they don’t owe you anything.

[hoardofhyperfixations]

Hate to tell you this but I'm not entitled for saying "I don't write anymore because it isn't rewarding to me" because guess what?? Content creators don't owe you content, either. I'm not saying people are obligated to like or read my work, I'm saying that I don't like to write anymore because it doesn't feel worth the effort if it isn't seen. It's not entitled to want to be seen.

The problem with likes vs reblogs isn't that likes are worthless, it's that when you only like, it makes it so less people see it, and the internet is a big place. I'm not sorry that I don't think it's worth putting in a lot of effort just for it to disappear into the internet. Maybe you should be a little more respectful and a little more grateful towards content creators because it's really crushing to pour that much effort into something only for it to disappear into the abyss of the internet.

I really don't know how to explain to you that no one is ever going "you guys didn't make me famous or appreciate me enough so I'm done!", people are going "I put so much effort into this and I want it to be seen by people and when it only gets a low amount and people just let it die it doesn't feel worth the effort at all." Absolutely nobody is saying people are obligated to reblog. I don't know where you got that from.

Please fuck off my post. I am way too tired to stress over someone calling me entitled because I'd prefer if the fics I worked hard on actually did well.

[the-faultofdaedalus]

I had a dream that the king and the queen of a small country had a daughter. They needed a son, a first-born son, so in secret, without telling anyone of their child’s gender, they travelled to the nearby woods that were rumoured to house a witch.

They made a deal with that witch. They wanted a son, and they got one. A son, one made out of clay and wood, flexible enough to grow but sturdy enough to withstand its destined path, enchanted to look like a human child. The witch asked for only one thing, and that was for their daughter.

They left the girl readily.

The witch raised her as her own, and called her Thyme. The princess grew up unknowing of her heritage, grew up calling the witch Mama, and the witch did her very best to earn that title.

She was taught magic, and how to forage in the woods, how to build sturdy wooden structures and how to make the most delicious stews. The girl had a good life, and the witch was pleased.

The girl grew into a woman, and learned more and more powerful magics, grew stronger from hauling wood and stones and animals to cook, grew smarter as the witch taught her more.

She learned to deal with the people in the villages nearby, learned how to brew remedies and medicines and how to treat illness and injury, and learned how to tell when someone was lying. 

Every time the pair went into town, the people would remark at just how similar Thyme was to her mother. 

(Thyme does not know who and what she is. She does not know that she was born a princess, that she was sold. She only knows that one night after her mother read her a story about princesses and dragons, her mother had asked her if she ever wanted to be a princess.)

((Thyme only knows that she very quickly answered no. She likes being a witch, thank you very much, she likes the power that comes with it and the way that she can look at things and know their true nature.))

The witch starts preparing the ritual early, starts collecting the necessities in the winter so they can be ready by the fall equinox. Her daughter helps, and does not ask what this is for, just knows that it is important.

The witch looks at Thyme, both their hands raised into the air over a complicated array of plants, tended carefully to grow into a circle, and says, sorry.

Keep reading

[iwhumpyou]

One of the best tips for writing descriptions of pain is actually a snippet I remember from a story where a character is given a host of colored pencils and asked to draw an egg.

The character says that there’s no white pencil.  But you don’t need a white pencil to draw a white egg.  We already know the egg is white.  What we need to draw is the luminance of the yellow lamp and the reflection of the blue cloth and the shadows and the shading.

We know a broken bone hurts.  We know a knife wound hurts.  We know grief hurts.  Show us what else it does.

You don’t need to describe the character in pain.  You need to describe how the pain affects the character - how they’re unable to move, how they’re sweating, how they’re cold, how their muscles ache and their fingers tremble and their eyes prickle.

Draw around the egg.  Write around the pain.  And we will all be able to see the finished product.

[megabexzy]

My Dissertation

For my dissertation I need some participants in a psychology study. If you wanna help all you need to do is follow this link and rate whether a few short videos are happy or sad. I need about 15 people so that I can move on to my main study. Thank you in advance to anyone who does it. Technically I need people to be 18+ and live in the UK but I won’t know if you lie about it so….

https://research.sc/participant/login/dynamic/04E64BF4-9E7E-45EA-8231-45629B73BDD6

[writing-prompt-s]

The strongest warlock in all the land uses his power to constantly kidnap the princess. Most people believe it’s because he’s in love with her, but they have it all wrong. He’s in love with the knight who always comes to save her.

[bixbythemartian]

She sighed in exasperation. “Again, Mortimer? Again?” She didn’t bother screaming as he scooped her over her shoulder. “Seriously? I’m in the middle of negotiating a very important-”

“I know. They’ll wait. It’ll give you some political oomph, anyway.”

She poked him in the ear. “Not as much as it used to.”

“Witnesses,” he hummed.

She inhaled deeply, and let loose as operatic a scream as she could manage.

“Thank you, dear, that sent them scurrying. My ears are ringing, too.”

“I told you to start wearing hearing protection.” 

“Could you kick just a little?”

She obliged, rolling her eyes, and gave another scream for good measure when he threw her into his Horrible Hearse, but gave up the pretense when the door was snapped shut, and arranged her skirts neatly, pulling out a bottle of brandy from where they were stashed.

Keep reading

[writing-prompt-s]

It’s that typical story all over again: you are a princess. You get kidnapped, some random guy saves you, and then your father gets you married to him. No. Not this Time. You have watched a million versions of the same random guy beat a demon and become your husband even though you don’t love him, so this time, you kill the demon. You kill your father, the king. It doesn’t matter to you… After all, he’s only a program in the video game that is your life. 

You will stop at nothing to break this game.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Funnily enough, it’s not the kidnapping that breaks Phaedra. Oh, it’s terrifying every time–the sound of breaking glass in the dark of her bedroom, the feeling of vulnerability as blades tear into the curtain around her bed, the terror as she’s struck and thrown and tumbled over her assailant’s shoulder–but it’s not what keeps her shivering long past the story has ended. 

The attack always goes quickly. The demon screams past her guards and takes her in claws and wings and flees out the window. Her captivity sometimes goes quickly, sometimes takes a while longer, sometimes lasts forever. Sometimes the demon makes her cook and clean for him. Sometimes he tries to make her fall in love with him (as if this were that type of story). Sometimes he hurts her, badly, over and over and over again.

She’s no longer afraid of pain. She’s no longer afraid of mind tricks. She’s no longer afraid of him.

She hates being saved. She hates going home. And she’s always so afraid of the moment her father announces her hand belongs to her savior.

Keep reading