Penniless Authoress @pennilessauthoress - Tumblr Blog

3y3

Jenni Pasanen

schmergo

I’m sorry but also extremely not sorry

#a thing of beauty #shakespeare #much ado about nothing #memes

dmbakura

If only people could understand that what is surface level “healthy” for a romantic relationship between two fictional characters is NOT always healthy for the narrative, themes and messages that surround them. A story WITHOUT conflict and dynamics that pushes the characters to challenge and engage each other is NOT healthy for character development. Also, this is just me, but I dont watch or ship something because I want to see a ~model~ relationship - a good character dynamic should be INTERESTING above all else

#good god #someone said it #moral/ethical values and narrative values are not the same thing #sometimes you have to show people what a toxic relationship is in order to talk about what a healthy one should be #your theme and meaning of your story is not the same thing as the content of your story #writing

abz-j-harding

The Corvid Lord

Stage 1&2

2018-2020

X

#this makes me feel some kind of way #inspiration

gaiabamman

Using the appropriate vocabulary in your novel

It is very important that the language in your novel reflects the time and place in which the story is set.

For example, my story is set in Italy. My characters would never “ride shotgun”, a term coined in US in the early 1900s referring to riding alongside the driver with a shotgun to gun bandits.

Do your research! A free tool that I found to be very useful is Ngram Viewer.

You can type any word and see when it started appearing in books. For example…one of my characters was going to say “gazillion” (I write YA) in 1994. Was “gazillion” used back then?

And the answer is…YES! It started trending in 1988 and was quite popular in 1994.

Enjoy ^_^

storiesintheashes

This is really important, especially because language can change in very unexpected ways.

For example, did you know that before 1986 people never said “I need to”?Instead, they were far more likely to say “I ought to”, “I have to”, “I must”, or “I should”.

Don’t believe me?

Anyway, most people won’t notice subtle changes like that. But your reader will notice and be confused when characters in your medieval world use metaphors involving railroads and rockets.

One of the things you can do besides use Google Ngrams is to read books or watch movies written in the time period you want to set your story. The key here is that they can’t just be set in that time period, they have to have been made in that time period.

Also, there’s a Lexicon Valley episode on this very topic which I highly recommend. It’s called Capturing the Past.

still-intrepid

SEE ALSO Etymonline. Word origins and when they’re first recorded. So, say I wanted to find out when a “coffee break” became a thing – around the 1950s, as seen in magazine adverts – or characters might talk about more genrallly “taking a break” from the 1860s…

#for later use #writing

gypsy-rose331-deactivated202009

Beautiful Illustrations By Tom Booth Telling The Story Of A Woodworker Grieving The Love Of His Life

71-browneyedgirl-deactivated202

Just beautiful

starrysquirrel

I’m not crying, you’re crying!

frankdelflno

Surnames are just as important as given names. So, I compiled a list of the websites I use to find my surnames.

English Surnames

Dutch Surnames

Spanish Surnames

Scottish Surnames

German Surnames

Italian Surnames

Irish Surnames

French Surnames

Scandinavian Surnames

Welsh Surnames

Jewish Surnames

Surnames By Ethnicity

Most Common Surnames in the USA

Most Common Surnames in Great Britan

Most Common Surnames in Asia

bee-earthly

old-manrupee

For whoever needs these.

dragons-arrow

I NEED THE ITALIAN LAST NAMES SO BAD

ebvoice-deactivated20150727

We are like fireworks…: Surnames Master Post.

chronophobica

Chinese surnames

Indian surnames

Indonesian surnames

Pakistani surnames

Bengali surnames

Japanese surnames

Filipino surnames

Korean surnames

Syrian surnames

Mongolian naming and clan names

Thai surnames

Asia is not a single country.

beameized

“Asia is not a single country.”

#reference #names

tevivinter

Writer friends, I discovered a fun website today. It’s called “I Write Like” and here’s the description: Check which famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers. Let me know which author you got!

sassbewitchedmyass

jotonomy

ladyinredfics

For canon I got Ursula K. LeGuin.

For modern I got Stephen King.

nire-the-mithridatist

Huh. Agatha Christie for both canon!verse and modern AU.

#future use #writing

wherethereareoctobers

If you could instantly be granted fluency in 5 languages—not taking away your existing language proficiency in any way, solely a gain—what 5 would you choose?

#korean #mandarin #german #russian #french #i some times have dreams about this #it’s a high level fantasy of mine #korean is my current target language #and i’ll just have to slowly work my way down the list

highbrasshighkass

retroactivebakeries

i’m gonna make so many new friends

geritsel

Valin Mattheis

#wow #these are amazing #inspiration

pinsandweevils

For anyone who’s ever wondered who they’d be in a 19th century novel, the wait is over: I put together a 19th Century Character Trope Generator!

If you’d like to reblog, put your character in the tags because I’m curious.

#brooding lady with homosexual trendancies #well shit #that’s me

hieronymus-bush

“I used to love to write. As a child I used to write all the time. I loved to write up until the second I got my first professional writing job. It turns out it’s not that I hate to write. I hate, simply, to work. I just hate to work, period. I am profoundly slothful. Practically inert. I have no energy. I never have. I just have no desire to be productive. Now that I realize I don’t hate to write, that I just hate to work, it makes writing easier.”

— Fran Lebowitz