always curious

BK; bisexual, 18, she/her/hers. Aspiring novelist, current full-time student. My main wip currently is a sci-fi space thing called the Second Star (#the second star) [CURRENTLY ON A BIT OF A BREAK, PROBABLY UNTIL THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. I might post a bit here and there, but nothing regular. As it is trying to be semi-regular has been stressing me out a bit, so I just want to remove the need to be from my life]

[ti-bae-rius]

So, writing advice from someone who has done marginally okay with writing;

Get on Twitter: all of publishing rn is on Twitter right now. That’s where you need to be.

Participate in Pitch Parties. These are events on Twitter where you put out a short pitch (usually between 5-10 throughout the day) and agents like pitches they’re interested in. DO NOT LIKE OTHER WRITER’S PITCHES. Retweet to show support unless the rules specify otherwise. But never ever do the thing exclusive to agents (usually likes).

Get into some writing discords. Not only are these great places to find fellow writers and to network but they’re a great way to build a whisper network

Build a whisper network. Publishing is a shady game. There are lots of “publishing houses” you shouldn’t sign with if your life depended on it. One example of these are vanity press scams. If you don’t have a whisper network yet, follow the Twitter account @/YaWhispers - these are a great source of info on shady agents and publishers.

Before you sign with anyone CHECK CHECK CHECK their reputation. Talk to their other clients, see what their sales are like, check where they’ve worked before, ask around other authors, search their name on Twitter and see if they’ve been in any scandals. New agents can be great - they often have more time for you because they have fewer clients, so this isn’t to say never sign with a new agent, but just be cautious.

MSWLs (Manuscript Wishlists) are your best friend. Search using sites like manuscriptwishlist.com and mswishlist.com to find agents who are actively seeking out works like yours. Then, once you’ve found them, vet those agents like it’s your job.

Look agents up on querytracker. Querytracker is your new best friend, so say hi and get well-acquainted. This is where you’ll be able to read feedback, see what their generic response forms look like, check their response times, etc etc etc. Enjoy! You’ll be spending a LOT of time researching on here.

Follow authors who write in your genre, find out who their agents are, and follow those agents. From there, you’ll find agents THEY retweet and interact with and build your network.

Speaking of, interact! Lots of authors are super sweet and love chatting to up-and-coming authors (shout out to Ryan La Sala, Rebecca Mix, and all those lovelies) and will be super generous with their time as long as you’re also being supportive of them.

If you want, try entering contests on Twitter! Though I didn’t get anywhere in PitchWars, one of my good friends is in the finals right now! But from PW I got a whole new group of writing buds and met loads of great people. This isn’t your only way into publishing, it’s just one.

Your query letter, your pitch, and your first 3 chapters are arguably the most important things you’ll ever write. Write them. Rewrite them. Send them to your author friends. Rewrite them again. These are the things that will make an agent go ‘ooh, interesting’ and request more pages, or send you straight to the slush pile. 

If you decide to use comps, make them strong. Comps (or comparisons) are titles that are like yours, and will paint a picture for an agent of the vibe of your book. For example, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell might be comped as ‘HARRY POTTER’s Drarry meets 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU’. Magic? Check. Enemies to lovers? Check. Yay. 

When picking comps, you want something that’s not too mainstream and not to obscure, and you want to say your books are like that. Don’t say you’re the next JK Rowling, or your book is the next Harry Potter, because that sounds gross af.

Okay I have so so so many more tips so if you have specific questions, queries, etc. then drop me a DM and I can answer specific questions or make lists that are around particular topics (e.g. query letters, elevator pitches, choosing comps, any jargon that you don’t know, etc.)

Okayyyy byeeeee and good luck for those out on query!

[lilcowgirl7-deactivated20210223]

Opposites cannot attract unless they can learn from each other that’s what they don’t tell you

[c311a-deactivated20210115]

[sawyersscribbles]

A Guide to Decide Which Genre to Write

As writers who are their own unique person with their own unique talents and interests, it can sometimes be hard to find which genre we work best in. Most writers later in their careers find a way to master All The Elements and become the avatar of writing, but some beginners find that having a niche can help develop a style and be a good start in a writing career. That being said, here are some tips to find what works best for you:

Fantasy

Fantasy, in essence, is literature which includes some elements of magic in its writing. It’s a genre almost every writer knows, and it’s a great start because there’s so much free reign on what you want to do.

People who work best with fantasy:

Worldbuilders. What makes fantasy so unique is that not only are there many ways you can tackle it, like high fantasy, low fantasy, and paranormal, but someone with a talent for creating cultures, geographies and languages will excel in this genre

Anthropologists. All that being said, fantasy is also especially good for the study of people under circumstances unknown to this world. It takes a unique set of skills in order to personify a made-up tribe or group of people.

People Using Imagery. Fantasy is also known for its elegant language and imaginative descriptions of forests, potions, magic, and battles. Writers who enjoy putting in a lot of imagery in between the action of their stories will prefer the writing styles associated with fantasy.

Resources for Fantasy Writers:

Magic and Rules

Fantasy Worldbuilding

General Fantasy Tips

Science Fiction

Science Fiction, also called “sci-fi” for short, is writing or any other media about what the world would be like if it was technologically advanced past modern recognition. It is classically associated with space, but can also be seen in modern cities, also branching into a growingly popular genre called “cyberpunk”

People who work best with science fiction:

Logical Thinkers. The writing style associated with science fiction usually has a logical order of events, or a very structured way of making sure one thing happens as a result of another thing, maybe one that the reader even forgot about. A science fiction is always one step ahead of the reader.

STEM students. It helps to understand the rules of your fictional universe if you already know the rules of your real one. I’m not saying become a theoretical physicist, but it’ll be easier to imagine your made up futuristic technology if you have at least some grip on the technology of today.

Plot Manipulators. Something that tends to give science-fiction its cutting edge is how it forces the reader to heavily engage in it so as not to loose track of what’s happening. Scifi writers like to keep their readers on their toes, which is why someone who likes mapped-out changes in their stories would like science fiction.

Resources for Science Fiction Writers:

Beginner Tips for Writing Science Fiction

A Complete Guide to “Punk” (A post by yours truly :D)

Sci-fi Cliches to Avoid

Realistic Fiction

Realistic Fiction pretty much says it all in the name. It pretty much takes life how we see if and talks events or situations which didn’t happen, but could. In my opinion, I would say that this is probably one of the easiest genres to start out with, especially since it doesn’t require the same amount of world building as the first two genres I talked about.

People who work best with realistic fiction:

People Watchers. For those of you who aren’t familiar, “people watching” is the fine art of simply sitting where you can see people walking by – maybe a coffee shop, the park, even your bedroom window – and observing what people do. People watching helps realistic fiction writers understand the mannerisms of the people around them and lets them imagine backstories of the people they see.

People with Memorable School Experiences. This doesn’t particularly mean people who had a bad time at school, but people who remember their school years, or people living them right now, will have an easy time understanding the characteristics and personalities of people around them. Schools are a unique place to be because they both encourage individualism while also maintaining cliques for people to group into.

Introverts/People with a Strong Sense of Self. The ones who understand themselves are also the ones who can better understand others. If you spend a lot of time pondering over your own thoughts, then realistic fiction might be for you. It’s a great way to express your feelings in a straightforward manner while also better understanding yourself through your characters.

Resources for Realistic Fiction writers:

Just Starting Fiction

Your Character’s Personality

Writing Your Story Backwards

Historical Fiction

Historical fiction is like realistic fiction, except it usually takes place in past events, or in an alternate past, in which history was changed slightly which altered the course of time.

People who work best with historical fiction:

Researchers. For those of you who like to research, this is definitely the topic for you. Writing a historical fiction novel means paying extra close attention to the time period, especially the politics of the era you’re writing about. This research in particular takes a lot of time, though so be warned.

History buffs. This one should come as self explanatory, but it’s best to write about something you’re interested in. For example, don’t write a historical fiction novel based off the Roman Empire if you don’t find that time period interesting. Trust me, it won’t be worth writing to you anymore.

Perfectionists. Historical fiction derives a lot of its appeal from its exactness in historical accuracy and facts. If you’re someone who likes things to be just the way they were meant to be, then this might be a genre for you. Meticulously crafting your story around a real event is difficult, but by no means impossible.

Resources for Historical Fiction writers:

Historical Fiction Tips

How to Write Historical Fiction

The Impossible Task of Writing Historical Fiction

I hope these tips have helped you, and good luck!

[perringwrites]

A great post! I can see why I gravitated towards scifi (and why I’m having such a hard time with fantasy rn)

[prophecydungeon]

that’s not………. how child speech works…………………………………………..

[prophecydungeon]

god okay in an attempt to be less of an asshole, here’s how child speech DOES work (or tend to work, at least)

kids tend to hypercorrect — this means that they tend to say things like “sleeped” instead of “slept,” “writed” instead of “wrote,” “goed” instead of “went,” etc

kids tend not to make errors such as omitting verbs (“i hungry”)

kids also tend not to make errors in the i/me, she/her department (“me am hungry”)

simplification of difficult sounds — consonant clusters especially, so things like st, sp, ps, etc., as well as f, v, th-sounds, ch-sounds, etc.

“babbling”-type utterances (“apwen” for “airplane,” using one babbly word for multiple objects, things like that) generally occur in children under the age of three and a half

say it with me: an eight-year-old child is not going to be saying “me hungwy”

do not confuse child speech with stereotypical learner english mistakes, that’s not only incorrect but also gross on the stereotypical learner english front (“me love you long time,” anybody?)

if you’re going to write kidfic please do some * research

[prokopetz]

Totally. It can be helpful to remind yourself that young children tend to speak as though the English language actually made sense. Our brains are pattern-recognising machines: children are really, really good at puzzling out the implicit rules of the English language, but they don’t necessarily know all the silly exceptions and bizarre edge cases that break those rules yet - those can only be learned through experience and rote memorisation.

Basically, when children who speak English as a first language make mistakes, it typically reflects a tendency to treat English as more grammatically, syntactically, and/or orthographically consistent than it really is. In some cases, this can be compounded by the fact that some kids will get offended at how little sense “proper” English makes, and insist upon using the more consistent forms even though they know very well that they’re technically “wrong”.

for a long young portion of my life I insisted on pronouncing Sean “SEEN” because that’s how it’s spelled.

[pftones3482]

As someone who spends a good majority of her time working with kids, it irks me to no end when I see children written as if they’re babies.

Past the age of about five or six years old, children can have deep, intellectual conversations about the most bizarre of things. I HAD A CONVERSATION LAST WEEK WITH FOUR THIRD GRADERS ABOUT THE GAS PRICES AND TAXES IN HAWAII.

Were they entirely correct in the facts they were giving? No, because it was all from what they had heard from parents or on the news. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that I was having a genuine conversation with four eight and nine year olds about taxes.

Just about the only speech problems most kids have, unless they have a speech impediment, is not being able to pronounce certain consonants (replacing ‘th’ with ‘fw,’ for example, and some letters are harder to form with your mouth than others) and doing exactly what the person above said: using the English language the way they know how, which isn’t always the way English works.

Kids aren’t stupid. Stop writing them like they are.

[oldtoadwoman-deactivated2018121]

I was tutoring a little kid (second grade, I think). He was complaining about a worksheet. “This is hard.” I started to correct him as I knew he was more than capable of it and this bright kid, who had obviously heard the lecture before from others, interrupted me and said: “I know. I know. It’s not really difficult. It’s just time consuming.” Some kids are spooky-smart and even quite articulate.

If you need (plotwise) to emphasize that the child is specifically childish … have them tell the same joke to everyone they meet, cracking themselves up before they get to the punchline … have them ask “Why?” incessantly … have them fidgeting and possibly breaking things (”Oops.” “What?” “Nothing!” “WHAT?!”) … and if you have more than one kid, even of the same age, you don’t have to write them at the same intelligence level or emotional maturity. Some kids are messy and some are obsessively neat. Some are quiet, some loud. Some giggly, some surly. They basically come in the same range of personalities as adults. 

If you don’t want to invest a lot of time writing dialog for kids, just establish that you have a quiet kid. But a kid who gives single-word answers is usually doing so because they don’t like you (or trust you) or they are focused on their own thing and you’re interrupting them. It doesn’t mean they lack the vocabulary or that they don’t understand the adult conversation going on “over their head” (the more inappropriate the conversation, the more likely the kids are paying attention).

[santheum]

I have jabbed the back button so many times on terrible kid fic. This is an excellent resource - kid fic, when done well, is a real treat for me.

[thaxted]

The only children I have ever met who did say things like “me hungwy” were the ones who had figured out that if they sounded “adorable” they could wrap adults around their precious little fingers. Kids get it.

[delicatefury]

Kids also slur and mumble a lot. Especially when they’re tired. They don’t say “me hungwy”, they say “M’hungry”, or “m’hung’y” cause it just takes too much effort or time to do a proper distinct ‘r’.

Really, with kids, it’s more about how they say the words than what they say. A sleepy kid can be adorable, but they’re either cranky as hell or nearly dead on their feet. A hungry kid is going to be cranky (again) or whiney. A bored kid’s going to be fidgety and/or whiney. etc. 

[neurodiversitysci]

Generally speaking, in my experience, kids are as smart as any adult. What they lack is: * Life experience and knowledge about the world. So sometimes, things that seem silly and cliche to us are new, exciting, and profound to them. * A long term perspective. They don’t have a sense of “this too shall pass.” If something upsets them right now, it’s the end of the world. If something makes them happy, they think they’ll never be unhappy again. This hurts their judgment and can make them emotionally reactive. * Self-control. Try to get kids to sit quietly when they’re tired or hungry or angry, and you’ll see what I mean. * The ability to know what they know and verbalize it to others. Any therapist will tell you kids pick up family dynamics and detect conflict parents are trying to hide like no one’s business. They can’t usually talk directly about it, though, although they might enact the patterns they see with dolls and pretend play. * Defenses and seeing themselves through others’ eyes. I love teaching and doing research with children because their personalities are so quickly and easily visible. Their parents are another matter. Until at least 5th or 6th grade, they’re not constantly thinking about how others perceive them and constructing complicated facades. * Meta-thinking. When I ask a child who just solved a logic puzzle or answered a question correctly how they knew, they’ll often say something like “I just knew,” “because I’m smart,” “my sister taught me,” or “I don’t know.” This is related to kids rarely knowing and being able to verbalize what they know. * Basic executive functions like working memory, processing speed, and inhibition. All of these rely on the frontal lobe and develop slowly. A concrete example: on a brief IQ test like the Woodcock Johnson, I’ve seen kids get lost in the problem and forget part or all of what they were being asked, but they could solve it accurately if you kept reminding them (but did not otherwise provide help). Their standard scores with reminders were often over 120 (roughly “gifted range”), while without, they did about average. * They ask questions, but they don’t critically question what you’ve been told. In my experience with gifted kids for example, they ask so many questions it wears parents and teachers out. But until adolescence, they trust what they learn from books, parents, and teachers. They don’t ask constantly, “how do you know? How do I know?” I vividly remember beginning to ask these how-do-we-know questions at 14. I suddenly became aware of a lack of certainty of everything I knew and believed.

Kids are smart and observant, but they are not little adults. Their perspective is so different given their size, relationship to time, and dependence on the adults around them. If you want to write about kids, keep that in mind, listen to them, and observe them closely.

[winplaceshow]

i’m a speech/language therapist who specializes in language development for preschool aged children (under 5).  as a rule of thumb, children approximate adult language at 5 years of age.  i didn’t really include speech sound development because that’s a whole lot of explanation.  but, here’s what their language looks like from birth - 5 years:

Birth–3 Months

Startles to loud sounds

Quiets or smiles when spoken to

Seems to recognize caregiver’s voice and quiets if crying

Makes pleasure sounds (cooing, gooing)

Cries differently for different needs

Smiles they see caregiver

4–6 Months

Turns eyes to the direction of sounds

Responds to changes in tone of voice

Interested in music / toys that make sounds

Babbling is reduplicated repetitions of different easy to pronounce sounds, (i.e. ”papapa,” “bababa,” “mamama”)

Chuckles and laughs

Vocalizes excitement and displeasure

7 Months–1 Year

Enjoys games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake

Turns and looks in direction of sounds

Listens when spoken to

Recognizes words for common items like “cup”, “shoe”, “book”, or “juice”

Begins to respond to commands and requests (e.g. “Come here” or “Want more?”)

Babbling has many different sounds (”pabamima”)

Uses gestures to communicate (waving, holding arms to be picked up)

Imitates different speech sounds

Has one or two words (hi, dog, dada, mama) around first birthday, although words may not be intelligible

1-2 Years 

Points to a few body parts when asked.

Follows simple commands and understands simple questions (“Roll the ball,” “Kiss the baby,” “Where’s your shoe?”).

Points to pictures in a book when named.

Vocabulary size increases every month

Child over generalizes words (i.e. every four legged animal is “doggy”)

Uses some one- or two- word questions (“Where kitty?” “Go bye-bye?” “What’s that?”).

Once vocabulary size reaches ~250 words child begins to put two words together (“more cookie,” “no juice,” “mommy book”).

2-3 Years

Understands opposites (“go-stop,” “in-on,” “big-little,” “up-down”).

Follows two-step requests (“Get the book and put it on the table”).

Should be able to listen to story books for longer periods of time

Vocab size increased to the point where they have a word for almost everything, new words every day.

Uses two- or three- words sentences.

Speech is understood by familiar listeners most of the time.

Often asks for or directs attention to objects by labeling them.

Asks “why?” but may not be able to answer (**asking questions comes far before being able to answer them!!)

May stutter on words or sounds (this is normal unless it distresses the child)

3-4 years

Will respond when called from another room.

Can talk about familiar activities that happened at school or at friends’ homes while the listener was not present.  Uses about 4 sentences at a time. (Not yet a full adult-like narrative, but making progress.)

People outside of the family understand child’s speech.

Answers simple “who?”, “what?”, and “where?” questions.

Asks “when?” and “how?” questions.

Understands simple meta-linguistic structures such as rhymes (i.e. “hat-cat”)

Uses pronouns, such as I, you, me, we, or they

Uses some plural words, like toys, birds, and buses (may overgeneralize plural or past tense “

Sentences have 4 or more words.

Usually has outgrown stuttering behaviors.

4-5 years

Understands sequencing words like first, next, and last.

Understands words for time, like yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Follows 3-4 step directions, like “Put your pajamas on, brush your teeth, and then pick out a book.”

Says all speech sounds in words. May still make mistakes on sounds that are harder to say, like l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh, th.  **Mistakes on /r/ are common until 7 years of age

Uses sentences that have more than one verb.

With adult support can construct a short narrative about something the listener is not familiar with (i.e. “What happened in the movie?”)

Understands that they must change their language depending on the listener and place. May use short sentences with younger children or talk louder outside than inside.

[el-oh-her]

Things to know about Foster Care before you write

- It’s not always psyically/verbally abusive couples or a pervy son that watches you in the shower. Do away with those misconceptions. Some are good, some struggle, and some will treat you like a lesser human being. 

- Foster Parents can have age ranges they’re better at handling (babies, toddlers, young children, adolecents, teenagers). That doesn’t mean shit though. They recieve whoever is in need. Consider this when putting children into the house with ranging age values. 

- It’s not always the kids fault. Innocent kids without internalized truama can go into the system. The Social Workers will be suprised at children’s polietness. They may say “You don’t have to say thank you.” Don’t listen to them. If your mom taught you to say thank you, say it. 

-Kids can go into the system by mistake. 

-Parents who actually want there kids back will do anything to get them back. Even plead guilty for a child abuse charge that they were actually innocent on if it helps. There are no lines that a parent will not cross. Not a single one. 

-An 18 year old will be left homeless if the house is deemed unsafe structurally. 

-Foster Parents can treat you like a paycheck. Some of them are volunteers, but others get paid. 

-Foster Parents can treat you with the minimial amount of care. one pillow, one blanket, 7 sets of clothes that you have to wear every week. They might just say no if you ask for more because the kids at school have started to pick on you for wearing the same thing every week. 

-Foster Parents can refuse to take you to a doctor if they think you’re faking illness, even if you’re laying in bed clutching your stomach, unable to move. It’s not about whether or not you’re right, but their own belief. They have their own disposition on foster kids, and that will never be changed. 

-The abusive foster parent in the nuclear family can be the nicest one to the foster kids. This will cause moral conflict in the kids. They’ll stay up at night wondering why the only person who seemed to care about them cared so little about their own family. 

-Foster Parents can have their own children. They may just treat them better than you. You’re not really their children afterall. These children will get different privileges than you, such as staying up late, and being able to go literally anywhere that isn’t the house. 

-Foster Parents can treat you like lesser human beings. You’ll only realize this in hindsight. 

-You can call your social worker to request a new foster parent. Yes, a smart 10 year old will know to ask that question. 

-Your privileges of what you can and cannot recieve during visitations can be revoked and changed. There are ways around it. Sometimes it isn’t about keeping children safe. Sometimes it’s about control. 

-Your foster parents can lie if they are bad people. 

-Your foster parents can breach privacy and look through all of your stuff without your permission. Be honest with them if you’re hiding food. Tell them you’re hungry. 

-Anything you say is recorded in supervised visits. Children might want to lie about their Foster Parent’s nature, but the youngest one won’t understand that. They will be honest. The oldest ones might be brave, too. 

-You can make sure that your foster parents lose their lisence forever.

[wordsnstuff]

Useful Writing Resources

This is an extensive list of resources for every problem you could come across while writing/planning/editing your novel. Use it well;)

{ *** } Indicate a Highly Reccommended Resource

Planning/outlining Your Work

How To Outline ***

Zigzag Method : Creating Plots

How to Plot a Romance Novel 

Seven Great Sources of Conflict for Romances 

Let’s talk about brainstorming

Writing Something With Meaning ***

Past Or Present Tense? : How To Decide

Writing Your Work

How To Write A Fabulous Chapter #1 ***

How to Build a Romance Thread in Your Story 

The Big Book Of Writing Sex ***

6 Ways to Get Your Readers Shipping Like Crazy 

Romance Writing Tips ***

20 Tips for Writing Lovable Romance Novel Heroes

7 Ways To Speed Up Your Writing *** 

80+ Barriers to Love: A List of Ideas to Keep Romantic Tension High 

9 Romance Writing Mistakes to Avoid 

Removing the Creeps From Romance

19 Ways to Write Better Dialogue ***

50 Things Your Characters Can Do WHILE They Talk ***

How To Write Action And Fight Scenes

10 Steps To Write Arguments

9 Ways To Write Body Language

Writing Good Kissing Scenes

Writing Murders

Create And Control Tone ***

Tips for Writing Ghost Stories

Incorporating Flashbacks

12 Tips To Avoid Overwriting ***

Characters

Behind the Name

Top Baby Names

Looking for a name that means a certain thing? ***

7 Rules of Picking Names

Most Common Surnames ***

Minor Character Development

Writing Antagonists, Antiheroes and Villains

Characters With Enhanced Senses

5 Tips to Help You Introduce Characters

How Do You Describe a Character?

How To Write Child Characters

36 Core Values For Building Character

Questions To Answer When Creating Characters ***

4 Ways to Make Readers Instantly Loathe Your Character Descriptions

5 Ways to Keep Characters Consistent

Character Archetypes

25 Ways To Fuck With Your Characters

Building Platonic Relationships Between Female Characters

9 Simple and Powerful Ways to Write Body Language 

33 Ways To Write Stronger Characters

Conveying Character Emotion 

How to Make Readers Love an Unlikable Character…  

How to Create Powerful Character Combos

How To Describe A Character’s Voice ***

Describing Clothing And Appearance ***

Career Masterpost ***

Creating Your Character’s Personality ***

Character Flaws ***

Editing

DON’T EDIT>>> REWRITE THE WHOLE THING FIRST

Ultimate Guide To Editing Each Aspect Of Your Work ***

Why You Would Read Your Novel Out Loud ***

Grammar and Punctuation ***

How To Write A Captivating First Sentence

10 Things Your Opening Chapter Should Do: A Check-List for Self-Editing ***

Saving Your Story: Finding Where It Went Wrong

How To Condense Without Losing Anything

The Stages Of Editing

Dialogue/Description Balance

3 Proofreading Tips

The Short Story Form

Chapter & Novel Lengths

Anatomy Of A Novel : Chapters and Parts ***

How To Write Chapter After Chapter Until You Have A Book ***

Where Chapter #2 Should Start

Step By Step Guide To Editing Your Draft

Writing Tool: CTRL-F (How And Why You Should Use It) ***

How To Kill A Character

25 Steps To Edit The Unmerciful Suck Out Of Your Story

5 Ways To Make Your Novel Helplessly Addictive ***

Setting

{Setting} How To Describe Setting In Your Stories ***

20 Questions To Enhance Setting

How To Bring Your Setting To Life

Miscellaneous Resources You Can Use In Between

How to Write from a Guy’s POV 

The Emotional Wounds Thesaurus

Text To Speech Reader

Compare Character Heights 

A Visual Dictionary of Tops

Writers Helping Writers

7 Tricks To Imrove Your Writing Overnight

Work Out/ Word Count : Exercise Between Writing ***

Most Important Writing Tips ***

Let’s talk about diversity in novels

Letting Go Of Your Story

Keeping A Healthy Writing Schedule And Avoiding Procrastination ***

How To Create A Good Book Cover

Write or Die

Tip of my Tongue

Character Traits Form

Online Thesaurus

Writing Sketchy/Medical/Law

Coma: Types, Causes, etc

Tips for writing blood loss

Gunshot Wound Care

Examples of Hospital Forms

Common Legal Questions

The Writer’s Forensics Blog

Brain Injury Legal Guide

Types of Surgical Operations

Types of Mental Health Problems

A Day in the Life of a Mental Hospital Patient

Global Black Market Information ***

Crime Scene Science

Examining Mob Mentality

How Street Gangs Work

Writers’ Block Help/ Productivity

Story Plot Generator

@aveeragemusings ‘ Cure To Writers’ Block ***

50 Romance Plot Ideas

Reading Like A Writer ***

Defeat Writers’ Block

Writing In A Bad Mood ***

Writers Block

When You’ve Lost Motivation To Write A Novel ***

What To Do When The Words Won’t Flow ***

9 Ways To Be A More Productive Writer

“I Cannot Write A Good Sentence Today” (How To Get Over It) ***

Real Writing Advice ***

Info You Need To Know & Words You Didn’t Think Of

A Writer’s Thesaurus ***

Words To Describe… ***

Words & Phrases To Use In Your Sex Scenes ***

Colors (An Extensive List Of Colors)

List Of Kinks & Fetishes ***

List Of Elemental Abilities

inkarnate.com : World Creator And Map Maker For Your Imaginary Setting

Body Language Phrases

List Of Legendary Creatures

How To Write Magic

Hairstyle References

Hemingway : Writing Checker

Body Types: Words To Describe Bodies and How They Move Around

Poisonous Herbs and Plants ***

The Psychology of Color

The Meaning behind Rose color

Types of Swords

Color Symbolism

How a handgun works

How to Write a Eulogy

Types of Crying

Avoiding LGBTQ Stereotypes ***

Superstitions and More

The 12 Common Archetypes

Language of Flowers

12 Realistic Woman Body Shapes

Using Feedback And Reviews

Turning Negative Reviews Into Positive Ones ***

Proofreading Marks : Easy Symbols To Make Reviewing/Feedback Easier ***

Authonomy Teen Ink Figment Fiction Press ReviewFuse

These Are Trusted Critique Sites ;)

[writing-prompt-s]

For all the writers out there. Please reblog this!

[bookishdiplodocus]

Megamasterlist

[adenhamcreations]

YAAAAAASSS

[prophecydungeon]

that’s not………. how child speech works…………………………………………..

[prophecydungeon]

god okay in an attempt to be less of an asshole, here’s how child speech DOES work (or tend to work, at least)

kids tend to hypercorrect — this means that they tend to say things like “sleeped” instead of “slept,” “writed” instead of “wrote,” “goed” instead of “went,” etc

kids tend not to make errors such as omitting verbs (“i hungry”)

kids also tend not to make errors in the i/me, she/her department (“me am hungry”)

simplification of difficult sounds — consonant clusters especially, so things like st, sp, ps, etc., as well as f, v, th-sounds, ch-sounds, etc.

“babbling”-type utterances (“apwen” for “airplane,” using one babbly word for multiple objects, things like that) generally occur in children under the age of three and a half

say it with me: an eight-year-old child is not going to be saying “me hungwy”

do not confuse child speech with stereotypical learner english mistakes, that’s not only incorrect but also gross on the stereotypical learner english front (“me love you long time,” anybody?)

if you’re going to write kidfic please do some * research

[prokopetz]

Totally. It can be helpful to remind yourself that young children tend to speak as though the English language actually made sense. Our brains are pattern-recognising machines: children are really, really good at puzzling out the implicit rules of the English language, but they don’t necessarily know all the silly exceptions and bizarre edge cases that break those rules yet - those can only be learned through experience and rote memorisation.

Basically, when children who speak English as a first language make mistakes, it typically reflects a tendency to treat English as more grammatically, syntactically, and/or orthographically consistent than it really is. In some cases, this can be compounded by the fact that some kids will get offended at how little sense “proper” English makes, and insist upon using the more consistent forms even though they know very well that they’re technically “wrong”.

for a long young portion of my life I insisted on pronouncing Sean “SEEN” because that’s how it’s spelled.

[pftones3482]

As someone who spends a good majority of her time working with kids, it irks me to no end when I see children written as if they’re babies.

Past the age of about five or six years old, children can have deep, intellectual conversations about the most bizarre of things. I HAD A CONVERSATION LAST WEEK WITH FOUR THIRD GRADERS ABOUT THE GAS PRICES AND TAXES IN HAWAII.

Were they entirely correct in the facts they were giving? No, because it was all from what they had heard from parents or on the news. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that I was having a genuine conversation with four eight and nine year olds about taxes.

Just about the only speech problems most kids have, unless they have a speech impediment, is not being able to pronounce certain consonants (replacing ‘th’ with ‘fw,’ for example, and some letters are harder to form with your mouth than others) and doing exactly what the person above said: using the English language the way they know how, which isn’t always the way English works.

Kids aren’t stupid. Stop writing them like they are.

[oldtoadwoman-deactivated2018121]

I was tutoring a little kid (second grade, I think). He was complaining about a worksheet. “This is hard.” I started to correct him as I knew he was more than capable of it and this bright kid, who had obviously heard the lecture before from others, interrupted me and said: “I know. I know. It’s not really difficult. It’s just time consuming.” Some kids are spooky-smart and even quite articulate.

If you need (plotwise) to emphasize that the child is specifically childish … have them tell the same joke to everyone they meet, cracking themselves up before they get to the punchline … have them ask “Why?” incessantly … have them fidgeting and possibly breaking things (”Oops.” “What?” “Nothing!” “WHAT?!”) … and if you have more than one kid, even of the same age, you don’t have to write them at the same intelligence level or emotional maturity. Some kids are messy and some are obsessively neat. Some are quiet, some loud. Some giggly, some surly. They basically come in the same range of personalities as adults. 

If you don’t want to invest a lot of time writing dialog for kids, just establish that you have a quiet kid. But a kid who gives single-word answers is usually doing so because they don’t like you (or trust you) or they are focused on their own thing and you’re interrupting them. It doesn’t mean they lack the vocabulary or that they don’t understand the adult conversation going on “over their head” (the more inappropriate the conversation, the more likely the kids are paying attention).

[santheum]

I have jabbed the back button so many times on terrible kid fic. This is an excellent resource - kid fic, when done well, is a real treat for me.

[thaxted]

The only children I have ever met who did say things like “me hungwy” were the ones who had figured out that if they sounded “adorable” they could wrap adults around their precious little fingers. Kids get it.

[delicatefury]

Kids also slur and mumble a lot. Especially when they’re tired. They don’t say “me hungwy”, they say “M’hungry”, or “m’hung’y” cause it just takes too much effort or time to do a proper distinct ‘r’.

Really, with kids, it’s more about how they say the words than what they say. A sleepy kid can be adorable, but they’re either cranky as hell or nearly dead on their feet. A hungry kid is going to be cranky (again) or whiney. A bored kid’s going to be fidgety and/or whiney. etc. 

[neurodiversitysci]

Generally speaking, in my experience, kids are as smart as any adult. What they lack is: * Life experience and knowledge about the world. So sometimes, things that seem silly and cliche to us are new, exciting, and profound to them. * A long term perspective. They don’t have a sense of “this too shall pass.” If something upsets them right now, it’s the end of the world. If something makes them happy, they think they’ll never be unhappy again. This hurts their judgment and can make them emotionally reactive. * Self-control. Try to get kids to sit quietly when they’re tired or hungry or angry, and you’ll see what I mean. * The ability to know what they know and verbalize it to others. Any therapist will tell you kids pick up family dynamics and detect conflict parents are trying to hide like no one’s business. They can’t usually talk directly about it, though, although they might enact the patterns they see with dolls and pretend play. * Defenses and seeing themselves through others’ eyes. I love teaching and doing research with children because their personalities are so quickly and easily visible. Their parents are another matter. Until at least 5th or 6th grade, they’re not constantly thinking about how others perceive them and constructing complicated facades. * Meta-thinking. When I ask a child who just solved a logic puzzle or answered a question correctly how they knew, they’ll often say something like “I just knew,” “because I’m smart,” “my sister taught me,” or “I don’t know.” This is related to kids rarely knowing and being able to verbalize what they know. * Basic executive functions like working memory, processing speed, and inhibition. All of these rely on the frontal lobe and develop slowly. A concrete example: on a brief IQ test like the Woodcock Johnson, I’ve seen kids get lost in the problem and forget part or all of what they were being asked, but they could solve it accurately if you kept reminding them (but did not otherwise provide help). Their standard scores with reminders were often over 120 (roughly “gifted range”), while without, they did about average. * They ask questions, but they don’t critically question what you’ve been told. In my experience with gifted kids for example, they ask so many questions it wears parents and teachers out. But until adolescence, they trust what they learn from books, parents, and teachers. They don’t ask constantly, “how do you know? How do I know?” I vividly remember beginning to ask these how-do-we-know questions at 14. I suddenly became aware of a lack of certainty of everything I knew and believed.

Kids are smart and observant, but they are not little adults. Their perspective is so different given their size, relationship to time, and dependence on the adults around them. If you want to write about kids, keep that in mind, listen to them, and observe them closely.

[winplaceshow]

i’m a speech/language therapist who specializes in language development for preschool aged children (under 5).  as a rule of thumb, children approximate adult language at 5 years of age.  i didn’t really include speech sound development because that’s a whole lot of explanation.  but, here’s what their language looks like from birth - 5 years:

Birth–3 Months

Startles to loud sounds

Quiets or smiles when spoken to

Seems to recognize caregiver’s voice and quiets if crying

Makes pleasure sounds (cooing, gooing)

Cries differently for different needs

Smiles they see caregiver

4–6 Months

Turns eyes to the direction of sounds

Responds to changes in tone of voice

Interested in music / toys that make sounds

Babbling is reduplicated repetitions of different easy to pronounce sounds, (i.e. ”papapa,” “bababa,” “mamama”)

Chuckles and laughs

Vocalizes excitement and displeasure

7 Months–1 Year

Enjoys games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake

Turns and looks in direction of sounds

Listens when spoken to

Recognizes words for common items like “cup”, “shoe”, “book”, or “juice”

Begins to respond to commands and requests (e.g. “Come here” or “Want more?”)

Babbling has many different sounds (”pabamima”)

Uses gestures to communicate (waving, holding arms to be picked up)

Imitates different speech sounds

Has one or two words (hi, dog, dada, mama) around first birthday, although words may not be intelligible

1-2 Years 

Points to a few body parts when asked.

Follows simple commands and understands simple questions (“Roll the ball,” “Kiss the baby,” “Where’s your shoe?”).

Points to pictures in a book when named.

Vocabulary size increases every month

Child over generalizes words (i.e. every four legged animal is “doggy”)

Uses some one- or two- word questions (“Where kitty?” “Go bye-bye?” “What’s that?”).

Once vocabulary size reaches ~250 words child begins to put two words together (“more cookie,” “no juice,” “mommy book”).

2-3 Years

Understands opposites (“go-stop,” “in-on,” “big-little,” “up-down”).

Follows two-step requests (“Get the book and put it on the table”).

Should be able to listen to story books for longer periods of time

Vocab size increased to the point where they have a word for almost everything, new words every day.

Uses two- or three- words sentences.

Speech is understood by familiar listeners most of the time.

Often asks for or directs attention to objects by labeling them.

Asks “why?” but may not be able to answer (**asking questions comes far before being able to answer them!!)

May stutter on words or sounds (this is normal unless it distresses the child)

3-4 years

Will respond when called from another room.

Can talk about familiar activities that happened at school or at friends’ homes while the listener was not present.  Uses about 4 sentences at a time. (Not yet a full adult-like narrative, but making progress.)

People outside of the family understand child’s speech.

Answers simple “who?”, “what?”, and “where?” questions.

Asks “when?” and “how?” questions.

Understands simple meta-linguistic structures such as rhymes (i.e. “hat-cat”)

Uses pronouns, such as I, you, me, we, or they

Uses some plural words, like toys, birds, and buses (may overgeneralize plural or past tense “

Sentences have 4 or more words.

Usually has outgrown stuttering behaviors.

4-5 years

Understands sequencing words like first, next, and last.

Understands words for time, like yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Follows 3-4 step directions, like “Put your pajamas on, brush your teeth, and then pick out a book.”

Says all speech sounds in words. May still make mistakes on sounds that are harder to say, like l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh, th.  **Mistakes on /r/ are common until 7 years of age

Uses sentences that have more than one verb.

With adult support can construct a short narrative about something the listener is not familiar with (i.e. “What happened in the movie?”)

Understands that they must change their language depending on the listener and place. May use short sentences with younger children or talk louder outside than inside.

[gg-writes]

I just wanted to note that if your character isn’t capable of being magically healed and they get injured

Show them being in pain

Hours after the fact

Days

Give them a wrist that clicks funny for months instead of a badass scar that only gets attention when the character needs to seem cooler

After slipping down a whopping three stairs yesterday morning, I feel like I got hit by a truck today and all I can think is, “my god, how do my characters get up and walk around like nothing happened after they get hurt” and then I answer myself with, “oh, unrealistic writing, that’s how.”

[an-anxious-gay-mess]

Also, people love reminders that characters got hurt. They aren’t annoying. I for one, take great delight in reminders of my favorite character’s suffering

[writing-prompt-s]

“Unlike you, I remember a time when Mankind controlled the entirety of this system. Every forgotten corner, every forsaken inch of it, was ours. It will be that way again”

[queriesinstereo]

“You’re drunk, dude. Shut up already.” I was considering pouring myself another shot, if only to get away from Aiden. If I’d known he was going to be this annoying I wouldn’t have gone to the party with him, let alone agree to be his ‘buddy’. 

“Eric-” He said, but I cut him off before he could continue. 

“Listen, Aiden, I hardly know what that stupid game you play is, let alone the intricate details of the forbidden mods or whatever it is that you’re rambling about. I’m sorry that the developers ruined the game you like. But you need to shut up about it already.” 

“It’s called Airenhelm.”

I let my head thunk into the table. “I. Don’t. Care.”

[lazytrashbarbarian-deactivated2]

If you never finish your novel then how am I going to write fanfiction about it? 

[kai-writesstuff]

This actually motivated me to keep writing.

[queriesinstereo]

The two of them had been talking for thirty minutes, the cafeteria emptying out around them. Arguing, really, if arguing could be defined as going over the same conversation again and again, constantly reverting to the same two position as they both held before. It was… repetitive.

“Let me see,” he said, leaning over the table. His weight was held on his elbows, which led to his wrists. His hands were not quite clasped, but they were close. She stared at them instead of looking at his face. “I bet it’s brilliant.” 

“No,” she said, quieter. Listless, almost. It had been a long day. “It’s not ready.” 

“Why not?” He asked. Looked hurt. “It’s been done for ages now.” 

I am afraid if you see it, it will break apart, she thought. Her work felt too delicate for her to dare show it to others, to expose. 

“No, you can’t read it,” she said again, and knew he wouldn’t listen.

b.k. // snippet #1, or: delicate things are hard to touch

[mischiefiswritten]

Why Your Plot Twists Should be Predictable

I’m a huge fan of the mystery genre, and of any story that makes my heart jump at unexpected twists and turns. There are few reading moments quite like the thrill of a shocking turn of events. Your heart speeds up, your eyes widen just a touch, and your fingers grip the book a little more tightly. There’s just something about it.

As writers, we naturally want to provide these same “I can’t believe it’s happening!” moments to our future readers as well. There’s an undeniable and challenging art to the plot twist, make no mistake, but there’s also an irresistible call to them.

So how do we manage it?

I think the urge to get a plot twist on the page can be so great that we’re tempted to blast the reader with the most unexpected moments in exactly the place that they occur to us. This doesn’t sound so bad, but consider this: The quality of a plot twist does not lie solely in its shock value. You can make the most surprising revelation in history, but your twist could still seem hollow. My favorite solution to this problem, from the perspective of both a reader and a writer, is to make your plot twists predictable.

Isn’t that the opposite of the intended effect? Aren’t plot twists in essence, meant to be unpredictable?

I would answer, no - they’re meant to be unpredicted. The most satisfying plot twists or revelations that I have ever seen have always, always been those that I could have figured out myself, if only I had noticed what was important. All the pieces of the puzzle were there, trailed along as the plot progressed, but I simply didn’t realize that the answer or a future event lay with them.

In contrast, many plot twists are simply thrown at you out of the blue. I still genuinely enjoy many of these in the moment, saying “how surprising!/dramatic!/tragic!”, but when the surprise fades, I’m often left wishing the magic hadn’t happened behind a curtain. The motivations or evidence of a betrayal completely unseen, not just unnoticed, or the discovery of a key bit of information by a detective occurring off-screen. These are less satisfying because there’s no feeling of “of course!” or “how did I not see this happening!” or “I knew it!” (even if you didn’t).

I was recently reading a popular YA series that did this between book one and book two. In the first, the protagonist’s romantic relationship was essentially the hinge around which the entire plot swung, and as I read, I became increasingly invested in it, as I was intended to. I believed in it. I was convinced of it. And because it was constantly and consistently portrayed as a strong, healthy relationship built on true, meant-to-be love, that’s what I considered it to be. Then the second book begins, and a large portion of the plot depends on the sudden realization that this relationship was not and never had been meant to be. It was, in fact, poisonous. The love interest’s character took a sharp turn into unstable and unlikable territory (quite different from what it had been in the first book), and it was said that he had always been this person. This twist served to move the story into very entertaining places and usher in an admittedly far better romance, but it still nagged at me as very unfair. I felt like I’d had the rug pulled out from under me - and not in the fun, satisfying way. There had been no signs along the way that indicated things would move in this direction, no subtle slide or glimpses at this character’s other side. Nothing made me say, “Of course this happened - I’ve been so blind!” Instead, all I got was the “what??” feeling.

It in no way ruined the book or the series, but it did stand out as one of its weakest points by far. I wanted to see some warning signs that I would have only recognized as such in retrospect. And if it had been hinted at and somehow I had predicted it? It still would have been an enjoyable twist. Because a plot twist being predicted does not mean it is ruined.

It’s a little like Chekov’s gun. Don’t be scared to foreshadow the surprises in your story because a few clever readers might piece it together ahead of time.

Some twists are inevitably exempt from this idea, of course, like accidents, natural disasters, or sudden illness. Some things really are unpredictable. And sometimes an out-of-the-blue surprise is the best thing for a story. But when you have the opportunity to feed your readers seemingly innocuous bits of information that would lead them toward predicting an upcoming twist if only they knew to suspect it? Think about giving it a chance - it could be immensely fulfilling.

And as always, take all writing advice with a pinch of salt and make it work for your story, not the other way around. I hope this can be a useful strategy to add to your tool belt! Happy writing, everybody.

[danscratch]

Big Ol’ Honkin’ OC Question List-- Long Post Ahead!

  Alright, here we go– I put together a list of questions about OCs that you can reblog and have people send in asks for you! I set it up so you can be like, “A3″, “D2″, et cetera… Keep checking in here to the original post in case I add some more to the list! In the meantime, I hope y’all have some fun with this and maybe use it to learn a little bit more about your OCs or get to share things about them!! A. Psychology

What of the Meyers-Briggs personality types they most fit into? INFP, ENFT, et cetera…

What alignment are they? Chaotic neutral, lawful evil, et cetera…

Do they have any emotional or psychological conditions? Are they aware of it? Do they try to treat it? 

Are they a pessimist or an optimist? 

Are they good at handling change in their life?

Does your OC tend to assume their interpretation of events and reality is correct, or do they question it? I.e., “I’m sure that’s what you said” versus “It’s possible I misheard you.”

Is your OC confident in their reactions to life in general, or do they get embarrassed or easily shamed for it? I.e., if something startles them, do they insist it WAS scary? When they cry, do they feel like they overreacted?

Is your OC a martyr?

Does your OC make a lot of excuses? For themselves? Others? 

Does your OC compromise easily? Too easily?

Does your OC put others’ needs before their own?

Does your OC have any addictions? If so and problematic, have they admitted it to themselves? 

Does your OC have any phobias? If so, where did they come from?

Is your character empathetic?

Is your character observant?

Does your OC have to go through their own trials to learn a lesson, or do they listen and learn from observation and lecture? I.e., does your OC listen when someone tries to tell them the importance of budgeting, or do they have to go experience what happens if you don’t budget first?

What’s one of your OC’s proudest moments of themselves?

Do they get jealous easily? Do they feel bad if they do?

What instantly irritates them or puts them in a bad mood?

Are they harsh on themselves?

Do they make excuses often?

Is your OC intended to be found generally attractive? Unattractive? Average? Is there a reason why?

Does your OC place much importance on their appearance? Do they feel confident in it?

What are some of your OC’s biggest personal obstacles? This could be emotional, physical, social… Are they aware of it? Are they trying to overcome it?

B. Social

Do they believe you have to give respect to get it, or get respect to give it?

Do they get frustrated when lines at places like pharmacies, check-outs, delis, banks, et cetera, are moving slowly?

Under what situations would they get angry at servers, staff, customer service, et cetera?

Do they tip well? How easily can they be moved to not leave a tip?

Do they hold doors open for people?

Would your OC let someone ahead of them in line if your OC had a big cart and the person behind them had very few items?

How do they respond to babies crying in public?

Is your OC considered funny? Do they believe they’re funny?

What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…

Does your OC find any “bad” or “mean” humor funny? Do they wish they didn’t?

Your OC is running late to meeting someone: Do they let the other person know? Do they lie about why they’re late?

Your OC orders something to eat and gets their order done in a pretty wrong way, something they can’t just pick off or whatnot to correct, or something major is missing. What do they do?

Do they have a large or small group of friends?

Do they have people they are genuinely honest with about themselves?

Does your OC enjoy social events, such as parties, clubs, et cetera..?

Does your OC like to be the center of attention or more in the mix?

C. Morality

Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?

Would your OC feel bad if they acted against their morals? If not, would they find a way to excuse themselves for it?

Is it important for them to be with people (socially, intimately, whatever) whose major ideological tenets align with their own?

Do they consider themselves superior or more important than anyone else? Lesser?

Do your OC’s morals and rules of common decency go out the window when it comes to those they don’t like, or when it’s inconvenient? Aka, are their morals situational?

What do they do when they see someone asking for money or food? If they ignore them, why? If they help, how so?

Do they believe people change over time? If so, is it a natural process or does it take effort? 

Is your OC more practical or ideal morally? I.e., do they hold people to high expectations of behavior even if it’s not realistic for the situation, or do they have a more realistic approach and adapt their morality to be more practical?

D. Religion and Life and Death

How religious is your OC? What do they practice, if anything? If they don’t associate with any religion, what do they think of religion in general?

Do they believe in an afterlife?

How comfortable are they with the idea of death?

Would they like to be immortal? Why, why not? If they are immortal, would they rather not be?

Do they believe in ghosts? If not, why? If so, do they think they’re magical/tie into their religion, or are they scientifically plausible?

E. Education and Intelligence

Would you say that your OC is intelligent? In what ways? Would your OC agree?

Which of the nine types of intelligence is your OC strongest in? Weakest? (Linguistic, existential, naturalist, et cetera)

How many languages do they speak?

Did they enjoy school if they went to it?

What’s their highest education level? Do they want to continue their education?

Do they enjoy learning? Do they actively seek out sources of self-education?

Are they a good note-taker? Are they a good test-taker? Do exams make them nervous?

What’s one of your OC’s biggest regrets?

F. Domestic Habits, Work, and Hobbies

What sort of home do they live in now, if at all? How did they end up there?

What’s their ideal home look like? Where is it?

Could they ever live in a “tiny home”?

How clean are they overall with home upkeep?

How handy are they? Can they fix appliances, cars, cabinets, et cetera?

How much do they work? What do they do? Do they enjoy it?

What’s their “dream career” or job situation?

How often are they home?

Are they homebodies and enjoy being home?

Do they engage in any of the arts? How good do you intend them to be? Would they agree they are?

What are some of their favorite things to do for recreation? How did they get into it? What part of it do they like the most?

Would they enjoy a theme park?

G. Family and Growing Up

Is your OC close to their family?

Who makes up your OC’s family, at least the more important members to them?

Does your OC find their family supportive? If not, what would be an example why not?

What kind of childhood did your OC have?

Did they go through any typical phases growing up?

Do they have any favorite childhood memories?

Do they have any childhood memories they’d rather forget or be less affected by?

H. Romance and Intimacy

What is your OC’s orientation, romantic and/or sexual? Has it ever been a source of stress for them? Have they always been pretty sure of their orientation?

Is your OC a thoughtful partner, in whatever aspect of that you want to cover?

Does your OC believe there’s only one ideal partner (or multiple ideal if not monogamous) for everyone, or that there are many people who could be right?

Does your OC believe in love in first sight?

Does your OC believe in marriage (or their culture’s equivalent)?

Has your OC ever cheated on anyone or been cheated on?

What do they look for in partners? (Emotionally, mentally, physically..)

What’s your OC’s idea of a perfect date?

What are some things that your OC finds to be an instant turn-off in potential partners?

I. Food

What are their favorite kinds of flavors– Sweet, salty, sour, spicy, creamy, et cetera?

Do they have any eating requirements or preferences? Allergies, vegetarian, organic-only, religious restrictions…

Are they vegan/vegetarian (if their overall culture/species generally aren’t)? If so, why? Do they think animal products are wrong in all circumstances?

How often do they cook? Do they order out a lot?

Are they a good cook?

Could they eat the same thing they enjoy over and over and not get bored of it quickly?

J. Politics, Current Events, Environmental Aspects

Where does your OC stand most politically? What would they align with most?

How politically aware are they?

How politically active are they?

Is your OC the sort to fall for fake news? If not, do they ignore it or make a point to clarify that it’s wrong?

Are they or would they protest for a cause they’re passionate about?

How do they react to people whose political viewpoints are very opposite of theirs?

How much interest in environmental health do they have?

In reality-based or applicable worlds, do they believe in global warming? Do they recycle?

K. For OCs in Reality-Based Worlds Who Are Unusual in Paranormal Ways (such as magical abilities, being another species, having a curse like lycanthropy, sci-fi abilities, being from another time, et cetera)– Also for OCs where the scenario is similar even if their universe isn’t based on reality

Does your OC have to keep their paranormal aspect (PA) a secret from general society? If so, how? I.e., they can’t discuss their abilities, they have to hide a tail, they have an alter-ego, et cetera. What would happen if society found out about it?

Are there others in their universe with the same or a similar PA as your OC? I.e., others from different dimensions, others of their same species. Do they know about it?

Does your OC have any friends who know about their PA? Any enemies?

Does your OC ever use their PA to get an advantage? I.e., use their ability to be invisible to steal or get out of things, compete in track while their species is a naturally superior runner, use their invulnerability in careers like police work… If so, do they have any hang-ups about it?

Does your OC feel isolated or unrelatable due to the experience their PA brings with it? If so, how do they deal with it?

Does their PA cause issues in daily life? I.e., if they’re inhuman in a human universe and they can’t go to a doctor or risk the doctor realizing they are not human, super abilities with physical drawbacks, they don’t have control of their abilities and must keep to themselves, et cetera… If so, how do they feel about it?

Does your OC’s PA affect their dietary habits so that they are unusual or problematic by their society’s standards?

What are some routines, if any, of self-care that your OC must engage in that are not typical of their society? I.e., having to file their teeth, maintaining magical rituals, drinking blood…

Does your OC have knowledge that they can’t share with the rest of their world that could improve it if it didn’t cause chaos? I.e., a character from the future knowing about technology not yet invented, but they can’t reveal themselves by sharing it?

Would your OC give up their PA if they could? Why or why not?

L. For the Writer/Owner

How have your characters changed since you created them?

What do you consider the biggest themes in your character, if any?

Did you create the character to be like yourself, did they end up being like yourself, or are they very different from you?

Would you hang out with your OC if you could?

Which OC do you think is the most decent morally or behaviorally?  AKA, which is supposed to a “good guy”?

Which OC do you think is the worst morally or behaviorally? AKA, which is supposed to be a “bad guy”?

Which OC do you think is the most attractive?

What’s the longest you’ve had an OC for?

How did you come up with your OC?

[writing-prompt-s]

You just found out your best friend is your arch nemisis, and yet that makes your crush on them all the more intense.

[queriesinstereo]

“You have a problem,” Andy says. He actually sounds horrified, which is almost gratifying. I haven’t gotten this much of a reaction out of him since I told him I was planning to invite Ryan Sencretz to the Sadie Hawkins dance back in high school. 

“Seriously?” I ask, mustering as much dignity as a person can when their older brother catching them staring at fanart of their hero persona and their super-villain arch nemisis online. There were some really good artists out there, too. “You’re overreacting.” 

“Kay, you’re looking at porn of yourself on the internet. You. Have. A. Problem.” 

“It’s not porn!” I protest, and he pointedly reaches over my keyboard to tap the left arrow key. The image on the screen changes, becomes a (very, very hot) drawing of Lady Catastrophe and Agent Red doing.. um.

My cheeks flame red and I slam the lid of my laptop down. “Rude!” 

“Kay, I would have thought that realizing Erin was Lady Catastrophe would have made you feel betrayed, not... not drive you to embrace the LadyRed ship online! I follow your tumblr, you know.” 

Fuck. I’d forgotten that pertinent detail. 

“How do you even know what that ship name is? Huh? Have you been staring at porn of me online, Andy?” 

“No, because every time I look at it I”m reminded that it’s you under the mask, Kay.” He crosses his arms and stares down at me. Trying to perfect the ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed’ face. He’s almost got it down perfectly. 

“That doesn’t answer the first question,” I say, but my resistance is crumbling under the weight of his disapproval. “Listen... that stupid costume is... really really nice on her, okay?” 

“Seriously, Kay? I can not believe you. You complete moron.” 

“Let me be a useless lesbian in peace, Andy!” 

[sanctaseraphina]

say it with me, friends: the amount of notes your art or writing gets is not indicative of your worth as a content creator

[lemontrash]

This.

[ziggystarsandmars]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Trying to understand where it comes from, and why the pressure of it is so overwhelming sometimes. It’s not merely wanting to be heard. Because, with one or two really thoughtful readers, I feel heard. But somehow, with fanfiction, numbers haunt me.

And I think it is the numbers that do it. Like it’s your score and you have to ‘win’ the game of being a writer.

I struggle with this from the original fiction side too, but much less, and I think it’s because the numbers are less visible. The ‘score’ is more hidden. I never know how many people read an original story, I just know the emails I get that say that story reached a person, that it meant something to them. (But of course, there’s twitter, and I start tracking how many people are tweeting about it, and there’s the ‘score’ again.)

But why do I need the high score? Why am I comparing my kudos (or twitter retweets) to someone who’s trying to do something entirely different with their fiction? Why do I feel like trash if I’m not ‘winning’? Especially since I don’t generally like popular stuff!

My favorite stories, both in the fanfiction and original fiction world, are generally strange and niche and loved fervently by a small but dedicated group of fans. And I understand that. I understand that there’s no connection between quality and popularity. Except when it comes to my own work. 

(Quick note: Saying there is no connection does not mean I’m saying there is an inverse connection. I’m not saying popular=bad. Gaiman’s a huge role model for me. I totally love some popular stuff.)

I want to get better about this. I want to be better about this. Because the funny thing is, what I want is what I have. I want an audience that gets me. I want to write stories that inspire people to write letters that say “this helped me.” And I have that. 

But then I compare my kudo and comment counts to the most popular fics in the fandom, and I decide I’m trash.

I have to stop this. We all have to stop this. I just wish I knew how.

[lemontrash]

I’m gonna jump in and add 2 cents here- sort of a digression, but anyway- 

As a writer, I wholly agree with the message that kudos and comments are wonderful things and incredibly reassuring and motivating, but

As a community, fandom has a terribly biased idea of how many kudos is normal. 

I often do surveys as part of my job. I launch them out with the aim of a 100% return rate for an internal survey and as many as I can get for an external survey. 

I never get 100%. 

An internal survey would be the same as posting your fic in a small focussed group. Like on Livejournal. You’d post your fic to the particular community who would be most interested in it. Some people in that audience still won’t see your story, they’ll miss it. Some will see it, but not click through - wrong time of day, too busy, mean to come back and forget. Generally you’ll get say 80% who start reading. Then you’ve got the people who don’t finish reading, that knocks another few off. Again. This is normal. This is human. So by the time you get to the end of all of it, and all the variables as to why people do and do not leave kudos and do and do not leave comments… You might have a return rate of 60%. That’s still good! 

On AO3 you just post it to the fandom in general, and the community has to look for it. That’s more like an external survey.  If I get 15% return on an external survey, I’m pleased. 10% is typical. Less than that can easily be expected, due to variables in how and when and why and what you post. 

But that is OK. 

I only start really worrying hard about not getting enough response if it’s really really low, and then i’m still going to ask, ‘how can I make it easier for the relevant people to find’ first, before I start chiding myself for the quality of the questionnaire. 

The vast majority of reason behind why your kudos and comment rate looks ‘unsuccessful’ is nothing to do with the quality of the fic. it’s just that life is messy and statistics say ‘successful’ looks different to what we’re taught to expect. 

If you get 10 kudos from 100 hits. That’s a success.  I guarantee some of those big successful fics with hundreds of hits and hundreds of comments still only have a return rate around that level. **** And I guarantee that they are falling into the positive bias for higher numbers because they are doing one and/or all of the below:

It’s Porn (lots of hits; not necessarily loads of kudos or comments though. Shy!)

Juggernaut ship with Fandom Favourite Trope Bingo (lots of interest, generic appeal to the largest audience. Bonus if it’s got porn!)

Fic is old as balls and has been sitting there accruing reputation and hits for y e a r  s. Possibly the first of its type in the fandom. 

Big Loud Author, Many Minions - lots of advertising, lots of fandom presence or ready-made personal audience plugged into the fic. Similar to the internal survey effect. Possibly a lot of minions inflating the rates on purpose. Probably creates porny content intermittently to keep things on the boil. 

Hit the Zeitgeist. Just wrote the right type of story at the right time. The fic we didn’t know we wanted. Incredibly rare. 

Subscriber effect. WIP posted regularly with lots of cliff-hangers and authors notes to make people scream (generates comments and discussion). Bonus if it teases porn in the next chapter. 

Remora Effect. Generally unknown/less-credited writer, stanned by a Big Loud Author to the Many Minions. Bonus if it’s porn. 

Bad Shit (maybe dirty), Go Check It Out - Controversial fic or fandom infamous (see: My Immortal and any fic/author generating fandom wank, See also: 50 Shades) Double bonus if it’s the right level of problematic porn (e.g. wrong side of a ship war)

I have more than 50 fics up on AO3. I’ve enjoyed some modest reward as a fanfic writer. Most of my fics nevertheless have a return rate of 10% or less. My newest fic has done surprising well though- It has a kudos rate of 18% - Amazing! Ah but wait, it’s a rare-pair… which I marketed to an internal audience who would be interested in it. It’s got a comment rate of about 6% (once you strip out the fact that half the ‘comments’ were replies from me). That’s also good! (that’s about 13 comments, by the way.)

According to the little numbers my ‘best’ fic is a Juggernaut Ship with Fandom Favourite Bingo. it’s been up on AO3 for over 5 years at this point and has over 60K hits. Wowo! Big number! It has a kudos rate of 37%. So more than half of my readers didn’t kudos. Maybe I should have added more porn. It has 4300 comments. I wrote at least half of them! So it has a comment rate of just 3%.  Then again, if I blind search that ship tag and sort by comments, my fic is practically at the top of the list in a very crowded tag thanks to how chatty I get with readers. 

So is it more successful or less successful than my newest one? 

Most people (including the AO3 tool) would say looking at the number of hits and kudos and comments that this is by far and away my most successful story. I don’t agree. I think it’s my loudest story. 

The last time I did this exercise (a couple of years ago), the most successful fic in terms of return rate wasn’t ANY of the stories AO3 was trying to show me in my stats. At that time, it was a tiny little unfinished WIP about a witch completely buried by the others. Hardly anyone had read it, but the ones who did, liked it enough to be sure to tell me.

TL;DR, Numbers are garbage and you should ignore the numbers, but if you can’t (and it’s difficult not to notice ‘low’ numbers) just remember that big and low numbers by themselves don’t mean anything. Don’t let bias fool you into thinking your fic is failing. 

Statistically, it probably isn’t.

___

*** in fact  I went and checked a few fandoms and sorted by kudos. Here are the response rates for the top fics:

Sailor Moon: 4%

Discworld: 8%

Gundam Wing: 6% (I didn’t count the MCU fic.)

Harry Potter: 8%

Sherlock (TV): 9% (and the next 2 biggest, Big Name Fan fanfics; the career launching ones? Just 3% and 2% kudos rates.) 

[ziggystarsandmars]

This is all fascinating. I’ve never thought to look at things as a ratio before, and it changes my perception in decently healthy ways. (Although I still need to stop thinking about numbers.)

But even more than that, I love the distinction you draw between “loud” stories and “successful” stories. I think I’ve been equating loud and successful for a long time. And you do an excellent job of showing that I shouldn’t.

[matthewonart]

Non-Boring Environments that need Fantasy Representation

Tropical Rainforests

Scrubland/Dry Forests. For extra effect make them the sort that burn very often; some native plants never germinate until after a fire, and some animals not only rely on fire to smoke out prey, but may even start them themselves.

Savannas/Tropical Grasslands

Temperate Rainforests. I almost didn’t include this bc New Zealand is covered in them, and that’s where they filmed Lord of the Rings. But tbh, no one really knows about them, so it belongs here

Taiga Forests

Barren Tundra, perfect for some extreme seasonal dichotomy

Polar Ice Sheets

Desert-Grasslands (arguably the same as Scrubland but Australia’s good at adding its own twists)

Barren Desert

If you like Cacti, look at American Deserts like the Sonoran

Salt Flats

Soda Lakes and Alkaline Lakes

Madagascar’s Karst Limestone Formations

Madagascar’s Spiny Forests

Madagascar’s Baobab Forests

Madagascar’s Subhumid Forests (Madagascar is cool as hell ok)

Danxia Landforms

Badlands/Mountainous Deserts

Steppes and Highland Prairies

Flood Basalts

Newly-Formed Islands, still rife with Volcanic activity

Now for Underwater Environments, sure Coral Reefs are cool.

But there are SO MANY other kinds of environments for aquatic settings, it’s unbelievable:

Seaside Cliffs

Archipelagos. Not just Tropical Island chains like Polynesia (Moana anyone?) but also Coldwater Archipelagos like the Aleutians.

Tidal Flats

Bayous/Cypress Swamps

Tropical River Basins, AKA Seasonally Flooded Rainforests

Mangrove Swamps/Deltas/Beaches

Kelp Forests

The Open Ocean

Coastal Seabeds

Rocky Beaches with Tidepools

And there are a LOT more I could name but this post is already obscenely long as is, if you’d like to toss in your own go right ahead, but my point is if you limit yourself to European Deciduous Forests you’re a wimp.

[bookishdiplodocus]

Psychology for writers: first impressions matter

I was thinking about plotting, and about telling a story chronologically or not.

It reminded me of first impressions and the primacy effect. Solomon Asch studied this in the 1940s I think. The primacy effect shows us that we appoint more weight to information that we learn first than to information we learn later.

He studied this by giving two groups of people a list of personality traits. For example, group one is introduced to a woman, “This is Anna. She is beautiful, funny, spiteful and mean.” Group two, however, hears this: “This is Anna. She is mean, spiteful, funny and beautiful.”

The second list is of course the reverse of the first list. You would think that both people form the same impression of Anna, because they are given the same adjectives. But no. Group one had a more positive impression of Anna and were more prepared to forgive her for her meanness and spitefulness than group two.

This is how you can use the primacy effect for your characters:

Introduce your main character by showing her doing something good first.

If you plan to redeem a villain in the end and make your readers feel positive towards him, show him having some small positive traits first, for example petting his kitten.

If you want your readers to go, “I knew this character was bad even though everyone trusted him, I just had this feeling he’s up to no good!”, show him doing something bad first, like kicking the kitten, and then some good acts. (”I never forgave him for kicking that helpless kitten!”)

Flashbacks, flash forwards and other ways to tell your story non-chronologically can influence the impression your readers have of your characters compared to a linear, chronological story.

I hope this was helpful. Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, and happy writing!

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