Game Changer & Make Some Noise
Today's Document
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roma★
blake kathryn
Fai_Ryy
Xuebing Du
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cherry valley forever
Andulka
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Interview Vampire Daily
ellievsbear
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
occasionally subtle
d e v o n
🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
almost home
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
shark vs the universe
seen from United States
seen from United States
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seen from Belgium
seen from Angola
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seen from Norway
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@ravenfairwick-blog
Reblog if your Messages are open for Newbie Critters!
Seeing a ton of posts of people wanting to talk about critical role but having no one to talk to, and I’m sure there’s plenty of people that would love to hear fresh reactions!
Sure!
Writing the Dreaded Middle
@my-creative-poison asked: “I have always struggled with constructing a plot. I can come up with backstory and history and adventures and culture and basically everything that leads up to the plot of the novel but then I’m stuck on the story. So even if I can come up with the history of an entire country or character or basic plot, I’m suddenly stuck on what to do with that. It’s like I know the beginning and the ending but the middle never really comes together. What can I do to help move the story along?”
Personally, I’ve never dreaded middles. Endings, yes. Beginnings, oh yeah. But middles - that’s the fun, safe part. Things can build there and don’t actually have to be confronted. The middle is all about building tension and small developments that will get to the end.
Keep reading
Middle advice.
I've got a whole manuscript, and just now come to the realization that I don't have an overarching conflict. There's a protagonist who appears at the beginning, disappears while a new minor protag comes in, and then returns at the end--but that ends up creating more questions than answering them. Any suggestions? (I know I didn't give very much detail, sorry ): )
I think you’ve prompted a great topic anon :)
The Overarching Conflict
You talk about a lack of an overarching conflict. Let’s break that down to what that actually means. When we say a story has an overarching conflict, we’re talking about a conflict that is present throughout the whole story and contains all of the “plot stuff.” The plot stuff includes all your characters’ actions (protagonist, antagonist, and any and all minor characters), and any plot events. All of this “stuff” should be happening within your story’s main conflict.
Our anon is suggesting that their story breaks in the middle so that the overarching conflict is split momentarily, before it continues on down to the end, so that it looks like this:
The black rectangle is this interruption from the overarching conflict. It’s divergent plot information that leaves the main conflict and goes off somewhere else to create a brand new arc. Imagine if the black line disrupting our arc here goes straight up and then expands to become the bottom of a new arc. So you basically have a story that branches off into another story and may come back or may not come back.
This is what the anon thinks is going on, and yeah it’s not a great situation. But this may not be where you’re at, at all. Because there’s a difference between an interruption to your plot and an interruption to your conflict. So I’m suggesting that perhaps the anon is dealing with the situation in the graphic below. And if not, this is what they should strive to get to.
You can go off on as many tangents in your plot as you want, so long as it still is contained inside your conflict. What does that look like? Here’s an example.
In the Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet, the book begins from Watson’s perspective, as we usually expect. This is the first novel, so he meets Holmes and they begin investigating a case together. But about halfway through, the story suddenly flashes back 30 years to a setting we’ve yet to see with characters we’ve never met. It seems tangential, unrelated, and distant to the plot at hand. And yet, by the time this diversion comes back around to the present day, we now understand the context and motive of the story’s murder. The “tangent” worked because it was contributing to the conflict - the murder that Holmes and Watson were investigating.
It’s okay to switch points of view halfway through, and it’s okay to delve off into plot points that seem to go off on tangents, and it’s okay to completely turn your story on its head to pursue something unexpected. The key is keeping it within your story’s defined conflict. For all of these black rectangles that try to disrupt your plot, don’t let them break through the conflict boundary. They might form new mini-conflicts, and they might run amok inside the smaller circle under the arc, but as long as they stay inside that blue area in my graphic, you should be okay.
Cleaning up a Messy Ending
As for your concern that you’re raising too many new issues without resolving old ones, that’s just a matter of problem solving. As you’re heading into the downturn of your story’s overarching conflict (around the climax area), list everything that you see as unresolved. Don’t be afraid of how long this list is. A long list doesn’t necessarily mean that the story’s a mess. It just means it’ll take a little more thought to bring it all together. And you can bring it together!
For each item on your list of unresolved issues, think about a specific solution for each problem. Your goal is to develop solutions for each issue individually. Break it down piece by piece. Hells yes it’s overwhelming to plot an ending when you’ve got so many loose strings tangled up together. So isolate them. Try to untangle each string one at a time.
Then, once you’ve figured out how to tie up each loose end by itself, you can start to look at the bigger picture. And at this point, you might be able to see points where you can tie up two ends with one knot. Two unanswered questions may be resolved in one idea.
It’s a lot of work, so be patient with yourself. Immerse yourself in the process, and enjoy it! Working through these problems can be challenging, but also incredibly rewarding.
Good luck!
-Rebekah
Useful.
Quite a few people requested some form of trait/personality generator, and here’s the result! I wanted to keep it vague enough that the options could work for any universe, be it modern, fantasy, scifi, or anything else, so these are really just the basics. Remember that a character is much more than a list of traits, and this should only be used as a starting point– I tried to include a variety of things, but further development is definitely a must.
Could pair well with the gender and sexuality generator.
To Play: Click and drag each gif, or if that isn’t working/you’re on mobile, just take a screenshot of the whole thing (multiple screenshots may be required if you want more than one trait from each category).
Random personality generator!
Could be useful.
A Knife Betrayed (on Wattpad) http://my.w.tt/UiNb/mpCNDUiPCB Raised an orphan in a guild of thieves, Harwen knew nothing but a life of stealth and thievery. Presented with another option and a chance at freedom, she takes the risk. Betrayed by a once trusted ally, she becomes a knife in the dark.
Haven't written much in the last few years, but I feel it coming. Wouldn't have anything to do with starting to play FFXV now would it?
Every writer on Tumblr: “I would combust out of love if someone ever drew fanart of my fic!!” Me: “oh man I wanna draw this scene BUT THEY WOULD PROBABLY HATE IT AND HATE ME FOR THE NERVE”
Dear artists.
We, the writers, will accept any of your fan arts.
We don’t care if it looks like shit to you, or you think your art skills are not good enough.
We will love any fan art, because it’s the most beautiful way to say “I love what you write”.
This post right here.
I hate time travel
i love and fear the concept of time travel
And the muses stir.
how does one get into writing kindle erotica like i want to supplement my income plz help
y’all go to this website, sign up, fill out some tax crap
write about 5000 words of porn or more - 3000 or more also acceptable, but you don’t really want to go under that. don’t tab to indent, i swear to god, it fucks with amazon’s formatting so bad. don’t write any porn that’d send you to jail IRL, amazon naturally (and thank god) doesn’t accept that shit.
on the ‘bookshelf’ tab, you click ‘add new title’, fill out everything, upload a cover - you can get one free image a month (or maybe a week now, i dunno) from bigstock.com if you need some stock images of people’s abs and stuff but can’t put cash down for anything just yet - and amazon has a cover making application built right into the process too to make things easier or if you don’t know shit about photoshop or whatever.
then you upload the document itself. click save and continue. choose how much you want your title to cost - 2.99 is generally what most people price theirs at, because that’s where amazon’s 70 percent royalties starts at. enroll in kindle select if you want that 70 percent royalties to apply to the whole world, so you’re getting the same royalties no matter where you sell.
then you hit publish and wait and wait and wait and wait for amazon to actually publish the fucking thing.
then you wait 60 days after the end of the month to get your royalties! don’t know why, but that’s how amazon rolls.
and you just keep making more and more titles in the meanwhile to build up that income cuz you’re not likely to make a lot from just one title.
there’s no real ‘gatekeepers’ in kindle erotica - you just start writing and publishing and you keep doing it and building up a library. some genres/kinks/niches sell better than others, and trends come and go, but it’s really all up to you - to do the writing, the publishing, the marketing, and then more writing and publishing. you just keep at it, bit by bit. this is a market where it’s really all about quantity… the bigger your library is, the more sales you’ll start to rack up, building like a snowball. even better if you release titles on like a regular schedule. ideally you want to put up like 2 titles a week, but 1 a week is a good initial goal to shoot for.
you can also go to amazon’s author central to set up an author page to get all your titles in one place and help build a reader base/link readers and buyers in general to.
godspeed anon!
rairii:
kijikun:
lizawithazed:
hm.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
adding in my own hmmmmms
… I am seriously considering this. And also considering getting a proper pen name
Okay literally I’m reblogging this for the erotica how-to but also this is how Amazon self-pub works no matter what you write, like subject-wise, this is it for everything. OFC it doesn’t cover stuff like editing, cover art, marketing or pre-orders (Amazon used to have a pretty brutal pre-order deadline system, but they seem to be relaxing it after the last update? I can’t tell for absolute sure?), but in a bare-bones nutshell, yes, this is universal, and good information.
(I haven’t done Amazon Select because I like to get my stuff in with other sellers like Barnes and Noble/iBooks/Kobo - bc some people don’t buy from Amazon, and Select means you can’t sell anywhere but Amazon, in exchange for some extra promotional tools. If you want to do this, I suggest looking into the distributor ‘Draft2Digital,’ it’s a very easy all-in-one free service. Smashwords is also an indie standard, but more difficult to work with; I feel Ways about Smashwords.)
But yes, if you just want to do Amazon self-pub, this is a very good basic start.
So just a heads up for anyone who may not be familiar with taxes!
Amazon pays you as an independent contractor/self-employed, which means a couple of things. First, it means that the income you receive from Amazon will not be taxed! You’ll receive the full amount of whatever you earn from your sales, instead of the chopped up paycheck most employees are used to seeing.
This does not mean you don’t owe taxes! Sometime in January following the year you earn money from them, Amazon will send you a 1099-misc form listing the total amount of income you received in the previous year. If you use TurboTax/etc, it will walk you through how to input that, so don’t worry about that!
Here’s the stuff to note: If you makes less than $600 during the year, Amazon is not required to send you a 1099, but you are still supposed to report the income. The chance of you being audited for owing the IRS less than $100 is probably slim (it is barely worth what it costs to audit someone), but please take note and report the income as needed!
And the biggest thing!!!! Because your income is not being taxed upfront, it means you will OWE taxes come the following year!!! Self-employment tax is 15.3% (which you will notice is MUCH LOWER than what gets taken out of your employee/W2-based paycheck), so you will owe AT LEAST that the following year (more if you make TONS of money). Now if you are working as an employee, there’s a good chance that any money you owe will be cancelled out by whatever extra money the government took from your employee paycheck during the year.
BUT. If you earn a significant amount of self-employment income, or self-employment is your ONLY form of income, you will owe the government money in April!
The smartest thing to do when you earn any sort of self-employment income is to put 20% of that paycheck into a separate savings accounts. Just put it there and leave it there. If you can get a savings account with good interest, even better, but not necessary! That way when your taxes come due in April of the following year, you aren’t scrambling for money to pay them; the money will be sitting right there in your savings account!
Also, being self-employed allows you to report deductions for stuff, so you might want to look into that too, because it’ll save you money. After you pay your taxes, any money left in the account is yours to do whatever you want with!
source: I’ve been filing a 1099 as my sole source of income for about 4 years now (about to be 5)
Interesting.
Keyleth
I managed to fuck this up on so many levels but also spent too much time on it to shove it into the scrap folder, you feel me?
P.S: I am making a conscious attempt number 99 at having a public twitter. You can follow here
This is gorgeous!
If you like Dungeon Inspiration, you might like Character Portraits
Bad ass dungeon.
Re-blog if you can write in cursive.
I heard cursive is dying. I want to see who still uses it.
I can. When my son went to school, they told me the school was no longer teaching it because, "there are no cursive letters on a keyboard."
Beautiful.
HEY, Romance Writers!
A few followers have asked for tips on writing romance into their stories or as the basis of their stories. Here’s a list of sources that might help out.
Romance:
Top 10 Tips on How to Write Romance
How to Plot a Romance Novel
How to Build a Romance Thread in Your Story
9 Romance Writing Mistakes to Avoid
An Antidote to “Love at First Sight”
6 Ways to Get Your Readers Shipping Like Crazy
Seven Great Sources of Conflict for Romances
7 (Common Types of) Female Love Interests
20 Tips for Writing Lovable Romance Novel Heroes
Six Steps to Stronger Character Arcs in Romances
How do I write an interracial couple accurately? (ask)
Romantic Development/Compatibility (ask)
80+ Barriers to Love: A List of Ideas to Keep Romantic Tension High
50 Conversations To Have Before You Get Married
Bad Romance:
Removing the Creeps From Romance
- Why The Surprise Kiss Must Go
10 Signs You May Be in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship
Edward & Bella Are In An Abusive Relationship
General Tips for Writing Characters Love Interests:
5 Tips to Help You Introduce Characters
How to Write from a Guy’s POV
Writing Awesome Male Characters: What You’re Doing Wrong
How Do You Describe a Character?
4 Ways to Make Readers Instantly Loathe Your Character Descriptions
3 Signs Your Story’s Characters Are Too Perfect
Is a Quirk Just What Your Character Needs?
Six Types of Character Flaws
Is Your Character Optimistic Or Pessimistic?
5 Ways to Keep Characters Consistent
9 Simple and Powerful Ways to Write Body Language
10 Body Language Tricks for Deeper Characterization
Describing People Part Three: Gestures, Expressions, and Mannerisms
33 Ways To Write Stronger Characters
Conveying Character Emotion
Distinguishing Characters in Dialogue
How to Make Readers Love an Unlikable Character…
Characters: Likability Is Overrated
How to Create Powerful Character Combos
Plus:
Five Signs Your Story Is Sexist: Part 1, Part 2
Five Signs Your Story Is Sexist – Against Men
Useful.
CONFESSION:
I always name my Origins mabari Beefcake or Beefy. And I always name my DA2 mabari some form of bird after their owner like Raven or Pigeon. And then there are the other times I name them Kitty. I’d love to hear in the comments what everyone names their mabaris!
Named all my mabaris Scion.
OVER 300 DOWNLOADABLE & PRINTABLE D&D CARDS!
I made over 300 of these bad boys to better help new players understand equipment or simply to add a more organized way of playing. All equipment, items, gear, vehicles, weapons, and armor are included in the free PDF with the google drive link below.
PDF DOWNLOAD https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzlzB4FzIyPQenZJaE00aV93VlU/view?usp=sharing
For more D&D fun stuff like this join my Facebook group page. “DUNGEON MASTER PAUL WEBER” or click on this link. https://www.facebook.com/groups/dmweber/
Need these.
After hours spent in target he decided he wanted a fancy tree and then topped it with Finn
He was very proud of what he made and wanted me to share it ❄️❄️❄️❄️
This child is to pure for this world
this is Christmas baby reblog him and you’ll have a wonderful Christmas
Loved this!
