natalie’s writeblr @reflxtionswrites - Tumblr Blog

sexy character concept to me: liars who lie & perform and when they are told to stop performing they start lying in a different way and you try to get to the bottom of the layers upon layers of half-truths to find The Truth and when you think you’ve finally gotten to it it’s a blank piece of paper that says 404 not found

thestuffedalligator

“I thought this city didn’t have any gods.”

The pigeon grinned a beak full of dog’s teeth. “Ha. They say there aren’t. They even kept most of them out for a while.”

“How did you make it?”

“By being smart. By hiding.”

She gave the one-legged, feral feathered thing a sideways look. “As a pigeon?”

“Sometimes,” said the pigeon. “Sometimes I’m graffiti on a wall. Sometimes I’m a coin dropped in a beggar’s hand. I am neon at night, the rain in the light. I am the song the busker sings. I listen to the prayers of those who come to the city with big dreams.”

“And in return?”

It grinned again. Steam rolled off its feathers, smelling of cigarettes. “I eat their despair.”

“That’s cruel.”

It moved its wings in something like a shrug. “That’s the big city for you.”

the-haiku-bot

It moved its wings in

something like a shrug. “That’s the

big city for you.”

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

mostlymaudlin

if you're worried about repetitive sentence starters in narrative writing (ie: frequently starting with "I" or a pov character's name), i think the most important thing to focus on is not the kind of words you're using, but rather the moving parts in your story that are being highlighted.

english is best suited for a subject (I) - verb (wrote) - object (this) sentence structure; that's the format that the reader will inhale without noticing, easy as breathing. it's also the easiest for you to write (hence, your draft full of sentences starting with pronouns). for a lot of the delivery of your story, you should be in that "stealth mode" so that the lines you want noticed can really leap off the page in comparison. messing with the subject-verb-object pattern signals to the reader that there's something to notice, and writing is awkward when it's full of sentences that say, "look at me!"

if you're worried about variation of sentence starters, you want to zoom out on the narrative and think about the scene you are trying to show, or the point you are trying to make. let's do an example from my own writing:

That’s not all true. Baz had already mapped out the best regular flights from Heathrow to LAX. He was talking about weekend trips in the middle and FaceTime date ideas he’d found on Pinterest. It filled Simon with dread. Baz wasn’t taking any of it seriously. As silly as the role was, everyone knew Bad Blood was going to be huge. Baz was the exciting, fresh face joining a star-studded cast for the most audience-friendly teen vampire show in history. Simon wasn’t going to let him blow it.

all the blue sentences follow, in general, that subject-verb-object pattern. the pink sentence is the outlier, and it's also the most significant line in the paragraph; in this story, this is the moment where you finally learn simon's motivation for previously breaking up with baz. the rest of the sentences all start with a noun, but they're different nouns based on what needs to be said.

here's another way this could be written:

Simon knows that's not all true. He'd watched Baz map out the best regular flights from Heathrow to LA and look up FaceTime date ideas. Simon worried that Baz wasn't taking it seriously. He knew Bad Blood would be huge, despite the concept being silly. But Simon knew Baz was the exciting, fresh face joining a star-studded cast for the most audience-friendly, sexy teen vampire show in history. Simon wasn't going to let him blow it.

this probably looks more similar to the kind of paragraph people get nervous about. simon simon simon -- like, stfu man! what's really happening is just that simon is not the best subject for all of these sentences. it's true that "simon knows" and "simon watched" and "simon knew," but we already know all that, because we know we're in his head. when you look at paragraphs like these, you want to identify the true subject of your sentences. even in the most introspective of paragraphs (like the above example), the narrator is usually not the Most Important Noun.

let's do one more example for when you're writing really menial tasks -- this is where i most commonly have this problem:

Andrew turns on the TV, puts the volume almost all the way down, and crouches in front of the DVD collection. His fingers trail along the spines for a moment before he pulls a case from the shelf. The player swallows the disc as Andrew crosses the room to turn out the lights. Tinged blue in the shadows, he comes to stand in front of Neil again, hand extended in demand.

so, same thing: the subjects, the nouns taking action, are andrew, his fingers, the dvd player, and then andrew again with a modifier. the first time i wrote this, i'm sure "andrew" or "he" was the start of every sentence, because my man is just doing his lil task here and sometimes that's not the most exciting thing to write. but again: it's not all about him! other nouns deserve the spotlight. the last sentence breaks the pattern, but it's also the completion of the task: he has successfully set the movie-watching scene, and this sentence is transitioning us to them watching the movie.

there's lots of ways to write and i definitely don't have all the answers, but i do think that any writing advice that asks you to focus on mechanics rather than structure will ultimately not help you solve the root of bad writing habits. when i write, i'm thinking: what's the main player noun in the action taking place? that's what becomes the subject of my sentence, so my starters are naturally a lot more varied. it's less intimidating to think about the purpose of your story (which you're already excited about!) when you're writing than it is to put that focus on mechanics.

good luck! you've got this!!

jailforwriter

Getting inspired to write is actually really easy! All you need to do is be the busiest you've ever been in your entire life and as far away from a computer as humanly possible. Hope this helps 🥰

#relatable

"questions I'd ask my mother if only they wouldn't upset her:

Why is there grief in me like a thread, corded through the thick of me, in every part that matters? Why is it always there, pulling in my muscles and keeping me tight, no bigger than a spider's web but ten thousand times as strong? When will it ease? When the tensions of me start to stretch out, when I get so used to it I can finally make some ground against it? When I get stronger? Or is this as strong as I'll get against it? This push and pull, and the wash of a younger body being remembered.

Did you love me when I was the worst of myself? How did you do that? How does anyone? But mostly, how do I? I never learned your patience, certainly not your quiet. But I never wanted to until now, when my own terror is thrashing around the ruins of a life I thought I might actually be able to build. And it's not too late for me, but it's about to be.

Did you ever feel light like this, like I can? Did you ever look at the sky and feel swallowed, did you ever stare at the ridges of your fingertips over the candle, did you ever see death in the fire that made you want to smile? Did you scream at the ocean like I did? Or at least talk to it? If not, I can for the both of us. I just hoped maybe this empty happiness came from somewhere, and you always were keeping one eye to the birds.

Who would you cry for, if your thread was cut tomorrow? I always said it'd be you, but of course, it's you. My mother, my creator, my everything. But who would your heart curl around in the face of emptiness? Does it now? Did it ever?"

- letters to someone listening: two, Natalie Brandt

#letters to someone listening #natalie brandt #writing #personal #journal #poem #prose #writer #writeblr #mine #my writing #poetry #musing #grief #motherhood #love #childhood #essay #memoir

"Sometimes I don’t know if you’re real or not. And not in that romantic way where being around you is like dreaming, but in the way that I blink and everything is as it was before you. I am alone in my car, parked in the lot, reading a book when all the stores have closed. I am waiting for the laundry to be done at a laundromat I didn’t know existed before I met you, but you’re not with me right now, and I can almost convince myself you never were. I’ll go home to you in an hour, I’ll eat the dinner you make and walk through a house that wasn't always mine. Our days feel like walking through a world I imagined when I was thirteen years old, one I held so tightly to myself that it felt real then. And it does, now, too sometimes. But sometimes I disappear, slipping into it all. I can’t keep track of who’s telling this story. Is it me? Or someone else? Did I hear this at a family dinner party once? Did I dream it in the dark of my childhood bedroom, laying on the floor, reaching one hand into the ether? Are the arms of your life around mine something I found or something I made? Maybe I'm still shut into that room, staring at suburbia out the window, feeling around a future I can't be sure of like it's the only thing keeping me from losing my mind. Maybe I have school tomorrow. Maybe the neighbors are about the cut down the big pine on the hill. Maybe this skyline will never be the same again. Did you exist before I met you, and how can I be sure? Where did it all go, the fabric of time that I used to be able to touch, the roughness of a change? A point where I stopped and you began. But there is none because I slipped into you or you into me so easily that it doesn’t feel like much of anything happened at all. We're talking in the car and I've seen you every day this week, but I didn't even know you two years ago. I've been talking to you in the car my whole life. I've been looking into those eyes, my eyes, your eyes. Wake up. The dry cycle will be done soon. The sun is dipping out the window screen. Mom is calling for dinner. There is too much traffic on the way home from work. The phone is about to ring. I am fighting with my friends at school. I am losing something. I am waiting. Waiting. I am tired of not knowing where I'm going. All of these moments connected, all of them waiting for something they always seemed to have. And you've always been there, somewhere, here, at the house with the light on."

- letters to someone listening: one, Natalie Brandt

#letters to someone listening #writing #prose #poetry #journal #personal #writer #fiction #creative nonfiction #cnf #short fiction #writeblr #poet #musing #original #mine #original writing

thebellekeys

bitches who love both fashion and books will create an entire fictional fantasy world just because they wanna picture their OC's in their favorite ethereal couture looks and have it fit the fantasy world's society

#i’m bitches

headspace-hotel

I changed the font and spacing to reread my first draft and it’s a totally legit trick but also it’s so funny how much of writing is just playing mind games with yourself. Stuck on the blank page? Write a grocery list! Words won’t come? Switch to writing on a yellow legal pad! Having trouble working consistently? Create a daily writing ritual! Is everything just Bad? Write in Comic Sans! Set a timer! Set a weird deadline! Write 1000 words EXACTLY, no more and no less! Mess with the font colors! Get up early! Stay up late! Dress up to do your writing! Or write naked!

the writer’s brain is just a puzzle toy that we have to turn over and over in every direction to get the Creativity to fall out

#advice

alphacrone

bitches be like Ooh it’s November First I’m gonna write a whole fucking novel this month despite having lost control over every other aspect of my life. it’s me. i’m bitches.

#happy nanoooooooo

aye-write

#lollllll #relate

lifewithoutcosette-deactivated2

parliamentrook

it takes a long time to learn this, I still struggle with it

#!!!

salt-and-a-dash-of-pepper

Advice from an (Amateur) Archer on Writing About Archers and Archery

Admittedly, I don’t have the widest range of experience when it’s come to archery. I’ve only been shooting for a year now, and the time that I do take to shoot have long months between them. Still, I think it’s important to outline the basics for anyone who wants to write an archer in their book and wants to save themselves the embarrassment of having the archer do something that an archer would never do in a million years.

- Archers usually unstring their bow after battle. Unstringing a bow is exactly what it sounds like: removing the string from the bow’s limbs. Usually, archers then wrap the string around the now-straightened bow so they don’t lose it as easily. Archers unstring bows because everytime the limbs are bent by the string, there is a large amount of tension in the limbs. If the string is on too long and the bow has not been shot for a while, the limbs will start to wear down and lose their power, resulting in an archer needing to buy new limbs or an entirely new bow.

- Archers always retrieve their arrows after battle. Arrows are expensive and take a long time to make, so archers want to conserve as many arrows as possible. Sometimes they have a repair kit with them at the ready, in case they find an arrow with a loose arrowhead or broken fletching that can easily be repaired.

- Training arrows are not the same as battle arrows. Training arrows have thinner shafts and usually blunted tips so they can easily be removed from targets. Thinner shafts break more easily, and the blunted tips – whilst they can pierce skin – usually won’t get very far in the flesh. They’re also easier to make. Battle arrows are thicker, and their heads are pointed at the tip and have two pointed ends at its sides. This arrowhead is designed to easily pierce through flesh, and is incredibly difficult to pull out because its two pointed ends snag onto flesh. If you want to pull it out, you’d have to tear the flesh away with it, which can lead to an even larger wound.

- Arrows are fatal, and one can incapacitate a soldier for the rest of his life. Arrows are not easily snapped off like you see in movies. The draw weight is too strong, and they can sometimes be as strong as bullets. They will pierce through bone and tendons, which do not easily heal. Furthermore, if you want to remove an arrow, you either have to go through surgery, parting the flesh away from the arrowhead so it doesn’t snag onto anything, or you have you push – not pull – it all the way through the body.

- Bows are not designed for hitting people with in close combat. The limbs are specifically made to flex. Imagine hitting someone with a flexing piece of wood. If you hit with the middle of the bow, it still does very little because there is no weight behind the bow, and so you might as well be hitting them with a pillow. It might be annoying to the opponent, but it won’t save you. Archers need a secondary blade in close combat. They cannot strike people with their bows and expect to win.

- Draw weight affects speed, range, and impact. Draw weight is measured in pounds, at least in America, and it is measured in how much weight must be pulled when you draw back the string. A high draw weight means stiffer, thicker limbs that can shoot further and hit harder. But, this is at the cost of speed. A low draw weight means thinner, more flexible limbs that can shoot smaller distances and have low impact, but can be shot faster. Before you acrobatic fanatics immediately seize the smaller bow for its speed, understand that a bow’s advantage is in its range. No one can hit an archer from 300 meters away with their spear or sword. The archer has complete dominance over the battlefield in this way, and their arrows can kill anyone who gets too close. Not hurt. Not annoy. Kill. And a higher draw weight means a better chance of piercing through specific armor, then flesh, then bone. A lower draw weight means less range and, even worse, a lower chance that the arrow would even pierce through armor if the arrow even hits its target.

- Bows will always be outmatched in close combat against any other weapon. Bows take too long to draw and shoot, and at such close range, the opponent has an easier chance to dodge oncoming arrows. I already explained that the bows themselves cannot be used to take down a foe.

- Bowmen on horseback are utterly terrifying. Archers usually can’t move from their spot because range is more important than mobility, and at such a long range, you usually don’t need to move from your spot anyways. Bowmen on horses, however, are closer to the battle, and worse, they are faster than almost anyone on the battlefield. Not only are they difficult to hit, you have no way of predicting where they will shoot next because they can circle around you in confusing ways. If you want an interesting archer character, I’d advise trying these guys out.

- Never underestimate armor and padding. Arrows will never be able to pierce through plate armor because its curved surface will always deflect oncoming arrows. Arrows can pierce through maille because maille is made out of metal rings that can be bent and can fall away. However, padding usually lies underneath, which is surprisingly durable and can stop an oncoming arrow, as well as absorb some of its impact. Because of this, make certain that the archer is focusing on gabs in the armor. To know this, you MUST study armor. Gabs usually lie where the joints are because soldiers need those gabs open so they can move. Typical gaps lie in the neck, the armpit, the inner-elbow, the knees, and the palm of the hand. Impact is also an archer’s friend. A war arrow shot by a hundred pound bow, hurtling at incredible speeds and gaining momentum the further it travels, can evoke serious damage. To be hit by one of these arrows will feel more like being hit by a horse than being hit by someone’s fist.

salt-and-a-dash-of-pepper

More facts:

- Archers should never rest the tip of their bow on the ground. Dirt and dust can wear away the tip, which in turn can eat away at where the string notch is. If the string notch is worn away in any shape or form, the string can fall off or the bow not shoot correctly.

- ARCHERS SHOULD NEVER LEAN ON THEIR BOW. This is the same as keeping the bow strung when you’re not using it. Leaning on the bow causes the limbs to flex, which can be damaging when you’re not shooting anything.

- Never shoot a bow when there is no arrow notched. This is known as “dry firing,” and is incredibly damaging to the bow. Because there is no arrow to transfer the energy of the shot through, the energy instead shivers down the bow. If it is a strong enough energy, the bow can shatter.

- When any archer is shooting at a target, everyone is instructed to stand beside or behind the archer. This is common safety sense, as archers’ fingers might slip and the arrow is shot in a different direction than intended.

- It is incredibly rude, as well as dangerous, to shoot near another person simply to show one’s skill. Unless the person voluntarily agreed with the archer to stand in place and is willing to be shot, it is incredibly rude to shoot near someone to prove one’s skill. It would be the same as a gunman shooting at another person to prove he can hit a can at their elbow. The gunman, as well as the archer, would be thrown behind bars.

- Archers use an “anchor point” to aim. Archers rest either their index or middle finger at their chin or the side of their lip when drawing the bow. This is known as their “anchor point,” and it is used to steady the hand as well as aim. If an archer does NOT use an anchor point, his shot can go wild. If you see actors holding their fingers behind their chin and hanging in the air, you’ll know that they are not an archer.

- It is both unnecessary and damaging to pull the bow’s string further than your chin. It has a higher chance of breaking or bending irreversibly than shooting further, faster, or higher by drawing the bow string further.

- You use your back muscles the most when drawing a bow. Most people assume that you’re using primarily your arm muscles. Whilst the muscles in your arms are incorporated, the back muscles are used to pull back the weight of the bow moreso than your arms.

- It is easier to swing a sword than shoot a bow. I’m certainly not talking about skill or practice. Swords and bows each have their own difficulties to overcome, but there is a common misconception that bows are lighter than swords. The weight of a sword varies, but most sit between 2 to 5 pounds and are well balanced so you don’t feel the weight of the sword pulling at your tendons. Bows, on the other hand, have a draw weight that varies from 20 to 100 pounds, sometimes more. Whilst different muscles are used to do different things, it’s clear that bows take far more strength than expected to use.

- A proper bow needs proper care. Damages are common after use, no matter what you do. The string may fray, the string’s nock locator might fall off, the arrow rest may wear down, and so on. Archers, therefore, should bring wax, which keeps the string from fraying, an extra nock locator, and perhaps a kit that can either repair the arrow rest or replace the entire thing.

- It really effing hurts when the string strikes your forearm. Because of this, bracers are a thing. Anyone who has shot a bow knows exactly what I’m talking about. Sometimes when you shoot and your forearm is angled a certain way, the string can strike the soft flesh of your forearm when you loose an arrow. Understand that it stings like fire, and does not die down until half an hour, sometimes more. To combat this, most archers wear bracers, which clasp around their forarms and protect them from the string. Experienced archers know how to angle their forearm away from the string so they are never struck.

#research #weapons #archers

writing-with-melon

Writers,

Writing is rewriting, always and forever.

Actually that’s the beauty of it, I think. Because it’s maleable, flows freely, and it’s just as alive as you are. And to be alive is to be in a constant state of change. And writing should change as you progress because change is good.

You should rewrite as many times as you want and need. It’s part of the process to transform, destroy and create again.

And the more you do it, the better you get at it. You learn to diferenciate what needs changing and what must simply be.

A good writer is one that has molded and kneaded their writing countless times until they have made with it the combination of words that work best. Because good writing is taking the alphabet and rearranging it many times over to get the perfect combination to tell a story and make it come a live.

Writing is rewriting, always and forever.

#motivation

inkskinned

good writing is about consequence. and too often writers are misunderstanding "consequence" as being "either death or marriage". consequence is way more often things that are small. it's effective because it's small. part of the reason media can feel trite or unfair is because consequence shouldn't feel random, unjust, or untethered in the fiction.

"game of thrones" did consequence right at first. the red wedding scene is effective because it was following a tangible, visible series of plot events. it was a consequence. by the end of the series, consequences were actually random - we cannot track why/where/when things are happening, because they aren't related to each other with followable consequence. unfortunately, writers saw the red wedding and understood: chaos is an acceptable force in a narrative, rather than chaos needs some grounding in the real.

this is "gotcha" media's problem. it's why so many "twists" feel stupid rather than shocking - because consequences are predictable, and if they're not, they run the risk of making the writing completely asinine.

it's totally fair to have characters die or have everyone end up alone or whatever else you need to do. but it needs to make sense. and it should start on the smaller end of things. you and i are probably not people that can influence anyone on a global scale, so having someone experience a consequence personally (like your hands shaking too badly to eat) feels more real and vivid than just... some vague, huge, random world that anything can happen in. how are we supposed to buy into a fiction that doesn't even allow itself any kind of rules?

anyway. if you're a writer please include consequence. it'll help. okay love u bye

#tips #plot

thejakeformerlyknownasprince

Writing advice #?: Have your characters wash the dishes while they talk.

This is one of my favorite tricks, picked up from E.M. Forester and filtered through my own domestic-homebody lens. Forester says that you should never ever tell us how a character feels; instead, show us what those emotions are doing to a character’s posture and tone and expression. This makes “I felt sadness” into “my shoulders hunched and I sighed heavily, staring at the ground as my eyes filled with tears.” Those emotions-as-motions are called objective correlatives. Honestly, fic writers have gotten the memo on objective correlatives, but sometimes struggle with how to use them.

Objective correlatives can quickly become a) repetitive or b) melodramatic. On the repetitive end, long scenes of dialogue can quickly turn into “he sighed” and “she nodded” so many times that he starts to feel like a window fan and she like a bobblehead. On the melodramatic end, a debate about where to eat dinner can start to feel like an episode of Jerry Springer because “he shrieked” while “she clenched her fists” and they both “ground their teeth.” If you leave the objective correlatives out entirely, then you have what’s known as “floating” dialogue — we get the words themselves but no idea how they’re being said, and feel completely disconnected from the scene. If you try to get meaning across by telling us the characters’ thoughts instead, this quickly drifts into purple prose.

Instead, have them wash the dishes while they talk.

To be clear: it doesn’t have to be dishes. They could be folding laundry or sweeping the floor or cooking a meal or making a bed or changing a lightbulb. The point is to engage your characters in some meaningless, everyday household task that does not directly relate to the subject of the conversation.

This trick gives you a whole wealth of objective correlatives. If your character is angry, then the way they scrub a bowl will be very different from how they’ll be scrubbing while happy. If your character is taking a moment to think, then they might splash suds around for a few seconds. A character who is not that invested in the conversation will be looking at the sink not paying much attention. A character moderately invested will be looking at the speaker while continuing to scrub a pot. If the character is suddenly very invested in the conversation, you can convey this by having them set the pot down entirely and give their full attention to the speaker.

A demonstration: