#story hook

[gawrkin]

So, hear me out... what if one of the reasons Morgan le Fay went so far as to assassinate her husband Urien is because he broke a taboo Morgan imposed on him, perhaps even three times?

In folklore, there is a recurring trope of the "Fairy Bride" - where a man, through various circumstances depending on the tale, manages to land himself a fairy woman as a wife. However, a stipulation is made that so as long as the man doesn't break a certain condition - such as "Don't strike three blows on the wife" or "Don't gaze upon the wife while she's giving birth" - the marriage would be maintained. Inevitably in these sorts of stories, the man ultimately breaks the taboo, thus the marriage is cancelled and the fairy wife magically leaves him forever.

Given that Morgan is the archetypal Fairy Queen in literature and the fact that, in most narratives, Morgan didn't really choose to marry Urien of her own free will, it is believable that Morgan would try to impose a condition or a set of conditions on Urien so that she could feel comfortable with the union. I could just imagine Morgan cooking up a set of rules so vaguely worded, Urien would break them invariably, one way or another.

This could serve as an explanation for why Morgan waited so long to enact her assassination attempt that, by the time it happens, Ywain is already a young man. Perhaps, in the beginning, Morgan was just "fine" with being hitched to a man she didn't love, but was slowly losing patience over time, with each violation of the taboo, intentionally or unintentionally. And then Urien breaks the last straw just recently, so now Morgan has the excuse to enact her murder plot of Urien (and Arthur, the person who brokered the marriage in the first place)

[fictseed]

Prompt: The Bloom Child

After having been lost for several days, a young child has been found among strange blooms and brought seeds home with them. Now, only days after their return, their home is covered in the same strange blooms. The flowers are continuing to spread rapidly. What are these flowers? How is the child affected by these plants? What are the parents’ concerns? What are the neighbors’ concerns?

[dungeonmalcontent]

A pacifist order or monks are given a sacred blade to guard. The sword once belonged to a holy warrior of pure heart and powerful spirit. Only a similar warrior can weld it. It is a covered weapon and the monks vow to guard it.

There is, of course, a problem. If a violent marauder with a heart of pure evil and an indomitable spirit were to barge in and seek the sword they could just take it. The monks can't fight that kind of person off either, they're pacifists.

So they conduct a holy ritual to seal the blade within a great boulder. Only a worthy warrior may remove the blade and worthiness is deemed by the order of monks through a series of trials.

Downside, the monks can't really stop anyone from attempting the trials. The trials are quickly duplicates off-site by a band of thieves so they can be completed by a powerful thief before they can break in and steal the sword. The monks catch wind of this and they have to figure out a better method to protect the sword on the fly. But they dot have many more resources, they don't have time for a ritual.

But they do have a gift shop that sells decent replicas.

The thieves arrive, their captain having co.pleted the trials and meeting the standard of worthiness of the monks and is pure of heart (pure greed) and has powerful spiritual energy. However, when they come upon the chamber with the boulder and the sword they find that three more boulders have been added. All four in the room are poked full of swords that all look almost exactly the same. Any one of them could be the real thing. It would take hours to remove them all by hand, enchanted or otherwise. By the time the thieves could do so, the monks could call the city guard and the thieves would have to put up a real fight against a tremendous number of trained soldiers.

The monks follow up on this after the thieves leave and admit defeat. They add more swords, they conduct more rituals on the boulders themselves so that only trial worthy individuals can take any of the swords. More swords are jammed into all the walls (internal and external) of the monastery. Even the grounds are littered with them. They are all gradually enchanted with a spell that gives the false magical fingerprint of the real sword.

After a hundred years thieves just stop coming.

[novlr]

Get your premise right

A story premise is the hook that draws a reader in and should include your main character, their goal, and your story’s conflict.

When querying agents, your premise is the single most important element of your submission. So make it count!

[educationaldm]

An entrance to the Fey Realm?

[teceladashistorias]

O "gancho" da sua história.

Um gancho é exatamente como soa. É a primeira e a única coisa que vai conseguir capturar totalmente a atenção do seu leitor e o puxar com vontade para dentro da sua história.

Todas as histórias precisam de um gancho, mesmo aquelas únicas de um capítulo, ou as grandes de vários livros. Não é uma questão de se você precisa de um gancho e sim como criar um.

As primeiras palavras da sua história são provavelmente as mais difíceis que você irá escrever, então se você se sente intimidado para começar um livro saiba que não está sozinho. Mas apesar de ser um processo assustador na mente de muitos, na prática "criar um gancho" consegue ser algo bem simples. O que você precisa para superar isso? Bem, a primeira dica é faça a pergunta certa para descobrir qual é o gancho que move sua história.

Sendo bem direta, um gancho é nada mais e nada menos do que o conflito interno (seja do seu personagem, seja do plot em geral), e o que é o conflito interno? Desejo vs Medo.

Muitos autores pensam que o gancho é aquela combinação louca de eventos que vai guiar seus personagens na sua história, e não está totalmente errado, mas também não chega a ser verdade. Um gancho é a extensão do balanço entre o que é essencial para a história e o que dá vontade de ler.

Pense aqui comigo: Nos primeiros capítulos, os leitores não estão nem aí para a cor favorita do seu personagem, os hobbies que ele tem ou as coisas que gosta de vestir, porque essas coisas são muito específicas, e você só se interessa sobre elas quando é por alguém que você se importa. Como autor, é importante que você queira que o leitor se importe com sua história, então qual é a única coisa que independente de nossos gostos pessoais todos conseguem se relacionar? Conflito interno. Desejo vs Medo. Todo mundo sofre de conflito interno, até mesmo você que está lendo isso. Todos nós temos as coisas que desejamos, nossos objetivos de vida (grandiosos ou não) e nossa determinação, mas também temos aquela vozinha na nossa cabeça que faz com que hesitemos em tomar algumas das decisões mais importantes, e essa voz é o medo.

Conflito interno é parte da condição de vida humana, e se você quer ter personagens que pareçam humanos então vocês precisam ter isso na história também. E essa é a chave para que os leitores se importem com a história, fazendo eles se importarem com os personagens, isso por si só já alimenta metade do seu gancho.

Importante: Ao fazer o desenvolvimento de um personagem que segure o leitor, você não quer que o leitor pense "O que eu faria nessa situação? O que eu sentiria nessa situação? Como eu reagiria?" e sim que o leitor esteja imerso na história de outra pessoa, como se o personagem fosse alguém real, e sentisse empatia pelo conflito. Você quer que o leitor pense "O que eu faria se eu fosse esse personagem?", reconhecendo seu personagem como um indivíduo próprio e ao mesmo tempo querendo se conectar com a história.

Faça a pergunta certa: O que minha/meu protagonista acha que irá lhe trazer felicidade e contentamento? E como os medos dela/e estão impedindo essa felicidade de ser alcançada?

Você pode fazer o que quiser na sua história, contanto que você consiga mostrar o porquê que aquelas coisas importam para a vida de seu personagem.

[thescryingeye]

The party stumbles across a small mining town that appears to be mostly deserted. The few people that remain are gaunt and carry an air of desperation around them. They don’t have much kindness for strangers, watching the party with clear mistrust.

The leader of the small town is a gruff half orc, she warns the party of the danger lurking around town. Strange whispers that come in the night to lure the weak to their death. She tells them if they value their lives, they’ll leave before the sun sets.

However, before the party can leave they are approached by a young boy. He begs the party for help saving his father, who disappeared the night before. His father claimed he heard his wife calling for him, but the boy’s mother has been dead for years. He tried to stop him, but his father was too strong and ran off into the night.

The boy gave chase and knows where his father went, but no one in the village is willing to help. The boy’s father, like the others who have gone missing in the mining town, followed the whispers to a mine shaft the villagers swear is cursed. They have taken to calling it the Depths of Madness.

What could be drawing people into the mine? What might be happening to those trapped inside? Is it already too late?

If you want to help support us, head over to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thescryingeye

[aerialsquid]

Last week kicked off with my cat catching on fire and the final night of a show I'd been preparing for since last year, followed up with losing my job and several incidents of highly unseasonable snowshowers, and tapered down towards the co-host of my favorite internet show finding (and liking) the fanfic I wrote about her as a hippo-themed supervillain.

This week appears to want to continue the weirdness pattern.

I'm at the thrift store hunting frames for my fanart and come across this piece. It's some odd little pseudo-period art piece whose genre and era I can't identify, and don't have much interest in until I turn it over.

There’s the code and directions to open a specific safe, written on a card that’s taped to the back of the photo. The listed address is Sentry Group at 900 Linden (Ave) in Rochester, NY, which Google tells me is a now-closed security company that sold safes. Why someone handwrote directions to use the safe and then taped them to the back of a picture of a charming yet humble European peasant woman, then gave that picture to a thrift store later, I don’t know and direly want to.

So of course I bought it, because I know a plot hook when I see one. Cruising the jewelry section also came up with this Illuminati-looking brooch, which I'm currently wearing pinned to my favorite coat.

But oh, we are not done yet, children. The third Item I bought was a frame with a piece of weird handmade art in it, with the intention of removing the art and using the frame for hanging this nice art print I got at C2E2. I opened the frame, took the piece out, unfolded the edges that were folded down to make it fit in the frame, flipped it over, and things proceeded to get even weirder.

Wonderful I have a conjurer in this [sack?]. There are many kinds of stories in the world. So far we have been hearing the old, old stories that children have read for hundreds of years. We shall go on reading these, because they are the finest stories in the world. But we shall read other kinds of stories too-stories that are true, as well as stories that are imagined. Many things have happened in the real history of the  world as wonderful as the happenings in fairyland or in giants' castles and churches, towns, and villages up and down the world, and many stories so strange and so old that nobody can tell whether they are true or not.!

"Quote unquote"

Foundation of the Commonwealth!

Leroy Skee(?) Holland

I googled some lines from the writing and if it's quoting something I can't seem to find the source, though possibly conjurer in the sack refers to a Hans Christian Anderson story. Leroy Skee(?) Holland also isn’t popping up on Google, aside from a Leroy Holland with a very dull LinkedIn profile. For an extra shot of weirdness, storytelling/live lit actually is my side hobby - the one upside of not having a job, hopefully, is getting more time to work on it.

What in the turducken is happening this month.