cute notion template for academia princesses of the world!~
dear magic diary
⭐️ Princess Clarissah loved writing all her thoughts, feelings and ideas in her magic diary. Navigating academia is no joke, but she's working on becoming an actress and studying what she loves (theatre!).
🌷 I recreated the magic diary into a notion template for any academia babes and princesses out there who want a cute, simple, whimsy place to process their thoughts.
⭐️ It's made up of automated buttons containing quizzes and journal elements to help you process your thoughts quickly and with a lot of fun!
🌷 when you feel happy...
⭐️ or the opposite...
🌷...it's a good system to use!
It's also magically, wonderfully ✨FREE✨
The above are just little sneak peeks. The link to this entire template is in my bio under "magic studymart—a mini mart full of whimsy, digital goodies for your academia journey." Drop alll the comments. I want to hear your reviews and thoughtssss!
I'll be making more free templates based on my fairytale characters, because it's sooo fun (and hopefully helpful to you🥹), so stay tuned!
Okay this stuff is pretty much all just surface-level stuff, so if you are in the drafting stages, you have my complete permission to ignore it (not that you need anyone's permission to do anything in your WIP).
Good? Good.
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The main thing about worldbuilding on the page is making it feel real, feel present for your reader. The main thing you'll hear is using your five senses. After all, they're how you experience the world in real life. And not only that, but unless your POV is very different from most things you'd experience on Earth, they're going to be naturally equipped with at least some of the five senses.
The trick here is that no one percieves the world in the exact same way. Sometimes, it's a difference in physical ability, such as if you're blind, you're not going to rely on sight, but a lot of it is about personal history and backstory. For example, I'm a swimmer. One of the most notable things (beyond the humidity) is the smell of chlorine. If I were somewhere and I smelled something similar, such as bleach, I might describe it similar to the smell of chlorine because that's what I'm used to. But say someone really never swims, and they're a janitor. They'd have the association of mopping floors, and swimming might never cross their mind when describing the smell. These associations will also have memories attached, and memories invariably come with some kind of emotion.
So the above example was pretty much the gist of my whole post, but I would like to go into a little more detail about how to a) figure out what’s worth describing, and b) how to describe it from the perspective of your POV.
An oft-cited guideline in writing is that each time you move to a new location, you have to set the scene. The extent of that set-up will vary based on how many times we’ve been to that place, and how observant your POV is.
Regardless, there are a few pretty universal questions for setting each scene:
Has the POV been to this place before? If so, how much time have they spent here? This is going to influence a few things. First, if they’ve been here often, they’re likely going to gloss over the familiar, and focus in on anything that’s different or that’s changed. They’re also going to have more memories attached, meaning you have the opportunity to describe things through the context of those memories (”the windows were pristine as always. The pane Emerie had smashed with her textbook last summer was swiftly replaced - the evidence wiped away.”). Because they have memories of the place, they’re also going to have emotions surrounding it. These emotions are going to influence the comparisons they make and what they call attention to, as well as word choice. If they haven’t been here before, they’re probably going to be comparing it to places they have been, and memories and emotions are going to be based on those tangential experiences.
What is their emotional and physical state going into wherever this place? If it’s their first time going into this place, their state will drastically alter their first impressions and how they describe whatever they notice (ie: word choice: are words veering positive or negative?). If they’ve been to the place before, their current state is going to color what they notice, but they’ll have a baseline. If there’s relatively muted emotions connected to the place, it might override those emotions. They might channel their emotion through their reactions to the place. For example, if they’re angry, they might be really pissed that the chairs were moved because they liked the original setup. If they’re excited, they might not be bothered by the usually annoying grey walls. If they’re exhausted, they might not notice as much. If they don’t want to be here, that’s going to make a big difference
Beyond that, things start to get more specific to the circumstances.
Consider the character themself:
What is the character’s reason for coming here? This will influence what they focus on.
Is there anything major on their minds? See above.
Where do they spend a lot of their time? What are some of the most memorable things from their life to them? What places have they been that were similar to the place they’re currently at? All of these will influence what comparisons and descriptions they’ll use to describe where they are.
Also, consider the details of the setting:
Where are things spacially?
What’s the color scheme? What is visible immedietly from where the characters are entering, or from where the narration starts? What do things generally look like?
What can be heard? Are some sounds almost too quiet to hear? what are the louder ones? What do the sounds sound like?
What smells are there? Is it a mix, or is it overwhemingly one thing?
What about feel? What’s the air like? Is it warm or cold? Is there a breeze/air flow, or is it more still? What about textures?
If there’s something to taste, what is it? what does it taste like? Is there anything that might be described as taste, even if it isn’t really?
Even if you don’t use all of this detail when you’re setting up the scene (and you probably shouldn’t), it’ll give you good material to choose from to keep things interesting.
For the details you think your character would notice first, or at least notice and think were important, how would they personally describe it? Are they deeply familiar with that smell, or do they have to resort to something else from their life it reminds them from? Or is it so foreign they only have adjectives with no memory attached to it to describe it? Is it something they find uplifting, or is it foul?
A final note is to think about words and/or lingo your character’s learned. If they’re specialized in an area, they’re probably going to have picked up field-specific words, and be able to call items associated with the field by their proper name without really thinking, or they may use slang. For example, my main character has been a part of a secret military branch, and refers to pretty much all non-military individuals as civilians as her go-to word.
So. This has been long, but I figured I’d end with some actionable steps. Each time you set the scene, go through and see how you can personalize it specifically to your POV character. Think about their experience with each element you’re trying to describe, and think about what experience they have with that element already, and use word choice and/or small snippets of memory or opinion to describe it as your character would.
coast of dreams chapter 17 is new on FF.net, Wattpad and AO3. Check it out. Things are getting hot there. Here are also the pictures of the outfits and the barracks.
