The Ductape Goddess

:)

[bookmania]

Seven years after, I see you again 😚

[scripturient-manipulator]

Guys this completely changed my writing, heed it. I often do an entire draft just looking at sentence variation and oftentimes the results are absolutely transformative in the difference.

[hkblack]

If I’m Beta-Reading someone’s fic and think that it’s dragging or that it’s disconnected, 9 times out of 10 it’s a sentence length issue. Long paragraphs of long sentences make your story drag. Short choppy sentences make me feel disconnected from the world.

A healthy mix is the difference between “neat story” and “holy fuck you ruined me with emotion”

[rainstormdragon]

[btwxsixesandsevens]

the Noir possibilities in this being your opening line are unmatched.

[weaver-z]

Having a mom who loves writing as much as you do rules

[weaver-z]

Me texting my mom with my mic muted in Zoom class: This guy just told me to add an extended flashback to my story to replace dialogue

My mom: IGNORE that hack sweetie

[weaver-z]

You are SO right small domestic cats in my notes

[writerswritecompany]

Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language

We are always told to use body language in our writing. Sometimes, it’s easier said than written. I decided to create these cheat sheets to help you show a character’s state of mind. Obviously, a character may exhibit a number of these behaviours. For example, he may be shocked and angry, or shocked and happy. Use these combinations as needed.

by Amanda Patterson

[forficwritersbyficwriters]

You guys, this is such a great chart especially for budding writers. Sometimes it’s more effective to show a character being bored or excited or shocked without explicitly saying so.

[tumblinbean]

I love this

[headspace-hotel]

I firmly believe that how feminist a book is is better demonstrated by its background characters rather than its mains

[headspace-hotel]

What I mean by this is that a book may have “feminist” female leads who are strong, competent, complex, whatever, but how do they portray women just...existing in the world? Are there women in the background, or is the fantasy novel with its strong independent Action Girl protagonists set on a background of generic male soldiers, guards, councilors, shopkeepers, messengers, and wizard apprentices? Are minor characters ever women when there’s no particular reason for them to be? When women appear in the background of your story, do they have any unique qualities that hint at a complex picture we’re not seeing or do they slide seamlessly into Pampered Noblewoman, Prostitute and Vaguely Maternal Older Woman Who Runs A Tavern Or Something?

If your protagonist is a fighter or magic user, do you show other women in those roles? If your society is more relaxed about sex discrimination, have you built a world that looks like it?

Have you built a world where your female characters don’t all have to be The Best At Everything, or is almost every female character placed where she can be extraordinary next to a bunch of male counterparts? Are you comfortable letting a female wizard or warrior be average or unimportant, or does she have to be one of the most skilled and powerful of them all, able to match or best all the men around her? On the other hand, are you comfortable having a female wizard or warrior be indisputably the most skilled or powerful out of the wizards or warriors, without drawing attention to her gender, placing her in competition with men, or having her be an exception to the rule because she’s female?

Are you letting your female characters be mediocre and un-extraordinary? Your world is full of powerful sorceresses, fierce battle maidens and calculating noblewomen, but do women do things in this world other than be Exemplary and Great and Awesome? If you’ve established that women do business and fight, do you have female soldiers carousing at bars and vaguely dull female Evil Minions Of The Dark Lord bumbling around doing evil bidding and female apprentices slacking on work or is every background woman we see competent and controlled and intelligent and doing whatever it is she’s doing without error, whereas only men are allowed to be foolish, impulsive, mess things up, or just be shown unflatteringly during the couple sentences we know them? In other words, does the world show women being unapologetically human beings or are all your female characters basically making up for being women by not doing anything that would badly represent their gender?

In particular, if you’re trying to show a society with gender equality, that means the dark lord is willing to hire women who are bumbling idiots as guards, and not just that some female wizards climbed their way to the top and became As Good As Men because they’re so badass they can snap god like a bunch of uncooked spaghetti.

[2soulscollide]

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

E.A. Deverell - FREE worksheets (characters, world building, narrator, etc.) and paid courses;

Hiveword - Helps to research any topic to write about (has other resources, too);

BetaBooks - Share your draft with your beta reader (can be more than one), and see where they stopped reading, their comments, etc.;

Charlotte Dillon - Research links;

Writing realistic injuries - The title is pretty self-explanatory: while writing about an injury, take a look at this useful website;

One Stop for Writers - You guys… this website has literally everything we need: a) Description thesaurus collection, b) Character builder, c) Story maps, d) Scene maps & timelines, e) World building surveys, f) Worksheets, f) Tutorials, and much more! Although it has a paid plan ($90/year | $50/6 months | $9/month), you can still get a 2-week FREE trial;

One Stop for Writers Roadmap - It has many tips for you, divided into three different topics: a) How to plan a story, b) How to write a story, c) How to revise a story. The best thing about this? It’s FREE!

Story Structure Database - The Story Structure Database is an archive of books and movies, recording all their major plot points;

National Centre for Writing - FREE worksheets and writing courses. Has also paid courses;

Penguin Random House - Has some writing contests and great opportunities;

Crime Reads - Get inspired before writing a crime scene;

The Creative Academy for Writers - “Writers helping writers along every step of the path to publication.” It’s FREE and has ZOOM writing rooms;

Reedsy - “A trusted place to learn how to successfully publish your book” It has many tips, and tools (generators), contests, prompts lists, etc. FREE;

QueryTracker - Find agents for your books (personally, I’ve never used this before, but I thought I should feature it here);

Pacemaker - Track your goals (example: Write 50K words - then, everytime you write, you track the number of the words, and it will make a graphic for you with your progress). It’s FREE but has a paid plan;

Save the Cat! - The blog of the most known storytelling method. You can find posts, sheets, a software (student discount - 70%), and other things;

I hope this is helpful for you!

(Also, check my blog if you want to!)

[ravenel]

I saw this post by @astropixie about how it’d be nice to review fics on AO3 as you read. A little while back, because I was so in awe of the Clexa fic writers, I made this userscript (can install on Firefox by using Greasemonkey and on Chrome and Opera by using Tampermonkey) so that I could do just that. It doesn’t have the wattpad or soundcloud functionality, it’s just a little thing added on to a page, not something supported by the site itself, but it’s better than nothing. 

The userscript is available here: http://pastebin.com/vYBCYWu4

[linguini17]

Relevant to the discussions about giving writers feedback going around fandom lately…

[rederiswrites]

Oh!  Hey @penbrydd

[athos-silvani]

So, if you’re like me and all “AAAAH THIS IS AMAZING NOW i WON’T HAVE TO HAVE TWO TAGS OPEN AT A TIME WHEN I READ!”

but then you go to make it happen and you’re like “…fuck, how the fuck does this work,  i am not a programmer, i can barely html bold and italics, i am screwed”

BUT I MADE IT WORK. instructions under the cut.

Keep reading

[bleedforyourtypewriter]

Ok here is a compilation of all the software and useful tools I’ve come across whilst writing. Some of them I’ve reviewed on here already, more coming soon. 

Got an idea? Well get planning! Here’s some useful outlining, brainstorming and mind- mapping software:

Coggle 

Lucidchart

Mural.ly

Blumind

MindMeister

Mindmaple

Mindomo

NovaMind

Popplet

Scapple

Tree Sheets

Visual Understanding Environment (VUE)

XMind

FreeMind

Oak Outliner

Work Flowy

The Outliner of Giants

Just want to get writing? You want a word processor:

Gedit

Google Docs

Kate

LibreOffice

Microsoft Word

My Writing Spot

NoteTab

Open Office

Quabel

Ted

Vim

yEdit

Making notes? Here you go:

CintaNotes

Evernote

KeepNote

Memonic

MS OneNote

Scribe

SuperNotecard

Tomboy

Timelines giving you a headache? Try these:

Aeon Timeline 

Dipity

Preceden

Tiki-Toki

Timeglider

Timeline

TimelineJS

TimeToast

Now perhaps you want to organise those notes. Got a lot of research? Character sheets? Images? Well here’s some tools to keep all that together:

Liquid Story Binder XE

LitLift

PangurPad

Scriptito

Scrivener

Writer’s Café

Yarny

yWriter

Are you easily distracted? The following tools will keep you on track:

Dark Room 

FocusWriter

JDarkRoom

Momentum Writer

OmmWriter

Q10

Writemonkey

Zen Writer 

Even more productivity tools to help keep you focussed on your task:

Cold Turkey 

FocalFilter

Freedom

InternetOff

Keepmeout

Nanny

Productivity Owl

RescueTime

SelfControl

SelfRestraint

Simple Blocker

StayFocusd

Strict Workflow

Time Doctor

Waste No Time

Website Blocker

So you’ve got something down? Need to edit? 

AutoCrit

EditMinion

Grammarly

LyX

SlickWrite

SmartEdit

After the Deadline

All done? Perhaps you’d like some e-publishing tools:

Acrobat

InDesign

Calibre

CutePDF

Jutoh

Mobipocket Creator

PagePlus

PageStream

PDFCreator

Scribus

Sigil

I’m feeling generous, have some more cool stuff:

750 Words

One Page per Day

Oneword

Penzu

Write or Die

Written Kitten

Focus Booster

Spaaze

AutoREALM (Map building software)

Enjoy! I may update the list as I find more, or I’ll make a second list.

[wwritemywayout-deactivated20191]

Passing this treasure box of resources on! 

[parkchanwoohoo]

A problem I have when reading romance novels is I cannot empathize with disliking someone but finding them attractive regardless. If I dislike someone I'm like "You are like a wadded up ball of sweaty socks and I want you to burn in a pyre, undying and screaming for days"

[parkchanwoohoo]

"He infuriated her, though she was willing to admit he was a handsome man" I couldn't begin to tell you what the people I dislike look like because I see red instantly. If you were like "Is he the blond one" I'd be like "idk he's the one who most looks like he should die"

[desbianherstory]

south asian lesbian literature

I. autobiography

Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

Kamala Das, My Story

Suniti Namjoshi, Goja: An Autobiographical Myth

Minal Hajratwala, Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents

Nishta J. Mehra, Brown White Black: An American Family at the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home

II. fiction

Suniti Namjoshi, Feminist Fables

Suniti Namjoshi, The Conversations of Cow

SJ Sindu, Marriage of a Thousand Lies

Amruta Patil, Kari

Shamim Sarif, The World Unseen

Parvati Sharma, The Dead Camel and Others Stories of Love

Dolar Vasani, Not Yet Uhuru

Mala Kumar, The Paths of Marriage

Shani Mootoo, Out On Main Street

Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night 

Shani Mootoo, Polar Vortex

Farazana Doctor, Stealing Nasreen

Out! Stories from the New Queer India, ed. Minal Hajratwala

IIb. fiction - dubious depiction of lesbian relationships by non-lesbians (there are more of course, and you can read about some of them in Same-Sex love in India: Readings from Literature and History, eds. Vanita and Kidwai)

Ismat Chughtai, “The Quilt”

Ismat Chughtai, The Crooked Line 

Manju Kapur, A Married Woman

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland

Nayana Currimbhoy, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls

Tanwi Nandini Islam, Bright Lines: A Novel

Abha Dawesar, Babyji

III. poetry

Anurima Banerji

Suniti Namjoshi

Kamala Das

Kaushalya Bannerji

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Samira Obeid

Nila Gupta

Minal Hajratwala

Kosar Saira

Ruth Vanita

V.K. Aruna

Ghazala Anwar

Inez Dullas

Neema Vachani

Mita Radhakrishnan

Maya Chowdhry

IV. non-fiction and mixed anthologies

Naisargi Dave, Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics 

Ruth Vanita, Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West

Frances B. Singh, Scandal and Survival in Nineteenth-Century Scotland: The Life of Jane Cumming

Maya Sharma, Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India

Giti Thadani, Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India

Because I Have A Voice: Queer Politics in India, eds. Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan

No Outlaws in the Gender Galaxy, eds. Chayanika Shah, Raj Merchant, Shals Mahajan, Smriti Nevatia

Sex and the Supreme Court: How the Law is Upholding the Dignity of the Indian Citizen, ed. Saurabh Kirpal

Suparna Bhaskaran, Made in India: Decolonializations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/National Projects

Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia, eds. Saskia E. Wieringa, Evelyn Blackwood and Abha Bhaiya

Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India, ed. Ashwini Sukthankar

Shraddha Chatterjee, Queer Politics in India: Towards Sexual Subaltern Subjects

Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History, eds. Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidawi

Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society, ed. Ruth Vanita

Gayatri Gopinath, Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures 

A Lotus of Another Color, ed. Rakesh Ratti

The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writings by Asian & Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women, ed. Sharon Lim-Hing

Urvashi Vaid, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation

Urvashi Vaid, Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics

Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life

Monisha Das Gupta, Unruly Immigrants Rights, Activism, and Transnational South Asian Politics in the United States

Ami Ramesh Patel, “A Community History of Satrang: Negotiating Visibility as LGBTQ South Asian Americans in Los Angeles"

Sharon Fernandez, “More than Just an Arts Festival: Communities, Resistance, and the Story of Desh Pardesh” 

*lesbian is used both as an adjective and noun in this list. works are included that deal with lesbian relationships. 

**south asian lesbian cinema for south asian lesbian films and documentaries (the original post is updated whenever more are found)

***south asian lesbian visual art: chitra ganesh, parminder sekhon, samra habib, mumtaz karimjee, sunil gupta, amruta patil, debi ray-chaudhuri, theresa thadani, sharon fernandez etc… not going to attempt to make a full list but check them out.

[ultraviolet-eucatastrophe]

I often say my favourite genres are scifi and fantasy, but more specifically, my favourite genres are actually “scifi but everything works like fantasy” and “fantasy but everything works like scifi”

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

#magic has RULES and fantasy races have EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY ( tag from @untitledfirbolg​ )

[aluka]

no one can ever ever see gay representation as anything other than representation which is why we dont have any like. diverse forms of representation. people are only focused on the fact that these two guys are happy and kissing that it becomes boring and bland and the same cookie cutter story weve seen a thousand times i want stories about fucked up gay people trying to kill each other what about mrs and mrs smith

[aluka]

once we start seeing lgbtq people in art and literature and media as more than just "representation" thats when we start to get the actual stories we want

[magnhild]

this also creates a problem whenever lgbt+ characters in media are allowed to be actual, flawed, imperfect, human characters, because people only seeing them as representation means that they see anything less than perfect as unacceptable. cishet characters are allowed to be three-dimensional and flawed because, y’know, they’re people, and people are like that. but lgbt+ characters are seen as rep first and people second, and it’s why they and their stories so much more heavily criticized. any character traits in a cishet character that aren’t entirely positive are seen as depth. but for lgbt+ characters? it’s only ‘bad representation’.

[readingsometimes]

If you haven’t ditched the Amazon-owned Goodreads in favor of the independent, Black-owned StoryGraph, what are you waiting for?

You can import your Goodreads data (so you won’t lose years of book tracking)!

You can get personal recommendations based on your current preferences!

It’s sleek af!

IT’S NOT OWNED BY AMAZON

Users can apply content warnings so you can avoid triggers before ever opening a specific book

The same applies for ‘mood’! Wanna read something sad? Find books tagged as ‘sad’, that’s literally it

IT’S NOT OWNED BY JEFF BEZOS

[readingsometimes]

Addressing some comments in the tags: It’s true that the database isn’t as vast as Goodreads’ - yet. The site is much, much newer than Goodreads. But you can actually help them expand!

When you search for a title, you may not find what you need. Then all you have to do is click the handy “Can’t find the book you’re looking for?” link, and you’ll be taken straight to this page, where you will be able to help them find books to add to their database! If you can’t find that non-English book you’re looking for, help them out!

[headspace-hotel]

This website is so good!

I quit goodreads in favor of storygraph a couple months ago. Had no idea it was Black-owned, but, another perk I guess?

It’s like Goodreads except with more and better features. Books are tagged for how fast-paced they are, whether the characters are lovable, what moods they have, etc. and you can look at what other readers have tagged in a book.

You can put half and quarter stars in your ratings!

There are special shelves for DNFs and books you own!

y'all should switch, trust me

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

I love caves as a horror theme but I HATE when there are things in the caves. Horror writers utterly ruin cave stories by not realizing that the cave itself is the monster.

It’s fine when caves are a gateway that something is coming through, or the cave is somehow alive and malicious, or if the only monster is what the narrator brings in with themself, but I hate hate hate when writers expect me to be creeped out by spelunkers being menaced by creatures that live inside the cave.

[headspace-hotel]

random bitter aspiring authors on "writing advice" blogs: Don't make your main characters super special mary sues. don't make them better than other people or more interesting. your main characters should be boring average guys with the personalities of wood pulp

the Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh was objectively the best man ever. He was the hottest, sexiest, most gorgeous hunk of pure manly awesomeness that ever lived and he used a sword that weighed 120 pounds.

[headspace-hotel]

The lesson here is that your main characters can be as special, overpowered, and unrealistically skilled at everything as you want, as long as this has the purpose of driving the plot via all the problems they cause (because they're an egotistical nightmare and a gigantic raging asshole).

[headspace-hotel]

The second lesson here is that no matter what randos on writing blogs say, people like stories where the characters are unique and iconic. Or at least they remember them.

(I have a theory that the stories that form long-lasting fandoms, and/or are recognized and referenced frequently in pop culture, are stories that have the same sort of "iconic" elements that are long-lasting in folklore and mythology. I think superheroes are particularly well suited to lasting centuries/millennia into the future because they're just so simple and memorable conceptually.)

[thecottageinthedark]

The third lesson is this; it’s not objective power that matters so much, it’s how much that power counts for in the narrative.

Gilgamesh is superpowered but the reason why his story resonates so much? It’s his relationship with Enkidu, and specifically his grief at Enkidu’s death.

Enkidu’s death is a problem that Gilgamesh can’t just immediately and effortlessly solve. In fact, he does not actually solve it at all; he goes looking for a way to bring Enkidu back to life and finds out that he can’t.

Problems in real life are often like that. They don’t have solutions, or the solutions are messy and complex themselves. You can’t just badass your way through them. So a character whose problems are always minor and easy to blow through? Who is never challenged by the narrative? That comes off as obnoxious.

And that’s the actual origin of the ‘don’t make your characters overpowered, overpowered characters are mary sues’ writing advice. People found that unchallenged characters were annoying and grating, but made the mistake of thinking that they were too objectively powerful rather than too narratively powerful.

[headspace-hotel]

^^^

[anexperimentallife]

[brightmouth-deactivated20230417]

I think.

Look. I think fanfiction just absolutely rips because the stakes are so low.

I am literally just Out Here making dilfs pine and yearn and cry. I am making gal pals kiss on the mouth. I am mashing messy little trios together and daring them to figure themselves out while I watch with unbridled glee.

Nobody is paying me. Nobody is expecting anything of me. I am audacious and I am free. Viva la fucking weird, baby, make that shit sizzle.