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@write-better
Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!
Heads up that this is a very extensive questionnaire and might be daunting to a lot of writers (myself included). That being said, it is also an amazing questionnaire and I will definitely be using it (or at the very least, some of it).
Bookmarking this…
So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.
I'm going to try it.
I love the lawyer metaphor, because whenever I see “John knew that...” in prose writing I immediately think “how? How does he know it?” Interrogate your witnesses. Cross-examine them. Make them explain their reasoning. It pays dividends.
All of this, but also feels/felt. My editor has forbidden me from using those and it’s forced me to stretch my skills.
This is your "show not tell" advice explained!
I hope that in the future they invent a small golden light that follows you everywhere and when something is about to end, it shines brigh
How to show emotions
Part IV
How to show bitterness
tightness around their eyes
pinched mouth
sour expression on their face
crossed arms
snorting angrily
turning their eyes upward
shaking their head
How to show hysteria
fast breathing
chest heaving
trembling of their hands
weak knees, giving in
tears flowing down their face uncontrollably
laughing while crying
not being able to stand still
How to show awe
tension leaving their body
shoulders dropping
standing still
opening mouth
slack jaw
not being able to speak correctly
slowed down breathing
wide eyes open
softening their gaze
staring unabashingly
How to show shame
vacant stare
looking down
turning their head away
cannot look at another person
putting their head into their hands
shaking their head
How to show being flustered
blushing
looking down
nervous smile
sharp intake of breath
quickening of breath
blinking rapidly
breaking eye contact
trying to busy their hands
playing with their hair
fidgeting with their fingers
opening mouth without speaking
Part I + Part II + Part III
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Writing a novel when you imagine all you stories in film format is hard because there’s really no written equivalent of “lens flare” or “slow motion montage backed by Gregorian choir”
You can get the same effect of a lens flare with close-detail descriptions, combined with breaks to new paragraphs.
Your slow-motion montage backed by a Gregorian choir can be done with a few technques that all involve repetition.
First is epizeuxis, the repeating of a word for emphasis.
Example:
Falling. Falling. Falling. There was nothing to keep Marie from plunging into the rolling river below. She could only hope for a miracle now, that she would come out alive somehow despite a twenty-foot drop into five-foot-deep water.
Then there’s anaphora, where you write a number of phrases with the same words at the beginning.
There were still mages out there living in terror of shining steel armor emblazoned with the Sword of Mercy.
There were still mages out there being forced by desperation into the clutches of demons.
There were mages out there being threatened with Tranquility as punishment for their disobedience, and the threats were being made good upon.
Mages who had attempted to flee, but knew nothing of the outside world and were forced to return to their prison out of need for sustenance and shelter.
Mages who only desired to find the families they were torn from.
Mages who only wanted to see the sun.
This kind of repetition effectively slows the pace of your writing and puts the focus on that small scene. That’s where you get your slow pan. The same repetition also has a subtle musicality to it depending on the words you use. That’s where you get the same vibe as you might get from a Gregorian choir.
Damn I made relatable reblog- bait post and writer Tumblr went hard with it. This is legitimately very good advice.
For more neat tricks (aka figures of rhetoric) like epizeuxis and anaphora, read THE ELEMENTS OF ELOQUENCE by Mark Forsyth. It’s both educational and delightful, not to mention overflowing with wry wit. Great book.
Read the first pages of some Discworld books to see even more direct ways in which cinematic openings can be done in print.
This is an EXTREMELY blessed post! And accurate! When I first moved out I was so excited for my new place I slept on the floor and had my tv there and that was it. Loved it. You grow and you build and you gain and you lose. I lost that place and everything in it. Now I have a new place with new things and it’s very much home.
In the future, there is a small, quiet room that is just yours, where you are safe and you are free. In that room your shoulders will finally start to come down from around your ears. Nobody can come into that room unless you let them. In that clean quiet place, you will work and you will study. You will love and you will heal.
-Captain Awkward, “Should I Move Away From My Abusive Family?”
Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between
Ask the Bitches: “I Just Turned 18 and My Parents Are Kicking Me Out. How Do I Brace Myself?”
{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need To Know About Living Independently for the First Time
I promise you that living like this is better than living in constant sorrow and pain
So my problem with most ‘get to know your character’ questioneers is that they’re full of questions that just aren’t that important (what color eyes do they have) too hard to answer right away (what is their greatest fear) or are just impossible to answer (what is their favorite movie.) Like no one has one single favorite movie. And even if they do the answer changes.
If I’m doing this exercise, I want 7-10 questions to get the character feeling real in my head. So I thought I’d share the ones that get me (and my students) good results:
What is the character’s go-to drink order? (this one gets into how do they like to be publicly perceived, because there is always some level of theatricality to ordering drinks at a bar/resturant)
What is their grooming routine? (how do they treat themselves in private)
What was their most expensive purchase/where does their disposable income go? (Gets you thinking about socio-economic class, values, and how they spend their leisure time)
Do they have any scars or tattoos? (good way to get into literal backstory)
What was the last time they cried, and under what circumstances? (Good way to get some *emotional* backstory in.)
Are they an oldest, middle, youngest or only child? (This one might be a me thing, because I LOVE writing/reading about family dynamics, but knowing what kinds of things were ‘normal’ for them growing up is important.)
Describe the shoes they’re wearing. (This is a big catch all, gets into money, taste, practicality, level of wear, level of repair, literally what kind of shoes they require to live their life.)
Describe the place where they sleep. (ie what does their safe space look like. How much (or how little) care / decoration / personal touch goes into it.)
What is their favorite holiday? (How do they relate to their culture/outside world. Also fun is least favorite holiday.)
What objects do they always carry around with them? (What do they need for their normal, day-to-day routine? What does ‘normal’ even look like for them.)
i’m kind of against kings in fantasy because i feel like most people don’t really think about them: either it’s a Tolkien-esque “the King has returned again!” or they’re just sort of…there b/c this is Fantasy, we do Kings, but have they considered
dying kings, king-of-the-year, the king who has to fight every year to reclaim his throne, the king who knows that he’s only king for as long as he keeps his strength
the king and the land are one, but not, like, in a triumphant way, in a way where the land claims the king for its own
a king who must be physically perfect (the king is not physically perfect and has to hide it)
the divine king and what it would mean to actually be ruled by a god
#also like chosen-of-the-gods but with thinking about responsibility#also: these apply to Queens too#also: people have done some of these#guy gavriel kay does the dying king#for example#the perfection thing is from celtic myth#and i think the byzantines had it too#but i’d love to see more fantasy novels think critically about kingship
more historical ones to use:
elected kings, like in the roman kingdom and the polish-lithuanian commonwealth
charismatic societies like in most of the pre-columbian americas north of the rio grande, where social power is based on your ability to talk and bribe people into going along with what you say
republics that aren’t based on the merchant-prince model or circle-of-mages model. guild-based republics, peasant republics, aristocratic republics, theocratic republics.
i would love for someone to use tiwanaku, an empire from the andes whose capital city was essentially a religious theme park where most of the buildings were facades and they had a guy in an echoey room with a horn playing the voice of god, and they kept tearing down buildings to put up new ones. especially if you added magic thrill rides or 18th-century roller coasters to it
Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):
“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.
“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.
“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.
“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”
“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”
“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.
And!
“If you’re breaking dialogue up with an action tag”—she waves her hands back and forth—”the dashes go outside the quotation marks.”
Reblog to save a writer’s life.
This will save my betas precious time !!
Gonna have to star using this!
THE DASHES GO OUTSIDE THE QUOTATION MARKS?!?!?!?!?!
no they don’t????
personally i follow the same rule as commas: first dash inside, second outside
“I don’t know what that person is talking about—” they paused for dramatic effect— “and I think my way is more aesthetically pleasing.”
Non-standard, personal choices in punctuation are something you can invent for yourself, because nobody owns language. You can choose to put your em dashes inside the quotation marks for dialogue broken up with inserted action. You can choose to not use periods at the ends of sentences. You can do whatever you want. But doing so does absolutely break the rules of standard usage. Know the rules so you can break them deliberately rather than accidentally.
“An em dash is used for dialogue that gets cut off by a sharp, sudden break, like—”
“An ellipsis is used at the end of dialogue that falters and sort of trails away, you know, kind of like…”
“When someone’s speaking in starts and stops—speaking excitedly, even!—showing abrupt changes in thought, it gets broken up by em dashes.”
“A different… mood is evoked if… if… the writer uses ellipses for… hesitant speech that shows a speaker is confused or… insecure.”
“But the rule is”—she brandished the seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style—“that em dashes go outside the quotation marks.”
Here’s an invaluable writing resource for you.
[image description: a red background with the title Fic Writing Plan. Below the title there are 9 white boxes, each with a black header with white text. The boxes are labelled 1) Chapter number - inside this box is the phrase "goal of the chapter" 2) characters needed 3) locations needed 4) props/items needed 5) review plot points 6) new plot points 7) required convos 8) rough scene list /end description]
It occurred to me that planning out a story is a lot like planning out a lesson. Whether it's a one-shot or a multichapter fic, there's an overarching goal of the story - and each chapter has a goal as well, whether that goal is plot-related or not.
So I went on Canva and grabbed the first lesson plan template I liked and I repurposed it above. I tend to go into even less detail than this when I plan my stories, but this is the kind of thing that could be expanded or shrunk depending on your need. If you don't want a pretty template, grab a pen and a notebook and do what you like.
But for people who do want to try different ways of planning out their stories, maybe take a look at lesson and curriculum planning templates. Change the words to chapter and story and away you go.
I feel like there’s needs to be, like, handbook for authors who post on Ao3 for effective metatext.
By metatext I mean like tagging, summary, and authors notes (especially initial authors notes at the beginning of a fic). The means by which we communicate to our readers what they’re getting into.
Because we kind of all have to learn it by osmosis and there are conventions but nobody’s really taught them at the start, so there’s inconsistencies and misunderstandings or people just not knowing things through no fault of their own.
This ends up breeding frustration and confusion and in the worst cases resentment, hurt, and aggression.
I’m severely tempted to make such a handbook and get it circulating.
I think it would do fandom a lot of good.
Good news, I’m writing it
Update:
I’m at 9680 words, roughly 16 pages single spaced, with two or three sections to go.
Update:
First draft done. 11,100 words, 29 pages with formatting
The final draft is getting cleaned up right now. I’ll probably be figuring out how to post it tomorrow.
On which note, anybody know the best way to make a PDF available online?
Okay it is done!
Go here for the PDF, or here to view the whole document as a tumblr post.
I recommend the PDF.
Related note: the post length limit on tumblr is apparently more than 13,000 words.
“I've sent about a billion queries. I've been agented. I've gotten full requests and some really lovely rejections. I might not be able to help you with being published, but I can make your query life easier. Here's a thread:”
Hey here are some small tips and tidbits from a bartender so y'all can write some realistic bartender aus!
believe it or not we drink on the job, it's rude to decline a drink offered to you by a customer
yes. I've gotten drunk on the job. yes it was cause I was bought a number of jagerbombs. no I didn't go home or fuck up.
'kiss the bartender' is a popular dare at small bars and private functions. whether it's on the cheek or on the lips is totally up to you
I have been offered people's number in a variety of ways. sometimes I've been handed a note, other times I've just been handed someone's phone on the 'add a new contact' page. girls are more direct, guys try the subtler approach of flirting until declined
Your average bartender doesn't always know cocktails. Especially if they're not on the menu.
Y'all cocktails are potent. If your character is downing ten long Island iced teas they're going to hospital
we live for tips. You could be the biggest cunt in the world but if tip me a fiver I'll put on a fake af smile and pretend you're a sound guy
speaking of. Young people tend to buy you drinks, older people tend to tip you.
There's a number of bar calls we use. 86 means we're out of stock. 68 means we're back in stock. More relevant for fic writers however: 700 means a hot customer, usually aimed at women but can be used for guys too. eg. 'lady in red. 700'
If someone asks what 700 means when asked. We lie through our teeth. We usually say it means you need serving or you look drunk.
That's all I can think of right now. But if you have any questions send me an ask! I've been a bartender for a while now, so I like to think I know my stuff.
I don't know what y'all think bartenders do when the bar shuts but it's defo not hanging around at the bar with the cute customer sharing a drink. We've gotta clean that fucker. All the glasses get cleaned. All the stock gets replenished. All the sides get wiped down. It's exhausting.
Every cellar in a bar looks like a serial killers basement don't @ me (I have asked someone to come with me on 2 occasions when I needed to change a barrel when the electricity wasn't working down there)
(side note. If its a cellar like, hatch in the floor cellar, there is some solid content there for injuries and whatnot. I have seen people not realise the hatch is open and just,, step into a hole)
I dress for tips. My managers actively encourages this. A lot of managers at bars are kinda sleazy.
bartenders fight over who's serving the hot customer through extreme staring and power walking
Nobody is more attractive than the person who brings their empty glasses back to the bar (ily)
in the UK it is ILLEGAL to pour someone a triple. You can pour someone a double and a shot on the side and if the customer pours the shot into their double then that's on them, but you as a bartender cannot serve a triple in one glass.
Its also illegal to have a happy hour but if y'all wanna forget that for a 'I'll make it a happy hour *wink wink nudge nudge*' pun, go feral
my absolute favourite term in bartending is lizard. If someone orders a round and then at the end is like 'oh and two guinness' absolute lizard behaviour
someone clicks their fingers to get your attention? Lizard. Also not getting served.
I love it.
You don't smell of cologne and fine whiskey after or during a shift. You smell like you've been on a week long alcoholic binge and missed your mouth the entire time. You fuckin reek and require a shower.
BTW, the reason why ordering Guinness last is bad: a proper Guinness needs to be poured most of the way, then given time to settle before pouring the last of it. Usually around a minute and a half.
Otherwise, the Guinness doesn't achieve the distinctive head that it's known for.
So with Guinness having the wait time built in, most bartenders will pour the Guinness first, and do the rest of the orders during the wait, then finish the Guinness. Ordering a Guinness last means they have to drop the drink they're currently making (because they will have started making your order as you speak, especially for a round order) to make the Guinness, or otherwise they will have to wait the minute and half alongside you. Which would really piss them off.
And as an extra note: you can't drink the Guinness immediately after the second pour. You need to wait for the second pour to settle. You'll known it has done this when the brown frothy liquid beneath the head has turned a uniform black.
Source: Brother is a bartender, and I am born, raised and living in Ireland.
stop using hospitals as horror settings
fun alternative: cruise ships. cruise ships exploit workers and can pollute as much as a million cars on a daily basis while dumping endless shit into the ocean and endangering all passengers on board because the on board air quality rivals some of the most polluted cities in the world while being a breeding ground for disease. cruise ships deserve to have negativity associated with them
also all crimes commited aboard a cruise ship is under the juristiction of whichever country they’re registered to once they’re a certain distance away from land so you have the added bonus of the crimes being very unlikely to be properly investigated (due to usually being physically so very far from the actual police whose juristiction they’re under)
terrifying!
On top of THAT cruise ships tend to have their own morgue, as people tend to die on ships all the time. Good for those spooky scenes.
plus u can just like…leave a hospital. good luck escaping a killer or a monster or a curse or w/e in the middle of the fucking ocean
As an ex cruise ship employee, let me give you some stuff to work with!
Water tight doors! You get a special training video on interacting with these correctly because they will literally cut you in half if you try and go through them while they’re closing!
Freezer vaults for food in the sub decks - you can only get into these with the correct code and they have very thick walls. Good luck if you get shut in one of these just after the last round of checks bucko
There are cameras everywhere…except in the crew cabin corridors. Also there are no windows down there because unless you’re an officer, you live below the waterline. Day and night have no meaning because everything is in the same slightly unsettling yellow light.
Don’t piss off the guys who deal with the rubbish. They have machines down there that can crush metal barrels
As well as morgues, cruise ships usually have one basic operating theatre with all the attendant horrifying equipment in it
One cigarette thrown carelessly in the wrong place WILL start a fire that will gut half the ship.
When we’re pitching side to side, the anchor swings out and then back in, striking the metal outer shell with a noise that shakes half the ship
People disappear overboard more often than you’d really want to be a thing
A lot of cruise ships now have theatres on board (usually towards the front) with all the potential for dark corners, creepy costumes and electrical calamities you could want.
And as op says, you can’t really escape a ship in the middle of the ocean. Particularly during a storm, as then you can’t even evacuate to lifeboats unless the whole ship is going down. On the upside being on board during a storm means most guests hide in their cabins and the staff walk around like drunks, which would likely throw off a skilled murderer’s plans.
Takes notes
You also have the bonus of a corporate overlord who doesn’t give a shit about anything but profits and can be reliably counted on to downplay any disaster in an attempt to avoid publicity.
Hey there, white authors! Want to know if you can write POC? Check out this post instead of asking your POC friends to do free labor!
