occasionally subtle
Love Begins
taylor price
Not today Justin
EXPECTATIONS
Cosimo Galluzzi
RMH
noise dept.
roma★
pixel skylines
Game Changer & Make Some Noise
oozey mess
KIROKAZE
Keni
YOU ARE THE REASON
No title available
No title available
#extradirty
Monterey Bay Aquarium
shark vs the universe
seen from Uruguay
seen from Indonesia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Iraq
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from Denmark
seen from Germany
seen from Türkiye
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
@writerthatwritesstuff-moving
I was inspired by @jezifster's recent question about non-gendered royal titles, and I put together this graphic to serve as a jumping off point for people writing monarchies in SFF !
Obviously this non-exhaustive list contains mainly western titles, all in English. Feel free add any on additional gender neutral terminologies that you can think of, including those from different languages and cultures!
Account Switch
I'm going to be officially switching accounts to https://writerthatwritesstuff.tumblr.com/ If y'all don't mind, I would really appreciate you following me over there! I'll still be using my side blogs over here, more than likely, but figured it was time to officially move blogs. I've also privated all of my posts on this account, and will be re-posting some of them over there.
Account Switch
I'm going to be officially switching accounts to https://writerthatwritesstuff.tumblr.com/ If y'all don't mind, I would really appreciate you following me over there! I'll still be using my side blogs over here, more than likely, but figured it was time to officially move blogs. I've also privated all of my posts on this account, and will be re-posting some of them over there.
Account Switch
I'm going to be officially switching accounts to https://writerthatwritesstuff.tumblr.com/ If y'all don't mind, I would really appreciate you following me over there! I'll still be using my side blogs over here, more than likely, but figured it was time to officially move blogs. I've also privated all of my posts on this account, and will be re-posting some of them over there.
Useful Writing Resources II
Like the last one of these I did, this is a long list of resources for writers to use. Use them wisely:)
Find The First One Here
*** = Separate List Of Resources Pertaining To That Specific Subject
Productivity & Writer’s Block
Ways To Unstick A Stuck Story
10 Outlining Methods For Writers
Things To Do When You Can’t Seem To Write
Ambient Sounds For Writers Masterpost
ZenPen
The Most Dangerous Writing App
Evernote
Writer, the Internet Typewriter
Wordcounter
Character Development
Writing Types Of Characters *** Making An OC ***
Character With Social Anxiety
Female Characters To Avoid
Writing Healthy Relationships
List of 300 Possible Secrets To Give Your Character
Fantasy & Miscellaneous
Myths, Creatures, And Folklore
Helpful Things For Action Writers To Remember
Writing The Opening Scene
Fictional Kisses
Master List of Writer’s Questions Answered’s Posts
Writing Advice Masterlist
The Little Details
How bodies decompose
Wilderness survival skills
Mob mentality
Other cultures
What it takes for a human to die in a given situation
Common tropes for your genre
Average weather for your setting
Free Online Sources For Research
Japanese creatures
greek creatures
creatures organised by type
creatures listed by letter
humanoid creatures
filipino creatures
chinese creatures
cryptids
‘fearsome critters’
angels
beings referred to as fairies
creatures that pretend to be human
a page on therianthropic creatures
shapeshifters
hybrid creatures
extraterrestrial creatures
deities
a page of mythology page links
a section of folklore page links
flying creatures
theological demons
fictional species lists
mythology related lists
legendary creature related lists
Writing Emotional Scenes
Creating Story Structure
What You Need To Hear Before You Publish A Book
Description
Words to Describe Someone’s Voice
An Article About Describing Voice
Voice Types
Vocal Qualities
Panix.com Character Chart
Vocal Impressions
Speech Patterns
Gender and Speech Patterns
Speech Accent Archive
Speech Impediment
What Makes A Man’s/Woman’s Voice Sexy
Synonyms-Antonyms.com
TheCaveOnline
550 Alternative Words for Said
Plot
Subplots
7 Ways to Add Great Subplots to your Novels
The 7 Shoulds of Writing a Subplot
Who Needs Subplots?
Subplots
Knowing Your terms: Subplots
Weave Subplots into your Novel
Understanding the Role of Subplots
Plot, Plot Layers, and Subplots
Plot and Subplot
Subplots - Chicken Soup for your Novel
How Many Subplots are Acceptable?
Subplots by Word Count
Too Many Subplots?
Generators
Appearance Generator
Archetypes Generator
Character Generator
Character Traits Generator
Family Generator
Job/Occupation Generator, (II)
Love Interest Generator
Motive Generator
Name Generator
Personality Generator, (II)
Quick Character Generator
Super Powers Generator
First Encounter Generator
First Line Generator, (II)
Plot Generator, (II), (III)
Plot Device Generator
Plot Twist Generator
Quick Plot Generator
Brand Name Generator
Medicine Title Generator
Name Generator
Quick Name Generator
Vehicle Generator
Town Name Generator
City Generator
Fantasy Race Generator
Laws Generator
Pet Generator
Setting Generator
Species Generator
Terrain Generator
Subject Generator
”Take Three Nouns” Generator
Word Prompt Generator
Color Generator
Decision Generator
Dialogue Generator
Journey Generator
Title Generator, (II), (III)
This is a beautiful graphic but it doesn’t explain the pros and cons of each fire type.
The Swedish torch is good for an efficient and contained fire, it’s controlled and good for cooking over and produces less light and heat than other fires. It can be difficult to keep going once you burn through the original log
The teepee is your traditional campfire. Good for heat and light not great for cooking, burns through fuel fairly quickly
The star fire is one of the slowest burning and not well protected but provides an even heat good for slow cooking and is excellent if you have limited fuel and need the protection a fire can provide
The lean to is a compact and efficient fire that evolves into a dense and hot bed of coals. The structure creates a good source of air flow which can help damp wood burn. A slightly better cooking fire that isn’t as bright. It also provides protection from wind on one side
The platform fire is incredibly hot and will create a very thick bed of coals but it doesn’t have a lot of air flow and is a little harder to get started.
The log cabin is big and bright and has lots of air flow which again is good for damp logs. You can also use this structure to start a smaller fire in the middle while drying out bigger logs. This fire will crumble into a messier bed of coals that don’t produce particularly even heat for cooking.
The modified leanto is excellent if you need it to perform multiple functions. The side with more fuel will burn bright and hot and the side with less fuel will burn less hot but more evenly and controlled, this gives you different cooking options.
reblogging for writing purposes. the exact reason will come soon enough.
* / GUIDE: CHARACTERS AT A NEWSPAPER.
hi, hello ! here’s just a guide for creating a character who works in a newsroom/for a newspaper. most of this is drawn from personal experience (+ my parents’ experiences) but i did some googling on your behalf as well. this guide isn’t just because i wanna see more accuracy, but also because there’s a lot of things about this environment that would be fun to write that i don’t really see being taken advantage of. so, check out under the cut for all my tips.
note: if you have any questions about your journalist or journalist-adjacent muse, i’m happy to try and help answer ! let me know if you have more questions this guide doesn’t cover, i just went to the points that might be most helpful for your muse plot-wise.
Keep reading
Just in case this needs to be said:
It’s the first draft. Use the word “suddenly.” Put as many dialogue tags and adverbs as you want. Say “he saw” “she remembered” “she felt” “they wondered” as many times as you need to. Put the em dash there, put in too many commas, use semi-colons with reckless abandon. Type in [whatever] instead of thinking up a title for something. Just write it. If you worry too much about the particulars, about all the advice posts you’ve seen saying whatever you’re doing is wrong or not good enough, you won’t get anything done. It will slow you down as you go back and try to reword what you just wrote to make it better, proper. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done. And when you get to the end, you’ll find that all those “mistakes” are just clues for your future self to put together to make it all better.
Putting in adverbs and certain dialogue tags are a note for you as to who is saying something and how they’re saying it. When you’re editing, you can make sure it shows through the story instead. The word “suddenly” is a reminder to make things more abrupt. The first draft is just you mapping out where you want to go and how you want to get there. Don’t waste time trying to get it 100% right now, because then it will never get done. Don’t think too much– just write. Save the thinking for editing later.
The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done
Walls, floor and roof THEN wallpaper, pictures and carpet.
Not the other way round.
That’s why it takes me forever to write.
There is no second draft. There is the one draft and that has to be the most of what it can be.
Resources For Writing Sketchy Topics
Medicine
A Study In Physical Injury
Comas
Medical Facts And Tips For Your Writing Needs
Broken Bones
Burns
Unconsciousness & Head Trauma
Blood Loss
Stab Wounds
Pain & Shock
All About Mechanical Injuries (Injuries Caused By Violence)
Writing Specific Characters
Portraying a kleptomaniac.
Playing a character with cancer.
How to portray a power driven character.
Playing the manipulative character.
Portraying a character with borderline personality disorder.
Playing a character with Orthorexia Nervosa.
Writing a character who lost someone important.
Playing the bullies.
Portraying the drug dealer.
Playing a rebellious character.
How to portray a sociopath.
How to write characters with PTSD.
Playing characters with memory loss.
Playing a pyromaniac.
How to write a mute character.
How to write a character with an OCD.
How to play a stoner.
Playing a character with an eating disorder.
Portraying a character who is anti-social.
Portraying a character who is depressed.
How to portray someone with dyslexia.
How to portray a character with bipolar disorder.
Portraying a character with severe depression.
How to play a serial killer.
Writing insane characters.
Playing a character under the influence of marijuana.
Tips on writing a drug addict.
How to write a character with HPD.
Writing a character with Nymphomania.
Writing a character with schizophrenia.
Writing a character with Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Writing a character with depression.
Writing a character who suffers from night terrors.
Writing a character with paranoid personality disorder.
How to play a victim of rape.
How to play a mentally ill/insane character.
Writing a character who self-harms.
Writing a character who is high on amphetamines.
How to play the stalker.
How to portray a character high on cocaine.
Playing a character with ADHD.
How to play a sexual assault victim.
Writing a compulsive gambler.
Playing a character who is faking a disorder.
Playing a prisoner.
Portraying an emotionally detached character.
How to play a character with social anxiety.
Portraying a character who is high.
Portraying characters who have secrets.
Portraying a recovering alcoholic.
Portraying a sex addict.
How to play someone creepy.
Portraying sexually/emotionally abused characters.
Playing a character under the influence of drugs.
Playing a character who struggles with Bulimia.
Illegal Activity
Examining Mob Mentality
How Street Gangs Work
Domestic Abuse
Torture
Assault
Murder
Terrorism
Internet Fraud
Cyberwarfare
Computer Viruses
Corporate Crime
Political Corruption
Drug Trafficking
Human Trafficking
Sex Trafficking
Illegal Immigration
Contemporary Slavery
Black Market Prices & Profits
AK-47 prices on the black market
Bribes
Computer Hackers and Online Fraud
Contract Killing
Exotic Animals
Fake Diplomas
Fake ID Cards, Passports and Other Identity Documents
Human Smuggling Fees
Human Traffickers Prices
Kidney and Organ Trafficking Prices
Prostitution Prices
Cocaine Prices
Ecstasy Pills Prices
Heroin Prices
Marijuana Prices
Meth Prices
Earnings From Illegal Jobs
Countries In Order Of Largest To Smallest Risk
Forensics
arson
Asphyxia
Blood Analysis
Book Review
Cause & Manner of Death
Chemistry/Physics
Computers/Cell Phones/Electronics
Cool & Odd-Mostly Odd
Corpse Identification
Corpse Location
Crime and Science Radio
crime lab
Crime Scene
Cults and Religions
DNA
Document Examination
Fingerprints/Patterned Evidence
Firearms Analysis
Forensic Anthropology
Forensic Art
Forensic Dentistry
Forensic History
Forensic Psychiatry
General Forensics
Guest Blogger
High Tech Forensics
Interesting Cases
Interesting Places
Interviews
Medical History
Medical Issues
Misc
Multiple Murderers
On This Day
Poisons & Drugs
Police Procedure
Q&A
serial killers
Space Program
Stupid Criminals
Theft
Time of Death
Toxicology
Trauma
For research and to save onto.
Reference later
I didn’t realize how much I needed this until I found it
Writing Advice Bilingual Characters
As some of you (who read my reviews) already might have noticed, I am bilingual myself. Sadly, multilingual people do not get represented well a lot in media, so yeah… some advice for writing them. It will certainly not capture every aspect of being bilingual, but it might give you a first idea.
There are different ways to be multilingual.
People who grew up with more than one native language will almost certainly speak all of them fluently. Most of them have two (their parents’ language and their country’s language, or the language of one parent and of the other) but I also know a family where the children grew up with four native languages (the mother speaks Portuguese, the father Italian, they talk to each other in English, and live in Germany, where the children grew up)
Some people speak two or more languages, but cannot write all of them - especially when the alphabets are not the same, for example English and Russian or Arabic. This affects mostly children of immigrants.
Some people can read and write a language quite well, but are not good at speaking or listening comprehension. Those people often learned the language at school with a bad teacher or by themselves with books and apps.
Some people, again mostly children and grandchildren of immigrants, can read and understand a language, but don’t speak it. Mostly, the parents decided to not teach the child the language, and they learned it themselves by listening to their parents talk to relatives.
Confidence can play a big role in this. I understand the dialect of my grandparents without a problem, but I would never try to speak it. I can’t even imagine forming those words with my mouth, and it would sound terrible.
People who learnt a language at school can reach completely different levels of that language. I started learning English at age 6 and am completely fluent by now. Other people in my class barely understand more than easy conversations in English.
Most people will do their very best to hide their accents.
If the person is not a native speaker, but fluent in a language, their accent will be a mix of whatever they can find at the moment. Media is a big influence in that.
Since I watch more British than American TV, my accent sounds a bit british, too. When I watched “Call the Midwife”, I often even unconciously copy the accent of Laura Main. I don’t know why her, but my brain just liked it, I guess.
Also, we will use words, phrases and sentence structures from so many different sources.
People who learnt English through the internet (aka most of the younger generation) will have problems to not use swear words when actually being in Great Britain or America. They just do not have the weight for us, since on the internet they get used all the time.
I have never in my whole live heard a multilingual person switch languages mid-sentence on accident.
We will do it on purpose, though, if the other part of the conversation understands both languages.
Also, we will maybe say the word in another language if we forget the meaning.
Multilingual people that are not natives in the language they usually use in their day-to-day life (immigrants, for example) will often count and calculate in their native language. For example at a restaurant where they calculate the price in their head, they will probably do it in their native language.
Conversations with multiple multilingual people can be very different.
If one person only understands one language, they will probably try to include that person by speaking the language they share. I can say from experience, though, that if eight native Germans that have varying levels of English language skills will sit together with one introverted Turkish person with medium English language skills, they will go back to German quite often. It’s not nice, but sadly natural.
In general, people will try to speak in their native language if possible. You can take two people that share a native language and also both speak English and let them walk around in London - they will probably speak their native language, no matter how well they speak English.
Multilingual people that share multiple languages will switch on purpose when they feel like they can express their thoughts better in the other language.
Many languages have taken words from English.
Especially young people take a lot of English filler words and phrases (or insults) and put them into their native language. “Help, mein Deutschlehrer überfordert uns mit Hausaufgaben, like, what the fuck, glaubt der wir haben nichts besseres zu tun?” Is a sentence you would absolutely hear from a German student.
Many young people that don’t live in Great Britain or America will not use these words and phrases around their parents. First of all, our parents often do not speak English as well as we do, but more importantly, our parents do not like us using English instead of ur native language.
Many professions nowadays have an English name, I don’t know why. What used to be a Hausmeister is now a Facility Manager. The longer the English phrase for your profession, the more likely you will not be taken serious by older people.
Once you have more than one native language, you learn new languages more easily, for some reason. I know a girl that speaks 7 languages, at age 20, 5 of them fluently.
“You speak English quite well” or phrases like that said by a native speaker can be the best compliment ever, or more uncomfortable than nice.
When you are translating for your family and hear that sentence, it is super nice.
When you are only speaking English, that sentence indicates that your accent is still heavy. You do not pass as a native speaker.
When you are a native speaker, that sentence is just weird.
You can indentify the people that learnt a language through reading by giving them words that are pronounced untypically.
For years I thought “precious” (a word that is heavily used on the internet, especially in fan communities, but not that much in school) was pronounces pree-ci-ous. I was shocked when I heard it for the first time.
There are situations where even quite fluent non-native speakers will not be able to understand or talk in their second language.
The first few minutes after standing up (although that can change when the person is really fluent)
When they are in great pain
When they are in great fear
When they are under great stress
Sometimes even when they did not use that language in the last few days
Translating in realtime is terribly hard and will fuck your head. When I was on holiday with my parents, I often had to read the information signs in museums or at sights for them and translate. It’s easier when you first read the text and then summarise it in another language, but trying to translate it sentence by sentence is painful and you will question your abilities in both languages.
This gets just more horrible when under pressure. While we were in England, a visibly stressed young woman came to us and asked us if we had 5 pounds, she had lost some money she needed to take the train back home. I repeated her sentence to my father. In English.
Also sorry to the poor worker at McDonalds who I talked English to while speaking German to my English exchange student.
People abroad will absolutely become friends with every person that they hear speaking their language. While being in London, we overheard a man talking to his son in German about taking a photo, and I immediately asked (in German) if I should take a photo of both of them together. We talked for fifteen minutes after that, even though we had never met before.
On that note, in tourist citys the people that try to sell things to tourists usually speak a lot of languages enough to say things like “Oh, I speak a bit of [language], too, but not well. Didn’t pay enough attention in school. You look like nice people.” Makes it so easy to sell things.
Idioms are literally hell. Best example has been in the news currently, with Greta Thunberg literally translating a Swedish idiom in a tweet not realising that “putting someone against a wall” means something totally different in English.
Idioms will be hell for you as a writer, too, though, as long as you do not fluently speak both of the languages or at least one of them is fictional, because it’s quite easy to mess up if you use idioms that jus aren’t normally used by people speaking that language.
Bilingual puns are amazing, but sadly rare.
Those are the things I thought of first… Maybe you can find some ideas or inspiration there for your characters, too. The best thing of course is to let someone proof-read your character if you are uncertain, but this hopefully already helped you a bit!
Fantasy Wardrobe: Popular Men's Fashion of History
Fashion is one of my favourite worldbuilding components and choosing which way I want characters to look, is one part of research that is more fun than work. The use of different styles give each culture a defined feel and could act as a symbol of all kinds of lands in your WIP. Since it is your WIP, you can play with different elements of the garments and pay fast and loose with the styles.
Shirt
The shirt is the key to every other item of clothing on this list. The shirt was always worn under everything. It was often made of linen and worn by all classes. The shirt was often embroidered with blackwork and was sometimes even able to peak out from slashings in the garment over it. Shirts were seen as an intimate item of clothing. You should hear about the chaos that occurred when Anne Boleyn found out that Katherine of Aragon was still sewing Henry VIII's shirts.
Tunic
The tunic was worn by all classes. The tunic could be sleeveless or with sleeves. Tunics usually reached the knee or mid thigh when worn in hot climates and could be cut to the hip like a regular shirt today. They were belted at the waist.
Doublet
The doublet was a jacket worn over a man's undershirt. The doublet was usually laced or buttoned up at the front, reaching from the neck of the wearer to the hip of the waist. The doublet was often padded in order to keep the wearer warm.
Jerkin
The jerkin is a tight fitted jacket worn again over the shirt that is buttoned or laced at the front. The jerkin could be worn with or without sleeves. Leather was a popular material for these to be made and was worn by both classes.
Breeches
Are pants. Most breeches stopped at the knee though some reached the ankle, similar to today's trousers. Breeches could be in laced at the front and were worn by every class of men.
Hose
These were a style of pants that usually ended above the knee. Hose were often worn with a codpiece, a rather bold fashion statement for men. Hose would have also been worn with stockings held up by garters. Hose might be padded at the things to add some flare to the look.
Overgown
The overgown is rather like a great loose jacket worn over the doublet or jerkin. It was usually sewn with fur for warmth and made of contrasting fabric than what lay underneath.
Justacorps
This is the classic knee-length coat worn by men 18th century. Men would wear this over a waistcoat and shirt. This was a popular fashion for highborn men. It does still look fine.
Kaftan/ Caftan/Boubou
This is a large robe that is pulled on over the head with long sleeves. It can have a v-neck or round neck. They are usually heavily embroidered.
Achkan/Sherwani
This is the long coat worn by Indian men. It is usually buttoned up at the front, reaches just below the knees and is long sleeved.
It’s Not Working: Character Troubleshooting
Welcome to It’s Not Working, a troubleshooting series that I’m uniquely qualified to run because I write things that don’t work all the time. This week, we study characters-why they don’t work, how to know, and what to do about it.
Question time
Think of a character that’s been giving you some difficulty, and answer these questions:
Are you unsure of their motivations, both scene by scene and in the whole plot?
Do they start and end with the same motivations, perspectives, personality, and outlook?
Does it feel like their lines could’ve been spoken by any other character?
Do you have trouble describing their personality, even to yourself?
If you answered yes to these questions, you may have an underdeveloped character.
Do they tend to act differently scene to scene?
Do you not know what to do with them in scenes?
Do they not have a part to play in the plot?
If you answered yes to these, you may have an unmotivated character.
Did you answer no to all of the above questions, but beta readers and critique partners are disagreeing?
Readers can’t understand their personality, motivations, or effect on the plot?
Then you may have an misrepresented character.
Why don’t they work?
Underdeveloped character: We’ve all heard of them before. They come off as bland. There’s no significant development or change to them throughout the story. Characters are your readers’ foothold into the story. If they feel like empty bottles, its going to be a lot harder for people to become invested in the plot.
Unmotivated characters lack one thing: yes, it is motivation. It’s the ultimate reason for your characters to do anything. Why do they feel like they have to save the city? Why do they get upset at that one joke? Without proper and consistent motivation, your readers are gonna get whiplash trying to figure out all the why’s of the character’s actions. And if they’re too busy worrying about that, then they’re gonna lose interest in the plot and the book as a whole.
Misrepresented characters are fully formed, at least to the author. They know everything about them, from their MBTI to the color of their second favorite rain boots. The writer has charts of how their motivations shift throughout the story, diagrams of their highs and lows, but for some reason, when readers get their hands on it, they give feed back like ‘flat’, ‘boring’, ‘generic’. Something needs to bridge that gap between the writers knowledge and what’s on the page.
The Fixes
Underdeveloped characters:
Find character questionnaires, follow character prompt blogs, take personality tests as your character. Really explore who they are as a person.
Make a chart of where they start and where they end. What happens in the plot that can significantly change them and the way they think?
Write scenes from their first person voice. Yes, even if you write in third. Write it like diary entry, write it obnoxiously first person, so first person even first person writers would cringe. Every spelling mistake you’d think they’d make, all the tangents, everything. Get a feel for the way they sound and think.
What makes them unique? What makes them so interesting that you would rather write them than a whole different character? Let this shine through.
Consider cutting them or combining them with another character if they really aren’t doing anything for your plot. I know, it hurts. You can always save pieces of them to use in another project, but sometimes it’s for the greater good.
Unmotivated characters:
Answer the questions: Why are they my main character, and why are they taking part in this plot? If you can’t answer those, then you either have the wrong main character, or the wrong plot.
Fill in this triangle and refer to them whenever you’re unsure of how they should react to something:
Write an elaborate backstory for the character. Why do they come off as stoic all the time, except when they shriek around antique dolls? There’s a story there. You don’t necessarily have to write it in the text, but the more you know about your character, the more credible these choices will feel to the reader.
Have inconsistencies addressed in the story. If they say that they don’t care about anyone on the team, and then run into a burning building to save them, it should be noted. Not necessarily flat out said, but noted.
Tone down big reactions. The wailing, screeching, jumping for joy. Some characters might do some of these things. Some might do some of them sometimes. But one character will very rarely bounce around the peak of every emotion all the time. If you do write that character, it needs to happen very intentionally.
Misrepresented character
Take a good look at the character’s introduction. Are you telling instead of showing? Is the reader distracted by larger plot things during their first scene? Do they have chances to prove their personality traits to the reader through actions or dialogue?
Can you hear them? Do they have a specific voice? Mannerisms? Quirks you can show the reader?
Are you leaving too much in subtext? I love assuming my readers will be scouring my books for clues and subtleties one day. But for major character traits, it’s better to be upfront about it. No one can assume your characters backstory out of thin air. Sometimes you have to be upfront about their motivations
Have you given an accurate, and somehow not boring, character description? If this is where you’re stuck, I understand, I’ve been there. But think of it as a chance not to list off eye color and hair length, but as a chance for each element to tell the reader something about the character. A ‘severe’ haircut gives us a different tone than ‘soft curls’. ‘Enough dirt in their nail beds to give an archaeologist chills’ give us one impression, ‘a smile that knows how high her cheekbones are’ gives us another. Play with it. Have fun.
Are you using them in each scene they’re in? Not only as an effect on the plot, but also using the scene to showcase who they are. It should be a symbiotic relationship, scenes and characters.
Some last few pieces of advice:
Don’t kill off a character or make them leave for the rest of the book because you don’t know what to do with them. If they stop having a purpose after a certain point, consider combining that purpose with a character that sticks around.
Don’t kill off a character just because you think you have to
There’s no such thing as ‘needing’ a love interest. If you have a character that is exclusively there as a love interest, they’re probably gonna come off as flat (unless it’s a straight up romance novel, in which case, have a blast).
Don’t feel like you need certain tropes. ‘Funny best friend’. ‘School bully’. ‘Evil dictator’. Don’t put them in unless they actually have something to do with the plot of your book.
We could take about characters for weeks. Months. Years. But hopefully this not so brief overview gave you some ways to rethink any problem characters you might have.
Surnames are just as important as given names. So, I compiled a list of the websites I use to find my surnames.
English Surnames
Dutch Surnames
Spanish Surnames
Scottish Surnames
German Surnames
Italian Surnames
Irish Surnames
French Surnames
Scandinavian Surnames
Welsh Surnames
Jewish Surnames
Surnames By Ethnicity
Most Common Surnames in the USA
Most Common Surnames in Great Britan
Most Common Surnames in Asia
For whoever needs these.
I NEED THE ITALIAN LAST NAMES SO BAD
We are like fireworks…: Surnames Master Post.
Chinese surnames
Indian surnames
Indonesian surnames
Pakistani surnames
Bengali surnames
Japanese surnames
Filipino surnames
Korean surnames
Syrian surnames
Mongolian naming and clan names
Thai surnames
Asia is not a single country.
“Asia is not a single country.”
child handling for the childless nurse
My current job has me working with children, which is kind of a weird shock after years in environments where a “young” patient is 40 years old. Here’s my impressions so far:
Birth - 1 year: Essentially a small cute animal. Handle accordingly; gently and affectionately, but relying heavily on the caregivers and with no real expectation of cooperation.
Age 1 - 2: Hates you. Hates you so much. You can smile, you can coo, you can attempt to soothe; they hate you anyway, because you’re a stranger and you’re scary and you’re touching them. There’s no winning this so just get it over with as quickly and non-traumatically as possible.
Age 3 - 5: Nervous around medical things, but possible to soothe. Easily upset, but also easily distracted from the thing that upset them. Smartphone cartoons and “who wants a sticker?!!?!?” are key management techniques.
Age 6 - 10: Really cool, actually. I did not realize kids were this cool. Around this age they tend to be fairly outgoing, and super curious and eager to learn. Absolutely do not babytalk; instead, flatter them with how grown-up they are, teach them some Fun Gross Medical Facts, and introduce potentially frightening experiences with “hey, you want to see something really cool?”
Age 11 - 14: Extremely variable. Can be very childish or very mature, or rapidly switch from one mode to the other. At this point you can almost treat them as an adult, just… a really sensitive and unpredictable adult. Do not, under any circumstances, offer stickers. (But they might grab one out of the bin anyway.)
Age 15 - 18: Basically an adult with severely limited life experience. Treat as an adult who needs a little extra education with their care. Keep parents out of the room as much as possible, unless the kid wants them there. At this point you can go ahead and offer stickers again, because they’ll probably think it’s funny. And they’ll want one. Deep down, everyone wants a sticker.
This is also a pretty excellent guide to writing kids of various ages
Good guide. It is one of my biggest pet peeves when 6-10 year olds are all written like 3-4 year olds. Positively cringey. If in doubt err on the side of the kid being more mature than you expect.
if in doubt err of the side of the kid being more mature than you expect
I’m 29 and I want a sticker.
Color Synonyms
White
also: pale; blanched; sallow; pallid; waxen; spectral; translucent; albino;
Grey
also: dust; stone; pepper;
Black
also: coal; slate; dusky; ebon; shadow; murky;
Tan
also: flesh; khaki; cream; tawny;
Brown
also: henna; russet; sepia; chestnut; cocoa; drab; bronze;
Red
also: terracotta ; rouge; carmine; fire-engine; ruddy
Orange
also: pumpkin ; rust ;
Yellow
also: sunny; amber; saffron; hay; straw; platinum;
Green
also: viridescent; grass; jade; forest;
Blue
also: turquoise; cyan; ultramarine; royal; aqua; aquamarine;
Purple
also: berry; amaranthine;
Pink
also: flushed; candy; cherry blossom; petal pink ;
—– source: http://ingridsundberg.com/
—–additional synonyms added by me
I will forever cherish this post. I’ve seen it a multiple of times; how foolish of me to not reblog this masterpiece the first time I see it UGH
You know those words and phrases that sneak into your writing even though you KNOW you overuse them? Those little bastards like “They locked eyes,” or “glare,” or my personal demonphrase, “She dropped her stance” will follow you while you write and sometimes escape notice during proofing. So rather than keeping a list of these words taped to my desk, here’s what I do.
I used to write real estate title reports, which meant I was typing the same phrases hundreds of times a day. This was near the end of my working career when my hands were falling apart (I have a disability) and I had three surgeries in four years. I saved a lot of wear and tear on my hands with THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK.
In MS Word or whatever you’re using go into the AutoCorrect options.
Think of an abbreviation for your hated word or phrase; you want this to be a word that you don’t use very often, so it won’t be accidentally popping up. Like an autocorrect safeword.
Type that into the “Replace:” blank and type the shitword(s) into the “With:” blank.
So now, instead of typing “The property described in Schedule A of the title commitment is located within Flood Zone A,” dozens of times a day, I just needed to type “FZA” and my boring sentence would write itself. Soon, I had a personal shorthand that worked really well and made everyone think I was crazy because I’d sit down at other computers and start typing weird acronyms and then be confused when they didn’t magically change into sentences.
Use this system to remind you to replace those unwanted words like so:
When I write “they locked eyes,” I see “they USE ANOTHER WORD” in all caps to remind me! And if I reallllly want them to lock eyes, I can undo a change while I type just like any other autocorrect. My word list is always growing as I write, read, and proof, and I don’t have to remember a list of words to avoid.
