Write Sew Lang Die @writesewlangdie - Tumblr Blog

cosimahenning-deactivated201609

Writing Resources, I guess

So when I’m writing I sometimes need prompts or sometimes I just want to write random shit, so I will use generators. This is just a few that I use and like;

Family Tree, Relationship Generators

Battletech Family Tree Generator - Generates 2/3 generations, can choose options such as name types (real life/fantasy/ethnic fusion/place/gang).

Demarco - Generates a family trees based on info provided, P/Matriarchs, Years born, married and died, and current imput year. Also includes a Type of “race” choice: Human: Medieval, Scottish, Eqyptian or Modern or Dwarf (Fantasy race). All generations up to imput current date are automatically open.

Ja.Partridgez - Family tree generator, similar to Demarco but without the Type option and the generations are not automatically opened, you click a button to see it.

Gayahithwen- Family Tree generator that follows the Male line, it’s a Harry Potter one, so you can choose Hogwarts houses. Options include; Family name or randomly chosen English or Irish surname, Year of birth of family founder, or choices between eras 800-1100, 1100-1400, 1400-1700 or 1700-2000. You can have Hogwarts houses chosen randomly or choose percentages. Also you can choose options to suggest partners names and to include year of death.

Rangen Family Generator- doesn’t so much generate a family tree as members and their names and ages, Parents, Siblings, Children, Grandparents etc. Includes Simple (Just name and age) or Detail (whether they get along with main character, personality) Options.

Rangen Pregnancy Generator - generates a birth/s, whether it’s a boy/girl/unknown, birth weight, date of birth, whether it resembles the mother/father/relative/family friend, whether the baby/ies is/are heathy/weak etc. Generates Single Births, Multiples, No Conception.

Cities, Towns, Kingdoms

CrystalBallSoft - Fantasy City You choose the name, size (from Thorp up to Metropolis), whether it’s by the sea, or a river, whether it has military, if it has gates. You can generate Wards, and Professions. Choose major race (Human, Hafling, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Half Elf, Half Orc or Other) and Society (Isolated, Mixed or Integrated). It’ll also generate GP Limit, Imports and Exports, what the city is famous for and infamous for, no. of wards, and professions.

Mathemagician - You choose the name, size (Thorp-Metro) and population percentages (Human, Dwarf, Elf, the usual). It gives you Power Center, Alignment, Population, GP Limit, Community Wealth, You can view all the Militia/Town Guard/Aristocrats/Experts etc members. Names/Race/Gender/Level/Profession/Personality. As well as a list and opening hours of all Blacksmiths, Scroll and Potion shops, Jewelry Store, General Stores, and Taverns. You click and it’ll also give you the Names/Race/Gender/Level/Profession/Personality of employees for each of said options. Tavern option also gives hour by hour list of currently working employees, patrons and entertainment as well as a full menu.

Rangen City Generator - This gives you single word descriptions of things like Settlement type (e.g Metropolis), Size (e.g Large), Cost of Living (e.g Expensive). Etc. Good for general outlines, and basic stuff.

Lucid Phoenix Kingdom Population - Give you Civilisation vs Wilderness size and %. Number of castles and castle ruins, Population density, Total Population, Population breakdown (No. Rural, Urban or Isolated). Also now gives Urban Population Centres (big cities) with demographics of population size and businesses.

Worlds and Solar Systems

Donjon Fractal World Generator - Gives you a basic map/image of a world. You choose Map Projection (Square, Spherical, Mercator etc) Map Palette (Atlas, Olsson etc), % Water, % Ice, Image Height, Iterations and Rotation.

Donjon Fantasy World Generator - First, the servers for this are busy a lot of the time but it’s worth it. Basically does the same as above but different options. Map Style (Atlas or Antique), Font (Black Castle, Tengwar Others etc.), % Water % Ice, Geography (Yes or No), Rivers ( Yes, No or Many) Cities and Castles (Yes, No or Many), show Hex Grid and/or Labels.

Donjon SciFi World Generator - You choose things such as World Name, Map Projection (Square, Mercator etc.), Map Palette (Atlas, Barren, Antique etc.), %Water, % Ice, Image Height, Iterations and Rotation. It gives you things like; Basic Image, Physics (Type, Radius, Surface Area, Land Area, Mass, Density, Composition (Iron, Oxygen etc). Gravimetry (Gravity m/s2, (# x Earth), Escape Velocity km/s), Rotation (Period and Axis Tilt), Hydrosphere (Water and Ice %), Atmosphere (Type, Pressure in kPa, # x Earth, Composition), Climate (Type, Min Temp, Avg Temp and Max Temp in Kelvin and Celsius), Biosphere (Chemistry, Lifeforms), Civilisation (Type, Population, Tech Level). If you us the Imperial you’re out of luck.

Donjon Star System Generator - Star Name, Companion Star (Random, None, Close or Distant), Planets (Random, None, Few, Several, Many). You can force a system to include a terrestrial world. It’ll generate things like the Star/s and it’s data (Type, Radius, Mass, Temperature and Luminosity), any terrestrial worlds, rock planets, jovian planets, ice or neptunian planets and their data also. If it includes a terrestrial planet you can further click on that and get more data like that of the SciFi World Generator above.

Donjon SWd6 System Generator - Made for use with Star Wars d6 RPG, generates a basic system, and information basically like that from SciFi World Generator.

Donjon Traveller System Generator - Again, generates a basic system, includes whether there is a naval base, starport or scout base and tech levels on a terrestrial planet.

This is just a very small portion of generators I use for Fantasy and SciFi stories. If you want or need other generators feel free to message me, I probably have several. Also let me know if you want me to make another for purely SciFi/Food/Drink/Pretty much anything.

bitchesofostwick

me: okay time to jump into the action scene

me: don’t say it

me: … “SUDDENLY”

mlwangbooks

My go-to fixes for this:

but before [Character] could [verb], ACTION!

[Character] was about to [verb] when ACTION!

but no sooner had [something] than ACTION!

but just as [something boring], ACTION!

BANG!/CRASH!/BOOM! ACTION!

“Character dialogue starting some sentence about–” ACTION!

Character’s internal monologue starting some sent– ACTION!

Narrator starting some– ACTION!

… ACTION!

Why extend your readers the courtesy of a ‘suddenly’ except to vary sentence structure?

phoebeusproduction

this-was-her-deactivated2020111

Don’t call me out like this 🤣

toboldlywrite

Are you really…. not supposed to…. describe what your characters are wearing….

by-ethan-fox

I think there’s a great deal of misinformation on this topic.

I believe it’s fine to describe what your characters are wearing. However, like all things, it should serve some kind of purpose.

For instance, describing winter clothes helps impart to the reader a sense of how cold it is. Describing summer clothes helps explain how warm it is.

Describing an outfit before a social event gives a window onto the character’s sense of fashion, or explains their reverence (or lack) for the event; for example a character can wear a black suit to a funeral, or watch from a distance while wearing a t-shirt and jeans. These impart a different attitude.

An outfit may be described purely to give a little more interest to a character; to give the reader a bit more insight into who they are, through the way they present themselves. It may have no greater significance to the wider story but this is still a reason to do it.

So the “purpose” doesn’t need to be super-vital to the story. It can be just because “describing this to the reader helps them appreciate the character or scene”, but that’s still a purpose.

toboldlywrite

I like that last comment because I think it can apply to a lot of things in storytelling! Anything that shows some element of your character has a purpose to the story even if it doesn’t exactly advance the plot.

bayoucurse

I think too there’s also the matter of how it’s described.

“I was wearing a purple hoodie, black skinny jeans, and checkered converse.”

“I wiped my palms on the thighs of my jeans. Black was the best color for when you’re going grave robbing – the dirt and blood didn’t stand out as much. Sadie flung the shovel back with a little more force than was necessary, flinging hunks of dirt onto my shoes. I paid 85$ for these limited edition checkered converse, and while perhaps I shouldn’t have been wearing them to grave rob, I didn’t have anything else. I pulled Abby’s shirt out of the pocket of my hoodie, running my fingers over the fabric. It was covered in purple lint from my jacket, but she wouldn’t care anyways. She was dead”

Treat the clothes as an aspect of the character and the situation. The first one is just information about one thing thrown at the reader, whereas you get the same information in the second, but you’re also presented with a situation, thoughts behind the dress choice for the situation, and a reaction from the reader (why is the character going grave robbing? Who is Sadie? How did Abby die?). You get so much more out of your story and your character.

bookishdiplodocus

Reblogging this again for @endymions ’s addition.

prokopetz

Also bear in mind that your implicit point of view is important even when writing in the third person – it’s not just a first-person thing.

Unless you’re writing in the objective voice (which you probably aren’t, because it’s a. only appropriate in a few specific circumstances, and b. extremely difficult to write well), your writing is going to have an implied viewpoint character – usually but not always the focus character of the scene – so you’ve gotta ask yourself: what would my PoV character make note of?

Spending a paragraph doing a point-by-point breakdown of a character’s outfit is the equivalent of your PoV stopping to give them the full once over. Is that appropriate? Is it in character? Would they have had the time?

Even a flatly factual description that offers no direct opinions on what’s observed tells you something about your PoV’s personality, because now you know what sorts of things they do and don’t notice.

(You can, of course, get around most of those issues by having an omniscient narrator who’s weirdly preoccupied with people’s fashion choices, but that just moves the question back a step – now you have to think about what you’re saying about your omniscient narrator’s priorities, and what this implies for how completely and accurately they’re reporting the action!)

keepcalmandwritefiction

“Writers - if you’re stuck on a scene and don’t know how get it done right, don’t be afraid to use filler[.] […] Just. Keep. Writing. You’ll figure it out. Sometimes all it takes is writing a later scene to crack it.“ (C. Robert Cargill)

lauraannegilman

I call this “brackets of wisdom” - term stolen from someone else years ago - and it includes everything from [type of braiding used] to [shit happens things go boom]. This is very useful in not breaking the flow of writing. However it can also lead to posting things like “Dear Past Me, Fuck you. nolove, Present Me.”

drawlight

This is a technique I use alllll the time and I wanted to definitely reblog!

mybluedecember

This is super helpful in tech writing too! I’ll sometimes do “TODO: INSERT BACKGROUND OF SAMPLING THEORY” in the middle of my papers.

this-is-lena-winter

YES!

I also will use the word “elephant*” in a place where I can’t think of the right one, or to mark the above “fill in with ____” here.

Why? Because then I can quickly control + F and search for it, making sure I haven’t accidentally left in a placeholder or a note to myself before I submit what I’ve been working on. It’s saved my butt a lot.

* or some other word that I would never use in my writing/papers. Obvi if you would, add something else.

marinaprose

Writing Advice Master List

Getting Started

Bad Habits of Beginning Writers Creating Writing Habits Prewriting 101 Returning to Old Works Setting Up Your Space Starting Again (if you’ve stopped) Where to Start Writing the Beginning Writing What You Don’t Know 5 Truths About Being A Writer

Career as a Writer

Making Money Writing for a Living

Characters:

Character Building Character Quirks Non-Binary Characters Religious Characters Writing A Hero Writing Non-Humans Writing Women 5 Ways to Name Your Character 5 More Ways to Name Your Character 7 Steps to Character Creation

Dialogue:

Dialogue Improving Dialogue: Eliminate Exposition

FanFiction

Fanfiction 101

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo Tips & Tricks for NaNoWriMo 3 Tips for NaNo

Planning & Outlines

How to Start Outlining Is My Idea Good Enough? Research Should you Outline? 7 Things to Do Before You Start

Plot:

Details Fight Scenes Sequels Sex Scenes Sexual Assault in Literature Story Arcs

Poetry

Editing Poetry Reading Poetry 5 Quick Poetry Tips

Publishing:

Choosing a Title Rejection Letters Social Media When and Where to Publish

Romance:

LGB Relationships Romantic Subplots Writing a Romance Novel

Setting:

Description When Setting Really Matters

World Building:

Creating Another Species Creating World Maps World Building 101 World Building 201

Other

Editing Making Time to Write Point Of View Prologues Why I Write Writers Block Writing with Sound 5 Signs You Treat Your Reader Like an Idiot

septembercfawkes

How to Stand Out in the Slush Pile 101

Submission piles in the writing industry are lovingly nicknamed “slush piles,” because most of the stories are … more like slush than stories. Here are some tips to make sure your opening is more story and less slush.

1. Make sure you follow the proper manuscript formatting.

For some of the submission piles I’ve been involved with, a template of the proper format was available for download. Nonetheless, the majority of submissions didn’t follow it. Some people don’t indent paragraphs, don’t even have paragraphs, or use weird fonts etc. Don’t add pictures to your manuscript—keep it simple and professional. Save and send it in the proper electronic format, which is usually a Word document.

For some publications, if the story isn’t formatted correctly, it is immediately rejected.

If you cannot find the formatting guidelines, you are usually safe using standard manuscript format, which is the traditional way of formatting.

2. Unless you are an advanced writer, communicate character, setting, and conflict (or tension) quick.

Most submissions get rejected in a matter of paragraphs or pages. Often pieces that get rejected are missing either a sense of character, setting, or conflict (or tension) in the opening. Sure, some stories get away without having all these things, but they better be hecka good in other ways. When I say “opening”–for some, that’s the beginning paragraphs. For others, it’s by the end of the second page.

Setting in particular seems to get left out. I’ve read scenes where the setting is never even hinted at—I don’t know if the characters are in a hospital, a bar, or a circus.

When it comes to conflict, you don’t necessarily need a bomb going off. In fact, you may not need a ton of conflict on the page itself—but you need the promise of significant conflict to come, or in other words, you need tension.

Here are two posts that may help with that:

Tension vs. Conflict

Are Your Conflict Significant?

3. Use character names.

Too many new writers “hide” their characters’ names. A bunch of vague pronouns doesn’t help me figure out who is doing what. Ex: “He (who?) held his hand over his (his own mouth or someone else’s?) mouth. The chief (is this “he” or a different person?) couldn’t believe this was happening. He (the chief?) struggled. Then the man (the “he,” “chief,” or someone else?) forced the hand away from his (whose mouth?) mouth.”—who is doing what? How many people are there?

4. Don’t open your story with a dream—usually

Dreams can be such a letdown. One submission I read was really good, and I was going to set it aside, and I got to the end of the second page and the first two pages were a dream! Don’t even open your story with a short dream. It’s too cliché in the slush pile. If you NEED a dream in it, don’t do it in the first few pages.

Of course, like all of these, there are exceptions, but whenever you break a rule it’s got to be really good and you’ve got to have a good reason for breaking it.

5. Make sure your character is actually doing something on the first page.

Make sure there is some movement, and better yet, make sure there is tension. Too many submissions start with a character just sitting and thinking about something, usually something that happened in the past.

If possible, have at least two characters interacting in the first scene. It’s way more interesting than the 50 other stories that start with one character thinking.

6. Avoid flashbacks.

Number 5 is usually paired with something like this: “It all started a month ago,” or “Maybe I should start at the beginning,” or “This all started last week.“—and then the story goes back to the real “starting” or some sort of flashback. If that is where the story started, start there, and then you won’t have to tell me “how it started.” I’ll see it.

7. Don’t start with a character running away from something really vague.

There are way too many stories that start this way. It might sound like a cool opening, but after you’ve read 12 of them, you realize it’s not as cool as you first thought.

8. Don’t start with a long “telling” explanation of something, like “The city was surrounded by mountains, and we were told to never leave the city. The mountains have been around since the beginning of time when the gods got angry and decided to keep us locked up in one place. Back when my grandmother was alive, she used to tell me stories about people who left the city and never returned…(on for 1 ½ pages)” While this info might be interesting, there’s no immediacy. I’m just being told information. The slush piles can sometimes be loaded with this opening. At least give me like a page of something concrete and immediate before “explaining,” or “telling” me something.

9. Don’t start a story with your character waking up on an ordinary day doing ordinary stuff.

Again, that’s not really where the story starts. But too many stories start there. Give me some tension.

10. Avoid purple prose.

First off, if you can write detail that appeals to the senses, do it, because too many submissions are missing strong imagery in the opening. If you can write striking metaphors or similes, put one in the opening also. But don’t go overboard. I read one submission that took a paragraph to describe one action about ten different ways. Only about two things actually happened on the first page.

But don’t write purple prose. If you don’t know what purple prose is, it might be a great idea to spend some time researching it on Google this week. Basically, it’s overwrought, melodramatic description.

11. Don’t submit your writing exercises as a story.

I’ve seen a few submissions that I think were supposed to be practice exercises–like that exercise in creative writing classes where you have to try to describe something without saying what it is, or where you use only dialogue to tell a story. Those are great exercises, but (in most cases) they shouldn’t be sent in as professional pieces for publication.

12. Don’t include a bunch of pointless info about your character.

Reading two paragraphs about how your character’s choice of music is different than his mom’s isn’t going to help me get to know your character, and it’s not important unless your story involves music (in the case of this submission, it didn’t).

Some people try to “find” their character by giving them too many quirks and random details etc. But those are only the surface of the character—instead try to focus on how your character changes in your story, and what you need to establish first to show that change.

I have a bunch of posts on character that you can find in my Writing Tip Index.

13. Follow the submission guidelines.

In one submission pile I worked with, the publication was meant to showcase local writing, so if someone from Arkansas submitted, we couldn’t take the submission. In another, the guidelines stated that the story should be appropriate for a general audience. That means that the story that starts with people having an affair and uses the f-word about 12 times in the first page is probably out.

14. Use correct English and spelling.

And watch for anything that sounds awkward.

15. Unless otherwise stated or inappropriate, do state your writing credentials somewhere—a cover letter, query letter, or just the body of an email (depending on submission guidelines). Even minor writing credentials put a better flavor in the editor’s mouth because they imply you have some idea of what you are doing. At least that’s been my experience.

With that said though, ultimately the story is what needs to be amazing.

Above all, use correct formatting, start with immediacy (not explanation), and have the setting, character, and conflict or tension established in the opening. That will put in you in the top 20% of submissions, from my experience.

Also, keep in mind that great writers have broken a lot of these rules. In fact, great writers usually do break some rules. But this is “How to Stand Out in the Slush Pile 101,” and unless you are an advanced writer, you should put your best foot forward by following these guidelines

Good luck! And if you would like more advanced information on how to write the starting of your story so that it gets out of the slush pile, you can check out the book Hooked by Les Edgerton.

writing-and-nutmeg

Aasdfjkfasdjkgsad this is such good advice, thank you, OP

languagessi-deactivated20210423

Let’s get one thing straight:

I have nothing personal against the creator of Language Jam

I have nothing against the concept of Language Jam when it is about learning national and thriving languages that have stable sociolinguistic situation (like Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin Chinese, Turkish, etc.)

What I have something against is that this round of Language Jam is about learning to speak indigenous languages, many of which are from closed cultures and the native speakers of them do not want outsiders to learn their language. It is inappropriate and harmful and goes against the idea of International Year of Indigenous Languages. Please, do not participate in this round of Language Jam.

spanishskulduggery

What grammar should I master at each cerf level?

This isn’t a complete list and I’m sure I’ve messed some things up, but in my experience…

[copy/pasted from a different ask]

alphabet specifically any different letters or sounds like ñ, ll, and rr and silent H

present tense

irregular verbs in present tense- ser, estar, ir, ver, dar and many of the -go verbs like tener, decir, hacer, venir, salir etc

ser vs. estar

the general pronouns like yo, tú, etc

very basic vocab like colors, days of the week, basic emotions, basic place names

description words, particularly with describing people’s personalities or emotions with ser or estar, like hair color, eye color, fat/skinny, blonde/brunette, strong/weak, smart/stupid… as well as sick/well, tired, happy, sad, angry, surprised, and some very basic words

using months and days together, and the rules for things like el lunes and los lunes

just the briefest of introductions to plurals and words that require different spellings based on plural like feliz and felices etc

professions

“my name is” using ser or the briefest of introductions to llamarse and reflexives, not too intense

cardinal numbers 1-10, maybe 1-20(?)

how to form basic questions

question works (especially the difference between cuál and qué)

basic greetings, titles like señor or señora

general overview of how gender agreement works, how singular/plural works, and the basics of la concordancia

the basics of definite and indefinite articles: el, la, los, las and un, una, unos, unas

general adjective placement and agreement

how to use negatives like no

contractions with al and del

telling time with ser [usually done when practicing numbers]

brief introduction to “I like” using gustar and how that works, and describing your preferences or things you like to do and how gustar works with infinitives

the basics of adverbs or at least being able to recognize the ones ending in -mente or the commonplace ones like muy or understanding the difference between bueno/a and bien or malo/a and mal

some idioms

weather expressions, seasons

tener expressions like tener hambre, tener sed, tener suerte

numbers 0-100, possibly up to 1000

family tree

clothing and using either llevar or usar for “to wear”

comparisons with más que/de, menos que/de, mayor que, menor que

comparisons of equality with tan / tanto/a ___ como ___

stem-changing verbs: e=>i, e=>ie, o=>ue

use of modals and infinitives like poder + infinitivo, or deber + infinitivo

the use of ir a + infinitivo

use of the gerund/progressive forms of verbs

common names of countries and nationalities

ordinal numbers 1-10, specifically understanding how primer(o), and tercer(o) work

location words with estar

the basics of directions with estar and ir like a la derecha, a la izquierda, enfrente de, detrás de, junto a etc

conmigo, contigo

the basics of possessives

use of hacer with time to mean [ago[

use of hay for “there is/are”

verbs like gustar: molestar, interesar, importar, encantar, costar, etc and how indirect objects generally work

more idioms

places and especially things like “by train” or “on foot”

general prepositions specifically a, de, con, en, entre, sobre, por, para

parts of the body, usually done with doler or something like that

intro to commands

the personal a for personhood or for animate objects

intro to preterite/imperfect

-car, -gar, -zar, and -guar verbs in preterite

superlatives

adjectives that go in front vs behind aka “spotting determiners” like buen(o), mal(o), gran / grande, and other question words

“silent subject”

preterite and imperfect for real, irregular verbs in each

when verbs change meaning between preterite/imperfect like poder, querer, no querer, conocer etc

more on commands specifically the irregular verbs

negative commands specifically the irregular verbs

direct objects

the Greek words that end in -a but are masculine like el problema, el planeta, el programa

alguno/a and ninguno/a

use of double negatives

words that take a masculine article but are actually feminine

indirect and indirect objects together

demonstratives

use of había and hubo for “there was/were”

use of ir a + infinitivo with imperfect for “was going to”

present perfect with haber

past participles, especially the irregular ones

reflexive verbs, usually done with daily routines or with clothing like ponerse/quitarse

por vs para

pluperfect / past perfect with haber and past participles

basic passive voice with ser + participles

future tense

intro to subjunctive mood, specifically present subjunctive

more present subjunctive, especially irregular verbs

understanding the differences between indicative, subjunctive, and imperative mood

object pronouns

relative clauses

more por and para

really understanding preterite/imperfect

conditional tense

using the perfect tenses with subjunctive

use of imperfect subjunctive with conditional

subjunctive clauses

subjunctive subjunctive subjunctive

weird irregular verbs that aren’t always stressed like -zco, -zo, and other rarer verb conjugations

conjugations that are irregular for the sake of sound/pronunciation like verbs ending in -ñir, -llir, etc

more comprehensive understanding of subjunctive mood

hypothetical situations, probability, doubt, imposition of will

indirect commands

passive voice constructions vs. active voice

using direct/indirect objects and reflexive pronouns with commands and subjunctive, specifically word order

understanding linguistic intention behind certain tenses and how they “translate” differently

changeable syntax and how it’s understood

emphasis vs. subtlety

how to imply politeness, abruptness, impatience, or deference

passive se and imperfect se

regional variations and differences, particularly leísmo and loísmo

coming to understand most of the accent rules and esdrújula

the use of dativo ético and how to sound like a native speaker

when to use subjunctive vs indicative

what preposition to use

verbs that take prepositions

superfluous reflexive

literary and academic Spanish

historical Spanish-historical vos-future subjunctive-the two different forms of imperfect subjunctive and what they meant in historical Spanish vs. what they mean and where they’re used today

colloquial Spanish vs. formal/professional Spanish

striking a balance between the two

regional variations and differences, just in general since it takes a long time to learn them and they show up where you least expect them so it{s an ongoing process

…So really it’s levels A and B that are most often “taught”, while C levels are more things you nail down and get used to seeing and understanding over time

C1 is probably the hardest one to explain because it’s more “make sense of all the things you learned”, and that also is related to B2. You start to feel like you know a lot of things, but you don’t understand them or why they’re that way, so it just feels… confusing. C1 is a lot of revelations and gaining mastery of things, and making sense of all the things you’ve seen but didn’t understand

And C2 is an ongoing process. If you’re at C2, there’s no higher level so it’s you continuing to learn and practice and understand, but you know the basic grammar building blocks.

lets-get-fictional

How do I decide what story to write if I have upwards of ten ideas, all in roughly the same stage of development, that I am equally excited about? Every resource I've found or person I've asked has suggested methods that I can't use, either because I have too many ideas or because there aren't any that I'm more excited about or ready to start writing yet. What can I do to narrow down my options? This is especially difficult for me because I've always struggled for ideas and now I have so many.

Hi anon! Thank you for your patience as I was delayed a couple days from answering you. Honestly that’s a great problem to have, because whatever you choose, you’ll have multiple backup options in case one doesn’t work out or you need a break. And I mean… 10+ ideas. Personally, it’s hard for me to come up with one idea of what to write. That’s frickin’ amazing.

But if you feel that all these 10+ ideas are equally exciting and planned, that does make it a more difficult choice. Still, those are only two aspects to a good story idea; there are many more things to consider before your plot bunny becomes The One Story To Rule Them All…

1. Emotional Connection

The strongest source of continual inspiration throughout the first draft is your emotional connection – to the characters, the plot, and the themes of the story. Think about which of your story ideas will interest you in the near future. Think about your future. For example, I’m a few months away from adulthood, graduation, and then college. So this year, I plan to write an adventure novel filled with characters who are filled with fear, of being unsafe, of running out of food and supplies, of losing their way through these hugeass woods. I’m channeling my real emotions into these characters, which makes the story more believable and also gives me an emotional outlet. SO BASICALLY: think about what you’re experiencing right now or in the near future, and find the story that connects to you most.

2. Plot Thickness

You’ve stated that your story ideas are all in the same stage of development, but even so, they will differ in plot thickness. Some stories will be heavily character-driven, and some plot-driven – that’s fine. But some of these ideas are likely excitement-driven. You may have one story that’s set in this magnificent world, with all these deep and interesting characters… but the only plot is that they meet and all start falling in love, or they all have to survive the apocalypse, or something like that. It’s a general idea, but not a developed plot with an arc and a theme. So narrow down your options to the most developed, most thicc 👀👌 plots and you’re doing yourself a favor.

3. Characters

And I mean simply: look for the plots that have characters. They don’t have to be fully fleshed out yet. They don’t have to be super interesting or deep yet. But if you don’t have even an idea of your cast, you’ve got no story. Story comes from characters, no matter how interesting their setting or situation is. Every plot-directing decision is made by characters. If you don’t have any characters for one of your plots, then you don’t have a plot at all. So put it away for later.

4. Surprises

Don’t get me wrong – you can totally write a love-triangle vampire story with a happy ending and still make it quality. Writing is not a battle of the most unique storyline. You don’t get points for being different (clearly; look at Treasure Planet’s box office earning. I’m still bitter about that.) but that’s not what I’m talking about here. Surprises = unexpected writing decisions. This includes non-stereotypical characters, divergent story arcs, complicated plots and complicated resolutions, and basically anything that isn’t boy-meets-girl or boy-saves-world. Find the stories that will keep readers guessing, and focus on those. Predictable writing is worse than erroneous writing.

5. Iconic Hook

At the end of the day, our favorite stories are drawn back to one iconic idea, big or small – the White Whale, the Great Gatsby, the One Ring, the Scarlet Letter, the Hunger Games – basically, the Something that sticks with you after you’ve read it. The character, object, place, or event that exists as its own idea outside of the plot. Find the story that has the most memorable idea, the most presence, the most authority. That undefinable quality – that one focal point that ties everything together. If nothing sticks out of your story, the reader doesn’t know where to look. They don’t know where everything’s headed. Even in mystery/thriller novels, where the reader is given very little information, they get a hook – someone died, someone went missing, something was stolen, something’s out there, someplace is haunted, and so forth. So find your strongest hook, put it on your fishing reel, and start fishing… for subplots and characters and stuff.

I hope this has helped you a little bit at least! If you have any more questions, hit me up and I’ll hopefully be able to respond a bit faster ;D Happy writing!

If you need advice on general writing or fanfiction, you should maybe ask me!

writingonesdreams

This is some excellently formulated advice!

languageoclock

Every time I came across people using languages I don't know (mostly Korean, Dutch, and Arabic these days), I keep wanting to add more languages to learn! But I'm still struggling to learn Japanese! How do I get rid of this desire to add more learning projects when I'm still thigh-deep in one?

even if you’ve come to the firm decision not to start learning any new languages at the moment, you can still enjoy ones you’re interested in without feeling like you have to completely ignore them until you’re “ready” to learn them, like by doing research on them like learning about the culture(s) of the people that speak them, the script, and listening to it and practising the pronunciation just for fun… then if and when you ever do get around to learning them, you’ve got more of an idea of what to expect and a bit of an upper hand because you’ve already had audio exposure 🎶

injerabae-deactivated20190818

So just to provide a comprehensive overview of my original content regarding languages in Africa, albeit much of it is languages in Northeast Africa, I decided to make this easily more accessible by putting links to all of such in one place for those interested. Mind you, this is only posts with visuals. So, here you go:

Visual Swadesh lists (43 posts)

Linguistic Diversity Challenge week 1 (7 posts)

Lingusitic Diversity Challenge: ’Bëlï

Linguistic Diversity Challenge: Defaka

Linguistic Diversity Challenge: Sandawe

An Overview of: Oromoid

An Overview of: Surmic

An Overview of: Cushitic

An Overview of: Nilotic (may be updated)

Introductions: Eastern Omo-Tana (9 posts)

Introductions: Central Cushitic (5 post)

Introductions: Saho

Introductions: Sidamo

Introductions: Wolane

Introductions: Gumär

Introductions: Mäsk’an

Introductions: Dahalik

Introductions: Tigrinya

Introductions: Soqotri (read this excerpt)

Introductions: Mehri

Introductions: Bat’hari

Introductions: Harsusi

Introductions: Hobyot

Zigula: Retroflex Consonants

‘Laugh’ in Afrosemitic

‘Milk’ in South Arabian

‘Breast’ in South Arabian

‘Louse’ in Eastern Omo-Tana, South Afrosemitic, & South Arabian

‘Man, person’ in Eastern Transversal South & Outer South Afrosemitic

‘to possess’ in North Afrosemitic, Bilin, & Afro-Sabaic

‘Fingernail, claw’ and/or ‘palm of hand’ in Semitic

‘Fire’ in various Semitic languages

‘One’ in various Semitic languages

‘One’ in various Amazigh languages

An excerpt on the etymology of Egyptian *nwb

The Afrosemitic languages (map & breakdown)

Reflexes of Proto-Omo-Tana *ɗ

There’ll be more, of course. So this will be periodically updated.

bilingual-culture

Bilingual culture is switching languages on Netflix 3 times per episode because you’re really intrigued by how they translated that one pun.

hiddenhearthwitch

Hey if you followed @thewitchofthenorse I’ve been deleted… my entire blog, 30k followers, my life’s work… gone….

Please boost… to help get followers back.. @orriculum @whichwitchami

hiddenhearthwitch

It’s officially been two weeks since tumblr deleted me and they haven’t responded to any of my complaints! Thank you to everyone who has reblogged this!! I’m going to do one more round of reblogging because this has seriously affected my income. I make 100% of my sales through tumblr and since my blogs been deleted I’ve lost about $1-1.5k of income I would typically get due to the large following I had. My partner and I are only living on my income while they attend college for the time being. Every time this goes around I get another few hundred followers and a few messages from people saying they’re glad they saw this!! Please help a queer witch out.😭💗

the-writers-society-deactivated

Are These Filter Words Weakening Your Story?

After putting my writing on hold for several weeks, I decided to jump back in. I expected to find all sorts of problems with my story–inconsistencies in the plot, lack of transitions, poor characterization–the works. But what began to stick out to me was something to which I’d given little thought in writing.

Filter words.

What are Filter Words?

Actually, I didn’t even know these insidious creatures had a name until I started combing the internet for info.

Filter words are those that unnecessarily filter the reader’s experience through a character’s point of view. Dark Angel’s Blog says:

“Filtering” is when you place a character between the detail you want to present and the reader. The term was started by Janet Burroway in her book On Writing.

In terms of example, you should watch out for:

To see

To hear

To think

To touch

To wonder

To realize

To watch

To look

To seem

To feel (or feel like)

Can

To decide

To sound (or sound like)

To know

I’m being honest when I say my manuscript is filled with these words, and the majority of them need to be edited out.

What do Filter Words Look Like?

Let’s imagine a character in your novel is walking down a street during peak hour.

You might, for example, write:

Sarah felt a sinking feeling as she realized she’d forgotten her purse back at the cafe across the street. She saw cars filing past, their bumpers end-to-end. She heard the impatient honk of horns and wondered how she could quickly cross the busy road before someone took off with her bag. But the traffic seemed impenetrable, and she decided to run to the intersection at the end of the block.

Eliminating the bolded words removes the filters that distances us, the readers, from this character’s experience:

Sarah’s stomach sank. Her purse—she’d forgotten it back at the cafe across the street. Cars filed past, their bumpers end-to-end. Horns honked impatiently. Could she make it across the road before someone took off with her bag? She ran past the impenetrable stream of traffic, toward the intersection at the end of the block.

Are Filter Words Ever Acceptable?

Of course, there are usually exceptions to every rule.

Just because filter words tend to be weak doesn’t mean they never have a place in our writing. Sometimes they are helpful and even necessary.

Susan Dennard of Let The Words Flow writes that we should use filter words when they are critical to the meaning of the sentence.

If there’s no better way to phrase something than to use a filter word, then it’s probably okay to do so.

Want to know more?

Read these other helpful articles on filter words and more great writing tips:

Filter Words and Distancing Point of View

The Reasons Editors reject Manuscripts

Filter Those words and Strengthen Your Writing