Word List: Said

Y/N : I’ll do anything you want

Ghost : anything?

Y/N : anything.

Ghost : drink more water

Y/N : what?

Ghost : go outside, get back on your workout routine, stop procrastinating—

Y/N : wait—

Ghost : continue pursuing education, achieve acclamations, manifest the best version of yourself.

Y/N : WAIT— NO— PLEASE—

where?

everything looks like a nail when you've got a hammer and every song is actually about the character when they're on your mind 24/7

i’m realizing that i have so much time. i have time to grow my hair long. i have time to cut it all off and then to grow it back again. i have time to discover new hobbies and give up on things that no longer serve me. i have time to grow and change and travel and change my opinions and live differently than how i am now. i have so much time. take a deep breath and slow down

MAKING YOUR S/I A COHERENT CHAR.

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Day 1: reference sheet

Day 2: wardrobe

Day 3: emotion chart

Day 4: having their worst day ever possible (for both s/i and f/o)

Day 5: having their best day ever possible (for both s/i and f/o)

Day 6: mini comic detailing their routine

Day 7: asleep

Day 8: personal belongings

Day 9: song lyrics

Day 10: younger and older

Day 11: closest to media style as possible

Day 12: representing their culture/s

Day 13: poster (both s/i and f/o)

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

get off dating apps. the love of your life is from a video game!

Moral Dilemmas Prompts

Who Do You Let Go?

A character faces an impossible decision, Two people they care deeply about are in a life-threatening situation, but they can only save one.

How do they decide who gets to live and who must die? What factors influence their choice? How do they carry the burden of this decision going forward?

Betray Your Best Friend

Betraying their closest friend could save countless lives, but this betrayal would forever destroy their friendship.

How do they weigh the lives of many against their loyalty to one? What happens if their friend learns the truth?

The Painful Truth

A character uncovers a deep and painful truth that could shatter the lives of those they love.

Do they choose to reveal this truth, despite the potential devastation it could cause? Or do they protect their loved ones by keeping it hidden?*

The Sacrifice

The protagonist is faced with a choice to sacrifice something of immense value – be it their greatest dream, their freedom, or even a part of themselves – to save the life of someone they love.

What are they willing to give up? How does this decision change their life and relationships?

Thief or Desperate?

To survive, they have no choice but to steal.

How do they justify this action to themselves and others? Can they maintain their humanity while betraying their principles?

Forgiveness or Eternal Pain?

A character is confronted with the possibility of forgiving someone who has caused them deep, unforgivable pain. This person pleads for forgiveness, but the wounds run deep.

Does the character choose the path of forgiveness, which might bring healing, or do they hold on to their pain and the desire for revenge?

Loyalty Tested by Fire

A character is placed in a difficult situation that challenges their loyalty to their friends, family, or beliefs. A tempting offer could lead them to betray everything they once stood for.

Do they remain steadfast, even if it means losing everything? Or do they succumb to temptation and betray their principles for personal gain?

Fifty Superhero-Inspired Whump Prompts

Couldn't find a lot of whump prompts I liked, so I decided to compile a few of my own! Here's a jumbo list of prompts for superheroes and enhanced characters:

Powers Stripped Away (permanent)

Powers Blocked/Forgotten (temporary)

Powers Enhanced/Too Much Power

Powers Out of Whack

New and Unwanted Powers

No Longer Human

Healing Incorrectly/Healing Around Embedded Object

Allowed to Heal... Just Enough to Survive

Loss of Healing Factor (first time healing at a normal pace)

Anesthesia/Painkillers Burned Off Too Quickly

Awake Through Surgery

Forced to Watch Loved Ones/Sidekicks Injured

Confronted with their Weakness/Kryptonite

Betraying their No-Kill Rule

Put Under Hypnosis/Mind Control

Coming Out of Hypnosis/Consequences of Hypnotized Actions

Telepathic Torture (it's all in their head)

Forced to Relive Trauma/Memories/Nightmares

Forced to Defeat/Kill a Former Ally

Downfall into a Supervillain

Chronic Pain from a Lifetime of Hero Work

Deemed a Villain/Public Scrutiny

Wrong Choice, Right Reason

Trolley Problem (risk a loved one to save civilians)

Dangerous Powers/Forced to Isolate

Alter-Ego Friend is Super-Ego Villain

Superpowered Sleep Deprivation

Starved Until Their Powers Shut Down

Made Into A Lab Rat

Identity Stripped Away/Living Weapon

Loss Of Limb/Eye/Something That Won't Regenerate

Enduring Extreme Temperatures

Physically Unable to Die

Supersuit Melts into their Skin

Child Mistakes Them for a Monster

High-Tech Imprisonment

Alien Disease/Parasite

Unwanted Tech/Cybernetic Enhancement

Adapt or Die/Powers Emerge

Grieving their Normal Life

Outliving Friends/Loved Ones

Accidentally Hurting a Teammate/Innocent

Died and Revived

Working for the Enemy/Undercover/Forced to Defy Moral Code

Foresight/Too Predictable/Can't Get Ahead

Trying to Escape Superhero Life/Tracked Down

Emotions Manipulated

Injected with Paralytic

Dazed, Drugged, or Concussed

Fighting Until They Tear Themselves Apart

The story of exposition

Exposition is a trap that writers fall into all the time, even without intending to do so. I critiqued a story recently that started about where the story began, as it should—but then nosedived into a montage of flashbacks to explain things that didn’t need explaining yet. I suggested the writer rip it all out to sprinkle into the story later, but let’s start with this:

What is exposition?

Simply put—exposition is the act of explaining things. This can be done piecemeal, or in massive doses, or anything in between. Exposition can be used to explain a character’s history, the background of a particular setting, why the cat has a shaved stripe down its spine—anything.

All summed up, the dictionary says that exposition is “designed to convey information or explain what is difficult to understand.”

But let’s take a look at that word “explain”. I like to think that “explaining” is best used in a technical essay. For those familiar with the mantra of “showing versus telling”, exposition falls into the category of telling the story instead of showing.

Yes, a reader will have to know an event that occurred in a character’s history if it impacts the plot. Yes, the reader will have to know about the history of a fantasy setting if it impacts the plot (or sets up the plot, of course). However, there are ways to do it without directly telling the readers “Main character shaved a stripe down the cat’s back because the cat was his nemesis.”

(Why did I choose cat harassment as an example? Cats and I are like the same people.)

A different example:

Erin gave the spider a wide girth. She hated spiders ever since she’d been threatened by one in the mall when she was six. It had lured her into a quiet hallway and pulled out a knife on her.

This is telling and follows the same formula of a technical essay: bringing up a topic sentence and unloading the information.

Erin gave the spider a wide girth. Marcus erupted with laughs and turned to watch. “Afraid of spiders? How unlike you.”

She shot him a glare. “Have you ever seen a spider pull out a knife? I have, and I was only six.”

Dialogue is an awesome tool for showing history and spiders with knives, and because it involves character interaction, the writer also has a chance to propel the character arc or allude to different character traits, what with how Marcus says “How unlike you.”

Be careful, though. “Reader feeder” is another trap that a writer can fall into. Reader feeder is when characters unload information to each other that the characters themselves would already know, only for the sake of the reader. Here’s a fancy example:

“Hey, Erin, remember in our math class a half hour ago when you saw the spider?”

“Yeah. I freaked out and told you a spider pulled a knife on me.”

“When you were six, at the mall, right?”

“That’s right, Marcus.”

Avoid this. It’s poison. It’ll make the spider take out an AK-47 next time.

(W-W-Why did I choose spiders instead anyway? That’s a terrible visual to have.)

Now, exposition doesn’t have to be labeled as a bad thing, but like dialogue tags, a story can be written better with as few uses of it as possible. As I mentioned in the beginning, the story I critiqued unloaded a mantra of flashback scenes to explain why the character’s setting was the character’s setting and why her relationship with her mother was the way it was. In this case, the exposition cheats the reader out of wondering WHY. If you’re aiming for a fast-paced story, abstain from exposition wherever you can and leave the question of “Why is this the way it is?” for the reader.

Why is Erin so afraid of spiders?

Why is it unlike Erin to be afraid of spiders?

Why did the spider pull a knife on her?

(Why am I still using this as an example?)

A reader will read on to answer questions. If done correctly, exposition can tease a reader with the answer, or even ask more questions that’ll have to do with the plot. Bits and pieces of exposition can create riddles, in a sense, which was why I suggested the writer sprinkle these bits of history throughout the narrative.

Flashback scenes in general also serve as exposition to explain things—HOWEVER, flashback scenes can pull its weight to be a strong proponent of the plot if not used as a gimmick.

What’s a gimmick?

I like to refer to a plot gimmick as something that’s included as a theatrical act to enforce drama. Michael Bay uses a grotesque amount of explosions to enforce drama. Prologues often do this, and flashbacks can as well. Again, if you intend to have a fast-paced story, setting your reader back in time is the exact antithesis of what you want to do, generally. A fast-paced story must always be moving your reader closer and closer toward the climax of the story. Throwing your reader into a time rift instantly slows down the propulsion.

However, flashbacks don’t need to be exiled. I’ve written a story that essentially utilizes flashbacks to set a separate story arc concurrently with the present story arc, and by the end, the two collide for a greater climax. The two arcs intertwine and feed off each other throughout the story, so it’s not like reading two different stories in one book, but two different halves of one story. Both halves constantly move the reader toward the same big question, so both halves generate a quick pace. In a sense, it follows the same formula as having two separate narrators.

Exposition and flashbacks can harm your story, but they can also be made into a great and unusual feature to your story if you don’t treat them as gimmicks. And if you’re doing something atypical with exposition or flashbacks, make sure you have the right critique partners to objectively tell you whether it’s working or not working. Whatever you do, learn the rules, rehearse the rules from memory, then break all of the rules.