Huevember -green

blooming blossom: lockdown

@flashfictionfridayofficial

the world is silenced by a virus it is scarily quiet in my town even the station is calm because of the lockdown on the road I see only an empty bus   my whole world is turned upside down captured between these walls I feel lifeless how do you stay all right in such a crisis? so alone and so scared of this new crown   but through my window I see the blossoms of my cherry tree even now not everything is wrong I take a picture to remember nature is still growing normally   I send it to my sister, who works in a hospital all day long I send it to my grandma, who I now cannot visit safely I send it to you, I hope you stay safe and fine and strong

Calling a Character by Their Title or an Epithet

Would you refer to your best friend as “the redhead” or “Kristen”? Is your favorite teacher “the teacher” or “Mr. Small”? An epithet is an adjective or descriptive phrase used to refer to a person. Referring to a character by a trait or their title is called an “amateur mistake” when used incorrectly, but “good perspective writing” when used well.  What makes title of epithet a mistake is when it creates a sense of distance that doesn’t make sense given the narrator’s perspective.

These three sentences are written using different methods of reference, and the method is very telling of how the narrator perceives things.

The doctor waved to the nurse as she passed him in the hallway.

This reads as very impersonal, like the narrator doesn’t know either of these characters. This is the kind of sentence I’d expect from a narrator who just met those two people, or never met them and is just observing some hospital interaction.

Dr. Martinez waved to Nurse Merther as she passed him in the hallway.

Now the narrator is familiar with these characters, just not close enough to use a first name. Maybe they don’t know it, maybe they prefer to be professional with medical personnel, or perhaps they’re a colleague who doesn’t choose to socialize with either of those people.

Angela waved to David as she passed him in the hallway.

The narrator clearly knows these two people well enough to drop any formality at all. Perhaps the narrator is a close friend, a social colleague, or just a rude patient who somehow figured out all the names of the hospital staff.

The point is, the method of reference can show perspective and creates distance when used incorrectly. A narrator familiar with a character almost always uses the character’s name unless the situation is one where there is a power difference or there’s a good reason for it. You don’t think of your best friend as “the (hair color)” and wouldn’t refer to them like that, so you narrator isn’t going to do that to their best friend either. If they do, it often sounds odd and distances the reader.

Now, the line does get fuzzy when a narrator is omniscient 3rd person, but that still ties into the idea of perspective. How the narrator refers to someone shows what they think of the person. This can be used to show growing familiarity: perhaps “the doctor” becomes “Dr. Martinez” after a nice conversation, then becomes “Angela” when the narrator really gets to know her.

“Show, don’t tell” is often used to describe character action, but it applies just as much to perceptive. Instead of narrating how much someone likes their doctor, perhaps opt to use a less formal character reference in scenes. Consistent perspective is the mark of good writing and often a good story. Some  writers use epithets or titles to avoid repetition in their writing, but it’s an incorrect use of impersonal character reference. Swapping out ways to refer to characters because you think your writing is repetitive has two outcomes:

The writing is fine and the pronoun/name use is a non-issue.

The writing is repetitive, and in that case you’re only creating a different problem by swapping pronouns and names for something else. The solution is to work on the repetitiveness of the writing rather than trying to patch it up with nicknames or other ways to refer to people. That “solution” is only creating an additional problem because the underlying writing is still repetitive and now your narrator suddenly seems to have forgotten their friend’s name.

Unnecessary use of titles, epithets, and monikers are a telltale sign of a novice writer. They don’t exist to “spice up” writing or fix an issue of repetitiveness– they’re for showing the reader how the narrator thinks of the character, the level of respect, and personal distance via word choice. Much like many aspects of improving at writing, learning why something is an issue is key to becoming more effective at the craft.

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Give yourself freedom to create something different.

hitch your heart to one small thing

So, I heard that some of you were having issues with the download. Here’s my outlining guide just as is in photos. Same quality. Enjoy!

Advice and a Pep-Talk from one Autistic Writer to Another

I’ve seen enough “how to write autistic characters” directed at allistics but I’m not sure I’ve really seen any posts directed at autistics written by other autistics that’s just general writing advice. So here’s some tips and tricks and a pep talk.

1.   Write as many autistic characters as you want. It’s totally ok for every single one of your characters to be autistic. If other people can write stories without any autistic characters, you can write ones without any allistic characters. (After all, how can you write an autistic allistic character if you’re not autistic allistic. /s)

2.   Let your characters stim! It’s a great way to include body language in a way that feels natural for us.

On the topic of stimming, try and vary the stims your characters use. This is something I generally take care of in editing. Everyone would run their hands through their hair, but when they did that, it just became a filler description, so I cut the action from most of the characters and left it for a few. At that point, the stim became theirs. (I also then got to have lines like “Den ran his hand through his hair to calm his thoughts, a motion more like his brother than him.” which is like Look, characterization!)

3.  Body language and facial expressions are hard. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve described the body language or facial expression without actually saying what the character was feeling while writing, and then in editing have no idea what they were feeling.

It’s totally OK to write something like “their eyebrows jumped up in surprise as their jaw dropped towards the floor.” It’s descriptive enough to follow the “show, don’t tell” rule, but still names the emotion the character is feeling. It also lets you use non-standard body language (aka autistic body language and stimming) in a way that allistic readers can pick up on.

Reference sheets are a great way to have some standard allistic ways of expressing emotions via body language. This is a great way to make sure that if a character is expressing an emotion but it’s not something you can state in the story (or that your character is unaware of), that it’ll still be something your audience can pick up on.

4.   It can take a while to really get a feel for your characters. I tend to only really have their characterization solid enough to keep them consistent after I’ve written the initial rough draft. This is one of the reasons my first step after completing my initial draft is to rewrite everything. It’s just the easiest way I’ve found to make sure all the characters are in character - because if I tried to go through every single line and figure out what wasn’t in character, I’d be lost.

If you’re confused about why a character is doing something because you forgot what you were thinking and are having trouble figuring it out from context, it’s ok to take that bit out and rewrite it. Sometimes it might be because a character is acting out of character, and in that case it’s a good thing you’re fixing it.

5.      The details you include in your writing because you’re so detail oriented really makes the story come alive. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten told it feels like my world exists beyond the story and that my characters have lives beyond what’s mentioned on the page because I think about every little detail and make mentions of them.

Our attention to detail also tends to let us do unintentional symbolism and foreshadowing really well. We try and make every little thing relevant and tied into everything else, which is something that comes naturally to us and I’ve seen so many writers struggle with.

6.     Infodump in the rough draft as much as you want. If it keeps you writing, go for it.

You can remove (or better integrate) infodumps (because they tend to not be all that interesting to readers since they stop the story in their tracks) and any inconsistent details when you edit.

If you want to avoid just infodumping in the story itself, write down EVERYTHING about your characters, your world, your plot, everything you want to explain and anything that is relevant to know for the story in a separate document(s). For me, it gets the urge to explain EVERYTHING out of my system and helps me include only what’s needed when I’m writing. (Plus it makes a GREAT reference material for when you’re writing.)

7.      If you don’t explain something well enough, that can also be fixed in editing. This is where beta readers are useful since they can let you know where they’re confused and where more information is useful. This is also where taking a break between writing and editing can help, since if you’re confused it’s likely a spot where you need to include more information

(Again, this is advice for autistic writers from an autistic writer. Allistics and Writing blogs are encouraged to reblog this since this is writing advice, but unless you are autistic, please do not comment.)

I was wondering if you knew any basic guides to outlining a novel for the first time?

Outlining a story is very, very important. Without an outline and thorough planning, your story will veer off in wildly different directions and will cost you a ton of time editing later, like my book did.

1. Get the characters down first

Characters are like the chess pieces of the story. Their moves and strengths/weaknesses will decide what is going to happen and how it will happen. Sure, you can have a nice plot and setting, but without the characters, the story is meaningless.

Here is the character chart that I usually use:

Name (First/Middle/Last/Maiden name)

Aliases/Nicknames

Age

Race

Gender

Sexuality

Height

Weight

Eye color

Hair color

Clothing style

Religion

Political views

Personality Traits

Strengths and Weaknesses

Likes and Dislikes

Family

Friends

Enemies

Role in the story

Backstory/past

2. Choose a template

Just bulleting the events does not give the plot the dimension that it deserves and does not really accommodate side plots.

I personally use the zigzag method that I discovered from this post. I branch off of the zigzags for my side plots so it looks kind of like a graph.

You can also use the subway method, which I found on the nanowrimo website.

There are a whole other host of outlines to choose from if you search them up!

3. Know that you don’t have to stick to it

An outline is just that: an outline. It’s not the final decision for the plot, it’s the first draft for the plot. If you’re writing and one of the points just isn’t working anymore, you don’t have to keep it because it was a part of your outline.

Write what feels right.

Happy outlining, and good luck with your story!

(Idk where to ask this so if you cant do you know anyone that can?) Im new to creating ocs and im overwhelmed w all the resources...I have basic appearance down but i feel i dont know my characters at all. I feel picking personality traits/background will be like throwing darts at random and wont come together like theyre an authentic, real person. Any advice? Thx.

This is a common thing for writers, artists, and character designers, so no worries! You’re completely on the right track! It can take months or even years to flesh out a character! I’ve found the best method of working through this is the use of OC interviews!

What are those you ask? They’re questionnaires made specifically for your OC’s to answer! It’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to start getting to know your characters. It’s like you’re asking them the question, and they’re answering. It gives you a sense of how they may talk, form their sentences, or even respond to such a question.  

Ask yourself one simple question when working on character personalities: Why? Why do they like this specific color? Why do they behave this way? Questions like these help the characters flesh out more. You need to ask yourself these questions because your audience will be expecting answers to them. 

A few more ways to develop characters: from experience, I found that roleplaying, making AU’s (alternate universes), and writing oneshots about them are the most effective!

Here are some resources for fleshing out character personalities:

Antagonist OC Interview

How to Write Diverse Characters

OC Interview: Through Another Character’s Eyes

5 Minute OC Interview

Foolproof Ways to Flesh Out Your Characters

8 Other Ways of Fleshing Out Characters

Character Profile Sheet

Character Traits

Archetypes to Avoid in Character Creation

Strong Female Characters: How to

Characterization Ask Game

Five Traps When Creating Characters (and tips on how to improve!)

Traumatized Character Profile

So you want to make an OC? (Masterpost)

30 Uncommon Character Development Questions

The Importance of Weaknesses in Your Characters

Qualities of Realistic Characters

Ultimate Guide to Creating Authentic Villians

If anyone has any more resources feel free to add to this list! I hope this helps you out! 

Hello, Writeblr!

I’m new and very socially awkward but I made this blog to collect character/story inspiration and writing advice, and I’d love to make some connections with fellow writers and hear about the cool stories you’re all working on. Maybe even share some writing positivity and snippets of my own work.

A litte bit about me: I’m Laura, I’m from Wales, I’m fast becoming a ‘tumblr old’ (if I’m not there already), and I’ve been writing since I was about twelve or so. Up until now though I’ve mostly concentrated on play-by-post roleplay on various message boards. I’ve never actually written anything particularly lengthy and I’d like to branch out a little bit and try my hand at plotting out a whole story.

I love to read fantasy, magical realism, historical fiction, children’s literature, and anything based on folklore, myths or fairy tales. Those are the kind of genres I’m primarily interested in trying to write too. Outside of reading and writing I’m primarily a history nerd, a (partial) dog-owner, a student, and a folk music junkie.

I’ve only got the one WIP at the moment, a Harry Potter fanfic featuring an older Charlie Weasley as he tries to unravel a mystery at a dragon sanctuary in Wales. I’m more of pantser than a planner so it’s all still very vague at the moment but I’m hoping it’ll have a little bit of adventure, some original-ish worldbuilding, and a lot of cool dragons. Everyone loves dragons, right? A lot of OCs will be involved too so I ever get close to finishing it I might try to turn it into an original NaNoWriMo project or something. (Hey, if Stephenie Meyer and E.L. James can do it… )

Anyway, if you think our interests might overlap in any way please do like or reblog this and I’ll most likely follow you (as @lothlaurien, since this is a sideblog).

Brief summary of my wips

(inspired by @titaniaen) 

Bloodlines: what if you meet your soulmate during a war between your people and have to deal with the unexplainable emotional consequences while also realizing that your family has been lying to you about your heritage for the past twenty years

Solene’s verse: local gang of queer orphan street kids feat. a narcissistic wizard and a cowardly wallflower work together to rescue their friend from the authorities before everything goes to hell

Star White: ageless dark cosmic entity abducts a man’s boyfriend, so he gets a dog and finds a ship that turns him into Nicholas Flamel to search for him across the entire universe the longway round

The Wasteland / the waste wip: area man goes on the world’s worst walking roadtrip with a light necromancer after his girlfriend blows up their entire village and herself with it. the world is horrible and on fire and all we know but somewhere else there might be green things and mud and a pseudo-goblin king

Revenant wip: a war machine woman who can come back from the dead and her snarky crossbow-slinging longtime best friend turned boyfriend are your token straight couple, leading the equivalent of a medieval biker gang to tear the castle down