Schlagwort: writing

prompts-and-circumstance:

letswritesomenovels:

Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. –C.S. Lewis

I found this great piece of writing advice from C.S. Lewis on twitter today.(courtesy of @thatboycanteach)

I know the phrase “show don’t tell” confuses a lot of people who are new to critiquing/workshops, because all writing is telling… isn’t it? 

But this is exactly what writers are talking about when they use that phrase. 

This is also why, when critiquing your work, writers might tell you to remove adjectives and adverbs, or why you might hear that those two types of words are “bad writing.” It’s not that you’re never allowed to use an adjective or an adverb, but that–like Lewis says–it’s much more preferable to be terrified, than to be told something is terrifying. 

Whenever you tell your reader what the characters in a story are experiencing, instead of letting your reader have an experience alongside your characters, you miss an opportunity to invite your reader into the story. If you miss too many, eventually your reader will stop waiting for their invitation and simply leave. 

Wonderful advice from a wonderful author

sharpestrose:

avelera:

Useful if this is how you think, though often I don’t see the outline until after the draft is written, because after awhile one just internalize this kind of stuff from all the media one ingests. Point is, use if helpful, ignore if not.

Another suggestion for anyone interested: because one of my weaknesses as a writer is sustaining narrative momentum, I’ve recently started using this mystery novel breakdown as a template, even though mystery/detective isn’t the genre I write in. It’s really useful as a way to keep track of what the story needs at a given moment in terms of balance and character.

mindfulwrath:

Here’s a hot take: villains should be relatable.

Not every villain, not every time, and certainly not to everyone at once, but there should be moments. We should, occasionally, be able to see ourselves in the bad guys, be able to understand how they got there.

Because it reminds us not to fucking go there.

Antis who get upset about villains having relatable qualities (often couched as being “romanticized” or “woobified”) are people who cannot bear to ever think of themselves as having the capability of being wrong.

Every human alive is capable of being a horrible person. Relatable villains remind us to keep an eye on that shit.

I need a Numenor AU in which Ar-Pharazon dies, whether because of an accident or an “accident”, and Tar-Miriel finally becomes Queen for real.

Which is good for the Faithful, but everything can still go horribly wrong Sauron is already there and a Respected Advisor with enough followers to start a civil war if she attempts to arrest or exile him.

I think Tar-Miriel would try to avoid a war if at all possible, but obviously getting rid of Sauron is still a necessity for her – what she needs is more supporters and a good plan that he either won’t immediately see coming or won’t be able to counteract and look I’ve found her first major problem.

It would start with a tense political situation that is really uncomfortable for both sides. Tar-Miriel has more power than ever before but not quite enough to do what she really wants, while Sauron has to adjust his plans to accommodate for losing the monarch’s support. Since the chance of convincing Miriel to cooperate with him is somewhere between minuscule and none (depends on which version of Miriel this is), he will have to turn to the nobility and possibly the common people. Hopefully, whatever he does won’t forever discredit all future reformers, democrats, socialists, communists and/or revolutionaries of Middle-Earth.

I believe a civil war will happen eventually anyway, the question is when and how it starts. Also, Sauron and the former King’s Men probably won’t manage to organize an attack on Aman, at least not unless they win the civil war without major losses. That means the Valar will have to handle the situation somehow without asking Eru to help, so there’s a good chance Numenor won’t drown (yet). Unless of course Miriel’s side starts losing and she decides to evacuate to Middle-Earth or something. Although I actually want her to win. I’m not sure what kind of effect Numenor’s continued existence might have on 3rd Age events, though.

So I accidentally started writing a fantasy story based on ideas I’d been toying with for years except I never managed to write 9K words before stopping before, and now I actually have some idea where the plot is going for the first time.

The funny thing is, I’ve got a total block when it comes to the stuff I used to enjoy most, like drawing maps or creating a language (only partially, I wasn’t Tolkien). I’ve found my old notebooks and recycled some things from there, but the old map of my fantasy continent is shaped like a human stomach, I can’t use that lmao. I sillt don’t feel like drawing a new one tho, but I need to if I manage to keep writing to the part where the traveling starts 😀

VICTIM MISTOOK JEWEL THIEF FOR A STRIPPER

the-tater:

Local property owner Morgoth Bauglir, formerly Melkor of the Ainur, claims that he didn’t have any suspicions about an unnamed woman who bypassed the security systems of his dark fortress and got all the way to his living room before attracting attention. 

“Look, I thought she was a stripper,” Bauglir claimed. “She danced really pretty, and she did this thing with her hair in front of her face, and she even sang – no of ******* course I don’t remember what it was about, do I look like I keep track of those kinds of things? Why are you even still here? Why is no one looking for my Silmaril?”

Primary suspect Luthien Tinuviel and an unnamed accomplice, a mortal man tentatively identified as trespasser and would-be kidnapper Beren Camlost, escaped Bauglir’s home with a jewel rumored to be worth the loyalty of four Fëanorians. Camlost allegedly slept through the heist, though Tinuviel woke him in time to make their escape. 

Further damages were incurred to Bauglir’s face and his prized guard-dog Carcharoth, last seen fleeing the scene with a bloody mouth. Tinuviel is also suspected of arson at Tol-in-Gaurhoth earlier this month. 

Bauglir’s lieutenant, the groundskeeper of

Tol-in-Gaurhoth, could not be reached for comment.

flavoracle:

theitalianscrub:

flavoracle:

writing-prompt-s:

A Genie offers you one wish, and you modestly wish to have a very productive 2017. The genie misunderstands, and for the rest of your life, every 20:17 you become impossibly productive for just 60 seconds.

“Well, it was a nice day.” You kiss your sweetheart gently on the forehead and sigh as the last remaining seconds of 20:16 tick away. “See you at 8:18,” you say. 

Then it happens. Every ounce of fatigue or hunger leaves your body. The face of your beloved is perfectly still, their expression exactly the same. The ticking of the clock on the wall has stopped. Once again, it’s 20:17. 

You stretch your arms and walk to the table with the homework for the three doctorates you’re working on. The work is mentally stimulating and enjoyable, but it’s finished far too quickly. You check your pocket watch and see that not even one hundredth of a second has passed. 

You knew it was too soon to be able to see any movement on the watch, but you can never quite help yourself from looking early on every 20:17. Time to move on. 

You clean your home, do your budget, then go outside and fix a noise that your car was making earlier that afternoon. (Oh how you already miss afternoons.) Then you go back inside, boot up your computer (which magically speeds up to keep pace with you as long as you’re in contact with it) and check for any new orders. 

You’ve set up a website for the small business you started called “Magic Elf Services.” People in your area can pay a modest fee on your site to have different tasks and odd jobs done by “The Magic Elf” at 8:17pm every day. It was a little slow to get started, but word has spread and these days you have a steady stream of clients. 

The money that comes in from the business is nice, but you’re mostly grateful that it gives you a clear list of things to do. You print off your updated list of clients, step outside, and start making your way through the neighborhood with your to-do list. 

There’s the apartments down your street where several neighbors have hired you to tidy up, do the dishes, and mop the floors. You do the windows too, just to see if they notice. There’s the large house across town that paid the “Magic Elf” to clean out the gutters. After the first dozen jobs are done, you manage to stop looking at your pocket watch. 

As near as you’ve been able to determine in the past, 20:17 seems to last for approximately one normal year. But it’s not exact. For one thing, it’s hard to keep track of “time” when everything but you has crawled to an almost total standstill. For another thing, time seems to move differently depending on how “productive” your behavior is. One time you tried to spend all of 20:17 sitting at home in your pajamas, but that was getting you nowhere, so you eventually gave up and got busy. (Though you defiantly stayed in your pajamas the whole time.) 

During 20:17 your body doesn’t get tired, hungry, sick, or injured. You’re essentially tireless and immortal for the duration of the “minute.” So sleeping or eating away your boredom has never really worked for you. 

One of the houses on your list forgot to follow the instructions and leave a key for you to get in. At first you figure you’ll just send them an email telling them to pay more attention and that you’ll do the job tomorrow. Then you decide to go home, get your locksmith tools, and come back. 

After finishing up all the jobs on your list, you go into several other homes and small businesses in the area, performing tasks you hope they’ll find helpful, and leaving a hand-painted business card at each one. (The business cards don’t contain your real name just in case somebody thinks “The Magic Elf” should be subject to breaking and entering laws.) 

Speaking of laws, you head down to the local police station to pick up your case file. You’ve been in contact with a detective who’s been investigating corruption within their department, and your ability to investigate unseen and get in almost anywhere between the ticks of the clock has proven invaluable. You see that they’ve also added five missing person cases to your file this evening, which certainly raises your interest in the job. 

You make your way through town gathering evidence, and start making your way to the outskirts of town. Since you happen to be out that way (and you’ve already solved three of the five missing person cases) you decide to swing by the stone castle you’re building and do some more work there. 

The castle walls stand about 20 feet right now, but you know they’ll be much higher when you’re done. You’re far from any roads and pretty safely tucked away, so for now it’s your little secret. You’ve been excavating and moving all the rock yourself, which has been much easier than you first expected since your body doesn’t get tired or sore. You’ve also got a nice system of tunnels going underneath the castle, and you dig and build more of that network for a while. 

All that time spent underground has left you feeling rather lonely, so you walk back home to see the face of your sweetheart. Their facial expression has moved ever so slightly since you last saw them, which is a comfort to you. Looking at them gets your imagination going and makes you dream up a story you’d like to tell, so you sit on your couch, plug in your laptop, and write a book. 

After you finish editing the last chapter for the third time, you finally allow yourself to look at your pocket watch again. Three seconds have officially passed so far. 

It’s gonna be a long 20:17. 

Wow, Dave. You managed to take a concept that seems nice on the exterior and make it into a real nightmare. This is some good stuff.

Which is EXACTLY why you should never trust a wish-granting djinn.