Research Ideas For Bored People

all the f1 x gladiator drawings i've done so far

📸 a friday afternoon in paris

by arica_aki

Conveying Worldbuilding Without Exposition!

(As requested by both an anon and @my-words-are-light​)

One of the hardest parts of writing speculative fiction is presenting readers with a world that’s interesting and different from our own in a way that’s both immersive and understandable at the same time. 

Thankfully, there are a few techniques that can help you present worldbuilding information to your readers in a natural way, as well as many tricks to tweaking the presentation until it’s just right.

Four basic techniques:

1. The ignorant character. 

By introducing a character who doesn’t know about the aspects of the world building you’re trying to convey, you can let the ignorant character voice the questions the reader naturally wants to ask. Traditionally, this is seen when the protagonist or (another character) is brought into a new world, society, organization. In cases where that’s the natural outcome of the plot, and the character has a purpose in the story outside of simply asking questions, it can be pulled off just fine. But there’s another aspect to this which writers don’t often consider: 

Every character is your ignorant character. 

In a realistic world, no person knows everything. Someone will be behind on the news. Someone won’t know all the facts. Many, many someones won’t have studied a common part of their society simply because they aren’t large part of that fraction or don’t have the time for it.

Instead of inserting an ignorant character and creating a stiff and annoying piece of expository dialogue, find the character already existing in the story who doesn’t know about the thing being learned.

2. Conflicting opinions.

A fantastic way to convey detailed world building concepts is to have characters with conflicting viewpoints discuss or argue about them. Unless you’re working with a brainwashed society, every character should hold their own set of religious, political, and social beliefs. 

Examples of this kind of dialogue:

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Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language

We are always told to use body language in our writing. Sometimes, it’s easier said than written. I decided to create these cheat sheets to help you show a character’s state of mind. Obviously, a character may exhibit a number of these behaviours. For example, he may be shocked and angry, or shocked and happy. Use these combinations as needed.

by Amanda Patterson

advocate for weird and pathetic girls

“if you’re ever lucky enough to have dreams about someone, and wake up right next to them, then you’ll know how i’ve felt the past week or so. with you i don’t have to be anybody. my name is just “yours.” i am stuck in a song. we are just sharks and butterflies. vicious and fragile. my neck isn’t the same without you gnawing at it.”

— ryan ross; thursday, december 22 2005

Life is just so much better when you’re out and about. Walking around a shop, grabbing lunch at your favorite restaurant, a cold beverage of your choice as both hydration and accessory, the fresh air and loud busy surroundings of a world constantly moving forward. I feel like the plastic bag camcorder freak from American Beauty. The pure poetry of it all.