Continuing To Push My Black People In Rock Agenda …

Jane Austen, Emma

Sufjan Stevens, Futile Devices

Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf

Hozier, Shrike

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Sierra DeMulder, Your Love Finds Its Way Back

Nizar Qabbani

“What I feel for you can’t be conveyed in phrasal combinations; It either screams out loud or stays painfully silent but I promise — it beats words. It beats worlds.”

Katherine Mansfield

ATTENTION WRITERS

Google BetaBooks. Do it now. It’s the best damn thing EVER.

You just upload your manuscript, write out some questions for your beta readers to answer in each chapter, and invite readers to check out your book!

It’s SO easy!

You can even track your readers! It tells you when they last read, and what chapter they read!

Your beta readers can even highlight and react to the text!!!

There’s also this thing where you can search the website for available readers best suited for YOUR book!

Seriously guys, BetaBooks is the most useful website in the whole world when it comes to beta reading, and… IT’S FREE.

ways to describe facial expressions in writing

humans can obviously talk to communicate, but you have to remember that, naturally, we use our face to show expressions as well.

EYES

- widened in surprise/shock, filled with confusion/hurt

- narrowed into a glare

- filled with tears

- looking down at the ground defeatedly

- gleaming with mischief

- shining with hope/determination

- burning with hate

- emotionless stare

EYEBROWS

- raised in surprise

- furrowed in confusion/thought/worry

- one eyebrow perked to show attitude

NOSE

- scrunched in digust

- blushing with embarrassment

- lifted higher = more confidence/bigger ego

- aimed lower = less confident/weak

MOUTH

- in a pout = upset

- gaping with shock/confusion

- lips shaking from trying to hold back tears

- pursed in thought

- pulled into a smirk

- widened into a grin

PUTTING THEM TOGETHER

- Eyes wide and mouth gaping, they felt numb with shock.

- They felt their face begin to burn as they shifted their gaze to the ground.

- They pursed their lips as they concentrated, brow furrowing.

- Their eyes gleamed with mischief as they smirked.

using facial expressions is very useful in writing. simply using dialogue to express your characters’ emotions and thoughts will lose your audience’s attention and interest.

keep these in mind while writing!

What is my sister’s fault? Why must this be her life? She doesn’t remember our house. She doesn’t remember her cat who was killed by the bombs. She doesn’t remember feeling warm during the winter. All the good things in her life came and went before her brain could form memories. From her point of view, life has always been this genocide. Gaza has always been destroyed. Home has always been one room with no windows and infested by rodents.

Please help me provide for her. She’s had a high fever for the past few days and the blockade is back. The bombs are starting to drop again. This is going to be so hard and I can’t do this alone.

We are so close to our final goal, please, anything can make a difference even if it’s just sharing!

PLEASE DONATE HERE

✅Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #347 )✅

Sotce

Speaking of books it's been a while since I've seen one of these posts going around & I'm curious so everyone could you tell me what you are reading rn in the tags please

like the first rule of cooking is to have fun and be yourself and the first rule of baking is to stay calm because the dough can sense fear

Donation campaigns - May 30

Below are vetted campaigns I have come across today and compiled into one list to make it easier for us to generate the best possible impact.

Donate to save Wafaa and her children

Help secure a safe future for Yusef's family

Shahad needs our help to rescue her grandmother

Bilal is trying to rescue his family and we can help him reach his goal

Hani needs our urgent help to get to safety

Nader's family is displaced and need our help

Fadi's family of 8 lost everything and we can help

Help Tala's mother get the medical treatment she urgently needs

Help save Faten and her three children

Save Maliha's family with their evacuation fund

Donate to Helpgazachildren

8 year old Yusuf needs urgent medical help

Help Yousef and his family evacuate

Renad needs our support to get her family to safety

Support Ruba's urgent request to evacuate her family

Better fundraisers master post

Help Ahmed rescue his family and children

Help Alaa by supporting her fundraiser

Donate to Ezzideen's campaign to help him and his family get to safety

Alhawa family need our help to escape the horrors

Haneen is almost halfway through to her goal to save her family

Help Marah and her family

Help Mahmoud save his parents

Laila still needs our support donating to her campaign

Support Omar continue his education

Help the Abushammala family rebuild their life

Donate to help Islam and his family

Mohammed Ayesh needs our help to escape to safety

What's your advice on writing a strong, solid chapter one? Something that will grab the reader's attention and make them beg on their knees for more?

Tips for Writing a Strong First Chapter

Note: in the examples, I’m using the second chapter as Harry Potter rather than the first, which was really more of a prologue.

1. Create a “snapshot” of your character’s normal life…

One of the most important things you can do in the first chapter is give your reader a sort of “snapshot” of your character’s life before the the inciting incident turns everything upside down. Otherwise, if we don’t know what their life is like before everything changes, the inciting incident won’t be a change. It’ll just be something that happens.

In Twilight, we saw Bella being the run-of-the-mill daughter of divorced parents. In Harry Potter, we saw Harry being the unwanted and much-maligned ward of muggle relatives, while struggling with emerging wizard powers. In Star Wars, we saw Luke being the bored farm boy, longing for heroism and adventure. In The Hunger Games, we saw Katniss taking care of her mom and sister by hunting for extra food for them with Gale.

2. Show us who they are–show us their strengths and their flaws…

Most stories feature a protagonist who changes in someway throughout the course of the story. This is the character arc, and it can either be positive (the most common) or negative. Positive story arcs stem from the character’s flaws that are established at the beginning of the story. While they have strengths, too, it’s the flaws that dominate and make their lives such a mess that the reader is anxious to see how their lives will change. The character will overcome those flaws through the events of the story, so in the end the reader can marvel at how far they’ve come and how much better their lives are as a result of this change. In a negative arc, it works in the exact opposite way. Sometimes there are static arcs, where the character doesn’t change but changes someone around them or their environment, and sometimes you get a little hybrid of both.

In Twilight, we see a girl who’s a little selfish, a little closed off, and very codependent. In The Hunger Games, we see a girl who feels helpless against the oppressive government making her life, and the lives of everyone she cares about, a living hell. In Star Wars, we see a boy who’s cocky and idealistic.

3. Show us who and what matters in their world…

Another important element that should be introduced in the first chapter is who and what matters to the main character. These are the initial stakes–the thing that motivates them into action when the world turns upside down. In some cases, the world turns upside down because something happened to them.

In Twilight, we meet Bella’s mom and dad, but in many ways, the absence of anyone else here is part of what serves as motivation for Bella to want her life to change and to want to belong to something bigger than herself. It’s much the same in Harry Potter, where the only people who really matter to him are people who died when he was a baby. In The Hunger Games, we meet Katniss’s mom and sister, her best friend Gale, and we learn about Katniss’s father and Gale’s family, and the boy with the bread. In Star Wars, we meet Luke’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.

4. Show us their world…

Part of the point of the inciting incident is that it’s going to change the known world for the main character. This really dovetails with #1, because their normal life happens within this world. In some stories, a character’s “world” might be their work and home life or their home and school life. In other stories, their “world” might be the small village they live in and the plagued-by-evil-king kingdom the village is a part of. 

In Twilight, Bella’s world was uprooted right at the beginning and exchanged for the tiny, perpetually overcast town of Forks, Washington. In The Hunger Games, Katniss’s world was District Twelve and the oppressive Capitol beyond. In Star Wars, Luke’s world was a moisture farm on the desert planet of Tatooine, part of a larger Civil War-wracked galaxy.

5. Start the story when something interesting is happening…

We often hear the advice “start in the middle of the action” or “begin the story with action” and this is often misinterpreted, either to mean you should start with the inciting incident or start with a big car chase or heart-pounding battle. Neither of which is true. Beginning the story with action just means you should start the story with something interesting happening rather than with a big info dump. That doesn’t mean you can’t include exposition in your opening, but weave the exposition into something interesting happening.

In Twilight, the story opens with Bella being dropped off at the airport by her mom so that she can move to Washington to live with her dad. In The Hunger Games, the story opens with Katniss getting ready to go hunting with Gale, then walking through her district on her way to meet him. In Harry Potter, we see Harry and the Dursleys getting ready for Dudley’s birthday party.

If you hit all five of these points in your first chapter, not only can you be sure to create a strong first chapter from which to launch the rest of your story, you can be sure your reader will have everything they need to start getting invested in your main character and the world around them. :)