2021 Reading List Tag

i’m sorry what

---

i am about to bestow upon you the secret butter technique. i am sorry, but it is french. i am sorry again, this only works with cow butter. i am certain plant based butters wouldn’t work, and alternative animal butters may or may not work

has this ever been you: you have a nicely steamed vegetable, or maybe you want to make the best butter noodles, but you know that if you put butter on those it’ll just melt and you end with kind of greasy noodles or vegetables? don’t you wish it was instead a luscious buttery glaze?

introducing: beurre monté

you will take a small sauce pan, and begin heating it with 1-2 tablespoons of water (use very little water) and bring it to a hard simmer or boil

turn the heat down slightly, and add Butter. how much? however much you dare. (start with 3-4 tablespoons and go from there)

you are going to either whisk Aggressively or you can pick up the saucepan, still holding it over the heat, and swirl aggressively so the butter is skating around the sides of the pan

done correctly, you will have liquid butter that is still emulsified. you have made Butter Sauce. season it with a little salt, and toss whatever you want in it.

if you’re butter splits, i’m sorry. you didn’t agitate it enough to maintain the emulsion, and now you have melted butter.

you can use this knowledge to make other sauces by swapping out the water for another liquid. white wine becomes beurre blanc. red wine is beurre rogue.

you want to CUM? sweat minced shallot in a tiny bit of butter, add white wine and cook it out until it’s reduced by about half. then whisk butter in hard. a few flecks of minced thyme or fennel frond stirred thru, and you eat that with a nice seared fish? or scallop? or even shrimp? wow. you will Nut

your boxed mac and cheese game can also be elevated by cooking your pasta and making a beurre monté first, tossing your pasta in that and adding the cheese packet. wow. hey; you’ll cum

go forth now with this butter secret

i did words

how do words

Threaten your imagination into compliance and slap them hands onto your keyboard, or get ready to stab paper repeatedly with the pointy ink stick.

Scream angrily into the void for at least thirty minutes.

Wait for void to scream back.

Write down whatever returns, trapping those motherfuckers on your page. Spend at least an hour deciphering and beating them with a stick until they fall somewhat in line, then bask in the fact that you now have words on a page, which is considerably more than you had before.

Results may vary, but there’s always tomorrow.

and if you turn to ur left you’ll see the emos

---

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aliquam nisi lorem, pulvinar id, commodo feugiat, vehicula et, mauris. Aliquam mattis porta urna. Maecenas dui neque, rhoncus sed, vehicula vitae, auctor at, nisi. Aenean id massa ut lacus molestie porta. Curabitur sit amet quam id libero suscipit venenatis.

Writing Tips Masterlist

Last updated April 9, 2021.

World-Building

4 Tips for Writing Magic

Creating a Culture

Totalitarian Governments

Creating a Distinct World

Creating (Fictional) Medicine

Describing New Settings

Writing a War

Writing a War with Superheroes / Magic / Fantasy

70 Questions for World-Building

Creating Superstitions

49 Questions for Creating a Religion

The Tie Between Characters and World-Building

34 Questions for Creating a Government

36 Questions for Music in World-Building

Creating a New Species

42 Questions for Creating an Education System

Characters

Developing Character Appearance

Developing Character Personality

Multilingual Characters

Creating a Wardrobe

How to Name Your Characters

Your Characters vs. Already-Established Characters

Effective Point-of-View Character

Writing an Impactful Death

Writing with Archetypes

Designing Your Characters

Mute Characters

Thinning Your Cast

Not Enough Characters?

84 Questions for Developing Plot and Character Roles

Sexuality without a Relationship

Consistent Personalities

Skills and Knowledge

Creating Conflict

Character Arcs

Sympathetic Characters

Name vs. Pronouns and When to Use Them

Creating Character Voice

Characters Who Are Learning Another Language

Character Fears

Finding Motivations

Creating Character Flaws

Emotionless Characters

Relationships

Dynamic Relationships

Sibling Relationships

Believable Romance

Characters Who Don’t Know How to Relationship

Complementary Character Traits

Writing a Slow-Burn Romance

Characters Who Fall Out of Love

Groups of Characters

Making Compatible Characters

Emotions

Frustration

Grief

Fear

Planning & Plotting

Planning a Series

Writing an Outline

Tips for Writing Subplots

Non-Point-of-View Romantic Subplots

Avoiding Generic Plots

Planning and Pace

Editing & Prose

Writing with Emotion

Controlling Pace with Detail

Steps of the Editing Phase

Descriptions in Context

Imagery

Dialogue

Showing vs. Telling

What is passive voice?

Reworking Moments of Exposition

Adverbs

When to Cut Your Content

Avoiding Cliches in Your Story

The Importance of Vocabulary

Writing Beginning Paragraphs

Motivation

How to Balance Multiple Projects

How to Fall Back in Love with Your Story

Writing Every Day?

Sticking with Your Story

Getting (Back) Into the Writing Habit

Setting Realistic Goals

Shiny New Idea Syndrome

Positive Writing Mindset

Staying Motivated on Your Projects

Getting in “The Zone”

Keeping Writing Logs

Avoiding Burnout

Breaking Out of Writer’s Block

Scenes

Quick Decisions

Travel Scenes

Breakdown in the Shower

General Writing & Miscellaneous

The Joys of the First Draft

Injuries

Creating Suspense

Writing Poison

Prophecies

A Word to Young Writers

Making a Moodboard

Consuming with the Producer Mindset

For First-Time Writers

Building Your Writing Skill

Advice for Student Writers

How to Do Research

How to Maximize Your Writing Time

How to Make Your Book Look Like a Book

On Experimenting in Writing

When to Use Multiple Points of View

Building Theme

Becoming a Beta Reader

Background Music While Writing

Why Committing to a Project Can Be Stressful

Warm-Ups for Writers

Determining Your Story’s Genre

Why do we get stressed when we don’t write?

Writing Short Stories

If my work helps you or your writing, please consider supporting me my joining my Patreon!

I’ve been trying to think of a setting for a nautical campaign. A vast expanse of tropical islands and waterways with the obligatory shady towns that sit on the water and temples of worship deep in both the jungle and the water. Any thoughts?

Yeknow what, fuck it, I wasn’t planning on writing a full pirate campaign anytime soon but everything’s better with pirates so lets do this!

Campaign: Scoundrels of the Sundered Isles

The Priests debate as to how our hearts may be weighted against its bearer’s sins.. but we Sailors no Better: ‘tis not sin our hearts are weighed against, ‘tis coin, as only coin could get a man to sail out to the edge o’ the bleedin world and gettim to stay ‘ere long enough to get to sinnin in the firstplace. 

-Overheard at The Last Hurrah Tavern

Setup:  The Tropical waters of the Tourmaline Sea have been a flurry of activity over the past century and a half, as natives and settlers from three different continents work together to reclaim land once lost after a half-millennia of supernatural darkness rendered a large chunk of the mainland uninhabitable. Most people deserted the Sundered Isles ( their name derived from a mistranslation that they were “Sun-Dead”) fearing the raiders and plagues that issued from that calamity, and they stayed away even after the sun returned, letting the gentle creeping of green reclaim the once barren rocks. 

Ever hungry for expansion, civilization makes its first tentative steps into these dangerous lands, with ports popping up all along the coast and archipelagos, the first wave of resettlement of a land once thought consigned to oblivion. 

All is not peaceful however, as powers both foreign and continental strive to establish dominance in this new frontier, with settlers, traders, and foolhearty sailors caught in the clash between. Discover the Mysteries long buried in darkness and sunken beneath the crashing waves, as you and your party strive to make your way in the Sundered Isles

Campaign Start

Captives of the Villainous XROC Merchant company and on their way to do hard labor in one of a number of debt-colonies, the party is miraculously saved when a tremendous wave crashes against the ship where they are imprisoned, shattering it upon the coastline and giving them the chance to escape together through the island.   There they find themselves Port Calmayne, a prosperous trade hub where the party can get their sea-legs under them while determining the best course of action and evading the Company. 

Early Game: 

A Priestess of the sea god has work for the party, neverminded that she’s a “retired” pirate, and the job involves helping a group of smugglers exterminate some monsters they accidently imported from the continent 

Investigate the haunted manor of an old Commodore, recover a treasuremap, and perhaps acquire some funds by looting through his hold treasures. Don’t get shot by a ghost while you’re at it. 

Earn the Respect of the local sailorfolk by diving for treasure into shark infested waters. Hidden among the bones of a great dragon are tokens that prove the party’s skill and sea-blessed luck, earning them passage on any ship going anywhere in the Sundered Isles

Mid Game: 

Make your way to Greenveil Lagoon, hidden home of all true pirates and the Bretherin Court. Help reunite an old salty-dog pay respects to his long departed crew, or start treasurehunting for the world’s most skilled but unlukiest mapmaker. 

Hunt ruins for a fabulous relic, then defend it in a ship-duel from a mystic privateer intent on taking it back.  When a job goes bad, it goes bad, and it’ll take all the party’s skill as sailors to evade this tenacious ( and seemingly omniscient) foe. 

Sign on With the Monster Hunting Crew of the Leviathan’s Bane, travel to the most dangerous corners of the archipelago, fight creatures that break ships between their coils, learn how to cook seamonster

Explore an ancient, eternal lighthouse, used as a lair by an eccentric pyromancer. Help a wayward celestial find their misplaced chariot of fire and learn clues as to the darkness that overtook the mainland so long ago. 

Late Game

The Merchant company that enslaved the players wants control over trade in the Sundered Isles, and is willing to unleash a madwoman in order to get it. This renegade pirate is obsessed with becoming the terror of the high seas, going so far as to overthrow the brethren court that keeps order among the Isles’ freebooters, and even unleash a vampire on the populace in hopes of becoming one herself. 

Venture into the lush jungles and overgrown ruins of the continent, and meet the fallen demigod who caused the devastation in the first place. Now little more than an eccentric old lizardfolk, this seemingly benign evil has many stories to tell, and more than a little wickedness still in him. 

The Wave that set the party free was only the herald to a true upset, as over moths an entire new archipelago of islands emerges from the seafloor after millennia in the depths.  Dotted with ruins and artifacts of a long dead civilization, these new isles draw fortunehunters into a clash with the merfolk exiled by the sudden rising of their home, all the while an ancient power wakes, looking to assert itself over the world once again. 

As always, I’m tremendously grateful for all my followers, but if you’d like to support my creative efforts, consider checking out the links below:

If you liked one of my adventure ideas and would like to leave a one time tip: https://ko-fi.com/villainforhire.

If you’d like to support Daily Adventure Prompts and future creative activity, consider becoming a patron: https://www.patreon.com/Villain4hire

Art 

hey could you please suggest some story titles with the word 'flower' in it

Flower Title Ideas

-> feel free to edit as you see fit.

Let Us Live Like Flowers

The Flower in the Eye of the Storm

A Landscape of Pain and Flowers

Talk About the Flowers

Flowers and the Divine Creation

A Flower with Tough Roots

His Flower

Speaking in Flowers

Hope in the Flower

The Language of Flowers

The Enchanted Flower

Whispers Among the Flowers

Flowers of Promise

Songs of the Flower

Dancing with the Flowers

Yo. I write high fantasy, and I feed off prompts. I have several wips because I can't ever focus on one thing. I rarely post but I plan to post more.

My dash is void of writeblr content, so please interact if you are an active writeblr and I will follow you!

What I'm looking for:

memes

wip content

oc content

I'm interested in most genres except horror/gore

bonus points if you have supernatural/paranormal or sci-fi elements

ok but can you eat them

Hypothesis: Dancing Mushrooms Are The True Form of The Fae