How Not To Write A Boring Story:

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

Good stuff.

Reblog the writers’ fortune cookie for luck!

Drafting

The Draft Notebook 

Be More Productive with Ambient Noise 

How to Steal: Know Your Tropes 

How to Steal: Good Writers Borrow

Write What You Know (Not What You’ve Experienced)

The Best Way to End a Writing Session

How To Finish a Draft

A Few Tips on Chapters

Language, Description, & Dialog 

“To Be” Or Not “To Be”: What Exactly Is Passive Voice?

Tagging Dialog 

Narrative Voice

Writing Better Descriptions

Basic Rules for Metaphors and Similes

Character, Plot, & Setting 

Creating Characters: a 4-Step Process 

Writing Relationships Your Reader Can Get Behind

Informative Character Names

The Strength of a Symmetrical Plot 

How to Foreshadow

Crafting Homes of Paper, Ink, and Neutral PH Glue

Motivation

On Writing Flawed Books

How to Return to Your Manuscript

The Acknowledgements Page

Staring at Blank Pages

What to Do When You Can’t Write

Motivational Writing Posters

Publishing

Writing the Perfect Query Letter

How to Write a Synopsis 

How to Pitch Your Novel in Under a Minute

A Glossary of Publishing Terms: Vol 1

Writing Tools

Why You Should Give Scrivener a Try

Outlining, Brainstorming, and Researching with Scrivener

Drafting with Scrivener

Editing with Scrivener 

CTRL+F

The Forest Productivity App

Editsaurus 

NaNoWriMo

Why Try NaNoWriMo

October Prep 

Why Listen to Writing Podcasts

Pick a New Daily Word Count Goal 

How to Write 2000 Words a Day

How to Plan a Novel without a Story

Pacemaker: Custom Daily Word Count Website

NaNoWriMo Master Post

Other

How to Read an Absurd Number of Books

Writing Workshops: An Introduction

Writing Groups

Different Types of Fantasy Novels

Ambient Soundscapes Based on Famous Writers

Ko-Fi & Other Support

If you enjoy my posts and can afford it, I would greatly appreciate it if you donated to my new ko-fi page! Each of these posts represents multiple hours of unpaid labor. I love writing for this blog, but I’m also an underpaid 20-something trying to stay afloat. I’ve made this master post of every essay I’ve written for this blog as a way to show my appreciation in advance of any support. If you donate, to further show my gratitude and appreciation, I’ll take requests for essay topics in the ‘messages of support.’ 

If you can’t afford to donate via ko-fi, another great way to show your support is simply by reblogging posts that you find useful and helping my blog reach new writers. 

Thanks so much! 

yeah

I made a what the fandom thinks of you generator

It is increasingly obvious that most people have no idea how to indicate an illness is slowly killing someone without making them cough up blood. Doesn’t matter what it is or if it has anything to do with your respiratory system, if you’re dying, you’re coughing up blood.

me jumping between my WIPs without actually finishing any of them

Reblog if you think public libraries are important and should be maintained.

Maintained and cherished by all.

It’s almost October, which means it’s almost Halloween! How about some ghastly prompts to get your creative juices pumping? These Hauntober prompts are perfect to get you in the spookiest state of mind. Whether you’re drawing, writing imagines or snippets, or dressing up with some closet costuming like the aesthetic goblin you are, these Hauntober challenges just may stimulate your ghoulish creativity. 

You have two weeks to plan and prepare, but if you prefer to 🦇 ~wing it~ 🦇, no worries. We’ll be dropping the weekly themes each Monday here on @fandom starting on September 28th. And the best part, you freaks? We’re going to share some of the best frightfully amazing work from you clowns throughout the entire month. Don’t forget to use the #Hauntober tag on your creepy creations. Happy haunting, Tumblr!

Writing 101: Characters with Medical Issues

Part One - Mobility Aids and/or Prosthetics

Aka, me doing research for you!

TW: talks about what leads to a prosthetic… obviously

Ah, yes, I get it. Having more diverse characters, more things that can go wrong, more hurdles — it’s all a nice addition to a story. But slow down! Don’t just shove an issue at a character because you like the idea! You need to research and decide if you actually want them to have that or if you just got a little excited. I’m here to provide you a bit of base research on a commonly used issue. Today: Prosthetics and Mobility Aids.

First of all, mobility aids are exactly what they sound like — things that aid someones mobility. These include wheelchairs, crutches, braces, walkers, canes, forearm crutches, etc.

Prosthetics are artificial devices designed to replace a missing body part. Most commonly, legs and arms.

How Someone Gets Prosthetics or Mobility Aids

The most common way for someone to get a Prosthetic is, obviously, for them to lose or severely damage a limb in an accident. For example, a soldier stepping on a mine, a car crash that completely crushed an arm, heavy machinery full-on chopping off a hand. See: Proctor Ingram, Fallout Four (2015) You can also lose extremities from diseases like bone cancer, where surgeons must remove it to remove the cancer. See: Leo Roth, Red Band Society (2014)

It is more common for people to have mobility aids for temporary amounts of time, for example, a broken leg or twisted ankle resulting in having crutches. For long lasting or life long mobility aids, you’ll need to look into physical disabilities, different types of muscle trauma and nerve damage, or an injury that wasn’t able to heal properly. See: Freddy Freeman, Shazam (2019)

Choosing When to Add Prosthetics or Mobility Aids

First things first — you should design your character with the mobility aid or prosthetic already in mind. They can affect the entire personality of a person, so I wouldn’t recommend creating a character and then deciding their mobility aid. For example, a child with forearm crutches due to a physical disability probably won’t like doing all the same things the other kids do on the playground, or the same sports their friends at school like. There’s also the unavoidable issue of them feeling out of place or “weird” no matter the age. So, obviously, there are some aids more suited for different genres of writing. For example, a long journey like Lord of the Rings would be tough for someone with a wheelchair or walker, but it’d be okay for a romance. That’s why it’s so important you don’t spring something like this on a character in a spur of the moment thing. Here are a few things I’d recommend deciding beforehand: 1 - What type of mobility aid or prosthetic is best for your type of story? You can choose any you like, but it’s good to consider if you want to write everything that comes with pushing a wheelchair to Isengard. 2 - Would your character have access to these aids or prosthetics, or would they have to settle with something else? If your story is post apocalyptic, they probably wouldn’t have access to the same things, or if your story is set in the past, you’d have to research aids and prosthetics from that time period. Even consider characters making their own — which is also a good way to mold it to your needs.

What Comes Along with Prosthetics and Mobility Aids

Okay, so you’ve decided you want your character to have a prosthetic or mobility aid. You’ve weaved it into their personality and your story. Now comes making it realistic… what do people with these things experience? Think about? People with prosthetics have challenges and additional baggage that comes along with having a prosthetic. First of all, if your character just got this prosthetic, it’s gonna be hard to walk on and even harder to wrap their head around. Sometimes, prosthetics hurt. There’s several different kinds and different activities each one can do. They change size as the person changes size. There are many different ways they attach to the body that suit different needs. Mobility aids have their own set of challenges as well. For example, fitting a wheelchair, walker, or crutches through a tight space. Fitting braces under or over clothes. Stairs. You have to think about enclosed spaces like cars, public transport, planes, elevators, bathrooms. These challenges will change with your story. For example, on a long outdoor journey, how will each different aid or prosthetic react to the temperature, humidity? How will the one in the wheelchair or with crutches get up that mountain? While the aids and prosthetics come with their own challenges, new ones are gained based on the genre of your WIP. This includes what your character thinks about. In a post-apocalyptic work, they might not worry about being different or out of place, but they might spend every day hoping and praying their homemade leg brace doesn’t break.

Reminder!

⚠️ DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH IF YOU INTEND TO ADD A CHARACTER WITH THIS INTO A WORK OF YOURS. STUDY HOW THESE THINGS EFFECT THE COMMON LIFE OF A PERSON. IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO HAS ONE OF THESE THINGS, ASK THEM. MURDER YOUR EYEBALLS BY RESEARCHING ON YOUR COMPUTER. WATCH A SHOW WITH A CHARACTER WHO HAS ONE. KNOW YOUR STUFF BEFORE YOU MAKE YOUR CHARACTER, I BEG.