bits & ink

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. 

break up your paragraphs. big paragraphs are scary, your readers will get scared

fuuuuck epithets. “the other man got up” “the taller woman sat down” “the blonde walked away” nahhh. call them by their names or rework the sentence. you can do so much better than this (exception: if the reader doesn’t know the character(s) you’re referring to yet, it’s a-okay to refer to them by an identifying trait)

blunette is not a thing

new speaker, new paragraph. please.

“said” is such a great word. use it. make sweet love to it. but don’t kill it

use “said” more than you use synonyms for it. that way the use of synonyms gets more exciting. getting a sudden description of how a character is saying something (screaming, mumbling, sighing) is more interesting that way.

if your summary says “I suck at summaries” or “story better than summary” you’re turning off the reader, my dude. your summary is supposed to be your hook. you gotta own it, just like you’re gonna own the story they’re about to read

follow long sentences w short ones and short ones w long ones. same goes for paragraphs

your writing is always better than you think it is. you just think it’s bad because the story’s always gonna be predicable to the one who’s writing it

OK ARE YOU EVER IN NEED OF BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS BUT DON’T KNOW WHAT TO READ NEXT?

I present to you, straight from the internet, whichbook:

Here’s how it works: You click the link, and choose four categories and the extent to which these categories matter:

Then click “go” and it’ll come up with a number of books you might like.

DON’T LIKE THE CATEGORIES? NO PROBLEM - see this little thing:

THIS LITTLE THING WILL TAKE YOU TO THIS SLIGHTLY LARGER THING WHERE YOU CAN CHOOSE A BOOK BASED ON THE FOLLOWING:

YOU NOW HAVE NO EXCUSE TO NOT BE READING SOMETHING BECAUSE WHATEVER YOU WANT THIS SITE WILL COME UP WITH IT.

If you’re writing something that involves an aspect of life that you have not experienced, you obviously have to do research on it. You have to find other examples of it in order to accurately incorporate it into your story realistically.

But don’t just look at professional write ups. Don’t stop at wikepedia or webMD. Look up first person accounts.

I wrote a fic once where a character has frequent seizures. Naturally, I was all over the wikipedia page for seizures, the related pages, other medical websites, etc.

But I also looked at Yahoo asks where people where asking more obscure questions, sometimes asked by people who were experiencing seizures, sometimes answered by people who have had seizures.

I looked to YouTube. Found a few individual videos of people detailing how their seizures usually played out. So found a few channels that were mostly dedicated to displaying the daily habits of someone who was epileptic.

I looked at blogs and articles written by people who have had seizures regularly for as long as they can remember. But I also read the frantic posts from people who were newly diagnosed or had only had one and were worried about another.

When I wrote that fic, I got a comment from someone saying that I had touched upon aspects of movement disorders that they had never seen portrayed in media and that they had found representation in my art that they just never had before. And I think it’s because of the details. The little things.

The wiki page for seizures tells you the technicalities of it all, the terminology. It tells you what can cause them and what the symptoms are. It tells you how to deal with them, how to prevent them.

But it doesn’t tell you how some people with seizures are wary of holding sharp objects or hot liquids. It doesn’t tell you how epileptics feel when they’ve just found out that they’re prone to fits. It doesn’t tell you how their friends and family react to the news.

Sure, someone might be more technically accomplished than you - you might not be able to colour as nicely or craft a sentence that rings as poetically - but art is only really secondarily about that. It’s firstmost about what you, uniquely, have to express, and how the precise way you express it might be what others need to relate to it - even if it’s less flashy, less “beautiful”, and gets fewer notes.

I promise you this: there are obscure fanfics with only a handful of notes that are the read-and-re-read favourites of someone too anxious to comment. There are drawings done by 14-year-olds in poorly-blended markers that are someone’s favourite because they spoke to something that nothing else did. There are covers of songs where your voice cracks and you cringe every time you hear it but someone thinks the way it cracked just at that moment added beauty to the song. There are angsty three-line poems you wrote at 4am that someone once called “pretentious emo trash” that are loved by someone else going through the same thing as you.

And I guarantee you, there is something unique about your art. Even if you’re “saying something someone else has said”. Even if you’re the thousandth person to take on the subject. Even if you feel like you’re not at all unique. You’re bound to express something, however subtle, that didn’t exist until then.

(Not another form.)

I’ve been running my characters through these questions lately so I thought I might as well share them? They are meant to be a fun but challenging look at how your characters are going to interact with each other and the plot. 

The examples and explanations are simplistic versions and some stories (especially complex ones) will create variation on the standard.

MOTIVATION

1. What does your character want? 

This is something they think will make their life better. They either start out the story wanting it or decide they want it at the inciting incident. It’s driven by internal desires that are strong enough to force the character to make external choices within alter the plot. Often this want demonstrates a flaw the character will have to overcome by the end of the story. (Ex. Ash wants vengeance for her sister at any cost to herself and others.)

2. What does your character need? 

This is what will in actuality make their life better. It should build off or contrast their want in some way. (Ex. Ash needs to let go of her quest for vengeance in order to protect the people she loves and let them protect her in turn.)

3. At what point does your character realize that what they need isn’t what they want, and what drives this understanding? 

This should happen near the end of the story, usually at the beginning of the climax.

Bonus: If your character doesn’t chose to go after what they need instead of what they want during the above realization, at what point do they make this choice, and what drives it?

RELATIONSHIPS

(Note this can apply to both romantic and platonic relationships!)

1. What external influences are keeping these characters apart? 

These are things within the world, likely out of their control, such as war or social expectations or conflicting goals or a looming knowledge they’ll be separated.

2. What internal beliefs are keeping these characters apart? 

This is generally old baggage that comes from a feeling, such as fear of being betrayed or not feeling good enough, but it can also be something that arises as time goes on, such as the fear that being honest about their changing beliefs will cause a rift.

3. What does the character have to lose if the relationship falls apart or doesn’t mature?

This can be anything from not having someone there to share their dreams with to not having the skills the other personal provides their sleuthing partnership.

4. What does the character gain if everything works out and these two people are happy together?

Pretty much the same as question three except, you know, opposite.

PERSONALITY

1. If your character is placed in a bare room with a single closed door and told to pick one of these items, which do they chose: a knife, a shield, or a bandage.

Bonus: Why did they pick that item?

2. If you had to portray this character through one action (not a personality trait or a descriptor but an action) what would they be doing?

for the writer who can’t seem to write.

Buy a pencil and paper. Get a writing program and a keyboard.

Spill all your ideas into a notebook that will never see the light of day. Write down literally every idea you have that even sort of relates to the scene/chapter/book that you want to write until your thoughts converge on a pointed attack.

Quality vs. Quantity? No competition. Quantity all the way. The more you write, the better you will know your story. Worry about Quality LATER.

Think about where the idea came from. Go there. Set up a cardboard box and live there. This is your home now.

What is the coolest, most self-indulgent thing you can think of? That’s what you want to write at this point, until you get some steam.

Short-term goals, my friends. And by short-term, I mean a minute from now, ten seconds from now. What are you going to do to write RIGHT NOW? Stop thinking about an hour from now, stop thinking about a day from now.

This is not a book. This is not a book. You are not writing a book. You are writing a story. A story is much easier to take bites out of than a book. A book is a big, scary, colossal thing. Stories are fun and carefree.

Get yourself a writing friend. A cactus, an old bottle of nail polish, a fish in an appropriately sized tank, etc. Make them hold you accountable.

Set crazy low goals. Promise yourself you will write ten words today. Ten words and you will be the Best Writer in the Entire World to Ever Exist. Accomplishing things is a morale booster and will urge you to write more.

Character Ideas:

Character creation masterpost

Character Alignment Chart

More character alignment descriptions

Muslim Character questions

Characters with magical powers

Building a new character advice

How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)

Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page

Basic character profile

OC masterpost

Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)

D&D Character Building Tool

Character Design Ideas:

How clothing affects a character’s personality

Character Design Inspiration blog

Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by

Character design references and inspiration

Sources for POC character design ideas and models

Create your own character model using HeroForge

For horned characters

Body and hair types guide

Random outfit generator

Naming Help:

Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources

General advice on avoiding naming appropriation

Hispanic Surnames

Gothic Victorian names

Huge master list for character things in general

Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more

Another name masterlist

How to pick a character name guide

Yet another names masterlist

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Sheet/Development Sheet

Another character development list

In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet

320 talents and passions for characters

On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous

Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary

Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes

Random backstory generator

Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Comparing character height/height references

Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science

Describing what different voices sound like

Describing skin tones

Writing friendship interactions that are platonic

Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea

Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing

Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)

How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters

How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero

On platonic OC and canon character relationships

How to avoid Godmodding in RPs

When it’s cheap to kill off a character

Writing dialogue

Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters

Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs

Slang resources

Dialogue tips

Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships

google docs: open

Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:

OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–

Dee Rees talks about it in her BAFTA lecture (which you should ABSOLUTELY WATCH): that what your character actually says should be three degrees of separation away from what they mean to say.

If your characters say what they mean all the time, you, as a writer, are robbing yourself of so much power to affect the audience. This is true in all writing but especially in dramatic writing, where everything in the character’s interior life has to be externalized in some way to be known. You can create intimacy by allowing the audience to see something your character hides from other characters. You can create tension by letting the audience know the character has a secret or has told a lie they don’t want revealed. You can create catharsis by allowing the character to finally say what they’re really thinking at a key moment.