Boston Rose

lovely, 

charming, 

delightful, 

appealing, 

engaging, 

winsome

ravishing, 

gorgeous, 

heavenly, 

stunning, 

arresting, 

glamorous,

 irresistible, 

bewitching, 

beguiling

graceful, 

elegant,

 exquisite, 

aesthetic, 

artistic, 

decorative, 

Quest: This plot involves the Protagonist’s search for a place, person or thing (tangible or intangible)

Adventure: This plot involves the Protagonist going to search for their fortune

Pursuit: This plot involves one person chasing another, knowingly or unknowingly by the chaser, known or unknown to the person being chased

Rescue: This plot involves the Protagonist searching for someone or something

Escape: This plot involves the Protagonist confined unwillingly trying to escape

Revenge: This plot involves the Protagonist or Antagonist retaliating against the other

Riddle: This plot involves the Protagonist’s search for clues to find the hidden meaning of something ambiguous

Rivalry: This plot involves the Protagonist competing for the same object or goal as their rival

Underdog: This plot involves the Protagonist competing for an object or goal that is at great disadvantage and is faced with overwhelming odds

Temptation: This plot involves the Protagonist for some reason being induced or persuaded to do something wrong or immoral

Transformation: This plot involves the Protagonist going through a journey of change from one character state to another

Maturation: This plot involves the Protagonist facing a problem that includes them growing up, going from innocence to experience

Love: This plot involves the Protagonist overcoming obstacles in the way of them engaging in their love

Forbidden Love: This plot involves the Protagonist overcoming obstacles created by society and taboo in the way of them engaging in their love

Sacrifice: This plot involves the Protagonist taking action (usually at a high risk to themselves) for a higher purpose (love, honour charity, human kind)

Discovery: This plot involves the Protagonist having to overcome an upheaval in their life and therefore discovering something important inside them (better appreciation of life, clearer purpose in their life)

Wretched Excess: This plot involves the Protagonist either by choice or accident pushing the limits of what is acceptable and having to deal with the consequences

Ascension: This plot involves the Protagonist rising in the world due to a dominating character trait

I want to write a story about fantasy monsters but I’m finding it hard to make it recognizable with all the rules and such while making it original. Do you think this is possible?

I think it’s absolutely possible. You need to decide if you’re working with something, “real,” or if you’re inventing your creatures wholesale. Once you’ve made that decision, you’ll have a better path towards shaping your creatures.

If your monster is coming from some real world inspiration, you’ll have a wealth of literature to dig through. Pick any mythical creature, and you can read up on them.

There are two major warnings here:

First: Some creatures cross multiple cultures, and there are significant discrepancies between how they function between them. The excellent examples are vampires and dragons, which have many real world myths, and those myths are often contradictory.

Second: Some creatures have very specific cultural contexts which you probably want to have a concrete grasp of before you start playing around with them. The two examples that come to mind immediately are Skinwalkers and Wendigo (from First Nations myths.) These are not analogous to European Werewolves (and not analogous to one another.) So, if you’re looking for a creature, absolutely do you reading, but if you don’t understand how this creature fit into that culture, you might want to keep looking.

If you’re wanting to make your own creature, that’s where things get interesting. More than that, if you did the research suggested above, you have a head start here.

Nothing says the monsters in your world need to conform to the conventional creature lists. They don’t need to be recognizable, compared to someone else’s fiction. You do have the freedom to make your own monsters.

When you’re writing a monster, you’ll want to have an idea what kind of rules you’re working under. While you don’t need to explain these to your audience (and may not want to), you will need this for personal use.

You can break fictional monsters into roughly three categories: Mundane, Supernatural, and Mythological (or Folklore.)

Mundane creatures are simply animals (potentially very intelligent ones) that inhabit your world.

If your dragons are just massive lizards, with no magical powers, they would be mundane. If your werewolves are just normal humans who have been mutated by a virus, and can’t transform, that would be mundane.

Mundane doesn’t mean it can’t be interesting. It simply means that there’s a non-supernatural explanation for the creatures that inhabit your world.

Mundane fantasy can be interesting. There’s no mystical explanation for the elves and minotaurs inhabiting your world, they’re simply there.

When you’re looking at mundane monsters, you need to consider them as part of the local ecology. Yes, a race of massive, carnivorous lizards would be monstrous, they’d be a danger, but one that a sufficiently advanced civilization could plan around.

Limitations and weaknesses for mundane creatures should fit their status as living animals. You might see a nocturnal creature that has excellent night vision, but poor diurnal vision.

Mundane monsters are the cryptids of your world. They’re elusive, hard to find, and if you do finally identify it, it’s probably a crocodile, because those little bastards like to teleport.

Supernatural monsters break rules for conventional reality. Your werewolves aren’t mutated by a virus, they really are mystical shapeshifters. Your elves aren’t just another humanoid native to the world, they really are magical beings. Your minotaurs might be the result of a wizard’s human-hybrid research program centuries ago.

Where mundane creatures are limited by conventional reality, supernatural ones might exhibit behaviors, or powers, that are impossible to rationalize.

The rules for these creatures are open to the author to create. Now, obviously, if you’re starting with a conventional fantasy creature, some of this may already be completed for you.

Creatures that can go invisible, levitate, psychically manipulate their victims, shapeshift, conjure and control elements, and many other potential powers would be supernatural in nature.

Limitations for supernatural creatures are likely to be a function of the kinds of powers they wield. I realize that might sound obvious, but it’s worth remembering the limits of magic in your setting, and then tying similar limits into your supernatural creatures.

It’s also possible that supernatural monsters might specifically bypass certain limits which affect your world’s characters. For example, if it’s impossible for magic to heal wounds in your world, you might still see a monster with the ability to heal itself or others. Obviously, in setting, that’s a very big deal, and probably something that mages and academics would want to study.

Incidentally, if we’re talking about aliens, they’d end up on the mundane end of the spectrum. Even if they have technology that’s difficult (or impossible) to understand, they’re still a function of the universe, and not a whim of magic. (Though, if your aliens are space wizards, then everything gets a little strange.)

The last variety are mythological or folklore. I probably shouldn’t bundle these into a single header, because they do behave in slightly different ways. The important thing about a mythological monster is that’s it’s not just, “a monster.” It’s a character in the myths it comes from. It’s powers and limitations are a reflection of who it was in those myths. More than that, it has a role in the belief system that created it.

For example: when you’re talking about Jormungandr, that’s not just, “a dragon.” It’s a harbinger of the end times. More than that, it’s a harbinger of an apocalypse that already happened. This isn’t “a monster,” it’s “a monstrous character.” If your minotaur is “The Minotaur,” condemned to the Labyrinth of Crete, that’s a character with their own history and eventual fate at Theseus’s hands.

There’s a lot of room to play with mythological figures, but you’ll really want to read up on those myths, and the culture that created them.

If you want to create your own mythic background for your world, you’ll want to start by reading up on actual myths. Every major civilization has created their own myths (to one extent or another), and digging into this stuff can be very instructive for how those cultures viewed their world. Pay special attention to just how off-the-walls-bonkers everything becomes.

Folklore is similar to myth. In some cases, folklore overlaps with myth. The distinction (I’m choosing to make) is that monsters in folklore are more about enforcing cultural norms and discourages taboos.

One, classic, example of monster in folklore is the vampire. Now, I’m going to be a little reductive here because nearly every form of vampire can be boiled down to, “corpses are weird.” With that said, a lot of vampire folklore is about the proper handling and disposal of corpses, specifically with things going wrong if a corpse is mishandled.

Usually, if your monster has very explicit rules, they’re a folklore creature. If they can’t cross running water, or enter an abode uninvited, that’s folklore.

As with myth, folklore gets really wild, and so you can end up with really elaborate rules, where a creature needs to be in a certain state at a certain time of day, or something goes very wrong for them. Vampires are one of the most common folklore monsters in popular culture, that’s fully separated from myth, which is why I used them as an example above.

Slightly more problematic, but certainly a, “creature,” of folklore, are witches and hags. These are an excellent illustration of how you can blend across multiple genres with your story.

A witch could be a simple alchemist. In this case, I don’t even mean, “alchemy,” as a magical discipline, I simply mean, “alchemy,” as a precursor to chemistry. You have a character who is entirely mundane, but spends their time picking medicinal herbs, which the general population doesn’t understand.

A witch could be a magical practitioner, potentially even an inhuman one. This links into the suggestion above where magic doesn’t heal wounds, but a witch might be able to achieve that feat.

A witch could be a mythical figure. Russia’s Baba Yaga comes to mind as an example, though there are many more examples all over the world. Again, these are specific characters, so if your writing a character interacting with Hecate, you might want to read up on your Greek myths.

In myth and folklore, witches become a very complicated subject, because you’re looking at creatures (or powerful beings), which need to be treated carefully. They can offer powerful boons, but also are incredibly dangerous.

Related to myth and folklore are the concepts of geasa and curses. This is one of the reasons you want to be careful with these kinds of creatures. They may have the ability to apply either one to your characters.

Geasa (singular: gaes), are restrictions applied to someone. They may be required to perform some action, or prohibited from violating some taboo. Failure to do so could have dire consequences. Usually, the geas also comes with a boon of some sort, and violating the terms will break the spell.

A classic example of a Gaes is Cu Chulainn (from Irish myth), who had (at least) two. First he was prohibited from eating dog, and second he was obligated to accept food served to him by a woman. A crone (The Morrigan) intentionally served him dog meat, breaking his powers, and leaving him vulnerable ahead of a battle.

Curses are a little easier to keep track of. Something bad happens to the recipient. There may be a built in way to break the curse, requiring some specific feat. In many cases, those feats are designed to appear impossible.

The consequences of a curse could easily lead to supernatural monsters, separated from their mythic origins. For a pop culture example, Vampires in Vampire: The Masquerade are descended from (the Biblical) Cain. Cain is the first vampire, and a mythical figure. The vampires wandering around the 21st century are merely supernatural creatures.

Once you have an idea of the kind of creature you want, get out a notepad, and sketch out the power and rules you want to work with. For mundane creatures, it should look more like a zoological writeup.

Example: “The common minotaur lives in the lowlands, foraging for food in small tribes.”

For supernatural creatures, you’ll probably want to look at a short list of powers. Try to balance these powers against what you want from them in the context of your setting.

Example: “The Moorian Newt: amphibious, limited mind control. The newt frequently preys upon travelers who wander into the moors at night, using it’s ability to draw them into deeper waters, where it quickly drowns and consumes them.”

When you’re writing a mythic figure, that’s going to be more of a character biography. Possibly with some powers added in to keep things coherent.

With folklore, you’re looking at a writeup that will probably get a little out of hand. These can be fairly straightforward, but you can also engage in some pretty intricate whimsy.

Again, if you’ve never spent much time looking at myth and folklore, I strongly recommend you do some reading on the subject. The pure level of, “weird,” is hard to articulate.

Once you’ve written out some rules, and fleshed out your monsters, you’ve got a very important decision to make, how much do you share with the audience?

If your character is dealing with a common creature, one well understood and studied in the setting, then your character should have easy access to that information. Even if a creature is uncommon or rare, if it’s a normal part of the world, it’s probably been studied, and that information may be out there.

An excellent example of this behavior is The Witcher, where there’s in-setting scholarly research on the post-conjunction creatures wandering The Continent. The Witchers study that research, and supplement it with their own experiences. It is an excellent template for how you can handle a universe where monsters (including ones with complicated rules and behaviors) are a natural part of the setting. (Even if they are supernatural in nature.)

Except: Back near the beginning, I said you might not want to explain the rules to the audience. It’s an important choice to the kind of story you’re writing. Is this fantasy, or is it horror?

If your character is an expert in monsters, they might be able to identify the creature they’re dealing with and articulate the rules. However, if they’re not an expert, they might have no idea what the creature can do. Similarly, even if they are are a professional, they may still need to determine exactly what they’re dealing with (again, The Witcher is an excellent reference back to this point.)

In horror, there’s a real incentive to keep the full capabilities of your monster unknown. This can be through mistaking one creature for another, or mistaking a mythical creature for its supernatural counterpart (if the supernatural version is known to exist.) In the end, you’ll probably want your audience to have a grasp of the creature’s limitations, but you might never clue them in.

It’s important to have access to the rules for your own use. It is far less important that your characters (and by extension, the audience) has that information.

One final thing you may want to consider, if you’re creating a monster and it’s unrecognizable from the inspiration you started with, that’s not a problem. You’ve created a new monster. You can still use the old name (if you want), or you can call it something new.

I’ve said it before, my favorite, “vampire,” movie is Ravenous (1999). If you’ve watched it, right now you’re probably thinking, “there’s no vampires in that.” And, you would be correct; it’s about cannibals empowered by evil spirits. Except, structurally, it’s a vampire movie. The part where the monsters are distinct enough from vampires is a benefit, not a flaw. It helps keep the audience off-balance, it helps create an unfamiliar tone. It’s a fantastic film, and part of what elevates it is its willingness to eject vampirism when it doesn’t benefit the film’s themes.

So, yes, I believe it can be done. You can populate your worlds with new monsters of your own design. You can also sample myths and folklore for inspiration. You can invent your own creatures. The only secret is, “write it down,” which you should be doing anyway. Not everything you write will end up in your audience’s hands, so having a reference guide for yourself can be incredibly useful.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. If you enjoy our content, please consider becoming a Patron. Every contribution helps keep us online, and writing. If you already are a Patron, thank you.

if a scene isn’t working, change the weather.

and we get pictures with wings maybe a little longer than one length of the body.

Can someone please

please

please

Large version

I’ve had a lot of asks lately for how to begin a book (or how not to), so here’s a post on my general rules of thumb for story openers and first chapters!  

Please note, these are incredibly broad generalizations;  if you think an opener is right for you, and your beta readers like it, there’s a good chance it’s A-OK.  When it comes to writing, one size does not fit all.  (Also note that this is for serious writers who are interested in improving their craft and/or profession publication, so kindly refrain from the obligatory handful of comments saying “umm, screw this, write however you want!!”)

So without further ado, let’s jump into it!

Don’t: 

1.  Open with a dream. 

“Just when Mary Sue was sure she’d disappear down the gullet of the monstrous, winged pig, she woke up bathed in sweat in her own bedroom.”

What?  So that entire winged pig confrontation took place in a dream and amounts to nothing?  I feel so cheated! 

Okay, not too many people open their novels with monstrous swine, but you get the idea:  false openings of any kind tend to make the reader feel as though you’ve wasted their time, and don’t usually jump into more meaty action of the story quickly enough.  It makes your opening feel lethargic and can leave your audience yawning.

Speaking of… 

2.  Open with a character waking up.  

This feels familiar to most of us, but unless your character is waking up to a zombie attack or an alien invasion, it’s generally a pretty easy recipe to get your story to drag.

No one picks a book to hear how your character brushes their teeth in the morning or what they’d like to have for dinner.  As a general rule of thumb, we read to explore things we wouldn’t otherwise get to experience.  And cussing out the alarm clock is not one of them.  

Granted, there are exceptions if your writing is exceptionally engaging, but in most cases it just sets a slow pace that will bore you and your reader to death and probably cause you to lose interest in your book within the first ten pages.  

3.  Bombard with exposition.  

Literary characters aren’t DeviantArt OCs.  And the best way to convey a character is not, in my experience, to devote the first ten pages to describing their physical appearance, personality, and backstory.  Develop your characters, and make sure their fully fleshed out – my tips on how to do so here – but you don’t need to dump all that on the reader before they have any reason to care about them.  Let the reader get to know the character gradually, learn about them, and fall in love with them as they would a person:  a little bit at a time.   

This is iffy when world building is involved, but even then it works best when the delivery feels organic and in tune with the book’s overall tone.  Think the opening of the Hobbit or Good Omens.

4.  Take yourself too seriously.

Your opener (and your novel in general) doesn’t need to be intellectually pretentious, nor is intellectual pretense the hallmark of good literature.  Good literature is, generally speaking, engaging, well-written, and enjoyable.  That’s it.  

So don’t concern yourself with creating a poetic masterpiece of an opening line/first chapter.  Just make one that’s – you guessed it – engaging, well-written, and enjoyable. 

5.  Be unintentionally hilarious.

Utilizing humor in your opening line is awesome, but check yourself to make sure your readers aren’t laughing for all the wrong reasons (this is another reason why betas are important.)  

These examples of the worst opening lines in published literature will show you what I mean – and possibly serve as a pleasant confidence booster as well: 

“As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that this would be the one man who would understand – who would take her away from all this – and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud honking noise, as all the others had.”

– Ali Kawashima

“She sipped her latte gracefully, unaware of the milk foam droplets building on her mustache, which was not the peachy-fine baby fuzz that Nordic girls might have, but a really dense, dark, hirsute lip-lining row of fur common to southern Mediterranean ladies nearing menopause, and winked at the obviously charmed Spaniard at the next table.”

– Jeanne Villa

“As I gardened, gazing towards the autumnal sky, I longed to run my finger through the trail of mucus left by a single speckled slug – innocuously thrusting past my rhododendrons – and in feeling that warm slime, be swept back to planet Alderon, back into the tentacles of the alien who loved me.”

– Mary E. Patrick

“Before they met, his heart was a frozen block of ice, scarred by the skate blades of broken relationships, then she came along and like a beautiful Zamboni flooded his heart with warmth, scraped away the ugly slushy bits, and dumped them in the empty parking lot of his soul.”

– Howie McClennon

If these can get published, so can you.

Do:

1.  You know that one really interesting scene you’re itching to write?  Start with that.

Momentum is an important thing in storytelling.  If you set a fast, infectious beat, you and your reader will be itching to dance along with it.  

Similarly, slow, drowsy openers tend to lead to slow, drowsy stories that will put you both to sleep.

I see a lot of posts joking about “that awkward moment when you sit down to write but don’t know how to get to that one scene you actually wanted to write about.”  Write that scene!  If it’s at all possible, start off with it.  If not, there are still ways you can build your story around the scenes you actually want to write.

Keep in mind:  if you’re bored, your reader will almost certainly be bored as well.  So write what you want to write.  Write what makes you excited.  Don’t hold off until later, when it “really gets good.”  Odds are, the reader will not wait around that long, and you’re way more likely to become disillusioned with your story and quit.  If a scene is dragging, cut it out.  Burn bridges, find a way around.  Live, dammit. 

2.  Engage the reader.

There are several ways to go about this.  You can use wit and levity, you can present a question, and you can immerse the reader into the world you’ve created.  Just remember to do so with subtlety, and don’t try too hard;  believe me, it shows.  

Here are some of my personal favorite examples of engaging opening lines: 

“In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.“ 

– Douglas Adams, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”

– Iain Banks, Crow Road.

“A white Pomeranian named Fluffy flew out of the a fifth-floor window in Panna, which was a grand-new building with the painter’s scaffolding still around it. Fluffy screamed.”

– Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games.

See what I’m saying?  They pull you in and do not let go.

3.  Introduce us to a main character (but do it right.)

“Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”

– Neil Gaiman, American Gods.

This is one of my favorite literary openings of all time, because right off the bat we know almost everything we need to know about Shadow’s character (i.e. that he’s rugged, pragmatic, and loving.)   

Also note that it doesn’t tell us everything about Shadow:  it presents questions that make us want to read more.  How did Shadow get into prison?  When will he get out?  Will he reunite with his wife?  There’s also more details about Shadow slowly sprinkled in throughout the book, about his past, personality, and physical appearance.  This makes him feel more real and rounded as a character, and doesn’t pull the reader out of the story.

Obviously, I’m not saying you should rip off American Gods.  You don’t even need to include a hooker eating a guy with her cooch if you don’t want to.  

But this, and other successful openers, will give you just enough information about the main character to get the story started;  rarely any good comes from infodumping, and allowing your reader to get to know your character gradually will make them feel more real.   

4.  Learn from the greats.

My list of my favorite opening lines (and why I love them) is right here.

5.  Keep moving.  

The toughest part of being a writer is that it’s a rare and glorious occasion when you’re actually satisfied with something you write.  And to add another layer of complication, what you like best probably won’t be what your readers will like best. 

If you refuse to keep moving until you have the perfect first chapter, you will never write anything beyond your first chapter.  

Set a plan, and stick to it:  having a daily/weekly word or page goal can be extremely helpful, especially when you’re starting out.  Plotting is a lifesaver (some of my favorite posts on how to do so here, here, and here.)

Keep writing, keep moving, and rewrite later.  If you stay in one place for too long, you’ll never keep going. 

If you’re writing a book with a lot of action, battles, death, and blood, you should definitely add a little softness!

But how should you do it?

I gathered here a couple tips from great books I read that portray softness beautifully.

1. Get contrast

If your characters are grumpy and generally aggressive or cold, a fluffy moment is guaranteed to MELT the reader. Believe me, it does. 

Make your characters show softness only in specific moments if they’re not super warm people, and only towards specific friends, members of their family, or their significant other.

It will give your story a lot more depth and will make the reader yearn for more.

2. Decide the degree

A little stroke or a full blown eight-minute hug?

Make sure the softness is appropriate to the moment (for instance, it’s weird for two people to start embracing and kissing if they’re in the middle of a literal war) and if it’s in character.

Remember that for colder characters a simple arm caress shows a lot, and will never be forgotten by either the other character (the reiver) and your audience!

3. Brainstorm

Ideas for gentle softness can be:

Ask for consent to touch the other (meaning to caress them or kiss them)

Brushing leg against leg (or elbows, shoulders, arms)

holding hands

holding pinkies

stroking

blowing kisses

smiling encouragingly from afar

asking if they’re okay

moving closer without saying anything

resting their arm on the other character’s shoulder

TOP 10 MOST SATISFYING THINGS ABOUT EDITING YOUR NOVEL

10. Taking a passage that was already pretty good and then making it even better.

9. Looking at a passage, saying "yeah I don't need any of this" and slamming the delete key

8. Adding just the right amount of foreshadowing during that seemingly innocent scene 😈

7. Taking [that one line] from earlier in the book and putting it in the final chapter.

6. Spotting a plot-hole and fixing it!

5. Realizing that nobody will ever know that there's a word you can't, for the life of you, ever spell right when you're writing (mine is apartment, I always seem to put two p's in there don't ask me why)

4. Reading a passage and knowing that it is *just* right~

3. Fleshing out my character/location descriptions! It's so much easier once you actually know the characters and locales of your story.

2. Finding little gems in the writing that I didn't notice before and making them the spotlight of a chapter!

And, number one...

1. Knowing that no one will ever, ever, see the mess that this book was before! It's so satisfying to work at it, polishing and polishing, until it's practically unrecognizable from the first draft.

An antihero is neither a hero not a villain, but a character who lacks the qualities necessary to be a hero. Because an antihero hinges on knowing what a hero is, you can check out my article on How to Write a Hero.

Flaws and Virtue

              Most characters have flaws and virtues. However, the flaws of an antihero are more balanced compared to those of a hero. Of course, an antihero must not be so flawed as to stray into villainy. They are simply too flawed and not virtuous enough to be called a hero.

Good Intentions

              The motives behind antiheros are what separates them from villains. They will likely want a noble outcome, such as saving the kingdom, but might go about it the wrong way. For example, if a character holds a princess hostage in hopes of negotiating with the king, the reasons and methods are what divide the categories. The point between an antihero and villain is what he wants from the king and how he treats the captured princess.

Sympathy

Common Physical Reactions to Death

Tightness in the forehead, throat, or chest

Dry mouth

Breathlessness

Nausea and/or a hollow feeling in the stomach

Weakness, fatigue

Sleep disturbances, dreams, and nightmares

Appetite disturbances

Disbelief is often a first reaction upon hearing of a death, especially if the death is sudden. Disbelief manifests as an initial numbness, a surreal sense that this can’t be happening, that the world has stopped making sense.

Internal/External Coping: Your characters’ reactions will vary widely. Some will express themselves externally, others internally. This can be a source of misunderstanding – the less emotionally expressive characters accused of coldness or indifference, the more openly expressive characters accused of wallowing in self-pity.

Social Immersion/Withdrawal: Some characters will desire immersion within their social network to gain support or stem loneliness and fear. Other characters may avoid interactions, needing time to process and reflect in solitude. Many will fall somewhere in between, appearing fine until the brittle walls of control collapse at a word or gesture.

The Rollercoaster: Most people will dip in and out of grief, able to handle it in small doses before backing up and regaining emotional control. Your characters will function and grieve, function and grieve.

Reminders: Some characters may avoid reminders of the deceased, finding that places or objects trigger painful feelings. Others may have the opposite reaction—desiring to visit those places and carry keepsakes.

Active/Passive: Death generates a sense of helplessness. Some grieving characters may resort to intense activity (cooking, training, working, painting the house, or shopping). This is a coping mechanism that counters the loss of control. Others will feel lethargic, distracted and forgetful. They’ll have trouble focusing or wander in a fog without the will to complete the simplest tasks.

Spirituality and Religion: For some characters, death may challenge spiritual or religious beliefs and shake faith to its foundations. For others, spiritual or religious beliefs may be or become the lifeline that sees the character through.

Conflicted Relationships: These are relationships shaped by a tangle of positive and negative experiences, wishes, and emotions. Characters are grappling for balance and control, for respect, love, or approval. Death ends all chances for a satisfactory resolution. The feelings left behind are a stew of love, anger, regret, and guilt.

Recklessness: Though recklessness may appear as a death wish, it might actually be angry defiance, a wager that death can be beaten at its game. Characters may also put themselves at risk to make up for a failure to protect others or guilt at their own survival.

Anxiety, insecurity, and panic. Unlike recklessness, anxiety can be paralyzing. A shattered world can leave a character with a heightened sense of mortality, a fear of surviving on one’s own, or an aversion to taking risks.

Characters may feel relief after the death, particularly if the deceased suffered. Relief and a sense of liberation may also occur at the end of conflicted relationship, the battle finally over. Guilt frequently accompanies the sense of relief.

Guilt: Guilt is very common and often completely illogical. All the “I should have’s” and “if only’s” roll through the character’s brain, especially in cases of suicide.

Anger: Anger generally has four sources:

Justified anger at perpetrators and the failures of individuals and institutions. This is fertile ground for thoughts of revenge.

Lashing out at others in response to feelings of helplessness and loss of control.

Anger at one’s self for an inability to prevent the death.

Anger at the deceased for dying, for not fighting harder, not making better choices, or abandoning the survivors (like guilt, this anger isn’t always logical).

Unexpected Death: Death out of the natural sequence of life is generally more tragic than death after a long life. Sudden death is frequently harder to deal with than a loss that’s expected. Death by a purposeful or negligent hand is often more difficult than one by accident or illness.

Previous experience with death can prepare a character for new losses and soften the sharp edges. At the same time, if previous deaths weren’t fully processed, new losses can trigger unresolved emotions and complicate healing.

Delaying grief: Death and grief make characters feel vulnerable. In dangerous situations, it’s common for grief responses to be suppressed or delayed. Then once safe, the emotional blockade opens. If that safe haven for grief is a long time coming, consider that feelings may bottleneck, turn in on the character, or explode.

Children’s Grief – Don’t forget that babies, children, and teens grieve too!:

Babies experience a sense of absence in their lives. They also respond to the stress of the adults around them.

Little children and teens experience the SAME feelings as adults including guilt – believing that they somehow could have prevented the death.

Children also dip in and out of grief, cry and whine one minute, then play and laugh the next.

Children and teens tend to regress to younger behaviors.

Children will frequently delay their own grief until they see that the adults are handling it well and it’s safe to grieve.

enter the scene as late as possible, leave as early as possible

if a scene isn’t working, change the weather

avoid words such as suddenly and then 

your job is to write the script, not direct it. that means, no camera directions! 

slug lines only include three pieces of information: EXT or INT. - LOCATION - TIME OF DAY

read screenplays. loads of them. 

shock value is not going to get you far.  focus on telling a story that is authentic both to your story and your characters

use transitions sparingly 

transitions such as FADE IN and FADE OUT is ONLY used at the BEGINNING and END of your script

movies are a visual medium. if something isn’t going to be shown on screen, don’t bother writing it in the script (there are exceptions! but use this as a general rule to avoid overwriting) 

THERE ARE TWO RULES you have to follow when you’re writing a screenplay. SHOW DON’T TELL and HOW TO PROPERLY FORMAT YOUR SCRIPT. other than that, there are no rules, not for storytelling. you write your story the way you want to write it. 

one page equals to around one minute of screen time 

when writing dialogue, don’t include modern day gen z slang, if you don’t know how to use it properly, same with mansplaining

day and night is used for your slug lines. no dusk, no dawn, no evening or morning. it’s INT. SCHOOL - DAY or EXT. FOREST - NIGHT

dialogue never follows the slug line. it’s 1. SLUG LINE 2. ACTION LINE 3. DIALOGUE

when you introduce a new character, their names should be in all caps

 use ‘’we see’’ very sparingly, if even at all

@bluebxlle_writer on Instagram

I've seen lots of medias use this trope, but it's still underrated in general. I also can't find any writing tips about this, so please accept my attempts of making an original post about this :D

"Lovers whose relationship is doomed to fail, because stars supposedly control human destiny."

1. Just like any other romance

If you remove the "doomed to fail" part of this trope, it'll be just like any other romance, right? So write it like how you'd write other happy couples! Give them chemistry. Give them cute and angsty moments. Make them vulnerable around each other. I'm pretty sure there are lots of other posts about how to write couples, so I won't further elaborate on this part <3

2. Why they can't be together

The forces that hinder the couple from being together are external. Instead of not getting together because of personal reasons, their fate is determined by things they can't control, like their families being against it, being on different sides of a war, or even prophecies. Be creative!

3. Defying their fate

After knowing that their relationship won't work, don't just make your lovers sigh and break up. No, where's the fun in that? :D Make them willing to defy everything for each other. Make them go against the current instead of going wherever the plot takes them. Make them do horrible things for the others' sake.

4. Play with your readers' feelings

Needless to say, this trope is just, pure pain. So use this as a chance to play with your readers' feelings! There are two ways on how to do this :

Make the readers think that this is just some other normal couple who'll get a happy ending. Don't reveal that they're star-crossed lovers until your reader gets attached to them. That way, your readers would never expect their ending, and will bawl over it.

Alternatively, you can make it clear from the start that your couple is doomed to fail. Your readers will be like, "Ah, okay, so they won't get together. Aw, sad." But after reading on and discovering more scenes of them, your readers will grow more attached. They'll root for the couple to get together, even though they know it's impossible. They'll find themselves crying at the ending even though they actually already expected it.

4. Character arcs

Asides from the romance and angst, you'll get a chance to dive into your characters' character development.

After going through so much, your characters are bound to change, for the better or for the worse. So use this chance to highlight character arcs. You can even make their s.o. directly involved!

5. Climax

During the climax, your couple will be forced to leave each other. Now, this is where you can be creative. Will they willingly part for the other's sake? Or will they keep on trying to deny their fate and stay together, even if it meant they both will be plunged into darkness?

6. The ending

Show your characters' individual lives after leaving each other if they didn't die lmao. Are they devastated, or did they finally move on? If one of them died, show how their death impacted their ex-s.o. If both of them died, uh, time to jump off a cliff ig

To summarize, I think the star-crossed lovers trope is often overlooked for being the signature "angst trope", when it actually has so much potential.

i tried something

you are too power-hungry to stop. you can finally step out of the dark and take your crown. the world can be yours; it will be yours.

your lover has sacrificed your best friend/sibling for "the greater cause." you didn't care if your faction would win, you just want everyone you love to come home. and now one of them just sacrificed the other for a cause you didn't even believe in

your lover betrays you for the crown. at the moment you thought that peace has finally arrived, the person whom you love the most stabbed you in the back, choosing his conquest over your love. you were left in filth, but you will show them who is more wicked.

not betrayed, but you are left alone after the conflict. you sacrificed yourself for the cause, but no one care. they all left you. you were nothing but a puppet, played with when useful; discarded when convenient.

in an attempt to yield god-like power, you didn't know it would destroy your heart and soul. your conscience is now rotten and you turn on your faction

you have a strict moral code that your teammates and loved ones refuse to understand. now you have made your final choice. they called you "corrupted"; you call it "necessary."

a tragedy had left your heart shattered in its wake. unable to accept the pain, you joined the dark to seek salvation, turning vicious during the way

poverty is a bitch. you are now killing people for money to provide for your needs, and you are quite liking it

you said that you were just making your lover's killer pay, why are you hurting other people too?

dialogues

"i have waited so long for my crown, i will not let anyone has it again."

"why, why did you do that?" "i have to, love, it was for the right cause." "so i am not your right cause then? so my family doesn't matter to you then?" "less than what i am fighting for."

"i am sorry for everything. you can still join me." "what is done it's done. and if you thought i will join you, go fuck yourself." "darling-" "no, no listen. you broke me, and hell i will let you go away with it"

"where is everyone?" "they left." "why did they leave? we are still here. their soldiers are still here." "no, we are not soldiers, we are discarded puppets, and we are not useful to them anymore." "then we will show them that we can fight."

"you thought the light in my soul was enough, but god you were wrong"

"i can't recognize you anymore." "you wouldn't"

"i swear a vow; i would kill them, even if it brings my downfall"

NaNoWriMo is great, but it isn’t for everyone. Perhaps you don’t have the time or energy for it right now. Or maybe this just isn’t how you work — there’s nothing wrong with being a slow writer. You don’t need NaNo to write a book.

At the same time, NaNo generates a lot of momentum in the writing community. It creates a wave that, if you get on it, will carry you forward. It would be a shame to sit on the sidelines and not take advantage of the extra motivation.

Why not take the opportunity to challenge yourself in a different literary way? Here are five things you can do if you’re not feeling like doing a full NaNo this year.

Write a Novella

The obvious way to go about this is to lower the goal. Why not do a National Novella Writing Month this year?

Instead of aiming for the full 50k, you can write 10,000 or 20,000 words and finish a shorter story that can either become a base for a novel or can stand on its own too.

Particularly if you’re planning to write a series, starting with a novella can be a great way of testing the waters — both for your long-term interest in the characters and the world, as well as how hard it will be to find an audience for it. Finding out that nobody wants to read your 180,000-word epic is a lot harder than when it happens with a 15,000-word prequel novella.

Write Short Stories

If you have even less time on your hands, consider writing short stories. You can do one story per week at between 1,000 — 2,000 words. Experiment with different things or make all of them about the same character.

Short stories are great training grounds for writers for so many different reasons. The feedback loop is an order of magnitude shorter than when you’re working on a book.

You can do single-scene stories that feel more like chapters in a novel or more complicated ones. You can practice almost any storytelling technique by writing a short story.

Write Flash Fiction Every Day

In case you’re completely slammed, there’s still stuff you can do. Loads of people challenge themselves to write tiny stories every day. You can probably write one in less than 10 or 15 minutes. The important thing here is that you get to engage your writing and storytelling brain and practice every day.

If you take public transport to work, write a flash fiction piece about someone who’s on the same bus or train as you. Where does the man in the suit sitting in front of you work? Is he sweating because it’s hot, or because he expects his boss to yell at him as soon as he arrives at work? Perhaps he’s a secret agent following a drug dealer who is on the same train?

The more you write, the easier it will be for you to find interesting ideas. Perhaps you’ll discover the protagonist of your next novel while writing a very short story?

Read a Short Story Every Day

A few years ago, I worked on a different project during NaNo. I didn’t feel it quite fitted the pace of the challenge. Instead of writing, I decided to read one short story every day during NaNoWriMo. I felt like I wasn’t reading enough of them, and I could definitely read one every day.

It worked out pretty well. I finished the challenge and kept the habit going for many months afterwards. I ended up reading hundreds of new short stories because of this.

Write a Poem Every Day

If you enjoy poetry, why not write a few lines of a poem or some lyrics every day? Instead of focusing on storytelling, use those to capture your feelings that day.

Write down whatever comes to mind in the spirit of NaNoWriMo. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you have to finish it.

Create a Habit with Writing Analytics

The goal of all of the above is to establish a routine. The beginning is always the hardest, and that’s why starting during NaNoWriMo can help so can feed off the motivation of others. When NaNo ends, you’ll be in the best position to keep it going. One novella per month will become 12 per year. One short story per week will turn into 52 stories in a year’s time. One poem a day will easily become 365 poems per year.

If you’re planning to be writing anything this November, check out Writing Analytics. It’s a writing app designed to help you stay focused and create a sustainable writing routine.

The app is FREE to try until 4 December 2021 — plenty of time to kickstart your writing habit.

List six secrets that your character has.

1 is an open secret

2 is a secret the people close to your character know

3 is a secret that your character wouldn't really care about getting out

4 is a secret exactly one person knows anything about

5 is a secret no one knows about but they sort of want to come out/to tell someone

6 is a secret no one knows and they desperately don't want anyone to know about.

You can also decide who knows and how