This is just a masterpost for all my wips and it’ll be under the cut just not to annoy people/flood their dash. Also everything is subject to change because i’m impulsive and love making my life more difficult.

Let me know if you want tagged to anything

blink and she’s gone: a playlist

tracklist link

i. fair - the amazing devil

-> “it’s me, it’s me, you don't need to pretend to be someone you're not”

ii. she - dodie

-> “and oh, it aches, but it feels oddly good to hurt”

iii. disenchanted - my chemical romance

-> “but where did you run to, and where did you hide?”

iv. burned out - dodie

-> “dreams and ideas should not be the same thing”

v. in a week - hozier

-> “so long, we become the flowers”

vi. why am i like this? - orla gartland

-> “let's go out and shout the words we never said”

vii. forget her - girl in red

-> “she stole my heart and ran away”

viii. 1950 - king princess

-> “stone cold, will you miss me?”

ix. idle town - conan gray

-> “curfew's at midnight, we watch the sunrise”

x. dancing with your ghost - sasha sloan

-> “holding on too tight, head up in the clouds”

xi. the butterfly effect - before you exit

-> “at least we left a mark”

xii. sick of losing soulmates - dodie

-> “what the hell would i be, without you”

xiii. not yet/love run (reprise) - the amazing devil

-> “run to show that love’s worth running to”

    wasteland ❃ the netflix series

wasteland is already formatted like a series so this was only appropriate

here are the tentative titles/descriptions of the first season.

… but only characters and a setting. 

You have a world. A universe. A setting. Good! Describe what happens in it normally - describe your main character(s)’s daily life. Now, what would destabilize this routine completely? If many things could, write them all down. Pick your favourite idea(s). Plots are born from change: everything was going normally… until it wasn’t.

Make a list with all the goals/motivations of your main characters. Can the plot revolve around your characters going after these goals? 

Which goals are more important? Focus on those. 

Are different characters’ goals in conflict with each other? Conflict is usually what propels a story forward. 

What could go wrong in your character’s pursuit of their goal? Make it go wrong.

If you don’t know your characters’ goals, go back to the drawing board; they probably need more development.

If there’s not enough conflict of different motivations, make a new character who creates conflict!

How do you want your main character to have changed by the end of the story? Do you want them to be less selfish? To have come to terms with a part of themself? To have learned something new? Write down ideas that could accomplish this change. 

If you can’t think of any way your character could be changed (read: improved) by the end of the story, go back to the drawing board. They might be “too perfect”.

Notes: 

The change that triggers your plot can be anything. It doesn’t have to be the start of an epic war that will bring forth the apocalypse, it can be your character meeting a new person who shakes things up in their life, or anything you want!

Motivations can be anything. It doesn’t have to be something grand - if your character’s motivation is to just live a quiet life, you can still come up with a plot that will get in the way of that goal! 

Character development can be anything, as well - you don’t need a cliché moral to the story; your character doesn’t even need to change in a good way, if that’s not what you want for your story!

- Don’t expect perfection. I spent about six months writing and rewriting the first chapter so I could make it ‘perfect.’ Eventually, I moved on. The first chapter didn’t even matter, because now I have to rewrite it. I learned more from finishing the book than wasting time on trying to perfect the hook sentence.

- The novel will go through changes, even as you write. So, I expected my story to be about people getting lost in the woods under mysterious circumstances. I had a better idea halfway through. It was more dynamic and it impacted my characters on a deeper level. So, what I thought was going to be the plot of my novel, became just a plot thread. It’s okay, be loose. You’re probably going to rewrite the whole thing anyway.

- Dedication is key, but don’t burn yourself out. I wrote every day, with the goal of writing 500 words a day on average over a month. Rather than setting a daily goal, I chose to average out my goal, just in case life got in the way. I found it super helpful considering I was working and going through school.

- Love thy characters. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with them. Make them interesting, make them flawed, make them real. Love them… But love their pain more.

- Finishing may not feel so great. I spent months with these characters. I helped them along their journey, and writing gave me a sense of purpose. It was something I looked forward to every day, the only thing I could think about. One day, it was over. I didn’t know what to do with myself. But there is a silver lining…

- It’s not over. Writing is rewriting. I finally got to read my novel, after letting it sit for a few weeks. It’s terrible and I love it. All I could think about is rewriting it. Today is the day. 

blink and she’s gone - wip intro

genre: romantic thriller

pov: first person, limited, w/flashbacks

status: planning, first draft begun

setting: an unnamed town by the sea

includes: lgbt+ characters, lbgt+ characters of color, lesbian main character, lots and lots of yearning, mostly poetic prose, suspense

synopsis:

the day she disappears is not one to remember. it’s calm, monotonous. normal.

but she leaves no trail to track, not even a footprint in the sand, and so the partner she leaves behind can do nothing but piece together the life they would’ve had. should’ve had. could still have, if only she’d come back.

a case builds, slowly but surely, and as the missing woman’s story spreads, her partner finds herself pulled further and further away from shore.

characters:

“i”: a woman left reeling after the sudden disappearance of her partner. desperate for answers, for something, the smallest sign that she will come back. she wanders the house she and her girlfriend shared, mind flooded with ghosts. every seven days, a call to the police station. ‘have you found anything new?’ always the answer is no.

Not sure how to start outlining? Try some of these methods!

Summaries: break your story up into major events then write smaller summaries for each event. It is less intimidating and helps you focus on the conflict and characters in each scene rather than trying to tackle it all at once.

Stream-of-consciousness: write down whatever comes to mind about the story and once you start, don’t stop until you have everything down. Your ideas might seem scattered at first, but often, it will build on previous ideas and create something more cohesive than you may expect. When you reread and edit, you can clean it up and solidify the story.

Snowflake Method: start with a small detail and build out. Start with a sentence summary, then a paragraph, then a page, etc. It is a good method for those who are detail oriented and it forces the writer to consider multiple aspects of the story.

Three Act Structure: start with a big concept and build in. Create a main conflict where the action builds up to a climax and ends with a resolution. This is good for those who have an idea, but are not sure where they want it to go. (Or they know the end, just not how to get there.) Think of individual character conflicts or the sub-plots for each act.

Writing the “Almost Sex but Not Quite” Scene

First, I’m so glad you’re enjoying the blog and have found the master list to be helpful. I hope this post will be helpful, too, but I’m not 100% I’m interpreting your question correctly, so if I missed the mark, please feel free to re-submit a clarification. :)

Here goes!

1) The Long-Term Build Up

Building up to an “Almost Sex but Not Quite” scene is much the same as building up to a sex scene. You need to build up the sexual tension between the two characters ahead of the moment where they actually start making out. These posts will help with that:

The Subtle Signs of Romantic Interest and LoveGuide: Characters Falling in LoveTransitioning Through Levels of Affection

2) The Short-Term Build Up

When the moment arrives that they’re finally making out for the first time, you want to give the scene as much emotional, sensual impact as you can without them actually engaging in intercourse. To do that, try the following:

Build lots of sexual tension into whatever they’re doing prior to making out. Whether they’re having a suggestive/flirtatious conversation, laughing and romping through a flower-filled field, or on a tenderly romantic date, there are lots of opportunities to push some of that long-term build up from above to the brink.

Explore what both characters are thinking and feeling (emotionally) in the moments leading up to making out and during those first moments. Are they nervous? Excited? Embarrassed? Aching for more? Letting your reader know what’s going through the character’s minds can add a lot of impact to that moment.

Use the five senses to ramp up the description of what’s happening. What does your character hear? See? Smell? Taste? Touch? All of these things play a role in ramping up the anticipation of each subsequent touch, kiss, utterance of love and/or desire, etc.

Remember to touch on internal sensations being felt by the characters. 

3) The Cessation

If you don’t want your characters to go through with intercourse, you’ll need to figure out how to stop their make out session. There are lots of ways you can do this, so choose something that works best for the story. Some possibilities:

One or both characters puts on the brakes, saying they’re not ready to go any further at that moment.

The more fervent making out slows down and turns into a session of cuddling and conversation, maybe even blissful sleep.

The make out session is interrupted. This could be a family member or roommate arriving home unexpectedly, a text message/phone call, the doorbell ringing, a strange noise in the house, noticing the time and realizing they’re late for something.

One participant suddenly becomes angry about something, perhaps recalling an unresolved argument or the other person said something upsetting.

4) The Fade to Black

If you want your characters to go through with intercourse, but you just don’t want to show it happening, you can make use of something known as the “fade to black.” The name comes from TV shows and movies when two characters are about to have sex or starting to have sex, so the scene would literally fade to black and open on a new scene where something else was happening. The best way to write a “fade to black” is to leave off with something that implies what’s going to happen in a way that is interesting without being cheesy. Something along the lines of “we spent the rest of the night exploring our love for each other” but less cheesy and more poetic.

5) The Cut to After

Whether you cease the make out scene before it gets to sex, or let your characters have sex behind closed doors, you may want to consider how you’re going to handle the “after” scene. That may be immediately after they stop making out (or after they’re done in a “fade to black” scenario), or it could be hours later, the next day, days later… whatever. But making sure to explore what that moment meant to your character and their relationship is an important part of doing it well. Did it change anything? Did it make them closer? Did it make things awkward? Are they excited to go again? Do they feel ready for more? These are all issues worth exploring, unless, of course, it was a one night stand.

Best of luck writing your “almost” scene! :)

Guide: Creating a Sympathetic Main Character

If you want to create a character your readers will love, try including some of the following traits:

1) Admirable Positive Traits

Kindness, bravery, humility, selflessness, optimism, good morals, respect for others, generosity, open-minded, inclusive, problem-solving… these kinds of positive traits, and others, give the reader reasons to like your character. For more help with positive traits, check out the Positive Trait Thesaurus, a super handy reference that I own and recommend.

2) Sympathetic Negative Traits

Real people have flaws, so readers don’t tend to like characters who don’t have flaws, too. But if you want to create a sympathetic character, it’s also important to make sure their negative traits are believable, understandable, and don’t overwhelm or negate any of the character’s positive traits. Think about the negative traits of people you know and love, and there’s also a Negative Trait Thesaurus, which is also helpful. For added benefit, build in something that explains why your character developed this negative trait. For example, if one of their negative traits is that they’re a stickler for being on time and tend to freak out if they’re even a couple minutes late, find a way somewhere in the story to explain why they are this way. Perhaps they went to a school where tardiness was severely punished, or maybe being late once cost them a job they really wanted. Building in an understandable, relatable reason for why they developed the negative trait helps to make them a sympathetic character.

3) Skills, but not Skillzzzz

Readers love it when a character is good at something, but not too good at something, and definitely not good at everything. Maybe your character is a good student who studies hard and gets good grades. But maybe they also get an A- on a paper and are disappointed but happy they still got an A. Or, maybe your character is considered to be the top pilot at the space trucking company where they work, but maybe they also made an error a few months ago that led to a damaged shipment, so they’re currently on probation and could lose their job and pilot’s license if they screw up again.

4) Sympathetic Motivation and Admirable Goals

Every main character needs internal and external goals and motivation for wanting to reach those goals, but if you want your character to be sympathetic, it’s important to create goals and motivations that a reader can understand, even if they may not agree with them. For example, maybe your character witnessed a crime and is now in danger as the key witness. Maybe they are afraid they now present a danger to their beloved family, so they decide to disappear and take dangerous work in a remote mining operation so that they can keep their family safe and also save up money to give them a better life. Your reader may not agree that leaving their family is the best option, but anyone can understand wanting to protect one’s family.

5) Quirky, but Not QWIRKIEEEE♥!!!

Readers tend to like characters who are a little bit quirky, but “quirky” can get annoying really fast if you go overboard. Maybe your character wears their hair in a rainbow-colored beehive, wears cat-eye glasses, and has a few piercings. Maybe they have an unusual hobby, like collecting seashells or medieval coins, and they can identify almost any specimen by sight. Perhaps they’re a lovable geek who wears a different sci-fi movie/show t-shirt every day and can’t go an hour without quoting a favorite movie. Or maybe they’re obsessed with cats, are fluent in ten languages, run a medieval smithy in their backyard, or have an enormous doll collection. A few of these can make for an interesting character, but too many will make your character unbelievable and annoying.

6) Conflict with Aspects Anyone Can Relate To

I’d wager that most readers have probably never been stuck in an arena and forced to fight other people to the death, but that didn’t stop readers from sympathizing with what Katniss Everdeen had to go through in The Hunger Games. Maybe we couldn’t relate to the reality of what she faced, but we could identify with aspects of it: having to be away from friends and loved ones, facing uncertainty and danger, being pitted against someone you don’t want to be pitted against, being in an unfamiliar place, being in a situation you have limited control over, being forced to do something you don’t want to do, wanting to do the right thing but knowing it will come at a great cost to yourself… These are all things a lot of people can identify with on some level or another, so because we’ve “been there,” even though we haven’t been *there* (in the arena, facing down Clove and Cato, and all those other tributes). There are things about Katniss’s struggle that we can identify with, which allow us to sympathize with her even though we haven’t experienced exactly what she’s going through.

[ MONSTROUS, WRETCHED, AND DIVINE ]

                    ALEKSANDER VOLKOV 

“please don’t - please, have mercy -” the man sobs on the floor. he kneels at my feet, his hands covering the back of his neck as he whimpers and pleads. i stare down at him, my blade pointed at his neck. “i’m a good man, i’m a good man, i swear -” 

“there are no good men alive. i am all that’s left.”