Under Construction

Royalty/Bodyguard OTP dynamic

Tough, stoic character who is soft for one(1) person

Enemies to Friends to Lovers

“My job is to protect you!” “Well I’m gonna do the dangerous thing anyway because it’s the right thing to do. If you wanna protect me, you’ll just have to come with me.”

The Power of Friendship

Friend groups that have both a Mom Friend and a Dad Friend (even better if the two are dating/pining)

Characters that are total badasses, but also crack jokes and snark the whole fight

Self-rescuing damsels in distress

When the tough loner character that got hurt protecting the other characters pretends not to be injured

The other characters realizing the tough loner character got hurt protecting them, immediately shouting “You’re hurt!” and rushing to help them

True Love

The super nice/peaceful character that can also whoop your ass

When the super nice/peaceful character utterly DESTROYS the bad guy that hurt/scared their friends

That moment right after the Hero’s Self-Doubt Moment, when they look up at the villain, the music changes, and you KNOW the bad guy is about to get wrecked

The heroes all sitting down for a meal together, talking and laughing and being a family

Found Gamily Dynamics

When a villain is doing their villain song and they grab the hero and maneuver them through a dance

When the tomboy and the girly girl are actually besties

Awkward love confessions

OTPs being domestic

When the stoic loner character is playing with a bunch of kids, and the character that didn’t like them very much is watching from afar with a smile as they realize they’re not so bad after all

When to characters accidentally get married to each other

When an OTP accidentally confesses their love in the middle of an argument

The character that’s basically the team’s adopted mother/grandmother, and every member of the team will JACK YOU UP if you do much as talk bad about her

When two characters who are pining for each other end up dancing together at a party, and the UST is so thick you could cut it with a knife

The sunshiny optimist character who’s best friend is the grim and cynical character

The grim and cynical character who would die for the sunshiny optimist

When two characters have gotten really close together as they argued and keep glancing to the other character’s mouth because they realized how close they are and really want to kiss them

When a character is desperate to talk to their crush, but has no idea what to actually SAY once they’re together

When the emotionally constipated character waxes poetic about their crush in their head/to their friends, but can only manage to say things like “What’s up asshole” to their crush in person

When the tough stoic character just MELTS when looking at their lover/best friend

Villains who treat their subordinates like friends

donjon has tons of generators. for calendars. for demographics of a country and city. for names (both fantastical and historical) of people, nations, magics, etc.

this site lets you generate/design a city, allowing you to choose size, if you want a river or coast, walls around it, a temple, a main keep, etc.

this twitter, uncharted atlas, tweets generated maps of fantasy regions every hour.

a kiss scene doesn’t have to lead to sex. it can, ofc, but it doesn’t have to. your characters can kiss for the sake of kissing and nothing more. kissing is hella enjoyable in and of itself, so it doesn’t always have to be a means to an end

a story doesn’t have to be steeped, marinated, and executed with tragedy to be a Real Story. obviously you can and should put your characters through the wringer, but if you don’t tell a story with hope and happiness it’s not really a story worth telling. be brutal but don’t be 100% dismal and bleak

a fantasy doesn’t have to be centered on a war, especially if you don’t feel fully capable of writing about war. they’re tricky and unruly beasts, and if you aren’t willing to give them the proper treatment (read: not romanticizing them), you’re better off not writing about war in the first place

your royal character can be fine with arranged marriages. they don’t always have to run away to escape them only to fall in love with the betrothed they were running from in the first place

on the note of romances, your story A. doesn’t need a romance if it doesn’t fit and B. doesn’t necessitate every character getting into a relationship by the end. for some people, romance isn’t their idea of a happily ever after, so you don’t have to force that into your book

perhaps the most unpopular, but it needs to be said: your female character should not slap your male character. ofc there are times when a slap is warranted, but if he’s just being a dick he doesn’t need to be slapped. that’s physical assault and abuse, which should never be acceptable, even if it makes some people laugh (it shouldn’t and yet it always does 🙄)

your female character A. doesn’t have to be thin, B. doesn’t have to be a Strong Female Character, and C. doesn’t have to go through nauseating hardships (read: sexual assault or physical abuse) for her story to be worth telling

just like fantasy doesn’t need to be centered on war, it also doesn’t need to be centered on medieval england. fantasy can happen at any time in any region of the world with any level of technology.

traditionally feminine values/traits in characters of all genders doesn’t mean they’re an inferior or weak character.

a female character can want power or have a desire to rule and not be evil.

1. Writer’s Market 2019 is a great place to start– it gives you a list of magazines and journals that you can send your work to depending on the genre as well as lists a shit ton of literary agents that specify what genres they represent, how you can get in contact with them and how they accept query letters. this is a book that updates every year and tbh i only bought it this year so i dont know how critical it is to have an updated version  

2. do your research. mostly on literary agents because if you listed on your site that you like to represent fluffy YA novels and some asshole sends you a 80k manuscript about like…gritty viking culture, you will be severely pissed off. always go in finding someone who you know will actually like your work because they’re the ones who will try to advocate for you in getting published.

3. learn how to write a query letter. there are slightly varying formulas to how you can write an effective query letter. you’re also going to want to get feedback on your query letter because its the first thing the literary agent will read and based on how well you do it, it could be the difference between them rejecting you outright and giving your manuscript a quick read

4. unfortunately, you’re gonna want to get a twitter. Twitter is where a lot of literary agents are nowadays, and they host things like twitter pitch parties, where you pitch your manuscript in a few sentences and hashtag it with #Pitmad #Pitdark, some version of pit. a lot of literary agents and publishers will ALSO post their manuscript wishlists, which is just the kind of books they’d like to represent/publish, and they hashtag this with #MSWL (it is NOT for writers to use, only for agents/publishers)

fake dating

omniscient narrator who immediately contradicts the characters (“This is fine,” she said. It was, in no way, shape, or form, fine.)

deadpan jokes while swordfighting

the “I FUCKING LOVE MY WIFE” guy

oblivious pining that slowly escalates until A is going on page rants about how pretty B’s eyes are but still doesn’t seem to recognize they’re in love

Strong Leader Type having to physically fall down in order for the other characters to see how exhausted they are

funny villains who talk and make jokes with their heroes while they’re fighting them

the villains presented as the protagonists

*increasingly pulls out bigger and bigger weapons from more unlikely places*

“I said all of your weapons” *pulls out more*

“ALL OF THEM” *pulls out one last tiny dagger*

traumatized character using humor to cover up ptsd

characters going out for a break at a restaurant/movie/whatever and something bad happening

using the “*gasp* what’s that over there???” trick to avert the enemy’s attention and it working

a villain’s weakness being something totally random and nonsensical

a hero duo arguing over who’s the sidekick while fighting a villain

“don’t be silly, we don’t need [important thing]”  “you lost it, didn’t you?”  “yeah”

“what’s the one thing I told you not to do tonight?”  “raise the dead”   “and what did you do?”  “raised the dead”

partner: oh cool what is it!

me:

I. Diversity exists, everywhere

II. Multiple religions and languages can and should exist in the same area

III. No info dumps or any of the Exposition Monologues

IV. Magic and powers should have limits and rules, whether the characters know them specifically or not

V. Know how the world accommodates (or doesn’t) for people with disabilities because… they certainly exist

VI. Figure out not only the advances in technology but also its availability to different people

VII. Always a good idea to know how messages are sent and information is shared

I’ve been thinking a lot about this trope lately. Especially when it comes to whumpees offering themselves up as the sacrificial lamb:

The whumpee who distracts and taunts the villian so they will go after them instead of their friends

The leader of the team who pushes the youngest one out of the way and takes the bullet/arrow/gets stabbed

The hero who tricks their friends into staying behind so they can go off and face the villian alone

The team memeber who surrenders and distracts the enemy just long enough for the rest of the team to get away

The companion who skips their ration of food/water so an injured member doesn’t have to suffer further

“I’m fine. Help the others first”

Places Where People Kiss:

In the rain.

In a vehicle.

In the street.

On the sidewalk.

In the shower.

In the kitchen.

In the snow.

Under the stars.

In the moonlight.

By the river.

In the water.

In the bedroom.

In a bar.

At a party.

At the other’s place.

By a campfire.

Reasons to kiss:

Life or Death

Love

Celebration

Longing

Missing the other

Relief

Lust

Need

No reason at all

Admiration

Power

First Kiss

Confessing feelings

A bet

Sad or hurt feelings

The dumb “Smart Character”: Gets conclusions almost entirely through revelation, lacks methodology, intelligence is hyped up constantly by others, lacks realistic problem solving, knowledge comes solely through a nebulous mental encyclopedia which always gives them the needed facts at the right time, seemingly disconnected from human thought process because they are guided into decision making through plot, not the merits of their work.