The Inner Gigantopithicus

So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache… Eragon breaks his wrist and it’s just fine within days… Wounds heal with nary a scar, ever…

I’m aiming to fix that.

Here are over 100 links covering just about every facet of traumatic injuries (physical, psychological, long-term), focusing mainly on burns, concussions, fractures, and lacerations. Now you can beat up your characters properly!

General resources

WebMD

Mayo Clinic first aid

Mayo Clinic diseases

First Aid

PubMed: The source for biomedical literature

Diagrams: Veins (towards heart), arteries (away from heart) bones, nervous system, brain

  Burns

General overview: Includes degrees

Burn severity: Including how to estimate body area affected

Burn treatment: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees

Smoke inhalation

Smoke inhalation treatment

Chemical burns

Hot tar burns

Sunburns

  Incisions and Lacerations

Essentials of skin laceration repair (including stitching techniques)

When to stitch (Journal article–Doctors apparently usually go by experience on this)

More about when to stitch (Simple guide for moms)

Basic wound treatment

Incision vs. laceration: Most of the time (including in medical literature) they’re used synonymously, but eh.

Types of lacerations: Page has links to some particularly graphic images–beware!

How to stop bleeding: 1, 2, 3

Puncture wounds: Including a bit about what sort of wounds are most likely to become infected

More about puncture wounds

Wound assessment: A huge amount of information, including what the color of the flesh indicates, different kinds of things that ooze from a wound, and so much more.

Home treatment of gunshot wound, also basics More about gunshot wounds, including medical procedures

Tourniquet use: Controversy around it, latest research

Location pain chart: Originally intended for tattoo pain, but pretty accurate for cuts

General note: Deeper=more serious. Elevate wounded limb so that gravity draws blood towards heart. Scalp wounds also bleed a lot but tend to be superficial. If it’s dirty, risk infection. If it hits the digestive system and you don’t die immediately, infection’ll probably kill you. Don’t forget the possibility of tetanus! If a wound is positioned such that movement would cause the wound to gape open (i.e. horizontally across the knee) it’s harder to keep it closed and may take longer for it to heal.

  Broken bones

Types of fractures

Setting a broken bone when no doctor is available

Healing time of common fractures

Broken wrists

Broken ankles/feet

Fractured vertebrae: Neck (1, 2), back

Types of casts

Splints

Fracture complications

Broken noses

Broken digits: Fingers and toes

General notes: If it’s a compound fracture (bone poking through) good luck fixing it on your own. If the bone is in multiple pieces, surgery is necessary to fix it–probably can’t reduce (“set”) it from the outside. Older people heal more slowly. It’s possible for bones to “heal” crooked and cause long-term problems and joint pain. Consider damage to nearby nerves, muscle, and blood vessels.

  Concussions

General overview

Types of concussions 1, 2

Concussion complications

Mild Brain Injuries: The next step up from most severe type of concussion, Grade 3

Post-concussion syndrome

Second impact syndrome: When a second blow delivered before recovering from the initial concussion has catastrophic effects. Apparently rare.

Recovering from a concussion

Symptoms: Scroll about halfway down the page for the most severe symptoms

Whiplash

General notes: If you pass out, even for a few seconds, it’s serious. If you have multiple concussions over a lifetime, they will be progressively more serious. Symptoms can linger for a long time.

Character reaction:

Shock (general)

Physical shock: 1, 2

Fight-or-flight response: 1, 2

Long-term emotional trauma: 1 (Includes symptoms), 2

First aid for emotional trauma

  Treatment (drugs)

WebMD painkiller guide

  Treatment (herbs)

1, 2, 3, 4

  Miscellany

Snake bites: No, you don’t suck the venom out or apply tourniquettes

Frostbite

Frostbite treatment

Severe frostbite treatment

When frostbite sets in: A handy chart for how long your characters have outside at various temperatures and wind speeds before they get frostbitten

First aid myths: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Includes the ones about buttering burns and putting snow on frostbite.

Poisons: Why inducing vomiting is a bad idea

Poisonous plants

Dislocations: Symptoms 1, 2; treatment. General notes: Repeated dislocations of same joint may lead to permanent tissue damage and may cause or be symptomatic of weakened ligaments. Docs recommend against trying to reduce (put back) dislocated joint on your own, though information about how to do it is easily found online.

Muscular strains

Joint sprain

Resuscitation after near-drowning: 1, 2

Current CPR practices: We don’t do mouth-to-mouth anymore.

The DSM IV, for all your mental illness needs.

  Electrical shock

Human response to electrical shock: Includes handy-dandy voltage chart

Length of contact needed at different voltages to cause injury

Evaluation protocol for electric shock injury

Neurological complications

Electrical and lightning injury

Cardiac complications

Delayed effects and a good general summary

Acquired savant syndrome: Brain injuries (including a lightning strike) triggering development of amazing artistic and other abilities

This is a really good article about how quickly people actually die from cuts and punctures inflicted by swords and knives.  However, it’s really really long and I figured that since I was summarizing for my own benefit I’d share it for anyone else who is writing fiction that involves hacking and slashing your villain(s) to death.  If you want the nitty gritty of the hows and whys of this, you can find it at the original source.

…even in the case of mortal wounds, pain may not reach levels of magnitude sufficient to incapacitate a determined swordsman.

Causes of death from stabs and cuts:

massive bleeding (exsanguination) - most common

air in the bloodstream (air embolism)

suffocation (asphyxia)

air in the chest cavity (pneumothorax)

infection

Stabbing vs cutting:

Stabbing someone actually takes very little force if you don’t hit bone or hard cartilage.

The most important factor in the ease of stabbing is the velocity of the blade at impact with the skin, followed by the sharpness of the blade.

Stabbing wounds tend to close after the weapon is withdrawn.

Stabbing wounds to muscles are not typically very damaging.  Damage increases with the width of the blade.

Cutting wounds are typically deepest at the site of initial impact and get shallower as force is transferred from the initial swing to pushing and pressing.

Cutting wounds have a huge number of factors that dictate how deep they are and how easily they damage someone: skill, radial velocity, mass of the blade, and the size of the initial impact.

Cutting wounds along the grain of musculature are not typically very damaging but cutting wounds across the grain can incapacitate.

Arteries vs veins:

Severed veins have almost zero blood pressure and sometimes even negative pressure.  They do not spurt but major veins can suck air in causing an air embolism.

Cutting or puncturing a vein is usually not fatal.

Severed arteries have high blood pressure.  The larger arteries do spurt and can often cause death due to exsanguination.

Body parts as targets:

Severing a jugular vein in the neck causes an air embolism and will make the victim collapse after one or two gasps for air.

Severing a carotid artery in the neck cuts off the blood supply to the brain but the victim may be conscious for up to thirty seconds.

Stabbing or cutting the neck also causes the victim to aspirate blood that causes asphyxiation and death.

Severing a major abdominal artery or vein would cause immediate collapse, but this takes a fairly heavy blade and a significant amount of effort because they are situated near the spine.

Abdominal wounds that only impact the organs can cause death but they do not immediately incapacitate.

Severing an artery in the interior of the upper arm causes exsanguination and death but does not immediately incapacitate.

Severing an artery in the palm side of the forearm causes exsanguination and death but does not immediately incapacitate.

Severing the femoral artery at a point just above and behind the knee is the best location.  Higher up the leg it is too well protected to easily hit.  This disables and will eventually kill the victim but does not immediately incapacitate.

Cutting across the muscles of the forearm can immediately end the opponent’s ability to hold their weapon.

Cutting across the palm side of the wrist causes immediate loss of ability to hold a weapon.

Stab wounds to the arm do not significantly impact the ability to wield a weapon or use it.

Cuts and stab wounds to the front and back of the legs generally do not do enough muscle damage to cause total loss of use of that leg.

Bone anywhere in the body can bend or otherwise disfigure a blade.

The brain can be stabbed fairly easily through the eyes, the temples, and the sinuses.  

Stabs to the brain are more often not incapacitating.

The lungs as targets:

Slicing into the lung stops that lung from functioning, but the other lung continues to function normally.  This also requires either luck to get between the ribs or a great deal of force to penetrate the ribs.

Stabbing the lung stops that lung from functioning, but the other lung continues to function normally.  It is significantly easier to stab between ribs than to slice.

It is possible to stab the victim from the side and pass through both lungs with an adequate length blade.  It is very unlikely that this will happen with a slicing hit.

“Death caused solely by pneumothorax is generally a slow process, occurring as much as several hours after the wound is inflicted.”

Lung punctures also typically involve the lung filling with blood, but this is a slow process.

The heart as a target:

I’m just going to quote this paragraph outright with a few omissions and formatting changes for clarity because it’s chock-full of good info:

…[stabbing] wounds to the heart the location, depth of penetration, blade width, and the presence or absence of cutting edges are important factors influencing a wounded duelist’s ability to continue a combat.

Large cuts that transect the heart may be expected to result in swift incapacitation…

…stab wounds, similar to those that might be inflicted by a thrust with a sword with a narrow, pointed blade may leave a mortally wounded victim capable of surprisingly athletic endeavors. 

I got a request for a comic graphic tutorial.  I usually make 6 images to complete a photoset, I’ll show you how to make two of them and I’ll provide PSD’s at the end.  Here is what we are making:

Note:  This is a long tutorial and you need to have a basic knowledge of Photoshop.

What is their approach to group projects? Do they hate them? Love them? Take the lead, go with the flow, or do nothing at all? 

Do they have any weird habits or quirks? Ex: pacing the floor when they talk, needing things in even numbers, having to eat food in a certain way.

Are they the “I need to shake my leg” type or the “stop shaking your leg, it’s distracting” type?

How do they text? Do they use excessive punctuation? No punctuation at all? Correct grammar and spelling?

What would be their favorite meme?

How do they cope with tragedy? Do they retreat and isolate themselves? Reach out to their friends? Use humor?

What are phrases/slang that they use way too often? Ex: deadass, bet, why am i like this, etc.

What ridiculous grudges do they hold? Ex: that time someone never gave their favorite pen back, their 5th grade teacher making fun of them, something a friend said when they were in middle school.

How do they feel about pineapple on pizza?

What are their misconceptions about themselves? What do they see as their strengths vs. what are actually their strengths? How do they think people view them vs. how do people actually view them?

What media (TV shows, music, books) did they grow up with?

What are their guilty pleasures? Ex: watching spanish soap operas, listening to cheesy pop music, dancing by themselves, etc.

Are they religious/spiritual? Do they believe in ghosts, an afterlife, or aliens?

What weird conspiracy theories do they believe in?

What seemingly small things do they get worked up about? Ex: small pockets.

Are they a feminist?

What three words would others use to describe them? What three words would they use to describe themselves?

Are they an optimist, pessimist, or realist?

What social media sites do they use? Do they get involved in a lot of fights online, or avoid drama?

A person who has stayed up too late reading fanfic, thus leaving themselves with semi-regrets and exhaustion the next day.

Thank you @zenthisoror this is my new favourite word.

if you’ve ever sat down to write your story and thought ‘ok but what is the historical backdrop for these characters on this particular month, or this day, in this country, in this city’

the british newspaper archive [link] has literally millions of archived newspaper pages going all the way back to the 1700s

Get these plants for your poorly ventilated apartment

Motivation: Plot Gaps vs. Plot Holes

I hope you managed to find your motivation again, considering the lateness of this reply, but it’s a good topic to discuss nonetheless.

Motivation to write comes up in nearly every post I make on this blog, which certainly makes sense considering stories don’t exist if we’re not motivated to write them. But I think the first step to conquering any slump, especially when it comes in the middle of a lengthy project, is to understand that it’s normal. It happens. But as confident as I am that slumps exist for writers, I’m also confident that they are just that: slumps. And you will rise out of it eventually. Have faith in that.

The second step is a lot less abstract. It comes down to identifying the exact problems. You mention a “plot gap,” and I want to zero in on that phrase for just a moment because a “plot gap” is entirely different from a “plot hole,” and how you approach each one requires a different strategy.

A plot gap implies that your story has a progression that makes sense, but it’s missing something. Maybe you realize that it’s time for your climax, and you’ve barely exited the setup portion of the story. You went from beginning to conclusion without any real middle. And it’s not that the story is too short word count/page wise; it’s that your ending feels unearned. You’ve barely tapped the surface of the conflict, and you’ve barely shown who the characters are, and the ending just feels too soon.

If that sounds like the boat you’re in, take a deep breath and get creative. It’s tempting to start filling in with amusing subplots or flashbacks, but that’s not the answer. It’s time to complicate things for your characters in a big way. Because if your plot goes from beginning to end without a middle, your conflict is most likely too simple. You need more obstacles, perhaps more drama, more at stake, more conflict.

One of the oldest tricks in the book for upping the ante in a stalled story is the introduction of a dead body. In fact, I used it myself recently. Have your characters stumble onto a dead body. What do they do about it? Who do they call (if anyone)? How are they involved? Who killed this person? What else does the killer want?

A dead body can force you to pose lots and lots of questions to yourself, and coming up with answers to these questions expands your brainstorming. It will usually produce more problems than solutions, and if the story is lacking a middle, you want more problems. And as you devise solutions to those problems, you realize that you need more scenes to set up those solutions. And voila, your middle starts growing.

If a dead body doesn’t really jive with your story, think of something else drastic you could do. Think outside of the box, and don’t worry if your idea seems to derail your ending. Sometimes that’s better - because now you have to spend substantial time trying to get the story back on track to your intended ending, which will lengthen your story (and more importantly, get you interested again).

A plot hole on the other hand, means that something isn’t adding up. You have this amazing dramatic ending in your head, but the elaborate way your hero finally defeats your villain contradicts information you explained earlier in the story. Or perhaps you introduced something early on that seemed important but it never comes up again. Plot holes are kind of like black holes - places where you throw exposition or major details after you write them. Their importance to the story seems to disappear into those black holes, never to be seen or heard from again. Yet no one ever forgets them. If you lose too much into those black holes, the story loses its cohesion, and ultimately its impact.

Plot holes tend to fly beneath the radar, and they often don’t show themselves until it’s too late to fix them easily. But you most likely know they’re there, and that’s what destroys your motivation. So one way to combat that is to have a free writing session where you basically vent about all these plot holes. Discuss what’s annoying you about the story. What is it that’s making you not want to write it? Once you’ve exhausted yourself and completely beaten the crap out of your story, take what you’ve written and break it down into bullet points. What are the problems?

Once you know the specific problems, it’s up to you to find your solutions. They might not come easily. It might take days or even weeks to come up with solutions, so be patient with yourself. If you hit a brick wall completely, then go back to whatever caused this problem in your plot. What event or action in the story led to this particular conflict/problem? Once you’ve identified that, imagine how that event could result in a different outcome. This could give you a new problem to solve in its place, and maybe it’s one that’s a little easier to tackle.

Example: Let’s take two characters - Sophie and Sarah. You’re trying to figure out why Sophie would ever forgive Sarah for something horrible she did. You’re trying to think of something Sarah could do to make it up to her, or maybe some event that Sophie could go through that has her in need of Sarah’s companionship and support. Maybe some character that tries to force some kind of “make-up” conversation by tricking them into the same room. Nothing seems good enough to get them reconciled. At this point, let’s look at what caused this problem. It’s this thing that Sarah did. Could we change it? Could we make it less unforgivable? Could something else come between them that isn’t the result of one hurting the other?

So when you’re stuck, go back a step and consider why you got stuck in the first place. Maybe the problem isn’t where you’re at now, it’s where you were a few scenes ago.

When all else fails, try to remember why you started. Think about the things that used to excite you, and decide if you lost those things somewhere along the way. If they’re still there, try to bring them to the forefront of the story, or add more of them. If it was the banter between the characters, include more of it. If it was their rich backstory, find ways to show more of it in the story (avoiding out-of-place flashbacks), or if it was the villain that inspired you, find ways to make that villain’s impact even greater. Focus on what once excited you and chances are, it’ll excite you again.

That was a long response, but hopefully helpful!

HTML/Tumblr tutorials

Add a ‘read more’ to photo posts

Make a FAQ and ask page all in one

How to make a Tumblr theme (2)

Style audio posts

Over 1mb sidebar gifs

Dropdown menu

Static previews

Custom fonts

Cursors

Jump pagination

Search boxes

Find a good theme

Gif tutorials

How to make a gif (2) (3)

How to colour a gif (pastel)

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Gif-audio post manip

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Time delays

Gif subtitles

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How to colour concert videos

How to extend gifs (2)

How to apply an action

Adjustment layers

How to colour anime scenes

Playing with colours

B&W objects

Colour porn (2) (3) (4)

iPod gif edit

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Pale colouring

Youtube list gifset

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Werewolf eyes

Dark scenes colouring (2)

Gif inside TV

Remove background of a gif

Picture editing tutorials

How to cut someone out of a picture

Vibrant makeup

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Makeup tutorial

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Grain effect

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Blending images

Using a texture pack

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About PSD’s

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Animating images

Scratched out text effect

Typography lyric poster

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Colour palette tutorial

American Apparel tutorial

ASHEVILLE TREEHOUSE | mike belleme for lovebryan / hat tip to treehauslove

The Best Air-Purifying Houseplants According To NASA

You snap your fingers and light your cigarette off the flame.

Dragons and pixies are real and it sucks.

You work in law enforcement, which works exactly like real-world law enforcement, despite the fact that no two people have the same physical limitations

You mutter spells under your breath. Your breath smells like whiskey. No one has to know you’re rhyming.

You know at least half a vampire, and one whole werewolf

Everyone you meet of the opposite sex is obnoxious and grating, but some are also really hot

You walk into a room and sneer. Everyone here is so pretentious/naive

Despite the crushing realism of your story, nobody who lives in ‘hidden lands’ ever gets hit with a tax evasion summons

If you do not work in law enforcement, you own a bar and enforce strict neutrality laws on all your supernatural patrons. But chances are good that you used to work in law enforcement.

You have outwitted at least one demigod and escaped the physical manifestation of Death twice

You have at least one leather item on you at all times.

You mention Tolkien ironically

You slam back a shot of liquor and hold everyone’s respect; except your own.

Your partner (business/romantic) is missing.

Your partner (business/romantic) is dead.

You discover a shocking revelation; you’re secretly part-[redacted]! No wonder you’re so good at your job.

You’ve always known you were secretly part-[redacted], and it has weighed on you like a lodestone for your entire life

First of all: Whoa buddy I get you. My ability to write has basically been the litmus for how Well/Unwell I’ve been for the last couple years. When I’m feeling bad, I just can’t write at all– every word feels stupid before it can even reach my hands to be written and dies in my head. 

The fact that you’re feeling like writing again is awesome! But let’s be real here: You haven’t written in a long time. You are probably rusty. But writing anything is a huge step compared to writing nothing. Let yourself baby step this. DON’T EXPECT TO BE GREAT OUT OF GATE. Be gentle with yourself. If it helps, you can imagine writing again like exercising after letting yourself get really out of shape– going straight to trying to bench 200lbs will only hurt you and disappoint you. Give your muscles time to be built back up. You will get stronger in time, not overnight. 

Some more real talk: We all wanna be the very best (like no one ever was). Nothing wrong with that. But… does it matter if other people are better than us? Should you stop doing something that you enjoy just because you probably won’t be world class at it? It can be damn hard to be happy for other people’s success when you’re stuck in a rut. I get that. And you know what? You have my express permission not to read any fiction until you really want to again. Put your blinkers on and focus on you. Also, reading non-fiction is excellent! Personally, reading non-fiction almost always makes me feel really inspired to write, because the real world is an interesting and inspiring place. Don’t worry about it if that’s what you want to read right now. 

Here are some suggestions, all of which you are free to take or leave:

Write a LOTHere’s the thing: When you have unlimited time to dick around with your project, more second-guessing and overworking and panicking and ruminating happens than actual progress. When I was doing my thesis, my mentor knew about my nervous disposition, and combated it by setting a weekly goal of 8-10 paintings. They were small paintings, but it still kept me so busy that I had no time to freak out. See how much writing you can do in a week that keeps you busy but not overwhelmed. Maybe that’s 100 words, maybe it’s 20,000, I don’t know your life. Then, make that your goal. Don’t worry about quality, just churn out shit. Make little projects that you can set on fire if you decide they were duds. I’m talking short stories, I’m talking describing the room you’re in, I’m talking responding to prompts with a couple hundred words. 

Avoid Criticism Okay, I know that critique and constructive criticism and editing are all important… but don’t do that to yourself right now. Avoid re-reading work unless you are in a solid emotional state. Don’t say anything mean about yourself. Don’t say anything mean about your work. (Caveat: you MAY call your work ‘shit’, ‘garbage’, or ‘my (genre) trash book’ IF it takes the pressure off to write The Next Great American Novel. However, you are only allowed to do so if you are enjoying the hell out of making your shit, and it feels like a garbage party that you are loving.) Also, you don’t have to show your work to anybody. You can if you want, but for me personally, promising myself that something I make never has to see the light of day can be comforting. 

Seek Support Is there anyone that you can talk to about how you are feeling? It can be family, a friend, a therapist, anyone who would listen and be kind to you. You can talk to them about your difficulty with perfectionism and what gets you down, or you can just find a buddy who will cheer aggressively if you text them your day’s wordcount. If you can’t think of anybody, you can message me (Evvy) and I will cheerlead you so hard.

As for character design… don’t worry if your characters aren’t magnificent just yet. Baby steps, right? My favorite way to design characters is by drawing them over and over until they feel right, because drawing is easier than writing for me. You probably will figure out that you have your own particular method as well! A game that I think can be fun is to get a list of character traits, and then randomly (RANDOMLY, like from a hat) select three, and make a character that combines all three. From there, you can ask questions like ‘how did they become the person who they are now?’ or ‘which trait do they rely on most heavily?’ or ‘what would they do in X situation?’ 

I hope that some of the ideas here are helpful. Please remember: You are doing your best. Your best is good enough. Your value as a person is NOT connected to how well or how much you write– if you never wrote again, you would still be perfect. Go easy on yourself, and do your best to have fun with it. 

Good luck out there,

-You always have ideas. When you open a document, they disappear.

-You have a file full of ideas. It is lost. You open all your files and find hints of ideas mixed in between the lines. None of them connect. You follow them forever, deeper into the folders, until you can’t remember what you were looking for anymore. You end up reading fanfic until 4 AM.

-You’re not a torturer by profession. It’s merely a hobby. The sadism is a natural skill.

-Your fingers and wrists hurt from typing when you’re on a roll. You swear you’re not a masochist, but it hurts so good.

-Readers accuse you of causing them pain. You say you’re sorry, but you’re not. You comfort them while not-so-subtly digging for what caused them the most harm, eager to repeat the trick.

-Your friends enable you and laugh at your yelling. When you blame them, they claim they didn’t do anything. They never do anything. You no longer remember who started it, only that you’re halfway through the fic and still writing.

-You have a WIP. You swear you’re going to finish it next. It’s always next. There’s always another fic that has to be written first.

-Anonymous messages are sent to you, asking you not to acknowledge them publically. You know if you answer they’ll disappear from your inbox. Tumblr has eaten the Ask. Was it ever there in the first place?

-Someone comments on your fic. You have no idea who they are, but their username looks familiar. Every username looks familiar. You think you know them. They know you. It’s flattering, but you can’t shake the feeling that you should be alarmed by your poor memory.

-You reblog a writing prompt meme. It’s the same meme you reblogged yesterday. There are symbols instead of numbers, and you hope people will find them more interesting and send you more prompts this time.

-Promoting your own work is okay. You tell yourself this as you reblog yesterday’s fic post, tensely waiting for a rebuke that never comes.

-People laugh at something you wrote. You can’t figure out what. When you ask, nobody responds. They never laughed in the first place. You’re not sure you wrote anything.

-The fic is 50 hours long and 7000 words long; no one cares. A 10 minute speedwrite is reblogged into eternity.

-The kudos stack up. They are a solid block of names. You can’t read who left them. When you blink and look again, only 10 Guests have left kudos.

-Your inbox is full. There’s a comment on your fic. It has been edited 17 times. Six more emails come in as you read the initial comment. The numbers in your inbox climb and climb. You can’t find what’s been changed in the comment, but you can’t stop obsessively comparing each message.

-This comment is a book report. Glee and fear fill you in equal amounts.

-Someone apologizes for leaving a comment on an old fic. You can’t find who started the absurd rumor that authors don’t like comments on old fics. You plan their murder anyway.

-You eye your old username and associated fics. You pray that no one ever finds them. You resist the urge to tell people where to look.

-The fic is finished. You are dead. You are sick of it. You’ve never been so tired in your life. You hate the world. You force yourself to post it, absolutely exhausted, and suddenly can’t sleep for refreshing your inbox.

-The words multiply. You can’t control them. They eat your brain and come out your eyes. When people try to talk to you, you speak in snatches of character dialogue and narrate unconnected events. They keep talking to you, encouraging you to say more. The words own you now.

-No one believes you when you say the story is writing itself. You stare in despair at the screen. Why won’t anyone help you?

-You’ve misspelled ‘the.’ Autocorrect is wonderful until it’s not.