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it’s good to use cliches! it’s not unoriginal or fake or plagiarised! the trope has been used but has it been done how you’re doing it?

Characters can’t have flaws, they must be perfect (magic gay trope, as mentioned above).

LGBT characters are only allowed to have problems that stem from homophobia, like friends or family no longer talking to them, so they have a limited range of character development.

If you kill a gay character or write them out because they’ve outlived their usefulness, you’re called homophobic, even if you give other characters the exact same treatment.

If a character falls under the stereotypes trusted to LGBT (a gay man who likes theatre and fashion, a bisexual whose sleeps around), you’re called homophobic for playing into stereotypes, but if the character isn’t, you get accused of making a character whose unrealistic and that you didn’t do enough research into the lgbt community, and therefore you’re homophobic.

If it’s not a main character, you’re not being representative enough, even when your story isn’t romantic at all.

If you tell people a character is lgbt, but don’t show them kiss/dating someone, it’s considered throwaway representation and not good enough, even if no one else in the story is romantic.

If you do show lgbt characters in a romantic capacity, but they’re the only ones, you’re accused fetishizing them.

You’re accused of fetishizing romantic lgbt characters when they’re not the only ones in a relationship.

If you use specific gender terms, you may be accused of cultural appropriation.

If characters are lgbt, but their not minority, female, etc., it’s not really representative.

Let’s say you need an outdated queer theory textbook that uses biphobic and cissexist rhetoric for your gender studies thesis, but you don’t particularly want to own that book.

Let’s say you need a primary source to strengthen your argument to your college as to why a certain political figure does not deserve to be a speaker at your graduation because they perpetuate hate speech.

Let’s say you and your friends want to hateread a book by your least favorite author but you don’t want to give him your money.

And I found one in the college library.  An original slave-owner’s apologia from eighteen hundred or so.

Nasty stuff.  But studying the mechanics of evil is a useful pursuit.  One that has relevance in today’s world, certainly.

(My African-American Studies professor thought so too; he gave me an A.)

The point being, no matter how bad a book is, there is value in preserving it—if only to demonstrate, “This, this right here, this is a bad thing.“  Mein Kampf?  Worth picking through to note the psychology of a depraved leader.  (Did you know that Hitler framed every damn thing as a war, including farming, which he characterized as wrestling food from an unwilling land, or some such bullshit?  Might be a characteristic worth paying attention to.  Be cautious about leaders who use “war” rhetoric for things that aren’t actually wars, such as … oh, to pull an example out of a hat, how about “drugs.”)  Slavery apologia?  Leans heavily into Biblical justification, from the one I read, so maybe, just maybe, we should examine Biblical justifications very carefully.  Even the worst stuff teaches us things.

scorpio-skies:

wordsnstuff:

Medicine

A Study In Physical Injury

Comas

Medical Facts And Tips For Your Writing Needs

Broken Bones

Burns

Unconsciousness & Head Trauma

Blood Loss

Stab Wounds

Pain & Shock

All About Mechanical Injuries (Injuries Caused By Violence)

Writing Specific Characters

Portraying a kleptomaniac.

Playing a character with cancer.

How to portray a power driven character.

Playing the manipulative character.

Portraying a character with borderline personality disorder.

Playing a character with Orthorexia Nervosa.

Writing a character who lost someone important.

Playing the bullies.

Portraying the drug dealer.

Playing a rebellious character.

How to portray a sociopath.

How to write characters with PTSD.

Playing characters with memory loss.

Playing a pyromaniac.

How to write a mute character.

How to write a character with an OCD.

How to play a stoner.

Playing a character with an eating disorder.

Portraying a character who is anti-social.

Portraying a character who is depressed.

How to portray someone with dyslexia.

How to portray a character with bipolar disorder.

Portraying a character with severe depression.

How to play a serial killer.

Writing insane characters.

Playing a character under the influence of marijuana.

Tips on writing a drug addict.

How to write a character with HPD.

Writing a character with Nymphomania.

Writing a character with schizophrenia.

Writing a character with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Writing a character with depression.

Writing a character who suffers from night terrors.

Writing a character with paranoid personality disorder.

How to play a victim of rape.

How to play a mentally ill/insane character.

Writing a character who self-harms.

Writing a character who is high on amphetamines.

How to play the stalker.

How to portray a character high on cocaine.

Playing a character with ADHD.

How to play a sexual assault victim.

Writing a compulsive gambler.

Playing a character who is faking a disorder.

Playing a prisoner.

Portraying an emotionally detached character.

How to play a character with social anxiety.

Portraying a character who is high.

Portraying characters who have secrets.

Portraying a recovering alcoholic.

Portraying a sex addict.

How to play someone creepy.

Portraying sexually/emotionally abused characters.

Playing a character under the influence of drugs.

Playing a character who struggles with Bulimia.

Illegal Activity

Examining Mob Mentality

How Street Gangs Work

Domestic Abuse

Torture

Assault

Murder

Terrorism

Internet Fraud

Cyberwarfare

Computer Viruses

Corporate Crime

Political Corruption

Drug Trafficking

Human Trafficking

Sex Trafficking

Illegal Immigration

Contemporary Slavery 

Black Market Prices & Profits

AK-47 prices on the black market

Bribes

Computer Hackers and Online Fraud

Contract Killing

Exotic Animals

Fake Diplomas

Fake ID Cards, Passports and Other Identity Documents

Human Smuggling Fees

Human Traffickers Prices

Kidney and Organ Trafficking Prices

Prostitution Prices

Cocaine Prices

Ecstasy Pills Prices

Heroin Prices

Marijuana Prices

Meth Prices

Earnings From Illegal Jobs

Countries In Order Of Largest To Smallest Risk

Forensics

arson

Asphyxia

Blood Analysis

Book Review

Cause & Manner of Death

Chemistry/Physics

Computers/Cell Phones/Electronics

Cool & Odd-Mostly Odd

Corpse Identification

Corpse Location

Crime and Science Radio

crime lab

Crime Scene

Cults and Religions

DNA

Document Examination

Fingerprints/Patterned Evidence

Firearms Analysis

Forensic Anthropology

Forensic Art

Forensic Dentistry

Forensic History

Forensic Psychiatry

General Forensics

Guest Blogger

High Tech Forensics

Interesting Cases

Interesting Places

Interviews

Medical History

Medical Issues

Misc

Multiple Murderers

On This Day

Poisons & Drugs

Police Procedure

Q&A

serial killers

Space Program

Stupid Criminals

Theft

Time of Death

Toxicology

Trauma

@eluvisen what timing for this to pop up on my dash! 8D

this might be the first writing advice ask i’ve gotten that i feel i have a concise enough answer to address it right when i get it—this is a great question!

the easiest response is that it gets intuitive the longer you write. i often write my outline and then break the book into chapters as i draft it, so that i’m not held to any specific structure before i start.

a good chapter ending serves one of two purposes: either it’s a place to stop and rest (the place a reader can stop and go make dinner) or it’s a command to Keep Reading Right This Second So Help Me God (hooky). what a chapter ending should aways do: keep readers interested.

you’ll notice that the flavours of chapter endings vary by genre (i.e. thrillers tend toward the second sort of ending, whereas a lot of contemporary novels will tend toward the former)

wordcount doesn’t matter. a chapter is over when it feels over.

your chapter might be over if:

you can use the last paragraph to ask a big ol ‘what if’ question in the narrative (hooky).

you’re at a resting point for your characters, which could be literal, like nightfall, or more figurative, like a mental resting point (dinnertime)

your characters just found out some HUGE information (HOOKY)

your gut says it’s over (can be either)

Deciding How to Open Your Book

The beginning of your story can make it or break it, so it’s important to start with a strong beginning. Here are some tips that will help you figure out where and how to begin your story.

1) WHERE to Begin

Before you decide on the all important opening line, you first need to figure out where your story should begin. An easy way to do that is to look at your story’s inciting incident--the thing that happens and kicks off the events of the main story, or in other words, the event that turns your character’s life upside down--then, back up a little bit from there and show your character in their “normal world” before everything goes crazy.

2) HOW to Begin

The inciting incident is the moment your characters life, world, or desires change in a major way, but if your reader doesn’t know who your character is or what their life was like before the inciting incident, they won’t care when everything changes for your character. So, there are specific things you want to include in the beginning of your story:

- create a “snapshot” of your character’s normal life

- illustrate their strengths and their flaws

- touch on their internal conflict and emotional wound

- show who and what matters in their world

- touch on what’s not working in their situation/world that needs to change

- give an introduction to the setting and/or world

3) Start with the Basics, Refine Later

Don’t worry too much about the beginning of your story until your first draft is finished. Choose the best possible “where” and “how” to start that you can, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect. Right now, you’re just looking for a way in. Once your story is finished, you’ll know the story, your characters, and the world so much better, it’ll be easier to figure out the best place to begin. In the first draft of my novel, Ashes Swept, which is loosely based on the tale of Cinderella, I originally chose to open the story as the protagonist, Synda May, is visiting her dying father’s bedside. In a later draft, I backed the beginning up several minutes to allow for the introduction of information about the setting, situation, other characters, and Synda May’s state of mind. This gave the scene at her father’s bedside a little more weight than it would have had otherwise. But I really needed the hindsight of having written the rest of the story to know those details needed to be there.

4) Crafting a Strong Opening Line

When it’s time to go back and revise your first draft, you can start crafting a strong opening line. You want your opening line to:

- hook the reader’s attention via tight, vivid, intriguing imagery

- give your reader something to connect with on an emotional level

- leave the reader with questions they want to find answers to

In other words, you want that first line to be the jet fuel that propels your reader into reading the rest of the page.

5) It’s Okay to Struggle

Opening lines are hard, and to be honest, you may never feel like you’ve hit pay dirt with the one you chose. Sometimes you have to settle with the best possible option. 

For many writers, crafting the final version of the opening sentence is something that happens in later drafts. You want to be careful not to over tweak your opening line, but you may need to let each version percolate for a bit before you know what you want to change. Beta readers, critique partners, writing groups, etc. can provide valuable feedback on your opening line.

Sometimes, when I’m really struggling to write an opening line, I like to sit and read through the opening lines of my favorite books. Something about seeing how other writers did it can be very motivating and inspiring. 

Good luck with your story! You’ve got this! <3 

————————————————————————————————-

◇ ABOUT THE WRITER

Hello! I’m Caravage, 23 years old, biracial, French, a bit of a killjoy.

I write a bit of horror, a bit of sci-fi, and a bit of literary fiction. I was raised on pulp sci-fi cartoons and psychological horror, and I think it shows.

I’m gay; most of my writing includes a lot of homosexual behavior. Hopefully, that’s a selling point for you!

◇ AVAILABLE TO READ

Baby - 1K words short story, horror.

Growth - 1.9K words short story, urban gothic.

Customer service - 5K words short story, sci-fi.

Tunnels - 1.2K words short story, introspective, unreality.

◇ FULL-LENGTH WIPS

The Vermeer House - 1970s dark academia. Main project, 50K words. 

The Family - Horror, introspective. Side project, 8K words.

Letters from Dolaa - Art nouveau sci-fi. Under construction.

This list is obviously subjective. There is no “right” or “wrong”, but as an emotionally reserved person, these are some things I thought were worth mentioning! You don’t have to do everything on this list, it’s simply here for inspiration/a bit of help.

Show your character’s struggles with holding in emotions. Just because your character won’t let themself go in public, doesn’t mean they don’t struggle holding everything in.

Find a motive. Pride and/or consideration for those around them can make emotionally reserved people hold back more than would be considered good for them. There are other reasons too. Think of something, perhaps the initial cause and the reason now are different, but try to give them a reason.

Show side-effects. Everything you bottle up shows itself in another way, whether it’s physical or mental. This can be long- and short-term, depending on the severity of the emotions.

Give them coping mechanisms. Everyone who wishes not to show certain emotions has a trick or two to keep themselves in check. Taking a sip of water, not looking people in the eyes, clenching their fists, breathing just a bit too deeply/shallow. There are a few lists of these online, I believe.

Write subconscious signs that they give off, which their close friends or family might pick up on. Just because these characters want to keep their emotions to themselves, doesn’t mean they don’t give off signs. Some manage to keep said signs well hidden from those closest to them, but it’s more common for their environment to pick up on something at the very least.

Perhaps make some characters perceive your OC as unable to feel certain emotions. There’s bound to be at least one person in their environment who thinks the character just doesn’t feel some emotions.

Convey their confusion/bewilderment when they’re confronted with others’ emotions. Most of the time, it’s difficult for an emotionally reserved person to understand why on earth someone else can’t keep themself under control.

Pick one main emotion to hide. This is the one they’re most uncomfortable showing, one they decide they’d rather go through physical and emotional pain than showing. Depending on whether their keeping to themself has to do with pride, your character might not even want to let this emotion surface when they’re alone. Generally these are the “weakest” emotions: sadness, fear, etc.

Let them cover up one emotion with another when they really can’t keep a straight face anymore. Generally speaking, anger is an amazing cover-up for a variety of emotions. Your voice is less likely to break when you raise it, that upset look on your face will suddenly make sense, and the fact that fear made you shaky suddenly seems to correlate with anger instead.

Learn the difference between suppression and repression. They’re two very different words often used as synonyms. I’m not a professional, so I don’t think I can explain it properly, but there are some great articles online!

Try to steer clear of making them unsympathetic. Not every reserved person is unsympathetic, but they can come off as such because they just have no idea on how to deal with emotions or show them to the outside world. Focusing on their internal conflicts, both with what caused them to feel strongly about something and keeping it concealed.

On that note: you don’t have to make them cold-hearted and stoic. Not every emotionally reserved person is the same. In fact, depending on the emotions they wish to keep private, they might be very cheerful and empathetic friends.

Do not, and I repeat do not, let them “give in” to their emotions the moment they’ve found their true love. This isn’t realistic. It’s laughable to any emotionally reserved person. Finding someone they’re really comfortable around is great, and your character might be able to let go later on, but things like that take time to develop. A month won’t suffice; a few years are more likely to be realistic.

Not everyone who is emotionally reserved has some kind of trauma that caused it. Yes, some people become quite guarded after experiencing a trauma of some sort, but other people just are the way they are. No specific reason, no tragedies, they are just who they are. There’s always our society to rely on for steering them in the “right” direction.

I probably get this question every day, so I think it’s about time I did a post on it. Many writers are concerned with writing their first chapters and they have trouble figuring out what they should include and what they should leave out until later.

When you’re submitting a manuscript in order to get an agent or find a publisher, it’s important that you hook them from the opening paragraph. A lot of agents have admitted that sometimes they ONLY read the first few sentences and if they’re not intrigued, they won’t read the rest of it. That might sound cruel, but why should they continue to read something that they think is boring when there are so many other stories in their “slush pile” to read? You need to engage the reader right from the beginning if you want them to care about your novel.

I learned this the hard way. The first few stories I wrote lacked an engaging opening. I think the best way to learn is to revisit some of your favorite books. Most of the time, they had something that caught your attention right away. There was something to it that made you keep reading. You need to make sure you have “that thing” in your own novel.

Here are the dos and don’ts of writing an engaging opening hook:

Do:

Construct a scene that best represents your character

I’m not going to tell you there’s a wrong and right way to open your novel, because it really all depends on your novel. You need to know your character before you can begin writing your story, so only you will know how you should start it off. The best advice I can give is to construct a scene that helps us best understand your character. If they’re on the run, show us that they’re being chased. If they’re sad and lonely, construct a scene that lets us feel their isolation. You don’t necessarily need to open your book with action, but you do need to introduce the conflict. Think about what your character wants and go from there.

Help set the scene

The first chapter is a good time to explore the setting of your novel. You’re not going to use this chapter to completely describe your world, but you need to give your readers a taste of it. Use all your senses to present the setting to us. What does your character feel? Are they afraid? Are they happy? Are they cautious? Putting emotion into your scenes from the beginning will not only help set the tone, but we’ll get an immediate understanding of your world.

Introduce only important information

The first chapter is not the time to give us a long, drawn-out explanation of your world and characters. You need to find the simplest and most exciting way to get information across to your readers, so that they’ll be hooked from the beginning. Get your audience to care about your story. Don’t drag it down with details that don’t matter yet. Think of your first chapter as an introduction to an essay. You don’t go right into the points immediately, but you set us up for something good.

Don’t:

Describe your main character in detail

We don’t need to know everything about your main character in the first chapter. We don’t need to know everything about what they look like, their best friends, how they would describe themselves in the mirror, etc. If you want to do these things, they’re best left for later chapters. Your readers do not need to know everything from the beginning to get into your story. Give them a taste and draw them in.

Give long explanations

When writing a scene, it’s easy to get caught up in everything that you want to talk about all at once. You have to remember that you’ll have time to explain things later and it will probably be much more interesting if your readers have to wait. You don’t need to mention everything that’s happening and why it’s important. Present the information in the most engaging way possible and avoid these long explanations. We don’t need you main character to make a page long speech in the first chapter of your novel.

Fill your readers with unnecessary back story

Again, too much back story in your first chapter will kill your momentum. Anything that’s unnecessary to know from the beginning can be put off until later. I know it’s exciting to get into the meat of your novel, but your readers have to care about your world and characters before you keep talking about it. Don’t be afraid to cut something or push something back to later chapters. You’ll also improve the pacing of your novel if you keep these things in mind.

STATUS: outlining / first draft

GENRE: horror / apocalyptic

POV: 3rd person limited

THEMES & TROPES: survival / companionship as salvation / man against nature / found family

WARNINGS: death / some violence / PTSD / mentions of emotional abuse/neglect (will be updated as needed) 

SYNOPSIS:      

      It’s been over three months since Emm’s life was uprooted by the zombie-like virus that decimated the American population in a matter of days. She happened to be in the mountains on her way to her high school when someone on the bus succumbs to the virus, forcing everyone inside to flee further into the mountains. They soon teamed up with the surviving locals & formed a settlement on an abandoned ranch far from any roads or highways, eking out a life from the seeds they scavenged, the stray livestock they captured, & the wild animals they hunted. 

      Everyone has a specific role in the settlement, & Emm’s job is to go out with the other scavengers every morning to search for supplies. look for other survivors, & monitor for any new zombies in the area. When their well runs dry, her group is forced to travel closer & closer to the highway in their search for more water. What they find eventually leads to the settlement’s downfall & kick-starts Emm’s journey from the Sierra Nevadas to her grandparent’s home in the forests of northern Idaho.

CHARACTERS: 

Emm - Short for Emily, although no one calls her that anymore. She was on her school’s track and field team before she became one of the settlement’s scavengers. Prefers to keep to herself & is slow to trust anyone besides her doomsday prepper grandparents. 

Valéria -  An extroverted & strong-willed 5th grader whose intelligence helped keep her alive when the rest of her family became infected & nobody else was around to help her.