Pencil Casey

Back in 1982, Gary Larson drew the following panel for the newspaper comic The Far Side:

According to Larson, it was simply meant to be a faintly surreal joke about how cows would be bad at making tools; it intends no deeper commentary. However, in the decades since, it’s become by far the comic’s most asked-about panel. People want to know why cows are making tools, what aspect of society it’s commenting on, and most critically, they want to know what the tools are for. The one on the right kind of resembles a carpenter’s saw, which leads folks to believe that the other three must have some obvious function too, if only they could puzzle it out.

But they don’t. They’re just random shapes, and the comic as a whole was never intended to actually mean anything.

I’ve become convinced that that’s the real secret to effective worldbuilding in gaming media. Certainly, the “core” of the setting should make sense, but all the peripheral stuff surrounding it? Just throw in a bunch of incomprehensible bullshit seasoned with the occasional bit that almost makes sense, and people will seize on those bits and ratonalise all the rest of it for you - and what they come up with is generally going to be way more interesting than whatever your original plan was, if indeed you had one at all.

for the self-conscious beginner: No one makes great things until the world intimately knows their mediocrity. Don’t think of your writing as terrible; think of it as preparing to contribute something great.

for the self-conscious late bloomer: Look at old writing as how far you’ve come. You can’t get to where you are today without covering all that past ground. For that, be proud.

for the perfectionist: Think about how much you complain about things you love—the mistakes and retcons in all your favorite series—and how you still love them anyway. Give yourself that same space.

for the realist: There will be people who hate your story even if it’s considered a classic. But there will be people who love your story, even if it is strange and unpopular.

for the fanfic writer: Your work isn’t lesser for not following canon. When you write, you’ve created a new work on its own. It can be, but does not have to be, limited by the source material. Canon is not the end-all, be-all. 

for the writer’s blocked: It doesn’t need to be perfect. Sometimes you have to move on and commit a few writing sins if it means you can create better things out of it.

here are 10 quick tips for making that good fic, or at least making your fic look good

Tag and Bag: if your fanfic needs tags make them good, make them accurate, and don’t talk in them. You want to make it as easy as possible to attract readers. Tags on fanfic are for sorting not communicating, you have an entire fic’s worth of author’s notes for that

Bait, Hook, and Reel: your summary and title is what sells a reader after they’ve finished tag sorting. The part of the spear that you sharpen is the tip, the rest just has to hold together long enough to follow through

Apologize for NOTHING: all creators are self-conscious, we all feel shades of anxiety and embarrassment about our work. But if you don’t think your work is good, why should anyone else read it? Everyone starts somewhere

Bad Epithet, No Biscuit: kill this idea. Whether calling a boy with dark hair “the raven” or a character’s blue eyes ‘cerulean orbs’ don’t. Just don’t. Use names and pronouns because they are easier for readers to follow

An Ounce of Prevention: DO SOME RESEARCH! Every time you get something wrong in your story you lose at least one reader who knows better. You don’t need to be an expert, you just need to know enough to bluff your way through

Grammar U: grammar is about communication, where you put your comma to splice your run-on sentence is not nearly as important as framing dialogue correctly. It’s a readability issue. Grammar serves you and the reader, not the other way around

Cliché This: know ‘em, avoid ‘em or spin ‘em around until they’re flipped and fresh. Check TVtropes for specifics on your fandom

A Chuckle Darkly: think about the phrases you write. Does it make sense or just sound cool? It’s not a zero-sum game, but making sense is always the more important thing

Floridly Prosaic Mosaics of Prose: writing prettily is not a substitute for story. It’s easy to write florid prose, you can tell by how everyone does it. But only a few do it well enough to merit the distraction from reading a story

body language masterlist

a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

550 words to say instead of fuckin said

638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

Looking for a random city? Click here.

Looking for a random city that people have actually heard of? Click here.

Need a random surname for a character? Click here. (They also give prevalence by race, which is very helpful.)

Random motivations for your characters here!

Need some character quirks? Here and here! 

“dude i know youre a werewolf and all but seriously that freaking howl laughter you do is so fucking extra and i cant take it anymore”

“you being part dog has its perks, mostly for me because whenever i toss something away your eyes follow it and you perk up like you want to chase it but restrict yourself and its honestly the cutest fucking thing ive ever seen”

“honestly though i hate my pack so much, like theyre a bunch of assholes but i ran into you on a full moon run in the forest and idk u seem pretty cool. wanna go hunting or scare some people or some shit? i know this sick ass lake thats always really warm, i can show you”

“yes i understand im a big bad werewolf now but really i dont want to hurt those cute little rabbits and deer, cant we just wait until we transform back to eat? thats not how it works? well cant i just eat before i transform so i wont be hungry–im sorry im just new at this and im sorta trying to go vegetarian here–”

“babe you know i love you and i would give up my life for yours but i sWEAR TO GOD IF YOU GIVE ME ONE MORE DOG TOY FOR MY BIRTHDAY IM GONNA PUNCH YOU SQUARE IN THE FACE”

“look im not a supernatural fanatic or anything but i swear man every time this kid next to me gets frustrated they actually growl and it sounds just like some rabid steroid induced dog, and im not saying their a werewolf man but theyre totally a werewolf”

a werewolf getting personally offended when someone says they’re not a dog person

“as a werewolf i can personally talk to dogs and boyohboy does ur little pug have some tea to spill…"

“alternatively, i find you to be really superduper adorable and whenever i come over your little dog goes off on rants to me about the cute embarrassing stuff that you do when your home alone and honestly I wake up every day for these chats”

It depends on which system of ranking you use, of course (there are several), but in most systems there’s actually a rule covering this scenario: in the event that a consort’s courtesy title being of the same rank as their spouse’s would potentially create confusion over who holds the title by right and who by courtesy, the consort instead receives the next-highest title on the ladder.

So the husband of a prince would be a duke; the wife of a queen, a princess; and so forth.

(You actually see this rule in practice in the United Kingdom, albeit not in the context of a same-sex marriage; the Queen’s husband is styled a prince because if he were a king, folks might get confused about which of them was the reigning monarch.)

The only common situation where you’d expect to see, for example, two queens in the same marriage is if the reigning monarchs of two different realms married each other - and even then, you’d more likely end up with a complicated arrangement where each party is technically a princess of the other’s realm in addition to being queen of her own.

1. The system described above is, admittedly, merely one of the most common. Other historically popular alternatives include:

The consort’s courtesy title is of the same rank as their spouse’s, with “-consort” appended to it: prince and prince-consort, queen and queen-consort, etc. This is how, e.g., present-day Monaco does it.

The consort is simply styled Lord or Lady So-and-so, and receives no specific title. I can’t think of any country that still does it this way, off the top of my head, but historically it was a thing.

(Naturally, your setting needn’t adhere to any of these, but it would be highly irregular for it to lack some mechanism for clarifying the chain of command.)

2. The reason why the consort of a prince is historically a princess even though those titles are the same rank is basically sexism. This can go a couple of ways:

In many realms, there was no such thing as being a princess by right; the daughter of a monarch would be styled Lady So-and-so and receive no specific title, so the only way to be a princess was to marry a prince.

In realms where women could hold titles by right, typically a masculine title was informally presumed to outrank its feminine counterpart. So, e.g., kings outrank queens, princes outrank princesses, etc.

In either case, no ambiguity exists.

(Interestingly, this suggests that in a more egalitarian setting where masculine titles are not presumed to outrank their feminine counterparts, or vice versa, you’d need to explicitly disambiguate rankings even outside the context of same-sex marriages. Food for thought!)

3. It would also be possible to have two kings or two queens in the same marriage without multiple realms being involved in the case of a true co-monarchy. However, true co-monarchies are highly irregular and, from a political standpoint, immensely complicated affairs. If you’re planning on writing one of those, be prepared to do your research!

4. The next rank down from “countess” is either “viscountess” or “baroness”, depending on which peerage system you’re using.

energy to write, but no ideas

ideas to write, but no energy

needing to work on something else, but only having inspiration for a different project.

having to write winter scenes in the full heat of summer when ur dying

having to write summer scenes when it’s cold as fuck outside.

that one character with fucked up ideas of love and you feel bad just writing from their POV

how in the hell do I write this without being offensive but acknowledging that it was illegal at the time story takes place

subconciously writing in referenecs or quotes from other things you’ve read or seen that could get you sued.

googling dates for literally every single stupid thing your characters eat, touch, read, smell, wear, and see to make sure it’s historically accurate

WRITING SMALL TALK

realizing you know nothing about geography

“google how far is it from here to there by horseback? By carriage?”

checking the beauty parameters of the time to make sure that the people you are describing as beautiful could be considered beautiful at the time and not in modern terms;

discovering new stuff by accident and creating whole new situations just to put that new thing into the story;

why in the world are all the women called Anne, Mary, Elizabeth and Catherine?! Didn’t they have other names at the time?

wait, is this name spelled right for the time period?

buying a shit ton of historical books because you have to be sure that you’re not writing crap;

So, if you want to write a character with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, it doesn’t matter if it’s an original character in your new story, or if you’re writing PJO fanfiction, there’s some things you need to know: •Soda, sugar, coffee, they don’t make us MORE hyper, they actually help us calm down. A lot of people with ADHD self-medicate with coffee and soda on a daily basis when they don’t have access to actual treatment •Our brains have two settings: hyperfocus and complete lack of attention. If your character is seriously worried about something, or if they like what they’re doing, it’s very likely they’re not going to stop. At all. I have once spent two entire days researching a topic, without moving from my computer, until I had to. Because I peed myself. I was fifteen. Hyperfocus is a serious problem, even if it’s sometimes useful. Don’t treat it as a superpower, please. •On the same note, your character probably cannot spend too much time or energy on something they don’t like. As in, sometimes five uninterrupted minutes of reading are harder to achieve than three hours of writing, simply because the reading is not fun. •We fidget. A lot. Your character probably repeats a movement over and over and over and over again, or they might always be doing something with their hands. You can make it something useful, but it is not necessarily common (Leo Valdez, from HOO, is a good example of useful fidgeting, with the things he builds. Annabeth Chase, on the other hand, tends to fidget with her necklace, a completely non-useful movement that is repeated several times, enough to be mentioned) •Crazy energetic moments of inspiration happen. They usually don’t last. And people can’t really follow along with what we’re doing. The results, in my experience, are 50/50 on total garbage or amazingly good. •Conversations, especially between several people with ADHD, can really easily go from point A to point G without going anywhere in the middle. Our brains tend to make different connections. •Memory. Our memory is shitty and weird, most of the time. Same as our focus, it usually is either perfect or not there at all. I have lost countless hours to my own brain, chasing my thoughts. •Planning is hard. Proof reading is hard. Finishing things once the original boost of focus is gone is almost impossible. I’m sorry this is so short, but it was a spur of the moment decision.