SternHeartStudio

Hello Autumn…

basically they all stem from a massive eruption of a volcano on the island of santorini off the coast of greece. the ash then floated over to egypt which kickstarted the plagues

1) blood: the ash carried the mineral cinnabar, which has the capability of turning water red

2) frogs: the ash also had many toxic and acidic substances so naturally, all the frogs are gonna flee the river

3) lice: given what was going on insects would have burrowed into dead animals/peoples skin and laid eggs, which then hatched

4) beasts: everything is getting poisoned from the ash and toxins, causing animals to freak the fuck out/die

5) pestilence: toxins again

6) boils: the ash would have caused storms that carried acid rain which when it fell, would irritate peoples skin causing boils

7) hail: the storm again

8) locusts: again with the insects and the amount of dead bodies and such which attract more insects. a lotta insects basically.

9) darkness: the ash covered the sky, blocking out the sun

10) slaying of the first born: given that children’s bodies were found in higher numbers than others, some archeologists think they may have been sacrificed to stop all the destruction, but they aren’t 100% sure about that. this is just me but I would say another possibility is that babies/kids are a lot more susceptible to toxins and shit, so while an adult may have been fine or gotten a bit sick, it might have been very dangerous/deadly for kids or babies

the volcano would also attest for the parting of the sea weirdly enough. the red sea was in fact the ‘reed’ sea, and was very shallow, probably waist deep or so. given the amount of shit dumped into the ocean from the volcano, this wouldve caused a tsunami to head towards egypt. the water would get sucked out from the reed sea right before the tsunami hit, letting people pass it easily, then the actual tsunami would hit, fuckin up anyone who tried to follow.

another theory is that the red water was caused by algae, which would cause the frogs and stuff to jump out as well. the algae also carried substances toxic to animals so if they ingested any they’d get sick and die, so more insects. in this theory there was a sand storm coincidentally that caused the rest

The tsunamis from the Theran eruption devastated Crete, weakening the then-powerful Minoan civilization, leaving them open to being invaded by the Mycenaeans.

The volcanic winter it created devastated crops in China leading to the fall of the Xia Dynasty. 

All property taxes that would initially go to the local school district should be nationally divided between all US public schools.

Schools should not receive funding based on the success of their students.

Armour has always been about layers.

Example 1200s minor noble: linen shirt, gambeson (layered and quilted linen with wool insulation), chain mail, surcoat, arming cap, helmet, coif, bigger helmet.

Another example Alexander era Macedonian hoplite: linen tunic, greaves, 1" of tightly pressed and laminated linen, helmet (probably with some sort of arming cap/padding inside), big ass shield.

Silk.

Silk.

The Mongolians used silk vests because silk isn’t broken by an arrow, and you can use the silk to gently pull the arrow back out, even if it’s barbed. They also often used silk as the backing for leather armor.

The first bulletproof vests were made in Japan and Korea. Out of, yup, silk. Silk could stop black powder bullets, but was rendered obsolete by higher powered modern firearms. A combination of silk and metal was experimented with, but dropped because of the expense of silk.

Franz Ferdinand was wearing one such vest when he was assassinated, but it didn’t help because of where he was hit.

The US military is now looking into something called Dragon Silk, which is spider silk made by GMO silkworms, to make body armor that might be more comfortable than the current kevlar vests.

I’ve read too many books and watched too many shows where pacing has ruined a good story. So, here are some of my tips for getting pacing right:

1. Don’t take too long to get to the inciting incident

Look, showing the ordinary life of your protagonist might be interesting if there’s something strange about their life, but readers want stuff to happen.

At least with genre fiction, you shouldn’t take too long to get to the action - the event that gets the story going.

If you can do it well and have readers invested from the start, you can start with the inciting incident. However, for most works I would recommend having it in the second chapter.

Your readers want to know what the story is about, not what the character thinks of his English teacher

2. Keep it moving, but don’t rush

Action is important. It drives the story and it’s interesting. You should make sure to put enough action in your work. Things should be happening.

BUT a novel is not a play or a movie or a comic. What makes reading a full-length novel so entertaining is the detail. The in-depth characterisation and description. The emotion and thought processes.

So, keep it moving, but don’t sacrifice the juicy details. Don’t skip from one action or dialogue scene to the next without taking your readers deeper into the intricacies of the story and characters.

It’s a delicate balance that can only truly be found by reading a lot and practicing.

3. Avoid a sagging middle

Your beginning is solid. Your end is exciting. But the middle is a chaotic mess that bores the reader. Trust me, it happens more than you might believe.

Sagging middle syndrome is a thing, and the only way to avoid it is to plan.

Look, I like pantsing, but planning the middle of your novel will help your pacing exponentially.

Make a rough outline of what needs to happen to get your characters to the climax. Add a few lighter/character-driven scenes where there are too many action scenes in the sequence. Remove events which are unnecessary. And make sure that everything makes sense!

This counts for second books in series as well. It should be good on its own, not just as a filler.

4. Don’t fast forward to the end

I’m looking at you, Game of Thrones.

If you’ve built up the story and set up everything for the final big bang, you have to deliver.

Keep the pacing somewhat similar to that of the rest of the story. Your readers have gotten used to it. And if they’re still reading at that point, they probably like that pace. Don’t write a relatively slow book and then have the climax be over in three pages.

I know you want the climax to be exciting. So, yes, make it a little more fast-paced than the middle. But not massively different.

5. Trust your characters

As with every aspect of creative writing, character is most important.

Is your character experiencing the scene quickly and choppily? Or are they slowing down and taking in everything?

If you stick with what your characters are feeling, you will get it right.

Look, exams have fried my brain. So, this isn’t the most well-formulated post I’ve made. But I hope that it can be helpful.

I’m not trying to shame the previous poster, who is trying to be helpful. I’m just trying to remind all of you that the BBC is broadcasting Radio for Free to EVERYWHERE, and that you listening to it on their platform makes a difference.

It’s not about whether a character is trans or gay. Gay characters make sense. People have been gay for millennia. Trans however. Not the case. In a high fantasy setting, how in the balls are they going to perform surgery where they change the sex of the character??? It makes no sense at all. They’d have to explain it. And remember, this is high fantasy, Game of Thrones is also in that category. This is a time where they would reach into your body with an object strikingly similar to a salad tossing spoon to yank out a small piece of arrowhead. Pretty sure they hadn’t figured out a surgery as complex as a sex change…

The people complaining that there aren’t enough gay/trans people in stuff like this are just as bad if not moreso than the people who complain about gay/trans people being in stuff like this.

Sumerians.

woah what’s that?? the first edition efreet cover???

OH HEY ITS A FUCKING GIRDLE OF SEX CHANGE AND THERES ALSO A POSSIBILITY IT REMOVES ALL SEX CHARACTERISTICS FROM THE WEARER

it’s on page 145 of the dmg 1st ed. want an easier-to-read screenshot of a pdf??

And in your self-built world with an entirely different set of historical and cultural values, they might entirely avoid such historical hindrances as the Church’s ban on dissections or the “a gentleman’s hands are [inherently] clean” concept that had rich upperclass doctors going straight from handling cadavers to delivering babies without washing their hands in between.

In fiction, author Jean M. Auel produced a spectacularly-researched, highly realistic prehistoric society with highly advanced medical knowledge developed via the scientific methods of observation and experimentation and passed down from mother to daughter over thousands of years, including advanced bonesetting (such as rebreaking and resetting a bone that’s healed together wrongly), anesthesia, and long-term treatment of a chronic heart condition with digitalis.

In real life, we’ve had a 2300-year-old iron dental implant*, surgery-related laws in the Code of Hammurabi, an Egyptian papyrus including surgical case histories from circa 1600 BCE, cosmetic surgery among other types of surgery in India around 500 BCE, and castration for a number of purposes (including inhibiting the production of testosterone) has of course existed for a very, very long time.

*It has been asserted that the dental implant was done post-mortem due to the “excruciatingly painful” nature of the surgery. However, there are plenty of extant people willing to undergo temporary intense pain for a variety of long-term reasons including for cosmetic, utilitarian, medical, and status purposes, and as such the possibility of it being a true medical procedure done on a living person is not to be discounted.

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)

A Writing Cheat Sheet: for linking actions with emotions. 

Incidentally, as a frequent blood donor myself (thank you, haemochromatosis), and thus being more aware of the volume of blood donated at each session (the average appears to be 450ml, or 0.45 litres per blood bag filled) and needing to know how long it takes red blood cells and plasma to recover after donation–

about 24 hours for plasma, and up to 8 weeks for red blood cells themselves, which is why the average length between donations is 12 weeks, to ensure the body is well recovered by the next donation (which is also why I was so fucking tired after having to donate once a month for the first three months of my treatment)

– I ended up doing a bit of reading re: blood loss, but this really is the best imagery for it I’ve seen without bogging down into too much science stuff.

Other crucially important facts relevant to vampire porn I have learned: 

yes, you can get an erection after donating blood, as the body generally maintains blood pressure equilibrium even if the volume of red blood cells per liquid ml is lower, though if you lose anything more than half a litre you’re probably gonna find it a bit difficult; 

erythropoietin is a funky chemical involved in converting stem cells to red blood cells which your body produces when you need more of ‘em, so if we’re going with the standard ‘vampire saliva is an anticoagulant and narcotic stimulant, and/or induces arousal’ conceit, it probably makes sense that said saliva introduces a similar compound into the human blood stream in the post-feeding stage to encourage their food to recover quickly for a repeat feeding, usually while licking the wounds left behind;

your vamp is probably gonna have a really full belly if they try and drink more than the average 450ml or so in one sitting. Blood is quite a bit thicker than water or soft drink; it’s more like drinking a hearty broth or soup. Can you imagine attempting to chug a litre of pressurised soup as it squirts into your mouth with considerable force? No thanks!