elanorpam:

roachpatrol:

clockwork-dingos:

How to paint gold tutorial by *ConceptCookie

And I found this very helpful just by looking at it. I was never good at coloring gold.

new favorite brush set

this is so pretty to look at ;_;

helpfulharrie:

Source: shark-bomb

reflectionofthemind:

Warning: You may encounter some opinions.

Writing Myth: You have to start your story off in the middle of the action, or “In medias res”.

It is said (as I have heard from a number of English and Creative Writing teachers) in order to catch your reader, you must start in the middle of the action, or else it will not be interesting enough to get your reader to continue on. They will set the book down and look for another if you do not do this.

Is this true? No.

Although opening in the middle of the action is commonly used and can be very effective, it is not the only way to open, and other ways of introduction are not automatically going to lose your reader. In fact, it matters very little what type of opening you use as opposed to how you use that type.

Success is not determined by starting off in the middle of the action. There are many ways to open a story. Whether people will be interested is based on how you execute it more than what type of opening you’re executing. And there are several ways to open.

1. Introducing characters. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is a good example of opening by introducing characters.

It starts off by giving information, in this case, about the characters. Not just any information, but interesting information. It shows the quirks of the characters that make them stand out among any other characters you as the reader have already been exposed to in other stories.

Important note: It also makes the reader wonder, how will this information play a part in the story? Don’t just give your reader an interesting fact about your characters and do nothing with it. That’s misleading and could make the reader lose trust in you as a story teller.

2. Introduce the setting. Setting is defined as the surroundings or environment of anything (X). Which means you are able to describe what the landscape looks like, or what the environment is like. What are the beliefs or traditions in the setting that will affect the character(s)? An example of this is seen in Diana Wynne Jone’s Howl’s Moving Castle.

Not only does it imply right off the story takes place in a fantasy land, but it states a belief the people have that will directly affect the main character. It could be interesting to know a belief that affects the fishermen, for example, but it focuses on what will play a part in the story over and over again.

Whatever you decide, take in to account what Neil Gaiman said.

“You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different.”

3. Withhold information. You could start off by giving your reader a taste of what’s going on, what the setting is, who the characters are, while giving a hint that not everything is as it should be. Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, is a prime example of this.

At first glance, it seems like a normal day in a normal village. But as you read, you start wondering what the lottery is for. It’s not a typical one, because you would just have everyone get numbers and announce it. Why would it take so long and why is it taking place in individual villages? By taking something that’s recognizable and changing a detail about it, it makes the reader wonder what’s going to happen, or what’s off about the situation.

More examples can be found of how stories can start without beginning in the middle of the action. There are many other ways to introduce a story, and if you want more ideas or tips, you can go to these sites:

How to Start a Story (Used for the “Withhold Information” example)

10 Ways to Start Your Story Better

3 Ways to Start a Story

12 Ways to Open Your Novel

The point of this is, you do not have to start a story in the middle of the action. Many successful, as well as some of the most interesting, stories do not begin this way. It is not by any means a bad way to start, it’s just not the only way. What is important to capture your audience’s attention, is to introduce character and conflict in some way.

Also, when writing an introduction, do not try to get it right in the first draft. You have revisions for that. You can start writing a story where ever you want and come back to the introduction later. Just don’t focus on it so much that you forget to write the rest of your story.

———————

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” ~ Jack Kerouac

thewritershelpers:

A couple of weeks ago I made a post on writing teenagers, I don’t believe we’ve made a post on child characters recently. So here we go!

Child characters are different to adult characters for several reasons which are stated below. However these differences should make no difference to how you develop your character. A child character has likes and dislikes and both positive and negative traits. 

Innocence

Depending on the age of your child character and the life they have led, they will be more innocent to your adult characters. This does not mean they think that everything is nice and fuzzy but that they aren’t aware of a lot of the evils of the world. You have to be careful how you play innocence, for example I bet most 9/10 year old know exactly what sex is. So think carefully about how you portray this!

Naivety 

Children are naive, this does NOT mean stupid. They have less world experience and have no independence so they haven’t really seen everything in the world. This makes them naive to other cultures other people. How naive they are depends on their age, personality and background.

Impulsive

Children are more impulsive than adults. We learn through making mistakes and children are still learning (aren’t we all). So children are more likely to display impulsive behaviour. This involves saying exactly what they think. Small children of 5/6 don’t really have a dam, they just say what pops into their head.

Intelligence

Children aren’t stupid. In fact you can have a pretty good conversation with a small child and be surprised what they say. But children haven’t learnt as much as adults and their knowledge grows as they do. Intelligence however isn’t just what they know but how they apply it. 

Dialogue

Dialogue is where you are going to slip up with your child characters. This could be by making the language too mature or not mature enough. You need to know before you start writing how a child would talk, you may have to do research for this. 

It’s hard to remember what we talked like when we were that age so you may need to talk to others, watch some movies with children and read books to see how other authors have portrayed characters of a similar age.

So how do I make my child character realistic?

Research!!! If you know friends or family with young children spend some time with them, see how they interact with others and take special notice to how they speak and what words they use. The wording in dialogue is the kicker in making children realistic. 

Think back to when you were a child or look at family videos, how did you act around family? How did you play? 

Mibba: Writing Realistic Children

Writing Child Characters for Adults

Writing Realistic Children

Writing from a childs perspective (forum)

Writing from a unique perspective

The voice is the most difficult part of any character development and finding a voice for your child character is even harder. But if you can find the right voice that suits the age of your character then that’s fantastic. Don’t be put off if you don’t get it right in the first few tries, keep trying.I look forward to seeing more children characters in your works :)

Hope this has been useful to some of you!!!

-S

battasenpai:

some nice programs to draw

• mtPaint: free source tool designed to make pixel art. for Linux or Windows.

• character maker: it’s to make charsets for rpgmaker but you can use it for whatever you want. it’s in both english and spanish.

• scribblertoo: really nice website to draw with. 

• sekka: free source tool to draw things like these:

owlcritic:

List of Smut Writing Guides

Below is a list of guides that have been written on how to write smut. Credit goes to their original writers. This list will be updated each time I find a new smut guide. [Each link below is titled as the topic it covers]

• Accurately Write Gay Sex
• Bare Bones [Step by Step/Stages]
• Boners
• Casual Sex
• Erotic Horror
• Gay Sex
• Guide to Bottoming
• In General [and details]
• Kisses
• Kissing
• Language in Smut
• Lesbian Smut
• Making Love
• Planned Sex [Girl POV]
• Sex Between Virgins
• Sex Scene
• Sex Scenes
• Sex Scene References
• Terms [Vocabulary]
• The Basics
• The First Time
• Words for Sex
• Writing a Sex Scene
• Writing from a Male’s Perspective
• Writing Tips
• 12-Step Program [How to Write Sex]

Yes, some of these may not relate directly to smut or cover the topic, but they can be helpful when writing smut.

The updated list can always be found here. If there are any broken links, please let me know.

jelenahelps:

— This is a masterlist of 80 words that you could replace with the word, “beautiful”. I find that people commonly use the word, “beautiful”, when it comes to describing looks, appearance, etc. Hopefully this masterlist shows you that there are other ways to describe profiles rather than, “beautiful”. 

Read More

snarkreactors:

fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment:

OKAY, FOR ONCE AND FOR ALL WE’RE GOING TO FIGURE OUT HOW THE BLUE HELL TO WRITE A SCENE WITH TWO CHARACTERS INTERACTING WHO’VE GOT THE SAME PRONOUNS WITHOUT LETTING THEM GET MIXED UP OR WEIRD AND CONFUSING. 

THIS IS A SUMMIT. 

WRITING BLOGS, FOLLOWERS, WHAT SUGGESTIONS HAVE YOU?

AS A GAY FANFICTION WRITER I HAVE SOME TIPS.

*ahem*

under the cut to save your dash.

Read More

anidealwriter:

Editing doesn’t just mean to fix your comma errors and check your spelling.  It doesn’t just mean making sure you don’t have any run-on sentences.  Editing involves looking at your whole piece of work and making sure that it makes sense.

When I began editing my web series, I printed out all 118 pages and read through the entire thing, correcting the grammar usage and spelling errors that I found.

 

I added dialogue.  I took some away.  Mostly, though, I kept everything the same.  I didn’t change anything around.  I didn’t move episodes.  But when it came time to share my work with others, I was shocked when they found it hard to follow.

I had completely ignored an important rule of editing: I had not made sure my story made sense.  Before you start correcting the small stuff in your own work, look at the big picture.  Look at that over-arcing idea that you wanted to express.  Did you do it?  Or did you just tell a nice story that has no backbone to it at all?

If it is the latter, don’t sweat it.  There’s still time to make sure that your idea is there.

 ***

A trick that I have used in the past is to see the plot physically laid out in front of me. Honestly, this has helped me almost more than I’d like to admit.

First, separate your work into easy to manage sections.  These could be into scenes, chapters, episodes, moments, whatever works best for your story.  I broke my web series into scenes.

Then, condense those scenes into a few words that describe the gist of what is going on.  Copy down those ideas onto a separate piece of paper.  (I prefer to type them into Microsoft Word and print out what I have so I can hold the plot points in my hands.)

Once you have everything printed or written out, cut the pieces so only one plot point is on each strip.

The next bit is the fun part.  Rearrange the slips of paper until your story makes more logical sense as part of your message.  Take out some parts.  Put new parts in.  Be flexible when it comes to your writing.  Don’t worry about how the scenes will be written or which character will do what specifically.  Just focus on the overall idea.

When you have everything in the order that pleases you, compare it to your original work.  Did anything change?  Did anything stay the same?  It’s good as long as your message is coming through loud and clear.

***

That is editing.  Making sure your message is clear and if it’s not, fixing it.

spineye:

amandaonwriting:

Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA) - Resource for Crime Writers

SOURCE

well you never know when this might come in handy.