atimeforeverything567

[atimeforeverything567]

Camp Nanowrimo July 2022

I am 30K plus words into this project and I have barely scratched the surface of this project. This is the first time I may actually win this thing and I don’t even think I’ll reach the end by the time I reach the final day. 

*Wails into the void in Author

[atimeforeverything567]

Surnames are just as important as given names. So, I compiled a list of the websites I use to find my surnames.

English Surnames

Dutch Surnames

Spanish Surnames

Scottish Surnames

German Surnames

Italian Surnames

Irish Surnames

French Surnames

Scandinavian Surnames

Welsh Surnames

Jewish Surnames

Surnames By Ethnicity

Most Common Surnames in the USA

Most Common Surnames in Great Britan

Most Common Surnames in Asia

[atimeforeverything567]

Calling for Narusaku prompts!

Hello my fellow lovers of narusaku. With all thats been happening in the world, I would like to take a much needed breather through writing. What better way to do that than through my OTP! (Also, trying to get back into the habit of writing too)

If you have ideas that you are willing to share, feel free to send them to me and I will do my best to write them out.

[atimeforeverything567]

Hii!! I just want to ask if you have any tips or resources in writing character relationships?? Like I want to build a relationship between two characters in a relatively short time but i dont want it to feel rushed,,,,thank you so much!! Your blog has helped me alot!!

I have quite a few resources and advice on the topic of building romantic relationships in a story, so I’ve linked some relevant resources below that you might find useful:

How To Fit Character Development Into Your Story

Creating A Love Interest For An Introvert

 Writing Opposites Who Attract

Resources For Plot Development

Guide To Plot Development

Describing Heartbreak

 Developing Complicated Plots Around Characters

Writing Great Fanfiction

How To Write The Perfect Kiss

On Romantic Subplots

Resources For Romance Writers

Tips On Writing Skinny Love

Guide To Writing Friends To Lovers

Guide To Writing Enemies To Lovers

Guide To Writing Faded Love

Resources For Writing YA Fiction/Romance

Guide To Writing Will-They-Won’t-They

Rivalry vs. Abuse

Guide To Writing Forbidden Love

20 Mistakes To Avoid in YA/Romance

Balancing Fluff and Conflict

 Best Friends To Lovers Resources

How to develop an Emeies-To-Lovers story

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[atimeforeverything567]

Reblog the writers’ fortune cookie for luck!

[atimeforeverything567]

Description in Fanfic

@ao3commentoftheday had some interesting things going on recently talking about description (and a lack thereof) in fanfiction. Instead of cluttering a post, I wanted to talk about my experiences over time with writing description in fic.

Namely, how I’m having to consciously relearn to write description, and how I feel it adds tremendous value to a story.

Now, I am not passing judgment on anyone who doesn’t do description in fic. It’s one of those things you literally do not have to do in fanfic because your target audience already knows what everyone and everywhere looks like, unlike in original fic where you have to spell everything out.

That said, I have the privilege of writing with a few other stellar fic writers (who also, perhaps not coincidentally, write original fiction) and each one of them is just… fantastic in description, and it has made me aware that I’d personally fallen into barely describing… anything. I can only think it started with “well of course people know what this place/person/thing looks like, they’ve played the game/watched the series/etc!” and just… snowballed into being super lax with description of anything.

And again, it’s not that I feel you absolutely have to in fic, because by nature people can fill in the blanks unless you’re deviating from canon. In fact, I can’t say I always notice it’s missing.

But.

I always notice when it’s added. Description adds so much depth, you have to go seriously overboard into the realm of tediousness before it could actually detract.

I’m not saying you have to stop and give the sort of standard OF “protagonist describes themselves” or infodump about a location, but a casual note about character details or a little paragraph description of a location - even just a throwaway line or two - can set the mood. 

Not only that, but it’s super helpful for people who A) haven’t been back to the canon source in a while, B) have never had access to canon and are just ‘learning’ through fanon, C) aren’t actually in the fandom, but are reading it because you wrote it.

It also serves to cement a scene in your mind. Seriously, giving yourself a more concrete mental image can help anchor you in the moment, and make your characters more reactive.

I’m sure there’s other people who can address this more eloquently but yeah… description, while not actually needed in fanfic, can add to it’s quality tremendously and is frankly just good practice for you as a writer, period.

[atimeforeverything567]

A Writing Cheat Sheet: for linking actions with emotions. 

As always, click for HD.

[atimeforeverything567]

Jonerys Fic Rec: it’s a game of survival by SarahRoseSerena

Hello, Jonerys Fam! Do you think the latest season of Game of Thrones is a steaming pile of shit, and wish to forget it ever existed in the first place? Do you think D&D completely assassinated everything about this show because they get hard ons from their shock fetish? Well have no fear! 

~*~*~*Fanfiction is here~*~*~*

Yet again in my lifetime I turn to Fanfiction to cleanse my soul from all the bullshit I had to take in on screen. I present to you it’s a game of survival by SarahRoseSerena.  @SarahRoseSerena is a genius! I’m kind of surprised it’s not mentioned much on the Jonerys tag, but it is the best jonerys fanfiction I have ever read. 

Dany ends up at Hardhome after Drogon saves her from the Sons of the Harpy, and then she meets a stupidly handsome lord commander who knows nothing. Romance ensues. Ghost gets the love he deserves. Women respect each other. It’s just everything I wanted to see in the latest season but didn’t get.

Check it out! The only catch is that the author hasn’t updated in a while, but after that shit storm on screen, you won’t regret it. 

LINK 

[atimeforeverything567]

[atimeforeverything567]

[thread]

I think it’s worth looking at why bad endings ruin stories. This will be a big rambling thread I’m gonna chip away at so feel free to mute if it’s not your cup of tea #storytalk

I was inspired to write this after @MagnoliaPearl posted something about the ending of Parks & Rec. Which was abysmal. To the point where when I rewatched the series, I stopped before the last season. It’s an ending that felt like a betrayal even though it was a “happy” one

You can’t just toss in good things happening to characters that they haven’t earned. Everyone can’t win the lottery in the last episode. That’s not a happy ending, it’s Deus ex machina that betrays all the things the characters actually struggled for

If you were to draw a story curve, in general a happy ending is one where the characters end up better than where they started but really not too much better. It really depends heavily on how wildly the rest of your graph swings during the rest of your book

Here’s an entertaining clip of Kurt Vonnegut explaining a little tongue in cheek bit about graphing stories that’s actually pretty helpful for explaining what I’m getting at

If you look at P&R that way, it’d probably look a little something like this. It’s easy enough to see where reality breaks

It’s a bit of an exaggeration but not much. The point is, you probably shouldn’t swing too far up from whatever was your highest point during the story. If your previous high was “couple gets married,” then “couple has baby” is a realistic ending. “Couple win lottery” maybe not

Actually, never have anyone win the lottery after the first act. Unless it’s an inciting incident that forms the foundation of the entire story…no lottery. That’s a good rule

But the thing that really got me thinking was why does it matter? The show is over, right? It’s not like I’m then forced to then watch a show about Leslie Knope being President. I think it matters for a few reasons and bear with me here cuz I’m making this up as I go…

One is what I’ll call the Evergreen Ending principle. Which is that even though the story has ended, you need to be able to imagine the characters are continuing to have similar adventures forever. That’s part of what makes an ending feel good, especially for serialized media

Obviously, things will be different because the Real Story already happened. But it needs to be easy to imagine how these characters go on doing essentially the same stuff forever. The only thing worse than the ending P&R gave us would be one where Leslie retires, for example

This is also why I hate epilogues. Like the ending of Harry Potter where they all old and have kids. Let the audience imagine what happens next. That part isn’t for the creator to say. Back off and let your audience take over

If you change too much, even for the better, you’ve also ruined any possibility of the Evergreen Ending. You’ve essentially created a whole new series where everything is different, which only works if you’re then planning to tell that new story

Bad endings can never be fixed. Every other story problem can potentially be resolved. Which I think is why those moments tend to pull back the curtain on a writer’s failings. It’s why writing endings is so stressful

But here’s what I think works. And this is obviously just my opinion and who the hell am I? But I think that when you reach the real end of your story, your plot should be on autopilot. If you’ve done your job, the story will just fly home itself

Don’t try to solve any more problems with plot. Unless you have a twist ending, accept that it’ll be a somewhat predictable finish and that’s okay. The only thing you need to tend to is the audience’s emotional needs. And have those needs reflect themselves in the characters

A real happy ending is knowing the characters are going to be okay. That they’ve finally found a little bit of balance and ended up better than they started. That who they are is good enough and always has been. And that they can handle whatever comes next.

[atimeforeverything567]

I think the best piece of character design advice I ever received was actually from a band leadership camp I attended in june of 2017. 

the speaker there gave lots of advice for leaders—obviously, it was a leadership camp—but his saying about personality flaws struck me as useful for writers too. 

he said to us all “your curses are your blessings and your blessings are your curses” and went on to explain how because he was such a great speaker, it made him a terrible listener. he could give speeches for hours on end and inspire thousands of people, but as soon as someone wanted to talk to him one on one or vent to him, he struggled with it. 

he had us write down our greatest weakness and relate it to our biggest strength (mine being that I am far too emotional, but I’m gentle with others because I can understand their emotions), and the whole time people are sharing theirs, my mind was running wild with all my characters and their flaws.

previously, I had added flaws as an after thought, as in “this character seems too perfect. how can I make them not-like-that?” but that’s not how people or personalities work. for every human alive, their flaws and their strengths are directly related to each other. you can’t have one without the other.

is your character strong-willed? that can easily turn into stubbornness. is your character compassionate? maybe they give too many chances. are they loyal? then they’ll destroy the world for the people they love.

it works the other way around too: maybe your villain only hates the protagonist’s people because they love their own and just have a twisted sense of how to protect them. maybe your antagonist is arrogant, but they’ll be confident in everything they do.

tl;dr “your curses are your blessings, and your blessings are your curses” there is no such thing as a character flaw, just a strength that has been stretched too far.

[atimeforeverything567]

I Didn’t Think I Shipped It But The Fic Writers for This Ship Really Brought Their A Game: a memoir.

[atimeforeverything567]

[ Live Example | My AO3 Skins ]

While AO3 has a way to click to see notes at the end, this tutorial is how you can not only have your viewers click to view certain notes, but also click back to where they had been reading before. We don’t even need to use a workskin for this, but just an implementation of simple anchor links. So whether you have a lot of references in your work or just want to let your inner Pratchett* loose, this is how you do it.

Keep reading

[atimeforeverything567]

Cucculelli Shaheen “La Dolce Verita” Fall 2019 Ready-to-Wear Collection

[atimeforeverything567]

“Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of by the folk.”

— Henry Jenkins (Director of media studies at MIT)

LOVE THIS.

(via flootzavut)

[atimeforeverything567]

“canon compliant? more like canon defiant!”

— every AU writer ever

[atimeforeverything567]

How a society handles crime can say a lot about it’s culture. Consider the following when you are developing your setting:

What crimes are punished the most severely?

Are people presumed guilty or innocent?

Who decides the outcome of trials?

Does the law apply to everyone or are some (such as royalty) above it?

Does the death penalty exist? If so, how are people killed?

How harsh are punishments in general?

Are certain groups punished more harshly or leniently than others (e.g. the rich getting lighter punishments)?

Are people debating whether certain things (e.g. recreational drugs) should be legal?

What kinds of accusations can have a long term impact on someone’s reputation even if they are ultimately found innocent?

Do prisons prioritize punishment or rehabilitation?

How humane are the conditions in prisons? If they aren’t very good, does this bother the general populace?

Once released from prison, how hard is it for people to return to their old lives? How hard is it for them to get new jobs?

Are certain groups seen as more likely to commit crimes?

What is the most commonly committed crime?

What laws exist but are rarely enforced for one reason or another?

Does the society have any especially strange/unique laws that would surprise an outsider?

What behaviors used to be crimes but aren’t anymore? Are they still frowned upon to a degree?