liz-is-up-to-no-good

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

I say shit like "If my memory serves me" knowing damn well it serves the dark lord

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

*cries*

you are not a wasteland you just need ibuprofen and a hot bath and a shower and a nutritious meal and some water and some fresh air and to do something productive and to do something creative and to do something that takes physical exertion and to do something social

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

writing tip #3609:

wave an umbrella around during your next brain storm

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

Please don't.

i am the ghost of the unfinished novel you wrote when you were 12 and i demand to be brought back to the world of the living

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

Je fête mes 9 ans sur Tumblr 🥳

OMG I feel so old. 9 years already ?

My back (still) hurts

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

— unknown

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

This is a neutral post

Feel free to stop here and rest before journeying to the posts below.

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

I will literally joke about how I'm a hater then remember people literally have whole blogs dedicated to hating people and media and actually maybe I'm a lover who happens to occasionally dabble on criticising the things i don't like.

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

💥🙌👏

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

Sons Of The Labyrinth or The Things Our Fathers Do To Us

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

I forgot how lonely it is to write original fiction.

Where are the kudos? The subscriptions? The comments? The people cheerleading me chapter to chapter? Where are the kind words and compliments and reassurances that what I'm writing isn't complete crap? Where are the unhinged emojis? The asks on Tumblr? Where are my mutuals in my dms apologizing for not reading the latest chapter right away (side note, you know you don't have to apologize at all, right??). Where is the fanart? Where are the recs?

Where is my motivation to keep going?

It's something I've been thinking about a lot, actually, lately. How the experience of writing fanfic is so unique. How you already have an audience, willing and waiting and captive. And that's really it, isn't it? You have an audience. It's almost performative, writing fanfic. It's being on a stage, a one-person show (or two, if you do it with a friend); it's getting live reactions to your performance, it's feeding off the energy of the crowd and informing it back in a feedback loop; it's improvised, sometimes, in almost-real-time. It's building something that you couldn't have built by yourself. A thing that takes on a life of its own.

It's an experience you can't get writing original fiction, and, honestly, not having it is making it hard to write something original at all.

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

Wrong: Ada Lovelace invented computer science and immediately tried to use it to cheat at gambling because she was Lord Byron's daughter.

Right: Ada Lovelace invented computer science and immediately tried to use it to cheat at gambling because that was the closest you could get in 1850 to being a Super Mario 64 speedrunner.

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

Writing Weapons (1): Swords

The Thrusting Sword

Type of fight scene: entertaining, duels, non-lethal fights, non-gory deaths, swashbuckling adventure

Mostly used in: Europe, including Renaissance and Regency periods

Typical User: silm, male or female, good aerobic fitness

Main action: thrust, pierce, stab

Main motion: horizontal with the tip forward

Shape: straight, often thin, may be lightweight

Typical Injury: seeping blood, blood stains spreading

Strategy: target gaps in the armous, pierce a vital organ

Disadvantage: cannot slice through bone or armour

Examples: foil, epee, rapier, gladius

The Cleaving Sword

Type of fight scene: gritty, brutal, battles, cutting through armour

Typical user: tall brawny male with broad shulders and bulging biceps

Mostly used in: Medieval Europe

Main action: cleave, hack, chop, cut, split

Main motion: downwards

Shape: broad, straight, heavy, solid, sometime huge, sometimes need to be held in both hands, both sides sharpened

Typical Injury: severed large limbs

Strategy: hack off a leg, them decapitate; or split the skull

Disadvantage: too big to carry concealed, too heavy to carry in daily lifem too slow to draw for spontaneous action

Examples: Medieval greatsword, Scottish claymore, machete, falchion

The Slashing Sword

Type of fight scene: gritty or entertaining, executions, cavalry charge, on board a ship

Mostly used in: Asia, Middle East

Typical user: male (female is plausible), any body shape, Arab, Asian, mounted warrior, cavalryman, sailor, pirate

Main action: slash, cut, slice

Main motion: fluid, continuous, curving, eg.figure-eight

Shape: curved, often slender, extremely sharp on the outer edge

Typical Injury: severed limbs, lots of spurting blood

Strategy: first disable opponent's sword hand (cut it off or slice into tendons inside the elbow)

Disadvantage: unable to cut thorugh hard objects (e.g. metal armor)

Examples: scimitar, sabre, saif, shamshir, cutlass, katana

Blunders to Avoid:

Weapons performing what they shouldn't be able to do (e.g. a foil slashing metal armour)

Protagonists fighting with weapons for which they don't have the strength or build to handle

The hero carrying a huge sword all the time as if it's a wallet

Drawing a big sword form a sheath on the back (a physical impossiblity, unless your hero is a giant...)

Generic sword which can slash, stab, cleave, slash, block, pierce, thrust, whirl through the air, cut a few limbs, etc...as if that's plausible

adapted from <Writer's Craft> by Rayne Hall

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

— Do you remember me ?

— I remember a girl with a smile as bright as the sun. And even if you're not smiling, I know it's you : in the corner of your lips lies the warmth of a tight embrace. You don't radiate like the midday sun but like the last ray of twilight, that one only the eyes can see without getting injuried. So no, I don't remember you but I still remember the sun. And I find some pieces of you in it.

— The Descendant of the Sun

[liz-is-up-to-no-good]

Writing Tips Master Post

Character writing/development:

Character Arcs

Making Character Profiles

Character Development

Comic Relief Arc

Internal Conflict

Creating Distinct Characters

Suicidal Urges/Martyr Complex

Creating Likeable Characters

Writing Strong Female Characters

Writing POC Characters

Character Voices

Plot devices/development:

Intrigue in Storytelling

Enemies to Lovers

Alternatives to Killing Characters

Worldbuilding

Misdirection

Consider Before Killing Characters

Foreshadowing

Narrative:

Emphasising the Stakes

Avoid Info-Dumping

Writing Without Dialogue

1st vs. 2nd vs. 3rd Perspective

Fight Scenes (More)

Transitions

Pacing

Dialogue Tips

Writing Cheating

Book writing:

Connected vs. Stand-Alone Series

A & B Stories

Writer resources:

Writing YouTube Channels, Podcasts, & Blogs

Outlining/Writing/Editing Software

Miscellaneous:

Overcoming Writer's Block

1000 Follower Special

Writing Fantasy

Character Ask Game

Character Ask Game #2