the suffering never ends
This is the real process
Resources for you!
Character Ideas:
- Character creation masterpost
- Character Alignment Chart
- More character alignment descriptions
- Muslim Character questions
- Characters with magical powers
- Building a new character advice
- How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)
- Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page
- Basic character profile
- OC masterpost
- Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)
- D&D Character Building Tool
Character Design Ideas:
- How clothing affects a character’s personality
- Character Design Inspiration blog
- Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by
- Character design references and inspiration
- Sources for POC character design ideas and models
- Create your own character model using HeroForge
- For horned characters
- Body and hair types guide
- Random outfit generator
Naming Help:
- Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources
- General advice on avoiding naming appropriation
- Hispanic Surnames
- Gothic Victorian names
- Huge master list for character things in general
- Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more
- Another name masterlist
- How to pick a character name guide
- Yet another names masterlist
Creating Background/backstory:
- Character Sheet/Development Sheet
- Another character development list
- In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet
- 320 talents and passions for characters
- On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous
- Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary
- Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes
- Random backstory generator
- Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid
Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:
- Comparing character height/height references
- Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science
- Describing what different voices sound like
- Describing skin tones
- Writing friendship interactions that are platonic
- Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea
- Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing
- Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)
- How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters
- How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero
- On platonic OC and canon character relationships
- How to avoid Godmodding in RPs
- When it’s cheap to kill off a character
- Writing dialogue
- Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters
- Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs
- Slang resources
- Dialogue tips
- Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships
BLESS EVERYONE IN THIS POST.
I will always reblog this!
This is an ultimate masterlist of many resources that could be helpful for writers. I apologize in advance for any not working links. Check out the ultimate writing resource masterlist here (x) and my “novel” tag here (x).
✑ PLANNING
Outlining & Organizing
- For the Architects: The Planning Process
- Rough Drafts
- How do you plan a novel?
- Plot Development: Climax, Resolution, and Your Main Character
- Plotting and Planing
- I Have An Idea for a Novel! Now What?
- Choosing the Best Outline Method
- How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method
- Effectively Outlining Your Plot
- Conflict and Character within Story Structure
- Outlining Your Plot
- Ideas, Plots & Using the Premise Sheets
✑ INSPIRATION
- Finding story ideas
- Choosing ideas and endings
- When a plot isn’t strong enough to make a whole story
- Writing a story that’s doomed to suck
- How to Finish What You Start: A Five-Step Plan for Writers
- Finishing Your Novel
- Finish Your Novel
- How to Finish Your Novel when You Want to Quit
- How To Push Past The Bullshit And Write That Goddamn Novel: A Very Simple No-Fuckery Writing Plan
✑ PLOT
In General
- 25 Turns, Pivots and Twists to Complicate Your Story
- The ABCs (and Ds and Es) of Plot Development
- Originality Is Overrated
- How to Create a Plot Outline in Eight Easy Steps
- Finding Plot: Idea Nets
- The Story Goal: Your Key to Creating a Solid Plot Structure
- Make your reader root for your main character
- Creating Conflict and Sustaining Suspense
- Tips for Creating a Compelling Plot
- The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations
- Adding Subplots to a Novel
- Weaving Subplots into a Novel
- 7 Ways to Add Subplots to Your Novel
- Crafting a Successful Romance Subplot
- How to Improve your Writing: Subplots and Subtext
- Understanding the Role of Subplots
- How to Use Subtext in your Writing
- The Secret Life of Subtext
- How to Use Subtext
Beginning
- Creating a Process: Getting Your Ideas onto Paper (And into a Story)
- Why First Chapters?
- Starting with a Bang
- In the Beginning
- The Beginning of your Novel that isn’t the Beginning of your Novel
- A Beginning from the Middle
- Starting with a Bang
- First Chapters: What To Include @ The Beginning Writer
- 23 Clichés to Avoid When Beginning Your Story
- Start Writing Now
- Done Planning. What Now?
- Continuing Your Long-Format Story
- How to Start a Novel
- 100 best first lines from novels
- The First Sentence of a Book Report
- How To Write A Killer First Sentence To Open Your Book
- How to Write the First Sentence of a Book
- The Most Important Sentence: How to Write a Killer Opening
- Hook Your Reader from the First Sentence: How to Write Great Beginnings
Foreshadowing
- Foreshadowing and the Red Hering
- Narrative Elements: Foreshadowing
- Foreshadowing and Suspense
- Foreshadowing Key Details
- Writing Fiction: Foreshadowing
- The Literary Device of Foreshadowing
- All About Foreshadowing in Fiction
- Foreshadowing
- Flashbacks and Foreshadowing
- Foreshadowing — How and Why to Use It In Your Writing
Setting
- Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life
- Write a Setting for a Book
- Writing Dynamic Settings
- How To Make Your Setting a Character
- Guide for Setting
- 5 Tips for Writing Better Settings
- Building a Novel’s Setting
Ending
- A Novel Ending
- How to End Your Novel
- How to End Your Novel 2
- How to End a Novel With a Punch
- How to End a Novel
- How to Finish a Novel
- How to Write The Ending of Your Novel
- Keys to Great Endings
- 3 Things That End A Story Well
- Ending a Novel: Five Things to Avoid
- Endings that Ruin Your Novel
- Closing Time: The Ending
✑ CHARACTER
Names
- Behind the Name
- Surname Meanings and Origins
- Surname Meanings and Origins - A Free Dictionary of Surnames
- Common US Surnames & Their Meanings
- Last Name Meanings & Origins
- Name Generators
- Name Playground
Different Types of Characters
- Ways To Describe a Personality
- Character Traits Meme
- Types of Characters
- Types of Characters in Fiction
- Seven Common Character Types
- Six Types of Courageous Characters
- Creating Fictional Characters (Masterlist)
- Building Fictional Characters
- Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
- Character Building Workshop
- Tips for Characterization
- Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
- Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills
Males
- Strong Male Characters
- The History and Nature of Man Friendships
- Friendship for Guys (No Tears!)
- ‘I Love You, Man’ and the rules of male friendship
- Male Friendship
- Understanding Male Friendship
- Straight male friendship, now with more cuddling
Character Development
- P.O.V. And Background
- Writing a Character: Questionnaire
- 10 Days of Character Building
- Getting to Know Your Characters
- Character Development Exercises
✑ STYLE
Chapters
- How Many Chapters is the Right Amount of Chapters?
- The Arbitrary Nature of the Chapter
- How Long is a Chapter?
- How Long Should Novel Chapters Be?
- Chapter & Novel Lengths
- Section vs. Scene Breaks
Dialogue
- The Passion of Dialogue
- 25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue
- Dialogue Writing Tips
- Punctuation Dialogue
- How to Write Believable Dialogue
- Writing Dialogue: The Music of Speech
- Writing Scenes with Many Characters
- It’s Not What They Say …
- Top 10 Tips for Writing Dialogue
- Speaking of Dialogue
- Dialogue Tips
- Interrupted Dialogue
- Two Tips for Interrupted Dialogue
Show, Don’t Tell (Description)
- “Tell” Makes a Great Placeholder
- The Literary Merit of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich
- Bad Creative Writing Advice
- The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do
- DailyWritingTips: Show, Don’t Tell
- GrammarGirl: Show, Don’t Tell
- Writing Style: What Is It?
- Detail Enhances Your Fiction
- Using Sensory Details
- Description in Fiction
- Using Concrete Detail
- Depth Through Perception
- Showing Emotions & Feelings
Character Description
- Describing Your Characters (by inkfish7 on DeviantArt)
- Help with Character Development
- Creating Characters that Jump Off the Page
- Omitting Character Description
- Introducing Your Character(s): DON’T
- Character Crafting
- Writer’s Relief Blog: “Character Development In Stories And Novels”
- Article: How Do You Think Up Your Characters?
- 5 Character Points You May Be Ignoring
- List of colors, hair types and hairstyles
- List of words to use in a character’s description
- 200 words to describe hair
- How to describe hair
- Words used to describe the state of people’s hair
- How to describe your haircut
- Hair color sharts
- Four Ways to Reveal Backstory
- Words Used to Describe Clothes
Flashbacks
- Using Flashbacks in Writing
- Flashbacks by All Write
- Using Flashback in Fiction
- Fatal Backstory
- Flashbacks as opening gambit
- Don’t Begin at the Beginning
- Flashbacks in Books
- TVTropes: Flashback
- Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear: Flashback Techniques in Fiction
- 3 Tips for Writing Successful Flashbacks
- The 5 Rules of Writing Effective Flashbacks
- How to Handle Flashbacks In Writing
- Flashbacks and Foreshadowing
- Reddit Forum: Is a flashback in the first chapter a good idea?
- Forum Discussing Flackbacks
P.O.V
- You, Me, and XE - Points of View
- What’s Your Point of View?
- Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid “Stepping Out of Character”
- How to Start Writing in the Third Person
- The Opposite Gender P.O.V.
LANGUAGE
- How To Say Said
- 200 Words Instead of Said
- Words to Use Instead of Said
- A List of Words to Use Instead of Said
- Alternatives to “Walk”
- 60 Synonyms for “Walk”
✑ USEFUL WEBSITES/LINKS
- Grammar Monster
- Google Scholar
- GodChecker
- Tip Of My Tounge
- Speech Tags
- Pixar Story Rules
- Written? Kitten!
- TED Talks
- DarkCopy
- Family Echo
- Some Words About Word Count
- How Long Should My Novel Be?
- The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test
- Writer’s “Cheat Sheets”
Last but not least, the most helpful tool for any writer out there is Google!
In My Dreams
Pairings: Charlie Heaton x Reader Words: 1,366 Warnings: None that I know of A/N: So I was driving tonight and In My Dreams came on and put me in my feels and I based this around that song, I wrote about Charlie sense everyone asked! I hope you enjoy it, it turned out better than what I expected. ALSO: I was doing research for the “different dimension” part (which is completely inaccurate, I just made it up) and I found out Charlie has a three-year-old son???? Am I the only one that didn’t know this? Anywho, I hope you like it!
Loud music pumps through the floorboards, people cheer raising their cups when the chorus of the song screams through the speakers, you can’t help but join along. You lost Camryn hours ago, she fled your side within minutes of arriving to the scene, promising she’d be back when she was ready to go. You didn’t mind, it was freeing being away from your roommate, even if it was only for a few hours.
You mingle with strangers, holding meaningless conversations to pass the time. Some offer to refill your drink, you kindly decline each time content with the light buzz your first drink provided. You laugh along with a small crowd as some blonde girl told a story, you weren’t paying much attention. You feel as if eyes were on you, lingering from afar. You scan unfamiliar faces until you lock eyes with a handsome man across the room.
His eyes burn into yours causing your breath to hitch in your throat. You try to tear your eyes away from his fixed gaze, he caught your attention. Maybe it was the fact he was dressed in your favorite color and it suited him well, maybe you’ll never know. You stand, unable to move as he pushes himself off the wall and towards you, a smirk forming on his lips.