this is hard to believe but i actually own at least two hands and was even looking at them while trying to draw

@withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus mentioned how drawing on tablet is hard and that was enough for me to try again...update: it's still hard

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

Homie gonna share this

you are personally and directly hit by a bus¹ and isekai-ed, via resurrection, into the body of the main character your most recent WIP

reblog and tell me: on a scale of 1–10, how screwed are you right now?

¹ this is, transparently, a plot device, so if you are about to tell me "joke's on you, I never leave my fifteenth floor apartment!" then you may rest assured it will have tremendous comedic value when the bus is launched into the sky and crashes through your apartment wall to flatten you anyway

How to Survive the Editing Process

Writing a first draft takes so much of your time and energy. When you finish something, celebrate your accomplishment! It’s proof of your creativity and hard work.

If you want people to read your work, then it’s time to edit.

Editing can seem scary. Daunting. Confusing.

Use these tips to get started.

1. Take a Break from Your Work

It’s so important to let your brain reset after finishing any story. Close your draft and spend the next few days or weeks doing other hobbies. When you feel ready to return with a newly energized, distanced perspective, you’ll get your best editing work done.

2. Start With Developmental Editing

Writers often think that they have to start editing line by line, looking for grammar and spelling issues. While you’re free to do that, you’re likely going to add and remove plenty of content before your final draft is done. 

Instead, start with developmental editing. Read through your work and take notes about how the larger plot points are working or not working. Does each chapter move your characters through each point on your plot outline or your visualized storyline?

This step may involve adding new scenes or removing others. It can also mean reworking old scenes so they’re less wordy, more descriptive, more actionable, or whatever you feel like is missing.

Take notes about plot holes too. You don’t have to fix them on your first read-through, but note where they’re happening and why they’re holes. You can return in your second read-through to address them.

You can also break your developmental editing into questions, like:

3. Save and Start a Second Draft

After reading through your manuscript and noting the things above, create a copy for your second draft and start working on your notes. It’s good to have a separate second copy in case you want to include something from the original draft later on or just want to compare where you story started/how it ended up.

Again, you’re not supposed to worry about line work at this point. Focus on bigger-picture story issues like plot mechanics, how scenes work/don’t work, plot holes, and your theme(s).

Reminder: there’s no timeline for getting these steps done. Work when you have the energy and take breaks when you don’t. Your manuscript will stay right where you save it.

4. Reread Your Work

When you’ve worked through your list of notes, make a copy of your manuscript and start Round 3. Reread your story and start a new list of bigger-picture notes as needed. This time, the list should be shorter or include new notes that you didn’t catch before. They may also include notes for new scenes you just added.

The point of this reread is to make sure that your manuscript still works. Your plot shouldn’t have any holes, it should flow smoothly, and it should be engaging. 

Here’s a key concern for many writers: how do you edit your story without getting away from your original intentions?

Keep your eyes locked on why you write your original draft. If you make edits/scene removals or additions with that purpose or theme in mind, your story will stay on track. It may eventually look completely different than what you originally wrote (if that’s your editing journey), but the heart of it will remain the same.

Try posting your story’s purpose or theme on a sticky note attached to your monitor.

You could also write the theme in your document’s header so it appears on every page.

5. Save and Start a Fourth Draft

Yes, it’s time for another new copy that’s your official fourth draft.

Remember—you can still walk away and return to your work later! Burnout won’t result in the story you’ve been working so hard to create. Get some sleep, see some friends, enjoy your other hobbies. You’ll come back ready to go.

The fourth draft is another chance to read through your work and ensure that everything works. Your chapters should get your characters closer to your theme/purpose with each page. The scenes should flow, not repeat information, and keep you engaged.

When you have a small list of edits or none at all, it’s time to start line work.

The spell check feature of any word processing software is a lifesaver, but it’s also not perfect. You’re going to have sentence structures that spell check deems incorrect when it actually works for your writing style or character. You’ll have fake names you made up that spell check wants to change.

If you use spell check, proceed slowly. Read every sentence with a flagged issue to make sure it’s a good or bad suggestion.

You can double your line work by combing through it by yourself. Print your story and grab a highlighter or use the highlight feature on your computer. Note linework issues that you can fix with a quick edit when you get a chance, like:

6. Send Your Work to Beta Readers

Repeat the saving, making a copy, and editing as many times as you want. When you feel like you’ve got your strongest draft yet, you can send it to beta readers.

How you define beta readers depends on your specific situation. You may have a few writing friends who know the craft well and will read your work with a professional eye. You might have a family member or best friend who doesn’t know about the craft of writing but always reads your work.

There are also places like Reddit threads and Facebook groups where people volunteer as beta readers.

The primary reason to get fresh eyes on your work is to get notes from someone who hasn’t been working on the content for months or years. 

Their advice might not always be usable, but it’s still an important part of editing. Your beta reader might suggest points where they lost interest because your pacing slows down or point out places where you described your protagonist as having long hair when they have short hair during the rest of the story.

You’ll know which suggestions are actionable and which aren’t based on who’s speaking and how it resonates with your story’s purpose. You’ll probably get better advice from other writers who have been through editing before, but that doesn’t mean their advice will always be correct.

Check in with your story’s purpose or theme before taking action on a beta reader’s notes.

When Should You Stop Editing?

One of the final battles during your editing experience will be recognizing when you can stop working on your manuscript.

There will always be moments where you could think of a new scene or a new way to rewrite a scene. That doesn’t mean you have to!

Ask yourself these questions to finish your editing when your story is strongest:

Question 1: Have I Worked Through the Most Essential Plot Mechanics?

A finished manuscript doesn’t need more structural work. But structural, I mean that you’ll be at peace because your manuscript:

Question 2: Are My Edits Improvements or Are They Inconsequential?

You could spend a lifetime swapping character names, adjusting your world map, or revising how you describe locations. You might like your edits better, but they aren’t vital to your story’s plot or character development. If there’s no substantial improvement with your edits, you’re likely done with your manuscript.

-----

Editing can be tricky at first, but using steps like these will help you whack through the densest parts of the work. Take your time, give yourself space to rest, and you’ll create the story you’ve been working so hard to finish!

Bloody bride look @ Robert Wun spring 2024 couture

@dotr-rose-love this reminds me of your WIP...not sure specifically who, but in general vibes

WIP meme

tagged by @america-oreosandkitkats. thanks!!

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

All of them? ALL of them? Yeah we...we'll see about that. i don't really keep a WIP folder, I mostly just write in a series of google docs and then break them down if they're big enough to be their own thing, so this is from hunting through...all of those, which have names like "doc1" and "ideasXVIII"

Subject/Object You’re Most Alive When You Stare Death in the Face The Witch Dreaming Dust Ash Take the Long Way Home Tell Me When Lost Transmission The World in the Palm of Your Hand Mirror Image Prodigal Son Pact Honor & Glory Calm & Bright Don’t Get Me Wrong High Tide Toy Soldier March Winter Chill Pathogen I Set Fire to the Bloody Rose Garden Seven Days with the Dragon “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You” When Johnny Comes Marching Home Avalon i met a man who wasn’t there Jokers Wild A Hundred Miles Through the Desert on Your Knees Things Fall Apart Blood, Too, Has Its Price ma se contento nel mio cuore— ó cad é sin don té sin nach mbaineann sin dó? Big American Summer Road Trip Movie Golden heretic. Once & Future King Abysmal Water in the Desert A Cold Night for Alligators Orphan Signal The House on Liberty Avenue Ace Up Your Sleeve Man in the Moon Bridge to Nowhere That Funny Feeling they got that long island sound Rosary Beads

yeah we're...not even halfway thru just the hetalia WIPs. my work method is to get bored and start something new, and then go back...eventually...

I'll leave an open tag because I don't even think I know that many people in real life

From Messy thumbnail sketches to a sketch ready for lineart!

This sketch is one of ones (so far) that have changed the most from idea to ink-ready. I changed up the pose, the position from bank of the lake to in the lake, cave/rock faces vs distant hills, etc.

I am the artist! Do not post without permission & credit! Thank you! Come visit me over on: instagram.com/ellenartistic or tiktok: @ellenartistic

Once I finish killing this guy the cycle of violence will be over, trust me guys

I need everyone’s best character advice. STAT.

-'Interesting' is more important than 'likeable.' 'Interesting' means they cause the story to happen. This will, in turn, make the readers like them, or at least care about continuing to read. On that note:

-Use characters as tools to tell a story, not a bunch of random people who happen to be in the same place. If they don't push the story along, you don't need them here. yes this is aimed at 'i have a bunch of OCs but no plot' because i've been there too. 'The Story' includes things like backstory, characterization, and all the parts outside the plot that make the world feel real.

-Let your characters be unpleasant people. Let them make bad choices. Let them act like assholes. Let them cause bad things to happen. Keeping them 'safe' only undermines the momentum you've built up and makes it clear to your readers that you'll never let anything actually threaten your ~pwecious babbies,~ which means the readers won't care about what's going on.

-Romances are stronger when you start from the position that the characters will NOT get together. I don't mean 'make them enemies' (unless that's what you're going for), I mean you have to PROVE, beyond all the challenges presented, that they really ARE meant to be together.

-Explore a theme. What questions does this character make us ask? How does their arc answer those questions? How do they & the actions they take fit into their world? What might that mean for our real lives? etc. This gives the character more importance in a reader's mind, gives you--the author--some prompts as to how their story & personality should be fleshed out, and keeps them feeling consistent.

Reblog if you write fic and people can inbox you random-ass questions about your stories, itemized number lists be damned.

hey it’s okay. maybe you’ll feel better if you imagine your OCs in fucked up situations

Bell Rock, Sedona, Arizona.

In Prohibition-era New York, a card from a well-known speakeasy would permit entrance to almost any other.

Photo: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images/Fine Art America

Quick! The first OC you think of is dropped in the world of the last movie/show you watched. How are they faring?

Ohoho, this is good. So the last movie I saw was "Talk to me" and the first OC that came to mind was Leonard.

So yeah, the kids would be fucked way sooner if he was in that world. The kids call spirits in when they use the hand, but Leon's a demon and a playful one too so...he'd mock the shit out of them and have them make out like animals. There is a scene in the movie of a spirit doing sth similar to what Leon would do to sb, if they let him in, but he wouldn't do it with the dog, cause he loves animals and that's nasty even for him. He'd be rolling with laughter, but not provoke it himself. He'd probably have them running around the block naked too, drink till they drop, set stuff on fire...oh and if any other spirit tried to interfere with the host he's playing with, he'd choke them before they tried, or let them enter the body and burn them while in it.

And now I am curious about a few other people so @kainablue, @kittensartswriting and @atomic-insomnia, if you are down, tell me what you got on this one for your random OC entering the world of the last movie/series you last watched.

hmmm, let's see

i think the last movie i watched was The Haunting (1963?), the old movie version of The Haunting of Hill House. The first OC i thought of was Vinny, who is literally the embodiment of anxiety and repression, so...he'd fit right in with the characters

I have no idea why he'd be drawn to the house--maybe the doctor mistakes Vinny's connection with Amelia's "psychic" powers for real psychic phenomena and so he talks himself into going. He would either a) panic as soon as the house started getting creepy and immediately try to leave or b) get really annoyed at the mysterious happenings and start talking shit to the house (in the way people curse at inanimate objects for failing to work). Either way he'd probably disappear or die quickly...

you know if i didn't already have a million AU's for Beg, Borrow or Steal's characters they would actually work really well in a Hill House style set up of strangers with issues brought together in a haunted house that messes with them

@atomic-insomnia haha, i see. He'd fit very well in that case indeed as a character trying to run from the house. Still I'd prefer to see the cussing version cause it'd be funny if things are being weird around him and everyone's scared, but he is done with everyone "trying to scare him" and keeps thinking yeah wow scary until he sees someone actually die and go crazy, screaming an running around like a headless hen. xD I don't know if you've finished Beg, Borrow or Steal but if you haven't and still have written so many AUs around it instead, it is quite admirable. :P But when you are constantly bamboozled by ideas that don't fit the main story, it's always good to get it out in other ways. ^^

lols I just thought this was fitting

[I haven't yet finished the main story for Beg, Borrow or Steal, actually I should be done by now but I keep putting it off; but I constantly get half an idea for a new setting or storyline and I know I won't write out the whole thing...so into the AU bin it goes]