mutuals I am sneaking up behind you and gently placing this on your head

🚨This is a Red Alert for net neutrality 🚨

Last December, the FCC voted to to kill net neutrality. If we do not take action, this will kill the free and open internet as we know it. The internet needs you—all of you—to make sure your voices are heard NOW.

We need all hands on deck for this one. It may be our last chance. If you’re feeling under-informed and overwhelmed about why net neutrality is so incredibly important, we have this handy guide just for you.

Here’s what you can do to save the internet:

This is important. This matters. It’s up to you to help. 

Hey. You there. Aspiring author. Keep writing. The world needs your words. Every single author - big and small, indie and trad, young and old - once stood where you stand, wondering if they were kidding themselves. Keep going. You got this.

I couldn’t resist this. The idea of space sirens and starmaids just make me want to grab pen and paper instantly. So, this is how I enjoyed my free Sunday. <3 My thanks for @quietpinetrees for the wonderful inspiration.

Scanned and coloured version, traditional media, A4-ish

As a writer, very little brings me as much joy as being the inspiration for someone else’s creativity. I want to thank @drachenmagier for sharing this magnificent art with the world.

I hope everyone inspired by my writing to create something of their own is kind enough to share it.

If you're a creator and you needed to hear this today:

You have no idea how many people lurk on your work. No idea how many times people go back to revisit your work. How big they smile when they simply think about your work. How fast their heart beats, how excited they get when they see that you posted something.

People are shy with their feedback. Sometimes it’s because they’re simply shy. Other times it’s because they assume you already know how great and talented you are. Could be both.

My point is, even if you barely have any likes or reblogs, don’t get discouraged. You have a lot of silent fans, but they are still your fans. Keep on creating. Because there is always someone out there who will love what you have made.

Escape into fiction writing…

I have enjoyed the journey of fiction with others in the past and am looking to revive a long dormant and rewarding hobby. It’s simple, we take turns progressing a story. 

On your turn, you are in control. You decided who lives, dies, falls in love, what they think, what they do, what they say, ect… 

I just ask that you have a basic grasp of grammar and stay true to the continuity of the tale, respecting what the person before you has already written. This is fun because you never know where the story will take you as you pick up where the last person left off.  

This story can take place in any genre, time period, or location.  

Examples, but not limited to: 

Epic Fantasy- This is where we step into the land of gods, monsters, magic, swords, bows, creatures, quest… 

Deep Space- This can include stories about generational spacecraft, wormholes to new parts of the universe, exploring with alien technology that crash landed on Earth given humans the ability to travel faster than light speed. 

Apocalypse- Zombies, nuclear fallout, an underground ocean that slowly swallows Earth after released by an Earthquake, the sun moves further away or gets closer…. 

Modern Romance with a Twist- This can be a significant age difference, rich/poor, cultural difference. This can be taken slow. How did they meet? What caused them to be more to each other? What is the meeting of family and friends like? How does their relationship progress? 

These are just some ways in which I have taken a journey with others. 

So if this idea has peaked your interest, e-mail me at ​fictonfan870@gmail.com​ and lets get started. 

You can write a start, or ask a question, or request I start a certain idea. So if your looking for a distraction and escape from everyday life, please join me. 

For any of our writers out there! Collaborative writing is awesome for creativity!

tag yourself: writers edition

Honestly, I'm a mix between all of them, but god complex is fairly accurate. I'm an evil writer lol

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE THAT SUMS UP ALL TEN: If it sounds like writing, re-write it.

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. 

2. Avoid prologues. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. Because “said” is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”… …he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.” This rule doesn’t require an explanation. Writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things. Long descriptions often bring the action and the flow of the story to a standstill.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. In those moments, the writer is often writing for the sake of writing, perhaps taking another shot at the weather or going into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care.

Very good rules. Except they can all be broken, and occasionally should be broken. Here are some examples that can help you identify when to break these rules. 

1. Don’t open with the weather - unless you have a very good reason to do so. 

For example, you might expect a funeral scene to be dark and dreary, overcast, even raining. But what if you open on a bright, sunny, summer day - with a group of people gathered in a cemetery wearing all black? That immediately subverts the readers expectations and creates an interesting dynamic. And of course, if the weather is very unusual or extreme, like a tornado hitting your MC’s house, that works too.

2. Avoid prologues - unless the prologue helps create an interesting dynamic or atmosphere, relays info that couldn’t be relayed any other way, or is in a different POV/setting/etc. than the rest of your novel.

Maybe your prologue reveals information that your MC wouldn’t or couldn’t know, but you want the READER to know that information to create dramatic irony. Maybe the prologue takes place 1000 years before the main story takes place. Maybe your prologue is like a mini “history lesson” that helps set up the atmosphere for the rest of the novel. A prologue isn’t always a bad thing - you just have to use prologues judiciously. 

3. Said is dead - unless you use other, unobtrusive dialogue tags.

I’m really a fan of just using said. But sometimes, characters do speak in other ways. Don’t use something other than said just to create a more “dynamic” reading experience, but do use it if you really need to point out the way a character is speaking - for example, “he whispered,” “she murmured,” etc., are all fine and most readers won’t take much note of them, so it won’t pull them out of the reading experience like other dialogue tags might.

4. Don’t modify “said” with adverbs.

I’m mostly in agreement with this one, but the occasional modifier doesn’t hurt if you only do it occasionally, and to really highlight the way a character is speaking - for example, if it’s very unusual and doesn’t fit the actual words. 

“He’s dead,” said James giddily. 

5. Use exclamation points sparingly. 

In total agreement with this one, unless you’re writing a book for small children.

6. Don’t use “suddenly,” etc.

In total agreement with this one as well, but I’d like to explain why it’s a bad idea. “Suddenly” is usually a form of telling rather than showing, and avoiding it forces you as a writer to describe the scene in more detail and actually show what’s happening.

7. Use regional dialect sparingly. 

This is honestly something that comes down to readability. But in most cases you do want to avoid it, and especially avoid writing out accents, especially when this could be potentially offensive. My French friend absolutely hates “ze accent” used by Fleur Delacour in Harry Potter.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Again, in most cases this is true, but there may occasionally be a moment when it works to describe a character in detail. For example, if your MC is taking notice of a very odd or out of place character. Even here though, it’s best to pick out one or two striking characteristics. We don’t need to know every minute detail down to their hair color, eye color, height, weight, etc.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

…unless it’s to create mood, to slow down pacing, to show that a character is fixated on something… This works best if the place or thing has a striking or unusual appearance, same as describing characters. And also like describing characters, it’s still best to pick out the most striking aspects appearance-wise of the thing you’re describing. 

10.  Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

This is very good advice and I won’t touch it. I’ll just point out that the best way to find these sections is to reread your writing and take note of what you’re skipping as you reread.

In general, if someone tells you “it’s a mortal sin” to do something in your writing, then they simply aren’t a good enough writer to know when to use that tool appropriately

This is all great. Especially @legit-writing-tips‘s exceptions. 

50 Questions for your oc

(i got bored and made some questions to ask for ocs. Not much but something to get gears going. Ask away please).

Personal

Family

Friends

School

Other

Another thing: find out how much planning is good for you!

I had to beat my own ass recently to get back into writing something I genuinely enjoy because I overplanned and thus made myself lose interest because I already knew what was going to happen. Do you work best just knowing the core of an idea? Having an outline that only covers four broad happenings, or maybe something super detailed? Try it out.

Maybe you have a scene or a character you love but nothing else and that’s why you’re failing. Knowing only a handful of things can be killer. So branch out from the character or supplement your world.

Gotta go, but hope these help!