it's 3 AM and I can't stop thinking about that 'no one needs me' 'I need you' character trope – we really out here falling in love with the most sappiest shit known to the universe huh

What’s the point of punishing ourselves for coming up with new WIP ideas every three minutes when we can be proud of our creativity and comforted that we’re never going to run out of ideas? 

A reminder to myself:

Write with abandon.

Rewrite with intention.

Edit with honesty.

Magic and Rules

It may be extremely easy to just put magic into a story you’re creating, or explain away things with the excuse of “magic.”  But if that is how magic is handled in your world, readers are going to find major plot holes in your story.  Magic needs rules and guidelines, even in stories where it’s not in the foreground.  Without rules, magic could be the solution to all, or you end overpowering a character because he has no restrictions on how he can use his magic.

But where do you start when setting ground rules for how and when magic can be used?  My goal in this post is to give you some ideas while you map out your world of magic.

Who can learn magic? Is magic a thing that all people can learn, or certain people who have a knack for it?  Is magic something that can be learned at all?  Perhaps it’s only readily available for those who are born with it, such as the wizards in Harry Potter.  Or magic is contained in things, such as charms, amulets, or unicorn horns.  People may have to learn how to access the magic contained in these items, but they are solely reliant on items in order to use magic.  Perhaps magic can only be learned by certain races.

How is magic learned?  In Harry Potter, wizards go to school for seven years to learn how to use magic.  Other books wizards have apprentices they train.    Can magic be self-taught?  How does a person access magic?  Through emotion, thoughts, something else?  Perhaps learning magic requires a large sacrifice.

Does the magic need to be channeled?  Once again, using the example of Harry Potter, wizards need wands in order to use magic.  Other common themes involve wizards using staffs in order to use magic.  But there are stories where wizards don’t need an item to channel the magic, such as the wizards in the anime/manga series Fairy Tail.  Perhaps magic does need an item to be channeled through, but it doesn’t have to be the traditional wand or staff.

How often can a person use magic? Does magic use up a person’s energy, and therefore a person’s magic is limited to how much energy they have?  Perhaps they have a different “energy”, such as mana, that restricts how much magic they can use?  Maybe you want to go the Once Upon a Time route and magic isn’t used in excess because it comes with a price.  Perhaps how magic is used is why people don’t use it so often.  Maybe magic is used very often.

Does magic need incantations?  Harry Potter uses incantations, whether is it is verbal or non-verbal.  There does not seem to be an incantations in the magic that the Witch uses in the Chronicles of Narnia.  Incantations are used quite often in the Septimus Heap series.  And there no incantations in Lord of the Rings.  Or maybe incantations are reserved for the more powerful, older spells.  Perhaps incantations make a spell more stable. 

Can magic be invoked by using items?  Potions is one of the common ways this is used.  But sometimes certain spells can only be invoked by using ingredients, like in the show Charmed or the movie Practical Magic.  Perhaps it’s only used occasionally, such as some spells performed in the show Sabrina the Teenage Witch.  Maybe items are used in only certain branches, such as Divination in Harry Potter.

What cannot be done by magic?  With the Genie’s magic in Disney’s Aladdin, he could not make someone come back from the dead, fall in love, or grant more wishes.  Food cannot be created out of thin air according to the rules of magic in Harry Potter.  Actual love in Harry Potter can’t be created, but enchantments that cause the victim to have an obsessive type of love does exist.  Perhaps the dead can be raised, as evidenced by stories with necromancy, but it can’t actually bring back the person completely.  Something’s missing.  Perhaps only skeletons can be brought back, or the person comes back in a zombie like state.  Perhaps you would go so far as to say that magic cannot create permanent things out of nothing.

Does magic have categories/a way it is organized? Potions, Divination, Transifiguration, Charms, etc.  Or light, dark, chaos, order,  water, fire, etc.  Or human magic, dragon magic, unicorn magic, elf magic, etc.  And it doesn’t have to have only one way of organization.  It can have several levels, just like when science organizes living organisms. 

So these are few things to consider when creating magic.  The nature of your magic may not necessarily fit into all of these questions, and that’s fine.  But don’t be afraid to have long explanations for your magic.  You probably won’t fit it all in your story - in fact, you’ll want to be careful how you incorporate magic rules as you don’t want to infodump on your readers - but having the rules there will help you create your story and give you some answers to the why questions that might come up, such as, “why don’t they just magic themselves out?”

Jumping back into writing? 👌

Jumping back into writing by just writing angsty hurt comfort? 👌👌👌👌👌👌

Ways to un-stick a stuck story

Your characters have problems.

I don’t mean flaws in character design, even though they possibly do. I mean the problems your characters SHOULD have. The problems they face in your story ie. villains, conflict, war, homophobic parents, not having a date to the big dance. Y’know…like a plot.

Here are 3 ways to improve your plot

1. Your Characters Need to Make Decisions

This may sound obvious, but it isn’t always. The Problem™ isn’t just something your character has to go through that sucks—they should be faced with options, and have to make Active Decisions™ that affect the outcome of the story. This gives your characters agency—if they don’t have agency, if they don’t make decisions, your characters will be read as passive. Passive characters aren’t interesting.

2. These Choices Need To Be Hard

Give your characters inner conflict.

Hard, tough decisions to make. How to face their big problem. In figuring out what options your characters will choose, remember their

3. Figure Out The Stakes

Based on what kind of story you have, the stakes for your protagonist are going to be different.

And there’s nothing wrong with having higher or lower stakes—but do think about where your stakes should be for your particular story. Many stories don’t have high enough stakes for readers to be captivated; these stories need to be reconfigured, after realizing what exactly is at stake and to what degree. Understanding what your stakes are can help you figure out what kind of reading experience your book will be.

Stuff I Learned at My Writing Workshop (That I’m Kicking Myself in the Head for Not Realizing Sooner):

-  The difference between a book that grabs you from the beginning vs. one that you’re on the fence about tossing out the window is winning your trust. It’s why it’s “easier” to read books by authors you already know, or fanfic where you’re familiar with the characters. Winning the reader’s trust as quickly as possible should be your first goal as a writer when you’re going back and editing your first draft. This can be accomplished by things like: speaking authoritatively about the subject (even if it’s utter bullshit), graceful prose, or establishing quickly in the story what it’s about. For example,“Character A had a problem. Character B didn’t love them back, so Character A was going to kidnap them so they would.” Maybe it’s not a story you want to read, but you are now firmly couched in what you signed up for in this story and the promise the author is going to deliver on before the end. 

- Characters need goals. They need goals in every moment and in every scene. Every character needs a goal in every moment and in every scene. Maybe they’re not directly pursuing that goal right this very moment but it’s probably always at the back of their mind. Romances and detective stories are the easiest to deliver on this need. Character A wants to win their love. Detective A wants to solve the case. Even when they’re having tea with grandma, their thing is at the back of their mind. Keeping your character and your story focused on this thing they want helps pull your reader along and keeps them engaged on the “So what?” and “Why are we reading this scene?” questions of why they should keep reading.

- Characters shouldn’t just have things they like, they should have obsessions. This is the one I’m kicking myself for. The scientists in Pacific Rim are eccentrically obsessed with studying their thing. Thorin in the Hobbit is obsessed with regaining his home. Katniss Everdeen is obsessed with protecting her sister. Every crazy whackadoodle fandom darling character is obsessed with something. What do they have in common? They’re intensely obsessed with the thing that they care about. We love characters who are obsessed with things beyond reason, whether it’s reclaiming their home stolen by a dragon, or building artisanal bird houses, saving your sister, or studying monsters. Everyone “likes” things, but people and characters who are obsessed with something fascinate us. Examine the characters you’re most attracted to writing in fanfic, and examine your original characters if you’re trying to build those, and figure out what are they obsessed with and how does that inform their character. That’s the thing that’s going to make readers care about them. 

writers

Every time I hear “said is dead” I think of those magic treehouse books

How to create scientifically realistic creatures!

Hi everybody! I was studying for my biology finals when I suddenly noticed, A LOT of it could be used for writing. Especially science-fiction and fantasy where authors often create new species. I decided to create a post all about it, in the hopes of helping some of you out!

How to get started

“What makes a scpecies scientifically realistic?” When they fit in their environment. This applies to all creatures living in relatively stable environments. If, say a magician, has just created a new species and just puts it in the forest, it might not fit in there. It will either have to adapt itself (through evolution) or it goes extinct. It might even change the environment in some ways! So the environment is the key factor to how a species lives.

So, before you go around creating some species, you first need to think about where they live. I highly advise you to build an environment for them as the first step and then actually create the species. It does not have to be complicated at all, as long as you get some of the basics down.

You might think about so called “abiotic factors”. Those are basically environmental factors, that aren’t based on life. This includes:

And the list goes on. Please keep in mind that you do not need to know any exact numbers or whatever. It’s enough if you know a little bit about it (e.g. there is very intense light from sunrise to sunset). You also don’t need to have every single one of these factors thought out, in the end it would get too complicated. Now, these factors directly influence how the plants/animals live in this area. I will be talking about more specific things that happen later (only with the animals!). What to do with these informations now? Think about it; Have you ever seen full grown, green trees in the desert? Have you ever seen a flower in winter? This way you can roughly get an image of your plants/animals in your head.

Then there are biotic factors. Those are factors that are based on life. Some examples:

There are obviously a lot more of those. Especially when it comes to concurrence, it can have an influence on how many individuals of the species there are. Keep in mind that just because a population has a lot of predators, it doesn’t mean that there are only a very small amount of their prey living. They might be perfectly adapted to having so many predators.

Based on this knowledge, you can roughly think about how your species behaves, where it lives and so on.

Traits of animals on the earth

So, now that we know the environment of the species, it’s time to actually create it! I have decided to list a few traits that species living in certain places on earth show and that are very common.

Animals living in dry places usually have a few special traits that help them survive the dryness and with it most probably also the heat. Living beings very, very rarely live in places hotter than 45°C (113° Fahrenheit). This is because the proteins in their bodies break when it’s hotter; and these destructions cannot be reversed. To add: All life depends on these proteins. In order to save as much water as possible, animals living in deserts do not sweat (or only a tiny little bit), have a very concentrated urin and there is barely any water to find in their excrements. If their body temperature normally stays the same (mammals and birds have a constant body temperature), it may be able to have a higher tolerance border without doing any harm (it would kill us humans quickly if the temperature rose only by 10%). This is a thing, so no water has to be used to cool them down. Camels have a lot of fat in their humps. This is both an energy store and a water ressource, as the burning of this fat produces water. Even their nose is designed to save water! There’s a rule in biology that animals living in hot places are smaller than their relatives living in cold places (e.g. penguins in the Antarctic and the ones living in Australia). They also have bigger body attachments (ears, tails, etc.) than the ones living in the cold. Some animals simply move to places with more water during dry periods (mostly if the deficiency is due to the seasons). Very few animals (mostly microorganisms) shrink down in size and sort of “sleep” in order to not waste any water. As soon as there’s water again, they grow back to their normal size.

Animals living in cold places are more or less the opposite. They are bigger, have very small body attachments. A lot of animals sleep during the winter, some of them can be woken up rather easily (bears) and some of them not. They usually have a thick fur or any other type of protection against the below freezing temperatures. If their body temperature drops below 0°C (32° Fahrenheit) they would die. Some animals take advantage of their bodily fluids freezing; but only those, that have a body temperature that can vary (i.e. reptiles, fish). They let their body “freeze” and just wait until winter is over. A few species specifically create fluids with a lower freezing point.

Animals living underwater often do not breathe through lungs. If they do, they have to breathe over the water surface (but they can keep their breath for quite a long time). Their bodies are in an “auqadynamic” shape, making it easy for them to move through water.

Light is the main source of energy. Plants are only able to produce oxygen and biotic material when there’s light around. And that’s what every single species needs, in order to survive (as long as it isn’t able to produce oxygen). But it plays a much bigger role. It synchronises the rhythms of all animals. When to get up, when to go back to sleep, when birds should start singing, when to release hormones, etc. It tells certain animals when summer’s coming/going, so they can move.  It tells them when to search for a partner to make some babies.

Of course, there is a lot more about this and it’s far more complicated! This is more or less all that I know, if you don’t understand something or just have another question, feel free to ask me. Keep in mind, I am not a specialist and am very sorry if I got something wrong. Now go out there and create your OCs weird pets, beasts or whatever else you want these creatures to be! I recommend sticking by these rules if you create species living on a completely untouched planet, where nature was just able to do it’s thing. In a world with intelligent beings, things may vary a bit (talking about genetic engineering, creating artificial environments, etc.). Be creative with what you know!

On Writing: Dialogue Tips

It’s only natural that novels and short stories are usually dialogue heavy - it’s a written medium. We need the characters to talk. However, a lot of the time we have difficulty writing dialogue. 

Hopefully these tips will help some people!

How to Make Your Dialogue Better:

How to Make Writing Dialogue Easier:

Like these posts? See more Writing Wednesday tips Request Writing Wednesday topics here

Leave a comment if you want to be tagged in these posts!

Guide: How to Skip Time in Your Story

Few stories take place during a short, unbroken chunk of time. Most stories take place in small chunks spread out over days, weeks, months, or years, which means there will be whole chunks of time not covered. So, how do you skip the time between those chunks?

Scenes and Chapters

With the exception of some very short fiction, most stories are broken into scenes, each of which encapsulates a particular moment or event. In longer fiction, like novellas and novels, related scenes can be grouped together into chapters, though sometimes a chapter contains only one scene. Either way, because scenes and chapters focus on particular moments or events, or a related group of moments or events, starting a new scene or chapter is a natural way to represent the passage of time in your story. In fact, unless otherwise stated, readers will naturally assume that time has passed between scenes and chapters–which doesn’t mean you don’t still have to make the transition between them.

The key to skipping time between scenes or chapters is to make the transition by doing two things:

1) Set up the time skip at the end of the scene or chapter by hinting at what is to come. For example:

2) Clarify time, place and (if necessary) POV at the beginning of the new scene or chapter, playing off of the set up from the previous scene or chapter.

Notice how the set up at the end of the previous scene/chapter flows seamlessly into the scene transition at the beginning of the new scene/chapter?

Because the passage of time is expected between scenes and chapters, it’s not always necessary to be direct about how much time has passed. Especially if the amount of time passing is unimportant or already implied.

Direct:

# # #

Less Direct:

# # #

In the second example, even though you don’t specifically say “two hours later,” it’s clear right away from the context that the time and place have changed. No one is going to read “all eleven faces of the other board members” and assume that they’re waiting for her in her bathroom as she goes in to brush her teeth the next morning. As often as possible, try to reserve the “two hours later” and “when she got back to the office” transitions for when the context would otherwise be unclear, or when those specific details (how much time has passed, a specific location) is immediately important. 

And, if no time is passing between two scenes or two chapters, you can make that clear via context. For example, if one scene ends with Melinda falling asleep and then being woken up by a loud knock at her door, the next scene could continue with something like “Heart pounding from the shock, Melinda jumped out of bed to see who was at her door.” Now it’s clear no time passed in the next scene. But, since a new situation is beginning, it still warrants being its own scene.

Expository Time Skip

Sometimes you need to show a quick glimpse of something that happened but which doesn’t really warrant its own scene or chapter. In this case, you may need to illustrate the time skip using exposition within the scene. It may look something like this:

Terms such as: later that day, two hours later, the next afternoon, the following day, by the time the bell rang, when it was time to close, etc., allow you to show that time has passed without transitioning to a new scene or chapter. This allows you to cover smaller moments/events that don’t warrant their own space.

Whether you use a scene transition between two scenes or two chapters to show the passing of time, or whether you clarify the time skip through exposition, just pay attention to where you leave your readers before the transition/clarification, and where you take them. Make sure it’s clear, flows well, and wouldn’t leave anyone confused. Do that and you should be in good shape. :)