erikawritesss

[erikawritesss]

hey listen im gay as fuck but girls? yall are all gorgeous have a nice day

[erikawritesss]

hate it when people outside of america are like "lmao how do regular people deal with the american healthcare system???" we don't! we don't. we literally just don't! bc we can't. PLEASE shut up u don't sound as cool as u think u do when u say shit like that

[erikawritesss]

Writing great friendships

Some of the best chemistry/relationships in fiction exist between characters who are/become friends. Here are some tips for making friendships come alive on the page:

1. Banter

One of the most interesting aspects of fictional friendships is the way the characters interact with each other whilst important plot points are occurring.

If your characters have easy banter, teasing one another without missing a beat and managing to bounce off each other even in the toughest circumstances, it will be clear to the reader that these two are/should be good friends.

Friends know each other well. They know the other’s character so well that they can easily find something to tease each other over. However, this also means knowing which topics are off-limits.

If you want to write a good, healthy friendship, your characters shouldn’t use humour/sarcasm as a way to hurt the other. It should be good-natured and understood as such from both sides.

Different friendships will have different types of chemistry. Some friends may tease each other with facial expressions. Others may already anticipate a snarky remark and counter it before it’s been spoken. Others will have physical ways of goofing around. 

Some friends might not tease each other at all. Banter isn’t necessary; it’s just a good way to make your characters come alive and make their friendship one that is loved by readers.

What’s important is chemistry - the way they automatically react to each other.

Think Sam and Dean in Supernatural or Juliette and Kenji in the Shatter Me series.

2. Mutual support 

Unless you purposefully want to write an unhealthy/toxic friendship, your characters should both be supportive of the other. 

This means that, even if one is the MC and the other the side-kick, both should be cognisant of the other’s feelings and problems, and should be considerate in this regard.

Few things will make your MC as likable as remembering to check in and be there for their best friend even when they are in the thick of a crisis.

You need to show your characters being vulnerable in front of each other and being supportive in ways that are tailored to the needs of each friend.

So, if one of the characters really responds to physical comfort, the other should know to give hugs/rub their back when they’re not feeling well. Similarly, if one of them doesn’t like being touched and responds to material comfort, have the other bring them ice cream and join them for a movie marathon. Whatever works for your characters.

What gets me every time is when a character is falling apart and won’t listen to/be consoled by anyone but their best friend (but this is just personal preference).

3. Knowing the other’s past/family life

This really only applies to characters who have been friends for quite a while.

Good friends know each other’s backstory - the highs and lows and mundane details. They know they layout of their family home and they probably know their family members well.

Friends will often talk about these things, only having to mention a few words for the other to know what they’re talking about i.e. “The ‘09 Thanksgiving disaster” or “You know how Uncle Fred is”

This will instantly make it clear that your characters are close and have come a long way together. 

Perhaps there are issues at home/trauma from the past that the other character will immediately understand. So, if one character appears with a black eye, their friend might know that the father was probably drunk the night before and got violent. Or if the character has a nightmare, the friend might know that it was about childhood abuse etc.

This can also apply to good things i.e. if one of the characters gets a nice note in their lunchbox, the other might know that their grandma is in town.

Whatever works for your story should be used to indicate the level of unspoken understanding the friends have.

4. Being protective

Few things will make your readers love a friendship more than the friends being fiercely protective of each other (in a healthy, non-territorial way).

Has someone hurt one of the characters? The other should be furious and want to exact revenge. Does someone say something demeaning to one of the friends? The other should defend them immediately and vehemently.

This can also take on a humorous twist if one of the characters starts dating someone. The friend can make extra sure that said date is sincere and promise to exact vengeance if their friend is hurt.

This can also be a great plot device, since it could explain why the MC’s best friend joins the quest/goes along on the journey. Perhaps this is the main plot point: a character seeking to protect/avenge their friend.

If you want to go in a toxic direction, this can be taken too far i.e. a friend who never lets the other spend time with anyone else/stalks the other/is patronising etc.

5.  Common interest(s)

Even if the two characters are vastly different, there should be something that keeps them together besides loyalty.

This is especially important for characters who become friends throughout the course of the novel.

This doesn’t have to mean that both of them go hiking every weekend or want to become pilots one day. It could be something small, like a love of cheesy movies or a shared taste in music. Maybe they both enjoy silence/don’t like other people. Maybe they are both social justice warriors, but for different causes. 

This could also be common characteristics instead of interests. Perhaps both are very ambitious/funny/social.

There should just be some factor that ignited the friendship and brings the two of them together.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be a big part of your story, but you should at least have it mentioned to make the friendship appear more authentic.

Reblog if you found these tips useful. Comment if you would like a Part 2. Follow me for similar content.

[erikawritesss]

new writblr here, trying to get set up and was wondering what you'd recommend for someone joining the community? Particularly, how to set up ones blog and meet new people? thanks in advance, you're great.

Welcome to the Writeblr community anon! I’m so excited that you’re joining us. This community is amazing, and I can’t wait to check out your stuff!

I’m honestly honored that you’re asking me for my advice, so thank you so much! I’m not entirely sure that I’m the best person for this since I’m also relatively new, but my writeblr had a super rocky start, and hopefully I can help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made!

Please excuse the chatter and anecdotes, I got really excited. It’s also worth noting that I’m the type of person to try to cover literally any and all bases, so it’s a little excessive and probably has too much information — take my advice with a grain of salt and don’t feel like you have to follow it word for word!

Setting up your Writeblr

First things first, identify your writeblr goals! What do you want to achieve with your blog? What do you want to be known for? What do you want to post? What’s your writeblr niche? Having a clear goal is really helpful for figuring out what content you want to post, finding tags and making friends.

And as for the writeblr niches, you might’ve noticed that a lot of the bigger writeblrs are known for something besides their WIPs. What do you have to offer the writeblr community? What contributions can you make? For example (not saying I’m a massive, popular writeblr by the way, because I’m not), I’ve gained a reputation for being a writeblr that focuses a lot on positivity — I post a lot of motivational things alongside my WIPs because I knew that I wanted to be super supportive of the community. This isn’t something you have to commit to, you can post other things besides that thing too. It’s just good to have an idea of what you want to do, and a niche to keep in the back of your mind.

Here’s some examples of writeblr niches. This list is super limited and there’s a lot more out there! These are just some ideas to get your started.

Writing advice — some writeblrs are really well-known for giving advice on writing. It might be about diversity and representation, structuring a plot, grammar, making realistic characters, help with research, etc. This niche usually has specializations about what kind of advice they give.

References — Some writeblrs reblog and post a lot of references, so they’re kind of a nice place to go to if you want to find a masterlist of resources, cool programs to use, historical references, etc.

Worldbuilding — Some writeblrs focus a lot on a specific aspect of the writing process, whether it be worldbuilding for a fantasy setting, helping others with the editing process, character creation, etc.

Prompts — Some writeblrs post really fun prompts alongside their other content so that others might get inspired!

Relatable — some writeblrs post a lot about #relatable content that every writer goes through and can identify with.

What if you’re not sure you have anything to offer? No problem, because you have a lot to offer anyway! Write about your writing journey: your successes, failures, struggles, ideas, OCs, headcanons… I know I just talked about finding your niche but don’t worry about it too much — you’ll find it eventually as you post on your blog! It’s just something to be aware of.

Next step is to set up your blog! For the love of all that is good, I would 100% advise you set up your blog as much as possible before you start networking and posting things. Don’t be like me: I wasn’t expecting to do anything with this writing sideblog and didn’t have anything set up. Now my writeblr is fairly sizable and I’m super behind — my main page doesn’t have any real links because I don’t have them done yet! It’s a huge disservice to my followers I feel and I’m scrambling to catch up.

Here are some basic things that I would recommend you set up ASAP:

Find a nice theme you like! Keep in mind that not only should it look aesthetically pleasing, it needs to suit your needs as a writeblr as well. I personally use @theme-hunter to search for themes.

A good navigation page. I would really advise you to set up your tag list before you even start posting, and to update it as frequently as you can because you might forget a tag or tag it wrong and the categorization system get messed up. Learn from my mistakes, back when I just started gaining followers, I had to go back and meticulously retag every post I’ve ever made, one by one. Set up a good system right off the bat, and it’ll be smooth-sailing from there. This page is really good for finding navigation pages.

A good WIP page. If you intend to post about your WIPs you should have a place where people can go to learn about them! Have a description of your plot, some summaries about your characters, the genre, etc. Have some links handy for when people are interested! Remind people that these pages exist!

An alternative or addition to WIP pages are Character Pages where writeblrs have some information about their characters! There are some really good character pages on @theme-hunter, but I would also recommend checking out @roleplay-theme-recs to find some as well.

Remember to be patient during this process! The amount of available themes can be overwhelming and frustrating until you find one that you like. If you’re not familiar with HTML, it can also be a struggle trying to figure out the coding, but in my experience a lot of theme makers do their best to simplify it for you. It might take a while (it’s taking me forever still so don’t feel bad) but you’ll finish setting up eventually!

Connecting with the community

So you’ve set up your blog and you know what you want to do with it. So now what? You have a spiffy looking writeblr with a bunch of cool content and no followers to appreciate them!

Write a writeblr introduction! I missed out on doing this because I never really meant for my writeblr to be a writeblr and by the time I gained followers it was too late. So learn from my mistake, make an introduction post! Talk a little bit about yourself, your interests, your writeblr, your WIPs, your OCs, etc. I would recommend tagging some writeblrs that maybe have inspired you to create a writeblr so that they can see it!

Here’s a life hack: try mentioning that you’ll follow the writeblrs that reblog your intro post. People will be more likely to reblog. That’s how I gained the initial wave of followers. It’s also a great way to find writeblrs to follow so, it’s a win-win.

Otherwise @writeblrs and @writeblrconnections are a really great place to start if you want to immerse yourself into the community. 

Engage with the community! Do you have a writeblr that you admire? Try messaging them or sending them an ask! For the most part, people love it when they get messages like this and chances are they’ll be more than happy to chat or help you out. Reblog WIPs and stuff that you like, leave comments and feedback for people, send them asks, etc. We writeblrs are honestly a little starved for things like that, and the more you participate and engage, the more people will notice you and check you out.

Trust me, that’s how I got a good chunk of my followers. I always make a point to submit an ask when a writeblr asks for them, I leave comments on people’s content, I give feedback, I reblog posts and add my own words to them. I’ve met a lot of nice people by being brave and sending the first message. The best way by far to get noticed is to pop up in people’s notifications a lot. 

Maybe there’s a mutual or a follower who always reblogs or likes your posts. Go ahead and message them! Go check out their blog!

Follow a bunch of other Writeblrs! See what they’re doing! Reblog their stuff!

It can be really scary sometimes, but put yourself out there! Talk to people! It’s really fun, and before you know it, you’ll find yourself with more followers than you expected.

Participate in tag games! Of course, this is all dependent on whether you want to participate in them or not and it’s perfectly fine if you don’t! If you don’t want to be @’d in tag games, feel free to ignore this. But for me personally, this has been a really good way to contact and talk to writeblrs that I wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to talk to. If you’re interested at all, go ahead and give this post a like,comment or a reblog! This is where I go to find people to tag in tag games, so if you want to play the game, I’ll include you!

Be mindful of your tags! On tumblr, only the first 5 tags on original posts will be used for search criteria, so use the biggest, most popular, most relevant tags first for maximum exposure. Anything after 5 are usually used for organizational purposes or comments. Additionally, I believe that tags on reblogged posts don’t show up on searches anyways, so I usually don’t bother adding popular tags on things I reblog.

Don’t be discouraged! It can take a really long time to gain followers. I was sitting at 4 followers for a really long time (two of them were porn bots). And even with hundreds of followers, it can be difficult to build up an audience for your writing. Sometimes it can be super disappointing to see your posts not get a single note, or see a really small follower count. Click here to see my advice on how to not obsess over followers. It might take a long time, but as long as you keep posting and engaging with the community, you will gain people who are interested in what you have to offer.  Don’t give up, you’ve got this!

As a bit of self promotion… I do Writeblr Spotlights! The current edition is locked in and loaded, but keep an eye on my writeblr: I’ll open up spotlight requests again soon. You can send in a writeblr (yourself or someone else’s) to be in the spotlight, and recommended to all of my followers! This is my way of trying to support underappreciated writeblrs and give them the recognition they deserve. If you feel that you want a bit of promotion for your new writeblr, or someone else deserves some, feel free to submit a request to me when they open up :)

I’m so sorry for the massive post, but this is some of the advice I have to offer to a new writeblr. I hope this helped at least a little bit! Thank you so much for asking me, I had a lot of fun writing this up and again, I was super excited that you sent this to me!

Since you’re on anon, I don’t know who you are, but I would love to follow you and check out your content! If you’re shy, feel free to private message me, or submit another ask — I don’t have to answer it publicly.

Best of luck on your writeblr journey, I hope you find it as wonderful as I did!

[erikawritesss]

Please like this post if you are okay with being tagged in tag games!

[erikawritesss]

music inspo. || new wip.

Sinners is just so good. It feels like an actual want I have to live and be and make mistakes and “Be a sinner to be saint. Be a winner by mistake.” It’s just... yes. Just yes. Making this male character.... who is a Hufflepuff Virgo in this new story ... completely unnamed rn, but he just feels like so... strong. And different than anything I’ve ever written. And so close to be in a crazy way. And it’s a dystopian urban fantasy story. Very Hunger Games-esque. And this song just feels so fitting.

We love, LOVE cinematic music. Ruelle has officially become one of my favorite artists and I don’t think she’s going anywhere off my top 10 list any times soon. She just makes me feel things. And she just captures the essence of my main character girl. She’s a Slytherin Pisces type & so light at heart. But life has made her soul so cold and it’s just so.... yes. It just captures the love the two have for each other And there’s war and trial... but they stay together. ah. All that matters is keeping each other & their team safe.

Ah. Sooo excited for this one. Welcoming to the world of a new series I’m planning on making, “Children of the Wicked.” 🖤

[erikawritesss]

It’s Not Working: Plot Twist Troubleshooting

Do you like to play with the expectations of your readers? Capture their attention on one plot line while another grows in the shadows? Shock your audience with terrible surprises? Then you may be a sadist. Don’t worry, most writers are. We love to use plot twists to change the direction of the story in an exciting way. When done right, it can make the reader rethink everything that came before. When done not so right? Well, that’s what we’re here to talk about. 

What is a plot twist?

A plot twist is a surprising or unexpected reveal or event in the story that recontextualizes the audiences’ understanding of the plot. For example, Star Wars: Luke, I Am Your Father. That’s a big reveal that changes the way we perceive Darth Vader, and the way that Luke thinks of and interacts with him. 

Do I need a plot twist?

This is a really big important question. Sure, plot twists are fun, but they also take a lot of work to do in a way that satisfies readers. Not every story needs them. There are plenty of ways to keep readers engaged and entertained without turning the whole plot on it’s head. Take a look at your story. Do you absolutely need a plot twist? If you’ve already got a solid plot, and a plot twist isn’t already an idea you’re excited about, you can probably say, no thank you, and keep on writing. If you do have a great idea for a way the story can be twisted around, then read on. 

What are some problems with plot twists, and how do I fix them? 

Problem: The plot twist came out of nowhere. The best plot twists are built up over time, where if a reader went back and read the story again, they’d be kicking themselves for missing all of the clues. If there are no hints? Some readers feel it’s more of a cheap trick or ploy rather than a carefully built up plot twist. Readers can get whiplash if you change the direction of the story without any warning, and they can get lost if there’s no real context for the change

Fix: Add in some hints. Sounds obvious, right? But this is actually the hardest things about plot twists. Your clues need to be subtle enough that readers see them as unimportant on a first read, and but noticeable enough that when the plot twist happens, they can’t believe they didn’t see it coming! It can be hard to strike this balance. The best thing you can do is have critique partners or beta readers give you feed back on things that are too obvious or too subtle until you get a feel for the sweet spot yourself. 

Problem: The plot twist contradicts something established. This can be the most frustrating. Unless you’re going for a very intentional, established unreliable narrator, readers are going to take what’s in the text as cannon rule. If you start breaking these rules in ways they never saw coming, they’re going to feel cheated. For example, if you’ve laid out the rules of your magic system clearly, but in a plot twist everything we know about the magic system goes out the window? That does not feel like a satisfying narrative choice. Another example, one I’ve actually read and gotten very angry over: if your first person narrator says, in their own mental narration, that they don’t know what happened to the jewel, and oh, no, where could it be, and then it turns out at the end that they were the thief the whole time, contradicting everything they said in narration? Trust me. You’re readers will get mad. 

Fix: Work with the world you’ve created. If you’ve established something as true, with no hints that the characters might be wrong about it, leave it as true. You’re a writer. Use your limitations as a ground for creative workarounds. Or, as the writer, you can change or eliminate those limitations! You have all the power here. There’s no reason to lie to readers, because that’s the best thing about plot twists: people get angry because they can’t even accuse you of lying, you just sent their expectations running down the wrong path. Let your readers trust you, and then break their hearts without ever telling them a lie! 

Problem: The plot twist undoes character development. A betrayal by one character to another is a classic plot twist. Who could’ve ever seen it coming? There can be great ways to do this, where you can see them beginning to lose touch with each other, or where, after the betrayal, you can see their conflict. These are awesome and great! But if there is no build up, no small hints? We’re back and problem number one. And if we can’t believe that this character would do such a thing without some bit of remorse? We’re back at problem number two. If you have a character developing more and more and then they go back on this, without any sign of conflict or regret, the readers are, again, going to feel betrayed. 

Fix: Make consistent character choices. This doesn’t mean if you’ve had them developing more towards being a good character, they only make good choices from now on. It just means that the character feels something about what they’re doing and the audience can see it. Think about the ups and downs of Zuko’s redemption arc, especially after he turned on Uncle Iroh. Were we disappointed he didn’t do the right thing? Yes, but did we believe it because we saw his characterization through the whole thing? Also yes. Let your characters be characters, not just tools for plot twists. You’ll end up with a much deeper story that readers are going to be more invested in. 

Problem: The plot twist betrays the tone promised to readers. If we went in for a lighthearted comedy and someone is brutally murdered and the characters are running for their lives and it’s not at all funny anymore, well, that’s another reader betrayal. Plot twists should change the context of the plot, not the tone. If you’re on an angsty contemporary romance, then it should stay in that genre. If it’s dark and brooding, let it stay that way. The reader picked up the book cause they liked what they saw. They don’t need a change in that somewhere in the last half of the book. 

Fix: Make sure the plot twist is reasonable to your plot. They world doesn’t need to blow up in your murder mystery, and the love interest doesn’t need to ask someone else to space prom in your sci-fi action adventure. Let your plot twist work for your story, not too big, not too small. 

Plot twists are not easy to master, but hopefully this quick troubleshooting guide has helped you get a start on them. Go forth and torture your readers to your heart’s content.

[erikawritesss]

Looking for a random cause of death for a character? Click here.

Looking for a random city? Click here.

Looking for a random city that people have actually heard of? Click here.

Need a random surname for a character? Click here. (They also give prevalence by race, which is very helpful.)

Helpful writing tips for my friends.

[erikawritesss]

Improving Flow In Writing

Rhythm, pattern, and sound matter more in writing than you may think, but it’s often overshadowed by stress on other elements that make a story pleasant to the mind. 

Repetition. This is pretty self-explanatory.

Use of words that don’t fit the situation (Especially in dialogue. If a character is laid back and simple in their speech, they aren’t going to use a word like “demonstrably”).

Redundant sentences ~ to quote this article :

“She nodded her head in agreement. 

She nodded. (We know it’s her head and we know a head nod signifies agreement.)”

Bad punctuation. Keep in mind that a period is a stop in speech, while a comma is more of a pause. This can make a massive difference in the way the story flows. Commas are your friends.

Breaks in story. Carefully choose where paragraphs start and end, as well as chapters or scenes. You want the end of each paragraph to hint at a transition into the next.

Pay attention to sentence length. This may not be a shock, but sentence length is one of the most important things to pay attention to when creating flow. Barbara Tuchman, winner of two Pulitzer prizes, has a tip for her readers, in terms of sentence length: 3 long sentences, two short “staccato” sentences. Sentences that are all the same length are boring!

A few highlights from the best article I found on flow which you can find HERE:

“ Action scenes contain few distractions, little description, and limited transitions. Omit or limit character thoughts, especially in the midst of danger or crisis, since during a crisis people focus solely on survival. To create poignancy, forgo long, descriptive passages and choose a few details that serve as emotionally charged props instead. “ On Action Scenes

“ When the outcome of a scene or chapter is left hanging, the pace naturally picks up because the reader will turn the page to find out what happens next…  If your characters are in the midst of a conversation, end  the scene with a revelation, threat, or challenge. “ On Cliffhangers

“ Reactions, descriptions, and attributions are minimal. Don’t create dialogue exchanges where your characters discuss or ponder.“ On Dialogue

 “ Suspense and, by extension, forward movement are created when you prolong outcomes.” On Prolonged Outcomes

“ Summary is a way of trimming your word count and reserving scenes for the major events. You can also summarize whole eras, descriptions, and backstory. Summaries work well when time passes but there is little to report, when an action is repeated or when a significant amount of time has passed.” On Summary

“ Think concrete words (like prodigy and iceberg), active voice (with potent verbs like zigzag and plunder), and sensory information that’s artfully embedded. If you write long, involved paragraphs, try breaking them up.” On Word Choice and Sentence Structure

Sources Used In This Post (A.K.A. where to learn more)

The Editor’s Blog

The Adventurous Writer

Writer’s Digest

Feel free to request prompts/advice posts and ask for specific advice

[erikawritesss]

Fantasy Guide to Palaces and How they Work

I'm always being asked how palaces work whether its downstairs, upstairs or accommodation wise. It is a really difficult thing to explain since there are so many different versions. I thought up a great analogy for it. Treat a palace like a hotel with a whole town living in it, because that's technically what it is. So that's what we're going to do.

Accommodation

Accommodation can be a difficult thing to sort both as a writer and a steward. You might have a palace of 200+ bedchambers in which you must house a staff of 500-/+, a varying amount of nobles, the royal family (of a varying amount) and their own households. When assigning rooms it is best to think of a Russian nesting doll. Start from the inside and work your way to the outside.

The best rooms go to the monarch, their consort and their children/siblings/parent(s). These chambers would include the bedroom, a drawing room/ common area, a privy, a closet (a small chamber that can be used for prayer or work). They would be furnished with the best cloth, the best candles and whatever furniture brought by the resident since most royal courts travelled from palace to palace. They will also have chambers for their personal servants such as ladies in waiting and grooms.

The second best set of rooms would go to the highest ranking nobles/people in the court. These rooms would be less fancy and a little smaller. These would be given to from titled nobility descending from those of Ducal rank (Dukes/Duchesses) or even members of the council such as Thomas Cromwell in Tudor times.

The next set would be considerably smaller, perhaps minus a closet or a drawing room. Given to lower nobility.

The next level of chambers would be smaller perhaps only the bedroom and a common area given to minor nobles.

The last set of rooms would be small and only hold enough room for a bedroom. Servants would have to sleep on the ground on pallets beside their masters.

Any other guests at court would have to stay at off-site locations around the palace in the city. Some nobles at houses around major palaces just in case they arrived late or were kicked out of court.

Room Service

Most palace kitchens were in the lower extremities of the building. They would include an area for food preparation, pantries (rooms where they keep the food) and perhaps even a common area for the servants. Food would be cooked in large ovens, rather looking like pizza ovens or on spits over fire pits. The kitchens would turn out food on order of the nobility and royalty which would be brought to the rooms by the noble's own servants. But since royal palaces are so large and microwaves do not exist, the food would likely be cold when it arrived. For larger, more public dinners, the court would gather in the great hall together (for more on this).

Entertainment

If you hoard over a thousand people into a single building, you will have to keep them entertained or else they might start misbehaving, more than usual. Palaces would be well stocked with ways to keep the courtiers occupied.

Every palace would have a stable where the residents' horses would be chillin'. Some palaces have parkland around them for hunting and picnicking.

Most palaces would have common areas where courtiers would meet to play card games or gossip like a game room.

There would be lawns converted for games such as bowling, croquet and tennis.

Some palaces like Versailles would have indoor theatres and stages for traveling players to perform pieces for the court.

Mediaeval castles would have pits for cockfighting or bear baiting usually outside the main castle on the grounds.

Services

We've spent enough time upstairs. Now lets look at the servants portion of the palace.

The local servants (those who serve at the palace all year round) would typically sleep in mass chambers grouped together according to jobs and gender.

The stableboys would likely sleep in the stable's hay lofts.

The unmarried girls of the castle would be locked in to protect their virtue (a precautionary rule though was frequently broken).

The cooks would sleep near the kitchen in order to get to work early as they could or if they had to rise early.

Stewards (the main boss of the servants) would have the best accommodation as would the other heads of the different groups of servants including the housekeeper, the chef, the head gardener.

Servants who came along with the court would be housed either in close quarters to their masters or on the floor by their bed.

The servants have different corridors and staircases to get around the palace without being seen. These would be smaller and plain parts of the palace.

For @innergoldx sorry it took so long

[erikawritesss]

AS WE MOURN THE SOIL - a wip by e.d.c.

as they breathe around him, 

roots bury in his heart, deep deep down

he knows he knows

he’ll never see the sky again

genre ∣ ya/na high fantasy

themes & tropes ∣ sentient forests, a city in the clouds, coming of age, family, friendship & found family, wanderlust, homesickness, nostalgia, high society vs outcasts of society, enemies to friends, friends to lovers, idiots to family, magic & loss, existentialism, post-apocalypse

status ∣ planning

Yves wakes surrounded by forest. he wakes alone and homesick, body stripped from mortal possesion, mind stripped from memory and coherent thought. yet he misses, he misses, a bone deep ache for home. though he’s not sure what home is, what it means.

all he knows now are that the forest speaks to him, voice low and rumbling. he knows the roots and foilage, he knows the cold pull of dirt, the suffocating embrace of soil and rot.

up high Noah searches for her brother, tears the world around her apart, wild-eyed, panic seizing at her throat. up high Victoire rallies her rag-tag troupes, to find her trickster, to help her friend, they have to go down, to the forest, to the trees, to the place no mortal has seen for decades.

send me an ask to be added to the taglist, dm me to be removed

[erikawritesss]

if you would be so kind as to reblog this if you feel insecure about your writing skills.

[erikawritesss]

Some of you have never fallen in love with a morally grey character with dark hair and a troubled past and honestly, it shows

[erikawritesss]

@vviciously  /  @euphoriecs  /  @jugularss  /  @imintheunderworld  /  @montevena  /  @vandorens  /  @mvcreates  /  @tsaikovs  /  @honeywharf  /  @slothwrter  /  @emdrabbles  /  @carumens  /  @thellamapope  /  @fartistically  /  @yikesbykimi  /  @glittcrpeach  /  @jcckwrites  /  @sarmarble  /  @melwrotethat  /  @hecataes  /  @cerbywrites  /  @wildares  /  @holotones  /  @halohidings  /  @james-stark-the-writer  /  @pen-in-hand  /  @apollchiles  /  @choldhands  /  @nerocael  /  @nepeinthe  /  @stegladent  /  @reeseweston  /  @ikilledmyocs  /  @ashesconstellation  /  @skeletongrrl  /  @easternstorms  /  @rougarcu  /  

[erikawritesss]

POPOVS’ MILESTONE CELEBRATION – celebrating 300 followers

nkdnddnkmdc i wanna thank everyone who stuck with me through moving blogs, i didn’t expect to get here again ndsvnjk thank you all so much for your love n support it’s greatly appreciated !! 💞

HOW TO ENTER

⤏ follow me (new followers are welcome ofc!) ⤏ reblog this post (likes count as bookmarks) ⤏ send in ask before january 20th ⤏ you can send in a max of 3 things

OPTIONS

🦀- for a blog compliment

🌱- for a character moodboard, send me their basic info (name, age, wip tag or page), what they look like and what their aesthetic is, etc. I need enough info for this one, you’re allowed to send me multiple asks – if you have a pinterest / weheartit / unsplash with visual references that’d be really convenient as well !!

🍁- for a mini wip or character playlist of max. 10 songs – again send me enough info, some genres that fit with your chosen wip or character, the general vibe and aesthetics

🌻- i’ll write 100+ words for any of my wips and post them (if you’d like you can request the wip i write for, you can find some basic info on them here)

🌓- send me a word and i’ll write you a poem inspired by it

⚡️- i’ll recommend you a writeblr!

please make sure you send me enough info for the playlist and character mb option, you’re also allowed to dm me any additional info if you’d rather not send multiple asks!

[erikawritesss]

a writeblr reintroduction

hey yall, i decided to return to the writeblr scene and missed everyone and their wips on the platform. hopefully this new look and start will make me committed at least! i will be making changes to my existing wips and working on some ideas 

( IN GENERAL ! )

━ my name’s reni, i’m also known as celery  ━ currently 22 years old living in the midwest ━ i major in psych and a teacher’s assistant on interpersonal skills  ━ a bit about my works, i tend to explore mature themes with a touch of realism in my works. you’ll see a lot of psychological conventions within my writing ━ i’m kinda have various of genres and themes, and working my way to expand from writing low fantasy!  ━ all my works are intended for na/adult audiences  ━ my inspiration for most of my wips are from the bear and the nightingale, the secret history, frankenstein, and dream of red chamber, and rebecca

( MY WORKS ! )

i’m keeping this section short and concise, feel free to send me an ask if you’re curious about the following wips. check out the rest of my wips in the masterpost here! i’ll just list my main ones below

These Hungry Dogs  ━ a low fantasy with slight historical elements, talks about trauma, religious overtones, and wartime/spies

The Water It Gives  ━ a dark academia, main themes reveals false identities, secret cult, and magic

[erikawritesss]

Undine’s Advice [Masterlist]

[This will be updated periodically!]

All generalizable advice that I’ve given will be compiled here. Any advice that is about something very specific will not be included.

All of this and more can be found under #undine-gives-advice. 

If you would like to see the most up-to-date version of this post, please click here.

If you would like to ask me for some advice, please check out my ask guidelines first.

If any of this was helpful to you, please consider reblogging the specific advice post, not just this masterlist!

Writing Advice

How to make your writing flow better

How to diversify your sentence structure

How to start writing when it feels difficult to

The Blorp Rule: Writing without getting stuck

Moving a story along when you’re stuck

Writing description: Static vs Dynamic

Introducing magic lore

Conveying magic in writing

Rock-Paper-Scissors method: Organizing advantages/disadvantages

What is purple prose?

Writing an enemies-to-lovers romance

Two reasons why your dialogue might be boring

Questions to ask yourself when writing a synopsis

Writeblr Advice

A guide for new writeblrs: Setting up and engaging with the community

What is Writeblr? What makes a blog a Writeblr?

Writeblr Glossary: Meanings of commonly used words in Writeblr

How to make a good WIP page

Basic Writeblr Etiquette

How to gain attention in the Writeblr community

How to use tags effectively in the Writeblr community

Creating a taglist

How to not obsess over follower and note count

Resources for finding images

Sharing your work online and gaining an audience

Pros and Cons of posting your work directly onto Tumblr

Copyright on Tumblr and what to do if your work gets stolen