galactic-goat

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some writer snob somewhere: Do not start sentences with But or And because doing so is grammatically incorrect.

me, writing my fic: But I don���t care. And you can’t stop me.

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:^(

y’know, one of these days i’ll have the time and energy to be able to consistently dedicate myself to one (1) project and carry it through to completion......... but boy howdy has this not-quite-depression-but-almost-depression been gremlin’ up my brain space for a long while now

i promise all the stuff i’ve posted recently has been in the works, but my mental state’s a bit of a garbage fire so. uh. 

i know i apologize a lot, but sorry for the lack of updates guys. 

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are you a writer who can’t write beginnings or can’t write endings?

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From the makers of the no-effort character checklist, I bring to you… The no-effort complete character sheet for lazy writers like you and me™! 

Because the extra effort I put in staying up until 3 am to do put this together can save us all a lot of effort filling out longer character sheets ^^

You’re supposed to print it out and fold it in half to make a little booklet but you can save ink and do it on your computer :P

Link to PDF on google drive (fixed typo)

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Resources For Writing Sketchy Topics

Medicine

A Study In Physical Injury

Comas

Medical Facts And Tips For Your Writing Needs

Broken Bones

Burns

Unconsciousness & Head Trauma

Blood Loss

Stab Wounds

Pain & Shock

All About Mechanical Injuries (Injuries Caused By Violence)

Writing Specific Characters

Portraying a kleptomaniac.

Playing a character with cancer.

How to portray a power driven character.

Playing the manipulative character.

Portraying a character with borderline personality disorder.

Playing a character with Orthorexia Nervosa.

Writing a character who lost someone important.

Playing the bullies.

Portraying the drug dealer.

Playing a rebellious character.

How to portray a sociopath.

How to write characters with PTSD.

Playing characters with memory loss.

Playing a pyromaniac.

How to write a mute character.

How to write a character with an OCD.

How to play a stoner.

Playing a character with an eating disorder.

Portraying a character who is anti-social.

Portraying a character who is depressed.

How to portray someone with dyslexia.

How to portray a character with bipolar disorder.

Portraying a character with severe depression.

How to play a serial killer.

Writing insane characters.

Playing a character under the influence of marijuana.

Tips on writing a drug addict.

How to write a character with HPD.

Writing a character with Nymphomania.

Writing a character with schizophrenia.

Writing a character with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Writing a character with depression.

Writing a character who suffers from night terrors.

Writing a character with paranoid personality disorder.

How to play a victim of rape.

How to play a mentally ill/insane character.

Writing a character who self-harms.

Writing a character who is high on amphetamines.

How to play the stalker.

How to portray a character high on cocaine.

Playing a character with ADHD.

How to play a sexual assault victim.

Writing a compulsive gambler.

Playing a character who is faking a disorder.

Playing a prisoner.

Portraying an emotionally detached character.

How to play a character with social anxiety.

Portraying a character who is high.

Portraying characters who have secrets.

Portraying a recovering alcoholic.

Portraying a sex addict.

How to play someone creepy.

Portraying sexually/emotionally abused characters.

Playing a character under the influence of drugs.

Playing a character who struggles with Bulimia.

Illegal Activity

Examining Mob Mentality

How Street Gangs Work

Domestic Abuse

Torture

Assault

Murder

Terrorism

Internet Fraud

Cyberwarfare

Computer Viruses

Corporate Crime

Political Corruption

Drug Trafficking

Human Trafficking

Sex Trafficking

Illegal Immigration

Contemporary Slavery 

Black Market Prices & Profits

AK-47 prices on the black market

Bribes

Computer Hackers and Online Fraud

Contract Killing

Exotic Animals

Fake Diplomas

Fake ID Cards, Passports and Other Identity Documents

Human Smuggling Fees

Human Traffickers Prices

Kidney and Organ Trafficking Prices

Prostitution Prices

Cocaine Prices

Ecstasy Pills Prices

Heroin Prices

Marijuana Prices

Meth Prices

Earnings From Illegal Jobs

Countries In Order Of Largest To Smallest Risk

Forensics

arson

Asphyxia

Blood Analysis

Book Review

Cause & Manner of Death

Chemistry/Physics

Computers/Cell Phones/Electronics

Cool & Odd-Mostly Odd

Corpse Identification

Corpse Location

Crime and Science Radio

crime lab

Crime Scene

Cults and Religions

DNA

Document Examination

Fingerprints/Patterned Evidence

Firearms Analysis

Forensic Anthropology

Forensic Art

Forensic Dentistry

Forensic History

Forensic Psychiatry

General Forensics

Guest Blogger

High Tech Forensics

Interesting Cases

Interesting Places

Interviews

Medical History

Medical Issues

Misc

Multiple Murderers

On This Day

Poisons & Drugs

Police Procedure

Q&A

serial killers

Space Program

Stupid Criminals

Theft

Time of Death

Toxicology

Trauma

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I’ve seen five different authors take down, or prepare to take down, their posted works on Ao3 this week.  At the same time, I’ve seen several people wishing there was more new content to read.  I’ve also seen countless posts by authors begging for people to leave comments and kudos. 

People tell me I am a big name fan in my chosen fandom.  I don’t quite get that but for the purposes of this post, let’s roll with it.  On my latest one shot, less than 18% of the people who read it bothered to hit the kudos button.  Sure, okay, maybe that one sort of sucked.  Let’s look at the one shot posted before that - less than 16% left kudos.  Before that - 10%, and then 16%.  I’m not even going to get into the comments.  Let’s just say the numbers drop a lot.  I’m just looking at one shots here so we don’t have to worry about multiple hits from multiple chapters, people reading previous chapters over, etc.  And if I am a BNF, that means other people are getting significantly less kudos and comments.

Fandom is withering away because it feels like people don’t care about the works that are posted.  Why should I go to the trouble of posting my stories if no one reads them, and of the people who do read them, less than a fifth like them?  Even if you are not a huge fan of the story, if it kept your attention long enough for you to get to the bottom, go ahead and mash that kudos button.  It’s a drop of encouragement in a big desert. 

TL;DR: Passively devouring content is killing fandom.

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At 18, everyone receive a superpower. Your childhood friend got a power-absorption, your best friends got time control, and they quickly rise into top 100 most powerful superheroes. You got a mediocre superpower, but somehow got into the top 10. Today they visit you asking how you did it.

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Want to use a fancy custom language for something, but don’t know how to make one?Use Vulgar!

Vulgar is a conlang (constructed/fictional language) generator created to help literally generate a language for you. No, really. No tricks, and it’s super simple to use. It’s my favourite tool right now for writing fantasy, even as someone who loves creating his own languages, it’s an amazing starting point.

Want a random conlang, straight away, with no prep or fuss? Just visit http://vulgarlang.com/index.html and click “Generate New Conlang”… and that’s it. Scroll down and through your brand new, generated, completely original conlang. 

If you’re a little more advanced in terms of conlanging and want to specify IP phonemes to be used, you can add them too, but even with no knowledge of linguistics you can create a language at the click of your fingers.

This version of Vulgar is completely free, sure…. but! the guy who created it has not only made an amazing thing (which I repeat, is absolutely free at it’s most basic point), but is also planning on updating it more and more!

Under the “Buy” tab on the Vulgar website, he links to his email, where you can offer to pay for the full version of Vulgar, which is a total steal right now at a sale price of only nineteen dollars. Considering professional conlangers and linguists could charge you, like, a metric fuck ton of money for the same data you’re getting here for just nineteen, that’s a major steal.

Not to mention, buying the alpha build now gives you free access to all of it’s updated versions, which I can guarantee are just going to get better and better! I’ve already bought it and I adore it, and this is a tool the likes of which we in the conlang community have never seen in such an awesome way.

Please consider helping Vulgar out, because the creator is a damn genius

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HELLO I JUST FOUND THE BEST FUCKING WEBSITE FOR WORKING ON CHARACTERS AND WORLD BUILDING YEET FUCKERS SEE YOU IN 8 YEARS

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those posts criticizing common writing patterns in fanfiction are so fucking harmful and they ruined me

so like yknow what??? People tell you to avoid “smirk” and “chuckle” as descriptors because no one does those things (???) but then when I need to use those words I have a ten minute crisis about how I’m a shitty writer. So heres my unwarranted writing advice: If you want your characters to smirk and chuckle fucking let them and don’t let anyone tell you that no one smirks or chuckles because I do both on a daily basis whenever I tell a shitty pun, bye 

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*opens fanfic*

fanfic: i

*closes fanfic*

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im not sure if youve answered this before (ive been scrolling back in your blog but cant find anything?) but do you have any tips on how to write mob?

hmm i have not answered this before, so let me think… writing mob…

keep in mind that i have not written mob, but i have read a lot of mob… in canon.

don’t use verbs that imply very drastic action/expression (e.g. rather than “beamed,” use “smiled,” since mob almost never smiles with enough enthusiasm to qualify as beaming). keep mob’s actions and expressions low-key unless shit is really getting serious. (and actually, re: smiling in particular, remember that he rarely doles out smiles to anyone other than ritsu.)

remember that mob is quite passive– like, he usually isn’t actively engaged in his surroundings. he’s prone to zoning out, deep in thought or just deep in the absence of thought. even when things are relatively intense, he still may feel out of place and hesitate. basically, mob’s default state when things start happening is “not knowing what he should be doing.” when things aren’t happening, he tends to be content with idleness or inactivity.

about mob’s speech: his catchphrase, according to his profile, is “i don’t really get it.” from this, we can tell that he’s not afraid to acknowledge his own ignorance or inability. (iirc he is also wont to drop this line at inopportune times, like after someone gives him a detailed explanation or emotional speech.) he’s not stupid, but he’s not especially quick-witted either. he’s a good listener. if he doesn’t know what to say and isn’t forced to answer, he won’t say anything. he doesn’t crack wise or offer witty comebacks or snark; his words may have that kind of effect at times (e.g. “shut up and eat”), but only as the result of a mistake or failure to read the atmosphere. generally, he isn’t sarcastic. he will carry on a conversation, but generally, he isn’t very talkative unless there’s something on his mind.

when something is on his mind, he usually starts by dwelling on it while zoning out (possibly while doing other things, like eating dinner). 

when he does feel strongly about something, he doesn’t hide it, and he has been known to lecture people about their wrongdoings if he gets really riled up. despite that, don’t forget that he trusts in the goodness of people in general and has plenty of faith in his fellow humans. he strongly feels the importance of things he has learned, and as a result, he wants to make sure others understand what he understands. so like… when it comes to communication, his true strength is his benevolent sincerity.

he and ritsu are on better terms than ever lately, and they may come to each other for advice, but i think they both still prefer to think things over on their own if they can. so mob wouldn’t necessarily go directly to ritsu or reigen for help with something that’s bothering him. he’ll probably have a good long think about it first. pensive boy

he has no fashion sense. i would go ahead and credit any/all of his stylish outfits to ritsu or his parents.

he is Not sassy

he is not dramatic (except unintentionally)

he’s not good at reading other people’s emotional reactions if they don’t come right out and say how they’re feeling. or at least, it takes him a while to catch on if he doesn’t know them well

he calls ritsu “ritsu.” he calls tome “tome-san.” he calls mezato “mezato-san.” he calls reigen “master” or “master reigen.” he calls teru “hanazawa-kun.” he calls tsubomi “tsubomi-chan.” generally, everyone is a -san, -kun, or -senpai according to the typical rules. so don’t have him call anyone any weird nicknames or anything overly familiar unless they ask him to call them that (e.g. he calls tome by her first name because she introduced herself as tome-chan, and even then he changed it to -san). and for the record, i don’t think mob has directly spoken to or about shou, but seeing as how ritsu calls shou “suzuki,” mob would almost certainly call him “suzuki-kun.” 

remember that mob’s default neutral facial expression usually comes off as bored, cold, or distant. it’s hard to even tell when/whether he’s deep in thought or slightly upset. even ritsu, reigen, and teru can’t decipher him especially well. (so instead of reading mob’s face… ritsu asks if anything’s bothering him, teru asks what he’s thinking about, and reigen tries to decipher his face anyway and doesn’t ask anything unless/until it becomes Very clear that mob is having problems.)

note that these points apply specifically to non-100% mob

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What people think writing is like: careful planning and thought out plotlines

What writing is actually like: being possessed by an idea that you are constantly arguing with

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new update, who dis

ok so here i am again! with more words! woohoo!

i’ve actually been flipping between settling on posting a oneshot (that’s currently a WIP), or a rewrite of chp. 1 of pass or fail; i wrote the majority of the rewrite in early june actually, but i stumbled into the kinda-almost finished draft and really? liked it? i don’t know if it’ll reflect my original intention for pass or fail, which was a 1-chap-then-drop sorta sitch, or if i’ll build up on it, considering i’ve got like 4 pages of worldbuilding/plot on a separate page, but i’m also a tired college student that’s experiencing a mild stylistic breakdown in regards to writing atm.  

if i veer towards the oneshot, anything i post’ll take longer. i’ve got the gist of something, but it’s a matter of hammering out the flow, and translating plot points into actual plot, pffft

either way i REALLY want to post something for y’all; i’ve been out of the game so long it’s making me sad :’^( part of it’s been a confidence-related deal, but i’m getting better at saying “fuck it” and just committing to what i post ahah

anyways thanks for your patience, and hopefully the next thing i’ll post’ll be a link to whatever goes up!

[galactic-goat]

Either explain it or don’t.

When authors include things that don’t fit within the real world–magic, time travel, anachronisms–there is an impulse to explain how it works. Which can be fantastic for worldbuilding, but if you don’t know what you’re talking about, it can make more problems than it solves.

Stephenie Meyer tried to explain some bizarre thing about chromosomes, and it made the biology of vampires and werewolves make no sense. Suspending disbelief worked better in that case before she tried to ground it in the real world.

Lemony Snicket, on the other hand, just has random anachronisms that are never explained, but because there’s nothing even close to resembling an attempt at an explanation, we can just shrug and go, okay, that’s how it works. The magic in Harry Potter seems to basically not be grounded in anything, but we can believe it within the context of the story because she doesn’t try to ground it in anything.

In Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera, on the other hand, he goes into a lot of magic theory, and it gives us a strong feeling of worldbuilding. There’s enough logically coherent explanation for it to feel grounded within itself.

It is possible to go too far (see: Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide and Children of the Mind) where the plot ends up so tied in the reader understanding intricately detailed scientific and pseudo-scientific minutiae that the story is incomprehensible without it.

Generally, though, if you’re going to make something up, either say it exists and leave it at that, or entirely figure out how it works. Halfway is always less believable than nothing at all.

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Hemingway is a writing checker that is absolutely brilliant.

checks all spellings for you

checks if you’re over-using adverbs

picks out over-complicated sentences

suggests replacements for over-complicated phrases

picks out the passive voice

tells you how readable your text is (Grades/College level/etc)

calculates reading time

USE IT. USE IT FOR YOUR FANFICS. USE IT FOR YOUR PAPERS. IT WILL SAVE. YOUR. LIFE.