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Fanfic Work-In-Progress Guessing Game

Send me a word, any word, and if it’s in my WIP document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence or line it appears in.

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

Exploring Character Backstory

1. Start with the essentials: Begin by outlining the basic information about your character's past, such as their family background, upbringing, education, and early experiences. Consider their cultural, social, and economic background, as these factors can shape their worldview and values.

2. Identify key events and milestones: Determine significant events or milestones in your character's life that have had a profound impact on them. These could include positive or negative experiences, such as the loss of a loved one, a major achievement, a traumatic incident, or a life-changing decision. These events help shape your character's personality, fears, and aspirations.

3. Examine formative relationships: Explore the relationships your character has had with their family, friends, mentors, or romantic partners. How have these relationships influenced them? What role models or influences have shaped their values, beliefs, and behavior? Relationships can provide insight into your character's vulnerabilities, strengths, and emotional attachments.

4. Dig into their beliefs and values: Understand what your character believes in and values. Examine their moral compass, political views, religious beliefs, or philosophical outlook. Consider how their beliefs might clash or align with the conflicts they encounter in the story. This will create depth and authenticity in their character development.

5. Uncover secrets and hidden aspects: Delve into your character's secrets, hidden desires, or aspects of their past that they prefer to keep hidden. Secrets can create internal conflicts, fuel character growth, and add intrigue to the story. They can also reveal vulnerabilities or flaws that make your character more relatable and complex.

6. Consider the impact of societal factors: Explore how societal factors such as gender, race, class, or historical context have influenced your character's experiences and identity. These factors can shape their struggles, opportunities, and perspectives. Understanding the societal context in which your character exists adds layers of depth to their backstory.

7. Connect the backstory to the main story: Once you have explored the character's backstory, identify how it relates to the main story. Determine how their past experiences, relationships, or traumas influence their present motivations, conflicts, and goals. This connection will ensure that the backstory serves a purpose in the narrative and contributes to the character's growth.

8. Use backstory selectively: While backstory is essential for understanding your character, avoid excessive exposition or information dumping. Introduce elements of the backstory gradually, through dialogue, memories, or subtle hints. This helps maintain reader interest and allows the character's past to unfold organically throughout the story.

Remember, not all aspects of the character's backstory need to be explicitly mentioned in the narrative. It's important to choose and reveal elements that have the most significant impact on the character's present circumstances and development.

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

Good Traits Gone Bad

Exploring good traits gone bad in a novel can add depth and complexity to your characters. Here are a few examples of good traits that can take a negative turn:

1. Empathy turning into manipulation: A character with a strong sense of empathy may use it to manipulate others' emotions and gain an advantage.

2. Confidence becoming arrogance: Excessive confidence can lead to arrogance, where a character belittles others and dismisses their opinions.

3. Ambition turning into obsession: A character's ambition can transform into an unhealthy obsession, causing them to prioritize success at any cost, including sacrificing relationships and moral values.

4. Loyalty becoming blind devotion: Initially loyal, a character may become blindly devoted to a cause or person, disregarding their own well-being and critical thinking.

5. Courage turning into recklessness: A character's courage can morph into reckless behavior, endangering themselves and others due to an overestimation of their abilities.

6. Determination becoming stubbornness: Excessive determination can lead to stubbornness, where a character refuses to consider alternative perspectives or change their course of action, even when it's detrimental.

7. Optimism becoming naivety: Unwavering optimism can transform into naivety, causing a character to overlook dangers or be easily deceived.

8. Protectiveness turning into possessiveness: A character's protective nature can evolve into possessiveness, where they become overly controlling and jealous in relationships.

9. Altruism becoming self-neglect: A character's selflessness may lead to neglecting their own needs and well-being, to the point of self-sacrifice and burnout.

10. Honesty becoming brutal bluntness: A character's commitment to honesty can turn into brutal bluntness, hurting others with harsh and tactless remarks.

These examples demonstrate how even admirable traits can have negative consequences when taken to extremes or used improperly. By exploring the complexities of these traits, you can create compelling and multi-dimensional characters in your novel.

Happy writing!

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

being aromantic and into whump is like. shoutout to whump for being a great opportunity to engage with stories about intimacy and vulnerability and powerful emotion and physical interactions with other people and intense relationships that are not presumptively based in romance. what would i do without you.

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

I think having a baby niece is great cause my brother will send me just a constant stream of messages that sound indistinguishable from how someone at Jurassic park would text if they were being hunted by the raptor

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

writing something with two characters who use the same pronouns and fighting to balance using names vs using pronouns in a way that's both smooth to read and easy to comprehend

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

for some reason i thought both of these were the same post and i sat for awhile trying to figure out which ice cream face was the weak bitch

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

Tired dad Colress and his little family.

This is for my fanfic Little Lost Things, an AU where Colress adopts smol N rather than Ghetsis. (It can be found on my AO3, if you’re curious.)

Figured I'd try a sketchy style for this, too.

Da the Darmanitan was the hardest to include, if only because of their size and inability to fly or levitate. Still, I think I did a good job squeezing them in there!

Thoughts? :)

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

Primrose, the Dancer (from Octopath Traveler)

ATTENTION

If you see this you are OBLIGATED to reblog w/ the song currently stuck in your head :)

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

hi. did you know australia has a fairywren species called the superb fairywren

and another species called the splendid fairywren

...and one called the lovely fairywren

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

reblog for sample size !!

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

Tired dad Colress and his little family.

This is for my fanfic Little Lost Things, an AU where Colress adopts smol N rather than Ghetsis. (It can be found on my AO3, if you’re curious.)

Figured I'd try a sketchy style for this, too.

Da the Darmanitan was the hardest to include, if only because of their size and inability to fly or levitate. Still, I think I did a good job squeezing them in there!

Thoughts? :)

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

lord the peasants are so loud today