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Oooooo the fandoms this could work on seem endless. 🤣

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wolfstar prompt

wolfstar but they're stockphoto models who -for some inconveivable reason- keep getting cast as a couple

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Writing Notes: Character Development

Rick Riordan's Writing Tips

Rick Riordan:

Character development is paramount for me. I firmly believe that plot and character development must occur simultaneously. Plot cannot be left to chance. Neither can characters be automatons who carry out actions envisioned in the author's master plan. Below are some things I try to keep in mind when developing my characters:

RICK RIORDAN'S TOP 5 TIPS ON CHARACTER

Define a character first through action, second through dialog and description, never through explanation.

A character should be primarily defined by the choices he makes, and the actions he takes.

How does he respond to violence?

How does he respond to love?

Secondly, a character must be vividly but deftly describe through his speech, and through the initial view you give the reader.

Never stop to explain who a character is when we can watch him in action and decide for ourselves.

Be impressionist rather than realistic.

Describe characters as Dickens did – with a single deft stroke.

A laundry list of physical traits is realistic, but it is neither memorable nor compelling.

A jarring metaphor for the character, or a focus on one mannerism or physical trait, can be very compelling.

Example: She was a human tornado.

Do not be afraid to use real people as models, but do not be constricted by your models.

It is very natural to use parts of ourselves or the people we know when creating characters.

Do not be afraid to do this because someone might get mad at you.

At the same time, let your character develop.

Do not force them to do what the real-life model would do.

Characters seldom end up exactly like the real people they are based on.

The reader does not have to be told everything you know about the character.

It may be critically important to you that your character has blue eyes, or went to Texas A&M.

But if these details have no part in the story, the reader will not care.

Leave them in your subconscious.

If you are having trouble figuring out a character, fill out a character profile, or do some journaling in that character's voice.

Your character must act, not simply be acted upon.

We care about characters because we are interested in the choices they make.

We want to boo the villain, cheer the hero, and cry with frustration when the tragic figure makes the wrong move.

A character who does not act, but simply receives information and is acted upon by outside forces, is not a character who will compel the reader.

Remember, plot is what the characters do next.

If the characters do not create the plot, the plot is hollow.

Here's a character profile worksheet I sometimes fill out if I'm having trouble understanding a particular character I've created:

Character Profile

Name:

Height:

Age in story:

Birthplace:

Hair color, length, style:

Race/nationality:

Regional influences:

Accent: (include voice, style of speech, slang, signature phrases or words)

Religion:

Marital status:

Scars or other notable physical attributes:

Handicaps: (emotional, physical, mental)

Athletic? Inactive? Overall health?

Style of dress:

Favorite colors:

How does the character feel about his/her appearance?

Brothers/sisters:

Relationship with parents:

Memories about childhood:

Educational background: (street smart? Formal? Does he/she read?)

Work experience:

Occupation:

Where does the character live now? Describe home (emotional atmosphere as well as physical)

Neat or messy?

Sexual preferences/morals/activities:

Women friends/men friends:

Pets?

Enemies? Why?

Basic nature:

Personality traits (shy, outgoing, domineering, doormat, honest, kind, sense of humor):

Strongest trait:

Weakest trait:

What does the character fear?

What is the character proud of?

What is the character ashamed of?

Outlook on life (optimistic, pessimistic, cynic, idealist)

Ambitions:

Politics:

How does the character see himself/herself?

How is the character seen by others?

Do you like this person? Why or why not?

Will readers like or dislike?

Most important thing to know about this character:

Present problem:

How it will get worse:

What is the character's goal in the story?

What traits will help/hurt the character in achieving this goal?

What makes the character different from similar characters?

Why will readers remember this character vividly?

Source

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Prompt #290

Hero has finally managed to take Supervillain into custody, and they are anxious to begin interrogating them, to finally uncover every secret and plan.

Unfortunately, from the moment Supervillain woke up in their cell, they can’t remember anything. Not their name, their profession, or their relationship with Hero. All they know is that this beautiful person keeps talking like they know them. And Supervillain really wants to know more about them.

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God bless those people who are INCREDIBLE writers but decide to use those skills to write gay fanfiction

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Bagged the Savior, scurry off now

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Winter Drarry for December :)

~~~♤~~~

Draco Malfoy loved winter more than most things in life. Truth be told, it made his cold heart just a little warmer each year.

Harry Potter was the first to notice; when Malfoy actually held a door open for him in their office.

"What's going on with you?" Harry asked suddenly, spinning around on his heel.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, "Nothing, Potter. Am I not allowed to simply be in a good mood?"

Malfoy's usual insults were replaced with quiet sighs and fond smiles, his morning mug of black coffee replaced with peppermint tea and cinnamon stirring sticks.

He even took the time to partially decorate his office, a simple string of garland around his desk and a wreath at the door.

It was driving Harry insane.

The colder it got outside the happier Malfoy appeared to be, he even showed up at the winter ministry event, events he had never gone to any other time of year.

His smiles were more genuine, and it took a lot more to irritate him than it usually did.

The others were stunned by the change, having never seen him as anything other than Harry Potter's no-nonsense grumpy auror partner. He actually hummed as he walked to the front doors on his lunch.

Harry kept finding reasons to be around him, just so he could see more of this side of Malfoy. He passed through, dropping off papers himself rather than calling for his assistant, asking to borrow a stapler, (which every room between them from the second and third floor carried as well)

He once bumped into him in the hallway, when Malfoy asked where he was off to his only response he could come up with was 'Going on a walk'

Despite Potter's efforts to remain discreet about his newest obsession with Malfoy, Draco noticed right away.

The thing that sold it? The stapler labled Potter's sitting neatly on his desk when Draco popped in to give him a copy of their latest assignment.

Draco decided to let it play out, upping the game a little more by going out of his way to be extra nice to Potter.

He'd offered to pick him up drinks from the cafe whenever he went out, always checked in on him during their field missions and stopped insulting him altogether. At one point, just to see the little vein pop out on Potter's forehead, Draco called him darling.

Potter's reaction was priceless, his face drained of all color for a moment before it all came rushing back into his cheeks at once.

He stammered out an excuse for needing to be somewhere else and hurried away to the nearest lift.

Draco smiled as he watched him go, realising that maybe he enjoyed flustering Potter a little too much.

His next plan was enchanted mistletoe, he set it up above his door, never walking underneath the frame if there was anyone in a five foot radius.

That is, until Potter showed up in his office again that morning, his cheeks still red,

"Hey Malfoy, they're requesting to see us in Kingsley's office for a debriefing at 3:30."

Draco nodded, "Very well, I'll be there."

Potter started to turn before Draco called him back,

"Actually, Potter, do you mind giving this to Lola for me? She asked for these to be delivered as soon as possible and I completely misplaced them yesterday." He held out a few pages clipped together, "You'd be doing me a huge favor." He added in a low voice.

Potter took them with a mute nod and cleared his throat,

"Right, yes. I'll get these to um... to Lola. Thank you." He laughed nervously.

"Everything alright, darling?" Draco asked, using his low voice he typically reserved for intimidating suspects.

"Yep! Yeah, everything's great. I uh-" His back hit the door frame as he took a few steps away, his cheeks flooding with heat again, "I'll go do this now."

The moment Draco stepped under the mistletoe they were both frozen in place. Potter looked up, his eyes wide,

"Is that-" He started. Draco sighed,

"Ahh, I'd forgotten about that. I was using it to try to keep people out of my office." He shrugged casually, "I suppose it backfired."

Potter suddenly looked back down at him, his eyes even wider, "Do we-" He coughed, "Er... do we, um-"

"Kiss? Yes, Potter, those would be the rules."

Harry nodded, "Right." He leaned back and scratched the back of his neck, "Of course." He muttered, clearing his throat again.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake." Draco sighed, holding either side of Potter's face and pulling him into a sudden kiss.

Potter's gasp was muffled against his lips.

The kiss that was supposed to be a joke just to see Potter's reaction.

The kiss that wasn't supposed to mean anything at all to Draco.

This kiss that was just... still... happening.

He couldn't pull away, Potter had melted into his touch, his arms wrapping around his waist almost instantly.

It was like magic, Draco had no idea when he'd gone from jokingly teasing to oh so many emotions coursing through him all at once.

He wasn't sure he wanted the kiss to ever end.

Potter pulled slightly away for air, "Malfoy?" He whispered, his voice hoarse.

Draco tilted their foreheads together, trying to fight the urge to shove his tongue down Potter's throat to get him to just stop talking.

"We're kind of in the hallway." He mumbled. Draco's eyes shot up over his shoulder, a few of their coworkers stared open-mouthed across the hall from them, unashamed of being caught looking.

Draco cursed under his breath and dragged Potter by his wrist into his office, slamming the door shut behind him and casting locking and silencing charms.

"Is this okay?" He asked, his hand coming up to cup Potter's jaw again.

Potter nodded breathlessly, "Yes."

It was years from then, as they were sitting in the Burrow with the rest of the Weasley's, newley-wed and happier than ever, that Harry confessed winter had been his favorite season ever since.

~~~♤~~~

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umm babes in boyband tell me more 👁

Hiiiiii 💛

Babes in Boyland is the tentative (probably permanent) title for the Mates sequel. It's meant to be the next part of their story— about a queer couple's journey to parenthood and also about gender identity, and also about growing up and growing closer and figuring out how you actually want forever to go now that you've promised it to someone.

I'm very much on the fence about a lot of what I've written for it so far... it means so much to me to do justice to the story that's in my head, but! A snippet of something (whether it'll go in the final thing or not, tbd...) is under the cut!

Babes snippet:

The problem, it seems, is Dylan.

It doesn’t start out as a problem. At least, it doesn’t start out as Harry’s problem. Harry is well into the throes of another London Fashion Week at the start of September when they get a call from a panicking Casey. It starts out with Louis volunteering a favor of a few days’ childcare at the end of the week, because she and Niall are both entirely underwater being newly back to work, and their new nanny has just come down with the flu. It starts out as Louis saying, “Take a deep breath, Case. You can drop her at ours, I’ll arrange to work from home a couple days. I’ve got a lighter week on anyway.” It starts with them agreeing it’s no problem at all.

And it’s not, really. It’s fine. It’s fine on Wednesday, when Harry’s on his lunch break, and Louis sends him a video of Dylan giggling every time Louis says “Hazza” to her in a funny voice. It’s mostly fine when Harry rewatches the video a hundred times. Obsessed more than a bit with the softness of Louis’ laugh and the gentle pitch of his voice when he asks Dylan if she thinks he’s being silly.

And it’s pretty much fine on Thursday, when Harry’s day has a later start, the first show he’s working not getting underway until late morning, and so he eats his breakfast on the sofa while Louis and Dylan lay on their backs on the living room rug, chatting. Or something like it. It’s Louis giving a lot of thoughtful nods and hums and occasionally saying, Oh, that’s a fascinating perspective, love. Do you want to say more about that? while Dylan carries on squeaking and cooing at him in nonsensical gibberish. It’s nearly fine when her wide blue eyes lock onto Louis’ face sometimes, seemingly awestruck. When she focuses her attention enough to reach for him and try to grab his nose, and he smiles at her and says, “Oh, hello. Well done.”

But then, Harry comes home on Friday, after a full day of darting between designer runway shows and he finds Louis with Dylan cuddled against his chest, and a half-full baby bottle in his hand, both of them dozing off in the rocking chair, and it’s… it’s not fine at all. Harry feels his heart unspool entirely at the sight, an inescapable tug in his chest that he’s been so stubbornly trying to ignore. Longing.

Because Harry wants this. The pudgy little limbs and the tiny, precious yawns. The clutch of teeny fingers in the fuzz of Louis’ jumper. He wants the endless late nights and impossibly early mornings. The sleep deprivation and dirty diapers. Bedtime stories, and first words, and pairs of itty-bitty socks. He wants it all so desperately that it physically hurts to think about Dylan going home to Shoreditch tonight. He doesn’t want to give her back. He tries to think, wildly for a second, if there’s some way they could find of keeping her, but he quickly shakes his head and forces himself to get a grip. He’s not going to steal Niall and Casey’s kid. For fuck’s sake.

If he’s being honest with himself, it’s not even actually Dylan that’s the problem.

The problem is that he and Louis have only been married for six fucking weeks of their forever so far. They’ve got the rest of their lives ahead still. But try as he might, there’s no getting around it now… Harry wants a baby.

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Three Days in February | (188k) | Explicit

@mercurial-madhouse / writing_practice

Action/Adventure | Angst | Happy Ending | Magical Realism/Supernatural Elements | Larry

*

How close is too close?

Harry and Louis are about to find out after a drunken night leaves them cursed. With two minds inside one body, the countdown is on to fix things before Louis’ uninhabited body turns irreparably cold to the bone. Oh, and Harry just has to keep his long-time crush on Louis a secret while the lad is literally in his head. Easy, right?

“We have to get out of here, outside,” Harry whispered, turning his hand in Louis’s grip to hold on and pull them both to their feet. “And how do we fucking do that?” Louis hissed, carefully rising and pulling Harry to his feet before Harry could do it. His gaze darted towards the front and then back of the arena. “None of the doors are where they’re supposed to be.” “What?” Harry looked around again too, couldn’t see any doors, only knew that they must be there, somewhere. “How do you know?” Confusion slid over Louis’s features. “Because we’ve been here before, Haz. It’s the O2.” The show. It must be the first night of their tour. They were too late; they were out of time.

UPDATE

@zannithinks gifted me with a brand new amazing moodboard and logline for this fic!!! They’re amazing, Love!!! Thank you so much!!!

1) I have been told by several readers to include this warning: “Do not read this fic in the evening if you’d like to sleep that night.”

B) If you have any curiousities or questions about Harry’s final secret (or anything else about the fic!), send me a message! I love making new friends and just because it’s a secret from Louis doesn’t mean it’s a secret from the reader.  I guarantee you already know what it means! (This explanation was really hard to write without spoiling anything.)

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The way you smile

A Larry fic by @allwaswell16 for @chloehl10

Words: 9k 🌊 Rating: Explicit 🌊 For: @hlsummerexchange2019

Harry doesn’t need to go on holiday. Unfortunately, his mum and sister disagree, which is how he ends up alone on holiday in the Caribbean. Luckily, he’s not alone for long.

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read on ao3

written by momentofclarity edit by the sweetest hi-larrie-ous based on a prompt by wonderful someonethatsfunny

Main pairing: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson Rating: General Audiences Chapters: 1/1, 10 307 words Summary:

Louis used to live the quiet sweet life of a small business owner in the English countryside.

Then Harry Styles came along.

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if it kills me

@1dbigbang ships: harry/louis (minor harry/omc, louis/greg james, zayn/liam) author: you_explode word count: 106k rating: mature art by: @becomeawendybird <3 here on ao3

Harry and Louis have worked together in a difficult office environment for six years. They’re best friends; Louis is the bright spot of all of Harry’s days. But Louis is in love with Harry, and Harry’s engaged to someone else. And that’s only the beginning. The Office AU. More or less follows the first five seasons. A lot of pining and misunderstanding the depth of feelings and rejection and angst, until there isn’t.

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“Okay,” he began warily, trying to be gentle, open, hoping that if this got bloody, Angela wouldn’t place the blame entirely on him. “Present your argument, counsellor,” he teased.

Marcel smiled back calmly, a lilt of certainty already woven into his voice like this argument was a shoo-in. “You first,” he said, almost gracious. “Why combat?”

Louis pursed his lips, quickly running through the things he wanted to say, trying to figure out what Marcel was up to.

“Well, first of all,” he said, carefully. “Combat is about movement, and describing any kind of movement is difficult.” A simple enough statement, he decided confidently. “When you write it, the sequence has to be logical, both for your character, and for your character in relation to another person. You have to be conscious – aware of where all the bodies are, all the time. It’s choreography – every action begets a reaction. It has to flow.”

“Mm-hmm,” Marcel agreed, nodding slowly. “Movement, choreography, bodies,” The last word sounded slightly sweeter than the rest, and it made Louis pause for a beat, but Marcel had his eyes on the table, too busy with his pen flying across a page of scrap paper like he was taking notes. He flicked his eyes up at the silence, his expression expectant. “Go on.”

Louis licked his lips, and shook off the vague niggling at the back of his mind quickly, beginning again.

“Then you have the vocabulary, which is incredibly particular because the weight of certain actions differ,” he turned to the fan in an effort to illustrate his meaning. “A punch means something different than a slap, or a smack – “

“Kind of like a peck, or a bite, or a lick?” Marcel’s unassuming tone was a little infuriating now, just enough to make Louis’ jaw flicker before he turned around. He was met with only an innocent shrug, Marcel’s white teeth sinking shallowly into the plush of his bottom lip as he tried to bite down on a smile.

– Combat vs. Smut, from Our Lives, Non-Fiction by indiaalphawhiskey

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Beautiful & Strange by graceling-in-a-suit (that’s me!)

Over the top of Niall’s cackles, Louis heard Zayn say: “I think it’s…. A spaceship.”

Louis and Niall turned to him in bafflement. Zayn put his hands up in surrender. “What! It’s clearly floating, so it’s not a rock, and it’s not made of wood or plastic or metal.”

Louis didn’t even bother telling him that, no, of course it’s not a spaceship, this isn’t the x-files.

OR: A story in which Harry is an alien looking to be found, and Louis does the finding. (And vice versa.)

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fic; No Place Without You

Harry’s in love with life and he’s in love with the world.

Louis’ in love with Harry and he doesn’t think there’s any way he can possibly compete.

A Wanderlust au in which Harry doesn’t have a permanent home and stays with Louis when he visits NYC.

Word Count: 19k 

on ao3 here!

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fic; no good unless it’s real

“Here,” Harry says, pulling a strap off his shoulder so he can dig his phone out of his bag. “We can get each other’s numbers.”

Louis shakes his head. “I have the practice’s number already,” he tells him. “And my number is definitely on file somewhere.”

Harry pauses, smile quirking a bit as he stares at Louis. The sun is still in his eyes, though, with his sunglasses pushed up onto his head still, so Louis credits his funny face to that.

“I’m trying to give you my number, Louis,” Harry explains around a breathy laugh.

“Oh,” Louis blinks, processing that. He scratches his temple, moves a piece of longer fringe back behind his ear, and then nods. “Okay.”

Or: Louis is a very busy farmer who’s just trying to make it to his next nap and Harry’s the new hot vet that’s determined to infiltrate every area of his life.

Word Count: 17k

here on ao3 ♡

written for the @bottomlouisficfest