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I'm really fucking angry & have been sitting with this for a few days.

Why is nobody talking about the fact that 215 children's bodies were discovered in Canada, all killed in Kamloops Indian Residential School?

the last Residential School was closed in the fucking 80s, but I've heard fellow native people say it's 1996.

closed in the 1980s-90s.

that wasn't long ago.

I'm crying as I write this and my blood is boiling, nobody is fucking talking about these poor babies who were ripped from their families and MURDERED!!!

nobody outside of Canada fucking talks about this. I'm so sick of it. There's so much violence towards native people, and nobody gives a shit.

They're ripping through our land as I speak, and our Prime Minister is at the center of it!

his statement towards the discovery of these children is to call this a "shameful chapter of our country's history" BUT HEY, JUSTIN??? the chapter ain't fucking done, you sick monster!!

there are 40 year olds who are still alive, who were survivors of the residential schools!!!

I'm so disgusted. I'm so done. I'm so, so disappointed in this awful country.

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Actually

The question I get the most is how I write characters that feel like real people. 

Generally when I’m designing a human being, I deconstruct them into 7 major categories:

1. Primary Drive 2. Fear: Major and Secondary 3. Physical Desires 4. Style of self expression 5. How they express affection 6. What controls them (what they are weak for) 7. What part of them will change.

1. Primary Drive: This is generally related to the plot. What are their plot related goals? How are they pulling the plot forward? how do they make decisions? What do they think they’re doing and how do they justify doing it. 2. Fear: First, what is their deep fear? Abandonment? being consumed by power? etc. Second: tiny fears. Spiders. someone licking their neck. Small things that bother them. At least 4. 3. Physical desires. How they feel about touch. What is their perceived sexual/romantic orientation. Do their physical desires match up with their psychological desires.

4. Style of self expression: How they talk. Are they shy? Do they like to joke around and if so, how? Are they anxious or confident internally and how do they express that externally. What do words mean to them? More or less than actions? Does their socioeconomic background affect the way they present themselves socially?  5. How they express affection: Do they express affection through actions or words. Is expressing affection easy for them or not. How quickly do they open up to someone they like. Does their affection match up with their physical desires. how does the way they show their friends that they love them differ from how they show a potential love interest that they love them. is affection something they struggle with?

6. What controls them (what they are weak for): what are they almost entirely helpless against. What is something that influences them regardless of their own moral code. What– if driven to the end of the wire— would they reject sacrificing. What/who would they cut off their own finger for.  What would they kill for, if pushed. What makes them want to curl up and never go outside again from pain. What makes them sink to their knees from weakness or relief. What would make them weep tears of joy regardless where they were and who they were in front of. 

7. WHAT PART OF THEM WILL CHANGE: people develop over time. At least two of the above six categories will be altered by the storyline–either to an extreme or whittled down to nothing. When a person experiences trauma, their primary fear may change, or how they express affection may change, etc. By the time your book is over, they should have developed. And its important to decide which parts of them will be the ones that slowly get altered so you can work on monitoring it as you write. making it congruent with the plot instead of just a reaction to the plot. 

That’s it.

But most of all, you have to treat this like you’re developing a human being. Not a “character” a living breathing person. When you talk, you use their voice. If you want them to say something and it doesn’t seem like (based on the seven characteristics above) that they would say it, what would they say instead?

If they must do something that’s forced by the plot, that they wouldn’t do based on their seven options, they can still do the thing, but how would they feel internally about doing it?

How do their seven characteristics meet/ meld with someone else’s seven and how will they change each other?

Once you can come up with all the answers to all of these questions, you begin to know your character like you’d know one of your friends. When you can place them in any AU and know how they would react.

They start to breathe.

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How to write better descriptions

1. Avoid weak words

Remember my post on the word ‘take?’ ‘Take’ is a weak word, but it isn’t the only one. 

Compare these:

He ate the sandwich

She walked towards the lake.

The book smelled good.

to these: 

He devoured the sandwich 

She strolled towards the lake. 

The book smelled magical. 

Which sentences are more engaging? The latter ones. Why? Because devoured and strolled are stronger words than ate and walked. They’re more specific. They give you more information. To get across the same information with ate and walked, you’d have to add more words: she walked slowly, he ate quickly. 

Replacing good with magical doesn’t work quite as well as the verbs, but magical does tell us slightly more than good: it gives us a better sense of how the smell makes the character feel. 

How do you spot a weak word? Weak words are vague. They’re umbrella terms. They need support from other words to really get their meaning across. If you find yourself adding adverbs and adjectives to a term, question whether or not there’s a more concise way to get your point across. 

Strong word choice, however, isn’t all that’s needed for a good description:

2. Be as specific as required.

This isn’t to say you should describe everything in every scene in perfect detail, but being specific matters. 

Which is more engaging? 

He devoured the sandwich 

The book smelled magical.

or

He devoured the sandwich, stopping only to lick up the melted cheese that seeped through his fingers and ran down his palm. 

The book smelled magical, like a sunlit afternoon. 

Again, the latter ones. They take you into the scene. They evoke the senses. It’s the difference between telling and showing. Devoured is a strong verb, but it doesn’t give us a clear image of what is happening. Showing the character licking away the cheese gives the reader a sense of the desperation and hunger of the action. Evoking a sunlit afternoon is evoking your reader’s memories of their own sunny afternoons.These examples are statements with evidence. They provide details. 

You want to invite your reader into the scene, not give them a summary of the events.

Additionally, specifics make the world feel real. They convince readers that the world actually exists. They keep the story in your readers’ minds once they’ve finished reading. 

This being said, don’t pull a GRRM and describe every meal your characters eat. Some things just aren’t that important. There are occasions when it’s okay to tell instead of show. 

3. Remember the point of view.

Who is giving the description? 

If you’re writing in 1st person or 3rd person limited, remember how your character feels about what you’re describing. If you’re describing a strawberry field, a person who was raised on a strawberry farm is going to see it differently than someone who is deathly allergic to strawberries, who is going to see it differently from a Beatles fanatic. 

Maybe the Beatles fanatic is deathly allergic to strawberries and this field brings up a whole bucketful of conflicting emotions.

Which is all to say: 

Good descriptions reveal character as well as scene. 

If this description is coming from a character’s point of view: what is that point of view? What is this scene making your character feel? Don’t let your narrator slip away from the page. 

This connects to my last point. 

4. Remember why you’re including it. 

Novel writing is persuasive writing. It’s an exercise in persuading your reader that your story is true, that your characters are real people. It’s an exercise in persuading your readers to feel what you want them to feel. 

(There’s a well-known quote about this somewhere, but I can’t remember it exactly.)

Every description must add to the story. It should be doing something: working for some larger goal, advancing the plot, revealing character. 

Maybe you’re describing a house because you want your reader to see why your character doesn’t want to move.  

Maybe you’re describing this lovely-smelling book because you want the reader to know that it’s important to the character. That her favorite memories are of reading it in the attic of her grandmother’s house. 

When you’re writing out a description, identify its purpose and make sure it fulfils it. 

It’s okay if at first you don’t know how the house makes the character feel, or if she’s running or strolling towards the lake, or why the book is so important. Sometimes you just know it’s there. That something happened. Usually things become clearer as you write further and get to know the story and characters yourself. 

Once you do know what you’re trying to say with your story, make sure you say it with every chapter, every description, and every word. 

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The Akira bike slide and every animation ever made since the 1988/1990 film releases

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Say it with me: I’m worthy of being loved, and appreciated, even when I may feel like I’m not.

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An unfinished WIP I will probably never finished due to art block 😞

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Find you, love you,marry you and live without shame.

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”So I feel like this is the perfect time for a film like this. I feel like the film has become more important and more relevant today, which is a sad thing.” – Oscar Winner Taika Waititi in the Press Room

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What you can say instead of the word beautiful:

lovely, 

charming, 

delightful, 

appealing, 

engaging, 

winsome

ravishing, 

gorgeous, 

heavenly, 

stunning, 

arresting, 

glamorous,

 irresistible, 

bewitching, 

beguiling

graceful, 

elegant,

 exquisite, 

aesthetic, 

artistic, 

decorative, 

magnificent

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one of the best pieces of writing advice i’ve ever gotten:

if a scene isn’t working, change the weather.

it sounds stupid, but seriously, it works. thank u to my screenwriting professor for this wisdom

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AU where Hunter sells Echo to One Direction

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THE BAD BATCH ☆ 1.04 CORNERED

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COVID-19 HELP GUIDE (INDIA)

THE SITUATION IN INDIA

RESOURCES AND INFORMATION

SOME NGOs WHERE YOU CAN REGISTER TO DONATE OR REQUEST FOR PLASMA. IF YOU'VE RECOVERED FROM COVID, PLEASE REGISTER ON ANY OF THESE WEBSITES.

dhoond.com

needplasma.in

plasmadonor.in

plasmaline.in

pintnetwork.com

rotarybloodbankgurgaon.in

kabwelfarefoundation.org

NDTV is also running a campaign wherein you can drop them an email or WhatsApp them the requirements and prescription, and they'll help you find donors as early as possible.

feedback@ndtv.com (e-mail)

9910668811 (WhatsApp number)

WEBSITES TO CHECK AVAILABILITY OF REMDESIVIR, HOSPITAL BEDS & PLASMA

this website has state-wise emergency helpline numbers, list of resources - oxygen, beds etc.

the mumbai civic body, BMC, also has a bed availability tracker which is updated every 2 hours.

cipla is currently giving remdesivir injections directly to the hospital where a patient has been admitted in order to avoid black marketing of the medicines.

info.availability@cipla.com (e-mail)

8657311088 (helpline no.)

delhi govt.'s website to keep track of beds

city wise helpline numbers

DOCTORS WHO CAN GUIDE YOU

OXYGEN CYLINDERS

HOW TO FIND A PLASMA DONOR

OTHER IMPORTANT LINKS:

COVID RELIEF OPEN SOURCE REQUEST TRACKER

DONOR REGISTRATION LINK (DELHI)

VOLUNTEER TO HELP ORGANISE ONLINE RESOURCES

INDIA WIDE COVID RESOURCES

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How To Reference Romantic Attraction Between Your Characters:

Person A’s inability to make eye-contact for long periods of time while Person B is constantly looking into A’s eyes. (extra points if Person A looks away and blushes)

Interest Copying (When interested in another person, humans tend to copy that person’s movements, stature, etc)

Cute nervous ticks while around one another (Dont just use blushing and stuttering! Other ticks exist! Shuffling, fiddling their thumbs, scratching the back of their neck, bouncing their leg, nervous laughter, picking at their palm, biting the inside of their cheek, etc!)

Remembering little details about one another (How person A never eats the beans on their plate, or person B’s favorite color, the color of their eyes, where their birthmark is, are they a morning or night person? Bonus points if they figure this information out by observation, not by being told!)

Constantly smiling or laughing around their love interest

Confessing their love (but only in Spanish)

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any other writers out there ever read a paragraph of your own work and just, in the least self centered way possible, think

fuck, i’m such a good writer.

if you haven’t, that day will come eventually, i promise. but until then, keep writing whatever your little working brain tells you, because one day you’ll consider it a masterpiece or absolute shit that’ll make you laugh and realize just how far you’ve come.

keep writing words so your future self has stuff to look back on and either compare to current wips, or to reminisce on. words are permanent as long as you let them be.