creativecorner12 - Tumblr blog

[creativecorner12]

Alexander the Great was a cancer? Somehow that makes sense

[creativecorner12]

let's be honest, the best crackpot Alexander theory is that his bones are in Venice masquerading as those of a saint's

I’m highly into the idea of his gay ass pretending to be a Catholic saint just for the aesthetic

[creativecorner12]

You picked up an injured cat and patched it up overnight. The next morning, you woke up to see a family of witches standing beside your bed, and one of them is holding the injured cat in her arms. That witch said, “My cat wants to adopt you. So you’re now one of us.”

[creativecorner12]

hi! i wondered if you had any tips for going about writing a redemption arc?

Hi!

Redemption arcs are one of the greatest ways to show character development in writing. So I had fun thinking about what goes into a typical redemption arc.

Redemption Arc

A character overcomes their flaws and redeems themself from their mistakes.

The character’s motivations and needs

there are a few things you need to decide for your character

what negative traits does the character have?

can you see them easily or are they hidden and come out in some kind of betrayal situation?

are they aware of their negative traits and wrongdoings?

do they have control over them?

do they want to be better or do they have no remorse in the beginning?

the character could be a bad guy because they want to, because they are forced to, because they have good intentions but go about it the wrong way, because their taught to be one

the character doesn’t need to be a major villain, you can also write a great redemption arc about someone whose opinions or beliefs caused harm to others, but through time and effort they realize their mistakes

Timeline

the character starts off with negative traits and making mistakes

they probably face repercussions for this

these could be good or bad, but should ultimately get the character to think about their behavior

which leads into the realization/enlightenment part where they see the errors of their way and want tot do better

the last part is the true redemption, it can be one big event or a series of smaller things that make the reader and the other characters forgive the bad guy or at least acknowledge their betterment

Examples

the self-sacrifice: the bad guy realizes that the good guys are right and sacrifice themself to save them and redeem their past through this selfless act

the teamwork-makes-the-dream-work: the bad guy does have a good point, but they just don’t go about it the right way, so the good guys induct them into their team and hope that they can control themself for the sake of good intentions

the failed redemption: the bad guy is on their best way to be a good person, but one final event brings them right back to making a choice and they choose the bad one

the isn’t it ironic?: the bad guy did the bad things for one specific reason (motivation or need) and they can just never achieve it, no matter how bad they are, but ironically achieve it by being good

the enemy-turned-family: favourite trope, the bad guy somehow ends up with the good guys and they treat them with respect, and why are they being so nice to them? Slowly the enemy becomes part of the family and suddenly they’re on breakfast duty and make really nice eggs for the whole crew

Reminder

The terms bad guy and good guys was used in this post out of simplicity. A redemption arc doesn’t have to be about heroes and villains. It can also be about the bitchy Queen B who realizes that she doesn’t have to be like this to make friends, or the strict father who learns that his behavior makes his kids resent him and wants to become a better father to better their relationship, or the employer who doesn’t listen to his employees but then sees themself that the hierarchy in the company was being abused by some managers and tries to create a safer work space for everyone. Everyone has flaws and character development is one of the most interesting things to read and it keeps readers on their toes and makes them root for characters.

I hope you write some awesome redemption arcs and have fun!

- Jana

[creativecorner12]

Writing Prompt #1388

“Have you been hiding something from me?”

“A dead body. Maybe. But you don’t need to know more than that.”

[creativecorner12]

Hello! Do you have some advice on how to create and write a cult?

Hi!

I’m really interested in cults and their behaviour and structure, so I actually had a problem to not go overboard here. I will start with a short overview of the basics and then go into more detail. I hope you like it!

How to create and write a cult

The Leader

common characteristics: charismatic, manipulative, controlling

followers follow them without questioning them

they are often seen as a prophet or human idol or image of the diety the cult believe in

they speak with the authority of a god

make sure to give them some uniqueness, maybe an air of otherworldliness to make them more godlike so they stand out

give reasons for why they want a following, what do they get out of it?

give reasons for why people would follow and be loyal to them

The Followers

often disenchanted from society and their own beliefs

wanting something new, a new start

single people, living on their own

often without close ties to family or friends

remember that everyone, no matter their intelligence and their confidence can become entangled in a cult

some are just a little bit easier to prey on

The Cult

often strict hierarchy

rules, routines and practiced behaviours

love bombing and brainwashing

feeling of superiority

being the good guys in an “us against the world”-scenario

taking everything from the outside away that a new member could rely on

making them solely rely on the cult

if someone does escape they are either pursued, stalked and harrassed or they are being shunned by everyone in the cult

Structure

cults typically have one godlike leader

they do not get questioned, they get imitated and followed

they have a small, but extremely loyal group of followers around them

this core group implements the leader’s rules and controls the rest of the followers

they often have more benefits and liberties than the rest

a normal follower would probably mostly interact with someone from the core group as the person in charge and not the leader themself

depending on the cult, the other followers can be separated and put into smaller households

this can break up pre-existing units and helps controlling the members

Examples:

nuclear family

one man and a harem of women and younger children

separated by gender (younger boys with women)

separated by skill

separated by age

separated into “classes”

Beliefs

a religious cult can be independent or a secession from a mainstream religion

if it is completely independent then you need a good reason for why people would follow those beliefs

you probably need to make up rules and practices and lore that goes along with it and legitimizes it

but it can’t only be about rules and maybe hardship, the people need a reason for wanting to follow this

the leaderis often acting like they are the only one who can give these people what they want and need (love, acceptance, saftey, inner peace, etc.)

the leaders are very charismatic and almost perfect citizens from the outside, but more often than not manipulative and controlling

if the cult is based on a mainstream religion you have to take some of the beliefs from that religion and incorporate it

a big difference between a religion and a cult is the blind belief in a diety and the blind belief in a charismatic human

but a cult can also more fundamentalistic part of a religion that was excommunicated from the main church

be careful to show the common beliefs, but also show the major differences as not to insult readers from the main religion

Acquisition of followers

cults like to target people that are unhappy with their current life and often people without a lot of confidence

it’s easier if the person doesn’t have family or firends that they are close with

cult members can be anywhere to recrut new members, but they are often found in places of mainstream religions or within support groups to prey on already vulnerable people

love bombing - a manipulative strategy in which the cult bombards the target with so much love, acceptance, understanding and happy, positive vibes that they feel like no one will ever love them like this

they also try to tell the target that only they love them and can give them what they need and that everyone else is not wanting the best for them, only they do

they try to isolate them from their friends and family

but plot twist - as soon as this tactic is successful and the person joined the cult, they take away that love, which maked the target feel more alone than ever and desperate to get that love back

in some cases where they literally take that person from their life and bring them into theirs, this could also include drugging and excessive praying or reciting that puts them in a trance, this can go on for days

they will continue to try to isolate them from their old lifes and give them new families by putting them into groups or households

this way, even if they want to leave, they feel like they have no one waiting for them outside

they also have to fear being shunned from their new friends and family if they go against the rules

Behaviour

“Us vs. Them” mentality, making the outside world out to be a purely evil place and they are the only safe haven

secrecy, about their rituals, sometimes beliefs, but definitely about the ways people are kept in the cult

often not showing new members a lot of what they truly believe in and how they go about those beliefs until the member is isolated and already too deep inside the cult

identifying marks, like tattoos or brand marks and specific clothes to show unity

emotional, physical and sexual abuse can often be found in cults, sometimes even systematically implemented like a ritual

children are married young and only to other members

having lots of children is encouraged to grow the cult, but also to trap the parents inside the cult, because leaving with children is even more difficult

often rejection of law enforcement and political establishment, not following state laws, but following their own rules

everyone else gets blames but them and outside intervention to save the people can even strengthen the cult against the outside

snitching is encouraged, memebers tell on each other at the first sign of independent thinking and second guessing the leader

punishments are mostly being given by the core group around the leader and are often mad eout to be a punishment from the diety they believe in

sometimes there is a loyalty test members (reguarly) have to to pass to show that they still follow not matter what

Get more information

this format is not ideal to go into every detail, so you have to do more research

read books or articles on the internet about psychology, what kind of people are more susceptible to being victims and what makes a person a cult leader

check out actual cults and look how they do their thing (or did, take Jonestown for example)

you can also check out witness accounts of people that were able to escape cults (there are quite a few on YouTube)

check out different kinds of cults

I went with religious here, but there are also cults based on other ideology, political cults, doomsday cults, etc. 

This took so long, so have fun and good luck! :)

- Jana

[creativecorner12]

Masterpost: How to write a story?

Compilation of writing advice for some aspects of the writing process.

How to motivate myself to write more

How to get rid of writer’s block

Basic Overview: How to write a story

How to create a character

Introducing a group of characters

Large cast of characters interacting in one scene

Redemption arc

Plot twists

How to write a summary

More specific scenarios

Slow burn

How to create quick chemistry

How to write a bilingual character

How to create and write a cult

Criminal past comes to light

Reasons for breaking up while still loving each other

Forbidden love

Date gone wrong

Causes for the apocalypse

How to create a coffee shop atmosphere

[creativecorner12]

Hi! I see A LOT of otp prompts on tumblr but it's so hard to find platonic ones. If you don't mind, do you think you can make some sibling and parental prompts?

Thanks 🍒

HI :)

Here are some prompts and some dialogue for siblings and then parents. (I know you requested found family in another ask as well, but I will come to it later under that ask.)

Siblings Prompts

teasing and bantering on a daily basis

importance of being the older one

not wanting to be compared to each other by parents, teachers, etc.

secretly kinda comparing themselves

a lot of inside jokes

getting each other just by looking at each other

sitting next to each other and sending each other memes and texting this is you

annoying each other but loving each other dearly

knowing when the other one is down and trying to annoy them just to get their mind of what made them sad or anxious

Dialogue

“I will go first. I’m the older one!” “You don’t have to tell me, everyone can see that.”

“Oh, you really messed up. Can I be there when you tell mom and dad?”

“That’s not what you wrote in your diary...”

“And this is why mom loves me more.”

“Oh, you think you’re so funny, aren’t you?”

“Mom! They don’t want to give me the remote!” “You’re both in your twenties, learn to handle it yourself!”

Existing prompts

Babysitting your younger sister is hard enough in itself. But when your sister is not like normal kids and it’s possible that she could just float away like a helium-filled balloon, it’s hell. (#296)

Write a story about playing Mario Cart. Against friends, family or strangers. Extra points for using absurd insults against the other contestants. (#13)

What had started as a friendly game of Simon Says quickly turned into a complete and utter disaster. (#398)

Parent Prompts

kids falling asleep in the car on the way home and their parents don’t want to wake them up

wanting another child but not knowing how the first one reacts

going to the grocery store with that many kids is a challenge

being the loudest and proudest parent at their kid’s game

having an argument but can’t staying mad at each other for longer than a few minutes

child is just hugging the parent, murmuring sorry

knowing how important it is to say sorry to your child, when the parent was wrong

basically adopting all their kid’s friends, the more the merrier

an important decision has to be made and they want to know the child’s opinion

Dialogue

“Isn’t that the girl you keep talking about?” “Mom!”

“You’re good old dad is not here to embarrass you. I’m just here to eat cake with your friends and tell dad jokes.”

“You can tell me everything, you know that, right? I will not judge you.”

“It’s great that you want to become a princess when you’re older, Honey. But even future monarchs have to eat their vegetables.”

“I talked to the mom of that boy you think is so cute...”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Oh, how cute! Is it a boy or a girl.” “It’s a child.”

“I’d come for you”, he said. “No matter what, when you need me, I will be there.” (#138)

“Mom! I’m an internationally feared super villain!” “Sure, of course you are, sweetie.” (#92)

Other existing prompts

She’s the kind of Mom who just knows when it’s the worst time to come in. (#202)

“Hi.” “Hi? I have to find out that my dad is not my real dad, that I was living a lie my whole life and that my father is a strange man and then I meet the strange man and everything he has to say is ‘Hi’?” (#331)

Have fun!

- Jana

[creativecorner12]

Hi! I'm trying to write an enemies to lover slowburn, but I don't know how to start it...I have written the middle parts, the jucier parts👀 Can you give me some tips on how to start it? Aso, if you don't mind, do you have any tips on writing enemies to lovers👉👈 Thanks a lot in advance!

Hi :)

Oh, I love me some good enemies to lover trope. But there is some things you have to be careful with, so I start with a little reminder what not to do and then go into what to do and even though you didn’t really ask for it, I thought of some prompts while writing this answer.

Enemies to lover

stay away from non-consensual

they are enemies and will likely be awful to each other in the beginning

but if you want them to be a happy couple at the end they shouldn’t be abusive to each other

because even if they later get together it will always leave a mark on that relationship

forcing someone to do something is wrong and even if the victim later loves to do it in the relationship, it doesn’t change the fact that they were once forced when they didn’t want to do it

Now that that is established here is how to start with the trope.

Why are they enemies?

how do they know each other?

why do they hate each other?

are they literally at war with each other or are they people who met each other and really didn’t click in the beginning?

give them reason to hate or at least strongly dislike each other

you can give them the same reason for hating each other

or spice it up and make both of them dislike something else about the other person

How can you fix it?

now that you’ve established why they hate it each other you have to find out what needs to be done to fix it

it’s important to find a way to make them both see the other person as a normal human being with their own hopes and problems and not just this unshakeable image of an always bad enemy

maybe they don’t know all the information, maybe it’s a misconception that could be solved by talking

but don’t just make them say those things

let actions speak louder than words

for example character A thinks character B is rude and inconsiderate and only interested in themself - but then A sees B doing something completely selfless

Slowly falling love

it wouldn’t be enough to see them being selfless to make them completely change their mind and fall in love

but it would make them rethink what they thought about the other one and maybe try to get to know them better, because they realized there is so much more to learn and they maybe judged too soon

a changed behaviour in one character could then trigger the other one into rethinking their bad relationship

finding something that they have in common or that they like about the other one can pave the way for a neutral relationship that then turns into something more

so it rarely goes directly from hate to love, especially because this could be an indicator for rash actions and mood swings towards each other that could be harmful in a relationship

it’s more like hate turning into acceptance and understanding and then slowly to love

Prompts

“Well. well, well. Look who came to their enemy’s door holding presents.” “Oh cut it, I’m here to pick you up for our date.”

“I’m scared that it could end badly if it doesn’t work out.” “You’re already enemies. How worse could it get?”

“Why did you save me?” “Just because I’m the bad guy doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy.”

“I can’t tell them. They would make fun of me! We used to hate each other!” “Used to - that’s the important part.”

“I can’t really remember what we were fighting about all this time.”

“That guy is not good for you. Hell, even I would be better for you and I’m your enemy.”

- Jana

[creativecorner12]

“You can’t expect any of them to trust you if you don’t trust yourself. You’re a badass. Act like it.”

And then they said…

Have a character say this and build on from there. Where the conversation and the story goes is up to you!

[creativecorner12]

Prompt #618

“You can’t just adopt random kids from the street that you feel sorry for.”

“Well, if no one else is going to do it…”

[creativecorner12]

Prompt #620

“Why do you want to save a world that does not care about you?”

[creativecorner12]

Morally grey: A character who does too much bad to be a good person, but does too much good to be a bad person.

Sympathetic villain: A character who is a bad person, but whose backstory/character arc makes you feel sorry for or sympathetic towards them.

Anti-hero: A character who does bad things to achieve a good goal.

Anti-villain: A character who does bad things to achieve a goal that they believe to be good, but is actually messed up.

Just plain annoying: A character who does bad things to achieve a bad goal but has one throwaway line about a hard childhood that is expected to put them into one of the aforementioned categories when in reality it just makes them annoying

[creativecorner12]

Starting to dislike/realize the flaws in Harry Potter feels like waking up from the trance of a fairy king.

The smile slowly fades from your face as you step out of the circle of mushrooms, asking yourself “Did Joanne really win awards for this level of writing?” The glassy look begins to vanish from your eyes as you think, “Why did Cho Chang get constantly berated by the narration for grieving her graphically murdered dead boyfriend?” You remove your flower crown and hold it in shaking hands as you ask yourself “Were we all just fine and dandy when Jay Kay Ar decided that one of the four houses at her wizarding school was founded by a faux white supremacist and was also FULL of eleven-year-olds who were forcibly designated as white supremacists?” The sky grows darker. You remember the Tolkien plagiarism. You remember the house elves. You remember the banker goblins. You begin to run—

[creativecorner12]

some fucking resources for all ur writing fuckin needs

body language masterlist

a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

550 words to say instead of fuckin said

638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

some more body language help 

[creativecorner12]

x What each kiss meant

Hand: A sense of honour, respect, and blessing

Forehead: A sense of care, patients, tenderness

Shoulder: A sense of fondness, yearning, desire 

Cheek: A sense of safety, appreciation, haven 

Ear: A sense of attentiveness, awareness, hooked

Neck: A sense of intimacy, need, want 

Thigh: A sense of passion, romance, amity

Stomach: A sense of fullness, grounded, adornment 

Heart: A sense of blessing, loyalty, devotion

[creativecorner12]

idk if anyone will find this useful, but this is how i go about planning my stories. i mostly write fantasy, so that’s what this is most applicable to. but it could work with other genres too.

so there’s three major components to a story: the characters, the plot, and the world. creating them individually is the easy part, but they all connect and affect each other in different ways. (like you can’t have a character who loves peaches and eats them every day if they live a peasant in a region that doesn’t grow peaches, for example.)

so i created a cheat sheet to help connect all three components together.

1) the world creates the characters.

this is related to the peach example above. the characters should be a direct result of the environment they grew up in and the environment they currently live in.

2) the characters are limited by the world.

also related to the peaches. characters can’t do anything outside of what the rules of their surroundings and universe allow, such as eating peaches when they’re not available. this also applies for magic users. they can’t have unlimited magic, so keep in mind what you want out of both the characters and the world when creating magic systems.

3) the characters carry the plot.

we’ve all heard it before: “bad characters can’t carry a good plot. good characters can carry a bad plot.” but we all like a good plot anyway. try to make sure you’re not giving your characters too heavy or too light of a plot to carry.

4) the plot pushes the characters.

if nothing in the plot happens, your characters will remain static forever. if you struggle with plots, try starting with what character development you want to happen, then go from there.

5) the plot depends on the world.

you can’t overthrow the evil government if there isn’t one. think of what your world needs most and what your plot is centered around, and fit those two together.

6) the world is changed by the plot.

even if your plot is centered around something most of your world would call “insignificant”, the world will still experience some change from the plot. either the evil government will be gone, or maybe that one teacher is now way more careful about keeping an eye on the test key. either way, the world will be different from now on.

final note: usually people will be able to write one or two of the components with ease, but don’t know where to go from there. i personally can’t write plots, but thinking this way has really helped me actually make a story out of the world and characters because i looked at what i needed from what i had. i really hope this can help you too! happy writing!

tl;dr this is a cheat sheet to help anyone who struggles with writing one or two of what i consider the three major components to a story.