grimmreads · 6 months ago
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People don't realize that worldbuilding creates context for certain actions. Certain aspects of your world might not be there as things that actively play a role in the plot, but they will exist to influence characters actions.
For example, if you have a world where every faction is acting unusually paranoid, often even to a detrimental level, that's going to read a lot differently depending on your world's lore. If that's happening after a hundred year peace then that reads way differently then if that's happening during the recovery after a devastating war.
The thing you have to remember when worldbuilding, especially with lore, is that the world people live in informs their actions. The way things play a role in your world is going to effect how the characters interact with them. Murdering someone in revenge is going to be a lot different in a technologically advanced future then it is a post apocalyptic hellscape (and if that is normalized in an advanced future that informs us a lot about your world.)
You can design magic systems and ftl drives all you want, but if you don't think about how things inform the culture and the way people in this world live their lives, it'll all feel flat.
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grimmreads · 6 months ago
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Children in writing: my personal pet peeves
Okay, some might know that I work as an elementary school aid, done it on and off since I was 19, so I have the credits lol. Last december I even got my trade school papers for it. I preface this this way bwcause I have worked with shitton of kids, and will in a future. My background also means that I am very quick to notice when people don't interact with kids that much.
Even the savant syndrome kid is still a kid
One thing that annoys the hell out of me is when the 8 year old smart kid character acts like a 32 year old with all the emotional cababilities it entails. Yes, some kids have an higher intelligence, emotional or otherwise, but in the core of them, they are a kid. They get temper tantrums, they are in awe of new discoveries, they love to play in their own way.
For example, the class I'm in now, we have a kid I will call James. James is raised by his grandparents and it shows in everything he does. He is an old soul, always getting striaght As and almost helping the adults in conflicts. James also giggles as I race with him during recess, he sulks like a kid after not getting what he wanted and laughs really hard at fart jokes. He is 8 even if he has an emotional intelligence of an older kid.
Children are sponges, in bad and good
Speaking of James, he is a great example of children being sponges. This 8 year old, he uses terms like "gosh darn it" or "welp, it is what it is", terms I could see his farmer grandpa using. When he is stressed, he poses like a 73 year old looking at a broken tracktor. You can see his grandpa in him clearly.
I want to say it because a lot of people only write like "I am bad because my dad was bad" characters, even though it isn't that simple moat of the time, and children being sponges could be used in so many different ways, and not just bad.
Kids knowing big words doesn't always mean they are smart
This adds into the "kids are sponges" segment. Lot of kids, especially now, pick up different words, some very difficult, but they themselves don't know what they mean. Just today I had to explain what a dictator meant to a kid talking about North Korea. (That is an other thing too I like to add: kids try to explain with their own understandkng of the world what things they don't understand are)
Children's are adults in progress
Thus is a thing that peeves me the most of all, because a lot of people think children are thing entire different entity than adults. I like to explain it in videogame logic, like as a kid you are doing the first levels and progressing trough. You still the same character at the core of it, you just leveled up and got new tricks up your sleeve. Children are humans, they aren't that difficult to comprehend.
kids with disabilities have presonalities
Omg I am such a passionate person towards this, especially because I am specialized in special ed. It annoys me in no end when a special ed kid's presonality is "ehh they are disabled?". Every single special ed kid I have been with have different personalities and likes and dislikes, if they can't show it to you themselves. I don't think I have met two disabled kids (nor adults) with same personalities, even if they have exact same disability.
In the class I am in now, James's best friend is this kid named Jackie. I don't know Jackie's diagnosis but she can't walk straight, and uses multiple walking aids when her legs hurt too bad. She can't talk very well, struggling with her speak. Still, those things weren't the first thing I'd use to describe her. I'd describe her as a dramaqueen, always ready to complain about something, i'd describe her as a sporty, always running after her friends, even if she is much slower than others. I'd describe her as kindhearted, and clingy as she is always ready for a hug. Her disability is n intergal part of her but not everything.
I could complain about this all day. I have worked with kids and adults with disabilities and they have all been do different from each other (like able bodied people). Maybe another post lol.
Okay rant over.
Tldr: Chldren are humans too. Lol
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grimmreads · 1 year ago
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wait fuck i forgot i had tumblr again
wait fuck i forgot i had tumblr
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grimmreads · 1 year ago
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Deepest apologies to the well-thought-out characters that I created but never wrote the stories for.
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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The best ship dynamic is actually just. "I love you and it terrifies me. I'm terrified how much I need you and how much I want you to need me. I'm terrified I'm no good for you and I'm going to hurt you and ruin you and I'm terrified of how I feel when you're around me but I can't bear to push you away completely because I'm terrified to be without you so now we're stuck in limbo and that's terrifying too. I'm terrified that if I lost you now it'd destroy me and I'm terrified that it's too late to do anything about it. I love you. And it's terrifying."
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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First rule of reincarnation is to have insane sex with the guy who killed you last time
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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what if i started using tumblr again ?
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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wip intro: children of the wood
twenty-year old rowan has been raised to fear the alderwood, the forest that surrounds her city that claims the lives of young women – including rowan’s own mother. after her mother’s disappearance, rowan’s father petitioned the king to betroth infant rowan to wren, the infant prince. because of the magical bond between them, by marrying wren, rowan will never be able to go anywhere without him.
she would be safe from the alderwood.
but rowan is hearing voices and seeing visions of a woman beckoning her into the alderwood. and, after the king and rowan’s father decide to move the wedding up for both wren and rowan’s safety, rowan runs. at the edge of the alderwood, she meets a group that call themselves the children of the wood and they have devoted their lives in worship of the alderwood. it’s there that rowan learns the voices she’s been hearing and visions she’s been seeing mean she was chosen to be sacrificed to the alderwood.
wanting a purpose and with a desire to figure out what happened to her mother, rowan does the only thing everyone had been trying to prevent her entire life – she enters the alderwood. there she meets lisette, a beautiful and mysterious young woman who says she knows how to help, and felix, a dark and brooding man that lisette tells her to stay away from.
when rowan has a curse put upon her, she must find the witch who can break it if she wants to live to see twenty-one. so now, rowan must decide between saving her own life and saving everything she’s ever loved.
because the most dangerous thing inside the alderwood is rowan herself.
age category/genre: adult fantasy fairytale retelling | pov: dual close third | status: first draft | target word count: 85,000
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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here have 10 pieces of writing advice that have stuck with me over the years
every character’s first line should be an introduction to who they are as a person
even if you only wrote one sentence on a really bad day, that’s still one sentence more than you had yesterday
exercise restraint when using swear words and extra punctuation in order for them to pack a punch when you do use them
if your characters have to kiss to show they’re in love, then they’re not in love
make every scene interesting (or make every scene your favorite scene), otherwise your readers will be just as bored as you
if you’re stuck on a scene, delete the last line you wrote and go in a different direction, or leave in brackets as placeholders
don’t compare your first draft to published books that could be anywhere from 3rd to 103rd drafts
i promise you the story you want to tell can fit into 100k words or less
sometimes the book isn’t working because it’s not ready to be written or you’re not ready to write it yet; let it marinate for a bit so the idea can develop as you become a better writer
a story written in chronological order takes a lot more discipline and is usually easier to understand than a story written with flashbacks
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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ID: People don't derive joy from their ocs like they used to. Talk about them on main. Put them in silly little AUs. Torture them a bit. Ship them, make playlists, be cringe. Just have fun.
It's so easy as writers to forget why why're doing this, to get bogged down perfectionism and followers and plotting and marketing when none of that is the point of writing.
The point of writing is just to make a little guy. To make them happy and to make them sad. To teach them lessons and watch them grow. To maybe be a little horny about them (if that's for you). To make YOURSELF happy, above all else.
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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Writer's Ask Game
There are a couple weird and unrelated questions in there.
What was the first thing you ever wrote for yourself? Not for a school assignment but for your own enjoyment.
That one genre you always try to avoid writing about and why?
The WIP you are most attached to.
How many times have you been thrown off plot for a particular WIP?
How would you describe your writing style? Does your writing style change for different WIPs? If yes describe all or maybe just a few.
Which part of writing annoys you the most?
Which OC do you want to punch in the face?
Which OC do you think you will enjoy enacting and why?
How do you get rid of writers block? (I wanna know your secret method)
How often do you stick to your original plot?
Tell me about that spinoff you had for your WIP.
Do you have any characters based off people you know?
Unrelated but what are your opinions on J.K.Rowling?
How do you set the mood for the story?
Is there any scene you were/ are scared of writing? Why?
Have you ever made any major changes to any of you OCs? Which and why?
What/Who influenced you to start writing and why do you write?
Babble. Just talk about anything or everything. How's life going?
Which OC do you relate to the most?
Which OC do you wish you were? Why?
Have you thrown any writing rules that everybody follows out of the window?
Any OC that you killed cold heartedly without a second thought?
Tell me about your newest WIP idea. Even if you haven't written it down. Even if it will die in a matter of days.
Talk about the adorable cinnamon roll OC.
There is no 25th question. Let the person who asks decide what it should be.
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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wait fuck i forgot i had tumblr
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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horror is a romance genre
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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Nobody tells you that 90% of being a fic writer is telling yourself sternly that you CANNOT start a new wip until you finish one of the old ones, and then failing to write anything at all as your brain sulks like a toddler.
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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Probably the single hardest lesson for me to internalize in writing was that you don’t design a character you design a character arc.
One reason you as a writer might end up stuck with a flat or boring character, or one that just isn’t doing the things you need to create a vibrant plot, despite working out all the details of their life for hours, is because you’ve made the mistake I always do. You’ve made a character who is a blend of all the characteristics you envision for them, rather than saving some characteristics for the end of their journey. 
What do I mean by this? Maybe you envision a character who is a handsome prince, honest, brave, and true. In your plot, though, he’s going to be an antagonist for a bit but you don’t really want him to be seen as a bad guy, necessarily. But when you drop him into your story, he’s just… there. Being honest, brave, and true. 
That’s because the prince has no character arc. He is a static figure, a cardboard cutout. 
Let’s go a little deeper with a great example of one of the best character arcs in YA animation: Prince Zuko. He is, objectively, honest, brave, and true (to his cause of finding the Avatar) from the outset. But he’s also a dick. He’s a privileged, imperialist brat, who is rude to his uncle and vicious to our protagonists. 
By the end of the series, though, Prince Zuko is still honest, brave, and true, but he’s also a good person who has learned many lessons over the course of his trials and obstacles. He has failed over and over again at his initial goal of capturing the Avatar. He has failed at winning his father’s regard. He has failed at numerous smaller goals of day to day adventures. He has learned from all of these. We have seen his journey. But, if you started your vision of how to write Zuko from who he ends up being, he’s got nowhere to go as a character. 
It’s not just about what flaws he has corrected though. It’s about what lessons about life he has internalized. What flawed views of the world he has corrected and how. 
Rather than saying, “The character starts out a dick and learns to be nice,” be more specific. “This character starts out believing the empire he is loyal to is morally in the right for its conquests, but over the course of working for that empire’s ruler and seeing his cruelty first hand, not to mention fighting the empire’s enemies and mingling with its civilian victims, he becomes a better person and learns the error of his ways.” 
Already, right there, you have more than a cardboard character. You have a character who has an arc that molds to your plot. 
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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new reblog game! where have YOU guys nearly drowned?
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grimmreads · 2 years ago
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writing update: i have a new wip and am very close to abandoning my current one
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