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Glow Worm Caves, New Zealand by Daniel Kordan

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Short Story Recommendations

These all fuck me up to a varying degree of emotions

Crime

Philomel Cottage - Agatha Christie

Lamb to the Slaughter - Roald Dahl

Death and the Compass - Jorge Luis Borges

Horror

The Landlady - Roald Dahl

A Walk in the Dark - Arthur C Clarke

The Wife’s Story - Ursula K Le Guin

The Veldt - Ray Bradbury

The Hanging Stranger - Philip K Dick

The Colour out of Space - H P Lovecraft

The Spider - Hanns Heinz Ewers

Sad

The Life You Save May Be Your Own - Flannery O’Connor

A Small, Good Thing - Raymond Carver

Cathedral - Raymond Carver

The Haunted Boy - Carson McCullers

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin

The Chef - Andy Weir

The Martyr - Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

Jambula Tree - Monica Arak de Nyeko

The Rats Do Sleep At Night - Wolfgang Borchert

Sci-Fi

Love is the Plan the Plan is Death - James Tiptree Jr

The Last Question - Isaac Asimov

The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C Clarke

The Star - Arthur C Clarke

Reunion - Arthur C Clarke

The Commuter - Philip K Dick

Exhibit Piece - Philip K Dick

To Serve Man - Damon Knight

Brothers Beyond the Void - Paul W Fairman

What the Fuck?! 

The Lottery - Shirley Jackson

A Collapse of Horses - Brian Evenson

Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby - Donald Barthelme

Hopeful Monsters - Hiromi Goto

The Box Social - James Reaney

He-y come on ou-t - shinichi hoshi

The Garden of Forking Paths - Jorge Luis Borges

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang (just the entire collection bro)

Other

Broken Routine - Jeffrey Archer

A Man Who Had No Eyes - Mackinlay Kantor

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been - Joyce Carol Oates

The Lady, or the Tiger - Frank R Stockton

The Continuity of Parks - Julio Cortázar

The Dinner Party - Mona Gardner

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings - Gabriel García Márquez

On Exactitude in Science - Jorge Luis Borges

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North amerikkkan culture (particularly in the U$) is OBSESSED with the one man rogue archetype who has enough after they come for his family and takes shit into his own hands......indeed, white men base their whole identities on this shit, even when no one has done anything to them, even when they themselves are the biggest threats to their own families and everyone around them.

But now, watch a Black man do this for fully justified reasons, and watch the targets of his rage be armed white confirmed enemy agents of the state and not Black women, children or other men who are more marginalized, and all you get are crickets, condemnation, and calls for calm and "civility."

Barely anyone is serious, and it makes me furious.

#FREERODNEYHINTON

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decentralize and clean up your life!!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

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✨ HOW TO ACTUALLY START A BOOK

(no ✨vibes✨, just structure, stakes, and first-sentence sweat)

hello writer friends 💌 so you opened a doc. you sat down. you cracked your knuckles. maybe you even made a playlist or moodboard. and then… you stared at the blinking cursor like it personally insulted your entire bloodline.

here’s your intervention. this post is for when you want to write chapter one, but all you have is aesthetic, maybe a plot bunny, maybe a world idea, maybe nothing at all. here’s how to actually start a book, from structure to sentence one.

—

🌶️ STEP 1: THE SPICE BASE ~ “WHAT’S CHANGING?”

start with this question:

what changes in the protagonist’s life in the first 5–10 pages?

doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. they could get a letter, lose a job, run late, break a rule, wake up hungover in the wrong house. what matters is disruption. the opening of your book should mark a shift. if their day starts normal, it shouldn’t end that way.

🏁 opening chapters are about motion. forward movement. tension. momentum. if nothing is changing, your story isn’t starting, you’re just doing a prequel.

—

⚙️ STEP 2: THE CRUNCHY BITS - CHOOSE AN ENTRY POINT

there are 3 classic places to start a novel. each one works if you’re intentional:

The Day Everything Changes most popular. you drop us in right before or during the inciting incident. clean, fast, efficient.

pro: immediate stakes con: harder to sneak in worldbuilding or character grounding

The Calm Before the Storm starts slightly earlier. show the character’s “normal” life, then break it. useful if the change won’t make sense without context.

pro: space to introduce your character’s routine/flaws con: risky if it drags or feels like setup

The Aftermath drop us in after the big event and fill in gaps as we go. works well for thrillers, mysteries, or emotionally heavy plots.

pro: instant drama con: requires precision to avoid confusion

📝 pick one. commit. don’t blend them or you’ll write three intros at once and cry.

—

🧠 STEP 3: CHARACTER FIRST, ALWAYS

readers don’t care about your setting, your magic system, or your cool mafia politics unless they’re anchored in someone.

in the first scene, we need to know:

what this person wants

what’s bothering them (externally or internally)

one trait they lead with (bold, anxious, calculating, naive, etc.)

that’s it. just one want, one tension, one vibe. no bios. no monologues. no “they weren’t like other girls” essays. put them in a situation and show how they act.

—

⛓️ STEP 4: OPEN WITH FRICTION

first scenes should create questions, not answer them.

there should be tension between:

what the character wants vs. what they’re getting

what’s happening vs. what they expected

what’s being said vs. what’s being felt

you don’t need a gunshot or a car crash (unless you want one). you need conflict. tension = momentum = readers keep reading.

—

✏️ STEP 5: WRITE THE FIRST SENTENCE - THEN IGNORE IT

okay. now you write it.

no pressure. you’re not tattooing it on your soul. this isn’t the final line on the final page. you just need something.

tricks that work:

start in the middle of an action

start with a contradiction

start with something unexpected, funny, or sharp

start with a small lie or a weird detail

💬 examples:

“The body was exactly where she’d left it - rude.” “He was already two hours late to his own kidnapping.” “There was blood on the welcome mat. Again.” “They said don’t open the door. She opened it anyway.”

once you’ve got it? keep going. don’t revise yet. don’t edit. just build momentum.

you can come back and make it ✨iconic✨ later.

—

📦 BONUS: WHAT NOT TO DO IN YOUR OPENING

don’t start with a dream

don’t info-dump lore in paragraph one

don’t give me three pages of your OC making toast

don’t try to sound like a Victorian cryptid unless it’s on purpose

don’t introduce 7 named characters in one scene

don’t start with a quote unless you are 800% sure it slaps

be weird. be sharp. be specific. aim for interest, not perfection.

—

🏁 TL;DR (but make it ✨useful✨)

something in your MC’s life should change immediately

pick a structural entry point and stick to it

give us a person, not a setting

friction = good

first lines are disposable, just make them interesting

and if you needed a sign to just start the damn book, this is it.

💌 love, -rin t.

P.S. I made a free mini eBook about the 5 biggest mistakes writers make in the first 10 pages 👀 you can grab it here for FREE:

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ITS FUCKING HAPPENING

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is jake gyllenhaal gay??

why would you ask us, a narnia blog, this

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STAY SAFE!! [ID: the Gilbert Baker pride flag with the words “Happy pride to all those who are unable to celebrate openly and safely. You are loved and seen!” in all-caps black text over it. /end ID]

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handsome women covered in blood. reblog.

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what’s it called when you’re so disconnected from reality that cold water doesn’t feel like anything and you can barely taste food anymore

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“oh so only your hyper specific interpretation of this character matters? no one else gets to have theirs?” yes precisely. now go my flock peck them clean for their insolence 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅

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have you guys heard of long eddie and stubby buck. proportionately accurate buck and eddie. switch their legs around it rocks

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Good times make soft men? Good. Soft men make me hard.