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[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Medieval castle stairs were often built to ascend in narrow, clockwise spirals so right-handed castle defenders could use their swords more easily. This design put those on the way up at a disadvantage (unless they were left-handed). The steps were also uneven to give defenders the advantage of anticipating each step’s size while attackers tripped over them. Source Source 2 Source 3

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

WriterofthePrompts Ultimate Ask Masterlist

I’ve decided to make a masterlist of asks I’ve done to make them easier to find for you guys (and for myself). I split them into categories as best as I could by genre and topic. Also, some asks have some helpful tips in the notes as well to check out (some are marked but not all) and if you have anything to add that you think would help, feel free to reply or reblog with your addition. I’ll try to keep it updated with future asks.

Now without further ado, the strangest and most wonderful list I’ve ever made.

World Building

Urban fantasy prompts/creating urban fantasy world (also linked under fantasy)

Links to help with world building

Creating a pantheon of gods

Things to research when writing a historical novel (also linked under Historical)

Using metaphors in descriptions

Too much world building?

Asking questions to develop a magic system

Wizard school ideas

Why magic would drain from a world

Tips for descriptions

Reasons for civil war

Character Development

Writing confusion in your character

Obstacles to character goals: traveling abroad

Reactions to sadness

Reactions to a devastating event

Showing a character’s anxiety towards something

Showing a character’s secret without revealing it

Reasons a character would die for another

Secrets in a character’s past

Culture shock with loss of rules

Growth of a trainee witch

Characters provoking other characters

Dealing with moving to a completely new place

Why a 19yo would allow a strange boy to live with her

Why a character would want a do-over in life

Showing a character going from good to bad

Possible good messages when the villains aren’t reformed

Kid growing up surrounded only by adults

Quirks for characters

Showing friendship with reserved characters

Introducing an antagonist

Introducing side characters

When you don’t think your character’s backstory fits

Writing Different Types of Characters

Writing antiheroes

The reluctant hero

Writing a violent character afraid of their mind

Making an immoral character likeable

Not a normal girl

Sympathetic villain

Making sure your character isn’t just a flirt

Writing intelligent characters

When your hero isn’t very heroic

Confident characters

Writing an antisocial character

Character Family

Visiting family for the first time

Showing closeness in siblings (opposite twins)

How a joker and a quiet character can become friends

Daughter of a party organizer prompts

Parent jobs where the kid needs to keep up appearances

The mom that left comes back…a vampire

Including character’s parents

Why a character would leave another

Sibling relationships

character with an abusive father (and how to show fear)

Romance

Writing a slow paced love story

love interest vs the ex revamped

Platonic male x female relationships

Random places to get married

Suspense and romance with a “different” male lead

sad relationship prompts

Asexuality and romance

Mutual pining

Romance with large age differences

Childhood friends falling in love

Fluffy unique first kiss

Ways of showing commitment in characters (vampire edition)

Friendship to romance

Small situations for a couple story

fantasy creature and human fluff

characters meeting and falling in love during war

Why best friends might fall in love

Unlikely soulmates prompts

Sci Fi

Using dreams as energy

Time travel prompts (asked for male x female protags)

Time travel: how saving someone can go wrong

Reliving memories

Android characters

Writing humanoids in post apocalypse

Consequences of growing a baby in an artificial womb (theoretical)

The evil AI that characters can’t (shouldn’t) destroy

Girl and guy get trapped in the same body

Rich people in post apocalypse

Discovering you have a doppelgânger

Superheroes

Teenagers, hormones and their superpowers

Weird superpowers

Superhero kids reluctant to be superheroes

Aliens

beings traveling to Earth

Why an alien wouldn’t be able to leave Earth

Reasons an alien would be sent to live on Earth

Human/alien team surviving on hostile planet together

Fantasy/Paranormal

Urban fantasy prompts/creating urban fantasy world (also linked under world building)

gods losing their powers

creations turning on their creators

How elemental powers might work

Why NOT to destroy the world when it’s your goal

Mistreated genies

Tropes of a fantasy (also linked under Writing Motivation/Tips)

Male character ideas in a fantasy

Immortal woman prompts

Beauty and the Beast revamp

How Death and a teenage girl become adventure teammates

Powers for magical beings writing down history

Girl meets demon from forest behind her house

Reverse fairytale prompts

Revamped fairytale prompts 2

Manatees being confused by mermaids

a princess befriends a baby dragon

Making a character believe in a cure for a curse

Egyptian gods living among us

A love between the sun and the moon

What fantasy creatures do on Halloween

Human and fantasy creature become pen pals

Creatures

Monsters and urban legends

Fantastic creatures

A little bit on dragons

Kind dragons

Magic and Witches

witch x wizard romance

witch prompts

Witch being protective over a human-turned-doll

magical boarding school

Ideas for curses

A young witch exploring the boundaries of her powers

Traps a wizard could set for a thief

Angels and Demons

Angels and demons

Angel as a human on earth

Jobs for angels and demons who fall in love

Physical impacts on a demon who keeps dying and coming back

Demons hunter prompts

Vampires

Human meets vampire 1

Human meets vampire 2

How to hide your vampirism from your family

Royal vampires

Vampire hunter gets bitten by a vampire

Reasons a locked up vampire would go after your character

Why a vampire and vampire hunter would work together

Vampire x werewolf forbidden love

Ghosts

Helpful ghost prankster prompts 1

Helpful ghost prankster prompts 2

Human and ghost solving mysteries together

1776 woman with supernatural abilities prompts

A medium whose friend is in a coma

Medium question Pt. 2: their fatal flaws

Battle Scenes

Writing Battle Scenes Tips

How to lead up to an action scene

Keep reading

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Vox Machina & The Mighty Nein

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

me reading any of my own writing: what the fuck are you talking about

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

me: i wanna write

someone: then… write?

me:

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Don’t be afraid to dream

This beloved Cartoon series

started as this webcomic

This best seller Manga

and critically acclaimed hit animated series

started out as this webcomic

And this best seller novel

And award winning blockbuster movie

started out as a serialized free story on somebody’s website.

Don’t be afraid to write big even if you start small.

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Don’t be afraid to dream

This beloved Cartoon series

started as this webcomic

This best seller Manga

and critically acclaimed hit animated series

started out as this webcomic

And this best seller novel

And award winning blockbuster movie

started out as a serialized free story on somebody’s website.

Don’t be afraid to write big even if you start small.

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Writers! Read this!

Hi, there! Just dropping in to tell you to be proud of your successes!

I have this little demon that I can’t get off my back, and he’s always telling me that what I’ve achieved is not enough and we need MORE. And I thought to myself, I bet some of you have little demons, too.

So you tell that tiny bastard to shut right up.

Did you write today? GREAT! Did you do some plotting or character work this week? FANTASTIC! Did you submit something to a magazine or an agent or a publisher? AMAZING! THAT’S AMAZING!

Did you even just think about writing? Just for a second? WAY TO GO!

While it might not feel like it, I think it’s these baby bricks that eventually build something bigger. It’s putting that positive energy out into the world that sets the dominoes to falling. 

A brick at a time. A step forward. You deserve to be proud of every single one!

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

LOVECRAFTIAN CTHULHU BOTTLE  by Andrea “FraterOrion” Falaschi

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Go on... Do it

If you're reading this...

go write three sentences on your current writing project.

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Frustrating editing moods:

1. This scene is a disaster but also I love it how it is.

2. This scene has nothing noticeably wrong with it but also I hate it.

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

The single best piece of writing advice I ever got was from a professor teaching a playwriting class, who told us that in every scene, especially scenes that were just dialogue, every character should want something. Making every character in a scene have a goal is an easy way to avoid dialogue that’s just exposition, and to make sure your dialogue drives the plot forward and/or reveals characterization. 

It doesn’t have to be complicated or super weighty–as long as the characters have a goal, there will be tension in the scene even if the goals are small. Character X wants to borrow a pen, and character Y wants to make a good impression on character X. X wants to insult Y until they go away, and Y wants to annoy X by pretending not to notice the insults. X wants Y to give them the last slice of pizza, and Y is super full but still doesn’t want X to have it. No matter what your character’s goal is, it will reveal something about who that character is to the reader, and the conflict between your characters’ goals will give the scene momentum.

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

reasons to not quit writing:

your writing is a skill, not an inborn talent (unless, yeah, maybe it is). not everyone can do what you do and love

everyone says they want to write a book. everyone has what it takes to write a book. not everyone does it anyway. you be the small percentage of success you read about

your writing will always seem brickshit horrible because you wrote and read it a million times

you love this writing thingy. quitting it will be like cutting off your fingers one by one.

someone out there will want to read what you wrote.

someone out there wants to know what is on your mind. 

someone out there appreciates your art. they will share it with their friends. they will share it with their loved ones. they will share it with their future self because maybe what you wrote saved them.

if you give up now, you know you will just come back to it again, whether it’s years from now, months, or next week. you love writing, that’s why you planted the seed of thought that you are going to write this book, and whether you come back to it or not, your unwritten stories will come back to you.

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Darkeater Midir OST

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Just in case this needs to be said:

It’s the first draft. Use the word “suddenly.” Put as many dialogue tags and adverbs as you want. Say “he saw” “she remembered” “she felt” “they wondered” as many times as you need to. Put the em dash there, put in too many commas, use semi-colons with reckless abandon. Type in [whatever] instead of thinking up a title for something. Just write it. If you worry too much about the particulars, about all the advice posts you’ve seen saying whatever you’re doing is wrong or not good enough, you won’t get anything done. It will slow you down as you go back and try to reword what you just wrote to make it better, proper. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done. And when you get to the end, you’ll find that all those “mistakes” are just clues for your future self to put together to make it all better.

Putting in adverbs and certain dialogue tags are a note for you as to who is saying something and how they’re saying it. When you’re editing, you can make sure it shows through the story instead. The word “suddenly” is a reminder to make things more abrupt. The first draft is just you mapping out where you want to go and how you want to get there. Don’t waste time trying to get it 100% right now, because then it will never get done. Don’t think too much– just write. Save the thinking for editing later.

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Seven years after, I see you again 😚

[ramblingsofamadwriter]

Dark Elves

Just posting my dark elves as a species like they are on the story I’m working on:

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-continent-covetous/a/dark-elvesdarklings-article

I’ve been lurking around @worldanvil for a while. It’s pretty neat. Still getting used to finding some...more specific things. But overall 10/10 I recommend it.