first thing you might want to consider: is the pain mental or physical?
if it’s physical, what type of pain is it causing? — sharp pain, white-hot pain, acute pain, dull ache, throbbing pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain (typically caused by nerve damage), etc
if it’s mental, what is the reason your character is in pain? — grief, heartbreak, betrayal, anger, hopelessness, fear and anxiety, etc
because your character will react differently to different types of pain
PHYSICAL PAIN
sharp and white-hot pain may cause a character to grit their teeth, scream, moan, twist their body. their skin may appear pale, eyes red-rimmed and sunken with layers of sweat covering their forehead. they may have tears in their eyes (and the tears may feel hot), but they don’t necessarily have to always be crying.
acute pain may be similar to sharp and white-hot pain; acute pain is sudden and urgent and often comes without a warning, so your character may experience a hitched breathing where they suddenly stop what they’re doing and clench their hand at the spot where it hurts with widened eyes and open mouth (like they’re gasping for air).
dull ache and throbbing pain can result in your character wanting to lay down and close their eyes. if it’s a headache, they may ask for the lights to be turned off and they may be less responsive, in the sense that they’d rather not engage in any activity or conversation and they’d rather be left alone. they may make a soft whimper from their throat from time to time, depends on their personality (if they don’t mind others seeing their discomfort, they may whimper. but if your character doesn’t like anyone seeing them in a not-so-strong state, chances are they won’t make any sound, they might even pretend like they’re fine by continuing with their normal routine, and they may or may not end up throwing up or fainting).
if your character experience chronic pain, their pain will not go away (unlike any other illnesses or injuries where the pain stops after the person is healed) so they can feel all these types of sharp pain shooting through their body. there can also be soreness and stiffness around some specific spots, and it will affect their life. so your character will be lucky if they have caretakers in their life. but are they stubborn? do they accept help from others or do they like to pretend like they’re fine in front of everybody until their body can’t take it anymore and so they can no longer pretend?
neuropathic pain or nerve pain will have your character feeling these senses of burning, shooting and stabbing sensation, and the pain can come very suddenly and without any warning — think of it as an electric shock that causes through your character’s body all of a sudden. your character may yelp or gasp in shock, how they react may vary depends on the severity of the pain and how long it lasts.
EMOTIONAL PAIN
grief can make your character shut themself off from their friends and the world in general. or they can also lash out at anyone who tries to comfort them. (five states of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and eventual acceptance.)
heartbreak — your character might want to lock themself in a room, anywhere where they are unseen. or they may want to pretend that everything’s fine, that they’re not hurt. until they break down.
betrayal can leave a character with confusion, the feelings of ‘what went wrong?’, so it’s understandable if your character blames themself at first, that maybe it’s their fault because they’ve somehow done something wrong somewhere that caused the other character to betray them. what comes after confusion may be anger. your character can be angry at the person who betrayed them and at themself, after they think they’ve done something wrong that resulted in them being betrayed, they may also be angry at themself next for ‘falling’ for the lies and for ‘being fooled’. so yes, betrayal can leave your character with the hatred that’s directed towards the character who betrayed them and themself. whether or not your character can ‘move on and forgive’ is up to you.
there are several ways a character can react to anger; they can simply lash out, break things, scream and yell, or they can also go complete silent. no shouting, no thrashing the place. they can sit alone in silence and they may cry. anger does make people cry. it mostly won’t be anything like ‘ugly sobbing’ but your character’s eyes can be bloodshot, red-rimmed and there will be tears, only that there won’t be any sobbing in most cases.
hopelessness can be a very valid reason for it, if you want your character to do something reckless or stupid. most people will do anything if they’re desperate enough. so if you want your character to run into a burning building, jump in front of a bullet, or confess their love to their archenemy in front of all their friends, hopelessness is always a valid reason. there’s no ‘out of character’ if they are hopeless and are desperate enough.
fear and anxiety. your character may be trembling, their hands may be shaky. they may lose their appetite. they may be sweaty and/or bouncing their feet. they may have a panic attack if it’s severe enough.
and I think that’s it for now! feel free to add anything I may have forgotten to mention here!
because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
Flowers have a long history of symbolism that you can incorporate into your writing to give subtext.
Symbolism varies between cultures and customs, and these particular examples come from Victorian Era Britain. You'll find examples of this symbolism in many well-known novels of the era!
Video game I saw in a dream. It was in this low poly style like an older video game. You play as this character I think was meant to be a lamb, or maybe a weird mix of a lamb a mouse and a rabbit, (while not really looking like any of those things) and you’re running away from a wolf. Your objective is to last as long as possible before the wolf catches and eats you.
The house you’re running in is endless and bizarrely put together like most building interiors in dreams are (like the infinite toilet dream dimension on Reddit lol) the layout of the house is pretty detailed, you can stop and hide in places like closets or bins while the wolf looks for you, you can go up and down stairs and into rooms etc.
You never actually know where the wolf is or how close it is to you until it appears in your line of sight, it makes no noise and the game gives you no way of knowing where it is, and it’s pretty unpredictable it doesnt move at a consistent pace. When the wolf catches you there’s an animation showing it eating your character
(@urfriendlywriter | req by @rbsstuff @yourlocalmerchgirl anyone under the appropriate age, please proceed with caution :') hope this helps guys! )
writing smut depends on each person's writing style but i think there's something so gut-wrenchingly beautiful about smut when it's not very graphic and vivid. like., would this turn on a reader more?
"he kissed her, pulling her body closer to him."
or this?
"His lips felt so familiar it hurt her heart. His breathing had become more strained; his muscles tensed. She let herself sink into his embrace as his hands flattened against her spine. He drew her closer."
(Before proceeding further, these are all "in my opinion" what I think would make it better. Apply parts of the advice you like and neglect the aspects you do not agree with it. Once again I'm not saying you have to follow a certain type of style to write smut! Creative freedom exists for a reason!)
One may like either the top or the bottom one better, but it totally depends on your writing to make it work. Neither is bad, but the second example is more flattering, talking literally.
express one's sensory feelings, and the readers will automatically know what's happening.
writing, "her walls clenched against him, her breath hitching with his every thrust" is better than writing, "she was about to cum".
here are some vocabulary you can introduce in your writing:
shivering, shuddering, curling up against one's body, squirming, squirting, touching, teasing, taunting, guiding, kneeling, begging, pining, pinching, grinding,
swallowing, panting, sucking in a sharp breath, thrusting, moving gently, gripped, biting, quivering,
nibbling, tugging, pressing, licking, flicking, sucking, panting, gritting, exhaling in short breaths,
wet kisses, brushing soft kisses across their body (yk where), licking, sucking, teasing, tracing, tickling, bucking hips, forcing one on their knees
holding hips, guiding the one on top, moving aimlessly, mindlessly, sounds they make turn insanely beautiful, sinful to listen to
some adverbs to use: desperately, hurriedly, knowingly, teasingly, tauntingly, aimlessly, shamelessly, breathlessly, passionately, delicately, hungrily
he sighed with pleasure
her skin flushed
he shuddered when her body moved against his
he planted kisses along her jawline
her lips turned red, messy, kissed and flushed.
his hands were on his hair, pulling him.
light touches traveled down his back
words were coiled at his throat, coming out as broken sobs, wanting more
he arched his back, his breath quivering
her legs parted, sinking into the other's body, encircling around their waist.
+ mention the position, how they're being moved around---are they face down, kneeling, or standing, or on top or on bottom--it's really helpful to give a clear picture.
+ use lustful talk, slow seduction, teasing touches, erratic breathing, give the readers all while also giving them nothing. make them yearn but DO NOT PROLONG IT.
sources to refer to for more:
gesture that gets me on my knees !!
(more to comeee, check out my hot or kisses prompts on my master list!)
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you’re at a low point:
If you were a fictional man right now, there would be *at least* ten people if not a large portion of the fanbase that would call you their wet beast poor little meow meow
an ex-zionist jewish man recently went a bit viral on tiktok for sharing exactly how he sees zionism tie israel to the jewish identity and his personal experience with breaking away from it - I think it’s a really great watch.
He also made a follow up talking specifically about how he learned to humanise Palestinians, and a really integral part of it was his school, which would often bring in Palestinian speakers who’d share their perspective (here’s a link to it).