writingalterras

[writingalterras]

Writing Notes & References

Alchemy ⚜ Antidote to Anxiety ⚜ Attachment ⚜ Autopsy

Art: Elements ⚜ Principles ⚜ Photographs ⚜ Watercolour

Bruises ⚜ Caffeine ⚜ Color Blindness ⚜ Cruise Ships

Children ⚜ Children's Dialogue ⚜ Childhood Bilingualism

Dangerousness ⚜ Drowning ⚜ Dystopia ⚜ Dystopian World

Culture ⚜ Culture Shock ⚜ Ethnocentrism & Cultural Relativism

Emotions: Anger ⚜ Fear ⚜ Happiness ⚜ Sadness

Emotional Intelligence ⚜ Genius (Giftedness) ⚜ Quirks

Facial Expressions ⚜ Laughter & Humour ⚜ Swearing & Taboo

Fantasy Creatures ⚜ Fantasy World Building

Generations ⚜ Literary & Character Tropes

Fight Scenes ⚜ Kill Adverbs

Food: Cooking Basics ⚜ Herbs & Spices ⚜ Sauces ⚜ Wine-tasting ⚜ Aphrodisiacs ⚜ List of Aphrodisiacs ⚜ Food History ⚜ Cocktails ⚜ Literary & Hollywood Cocktails ⚜ Liqueurs

Genre: Crime ⚜ Horror ⚜ Fantasy ⚜ Speculative Biology

Hate ⚜ Love ⚜ Kinds of Love ⚜ The Physiology of Love

How to Write: Food ⚜ Colours ⚜ Drunkenness

Jargon ⚜ Logical Fallacies ⚜ Memory ⚜ Memoir

Magic: Magic System ⚜ 10 Uncommon ⚜ How to Choose

Moon: Part 1 2 ⚜ Related Words

Mystical Items & Objects ⚜ Talisman ⚜ Relics ⚜ Poison

Pain ⚜ Pain & Violence ⚜ Poison Ivy & Poison Oak

Realistic Injuries 1 2 ⚜ Rejection ⚜ Structural Issues ⚜ Villains

Symbolism: Colors ⚜ Food ⚜ Numbers ⚜ Storms

Thinking ⚜ Thinking Styles ⚜ Thought Distortions

Terms of Endearment ⚜ Ways of Saying "No" ⚜ Yoga

Compilations: Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding ⚜ For Poets ⚜ Tips & Advice

all posts are queued. will update this every few weeks/months. send questions or requests here.

[writingalterras]

When your Character...

Gets into: A Fight ⚜ ...Another Fight ⚜ ...Yet Another Fight

Hates Someone ⚜ Kisses Someone ⚜ Falls in Love

Calls Someone they Love ⚜ Dies / Cheats Death ⚜ Drowns

is...

A Child ⚜ Interacting with a Baby/Child ⚜ A Genius ⚜ A Lawyer

Beautiful ⚜ Dangerous ⚜ Drunk ⚜ Injured ⚜ Shy

needs...

A Magical Item ⚜ An Aphrodisiac ⚜ A Fictional Poison

To be Killed Off ⚜ To Become Likable ⚜ To Clean a Wound

To Find the Right Word, but Can't ⚜ To Say No ⚜ A Drink

loves...

Astronomy ⚜ Baking ⚜ Cooking ⚜ Cocktails ⚜ Food ⚜ Oils

Dancing ⚜ Fashion ⚜ Gems ⚜ Mythology ⚜ Numbers

Roses ⚜ Sweets ⚜ To Fight ⚜ Wine ⚜ Wine-Tasting ⚜ Yoga

has/experiences...

Allergies ⚜ Amnesia ⚜ Bereavement ⚜ Bites & Stings ⚜ Bruises

Caffeine ⚜ CO Poisoning ⚜ Color Blindness ⚜ Food Poisoning

Injuries ⚜ Jet Lag ⚜ Mutism ⚜ Pain ⚜ Poisoning

More Pain & Violence ⚜ Viruses ⚜ Wounds

[these are just quick references. more research may be needed to write your story...]

[writingalterras]

“The weapons perfectly in their hands, feeling as if they were born to wield them.”

Words: 15

@lyralit @enchanted-lightning-aes @rubywrite @plasma-studios

; Last Sentence Tag

ty for the tag @pb-dot!!

Rules: post the last sentence you wrote and tag as many people as there are words in it.

“Perhaps, darling, you shouldn’t be so trusting with your personal space,” The villain murmurs, wickedness flickering in their eyes.

words: 20 (oops)

gently tagging: @inflarescent, @kae-luna, @sam-glade, @pumpkinsplots, @fire-but-ashes-too, @bluberimufim, @fleurty-girl, @delusionisaplace, @elixiosxd, @juwni, @leisoree, @another-white-void, @toribookworm22, @magicicada-lbwrites, @avocado-frog, @mjparkerwriting, @rmgrey-author, @all-write, @karolinarodrigueswrites, @bricky-brikson

[writingalterras]

Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

[writingalterras]

Facts

[writingalterras]

[writingalterras]

Punctuation Rules

Punctuation is like the very last thing I actively think about when writing something (what's the point of fixing the punctuation of a sentence you'll end up taking out or editing anyway?) but it is still an important step!

Having proper punctuation increases your credibility and the overall quality of your work. Also, it’s doubly important in professional work, emails, and resumes. With that, let’s get into it!

Commas

We use them all the time. We get them wrong all the time. There are six rules for where you can use commas:

Use to separate items in a list or series:

The book was long, tedious, and painful.

The comma after tedious is called the Oxford’s comma. Feel free to debate if you need it in the reblogs, but you won’t get in trouble professionally if you use it or leave it out (in most cases.) It always comes before ‘and’ in a list to prevent confusion of the items:

I ran into my mother, my best friend and a scientist. (1 person?)

Is very different from

I ran into my mother, my best friend, and a scientist. (3 people)

2. Use to separate independent clauses, with a coordinating conjunction.

An independent clause is just a sentence that makes sense on its own.

A coordinating conjunction is: and, but, or so.

Miley had a ton of work to do, so she set her alarm early.

3. Use after an introductory statement.

Introductory statements begin with many different words, but typically: Before, after, when, while, as soon as, etc.

Before her first class, Stacy looked up her prof on Rate Your Teacher.

Main point about this, “Before her first class” is not an independent clause, it needs a second part.

4. Use to surround info in a sentence

This info is not essential to the sense-making of the sentence, but it should be relevant.

Parents, no matter how skilled, cannot function at 100% all the time.

5. Addresses and Dates

6. And with direct quotes

Important for essay writing.

Casey said, “I hate this house!”

Colons:

Introduce a list after a complete sentence:

I have three favourite foods: spaghetti, chowder, and garlic bread.

2. Use after ‘the following’ or ‘as follows’

Please provide the following information: your date of birth, full name, and address.

3. Don't use with sentence fragments

A sentence fragment is an unfinished sentence (that doesn’t make sense on its own).

My favourite foods are: spaghetti, chowder, and garlic bread.

This is wrong because, “My favourite foods are.” Isn’t an independent clause.

4. Introduce an explanation

My parents ask one thing of me: that I try my hardest.

5. Introduce a quotation

Mom always quoted the bible: “The truth will set you free.”

6. And times (12:00)

Semi-Colon:

Not super common, but makes you look good if you can use it properly.

Separate two related independent clauses

I never drink Starbucks; it tastes burnt.

2. Similar, but with conjunctions: however, moreover, therefore, nevertheless, etc.

I don’t like Starbucks; however, it does the job.

Agatha didn’t witness anything; nevertheless, she was called in to court.

3. Use to avoid misreading in a series

The invited guests are the club leader; the treasurer; the new member, Jason Tanner; and Wanda Johnson, the investor.

Semicolons clarify the separation between the four people. Had it been, “The club leader, the treasurer, The new member, Jason Tanner…” it would seem that the new member and Jason Tanner are two different people.

Apostrophes – Possessive

‘s shows possession of a singular noun

The girl’s parents were quite rich.

2. S’ shows possession of a plural noun

The students’ books were all over the place. (there are multiple students who have books)

3. ‘s to singular words ending in s, and nouns that are plural

My boss’s office My children’s toys

Apostrophes – Contractions

Use to combine two words (they are, he is, there is, etc.)

It is -> It’s a beautiful park They are -> They’re really good friends You are -> you’re good at this and so on.

[writingalterras]

Welcome to Alterra

Alterra is a fantasy / sci-fi novel I’ve been working on for about 3 years. This post is meant to organize all of the world building info I have and will post on my blog. I hope you will enjoy this world as much as I do.

Intro;

First public scene;

Godsends;

Time perception dragons;

Dragons;

Hell; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/715561581857144832/alterra-update

In world legend; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/714929770199187456/alterra-update

Cities; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/714322915302244352/alterra-update

World map; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/713745614715928576/crap-forgot-to-post-again-uhhhhhhhhhh-idk-what

Gods; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/713044879648948229/alterra-update

Valthoraxe; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/712386745264701440/time-for-some-information-about-lord

Magic; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/711776376852758528/alterra-update-hello-friends-i-shall-now

Undead; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/711217107085541376/greetings-friends-i-am-on-time-this-week-am

Random character; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/710624924552790016/i-really-need-to-stop-thinking-cause-every-time-i

Age; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/709905577103556608/fun-alterra-fact-in-my-book-a-persons-age-is

Time; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/709240242944770048/instead-of-a-quote-from-my-book-this-week-ill-be

Prologue demo; https://www.tumblr.com/writingalterras/699709537992704000/alterra-the-fall-of-lord-valthoraxe

[writingalterras]

hey! this is chance & here’s week 3’s prompt. share an excerpt that you’re very proud of from any of your wips.

Alright, I guess I can treat you guy, gals, and enbies to a little teaser. This excerpt is from before Valthoraxe became a villain and is instead a bounty hunter pretending to be human. This scene describes one of the hunts he goes on. It’s only the first draft of this scene, so a lot will most likely change.

He had reached the town after another 10 minutes. Most of the buildings were nought but rubble, but they where still smoldering and burning, this was recent. Val dismounted the wagon and tied his horse to the only remaining man made object strong enough, the welcome sign. When Val entered the ruins of the town formally known as Corville, he saw that most of the residents of this town were already dead. In his immediate vicinity he only saw 5 people that still held life, 3 of them critically injured with no hope of recovering. Examining some of the bodies he saw that there were only 5 causes of death, burning, a building collapsing, shots from a bow, long cuts from a sword, and deep punctures from multiple knives. Val then heard a voice call out behind him saying,

“Stranger, please help me. My kids are injured, please,”

it was one of the 2 people not on the brink of death. He turned to the man who has holding the motionless bodies of two children, they had been dead for over half an hour. The man, who was still applying pressure to the wounds of children and drenched in their blood, was in shock. Val asked him, “Do you know where the bandits went?”

The man didn’t seem to process his question and continued to plead for help,

Val told the man, “Sir, your children are already dead,”

The man looked down at his kids, he was holding them so tightly that their legs had turned purple. The man stared at his children for about 15 seconds before seeming to snap out of his state of shock, he then proceeded to cry even harder than before and shoved his skull through a sharp piece of debris. He left the body of the man and turned around to see that 2 of the critically injured had died with the third only having minutes left. He walked to the only civilian that seemed capable of speaking, an old man who appeared to be Elven. The man was barely even bruised.

“Where did the bandits go,” said Val less as a question and more as an order.

The man ignored him and was whispering to himself, “My fault,” over and over.

Val asked, “Sir, how is this your fault?” the man looked up and said,

“I’m why they came, they’re all dead because of me,”

Val responded, “Do you know where the bandits are?”

The man looked down again and said, “They said I would be last.”

Before Val could continue to ask the man question, he passed out, seemingly from stress. Val then realized the man told him everything he needed, for they were still here. Val focused on his surroundings and heard some rubble shift behind him and the tensioning of a string.

A male voice spoke out, “Hey lads!, looks like we’ve found ourselves a little hero.”

Val started turning to face the archer, but he spoke once again,

“Stay right where you are, one step and you’re dead. You will answer our questions, if we like the answers, we might let you go,”

light chuckles were heard from two other voices, one male, one female.

The archer hushed them and continued speaking, “First question, what is your name?”

Val now knew exactly where the archer was, he deduced that the archer was about 5’8” and 15 meters behind and 3 meters left of him.

He answered, “My name is Val Faeir,”

The other voices laughed again as well the archer, but Val was not done, he added but one more word to his sentence,

“Thomas.”

The other two fell silent, he heard the bow string being pulled back further.

The archer asks, “How do you know my name?”

The bow is at eye level.

Val replied, “I know a lot of things about you, like how your partners are named Amethyst and Tyran, and that you’re wanted for barely over a hundred counts of murder,”

Thomas’s voice took to an agitated tone and said, “Final question, this town has clearly been attacked, and yet you strolled into here anyway. Why would you come here, did you think you could play hero? Save some lives?”

It was Val’s turn to laugh, but this laugh was cold and dead. Val turned and faced towards the three bandits and the archer let loose his arrow. To their horror, Val caught the arrow midair, snapping it in half, and began approaching them while saying,

“I’m a bounty hunter, and for your violations of human law I am to bring you in. Come with me peacefully, or else.”

Val drew his blade and stopped about 10 meters away from them.

Thomas turned to the other male and ordered, “Tyran, would you kindly kill this fucker.”

Tyran grinned and said, “About time you stopped talking, watch this.”

Tyran drew his sword, he seemed to be quite fast, for human standards. He swung his sword at Val, who didn’t even have his sword raised, but Val easily stepped out of the way. Tyran was cocky and overconfident, Val continued to effortlessly dodge Tyran’s attacks. Val then threw the front half of the arrow he caught through Tyran’s sword hand, making him drop it and cry out in pain. Val, who isn’t even looking at Tyran, knocks him out with the hilt of his sword as he walks past him. Amethyst charges at him with 2 steel daggers, but Val manages to block every single attack. Val strikes at the base of each dagger, causing them to shatter, and knocks her out as well. The archer is now the only one who remains. He fires as many arrows as he can while backing away, but Val deflects each one. Thomas trips on some debris and falls on his side, a loud crack is heard. He had broken at least 2 ribs on a rock, Val then knocks out the archer and everything falls silent.

[writingalterras]

Holy shit guys, I almost lost access to the book. I was using a school email to save it, and it just got locked. Luckily I was still able to access the file, and I have immediately copied it over to my main email account.

Here’s the bad news; I can’t access any other file. I lost a lot of notes, and it’s going to take a lot of time to make those again. This could mean a delay on the book demo. I’ll try to pick up the slack and keep on schedule, but this is a massive time loss.

[writingalterras]

What if I choke the water to death, and then deep fry it?

idiots will really suck water into their mouth and swallow it.

[writingalterras]

reblog if you’re NOT tumblr famous, but you ARE tired and kinda gay

[writingalterras]

hey! this is chance & here’s week 2's prompt. when you write or create an oc, do you like to reference elements from your life? if yes, name a few. if no, why not?

I make oc’s to tell a unique story only they could believably live through, they exist only as manifestations of imagination and lore. Occasionally, I will use my own experiences to make certain aspects of that story more relatable, but most of the time my characters are their own people… except for Diamond, he’s pulled directly from my best friend’s personal lore because Minecraft. No, I will not elaborate this time, but I will leave you with this image of what NOVA tech looks like;

[writingalterras]

You got abducted by cultists as you were heading to a restaurant for your date. After two days, the cultists have started a ritual, attempting to offer your soul up to a demon for power. But as the demon appears, it turns out the demon they try to offer you up to is your girlfriend/ex.

[writingalterras]

hey! this is chance & here’s this week’s prompt. pick one of your ocs. how would they react if they suddenly appeared right next to you, in the modern world? what would happen?

I rolled a random number generator and got a 1. 1 was Valthoraxe, 2 was James, and three was Diamond.

Looks like I’m fucked, because now there’s a super villain, with severe mental instability and weighs half a ton, in my bedroom. I sleep on the top floor, so there would now be a gaping hole through my floor, through the drywall of the first floor, and straight into the broom closet of ground floor. Most likely confused and irritated , he would probably be pissed at me. His code of honor and semi-stable patience would mean I probably wouldn’t die immediately, but I would definitely be interrogated.

I’m assuming I don’t know why he’s there, so he’d probably give up, burn a hole in my wall, and leave. Valthoraxe has been to other civilized planets before, so reaction would be minimal.

Thanks for such an interesting ask, funnily enough, this is probably the best option. James would probably be way to fascinated with this new world and would drag me to Alterra to tell him everything I know about it. I’d probably get some cool things out of it like potions and other magic shit, but the stronger gravity would probably fuck me over. Diamond would probably just kill me, not gonna lie.

[writingalterras]

Holy shit, this is such a good idea.

You live in a world shaped like a big Rubik’s Cube, the face of each square having a unique climate. Some unseen force periodically twists and repositions the cube, so you never know what friends, enemies, dangers, or resources will be at your borders next.

[writingalterras]

I will gladly go on multiple tangents, please do

i wanted to send people asks about their wips and ocs more often. not only to promote them but also because everyone makes really cool stories. the sheer amount of detail and work that people put into their projects is amazing but often gets untold. and i wanted to start learning about them and trying to promote it to the best of my ability.

i sent out a bunch of asks yesterday and i want to do more. i dont want to intrude or be weird though so i wanted to get a list of people who would like asks.

reblog this if you would like to recieve asks about your wips/ocs a couple times throughout the week.

or you can comment to be put on the list.