Writing Prompt #1939

"You call that a family?" My father sneered at the loved ones I had surrounded myself with. "This is your last chance to make the right choice. Come back with me now, and there will be limited consequences. If you don't, you are no child of mine any longer."

9 Ways to Tighten Up Your Novel’s Middle

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Scrivener, a 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo sponsor, is an award-winning writing app that has been enthusiastically adopted by best-selling novelists and novices alike. Today, Scrivener director Julia Pierce is here to share some tips on writing your story’s middle:

We’re midway through Camp and around now, some of you may be starting to experience the curse of the saggy middle. This isn’t just a euphemism for what happens when the need to meet your daily word count target becomes all-consuming and takes precedence over your daily exercise routine. Nope, it’s that bit where the doubts about your story’s structure start to creep in… Is that storyline really as gripping as you first thought? Would the hero really make that choice…?

Unfortunately, writing the midsection of a novel is tricky—it’s where the hard work happens, the plot is driven on, characters grow and plans are tried (and fail). With this part taking up around 50% of the word count, a good rate of momentum is vital to carry the reader with you from your perfect beginning to the novel’s climax. So, how can you pep up your prose? Here are some tried and tested methods:

Keep reading

260 notes View Post

superherosweet

6 years ago

okay so THIS IS NOT FINISHED YET! But I feel like I’m missing a bit of story telling in this animation. I’m very tired and uninspired and I can’t think of anything to add to make it very clear what they are doing before I start doing the backgrounds and shading, suggestions are welcome! Also, if it isn’t clear what’s going on in this animation please tell me and try to add what pieces of information you’re missing.. Also also, please keep in mind that I’ll be adding an intro where Robin and Jack can be heard making fun of Ethan for not getting the game, that should add a bit more info right there.. Also also also, maybe I’m overthinking this and maybe I’m adding too much information, but right now I can’t tell xD SO BLEASE LET ME KNOW

8K notes View Post

superherosweet

6 years ago

I'm going on a date tomorrow, and my dad was asking questions. While he was I pulled up Instagram and saw this photo. My dad leaned over and said, "oh is that him?" And I just laughed and said no.

Game-Changing Sites for Writers

A recent search for a specific type of site to help me build new characters led me down a rabbit hole. Normally, that would make me much less productive, but I have found a treasure trove of websites for writers.

Bring Characters/Places to Life

There are a few different places you can use to create a picture of something entirely new. I love this site for making character pictures as references, instead of stock photos or whatever pops up on Google Images.

thispersondoesnotexist: every time you reload the page, this site generates a headshot of someone who doesn't exist. This is great if you're thinking about a character's personality or age and don't have specifics for their facial features yet.

Night Cafe: this is an AI art generator that takes your text prompt and generates an image for it. I tried it for various scenery, like "forest" or "cottage." It takes a minute for your requested photo to load, but no more than maybe five for the program to finish the picture.

Art Breeder: this website has endless images of people, places, and general things. Users can blend photos to create something new and curious visitors can browse/download those images without creating an account. (But if you do want to make an account to create your own, it's free!)

Find Random Places on Earth

You might prefer to set a story in a real-life environment so you can reference that place's weather, seasons, small-town vibe, or whatever you like. If that's the case, try:

MapCrunch: the homepage generates a new location each day and gives the location/GPS info in the top left of the screen. To see more images from previous days, hit "Gallery" in the top left.

Atlas Obscura: hover over or tap the "Places" tab, then hit "Random Place." A new page will load with a randomly generated location on the planet, provide a Google Maps link, and tell you a little bit about the place.

Random World Cities: this site makes randomly selected lists of global cities. Six appear for each search, although you'll have to look them up to find more information about each place. You can also use the site to have it select countries, US cities or US states too.

Vary Your Wording

Thesauruses are great, but these websites have some pretty cool perspectives on finding just the right words for stories.

Describing Words: tell this website which word you want to stop repeating and it will give you tons of alternative words that mean the same thing. It typically has way more options than other sites I use.

Reverse Dictionary: type what you need a word for in Reverse Dictionary's search box and it will give you tons of words that closely match what you want. It also lists the words in order of relevancy, starting with a word that most accurately describes what you typed. (There's also an option to get definitions for search results!)

Tip of My Tongue: this website is phenomenal. It lets you search for that word you can't quite place by a letter in it, the definition, what it sounds like, or even its scrambled letters. A long list of potential options will appear on the right side of the screen for every search.

---

Hope this helps when you need a hand during next writing session 💛

9K notes View Post

superherosweet

6 years ago