Imagine Prompts?

#611

You’re a private detective and have just been hired to find a serial killer on the loose. People are impressed with your insight about the case, and your innate ability to sense what will happen next. This is because you’re the killer.

Uncommon Questions for OCs and their creators:

Send me a # (questions for OCs) or a letter (questions for creators) and I’ll answer

QUESTIONS FOR YOUR OCs

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

How easy is it for your character to laugh?

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

How easy is it to earn their trust?

How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

What animal do they fear most?

How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

What makes their stomach turn?

Are they easily embarrassed?

What embarrasses them?

What is their favorite number?

If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

Why do they get up in the morning? 

How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)? 

How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)? 

 Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom? 

 What are their thoughts on marriage? 

 What is their preferred mode of transportation? 

 What causes them to feel dread? 

 Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth? 

 Do they usually live up to their own ideals? 

 Who do they most regret meeting? 

 Who are they the most glad to have met? 

 Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke? 

 Could they be considered lazy? 

 How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? 

 How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive? 

Do they actively seek romance, or do they wait for it to fall into their lap? 

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)? 

What memory do they revisit the most often? 

How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people? 

How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

How do they feel about children? 

How badly do they want to reach their end goal? 

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so? 

QUESTIONS FOR CREATORS

A) Why are you excited about this character? B) What inspired you to create them? C) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story? D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look? E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you? F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)? G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most? H) What trait do you admire most? I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe? J) Did you have to manipulate or exclude canon factors to allow them to create their character?

One Word Writing Prompts

Send me a number 1 thru 50 for a word that I’ll use to write either a headcanon, drabble, or starter. Send 🌀 for a random number instead.

01. — first 02. — kiss 03. — final 04. — numb 05. — broken 06. — wings 07. — melody 08. — rules 09. — chocolate 10. — nostalgia 11. — heartbeat 12. — stranger 13. — confusion 14. — bitter 15. — afterlife 16. — daybreak 17. — audience 18. — endless 19. — fireworks 20. — wishing 21. — birthday 22. — tomorrow 23. — oppression 24. — agony 25. — return 26. — protection 27. — boxes 28. — hope 29. — preparation 30. — beautiful 31. — lies 32. — underneath 33. — hide 34. — diary 35. — unforeseen 36. — conditional 37. — gone 38. — clear 39. — heartache 40. — wired 41. — insanity 42. — foolish 43. — words 44. — study 45. — love 46. — skies 47. — stars 48. — lucky 49. — shake 50. — punctual

Honestly, I think the whole “don’t pay the writers” thing boils down to the notion that everybody thinks they can write. It’s the old saw about the novelist at a cocktail party having to hear someone say, for the millionth time, “I’d love to write a book someday.”

Someone–Stephen King? Pretty sure I saw this in a Stephen King foreword–once said they’d like to say to a brain surgeon, “Boy, I’d love to do brain surgery someday.”

We treat “the ability to put words into a sentence” like it’s just the same as “the ability to form a coherent narrative that engenders a variety of emotions within the reader and puts them in a scene and shows them what they didn’t see before”.

And that’s like me drawing a stick figure and saying I’m an artist.

Writers are constantly devalued because everyone thinks they have a book in them and don’t realize the level of skill and commitment it takes to finish even a short story, much less a whole book. 

This goes well beyond fandom, but man, I would’ve hoped fandom would know better.

How to Make Your Descriptions Less Boring

We’ve all been warned about the dangers of using too much description. Readers don’t want to read three paragraphs about a sunset, we’re told. Description slows down a story; it’s boring and self-indulgent. You should keep your description as short and simple as possible. For those who take a more scientific approach to writing fiction, arbitrary rules abound: One sentence per paragraph. One paragraph per page. And, for god’s sake, “Never open a book with weather” (Elmore Leonard).

But what this conventional wedding wisdom fails to take into account is the difference between static and dynamic description. Static description is usually boring. It exists almost like a painted backdrop to a play. As the name suggests, it doesn’t move, doesn’t interact or get interacted with.

There were clouds in the sky. Her hair was red with hints of orange. The house had brown carpeting and yellow countertops.

In moderation, there’s nothing wrong with static description. Sometimes, facts are facts, and you need to communicate them to the reader in a straightforward manner.

But too much static description, and readers will start to skim forward. They don’t want to read about what the house looks like or the stormy weather or the hair color of each of your protagonist’s seventeen cousins.

Why? Because they can tell it’s not important. They can afford to skip all of your description because their understanding of the story will not be impacted.

That’s where dynamic description comes in. Dynamic description is a living entity. It’s interactive, it’s relevant. It takes on the voices of your narrators and characters. In short, it gives us important information about the story, and it can’t be skimmed over.

So how do you make your description more dynamic so that it engages your readers and adds color and excitement to your story? Here are a few tips.

(I have a TON more tips about setting and description. These are just a few. But I’m trying to keep this short, so if you have any questions or want more advice about this, please feel free to ask me.)

Keep reading

My ability to proofread increases by 1000% after I hit “Submit”.

Hey, guys! I’ve noticed that there are a lot of artists who struggle with “same face syndrome,” or the tendency to draw all their characters with the same face. To help you combat this, I’ve created two different challenges!

The first (pink) one is mainly geared towards artists who are struggling with same face syndrome and want to start branching out. It covers topics that a lot of artists struggle with when drawing faces, such as age, weight, and face shapes. It’s not super specific, so you still have some wiggle room.

The second (yellow) one is a bit harder and is mainly geared towards artists who want to really challenge themselves to diversify their faces. Personally, I think this one’s the most fun to work with despite it being more difficult. Chances are with this one, you’re not going to be drawing a whole bunch of beautiful people. You don’t have to roll for every option on this one either.  A certain combination of rolls from 10/13 of the options may give you a great character idea, and that’s great!

I hope you guys enjoy these! I’d love for you to send me your drawings if you do one (or both) of them.

idk if anyone will find this useful, but this is how i go about planning my stories. i mostly write fantasy, so that’s what this is most applicable to. but it could work with other genres too.

so there’s three major components to a story: the characters, the plot, and the world. creating them individually is the easy part, but they all connect and affect each other in different ways. (like you can’t have a character who loves peaches and eats them every day if they live a peasant in a region that doesn’t grow peaches, for example.)

so i created a cheat sheet to help connect all three components together.

1) the world creates the characters.

this is related to the peach example above. the characters should be a direct result of the environment they grew up in and the environment they currently live in.

2) the characters are limited by the world.

also related to the peaches. characters can’t do anything outside of what the rules of their surroundings and universe allow, such as eating peaches when they’re not available. this also applies for magic users. they can’t have unlimited magic, so keep in mind what you want out of both the characters and the world when creating magic systems.

3) the characters carry the plot.

we’ve all heard it before: “bad characters can’t carry a good plot. good characters can carry a bad plot.” but we all like a good plot anyway. try to make sure you’re not giving your characters too heavy or too light of a plot to carry.

4) the plot pushes the characters.

if nothing in the plot happens, your characters will remain static forever. if you struggle with plots, try starting with what character development you want to happen, then go from there.

5) the plot depends on the world.

you can’t overthrow the evil government if there isn’t one. think of what your world needs most and what your plot is centered around, and fit those two together.

6) the world is changed by the plot.

even if your plot is centered around something most of your world would call “insignificant”, the world will still experience some change from the plot. either the evil government will be gone, or maybe that one teacher is now way more careful about keeping an eye on the test key. either way, the world will be different from now on.

final note: usually people will be able to write one or two of the components with ease, but don’t know where to go from there. i personally can’t write plots, but thinking this way has really helped me actually make a story out of the world and characters because i looked at what i needed from what i had. i really hope this can help you too! happy writing!

tl;dr this is a cheat sheet to help anyone who struggles with writing one or two of what i consider the three major components to a story.

Writing Prompts #463: Write This Story

“In about three seconds you’re going to hear a very loud noise. Do not be alarmed.”

This isnt a joke my favorite piece of writing advice that I’ve ever seen is someone that said if you were stuck with a fic and couldn’t figure out why or what was wrong, your problem is actually usually about ten sentences back. Maybe there was something wonky about the tone or the dialogue or you added something that didn’t fit but it’s usually ten sentences back. And every single time I get stuck in a fic I count back ten sentences and it’s always fucking there