Here’s A Tip;

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.)

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Beyond this, consider how these professions might vary depending on who the customers are - nobles, or lower class. Are they good at their job or just scraping by? Do they work with lots of other people or on their own? City or village?

For younger characters:

Apprentice to any of the above

Messenger/runner

Page/squire

Pickpocket

Shop assistant

Student

Looks after younger siblings

(Images all from Wikimedia Commons)

Fallen Angel Names

The following list is of traditional fallen angel names gathered from different religions, mythologies and lore.  These angel names are of those angels considered to be of a bad nature.

Abaddon - fallen angel of death whose name means “to destroy.” Abezethibou - one-winged Red Sea fallen angel. Allocen - fallen angel who is a duke in hell. Amduscias - name of the fallen angel who appears as a unicorn. Amon - fallen angel who is a strong marquis over 40 legions. Amy - name of a fallen angel who is a president in hell. Andras - fallen angel marquis and appears raven-headed. Andrealphus - fallen angel who can transform humans into birds. Andromalius - fallen angel who appears as a man holding a serpent. Apollyon - fallen angel of death; same as Abaddon. Armaros - fallen angel who teaches the “resolving of enchantments.” Asmoday - fallen angel king with three heads: a bull, a ram, and a man. Asmodeus - one of the most evil of fallen angels, being an archdemon. Astaroth - fallen angel who is a grand duke in hell. Azael - evil, fallen angel who cohabited with women. Azazel - fallen angel whose name means “God strengthens.” Azza - fallen angel whose name means “the strong.” Baal - fallen angel whose name means “the lord.” Balam - fallen angel who looks like Asmoday with a serpent tail. Balberith - fallen angel who is a grand pontiff in hell. Baraqijal - fallen angel who teaches astrology. Barbatos - fallen angel who is a great count, earl and duke of hell. Bathin - pale horse riding fallen angel. Beelzebub - fallen angel known as the “prince of demons.” Behemoth - fallen angel who is the “demon of the deep.” Beleth - fallen angel who is a terrible king over 85 legions. Belial - deceptively beautiful fallen angel whose name means “without worth.” Belphegor - fallen angel whose name means “lord of opening.” Berith - fallen angel… Bernael - fallen angel of darkness and evil. Bifrons - fallen angel that appears monstrous and teaches mathematical arts. Botis - fallen angel who appears as a viper. Buer - fallen angel who teaches philosophy, logic and ethics. Bune - fallen angel who appears as a dragon with three heads. Caim - fallen angel who appears as a thrush or man with a sword. Dantanian - fallen angel who appears as a man with many faces. Decarabia - fallen angel who appears as a star in a pentacle. Eligor - fallen angel who appears as a good knight with lance. Enepsigos - fallen angel who appears in the shape of woman. Flauros - fallen angel who appears as a leopard. Focalor - fallen angel who appears as a man with griffin wings. Forcas - fallen angel who teaches logic and ethics. Forneus - fallen angel marquis who appears as a sea monster. Furcas - fallen angel who appears as a cruel man with long beard. Furfur - fallen angel who appears as a hart with a fiery tail. Gaap - fallen angel who appears as a man with bat wings. Gadreel - fallen angel whose name means “God is my helper.” Gamygyn - fallen angel who appears as a small horse. Glasyalabolas - fallen angel who appears as a winged dog. Gomory - fallen angel who appears as a camel riding woman of beauty. Gusion - fallen angel who can discern the past, present or future. Hagenti - fallen angel who appears as a bull with griffin wings. Halpas - fallen angel who appears as a stork. Imamiah - fallen angel who governs voyages. Ipos - fallen angel who appears as an angel with a lion’s head. Kokabiel - fallen angel whose name means “star of God.” Kunopegos - fallen angel who appears as a sea horse and sinks ships. Lahash - fallen angel who interferes with divine will. Lerajie - fallen angel who appears as an archer in green. Leviathon - fallen angel associated with the deep seas. Lillith - fallen female angel who searches for children to kidnap or kill. Lix Tetrax - fallen angel of the wind. Lucifer - actually a Babylonian king whose name means “bearer of light.” Malpas - fallen angel who appears as a crow. Marbas - fallen angel who appears as a lion. Marchosias - fallen angel who appears as a she-wolf with griffin wings. Mastema - fallen angel whose name means “hostility.” Mephistopheles - fallen angel; name means “he who loves not the light.” Morax - fallen angel who appears as a bull. Naamah - fallen angel of prostitution whose name means “pleasing.” Naberius - fallen angel who appears as a crowing cock. Obyzouth - fallen angel femal who kills newborns and cause still-births. Onoskelis - female fallen angel who lives in caves and perverts men. Orias - fallen angel who appears as a lion with serpent’s tail. Ornias - fallen angel who is annoying and can shape-shift. Orobas - fallen angel who appears as a horse. Ose - fallen angel who appears as a leopard and is a president in hell. Paimon - fallen angel who appears as a crowned man on a camel. Penemuel - fallen angel who corrupts mankind through writing. Pharzuph - fallen angel of fornication and lust. Phoenix - fallen angel who appears as a phoenix bird. Procel - fallen angel who can speak of hidden and secret things. Purah - fallen angel of forgetfulness and the conjuring of the dead. Purson - fallen angel who appears as a lion-headed man on a bear. Qemuel - fallen angel who was destroyed by God. Rahab - fallen angel of pride whose name means “violence.” Raum - fallen angel who appears as a crow. Ronobe - fallen angel who is a monster who teaches rhetoric and art. Ruax - headache fallen angel. Sabnack - fallen angel who appears as a soldier with lion’s head. Saleos - fallen angel who appears as a soldier on a crocodile. Samael - evil fallen angel whose name means “the blind God.” Satan  - christian fallen angel whose name means “adversary.” Seere - fallen angel who appears as a man on a winged horse. Semyaza - fallen angel leader and one of the Sons of God. Shax - fallen angel who appears as a stork; stealer of money. Solas - fallen angel who appears as a raven and teaches astronomy. Sorath - fallen angel to some whose number is 666. Sytry - fallen angel; appears as a man with griffin wings and leopard head. Uzza - fallen angel whose name means “strength.” Valac - fallen angel who appears as a small boy with wings on a dragon. Valefor - fallen angel who appears as a many-headed lion. Vapula - fallen angel who is skilled in handicrafts, science and philosophy. Vassago - fallen angel who discovers all things lost or hidden. Vepar - fallen angel who appears as a mermaid. Vine - fallen angel and appears as a lion sitting on a black horse. Vual - fallen angel who appears as a huge camel. Wormwood - fallen angel who brings plagues upon the Earth. Xaphan - fallen angel who fires the fires of hell. Zagan - fallen angel who can transform things; looks like a bull with wings. Zepar - fallen angel who makes women love men. Angel names find their roots within ancient cultures, such as Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt, as well as within Jewish, Christian and Muslim lore.  Over thousands of years, angel names have evolved in spelling, meaning and use within religions, mysticism and magic, where the name of an angel is thought important in order to invoke angelic help.  Some rituals invoke good angels, while other rituals are to invoke fallen angels. Many of the good angel names include a suffix word meaning of God (-el), or yah, which means Lord.  This way, angel names portray the importance of the angel’s connection with the divine.    Good and fallen angel names are traditionally and even superstitiously viewed as being powerful. 

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.

10 Free Websites To Improve Your Writing

There’s no such thing as too many resources for writers. Books are helpful, but they can cost more money than the average author is willing to spend ($0.00). So here’s ten free websites any author can use. Whether you’re a professional with ten books under your belt, or a brand new writer starting from scratch, this list has something for everybody. Because we’re worth it. 

Critique Circle

Probably the best writing review website on the internet. The idea is to review other people’s work, and, for every review you do, you get ‘credits’, which allows you to post your own work on the website so it can get critiqued. It’s one big Circle Of Life that works really well. The credit system they have in place ensures that people will actively seek out and critique other people’s work. Also includes a very active forum, and much more features than I could ever say here. If you take nothing else away from this list, take this one. 

Grammar Girl

Exactly what it says on the tin. Grammar Girl takes those hard to answer grammar questions and explains them in any easy, simple way.

Writers Helping Writers

Home of The Bookshelf Muse, this website is described as a ‘descriptive thesaurus’. Some of them include: Emotions, Settings, Themes, Talents, Colors, Shapes, and so much more. This website is great for any author looking to add realism and depth into their writing, 

Writer’s Digest

Full of information. Very helpful. Very…confusing? The front page looks like a link explosion, but it’s useful links. It takes some getting used to how the website is laid out, but once you do, you’ll find everything from writing prompts to goals to genres and everything in between. 

One Look Dictionary

Not your average dictionary. One Look takes everything you never knew you wanted and compiles it into one website. 

One Look Reverse Dictionary

One Look also has a reverse dictionary. Simply put in a concept and get back words and phrases related to that concept.

Spell Check Plus

If you’re a writer of any kind, you’ve probably done a search for a decent spellchecker. And, if you’ve done that, you’ve probably stumbled across about ten of them, which are all about the same. Spell Check Plus tops all others by a mile. It fixes spelling errors with suggestions, offers word choices to help with grammar, and gives a summary of possible errors.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is a website where authors aim to write a novel in one month. This happens every November, with Camp NaNoWriMo happening every April. The goal is simply to get 50k words written in thirty days, no editing. It’s something to try to break out of your normal writing shell, because really, when else is 50k words with no editing ever allowed? Free yourself, my friends.

Fuck Yeah Character Development

This is absolutely amazing for character development. Anything and everything you could possibly need to creative any character you want can be found here. 

YA Highway

Don’t be put off by the title, YA Highway contains writing tips that can be applied to all genres and methods of writing. There’s many different posts that encompasses many things, so some searching may be in order. But when you find what you’re looking for it’s all worthwhile.

Types of Opening Scenes for Your Novel

Here are a handful of ways to open the very first scene in your book! There are plenty more to explore, but these are a set of very tried and true methods.

Autobiographic - your protagonist starts the book reflecting or talking about a past event. They’re looking back in time and sharing an important piece of information with the reader.

In trouble/conflict - a problem has arisen for the protagonist and a sense of urgency is established. This can be an intense conflict like a chase scene or a puzzling problem.

Mysterious opening - the reader is introduced to something peculiar (a fantasy location, unique magic, a cloaked figure, etc.) that raises questions in their mind. Their curiosity will keep them reading.

Scene-setting - the most common opening where you focus on introducing the setting and the characters in it before anything else.

The questioner - the protagonist is questioning something: “Who invited the guy in the trench coat covered in red?”

Beginning with a thought - the novel is started with a philosophical quote or meaningful thought from the protagonist. “What is living worth if she’s not doing it with me?”

Intriguing dialogue - the book starts with interesting dialogue that captures the attention of the reader.

Mood establisher - the novel opens with a deliberate mood that signifies to the reader what they should expect from the story. Ex. a spooky story may open with eerie words and a dark atmosphere.

Instagram: coffeebeanwriting

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

I made these as a way to compile all the geographical vocabulary that I thought was useful and interesting for writers. Some descriptors share categories, and some are simplified, but for the most part everything is in its proper place. Not all the words are as useable as others, and some might take tricky wording to pull off, but I hope these prove useful to all you writers out there!

(save the images to zoom in on the pics)

Resources for Writing Injuries

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Head Injuries

General Information | More

Hematoma

Hemorrhage

Concussion

Edema

Skull Fracture

Diffuse Axonal Injury

Neck

General Information

Neck sprain

Herniated Disk

Pinched Nerve

Cervical Fracture

Broken Neck

Chest (Thoracic)

General Information

Aortic disruption

Blunt cardiac injury

Cardiac tamponade

Flail chest

Hemothorax

Pneumothorax (traumatic pneumothorax, open pneumothorax, and tension pneumothorax)

Pulmonary contusion

Broken Ribs

Broken Collarbone

Abdominal

General Information

Blunt trauma

Penetrating injuries (see also, gunshot wound & stab wound sections)

Broken Spine

Lung Trauma

Heart (Blunt Cardiac Injury)

Bladder Trauma

Spleen Trauma

Intestinal Trauma

Liver Trauma

Pancreas Trauma

Kidney Trauma

Arms/Hands/Legs/Feet

General Information | More

Fractures

Dislocations

Sprains

Strains

Muscle Overuse

Muscle Bruise

Bone Bruise

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Tendon pain

Bruises

Injuries to ligaments

Injuries to tendons

Crushed Hand

Crushed Foot

Broken Hand

Broken Foot

Broken Ankle

Broken Wrist

Broken Arm

Shoulder Trauma

Broken elbow

Broken Knee

Broken Finger

Broken Toe

Face

General Information

Broken Nose

Corneal Abrasion

Chemical Eye Burns

Subconjunctival Hemorrhages (Eye Bleeding)

Facial Trauma

Broken/Dislocated jaw

Fractured Cheekbone

Skin & Bleeding

General Information (Skin Injuries) | More (Arteries)

femoral artery (inner thigh)

thoracic aorta (chest & heart)

abdominal aorta (abdomen)

brachial artery (upper arm)

radial artery (hand & forearm)

common carotid artery (neck)

aorta (heart & abdomen)

axillary artery (underarm)

popliteal artery (knee & outer thigh)

anterior tibial artery (shin & ankle)

posterior tibial artery (calf & heel)

arteria dorsalis pedis (foot)

Cuts/Lacerations

Scrapes

Abrasions (Floor burns)

Bruises

Gunshot Wounds

General Information

In the Head

In the Neck

In the Shoulders

In the Chest

In the Abdomen

In the Legs/Arms

In the Hands

In The Feet

Stab Wounds

General Information

In the Head

In the Neck

In the Chest

In the Abdomen

In the Legs/Arms

General Resources

Guide to Story Researching

A Writer’s Thesaurus

Words To Describe Body Types and How They Move

Words To Describe…

Writing Intense Scenes

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Masterlist | WIP Blog

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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.