TTK Chapter 54: Intermission 5, The Forgotten by TaoAndThen, literature
Literature
TTK Chapter 54: Intermission 5, The Forgotten
Trigger warning- mentions of self harm
I think Marco and I are the only ones who’ve been totally compliant from the start. I can understand Annie, Reiner, and Bertholdt being suspicious of anyone trying to squeeze more information from us. And I can understand that Ymir is just a bitch. But even though I have every intention of using what I know to take those bastards down, some things I’m hesitant to say. Not ‘cause I don’t want it to be known, but...I think certain people should know first. And I don’t trust the MP not to take action that could hurt innocent people, not now that the CMP isn’t running
Writing Tips: Characterisation by ML-Larson, literature
Literature
Writing Tips: Characterisation
Characterisation: Avoiding the Dreaded Mary Sue
The characters you write are arguably the biggest part of your story. Theyre the vessel through which the reader is able to identify with the themes and ideas that youre trying to share. But creating brand new lives from thin air can sometimes be rather difficult. You have to find their voice, their needs, their personality; its a rather delicate balance, really.
Rather tempting, and often encouraged by teachers, is to do a Character Profile to help come up with some of the details. These are often pre-made sets of questions ranging from the mundane (eye colour, h
DISCLAIMER: Before anyone starts screaming about this article not emphasizing the Creative aspect of writing, please understand that this information was hammered into my head by my editors. This is what I had to learn to see my work published.
That doesn't mean you have to follow it! As with all advice, feel free to take what you can use and throw out the rest.
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Pesky Point of View
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What is Point of View (POV)?
-- It's the view of the person telling the story.
First Person: I am telling the story.
Second Person. I am telling the story to YOU. (Diaries and letters are commonly written this way.)
Third
The Art of VILLAINY ~ Making Realistic Villains for your Fiction ~
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"People will do far more to Avoid Pain than they will to Seek Pleasure."
-- CIA Profiler Gavin DeBecker on Human Nature
True Predators
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When I craft a villain, I go out of my way to make darned sure that my fictional villains are as realistic as the villains we face in real life. I begin by giving them ordinary human Issues.
Within every villain (fictional and non-fictional) there's a human issue at core that drives them to BE villains in the first place. Even mass murderers have reasons (however twisted) for doing what they do.
NO villain
An extension of How not to Write Love Interests by MakingFunOfStuff, literature
Literature
An extension of How not to Write Love Interests
“Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.” - C.S Lewis
This quote is about faith not love, but you can see how the same logic applies. If faith is not merely to "feel" as if you believe something, why should love be merely to "feel" that you like something?
In the end, faith is remembering you have reason to believe, and love is a choice about how you treat someone. Feelings are irrelevant. They are passing. They are constantly changing, and that's natural. They can indeed play a role in our decisions about relationsh
Why Strong Females are Bad Role Models by MakingFunOfStuff, literature
Literature
Why Strong Females are Bad Role Models
Today I want to talk about how not to write girl characters.
"Oh, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say that girls shouldn't always rely on men. They should be strong and able to fight for themselves. They should be equally as smart and quick-witted as the boys. They should-"
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
They should not be CONTRIVED.
It's not a choice between Bella Swan or Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon. You can actually invent NEW personalities for girls. Instead there are a handful that get recycled over and over.
I know, I know. "Authors can have boy characters with these problems too!" blah blah blah. This is a list of what I
The Humility of Stupidity by MakingFunOfStuff, literature
Literature
The Humility of Stupidity
There is a deep fundamental and philosophical difference between SpongeBob Squarepants and Edward Cullen. Something relevant to our attitudes as storytellers. We should look toward cartoons for a lesson that writers these days seem to have forgotten, which is part of the reason we have so many problems like Mary Sues in books today.
There is something about SpongeBob, which is, in his essence, more respectable than Edward Cullen or many main characters of modern YA books. It has to do with basic virtues and an undervalue of true comedic spirit while we’re distracted writing melodramatic or angsty fanfiction. Morals are important. The c
Modern storytelling might be summed up as all bones and no meat. We fail to realize the reasons types of stories originated and are content to reproduce shells in long want of souls. We imitate mistakes for nostalgia's sake, but the time has come to stop and think about what we're not doing.
The first step is to distinguish between different aspects of our stories, which are frequently blurred together and put under blanket terms. For instance when we describe a story as sarcastic we might be attributing that adjective to any aspect of the story, and not all sarcastic stories are the same. There's a difference between a story that has sarcas
Why People Hate Rainbow Ponies by MakingFunOfStuff, literature
Literature
Why People Hate Rainbow Ponies
or
In Defense of the Word 'Cringey'
This isn't a contradiction of the popular argument against bullying individual artists. It's an elaboration on why the issue is more complicated.
Let's get passed the "live and let live" formalities, and admit some people have negative opinions. Not everybody agrees certain types of art are harmless. This is an explanation of why the sides exist, so we can get to the root of the matter and admit it's not about rainbow ponies. I don't support attacking individuals. I do support posting general criticism against specific trends or tropes. I believe in objectivity.
This is a war of personal philosophies, n
The Problem with Self Inserts by MakingFunOfStuff, literature
Literature
The Problem with Self Inserts
The Problem with Self Inserts
There is nothing wrong with inserting yourself into a story. Like anything, it can be well done or... not so well done. The fact is, the majority of people who tend to write about self inserts happen to be beginners. Naturally, that causes there to be a pattern of certain, specific mistakes that are frequently found whilst reading anything on the internet. The purpose of this deviation isn't to say that self inserts are bad. I'm simply going to point out the most common mistakes that we usually encounter.
1. Making ourselves better than we really are.
Don't be fooled by the word "better." This can be replaced