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Interactive Fiction Recs

It’s been a while, so I thought I’d update and expand on my previous list of favorite interactive fiction works in progress! 

Did anybody ask for this? No. Am I making it anyway to satisfy my obsession for list making? Maybe. Anyways, recommendations under the cut! Damn this got long…

(Updated 9/5/22)

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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.

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

h o w t o s u r v i v e c o l l e g e

Sleep

Okay listen - I know what you’re thinking. College students don’t sleep, though! And guess what? That’s absolutely true. I’ve had two cups of coffee today already and it’s only noon, but you need to learn how to sleep enough. Your body has limits and you need to learn what those are. I have had multiple friends who have fainted from not sleeping enough and guess what? They don’t perform better on tests that way. Figure out how many hours of sleep you need to get to function well. For me it’s about 5-7 hours per night during the week and about 7-8 hours per night on weekends (and I don’t have Friday class so Thursday nights count as weekends for me). This is probably the limit for keeping yourself healthy enough to function and I subsist off of coffee. If you don’t sleep you are going to get sick and your papers are going to be incoherent and you are going to gain weight from over eating. So just put down that paper, get your 6 hours and start up again in the morning. For majors that are reading based (i.e. English, History, Philosophy, Classics, etc) it is so important to get enough sleep so that you can actually comprehend your readings!

Plan

Your planner does not have to be beautiful, covered with script handwriting and cute small artist stickers to be worth putting time into (more power to you if yours is though — that’s a whole mood). I used Hobinichi Cousin planner to plan my day—chores, homework, and meals—but I also use iCal and an app called Things. My freshman year I thought that just having a paper planner would be fine but it did NOT work out for me. I was always late/forgetting meetings and running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Once I downloaded Things (for my assignments) and inputted work, social events, and when I’m really busy sleep/meals into iCal, I started getting better grades. Take 2 hours to plan. Seriously even if you have 372 things to get done by tomorrow, if you plan and make a linear list of the things you need to get done they will get done better and faster.

Things is a paid app. $10 for phone, $50 for Mac. It’s a bit of an investment for both but I have used it every single day for the past 2 years.

Socialize

Just me here with your local reminder that socialize does not mean you have to party. Let me tell you something, I haven’t gone to a party this entire year (it’s second semester) and I feel completely content about it. I am not saying that going to parties is bad. A lot of people have a ton of fun doing that, but let me tell you something—your social life cannot subsist off of parties alone. Invite people to brunch, make friends with the people in your classes by literally just talking to them (!!!), go on coffee dates with your friends as much as you can, take midnight ice cream runs, 1 am fried chicken runs, 9 pm boba study breaks, invite people over to make cookies, go to the cinema. Deep conversations and long talks will sometimes distract you from your work and guess what? That’s okay. That’s an important part of college too. Don’t shut yourself up in your room all day studying every day of the week. You are going to burn out. You need your friends and they need you!

Work smarter and harder

I cannot say this enough—utilize your resources! Go to office hours. It will literally save you to have a relationship with your professor. Not only are you going to get letters of recommendation, extensions when you really need them, and helpful tips—you can have amazing conversation and insight about grad school, research, and jobs. Go to the library. Not only are there a million books for your research project all grouped in the same section, but there are librarians who can help you find more resources with less effort. Use your databases, but also your own school’s archives. There is a reason we save so many books and newspapers. Also libraries are the absolute best place to study. This year I have tended to go to the most social floor because it keeps me awake and it reminds me that I have other people around me working late as well. Use apps. I’m saying this right now—DOWNLOAD ZOTERO. It will save you. It is an app and a google chrome extension which saves your sources in a database and then generates perfect citations/footnotes for your papers. It is the best thing of my life. Use google drive and keep your documents in organized folders. Organized virtual work is AS important as physical work. Also put some time into your LinkedIn ASAP—the sooner you do it, the easier it will be to keep it up to date.

Take care of yourself

Just be smart about your time and your mental health. Both of those I struggle with every day, but take solace in the fact that other people are going through it too. College is an amazing opportunity and even when it feels completely overwhelming it is still an extremely privileged position to be in. Do why you can to make yourself better, be there for the people who need you, grind on your papers and projects and research. At the end of the day your projects/papers are only going to be as good as your individual capacity allows them to be. Sometimes sleeping an extra hour is as beneficial as an extra hour of studying. Figure out what you need by making mistakes and forgive yourself! We are all just trying to make our way though.

people are always like “are you a morning person or a night person” and I’m just like buddy I’m barely even a person

Some days I just don't feel very eldritch.

I almost feel bad asking, but as a reader, this is something I’ve forgotten to do on occasion, so I’m hoping this post reads as a reminder and not a demand.

But, if you enjoyed the Rose, it would really mean the world if you could leave a review. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate, flowery piece (although, of course, I would never deny one of those), I only ask that the words are true. That it is what you truly think.

Leaving a review is such an easy, free and quick way to support a creator or a piece of art that you believe holds any value. And it does feel disingenuous to be asking this of you, but my appreciation and gratitude would be far away from dishonest. ♡

Hello everyone! I've been made aware that the personality calc isn't currently working in the demo. I'll fix it when I can in the next day or so, but until then, I'll repost this disclaimer from the forum!

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

E.A. Deverell - FREE worksheets (characters, world building, narrator, etc.) and paid courses;

Hiveword - Helps to research any topic to write about (has other resources, too);

BetaBooks - Share your draft with your beta reader (can be more than one), and see where they stopped reading, their comments, etc.;

Charlotte Dillon - Research links;

Writing realistic injuries - The title is pretty self-explanatory: while writing about an injury, take a look at this useful website;

One Stop for Writers - You guys... this website has literally everything we need: a) Description thesaurus collection, b) Character builder, c) Story maps, d) Scene maps & timelines, e) World building surveys, f) Worksheets, f) Tutorials, and much more! Although it has a paid plan ($90/year | $50/6 months | $9/month), you can still get a 2-week FREE trial;

One Stop for Writers Roadmap - It has many tips for you, divided into three different topics: a) How to plan a story, b) How to write a story, c) How to revise a story. The best thing about this? It's FREE!

Story Structure Database - The Story Structure Database is an archive of books and movies, recording all their major plot points;

National Centre for Writing - FREE worksheets and writing courses. Has also paid courses;

Penguin Random House - Has some writing contests and great opportunities;

Crime Reads - Get inspired before writing a crime scene;

The Creative Academy for Writers - "Writers helping writers along every step of the path to publication." It's FREE and has ZOOM writing rooms;

Reedsy - "A trusted place to learn how to successfully publish your book" It has many tips, and tools (generators), contests, prompts lists, etc. FREE;

QueryTracker - Find agents for your books (personally, I've never used this before, but I thought I should feature it here);

Pacemaker - Track your goals (example: Write 50K words - then, everytime you write, you track the number of the words, and it will make a graphic for you with your progress). It's FREE but has a paid plan;

Save the Cat! - The blog of the most known storytelling method. You can find posts, sheets, a software (student discount - 70%), and other things;

I hope this is helpful for you!

(Also, check my blog if you want to!)

Remember why you started