How To Make Your Descriptions Less Boring

I think what made the Mythbusters special was this: of course they would always ask, and test, “could the circumstances of the myth produce the described result?” but they ALSO always took the extra step to “under what circumstances, no matter how extreme, could the described result be achieved? ” and it was fucking spectacular every time

Ohhhhh, well I will be picking this up to give to krok so he can have his actionmaster partner

Totodile and Fuecoco help Quaxly.

Hello! This is my first time asking but I could I have some advice on how to write a story that starts in the climax of the plot already? The context is my MC woke up and they are not able to remember anything, but suddenly, he just woke up in the wards of his family (a very strong political figure in their world might I add) whom he told what his life was but the narratives they are telling does not match even in the slightest of the flashback that's plaguing him as the time stretches. And they were in the middle of the war, too. I'm having a hard time to achieve that mind-blowing... thrill I suppose? They also got a love interest that is unmistakably not the one his family claimed ‘their-spouse’ to be.

Starting with Inciting Incident

Remember: your story's climax is the moment your character faces off against the antagonist once and for all. While some stories do start at the climax, and then flashback to the beginning of the story to build back up to it, it doesn't mean you start at the climax and move forward from there.

I think there can be a lot of confusion with the concept of "In Media Res" which a lot of people confuse as meaning starting in the literal middle of the story, or at the inciting incident or climax. Instead, "in media res" simply means starting in the middle of the action. That action can be the inciting incident, the climax, or the literal middle, but again, it doesn't mean the story moves forward from there.

If you're starting your story at the point where your character wakes up without their memories, this isn't the climax but rather the inciting incident. This is the moment when their life and world are turned upside down. Starting at this moment in a story about memory loss is a great way to go, because your reader knows as little about the character and their world as the character does. It puts the reader in your character's shoes right from the start, and they'll be learning everything right alongside your character.

So, that's really the key is to make sure you're filling in the gaps left by not having an exposition. You'll need to make sure to fairly quickly illustrate this character's natural personality, the world they've woken up into, and what their life was apparently like before they lost their memories. If they're being lied to, you may want to build in some clues that hint at what their actual life was like--such as feeling a place is familiar to them even if they're told "no, you would never have been to such a place."

As far as creating that thrill in that opening moment, it's really going to come down to emotional and sensory description. In lieu of recognizing who they are, where they are, and what happened to them, they're going to focus on their immediate surroundings. What can they see, hear, smell, taste, feel? What does that sensory input tell them about who they are and where they are? How does that sensory input--and what they can learn from it--make them feel? What emotions are they feeling as they process this unfamiliar environment and realize they have no idea who they are, where they are, or what happened to them?

I hope that helps!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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How the brain’s immune system could be harnessed to improve memory

When it comes to memory, immune cells are known as the “bad cops” of the brain. But new research shows they could also be turned into “good cops” to power memory and learning.

Inflammation can send the brain’s immune cells into damaging hyperdrive, and this has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases that affect memory, like dementia.

In the new study, researchers at RMIT found that these same immune cells – known as microglia – can also be activated to have the reverse effect.

When the microglia were altered in rats, their performance in simple memory tasks improved by up to 50%, rather than deteriorating.

While the effect was temporary, the discovery suggests these cells could be targeted in the development of new therapies designed to enhance memory formation, with the hope of preventing cognitive decline as people grow older.

Worldwide, around 50 million people have dementia, with nearly 10 million new cases each year. In Australia, dementia and ageing-related cognitive decline affect 9% of people aged over 65.

Chief Investigator and senior author, Associate Professor Sarah Spencer, said the unexpected results of the study expanded our understanding of memory formation and the role of neuroinflammation in memory loss.

“Cognitive decline is a big problem for our ageing population, and we currently have very few treatments to treat or prevent it,” Spencer said.

“Even in healthy adults, optimising how well we learn and remember can give us a substantial performance edge at work and socially.

“Our study has for the first time shown a link between changes in the immune cells of healthy brains and improved cognitive function.

“While it’s early days and a lot more research is needed, we hope our findings may lead to new therapies that can stimulate these immune cells to boost memory and keep our brains powering as we age.”

(Image caption: A magnified image showing the regenerated microglia. They have a similar shape to the “activated” shape that the brain’s immune cells have when dealing with inflammation. Credit: Alita Soch)

Activating memory with activated microglia

In the study, published in Journal of Neuroinflammation, the researchers worked with a unique type of rat to test the effect of microglia on cognitive function.

The study looked at how the rats performed memory tasks when the immune cells were present and compared this with their performance when almost all the microglia were knocked out.

They found that removing almost all the microglia made no difference in memory tasks.

But when the microglia regenerated, this led to astounding results: researchers ran the same memory tests on the rats and they performed 25-50% better than normal rats.

Importantly, the regenerated microglia were a different shape - similar to the “activated” shape that these cells have when dealing with inflammation.

“We are still exploring what makes these cells different when they repopulate the brain, but their shape tells us they may be more active than usual, potentially making the neurons more effective to encourage better memory,” Spencer, an NHMRC Career Development Fellow at RMIT, said.

“The effect doesn’t last. As the microglia go back to their usual shape, memory performance also goes back to normal.

“The next stage in the research is closely investigating these regenerated microglia to better understand the mechanisms at work, with the aim of finding ways to turn the temporary memory boost into a long-lasting effect.”

Microglia-suppressing therapies are currently being tested in clinical trials in the US, as potential treatments for Multiple Sclerosis.

“With our new understanding of the role of microglia in memory, it may be possible in future to test the therapies originally designed for MS and assess their potential in improving cognitive function as well,” Spencer said.

What are your favorite Crocodiles?

Oh that's an easy one!

African Dwarf Crocodiles (Osteolaemus tetraspis), family Crocodylidae, found in West-central Africa

This small crocodile species only grows to a length of up to 1.5 m (4.9 ft), on average.

photographs by San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

The Jang and the Snowball Spectacle

Yo @godhatesverizon, I was your @pnatsecretsanta this year! You said you liked some good ol’ fashioned Jang and some snow, and who doesn’t love some seasonally appropriate shenanigans from the Mayview bullies? Apologies that this is so late, but I hope you enjoy the lunacy these goofballs get up to!

For all its quirks and oddities, one would expect the weather itself to be one of the last things to distinguish a town such as Mayview from its neighboring areas. This would, of course, be incorrect for freak hurricane-related reasons, but also for the small fact that in its geographical niche, the temperature can jump from pleasantly middling weather to negative five degrees in the span of half a night. So it was that when the people of Mayview awoke from their slumber that they were greeted with so much snow it buried their feet, when mere days before it was only cool enough to warrant a jacket.

The whoops and hollers of children and children-at-heart alike echoed in RJ’s ears as they set off for Johnny’s place, bundled in their warmest snowflake-patterned hoodie and steel blue gloves. The rest of their friends greeted them with a wave as they approached his house, and the group pulled into a huddle to discuss the day’s proceedings. “So what’s the plan for dealin’ with the mutant nerds today?” Stephen asked as the group turned their eyes to their crimson haired leader.

Johnny took a deep breath.

“Nothin’.” “WHAT?!” Ollie and Stephen cried in unison.

“We’ve been goin’ over this for too long and we’re clearly gettin’ a little burned out. I had ta force ya to sleep yesterday, Stephen, and the rest of us weren’t much better. So this is gonna be our day off. No thinkin’ about weirdo flyin’ people, or shootin’ lightning, or purple gunk. It’s just gonna be us an’ the snow. Tomorra’ we’ll look over everythin’ with fresh faces an’ we’ll get all the info we need outta the nerds. Today…” He threw his arms out, inviting the rest to take in the white wonderment surrounding them.

“Today we make the biggest ball of death this town has ever seen!” If the fire in the group’s eyes could leave their ocular prisons, there would be no snow left.

“YEAH!” Stephen whooped. “We setting it loose on Wicker Road again?” “Can we please not push the whole thing uphill like last year?” Ollie said through his smile, knowing his plea would be futile.

Purple gunk? came the message from RJ’s phone. Their leader’s eyes flicked to it for a second, before sliding to the side, as if unsure. Within an instant the phone was put away and the message forgotten, his wide grin returning and the flare in his eyes reigniting.

“Trust me, it’s gonna be the biggest and best ball we’ve done yet! NOW LET’S GET TO IT!” “YEAH!!” the others shouted, and the four took off to mold doom from the innocent fluff.

---

After ten minutes, the Jang regrouped to see the fruits of their labor and to pick a starting ball. Stephen’s ball, barely bigger than the palm of his hand, was the smallest of the lot. He attributed this to thinking he had found Mothman prints, but closer inspection had just revealed them to be raccoon tracks. Johnny tried to move his ball a little more and groaned when it fell apart in his hands. Ollie’s was bigger than the rest, but rebelled against its circular bretheren by taking the shape of a football. RJ’s ball was the roundest of the four, if a little on the smaller side. The group set RJ’s ball off to the side, and held somber eulogies for the other failed balls.

The subsequent pummeling back into the powder they were born from was markedly less somber.

The beginnings of the Deadly Doom Ball of Ultimate Destruction (named by Stephen) were humble, as the small orb graciously munched the snow laying neatly behind Johnny’s house. Its appetite grew with its size; by the time it devoured the last white flakes daring to exist in Johnny’s backyard, it reached RJ’s torso. The desecration of snow spread as the ball, now guided by two pairs of hands, absorbed the fallen flakes lying beside the sidewalk, making its way up the street.

“So,” Ollie said, turning to stare at Johnny, who was eyeing the path ahead for obstacles, “we taking it to the Usual Spot, or somewhere new?” “Can we not do the steepest hill again? That was so disappointing,” Stephen said, remembering how the previous year’s ball went only a few feet before cracking in half.

“Yeah, pushing that thing up there was a nightmare,” Ollie added, reminiscing on the four of them desperately digging into the snow with their backs to the ball, taking victory in inches.

“Nah, we’re gonna go partways up t’ the school and run it down the road!” Johnny cried out.

“Ngh..I really hope it doesn’t break this time,” Stephen huffed.

The four continued up the street, the ball greedily adding to its mass as they huffed and chatted about things such as potential fort designs and seeing how many snowballs they could throw into Jeff’s hair.

---

As the Corner Store came into view, a sniffle caught Johnny’s attention, and he turned to examine his pals. With his red nose and cheeks, Ollie looked like he had just walked out of a Christmas card, his face as puffy as his jacket. Stephen wasn’t much better, trying to hide his shuddering beneath his grape scarf and Jersey Devil jersey, and RJ kept rubbing their face with their sleeve. The small sneeze from RJ cinched it. “A’right, detour time. We get this ball to the store and then we get ourselves some goodies. Stephen, you still got that ten dollar bill in your pocket?” “Yep.” “Cool. You three go in and get yerselves some’n warm, an’ I’ll guard the ball.” The bully bunch made it to the edge of the store’s door in due time. Stephen, Ollie, and RJ dashed into the store, eager for something warm to slide down their gullets.

“Ho ho, little elves!” cried the wiry shopkeeper as he slid onto the countertop, decked in green and jingling bells. “What can I do you for, on your fine detour from Santa’s Shop?”

“Got anything warm?” Ollie asked as he tried and marginally succeeded at preventing Stephen from ransacking the isles.

The spark in the man’s eyes immediately threw this decision into question. As the green elf declared that he had just the thing and dashed up the stairs, the boy wondered what he just got them all into.

He barely had time to ponder calling for Johnny when the man returned, arms full of small packets, the lid of a small pan, and a coffee pot filled with piping hot...water? Before Ollie could say anything, the man had already ripped the small packets into pieces with his teeth, scattering the dust-colored powder into the pot. He then leapt onto the counter with a flourish, slammed the pan lid onto the pot with a clank!, and began to twirl. The pot quickly frothed with a chocolate swirl as he spun and spun, giggling manically all the while.

Ollie couldn’t figure out when the snowman-adored styrofoam cups had manifested onto the counter, or when exactly the other two had joined him, and at this point he was almost afraid to question it.

The three stared in a mix of bewilderment and awe as the shopkeeper slid backwards, filling each cup to the brim with small dips and pivots. He then threw himself backwards, his face underneath Ollie’s chin. “That’s three for five dollars, or four for seven,” he said without skipping a beat.

“Four, please,” Ollie said, at a loss for anything else to say.

Money changed hands, another batch was poured for Johnny, conversations about agents of Krampus were held, and the three turned to head out the door with the warmth in their gut once again matching the fire in their hearts. Their eyes caught glimpse of the new kid, his jaw set tight and his face as red as theirs were upon entering, although perhaps for different reasons.

Their gazes met. Seconds went by as the group and the nerd stared each other down, Max’s bewilderment fading back into his usual snarky look as he entertained their glares.

Wordlessly, the three turned and headed out the door, finding their fourth member with his back to them, staring at their not-so-little orb of doom.

“Yo bro, you’re not gonna believe what just happened in there!” Stephen called out to Johnny. The bully swirled around, and for a second the three glimpsed his mouth hanging askew, eyes wide with pinpoint pupils, face a touch paler than when they went in. Then his gaze darted from their faces to the cups in their hands, and he relaxed, his hand reaching for his share. With flailing arms and just a tad exaggeration, Stephen shared the details of the shopkeeper as the rest sipped their cocoa.

“And as we left, we fell upon the mutant new kid! I think that store guy did some kinda psychic damage to him ‘cuz he looked totally freaked out.” As if on cue, Max groan from inside the store fell upon their ears.

“We let him off though, ‘cuz of the pact.” “Mmm.” “Then he talked to Stephen for like ten minutes about Krampus and Santa’s secret ninja squad. Had to practically pry him out of the store,” Ollie added.

RJ pulled out their phone and showed them the image they got of the clerk, caught in a perfect backslide, the delicious liquid forever frozen halfway into its destination. The group oohed and aahed at their friend’s impeccable ability to take super clear shots with a little flip phone camera.

With a few more gulps of their cocoa and a desire to finish the rest on the way up, the bullies repositioned themselves and resumed their slow ascent to the top of the hill. RJ spared a glance at Johnny, who was staring daggers at the ball.

Johnny, in the meantime, put all of his focus on the conversations of his friends and on making sure the ball didn’t go off course.

He was not gonna mention the weird hissing that started when they got near that store.

He wasn’t gonna mention the purple thing that had taken an interest in the ball.

He wasn’t gonna think about how the purple thing had a human face and a child’s voice.

He definitely wasn’t gonna think about how all of that just disappeared right as the purple thing looked at him, as if it was never there, right in front of him.

He had made a pact with his buds and he was gonna keep it.

No weird mutant stuff today.

---

Pushing an ever-growing snowball up one of Mayview’s hills with only one hand quickly proved more difficult than expected. Ollie found it easier to lean into the mound with his shoulders providing leverage. RJ and Stephen followed suit, guzzling down the last of their now nearly lukewarm beverage and jamming the empty cups into their jacket pockets. Johnny, having chugged down his cocoa at the urging of his friends, merely rammed his entire frame into the ball. The slow rate of movement up the hill was matched by its growth, though by this point it had begun to dwarf its creators. By the time Johnny mentioned that he could see the school, it had overgrown Ollie by half a foot. Muscles strained and groans and grunts abounded as their fight against gravity reached its zenith. With one last shout from the children, the damned, doomed sphere nestled itself peacefully on the level footing of the school pavement.

The Jang locked eyes on each other, whooped, raised their fists triumphantly in the air, and promptly leaned on each other for support. As breath was sucked down their lungs and muscles left to rest for the first time in hours, the bullies gazed at their creation.

“She’s beautiful, guys.” Stephen said.

“She’s bigger than last years for sure,” Johnny beamed.

“...I don’t think what we just did is reasonably possible.” Ollie said, “and I don’t care.” “YEAH, physics is for WIMPS and NERDS and she doesn’t even have any lunch money!” “Physics is why pushing this thing back down is satisfying at all, Stephen.” “OI!” Johnny called out. “Getchur butts round Deathknell Mk. II! RJ wants a pic!” “Aww, that wasn’t what I called it earlier!” Stephen called out as he ran into position. So it was that a snapshot became immortalized (using Ollie’s phone, as it had a wider screen and a timer) of the four youths, burning cheeks accentuating beaming grins around their carefully cultivated sphere of chaos, Ollie’s one hand slung as high up on the ball as it could go. This was soon followed by pictures of each of them perched atop the ball mid-manic cackle, of Stephen splayed across the top frozen in triumphant shouting, of the group split into stacked pairs on both sides miming a struggle, and many more.

At last, after each photo was evaluated and deemed acceptable, the moment arrived. With more grunts and heaves, Deathknell Mk. II took position in the center of the road, adopting bits of gravel as it went.

“THREE!” came the cry as the ball inched forward.

“TWO!” came the shouts as the slope drew nearer.

“ONE!” came the call as the ball perched on the last few bits of level ground its front end had.

“GOOOOO!!!” With one last running shove and a cry, the obliteration orb teetered..

and tilted…

and slowly slid forward.

As momentum took hold, all caution was thrown to the wind as the deadly orb rocketed down the slope. Trees and buildings flew by as it claimed the hill as its own, tiny smushed white packets on the pavement the only sign it was there. The boys and RJ, with cold-kissed hands desperately clutching onto hoods and hats in the wake of the creation’s tailwind, could scarcely hope to keep up with its joyride as it spun down the hill with the pitter-patter of an army of spiders. It whizzed past the Corner Store in seconds, blew the soft covering of snow off the nearby oak and elm branches, turned slightly to the side as it neared the lower residential areas and chose what would be the bearer of its wrath.

A godawful scrunching brought the ball to a stop, and as the Jang neared it, their jaws fell open and their whoops died in their throat as they drank in the scene.

There at the curbside sat a jet-black SUV, toppled onto its side, buried on all fronts by piles of stone-colored, gravel-filled, leaf accented snow. Its side could hardly be called that now, crumpled and twisted into a metallic sinkhole and probably what Ms. Baxter would call “concave”; one would think an elephant had T-boned it. The lamppost behind it lurched forward with a broken spine, its light shining over the body in fits and spurts over the fresh body, as close to wincing as it could get. A wheel, badly misshapen and hissing something awful, fell into the mound with a plunk.

“I-is that…” Ollie started. “Principal Pleezdo’s car!” Stephen cried in shock, his mittens at the sides of his head.

The house beside them began to wail, a spine-tingling siren that wouldn’t be half-bad as an air raid warning.

“RUN!!!” Johnny screamed, and the bullies hurriedly scrambled as fast as their legs would carry them away from the crime scene, through slush and streets and powdered panic, eager to relive their revelry in the safety of Stephen’s living room.

This seems like something everyone should know if they’re in the sciences and/or interested in reading scientific papers.

These are really neat lizards!

FIVE BANDED GLIDING LIZARD Draco quinquefasciatus

Draco is a genus of agamid lizards that are also known as flying lizards, flying dragons or gliding lizards. These lizards are capable of gliding flight; their ribs and their connecting membrane may be extended to create “wings” (patagia- similar to flying squirrels), the hindlimbs are flattened and wing-like in cross-section, and a flap on the neck (the gular flag) serves as a horizontal stabilizer (the flag is sometimes used in warning to others).

Draco are arboreal insectivores.

While not capable of powered flight they often obtain lift in the course of their gliding flights. Glides as long as 60 m (200 ft) have been recorded, over which the animal loses only 10 m (33 ft) in height, which is quite some distance, considering that these lizards are only around 20 cm (7.9 in) in total length (tail included).

They are found in South Asia and Southeast Asia, and are fairly common in forests, gardens, teak plantations and shrub jungle.

Below showing wings and gular flag. ©A.S.Kono Sulawesi Lined Gliding Lizard Draco spilonotus

A regular and oblivious person works at a coffee shop not knowing its a place of ceasefire for assassins and mercenaries.