Sorry For Lack Of Posts Guys, It's Been Finals Week. I've Had Four Papers Due And Most Over Ten Pages.

@janeopries they all speak to me. I don't know what you're talking about.

Tropes that are totally overused and I love them to death

grumpy jerk and actual ray of sunshine are BFFs

mutual unrequited pining

character A falls fast and hard for character B

character A slowly falls in love with character B over the course of several years, realization hits them that they’ve been in love with B for a long time hits them like a truck

cool badass is actually a giant fucking nerd

The Power of Friendship ™

flat “what” reactions

sweet adorable characters with horrible tragic pasts

villains-turned-heroes becoming the Weird Uncle

characters that aren’t actually related having a parent-child relationship

characters that aren’t actually siblings having a sibling-like bond

“I can’t stand this person but I would die for them”

Thank you again! I'm so in love with this piece!

@alenkospanko 's Ulyesses Opries and my Sadira (ever changing last name) Benoit. They are witches, they are problem children, and they sometimes stop arguing with each other to be romantic idiots.

"We stick together and no matter what, have each other's backs. Through sickness and in health." They may have not been married, but he did take the vows and he would keep them.

"Careful Opries, you're starting to sound like a responsible and sound adult. Almost wise. How normal." His fingers were warm on her chin and his blue eyes were captivating. Her features softened, "I'm glad we have each other."

Commission from the wonderful and incredible @ib-gomes. They were so kind and patient and look! It's so beautiful, truly a million times better than I pictured! Thank you again so much!

Writing Tip #9

Have someone you look up to or respect read your work. It can be nice to have your parents and best friends read it, but face it, they’re prone to bias. You can still show it to them, but if you want feed back turn to someone else. A respected teacher, someone you admire on tumblr, or a friend you know will be brutally honest will all work. Just remember to ask nicely, they’ll be taking time out of their schedules to do this for you.

Give them a hard copy if you can or use Google Docs, it allows them to place comments so you won’t forget. Also, try not to be offended. You won’t be around to defend your work to other readers, so take it to heart. Don’t get snippy to that person, remember that you did ask them to do it.

Don’t get discouraged! There is always room to improve and so challenge yourself. Keep writing and don’t forget to thank your readers for helping you out. Maybe they’ll do it again.

Friendly reminder that fan-made content (fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc) are:

extremely time consuming. Remember someone actually took time out of their life to create that, time they could’ve used to, idk, sleep, for example

entertainment you’re consuming for free. I can’t stress this enough: you’re enjoying someone else’s craft for free. You paid exactly zero money to look at/read/watch it.

S H A R E D  with you, not made for you. This is the most important point: someone created that, put it online and you found it. No one forced you to consume that fanwork, you C H O S E  to do it. 

Whenever you feel like leaving a mean comment, anonymous hate or make a ~clever post about how ‘lol look at all of these overused tropes every fic writer crams into their fics’ remember you’re being a dick to someone who shared their work with you. You’re not being funny, you’re not being edgy, you’re not being brave for calling something out - you’re being a dick.

*cracks knuckles* Are you ready? 1, 5, 10, 12, 17, 22, 26, and 29!

Yay! Thanks for the ask!

1. The System?Alphabetical, if a series doesn’t have the title name in it (i.e. Harry Potter) than I still keep keep it shelved next to the first.

5. The largest and smallest book you own?The largest: The World of Thedas Vol. 2The smallest: The Pocket New Testament

10. Favorite graphic novel?The Last Unicorn graphic novel. Lovely art to go with a beautiful story.

12. Inconsistent editions within a series?Actually, yes. I have one larger book in the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce and one really large copy of the Lord of the Rings and a tiny Hobbit.

17. Book you bought because of cover design?Most of them. Is that sad? I think it’s very sad. If a cover doesn’t intrest me, I’m not likely to pick it up without a recommendation.

22. A reoccurring intrest/theme?Fantasy. I loooove fantasy. Granted I will often go to the YA section, but you can never beat fantasy.

26. A book you would prescribe to an aspiring author?The Harry Potter Series. I know that seems like an odd answer, but I have several reasons.1) Harry Potter is a beloved series for every age.2) J.K. Rowling started at rock-bottom, a single mother who wrote when she could fit it in. Many publishing companies rejected her until one finally gave her a shot. Afterwards, her books were so popular that they are in almost every country and have been translated into several languages. Movies have been made of them.3) J.K. has literally gone from no one to one of the most influential authors of our age. If she can do it anyone can.

Nothing has been as inspiring as her legacy.

29. Favorite book from childhood?Anything Dr. Seuss.

i just found this website that can randomly generate a continent for you!! this is great for fantasy writers

plus, you can look at it in 3d!

theres a lot of viewing options and other things! theres an option on-site to take a screenshot, so you don’t have to have a program for that!

you can view it here!

friendly reminder that it’s okay to leave fandoms

friendly reminder that it’s okay to not be as obsessed as other fans

friendly reminder that it’s okay to like things casually, you can like a book/movie/show and never talk about it, it doesn’t mean you liked it any less

friendly reminder that books/movies/shows can inspire original stories and artwork and new hobbies as well as fanart and fic and fandom related hobbies and it is 100% okay to steal parts of a story and make it yours

friendly reminder that you can be any kind of fan you want, including not outwardly looking like a fan

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.

For any of you who are writing ‘across the pond’-here is a little guide I put together of some common differences between British and American English!