-Franz Kafka

we don’t talk abt how stressful buying new glasses frames is. ur shopping for your whole personality there. life on the line. do or die. all for two pieces of glass and some sticks

evermore - taylor swift

reblogging because this would be a cool magic system and who knows it might come in handy someday for my writing

I demonstrate the 10 types of magic ✨

How to Use Descriptive Writing

Credit: http://www.glimmertrain.com/bulletins/essays/b113geni.php

Intro

Every story exists somewhere between the writer's imagination and the reader's imagination. So, finding the right balance of description is critical. Good description sketches a clear picture but does not fill in every single detail. It builds and deepens the reality of the story in vibrant ways, but also leaves room for the reader to imagine some of the features and qualities of the world. This work invests the reader in the story and allows them to claim and connect with the story, and even be a partner in creating it!

Know your setting well

Place is essential to any story. It defines the scope of your characters' actions—where they go, what they feel and see and hear and taste and touch, how large an effect they have on the world around them, how many people they interact with, how rich and full their lives are. Make intentional choices about your setting. Urban or rural? Beautiful or ugly? Familiar or unknown? Safe or perilous? Interesting or dull? Spacious or cramped? Bright or dark? Pleasant or off-putting? The setting defines the size and shape of the story.

Be specific

Once you've chosen a setting, be specific about its nature. Your setting should never seem vague or half-imagined. Some writers will draw landscape maps. Some will create a layout for the house in which their characters live. If your story takes place outdoors, be aware of the terrain, the season of the year, the foliage, the weather, the color and texture of the sky. If your story takes place indoors, be aware of the architecture, the kind of furniture, the feel and layout of the room, the amount and quality of light, the smell of the air. This doesn’t mean you have to describe all these elements in detail, but the more aware you are of your setting, the more you’ll be able to capture it and integrate it into the story!

Remember to use all five senses

Many writers have a "default sense" that they use reflexively when writing description. (For most of us, this is vision. A lot of writers will describe what things look like and stop there.) Pay attention to what "default sense" you may use, and try to break out of the habit whenever possible. Smell, in particular, can be incredibly evocative when written well. Think about temperature, ambient sounds, the feel of the ground, and the taste of the air as well.

Emotion and action

Description can echo and enhance the mood of a story. There's a reason so many love scenes take place in the wild crush of pouring rain. Your use of description can heighten, alter, or mirror what your characters are feeling. The same interaction will seem different if it happens in a labyrinthine mansion or a dark alley or a children's playground. If two characters are having a terrible fight, placing them in a tight, claustrophobic room will heighten the tension, while placing them in an open, breezy field will defuse it. A coming storm creates the sensation of foreboding. Heat slows the story down. A cold breeze chills the reader too. Think about how your descriptions can affect the emotion and action of the story.

Characters

It is as important to describe your characters as it is to describe the setting. Physicality makes these people real to the reader. Make sure you know what your characters look like and that your descriptions are consistent.

When describing your characters, reconsider hair and eye color, as well as height and weight--these are still significant, but they can also be repetitive. Think, instead, about more complex descriptors. Consider your characters' gestures, the shape of their facial features, their gait, their dimples, their scars, the way they laugh, the quality of their teeth, their stance, their fashion sense, their odor, their vocal tone, etc.

Think in terms of "telling details": details that let the reader see your characters while also revealing something about their minds. In this way, your descriptions can do double duty: giving the reader a physical picture while also showing an inner, mental trait.

Vary the length of your sentences

If you favor long, winding, complex sentences, remember that too much of this style can overwhelm and exhaust the reader. Take a break and include shorter sentences every so often. If, on the other hand, you prefer brief, choppy, staccato sentences, remember that too much of this sort of prose can seem breathless and frantic. Take a break and include a long, dreamy sentence every now and then to calm the reader down.

Dialogue and description

Description can be particularly useful when writing dialogue. If your characters are conversing for a long time, they can start to seem disembodied. The reader may lose track of who's talking or forget the physical space that holds the characters. It's important to include imagery and description at regular intervals to ground the characters' voices in reality. A paragraph of description can slow down a ping-pong interaction and quiet an intense and heated interaction. It can give the reader a beat to take in some new information. It can add nuance and nonverbal subtlety to the characters, shading and enhancing what they're saying.

Finding a balance

Too much description can bog down a story, but not enough can have the opposite effect, making the characters seem weightless and detached from reality. However, this is something to think about only during the process of revision: you shouldn’t worry about it while actively writing something new. When it comes to description, finding the right balance will take time, space, and the clarity of mind that comes from editing a finished piece, not creating a new one. While you're actively writing, don't worry about whether you're using too much or too little description. Feel free to try things and make mistakes! When in doubt, write more description than you think you'll need. You can always take things out afterward.

when a character not in a cool way but in a fully sincere and slightly helpless way is like to understand things i need to be able to identify qualify & organize them i need structure and systems of logic but i also have an incredible capacity for empathy and feel things deeply. literally give me a kiss

Returning to writing after a break is like having the old Windows startup sound playing on a loop in your head.

this is your daily reminder not to correct other people’s grammar if they’re not asking you to, especially if it’s something they can’t help :)

How to put “wrote fan-fiction” on your résumé:

Leveraged an inventory of established fictional character and setting elements to generate a disruptive custom-curated narrative entertainment asset.

How to Write a Chorister

Intro

Singing has always been one of my passions--I’ve been in choirs since I was ten years old, so I have a pretty good knowledge of music and music theory! I haven’t seen many posts on how to write a chorister (aka a fancy word for a member of a choir), so I decided to make one myself. Yes, it’s a very self-indulgent post, but hopefully someone finds this somewhat helpful!

Warm up

You know how in movies and other media, people will start singing out of the blue and they're perfectly on pitch and flawless? Yeah, well that’s kind of misleading. A singer will never perform at their best without warming up. They can sing despite that, but their voice will most likely sound strained or weaker than usual, and their vocal range won’t be as wide. Singing warm ups are omitted in most media because it’s inconvenient to show, and I understand that, although I think it would be fun if the process was shown!

Choir warm ups are frequently both vocal and physical. I’ll give you my choir’s as an example. First we loosen up by stretching, paying particular attention to the neck and spine. Other physical exercises are clapping along to a rhythm that the choir director sets, practicing good posture, and doing breathing exercises. 

Next comes the fun part: vocal warm up. We usually start with lip trills, “sirens,” and repeated words or vowels/diphthongs. After that, we typically do ascending and descending solfege scales, stretching into the highest parts of our range and down into the lowest parts of our range. And then we’re ready to sing!

Vocal parts

There are four main parts to a choir, which I’ll define as simply as possible:

Soprano: The highest range of voices in a choir

Alto: The second highest range of voices in a choir

Tenors: The second lowest range of voices in a choir

Bass/Baritones: The lowest range of voices in a choir

Some people fall in between these ranges or span more than one, which is normal. Also, the average singer’s vocal range is 2-3 octaves on a piano.

Characteristics of a chorister

Choristers typically have or should have the following traits:

A keen sense of pitch, rhythm, and hearing

Strength in sight reading and in reading musical score

The ability to sing as a group and blend well with other voices

Leadership! Being a leader helps you as well as everyone else

Types of choirs

Choirs usually organize and limit themselves according to voicing and/or age of the singers as well as by the size of group or the type of music they sing. Here are some types:

Mixed choir: A group with changed (usually male) and unchanged voices (usually female or children); the voicing for this group is typically expressed as SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). This is the type of choir I currently sing in!

Equal voice choir: A group for either changed (usually male) voices or unchanged (usually female) voices. Sometimes these choirs are called men's choirs and women's/ladies' choirs. Sometimes they are referred to by their voicing: a TB or TTBB choir and an SA or SSAA choir

A youth choir varies widely in its voicing since adolescence is the time when most male voices transition from the soprano or alto vocal range to the tenor or bass vocal range. For this reason, youth choirs can have any combination of voice parts, including SA, SAB, and SATB

A children’s choir is most typically an equal voice group for pre-pubertal singers. Some children's choirs also include youth and may include changed voices (tenor and bass)

Choirs can also organize themselves by size or repertoire type:

Chorus/choral society/large ensemble: Usually a choir of 40 or more singers and often includes 100+ people. These groups typically sing large works, including operas or oratorios or similar pieces

A chamber choir will never include more than 40 singers and will often be considerably smaller (For example, the chamber choir I’m in has 17 singers.)

Small vocal ensemble/group: Ranges in size from 3 to 12 singers

A cappella choir: Sings only music that has no pitched instrumental accompaniment. A great example is the group Pentatonix (which many choir directors absolutely adore)

Choirs that organize themselves around specific cultural or religious music traditions

How singing in a choir can affect you

You can learn many useful talents from choir, such as:

Learning to work with other people and form bonds with them. The better the members of a choir know each other, the better they will sing together!

Growing more confident in your abilities and improving your musical talents

Singing with like-minded people

Harmonizing to pop songs on the radio

Impressing people in karaoke