Tag: writing

Name Reources

penbrydd:

penbrydd:

penbrydd:

So, you’re writing a thing, and you need to name a character. And, as we all know, naming a character is a giant pain in the ass. I offer this list of shit I use pretty regularly, for this purpose.

Personally, I use the shit out of Trismegistos People, England’s Immigrants, and the Ancient Names Galleria. If you’ve got good sources I didn’t hit, feel free to add them in a reblog. I’m always looking for more good name resources. (And almost all of what I have is Europe and the Near East, with a little North Africa.)

Dropping this update in the most recent reblog in my notes, in the hopes it falls into as many laps as possible. Here’s some more good sources for names, this time with a more African focus.

Again, if you know any good sources, particularly for regions I haven’t covered, let me know!

Rebageling with some more good shit:

Things I am particularly looking for reliable sources for, if you’ve got them: North and South American aboriginal names, Southeast and East Asian names, names from the former USSR, Australian aboriginal names. (All of these by culture or language family, if possible, not just by current national borders.)

officialprydonchapter:

dragon-in-a-fez:

officialprydonchapter:

How do you write healthy parent-child relationships?

this might be more response than you want, but interesting (and kinda depressing when you think about it) fact: there’ve been a bunch of research studies where parents have been asked what they think makes a healthy parent-child relationship, and they tend to like…not answer the actual question because they think they’re being asked what good parenting is, which is not the same. so they talk about things like helping kids with homework and making sure they eat well. children, on the other hand, usually respond to the same question with stuff that’s literally just the definition of healthy relationships generally. affection, honesty, respect, spending time together, sharing interests. and the real kicker is, objectively, we know that’s the kind of stuff that actually has a much better impact not only on whether or not the relationship is strong and positive but also the kid’s overall happiness and psychological health.

so, if you want to write a character who’s really intent on being a Good Parent you’d have them putting massive effort into making their kid Grow Up Right, worrying about shit like if they have The Right Friends and they’re spending Enough Time Outside. but if you want to write a good relationship, just make parent and kid laugh together and respect boundaries and be emotionally supportive, like you would when writing a solid pair of friends or romantic couple.

No that was actually really helpful and I’m glad you took the time to give a serious response

Got referred to you by deadcatwithaflamethrower, for fic writing purposes, do you have any good sources on medieval courting customs or a recommendation on what key words to search?

There’s a number of variables to adjust for that might change the answer to that question, because medieval is used to define a relatively large swath of time, as well as customs differing between places and also the relative social status of the individuals and families involved.

My own research has generally been limited to England and surrounding countries, primarily during the Hundred Years War and into the War of the Roses, so my hardcopy resources tend to reflect that. (Also, I don’t remember what I might still have in boxes, because I haven’t unpacked all my books since my last move six and a half years ago.)

The Pastons and Thier England, by H.S. Bennett, or looking for the Paston letters is a good resource for moderately wealthy 15th century English people. Looking for the letters themselves, which may be digitized, though I don’t know if they’re available online because I haven’t looked recently and my bookmarks are a disorganized mess, would give you access to a primary source. (also, if documentary type things help, there’s a trio that draws heavily on the Paston letters for information. Medieval Lives – Birth, Marriage, Death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mygtqHjXT-A&list=PLCpYM0jg1d5M0XcIp4yj2kZF4Cws07HgL )

Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages, by Frances and Joseph Gies is a book which might be useful, if not necessarily up to date (it was originally published in 1987). It has a broad overview, though it’s not terribly in-depth about any one place or time, and what’s probably most useful is their bibliography, and any primary sources they cite.

Looking for information about marriage customs, rather than courting customs, and including a century and a country might locate you resources, but I’m not entirely confident that they’ll be good ones, or a language you can read (my problem for some things is finding English-language resources).

Also, if you have a local branch of the SCA, they might be able to direct you to resources as well. (http://sca.org/geography/findsca.html)

Aftermath

elumish:

People like writing about war, but they rarely like writing
about the aftermath. And I think that’s a shame, because sometimes writing
about the aftermath can be at least as interesting. There’s a lot you can do
with what happens after the fighting is done, when people need to rebuild, when
they need to find who they are and where they fit in a world that is different
than it was when they began.

Write about interpersonal
relationships, and how they changed.

Write about how
people view themselves and the actions they needed to take.

Write about rebuilding—physically,
socially, mentally, emotionally.

Write about the choices
people made because they thought they were never going to need to face the
consequences.

Write about the emotional
toll that war takes, that constant violence takes, that never being able to
relax takes.

Write about the physical
toll that war takes, about the people who come back missing limbs or
neurons.

Write about the people
who lost everyone they knew and still have to live with themselves.

Write about the people
who lost everything, their homes, their land, the cities, about them
finding new places to call home, or not.

Write about the people who are tasked with creating a new world, and the decisions
they have to make.

Write about the people
who only knew war, who were born after the war started and grew up with
only that, who now need to figure out who they are in a world that has no place
for them anymore.

Write about the people
who were heroes, who know how to be heroes but don’t know how to be people.

Write about the people
who weren’t heroes, who were hated, who were disgraced.

Write about the people
who didn’t fight in the war because they couldn’t, because they weren’t
physically capable or because society said they weren’t suitable.

Write about the people
who fought on the losing side, who sacrificed everything and still lost and
now need to rebuild with nothing, who are painted as monsters when they need no
worse than the side that won.

Write about the trials,
for people who committed war crimes, for people who took advantage of what was
going on to do what they wanted.

Write about the weapons
that are finding their way into the hands of children, cheap and easy to use,
because they were left behind when the soldiers packed up and left.

Write about the landmines,
the unexploded ordinances, the things that governments forgot were there or
just didn’t care.

Write about ten years
later, or twenty, or thirty, or one, or six months, or the next day, about
what people do when the adrenaline of victory or defeat subsides and they’re
left with a world that they no longer understand, that they no longer know,
because they spent so long trying to destroy the old world that they forgot
that they would have to live in the new one.

Write about the next
generation, who grew up with parents who flinched at loud noises and cousins
who could remember air raid sirens, who grew up doing drills they didn’t
understand because the people who made the drills couldn’t forget that one day
they might have been necessary.

Write about the women
who stayed behind because they had no choice, about the women who stayed
behind because they wanted to, about the women who couldn’t stay behind because
there was no behind, because everywhere was a warzone and they were soldiers
because everyone was a soldier.

Write about the children
who trained for a war that ended before they were old enough to take up
arms, where all they know is violence, not peace, how to destroy a city but not
how to build one or how to run one.

Write about career
soldiers who no longer have a career because the war is over, there’s
peace, and so they find work for the highest bidder, for the person most
willing to give them a knife or a gun and throw them wherever a little muscle
and a lot of violence is needed.

Write about the people
who did research on things nobody should ever research, who discovered
things they could never speak about, who rationalized what they did as science
while knowing it wasn’t.

Write about everyday
people coping with everything that happened, with things they saw and
things they did and things they knew that they wouldn’t wish on their worst
enemy.

Writer’s tips for roadtrips

tigerliliesandcherryblossoms:

darklingdawns:

morgynleri:

(Feel free to add your own.)

Caveat: This is from my driving experience, from a DC metro area view. Also, some bits are vague-blogging about a thing that set me off specifically because the failure to check a map along routes I have driven several times has thrown me out of a story.

1. Most cars made in the last thirty years, and are available in the US, get between 300-400 miles per tank of gas. (Ok, fun fact. My mom’s civic – 2006 with a roughly 13 gallon tank, the RV – 2007 with a 50 gallon tank, and dad’s Soul – 2016 with I think a 10 gallon tank…. all go about 350 miles on a tank of gas. The RV gets 7-9 miles per gallon, the civic gets 20-25 highway depending on who’s driving, the soul gets 25-30 highway depending on who’s driving. Your fuel efficiency alone does not determine how many miles you go before you have to get gas.)

2. Check distances on a map. Please. Otherwise you risk making locals or well-traveled people twitch a lot. (Yes, I know that TV shows make this mistake a lot. Do you know how much I’ve yelled at every show that is made on the other side of the country and thinks that you can get from NOVA to Baltimore in an hour or less? 45 minutes around the Beltway, plus the time to get to the Beltway, plus another 30-60 minutes to get to the near side of Baltimore, depending on route and traffic. Minimum of an hour and fifteen, if you’re right on the Beltway and just going to, oh, the ballpark.)

3. It is a minimum 2 hour trip from the MD suburbs of DC to Richmond. Especially if I-95 is part of your driving route. If you’re driving in rush hour traffic, it’s closer to 3, and that’s only if you haven’t managed to have major slow downs at routes 4 and 5, at Dale City, the Occoquan, Fredricksburg, and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (provided, of course, you’re taking 95, and not 301, which, if you’re anywhere south of 95 and it’s rush hour, 301 might be less hassle. Or faster).

4. I-95, NOT The 95. As seen above, sometimes just 95. (Seriously, West Coast TV writers, will you please fucking not. It’s REALLY uncommon for people in the DC area, at least, to call I-95 “The 95″.)

5. Maps. Are. Your. Friend. For love of fuck. So are calculators. Math is not evil.

6. Speed limits on the East Coast tend to be 60mph, sometimes 70mph, and often 55mph at best within city limits, on interstates. They’re higher once you get over the Appalachians and/or across the Mississippi. (It’s been a couple years since I’ve driven west, it’s a little fuzzy exactly where the demarcation is, and how it differs depending on how far north or south you are.)

7. Please do not have your characters be driving on an empty tank for a hundred or more miles because you did not take into account the distance most cars can go. Or, you know, get from DC to Atlanta in something less than 8 hours of driving and a minimum of two gas stops* while trying not to get pulled over for speeding in a car that someone is looking for.

*one if your car started with a full tank, and your characters are likely to be ditching the car in Atlanta or its greater metro area.

Seriously, if you’ve got other useful things for making travel times feel realistic, please reblog and add them. Especially little local things that can and/or will throw you out of a story which travels in or around where you know well.

For travel out West:

1. Distance is measured in TIME, not MILES. It’s 20 minutes to downtown from where I live (which makes the California part of my soul scream in WTF-ness every time Kidlet points it out) and it’s 4 hours or so to Seattle. We usually have NO clue how far apart things are, just how long it takes to get there.

2. States are generally bigger out here. So travel between them is going to take much longer. Take your estimate and add a good 6-8 hours. Then add another 4. When in doubt, add 2 more. Where freeway traffic doesn’t slow you down, mountains will.

3. When I say mountains, I mean MOUNTAINS. These are not the Appalachians, which are older and much more easily traversible. Out here you have the Bitterroots, the Rockies, and then once you get over those, the Sierra Nevadas. Basically, once you cross the plains, you hit one jagged, hostile set of mountain ranges after another. Most of them are winding roads that tend to be two lanes (near the big cities, you get two lanes for each direction!) but you CANNOT whip around the mountain doing 65-70 unless you have a death wish. Not to mention, there is snow in some places for a good 8-9 months of the year.

4. Gas and food stops are a necessary, even if you aren’t low on either. With large distances, the next stop may well be a good hour or more down the road, so ‘last chance for the bathroom’ calls are common on road trips. And you learn early that even if you don’t think you have to go, TRY.

5. Speed limits on the freeways out here are generally 65, but nobody really drives that. It’s pretty much 70-75, unless you’re absolutely sticking to the speed limit, in which case you should be in the far right lane. If you aren’t, expect there to be many dirty looks and much honking/gesturing.

6. Ahhhh, freeways. Californians have a love/hate affair with them that I don’t think the rest of the world understands. And yeah, we talk about them weird. ‘Take the 210 west to the 605, then head south to the 10 west, and that’ll take you straight into LA. If you hit the 101, you’ve gone too far.’ The Californians go ‘Thanks, man’ while the rest of the nation stares at us in horror. So, yeah. If writing in California/for a Californian, go ahead and use stuff like that. Otherwise, ditch all the freeway talk you’ve ever heard on TV/movies. (We also tend to take the freeway everywhere because we know it’s the most direct route – it’s taken my mom a good 20 years to train ‘take the freeway’ out of me as my automatic answer to ‘how do we get there?’)

While I have serious questions about the miles/tank listings based on 97 Civic, 11 gal tank = 250mi/tank if run to the very last fumes, everything else is dead on. Especially about distance here out West being a matter of Time not Miles.

I would firmly recommend anyone fictional or otherwise to never ever drive farther than half a tank before refilling cuz you just never know for sure & certain where-when the next gas stop’ll be.

I based that first one on what’s been typical for every car I’ve driven, which is both all two of my cars, and all eight of the family/my parents cars, and mostly didn’t get filled until at about 1/8 tank to empty. With a general habit of driving 60-70 miles per hour on the highway*, depending on who’s driving, and the vehicle. (Larger vehicles get driven slower; mom drives slowest, I drive fastest.)

Also, not a lot of city/surface road driving where there’s a lot of stop and start except with dad’s cars. Mom and I tend to do a lot more highway driving when we actually drive anywhere. Which does tend to change the gas mileage, and I neglected to mention that when I made the original post. (Probably because what sparked it was a fic involving lots of highway driving.)

93 Toyota Carolla, the mid-90s Chevy Astro van, and the Nissan w/manual transmission all got about 300 miles per tank, give or take ten miles.

The first civic hybrid we had, mom’s 2005 civic, my 2007 Hundai (forget the model, I don’t have the car anymore to check), and the RV all got/get about 350 miles to the tank (and the RV is filled between ¼ and 1/8 because really don’t want it out of gas).

The second civic hybrid got closer to 400 if someone other than dad was doing most of the driving.

Dad’s current car, a 2016 Kia Soul, has generally gotten 350+ miles on a single tank of gas on the highway. It’s also pretty new, so that might change as it gets older.

*Mom apparently drives the RV closer to 55 most of the time to optimize gas mileage. It’s also carrying the entire set up and goods for the shop between SCA events, which is approximately an extra ton of weight, which tends to mean the gas mileage starts seriously tanking above 60mph. Like, below 7 miles per gallon sort of tanking, which when we can get 8 fully loaded at 55, is just. Not worth it.

@deshima added in comments:

last comment before I shut up. State of the roads also really influence driving speed and can again really differ from one place to another. To again parallel Belgium and the Netherlands. Dutch roads are well maintained and when not choked up ( 17 million people in a place that’s a third of New York state gives a lot of traffic jams) are a dream to drive on. The belgian roads uniformly drive my boyfriend to swearing fits.

I lied. I have another tip. The concept of what consists of a long trip also really differs from where you live. Being Europe-bred for me a 2-hour car trip is already considered to be longish and not to be done casually, 4-hour trip is long and a whole day trip is really far away.

The boyfriend who is in the states on a regular basis is starting to take over the american concept of far away and considers 2- hours peanuts, 4 hours more than doable and a day trip is long yes but acceptable.

Writer’s tips for roadtrips

(Feel free to add your own.)

Caveat: This is from my driving experience, from a DC metro area view. Also, some bits are vague-blogging about a thing that set me off specifically because the failure to check a map along routes I have driven several times has thrown me out of a story.

1. Most cars made in the last thirty years, and are available in the US, get between 300-400 miles per tank of gas. (Ok, fun fact. My mom’s civic – 2006 with a roughly 13 gallon tank, the RV – 2007 with a 50 gallon tank, and dad’s Soul – 2016 with I think a 10 gallon tank…. all go about 350 miles on a tank of gas. The RV gets 7-9 miles per gallon, the civic gets 20-25 highway depending on who’s driving, the soul gets 25-30 highway depending on who’s driving. Your fuel efficiency alone does not determine how many miles you go before you have to get gas.)

2. Check distances on a map. Please. Otherwise you risk making locals or well-traveled people twitch a lot. (Yes, I know that TV shows make this mistake a lot. Do you know how much I’ve yelled at every show that is made on the other side of the country and thinks that you can get from NOVA to Baltimore in an hour or less? 45 minutes around the Beltway, plus the time to get to the Beltway, plus another 30-60 minutes to get to the near side of Baltimore, depending on route and traffic. Minimum of an hour and fifteen, if you’re right on the Beltway and just going to, oh, the ballpark.)

3. It is a minimum 2 hour trip from the MD suburbs of DC to Richmond. Especially if I-95 is part of your driving route. If you’re driving in rush hour traffic, it’s closer to 3, and that’s only if you haven’t managed to have major slow downs at routes 4 and 5, at Dale City, the Occoquan, Fredricksburg, and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (provided, of course, you’re taking 95, and not 301, which, if you’re anywhere south of 95 and it’s rush hour, 301 might be less hassle. Or faster).

4. I-95, NOT The 95. As seen above, sometimes just 95. (Seriously, West Coast TV writers, will you please fucking not. It’s REALLY uncommon for people in the DC area, at least, to call I-95 “The 95″.)

5. Maps. Are. Your. Friend. For love of fuck. So are calculators. Math is not evil.

6. Speed limits on the East Coast tend to be 60mph, sometimes 70mph, and often 55mph at best within city limits, on interstates. They’re higher once you get over the Appalachians and/or across the Mississippi. (It’s been a couple years since I’ve driven west, it’s a little fuzzy exactly where the demarcation is, and how it differs depending on how far north or south you are.)

7. Please do not have your characters be driving on an empty tank for a hundred or more miles because you did not take into account the distance most cars can go. Or, you know, get from DC to Atlanta in something less than 8 hours of driving and a minimum of two gas stops* while trying not to get pulled over for speeding in a car that someone is looking for.

*one if your car started with a full tank, and your characters are likely to be ditching the car in Atlanta or its greater metro area.

Seriously, if you’ve got other useful things for making travel times feel realistic, please reblog and add them. Especially little local things that can and/or will throw you out of a story which travels in or around where you know well.

durenjtmusings:

why-is-it-always-autumn:

why-is-it-always-autumn:

why-is-it-always-autumn:

why-is-it-always-autumn:

You know what I don’t get?  When fanfic authors apologize for long chapters.  It’s like?  You gave me bonus content, for free, and you’re sorry about it?  Bruh.  I have already named my firstborn after you.  Dude.

You know what else I don’t get?  When they apologize for short updates.  It’s like: look at these new words I gave you!  Sorry I didn’t give you even more free words.  Bro, that’s at least two words that I did not have yesterday.  For free.  Dude.  Thank you.

And another thing: when people drop out of nowhere with a surprise update and then apologize for it taking a while.  Like, dude, I wasn’t expecting anything, and you gave me words.  I thought this fic was abandoned, but wait: there’s more.  You just popped in and reminded me that this is a Good Fic that I should probably reread.  You made my goshdarn day.

Basically fanfic writers are under no obligation to publish anything so when they do update it’s always a net positive because the story is longer now, and I have something to read, so thank you so much to everyone who writes fic at whatever pace or quantity they want.

Explain to me how I can BOTH agree wholeheartedly with this a a reader…

AND

…really really need to hear this as a writer.

theotherguysride:

kaciart:

killian-whump:

la-vie-en-whump:

October approaches! 

In celebration of our cozy online community, I present to you WHUMPTOBER – 31 Days of deliciously painful prompts for your creative pleasure. Visual art, writing, editing – post whatever inspires you!

Treat (or rather, torture) your whumpees to some tantalizing tropes and tag your work with “whumptober“ so others can enjoy your stuff!

(The challenge kicks off on October 1st, feel free to participate as much or as little as you like. DM me if you have Qs. This post will circulate my blog a few times as we near the end of September. Good Luck and Happy Whumping!)

WHUMPTOBER COMETH

@asidian linked me this

What an enabler

Never before has an even *spoken to me* like this. I’m feeling simultaneously dragged and evil.