Themes & Things To Keep In Mind When Writing Fantasy Stories and Adventures » Daily Encounter This list is far from complete. It’s not even trying to be complete. It knows better than that. It just wants to be helpful and provide some inspiration here and there; you know, offer little suggestions that might lead to bigger ideas. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments! Weather Natural: sunlight, rain, snow, hail, fog, humidity, moonlight, wind, smoke, clouds, shadows, overcast skies, clear skies, lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, moon in sky during daytimeFantastic: summoned weather, unnatural coloration (eg. green fog) Terrain Changes Natural: sunrise, sunset, storms, seasons, earthquakes, landslides, sinkholes, animal migrations, inside vs. outside (light adaptation), plagues/famine, weathering, floods, tides, animal hunting habits & territories, volcanoes, firesArtificial: buildings, statues, roads being built & demolished; political power struggles; invasions/war; kidnappingsFantastic: divine will, powerful magic, gods (dis)appearing Landmarks After-Effects of Events Tricks
Did you know 11 Goal Hacks: How to Achieve Anything — PsyBlog - StumbleUpon Goal-setting research on fantasising, visualisation, goal commitment, procrastination, the dark side of goal-setting and more… We’re all familiar with the nuts and bolts of goal-setting. We should set specific, challenging goals, use rewards, record progress and make public commitments (if you’re not familiar with these then check out this article on how to reach life goals). So how come we still fail? This psychological research suggests why and what mindsets should help us reach our goals. 1. The biggest enemy of any goal is excessive positive fantasising. 2. The reason we don’t achieve our goals is lack of commitment. One powerful psychological technique to increase commitment is mental contrasting. 3. You can use the Zeigarnik effect to drag you on towards your goal. What the Zeigarnik effect teaches is that one weapon for beating procrastination is starting somewhere…anywhere. 4. 5. When we miss our target, we can fall foul of the what-the-hell-effect. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Best Quotes of All Time It’s been three years since we shared our original list of some of the best quotes of all time, and we felt it was a good time for an update. We’ve added another 25 quotes for you. But these aren’t just any quotes. These are quotes designed to inspire. They’re motivational quotes that will hopefully get you thinking about your life, your work, or your dreams and how you can make these things better. I know quotes researched online often come in slightly different variations, so if you’ve heard another version of one of these, please share it with us in the comments. Here are our 25 new additions for our list of the best quotes of all time, including some submitted by our readers in response to the original list of best quotes, which you can still find below. “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” – Les Brown “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” – Napoleon Hill “The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. – Buddha
A Simple Novel Outline – 9 questions for 25 chapters « H.E. Roulo Just as every tree is different but still recognizably a tree, every story is different but contains elements that make it a story. By defining those before you begin you clarify the scope of your work, identify your themes, and create the story you meant to write. At Norwescon 2011 I sat in on a session called Outline Your Novel in 90-minutes led by Mark Teppo. I’ll give you the brief, readable, synthesized version. Here are the 9 questions to create a novel: 1.) 2.) 3.) 4.) 5.) 6.) 7.) 8.) 9.) Now, with those 9 questions answered to your satisfaction, try to fill in a 25 chapter, 75,000 word outline. Chapters 7-18 are the middle of your book. Chapters 19-25 depict the heroic act to victory. Wasn’t that easy? Okay, sure, the work isn’t done yet. Using the idea that there are 25 chapters, I outlined my current work in progress. I hope that was helpful. Tell me what works for you.
Inspiration Quotes, New Inspiration Quotes 410 views If we treat people as they are, they will stay as they are. But if we treat them for what they might be, and might become, they will become those better selves. The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations is a descriptive list which was created by Georges Polti to categorize every dramatic situation that might occur in a story or performance. To do this Polti analyzed classical Greek texts, plus classical and contemporaneous French works. He also analyzed a handful of non-French authors. In his introduction, Polti claims to be continuing the work of Carlo Gozzi, who also identified 36 situations. Publication history[edit] “Gozzi maintained that there can be but thirty-six tragic situations. This list was published in a book of the same name, which contains extended explanations and examples. The list is popularized as an aid for writers, but it is also used by dramatists, storytellers and many others. The 36 situations[edit] Each situation is stated, then followed by the necessary elements for each situation and a brief description. See also[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]
Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein - StumbleUpon [Note: This list of Einstein quotes was being forwarded around the Internet in e-mail, so I decided to put it on my web page. I'm afraid I can't vouch for its authenticity, tell you where it came from, who compiled the list, who Kevin Harris is, or anything like that. Still, the quotes are interesting and enlightening.] "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)
How to Flesh out a Country or Region in Your Fantasy RPG World - Edit Article Edited by Zach Haffey, Maluniu, Glutted, Nicole Willson and 5 others Hello game master/fantasy author. This is a guide to organizing and sorting out the finer details and aspects of a specific country or region of your world: a format for the living details that help you and your players delve in to the role-playing aspect of your game. Ad Steps 1Short Introductory Summary - Give a one or two paragraph overview of the region or country, highlighting something unique or unusual about it and where it is geographically in your world.Ad 2Life, Society and Culture - This section should detail the culture(s) of the people who populate the region. Tips And for other topics, your providing these details will inspire ideas for larger, overarching plot-lines and the workings of still other regions of your land. Warnings
Howstuffworks "How Knights Work" When you think of knights, you might envision King Arthur, Sir Lancelot or the Black Knight. We often think of heroic knights in shining armor fighting each other with swords or riding their horses on noble quests. Our images of knights have been influenced over centuries by romance authors (like T.H. White and Sir Walter Scott) and by movies like "Ivanhoe," "Excalibur," "A Knight's Tale," "Camelot" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Medieval knights were, first and foremost, warriors. Knights were most noted for fighting on horseback, but they also battled on foot. In this article, we'll examine the lives of knights.
5 Ways To Add Sparkle To Your Writing Would You Like To Add Sparkle To Your Writing? Does your writing sometimes fall flat? You can’t figure out exactly why, but you know when it happens. There are practical ways to put that ‘je ne sais quoi’ back into your writing. All you have to do is to recognize and fix the five common errors that dull the sparkle of your writing. 1. They might not look like each other, but they often mimic one another’s movements and reactions. What do your characters do when they’re nervous? If you find it hard to come up with different, memorable gestures, create a database of them. If you see a quarrel at a cashier’s counter, watch the customers carefully. 2. If you read like a reader, you’ll see how important pacing is. Varying the length of your sentences gives the writing its own rhythm. “According to the current master of Roseland and everyone who worked for him, the source of the disturbing cry was a loon. The emphasis is on the short sentence. 3. Force yourself to think more creatively. 4. 5.
36 Tips for Writing Just About Anything | Writing Tips Basic tips for writing just about anything. There’s a lot more to writing than just typing words. Writing well takes years of study, practice, and experience. It requires diligence and attention to detail, study and dedication to the craft. Each project has a unique set of requirements and different types of writing have different rules. For example, when we’re writing fiction, we have one set of concerns (character, plot, and theme, to name a few) and when we’re writing poetry, we have en entirely different set of issues to deal with. Basically, writers have to keep a lot of balls in the air. Tips for Writing With that in mind, here are 36 tips for writing just about anything. Start with a plan. And that’s not all… This list might seem overwhelming, but it just covers the basics. But these tips for writing are a good start. Do you have any tips for writing to add to this list? About Melissa DonovanMelissa Donovan is a website designer and copywriter.
Writing Meaningful Description To the reader? The world of your book is a black box. Devoid of all sensation—no sights, sounds, tastes, smells, or aural pleasantries beyond dialogue. It is up to you and your prowess of description to fill that world out—to let the reader experience it as you would have it experienced. If you do it right, you can grant readers the ultimate experience: the immersive feeling of actually being in another world. So—what goes into writing evocative descriptions? Show Don’t Tell I know, I know! For example: “The evil trees were scary and dumb looking.” While certainly opinionated, this description of trees somehow manages to avoid telling us anything about how the trees actually looked—it fails to paint even the smallest picture. So, what does one do? For example, “The trees were the dead white of bloodless flesh, with bark that cracked and split, like skin pulled tight over too much meat.” Metaphors, Similes, and Other Comparisons The trees were white as snow. Kind of humorous, right?