There is no joy like the joy of a writer who has just figured out that a throwaway line they put into the first few paragraphs of a story is actually the key to a major plot point and possibly even the theme underlying the entire thing.

Just…yesssssss.

HI SADIE

i love shrikes because they’re horrible little carnivores whose feeding habits are grim enough to earn then the nickname ‘butcherbird’ but they look like this

i think its so awesome that ocs exist. u can just make up some girl and put so many problems in her head

How to make characters that start a story off dead feel real.

Name them- this is the bare minimum

Happy memories- what did this person mean to those they had relationships with? These little details contextualize your living characters and who they are as people.

Identity- who was this person outside of these relationships?

Agency- give them a last action related, but more personal simply dying. For example, taking a bullet, giving one last piece of advise, leaving a scar on their killer's face, telling a joke, or even just figuring out a plot to kill them and doing something about.

In conclusion, characters who start a story off dead should mean something besides making a reader's feel sympathy for another character. Death is a big deal, and neglecting this reality can mess with a reader's suspension of disbelief, even for characters the reader will never truly meet. Having bits and pieces of a dead character feels more real because it mimics that experience of getting to know a person through their family and friends or reading a diary of a person long dead.

Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!

Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.

Y’all get me. Especially because so many of you gravitated to the so-far undescribed “Murder Box” and “HOA” projects.

Writing Butcher Bird 1 is enjoyable and has been so much fun from a writing/research point of view. But the output has a gravity to it despite fun moments. It leans into its dystopian/sci fi/speculative fiction roots from a heavier place. It is fun to read, I hope.

But HOA and Murder Box? Both of these projects are amazingly unhinged and goofy. Or will be. I’ll have to do a spotlight on each. HOA is a joint project but in the outlining phase. Murder Box is at idea gathering and concepting.

Thanks for tagging me, @stormbrightwriter!!

Rules: Make a 24hr* poll listing the titles of every WIP you want to work on. (It’s fine if you only have one, still make a poll for the vote count). Whichever WIP title gets the most votes, write 1 sentence for every vote received.

(lol I added WIPs you punks, and half of them won’t make sense)

*Breaking the rules and making mine a week bc nobody follows me and I made a bunch of people really mad a while ago and I think I’m still in tumblr jail.

Thanks for tagging me, @stormbrightwriter!!

Rules: Make a 24hr* poll listing the titles of every WIP you want to work on. (It’s fine if you only have one, still make a poll for the vote count). Whichever WIP title gets the most votes, write 1 sentence for every vote received.

(lol I added WIPs you punks, and half of them won’t make sense)

*Breaking the rules and making mine a week bc nobody follows me and I made a bunch of people really mad a while ago and I think I’m still in tumblr jail.

MURDERBOX

Text: My grandfather commissioned the mirror, which now stands tall and inescapable in our entryway. It will show the true shape of anything, a necessity in all his business with shifters.

Ohhhhhhh @cinnamonzen

Deep Water Prompt #3064

When libraries are not maintained they expand, swallowing cities block by block. If you run into a building too big to comprehend, that city has starved its library, and you should not go in. 

The way I've already seen uncountable "Netflix is hiring!" Ads. They're really just gonna hire scabs and pretend the WGA strike isn't happening....

A lot could change but this might be one of the most important books I’ve ever read.

So accurate

Reading a book on writing and the author suggests something I’ve been unconsciously doing for years - but something I need to do with more intent. Observing and collecting moments and people and mannerisms. I warn people that if you tell me anything remotely interesting, I will use it.

The author describes writing exercises she gives her students, and two of them include

1. writing about their childhood - but not linearly. Just all those little things that stick in our heads.

2. Describing their school lunches.

And I started thinking about those tiny moments that live in my memory (like my grandma’s funeral dress, head-to-toe sequins, peacock colored - she left the thrift store price tag on it. $14.95)

And the ability to plumb those things mundane and otherwise for things you find in the deep dark. Writing feels like playing god and as I think about the unfolding paper lunch bag, it’s like reaching my god-hand into a dark fenced off quarry and bringing up a handful of silt to see what skeletons sit there.

I love that as soon as I started accountability posts, I disappeared from tumblr.

I mean there are other reasons but let’s go with that.

My new edit is so much better. It’s come so far. But I’m also in a muddy foggy place and what makes me want to write is the same drive that comes from how much I love editing and I need to just DO IT.

Deep Water Prompt #3026

I have no choice but to ask the vampire trees. They know everything, ancient beyond ancient, the bone white thorns that line their branches gleaming like so many teeth.

My computer legit started to fall apart yesterday. A hinge broke, binding up and pulling the bezel from the screen. Really badly. “Can’t open this computer ever again.”

I’m lucky - really lucky - to be able to afford a new one. And so quickly.

Even though it was a mechanical problem, the fear of losing all my work (even though I backed it up last month) … oh my god. Especially my obsidian vaults which weren’t as well backed up. Ugh my heartburn.

Text: These tattoos are as illegal as you can possibly get, inked with the grimy black blood of Reapers. They say the tattooist kills them himself. He doesn’t look like I expect him to.