The Skellingcorner

[lady-fey]

When every character has a sob story, no one does.

One of the main faux pas that I see young writers make is this idea that that they need to give every character a tragic backstory. There can be no happiness in the past for our main characters. Their childhoods must be steeped in sorrow to make them deep and tragic because being deep and tragic makes them interesting and no. That is just not true. A character can be interesting even if they had a perfectly normal and happy childhood.

That’s not the reason why I’m talking about this issue, though. I’m bringing it up because of a very real problem that comes with giving everyone a sob story: when every character has one, then no one does.

[wpachicago]

Homemade Pasta Dough Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 2/3 cups Italian “00” flour (or half Italian “00” flour and half Farina di Semola)
• 2 medium or large eggs
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• A pinch of sea salt

1. Sift the flour into a mound onto a clean work surface and make a well in the center with your fist.

2. Break the eggs into the well and add the oil and a pinch of salt to the well.

3. Gradually mix the egg mixture into the flour using one hand, bringing the ingredients together into a firm dough.

4. Knead the pasta until smooth, 2 to 5 minutes. Lightly massage it with a hint of olive oil, and allow it to rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. The pasta will be much more elastic after resting.

5. feed the dough ball dough through a pasta machine or roll with a rolling pin until pasta is silky smooth and the desired thickness.

7. After the pasta has reached the requisite thickness, hang it over a broom handle or the back of a chair to dry a little

8. Shape the pasta by hand or pass the pasta through the chosen cutters and then drape the cut pasta over the broom handle or chair back again to dry just a little, until ready to cook.

Color the pasta

• Spinach  puree ¾ cup cooked leaf spinach (squeezed to remove as much moisture as possible) and add it to the well in the flour.
• Tomato Add 2 tablespoons tomato paste or sun-dried tomato paste to the well in the flour. Use 1 large egg instead of 2 medium ones.
• Beet Roast 1 red beet until softened, about 45 minutes. Let cool. Peel and grate or puree. Add 2 tablespoons grated cooked beet to the well in the flour. Use 1 large egg instead of 2 medium ones.
• Saffron Soak 1 sachet of powdered saffron in 2 tablespoons hot water for 15 minutes. Strain the water, discarding the solids. Use 1 large egg instead of 2 medium ones and whisk with the vibrant saffron water before adding to the well in the flour.
• Herb Add at least 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh green herbs to the well in the flour.
• Black squid ink pasta Add 1 sachet squid ink to the eggs and whisk to combine before adding to the flour. A little extra flour may be needed.

[bonesmakenoise]

[theweepingtimelord]

Lembas Bread (Lord of the Rings “authentic” Elvish bread)

Ingredients: 

 2 ½ cups of flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
¼ teaspoon of salt
½ cup of butter
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon honey
2/3 cup of heavy whipping cream
½ teaspoon of vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425F. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and mix with a well till fine granules (easiest way is with an electric mixer). Then add the sugar and cinnamon, and mix them thoroughly.

Finally add the cream, honey, and vanilla and stir them in with a fork until a nice, thick dough forms.

Roll the dough out about 1/2 in thickness. Cut out 3-inch squares and transfer the dough to a cookie sheet.Criss-cross each square from corner-to-corner with a knife, lightly (not cutting through the dough).

Bake for about 12 minutes or more (depending on the thickness of the bread) until it is set and lightly golden.

***Let cool completely before eating, this bread tastes better room temperature and dry. Also for more flavor you can add more cinnamon or other spices***

[bonesmakenoise]

as someone who has baked these A LOT

They are REALLY GOOD

and I am reblogging this because I KEEP LOSING MY RECIPE 

[unblockingwritersblock]

Character Development Checklist

How well do you know your character? 

Basics are a given. You know their eye color, hair color, and maybe even their height and clothing preference. You know she isn’t a morning person. You know he has a preference for dogs over cats. But how well do you really know them?

Obviously, every character is not going to need all this information, and some will not be applicable for every character. Use your better judgement. I know you have it.

Basics:

• Character’s Name
• Character’s Nickname(s)
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Sex/Gender
• Hair color
• Eye color
• Height
• Weight
  
• Scars
• Tattoos
• Birthmarks
• Piercings
• Dress/clothing preferences
  
• Right/left handed/ambidextrous
• Glasses/contacts

Family and Relationships:

• Parents
• Siblings
• Grandparents
• Marital Status
• Significant Other
• Children
• Pets
• Other family members
• Friends
• Enemies

Religion:

• The religion they follow (if any)
• Beliefs
• Superstitions

Location:

• Country of Birth
• Place of Birth (State, city, etc)
• First Language
• Accents

Schooling:

• Highest Education
• Degrees

Work:

• Occupation
• Salary
• Employment history
• Work space
• Mode of Transportation

Home:

• Rent or Own
• House, apartment, etc
• Mode of transportation
• Living space
• Address

Inner Workings Of Your Character:

• Secrets
• Fears
• Worries
• Eating Habits
• Food preferences
• Sleep preferences
• Work preferences
• Book preferences
• Music preferences
• Introverted/extroverted
• Optimist/pessimist
• Hobbies
• Pet peeves
• Prejudices
• Proud of
• Biggest vulnerability
• Embarrassed by
• Worst memory
• Best memory
• Skilled at
• Unskilled at
• Attitude
• Obsessions
• Stresses
• Addictions
• Handicaps (physical)
• Handicaps (emotional/psychological)
• Allergies
• Medical history

Habits:

• Verbal quirks
• Physical quirks
• Gestures
• Work habits
• Sleeping habits
• Annoying habits
• Irrational habits
• Eating habits
• Healthy habits
• Unhealthy habits
• Mannerisms
• Drinking habits

Objects Kept In - And Why:

• Their closet
• Their bedroom
• Their purse/bag
• Their fridge
• Their car
• Their desk
• Their pockets
• Their junk drawer
• Their glove compartment
• Their backpack
• Their locker

Other:

• Talents
• Political preference
• Strengths
• Flaws
• Prized possessions
• Special/favorite memories
• Time and date of birth
• What they love
• What they hate
• Favorite season
• Social class
• Sports/clubs

[createandnarrate]

What’s the best time of day to write?

I’m a night-writer myself. What about you?

[the-right-writing]

How not to foreshadow

Maybe your characters are in trouble near the end of your story and you need to go back and make sure the way they get out of it is properly hinted at. Maybe there’s a perfect solution to the plot, but it introduces a large new element that you need to add in.

Don’t just say “something important will happen” or “Amy’s powers will do something huge.” That’s so nonspecific that it hardly counts as foreshadowing. Of course important things will happen. Important things happen in every story. And “mysterious powers” always ends up meaning “plot-convenient powers that could have been talked about in detail earlier, but since they weren’t it comes off like they were thought up at the last second to get the character out of trouble.” You can be specific and still be surprising. The Hiding Chekhov’s Gun post goes into some of the details on how.

It’s nice when foreshadowing is linked to the event it foreshadows by something other than the main character’s thoughts. “I looked at a bird and thought about Icarus, and how he flew too close to the sun and ended up dying” isn’t really foreshadowing for a spaceship later flying too close to a star and blowing up. An offhand line about how the fuel needed to be changed but wasn’t works a lot better because a reader can actually understand how bad fuel can lead to a spaceship explosion.

[theticklishpear]

Take a look at some alternatives to the word walk! You have plenty of options, so be sure to vary what you use so your audience doesn’t become bored. Be aware of not only the denotation (what the dictionary says a word means), but also the connotation (what associations come with the word from society). Be sure to pick the word that most accurately describes what you mean. Don’t just pick at random!

[clevergirlhelps]

Things almost every author needs to research

[the-right-writing]

• How bodies decompose
• Wilderness survival skills
• Mob mentality
• Other cultures
• What it takes for a human to die in a given situation
• Common tropes in your genre
• Average weather for your setting

[clevergirlhelps]

yoooo

• How bodies decompose
• Wilderness survival skills
• Mob mentality
• Other cultures
• What it takes for a human to die in a given situation
• Common tropes for your genre
• Average weather for your setting

[drbobbimorse]

I hate when parents don’t explain death to their kids.

[angryinkeddrunk]

(This is all just personal opinion)

“It ran away.”
No. That’s not fair.
It’s dead. It’s not coming back. Don’t do that to a child. Death is really important to understand.

YES they might be heartbroken over it but you need explain the truth to them as best you can depending on their age. It will help them understand loss.
I learned about death from an early age watching lions rip apart buffalo on animal planet. That bitch is DEAD. lol.
When my cheap ass fish would die, they where dead. They went up to “fishy heaven”. When one of my cats died, it was dead. It went to “kitty heaven”. My mom used to read me a book about how things that die go to heaven. I was sad but my tiny, imaginative child brain could grasp the concept of my animals going to a “happier” place because they were sick.

I just don’t see why or how lying is better other than to protect their little feelings. No one wants to see their child sad but like I said before, I think it’s important to understand loss. Kids get hurt, it happens, it prepares them for adult life.

I’m no parenting expert and I know there are plenty of reasons I wouldn’t understand as to why people think lying would be better. This is all just a pet peeve of mine.

[drbobbimorse]

Okay so I’m a mortician-in-training and, right now, I’m taking the required thanatology class which is all about death, dying and bereavement. Our most recent readings were all about children and how to help them make sense of the loss and separation of a loved one. Apparently, most adults seem to think children don’t grieve but they do. Children essentially have seven stages of grief: shock, alarm, disbelief, yearning, searching, disorganization, and resolution. Their grief is harder to understand and assess because they have neither the vocabulary nor life experience to easily express their feelings and needs. A child’s belief structure and how they respond to death is determined by their age/developmental level, the manner of the death, and their relationship with the deceased.

• Birth - 2 yrs: only non-specific distress reactions
• 2-5 yrs: don’t understand the permanence of death; concerned about physical well-being of deceased; not capable of cognitive reciprocity; may want to see and touch deceased’ repeatedly asks same questions about deceased; may act as if death never happened or in a regressive manner; may experience guilt (like, if they once said something like “I wish so-and-so would go away forever, they might think they caused the death)
• 6-9 yrs: more complex understanding; realize death is irreversible and that its universal; find it difficult to believe that death will happen to them (believe it happens only to older people); death can be personified and this allows them to run and hide from it; tendency to engage in “magical thinking” (don’t let them do this, its as bad as you lying to them; keep them grounded in the reality of the death), have strong feelings of loss but have extreme difficulty expressing it; often need permission to grieve
• 9-12 yrs: have cognitive understand to comprehend death is a final event; can understand and accept a mature, realistic explanation of death; short attention spans (they could be sad and grieving one moment and laughing joyfully the next, and someone could see that and negatively comment on it. Like, “how can so-and-so be acting like that?” This can intensify their already fluctuating emotions and present feelings of guilt and low self-worth); their vocabulary is advanced enough to express their feelings but they may not want to talk about what’s bothering them (they’ll let it build up and manifest in behavioral problems); interest in the physical aspect of death and what happens after; may imitate decreased’s mannerisms
• 13-18 yrs: understand the meaning of death; realize its irreversible and happens to everyone; normal puberty will intensify grief by adding to already conflicting emotions; often put in position of being the protector, comforter, caregiver (feel they must comfort others t their wen emotions are suppressed; they’ll look find on the outside but be falling apart inside); experience conflicting feelings about death (try to overcome fears by confirming control of their mortality; risk taking behavior); males are more likely to express grief in aggressive behaviors while females need comfort, to be held and reassured

There’s basically 10 rules:

1. Tell them ASAP: its important to start with what they know about death and then expand on that; be gentle and trustful; tell them in a comfortable, safe and familiar place and make sure its in language they’ll understand; never assume they understand the way you do
2. Be truthful: kids can sense dishonesty ok?! So don’t create lies to protect them; don’t make up stories that’ll have to be changed later on cause that only confuses them and promotes emotional instability; don’t withhold information either (within reason, see #3), place emphasis on the facts, and avoid euphemisms (i.e., “passed away”, “departed”, “went away”, “got sick” (they’ll associate illness and death go hand-in-hand and may think a common cold will kill them), etc)
3. Share only details they’re ready to hear: truthfulness should be balanced with their readiness for details (like, tell them someone died in a horrible auto accident but maybe not say they were decapitated and their head flew off down the highway in the process); children with actualize a crisis like an adult; its not uncommon for them to ask about a death later in life and that provides the opportunity to deliver info that wasn’t previously shared (i.e., the decapitation)
4. Encourage expression of feelings: a child will experience stages of grief very similar to those of adults (adults typically follow the Kubler-Ross 5 stages while kids have 7, seen above) and they rely on adults for permission to “feel” loss; best way is for them to learn is to hear and watch adults because they get their understanding of grief through their senses; its not unusual for them to go up to people and just make a statement like “My dad died” cause they want to see how that person will react and give them a clue as to how they should react, so its important for adults to “feel” their grief in the presence of the child; explain why you’re sad and reassure them that its okay for them to feel sad and cry and that its okay if they aren’t
5. Take child to the funeral: seeing is believing; they should be given the option to view the body but don’t force them; a funeral can be a positive experience but their level of involvement in the funeral process should be their individual decision; give them the choice as to the extent of their involvement
6. Take child to the cemetery: it can be comforting to them to know where the body is buried and how it got there; it can also help them direct their grief at an appropriate object (this lessens emotional disorganization), and it lessens the child’s chances of denying or avoiding the death
7. Let them tell others about death: adults “talking over” kids creates anxiety; when the child can explain it to another person, in their own words, they feel more in control and have a greater understanding; let them speak!
8. Encourage talk of the loss: this allows feelings to be expressed and incorrect ideas about any aspect of the loss to be corrected
9. Be available to answer questions: you need to answer each question as sincerely and accurately as possible; understand that some can’t be answered but simply being available is important; and be patient cause they will ask the same question repeatedly
10. Never tell them how they should or shouldn’t feel: you don’t like it when people do it to you, so don’t do it to kids; they should be encouraged to express any feeling and they should feel accepted for it; being told “not to feel” a certain way leads to emotionally “playing dead” and that’ll create repression, which creates interpersonal conflicts in later life due to inability to communicate emotions

[writingwithcolor]

half-a-robot asked:

My story is in the Forgotten Realms of DnD. The main character is a Tiefling rights activist named Liberation (Tieflings often name themselves after a virtue). The story is supposed to be a silly DnD campaign story, but is also supposed to critique the idea of "always evil" races like Orcs and Dark Elves. I will include DnD's different ethnicities, but I'm wondering if the focus on Tiefling, instead of real ethnicities, rights is a racist concept? If so, what changes can correct that?

I don’t think this has to be racist, but I’d advise against having your fantasy races be stand-ins for real life races.

More reading:

• Fantasy Race Tag
• Fantastic Racism and Real-life Parallels
  
• Fantasy Races and Real World Stereotypes
• Writing fictional races who are 100% one skin color

~ Mods Alice & Colette