I’ve started a story, now it’s up to you to continue it! Below I’ve written a short paragraph. Reblog this post and add the next paragraph yourself and let the chain continue until the story gets completed. You don’t have to put too much thought into it, this is just a writing exercise! Just have fun!
Tucked away behind acres of dense forest and a thicket of brush sits an old log cabin. Only those who have dared to venture far enough from the beaten path have witnessed its existence first-hand. Others have heard plenty about it via the many stories, fables, and tales that have circulated this small town for generations. The rumors range from the cabin being the haunted meeting place for ghosts, demons, and even aliens, to it simply just being the home of a sweet, lonely old man. I, however, have my own theory about the cabin.
Describing the setting of your story adds a level of depth to your story, but sometimes it can be difficult trying to piece together the descriptions with enough clarity to engage your audience.
A little exercise I learnt while studying - similar to the one I wrote about describing characters - is to go to Google and look up a picture of a setting you think is close to your world - it doesn’t have to be perfect, it can be an isolated or specific environment, like a boiler room or an abandoned mall, or it can be something more general like a steampunk, fantasy or apocalyptic world. There is a lot of incredible works out there - photographs and art - that will give you a visual aid for describing your world.
Copy the photo into your document of have it up on screen next to your writing and try and write as many details as you can (as sentences or dot points, it doesn’t really matter) - the colours of the world (the sky, the grass, the houses etc.), try to use words specific to the location (like bluffs, tundras, plains, barrens, plateaus, etc.). Try to focus on the smallest things becasue they can tell you the most about the world. For example, in an apocalyptic setting, a rusted red tricycle tipped on its side can speak volumes.
You might not end up using all the details you write down (unless you want a Tolkien-esque description of the world), but it helps to create a more clear image in your head and gives you something to work with.
Hopefully this helps and I wish you all the best with your writing.
Describing your character’s appearance and be either the easiest thing to do, or the hardest. Some of us spend ages just staring at the computer screen rewriting the same sentence or trying to picture the character in our head in order to write them into existence.
A little exercise I learnt while studying is to go to Google and look up a picture of a person you think is close to the appearance of your character - it doesn’t have to be a celebrity, it can be a standard photo you find while looking up a descriptor like ‘brunette’ or ‘blue eyed man’.
Copy the photo into your document of have it up on screen next to your writing and try and write as many details as you can (as sentences or dot points, it doesn’t really matter) - the colour and shape of their eyes (try to be as specific and descriptive as you can, and not just the generic blue, brown, green, grey, etc), the colour of their hair and the way it’s styled, the shape of the jaw or their nose, freckles, dimples, scars, etc.
You might not end up using all the details you write down, but it helps to create a more clear image in your head and gives you something to work with.
Hopefully this helps and I wish you all the best with your writing.
Cavalry swords, two-handed swords, and cutlasses - these swords are used commonly for hacking and slashing - so they are swung in arcs or from side to side, not thrust forward.
Rapiers and small swords are one-handed weapons that are thin and light, but often quite long. They are used for thrusting and slicing, but as you can imagine they aren’t much use in actual battle, but commonly used for sparring.
The third type is a mixture of the two - but less commonly found.
#2. Terminology
Fainting/Feinting - A false attack intended to create an opening for the real attack.
Parrying - When a swordsman uses his blade to deflect his opponent’s blade when he is being attacked.
Advance - A short forward movement
Fuller - A groove down the side of the sword to release suction when stabbed into a person’s body.
Hilt - The base of the sword near your hands that isn’t the blade
Pivot - Turning 180 degrees while keeping a foot planted
False edge - the “back” of the sword that isn’t sharp and what you don’t usually fight with.
#3. Common myths
A secret move that leads to victory - There is rarely such a “secret” move. Like chess, swordfighting is won through strategy and careful thinking, as well as physical prowess, not sEcRetT mOveS.
The Dramatic PauseTM - Nope, doesn’t happen in real life. No one actually glares at each other in the middle of a swordfighting match when their priority should be, yknow, surviving.
#4. The Learning Curve of swordfighting
Unlike an ordinary learning curve where you slowly get better at something, in swordfighting, an untrained novice is much better than someone practising for a few months. This is because their actions are almost always wild and unpredictable. When a student receives training, their skill will actually decline over the next few months, because they will be trying to fight by the rules and are naturally not good at it. It takes at least two years to become a good swordsperson.
#5. The actual swordfighting itself
Footwork - Forward and back, in a line, in a semi-circle, a pivot. The basic goal of footwork is to give you a balanced center from which you can lunge, advance, retreat, attack, and parry. It also helps maintain the appropriate distance from your opponent and percieve.
Timing - How fast/slow is your opponent? How fast is your reaction time?
Every fighter has a different style. Some may naturally be inclined to use a certain move over and over, and have weakpoints in say, their reaction time. It is important that your character has a proper swordfighting style.
Predictability - How good are your characters/opponents at anticipating and learn each others fighting style? That determines the outcome of the fight!
literally just throw in character drama and youre good
okay since i need to actually give advice uh *scratches head* OKAY so there are two types of character drama - annoying ones, and angsty ones. so make sure yours isnt annoying. dont unnecessarily throw in drama, but maybe a secret comes to light, or a problem thats been building up for ages comes to light.
annoying drama would basically be the whole novel series of twilight
#2. heist heist HEIST-
especially if you’re writing fantasy, heists are so much fun to read. it doesnt have to be the ENTIRE plot of your novel, but a short heist would up the stakes and improve your pacing, so its definitely a lot of fun to write and plan out, especially with all the twists and turns of what goes wrong and right.
#3. its time for that plot twist
youve got that (1) plot twist idea in your head for 103490430 years and its time to finally use it. throw your characters into turmoil with a sudden betrayal, death, ambush, whatever it is. it will 100% give you more ideas for how to continue your story but also slap your readers in the face. its never too early to use a good plot twist.
#4. reveal a backstory
if its a slow chapter and nothing’s happened, then have a character reveal their backstory, or include a flashback. that way, you continue adding to the plot and character while “nothing happens” per se. the backstory must be linked to further events that happen in the story, so even antagonists from the character’s past can show up again.
Cavalry swords, two-handed swords, and cutlasses - these swords are used commonly for hacking and slashing - so they are swung in arcs or from side to side, not thrust forward.
Rapiers and small swords are one-handed weapons that are thin and light, but often quite long. They are used for thrusting and slicing, but as you can imagine they aren’t much use in actual battle, but commonly used for sparring.
The third type is a mixture of the two - but less commonly found.
#2. Terminology
Fainting/Feinting - A false attack intended to create an opening for the real attack.
Parrying - When a swordsman uses his blade to deflect his opponent’s blade when he is being attacked.
Advance - A short forward movement
Fuller - A groove down the side of the sword to release suction when stabbed into a person’s body.
Hilt - The base of the sword near your hands that isn’t the blade
Pivot - Turning 180 degrees while keeping a foot planted
False edge - the “back” of the sword that isn’t sharp and what you don’t usually fight with.
#3. Common myths
A secret move that leads to victory - There is rarely such a “secret” move. Like chess, swordfighting is won through strategy and careful thinking, as well as physical prowess, not sEcRetT mOveS.
The Dramatic PauseTM - Nope, doesn’t happen in real life. No one actually glares at each other in the middle of a swordfighting match when their priority should be, yknow, surviving.
#4. The Learning Curve of swordfighting
Unlike an ordinary learning curve where you slowly get better at something, in swordfighting, an untrained novice is much better than someone practising for a few months. This is because their actions are almost always wild and unpredictable. When a student receives training, their skill will actually decline over the next few months, because they will be trying to fight by the rules and are naturally not good at it. It takes at least two years to become a good swordsperson.
#5. The actual swordfighting itself
Footwork - Forward and back, in a line, in a semi-circle, a pivot. The basic goal of footwork is to give you a balanced center from which you can lunge, advance, retreat, attack, and parry. It also helps maintain the appropriate distance from your opponent and percieve.
Timing - How fast/slow is your opponent? How fast is your reaction time?
Every fighter has a different style. Some may naturally be inclined to use a certain move over and over, and have weakpoints in say, their reaction time. It is important that your character has a proper swordfighting style.
Predictability - How good are your characters/opponents at anticipating and learn each others fighting style? That determines the outcome of the fight!
Hey Sparks! Mod Ellie here with a short music-based writing exercise.
- hit shuffle on your music library.
- listen to the first song that comes up for anything that sparks inspiration. It can be a specific lyric, the mood the song evokes, a character the song inspires, a setting in which you would hear the song – anything.
- write a short story based on the inspiration you found in the song.
You could sit there forever. Rooted to the earth, watching the sea. Your entire body is feeble from fighting against those waves. Never again will you step near the ocean, it is too unpredictable, too powerful, too dangerous. Land is safety. You take comfort in the solid strength beneath.
Staring at those waves suddenly stings. You flinch away and look at the sky. It’s blue calm. Kind of strange now you think about it - no stormy weather. It was like this too when you were walking on the sea path, so where did the sudden gigantic waves come from?
Back to the sea. Your weary brain starts to see and think again. The waves are radiating outwards, like a giant ripple. Where the waves rise from below, at the centre of the ripple, is a pillar of stone. Surrounded by churning foaming water and steadily rising. At it’s tip - an orange glow so bright it makes your eyes water, there are flickers of light flying from it like fireworks. Your brain is sluggish, or perhaps it doesn’t want to comprehend. A huge firework shoots out of the pillar, but falling fast and wet, and far away but now closer, larger, and CRASHING into the land.
It hits several hundred meters away but you feel the shockwave. The crater spewing out smoke, the lava oozing out of it - everything it touches aflame. It might be your senses going haywire but you swear you can feel the heat, taste the dust. Your hearing is muffled.
A jolt. You snapped back into reality. Earth gone so quickly from sanctuary to predator. Adrenaline pulses through your veins and you scramble up again, you must get out of range of those fiery missiles. More are coming.
The top of the slope is coated with brambles, you push through, resisting its cruel tugging. Branches and thorns whipping and scratching at your face. No time for caution. The lava is falling more frequently, closer, faster. You come out of the brambles and start to sprint. Stumbling often as shockwave after shockwave judders through you. Now you’re having to dodge places the meteors have hit. You keep running. Pools of lava growing bigger block your path, forcing you to change directions. You keeping running. You begin to feel like a sheep being herded. But the Earth and the Ocean are unfeeling, so why does it seem they are so against you? You keep running.
But then. There’s nowhere to run. The fastest human alive couldn’t have outrun this. Frozen for a moment but no time - you scamper into a building. The lava bombs must be smaller now, you can hear them hitting the roof but it’s not caving in. But while you’ve escaped being crushed, the threat of burning alive is still present. The lava is moving steadily towards your building, almost lazily. Need higher ground. Or a barrier? No. As long as you don’t touch it - the floor is lava. A staircase! You sprint up it, just as the lava begins to seep onto the ground floor. Victory! You might just outlive this.
But then. At the top of the staircase is a fire tornado. It’s the spirit of the volcano outside. And it has a gun!
‘Get back down there’ it threatens, menacingly, waving the gun at you
'Wait hang on a moment this was supposed to be all natural disaster horror, why the fuck have you got a gun? Why can you talk? This is ridiculous. I can’t take this story seriously any more. You ruined the mood’
You awaken. Kind of miffed. Maybe it was a bad dream but at least it had the dignity to stay *thematic*, for the most part.
You’re walking to college, across the sea lane and worrying about exams. The sea is calm, but high, and you notice it’s almost on the same level as the path. Just as a new worry starts to form - it becomes real. A foot of water surges over the path, deceivingly slow, but that’s all it takes to knock you off your feet and into the ocean.
‘Please. No. Please. No. No. No. Please’ Your thoughts are incoherent, the desperate pleading of an animal literally out of their depth. You know you’re a weak swimmer, the path is so tantalisingly close but you barely move in the water. Waves start dragging you away. But maybe if you go at it at an angle, maybe if you suppress your panic and use all your strength, maybe you could make it. Probably even.
The ocean shrugs. You’re above the path, looking down at it. On the hump of a huge wave. Panic turns to terror as you realise - you are going to die. Escape is no longer an option, all you can do is try to ride it out. You try to keep atop the wave, better than in its path, where you would be dragged under and tumbled about and drown.
And as you paddle for your life you have a strange moment of clarity - the diagrams in your physics homework suddenly take form. Those forces in opposite directions. How little a force you must be producing. Trapped in a snapshot of an easily solvable but unwinnable physics equation. You feel a moments pity for the people in those textbook examples. For yourself.
The air is gone from your lungs, water surrounding you, the roar of it deafening you and going on forever and ever and then it stops. The water retreats like a blanket being pulled off you. You lie there stunned and slowly realise what happened, the wave had crashed into land and deposited you there. You didn’t even feel yourself hitting the ground.
Everything aches but stay here and you might get dragged back in. Despite weak screaming muscles you drag yourself up the slope. An eternity later, exhausted, you feel safe enough to turn around. The ocean is still shuddering, giant waves appearing out of nowhere. They radiate outwards, crushing and absorbing anything in their path. You watch one slam into the - cliffside!? Yes. The cliffside where you’d washed up minutes earlier. A shudder runs through you as you comprehend the apathetic fury of nature.
1. I spent all night researching about Moth Man, so you want to go and find him with me?
2. I hate the beach but I love to watch you have fun
3. The forest scares me and i’m pretty sure we’re being followed but you promised that we aren’t
4. We met at a party but I don’t remember you and I don’t want to seem rude so I never told you I don’t remember you- what’s your name again?
5. I saw you crying and I couldn’t just leave you there alone so hi, it’s nice to meet you
6. I caught you stealing from the local art museum but I didn’t have the heart to turn you in so I helped you escape instead
7. I missed seeing your face everyday so I drove out to see you
8. This sleepy town is getting boring, do you want to go on an adventure with me?
9. I saw you on your balcony from across the street and Oh My God you’re gorgeous but you look like you’re off your rocker- why do you keep shouting at the sky?
10. We have different friend groups but they’re both working together to get us together behind our backs
11. If you really love your selkie lover then give them back their skin
12. I’m a swimmer and you can’t swim to save your life but I didn’t know that so I planned our date to be at the pool
13. We met at a poetry slam and your poem was so good that you made me feel alive for the first time in weeks
14. I found your cat on my front porch but I loved them so much that I couldn’t help but feed them dinner before I brought them back
15. We have worked at the zoo together for years and I still can’t bring up the courage to ask you out on a date
16. I love your laugh, I love your smile, you make my day brighter
17. I asked you over for dinner but the best I can cook is ramen noodles and you’re going to be here in an hour and my kitchen is a mess
18. We met at Sunday mass and you made me laugh so loud I was kicked out of the service
19. I thought you were going to kidnap me when I saw you approaching me i’m so sorry I stabbed/slapped/attacked you
20. You visit my grave every week and even though I have no idea who you are, I still appreciate it
21. My wool is soft and warm and you looked so cold I couldn’t help but give you some
22. There is a hurricane coming and we were sitting next to each other in the emergency shelter
23. Summer nights spent at your house laying on your roof
24. I stole your dog in a fit of resentment for my neighbor because I thought the dog was his I’m so sorry
25. I was almost hit by a car but you pulled me out of the way and wow you’re really cute
“Okay listen, I know this seems bad, but I promise, it’s not what it looks like.”
“Can I just try? Please?”
“Do you even hear yourself?”
“So do you actually love me or is this some kind of fleeting crush?”
“Let me go, I’ll be okay. I promise.“
“I don’t know what i’m supposed to do now that you’re not here.”
“I can’t exactly help you if you won’t let me.”
“Take this, it will bring you home.”
“Don’t- don’t you remember me?”
“I can’t keep living like this!”
“I didn’t want you to see me like this…”
“Maybe it wasn’t worth it.”
“I just can’t help but to think that maybe it just wasn’t meant to be…”
“We had a deal!”
“Just let me help you”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t think this is gonna work out.”
“My kid is in there!”
“Yeah, that’s funny. For a second there I thought that you actually cared.”
“You’re the whole reason that this is even happening in the first place!”
“Even with you right in front of me I still can’t see how much you’ve changed.“
“You know, maybe if you actually tried then we wouldn’t be in this mess!”
“If you could just take off these handcuffs that would be swell.”
“I just-… I didn’t think you were going to make it…”
“How is this okay?! You’re in the hospital!“
“So, how long will it be this time around?”
“I can’t wait to see you again.”
“We can’t all play the role of the hero, someone always ends up being the villain.”
“You’re gonna be okay, alright? Just stay on the line with me, you’ll be okay.“
“Let me take care of you.”
“Can’t you tell how much I love you? Can you not tell by the sound of my voice? Can you not tell by the words that I speak to you?“
“What are you doing to her?! Stop! Stop!!”
“Come on, sweetheart. We can’t stay here any longer.”
“Did you even know? Did you even care?!“
“You know, if I had known you were coming today I would have done a little more to, ya know, set up.”
“Everyone keeps saying that this is all in my head, but I know it’s not, I know it’s real!”
“Would you be satisfied if I were to spend the rest of my days and lie here in wait, hoping that one day I may be free?“
“Please come home, we miss you.”
“Okay, repeat after me:“
“So, how long do you think he’s gonna last this time?”
“All my life, I remember looking up to you, hoping that one day I could be just like you.”
“I don’t want to hurt you!“
“And after all this time, after all these years, here I thought that you were out there somewhere, hoping to come home. But here you are, running away, cowering from even the thought of it.”
“Please- please help me! there’s someone here- they’re going to kill me!“
“Was I just not enough for you?”
“Sometimes you just need to let people leave your life, no matter how much it hurts you.“
“Is it time yet?”
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“This might be your last chance to say something, you should make it count.“
“Did we ever even mean anything to you?! And don’t you dare lie to me!”
If only he would listen to her, instead of demanding that she adhered to his whims!
If only she would be silent on occasion, and realise that he knew best.
Mallory aimed a furious kick at a pile of leaves, and her foot slipped as the wet mud gave way beneath her feet. Her back hit the ground and her head spun as a sharp “Ooof!” was forced from her lungs.
