ever look at a piece of art and think of how a simple picture, painting, music, or book transcend time. For it to live through generations of generations, era after era, and yet, here it stays, alive and beating. as it captured the hearts of many before, now it beguiles us with the same intensity, even bringing us to tears, knowing that behind each stroke, note, and word is another person’s soul laid bare. gazing in the depths of the Art, we reconcile with the ghost of its creator, drifting and immortal. in a simple glimpse, we became a part of the undying
oh the inherent homoeroticism of blood-soaked bodies clinging to one another, the red honey dripping in excess, forming a path of ruin and murder. eyes seeking salvation, the other clouded with carnal affection. the head is thrown back, revealing the neck of smooth, Vestal skin, the knife in their hand’s dig deeper– harder. there exists no room for a fair hero and muse. in the consummation of the crime, lay the crimson limbs of a villain and their tortured lover
Hello everyone, my name is Joselin! The hopefully soon to be author of #hiddentruthsseries I am 22 years old and from Denmark, and am mostly self-taught in English. I love to write and read, and believe it or not I have at least 200 books I gathered over the years, and slowly building my English library too. Wanting to write is something I have wanted to since I was around 9 years old and read my very first book on my own( I was a slow learner ) and I just got obsessed with the fact that people could make these beautiful worlds, and I wondered if I had the ability to do it too. I have been working on this story since 2016, when I for fun decided to put a snippet of my first English book out on a website. A friend had dared me to try and write in English And oh boy, did I not only gain some amazing friends due to it but the courage to believe I could write and now I am here! Hopefully next year I am finishing self-editing, and have the courage for the next steps. I got lucky enough to meet a super talented cover maker @jen_munswami and is slowly but steady writing my way to publishing.
This is the #1 tip I will always give to writers, so you’ve probably heard me say this a few times. Don’t write for others, but write for yourself.
People have different tastes. There will always be some who dislike your book, and some who consider it their favorite. Lots of people hate famous books like Percy Jackson or Six Of Crows, and I’m sure you’ve disliked a popular book before. So instead of writing a book that others would read, start writing a book that you would read.If you end up liking your book, I can assure you that many others will too.
2. Flesh out characters
When you’re excited to write a new WIP, you might delay your character building process and decide to start writing while trying to figure out the characterization on the way. I’ve done this a couple of times, thinking that it would speed up my writing process, but trust me, it did not. It actually slowed down my writing instead.
If you start writing your wip without at least finishing 80% of your character building process, you’ll find yourself getting stuck in scenes, not knowing what your character would say or do, which is very inconvenient.
If you ever get bored of character building and really want to start writing instead, I suggest writing one-shots unrelated to your WIP. By doing this, you don’t have to worry about writing your characters out of character, and its actually useful to their characterization process.
3. Experiment!
If you feel like there’s something off with your writing, or you’re beginning to feel that writing is a chore for you, experiment with different writing techniques. Switch up your genre, time period, plotting method, etc.
For reference, I used to be a pantser who writes plot-driven mystery stories. But now, I’m more comfortable with being a plantser who writes character-driven low fantasy stories! Basically, don’t be afraid of change, because it might help you later.
4. Know your ending
In my opinion, the most important thing to consider while writing a story is your ending - not your beginning or middle. You can rewrite your beginning chapters anytime, and you can always figure out your middle chapters later, noone knows how to write the middle of a story anyway.
But if you don’t know the ending of your story, you’re screwed, buddy. Without knowing how your story ends, you can’t write the events that build up to that ending.
You’re unsure about your novel’s ending at first and decided to throw in a last minute plot twist? That means you’ve been foreshadowing the wrong ending the whole book, and you gotta rewrite. You don’t know how your characters will develop throughout the book? You won’t be able to write the journey of their arc throughout the story. Hassling, right? That’s why, try not to start writing your WIP without having a possible ending in mind.
5. If you write, you’re valid.
Nowadays, the standards of being a writer is that you have to write a full-length novel and be traditionally published. This isn’t true, not even the slightest.
You write poetry? You’re a writer and valid. You’re a screenwriter? Bro, look at the word. ScreenWRITER. valid. You write fanfictions? Valid, and you’re not cringey. You have NO idea how much I worship fanfiction writers for writing what canon won’t give us. You’re writing but don’t want to be published? You’re still valid. As long as you write, you’re valid, because that’s the whole point of being a writer.
6. Don’t follow every single tip
There’s a reason why they’re called writing tips, not rules. You’re not meant to follow every single one of them, they’re only meant to guide you on the way. Some will be useful, some won’t, depending on yourself. So please, don’t be pressured to follow every writing tip you see.
These can be taken as both platonic and romantic!!
1. Villain realizes that Hero’s superior had been abusing them, and decides to take matters into their own hands
2. Whatever tf Doctor Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platypus had going on
3. Villain aims a gun at Hero and fires. Hero flinched, only to realize that Villain shot the other villain about to strike them from behind.
4. Hero has Villain on knifepoint, but stabs the blade into the wall beside Villain’s head instead.
5. Villain sneaks extra food to Hero’s cell when they were being held captive in the main villain’s lair
6. Villain had once saved Hero’s life when they were kids but has no recollection of it, while Hero immediately recognized Villain as their childhood savior.
7. Hero and Villain runs into each other during a normal day while grocery shopping, and both aren’t sure what to do, because are we supposed to fight?? But it’s our day off and we’re not in a mission tho?? But that’s my enemy right there, I can’t just stand here and do nothing?? But if I attack first it’ll seem rude-
8. Hero and Villain being ex-childhood friends
9. Even worse better, EX-LOVERS
10. Villain helping Hero escape from the evil lair, but then getting punished and tortured by the main villain for it.
11. Grumpy Hero and sunshine Villain. That’s it.
12. It’s always badass female hero x morally gray male villain WHERE TF IS OUR SOFT MALE HERO X MORALLY GRAY HOT LADY VILLAIN
13. Or just make them the same gender and let the gays win
14. Or just yeet gender and make them non-binary that works too
15. Hero and Villain looking so so similar that people always mistake them as siblings, which enrages them both
16. “I am NOT related to this idiot-“ // “WELL AT LEAST I DIDN’T TRY TO DESTROY A WHOLE CITY”
17. “…and that’s how my mom abandoned me and I ended up in the evil side.” // “Ight screw prison, I’m taking you to therapy. I got the bills covered dw.”
18. Villain burning Hero’s home like their boss ordered them to, but then changing their mind and dragging an unconscious Hero out of the burning house at the last minute while cursing to themselves
19. “You shouldn’t have helped me.” // “Oh, so you want me to throw you into your burning house again, you ungrateful bish??”
20. Villain sacrificing their life to help Hero survive and escape, but Hero never knew about it because they weren’t there and nobody had the heart to tell them
21. Hero and Villain having the same religion and somehow going to the same church/temple/mosque, therefore always meeting there and it takes every ounce of their self control to not start a brawl in their praying spot
22.But they fought once anyway and they were permanently banned
23. Hero and Villain bonding over a common favorite animal
24. But the fighting again a second later over who’s gonna adopt the animal
25. “What do you MEAN you wanna adopt this cat- you’re too busy protecting the city and shiz, you won’t have time for it!” // “Well at least I don’t rob banks for a living-” // “WELL AT LEAST I CAN BE USEFUL AND ROB SOME CAT FOOD FOR IT AND BE A GOOD PARENT”
I’ve been getting questions on how to create characters recently, because apparently lots of y’all don’t know where and how to start creating a new character. I don’t think this post will help everybody, since everyone has different methods on creating characters (eg. some come up with names first, others come up with appearance first), but in this post I’ll be sharing my character creation process. I hope it will help! <3
1. An iconic line
This is a less well-known method to start creating a character, but for some reason it’s always how I do (and it always works lmao). It’s hard to create a character from scratch, so instead, I think about an iconic line that the character could say, which is usually related to my wip’s theme or mood. I came up with this line for an oc :
“I’ve been trying so damn hard to make everyone smile, but I get it now. The world would be happier without me, wouldn’t it?”
Justfrom this single line, I already know lots of things about this character :
• They always put the happiness of others before their own.
• They’ve probably been told that they need to have a positive effect on others in order to have the right to live.
• They’ve been trying to please others, but end up worsening things.
• They’re determined and desperate.
• …They probably had a corruption arc and won’t get a happy ending :“D
• The moment when they say this line is their breaking point
See? Just from two sentences, I already have an idea of their personality and backstory. Sometimes, I even get an idea for their appearance too. This is way easier than not knowing what to do first to create a character from scratch.
2. Appearance
Lots of people come up with character names before their appearance, but I always need to generate their appearance first, because otherwise, I can’t visualize or imagine them. I usually play around with picrew.me (an avatar generator website) to generate their potential appearance. I don’t spend too much time on this stage tho, because I’ll end up changing their appearance again after figuring out more details about my wip (that’s why I said potentialappearance).
3. Personality & backstory
After having a rough idea of how they look like, I’ll imagine them in various scenes in my wip and come up with their personality. If there are already other existing ocs in the wip, I always be careful to not repeat too much aspects from the other characters, so each character will be unique.
Then,asking why the character has a specific personality will create their backstory. For instance, if a character has trust issues, ask why. Maybe they’ve been betrayed by a loved one before? Or they live in a dangerous world where everyone double crosses people to survive?
4. Name
After I know their appearance, personality, and depth, that’s when I decide a name for the character which fit their vibes or has symbolism. For example, my character Bayu’s name is symbolic because it means "wind”, reflecting how he’s a thief who moves as fast as the wind.
Sometimes, I don’t immediately search for a permanent name if I’m out of ideas. I’ll just choose a random placeholder name that fits their vibes, and remember to come up with their real name later.
5. Character arc
After knowing all the general information about the character, I’ll begin plotting out their character arc - their development throughout the book/series and whether it’s a positive or negative character arc. This stage is the hardest for me, because I need to figure out its starting, breaking, and ending point, and also the factors and people involved in the arc. I have a post series about both redemption and corruption arcs, you can check my masterlist to find them!
1. Realizing how dumb the protagonists are and becoming the mom friend
2. “I wasn’t that bad.” // “Yes, you were.”
3. Deciding to change after the death of a loved one
4. Joining the good side and finally reuniting with a loved one
5. Waiting at the corner during the protagonists’ gatherings, because they don’t feel like they deserve to be accepted so easily.
6. Before joining the team, they let the protagonists attack them without them fighting back, because they know they deserve it.
7. “You don’t have to forgive me-” // “Are you stupid? We forgive you. Welcome to the family.”
8. Them sacrificing themselves for the very protagonist they were trying to kill before their redemption arc.
9. Not being used to kindness and affection - blushing profusely whenever anyone gives them a compliment or a pat on the head
10. Not knowing how socializing or friends work and ends up being that one socially awkward mf in the friend group (yes this is a big callout to Zuko)
11. Crying themselves to sleep because they keep on getting flashbacks of the horrible things they once did
12. Getting adopted as the precious smol bean of the group even though they once tried to kill the protagonists
13. Becoming the weird uncle/aunt that everyone secretly loves
14. Still having nightmares about their trauma or their past mistakes
15. Everyone in the group being lowkey in love with them because they used to be the hot villain
16. Playfully being blackmailed by the protagonists because of their bad decisions in the past
17. “There is NO WAY I’m wearing this lame outfit-” // “Wear it right now or I’ll tell everyone how you tried to set me on fire.”
18. Seeing the protagonists’ full potential while fighting the other villains and going, “Bless the Lord I decided to switch sides on time.”
19. Being rivals with one of the protagonists
20. Ohohohohoho rivals to lovers? Jkjk- unless…-?
21. The heroes not trusting the villain until realizing that they’ve truly changed
22. Alternately, the villain refusing to trust anyone until the heroes teach them what it means to have and trust a family.
23. Always hiding behind the back of that one protagonist they’re close to during meetings, because are they even supposed to be here? What if they get evicted?
24. Being tempted to go back to the evil side but realizing how much the protagonists mean to them
25. Convincing their old friends on the evil side to also switch sides, which may or may not end well
