WHENEVER YOU SEE THIS POST ON YOUR DASH, STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND WRITE ONE SENTENCE FOR YOUR CURRENT PROJECT.
Just one sentence. Stop blogging for one minute and write a single sentence. It could be dialogue, it could be a nice description of scenery, it could be a metaphor, I don’t care. The point is, do it. Then, when you finish, you can get back to blogging.
If this gets viral, you might just have your novel finished by next Tuesday.
I think it’s important to praise and uplift writers who don’t write pretty. Prose that sticks close to the ground is valuable, wonderful, and yes, still takes a lot of work to compose. Think of stories like houses. Ornately-decorated Victorian homes are lovely, so are palaces with sprawling gardens. But I love a small, snug and plainly-built story, where I can make myself at home for a while.
If you write honestly, you can tell a beautiful story. Even if the writing itself is not. It may not make for eye-catching excerpts and quotes, but plain writing isn’t necessarily boring or bad. Sometimes the best way to tell a story is to tell it simply, and I think that’s important to remember.
I made these as a way to compile all the geographical vocabulary that I thought was useful and interesting for writers. Some descriptors share categories, and some are simplified, but for the most part everything is in its proper place. Not all the words are as useable as others, and some might take tricky wording to pull off, but I hope these prove useful to all you writers out there!
In real life, pretty much everybody reacts to tragedy differently. So why is it that every author has their pet reaction to tragedy that all their characters use? Not only is it unrealistic, but it takes away the chance for the characters’ different reactions to reveal things about themselves.
Possible reactions to tragedy (not an exhaustive list):
Distracting oneself with mindless activities
Distracting oneself with others’ humor
Distracting oneself by making jokes
Distracting oneself by reading/watching/playing stories
Distracting oneself with hard mental work
Distracting oneself with hard physical work
Distracting oneself with creative endeavors
Distracting oneself by chatting with friends about normal things
Talking to friends about the tragedy
Talking to authority figures about the tragedy
Talking anonymously with strangers about the tragedy (if possible)
Getting wrapped up in others’ problems
Staying unusually silent
Screaming
Crying loudly
Crying silently
Doing everything possible not to cry
Pacing
Taking unhealthy risks
Going for revenge against whoever one can blame
Punching random objects
Throwing random objects
Lashing out against friends and family members
Trying to prevent a similar tragedy from happening
Eating more than usual
Not eating
Taking mind-altering substances
Getting in unhealthy relationships
Isolating oneself
Obsessing over routine
Numbness combined with apathy
Numbness combined with going through one’s normal motions
Trying to get things back the way they were
Denial
No reaction at first but a reaction hits later in greater force
No reaction at all. Emotions relating to the tragedy just fail to load. Note that this can happen to anybody and does not mark a character as a sociopath.
Characters can have more than one reaction at the same time, one reaction after another, or different reactions to different tragedies.
