When A Character Is In Love They…

How to show emotions

Part VII

How to show pride

standing tall

expanded posture, opening of the torso

lifted chin, head held high

big and confident smile

looking around to see if people recognize and admire what they are proud of

How to show enthusiasm

big smile and laughter

wide radiant eyes

raised eyebrows

jumping up and down or bouncing

clapping hands

big hand gestures

loud and high pitched voice

speaking quickly

How to show anxiety

not holding/breaking eye contact

fidgeting

heavy breathing

twitching in their face

often a blank stare or looking away

rigid posture

sweaty palms

bouncing their knees

rubbing palms against each other or clothing

How to show playfulness

laughing

giggling

grinning

using a playful tone

making a silly face

touching the other person teasingly

e.g. tickling, nudging, bumping into them

How to show being offended

stiffening up

hard line around the lips

frozen stare

narrowing of the eyes

Part I + Part II + Part III + Part IV + Part V + Part VI

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5 things your character can't do while speaking

Choke. Just think about it, seriously. Think about what choking is and imagine speaking while it’s happening. That would fuckin’ hurt, man.

Hiss. Look, it’s just not possible, okay? No matter how “evil” you want your character to seem.

Snarl. Animals snarls. The Beast from Beauty and the Beast snarls. The Hulk snarls. You know who doesn’t snarl? PEOPLE WHEN THEY’RE SPEAKING.

Shriek. Come on, 99% of the time, “shriek” is not the word you want.Let’s face it: if you put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence, your reader gets the picture. Don’t bring to mind banshees and screaming toddlers.

Sneer. I’m not even going to bother explaining this one. “SNEER” ISN’T EVEN A SOUND.

Shalio sighed with relief and began to approach her. “My lady,” he said, stopping right in front of her. “How are you feeling?” Hayam stared at him for a while. “I’m…I just…” She lowered her head and closed her eyes. “I just miss him already…” A tear began to roll down her face. Shalio instinctively reached his hand out to try and wipe it away, before stopping himself. I can’t, he thought as he lowered his hand back to his side. No matter how hard I want to.

Ways to reveal backstory

The first thing to know about backstory is that it is revealed when it is needed, not before to set up when it’ll be needed, but the moment it is necessary. I talk more about this advice here, but that’s the gist. So assuming the following moments require necessary backstory, here’s some places and ways to reveal backstory,

1. As related to a place

Settings have the ability to carry a whole lot of history. People can forget or move on but a stain on a blanket will always be a stain, a bedroom—however changed—will always be part of a house (unless you want to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory it). Taking your characters to the scene of their histories, allowing them access to the setting where they first experienced something is an easy way to share what that place means to them.

2. As related to a person

While friends of course hold a lot of history together, this works best if it’s a person your character hasn’t seen in a spell. Where maybe the last time they interacted was the backstory you want to share. Or otherwise their long-term friend does something out of the ordinary that reminds them of “the event”

3. As related to a conflict or emotions

A fight may remind your character of another, or even just a feeling—“the last time he had experienced (something) was (backstory).”

4. In conversation

While your character may not spill all the details of their backstory to anyone who asks, someone asking them a pointed question, “so, where’d you grow up?” or “why haven’t you mentioned your parents at all?” would inspire them to think about the event, making an easy share to the readers as well.

Important to note that how they respond to this question verbally tells a whole lot about how they feel about their past. What goes unsaid is far more important than what they actually say (check out Subtext here)

Anything I missed?

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I Will Edit and Give Feedback on Your Writing For Free

Hello all! As many of you know, I’m a part-time editor of non-fiction and writer of all things fiction, but I would love to get more experi

"Fire and Blood is biased propaganda by the maesters so nothing in the real Dance of the Dragons actually happened like in the books, you can't critique the show for showing things as they really were!"

I'm so tired of this take...

GRRM wrote the original ASOIAF series as an anti-monarchy and anti-war story. He's an author who makes a point to flesh out characters and motivations, he understands that there isn't truly a good vs bad narrative to any large-scale, real-world conflict like war, and he understands the sociopolitical factors involved. His series highlights that it's the most vulnerable people in society who suffer when those in power play their game of thrones and make consequential decisions based on their own personal motivations without thought to the consequences to those that will have to the pay the price for them. That's GRRM's entire point with the original series: war destroys everything, it is never really justified, and through war the powerful set in motion terrible events that the most vulnerable are most like to suffer.

So the idea that all of a sudden with the prequel book Fire and Blood GRRM pivoted to write a biased textbook that purposefully misconstrues a conflict where the real story behind the pages is that one side of a dynastic civil war was led by a faultless, pure woman whose divine right to rule was stolen from her, and she's justified in plunging the realm into war to reclaim her throne because the other side was uniquely misogynist against her and was made up of selfish flawed people who just wanted to steal her power from her because she was a woman...

Sure, Fire and Blood may be a history book with unreliable narrators and sources that are trying to recount long-lost histories of the realm and possibly failing to capture the totality of what actually occurred. But I can absolutely guarantee you that the intended real history of the Dance of the Dragons as it took place in the world of ASOIAF was not some black and white, good vs bad tale of morality where one side was right and the other side was wrong like the show and some fans are insisting.

The actual Dance of Dragons as it exists in the ASOIAF timeline and universe, keeping in line with GRRM's original intention and message of the ASOIAF books, is 100% a story of a flawed, ultra-powerful family that fractured into two ideologically different factions that led to a pointless civil war in which neither side was justified in their attempts to seize power from the other. The result was that the family killed themselves until the only survivors were the traumatized children left over from either faction. In this pursuit of absolute power within one family thousands were subjected to the abject horrors of war: pillaging, famine, torture, sexual violence, being burned alive, and so much more. Neither side was faultless. Neither side had "the right" or justification to enact this conflict. Neither side bore sole responsibility for the conflict. Neither side was good or bad while the other was the opposite.

It really just fits outside of the world of ASOIAF to think that Fire and Blood's account of the Dance of the Dragons was uniquely biased against a single woman and her side of the conflict wherein this woman and her supporters were actually good people that had bad things done to them and all accounts in the book relating to them are inaccurate, yet most accounts of everyone else in the story were more or less true and accurate to how events played out. Like are you actually serious that this is how you think this story and history played out in this world of ASOIAF? That ultimately the story of the Dance of the Dragons is not anti-monarchy and anti-war in line with the original ASOIAF series but actually it's the story of a uniquely good woman in this terrible world who had a rightful claim to the throne and whose power was taken from her solely because of misogyny so she was justified in going to war to take it back? Like that's your analysis and interpretation on this conflict?

The way that the show is presenting this story is so unbelievably and ridiculously reductionist and simplified to the point where you begin to question why someone wanted to try to adapt the material at all... but then of course you remember that 1) Game of Thrones made a lot of money for a lot of people 2) its later seasons of mediocre, oversimplified writing continued to be rewarded with huge budgets, profits, and awards nominations despite the obvious downgrade of quality 3) so many modern writers believe the general audience needs to be spoonfed ideas and that they can't handle complexity, so it's more important that they shape an existing story into something that is a palatable, profitable hero vs villain tale that everyone can casually enjoy (and ideally appeals to modern sensibilities) than they try to create a compelling, thought-provoking, interesting and faithful adaptation of the source material.

pov: you're waking up and it's june 1st

(happy pride month yall!)

First five ASOIAF portraits are done!

F!Aegon

Theon Greyjoy

Quentyn Martell

Sansa Stark

Shireen Baratheon

im taking media away from some of u guys until you can pass a 6th grade literary analysis test

WIP WEDNESDAY

Hey! Hope everyone’s doing alright in this Wednesday! And hopefully not killing each other…Anyway, here’s a snippet for an upcoming longfic of mine:

only one bed

morning after dialogue

"Please, don't make this awkward."

"Did you know that you snore quite a lot?"

"We don't have to talk about it."

"You stole my blanket and fought me for it."

"I need to use the bathroom, could you let me go please?"

"See? That was alright, wasn't it?"

"Never thought you would be a cuddler."

"You're seriously like an octopus."

"How did you sleep? I slept surprisingly well."

"I can't feel my arm anymore, you were laying on it all night."

"You are like a furnace, I felt like I needed to get my clothes off."

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk in your sleep?"

"I couldn't leave, you were lying basically on top of me."

"When did you decide that I was the pillow?"

"Can we delay getting up for a few minutes more, please?"

More: bed sharing scenarios + only one bed dialogue

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