Wow, Interesting Idea!

Writing blessing

May your creativity never get lost and the words flow easy May your health be stable and give you no troubles  May your troubles be small and the joy big May the fire of creativity burn in you strongly the waters of speech make you eloquent the earth of the now keep you grounded so you can have your heads up in the air of dreams. May happiness and joy be with you and pain only be small when it finds you May you be a beacon of hopeful and inspiring light in these dark times May you find peace and freedom in what you do and people who support you the way you are. May you be loved and feel how valuable you are  

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writing characters with dyslexia

by me !! a dyslexic

hopefully this might be a useful little guide so you can avoid the misconceptions and any stereotypes - I saw someone do this with adhd and I thought a dyslexia one might be interesting

reading

this differs from person to person but for me I have to read over things four or five times before they actually go into my head, sometimes this gives people headaches or makes them nauseous. letters often “jump” or sentences merge into one long word; people often have trouble with light sensitivity and pages can seem too bright

writing

some people have vary varied handwriting and can go from neat to messy to big to small within minutes, spelling is often phonetic but PLEase doNt Talk AbOUt thIS For AgEs it’s only a very small part of being dyslexic

speaking

dyslexic people often speak faster than their brains create sentences so can trip over words or stutter or mix up words (par kark instead of car park), this can be embarrassing so could make for a good scene ?! people also get a lot of tip of the tongue experiences where they can’t find the right word (I once couldnt remember the word ‘embarrassed’ and I called it ‘when you go red and nervous’) so that makes for more interesting speech patterns in your characters

memory

oh my lord this is so overlooked but lots of dyslexic people have really bad short term memories - things like listening to instructions and forgetting them immediately, or forgetting that they were saying mid sentence

sense of direction

not so common but people often lose their sense of direction and can struggle telling left from right - I don’t know too much about this one though so I’m not going to go into it too deeply !!

hearing

filtering out background noise can be super difficult so people can seem like they have poor hearing but really everything can just seem very loud - this can be distracting and frustrating too and it bugs my friends so much because I make them repeat everything whoops

I’m sure there’s more things but this is just a short list, I’ll add anything if I think of it - feel free to add anything yourselves !!

Symbolism! Yeah! 

Disclaimer: Again, my advice is always just that: advice. It’s often to teach beginners or help those struggling, so these aren’t set in stone rules! Experiment! Write freely! Write on!

WHAT THEY CALL GOD.

Cain sighs heavily, the cigarette held loosely between his fingers as he rests his forehead against my bare chest. “God, Dima,” he murmurs, his voice thick with self-loathing. “I fucking hate myself.” 

“Good,” I mumble, fumbling with the bottle of vodka. The bed is soft under me as I lift it up to my lips and take a long draught. My other arm goes around his shoulders and presses him to me. “You should. You’re a fucking asshole, Cain. You’re unlovable. No one loves you, and no one ever will. You’re lucky that I let you love me.” 

“I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me,” Cain quotes, almost dreamily, as he presses a kiss to my chest.

“Christ, I fucking hate you.”

taglist: @just-george-here​ @whorizcn​ @semblanche​ @emdrabbles​ @aepreall​ @sol-writes​ @agnodice-writes​ @farrradays​ @nallthatjazz​ @birdquils​ @latrantem​ @sunlight-and-starskies​ @vandorens​ @asherscribbles​ @romanticsrn​

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THE POST-APOCALYPTIC WESTERN SCIFI THING!!!!!

shes here!!! shes arrived!!!!!! and im so excited, thank u all for taking the poll, its definitely helped a lot from figuring out what the bad guys are doing to even naming everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!! hopefully this all makes sense skjdnflsdf;sd

shes struggling with a title rn so i might have a poll up for helping with that too………this is just The Poll Wip

tagging some friends + writeblrs who may? be interested? maybe??? lmk if u would like to be added or taken off <3

@emdrabbles @whorizcn @alicekaiba @vandorens @evergrcen​

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"I am sharp edges and shattered glass. Yet, when I'm with you, I am soft."

– write-away-from-here

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2 Tips for Adding Emotional Weight to Your Story

As writers, we want our work to hold weight — for our characters’ actions, emotions, and desires to resonate with and impact our readers. But how do we make that happen?

The most helpful advice, in my experience, has been to:

Make the internal become external, and

Make the external become internal.

Let’s talk about what that means and how these tips can help you add emotional weight to your story.

1. Make the internal become external

To “make the internal become external” is to take the interior aspects of your character (their fears, desires, pains, and epiphanies) and find ways to express them with external actions. For example:

If Marcos realizes his girlfriend doesn’t truly love him, don’t just make him mope; have him throw the engagement ring he purchased into the river.

If Amelia feels overworked and stressed at her new job, don’t just show her exhausted in bed; show her bailing on plans with the people she cares about or giving up her favorite pastimes.

If Kara is afraid to get onstage and perform as Lady Macbeth, don’t just have her wait in fear; make her run out on the show on opening night.

By expressing your character’s emotions and realizations through clear external actions, you add weight to what they’re going through.

2. Make the external become internal

The goal here is similar, but reversed. Where before you were taking an internal emotion and accentuating it with action, now you’re taking the external elements of your story (plot, character actions, external conflicts, etc.) and making them have internal ramifications for your characters. For example:

If Thomas gets slapped by his older sister during a disagreement, don’t just move on like it never happened; make it change the dynamic of their relationship for the rest of the story.

If Davy’s new boyfriend excessively dotes upon him, don’t just have him awkwardly brush him off; make Davy tentative and uncertain because he’s never been in a healthy relationship before.

If Anna loses the championship match of a tennis tournament, don’t just have her grudgingly accept defeat; make her feel crushed because of her impossibly high expectations for herself.

By taking external actions or events and tying them to your character’s deepfelt emotions and, when possible, their core struggle, you add weight to what happens in your story. Everything starts to matter, and that makes for captivating storytelling.

A Final Word

I want to clarify that I’m not telling you to make your characters act and react in ways that don’t make sense for them. Always stay true to your characters. 

But I do encourage you to always look for opportunities to merge the internal and external aspects of your story — because that’s the key to telling stories with true emotional weight.

Good luck, and good writing, everybody. :)

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Everyone has stories worth telling, including you. For helpful writing tips and advice, check out the rest of my blog.

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I already love him

Character Intro: Zach “Zamsel” Amsel

Neutral Good // INFP // Ravenclaw // Aquarius // Bi // Jewish-American // Playlist // Pinterest

If there’s a character who I would award with the “Most Relatable” award, it’s Zamsel. He’s been through a lot. A hopeful romantic with a competitive streak and a massive fear of failure, Zamsel puts a lot of pressure on himself. 

Backstory

Zamsel’s grown up being mostly raised by his mother, as his father has spent a lot of Zamsel’s childhood in the Air Force. Mama Amsel is a sweet, understated woman who passed a lot of her softness onto Zamsel. 

Halfway through high school, Zamsel began dating his long-term girlfriend, Chai Watson. Though their relationship was initially happy, it’s deteriorated into something really toxic and draining. Nevertheless, he graduated as co-valedictorian with Kam Suzuki.

Present

Zamsel’s entering his first year of college with Kam. They’re both sort of adjusting to the freedom that comes with living several states from their families, but Zamsel is adjusting to it far better than Kam is. He’s a fan of his new life.

Playlist

Zamsel’s playlist is huge. It’s full of jams from New Medicine and The Front Bottoms, which I use to more or less build up his aesthetic and general mood.

Twin Size Mattress - The Front Bottoms

Heart With Your Name On It - New Medicine

Boy Like Me - New Medicine

Bad At Love - Halsey

Flannel - The Cardboard Swords

Called You Twice (feat. K.Flay) - FIDLAR, K.Flay

Peaches (Text Voter XX to 40649) - grandson, K.Flay

Self Esteem - The Offspring

Excerpt

Zach closes his eyes. His face is wet from crying, raw from rubbing at it, red all over. Even then, even after what’s happened, he still looks almost beautiful. There’s something about the lighting in an art museum that makes everything look like art, even raw emotion. It rounds out the patheticness of breaking down in public into something artful. Zach doesn’t look anything like a model, but he does look like art.

Aesthetic

Lying on the ground when you’re overwhelmed with emotions, mumbling the lyrics to your favorite songs under your breath to the radio, duct taping all your things together because you don’t want to buy something new, buying new sweaters from Goodwill, when a cat lays on your chest,  wearing sweaters that are too big so you can ball your hands in the fabric, people with small voices, leaning your head on someone’s shoulder while you’re talking, the feeling of slowly falling in love.

Taglist

@aelenko​, @keen2meecha​, @magic-is-something-we-create​, @emdrabbles​, & @yourwriters​

(You can always ask to be added to or subtracted from the taglist!)

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How I make book covers + tips for you!

Hey people of Earth!

Around this time last year, I mentioned I would have a video up on how I make book covers/cover making tips, and to summarize: I did not do the thing, and this year old script is still sitting in my drafts.

SO, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and post a written version of these tips! Going to get straight into this because I imagine this will be rather long!

This post will be divided into 6 parts: finding inspiration, concept art, incorporating elements of design, composition, tools and software, and resources. Feel free to skip around to whatever section interests you most!

***Before we get started, really quick disclaimer. I am in no way a professional cover designer. Cover design is merely something I picked up on my own, and I don’t have any formal education/credentials in graphic design. So of course take my advice with that in mind. These are also just my personal thoughts and opinions. So take everything with a grain of salt!

1. Finding Inspiration

What’s the deal?

A really great way to start out in design

Finding cover designs or designers you admire may help you see what works technically

Helps nail down a style you like

In turn, can help you find your cover design style

What should you do?

Look at covers in your genre!

Whenever I design a cover, I take a scroll through Goodreads to pick up some inspiration in designs I personally love

I also love walking around my bookstore and taking a look at physical copies

Find a cover design you like, and point out the specific reasons you like it

Example:

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was actually not an inspo cover for this edition of I’M DISAPPOINTED, but as you can see, things I liked from it spilled over into my own design. By pointing out aspects of graphic design you like, you’ll better be able to understand your style as a cover artist. 

Some personal thoughts:

I like covers that include a textured backgrounds, as seen in the collage below: 

So for the I’M DISAPPOINTED cover above, I included a textured background. I also love handwritten fonts/lettering, which I include in almost all of my book covers.

What I did:

Off-white colour from A List of Cages and Holding Up The Universe

Silhouette from Painless and previous cover design of I’m Disappointed

Speech bubble from Simon VS the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Say What You Will

Marker texture from A List of Cages

Obviously my thought process wasn’t to put 4 covers in a blender and thus create my product, ha, this is just an example for the ease of understanding!  

2. Concept art

What’s the deal?

Coming up with concept art is a super important part of designing a successful book cover. 

Acts as the skeleton of your book cover

Your book cover’s roadmap

Saves time/effort

Similar to an outline for a novel. 

Can be a very quick sketch, or full fledged design

I like keeping my concept art quick, but if this is your first cover, making a more detailed mockup can help. 

What should you do?

Sketch out book cover ideas once you get them/take notes of concepts you’d like to explore

If you can’t come up with concepts, take a look at your inspiration folder and pull concepts/ideas from covers you love

This does not mean copying another book cover (this is notttt a good idea!). BUT, pulling inspiration from elements you like on a cover can be helpful in generating your own concepts

You don’t have to come up with concept art (sometimes winging it works!) but I do recommend jotting notes down, and drawing out loose sketches when applicable!

Keep a list of ideas for book covers as you accumulate them (almost like a little vault of concepts lol) and reference them in the future!

Take a look at as many book covers as you can and make a list of elements you like and don’t like

This is one of the easiest ways to accumulate ideas/concepts!

Example:

^^^ Concept art for two book covers 

Likes and dislikes in book covers:

Of course this list is not my be all and end all (nor should it be), and obviously, I still use these things (besides clunky composition I hope!) in some designs!

3. Incorporating the elements of design

What’s the deal?

There are 7 elements of design: line, shape, texture, form, space, value, and colour. 

These sometimes vary depending on where you look, but this is what I was taught, so I’m going to be working off that!

Examples:

I’m going to go through them really quickly via an assignment I did for my comm tech class

Keep in mind this assignment is 2 years old and is only meant to give you an idea of what these elements are 

1. Line

Line is probably the most important element of design as every piece of art starts with one. 

There are various types of lines. You can have curved lines, straight lines, vertical lines, horizontal lines and so on.

2. Shape 

You can have more mathematical, geometric shapes, or more abstract, free form shapes. 

3. Texture

Texture is the feel of a particular surface. 

Texture in my opinion is one of the most important elements when it comes to graphic design, especially book covers. 

My favourite thing to see in book covers is texture, whether that be paper textures like construction paper, crumpled paper, wallpaper, lace, wall textures, paint textures, or marker textures

Texture adds depth to designs, and if there’s any element of design you focus on in this post, I’d highly recommend it be this one. 

(i’m biased but still)

4. Form

Form is almost like shape, except instead of flat objects, we’re dealing with 3-dimensional objects. 

I don’t often use it in my covers since I like drawings and flat shapes in my designs, but if you want to include objects on your cover, or any sort of 3D shape, this would be form. 

5. Space

The distance around an object, to put it simply

Space in covers can help emphasize what’s important, and what is less important, or can draw attention to a particular piece of your design. 

Examples of space:

Colour coding: yellow = space, teal = focal point/movement of viewer’s eye

In Twilight, the black space helps emphasize the main image, the hands holding the apple. 

This also occurs in the Red Queen book covers. The empty space around the crown draws attention immediately to the focal point

You can also lack space. In The Duff, the girl’s face is the only thing you can see on the cover. 

6. Value 

Is determined by how much light or dark is incorporated into design. 

Example of value:

A great example of value in book covers is on Alexandra Bracken’s Passenger. As you can see, the green at the top fades down in a gradient as more white is added to the centre. 

7. Colour

Light reflecting off objects

Can make certain elements of your design stand out

Why should you incorporate the elements of design into your designs?

Adds layers of depth to your work

Thus can take your cover-making skills to another level

Can help in producing ideas

4. Composition:

What’s the deal?

In my opinion, can make or break a design

Can mean clutter of things, OR too much or too little space between elements

Title placement  

Composition is sometimes subjective from design to design

What you can do:

Pay close attention to detail and spacing

Look out for natural shapes in your design you can fit elements into

Watch the linked video from Mango Street (one of my favourite photography channels) on composition

While photography and design are two different things, the tips in this video can also be applied to various ideas in design such as headroom and leading lines

Examples:

*Before I get into this, I want to make it clear that these examples are exaggerations for the purpose of showing you good and bad composition. If you make these mistakes, that doesn’t mean your design is bad, and again, I’m no professional. This comes from what I believe could be considered bad composition, but trust your gut. 

Example 1: Stick People

doesn’t effectively use space

no headroom for text

text is covering 200 element (looks very clunky)

text is cut off

No focal point

Can’t read the title

Textual elements are better spread out

Title is now focal point

Slightly imbalanced

200 element is distracting 

Addition of stick figures balances out cover  

Text follows natural shape of photograph

Removed 200 element makes cover look less clunky

Example 2: Sixteen Cents

Half the title is on a dark background

Lacks readability

Last name is cut off by window

Uninteresting composition (everything is on one line)

No movement

Title placement is better

Better readability

‘A novel’ fits under windowsill

Last name is smaller to avoid cutting it off

Still slightly boring

Uses free space of wall wisely

Title is easy to read

Text is shaped around photo elements

Gives the cover some movement

Example 3: Fostered

Title is covering the focal point (the girl)

Title doesn’t seem to be incorporated into the design

By moving title down, we’ve made space for the subject

Title placement makes cover look less clunky

Same composition as prior but image is colour-graded

Embossed title adds texture/depth

I’ve mentioned this a few times in this post: focal point. What is it?

FOCAL POINT:

Is defined as the main attraction of your book cover

This is where you want your readers’ eyes to focus

Focal points can sometimes define themselves in areas where more contrast happens to be

Doesn’t have to be the centre of the page. 

Keep focal point in mind for composition because if you put it in the wrong spot, you could end up drawing your readers’ attention to the wrong area of the cover. 

The point of most interest in a cover is the focal point, so if you want a particular subject of your book cover, such as a person, to stand out make sure you don’t make the other areas of the cover too high contrast or busy.

Framing subjects also helps, so be creative!  

The human eye tends to focus on areas with increased contrast so keep this in mind

Examples:

The Host

The camera has focused on the eye of the model, with the nose bridge and forehead shadowing each corner of the cover

Helps lead eye to focal point (the eye)

The Girls

Blue around the edges encircles the focal point (the girl), leading the viewer’s eye directly to her

Girl is also scarlet in colour, contrasting the background

The Hunger Games

Grey outlines on the cover lead straight to the mockingjay

Mockingjay is bright gold in comparison to the black background

Creates contrast, thus viewer’s eye is lead there

The Female of the Species

‘Straight’ composition

No particular focal point, viewer’s eye instead moves horizontally across the design

What should you do?

Use the natural shapes and outlines in your design/photo to fill your cover

Use your space wisely (see examples above)

Use leading lines to draw attention to your focal point

Manipulate text to fill empty spaces

5. Tools and software 

You do not need Photoshop to make a good book cover

I made my first book covers in GIMP, a free image manipulation program (kinda like Photoshop’s little brother)

This is the stick people cover I made in photoshop, and the same cover made in GIMP. 

Other tools you may want to use are CreateSpace’s cover templates. 

You can find these through CreateSpace OR Bookow (my personal fave)

OPTIONAL (what I use):

Graphics tablet

I use the Huion H610 which I really enjoy! 

I use this to hand letter, draw silhouettes, create concept art, and so on

Paper and my Faber Castell India Ink Artist Pens. 

These are fine tip markers, and are what I used to create the text on I’m Disappointed 

Thin sharpies and pens will also do the job, and you can always clean any mistakes up in photoshop or gimp.

A scanner so I can transfer what I’ve hand drawn onto my computer

If you don’t have a scanner you can take a clear photograph on a camera or phone 

I also use a few custom marker brushes that now come with the 2018 version of Photoshop

The main one I use is Kyle’s AM - Watercolour Paper from the art markers set (you have to load these into Photoshop, but if you have PS 2018, you should have access to ‘em). 

(I’ve lettered everything in this post with that brush)

6. Resources

Here’s a list of amazing resources you might need when making your own book covers!

1. Stock image websites

Check out THIS post for a master list of my favourite stock photo websites!

Stocksnap.io

Unsplash.com

Pixabay.com 

2. Dafont

Is my main source for finding fonts

3. Goodreads

A huge resource I use to find cover inspiration

I’ll often browse the new releases section to look at new covers and so on

Easy way to narrow down the genre of cover you’re looking for, as well as the age category

4. Keyboard shortcuts 

Check out a masterlist for Photoshop HERE

GIMP masterlist HERE

Makes workflow super efficient

My fave I highly recommend in Photoshop is ctrl > shift > alt > e (merge all layers into new layer) 

I’ve made TWO custom shortcuts: ctrl > shift > o is now open as layer, and ctrl > shift > alt > r is now rasterize layer (these save so much time!)

So to conclude this post, I’m going to list out some of my favourite tips when it comes to cover making (sort of a reiteration of this post)

Add texture!

Texture is a super easy way to add dimension to your book cover

Try lettering with a paper and marker when starting out

I find this a lot easier than digital lettering!

Google is your friendddd

If you can’t figure out how to do something in Photoshop or GIMP, the internet is a vast depository of information!

Pay attention to detail

Cover design is alllll about the small details. Making sure you’ve centred something properly can seriously help in making your cover go from amateur to whoaaa who made thatttt

Get a second opinion

Been looking at your screen for 8 hours straight? Ask someone you know what they think of your design! I find this has sparked a lot of secondhand ideas!

If it doesn’t work out, doesn’t mean it was a fail

If a particular concept just doesn’t work, don’t worry! As you practice you’ll get better, and you can always revisit the concept for another novel!

EDIT: a really great suggestion from @sarahkelsiwrites: print out your design if you need a fresh perspective! You’d be surprised by what you notice on screen VS off!

So that’s it for this post! I hope this was helpful for some of you guys, I know it was looooong overdue. If it helped you out, let me know, and if you have any questions, feel free to send ‘em my way! :))

–Rachel

[ DEADSHOT - A WIP. ] 

excerpt: sal was almost named boobiedick 

taglist: @vviciously @nepeinthe @semblanche @sword-of-stars @milkyway-writes @ccwritesstuff @universallypaperdreamtoad @alternativeforensicscientist @sarmarble @kaylewiswrites @henrybranwell @ivonoris @serphics @of-pens-and-quills @emdrabbles @whorizcn @vandorens @adrestaie @valentinewrote @words-in-the-works @enndorphin @just-george-here @liarede @writers-lovers​ @dreameronthewind​

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