DROMOMANIA
[noun]
also known as travelling fugue: an uncontrollable psychological urge to wander. People with this condition spontaneously depart from their routine, travel long distances and take up different identities and occupations. Months may pass before they return to their former identities. The term comes from the Greek: dromos (running) and mania (insanity).
[RHADS]
10 Top Tips For Moving A Plot Forward
1. Complete a detailed biography of your protagonist and antagonist.
2. List the changes you’re going to inflict on these two characters.
3. Start your book when something meaningful happens. This is called the inciting moment. It should be shocking, exciting, and interesting.
4. Never start with back story.
5. Create conflict from page one. Your characters need problems and reasons to solve them.
6. Show motivation. Great characters want to achieve their goals more than anything and will pursue them at any cost. What are your characters most afraid of losing? Make them fight for it. Desperately. Irrationally.
7. Tell a story in scenes. Scenes hold a story together. The number of scenes depends on your chosen genre, and your novel’s length.
8. You should have one plot, and one subplot.
9. Fiction needs a Dark Night of the Soul. Move your story to the moment when things look impossibly bleak for your protagonist. This is usually a few pages before the end of your book.
10. Create an outline. It doesn’t have to be detailed but everything in life works better when you have a plan.
from Writers Write by Amanda Patterson.
(via arcanewriter)
5 hours ago - 
287
287 Hohenzollern castle in Germany is the ancestral seat of the Hohenzollern family, which emerged in the Middle Ages and eventually became Prussian emperors.
The castle is located on top of Berg (Mount) Hohenzollern at an elevation of 855 meters and was first constructed in the first part of the 11th century.
Among the historical artifacts of Prussian history contained in the castle today are the crown of Wilhelm II and some of the personal effects of Frederick the Great and a letter from US President George Washington thanking Baron von Steuben, a scion of the House of Hohenzollern, for his service in the American Revolutionary War. The castle is today a popular tourist destination.
(via lupadracolis)
Betterstorytelling: Story length
- Mark O’Bannon
http://www.betterstorytelling.net/thebasics/storylength.htmlLength
You’ve struggled with your story for weeks, created great characters, designed an intruguing plot and you’ve spent hours and hours working on a fantastic story.You send it off to an agent and promptly get a rejection letter. What happened?
One of the main reasons that stories are rejected by literary agents is because the story is too long. Beginning writers usually create a story that’s just too long for a novel. But rejection letters rarely explain the reason the agent isn’t interested in representing your work. Writers usually forget to think about how long the story needs to be. After all, agents won’t bother trying to sell something that the publishers won’t buy. Most of the time, the manuscript is too long.
How do you know if your story is too long?
Novel length isn’t usually thought about by new writers. With so many things to keep track of, its just another detail to forget when you’re caught up in creating something.Looking at published stories can be deceptive.The reason for this is because most novels are from established authors with more than one published book.
Here are the word counts of some typical novels:
Harry Potter
The Philosopher’s Stone -76,944
The Chamber of Secrets - 85,141
The Prisoner of Azkaban - 107,253
The Goblet of Fire - 190,637
The Order of the Phoenix - 257,045
The Half-Blood Prince - 168,923
The Deathly Hallows - Approximately 198,227LOTR
The Hobbit:95,022
Fellowship of the Ring: 177,227
Two Towers: 143,436
Return of the King: 134,462Twilight Series
TWILIGHT-118,501
NEW MOON - 132,807
ECLIPSE - 147,930
BREAKING DAWN - 192,196Notice that the first books from these authors were shorter.
The Fellowship of The Ring, while longer, was not Tolkien’s first book.HARRY POTTER was 76,944 words.
THE HOBBIT was 95,022 words.
TWILIGHT was 118,501 words.For comparison, the one book which is famous for being too long to read isWAR AND PEACE - 561,304words long!
How long is your novel?Calculating Word Count
There are two ways to calculate word count:MSWordor iWork Pages
The program you use when writing will keep track of the word count. This may seem the best way to keep track of how long your story is, but publishers use a different formula.Page Count x 250
Publishers calculate word count by mulitiplying the page count by 250. One reason this method is used is because when an editor recieves a manuscript, it isn’t an electronic file. It’s a stack of paper.When sending a query to an agent, you will not send the entire book. You will usually just send the first five or ten pages, along with a one or two page query. When putting the word count in the query, you can use either formula. Publishers prefer the second method, while agents tend to like the first method.
How long should your novel be?
It all depends on what kind of story you’re telling.
Here is a general guide to story length, expressed in the word count:
- Short-short storiesare under2,500words.
- Short storiescan range from2,500to7,500words.
- Novellettesare from7,500to20,000words.
- Novellasare from20,000to50,000words.
- Novelsare from70,000to90,000words.
The Genrewill affect the length of the story, too.
- Young Adultnovels tend to be shorter than novels and can be50,000 to 80,000words long.
- Science FictionandFantasynovels tend to be longer and can beup to 125,000words long.
Screenplaysare different. Since all screenplays use Courier font, the length is expressed in terms of pages:
- Screenplaysare 110 to 120 pages long.
You may have read longer books, but it is quite rare for a publisher to accept a longer manuscript. When you find books with word counts higher than these numbers, it’s typically from an established author.
Keep Your Novel Short - Under 90,000 Words
If you’re a first time, unpublished author, then you need to keep the word count down. The higher the word count, the less likely it will sell. Longer novels exist, but these are usually from established writers.If you have trouble keeping your word count down, take a look at removing unnecessary exposition. Some editors have even recommended cutting the first three chapters out of a novel, since new writers tend to put in too much exposition.
What Font To Use For Your Novel
Don’t cheat. Using a tiny font won’t work. With screenplays, if you use anything other than Courier 12 point you’re likely to get an instant rejection. With novels, a good font to use is Times New Roman 12 point.So when writing your first novel, keep the word count under:
70,000 to 90,000 words
or 120,000 words for a SF/F novel
![victoriousvocabulary:
EUPHORIA
[noun]
from Ancient Greek εὐφορία, from εὖ eu, “well”, and φέρω pherō, “to bear” (semantically opposite of dysphoria) – medically recognised as a mental and emotional condition in which a person experiences intense feelings of well-being, elation, happiness, excitement, and joy; a state of intense happiness and self-confidence – sometimes exaggerated in pathological states as mania. Technically, euphoria is an affect, but the term is often colloquially used to define emotion as an intense state of transcendent happiness combined with an overwhelming sense of contentment. It has also been defined as an “affective state of exaggerated well-being or elation.” The word derives from Greek εὐφορία, “power of enduring easily, fertility”.
Euphoria is generally considered to be an exaggerated physical and psychological state, sometimes induced by the use of psychoactive drugs and not typically achieved during the normal course of human experience. However, some natural behaviours, such as activities resulting in orgasm, love, or the triumph of an athlete, can induce brief states of euphoria.
Euphoria has also been cited during certain religious or spiritual rituals and meditation. It can also be the result of a psychological disorder. Such disorders include bipolar disorder, cyclothymia and hyperthyroidism and can also result from a head injury. Euphoria may also occur with diseases affecting the nervous system, such as syphilis and multiple sclerosis.
[Cyril Rolando]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/265f9d9194887d6583eda4128c752afc/tumblr_mk5w8gcFWK1r47bczo1_250.jpg)
EUPHORIA
[noun]
from Ancient Greek εὐφορία, from εὖ eu, “well”, and φέρω pherō, “to bear” (semantically opposite of dysphoria) – medically recognised as a mental and emotional condition in which a person experiences intense feelings of well-being, elation, happiness, excitement, and joy; a state of intense happiness and self-confidence – sometimes exaggerated in pathological states as mania. Technically, euphoria is an affect, but the term is often colloquially used to define emotion as an intense state of transcendent happiness combined with an overwhelming sense of contentment. It has also been defined as an “affective state of exaggerated well-being or elation.” The word derives from Greek εὐφορία, “power of enduring easily, fertility”.
Euphoria is generally considered to be an exaggerated physical and psychological state, sometimes induced by the use of psychoactive drugs and not typically achieved during the normal course of human experience. However, some natural behaviours, such as activities resulting in orgasm, love, or the triumph of an athlete, can induce brief states of euphoria.
Euphoria has also been cited during certain religious or spiritual rituals and meditation. It can also be the result of a psychological disorder. Such disorders include bipolar disorder, cyclothymia and hyperthyroidism and can also result from a head injury. Euphoria may also occur with diseases affecting the nervous system, such as syphilis and multiple sclerosis.
Handy.
↑ ¡ ™
If i were you, i would like or reblog this post, because it just changed your life.
♠♣♥♦♫↑☼♂
♥
If you have a mac, hit the option key and start messing around on the letters and numbers. Hitting option and shift and a letter or number gives a different result too.
© ☻ ☼ OHMYGOSHNESS THIS IS COOL
(via spastacus)
The Chained Library of Zutphen
I took these pictures during a visit to the 16th-century chained library of Zutphen, in the east of the Netherlands. It is one of three such libraries still in existence in Europe. Nothing much has changed here for 550 years.
More info: http://www.librije-zutphen.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=14&Itemid=111
(via writingweasels)
How to Write a Fight Scene (Rebloggable Version)
Admin Note: This post is a rebloggable copy of our page on fight scenes. The page is being phased out, so from now on all updates will be made on this post and not on the page.
Among the typically difficult scenes writers face in their stories, the fight scene definitely ranks high on the list. Below you will find several resources with tips for writing a good fight scene.
- Action with a Side of Zombies: One of our articles focused specifically on writing action scenes. Bonus: the examples all include zombies.
- ArchetypesAndAllusions: An article on the three main types of fighters and their various approaches to kickin’ ass (or not).
- TheCreativePenn.com: Alan Baxter, speculative fiction author, gives some great advice on characterization, setting, martial style, and cliches.
- StoryHack.com: A PDF that takes you through writing a fight scene step by step by Randy Ingermanson, compiled by Bryce Beattie.
- MarilynnByerly.com: An extremely good guide to writing fight scenes. This guide includes tips on character viewpoint, mapping the fight, and tricks for writing each type of fight.
- Shelfari.com: This site is an interview with famed fantasy author R.A. Salvatore on how to write great fight scenes.
- TheBusinessOfWriting: C. Patrick Schulze gives some good, solid advice on identifying and writing your fight scene.
- EzineArticles.com: Marq McAlister explains how to make a fight scene pack some serious punch. This article is good for fine-tuning.
- Martin Turner: Focusing specifically on sword-fighting scenes, Martin Turner writes in great detail on every conceivable detail of this type of time-honored fight scene.
- SeriousPixie.com: Susan tells you about the three types of fight scene writers and explains how to fix the problems that arise for each type.
- David Alan Lucus: This multi-part guide gives advice in exhaustive detail on how to write an awesome fight scene.
- NightFoot: This Tumblr post offers some great tips for writing fight scenes.
These links provide advice specifically for writing battle scenes:
- Gerri Blanc: eHow’s article on battle scenes is a basic step-by-step list for you. It’s a good introduction to writing battle scenes.
- StormTheCastle.com: This article takes you through an in-depth guide on how to write battle scenes for fantasy stories.
- Rhonda Leigh Jones: Jones lists some dos and don’ts of writing battle scenes.
Other resources:
- List of Martial Arts: Looking for a fighting style? Find it here!
- List of Weapons: Every type of weapon you can think of is listed here.
- List of Military Tactics: From troop movements to siege warfare, this list has got you covered.
- Asylum.com: A few examples of awesome battle tactics from history.
- BadassOfTheWeek.com: Get some inspiration for awesome fight scenes and fighting characters from this compendium of badassitude.
- Thearmedgentleman: Austin has offered to share his knowledge on weaponry with any writers who have questions. Thanks, Austin!
We hope this helps! If you have another link or a tip for how to write fight/battle scenes, hit up our ask box and let us know!
(via keyboardsmashwriters)
