Making Your Characters Stronger

Obito: “I always help the elderly!!!”

Obito: *helps the elderly take over the world*

How To Adult

For those of you who need the nudge, here are some resources that’ll hopefully help you. 

Organization

Things to include when setting up a new planner

How to organize your day

The best pens for planning

Login & password tracker printable

2015′s most popular planners

Questions to help you de-clutter

Brilliant organizing solutions

Career

How to look good in a group interview

An introvert’s guide to self-promotion at work

Career planning 101

36 career tips no one will actually tell you

Best resume tips

What to do if you don’t know the answer to the interview question

A guide to cover letters

Mental & Physical Health

How to become a morning person

Why you feel tired everyday

Water intake and your diet

Finding happiness when life gets hard

Books to read when you need a laugh

Books to read in your twenties

What your gyno really wants you to know

How to wake up happy

Become a morning person

Your guide to medical check-ups (extremely important!)

When you need to get checked by a doctor timeline

Relationships

Free weekend date ideas

9 conversations every serious couple should have

Date ideas for $10 and under

Summer couple’s bucket list

Fall couple’s bucket list

50 things to do besides watch a movie

Miscellaneous 

How to make small talk

Use the Internet when there is no Internet

Which glue should you use?

How to properly tip

Expiration dates of beauty products

How to increase cell phone storage

Clothing care / laundry symbols

A guide to dealing with hangovers

Do I need a photo ID to do this?

Documents you need before you die

100+ things to throw away

How to buy a car

Cooking / Food 

Using your hand to find portion control sizes

How to cut a recipe in half

Grocery shopping like an adult

Kitchen measurement cheat sheet

Meals on the go

The shelf life of food infographic

Helpful kitchen cheat sheet

What pasta goes with what sauce?

How to pair candy with alcohol

Foods that are hazardous to dogs

Home / Apartment

Apartment inspection checklist

Planning a move in advance

Make moving easier

How to keep a clean home

Cleaning schedule printable

Car cleaning hacks

Things to do before moving out of your home

Checklist for changing your address

How to take care of your car

First place checklist

Things you can clean in the dishwasher

Finding an affordable apartment

Rental walk-through checklist

What to handle first after moving

Finances

Making and living on a budget

How to start couponing

Making a budget binder

Credit score basics

Save money on utilities

Financial habits to start right now

Get help with medical bills

How to save money every week

When airline tickets are the cheapest

Couponing for beginners

Budgeting in your home

Create a calendar budget

Get your finances under control

As requested! A tutorial on faces will be coming soon as well.

I’m sorry, apparently I have no impulse control.

Credit: Lifeofastoryteller.com

Jimins eyeshadow game tho. 💅

How to Pack Luggage?

How do you write a fight scene without becoming repetitive? I feel like it just sounds like "she did this then this then this." Thanks so much!

I watch her as she fights. Her left leg flies through the air – a roundhouse – rolling into a spin. She misses, but I guess she’s supposed to. Her foot lands and launches her into a jump. Up she goes again, just as fast. The other leg pumps, high knee gaining altitude. The jumping leg tucks. Her body rolls midair, momentum carrying her sideways. She kicks. A tornado kick, they call it. The top of her foot slams into Rodrigo’s head, burying in his temple. Didn’t move back far enough, I guess.

His head, it snaps sideways like a ball knocked off a tee. Skull off the spine. His eyes roll back, and he slumps. Whole body limp. Legs just give out beneath him. He clatters to the sidewalk; wrist rolling off the curb.

She lands, making the full turn and spins back around. Her eyes are on his body. One foot on his chest. I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t know if she cares. Nah, she’s looking over her shoulder. Looking at me.

The truth twists my gut. I should’ve started running a long time ago.

The first key to writing a good fight scene is to tell a story. The second key is having a grasp of combat rules and technique. The third is to describe what happens when someone gets hit. The fourth is to remember physics. Then, roll it all together. And remember: be entertaining.

If you find yourself in the “and then” trap, it’s because you don’t have a firm grasp of what exactly it is your writing. “He punched” then “She blocked” then “a kick” only gets you so far.

You’ve got to get a sense for shape and feeling, and a sense of motion. Take a page from the comic artist’s playbook and make a static image feel like it’s moving. Try to remember that violence is active. Unless your character is working with a very specific sort of soft style, they’re attacks are going to come with force. So, you’ve got to make your sentences feel like your hitting something or someone.

“Ahhh!” Mary yelled, and slammed her fist into the pine’s trunk. A sickening crack followed, then a whimper not long after.

Angie winced. “Feel better?”

Shaking out her hand, Mary bit her lip. Blood dripped from her knuckles, uninjured fingers gripping her wrist. She sniffed, loudly. “I…” she paused, “…no.”

“You break your hand?”

“I think so. Yeah.”

“Good,” Angie said. “Think twice next time before challenging a tree.”

Let your characters own their mistakes. If they hit something stupid in anger, like a wall or a tree then let them have consequences.Injury is part of combat. In the same way, “I should be running now” is. When the small consequences of physical activity invade the page, they bring reality with them.

People don’t just slug back and forth unless they don’t know how to fight, or their only exposure to combat is mostly movies or bloodsport like boxing. Either way, when one character hits another there are consequences. It doesn’t matter if they blocked it or even deflected it, some part of the force is going to be transitioned into them and some rebounds back at the person who attacked.

Your character is going to get hurt, and it’ll be painful. Whether that’s just a couple of bruises, a broken bone, or their life depends on how the fight goes.

However, this is fantasy. It is all happening inside our heads. Our characters are never in danger unless we say they are. They’ll never be hurt unless we allow it. A thousand ghost punches can be thrown and mean absolutely, utterly nothing at all to the state of the character. This is why it is all important to internalize the risks involved.

The writer is in charge of bringing a dose of reality into their fictional world. It is much easier to sell an idea which on some level mimics human behavior and human reactions. The ghost feels physical because we’ve seen it happen on television or relate to it happening to us when we get injured.

You’ve got five senses, use them. You know what it feels like to get injured. To be bruised. To fall down. To be out of breath. Use that.

Here’s something to take with you: when we fight, every technique brings us closer together. Unless it specifically knocks someone back. You need specific distances to be able to use certain techniques. There’s the kicking zone, the punching zone, and the grappling zone. It’s the order of operation, the inevitable fight progression. Eventually, two combatants will transition through all three zones and end up on the ground.

So, keep the zones in mind. If you go, “she punched, and then threw a roundhouse kick” that’s wrong unless you explain more. Why? Because if the character is close enough to throw a punch, then they’re too close to throw most kicks. The roundhouse will just slap a knee or a thigh against the other character’s ribs, and probably get caught. If you go, “she punched, rammed an uppercut into his stomach, and seized him by the back of the head”, then that’s right. You feel the fighters getting progressively closer together, which is how its supposed to work.

Use action verbs, and change them up. Rolled, rotated, spun, punched, kicked, slammed, rammed, jammed, whipped, cracked, etc.

You’ve got to sell it. You need to remember a human’s bodily limits, and place artificial ones. You need to keep track of injuries, every injury comes with a cost. Make sure they aren’t just trading blows forever.

I’ve seen advice that says fights all by themselves aren’t interesting. I challenge that assertion. If you’re good at writing action, then the sequence itself is compelling. You know when you are because it feels real. Your reader will tune out if it isn’t connecting, and the fight scene is a make or break for selling your fantasy. It is difficult to write or create engaging, well choreographed violence that a reader can easily follow and imagine happening.

-Michi

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What if tho.....

Dumbledore: This is the mirror of Erised

Harry: *looks in it*

Phantom: I AM YOUR ANGEL OF- Oops wrong mirror

Harry:

Dumbledore:

Phantom: Sorry