Writing Blog Recs

Say Something that is both True and Beautiful.

Game-Changing Sites for Writers

A recent search for a specific type of site to help me build new characters led me down a rabbit hole. Normally, that would make me much less productive, but I have found a treasure trove of websites for writers.

Bring Characters/Places to Life

There are a few different places you can use to create a picture of something entirely new. I love this site for making character pictures as references, instead of stock photos or whatever pops up on Google Images.

thispersondoesnotexist: every time you reload the page, this site generates a headshot of someone who doesn't exist. This is great if you're thinking about a character's personality or age and don't have specifics for their facial features yet.

Night Cafe: this is an AI art generator that takes your text prompt and generates an image for it. I tried it for various scenery, like "forest" or "cottage." It takes a minute for your requested photo to load, but no more than maybe five for the program to finish the picture.

Art Breeder: this website has endless images of people, places, and general things. Users can blend photos to create something new and curious visitors can browse/download those images without creating an account. (But if you do want to make an account to create your own, it's free!)

Find Random Places on Earth

You might prefer to set a story in a real-life environment so you can reference that place's weather, seasons, small-town vibe, or whatever you like. If that's the case, try:

MapCrunch: the homepage generates a new location each day and gives the location/GPS info in the top left of the screen. To see more images from previous days, hit "Gallery" in the top left.

Atlas Obscura: hover over or tap the "Places" tab, then hit "Random Place." A new page will load with a randomly generated location on the planet, provide a Google Maps link, and tell you a little bit about the place.

Random World Cities: this site makes randomly selected lists of global cities. Six appear for each search, although you'll have to look them up to find more information about each place. You can also use the site to have it select countries, US cities or US states too.

Vary Your Wording

Thesauruses are great, but these websites have some pretty cool perspectives on finding just the right words for stories.

Describing Words: tell this website which word you want to stop repeating and it will give you tons of alternative words that mean the same thing. It typically has way more options than other sites I use.

Reverse Dictionary: type what you need a word for in Reverse Dictionary's search box and it will give you tons of words that closely match what you want. It also lists the words in order of relevancy, starting with a word that most accurately describes what you typed. (There's also an option to get definitions for search results!)

Tip of My Tongue: this website is phenomenal. It lets you search for that word you can't quite place by a letter in it, the definition, what it sounds like, or even its scrambled letters. A long list of potential options will appear on the right side of the screen for every search.

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Hope this helps when you need a hand during your next writing session 💛

still thinking about this youtube comment i screenshotted ages ago

fifty ways to get to know your characters (and how to write them)

what is their name? and how does this fit their character?

last name?

do they have a middle name?

name a song that describes them

what are their pronouns?

gender and sexuality?

do they like someone romantically?

list five words to describe them

what about five dialogue tags to use consistently on this character?

what is their motivation?

do they consider themselves a good person?

colour that describes their personality

MBTI type

enneagram type

character they're based on

person they would bring down whilst dying

person they would kill if they had the chance

character they would get along with if they were in the same universe

character they would hate if they were in the same universe

artist they would listen to

artist they would hate

give them a theme song

make them a playlist! (see my other post for songs to put on that playlist, here)

make them a mood board

assign them an aesthetic

what are their strengths?

what about fatal weaknesses?

the one person who can convince them to do something they're stubbornly against

who would they kill for?

what tropes do they fall into?

fatal weakness (food edition)

book they would definitely read

language besides their mother tongue they would (have) learned

murder accomplice

thing that makes them go weak at the knees

most obscure thing they HATE

while we're there, biggest phobia

are they (would they be) a book or movie person?

are they a romantic

childhood experience that defines an aspect of their life

what is their age?

birth sign? / zodiac?

what constellation would they be

name a famous myth could they would have been the main character

old or new soul

assign them a smell

assign them a smell they like

can they swim?

street smarts or brain smarts?

what is this character's purpose to the plot?

Body type and shape

1. Lean: Having a slender and toned body with minimal body fat.

2. Muscular: Having well-developed muscles and a defined physique.

3. Slender: Having a thin and graceful body shape.

4. Curvy: Having an hourglass figure with well-defined curves, particularly in the hips and bust.

5. Athletic: Having a fit and muscular body, often associated with participation in sports or physical activities.

6. Petite: Being small and slender in stature, usually referring to height and overall body size.

7. Voluptuous: Having full and shapely curves, often emphasizing a larger bust, hips, and thighs.

8. Stocky: Having a compact and solid build with a sturdy appearance.

9. Thin: Having a slim and slender body shape with little body fat or muscle definition.

10. Well-proportioned: Having balanced and harmonious body proportions, with each body part in good proportion to the whole.

11. Toned: Having firm muscles and a defined physique resulting from regular exercise and strength training.

12. Chubby: Having a plump or rounded body shape, often with excess body fat.

13. Pear-shaped: Having a body shape where the hips and thighs are wider than the shoulders and bust.

14. Hourglass figure: Having a curvy body shape characterized by a well-defined waist and proportionate bust and hips.

15. Apple-shaped: Having a body shape where weight is primarily carried around the midsection, resulting in a broader waistline.

16. Broad-shouldered: Having wide and well-developed shoulders in comparison to the rest of the body.

17. Long-limbed: Having long and slender limbs in proportion to the body.

18. Stout: Having a sturdy and robust build, often characterized by a solid and thick physique.

19. Plump: Having a pleasantly full and rounded body shape, often indicating a higher percentage of body fat.

20. Tall and slender: Being tall in height and having a slim and elongated body shape.

Writing Realistic Characters - part 2

- Journal from their perspective. It can be hard to write compelling, realistic motivation for characters if you don’t understand them yourself. By journalling from their perspective, even if the content of the journal isn’t included in your story, you’ll essentially be thinking as the character. This should help you understand who they are and how they make choices and react to things, like a real person would.

- Answer “character questions”, but be careful when using lists found online. The internet is full of lists of questions for writers to answer when building characters, but not all of them are actually that important or useful. The fact is, it really doesn’t matter what a character’s favourite colour, animal or day of the week is (unless it’s relevant to your story… but it usually isn’t). When looking for question lists online, or making your own, focus on questions that have to do with your character’s personality, such as how they’d react to a situation or which values matter more to them.

- Make character charts! I can’t stress this enough — character charts are incredibly useful tools for writers and I don’t know what I’d do without them. They’re a great way to keep track of important information about your characters in an organized way that’s easy to access when you need to quickly check a detail. I’d also strongly recommend making your own charts, not using templates online (I find it a lot easier to stay organized when I’m using my own organizational system). If you need a place to start, though, I normally create charts with 4 categories: role (protagonist, antagonist, etc.), name, identities (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.), and description (just a brief few sentences about them). You can also make personality charts with things like their greatest flaw, greatest strength, story goals, etc.

- Come up with a few detailed memories/anecdotes from their past. Think of them as mini-stories you can drop into your main story to build a more realistic life around the character. These don’t have to be crucial to the plot, and should be brought up in a natural way, such as in conversation with another character or in the main character’s thoughts. For example, your MC’s best friend might compliment her necklace, and she tells them how her sister gave it to her as a birthday present before moving away. You can also use these anecdotes to drop in important information in a non-obvious way. Continuing the example above, the MC could mention that her sister has the same design necklace, but in green. Later, this becomes a clue, when she finds the green necklace outside the villain’s lair.

- Keep a record of their backstory. This one doesn’t really need much explaining… Just keep notes of your character’s backstory as you come up with it so you don’t risk inconsistencies, which tend to break down realism. 

- Remember that the reader can’t see what’s in your head. Your characters may be fully developed, realistic people in your head, but that makes it easy to forget that your readers don’t automatically understand them the way you do — they only know what’s on the page. Asking other people to read your work can help you understand how your characters come through to an audience, but if you don’t want to do that, just re-reading it yourself is also helpful. If you do the latter, though, go through an entire chapter at a time, the way a reader would, not small sections.

tips for writing good romance tension

inside jokes— brings the reader into the relationship. create something at the beginning of the story and then bring it up in the middle or at the end. reader catches it at the exact moment the couple does, making the moment more rewarding for the characters and reader all at once

specific attention paid to the same detail scene over scene— pick one or two details that the pov character notices (a physical detail on their partner, something about their hair or their body, the way a piece of clothing looks on them, the way sunlight/moonlight/candlelight falls on their face) and bring the detail up several times, characters in love will notice specific things and keep coming back to them, this repetition will get the reader to think, “yes, i get it too”

focus on visible signs of emotion from both parties— a racing pulse, a flush creeping up someone’s neck, a smile, a bouncing knee, a shiver, either from the pov character or the partner, love makes you crazy and visible emotion noticed by one or both parties builds the crazy and crazy tension

at least one sensory detail that comes up during a critical moment— a smell, a feeling, warmth, light, pick something sensory and bring it up again just before a kiss or a moment of closeness, calling back to an earlier scene, bring the reader into the relationship by making them also remember how this started and how they got here, involve them in the chase and the reward