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History wants so badly for Cleopatra to be beautiful. Like they can’t conceive of Rome being intimidated by anything less

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What's the best way to advertise your story?

I assume you mean once it’s already published, but please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

This is a good question because a lot of marketing for books these days is given to the author. The publisher will do some things like book launch announcements, but those tend to be for their whole season, so it’s not just your book, but all the other books they’re putting out around the same time. Marketing directed specifically toward your own book is on you.

If you intend to have more than just the one book (or even just the one), you should be working on your author’s platform. This is a website that is dedicated to you (or your singular work) as an author and the various works that you have published. You need to make sure that it’s always current, always putting out new content. Maybe it includes a blog where you give advice or insight into your process or whatever, but it should also be about advertising your books. Keep reaching out to readers and encouraging interaction, because that friendliness is how you build the strongest fanbase, and your fanbase is going to be your biggest tool. Once people are excited about you as an author and a person, they’ll be ready to spread the word about you and your stories to others!

Develop a Goodreads profile, and similarly, you can consider an Amazon one, too. Goodreads is specifically book-oriented, and providing reviews that are real and genuine is going to get your name out there. Don’t go around comparing things to your own work, but people who are curious can click on your profile and see what you’ve written. Additionally, Goodreads provides a service where you can run book trailers, which are basically little silent commercials that sell your book. Those ads run on the Goodreads site as recommendations to others, and if you really put dedicated effort into developing a really good book trailer, it can be super effective.

Talk to local libraries and bookstores to perhaps set up readings and signings, especially at places that are going to carry your book. (Hell, I just had my dentist’s office offer space to do a reading/signing….) Libraries are often more willing to host these than bookstores, but if you know places where your book is being sold, hit them up. Pro-tip: If you self-published, DO NOT ask bookstores to host a reading/signing. If they’re not going to get revenue from selling your book during the event, they don’t want you there. Remember that it’s also on YOU to invite people to these events. Don’t set them up and expect magic to happen. Announce them on Facebook and Twitter and anywhere else you have a social media account. Get. The. Word. Out.

Create marketing materials like little quarter sheet flyers and put them up on bulletin boards, and leave them at mall food court tables, conveniently forget them when you get up from a cafe table, and ask your friends to also conveniently forget them places. My mother ran a home business for 23 years and constantly left flyers all over the place; from it, I know of at least 10 folks who became regular customers.

Give free copies. It seems counter-intuitive when you’re first starting out, but consider them an investment. Give one or two to your library to put on the shelves, slip one into a magazine rack at the hairdresser’s, give one to a friend when they purchase a copy to give to one of their friends as a recommendation. Maybe that friend will recommend it to one of their friends, who will come looking to buy it.

Get creative! There are a thousand ways to get the word out, you just have to be imaginative enough to give them a try.

Additional Reading:71 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book from Your Writer Platform15 DIY Book Promotion Tools You Need to Know from WritersStoreHow To Market And Sell Your Book In Five Steps from ForbesMarketing Your Book for Self-Publishers and Indie Authors from The Book Designer

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This graph is based on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Basically “The Hero’s Journey ‘W Graph’.

 I made the top picture by hand and scanned it. I’m sorry about the messy writing as I tried my best to make it as neat as possible, but my penmanship is not the best. 

THE FICTION WRITER’S CHEAT SHEET PICTURE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME.

So anyway, I got a few questions about planning stories and honestly I don’t plan them. I just do it from the top of my head–which is very bad, I know. But I am now starting to plan my stories and it does make it a bit more manageable and organized. Soooooo I went researching for tips and found something called Fiction Writer’s Cheat Sheet. I liked the idea of the “W Graph” so I decided to make it by hand in different colors. Then scanned it to have a digital copy to work on it through my computer in a pdf file or if I want to do it by hand I can just print one out. Always  make sure to “save as” a different document. 

I am not sure if something like this is already out there, but I thought it would be easier to have something printable out there and just plan it out, not having to struggle with the format.

Hope this comes in handy!!!

Good luck my fellow writers!

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It’s not uncommon for writers to rely on filler words while writing—and especially while first drafting. From filter phrases to adverbs all over the place, drafts that aren’t scrutinized to condense the writing are often full of words that unnecessarily clog up the writing.

Good news is while this is totally not something you should worry about while first drafting (seriously), when the time comes to take care of this issue, it’s relatively easy to do. Time-consuming and painstaking, yes, but thankfully not too difficult to do.

To make it even easier, however, I’ve decided to add to my how to make cuts without losing anything useful post with more easy-to-remove words to look out for.

Starts/begins to. This is actually a tip I picked up from my editor, and it’s a good one—9/10 times when you preface an action with “starts to” or “begins to” you don’t need that phrase. Just by describing the action, the readers assume it’s just started unless otherwise stated.

Immediately/without warning. Like “suddenly” these words are usually unnecessary. I’ll refer you to the other post for a longer explanation.

That. I’m not going to say you never need “that”, but oftentimes I find “that” is super overused. In sentences like “She said that I should go,” for example, removing the “that” improves the flow and we don’t lose anything by cutting it.

Up/Down. For these two I only mean in very specific cases: sitting up/down, standing up/down, etc. In those cases, the up/down is unnecessary.

Dialogue + action tag. I see this a lot, and tend to do this a lot when first drafting and just slapping words down, but when you have a dialogue tag and an action tag, you usually only need one—and oftentimes I go with the action tag because it’s more visual (although there are exceptions, of course). So, for example: “‘Where’ve you been?’ he said, scowling” could be condensed to “'Where’ve you been?’ He scowled.”

-ly adverbs. One of my last condensing steps is to go through and do a search for “ly” to cut down on my adverbs. While I definitely don’t recommend removing all of them (adverbs can be useful!), writers in general tend to use them more than necessary, so it can be good to go through and do a quick sweep.

So those are some words I look out for when condensing my writing—what phrases or words would you add to the list?

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😂🤘🏻

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Writing Traumatic Injuries References

So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache… Eragon breaks his wrist and it’s just fine within days… Wounds heal with nary a scar, ever…

I’m aiming to fix that.

Here are over 100 links covering just about every facet of traumatic injuries (physical, psychological, long-term), focusing mainly on burns, concussions, fractures, and lacerations. Now you can beat up your characters properly!

General resources

WebMD

Mayo Clinic first aid

Mayo Clinic diseases

First Aid

PubMed: The source for biomedical literature

Diagrams: Veins (towards heart), arteries (away from heart) bones, nervous system, brain

  Burns

General overview: Includes degrees

Burn severity: Including how to estimate body area affected

Burn treatment: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees

Smoke inhalation

Smoke inhalation treatment

Chemical burns

Hot tar burns

Sunburns

  Incisions and Lacerations

Essentials of skin laceration repair (including stitching techniques)

When to stitch (Journal article–Doctors apparently usually go by experience on this)

More about when to stitch (Simple guide for moms)

Basic wound treatment

Incision vs. laceration: Most of the time (including in medical literature) they’re used synonymously, but eh.

Types of lacerations: Page has links to some particularly graphic images–beware!

How to stop bleeding: 1, 2, 3

Puncture wounds: Including a bit about what sort of wounds are most likely to become infected

More about puncture wounds

Wound assessment: A huge amount of information, including what the color of the flesh indicates, different kinds of things that ooze from a wound, and so much more.

Home treatment of gunshot wound, also basics More about gunshot wounds, including medical procedures

Tourniquet use: Controversy around it, latest research

Location pain chart: Originally intended for tattoo pain, but pretty accurate for cuts

General note: Deeper=more serious. Elevate wounded limb so that gravity draws blood towards heart. Scalp wounds also bleed a lot but tend to be superficial. If it’s dirty, risk infection. If it hits the digestive system and you don’t die immediately, infection’ll probably kill you. Don’t forget the possibility of tetanus! If a wound is positioned such that movement would cause the wound to gape open (i.e. horizontally across the knee) it’s harder to keep it closed and may take longer for it to heal.

  Broken bones

Types of fractures

Setting a broken bone when no doctor is available

Healing time of common fractures

Broken wrists

Broken ankles/feet

Fractured vertebrae: Neck (1, 2), back

Types of casts

Splints

Fracture complications

Broken noses

Broken digits: Fingers and toes

General notes: If it’s a compound fracture (bone poking through) good luck fixing it on your own. If the bone is in multiple pieces, surgery is necessary to fix it–probably can’t reduce (“set”) it from the outside. Older people heal more slowly. It’s possible for bones to “heal” crooked and cause long-term problems and joint pain. Consider damage to nearby nerves, muscle, and blood vessels.

  Concussions

General overview

Types of concussions 1, 2

Concussion complications

Mild Brain Injuries: The next step up from most severe type of concussion, Grade 3

Post-concussion syndrome

Second impact syndrome: When a second blow delivered before recovering from the initial concussion has catastrophic effects. Apparently rare.

Recovering from a concussion

Symptoms: Scroll about halfway down the page for the most severe symptoms

Whiplash

General notes: If you pass out, even for a few seconds, it’s serious. If you have multiple concussions over a lifetime, they will be progressively more serious. Symptoms can linger for a long time.

Character reaction:

Shock (general)

Physical shock: 1, 2

Fight-or-flight response: 1, 2

Long-term emotional trauma: 1 (Includes symptoms), 2

First aid for emotional trauma

  Treatment (drugs)

WebMD painkiller guide

  Treatment (herbs)

1, 2, 3, 4

  Miscellany

Snake bites: No, you don’t suck the venom out or apply tourniquettes

Frostbite

Frostbite treatment

Severe frostbite treatment

When frostbite sets in: A handy chart for how long your characters have outside at various temperatures and wind speeds before they get frostbitten

First aid myths: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Includes the ones about buttering burns and putting snow on frostbite.

Poisons: Why inducing vomiting is a bad idea

Poisonous plants

Dislocations: Symptoms 1, 2; treatment. General notes: Repeated dislocations of same joint may lead to permanent tissue damage and may cause or be symptomatic of weakened ligaments. Docs recommend against trying to reduce (put back) dislocated joint on your own, though information about how to do it is easily found online.

Muscular strains

Joint sprain

Resuscitation after near-drowning: 1, 2

Current CPR practices: We don’t do mouth-to-mouth anymore.

The DSM IV, for all your mental illness needs.

  Electrical shock

Human response to electrical shock: Includes handy-dandy voltage chart

Length of contact needed at different voltages to cause injury

Evaluation protocol for electric shock injury

Neurological complications

Electrical and lightning injury

Cardiac complications

Delayed effects and a good general summary

Acquired savant syndrome: Brain injuries (including a lightning strike) triggering development of amazing artistic and other abilities

  Please don’t repost! You can find the original document (also created by me) here.

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affordable plus size clothing masterpost

bold is for my favs

G-stage (only ships to US)

Boohoo

Plussizefix

Torrid (only ships to US)

Newlook (only ships to EU)

Forever 21+

OldNavy

Rosegal

Rainbow (only ships to US)

Rue21

Fashiontofigure

Target+ (only ships to US)

Kmart+

Alight

Debshops (only ships to US)

Dressbarn (only ships to US)

Helloplus

Lovedrobe

Yours

6pm

Alloy

Amazon

Cato (only ships to US)

Christopher & Banks

Cool Gal

Dr. Jays

Evans

Honourable mentions (aka not cheap but i still love it)

Keep reading

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Amentia by Nikolay Tikhomirov

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To the transphobes who say that mis gendering someone ‘isn’t a big deal’, a wake up call. The gov’t and the media should stop discrimination. Rest in eternal peace angel.

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Words To Describe...

Here is an extensive list of words to describe different body parts and to use in your writing. Hope it adds a bit of spice to your sentence;)

||Words to Describe Hands||

other

right

left

free

upper

outstretched

invisible

firm

steady

gentle

mighty

extended

off

friendly

bound

hired

unseen

delicate

minute

bony

cool

withered

bare

proffered

slender

clenched

bloody

limp

nondominant

bold

mine

lavish

sure

uplifted

ready

skilful

cupped

neat

freer

Source x

||Words to Describe Hair||

Keep reading

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VPUkB1AlUY)

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YES!

Intelligence is such a turn on.

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Thank you for standing up for us, Delia.

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in your broad experience of terrible YA fantasy, what are the most common and/or egregious sins YA fantasy writers commit?

oh my god

ok this is actually pretty easy 

shallow world building. don’t just tell me there are four kingdoms, give me two sentences about vague things about a few of those kingdoms, then drop it at that. stop using ‘jungles’ to pretend you’re not set in a western europe analogue just own up to the western europe analogue my god. stop throwing in 3 vaguely russian sounding words and claiming your world was inspired by russia even though all your other world building is anachronistic to that claim.

inconsistent naming conventions??? why do we get books where half the names are made up and the other half are Bland as Hell i don’t get it???? 

14 thousand male characters, all of them hot. maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get one female character to be the main characters’ friend but she’s probably a servant and she’ll probably die. i cannot beLIEVE I STILL SEE THIS. 

edgy princess can use sword. which i feel needs no more explanation than that. 

i hate secret princesses and i need that trope to stop forever. 

this really strange inability to mold convincing dialogue in high fantasy? like they don’t know how to make it casual while still setting appropriate? it’s not that difficult? your characters don’t need to sound like they have sticks up their asses for half the book yet also have dialogue that could be taken from a contemporary from the other half? 

ya high fantasy is still white and straight as hell with only an occasional variation from that 

love triangles between brothers

please stop that 

LOVE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER GUYS 

inconsistent magic systems that aren’t actually magic systems at all but super powers thinly veiled as magic for the sake of high fantasy. this one REALLY bothers me and i see it from super talented authors whom i respect. Like I get rationing out magic in different forms and ways but you can do that and still have it be a system with limitations, cause/effect, and consequences. but no. we get super powers instead. 

STOP OVERPOWERING YOUR CHARACTERS WITH LITTLE TO NO REPERCUSSIONS ON THEM. THIS ISN’T A VIDEO GAME YOUR CHARACTERS AREN’T LEVELING UP.

i know there’s more but that’s what comes to mind. 

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Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually’, just do it and correct the course along the way.

Tim Ferriss (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

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