Clark Kent Is A Mild Mannered Reporter. Kal-El Is The Hero Superman Who Saves The World Every Other Week.

I think in the same way there's a 90/10 rule with horror and comedy (horror works best when it's 90% horror and 10% comedy and vice versa) there's a 90/10 rule for some relationships in fiction that's like. Wholesome and fucked up. A good friendship is at its most compelling when it's also 10% a bit fucked up. Fucked up relationship is at its most compelling when there's at least 10% of something actually sweet and substantive within. Do you get me

Fantasy Guide to A Great House (19th-20th Century) - Anatomy of the House

When we think of the Victorians, the grand old Gilded Age or the Edwardians, we all think of those big mansions and manors where some of our favourite stories take place. But what did a great house look like?

Layout

All great houses are different and some, being built in different eras, may adhere to different styles. But the layout of certain rooms usually stayed somewhat the same.

The highest floors including the attic were reserved the children's rooms/nursery and the servants quarters.

The next floor would be reserved for bedrooms. On the first/ground floor, there will be the dining room, drawing room, library etc.

The basement/cellar would be where the kitchens and other food related rooms would be. Servants halls and boot rooms may also be down here too along scullery, where sometimes a maid would clean.

Rooms used by Servants

Boot Room: The Boot Room is where the valets, ladies maids, hallboys and sometimes footmen clean off shoes and certain items of clothing.

Kitchen: The Kitchen was usually either in the basement or the first floor of the house, connected to a garden where the house's vegetables were grown.

Butler's Pantry: A butler's pantry was where the serving items are stored. This is where the silver is cleaned, stored and counted. The butler would keep the wine log and other account books here. The butler and footmen would use this room.

Pantry: The Pantry would be connected to the kitchen. It is a room where the kitchens stock (food and beverages) would be kept.

Larder: The larder was cool area in the kitchen or a room connected to it where food is stored. Raw meat was often left here before cooking but pastry, milk, cooked meat, bread and butter can also be stored here.

Servants Hall: The Servant's Hall was where the staff ate their meals and spent their down time. They would write letters, take tea, sew and darn clothes. The servants Hall would usually have a fireplace, a large table for meals, be where the servant's cutlery and plates would be kept and where the bell board hung. (these bells were the way servants where summoned)

Wine Cellar: The wine cellar was where the wine was melt, usually in the basement. Only the butler would be permitted down there and everything would be catalogued by him too.

Butler's/Housekeeper's sitting rooms: In some houses, both the butler and the housekeeper had sitting rooms/offices downstairs. This was were they held meetings with staff, took their tea and dealt with accounts.

Scullery: The scullery was were the cleaning equipment was cleaned and stored. The scullery may even also double as a bedroom for the scullery maid.

Servery: The Servery connected to the dinning room. It was where the wine was left before the butler carried it out to be served. Some of the food would be delivered here to be carried out as well.

Servant's Sleeping Quarters: All servants excepting perhaps the kitchen maid and outside staff slept in the attics. Men and unmarried women would be kept at seperate sides of the house with the interconnecting doors locked and bolted every night by the butler and housekeeper. If the quarters were small, some servants may have to share rooms. Servants' bathrooms and washrooms would also be up there, supplied with hot water from the kitchens.

Rooms used by the Family

Dining room: The dining room was where the family ate their breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was also where the gentlemen took their after dinner drink before joking the ladies in the drawing room.

Drawing room: The Drawing Room was sort of a living/sitting room. It was mainly used in the evenings after dinner where the ladies would take their tea and coffee before being joined by the men. It could also be used for tea by the ladies during the day. The drawing room was seen as more of a women's room but any of the family could use it. The drawing room was a formal room but could also be used for more casual activities.

Library: The library is of course where the books are kept. The family would use this room for writing letters, reading, doing business with tenants and taking tea in the afternoons.

Bedrooms: The bedrooms would take up most of the upper floors. The unmarried women would sleep in one wing with bachelors at the furthest wing away. Married couples often had adjoining rooms with their own bedrooms in each and equipped with a boudoir or a sitting room.

Nursery: Was where the children slept, usually all together until old enough to move into bedrooms. They would be attended to be nannies and nursemaids round the clock.

Study: The study was a sort of home office where family could do paperwork, chill and write letters.

Dressing room: Dressing Rooms where usually attached to bedrooms where the family would be dressed and their clothes would be stored. The valets and ladies maids would have control of the room.

Hall: The hall was where large parties would gather for dancing or music or to be greeted before parties.

Furnishings and Decor

Most of these Great Houses were inherited which means, they came with a lot of other people's crap. Ornaments from anniversaries, paintings bought on holiday, furniture picked out by newly weds, all of it comes with the house. So most of the time everything seems rather cluttered.

As for Servant's Quarters, most of the furnishings may have been donated by the family as gifts. Most servants' halls would have a portrait of the sovereign or sometimes a religious figure to install a sense of morality into them.

Tips for Writing a Scene

Whether you’ve been writing for a long time or want to start, everyone begins in the same place—with a scene.

Not an entire chapter.

A scene.

Here’s how you can make it happen on the page.

Step 1: Have Characters In Mind

Scenes can’t happen without characters. Sometimes you might have a place in mind for a scene, but no characters. Sometimes, it’s the opposite. 

Pick at least two characters if you’ll have external conflict (more on that in step 4). One character can carry a scene with internal conflict, but things still have to happen around them to influence their thoughts/emotions.

Step 2: Give Them Goals

Short stories combine mini scenes into one plot with a beginning/middle/end. Longform manuscripts combine chapters to do the same thing, but with more detail and subplots.

You don’t need to know which form you’re writing to get started.

All you need are goals.

What should your scene do? What does your character(s) want? It will either use the moment to advance the plot or present a problem that the character solves in the same scene/short story.

Step 3: Include the Senses

If you’re recounting an experience to someone, you don’t say, “I had the worst day. My shoes got wet and I couldn’t get home for 10 hours.”

You’d probably say, “I had the worst day. I stepped in a puddle so my shoes got soaked, which made my socks and feet wet all day. Then I had to wait 10 hours to get home. It was miserable! And now my feet smell terrible.”

Okay, you might not use all of those descriptors, but you get the picture. The story is much more engaging if you’re talking about the feeling of wet socks, soaked shoes, and the smell of stinky feet. The other person in your conversation would probably go ugh, that’s horrible!

Your scene should accomplish the same thing. Use the five senses to make the moment real for the reader.

As a reminder, those senses are: touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing.

You don’t need to use all of them at once, but include at least two of them to make your stories shine. You also don’t have to constantly use environmental or sensory descriptors. Once you establish the scene for your reader, they’ll place your characters and want to keep the plot moving.

Step 4: Identify the Conflict

Speaking of plot, scenes and stories can’t move forward without conflict. There are two types:

Internal conflict: happens within a single character (may or may not affect their decisions at any given time; it can also be the reasoning for their goals and dreams)

External conflict: happens outside of a character or between two characters (may or may not have to do with their internal conflict or personal goals; it always advances their character growth, relationship development, or plot development)

A scene could touch on either of these types of conflict or both! It depends on your story/plot/what you want your scene to accomplish.

Step 5: Pick a Point of View (POV)

Sometimes you’ll know you want to write a specific POV because you’ll have a character/plot in mind that requires it. Other times, you might not know.

It’s often easier to pick a POV after thinking through the previous steps. You’ll better understand how much time you want to spend in a character’s head (1st Person) or if you want to touch on multiple characters’ minds through 3rd Person.

Example of Setting a Scene

Step 1, Have Characters in Mind: Two sisters arrive back home from their first fall semester in different colleges.

Step 2, Give Them Goals: Sister A wants to ask for dating advice, but the sisters have never been that close. Sister B knows that Sister A wants a deeper conversation, but is doing anything to avoid it.

Step 3, Include the Senses: They’re in a living room with shag navy carpet and the worn leather couches have butt-shaped shadows on the cushions. The house smells of vanilla bean, the only scent their dads can agree on. Christmas lights hang on a fake tree that sheds plastic fir leaves on the floor. Their family cat purrs from within the metal branches.

Step 4, Identify the Conflict: Sister B will do anything to avoid talking about feelings. That includes trying to get the cat out of the tree (shaking the branches and reaching into them doesn’t work), checking to make sure the windows are closed against the winter air, and faking an obviously unreal phone call. This makes Sister A go from passively hoping for advice to chasing her through the house. 

Step 5, Pick a POV: 3rd Person, so internal thoughts and feelings from both sisters are obvious to the reader and emphasize the scene’s comedy.

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These are also useful ways to rethink a scene you’ve already written. If something about it doesn’t seem to be working, consider if it’s missing one or more of these points. You don’t need to include all of them all the time, but weaving more sensory details or conflict into a short story/chapter could solve your problem.

Best of luck with your writing, as always 💛

This is amazing, I wish more creative teachers gave this advice

"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit

This is important, also might help avoid procrastination as leaving a project unfinished does not equal abandoning it, you can always come back to it

Friendly reminder to all the writers on here:

You don’t owe anyone good writing.

You don’t owe anyone a complete storyline written in order.

You can jump around. You can abandon projects. You can write really shitty stories! Writing is about telling stories and creating worlds. Not about what makes your followers happy.

I have to remind myself of this a lot, because in most of my stories I’ve gotten stuck and don’t know where to go. But you can jump around. You can skip parts. It doesn’t matter.

Write what makes you happy.

Having OCs is actually the worst because those little fuckers will talk about you behind your back.

The Emotion Thesaurus: Agitation

Hi everyone and happy Wednesday! Post Two of new series!

This section comes from The Emotional Thesaurus by Ackerman and Puglisi.

Definition: feeling upset or disturbed, a state of unrest

Physical Signs:

reddening of the face

a sheen of sweat on the cheeks, chin, and forehead

hands moving in jerks

rubbing back of the neck

patting pockets or digging in the purse, looking for something lost

clumsiness due to rushing (knocking things over, bumping tables)

a gaze that bounces from place to place

an inability to stay still

jamming or cramming things away without care

abrupt movement (causing a chair to tip or scuff the floor loudly)

flapping hands

becoming accident prone (bashing one's hip on a desk corner)

dragging hands through hair repeatedly

forgetting words, being unable to articulate thoughts

backtracking to try and undo something said in haste

adjusting one's clothing

avoiding eye contact

a wavering voice

not knowing where to look or go

guarding one's personal space

taking too long to answer a question or response

throat clearing

overusing ums, ahs, and other verbal hesitations

turning away from others

a bobbing Adam's apple

pacing

making odd noises in throat

rapid lip movement as one tries to find the right things to say

flinching if touched

minimizing another's compliments

fanning self

unbuttoning a top shirt

tugging at a tie, collar, or scarf

Internal Sensations:

excessive saliva

feeling overheated

stiffening air on the nape of the neck

light-headedness

short, fast breaths

sweating

tingling skin as sweat forms

Mental Responses:

mounting frustration that causes thoughts to blank

compounding mistakes

a tendency to lie to cover up or excuse

anger at oneself for freezing up

trying to pinpoint the source of discomfort

mentally ordering oneself to calm down, relax

Cues of Acute or Long-Term Agitation:

flight response (looking for an escape of fleeing room)

snapping at others, or adopting a defensive tone

scattering papers and files in a frantic search

May Escalate To :

Annoyance

Frustration

Anxiety

Anger

Cues of Suppressed Agitation:

changing the subject

making excuses

joking to lighten the mood

staying busy with tasks to avoid dealing with the source of emotion

shifting attention to others, putting them in the spotlight

Like, follow and reblog for more!

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.

Dragon Age Inquisition tarot, HQ: 9/10