#crocodiles #science #cool Stuff! #some Crocs Will Totally Still Eat Fruit #it’s Rather Fun To See

I mean sure, I’m really terrible at actually getting stuff out but questions/ critique are always welcome!

Reblog if you write fanfic and would be totally down with your followers coming into you askbox and talking to you about your fic

Hi there! I was wondering if you have any advice/opinions on the importance of originality vs. the finer mechanics of a story (plot, character motivations, etc). I've always been insecure about having unoriginal ideas, but the few times I've had an idea that feels genuinely unique, every other important element of the work feels lacking. The characters are passive and unmotivated, the plot is full of holes, etc. Currently, I have an idea which I'm not confident in the originality of, but the character has clear motivations and the plot, while tropey and not the most original, has a clear direction and no immediately obvious holes. So I'm a bit torn up over whether it is better to bend over backwards to try to make the unique ideas work or to go with the one that is less original, but comes easily to me and ticks all the other important boxes. Ultimately, I'm writing it for me, but if I ever did decide to publish, I worry the premise alone wouldn't catch the attention of potential publishers or readers. Any input you might have would be much appreciated!

Here's what I'm going to recommend: Throw out ideas of originality and marketability for now. They're both holding you back from making the real decision you need to make. Sit down and ask yourself some questions:

Which story concept has more appeal (to you)? Does thinking about working on it make you feel excited, or fill you with dread? Wanting to work on the story is the most important factor here. Trying to force something because you think you must do it won't work.

Which story concept is easier for you to write? You already have the answer to that, but I want you to think about why. What about your more conventional story makes it easier to make characters for and plot? Is it because that's where you feel more comfortable at? Is it because that's the kind of story you most like to read?

Which story concept do you see yourself finishing (and editing)? Carrying the story through to the end is the biggest factor here. If writing the story is a slog from beginning to end, you're probably not going to end up with a finished book that you like.

Now obviously, I am leaning toward one way - the story that comes more easily for you. I'm doing that for a couple of reasons, but mainly a finished story with interesting characters and a cohesive plot is going to be a much easier sell than a unique story with no appealing characters and a plot that's confusing. Most readers are sold on good character arcs and fun plots, not the uniqueness of the premise. If uniqueness is all you have, there's little appeal to the reader.

This does not mean you should toss out those unique and appealing story ideas! You want to write them, and they will not go away, but you're not going to suddenly wake up and become the next China Mieville or Jeff VanderMeer overnight. Getting those unique story ideas to work means giving them time to become something you can write while in the meantime still writing and working on stories that you know you can write.

Put those little plot mushrooms in a dark place and let them grow while you continue to develop the skills you need to bring them to life. Review them from time to time, but if they aren't ready and other stories are, don't force them. One day you will find the key you need to pull them together in a way in a story you're ready and excited to write, but in the meantime, give yourself permission to become.

Uniqueness doesn't sell books; good stories do.

Hello! I don't know if you've answered this already but, How do I write banter between characters ?

Dialogue: Writing Banter

Stories need to strike a relative balance between exposition, action, and dialogue, and all of these things need to work together to:

-- develop characters, setting, and plot elements -- build relationships between characters -- fill in backstory or create foreshadowing -- establish stakes, conflict, tension, and goals -- deliver important information to character/reader -- set up, carry out, and resolve plot points

Since exposition, action, and dialogue are always working together to achieve the above, you have to be very careful about "filler" content. In other words, you don't want to have exposition, action, or dialogue that's not accomplishing at least one of the above items.

"Banter" refers to conversation (dialogue) that is playful, witty, and usually quick. In fiction, it's often used to illustrate personality, mood, and chemistry between characters. However, banter can get out of control quickly and turn into filler. The best way to avoid that is to think about the purpose of the dialogue scene. Which of those items listed above is this conversation meant to accomplish? Next, how does quick, playful, witty repartee between these characters help to accomplish that? Once you understand what you're trying to achieve and how the banter will help you do that, it's easier to see exactly what the banter should be.

The next thing to do is to look at what else is going on in the scene. What is the action of the scene trying to accomplish? Is there an important event occurring in this scene, or is it building up to one? Or maybe even following up after an important event? Thinking about where your characters were in the previous scene, what they're doing in this scene, and where they need to go in the next scene can give you some clues about the banter. For example, if they were at a party in the previous scene and the party was broken up by police, and now this new scene is at school the next day, it would make sense for the banter to be about that exciting event. Which character is most likely to make a playful or witty comment about what happened? Is this comment directed at the character they're speaking to? Is it directed at an off-screen character, such as the person who threw the party?

Maybe it's a witty comment directed toward a friend who missed the fun. Now you can look at who is most likely to respond back in an equally playful, witty way. At this point, if there's a third participant, it may be their turn to add something. Or, if it's just the two characters, the first person will take their turn. But at this point you also need to figure out what else you're trying to say with this banter. Maybe you want to illustrate that Character A is a little hurt that Character C didn't go to the party. So maybe after B has responded initially, then C said their bit, A says something that's playful but also illustrates their hurt that C didn't go with them. At which point, either B or C can hit back with something consolatory but still playful and witty.

A: Well, well, well. If it isn't Miss "I have more exciting things to do than go to some lame party." C: Yeah, yeah. I heard. Police-raided parties are so middle school.

B: Oh, so jaded, I love it! Really, it was exciting. You missed it!

A: If you loved me, you would have come.

C: If I loved you, I would have dumped you for expecting me to go to a lame party.

And that's that. Short and sweet. Doesn't need to drag on for half a page. The banter relates to something that happened in the previous scene, tells us something about the characters' personalities, and tells us something about their relationships.

As far as coming up with the actual wit when it's needed, that can be tricky for those of us who aren't particularly witty, or where our wit only comes out when warranted. In that case, I think it really helps to watch TV shows where there's a lot of witty characters and witty repartee. Any number of sitcoms from the past twenty-five years is great for this. You can also watch clips from such shows on YouTube.

I hope that helps!

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#crocodiles #cool shit!

New Evidence Suggests Ancient Crocodiles Swam From Africa to America

https://sciencespies.com/news/new-evidence-suggests-ancient-crocodiles-swam-from-africa-to-america/

New Evidence Suggests Ancient Crocodiles Swam From Africa to America

Most American crocodiles don’t need to look far to find the feature that sets them apart from Nile crocodiles. The difference lies right between their eyes and their nostrils. Of crocodiles living today, only the four crocodile species that live in the Americas have a small bump in the middle of their snouts.

But about seven million years ago, a ten-foot-long crocodile living in what’s now Libya had the same tell-tale lump, according to research published in Scientific Reports last week. A fossil skull of the extinct Crocodylus checchiai provides more evidence that crocodiles spread across the world by migrating from Australia, through Africa and finally to South America.

The fossil “fills a gap between the Nile crocodile in Africa and the four extant American species,” University of Turin paleoherpetologist Massimo Delfino says to Science News’ Carolyn Wilke.

The fact that crocodiles live on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean has long puzzled biologists trying to figure out which direction the giant reptiles migrated. Genetic research in 2011 provided molecular evidence that crocodiles migrated from Africa to the Americas, but fossil evidence was scant.

“The main problem for palaeobiologists is the rarity and fragmentary nature of fossil remains,” Delfino and co-author David Iurino told the Agence France-Presse by email.

The seven million-year-old Crocodylus checchiai skull was first collected in 1939.

(Image by Bruno Mercurio)

The fossil described in the new paper is one of four that were first described in the 1930s. Three that were stored in the Natural History Museum in Tripoli, Libya, were lost or destroyed during World War II, according to the Scientific Reports paper. But the researchers found the fourth skull, originally collected in 1939, stored in the Sapienza University of Rome.

“This fossil is twice-old,” Delfino tells Nina Pullano at Inverse, referencing the fact that the skull is millions of years old and had then been forgotten for decades.The researchers used CT scanning to create a 3D model of the inside and outside of the skull for closer study and confirmed the presence of the American crocodile-like snout bump.

At seven million years old, the C. checchiai skull predates all known crocodile fossils in America, the oldest of which are about five million years old, Lucy Hicks reports for Science magazine. That means that the timeline checks out: it’s possible that C. checchiai may have made their way from Libya to the western coast of Africa, swam across the Atlantic and landed on the shores of South America.

The continents were about the same distance apart seven million years ago as they are today, making the journey across the ocean quite a feat—but not impossible. The researchers point out in a statement that the Australian marine crocodile has been recorded travelling more than 300 miles in a day. The prehistoric croc may have also bobbed along on one of the ocean’s surface currents that travel west from Africa to the Americas.

Crocodiles are also not the only flightless animal thought to have reached the New World by crossing the Atlantic. As the Inverse reports, a study published in April suggests that on two instances, monkeys made their way across the ocean on floating vegetation.

“If you think that the monkey can cross the Atlantic Ocean, very probably it’s much easier to accept that the crocodile can do it,” Delfino tells Inverse. Ancient crocodiles had the specialized glands necessary to swim and survive in saltwater and may have snacked on sea turtles along the way.

As a changing climate wiped out local species, crocodiles were well adapted to the late-Miocene environment and replaced them, the researchers write in the paper. The original crew of ocean-crossing crocs may have included many individuals or at least one pregnant female, Science News reports.

And after situating themselves in South America, they evolved and diversified into the four species found in the Americas today. (Only the American crocodile and American alligator are found in the United States.)

But whether or not the crocodilians mourn their C. checchiai ancestors is hard to tell—they might just be crocodile tears, after all.

#News

The merit of your writing.

So, you’ve read something that has resonated with you. It’s everything you’ve wanted in terms of characters, prose, plot and pace. It’s the best you’ve read in years. You reread your favourite lines. You have to take a break just to absorb every meticulously crafted line. You are in awe of how something so small can seem to take up so much space.

And in a perfect world, it would inspire you to go out and create. To work on that story that is languishing in your save files, to pick up that WIP you abandoned, to make you want to write something different and new and better. 

Instead, it makes you feel inferior. The words are too good. You could never write like that. The characters are too perfect. You don’t have that insight. The story is too captivating. Your ideas are boring, cliche, plain. The insight is remarkable. You can barely string a thought together coherently. 

Why even bother, you think.

Don’t fall into that trap. I have been there so many times. I have abandoned writing for years because of “why even bother”. I have let it destroy my confidence, only to patch it back up in a cheap imitation of what it once was, just to let it invade my thoughts again. I have questioned every thing I’ve written, every choice, every line, because why even bother if someone is so much better. 

YOUR WRITING HAS MERIT. What you don’t realize is that it’s not in terms of better, but different. Different style, different story, different interpretation, different mind.

Someone out there will love the way you describe the night sky in poetry. Someone out there will love the way you describe the look on someone’s face when their heart breaks. Someone out there will love your idea, that strange one that seems impossible or already done, because it’s new and exciting or they love endless amounts of that same story. Someone out there will love your interpretation of that character, whether more gentle or bitter or broken or healed. Someone out there will love the words you write, the grandiose use of adverbs (my guilt) or the minimal scattering of dialogue. Someone out there will love your abundance or lack of something you saw in that story you so loved, the one that rendered you speechless and snuffed out your fire. 

Someone out there will love your words. And you need to share them. 

Speaking as a writer, no one sets out to create something to discourage others. No one wants to dominate their corner and be the only one there. No one wants to be alone in their craft. If they do, they are doing it for the wrong reasons. Speaking as a writer, I would never want you to read my writing and think, why bother. 

I want you to think, why bother waiting?

Your story matters. Your writing matters. It’s beautiful and defined and gorgeous and a work in progress and growing and already there and insightful and mysterious: it all has merit. 

Never stop. Never stop writing and practicing and doing and creating and learning and loving the words you weave.

You may think someone has done it more beautifully or better or too many times or never because who wants to read it? 

They maybe have done all those things, but they lack one thing: they haven’t done it like you have.

Watercolor skull study by bakk1313 This artist on Instagram

Short DPXDC Prompts #191

Soulmate au: you get injured, the soulmate keeps the weapon that injures them. Danny has a drawer in his room that’s filled with used bullets and knives and every weapon under the sun and his parents and himself are VERY concerned for his soulmates being. You know when like fairies walk and flowers spring up from their footsteps? Yeah Danny is like that but with weaponry and it’s very worrying.

This skull looks friendly. It'd be a nice evening to sit by a fire with the skull, a cigar perched in the hole in the teeth, as they told me stories of times gone by in that soft, grandparently drawl one has when they've reached a long life and are content with where they are.

The Skull - Memento mori by Jean Morin

Massive thanks to both @paranaturalpop and @mas-y-menos for helping me rediscover this gem of a fancomic! Gave me a serotonin boost like you wouldn't believe, and reignited some ideas for some stories! All the best to you both!

my prediction for whats gonna go down re: johnny developing ghost powers