“This villain doing a bad thing makes me uncomfortable!”
Good. They’re a villain. They’re supposed to do bad things that make you uncomfortable. The entire point is to do things that are morally unacceptable and cause anger, discomfort and disgust in the viewer.
“But that shouldn’t be allowed!”
It’s not allowed. That’s why they’re the villain. Real people aren’t or shouldn’t be allowed to do what villains do. What they are doing is objectively, legally, or morally wrong, and it’s made very clear that it’s wrong and unacceptable and that people aren’t okay with it, but despite your objections they are absolutely going to do it anyway, and more stories will be written of them doing it anyway, because they’re villains, and what they do is bad, and it’s meant to make you angry and disgusted and uncomfortable.
Villains are not going to stop existing because you don’t like them. You’re not supposed to like them. That’s their fucking reason for existing and they’re doing it well.
Some of the best writing advice I ever got was if you’re stuck on a scene or a line, the problem is actually about 10 lines back and that’s saved me from writer’s block so many times.
I feel like I need an elaborate explanation
Often times, I find myself stuck on what a character should say next or what should happen in a scene to connect A to B or so on. When this happens, I fall into the trap of writing and rewriting the same few lines over and over, and becoming more and more dissatisfied every time until I give up.
But problem is almost never actually whatever line I’m trying to write at the moment; the issue is the stuff leading up to the line. Maybe there are structural issues with the set up, maybe I wrote a bit of dialogue that was out of character leading to a discussion that doesn’t make sense, maybe I’m missing a vital piece of exposition or expositing too much. It could be a lot of things, but the important part of the advice is to look back and be willing to consider changes to something earlier in the work (even if you’re really attached to like a piece of dialogue or a particular sentence or something) instead of trying to find a way to force out a scene that’s not working.
I decided to make a list of DM stuff that I personally use or think are important to know when it comes to being a DM. So here’s my list:
Medieval Fantasy City Generator: This generator is now my LIFE. It generates incredibly complex cities with good customization. (Thanks to plantkat for sharing this site in their post here)
Naming Your Towns/Cities:Now that you’ve made your city, time to name it and give it some character! This post contains lots of great information.
Index Cards Rule:Fuckyeahdnd shared a SUPER convenient way of keeping track of turns and HP in combat. I use this system now for every single session I run.
Troublesome Players? Speak Up:Dicebound brings up an incredibly great point. If someone is being a jerk, speak up and call them out. This is especially important and relevant now to crush awful behavior before it even has a chance to show it’s ugly face.
(Character stuff, spells, online communities/ways to play, etc..)
A lot of people contributed to this post but thank you Mushroomancy for posting the original list.
Donjon: And finally, this site is a great resource for looking up Spells and Monsters along with tons of other generators. Not every single Spell or Monster is on here, but most are listed.
(I tried to give credit to the original posters or the actual URL for websites, unless those sites or URLs were no longer active)
I adore rick riordan but if anyone still has doubt on how he can have such big potholes in his stories, let me remind you that this man was originally going to title the Lightning Thief “The Son of Poseidon” and it was his middle school class that pointed out that if he named it that that the “mysterious and unknown identity” of Percy’s godly heritage would no longer be mysterious and unknown and rick was like “oh, yeah.”
He does some great stuff in his books but sometimes you wanna drag your face across gravel and go “rICK whY???”
No one is immune. This is why editors and proofreaders are vital.
When you understand that kids and teenagers being salty about literary symbolic analysis comes from a very real place of annoyance and frustration at some teachers for being over-bearing and pretentious in their projecting of symbolism onto every facet of a story but you also understand that literary analysis and critical thinking in regards to symbolism is extremely important and deserves to be not only taught in schools, but actively used by writers when examining their own work to see if they might have used symbolism unintentionally and to make sure that they are using symbolism effectively:
“I’m finally going to write! I have a great idea!”
LAUGHS LOUDLY
Me? Overthinking things that don’t matter? It’s more likely than you think.
*the teacher would commit slaughter if the students used first person pronouns
*if first person pronouns were used, the teacher would commit slaughter
*if the student used first person pronouns, the teacher would slaughter them
It’s fascinating how all of those sound better!
Also on a less salty note: it’s actually really cool to me how many different ways you can phrase that?
I don’t actually think no first person has to be passive? Like it’s only passive if you have to convert a first person sentence into not? And you shouldn’t be doing that anyway?
Maybe I don’t understand what passive voice is but like.. I still think no first person is sounds better provided you actually know how to write that way
ifesbob 