The Ridiculous Ground-Up World Building Questionnaire

What follows is an exhaustive list of questions for world building. YOU should be able to answer all of these questions, and your readers should be able to answer a fair amount by the end of your story or series.

Generally for world building I recommend picking a modern-day country or region for actual geographical/climate world building, and an ancient empire or two to help you answer the other questions. 

You may not need to answer all questions, I doubled many for urban vs rural settings and some questions are repeated in various sections. Also, the term “destitute” is used to mark the lowest levels of society (in some stories that can mean slaves or servants). Just FYI.

What follows is 1,045++ Questions, and I do recommend answering them for each country on your map (if they play a role in the story)…

Click HERE for my writing references master-list!

(Sorry for anyone on mobile who isn’t seeing the ‘Keep Reading’ cut)

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“our teeth and ambitions are bared” is a zeugma

and it’s a zeugma where one of the words is literal and one is metaphorical which is the BEST KIND

I didn’t know about zeugmas until just now! That is so awesome, everybody: 

zeug·ma ˈzo͞oɡmə/

noun

ISN’T THAT AWESOME??

#in english class in high school my teacher had us write our own zeugmas in class#and one guy came up with ‘he fell from her favor… and the window’#i am forever looking for opportunities to use that one

She dropped her dress and inhibitions at the door.

What’s this? My favorite rhetorical device showing up on my dashboard?

IT HAS A NAMEEEE!! OH MY GOD!!!

I LOVE THIIIIIS!!!

One I’ve loved was “on their weekend trip they caught three fish and a cold”

I love these they’re like a pun and a metaphor wrapped up into one neat phrase

@jwlzrulezz rhetorical device of the day

She stole my heart and my cat. 😀

OH.

crime pulp is full of zeugma and it’s the greatest. “she was the kind of girl who’d break your heart, or maybe your arm.”

“A new trend has emerged in the [Western] fashion world. Or so they say. Fashion bloggers, stylists, and prominent members of the fashion industry are all talking about the ‘dress over pants’ trend, which Pakistanis have been sporting for as long as we can remember.”

I saw this Kendall Jenner tweet awhile ago on the internet and I remember thinking, “Hey that’s what us Pakistani and other South Asian women wear all the time; we’ve been wearing these for years. What’s so special about this?” and then I remembered that if you’re white, everything suddenly becomes sooooo chic and stylish!!! And when the rest of us wear it, we’re insulted or stereotyped, get nasty looks, racist remarks etc etc. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of other celebs in the West wearing clothes like this too and of course they all get praised by the media and fashion bloggers for starting some new and creative trends, but the rest of us get crap for wearing our original cultural clothes.

This dress is pretty common in Pakistan, and other South Asian countries. Pakistani women rock this look pretty well:

Why do they take our fashions and create some bland and boring version of them?

Here’s another article with historical and modern examples of South Asian (Pakistani and Indian) fashion of which these gorees stole, i mean….were “inspired” by lmao

http://www.comingoffaith.com/style/fashion/you-can-call-it-dress-over-pants-we-just-call-it-the-shalwar-kameez/

- Farah

Pakistanis and Indians do it so much better. Wtf is “dress over pants”

Bangladeshis, too!

There’s also the áo dài, which is the traditional Vietnamese dress.

I’ve never worn one, but they’re sold nearly everywhere in any Vietnamese community you’d encounter, especially where I live. “Dress over pants”, lmao

I was not familiar with the áo dài, those are gorgeous

YES I’m so glad someone added the ao dai

“All that talk about the power of friendship,” the antagonist murmured, as they circled the protagonist. “And it never even occurred to you that perhaps your enemies might have friends too, did it? How arrogant a thing, you are…”

seriously, NO ONE DOES THIS and it fruSTRAtes me

this is the color palette for blood gf

This would be better for writing if it had the names

Poses by Soccer20Star

I like this technique of gesture

Michael Cinco 

Fall 2017 Couture

I get a lot of tutorial requests, but today’s topic is hands-down the most-requested. Today, we learn how to draw hands.

My previous hand lesson explained the bones. Even if you’re not interested in drawing skeletons, the bones determine the proportions and range of motion. For the hand in particular, a lot of the forms of the bones are visible on the surface, so you gotta know them!

Muscles of the Hands

The hand muscles can be grouped into three teardrops: The thumb gets two teardrops and the pinky gets one on the palm side. Their teardrop-shapes are wider at the wrist and taper towards the fingers.

The one on the palm side of the thumb is the biggest and the one on the back of the hand is the smallest. They’re like the Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear…

But what about fingers? The fingers are made up of bones, tendons and fat… no muscle fibers in the fingers! All muscle bellies end before the metacarpophalangeal joint, (blue). That goes for the thumb, too.

As you can tell from it’s shape, the thumb is different from the others. There are a lot of muscles surrounding the thumb and it has a much larger range of motion.

Thenar Eminence

Let’s start with the thenar eminence. That’s a fancy word for the thumb mass on the palm side. It’s the biggest and most important muscle mass on the palm. It emerges from the wrist and attaches along the thumb bones. It stretches out when you stick out your thumb, but even then you can see how thick it is. It’s even more obvious when the thumb is brought towards the palm, and all the muscles bunch up into a big mass around the base. Papa Bear has a fat pot belly. You can think of it like a cone or a chicken drumstick on the thumb’s metacarpal. It changes shape as the thumb moves, which makes it a little tricky, but as long as you know its origin and insertion, you know the area it fits into.

To fully understand it’s form, you gotta know the layering of the muscles. I’ll explain all the individual hand muscles in-depth in the Premium version of this lesson.

Hypothenar Eminence

Next up, the pinky muscle mass, technically called the hypothenar eminence. This one is long and narrow, not quite as thick or wide as the thumb mass. It may look like these two masses meet in the middle of your palm, but the muscle fibers actually stop a little short with a tendinous gap between. It’s the fat sitting on top that blends them together.

Don’t go overboard with the hard edge between them or you’ll end up with hand-butts! In general, it’s better to shade it with tone than mark it with a black outline. Unless the palm is squeezed together, bringing Papa Bear and Mama Bear in for a hug. In that case hand butts are totally acceptable.

The pinky mass starts at the base of the hand. It actually travels over the side of the hand and attaches to the outside of the pinky metacarpal. This is why the ulnar side of your hand is kind of squishy when you poke it, while the radial side is hard and bony.

This pinky mass has a weird muscle on top of it that’s kinda unique. It runs perpendicular to the other muscles of the pinky. This muscle is called the palmaris brevis. Sound familiar? There was that palmaris longus muscles we learned in the forearm lesson that had the wide palm aponeurosis at the end of it. Well, the palmaris brevis originates on this palmar aponeurosis. It inserts on the skin along the pinky border of the palm. Ok, interesting… What does this muscle do? It pulls the skin inward and helps to improve grip. Go ahead and try it. Squeeze your hand together like you’re gripping something. Notice that interesting indent it creates along the pinky side of the hand. That’s the skin being pulled. The skin and palmar fat bunch up on top of the muscle belly. I bet you’ve seen that indent a gazillion times, but never really understood it. Now you know.

First Dorsal Interosseous

The final teardrop shape is the first dorsal interosseous. It’s the Baby Bear teardrop on the dorsal side of the thumb. It creates an egg-shaped bulge between the thumb and index finger metacarpals, filling that v-shaped gap between the bones. Since it’s between the two bones, the dorsal surfaces of those bones are still subcutaneous. That means you can feel the back of the bones and the soft squishy muscle between. Go ahead and find it on yourself.

When the thumb is out, this muscle mass is stretched out. When the thumb is squeezed in, it pops out as a big round egg form. It’s not as thick as the palmar thumb mass. It’s shorter, too. The dorsal thumb mass only reaches the metacarpals, while the palmar thumb mass starts way up at the wrist.

Ok, so those are the muscles of the hand! You can find the assignment and photo reference images for the assignment here.

There’s 2 more lessons and a few demonstrations coming soon, so keep your eyes open. And as always, there’s a lot more content in the Premium version of this lesson.

man you know what I want? a superhero series where they have powers that 100% contradict their personalities. a fishermans daughter who lives by the sea, swims every day, learns that she can control fire. a boy who’s mortified of heights but realizes he can use antigravity and hates it. someone who was bitten by a dog as a child, suffers extreme fear around animals, can now communicate with them. they’re all disgusted by their powers.

yes good but what about the ~character development~ as they learn to cope with their powers and overcome their fears

the pyrokinetic swimmer wading out into the ocean armed with waterproof matches to practice so nothing goes wrong, building her confidence with the sea as her safety net, being so proud when she figures out how to heat the air just enough that she dries off instantly after swimming

the boy slowly overcoming his fear of heights, realizing that he can catch himself if he ever falls, standing swaying on top of playground sets and closing his eyes as he tries to safely hover down (and not fall on his face again)

the girl’s terror lessening as the previously terrifying cacophony of the dogs at the park turns into a chorus of “ball! ball! throw me the ball!” “it’s me! I’m the good boy!” and “squirrel!!!” and learning to communicate back, have them listen to her, learning how to calm down a dog who’s overexcited to the point of biting, discovering that the scary dog down the street is just home alone a lot and lonely, staring her fear in the face and learning its secrets

because being disgusted with their powers is interesting, but I want to see people learning to love even the scary and contradictory parts of themselves

engagement rings ranked by their ability to break someone’s nose

a pretty standard arrangement for engagement rings. a raised stone is better than nothing. 3/10

a lovely, simple, elegant wedding band. a classic anybody would be pleased to get married with. useless in a fight. 0/10

huge. tacky. kinda pretty tho. but look at that raised diamond in the center. you could easily break someone’s tooth with this. 7/10

also huge and tacky. at first glance you’d think the rounded edge might not cause much damage but look at how those rows of diamonds are raised in the second view. you could really rip up someone’s face. 9/10

this one is almost elegant. no sharp edges, but it’s solidly built. you would cause more damage with the ring on than off, which is a solid basis for choosing an engagement ring. 5/10

a lovely design, i enjoy open filigree. however im not sure how said filigree would stand up to the impact of being slammed into someone’s face. 2/10

the twisting design is pretty, but im not entirely sure that socking someone in the jaw wouldnt break off those stones. it looks somewhat reinforced but do you really want to leave the Punching Power of  your engagement ring up to chance? i wouldnt. two raised stones tho. 6/10, pending experimentation

HAHAHAHA holy shit. thats Five raised stones, with reinforced prongs, for maximum damage at any angle. i highly recommend this ring both for its sapphire centerpiece and its capacity for causing pain. 10/10

there’s not even a stone, its just gold which aint exactly the hardest metal in the world. just fucking stay home if you’re not going to take this seriously.

Writing a novel when you imagine all you stories in film format is hard because there’s really no written equivalent of “lens flare” or “slow motion montage backed by Gregorian choir”

You can get the same effect of a lens flare with close-detail descriptions, combined with breaks to new paragraphs.

Your slow-motion montage backed by a Gregorian choir can be done with a few technques that all involve repetition.

First is epizeuxis, the repeating of a word for emphasis.

Example:

Then there’s anaphora, where you write a number of phrases with the same words at the beginning.

This kind of repetition effectively slows the pace of your writing and puts the focus on that small scene. That’s where you get your slow pan. The same repetition also has a subtle musicality to it depending on the words you use. That’s where you get the same vibe as you might get from a Gregorian choir.

Damn I made relatable reblog- bait post and writer Tumblr went hard with it. This is legitimately very good advice. 

For more neat tricks (aka figures of rhetoric) like epizeuxis and anaphora, read THE ELEMENTS OF ELOQUENCE by Mark Forsyth. It’s both educational and delightful, not to mention overflowing with wry wit. Great book. 

How to create romantic couples with chemistry

Writing couples is both enchanting and exhausting. How do you make people ship your couple? How do you make them an OTP? How do you make your couple matter to the story? Or matter at all? To answer all these questions, I’ll explain three major must-have characteristics for couples:

1. Realism

Falling in love is a slow process. It’s different from person to person. People are flawed. Relationships are flawed. People make mistakes. People fear rejection. Not everyone will find their soulmate exactly when they need most. People show love in different ways. People are not flirty all the time. Realism is important. Development is essential. When writing a couple, visualize yourself as one of the characters (or both). Imagine their love story as if it was happening to you in real life. See how different it goes? Maybe not as fast and a thousand times clumsier, but also charming and interesting.

Example of strong realism: Carl and Ellie (UP), they take a lifetime to mature their love and mutual respect. Neither are perfect. The relationship goes through bad times, but their love only grows.

Example of weak realism: Caine and Jupiter (Jupiter Ascending), they fall in love in two or three days, not enough scenes are dedicated to developing the relationship. In the end, it feels strange. 

2. Balance

Give your couple opposite but complementary features. This is basically the Yin-yang symbolism that a lot of stories shows. If one character is all love-and-peaceful, maybe the other is a furnace of anger. If one traveled the whole world, maybe the other never left their village. If one is a millionaire, maybe the other is homeless. If one is short with dark hair, maybe the other is tall with light hair. However, no matter how opposite they are, always keep the balance. One shouldn’t overshadow the other. They must shine together, but also as individuals.

Example of strong balance: Fix-it Felix Jr. and Sargent Calhoun (Wreck-It Ralph), they belong to different worlds, they would probably never meet. He is a sweet pie that always tries his best, a peacemaker. She is, on the other hand, an explosion, a warrior. They are both relevant in achieving victory. Also, both are the heroes of their own games.

Example of weak balance: Sasuke and Sakura (Naruto), he is way more powerful than her, he doesn’t respect her as a ninja, he doesn’t like working with her. He tried killing her more than once and was never sorry about that. She accepts being overshadowed. She lacks character development compared to Sasuke. There is no opposite-complementary features tying them. It’s unbalanced.

3. Synergy

Make them work together. Make them accomplish common goals. Make them a power duo. Make them laugh of the same jokes. Make it easy and natural for them to be together, talking, sharing and having a good time. Make their conversations flow. Make it easy to touch, and stare, and embrace, and kiss. Make their mind and body work together.

Example of strong synergy: Cat Noir and Ladybug/Adrien and Marinette (Miraculous Ladybug), they are the heroes of Paris. No, they are partners in saving the world. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable when they interact, fight and save each other. It feels right. It feels natural. You crave for interactions.

Example of weak synergy: Kim Tan and Eun-Sang (The Heirs), they are the type of couple that are always fighting, but sometimes indulge in a passionate kiss. However, there’s no synergy between these characters. They are never on the same page. They are never partners. The magic of their relationship never sparkles. Even their kisses are uncomfortable to watch.

Now, think of your favorite couples (even non-canon ones) and try spotting the realism, the balance and the synergy in them. If you ship it,I’m pretty sure it’s there. 

Try applying these characteristics to your next writing.