mystia:

ok i decided to share my collection of backgrounds, starting with the pink ones!! if this is well received i’d definitely be willing to do other colors or categories too. all of them are under the cut! some of the pixel ones are even transparent.

warning: there’s a lot

Read More

rumikosan:

Indie games for my backlog (￣(エ)￣)/. Feel free to check it out, it has screenshots too… I’ll try to update this and add more games in my free time.

Read More

HOLY SHAT.

GUYS, GUYS LOOK WHAT I FOUND!

writeworld:

Anonymous asked: > I am having trouble with the way all my characters talk < I already have tips on accents, so that is not what I am looking for. But they basically all talk the same way in a not-so-constant manner and there is not deference in speech than voice.

For some writers, dialogue comes naturally. It’s a gift often taken for granted, and when you don’t have it, dialogue can be the hardest part about writing. There are a few things you can do, however, to develop your skill and allow your characters to speak in their own unique voices.

1. Eavesdrop. Listen to everyone. Go out in public and write down snippets of conversation you hear. (Coffee shops are particularly useful in this respect, since it’s not uncommon to see people with notebooks or laptops.) Note speech patterns — does one person tend to speak in fragments? Is there a rhythm to their speech? Listen to two or more people having a conversation and note the differences in the way each person speaks. Listening to real people will allow you to better understand real dialogue.
2. Know who your characters are. A nuclear physicist educated at MIT will probably speak differently than a high school cheerleader from Nebraska. What demographic do your characters fall into? How old are they? Where are they from? This isn’t just about accents — someone from Kentucky will use different language than a Bostonian. Are they educated? What are their occupations? Who are they speaking to? From the vocabulary to the tone to the actual content of the conversation, the way people speak to their parents is normally different than the way they speak to their friends which is different from the way they speak to their teachers or bosses or enemies or customers or strangers on the train and on and on. People, it turns out, are complicated, and their speech patterns should reflect that.
3. Read it out loud. It always helps when you can hear your dialogue, rather than simply seeing it on a page. As you’re writing, say the dialogue out loud. If it doesn’t sound like your character, try something else. Contractions, slang, word omissions, and colloquialisms allow speech to sound more natural, and these distinctions separate diagonal from the surrounding prose.
4. Note the style of your action. If your writing resembles Catcher in the Rye and your main character is a teenage boy, your dialogue is probably going to sound a lot like the action surrounding it. And that’s okay. If, however, your writing reminds you of James Joyce and you’re writing about a homeless man in Albuquerque, your character’s speech and your voice should be different.

Here are a couple exercises that you can do for practice:

1. Write a short piece that is dialogue only without any indicators of who is speaking other than the dialogue itself. This will force you to look at the different ways your characters speak.
2. Fanfiction. (Ignoring the stigma around it, it’s an invaluable tool to improving dialogue.) Take two characters that you’re familiar with and have them talk to each other. Can you hear their personality in their voices? It helps if the characters aren’t too similar, but still work well together. Think Spock and Kirk.
3. Write down a real conversation you’ve had with someone. Once you have the dialogue established, add action and description. Pulling from reality can help you determine what sounds realistic.

And here are some more resources you might want to check out:

• The Passion of Dialogue
• 25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue
• Dialogue Writing Tips
• How to Write Believable Dialogue
• Writing Dialogue: The Music of Speech

I hope this helps!

-Elizabeth

keyboardsmashwriters:

One of the strongest bonds that link us to our favorite stories is the emotional tie, or books that sink a fist right into our guts. When you finished a book where you couldn’t let go of after the last page, chances are, the author successfully punched you in the spleen. If you’ve ever wondered how to do just that, here are some of my favorite methods:

1. Make your reader root for your main character(s). Make your character stretch out their arm toward their goal, as far as they can to reach, until their fingertips barely brush it. Make your character want something so much that your reader wants it, too.
2. When your character trips and stumbles and stops to question themselves, the readers will hold their breath.
3. Push your character to their very limit, and then a little further.
4. When your character hits the bottom, they should scrape themselves back together and get back up. Give readers a reason to believe in your character.
5. If your character is challenging your plot, your plot should challenge your character.
6. Leave a trail of intrigue, of questions, of “what if?” and “what next?”
7. If a character loses something (a battle, an important memento, part of themselves), they must eventually gain something in equal exchange, whether for good or bad.
8. Raise the stakes. Then raise them higher.
9. Don’t feel pressured to kill a character (especially simply to generate emotional appeal). A character death should serve the plot, not the shock factor. Like anything else in your story, only do it if it must be done and there’s no other way around it.
10. What’s the worst that can happen? Make it happen. Just make sure that the reader never loses hope.

(Source: keyboardsmashwriters.blogspot.com)