Id Wreak Mayhem For A Really Good Scifi Where Sight Was Considered As Exotic And Numinous As Telepathy

id wreak mayhem for a really good scifi where sight was considered as exotic and numinous as telepathy by the protag species

the politics of light and dark are everywhere in our vocabulary…psa to writers: subvert this, reveal whiteness and lightness as sometimes artificial and violent, and darkness as healing, the unknown as natural

Helpful things for action writers to remember

Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll. 

Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast. 

Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention. 

Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them. 

Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently. 

ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face. 

Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.

Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone. 

A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way. 

If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword. 

ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters.  (CLICK ME)

If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability. 

People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot. 

Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME) 

If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)

Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here. 

Every Literary Genre Summed Up in a Single Sentence

Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language

We are always told to use body language in our writing. Sometimes, it’s easier said than written. I decided to create these cheat sheets to help you show a character’s state of mind. Obviously, a character may exhibit a number of these behaviours. For example, he may be shocked and angry, or shocked and happy. Use these combinations as needed.

by Amanda Patterson

MORE AU IDEAS

• “My stupid friends roped me into a mall scavenger hunt and you’re on the list” AU • “We both wanted to rent a bike for an hour but the only one they have is a tandem bike” AU • “You’re adopting the cat that I’ve been trying to adopt for a week now” AU • “You just moved into the house next to my mom’s and she has you doing her yardwork” AU • “I’m on a terrible date and you’re my waitor please help me” AU • “My brother/sister asked me to break up with you for them i’m so sorry” AU • “I’ve been receiving all your freaking mail since you moved out and you keep getting weird gifts from your brother make it stop” AU • “Our dick landlord just evicted us both” AU • “We both just moved in with our siblings and they’re neighbors” AU • “I’m your neighbor and I can hear you fucking someone who shares my name” AU • “Your cat got my cat pregnant and now I have all these kittens please take them” AU • “I’m your ex, you are a cop, and I just got arrested for being drunk and disorderly” AU • “Remember that one time in college when we were at that party and you asked a random stranger to pretend to be your boyfriend/girlfriend? Yeah well that was me and we’re adults now” AU • “You’re sort of famous and we vaguely know each other through bumping into each other all the time but the media thinks we’re dating” AU • “You’re a cop, I’m a firefighter, we always work the same shifts” AU • “You always ask me for help but I have weird health conditions that prevent me from doing so” AU • “Your roommate cheated on me and I just threw your laptop out the window thinking it was his” AU • “My kid just shot a bottle rocket into your window” AU • “We’re both in the vegetable isle and I just burst into tears while staring at the cabbages” AU • “That’s my fucking fish that you just caught give it back” AU • “I’ve had a crush on you since the 11th grade but you’ve hated me ever since that one time” AU • “The advertisement did not do you justice” AU • “You jipped me of those concert tickets so I came to your house asshole” AU • “You think I’m nervous because you’re interviewing me for this high end job but actually it’s because you’re stupidly hot” AU • “Oh shit this isn’t my car” AU • “You fell off the map 6 years ago and you think you can just waltz back into my life. Literally. You’re the dance instructor for my best friend’s wedding and we have history” AU • “It’s 2am on the night of my 21st birthday and we gotta fix this fucking mess by morning or else we’re fucked ” AU • “My dad’s a cancer patient and you’re his nurse” AU • “Did I mention that I had a dream about you last night? Oh right we’ve never talked about before” AU • “Lol this was a terrible idea” AU • “juSt a game? jUST A GaMe????? FUCK YOU I WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO WIN” or the “so competitive it’s almost sexual” AU • “Aren’t you the person from marti gras last year?” AU • “We’re both on the same multiple stop flight schedules to go to the same destination so we might as well stick together. Also your shoulder is a very comfortable pillow.” AU • “Fuck you and your bee farm I’ve had enough” AU • “We’re in an exam study group and I just send you my nudes by accident oops” AU • “Somehow my gallery sculpture piece looks exactly like you how weird” AU • “That tattoo on your chest is the exact same as mine” AU • “I was actually awake when you did that thing” AU • “Why do we keep running into each other when we live on opposite sides of the country?” AU • “We need to be really quiet but you have the hiccups” AU • “Why do you always walk your dog at exactly 12am every night? Do you not enjoy sleep?” AU • “For the love of God, what is making that noise?” AU • “Somehow you manage to scare me everytime we run into each other and i already get frightened very easily let me live” AU