Hello! (Alternatively Titled, Send Me Writing Requests Please!)

Hello! (Alternatively titled, send me writing requests please!)

Ok I have been absent for like….a long while, which is partly the fault of the education system. Mostly the fault of it, honestly.

Anyways.

I’ve hit spring break, so I have two weeks of freedom, and that means writing (oh my god, writing). Naturally I have more free time, but I also have several 7 hour plane rides to contend with, and I have this extreme compulsion to write when on airplanes. My notes app will never know peace.

So, to anyone reading this who feels so inclined, please send me writing requests I beg of you (no writing advice asks right now please, I cannot do critical thinking)

Heroes villains sidekicks protag and antag, literally anything. I always enjoy writing asks!

Thank you!

doot doot

This brings me so much joy you don’t even know ty

Reblogging so more of you can find all these wonderful writers!!

Thank you @kaiwewi for the list and the mention :D

Hi! I’m looking for some more tumblr writing blogs similar to yours if you had any recommendations you’d be willing to share!

There are a lot of hero and villain writers on tumblr! @creweemmaeec11 has a whole community going, so may be more up to date than me!

(Sorry if this list misses anyone! It's by no means exhaustive.)

@gingerly-writing, @yourheartonfire, @thepenultimateword, @trappedgoose-in-a-writblr-room, @saltydumplings, @save-the-villainous-cat, @creweemmaeec11, @amethystpath-writes, @selene-stories, @some-messed-up-writing-for-you, @onestopheroxvillain, @booberryfun, @watercolorfreckles, @vigilantetendencies, @enemies-to-idiots-to-lovers, @nuttynutcycle, @defectivehero, @caffeinewitchcraft, @recklessfiction, @snowshowerwriting, @deckofaces

Anyone else who writes in the hero/villain, enemies to lovers, romance/fantasy ballpark, please feel free to add your name so people can find you!

Hey!! How is your Thursday treating you? Very well I hope. I saw your writing advise and I was wondering if you could give me some pointers. I know your probably busy so answer this on your time. My story’s setting is a very high end posh all girls boarding school. My main character’s family has major and integral ties to the school unknown to her since she was basically raised by her mothers parents (her father is the son of the headmaster) and the school is funded by the “government”. All the parents say that there child had loved the school and curriculum, only every girl that walked out of the school changed. Their behavior, their thoughts, their morals…all changed. They became more isolated and more withdrawn. I say this because the school actually trains the young girls to be assassins. They believe cultivating young minds is crucial. The facade of the school is well done so much so that admission is a long and tedious process. They start recruiting slow. They have a group of young girls who have been through the process scout out for young girls they think would make a good fit. It’s the setting and overall feeling I’m having trouble writing. The school at first should seem like a dream. The school is set in this wonderful eighteen century like building with beautiful grounds and various rooms and various chambers. The new students board in a different wing than the young girls who are in training. It’s all very hush hush. I want it to be scary, riveting, keep you on your toes. What are some techniques you use to write unsettling atmospheres?? I want it to be unsettling. Like you know somethings wrong but you can’t put your finger on it. It’s dark and mysterious and fearful. The teachers are in on it as well. So i it gives “lamb to the slaughter vibes”. The girls who are part of the training and are the leaders are mean and cruel, they like to scare the recruits, make life hell for them. They’ve gone through a lot of trauma and are emotionally broken. Do you have any advice for writing the girls? I want them to come of menacing, but also have a odd sense of sympathy and pity for the girls. Because they know first hand how it will be. This project is proving harder to write 😂😂 I was about to give up on the whole thing but I figured I would ask my favorite author for help first. ❤️

Thank you for the ask, you’re very sweet!

For writing unsettling atmospheres, I normally rely a lot on subtlety, especially when the main character is in the dark.

For example, one of the short stories I wrote ended with the main character getting her identity stolen by a fae. I hinted at it all throughout, but I put it into the characters own thoughts—how the other girl’s laugh sounded like hers, how the other girls hair was the same color as hers but it was better somehow. Going through it, it gives childish envy, but on a second read, it becomes more clear that the fae was slowly transforming to look more and more like the MC.

Along with that, don’t draw attention to unnecessary things to make it seem more unsettling, because that doesn’t feel natural. State something that’s slightly off or unsettling, and leave it. People will think about the implications naturally. Why is that door locked? Why don’t we go on the second floor? Where did the girl from the first week of classes go too, since we can’t go home?

When thinking about the setting you described, with an older house you can make a lot of assumptions about what’s happening. People’s first reaction is never “bloodstain” it’s normally mud, or tea, or paint. So have your character notice some strange staining on the wall outside one of her rooms, and bring it up to a teacher/supervisor, completely innocently, like mentioning they think there’s a water leak. Have the supervisor draw the silence out, make it feel uncomfortable, like she thinks she did something wrong, and then have them dismiss it with a “I’ll have to fix that.”

Leaky roof? Sure. Is it under the training rooms and one of the baseboards leaked blood down the inner wall? We’ll find out, won’t we?

Silence freaks people out, but so does the abrupt change from sound to silence. Make information change on a whim. The character thought this is what the supervisor said, but everyone says she’s wrong—when the information did change, just in order to keep the peace. I think a lot of the unsettling atmosphere will come from subtle environment factors—blood stains and locked doors and a wall around the school to keep the horses in, but the protagonist hasn’t actually seen any horses yet….

Now, for the girls. They can be BIG contributors to the unsettling factor. But you have to decide how you want them involved. Are they mean to the new girls because they’re jealous of their innocence? Are they mean because they’re trying to provoke them into leaving the school before it’s too late? To have them have that kind of “menacing” aura, then any subsequent sympathy or pity will also be a bit gruffer. It sounds like they’re mean partly because that’s one of their only pieces of freedom they have, but also because they’re jealous. I hope I’m making sense, but if I’m not, here’s kind of a snippet my brain spat at me regarding your questions.

She had watched as they demonstrated knife throwing aptly, because scared as she was, she wanted to do it right.

She had listened to all of their advice, sharp tongued as it was, and studied the way the older girls fingers danced along the blades.

She had always been good at learning this kind of stuff by sight, so she had double checked her hand position, and threw.

And promptly sliced the palm of her hand clean open.

She didn’t even have the thought to gasp at the pain as she watched the blood begin to well. Her cheeks went red as one of the older girls snapped her gaze over, fixating on her bleeding palm.

She wasn’t supposed to screw up, she was supposed to be proving herself—

The older girls hands closed around her wrist with a startlingly efficiency, stretching her fingers out to view the wound. When she winced, the girl shushed her, half harsh and half distracted as she eyed the wound.

She just barely kept up as the older girl dragged her into the bathroom, rummaging in a cupboard for a box of bandages.

“Be quiet,” the older girl snapped as she opened her mouth, eyes dark. “I’m fixing your hand right now because you messed up. This is the only time you get to do this.”

She could only watch as the older girl wrapped a bandage through her fingers and around her wrist, leaving her capable of movement and still covered fully. She wondered how many times you had to get an injury like that to learn how to bandage it so well.

“Listen to me,” the older girl hissed. “I helped you this once, and it won’t happen again. You don’t get to make mistakes; we don’t get to make mistakes. So either you don’t make them, or you learn to hide them, do you understand me?”

She nodded, just once.

“This school has a 100% graduation rate.” The older girl’s eyes bore into hers. “And they will never let that change, so don’t try.”

The older girl left her in the bathroom, clutching her aching and bandaged hand, wondering just how many of the stains on the sink were blood.

I hope this helps!

The hero was halfway home when they got the call.

“I’m sorry,” the person on the other end said, voice wet with tears, and the hero knew.

They knew that tone of voice, they knew this sinking in their stomach. They knew.

Their phone shattered against the ground, fingers numb.

Their friend was dead.

Again. Again, again, again again–

“Fuck,” the hero muttered, heart clenching. “Fuck.”

They were crying by the time the villain appeared next to them, and it took everything in the hero not to punch them.

“I don’t know why you do this to yourself,” the villain said, eyeing their tears.

“What, love?”

The villain tipped their head slightly. “No. Love things you can't keep.”

The hero was sure it would kill them this time, the heartbreak. They had thought after enough centuries, enough people loved, enough funerals attended, death would be an old friend and not a bullet wound. They had hoped it would hurt less.

But it still hurt, and death was chronic.

“What, you expect me to be you? Cold, killing people for fun?”

The villain raised an eyebrow at their tone.

“I don’t kill people for fun.”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” the villain shrugged a shoulder. “I just don’t care if there are casualties. Besides, not everyone is a good person in the first place. I’m doing the world a favor, half the time”

“How can you say something like that,” the hero hissed. “Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how awful you sound right now?”

The villain gave the hero a long look.

“Hero. You fight the worst people this world has to see for a living, and you’re standing here saying they deserve a second chance?”

“Yes,” the hero snapped. “I am.”

“You are a bleeding heart,” the villain observed. “It’s amazing you haven’t turned into me.”

“You and I, we are not the same.”

The villain half-smiled. “Aren’t we?”

“Shut up,” the hero looked away, chest tight. “These people, these lives, are so precious, so, so fragile, and you take them away like it is nothing.”

They were shaking, and they weren’t sure if it was rage or fear or something else. They couldn’t stop. The hero wondered if this was what death felt like. If this is what it felt like to have your body betray you, longing for the ground and solitude of a grave.

“I am not going to stand here and debate morality with you when you are breaking apart at the seams.”

“I’m fine,” the hero managed. They willed themself to stop crying.

“Death is inevitable, and you are hiding from the truth of that.”

The hero’s throat closed before they could respond.

“Your friend is dead, and no matter how much you fight, you will not win the war against death a second time. Do you hear me? You and me, we already won. We are time’s children. We will be here longer than ‘here’ will be. Death has no claim to us, and yet you keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, because you cannot bear the weight of this gift.”

The hero’s knees gave out, and the villain caught them.

“Stop letting the guilt of being alive break you.”

“I don’t want this anymore.” It was a pitiful thing as it fell from their mouth. Something broken, worn out and tired.

The villain rested a hand on the back of the hero’s neck. “You cannot undo this any more than you could the last time you tried. I promise.”

It almost sounded like an apology.

“I am tired of loving precious, fleeting things.”

“So don’t,” the villain said easily.

The hero closed their eyes. “How?”

The villain hummed, voice soft. “Love me for a while. Until the burden of existence fades. I won’t leave.”

“You say that like loving you is easy.”

“It isn’t. But you’ve done it for centuries–what’s a few more?”

“You kill people.”

“No. I just don’t save them, and I don’t carry the guilt of not saving them, because it isn’t my job.”

“Yeah.”

“It isn’t your job either.”

The hero had known that, centuries ago. Somewhere along the way of funerals and eulogies, it had been hard to keep believing it wasn’t their fault when they were always the one left alive.

So they had stopped.

“Promise you won’t leave?”

“I couldn’t leave you if I tried.”

“Liar.”

“Yeah,” the villain agreed. “But never to you.”

Just like the hero had known it to be true when they were both fifteen, mortal, and wild, the hero knew it was true now.

And so, like every time this had happened before, across centuries and continents and deaths, the villain brushed away the hero’s tears; and they went home.