twilightfansofcolor

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Reblog and put in the tags what movie you watched in an empty theater.

#lisa frankenstein and it was so good! #also migration #not twilight related

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You don’t have to pay for that fancy worldbuilding program

As mentioned in this post about writing with executive dysfunction, if one of your reasons to keep procrastinating on starting your book is not being able to afford something like World Anvil or Campfire, I’m here to tell you those programs are a luxury, not a necessity: Enter Google Suite (not sponsored but gosh I wish).

MS Office offers more processing power and more fine-tuning, but Office is expensive and only autosaves to OneDrive, and I have a perfectly healthy grudge against OneDrive for failing to sync and losing 19k words of a WIP that I never got back.

Google’s sync has never failed me, and the Google apps (at least for iPhone) aren’t nearly as buggy and clunky as Microsoft’s. So today I’m outlining the system I used for my upcoming fantasy novel with all the helpful pictures and diagrams. Maybe this won’t work for you, maybe you have something else, and that’s okay! I refuse to pay for what I can get legally for free and sometimes Google’s simplicity is to its benefit.

The biggest downside is that you have to manually input and update your data, but as someone who loves organizing and made all these willingly and for fun, I don’t mind.

So. Let’s start with Google Sheets.

The Character Cheat Sheet:

I organized it this way for several reasons:

I can easily see which characters belong to which factions and how many I have named and have to keep up with for each faction

All names are in alphabetical order so when I have to come up with a new name, I can look at my list and pick a letter or a string of sounds I haven’t used as often (and then ignore it and start 8 names with A).

The strikethrough feature lets me keep track of which characters I kill off (yes, I changed it, so this remains spoiler-free)

It’s an easy place to go instead of scrolling up and down an entire manuscript for names I’ve forgotten, with every named character, however minor their role, all in one spot

Also on this page are spare names I’ll see randomly in other media (commercials, movie end credits, etc) and can add easily from my phone before I forget

Also on this page are my summary, my elevator pitch, and important character beats I could otherwise easily mess up, it helps stay consistent

*I also have on here not pictured an age timeline for all my vampires so I keep track of who’s older than who and how well I’ve staggered their ages relative to important events, but it’s made in Photoshop and too much of a pain to censor and add here

On other tabs, I keep track of location names, deities, made-up vocabulary and definitions, and my chapter word count.

The Word Count Guide:

This is the most frustrating to update manually, especially if you don’t have separate docs for each chapter, but it really helps me stay consistent with chapter lengths and the formula for calculating the average and rising totals is super basic.

Not that all your chapters have to be uniform, but if you care about that, this little chart is a fantastic visualizer.

If you have multiple narrators, and this book does, you can also keep track of how many POVs each narrator has, and how spread out they are. I didn’t do that for this book since it’s not an ensemble team and matters less, but I did for my sci-fi WIP, pictured below.

As I was writing that one, I had “scripted” the chapters before going back and writing out all the glorious narrative, and updated the symbols from “scripted” to “finished” accordingly.

I also have a pie chart that I had to make manually on a convoluted iPhone app to color coordinate specifically the way I wanted to easily tell who narrates the most out of the cast, and who needs more representation.

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Google Docs

Can’t show you much here unfortunately but I’d like to take an aside to talk about my “scene bits” docs.

It’s what it says on the tin, an entire doc all labeled with different heading styles with blurbs for each scene I want to include at some point in the book so I can hop around easily. Whether they make it into the manuscript or not, all practice is good practice and I like to keep old ideas because they might be useful in unsuspecting ways later.

Separate from that, I keep most of my deleted scenes and scene chunks for, again, possible use later in a “deleted scenes” doc, all labeled accordingly.

When I designed my alien language for the sci-fi series, I created a Word doc dictionary and my own "translation" matrix, for easy look-up or word generation whenever I needed it (do y'all want a breakdown for creating foreign languages? It's so fun).

Normally, as with my sci-fi series, I have an entire doc filled with character sheets and important details, I just… didn’t do that for this book. But the point is—you can still make those for free on any word processing software, you don’t need fancy gadgets.

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I hope this helps anyone struggling! It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Everything I made here, minus the aforementioned timeline and pie chart, was done with basic excel skills and the paint bucket tool. I imagine this can be applicable to games, comics, what have you, it knows no bounds!

Now you have one less excuse to sit down and start writing.

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Kiowa Gordon as Embry Call The Twilight Saga, 2008–2012

#i will never forget when i was arguing with kiowa gordon's brother on twitter about black lives matter 10 years ago

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The Aristotle of our times

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Twilight: Beautiful Disasters

Chapter One: why?

warning: Mention of death, mention of torture (non-descriptive), angst

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“what did you do to me….?” Her words were filled with disbelief and anguish, her blood red eyes glossy with venomous tears as she stared at her reflection in the full body mirror in the corner of the prestine bedroom she stood in that she woke up in moments ago and wasn’t hers by any means. She looked on the verge of tears, panic and grief fleeting across her beautiful eternal features that looked frozen and too beautiful and unnatural to be her.

She refused to believe that is even was her!

“Why would you do this to me?” she asked once more, spiralling as her bottom lip trembled as her tears shed down her face, turning around to look at the people responsible for the monster she’d become, Edward and Bella, with Emmett and Jasper standing behind them just in case. Edward didn’t know why Bella never had any self-preservation skills when it came to their kind, but she begged to see her bestfriend the minute she woke up, and clearly by her state at the moment, she wasn’t exactly happy to be awake- or alive for that matter as Edward read through her thoughts, her memories flooding back to her mind like a hurricane washing up shore a torrent of painful and mesirable memories of her Human life, and of her death.

Flashes of James taking her prisoner in that damned studio, leaving her on the floor writhing in pain from his bite on her neck after he’d tortured her beyond compare; bruised, bloody and pleading for him to kill her- begging him to not turn her as she laid there convulsing in burning pain and watching soon as her reason for this happening to her arriving only to fall victim too, to be bitten too.

They saved her, and let me die… Let me turn into this!

Her subconscious accused

“We tried saving you, but it was too late; the venom had spread too far to save you as we did Bella” Edward tried to reason, tried to placate as Bonnie looked at him, disbelieving and sobbing as she bared her teeth at him “Than you should have killed me!” she screamed viciously, her screech reaching their ears like knives on metal- the windows of her room cracking at the mere sound of it, and though they were surprised by that- she continued on like she barely took notice

“You should have done to me what you did to him, should’ve killed me and burned me and let me fucking die than let me turn into fucking Monster!” she wailed gripping her hair as she pacing from left to right, trying to calm her breathing- Edward supposed she’d didn’t realise that the had no need to breathe anymore anyway. The wounds were too great, too fresh…

“Jasper…” Edward called on his brother, they needed her to calm down, this wasn’t good for her, she’d hurt herself- or worse hurt Bella with how anguished she felt. How much of this she laid blame on Bella to begin with, but try as Jasper might- even to the extent of everybody else in the room feeling his calm effect, they did not reach Bonnie at all. It was like his influence just made her more aware of her panic, her anxiety…

“It’s not working….” Jasper whispered in shock, blinking his wide eyes as Edward and Bella looked back at him in panic to his words “what does he mean by that? Are his powers not working on her? Can’t he calm her down?” Bella asked in a whisper full of worry of her own as she held Edward’s hand tight, eyes focused back on Bonnie who just kept on crying, hand wrapped around her stomach as her knee’s buckled and crumbled to the floor sobbing

“Her emotions are too strong for me to even try grasping, they’re overwhelming my powers….I’m sorry” Jasper choked out, brows pinched in distress as he quickly bolted out the room faster than Bella’s eyes could register. Edward was at a loss for words at that moment, he’d always been aware that Jasper’s gift was a bit overwhelming- constantly feeling how others felt, but he’d never seen him not only find it hard to control a persons mood, but be overwhelmed so much he had to leave the house entirely- he sensed how those emotions made him feel, and Edward was for the first time frightened and confused that that much emotion existed in one person.

So much pain.

So much heartache

So much grief….

In Jasper’s eyes, Bonnie felt too deeply, she was mourning too many things at once- and at the moment she was feeling everything, every emotion she’d ever buried when she was human flooding through her with nowhere to bury it anymore- and it was painful to her. Torture even…

“Edward please help her, she looks like she in pain!” Bella begged, watching Bonnie- arms wrapped tight around herself and forehead pressed against the wooden floor crying still as if she truly were in pain, and for a moment Edward was frozen. Not sure what He could do for Bonnie at all anymore if Jasper failed to help her.

“I think this needs Carlisle, I’ve never seen this before” Emmett advised as Edward looked back at him, nodding once to let him go fetch their father- maybe he knew how to handle this better than they thought they could “Bella I think it’s best if you and I leave, give Bonnie some space-…”

“No I’m not going to leave her like this! She’s like this because of me-…!”

“Bella” Edward spoke firmly looking into Bella’s concerned eyes staring up at him in plea to be left to stay with her friend

“You being here is what’s causing her pain” Edward forced himself to say those words. He didn’t wish to hurt Bella’s feelings- he knew she was beating herself up for all this, but he also knew she’d never want Bonnie to hurt any more than she already was, and the look of confusion and hurt in her eyes forced him to elaborate

“she’s…. she blames you for what happened to her- for everything James did to her; she wants you to leave”

Bella’s eyes brimmed with tears at Edwards words, looking back Bonnie who laid on the floor sobbing, hesitant to leave, but burdened by his words to argue as she turned to leave- whispering sorry to her friend one more time before walking out the door with Edward following her.

#not mine

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Breaking Dawn deleted scenes.

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i was today years old when i learned that bruno mars was on the twilight soundtrack

#and it will rain is such a beautiful song too. it still holds up on its own

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what makes me actually boil with rage is the way it’s framed as though jacob & the cullens have an even rivalry and like, he hates them just as much as they hate him, but like… jacob is a lower class kid who lives on the rez, the cullens live in a plantation home on private property. jacob calling alice a leech is an insult, but alice calling him a mongrel calls into power and privilege, ya know. like am i supposed to honestly think jake making blonde jokes to rosalie (which is certainly sexist and uncalled for) is on the same level as her serving him food in a dog dish? him seeing the cullens as bloodsuckers and murderers is just like, incorrect and unfair, but them seeing him as uncivilized and over-aggressive has implications deeply rooted in the oppression of his people

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remember when bella was playfully like "’something I should know’? what lol, are you not a virgin?" and edward went on to confess that he murdered dozens of men. SO unserious can you imagine how quickly the vibes in that room shifted. I know she felt so fucking awkward for saying that

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Ways to Skip Time In Your Stories

Finding ways to skip time in stories can feel challenging. Writers often worry it’ll make their work feel too amateur or negatively affect their pacing. 

The truth is that every author includes ways they skip time to maintain their pacing and plot. Check out a few ways to do it with confidence. 

1. Start a New Chapter

Yes, it’s really that simple. Go back to your favorite books and note how each chapter ends. You’ll likely find a few of these tricks that transition the story in ways that match the story’s flow.

Ideas to End a Chapter

The protagonist goes to sleep (likely overused, but practical)

The characters end a conversation

One character informs another of a plot twist

Unexpected action occurs, like a car crash

2. Emphasize the Season

You don’t need to tell the reader exact dates or hours to pass the time. You could mention the season instead.

If a scene or chapter ends in the summer and you need your plot to start in winter, make your protagonist mention something about the leaves changing color and giving way to snow before your action picks up again. It will only take a sentence or two, so it’s also an effective method for short stories.

3. Visualize a Movie Montage

Imagine watching a movie about a character who goes on a summer adventure. They backpack through Europe, but they have to take a flight to get there. 

You likely wouldn’t see them standing in airport security lines, napping in a terminal or watching a full movie on their flight to their destination. Instead, you’d get a montage of them driving to the airport with a shot of their plane cruising over the open ocean.

Writers can do the same thing, minus the soundtrack in the background. Describe how your character got to their destination when a new chapter or scene starts. Your readers will get the general idea and appreciate getting straight to the plot that made them pick up your story in the first place.

Here are a few ideas to do this in just a few sentences:

One delayed flight and a bad airplane dinner later, I was walking out of the Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport with an aching back and excited heart.

My trip began with the perfect flight. I got an entire row of seats to myself, which made napping through the trip much easier. A flight attendant roused me awake when it was time to land. I couldn’t believe how fast I’d arrived in Athens that quickly.

My flight was just long enough to catch up on the movies I’d been missing over the last year. The landing gear bounced along the runway in Rome just as the Barbie credits started flashing across my iPad.

4. Showcase Some Confusion

Sometimes we aren’t aware of what time it is. We only know time has passed. That might be the best way to make time pass in your story if your protagonist gets confused, caught by surprise, or otherwise discombobulated.

These are some examples:

I woke up with a bad taste in my mouth. The sun was already peaking in the clear blue sky. How long had it been since my explosive video call with my ex the night before?

The time machine landed with a thud that knocked me to the ground. The control panel exploded in shimmering sparks. What year was it?

Working a double shift always left my brain spinning. I left work, walking across the parking lot with only the stars watching my back. I could feel the hours aching in my feet, but didn’t care what time it really was. I just needed to sleep.

5. Employ a Phrase

There are many quick phrases you can use to make your time jumps immediately clear. Consider using a few of these when you feel creatively stuck:

Later that morning

A few weeks later

After months of trying

Six hours later

The following week

As the store closed for the night

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There are many other ways to make time pass in a story. Starting with these could help you figure out the best way to move your story forward without disrupting its pacing. 

Remember, you’re in control of your story at all times. There’s always a way through creative challenges if you take a deep breath and try something new.

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my top picks from cowboy carter

ya ya

ameriican requiem

ii most wanted

spaghettii

tyrant

desert eagle

sweet honey buckiin

ii hands ii heaven

on my third listen of cowboy carter

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will truly never get over how messy carlisle was for making edward suck the venom out of bella in twilight. 'yes I am the only one here who has tasted human blood without sucking them dry, and son I know you specifically are overcome by her scent....but I'm a doctor. I'm the only one here who can set her leg😔' as if edward hasn't also been to medical school multiple times and has never assisted carlisle before sjdhsjsj edward ABSOLUTELY could have set her leg while his dad handled the venom. he was just panicking in the moment and carlisle was like CAN we wrap this up already. he fully did that expecting edward to just let her change sjdhdjsjkd

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on my third listen of cowboy carter

#not twilight related #cowboy carter #act iii #beyonce

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congratulations to robert pattinson on the birth of his child!

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A digital drawing inspired by the Three Fates (Moirai) and Edward’s intense fear in Midnight Sun that Bella is a constant magnet for death/near death experiences. I used the Eclipse ribbon to symbolise the thread of Bella’s life, with the tears/frayed parts symbolising the close encounters she had with death before she became a vampire (e.g., Edward in the classroom, Tyler’s van, James’ attack, cliff jumping in New Moon, etc.), and the colour from white to bloody red to black to symbolise the danger and darkness that lies ahead.

I tried to choose different symbols for each fate, so the flowers and vines are meant to represent Clotho (who spins the thread of life), the clock face Roman numerals in the background are meant to represent Lachesis (who measures the length of life), and the pair of scissors which are about to cut the ribbon are meant to represent Atropos (who cuts and ends the thread of life).

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rb and put in the tags the last reason you had a laughing fit

#when i was watching girlfriends high off my ass bc i ate some banana bread i got from this lady on tik tok #not twilight related

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NYCTOPHOBIA

aka ‘the leah clearwater origin fic’ I've been talking about for like......ever

read on ao3 | read on ff.net

beta-read/edited by the lovely @bellas-dumptruck-ass and my dear friend syd

THE STORY

rating: teen and up audiences (might change later)

warnings: profanity, underage drug use, alcohol use (some underage), sex mentiosn, crude humor (also might change later)

ships: leah clearwater x sam uley, sam uley x emily young (unfortunately.....but later), some kim connweller x jared cameron, sue clearwater x harry clearwater, more ships to be added later

check out the fan cast here

THE MUSIC (spotify)

nyctophobia | beck’s mix | songs 4 lee-lee vol. 1