History wants so badly for Cleopatra to be beautiful. Like they canât conceive of Rome being intimidated by anything less
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What's the best way to advertise your story?
I assume you mean once itâs already published, but please feel free to correct me if Iâm wrong.
This is a good question because a lot of marketing for books these days is given to the author. The publisher will do some things like book launch announcements, but those tend to be for their whole season, so itâs not just your book, but all the other books theyâre putting out around the same time. Marketing directed specifically toward your own book is on you.
If you intend to have more than just the one book (or even just the one), you should be working on your authorâs platform. This is a website that is dedicated to you (or your singular work) as an author and the various works that you have published. You need to make sure that itâs always current, always putting out new content. Maybe it includes a blog where you give advice or insight into your process or whatever, but it should also be about advertising your books. Keep reaching out to readers and encouraging interaction, because that friendliness is how you build the strongest fanbase, and your fanbase is going to be your biggest tool. Once people are excited about you as an author and a person, theyâll be ready to spread the word about you and your stories to others!
Develop a Goodreads profile, and similarly, you can consider an Amazon one, too. Goodreads is specifically book-oriented, and providing reviews that are real and genuine is going to get your name out there. Donât go around comparing things to your own work, but people who are curious can click on your profile and see what youâve written. Additionally, Goodreads provides a service where you can run book trailers, which are basically little silent commercials that sell your book. Those ads run on the Goodreads site as recommendations to others, and if you really put dedicated effort into developing a really good book trailer, it can be super effective.
Talk to local libraries and bookstores to perhaps set up readings and signings, especially at places that are going to carry your book. (Hell, I just had my dentistâs office offer space to do a reading/signingâŠ.) Libraries are often more willing to host these than bookstores, but if you know places where your book is being sold, hit them up. Pro-tip: If you self-published, DO NOT ask bookstores to host a reading/signing. If theyâre not going to get revenue from selling your book during the event, they donât want you there. Remember that itâs also on YOU to invite people to these events. Donât set them up and expect magic to happen. Announce them on Facebook and Twitter and anywhere else you have a social media account. Get. The. Word. Out.
Create marketing materials like little quarter sheet flyers and put them up on bulletin boards, and leave them at mall food court tables, conveniently forget them when you get up from a cafe table, and ask your friends to also conveniently forget them places. My mother ran a home business for 23 years and constantly left flyers all over the place; from it, I know of at least 10 folks who became regular customers.
Give free copies. It seems counter-intuitive when youâre first starting out, but consider them an investment. Give one or two to your library to put on the shelves, slip one into a magazine rack at the hairdresserâs, give one to a friend when they purchase a copy to give to one of their friends as a recommendation. Maybe that friend will recommend it to one of their friends, who will come looking to buy it.
Get creative! There are a thousand ways to get the word out, you just have to be imaginative enough to give them a try.
Additional Reading:71 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book from Your Writer Platform15 DIY Book Promotion Tools You Need to Know from WritersStoreHow To Market And Sell Your Book In Five Steps from ForbesMarketing Your Book for Self-Publishers and Indie Authors from The Book Designer
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This graph is based on Joseph Campbellâs The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Basically âThe Heroâs Journey âW Graphâ.
 I made the top picture by hand and scanned it. Iâm sorry about the messy writing as I tried my best to make it as neat as possible, but my penmanship is not the best.Â
THE FICTION WRITERâS CHEAT SHEET PICTURE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME.
So anyway, I got a few questions about planning stories and honestly I donât plan them. I just do it from the top of my headâwhich is very bad, I know. But I am now starting to plan my stories and it does make it a bit more manageable and organized. Soooooo I went researching for tips and found something called Fiction Writerâs Cheat Sheet. I liked the idea of the âW Graphâ so I decided to make it by hand in different colors. Then scanned it to have a digital copy to work on it through my computer in a pdf file or if I want to do it by hand I can just print one out. Always  make sure to âsave asâ a different document.Â
I am not sure if something like this is already out there, but I thought it would be easier to have something printable out there and just plan it out, not having to struggle with the format.
Hope this comes in handy!!!
Good luck my fellow writers!
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Itâs not uncommon for writers to rely on filler words while writingâand especially while first drafting. From filter phrases to adverbs all over the place, drafts that arenât scrutinized to condense the writing are often full of words that unnecessarily clog up the writing.
Good news is while this is totally not something you should worry about while first drafting (seriously), when the time comes to take care of this issue, itâs relatively easy to do. Time-consuming and painstaking, yes, but thankfully not too difficult to do.
To make it even easier, however, Iâve decided to add to my how to make cuts without losing anything useful post with more easy-to-remove words to look out for.
Starts/begins to. This is actually a tip I picked up from my editor, and itâs a good oneâ9/10 times when you preface an action with âstarts toâ or âbegins toâ you donât need that phrase. Just by describing the action, the readers assume itâs just started unless otherwise stated.
Immediately/without warning. Like âsuddenlyâ these words are usually unnecessary. Iâll refer you to the other post for a longer explanation.
That. Iâm not going to say you never need âthatâ, but oftentimes I find âthatâ is super overused. In sentences like âShe said that I should go,â for example, removing the âthatâ improves the flow and we donât lose anything by cutting it.
Up/Down. For these two I only mean in very specific cases: sitting up/down, standing up/down, etc. In those cases, the up/down is unnecessary.
Dialogue + action tag. I see this a lot, and tend to do this a lot when first drafting and just slapping words down, but when you have a dialogue tag and an action tag, you usually only need oneâand oftentimes I go with the action tag because itâs more visual (although there are exceptions, of course). So, for example: ââWhereâve you been?â he said, scowlingâ could be condensed to â'Whereâve you been?â He scowled.â
-ly adverbs. One of my last condensing steps is to go through and do a search for âlyâ to cut down on my adverbs. While I definitely donât recommend removing all of them (adverbs can be useful!), writers in general tend to use them more than necessary, so it can be good to go through and do a quick sweep.
So those are some words I look out for when condensing my writingâwhat phrases or words would you add to the list?
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Writing Traumatic Injuries References
So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache⊠Eragon breaks his wrist and itâs just fine within days⊠Wounds heal with nary a scar, everâŠ
Iâm aiming to fix that.
Here are over 100 links covering just about every facet of traumatic injuries (physical, psychological, long-term), focusing mainly on burns, concussions, fractures, and lacerations. Now you can beat up your characters properly!
General resources
WebMD
Mayo Clinic first aid
Mayo Clinic diseases
First Aid
PubMed: The source for biomedical literature
Diagrams: Veins (towards heart), arteries (away from heart) bones, nervous system, brain
 Burns
General overview: Includes degrees
Burn severity: Including how to estimate body area affected
Burn treatment: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees
Smoke inhalation
Smoke inhalation treatment
Chemical burns
Hot tar burns
Sunburns
 Incisions and Lacerations
Essentials of skin laceration repair (including stitching techniques)
When to stitch (Journal articleâDoctors apparently usually go by experience on this)
More about when to stitch (Simple guide for moms)
Basic wound treatment
Incision vs. laceration: Most of the time (including in medical literature) theyâre used synonymously, but eh.
Types of lacerations: Page has links to some particularly graphic imagesâbeware!
How to stop bleeding: 1, 2, 3
Puncture wounds: Including a bit about what sort of wounds are most likely to become infected
More about puncture wounds
Wound assessment: A huge amount of information, including what the color of the flesh indicates, different kinds of things that ooze from a wound, and so much more.
Home treatment of gunshot wound, also basics
More about gunshot wounds, including medical procedures
Tourniquet use: Controversy around it, latest research
Location pain chart: Originally intended for tattoo pain, but pretty accurate for cuts
General note: Deeper=more serious. Elevate wounded limb so that gravity draws blood towards heart. Scalp wounds also bleed a lot but tend to be superficial. If itâs dirty, risk infection. If it hits the digestive system and you donât die immediately, infectionâll probably kill you. Donât forget the possibility of tetanus! If a wound is positioned such that movement would cause the wound to gape open (i.e. horizontally across the knee) itâs harder to keep it closed and may take longer for it to heal.
 Broken bones
Types of fractures
Setting a broken bone when no doctor is available
Healing time of common fractures
Broken wrists
Broken ankles/feet
Fractured vertebrae: Neck (1, 2), back
Types of casts
Splints
Fracture complications
Broken noses
Broken digits: Fingers and toes
General notes: If itâs a compound fracture (bone poking through) good luck fixing it on your own. If the bone is in multiple pieces, surgery is necessary to fix itâprobably canât reduce (âsetâ) it from the outside. Older people heal more slowly. Itâs possible for bones to âhealâ crooked and cause long-term problems and joint pain. Consider damage to nearby nerves, muscle, and blood vessels.
 Concussions
General overview
Types of concussions 1, 2
Concussion complications
Mild Brain Injuries: The next step up from most severe type of concussion, Grade 3
Post-concussion syndrome
Second impact syndrome: When a second blow delivered before recovering from the initial concussion has catastrophic effects. Apparently rare.
Recovering from a concussion
Symptoms: Scroll about halfway down the page for the most severe symptoms
Whiplash
General notes: If you pass out, even for a few seconds, itâs serious. If you have multiple concussions over a lifetime, they will be progressively more serious. Symptoms can linger for a long time.
Character reaction:
Shock (general)
Physical shock: 1, 2
Fight-or-flight response: 1, 2
Long-term emotional trauma: 1 (Includes symptoms), 2
First aid for emotional trauma
 Treatment (drugs)
WebMD painkiller guide
 Treatment (herbs)
1, 2, 3, 4
 Miscellany
Snake bites: No, you donât suck the venom out or apply tourniquettes
Frostbite
Frostbite treatment
Severe frostbite treatment
When frostbite sets in: A handy chart for how long your characters have outside at various temperatures and wind speeds before they get frostbitten
First aid myths: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Includes the ones about buttering burns and putting snow on frostbite.
Poisons: Why inducing vomiting is a bad idea
Poisonous plants
Dislocations: Symptoms 1, 2; treatment. General notes: Repeated dislocations of same joint may lead to permanent tissue damage and may cause or be symptomatic of weakened ligaments. Docs recommend against trying to reduce (put back) dislocated joint on your own, though information about how to do it is easily found online.
Muscular strains
Joint sprain
Resuscitation after near-drowning: 1, 2
Current CPR practices: We donât do mouth-to-mouth anymore.
The DSM IV, for all your mental illness needs.
 Electrical shock
Human response to electrical shock: Includes handy-dandy voltage chart
Length of contact needed at different voltages to cause injury
Evaluation protocol for electric shock injury
Neurological complications
Electrical and lightning injury
Cardiac complications
Delayed effects and a good general summary
Acquired savant syndrome: Brain injuries (including a lightning strike) triggering development of amazing artistic and other abilities
 Please donât repost! You can find the original document (also created by me) here.
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affordable plus size clothing masterpost
bold is for my favs
G-stage (only ships to US)
Boohoo
Plussizefix
Torrid (only ships to US)
Newlook (only ships to EU)
Forever 21+
OldNavy
Rosegal
Rainbow (only ships to US)
Rue21
Fashiontofigure
Target+ (only ships to US)
Kmart+
Alight
Debshops (only ships to US)
Dressbarn (only ships to US)
Helloplus
Lovedrobe
Yours
6pm
Alloy
Amazon
Cato (only ships to US)
Christopher & Banks
Cool Gal
Dr. Jays
Evans
Honourable mentions (aka not cheap but i still love it)
Keep reading
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Amentia by Nikolay Tikhomirov
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To the transphobes who say that mis gendering someone âisnât a big dealâ, a wake up call. The govât and the media should stop discrimination. Rest in eternal peace angel.
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Words To Describe...
Here is an extensive list of words to describe different body parts and to use in your writing. Hope it adds a bit of spice to your sentence;)
||Words to Describe Hands||
other
right
left
free
upper
outstretched
invisible
firm
steady
gentle
mighty
extended
off
friendly
bound
hired
unseen
delicate
minute
bony
cool
withered
bare
proffered
slender
clenched
bloody
limp
nondominant
bold
mine
lavish
sure
uplifted
ready
skilful
cupped
neat
freer
Source x
||Words to Describe Hair||
Keep reading
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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VPUkB1AlUY)
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YES!
Intelligence is such a turn on.
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Thank you for standing up for us, Delia.
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in your broad experience of terrible YA fantasy, what are the most common and/or egregious sins YA fantasy writers commit?
oh my god
ok this is actually pretty easyÂ
shallow world building. donât just tell me there are four kingdoms, give me two sentences about vague things about a few of those kingdoms, then drop it at that. stop using âjunglesâ to pretend youâre not set in a western europe analogue just own up to the western europe analogue my god. stop throwing in 3 vaguely russian sounding words and claiming your world was inspired by russia even though all your other world building is anachronistic to that claim.
inconsistent naming conventions??? why do we get books where half the names are made up and the other half are Bland as Hell i donât get it????Â
14 thousand male characters, all of them hot. maybe if youâre lucky youâll get one female character to be the main charactersâ friend but sheâs probably a servant and sheâll probably die. i cannot beLIEVE I STILL SEE THIS.Â
edgy princess can use sword. which i feel needs no more explanation than that.Â
i hate secret princesses and i need that trope to stop forever.Â
this really strange inability to mold convincing dialogue in high fantasy? like they donât know how to make it casual while still setting appropriate? itâs not that difficult? your characters donât need to sound like they have sticks up their asses for half the book yet also have dialogue that could be taken from a contemporary from the other half?Â
ya high fantasy is still white and straight as hell with only an occasional variation from thatÂ
love triangles between brothers
please stop thatÂ
LOVE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER GUYSÂ
inconsistent magic systems that arenât actually magic systems at all but super powers thinly veiled as magic for the sake of high fantasy. this one REALLY bothers me and i see it from super talented authors whom i respect. Like I get rationing out magic in different forms and ways but you can do that and still have it be a system with limitations, cause/effect, and consequences. but no. we get super powers instead.Â
STOP OVERPOWERING YOUR CHARACTERS WITH LITTLE TO NO REPERCUSSIONS ON THEM. THIS ISNâT A VIDEO GAME YOUR CHARACTERS ARENâT LEVELING UP.
i know thereâs more but thatâs what comes to mind.Â
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Conditions are never perfect. âSomedayâ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. If itâs important to you and you want to do it âeventuallyâ, just do it and correct the course along the way.
Tim Ferriss (via onlinecounsellingcollege)
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