Katherine Frances's Blog, page 23
August 16, 2018
writingdotcoffee:
“I get melancholy if I don’t [write]. I need the company of people who don’t...
“I get melancholy if I don’t [write]. I need the company of people who don’t exist.”— William Trevor
August 15, 2018
"In amber streetlights,
telephone wires gleam, precious,
radiant rose gold."
telephone wires gleam, precious,
radiant rose gold.”
- Haiku (via gracebabcockwrites)
"Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations."
- Vladimir Nabokov
(via wnq-writers)
Architectural Nomenclature for D&D and Authors
Here is a series of diagrams I made while I was making the D&D 5e Masonry profession stuff. It’s basically a helpful guide to help describe parts of buildings, windows, and doors for us non-architects out there. Use these to narrate your dungeon using accurate descriptors, or be inspired to decorate the dungeon with these new terms! You could make corbels that are shaped like owlbears, or socles carved like dragon’s claws. Especially useful to describe where secrets can be hidden, like the lintel of a door or pilaster of a wall. I recall needing to look up the term “lintel” when there was a secret lever built into one in the Shrine of Tamoachan, so there’s definitely a use for it.
Keep in mind that some of these parts can be used for other objects, particularly furniture. For instance, a table can have an entablature and cornice, just like a roof can. A pediment can exist above a door or window. A reliquary can have crockets and pinnacles like a cathedral.
I learned a lot about architecture while researching stuff for Mason’s Tools, and wanted to share it with you guys! Remember that a wide breadth of knowledge can help you become a better overall DM!
Gothic CathedralHellenistic Temple
Crenellated Wall
Interior Wall
Doors and Windows
Roofs and Domes
Arches and Vaults
Architectural Patterns
Other Decorative Terms:
Urn: Yes they put them on buildings, not just in dungeons.
Festoon: A wreath or garland hanging from two points. If it depicts cloth it is known as a swag. So yea.
Dentils: Originating as the ends of rafters, these became decoration that is repeated below a roof’s cornice. Their name means “teeth.”
Acanthus: This is the leaf that you find in a lot of architecture, especially as the capitals of Corinthian columns.
Diapering: Weird name, but basically anything that is a repeated pattern usually based on a grid that breaks up an otherwise flat space. Apparently the name comes from the Greek dia (cross/diagonal) and aspros (white)
Fleur-de-lis: If you weren’t familiar with it already, that’s what this is called:
Well that about wraps it up for today. Hope everyone was able to learn something today!
August 14, 2018
Free Writing Apps/Tools
There are so many writing tools out there that it’s nearly impossible to find the right one that has all the features you like…and then you find it. The one. The writing application that is going to make your life easier and ensure you get your novel written. But wait, what’s that? IT’S FORTY DOLLARS! Your dreams are crushed. Tears spill down your face when you check your bank account and you contemplate giving up writing for good. Expensive writing tools are the only way to create the amazing things you want to create, right?
Nope. That’s entirely incorrect. There are a good number of free tools out there and I’ve scoured the internet and app stores to find free (or at least freemium) apps and tools for writing. This list is by no means entirely inclusive as I can’t possibly find and test everything. I considered adding in mobile apps specifically, as well as productivity tools, but the post was getting long. I will revisit those in the future.
Also, just putting it out there: #notspons. C’mon guys, I’m not that popular.
(This is long, so it’s under a read more. I know, I’m so thoughtful.)
brynwrites:
Making your angst hurt: the power of lighthearted scenes.
I’m incredibly disappointed...
Making your angst hurt: the power of lighthearted scenes.I’m incredibly disappointed with the trend in stories (especially ‘edgy’ YA novels) to bombard the reader with traumatic situations, angry characters, and relationship drama without ever first giving them a reason to root for a better future. As a reader…
I might care that the main siblings are fighting if they had first been shown to have at least one happy, healthy conversation. I might cry and rage with the protagonist if I knew they actually had the capacity to laugh and smile and be happy.
I might be hit by heavy and dark situations if there was some notion that it was possible for this world to have light and hope and joy to begin with.Writers seem to forget that their reader’s eyes adjust to the dark. If you want to give your reader a truly bleak situation in a continually dim setting, you have to put them in pitch blackness. But if you just shine a light first, the sudden change makes the contrast appear substantial.
Show your readers what light means to your character before taking it away. Let the reader bond with the characters in their happy moments before (and in between) tearing them apart. Give readers a future to root for by putting sparks of that future into the past and the present. Make your character’s tears and anger mean something.
Not only will this give your dark and emotional scenes more impact, but it says something that we as humans desperately, desperately need to hear.
Books with light amidst the darkness tell us that while things are hard and hurt, that we’re still allowed to breathe and hope and live and even laugh within the darkness.We as humans need to hear this more often, because acting it out is the only way we stop from suffocating long enough to make a difference.
So write angst, and darkness, and gritty, painful stories, full of treacherous morally grey characters if you want to. But don’t forget to turn the light on occasionally.
"She’s headstrong and stubborn and fierce and thorough. There may be times when she will drive you..."
- wind-some-light (via shareaquote)
