Hey kids, did you know that while Durotan is canonically buried in Alterac Valley, his in-game grave marker makes no mention of his mate who supposedly died alongside him? And in fact we have no earthly idea where Draka’s mortal remains ended up?
Anyway here’s my fanfiction about how Draka is still alive.
Plot is where I also fall down. I’m not even so much about the world building, I just love characters and how people interact, so I have to actively force myself to write plot.
The way I do it is to break it up into really, really simple things. I think I’ve posted how I structure my novel plans, but this is basically it:
(Sorry for all the blanks, but there’s no way in hell I am letting key plot elements out)
Now, if you’re thinking, but Joy, that’s just a scrap of paper with single descriptor lines numbered together, yes, you’d be correct. I cannot map out plot in any other way, I’ve tried, but this is how my brain apparently works.
All I know is I need to get from A to Z and I know there are scenes I want to include, so I write the scenes, then fit out where in the alphabet of my novel they fit. I number them, and then I fill in the blanks and connect everything together so that the start, the middle, the catalyst and the resolution all meet up, and then once I have this vague road map of where I’m going, I try and stick to it as much as possible while I write the thing into a whole. Sometimes the plan changes, and that’s okay, but mostly it gives me a sense of direction with where I am going towards something.
I like having my Point of Conflict mapped out clearly, so that I know where I am heading. And I’ll be honest, my plot is not unique. There is a start, a source of conflict, some comedic and romantic relief in between with oodles of world and character development until there is A Not Good Thing Which Causes More Conflict, and then there is The Resolution followed by more Character Stuff.
And that’s it. That is how I write and god help you if you can figure it out because some days I barely can. I guess the point I am making is, your plot doesn’t need to be complex. What’s the theme of your story, how does it start? Write that down as a one liner. What happens next? Write that down.
To give you an idea of how that would look, for most coming of age fantasy novels, it would look like this:
>Be at home on farm. Lament life on farm. >Visit Market with Friends. >Get into hijinks which establish Character Dynamics. >Hear a rumor at market about war, be certain it will never come to you. >Wake up in middle of night to find farm on fire, the war is here and it has most definitely found you. >Parents die, run off with pseud-parental figure who seems to know a lot about you. >Realize adventuring is fucking awful. >Discover you were adopted and feel confused/betrayed??? >Get in fight with dark ancient evil that tells you Things. >Lose hand as a metaphor for lost innocence.
>Several thousand words later: >APPARENTLY YOU ARE KING NOW SO GOOD LUCK WITH THAT
And that is…that’s pretty much every popular fantasy story since Tolkein. But it’s the worlds and characters that keep us coming back for more. So your plot? Your plot doesn’t need to be original, there is at this stage, no new ideas. Only interesting and well executed ones, and that’s what you want to aim for.
So don’t stress over things just yet. Get yourself a vague map, and then see where it takes you. Not everyone knows where they are going when they start out writing.
friendly reminder not to support lindt this easter season, or apparently ever again, because they support autism speaks.
Wowwwwwwww
SIGH.
can someone please explain why autism speaks is so bad?
because they’re adamant that autism is a disease that can be “cured”. They don’t have a single autistic person on their board. Autism Speaks produces advertisements, small films, ect. about what a burden autistic people are to a society. They only spend about 4% of their money on “family services.” They create a stereotype that makes it hard for actual autistic people, like myself, be heard and recognized as actually autistic. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder before they realized that I actually showed signs of Asperger’s. They don’t actually help us.
That’s the problem with Autism Speaks.
(tw for violence, ableism, abuse, murder, and death)
It goes deeper than not having any autistic board members. Many of the allistics running the organization promote the horrific notion that you’re better off dead than autistic, and their influence and “activism” only supports the ideology resulting in the continued murder of autistic children and adults by their parents and caregivers.
Former Autism Speaks board member Harry Slatkin, whose wife, Laura, continues to serve on the Board of Directors, stated in an interview with Town and Country while still a board member that sometimes he hoped their autistic son David would drown in the backyard pond rather than “suffer like this all his life.” Evidencing a pattern of similarly violent rhetoric, Autism Speaks is also responsible for the 2006 PSA “Autism Every Day“ in which their then Vice President states on camera that she considered putting her autistic daughter in the car and driving off a bridge, and that the only reason she refrained from doing so was because her other, non-autistic daughter would have been waiting for her at home—her autistic daughter was in the room as she made these statements. Furthermore, the producer of this PSA explicitly admitted that the film was intentionally staged to portray negative images of autistic people and their families.
Only four days following the release of “Autism Every Day,” pathologist Karen McCarron smothered her autistic daughter with a garbage bag. McCarron stated that she murdered Katie because her “autism had not been improving,” had thought about killing Katie, that made an earlier brief attempt at suffocation, wanted to cure Katie, thought killing Katie would make her “complete” in heaven, and wanted to live without autism and thus had to kill Katie. Investigators found that McCarron was obsessed with different treatments for Katie. (See People v. FRANK-McCARRON, 934 NE 2d 76 – Ill: Appellate Court, 3rd Dist. 2010.) Though it is not presently possible to draw a direct connection between Autism Speaks’ PSA and Katie’s murder, this crime and dozens like it only underscore how the kind of rhetoric that Autism Speaks favors only serves to recklessly endanger the lives of autistic people.
Autism Speaks also publicly supports the Judge Rotenberg Center, a group home for autistic and neurodivergent students that uses “treatments” like food and sleep deprivation and electric shock to try and train the residents into acting neurotypical. The center has changed states three times in an attempt to bypass regulation against abusive treatment, and their practices have resulted in the deaths of more than one student.
It’s not just an issue of Autism Speaks making it harder for us to get proper diagnoses and treatment. Autism Speaks is actively killing us.
Well shit.
I was eyeing up their strawberries and cream lindor the other day but this is more important than delicious chocolate.
you all need to know this. You really do. Please do not support Lindt or anything that supports autism speaks. Please.
Seriously Lindt makes my favourite chocolate ever?? but My boyfriend is my favourite person ever so looks like I’m gonna go find a better candy maker, one that doesn’t support murder.
ghirardelli > lindt, and not just because of the autism speaks thing.
I have autism and IM NOT JOKING THIS IS IMPORTANT
Exactly. The autism “research” that autism speaks does, reeks very heavily of eugenics.
Okay, but it’s not enough to just not buy this brand of chocolate. It has to be made known exactly what kind if org Autism Speaks is. The reason they spend so much on PR is so that the general public never funds out how reprehensible they are. No non-autistic person I speak to is ever aware of these things.
If you find out an company is partnered with Autism Speaks, contact them. Call, email, write letters. Offer alternative charities. It may not work every time, but the more people you tell, the fewer people will be likely to donate to them in the future.
this post is from 2014, anyone know if lindt still support autism speaks?
there’s a lot of evidence that the iliad and the odyssey were actually composed by a variety of poets through an oral tradition rather than just by one poet, so what if the homeric texts are actually just a very long game of D&D
homer, the dm: okay achilles, agamemnon has just taken away your war prize, what do you want to do achilles’ player: i roll to have a diplomatic conversation with agamemnon achilles’ player: *rolls a 1* homer: you throw the staff of speaking at agamemnon’s face and storm off to sulk with your boyfriend
Homer, the DM: Your beautiful Patroclus is dead. What do you do? Achilles’ player: I fight everyone. Homer, the DM: You can’t fight everyone. How would you even– Achilles’ player: *rolls a 20* I fight everyone. Homer, the DM: *sighs* Fine. You cut a path through the Trojan army, enemy dead strewn in your wake. Achilles’ player: How many? Homer, the DM: …lots. Enough to clog the friggin’ river with bodies. Achilles’ player: I fight the river. Homer, the DM: You. can. not. fight. the. river. Achilles’ player: *reaches for dice*
Homer, the DM: Okay guys, so the war’s over, you had a bunch of losses but you won in the end. Time to go home, let’s roll to see who gets there firs—
Odysseus’s player: I got a critical failure.
Homer, the DM; “Ok seriously guys they’re not going to fall for the giant horse.”
Odysseus’ player; “I just rolled a nat 20 on my deception check.”
Homer, the DM; “What the fuck.”
Paris’s player: I’mma shoot Achilles
Achilles’ player: Dude, immortal? You want a dictionary to look it up?
Paris’ player: *looks Achilles’ player dead in the eye* I’m going to shoot him in the heel.
Achilles’ player: Are you serious? Tell me you aren’t serious? You’re going to shoot the one inch of non-immortal me?
Homer, the DM: Hey, it’s his roll he’s wasting.
Paris’s player: *smugly rolls and to everyone’s surprise including his own, rolls a natural 20*
backup blogging platform 