yodelingfishes
Multi-fandom, 18+. (Currently Hannibal, its extended universe and its pairings, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.)
17 posts
Latest Posts by yodelingfishes
wHOAHOHOHO it’s been years
im amazed i ended up revisiting Dirk Gently but now I’m into the Hannibal series (+Hugh Dancy related things
a lot sure has happened—
drawn commission for a friend with a fitting nickname of “Yoda”
Reblog to give Dirk Gently a kiss on the cheek.
reposting so i can easily go back to this
This is an ultimate masterlist of many resources that could be helpful for writers. I apologize in advance for any not working links. Check out the ultimate writing resource masterlist here (x) and my “novel” tag here (x).
✑ PLANNING
Outlining & Organizing
For the Architects: The Planning Process
Rough Drafts
How do you plan a novel?
Plot Development: Climax, Resolution, and Your Main Character
Plotting and Planing
I Have An Idea for a Novel! Now What?
Choosing the Best Outline Method
How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method
Effectively Outlining Your Plot
Conflict and Character within Story Structure
Outlining Your Plot
Ideas, Plots & Using the Premise Sheets
✑ INSPIRATION
Finding story ideas
Choosing ideas and endings
When a plot isn’t strong enough to make a whole story
Writing a story that’s doomed to suck
How to Finish What You Start: A Five-Step Plan for Writers
Finishing Your Novel
Finish Your Novel
How to Finish Your Novel when You Want to Quit
How To Push Past The Bullshit And Write That Goddamn Novel: A Very Simple No-Fuckery Writing Plan
✑ PLOT
In General
25 Turns, Pivots and Twists to Complicate Your Story
The ABCs (and Ds and Es) of Plot Development
Originality Is Overrated
How to Create a Plot Outline in Eight Easy Steps
Finding Plot: Idea Nets
The Story Goal: Your Key to Creating a Solid Plot Structure
Make your reader root for your main character
Creating Conflict and Sustaining Suspense
Tips for Creating a Compelling Plot
The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations
Adding Subplots to a Novel
Weaving Subplots into a Novel
7 Ways to Add Subplots to Your Novel
Crafting a Successful Romance Subplot
How to Improve your Writing: Subplots and Subtext
Understanding the Role of Subplots
How to Use Subtext in your Writing
The Secret Life of Subtext
How to Use Subtext
Beginning
Creating a Process: Getting Your Ideas onto Paper (And into a Story)
Why First Chapters?
Starting with a Bang
In the Beginning
The Beginning of your Novel that isn’t the Beginning of your Novel
A Beginning from the Middle
Starting with a Bang
First Chapters: What To Include @ The Beginning Writer
23 Clichés to Avoid When Beginning Your Story
Start Writing Now
Done Planning. What Now?
Continuing Your Long-Format Story
How to Start a Novel
100 best first lines from novels
The First Sentence of a Book Report
How To Write A Killer First Sentence To Open Your Book
How to Write the First Sentence of a Book
The Most Important Sentence: How to Write a Killer Opening
Hook Your Reader from the First Sentence: How to Write Great Beginnings
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing and the Red Hering
Narrative Elements: Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing and Suspense
Foreshadowing Key Details
Writing Fiction: Foreshadowing
The Literary Device of Foreshadowing
All About Foreshadowing in Fiction
Foreshadowing
Flashbacks and Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing — How and Why to Use It In Your Writing
Setting
Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life
Write a Setting for a Book
Writing Dynamic Settings
How To Make Your Setting a Character
Guide for Setting
5 Tips for Writing Better Settings
Building a Novel’s Setting
Ending
A Novel Ending
How to End Your Novel
How to End Your Novel 2
How to End a Novel With a Punch
How to End a Novel
How to Finish a Novel
How to Write The Ending of Your Novel
Keys to Great Endings
3 Things That End A Story Well
Ending a Novel: Five Things to Avoid
Endings that Ruin Your Novel
Closing Time: The Ending
✑ CHARACTER
Names
Behind the Name
Surname Meanings and Origins
Surname Meanings and Origins - A Free Dictionary of Surnames
Common US Surnames & Their Meanings
Last Name Meanings & Origins
Name Generators
Name Playground
Different Types of Characters
Ways To Describe a Personality
Character Traits Meme
Types of Characters
Types of Characters in Fiction
Seven Common Character Types
Six Types of Courageous Characters
Creating Fictional Characters (Masterlist)
Building Fictional Characters
Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
Character Building Workshop
Tips for Characterization
Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills
Males
Strong Male Characters
The History and Nature of Man Friendships
Friendship for Guys (No Tears!)
‘I Love You, Man’ and the rules of male friendship
Male Friendship
Understanding Male Friendship
Straight male friendship, now with more cuddling
Character Development
P.O.V. And Background
Writing a Character: Questionnaire
10 Days of Character Building
Getting to Know Your Characters
Character Development Exercises
✑ STYLE
Chapters
How Many Chapters is the Right Amount of Chapters?
The Arbitrary Nature of the Chapter
How Long is a Chapter?
How Long Should Novel Chapters Be?
Chapter & Novel Lengths
Section vs. Scene Breaks
Dialogue
The Passion of Dialogue
25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue
Dialogue Writing Tips
Punctuation Dialogue
How to Write Believable Dialogue
Writing Dialogue: The Music of Speech
Writing Scenes with Many Characters
It’s Not What They Say …
Top 10 Tips for Writing Dialogue
Speaking of Dialogue
Dialogue Tips
Interrupted Dialogue
Two Tips for Interrupted Dialogue
Show, Don’t Tell (Description)
“Tell” Makes a Great Placeholder
The Literary Merit of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Bad Creative Writing Advice
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do
DailyWritingTips: Show, Don’t Tell
GrammarGirl: Show, Don’t Tell
Writing Style: What Is It?
Detail Enhances Your Fiction
Using Sensory Details
Description in Fiction
Using Concrete Detail
Depth Through Perception
Showing Emotions & Feelings
Character Description
Describing Your Characters (by inkfish7 on DeviantArt)
Help with Character Development
Creating Characters that Jump Off the Page
Omitting Character Description
Introducing Your Character(s): DON’T
Character Crafting
Writer’s Relief Blog: “Character Development In Stories And Novels”
Article: How Do You Think Up Your Characters?
5 Character Points You May Be Ignoring
List of colors, hair types and hairstyles
List of words to use in a character’s description
200 words to describe hair
How to describe hair
Words used to describe the state of people’s hair
How to describe your haircut
Hair color sharts
Four Ways to Reveal Backstory
Words Used to Describe Clothes
Flashbacks
Using Flashbacks in Writing
Flashbacks by All Write
Using Flashback in Fiction
Fatal Backstory
Flashbacks as opening gambit
Don’t Begin at the Beginning
Flashbacks in Books
TVTropes: Flashback
Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear: Flashback Techniques in Fiction
3 Tips for Writing Successful Flashbacks
The 5 Rules of Writing Effective Flashbacks
How to Handle Flashbacks In Writing
Flashbacks and Foreshadowing
Reddit Forum: Is a flashback in the first chapter a good idea?
Forum Discussing Flackbacks
P.O.V
You, Me, and XE - Points of View
What’s Your Point of View?
Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid “Stepping Out of Character”
How to Start Writing in the Third Person
The Opposite Gender P.O.V.
LANGUAGE
How To Say Said
200 Words Instead of Said
Words to Use Instead of Said
A List of Words to Use Instead of Said
Alternatives to “Walk”
60 Synonyms for “Walk”
✑ USEFUL WEBSITES/LINKS
Grammar Monster
Google Scholar
GodChecker
Tip Of My Tounge
Speech Tags
Pixar Story Rules
Written? Kitten!
TED Talks
DarkCopy
Family Echo
Some Words About Word Count
How Long Should My Novel Be?
The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test
Writer’s “Cheat Sheets”
Last but not least, the most helpful tool for any writer out there is Google!
MAJOR WARNING TO DISCORD USERS!!!! PLEASE REBLOG AND PASS THIS ALONG!!
Do not accept a friend request from Chrisopeer Davies and Jessica Davies. They are hackers. Tell everyone on your friends list because if somebody on your list adds one of them, they’ll be on your list too. They will figure out your personal computer’s IP and address, so copy & paste this message wherever you can
Heads Up: Also look out for a Discord user by the name of “KeirStarmer” or often just “Keir”. He is going around sending friend requests to random Discord users, and those who accept his friend requests will have their accounts DDoSed and their IP Addresses revealed to him.
Spread the word and send this to as many discord servers as you can. If you see this user, DO NOT accept his friend request and immediately block him.
Please be warned there is a user going around called “KurtStarmer” or just “Kurt” who is mass spamming terribly graphic gore and of such(he is also a hacker). Please spread the word of this to your other servers
Where is the baguette ?
In case anyone is having a bad night:
Here is the fudgiest brownie in a mug recipe I’ve found
Here are some fun sites
Here is a master post of Adventure Time episodes and comics
Here is a master post of movies including Disney and Studio Ghibli
Here is a master post of other master posts to TV shows and movies
*tucks you in with fuzzy blanket* *pats your head*
You’ll be okay, friend <3
A WIP of one of the pixel portraits I’m currently drawing, I really like what I’ve done with the eyes
just a reblog for the art and the rebuttal
[also, clicking the link and taking a closer look at the copy- I find at the bottom left corner a 666. i dunno why that’s there???]
Meet the Mona Lisa of the Prado, the earliest known copy of Da Vinci’s best portrait. Similarity in the undersketch of the painting indicates that this was very likely painted concurrently with the original Mona Lisa, by a student of Da Vinci.
There is much controversy in the art world over the question of whether or not to clean the fragile Mona Lisa, but her sister has been restored and some fairly odd later alterations removed to show the original vibrant colors and lighting. Some details, such as the sheerness of her shawl and the pattern on the neckline of her dress, have become utterly obscured in the original, but in the restored copy they’re perfectly clear.
It blows my mind a little bit to look at these two sisters side-by-side and imagine how much vivid detail could be hiding in the Mona Lisa under 500 years of rotten varnish.
On Attachment Types
I’m looking at the Wikipedia article for the attachment styles that Max tweeted and holy shit, ACCURATE. Slightly cut-down versions (seriously, read the article it’s a good fic writing resource)
Dirk: Anxious-preoccupied
People with anxious-preoccupied attachment type tend to agree with the following statements: “I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like”, and “I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don’t value me as much as I value them.” People with this style of attachment seek high levels of intimacy, approval, and responsiveness from their attachment figure. They sometimes value intimacy to such an extent that they become overly dependent on the attachment figure.
Farah: Dismissive-avoidant
People with a dismissive style of avoidant attachment tend to agree with these statements: “I am comfortable without close emotional relationships”, “It is important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient”, and “I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me.” People with this attachment style desire a high level of independence. The desire for independence often appears as an attempt to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient and invulnerable to feelings associated with being closely attached to others. They often deny needing close relationships.
Todd: Fearful-avoidant
People with this attachment style have mixed feelings about close relationships. On one hand, they desire to have emotionally close relationships. On the other hand, they tend to feel uncomfortable with emotional closeness. These mixed feelings are combined with sometimes unconscious, negative views about themselves and their attachments. They commonly view themselves as unworthy of responsiveness from their attachments, and they don’t trust the intentions of their attachments. Similar to the dismissive–avoidant attachment style, people with a fearful–avoidant attachment style seek less intimacy from attachments and frequently suppress and deny their feelings. Because of this, they are much less comfortable expressing affection.
So not only are these ACCURATE AS FUCK and incredibly useful character resources, but I’m sure on more thorough reading will suggest theories for the directions the characters could be taken in this season. One thing that DID worry me was the article on fearful-avoidant highlights its frequency in people with childhood trauma (losses or abuse), which makes me worry just a t e e n y t i n y b i t w o r r i e d about what we might have in store in terms of Todd backstory…
Everything can’t be sunshine and rainbows here I guess. But that probably should be expected at this point.
The ending of season 1 is some pretty good proof of that
But no?????? Please?????
inspiration... or lack of thereof
I wanna write something.
I’ve got the main characters, but I have no idea what to do with them.
Well, the idea is that they’re a small group of travelers traveling from world to world, scene to scene, aware that they’re not even real, but trying to break the bounds and live life the best they can.... While finding themselves wandering these worlds.
The original idea was that they observe the lives of people on TV shows I enjoy, or even have the briefest of interactions because they cannot be an impact to the character’s life (like being someone they bumped into on accident in a grocery store, or someone they see behind the counter, a very short conversation in the elevator that later on will be meaningless or forgotten to the character later)
but now I’m thinking I should develop a world for them to explore and go through. Maybe I’ll do just that instead.
I think the issue is I have no idea where to start.
Probably I should do what I did as a kid, when I was way more inspired. Well, maybe they weren’t the best ideas reading my old works and cringing at it, (but hey we all have to start somewhere,)
but at least I decided on an idea and went with it.
I think I should do that.
I’m not sure though. I kinda liked the original idea, but I feel like it would also be a good idea to create a real big backstory to them
the only backstory so far that I have was that they were plucked out of their own lives that had their own things going on for them, not the worst things but certainly not the best things either, and would have to go through a endless trip of situations like running through the forest trying to escape some evil fairies to fending off evil vampires, then later after fending off some vampires and possibly some fairies that have somehow decidedly agreed to work together, they are somewhat back to normal by simply going shopping for some more supplies for more trips, then going back to doing things like looking for the lost shiny dragon scale that could have really just been a fish scale for all I know- well, I made up this fantasy nonsense on the spot just trying to be nonsensical, none of it actually happened. I dunno what I really tried to strive for but it’s almost like this. Although the fantasy element came to mind. Maybe there’s a part when they pretend to be part of a secret service only for the fun of it for a bit, then another part when they’re pretending to be hiding from something after them
... OK, I see I have a lot of directions I could go in, but.... I have absolutely no idea where I want to start first, and I don’t want my characters to be ridiculously overpowered. I would like them to go through situations they could handle, which is most likely hunting evil fairies and vampires or protecting... Their world? The universe? ... maybe.
Hey, maybe I could do just that but-
... I think it’s been done before. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Grimm, both series I hear of but have never actually watched? Hang on, I’ll check on Grimm because I’m uncertain and I don’t really want to get that wrong at all. [yea i thought so]
I really wanna do something original. It doesn’t have to be a huge hit, but I wanna do my best. I really wanna do something crazy with my imagination, and interpret it on paper the best I can. Maybe I could just stop overthinking it like I am right now. I think by now you could tell I’ve gotten into this mood where I spill onto the page, and I actually feel productive writing this, even if I’m probably not in actuality. But what a nice way to warm up. I think this is a good way to do it, maybe.
Spilling onto the page perhaps just something off the top of your head, like that thing I did with the idea of how the backstory was originally. What’s the term for it- writing-purge? Writing-splurge? I don’t remember.
Y’know, I think about it and maybe this will be something that will take me years of my life to put together. But that’s OK, good art takes time, as my 4th grade teacher said once. The wonderful shows I enjoy might have taken years of thought to put together ‘right’- or in the best way it could have been.
I remember being told by my mom I can’t force inspiration, it’ll come in time.
I don’t know if waiting would be the best thing, either.
I did take a slight risk by writing down this basic draft of an idea with an example of the storyline, maybe someone could copy this. Maybe someone could be inspired.
Probably you’ll move along in your day after reading this splurge-of-an-idea post. I might have gotten inspired in the smallest moment- well, I took a while to write this, then again. I think I’ve gotten a tiny bit inspired, and perhaps this isn’t bad after all.
I did feel like I should probably write down how I’m feeling about writing, so here it is.
... Also, it’s really late and I should be asleep by now. I know I’m not the only one out there, though. But knowing that doesn’t really change the fact, does it? ... I should move along.........
Tl;dr: I actually did say it at the beginning: I got the main characters, but I have no idea what to do with them.
for the sake of writing I just might share the scraps of ideas I have of my characters, just to get it out there and get over procrastinating. I just might.
Something probably small that I noticed.
The same day I finish Dirk Gently’s Hollistic Detective Agency, the same day the season 2 trailer comes out...
There was a detail I noticed in the end of the trailer.
Here’s a screenshot I edited using the plain ol’ MS Paint:
The signs for Icarus/Dirk, Incubus/Rowdy 3, and Marzanna/Bart are circled in green as we’ve seen them in the show,
Purple for Moloch (possibly Mona Wilder?) since we’ve heard about it, and we just may see in Season 2
Pink arrows pointing to two signs (and looking here, I’m not sure if I recognize them.)
(Edit: Also, Max Landis highlighted the subjects who are active here. The two symbols aren’t highlighted, maybe they might be from another world?)
There are seven subjects, Mona Wilder being the seventh.
Why is there only six symbols?
low quality sketch of a character of mine, who I’ll be using as my ‘avatar’.
Her name is Dottie, a nickname for Dorothy. Dot for shorter
well
hello
...
i don’t know what to post..