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Writing, World Building, and Character Creation resources?


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We discuss ideas and thoughts about how to do things right in our RPs, we rant about people who do things wrong as players or staff, so let's talk about where to go if you want to learn how to do things better.

 

I am absolutely in love with Script Medic on tumblr: https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com

The woman behind the blog works as a real life medic (she uses an alias because of concern that her day job might not like her doing this blog), and she answered questions about medical realism within a writing setting. You want to hurt but not kill your character, she'll advise you what sort of trauma would be fitting for the situation they're in, what sort of recovery process and timeline they'd be looking at. If you want to know what symptoms someone is likely to show if they're dealing with a particular ailment, she's got you. She writes master posts to cover things like post apocalyptic medicine, tropes that TV and movies get so very wrong, things like that. Basically she's a great resource if you want to add an element of realism behind your medical stuff in your writing.

 

So, anyone else have a favorite blog they hit up when they need information? Please focus on other people's stuff, not your own. We already have places to toot our own horns here, I'm looking for stuff outside of our merry little community here. <3

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I never knew such a resource existed, to be honest. Normally I just google stuff specific to what I'm looking for (IE: old west slang), or peruse TV Tropes. 

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Very awesome!  I'll check out that link in a bit.

 

PBs:

 - http://www.imdb.com/search/name?birth_year=2000 (substitute "2000" for any year for which you want to find celebrities born)

http://angeldustmt.tumblr.com/fcdirectory

 

Name:

http://www.behindthename.com/

https://surnames.behindthename.com/

 

Character Appearance:

http://www.height-weight-chart.com/heightweight.html - Photographic height/weight chart allows you to see how different people "carry" weight.

 

Character Personality:

http://www.tickle-project.eu/toolbox/material/materials_netherlands/Link_5_List_ of_ strengths_ and_ weaknesses.pdf

http://www.meaningandhappiness.com/psychology-research/list-of-personal-strengths.html#list-of-personal-strengths

 

Character Psychology:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/

 

Character History:

- Youtube.  Then type in _____ documentary.  You can get some really good insight. Just make sure it's not something with an overwhelming bias or you're not going to get a full and accurate picture.

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7 hours ago, CovertSphinx said:

I never knew such a resource existed, to be honest. Normally I just google stuff specific to what I'm looking for (IE: old west slang), or peruse TV Tropes. 

Part of the reason I started this thread is that I know it's hard to stay on top of all these things alone, so I wanted us to share links. 😊

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"It is human nature to yearn to be what we were never intended for. It is singular, but it is so." -Mark Twain

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I found these play-by blogs while looking for faces for my characters -

 

http://fantasyfaceclaims.tumblr.com/

http://periodplaybyprovider.tumblr.com/

http://fantasyfchelpers-blog.tumblr.com/

http://sonamhelps.tumblr.com/periodfc

 

If you have the patience, Gateworld, a Stargate fan site has lots of screen shots from all the episodes. I found it useful because there are lots of shots of characters that only show up in single episodes, etc, and given the mixed nature of the cultures and mythologies, there are lots of useful resources for play-bys in it.

 

https://www.gateworld.net/gallery/

 

I will be checking these out at some stage (I've just not got around to getting the software yet as other things come up.) But the software is useful for map-making and making plans of houses, dungeons, etc. If I remember anything else which is useful, I'll post links to it.

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Honestly, I really like Pinterest! I have a whole board dedicated to writing. I can pin quotes that I find inspirational, names that have neat meanings, writing prompts, but also tips about writing and character creation.

 

Here are just some examples of the types of things you can find on Pinterest:

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/58/23/13/582313701597d2fde26a83f9f0e6b2d4.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/16/fe/2d/16fe2daa56fbd24e0c9471b3f32d2089.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/86/8d/77/868d770e1339b8e7e76c795163de78ec.jpg

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The big thing I’m fond of are books on different cultures. I just got done with Culture Smart! Korea and am getting ready to start Culture Shock! Turkey. The Culture Smart! series has around 100 different books on various nations. Culture Shock! has about 60. There’s another older series called Passport that was done by World Trade Press. Those ones are 100 pages and pocket size. Finally, there’s another series called Xenophobe’s Guide To The (insert here). It’s pocket sized and about 65 pages.

 

If you go on Amazon and type in those series, you’ll get other culture books. I have China’s Culture, The Japanese Mind, Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations, Chinese History and Culture volume 1, Chinese History and Culture volume 2, and The Russian Way.

 

If you want to broaden your horizons and write a character from another nationality, I think books are the best way to go about it followed by supplementary Youtube channels by locals and long term residents like someone teaching English in Taiwan.

 

Some Youtube channels I recommend:

That Guy Yuta – He goes around interviewing Japanese people in their mostly in their early twenties to thirties about various subjects.

Simon and Martina – I just found out about this couple recently. They used to live in South Korea and now live in Japan.

Life Where I’m From – This is a series about a family living mostly in Japan as well as either in Canada or the U.S. They also include videos of people from other places.

Turkish FactsbyLara – Young Turkish woman talks about different aspects of her nation.

Stevie B Slang – A guy tells you various Italian American slang terms.

 

I also have a variety of books on world building. How to build fantasy worlds, random RPG tabletop encounters, those sort of things. If you're interesting, I can tell you which ones I have.

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  • 4 months later...

Time for the old necro cus I found this resource that might be brilliant for fantasy world builders.

 

World Anvil World Building

 

The coolest thing seems to be you're able to create a map with pins. Example.

 

I haven't used it, but it looks useful!

 

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I am looking for a simple family-tree type software that will allow me to display the information as a png file. All the ones I find are ridiculously complicated and aren't that flexible when it comes to adding new groups to the family, etc.

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I use Fantasy Name Generators for everything! I don't always pick exactly from the results it provides. I sometimes mix and match the types of armor, weapons, town names, etc. But overall, love it for when I'm blocked on something.

 

http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

 

I stumbled across it when I started creating the world for my fantasy realm game.

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Someone somewhere went to sleep and dreamed us all alive.
Dreams get pushed around a lot, and I doubt if we'll survive.
We won't get to wake up, dreams were born to disappear.
And I'm pretty sure that none of us are here.
~ None of Us Here by Jim Stafford ~

 

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RPG-Initiative

*your one-stop RPG resource site!

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-thumps down massive folder-

 

I seem to have a bit of an unhealthy hunger for world building, so I kind of collect this stuff, and I've gathered quite a lot of useful little resources over the years, I like to think. Here are some of my favorites!

Literal World Building

Video Game Concept Art List

Chaotic Shiny's Bazaar Generator

Obscure Hub's Alien Food Generator

An Awesome Free Map Maker

Family Echo - I don't think it will turn it into an image, but this is the family tree option I use.

 

Better Writing

MASTER LIST of Facial Expressions for Writers!

All Your Characters Talk the Same!

Character Flaws

Reverse Dictionary

55 Words to Describe Someone's Voice

 

Information/Bits and Bobs

Food Timeline - Find out when certain foods were introduced

Superpower Wiki - Good for better understanding different power sets and potential weaknesses.

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On 2/15/2018 at 4:37 AM, Icewolf said:

I am looking for a simple family-tree type software that will allow me to display the information as a png file. All the ones I find are ridiculously complicated and aren't that flexible when it comes to adding new groups to the family, etc.

 

Have you tried Family Echo? 

 

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Some world-building, writing and characterisation resource and help guides I've come across in my time that I felt were pretty informative.

 

On character development:

 

Aggregate Characterisation: Building a soldier

How to Write Empowering Female Characters

The Young Hero and The Child Soldier

 

 

On worldbuilding:

 

Concepts of Scale

Design vs. Imagination
Fantasy and Reality: Grounding and Novelty

Generic vs. Niche

The Nerf Effect

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