For The Worldbuilding Ask Game!: 1 And 3!

for the worldbuilding ask game!: 1 and 3!

Thanks for your kind words on my ask btw 😊

1: Honestly, I love my simpler worlds. Just taking a normal backyard and turning it into an entirely different world is something I always love doing. Even as a kid, I used to imagine monsters making their way in this ditch we had in our backyard!

3. I kind of answered this, but most of my worlds are the same place at different points in time. It's actually based on the state I grew up in because it's always so quiet where I live. It's easy to imagine all the different things going on or wonder if something was going on. Even though I joke around and say where I live is sleepy, I honestly think my ideas flourish because it's so slow paced here.

Trigger warning for death.

I just felt like giving some slight advice. Almost every bad ending is death or some kind of purgatory, and I just wanted to give some suggestions.

Why not put an ending that you yourself couldn't handle, and death isn't it. The only people death affects are those around you, not yourself. I know, you are dying, but the shockwaves after that aren't going to be felt by you. So tragic, yes, but ultimately only to others.

Now think about something personal, something that if it happened to you would be the worst thing ever. You know what they say: a fate worse than death.

Having to live knowing that something terrible that happened because of you.

Losing someone because you refuse to change

Someone leaving you because they did change.

I think this is a better way to approach endings if you're thinking just to slap death onto the end of your story or to shove in your villain's closet. Honestly, it's kind of overdone at this point and we all know most "deaths" are just played up for cheap climaxes and underdeveloped backgrounds. It's become typical to have dead family members, spouces, friends, and so on that's ironically sad that death is so trivialized.

Give us something that we can actually feel and if it happened would totally devastate us. This also doubles to make your antag have more personality instead of your typical Marvel super villain.

Kind characters are not boring; in fact, due to the vast amount of people who hold that opinion, kind characters are as edgy as it gets. In this essay I will

There are one thousand and eight hundred seconds left in the universe and Will is stirring too much creamer into his coffee. He's overpoured the liquid--- maybe because his hands are trembling, maybe because he figures that if we're all about to kick the bucket, he might as well do what he wants. Either way, the clouds are drifting slow circles around his cup, long and lazy, twirling around each other until the coffee is blanched a pale tan. The color of divorce papers in a thick manila envelope.

"That's disgusting," I say. I mean it, too. The roads out the window have stilled to a dull silence, the air thick with the miscarriage of the rush hour that should've been.

Will snorts. "At least I know what I like." He lifts the steaming mug to his lips, winces as the liquid scorches its way down his throat.

"I do so know what I like," I say, but he doesn't answer, just nods to the mug of green tea growing a skin on the table, raises an eyebrow.

Will's been drinking the same coffee since I met him for the first time: black, bitter, and lots of it. Our work still stocks those little Styrofoam cups with the nineties pattern splashed across the side, even though there's been about a thousand studies since then explaining exactly how and why they're single-handedly killing the Earth. He used to collect them in a tidy, ever-expanding line at the edge of the desk in the basement that we use for breaks. It was because of him that the space no longer reeked of stale leather and rotting cardboard; the smell of cheap, instant coffee was too acute for any trace of shoe store smell to seep through.

Maybe it's because of him that this whole thing is happening. When I first got the alert on my phone, I thought it was a prank. We used to joke about it all the time in college, back in Maryland, a million years and dozens of friend groups ago: it's the end of the world, we'd moan, stumbling back from the bar with our heels dangling from our fingers and collared shirts unbuttoned down to the sternum. It's hangovermageddon, I'd say when I unpeeled the crust cementing my eyelids shut the next morning, leaned over to spray water-colored vomit into the sink. It's apocalypse now.

Some people believe in superstitions like that. My mother is one of them, though God knows I made fun of her for it near-relentlessly once I got old enough to figure out that stepping on a crack wouldn't necessarily break her back. Words that you spoke out into the universe came back around to you, she would always say, thwack me on the shoulder whenever I cracked a joke about our car getting slammed by a drunk driver or our plane nosediving into the Pacific. If I could get through to her now, she'd tell me the same thing. You pushed it too far, she'd say, in that paper-thin voice that afflicted her whenever she got upset. You never realize what you have until it's too late, you know.

I'd prefer to blame Will, though, and his relentless consumption of carcinogens compressed into a neat, to-go-optimized package. My mother would say that it's easier that way.

"What's our E.T.A.?" he says, swishing coffee around the backs of his molars. He would check for himself, he explained to me the first time he asked, but he can't bear to look at his phone.

"T minus thirty."

He nods. His eyes are glazed over like he's watching something on a television screen at the back of the diner, but the global internet dipped out about forty-five minutes ago, and the phone lines drowned under excessive demand long before that. "I could finish an episode of M*A*S*H in that time. Or Friends. Or The Office, maybe, but even I can recognize that as kind of cliché---"

"Will." I hold my hand up. My head is throbbing hard enough as it is, the germ of a headache gyrating right behind my eyes.

"Sorry," he says, then lowers his voice when he sees me tense. "Sorry."

"There's nothing else you have to do. Sure, you could melt the last of your brain cells watching whatever-the-hell. But"--- I raise my opposite hand --- "you could also not. That's the beauty of this whole thing." I take a sip of the green tea for the first time. The bitterness scrapes its way down the length of my esophagus.

Will narrows his eyes. "So what are you doing here?"

"Here?"

"Here," he repeats, louder. "You're sitting at a crappy twenty-four hour diner with your irritatingly charming coworker drinking a probably equally crappy mug of tea. That still counts as doing something."

"No, it doesn't," I say. "If I really wanted to do something, I'd go out and preach in the street or play a violin solo or something. Sitting alone with you doesn't count. No offense."

We already saw several of those types on the walk over here. A stubby man with white tufts of hair on his ears screeched right in my face about fire and brimstone; a beautiful twenty-something brushed my hair back from my forehead and told me Jesus had a plan for me. Will kept his hand tight on the crook of my elbow the whole time. Steering me away from them and towards this place, even though I didn't know it at the time. It'll be open, he said, and he was right. The staff had cleared out as soon as they got the notification, from the looks of it, ballet flats and leather jackets strewn across the syrup-sticky booths. They'd left the door unlocked. All we had to do was walk in.

He told me I was having a panic attack when we sat down. I don't remember it, but the look on his face was one I hadn't seen before, his little doll mouth drawn up in a frown, cheeks round and glistening with sweat. I do remember him asking me if he could call anyone, if maybe he could see if his phone would pick up any extra bars. Nobody left to call, I said, and he didn't offer again after that.

"Hey." He brushes his fingers across the sleeve of my coat. I feel their pressure against my skin, the warmth that flows from his body into mine, even through the thick skin of the fleece. "When you got up this morning, were you thinking that you'd be getting a front row seat to the end times?"

"No," I say. "I was thinking about how degrading it is that I have to put on a name tag just to sell rich people shoes they don't need."

Will laughs, glances down at the name tag still affixed to his chest. WILLIAM is emblazoned in small, blocky letters-- the manager didn't believe in nicknames, or so he said. "They might come in handy now," he says. "You never know. We might have to do some running."

I bow my head to stare at the table. The streaks where someone swiped a rag over are glinting underneath the overhead lighting. It makes my eyes ache. I can see the patches where they missed a spot, where the lacquer stays matte, dulled.

How do I explain to him that I'm tired of running? That my whole life has been spent in a marathoner's shoes, from here to Baltimore and back again? He still thinks I dropped out of college because of a medical emergency, that nebulous excuse I always give that practically begs to be sandwiched in scare quotes. While folding tissue paper around stilettos, I spun him stories of college life, four a.m. pizza runs and trips to Taco Bell. I told him about my first frat party as I unloaded shoe boxes from a truck pallet, warned him of the dangers of mixing Jaegermeister and Fireball (don't ask) as I chucked out a pair of two left feet.

He was so excited to leave. He'd already gotten his acceptance letter, even brought it into the store just so I could feel it in my hands. The card stock was creamy underneath my touch, sharp-edged and sturdy-cornered. Thicker than the papers my student loan bills came printed on.

Outside, two girls cling to each other with skinny arms, their nails carving half-moons into each other's shoulders. I can't hear what they're saying, but one of them is crying, shoving her face into the other one's sleeve, over and over again until the outline of her face is sketched on the fabric in her own tears. Underneath their jeans, the winter boots poke out, glossy and buffed-out like the surface of an egg. They're real leather-- I can tell by the way they crease at the toes. Expensive. If they were from our store, I think, they'd easily go for upwards of two hundred. When money could still be used for something more than papier-mâché.

"I don't know," I say, and turn to him. "I think I might be okay where I am."

Fate has it's ways, this question is perfect.

For my current WIP, the origin was the inspiration. It was a real person who I got obsessed with and wanted to turn him into a character to increase the diversity in my characters, in terms of different body types.

How I began was I pretty much made a fanfiction of the real person (to test his personality totally not because I was in delulu land) then eventually tweaked his character and formed a story around his new personality and traits. It's going well by the way 😌

My question:

Is there anything in your current WIP/project that you're super excited to write? Something you're dreading to write? Why are you excited or dreading to write it?

OKAY!

WRITEBLRS if you're seeing this, you're legally obligated to reblog with an answer, and then a new question for the next person!

Here's the start:

Which of your OCs is most likely to punch somebody in the face?

Reblogging to add a story to the Unfinished with more than 30k

Tales That Were Lived (70k)

At this rate I'm gonna actually finish this story (let's hope I didn't jinx myself 😀) and I really like this story. I'll share more about it once it's finalized more 👋

I randomly decided to make a more condensed version of my WIP/story list.

Though, here's another list of stories I'm not really working on atm 🍊 Idea list 🍊 and here's 🍊 my writeblr intro 🍊

This one is just a more condensed list in case the others are a little too much to read through.

Finished with more than 30k

Devine Intervention: The Demonic Repentance (63k).

All the Screams (61k).

Same Breeds (40k).

normalities (36k).

Finished with less than 30k

Before the Reignfall (27k).

Secrets of a Teenage Man (22k)

A Fourth Dimension Reality: The Strange Beginnings (22k).

A Fourth Dimension Reality: The Crimson Soul (19k).

A Fourth Dimension Reality: The Interpose of Idiocy (30k Ik this is thirty, but this is a series.)

A Fourth Dimension Reality: Untitled 4th book (23k).

Unfinished with more than 30k

The State of Quandary (62k).

The Makings of a Love Story (46k).

Unfinished with less than 30k

Kingdom of Bumalia (29k).

Orange Perfect (21k).

Before the Love Story (15k).

One of Malovence (13k).

The Promiscuous Journey of a Virgin (10k).

Manifested Malovence (6k).

Devine Intervention: Sirin's call (6k).