/Gmad/ Fantasy Writing Bible (Ver. 1.2.1)

/Gmad/ Fantay Writing Bible (Ver. 1.2.1) Feb-9-2020:
- Added - for bullet points, and easier readability.
- CAPTITALIZED HEADERS FOR MORE EASIER NAVIGATION.
- Added more clarification to the "Don’t focus on characters with no purpose" tip.
- Expanded on character death tip. Specifically around favortism.
- Fixed a WORLD tip that I forgot to complete--
- Added WIP dates to the Gmad approved media list.
- Fixed various spelling errors

BEFORE STARTING:
- Outline a very basic story. Fill with details later. Writing is like clay sculpting.
- Start with a blurb (short paragraph of story overview on the back of a book. 5 sentences minimum). Think about which perspective it will be written in. (First or third person).
- Put a list of characters, who they are, and their role in the story.
- Establish the setting in dialogue or environmental descriptions.
- Use the senses for describing. (Look, touch(texture, temperature, etc)., smell, sound, taste).
- Exposition establishes what is the characters doing, what happens, and is currently happening. That leads to the rising action/prequel to the climax.
- Have the rising action be the steps to set up the climax by having scenes correlate with each other, and build up to the point.
- The falling action is having the climax wrap up, and settle. With the resolution having the character(s) change, learn, or grow from the events.

DIALOUGE WRITING:
- Think about the main (porn) scenes first, then think about what would lead up to those parts, and try to piece it together from there.
- The other thing is trying to focus on how much "narrative" you want. It's good for using buildup, yes, but you also don't want to make it drawn out too, ya know?
- It also helps if you know what character perspective you are using. You can use it to clue the reader in on who's perspective it is by using different ways to describe scenery, the situation, or rooms they are in that fits their character.

"Is your character a perv? Have the narrative drift off to something about how much they want to fuck someone's brains out, or use their throat like a fleshlight. Want something more concise? Use whatever you need to show how they feel about whatever circumstances they are in or how they feel about something that may occur later."
- By Anon no. >>22783843

OVERVIEW:
Avoid cliches, but not all of them. Some are foundations. Find what fits your story. And if you have to use one, twist it, and add your style. Or have the cliches well implemented, and interesting.

CHARACTERS:
- No Chosen Ones or Prophesies. Don’t shoot ya load in the prologue. If using this, have the destiny be vague to keep suspense until it is fulfilled. And have the possibility that it can be fulfilled by other characters besides the MC.
- Avoid "strong or smart" dichotomy. (See 100% good or evil kingdom rule). Everyone has some sort of shade of grey with physical and mental capabilities. The wise ancients don't have to be frail and feeble, and strong, proud orcs don't have to act like idiots.
- Write Archetypes that aren’t just from Dnd. All too often people are influenced by the limitations that DnD puts on characters and archetypes and it somehow manages to leak over into their work. Things like scrawny skeleton wizards, mindless, bloodthirsty, shirtless warriors or "barbarians", overly charismatic and nimble "Rogues", and Archers that can somehow draw bows with draw strengths in the hundreds of pounds yet are mystically too weak to pick up even a simple weapon like an ax or a mace. Look into other sources for inspiration, or make your own fantasy universe.
- Don’t focus on characters with no purpose, use, or are baggage for the MC’s. Don’t make them something to escort, like baggage. They don’t just have to be a tool the character can use to solve everything. Try to make it so that their purpose can be shown in multiple readings, establish their motivations, or goals. And how they grow during the story.
- Avoid making humans jack of all trades. Understandable to have humans with different job roles, but add a consistent Identity to their world. Perhaps humans in that world use black steel for their weaponry/armor across their different classes of combatants. Or the Marines in space have space technology with a recognizable militaristic look. Perhaps they're bulkier, and more primative, compare to the sleeker designs the aliens have.
- If a character dies, they die. They can be tough and survive dangerous events. But if their heart flatlines, don’t do a “No one is ever really gone move”. Doing that makes the stakes presented seem less dangerous. Remember, this is a fantasy world. Some realism is not needed. Characters can be extremely tough against things that would kill people in real life. Use a characters death for a purpose. It can be a motivation for characters on their journies or affect the outcome of a story. But if a character dies, and gets revived later, That will lessen the stakes and dangers in the world, and make readers less invested. Since a character can come back, there's no suspense or a reason for the readers to worry about where the character will end up. Some might see this as favortism towards a specific character. There have been various reconizable characters in science fiction that were brought back into the story, sacrafice themselves, and are rumored to come back in the next installment. Specifically, Luke Skywalker from Star-Wars is a example of this. Doing it gimps the story and character's importantce. Among many other factor that plauges the recent installments. To get back to the topic, if you bring back someone out of favortism, expect the logic of the story to suffer.

PROTAGONIST:
- No Mary/Marty Sue. Definition: An idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.
Translation: An Absolute Fuck-head the author writes in to jack themselves off to their perfect fantasy, Cause Everything is perfect, and those that say otherwise are plebs. AVOID MAKING A SUE. Not saying you cannot have a strong protagonist with pretty well-optimized skills and qualities. But having no real challenge for them will have their arc get Boring, Uninteresting, and Halts Character Progress.
- Have the Protagonist grow from a small point, and develop. Physically, mentally, emotionally, Ect. If they have supporting character, Make a dynamic relationship via dialogue to convey thoughts, or feelings as the story progresses. With these thoughts and feeling, they will be a foundation for the characters' choices and actions.
- Craft a likable character. Set up who they are, what they do, What they want to do, their personality, and feelings. That way their actions can correlate with who they are as characters as the plot progress. Prevent Continuity errors, and inconstant character moments by outlining them with Basic traits, Bio, and what they do. A character can have flaws in them. But if they grow from their mistakes, that makes them more human. Because a protagonist grows from the obstacles facing their story.
- Don’t Make Them One Dimensional. Once a character is set up, have them change. This can be the ways they face their obstacles; events that affect them directly or indirectly, the characters they meet & interact, and getting closer to their goals. They are not robots, however. Add layers having their dialogue shift depending on what scene/situation they are in. A supposedly fearless hero might encounter something that has that feeling creep into them at one point, which would make them take a choice to overcome it, succesfully. And how they react to it could open that hero up to who they are as a person. How much is revealed depends on how subtle you want those traits to show.
- They don’t always have to be “good”. Take treasure hunters like Lara Croft, or Nathan Drake. Do they cross territories illegally, shoot enemies dead, collapse ancient civilizations, and steal treasure? yes. So why are they’re heroes? Because killing isn’t their intent, and there is more to them. They want to treasure hunt, but Drake is painted as a robin hood. Orphaned as a child, and taking his mother footsteps as a treasure hunter. There's also the chance of his ancestry being linked to a famous pirate. Which gives him even more motivation to venture out to get that treasure. In fact, Nathan doesn’t want these civilizations to get destroyed. But the various antagonists can cause an environmental shift when drake is fighting off the villains. Simply, its the big baddies fight heroes in a collapsing location during the final act trope. Which is fine, since the video game is close to being an Indiana Jones film. Same applies to Lara Croft, who is an archeologist at heart. They both are morally, and personally nice people when interacting with other characters. Sometimes they even have fun with fighting against the enemies. And they usually are wisecracking, clever characters themselves. They face off against enemies hired to kill them, and main villains having clear, heinous intent.
- Make a writing "language" for the character. The way they talk; the accent they speak in, the words they use, what they describe, What they look at, describing their thoughts on others, and more can add towards deepening the character, and sometimes the world they live in. There's Abstract and Literal writing. Something abstract is something broad, but general. Can be used to imply almost anything. Especially when writing fictional objects, places, and themes. Literal writing is reserved for the actual exchange of dialogue, use for specific actions, and literal descriptions. e.g “The red painting is dark, 6 feet tall, and it’s next to the door.” Vs.  “Entering the room, I spot a board, with a color contrasting the blue wall. It’s pasted like a stamp... Hiding on the side of the door like tree root suspended in the air”.  Both styles have their pros and cons. Some scenes make senses with Literal, others with Abstract. Balance each style usage to maintain a proper pace, and tone.

WORLD:
- No “forgotten McGuffin”. Have the McGuffin be well known, or central to the story instead of an “Important surprise” that somehow everyone forgot about. If the mcguffin is so important, why does no one seem to care about finding it or obtaining it when the story start?
- Have it be very different from the real world. Since writing is like a painting, it is like a world you can enter with its own style. Make it as highly detailed in how it works as you want.
- Have lots of major events happening in the background to keep the world dynamic. A good story ain’t linear. Place events that occur on the side that eventually add up to the main storyline. However, don't have too much going on at once to not be overwelming to the reader.
- Have actions be impactful to the world. direct or indirect.
- If you're setting up a big event like overthrowing a kingdom, killing a king is not enough. A major event like this isn’t going to be very simple. Build it up to have diffent actions occuring to enhance the event, and make it more important.
- Vary the world biomes from the normal grasslands, forests, ice, etc. Go nuts, but have it make sense. Ps. also have kingdoms in the diffrent biomes.
- Avoid 100% good or evil empires. kingdom involvement and history isn’t going to be clean. keep relations in dark+light and light+dark dynamic. Some actions made by a kingdom may appeal to some, while not to others. Which can be a great backing for how kingdoms work with allies and enemies other than “we like them, and we don’t like them.” Even if kingdoms have enemies, make that relationship more dynamic than the two kingdoms 100% hating each other, no matter what. Perhaps they can work together in some way. Like with diplomatic acts, bribing, whatever. Make it interesting!
- Don’t be lazy with location names. Have them mean something, easy to pronounce/spell and make sense with the world, or history of the land. Same goes to peoples name, just to a lesser extent.
- Be inspired by historical cultures IRL. If you have a direct inspiration, don’t copy one, steal many sources of famous historical eras. Try to branch out of the traditional, Medieval Europe, or ancient/feudal Japan. What is best to avoid being unoriginal is to make your own designs. See how Warhammer does it with their various soldier designs. Even vanilla, lore friendly designs are memorable.
- Half- species existing is fine as long as it makes sense. Like the two species sharing common ancestry, genes or family tree.
- No superiority based on race alone. 1. Fuck Elves. 2. Just because a goblin is a stubby, physically deficient creature doesn’t mean they lack numbers or pointy objects to effectively slay others. Every race has a strength or weakness. This goes deeper with characters of different races.
- The religion/ govermental institutions do not have to be all corrupted.
- One kingdom/country =/= one language. Even countries like the USA have more major languages other than English. Other countries like the Philippines have 3-4 languages. Which can lead to how the culture of a kingdom varies from llocation to location.

SPECIES:
- Add a variety of races. From Feral to Humanoid, to Savages and civilized.
- Not all cultures have the same clothing. Some have pants, others don’t :3. Take the greek, they wore mostly tunics. So has many civilizations from the past if you look into it.
- Don’t make the Female species look humanoid if their species isn’t. I know this is not gay specific, but please bear with me. If a species is alien, or a bit far from humaniod, Don’t make them into supermodels that just have vague features to “”””””Relate”””””” to their male counterparts, and have painted skin. When you look at animals on earth, they don't got two big jugs in a skimpy outfit. You don't see your dogs, cats, fish, ect looking like your perfect 10/10 gal. e.g. If a species of a male orc is a naturally Herculean, muscular, fighter. Then the females better are the same besides boobs and genital. Same goes for female demons, goblins, dragons, ECT. A great example of this is the Krogans from mass effect. The males and females look identical to distingish them from other aliens in the series.
- Add various race types. One race =/= one land or culture. Have subspecies, different languages, and cultures for a race.

Expecting additions to future newer versions of this guide:
- Antagonists/Villains Rules.
- How to collaborate with other writers.
- Additional beginner tips & more examples written.
- List of /Gmad/ approved media to consume (WIP as of 11-23-19)
- Formatting for easier viewing and highlighting (kinda new to Pastebin).
Finally, Correction of spellings, Because by god I feel more and more dyslexic with writing than I was younger. Might just be really self-critical to myself. But maybe I may need to stretch my vocabulary and proficiency via practice.

Thank you for your time in viewing this guide. I really hope you learn something from this link. And good luck with your current or future writing project Anon(s).