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Body type and shape

1. Lean: Having a slender and toned body with minimal body fat.

2. Muscular: Having well-developed muscles and a defined physique.

3. Slender: Having a thin and graceful body shape.

4. Curvy: Having an hourglass figure with well-defined curves, particularly in the hips and bust.

5. Athletic: Having a fit and muscular body, often associated with participation in sports or physical activities.

6. Petite: Being small and slender in stature, usually referring to height and overall body size.

7. Voluptuous: Having full and shapely curves, often emphasizing a larger bust, hips, and thighs.

8. Stocky: Having a compact and solid build with a sturdy appearance.

9. Thin: Having a slim and slender body shape with little body fat or muscle definition.

10. Well-proportioned: Having balanced and harmonious body proportions, with each body part in good proportion to the whole.

11. Toned: Having firm muscles and a defined physique resulting from regular exercise and strength training.

12. Chubby: Having a plump or rounded body shape, often with excess body fat.

13. Pear-shaped: Having a body shape where the hips and thighs are wider than the shoulders and bust.

14. Hourglass figure: Having a curvy body shape characterized by a well-defined waist and proportionate bust and hips.

15. Apple-shaped: Having a body shape where weight is primarily carried around the midsection, resulting in a broader waistline.

16. Broad-shouldered: Having wide and well-developed shoulders in comparison to the rest of the body.

17. Long-limbed: Having long and slender limbs in proportion to the body.

18. Stout: Having a sturdy and robust build, often characterized by a solid and thick physique.

19. Plump: Having a pleasantly full and rounded body shape, often indicating a higher percentage of body fat.

20. Tall and slender: Being tall in height and having a slim and elongated body shape.

how could someone get started writing poetry? what are the skills to build and how can i build them? i’m scared i don’t have anything to say…… how can i find my voice?

An excellent and very common question! I can’t lay any claim to being a big poetry maven at this point—it’s been quite a while since I’ve written any, or even seriously READ any—but I can tell you some things I learned and some things I think, and I hope that will be at least a little helpful.

The first thing to note is that finding my voice and something to say was, in my experience, inseparable from living my actual life and thinking for myself. I was writing poetry from the age of 12 or 13, and only now, 18 or so years later, do I feel like I have anything of importance to say. And that only sometimes. It may work differently for other people, but that’s how it worked for me. I would advise you not to worry about your voice for now. The thing I was doing early on is PLAYING with language, trying things out, imitating writers I admired. Take the pressure off yourself!

As for the skills you need to build, the most important one by far is perseverance. Any artist will tell you this. You won’t write masterpieces straight out of the gate; no one does. You have to learn not to be discouraged too much if you look down and your writing and feel nothing but horror. That is a universal experience, and you won’t be able to write well if you can’t push through it somehow and keep going. The rest of the skills you need you can learn by imitation, constraint, trial and error, etc.

If you want specific instructions, see below. These roughly correspond to the way I learned to write poetry.

The first thing to do is to read a lot of poetry. Find an anthology with broad coverage and generous aesthetic guidelines, one that brings together a lot of different kinds of poetry. Flip through it. Read at random. As you do, some things will enchant you, some things will baffle you, some things will make you wonder why people think they’re good, and so on. Zero in on poems that really affect you, and note the poets. These will be your foundation.

Then, read more deeply in these poets that interest you. You’ll find as you read that each poet has patterns, tricks and maneuvers they do over and over again. Note them. And note the conventions of poetry in general—how line breaks are used, what rhythms keep emerging.

Once you have a good idea of at least how your favored poets work, try out their tricks for yourself. Write about anything at all, but try to follow your poet’s motions. As you do this, you’ll discover the interactions and tensions between form and content, and you’ll start to learn why certain topics in poetry take certain forms.

A helpful thing to do when writing anything is to set yourself a rule or two. Write against challenges—write in established forms, or confine your vocabulary, or whatever you like. This will focus your work and allow for creative leaps that would never have occurred to you if you were just trying to summon something out of nothing. Free writing can also help with this—if you’re forcing yourself to write nonstop for a period of minutes, something about the stream of consciousness can unlock unusual and striking connections.

Once you’re doing all that, the next step is just to live your life. But live it observantly, with an eye toward everything—your own feelings, physical objects, images, sounds, patterns. Absorb things. And while you’re at it, tackle some nonpoetic task or project that forces you to really think. As much as poetry is associated with feeling, what a great poem really is is the track of the poet’s thought laid down in as appropriate a form as possible, so that you think along with the poet as you read. Without thought, there is no poetry.

The synthesis and end of all these steps is not only writing poetry, but appreciating, understanding, and loving it. All of these things feed and fuel one another. It’s an engine you have to build within yourself. And if you’re successful, you’ll have enriched your life as well as your art.

I wish you the best of luck.

P.S. It’s fine to discover kinds of poetry or poets that you don’t care for, or dislike, or hate with a burning passion, so long as you understand what it is they’re trying to do.

How to write: ethnicity & skin colour

requested by: anonymous request: How exactly can I describe a characters ethnicity/skin color casually, without it sounding like a specific scene that just exists to describe the skin color? I hope this makes sense lmao… I just want to write a scene where I casually mention someone’s ethnicity or skin color

description of appearance: No matter if skin colour or hairstyle or clothes, a text is more dynamic if you don't dedicate an entire scene/paragraph to it but rather sprinkle the necessary information in here and there. However, there can be instances where it's conducive to the plot to put that entire paragraph (e.g. introducing a new important character with backstory). Otherwise, I'd say try to keep it short and put it where it serves the plot.

ways to incorporate...

... a description of appearance:

when a character makes their first entrance (describe everyone's colouring - POCs' and white characters')

the impression their complexion makes together with their clothes: "the bright yellow of their shirt complemented their dark skin"

the way their colouring interacts with lighting: "the grey weather took away the rosy hue of their fair skin"

when appearances create a contrast: "I immediately noticed them because they were the only other black person"

... ethnicity:

let the characters mention it where it makes sense

regarding the narrator you've chosen for your story, it can also be blended into an inner monologue

include parts of their culture: traditions, terms, family, etc. (this also allows to bring up their ethnicity repeatedly over the story and not only at the beginning)

show their struggles: are they affected by social struggles? then show it!

words to use to describe skin colour:

... basic colour descriptions:

brown

black

beige

white

pink

... more specific colours (try sticking to familiar/common words that can be easily visualised):

amber

bronze

copper

gold

ochre

terracotta

sepia

sienna

porcelain

tan

... prefixes or modifiers (can be easily combined with basic colours):

dark

rich

warm

deep

fair

faint

light

cool

pale

... undertones (pre-dominant colours underneath the skin - often warm or cool, sometimes also neutral and olive):

yellow

orange

coral

golden

silver

rose

pink

red

blue

... avoid food analogies as it's often received as offending, fetishising, and/or objectifying.

That's all I can provide as of now but I'm sure you guys have aspects to contribute. I'm very interested to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to add to this post whatever you like to/can share <3

And for more information, maybe also check out @writingwithcolor for more specialised posts on the topic <3

super simple low-effort ao3 summary methods that are 1000% better and 1000% less annoying than just saying you suck at summaries:

copypaste the first few lines of the fic. u already wrote 'em. let 'em be their own damn hook

if ur feeling fancy & don't mind showing ur hand a bit, copypaste the first few lines of the fic that u feel are esp. Important or Interesting - the ones where u first start getting into the real meat of things

state the main tropes! theyre probably already in ur tags - just say them again - maybe as a full sentence if ur feelin fancy. or with a joke if ur feelin Extra fancy

ask a question. pose a hypothetical. eg what happens if u take [character] and put them in [situation]?

make an equation. [character] + [thing] = [outcome]

just write like a one-sentence summary of what the fuck is going down. just one (1) sentence. doesnt matter if it doesn't cover every important aspect. or if it sounds bland. any summary sentence is gonna be miles better than "idk i suck at summaries"

just...explain the fic like u would to a friend? it doesnt have to be a polished back of the book blurb. it can just be "[pairing] coffee shop au, but like, still with murder, and also i made everyone trans. enjoy"

just stick a meme in there

honestly who cares

just put literally anything but a self deprecating comment in there & ur golden

favourite things about first drafts:

square brackets with notes to self mid-line like [does this make sense with worldbuilding?]

ah yes, Main Character and their closest friends, Unnamed Character A and Unnamed Character B.

bullshitting your way through something that you probably definitely need to research later

also square brackets to link up scenes. [scene transition idk] my beloved

the total freedom of word vomits

"I'll fix that later"

the moment when the world and characters start to gain a life of their own

pieces falling into place as you write that you were uncertain about before you started

the accomplishment of Made A Thing

something true and beautiful. please

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