Writing Paranormal Characters by simplyprose, literature
Literature
Writing Paranormal Characters
As a writer of prose, you may at some point to want to write about a character or characters which are paranormal. We could perhaps debate over the exact definition of the word paranormal, and some may prefer supernatural - a word more closely associated with magic, whereas paranormal tends to be taken to mean something outside the realms of science (though of course, it is not as clear-cut as that, and you may like to think that I am wrong in saying this).
For the purposes of this guide, both paranormal and supernatural refer to conscious beings, not found in the animal kingdom, t
Chapter 21: Gifts of Gods? by SheldonOswaldLee, literature
Literature
Chapter 21: Gifts of Gods?
Ever since the arrival of the Onak/ Goa’uld on Earth/ Tau’ri/ Terra, the beautiful human host looking aliens had aided, supported, tough, advised and sold mankind many advanced ideas and technologies. Poverty, hunger crime and most other everyday problems are nearly extinct on this new world an in exchange the Goa’uld never demanded much resources, ores, minerals, food or labor workforce in exchange. Medicine and other technologies had skyrocketed in their involvement and the Goa’uld Pool Therapy, or Implantation methods had basically cured every disease imaginable, as long as rich and powerful individuals could pay enough for the procedure, while those less fortunate, were served a form of Tretonin, made up of the many Jaffa Symbiotes who matured, but never were granted a Host, so they had to get rid of, which the Inak managed by feasting on these Goa’uld, as well as turning the rest of their masses, into rather powerful medication. This free sharing of technology had
Large and In Charge: Ch. 1 by Saffireprowler, literature
Literature
Large and In Charge: Ch. 1
Location: Research Station 10, Niamta Tundra. Three days later. The Human government was attempting to keep up with their Light counterparts who were far and away more advanced than the Humans. Once evidence and components to their size-changing technology had been procured by the Humans and other governments, the assignments given to Micronaut agents became more frequent and more time-sensitive.  At a dated research station in the Otherworld's arctic circle, the Humans created an environment to test their own versions of the Micrazor. Seldom did any test bear fruit, and worse for them, they were unable to replicate the size-cells that made the Micrazor unique. Obtaining Luxium and Novodium was nearly impossible as it was speculated that 99% of the supply of ores were under the secretive Light Kingdom's control. The Humans attempted to replicate the size cell with insufficient material matter, often resulting at best in a size reduction of one person by a few centimeters, and enlargement was still unattainable. This mattered little, for the Micronauts were sent out to stop progress on any attempt they knew of. The key was to never let the technology slip in the hands of bad actors.  Dr. Blanc headed the research and development team at Station 10 at the same time that she acted as a double agent for Kalina, the new Empress of Jakabar, and a triple agent for the Evaland Union. She had received sky-high funding for her project, and promised each country that they would receive a functioning, reliable, safe, and efficient shrink ray.  They had no idea that each nation was being played by her.  Her latest test proved to be unsuccessful, a reversion to the proverbial square one for her. One of her scientists, a female who volunteered to be miniaturized, had stepped off of the steel platform where other targets would be blasted with Luxium plasma. She had been blasted by the beam of what was to be a massive shrink ray, every bit of the size of an automobile, but all she had received was an electric shock.  "Bloody thing! There's no concentration!" Dr. Blanc swore at her project after her volunteer stepped down from the platform.  "Doctor, we may have truncated the output frequency by too much." Another researcher who stood beside Dr. Blanc suggested.  "If we output any less than 2.77 Exahertz, then we risk frying the target. The reason that we decreased transmission output is because we couldn't get the rays to penetrate clothes." Dr. Blanc insisted. As Dr. Blanc confided with her team beside the device, her station was being infiltrated by the same agents that the rival governments are hoping to gain an edge on one day. The hangar-sized room in which the massive shrink ray was placed was flanked at each side by doors and many small offices with windows where tests could be observed from behind glass. All offices with windows had venetian blinds that were pulled down by nervous staff who wanted to shield their eyes from the blasts- knowing it was relatively harmless otherwise.  Nobody on the testing floor noticed the bouncing blinds in one of the offices in the corner. It was an office in which adio broadcasts were received and transmitted, and it was also a good place for Maia and Hana to begin their assignment. Reduced in size, the two agents entered through a diffuser on a ceiling panel and surprised the radio operator. To their delight it was a military-aged make who couldn't help but gawk at the two amazons who suddenly appeared behind him as he sat at his desk with a cup of coffee.  "I think the coffee is extra hot this morning!" Said the man as he saw Hana and Maia in their white suits, unzipping to tease him. "Saddle up, cowboy. That coffee is likely to be frozen cold when we are finished here." Maia said before she threw herself upon him while he was still seated and began to kiss and seduce him. With the blinds down and nobody else in the small radio office, Hana had an ideal vantage point. Maia kept the man busy after she fully unzipped her suit and shoved his head between her breasts. "My god! They're so big!!" He remarked to her. "Hush, little boy." Whispered Maia.  Hana meanwhile retrieved a new device from her cargo as well as her Micrazor. Setting it on an empty desk in the room, she programmed it for twenty minutes. It was Jodak's newest device, a Luxium explosive with a vacuous effect that would shrink every living this within it's blast radius, and it would overload anything that was powered by electricity, causing rapid overheating and even fires. This specific specimen was designed with Station 10 in mind, and Hana planned to not only shrink everyone on parameter, but to blow up everything electronic to stymie progress.  "All set." Hana told Maia in Light so that the man had less likelihood to understand what was said. "Twenty minutes, I'll get the size-cell and collect you."  Maia gave her a thumbs up before the man began to remove her suit. She let him grope her breasts for a moment before she showed him the muzzle of her Micrazor. Suddenly his head jolted away from it and he went wide-eyed. "Good boy, now be an even better little boy." She advised before she pulled the trigger and reduced him in size.  Hana cracked open the door to peak out into the hangar where the shrink ray was immediately recognized. "Amateurs." She whispered. The device was woefully unimpressive to Hana. She saw it as a huge waste if space and time. When nobody was looking, she sneaked out of the office and shrunk down in size in the shadows, backing intona dusty corner where she could observed the goings on with Dr. Blanc. She recognized her based on the description given during briefing. "Tiger here." She spoke into her communicator.  "Kangi, go Tiger." Answered Hana. "I'm small but I have a good view. I think that I've spotted Dr. Blanc." Hana said.  "Getting a good view are you, babe?" Maia teased her wife.  "Nah, her stupid white lab coat precludes any view of her panties..." Answered Hana who paused for a few seconds and then continued. "She looks like a bitch though."  "What is happening?" Kangi asked. "These dorks are total amateurs. Their gun must be the size of a car." Hana remarked as Maia came up beside her, small and leaning in to give Hana a kiss on her cheak. "Do you see the size cell?" Asked Jodak. "Negative." Hana answered. "Hey, what's that she's holding in her hand?" Maia pointed out a small boxy object that Dr. Blanc had been holding and showing to other researchers on her team.  Luckily, Hana and Maia were wearing camera contacts in their eyes, and with each blink, a photograph was snapped at an ultra-high resolution, and transmitted to headquarters. "It looks like one, but can we be sure?" Asked Hana. At headquarters, Kangi and Jodak looked at the transmitted images of what the girls were seeing. "It's the correct size to be one. And if the lead engineer is holding it, then it likely is their own version of the cell. It's what gives the device it's capabilities. I advise retrieving it." Jodak answered. "Understood. I've planted Little Miley." Hana concluded the transmission with before turning to look at her wife Maia with an arched eyebrow and asked: "What did you do with the little guy?"  "I took care of him." Giggled Maia.  Hana shook her head and smirked. "Slutty little girl!" She remarked. "Little? I'm as big as you now!" Maia replied, grabbing Hana's arm and stopping her from walking away. "Hey! I'll be bigger than you soon, just you wait, little girl!"  Hana had always been taller than her best friend and wife ever since they met. But as they both grew bigger as Micronauts, Maia caught up to her height and was constantly teasing Hana that she would suddenly be the shorter girl. At first Hana didn't know how to take it, as she was a macrophile. But by now she was looking forward to her wife growing bigger than she was. This briefly turned them on again and they held and kissed each other before continuing with their operation. "Ready, Tiger?" "Ready, Goddess." Hana responded.  "Wait! How are we going to do this?" Maia suddenly asked her. "Good question. Shrink the doc, take the doc's shit, and get the hell out." Hana summarized her master plan to Maia. "Kinky." Maia responded.   Meanwhile, Dr. Blanc was ending her conversation with the other engineers and researchers. She held up the replica size cell and explained her theory about heir failures to the team. "I believe we lack sufficient Luxium and Novodium, people. We need to secure more of the ores."  "We are working on that. There was a report of unusually large minnows near a cay in the Sea of Giants. We sent a researcher to the island chain to investigate the presence of Novodium." Said one of the engineers.  "Maybel?" Dr. Blanc asked her assistant who stood at her side. That is fine, but we still lack sufficient sources." Maybel Miriam replied.  Dr. Blanc considered what was being told to her. She had successfully created copies of people and that was with ages of documentation and research to work from. But shrinking and enlarging people and things was in a different league, and she needed more resources to find success. "Right, back to the drawing room for now. We shan't idle while our enemies advance their weaponry, and we don't have time to sit and do nothing while hoping for a miracle on Sky Cay." She relented. "Right away, madame." The other researchers said as they departed from the conversation and left Dr. Blanc with her assistant alone on the floor by the shrink ray.  "Miranda, do you think that we can meet the original deadline that we gave to our partners?" Asked Maybel. Dr. Blanc was a numbers gal at heart. She always dealt with numbers down to the decimal point, and one number that she grew to detest was the number of years she said that I would take to complete their research and development. "We still have three years, I think we will be fine. Besides, we think the copy that Eskidor has may suit us better." She said with a tired sigh. "But nearly a year in and we can't make a 1.7 meter tall woman 1.7 centimeters small. Sooner or later the Union and the Empire, not to mention our government, will be inquiring." The astute assistant mentioned.  "Go help them. I'll be in shortly, I will look at the size cell's analysis." Dr. Blanc said as she held up the cell and shook it.  Maybel turned to walk away while Dr. Blanc visually inspected the size cell to ponder if it was even the right design. She hadn't noticed the sudden appearance of normal-sized Micronauts behind her, and they were not spotted for everyone else retreated to their domains within the station. Suddenly a white hand took the size cell from her hand and she sharply turned around to address the snatcher.  "Excuse me!!" She snapped. Winking at Dr. Blanc, Maia shoved the size cell into her cleavage and zipped her suit while maintaining her Micrazor's aim upon her- which Hana also did as well. "Good day, doc." Hana greeted her.  "Shrinking women!" Hissed Miranda Blanc. "Kinky!" Remarked Maia. "Micronauts." Hana corrected the scientist. Suddenly Dr. Blanc grabbed the silver pendant that dangles around her neck and appeared to press a button. She did it so rapidly that the agents only realized it after the fact, erroneously believing that she was mistakenly believing that she about to be robbed of her jewelry. Instead, she set off an alarm and started to chuckle at their mistake. "Doesn't matter if you do me in now, this place is crawling with security." Dr. Blanc taunted the intruders, which made Maia lean into her with a question of her own. "Are they all men? That's easy!" She asked. "Freeze!!" They heard several security guards enter the room from above along a catwalk with their handguns drawn. "How original." Hana mumbled.  "We have the cell." Maia reminded Hana.  The risk was too high to bother with neutralizing and capturing Miranda Blanc. If they zapped her, then bullets would like start raining down upon them. Instead, they pretended to be cornered and hopeless, placing their Micrazors back into their cleavage- Maia having to unzip her suit first.  "Very reasonable, girls." Said the scientist. "No, very convenient." Maia quipped just a second before the two used the Jodak Device to shrink down. The agents went into hypershrink and disappeared into a crack in the concrete wall under the shadows. Dr. Blanc was screaming for her security to seal the building, not aware of the Micronauts being skilled escape artists.  "Headquarters we have the cell." Maia called over her communicator. "Yeah, unfortunately we had to go hyper and we have to get out of here!" Hana added. "Baby girls, I have up the layout of the place. If you take the car to the large door at the back of the hangar, you will be outside." Kangi answered.  "That sounds a little confusing. Are you saying that the door will lead to outside?" Asked Hana. "Yes, baby girls. You go nooooowww..." Kangi suggested. A short moment later as Dr. Blanc crawled into her knees to look for the shrunk agents behind a stack of cardboard boxes and a computer desk, she was surprised to see a tiny white toy car zoom by her at a very high speed. It wasn't actually a toy car, but it was the size of one, and it was the Minima-X5 that Hana was driving to get her and Maia out if the building.  "Shoot that toy car!!" Dr. Blanc ordered her security service. But they had a hard time seeing it when Hana turned on its invisibility option. It also went quiet and only the occasional weave around a giant obstacle yielded any signs of the car, for it creates tire marks on the painted concrete floor. As the hangar was large, it took a few minutes to reach the other end of it safely and unseen. As they approached the closed overhead door, the agents observed that there were several very tiny openings and cracks at the bottom of it.  "How convenient!" Hana remarked as she engaged the car's shrink function and brought the car to the size of a very small ant. "Woohoo!! You should be a stunt driver, babe!!" Maia commented just before they darted out of the hangar and into the tundra.  The car crashed safely into a small pile of snow, the girls being small as the flakes. "Come in Kitten, come in! We've landed!" Hana spoke over the communicator. "Hangar door?" Asked Theo.  "Yeah, stand by! We're going regular small!" Hana reolied. Hana engaged the button that returned the car to toy size, and the girls to their normal small size. The bright flash of the car increasing in size was spotted and soon it was scooped up into a giant hand. "Woah!!" Maia and Hana both exclaimed as the car was lifted.  It was Theo and she glanced down at the two tiny agents in the Minima and smiled to them. "What gives? I'm freezing out here!"  "Cute coat!" Maia remarked at Theo's white parks with cat ears on the hood.  "Oh, we had to take a detour!" Hana answered over the communicator. Theo thought the one liner was funny. She smirked and then she unzipped her coat and suit to hide the car and the agents in her cleavage, shuddering from the cold snow that was let in with them. "I hate the cold!" She commented. Zipped up once again, Theo hurried back to a white snowmobile that was still on, and sped off along the tundra before anyone ever saw her, making a truly stealthy exit. "Headed home! All is good except now my nipples are so cold!" Theo called out over the communicator. "Kinky!" Maia replied.
Dribble Like Me by BrandonScottPilcher, literature
Literature
Dribble Like Me
The sunset lent a warm, almost cozy glow to the stacks of scarlet-washed terraces that supported the buildings of Mutul. It was a city stuffed with more pyramids than any place Neith-Ka recalled from her native Khamit. Her people might have buried their Pharaohs in monuments of equal or even more mountainous scale, but then these peculiar Mayabans would lay every one of their structures on top of a stepped pyramid, none less than two stories high, with everyone having to hike up a succession of stone stairs to reach the summit.
Neith-Ka shook her foot to dull the pain chewing away at her tendons. Already the woven papyrus of her sandals had s
5 Steps to Creating Great Supporting Characters by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
5 Steps to Creating Great Supporting Characters
PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE THIS PAGE WILL REMAIN ACTIVE FOR PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND RECORDS, IT IS OUTDATED. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE NEWEST VERSION.
5 Steps to Creating Great Supporting Characters
Anybody Can Write a Novel
Chapter 3 “Characters” – Section 4 “The Antagonist”
With Links to Supplementary Material
With your Protagonist and Antagonist up and ready to go, you are now ready to create your Supporting Characters. These are the people in your story who show up multiple times and play an important role in the plot—not to be confused with Universe Filler Characters, who may only show up once. The fo