u/Deerslayer-14

I'm so tired and disappointed with finding so many content tagged as stoic whumpee / defiant whumpee, only to see this whumpee breaking. Stoic whumpee faints in front of a caretaker. Whumper breaks the stoic whumpee. Whumper breaks the defiant whumpee. Stoic defiant whumpee who ends up actually losing their spirit. Which is totally fair, but simply not my thing. That's a whump turn-off for me.

From now on I'm gonna be tagging all the relevant posts as unbreakable whumpee. Not even unbroken, because this implies there might be a "yet" added. Un-break-a-ble. If you promise that your Whumpee will keep their spirit in the end, please do too. So that people with this preference could be safe in their expectations.

Please spread the word. Please spread the tag.

The fake iceberg method. Show a vivid looking ice tip over the water, and the reader will assume there's more, but since you don't show the rest, you don't actually need to build it.

Some examples:

— made up sayings that characters use. Here are some from my books: "Dirty hands for dirty deeds" about hiring sketchy people to do illegal matters. Or "Not my roof, not my rule" about respecting the rules of wherever you are, even if you disagree.

— using legendary names in casual speech. Like we'd call someone Odysseus if it took them long to come come. Or "No shit, Sherlock". The village boy on a journey compares himself to [Name] the World Walker. The low level mage when discussing a high-level magical task: "What do you want from me? I'm not [Name] the Mountain Shaper." The reader doesn't know who that is but assumes there's a story behind it. There isn't 😁 The key here is to make the name speak for itself and be relevant to the conversation.

— Give any piece of clothing that POV character isn't used to seeing to any other character and describe it as "traditional [ethnicity name] [item name]" and don't bother writing the tradition behind it. Or have them perform a different greeting "as [ethnicity] usually do".

— have people sing or quote songs. Don't write those songs, write a line or two. "Remember that song, [quote line 1] [quote line 2]?" "Yeah... Makes you think of [scene-appropriate feeling]."

— Make their obscene language oddly spesific. "By the mother or mothers!" "Curse my left eye!" or whatever.

— random vague time markers: "the oak so old that it saw [Good sounding name] and [Evil sounding name] battle"

— Make characters see a random ruin or statue and mention an ancient civilization that you don't need to think through.