How To Write Saucy Betrayals

First consider the type of betrayal you want. Will it be minor to the story or absolutely earth shattering? Will you be leaving little breadcrumbs/hints for the reader to piece together, or will it come out of no where and blindside both the reader and characters? Be careful though because the latter can feel unrealistic or make the reader feel cheated.

Here are some tips on how to write betrayals in your story:

1) Set up the betrayal in a way that isn’t obvious. Leave tiny clues, use foreshadowing, drop hints in the background. Body language and dialogue can be great places to add subtle hints.

2) Make your readers invested in your characters. If the reader doesn’t care about the protagonist or even the betrayer, they won’t feel anything when the big deception happens.

3) The betrayer needs a motivation. Why are they betraying your protagonist?

4) It has to have an effect your protagonist. Usually the betrayer is someone close to the protagonist, so when they are deceived, it hurts like crap.

5) Do some research on the craft of lying. It can be hard for a character to keep up a mask for the entire story. Google some real-life betrayals in history, or in famous literature/movies. Study how the betrayals are hinted at and effectively revealed.

6) Play around with POV. A fun way to build tension is to have certain characters know things that others do not. Or perhaps your readers know about the betrayal-to-be before the characters do. This could put them on the edge of their seats waiting for your characters to figure it out before it’s too late.

7) Betrayal isn’t black and white. I don’t think betrayal is as simple as good and bad… it can get muddy. For example, what if the betrayer is being blackmailed? Mind controlled? Manipulated? Here are a few betrayal pathways to consider:

Evil from the start to the end, was never truly a friend.

Manipulated into betraying their friends

Wants to be on the “winning side”

Is offered gold or safety of their family for the betrayal

Blackmailed or threatened into the betrayal

They’re lesser or a “loser” in the beginning and can obtain power through this betrayal

Conflicted and stuck in between— this betrayer doesn’t know which side to pick and is constantly being tormented between the choice

The betrayer feels cheated/overlooked by the protagonist and choses to switch sides.

They’re betraying the protagonist to secretly protect them

They have no choice— literally. Mind control or magically forced

They think they’re genuinely doing the right thing

A remorseful betrayer who realizes his mistake but it’s too late, he is too far gone or the damage has already been done.

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Conversation Prompt

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely. Mine is my best friend. Our eyes met across a crowded room and my life was complete. The world is brighter, people are kinder - for the first time I felt like I had a home.”

“I’m trying to be romantic here.”

“Oh, sorry. You’re my other soulmate.”

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m0th-b0nes

8 months ago

debbie and fiona - get gone

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m0th-b0nes

2 years ago

10 Questions to Ask About your World

What are the common theories about the universe? (Fate, free will, what’s out there? Gods?)

How much does this society know about its world? (how much is explored versus not, are they fully aware of their history or are there things they haven’t discovered yet? What’s beyond their scope?)

What sort of religions or communities exist?

What foods do they eat, what wouldn’t be as normalized?

What traditions do they have? Festivals, celebrations, holidays, etc.

How does the average person spend a Sunday?

Is there a skill that’s expected for people to know? (ex. where I live most people know how to ride a bike) Is there something that would be odd in this society to know?

Do people drive or do they transit or do they walk? How do people get around?

How do people communicate with each other? (Phones, letters, birds, etc.)

What’s something that makes your setting unique or fit specifically for your story?

Good luck!

1K notes View Post

m0th-b0nes

1 year ago

@stvksn on ig

178K notes View Post

m0th-b0nes

1 year ago

I'm reading again about the early days of the 1948 Nakba, and I'm just... at loss for words (cw: rape, child murder)

On 9 April 1948, Jewish forces occupied the village of Deir Yassin. It lay on a hill west of] erusalem, eight hundred metres above sea level and close to the Jewish neighbourhood of Givat Shaul. The old village school serves
today as a mental hospital for the western Jewish neighbourhood that expanded over the destroyed village.

As they burst into the village, the Jewish soldiers sprayed the houses with machine-gun fire, killing many of the inhabitants. The remaining villagers were then gathered in one place and murdered in cold blood, their bodies abused while a number of the women were raped and then killed."

Fahim Zaydan, who was twelve years old at the time, recalled how he saw his family murdered in front of his eyes:

They took us out one after the other; shot an old man and when one of his daughters cried, she was shot too. Then they called my brother Muhammad, and shot him in front us, and when my mother yelled, bending over him - carrying my little sister Hudra in her hands, still breastfeeding her - they shot her too."

Zaydan himself was shot, too, while standing in a row of children the Jewish soldiers had lined up against a wall, which they had then sprayed with bullets, 'just for the fun of it', before they left. He was lucky to survive his wounds.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappé (2006, p. 90)

And, continuing on p. 91:

One only has to be told that thirty babies were among the slaughtered in Deir Yassin to understand why the whole 'quantitative' exercise - which the Israelis repeated as recently as April 2002 in the massacre in lenin - is
insignificant. At the time, the Jewish leadership proudly announced a high number of victims so as to make Deir Yassin the epicentre of the catastrophe - a warning to all Palestinians that a similar fate awaited them if they refused to abandon their homes and take flight.

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m0th-b0nes

10 months ago

Footage of Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank city of Jenin today (June 22) with an injured Palestinian man strapped to the hood of their military jeep.

The term you're thinking of is human shield, and this is not even the first time we have had visual evidence of this happening.

Every accusation is a glaring admission of guilt. This is what I mean when I say these deranged psychopaths relish in their impunity.

This is why your calls for justice in Palestine should be all-encompassing. While Israel is bombing every inch of Gaza, it is simultaneously raiding villages in the West Bank, executing children, and kidnapping and subjecting Palestinians to unspeakable violence, an example of which is in this video.

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m0th-b0nes

10 months ago

at the end of the day they’re just a mother and son grieving the loss of their favorite person in this world while a war they never wanted to start but are willing to end for the sake of their baby rages around them