i love when tragedies are like “the love was there. it didnt change anything. it didnt save anyone. there were just too many forces against it. but it still matters that the love was there”

narratively I am a fan of romances that don’t ever actually become romances

I don’t mean in an aromantic life partner way, I mean romantic tension that is never resolved or acted upon for whatever reason but by the end it’s clear that both characters experienced the love of their lives without ever acknowledging it as such. but they know. they know.

maybe the unbridgeable gulf between them is culture, or class, or religion, or maybe their chief commitment is to something other than each other. maybe they decide it’s more important to keep the peace than to risk the complications of a relationship. maybe they’re just weary of change and content with things the way there are because it’s simpler that way. for whatever reason nothing is ever consummated between them, emotionally or physically.

I love that kind of quiet tragedy.

if ever you find symbolism in my writing please tell me i’d like to know about it too

me after writing out the scene I imagined in my head:

Best trick I ever picked up. Seriously.

I have also learned this is great for [PICK A COOL NAME FOR A SHIP] and [LOOK UP THE FACTS ABOUT OXYGEN LEVELS] and [WHAT’S THE WORD] and [DOUBLECHECK CHARACTER’S EYE COLOR] and ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

Anything that isn’t critical in the moment, and could be filled in later while I’m currently trying to burn through writing pages that will be lost if I don’t get them out right now? Brackets.

This is seriously the best advice, and it really helps put it into perspective that the first draft is just that- a draft. There’s no reason to agonize over a particularly tricky bit of writing when you could just leave it in brackets and skip to the good parts, the parts you’ve visualized. I also use brackets for [fact-check this], [use a stronger verb], [is this in character?] and other notes as I write, just so I don’t forget what I want to work on when I go back and edit. 

This works for academic writing too. If you know where you’re going just leave yourself notes to fill in later. I do this all the time,

Actually, can we talk about how Garbage a lot of ubiquitous writing advice in the late 2000's was?

Like "you have to begin in the middle of the action! your first line has to be a 'hook' that draws the reader further into the story!"

This is the bullshit responsible for the amount of books that begin in the middle of some sort of pointless fucking action scene that I care nothing about because I just got here.

Like I guess this makes books easier to "sell" or whatever on some level of the process, but it's garbage storytelling advice because setup and establishment of the Way Things Are is almost always necessary.

On some level I don't think it's actually possible to begin a story right on top of the "inciting incident" because...you don't have the raw materials to "incite" anything with. If you have to set up basic things about the characters and world after the "inciting incident," it's not really the inciting incident anymore, is it?

The event that "launches" a character into their plot line is something that follows from the character's established situation, desires, traits etc. It's a follow-up to a situation that makes a Story of some kind inevitable.

It is, by definition, an event that makes no sense and does not matter to the reader at all unless the "setup" already exists.

If you try to begin right in the middle of the event that "sparks" the plot, you're going to end up including a second, "real" event that actually does the job, because you can't do the job if the character, the stakes, the rules, etc. are not there yet.

Now the action scene you stuck to the beginning of your story is probably dead weight that is getting in the way of the setup.

Ways to Show Not Tell: Grief

Here is a little list of ways to show grief without having your characters proclaim I am going through grief right now, okay?:

Hopefully these can help you write your grieving characters. Obviously this list isn’t exhaustive, as people react to grief - and any other circumstance - differently. Truly consider your characters and how they respond to other emotions & situations before picking how your character responds to grief.

Thank you and if you have any questions, feel free to send them my way!

Happy writing.

Thank you to @ncoincidences for submitting this request.

Quick editing tip: Passing time

Hey all, here’s a quick tip about showing the passage of short amounts of time in a scene. I see a lot of beats like this:

Instead of telling us there’s a brief moment of silence or pause in your scene, try showing us by creating the feeling that time has passed through action, description, or inner monologue. Here are a few examples.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Not only does creating a pause instead of describing a pause allow your reader to feel the moment more vividly, it gives you a chance to explain what exactly that pause is about. People hesitate, pause, don’t respond, etc. for all kinds of reasons. Give us as much insight as you can into your weird quiet moment.

Of course, you don’t need to do this every single time. Sometimes it’s fine to say “he paused” or “the room was quiet for a moment”—it could be the best choice for that scene. But look back through your draft and see if you’ve used those “telling” descriptions more often than you needed to. If so, try to create the feeling of a pause—perhaps one that gives the reader a bit more information—using these techniques.

Hope this helps!

Hey btw, if you're doing worldbuilding on something, and you're scared of writing ~unrealistic~ things into it out of fear that it'll sound lazy and ripped-out-of-your-ass, but you also don't want to do all the back-breaking research on coming up with depressingly boring, but practical and ~realistic~ solutions, have a rule:

Just give the thing two layers of explanation. One to explain the specific problem, and another one explaining the explanation. Have an example:

Well, that's a very quick and simple explanation, which sure opens up additional questions.

It takes exactly two layers to create an illusion that every question has an answer - that it's just turtles all the way down. And if you're lucky, you might even find that the second question's answer loops right back into the first one, filling up the plot hole entirely:

When you're just making things up, you don't need to have an answer for everything - just two layers is enough to create the illusion of infinite depth. Answer the question that looms behind the answer of the first question, and a normal reader won't bother to dig around for a 3rd question.

Full offense but your writing style is for you and nobody else. Use the words you want to use; play with language, experiment, use said, use adverbs, use “unrealistic” writing patterns, slap words you don’t even know are words on the page. Language is a sandbox and you, as the author, are at liberty to shape it however you wish. Build castles. Build a hovel. Build a mountain on a mountain or make a tiny cottage on a hill. Whatever it is you want to do. Write.

Open up your manuscript.

Search for “there is” or “there was.”

Find all the description or action that starts with “there” and change it.

“There is a strike of lightning” becomes “lightning strikes the sky.”

“There is panic building in his chest” becomes “panic builds in his chest.”

Helps declump the writing

Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

Heads up that this is a very extensive questionnaire and might be daunting to a lot of writers (myself included). That being said, it is also an amazing questionnaire and I will definitely be using it (or at the very least, some of it).

no google docs you don't understand this is a sexy, necessary grammar mistake

The most important writing lesson I ever learned was not in a screenwriting class, but a fiction class.

This was senior year of college.  Most of us had already been accepted into grad school of some sort. We felt powerful, we felt talented, and most of all, we felt artistic.

It was the advanced fiction workshop, and we did an entire round of workshops with everyone’s best stories, their most advanced work, their most polished pieces. It was very technical and, most of all, very artistic.

IE: They were boring pieces of pretentious crap.

Now the teacher was either a genius OR was tired of our shit, and decided to give us a challenge.  Flash fiction, he said. Write something as quickly as possible.  Make it stupid.  Make it not mean a thing, just be a quick little blast of words. 

And, of course, we all got stupid.  Little one and two pages of prose without the barriers that it must be good. Little flashes of characters, little bits of scenarios.

And they were electric.  All of them. So interesting, so vivid, not held back by the need to write important things or artistic things. 

One sticks in my mind even today.  The guys original piece was a thinky, thoughtful piece relating the breaking up of threesomes to volcanoes and uncontrolled eruptions that was just annoying to read. But his flash fiction was this three page bit about a homeless man who stole a truck full of coca cola and had to bribe people to drink the soda so he could return the cans to recycling so he could afford one night with the prostitute he loved.

It was funny, it was heartfelt, and it was so, so, so well written.

And just that one little bit of advice, the write something short and stupid, changed a ton of people’s writing styles for the better.

It was amazing. So go.  Go write something small.  Go write something that’s not artistic.  Go write something stupid. Go have fun.

Stupidity is, on occasion, a true thing of beauty

Write something stupid

If you’re feeling stuck in your writing, instead of your usual methods, try changing things up a little! Some examples include:

Dumping whatever is in your brain at the moment, no punctuation, no grammar, etc. This gets your creativity to turn ON and your inner editor to turn OFF.

If you usually write on your phone or laptop, try writing by hand. You don’t have to do your whole session this way. But if you’re feeling blocked, a screen might be keeping your inner editor on high alert. Writing by hand forces you to slow down and gives your brain a chance to run wild with ideas!

If you always write at your desk at the same time every day, but it’s feeling pretty stale, try writing in a different location!

If you CAN’T write in a different location, try rearranging your desk, doing some stretches, and make a general attempt at breaking up any feelings of monotony.

If you’ve been working on one project for a long time, it might get tedious. For example, if you usually write epic saga length sci-fi, try writing a contemporary mystery, or a fluffy holiday romance. It doesn’t have to be a full commitment project thing. You can just write a little bit to see what happens and explore!

You might be running on empty without realizing it. So stock up on creativity! Refill your creative gas tank! If you’ve reached a point in your project where you feel as if you’ve forgotten how to put words together, read like CRAZY. This “reminds” you how to write and gives your brain something to work with when you get back to writing! :)