basic things you should know about your main characters

"We'll fix it in post" is a phrase from the film industry, but it is inherently funnier when it's spoken by a writer because--tragic--you are also the post-production team.

For the last goddamn time...

"Kill your darlings" means "if something is holding you back, get rid of it, even if it sounds pretty."

That's it! That's all it means! It means if you're stuck and stalled out on your story and you could fix the whole block by removing something but you're avoiding removing that thing because it's good, you remove that thing. That's the darling.

It does NOT mean

The POINT is that you STOP FEELING GUILTY for throwing out good writing that isn't SERVING THE STORY.

The POINT is that you don't get so HUNG UP on the details that you lose sight of the BIG PICTURE.

Good grief....

Also, you don't have to like, delete it from existence. Keep a second document full of the Darlings. You never know when you'll need it later.

If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?

Thank you so much for this!

Me: maybe I’m not cut out to be a writer…idk what if I’m not good enough

BookTok romance writers: ‘what if you were just a normal school teacher…but the MINOTAUR wanted to get you PREGNANT’

horror is always like oh no they're possessed by a demon well what about possessed by an angel? angelic possession is also horror.

That's scarier I think. To know the possession is Necessary. That any attempt to stop it will lead to greater tragedy as the angel's divine mission is interrupted. So you just have to sit there. And watch something else puppet your friend's body.

the hardest lines ALWAYS come from ao3 fanfics and I stand by this

Mostly thanks to @emilyelizabethfowl (their reblog contains many of the fic links!! thank u sm) and a few deep dives into my ao3 history, the sources of the quotes have mostly all been recovered! I apologise for not posting them all with proper credit originally, I truly didn't think the post would blow up so much, but the lesson is very much learned :) enjoy!

- number 1 is from merthur fic called Destiny Ordered You To Die, But I Willed You To Live by ironfamjam

-number 2 is from a klance fic called reach out for you (break these walls) by Paladin-Pile (UserFromPluto)

- number 3 is a batman fic called Home (jason centered) by Daisybirb

- number 4 is a zukka fic by I'm Not Angry Anymore by team_avatars_eyebags

- numbers 5 and 9 are from The Art Of Burning by hella1975, an amazing ongoing atla following zuko

- number 6 is a hualian fic called No paths are bound by cataclysmic_calamity (originally a thread fic but also fully uploaded on ao3)

- number 7 is a merthur fic called tell me every terrible thing you ever did (and let me love you anyway) by Stardustwrites17 (the quote is also originally from a poem apparently)

- number 8 is from a batman fic called Nature and Nurture by lurkinglurkerwholurks

- number 10 is from a steddie fic called let me know (everythings alright) by bexiguess

ALSO there is now a part 2 !! (which I swear is better organized)

This is a friendly reminder to give your OC a firm and unmistakable L every now and then.

This is a necessary action to keep your OC healthy for the long term.

Seeing other writers on tumblr talk about writing is so validating because all of them are basically:

“I hate writing but I love it more than anything but it’s agony but I have a million stories to put to paper but I barely ever write a word”

And like I’ve always felt this way and I worried it meant I wasn’t supposed to be a writer, which tore me to shreds. But no. That’s just the curse of being one, I guess.

I’m writing right now too and struggling a little, but I’ll keep going along with you two

Every time this post comes up on my dash i feel so fucking called out.

I dug up an old WIP yesterday and read through the entire thing, it was some 180 pages of an original story and I actually really fucking liked it??

[Of course, it was still transcendentally weird. On one hand there was a painfully beautifully scene where the trans boy comes out his crush and is worried he'll be rejected. On the other hand I discovered lines that i just. Who let me write them. Said crush, Rian, walked up to Avi who was getting flirted with by a bunch of people while preparing soil. And he just fucking says "I thought we were supposed to be using shovels for gardening, I see Avi's using hoes instead." Ngk????!!!!! 😭]

BUT WHO'S GOING TO WRITE THE REST OF IT? ME???? THIS IS HOMOPHOBIA.

Someone encourage me to write please so that my two idiot gays can have their enemies to lovers happily ever after and I can sit and be stupid with them.

WE CAN DO IT EVERYONE WRITE. IT MAY NOT LOOK GOOD TO YOU. IT DOESN'T MATTER. THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO DO TO BE A WRITER IS, WELL. WRITE.

Alright you know what? Today's the day I drag that WIP out from its dusty little hole and write. I'll set a timer for an hour and just fucking do it.

For the record, that thing I was writing last week that I was convinced was the worst thing in the world...? I kept going. I finished it. I revised it. I sent it in. Everybody loves it so much. Even me.

btw with art when people say 'youve got to do it scared' 'youve got to draw bad' 'youre not gonna know how to do it until you do it' it sounds like bullshit but its true. 90% of art is just getting over the fear that it's not going to be good enough to deserve to be made in the first place. but you're here. you're alive and, with no need to justify that, you're going to make art. it's just part of being alive. you'll spend so long worrying you aren't doing it good enough that you'll look back and realized you didn't live a single day of it.

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

things you can say instead of "I'm bad at writing" or "my writing sucks"

What's wrong with saying those things? First of all, you're insulting yourself and you don't deserve that ❤️ Second of all, those statements aren't going to get you any kind of reassurance in response. The only thing anyone can really say is "no, you're/it's not" - and that will almost certainly just sound patronizing to you when you're in a funk.

Focus in on your actual feelings and thoughts instead of dumping it all under the umbrella of "bad." Even if you're only talking to yourself, you'll get a better understanding of what's actually happening and a more realistic impression of yourself and your work.

Feel free to add more examples in the notes. And please remember that you don't suck at writing and your writing isn't bad. You're just being your own harshest critic. ❤️

Too often, there's this idea that you have to hate a thing to see it accurately, and that if you don't hate what you make, you can't improve. This is, quite simply, wrong. It's true that if you think something you make is PERFECT, then you're unlikely to improve; however, there is a vast VAST span between "it's perfect" and "it's garbage". Don't get trapped by false dichotomy.

Beyond that, and even without considering its harmful effects on you, "this is garbage" can't help you improve because it doesn't say what's actually wrong. And "everything's wrong with it" is factually incorrect; for something to register as even a very poorly-done story, it still needs to register as a STORY, which means you successfully put words together in a manner that can be parsed. If a character's choice of action doesn't make sense, then that means you'd constructed a narrative where it's possible for a choice of action to make sense.

When you've identified the biggest problem, or the one that annoys you the most, then you can work on fixing it; but that requires IDENTIFYING a problem, which "the whole thing sucks" does NOT do.

One other thing I'll note, though. Sometimes you don't have the energy to go through a thing and figure out exactly WHAT is wrong with it; that's okay. You don't have to have everything figured out immediately; or ever, necessarily, if you decide to move on to something different. It's not like your options are limited to thinking "the whole thing sucks" or "there's an issue with X, Y, and Z, and I know exactly how to go about fixing it"; sometimes the accurate answer is "I don't like how this turned out but I don't know what the problem is", or "this turned out in such a way that I don't want to think about it again". Uncertainty is part of the human condition; so is embarrassment. You're not "uniquely incapable" when you experience something that all of us are prone to.

the problem with reading and writing leading to a strong vocabulary is that you tend to know the vibe of words instead of their meanings.

if I used this word in a sentence, would it make sense? absolutely. if you asked me what it meant, could I tell you? absolutely not.

figure out what the word means from context clues while reading -> use the word in a sentence while writing -> realise you’re not actually certain what the word means -> panic about your sentence not making sense even though it hasn’t been pinged as grammatically incorrect -> look up the definition of the word because You Must Know -> it means exactly what you thought it meant -> oh, good! :) -> immediately forget the definition -> repeat forever

Sorry it’s early but you really can’t use fanfiction terms in a non fanfiction context like if someone is trying to sell me a book to read and they tell me there’s an enemy to lovers I would be annoyed because why are you spoiling the story lol

sorry op this is kind of a tangent but this is why i hate how booktok has not only affected how ppl talk about their fave stories, but how it's basically gnawed its way into how publishing companies promote books. it basically encourages authors to build their entire story entirely around marketable tropes so that they turn more of a profit

"it has enemies to lovers!" "it has friends to lovers!" "this is a slow burn!" WHAT IS THE PLOT??? what makes your story unique?? why should i read it??? describing your story entirely in tropes and fanfiction terms makes your story sound extremely uninteresting lmfao.

Fanfiction is for when you want to read familiar characters in a setting where you already know what's going to happen. I care about this coffee shop au because I already love these characters and just want to see them in fun familiar situations

Books are original content for new stories new characters in new situations. Why should I care if it takes place in a coffee shop? Give me a reason to love these characters!

Posting this for the people who think that Tolkien's world-building was something complete and entire and finished before he started to write.

You always learn and discover your story and your world as you write. Sometimes you are just the first reader.