writing advice: you will learn all the things you need to, if you write
Don’t get hung up on what you don’t know; work with what you do know, and what you don’t know you’ll learn with time.
@flotsamie / flotsamie.tumblr.com
writing advice: you will learn all the things you need to, if you write
Don’t get hung up on what you don’t know; work with what you do know, and what you don’t know you’ll learn with time.
The blurb, the hook, and the synopsis!
Hello, first of all I wanted to say that your blog and you are gorgeous! And I have a question, do you have any tips on how to stop comparing your writing ideas with others, everything that other people write seems to be so unique and original... Or how to get more original ideas for your writing? Thank you so much in advance!
Aw, thank you, nonny
To be entirely honest with you, if it’s something you tend to struggle with, then there’s probably no way to remove the feeling entirely. Many authors, even bestselling authors with dozens of published books, feel like this on a regular basis. Just keep reminding yourself that:
True originality is a lie, but if you want to create more wacky and unique plots, check out this post here! You might also be interested in my analysis of convention vs originality, if you haven’t seen it yet.
To slightly paraphrase one of my (many) favorite @neil-gaiman quotes:
The last novel I wrote, when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book.
She simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, “Oh, you’re at that part of the book, are you?”
I was shocked. “You mean I’ve done this before?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Not really.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients.”
(Just today in fact, I had a miniature meltdown because I decided all my characters from The Warlord Contracts were just carbon copies of a cardboard cut out. I know a large part of the chaos in all three books is caused by the fact that the main characters are so incredibly different that they can’t agree on anything, ever, and the scene I was writing had an entire paragraph of Vasha trying to convince himself that Mantas isn’t a bad leader just because her ideas are often in direct opposition to his own, and yet some dark insecure goblin in my brain manages to win its foundless argument anyways.)
We, and our brain goblins, may not always feel just our ideas or writing are great or even good, but I promise this is a natural feeling for writers — one which will only bleed into your stories if you let it taunt you into ending them.
How do I start writing? I can't seem to put words to a page
Do it, do it! Put any words in any order on said page. Put ideas or character descriptions onto the page. In my opinion, when writing even a simple sentence is difficult then it’s time to outline. Maybe just write a summary of the story that’s in your head, something quick, not a final essay. For some people, drawing a scene or character helps, for others starting in the middle or writing the big scene first gets them going. Writing isn’t like reading a recipe, you don’t have to start at the beginning. Start wherever you’re most interested in starting and build the rest of the story around it. Write about yourself, your friends, your favorite show or book. I kept journals throughout my school years and when I got tired of those I just started writing things that didn’t happen or things that I wished had happened. I based some of my stories on real life, some on things I heard about, and some were essentially rip-offs of books I’d already read. It all helped, and I kept writing. Practice writing what you know until you can’t stop writing.
Make it fun, make it creative, and don’t worry about anything. There is no magic trick to writing, you just have to sit down and do it.
This post is all about kisses (not the chocolate or the principle sorry). Enjoy!
What is a kiss?
What does a kiss mean?
What are the types of kisses?
What are some songs about kissing?
Where can I find kissing GIFS?
Some of these might be NSFW, though.
What are some kissing games?
What are some quotes about kissing?
How do I write a kiss?
Hey guys! As a writer myself, it’s hard to have a lot of resources for writing in one place. That’s why I decided to create this masterpost, and maybe make more if I find future resources. I hope you like it, and expect to see more masterposts like this in the future!
Character
Names
Plot
Setting/World-Building
Prompts
Misc
Just a few I found from the writing tips tag!
For Writing
For Productivity
Reblogging to save a writer
Hey fellow writers! Enjoy!
Thank you
Dudes, just write. Stop asking me if you should start/continue/finish what you’re writing despite having x, y, or z problem. If you want to write I am in NO WAY authorized to tell you when to stop/start. That’s up to you and always will be.
If you think “no one will ever genuinely like this” you are 100% wrong. 100%. Think about all the trash out there that has fans. I wrote stuff when I was twelve that had more genuine fans among my family/classmates than ANYTHING I never shared with another living soul. It’s impossible to write something no one will like.
If you think “I’ll never finish it so why even bother?” you’re only depriving yourself, man. That’s like saying, “I like this cookie, but I can’t eat the whole bag. Guess I won’t even try one.” ????? Just write the story, to hell with endings. Some of the best works in the world went unfinished by the author/composer/architect, yet we admire the heck out of them. Maybe, instead of thinking you’ll never finish something, tell yourself this is the one you will finish (and repeat it until you do).
If you feel “this hurts to write, I’m too close to the subject material” either set it aside or full speed ahead. You MUST know how many classics, prize winners, and life changers came from someone’s very real pain and experience. Addicts, traumatized persons, victims, quite often they find solace and healing in writing about their experiences. Most importantly, so do their readers.
If you want to write, write. Otherwise only you are standing in the way of what you want.
This is something I’ve been trying to work on for a while. Luckily, @shaelinwrites is here to explain. The full vid is below. Here are some notes I made in the course of watching this, which others might find useful.
Character voice = writing style + character personality:
Patterns are the key to expressing a character’s personality.
There are two types:
- content pattern (what sentences are about)
- you reference a certain type of content frequently - you use the pattern for your metaphors, your similes, your analogies - if your character has a defining interest, this can help in finding a content pattern - however you don’t absolutely need a content pattern
- linguistic pattern (how sentences are formed)
- diction - vocabulary - sentence length (although it should vary for good writing) - slang use - level of formality - amount and type of swearing - amount and type of humor - level of poetics - types of poetic devices frequently used - punctuation
Varying all of these parameters will make your characters sound different from one another.
I cannot emphasize enough how much you need to read thoroughly through the terms of any publication before you send your writing to them. It is mandatory that you know and understand what rights you’re giving away when you’re trying to get published.
Just the other day I was emailed by a relatively new indie journal looking for writers. They made it very clear that they did not pay writers for their work, so I figured I’d probably be passing, but I took a look at their Copyright policy out of curiosity and it was a nightmare. They wanted “non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide license and right to use, display, reproduce, distribute, and publish the Work on the internet and on or in any medium” (that’s copy and pasted btw) and that was the first of 10 sections on their Copyright agreement page. Yikes. That’s exactly the type of publishing nightmare you don’t want to be trapped in.
Most journals will ask for “First North American Rights” or a variation on “First Rights” which operate under the assumption that all right revert back to you and they only have the right to be the first publishers of the work. That is what you need to be looking for because you do want to retain all the rights to your work.
You want all rights to revert back to you upon publication in case you, say, want to publish it again in the future or use it for a bookmark or post it on your blog, or anything else you might want to do with the writing you worked hard on. Any time a publisher wants more than that, be very suspicious. Anyone who wants to own your work forever and be able to do whatever they want with it without your permission is not to be trusted. Anyone who wants all that and wants you to sign away your right to ever be paid for your work is running a scam.
Protect your writing. It’s not just your intellectual property, it’s also your baby. You worked hard on it. You need to do the extra research to protect yourself so that a scammer (or even a well meaning start up) doesn’t steal you work right from under you nose and make money off of it.
Exclusive publishing rights have to have a set time frame! Do not agree to anything that doesn’t clearly state “up to five years from signature” or something like that.
What if the publisher goes defunct? What if they get bought by another publisher who doesn’t care to promote or publish your work? You still can’t to anything with it, you don’t own it anymore!
For a thorough overview of what you should be aware of regarding your intellectual property and publishing rights, please read through this collection of post [https://kriswrites.com/business-musings/contracts-and-dealbreakers/] by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Protect your IP. Do not give away your stories.
Every writer needs to read this before signing that contract:
SIGNAL BOOST
@deadcatwithaflamethrower i think it might interest you (if not directly for you then it might be of interest for your followers)
This is one of the many reasons that you do not publish your work through Amazon. They contractually own your property in perpetuity, i.e. forever, if you use their publishing service. Theft, okay? Stuff like the above is legal theft. Watch your asses, loves.
(And it’s one of the reasons I’m so screamingly frustrated about not being able to devote any spoons to running Altered Nature Press, because one of its main tenants was I Don’t Own Your Work, You Own All Of Your Work Forever.)
You could get a lot more writing done if you closed tumblr and actually started writing.
spending three hours trying to name something in your writing without it sounding totally pretentious or absolutely dumb
trying to steer dialogue towards a certain plot point while trying to make it sound natural
The struggle is real.
Now that we’re finished with the World Building Blog Series, I’ve assembled a master list of all the post for your convenience
Geography and Weather - The Basics
Geography and Weather - Plot Relevance
Trimming your writing has the benefit of getting your point across to readers without using stuffy sentences and filler phrases. Those are the training wheels of beginning writers, but seasoned professionals can pick them out easily.
One such weakness to cut from your writing so it sounds more professional is the word “give.” Here are some examples taken from my own writing.
Example 1:
Original - She gives me an appraising look as I enter the room.
Revision - She appraises me as I enter the room.
Example 2:
Original - She gives a long tired sigh, but smiles at the end of it.
Revision - Her tired sigh ends with a smile.
The meaning stays the same, but less time is needed to read and understand the sentence when that awkward “give” is taken out. Unfortunately for me, both of these examples came from the same scene, making a scene that should last only a few seconds take longer than that to read through.
I read a lot of writing in my line of work and while that’s amazing, I see the same flaws again and again. Below is a list of 7 common writing mistakes in fiction and how you can fix them. This list is by no means complete. In fact there’s a great list over at The Editor’s Blog that covers even more mistakes.
Sometimes writers can forget that they’re writing a conversation and thus not write a conversation. The dialogue can be boring, stilted and unnatural, and I’d rather listen to the territorial call of an Australian Raven than read one more word of it.
There are many things that contribute to bad dialogue, but here are the three that really get on my nerves:
How you can fix it:
Sometimes you might want to avoid telling the reader about something and have a character tell another character instead. Sometimes you might want to avoid telling the reader how a character feels about something by having them think about it excessively instead. If this goes on for longer than a couple of paragraphs (or less), you risk allowing your reader to drift out of the scene.
The only thing anchoring your reader in the scene is your characters and what they’re doing. If the characters are talking or thinking for a long time without interacting with anyone or anything else, they might as well be floating in space, which can make the reader feel like they’re floating in space. That’s not to say that they’ve forgotten where the scene is taking place or who else is involved, just that it can feel that way if this is how the character acts.
How you can fix it:
Some people will tell you to use descriptive speech tags and others will tell you there’s nothing wrong with said. Both are true, but when do you follow the former and when do you follow the latter? And when do you use no speech tags at all?
Using anything but said and using nothing but said both get exhausting and boring very fast.
How you can fix it:
Below is a rough guide to what kind of speech tag to use. Please bear in mind that it is only a guide and will not and should not apply to every situation.
Said is unobtrusive–a way of letting the reader know who’s talking without making a song and dance about it. Specific verbs (e.g. whispered, shouted, mumbled) give the reader information about how the words are being said. Adverbial tags can also give extra information about how something is being said, but more often than not they can be replaced with a stronger verb (e.g. she said loudly can be replaced with she shouted). Writers can also fall into the trap of telling where it’s better to show when using adverbial tags, which can make the writing bland. Sometimes telling is better, but with speech tags, it’s usually better to absorb the reader in the conversation. If you’ve used an adverbial tag, go back and have a look at it. Is there a better way you could get the message across?
What you need to pay attention to when determining what speech tags to use is the context of the speech. If the reader is already aware of the manner in which a character is talking, it won’t be necessary to remind them every time the character speaks. If there are only two characters in the conversation, it won’t be necessary to finish each quote with he said/she said. Going back to #2, you can also do away with speech tags entirely and use action to demonstrate how a character is feeling, while also grounding the reader in the scene.
The key to avoiding repetition and blandness is to find a balance between using the unobtrusive said, using something more specific, and mixing it up with a bit of action, which means you might not even need a tag at all.
Sometimes it’s better to tell and not show. Some details just aren’t important enough to warrant a lengthy description. If you want your reader to know that it’s raining, you can write something better than “It was raining”, but there’s no need to go overboard and write a poem about how the puddles on the asphalt looked like a great abyss.
Think of description like camera focus. The more you describe something, the more focus you put on it. If you put enough focus on something, you eliminate everything else. What’s this? A close-up. What does a close-up in a movie tell you? That object of the close-up is significant.
Be wary: when you write thirty words describing the way the moonlight is reflecting off the inky black lake, you might not be just setting the scene. You might also be giving the lake undue emphasis, and it’s probably going to irritate your reader when they realise there’s nothing significant about the lake at all, you were just showing off your imagery skills.
How you can fix it:
Keep it real. What would the character notice, what would they think about it and is it worth the attention? And try not to focus on sight. Your characters have more than one way to perceive their environment, and incorporating their other senses can help build a 3D setting for your reader rather than just painting them a picture. Give the reader enough to imagine the scene, and no more.
There’s a lot of writing advice out there that will tell you to cut all adverbs. The result is that many writers now think adverbs exist only to eat their children and wouldn’t dare to ever use one.
There is truth to the advice, but to say “The road to hell is paved with adverbs”? Really, Stephen King? And his dandelion analogy assumes there’s no editing process.
Adverbs aren’t evil, but there is such a thing as using them ineffectively. Which of the below are more descriptive?
She ran quickly or She sprinted
“It’s a long way down,” he said nervously or “It’s a long way down,” he said
He was shamefully prone to anxiety or He was prone to anxiety
She sprinted not only gets to the point faster, it also creates a more powerful image for the reader. “It’s a long way down,” he said gives no indication of how the speaker is speaking or feeling; however, “It’s a long way down,” he said nervously is telling, not showing. Rather than using an adverb here, the writer could describe the speaker’s body language. He was shamefully prone to anxiety tells you how the character feels about being prone to anxiety and there is no stronger word to replace “shamefully prone”.
How you can fix it:
Ask yourself:
The first few chapters of a lot of stories I’ve read involve the main character plodding along in their daily life. This is a good thing as the reader needs to get a feel for your character before the big plot things happen, but that doesn’t mean the first few chapters should be without conflict. I don’t want to read about a character waking up, looking at themselves in the mirror, getting dressed, getting coffee, going to work, getting home, going on a date etc. for three chapters. It’s boring and I don’t care about any of it.
The confusion might be caused by common story structure theories that say the main conflict enters the story at the first plot point, or 25% into the story. But this doesn’t mean there should be zero conflict at the beginning! At the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Harry was told ‘no funny business’ or he’d be grounded. Not long after that, there was some vanishing glass and an escaped boa constrictor. After this happened there was a mysterious letter addressed to Harry, and he spent an entire chapter trying to get hold of it as the weirdness escalated. There’s conflict and a goal right off the bat, and the story hasn’t even really started yet. In The Hunger Games Katniss faces the Reaping. In The Hobbit Bilbo finds himself hosting a dinner party for dwarfs and being asked to go and fight a dragon.
How you can fix it:
When you write a first draft, whether you’ve planned it or not, there are going to be structural flaws. Maybe halfway through you thought of a way to solidify a character’s motivation. Maybe at the climax you thought of a way to strengthen your conflict. Maybe somewhere in the middle you had no idea where you were going with this and slugged your way through some boring scenes. It’s all good; this is how stories come together.
What should happen next is that you revise your draft with story structure in mind. There’ll be a lot of “I should add a scene here about this” and “what was I thinking when I wrote that?” and after a few goes, you’ll have a story.
Writers don’t always do this though (which, by the way, makes my job take longer and cost more). They’ll go through and fix all of the obvious problems, but what remains is a manuscript that still lacks a solid structure. It’s messy to read, it’s confusing, it’s clearly not thought out, and it feels like the writer is giving me the finger. I’ll regret paying for the book, stop reading it and leave a negative review on Goodreads. Is that worth not giving your book a good edit?
How you can fix it: