Show, Don’t Tell

people have asked me how i draw eyes so i made an extremely slap-dash eye tutorial! this is simply about how i draw a simple neutral eye, nothing to do with expressions (that’s a whole other thing).

start with the horizontal guide on the face, to help place the eyes. put circles where the eyes will go!

adjust the circles into diamond shapes– i got this idea from sinix design on youtube, it’s very helpful and easier to see where the lids should end than with a circle.

draw the top lid/lash lines, leaving a bit of space at the top of the diamond. keep each eye in time with each other– drawing one whole eye first makes it harder to match the other one.

then the bottom lids. i usually try to do all the lid shapes with a single curved stroke each. keep it simple pals!

irises & pupils. sometimes i’ll draw filled-in black circles for the irises, to help figure out where to place them naturally!

lid creases, use the leftover diamond at the top as a loose guide for where to place them. remember that the lid curves around the eyeball.

make adjustments! things don’t always come out perfect immediately. i usually have to thicken the lash line (i like mine quite thick), move the bottom lid up or down, and sometimes resize a whole eye (easier on computer than traditional, i know!). if you’re on a computer make sure to flip your canvas often so you can see these little things ❤

and to practice, just doodle a lot of small eyes! keeping them small makes them easier and faster to finish, so you can focus on your strokes and playing around with shapes, tilt, lid space, all that. don’t worry about making the irises perfect circles/ovals or any of that, just try to capture the character. have fun!

Whenever I see people saying that Hugo's admittedly insane info-dumping in Les Miserables is due to the fact that he was paid by the word, I get unreasonably angry.

Guys, no, you just don't get it. YOU LITERALLY DON'T GET IT.

The guy was writing this book for 20 years. 20 YEARS. It was the work of a lifetime. He travelled around, in France and abroad (Belgium), just to get a close look of all the places he was writing about, talk to the people there, communicate with the place etc. And like, he didn't travel by a motorbike, or cars or airplanes. This was not the vibe at the time.

Also, since we are in the 19th century may I remind you that there was no Google Search at the time. You couldn't just go to Wikipedia and learn about Louis-Philippe and the July Monarchy, you couldn't go to Youtube and watch documentaries about the June Rebellion and testimonies of people that were there and witnessed it. You couldn't just go to Spotify and listen to historical podcasts about the Battle of Waterloo or watch live footage. You couldn't know shit about the way Paris functioned, the history of the city, the importance and the role of infrastructure (INCLUDING THE SEWERS YES) and the way the infrastructure of a city is literally a reflection of the people and the customs and the social plagues that were specific of that city, unless you were, quite literally, a Statesman (and only if you gave a shit, which most didn't). There was no Vice News to inform you of the shit that happened in monasteries or in the labour camps. There was no possible way for anyone to have access to information on any of these things, things that were all of VITAL importance for the fate of french people, that were, for the most part, illiterate, ignorant, and/or struggling to survive until the next day. The solution for this was political conscience and social awakening but how could you do that if you don't have a voice and you don't have basic information and knowledge? But. There was a man that had the means, that had the ressources, that had the money, and he decided to actually do something with that. He decided to speak out. He decided to write a novel about an entire human society and the people in it. How they lived, what they dreamed, how they suffered, how they tried to change their fate, how they failed, how they tried again, and failed again. He gave voice to people who, quite literally, didn't have a voice. It is no coincidence that the book was loved by the people (the mass) but hated by pretentious critics, including other novelists of the time. It wasn't a novel about critics, it was a novel about people. And people loved it. They loved the info-dumping cause it wasn't "info-dumping", nor a """""""filler"""""""" for god's sake, it was quite literally a window to their world, their living space, their history, their roots, their political struggles, a window that they simply didn't have before, and that book gave it to them. It educated people at the time when they couldn't be educated otherwise, at a time when education was indispensable for social change.

But sure Hugo just dedicated 2 decades of his life writing """""fillers""""" to pass the time and get more money lmao. Shut up for the love of god.

Final note: I'm not saying that Hugo's portrayal of french society is without flaws or totally realistic, or that his characters don't seem simplistic at times in their misery and total victimization. This work doesn't delve deeply into the person, that is its flaw. It goes mainly outwards, because its main goal is to educate, while at the same time being immensely entertaining, (at least for people who weren't used to instant gratification like nowadays). That is his value.

writing warm-ups

do you wake up and immediately go to work? no! you have coffee and breakfast first, you wash your face, you get dressed. similarly, you have to warm yourself up before facing a writing challenge. warm-ups are also a great way to fight writers' block. here are some ways to do this:

-keysmash poem; mash that keyboard until you get 6-12 random letters. these are the first letters of each line of a poem you will write. oh, you say you're not a poet? i didn't ask! just mash that keyboard and cough a poem up and never read it again. -letter to the editor; pick a topic that pisses you off. the smaller and more arbitrary, the better. write a paragraph detailing the issue to a neutral third party with as much passive aggression as you can muster. -rewrite; grab a random page of some old project of yours and rewrite it. really think about what you like and dislike about that page, look at it from a new perspective, twist it around until it's different-- doesn't matter if the rewrite is better or worse, because you aren't editing here. you're just getting your gears spinning. -fictionalize it; think of something that happened to you, like a brief interaction with a stranger or a funny mix up at work. turn it into a one-page scene. -dream journal; record an interesting dream. list out details you can remember, or write it like a journal entry, or wax poetic about what it all means. -shitty fanfiction; self explanatory. the more self-indulgent, the better. set a timer for ten minutes, blast off, and then pretend it never happened. -deleted scenes; think about the in between moments of your project. write an email from one of your main characters, or a scene from their childhood, or a text conversation log, really anything that you wouldn't put in your main work. -confessional; pick a fictional character, yours or one from a piece of media you love. write their ten confessions in as much detail as you want.

happy writing! let us know if you try any of these, and reblog if you find this helpful!

Here's some writing resources on worldbuilding, pacing, and story structure, since I see many people struggle with them.

Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding In Fantasy - The Best Advice, Tips And Guide

10 Worldbuilding Tips: How to Write an Engaging Fictional World

Worldbuilding Guide & Template: Your #1 Resource

Pacing

7 Quick Tips for Mastering Pacing in Your Story

Story Pacing: The What, Why, and How for a Fiction Writer

Story Structure

Story Structure: 7 Narrative Structures All Writers Should Know

The Hero's Journey: A 17 Step Story Structure Beat Sheet

Save the Cat Plot Structure

The Three-Act Structure

have fun <3

When I started writing fanfiction like ten years ago, dialogue was absolutely my weakest point. And I knew it. Character voice was a struggle, I used more ellipses than words probably, I just tried to lean on narration instead.

Fun to reflect and realize what a 180 I did on that. Cuz frankly dialogue is a DELIGHT and the best part of writing now. I love strong character voices. I love making characters trip over their words and talk over each other and go on tangents and lose their point and snark and snap at each other and crack wise and just, I love thinking about how dialogue sounds, and what feels most organic. 

Description and narration are all still well and good, but it’s like those are the framework and scaffolding to set characters up to just say shit. I LOVE making characters just say shit. The truest delight of fanfic.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Fairy Tail Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Laxus Dreyar/Lucy Heartfilia Characters: Laxus Dreyar, Lucy Heartfilia Summary:

After Laxus is expelled from Fairy Tail he goes off in search of himself. What he didn't expect was that Lucy would follow him.

Writing advice from my uni teachers:

If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.

Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.

Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.

Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.

The Top 10 Writing Posts From June 2021

Every month, we look at the posts that people read the most.

These were the new Writers Write posts you enjoyed in June 2021:

30 Writing Prompts For June 2021

A Quick-Start Guide For Creating Characters

On Ghosts & How To Write About Them

The Way Of The One – For Writers

14 Boring Expressions & What to Use Instead

How Much Sex Do You Need In A Sex Scene?

The Notorious ‘You’ – An In-Depth Look At Second Person

What Is Imagination & Why Is It Important For Fiction Writing?

The Unintended Consequences Of A Lack Of Setting

7 Writing Observations From Ian McEwan

This Halloween, you better bring your reading glasses, because it's time to whack out word crimes that bring out the absolute worst (affectionate) in the great universe of Romance Club.

To help out, we've compiled an eclectic spread of writing resources for your convenience - and please, if you have additional suggestions for your fellow writer, let us know in the comments!

Spooky Writing Prompts - by @daydreaming-effy

Halloween Fluff Prompts - by @asparklerwhowrites

Halloween-themed Dialogue Prompts - by @palettes-and-prompts

30 Whumpy Dialogue Prompts - by @wildfaewhump

Lists of Prompts I and II grouped by mood - by @linwritesif

Monster x Monster Hunter Prompts - by @deity-prompts

A Sense of Horror (inspiration) - by @whump-queen

Monstrous May 2021 Write-Up (inspiration - please note: occasionally suggestive) - by Johannes T. Evans

9 Tricks For Writing Suspense Fiction (inspiration) - by Simon Wood on Writer's Digest

What Even Is Suspense (inspiration - not a promotion at all, just a few good points if you're unsure how to ramp up the scaries) - through Masterclass.com

how to write relatable characters

writing relatable characters may seem like an easy task, especially when you’re constructing your protagonist. but what if you want to make your antagonist likeable? what if you want people to hate your protagonist but still root for them? all of this and more requires that your characters be relatable. they need to feel real, so how do you do that? here’s how:

- flaws: this is probably obvious. everyone has flaws, so we should give our characters flaws, too. this applies even if your character is non-human; they cannot escape the personification that we as writers or readers project onto them. we are humans reading, so we expect to see human qualities everywhere we look. if you’re having trouble of identifying your character’s flaws, here are some prompts for ways to think about flaws beyond a list:

what skills do they lack? what do they struggle with?

can their strengths be turned against them as a weakness?

what makes them react emotionally or impulsively?

are they aware of their flaws? if so, do they want to improve them or change them?

- quirks: these are what make your character unique or special, and no, i don’t mean purple eyes or unique physical traits. i mean: what makes your character authentically themselves? what traits define them that few others have? some ways to think about this are:

how do they react when nervous? do they have a tell? similarly, how do they react on behalf of any emotion?

what skills do they have that hardly anyone else has?

what obscure thing are they obsessed with?

do they have a unique outlook on life compared to their peers?

- values: these come from life experiences: where we were raised, our family and friends, our community, religious affiliations, etc. i suggest identifying eight to ten values that define your character and then narrowing that list down to five values that mark their core or essence. think about how these values influence their choices, decisions, and ultimately, the plot of the novel. here are some more prompts to think about values:

how do they react when their values are challenged? are they one to speak up or do they sit back in the shadows?

what, if anything, will change or shatter their values?

are their actual values misaligned with their believed values?

- stakes: what is at risk for your character? what is motivating them? stakes don’t need to be over the top or life or death; they can be as simple as maintaining a relationship or reaching a goal. unless there’s an outside influence (ie. percy’s mother being kidnapped in The Lightning Thief), most stakes—especially those relatable—tie back to values. even those influenced by outside factors can tie back to values: the only reason percy is motivated to get his mother back is because he cares for her and she is the one person who has always advocated for him and cared for him. he values family and riordan uses his family to motivate him and incite the plot. generally, there will be one overarching stake for your character, but throughout your novel, there should be several smaller stakes. these may not service the plot but should elaborate on your character nonetheless. some ways to think about stakes include:

how can i use internal or external factors to create convincing, relatable stakes that tie back to basic values?

why does the overarching stake matter to my character? why do they care?

how can i raise the stakes or introduce new ones that are relevant to my character and illustrate them as a relatable being?

- connection: even if your character is an introvert, they will still be connected to someone, something, or even an idea. we, as humans, look to certain people, pets, objects, and ideas to maintain our sense of reality whether we realize it or not. if your character prides themselves in having no attachments, think about the ideas or themes that mark the cornerstones of their reality. most human beings strive for some form of connection, so here are more prompts for thinking about your characters and connection:

what does connection mean to my character? how do they show how they value their connections or relationships?

how does my character’s behavior change when around different connections?

what connections define my character and their reality? how will these connections influence my character and/or the plot?

how will removing or challenging a connection change, influence, or motivate my character?

a good rule of thumb is to treat a character as a human, not a plot device. there is a time or place in which a character must act as a plot device, but if you’re wanting your readers to be compelled by your narration and the characters within them, you should strive to write your characters as human (aka as relatable). one of the greatest pleasures i find in writing is when other’s identify themselves in my writing.

you’re not just here to tell a story, you’re here to connect with others through the illustration of your characters. let the reader navigate your prose as a detective, to search for and identify the evidence provided by you. that is to say, show us how these things manifest in your character. don’t tell us.

happy writing! hopefully this post gave you some ways to start thinking about how to show the relatability of your character. if you have any questions about implementing these tools or about writing characters, our ask box is always open.