Latest Posts by lune-versatile - Page 4
Mystery Inctober, #1-10
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Hacks For Writing
Writing (at least for me) is all about momentum. If you stop, you crash and burn. So, here are some hacks I use to keep myself writing.
-Instead of stopping to google information, like “How long does it take for trees to grow,” or “how many different species of birds of paradise are there, simply put "TK" in the spot where the units or information would be and move on. After you are done writing, you can go back and google for the needed information.
-In scenes where you simply cannot think of what to put, simply write something in brackets like, “[The characters reminisce with each other around the fire. This leads into the next topic.]” or something similar. Oftentimes, later writing will give you inspiration for what to put in those spots.
-If you can’t remember the word, or need a synonym, DON’T stop to google. Simply put the word (or “placeholder”) in brackets and come back later. If you are still having trouble finding out or remembering the word when going back through, I would recommend Onelook Reverse Dictionary as a very good source for finding words and synonyms.
-When plotting something out, don’t feel the need to put everything that happens. If you want to, cool! For me, I find I quickly lose disinterest in actually writing when I have every little thing already planned out. It has become boring to me. To combat this, I simply write the main ideas of what I want to happen and things I want to mention (symbolism/foreshadowing) and move on, giving myself room to continue to explore and discover as you write.
-To avoid burnout, If I’m working on a bigger project, I’ll usually also have something that I’m writing on the side that I can switch back and forth so I don’t lose interest.
-Don’t be afraid to use generators! Character names, places, powers, etc. can all be created using a generator. You don’t have to worry about every little thing. Also, if you can’t think of a name or something else at the moment that you could use a generator for, just mark it in brackets (ex: [Name]) and move on.
Lastly, remember that everything you write is for yourself. Having others validate you is always great, but they are the ones who have the privilege of reading your works. You don't owe them anything.
u know what, even if my writing isnt the BEST, i still made it all on my own. like there was a blank word doc and i filled it up with my own words, my own story. i took what was in my head and i made it a real thing. idk i feel like that alone is something to be proud of.
I really admire how you've grown your Tumblr. Can you share how you started off on this platform and what advice you would give a new Tumblr use who's a writer who wants to do the same?
Growing on Tumblr...
So You Want To Start A Blog? Here’s a little bit about getting started. Some advice, some resources, some things you may want to keep handy, etc.
Post consistently and try to keep a comprehensive theme/sensibility to your content and your blog. You want people to visit again and again, and you want them to immediately be interested in whatever you post when it appears on their dashboard. You want to stay in their mental orbit when they’re logged on, and you want to continue capturing their attention by regularly posting things they’d expect based on what they can see on your blog. Do what you have to do to stay motivated and keep that goal in your mind.
How To Motivate Yourself To Write
Healthy Forms of Motivation
How To Have A Productive Mindset
Why “Burnout” Is Okay - The Creative Cycle
“Does What I’m Writing Matter?”
Taking Writing Seriously For The First Time
Finding Time To Write
Take advice with a grain of salt. A lot of this is luck and algorithms. Do what you can and remember that your speed of growth often has little to do with the quality of your content. The only thing I can guarantee is that if you stop posting and stop producing content, you’ll stop growing. Every like, every reblog, and every follow affects your blog more than you know.
Tips & Advice for Aspiring Authors, Writers, and Poets
How To Write An Article People Will Read
On Getting Started As A Writer
Tips on Getting Higher Engagement
For Writers Who Want To Become Popular
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Masterlist
If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.
Shoutout to my $15+ patron, Douglas S.!
Creating Fictional Holidays
Every culture and society has holidays! They are often one of the most enjoyable parts of societies and bring people together despite all of their differences. For your story, they are a great way to take your worldbuilding to the next level and make everything feel that much more real. But, Ailey, why does my world even need holidays? Well, personally, holidays are so much fun to create. You can pretty much do whatever you want to do! And, holidays can often provide great opportunitiesfor plots and sub-plots in your story. Holidays can give your characters the opportunity to gather with family, remember the family they lost, get a great deal on a super cute maxi dress, go on a blind date, or go to an awesome costume party. We, as people, need holidays, and so do your characters! So here are some tips on creating holidays for your world.
Basic Questions to Ask Yourself
What are the rituals/traditions of your holiday?
How long is the holiday (just a day, or a week, or a month)?
If the holiday is longer than a day, does it build up? Is there a most important day, and how does that look?
How does religion influence how your holiday is celebrated?
What food is traditionally served?
How do people decorate to symbolize the holiday?
Are there gifts exchanged?
Do people traditionally play games?
Getting Inspiration
The best place to get inspiration for the holidays in your world is by looking at the world around you. Maybe your family has a super cool and quirky tradition that you always wished was a holiday, tweak it a little to fit the circumstances of your world, and boom now it is. Those traditions are important to you for a reason, and often times, family traditions can eventually morph into a national holiday. Outside of that, I would look at the holidays of both modern and national holidays. Ancient Rome and Ancient Greek have plenty of holidays for you to get inspiration from, and there are so many cultures out there that have incredible traditions that you can most certainly turn into holidays! Almost every holiday is rooted in one of five things which we’ll get to next religion, a season, war, labor, and the government. Make sure that applies to your own world as well.
Types of Holidays
Religious Holidays: Your world probably has a primary religion or primary religions. Every religion has holidays that they celebrate to celebrate their god or gods and show their devotion to them. For religious holidays, sacrifice and atonement often play a huge role. Lots of religious holidays include fasting in some part of them. Maybe, there’s a holy person who founded the religion or did something super important and all the people love them. Well then they probably have a holiday or a feast of some kind in their honor. For example, in Catholicism, Saints have Feast Days! I don’t think anyone celebrates every Saint’s Feast Day because that would be like every day of the year. Some people, especially those who live in the Saint’s home town or an area which they are the patron of, have a parade or small festival in their honor on the Feast Day. On the Feast Day of my patron Saint, St. Francis de Sales, I normally will pray a novena which is a prayer you say for nine consecutive days timed so that it ends on his Feast Day, light a candle, say another prayer specific to him on the feast day and maybe bake myself a batch of cookies.
Seasonal Holidays: Seasons are so important to our world, and lots of cultures celebrate them. Lot of important events rotate around the seasons: harvest, planting, fertility, hunting, hibernation. They mark our journey in life, year after year, and allow us to reflect on all of life’s changes. How your people celebrate seasonality is up to you. You could fashion it after holidays like the Summer and Winter Solstice or the Autumn Equinox. A holiday celebrating summer in my world takes some inspiration from May Day celebrations in England. The holiday could literally be as simple as a festival that celebrates the season’s arrival which could be really interesting if your world has different seasons than ours. Or the holidays could be more complex, tying in cultural values with the seasons. I, personally, would love to see a world with different seasons for a world that has more than four seasons because I think that could bring in some really cool holidays and festivals
War/Government Holidays: There was most likely a war or a series of wars in the history of your world. People love freedom. It’s a core value for so many people and so many countries. Therefore, most countries like to have a holiday celebrating the day they won their freedom. Almost every country has some kind of Independence Day celebration. If your country has never had to gain their independence, they’ve probably still fought and won a war before. They may celebrate their victory and take the time to remember those who died during the war like many European countries on Victory in Europe Day to celebrate the End of World War 2. Then you have your government holidays like Presidents Day in the US which isn’t really celebrated, but I do get a day off of school, so that’s always nice. Maybe the ruler of your country has decreed that their birthday is a national holiday in honor of them. Or going along with holiday’s celebrating independence, maybe the country celebrates the birthday of their founder every year in a national holiday!
Labor Holidays: And lastly, we have our labor holidays, which are some of the best holidays in my opinion. Everyone needs a break at times. Labor holidays acknowledge that, and they give you the day off with absolutely zero strings attached. No church, no war to hold remembrance for, just a party with your friends, no school and no work. These holidays are not the best but also probably some of the most important. If the people in your world work five days a week (assuming weekends and a similar calendar schedule) without any long breaks, they are going to get burnt out. Burnt out people are easily irritable, and easily irritable people lead revolutions. Giving your people a holiday where they don’t have to think about anything else other than themselves is a great way to keep the people appeased!
Got these from Pinterest, idk how to credit but these are not mine.
Character Charts
One thing that always gets me excited to start a new writing project is creating a character. Creating a new character is a sure-fire way to amp your self up about your new story.
There is no write or wrong way to create them, you just do!
However, creating a new name and face for a story can be daunting, particularly when it comes to naming the character! I like to choose a name with a special meaning or connection to the story I have in mind.
I find it very helpful to refer to a ‘character development’ chart or ‘character features’ charts.
I'll post some helpful charts down below! I hope this helps :)
hey do you have any tips on how to write surreal horror (mostly short stories?) it's a genre that i've really been interested in trying to write, but i'm not too sure how to go about it (and thanks for providing such a useful blog :D)
I love surreal horror.
Okay.
Plot twists are your best friend. Do the unexpected. Do a 180 last second, turn everything around on the reader. Obviously it has to be believable with in the context of the story, but keep it a surprise.
False sense of security? Works wonders. Nothing is safe. Let readers think something is good/pure/innocent/calm/safe/helpful/etc when it’s not. Lure them into that trap. Let them believe and then rip it away from them.
Invert things. Similar to the false sense of security. Take things that are usually strongly associated with one thing, and associate it with the opposite. Take something dark and make it the good thing. Take something bright and make it evil. Take something sweet and make it bitter. Take something healthy and make it deadly. If you do it right, you can make the reader curiously uncomfortable.
With surreal horror you want to shock your reader. You want to make them feel strangely uncomfortable. You want to make them question things.
Hope that helps :)
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.
Can you hear your characters?
I have a whole lot of trouble making my dialogue sound natural if I don’t know what my characters sound like. Having a strong sense of their voice can help distinguish your characters from each other, show their personalities, and make them more engaging to readers.
Here’s some details to think over if you’re trying to nail down a character’s voice:
Speed
Pitch
Volume
Accent
Vocabulary
Amount spoken
Willingness to speak
Stutters
Hesitations
Repetitions
Quirks
Common phrases
Other questions to ask:
Do their voices or the way they talk change depending on who they’re talking to or the situation they’re in?
How can their personality come through their voice? Their sarcasm, empathy, awkwardness, etc.
What in their backstory contributes to the way they talk?
When they make a statement, how often does it come off as unsure or questioning, versus confident and factual?
How does their voice relate or coexist with their body language?
how can I make my writing more atmospheric?
How to Make Your Writing More Atmospheric
The key to making your writing more atmospheric is adding more description, and the key to good description is to create sensory descriptions by utilizing things that can be seen, heard, touched/felt, tasted, and smelled. For example, if your character is watching a building burn, you could describe the color of the flames, the sound of sirens or crackling fire, the smell of smoke, the taste of charred wood in the air, the heat emanating from the flames. You don't need to (and shouldn't) hit on all the senses in every description, but every time you need to describe something, consider it from your character's POV... what do they see, smell, hear, taste, etc., then choose a few that make the thing being described the most real to your reader. The following posts will also help:
How to Make Your Description More Vivid
Adding Description to Your Writing
Describing Character Appearance and Clothing
Horror by Darkness (general description advice)
Horror by Daylight (general description advice)
Adding Emotional Details to a Horror/Tragedy Scene
TO WRITE CHAPTERS AND DRAFTS: “THE PAGES”
a highly customizable, simplistic but fancy googledoc for writing chapters and drafts, perfected for writers. a dark-mode version to please the eyes. to download / copy, go to file and click “make copy” to copy it to your gdrive.
features:
overview / introductory page with a section for ideas
dark-mode
table of contents for chapters
sub-headers to accompany main headers
bookmark system as navigation
aesthetically constructed layout to write your chapters in (2 columns)
please like / reblog if you’re using or interested in using it!
if you’re interested in more, check out the all-in-one gdoc “the book” here. dm me for requests.
The “What-If” Writing Method
Sometimes when I’m writing, brain just....stops. No more ideas. No more words. Nothing. Sometimes, the solution to this problem is to simply take a break from writing and let your brain relax. Other times, though, you really are just at a block for ideas. This happened to me significantly more often than I would like, but thankfully, I’ve developed a solution that works well for me, and it’s uncreativly titled the “what-if” method.
Get a piece of paper and pen. Or a Google doc, or whatever works best for you.
Start brainstorming questions about your story, or possible “what-if” scenarios. (Ex: What if my character got framed for a crime they didn’t commit?)
Write down every single idea that comes to your head. Even if it doesn’t really work for your story. Even ones that deviate from your existing plot. Even the stupid ones. Especially the stupidest ones.
Cross out the ideas you don’t like, circle the ones that you do like.
Start coming up with answers for the questions you circled, or expand in the by coming up with more questions. (Ex: They would have to prove they didn’t commit the crime to regain their freedom. How do they prove it?)
Repeat until you have a full idea that you can work on/write with.
That’s it. That’s the whole strategy. I’ve used this a million times, and it’s gotten me out of a million cases of writers block, so hopefully it can work well for you too! Happy writing!
In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond - and his response is magnificent: “Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:
I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.
What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.
Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
God bless you all!
Kurt Vonnegut
Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press Goose Lane Editions Breakwater Books Ltd. The Acorn Press Bouton d'or Acadie Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada
Character Development : A Collection of Resources
Patreon || Ko-Fi || Masterlist || Work In Progress
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Resources
Resources For Creating Characters
Resources For Describing Characters
Resources For Writing The Mafia
Resources For Writing Royalty
Commentary on Social Issues In Writing
General Tips
Guide to Character Development
How To Fit Character Development Into Your Story
Tips on Character Consistency
Designing A Character From Scratch
Making characters for your world
Characters First, Story Second Method
Understanding Your Character
Tips on Character Motivations
31 Days of Character Development : May 2018 Writing Challenge
How To Analyze A Character
Alternative Method of Character Creation
Connecting To Your Own Characters
Interview As Your Characters
Flipping Character Traits On Their Head
Character Driven vs. Plot Driven Stories
Traits
Tips On Writing About Mental Illness
Giving Your Protagonists Negative Traits
Giving Characters Distinct Voices in Dialogue
Giving Characters Flaws
Making Characters More Unique
Keeping Characters Realistic
Archetypes
Writing Good Villains
Creating Villains
Guide to Writing The Hero
Positive Character Development Without Romanticizing Toxic Behavior
Tips on Writing Cold & Distant Characters
Balancing Multiple Main Characters
Creating Diverse Otherworld Characters
Foreshadowing The Villain
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Masterlist | WIP Blog
If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.
Shoutout to my $15+ patron, Douglas S.!
you don’t need to write to be successful, and you don’t need to write for other people. it’s ok to write because you think it’s fun, and to keep your writing to yourself. you don’t need to be good at it, or learn every single rule there is. if it makes you happy, then what’s enough.
How do you find a balance between “show, don’t tell” and “readers might not catch/understand this subtle concept or showing it would be too convoluted or more open to interpretation than it needs to be”? It doesn’t help that everyone encourages more showing even if it swallowing little details that are supposed to stand out. Basically, I feel like I overthink my showing as being too tell-y even when it already has several layers of meaning and is already too dense for average readers.
“Show don’t tell” resources & advice...
I think people often mistake the advice of “show don’t tell” as being in the interest of making one’s writing more literary; more “high art” than candid prose typically is. The advice is intended to help one recognize when their prose is becoming dull or unengaging to the reader. Showing is supposed to promote an organically flowing reading experience, rather than turn the writing into a flowery, pretentious, and unintelligible mess. Finding a satisfying way to deliver information in the text that isn’t “I felt” or “I thought” is important. It should never dilute the information. Clarity comes first, and then one can configure the sentence to add as much richness to the reader’s ability to immerse themselves as possible.
If the desire is to show that the character is sad, writing that “she looked down at the floor and wrapped her arms around her own waist” is not going to be any less indicative of that information than “she felt sad”. That is the point of this advice. It is not a way for one to convert information into a code that the reader must analyze in order to comprehend the basic idea of what the scenes are about. This isn’t 1597, and nobody is asking anyone to be Shakespeare.
Density of a piece of writing does not give it inherent worth. Ease of comprehension doesn’t always have to be the number one priority, but it should be a considerable factor when one accounts for their audience and their subject matter. If one is writing a young adult fantasy trilogy, the density of the writing should be adherent to the demographic’s ability to comprehend certain writing styles. “Show, don’t tell” applies to all writing, but different writers interpret it differently, often based on who they’re writing for. If the concept you’re trying to convey to the reader in a subtle manner is not coming across without blurting it out in the text, perhaps the problem isn’t the way you’re describing it, but the concept is weak in its current state.
Easily misinterpreted meanings or concepts are often not the victim of descriptive style, but being underdeveloped sub textually. No important concept can be described once within a dense text and expected to translate as intended into the reader’s understanding. If it’s important enough to the bones of your story and meaning, it shouldn’t rely on the manner of description to shine through. Sometimes the density of a text is a product of too much intentional symbolism or motif. It’s okay to allow some things to be meaningful purely in interpretation. It’s okay to acknowledge that you allowed something that obviously implies meaning to be prescribed its implications by the readers.
Here are some of my other resources on the topic that you may find helpful:
Resources For Describing Characters
Resources For Describing Emotion
Conveying Emotions
All About Colors
A Writer’s Thesaurus
Showing VS Telling in First Person POV
Using Vocabulary
Balancing Detail & Development
+ When To Use “Felt”
Showing Vs Telling
How To Better Your Vocabulary & Description
Describing emotion through action
Improving Flow In Writing
How To “Show Don’t Tell” More
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Masterlist | WIP Blog
If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.
Dawn do u have any advice for people starting skz writing blogs?
Oh! I definitely do! I’ll put them under the cut uwu <3 These are all tips I wish I knew, ranging from garnering readers to how to deal with other happenings. <3
!!!; this is a fairly long post! also, I am no way qualified enough to be giving advice, these are just things I've learnt in my term of experience.
#1: Write what you want to see on this platform, basically build a niche for yourself.
So this is a pretty obvious and often said point, but write what you want to, and when you want to. If it's domestic AUs that you're the most comfortable with, write that! Of course, you can dabble into new genres to discover what your other interests are, but don't for yourself to write something just because it's a popular topic. When people find a fic of yours that they like, they'll most likely go to your blog expecting the same kind of stuff. <3
#2: Develop your own distinct style, be it in your blog, in your writing in your layout, etc.
Make your blog's aesthetic/layout as distinct as possible, so that it's identifiable. This just gives a sense of uniqueness to your blog, which oft attracts readers. Ofc by this, I don't mean you need to be a master at photoshop/editing to create amazing aesthetics — you can just use simple elements and blend them together in a way that stands out well. Personally, if I'm to be honest, aesthetics, general neatness means a lot to me. I usually wish for a blog to be de-cluttered have a good and efficient way of navigation without having to search through or dig in a lot myself.
#3: Use tags! On all of your posts.
Like I said in the previous section, I wish for a new blog I'm going through to have a good and efficient way of navigation. Use tags, not just on your writing, but all your posts. This can facilitate easier viewing of same posts grouped under one tag, plus if someone prefers to not view something in particular, they can choose not to by blacklisting. Untagged posts are honestly a huge pet peeve of mine dihfuyrharieuhr. That being said, use the correct tags on your post! This post has a good note on how to garner readers as well as tagging.
#5: It takes time for you to gain attention for your work, and it takes time for your writing style to develop into something unique.
This is honestly something I wish I knew when I started writing. I'd see all these blogs get so much interaction and anons and notes on their writing, and while I was happy for them, it made me feel insecure that maybe I wasn't as good enough for them...? fast forward to six months later, I had nearly the same amount of interaction as they did. So it's really all about working towards your way to create a distinct writing style, all whilst improving yourself. Don't be demotivated when you don't get interaction at first, because it takes time for your style to be recognizable and it takes a while to improve, so as and when you write, you'll get better and better! <3
#6: Interact with other writers' writings!
This is also something I wish I knew. interacting with other writers is a way to make new friends, plus give your blog some exposure. of course, that's different from clearly exploiting a blog's status for follows. Make friends with other writers, and reblog their writings (ofc, only if you read them and you liked them, don't force yourself to)! 99% of the time, whenever someone leaves feedback on my writing, I check their blog, and if their writing is something I like, then I follow them! So yeah, this site literally thrives off interactivity, so don't be afraid to interact with writers!
#7: When you're posting your writings, make them clean to look. They should be pleasant to the eye.
What I mean by this is that your layout should not be too compact, hard to read, or straight up painful to look at. Don't use those 𝓈𝓌𝒾𝓇𝓁𝓎 ass fonts, because half the time, they won't render on most devices, and they're often horrible to look at + impossible to read for someone who uses a screen reader. Don't use tinie font on your posts for the same reason.
And! Banners! They're a great addition to a fic, and make it attractive to look. I can't tell you how much a good, well made banner can affect my view on whether I want to read the fic or not. However, i have some negative points about it too. Don't make banners if you don't know how to, only for the sake of making them. This doesn't mean you shouldn't experiment, hell, my first banners were total crap. It of course takes time to learn editing (provided you have an interest in it), but my point is: a banner is used to attract attention to your fic, yet if you have a bad-looking banner, bad layout, bad presentation, (coming from me) I tend to not want to read the fic.
I think a lot of people don't tell new writers that layouts are very important. Most of the stuff is covered in that post I liked, but having a distinct, unique, neat (emphasis on neat — you don't need fancy banners and fonts, just make sure it's not painful to look at) layout really helps. Don't use overly contrasting color combos like this and make sure it is neat, and pleasant to look at. You want to attract attention to your fic, not make it hard to read. While banners and aesthetic photos are not very important, a neat lay!!!!!!out is very essential, to increase your reader count and actually ensure that your fic is readable.
#8: Just know that the number of notes your fic gets is all in your luck.
Just because you get less notes doesn't mean you're any less of a writer! Hell, I know so many phenomenal writers that deserve so many more notes. Your note count can depend on several factors, including (but not limited to) your posts not showing up in the tags, the genre you've written is not a very popular genre (that doesn't mean you shouldn't write it! There will be biases towards genres in the fandom, but write what you want), or the fact that this site is often treated like instagram. So if you get less notes on a fic, don't be demotivated! You have every right to ask for more interaction on your fics from your followers, but don't let it think you're any less of a writer.
That's it! If you have any specific doubts, feel free to send another ask, or a dm! <3
A short story I wrote this summer.
Okay but why aren’t more people talking about that fact that it’s literally so helpful to put together a playlist based on whatever you’re writing?
It can help for multiple reasons; ones for me would be:
It helps me outline where the story is going
It makes it feel a little more official; like I’ve got my head in the game and there’s no point in turning back now
It gives me a little sense of accomplishment
It gives me something to listen to while writing that’s less likely to distract me; and if it does, the lyrics will only help me imagine the story more
Like- 10000/10 so helpful 100% recommended this, especially if you have attention span issues or if you end up giving up on something if dopamine takes too long to come from it
Read that marimos can get sick from receiving too much light, but this man of sunshine is only making them love sick.
Shokugeki no Sanji Chapter 2
It starts in Paris.
“You can’t steal things just because you like them,” Sam tells Bucky, feeling innately that this is a losing battle, and Bucky cocks his head to the side, considers Sam very thoughtfully.
“Really,” he says. “I’m stealing you, aren’t I?”
hello, here is that long painfully slow-burning Sam-centric fic that’s been killing me for the last month. 33.5k words spanning from post-Winter Soldier to… well, to A Time. featuring art theft, meaningful conversation in hotel rooms, burning undercurrents of tension, Steve Rogers being Steve Rogers, moments of softness and breathless stillness. have fun. I’m dead.
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.
Hey, help me please. How do you write description in your novels? Not a character one, surrounding ones. How do you describe from 3 POV , the background of the novel?
5 Tips for Writing Great Descriptions
Hi there! Thanks for writing. I talk at length about this in my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (See Chapter 4 / “Building Your Story World,” Chapter 16 / Setting the Scene, and Chapter 21 / “Choosing the Right Details” for the majority of the discussion about description, but it’s peppered throughout), so I’ll just give a brief rundown here. :)
Tip #1: Use concrete, sensory details
That means describing, with precision, a detail you can see/hear/touch/taste/smell. Avoid using vague words that are hard to visualize or sense, like “the house was ugly” or “the weather was bad.” Instead, choose a sensory detail (or two) for your descriptions, for example “the house was a wretched shade of salmon pink” or “the wind was blowing I could taste dust in my mouth.”
Tip #2: Try not to over- or under-use descriptions
It’s common for beginning writers to either use no description, or go completely overboard. I give examples of both in my book. While there’s no hard rule about how much description is too little or too much (it depends a lot on the particular story, genre, and the writer’s style), I personally like to include around 4-5 sensory details per page.
The idea is to give the reader a solid sense of where they are without going on and on, making them want to skim over as you carry on for paragraphs about the smell and texture of a doily.
Tip #3: Use more description during important parts of the story
Description draws your readers attention to what you’re describing. Use that to your advantage. If that doily contains a blood stain that’s a pivotal clue in your murder mystery, by all means spend three sentences describing the particular color red of the blood or the weird smell it emits. Where you linger, the reader will linger.
Tip #4: Use description to set the scene
Use more description at the beginning of a new scene, or anytime the location of your story changes. I talk about this in the section on transitions in my book. Summary gets a bad reputation in fiction, but these transitional paragraphs are the perfect time to paint the scene with sensory details about your character’s surroundings.
Tip #5: Pay attention to “camera movement”
One common thing I see in writer’s manuscripts is what I call “jerky camera movement.” Here’s an example:
Jesse pulled into the driveway of the suspect’s mansion around noon. A white, floppy dog barked ferociously in the window. It was a warm, sweltering day. Jesse looked down and realized her shoe was untied. The house had three large columns in front, each wrapped with a gawdy red bow.
In this example, the “camera” moves from the driveway, to the dog in the window, to the “day,” to Jesse’s shoe, to the outside of the house. If that was your head, looking around the scene, you’d get dizzy pretty fast. Here’s a smoother movement, starting wide and focusing in on Jesse’s untied shoe.
It was a warm, sweltering day. Jesse pulled into the driveway of the suspect’s mansion around noon. The house had three large columns in front, each wrapped with a gawdy red bow. In the window, a white, floppy dog barked ferociously. As Jesse approached the door, she looked down and realized her shoe was untied.
These aren’t perfect examples because I’ve dashed them off just now, but you get the idea :) Try not to make your reader seasick by making them look all over the scene (unless you’re trying to achieve that effect, for example, in a scene where your protagonist is drunk or discombobulated).
Hope this helps!
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: One Piece Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji, Roronoa Zoro & Vinsmoke Sanji Characters: Roronoa Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Kuina (One Piece), Monkey D. Luffy, Portgas D. Ace, Aka Ashi no Zeff | Red-Leg Zeff Additional Tags: Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, POV Alternating Summary:
A soulmate's words on your right arm doesn't always mean something special, or so Zoro and Sanji naively thought.
how i got an agent, or: my writing timeline
when i started writing, i had no idea how publishing worked and i had a lot of misconceptions about it. but i just signed my first literary agent so i thought i’d share what my experience has been getting to this point, in case it helps anyone else with their own publication goals. i’m also including financial details, like submission fees and income, because “i could never afford to pursue writing as a career” is something that kept me from taking the idea seriously.
for context, i write mostly literary fiction and i’m on the academic/scholarly writing path. this process looks a lot different for other genres.
i didn’t write this in my pretty nonfiction narrative voice; it’s really just the bare-bones facts of how it went down, how long it took, how many words i wrote (both fanfiction and original fiction), and how much it all cost.
Afficher davantage