Amateur Stories

This is our writing blog where we will post fanfiction, original writing, and anything writing related.

[amateurstories]

My talented significant other @yuuri--on--ice drew one of my OC’s for me and I’ve never felt so happy and excited?? Thank you so much! It’s exactly how I imagined her. 

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Do I need to write anything? Or do I need time and blood?

Sylvia Plath, from a diary entry featured in The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath (via industrialfire)

[finalgirlofrp-blog]

Alternatives to the Word “Said”

accepted, accused, acknowledged, added, addressed, admitted, advertised, advised, affirmed, agonized, agreed, alleged, alluded, announced, answered, apologized, appealed, approved, argued, arranged, articulated, asked, asserted, asseverated, assumed, assured, averred, avowed

babbled, bargained, barked, bawled, beamed, beckoned, began, begged, bellowed, beseeched, bet, bleated, blubbered, blurted, boasted, boomed, bossed, bragged, breathed, broadcasted, broke in, bubbled, bugged, burst out

cajoled, called, carped, cautioned, censured, challenged, chanted, chatted, chattered, cheered, chided, chimed in, choked, chortled, chorused, chuckled, circulated, claimed, clucked, coaxed, comforted, commanded, commented, complained, conceded, concluded, concurred, condemned, conferred, confessed, confided, confirmed, congratulated, consented, consoled, contended, continued, convinced, corrected, coughed, countered, craved, cried, cried out, criticized, croaked, crooned, cross-examined, crowed, cursed

dared, deadpanned, debated, decided, declared, decreed, defended, demanded, denied, denoted, described, dictated, digressed, directed, disagreed, disclosed, disposed, disseminated, distributed, divulged, doubted, drawled, droned

echoed, elaborated, emitted, empathized, encouraged, ended, entreated, enunciated, equivocated, exacted, exaggerated, exclaimed, exhorted, explained, exposed, extolled

faltered, finished, foretold, fretted, fumed

gasped, gawped, gibed, giggled, glowered, got out, greeted, grieved, grinned, groaned, growled, grumbled, grunted, guessed, gulped, gurgled, gushed

handed on, held, hesitated, hinted, hissed, hollered, hooted, howled, hypothesized

imitated, imparted, implied, implored, importuned, inclined, indicated, informed, inquired, insisted, instructed, interjected, interrupted, intoned, invited

jabbered, jeered, jested, joked, justified

kibitzed, keened

lamented, laughed, lectured, leered, lied, lilted, lisped

made known, made mention of, made public, maintained, marked, marveled, mentioned, mewled, mimicked, moaned, mocked, mourned, mumbled, murmured, mused, muttered

nagged, necessitated, needed, nodded, noted

objected, observed, offered, ordered

panted, passed on, piped, pleaded, pledged, pointed out, pondered, postulated, praised, prayed, preached, premised, presented, presupposed, proclaimed, prodded, professed, proffered, promised, promulgated, proposed, protested, provoked, publicized, published, puled, purred, put forth, put in, put out, puzzled

quaked, quavered, queried, questioned, quipped, quivered, quizzed, quoted

raged, railed, ranted, raved, reasoned, reassured, recalled, recited, reckoned, reiterated, rejoiced, rejoined, related, released, remarked, remembered, reminded, remonstrated, repeated, replied, reported, reprimanded, requested, required, requisitioned, responded, retorted, revealed, roared

sang, sassed, scoffed, scolded, screamed, screeched, seethed, sent, shared, shot, shouted, shrieked, shrilled, shrugged, shuddered, sighed, smiled, smirked, snapped, snarled, sneered, sneezed, snickered, sniffed, snivelled, snorted, sobbed, solicited, sought, specified, speculated, spluttered, spoke, spread, sputtered, squeaked, stammered, started, stated, stipulated, stormed, stuttered, stressed, suggested, supposed, surmised, swore, sympathized

tattled, taunted, teased, tempted, tested, testified, theorized, thought, threatened, thundered, ticked off, told, told off, touted, trailed off, transferred, transmitted, trembled, trumpeted

understood, undertook, upbraided, urged, uttered

ventured, verified, vociferated, voiced, vouched for, vowed

waffled, wailed, wanted, warned, went on, wept, wheedled, whimpered, whined, whispered, wondered, worried

yakked, yawned, yawped, yelled, yelped, yowled

[letsdrive-away-deactivated20170]

"I knew I was in love with you when I started making excuses for the way you hurt me"

[amateurstories]

@isabelle--lightwould #reniel prequel quote?! 💔😭😱

[100andsome]

[hplyrikz]

I can relate to this

[ironinkpen]

writers:

break up your paragraphs. big paragraphs are scary, your readers will get scared

fuuuuck epithets. “the other man got up” “the taller woman sat down” “the blonde walked away” nahhh. call them by their names or rework the sentence. you can do so much better than this (exception: if the reader doesn’t know the character(s) you’re referring to yet, it’s a-okay to refer to them by an identifying trait)

blunette is not a thing

new speaker, new paragraph. please.

“said” is such a great word. use it. make sweet love to it. but don’t kill it

use “said” more than you use synonyms for it. that way the use of synonyms gets more exciting. getting a sudden description of how a character is saying something (screaming, mumbling, sighing) is more interesting that way.

if your summary says “I suck at summaries” or “story better than summary” you’re turning off the reader, my dude. your summary is supposed to be your hook. you gotta own it, just like you’re gonna own the story they’re about to read

follow long sentences w short ones and short ones w long ones. same goes for paragraphs

your writing is always better than you think it is. you just think it’s bad because the story’s always gonna be predicable to the one who’s writing it

i love u guys keep on trucking

[firemoon42]

Ways to un-stick a stuck story

Do an outline, whatever way works best. Get yourself out of the word soup and know where the story is headed.

Conflicts and obstacles. Hurt the protagonist, put things in their way, this keeps the story interesting. An easy journey makes the story boring and boring is hard to write.

Change the POV. Sometimes all it takes to untangle a knotted story is to look at it through different eyes, be it through the sidekick, the antagonist, a minor character, whatever.

Know the characters. You can’t write a story if the characters are strangers to you. Know their likes, dislikes, fears, and most importantly, their motivation. This makes the path clearer.

Fill in holes. Writing doesn’t have to be linear; you can always go back and fill in plotholes, and add content and context.

Have flashbacks, hallucinations, dream sequences or foreshadowing events. These stir the story up, deviations from the expected course add a feeling of urgency and uncertainty to the narrative.

Introduce a new mystery. If there’s something that just doesn’t add up, a big question mark, the story becomes more compelling. Beware: this can also cause you to sink further into the mire.

Take something from your protagonist. A weapon, asset, ally or loved one. Force him to operate without it, it can reinvigorate a stale story.

Twists and betrayal. Maybe someone isn’t who they say they are or the protagonist is betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. This can shake the story up and get it rolling again.

Secrets. If someone has a deep, dark secret that they’re forced to lie about, it’s a good way to stir up some fresh conflict. New lies to cover up the old ones, the secret being revealed, and all the resulting chaos.

Kill someone. Make a character death that is productive to the plot, but not “just because”. If done well, it affects all the characters, stirs up the story and gets it moving.

Ill-advised character actions. Tension is created when a character we love does something we hate. Identify the thing the readers don’t want to happen, then engineer it so it happens worse than they imagined.

Create cliff-hangers. Keep the readers’ attention by putting the characters into new problems and make them wait for you to write your way out of it. This challenge can really bring out your creativity.

Raise the stakes. Make the consequences of failure worse, make the journey harder. Suddenly the protagonist’s goal is more than he expected, or he has to make an important choice.

Make the hero active. You can’t always wait for external influences on the characters, sometimes you have to make the hero take actions himself. Not necessarily to be successful, but active and complicit in the narrative.

Different threat levels. Make the conflicts on a physical level (“I’m about to be killed by a demon”), an emotional level (“But that demon was my true love”) and a philosophical level (“If I’m forced to kill my true love before they kill me, how can love ever succeed in the face of evil?”).

Figure out an ending. If you know where the story is going to end, it helps get the ball rolling towards that end, even if it’s not the same ending that you actually end up writing.

What if? What if the hero kills the antagonist now, gets captured, or goes insane? When your write down different questions like these, the answer to how to continue the story will present itself.

Start fresh or skip ahead. Delete the last five thousand words and try again. It’s terrifying at first, but frees you up for a fresh start to find a proper path. Or you can skip the part that’s putting you on edge – forget about that fidgety crap, you can do it later – and write the next scene. Whatever was in-between will come with time.

[amateurstories]

We got the flashbacks things down I think... @irritatednobody

[whateversebastian]

REBLOG IF YOU ARE A WRITER ON TUMBLR

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT KIND OF WRITER YOU ARE YOU CAN BE WRITING: POEMS, FANFICS, IDK NORMAL FICS, NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, IDK ANYTHING!! JUST REBLOG!!!

[amateurstories]

Awkward Things we've googled for writing research for this novel

"Different ways to abort a pregnancy " "OCD symptoms in children " "Ways for a newborn to die" "How to read pregnancy test results "

[himborc]

my hobbies include thinking of stories to write and then not writing them

[amateurstories]

3-20-16

Lol when you come up with so many awesome ideas for your novel that you practically have to restart and rewrite everything from the beginning. @irritatednobody

[amateurstories]

They're like condoms except comfier

Alec

[amateurstories]

Planning our book

Alec: where do warlocks come from?

Alec: spider mans ass lol whoops

[percyhoneybee]

THERE MUST BE A PARAGRAPH BREAK EVERY TIME A NEW CHARACTER SPEAKS

THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL

NO ONE WANTS TO READ ONE BIG BLOCK OF TEXT JESUS CHRIST

[bloated-butch]

REMEMBER TIP TOP OK:

Make a paragraph every time that any of these things change!

Ti me

P lace

To pic

P erson

[writeworld-blog]

[smallbookthings]

reblogging again because this is IMPORTANT

[khaleesiofthewolves]

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT, PEOPLE! REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER’S LIFE!

[maxkirin]

So, let me guess– you just started a new book, right? And you’re stumped. You have no idea how much an AK47 goes for nowadays. I get ya, cousin. Tough world we live in. A writer’s gotta know, but them NSA hounds are after ya 24/7. I know, cousin, I know. If there was only a way to find out all of this rather edgy information without getting yourself in trouble…

You’re in luck, cousin. I have just the thing for ya.

It’s called Havocscope. It’s got information and prices for all sorts of edgy information. Ever wondered how much cocaine costs by the gram, or how much a kidney sells for, or (worst of all) how much it costs to hire an assassin?

I got your back, cousin. Just head over to Havocscope.

((PS: In case you’re wondering, Havocscope is a database full of information regarding the criminal underworld. The information you will find there has been taken from newspapers and police reports. It’s perfectly legal, no need to worry about the NSA hounds, cousin ;p))

Want more writerly content? Follow maxkirin.tumblr.com!

[studytothehd]

resource for procrastination

if you’re anything like me, working on a computer is a dangerous thing. i’ll get distracted by everything - that one email i should respond to, all the pictures of my dog, tumblr, and so on. I recently discovered an amazing resource to stop that.

it’s called writer’s block, and is free to download! 

when you open it, it shows this screen, where you can choose either a time limit or word goal

then when you start, it opens a document that fills the entire screen like this

and you cannot quit the app or open anything else until your word/time quota is filled. i just wrote half of my english speech that i’ve been putting off all morning, and it took only 20 minutes!

so yup, it’s called writer’s block and is free for both mac and windows. enjoy!

[idrathergoforgirls]

reblog to save a lazy ass

[writeinspiration]

how do I use great vocab in my story and show rather than tell? Any tips?

The best thing you can do is to expand your adverbs. There’s a reason why so many “big name” authors hate adverbs. Take a look:

He sat sadly in the corner.

Sounds descriptive, right?

But how do you describe “sadly”?

And that’s where the fun begins. You might think describing “sadly” is just to give yourself an idea of what the word means to you, but think about what it means to your reader.

Does your reader think that sitting sadly is the same way you think it is?

Why not tell us?

He sat in the corner, his arms wrapped around his knees as he sighed to himself every few minutes.

What about this way?

He curled up in the corner, placing his hands on the crown of his head with his fingers interlaced. He chewed on his lip as a tear rolled down his cheek.

Or this one?

He leaned his head against the wall and sank to the floor, resting his cheek against the comforting corner. The carpet felt scratchy, grounding him in the thought that everything really was quite terrible.

This isn’t to say that every single adverb should be trashed (though there are MANY authors who would say that they should), nor does it mean that every single action has to be expanded from four words to fifty words.

What it does mean is that “sadly” (and any other such “-ly” word) just doesn’t tell the reader that much. If the emotion isn’t terribly important – perhaps the person sitting in the corner is a tertiary character and is just being observed – then you don’t need to expand upon it.

But if your main character is the one sitting in the corner, why would you skimp on the details?

If it’s important for your character to sit in the corner in a sad fashion, then you need to show your reader why it matters.

And if it’s not important for your character to sit in the corner in their sadness, then why in the world are you including it in your story?

Let your writing breathe a little. What does “sadly” look like to you? Describe that instead.

If you’re not sure where to start (because it can be intimidating to try this for the first time), then try going to a thesaurus (such as Thesaurus.com or – gasp – a real, physical copy of a thesaurus) for some help.

Thesaurus.com suggests these options:

unhappily, wistfully, cheerlessly, dejectedly, dismally, dolefully, gloomily, grievously, joylessly, morosely, sorrowfully

You might notice that all of those are “-ly” words and are thus adverbs. (Not all adverbs are “-ly” words, but all “-ly words are adverbs.)

However, all of those words are still more descriptive than “sadly.” So if you don’t want to expand on it too much, you can try using a thesaurus for a more powerful option.

This doesn’t mean you should change every “plain” word with one from a thesaurus! It means that it helps to vary your vocabulary some.

“Joylessly,” despite basically being the same as “sadly,” tells me a lot more than “sadly.” I see a character that has gloom in their eyes, that has no life left in them. I see a character that has given up.

Try defining these adverbs for yourself like I just did. Imagine a character doing something “wistfully” and then describe what that would look like to someone seeing this character for the first time doing this thing wistfully.

Let’s look at “dejectedly.” It’s a pretty solid word, but what can we do with it? How would someone take a plate dejectedly to a sink?

She lifted the plate with a heavy heart. It was… gulp… time to wash the dishes. A sigh escaped from her lips. It wasn’t even her turn this time. She tilted the plate, letting a piece of pizza crust roll from the edge to the middle. How exciting. The stark white plates were covered in splotches of red sauce and remnants of overcooked cheese. They’d been on the table for an hour now. Her feet trudged toward the sink, her eyes focusing on nothing in particular. Someone who didn’t know her would almost say she was only doing the dishes in order to keep herself from being put into a dungeon. The plate clattered into the sink, making the chrome walls of the sink reverberate as she looked dully into her distorted reflection. She let another sigh loose without realizing it. She turned back to the table. There were still three more. Her eyes closed in defeat. One day, robots would do such menial chores for her, but for now, her knees knocked as she found herself at the table again, reaching for plate #2 with trembling fingers.

See what I mean? Vocabulary is part of pacing. If you don’t want to focus on how upset she is about washing the dishes, then you can toss a sentence in that says she dejectedly did the dishes and then describe what she did afterward. If you want to show the utter drudgery of being a teenager who has to do chores, then you can try something like that paragraph above.

Some of the sentences are long, and some of them are short. Some words are simple, like “escaped,” while others are complicated, like “reverberate.”

The best thing you can do is vary your sentence length, choose what needs to be expanded upon, and determine what words describe things how you want them to be described.

If the plates only have a little bit of stuff on them, then “covered in splotches of red sauce and remnants of overcooked cheese” isn’t the type of phrasing that suits the reality of the plates.

Don’t exaggerate unless that’s your narration style. Don’t tell me that it took “forever” to wash the dishes, when it only took 10 minutes. You can say that it FELT like forever for her. If you’re writing in first-person perspective, then you can exaggerate and underestimate and all those other things that normal humans will think/feel/do.

Last bit of advice: when I read a book and find a word that I don’t know the meaning of, I look it up. I can’t tell you how much I used our dictionary when I was little. If I was going to read a book, I almost always went ahead and grabbed the dictionary before I got started. I would read until I found a word I didn’t understand and then check for context clues (guessing the meaning through understanding the words around it). Whether the context clues told me what it meant or not, I’d look it up to make sure. I’m serious.

Read a lot of books, and don’t be afraid to look words up. That’s one of the best things you can do.

I have several posts about vocabulary, and you can find them at the following link:

http://writeinspiration.tumblr.com/tagged/vocabulary

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