Author.exe

Basically, all of the writing tips I need/have. Use as you wish, my friends.

[itsybitsybatsyspider]

[lux-scriptum]

No, you see, I wish to be an author. Not in marketing. Or an influencer. I wish to tell my stories, be told I did a fantastic job, and then go back to my hovel to scribble some more. I am delicate of constitution and awkward in crowds.

[seven-winged-liar]

four line sentences are good and okay. its cool. you dont need to end your setnence or that thought! add another comma or an em dash. everything will be okay. it makes sense and flows well. #awesome #mybehemothsentence

[rhinco]

i love you semicolon. no one look at my 80 word sentence

[drchucktingle]

I LOVE BEING A WRITER IT IS COOL AND FUN

[ndnbutch]

the author’s thinly veiled nothing #notwriting #straightupnotwritingit

[thebibliosphere]

Floating face down in a blank word document file, while not physically possible, is nevertheless a tangible authorial state.

[enki2]

[what-even-is-thiss]

Realizing that I need to stop reading name lists in alphabetical order and just picking the first name that seems like it might fit or else all of my characters will end up having names that start with A.

[tokkibean]

writing is so easy. you just open your doc. dissociate. write one sentence. have a mental breakdown. close the doc. wash rinse repeat this over a week and eventually you'll get somewhere!!

[luna-azzurra]

Tips for Writing Prologues (and whether to write them at all)!

⊹ A prologue is a promise. it tells the reader: this is the kind of story you're in, this is the register, this is what matters. which means a prologue that doesn't match the actual book in tone, character focus, or emotional weight is actively working against you. the reader signs a contract in your first five pages and a prologue that's more dramatic than your actual book sets expectations your actual book cannot meet. you will spend the rest of the novel paying off a cheque your prologue wrote.

⊹ The "character about to die making a mysterious statement" prologue is so common it has become invisible. the reader skims it. they've seen it. the mystery doesn't hook them because they've learned it will be resolved in chapter nineteen and right now they don't have enough context to care. mystery requires investment and investment requires character and character requires time. a prologue that opens with mystery before we know anyone is just atmosphere without stakes.

⊹ The better question: why does the story need to start here rather than there? if you're writing a prologue set twenty years before chapter one, what does the reader need from those twenty years right now, before they know anyone? if the answer is "context" or "backstory" then the prologue is doing exposition in a costume. context and backstory can be woven in later, once the reader cares. the prologue slot is too valuable to spend on information delivery.

⊹ Prologues that actually work tend to do one of two things: they drop us into a moment of such specific emotional truth that we are immediately in the world before we understand it, we feel something before we know anything. or they create a dramatic irony where we know something the characters in chapter one don't, and that knowledge makes every subsequent scene more tense. both require the prologue to be doing active narrative work. not setting a mood and waving at the themes.

⊹ My actual advice: write the prologue if you want to. finish the book. then go back and ask: does chapter one work without it? if yes, cut the prologue. the book is stronger. if no, ask why chapter one needs the prologue to function and fix chapter one instead. and if after all of that the prologue is still doing something irreplaceable, then you've earned it. keep it.

[lannegarrett]

[nondelphic]

i keep telling people i’m a writer but all i do is open google docs, scroll for 45 minutes, sigh dramatically, and close it like i just gave birth

[tokkibean]

TRUE writers suddenly get writing urges at 1am mid-doomscroll and proceed to ramble out the most incoherent plot into a new doc and wake up and then just. stare at it.

[tokkibean]

writing is so fun until you run out of pre-planned plot and you stand at the precipice and slowly realise that you never really had a plot in the first place

[a-tangled-mermaid]

Sigh. At least I have this.

[nondelphic]

writing tip: put words on page. hope this helps. i will not be taking questions because i have not done this