Writing Advice/Memes/Original Works

| PREV. CHERRYCOKEWRITES| use GRSM (gender, romantic, and sexual minorities) instead of LGBT main is @harleyquinnamiright | wattpad is @carmenwayne | worldbuilding blog is @ carmen-worldbuilds |

[harleyquinnamiright]

@overanalyzen < main

@honeygoldwriting < writeblr

@toomanyocstocount < oc blog (most drawings by @dragon-hair)

~~you can find my anywhere here, i’m saying this like a lot cause i moved for like cleanness,, if that makes sense,, and i just wanted everything to stop so i made them,, but like i’m really sad i don’t have as much interaction so i’d really like some, and i don’t remember or think i tagged the other blogs.~~

[carmenwantstowrite]

app never made a post here,, i moved ->

[carmenwantstowrite]

@honeygoldwriting

don’t know why it wouldn’t tag lol

[carmenwantstowrite]

app never made a post here,, i moved ->

[pens-swords-stuff]

Basic Writeblr Etiquette

This is a guide of what I personally consider to be considerate and polite. While I would encourage people to follow this, it is just my personal opinion — it’s not a rule by any means, and it’s certainly not exhaustive.

Don’t add people to your tag lists without explicit permission.

Tag list  — A tag list is a list of users who will be tagged in every post that a Writeblr makes about a certain WIP. It is often included at the bottom of a post, and people are free to ask to be included, or removed from it.

I get it, we all want people to see and enjoy our writing. However, please do not add anyone to your tag lists if they have not given you permission to.

I believe that all tag lists should be an ‘opt-in’, where people request to get put on it. While you might be willing to take someone off of a tag list with no hard feelings whatsoever, it can be really awkward for people to request to be taken off. 

There are a lot of reasons why people don’t want to be on tag lists, and it doesn’t mean that they don’t like your writing. Even if someone is consistently interested and is commenting a lot, don’t add them without permission! Try asking them first!

If you reblog an ask game from someone, send them an ask.

Isn’t it really frustrating when you’re doing an ask game and about 20 people reblog it, but you only get 1 ask? We’ve all been there.

Send them an ask if you reblog! It takes like 2 seconds, and you don’t have to be particularly interested in the answer — it gives the person an opportunity to talk about their WIPs and OCs either way, and you’ll make their day.

If you want people to send you asks, try starting by sending other people some!

Use a “Read More” when you have long posts.

We writeblrs tend to make long posts, especially if we post our writing online. While that’s perfectly fine, there’s often a lot of scrolling to be done when the ‘read more’ isn’t used, especially if it gets reblogged a lot. 

If you have several pictures, or your post requires quite a bit of scrolling to get through, please use the ‘read more’.

Use trigger warnings for sensitive topics.

If you are posting about sensitive topics including but not limited to things like rape, suicide, assault, etc., please use trigger warnings. Not everyone might want to see writing involving sensitive topics, and it might catch some people really off-guard, even if they’re fine with it. It’s just considerate to give your followers a heads-up, so they can decide if they want to continue or not.

Trigger warnings should be at the top of your post, or at the very least, before your sensitive content so people can see. I also tag it as “tw: [sensitive topic]” so that people who have blacklisted it can avoid it.

Please hide your sensitive content behind a ‘read more’! I have seen too many posts with trigger warnings, and no ‘read more’s, making people who want to avoid it, scroll through and potentially see the sensitive content.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Someone’s writing not up your alley? Really don’t like someone’s OC? That’s fine and valid, we won’t always love everyone’s writing. Just move on; unfollow them if you have to. Don’t give people unsolicited criticism if they don’t ask for it.

It can be scary putting ourselves out there. If you’re about to say something that would bother you if you received that comment, don’t say it. Just move on.

If you like it, consider reblogging it.

We all get excited when someone reblogs our posts, and we also get a little bit frustrated if people just ignore it, or like it without leaving anything else. We can all start to foster a better community by reblogging things we enjoyed instead of just liking them — support your fellow writeblrs! Reblogging other people’s posts will make someone’s day, and more people can see their awesome writing. As a bonus, people will be more likely to reblog your work too!

If you’d like to ask me for advice on writing or running a writeblr, please check out my Ask Guidelines and FAQ first.

Ask Guidelines | FAQ | Advice Masterlist

[helioselene]

wip introduction burning our ashes;

There were two things that separated Cedarvale Academy from other schools: it was a private magic school, for only the most gifted and most wealthy; and it was a place where murder could happen.

-

The day Kenna Lee died was the same as any other. 

The bell had wrung to signal the start of lunch, students were yelled at for practicing magic in the halls, and the professors were ready for term break. Until Ivy Contee stumbled upon the long-dead corpse of her best friend. 

Desperate to avenge her friend’s death, Ivy enlists the help of two others: Asher Tate, the scholarship kid with a burning desire to have everything, and Theodore Rutherford, the rich boy with a need to prove his worth. But as they begin to uncover the hidden secrets of Cedarvale, it soon becomes apparent that not everything is as it seems.

And someone within the Academy’s baronial walls is capable of murder. 

—

genre: urban fantasy, dark academia

audience: new adult/young adult

wip type: novel (duology maybe?)

pov: third person, multiple povs

for people who like: murder mysteries, magic, private school shenanigans, sinister plots, lgbtq+ characters, disabled characters, magic schools, fantasy on earth, dark academia

warnings: cursing, death, blood, panic attacks

main characters:

ivy contee: junior student at cedarvale academy. power over ice. though she was born to a new money family, she has no rich-kid-complex or desire to burn others because of who they are. she loves her best friend and her books.

asher tate: junior student at cedarvale academy. power to read auras. as one of the scholarship kids, he struggles to make himself known and thus relies upon his boyfriend for company. likes photography, psychology and all things indie.

theodore “theo” rutherford: junior student at cedarvale academy. power to bend light. after the death of his father, he struggles to control his emotions and can often be seen lashing out. can be seen perusing poetry at three am or studying the stars.

kenna lee: junior student at cedarvale academy. power over chaos magic. though she loved to flaunt her money and privilege, she also cared immensely for her friends and was incredibly down-to-earth. is found murdered at school.

quotes:

i. “what if it wasn’t a bad case of wrong place, wrong time? what if she found out too much? something she wasn’t meant to?”

ii. she heard screaming, loud and high pitched, it’s sound reverberating around the high academy walls.

iii. there was a crunch of grass. a bird whistling. a burst of fear whispering in his veins.

—

im really excited to finally be posting this ahHhHhhhh !!! ill be posting a comic sans powerpoint and the character introductions soon so keep an eye out for that !!

send an ask or comment if you’d like to be added/removed from the taglist! 

tagging a few mutuals as a one time thing: @sprigofbasil @sautrns @starshots @aelenko @stargirlsaga @missdulcerosea @etoileemacabre @acrimoneous @winnieleighwrites @ninazeniks @hazedartisan @raripuh @a-writing-cat

[carmenwantstowrite]

can I be tagged pls?

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

planning your stupid shit-ass fucking novel:

you can know the ending or the beginning but if you know both then you will never ever sort the middle out

why do i need more characters can’t this plot resolve itself without me introducing more characters

i am going to kill literally everyone in this chapter here and then i can just ride the trauma wave through to the next act

there isn’t room for the romantic subplot

there isn’t room for this subplot either

this was meant to be a minor point why is it taking over the entire second act

[research this] *never researches it*

stop obsessing about your framing device and sort out the plot holes

stop obsessing about the likely reaction of tumblr to individual characters and sort out the plot holes

fine just fucking live in a plot hole you piece of shit

is this the same team dynamic as the last four books

yes

it’s my fucking novel i’ll write what i want

oh god what if no one likes it

stop writing imaginary reviews from people who hate you and sort out the plot holes

right i’ve sorted out the middle but now the ending doesn’t work

[kedreeva]

Okay, time to explain some things about writing as I’ve experienced them, ymmv.

When you know the beginning (hard stop), and you know the end (hard stop), then the middle sometimes becomes impossible because it has to follow strictly from point A (the beginning) to point B (the end). Plot holes usually exist because a writer is trying to force a story to travel from Point A to Point B, but that journey may not be a logical journey, so you’ll almost inevitably reach a point where you can’t figure out how the characters move from A to B reasonably.

So here’s where I give you the best advice anyone ever, ever gave me: when you can’t win, redefine winning.

If you work out the middle and the ending or the beginning no longer works, don’t be afraid to toss it out the window and give the story the new ending or beginning it needs. There’s a phrase I’m sure lots of you have heard: “kill your darlings” well guess what? That beginning and ending you KNEW had to be a certain way? Those are your darlings, too. Sometimes, improving the story means culling parts you like or thought you knew to replace them with things that work better.

When you can’t win, redefine winning.

I once spent 10+ years writing and rewriting a story over and over and over, I must have gone through 20 partial drafts of this fucking story, only to have an epiphany one day about why I could never get it right; I was telling it from the wrong character’s perspective. Did that require a huge reassessment of the entire story? yes. But it’s a better story now.

When you can’t win, redefine winning.

I have, for the past two years or so, been struggling with starting a story I had already written once. It already had a beginning, middle, and end. I had literally already written it once as fanfic, and I wanted to write it as an original, and for some reason, it would just NOT start for me. Two days ago, I finally let go of the story structure I had used, and instead of starting the story at the beginning, I am now starting it at the end, and it’s solving all sorts of problems.

When you can’t win, redefine winning.

I spent the last 5 years or so thinking a long, long fic I’ve been working on ended a certain way. I had quit writing the story for years because I Knew that was how the story ended and I didn’t want to write it. A year ago I started sorting out the middle better, and I realized that although those events still happen, the ones I don’t like, the story didn’t end where I thought it did. The story kept going, and ended somewhere else, beyond the things I didn’t like. The story ends in a way better place, and now I’m well on my way to finishing it.

When you can’t write the story you thought you knew, redefine the story.

Sometimes you just have to let go of what you know, and let the story try something else. Let that minor plot point take over the second act just to see where it goes (and don’t be afraid to throw it all out if it doesn’t go anywhere interesting). Cut the romantic subplot out. Cut that other subplot too, even though you really liked it. If the middle is giving you guff, throw the middle off its game and let the story start or end somewhere else. Nothing is set in stone, even after it’s typed.

[heywriters]

Oh, hell yeah! My dudes, the middle is the most important monster to tackle, the one everyone wants to see. Beginnings and endings can be changed frequently until you forget what they originally were and don’t bat an eyelash to alter again. Go wherever the story takes you, even if it requires three different drafts for you to choose from. Just be glad you’re writing anything at all bc oh my god the writing drought I’m currently going through is depressing as heck, so write whatever is dying to be written no matter how far it deviates from your outline—i don’t even outline anymore, i just leave suggestions for my future self to completely ignore. i love it

[harktorambler]

[thewritershelpers]

Improving Your Writing when English Isn’t Your First Language (mega-ask)

As you can see above, we’ve gotten more than one question about writing, improving your writing, and even publishing in English when it’s not your native language. First off: that’s awesome. To anyone writing or even consuming in a language that’s not your first, kudos to you.

You can google any variation of this question and get different articles with a ton of the same advice, and some with conflicting advice. Not only have I compiled the most commonly repeated information, but I’ve also reached out to people on our Discord server and others for their personal experiences.

Keep reading

[writingdotcoffee]

#145: Creativity Doesn’t Have a Downside

An aspiring writer (or illustrator, or filmmaker, or musician) is a bit like a child with a box of legos but no instructions. And we all could learn a lot from how these kids work.

What do most children do when you hand them a box of plastic bricks? Do they watch a bunch of architecture videos? Do they sign up for a masterclass? Do they go away for a few months to think about it?

No! They just dump the entire box on the carpet and start building random things. When they don’t like where it’s going or the whole thing falls over, they just try building something else until they’re happy with it (or, well, get frustrated and lose interest).

A funny thing happens when you hand that same box of legos to an adult. What should they build? Are there enough bricks for a castle? And what about a spaceship? Hmm, would these flat bricks work as wings? What if it doesn’t work out? Things suddenly get a lot more serious.

The Lego bricks are a great example because there is no downside to breaking them apart and starting over. You can keep doing it over and over again until you grow tired of it.

But isn’t that the case for writing as well? If a story you wrote isn’t good enough, you can keep it to yourself and write a new one. It doesn’t cost anything. So why do we get so hung up on finding the right name for our characters, and the right plot twist for the second act? Why do we spend more time deciding what to write instead of actually writing? It really seems like the children know something that we don’t…

Creating something bad may seem like a waste of time, but the work you put in is never wasted. The story might go straight to the bin, but what you learn will stay with you for the rest of your life.

What these little people don’t have is ego. They don’t take it personally when something doesn’t work out. They just keep trying.

Perhaps the greatest creative challenge of all is getting out of your own way.

Want More?

My email subscribers receive a notification when I publish these posts along with a few things I found interesting or helpful on the literary internet every week. Click the link below to join the club.

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Past Editions

#144: Lots and Lots of Bad Stories, May 2020

#143: What to Do When You’re Stuck?, May 2020

#142: What’s Your Story Really About?, May 2020

#141: Architecture and Gardening for Writers, May 2020

#140: When Can You Call Yourself a Writer?, April 2020

[emeraldpotion]

[plotlinehotline]

How do I write quiet characters as first person POV? He rarely speaks. I know how he acts, but trying to give him an internal monologue feels forced.

@janesquareausten

I’m quiet. 

My hearing isn’t so great, which makes my speech kind of wonky, which means in social situations I prefer to stay silent. This comes off as rude, and I know it comes off as rude, but observing conversation and watching how people interact with each other often gives me more information that the conversation itself. 

The key word here is observation. We have the rare opportunity to see inside the mind of a person who spends a great deal of time watching the world around him. What does he see? It might seem boring to desribe every tiny detail as your main character sees it, but what he sees may be different that what other characaters see– whether it be body language, an unsteady water glass, someone acting strangely on the other side of the room. Along with the descriptions of his surroundings, descriptions of how his surroundings interact with him are just as important. His fingers might feel itchy when he sees his sister place her water glass too close to the edge of the table. Then what does he do? Does he act on an impulse to move the glass away from the table? Does he let her knock it over? How does the following moment make your MC feel? That’s a lof of questions, but they are important for making your prose feel less forced. 

These descriptions of how your MC’s surroundings make him feel will break up the long strings of action without the need of dialogue. If you need a more concrete example, I wrote a few sample sentences at the bottom of the post.

Please feel free to send a follow up question or chat if any clarification is needed.

xx Sarah

Keep reading

[oddhour]

pick-me-ups for writers

for the self-conscious beginner: No one makes great things until the world intimately knows their mediocrity. Don’t think of your writing as terrible; think of it as preparing to contribute something great.

for the self-conscious late bloomer: Look at old writing as how far you’ve come. You can’t get to where you are today without covering all that past ground. For that, be proud.

for the perfectionist: Think about how much you complain about things you love—the mistakes and retcons in all your favorite series—and how you still love them anyway. Give yourself that same space.

for the realist: There will be people who hate your story even if it’s considered a classic. But there will be people who love your story, even if it strange and unpopular.

for the fanfic writer: Your work is not lesser for not following canon. When you write, you’ve created a new work on its own. It can be, but does not have to be, limited by the source material. Canon is not the end-all, be-all. 

for the writer’s blocked: It doesn’t need to be perfect. Sometimes you have to move on and commit a few writing sins if it means you can create better things out of it.

for the lost: You started writing for a reason; remember that reason. It’s ok to move on. You are more than your writing. It will be here if you want to come back.

[somegaybroom]

me thinking of my oc’s backstory

me writing my oc’s backstory

[cosimahenning-deactivated201609]

Writing Resources, I guess

So when I’m writing I sometimes need prompts or sometimes I just want to write random shit, so I will use generators. This is just a few that I use and like;

Family Tree, Relationship Generators

Battletech Family Tree Generator - Generates 2/3 generations, can choose options such as name types (real life/fantasy/ethnic fusion/place/gang).

Demarco - Generates a family trees based on info provided, P/Matriarchs, Years born, married and died, and current imput year. Also includes a Type of “race” choice: Human: Medieval, Scottish, Eqyptian or Modern or Dwarf (Fantasy race). All generations up to imput current date are automatically open.

Ja.Partridgez - Family tree generator, similar to Demarco but without the Type option and the generations are not automatically opened, you click a button to see it. 

Gayahithwen- Family Tree generator that follows the Male line, it’s a Harry Potter one, so you can choose Hogwarts houses. Options include; Family name or randomly chosen English or Irish surname, Year of birth of family founder, or choices between eras 800-1100, 1100-1400, 1400-1700 or 1700-2000. You can have Hogwarts houses chosen randomly or choose percentages. Also you can choose options to suggest partners names and to include year of death.

Rangen Family Generator-  doesn’t so much generate a family tree as members and their names and ages, Parents, Siblings, Children, Grandparents etc. Includes Simple (Just name and age) or Detail (whether they get along with main character, personality) Options.

Rangen Pregnancy Generator - generates a birth/s, whether it’s a boy/girl/unknown, birth weight, date of birth, whether it resembles the mother/father/relative/family friend, whether the baby/ies is/are heathy/weak etc. Generates Single Births, Multiples, No Conception.

Cities, Towns, Kingdoms

CrystalBallSoft - Fantasy City You choose the name, size (from Thorp up to Metropolis), whether it’s by the sea, or a river, whether it has military, if it has gates. You can generate Wards, and Professions. Choose major race (Human, Hafling, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Half Elf, Half Orc or Other) and Society (Isolated, Mixed or Integrated). It’ll also generate GP Limit, Imports and Exports, what the city is famous for and infamous for, no. of wards, and professions.

Mathemagician - You choose the name, size (Thorp-Metro) and population percentages (Human, Dwarf, Elf, the usual). It gives you Power Center, Alignment, Population, GP Limit, Community Wealth, You can view all the Militia/Town Guard/Aristocrats/Experts etc members. Names/Race/Gender/Level/Profession/Personality. As well as a list and opening hours of all Blacksmiths, Scroll and Potion shops, Jewelry Store, General Stores, and Taverns. You click and it’ll also give you the  Names/Race/Gender/Level/Profession/Personality of employees  for each of said options. Tavern option also gives hour by hour list of currently working employees, patrons and entertainment as well as a full menu. 

Rangen City Generator - This gives you single word descriptions of things like Settlement type (e.g Metropolis), Size (e.g Large), Cost of Living (e.g Expensive). Etc. Good for general outlines, and basic stuff. 

Lucid Phoenix Kingdom Population - Give you Civilisation vs Wilderness size and %. Number of castles and castle ruins, Population density, Total Population, Population breakdown (No. Rural, Urban or Isolated). Also now gives Urban Population Centres (big cities) with demographics of population size and businesses.

Worlds and Solar Systems

Donjon Fractal World Generator - Gives you a basic map/image of a world. You choose Map Projection (Square, Spherical, Mercator etc) Map Palette (Atlas, Olsson etc), % Water, % Ice, Image Height, Iterations and Rotation.

Donjon Fantasy World Generator - First, the servers for this are busy a lot of the time but it’s worth it. Basically does the same as  above but different options. Map Style (Atlas or Antique), Font (Black Castle, Tengwar Others etc.), % Water % Ice, Geography (Yes or No), Rivers ( Yes, No or Many) Cities and Castles (Yes, No or Many), show Hex Grid and/or Labels.

Donjon SciFi World Generator - You choose things such as World Name, Map Projection (Square, Mercator etc.), Map Palette (Atlas, Barren, Antique etc.), %Water, % Ice, Image Height, Iterations and Rotation. It gives you things like; Basic Image, Physics (Type, Radius, Surface Area, Land Area, Mass, Density, Composition (Iron, Oxygen etc). Gravimetry (Gravity m/s2, (# x Earth), Escape Velocity km/s), Rotation (Period and Axis Tilt), Hydrosphere (Water and Ice %), Atmosphere (Type, Pressure in kPa, # x Earth, Composition), Climate (Type, Min Temp, Avg Temp and Max Temp in Kelvin and Celsius), Biosphere (Chemistry, Lifeforms), Civilisation (Type, Population, Tech Level). If you us the Imperial you’re out of luck.

Donjon Star System Generator - Star Name, Companion Star (Random, None, Close or Distant), Planets (Random, None, Few, Several, Many). You can force a system to include a terrestrial world. It’ll generate things like the Star/s and it’s data (Type, Radius, Mass, Temperature and Luminosity), any terrestrial worlds, rock planets, jovian planets, ice or neptunian planets and their data also. If it includes a terrestrial planet you can further click on that and get more data like that of the SciFi World Generator above.

Donjon SWd6 System Generator - Made for use with Star Wars d6 RPG, generates a basic system, and information basically like that from SciFi World Generator. 

Donjon Traveller System Generator - Again, generates a basic system, includes whether there is a naval base, starport or scout base and tech levels on a terrestrial planet.

This is just a very small portion of generators I use for Fantasy and SciFi stories. If you want or need other generators feel free to message me, I probably have several. Also let me know if you want me to make another for purely SciFi/Food/Drink/Pretty much anything. 

[personshapedsplder]

im doing freelance editing!

HEY! So I’ve been working on this freelance fiction editing business for months now and I’m ready to start taking clients.

I’ve tried to make my rates as affordable as possible, so if you’re a writer or are looking into publishing, please check them out!! I do line, copy, and developmental editing for all genre fiction, but with preference given to horror. I also do all tv/movie/graphic novel scripts and poetry collections. I’ll edit 3 pages of your manuscript for free so you can see if you like my work enough to hire me.

link to my website in the notes!

[unfortunatelyunfocused]

—  writeblr introduction

I’m not a new writeblr but seeing as I follow about 7k blogs on my main writeblr, it feels a bit clogged up and overcrowded on my usual dash, kind of like trying to march through a rampaging, twenty feet tall blackberry hedge without a flashlight.

With this second blog I’m opting for a bit more controlled and organized blog keeping (I can at least try, right?) but I don’t plan to abandon my original blog either.

I write low fantasy & magical realism, my favorite trope is found family, and I am a bit of a scatterbrain. I also tend to passionately procrastrinate and either have too many ideas or none at all.

I’d love to follow other writeblrs and writing prompt blogs so if you are either of them, reblog so I can find you!

Without the hustle and bustle on my main blog I’d also love to get back into commenting and reblogging other people’s writing, so if you have a story to introduce or a free space on a tag list, feel free to let me know about it so I can check it out!

[anxious-bean-writing]

Writeblr Re-Introduction

Basics: 22  ~ she/they 

More about me: I go by K. I mostly like writing urban fantasy or contemporary fiction. Because of my general mood swings and attention span, I’ve only been able to complete fanfiction before, but I’m trying to focus my time on original work. Because of my social anxiety i’m super awkward but i’d love to discuss writing with others, or at least see all of your great work.

My fanfics: want, Get Me Out Of Sherwood Ohio, Software Instability: Detected, The New Kamski Test

WIPs: The Darkness Hummed

Main blog: @its-demons-jim​