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@gywo
Literally cannot emphasize enough that my #1 writing advice is to stop being afraid. Stop being afraid of sounding too cringe, or too stupid, or too horrifying, or too horny, or too weird, or too much, or too little, or too you. You need to put your entire pussy into your art. Sure, it won't be to everyone's tastes, but if you keep yourself to the blandest tamest safest roads possible you will be of no one's tastes, not even yours.
do you ever find yourself bedeviled by writing ideas that are the equivalent of finding a single carrot in your fridge. your brain goes "we should write a pirate story" or "we should write a parisian thief caper" and you ask, "all right, what do we cook with that, then?" and it says "no other ingredients (:"
•A word scramble will be posted every other day starting on August 1st, 2026, at around 4 a.m. Eastern. There are 14 prompts in all, with a plethora of possible words.
•All fandoms and original works welcome! We absolutely do not believe in censorship. Please be kind, tag properly, and have a great time!
•We guarantee that there is a 7-letter word in each scramble. However, feel free to use any word(s) you find that inspire you. The word(s) you choose simply need to inspire your creation; they don't need to be a major theme.
•Handy link to a Scrabble word-finder site to help you if you need it! https://scrabblewordfinder.org/solver
•Use #wsc2026 #word-scramble-challenge, and there is a collection on AO3 [here] to which you can add your creations!
•Will you be reblogging everything? No, this blog will remain prompts only for ease of use, but please browse through the tags and get your fandom involved! It will be more fun that way!
• This is for creators of all types: create anything! We mean anything! Write a multi-chapter fic, drabbles, one-shots, haikus, or an experimental poem. Puffy paint a t-shirt. Make a sticker or paper collage. Sketch in your journal. Take a photo. Cook a recipe. Bake. Embroider! Sew. Quilt. Mood boards. Alter a book. Send postcards to friends. Sculpt. Make a house for your pet rock! Invent a cocktail. Write letters! Create playlists! The list goes on infinitely!
Spend 15 minutes writing about the city your character lives in
Reasons your Plot armor is showing
⟢ Protagonist never gets seriously injured despite constant danger
⟢ Convenient skills appear exactly when needed
⟢ "Somehow" doing heavy lifting in your explanations
⟢ Bullets miss protagonist but hit everyone around them
⟢ Protagonist immune to their own bad decisions
⟢ Only character who doesn't catch the deadly plague
⟢ Falling from deadly height with minor bruises
⟢ Allies die dramatically, protagonist gets rescued last-second
⟢ Learning complex skills overnight
⟢ "Lucky" so many times it's a superpower
⟢ Stab wound? Walking it off!
⟢ Resources appear when needed, vanish when inconvenient
⟢ Guards always look the other way at the right moment
⟢ Protagonist's impulsive plans always work
⟢ Enemies become incompetent around protagonist
⟢ Saved by coincidence (seventeenth time this book)
⟢ Technology works/fails based on plot needs
⟢ "Unconscious" for exactly the right amount of time
⟢ No food/water/sleep needed during crisis Injuries that would cause shock? Totally fine!
⟢ Emotional trauma with no PTSD
⟢ Protagonist never makes a truly fatal mistake
⟢ Backup arrives at the exact dramatic moment "Just in time" is your most common phrase
⟢ Escaping impossible situations off-page "I don't know how I did it" (yes you do: plot armor)
⟢ "Trust your instincts" = always right
⟢ Redemption arc speedrun with no actual work
⟢ "Chosen One" immunity to normal consequences
⟢ Physics optional for protagonist only
wips aren't meant to be finished. they're meant for you to proudly explain the idea behind them to everyone and then suddenly go silent when someone says "oh cool I'm so excited to see when you finish it!"
Hi! I’m not really sure how to phrase this, so let me know if you need me to clarify anything. A friend and I were talking about how with a good character, you can often understand their line of thinking even if you don’t necessarily agree with the conclusion they come to. My friend started talking about a sort of “input/output” way of thinking about it.
“which is what makes a good character, when you want to think about what information input leads to what output and the logic that informs how they react to things”
Then we were wondering… do you have any tips for practicing this sort of thing? I’m thinking it would be great to do an exercise where you’re given a list of inputs of some sort- events, things said by other characters, etc - and you write down a possible thought process, and the conclusion the character comes to.
Hopefully this makes sense! Please let me know if you know of any resources like this, and thank you in advance!
Okay, so I must admit to being completely perplexed at how your friend has phrased this, but the closest thing I can think of is Jack Bickham's concept of scene and sequel (written about in his book Scene and Structure).
Now, this concept has to do with plotting, but it really is about character, so bear with me for a moment. Bickham defines stories as being a series of scenes and sequels. A scene is a unit of conflict lived through by the character, and the sequel is the unit of transition between one scene and the next. To break it down further, scene is plot (action that is moving the story forward) and sequel is mostly story (emotional and logical reaction).
First, let's define a scene (according, again, to Bickham, who I think is onto something). A scene is build around three things: a goal, conflict, and disaster.
The goal is what your character wants. If your character wants to solve a murder, the goal of the scene is to find a clue to the identify of the murderer.
Conflict is the struggle to obtain that goal. Your character is mysteriously attacked from behind just as they were on the verge of recovering that clue.
Disaster is the complication that moves the plot forward. Your character is safe, but the clue has been stolen. Your character must now work harder to solve the mystery.
So far, so good. We could call this scene, we could call this plot, or we could call this input, but it is the exterior action that moves the novel along.
Sequel is the bridge between scenes where we learn about the character. It is all about your character and what they will do. It contains emotional response, thought, and a decision.
Emotion comes first because if we don't know how your character feels about the previous event, we can't relate to them. The bad guy has gotten away and the character despairs at solving the murder.
Next we'll have your characters think through their response. Your character promised his murdered best friend she'd never give up. If that friend was alive, they'd stop at nothing to solve the murder.
Last, your character makes a decision that leads into the next scene. Your character's worst enemy in high school volunteered to help, and no matter how much bad blood is between them, your character resolves to take them up on that offer.
The above sounds very clinical, but it isn't going to sound that way when you write it out. Note that a sequel also doesn't have to be actionless - if your character's emotional reaction is rage, having them throw their phone against a wall conveys that just fine. Having them rant their thoughts to a friend as they pace back and forth will also lead them to the decision, which will result in the next scene.
That's why I'm going to say sequel is the same as output - your character is reacting to, thinking about, and then acting on the scene/event, leading us the reader to understand their emotion and logic. Without that, the story falls flat. We do not have a reason to care about the plot if we do not know why we should care about the story.
As to how to practice this, that's easy - put your character in a Situation (scene/input), and then have them react (sequel/output). Try not to think about the checkpoints until after you are done writing, and then look at it with an editing eye. Is the goal/conflict/disaster clear? Can we understand the emotion the character is feeling? Does the logic of their thought process leading to a decision seem sound?
And just to be thorough, think of a part of a book or movie that didn't work for you. Maybe a character had a disastrous first date, frets about dying alone, and then cheerfully agrees to a second date - we have the emotion and the decision, but we're missing the thought process. Maybe a character stumbles into a fight with ninjas, but shrugs it off at the end. We've got the conflict, but the goal isn't clear (why is he fighting those ninjas?) and we have no disaster (this scene does not drive the plot forward or complicate it in any way). This is a common blockbuster movie problem because while it looks awesome, it doesn't mean anything.
I hope this breakdown helps! You are likely already writing this way, but this checklist can help you figure out why some scenes feel flat and how to fix them.
photo: David Castenson
Write that one-shot. Those 3 chapters will be the best 10 chapters you ever wrote
Raise your hand if your writing process looks like:
open document
write two sentences
stare into space for ten minutes
google something unrelated
suddenly have a brilliant idea at 1:42 a.m.
this is called the creative method.
something i think would make a lot of historical romance more accurate & interesting is the realization that people are less likely to totally disparage the ethical & social values of their time than they are to use those values to defend whatever it is they want to do
a woman is less likely to go "it's stupid that women are expected to be modest" than she is to go "there is nothing immodest about a woman going out without a chaperone" or even "i can go out without a chaperone because i am so modest"
people also seem less likely to see someone's shitty behavior as reflecting a shitty society than they are to view that behavior as being out of accordance with that society - e.g. a father who's excessively controlling of his daughters' marriage prospects isn't, in her mind, acting that way because he lives in a repressive patriarchal culture, but is actually outdated in his values - his cruelty is unmodern, ungentlemanly, stuck in the past, barbaric. we might think he's upholding the values of his culture perfectly, but the people around him who took issue with his behavior probably wouldn't see it that way
There's this legal theory (bear with me here!!) that says, basically, that you can make a general moral principal connect to pretty much any argumentative position you want. So, for example, you can start with "modesty is a core virtue for women" as a moral principal, and that can lead you to 1) "so women should not go out in public because being in public is immodest", 2) "so it's neutral for women to go out in public because being in public is not immodest", 3) "so women should go out in public to demonstrate their modesty and spread that virtue," etc etc. It all depends on the reasoning and evidence you choose.
In the legal field, this is how you get lawyers on opposing sides of a case both citing freedom, or public safety, or justice, as the value at the basis of their argument: they both think that that value is important or particularly compelling for the decision-maker they're appealing to, so they have to find reasoning and evidence that allows their opposite arguments to both lay claim to it. (A lot of the time that reasoning and evidence is incoherent "transcendental nonsense," as one of the originators of this theory Felix Cohen called it. But that's a subject for a different rant.)
In writing fiction, as OP demonstrates so elegantly, this theory can help draw the connection between the values of a character's culture and upbringing, and the decisions and stances the author has them take. Rarely, people's core values are different from the prevailing ones of their society. But much more often, they're working from the same value, and reaching a different conclusion than the people around them/their past self/the antagonists, etc. What kinds of life experiences and personality characteristics have led to that difference? That's where you get a really solid character arc imo.
Fic that appears to be an AU where the characters have a little low stakes meet cute and are having a sweet little romance, only for it to be revealed that no, this is in-universe and they both have amnesia and all the other characters are trying to find them and are losing their fucking shit
Hey Jenn! What should full R&Rs look like from the agent? Are partial R&Rs a good or bad thing? And what about a one chapter R&R? I saw someone mention an agent wanted a single chapter R&R and that just seems… weird?
Every agent is different, every manuscript is different, there is no one specific way this is always done. An agent may read the whole manuscript and give extremely detailed feedback on the whole manuscript (like a lengthy editorial letter). OR they may be like, hey, this is all great EXCEPT XYZ large things, and give much less feedback but broader. They think you need to do a complete overhaul, change the genre, change the category and basically make it an entirely new book. OR they might not think you have to revise the whole thing at all, they just want to see a revision of a sample and synopsis so they know you are basically on the same page as them. OR they may just think the ending sucks and only think you need to revise the ending. OR they may not have even finished the ms, just read a partial or whatever, but they can see based on what they have read that they won't take this on as it is, and IF they were possibly going to take this on, the book would have to be different in such-and-such a way, and just SAY that. OR they may have a phone call and want to talk to you about whatever their thing is. I know an agent who likes to do voice memos for feedback rather than typing it.
(I'm not sure what you mean by a "one chapter R&R" but It could be, as I mentioned above, that they are just asking for a sample of a revision because they want to know that you are on board, you can both see the vision, but they don't want to make you do a TON of work before they actually decide whether to sign you or not? IDK babe I'm not a mind-reader!)
Keep in mind:
-- None of these approaches are inherently "better" or "worse" than the other, none of them have an hidden meaning you can try and discern. Just different people are different? Different mss need different things? These are all ONE AGENT'S opinions anyway, and are subjective?
-- Counterintuitively, it's probably better to think of an R&R as nicer-than-a-regular-rejection (but still a rejection) rather than thinking of it as a conditional-almost-acceptance. Basically, an agents ask for R&Rs instead of just signing you, generally, because they DO NOT think this is ready for prime time right now. They are saying NO.
-- BUT, they see that there is good stuff there, and there's a world where they MIGHT have said yes, if the book were different. But they realize that what they are potentially asking for feels like a lot of work that you may not want to do. They understand that you may not be willing (or even ABLE) to get this book into the place they are imagining, or might disagree entirely with whatever their vision is. THEY KNOW it's a big ask.
-- Accordingly, you don't need to feel as though you HAVE TO do an R&R. It's a CHOICE you CAN make if you think the book will be better for it! Think about it! Don't rush it. And if you start noodling around with the revision but ultimately you don't think the book will be better for the revision, don't do it!
-- Just because you do the R&R doesn't mean that they will take you on. But hopefully, if you are only doing R&Rs that ACTUALLY IMPROVE THE BOOK, then even if they turn it down ultimately... you'll be better off than you were for having done it.
me: if you're stuck on a scene, the problem is likely further back than you think
me after i get stuck on a scene for two days and realise the problem is further back than i thought:
The 5 Most Essential Turning Points in a Character’s Arc
You spend so much time creating a character because you want them to feel real. You want to connect with them and use them to create an experience for your readers. Their character arc is how that happens.
Don’t miss out on these essential turning points that make an arc feel not only whole, but complete.
1. The Inciting Incident
Your inciting incident gets your plot moving. It isn’t going to be the first sentence of your story (also called your hook), although it could be if you crafted your first sentence for that purpose.
An inciting incident is a plot event that guides your character in a new direction. It’s the successful prison break, the meeting of instant rivals, or the moment your protagonist wins the lottery in your first chapter.
Without the inciting incident, your protagonist’s life would carry on as usual. They wouldn’t start the arc that makes them an interesting person for the reader to stick with throughout your story.
2. Introducing the Protagonist’s Main Flaw
Every protagonist needs a primary flaw. Ideally, they’ll have more than one. People aren’t perfect and they rarely get close enough to only have one negative characteristic. Protagonists need that same level of humanity for readers to connect with them.
There are many potential flaws you could consider, but the primarily flaw must be the foundation for your character’s arc. It might even be the catalyst for the story’s peak.
Imagine a hero archetype. They’re great and well-intended, but they have a problem with boasting. Their arc features scenes where they learn to overcome their need to brag about themselves, but they get drunk and boast in a bar right before the story’s peak. The antagonist’s best friend hears this because they’re at the same bar, so they report the hero’s comment to the main villain. It thwarts the hero’s efforts and makes the climax more dramatic.
Other potential flaws to consider:
Arrogance
Pride
Fear
Anxiety
Carelessness
Dishonesty
Immaturity
3. Their First Failure
Everyone will fail at a goal eventually. Your protagonist should too. Their first failure could be big or small, but it helps define them. They either choose to continue pursuing that goal, they change their goal, or their worldview shatters.
Readers like watching a protagonist reshape their identity when they lose sight of what they wnat. They also like watching characters double down and pursue something harder. Failure is a necessary catalyst for making this happen during a character’s arc.
4. Their Rock Bottom
Most stories have a protagonist that hits their rock bottom. It could be when their antagonist defeats them or lose what matters most. There are numerous ways to write a rock-bottom moment. Yours will depend on what your character wants and what your story’s theme is.
If you forget to include a rock-bottom moment, the reader might feel like the protagonist never faced any real stakes. They had nothing to lose so their arc feels less realistic.
Rock bottoms don’t always mean earth-shattering consequences either. It might be the moment when your protagonist feels hopeless while taking an exam or recognizes that they just don’t know what to do. Either way, they’ll come to grips with losing something (hope, direction, or otherwise) and the reader will connect with that.
5. What the Protagonist Accepts
Protagonists have to accept the end of their arc. They return home from their hero’s journey to live in a life they accept as better than before. They find peace with their new fate due to their new community they found or skills they aquired.
Your protagonist may also accept a call to action. They return home from their journey only to find out that their antagonist inspired a new villain and the protagonist has to find the strength to overcome a new adversary. This typically leads into a second installment or sequel.
Accepting the end of their arc helps close the story for the reader. A protagonist who decides their arc wasn’t worth it makes the reader disgruntled with the story overall. There has to be a resolution, which means accepting whatever the protagonist’s life ended up as—or the next goal/challenge they’ll chase.
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Hopefully these points make character arcs feel more manageable for you. Defining each point might feel like naming your instincts, but it makes character creation and plotting easier.
Want more creative writing tips and tricks? I have plenty of other fun stuff on my website, including posts like Traits Every Protagonist Needs and Tips for Writing Subplots.
Water Lilies (1904) by Claude Monet
''what if my writing isn't good eno--'' what if it's a reflection of your of your soul. what if it has a place in this world. what if you write it anyway
