words will save us @pennedstreamsofcircumstance - Tumblr Blog

She smelled like hand sanitizer, pure and reminiscent of a hospital. Her lips were like marble, cold and smooth. Her eyes were like a stop light, you wanted them to be green but they were red and occasionally yellow.

tearsanctuary

some advice to not procrastinate writing???

paperplateprose

every time you want to make a post about writing you have to do at least 100 words of writing first

luna-azzurra

Mirror neurons are the reason you cry at a funeral for someone you never met. your brain literally cannot tell the difference between watching grief and experiencing it, it just runs the program. and writers who understand this are playing an entirely different game. you don't describe the sadness. you put the reader in the body that feels it. the mirror neuron does the rest. you're not writing emotion. you're building a trigger for theirs.

luna-azzurra

Signs your romance subplot has absolutely no tension (sry)

♡ they meet and immediately like each other (goodbye conflict, we barely knew you)

♡ the only thing keeping them apart is a misunderstanding that one conversation would fix

♡ both characters describe the other as "beautiful" within three pages of meeting

♡ their chemistry is told not shown (the narrator insists they have spark. they don't.)

♡ the love interest has no personality outside of loving the protagonist

♡ they argue once, make up immediately, never argue again

♡ obstacles are external. they always agree with each other about everything.

♡ the rival love interest exists for two chapters then vanishes without explanation

♡ they almost kiss. something interrupts. this happens four times. on the fifth time they kiss. the end.

♡ the love interest is described as funny, clever, and kind. we see none of this.

♡ their big emotional moment is in the rain. it is always in the rain.

♡ the breakup lasts exactly one chapter before they reconcile

♡ "i've never felt this way before" said by someone with no prior emotional history

♡ both confess feelings at the same time. no awkwardness. no stakes. just synchronized emotion.

♡ their first kiss is perfect. no bumped noses. no wrong angle. cinematic and frictionless.

♡ jealousy subplot introduced and dropped without consequence

♡ they have one shared interest and it is the plot

♡ trauma bonding mistaken for romantic chemistry (these are different things)

♡ the side characters ship them loudly. this is not a substitute for actual tension.

♡ one of them dies temporarily. other is devastated. they come back. no lasting emotional damage.

♡ they end up together because the plot ends, not because they chose each other

♡ epilogue: married with children. every loose end tied. nothing left to feel.

livelaughwriteit

Love this!!

write-on-world

big-blog-of-cheese-day

ccorinthian

Sometimes you gotta get down to brass tacks

glitchedoutpxie

How to use Em Dash (—) and Semi Colon ( ; )

Since the ai accusations are still being thrown around, here's how i personally like to use these GASP ai telltales. 🦄✨

Em Dashes (—)

To emphasize a shift / action / thought.

They're accusing us—actually accusing us—of using AI.

To add drama.

They dismissed our skills as AI—didn't even think twice, the dimwits—and believed they were onto something.

To insert a sudden thought. Surely they wouldn't do that to us—would they?

To interrupt someone's speech. "Hey, please don't say that. I honed my craft through years of blood and tears—" "Shut up, prompter."

To interrupt someone's thoughts / insert a sudden event.

We're going to get those kudos. We're going to get those reblogs—

A chronically online Steve commented, “it sounds like ai, idk.”

Semi Colons ( ; )

To join two closely related independent sentences / connect ideas.

Not only ChatGPT is capable of correct punctuation; who do you think it learned from in the first place?

Ultimate pro tip: use them whenever the fudge you want. You don't owe anyone your creative process. 🌈

every day, do something that you'll remember the next

ig: pennedstreamsofcircumstance

#poets on tumblr #poetsandwriters #writblr #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #poetry #poems #mine #my words #mywork #writing #writers and poets

luna-azzurra

Ways to Describe Orange Hair!! <3

livelaughwriteit

Writing Sexual Tension

Some tips and tricks I’ve seen on Tumblr, on Pinterest or have learned the hard way while writing. These are pretty basic but sometimes basic is good!

Realizing they can feel the person touching them. Maybe they’re not touching but they can feel the warmth.

Accidentally saying something flirty and both of you freeze. Or saying something flirty and the other person panicking and running away

Eyes dropping to lips. Eyes looking them up and down. Eyes unable to look away. Eyes unable to make contact without blushing. Eyes are you best friend.

Mirroring. When people have crushes or like someone (or want someone to like them) they do what is called mirroring. If character 1 crosses their arms and character 2 has a crush on them, have character 2 cross their arms too.

New Girl taught me about toes. If their feet are facing you, they want to stay. If their feet are pointed away, they want to leave. I’ve found its not always true but its something you can mention or use.

Unable to stop smiling. Unable to stop laughing.

Touching the other one when you laugh. Touching them to move them out of the way. Touching them and not moving your hand away

Hugging them when you see them. Sharing a bed. Trying to be near them at all moments.

Looking at their lips and fantasizing about kissing them.

Watching others interact in some way with them or how they act around them and being super jealous, wondering why they don’t act that way with you.

luna-azzurra

Writers overhear one conversation in a café and spend the entire walk home building those two strangers a history. why did she say it like that. what happened before this. why does he keep looking at the door. by the time you get home they have a tragedy and a theme and you didn't even hear the whole thing. you just heard "i thought you said friday" and now someone has a dead brother.

luna-azzurra

Ways to describe Purple Hair!!<3

purpurle-iris

Being a writer is so inconvenient at times, because why does my brain drop a perfect piece of dialogue/exposition/world building explaination right as I'm about to brush my teeth?

Now I have to go rush to my phone and write it down before it's lost forever in the realm of forgotten thoughts

Like? I wanted to brush my teeth...

luna-azzurra

Things writers do that look insane from the outside: stare at a wall for forty minutes and call it productive. read the same sentence out loud seven times with different emphasis to find the right one. google "what does betrayal smell like." cry at something they wrote themselves. apologise to a character. argue with a character. lose an argument with a character. close the laptop, go for a walk, come back, open the laptop, and type one (1) sentence. call it a good day. it was a good day.

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.