may these tips guide you to your writings !
VERSADIES’S WRITING TIPS FOR GENSHIN X READER WRITERS !
SPECIAL NOTE. thank you guys so much again for so many follows! your love and support has always been appreciated and i decided to make this special post as a way to help those who strive to be even more amazing writers ! as always, enjoy these tips my fellow comrades <333 — sincerely, dan 🫶
SYPNOSIS. includes tips regarding the process of writing, content, genshin characters, the writers, and appearance of your blog that’s mostly for beginners !
please take note that you don’t have to follow these tips and that this isn’t the right way to help you write, but a possible way to help you write and improve (p.s. though, you should definitely get grammar, formatting, etc. right in order for your readers to have better experience in reading your fics)
1 — the process
The following tips below this point includes the process of it such as first drafts, editing, proofreading, putting tags, and more. You may proceed to the next points if these are not the tips you’re looking for!
1. OUTLINES !
A tip I always go for whenever I want to start writing fics are essentially to make outlines. If you don’t know what an outline is, it’s basically where you give a general description of what you want in your fanfic without the full details just yet. This is super helpful especially when writing a fanfic series because you know what to do and what you generally want by the time you reach to writing that part of your fic :DD
Once you’re done with your outline, you can now start writing your first draft based on it, this is where you can now write all the details (dialogues, scenes, etc.) you have in mind in your fic!
2. WRITE YOUR IDEAS
If you ever come up with new ideas, list them ASAP! Even if you don’t think you won’t write it, keep it – it can help future you if you couldn’t think of anything to write about.
3. FOCUS ON YOUR THOUGHTS
Avoid procrastinating as you let your thoughts barf out, be determined no matter what until you finally finish with letting your thoughts out.
4. SHARING IS CARING
You can also chat with other writers – you can even chat with me if you want to talk about your passionate brainrots – because writers can spark your ideas even more with ideas they have in mind if you allow them to.
5. STORYTELLING METHOD
Another tip is to recite the words you’ve written as if you’re a narrator and see if the fic sits right with you. Doing this can help some people who want to know if there’s something that’s unclear or doesn’t sound right by reciting it. Whether you’d like to read it out loud is up to you!
6. GRAMMAR
Speaking of which doesn’t sound right, grammar matters! It’s alright if you don’t have a beta reader or someone who’s willing to help you out in checking your grammar like me, I recommend using google docs and some websites that can check my grammar.
Google docs is where I write most of my fics in and I can guarantee that it helped me out with my grammar and sometimes capitalizations. Although it doesn’t exactly fix all the grammar errors you have, it’s still decent enough for it to be used. A few grammar websites I sometimes use are writer.com and quillbot.com, so you can try using them as well if you wanna try my tip out.
7. FORMAT
My next tip is regarding the format of one’s fic. When I say format, I mean by how the paragraphs are shown in one’s post, specifically paragraph breaks. Leave some space for your fics, let them breathe. Readers like me get scared when we see the whole fic being one whole paragraph. Change paragraphs when:
A new character shows up
Dialogue, specially when someone else speaks next
New topic, idea, subject, etc. is introduced
Change of settings
When you want to pull something dramatic (oh, oh.)
When the mood of the scene changes
With spaces, it’s easier for readers to understand and process what you’re trying to say in your fics.
8. PROOF-READ IT
Another tip is related to the last process of writing fanfiction: proof-reading. It won’t hurt to reread your fic (even if you feel like you want to cringe) and see if there are some errors or typos. A tip of mine is something I came across to google when I was still new around tumblr – and it is to simply list your errors that you’d commonly make and to keep an eye out for them.
The errors could be misspellings, misinterpretation on what a certain word means, even mistaking the reader’s gender, and more.
Either way, always double check on everything until you feel like you’re satisfied or sure of your fic.
9. CW / TW
I advise you to put detailed content warning / trigger warnings in your post. Readers should know what’s going to be on your fic, especially if your post is dark/angst/mature content. Don’t forget to specify whether your fic is SFW or NSFW, not everyone who uses tumblr are adults.
10. READ MORE
By the time the fic is done and is ready to post, make sure to add a read more function. It’s going to be a hassle if your fic is really long and it’ll take a long time on swiping, so it’s best if you add the function in your fic if your fic is at least more than 700.
For those who don’t know how to put a read more function in their post on mobile, just write :readmore: and enter.
11. TAG
Lastly, the next tips are about tags. I really advise you to properly tag your fic. Use tags that are relevant and related to your fics. Some people would be disappointed if you use a tag they’re looking for and isn’t something that your fic has (example: you tagged your fic as angst but the fic is fluff for the entire post), and yes, although it’s a way to get your fic to be seen by others more, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
2 – the content
The following tips below includes writing angst, vocabularies, use of italics and bold, show-not-tell tips, dialogues, and more. You may proceed to the next points if these are not the tips you’re looking for!
1. WRITING ANGST
Be in the mood, listen to sad songs, watch series and movies, or even read books that absolutely wrecked you – the same can go for writing fluff.
Ask yourself these questions as a reader when you’re writing: is this enough to make me feel sad? Is the impact of the angst strong enough? If you say no to these questions, try to add or change something that could make it even more tragic, be it dialogues or more scenes (just not too much of course)
A favorite tip of mine is to describe the overwhelming feelings the character or the reader has. Describe how painful it was for them. Describe the agony they felt than everything else they’ve felt throughout their lives. Sure, it’s fine if you say: “He was devastated when he saw them.” But you can also say, “He felt like the world was crashing down on him the moment he saw you in such a broken state – and it’s all because of him.” Describe it, but not too much.
Try not to drag it too much. When I mean by that, I mean don’t try to make it too slow (too much dialogues, unnecessarily describing too much of the scenes, etc), it will ruin the pain for the readers. This also goes for making sure not to make your paragraphs be confusing. People won’t suffer but instead be confused if you add something that can be confusing.
2. COLORS IN TEXT
Refrain yourself from using colors on the text of your fics. It's difficult for most readers to read if you often use a lot of colors in your stories. It’s completely acceptable if you’d use them on your author note, warnings, etc., as long as it’s not in the fic. Using black is definitely a no-no because it won’t be readable at all for readers who use dark mode tumblr.
3. VOCABULARY
Vocabulary is also something important to keep in mind. Readers can pick up on how there’s a repetition of a certain word or phrase easily, so it’s best if your word choices are a variety. If you’d like to improve on your vocabulary, you can just read books, listen to music and read its lyrics – anything that requires you to read.
You can explore new words you haven’t heard before and can use it on your fics. However if you just don’t have the time, google is free comrade <33 You can either go to a few thesaurus websites (thesaurus.com, collinsdictionary.com, etc.) or ask google for synonyms of certain words so you can use those instead of the one you often use. (This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop using the word you always use, it just means you can go for other options so you don’t have to use the same word over and over again).
4. USE OF ITALICS AND BOLD
When it comes to italics and bold, you’d often see them in novels and fanfiction. Besides using italics to let readers know if someone is thinking, you can also use italics when you want to emphasize a lot on something! Be it the feelings of the character, a word or phrase that hits the spot, and more. If italics isn’t enough to emphasize your text, use bold instead – or even both.
5. SHOW-NOT-TELL
I sort of disagree with the “always show-not-tell” since the fic would be filled with too much description – especially unnecessarily ones.
One tip that helped me alot is to show emotion and tell feelings. It’s alright if you also show feelings if you feel like it’s important to note it.
Don’t tell how “You became happy when you saw him”, show how “Your eyes sparkled at the sight of him entering the room, your mouth twitching upwards as you watch him walk towards you with the same expression on his face.”
Don’t show how “You feel like you could barely function at all and tears keep on coming out from your eyes due to the amount of times you’ve yawned, holding onto your pen with determination of finishing the report.” Tell how “You’re fighting the urge to sleep as you try to finish your report tonight.”
It’s also okay to do a mix of both (show and tell feelings/emotions) “You almost stumble on your steps, swaying back and forth as you yawn quietly. You continued walking around the kitchen to find coffee; the events that happened last night made you not be able to sleep.”
Overall, just visualize the reactions/thoughts of the characters – be it body language, facial expressions, etc. It will be able to help readers understand more and imagine about it easily. It doesn’t have to be long and can be as short as you want as long as the thought is there.
6. DIALOGUES
When it comes to dialogues, there are few things you can use that’s based on what people do in real life (Take note, you don’t always have to do this).
When someone is thinking about something, you can interrupt their line of thought with a sudden new one. Example:
Thoma thought to himself, what could be the reason why Taroumaru has been going out a lot recen – He then gasps quietly to himself, does he have a crush on someone?!
Use filler words such as “like”, “literally”, “uhm”, “uh”, “i think”, etc. It makes it more relatable especially if the reader is the one saying them! Example:
Thoma nodded eagerly. “Yes! Taroumaru was literally barking and the general was – like speaking for him as if he understood what Taroumaru was saying! Can you believe it?!”
You can also mention their hand gestures, noises they’d make to emphasize on their words, facial expressions, etc. as they talk – it will definitely help readers imagine more as well on how they say the dialogues. Example:
Thoma nodded eagerly. “Yes! Taroumaru was literally barking and the general was like, uh,” he then proceeds to silently snap his fingers a couple of times, trying to think of what Gorou said, “he was like ‘Taroumaru, you fought the traveler too?!’ It’s like the general understood what Taroumaru was saying! Can you believe it?!”
You can also have them repeat themselves when others don’t understand what they’re saying or to get their point across. Example:
Ayato tilts his head. “So… Your point, Thoma?” He asks, lowkey amused by the housekeeper’s astonished reaction from his experience.
Thoma couldn’t believe how the young master is so laid-back from what he had just said. “My lord… General Gorou can understand Taroumaru.”
“What?” Ayato asks, knowing fully well what the blonde-haired man had just said.
“General Gorou can understand Taroumaru.” Thoma repeated.
7. SAID IS NOT DEAD
Said is not dead and can in fact be used often. Don’t use it otherwise if you want to get a description of how the character is saying something, it makes it more interesting.
You can do: “Yeah, Arataki Itto is one interesting guy.” Thoma said with a smile.
You can also do: “Happy birthday to you, OWA OWA, happy birthday to you, OWA OWA–!” Itto sings dedicatedly.
8. SUMMARIES ARE IMPORTANT
Summaries are important because they’re the ones that can let the reader know what to expect. Don’t say “idk how to summarize this. i dont have a summary.” – I know it’s difficult to think of one, but you have to keep trying – instead, you can just say “basically you feel insecure and the character comforts you” or “you’re tired, he’s doing his work. so you came up to him to cuddle with him while he’s working.”
It’s an exception if you’re doing a request and the anon’s request basically has a full summary already, that is, unless it’s an event theme and doesn’t have a summary on what it’s about.
9. PUNCTUATIONS
Punctuation marks are also important to know. Commas can help you put a soft pause on your sentence, question marks (?) and exclamation points (!) are helpful in expressing dialogues, semicolons can make a gap between two sentences smaller or introduce a new completed sentence with “however”, “therefore”, etc. Use them if you feel like you have to!
10. SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST
Lastly, a quick tip I learned from this app is to put the most important information at the end of the sentence. Try “By the end of the year, they became a couple.” instead of “They became a couple by the end of the year.” It just makes it seem more dramatic, don’t you think?
3 – the characters
The following tips below includes analyzing genshin characters and what to do when writing the reader. You may proceed to the next points if these are not the tips you’re looking for!
1. OBSERVE THE CHARACTER
Google is free. Genshin wiki is free. Reading genshin lore is free. If you have no idea how characters act, analyze them based on what their lore and voiceline has given you. When you write the characters and feel like they’re ooc even if it’s unintentional, imagine them acting on what you wrote and ask yourself if this is accurate enough.
2. IT'S NO LONGER A CHARACTER X READER FIC IF READER HAS A NAME
Refrain yourself from calling the reader with someone else’s name. It’s no longer a genshin x reader fic if you decided to give the reader a name. Not everyone has the same name and your fic would be considered as a genshin x oc (yes, even if you refer to the oc as “you” instead of “I”). It won’t be enjoyable the moment the reader has a name that isn’t what they’re usually preferred to as.
3. APPEARANCE OF THE READER
If you’re going for a neutral-appearance reader, an important thing to note is to avoid describing reactions that could describe the reader’s appearance. An example of this is blushing. When you say “You smiled softly, the light pink became evident on your cheeks.”, it’s no longer appearance-neutral since blushing can’t be seen on some people’s faces. What you can do to refrain from that mistake is to describe the feelings of said reactions.
Instead of the example I’ve mentioned, try to do “You smiled softly, feeling your cheeks starting to become warm.”
Refrain from mentioning hair as well, not everyone has the same hair and not everyone has hair. Instead of “The wind was blowing your hair”, try “You relax from the cool feeling of the wind coming past you.”
Again, one of the goals of a character x reader is to make the reader feel like they’re a part of the story, and giving them a name, appearance (unless specified), etc. won’t do it.
4 – the writer
The following contains tips regarding the mindset, thoughts, interactions, and motivation of a writer. You may proceed to the next points if these are not the tips you’re looking for!
1. CONFIDENCE IS KEY
You may not know it, but your writing is always better than you think. You just think you don’t like it because you already know what’s going to happen because you wrote it.
Be more confident in yourself and your own writing! It can make you even more determined and have more passion in writing. Avoid comparing yourself to other writers – that’s an unhealthy behavior. Don’t let hate anons get to you because in the end, they’re just people who waste their life by looking down on others for no reasons at all.
It’s scary to publish your first fic, and that’s completely okay and reasonable. You can gain the confidence to publish it by just straight on or blindly pressing the post button and leave the app immediately— distract yourself from your what-ifs and buts and just hope for the best that people will like it.
2. NO PRESSURE
Always take your time and never force/pressure yourself. Writing should be something you enjoy and not something you should stress out about. Make schedules and follow them, either that or do timers where you write as many paragraphs as you can within the time limit if you’re the type to like doing challenges.
Take breaks if required. Prioritize yourself more than your blog, give yourself some self-love! If you suddenly have an emergency, feel burnt out, etc. and you won’t be able to post your fics, you can let your followers know and apologize for the inconvenience. Don’t worry about it, people will understand and will wish you well!
3. GET ATTENTION
If you want your posts to get attention, tag as many as you can (at least 20) and make sure it’s related to your fic.
You can also interact with a blog network that reblogs works for more people to see, especially those that’s only for genshinblr, so feel free to join one if you feel like it.
Interact with your followers often. If you’re a mobile-user genshin writer, please take note that the anonymous option is turned off unless you turn it on in the tumblr website/desktop version. You don’t really have to turn the anonymous option on if you feel uncomfortable, it’s super okay. Remember, prioritize your comfort over anyone else’s. Your blog is not your job, it’s your passion. It should be something that makes you comfortable and happy.
Observe your followers. Take note of when people are active the most and what time you usually get the most likes/reblogs. Use that time to be your post time (if the time is too late, you can use the queue post option whereas it’ll automatically publish your post at the time you chose.)
If you cannot reply to others in the reply/comment section due to your blog being secondary, you can just reblog your post and reply to people (with a tag that’s for you replying to comments).
Take note, don’t force yourself to reply to other people! Again, take as much time as you need.
Self-reblogging your work is a great option in increasing attention as well! Most writers, including myself, would reblog our own works in case those who have us on our feeds haven’t seen our latest posts.
4. MOTIVATION
Motivation is difficult to get sometimes. So here are a few tips that helped me and will hopefully help you!
Expose yourself to ideas, prompts, etc. One of the things that gets us motivated is the new ideas/prompts/etc. that we made up and instantly start writing for it. If you’re going through an idea that’s in the middle of the story, use that as your motivation to write the whole thing until you reach that part.
As I’ve mentioned before, outlines can really help in helping you write down what you want in your fic. Start doing that first before writing it because you won’t have to worry about getting completely stuck in your wip.
Don’t feel lazy or procrastinate. Get yourself out of your bed and go to a spot where you can focus solely on your fic. If you feel sleepy out of nowhere while writing, go splash water on your face and listen to loud music that can keep you awake.
Give yourself a deadline for your fic. It’ll make you feel determined in finishing your fic!
Read something. Whether it’d be other fics, stories, etc. – it doesn’t matter. You’ll eventually get some inspiration from reading and get motivated to write.
5 – the appearance
A big tip of mine when designing your blog is to find your colors first. If you already have your profile pic and header prepared, that’s completely okay because at least you know what colors to aim for that can match your profile and header! A huge recommendation of mine is to explore colorhunt.co for color palettes to choose – they’re such a big help to me especially since I sometimes have a hard time trying to think of a color that matches the other.
I also advise you to put your masterlist link in your bio. People will be able to navigate your masterlist easier! You can go to tumblr's website/desktop version > edit appearance > scroll down and find edit theme > paste "<a href="insert link"> between the word you want to link it on </a>" > and then you're done! you can add as many links as you want :DD
If you need to find sources where you can get genshin characters’ faces for your banners, you can just go to the genshin wiki and search for their profile. They provided pictures where their wish art's (basically what they look like when you wish for them) backgrounds are transparent so if you’re the type to think removing their background is a hassle, genshin wilki’s your go-to! If not, then I suggest Picsart’s (mobile editing app) stickers, they surprisingly have a lot of stickers of genshin characters.
use readable fonts + visible color when adding texts on your banners.
As for pinned post, here are the things that you can put:
Short profile about you such as your name, your pronouns, age (if you’re comfortable with it), your nationality, and anything else you want people to know about.
Links such as masterlist/navigation, mutuals list, dni (do not interact), byf (before you follow), and etc.
Fandom/s (such as genshin impact, honkai impact, honkai star rail, etc.)
It’s up to you if you’d like to add some quotes, images, banners, stickers, etc. !
