Writing is Hard

yet here we all are. Scribbling since birth, mad on dystopia, always up for a natter.

[phloxxiing-deactivated20190618]

I adore your worldbuilding! It's so well thought out. If it's not too much trouble could you give me any pointers? I have zero idea how to get started in naming my cities, etc, or how to set everything up. Thank you!

Thank you so much darling!  I can certainly try to give you some advice – this is only my personal experience though, and I’m sure my followers will have their own suggestions as well.  

STEP ONE: BUILD OFF OF IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS.

I can’t just worldbuild.  Normally I have to have some idea of the plot in question to go off of – and I’m gonna use Radiation Rat as an example here.  So I know three key things going into Radiation Rat that are absolutely crucial for me to work with:

There was a triggered nuclear meltdown, a hospital, and a place after the hospital, all relating to the main character.

Said MC has a list of people he wants to get revenge on before his body gives out, a la the hard drive that is his brain.

There’s a hacker group who’s anti government POV has to keep them far from anywhere government based, but close enough to still help the MC.

That’s not much to go off of.  But it’s still something, and if you mull over the ideas in a casual way you can start considering a lot of different options as per exactly what you’re wanting to do.  

For example: I want the hospital to feel isolated and far away from everything else.  This distance creates a pretty terrifying fucking vision of a solo building in the middle of nothing and dead center in nowhere.  

Then, for culture shock, I think the most interesting place for the MC to end up is a huge city.  I know for a fact that he’s from a small place and has spent his entire puberty plus some in a hospital, so a place like New York or Hong Kong or Seoul would be fucking terrifying for him.

So on, and so forth, you start to build to bones.

STEP TWO: FIND YOUR FEELINGS.

Maybe you know the energy you want your whole story to have, but every place, every bit of the world needs to have their own feelings and auras and sensations about them.  

What do I want Numerika to represent?

Well.  It’s almost a parody of America today; with the dial cranked to eleven on how terrible everything can get.  As of now, the country itself is almost a painting of all the horrifying and uncontrollable things happening in society and the world that I can’t do anything about as an individual.  So.  The world dies.  The government becomes a panicked structure.  The cities aren’t connected, they aren’t families, they don’t really talk.  People are more inward, careless, selfish.

Now break down some of those concepts.  

I want the world to feel desolate and barren.  I want it to feel like there’s no coming back from the place that it’s in.  So my brain conjures desolate places – deserts, normal.  Salt flats, a little more unique.  Bogs, less used in things beyond video game horror.  What’s a terrifying fact?  The Ozone has holes punctured in it.  But because this world isn’t our world, and doesn’t play by our rules, I took that to the extreme.  Now those holes burn giant charred spots of pure, unfiltered sunlight into the earth called the Char Pits.  

What about the cities?  I want them to feel lonely in a crowded room.  I love vast cityscapes that are stuffed to their limit.  It makes any intimate moment absolutely worth finding and gives it so much more meaning when it happens.  Because of the world I’ve built outside of them, I know now that the cities hold 95% or so of Numerika’s population outside of Government.  So it’s sardines in a tin can, there’s barely any room to breathe and the infrastructure is suffering for it.   Cloak it in neon because this is sci fi, and that’s the aesthetic.  But make it grimy.  Disgusting.  Make your skin crawl.  

Some flesh on those bones, right?

STEP THREE: IDENTIFY BIG PLAYERS.

Characters are their own thing, but groups are part of worldbuilding.  And they can fall apart without real structure behind them, real thought and basis in genuine concepts and ideas – either from this world or self made, and given enough basis to feel familiar and instinctual.  And that’s the thing: it doesn’t have to feel good.  Your group just has to, in some way, make sense to the reader even if they don’t agree with them.

Government is one of the hardest things to develop, and I’ve always struggled with it.  When I started Radiation Rat I knew my overlying theme was grey.  No one’s black or white, or right or wrong, there’s a greyness to everything happening here.  Just different shades (ha).  So how can I make the government who did this horrible thing to the MC’s town and family and friends and him have some empathy?  How can the reader understand that?

First, I gave them a risk of war.  Then, I sat down with a friend who studies government and understands them, @skeletongrrl, to talk about what I was looking at for my themes.  I knew what I wanted in theory, but I didn’t know how to parse it.  

Here’s my actual notes, as written out from when I talked to her, taken straight from my google doc:

Illiberal Democracy.  Parliament and Prime Minister like set up.  Maintains foreign power but not domestic power other than control over Power Plants and Heirlooms.  Holds ‘free and fair’ elections that are anything but free and fair.  In an uncomfortable trade deal with the corporatocracy running the Organs.

Locked in a nervous stalemate of approaching nuclear war with foreign bodies.  Based upon the Ficker Theory, access to nuclear codage is a small capsule implanted besides the heart of Government leader’s spouse, accessible only via death with the presumably short notice for nuclear retaliation.  

Control a massive military force and spend most money not used for their own comfort on military gear, weapons, vehicles, etc.

Maybe this sounds nuts, but it was built from ‘kinda democracy but kinda european in theory and extremely elite, paranoid, we’re doing what’s best for you to survive energy.  rich as fuck but kinda don’t use it badly but also really do.’  

Then I talked the Barren Reformation, for which my original notes went something like ‘IF GANGSTERS CONTROLLED CAPITALISM’ and that was about it.  Eventually was handed the term ‘corporatocracy,’ did some research into the mafia, and figured out how I wanted them to run.

Admittedly, I was lucky, having a platonic wife who studies the shit out of this stuff and loves to help me fumble through concepts.  For general use, I would definitely suggest this guide, which if I’d found earlier, might’ve kept me from bothering the wife.  

Groups are… kind of the organs in this body of world building.  They keep the story moving.

STEP FOUR: WRITE IT ALL OUT, DUCK IT ALL OUT.

So writing out your worldbuilding can be stressful.  I suggest starting with a basic set up in a google doc of ‘HEADER’ and then goofy bullet points beneath.  Be relaxed.  Be easy.  Write in all caps or comic sans if it helps.  This is gonna be the easiest way to get your basic thoughts on paper.

Then, the next step, the hardest step, is to rubber duck it.  I say hardest because inevitably, you might end up having to talk to a person about it.  Which can be embarrassing or awkward for you.  But it’s worth it, and here’s why:

The idea of rubber ducking is that if programmers get stuck in their coding, they talk to a rubber duck on their desk about the problem.  It helps your brain work out issues if you can verbalize them, or type them out to another entity that isn’t just you.  Hearing it = healing it, so to speak.  You can talk to a stuffy, a pet, or another person.  I love to duck off of my friends because it’s a mutual thing.  Plus, my ducking works best if I get asked questions.  Thus.  People.  

But any of it works.  The idea is to get it out there and no longer trapped in that skull of yours!  Ducking builds it into more functional notes, like the ones I have above.  

SOME FINAL THINGS TO NOTE.

Never shy away from inspirations, I can reference every bit of my worldbuilding to an inspiration either from other media or IRL.  That’s how creating works.  There’s no such thing as a 100% original idea, and there’s no shame in saying that, because ideas grow from other ones.  Someone else helped you birth your WIP into existence just by being creative for themselves, and that’s beautiful.  Because you’ll do the same thing.

If you’re frustrated, walk away.  I work on multiple stories at a time for that reason, along with other hobbies like roleplaying, knitting, cooking, etc.  Refocus your brain.  Take a scalding bath while watching HOMECOMING on your laptop, which I did, that was magical.  

Let your world change!  What you do now won’t stick.  Radiation Rat was five different worlds before it was this one, and I’m sure some of it will alter before I’m done.  It’s like surgery on the body you’ve built.  Some of those bones are inevitably gonna be broken and you gotta fix it,  but don’t worry about it until you come to it.

Think of the small things.  Food, clothes, dialect, work, and then maybe the big things will come easier like groups, philosophies, moralities, the world.  If I hadn’t thought ‘the rich eat tofu because meat is so fucked up in this world,’ I wouldn’t have come up with 50% of my biome based world building, shit you not.  

And I hope this helped!  It’s a bit long winded, but it’s sort of the best way I could break down my own mental flow!  A lot of my world building is instinctive, so it might be a bit jumbled, and I’m sorry for that.

[phoukanamedpookie]

How to Support Authors Without Spending Any Money

[tlbodine]

Good list! 

Other neat things you can do: 

Add the book to Listopia lists on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/list) 

Add the book to relevant TVTropes pages, if you’re a contributor

Recommend the title on Overdrive (https://help.overdrive.com/en-us/0860.html) 

Make fanart, quote images, mood boards, etc. etc. etc. 

And just for fun, here’s an entertaining article that says most of the same things but is quite amusing: http://www.timclarepoet.co.uk/17-best-ways-boost-authors/

Here’s another link that’s not quite as amusing but is quite thorough: https://shaylaraquel.com/blog/howtosupportauthors

[lmorasey-deactivated20230917]

And someone added some more good info 😄

[ellekandera]

Dear Urban Fantasy fandom,

What I would like to see more of in urban fantasy writing:

- More werecreatures besides werewolves, ie. werebears, werecats, werebirds, etc.

- Transformations for werecreatures that vary from person to person, ie. one person’s might be extremely violent while the other sort of just melds into it

- Werecreatures who have different behaviors while transformed besides “KILL EVERYTHING”

- Werecreatures who don’t have this messed up canon where there can’t be any females, or they can’t give birth, or they’re extremely violent, yadda yadda yadda

- Werecreature loners who were forced to be loners by circumstance rather than chose it and are actually looking for or to form a new pack

- More packs with werecreatures that are positive, supporting places

- Werecreatures with “transformation night” packs so they’re ready for whatever

- People who are friends with werecreatures who knows what’s up and try to help them through the night if they need it

- Werecreatures who are totally cool being werecreatures

- Vampires who are sensitive about their age

- Vampires who aren’t the most beautiful creatures ever to behold in existence UGH

- Vampires with acquired tastes to different blood

- Vampires with different skintones in their own variations of pale

- Vampires who don’t give a flying fatooty about history and are rather annoyed when people start to ask them questions like they should know

- Vampires who can transform into more than just bats

- Vampires who are endlessly frustrated they can’t get drunk but they try anyway

- Vampires who still wear the styles from, like, 20 years ago (70’s vampire guys!)

- Vampires who won’t drink blood without consent

- Vampires that still look like children but are actually well over 200 and swear like sailors

- Vampires in broods

- Vampires who are total geeks and have memorized every line of every Star Trek (or insert your own) movie and quotes them all the time

- Vampires who are totally cool being vampires

- Witches who can’t afford fancy glass vials so they use milk jugs or tupperware

- Witches who make more potions besides liquidy ones, ie. some are really thick and grainy, others slimy, etc

- Witches who specialize in a certain craft, ie. potions, divination, thaumaturgy, etc

- Mass-produced witch items you can find in grocery stores and other witches complaining about how they’re not as powerful as homemade

- More familiars besides cats

- More magical focuses besides wands, ie. a pocketwatch, a favorite old coin, a keychain, etc

- Witches with planters on their windowsill

- Witch magic developing at different times for different people, ie. at birth, puberty, a random age for no reason, etc

- Witches having to LEARN how to use magic properly, not knowing how to do it instantly

- Witch support groups for people having trouble controlling or even using magic

- Wizards who classify as witches and witches who classify as wizards and wizards and witches classifying as neither because that’s who they are

- Witches who summon monsters or demons just to chill or hang out and the monsters and demons are totally chill with it

- Witches who are totally cool being witches

- Other supernatural/mythological creatures besides the regular ones

- Lamias, kelpies, selkies, pischacha, jarita, chimera, xiāo, kui, yōkai, aswang, etc, etc, ETC

- A supernatural society that isn’t hidden from human society and even if they have problems they work together

- Supernatural creatures who run for political office

- Supernatural creatures working as baristas

- Supernaturals creatures who live in specific neighborhoods and identify with different races, classes, religions, etc.

- Supernatural creatures in gangs

- Romances between supernatural creatures, other supernatural creatures, and humans being A-OK and healthy and wonderful

- Romances beyond straight romances

And so much more! Please, guys, we need more variations! We can’t get stuck in an ocean of stale, overused urban fantasy stories! We need to improve upon the genre!

If you have any more ideas, please add on! :)

[scribbling-salmon]

Finally finished my painting! The show was so good I couldn’t resist. 

I’ve also started a little art insta here! It’s not all hellfire, I swear. 

[scribbling-salmon]

I'm writing a story about a loving, devoted father who deeply loves his children and is even a little overprotective. However, he's gotten busy and has lost sight of what's truly important. So, his teenage son winds up in the hospital in a coma dying. Now, the son's going to end up all right (don't worry). But, what's an appropriate way for this father to be? Should I make him stay strong until his son wakes up, only to finally break down in tears of relief? Or should he get teary every no

(2/2) now and then? I don't want to make him constantly crying. But I want these hospital scenes/moments to be impactful and emotional without being too sentimental. Any advice you could give me would be deeply appreciated. And I'd be very grateful. THANK YOU soooo much!! 

Hi! Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been galavanting around Ireland for the past couple weeks. SO. DAD GRIEF. Interesting. I totally get your struggle - being emotional without being dramatic is a hard line to walk. 

First of all, try not to focus too much on tears. They’re often the go-to way of showing grief, but they’re by no means the best or the only. Men, especially men like the one you’ve described, won’t go straight to blubbing when stuff happens and if they do cry, it’s stunted and quickly scrubbed away (this isn’t universal obviously but we can discuss male societal conditioning at a later date). 

But, just because men cry less doesn’t mean they don’t feel things as strongly. I think a powerful way to show the grief could be by increments - stoic silence as he processes what’s going on, then a staunch attempt to ignore it. Maybe he talks to his son like normal, tells him what’s going on with the family, e.g...

“Do you remember in ‘08 when we saw Everton at Goodison Park? Cassie didn’t wanna go but by the end, hell, she was yelling for the blues and you both got flags afterwards, y’know, for your rooms? It’s been years since I got us season tickets. Maybe next year, yeah? Next year, we’ll go.” 

Genuine, snotty crying grief would probably only be shown when he’s alone and not so self-conscious - there’s a brilliant scene in Breaking Bad when the cheerful, solid police officer cracks a joke in the station, laughs with his mates, then gets into a lift and bursts into tears. When the elevator doors open again, he’s back to smiling. I think it’s all about these cracks in the surface, the little windows through which you can see the inner turmoil. A dad would still have to care for his other kids, make dinner etc., all the while trying not to look at the empty space at the table. 

I hope this helps a little bit! Thanks for the ask and do let me know how the story’s coming along! 

[callitgoodwriting-deactivated20]

Tips on Writer’s Block

It’s time to give your brain a break– but bring a notebook or your Notes app!

At a loss for words?

|| You’re not in the right headspace, that’s okay. ||

> Write in a journal, get out your frustrations > Paint or doodle something with the same mood as your writing project > Work on character building > Watch film analysis videos on YouTube (I like the channel Every Frame a Painting) > Read blogs and books on writing > Dance… just dance

Not feelin’ it?

|| You’re inspiration and motivation are probably asleep, that’s okay ||

> Clean or organize something > Read a book > Spruce up your writing space > Watch clips from your favorite movies and TV shows > Watch YouTube channels focused on writers (I love Jenna Moreci’s channel) > Surf Pinterest, make a mood board for your project

Feel kinda broken?

|| Sometimes your brain doesn’t wanna write, that’s okay ||

> Make a playlist (I like to make ones based on the project, a character, or theme) > Go on a walk, even it’s only for two minutes or to get the mail > Listen to an album/artist you haven’t heard in a while > Make yourself a snack or smoothie > Watch an episode of a silly animated series like Futurama or Steven Universe

Whatever you do, truly be mindful about giving yourself a break. Some of my longest writer’s block spans have come from constantly pushing myself to think about the story, while my loss of writer’s block has come from random moments of being distracted. Because as someone with anxiety, distracting myself is sometimes the best thing I can do.

[theliteraryarchitect]

Who? What? Clearing up Ambiguity in Your Story

Note: This is a sneak peak from my forthcoming book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

This section comes from the sentence-level section, but the guide covers story-level, scene-level, and sentence-level editing. If you want to be notified when the book comes out, follow the link above to get added to the book release updates list.

Clearing Up Ambiguity During Your Sentence-Level Edit

Most of the confusing or ambiguous parts of your plot should get cleared up during the story- and scene-level edit of your book. But ambiguity sneaks into stories on the sentence-level, too.

In your sentence-level edit, you’ll want to check for ambiguous words, pronouns, language, and/or phrasing—anything that creates unintentional confusion for your reader.

Ambiguous Pronouns

Anytime you use it, its, this, that, he, she, him, her, his, hers, they, theirs, etc. make sure it’s crystal clear who or what you’re referring to.

Karen took the garlic, carrots, and lemon juice out of the fridge, but according to the recipe it wasn’t enough.

What wasn’t enough? The garlic? Carrots? Lemon juice? All three? To clarify, keep in mind that a pronoun refers to the last named person (for he, she, they) or object (for it, this, that). So in the sentence:

Karen and Diane unpacked her groceries into the fridge.

“Her” would refer to Diane, the last named female person. If those are Karen’s groceries, you’d need to write:

Karen and Diane unpacked Karen’s groceries into the fridge.

It may seem like a minor concern, but ambiguous pronouns can cause serious confusion for the reader, especially if you’re trying to show an important event.

Before: Lars threw the vase at the window, and it broke.

After: The vase broke when Lars threw it at the window.

In the first example, we can’t tell what broke. Was it the vase? The window? The revision, though not exactly poetic, is more clear.

Keep in mind that you can rewrite or reorganize whole passages to remove ambiguity, reworking the problem area until it adheres to your unique style and purposes. These are just examples to guide you, not instructions on how exactly to reword your sentences.

Common Ambiguous Pronouns:

• It • Its • This • That • Those • These • He • She • Him • Her • His • Hers • They • Theirs

Ambiguous Words

Unless the character is truly uncertain, or you want the reader to be uncertain what you’re referring to, avoid using ambiguous words like “something,” “somewhere,” “thing,” “stuff,” etc.

Before: There was something about him she despised.

After: She despised his beached-blonde hair, and his arrogance.

Be specific! If your character really doesn’t know what she hates about this person, “something” could work. But make sure you’re not being vague out of habit or laziness. 

Before: She picked up her stuff from the dry cleaners.

After: She picked up her suit from the dry cleaners.

“Suit” is a better choice here because it’s specific, concrete, and visualize-able. We can’t really get a mental picture of “stuff.”

Common Ambiguous Words:

• Thing • Something • Anything • Somewhere • Stuff • Nothing

When Ambiguity Works

Ambiguity has its place if your character is truly uncertain or if you want the reader to be uncertain.

In Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion, the main character is never named or gendered. This was an intentional choice by the writer, who wanted the reader to be unclear about the narrator’s gender and sexual identity.

Similarly, writers of horror, mystery, or magical realism who are trying to create a mysterious mood will use words like “might,” “could,” and “possibly” to intentionally invoke ambiguity:

The fog drifted through the trees, almost corporeal in its movements. Could it be ghost? An apparition?

In this dream sequence from Little Kingdoms, Steven Millhauser uses ambiguous language to emphasize the main character’s uncanny experience:

“You see,” he said to Max, who for some reason had climbed the desk and then onto the top of the door frame, where he sat crouched like a gnome as dark wings grew from his shoulders; and opening his eyes Franklin could not understand the bright dawn light pouring through the window in his bedroom, while somewhere far away a cup was rattling on a dish.  

When used intentionally, ambiguity can enhance mood, raise questions, and contribute to suspense. Just make sure you’re doing it on purpose!

Note: This post is a sneak peak from my forthcoming book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. If you want to be notified when the book comes out, follow the link above to get added to the book release updates list. :)

//////////////

The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, check out my Free Resource Library, peruse my post guide, or hire me to edit your novel or short story. xoxo

[h-brook-writes]

If you think you’re an untalented hack because writing is hard and there’s still a lot to learn, you’re wrong. Writing is a skill that has to be developed, not an in-born talent that only the Few Blessed Creatives possess.

Your favourite author was not born to write, and you were not born to fail to write.

All of us - you, me, bestsellers - start from zero. When we’re born, we’re yet to learn the names our parents gave us. Nobody comes into the world ready to tap on the keys and produce a masterpiece. Every skill anybody ever possessed was the result of hard work.

You’re not doomed to stagnate creatively just because it wasn’t destined by birth. You’re destined to reach your goals because you’re dedicated to them.

[scribbling-salmon]

Hey! So, I always have this problem where I have one or two side characters I've developed well and I LOVE LOVE LOVE, while meanwhile my protagonist seems kind of flat, more of a means to and an end than a rounded character. Any tips on taking a main character that mostly exists to serve the plot and spicing them up a bit?

Hi! Thanks so much for the ask!

So, I think this is quite a common problem – a lot of the time, the main character is a means of grounding the story and making it accessible to the reader (see: Arthur Dent, Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins), whereas the side characters are able to remain caricatures because we only see the surface of them. 

First of all, maybe have a look at your main character from an outside perspective – if you met them, what would you notice first? Do they have any defining traits, a funny voice, a certain saying, a jaunty walk? How are they different from you and the other characters around them? This doesn’t always mean flaws! Or, it can mean flaws, but not necessarily the grand ‘hubris’ that a lot of traditional main characters have. Are they forgetful? Selfish? Grumpy? Uptight? 

(This can also help to avoid a Mary Sue – is this character essentially you with a different face? Are they, as you say, a means to an end rather than an actual person?)

People are complicated, too. Their flaws can change from moment to moment, they can do things without reason, they can think horrible things and say things they don’t mean. Although this sort of changeability doesn’t always lend itself to more artsy fiction, it can be fun to inject a little chaos into your character.

Give your main character a chance to make choices. Some stories fall a bit flat because the writer sees the action as something that happens TO the characters rather than BECAUSE OF the characters. Arthur Dent, for example, is a perfectly ordinary man, and the only reason he ends up on a spaceship is because he’s a stubborn bastard who lay in front of a bulldozer to prove a point. His agency is as much a part of the plot as the events are, if you see what I mean.

Let them be idiots – Victor Frankenstein is perhaps one of the most infuriating, annoying, stuck up, intricate and compelling main characters ever written and it’s because you’re encouraged to see him as separate from yourself, to judge him and scorn him and hide behind your hands as you read what he’ll do next.

I guess my main point is, try not to get caught on the word ‘relatable’. The more you conflate a character with yourself and your reader, the less rounded they become. The separation between the reader/author and the side characters is often what makes you love them so much, so give a little bit of that distance to your main character.

I hope this helps! Feel free to add to or disagree – these are by no means universal rules, and I am by no means an expert, but I wish you the best of luck in creating an interesting and unique main character!

[nanowrimo]

Publishing: Where do I start?

Maybe you’re at a point in your writing where you have an actual manuscript sitting on your desk. Congratulations! Now, how do you take that looming stack of finely turned phrases and well-placed plot points and convert them into a bound book? Today, NaNoWriMo participant Kayla Stansbury delivers a step by step guide to support you on the journey to publication: 

You’ve written the thing.

You love it. You hate it. You’re ready to publish it.

The starting point for your publishing journey depends on your work and your goals for your writing. There are a few common steps regardless of whether you are publishing a children’s nonfiction book on plant emotions or a high fantasy epic poem.

1. The Market

First, you should determine the market for your work. Start with readership: children, middle grades, young adult, or adult. The age of your protagonist doesn’t necessarily dictate the readership age, but keep in mind that most publishers expect to see a young protagonist in children and middle grades fiction and a teenage protagonist in young adult fiction. Consider the content of your work. Are the themes of your novel, poem, or short story relevant to the concerns of your readership age? Once you have an audience, start researching the publishers who target that market.

Keep reading

[therainsoakedwriter]

How do you get the inspiration to write? I am lacking motivation. Any advice?

Hey Rider! Thank you for my first ask!

Losing the creative spark is a serious pain in butt. 🙁I feel. To get inspiration to plow through, there are usually a few means I turn to.

1. Steal inspiration from other places.

Nothing inspires me more reading books or watching shows I love. Ideas start coming fast after I interact with art I love. Maybe you could try finding music, movies, or books like those you’d like to write? Take the ideas that click and develop them. I’ve always appreciated the sentiment that good artists are simply people who steal others’ ideas and reinvent them.

2. List ideas.

I always keep a document on my phone with a list of ideas. Anytime an idea strikes, good, bad, dumb, or otherwise, I jot it down. That leaves me with a reserve of intriguing topics I can turn to when I’m feeling less inspired.

3. Ask wild questions.

A lot of good stories come from asking yourself dumb questions. “What would happen if...” or “How might X occur...” can lead to interesting ideas. What if Bigfoot were real? How might a spy accidentally become the president? Be wild and think hard about ridiculous but entertaining scenarios.

4. Find prompts off the internet.

When more spontaneous methods of inspiration fail, I turn to one last hope: search engines. Just search for writing prompts—on tumblr, off tumblr, anywhere. I often have to scroll through a lot of different prompts, but I can usually find one that clicks. You can find dialogue prompts, photo prompts, and many more kinds.

So there are a few ways to try to rouse your creative muse. I hope at least one of them can help you. And remember, even if it’s not your best writing, it’s still much better than no writing at all.

Good luck!

[scribbling-salmon]

Do u know any psychologists?

Are you looking for recommendations or are you just concerned about me? 

[thatwritergirlsblog]

Killing off characters: the shoulds and shouldn’ts

1. Why you should

The death is a major plot point

It reveals some shocking plot twist

It supports your themes/what you’re trying to say with your book

Your novel explores the afterlife

You are George R.R Martin and the selling point of your work is that everybody dies

It suits the genre/mood of your novel

2. Why you shouldn’t

The character isn’t serving any purpose (this isn’t the Sims)

You want your readers to be shocked for the sake of being shocked

You want to be edgy

You think your MG story needs more gore

You want to romanticise grieving/loss

3. How you should

This really depends on your genre and target audience

If you’re writing something that isn’t intended to be graphic/traumatic, you can stick to the impact the death has on the other characters. If your novel explores illness, focus on that rather than on the disturbing death scene itself. Perhaps you’re writing a drama/tragic romance - you might want to ease up on the gore here. For these genres, I would suggest focusing on the emotional aspect of the death - the sobbing, the last words, the bright white lights (whatever floats your boat). Think of Mufasa in The Lion King - the actions are suspenseful, but we don’t see him being trampled with his guts spilling everywhere. But it’s still one of the most impactful deaths in fictional history.

If you’re writing in a more mature and gritty genre (like thriller, dark fantasy or crime), you can go all out. If there’s blood and guts, you readers probably want to see it in vivid detail to get their violence fix for the day.

Whichever genre your novel falls into, you should also go with what feels comfortable to you. Even if you’re writing adult dark fantasy, you don’t have to write graphic violence to make a character death impactful.

4. How you shouldn’t

Please don’t let your character have a three-pages-long monologue after they’ve been stabbed in the throat. It’s not realistic and it’s often very boring. Yes, a few well-written last words can have a great impact. Just make sure that your character would realistically be able to speak at that point and that it doesn’t become a cheese fest.

Unless you’re aiming for very dark/nihilistic humour, afford your characters some dignity in the way they kick the bucket. (e.g. don’t use the phrase “kick the bucket”). Having someone slip on a banana peel and then choke on a pretzel is a little ridiculous and will make the entire story seem silly. Once again, this really depends on what you’re going for. If your genre is serious and your character is important and beloved, try for emotion rather than whimsy.

Don’t let your characters die only to be resurrected again and again and again. Look, I love Supernatural (long may they reign), but even I have to admit that the Winchester brothers’ luck with death has become a bit ridiculous. Doing this takes away from the impact of the death - it removes the fear and suspense, and will leave your readers emotionally stunted.

5. Who you shouldn’t

Your only female character in a bid to make the male hero feel something and become a better person

Your only LGBTQIA+ character, who is just too pure to live in this terrible world

Your only character of colour, who dies to save the white hero

Your only disabled character, who can now finally find release from life with disability

The one character who has never experienced a sliver of joy and bears the brunt of the tragedy, right when happiness is finally within their reach

The main character in the middle of the story - unless you have a REALLY good plan for what happens next

Reblog if you found these tips useful. Comment with your own thoughts on killing off characters. Follow me for similar content.

[scribbling-salmon]

How's life, dude?

Hello! Life is weirdly okay! Is fate lulling me into a false sense of security? Maybe! Who knows! But for now, in this humid purgatory before we are inevitably fried by the oncoming Sahara heatwave, life is going good. 

(I swear I’ll be more active once I drag my head from deep within Neil Gaiman’s colon - has anyone seen Good Omens? Does anyone want to rave with me? Come join me in the pit of hyperfixation!) 

Thanks for asking! 

[erinthewriter-blog]

Writing A Fictional Town | Tips & Tricks

When we talk about world building, we usually think scifi or fantasy where we have to create languages and build magic systems that somehow explain away why gravity is upside down or why the walls chant an ancient language that you can only decipher at the witching hour. But what if you just want to create a bizarre little town to set the scene for your story? I did it for Truth Weekend!

So here are 3 Steps to creating your own town.

Step 1: Nail Down An Appropriate Name!

Are you an author aiming for premium chaos like “Riverdale” or a deceitfully happy name like “Sunnybrook” when really there’s sinister activity below the surface? Maybe that has something to do with the hero or villain that got to name the town.

For example, there’s this neighborhood in sunny sleepy Florida called Champaign Lane that consists of middle middle/ lower middle income young people who just got out of college and are buying their first homes. Though it is in a sketchy part of town, all the little houses are a gorgeous pale pink or turquoise with white roofs and immaculate yards, so while I find the name to be ironic, I also view it as a goal. The residents are hungry and ambitious youth, hustling to make their dreams come true so that they can get to the place in life where they’re popping champagne. This also poses an allegory for living behind a passible facade of having lots of money and happiness when really we don’t. The hidden juxtaposition adds an extra layer to your setting and you didn’t even have to do that much.

Step two: what are all the secrets and sins of the town?

What are the legends of the lake? What streets are for daylight only? Who is the woman in the window you’re told stay away from?

Recently I was reading an idealistic romance set in a fake town in California with a scene in a grocery store where a character looks at a missing child flyer and says “It’s a shame this family can’t catch a break. Her sister literally drowned in Lake Eerie three months ago.” A small moment like that adds so much texture and validity to the scene and suddenly the thing on the page is alive again.

So if you’re looking for a nifty little writing exercise then I’d say write up three myths or legends about the places and people of your town. Bonus points if there’s story about the crooked family on the tallest hill.

Step 3: Define the details of what makes your town so special.

What are the oddities and marvels of this place that are so distinct that you couldn’t set it in a real town or a real neighborhood? I like to separate this stage of planning into three parts: color, aesthetic, & monuments.

For me, a fun way to get the wheels turning when world building is to create a color pallet. In the opening of Truth Weekend, the colors in Skye’s world are quite muted and grungy, but when we meet Rosie there’s a lot of plums, burgundies, wine red, and amber.

As they enter this new world together, the colors change again and there’s a vibrancy to it. It’s not just blue, its cobalt and if its red, its neon. It’s like the saturation is cranked all the way to 100 to reflect the emotional intensity and how uncomfortable, but cathartic this situation is and as their relationship changes the we then get into the lavenders, the magentas, and the concept of yellow which poses a fitting dichotomy in its meaning of rebirth and cowardice. Use color theory to you advantage! The symbolism writes itself.

Next, the Aesthetic

This lets you hone in on your unique style, your voice, your vision while having a touch stone to come back to.

Are we going for a Florida gothic, where we have an orange field on one side of the road and on the other side we have a marble cherub in front of a waffle house? I once saw a motel sign where the tagline read: stay for a while… stay forever. This creep-fest feeds into that well-meaning but unhinged Midwestern gothic of cornfields, dirt roads, and rumors of three eyed blood deer.

Look up some photos and make a list. Here’s an example of if I wanted to write a fun quirktastic town: sunny side up wall paper, the Oasis motel, conspiracy theory diner, rainbow slushies, cannabis cookie shop, a yellow house shaped like a boot, an iguana eating hydrangeas in sunflower fields, crop circle picnics, and a bookstore built for an acid trip.

Don’t be afraid to include wild life, nature, and peculiar architecture within this list, but if your creative genius mind doesn’t jive with aesthetics we still have monuments, which is the best part of this whole thing.

Monuments: What are the key locations that are only in this town?

What are the hot spots of the town? Where do the old people hang out? Is the town covered in graffiti or is it very buttoned up? Maybe it is abnormally homogenous. Is there a mansion next to a trailer park or a prison next to a school?

To get you mind cooking, create 10 unique locations. Why ten? Because it’s a good number, but you can always expand it. Create 10 locations and watch your dream town that is so full of character and foreshadowing unfold in front of you.

Alright guys that’s all that I have for you today. I hope it this got the creative juices rolling. Comment down below and let me know any more hyper-specific topics you want me to hit on. Happy writing!

[frognonbinary-deactivated202412]

i’ve been doing my homework on how to break into a writing career and honestly. there’s a Lot that i didn’t know about thats critical to a writing career in this day and age, and on the one hand, its understandable because we’re experiencing a massive cultural shift, but on the other hand, writers who do not have formal training in school or don’t have the connections to learn more via social osmosis end up extremely out of loop and working at a disadvantage. 

[frognonbinary-deactivated202412]

like, i didnt know about twitter pitch parties!! i didnt know about literary agents and publishers tweeting their manuscript wishlist, in hopes that some poor soul out there has written the book they really want to read and publish!! this isnt some shit you learn about in school! you really need to know the ins and outs of the writing community to be successful! 

[frognonbinary-deactivated202412]

for anyone interested, here’s what i’ve learned so far in my quest for more writing knowledge:

1. Writer’s Market 2019 is a great place to start– it gives you a list of magazines and journals that you can send your work to depending on the genre as well as lists a shit ton of literary agents that specify what genres they represent, how you can get in contact with them and how they accept query letters. this is a book that updates every year and tbh i only bought it this year so i dont know how critical it is to have an updated version  

2. do your research. mostly on literary agents because if you listed on your site that you like to represent fluffy YA novels and some asshole sends you a 80k manuscript about like…gritty viking culture, you will be severely pissed off. always go in finding someone who you know will actually like your work because they’re the ones who will try to advocate for you in getting published.

3. learn how to write a query letter. there are slightly varying formulas to how you can write an effective query letter. you’re also going to want to get feedback on your query letter because its the first thing the literary agent will read and based on how well you do it, it could be the difference between them rejecting you outright and giving your manuscript a quick read

4. unfortunately, you’re gonna want to get a twitter. Twitter is where a lot of literary agents are nowadays, and they host things like twitter pitch parties, where you pitch your manuscript in a few sentences and hashtag it with #Pitmad #Pitdark, some version of pit. a lot of literary agents and publishers will ALSO post their manuscript wishlists, which is just the kind of books they’d like to represent/publish, and they hashtag this with #MSWL (it is NOT for writers to use, only for agents/publishers)

5. connect with other writers, literary agents, publishers at book events. you will absolutely need the connections if you want to get ahead as a writer. thats just kind of the state of the world.

[promptsforthesoul]

[theticklishpear]

Table of Contents:

Part One: One Plot Fits All Part Two: Where Inspiration Lives Part Three: Determining Length Part Four: The Components of Plot Part Five: Braving Beginnings Part Six: Provoking Story Part Seven: The Long Climb Part Eight: At the Peak Part Nine: The Endgame Part Ten: Weaving Story Ropes Part Eleven: The Truth About Exposition Part Twelve: Outlining VS. Plotting Part Thirteen: Three Points To Pay Attention To Part Fourteen: Concept Is Not Plot

(Note from Pear: This series is indefinitely open to new posts. As they are added, this post will be updated. Like always, you can find original content in the posts by pear tag and the table of contents tag for series.)