my 10 holy grail pieces of writing advice for beginners
from an indie author who's published 4 books and written 20+, as well as 400k in fanfiction (who is also a professional beta reader who encounters the same issues in my clients' books over and over)
show don't tell is every bit as important as they say it is, no matter how sick you are of hearing about it. "the floor shifted beneath her feet" hits harder than "she felt sick with shock."
no head hopping. if you want to change pov mid scene, put a scene break. you can change it multiple times in the same scene! just put a break so your readers know you've changed pov.
if you have to infodump, do it through dialogue instead of exposition. your reader will feel like they're learning alongside the character, and it will flow naturally into your story.
never open your book with an exposition dump. instead, your opening scene should drop into the heart of the action with little to no context. raise questions to the reader and sprinkle in the answers bit by bit. let your reader discover the context slowly instead of holding their hand from the start. trust your reader; don't overexplain the details. this is how you create a perfect hook.
every chapter should end on a cliffhanger. doesn't have to be major, can be as simple as ending a chapter mid conversation and picking it up immediately on the next one. tease your reader and make them need to turn the page.
every scene should subvert the character's expectations, as big as a plot twist or as small as a conversation having a surprising outcome. scenes that meet the character's expectations, such as a boring supply run, should be summarized.
arrive late and leave early to every scene. if you're character's at a party, open with them mid conversation instead of describing how they got dressed, left their house, arrived at the party, (because those things don't subvert their expectations). and when you're done with the reason for the scene is there, i.e. an important conversation, end it. once you've shown what you needed to show, get out, instead of describing your character commuting home (because it doesn't subvert expectations!)
epithets are the devil. "the blond man smiled--" you've lost me. use their name. use it often. don't be afraid of it. the reader won't get tired of it. it will serve you far better than epithets, especially if you have two people of the same pronouns interacting.
your character should always be working towards a goal, internal or external (i.e learning to love themself/killing the villain.) try to establish that goal as soon as possible in the reader's mind. the goal can change, the goal can evolve. as long as the reader knows the character isn't floating aimlessly through the world around them with no agency and no desire. that gets boring fast.
plan scenes that you know you'll have fun writing, instead of scenes that might seem cool in your head but you know you'll loathe every second of. besides the fact that your top priority in writing should be writing for only yourself and having fun, if you're just dragging through a scene you really hate, the scene will suffer for it, and readers can tell. the scenes i get the most praise on are always the scenes i had the most fun writing. an ideal outline shouldn't have parts that make you groan to look at. you'll thank yourself later.
I wish I could find more fiction where romance isn’t the center of the story but also the romance in it is absolutely devastating… sometimes it lowkey feels the love stories in random YA fantasy and dystopian books or the side plot of a marvel movie are better than literal romance novels
Can we just talk about how much music helps with writing? Don’t know if I’m the only one, but I’ll often have curated playlists with a certain “vibe” of my works and listen to those playlist to help motivate me.
It’s almost like a switch in my brain, like, “Ohp, we’re listening to this playlist? Time to work on its associated WIP.”
AM I THE ONLY ONE?! Am I crazy? Because that’s very possible…
The thing about The Pitt is that every character is nuanced and contains both good and bad within them and you have to see everything in shades of gray...
...except for Dana Evans, who has done nothing wrong ever in her life and I will break the nose of anyone who says otherwise.
my preferences for sambucky fics are usually set in canon and multi chapter and ideally with mixed perspectives. i've definitely read and enjoyed aus before but they're not my go to. so most of my faves aren't shorter fics or no powers aus bc those dont tend to stay with me or interest me 🤷
anyway onto some faves
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
(really excited for the sequels for this one above, haven't had the chance to read them yet)
idk there's others that i enjoyed but there's thousands of fics to sift through and some i like that are really only sambucky flavoured and there's so many more that i've liked up until a certain bullshit level was hit or some that i genuinely dont understand why they are so loved. there's definitely more to rec but i got lazy trying to find them bc im bad at bookmarking and part of me thinks if i couldn't remember them off the top of my head were they...worthy of a rec? lol idk
75. Percabeth -64
Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase, the Percy Jackson universe
76. Hucklerobby
Dennis 'Huckleberry' Whitaker & Michael 'Robby' Robinavitch, The Pitt
77. Bunnydoll
Jax & Ragatha, The Amazing Digital Circus
78. Wangxian -25
Lan Wangji & Wei Wuxian, Mo Dao Zu Shi
79. Shadowpeach -19
Sun Wukong & the Six-Eared Macaque, Lego Monkie Kid
80. Eternalberry
Hollyberry Cookie & Eternal Sugar Cookie, the Cookie Run franchise
81. Odypen
Odysseus & Penelope, EPIC: The Musical
82. Mizisua
Mizi & Sua, Alien Stage
83. Sterek
Stiles Stilinski & Derek Hale, Teen Wolf
84. Shadowvanilla
Pure Vanilla & Shadow Milk, the Cookie Run franchise
85. Moshang
Mobei-Jun & Shang Qinghua, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
86. Spideypool
Spider-Man & Deadpool, the Marvel universe
87. Davekat 0
Dave Strider & Karkat Vantas, Homestuck
88. Heavymedic
Heavy Weapons Guy & Medic, Team Fortress 2
89. Lumax
Lucas Sinclair & Max Mayfield, Stranger Things
90. Sonamy
Sonic the Hedgehog & Amy Rose, Sonic the Hedgehog
91. Rookanis
Rook & Lucanis Dellamorte, Dragon Age: The Veilguard
92. Zoeystery
Zoey & Mystery, KPop Demon Hunters
93. Poolverine -90
Wade Wilson & Logan Howlett, the Marvel universe
94. Everlark -12
Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark, The Hunger Games
95. Clois
Clark Kent & Lois Lane, Superman
96. Johnlock
John Watson & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock
97. Agathario -21
Agatha Harkness & Rio Vidal, the Marvel universe
98. Stolitz -64
Stolas & Blitzo, Helluva Boss
99. Devil's Minion
Armand & Daniel Molloy, Interview with the Vampire & The Vampire Chronicles
100. Skystar
Skyfire & Starscream, Transformers
The number in italics indicates how many spots a ship moved up or down from 2024. Bolded ships weren’t on the list last year.
*And, it turnes out we love pure vanilla x shadow milk so much, our data actually pulled it twice. Woops! We hope you enjoy nonetheless, and thank you for understanding❣️
How did your ships fare this week? Did your faves make the cut? Any surprises? Tag your posts and commentary with #ships week 2026 to keep this party going. Thanks for joining us. Now, go forth and keep doin what you're doin tumblr <3
i hate when rich people condescend with the whole 'money can't buy happiness' argument like listen. just because buying your fourth car didn't fill the void in your deluded disconnected-from-reality life doesn't mean not having to worry about food/ bills/medicine wouldn't greatly improve the mental health of literally everyone else on the planet
I fear that anyone who says stuff like “ugh atyd is awful because Remus is so ooc and Sirius is a misogynist and wolfstar are so toxic in it” not only a) has terrible fandom etiquette but b) MISSED THE WHOLE POINT
Atyd is not a story about Remus Lupin
Atyd is not a story about Wolfstar
Atyd is not a story about the First Wizarding War
Atyd is a story about class and privilege. Atyd is a story about queerness and comphet. Atyd is a story about disability. Atyd is a story about the intersectionality of class, privilege, queerness and disability. Atyd is a story about growing up and learning how to be a person. Atyd is a story about morality, sometimes being a ‘bad person’ and what this even means. Atyd is about war and grief and societal circumstances forcing your hand. Atyd is a story about emotionally driven decisions and how they affect the people we love. On that note, Atyd is a story about love, but in all its beautifully complex and messy shades, not fairytale romance.
All The Young Dudes is one of the most layered and nuanced works of fiction to ever exist and 99.9999% of criticisms I see of it can be boiled down to “tell me you lack media literacy without telling me you lack media literacy”
Also again, for the love of Remus Lupin, please please PLEASE stop publicly slating fanfictions. Everyone has personal taste and you won’t enjoy everything you read, but fics aren’t published works that have invited critique. They’ve been provided to you for FREE by a fellow nerd in the community so keep any negative thoughts you have on fics to your self.
I’m not saying everyone has to enjoy Atyd or that people can’t think that Remus is OOC etc. BUT the fic is not bad because it’s not to your personal taste and like I said, the overwhelming justifications I see for why people think it’s bad seem to entirely miss the point/ the fact that some of these choices are absolutely intentional from the author. Like, of course Sirius makes objectifying comments about Mary… he’s a teenage boy in the 1970s who is massively overcompensating to cover his queerness. A huge part of his character arc is comphet???
“We want complicated characters!” people scream until they see a seventeen year old kid on the precipice of fighting in a war for a society that has shunned him for his disability be moody and mean to his boyfriend
Anyway enough of me rambling. Long story short, I’m an ATYD defender until I die
imagine talking to ur friends weird evil mom and she tells u to go deliver a message to a literal king and then finding out ur dead dad/grandpa/neighbor/creator/principal/teacher had a secret twin and then you get ur language teacher to get you a visa to a war ridden and on lockdown country and then you go home and ur best friend/cousin is waiting for you in ur room trying to play off that he's liked you for two years and that it's totally fine that he does bc ur not actually genetically cousins. so naturally you kiss him and scare him so bad he doesn't talk to you for a week. and then you just go to bed because only one day has passed
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