al || navidson's version

[sleepngwriter]

Sanderson’s laws of magic

In my arrogant opinion, this post is super cool. I love Sanderson, I love magic systems, but he surely loves them and knows them more than me so I’ll shut up and show you his tips, or better, his laws to improve your writing:

The author's ability to resolve conflicts in a satisfying way with magic is directly proportional to how the reader understands said magic.

Weaknesses are more interesting than powers.

Expand, don’t Add.

T-that’s pretty much it! Have fun!

[sleepngwriter]

Mythological books that deserve more hype

Hello writers! If you write you almost certainly also read a lot (you should), and lately modern mythological books are super trendy so, these are my personal favourites:

(this one is Italian and has never been translated, so if you’re a foreigner move on to the second point). Il Giudizio di Persefone di Giulia Calligola. Autopubblicato su amazon, poco conosciuto, geniale. É il primo, stupendo libro della serie Dei della nuova era. Non ho ancora letto gli altri due ma penso che lo farò presto. Tra tutti i retellings del mito delle stagioni che conosco questo è a mani basse il mio preferito. Ne ho apprezzato soprattutto l’autenticità, Persefone non è la tipica protagonista del tipico romance, normalmente li disprezzo, è una persona reale in cui ci si può davvero rispecchiare, così come tutti gli altri personaggi. Non è noioso ne tantomeno banale, un vero chef kiss.

Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann. This book is the story of a dysfunctional family, made up of humanized Olympians, set in a small rural town in Texas. It’s one of the most catching books I’ve ever read, it didn’t take me more than a couple of days to finish it. 

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. If you know me you must know how much I love Neil Gaiman, he’s one of my favorite authors, and out of all of his books, this is one of those that I enjoyed the most. It’s so interesting, I’ve been literally obsessed with it for a very long time. And you will be too, trust me.

Mythos by Stephen Fry. This book is hilarious. It’s perfect if you’re searching for a light read but that still conveys something. It’s modern, adapted to our era, and it interprets the Greek Myths under an ironic, intelligent and meaningful key. I loved it.

The Kane Chronicles & Magnus Chase by Rick Riordan. I must admit, I haven’t read all of those books, but everyone knows Rick Riordan only for Percy Jackson (which is also great, I wanted to include it but it definitely has enough hype) but he has proved his talent in many other books! Including these, the first series is about Egyptian Mythology, the other one is about Norse Mythology. I’ve read and adored the first book of both of them! 

Do you have any other recommendation? <3

[sleepngwriter]

Show don’t tell tips

Today I’ve been feeling particularly inspired. Not enough to write my wip, but enough to write some posts on a blog I didn’t remember I had.

So, in my last post I mentioned the show don’t tell rule, but what is it exactly? When and how should we use it? [n.b. I am not a professional writer (yet), these tips aren’t all mine, feel free to plenish!]

This technique is a very important part of the narrative, it helps the reader understanding implied details, it can make a scene less trivial and more intense... For example, if your character is feeling sad, instead of writing “Jimmy is sad”, try with “he felt the tears rolling down his cheeks”. Can you see which sentence is more impactful?

These some other tips that can help you improve your writing:

If your character isn’t aware of something, it shouldn’t be clear to your reader either. Of course, this depends on the type of narrator you chose for your story, but the concept is kinda the same. If your character is starting to feel depressed, but he doesn’t know it, don’t write “I’m depressed” or “Jimmy is depressed”, write the symptoms. Did he lose his interests? Did he lose his appetite? Does he have trouble sleeping?

Describe body language. Is your character feeling nervous? Don’t limit yourself to this, write the effects that those feelings are having on your character’s body. For example: He could feel the sweat on his face, his hands were shaking and his heart was beating fast.

Use the dialogues. Your characters can say much more than you can, let them speak. If your characters are fighting, don’t just write “they started to argue”, but show the argument.

-Son of a b***h!- she said. (Don’t be afraid of using curses if they are required. People use them, it will make your characters more realistic, there’s nothing wrong with it).

-How could you do this to me?!-

-I hate you!-

And so on. See, you don’t need to write that they’re angry, it’s perfectly clear.

I’m sure that the most of you already used this writing hack, even if you didn’t know its name. But if you didn’t, try this out in your next rewrite, I can promise you it will completely change your life!

[sleepngwriter]

Stephen King’s writing tips

Unlike me, Stephen King can afford to give writing tips. He can write an entire book about how brilliant and superior he is. Because he’s brilliant. He’s superior. He’s a king.

So, what does the king of contemporary horror literature suggest to his young aspiring writers?

First, know the grammar, read a lot, talk to people. That’s it, this is the first tip. Pretty obvious, isn’t it?

Use active verbs, he made it perfectly clear that he hates the passive form, just as he hates adverbs. How to blame him, everyone should hate too many adverbs. Another thing to avoid are all the steroid inflated synonyms of the verb to say. If you can’t write “he/she/they said” don’t write anything, it’s not always necessary.

Find yourself a place where you feel comfortable and set a daily goal, a routine. If you can write every night, do it. If you can write every afternoon, do it. If you want this to be your job, you can’t write only when you feel like it.

Write what you love to read, not what other people love to read.

The story is not the most important thing: the situation is, then the characters. They need to be alive, they need to trace their own path.

Explain things with dialogues, the famous show don’t tell golden rule.

Experience boredom. It’s perfectly fine to sit and stare at the wall if that’s what you need. Don’t force yourself, the world won’t collapse if you don’t write 20k words a day. The best ideas come by themselves.

Don’t tell everything about your characters, leave some mystery. 

Before being an advice, this is a reminder. Not everyone will like you and your stories, no matter how much you implement these tips and that’s fine. We’re all different, we all like different things so it happens to be criticized (oops passive form alert). That doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer, don’t give up!

[sleepngwriter]

I was terrified of opening Tumblr but I'm only finding Byler content like, aren't we gonna talk about...it...? Like, nice, Will is definitely gay but I know that everyone in concentrating on that because you can't deal with the emotional pain inside your bodies. Let it out guys. Let it out.

[theglowpt2-deactivated20200101]

reblog if you are lucas sinclair, support lucas sinclair, or would personally fight billy hargrove with your own two fists 

[sleepngwriter]

nothing to add.

[vanishbyers]

send me ur theories/headcanons/whatever abt st4 plssssss im gonna be so bored today

[sleepngwriter]

Max and Lucas will get back together in a super emotional way and none of them will die because otherwise I'm gonna explode.