write.

(I really should be writing right now)

[spinninginwords]

How many times do I need to learn the lesson... NO READING BEFORE BED.

[jimkirksfatass]

do you ever feel like you love a character more than their own writers do

[spinninginwords]

Its because the writers have to deal with their uncooperative pre-teen phase where nothing they said made any sense and had to be told to do everything.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

listen I ended up regretting saying anything about this on my old blog because people will interpret literally any and every statement maliciously on this hellsite but I want to start like. a helpline for people who are like “hey I pretty much only read YA but I’m like 22 now and don’t relate to teenagers as much, it’s such a shame that there are no fun books written for adults :(” because boy HOWDY are there some fun books for adults 

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

maybe I’ll start a big google doc or something one day but for now *deep breath*

The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - absolutely BUCKWILD romance with a dash of telekinesis; nonstop high society drama and misunderstanding from start to finish, happy ending guaranteed. STRONGLY recommend if you, like me, are a basic bitch who enjoys a bit of Pride and Prejudice. 

Binti (Nnedi Okorafor) - a math prodigy runs away from Earth to become the first of her people to attend a prestigious university in space, but shit gets real when a crew of hostile jellyfish aliens attack her ship. 

Chilling Effect (Valerie Valdes) - a spaceship captain and her crew take on a series of convoluted missions in order to rescue the captain’s sister, who’s been frozen and held for ransom. 

The City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty) - an 18th century conwoman and a mysterious djinn team up to go looking for a legendary hidden city.

The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin) - a scrappy bunch of Chosen Ones have to band together to defend New York City (which is very much alive) from a huge ass monster. 

The Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone) - a lady supervillain gets blasted into space and meets an even bigger, planet-destroying evil space empress. literally WHAT is not to like?

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - high fantasy royal drama about a woman making her way to power in the wake of a political marriage that left without friends or allies. 

Escaping Exodus (Nicky Drayden) - a space-faring clan are creating their latest spaceship from the insides of a giant monster when absolutely everything goes to shit (as things are wont to do in science fiction stories). 

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (Kai Cheng Thom) - a trans girl runs away to the big city, where she uses her martial arts skills to team up with other trans woman and form a vigilante gang to defend their own when police look the other way. a fascinating blend of poetry and prose and magical realism. 

Finna (Nino Cipri) - two exes working at an IKEA have to team up to save a customer who disappeared through one of those interdimensional portals that all IKEAs have laying around. you know how it is.

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) - come on, you’ve heard about this one. it’s the one with the lesbian space necromancers? yeah, that’s the one. you got it.

In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) - a Beauty and the Beast retelling based in science fiction and Vietnamese fantasy, featuring a young woman falling in love with a “beast” who’s actually a motherly dragon after becoming a tutor to the dragon’s two powerful children. 

Jade City (Fonda Lee) - urban fantasy gang wars, pitting one magically enhanced family against rivals and a new drug that lets anyone mimic their abilities. 

The Library of the Unwritten (A.J. Hackwith) - hell’s librarian gets sent on a quest to find a runaway soul. 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Becky Chambers) - aka one of my favorite books ever, essentially slice of life science fiction following an interspecies crew of deep space truckers making the longest and most complicated delivery of their lives. very warm and fuzzy. 

Mort (Terry Pratchett) - one of many MANY Discworld books, but a very good one to start with, following the adventures of a boy named Mort after he’s taken on as Death’s apprentice. you know, like the Grim Reaper? that Death. 

River of Teeth (Sarah Gailey) - historical AU in which the United States imported and domesticated hippos in the Mississippi River; follows a crew of hippo-riding crooks and hooligans as they plan one heck of a caper. 

Space Opera (Catherynne Valente) - a washed up rock star and his old bandmate get roped into performing in an intergalactic singing competition that will determine the fate of the entire planet Earth. full of aliens, attempted assassination, art, and emotional turmoil. 

This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) - time-travelling assassins from rival factions fall in love in a poetic and breathless story that spans centuries and reality. 

Under the Pendulum Sun (Jeannette Ng) - fairyland is real, and Victorian England is sending missionaries. a woman and her brother attempt to bring the good word to the fair folk, but start to suspect the queen might just be screwing with their heads. PEAK gothic horror with a creepy fairy twist. 

Witchmark (C.L. Polk) - a doctor and former soldier with magical powers of healing is trying to live a quiet life and avoid his controlling, aristocratic family’s plans for him, only to get tangled up in a massive political conspiracy when one of his patients mysterious dies. accompanying him in his investigation is a mysterious and gorgeous faerie man. romance ensues. 

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

for those of y’all who like goodreads I’ve started a shelf of adult books for ya fans, which is currently 40+ books strong and will continue to grow

[michaelbjorkwrites]

5 frustrating workshop rules that made me a better writer

Throughout the 15 workshops I joined in college and grad school, I encountered two types of writing rules.

First, there were the best-practice guidelines we’ve all heard, like “show don’t tell.” And then there were workshop rules, which the professor put in place not because they’re universal, but because they help you grow within the context of the workshop.

My college’s intro writing course had 5 such rules:

No fantasy, supernatural, or sci-fi elements.

No guns.

No characters crying.

No conflict resolution through deus ex machina.

No deaths.

When I first saw the rules, I was baffled. They felt weirdly specific, and a bit unfair. But when our professor, Vinny, explained their purpose (and assured us he only wanted us to follow the rules during this intro workshop, not the others to come), I realized what I could learn from them.

1. No fantasy, supernatural, or sci-fi elements.

Writers need to be able to craft round characters, with clear arcs. While you can hone those skills writing any type of story, it can be more difficult when juggling fantastical elements, because it’s easy to get caught up in the world, or the magic, or the technology, and to make that the focus instead of the characters. So Vinny encouraged us to exclude such elements for the time being, to keep us fully focused on developing strong, dynamic characters.

2. No guns.

Weapons have a place in many stories, but when writers include a gun, they often use it to escalate the plot outside of the realm of personal experience and into what Vinny called “Hollywood experience.” He wanted us to learn how to draw from our own observations and perceptions of life, rather than the unrealistic action, violence, and drama we’d seen in movies, so he made this rule to keep us better grounded in our own experiences.

3. No characters crying.

When trying to depict sadness, writers often default to making characters cry. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, tears are just one way to show grief, and they aren’t always the most subtle or emotionally compelling. That’s why Vinny challenged us to find other ways to convey sadness — through little gestures, strained words, fragile interactions, and more. It was difficult, but opened us up to depicting whole new gradients of grief and pain.

4. No conflict resolution through deus ex machina.

This is the only one of the rules I’d say is generally universal. Meaning “God from the machine,” deus ex machina is a plot device where a character’s seemingly insurmountable problem is abruptly resolved by an outside force, rather than their own efforts. These endings are bad for various reasons, but Vinny discouraged them because he wanted us to understand how important it was for our characters to confront their struggle and its consequences.

5. No deaths.

Death is inherently dramatic and can be used to good effect, but many writers use death as crutch to create drama and impact. Writers should be able to craft engaging, meaningful stories, even without killing off their characters, so this rule challenged us to find other methods of giving weight to our stories (such as through internal conflict).

How these rules helped me grow as a writer

First things first, I’ll say it again: apart from #4 (deus ex machina), these rules were never meant to be universally applied. Instead, their purpose was to create temporary barriers and challenges to help us develop key skills and write in new, unfamiliar ways.

For me, the experience was invaluable. I liked the way the rules challenged and stretched my abilities, driving me to write stories I’d have never otherwise attempted. They made me more flexible as a writer, and while I don’t follow the rules anymore (I LOVE me some fantasy), I’ll always be thankful for how they shaped my writing.

My recommendation to you?

Give some of these rules a shot! Follow them temporarily while writing 2-4 stories — but remember to always keep their purpose in mind, because the rules themselves will only help if you understand what they’re trying to achieve.

Write with purpose, and you’ll always be growing.

— — —

For more tips on how to craft meaning, build character-driven plots, and grow as a writer, follow my blog.

[fierceawakening]

so point 1 is don’t write in your genre huh, i thought we’d grown past that

[kyraneko]

I’m annoyed by that one too.

I find it more useful to work around it by genre-hopping—placing the same story, or the bones of it, in different settings, paying attention to how I adapted it, looking at what I might do when the story is supported by fantastical elements when shifting into a setting where those elements aren’t there.

A lot of this is similar to fanfic AUs—what are characters like in an entirely different world than the one that made them who they are? what replaces something like magic or superpowers, if anything does? what makes a setting resonate with the reader, and what might make it jarring or uncomfortable to some, many, or most readers?

For that matter, introducing fantasy elements smoothly and seamlessly is much the same skill as 

(I’m curious as to how “no fantasy/supernatural/sci-fi elements” gets defined. A ghost actually existing in the story is obviously a supernatural element, but what about a character’s fear of ghosts? What about the unconfirmed possibility of a ghost? What about the memory of a dead person, real to the character to the point where it could easily be a ghost as far as they’re concerned? To define this too stringently is to cut off a significant amount of actual human experience, since so much of what we are involves hopes, fears, wonderings, and brushes with the unknown. Are a character’s religious beliefs a supernatural element, if he or she believes fervently? Is a child talking about a cartoon a sci-fi element? Is a character encountering some sort of new-to-them technology like a telephone or indoor plumbing a sci-fi element if you write it like a sci-fi story? Is someone programming themselves an AI to have a friend still sci-fi if we can actually do that?)

(It’s interesting to me the extent to which good characterization is absent from a lot of “pure” non-spec-fic writing, including much of what’s considered High Literature … as though the authors viewed a technically-correct, proper, stuffy-English-professor-approved manuscript whose characters occupy the viewer’s attention for the length of the story and no more as all that was necessary or desired. It shares that quality with romance novels and cheap erotica, and I highly doubt the stuffy English professors of the world would appreciate that comparison.)

[fierceawakening]

I’m also annoyed by “no characters crying” given that we live in a world where men, especially men with a particular sort of masculine presentation, aren’t supposed to cry.

Maybe I like male characters crying too much because of that bit of cultural meaning but… I feel like it’s a good thing to depict, not a bad one.

[emeraldmercury]

This has the same energy as my drawing teacher in school constantly giving me low marks for being unable to draw in realistic style because “cartoon style isn’t drawing” and “those Chinese cartoons [manga] isn’t real art.”

If you constantly restrict people like that you’ll stifle their creativity and all cultural works will start looking the same because people will be so scared to look “like a good writer” that they will play it safe all the time.

In fact that’s why Oscar movies are so boring - because only a very specific type of movie with a strict formula can get Oscar or Academy awards, they aren’t seen as good movies but as “Oscar bait.”

[dashaibo]

Or maybe consider that some stories have a character focus and some stories have a world-building focus.

Isaac Asimov is considered a classic writer and he’s much more about big broad concepts and exploration of futuristic ideas than character growth.

Literally one of my favorite books is just following a guy in a dystopian future monarchist Russia who executes enemies of the state and partakes in hypocritical secret gay orgies for a day. No character growth, no nothing. Just a brutal exploration of one idea.

I’m a character-oriented writer myself, but that’s not the only way to tell a story.

[lordascapelion]

People on this post thinking that these are hard rules and not the boundaries for a particular writing exercise. This is a good challenge, even if you do like genre writing.

[dashaibo]

Tons of pretentious writers take these as hard rules

[the-doctor-s]

Rule 4 makes sense. All the others are just arbitrary limitations. I don’t really like them.

[spinninginwords]

To echo the previous statement...These are exercise rules not writing rules. It is meant to put barriers in order to flex muscles you might not usually use. This isn't to be used in trying to write something you would publish. Everyone needs to practice with limitations so they may write their actual stories without them. Or else... How are you supposed to get any better? You think you are improving by just writing in the same way and trying the same tricks over and over? If writing is just a fun thing you do and you don't care about improving or studying the craft... Just keep scrolling.

[hazzabooween]

Ways To Describe Someone's Voice

adenoidal (adj): if someone’s voice is adenoidal, some of the sound seems to come through their nose

appealing (adj): an appealing look/voice shows that you want help, approval, or agreement

breathy (adj): with loud breathing noises

brittle (adj): if you speak in a brittle voice, you sound as if you are about to cry

croaky (adj): if someone’s voice sounds croaky, they speak in a low, rough voice that sounds as if they have a sore throat

dead (adj): if someone’s eyes or voice are dead, they feel or show no emotion

disembodied (adj): a disembodied voice comes from someone who you cannot see

flat (adj): spoken in a voice that does not go up and down; this word is often used for describing the speech of people from a particular region

fruity (adj): a fruity voice or laugh is deep and strong in a pleasant way

grating (adj): a grating voice, laugh, or sound is unpleasant and annoying

gravelly (adj): a gravelly voice sounds low and rough

gruff (adj): this voice has a rough, low sound

guttural (adj): a guttural sound is deep and made at the back of your throat

high-pitched (adj): true to its name, a high-pitched voice or sound is very high

hoarse (adj): someone who is hoarse, or has a hoarse voice, speaks in a low, rough voice, usually because their throat is sore

honeyed (adj): honeyed words or a honeyed voice sound very nice, but you cannot trust the person who is speaking

husky (adj): a husky voice is deep and sounds hoarse (as if you have a sore throat), often in an attractive way

low (adj): a low voice is quiet and difficult to hear; also used for describing a deep voice that has a long wavelength

matter-of-fact (adj): usually used if the person speaking knows what they are talking about (or absolutely think they know what they are talking about)

modulated (adj): a modulated voice is controlled and pleasant to listen to

monotonous (adj): this kind of voice is boring and unpleasant due to the fact that it does not change in loudness or become higher/lower

nasal (adj): someone with a nasal voice sounds as if they are speaking through their nose

orotund (adj): an orotund voice is loud and clear

penetrating (adj): a penetrating voice is so high or loud that it makes you slightly uncomfortable

plummy (adj): a plummy voice or way of speaking is considered to be typical of an English person of a high social class; this word shows that you dislike people who speak like this

quietly (adj): in a soft, quiet voice

raucous (adj): a raucous voice or noise is loud and sounds rough

ringing (adj): a ringing voice is very loud and clear

rough (adj): a rough voice is not soft and is unpleasant to listen to

shrill (adj): a shrill voice is very loud, high, and unpleasant

silvery (adj): this voice is clear, light, and pleasant

singsong (adj): if you speak in a singsong voice, your voice rises and falls in a musical way

small (adj): a small voice is quiet

smoky (adj): a smoky voice is sexually attractive in a slightly mysterious way

softly spoken (adj): someone who is softly spoken has a quiet, gentle voice

soft-spoken (adj): speaking or said in a quiet, gentle voice

sotto voce (adj, adv): in a very quiet voice

stentorian (adj): a stentorian voice sounds very loud and severe

strangled (adj): a strangled sound is one that someone stops before they finish making it

strident (adj): this voice is loud and unpleasant

taut (adj): used about something such as a voice that shows someone is nervous or angry

thick (adj): if your voice is thick with an emotion, it sounds less clear than usual because of the emotion

thickly (adv): with a low voice that comes mostly from your throat

thin (adj): a thin voice or sound is high and unpleasant to listen to

throaty (adj): a throaty sound is low and seems to come from deep in your throat

tight (adj): shows that you are nervous or annoyed

toneless (adj): does not express any emotion

tremulous (adj): if your voice is tremulous, it is not steady; for example, because you are afraid or excited

wheezy (adj): a wheezy noise sounds as if it is made by someone who has difficulty breathing

wobbly (adj): if your voice is wobbly, it goes up and down, usually because you are frightened, not confident, or are going to cry

booming (adj): very loud and attention-getting

quavering (adv): if your voice quavers, it is not steady because you are feeling nervous or afraid

a voice like a foghorn: very loud voice

in an undertone: using a quiet voice so that someone cannot hear you

someone’s dulcet tones: the sound of someone’s voice as they speak

[kiingocreative]

One technique for starting a story is to open with a sliver of a story's climax. This is done in the pilot episode of Breaking Bad where we see Walt driving wildly in a gas mask and his tighty-whities as a pool of chemicals and glass slides up and down the RV. We tantalize the audience with a stream of unexpected images combined with intense character desire (which often peaks around the climax). We might then cut to the chronological beginning of the story to begin the slow build to the climax. With this opening we're promising the audience that the ride will be worth it if they stick with us. One of the benefits of this approach is that we can buy ourselves some time to build up a character. Vince Gilligan explains, "I'm going to take a very bland, milquetoast-ish guy and turn him into a bad guy but if I start him off bland--if I start at the beginning of the story and really take the time to set this character up for the audience, he's going to be kind of a bland character for the first act or two at least. And I really want to grab them immediately and give him a reason to watch." Are you giving the audience a reason to continue reading right from the beginning?

Start Your Story At The Climax

One technique for starting a story is to open with a sliver of the story's climax. With this opening we're promising the audience that the r

[spinninginwords]

This is a great script writing method, but I find I very rarely enjoy this technique in books. Its asking too much from me to take in all this crazy information without context right at the start before I care about anyone or anything.

[an-antisocial-writer-deactivate]

Please reblog this if you're doing NaNo 2019 💕

I need some writer friends to suffer alongside me.

[writing-and-nutmeg]

Me trying to start a new WIP: But... but what if it’s not good enough?? 😨 What if I mess up?? Hm... 🤔 Maybe I should edit this part before writing more... 😰 I mean, what if it’s not perfect???

My last 2 brain cells with common sense:

[librarianreadseverything]

Starting off this book, I really was worried I’d have cavities from how sugary sweet it would be. I mean, popular teenage girl dies and then relives that same last day over and over trying to undo her wrongs? I’d expect to see that plot description as an after-school special.

However, it actually turned out to be a pretty good book! The main character was better developed than I expected. There were good reveals about the surrounding characters that also provided depth but still felt true to life. And the final chapter, appreciating the small bits of life and saying goodbye to family and friends who don’t know it’s the final goodbye - it was some real heartbreaking writing.

I mean, this book won’t enter the pantheon of Great American Novels, however it’s a good summer read and may find a good audience in middle to high school students, particularly females. I’m not in that category, but still was worth my reading time.

[ildsjels]

not sure what should happen next in your story?

Embarrass your protagonist. Make them seem weak and vulnerable in some way.

Shoot someone. That always takes the reader by surprise. 

In relation, kidnap someone. Or, rather, make it seem to your protagonist like someone has been kidnapped. 

Have one of your side characters disappear or become unavailable for some reason. This will frustrate your protagonist.

Have someone kiss the wrong girl, boy, or person, especially if you’ve been setting up a romance angle. It’s annoying.

If this story involves parents, have them argue. Push the threat of divorce, even if you know it won’t ever happen. It’ll make your readers nervous.

Have someone frame your protagonist for a crime they didn’t commit. This could range from a dispute to a minor crime to a full-blown felony.

If this is a fantasy story involving magic or witchcraft, create a terrible accident that’s a direct result of their spell-casting. 

Injure your protagonist in some way, or push them into a treacherous scenario where they might not make it out alive. 

Have two side characters who are both close to the protagonist get into a literal fist-fight. This creates tension for the reader, especially if these characters are well-developed, because they won’t know who to root for.

Make your protagonist get lost somewhere (at night in the middle of town, in the woods, in someone else’s house, etc.) 

Involve a murder. It can be as in-depth and as important as you want it to be. 

Introduce a new character that seems to prey on your protagonist’s flaws and bring them out to light.

If it’s in-character, have one of your characters get drunk or take drugs. Show the fallout of that decision through your protagonist. 

Spread a rumor about your protagonist. 

If your protagonist is in high-school, create drama in the school atmosphere. A death of a student, even if your protagonist didn’t know them personally, changes the vibe. 

If your story involves children, have one of them do something dangerous (touch a hot stove, run out into the road, etc.) and show how the protagonist responds to this, even if the child isn’t related to them. 

In a fantasy story, toss out the idea of a rebellion or war between clans or villages (or whatever units you are working with). 

Add a scenario where your protagonist has to make a choice. We all have watched movies where we have screamed don’t go in there! at the top of our lungs at the main character. Make them go in there. 

Have your protagonist find something, even if they don’t understand the importance of it yet. A key, a document, an old stuffed animal, etc. 

Foreshadow later events in some way. (Need help? Ask me!)

Have your protagonist get involved in some sort of verbal altercation with someone else, even if they weren’t the one who started it. 

Let your protagonist get sick. No, but really, this happens in real life all the time and it’s rarely ever talked about in literature, unless it’s at its extremes. It could range from a common cold to pneumonia. Maybe they end up in the hospital because of it. Maybe they are unable to do that one thing (whatever that may be) because of it.

Have someone unexpected knock on your protagonist’s door. 

Introduce a character that takes immediate interest in your protagonist’s past, which might trigger a flashback.

Have your protagonist try to hide something from someone else and fail.

Formulate some sort of argument or dispute between your protagonist and their love interest to push them apart. 

Have your protagonist lose something of great value in their house and show their struggle to find it. This will frustrate the reader just as much as the protagonist.

Create a situation where your protagonist needs to sneak out in the middle of the night for some reason.

Prevent your character from getting home or to an important destination in some way (a car accident, a bad storm, flat tire, running out of gas, etc.)

[minervabellona69]

imma need this for when I’m stuck when I start Camp Nano

[hollys-writeblr]

“The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It’s not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.”

— Augusten Burroughs

[love-me-a-good-prompt]

WORDS TO USE INSTEAD OF: RUN / RAN

Do you ever find yourself over-using the word “run” (or “ran”) in your writing? Try using these words instead:

sprint / sprinted

dash / dashed

dart / darted

bolt / bolted

race / raced

speed / sped

hurry / hurried

jog / jogged

bound / bounded

hustle / hustled

scurry / scurried

tear / tore

rush / rushed

charge / charged

barrel / barreled

zoom / zoomed

scuttle / scuttled

scamper / scampered

book it / booked it

leg it / legged it

[callitgoodwriting-deactivated20]

Is there a list of describing a characters voice?

There are two ways to describe a character voice: the actual sound of it and what it does through words and tone. I’ll provide both since I don’t know which one you want specifically :)

Adjectives for the Sound of a Voice

Soft

Gravelly

Breathy

Abrasive

Brittle

Acidic

Barbed

Course

Dulcet

Guttural

Sweet

Hoarse

Honeyed

Shrill

Deep

High-pitched

Quiet

Loud

Mumbly

Squeaky

Wavering

Velvety

Smooth

Weak

Broken

Adjectives for What the Voice Does with Words and Tone

Accusatory

Admiring

Amused

Animated

Anxious

Deadpan

Apologetic

Ardent

Arrogant

Assertive

Authoritative

Bleak

Bored

Bubbly

Cautionary

Cheery

Defeated

Confused

Critical

Curt

Defiant

Defensive

Detached

Diplomatic

Disheartening

Disheartened

Cold

Docile

Frustrated

Intense

Intimate

Lifeless

Loving

Objective

Righteous

Sincere

Urgent

Vindictive

[myjetpack]

for the @guardian review

[neil-gaiman]

My life in four panels.

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil, I saw somewhere the other day that Terry used to write 400 words a day every day. Do you have a rule, minimum word count or routine like that when you're writing?

He did that while he had a job. Once he retired to become a full-time writer, he was writing 2000 words a day minimum. Occasionally he would tell me brightly over breakfast in some hotel at a convention that he had already written his 2000 words. Probably just to see the expression on my face.

[spinninginwords]

Ahh I love this. I have a day job (in the design field so my hours can be insane) and getting to 1000 words a day never happens, and the pressure of it takes away so much fun from writing. We are all different. I am a slow writer, probably around 250 words an hour. My best friend is a fast writer. She will speed through 2000 words in an hour no problem.

Still trying to find a way to tell her getting "just wrote 5000 words", "just wrote 3600 words" texts messes with my mind. Without being discouraging or unsupportive.

I could do 400 words tho :) and make it a good 400 words.

[opulentquotes]

“Let me tell you the truth about men like that–they want soft moons. They want women with just enough crescent to provide a sufficient edge, tender little slivers of light that they can bring home to their mothers.”

— Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

[writingdotcoffee]

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.”

— Eugene Ionesco