The Writer Needs To Know

This blog is for writing tips, prompts, and other various things. Feel free to ask me any questions! // Genderfluid panromantic ace writer new to writing, no preferred pronouns. Common_fan_writes on ao3

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

For the random questions ask: What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story? - (@enchanted-lightning-aes)

Hm… Considering how many characters I have, this one’s a tough one.

One of them used to have a tendency to fall down the stairs when he was a kid. He’s a lot less clumsy now, but he still isn’t graceful.

Two of them still have stuffed animals their mother gave them as presents. It isn’t exactly not plot-relevant, since they drag them around with them throughout their entire adventure, but it doesn’t contribute much.

Another used to be obsessed with the color pink (she still likes it), and her room is still decorated to show it. She also hates strawberries, tea, threadbare blankets, and spiders.

[deniselavestal-deactivated20231]

When you examine your work as a writer — it is vital that you approach with a mindset such as ''This didn't quite turn out right, but [this] is what went wrong, [this] is what I learned from it and [this] is what I can do to improve later on,’’ NOT ''This is terrible therefore I am terrible.''

Growth is possible. Illogical writing choices is not a death sentence, approach with consideration.

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

The people responsible for the attack against AO3 have officially gone TOO FAR and I am LIVID.

I can understand that LGBT+ and NSFW may make some people uncomfortable—hell, NSFW makes ME uncomfortable. But I would never resort to attacking a website in order to take down something my personal prejudice is fueling. That isn’t any reason to disrupt another person’s livelihood.

AO3 does not directly harm people. It does not exploit anyone. The website moderators do their best to regulate harmful comments and harassment. People who use it are generally kind and compassionate when commenting on works, from what I’ve seen.

This is a petty, cowardly, and unreasonable course of action justified by flimsy, prejudiced, and baseless reasoning. The people responsible can go sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done.

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Sometimes a chapter is a collection of sentence fragments, several patches of odd dialogue, a metaphor or two, excessive exaggeration, and one line that'll hit hard, and that's okay.

[2soulscollide]

BEST accounts to follow as a writer

It's been a long time since my last visit here on Tumblr, right? So, as a comeback and since you loved my masterpost of websites for writers, I am bringing you my favorite Tumblr blogs to follow if you're a writer and are interested in finding lots of inspo on your timeline, as well as prompts, tips, and useful resources. Shall we start?

PROMPTS:

@givethispromptatry

@dailystoryprompts

@here-haveaprompt

@dark-fiction-and-angst

@youneedsomeprompts

@deity-prompts

@whygodohgodwhy

@writinghoursopen

@fluffyomlette

@promptsforthestrugglingauthor

@novelbear

@gfuckign

@ghostly-prompts

WORLD BUILDING INSPO / PROMPTS:

@worldbuildingprompts

@locationbuildingprompts

@wbqotd

@wildworldwritingprompts

@worldbuilding-question

@thealpha-chronicles

@happyheidi

@enchantedengland

@ancientsstudies

@greeksblog

OC PROMPTS:

@yourocdoeswhat

@questionsforyourocs

@oc-question

@oc-dev

@characterization-queries

@oc-factoids

@tag-that-oc

@some-oc-questions

GENERAL WRITING ADVICE:

not all of the following accounts post things but they reblog useful info

@writing-with-olive

@tstrangeauthor

@everythingwritingg

@writerthreads

@heywriters

@thewritersphere

@writelively

PS: If you think your account fits any of these categories, feel free to comment! Someone will check it out!!! :D

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

I’ll be sure to check out their blogs when I have the energy!

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Well, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year. This would not be noted if not for me starting late.

I’m going to finish my novel February 17th, 2027, now. Apparently.

[thewritingweasel]

5 more pieces of terrible writing advice

Hello again everyone! Since you all loved my brilliant advice from last time, I’ve decided to give you some more! And remember, you must follow these rules exactly - we don’t accept rule breakers here! After all, what would be the fun in variety?

1) Never use said

Said is waaaay too boring to use in an actual piece of writing. Instead, take it out and replace it with words like stammered, enunciated, ejected, inset, add, interpose, interrupt, utter, and announce. 

It’s not like you need to maintain a balance between said and overusing other words. No, your readers will love it if they have to read through pages and pages of grumbling and interposing! That won’t get annoying.

2) Don’t use purple

Why say purple when you can say mauve, periwinkle or amaranthine? All short words are bad and readers hate if you use them. No, fill your novel up with ornate, sumptuous prose that normal people can’t fathom. 

3) Avoid giving character descriptions

Spent ages crafting your character’s appearance? That doesn’t matter! Your reader won’t care anyway. Nope, don’t describe what they look like at all. After all, it’s not like knowing Harry Potter wore glasses or that Ron Weasley was ginger actually added anything to their characters.

4) Never rewrite

Think your story could do with a little more work? Well, make sure not to rewrite the entire thing. It’ll just water down your ideas and make you lose the core of your story! It’s not like rewriting could actually help you refine and come up with new ideas now you have everything plotted out…

5) You need to be amazing before calling yourself a writer

Write for hours everyday? Well, if you haven’t published anything, why call yourself a writer in the first place? Pah! If you don’t know the difference between a em dash and an en dash, then you can’t call yourself a writer. 

Being a writer is being part of a super exclusive club. It’s not like the word just means, you know, people who write. 

(seriously tho guys, if you write - no matter how well - you’re a writer. Don’t let people tell you otherwise.)

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Agreed.

[daenerya]

rate people i do not find attractive and i’ll try to guess your type

[space-sweetheart]

[chilewithcarnage]

[klywrites]

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

My result was ‘anyone. You don’t have a type. your standards are very low’.

I have very high standards, thank you very much. I have exactly one (1) person I would die for.

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Do you ever get that moment of realization you’re in too deep? The concept is no longer something blurry, undefined in the distance. Now you’ve unintentionally shaped it into what it you want it to be, and there’s no turning back once it’s started?

[honey-writes]

The cool thing about writing is that there’s no real right or wrong way to do it and absolutely nobody can stop you from writing what you want except for yourself. You could write a whole 1000 page novel about a frog sitting on a log that never moves from its spot. You could write a story with 1200 words that all start with the same letter. You could write about a Sonic the Hedgehog x Marvel crossover if you really wanted. The possibilities are limitless once you embrace them. I just think that is so cool :)

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Writing really is cool. Remember, there’s no right or wrong way to create! If you’re a creator of any kind, you’re doing great work.

[ms-moonlight-inn]

How to Write a Summary When You Suck Ass at Writing Summaries

First off, understand that everyone sucks ass at something. Get over it. In the indelible words of my very first college professor, “It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be done.”

A successful summary will accomplish two or more of the following: Declare who the significant characters are, describe the beginning of the story, give a tiny spoiler for the end, and won’t give away too much of the rising action.

Here are a few little tips that you may (or may not) find useful when writing a summary:

Option 1:

Take my college professor’s advice and just get the shit done. Compose the most basic summary you can & post/submit that shit. ‘Cause there is such a thing as do-overs and resubmissions. You can always go back and tweak your summary over and over until it reads just right. In the wise words of @notherenj-nowherenj: “Summaries, and fics in general, are living documents. You can ALWAYS go in and edit that shit.”

Further, if you’re posting on Ao3, your subscribers are likely going to read whatever you post no matter how poorly you write the summary and your non-subscribers are likely not going to read whatever you write until you’ve got at least 2-3 chapters up. So? Pressure off, right? No? Ok. Option two.

Option 2: 

Talk to yourself. Open up the voice-to-text feature on whatever device you’ve got handy & go to town asking yourself (and replying, of course) what your fic/storyline is all about. Turn your brain off, open your mouth, and let the self-love fly –seriously! Just go ahead and boost your own written work with the same aplomb you boost your favorite works. Talk about everything –the quirks and nuances, the samenesses and uniquenesses, the narrative strengths and weaknesses –just as if you were talking about that one book that changed your life that one summer. By the time you’re done poppin’ off in your favor, you ought to have plenty of material to get you started on a solid summary.

Option 3:

Ask a friend to read your story and ask them what they thought. This should give you some basic material to work up a summary. Consider giving them a shout-out in your notes section/dedication page.

Option 4:

Pay someone to write your summary for you. Why the fuck not? You suck at summaries, right? You’re reading this post ‘cause you’re hoping there’s some type of magical solution for getting out of sucking at summaries, right? Well, here it is: Float your friend/mutual/beta/neighbor a couple o’ bones to do the less fun part of writing for you.

Option 5:

CHEAT & PLAGIARIZE your way into a summary (part one). Yup, that’s what I said. Cheat by plagiarizing yourself (not someone else; should go without saying, but still) by using the “first and last” technique. Start by chosing two significant points in your story. Examples:

First paragraph of your first chapter and the last paragraph of your first chapter

First paragraph of your first chapter and the last paragraph of your last chapter

First paragraph of your first act and the last paragraph of your second act

Do you see the pattern? You’re looking for the beginning of a significant “something” and the ending of a corresponding significant “something.” Try not to pick just anything at random, look for two things that actually match or parallel in some way.

Once you’ve got it, open up a separate doc, copy/paste them together to make one huge paragraph. HERE’S THE FUN PART, hack and slash the holy bejesus out of that paragraph until it looks like a summary of your work. When I say hack and slash the holy bejesus out if it, by the way, I MEAN IT! Be brutal! This is a summary, not a brand new piece of literature.

IRL EXAMPLES:

Goldilocks is looking for just the right things in her life. After breaking beds and burning her mouth on porridge, she’s given up all hope. (Thanks to NJ for this gem!)

Little Red Riding-Hood

(NB: These paragraphs are short enough you don’t have to copy/paste them; you can just scan for all the words & phrases you’d want to mine. Larger paragraphs will require the extra step of copy/pasting.)

These are screen shots of the first paragraph, as well as the final paragraph of Little Red Riding-Hood. Scanning what’s there, a possible summary may look like this:

“Little Red Riding-Hood had a good, but never very well, grandmother who lived in a wood. After many wonderful things befell Red Riding-Hood, she got in some trouble which she needed saving from. Luckily, a woodman arrived.”

Perhaps it’s not the best summary you’ve ever read, but it does its job. This makes the “first and last” technique a valuable tool to keep in your back pocket for those times when you’re really stuck.

Option 6:

CHEAT & PLAGIARIZE your way into a summary (part two). Do the opposite of hack and slash –take all your discarded lines and give them a home. Throw them into a blender, make word smoothies out of them, and use all those beautiful misfit lines to create a summary. They were supposed to be in this story one way or another anyway. Might as well let them be the first breath of life your readership gets from this new world you’ve just created. Right?

Option 7:

CHEAT & PLAGIARIZE your way into a summary (part three). This one is tricky because, if you overdo it, you could end up spoiling your entire plotline. For this technique, pull out a few of your favorite quotations from your storyline –they can be dialogue quotes or line quotations. Some writers will stop here and simply post their chosen quotation in the summary section. That’s definitely an excellent option. If you’re bumping up against a hard deadline, this is a solid go-to plan. Use it at your leisure.

If you have the time, I suggest you collect these quotations, add them into a soufflé, bake at 400℉ (200 ℃), and use this fragrant mélange to build your summary.

I’m purposefully using the weird food analogy, including standard to metric conversion, to illustrate the point: This is not like Options #5 & 6 where there is no real danger of accidentally giving your own spoilers. You see, for me at least, the lines that tend to be my favorite quotations are often those lines that occur during moments of major emotional upheaval for my characters, which, in turn, usually happen during a climactic scene. If you’re not careful, you just might over (or under) bake that soufflé and be left with something you’ll have to mess with way too much to be worth your time. Might as well hit the drive thru.

In other words, be careful which quotations you pull & how you mix them all up to construct your summary; you want to make sure you’re not giving away too much of your story.

~~

There you have it, seven different ways to help you figure how to suck less ass at summary writing. With any luck, this will give you plenty more time to apply your ass sucking skills elsewhere.

In case you’re wondering, my go-tos are normally Option 1, a shortened version of Option 2, and Option 7. Most often, I’m just throwing a quickly written summary up & giving myself permission to tweak it as I see fit.

Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive list. If any of y'all have other tips & tricks for your own summary writing, feel free to drop them in the comments.

Gracias por su atención/Thanks for your attention,

-Cyn

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Hey, everyone! Have fun with your summaries :D

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Character Questions/Connecting with and Understanding Character

Write a scene in their perspective

Fill out a character sheet (more for reference and fleshing-out character than actually connecting to them)

Write a journal the way they would

Decide what they find most important. Decide their favorite objects.

Write out a basic set of dialogue the way you would say it. Switch the dialogue to their voice

Draw them (even if it’s the worst drawing ever) Color it!

Contemplate their moral compass. What would make them change it? (Especially if you’re doing a redemption or corruption arc.)

Write a description of something how they would describe it verbally. Now write it how they would on paper.

Figure out their handwriting. Their nervous tics. Their quirks. Include them in your story.

Think of how they would design a house. Interior decorating? Exterior? What’s their dream home?

Consider how their childhood affected them. Were they abused or raised well? Do they have siblings? Did they have childhood friends or were they isolated?

Ensure you know how you want them to develop throughout your story. (If it’s a short story, there may not be much character development)

Describe their appearance bluntly. Now do it poetically.

Think about their daily routine. Do they have one? How does it affect them?

Look around your living area and consider what objects they would like. What do they think is pretty? Cool? Neat?

Consider their access to technology.

Understand their sexuality, even if they don’t.

Give them a random object. How do they react? What would be their response?

Feel free to add questions. If you want the sheet I use for my characters, feel free to ask. I may have posted it before, but… Eh.

Be sure to understand and connect with you character! You should know your character best.

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Pretty much this morning where I live:

Angels: How much fog?

God: Yes.

Angels: And... the noise?

God: Spooky

[lunewell]

How to absolutely wreck your audience with a character death:

Let the character have plenty of screen time before the death. Show us their motivations, dreams, and inner world, so we really connect with them.

Kill them towards the latter half of the middle of your story, instead of the end, so we get to see the proper grief and how the death has affected the other characters.

Kill them off while their at their highest, or when things are just starting to look up for them.

Alternatively, kill them in the middle of their character arc, as they’re about to change for better.

For the actual death themselves, killing via betrayal from something they trusted- be it equipment failure, or a person, or killing them of something that could’ve been easily preventable, often hit the hardest.

Show other characters grief over them. Show how they’ve been absolutely wrecked over the loss of this character.

Continue to show sides of the character even after death. Have other characters find out information about them that makes the audience wish they could explore the dead character further.

Let the dead character have an ambition/goal/dream they were super passionate about that they never got to complete.

Cause an argument/conflict between the dead character and another character right before the character dies.

Have the remaining cast face challenges that could’ve been easily resolved if the dead character was there.

Kill main cast characters sparingly. A few meaningful character deaths are a lot more tear jerking than a blood bath.

If you want to be really, really cruel, and your writing in a point of view that would allow you to do this, reveal important information about the death to the audience, but not to the characters.

If your writing in a genre were it would be possible, consider having the dead character know that they’re going to die, but not revealing it to the others.

Have their death be in vain to the main goal. Instead of a heroic sacrifice, it was a cruel casualty.

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

Have fun! :D

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

That moment when you stared so long at the screen instead of writing that it turned off, leaving you alone with your shame.

[isabellestone]

Quirks To Show Your Character’s ADHD

From a certified ADHD adult(ish) human. 

Not being able to shrug a niggling feeling or through until it’s dealt with.

Saying ‘one more minute’ when hyper-focused, then looking up to find two hours have passed.

F i d d l i n g 

(With literally anything available) 

Sometimes having trouble falling or staying asleep because their damn brain won’t shut up. 

Yet still being a semi-coherent person the next day, despite only being out for four hours. 

Because  e n e r g y 

Eventually learning ways to get to sleep, but getting annoyed when they fail.

Struggling to wait their turn when speaking or in games.

Losing track of their point mid-speech.

Inability to control thoughts as they overlap and run away faster than they can be caught. 

Having too many hobbies.

Being more creative under stress.

Speaking really really fast when excited or after caffeine.

Struggling to remember instructions.

Struggling to listen to instructions.

Spotting patterns and details others often miss.

Forgetting brilliant ideas just as quickly as they were thought up.

And thus being really impulsive when we get ideas.

Desperate attempts at organisation (giving everything a place).

And yet still not remembering where they’ve put anything.

I m p a t i e n c e 

Disclaimer: Not everyone with ADHD will experience all of these things, and there are many more things that people with ADHD experience. If you experience these things, it doesn’t necessarily mean your ADHD, but these things are widely present in those who have it. If you want to write a character with ADHD please do your research and only take this as a starting point.

[If reposting to instagram please credit @isabellestonebooks]

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

As a fellow ADHDer, I can attest to the truth of these accusations.

[the-writer-needs-to-know]

I think it’s time I stop writing. I just wrote “breadspread” in place of “bedspread”.