There's a lot that goes into being a writer, and there are lots of problems that can arise. I'm here to help solve some of them.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to run this blog any longer, but you can still find me and my work here.
How do you get over writers block? I will sit down with my laptop or pen and paper just staring at them. I'm not sure how to start writing, because I have a MILLION ideas. I just cannot seem to get them down lately.
I get this question and ones like it often, as you might imagine. Trust me, I have the very same problem. Although I can’t speak for everyone, for me it’s very important to eliminate all distractions. And that sounds like simple, generic advice, but I mean more than just having the willpower to focus. I’m talking about placing an actual barrier between you and whatever else might take your attention.
While I was in school, I always got the majority of my writing done in class, because I literally had no other choice. That sounds awful, as if the writing were a chore, but it was really a blessing to have those few hours every day where I didn’t have the option to play games on my phone or check tumblr, etc. I had nothing to do with myself but write (in classes where I didn’t need to take notes, of course), so those millions of ideas finally got some attention.
For similar reasons, it helps me to be away from home, somewhere comfortable but not completely informal. I’ll go to a library or the ever-popular cafe, anywhere I can have a small space to just myself and my notebook. I put on some noise-blocking ambient noise or music, such as you might find at MyNoise.net (which I highly recommend!), and start wherever I can. Continuing is always easier than starting, so if you have a story or scene in mind, I say put down what you know first. If there’s a particular line you want to include or an event you know will happen, start there and move on from that point. You can always add onto the beginning or ending later.
It also helps me sometimes to look over my old writing, particularly when I’m trying to get back into working on a lengthy project. Making an outline can help you organize your thoughts, too; take one of those ideas and, without worrying about starting the narrative itself, consider how it will play out. What sort of characters will be involved? What relationships will they have? What conflicts will they deal with? Then specify even more: what does this character’s development arc look like? How do these two come to love (or hate) one another? What’s the cause of this conflict and how will it be resolved? If you’re the type of person who works with outlines, having it organized like this can give you some starting points, and you’ll develop the story from there.
I’ll try to post any other strategies I can come up with as I think of them. I hope some of this was helpful. Best of luck in your writing!
Character A has just died. However, they’re still on Earth, confused about what’s happened. They’re soon approached by an employee of Death, who explains that this whole thing was just a scheduling error on their part, but they’re going to fix it. A is brought back to life and, in exchange for their “cooperation,” is granted a single miracle to use whenever they see fit. How do they use it? Do they stay in contact with the one who caused all this? Does Death ever find out about this mishap?
Write about a con artist who convinces people he/she is some sort of supernatural creature: a fairy, a ghost, etc. Try to go into specifics about how they achieve their “magic.”
Or, alternately, write about a supernatural creature who uses his/her magic to be a successful “mundane” entertainer: an escape artist, a magician, etc. Talk about where they perform and how/if they explain their impossible feats.
Characters A and B are in a relationship (romantic, platonic, familial, your choice).
Character A has a phobia of some sort of non-human creature: demons, ghosts, fair folk, werewolves, whatever you prefer. Whatever you choose, Character B is one. What lengths do they go to in order to conceal their nature from Character A? Do they fear being rejected? Do they resent being forced to lie in order to maintain the relationship? Do they eventually slip up or deliberately reveal themself? And if so, how does A react?
I don’t believe there’s a “new” story to be told. There will always be something to compare your writing to.
The Love Story. The Tragedy. The Revenge Plot.
Set in the Middle Ages. Set in the future. Set in a separate dimension.
With a heroine, a hero, a sidekick, a villain.
Vampires. Zombies. Aliens.
Betrayal. Remorse. Forgiveness.
None of these are new concepts. However. No one has done them your way before. The above mentioned are all just pieces, pieces that you can put together in whatever form you want, pieces you can choose to use or not, and these are just a few. The potential combinations are infinite.
No one has created your characters. No one has written your plot. Even if you gave a group of fifty writers all the same inspiration for a story, you wouldn’t end up with two that were the same. There would be similarities, but there always will be. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean your version is worthless. It doesn’t mean your version is worth less. If you’re passionate about a concept, make it your own. There will be people who appreciate it.
I cannot stress enough just how circumstantial all of my advice is! Please don’t look at any of my tips or “rules” and think, “Okay, I should always/never do this thing.” I may discourage a particular literary device or plot structure in general, but that doesn’t mean it can never work or never be done well. Maybe you’re approaching it in a way I haven’t considered. The only way to be sure of what’s working or what isn’t in your exact case is to try it out, read it yourself, and get a few others to read it, too. No one who hasn’t read your work has any right to tell you, “No, it can’t possibly be any good because X.”
In your opinion, where is the best place to start a story? Like in the very beginning with a prologue, In the middle of a situation or conversation, or write a snippet of the end and then pull a "6 months ealier"...
Let me start by saying that there’s no wrong way to start a story. These are just my own preferences.
I’m not particularly fond of the whole flashback/flash forward thing when it’s that explicit. I love to see stories written (or presented) out of chronological order, but if it is, I’d rather it be…consistently out of order? That is, I don’t like a single flashback, some story, and then a single flash forward. I feel like there are more effective ways of presenting those events–but that’s not to say it can’t be done well.
Starting off with a prologue can work well sometimes, particularly if you have a lot of background information that needs to be conveyed or a scene that needs to be set in order for your story to be understood by your reader.
Personally, however, my favorite way to start a story is in media res, meaning in the middle of a scene, which puts your reader directly into the action. You do have to be careful with that, because if you put your reader into a scene that requires a lot of explanation, then you have to either interrupt the action to explain it or leave your reader sort of in the dark, which can quickly turn a lot of people off. But if you execute it well, it’s a good way to hook your reader into wondering exactly what’s happening and where it’s leading without bogging them down with a lot of exposition right off the bat. This can still be at the beginning, chronologically! It just starts with a scene rather than a bunch of narration.
When you want to have a complex story and need to kill off characters, bit you didn't realize that whoever you decide to kill from the get go will suddenly become your child, and you have so much fun writing them, but when the time comes it's like 😐
My friend, I feel your pain. But killing your characters should be hard. If it’s hard for you, it’s going to be hard for your readers, and that emotional response is what makes your writing valuable.
...that being said, stories change. You can always choose not to kill off a character if it no longer feels right. It’s your story, after all.
How to do I make a superhero not get hated and not make her seem like she is better than everyone else?
While I really hate to say it, your superhero being a woman is going to automatically get her some hate. It’s entirely unfair, but it is true. There will be people who call her a Mary Sue and say she’s overpowered simply because she’s a girl.
However! That shouldn’t stop you from making her anyway. The most important thing when making a super-powered character is balance. Her personality needs to have flaws as well as virtues. She needs to have weaknesses as well as strengths. No matter how amazing her powers are, she still has to have vulnerabilities (physical, mental, and emotional). You might also find that humility goes a long way; if she’s aware of her own abilities but still sees herself as equal to other people, it will help others to see her that way, too.
All that being said, don’t be afraid to make a character who will get some hate! No character you ever make will be loved by everyone, no matter how much you feel they should. There will always be something about them that upsets or bothers some people. That’s okay! Human beings are like that. (Even if the character isn’t human, your readers are. Mostly. And they need to be able to identify with her.) Please don’t think you have any obligation to please anyone with your characters; they’re yours, first and foremost. If you love them, there will be others who do, too.
I have a story idea that I think would make a great comic book, but 1) I tend to be wordy when it comes to my writing, whereas comic books focus more on letting the panels telling the story, and 2) I can't draw in the slightest. What do you advise when the medium is in conflict with your skills.
Ah, this is a problem I’ve had, myself. In response to your first point, you might be surprised at how much of your writing can be made visual. A lot of the space you use describing images and actions can be freed up when you have a picture to describe it instead. Even beyond that, if you spend a lot of time in your characters’ heads, you’ll probably find you have plenty of room on a page. The first example that comes to mind is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, which features a lot of narration alongside the visual action.
The second issue is a little more problematic. You have a few options. The first is, honestly, to learn how to draw, yourself. I know that when you don’t have much experience, when it doesn’t come easily to you, that sounds like a pretty useless suggestion. But the most important part of any art (writing, drawing, acting, anything) is practice. No artist is born perfect, and the only way to improve is to keep working at it. If you’re serious about trying to use visual art for your future projects, it never hurts to try.
Another option is to collaborate with someone. If you have a friend or acquaintance who draws, maybe mention it to them. Otherwise, there are plenty of artists online who accept commissions and others who might be willing to work with you (if this is a commercial venture) in exchange for a share of whatever profits you make. If you choose to go this route, though, it’s important that you always value whatever work you’re asking someone else to do and compensate them accordingly. Never expect anyone to work for/with you for free.
Alternatively, I think there are some comic publishers who will pair your script with an artist…but those are few and far between. If you have the time and energy to invest, the most reliable option really is to learn how to make the art yourself.
I'm writing a YA novel about a post-apocalyptic world but I want my readers to feel identified with it. I don't know how to do that... It's not like someone says: "Oh! Yeah, a monster hit me in the face yesterday. I feel so identified with this story". I want my readers to think: "Yes. It happens to me too" or "I have a friend just like that character" but how I do that?! :c
I don’t know; I get hit in the face by monsters on a pretty regular basis.
Honestly, when it comes to making your characters “Human,” (by which I mean humanly relatable), it’s less about experience and more about emotion. Even if your readers can’t say, “Oh yeah, I’ve also been part of a corrupt society and taken down an evil dictator,” they can say, “I’ve also learned things about the world I live in, things that have hurt me, and I’ve taken action to change them.”
Think about other popular fictional stories you’ve identified with. Did you feel that way because you shared an exact experience with a main character or because you thought, “I recognize the feeling you’re describing. I’ve felt it before and it’s awesome (or) terrible.” My advice is to be sure your characters’ emotions are carrying through. Make the story about them, not about what happens to them. That helps your readers to see them as human and to see themselves in them.
Hi! Would it make sense for parts of a "magical world" is know to humans and some parts isn't? Like other magical worlds/dimensions are not know but that magic and witches exist are known?
Absolutely! This is honestly the world state of my first novel series; I think it works just fine and makes sense. After all, the only way we know things is to discover them over time. This just sounds like we haven’t discovered all of it just yet.
Hi!! I was wondering if you could give me feedback on a story idea i had. Its about a villain that does bad things. a good guy appears and the villain becomes obsessed with trying to stop him from ruining his plans. Then a super mega villain comes out of nowhere and wants to take over the world. Good and bad join forces and take down the super bad guy. Tragic death happens and the other one switches sides. (One is a guy and the other is a girl and there will be romance of some sort) thoughts?
All of this sounds like it has great potential! Of course, it’s hard to judge from a very quick outline like this, but I think you definitely could turn it into something interesting. I will say I’m (personally) not a big fan of the tragic death thing, but that’s not to say it can’t be done well.
Hi, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask for your opinion. I'm writing a possible comic book/ possible TV show for children ages 10-12 and up. It's going to be educational and will teach history and culture by having a group of characters time travel. As we all know, history is a dark place and people have done some pretty messed up things. In your opinion, could 10-12 year olds handle something and heavy as say Samurai seppuku or is that too dark? Thanks in advance!
Hmmm. It's certainly a complicated idea, but the simplest answer is yes, I do. I think people often give kids too little credit for how much they can handle emotionally, particularly when it comes to kids' media. You have shows like the Legend of Korra, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, all of which deal with some pretty heavy subject matter at times, despite being kids' shows. Kids are just little people. So I'd say go ahead with it! I hope it turns out well. (And in the event you've already finished it: I hope it's well-received!)
Hello! Quick question for advice: I'm writing a story where the protagonist is hunting down the antagonist, so the antagonist will only be in a few of the scenes. How do I develop the antagonist or deepen the conflict/tension without the character right there? Should I just adjust the plot to include the antagonist more? Any advice would be great. Thanks ahead of time :)
Hm, I think part of this depends on your book’s point-of-view.
If it’s written in first-person or close third-person, then most of the information about your antagonist is going to have to come from your protagonist. If they have a history, use flashbacks or memories. If this conflict of theirs is still in its beginning, tell your readers in what way the antagonist has affected the protagonist or the people or world around them. Even if the antagonist isn’t present, we can still see the evidence of their actions, and I think that’s necessary in order to show why your protagonist is hunting them down in the first place.
If you’re writing in third-person omniscient, you can add in brief scenes of the antagonist wherever they are, whatever they’re doing. But even then, be sure to relate it back to your protagonist or the main story line.
(As a side note, I’m not sure when you sent this, but I apologize if my answer is too late to be helpful! I’ve been away for quite a while....)
I’m going to be honest and say dialogue is probably my favorite part of writing: snarky banter, vicious arguments, sappy love scenes, you name it. I’ve recently seen some people express that their characters “all sound the same,” and I’ve read pieces where that’s often that case, where the author hasn’t developed a specific voice for each character, and the dynamic suffers for it. Obviously I can’t talk about everything involved in character voice in one post, so I’ll start with register.
“Register” is the combination of a person’s vocabulary and syntax. The scale goes from High to Low, where High is very formal and employs more complex words and impeccable grammar, and Low contains more contractions, slang, incorrect grammar or mispronunciation and is very informal. (Think of the beginning of My Fair Lady vs. the end.) Of course there are levels anywhere between the two, and it’s up to you to decide where your characters fall on the spectrum. So what decides a person’s register? (Brace yourselves; there’s a lot to be said here. I’ll go into more detail under the cut.)
Time period/setting
Age
Education
Personality
Time period/setting: This is a big one. In older settings (say, 18th Century) and often in Fantasy, characters are more likely to use what we now consider High register and more archaic speech patterns. “Thee” and “thou” are a bit of a stretch, but you will find quite a few words we don’t generally use anymore or words whose meanings have changed over time. You’ll also find fewer contractions; not to say they’re completely absent, but the difference between a character saying “let’s” and “let us” can be very telling. In most modern works, mid-Low register is the most common. We like to be efficient with our words these days, meaning contractions abound, and we’re more often more concerned with being straightforward than with being overly cautious and formal. Obviously modern slang is only applicable to the periods after which it’s been coined; likewise, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in a modern setting saying “by golly” or “go soak your head” unironically (unless they’re very old, but we’ll get to that--right now, in fact!).
Age: Obviously, a teenager and a senior citizen are going to have very different speech patterns and vocabulary; they only grow more disparate the greater the gap in time between them. This is one instance in which you may want to do some research, so that your twenty-year-old doesn’t sound forty and your eleven-year-old doesn’t sound five. Those can be subtle differences but enough to make or break a character’s credibility.
A somewhat less common issue is the subject of immortality. Not something everyone has to worry about, but I know I have quite a few characters who have lived for thousands of years, if not longer, and I’m sure many of you do, too. This particularly applies to the Magic Realism genre, where we like to mix in mythological figures with our contemporary settings. Immortals make things a bit trickier. Because they’ve lived through so many time periods, they would naturally have all the slang and word order of their past years stored up in their heads. Sometimes, they can get stuck in one particular period and have difficulty adjusting as things continue to modernize; this is especially true of mortals-turned-immortal and periods in which modernization happens very quickly (i.e., the 1920′s or 1980′s-2000′s).
Education: A college-educated character is more likely to have a large vocabulary and perfect grammar than say, a high school dropout (notice I say “more likely”; this isn’t always the case). You might also consider the field in which your college students study/have studied. That is, a liberal arts or language-focused student will have a different vocabulary and different speech patterns from a STEM major.
Personality: To tie in the rest of our factors, let me give you an example from my own work. My Grim Reaper character is a woman who has been around roughly as long as humanity has; she’s old. She’s currently set in the modern world, so she’s lived through every time period leading up to now. She travels the world on a regular basis and so is very cultured. Although she never formally attended any sort of college, suffice it to say that she’s learned some things over the course of her life.
This woman speaks in mid-Low register, often with slang and colloquialisms from around the world, and with cursing peppered through her sentences no matter whom she’s addressing. Despite all the above factors that might have led her to be incredibly formal, her personality just doesn’t support it. This is where your discretion about your own characters comes in. Do you have a character who’s very highly-educated but feels more at home in a mall than in the Halls of Academia? It makes sense for them to have a middle ground register. Someone who’s young but sort of dramatic (maybe a theater kid)? A higher register would suit them.
I’m hoping that the above factors, combined with what you already know about your characters, will help you out in the future when deciding how they should speak. Some other things to note:
Cursing is often considered Low register, partially because it’s so informal.
I don’t have much authority in this area, but I’d like to note that AAVE (African American Vernacular English) is not necessarily Low register. It’s just a particular variety of American English.
Register also affects syntax, meaning the arrangement of words to form a sentence. While the vocabulary itself might not be remarkable, the way it’s arranged has meaning. For instance,
“Why wouldn’t I?” is slightly lower than “Why would I not?”
“Would that it could” is very High while “if only it could” is mid.
Hey there, anon! Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. I have two different ways to answer this: how to make your characters be empathetic and how to make people empathetic towards your characters.
HOW TO MAKE CHARACTERS BE EMPATHETIC
This one is pretty self-spoken for. There is really only one way that I know of to make a character to be empathetic and it’s to put them in a situation that the character feels sympathy for another or have them care about something and to, eventually, share the feelings of the other character.
This could be just about anything - get creative with it! For example, have someone be treated unjustly, someone be thrust into grief or danger, facing an inner struggle, etc.
HOW TO MAKE PEOPLE EMPATHETIC TOWARDS CHARACTERS
This is actually pretty easy and you can also just repeat the above tips and tricks if you’d like!
However, different examples - and remember to get creative with it - are having your character display a valuable trait (though this is typically more rewarding if done a little before they make a choice that has a negative impact).
In addition, people love to watch real talent. Have your character be particularly good at something but don’t just tell how good someone is with a knife; show us. Show us how long it took, how many hours of pain and getting injured they had to withstand. Show them caring for their knives as if they were children. Show not tell is a very important part here.
Have them wish for a universal change or show them caring for people. For example, wishing for world hunger to go away and helping starving people go hand in hand together. Wishing for equality and going to rallies for pride, black lives matter, etc, go hand in hand.
Give them something unique about them. Something that will make the reader grow some sort of attachment to them.
I hope this helped, anon, and if you have any additional questions, please come ask! Happy writings! x
- Mod Lilly
If you need advice on general writing or fanfiction, you should maybe ask us!
Author Problems and Solutions [Inactive] @the-writing-process - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
