Here's something I don't see writers practicing enough: how big things can permanently change your character.
I see people putting their characters through war, abusive relationships, health disorders, and intense grief. Since popular writers often fail here, I hope you guys are also considering how these things will affect your character in the long run. I don't mean "Oh, they have bad dreams now and are jerks to everyone, but only for a little while." I mean has their entire outlook on life changed dramatically, and if so how? Does it show? Do they try to hide it and move on, or do they accept that this is who they are now? Does it take them a long time or a short time to realize things can never again be the way they were? How does that affect them? Do they choose to keep this new personality, or do they try to change it?
Not everyone wants to acknowledge this type of development in a character because it gets in the way of their plans or disrupts plot. Also, some characters are made of stern stuff or are just flexible enough to survive with their personality intact. Yet, major events in a story should leave a noticeable impact on a character, the more personal the event generally the bigger the personality change.
Just think about it if you haven't already, y'know?
Hey so I’m interested to hear what kind of WIP’s/type of fiction you guys are creating. So if you have the time maybe comment or repost with a little bit about what your making. You know: what’s it about, what genre of writing, the tone, ect. It’ll help me write better advice for people’s as well as just be an interesting read, I’m curious (^-^)
Show don’t tell. All of us writers have heard it a million times, haven’t we?
But nevertheless, I want to dedicate a few words to (in my opinion) the most important writing rule. Why? Because even if we have heard it a million times, I had to specifically learn how it worked. It is explained in surprisingly few books or articles on writing. Maybe exactly because those authors think we do know it so well. But do we? It is self-explanatory, mostly. Or so I thought.
But, after a little more research, I found out that it isn’t as self-explanatory as I had assumed. And that I’ve been doing it wrong all along.
First of all: what does it do? It lets the reader interpret for themselves, lets them get closer to the story. Because they are not told what the character sees and hears, but they are shown as if they are experiencing it themselves.
‘Show don’t tell’ doesn’t only refer to our character’s traits from time to time. No, it actually is meant to occur throughout the entire book/ff/etc.
That means that you will show, not tell, that the sun is setting. And it means that you have to show, not tell, your character’s emotions. The more you show, the more relatable it gets. Of course you can overdo it, and certainly, a little telling now and then won’t hurt anyone. But in the key scenes, it is very important that you show.
But how do you do that?
It is quite easy to show how the sun is setting. You only have to think about: how do you experience a setting sun? You might notice the shadows lengthen, you might notice the sun’s heat growing weaker on your skin, you might notice it slowly creeping closer to the horizon.
But what about emotions? Well, it’s the same principle. If I, as a writer, tell you, as a reader, ‘my character is nervous’, then you won’t feel much. Because, surely, you know what nervosity feels like, but hearing/reading the word won’t make you feel agitated, like worms crawling under your skin. It won’t increase your heartbeat, give you that itchy feeling of pressure all over your body, make you want to jump and move to somehow get rid of the restlessness.
See what I’m doing? I’m describing how you might experience nervosity. I’m not telling you: ‘you must feel nervous now’. I’m showing you how it is to feel nervous and you will be able to relate.
So I wanted to share that with you, other aspiring writers, because this rule, as soon as I understood it, has improved my writing as well as made the writing process easier. Because now I can consciously do what before I had to somehow find out through trial and error.
Listen up folks, because I’m an adult and I have words to say.
Everyone learns how to write from somewhere. Whether that’s through practice, or reading a book on writing, or by following writing advice they’ve read on the internet.
The thing with writing advice is that it’s usually taken from a more experienced source and then passed on.
‘Don’t use adverbs?’ Hey, Stephen King said that.
‘If you do this, you’ll never get published?’ Industry people blog about this all the time.
‘Cringey technique?’ Most likely editors who have seen it a thousand times.
Do we blame these people for upsetting the new, inexperienced writers with their similarly phrased writing advice? No.
New, young writers will read these pieces of advice, implement them within their own writing, and grow to form these opinions and then guess what? Pass it on to younger, newer writers. Because that’s what they learned.
Honestly? It’s not just up to the ‘adults,’ or the ‘experienced writers,’ to think carefully about how they phrase things. Lets stop putting 100% of the responsibility on them, which seems to be a Tumblr trend. It is not the adults fault in anyway shape or form if someone quits writing.
It’s mostly up to the younger, or more inexperienced writers to think carefully about the writing advice they see, and who its coming from. They are under no obligation whatsoever to follow any advice, and if they choose to listen to some random, self proclaimed ‘experienced writer,’ on Tumblr, or an adult that they don’t know, that’s on them. If they read one piece of writing advice that spins their work in a negative light and they quit, then that’s on them.
The thing everybody in the writing community needs to remember, is that writing advice is just opinion, formed by your own, personal experiences. They’re not rules you have to follow, or apply to your own writing.
If you like using a certain complex technique, then use it. If you like using adverbs, use them. Don’t take the word of random strangers on the internet who claim that they’re ‘experienced,’ because in writing, there is no finish line. There is no check point to reach between ‘inexperienced,’ and ‘experienced.’
Write what you want, and stop relying on other people to tell you how to do it.
There's already a second part to the post where I say this applies to everyone. This post in particular was just aimed at experienced writers, because that's what I see most often. But I've already clarified this applies to anyone.
No, it isn't adult writers faults. I've seen teenagers be just as arrogant. But if you're an adult on the internet, especially when posting for younger people, they're going to trust you.
You have to be aware about the people in that demographic. Hell, that's a basic rule of writing ANYTHING. Understand who your demographic is (i.e., young writers), and tailor the post to them. Whether what you have to say is negative or not.
Young writers don't want to read advice written by someone acting like a know-it-all and telling them everything they do is terrible and they'll never be taken seriously. Yes, I know, it'll help them improve in the long run, but it doesn't mean there's no other way to do it.
Leave the harsh tone for other posts. Not for ones aimed at literal teenagers.
Writing advice isn’t just for young writers though- it’s for everyone. Saying they’re the demographic (like they’re the only demographic out there in the writing community,) is incorrect.
Some writers work best with harsh tones, and others do best with a softer one. You can’t group every writer, of every age, and every length of writing experience the same. You can’t treat them all the same like you’re suggesting.
There are posts out there without the harsh tone. If young writers don’t want to read the advice of a know it all, then they shouldn’t.
Meanwhile, while a harsh tone isn’t always the way to go, people giving advice shouldn’t have to feel forced to tailor their own (personal,) advice just to appeal to a certain type of young people, when it might not even be young people they’re talking to.
I'm talking about posts that specifically say "young writers" or "teen writers" somewhere in them.
Every writer is different, but if you're talking to young people and you know you are, you intend to reach a young audience, there's no point in being overly harsh to them when you're fully aware that it's going to make them insecure about their writing and possibly discourage them from it.
Let them develop themselves and their style first. Don't jump in while they barely have a clue what they're doing and tell them why everything is wrong when they haven't had a chance to learn it themselves.
* You have no idea if a young writer is going to feel insecure when reading harsh advice
* You have no idea if it will discourage a young writer
* Writing advice should not be used as a learning tool.
* ‘Advice,’ may be targeted to young writers, because some things are worth being aware about when you’re just starting out. But again, young writers don’t need to read it, listen to it, or follow it.
* If they’re actively looking for advice, they don’t want to learn on their own. They want guidance.
* Not all harsh writing advice is bad writing advice
How about we... be kind to each other especially growing creators? Who does it hurt by being nice? Just be kind. Be gentle. Assume you need to be gentle unless the person you’re talking to specifically tells you not to be.
Spread kindness and gentleness? It hurts exactly 0 people a year?
To get anywhere in literally any artistic feild you’ve got to have thick skin. Your going to get rejected, your going to have your work criticised and it’s not always going to be soft that’s just the way the world goes. If you can’t handle that then fair enough, just ignore these types of posts, but if you want to improve your writing then you’ve got to get used to a little negativity from time to time. I’m not saying you should but up with people being mean or patronising, although you are going to be subjected to it, I’m saying that by engaging with these writing advice posts you are dealing with a variety of different people with different view points and teaching styles (I use the term teaching loosely here). Unless we’re dealing with young teenagers (13-15 year olds),who shouldn’t be taking any of this seriously at this point in time anyway, then you should be mature enough to at least start learning how to take harsher criticism. In fact it’ll help you a lot in day to day life tasks too such as keeping a job, growing resilience and maintaining relationships.
Sorry for the rant this just bugged me slightly :/
I'm always being asked how palaces work whether its downstairs, upstairs or accommodation wise. It is a really difficult thing to explain since there are so many different versions. I thought up a great analogy for it. Treat a palace like a hotel with a whole town living in it, because that's technically what it is. So that's what we're going to do.
Accommodation
Accommodation can be a difficult thing to sort both as a writer and a steward. You might have a palace of 200+ bedchambers in which you must house a staff of 500-/+, a varying amount of nobles, the royal family (of a varying amount) and their own households. When assigning rooms it is best to think of a Russian nesting doll. Start from the inside and work your way to the outside.
The best rooms go to the monarch, their consort and their children/siblings/parent(s). These chambers would include the bedroom, a drawing room/ common area, a privy, a closet (a small chamber that can be used for prayer or work). They would be furnished with the best cloth, the best candles and whatever furniture brought by the resident since most royal courts travelled from palace to palace. They will also have chambers for their personal servants such as ladies in waiting and grooms.
The second best set of rooms would go to the highest ranking nobles/people in the court. These rooms would be less fancy and a little smaller. These would be given to from titled nobility descending from those of Ducal rank (Dukes/Duchesses) or even members of the council such as Thomas Cromwell in Tudor times.
The next set would be considerably smaller, perhaps minus a closet or a drawing room. Given to lower nobility.
The next level of chambers would be smaller perhaps only the bedroom and a common area given to minor nobles.
The last set of rooms would be small and only hold enough room for a bedroom. Servants would have to sleep on the ground on pallets beside their masters.
Any other guests at court would have to stay at off-site locations around the palace in the city. Some nobles at houses around major palaces just in case they arrived late or were kicked out of court.
Room Service
Most palace kitchens were in the lower extremities of the building. They would include an area for food preparation, pantries (rooms where they keep the food) and perhaps even a common area for the servants. Food would be cooked in large ovens, rather looking like pizza ovens or on spits over fire pits. The kitchens would turn out food on order of the nobility and royalty which would be brought to the rooms by the noble's own servants. But since royal palaces are so large and microwaves do not exist, the food would likely be cold when it arrived. For larger, more public dinners, the court would gather in the great hall together (for more on this).
Picture yourself at a banquet held at the local Lord's castle. The music is playing, the people are chatting and rustling about in their bes
Entertainment
If you hoard over a thousand people into a single building, you will have to keep them entertained or else they might start misbehaving, more than usual. Palaces would be well stocked with ways to keep the courtiers occupied.
Every palace would have a stable where the residents' horses would be chillin'. Some palaces have parkland around them for hunting and picnicking.
Most palaces would have common areas where courtiers would meet to play card games or gossip like a game room.
There would be lawns converted for games such as bowling, croquet and tennis.
Some palaces like Versailles would have indoor theatres and stages for traveling players to perform pieces for the court.
Mediaeval castles would have pits for cockfighting or bear baiting usually outside the main castle on the grounds.
Services
We've spent enough time upstairs. Now lets look at the servants portion of the palace.
The local servants (those who serve at the palace all year round) would typically sleep in mass chambers grouped together according to jobs and gender.
The stableboys would likely sleep in the stable's hay lofts.
The unmarried girls of the castle would be locked in to protect their virtue (a precautionary rule though was frequently broken).
The cooks would sleep near the kitchen in order to get to work early as they could or if they had to rise early.
Stewards (the main boss of the servants) would have the best accommodation as would the other heads of the different groups of servants including the housekeeper, the chef, the head gardener.
Servants who came along with the court would be housed either in close quarters to their masters or on the floor by their bed.
The servants have different corridors and staircases to get around the palace without being seen. These would be smaller and plain parts of the palace.
isn't sable skin racist since it's an animal? Also writingquestionsanswered had a really good answer about coding races earlier this week that focused on how to derive ideas instead of copy-pasting like Mess and others do. i thought it was a really good way in how to be inspired instead of stealing: /post/616496830124064768/how-can-i-code-a-fantasy-race-as-seasian-without
You will notice the original WWC post also includes the word “fawn.” Is that racist because it’s also an animal? Things aren’t that clear-cut. The manner in which you use the word matters as much as the word itself, and you’re going to have to exercise some critical thinking and good judgement, because even some of the “good” brown words can be misused, such as in the case of “bronze.”
I’ve seen the post in question and while it’s a good concept, it’s hilarious to me that they use pearl-diving as an example... because pearl-diving is not unique to the Philippines. Vietnam has a long tradition of it as well, as do many island societies, like Tahiti and Hawaii. You could in fact just use pearl-diving instead of reinventing the wheel.
Honestly, the best thing that you can do for yourself as a writer is to just write. I'm discovering that I tend to try to edit while I write, which is a common problem. It's that voice inside my head that says, "I know how this is supposed to sound / I know how I want this to sound and it's not sounding like how I want." That's okay. That scene doesn't have to be perfect right now. Maybe you thought it was going to be awesome and fun to write, and it wasn't. But you got it down anyway. It doesn't need to be perfect right now, it can just exist. You can come back to it. And it is infinitely easier to come back and fix something than it is to spend countless hours mulling over something just to try to get it right the first time (I promise, you won't). Even your best scenes, the ones you thought went super well, you're going to come back to and change some things. It's your first draft. They're awesome scenes, but sometimes your vision changes over the course of your project. Allow yourself to write everything now, good and bad. Don't try to make everything polished. You can't polish what doesn't exist yet. Just write freely. Don't judge. Give yourself that kind of patience. It will lower your stress, and your end product will be much better. You'll actually have the energy to edit. Get it out, then come back later and worry about editing. Right now, your only goal is to get it all out on the page, the good, bad, and ugly of it. Even your worst can be some of your best inspiration.
This is a really interesting question, I mean I don’t have any answers but it’s certainly an good question.
Personally I’ve always had story ideas floating around my head since I was a kid but actually sitting down and getting it all out is something I’ve had to work on recently.
If you ask me it’s mostly nature but I think nurture can play a role in deciding wether you do it or not.
Music is the obvious go too for me, It can really help your brain get going on a mood or vague storyline of some sort which you can easily expand upon. I go for a bit of Tally Hall, Falloutboy, maybe Hamilton if I want to write some historical/fantasy based writing but it can be literally anything that pops into your head. Also if your struggling with coming up with ideas I would suggest writing up a few flash fictions, just play around with literally anything that comes to mind. If needs be you can also go to a random word generator, gather all the words up into a doc and come up with something that connects those elements together. There are also writing prompts available and a ton more useful aids you can find on the internet.
Please respect your author’s voice. Writing is an art, just like the visual art that you find in paintings, on walls, in journals, and doodled in the margins. You wouldn’t expect wildstyle graffiti to be the same as impressionism, yet both are subjectively valuable and cherished. And while all of them are built upon the same elements on line, color, value, etc., no two artists are exactly the same!
The same principle applies to writing. You may still be honing your understanding of grammar, syntax, description, and other fundamentals. But even once you have a solid grasp of those concepts, you still cannot expect your writing to be exactly the same as someone else’s. Embrace this!
Stop trying to avoid Mary Sue’s and start asking good questions
It’s okay if your character doesn’t have a thousand different character flaws.
There’s no such thing as a “bad character” just a lost one. What I mean is that on the bare fundamental level all characters have great potential they just need the right push. This includes Mary Sues (or Gary Stews but honestly I see no real need to separate the two), quite often you’ll find that there just products of an environment that isn’t equipped to challenge them in any meaningful way. If your presenting character’s with simple questions then there going to give simple answers it’s as easy as that. So how do we make things more interesting? Explore their strengths! Ask questions like: why do they want x so bad? Why are they so popular with everyone? Is this a shallow attraction people have? What situations can you put them in too were they can’t simply slash there way out? But most importantly what is it about this character that made you want to write them so much? Was it simple voyeurism if so work with that, great stories can be built of the back self-indulgence as long as your willing to explore things further than a simple glance.
At the end of the day these characters aren’t real neither are these stories. There an extension of your mind so naturally your allowed to be more lenient with what is/isn’t “realistic”. Focus on what will make the best version of your story. I have to emphasise the your here because writing advice pages (like this one) can only help you so much. Be conscious of the choices your making as well as why your choosing to make them and you’ll have the start of a good story at hand.
When there’s a fight scene in a film/show/book, and one of the characters makes a “mistake” in order to trick the person there fighting against (to lower there guard, to set some big action plan in motion, ect). And they all just standing there grinning like a group of dimwits who just came back from the annual joint dentist convention. No offence but if my opponent just barley misses my head by like 5 centimetres I’m not going to wait around for them to make another shot, I’m going over there to beat the living daylights out of them.
R.i.p to literally every side villain ever but I’m different
The one word answer for creating compelling characters.
Contrast, the word is contrast.
So what do I mean by this? If you want a quick, easy way to make a character memorable you can start by giving them an element of themselves that actively conflict’s with another. Now the character doesn’t have to be aware of this at first, it could be something subconscious: like a young, inspiring Ringmaster who has a dormant fear of clowns. (Though they will have to encounter this element at some point.)
Naturally this leads to an internal conflict as they struggle to integrate/tame these parts of themselves into the wider picture, this will also help readers relate to the character as we’ve all experienced these kind of identity crisis at some point that’s inherently human. If your dealing with a major character you can then externalise that problem on to other characters and story hurdles (I’ll touch more on that on another post).
Most importantly though, it gets you thinking about your character as more than just a person or a thing but as a series of interlocking parts which you can know take out, rearrange as well as observe. The balls really in your court for this.
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