Random Writings

I write. I post. Maybe you like. WIP Tag: The Chosen One wip

[transmasc-wizard]

people who write on their phones (word mobile, gdocs app, scrivener mobile, notesapp, etc) how does it feel to be taunting god every single day

[randomgooberness]

Whole-heartedly BEGGING writers to unlearn everything schools taught you about how long a paragraph is. If theres a new subject, INCLUDING ACTIONS, theres a new paragraph. A paragraph can be a single word too btw stop making things unreadable

[randomgooberness]

Ok So I’m getting more notes than I thought quicker than I expected! So I’m gonna elaborate bc I want to. 

I get it, when you’re someone who writes a lot and talks a lot, it’s hard to keep things readable, but it’s not as much about cutting out the fat(that can be a problem) so much as a formatting issue. 

You are also actively NERFING yourself by not formatting it correctly, it can make impactful scenes feel so, so much better. Compare this, 

To THIS. 

Easier to read, and hits harder. 

No more over-saturated paragraphs. Space things out.

[randomgooberness]

@s1ld3n4f1l​ WAIT WAIT WAIT SO TRUE LITERALLY LITERALLY 

[dragonbleps-moved]

Me, an artist:

[saveyourhelplessspite]

Me, a writer:

[aletheiawriting]

My only real and valid writing tip is that you google every word you make up for your fantasy stories. That's It

[pacmastermeow]

there won't be any results though because you just made it up

[wizardpotions]

[oranaro-deactivated20241016]

One time I made up a name for a character and after googling it discovered it was a Zimbabwean slur

[neil-gaiman]

Yesterday was a bad writing day. I spent a lot of time staring at a screen. Lots of Tumblr replies. Lots of Twitter (the Netflix Sandman trailer going out didn’t help). Lots of being grumpy at myself and convinced I couldn’t do it any more. The script was a mess. I was doomed. This morning I printed out what I had to fix, picked up a pen, made a few notes and started typing. It was fun and easy and straightforward. I finished it and sent it to the people who needed to see it, and just got an amazed call from our script editor saying she was laughing while crying and couldn’t work out how I’d done everything in a day.

And I hadn’t done it all in a day. All of the being miserable yesterday was necessary for it to fly today. All of the knowing it was insoluble and awful made the work today relatively easy. I had to get out of my own way, and had to read it freshly, without being attached to anything. And then I just did the notes. And to make the thing that worked today, a lot of stuff that didn’t quite work or sort of worked had to be written too. It’s always easier to fix stuff that exists.

Anyway. Yesterday = bad writing day. Today = good writing day. I thought it was worth telling people, in case there was anyone else out there who was having a bad writing day too.

[modmad]

;; thank you sir

[storybookprincess]

i know it’s been said before, but it bears repeating: a big, big part of maintaining your confidence & self esteem as a creator is fully embracing the concept of “you don’t have to be good like them.  you can be good like you.”

for example, i’m not someone who’s particularly good at coming up with complex, elaborate plots or incredibly unique ideas.  it’s just not how i choose to write.  and it would be easy for me to look at someone with an elaborate, super unique plot & decide that because i don’t write like that, i’m not a good writer.  after all, unique plots are good, and my writing lacks those, so my writing must not be good, right?  well, no, actually.  i just have different strengths, like taking a simple premise & digging super deep into its emotional depths.  that’s what i do well & it isn’t any better or worse than people who do elaborate world building or come up with really creative and unexpected plots.

your writing is never going to be all things to all people.  it just isn’t.  inevitably, you’ll have to make creative choices that favor certain aspects of writing over others.  there is truly no getting around that & it’s honestly a good thing, because it means you’ve developed your own style.  but you’ll always encounter other creators who posses strengths that you don’t.  it doesn’t mean one is better than the other or that your writing isn’t good enough. 

comparing yourself like that would be like taking a piece of pizza & a cupcake & going “oh no, that cupcake is so sweet & my pizza isn’t sweet at all.” or “gosh, the garlic crust on that pizza is delicious and my cupcake doesn’t have ANY garlic.”  obviously your pizza isn’t sweet.  obviously your cupcake doesn’t have garlic.  a food can’t have every single delicious flavor at once.  the cupcake is good like a cupcake.  the pizza is good like a pizza.  so you don’t have to be good like them.  you can be good like you.

[ellatholmes]

kinda rude that my book requires a plot but okay

[supernovasilence]

my sister just described her wip as "I don't know where this story's going BUT IT'S GOING SOMEWHERE" and if that's not an accurate description of writing I don't know what is

[defectivegembrain]

creative writing’s just like yeah sure i can deal with my issues i just need to cover them in several layers of metaphors first

[prokopetz]

To be fair, changing your mind about where a story’s going based on reader predictions isn’t always bad. Sure, it’s not great if you’re all “oh, no, they figured it out, now I have to change everything because my readers aren’t allowed to be cleverer than me” – but on the other hand, sometimes a reader will be like “okay, here’s the dumbest possible way I can imagine this playing out”, and then their dumbest possible prediction is exactly what you’re planning, and you realise that yeah, now that you’ve seen it laid out by someone who isn’t the voice in your head, that’s actually super dumb.

[prokopetz]

Other variations that don’t just boil down to deliberately frustrating reader expectations include:

Changing the outcome because a reader was like “I really hope this doesn’t happen”, and on consideration you realise that you also hope that doesn’t happen  

Changing the outcome because a reader was thinking further ahead than you are and spotted an implication of a forthcoming plot point that you don’t like the smell of  

Changing the outcome because a reader’s prediction drew your attention to the fact that your planned resolution would have stumbled dick-first into a massive plot hole  

Changing the outcome because a reader picked up on a bunch of blatant foreshadowing and symbolism you didn’t notice you’d put there because your subconscious forgot to send a memo  

Changing the outcome because a reader proposed such an elegant solution to a legitimately thorny narrative problem that it would feel petty not to let them be right  

Changing the outcome because a reader was like “hey, you know what would be really fucked up?” and the bastard gremlin that lives in your brain started smirking like the fucking Grinch

[ofsinnersandsaints]

to every writer of every story who has changed a plot twist simply because the audience guessed it, i give you Matthew Mercer:

“It makes me excited that people are following along so closely and are picking up the threads that I’m dropping. It means that I’m not doing a terrible job about laying down the tracks. Sometimes the surprise isn’t the joy of telling a good story, sometimes it’s about rewarding people for following along and figuring it out…you can still add additional twists along the way.”

[dimetrodone]

Sorry to all my friends on Discord

[6half6empty6]

If you mother truckers keep exposing me like this I might just cry.

[mcnotok]

[prettyboykatsuki-moved]

its so freeing when you realize you can literally write whatever you want 

[prettyboykatsuki-moved]

it doesnt have to be good or anything you can just write things and post them and it doesnt matter at all

[prettyboykatsuki-moved]

“your story sucks” what are you going to do? refund the money u didn’t pay? you are a bozo

[writing-with-melon]

I didn’t write a thing today simply because the vibes weren’t right.

[writing-with-melon]

[whimsicalinkposts]

It’s hard being a writer when life keeps you from writing. Yes, you don’t have to write every day to be a writer, but writing regularly helps an awful lot. I recently got free time to write and be online again, but right now, writing feels like wearing gloves that don’t fit as well as they used to.

[mysharona1987]

Hilarious book dedications. 

[ellabass]

[genderfluid-and-confuzled]

People would have died

[relatable-books]

[lilac-masquerade]

The last one is true and I can say it cause I’m an author

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

@thebibliosphere

[doomstar]

You know what, fuck people who force writers to reveal their trauma in order to justify the stories they write. No consumer is owed an explanation for the content a creator creates, and no creator should feel obligated to draw from or admit to pain that may or may not be in their life in order to craft a work of fiction.

“I had an idea for a story” is all the justification you need to write one, and all anyone needs to let it be.