Words Count

writing tips, advice and memes

[leosmiserables]

obsessed with this bookshop in stratford-upon-avon having WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE listed as a ”local author”

[stonelionhearts]

i think as a writer, the older you get and the more you read, the more you realize there are very few actual truly bad ideas. which is a relief. but! the other thing you learn is that stories live and die on the execution and ha ha. lemme tell you. unfortunately. there are lots and lots of bad ways to execute an otherwise fine idea

[pheita]

Memo to everybody :

Never be afraid to recycle an idea you had for a WIP you abandoned. Sometimes the idea needs a different set of characters or a different setting.

[indecisive-behaviors]

An addition:

Never be afraid to recycle an idea you had for a project you already completed. Sometimes ideas really are just that good and deserve to be used more than once.

[mytrinketsandknickknacks]

Don't be afraid to use the same recipe to make a new cake

[ladyignatius4]

Mentally making a cup of tea and giving a gentle forehead kiss to every struggling writer on my dash right now.

Your story matters, your ideas are good, and someone out there is going to fall in love with your world.

[frederickchiltonsdivacup]

I'm gonna go check on my WIP. just in case it wrote itself while I was gone. You never know.

[gr8writingtips]

writing tip #4162:

maybe write something people want to read idk

[abigailspinach]

[phoukanamedpookie]

How to write fic for Black characters: a guide for non-Black fans

Don’t characterize a Black character as sassy or thuggish, especially when the character in question is can be described in literally ten thousand other ways..

Don’t describe Black characters as chocolate, coffee, or any sort of food item.

Don’t highlight the race of Black characters (ie, “the dark man” or “the brown woman”) if you don’t highlight the race of white characters.

Think very carefully about that antebellum slavery or Jim Crow AU fic as a backdrop for your romance.

If you’re not fluent with AAVE, don’t use it to try to look cool or edgy. You look corny as hell.

Don’t use Black characters as a prop for the non-Black characters you’re actually interested in.

Keep “unpopular opinions” about racism, Black Lives Matter, and other issues pertinent to Black folks out the mouths of Black characters. We know what the fuck you’re doing with that and need to stop.

Don’t assume a Black character likes or hates a certain food, music, or piece of pop culture.

You can make a Black character’s race pertinent without doing it like this.

Be extremely careful about insinuating that one or more of a Black character’s physical features are dirty, unclean, or ugly.

Feel free to add more.

[phoukanamedpookie]

Adding more…

Be wary of making Black characters seem animalistic, uncivilized, or subhuman in comparison to white characters. Watch out for: comparing us to monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees, apes, and other animals.

Words like Negroid, colored/colured, Negro, and the n-word do not belong in the mouths of contemporary characters you want to portray as sympathetic.

Not all Black people are African American.

Africa is not a country but the second-largest continent on earth with some 54 different countries with thousands of ethnic groups and 1,500 to 3,000 languages and dialects.

Resist the urge to make a Black character seem uneducated and ignorant compared to white characters.

Capitalizing Black shows that you recognize that the word unifying people of African descent, particularly the diaspora, should be described using a proper noun.

Please, say “Black people,” not “blacks.”

Give Black characters the same psychological and moral complexity as white men are given by default.

Make sure that you don’t write a Black character as happily subservient to a white character.

Understand and show that you understand that Black characters don’t exist to be the caretakers of white characters.

[phoukanamedpookie]

And more…

Do your own homework instead of expecting, asking, or demanding Black fans to do it.

Before approaching that Black person you admire so much for being so articulate about race issues (this is sarcasm) to beta read your work: 1) make sure it’s something they’ve expressed interest in doing, and 2) you offer something in return for their time and expertise.

Be prepared for fans to have issues with what you came up with and open to suggestions.

Having only one Black character in a story that takes place in a huge city, country, or galaxy looks weird. Really, really weird. Scary weird.

Don’t use a Black character’s death to motivate a white character.

Portray Black characters with complex and multifaceted identities. We are more than just Black. We are also women, LGBT, Jewish, disabled, neurodivergent, immigrants, etc.

There is a huge chasm between hypersexual and desexualized.

Remember: what’s progressive for a white character is not necessarily progressive for a Black one.

[adhd-merlin]

trying to finish writing something after the fleeting moment of inspiration has passed

[rozzed]

why not have the reader re-read a sentence now and then? it won't hurt him....

[thecharmingwraith]

I thought writing would feel like;

Turns out it’s herding cats. Half of them are on fire, and the other half are narrative choices I don’t remember making.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

i got a fucking. advertisement on youtube. from google ai. saying. without sarcasm and with complete sincerity. "if shakespeare is too hard for you, you can always have our ai explain it to you." im gonna throw up. im gonna throw a molotov cocktail. if i see that ad again im reporting it for hate speech. how fucking dare you. i will kill you with my bare hands. with my exit pursued by a bear hands. i will tear google headquarters down brick by brick. im going to start biting people.

[paperplateprose]

not now kitten. daddy's realizing that the scene he invested 1000 words into could be significantly improved but only if he started over from scratch

[haridraws]

Keep thinking about this Austin Walker post that now lives in my brain. It's a reply to people saying genAI can help creators 'develop concepts' and waste less time on research (x)

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ Fuck off and give me the ball . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

[captainkirkk]

What they don't tell you about writing is that as you write, you discover scenes and entire plots that you hadn't accounted for that need to be written. So you can spend two hours writing and editing only to realise you're further away from the finish line than you thought you were when you started

[apolladay]

If you know the meaning of the word "defenestrate", do you remember how you learned it?

Yes (put it in the tags please I'm curious)

No

I don't know the meaning of the word defenestrate

Voting ended onApr 18

[tlbodine]

For the last goddamn time...

"Kill your darlings" means "if something is holding you back, get rid of it, even if it sounds pretty."

That's it! That's all it means! It means if you're stuck and stalled out on your story and you could fix the whole block by removing something but you're avoiding removing that thing because it's good, you remove that thing. That's the darling.

It does NOT mean

That you have to get rid of your self-indulgent writing

That you should delete something just because you like it (?wtf?)

That you need to kill off characters (??? what)

That you have to pare your story down to the absolute bare bones

That you have to delete anything whatsoever if you don't want to

The POINT is that you STOP FEELING GUILTY for throwing out good writing that isn't SERVING THE STORY.

The POINT is that you don't get so HUNG UP on the details that you lose sight of the BIG PICTURE.

Good grief....

[prof-grace-aspen]

Also, you don't have to like, delete it from existence. Keep a second document full of the Darlings. You never know when you'll need it later.

[earhartsease]

yes, your killed darlings are ripe for rebirth

[eldritchsandwich]

compost your darlings

recycle your darlings

Darlings who don't fit this narrative go into the use later folder