Wrex Writes

A blog about fiction craft and process

[wrex-writes]

I wanted to say I love the writing advice on your blog and come back to it often, including today. Have good one! <3

(Sorry for the incredibly delayed reply) Aw thank you!

[artisimpossible]

I've noticed that people take writing advice way too literally and then get really mad about it, so here's a quick guide of what the typical "bad' writing advice is actually trying to tell you.

[Note: you don't have to take literally any piece of advice. It's just there for your consideration. If you hate it, leave it and do things the way you want. But the reason all of this advice is regurgitated so often is because it has helped a lot of people, so it's okay if it's not for you, but it may still be life changing for someone else.]

Write Every Day

"Write every day" is NOT supposed to be a prescriptivist, unbreakable rule that dictates anyone who doesn't write literally every day isn't a real writer. It's supposed to be a shorthand way of saying "establish a writing routine. Get used to writing at certain times or in certain places or in certain patterns, both so that you can trick yourself into writing even when you don't feel like it by recreating certain conditions, but also because if you only write "when you're in the mood", you may never get around to finishing a project and you likely won't be able to meet publishing deadlines if you decide to pursue publication."

The point of this advice is basically just to get used to seeing writing as part of your daily routine, something that you do regularly. But if you decide you can't write on Tuesdays or weekdays or any day when you have certain other activities, that's literally fine. Just try to make it a habit if you can.

2. Show Don't Tell

"Show don't tell" DOES NOT AND HAS NEVER meant "never state anything plainly and explicitly in the text". Again, "show don't tell" is a shorthand, and its intended message is "things tend to feel a lot more satisfying when your reader is able to come to that conclusion on their own rather than having the information given to them and being told they just have to accept it." It's about giving your reader the pieces to put the puzzle of your book together on their own rather than handing them a finished puzzle and saying "there. take it."

So if you have a character who's very short-tempered, it's typically more satisfying that you "show" them losing their cool a few times so that the reader can draw the conclusion on their own that this character is short-tempered rather than just saying "He was short-tempered". Oftentimes, readers don't want to take what you tell them at face value, so if you just state these sorts of details, readers will push back against that information. People are significantly more likely to believe literally any information they are able to draw conclusions on without being told what to believe, so that's where this advice comes in.

3. In Medias Res

This one is so often misunderstood. "In medias res" or "start in the middle", DOES NOT MEAN to literally start halfway through your plot. It also DOES NOT MEAN that you should start in the middle of an action packed scene. It just means that when you start your story, it should feel like the world and the characters already existed before we started following them. It shouldn't feel like everything was on pause and the world and characters only started acting the moment the story begins.

This is why starting with a character waking up or something similar can feel jarring and slow. We want to feel instantly compelled by your character, and the most efficient way to do that is [typically] to have them already doing something, but that something can be anything from taking a shower to commuting to school to chopping off a dragon head. We just want to feel like the story is already moving by the time we enter.

4. Shitty First Drafts

The idea that you should let your first draft suck and not revise it as you go is a tip presented to combat the struggle a lot of people have with not being able to finish a draft. If you find you've been working on the same first draft for five years and barely gotten anywhere, you might want to try this advice. The point is to just focus on getting to the ending because finishing a draft can give you renewed energy to work on the book and also makes it easier to get feedback from readers and friends.

That said, if your story is flowing fine even as you go back and make edits, then don't worry about this. This is advice specifically designed to target a problem. Likewise, this doesn't mean that you can't clean up typoes when you see them or even make minor edits if you want to. It just means not to let yourself get completely bogged down by making changes that you never move forward.

A "shitty first draft" also doesn't mean that your story has to be completely illegible. It just means that you shouldn't let perfectionism stop you yet. I see a lot of people say "well, I can't keep going until this first part makes sense", and that's totally reasonable! Again, the point of this advice is just to get you out of that rut that keeps you from making progress, but if you spend a couple weeks editing and then move on or you find the book is still making forward strides while you edit, then you're fine. You don't need this.

5. Adverbs

The idea that you "shouldn't use adverbs" DOES NOT MEAN that any time you use an adverb, you're ruining your story. It just means that you shouldn't *rely* on adverbs to carry your story, namely in places where stronger verbs or nouns would do a lot more heavy lifting.

For instance, you can write "she spoke quietly", but generally speaking, that "quietly" there is a lot weaker than just subbing out this clause for "she whispered". You probably have the word "spoke" all over your draft, so subbing out one instance of it here for a stronger verb in place of the same verb + an adverb makes for stronger prose. This doesn't mean that you'll never want to use the phrase "spoke quietly" over the word "whispered". For instance, if I write, "When she finally spoke, she spoke quietly, like that was all the volume her weakened lungs could muster." In this case, I'm using "spoke quietly" specifically *because* it echoes the previous spoke earlier in the sentence, and it evokes a certain level of emotion to have that repetition there. I also used it because she's not actually "whispering", but trying to speak at full volume only to come off sounding quiet.

So when people tell you to cut adverbs, they're saying this because people often use adverbs as a crutch to avoid having to seek out stronger verbs. If you're using your adverbs intentionally, having considered stronger verbs but ultimately deciding that this adverb is what does the job properly, then there's nothing wrong with using them. This is just a trick to help you spot one common weakness in prose that a lot of authors don't even realize they have.

6. Write What You Know

This is potentially the single worst-underestood piece of writing advice. "Write what you know" DOES NOT MEAN to write only what you know or that you have to put all of your life's knowledge on the page. It just means that drawing from your own experiences and already there knowledge will help you craft a better story.

So, for instance, being an eye doctor doesn't mean you have to write a story about an eye doctor. It doesn't even mean you need to write a story that directly deals with any eye knowledge. It just means that there are likely things you've experience as an eye doctor that can help inspire or inform your story. Maybe you remember a patient who always wore the same yellow shoes, and so you include a character who does exactly that. Maybe you spent a lot of hours dealing with insurance so you decide to write about insurance agents. Maybe your practice was located next to a grocery store so you decide to write a zombie apocalypse story that takes place in a location inspired by that shopping center.

The point is that, as people, our lived experiences allow us to relate to other people and craft more believable worlds. So don't limit yourself to your lived or experience or feel obligated to only write the things you've done, but when you find yourself wondering what to write about next or how to give a character more depth or how to describe this random location, pull things from your life and let what you already know bring a certain level of unique you-ness to your writing.

And the MOST important advice I can give you is to stop looking at writing advice as some holy, unbreakable rules passed down by the gods that you cannot ever deviate from. And if a piece of advice sounds totally bonkers, do some research on it. There's a good chance that whoever's passing it to you has no idea what they're talking about. But even if every other writer swears by a certain piece of advice, you absolutely do not need to take it. Try it on if you want, and throw it away if you don't, but stop making yourselves miserable by letting random internet people dictate your life. Most people giving advice on the internet aren't where you want to be anyway, so don't expect them to be able to guide you somewhere they've never been.

Everything's made up, and nothing matters. Write what you want.

[drchucktingle]

Hi Dr. Tingle!

I was wondering if you have any advice for anxious buckaroos that are a little scared of putting themselves out into the world?

Maybe some advice you would tell your younger self?

Thank you for all you do <3

yes bud. part of my way on autism spectrum is that when i used to create EVERYTHING HAD TO BE PERFECT i would get so riled up by every small imperfection and if one little dang problem popped up then everything was ruined and chuck was in a BAD WAY.

there is no 'cure' for autism and i do not want my way to be cured, i LOVE being autistic, but this particular part of my trot was not healthy for me and i learned to adapt. part of my adapting trot was to start letting things be perfectly imperfect. it was small steps at first but now i can swim in a beautiful ocean of chaos pretty dang well.

anxiety and autism are not the same thing of course but maybe you can relate to this philosophical lesson of chuck:

when you create, whether that is with VISUAL ART or FOOD or A WALKING PATH THROUGH THE PARK or a BREATH OF AIR you have already made the perfect version of this thing, because it is a reflection of that moment on this timeline. you have CAPTURED THE NOW

any anxious feelings of 'am i doing this wrong?' 'is this weird?' 'is this incorrect?' 'is this awkward?' can always be answered with 'well this is perfect representation of right NOW'. if you are trotting with love in your way and fueling your path then THAT will shine through at the end and you will move towards something great, and the STEPS to get there are ALL perfectly imperfect.

to move it back to art, lets say you are trying to paint a field but you get out there with your canvas and you forget your dang GREEN PAINT. you might think 'DANG what a disaster i cannot paint the green grass gotta use red now this is the worst painting ever'. but here is the thing, that painting is not broken it is a PERFECT REFLECTION of what led to it and it is a PERFECT REPRESENTATION OF NOW because now is not perfect. what that painting says is 'this is the field of someone who forgot their green paint at home' and there is nothing WRONG with that. in fact that is exactly the kind of thing that makes trotting through this timeline fruitful and wonderful.

if you get anxious worrying about mistakes, maybe try thinking on idea that most mistakes fall into this category. dont worry bud we are ALL just bumbling through this timeline trying our hardest and making perfect imperfections.

[wisteria-lodge]

So my problem with most ‘get to know your character’ questioneers is that they’re full of questions that just aren’t that important (what color eyes do they have) too hard to answer right away (what is their greatest fear) or are just impossible to answer (what is their favorite movie.)  Like no one has one single favorite movie. And even if they do the answer changes.

If I’m doing this exercise, I want 7-10 questions to get the character feeling real in my head. So I thought I’d share the ones that get me (and my students) good results: 

What is the character’s go-to drink order? (this one gets into how do they like to be publicly perceived, because there is always some level of theatricality to ordering drinks at a bar/resturant)

What is their grooming routine? (how do they treat themselves in private)

What was their most expensive purchase/where does their disposable income go? (Gets you thinking about socio-economic class, values, and how they spend their leisure time)

Do they have any scars or tattoos? (good way to get into literal backstory) 

What was the last time they cried, and under what circumstances? (Good way to get some *emotional* backstory in.) 

Are they an oldest, middle, youngest or only child? (This one might be a me thing, because I LOVE writing/reading about family dynamics, but knowing what kinds of things were ‘normal’ for them growing up is important.)

Describe the shoes they’re wearing. (This is a big catch all, gets into money, taste, practicality, level of wear, level of repair, literally what kind of shoes they require to live their life.)

Describe the place where they sleep. (ie what does their safe space look like. How much (or how little) care / decoration / personal touch goes into it.)

What is their favorite holiday? (How do they relate to their culture/outside world. Also fun is least favorite holiday.) 

What objects do they always carry around with them? (What do they need for their normal, day-to-day routine? What does ‘normal’ even look like for them.) 

[dduane]

You are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance.

Why you can’t just do it, and what to do instead

Just putting this here where I won’t lose it…

[mumblingsage]

1. Recognise that internal resistance is on your side. Part of what is so awful about the cycle-of-not-doing-the-thing is that it feels so self-destructive. But internal resistance does not want to destroy us; it literally wants the opposite! It only exists to protect us from pain.

You are not being self-destructive. You just have two deeply rooted and fundamentally contradictory ideas about what is best for you: doing the thing, and not doing the thing. 2. Get curious about this pain that your brain is so worried about. When we understand exactly what pain we fear and why, we can work on reducing those fears. This is why I think treating resistance as an opaque external force is such a mistake. Internal resistance is not immovable — it responds to reason, to alternative scenarios, to making space for the emotions that seem like such a threat — but to shift it you have to understand its particular content for you. 3. Negotiate. You may not be able to figure out what is motivating your internal resistance immediately, and even once you do, it can take some time to figure out how to address your fears and worries about pain in the offing. In the meantime, I suggest haggling. Will your internal resistance allow you to work for 10 minutes? What about five? If you can’t work formally, could you talk into your phone? How about brainstorming in the bathtub?

You can create so much increased space in your brain just moving from “I need to apply will power so I stop being so bad and lazy” to “I’m experiencing a lot of internal resistance, let me get inventive in working with it today”.

4. Recognise that you are not alone in this. Even if resistance is not a superhuman force, I think Pressfield is right to envision it as something that besets most of us. Yes, there are rare people who do not — or at least don’t seem to — experience much internal resistance, who seem to just produce and produce. But I am willing to bet that you also seem like that kind of person to someone in your life.

[mikkeneko]

You are not being self-destructive. You just have two deeply rooted and fundamentally contradictory ideas about what is best for you: doing the thing, and not doing the thing.

[wrex-writes]

I feel like I'm always forcing my characters to do something stupid/ incompetent in order to have a conflict and it makes me feel bad. I believe this is what TvTropes calls "idiot ball" which is where a character suddenly does something foolish and out-of-character.

Ah yes, the idiot ball. It’s hard, because as the writer, you know everything and so you know what would be a mistake in any given circumstance. But when people do stupid things, or things that look stupid in retrospect, it usually isn’t because they are stupid, it’s because they have incomplete information (and one’s information is always incomplete because, if nothing else, one can’t see the future) or because they have blind spots created by their own desires, fears, ego, etc. They do what makes sense to them given what they know and what they want, but like everyone else on earth, they’re just blind mice feeling their way through a maze.

So getting characters to make reasonable-seeming mistakes requires one thing: you have to know more than they do. This can be tricky because you have to switch perspectives between your own god’s eye view and your characters’ limited views - you have to pretend to forget what you know about the story and just ask “if I had this person’s knowledge and temperament, what would it make sense to me to do now?”

This also means you have to hold some information in reserve from your reader, because the closer your reader is to the character’s degree of benightedness, the more reasonable the character’s decisions will seem. I often feel the urge to  dump everything I know about the story into the narration, but if you tell the reader everything, there can be no surprise, no resemblance to our experience of real life in which the world comes up with new and unexpected ways to thwart our desires.

Personally, I think the best conflict comes from characters’ blind spots - in other words, when they misinterpret the world through the lens of their own fears and desires. We tend to believe things we want to be true. You really want it to be a certain person at the door so when the doorbell rings you open it expecting to see them. You hate somebody so you interpret everything they do in the worst possible light. But this is a balancing act, because this distorted interpretation needs to seem reasonable given the ambiguous data. That the hated person is doing something for shitty reasons should be plausible (unless your point is that the character with the grudge has truly lost touch with reality). In other words, you have to keep the data open to multiple interpretations and not immediately telegraph the truth to your reader.

So yeah, avoiding the idiot ball is not always easy. It might be helpful to literally break down the scenario (in your head or in your notes) in these terms: what do I know, what does the character know, and how much should I tell my reader?

[wrex-writes]

Hi there! I was wondering if the Wrex Writes Discord was still kicking, and if I could grab a link if so? I'm new to your blog but I've found your advice legitimately so helpful to the point of tears, and it's been a struggle finding like-minded folks who don't regurgitate the same "you just gotta have discipline and write 1,000 words a day and you'll magically be a better writer" advice when I'm struggling, y'know? Hope you're safe, well, and happy regardless!

Well it does still exist but it’s been silent for a while. Maybe you can resurrect it! Here’s an invite link: https://discord.gg/FXBrYnNq

(Let me know if it doesn’t work, I am bad at discord)

[wrex-writes]

this blog still has followers and this speciifc follower printed out a lot of ur posts and read them when they’re feeling discouraged.

[wrex-writes]

life happens you're good!!! i hope things haven't been too stressful for you these past months~

Thanks. :) Not gonna lie, the chronic illness has been getting me down, but I’ve also had other, more positive things going on too, so you know, tradeoffs. Hope everyone is hanging in there!

[wrex-writes]

Blog Still Has Followers indeed!!! hi

I am both glad and I apologize. :)

[wrex-writes]

hello!! i am here to attest that this blog still has followers and aLSO that folks are getting excellent mileage out of the archive of posts. the posts about writing rehab helped get me back into ficwriting after two years away!!

i did want to ask (if you have time!) — are there certain writing exercises i can do or questions i can think about to help guide me to how to satisfyingly end a story or figure out major beats in a plot? or to figure out the most narratively interesting dynamic between two characters? i am finding myself quite stuck on these fronts right now and would love advice!

Ah good question. I think it comes down to discovering what you, personally, want. What gets you going about the idea of these two characters interacting? Why did you even put them together in the first place? Likewise with the story as a whole - what sorts of scenes do you want to write? What sounds, well, fun? It may seem obvious and easy but I’ve found it’s actually quite difficult to follow the trail of your own taste and desires - to get away from “what would be best?” to “what draws me in? what aspect of this story attracts me? why did I start writing it in the first place? what do I want to get out of it?” It’s a matter of trusting your own intuition, which first requires you to even hear your intuition, which is not a trivial task.

One thing I often do is try to find the shameful idfic under the story I think I’m writing. What is the most sappy, self-indulgent, “I can’t show this to people because they’ll get a mortifying glimpse into what I’m really like” version of this story? You don’t have to write that version, but it’s helpful to let it out because suppressing it is probably suppressing good ideas too.

Coming at it from another angle: when I hit a block and don’t know where to take a story next, I often ask “what’s the worst possible thing that could happen?” And maybe I don’t do exactly that? But usually it will get me thinking along interesting lines. It gets me away from the temptation to 1) play the story safe, and 2) just finish it already. It can also bring what the story is about into focus - which I think is what you’re really asking. How does one get to the pith and core of the story, the part that makes it worth writing? For me it requires thinking in extremes - see the idfic thing above - even if I don’t ultimately go to that extreme. What sort of event would make the subterranean issues between these two characters explode to the surface? What is the most terrible, dramatic or just friggin bonkers thing that could happen right now? It’s not about making the story ~dramatic so much as jogging my brain into deciding what the real story actually is.

TL;DR - you know what you want to write, but you don’t know that you know it, so the trick is getting yourself to confess what you really want. :)

[wrex-writes]

hi, i read your post abt shitty first drafts & i can't thank you enough! i always thought i was already doing rough drafts, turns out i had never done one before in my life XD after reading your post & trying out your advice, writing has become so much more fun & the words flow out a lot easier! i used to struggle with hitting 1k, now i can do 3-5k pretty well. thanks so much & hope you're doing great!

That’s so great to hear! And congrats - it’s a hard shift to make, I found my every instinct rebelled at first. And thanks for the message! This blog has been dormant for a while so I’ve been hoping that people are still getting something out of the archived posts, at least.

(Still answering questions, by the way, if anyone has any. Does this blog even have followers anymore lolz oh dear)

[icouldbeawritermaybe]

[ao3skin]

Dyslexia Friendly Ao3 Skin (or at least an attempt at)

I've been slowly working at a dyslexia friendly skin following the design suggestions I've found in the British Dyslexia Association Style Guide.

You can find it here with all the instructions to install it

It is still a work in progress and I'm begging for feedback so that I can make it better for everyone.

To Do List:

A dark mode is on the way. I'll post it on the link I've just posted, so if you find this post in a few months you'll be able to find it.

As soon as I can I aim to make the code more ordered, with lots of comments and a guide to change stuff for people who know nothing about css, so you can personalize it for your needs.

More color combinations.

Implement more stuff you ask me. I'm designing this by just following a guide, but it might be wrong in some areas and there might be more stuff that's good to add.

[ao3skin]

I’ve updated the link to have a guide on how to customize the skin even for people who know nothing about css!

Next thing I’m working on is going to be the dark mode (which I know people are waiting for. I’ll publish it on the same ao3 work in that link as a new chapter, so if you want to be reminded just follow that work)

[ao3skin]

AND DARK MODE IS HERE

The link is still the same: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30918077/chapters/76349072 in chapter 2 you’ll find the customization guide for people who know nothing about css and in chapter 3 the dark mode skin!

[ao3skin]

I’ve made a few changes and adjustments. (these skins are always a work in progress) Most prominently the tags on mobile now look better when they are too long:

while before they showed like this:

everything is still in the link in the ao3 work. I’ve just changed the code and updated it.

[frankthesnek]

Okay seriously... 🥺😭 this is amazing. Its hard to discribe what reading with severe dyslexia is like. But in a word, it sucks.

The appreciation I have for this skin is just...I can't. I wish I had found this sooner! No two people with dyslexia are exactly the same but if you have it, trying this skin is so worth while.

[wrex-writes]

A writing resource I'd recommend is Fierce on the Page by Sage Cohen. I was blown away by how...opposite she was of "push through the pain" and "don't stop no matter what". She offers a lot of mental tricks of approaching the problem indirectly, doing easy things to build up your confidence and energize yourself, and to work less hard and trust ease and grace. She tells people to build good habits instead of breaking bad ones, and there's this specific line where she says, "Focus on what you're doing right and do more of that." where I thought, yep, yep, this would definitely be useful for fans of wrex-writes. It's not specifically designed for people with mental illness, but it lacks the tough-love approach that I despise. She also...actually seems to like writing. Other writing books talk about how hard and impossible it is, and in one notable case, I had someone compare rocking back and forth as a "form of autism". She makes writing sound enjoyable again, which is so, so important

Oh fantastic! Check it out, everyone. (I'm definitely gonna.) Thanks so much for the rec!

[wrex-writes]

happy to see u! hope ur doing good :)

Ha thanks! I am, yes. Sorry I’ve let this blog languish. I haven’t had the time to write at all lately, let alone write posts about writing, and for once I’m okay with that cuz I’ve been up to other stuff. I’ll get back to writing eventually, and hopefully to this blog as well. But people should feel free to send asks!

[wrex-writes]

I saw your rehab for writing post from a few years ago and was wondering if you had any rehab advice for reading? I've been reading exclusively fanfiction for the past few years and while it's not a bad thing because fanfic is amazing too, it's hard for me to find time and motivation to start new books. This has negatively impacted my writing. I feel like it's stagnated a little due to my lack of reading variety. I really wanna get back into reading books regularly again alongside fanfiction but idk how to when fanfic provides instant benefits especially for my current hyperfixations while reading is slower with the entertainment value.

Do you have any advice on how I can fix this problem?

A good question! I’m actually having the same problem lately.

My friend who’s been making headway on this front said this: whatever book you pick up, don’t force yourself to finish it. Treat it experimentally, not as a task. If you put pressure on yourself to keep going even after you lose interest, it’ll make you balk even more. Think, “I’ll give this a try and see what I get out of it, and as long as I’m interested, I’ll keep going.”

A few additional suggestions that might take some of the pressure off:

Start with something short and relatively undemanding.

Start with something of a type you’ve enjoyed in the past.

If you’re really having trouble staying engaged, read something you’ve read before. Later you can try something new.

Don’t force yourself to read for extended amounts of time. If it’s ten minutes here and there, that’s fine.

Don’t necessarily pick “something you’ve been meaning to read” if that feels intimidating.

(On the other hand, if that motivates you, by all means do it.)

Anyone else have this problem, or have suggestions?