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[writer-dream]

Morally Grey Characters

What is a morally grey character?

Morally grey character are characters that are not completely good nor completely evil. It’s the grey area between hero and villain.

1. Balance

Morally grey character are part good and part evil. Some are more heroic while some are less heroic. Every morally ambiguous character must strike a balance between good and evil. They most have heroic and villainous traits.

2. Motivation

The best kind of motivation is understandable. Both the bad and good guys should have motivation. Morally grey characters have good reasons to do good and evil in the story. One side is not more motivated than the other. This tension creates loads of suspense because readers never quite know what the characters will choose.

3. Values

Every morally grey character has a system of values, rules, or guidelines that they follow. Give both your hero and villain a value system demonstrated through thoughts, feelings, dialogue, and actions. Remember to make the value system ambiguous through conflicting values.

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Evoking Emotion In Your Writing

1) Be Particular With Word Choice

It’s easy to fall into cliché when writing about emotions. Like “a single tear dripped down my face” or “my heart skipped a beat. These are such common ways to show emotion that they are almost meaningless.

2) Vary Your Descriptions

Readers need to see the effect of the emotion on the character’s body language and facial expressions. Show don’t tell. than simply telling us that a character is scared, illustrate the way their body tenses up with fear.

3)Make Your Protagonist Relatable

Readers experience emotions through the eyes of the characters. That’s why your protagonist must be relatable and sympathetic. The more invested readers are in the character the more they’ll be able to identify with their own emotional experiences.

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Writing Flashbacks

1)Keep It Relevant

Flashbacks help fill in the characters’ motives and history, but if they are too long or tedious, the reader will get bored. It can be tempting to unload every last one of your character’s memories but tell the reader what they need to know, and no more than that.

2)Tell The Present Story First

Don’t feel any pressure to weave in flashbacks as you write: simply linearly tell your story first, then shed some light on a characters past.

3)Make It Clear

To keep the flow of your story, readers need to know when they’re going in and out of a flashback. A lack of clarity can be confusion. One way to back it clear is to change tenses from present to past.

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How to Write Slowburn

1)Build The Tension

You want your readers to be on the edge of their seats, just waiting for that moment when the tension finally peaks. You want your readers to be screaming “just kiss,” at their books. Tension comes from all those almost moments. The almost kiss interrupted by a phone call. The hug that lasts just a few seconds too long. Another part of building tension is the little moment. The brush of a finger and the soft smiles.

2)Pining

Pining is an essential element of a slow burn. The constant thoughts, the flurry of anticipation. The pining should be coming from both characters.

3)Make It Pay Off

When your characters finally give in to their pining and snap that tension, it’s got to be good. Give the readers what they’ve been waiting for.

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Writing Unreliable Narators

An unreliable narrator is an untrustworthy storyteller. The narrator is either deliberately deceptive or unintentionally misguided.

1)Keep Readers In The Dark

Have your narrator withhold certain information from the reader and see how it impacts your story.

2)Unreliable From The Start

Your narrator won’t suddenly become unreliable. Hint at any traits that might compromise them and their story early on.

3)Experiment With A Bit Of Unreliability

There are varying degrees of unreliability. A narrator may unintentionally give the reader misinformation because it’s what they believe. Even if your main character is well-intentioned, give them unreliable moments to make them slightly flawed.

[writer-dream]

I keep coming up with new wip ideas even though I have about 537 already.

[writer-dream]

It’s always “wyd” and never “I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.”

[writer-dream]

Are you a writer or do you just stare at a screen saying you’re going to write.

[writer-dream]

When a character flirts by calling another character by a nickname >>>

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Reading is just staring at pieces of a tree and hallucinating

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The best books are the ones you forget you’re reading

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Reminder: It’s okay to take breaks from writing

[goldinkpen]

Writer’s Paradise Masterlist

As a Writer it’s my goal to help and uplift other writers and future Authors alike so here’s a Masterlist of resources I’ve compiled for you to use for your writing!

If you know any sites or have any recommendations for me to add, my asks/submissions are open!!

I’ll update these as I further my journey & research into becoming an Author one day, please reblog this to help your fellow writers!

Organization, Advice, and Research

Hiveword - A website with multiple writing resources available such as planning, index cards, articles with advice, name and character generators, and research capabilities. The free account offers the essentials such as scenes, characters, and plotlines.

Storyteller’s Roadmap - A website that helps you plan, write, and revise a story thoroughly. It including guides to write specific descriptions along with a thesaurus, templates and worksheets, an Idea Generator and more.

Helping Writers become Authors - A website in a blog style format with multiple articles and resources including writing mistakes, novel outlining, story structures, as well as character arcs and many more.

UK resources for writers - A website with resources for learning how to write with free and paid courses, writing opportunities, and more for writers in the UK.

Creative Writers Academy - A website with free classes guiding a step by step through the publication process.

Reedsy - A blog style website that includes Articles about publication and centered around learning how to publish a book with many tools and generators for writing.

Poets and Writers - A website for Writers and poets with resources like publishing your writing, finding your community and more.

Research Links for Writers - An HTML site with multiple links and resources for writers spanning upon multiple genres, subject matters, and history.

The internet public library - A website encyclopedia for essays and academic papers.

Writing realistic Injuries - A website with a list of different types of injuries and how to write them out including, impacts, and the effects of them.

RanGen - A website for writers with writing challenges, resources, and generators for things like personalities, characters, poisons, writing prompts, etc.

Ivy Tech Library - A library database website with a lot of resources for research including folklore and by region.

How to write a story by Creativepromptsforwriting on Tumblr - A different Masterlist with many more resources about writing, staying motivated, certain plots, etc.

Self Publishing

A step-by-step Video about Self Publishing - A video by Gilliain Perkins explaining her process of how she self published her Best Seller Novel.

How to format your book yourself through word - A video by Natalia Leigh with a step-by-step process on how she formats her manuscript. Her video covers: Page Size, Margins, Line spacing, Indentation, Chapter Styles, Page Numbers, and Headers.

Strategies for Marketing your book - A video made by iWriterly she explains 34 different strategies that can be used to market a book (while marketing her book lol!) and includes a downloadable checklist of these strategies

Masterclass How to copyright a book in 7 steps - An article guiding step by step how to properly copyright a self published book.

Fiverr - A freelancing website where you can find someone to make your illustrations, covers, and even get editors as well as someone to voice or make an audiobook for you.

Up Work - A freelancing website  where you can find someone to make your illustrations, covers, and even get editors as well as someone to voice or make an audiobook for you.

Beta Books - A website for Beta Readers can read your book and return their feedback. It lets you sort and filter your feedback by reader, chapter, or keyword, to get your book done.

Docucopies - A printing service website with a short guide about self publishing, buying copyright, and ISBN references and sites, all while including printing services (10% off of orders over 350$)

The Book Patch - A book printing service which includes Print-On-Demand services or cheap printing services allowing for smaller quantities. The Book Patch does not offer expensive publishing package, and keeps book publishing costs to a minimum.

Affordable Book Printing - A website with book publishing services including printing books but also formatting e-books, Cover Design, as well as Marketing and more

Generators & AUs

Random AU Generator - A website that generates AUs randomly.

Fantasy Name/Realm Generator - A website that generates random fantasy names.

Random Name Generator - A website that generates random names based on the options chosen with the ability to choose by region and gender.

Service Scape Writing Prompt Generator - A website that generates in depth writing prompts as chosen by the genre selected.

Writing Plot Generator - A website that generates plots based upon your selections of genre, title, etc.

Art Breeder - A website that can use a series of images to generate photos or the perfect character for your story.

[writer-dream]

I spend half my time crying over letters on pieces of paper.

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I hate when I’m reading and people think it’s okay to interrupt. I am clearly busy and not currently in this reality.

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First kisses in the rain will never get old.

[writer-dream]

When two characters are clearly in love but won’t admit it>>>