WritersTavern

We are two aspiring authors looking to join the writeblr community. This is a blog about everything writing related, we post/reblog writing advice and tips, prompts, short stories, gifs, etc. If you have any questions shoot us an ask and we will do our best to provide helpful answers.

[cogesque-deactivated20210410]

Top 10 Tips for Actually Writing

for the writer who can’t seem to write.

Buy a pencil and paper. Get a writing program and a keyboard.

Spill all your ideas into a notebook that will never see the light of day. Write down literally every idea you have that even sort of relates to the scene/chapter/book that you want to write until your thoughts converge on a pointed attack.

Quality vs. Quantity? No competition. Quantity all the way. The more you write, the better you will know your story. Worry about Quality LATER.

Think about where the idea came from. Go there. Set up a cardboard box and live there. This is your home now.

What is the coolest, most self-indulgent thing you can think of? That’s what you want to write at this point, until you get some steam.

Short-term goals, my friends. And by short-term, I mean a minute from now, ten seconds from now. What are you going to do to write RIGHT NOW? Stop thinking about an hour from now, stop thinking about a day from now.

This is not a book. This is not a book. You are not writing a book. You are writing a story. A story is much easier to take bites out of than a book. A book is a big, scary, colossal thing. Stories are fun and carefree.

Get yourself a writing friend. A cactus, an old bottle of nail polish, a fish in an appropriately sized tank, etc. Make them hold you accountable.

Set crazy low goals. Promise yourself you will write ten words today. Ten words and you will be the Best Writer in the Entire World to Ever Exist. Accomplishing things is a morale booster and will urge you to write more.

Just keep writing. I believe in you.

[howlingguardian]

Talk fantasy prosthetics to me.

An elf maiden dances on feet of living wood sung into shape, planted in soil and watered when she takes them off. Every year she plants the old ones and sings a new pair. (Incidentally, the pair of peach saplings from three years ago have produced an excellent crop- She makes preserves from them, and despite the inevitable jokes about “toe-jam”, they are appreciated.)

A dwarf king has a metal fist, all tiny gears and fine wires, kept wound by a mischievous mine-spirit bound to the spring as punishment- the more it struggles, the tighter the spring. 

An orc chieftaness is regularly asked for the story of how she earned the name Wyrmthrottler- she boasts of how she strangled the dragon that ate her arm, and had her shaman make a new arm from its bones, with its fangs as the fingers.

A necromancer simply re-attached his old leg bones- Sacrificing a few mice each day keeps it going.

A pirate captain lost her arm to a shark attack: a passing selkie saved her, and gave her tattoos of kraken blood. Now she has an arm made of salt-water, that grows and wanes with the tides, and swings a cutlass as well as the original. (She doesn’t sail as far these days though: she doesn’t want her wife to worry.)

A wandering swordsman was broken at the waist- his ancestral armour allows him to walk again, as long as he keeps it polished, and burns incense to the ancestors regularly.

A high priestess has an eye made from a crystal ball- to predict the future, all she has to do is wink.

A bard was struck deaf by illness- he struck a deal with the god of music. Now he wears hearing-trumpets made from his old pipes, and dedicates his every song to the god of music- the better he plays, the better his hearing. (It is said his music could make statues weep, and he can hear a mouse fart at 60 paces.)

A princess has the arm of a golem, enchanted clay with mystic words carved in- her music tutor despairs of how her harp playing has become even worse, but her calligraphy tutor is ecstatic over her handwriting.

A goblin pickpocket has an arm made of whatever he steals- no-one feels his fingers, and even if they did, they couldn’t find their possessions amongst all the rest.  

A witch has eyes made from shadow and starlight, given to her in a game with a demon. Nobody dares to ask what she wagered- they aren’t even sure she won.

A warg was born deaf and blind- his people learned of his power when the nearest birds started staring at them, and dogs pricked up their ears as he walked past.

[ironic-discordia]

@zeowynda

[lady-feral]

These are some damn cool concepts.

[scrmnviking]

D&D yoink

[educatedsavage]

These are such beautiful and poetic ideas!!!!

[prince-atom]

Far better than what has been published for D&D, so yoink away, I say.  Yar-har.

Back in the early ‘00s, there was a Monster Manual with options for adding golem limbs to your character – the result clearly intended to be monstrous.

One of the clones of the late wizard Manshoon has a metal gauntlet for a left forearm and hand because the mad wizard Halaster relieved him of his original for inscrutable purposes.  Presumably it is animated, but the texts don’t say, and the effect only serves to make him more sinister.

The pragmatic player will ask why you don’t simply seek out a high-level druid and pay for your lost limb to be regenerated.  The answer is, because that’s boring.  And anyway, maybe the druid doesn’t feel like being a paid monkey.  They’re not a cleric, after all.  Maybe they’ll set you some task out of a fable or fairy tale, if you’re lucky.  This is a 7th-level spell we’re talking about, here.

[alex-astralis]

as a writer i have two modes

1 - Writing is my calling. My passion. My purpose. Without writing I will crumble and fade, never to be restored. I am writing.

2 - What’s writing lol

[oddhour]

pick-me-ups for writers

for the self-conscious beginner: No one makes great things until the world intimately knows their mediocrity. Don’t think of your writing as terrible; think of it as preparing to contribute something great.

for the self-conscious late bloomer: Look at old writing as how far you’ve come. You can’t get to where you are today without covering all that past ground. For that, be proud.

for the perfectionist: Think about how much you complain about things you love—the mistakes and retcons in all your favorite series—and how you still love them anyway. Give yourself that same space.

for the realist: There will be people who hate your story even if it’s considered a classic. But there will be people who love your story, even if it is strange and unpopular.

for the fanfic writer: Your work isn’t lesser for not following canon. When you write, you’ve created a new work on its own. It can be, but does not have to be, limited by the source material. Canon is not the end-all, be-all. 

for the writer’s blocked: It doesn’t need to be perfect. Sometimes you have to move on and commit a few writing sins if it means you can create better things out of it.

for the lost: You started writing for a reason; remember that reason. It’s ok to move on. You are more than your writing. It will be here if you want to come back.

[dynamicsymmetry]

Good stuff.

[runningoutoffanfic]

Other authors: *kills or injures characters in their writing*

Me: How dare you

One of my characters: *taps me on shoulder*

Me:

[theguildedtypewriter]

What Did You Say? A guide to writing good dialogue

(Remember all pieces of advice are meant to help guide, that is all. They are not dogma.)

Ever read something and heard the dialogue in your head, and you just stopped. There was something off about it and for a solid minute there you couldn’t tell if the character was supposed to sound like that or if the author just didn’t have dialogue down. Chances are some mistakes were made. 

Dialogue can be tricky. There’s no doubt about it.

You need to make it sound like the characters are having a real conversation but if you write it exactly like people talk it can get confusing and sound even worse. 

“So how do I write good dialogue?!”

You can usually sense when your dialogue needs work. So here’s a set of some dialogue trick that might help you. When you think something is off with your dialogue use this to help you figure out what and make some changes.

All about that Flow-

It’s said all the time about your first draft, the important thing is to get the words on the page, you’ll refine later. This technique applies to your dialogue, and you’ll even come up with lines you never would have if you spent your time trying to be perfect.

You can even try writing the dialogue first. Get down what your characters are arguing about, planning, revealing, etc. Do it fast, pay no attention to who said what. Just get the words out.

This dialogue can give you a good idea what the scene is about and it might be different than what you thought. Then just go back to it and fill in.

This can be good for when you’re in a slump.

Keep reading

[thesesummersonspoet]

THINGS WHICH MAKE WRITERS ANXIOUS:

not writing

writing

people reading their stories

people not reading their stories

[heywriters]

Dudes, just write. Stop asking me if you should start/continue/finish what you’re writing despite having x, y, or z problem. If you want to write I am in NO WAY authorized to tell you when to stop/start. That’s up to you and always will be.

If you think “no one will ever genuinely like this” you are 100% wrong. 100%. Think about all the trash out there that has fans. I wrote stuff when I was twelve that had more genuine fans among my family/classmates than ANYTHING I never shared with another living soul. It’s impossible to write something no one will like.

If you think “I’ll never finish it so why even bother?” you’re only depriving yourself, man. That’s like saying, “I like this cookie, but I can’t eat the whole bag. Guess I won’t even try one.” ????? Just write the story, to hell with endings. Some of the best works in the world went unfinished by the author/composer/architect, yet we admire the heck out of them. Maybe, instead of thinking you’ll never finish something, tell yourself this is the one you will finish (and repeat it until you do).

If you feel “this hurts to write, I’m too close to the subject material” either set it aside or full speed ahead. You MUST know how many classics, prize winners, and life changers came from someone’s very real pain and experience. Addicts, traumatized persons, victims, quite often they find solace and healing in writing about their experiences. Most importantly, so do their readers.

If you want to write, write. Otherwise only you are standing in the way of what you want.

[thebibliosphere]

When I was nine, possibly ten, an author came to our school to talk about writing. His name was Hugh Scott, and I doubt he’s known outside of Scotland. And even then I haven’t seen him on many shelves in recent years in Scotland either. But he wrote wonderfully creepy children’s stories, where the supernatural was scary, but it was the mundane that was truly terrifying. At least to little ten year old me. It was Scooby Doo meets Paranormal Activity with a bonny braw Scottish-ness to it that I’d never experienced before.

I remember him as a gangling man with a wiry beard that made him look older than he probably was, and he carried a leather bag filled with paper. He had a pen too that was shaped like a carrot, and he used it to scribble down notes between answering our (frankly disinterested) questions. We had no idea who he was you see, no one had made an effort to introduce us to his books. We were simply told one morning, ‘class 1b, there is an author here to talk to you about writing’, and this you see was our introduction to creative writing. We’d surpassed finger painting and macaroni collages. It was time to attempt Words That Were Untrue.

You could tell from the look on Mrs M’s face she thought it was a waste of time. I remember her sitting off to one side marking papers while this tall man sat down on our ridiculously short chairs, and tried to talk to us about what it meant to tell a story. She wasn’t big on telling stories, Mrs M. She was also one of the teachers who used to take my books away from me because they were “too complicated” for me, despite the fact that I was reading them with both interest and ease. When dad found out he hit the roof. It’s the one and only time he ever showed up to the school when it wasn’t parents night or the school play. After that she just left me alone, but she made it clear to my parents that she resented the fact that a ten year old used words like ‘ubiquitous’ in their essays. Presumably because she had to look it up.

Anyway, Mr Scott, was doing his best to talk to us while Mrs M made scoffing noises from her corner every so often, and you could just tell he was deflating faster than a bouncy castle at a knife sharpening party, so when he asked if any of us had any further questions and no one put their hand up I felt awful. I knew this was not only insulting but also humiliating, even if we were only little children. So I did the only thing I could think of, put my hand up and said “Why do you write?”

I’d always read about characters blinking owlishly, but I’d never actually seen it before. But that’s what he did, peering down at me from behind his wire rim spectacles and dragging tired fingers through his curly beard. I don’t think he expected anyone to ask why he wrote stories. What he wrote about, and where he got his ideas from maybe, and certainly why he wrote about ghosts and other creepy things, but probably not why do you write. And I think he thought perhaps he could have got away with “because it’s fun, and learning is fun, right kids?!”, but part of me will always remember the way the world shifted ever so slightly as it does when something important is about to happen, and this tall streak of a man looked down at me, narrowed his eyes in an assessing manner and said, “Because people told me not to, and words are important.”

I nodded, very seriously in the way children do, and knew this to be a truth. In my limited experience at that point, I knew certain people (with a sidelong glance to Mrs M who was in turn looking at me as though she’d just known it’d be me that type of question) didn’t like fiction. At least certain types of fiction. I knew for instance that Mrs M liked to read Pride and Prejudice on her lunch break but only because it was sensible fiction, about people that could conceivably be real. The idea that one could not relate to a character simply because they had pointy ears or a jet pack had never occurred to me, and the fact that it’s now twenty years later and people are still arguing about the validity of genre fiction is beyond me, but right there in that little moment, I knew something important had just transpired, with my teacher glaring at me, and this man who told stories to live beginning to smile. After that the audience turned into a two person conversation, with gradually more and more of my classmates joining in because suddenly it was fun. Mrs M was pissed and this bedraggled looking man who might have been Santa after some serious dieting, was starting to enjoy himself. As it turned out we had all of his books in our tiny corner library, and in the words of my friend Andrew “hey there’s a giant spider fighting a ghost on this cover! neat!” and the presentation devolved into chaos as we all began reading different books at once and asking questions about each one. “Does she live?”— “What about the talking trees” —“is the ghost evil?” —“can I go to the bathroom, Miss?” —“Wow neat, more spiders!”

After that we were supposed to sit down, quietly (glare glare) and write a short story to show what we had learned from listening to Mr Scott. I wont pretend I wrote anything remotely good, I was ten and all I could come up with was a story about a magic carrot that made you see words in the dark, but Mr Scott seemed to like it. In fact he seemed to like all of them, probably because they were done with such vibrant enthusiasm in defiance of the people who didn’t want us to.

The following year, when I’d moved into Mrs H’s class—the kind of woman that didn’t take away books from children who loved to read and let them write nonsense in the back of their journals provided they got all their work done—a letter arrived to the school, carefully wedged between several copies of a book which was unheard of at the time, by a new author known as J.K. Rowling. Mrs H remarked that it was strange that an author would send copies of books that weren’t even his to a school, but I knew why he’d done it. I knew before Mrs H even read the letter.

Because words are important. Words are magical. They’re powerful. And that power ought to be shared. There’s no petty rivalry between story tellers, although there’s plenty who try to insinuate it. There’s plenty who try to say some words are more valuable than others, that somehow their meaning is more important because of when it was written and by whom. Those are the same people who laud Shakespeare from the heavens but refuse to acknowledge that the quote “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them“ is a dick joke.

And although Mr Scott seems to have faded from public literary consumption, I still think about him. I think about his stories, I think about how he recommended another author and sent copies of her books because he knew our school was a puritan shithole that fought against the Wrong Type of Wordes and would never buy them into the library otherwise. But mostly I think about how he looked at a ten year old like an equal and told her words and important, and people will try to keep you from writing them—so write them anyway.

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

*sobs for like the umpteenth time this day and reblogs the fuck out of this*

[labelleizzy]

Reblog, Facebook, and sending it to myself so I can always find it…

[take-me-to-your-lieder-deactiva]

This brings back so many memories of my childhood stories that I may just weep.

[jottingprosaist]

“I wont pretend I wrote anything remotely good, I was ten and all I could come up with was a story about a magic carrot that made you see words in the dark, but Mr Scott seemed to like it.” Are you KIDDING me, that is the most beautiful metaphor about writing and you used the man’s own PEN as the central symbol I’m crying and I can’t even imagine how he felt sdlfkajsdf GOD.

[chaoswolf1982]

I am not a writer. No, as I have yet to learn the skill of sorting ten-thousand disjointed and fragmented ideas into coherent narrative without growing frustrated and impatient and quitting before I can barely begin…

…but this gives me a flicker of hope that such a thing may change someday.

[adeledawn]

“But mostly I think about how he looked at a ten year old like an equal and told her words are important, and people will try to keep you from writing them—so write them anyway.”

[starkemaus]

Quick and Dirty Writing Advice:

Consume media that inspires you. Play video games, listen to music, watch movies/tv, read books that make you want to write.

Stop feeling guilty for not writing, it’s not helpful.

But, don’t let fear of failure stop you.

Don’t start over, keep going.

Write the book you want to read.

[writerstavern101]

Christine having a life crisis about book titles is my constant mood: 

[saintdymphnagf]

waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat: do i just keep writing the same three characters over and over again?

[universalfanfic]

[nightskywriter]

*laughs nervously* Why are you looking at me?

[firemoon42]

Ways to un-stick a stuck story

Do an outline, whatever way works best. Get yourself out of the word soup and know where the story is headed.

Conflicts and obstacles. Hurt the protagonist, put things in their way, this keeps the story interesting. An easy journey makes the story boring and boring is hard to write.

Change the POV. Sometimes all it takes to untangle a knotted story is to look at it through different eyes, be it through the sidekick, the antagonist, a minor character, whatever.

Know the characters. You can’t write a story if the characters are strangers to you. Know their likes, dislikes, fears, and most importantly, their motivation. This makes the path clearer.

Fill in holes. Writing doesn’t have to be linear; you can always go back and fill in plotholes, and add content and context.

Have flashbacks, hallucinations, dream sequences or foreshadowing events. These stir the story up, deviations from the expected course add a feeling of urgency and uncertainty to the narrative.

Introduce a new mystery. If there’s something that just doesn’t add up, a big question mark, the story becomes more compelling. Beware: this can also cause you to sink further into the mire.

Take something from your protagonist. A weapon, asset, ally or loved one. Force him to operate without it, it can reinvigorate a stale story.

Twists and betrayal. Maybe someone isn’t who they say they are or the protagonist is betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. This can shake the story up and get it rolling again.

Secrets. If someone has a deep, dark secret that they’re forced to lie about, it’s a good way to stir up some fresh conflict. New lies to cover up the old ones, the secret being revealed, and all the resulting chaos.

Kill someone. Make a character death that is productive to the plot, but not “just because”. If done well, it affects all the characters, stirs up the story and gets it moving.

Ill-advised character actions. Tension is created when a character we love does something we hate. Identify the thing the readers don’t want to happen, then engineer it so it happens worse than they imagined.

Create cliff-hangers. Keep the readers’ attention by putting the characters into new problems and make them wait for you to write your way out of it. This challenge can really bring out your creativity.

Raise the stakes. Make the consequences of failure worse, make the journey harder. Suddenly the protagonist’s goal is more than he expected, or he has to make an important choice.

Make the hero active. You can’t always wait for external influences on the characters, sometimes you have to make the hero take actions himself. Not necessarily to be successful, but active and complicit in the narrative.

Different threat levels. Make the conflicts on a physical level (“I’m about to be killed by a demon”), an emotional level (“But that demon was my true love”) and a philosophical level (“If I’m forced to kill my true love before they kill me, how can love ever succeed in the face of evil?”).

Figure out an ending. If you know where the story is going to end, it helps get the ball rolling towards that end, even if it’s not the same ending that you actually end up writing.

What if? What if the hero kills the antagonist now, gets captured, or goes insane? When your write down different questions like these, the answer to how to continue the story will present itself.

Start fresh or skip ahead. Delete the last five thousand words and try again. It’s terrifying at first, but frees you up for a fresh start to find a proper path. Or you can skip the part that’s putting you on edge – forget about that fidgety crap, you can do it later – and write the next scene. Whatever was in-between will come with time.

[wordsnstuff]

Wordsnstuff Articles Masterlist

☼  Masterlist is updated regularly & subject to frequent change  ☼

My Current Work In Progress @talkingstoriesandstuff

My Studyblr  @studynsuch// Studygram

☼  Writing Help Articles   ☼

Beginning A Story And Sticking With It

Tips and Advice For Aspiring Writers, Authors, and Poets

How To Write An Article That People Will Read

How To Motivate Yourself To Write

Improving Flow In Writing

Kiss Scenes 101: How to Write The Perfect Kiss

Step-By-Step Plan: Editing Your Own Writing

Novel Planning 101

How To Write A Good Plot Twist

How To Foreshadow

Setting: How To Describe The Setting In Your Stories

Tips For Fanfiction Writers

Tips For Writers Who Want To Post Their Work Online

Commentary On Social Issues In Writing

How To Incorporate Health Into Your Writing Routine

What To Cut Out Of Your Story

How To Fall In Love With Writing

Constructive Criticism: How To Give, Receive, and Utilize

Tackling Subplots

How To Make A Scene More Heartfelt

Tips For Songwriters

How To Develop A Distinct Voice In Your Writing

How To Perfect The Tone In A Piece Of Writing

20 Mistakes To Avoid When Writing Young Adult Fiction/Romance

Tips On Writing Skinny Love

Writing Through Mental Health Struggles

Tips On Dialogue

How To Actually Get Writing Done

Writing On A Schedule

Tips On Writing About Mental Illness

Editing & Proofreading Cheat Sheet

Things A Reader Needs From A Story (feat. @papercutwriting)

Tips For Horror Writers

A *Strange* Method Of Brainstorming Character Styles & Traits

A Guide To Tension & Suspense In Your Writing

How To Turn A Good Idea Into A Good Story

Writing Arguments Between Characters

Planning A Scene In A Story

Editing: What To Change, Draft By Draft

Ways To Fit Character Development Into your Story

Things To Know About Your Real-Life Setting

When To Stop Planning

Pros and Cons of Different Points Of View

Tips On Writing A Blurb

Why “Burnout” Is Okay - The Creativity Cycle

21 Plot Shapes and the Pros and Cons Of Each

How To Outline Effectively

Writing Good Villains

Tips On Writing Intense Scenes

Writing The First Chapter

Tips On Starting A Scene

Tips On Writing Fight Scenes

Tips On Writing Chase Scenes

Showing vs. Telling

☼ Writing For Beginners Series ☼

Dialogue Punctuation

Tips On Screenwriting

Finding & Fixing Plot Holes

Using Vocabulary

How To Capture Emotion In Song Lyrics

☼  Synonyms Lists  ☼

Body Types: Words To Describe Bodies and How They Move Around

Words To Describe…

Words To Describe Someone’s Voice

All About Colors

A Writer’s Thesaurus

☼ Miscellaneous ☼

Book Recommendations

Word Counts Converted To Novel Pages

Mental Illness Awareness

10 Easy Changes You Can Make To Your Lifestyle To Be Happier And Healthier Almost Instantly

25 Study Tips To Make Your Life Easier

Reasons To Improve Your Lifestyle

How To Make Study Dates More About Studying (And Have Fun At The Same Time)

Study Environment & How To Make Studying Easier

Healthy Forms Of Motivation

How To Have A Productive Mindset

So You Want To Start A Blog

Resources For Students

How To Improve Your Life In Little Ways

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MY CURRENT WORK IN PROGRESS (Check it out, it’s pretty cool. At least I think it is.)

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[noahwyles]

why writing takes forever

[sailorspazz]

writer: *stops mid-sentence* damn what’s the word I want?

writer: *spends 25 minutes on google trying to figure out the right vocab word*

writer: *gets a paragraph done*

writer: *starts another sentence, stops* what is that really specific fact I need?

writer: *spends an hour trying to figure out this obscure thing that probably doesn’t actually matter*

writer: Wait what’s that thing called again?

writer: *has no idea how to search for what I need*

writer: *ends up digging through blogs and other archived websites for details*

writer: *needs to reference source material for fact checking*

writer: *has to eat and sleep at some point*

writer: should it be “she regards him with disdain” or “she glares at him with disdain” ??? (hint: it doesnt matter but gunna go back and forth over it for an hour)

writer: *gets distracted by the internet in general*

writer: HOW IS THIS ONLY 800 WORDS???????

writer: fuck proofreading

writer: okay fine i’ll proofread.

writer: holy shit this is awful.

writer: *reworks entire sections*

writer: *doesn’t think I’m good enough as a writer and stops for a few days*

writer: repeat process as needed.

[rphelper]

In honour of my delightfully quirky new mascot, I have put together a list of a TON of habits, idiosyncrasies, or quirks your character might have, divided into categories. Some are rather common while some are a bit obscure. Hopefully this list will inspire you to make your characters unique in little ways. Enjoy!

Trigger warning: If you are easily triggered by mentions of self-harm, abuse, or anxiety, please do not open the read more.

Note: Some of these involve a medical disorder that requires significant research.

Keep reading