Advice for any and all writers

[wizardarchetypes]

I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.

I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.

Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.

Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.

[pixelartpeach]

Are there any other particularly egregious examples?

[theglintoftherail]

This book already exists, sort of! Or at least, it’s a biology textbook but I bought it for writing purposes:

It starts with a chapter about freezing to death, and it is without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve read in years (and I read a lot of horror fiction).

[wandercuriosity-deactivated2024]

This book can be downloaded for free on Researchgate, posted there by the author himself:

The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in Extreme Environments

[brechtian]

anyways if you don’t believe me believe mother. saying all stories must have conflict is reductionist & rooted in capitalist values

[sxptember-s-deactivated20230222]

Writing is first and foremost about having fun.

So write the story you want to write, no matter how cliché or overdone of a concept it might be. You are allowed to explore your ideas, create your write stories, even if it happens to be filled with millions of things we’ve already seen before.

As long as you enjoy what you're doing, and are passionate about your projects, that's more than enough reason to continue! So try not to give too much thought into what other people are trying to tell you, because there’s an audience for everything. Some people do actively seek out stories with ''washed up'' concepts.

Besides, you are not sacrificing your creativity by choosing to write about something that has been done before. Quite the opposite.

[writing-advice]

Hi there! My story is based on someone being possessed by a demon/evil deity. I’m having a hard time finding one that fits my story that already exists in current mythology, so is it a bad idea to make one up on my own?

Hey :) No, I’d absolutely say go for it, feel free to make one up, it’s your original creation after all. Especially, if you haven’t been able to find one that suits your needs, all the more reason to invent your own.

[exitwound]

this is scaring me like my heart is beating so fast

[rivalwrites]

I think the best piece of character design advice I ever received was actually from a band leadership camp I attended in june of 2017. 

the speaker there gave lots of advice for leaders—obviously, it was a leadership camp—but his saying about personality flaws struck me as useful for writers too. 

he said to us all “your curses are your blessings and your blessings are your curses” and went on to explain how because he was such a great speaker, it made him a terrible listener. he could give speeches for hours on end and inspire thousands of people, but as soon as someone wanted to talk to him one on one or vent to him, he struggled with it. 

he had us write down our greatest weakness and relate it to our biggest strength (mine being that I am far too emotional, but I’m gentle with others because I can understand their emotions), and the whole time people are sharing theirs, my mind was running wild with all my characters and their flaws.

previously, I had added flaws as an after thought, as in “this character seems too perfect. how can I make them not-like-that?” but that’s not how people or personalities work. for every human alive, their flaws and their strengths are directly related to each other. you can’t have one without the other.

is your character strong-willed? that can easily turn into stubbornness. is your character compassionate? maybe they give too many chances. are they loyal? then they’ll destroy the world for the people they love.

it works the other way around too: maybe your villain only hates the protagonist’s people because they love their own and just have a twisted sense of how to protect them. maybe your antagonist is arrogant, but they’ll be confident in everything they do.

tl;dr “your curses are your blessings, and your blessings are your curses” there is no such thing as a character flaw, just a strength that has been stretched too far.

[writing-advice]

Hey. Just wondering if you have any tips for writing characters have attempted suicide and are still recovering? I'm writing a short story about a character in a recovery center after attempting suicide. - Thanks so much - Cat

Hey :) One concern I’d have is the potentially triggering content. I’m not saying don’t write it, just be aware of the effects this could have on others. 
 Regarding your question: Depending on why your character attempted suicide,, I’d expect them to still be depressed, still be experiencing the reasons they had for trying to end their life. At the same time, they may also be relieved that their attempt has failed. Either way, they might be unhappy about being in the recovery center, either because they still want to kill themselves, or because they know they won’t make another attempt, so there’s really no reason for them to be confined in the recovery center. Guilt can be a common feeling, but possibly also anger, if they’d rather the attempt had succeeded...

So I think there’s quite a range of emotions they might be feeling, you should just make sure that they make sense with the character’s specific situation. I hope that helps!

[writing-advice]

Over time, I’ve gotten a lot of questions regarding writing about people of colour. These are questions that I as a white person feel ill suited to answer. Today I stumbled across a blog that deals with this precise issue, which I would like to direct all of you with this question to. The blog is @writingwithcolor It contains many valuable pieces of advice that I encourage you to look through, if you’re planning on including BIPOC characters and are not part of the group you’re describing. I’ve updated my faq accordingly to also point out this blog. Should it’s creators ever read this, thank you for your advice!

[coffeebeanwriting]

How To Avoid Plot Armor

Plot armor is when important characters seem to survive each and every treacherous obstacle that is thrown their way just for the sake of the plot. The readers know that your protagonist is important and won’t meet their demise because who else will defeat the bad guy in the end? This can result in underwhelming battle scenes, loss of suspense and an overall boring experience.

Here are some ways to avoid having your readers notice the plot armor (because let’s be honest, it’s there whether we like or not) or at least make it more realistic:

1) Injure your characters. Let it be known that no one is safe. During the heat of battle, the prized soldier loses his sword arm. The invincible superhero receives PTSD after witnessing a terrible event. Raise the stakes!

2) If they escape, make it believable. Did they sacrifice something to escape? Did a past experience give them the wits and knowledge to outsmart the danger? Justify your protagonist’s escape. Don’t make it an easy get away just because you need them out of the situation. 

3) There are consequences. Every action sparks a reaction. Have there be realistic push back. Your character shouldn’t be immune to the rules and laws of your world.

4) Detailed Explanations. So, your character needs their limbs, their sanity and anything else you could strip them of. How do you make it seem like they’re not immune to everything then? Equip them with what they need (knowledge, weapon, confidence, etc) and really sell it to your reader on how they survived. 

There’s no way a teenaged girl stakes a 400 year old vampire just by picking up a branch and defending herself. Equip her with some knowledge of vampires (fanfics to the rescue?), an ancient relic that she unknowingly wears around her neck and an insane amount of adrenaline… and maybe I’ll believe it.

5) Kill off other characters. Have their deaths affect the protagonist.

Instagram: coffeebeanwriting

[writing-advice]

Advice for the anon about the character being ripped from the family.

They could also start with a chapter where the family is frantically looking for this MC and then introduce the character 's situation in the second chapter.

Or have the character visit the family for a special occasion at the start, a mother's birthday, parents anniversary, celebrating a birth in the family, and then impact with the next section be the event of the character being removed from that environment.

Just some ideas.

Thank you! Further ideas for this post

[writing-advice]

Hello! I have a character who's going to be ripped from her family within the first chapter of my story; how can I jam in character development/bonding so people care about the family members within a single chapter?

Hey :) Can you include flashbacks later on in the story to make it clear how difficult that loss is for her and you don’t need to jam it all into that one chapter? Otherwise I’d advise just making it as positive/happy/heartwarming as possible, maybe include a special event like a birthday celebration or something like that?

[writing-advice]

My writing is very sensory based which is a problem bc I can get really dissociative— how do you write through the brain fog without ruining a scene?

It’s interesting, I sometimes have the opposite issue that I find it hard to bring more sensory information into my writing, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help. One idea would be to try to limit yourself, give yourself x sentences of sensory information and then keep writing the plot. Is your problem that you dissociate while you write, or rather that the writing product ends up being dissociative? Because if it’s the latter, I’d say it’s maybe not such a problem if you’re in flow while writing, you could simply write what you want and then cut it down when you edit. Hope that helps!

[writing-advice]

Is 15 pages enough for a chapter?

Absolutely. I think, overall, your chapters should probably be more or less even in length, not to the page, but I’d avoid having one 15 page chapter if all the others are 5 or 30 pages long, but it’s up to you how many chapter breaks you want to have in your story.

[autisticbeecas-deactivated20220]

How to write a hijabi character

written by an Arab Muslim hijabi .

important notes :

- whatever I write here is not enough. You need to research, listen to people talking about their experiences ( you can look on YouTube or tiktok ), ask, reach out.

- promote and support hijabi voices. Aiming to add diversity and representation in your story is good, but you also must remember those youre trying to represent. remember that you’re doing this to support them.

- not all Hijabis are Arab. Not all Arab are hijabis. Not all Muslims are hijabis.

- a hijab is a personal connection between the person and Allah, and it is also a statement. It’s very sensitive and important and, unless you’re a hijabi, I’d advise and emphasize not to discuss this or delve into it.

- fellow hijabis, if you have any additions or notes to add, I’d love if you’d add them here.

the info :

- hijabs and scarves come in different types of fabrics, names, the way their tied and worn can differ. you can tell a lot about someone by their hijab. It can represent your personality, culture, country and even age. So if you’re going to specify it, make sure you’re doing it for a reason and understanding what every specification means.

- hijabs are mostly worn with modest clothing. These tend to be not form fitting or see/through. Not very flashy and usually cover everything but the face and the hands ( although some like to wear gloves and niqabs )

- many tend to start officially wearing the hijab after hitting puberty ( or getting their first period ). Some like to wear it a bit later when they feel like it or when they become adults, work, or get married. Some might wear it earlier to fit in with their culture or because they just want to.

- before officially wearing it, we can train for it and slowly get used to it. This includes wearing a scarf around our shoulders and wearing a full hijab in specific times ( in my case, I used to wear it at school )

- if your character is wearing an abaya ( like a black cloak ?) . If they just started wearing a hijab, some would slowly get used to moving into wearing the abaya, might at first just stick to long shirts or dresses and then wear an abaya maybe by highschool senior year or in university. many abaya wearers tend to only wear it in their country, and choose to switch to pants outside or when in amusement parks.

- we don’t wear the hijab all the time, we usually can show our hair to people of the same gender, our father, grandfather, uncles, sons, nephews, and brothers. Brothers include any boy that was breastfeed by the same mom, as they’re considered like brothers.

- there is a famous hollywoood scene, which admittedly does happen but it’s very cliche and many Muslim women expressed their displeasure for it. It’s the taking of the hijab scene whether but force or to impress another character. Which. Come on. You want to imposed hijabis not scare them.

- other names for a hijab is head-cover, scarf, headscarf, shailah, etc…

Things to research :

- types of scarves and their origins

- how to wear a head scarf

- mahram ( the people you can show your hair to, and also not allowed to get married to. )

- hijabi creators and voices

other posts you might want to have a look at :

hijab hacks

hijab wearing advices

Muslim women and the consent of touch

How to draw a hijabi character

I very much appreciate that you’re writting a hijabi character because it’s always so good to see them, aand I love that you Read through this so thank you very much.

[writing-advice]

Hey so do you have any advice for writing children's dialogue and/or characters learning English for the first time? Like what sort of phrases or mistakes would they likely use/make? Thank you!

Hey, yes, I actually do have some points on that! So common things children do when they’re starting to speak are: - Statements/questions consisting of only one word that makes their intention clear- overstretching, so using a word beyond its original meaning to cover more- overgeneralising, so thinking that an irregular form of a word (maybe a verb form or plural of a noun) is the standard form and generally using that. 

Especially that last one could also apply to people learning English who are already fluent in another language. Depending on where they are with learning English (and how they learn) they might be quite good with simple phrases, but then have trouble understanding more complicated things. Other common mistakes would depend on their native language, so for example people speaking Russian or another language that doesn’t generally use articles might often forget articles in English or confuse the and a/an. But, again, that depends largely on their first language. 

I hope that helps :) 

[writing-advice]

Hi!! I love your account. I use “She” and “He” alot, how can I use it less in my writing.

Hey, thank you :) Off the top of my head, I would recommend: - using the character’s name or, occasionally, something descriptive, e.g. “the little girl” - where it fits, having longer sentences that include more actions. So “She went down the stairs, opened the door, and stepped into the street.” rather than “She went down the stairs. She opened the door. Then she stepped into the street.” I hope that helps!

[writing-advice]

Back again, hopefully for good

Alright, so almost a year after my last post, I’m back with the intention of being more active here again. This blog started out as a cache for myself, a place to store away helpful bits of information. It’s still surprising to me that it’s gained a bit of a following and that people ask for advice. I’m never sure how qualified I actually am to give advice, but I’ll continue to try.

To everyone whose questions I’ll be answering belatedly now: If you were stuck on problems, I very much hope that you have already found a way to solve them. I’ll still be answering, maybe others are strugglich with something comparable, but if you have other input, feel free to add it to my response!