Prompts & Tips for Writing

✏️ A place for fans to submit prompts, fics, and a way for writers to find inspiration.

[thedeafavenger-deactivated20230]

A note on writing characters with PTSD

so I see a fair number of people without PTSD writing characters with PTSD, and one of my major… I don’t want to say problems, because it’s not really a problem, so much as a something I see lacking is that people don’t always get that PTSD flashbacks don’t have to be someone reliving an exact memory.

In fact, PTSD flashbacks don’t have to involve visualizations/linear, immersive reliving of the event at all, but people often go for the stereotypical seeing and feeling the event like you’re back there again and it is what your reality is.

When I started therapy for my PTSD, I went in thinking I didn’t have “real” PTSD because I have no visual flashbacks. My therapist immediately pulled out a pile of material to read, and the gist of the material boiled down to that PTSD flashbacks can take other forms. They can include but are not limited to:

Implicit flashbacks, or reliving just the emotions you felt at time of trauma, which might just seem like unusually strong emotions for the situation you’re in or unconnected to the situation emotions. Or, you may try to explain it as a reaction to something in your current environment and not a response to a trauma related trigger. These are super confusing and stressful for both the survivor and those around them.

Body memories, where you feel sensations related to the event without visualizations or other more stereotypical flashback symptoms. For example, phantom hands touching you.

Auditory flashbacks, which can distort what a trigger sound like a door slamming or a certain phrase actually means in the present. For example, if someone says a trigger phrase, you might hear what is said in your memories of the trauma and not what they actually say

I’d really love to see some more diverse representations of flashbacks out there for people writing characters with PTSD is the point of the post. Personal, I wish I would’ve been told about this years ago, because I felt like a “bad” or invalid survivor for being what I perceived as atypical.

Maybe people do know about this, but I certainly don’t see much about it.

EDIT: More pieces like this can be found HERE. Such as one on Hypervigilance and one on helping your loved one with Flashbacks.

[avi-why]

“how’s ur wip going?”

i know which characters like pomegranates and why but i don’t have a plot yet

[charlesoberonn]

People in badly written fantasy stories will usually talk about the major historical events of their world and how magic has affected the lives of everyone, but ask a person in the real world to describe the effects of WWI and the invention of the combustion engine on modern life and they’d probably couldn’t tell you.

[bone-us-zone]

Broke: every character seems to know everything about the history and lore of the world

Woke: most characters can’t tell you much besides the basics but there are some that can tell you more complete but specific parts

H Y P E R W O K E: Every character tells you a wildly different version of the past and what effects it has on the present, ranging from the government is an imperialist, colonizing body obsessed with power to the one true ruler was sent by the gods and has smote down anyone who got in his way to “Oh you mean Jeff, the quote unquote tyrant of the west? I knew that guy! He was alright, never did anything wrong really just wanted some soup.” And there’s no way to tell what actually happened

[charlesoberonn]

I like your thinking

[gr8writingtips]

writing tip #2185:

is your novel about your protagonist’s secrets? really? you plan on just, airing your protag’s dirty laundry in front of readers? you disgust me

[windwardstar]

I literally only have one rule in my writing and it is this:

No matter what I put my characters through, they make it. They get to make it to the end of the story and have everything work out and be ok.

Because that’s the story I need. So it’s the kind I write.

[windwardstar]

If you want a piece of writing advice: write a story that is what you needed to hear at whatever age your target demographic is. I can guarantee you there’ll be someone out there who needs to hear it as much as you did. And maybe you’ll help them the same way someone else’s story did for you.

[boothewriter-deactivated2018122]

For some reason, this hit home and I never realized it that I did this for my stories too

[suburbanmomromanceclub]

File this under “super obvious yet I always seem to forget it.”

[iamwordsandpixels-deactivated20]

I don’t write romance (I totally respect people who do, though!) but this is also great writing advice in general! What is preventing the protagonist from achieving their goal?

Why can’t these two people be together now?

Why can’t the mystery be solved now?

Why can’t they overthrow the evil overlord now?

If you don’t have a solid answer for these questions, that’s a good indicator that the plot could use some more work.

[megan-cutler]

Also test your answer a little bit. If it’s as thin as they’re just refusing to sit down and have a simple conversation, you might want to re-think how things are going.

[operahousebookworm]

As a beta reader/editor, I tend to ask this question a lot: “Why are they doing it this way when there’s a much easier path available?” That’s not to say that they should take the easier path, because that would usually be boring. Instead, the point is that the question needs an answer–either eliminate the easier path or give them a very clear reason for not taking it. (And if I’m asking the question, that reason isn’t as clear as you think it might be.)

I find it very difficult to root for characters who have a sensible option available and just don’t take it. If the only reason is “Because there wouldn’t be a story otherwise,” you haven’t actually found the story yet.

[dali-daydreams]

The Last Words Of Famous Writers

When you’ve dedicated your life to words, it’s important to go out eloquently.

Ernest Hemingway: “Goodnight my kitten.” Spoken to his wife before he killed himself.

Jane Austen: “I want nothing but death.” In response to her sister, Cassandra, who was asking her if she wanted anything.

J.M Barrie: “I can’t sleep.”

L. Frank Baum: “Now I can cross the shifting sands.”

Edgar Allan Poe: “Lord help my poor soul.”

Thomas Hobbes: “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap into the dark,”

Alfred Jarry: “I am dying…please, bring me a toothpick.”

Hunter S. Thompson: “Relax — this won’t hurt.”

Henrik Ibsen: “On the contrary!”

Anton Chekhov: “I haven’t had champagne for a long time.”

Mark Twain: “Good bye. If we meet—” Spoken to his daughter Clara.

Louisa May Alcott: “Is it not meningitis?” Alcott did not have meningitis, though she believed it to be so. She died from mercury poison.

Jean Cocteau: “Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking towards me, without hurrying.”

Washington Irving: “I have to set my pillows one more night, when will this end already?”

Leo Tolstoy: “But the peasants…how do the peasants die?”

Hans Christian Andersen: “Don’t ask me how I am! I understand nothing more.”

Charles Dickens: “On the ground!” He suffered a stroke outside his home and was asking to be laid on the ground.

H.G. Wells: “Go away! I’m all right.” He didn’t know he was dying.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “More light.”

W.C. Fields: “Goddamn the whole fucking world and everyone in it except you, Carlotta!” “Carlotta” was Carlotta Monti, actress and his mistress.

Voltaire: “Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.” When asked by a priest to renounce Satan.

Dylan Thomas: “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies…I think that’s the record.”

George Bernard Shaw: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”

Henry David Thoreau: “Moose…Indian.”

James Joyce: “Does nobody understand?”

Oscar Wilde: “Either the wallpaper goes, or I do.” 

Bob Hope: “Surprise me.” He was responding to his wife asking where he wanted to be buried.

Roald Dahl’s last words are commonly believed to be “you know, I’m not frightened. It’s just that I will miss you all so much!” which are the perfect last words. But, after he appeared to fall unconscious, a nurse injected him with morphine to ease his passing. His actual last words were a whispered “ow, fuck”

Salvador Dali hoped his last words would be “I do not believe in my death,” but instead, they were actually, “Where is my clock?”

Emily Dickinson: “I must go in, the fog is rising.”

[vintage-mist]

Tag yourself. I’m HG Wells.

[emeraldmercury]

I’m James Joyce

[hummingbirdbandit]

No, but no one is explaining Ibsen!!

He had been really fucking sick for days, and woke up from a feverish night. His nurse? Wife? Asked him if he was feeling better. He smiled, said “On the contrary!” And died.

Supreme power move from my man Ibsen.

[zombieheroine]

The real writer experience is standing in the shower and coming up with the most authentic dialogue with perfect phrasing and raw emotion in your head, then stepping out and drying your hair, putting on some clean pajamas and opening a word document to write down all your perfect ideas only to realize everything has evaporated. 

[monzterzack]

[septembercfawkes]

Breaking Writing Rules Right: "Show, don't Tell"

8 times you need to use Telling in your writing.

It’s one of the first rules of creative writing you’ll hear. It may be the rule you hear the most: “Show, don’t tell.”

Today I’ll explain what that rule means, why it’s in place, and then why following it too closely can actually harm rather than help your writing.

There are places in writing where telling is just frankly better, and even more powerful.

What’s the Rule?

The Rule:

Show, don’t tell.

Why it’s a Rule

Honestly, almost any beginning writer who is getting into writing needs to hear this advice, and probably several times. When I was in college, this was like scripture. I heard it every week, if not every day. This is because naturally, we are wired to “tell” a story rather than “show” one. Telling is easier, and if we don’t know the difference, we just do what’s natural and easy.

But what is the difference? And why does it matter which you use?

Here is an examples of telling:

Emily was tired.

Here is how you would change that example into showing:

Yawning, Emily dragged her backpack on the way to her bedroom. Her eyes drooped shut with each step. She fell into her bed and her shoes blackened the covers. She rubbed her eyes–mascara gritted against her skin–then flung her arm over her face to block out the light.

In my second example, I don’t just tell the reader Emily is tired, I show them. There are a few reasons to do this. First, if I simply say “Emily was tired,” as an audience, we don’t get a visual for what “tired” is, how tired Emily is, or what kind of tired she feels. It’s vague and general. Is Emily a bored kind of tired? Or physically tired from running a mile? Or sleepy-tired? But when I show it, it’s clear she’s sleepy-tired. How sleepy-tired? Tired enough that she can’t pick up and carry her backpack, so tired that her eyes droop shut and she doesn’t bother to take off her shoes before “falling” into bed. She doesn’t even wash off her makeup or turn off the room’s light.

That’s how tired.

Second, when you show instead of tell it immerses the reader into the story so that they feel like they are experiencing it instead of just reading about it. It’s like they are there in the house with Emily, or are Emily herself. One of the ways to do this well is to appeal to the senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. In my second example, I appealed to the senses of sight and touch. (In contrast, in my first example, I appealed to no senses.) It’s important to immerse the reader, so that they are experiencing the emotions in the story. If you “tell” them everything, you’re (almost) never putting the emotions in the reader, so the story won’t be as powerful. When you “show” the story to the reader, you are allowing them to interpret and come to their own conclusions, rather then you telling them what to think and believe. They become the character.

If telling still doesn’t seem that “bad” to you, look at what bland telling looks like sentence after sentence in this example:

They went to their friend’s house to see some cats. They liked them a lot. When they got tired, they called their mom to pick them up, but their mom couldn’t come for two hours. It was cold out, so they went inside and got something warm to eat. Then they drew some pictures before watching t.v.

How much emotion do you feel from that? Do you feel like you are in the story? Does it have you on the edge of you seat? Probably not.

Most all beginning writers write stories this way, which is why learning to show, not tell, is preached just about everywhere. Telling is easy. Showing takes work.

But like any writing rule, if you treat this one like a commandment, it can actually hurt your writing and take the power out of your story.

Why You Need Telling

Here is why you need telling.

Keep reading

[archi-pelago]

playing with ocs is either

or 

[butim-justharry-deactivated2019]

household memes. memes that only make sense to the people you live with.

for example, in my house: saying ‘ew’ in a monotone voice, slapping your leg and saying “iiiiiii know it!” and the other person replies “well that’s just it.”

reblog with your household memes in the comments or tags

[agardenandlibrary]

guys, if you ever need writing prompts, I encourage you to look at the tags on this post cuz I’ve never seen anything more strange and wonderful

[sarahtaylorgibson]

Writing a novel when you imagine all you stories in film format is hard because there’s really no written equivalent of “lens flare” or “slow motion montage backed by Gregorian choir”

[audacityinblack]

You can get the same effect of a lens flare with close-detail descriptions, combined with breaks to new paragraphs.

Your slow-motion montage backed by a Gregorian choir can be done with a few technques that all involve repetition.

First is epizeuxis, the repeating of a word for emphasis.

Example:

Falling. Falling. Falling. There was nothing to keep Marie from plunging into the rolling river below. She could only hope for a miracle now, that she would come out alive somehow despite a twenty-foot drop into five-foot-deep water.

Then there’s anaphora, where you write a number of phrases with the same words at the beginning.

There were still mages out there living in terror of shining steel armor emblazoned with the Sword of Mercy.

There were still mages out there being forced by desperation into the clutches of demons.

There were mages out there being threatened with Tranquility as punishment for their disobedience, and the threats were being made good upon.

Mages who had attempted to flee, but knew nothing of the outside world and were forced to return to their prison out of need for sustenance and shelter.

Mages who only desired to find the families they were torn from.

Mages who only wanted to see the sun.

This kind of repetition effectively slows the pace of your writing and puts the focus on that small scene. That’s where you get your slow pan. The same repetition also has a subtle musicality to it depending on the words you use. That’s where you get the same vibe as you might get from a Gregorian choir.

[sarahtaylorgibson]

Damn I made relatable reblog- bait post and writer Tumblr went hard with it. This is legitimately very good advice. 

[roane72]

Anaphora is my most favorite thing to use ever. EVER.

[hobeemin]

😲😲😲

[pervocracy]

child handling for the childless nurse

My current job has me working with children, which is kind of a weird shock after years in environments where a “young” patient is 40 years old.  Here’s my impressions so far:

Birth - 1 year: Essentially a small cute animal.  Handle accordingly; gently and affectionately, but relying heavily on the caregivers and with no real expectation of cooperation.

Age 1 - 2: Hates you.  Hates you so much.  You can smile, you can coo, you can attempt to soothe; they hate you anyway, because you’re a stranger and you’re scary and you’re touching them.  There’s no winning this so just get it over with as quickly and non-traumatically as possible.

Age 3 - 5: Nervous around medical things, but possible to soothe.  Easily upset, but also easily distracted from the thing that upset them.  Smartphone cartoons and “who wants a sticker?!!?!?” are key management techniques.

Age 6 - 10: Really cool, actually.  I did not realize kids were this cool.  Around this age they tend to be fairly outgoing, and super curious and eager to learn.  Absolutely do not babytalk; instead, flatter them with how grown-up they are, teach them some Fun Gross Medical Facts, and introduce potentially frightening experiences with “hey, you want to see something really cool?”

Age 11 - 14: Extremely variable.  Can be very childish or very mature, or rapidly switch from one mode to the other.  At this point you can almost treat them as an adult, just… a really sensitive and unpredictable adult.  Do not, under any circumstances, offer stickers.  (But they might grab one out of the bin anyway.)

Age 15 - 18: Basically an adult with severely limited life experience.  Treat as an adult who needs a little extra education with their care.  Keep parents out of the room as much as possible, unless the kid wants them there.  At this point you can go ahead and offer stickers again, because they’ll probably think it’s funny.  And they’ll want one.  Deep down, everyone wants a sticker.

[mikkeneko]

This is also a pretty excellent guide to writing  kids of various ages

[elodieunderglass]

It’s so funny to look back at the Coolness Window (where it’s incredibly important to be cool - Too Cool for Stickers) because I remember the Coolness Window so vividly, and am constantly surprised by how short it is in comparison to how big it feels.

[wellfuckthishellsiteiguess-deac]

the one thing all of us writers have in common is that none of us are fucking writing

[marciaillust]

There’s only one thing worse than coming up with names for your ocs ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,it’s coming up with their surnames

[mechanicalriddle]

dude have i got the thing for you

[onlyawfulrpgideas]

I don’t know how these are being generated but they are so, so good

[aerogrammestudio]

From  How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely

[irkdesu]

JFC.

[rcmclachlan]

ETCH THIS INTO MY HEADSTONE.

[linnlaio]

THIS,OMG, THIS!

[saltoftheao3]

Golden Rules for Fanfiction Readers:

if the fic already has a thousand comments, comment still. Your comment will still matter and delight the author.

if a fic is a decade old and the author hasn’t been active in the last five years, comment still. There will come a time when the author will read and cherish your comment, or maybe it will motivate them enough to start writing again. You never know!

if the author never responds to comments, comment still. Interaction with the author is a very nice bonus, but you can be sure that even if the author doesn’t answer, they will read it and enjoy it at some point

there’s no such thing as a too long comment.

there’s no such thing as a too incoherent comment.

the author will give no flying fuck about any gramatical errors, typo or other misspellings. If you’re a non-native speaker struggling to express themselves, you can be sure the author will be all the more pleased that you surmounted the language barrier to let them know you appreciated their work. Don’t be afraid!

there’s no such thing as commenting too often.

you will never, ever come across as creepy by obsessing over a fic or an author to the point where you worry the author might think you’re a stalker. On the contrary, the author will be delighted by your investment in their work.

say thank you. It’s always appreciated to see readers acknowledge the work and commitment that is put into writing.

the floaty review box (ao3 add-on) is your friend

be positive and encouraging. Positive reviews make writers all warm and glowy from the inside, bashing plunge their soul into icy darkness. You want the first, not the second!

whoever you are, if you read their fic, YOU are IMPORTANT to the author. Let them know you’re there!

(if any author wants to contradict one of those rules, please let me know!)

(Submitted by @randomishnickname)

[kc-anathema]

I am especially charmed by comments in other languages. I have google translate, and I am impressed someone went out of their way to both read and comment on it.