Welcome!

{she/her} {20} {poc} {writing side blog}

[writtenaway]

Wrote my first fic!

Remind Me (of how little I deserve) on AO3

It’s an angsty Drarry oneshot based on the song “Connell” by Conan Grey :)

[writtenaway]

Epilogue of a Year

The day stains sepia and blond,

Elul swells sweet

with sugarcane and sweat,

a disorienting divide between

the present and the possible,

the forgiving and forgiven–

I haven’t worked out yet

which way I fall.

We are out in the field,

attempting a closure of sorts

within the harvest;

I watch the sunlight

slather on her scythe.

Our passive God is with us,

lounging in our heady longing.

It is a month of quiet tragedy:

picked scabs under fingernails,

tart berries picked too soon.

I had thought that

they were ripe enough

before my teeth sunk in.

[writtenaway]

Transcription:

THIS WOMAN’S WORK

What is your greatest regret?

I was a child

Sometimes we want to feel different.

Seek a secular salvation from the hypnotic dystopia

There’s more to our beloved beauty — but it’s ingrained in us

Oh, God,

My whole childhood was

Ransomed

Someone else’s hands insisted

Hungry for the touch

Eager to anoint

That’s a vulnerable place to put a child

Society doesn’t allow women

To say No, I’m

not for you.

I wish that we never became pray to the violence of the world

I want to be a lioness — a fierce woman.

I’ve never had that opportunity.

[battlestar-royco]

here have 10 pieces of writing advice that have stuck with me over the years

every character’s first line should be an introduction to who they are as a person

even if you only wrote one sentence on a really bad day, that’s still one sentence more than you had yesterday

exercise restraint when using swear words and extra punctuation in order for them to pack a punch when you do use them

if your characters have to kiss to show they’re in love, then they’re not in love

make every scene interesting (or make every scene your favorite scene), otherwise your readers will be just as bored as you

if you’re stuck on a scene, delete the last line you wrote and go in a different direction, or leave in brackets as placeholders

don’t compare your first draft to published books that could be anywhere from 3rd to 103rd drafts

i promise you the story you want to tell can fit into 100k words or less

sometimes the book isn’t working because it’s not ready to be written or you’re not ready to write it yet; let it marinate for a bit so the idea can develop as you become a better writer

a story written in chronological order takes a lot more discipline and is usually easier to understand than a story written with flashbacks

[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.

[riptidepublishing]

And this is why the Big Misunderstanding as a primary plot device is almost universally disliked.

[twofigs]

i am writing all the time except just like inside of me and not outside

[anilag]

[writtenaway]

THE WAY WE BURN FOR OTHERS BY SETTING OURSELVES ON FIRE . . . I NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE FLAME UNTIL THE MATCH WAS LIT

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE PAIN UNTIL IT LOOKED TOO MUCH LIKE LOVE

[honeytuesday]

and the grocery store is never just the grocery store. i'm staring at cereal boxes trying to find one that'll stain my heart honey-sweet again. i'm pacing the snack aisle looking for an epiphany or addiction. i'm circling the croissants like they'll make my life beautiful. i'm looking at birthday cards wondering who i have left to congratulate. i'm clutching my sleeves in the produce section. as if this particular lettuce will cleanse away years of inner turmoil. i'm cradling wilted bouquets like precious cargo--have i ever been held this tender, this secure? i'm hovering before the self-checkout and cashier line, wondering if it'd be nice to go through something with someone else for once.

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Aeschylus, tr. by Mary Lefkowitz and Romm James, from Plays; “Helen,”

[writing-prompt-s]

“My lord, I know you are the demon lord and I am but a lowly advisor, but please listen to me. I suggest that instead of sending the hero slightly stronger demons to kill each time, we just send the strongest one right away”

[narnianvalkyrieofberk]

“Do you know why the heroes fight us, advisor?”

“Because…. because we threaten their homeland, my lord?”

“And why do we threaten their homeland?”

“Because Kushiel rules it and she exiled you?”

“Close. Because Kushiel rules it and she must be stopped. But we cannot stop her.”

“I’m… not sure I follow, my liege.”

“I am not surprised. This war started long before you were born, did it not?”

“Yes, my lord, at least a dozen centuries before.”

“And I was at least a dozen centuries old when this war began. We sent our strongest soldiers, our mightiest armies. And Kushiel sent children.”

“Children…? Then… how did we not win?”

“Would you like to fight an army of children? See the light that should have burned a century be snuffed out after barely a decade?”

“Well… not particularly, no.”

“Nor did we, and Kushiel knew this. She gives them no training for she knows the worse off they are the worse it will be for us to face them. This went on for several centuries. She fills her people’s heads with stories, false prophecies about how a child will someday defeat the tyrannical ruler who threatens them. And so, we are helping that prophecy become true.”

“Wait, what?”

“We cannot hope to defeat Kushiel. We do not know her with any intimacy. We cannot predict her movements. All we know is she will keep sending children. So we train them. We send out weakest soldiers, those willing to die knowing their sacrifice will eventually be her undoing. Someday, a hero will come who is able to defeat us. A hero who will slaughter our weakest, then our next weakest, and will continue to do so until even I lay dead at their feet. And then the hero will come here and sit in my throne and peer from my grand window. Sit. Tell me what they will see.”

“It…. It’s a graveyard, sir.”

“Those are the graves of all the children Kushiel has sent to die at our hands. Some became adults before they finally fell, but they were always children when they started. We bury them here. And someday a hero will come who will free us from this grievous task. They will take my throne, sit upon it, and see what Kushiel deemed a worthy price for this mere chair. And then the hero will realize who they must fight next. And thanks to us, they will have gained the strength and training necessary to make sure the prophecy is fulfilled and the tyrant will finally die.”

[nosebleedclub]

Why do you love what you love?

[sunsprungheart]

i am lonely: that's the simple answer. it's a cycle, you see. i wither and then i bloom and then i am tank half-consumed and i am terribly, bitterly, lonely the whole time. but with them--for one moment--i am not lonely and instead i gleam. i feel life sinking into me. i may not have my heart-pound-lungs-burning moments, but i feel alive. and sometimes that's all i have to look forward to.

[bluebxlle-writer]

Writing fight scenes

masterlist. main navigation.

@bluebxlle_writer on Instagram

1. Pacing

A fight scene should be fast-paced and intense. Unless it's a final battle with numerous parties, a fight scene that's too long tends to take away suspense. To speed up your pacing, use active voice to describe movement and don't overdescribe your characters' thoughts. Excessive inner monologue will be unrealistic, as people usually have no room to think during intense combats.

2. Character mannerisms

Here's a point that people often overlook, but is actually super important. Through fight scenes, you should be able to reveal your characters' contrasting mannerisms and personality. A cunning character would play dirty - fighting less and making use of their opponent's weakness more. A violent character would aim to kill. A softer one would only target to disarm their enemies, using weakened attacks. A short-minded character would only rely on force and attack without thinking. This will help readers understand your characters more and decide who to root for.

3. Making use of surroundings

Not only the characters, you also need to consider the setting of your fight scene and use it to your advantage. Is it suitable for fighting, or are there dangerous slopes that make it risky? Are there scattered items that can help your characters fight (e.g. nails, shards of glass, ropes, wooden boards, or cutlery)? Is it a public place where people can easily spot the fight and call the authorities, or is it a private spot where they can fight to the death?

4. Description

The main things that you need to describe in a fight scene are :

• Characters involved in the fight

• How they initiate and dodge attacks

• Fighting styles and any weapons used

• The injuries caused

Be careful to not drag out the description for too long, because it slows down the pace.

5. Raise the stakes

By raising the stakes of the fight, your readers will be more invested in it. Just when they think it's over, introduce another worse conflict that will keep the scene going. Think of your characters' goals and motivations as well. Maybe if the MC didn't win, the world would end! Or maybe, one person in the fight is going all-out, while the other is going easy because they used to be close :"D

6. Injuries

Fights are bound to be dirty and resulting in injuries, so don't let your character walk away unscathed - show the effect of their injuries. For example, someone who had been punched in the jaw has a good chance of passing out, and someone who had been stabbed won't just remove the knife and walk away without any problem. To portray realistic injuries, research well.

7. Drive the plot forward

You don't write fight scenes only to make your characters look cool - every fight needs to have a purpose and drive the plot forward. Maybe they have to fight to improve their fighting skills or escape from somewhere alive. Maybe they need to defeat the enemy in order to obtain an object or retrieve someone who had been kidnapped. The point is, every single fight scene should bring the characters one step closer (or further :D) to the climax.

8. Words to use

• Hand to hand combat :

Crush, smash, lunge, beat, punch, leap, slap, scratch, batter, pummel, whack, slam, dodge, clobber, box, shove, bruise, knock, flick, push, choke, charge, impact

• With weapon :

Swing, slice, brandish, stab, shoot, whip, parry, cut, bump, poke, drive, shock, strap, pelt, plunge, impale, lash, bleed, sting, penetrate

[gentle-reminder]

gentle reminder

if you are a creator and you didn’t or couldn’t create today, it’s okay - i hope your spark can come back soon; please try your best to not be so hard on yourself

[glasswaters]

i’m thinking tonight about masterpieces. michelangelo looked at the sixtine chapel and saw; nothing to preserve. virgil wanted his aenid burned and forgotten; only to be saved at the behest of an emperor who thought it flattery. kafka instructed his friend to burn everything he’d ever written - too personal was it, too unfinished.

they were ignored.

instead, their work was taken and held and published and thrown to be gawked at. instead, an emperor, a pope, a friend, took from within the cavities of them their choices; their art.

tumblr rolls out post+. twitter rolls out tip jars. youtube takes half of what creators earn. on social media, there is a ko-fi or a patreon and a polished face in every bio. i show my poems to my mother and she asks if I will publish them before she says anything else. emily dickinson instructed her sister to burn her poetry.

her sister did not listen.

we are a community, says tumblr, we should give back to creators. my last poem had 50 notes. six of those were reblogs that weren’t mine. i lie in bed at 2am and stare at my bright phone screen and the way netflix’s library grows thinner and thinner. the first ad on tumblr that i can reblog is for amazon. amazon takes more than half of what authors earn.

kafka’s friend took barely finished work and hammered it into structure. he is the only reason we know of him.

my father wrote a book and a play when I was barely big enough to reach his knees. when i try to talk to him about writing, he shrugs.

no one wanted to publish it, he says. so i don’t write anymore.

i am filled with poems I have never published, books I haven’t written. There are little snippets of them scattered throughout my life. I link to my ko-fi on my tumblr.

-

asked capitalism of the artist: what is art, if not for consumption? who does art benefit, if it is not consumed? why create at all if you do not market it? who are you, frothing at the mouth about someone publishing someone else’s poems? who are you to hate your magnum opus? what is art, if not in relation to its reception? if no one sees it, how is it art?

said the artist, baring their teeth: it’s mine.

[rataltouille]

tips for actually finishing a book and making it past 10k? i've written 10k of like 20 books and every time i get quite stuck as soon as i've finished with that. this book really matters to me so i want to make sure i actually finish it.

hello! disclaimer that just because these work for me doesn't mean they might for you, everyone’s process is different so feel free to utilise whatever you like from these.

first, i’d recommend trying to understand why you can’t make it past 10k in the first place. is there a pattern you notice when you get stuck? try jotting down any reasons, external and internal, that may be contributing to why you feel stuck. sometimes, you have a vague feeling of a block and don’t know how to tackle that. i’ve found that trying to give it a form and making it tangible helps to overcome it. obviously i don't know anything about your writing but here are some possible reasons:

seeing as how you’ve written 10k words for many stories and then left it at that, there could be a chance you get in over your head around the 10k mark, like psyching yourself up for failure, basically.

maybe you feel like you lose passion for your story around the 10k mark, which is actually very common—the start of the book is always the most fun to write because you're teeming with ideas, and as you go on it’s more about implementing these ideas rather than getting new ones, which can reduce the enthusiasm you might have felt before.

maybe you feel like you’re supposed to feel a particular way about your writing process, because you see writers around you experiencing it, so when you don’t experience the same with your work, you might assume there’s something wrong to do with your wip / process rather than because every writer has a different experience with their work. this is something i suffer from all the time; i’m fairly neutral when it comes to my work? i don't tend to have highs or lows while drafting, so when i hear about how other people are constantly overjoyed [or dissapointed] by their process i feel like it’s my wip that's lacking, rather than because my experience is different.

i feel like it’s very easy to feel lost with your work because you hit a block, or when you simply just don't have the same amount of energy or passion you used to have for it at the beginning. it’s important to remember that this is very normal! and it isn't because you’re a bad writer, or your story is just uninteresting, or any other reason you might tell yourself that ultimately dissuades you from pursuing the story. you might not enjoy working on your book all the time, and that's fine!

here are some general tips that helped me:

focus on consistent writing over quality or quantity. i’d say this is what helped me most. i’m someone who writes every day, but not in the way most people would expect when i say that. one day of writing for me simply means that i open the document and interact with it somehow. whether i just read and edit one sentence, fix a spelling error, add two words, write an entire scene, write a chapter—it was a day of writing done. making my daily writing goal based on just interacting with my doc rather than having a daily word count goal [which has never worked for me] takes off a lot of pressure! i feel like making sure that i’m making some progress with my work, no matter how little it is, or how good the prose was, is what helped me finish my first novel. i chipped away at it every day in small chunks of words and managed to finish it over time.

have a motivator of sorts, no matter how silly you think it is. having some kind of incentive, however small or vague, can be a good reminder of why you’re writing what you are! for many people, their motivator to finishing their book is to publish it. others’ reasons might be the joy of having a completed book or sharing it with their friends. my motivator with my novel was wanting to hold a personal physical copy of a book that i wrote in my hands.

have physical reminders of your goal, which here would be finishing your novel. i’m a very “if there isn't a box to check, i’m not doing it” kind of person and i had multiple physical trackers and reminders in my room. for example, i dedicated a small space on my wall to having sticky notes with 5k word markers. basically, for every 5k words i wrote for the draft, i removed the sticky note from my wall and stuck it in a notebook with the date i finished it on. also, i’d colour in the sticky note! which is very satisfying and something i looked forward to. this method worked really well for me because it reminded me often of my goal, and the desire to remove the ugly notes from my wall made me work more consistently lmao.

try completing a shortform story first, like a novella or short story. completing a story is a very fulfilling feeling, no matter how big it is, so the confidence you might get from finishing a shorter story, which is a comparatively easier task than a novel, can boost you to complete said novel. before my first novel, i’d started a few stories but only ever completed one short story. but that meant that i could complete writing stories, and so when i started writing again a few years later, i knew i could finish a novel if i tried enough! and so i did.

i think it’s important to remember that finishing a book is actually hard!! one line of writing advice that really stuck with me was this: writing is problem-solving, and while you have all of these formulas and guides in the form of writing craft and structure, you’re still going to have to do the solving by yourself. i can only give you insight on how i wrote my novel and hope that helps!! best of luck with your novel, you’ve got this 🤸

[tenapricats]

I’m always like, “this WIP will be finished this week” and then six months later it’s still not done