ella

author

[yourfriendlywriter]

i think it’s astounding that people can actually build entire worlds in their heads and describe them in words. on paper. in a way that makes sense. 

[formerlyluckymanticore]

Reblog if you will never. Ever. Use AI in your writing.

[luna-azzurra]

Cottagecore but Darker Outfit Prompts

✦ A moss-green dress with a hem permanently stained from wandering off-path.

✦ A linen blouse with sleeves tied back, smudged where she pressed leaves and berries into her pockets.

✦ A brown pinafore with frayed straps, tight enough to remind her she grew up working hard.

✦ A cloak the color of river stones, heavy enough to keep the wind from stealing her warmth.

✦ A skirt patched with mismatched fabrics, each square a story she refuses to throw away.

✦ A sage-colored shawl that smells of smoke, wrapped around her shoulders after long evenings by the fire.

✦ A loose cotton dress that moves with her like mist, tied with a ribbon she found rather than bought.

✦ A pair of worn leather boots scarred by roots, rocks, and one very dramatic escape from an angry goose.

✦ A beige apron stained with herbs she crushes absentmindedly between her fingers.

✦ A soft wool sweater with a neckline stretched from constantly pulling it tighter against the cold.

[luna-azzurra]

Prompts for Writing Cozy Settings 

✧ A kitchen warm from the afternoon sun, dust motes drifting like lazy thoughts.

✧ A tiny town square where every building looks a little tired but fiercely proud.

✧ A narrow path through tall grass that whispers secrets against your ankles.

✧ A library where the air smells like old paper and patient dreams.

✧ A quiet attic filled with boxes no one has opened in decades.

✧  A riverbank with stones smoothed by centuries of people who sat there thinking too hard.

✧ A cottage garden overflowing, slightly chaotic, as if the flowers keep forgetting to stay in their own beds.

✧ A rainy bus stop glowing gold from one stubborn streetlamp.

✧ A small café where every chair wobbles differently.

✧ A bedroom where the open window lets in a breeze that smells like distant storms.

[luna-azzurra]

Prompts for writing Eyes like that

☆ Her eyes were a deep green, glowing like sunlight filtering through thick leaves, warm enough to pull secrets out of you.

☆ His gaze held the green of wild forests: untamed and watching like something that knows more than it says.

☆ Her irises carried gold beneath the green, catching the light like moss touched by dawn.

☆ His eyes looked carved from summer shadows, green bright where the light kissed them and dark where the world didn’t reach.

☆ Her gaze shimmered like hidden groves, green threaded with flecks of amber that flickered when she breathed.

☆ His eyes were the green of rain-wet earth, soft, grounding, and strangely ancient.

☆ His gaze was sharp green, glowing like something half-mythic waking up beneath the canopy.

☆ Her eyes looked like they’d been dipped in warm sunlight and deep forest shade at the same time.

☆ His irises carried a quiet fire, green bright at the center, fading into darkness at the edges, like a secret choosing who to reveal itself to.

[luna-azzurra]

When Your Character Walks Into a Room…

There’s this funny misconception that when a character walks into a room, the important part is the room. Writers start scrambling to describe the walls, the wallpaper, the lighting, the color of the rug that no one asked for. And sure, you can do that. But the room doesn’t matter until your character touches it with their thoughts.

And I’m saying this with love, because I’ve written those “character enters room, now here’s a paragraph about the furniture” scenes too. We all have. They’re basically a rite of passage.

But the more you write (and the more drafts you survive) the more you realize something important: the room is NEVER the point. The PERSON entering it is.

When someone walks into a room in real life, they don’t float in like a neutral non-entity. They bring whatever emotional chaos they’ve been dealing with. They bring the argument they just had in the hallway. They bring the secret they’re not ready to tell anyone. They bring the memory the smell of the room just stabbed them with. People don’t arrive clean. They arrive mid-story, even if they pretend they’re fine. So instead of focusing on the chair in the corner, try starting with the emotional “temperature” your character walks in with.

Are they anxious and trying to hide it?

Are they exhausted and hoping nobody notices?

Are they excited but scared they’ll ruin everything the moment they open their mouth?

You don’t have to spell it out like a weather report, just let it tint the way they see the space. Plus, a room changes depending on who’s looking at it. If your character is confident, the space might feel open, manageable, almost welcoming. If they’re overwhelmed, the same room can feel too loud, too bright, too filled with people who suddenly seem to know exactly where they’re going and what they’re doing. If they’re guilty, every shadow becomes suspicious. If they’re sad, the room might seem bigger than it really is.

It doesn’t matter how the room “objectively” looks. What matters is what they see first.

And please let your characters enter rooms in realistically messy ways. Not every entrance needs to be cinematic or in the Hollywood style. Not every character glides. Some fumble the door handle. Some hesitate in the doorway because they suddenly can’t remember why they came in. Some scan the room too fast because they’re nervous and then pretend they weren’t scanning the room at all. Some try way too hard to appear casual and end up bumping into a table they didn’t even notice was there.

That kind of stuff makes your characters feel like a real person and not because the action is interesting, but because it’s familiar. It’s that tiny, “oh god, same” moment between the reader and the character, even if they never consciously notice it.

So REMEMBER: an entrance is a doorway for change, not just a physical movement. You’re not writing, “They walked into the room.” You’re writing, “They stepped into a moment.” And that’s a gamechanger.

[creativepromptsforwriting]

How to write liars

Liars make stories twist, characters clash, and readers question everything. But not all liars are created equal. If you're writing one, ask yourself: what kind of liar are they? Because there’s more than one way to deceive…

Many types of liars

the one where you know they are lying

the one where you never know that they are lying

the one who lies about everything

the one who lies to themself

Writing Tips:

Know why they lie

Every liar has a reason. Is it survival, manipulation, shame, love, power, or habit? Understanding their motive helps you shape their behavior and emotional responses.

Use subtext and contradictions

Liars rarely say "I'm lying." Instead, they contradict themselves, dodge questions, or over-explain. Let their words and actions subtly clash.

Let the lie shape the plot

A good lie should ripple through the story. It creates misunderstandings, false alliances, and dramatic irony. Use it to mislead characters and readers.

Use silence

Sometimes the most powerful lie is omission. What a character doesn’t say can be just as revealing as what they do.

Play with perspective

Use unreliable narrators or shifting POVs to blur the line between truth and fiction. This keeps readers guessing and deepens the mystery.

Show consequences

How are characters reacting to someone lying to them? What happens if people find out a character lied?

If you like my blog and want to support me, you can buy me a coffee or become a member! And check out my Instagram! 🥰

[astracaedes]

i wanna one day, have fanart made of my books, have fanfics written about my characters

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

my toxic trait as a writer is that I’ll be like “I have free time. I am going to write right now” and then I. don’t

[yourfriendlywriter]

stayed up until two am making cookies instead

[luna-azzurra]

Prompts for writing eyes like that

⋆˚✿˖ His eyes were the color of dark honey under low light. Gold turned shadow, sweet turned secret, the kind of gaze that made your pulse trip over itself.

⋆˚✿˖ Her eyes glowed like amber with a flame trapped inside, warm at first glance, but carrying a heat that didn’t feel entirely safe.

⋆˚✿˖ His irises held that smoky, golden hue of burnt sugar. Warm and addictive, the kind of color that warned you and pulled you closer anyway.

⋆˚✿˖ Her gaze shimmered like honey poured slowly, thick and deliberate, the kind of look that made you forget your own name for a second.

⋆˚✿˖ Her eyes flickered with that dangerous golden-brown shimmer, the exact shade of trouble disguised as temptation.

⋆˚✿˖ His eyes were the kind of honey that only turns golden when you tilt the jar. Soft in one angle, sharp in another, like his gaze shifted depending on what he wanted from you.

⋆˚✿˖ His gaze was amber darkened at the edges, warm in the center, the kind of eyes that made you think he could ruin you gently if he wanted to.

⋆˚✿˖ Her irises gleamed like honey lit from within, glowing just a shade too bright, like she knew exactly why you couldn’t look away.

[571rr-deactivated20251227]

I talked with someone who works in book publishing, and they mentioned they get a lot of AI slop these days. I asked how they know what's human-written, and they said that there's one thing that will reveal AI slop without error, and that's the author not knowing their own creation.

A real author can talk about their story for hours. They love to elaborate every character, every twist, every detail. Because those existed in their head long before they ever made it to the paper. They were loved before they were written.

AI slop wasn't. It was just vomited into existence.

Someone who generates their story with AI will never bond with their story the way real writers do. That's why they may not know what to say when they're asked why did the character do this, or even remember the scene in the first place. It's something they read, not something they wrote. And to a writer, those are not the same.

There's a unique bond between the creator and the creation. If your writing doesn't come of you, you'll always lack that.

I keep hearing soon we won't be able to tell. And perhaps, in a superficial sense, that's true. But there is a difference. It's not em dashes or repeated words. It's whether the story was made by someone who loves it and cares about it.

If the writer's eyes light up when asked why did the character do that? and they start their very own Ted Talk about that specific scene...

then it's real.

Edit: I did NOT expect this post to get this much attention. I'm truly sorry I made some people feel I'm doubting their genuinity as writers. This was not the point of this post; actually it was the opposite. My words aren't flawless, either; sometimes they come out wrong. I despise "AI witchunts" (if you read my earlier posts about this matter, you know). I tried to say, your love for your art is what makes it yours. No matter how you show it. I believe art is a connection between souls; a machine can't replicate that. It felt nice to hear that professionals in the industry (at least this one person) still search for that in what they choose to publish, too. That's why I wanted to share.

Edit 2. Please be kind in the comments. We're artists and writers, so passionate people, but we're on the same side here. Lift each other up. ❤️

Edit 3. (the last one, I promise) I'm restricting the comments for now to let this conversation cool down a bit. Once more; I did NOT mean, nor did the person I spoke with, that you need to remember every detail of every story or it's AI. This post is not about detecting AI. It's about love and passion injected to art by those who create it. With "not knowing their own story" I didn't mean having a perfectly crafted marketing speech about it. I meant just... knowing it. Loving it. In any way that feels natural to us. That's how I feel about my stories, anyway.

[yourfriendlywriter]

please let me talk about my story. Ask me anything!

[571rr-deactivated20251227]

I talked with someone who works in book publishing, and they mentioned they get a lot of AI slop these days. I asked how they know what's human-written, and they said that there's one thing that will reveal AI slop without error, and that's the author not knowing their own creation.

A real author can talk about their story for hours. They love to elaborate every character, every twist, every detail. Because those existed in their head long before they ever made it to the paper. They were loved before they were written.

AI slop wasn't. It was just vomited into existence.

Someone who generates their story with AI will never bond with their story the way real writers do. That's why they may not know what to say when they're asked why did the character do this, or even remember the scene in the first place. It's something they read, not something they wrote. And to a writer, those are not the same.

There's a unique bond between the creator and the creation. If your writing doesn't come of you, you'll always lack that.

I keep hearing soon we won't be able to tell. And perhaps, in a superficial sense, that's true. But there is a difference. It's not em dashes or repeated words. It's whether the story was made by someone who loves it and cares about it.

If the writer's eyes light up when asked why did the character do that? and they start their very own Ted Talk about that specific scene...

then it's real.

Edit: I did NOT expect this post to get this much attention. I'm truly sorry I made some people feel I'm doubting their genuinity as writers. This was not the point of this post; actually it was the opposite. My words aren't flawless, either; sometimes they come out wrong. I despise "AI witchunts" (if you read my earlier posts about this matter, you know). I tried to say, your love for your art is what makes it yours. No matter how you show it. I believe art is a connection between souls; a machine can't replicate that. It felt nice to hear that professionals in the industry (at least this one person) still search for that in what they choose to publish, too. That's why I wanted to share.

Edit 2. Please be kind in the comments. We're artists and writers, so passionate people, but we're on the same side here. Lift each other up. ❤️

Edit 3. (the last one, I promise) I'm restricting the comments for now to let this conversation cool down a bit. Once more; I did NOT mean, nor did the person I spoke with, that you need to remember every detail of every story or it's AI. This post is not about detecting AI. It's about love and passion injected to art by those who create it. With "not knowing their own story" I didn't mean having a perfectly crafted marketing speech about it. I meant just... knowing it. Loving it. In any way that feels natural to us. That's how I feel about my stories, anyway.

[ariesrin]

Writing tips: He said, she said...

Readers don't tend to notice 'said', while it's there in the sentence, it doesn't give the sentence any life. It gets the job done, mostly...

Here are some options to try!

whispered / muttered / mumbled → soft or secretive

shouted / yelled / barked → anger, urgency

growled / hissed → danger, teasing, frustration

murmured / breathed → intimacy, vulnerability

snapped / barked / snapped back → irritation, defensiveness

laughed / chuckled / giggled → laughing, fun, playful or flirty

asked / questioned / queried / inquired → curiosity, questioning

demanded / insisted → authority or control

sighed / groaned → fatigue, exasperation, longing

When you're looking to replace said, think about why. You'll generally want to do this when you need the following:

when the tone of the line needs more context.

when you want to show emotion instead of telling it.

when your character’s body language, action, or expression can do the talking instead.

Take a look at the scene you're writing, is the character saying their line? Or are they yelling it? Screaming it? Are they enraged, or perhaps is their voice a broken whisper from grief?

That being said, you shouldn't always avoid using 'said.' It's easy to read in long sentences, and it keeps the focus on the dialogue rather than the rest of the scenes. That may be beneficial and a key component to parts of your story.

[luna-azzurra]

Quick tips for writing Sleep Deprivation 

☽ Memory becomes absolute garbage. Like “why am I in the kitchen?” garbage. “What was I saying?” garbage. Their brain is running on buffering screens and regret.

☽ Fine motor skills? Ha. They’re dropping everything. Pens. Phones. Entire moral compass. They’re basically a malfunctioning claw machine.

☽ Hallucinations creep in. That jacket on the chair? Suddenly a person. That noise? Definitely doom. Everything becomes mildly haunted.

☽ Time gets weird. Five minutes feel like a year. A full hour disappears and they swear they blinked wrong.

☽ Irritation skyrockets. They get mad at chairs. At air. At gravity. At the audacity of other humans continuing to exist.

☽ Their voice sounds weird. Slow, scratchy, like they swallowed sand.

☽ They walk like a drunk baby giraffe. Walls suddenly jump closer. Floors rise unexpectedly. Coordination said: “I’m out.”

☽ Zoning out becomes a hobby. They stare at random objects like they’re trying to understand quantum mechanics.

☽ Vision blurs in and out. Like someone smeared Vaseline over their eyeballs out of spite.

☽ Their body just hurts. Not a dramatic pain, just the “why does my skeleton feel like it’s buzzing?” pain.

☽ Food cravings go feral. They’d fight someone for a stale cookie.

☽ Terrible choices. They will absolutely say “I’m fine” while making decisions that end in disaster.

☽ Random emotional implosions. Crying because their sock feels wrong? Yes.

☽ Cold hands. Cold feet. Cold heart. (Okay maybe not the last one, but it feels like it.)

[yourfriendlywriter]

i want to hold someone’s hand and dance in the rain with them

[yourfriendlywriter]

i found someone to hold my hand and dance in the rain with for the rest of my life

[writersbloxx]

Body Language

When someone is...

Sad

Face/Body:

Avoidant/reduced eye contact

Drooping eyelids

Downcast eyes

Frowning

Raised inner ends of eyebrows

Dropped or furrowed eyebrows

Quivering lip/biting lip

Wrinkled nose

Voice:

Soft pitch

Low lone

Pauses/hesitant speech

Quiet/breathy

Slow speech

Voice cracks/breaking voice

Gestures/Posture:

Slouching/lowered head

Rigid/tense posture

Half formed/slow movement

Fidgeting or clasped hands

Sniffing or heavy swallows

Self soothing gestures (running hands over the arms, hand over heart, holding face in palms, etc)

[hayatheauthor]

100 Dialogue Tags You Can Use Instead of “Said”

For the writers struggling to rid themselves of the classic ‘said’. Some are repeated in different categories since they fit multiple ones (but those are counted once so it adds up to 100 new words). 

1. Neutral Tags 

Straightforward and unobtrusive dialogue tags: 

Added, Replied, Stated, Remarked, Responded, Observed, Acknowledged, Commented, Noted, Voiced, Expressed, Shared, Answered, Mentioned, Declared.

2. Questioning Tags 

Curious, interrogative dialogue tags:

Asked, Queried, Wondered, Probed, Inquired, Requested, Pondered, Demanded, Challenged, Interjected, Investigated, Countered, Snapped, Pleaded, Insisted.

3. Emotive Tags 

Emotional dialogue tags:

Exclaimed, Shouted, Sobbed, Whispered, Cried, Hissed, Gasped, Laughed, Screamed, Stammered, Wailed, Murmured, Snarled, Choked, Barked.

4. Descriptive Tags 

Insightful, tonal dialogue tags: 

Muttered, Mumbled, Yelled, Uttered, Roared, Bellowed, Drawled, Spoke, Shrieked, Boomed, Snapped, Groaned, Rasped, Purred, Croaked.

5. Action-Oriented Tags 

Movement-based dialogue tags: 

Announced, Admitted, Interrupted, Joked, Suggested, Offered, Explained, Repeated, Advised, Warned, Agreed, Confirmed, Ordered, Reassured, Stated.

6. Conflict Tags 

Argumentative, defiant dialogue tags:

Argued, Snapped, Retorted, Rebuked, Disputed, Objected, Contested, Barked, Protested, Countered, Growled, Scoffed, Sneered, Challenged, Huffed.

7. Agreement Tags 

Understanding, compliant dialogue tags: 

Agreed, Assented, Nodded, Confirmed, Replied, Conceded, Acknowledged, Accepted, Affirmed, Yielded, Supported, Echoed, Consented, Promised, Concurred.

8. Disagreement Tags 

Resistant, defiant dialogue tags: 

Denied, Disagreed, Refused, Argued, Contradicted, Insisted, Protested, Objected, Rejected, Declined, Countered, Challenged, Snubbed, Dismissed, Rebuked.

9. Confused Tags 

Hesitant, uncertain dialogue tags:

Stammered, Hesitated, Fumbled, Babbled, Mumbled, Faltered, Stumbled, Wondered, Pondered, Stuttered, Blurted, Doubted, Confessed, Vacillated.

10. Surprise Tags

Shock-inducing dialogue tags:

Gasped, Stunned, Exclaimed, Blurted, Wondered, Staggered, Marvelled, Breathed, Recoiled, Jumped, Yelped, Shrieked, Stammered.

Note: everyone is entitled to their own opinion. No I am NOT telling people to abandon said and use these. Yes I understand that said is often good enough, but sometimes you WANT to draw attention to how the character is speaking. If you think adding an action/movement to your dialogue is 'good enough' hate to break it to you but that ruins immersion much more than a casual 'mumbled'. And for the last time: this is just a resource list, CALM DOWN. Hope that covers all the annoyingly redundant replies :)

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks? 

Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors!

Instagram Tiktok