There's something extremely depressing to me about how many people just don't want to get weird with female characters the way they do with male characters.
Like, I can kind of see why a lot of people feel weird about writing about bad things happening to female characters, but what it leads to is everyone putting female characters up on a shelf where you can admire them but you can't actually do anything interesting with them because that might be sexist or just make people feel bad. And I think that's actually a whole lot worse in the long run.
1. Write consistently, even if you’re only a hobbyist doing it for fun. It makes so much of a difference to see that regular progress. Even if it’s something like 100 words per week, it’s still 100 words per week that you can count on
2. Personalise all the writing advice you hear. Try it out, see what works for you and what doesn’t. Acknowledge when one part of a tip is good for you but another part isn’t, and figure out a way to keep the helpful part while moving on from the unhelpful part. Everyone works differently and thrives under their own individual conditions
3. Treat your first draft as plotting, not writing. None of this ever has to see the light of day, and you can’t improve upon something that doesn’t exist yet. It’s just there so you know where you’re going and how you’ll get there, don’t put too much pressure on it. Add jokes and silly parts in there, if that helps you to not take it so seriously
why is it always the fancylad boy-king type whos the bottom. maybe his tough loyal knight who uses his body to protect and defend him and lives to serve him wants to get railed
maybe i just like it when masc dudes with scars and calluses and a devotion complex bigger than the moon get topped by troubled prettyboys with hands thatve never worked a day in their life. who said that
The biggest secret I discovered about writing, and you can see the quality jump between early Curse Words and late Curse Words/TTOU based almost entirely on this, is that you can just go to the next thing. Very early on I used to be all "ok but we have to properly bridge and pace things, we can't jump from the important classroom scene to the important beach scene" yes you can. If nothing interesting or relevant is happening between those two things you can just say "ten minutes later, at the beach" and keep going. If the bridge between them is boring you, it's also gonna bore the audience, and you don't have to write it. You can jump straight to the next interesting or important part and so long as you don't actually jump over any important parts it's fine. The audience wants to get straight to the next thing too.
#writing ref#YES. YES. YES. YES. THIS.#i used to write long boring walking scenes 'because it took them weeks to get there!'#NO. TWO WEEKS LATER. THEY'RE THERE.#write fun stuff ONLY
Exactly!
I learned this from The Good Place btw. They were speedrunning 3 seasons' worth of content per season and I saw that and was like "oh, this is way batter actually. Why draw it out."
no but the “”ai”” boom is crazy bc they made the entire internet so shitty that the only reason to use it is because it’s where all the people are and now they’re getting rid of the people. like i’m straight up logging off and going to the library there’s nothing on here anymore
‘here’s how to tell if an image is ai’ ‘signs the person you’re talking to is a bot’ ‘how to tell if a song is ai generated’ ah but consider this: i am shutting my laptop and walking outside
I saw a bsky post last year where someone said their grandma couldn't tell what was real on the internet anymore so she stopped using it and I really, genuinely think the techbros currently ruining everything have never even considered that possibility. their projections and pie charts and market share research and whatever simply do not take into account a scenario where people lose interest in being online. like yeah we're pretty much all gonna keep using the internet to book travel and look up words and order pizza, but in terms of how we spend our leisure time? I'm still extremely online, but in the last few years I've been learning candlemaking and carpentry and sewing, and I was already spending a lot of time cooking and reading books and skating at the rink and hiking, and an afternoon spent on any of those things always leaves me feeling better about myself than an afternoon spent doomscrolling. I think my daily life is going to keep reflecting that more and more as the slop encroaches, and it sounds like I'm far from the only one feeling that way. silver lining the everything, I suppose.
Dialogue tags are invisible and that's good actually. "said" is your best friend. "said" disappears. readers don't notice it. you know what they DO notice? "he hissed" when there's no S sounds. "she giggled" for the fifth time on one page. "they proclaimed" like it's shakespeare. save the fancy tags for when they actually matter. let the dialogue itself do the work. if you need an adverb to show HOW they said it your dialogue isn't specific enough. "I'm fine" said angry is weak. "I'm FINE" hits harder. let punctuation and word choice carry emotion. said is invisible. use it.
Original Works on Ao3 don't get read enough and I strongly believe that some of them are really really good. To anyone who's interested, below are links to works that I've read and 110% recommend.
Hype people up for your original writing project (no fanfiction please- it's a wonderful medium but not the focus of this blog post) or work in progress by giving us some juicy details!
Time to get our chills and thrills on! Horror week! Remember to read the questions- even if you don't write "horror" you might find elements of your project lean in this direction and that you can answer!
TODAY'S QUESTION:
Ghost, goblins, aliens... how much do you believe, if anything, of what you're writing? Do you want to believe or just do or just don't?
I suppose it is more like I don't not believe. To this day, I delightly knock on wood. If its all plastic, I'll say, damn hope the fairies didn't hear that one.
They are responsible for plastic maybe. What if. Now they hear everything. Corporations are just a bunch of evil fae having a great time. Ugh that sounds like another book, why did you do this to me?
If a fantasy world has an ancient tree of wisdom, that means it must also have young trees that are dumb as shit. Just giving terrible advice like, "the evil wizard is kinda hot"'
Two flowers intertwined | Supporting the others weight
Reaching up, | I clung to you
Fed from a narrow vein of earth | In my greed, I needed more
Straining up, I watched the sky and saved a place for you | I was too weak, I knew that
the sun burned my petals, I endured | I was the weight that bent you down
I | Survived alone
taught myself the language of shadow | and hoped you would appear
I found you again | you were so different than before
How could I explain what happened? | I prayed you would never know
There were seasons I wished we would wither, because | I feared we were lost
regret is heavier than stone | envy is always easier than grief
and guilt coils tighter than ivy | I couldn't bear to be alone again
Closer now than I ever dreamed of | You were too far away and
The years moved like quiet rain between us | still I kept reaching out hoarding what little warmth I could steal | because I couldn't ask
Were you ashamed? | I knew you hated me.
You were so strong and | I could never compare
I would always be | just a stain in your life
Something better off forgotten | a shadow you outgrew
I lingered anyway | afraid to be left behind
But then the truth broke ground | thorns flared alive
you knew my horrors and | you saw me bleed
you didn't leave? | I wrapped tighter, starving
Intertwined again | I wouldn’t let go
For once I could say | the words echoing loud
You were the other half of the garden and | never my weakness.
You were the first bloom I ever loved | with ashes still burning through me
The only one I tried tending to | I thought my fire would claim you
My heart's desire | I'd give my all to you
We were crushed by hands neither of us chose | our roots remember what branches forget
But we are still here | we are still rooted, so
If we bloom again | let our branches touch
Let it be side by side | in the garden
(Inspired by @shenjiuroleplay's poem. Check it out here!)
You tagged me so tell me about "Shen Jiu the poet"
What is your favorite thing about the character? What made you have to write this one? Tell me how you hurt them 😈
I don't think I have many people on Tumblr so I have been skipping this game, but love to hear about the blorbos!
Okay, this is a hard one... So. Beware of the tags, okay?
Shen Jiu was a slave along with his brother (Yue Qi) and at one point they were going to escape, but Shen Jiu either pretended or actually had broken legs, so he got left behind. Yue Qi promised to return… and didn’t. Shen Jiu escaped after killing all the slavers in a fire, and [mumbles mumbles plot stuff] ran into Yue Qi as a fancy cultivator who wouldn’t explain why he didn’t come back and just apologized. Shen Jiu, being a ball of insecure neurosis, promptly decided Yue Qi was ashamed of him. What he didn’t know was that Yue Qi had tried, but failed, and that was what the apology was about. Of course Yue Qi, also a ball of neurosis, couldn’t say that. Instead he just tried to give Shen Jiu everything he wanted. Shen Jiu thought those were guilt gifts. They never figured it out, and, well, I am a recovery ward for canon.
So I made them talk... through poetry. Half because a poem inspired me and half because otherwise I’m pretty sure they just. Wouldn’t. Ever.
What made you have to write this one?
I have a hate/love relationship with tragic miscommunication. Honestly, if these two just got therapy or said the obvious things, none of this would happen. But they don’t, and the pain is layered, poetic, and unavoidable. The happy ending is, too.
Tell me how you hurt them:
I put them in a contrapuntal poem, which lets the reader to feel both their suffering at the same time.
I also make them talk, which might be worse.
What is your favorite thing about the character?
How much of a meow meow this guy is. Honestly. If he was on my side, I'd love him. He's ride-or-die. Would hate to be his enemy. He's prickly, insecure, vicious when cornered, but underneath it all there's this raw, wounded loyalty and intelligence.
