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Writing Advice Posts: A Handy Reference Guide

(Updated 05/2024) Hey all, I’ve got quite a few writing advice posts & answered Asks on my blog at this point, so I’m making this reference guide to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. Hope it helps!

Free Resource Library for Fiction Writers

Get access to my Free Resource Library on my website.

Writing Advice Emails

Join my email list and get free writing advice emails sent straight to your inbox. You’ll also get early notification of any discounts or giveaways, and direct access to me to ask questions about writing. It’s totally free and you can unsubscribe anytime!

Books

The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers is my comprehensive, step-by-step editing guide which you can purchase on my website.

General

8 Ways to Improve Your Writing

10 Best Books About Writing Fiction

How to Spot Bad Writing Advice: 6 Red Flags to Look For

“Show Don’t Tell”? Not Always. Here’s When to Use Summary

Where and How to Start a Story

More about starting stories

The first sentence

Weak words

Why Just About Every Published Book in the World Does 57 Things That Just About Every Book About Writing Tells You Not to Do

How to Read Like a Writer

How to Write During a Pandemic

4 Ways to Start a Story

The Writing Process, Writer’s Block, & Inspiration

To all the Writers Suffering from Depression

How to Train Yourself to Write Faster

Just a friendly reminder that creativity is difficult to quantify.

Quick Writing Tip: Make a Note to Your Future Self in Your WIP

Quick Writing Tip: Take Notes!

Just a friendly reminder that writing is not always a linear process.

Quick Cure for Writer’s Block: Lower Your Expectations

Set Realistic Goals

Your Skills May Need Time to Catch Up to Your Vision

It’s Okay to Experiment and Be Weird As Fuck

Surround Yourself With Supporters

It’s okay to take a break.

Your First Draft is Raw Material

Getting into “The Zone”

Vomit Brain

Writing from Your Imagination vs. Reality

Dealing with Criticism

Getting Bored with Your Own Writing

Getting past a block

Doing research on topics you don’t have first-hand experience with

Hitting a wall with your WIP? Try writing about it.

How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write

Advice for Getting Over a Writing Slump

Dealing with Procrastination

How to Write Like You Used to, Before You Learned Stuff that Fucked Up Your Natural Creative Flow and Turned Your Writing into Boring, Stilted Garbage

Concept: Maybe Your First Draft DOESN’T Suck

How to Deal with Post-Writing Depression

Being Flexible With Your Writing Routine

Reading vs. Writing

Obsessing about word count can be your enemy

Character Development

Creating Character Arcs with the DCAST Method

What Does Your Main Character Want?

How to Activate Your Passive Characters, One Verb at a Time

How to Use Description to Show Character Development

How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene

The “It Depends” Post

Shifting internal goals

When to identify your character’s goal

Writing about normal people with normal problems

If you’re worried about your character being too similar to someone else’s character 

Describing your characters without messing up your pacing

Naming Your Fictional Characters

When Your Character Doesn’t Change

Story, Plot, & Pacing

Quick Plotting Tip: Write Your Story Backwards

Pause at the Threshold

How to Spot an “Info-dump”

Slowing Down the Pace of Your Story Without Boring Your Reader

Time Transitions

How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene

Creating Conflict

When & how to cut a scene

If you’re good at creating characters but awful at creating plot

When you’ve plotted your story but can’t get started

En Media Res

Writing to Your Ideal Reader

Deus Ex Machina

Foreshadowing

Finding an Ending

What to write between moments of conflict

Starting a story with waking-up scene

How to Know When You’re Done Outlining

Doing a Structural Overhaul on Your Story

How to Find an Ending from a Beginning

Editing Tip: How to Speed Up or Slow Down Your Pacing

Adding Stakes to Your Story

You can burn your story slower than you think

Description, Setting, & Worldbuilding

How to Make Your Descriptions Less Boring

How to Spot an “Info-dump”

Adding Descriptions to Intense Scenes Without Messing Up Your Story’s Flow

How to Use Description to Show Character Development

Worldbuilding: How much is too much?

Modeling your fantasy world from stuff in the real world

Internal Consistency

Utilizing Sound

How to Do World-Building Research

5 Tips for Writing Great Descriptions

Point of View

How to Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story

A Beginner’s Guide to Multiple Point of View

6 Questions to Ask About Your Point of View

How to decide if you should use first person or third person

More point of view basics

Head hopping

How to Head Hop without Head Hopping

What to Do When You’re Halfway Through Your Story and Realize Your POV Isn’t Working

3 Tips to Avoid Overusing “I” in a First Person Story

Dialogue

How to Improve Your Dialogue

3 Ways to Make Your Dialogue More Interesting

Starting a story with dialogue

Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?

Which is Better: Exposition or Expository Dialogue?

Publishing & Sharing Your Work

7 Tips to Build an Audience for Your Writing

Pros and Cons of Self Publishing

Quick Publishing Tip: Don’t Bury Your Gold

How to Properly Format Your Manuscript for Publication

A warning about posting writing online that you intend to publish later

Advice for writers who are worried about people stealing their work or ideas

Getting feedback on your writing

How to Create a Cover Letter for a Literary Magazine or Journal

How to Make a 3D Mockup of Your Book for Free

A Word of Advice About Critique Groups, Beta Readers, and Other Peer-Based Feedback on Your Writing

When Your Story Gets a Lackluster Response from Readers

Editing

10 Questions to Ask an Editor Before Hiring Them

Quick Revision Tip: Read Your Writing Out Loud

How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write

Cut the fidgeting

Are you suffering from -ing disease?

Are you Using Too Much Stage Direction?

What “Editing” Really Means

Quick Editing Tip: “That”

Quick Revision Tip: Read Faster

Editing Tip: Dialogue

Tips for Editing a Story

Should You Use a Contract When Hiring an Editor?

Quick Tip: Up & Down

Pre-Editing Checklist

Quick Editing Tip: Passing Time

Deleting the words feel/felt/feeling from your writing

Miscellaneous

The Difference Between a Semi-Colon and an Em-Dash

Should you become an editor?

…if you find any broken links please let me know and I will fix them!

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for twenty-year-olds who have never been loved

All of a sudden two decades have passed and you still have not kissed anyone with tongue, or kissed anyone at all for that matter, or had a 3 AM conversation with someone who would rather look into your eyes for ten minutes straight than talk. You have never worn a lover’s sweater or “forgotten” it at home in your bedroom just so you would have an excuse to see them again. You have never even stood face-to-face with someone who makes your hands shake so hard it feels like they’re both having a separate anxiety attack.

This causes you much guilt and self-blame and sadness but above all, an overwhelming curiosity. Are you really that ugly, that unwanted, that uninteresting, that boring, that no one, absolutely no one, has ever looked at you like the only thing on earth?

The answer is no. The better answer is that someone out there, somewhere in the world, is “wondering what it’s like to meet someone like you,” and they have two decades worth of love stored in their veins like a shoot-‘em-up drug, and they’re just about ready to inject it into someone else’s bloodstream. All you have to do is roll up your sleeves and wait for it to happen.

At times you felt so lonely you could stand at the edge of a cliff with nothing beneath you but air and grass and a long, long way down, and you’d still feel emptier than that canyon itself. Maybe you even danced with yourself alone in your room a few times, arms outstretched around a ghost, pretending someone else’s hands were on your waist, someone else’s eyes boring into yours.

Or maybe you fell temporarily in love with strangers on public transportation, fell in love with anybody who so much as accidentally brushed your hand on the way past. For you, falling in love with dozens of people a day was a coping mechanism for not having anyone to love you in return. But people are not eggs and falling in love with a dozen of them does not mean your shell will remain uncracked. One day you’re going to hit the point where you’re so desperate for human contact that you’re going to snap in half and all your love will bleed out like egg yolk.

But someone out there is eating a bowl of Ramen noodles right now, or putting on slippers, or settling into bed. They are doing all the normal things that you’ve done in your own life. They are just like you. They have cellulite and extra fat in all the wrong places and goals and fears and doubts and bad handwriting.

The truth is that they are just like you, and being just like you, they’re looking for a lover too. They’re what you might call a soulmate.

They think they’re all alone in feeling the way they do, but you’re really both two halves of a whole.

And one day you’ll meet them, bump into them on the street, and your two halves will be put together, and you’ll make one.

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{Marya Hornbacher from Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia//stay away but come closer via Altusboy on Tumblr}

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Jane O. Wayne // Kate Jacobs

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I am going to take a deep breath and just remind you:

Writing is messy, even for the best authors. It's supposed to feel a little uncomfortable, exhilarating, freeing, natural, and terrifying.

It's supposed to inspire you and feel like a too-heavy backpack.

Sometimes, you're going to love being a writer and sometimes, you'll feel so disconnected, you'll wonder if you were ever a writer to begin with.

Give yourself room to make mistakes and hate your work and return to it with renewed confidence that yes, you will get 1% better next time.

It's what we're all going through. Let's speed up the growing process a little by accepting the entirety of it.

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Full offense but your writing style is for you and nobody else. Use the words you want to use; play with language, experiment, use said, use adverbs, use “unrealistic” writing patterns, slap words you don’t even know are words on the page. Language is a sandbox and you, as the author, are at liberty to shape it however you wish. Build castles. Build a hovel. Build a mountain on a mountain or make a tiny cottage on a hill. Whatever it is you want to do. Write.

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'there are no real men anymore. men nowadays are all too feminine, they even look and act like women' where are all these feminine men. where. can you pinpoint them on a map for me. please. can you direct me to them. im begging you. please. please please please pl

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Kaz Brekker:

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You know those fanfictions hit different when you have school the next day and it's already 3:45 am

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We don't talk about friendship breakups enough. The ones who just vanished from your life, without a say and any reason. The ones who got envious of you achieving your goals instead of cheering you on. The ones who got into a relationship and now you're no longer part of their life. The ones who stopped reading your messages and asking how you're doing. The ones you realized who never said I love you back, that they’ve missed you too.

k.b. // friendship breakups are just as painful

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RUBY BELL, JAMES BEAUFORT — in MAXTON HALL: THE WORLD BETWEEN US

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“there is no narrative. no redemption arc. these mistakes are mine, forever. there is no journey, no sudden cleanse, the days will build upon each other and. each blur into the other, and the gross mess of sin i see in the the mirror will get sicker and will get sticker and will get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.”

this is how life feels at times.

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girl help i’m having creation ideas above my skill level

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The beautiful thing as you get older is that you realize so many “rules” are made up and you can just do whatever. Posters can go anywhere in the house not just my room. I can sit down while cooking a meal or taking a shower. I can make the same thing for breakfast lunch dinner for a week straight. I can roam around the house shirtless. I can wear a dress with jeans. The world is my oyster key word my and I can live as I please embracing little things such as this

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please make sure that wherever you’re at in life, you don’t treat it like a transitory period. don’t waste your college years wishing to already be graduated & have a job. don’t waste your single years wishing for someone to be in love with. if/when those things come, they will come in due time and they will be good. but there is nothing like looking back and feeling empty because you wasted literal years ignoring what you had because you were hoping for something better. while it’s important to better yourself and reach for your goals, don’t neglect the present because that’s where you are now and it’s your now that determines your future.