#Writing thoughts

[17panicattacksinatrenchcoat]

max's writing tips 6: more ways to strengthen your prose

prose is my passion✨

this is gonna be a long one

go crazy go stupid with your verbs- Verb choice (broadly, word choice) is an important and (previously, in my own writing) overlooked part of prose. Usually when people think of the "fun parts" of prose, they think of similes and metaphors. Now, I love a good metaphor, but I use verbs as often, if not more, to create imagery because they are a great way to set tone without straight out telling the reader. "Max's room was cozy. An overgrown fern sat on the windowsill" evokes less feeling than this sentence: "Max's room was book-strewn and dark. A Boston fern that had been left to grow for too long perched on the windowsill. Its leaves colonized the ambient light." These examples all convey one simple idea -in this case the presence of a plant on a windowsill- but the word choice in each one drastically altered the scene's mood. "Book-strewn and dark" evokes more feeling than "cozy"; it tells us more about the character being described (in this case, me!) and what environment they are comfortable living in. "Left to grow for too long" while less concise than "overgrown" tells us more about the narrator: they have an opinion about the state of the room and the state of the plant. The verbs "colonized" and "perched" lend the plant personality. Get creative with your verbs! Strong verbs make your sentences memorable.

Keep the adverbs to a minimum. Using one strong verb is more impactful than using a weak verb and an adverb.

Similes can often be shortened to metaphors. This is my personal preference and I have nothing against similes, but in my own writing I prefer to use metaphors whenever I can because they sound more powerful? To me at least. This one isn't exactly a tip I just like metaphors tbh

Instead of describing all the visual information about a character or a setting in detail and at once, I prefer to list a few memorable details that best convey the significance or feeling of the character/setting. When I was describing my room I didn't need to detail EVERYTHING that was in there: I conveyed the most important aspects of the room. Also keep in mind that if the setting or character is significant, the narrative will probably address it again, and you can add more details then.

please keep in mind that i'm just a hobbyist having fun, and that there is no right way to write! do what works best for you!

[lavender-gloom]

lowkey guys, remember to write for yourself too. i abandoned my favorite wip of all time for two years because i thought other people wouldn’t like it. that sucked, and i decided to stop caring if other people will think it’s weird and write what i like. it’s made me a lot happier since i’ve accepted that

[rheas-chaos-motivation]

Questions to ask beta readers

General:

Were you confused at any point of the story?

What genre would you say this book is?

When did you put the story down?

Is the ending satisfying?

If you had to cut 3 scenes what would they be?

When did you feel like the story really began?

What was the last book you read before this story?

Characters:

Do you get any of the characters names confused?

Which character is your favorite?

If you had to remove a character who would you and why? (you don't have to remove the character, just make sure their role is meaningful)

Which character do you relate to the most?

Which character do you relate to the least?

Do the characters feel real?

Are character relationships believable?

Are the goals clear and influence the plot?

Are the characters distinct (voice, motivations, etc)

Setting:

Which setting was clearest to you?

Which setting was the most memorable?

Am including enough/too much detail?

Plot and conflict:

Are the internal and external conflicts well defined for the main characters?

Are the internal conflicts and the external conflicts organic and believable?

Are there enough stakes?

Are the plot twists believable but still unexpected?

[ixylle-d-from-the-stars]

Deathworlders everywhere but in Space

This is sitting in my brain because I haven't seen anyone else do this, but take a second to think about this: There are other deathworlders in space, terrifying ones, huge monster orc things. They are massive and nightmarish and impossibly strong. So thats why humans stand out. Thats how we survive. Human's are terrifying because we aren't built for one biome, one climate or even one planet. We aren't necessarily the strongest or fastest or scariest looking, but we're built to survive fucking everything. What if other deathworlder's are almost always only made to survive in one climate? (similar to some of the most deadly predators on earth currently) All the other deathworlders are terrifying, yes, but the second they step off their planet they're weak. Massive aliens of hulking muscle but their planet's gravity is a lot lower than the standard, so they barely meet the average strength bar whenever they go outside their gravity zone. Aliens that have venomous spikes all over their body and look gnarly as shit but their venom has practically no effect on 99% of discovered intergalactic species. Deathworlders whose planet is the nether from minecraft IRl, but they can't survive in any other temperature for any amount of time because their body just can't handle the cold and regulate their temperate (or, vice versa for tundra species). Aquatic species that are kraken-like nightmares, giant sirens and deadly squid-like beings. But they can't leave their home at all, because theres a very specific chemical makeup of their water that isn't currently found within their life-span distance travel. Deathworlders that genuinely can barely survive off planet and are frail compared to even the most docile prey species whenever they have to travel. Their called deathworlders because going to their planet is certain death, but if they leave they'll be meeting death just as quickly. And then along come humans, and everyones like, oh, another deathworlder, nothing to worry abou- wait. These guys dont seem to loose any of their natural strength off planet... and their fast and strong... and- AND THEY CAN SURVIVE IN PRACTICALLY ANY CLIMATE IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE??? HELLO? Oh and of course their predators. Of course most of their planet is completely uninhabitable for most of us. Mhm, yep. thats fair. Totally Basically, deathworlders are a thing, the more common 'terrifying alien monster' type, but their harmless because they can't survive like everyone else. They can't thrive like humans can. It scares the shit out of everyone for a wholeeeeee while, after all, no one ever expected a deathworlder that doesn't die.

[breadstickysquid]

okay so I was talking with a friend about writing, and I was about to infodump about an au of mine over discord to them because I can't actually write out the ideas rn since ao3 is dOWN-

and they freaked out??? Apparently I'm weird for writing my works *in* ao3? Like I know people usually write in docs or something but I only feel motivated to write when I'm in the ao3 textbox HJLGFJGDH

So now I have a question for fellow writers on ao3:

[catladyghost]

Maybe we’re not finishing our stories because we don’t want them to end.

[creativepromptsforwriting]

I feel like every writer has created whole stories before around just that one specific scene that they thought of and really wanted to write. Sometimes I wonder what those scenes were for my favourite stories.

[thoughts-ofawriter]

I have this disease called starts too many WIPs syndrome

[frownyalfred]

not quite sure what to do with this hc, but it's pretty likely Bruce Wayne would be struck from almost any jury/jury duty simply because he's a crime victim, and a very prominent crime victim who would taint the jury pool simply by being there. and even if it was a civil jury, he'd probably be struck simply for being too prominent of a local figure with complicated investments/conflicts of interest.

[17panicattacksinatrenchcoat]

writing goals for december

hi writeblrs! what are your goals for next month?

mine are just to be a bit more consistent with creating and stop procrastinating lol

[lavender-gloom]

friendly reminder to everyone that first draft just needs to exist.

it doesn’t need to be good, it just needs to be there. stories go through so many different drafts that nobody is gonna care if your first draft is a little messy.

you can’t edit and clean up something that doesn’t exist, so make it exist!

[bonnibellexox]

Learning to leave some questions unanswered for a while is like trying to grow wings. It’s hell. I’m too autistic for this

[rheas-chaos-motivation]

Create your characters voice

Write one to ten pages (I usually do 5 for major character, 1 or 2 for side characters) as your character. Anything they would say, opinions, diary entries, complaining, etc.

Ooooh I have collected some helpful things to maybe include:

adopting slang from people they are close too/love interest

do they have a raspy voice? High pitched? Overly sweet? Commanding? Figure that out.

to make characters have their own voice vary rhythm, word choice, use of profanity, how much they talk about themselves or others, their politics.

Take some dialogue and ask if readers would be able to tell who is speaking with no context.

Write an AITA post from their point of view.

Identify what role your character has, a leader? a follower? a disrupter? a rebel? an antagonist? a peacemaker? How does that change the way they speak?

The character traits will tell you what your characters will say or how they will say it.

[whitesheepwrites]

"A show about some kids trying to get a boy's balls back shouldn't be making me cry!"

I think Dandadan is a very good example of how having comedy helps enhance the drama and vice-versa. Too much comedy gets annoying, too much drama gets tiring. If you know how to balance both, however, you can get your audience to lower their guard towards each aspect enough to slip in and hit when it counts, without the comedy cheapening the drama or giving people whiplash with sudden heavy topics.

[lupinescribbler]

3 tips to writing character flaws

1) make their flaw congruent with the rest of who they are.

There’s a lot of different ways to do this, most commonly I’ve seen the “their strength is their flaw” which you can do but I’d recommend exploring it more deeply.

For example, maybe they’re good at attacking things head on, being honest and straightforward, but because they’ve always relied on that they don’t have the practice or an inclination to rely on other methods such as being more crafty, diplomatic, and subtle which are traits a situation sometimes calls for. I call this the “wrong tool for the job” flaw where an over-reliance on their strength handicaps them in situations where a different approach seems better suited. I think people and characters also just have a habit of using their tool for the job rather than the ‘best’ tool.

2) Don’t just tell us their flaw, show it.

Show this character trait coming out in their actions, have it influence the plot in key moments. If they’re reckless, don’t just have another character call them reckless, have them act reckless in a way that impacts their relationships with other characters or the plot.

3) Screw the whole “strengths vs flaws” thing altogether

try viewing character traits outside of a rigid binary of good and bad that you pull from a deck, and instead derive/connect them to deeper truths about who the character is, (how do they deal with problems/what is their ‘go-to’ method? what do they value? what are they skilled or unskilled at? what do they believe about the world and themselves?) and then why the characters is that way (note that it doesn’t all have to come from trauma. Please don’t attribute everything to a trauma. General life experience informs a lot of beliefs/traits, and then some is also just an inborn inclination) I have a longer post about how I tend to try to build a cohesive layout of who a character is.

Note as always, that these just things that I currently find helpful. Use or discard as works for you and your work. Happy writing!