#hazelswritingtips

[witch-hazels-musings]

Post Étiquette 

below are best practice etiquette to posting fics ( and other content ) on tumblr, to respect the space and your readers, these tips should help you cover all your bases! 

--- posts that meet the best standard are composed of all of the items listed below ---

Content Warning / Trigger Warnings -> 

no matter what you write, but especially if you post ANGST & MATURE content, you should have content warnings about what is in the fic. These should be specific and detailed ( even if they give away a spoiler or twist ) 

Gore related ( ex. blood, injury (how bad), death (who))

Mature related - list the types of kinks, the actions taken or received by the reader / character ( ex. penetration (what kind), foreplay (what kind), sub! / dom!, touching (where))  

Dark content - these should be super detailed and cover all possible situations listed in the fic

Angst - what type of situation you are crafting, be specific ( ex, character / reader death, unrequited love, infidelity ) 

You can never put to much content warning - i’d say the more the better 

SFW/NS-FW -> 

There are people of all ages and preferences on this website, be considerate about them and let people know if this is fluffy or mature 

( I always make sure to document if it’s SFW or not, and will often post the genre of fic as well ( fluff, angst, 18+, etc.))

Gender -> 

You can always let people know what your works will mostly be in your ‘rules’ ( i.e. mine are always GN unless requested otherwise)

Let the reader know the gender, be cautious of your pronouns, your body descriptions, and other ‘more gender specific characteristics’ when writing 

Is your reader actually GN? 

Tagging:

Female (afab) = x FM reader

GN (non specific) = x reader

Male = x M /male reader

(be considerate of your reader tags, finding a sudden gender usage in the universal tag can be jarring, especially if it's not mentioned in the post overview)

Read More -> 

Use this function when: 

Your fic is longer than a single swipe of your thumb (or maybe about 600+ words) 

You are posting Mature content (gore, 18+, dark content, etc.) 

You are posting in a public space, there are people who shouldn’t and cannot handle seeing certain things - we can be respectful by putting things ‘below the cut’ 

📌Adding a Read more tutorial (mobile)

Tags -> 

Anything that you post should be properly tagged - if your work is Mature, use the mature tags ( posting in fluff related tags has the potential to allow underage eyes into your work *)

Tumblr has a feature to block tags - but it does nothing if things are not listed or tagged appropriately (some tags may be: incest, infidelity, smut, spoilers (content or character), non-con) 

These are general rules that i’ve learned through observation and experience. Trust me, it’s a learning curve and we can all do what we can to make things safe -- not to mention we can keep Tumblr Staff appeased so they don’t content wipe whole tags because of toxicity and complaints

[witch-hazels-musings]

hazel!!!! <3 Before anything I want to say that your writing never fails to give me butterflies in my stomach. I don't really write stories because I always have this itchy feeling when I try to read what I wrote it somehow sounds bland to me so I rewrite. The first time I started writing was around 9 or 10 and I kept ripping the pages out of frustration. Then around 12 when I tried publishing online, a friend of mine (but we were fighting at this time) posted something about my writing being so bad that I shouldn't publish my book and go do some grammar and spelling first. I was super sensitive at that time, so I deleted the book and stopped writing out of inferiority and insecurity. Then I found out about using metaphors and flowery words will help but when I do start writing...I just don't know how? Like is that normal? Am I just confused or scatterbrained that I go empty when I pick up to write an idea? There are others who found my writing nice because of how I pour out my ideas and some who said they can feel my emotions just by reading my message. I've always thought that I'm bland and super messy writer, either I'm showing too much action or I'm telling too much. And what I'm most worried of is my lack of knowledge of human beings fr. I have to search of how this and that works, body language, physical appearance, clothing and whatnot and I feel like I don't have the talent to write ;-; I'm really sorry for yapping too much. I'm just lost.

morning! I’ve been thinking about the best way to answer this and I think the right thing for me to say is: 

write! 

no one starts great, not a single person is born with perfect skills - no matter what we have to practice to get better. I started writing when I was 9-10 too! I sat at my parents terrible computer and wrote anything and everything I could (mostly fanfiction of course lol) but I wrote and wrote and wrote. I stopped writing at some point in my life even though i loved it -- 

then one day I posted a story I thought wouldn’t make it past a few views. it grew, I was motivated, I practiced and practiced - every day I wrote for six months straight and you know what, I got better! 

everything you are doing is right on target! understanding people and their desires helps build better characters, helps you grasp why people do what they do - but it isn’t the only thing about writing. You don’t have to write like anyone else, if you’ve found your style you should run with it! and every time you go back to re-read your old works you’ll adapt it to your current style 

researching things is part of creating stories, looking up answers means you’re focusing on the quality and accuracy of your works - you aren’t lost :) you’re doing exactly what you need to 

so, again, my one advice to you is : write : because that’s all that’s going make the words you write as powerful as the story in your brain <3 

[witch-hazels-musings]

Not a request but a question :^

How can I right the characters better? Like how would I know how they talk, act, etc.? I’ve been getting urges of writing but idk any first steps or like that 😭🤷‍♀️ -🗿anon

Hey! Good question ☺️

So, every character (not just genshin characters) has a wiki page at this point - those are great reference sites for you to learn more about their history and, especially for Genshin, their voice lines. Here are some tips:

Voice lines

Listen to the way their inflection changes as they speak (do they go up, or down in tone / volume)

Listen to the sentence structure, word choice, and detail in their voice lines

Behavior

Watch their idle animations

Watch how they move in cut scenes: get out a pencil and paper and write down what they do, how they move, gestures, expressions - take data and look for common behavioral trends

93% of all communication is body language, you want people to know it's the right character without hearing or seeing their voice? - pepper in body language

Values/Traits

What does each character value or hold In high regard - I've mentioned this before, but we are all driven to act and respond to things based on our values

Example: Diluc is a gentleman = hold door, bow, limited physical contact, kiss fingers, escort home

Example: Childe is Ambitious = make decisions to get what he wants and may not think about them fully, will go and go until he achieves something, try new things often

Those are just a few things which might help you, the most important thing is to include body language into your works. Everyone's, dialogue can be helpful, but I can tell an excellent story without the characters saying a single thing to each other because body language is so powerful.

[witch-hazels-musings]

....I need tips for how to write zhongli and Diluc they are very popular in my ask box.... 😳

mmmh - i have their wiki pages open all the time (actually every character I write for I have open) so I can look back onto their canon information regularly, or listen to their voice lines until it sounds like them?

I also wrote out some general headcanons for them as i read their wiki pages, ex:

Diluc:

Closed off - won't go out of his way to help someone unless it's something he's on the side of fixing, will literally keep to his own damn business

Workaholic

He isn’t unkind, is far more likely to be straight forward and to the point - but he's considerate and proper when the situation requires it

and then I wrote out friendship stuff / romantic stuff / enemies - these all helped me get a grasp on his character

Diluc and Zhongli are more reserved characters, Zhongli is more open and vocally expressive while Diluc is more closed off (though he will talk and share when the need arrises) -- they both are less behaviorally expressive too .. they just quiet type characters really

these are just some ideas??

(and who knows if i'm getting him accurate? But I do really try to understand them)