My ask box is totally caught up, all questions answered and queued. I’m around accepting asks!! If you have any worldbuilding writing questions, send them in! I’m dying to help you out.
If you’ve submitted a question in the past and it isn’t answered in the next few hours, then resubmit and I’ll be happy to answer.
Have you ever had a scene that really isn’t working in your story, but you can’t bring yourself to get rid of it? (Whether it be because it’s an important scene plot-wise or you’re just proud of how it’s written?)
Make an “Extras” file!
Instead of deleting all your hard work, you can cut the bothersome scene and paste it into your “Extras” file to save it for later. Somewhere down the line, you may find an opening for all or parts of it! Or, if you’re re-writing the scene altogether, you can cut and paste details/sentences into your re-write that you liked or are important!
This method has helped me countless times during re-writes, and has saved me a ton of time and effort!
The Closer Look: While this channel is primarily dedicated to the story telling in movies that doesn’t mean you can’t translate a lot of these story telling mechanics into writing. The video in the link covers how to make a compelling villain with one of my favorite villains of the DC Universe, so give them a look.
Extra Credits:Just like the last entry, this one doesn’t have much to do with writing novels or fiction. Rather, Extra Credits covers game design a lot of the time. But they also cover how to write the stories for those games and offer some interesting insight. Couple this with their other segments Extra Sci Fi and Extra History, and you have the makings of an amazing tool kit for writers of any medium.
Overly Sarcastic Productions:There is not enough praise I can throw at this channel. Anything from Trope Talk to Miscellaneous Myths and even Classics Summarized is able offer something to even the most seasoned writer. Just like Extra Credits too, they also cover a bunch of historical stuff too. Which, as a history buff myself, is always a plus.
Tale Foundry:By now, i’m sure you’ve gotten the theme. All of these channels are amazing, but this one is more writing focused then the rest thus far. The channel dedicates itself to taking a closer look at genera and sub-genera and the big players therein. It gives the audience a chance to take a look at these things under the microscope for an easier means of dissection for their own work.
Hello Future Me:I found this channel when I was scrolling through YouTube randomly and found their video on Writing a Hard Magic Systemand it gave me plenty of food for thought on the fantasy novel I was working on. They go on to cover a Soft Magic Systemwhich was able to really draw the line in black and white as to the difference between the two. From there, the channel has been able to offer a few good videos on matters of writing fiction and one that comes with a recommendation for me.
PlagueOfGripes:This one, you’ll need to take with a grain of salt as the host is a little rough around the edges. While he primarily covers art streams and other shenanigans like that, he did a three part video essay on writing that had quite a bit to teach. I personally found his cynical nature to be charming and funny, but if that isn’t your thing, maybe pass him by just this once.
All the links to the channels are located in their respective titles.
break up your paragraphs. big paragraphs are scary, your readers will get scared
fuuuuck epithets. “the other man got up” “the taller woman sat down” “the blonde walked away” nahhh. call them by their names or rework the sentence. you can do so much better than this (exception: if the reader doesn’t know the character(s) you’re referring to yet, it’s a-okay to refer to them by an identifying trait)
blunette is not a thing
new speaker, new paragraph. please.
“said” is such a great word. use it. make sweet love to it. but don’t kill it
use “said” more than you use synonyms for it. that way the use of synonyms gets more exciting. getting a sudden description of how a character is saying something (screaming, mumbling, sighing) is more interesting that way.
if your summary says “I suck at summaries” or “story better than summary” you’re turning off the reader, my dude. your summary is supposed to be your hook. you gotta own it, just like you’re gonna own the story they’re about to read
follow long sentences w short ones and short ones w long ones. same goes for paragraphs
your writing is always better than you think it is. you just think it’s bad because the story’s always gonna be predicable to the one who’s writing it
