Even without taking their backstory into account, your characters’ friendship in the present should be believable enough to allow your readers to root for them.
1. Both ways
This is the number one rule for the friendship to be healthy and believable - affection, communication, help, and everything else should go both ways. You can’t have one character always asking for help and the other always helping while never getting anything in return, or a character always showing affection while the other never reciprocating it - the friendship needs to go both ways.
2. Similar or different
Friends can either be very similar or different, and both are interesting to write about! If they’re similar, they will usually get along pretty well. However, it also leads to the potential of more bickering with each other, since their personalities will clash. Just imagine two equally stubborn or talkative characters in a disagreement
If they’re different, they’ll be able to complement each other well (eg. the troublemaker and responsible one). However, you will still need to give them a common similarity to bond over. Maybe it’s a shared hobby or favorite animal!
3. Communication and trust
Friends can either be all giggly and soft around each other or bicker 24/7, depending on their friendship dynamic and the personalities of the characters. However, a constant thing to keep in a healthy friendship is the ability to trust and communicate with each other.
Friends should trust each other, not leaving each other for a love interest or some whack reason. They should also know the best ways to communicate with each other. Even with friends who bicker a lot, the arguments should be playful. They should always know and avoid the topics that are off limits and would truly hurt the other.
4. Flesh them out individually
Most of the time, there’s only one main character in the friend group, and the rest only act as their friend and nothing more. They don’t have any other role in the story besides being the main character’s friend.
While you can’t always dive into the backstory and depth of the other characters, especially if your story is only from one pov, you should still fully flesh them out. Give then strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, goals, quirks, etc. Make sure that everyone in their friend group are their own person, not just a supporting character for someone else.
5. Reason to stick together
Your character will meet so many people throughout their life, but they can’t keep in touch with all of them. Chances are, they’ll “abandon” old friends for new ones they just met. If you want to write a long-lasting friendship, you’ll need to find that key reason why they choose to stick together despite their hardships.
Maybe they ever saved each other’s lives in the past? Or maybe they live close to each other, so it’s easier to maintain their friendship. There are lots of possibilities!
Well, many of us are students, right? But we’re writers, too - doesn’t matter if we have a book published or not. If you’re here, you have an idea, and you love writing, then you’re a writer <3 and… a student.
I am, too! And I know it is difficult sometimes because you REALLY want to write that novel, but you want to graduate! Yeah, same.
So here are a few tips that might help you with that!
Disclaimer: this is about my personal experience, and just because it works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you. :)
Tips:
Schedule all of your assignments!!!
“Omg, so obvious…” yes (and no). I often forget to write them down in a calendar. I have all the due dates written in a sheet, but not scheduled, which makes it hard to manage my time.
Scheduling will help you to have an easy overview of everything you have to do for school/college.
Revise everyday
I’m sorry! But I find this SO important because this way you’re always up-to-date with your studies. It won’t be so hard when you have an exam or quiz approaching, AND it won’t take as much time as it would if you’re 100% lost.
Prompts, prompts, prompts
Is it overwhelming to keep working on your novel after a long day? Okay, don’t worry, I got you. Search for a nice prompt and write about it. It doesn’t have to be a long story (sometimes less than 1k can work just fine!)
Why do this? So that you keep writing every day.
Track your time
I knowww this is super boring for some of you, but please, this is life-changing!
I’ve been tracking my activities for more than a year now, and it really helps me to know how long I take to do a certain thing, and how much time I’ve spent on it (in a month, week, etc.)
I recommend an APP called TOGGL TRACK, and recently I’ve discovered ACTIE, which is almost the same, but it is more for you to work on your goals.
Set goals
Don’t write down “finish a 60K word novel”!!! Such a hugeee mistake. I did that and guess what?! I started losing motivation because the goal was TOO BIG and was taking ages to achieve.
Instead, set goals & routines like these (for example):
- Write 500 words everyday of [novel name];
- Work for 40 minutes on [novel name];
- Finish writing [number] chapters of [novel name];
- Reach 5K words;
- Write [character]’s biography / backstory;
- etc.
I hope you found this helpful! If you have more tips, feel free to add them here.
Also, if you’re interested, check out my blog on WordPress, where I publish my poems and soon will bring more content, such as some tips, resources (pdf sheets, for example), and some other nice things!
Even without taking their backstory into account, your characters’ friendship in the present should be believable enough to allow your readers to root for them.
1. Both ways
This is the number one rule for the friendship to be healthy and believable - affection, communication, help, and everything else should go both ways. You can’t have one character always asking for help and the other always helping while never getting anything in return, or a character always showing affection while the other never reciprocating it - the friendship needs to go both ways.
2. Similar or different
Friends can either be very similar or different, and both are interesting to write about! If they’re similar, they will usually get along pretty well. However, it also leads to the potential of more bickering with each other, since their personalities will clash. Just imagine two equally stubborn or talkative characters in a disagreement
If they’re different, they’ll be able to complement each other well (eg. the troublemaker and responsible one). However, you will still need to give them a common similarity to bond over. Maybe it’s a shared hobby or favorite animal!
3. Communication and trust
Friends can either be all giggly and soft around each other or bicker 24/7, depending on their friendship dynamic and the personalities of the characters. However, a constant thing to keep in a healthy friendship is the ability to trust and communicate with each other.
Friends should trust each other, not leaving each other for a love interest or some whack reason. They should also know the best ways to communicate with each other. Even with friends who bicker a lot, the arguments should be playful. They should always know and avoid the topics that are off limits and would truly hurt the other.
4. Flesh them out individually
Most of the time, there’s only one main character in the friend group, and the rest only act as their friend and nothing more. They don’t have any other role in the story besides being the main character’s friend.
While you can’t always dive into the backstory and depth of the other characters, especially if your story is only from one pov, you should still fully flesh them out. Give then strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, goals, quirks, etc. Make sure that everyone in their friend group are their own person, not just a supporting character for someone else.
5. Reason to stick together
Your character will meet so many people throughout their life, but they can’t keep in touch with all of them. Chances are, they’ll “abandon” old friends for new ones they just met. If you want to write a long-lasting friendship, you’ll need to find that key reason why they choose to stick together despite their hardships.
Maybe they ever saved each other’s lives in the past? Or maybe they live close to each other, so it’s easier to maintain their friendship. There are lots of possibilities!
This is the #1 tip I will always give to writers, so you’ve probably heard me say this a few times. Don’t write for others, but write for yourself.
People have different tastes. There will always be some who dislike your book, and some who consider it their favorite. Lots of people hate famous books like Percy Jackson or Six Of Crows, and I’m sure you’ve disliked a popular book before. So instead of writing a book that others would read, start writing a book that you would read.If you end up liking your book, I can assure you that many others will too.
2. Flesh out characters
When you’re excited to write a new WIP, you might delay your character building process and decide to start writing while trying to figure out the characterization on the way. I’ve done this a couple of times, thinking that it would speed up my writing process, but trust me, it did not. It actually slowed down my writing instead.
If you start writing your wip without at least finishing 80% of your character building process, you’ll find yourself getting stuck in scenes, not knowing what your character would say or do, which is very inconvenient.
If you ever get bored of character building and really want to start writing instead, I suggest writing one-shots unrelated to your WIP. By doing this, you don’t have to worry about writing your characters out of character, and its actually useful to their characterization process.
3. Experiment!
If you feel like there’s something off with your writing, or you’re beginning to feel that writing is a chore for you, experiment with different writing techniques. Switch up your genre, time period, plotting method, etc.
For reference, I used to be a pantser who writes plot-driven mystery stories. But now, I’m more comfortable with being a plantser who writes character-driven low fantasy stories! Basically, don’t be afraid of change, because it might help you later.
4. Know your ending
In my opinion, the most important thing to consider while writing a story is your ending - not your beginning or middle. You can rewrite your beginning chapters anytime, and you can always figure out your middle chapters later, noone knows how to write the middle of a story anyway.
But if you don’t know the ending of your story, you’re screwed, buddy. Without knowing how your story ends, you can’t write the events that build up to that ending.
You’re unsure about your novel’s ending at first and decided to throw in a last minute plot twist? That means you’ve been foreshadowing the wrong ending the whole book, and you gotta rewrite. You don’t know how your characters will develop throughout the book? You won’t be able to write the journey of their arc throughout the story. Hassling, right? That’s why, try not to start writing your WIP without having a possible ending in mind.
5. If you write, you’re valid.
Nowadays, the standards of being a writer is that you have to write a full-length novel and be traditionally published. This isn’t true, not even the slightest.
You write poetry? You’re a writer and valid. You’re a screenwriter? Bro, look at the word. ScreenWRITER. valid. You write fanfictions? Valid, and you’re not cringey. You have NO idea how much I worship fanfiction writers for writing what canon won’t give us. You’re writing but don’t want to be published? You’re still valid. As long as you write, you’re valid, because that’s the whole point of being a writer.
6. Don’t follow every single tip
There’s a reason why they’re called writing tips, not rules. You’re not meant to follow every single one of them, they’re only meant to guide you on the way. Some will be useful, some won’t, depending on yourself. So please, don’t be pressured to follow every writing tip you see.
Cynical characters are one of my favorite types of characters to write about, because there’s so much potential for their depth and backstory. However, these types of characters often get reduced to basic “evil” and “rude” characters whose only purpose in the story is to hurt other people, which is a waste of potential.
1. What cynical characters are
First off, let’s understand what cynical characters are.
Cynical people believe that human beings are only motivated by self-interest and greed. They are distrustful of human sincerity or integrity, and are usually very negative.
2. Cynical vs selfish characters
Some often confuse cynicism with selfishness, so let’s settle the main difference between cynical and selfish characters.
Selfish people are driven by self-interests, while cynical people believe that everyone are driven by self-interests. Cynical people aren’t necessarily selfish, and vice versa.
3. Backstory
Like any type of character, the base for your character’s depth is the backstory. You have to establish why and how your characters became cynical. Some possibilities are :
• They were taught from an early age that people are naturally selfish beings, and that nobody goes through all the trouble to do or give something without expecting another thing in return.
• They had a first-hand experience that lead them to believe that people were only driven by self-centered goals. Maybe they’ve been deceived, abandoned, or betrayed by someone they believed was kind.
4. Perception
Cynical characters judge people based on the assumption that they always have ulterior motives, so they’re usually more perceptive than others. They’ll be able to tell when someone’s acting kind in order to use them.
But this isn’t always the case, because it entirely depends on the character’s other personalities. They might have a low perception level instead, because their mind immediately registers any action as a disguise for selfishness, causing them to never realize a person’s true motives.
5. Refusing help
They might often refuse help from others, since they’re convinced that everyone has motives for offering kindness. They wouldn’t want to accept insincere actions.
BUT!! Again, it depends entirely on the character themself. Consider this. Someone buys you your favorite food. You’re pretty cynical, so you know that this person is just doing it so you’ll pay for their meal next time. Will you take the food? I don’t know about y'all, but if someone offers me pizza, I’d take it even if I know it’s not sincere. It’s mf pizza.Just because someone is cynical and doesn’t believe in true kindness, it doesn’t mean they’ll refuse help 24/7.
5. Relationships
Especially for cynical characters, I think it’s important to give them meaningful relationships with other characters. In fiction, they’re often portrayed as highly aloof and cold, never accepting kindness from anyone.
While those type of characters are complex and I love them so much (THE ANGST???), there are more approaches to handling their relationships :
• They might surround themselves with people, in hopes of finally finding someone who truly cares about them without any hidden motives.
• They have friends who they genuinely care about despite the fact that those friends might have ulterior motives, because they know that selfishness is a human nature that can’t be changed, and thet decided to just accept it.
• They’re cold and skeptical to everyone except one person, who they truly love because they know that the person is genuinely kind. GRUMPY X SUNSHINE???
One of the first things you need to establish in your story is the subgenre of the high fantasy story you’ll be writing. But Azura, high fantasy is already a subgenre?? Yes, it is, but what type of high fantasy?
Different types of high fantasy will require different types of worldbuilding. For instance, dark fantasy needs horror elements and an eerie setting, while steampunk fantasy will have complex machinaries instead.
Here are some examples of high fantasy subgenres :
• Epic fantasy
• Steampunk fantasy
• Dark fantasy
• Medieval fantasy
• Heroic fantasy
• etc!
2. Magic system
Most high fantasy stories will have a magic system, so if you’re planning to include one, you’ll need to do loads of planning.
Who can or cannot use magic, and why is that? Is it inherited, learned, or both? Are there any taboos in using magic? Are magic users praised or feared? What’s the limit of using magic? Are there any incantations or magical tools involved? There are countless questions to tackle while coming up with a magic system, so make sure you plot it in detail.
3. Culture
Where there’s people, there’s culture. Although it won’t be too frequently mentioned, having certain cultures in your world will make your worldbuilding more realistic.
Are there religions? Do people worship God(s)? When are the holidays? Are there any unique traditions? What gestures are considered impolite? It’s little things like these that bring your story to life.
4. Type of government
Naturally, your world will have a government system. Decide what yours will be. Republic? Monarchy? Democracy? Theocracy?
Your government should also reflect your time and location setting - maybe using an emperor or empress to reflect a more medieval timeline, and using a president for a more modern setting. If your world is going through a war, you can use a system governed by the military. I have a post about writing a fictional government, you can refer to it for more info!
5. Language
What language do the people in your WIP speak? Is it fictional or not? If your setting is in a single region, they’ll probably have the same language, but if it’s set in different parts of the world, it’s only natural to have more than one language.
Different languages can also be used to indicate diversity. If you’re wondering how to incorporate multiple languages in a single language book, try reading Six of Crows as a reference - it shows the contrast of people speaking in different languages perfectly, even though the book is only in English.
6. History
Having a history of your world will help you understand it better. Has there been any previous wars between nations or disputes between the government and civilians? Or has the land always been peaceful, for some reason?
A great way to record your world’s history is to make a timeline of main events that affected the plot. I also suggest creating a history for your magic system - how magic was discovered and normalized.
I’ve been getting questions on how to create characters recently, because apparently lots of y’all don’t know where and how to start creating a new character. I don’t think this post will help everybody, since everyone has different methods on creating characters (eg. some come up with names first, others come up with appearance first), but in this post I’ll be sharing my character creation process. I hope it will help! <3
1. An iconic line
This is a less well-known method to start creating a character, but for some reason it’s always how I do (and it always works lmao). It’s hard to create a character from scratch, so instead, I think about an iconic line that the character could say, which is usually related to my wip’s theme or mood. I came up with this line for an oc :
“I’ve been trying so damn hard to make everyone smile, but I get it now. The world would be happier without me, wouldn’t it?”
Justfrom this single line, I already know lots of things about this character :
• They always put the happiness of others before their own.
• They’ve probably been told that they need to have a positive effect on others in order to have the right to live.
• They’ve been trying to please others, but end up worsening things.
• They’re determined and desperate.
• …They probably had a corruption arc and won’t get a happy ending :“D
• The moment when they say this line is their breaking point
See? Just from two sentences, I already have an idea of their personality and backstory. Sometimes, I even get an idea for their appearance too. This is way easier than not knowing what to do first to create a character from scratch.
2. Appearance
Lots of people come up with character names before their appearance, but I always need to generate their appearance first, because otherwise, I can’t visualize or imagine them. I usually play around with picrew.me (an avatar generator website) to generate their potential appearance. I don’t spend too much time on this stage tho, because I’ll end up changing their appearance again after figuring out more details about my wip (that’s why I said potentialappearance).
3. Personality & backstory
After having a rough idea of how they look like, I’ll imagine them in various scenes in my wip and come up with their personality. If there are already other existing ocs in the wip, I always be careful to not repeat too much aspects from the other characters, so each character will be unique.
Then,asking why the character has a specific personality will create their backstory. For instance, if a character has trust issues, ask why. Maybe they’ve been betrayed by a loved one before? Or they live in a dangerous world where everyone double crosses people to survive?
4. Name
After I know their appearance, personality, and depth, that’s when I decide a name for the character which fit their vibes or has symbolism. For example, my character Bayu’s name is symbolic because it means "wind”, reflecting how he’s a thief who moves as fast as the wind.
Sometimes, I don’t immediately search for a permanent name if I’m out of ideas. I’ll just choose a random placeholder name that fits their vibes, and remember to come up with their real name later.
5. Character arc
After knowing all the general information about the character, I’ll begin plotting out their character arc - their development throughout the book/series and whether it’s a positive or negative character arc. This stage is the hardest for me, because I need to figure out its starting, breaking, and ending point, and also the factors and people involved in the arc. I have a post series about both redemption and corruption arcs, you can check my masterlist to find them!
Character death is sad, but it also has huge consequences on your plot that can’t be reversed. Not to mention, depending on your genre, character deaths are often reserved for later in the series as a way of telling the reader that things are getting serious.
So, until that moment, here’s a quick list of things you can do to tug at your readers emotions:
1.- Destruction of an item of value. For this to work you’re going to have to set this up early on, it could be a childhood toy they need to sleep at night, a necklace they swear gives them good luck, and old family trinket or any number of things. The important thing is you show just how important it is to the character, make them happy and excited just to talk about it. Later on your character will feel loss and so will the audience.
2.- Arguing. Two characters with a strong bond arguing can be heartbreaking, even if you know the argument is going to resolve itself eventually, going from cuddles and banter to cold looks and the silent treatment, can easily hurt the audience just as much as the characters.
3.- Betrayal. When well done, it’s worst than character death. When you as a reader fall head over heels in love with a character, only for them to betray the rest, it’s heartbreaking, especially if when you read back the foreshadowing was there. It was so obvious yet you were all so blind! As blind as the other characters. Also, unlike character death, they’re still there, there to taunt you with their mere existence.
4.- Failure. We have probably all felt that emptiness, that feeling as the world crumbles around us, haplessness, when we failed an exam in school or just couldn’t get the house clean in time for that visit. Take that feeling and reflect it into your characters, it doesn’t have to be an exam, it can be anything, a task they’re parents asked them to do and they tried their best, a mission, anything. Just let them fail and feel the world crumble.
5.- Being forced to stay behind. Following from point four, if a character is not good enough they can be left behind, perhaps it comes from a place of love, an attempt to protect them from enemies too strong, yet it still hurts. Perhaps they haven’t failed, perhaps they are left behind for another reason, because they are “too valuable”, or because they’ll be more useful back home. Either way, watching those close to you go of to fight for what you believe in, without you, can be painful.
6.- Finding out something they believed in was a lie. It can be something relatively insignificant, an assumption they never bothered to question. Or something world shattering. Allow me to offer up an example with an unimportant spoiler from my second book (it’s not even out yet but oh well): in this book, while talking about some law, Henry realises his daughter believes he and her mother were married. This is an assumption Itazu made and never questioned. It affects nothing, nothing changes, yet finding out her mother and her father were not the happy married couple she’d always pictured, it’s painful.
This could also be something huge, finding out you’re adopted for example.
7.- History. Oh, history, how depressing it can be. And if you have a fantasy world you have many opportunities to go into this. From slaughters to slavery, finding out how society got to where it is, the base on which it is built. Well, it’s pretty depressing. Obviously be careful how much inspiration you take from real world history and always be respectful and do your research!
8.- Scarring. An injury can be painful, it can be scary. And depending on what caused it, leave you with traumatising memories. Now add to that a physical visible reminder on your skin you can never remove. Well, that can be pretty horrible. Imagine the scar came from a battle the protagonist longs to forget, but can’t because every night before going to sleep they can’t help but glance at their arm where the nasty scars forever lies.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
This another post I could probably do a part two on someday. Can you think of any books where any of these are done effectively? Do any of these happen in your owns book? Please tell me! I love hearing from you all.
A fight scene should be fast-paced and intense. Unless it’s a final battle with numerous parties, a fight scene that’s too long tends to take away suspense. To speed up your pacing, use active voice to describe movement and don’t overdescribe your characters’ thoughts. Excessive inner monologue will be unrealistic, as people usually have no room to think during intense combats.
2. Character mannerisms
Here’s a point that people often overlook, but is actually super important. Through fight scenes, you should be able to reveal your characters’ contrasting mannerisms and personality. A cunning character would play dirty - fighting less and making use of their opponent’s weakness more. A violent character would aim to kill. A softer one would only target to disarm their enemies, using weakened attacks. A short-minded character would only rely on force and attack without thinking. This will help readers understand your characters more and decide who to root for.
3. Making use of surroundings
Not only the characters, you also need to consider the setting of your fight scene and use it to your advantage. Is it suitable for fighting, or are there dangerous slopes that make it risky? Are there scattered items that can help your characters fight (e.g. nails, shards of glass, ropes, wooden boards, or cutlery)? Is it a public place where people can easily spot the fight and call the authorities, or is it a private spot where they can fight to the death?
4. Description
The main things that you need to describe in a fight scene are :
• Characters involved in the fight
• How they initiate and dodge attacks
• Fighting styles and any weapons used
• The injuries caused
Be careful to not drag out the description for too long, because it slows down the pace.
5. Raise the stakes
By raising the stakes of the fight, your readers will be more invested in it. Just when they think it’s over, introduce another worse conflict that will keep the scene going. Think of your characters’ goals and motivations as well. Maybe if the MC didn’t win, the world would end! Or maybe, one person in the fight is going all-out, while the other is going easy because they used to be close :“D
6. Injuries
Fights are bound to be dirty and resulting in injuries, so don’t let your character walk away unscathed - show the effect of their injuries. For example, someone who had been punched in the jaw has a good chance of passing out, and someone who had been stabbed won’t just remove the knife and walk away without any problem. To portray realistic injuries, research well. I have two posts about writing realistic pain and injuries back in my pink theme, check them out if you need any reference!
7. Drive the plot forward
You don’t write fight scenes only to make your characters look cool - every fight needs to have a purpose and drive the plot forward. Maybe they have to fight to improve their fighting skills or escape from somewhere alive. Maybe they need to defeat the enemy in order to obtain an object or retrieve someone who had been kidnapped. The point is, every single fight scene should bring the characters one step closer (or further :D) to the climax.
A fight scene should be fast-paced and intense. Unless it’s a final battle with numerous parties, a fight scene that’s too long tends to take away suspense. To speed up your pacing, use active voice to describe movement and don’t overdescribe your characters’ thoughts. Excessive inner monologue will be unrealistic, as people usually have no room to think during intense combats.
2. Character mannerisms
Here’s a point that people often overlook, but is actually super important. Through fight scenes, you should be able to reveal your characters’ contrasting mannerisms and personality. A cunning character would play dirty - fighting less and making use of their opponent’s weakness more. A violent character would aim to kill. A softer one would only target to disarm their enemies, using weakened attacks. A short-minded character would only rely on force and attack without thinking. This will help readers understand your characters more and decide who to root for.
3. Making use of surroundings
Not only the characters, you also need to consider the setting of your fight scene and use it to your advantage. Is it suitable for fighting, or are there dangerous slopes that make it risky? Are there scattered items that can help your characters fight (e.g. nails, shards of glass, ropes, wooden boards, or cutlery)? Is it a public place where people can easily spot the fight and call the authorities, or is it a private spot where they can fight to the death?
4. Description
The main things that you need to describe in a fight scene are :
• Characters involved in the fight
• How they initiate and dodge attacks
• Fighting styles and any weapons used
• The injuries caused
Be careful to not drag out the description for too long, because it slows down the pace.
5. Raise the stakes
By raising the stakes of the fight, your readers will be more invested in it. Just when they think it’s over, introduce another worse conflict that will keep the scene going. Think of your characters’ goals and motivations as well. Maybe if the MC didn’t win, the world would end! Or maybe, one person in the fight is going all-out, while the other is going easy because they used to be close :“D
6. Injuries
Fights are bound to be dirty and resulting in injuries, so don’t let your character walk away unscathed - show the effect of their injuries. For example, someone who had been punched in the jaw has a good chance of passing out, and someone who had been stabbed won’t just remove the knife and walk away without any problem. To portray realistic injuries, research well.
7. Drive the plot forward
You don’t write fight scenes only to make your characters look cool - every fight needs to have a purpose and drive the plot forward. Maybe they have to fight to improve their fighting skills or escape from somewhere alive. Maybe they need to defeat the enemy in order to obtain an object or retrieve someone who had been kidnapped. The point is, every single fight scene should bring the characters one step closer (or further :D) to the climax.
my search history ranges from “how much did a mango cost in mumbai in 1919” to “which damaged artery can threaten life” and honestly i feel bad for whichever FBI agent is spying on me
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!
Yes, you do, however, reading outside of your genre doesn’t automatically mean you should feel ashamed of the love and passion you have for your favourite genre. It’s ok to only read fantasy, to only read romance, to only read horror; reading is first and foremost about enjoyment and if that genre brings you the most pleasure- read it!
Reading outside of your genre offers you additional opportunities and perspectives to the ones you might get from your favoured genre. It is a bonus to what you already read, not a criticism of your tastes or a slap on the wrist and a firm guiding hand towards ‘real literature’. Reading outside of your genre can offer you unique insights into writing description, building character, dealing with time periods, race, economic inequalities, and many other techniques or topics. When I wanted to write characters of a certain race in my fantasy story I went away to read dramas and literary fiction focussing on that race/ethnicity written by authors from that community. Reading those books gave me some insight into the concerns and life experiences of those people that could then in turn inspire how my characters might experience and react to the fantasy world I put them in.
Reading new or challenging fiction should inspire you and will educate you in ways you didn’t expect, but it should NEVER be a punishment for your love and passion for your chosen genre.
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
Change the background colour of the pages to a mint green shade.
It is said that green is a calming colour, however, the main reason why I like this, is because I can write for a much longer period of time now, as a white background I used before made my eyes dry and exhausted after just a few hours of working.
It is basically much more soft and careful to the eyes. I can’t precisely explain why that is. I think it’s that by making a pinch softer contrast of the text and the background, your eyes does not get exposed to as much light.
Just make sure to not make the background too dark, or else your eyes will get exhausted do to over-fixating the lack of contrast between text and background.
And maybe you find a nice pastel/light background shade that fits you; give it a try.
Different things work out and fits for different people. And I just felt like sharing this.
Here’s the shade numbers I used to get my preferred colour:
Thanks for reading.
DUDE
You just solved a very real problem for me! Thanks!
For those who might not know where to find this: It’s in the Page Layout tab.
I had no idea this was possible before today!
Open Office Writer has a similar function under Format - Page - Background.
WHAT
Is this why I can write on yellow paper longer too?
I’m guessing it’s like using a coloured overlay?
You can also do this in Google Docs by going to File > Page Setup… > Page Color!
This was meant to provide motivation, but honestly, this is more of a list of ways to make sure you get it done, rather than make yourself “motivated”. Either way, this should benefit you somehow.
In the words of Chuck Wendig, “do not fucking multitask”. Carve out a specific time to write and use it to write. Don’t try to simultaneously write and tweet and check your email. Whether it be 15 minutes or 2 hours, write, and only write.
Take breaks occasionally. You can’t just sit there and fog up your creative lens. Go outside and go for a walk. Go to coffee with your friends for an hour. Do something to relax your brain for a while. It’s the same with studying. Don’t drive yourself up the wall because you feel you’re “on a roll”. Your ideas and plans will still be there when you get back. If you begin to get frustrated or your foot starts to fall asleep, take a break.
Use a rewards system. Say, for every 100 words, you get a piece of chocolate. After eating a regular sized Hershey’s bar, you’ve got 1200 words. Go you! (I personally fine this incredibly useful.)
Have people you trust hold you accountable. Have your best friend (or partner, if you’ve got one) check in when they know you should be writing to make sure you did.
Read books like a writer. Read a shitty book and pick it apart to find what you don’t like about it. Read a good book to find what you do like. Use these reflections and apply them to your own work. Nothing helps quite like learning from other people’s mistakes and success.
Don’t get stuck in the planning stages. You may get really excited while planning a story, that huge plot twist, a minor character’s backstory, etc, but keep in mind that at some point you’re going to have to sit down and hash it out. A lot of promising writers never get past the planning stages, so in the words of my very wise boyfriend: “Just write”.
Write in places that make your creative juices flow. Get cozy in bed with your laptop open to a word document, light a few candles, make some tea, get that incense going, and write. Music really helps to get in the mood as well, and if you would like to take a look at my writing playlist, here it is, free for public consumption.
Keep your mind open to new ideas and changes to your story. Your idea will develop and evolve over time, and the beauty of writing is that you can change anything you want and there are no consequences. If you decide to completely scrap a character, remove a subplot, add one in, or change the plot but keep the same characters, you’re totally free to do so. Nothing about writing is set in stone, so stay open minded to new concepts and changes and, most importantly, criticism. (I won’t elaborate on this because I might end up making a whole other post about this topic in the future.)
As always, this is just a compilation of the tips and tricks I’ve found the most useful in my own experience. They may not help, they may help a lot, it really could go either way or somewhere in between, but all the same, I hope this proves useful to you.
