Hi guys, okay new to Tumblr and trying to locate the amazing community of authors and artists I heard so much about in here!
A little about myself.
I’m from Denmark and am writing my first book called “the truth about hell” I am self taught in English so has a long way to go with editing and rewriting but that’s part of writing am I right?
I am also avid reader and love art. I have a whole library at home as my friends call it, due to collecting books since I was a preteen. I also is a huge fan of anime, though in the later years have falled a little off the vagon but wanna try and get back into it! I would love to find others that has some of the same interests as me and it seems like they’re is some amazing ppl in here that have just that! If anyone is interested in fangirling over series like supernatural, Sherlock Holmes and marvel or the likes or even books I am down! Or heck even talk about the book they’re written or have already written!
With NaNoWriMo around the corner, I thought I might show you how I plotted my novel.
This is the story structure I used:
0% inciting incident
0%-20%introduction in the world, ends with a point of no return
20% first plot point: the hero receives his marching orders
20%-50% response to the first plot point
35% first pinch point: reminder of the nature of the antagonistic force
50% midpoint: big fat plot twist that changes the hero’s AND reader’s experience
50%-80% attack: the stakes are higher now
65% second pinch point: again reminding the reader of the antagonistic forces at hand
80% second plot point: the final injection of new information into the story to give the hero everything she needs to become the primary catalyst in the story’s conclusion (no new information past this point)
80%-100% resolution + final conflict + return home
I didn’t make this up. I think it’s by Larry Brooks, if The Internet informs me correctly. Fun Fact: once you pay attention to it, you’ll see this structure everywhere. Just take a look at any Harry Potter book, for example.
These points are the “bones” of my story. Next, I decided what “flesh” to put on them.
I simply made a list of things I like to read about:
Books about books and libraries
Magic
Quirky characters
Intelligent, fast-paced and sometimes silly
So, I combined this list and the structure points into a story that makes sense. Because I don’t want to spoil my plot / I am still to shy about my wip, I will make up a new plot for this post, so I can show you.
0%: The hero does something magical without knowing how she did it. She discards it, because everybody knows it can’t have been real.
0%-20%: We see the daily life of the hero: she is unhappy because all she wants to do is read, but she is not allowed to. She reads in the dead of night and is punished for it by her evil stepcousin. She finds a book on magic.
20% It all clicks together: she can do magic!
20%-50% The daily life for the hero changes. Instead of reading all night, she practices magic. She now loves books even more. She has little victories over her evil stepcousin, but hasn’t won yet.
35% The evil stepcousin finds out that she can do magic and takes away the magic book.
50% She discovers she can do magic without the book.
50%-80% The hero is not the only one who is bullied by the evil stepcousin. Her younger cousin is a victim as well, and he doesn’t have magic to defend himself. The stakes are raised, this is bigger than herself now. The younger cousin also wants to read, so they have several bonding moments over reading.
65% The evil stepcousin hurts the younger cousin, he’s in a coma now.
80% The hero discovers the evil stepcousin could do all these evil things because he knows magic too.
80%-100% The hero confronts the evil stepcousin, fights him off, nearly loses but wins in the end. He gives up and releases his power over the younger cousin who wakes up from the coma.
It’s not the most genius plot ever, but I literally made this up in minutes. So can you! And imagine the genius plot you can come up with if you spend more than a few minutes on it.
Then I calculated how many scenes I need in which part of the story. My wip is a YA or 12+ book, so I want it to contain about 75,000 words in total. I want my scenes to be around 1,000 words long to keep it snappy, so I need 75 scenes.
Scene number 1 (0%) is the inciting incident, scene number 15 (20%) is the first plot point, scene number 26 (35%) is the first pinch point, scene number 37 (50%) is the midpoint, scene number 49 (65%) is the second pinch point, scene number 60 (80%) is the second plot point and scene 75 (100%) is the last scene.
Some sidenotes on the 1,000-word scenes:
That’s more of a vague rule of thumb than a strict rule. If your scene needs to be longer or shorter, make it longer or shorter of course. My wip has some 2,300-word scenes as well.
Having 1,000-word scenes does not mean I have 1,000-word chapters, that would be really short. I will divide my novel into chapters after I’m finished writing my first draft.
For NaNoWriMo, maybe you could write scenes of 1,667 words, so you do one scene per day. A 50,000-word novel has 30 scenes of 1,667 words. Inciting incident is at scene 1, first plot point at scene 6, first pinch point at scene 11, midpoint at scene 15, second pinch point at scene 20, second plot point at scene 24 and scene 30 is your last scene. That’s just an idea, you got to see what works for you.
Then I made up in one sentence what will happen in every scene. For example: “They meet the dragon and he sends them on a sidequest.” Now my outline consists of 75 one-sentence scenes. This way, I prevent the problem of the sagging middle and other pacing problems and I still get to surprise myself when writing.
And that’s my first draft! I hope everything is clear. Feel free to ask me questions if it isn’t.
I’m gonna tag a few people I admire, who I hope are interested. If you aren’t, feel free to ignore me, or message me to take you off my tag list. If you would like to be added to my writing advice tag list, let me know.
As a writer, I truly love words - written language is a flowing, living thing that never ceases to amaze me. When I was a child I would read the dictionary in stages, picking out words to pester my grandparents with. They were wonderfully patient, of course, but it must have become tiring. From writing my first book at 8 (it was about a vampire flea, and honestly I may re-write it as a childrens’ book yet) to the present day, I’ve found great joy in discovering a new word - it’s like meeting an old friend for the first time.
These are some of the best and most unusual words that I’ve come across in my literary explorations:
1. Defenestration
A funny and changeable little word, Defenestration is my go-to icebreaker word for parties now. In the most literal, and humorous, sense it means “the act of throwing someone out of a window”. I think it’s just amazing that there’s a word for this. In an informal sense, however, it is generally used to mean the process or act of demoting or dismissing someone from a position of authority or acclaim. For example “the general was subjected to defenestration after his failure in the war”.
2. Insouciant
One of those words that somehow feels like its meaning, Insouciant describes a person who is “nonchalant (another good word), calm, and casual - free from concern, worry, or anxiety”.
3. Brouhaha
Brouhaha “a state of commotion or excitement, a noisy reaction or response: hubbub, uproar” - the meaning of this word is nowhere near as fun as saying the word. Unfortunately, Brouhaha has become attached to the stuff-upper-lips and plummy accents crowd - I want to take it back.
4. Sonder
A personal favourite of mine, Sonder is one of the most beautiful words in the world… or at least I think so. Defined as “the realization that each person and passerby has a life as real, vivid, and complex as ones’ own”, it’s one of those words that describes a sensation or emotion that is intangible.
5. Festooned
A fun word to say, Festooned also has a lovely meaning. To festoon something means to decorate, to adorn, to drape it with decorative and beautiful things. The most common definition is “to adorn a place with chains or garlands of flowers”.
Hi, guys! I’m back from my hiatus, if you haven’t noticed haha. Got prompts queued all the way through October, so look forward to those.
Recently I’ve gotten more serious about my own writing, and I found a Discord that is full of writers. We’re getting close 1000 members, all of us working on all kinds of genres and topics. We have contests, accountability groups, writing prompts, sprints, crawls, NaNoWriMo groups, a Milwordy group, critique corners, book clubs, and really just about anything you can imagine going on.
If you’d like to join in on the fun and hang out with other writers in a welcoming, conducive space, invites are open to everyone!
Hey, everyone! Some of you may remember that I run a sideblog full of writing prompts and advice. I joined a Discord for writers and I’m really enjoying it there, so I thought I’d share it with everyone on my Japanese langblr as well!
If you’re a writer and you’re looking for a place to chill with other writers and get support, look no further!
The old adage of “show, don’t tell” is most applicable to third person narration, because it is here that writers most often make the mistake of reporting events in an especially monotonous fashion rather than illustrating them. Utilizing a variety of sentence structure, intentional vocabulary, and engaging pace/tone is the key to pulling your reader into the story rather than simply dictating a series of events. Third person point of view can make it difficult for a reader to connect intimately with the story, as the more objective voice or subtlety of the narrator’s bias can translate in a less personal manner than first person. It’s imperative to receive feedback on how well your use of alternative methods is drawing the reader into the story throughout.
Including Backstory & Context
Backstory is more convenient with third person POV, because you’re not limited to the knowledge of a single character. (Of course, this is assuming that you’re writing in third person omniscient, rather than limited. There will be a follow-up article all about limited POV in the near future, but for the purpose of this article, this focuses on omniscience.) You can utilize information, memories, and backstory of your entire cast or world, and furthermore give your reader insights into the characters’ actions or world building that they would not have in first person. Take advantage of this allowance to create a rich narrative with clear connections between characters, plot points, and information.
Developing Secondary Characters
The ability to further develop secondary characters is a major advantage of utilizing third person narration, because you are not so limited in the scope of information being revealed to the reader. You can shift the focus of the narrative to situations that solely involve characters other than your protagonist, and this offers the unique perspectives of characters outside or on the periphery of the main conflict. You can develop subplots more efficiently, offer the reader information your protagonist isn’t aware of to create suspense, and enrich your world outside of their limited perspective. This makes third person an optimal point of view to utilize when telling a particularly complex story or one that is set in a quite complicated world.
Distinctive Voice
When one is writing in the third person, it can be easy to fall into the habit of filling the pages with paragraphs of unnecessary description in order to achieve goals of length or in emulation of a particular writing style. This is often also the result of maintaining a needlessly objective narration. It is reasonable to write in the third person with a particular slant or bias. It gives the narrator their own voice, and makes the writing more engaging. Not just in the way of an unreliable narrator, where the bias in narration distorts or exaggerates the essence of the plot. You as the writer or narrator should have a voice that is just as distinctive as any character would have, although it’s generally agreed that a third person narration should be more subtle than a first person narration.
Practice & Adjustment
Third person point of view can be difficult to get accustomed to. It is a more impersonal style of writing. When writing about intimate or meaningful messages/events/characters, it can feel more natural to adhere to a first person perspective, even if third person better serves the story overall. It’s important that you actively practice if you’re unfamiliar with writing an entire story in third person. Getting used to approaching certain events or depicting certain emotions from a third person perspective is immeasurably helpful to the process of creating an engaging story. It can also help to practice thinking about events from that perspective if you’re prone to switching perspectives reflexively when you’re trying to articulate emotion or tone, which is a struggle I see often with new attempts at this POV.
Common Struggles
~ When dealing with multiple characters that have they/them pronouns, what’s a good way to keep the reader from getting mixed up? I assume that you would want to try and rely on a different sentence structure that allows you to clarify whom you’re referring to with context clues, rather than pronouns. It may seem less clear or accessible, but it’s very possible to write in a way where each sentence doesn’t start with “he said, she said, they said”. It’s also important that you master the way in which you write about each individual character. This will help your reader to correctly anticipate who you’re writing about and when.
~ When writing third person POV, how do you write multiple people’s emotions and perspectives at the same time? Focus on how they express their emotions rather than communicating exactly what they’re feeling and why. If the reader needs to comprehend the ins and outs of their thought process, perhaps third person isn’t suitable for the story.
~ And if lots of people with the same pronouns are in the same scene, what are useful ways to distinguish between the characters without using their names all the time? Clarify who you are referring to whenever “the camera moves”. When the focus shifts in space rather than subject, you must signal to the reader that this has happened. The use of dialogue tags is not an efficient way to do this, and many writers will often make the mistake of leaning too heavily on them. Instead, give your characters “stage business”, or an activity that they’re engaging with while dialogue is happening, and when they become the center of attention, refer back to the activity in a subtle way. Move the camera. Although, it is important to note that you rarely need so much dialogue in a scene to communicate information to the reader that you would get lost in the crowd of involved characters. Consider what you could better share through description and action, rather than dialogue.
~ How do you make sure you don’t use too many pronouns in a paragraph to refer to a certain character? Consider whether your descriptive style is too procedural. Natural writing flows without an abundance of clarifying pronouns, and if you start every sentence in a paragraph with “she did this, she saw that, she noticed, she heard, she felt” your writing will fall flat. Experiment with sentence structure, descriptive style, and perspective in your writing. At a certain point, your reader should be in a groove where they can keep up with who you’re referring to, even through context clues having to do with a large cast in the same scene.
~ How do I maintain momentum and clarity when writing in third person limited POV? For those who may not know, third person limitation is the narration of a single character’s perspective (at a time, if the story focuses on multiple characters). This point of view can be tricky because the limitation requires you to differentiate what each character knows and when they become aware of things that may already be known by other point of view characters.
The best advice I can give when attempting this is to be very diligent in keeping your characters’ stories and inner monologues straight. Keep track of who knows what, when they found (or will find) out, and refer to this timeline regularly as your story progresses. It’s also worth your time to strategize with your key pieces of information. If your reader has already learned this information through another character’s perspective, then reviewing this through the eyes of another must be illuminating in a different way, or the process of the other characters’ discoveries of what we already know must add to the suspense/emotional build/payoff. Pieces of information are the fireworks of your story, and you need to release or repeat them with great care for the greater show.
If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please considerBuying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.
If you’re interested in workshopping/getting my opinion on your original story rather than a general concept/topic, I offer those services on my Patreon.
It’s only $5 per month and I’ll happily message you one on one answering any questions you have about your story. I’ll even read drafts and provide comments/editing suggestions. You can also ask other patrons for their thoughts on the discord server.
I get a lot of asks from individuals inquiring about their personal projects with specific details or questions, and I’m happy to help, but I don’t post that kind of content here because it’s not interesting to my wider readers, and it’s an extension of my services on my paid platform.
Thought I’d post my old writing advice guides onto this blog since I deleted my old one. I hope it’s helpful!
::
Listen. I respect the hell out of teachers. The vast majority of them work crazy hard and most of the time, including the times they give you well-meaning ‘writing rules,’ only want to instill good and helpful habits into you.
That doesn’t change the fact that many of these rules are stupid.
Here are my top five ‘writing rule’ pet peeves, and five rules that should be followed.
✗ Don’t write ‘said.’
Okay, I know this is common knowledge by now, but it’s so important. The concept that you can never write ‘ so-and-so said’ is hurting novice writers’ narratives. Said is invisible. Said is powerful. Said is transformable. If every quote ends in a strong synonym, it is distracting. Sometimes, in an established repartee, quotes don’t need to be tagged at all. Or an adverb following ‘said’ might be better for the narrative than any single verb.
Eg. // “I hate the rain,” grumbled David.
“I love it,” Claire announced.
“You love everything,” he muttered.
“Including you!” she giggled.
versus.
“I hate the rain,” grumbled David.
“I love it,” said Claire.
“You love everything,” he said impatiently.
“Including you!”
✓ Don’t write ‘something.’
Cold hard truth, baby. ‘Something’ is a draft word. It’s what you write when you want to think of a replacement. I cringe when I see it in a sentence that would have been improved tenfold by a specific noun or descriptive phrase in its place. There are times when ‘something’ works or is the only option, but experiment by replacing that word with more description before deciding it’s necessary to keep.
Eg. //He pulled something shiny from his pocket. She craned her neck to see what it was. A metal flask.versus.A flash of light caught the metal he pulled from his pocket. She craned her neck to see what it was. A drinking flask.
Note: Take advice with a grain of salt. These are supposed to be educational, inspirational, and/or motivational. If you have any corrections, requests, suggestions, or anything really, shoot an ask! or a submission! or a DM!
To the people who were tagged, let me know if you’re uncomfortable having your post and/or blog mentioned here and I’ll make edits ASAP.
Words- links for finding the right one and whatnot - including lists for alternates for said, walk, good, very, look and more; geographic descriptions; words for describing appearances, smells, sounds, touch, expressions, tone; body language and emotion terms; action and sex scene descriptive words; phrase finders, online dictionaries/thesauruses/etc; words + their timeframes; slang (including sexual slang terms); translation websites; etc. (link)
Titles- links for helping to come up with one including title generators, sites with searchable poetry and quote indexes; etc. (link)
Fighting/Military/Police/Forensic Related Things - info on various weapons and fighting techniques with and without them; writing advice for different kind of fight scenes; escaping handcuffs and ties; military and spy info; police, law, and forensic links and more (link)
Injuries, Treating Injuries, and Medical stuff- a huge post with info on how to hurt and then treat your characters ‘realistically’, or at least somewhat. Includes basic first aid info, descriptions of various situations/injuries/maladies/etc, advice on writing various injuries and treatments, manuals and PDFs on various medical topics, and lots, lots more. This post contains “modern” (WWII and later) medical info, older info is in the history post. (link)
Useful writing/editing programs online or downloadable programs for the writing process itself, including ones that are for checking grammar, editing, encouragement, word count, and more. Also ones for planning out stories, diagramming, drawing, creating graphs, doing photoshop, etc. (link)
Generators and things that offer prompts - for when you need help coming up with plots, names, spells, whathaveyou including whump, kink and story generators and more. (link)
Folklore, Mythology, Paranormal, Map Making, World Building, Name and Language Creation Links - both information and resources on existing things (lore, plants, mythology, superstitions, monsters, etc) as well as links to help you create your own AU/world including planning everything from a house, to language, city, map, world, universe, and more. (link)
Helpful AO3 and general writing and podficcing links- Tips and tricks for posting, using and searching AO3 as well as some general writing advice links and grammar and style guides. Also podficcing tutorials and links to sits offering public domain sounds and music.(link)
Hollywood, Clothing (Modern and Historical), History, Hygiene Links and Time-frame Specific Research Links - Hollywood/movie/tv links (including costuming, scripts, transcripts, and other IMDB-type databases for things like cars, planes, guns, cartoons, and more); historical research links (hundreds of links to manuscripts and books and other primary sources as well as links for all eras of history from 'ancient’ history on through modern days on subjects varying from culture to clothes to medicine etc); food history links; clothing and armor of various eras; hygiene links; lgbtq history; newspaper archive sites; historical catalogues; historical and modern clothing and more. (link)
Randomness - 100+ links on survival/criminal skills; travel (modern and through history) information and various historical maps; random knowledge sites; recipe sites; links to numerous 'writer’s guide to writing X’ posts; artist resources; and much, much more (link)
Historical Chinese Clothing (and more) Resources - Links, broken down by dynasty or eras, for information on hats and headware; general clothing; undergarments; makeup; shoes; belts, jewerly, waist ornaments, and other accoutrements; armor; weapons. Also links for history, crafts and music, tea, lgbtq history, royal/status info and terminology, naming resources, relationship terms/slang, etc. (link)
The question I get the most is how I write characters that feel like real people.
Generally when I’m designing a human being, I deconstruct them into 7 major categories:
1. Primary Drive 2. Fear: Major and Secondary 3. Physical Desires 4. Style of self expression 5. How they express affection 6. What controls them (what they are weak for) 7. What part of them will change.
1. Primary Drive: This is generally related to the plot. What are their plot related goals? How are they pulling the plot forward? how do they make decisions? What do they think they’re doing and how do they justify doing it.
2. Fear: First, what is their deep fear? Abandonment? being consumed by power? etc. Second: tiny fears. Spiders. someone licking their neck. Small things that bother them. At least 4.
3.Physical desires. How they feel about touch. What is their perceived sexual/romantic orientation. Do their physical desires match up with their psychological desires.
4. Style of self expression: How they talk. Are they shy? Do they like to joke around and if so, how? Are they anxious or confident internally and how do they express that externally. What do words mean to them? More or less than actions? Does their socioeconomic background affect the way they present themselves socially?
5. How they express affection: Do they express affection through actions or words. Is expressing affection easy for them or not. How quickly do they open up to someone they like. Does their affection match up with their physical desires. how does the way they show their friends that they love them differ from how they show a potential love interest that they love them. is affection something they struggle with?
6. What controls them (what they are weak for): what are they almost entirely helpless against. What is something that influences them regardless of their own moral code. What– if driven to the end of the wire— would they rejectsacrificing. What/who would they cut off their own finger for. What would they kill for, if pushed. What makes them want to curl up and never go outside again from pain. What makes them sink to their knees from weakness or relief. What would make them weep tears of joy regardless where they were and who they were in front of.
7.WHAT PART OF THEM WILL CHANGE: people develop over time. At least two of the above six categories will be altered by the storyline–either to an extreme or whittled down to nothing. When a person experiences trauma, their primary fear may change, or how they express affection may change, etc. By the time your book is over, they should have developed. And its important to decide which parts of them will be the ones that slowly get altered so you can work on monitoring it as you write. making it congruent with the plot instead of just a reaction to the plot.
That’s it.
But most of all, you have to treat this like you’re developing a human being. Not a “character” a living breathing person. When you talk, you use their voice. If you want them to say something and it doesn’t seem like (based on the seven characteristics above) that they would say it, what would they say instead?
If they must do something that’s forced by the plot, that they wouldn’t do based on their seven options, they can still do the thing, but how would they feel internally about doing it?
How do their seven characteristics meet/ meld with someone else’s seven and how will they change each other?
Once you can come up with all the answers to all of these questions, you begin to know your character like you’d know one of your friends. When you can place them in any AU and know how they would react.
They start to breathe.
This is an excellent resource (that I will now be using) for not only writing original character but fanfiction, too. Getting the characters right is always a little tricky especially if it’s something you haven’t experienced/written yet or if it’s just a tough character to work with and write properly.
