#writing tips
I’m currently writing several of my characters through their own grieving processes- some of whom, due to the nature of their community, have never experienced loss before. Despite having lost close people myself, it surprised me how hard it is to do. The mistake, I realized, was that I was following the five stages of grief for each of them, and what an easy mistake it is to make. Here is what I’ve learned from this:
Firstly, two important things to remember:
There is no such thing as grief being “done right”
Everyone is different: different psychological makeup, different nature, different nurture, different levels of emotional development, different states of mental health. Some know grief, some don’t; some, despite knowing grief well, are beaten down by it every time. Pain is relative, and this means that there is no way to write grief that is strictly correct. The point of this post is to show you how different people react in different ways, and give you pointers on how you might write that, depending on your character. At the end of the day, you know your characters- who they are and where they came from- and so you can take away the skills from this to apply to them.
Grief is not linear, compact, or constrained by time
Someone might not start the grieving processright away, or rocket through the “steps” that we consider today. The five stages of grief we know and use as a model were intially constructed for application to patients who recieved news of terminal cancer; it was then applied to the relatives who recieved news of the death, and finally on to grief in the way we use it today. Although a good place to start, it’s too general and too structured; too focused on five ideals that actually change, depending on the person, or in this case, the character. Grief can lie dormant, for ages, and jump out five years later; your character could have lost their dad two years prior to the plot, and only start to experience the grieving process due to a move of house or some other life change.
Secondly, dismantle their characterization
This is mainly instinctive, especially when you go through revisions and redrafts, and by that point your character is like a close co-worker or business friend, just with a more intimate twist. Personality, however, is important- but not always the most accurate measure of reaction.
Grief is a game-changer
A fierce, proud character could be brought low by the grieving process, or they could rely of bad coping methods. A little denial is healthy, but this character, who has always taken everything in their stride, might suddenly be unable to cope and so burrow inside themself entirely.
In the same way, a character with poor mental healthy might not necessarily break. That is an assumption I come across a lot, and as someone who has had shitty mental health for years, it’s so wrong. Yes, I have anxiety, depression, disorganized thoughts, intrusive thoughts, I dissociate- but did that mean I broke down over a family friend dying earlier this year? No. I coped with it becuase the grieving process is seperate from mental health, and mental health is seperate from personality.
Grief can strengthen the weak, or break the weak. Weaken the strong, and in weakening, teach valuable lessons. Proud characters may not ask for help and so struggle, but they might also realize they have to swallow their pride and get help to process their loss.
Look at the core, fundemetnal characteristics that define how your character acts and consider whether grief will exacerbate these fundementals, or alter them. However, remember that your character’s personality is only the surface consideration.
Finally, Consider the aspects around your character, not justof
This means more than looking at their personality. You also need to consider:
Culture and Religiosity
What are the cultural or religious views around death? Does your character believe them? Is death considered the end, or does reincarnation- or belief in something similar- help bring comfort? Is grief considered a weakness, or death a curse that sticks to everyone affected? Are there sacrificial rites? What rights are afforded to a dead person, if any at all? Life expectancy, mortality rates? Young or ageing population?
Community and attitudes
Is it supportive? Do they all band together around the grieving person? Is the loss shared? Or do they shun people who are struggling with grief? How experienced is this community with loss and greif? Is the community close-knit, or made up of insular families/people? How common is death? (old Cults, new cults, small islands, travelling communities, new communities- they will all have different experiences and attitudes, whether your story is set in a fantasy world, ours, or anything else).
Character roots
Early experience with grief? If yes, has this given them resilience, or was it too much? Supported childhood, or neglected? Good social upbringing? If not, this might make it harder for them to find help or understand that they need support. Stable childhood, or unstable? Accostomed to hardship, or not?
Who was the lost one to your character?
In the grand scheme of things, you’ll be surprised how little this impacts in some ways, and how massively it impacts in others. Your character might mourn a beloved teacher deeply and manage the death of an uncle.
Were they close? Distant family? How much regret is attatched to their death? How often did they see eachother? What part did the lost one take in the character’s formative years? How did they influence your character’s life choices? How long have they known one another? How close did they become in that time? How old was the person? How does your character feel about dying young- unfair, tragic but inevitable?
Antagonists are tricky. Too little work, and the antagonist comes across flat. A flat antagonist is easy and boring, because he or she won’t push the protagonist hard enough. Plus there’s that practice of making fleshed out characters and having interesting three-dimensional people, blah blah.
We all know the saying: Every villain is his own hero. Though I wrote these questions and prompts with famous antagonists in mind, you could actually pose them to your protagonist or other characters (just switch out the protagonist-themed questions for antagonist-themed) and it will still work.
I’ve always found it most helpful to answer questionnaires in my character’s voice, so I have written this addressing your antagonist directly. Try to answer in the way he or she would. You’ll uncover hidden backstory, depth, and softness in your antagonist.
But remember – even something “soft” (like empathy) can be a terrible motivator.
Your Antagonist’s Backstory
- Hurting people hurt others. What hurt you?
- When was the first time you were frightened by something you did?
- When was the first time you experienced pain?
- What is the most painful thing you have ever gone through?
- Do you have a mentor, or someone you’ve modeled yourself after? Who is it, and why are they so compelling?
- Have you killed anyone? Who was the first person you killed? (Alternatively: Who is the person you’ve hurt most?)
- When did you feel the most humiliated by someone else?
- Tell me about a time you faced rejection.
- Is there something you’ve said or done you wish you could take back?
- Who (or what) do you miss?
- What’s one thing you can never forgive? (Could be an event in the past, or a character trait like lying.)
- When did you feel the most accomplished or successful?
- When have you felt helpless?
- What was the first lie you told? What do you lie about most often?
Your Antagonist’s Habits
- What do you do to relax?
- Where do you go when you want to feel like you belong? If you can’t get there, where would you like to go?
- What do you like to read? What shows do you watch?
- What do you daydream about?
- What is your weapon of choice? How did you learn to use it?
- When you feel uncomfortable, what do you do to cover it up?
- What sort of clothes do you wear? Would you make changes to your wardrobe if you could?
- Do you have any unusual or advanced skills?
- How do you like to approach a problem?
Your Antagonist’s Personal Life
- Who are your parents? Do you have any siblings? Are they still alive?
- Who (or what) is one person (or thing/ideal) you would never harm?
- Who (or what) do you love? Would you call it love?
- What is one secret you’ve never told anyone? Would you consider revealing it to another character? If so, who?
- What lie do you tell yourself?
- What is one silly thing you’re afraid of?
- Tell me about your dream vacation.
- What is one fault in others you just can’t stand?
- What type of people do you like to be around (if any)?
- What about you do you feel other people misunderstand?
- Do you like kids? What about animals?
Post link
1.QUEST - the plot involves the Protagonist’s search for a person, place or thing, tangible or intangible (but must be quantifiable, so think of this as a noun; i.e., immortality).
2.ADVENTURE - this plot involves the Protagonist going in search of their fortune, and since fortune is never found at home, the Protagonist goes to search for it somewhere over the rainbow.
3.PURSUIT - this plot literally involves hide-and-seek, one person chasing another.
4.RESCUE - this plot involves the Protagonist searching for someone or something, usually consisting of three main characters - the Protagonist, the Victim & the Antagonist.
5.ESCAPE - plot involves a Protagonist confined against their will who wants to escape (does not include some one trying to escape their personal demons).
6.REVENGE - retaliation by Protagonist or Antagonist against the other for real or imagined injury.
7.THE RIDDLE - plot involves the Protagonist’s search for clues to find the hidden meaning of something in question that is deliberately enigmatic or ambiguous.
8.RIVALRY - plot involves Protagonist competing for same object or goal as another person (their rival).
9.UNDERDOG - plot involves a Protagonist competing for an object or goal that is at a great disadvantage and is faced with overwhelming odds.
10.TEMPTATION - plot involves a Protagonist that for one reason or another is induced or persuaded to do something that is unwise, wrong or immoral.
11.METAMORPHOSIS - this plot involves the physical characteristics of the Protagonist actually changing from one form to another (reflecting their inner psychological identity).
12.TRANSFORMATION - plot involves the process of change in the Protagonist as they journey through a stage of life that moves them from one significant character state to another.
13.MATURATION - plot involves the Protagonist facing a problem that is part of growing up, and from dealing with it, emerging into a state of adulthood (going from innocence to experience).
14.LOVE - plot involves the Protagonist overcoming the obstacles to love that keeps them from consummating (engaging in) true love.
15.FORBIDDEN LOVE - plot involves Protagonist(s) overcoming obstacles created by social mores and taboos to consummate their relationship (and sometimes finding it at too high a price to live with).
16.SACRIFICE - plot involves the Protagonist taking action(s) that is motivated by a higher purpose (concept) such as love, honor, charity or for the sake of humanity.
17.DISCOVERY - plot that is the most character-centered of all, involves the Protagonist having to overcome an upheavel(s) in their life, and thereby discovering something important (and buried) within them a better understanding of life (i.e., better appreciation of their life, a clearer purpose in their life, etc.)
18.WRETCHED EXCESS - plot involves a Protagonist who, either by choice or by accident, pushes the limits of acceptable behavior to the extreme and is forced to deal with the consequences (generally deals with the psychological decline of the character).
19.ASCENSION - rags-to-riches plot deals with the rise (success) of Protagonist due to a dominating character trait that helps them to succeed.
20.DECISION - riches-to-rags plot deals with the fall (destruction) of Protagonist due to dominating character trait that eventually destroys their success.
a hard pill to swallow: if an audience can pick up on where the story is going, it’s a good story.
A kinda related note i hope you don’t mind me adding on: one of the most life-changing bits of story advice i ever received was actually in a class on “Revenge and Vengeance in the Ancient World,” if you can believe it. The professor was talking about how everyone in ancient Greece knew all the Greek myths back to front and told them over and over again - and someone asked why they would keep retelling the same stories if they already knew they ended.
She explained that basically it wasn’t the endingthat was the most suspenseful or exciting part, but how you got there. This is why The Iliad spoils its own ending in the opening lines. This is why we have so many different retellings of Shakespeare, of Arthurian legends, of fairy tales.
There are no truly original stories or truly unpredictable endings. So, IMO, it’s better to focus on how you as a writer/filmmaker/artist/whatever can bring something new to the body of the story rather than trying to shock and mislead your audience.
We have this misplaced focus now on “preserving the surprise” that comes out in really obvious ways like the Game of Thrones finale and Marvel’s slow decline as they refuse to tell their actors or composers anything that they could actually use to add depth to the story… but I find it really interesting the subtle ways this focus has affected our media without us even realizing as well.
I’m currently catching up on an Animorphs podcast by @dorkbajirchronicles, and a ton of places online recommend to new readers to read two of the books out of publishing order in order to preserve this one big reveal, so that’s what they did… and it fell SO FLAT. The casters ended up concluding that maybe it’s just because the series is geared toward kids and they’re adults, but I think the real explanation is that the reveal ISN’T what people think it’s meant to be.
When the readers find out with the characters (out of publishing order), yes it’s a huge reveal… but it feels cheap, because it’s not meant to happen in this way. We are meant to find out ten books prior and spend the next chunk of time positively WRITHING with this giant chunk of knowledge that the characters don’t have!! It is so much more weighty that way!! The pull for us isn’t the surprise of finding out at the same time as them - it’s the intrigue of ‘I know this thing that they don’t know and WHEN are they going to find out??? HOW are they going to find out??? ARE they going to find out??? How will they react???’
And I think that set of questions - the I SEE IT COMING BUT WHEN AND HOW - are what we’ve slowly lost in recent years. The best stories are re-consumable even when we know what’s going to happen. If the only hook is that people don’t know where you are going, and there’s no foreshadowing so they can’t even try to predict it… you’re doing a bad job.
also attempting to make your ending always a surprise tends to result in either your ending just coming off as really dumb, or it not actually being that much of a surprise, which makes all the hype about the twist feel pointless.
tl;dr: dramatic irony is Important and Powerful and, bizarrely, “spoiler culture” has led some modern storytellers to forget this.
As an aspiring author dealing with this issue right now–thank you. I very much needed to see things put this way!!
I’d rather read/watch a story with a predictable ending that has natural/well done progression to get there, than a story with a “surprise” ending that comes out of the left field.
Coraline is a masterfully made film, an amazing piece of art that i would never ever ever show to a child oh my god are you kidding me
Nothing wrong with a good dose of sheer terror at a young age
“It was a story, I learned when people began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults nightmares. It’s the strangest book I’ve written”
-Neil Gaiman on Coraline
This is a legit psychology phenomenon tho like there’s a stop motion version of Alice and Wonderland that adults find viscerally horrifying, but children think is nbd. It’s like in that ‘toy story’ period of development kids are all kind of high key convinced that their stuffed animals lead secret lives when they’re not looking and that they’re sleeping on top of a child-eating monster every night so they see a movie like Coraline and are just like “Ah, yes. A validation of my normal everyday worldview. Same thing happened to me last Tuesday night. I told mommy and she just smiled and nodded.”
Stephen King had this whole spiel i found really interesting about this phenomenon about how kids have like their own culture and their own literally a different way of viewing and interpreting the world with its own rules that’s like secret and removed from adult culture and that you just kinda forget ever existed as you grow up it’s apparently why he writes about kids so much
An open-ended puzzle often gives parents math anxiety while their kids just happily play with it, explore, and learn. I’ve seen it so many times in math circles. We warn folks about it.
Neil Gaiman also said that the difference in reactions stems from the fact in “Coraline” adults see a child in danger - while children see themselves facing danger and winning
i never saw so much push back from adults towards YA literature as when middle aged women started reading The Hunger Games. They were horrified that kids would be given such harsh stories, and I kept trying to point out the NECESSITY of confronting these hard issues in a safe fictional environment.
SAGAL: No. I mean, for example, your incredibly successful young adult novel “Coraline” is about a young girl in house in which there’s a hole in the wall that leads to a very mysterious and very evil world. So when you were a kid, is that what you imagined?
GAIMAN: When I was a kid, we actually lived in a house that had been divided in two at one point, which meant that one room in our house opened up onto a brick wall. And I was convinced all I had to do was just open it the right way and it wouldn’t be a brick wall. So I’d sidle over to the door and I’d pull it open.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Right.
GAIMAN: And it was always a brick wall.
SAGAL: Right.
GAIMAN: But it was one of those things that as I grew older, I carried it with me and I thought, I want to send somebody through that door. And when I came to write a story for my daughter Holly, at the time she was a 4 or 5-year-old girl. She’d come home from nursery. She’d seen me writing all day. So she’d come and climb on my lap and dictate stories to me. And it’d always be about small girls named Holly.
SAGAL: Right.
GAIMAN:Who would come home to normally find their mother had been kidnapped by a witch and replaced by evil people who wanted to kill her and she’d have to go off and escape. And I thought, great, what a fun kid.
“Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.” - G. K. Chesterton
Honestly adults either overestimate children or underestimate them because we all kind of forget what it’s like. Partially because memory fades with time and partially because the adult stuff overwrites the child stuff. I feel like this should be super obvious but it’s not cause adults in general view themselves “knowing better”. This isn’t entirely false but adults put a bit too much stock into it.
But really, do no adults remember being a kid and just being okay with stuff that should be scary but then turning around and being scared of the stupidest shit?
When telling a good children’s story, you can’t be afraid to put in some nightmare fuel. There’s a lot of stuff that went over my head as a child but honestly has only made me appreciate the story more as an adult.
The purpose of “catharsis” in stories.
In greek tragedies when the protagonist in a story is put in many difficulties at the end of the story there was a justified conclusion bad or end to lead the audience to “catharsis” .The purpose of catharsis is to bring about some form of positive change in the individual’s life. Catharsis involves both a powerful emotional component in which strong feelings are felt and expressed, as well as a cognitive component in which the individual gains new insights.Itcleanses our feelings and at the end of it, we realize that it was just a play but at the same time, we feel pleasure as to the actions that concluded the drama. There is a sense of learning with it that gives us satisfaction.
Killing one of the most beloved characters on a franchise will do the opposite of it. Seriously though some studios give us great complex relatable characters only to kill them for silly reasons in the last movie, episode etc. for what? For shock only? Nah we want these characters to succed reach their goals have a happy ending after all the pain trauma and difficulties they have been though.
We see all the injustice pain cruelty in the world every day whether it would be on the news, on social media, on your daily life. People want to see some hope and happiness even for a little while when they read a book a movie even on a video game. When you make a good character only to kill them at the end you ruin the whole story and rightfully anger your fans who spent a long time loving the story and the characters.
I thought someone may like this. This is the collection of sites and pages I usually use to give form to an original character:
TRAITS, STORY AND BACKSTORY
Profile Sheets and Charts
Blank Character Sheet 2.1.8 (390+ Questions!)
Big-Ass Character Sheet (Updating)
Character Chart for Fiction Writers
Character Development Worksheet
Random Generator
All kind of generators, from Anime/Manga to Superheroes
Fantasy/Sci-fi and D&D generators
A lot of writing exercises and random generators
APPEARANCE
Dressup Games/Character creators
A lot of very cool dress up games of various fandoms and historic periods
Mainly anime/manga inspired character and scene creators
Very versatile character creator, is a little tricky to use and need some practice
The Sims 4 character creator demo
Pinterest boards for inspiration
It’s for art but have a tons of very inspiring boards
A lot of boards about character inspiration
Recently, one of my critique partners asserted that any use of the verb to be formed the passive voice and deserved to be stamped out with as much vigor as possible. This got me to thinking about that misunderstood verb form and the use of passive voice in modern fiction.
All of my critique partners write in the past tense, so we were actually discussing the use of wasandwere. I maintained that using was in any sentence does not automatically make that sentence passive voice, and avoiding any use of it can make for a needlessly convoluted sentence structure.
The Passive Voice Defined
So if using the past tense of to be doesn’t automatically make a sentence passive voice, than what does? Section 5.119 of The Chicago Manual of Style’s 16th edition defines the difference between active voice and passive voice as follows:
Voice shows whether the subject acts (active voice) or is acted on (passive voice). A rule of thumb is that if you can complete the phrase with “by zombies” you’ve got passive voice.
Example:The car was driven … by zombies.
See?
When I first started writing fiction many years ago, I took to heart the advice to avoid passive voice, but my prose sounded flat and my dialogue stilted. That made me realize there are times when you need the passive voice. Here are just a few examples:
1. The Action Is More Important Than the Actor
Example:She would be working on the other side of those mountains, where those two centuries-old dams were being pulled down (by zombies).
He was promoted (by zombies), but not necessarily because he deserved it.
In both examples, we don’t necessarily need to know who performed the action.
Keep Reading at Helping Writers Become Authors· Article by Marissa John
Description: the ability to restore one’s physical condition to an optimal state, healing wounds and bodily damage at a cellular level.
Beneficial Strengths or Abilities: to achieve this ability, one would require an evolved level of mental control so that the healing progress could be triggered at will. Superior genes and intelligence would both be needed to direct the allocation of energy, ensuring that if necessary, calorie intake, stored fat and even muscle tissue could be refocused to repair tissue or organ damage. Being able to consume large quantities of high energy foods without getting sick and learning to sleep at will would both heighten one’s ability to regenerate and recover as needed.
Character Traits Suited for this Skill or Talent: focus, intelligence, determination, adaptability, gluttony, conservative, self-controlled
Required Resources and Training: While a large part of regeneration would have to be genetically imparted (unless it came about through taking a drug or some kind of nano technology), a great deal of concentration and study would be required to learn how to harness and focus healing, especially during times of high stress. Meditation and having a mentor who can lead one through exercises to boost one’s mental prowess would help one master this skill. Additionally, a deep understanding of the body, organ placement and how everything works in concert would be necessary to perform regeneration without over extending oneself and depleting energy stores beyond recovery. As well, a person with regenerative skills would have to have constant access to an energy source (food, sleep, a drug, etc.) to power one’s ability to regenerate.
Keep Reading at Writers Helping Writers· Article written by Angela Ackerman
Here’s something that I’ve been doing with my writing for a while, and I finally figured out how to put it into words.
Imagine that you have hired someone else to write your story for you. Their talent is peerless, their attention to detail is immaculate, their work ethic is unwavering, but they have no idea what you want the story to be like.
Write instructions for this writer. Tell them exactly what you want from your story, assuming they’ll fulfill your needs flawlessly. Tell them how you want the reader to feel in each part of the story. Start broad and get as specific as you like. Highlight your favorite moments. Tell your writer to improvise the parts that don’t matter to you.
Type it all out.
That’s your outline.
A related tip:
Sometimes it’s easier (and just as helpful) to write down things you don’twant. If you’re at a loss, crossing things off the list is a good start. Think about tone, pacing, plot points, and character development. Some examples:
- I don’t want this scene to drag on too long.
- I don’t want the readers to suspect who the killer is.
- I don’t want this setting to feel scary.
- I don’t want the readers to sympathize with this character.
Notes like these create helpful goals to guide your writing!
Here’s something that I’ve been doing with my writing for a while, and I finally figured out how to put it into words.
Imagine that you have hired someone else to write your story for you. Their talent is peerless, their attention to detail is immaculate, their work ethic is unwavering, but they have no idea what you want the story to be like.
Write instructions for this writer. Tell them exactly what you want from your story, assuming they’ll fulfill your needs flawlessly. Tell them how you want the reader to feel in each part of the story. Start broad and get as specific as you like. Highlight your favorite moments. Tell your writer to improvise the parts that don’t matter to you.
Type it all out.
That’s your outline.
These are a few of my favorite things…
These are some of my favourite writing aids (new and old). What are yours? Show me yo’ bookshelves!
It really irks me when reading if and I see the phrase, “my cheeks redden”… they do not, I’m black
I saw some people had a few questions about alternatives, so I thought I would throw a few out there! In my opinion, here are some ways to portray shyness, attraction, and being flustered without using terms like “turning red” or blushing, as these indicate having light skin or being pale.
- Averting eyes, or looking askance
- Feeling your face heat up
- The term “Visibly flustered”, which can imply a whole lot!
- Chest thumping, heart fluttering
- Butterflies in the stomach
- Peeking through lashes
- Covering face or mouth with hands
These are just a couple I like to read/use. It’s good to think about these things so that we have writing that not only doesn’t break immersion, but also writing that doesn’t lean into whiteness as the default. Hope this helps anyone who might have been curious!
oh i never know how to explain this properly but i looooooooooooooooove when a story just absolutely TELLS you something and it’s so obvious it goes right by you. like the equivalent of hiding in plain sight. i’m thinking in the original cut(?) of alien where they showed the full xenomorph, crouched and ready to pounce, but because we’ve never seen it before, we can’t tell what it is and interpret it as part of the spaceship.or it’s a detail that seems so out of place or wildly insane that you automatically ignore it and assume you misinterpreted until that exact detail comes back in a big way? (like when noah the raven boy flat out tells everyone he’s a ghost and they take it as a joke, so the reader does too) is there a tvtropes name for this i’m obsessed with it
I think that this is known as “delayed decoding” in literary analysis. The term was coined by Ian Watt in the ‘70s, don’t remember the exact year, to describe a technique used by Joseph Conrad in Lord JimandHeart of Darkness, but a lot of writers picked it up. It’s basically what you described: you present a detailed image but don’t make its moral and psychological relevance obvious. You give facts but not their meaning, not until later, and the revelation can come directly from the characters who suddenly realize what they have observed or it can also be left in the text, to be understood by the reader. You can see why Modernists loved it!
Very useful for horror. Nothing like watching a person swimming past a log and getting out and then the log rolls over and yawns crocodile teeth.
Villains who get introduced in an innocuous situation before committing some villainy, too.
This is kinda the effect of the origin of the ninja trope of wearing all black—they portrayed them in stage plays by dressing them up as the prop-moving crew that the audiences had trained themselves to ignore.
Seeing the scenery jump out and bite you and then realizing you were told it was there is quite the experience.
We’ve all been there before. Staying up into the early hours of the morning, trying to complete that essay you’ve left until the night before it’s due, you reach that euphoric moment of completion, only to glance at the word count and be bombarded with anguish. Somehow in your haze of too much caffeine, 3am tears, and zero cares, you have to cut out a chunk of your essay to reach the word limit. Have no fear! Here are a few simple tricks to reducing your word count so you can meet that dastardly word limit without having to rewrite whole sections of your essay.
Plan and structure your essay before writing it
Pre-planning and structuring your essay will not only give your essay a clear voice and a more coherent argument, it can also help in reducing your word count before you start writing! Spending 15 minutes creating an essay plan will ensure you address your argument’s main points without straying and writing about irrelevant ideas. You could even set yourself a word limit for each paragraph depending on it’s content and significance to your argument.Use gerunds
Gerunds,-ing verbs,are an easy way to reduce your word count, simply by rewriting a few sentences to remove unnecessary words. Consider the following:He ran towards the car andquickly gulped down his coffee. (10 words)
Runningtowards the car, he quickly gulped down his coffee. (9 words)Delete adverbs
Using adverbs can, at times, be an insult to the reader, and adds unnecessary words to an essay. The redundancy of those (majority) -ly verb modifiers can be trying. When I’ve finished an essay, I alwaysctrl+fsearch-ly and decide which ones need the cut. Let’s look at that example again:Running towards the car, he quicklygulped down his coffee. (9 words)
Running towards the car, he gulped down his coffee. (8 words)By definition, the act of gulping is to swallow quickly. Why waste your precious word count for an unneeded word? Alternatively, write actively by removing an adverbandreplacing it with another verb!
The window shook loudly. (4 words)
The window rattled. (3 words)Keep in mind some adverbs may be necessaryif they provide important information!
Delete ‘that’
I had a family member who refused to read over any of my work until I had gone through and deleted every unnecessary ‘that’ I could find. Often, it’s such a superfluousword that you could almost strike it from the English language. Now reread the previous sentence without ‘that’. You’ll be surprised how often you use it!. Ensure you read the sentence you’re removing the word from; it’s not always useless!Delete auxiliary verbs
I’ll admit to finding this difficult, deleting ‘can’, ‘could’, ‘might’, ‘should’, and the like. Deleting these unnecessary verbsbothreduces word count and also gives your writing more strengthandauthority! While useful for expressing tentativeness, you shouldn’t be tentative in arguing your point. For example:Manymay have been negatively impacted by the Great Depression. (10 words)
Manywere negatively impacted by the Great Depression. (8 words)Replace phrases with words
Some phrases become fixed in our writing, using long strings of words instead of simply one. There’s no set rule for this, it just comes with reading through your work. Googlecan be your friend here!On the other hand… (4 words)
Conversely…(1 word)These are the ways I most commonly use to lower my word count, but there are definitely a lot more out there! Hopefully they can help you too! Feel free to messageme if you’d like!
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Anonymous asked:
Your blog is so helpful! My question is how do writers know when their first draft is ready and its time to start a new draft? Thanks in advance!
Your first draft is ready when you reach the end of the story. You start the second draft when it’s time to edit the first draft. Let me explain…
First Draft - the first time you write your story from beginning to end.
Second Draft - when you make changes to the first draft.
Third Draft - when you make changes to the second draft.
Fourth Draft - when you make changes to the third draft.
Fifth Draft - when you make changes to the fourth draft.
See how that works? New drafts are just about making changes to the previous draft. The method and process in which you do this is completely up to you. Some writers like to start a completely new draft from scratch and rewrite as they go while pulling from the previous draft. Other writers prefer to save a new copy of the previous draft and make the changes within the new document as they read through it. And, some people prefer to print out the previous draft and mark notes with a pen and post-its, then re-type the new draft based on those notes.
What you choose to accomplish with each successive draft is also up to you, but there are some general guidelines for what you might focus on in each draft:
First Draft - getting the story down from beginning to end for the first time.
Second Draft - making significant changes like cuts, additions, and rewrites
Third Draft - making significant changes to structure, scenes, characters, etc. often based on notes of beta readers, critique partners, and/or editors
Fourth Draft - making minor changes, such as sentence structure, wording, spelling, grammar, etc., often based on notes of critique partners/editors.
Fifth Draft - final draft/polishing run, looking for spelling and punctuation errors, formatting errors, grammar errors, etc.
Once again, you don’t have things in exactly that way. Some people accomplish all that in only three drafts. Some do it in six or ten. It just depends on how many it takes you to get through each of those important stages (major changes, minor changes, superficial changes) and which way you prefer to do things. :)
Hey, to you sci-fi/fantasy writers out there (and maybe some others, but this is mainly for things that can’t really be researched irl), if you want to write a character who is a driven, passionate expert on something, don’t write about them rambling indifferently about some boring, mundane part of it. Give them a deep, intense hatred of some oddly specific wow-I-did-not-even-know-that-was-a-thing-and-it-would-have-never-occurred-to-me-that-it’s-a-bad-thing thing they’ll gladly rant about.
Write a dragon rider who really fucking hates it when a dragon is trained to bow while being reined. A space ship engineer who is pissed off when perfectly good antimatter ship has been adapted to run on neutral matter. A historian who is stillnot over the massive failures of a general who lost a specific battle 300 years before she was born.
The guy currently giving us a series of lectures on the restoration of historical buildings really, really hates polymer paint. At the artisan school our stained glass teacher really hated this one specific Belgian artist - we never really figured out what did that guy even do, but he’s been dead for over 200 years and our teacher was glad that at least he’s dead.
Experts don’t just knowthings you’ve never thought about. They’ve got strong opinions about it.
To Wear A Crown Street Team Sign-Ups are now open!!! (And you could win some goodies in the process)
A street team helps an author promote their book leading up to release by posting provided graphics on social media at predetermined times.
Being involved in the TWAC street team will involve posting about 4 times between 25 April and 25 May.
AND ONE LUCKY STREET TEAM MEMBER WILL WIN A TWAC GOODIE PACK!
The goodie pack includes 3 TWAC bookmarks, one TWAC art print, a personalised thank you letter, and a signed bookplate.
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