thanks for being my first passenger

i think if you write fiction in the first person perspective your narrator should be ‘unlikeable,’ openly unhinged, and not normal. ‘likeable’ characters go third person.

Open up your manuscript.

Search for “there is” or “there was.”

Find all the description or action that starts with “there” and change it.

“There is a strike of lightning” becomes “lightning strikes the sky.”

“There is panic building in his chest” becomes “panic builds in his chest.”

Helps declump the writing

me: i am INSPIRED i want to WRITE

my brain, immediately: i have never once even seen a sentence

hey, friendly editor-writer gremlin stopping by to remind you all that in creative writing, every aspect of language is a tool. You can’t throw things out of the toolbox, because you never know what you’ll need for a specific situation or task!

Some tools are general purpose, like grammar, punctuation and sentence structure – you use them all the time, except in very rare circumstances where building a passage without those tools would make a statement, or convey meaning in a certain way. Some, like passive voice or adverbs, only come out every now and again. The trick is knowing how and when to use which tools. (Which is why I vastly prefer to think of various writing techniques and language components as tools instead of rules).

Lots of advice tells you to dispense with words like “wondered”, “thought”, “felt” because they are passive – they put a barrier between the reader and the narration. But! What about when you want to create a barrier? i.e.,

This feels distant, contemplative. Perhaps a character is pondering the fairness of something, but they’re not quite emotionally invested (yet). Perhaps they don’t want to think too deeply or look too hard at an issue, and so they’re keeping a degree of emotional distance. 

A direct question – the character is asking themself and the reader to consider the implications of something. 

A statement. This is what the character feels; this is, for better or worse, their opinion of the matter at that moment in time. 

Another common example is adverbs: “don’t use adverbs! use a stronger verb! say ‘whispered’ instead of ‘said quiety’!” etc etc. But whether you use a “stronger” verb, or add on an adverb, is (again) a matter of picking the correct tool for the job. Sometimes you need to use a mallet instead of a hammer, even though both seem functionally similar; and sometimes either tool will suffice. 

The word “whisper” in itself doesn’t have a lot of emotion attached to it. It’s just a thing you do if you need to be quiet for whatever reason. 

“softly”, however, does have emotional connotations. There’s tenderness here, or at least gentleness. Using an adverb adds a whole other layer of meaning, which is great when you’re crafting emotionally heavy scenes. 

Compare this to:

which is a tautology. Whispering is soft (usually). You only need to describe how someone whispers if they break convention, and in that case you could also pick a different verb – that’s very much a stylistic choice on your part, as the writer, and depends on what sort of atmosphere or meaning you want to convey. Like this:

In this case, “hissed” and “whispered sharply” could be used interchangeably, but they could also be used separately, depending on the writer’s requirements for that scene. Both convey urgency, but there are subtle differences in what sort of urgency it is. “sharply” has connotations of severity, chiding, or a short temper; “hissed” feels slightly more desperate, although it could also be read as angry, based on what else happens in the passage. 

I could go on, but I’m low on spoons and still need to hit my word count for today. Basically, the tools you use are very important and you shouldn’t take any of them for granted or dismiss them out of hand, and if someone tells you that you should, don’t let them get to you. 

take your time, they said.

the words will come to you, they said.

Current mood

mood. and alternatively: 

I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, I’ve been writing more. “I won’t get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goal” used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldn’t cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now it’s something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, can’t stop now, because I’m enjoying myself, I’m having an amazing time writing. Something that hasn’t been true of my original works since middle school. 

And sometimes I think, “Well, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.” And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good. 

And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I don’t feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and I’ve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways. 

Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But it’s much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.

I really wish there was a typo here lol

Still relevant

— Neil Gaiman

I remember reading somewhere that a first draft’s purpose is to exist. Everything can be edited later. I forgot who said it, help. 😅

“Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.“

–Jane Smiley

Is that the one?

“I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” –Shannon Hale

Planning my WIP with all the little scenes ideas and good bits I want to include:

*passionately thinks about story instead of writing it*

Best trick I ever picked up. Seriously.

Literally none of my story ideas come with a plot, ever. WITHOUT FAIL, it’s always just an Aesthetic, like two and a half characters, some very, very vivid settings, and a weird concept. Never plot. Not even an inkling of a plot. My brain tosses me this cool stuff and is like welp i’ll be back in 4-5 business months