Writing Advice:

1. Write what's in your heart

2. Wait, hold up

3. THIS is what's in your heart?

4. Dear god

5. Your poor characters.

6. Why is there so much blood and death?

Word Dieting Your First Draft

Here are two phrases you can cut without loss:

Should you avoid "begin to" altogether?

Well, no. Sometimes, when an action starts and is abandoned immediately, they clarify what's going on:

Cut "Look"

More often than not, your story will work just as well without telling the reader that the character is looking at something.

Cut "See"

If you describe something, it is implied that the POV character sees it.

When she took another galnce at the book in his hand, she saw he was

Cut "Turn"

Do your characters turn towards one another before saying something? Turn before they move? People turn all the time - it's implied without having to describe it.

Where turn + look are used:

When to use "look", "turn" and "see":

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

Please, writers, learn how to use commas especially in dialog. Nothing gets me to back out of a fic faster than not using commas where they need to be in dialog. I just exited out of one that had several hundred notes within less than 24 hours. I can't imagine how many more notes folks would have if they used proper punctuation.

There is one other thing that will get me to back out of a fic in 2.3 seconds "this is not betaed" to me equals "I don't care enough about my readers to have someone else test out the readability first. Fuck you reader."

Could you reblog this if you enjoy seeing your writer friends ramble about their wips on your dash?

Yea please. Thank you. Tell me all about it.

For Writers:

Reblog if it’s okay for your followers to leave you an ask telling you what the one thing is they remember you for as a writer.  Is it a scene or a detail or a specific line? Is it something like style or characterization?  Is it that one weird kink they never thought they’d be into, but oh my god wow self-discovery time?

I just had a discussion with my friend about fanfiction and how we tend to assume that women are the writers without any actual proof. Then I said, hey, I know fanfiction written by gay and trans dudes. But then I remembered, wait, I think I know one writer who just must be cis het based on his work. Anyway, all writers, be honest, who are you?

Please reblog if you're interested in the results.

Very interested in seeing th results.

Hey.

Hey you.

Yes, you.

Come here fellow fanfic writer.

Closer.

Okay, perfect. Ready?

There are not 'better writers' out there. There are only different writers. No one can write your story better than you. No one.

So, write your fic. It's going to be awesome.

Thank you, @geralts-yenn for reblogging this. I really needed to see it.

Now for the others who also need to see it.

Quick fix for writer’s block: have you tried sending your characters to the bog?

No no I haven’t.

Pondering….

Why your story matters:

Because you wrote it. The end.

Attention all my writers!! See this. Yea even you @adulting-sucks

HAVING FUN and ENJOYING the process of writing is so important. Whether you strive to work professionally or write just for the hell of it, remember why you started in the first place. It all comes down to love honestly

Love when writers do an insane amount of unnecessary research for their fics. I follow an author that did like 8 months of intense research into 14th century Scotland so they could write smut about it, and guess what. It was some fucking incredible porn AND I learned about old Scottish politics

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IT FEELS LILE

Omg. 🤣😂🤣😂🤣. I need plot behind my smut even if y’all don’t see it.

I should just fucking build a writers tag list. @adulting-sucks @ronearoundblindly @sarahdonald87 @joannaliceevans-fanficblog @geralts-yenn @raccoon-eyed-rebel @jvanilly @nana1000night @neil-gaiman @sweater-daddiesdumbdork @deandoesthingstome

This is exactly what it looks like🫠

Completely accurate

fuck perfection, focus on progress.

Ahem. Hey @adulting-sucks can you please come here and look at this for a sec for me?

K. Thanks. Love you.