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Writing Advice Posts: A Handy Reference Guide

(Updated 02/01/21) Hey all, I’ve got quite a few writing advice posts & answered Asks on my blog at this point, so I’m making this reference guide to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. Hope it helps!

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Books

The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers is my comprehensive, step-by-step editing guide which you can purchase on my website :)

General

8 Ways to Improve Your Writing

10 Best Books About Writing Fiction

How to Spot Bad Writing Advice: 6 Red Flags to Look For

“Show Don’t Tell”? Not Always. Here’s When to Use Summary

How to start a story

More about starting stories

The first sentence

Weak words

Why Just About Every Published Book in the World Does 57 Things That Just About Every Book About Writing Tells You Not to Do

Creative Nonfiction Cliches to Avoid

How to Read Like a Writer

How to Write During a Pandemic

The Writing Process, Writer’s Block, & Inspiration

To all the Writers Suffering from Depression

How to Train Yourself to Write Faster

Just a friendly reminder that creativity is difficult to quantify.

Quick Writing Tip: Make a Note to Your Future Self in Your WIP

Quick Writing Tip: Take Notes!

Just a friendly reminder that writing is not always a linear process.

Quick Cure for Writer’s Block: Lower Your Expectations

Set Realistic Goals

Your Skills May Need Time to Catch Up to Your Vision

It’s Okay to Experiment and Be Weird As Fuck

Surround Yourself With Supporters

It’s okay to take a break.

Your First Draft is Raw Material

Getting into “The Zone”

Vomit Brain

Writing from Your Imagination vs. Reality

Dealing with Criticism

Getting Bored with Your Own Writing

Getting past a block

Doing research on topics you don’t have first-hand experience with

Journalling about your writing

How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write

Advice for Getting Over a Writing Slump

Dealing with Procrastination

How to Write Like You Used to, Before You Learned Stuff that Fucked Up Your Natural Creative Flow and Turned Your Writing into Boring, Stilted Garbage

Concept: Maybe Your First Draft DOESN’T Suck

How to Deal with Post-Writing Depression

Being Flexible With Your Writing Routine

Character Development

Creating Character Arcs with the DCAST Method

What Does Your Main Character Want?

How to Activate Your Passive Characters, One Verb at a Time

How to Use Description to Show Character Development

How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene

The “It Depends” Post

Shifting internal goals

When to identify your character’s goal

Writing about normal people with normal problems

If you’re worried about your character being too similar to someone else’s character 

Describing your characters without messing up your pacing

Story, Plot, & Pacing

Quick Plotting Tip: Write Your Story Backwards

Pause at the Threshold

How to Spot an “Info-dump”

Slowing Down the Pace of Your Story Without Boring Your Reader

Time Transitions

How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene

Creating Conflict

When & how to cut a scene

If you’re good at creating characters but awful at creating plot

When you’ve plotted your story but can’t get started

En Media Res

Writing to Your Ideal Reader

Deus Ex Machina

Foreshadowing

Finding an Ending

What to write between moments of conflict

Starting a story with waking-up scene

How to Know When You’re Done Outlining

Doing a Structural Overhaul on Your Story

How to Find an Ending from a Beginning

Editing Tip: How to Speed Up or Slow Down Your Pacing

Adding Stakes to Your Story

Description, Setting, & Worldbuilding

How to Make Your Descriptions Less Boring

How to Spot an “Info-dump”

Adding Descriptions to Intense Scenes Without Messing Up Your Story’s Flow

How to Use Description to Show Character Development

Worldbuilding: How much is too much?

Modeling your fantasy world from stuff in the real world

Internal Consistency

Utilizing Sound

How to Do World-Building Research

5 Tips for Writing Great Descriptions

Point of View

How to Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story

A Beginner’s Guide to Multiple Point of View

6 Questions to Ask About Your Point of View

How to decide if you should use first person or third person

More point of view basics

Head hopping

How to Head Hop without Head Hopping

What to Do When You’re Halfway Through Your Story and Realize Your POV Isn’t Working

3 Tips to Avoid Overusing “I” in a First Person Story

Dialogue

How to Improve Your Dialogue

3 Ways to Make Your Dialogue More Interesting

Starting a story with dialogue

Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?

Which is Better: Exposition or Expository Dialogue?

Publishing & Sharing Your Work

7 Tips to Build an Audience for Your Writing

Pros and Cons of Self Publishing

Quick Publishing Tip: Don’t Bury Your Gold

How to Properly Format Your Manuscript for Publication

A warning about posting writing online that you intend to publish later

Advice for writers who are worried about people stealing their work or ideas

Getting feedback on your writing

How to Create a Cover Letter for a Literary Magazine or Journal

How to Make a 3D Mockup of Your Book for Free

Editing

10 Questions to Ask an Editor Before Hiring Them

Quick Revision Tip: Read Your Writing Out Loud

How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write

Cut the fidgeting

Are you suffering from -ing disease?

Are you Using Too Much Stage Direction?

What “Editing” Really Means

Quick Editing Tip: “That”

Quick Revision Tip: Read Faster

Editing Tip: Dialogue

Tips for Editing a Story

Should You Use a Contract When Hiring an Editor?

Quick Tip: Up & Down

Pre-Editing Checklist

Miscellaneous

The Difference Between a Semi-Colon and an Em-Dash

…if you find any broken links please let me know and I will fix them! xo

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The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, get my FREE Fiction Writing Toolkit or The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. xoxo

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I always found the 7 act structure helped me a lot more than the 3 acts.

Link right here

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Powers that hurt

telekinesis that gives the user a massive headache 

super strength that leaves them with sore muscles for days after use

pyrokinesis that gives a horrible burning sensation, felt even though there’s no physical evidence of it.

cryokinesis that chills them to the bones, leaving them with a desperate need to get someplace warm after every battle

heightened senses that mean the character is in a near-constant state of sensory overload

flight powers mean they have altitude related illness every time they go just a little to high a little to fast

aquakinesis that means that it’s harder to drown them but not impossible, that means they feel horrible when the humidity is too low

geokinesis that makes them terrified to be off the ground, whether they’re being carried or in a plane or flying in any way, they just hate it

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physically i'm staring at the ceiling but mentally i'm writing a six book saga complete with it's own tv show and movie series

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Viking dresses by Savelyeva Ekaterina

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what are your favorite angst tropes?? 👀

oooohhh this is gonna be JUICY

mercy-killing - just the very concept that someone would be better off dead is a gut-wrenching one.

character deaths where they outright lie to the character dying about a goal they accomplished. the treasure is retrieved, the dragon is slain... anything to get their beloved to close their eyes for the last time with a smile.

you know that stoic character? you know the one. cool, aloof, in control. if in a magical or sci-fi setting, most likely a powerful force to be reckoned with. but it’s only later on that you start to see it’s a mask, and the mask begins to crack and... they break. they break down sobbing in a mess of snot and tears, all the years worth of pent-up secrets and emotions as they let out the most bloodcurdling wail you’ve ever heard.

or, alternately. that kind, sweet character - the one who wouldn’t hurt a fly, who is never seen without a gentle smile on their face - just rendered... so different by whatever they’ve gone through. maybe their eyes have lost that glimmer of life and joy that seemed to be such an important part of them, maybe when they smile it is fragmented and wrong.

what could have been. looking at a character’s past self and thinking, no. if only you hadn’t met that fate or made that mistake, things would have been different. they may be alive, but they certainly are not well.

it’s a celebration! there are dances to be had and songs to be sung, but the knowledge of change - moving away, maybe, or knowing that after this change will definitely come - looms over your head and makes it less like a party, more like a funeral.

“i’m sorry” used in almost any serious context. apologies - on their own, for stupidity that didn’t exist, even if it wasn’t a genuine apology.

your foe is dead, bathed in a pool of their own red, red blood. they are gone. you have nothing to worry about anymore. they are defeated, your revenge is had... but it’s not what you wanted because maybe they didn’t have to die, or maybe because you can’t process that you actually took someone else’s life, no matter how vile they were or no matter how much loathing you held in your heart. so you drop to their side and weep for what you have done or become.

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Hey! So I've read your post on writing good villains, and all those other posts about villains being humans and having flaws and different motives. right now, I'm currently attempting to start a new story, but I'm having a problem of actually finding motivations that are inherently good, but the antagonist/villain is taking it to an extreme, like the "they do bad things because they're scared" and stuff like that. Any tips? If so, thanks!

Villains with good intentions...

Many call this genre of antagonist the “blinded hero”, as they have heroic intentions and potentially background, but their execution does more harm than good, and their opposition is trying to mend or prevent the damage that their actions could cause. 

Writing villains who have good intentions is the easiest way to make your villain somewhat sympathetic while still demonstrating their destruction. It’s also a good way to make your villain believable, as it’s difficult to grow attached to a conflict where there’s no personal or moral dilemma being argued through the two main forces in conflict. 

It’s important that when you’re giving a villain good intentions, you’re also giving the hero a damn good reason to be fighting against them. The more benevolent the intentions of the villain, the more drastic their damage must be. Say they want to solve an economic crisis that disproportionately affects the poorer population of their society, but they do so by compromising a system everyone in that society relies on and therefore furthering the struggle of the people they’re trying to help. Sure, they may realize their mistake later on but the hero is less concerned with making them see the error of their ways, but more concerned with solving the problem and preventing the villain from worsening the adverse effects. 

Show the villain making bad decisions while they hyper-fixate on one vision, ignoring the exterior consequences of their actions in the pursuit of one solution to a multi-faceted problem. Show the reader where they’re coming from, why their actions are unjustified, and why the hero wants and needs to stop them. 

Most story villains do have good intentions, I would argue, based on their own moral code. Everyone thinks they’re the good guy, unless otherwise specified. If you’re going to write a villain who outwardly thinks they’re the good guy, write them as if they were the hero of their own story, and then point out all the little things they ignore in the interest of remaining “good” from their own perspective. 

Here’s some other resources you may find useful:

Writing Good Villains

Creating Villains

Tips on Character Consistency

Tips on Writing Cold & Distant Characters

Positive Character Development Without Romanticizing Toxic Behavior

Showing Vulnerability Without Death

How To Fit Character Development Into Your Story

Resources For Creating Characters

What Makes Children Evil?

How To Analyze A Character

Giving Characters Flaws

Gradually Revealing Character’s Past

Keeping Characters Realistic

Tips on Character Motivations

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Masterlist | WIP Blog

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How do I bring up my word-per-part count without having to add many things after the first write? Because at the moment I can rarely hit 1000 words on a chapter's first draft, I usually hit 800-900, but I want to be able to write more than just that.

Strengthening the Underwritten Chapter. 

The most useful advice I can give is the general chapter outline I use to help with pacing. I touched on it in this post, but I’ll expand a bit here in order to (hopefully) steer you away from underwriting. 

The Opening. 

This may be longer or shorter depending on how much time has passed since the last chapter, whether there’s an atmospheric change, and whether the characters are someplace which has been described before, but it’s always worth touching on at least one of these points:

Where are the characters? Describe something about the place, including at least one sensory detail like smell, temperature, sound, taste. Keep in mind the general feeling you want to give off.

What are the characters doing? Describe positions throughout the space, general actions. Show emotional states through this, using body language, expressions, relative positioning. 

How does the pov character feel? Set up their internal state through emotions, thoughts, and related actions.

The Initiating Point.

In which some goal is introduced or brought up. This can be anything from an object, to information, to convincing another character of something, to relationship development, etc. 

But the protagonist must want something. All other prominent characters should want something as well, though sometimes the things they want are the same as the protagonist, sometimes they’re less important to the plot, and sometimes only the writer is aware of them.

The characters set about achieving this goal, through actions and dialogue.

The Rising Tension.

The thing the characters want becomes harder for them to reach. The protagonist is forced to make choices they think will best lead them to this goal, and face consequences for these choices. 

If your chapters aren’t long enough, the most likely problem is that you’re not giving your protagonist enough of a challenge during the rising tension phase. Think about include at least one of these things to heighten the challenge:

Who or what is physically stopping your protagonist from reaching their goal?

Which of your protagonist’s flaws or conflicting goals are making it hard for them to do what they much to reach the goal?

What new obstacles can you throw at your protagonist to keep them from it and what bad things can happen to disrupt the progress the protagonist has made?

What hard choices must your protagonist in order to reach their goal?

What must the protagonist give up in the process?

Don’t forget to include emotions during this segment, not just dialogue and action! Characters react and feel and that’s what governs their actions. Leaving the emotional aspects out will produce a scene with feels flat and is too short.

The Climax.

This is the highest point of tension, with the most to gain and the most to loose. The protagonist makes a choice and either gets what they want, or fails so thoroughly they know they will no longer achieve their goal at the present time.

The Falling Tension.

The protagonist either relishes in their spoils for a moment, possibly before a new goal is introduced (either long or short term), or they wallow in their loss, and possibly begin a path towards planning their next move to achieve the old goal or something better.

In this segment you can return to the slower, more contemplative pace of the opening, giving the reader a moment to dwell on what happened and what it means to and for the characters.

More things to consider:

Most chapters should be between 2k and 5k words, but this will vary drastically between genres and individual chapters. 

Unless you’re writing a children’s book or using chapter length for experimental purposes, you should not have more than one or two chapters under 1k words, and hopefully not many below 2k words. (Short chapters help the reader move quickly through the book but you must provide enough time to ground them in a scene.)

When cutting a scene into two separate chapters, the best place to end the first chapter is generally during the second half of the rising tension.

Sometimes it works fine to cut off the wrapping up segment and apply the ‘wrapping up’ basic concepts to the next chapter’s opening section. This is especially the case when you’ve had a few extremely tense scenes/chapters in a row and are now preparing to have a less tense chapter to give the reader a break.

Not all chapters/scenes must follow the above pattern!!!! It’s a guideline that’s extremely helpful for giving you chapters which flow well and have just the right amount of meat in them, but it’s still just a guideline.

tl;dr You can flesh out your chapters by providing a strong set up, thoroughly challenging your protagonist before you allow them to succeed, and closing with a moment of contemplation on what’s to come, with a good balance of both action and emotion throughout the chapter.

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some of my favorite writing podcasts!!!

i hate sitting in silence, so when i’m just scrolling on social media or cooking i like to listen to podcasts!! here are some of my favorite writing ones:

writing excuses: nice, short 15–20 minute episodes! they cover a BROAD range of topics, and the podcast has been going on for years so they have a lot of episodes & resources!! everything from brainstorming to getting published to editing, it has a lot of awesome resources!

88 cups of tea: lots of great interviews with published authors, agents, and editors! they talk a lot about craft, querying, rejections, and the like. i love the conversations with the authors; you can get a lot out of them! your favorite author might have even been interviewed :)

shipping and handling:  hosted by two nyc literary agents! they talk about books they enjoy, the publishing industry, and fandom-related topics! they also give some good writing tips. very funny!

dead robots’ society: hosted by aspiring writers for aspiring writers! great insights for novel writing, also very funny! 

i should be writing: another great podcast for aspiring writers that gives lots of encouragement! also has a lot of great interviews that can be very helpful. clean & safe to listen to around kids/at work. awesome for beginners!

ditch diggers: the spinoff to the above podcast isbw, ditch diggers is not safe for work and deals with more ~advanced~ writing topics. also has a lot of info on the business side of writing, like branding and deadlines.

you should definitely give them a listen if you have some time! awesome craft tips that can be super helpful for creating interesting, balanced stories. definitely check them out!

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So your Fictional Universe has Horses in it

Alternatively: People Ride Horses in Your Fic, and you’re Not Sure What to Do About It

horse rider/owner and baby writer here, throwing you an infodump that will maybe help with the whole ‘There’s a Horse in the Background here but I Don’t Know What to Do With it’ thing I sometimes see in writing!

Inside this infodump: Horse riding, horse care, horse tack (equipment), falling off a horse (and what usually gets injured), horse lingo, and behaviour.

Keep reading

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Writer’s Resource - Wound Care

It’s probably one of the most common scenarios in a novel, comic, roleplay, script, or otherwise.  Character B gets injured, and Character A knows wound care and takes care of it for them.  But the old fashioned style of thinking runs rampant, especially with ‘classic wound treatment’ being educated generations down, leaving plenty of people unaware of more realistic and recent modern advances in traditional first aid.  

Things To Remember:

Wash your hands.

It’s all too common for this step to be missed in writing.  When wound care comes up, remember that the purpose of it is, underlying everything emotional, to get the wound clean.  Hands not very recently disinfected and sterilized are more likely to cause infection, undermining everything else that Character A hopes to do.  Even if it’s just a sentence or a footnote, remember to add in washing hands – with soap!

Clear the wound.

There are multiple options here, but they all come back to the same thing.  Character A should always clean out the wound with hydrotherapy, which is fancy speak for running water for a very long time.  Flushing a wound can be done with a non iodized salt solution, a dilution of very mild soap, or even plain but it must always come back to WATER.  Run the wound under water for a few minutes to clean out dirt, bacteria, and loosen any debris stuck inside.  Character A can and should use clean, sterile tweezers to remove this debris if the water is unable, then pat the wound dry with gauze.  

Keep the wound clean.

Antibiotics are a necessity with any and all wound care.  From petroleum jelly, a store bought antibiotic like neosporin or polysporin, or any other ointment.  However for a lesser known and just as realistic option, remember you can also use ( with or alone ) sugar.  On burns, deep gashes, cuts, or just about anything, packing the wound with sugar would let Character B’s body begin to heal without fear of bacteria, because the highly concentrated medium of sugar will not allow bacteria to survive.

If stitches are necessary.

Is the wound is deep enough to go to fat, muscle, bone, or other structures?  Does it go right over a joint?  Is it on the hands, fingers, or around the mouth or eyes?  Have minutes passed without the bleeding slowing?  These are prime locations that will medically require stitches – be it to assist the wound in closing, or stop natural motions from ripping left alone gouges wider.  Stitches, or sutures, traditionally use thread made of silk or nylon and a curved needle with suture scissors to assist in the special kind of stitch that specially holds wounds together.  

If Character A needs to stitch a wound together, their knowledge may vary, and they may not have the correct tools.  But here are some things you can make sure they know.  Make a knot on each stitch, to better hold it in place.  Hold the skin together while stitching, don’t trust the thread to pull both sides in by itself.  If the flesh is ragged on each side, they may need to cut clean edges, mostly to insure that the stitches don’t tear out and the wound is even.  Removal comes days later, with cutting each stitch besides the knot and pulling it out – it should tug, but be painless.

Wrap the wound.

That old belief that a wound should see fresh air is an absolute lie, as proven by many doctors over the years.  Wounds should be kept constantly covered, and damp.  Studies show that a covered, damp wound healed in 12-15 days while an air exposed, dry wound healed in over thirty.  Not only this, but covering and dampening the wound brings less chance of scarring.  Use wound dressings like wet to dry gauze ( which is just as common as traditional ), then wrap in a bandage, even two if necessary.  

For long term wound treatment.

Whether Character A keeps a constant eye on B, or if Character B is on their own, they should both keep up wound treatment for realism.  Each day change the bandage and gauze, or more, if found to be constantly wet.  Use daily hydrotherapy to clean out dead cells and drainage from the wound.  Pack with more sugar or antibiotic ointment.  Lack of doing this would cause Character B an infected wound, likely turning to an abscess, and undo all the previous work.

Things to Avoid:

Put the alcohol down.

Since we’re not in the wild west and Hollywood is a liar, NEVER use strong antiseptics, vinegars, or alcohol to clean a wound.  All things such as white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, vodka, rubbing alcohol or iodine can burn and cause irreparable damage to the skin and flesh, increasing the healing time substantially.  

Never applying pressure.

Between each stage of wound treatment, Character B should be applying pressure with a sterilized hand and clean towel or gauze to the wound, preferably with it above their head.  This lessens the chance of bleeding out and allows the blood to slow, but not halt.  

Don’t be afraid of pink.

A wound a doctor would be satisfied with seeing is the kind that scares most people: pink, red, and just on the right side of bloody.  Any other colors, too little, or too much blood are all red flags for wound treatment.

Don’t be afraid of the doctor.

Unless Character A is a doctor, there may come a time where they have to admit their skills aren’t enough.  If you can see bone, then the wound may need muscle stitches as well as skin.  If it’s extremely swollen, the inflammation has gone from healthy to concerning.  If it’s hot or has a stench, there’s a serious infection.  Draw the line at a smart place, and let a doctor take over.  Even in the fictional world.  

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How to Write: Beautiful visual descriptions

(This is an advanced technique, so if you’re new to writing—or if your style isn’t poetic—you don’t have to do this.)

It may sound counter intuitive, but the trick to creating better visuals in your story isn’t better visual descriptions. It’s using emotional keywords to invoke a sense of place.

Try to capture a place’s mood, not just the sensory elements. For example, rather than writing “Sunlight dappled the forest floor” you could describe the forest as a “mosaic quilt of rabbit-eared trees and tumbling grass drizzled in orange slices of Christmas sunlight”.

The first gets the visual across, yes. But we’re looking for more than what the five senses can give us. The key to good description is showing us what your character sees/ hears/ smells/ tastes/ touches … but the magic in capturing a place is the sixth sense: feeling. How your character feels about being in this environment, which influences how readers feel experiencing the passage.

Writing about feelings is tricky. In adult literature being too obvious (“she screamed in frustration”) is frowned on because reading obvious cues feels like we’re watching someone act a part on stage rather than living the book through them. So it is with invoking character feelings through sensory descriptors. The above passage about a forest is meant to invoke a pleasant, pastoral sensibility and maybe capture the excitement that comes from wonderful possibilities opening up. Once you know what feelings you’re trying to invoke you can figure out what words will create (hopefully) that effect.

Quilt, rabbit, and tumbling are words that evoke a homey pastoral scene. Orange slices and drizzled invoke good things to eat. Depending on your upbringing, Christmas sunlight may sound like bright crisp excitement and general goodwill.

So, how can you learn to do this?

1. Characters should describe their world in positive or negative ways that directly mirror how they’re feeling. If Anna’s angry and hurt, she might see a “bitter ocean wrecking itself on frozen rocks”. If Anna is happy, she might instead see an “untamable ocean breaking free in glorious spray”. It’s the same scene, but the emotions are wildly different and thus so are reader’s visual impressions.

2. Use action verbs to describe inanimate objects. Trees thrusting off a cliff sound more precarious than trees leaning over the cliff’s edge. Arrows sprouting from a chest plate sound tragic and ironic, whereas arrows sticking out of a chest plate merely sounds like somebody’s dead. Grumbling ocean, and library books snuggling up to the front door sound more personal that stormy ocean, or library books ready to go back.

3. Free-associate to develop creative metaphors. For example, suppose your character is bathing in a palace. You could describe the “plush, embroidered towels”, and that would certainly give a sense of them. But if you describe “soft buttercream towels” (free-associating what sounds soft, cream-colored, and might work for an expensive towel) instead, your readers will ache to wrap up in one alongside your character. Feelings-based win!

Tip: Take a notebook someplace that inspires you. Spend a few moments just looking around, experiencing your environment. Try to come up with simple phrases that captures what you’re witnessing. I came up with the above forest’s description on a hike, because I thought the patchwork of trees and grass looked like a “mosaic quilt” and the wedges of golden sunlight on the forest floor like “orange slices”.

As with all writing techniques, don’t overdo it. You’ll learn with practice how much poetry to apply and when in order to sell your descriptions.

Bonus Tip: This works really, really well for the exposition in erotic fiction. Before your leading couple get it on try sprinkling sexy verbs into ordinary environments. The effect heightens the reader’s anticipation for the main event!

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How to write fic for Black characters: a guide for non-Black fans

Don’t characterize a Black character as sassy or thuggish, especially when the character in question is can be described in literally ten thousand other ways..

Don’t describe Black characters as chocolate, coffee, or any sort of food item.

Don’t highlight the race of Black characters (ie, “the dark man” or “the brown woman”) if you don’t highlight the race of white characters.

Think very carefully about that antebellum slavery or Jim Crow AU fic as a backdrop for your romance.

If you’re not fluent with AAVE, don’t use it to try to look cool or edgy. You look corny as hell.

Don’t use Black characters as a prop for the non-Black characters you’re actually interested in.

Keep “unpopular opinions” about racism, Black Lives Matter, and other issues pertinent to Black folks out the mouths of Black characters. We know what the fuck you’re doing with that and need to stop.

Don’t assume a Black character likes or hates a certain food, music, or piece of pop culture.

You can make a Black character’s race pertinent without doing it like this.

Be extremely careful about insinuating that one or more of a Black character’s physical features are dirty, unclean, or ugly.

Feel free to add more.

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Underwriting: ways to boost your word count

I wrote a fic recently and the word count for the first draft came to about 40,000 words – roughly the length of a novella or ficlet. And that’s fine because I wasn’t striving for a novel or a 100K slow-burn coffee shop AU.

But coming to edit my first draft I realised something about myself. I am an underwriter. My fic could actually be at least 10k (maybe 20k) longer. Of course it’s not all about word count, it’s about the story, but in this case a smaller word count isn’t because I’m a fantastically efficient storyteller it’s because I’ve missed out a lot of stuff. Like, Important Stuff.

So as I set out to add muscle to the skin and bones I’ve already created in draft one I thought I’d share five tips for my fellow underwriters to help you flesh out your writing too.

1)     Make sure to describe the place and space in which the action happens.

There are quite a few places in my first draft where there’s no indication as to where things are taking place– or there is, but it’s the bare minimum and not really enough to build up a clear picture. This probably because as the writer I know exactly what the place looks like so I make the assumption that a bare minimum description will mean the reader knows too.

Now I’m not saying go into masses of detail about what your settings look like. In some cases it’s not useful to describe setting in a lot of detail (e.g. during really fast paced action sequences) but doing a verbal sketch of the space is essential for putting your characters in context and reader understanding.

I really is a fine balance (which is why beta readers are your friend!) But definitely go back to your setting descriptions if you’re an underwriter, they might need some work.

2)    Make sure to describe your character’s appearance.

Similar to the above point – you know what your characters look like, but unless you describe them, the reader won’t.

It’s fair to say that descriptions are open to reader interpretations, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t describe them in a healthy amount of detail. So you might try to nail down some of the interesting quirks about your characters to help the reader build a picture – not only will it help the readers understanding, it’ll boost your word count too!

Note: This one functions a little differently in a fic because the readers are probably familiar with how the character looks, but there is nothing wrong with adding your interpretation (or even reminding them, especially if the characters are from a book.)

3)   Include character reactions outside of what they say out loud.

Real life conversations aren’t just about the stuff that comes out of our mouths. So much of human interaction is about body language – so include it in your writing! Saying that the character covers their mouth with their hand when they talk suggests shyness. While another character crossing their arms shows they’re defensive -perhaps because they’re feeling threatened. In real life we don’t always say what we mean – but a lot of the time our actions give away what we’re really thinking. By including these actions around dialogue writers can influence how we as readers view characters and how we interpret interactions between characters. And it can boost your word count too.

The big stuff:

4)     Check your pacing.

When you write it feels like your scene is taking place over hours, days, weeks because when you’re writing it takes time. Reading, on the other hand, is much quicker. A seasoned reader can fly through a 100 page novel in a few hours – a seasoned writer can spend hours writing a 100 words.

When you read back your writing, make sure to check your pacing. You might just find that the Impossible Task you set for your characters at the start of the story is suddenly resolved within the next fifty pages. To boost your word count you might want to start by adding more obstacles between the character and their goal.

For example; your character has to find an object such as a precious jewel. Sounds relatively easy, right? But what if the jewel is lost in the mines of an ancient people, amongst thousands of other treasures that look very similar? What if no one has found this jewel because it’s guarded by a fire breathing dragon? What if the ancient mines and dragon are located in a mountain which is miles and miles away across dangerous lands? What if your characters need to enlist the help of someone with a very specific skill set?

You take one simple objective (finding the jewel) and you put into play a series of obstacles that must be overcome in order to complete the objective. Your underwriting tendencies, like mine, might just mean that there aren’t enough metaphorical (or real) dragons in your story!

5)    Sub-plots.

A sub-plot is a smaller scale plot - often involving the supporting characters - which runs secondary to the main plot. It can be directly linked to the main plot, i.e. the info provided in the subplot directly influences events in the main plot. Or it can simply be linked through place, time or themes of the overall story (e.g. Hermione’s elf rights campaign ‘S.P.E.W’ in Harry Potter and the OoTP is linked to the overall theme of oppression.)

Sub-plots are great because they can serve as some respite from a traumatic main plot; your character is fighting a war (main plot) but also fighting and failing (in hilarious ways) to win the affection of their love interest (sub-plot).

Plus, sub-plots can also help with characterisation, can cause your main character to have the moment of realisation which allows them to overcome the obstacles they face in the main plot and is generally a better reflection of real life! Sub-plots often centre on side-kicks and other characters – people who might not be as devoted to the end goal as the protagonist is. In fact, well written side characters seemingly live their own lives with their own goals. You might choose to showcase this in your sub-plot by letting the conflict of interest cause more problems for the protagonist to overcome.

Either way you could find your word count sky rockets as soon as you add in a few clever sub-plots.

I hope this helped!

Got any questions? Send me an ask

[vciious]

masterlist of characters’ deepest fears

ok maybe i shouldn’t call this a masterlist but it’s pretty comprehensive i think hello!! i was having a lot of trouble finding resources for ideas of fears to give to characters so i thought i would compile my own list, then i figured i might as well share it with y’all! 

this list is for those deeper, more intangible, existential type of fears rather than fears such as illness or bugs or clowns (all very valid fears!! just not the kind i needed rn) it might be a little repetitive but i wanted to be thorough/account for nuances and such. hope this is helpful :-)

• Fear of intimacy • Fear of death/dying • Fear of failure • Fear of rejection • Fear of commitment • Fear of being alone/loneliness • Fear of God • Fear of abandonment • Fear of change • Fear of the unknown • Fear of success • Fear of love • Fear of being forgotten/ignored • Fear of getting old/growing up • Fear of the future • Fear of loss • Fear of forgetting/losing memories/amnesia • Fear of becoming their parents • Fear of being a bad person • Fear of being unwanted

Keep reading

[vciious]

How to Write a Fight Scene (Rebloggable Version)

Admin Note: This post is a rebloggable copy of our page on fight scenes. The page is being phased out, so from now on all updates will be made on this post and not on the page. 

Among the typically difficult scenes writers face in their stories, the fight scene definitely ranks high on the list. Below you will find several resources with tips for writing a good fight scene.

Action with a Side of Zombies: One of our articles focused specifically on writing action scenes. Bonus:  the examples all include zombies.

ArchetypesAndAllusions: An article on the three main types of fighters and their various approaches to kickin’ ass (or not).

TheCreativePenn.com: Alan Baxter, speculative fiction author, gives some great advice on characterization, setting, martial style, and cliches. 

StoryHack.com: A PDF that takes you through writing a fight scene step by step by Randy Ingermanson, compiled by Bryce Beattie.

MarilynnByerly.com: An extremely good guide to writing fight scenes. This guide includes tips on character viewpoint, mapping the fight, and tricks for writing each type of fight. 

Shelfari.com: This site is an interview with famed fantasy author R.A. Salvatore on how to write great fight scenes.

TheBusinessOfWriting: C. Patrick Schulze gives some good, solid advice on identifying and writing your fight scene.

EzineArticles.com: Marq McAlister explains how to make a fight scene pack some serious punch. This article is good for fine-tuning.

Martin Turner: Focusing specifically on sword-fighting scenes, Martin Turner writes in great detail on every conceivable detail of this type of time-honored fight scene. 

SeriousPixie.com: Susan tells you about the three types of fight scene writers and explains how to fix the problems that arise for each type.

David Alan Lucus: This multi-part guide gives advice in exhaustive detail on how to write an awesome fight scene.

NightFoot: This Tumblr post offers some great tips for writing fight scenes.

Film Crit Hulk: A shoe-in for screenwriters, the Hulk and special guest Tom Townend talk shop on how to write a great movie action scene.

Harry Edmundson-Cornell: Harry writes a series on the fight scene geared toward writers of Superhero comics.

How To Fight Write: The knowledgeable and thorough admins of this exceptional Tumblr blog will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about fight scenes and weaponry—even if they have to beat it into you.

Scholagladiatoria: A YouTuber with lots of weapons teaches you how they were/are properly used to their greatest advantage.

These links provide advice specifically for writing battle scenes:

Gerri Blanc: eHow’s article on battle scenes is a basic step-by-step list for you. It’s a good introduction to writing battle scenes.

StormTheCastle.com: This article takes you through an in-depth guide on how to write battle scenes for fantasy stories.

Rhonda Leigh Jones: Jones lists some dos and don’ts of writing battle scenes.

Other resources:

List of Martial Arts: Looking for a fighting style? Find it here!

List of Weapons: Every type of weapon you can think of is listed here.

List of Military Tactics: From troop movements to siege warfare, this list has got you covered.

Asylum.com: A few examples of awesome battle tactics from history.

BadassOfTheWeek.com: Get some inspiration for awesome fight scenes and fighting characters from this compendium of badassitude.

Thearmedgentleman: Austin has offered to share his knowledge on weaponry with any writers who have questions. Thanks, Austin! 

Don’t see what you’re looking for here? You can find every post we’ve ever made or reblogged about fight scenes in our “fight” tag. You might also find our “action scene” tag useful. 

We hope this helps! If you have another link or a tip for how to write fight/battle scenes, hit up our ask box and let us know!