adairartistry

[adairartistry]

WRITERS!

Stretch.

Fix your posture. 

Shake out your hands.

Now get off of tumblr and write a sentence.

[adairartistry]

I published the beginning chapters for my first Wattpad story. Please check it out. Feedback welcome.

[adairartistry]

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

— Haruki Murakami

[adairartistry]

you ever just have this sudden urge to paint, to write, to make art?? to be out in a field with nothing but your thought surrounding you and free to wander through the tall grass?? you ever yearn for something so completely that you think that’s just how you’re meant to be??

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Writer [rahy-ter] (n.) - a person who stares at any blinking cursor, waiting for the words to magically appear.

[adairartistry]

Ode to Writers

The greatest plight

of one who writes,

is the irrational fear,

that what they write 

— possibly won’t

ever be quite as good 

as what they wrote.

— Lang Leav

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Tumblr’s people | Writers

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I published the beginning chapters for my first Wattpad story. Please check it out. Feedback welcome.

[adairartistry]

Some Fun World Building Tips!

Disclaimer: Your plot/story comes first. Don’t add a bunch of flaunty details for the sake of ‘World Building’ if it doesn’t add to your story or takes it off course, It’s not worth it. These are just some things I’ve tried in different, separate stories that were fun exercises for me as a creator.

1.) Language!

This is the most useful if you have multiple countries in a fantasy world that interact with each other in some form or fashion. Most countries have a different national language, and then different dialects of that language. Therefore, if you have two characters from Country A and Country B that speak different languages and live a decent distance apart, they’re probably going to have different speaking structures and slang. For instance, maybe Character A always says ‘Oh my God’ and maybe Character B always says “My Gods!” Incorporating little details like that will make your story more real and believable without requiring writing out another language. 

Also, language is based on history, religion, and culture. If Country A and Country B have different religions, they’re going to swear differently. It’s more interesting if you don’t just substitute their god’s name into a generic phrase that is the same across all languages.

2.) Food!

Food is SUPER cultural and SUPER fun to play with while world building. What is considered “travel food” in the country? What do they drink out of? What’s a popular type of alcohol? What’s the traditional ‘comfort food’? Desserts? What do you offer guests when they come over to your house? This is also dependent on the terrain. If the country has a lot of swamp and bogs, they’re not going to have an endless supply of grains. If it’s mostly a prairie, they’re not going to have oranges. Do a little research on what type of foods could be grown in the environment your country is in, then figure out what foods can be made from these plants. 

This is really easy to incorporate into fantasy worlds by just mentioning for half a sentence what food the characters are eating, and it tells the reader a lot about the environment and culture of this country. 

3.) Education!

This one only works if you have younger characters who are attending school or receiving lessons. If you have the right environment for it, it’s really fun to mess around with. Ask yourself questions: what would my character study at this age in this environment? History? Math? Language? Art? Music? Philosophy? Magic? Combat? Religion? 

While your character is learning about the history of one or multiple countries, you can easily expand your reader’s depth of the world through short descriptions. You can explore the linguistics of a country’s language and develop time periods. I have one WIP where the main character is having to read multiple classical novels and plays, but she also reads modern fantasy. Having a history helps deepen the believability of a world. If you’re exploring art, music, or philosophy, make sure to mention famous artists, musicians, and philosophers that your character either despises or looks up to. Magic is fun too. What type of magic is your character learning? How do they practice it? How is it viewed by the majority? Combat depends on culture; different groups of people fight differently and use different weapons. Religion is fun to play with, and through an educational setting, it can be smoothly explained. 

Even picking just one or two of the above list (or even adding some more!) gives just a bit more depth to your story and solidifies your world!

4.) Popular Culture

Pop culture shapes our world soooo much it’s ridiculous. Having some version of it will make your world so believable. What is your world’s version of Taylor Swift or Pan!c at the Disco? What’s your world’s version of Fortnite dances? What are their ‘memes’, so-to-speak? Who do they make fun of? My high school of 300 people has inside jokes that make fun of our principal. Even if it’s a little jab at the president/king/dictator of a country, just add a little something extra that can help give a clear image of modern social culture.

5.) Media

How do the citizens of your country receive their news? Newspapers? Is there just a giant bulletin where the king posts news? What type of news do they receive? Politics? International? Economic? Environmental? Sports? Pop culture? Editorials? Feature stories? Do they receive news magically? If so, how? Do they have some form of radios or televisions? What issues are present in society? Is anyone doing anything about this?

This is fun because it’s a very real thing you can include that once again gives your story some believability. A large country needs some sort of communication, and through the media is one way to do that. In an absolute monarchy where news is completely controlled by the government, this can be used to show contrast if the king is indeed a bad king. Also, differences in mass communication between two countries (maybe one has a bulletin controlled completely by the king and another has a law protecting freedom of the press) can show differences between the two. Also, political cartoons are fun.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!

Study world history. Pay attention to differences between countries and mirror/combine elements of culture and history into your own original world. You learn the most from what has actually made it—the real thing!

[adairartistry]

#152: Working with Creative Constraints

The blank page is the arch-nemesis of the writer. But it makes no sense. It’s the only time where we have the ultimate freedom to do anything we want. Shouldn’t we cherish the fresh start? A clean slate?

Well, that’s the theory. In reality, we all want to create something good. And that’s the problem.

At the beginning of a project, it’s really hard to know whether it will end up being worth anything by the end. What’s worse, we start to worry that if whatever we do in the beginning isn’t good enough, it will somehow corrupt the rest of the project, and our efforts will be futile.

The fear of failure strikes us the most when we’re staring at the blank page as if it had a message scribbled for us in the margins. ‘Make sure you don’t fuck this up.’

Once we get going, things become a lot less daunting. Suddenly, there are characters interacting with each other. The possibilities are still endless, but a little less so than when the page was blank. And that makes a huge difference.

Putting something down anchors your thinking. It creates constraints. You no longer have to come up with something perfect. Your task now is to make what you have a little better. You have to make the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and find new ones to fill the blanks.

The good thing about creative constraints is that you don’t have to wait until you have something to take advantage of them. You can set some constraints for yourself even before you start writing.

I’ve seen a street photographer do this brilliantly. Every time he went out to shoot, he would give himself some constraints. One time, he decided that he would only take pictures of arches – anything that he found on the streets in the shape of an arch. The next day, he would only take photos that had windows or glass in them.

Instead of running around, frantically snapping anything and everything, he would pass on all the other shots that he would’ve normally taken. This really focused his mind and forced him to come up with some incredibly creative shots as opposed to the old-people-squinting-into-the-lens staple of street photography.

Did he miss some great shots like that? Probably. But he would’ve never seen the ones he took if he let himself be distracted by all the possibilities.

Now to the big question: how can you apply this to your writing? Make decisions upfront and stick with them at least until you’ve finished the full first draft.

👉 Think about what genre is your story. Genres have all sorts of tropes and limitations that you’ll need to adhere to. For example, romance readers expect a happy ending. If you decide to write a romance, you no longer have to think about how will it end.

👉 Plunge your characters into a random situation and then work out how they solve the problem.

👉 You can even start by writing fanfic using your favourite characters and then swap them out with your original ones.

👉 Any constraints are better than nothing.

Creative constraints are a fantastic tool if you need to get unblocked or want to come up with something really creative. It may seem that setting up a bunch of constraints will limit your options, but they will set you free.

I’m putting the finishing touches on a massive Writing Analytics feature that I’ve been working on for months. It will come out next week, and I can’t wait for you to try it – it’s changing my writing life as we speak.

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Past Editions

#151: My Favourite Writing Podcasts, July 2020

#150: The Business of Making Art, July 2020

#149: All That Matters Is What You Leave on the Page, July 2020

#148: Keeping a Victory Log, June 2020

#147: Finishing things is a skill, June 2020

[adairartistry]

ladies we need to start frantically and obsessively reading books in less than 24 hours again..remember how happy we were