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[anaisfinallywrites]

Glaze is out!

Tired of having your artwork used for AI training but find watermarks dismaying and ineffective?

Well check this out! Software that makes your Art look messed up to training AIs and unusable in a data set but nearly unchanged to human eyes.

I just learned about this. It's in Beta. Please read all the information before using.

[anaisfinallywrites]

WARNING

Something Sus on AO3 

Hey guys, 

I just got a bunch of comments on different fics on AO3, each under a generic boomer women’s names like Helen, Sarah, Mary, Linda and Karen and the messages all consisted of a bunch of letters and numbers and then a link. if you see these comments in the comments or receive them, delete it, report it, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!

[anaisfinallywrites]

I said I would watch episode 1 of Teen Wolf season 1 and I DIDN'T EVEN FINISH IT

THERE'S STILL 23 MINUTES LEFT

All the Scott scenes were boring

[anaisfinallywrites]

i used to have a crush on David Boreanaz because of Angel

now there's Derek Hale and Tyler Hoechlin made my first celebrity crush obsolete 🤣🤣

[anaisfinallywrites]

I wrote several fic outlines

Wooohooo

[anaisfinallywrites]

I am pondering opening Teen Wolf season 1 as white noise for when I'm doing assignments and only watch when I hear Derek Hale talking 🤣🤣🤣

[anaisfinallywrites]

Reblog if it is okay for people to randomly pop into your ask with questions about your fanfic(s)

[anaisfinallywrites]

I'm laughing my ass off at the thought of a Diabolik Lovers Sterek AU

And no, Stiles is not Yui

But also, you suck, brain. I needed to sleep and board a train in three hour's time and you decide to plague me with ideas??

Monday was a MerSterek AU gone wrong and today is Diabolik Lovers...

[anaisfinallywrites]

"His world ended when his family died in the fire. So, fuck you, Scott."

- something Stiles says to Scott, at some point

---

Do not know where to put this dialogue at all

Just thought of it when I was brushing my teeth lmao

One thing I know is that: Stiles and Scott were definitely arguing about something and Scott probably lob a low blow at Derek

[anaisfinallywrites]

I am finally writing an outline for a song fic that I had for... At least a year or so.

Because I found the incentive to write it when an anon asked a fic rec blog for a story where Lydia realizes she loves Stiles too late and I was like

HEY, I HAVE THE EXACT PREMISE IN MY NOTES

So I guess the saying that whatever you write will have an audience for it is true enough.

[anaisfinallywrites]

happy pride month to all gay and trans africans especially gay and trans ghanaians in ghana

[anaisfinallywrites]

Might use this somewhere. Well, I thought of this for a project but who knows when I'll get to it?

Derek: Don't say you're undesirable just because you're oblivious to people noticing you.

Stiles: Yeah well, I like to think I'm only looking at one person so everybody else can shove it.

Derek: Don't blame me if you have better offers out there.

Stiles: *rolls eyes*

Stiles: I know you. You're snarky and a softie.

Derek: Yeah? You're snarky and an asshole.

Stiles: You're an asshole too.

Derek: Your barbs cut.

Stiles: And then I give bandaids afterwards.

Derek: *disbelief*

Derek: No, you don't.

Stiles: Ok, I only give you bandaids afterwards.

[anaisfinallywrites]

Plot Devices to Complicate Your Story

You're excited to write an upcoming story, but the plot seems pretty simple from start to finish.

How can you make it more complicated to deepen your themes, lengthen the story, or leave your readers with plot twists that make their jaws drop?

Try a few of these devices 👀

Add motivation to your instigating action

When the princess gets kidnapped at the start of your story, your hero will rescue her, but what's the antagonist's motivation for kidnapping her? If they're in love with the hero and take their jealousy to the extreme or secretly know that the princess asked them for an escape plan to avoid marrying your hero, the plot is much more compelling.

You could add this detail anywhere in your plot, even in the first chapter.

Layer a second motivation underneath an action

After the princess is kidnapped, the hero starts their journey to rescue her. The reader finds out in the second chapter that the hero is being blackmailed to retrieve the princess and return her to their kingdom's biggest rival to start a war.

Amplify the original problem

Your protagonist rescues the princess and brings her home, only to find out that she's had a twin brother all this time who has been taken hostage by the antagonist in retaliation for the princess' escape.

Introduce a second, more evil villain

The antagonist has kidnapped the princess for their own motivation, but the reader discovers in the middle of your story that they serve a more evil villain who holds a personal grudge against the princess' father and wants his whole kingdom to suffer as revenge.

Create conflict that brings your protagonist to their rock bottom

The protagonist rescues the princess, almost reaches their home kingdom, but she escapes. The king sends the protagonist to prison for their failure and sentences them to death in three days. The reader will feel the hopelessness along with your protagonist, which is where you can create something that injects new hope into your plot (like a dramatic jailbreak thanks to the protagonist's best friend).

Make a character betray another

The protagonist reaches the princess with the help of their best friend, but the princess stabs the protagonist in the back by trading their best friend for herself through an unbreakable vow

Reveal an unreliable narrator

Your protagonist agrees to rescue the princess for the sake of the kingdom, but the second or third chapter reveals that they are really on a mission to kill the princess for personal revenge against the king.

Reveal that the villain has known everything the whole time

Your protagonist and princess escape, but the villain factored that into their plan to start a war and have their forces waiting outside of her castle when they arrive home

Introduce sudden regret that changes a character's arc

The protagonist has to leave their best friend behind to ensure the princess' escape, but in leaving them, the protagonist realizes they've been in love with their best friend the entire time. Regret motivates them to head back for their best friend and risk their life twice as soon as the princess is home safe.

Temporarily kill a character

The princess kills the villain with some help from your protagonist, so they think they're safe. On their way back home, the villain sets a trap for them in the woods because they actually survived the attack.

Try using Chekov's gun

Before leaving for the princess, your protagonist gets a potion made by a family member. The directions? "Use it in your moment of greatest need." The protagonist uses it later when they're facing the villain or after hitting rock bottom, so the potion becomes a plot device that instigates your second or third act.

Accelerate the plot

Your reader thinks the plot is all about rescuing the princess, but she returns home in the first 100 pages. The real plot begins by choices or actions made during her rescue, which unravel into a much larger story/world event.

You likely won't be able to use all of these plot devices in a single story. You may not even have the first plot for more than one.

Consider what you're writing and what dynamics your characters/plot present to decide if any of these tricks could enhance your writing.

[anaisfinallywrites]

it’s so frustrating (and heartbreaking) to see so many writers going on indefinite hiatus / deleting their blogs because they are not motivated to write anymore. worst of all: people would always be like ‘no why are you leaving we don’t want you to do so :(’ but they were nowhere to be seen in our notifications beforehand. the lack of support on this platform is a huge issue and it’s a shame that content consumers don’t get the hint when writers have been waving the red flag for months. please support creators by rebbloging their posts, interact with them by leaving a few tags, a comment or an ask! if you’re too shy then hit that anon button and you’re good to go. show them that their works matter and you enjoy their blog, because when the decision to leave is made, it’s already too late.

[anaisfinallywrites]

3 Ways to Write Scene Transitions

Moving from one scene to another in your short story or novel can be challenging. If your plot spans more than a day or a week, you've got plenty of time to cover.

How do you transition your scenes without jumping over crucial plot points or making the pacing feel rushed?

There are a few tips you can try when you're facing this problem.

1. Tease What's to Come

Let's say you've started a chapter with your protagonist encountering people they don't like while shopping at the grocery store with their exhausted two-year-old. The experience is frustrating, so your protagonist is simmering while sitting at a red light on the way home.

The main action of the chapter happens when the babysitter arrives that night, but it's only 12 o'clock in your scene. You needed your protagonist to encounter the people that annoy them to establish motivation for the action later on.

You could jump time by teasing the action itself. Your protagonist could thrum their fingers on the steering wheel and glare at the red light.

They opened their arms to the resentment churning under their skin. It sank into their bones, morphing into electricity that kept [Protagonist] plodding through their day. The red light mocked their need to take action, but they could wait.

Because when the babysitter showed up that night, they would take their revenge out on the city.

That could be a great place for a scene break or even the end of your chapter, depending on how much you've written. The reader won't mind a time jump because their interest gets piqued. They'll want to know what revenge means for that character and what will spin out from the choices they make.

2. Switch Points of View

If you're writing a 3rd person POV story with perspectives from at least two characters, you can also transition scenes by switching narrators.

While one character completes a plot-relevant action, the other could move the plot along by being a bit further in the future.

Consider something like this as an example:

Sarah's heart beat wildly in her chest as the heavy words finally fell from her lips. It was just the two of them in that park, but it had felt like the whole world had watched her admit her love for Melanie in the molten gold rays of the setting sun. All she needed now was an answer.

[Scene break symbol or the start of a new chapter]

Melanie heard Sarah's heartfelt words echo in her ears long after she had mumbled something about needing time. Time to think, to process. Sarah had been so understanding, even when she dropped Melanie off at home right afterward and skipped their usual Facetime call that night.

It wasn't until Melanie woke up the next morning in a sweat that she realized she finally had to unearth her biggest secret—she had only started the friendship with Sarah because she'd been in love with Sarah's older sister since the second grade.

You could make that time jump into however long you needed. Play with the scene set up in particular and then give the page or two to whoever loves to read your writing. They could talk about if it felt like a rushed scene or if the time jump felt right for that moment.

3. Wrap Up the Moment

Most of the time, I find myself struggling with a scene transition because the moment that I'm writing isn't finished.

Recently I was writing a scene with two friends in a wagon on their way to a new city. They have a great conversation that sparks some character development in-between plot points, but I could feel that conversation coming to a lull.

It felt like the right moment to insert a transition, but something didn't feel right.

I had to walk away from my work and come back to it to realize that I needed to wrap up the moment to move anything forward.

The solution I found was ending the conversation by making them appreciate their friendship more than before, based on what had been said, and then the protagonist ended the scene by reflecting on how they knew they could face anything in the new city with their friend by their side.

The next scene started with their wagon approaching the city walls after a night of sleeping under the stars. The reader will still understand that it took more time to reach their destination, but they don't have to read excessive details about the cold night air or hard ground under the protagonist's back to get to what they're most looking forward to—the arrival at the new city.

Nothing about that night would add anything to the plot, so dropping the overnight experience at the beginning of the sentence makes for a great transition to the next scene.

Make Your Transitions Clear

Whether you end a scene with a cliffhanger, a heartfelt moment, or by switching between points of view, your transitions should always help the plot.

You can always edit them while reworking the finished draft later or ask for beta reader opinions from the people who always love reading what you write.

[anaisfinallywrites]

You jest but I can 100% say I did nothing to have warranted this post apocalyptic dream. I don't even know what my brain was cooking up while I was sleeping... It's probably just stress lmao

the most epic dream ever

Okay, so I kinda got this dream and woke up early because of it, I also did not want to go back to sleep for 30 more minutes and risked losing this dream (I also had class, so win-win)

Teen Wolf apocalyptic aftermath type of dream

something big happened, like Skynet or apocalypse of some specific sort or even just humans making the world go on a different route of ruling

the supernatural and the humans suffered equally

literally, nature reclaimed a lot of earth, water/river/etc that towers over buildings with ancient extinct animals from land and sea patrolling forevermore (this is due to Atsu (yes, asianguystreamer but let’s pretend he’s just another character) being someone who is in tune with nature and has been keeping the “extinct” animals to keep his own territory safe but alas, tragedy struck anyway…)

Derek and Isaac survived, but at what cost?

There was an epic (and gruesome) montage of Atsu’s animals raging at the other animals that betrayed him (killing the animals that didn’t do something to protect his territory and what-have-you), no matter what, the end result was gory and brutal and Atsu took his territory’s remaining people into isolation due to the huge loss he suffered

Stiles is alive, alongside Sheriff and Melissa, Noshiko and her family (with scars), Lydia and some random NPC

Stiles rehab Derek while Isaac gets Melissa and Sheriff

Stiles, as usual, proposes to go back in time, to change something a bit and get some people back, trying to minimize the damage of the Catastrophe, so to speak

Derek, haunted and sadder than ever, thought it was a good idea but Stiles has to set up a meeting with the remaining people in the supernatural and get all the help he needs to make it work

People were gathered, reluctantly or otherwise, plans were gone through and discarded, shouting matches were had, those who had died did so a while back but a few more months to discuss how to bring them back won’t hurt anybody

The plan was finally made and a few people were given the responsibility of going back in time

Some rules were set: people who were absolutely crucial to changing the tide of the Catastrophe were left alone, so a few people could be saved like some civilians and such

My vision ended with Stiles’ protégé making a prank with magic where people can’t read anything? and something ominous was happening/gonna happen, Derek and Stiles had to make an announcement on something might be happening, stay close together, and also a reprimand to the protégé for ever making this prank in the first place; Stiles goes to the lower parts of their territory to warn the “ground army”, Noshiko and her family was one of them, Lydia was also there, shocker of all, the android following around seems to be awakening

Extras of the aftermath they live in:

Scott either gets saved or didn’t get saved, I’m not sure as it was also pretty unclear who got saved

Derek forever has a phobia of staying on the ground, him and Isaac were pretty much getting front row seat in the “extinct animal execution” that happened

Stiles, as perceptive as he always has been, is determined to build a skyscraper territory for Derek with the most advanced security technology and what-have-you (it was a pretty awesome place in my dream tbh)

A few people who joined Derek and Stiles became generals in army/security/etc, the Catastrophe left many people scarred and petrified what would happen again

Stiles finds several protégé for his Spark heritage? something

So, I said Skynet, the human looking android something started to follow people after those people … expresses some opinions or whatever, nobody knows where they come from except when they start to follow someone, you keep a close eye on the android and the person they’re following. As of right now, there’s 2 or 3 people being followed and Lydia Martin is one of them

Derek thought he would never be happy again but Stiles tries his best to heal the battered spirit he still has and Derek is more determined than ever to protect the pack that he has, filled with the most mismatched of people, some didn’t even know the supernatural existed until the Catastrophe happened

Derek might rule his territory with an iron will, Stiles was the representation of his battered heart, late night conversations in the darkness on how to better their territory and such

Also, Derek and Stiles’ territory might be skyscraper-ish, it’s still somewhat entwined with the jungle (there’s a waterfall) and any “technological advancement” is actually just magic

[anaisfinallywrites]

A Quick Guide to Varying Sentence Starters

One of the things that really winds me up about my own writing is looking back and seeing a multitude of sentences beginning with “I” or “And” or “But”. I’m a messy first-drafter as it is and I do a lot of line edits, but it’s still takes up a significant portion of my time going back to change things. 

So, I’m here today to share with you the ways I try to vary my sentence starters and some tips and tricks for drafting and edits” 

-.-.-.-

We all know why it’s important to vary your sentence structure, and by extent, your sentence starters. Besides obvious intentional things such as creating tension, or specific mood/tone/atmosphere, we should be aiming to vary how we start sentences to keep the reader engaged and not it being repetitive.

This is especially important if you, like me, write in first person and begin a lot of sentences with things like “I was” or “I am” etc. Or if you have a habit of beginning sentences with characters’ names. But what other options do we have? Here are five general categories that I like to use:

ING WORDS Coughing, she pushed her way through the blaze.  Smiling, he leaned in for a kiss. 

SIMILIES (and other techniques) Like the chattering of a typewriter, their eyes flittered over the group in front.  Sweeping in like a dove, she cut through the awkward conversation.

PREPOSITION (beside, near, with, across, around, out, at, in, etc.)  On the starter’s whistle, I pushed forward.  Under the heavy fog, the streetlamp glowed valiantly 

CONNECTIVE (Because, but, and, despite, after, before, etc.) After he left, I slipped the dagger back into its brace.  But I wasn’t about to give in now.  ED WORDS Distracted, she let the ice cream fall from her hands.  Stunned by his words, they stopped in their tracks. 

.-.-.-.

Obviously you can make these examples much more complex and attuned to your own styles! There are lots of other ways you can vary your sentence openers, these are just what I personally use - so hopefully you can get some use of them! 

.-.-.-.

Hints and Tips!

Use the highlighting treatment! Go through your WIP and focus on your sentence openers. Select a different colour for each category (Blue for She/He/They/I starters, red for ED Words, yellow for ING words, as an example) and use it to help you see where you may need to add some more variation! 

This also is a great exercise to do with a published book you really enjoy or by an author you admire - it’s a great learning experience!

Use a good mix of short, long, and medium sentences! If you find that your writing feels a bit samey or dry, even with varied openers, try changing the structure of the whole sentence itself! 

Experiment and play around with word order and structure - free write for a few minutes every day and try something new! It’s all practice and even if it never sees the light of day in your WIP, it’s still a worthwhile thing to do! 

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide and/or found it useful!

If you’d like to request a particular guide, please pop into my inbox and leave a request!