barricadethesky

[barricadethesky]

[barricadethesky]

i wanna plan a completely new wip for july’s camp nano and instead of the many other wips that are either vaguely planned or i’ve started to write so let me put on this new clown outfit pls 

[barricadethesky]

Drafting

The Draft Notebook 

Be More Productive with Ambient Noise 

How to Steal: Know Your Tropes 

How to Steal: Good Writers Borrow

Write What You Know (Not What You’ve Experienced)

The Best Way to End a Writing Session

How To Finish a Draft

A Few Tips on Chapters

Language, Description, & Dialog 

“To Be” Or Not “To Be”: What Exactly Is Passive Voice?

Tagging Dialog 

Narrative Voice

Writing Better Descriptions

Basic Rules for Metaphors and Similes

Character, Plot, & Setting 

Creating Characters: a 4-Step Process 

Writing Relationships Your Reader Can Get Behind

Informative Character Names

The Strength of a Symmetrical Plot 

How to Foreshadow

Crafting Homes of Paper, Ink, and Neutral PH Glue

Motivation

On Writing Flawed Books

How to Return to Your Manuscript

The Acknowledgements Page

Staring at Blank Pages

What to Do When You Can’t Write

Motivational Writing Posters

Publishing

Writing the Perfect Query Letter

How to Write a Synopsis 

How to Pitch Your Novel in Under a Minute

A Glossary of Publishing Terms: Vol 1

Writing Tools

Why You Should Give Scrivener a Try

Outlining, Brainstorming, and Researching with Scrivener

Drafting with Scrivener

Editing with Scrivener 

CTRL+F

The Forest Productivity App

Editsaurus 

NaNoWriMo

Why Try NaNoWriMo

October Prep 

Why Listen to Writing Podcasts

Pick a New Daily Word Count Goal 

How to Write 2000 Words a Day

How to Plan a Novel without a Story

Pacemaker: Custom Daily Word Count Website

NaNoWriMo Master Post

Other

How to Read an Absurd Number of Books

Writing Workshops: An Introduction

Writing Groups

Different Types of Fantasy Novels

Ambient Soundscapes Based on Famous Writers

Ko-Fi & Other Support

If you enjoy my posts and can afford it, I would greatly appreciate it if you donated to my new ko-fi page! Each of these posts represents multiple hours of unpaid labor. I love writing for this blog, but I’m also an underpaid 20-something trying to stay afloat. I’ve made this master post of every essay I’ve written for this blog as a way to show my appreciation in advance of any support. If you donate, to further show my gratitude and appreciation, I’ll take requests for essay topics in the ‘messages of support.’ 

If you can’t afford to donate via ko-fi, another great way to show your support is simply by reblogging posts that you find useful and helping my blog reach new writers. 

Thanks so much! 

[barricadethesky]

Ways to find a plot when you have characters and a setting

… but only characters and a setting. 

You have a world. A universe. A setting. Good! Describe what happens in it normally - describe your main character(s)’s daily life. Now, what would destabilize this routine completely? If many things could, write them all down. Pick your favourite idea(s). Plots are born from change: everything was going normally… until it wasn’t.

Make a list with all the goals/motivations of your main characters. Can the plot revolve around your characters going after these goals? 

Which goals are more important? Focus on those. 

Are different characters’ goals in conflict with each other? Conflict is usually what propels a story forward. 

What could go wrong in your character’s pursuit of their goal? Make it go wrong.

If you don’t know your characters’ goals, go back to the drawing board; they probably need more development.

If there’s not enough conflict of different motivations, make a new character who creates conflict!

How do you want your main character to have changed by the end of the story? Do you want them to be less selfish? To have come to terms with a part of themself? To have learned something new? Write down ideas that could accomplish this change. 

If you can’t think of any way your character could be changed (read: improved) by the end of the story, go back to the drawing board. They might be “too perfect”.

Notes: 

The change that triggers your plot can be anything. It doesn’t have to be the start of an epic war that will bring forth the apocalypse, it can be your character meeting a new person who shakes things up in their life, or anything you want!

Motivations can be anything. It doesn’t have to be something grand - if your character’s motivation is to just live a quiet life, you can still come up with a plot that will get in the way of that goal! 

Character development can be anything, as well - you don’t need a cliché moral to the story; your character doesn’t even need to change in a good way, if that’s not what you want for your story!

This is what I’ve found works for me, but if you try it and it doesn’t, or if it sounds way too sententious and strict for you - that’s okay! Take it with a grain of salt! Maybe you think your characters are just fine and don’t need more developing even in the situations in which I recommended you “go back to the drawing board”, or maybe you have better ways of coming up with a plot. That’s fine, the writing process can be very personal!

[barricadethesky]

Me, plotting my WIP and getting excited about a scene from book two but realising I still have to write book one:

[barricadethesky]

*technically another technically reintroduction. i accidently posted the other one when it was not ready because even though i’ve been on this website for godknows how long i still fuck up*

So i’m Jess, i’m 23, a libra, and from n.i.  no real set genre or tropes that i like reading or writing. i dabble in a lot tbh. i need accountability from other people so that’s why i’m back again. and i just like talking about what i’m working on within limits obvs. 

these are the wips that i’m sort of dabbling the most in atm. also subject to change because i’m reckless and impulsive and frankly just like making my life more difficult. also sometimes i’ll just post random vague ideas that i have and then never go anything with them (i’m looking at you summer hill)

[Duology] [Writing] [Spy/Thriller/Action] [Worldwide, mainly European Countries] [MC: Andy]

World peace is precariously balanced on a knife’s edge. One wrong move could have disastrous consequences. An untold number of deaths would closely follow. Those who know about the delicate world state notice a highly distressing trend: a series of deaths and kidnappings of important people and those closest around them.

The group, The Collective, are carrying out these missions and they were highly trained and unrecognisable. These missions wouldn’t be linked together if it wasn’t for their signature, a black business card left in the bloodbath.  

A team is quickly put together with one goal; find and eliminate The Collective, no matter the cost. By whatever means necessary. The only problem. The one chosen to lead. They were no better than them. A burnt spy, an ex-assassin and an ex member of The Collective, they alone were said to be responsible for a high number of violent killings.  

But in order to keep the delicate peace, sometimes pardoning the enemy of thy enemy is a necessary evil…

                             Bloodshed, chaos and death await.

[Series] [Writing, slowly] [New Adult, Romance] [Sunrise Cove] [MC: Victoria]

When Victoria Walker was given the opportunity to help the up and coming legal aid centre that her law firm financially backed. She jumps at the chance as this opportunity shouldn’t happen to her, especially not after having a stress educed breakdown in front of one of the firm’s highest paying clients.

Most would have seen this as a punishment, watching over and help mentor a bunch of arrogant and rude recent law school grads who think they knew everything about law. But not Victoria, she saw it as anything but a punishment. She wanted to give back to the small town that helped raise her.

The Walkers sisters were only meant to move to this quiet seaside town for nine months – a year at most. But everything changes when Victoria meets Casey Markov, the closed off but kind hearted man who managed one of the local restaurants.

[Duology] [Outlining] [Supernatural/War] [London, England] [MC: Ripley]

Ripley Balfour was a survivor through and through. The night her family was murdered, she survived that. Ripley didn’t want the life she’d been forced to live.

She was one of the few witches who managed to live on the fringes of society. She managed to survive because avoided the rest of the supernatural community. 

The constant whispers of a brewing supernatural revolt started to look like a possibility. They were looking for a leader and that was Ripley, all she had to do was survive once more.

Also there’s a good number more vaguely inspired by n.i. and n.i. politics even though i said a few years ago that i hate things that are based in n.i. or based on n.i. having these issues. and then there’s like my main project that i don’t post about here just because 

[barricadethesky]

*Technically a reintroduction*

So I’m Jess, 23, libra and an occasional writer who has too many wips and doesn’t work on them at all. so i’m here for some accountability 

I have no specific genre that i like writing or reading. i like writing most things and have a wip in the genre probably. i’m not even too sure what i’ll be using this account for tbh. i just need accountability tbh. i’ve had writeblrs before and normally abandon them but this time i’m gonna stick with it more than a week, i swear. i have a lot of ideas and i swear that maybe i’ll stick with one long enough to get something for them done.