lunaanything - Tumblr blog

[lunaanything]

白い花の妖精です。

[lunaanything]

黄色い花の妖精です。

[lunaanything]

Card Captor Sakura | Clear Card ~ Final Chapter!

[lunaanything]

3月の萌をイメージして描いた子です。若草色を描きたかったです。

[lunaanything]

What i made instead of writing.....

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[lunaanything]

Daydreaming about my book:

Writing my book:

[lunaanything]

When your characters just start revealing lore you didn't know about them, as you're writing them

[lunaanything]

🟢 You are still a writer even when you haven't written in a while.

🟢 You are still a writer even when you feel like you aren't writing enough.

🟢 You are still a writer when you feel like your work isn't good.

🟢 You are still a writer when other people don't like your work.

🟢 You are still a writer when you aren't published.

🟢 You are still a writer when you only have works in progress.

🟢 You are still a writer if all you write is fanfiction.

[lunaanything]

[lunaanything]

Want quick tips to add instant chemistry to the relationships of your characters??

(🥳With examples🥳)

First of all, I want to say that you can also use most of them for platonic/ non-romantic relationships, so feel free to use this tips however you think they might work better in your story. So, without further adue, let's get to the tips!!!

Make your characters LISTEN to each other. Like, if A tells B they're not a morning person, B could make some coffee for A or lower the volume of their alarm.

This might sound quite obvious, but show that you characters care for each other. It might be as simple as one of them giving the other a glass of water when they feel a little dizzy, but it works wonders!

Make your characters physically close. When you are emotionally close to someone, you tend to be physically close too. But here is the thing. Make your characters react like it's second nature: "how would I not hug B when I haven't seen them in days?" or "Of course I'm gonna take A's hand when I feel insecure".

They don't have to be constantly thinking about each other, but when they do, MAKE IT MATTER!! For example, character A is out shopping, and they see B's favorite cookies. B didn't have a good day, and A knows that. But A also knows B is gonna fucking love the cookies, so they buy some.

Let them believe and trust each other. Also applies if one of them is a little distrustful: let your characters rely on one another, even if at the start they aren't as comfortable doing it. For a distrustful character, letting the other one help with chores might be a HUGE thing.

Other tips for writers: previous | next

[lunaanything]

What No One Tells You About Writing Fantasy

Every author has their preferred genres. I love fantasy and sci-fi, but began with historical fiction. I hated all the research that historical fiction demands and thought, if I build my own world, no research required.

Boy, was I wrong.

So to anyone dipping their toe into fantasy/sci-fi, here’s seven things I wish I knew about the genres before I committed to writing for them.

1. You still have to research. Everything.

If you want any of your fantasy battle sequences, or your space ships, or your droids and robots, or your fictional government and fictional politics to read at all believable.

In sci-fi, you research astronomy, robotics, politics, political science, history, engineering, anthropology. In fantasy, you have to research historical battle tactics, geography, real-world mythology, folklore, and fairytales, and much of it overlaps with science fiction.

I say you *have to* assuming you want your work to be original and unique and stand out from the crowd. Fanfic writers put in the research for a 30k word smut fic, you can and will have to research for your original work.

2. Naming everything gets exhausting

I hate coming up with new names, especially when I write worlds and places divorced from Earthly customs and can’t rely on Earthly naming conventions. You have to name all your characters, all your towns, villages, cities, realms, kingdoms, planets, galaxies, star systems.

You have to name your rebel faction, your imperial government, significant battles. Your spaceships, your fantasy companies and organizations, your magic system, made-up MacGuffins, androids, computer programs. The list goes on and on and on.

And you have to do it all without it sounding and reading ridiculous and unpronounceable, or racist. Your fantasy realms have to have believable naming patterns. It. Gets. Exhausting.

3. It will never read like you’re watching a movie

Do you know how fast movies can cut between scenes? Movies can balance five plotlines at once all converging with rapid edits, without losing their audience. Sometimes single lines of dialogue, or single wordless shots are all a scene gets before it cuts. If you try to replicate that by head-hopping around, you will make a mess.

It’s perfectly fine to write like you’re watching a movie, but you can’t rely on visual tricks to get your point across when all you have is text on a page – like slow mo, lens flares, epically lit cinematic shots, or the aforementioned rapid edits.

It doesn’t have to, nor should it, look like a movie. Books existed long before film, so don’t let yourself get caught up in how ~cinematic~ it may or may not look.

4. Your space opera will be compared to Star Wars and Star Trek

And your fairy epic will be compared to Tinkerbell, your vampires to Twilight, your zombies to The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead, World War Z. Your wizards and witches and any whisper of a fantasy school for fantasy children will be compared to Harry Potter. Your high fantasy adventure will be compared to Lord of the Rings.

You can’t avoid it, but you can avoid doing it to yourself. When people ask about your book, let them say “oh, you mean like Star Wars” to which you then can say, kind of, except XYZ happens in my book. These IPs will never fade from the public consciousness, not while you exist to read this post, at least, but Harry Potter isn’t the only urban fantasy out there. Lord of the Rings isn’t the only high fantasy. Star Wars isn’t the only space opera.

Yours will be on the shelves right next to them, soon enough, and who knows? You might dethrone them.

5. Your world-building is an iceberg, and your book is the tip

I don’t pay for any of those programs that help you organize your book and mythos. I write exclusively on Apple Notes, MS Word, and Google Suite (and all are free to me). I have folders on Apple Notes with more words inside them than the books they’re written for.

If you try to cram an entire college textbook’s worth of content into your novel, you will have left zero room for actual story. The same goes for all the research you did, all the hours slaving away for just a few details and strings of dialogue.

There’s a balance, no matter how dense your story is. If you really want to include all those extra details, slap some appendices at the end. Commission some maps.

6. The gatekeeping for fantasy and sci-fi is still very real

Pen names and pseudonyms exist for a reason. A female author writing fantasy that isn’t just a backdrop for romance? You have a harder battle ahead of you than your male counterparts, at least in the US. And even then, your female protagonist will be scrutinized and torn apart.

She’ll either be too girly or not girly enough, too sexy, or not sexy enough. She’ll be called a Mary Sue, a radical feminist mouthpiece, some woke propaganda. Every action she takes will be criticized as unrealistic and if she has fans who are girls, they will be mocked, too.

If you have queer characters, characters of color, they won’t be good enough, they won’t please everyone, and someone will still call you a bigot. A lot of someones will still call you a bigot.

Do your due diligence and hire your army of sensitivity readers and listen to them, but you cannot please everyone, so might as well write to please yourself. You’re the one who will have to read it a thousand times until it’s published.

7. Your “original” idea has been done before, and that’s okay

Stories have been told since before language evolved. The sum of the parts of your novel may be original, but even then, it’s colored by the media you’ve consumed. And that’s okay!

How many Cinderella stories are there? How many high fantasies? How many books about werewolves and witches and vampires? Gods and goddesses and celestial beings? Fairies and dragons and trolls? Aliens, robots, alien robots? Romeo and Juliette? Superheroes and mutants?

Zombies may be the avenue through which you tell your story, but it’s not *just* about zombies, is it? It’s about the characters who battle them, the endurance of the human spirit, or the end of an era, the death of a nation. So don’t get discouraged, everyone before you and everyone after will have written someone on the backs of what came before and it still feels new.

[lunaanything]

When I read back my writing and notice all the great world building and sick character development

I love writing!

[lunaanything]

The Feral Writer lol

Writers Corner

[lunaanything]

how to go from daydream to draft:

begin by daydreaming as you normally do, or just after you've finished doing so. write down every thought you have. one after another. do not reread. do not stop for spelling mistakes. just dump out every thought. this is called stream of consciousness writing. you can do this for every scene you need a first draft for.

struggling to draft the scene? try to daydream about it. start thinking about how it would look, feel, what the characters would say, act it out in your head and then write out the stream of your thoughts as they arrive.

by now you have a few scene dumps. you may be tempted to go back and edit. do not do this expect for obvious spelling mistakes. do not read closely and start thinking "i need to rework this sentence." that is for later. now you're in the zone. draft more scenes. or work out what the next scene needs to be, scaffold it with a few comments. this will be the inspiration for your next deliberate thought stream that you will write out. repeat this process until you have the whole draft.

now that you have a draft or part of a draft you get to do this very fun thing called revise until you're happy. sweep through your draft with specific goals each time. one sweep to fix spelling/grammar. another for character voice. another for plot. repeat until you're happy with it.

leave it alone. just leave it for a bit. at least a few hours or days or even weeks. forget it exists. this will allow you come back with fresh eyes. then you can do your revisions with an eagle eye. now you may realize you need to add/remove scenes. you know how to get the first version down. close your eyes and daydream at your desk if that's what takes!

remember that fiction writing is persuasive writing. you are trying to persuade the reader to care about what happens next, the character's, the world, the feelings. as you're revising, consider whether you are persuaded. is the feeling/thoughts you wanted to provoke being felt by you when you read it? when working with beta readers, be sure to communicate what you're trying to convey so they can tell you if you've been successful or not.

this got a bit beyond getting the first draft done. hope you found it helpful.

bonus tip: check the spellings of names and places and other nouns that are not typically used, like the name of a magic tool!

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