readwritejayy

[readwritejayy]

"why do you write?" because it’s the only way to silence the characters pacing around my brain like victorian ghosts with unresolved issues that prevent them from moving on.

[readwritejayy]

Reblog to give prev the power to write their fanfiction

[readwritejayy]

you don’t have to write something good. you just have to write something unhinged enough to edit later

[readwritejayy]

I have no outline tho, just vibes

[readwritejayy]

For Anon, I stopped writing for over a year as a teen due to unsolicited criticism ("But it was Concrit!" It was unwanted.) on a fic. It drained me of all urge to write, and like. I'm sorry anon I'm rolling my eyes at hugboxing really hard because fandom is a community. Fandom is for sharing ideas. Not to mention, like 90% of the time the critics don't know what they're talking about because guess what. They're all hobbyest editors. As Deus's beta reader my job is to give the solicited feedback and I'm still have to keep a lot in mind as I do it. To build off of what Deus said. If I come to a friendly potluck, you try my dish and you start acting like a restaurant critic, I will *stop going to the potluck you're at*. Possibly any potluck ever again. Hugboxing. God. If you don't like, don't read. There's something to be said about how in fandom spaces people are expected to have their writing held to standards but no one is questioned on being able to criticize writing.

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[readwritejayy]

hey if you're the type of writer that's like me where you tend to write specific scenes first that vaguely weave together into a plot, you might like using obsidian as a writing app.

my frustration with other writing applications is that i will write my scenes out of order and it's hard to move things around and rearrange them on a regular document.

but with obsidian there's this canvas feature where you can just write all your scenes and plot moments on these little cards that you can freely rearrange. you can color code them and connect them too.

here's the canvas i've created for my current multi-chapter fic: (if you zoom in you can see all the text in each card this what it looks like zoomed out)

as you can see, i color code them based off chapters and will group them next to a document card with the working title of the chapter. anything not color-coded are scenes that don't have a proper place quite yet or it's just world building references. this app can also be good for note-taking and collecting research!

best of all, it's FREE!!! the only downside is that if you want your stuff to sync across devices, you do have to pay for that. i constantly hop between my laptop and desktop so i pay for the syncing. but if you write on only one device it's completely free!

i typically use it for organizing my thoughts for a first draft. once i get all the scenes arranged and mostly written out, i will copy and paste them into ellipsus (also free & highly recommended as a google doc alternative) so that they're all in one document that i can edit.

[readwritejayy]

please please please please reblog if you’re a writer and have at some point felt like your writing is getting worse. I need to know if I’m the only one who’s struggling with these thoughts

[readwritejayy]

writing tip #3839:

sometimes your characters develop a mind of their own, as though they're writing their own story, rather than being a part of yours. that's NOT okay. you really gotta clamp down on that. put them BACK IN LINE

[readwritejayy]

beginning to suspect that if I ever want to have a published novel I will have to actually write a novel, which is frankly ghoulish

[readwritejayy]

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

[readwritejayy]

your dark fantasy novel doesn't need a logic-based magic system it needs a bear with a human face

[readwritejayy]

sorry I can't make it, my mutual is spam texting me about their oc. yeah actually not sorry, this is very important to me.

[readwritejayy]

me: *writes fic*

me: great! time to post to ao3-

ao3 summary box: *exists*

me: 

ao3 summary box:

me:

ao3 summary box: 

me:

[readwritejayy]

What they don't tell you about writing is that as you write, you discover scenes and entire plots that you hadn't accounted for that need to be written. So you can spend two hours writing and editing only to realise you're further away from the finish line than you thought you were when you started

[readwritejayy]

Hone your writing style. One of the few writing exercises I use to hone my writing style is to copy an author's writing style. It is very simple. You find an author you like, for me it was Cormac McCarthy, try and remember a scene or moment in a book of theirs, remember it the best you can, and then write it down without looking back, or reading, the scene.

When reading the original author's scene, you will notice a difference between yours and theirs. Now you analyze. What are the big differences? What differs in descriptions? Do you not describe things more, but they do? What about word usage? How is the tone different? What do they do differently that you want start doing? What is something you do that makes the scene better?

When you do this exercise, it shows you what you might want to improve on. Better descriptions, natural sounding dialogue, a tone you want, etc. But instead of improvement, you might notice things about your style that you actually enjoy. I found that my tone of writing is very atmospheric and poetic, while McCarthy's is gritty and real. And as much as I like McCarthy's writing tone, I enjoy mine more. In trying to get that gritty and real tone, I found that I enjoy reading it but not writing it.

It is a very fun exercise to do, for improvement or not. It also helps to recognize writing styles and tone better. Give it a try! Which author would you use in this exercise?

[readwritejayy]

em dash is so fucking sexy. puts her in a paragraph 8 times.

[readwritejayy]

i hate when ppl act like the only reason to not like a "sad" ending is because you can't take it or whatever. personally as a tragedy enjoyer, i hate a poorly written ending. i hate an ending that is just kind of a bummer. i hate an ending that feels mean-spirited to the audience. i hate an ending that's redundant. i love a sad ending that is thematically consistent, poignant, and bespoke to the rest of its narrative.