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[simawrites]

Hello! Would you mind doing an example of not using filter words in a first person point of view? While I know that you can just switch out the pronouns for I/me/my, I just want to see it in action and when you should (and shouldn't) use the filter words. Thank you!

Hi there! I would love to! I think I’ll start out with an example with filter words and then cut out the filter words to show you the difference.

For those of you who haven’t seen my post on Filter Words.

Now, for the example:

I felt a hand tap my shoulder as I realized I had made a huge mistake. I knew the consequences would be unsettling, but I had no other choice. I saw the light of my desk lamp bounce off of the officer’s badge before I had even turned around. It seemed like I always found my way into trouble.

It was the first thing off the top of my head, so it’s a bit rough sounding….

Now for without filter words (And a bit of revision):

A hand tapped my shoulder as it dawned on me: I had just made a huge mistake. The consequences would be unsettling if I didn’t get out of this mess, but I had no other choice. The light of my desk lamp bounced off of the officer’s badge. I always found my way into trouble.

By taking out filter words, you get right to the point.

I’d also like to add a few more notes that I didn’t have the chance to post previously.

Some Examples of Filtering:

I heard a noise in the hallway.

She felt embarrassed when she tripped.

I saw a light bouncing through the trees.

I tasted the sour tang of raspberries bursting on my tongue.

He smelled his teammate’s BO wafting through the locker room.

She remembered dancing at his wedding.

I think people should be kinder to one another.

How can you apply this?

Read your work to see how many of these filtering words you might be leaning on. Microsoft Word has a great Find and Highlight feature that I love to use when I’m editing. See how you can get rid of these filtering words and take your sentences to the next level by making stronger word choices. Take the above examples, and see how they can be reworked.

FILTERING EXAMPLE: I heard a noise in the hallway.

DESCRIBE THE SOUND: Heels tapped a staccato rhythm in the hallway.

FILTERING EXAMPLE: She felt embarrassed after she tripped.

DESCRIBE WHAT THE FEELING LOOKS LIKE: Her cheeks flushed and her shoulders hunched after she tripped.

FILTERING EXAMPLE: I saw a light bouncing through the trees.

DESCRIBE THE SIGHT: A light bounced through the trees.

FILTERING EXAMPLE: I tasted the sour tang of raspberries bursting on my tongue.

DESCRIBE THE TASTE: The sour tang of raspberries burst on my tongue.

FILTERING EXAMPLE: He smelled his teammate’s BO wafting through the locker room.

DESCRIBE THE SMELL: His teammate’s BO wafted through the locker room.

FILTERING EXAMPLE: She remembered dancing at his wedding.

DESCRIBE THE MEMORY: She had danced at his wedding.

FILTERING EXAMPLE: I think people should be kinder to one another.

DESCRIBE THE THOUGHT: People should be kinder to one another.

See what a difference it makes when you get rid of the filter? It’s simply not necessary to use them. By ditching them, you avoid “telling,” your voice is more active, and your pacing is helped along.

The above list is not comprehensive as there are many examples of filtering words. The idea is to be aware of the concept so that you can recognize instances of it happening in your work. Be aware of where you want to place the energy and power in your sentences. Let your observations flow through your characters with immediacy.

Ok, sorry for the lengthy answer, I know you just wanted an example…. sorry!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask at my ask box

[simawrites]

How do you plan a novel?

You’re hit with a spark of inspiration. It’s a good one, too, something you can really work with, something with a lot of potential. How do you proceed?

Everyone has different views on the pre-writing process. For some, there is no pre-writing process. You get that spark, you sit down at your keyboard, and you start writing it out. The first draft will be messy, but it serves a purpose: it is the framework for draft two. It gets out a plot structure, the characters to move the plot forward, and any worldbuilding necessary to explain it. There are benefits to this, namely that your initial inspiration can get you through some actual writing instead of filling up a Word document or a composition notebook. But some writers prefer a framework with a bit more… structure.

Planning a novel, too, has a great range of dedication and necessity. Some writers need the fundamentals. A list of character names, a city for the story to be set (in the case of SFF, a bit of basic worldbuilding to establish a setting), and a beginning, a middle, and an end. Some writers need everything before they’ve even gotten out their “Once upon a time…”, some even writing entire novels worth of story notes (see: J.R.R. Tolkien). Some writers need a bit of both. SFF writers often do a great deal of worldbuilding, but many don’t address the plot or the characters until they sit down to write.

So, how do you plan a novel? In the end, to each their own. But here are a few tips to keeping everything cohesive, organized, and to getting out of the planning stage.

Plot, setting, theme, and characters can build upon each other. The greatest inspiration for your story often comes from what you already have written down. Give your characters relationships with one another and build upon how they’ve shaped one another. If you want a darker atmosphere, pick a setting with an physically darker atmosphere. Instead of Starbucks with ten foot high windows and well-lit display cases full of pie, pick a rundown, musty old book store/cafe with just enough light to read, in a city with a lot of rain. In fantasy, one worldbuilding idea often leads to another. If you decide to have dragons, what do they do in the world? Are they sapient, and if so, what was their relationship with humans in the past? If they are plentiful and as dumb as a cow, are they used for meat? As mounts? Are dragonscale boots the fashion of the elite or the equivalent of a pair of cheap sneakers? Build upon what you have to add a cohesiveness to your story, and to keep you from requiring inspiration that may not be out there.

Organize your notes in a way that allows you to re-organize your notes. I love a good composition notebook as much as the next girl, but it does have one problem. There is a permanency to it. I can’t erase things. I can’t re-order things. If I add a new character, his profile will just be stuck somewhere in the middle of my worldbuilding notes. If I rename him, I have to just scratch it out and add his new name next to it. This can make finding things difficult and lead to a lot of almost unreadable notes in the margin. If you take your notes on the computer, this is a non-issue, but for those of you who prefer to handwrite your notes, consider investing in a cheap three-ring binder.

Write a bibliography. Part of planning a novel is researching a novel. I’m not saying you should refresh on Chicago style citations, but any time you jot down a note or spark of inspiration, write down where it came from. If it is from a website, create a folder in your favourites menu for your story. If it is from a book, place a marker of some sort on the page - if it’s borrowed, scan the pages into your computer, or use a library copying machine to take the pages with you (and put them in that binder we mentioned earlier). Being able to reference your original sources will help you when the time comes to expand on an idea. Often, I’ll come across some doodle with a keyword next to it in my notes and have to do my research all over again just to figure out what it means.

If you start to lose interest in the project, stop planning and start writing. The death of many novels comes before they’ve written a single word. The author realizes they’ve got a plot hole, or they find their characters lack that spark they had when they started planning. They feel bogged down in research and just stop caring. If you feel that creeping sensation come over you, stop. Stop planning and put it aside. Go work on something else. Perhaps another story, perhaps a different hobby (cooking, playing an instrument, drawing a picture, whatever makes you happy). Do something productive, take some time, and then look at your notes again. Find something in it that you love. Something that made you spend days, weeks, maybe months writing notes and doing research. Find it, cling to it, and just write. Get those ideas on paper and smooth it out after. Because no matter how many years you spend planning out every line of dialogue and every shade of grey the clouds will be on that dark and stormy night, things change when you put your fingers to the keyboard.

I will leave you with another short Writing Bug list of resources,

storyfix: story structure series, a great series of articles discussing the structure of the standard storyline; deconstructing it and revealing its essence.

tiddlywiki, a ‘web notebook’ that allows you to create a wikipedia-style resource. many writers use this to quickly navigate between their different ideas. the wiki you create can be stored on Dropbox or saved to a thumbdrive.

family echo, a family tree-building website that provides a visual aid for any writer with a lot of genealogy and sibling rivalries to deal with in their story.

twenty-five ways to plot and plan your novel, a basic overview of every way you could plan a novel, from mind mapping to story bibles. if you don’t know how you want to visualize your story, look through these ideas and try to work with them.

[simawrites]

One of my favorite phrases my Creative Writing professor had for when you’re writing fantasy is ‘giving your story a Flux Capacitor’.

Because it’s not real, it doesn’t exist. But the way it’s thrown into Back to the Future, at no point does it throw the audience off or suspend any more disbelief than time travel would. You believe Doc when he says he created the Flux Capacitor - the thing that makes time travel possible, because the universe never questions him. 

So it essentially means like, there are going to be elements to your universe that are just not gonna make any sense, even if you set up a whole system based on it. And the only way to make it work is completely own it. You cannot second-guess your system or else the reader will too. You can give it the strangest explanation, but write it like you own it.  

[simawrites]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Haikyuu!! Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou Characters: Akaashi Keiji, Bokuto Koutarou, Kuroo Tetsurou, Tsukishima Kei, Haiba Lev, Yaku Morisuke, Akaashi Keiji’s Parents Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - High School, But also, Alternate Universe - College/University, ace Akaashi, Anxiety, Slow Build, Angst, Drama, probably some family drama too, Illnesses, Friends to Lovers, Photography, Piano, all that jazz, Bokuto is totally living out of his van, Underage Drinking, just a nice (hopefully) summer love story, side kurotsuki, side yakulev - Freeform

Summary: One would say Akaashi’s is a lonely existence. He doesn’t deny it. He’s not bothered by it. In a couple weeks, he’ll graduate so it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t made more than a few acquaintances these past four years. It’ll be over soon anyway. Then he’ll be off to university to do it all over again.

That’s the plan.

But an ugly Volkswagen has a way of changing plans. The driver even more so.

[simawrites]

Chapters: 16/16 Fandom: Haikyuu!!, The Last of Us Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou Characters: Akaashi Keiji, Bokuto Koutarou, Kuroo Tetsurou, Shimizu Kiyoko, Iwaizumi Hajime, Konoha Akinori, Kozume Kenma, Oikawa Tooru, Sawamura Daichi, Sugawara Koushi, basically everyone Additional Tags: The Last of Us AU, Alternate Universe, Zombie Apocalypse, Explicit Language, quite a bit of gore, Angst, Slow Build, Zombies, Minor Character Deaths, Past Abuse, Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Panic Attacks, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou, Minor Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Alternate Universe - The Last of Us

Summary: Five years ago, Akaashi would have given anything to be a doctor, saving everyone, one disease at a time. But five years ago changed everything. The infection spread and, eventually, Tokyo fell. Akaahi was there. Now, he can't even look to the future like he once could. It's a scavenger's life for him in the quarantined complexes until a cure for the deadly virus falls into his lap. It's more of a person than a cure, he's immune. Akaashi's not sure if he's ready to try save anyone else, let alone the world. He's not sure if he has a choice.

[simawrites]

Hey all, so I’ve started a new side blog for my writing. You can find my original blog at silentmarco and my ao3 works at SilentNorth. I’ll be reposting my works here as well as any future works. I’m also open to any questions you guys happen to have regarding writing, the writing process, and anything about what and how I write.

I look forward to keeping up with this blog :)