#writeblr post

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

✨writing rant because i’m UNWELL and someone said enemies to lovers is “overdone”✨

okay listen.

i don’t care how “overdone” the trope is. let her fall in love with the enemy prince. let him smile like a knife and lie like a prayer. let her fall anyway. and then let her stab him with a hairpin. a hairpin!! we deserve this.

this isn't about originality. this is about execution and emotional violence and aesthetically pleasing betrayal.

tropes aren’t dead. they’re haunting us in new outfits.

every trope is a reusable little narrative skeleton and you get to dress it in whatever cursed, beautiful, petty, yearning flesh your heart desires. you can take enemies to lovers and make it toxic, or tender, or tragic. you can give them shared trauma. you can make them childhood friends turned enemies turned lovers turned enemies again. you can make the stabbing literal or metaphorical. you can make it an almost-stabbing, where she presses the blade to his throat and doesn’t do it. you can make her do it and then sob in his arms while he bleeds out whispering her name like a prayer he never meant to say out loud.

you can make it GAY.

that’s the power of tropes. they’re not restrictive. they’re launchpads. they give readers expectations so you can BREAK them. or better--fulfill them in devastating, soul-twisting ways.

also. like. if you think a trope is “overdone” maybe it’s not the trope that’s the problem. maybe it’s just being written without any real teeth. no emotional bite. no stakes. no tension. no pain. and that’s not the trope’s fault. that’s just boring writing.

give me the obsessive yearning. give me the knife-to-throat confessions. give me the battlefield truce that turns into a five-second pause before they go right back to trying to kill each other. give me quiet moments in enemy territory where they realize they’re not so different. give me the one bed. give me the i hate you but i’d burn down a kingdom for you and hate myself for it.

let the prince kneel at her feet, kiss her knuckles like he’d never crush them, and then go home and report to his war council like nothing happened. let her wear the hairpin he gave her while plotting his assassination. let them both suffer about it. let them choose each other anyway. or don’t. let them fail. let them fall apart in the final act and still reach for each other across the ashes.

i literally do not care how many times we’ve seen it. i want it again. i want it done well. i want it done with spite and softness and aching inevitability. i want to feel like the betrayal was worth it. i want to scream into my hands and text my writer friends like “why would you do this to me” while secretly living for it.

write your trope. write it the way it’s been done before or write it sideways and backwards and messy. just write it with emotion. and a little hairpin. and blood under their fingernails.

okay bye

Rin T.

[moonandris]

CALLING ALL HIGH FANTASY WRITERS, I WOULD LIKE YOUR OPINION PLEASE! In your story, do you have elves, faeries, both, or neither?

I've been really struggling with going back and forth between having fae in my story verses having just elves, verses having fae and elves, etc. and I'm sooooo unsure what I should do! I love the idea of the fae and the 'feel' they have, which is more mystical and magical than how elves come across. I also really love the Seelie and Unseelie dichotomy and that really only applies to fae. Having Seelie and Unseelie elves doesn't really work to me...

On the other hand, I also reaaaallly love elves and they have a lot in common with fae. Elves come across as more mortal than fae do and their 'feel' is somewhat less magic and mysterious than fae but that's also a charming aspect.

I know that I can literally make fae and elves however I want them to be in my world but I'm really curious how other high fantasy writers are utilizing these fictional races and what they're doing with them.

[izzythedemigod]

I just found the funniest font ever

Like. What is this. Why is this. Who is the target audience of this?

[waywardsou2]

Some idiot: "Why are you reading your own fic, that's shallow and stupid"

All fanfic writers and writers everywhere: "Who the fuck do you think I wrote it for?!"

[honestlydarkprincess]

i know what this situation needs…explicit fanfiction

[snakebites-and-ink]

I've already said that my number one piece of writing advice is to read.

But my number two piece of advice is this: be deliberate.

Honestly this would fix so many pieces of bad writing advice. Don't forbid people from doing something, tell them to be conscious and deliberate about it. This could help stop people from falling into common mistakes without limiting their creativity. Black and white imperatives may stop a few annoying beginner habits, but ultimately they will restrict artistic expression.

Instead of "don't use epithets": "Know the effect epithets have and be deliberate about using them." Because yes, beginners often misuse them, but they can be useful when a character's name isn't known or when you want to reduce them to a particular trait they have.

Instead of "don't use 'said'" or "just use 'said'": "Be deliberate about your use of dialogue tags." Because sometimes you'll want "said" which fades into the background nicely, but sometimes you will need a more descriptive alternative to convey what a character is doing.

Instead of "don't use passive voice": "Be deliberate about when you use passive voice." Because using it when it's not needed can detract from your writing, but sometimes it can be useful to change the emphasis of a sentence or to portray a particular state of mind.

Instead of blindly following or ignorantly neglecting the rules of writing, familiarize yourself with them and their consequences so you can choose when and if breaking them would serve what you're trying to get across.

Your writing is yours. Take control of it.

It probably sounds like I'm preaching to the choir here because most of my mutuals are already great writers. But I'm hoping this will make it to the right people.

[smallestflowtree]

PSA for fanfic writers

[so-many-ocs]

revising your writing is just like "is this weird. is this a weird sentence. is this the weirdest most poorly-worded sentence ever written by anyone" and the sentence in question is "he walked across the room"

[isabellebissonrouthier]

reblog with a spoiler for your wip with zero context. no context allowed.

[lou-wilham]

So writers joke a lot about "drinking the tears of our readers", but I want to be so honest with you when I tell you that making you cry isn't our real goal. Making you feel is.

Kicking your feet? Giggling? Can't stop smiling? And yes, crying? Feeling anything, everything. That's our goal. That means we did The Job.

[quinnjgraham]

I know this is the website where we talk about artists and writers doing anything other than making art or writing, but man, we REALLY undersell how good it feels to actually work on your stuff.

Like you hit your word count for the first time in a week and its like

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

🔪 3 Plot Twists That Slap (and 1 that should be arrested) 🔪

hello and welcome back to me yelling on main about storytelling crimes. today we are talking about plot twists. specifically: the good, the god-tier, and the why-would-you-do-this-i-trusted-you tier.

let’s go.

✨ The Twist That Reframes Everything ✨ a.k.a. the “wait. WAIT.” twist. This is when you drop a twist that doesn’t just add drama - it recontextualizes the entire story. It makes the reader go back and reread earlier scenes like “was this character ALWAYS sketchy or am I just stupid??” It retroactively changes the emotional weight of everything that’s happened. Suddenly that offhanded comment in chapter three hits like a brick. The romance subplot becomes 500% more tragic. The villain’s motive makes SENSE now. Delicious.

✅ Best used when: the breadcrumbs are subtle but real. The twist shouldn’t come out of nowhere - it should feel inevitable in hindsight. Like Sixth Sense, Knives Out, that one betrayal in your favorite anime you still haven’t recovered from.

2.🧨 The Emotional Betrayal It’s giving: “i would’ve died for you” energy. This is the kind of twist that hurts. You thought they were loyal. You thought they cared. They did care - and still did it anyway. Or they never cared, and now you’re spiraling. This twist slaps because it’s not just about plot, it’s about trust. It stabs the characters AND the reader in the same motion. Bonus points if it’s a slow burn betrayal. Bonus bonus points if the betrayer feels genuinely torn up about it.

✅ Best used when: the reader is emotionally attached. Don’t waste this one on a side character we barely know. Save it for the love interest. The best friend. The mentor figure with dad energy. Make it personal. Make it RUIN lives.

3. 🧊 The “They Were Dead the Whole Time” but Make It Interesting Listen. This one’s risky. It’s a classic for a reason but also easy to flop. But when done well? Haunting. Creepy. Unhinged in a gorgeous way. It doesn’t have to be death either - maybe the character’s been possessed. Or they’re not real. Or the narrator’s memory is lying. The KEY is to not lean too hard on the shock. Lean on the vibes. Give it eeriness. Make it a slow unraveling. Give us dread. Give us melancholy. Give us psychological decay with a side of unreliable narrator.

✅ Best used when: you’re writing something surreal, gothic, speculative, or emotionally weird. This twist isn’t about plot logic, it’s about atmosphere and emotional rot.

🚨 The Twist That Should Be Arrested: “It Was All a Dream” 🚨 I’m sorry but. no. if I read 80k words of someone’s descent into madness just to find out it was their stress dream and now they’re normal again?? I will throw the entire book into a lake. This twist erases tension instead of escalating it. It invalidates everything the reader emotionally invested in. It’s the narrative equivalent of gaslighting. don’t do it. UNLESS - and this is a big unless - you’re doing it with INTENT. Meta intent. Dream-within-a-dream psychological horror intent. If you’re gonna do it, it better haunt me. It better RUIN me. Otherwise? Into the lake.

okay that’s all. go forth and commit plot crimes responsibly. bonus points if you use all three Good Twists in the same story and then look me in the eye like “oh was that too much?”

it wasn’t.

tag me when you emotionally destroy someone with it.

🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:

[mybraiindump]

the true cycle of life

[nondelphic]

writers who make playlists before writing anything scare me. how are you setting a mood for something that doesn’t exist yet. are you conjuring it. are you a witch.

[honestlydarkprincess]

in a polyamorous relationship with the oxford comma and the em dash