#writing inspiration

[writing-prompt-s]

"It's time once again for everyone's favorite species that can't ingest raw nutrients to survive! It has to be just right, from temperature to texture, in a process that gives galactic biochemists a headache. Please welcome today's contestants in: COOKING. FOR. HUMANS!"

[creativepromptsforwriting]

Reactions to... getting betrayed

"So that's how it is."

"No. This can't be right!"

"Why am I not surprised?"

"I thought we were friends!"

"Are you for real?"

"No! No, please, not you."

"You would never do this to me. Right?"

"Oh, I was so naive to believe you."

"You promised to be by my side!"

"No, I refuse to believe that you would do that to me."

"Tell me why! I hope you have a good reason."

"Why? Why did you have to do this?"

"How can you look me in the eyes and betray me?"

"What have I ever done to you to deserve this?"

"I don't know if I want to cry or strangle you."

"It was all just a sick game to you!"

"Why did it have to be you?"

"How dare you betray my trust like that!"

"You have hurt me like no one has ever hurt me before."

"I never thought it could be you."

"How could I ever believe another word you say?"

"You taught me a valuable lesson today. Trust no one."

More: Betrayal Dialogue Prompts + How to write betrayal

If you like my blog and want to support me, you can buy me a coffee or become a member! And check out my Instagram! 🥰

[theplottery]

Sad plot ideas besides killing characters

Here are 14 sad plot ideas that don’t require character deaths

1. Having to give up an item of huge emotional importance 2. A leader being abandoned by their own people

3. Redemption arc that comes just a little too late 4. Making a mistake that’s too big to be forgiven for

5. Unrequited love with a childhood best friend 6. Betrayal by a sibling, parent or child

7. Realizing who they truly love when it’s too late 8. Not being believed by those closest to them when it really matters

9. A character who’s completely at peace with their tragic destiny 10. Relapsing on an addiction after doing so well

11. Making an honest mistake that leads to horrible consequences and endangers people they love 12. Trying so hard time and time again, and still not achieving any results

13. Having to watch a friend or family get tortured without being able to stop it 14. Realizing someone they love is in danger, but they’re the ones who sent them into it

Want fully customizable templates for your writing? Character sheets, outlines, chapter treatments, world-building, questionnaires and more?

Grab our 3 E-books for writers! They each come with 40 pages of easy theory and resources.

The Plotter’s Almanac

The Character Bible

The World Builder’s Chronicle

Grab it through the [link here] or below!

[deniselavestal]

To the writer who needs to hear it…

YES. Your story DOES matter. It wouldn’t exist without you. You are in charge of bringing it to life because other writers don’t possess your style / voice. You are the only person capable of creating your story.

You are an unique, creative, worthy human being. Go show the world what you’re capable of.

[novlr]

can you give tips on how to change up character dialogue? all of my characters end up sounding the same and i'm not sure how to fix it

How to Write Unique Voices for Characters in Fiction

When it comes to writing fiction, creating unique and believable characters is absolutely essential. One important aspect of character development is crafting unique voices that reflect each character’s personality and background.

Understand your characters

Before you can write distinct voices for your characters, it’s important to understand who they are. Building out a solid foundation and developing compelling backstories is one of the best ways to ensure they always have unique voices. Here are some tips for getting to know your characters:

Write character sketches that detail their backgrounds, personalities, goals, and motivations.

Conduct interviews with your characters as if they were real people, asking them about their likes and dislikes, fears, goals, and more (the Proust questionnaire is a popular way to do this).

Imagine how your characters’ past experiences will change how they speak in different situations and when experiencing varied emotions.

Use description to enhance your characters’ voices

Descriptions can be just as important as dialogue when it comes to creating character voices. Here are some tips for using descriptions to enhance your characters’ personalities:

Use specific details to create vivid descriptions of each character’s body language, mannerisms, and behaviour.

Consider how each character’s mannerisms might influence their speech patterns. For example, a character who is shy might be hesitant to speak or repeat themselves frequently.

Pay attention to how your characters interact with their environment. Do they use their hands a lot when they speak? Do they pace around the room or sit still?

Use sensory details to create immersion. For example, a character who is nervous might sweat profusely or fidget with their jewellery.

Avoid stereotypes and clichés

When writing unique voices for characters, it’s important to avoid falling back on stereotypes or clichés. Here are some tips for creating characters that feel fresh and authentic:

Avoid using dialects or accents. Not only do these often rely on stereotypes, but they also break reader immersion unless authenticity is absolutely essential to the type of book you are writing.

Consider how each character’s background and experiences might influence their beliefs and values. One-dimensional characters built on clichés won’t have unique voices.

Think outside of the box when it comes to creating distinct voices. Instead of relying on traditional archetypes, consider combining traits from multiple sources to create something new.

How to craft unique dialogue

With the basics in place, how do we convert unique character voices into dialogue? Here are some tips for writing dialogue that feels authentic and unique to each character:

Read your dialogue out loud to hear how it sounds, and make sure it’s true to how you imagine your character to be.

Give your characters a unique conversational quirk that feels natural. An example could be that they call everyone “love.”

Vary the length and complexity of sentences to reflect each character’s personality and background.

Consider how each character’s education and experiences might influence their vocabulary and sentence structure.

Use dialogue tags sparingly to avoid detracting from the actual words being spoken.

Avoid using too much exposition or explaining too much in dialogue. Instead, let the characters speak when it serves your story.

By understanding your characters, crafting unique dialogue, using descriptions to enhance character voices, and avoiding stereotypes and clichés, you can create vibrant, engaging characters that will keep readers hooked from start to finish.

[laila-thingss]

Herkesin hakettiğini yaşadığı bir dünya yok fakat hakettiğini yaşayamıyorsan şartlarını iyileştir...

[what-iz-life]

Stop oversharing – not everyone wants what's best for you. Being private af about your plans and personal life is top tier self-care.

[em-dash-press]

Tips for Starting and Stopping Chapters, Plus FAQs

Even if you have the most exciting, engaging ideas for your novel, you might struggle to write it because you have to deal with chapters. These are a few of the most frequently asked questions about chapters and a few tips that might help you overcome manuscript challenges.

How Many Chapters Should a Book Have?

Unfortunately, there’s no straightforward answer to this question. Genres and intended audiences influence manuscript word counts. Younger readers will need shorter chapters to keep their interest and older readers might prefer longer chapters that dive deep into conflict or theme.

Storytelling elements also change the number of chapters per book. A fast-paced novel might have more short chapters to keep up the faster narrative pace. A slower novel might linger in wordier scenes, so there could be fewer chapters with longer page counts per chapter.

You can always look at comparable novels in the same genre to guestimate how many your manuscript could include. If you’re writing a Twilight-inspired novel in the same fantasy genre and Twilight has 26 chapters in a ~110,000 word count range, you could aim for a similar number.

What’s the Purpose of Chapters?

Chapters divide longer stories into segments that help readers process new plot events. They give people breathing room to digest heavier topics or moments by pausing or putting the book down to do other things for a while.

They also give more weight to cliffhanger moments or events made to shock readers. Even if they immediately flip the page to keep reading, the momentary pause lends gravity and meaning to whatever ends the chapter before. 

Tips for First Chapters

Include Some Action

The first line of every chapter doesn’t need to be a dramatic car chase scene, but the chapter in its entirety should include some plot-moving action. It hooks readers and gets your pacing started.

Add Emotional Weight

Action can only intrigue readers so much. What’s the emotional weight compelling your protagonist to take part in, react to, or fight back against your inciting incident? Establish some emotional weight in the first chapter to motivate your protagonist, like showing how much they love their sister before getting betrayed by her in the inciting incident.

Avoid Infodumping

Readers don’t need to know everything about your world-building or protagonist in the first chapter. The infodumping only weighs down your pace. Sprinkle your descriptions and reveals throughout the first act of your book to keep readers coming back to learn more about the world.

Tips for Starting a Chapter

Introduce a Choice

Choices help stories move along at a pace that keeps readers engaged. If your protagonist is stuck in their head for most of a chapter, there’s nothing pushing your story forward. Always include at least one choice when starting a chapter, whether it’s big or small.

Keep Expanding Your Conflict

Every chapter should expand your primary conflict in some way. It might affect newly introduced characters, change your protagonist’s world, or require a sacrifice. As long as your conflict is relevant to your chapter in some way, your story will always remain true to its thematic purpose.

Remember Your Cause-and-Effect

An initial chapter sets up or introduces a conflict that gets your plot moving. If you’re unsure what to do in the following chapter, use it to address the effects of that previous chapter’s conflict. Although the conflict likely won’t get resolved that quickly, you can still write about your characters’ choices post-conflict or how the world changes in a way that affects their futures.

Tips for Ending a Chapter

Experiment With Your Endings

I used to be afraid of ending a chapter without some shocking, groundbreaking plot twist. Althought that’s a great place to put those moments, it’s not plausible to end every chapter with one. Where would your readers feel comfortable pausing for the night? When would they feel the quiet sanctity of peaceful moments where characters build trust between themselves?

Play around with your endings by refusing to be afraid to cut your manuscript into segments. If one doesn’t feel right during your read-through, you can always merge it into the next chapter and cut them differently during editing.

Use It to Shift Your Story

When your story needs to change times of day, locations, or perspectives, that’s usually a good sign that you need a page or chapter break. It’s not always necessary, but these are the types of chapter breaks that give readers breathing room.

Again, you can always re-work your chapters during editing if you find that they aren’t ending in the right places during your first few read-throughs.

Ramp Up Your Tension

Who says chapters always have to end on a cliffhanger? You can also end them when the action or tension is becoming more intense. When two characters are in the car on the way to rob a bank, they argue over whether or not to actually shoot people. One character’s eagerness and the other’s disgust raises the tension. As it escalates into them yelling in the parking lot, the chapter can end when one leaves the car and slams the door.

Ending on a moment of heightened tension is another reason readers turn pages and stay engaged. In the above case, they might not be able to put the book down until they find out if the robbery resulted in murder.

-----

Starting and stopping chapters can cause plenty of anxiety, but remember—you’re always in control of your manuscript. Play around with these ideas and make any necessary changes in your editing phases. You’ll figure out the best way to organize your story by chapters and develop more confidence in your long-form storytelling abilities.

[urfriendlywriter]

Write a drabble!!

drop a 'hi' with a genre (the type of prompt, can also be specific with it! ) you want in the comments, and I'll give you a prompt (new or from my older posts) ! you can write a drabble on it, post it and tag me on it!! or use it in your personal writing space!

(example: hi! conflict prompt!) then I'll reply to your comment with a prompt!

(ahh let's see how this goes so i can plan for future hosting events!)

[thepersonalwords]

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. Never surrender.

Tupac Shakur

[ghostly-prompts]

Prompt #562

“…and how long ago was this?”

“Time is a mortal construct.”

[writing-prompt-s]

When you were a young teen you were teleported to a magical world and had an adventure over the summer before returning home. 20 years later the crystal necklace you used for communication during your adventure beings making noise for the first time since you left the magical world.

[pettyprompts]

“Hey. Pass me your lighter.”

“I just beat your ass, how dare you have the audacity to command me to-“

“Doesn’t matter that we just fought. We have a bigger problem to deal with.”

“Shit. Here, take it.”

[theplottery]

How to get past a difficult chapter

Here are some of my go-to tricks on how to get past a chapter that’s just been torturing you.

Are you getting stuck on a certain chapter and you just can't seem to finish it?

I get it...

I often run into that one chapter that's so much harder to write than others...

So how do you get past this? Let me show you 5 methods you can apply today.

a) Can your story work without this chapter?

If the chapter doesn't bring any consequences or change your plot or characters, then it might be a filler.

If this is the case, don't be afraid to drag it to the archive.

b) Bullet point the important events

If you write out a list of things that you need to happen in this chapter, it might create an easier overview for you to follow.

For example:

John's introduced

John meets Ally

John sees a dog

John's kindness is displayed

c) Let yourself improvise

Try letting your character's choices and personality influence their next step, without thinking too much about it.

Let them taake you in a different direction and they might just surprise you!

d) Do the opposite of your plan

If you had a plan for your chapter but it isn't working out, reverse it and do the exact opposite.

Think of it as an exercise, and this could lead to a fresh perspective!

e) Leave it for a smarter you

If it's just not happening right now, simply write down a quick summary of the most important bits and move on to the next chapter. Come back to it later!

The most important thing is to keep going! :)

You can join our one-on-one coaching program! We have three coaches at The Plottery who can work with you intensively for 4 months to skill up your writing and help you finish your first draft.

Follow the [link here] or below to apply!

[creativepromptsforwriting]

Shout-out to all the stories that didn't make it out of the shower with us in time to be actually written down.

[novlr]

“Writing is not a matter of time, but a matter or of space. If you don't keep space in your head for writing, you won't write even if you have the time.” ― Katerina Stoykova Klemer