vvillowvvwriter

[vvillowvvwriter]

idk if i ever mentioned this but i moved to @mercurystudying

[vvillowvvwriter]

YOU WILL RUN AND RUN AND RUN; SHORT STORY INTRO ✉

Genre: experimental/alternative, LGBT+ fiction, mystery/horror, road trip.

✉

Themes and Motifs: thick mists and clouded windows, cold nights and a long, empty road, regrets and lonely gas stations, holding hands until you can’t feel your fingers, fire and the ash that follows it.

✉

Characters: a young runaway with shaky hands and cold feet in more ways than one, struggling to know what to do - another runaway, gritted teeth and a sour taste left after his kisses, burning the candle at both ends, burning blood-covered clothes.

✉

Premise: two small-town social pariahs have just murdered a man in cold blood. Now they’re on the run, a body rotting in the backseat. Written in second person, future tense.

✉ THE BASICS:

Experimental writing style.

Short story - 25K - written between novel WIPs (specifically between Stories From The Badlands Book One and Dante Is Dead But You Can’t Find Her Body Because She Didn’t Die. Goal is to finish this one in a few days, as mostly a side project.

MLM romance about trying to survive in very dire circumstances, and the manner in which time runs out.

Themes of trauma, recovery, metal illness, murder, survival and codependence.

Roadtrips, ghosts, wishing you could start over and knowing that you can’t.

ASK TO BE ON THE TAGLIST 

My Writing Tag | Help Me Write 16 Novels in 16 Months | My Progress Updates | My Writing Server 

[vvillowvvwriter]

i’ll most likely be moving this to a new main blog of mine for things like writing and studying, at @mercurystudying, so this blog will probably end up abandoned

[vvillowvvwriter]

my brain: write.

me: alright. what?

my brain: no what. only write.

[vvillowvvwriter]

bird by bird, anne lamott

[vvillowvvwriter]

6 Types of Motivations for Your Characters

Survival motivation: Characters with this type of motivation want to stay alive. They are probably in a dangerous world or situation. Their only goal: Get out and live. They will do anything to achieve it. Anything.

Regret motivations: Characters with this type did something they regret, and now want to make amends. A major part of their life now revolves around their mistake. They don’t often do anything evil, as their mistake taught them better.

Fear motivations: Characters are afraid of something. Whether it be general anxiety or a murderer depends on the situation. But fear motivations can coincide with survival motivations.

Nobel motivation: Characters doing something for the greater good, for someone else, or for a noble cause. They rarely, if ever, do something evil.

Basic motivations: Can include survival, curiosity, guilt, desire, or peer pressure.

Evil motivations: Can include hate, pride, revenge, greed, or jealousy

[vvillowvvwriter]

VINEGAR TOWN INTRO COMIC

Wip Info | Cover x| Quotes | Excerpt

Have a nice day and hopefully enjoy this!

20/08/19 🌙

Tag List (ask to be added/removed):

@dcdarrells @ownworldresident @forestcrowcaw @timefirewrites @queenofsquirrels @saxoniowrites @watermelons-writings @half-explored @lids-writes @thedreamsofthesky

// art: @xayideart // insta//

[vvillowvvwriter]

So you finished your first draft... What now?

I sometimes see posts telling you what to do after you finished writing. Many of them focus on getting the sentences to flow nicely, catching typos or making sure the grammar is sound. For me, there’s much more work to be done before I can get on with word choice and grammar. I want to tell you about the different stages of editing I’m planning.

I’m working from big to small, because it’s no use fretting over synonyms in a scene you’ll end up cutting out later.

These are my drafts:

1. Just write

Check. You’ve gone that. You got the first draft on the paper. Congratulations! You rock!

2. Add and cut

You’ve probably heard that editing is cutting. “A second draft needs to be shorter than the first draft, because you cut out any unnecessary words.” Yes and no. I agree you need to cut them out, but not yet.

Read through your entire story first, noting if anything needs to be added or cut out. Scenes where you were telling and you needed to be showing: rewrite them, add more words. For example: “And then they fight.” No, show me the fight. Scenes where you repeat yourself: cut out the repetitions if they have no function.

Think of pacing. Pick it up for the exciting scenes and then give your reader some breathing room. Pick it up towards the end. Add a small filler scene to change a regular reveal into a cliffhanger.

This is also the draft in which you fix any plotholes and rearrange scenes if they need to be in a different order.

If you finish this draft, you completed probably 80% of the work needed on your story. *high five!*

3. Group the scenes into chapters

A chapter consists of several scenes. If you have not grouped them yet, read through the entire story and place the chapter breaks where they feel right. If you have written your story into chapters, read it through to make sure that the chapter breaks are where they supposed to be.

Make sure there is a hook, big or small, at the end of each chapter to make the reader read on. If there isn’t one, add one or put the chapter break somewhere else.

4. Are there darlings to be killed?

You know your darlings. Scenes, characters, ideas or sentences you don’t want to cut because you really like them, but they serve no purpose in your story. Or worse, you rewrite a good plot into a mediocre one to make sure the darling doesn’t need to be killed.

Knowing myself, any darlings in my story probably involve random mentions of space and dinosaurs.

How to spot darlings: read through your entire story and ask yourself honestly:

Is the story structure still working? (Plot/pacing/…)

Is everything logical?

What’s the function of this chapter? Of this scene? Of this paragraph?

If it serves no purpose, kill them.  

Notice I’m still not telling you to check the grammar.

5. Voice

By know, you really know your characters. You know how they should react, how their thoughts sound, and if they have any quirks. Read through your story and make sure all the actions and dialogues are in character. Pay extra attention to the first part of your story, because you didn’t know them as well as you did at the end.

You can do this for all your characters in one go, or go through your story for each character individually, whatever serves your story best. I will go through my story four times in this draft, once for each of my four major characters.

6. Optional genre-specific draft

I’m writing something funny, so I’m dedicating an extra draft to make sure there is enough humor in it. If you write a romantic story, check for romantic details. If you write horror, check if you need to add extra creepy details. Add foreshadowing if that makes your story richer.

7. The time has come

Yes. I’m finally telling you to check the grammar, synonyms, tenses, unnecessary words, adverbs, variations of “said”, commas versus semicolons and all the other stuff you want to check. Go wild.

8. Extra things publishers and agents like

Make sure your first sentence is spot-on. Make your first scene brilliant. Make your first chapter a perfect chapter.

Rewrite the first and last alinea of every chapter. The goal is to make people want to gush to their friends, “I’m reading this book and you NEED to hear this paragraph, let me read it to you because it is the. best. ever.”

***

I know it can be difficult to see your mistakes and not tackle them immediately.  For me, it works if I signal them to future-me: I write “bad writing”, “research this” or “why????” in the margins and I put a squiggle under weird paragraphs or words. The reason you want to tackle it now is to make sure the idea or the mistake doesn’t escape you later. By signaling it,  you make sure it can’t escape, but you’re not losing time with micro stuff when you still have macro stuff to do.

Note that I will probably only change like 0,1% of the story each time I go through it, especially in the later drafts, but this way I won’t get distracted by other to do’s. If I try to do everything in one or two drafts, I can’t possibly see or do everything.

And now you’re done, you magnificent unicorn of a human being! You deserve the highest of fives!

I hope this is clear! You can always ask me if you have more questions. Follow me for more writing advice.

Tag list below, people I like and admire. If you want to be added to or removed from my tag list, let me know.

Keep reading

[vvillowvvwriter]

DANTE IS DEAD AND YOU CAN’T FIND HER BODY (BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T DIE); WIP INTRO ❀

Genre: Post apocalyptic/solarpunk, mythological, supernatural, found family.

❀

Themes and Motifs: Daffodils and sunflowers, diaries and strange pasts, estranged families drawn together by loss, making deals with demons, hope, the power of human ingenuity, sad smiles and tired eyes, neck scars.

❀

Worldbuilding: With the Uprising half a century ago came the emergence of previously hidden supernatural creatures into the human world - demons, angels, everything in between. For a while, people thought peace might follow. Peace soon proved unattainable. Now, the world is caught in a vicious war between races - demons scheme for power, angels exercise power over devoted evangelist masses, the Fae linger in the shadows of a grief-stricken world, and any remaining humans can only do their best to survive. In the sewers, a settlement of peaceful creatures is growing.

But its leader has just died.

❀

Characters: A demon with a sharp tongue and too much stress on her shoulders - a vampire who has adopted every stray and every runaway in his path for years and isn’t planning to stop - a member of the Fae terrified of being wrong - a young spellcaster with big dreams who has just lost everything - a clairvoyant who can’t keep secrets - a dead girl.

❀

❀ THE BASICS:

Diverse and LGBT+ main cast.

Murder mystery/found family with big themes of regret, trauma, and losing the person you used to be.

Big themes of reincarnation. 

Wholesome and largely centred around the main family of the story and their dynamic around one another, as well as wider themes of compassion and unity surrounding the settlement.

Burning your own funeral pyre, leaving flowers on your own grave and starting over. Again.

ASK TO BE ON THE TAGLIST

My Writing Tag | Help Me Write 16 Novels in 16 Months | My Progress | My Writing Server

[vvillowvvwriter]

Every time I think I’ve followed all the writers I can there’s always more out there

You sneaky little bastards

So I’m doing another writeblr boost.

Please reblog this if you’re a writeblr, particularly if you post about your original work and/or writing references!

[vvillowvvwriter]

Writing Advice Posts: A Handy Reference Guide

(Updated 8/6/19) Hey all, I’ve got quite a few writing advice posts & answered Asks on my blog at this point, so I’m making this reference guide to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. Hope it helps!

Free Resource Library Downloads

All of these PDFs are available to download in my Free Resource Library.

Creating Character Arcs Workbook

Point of View Cheatsheet

Dialogue Checklist

Setting Checklist

Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Editor Printable Checklist

Proper Manuscript Format Printable Checklist

Short Story & Novel Submission Templates

General

8 Ways to Improve Your Writing

10 Best Books About Writing Fiction

How to Spot Bad Writing Advice: 6 Red Flags to Look For

“Show Don’t Tell”? Not Always. Here’s When to Use Summary

How to start a story

More about starting stories

The first sentence

Weak words

Why Just About Every Published Book in the World Does 57 Things That Just About Every Book About Writing Tells You Not to Do

Creative Nonfiction Cliches to Avoid

How to Read Like a Writer

The Writing Process, Writer’s Block, & Inspiration

To all the Writers Suffering from Depression

How to Train Yourself to Write Faster

Just a friendly reminder that creativity is difficult to quantify.

Quick Writing Tip: Make a Note to Your Future Self in Your WIP

Quick Writing Tip: Take Notes!

Just a friendly reminder that writing is not always a linear process.

Quick Cure for Writer’s Block: Lower Your Expectations

Set Realistic Goals

Your Skills May Need Time to Catch Up to Your Vision

It’s Okay to Experiment and Be Weird As Fuck

Surround Yourself With Supporters

It’s okay to take a break.

Your First Draft is Raw Material

Getting into “The Zone”

Vomit Brain

Writing from Your Imagination vs. Reality

Dealing with Criticism

Getting Bored with Your Own Writing

Getting past a block

Doing research on topics you don’t have first-hand experience with

Journalling about your writing

How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write

Advice for Getting Over a Writing Slump

Dealing with Procrastination

Character Development

Creating Character Arcs with the DCAST Method

What Does Your Main Character Want?

How to Activate Your Passive Characters, One Verb at a Time

How to Use Description to Show Character Development

How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene

The “It Depends” Post

Shifting internal goals

When to identify your character’s goal

Writing about normal people with normal problems

If you’re worried about your character being too similar to someone else’s character 

Describing your characters without messing up your pacing

Story, Plot, & Pacing

Quick Plotting Tip: Write Your Story Backwards

Pause at the Threshold

How to Spot an “Info-dump”

Slowing Down the Pace of Your Story Without Boring Your Reader

Time Transitions

How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene

Creating Conflict

When & how to cut a scene

If you’re good at creating characters but awful at creating plot

When you’ve plotted your story but can’t get started

En Media Res

Writing to Your Ideal Reader

Deus Ex Machina

Foreshadowing

Finding an Ending

What to write between moments of conflict

Starting a story with waking-up scene

How to Know When You’re Done Outlining

Description, Setting, & Worldbuilding

How to Make Your Descriptions Less Boring

How to Spot an “Info-dump”

Adding Descriptions to Intense Scenes Without Messing Up Your Story’s Flow

How to Use Description to Show Character Development

Worldbuilding: How much is too much?

Modeling your fantasy world from stuff in the real world

Internal Consistency

Utilizing Sound

Point of View

How to Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story

A Beginner’s Guide to Multiple Point of View

6 Questions to Ask About Your Point of View

How to decide if you should use first person or third person

More point of view basics

Head hopping

How to Head Hop without Head Hopping

Dialogue

How to Improve Your Dialogue

3 Ways to Make Your Dialogue More Interesting

Starting a story with dialogue

Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?

Which is Better: Exposition or Expository Dialogue?

Publishing & Sharing Your Work

7 Tips to Build an Audience for Your Writing

Pros and Cons of Self Publishing

Quick Publishing Tip: Don’t Bury Your Gold

How to Properly Format Your Manuscript for Publication

A warning about posting writing online that you intend to publish later

Advice for writers who are worried about people stealing their work or ideas

Getting feedback on your writing

How to Create a Cover Letter for a Literary Magazine or Journal

Editing

10 Questions to Ask an Editor Before Hiring Them

Quick Revision Tip: Read Your Writing Out Loud

How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write

Cut the fidgeting

Are you suffering from -ing disease?

Are you Using Too Much Stage Direction?

What “Editing” Really Means

Quick Editing Tip: “That”

Quick Revision Tip: Read Faster

Editing Tip: Dialogue

Tips for Editing a Story

Should You Use a Contract When Hiring an Editor?

Quick Tip: Up & Down

…if you find any broken links please let me know and I will fix them! xo

*I recently changed the name of my blog. All of these links should work, but if you come across a “Bucket Siler has moved!” page when clicking on a link inside an old post, there’s an easy way to find what you’re looking for: In the url, delete “bucketsiler,” write “theliteraryarchitect,” then hit return. Also, let me know about it & I will fix it :)

//////////////

The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, check out my Free Resource Library or get The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. xoxo

[vvillowvvwriter]

i... really need to start working some more. hopefully, i’ll get motivation and energy soon and i’ll be able to post proper intros and post more regularly

[vvillowvvwriter]

THE GIRL WITH NO NAME: wip (re)reintroduction

Genre: Adult space opera Themes: politics, religion, enemies to lovers, gods, betrayal, bodily autonomy, and taking power. Contains: an angry young woman with chronic pain, a villain love interest, a disease that turns people into beasts, lots o’ horror, gods with ulterior motives, characters with a severe lack of morals, and plenty of political intrigue. Content Warnings: violence, blood, body horror, eye horror.

•:WHAT’S CHANGED:•

as of august 2019, the plot is totally different, which you can read about in the summary below. this book is no longer YA, and is now an Adult space opera. really all that means is i’m adjusting the age of my protagonist, because i need this book to fit in alongside the rest of my planned out series of standalone Adult space operas! the main character (previously the Girl) is now Vitoria Commidus. the title ‘the girl with no name’ still applies, but for super spoilery reasons! she has an entirely different backstory than previously planned, which you can read about here.

•:SUMMARY:•

THE THRONES OF THE GODS ARE YOURS TO TAKE, PROPHET…

When Vitoria Commidus is resurrected by the gods, her newfound ability to speak with them makes her a valuable commodity. Tasked with hunting Maroth, the man who imprisoned the divines centuries ago, she finds herself racing against the planet-killing disease that threatens to consume her world.

Soon, Vitoria plays a dangerous game with those who seek to take her mind and body for themselves and the very man she’s meant to hunt. As she begins to see Maroth in her dreams, she finds herself increasingly drawn to him. And increasingly, she begins to wonder if she should free the gods…or if she should kill them.

•:AESTHETIC:•

the bodies of the diseased rotting, stealing the thrones of the gods, roots that sprout from bloodshot eyes, black waters washing upon shores of dark stone, horrors just out of sight, raw throats ever praying, blade-sharp bones streaked with death, knives deep in the back, a prophet with the blood of the gods on her hands, the heretic man who covered them in crimson at her side, and the touch of the divine grasping, grasping for anything to gnaw, anything to sate the everlasting starvation.

•:LINKS:•

the tumblr tag: 01

the playlists: 01, 02, 03, 

the pinterest board: 01

(tag list | ask to be added/leave an ‘x’ to be removed!: @snowwritesall @batsandcayves @allyn-racki @cookiecuttercritter @writevevo @mhairovernatic @the-sassy-slytherin @whimsicallytwisted @livvywrites @littlephoenixfire @thegrievingyoung @luna-evans-writes @minusfractions @rebelwritingwild @inkpot-dreamer @antique-symbolism @awkwardexistencewrites @merielleswriting @apollchiles @vvillowvvwriter @rachelswritings @thesteamgoth @meafeminas @the-midwrite-oil @peachy-writes @write-like-babs)

[vvillowvvwriter]

STORIES FROM THE BADLANDS; WIP INTRO ☼

Genre: Dystopian/post-apocalyptic, epic, political fiction, LGBT+ fiction.

☼

Themes and Motifs: The end of the world, siblinghood and found family, revolution and revolt, isolation, tenderness even within the most dire circumstances, hope despite it all, legacy and the nature of bloodlines.

☼

Worldbuilding: Centuries after a nuclear crisis that destroyed the vast majority of civilisation, society is starting to rebuild itself again - and with it is coming war, all over again. In the north, child soldiers are trained to give their lives to defeat their prescribed enemies. In the south, gang violence brews in the slums, young radicals raising their flares and their hopes against an oppressive, monarchal government. In the no-man’s-land between the nations, the Badlands, an infected kid has just stumbled on a secret that is going to change the world. War is brewing, and it might not come from where people expect.

☼

Characters: a young, infected scavenger out in the desert, trying to save the world - a hopeless, abandoned prisoner waiting to die in a southern prison - a power-hungry young monarch willing to kill for the power she hungers - a manipulative, scheming young politician trying to write his way out of a military coup - a hotblooded, youthful revolutionary with a complicated history - a hopeless, fun-loving renegade living it up in the wasteland, and more.

☼

Aesthetic: a deep, starless sky, brightened by the red smoke of barrel fires; a bitter war with no end in sight; vast desert wastes; rebellions growing in the slums; runaways lost in the dunes; dried-up oceans and the skeletons of old-world cities; bones and fossils half-buried in the sand; the sun burning down over dunes as wide as oceans; old legacies and new fates.

☼

☼ THE BASICS:

An LGBT+ and POC-centred narrative.

Twelve interconnected protagonists, spread over three novels, each with their own connections to one another, their own motivations and their own motifs, visual and characteristic.

A story about fighting for what you believe in, discovering how to become a better person, finding hope even when the word bids that you never stumble on it, humanity’s descent back into their own mistakes, lying in the dust and wishing for a home you cannot return to, running away into the desert with your beloved, and raising a flare against tyranny, in whatever way you can.

☼ SOME FUN EXTRAS:

Not one, not two, but three full constructed, complex languages, all inspired by real-world languages, as well as multiple codes to deconstruct, which all pay into various mysteries through the narrative.

A snappy, quick-changing plot with multiple interconnected storylines running at once, with multiple POVs (third person, present tense).

Mythological and historical references, as well as many references to real-life political strategies, natural disasters, cultures etc, through a very different lens.

Multiple stories that run throughout the books; for example, five of the twelve protagonists being related to one another, and how that affects them.

Strong female protagonists, majority POC main cast, entirely LGBT+ main cast, etc. Representation, also including mental illness representation and cultural discussion, is not lacking.

As well as all of this: multiple excerpts on their way, a soundtrack composed by yours truly, a playlist and more content to interact with all on the way!

Thank you for reading! Now; are you going to leave a path to trace? ☼

ASK TO BE ON THE TAGLIST

My Writing Tag | Help Me Write 16 Novels in 16 Months | My Progress | My Writing Server

[vvillowvvwriter]

The Ridiculous Ground-Up World Building Questionnaire

What follows is an exhaustive list of questions for world building. YOU should be able to answer all of these questions, and your readers should be able to answer a fair amount by the end of your story or series.

Generally for world building I recommend picking a modern-day country or region for actual geographical/climate world building, and an ancient empire or two to help you answer the other questions. 

You may not need to answer all questions, I doubled many for urban vs rural settings and some questions are repeated in various sections. Also, the term “destitute” is used to mark the lowest levels of society (in some stories that can mean slaves or servants). Just FYI.

What follows is 1,045++ Questions, and I do recommend answering them for each country on your map (if they play a role in the story)…

Click HERE for my writing references master-list!

(Sorry for anyone on mobile who isn’t seeing the ‘Keep Reading’ cut)

Keep reading

[vvillowvvwriter]

VITORIA COMMIDUS • CHARACTER INTRODUCTION

Protagonist, twenty, she/her. When tragedy struck, Vitoria was orphaned and raised as the empire’s ward, alongside Elenia Commidus, the future empress of Cithius. She took an interest in protecting the imperial family from a young age, perhaps looking to repay a debt, and was soon recruited to the guard that personally saw to the palace’s protection. When the disease began to poison the world, Vitoria joined the force committed to putting a stop to the plague devouring the empire. As it spread to the capital, she was killed in a brutal battle with monstrous creatures birthed by the disease, and when she woke again, the voices of the gods spoke to her.

Now prophet to the divines, Vitoria is tasked with hunting down Maroth: the man who imprisoned the gods. A man she’s seen in her dreams ever since her resurrection.

(tag list | ask to be added/leave an ‘x’ to be removed!: @snowwritesall @batsandcayves @allyn-racki @cookiecuttercritter @writevevo@mhairovernatic @the-sassy-slytherin @whimsicallytwisted @livvywrites @littlephoenixfire @thegrievingyoung @luna-evans-writes @minusfractions @rebelwritingwild @inkpot-dreamer @antique-symbolism @awkwardexistencewrites @merielleswriting @apollchiles @vvillowvvwriter @rachelswritings @thesteamgoth @meafeminas @the-midwrite-oil @peachy-writes)

[vvillowvvwriter]

Me: hmm I should really flesh my characters out. Maybe draw some sketches

Also me: I should world build for that story I’m working on

Me again: I should make a playlist for each of my ocs

Me once more: I should plot out my entire novel before I finish all my research. I can do that in 30 minutes no problem