Resources For Describing Physical Things

Setting

Weather

Color, Texture, & Shape

Color

Texture

Shape

Support Wordsnstuff!

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

I hope this is helpful for you!

☕️ buy me a coffee! ☕️

I hate to say this, and like, rain on everyone’s parade, but after scrolling past three posts about it on a writing tag …

If you are looking up synonyms to exchange words out in your story with the purpose of sounding smarter, more sophisticated, or complicated to your reader, you are probably abusing the thesaurus.

Now, if you *want* to do this, I mean, you can write whatever or however you want! But I just want you to know that this is frowned upon if you are trying to write at a professional level.

I have an old article on this somewhere …

If you want to look at the original article…

https://www.septembercfawkes.com/2018/08/how-to-use-thesaurus-properly.html

So according to an interview with Neil Gaiman in the back of Good Omens, before Terry Pratchett became a full time writer he wrote at least 400 words a day.

I’ve been trying it out for a couple weeks now and let me tell you 400 words is a totally awesome goal. It is very approachable and not intimidating, often leads to more than 400 words cause well now I have to finish this scene. 

Seriously I probably would have written nothing in the last couple weeks, instead I’ve written 1000′s of words. 

10/10 would recommend.

Terry would be proud.

Prompt

After A casts a love spell on their crush, B, they realize they’ve made a terrible mistake. Twisted by infatuation, B is barely recognizable as the person they were before the spell, the one A pined for in the first place. After trying a variety of methods to fix B, A is taught the only way to break the spell: A must experience genuine, reciprocated love, and it must end in heartbreak.

- Lynn

Is it Possible for an Idea to be Beyond Your Skill Level?

                I think writing as a skill is often underappreciated. In that, I mean I think even writers hold ourselves to a standard that no other creator does. Out of all the skills or hobbies, it’s probably one of the least physical ones, which is often seen as the “benchmark” for skill, or the limiting factor in someone improving something.

                For example, musicians get more nimble and can reach their notes quicker and more accurately, allowing them to play more difficult pieces. Athletes get stronger and gain in endurance, allowing them to score more goals or otherwise go farther in the season with their team.

                I see writers all the time who believe they should be able to do anything because they don’t have that physical benchmark to limit how far they can go, and then the draft doesn’t come out how they wanted it to, and they get discouraged.

                Here’s my take, writing as a skill is just like any other. It needs practice. It’s not something you’re either born with or not, it needs to be developed and strengthened.

                With that in mind—I promise your idea isn’t beyond you. No one is ever going to finish a perfect draft on their first try—that’s never how anything works, and it has nothing to do with how “talented” you are.

                Rewrite the scene until it’s capturing what you want it to. Rework that character until they are who you need them to be. Edit until your motifs are coming through. It’s all practice, every draft is another practice towards nailing the end product. Do you think artists nail drawing hands on their first try? What about on their tenth try?

                So why are you holding yourself to this idea that it’s taking too many drafts to perfect?

                It’s okay to keep trying. If you’re really struggling with realizing a concept, take it out of its context. Write the character you want to see in different situations separate from your project. Read how others have done something similar, take notes. Gather sources and inspiration for what you want to do. Reach out to other writer friends for advice.

                Overall, don’t not write because you think it’s beyond you. With a little bit of work and practice, there’s no story you can’t finish.

                Good luck!

STOP USING PASSIVE VOICE

Don't get me wrong, it's useful sometimes, but so many people lean on it without realizing and it makes the writing so much flatter.

What is passive voice?

Whenever there is no known subject of the sentence - only the direct or indirect object.

What's this look like?

"The door was opened" - sure, but WHO opened the door?

If you don't want to say who opened the door (which is super valid, its very dynamic to leave the unknown until the next sentence), MAKE the DOOR the SUBJECT.

Try out something like "The door slammed open" or "The door creaked open". Isn't that so much better? So much more evocative?

Tips?

Here's a quick trick for identifying passive voice: If you can insert the phrase 'by zombies' after your sentence and have it make sense, it's probably in passive voice. Not foolproof, but a good tool.

"The door was opened by zombies" FAILS the passive voice check.

How do we fix that?

Make your writing ACTIVE and DYNAMIC

X - "The hair was brushed from his face"

✓ - "They delicately brushed the hair from his face."

✓ - "Soft hair brushed away from his face."

.

X - "The coffee was drunk."

✓ - "The coffee warmed down her throat"

✓ - "She drank the coffee."

.

X - "The meal was eaten with vigor"

✓ - "Each member of the house ate the meal with vigor."

✓ - "The meal was eaten with vigor by each member of the house."

✓ - "The meal quickly disappeared, eaten with vigor."

.

ADD that subject, PERSONIFY that noun, ENGAGE with your reader.

You got this!!

The right FREE tools to write a book

hello hello, it's me!

today I was thinking of how much you loved my masterlist featuring some free tools for writers, and I thought I would do something like that again but, this time, featuring just one or two tools per step while getting the best of "the writer's workbook" (which is also free).

before going any further, for those who don't know, "the writer's workbook" is, as the name says, a workbook for writers, with over 90 pages. it has lots of sheets divided into categories, to help you build the skeleton of your novel. (know more about it here).

however, we can get the most out of it using other complementary tools to ease this process.

Brainstorming

Mindmap

Come up with names

Make a profile

Family tree

Maps

Politics

hope this was helpful! have a nice day <3

People talk a lot about how reading is necessary for writing, but when you really want to improve your writing, it’s important to go beyond just simple reading. Here are some things to do when reading:

Note how they begin and end the story. There are a ton of rather contradictory pieces of advice about starting stories, so see how they do it in the stories you enjoy. Don’t only look at the most popular stories, but look at your more obscure favorites.

See what strikes you. Is it fast or complicated scenes with a lot of emotions? Is it stark lines? Pithy dialogue? What do you remember the next day?

Pay attention to different styles. It’s not just whether they use past or present tense, first or third person. It’s whether the writing is more neutral or deeper inside character’s heads. Do they use italics? Parentheses? Other interesting stylistic choices? Take the ones you like and try them out in your own writing. See what works and what doesn’t.

Keep track of how they deal with other characters. Do we see a lot of secondary character each for very brief periods of time or are there a couple that show up a lot? How much information do we get about secondary characters? Do they have their own plots or do their plots revolve entirely around the main characters? 

Count how many plots there are. Is there just one main plot or are there multiple subplots? Are the storylines mostly plot-based or character-based?  

Pay attention to what you don’t like. If you don’t like what’s going on in a book or even just a scene, note what it is. Does the dialogue feel awkward? Are the characters inconsistent? Does the plot feel too convenient or cobbled together? Does the wording just feel off? See if you can spot those issues in your own writing, especially when reading a completed draft or beginning a later draft.

(Great advice! I wanted to tack on other things I look for when reading)

Pay attention to how they introduce characters. Very rarely will it be all at once, and I guarantee the author went over the intro of each major character again and again while editing, so I always like paying extra close attention! Did the intro endear you to the character? Make you dislike them? How did the author impart that emotion?

Note instances of worldbuilding/info dumps, especially parts that don’t seem like worldbuilding/info dumps. Maybe the character mentions something offhand about a location you’ll see five chapters later. Maybe the internal dialogue makes a comparison to the character’s childhood. Was the information effective or did it leave you wanting more? Make note of anything that made you go, “ooh, neat!”

After you finish the story, try to find foreshadowing that you missed the first time through! It can be as simple as skimming and looking for phrases you know are important after finishing the story. Most authors add foreshadowing in the editing stage, so I tend to ponder how the story would read before they added it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the story seems more magical for it and it’s just nice to appreciate.

What plot structures could the story fit into? We all know about the three arc stories, hero’s journey, etc. Sometimes stories can fit into more than one category. During the read and after, keep it in the back of your mind. Can you predict where the climax of the story will hit? Is it man v man or man v nature? Does the predictability (or lack thereof) add to or take away from the story?

5 tips to write less cringe

No shame, it happens all around. There’s always parts of our writing we wish would improve. Here are my best tips on what to pay attention to in order to avoid this.

Know your whys Knowing why you’re telling a story is still one of the most underrated “tips” out there. You’ll tend to solve 99% of your problems if you just know the reason you’re telling the story, and what specific thematic idea you’re actually trying to deliver.

Indulge in subtext Subtext can be a life-saver. If you’re going into a scene that you don’t know how to tackle, lay out the subtext first.

Immerse yourself in description It’s easy to blaze through a scene when you know where your plot is headed, but allow yourself

Use:

- the senses to immerse readers into the scene

- internal reflection to allow readers a look into the inner workings of your character!

Don’t rush things When we know what we want our story to deliver, it’s difficult not to rush into the scenes we really want to write, or the twists we really want to reveal. But you need to allow yourself the space to build these storylines out and let them grow on their own time!

Read more In whatever way you wish to strengthen your writing, the absolute best way is to find books with similar genres, topics, or styles that you aspire to. Read them with understanding and if you like elements of the author’s writing, figure out how they got there.

Did you hear that my biggest baddest resource for writers is out now?

3 extensive workbooks for writers with easy story theory, step-by-step planning process, and dozens of fully customizable templates.

February Writing Challenge 2023 theme: firsts

Also see:

This is why your characters don't feel real

There are so many factors that go into making a character feel real - and you might hear advice that this is because they don’t have an interesting personality, or a unique character voice, but honestly? These are surface-level reasons. These are not going to make or break your character.

What IS going to make them interesting is internal conflict —> a struggle which we meet them in, a story of overcoming the struggle that we get invested in, and a root cause for the struggle in the character’s backstory.

look…………….. write as much shitty fic as you want. nobody can stop you. you’re learning constantly and it’s better to write hackneyed implausible ridiculousness than it is to not write at all out of fear of fucking up. you’re good

There was an experiment a professor did. I think it was pottery students. He did an experiment of “quality” vs “quantity”. One half of the class he told; you have to make as many pots as possible. Good pots, bad pots, shitty pots, whatever. The more pots you make, the higher your grade.

The other half of the class were told, “you can make only one pot”. But that pot had to be perfect. The quality had to be high; the highest quality pot would get the best mark.

But when it came to the grading, they noticed something weird.

All the best quality pots were in the ‘quantity’ group.

The guys who were literally churning out pots, trying to make as many as possible, not concentrating on the quality. But every pot they made, made them better at making pots. By the end of the month (I think it was a month) - they had some pretty awesome pots coming out, because they enjoying finding all the ways and all the things they could do to make all their pots. Where as the ‘quality’ guys had spent their time reading up on pots, and technique, and researching and planning; which was all great but they’d had no further practice at actually making pots.

The best way to get really good at something, the only way to be really good at something, is to make lots of shitty attempts at that thing several of which will fail. If all you create are perfect things then you won’t improve, because how can you improve on perfect?

tl:dr MAKE YOUR SHITTY POTS.

AMEN this goes for anything too!!! drawing, painting, sewing, knitting you name it. Its so much better to just do the thing your working on, shitty or not it takes less of a toll on you to just finish a thing than to worry about fucking it up first time.

Fuck yeah! And even making something that has nothing to do with pots will help you make your pots. Because lots of different expiriences doing different stuffs will also help you make better stuff if that makes sense

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

First of all, I’m not by any means the authority on what makes good or bad writing advice! Writing is an art. There are no rules in art, which means that writing advice, by extension, is highly subjective.

In my opinion, if it works for you, if it helps you improve and be happier with your writing, that’s good writing advice. If it hinders you, takes you down the wrong path, fucks with your creative process, causes more confusion than clarity, that’s bad advice. So when you’re sorting the good from the bad, go with your gut, and don’t let anyone bully you into their way of thinking, regardless of how credible, famous, or experienced they are. However…

If you’re a new writer, it can take a while to tell the difference between helpful (”good”) writing advice and unhelpful (”bad”) writing advice.

Remember that literally anyone can pose as an expert and offer writing advice. As a published fiction writer, professional editor, and writing teacher, I see a lot of writing advice floating around that I just don’t agree with. Figuring out how to sift through everything takes time, but here are some red flags to keep an eye out for:

Red Flag #1: Hard-and-Fast Rules

Bad writing advice gives hard-and-fast rules, and doesn’t allow for exceptions. It liberally uses words like always and never. (Example: “Never open a book with the weather,” “Always punctuate your dialogue like this,” “You can’t write a novel that’s longer than 100,000 words,” etc.)

Keep reading

— C. S. Lewis

Lots of questions coming in right now feel like this one, so I thought I’d reblog my answer to it, in the hope that it would help lots of you…

Prompt #917

"We have seen each other naked before."

"In a very different way then what it sounds like."

“You chose him?”

“Yeah…”

“You saw the pompous asshole-y one and thought, ‘Ah, yes. Perfect.’?”

“Look, I’m not proud of it, ok?”

Writing romance between characters

A lot of readers like romance, don't they? From romance books to romantic subplots in a fantasy/sci-fi/thriller, we have some sort of romance in the books we read (though not all of them). A lot of times though, we feel the romance is forced and can be extremely unpleasant to watch. Let's discuss some tips about how to write romance properly.

Tension is key to any romance, whether it be enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, rivals-to-lovers etc. Some examples are longing gazes, hands brushing each other, wistful gazes, hugs that last a little too long and more! Without tension, the romance just feels will be flat and boring and the readers won't be engaged in it. Please note that for the tension part, the things I listed can be platonic as well! What I mean to say is their reactions, such as them realizing they've caught feelings and now acting differently with each other, wistful gazes at someone they know they can't romance etc. All these actions I've listed in the post can happen platonically, especially for queerplatonic friends etc.

2. Give intimacy

Intimacy is not inherently sexual. It can also be emotional, and when portrayed in books properly, it can be marvellous to watch. Intimacy means being vulnerable with another person, being able to show them baring out their souls to one another, showing that they trust one another. Because if two people can't be intimate or vulnerable with each other, then no, we can't expect them to be in a romantic relationship.

3. Make them great individually

If the characters themselves aren't compelling characters, then we can't expect them to be any better in a romance. If one (or both) of the characters is flat and boring and the very embodiment of meh, then they're also going to be very "meh" in their relationship. Make the character engaging and exciting to watch, whether they're a villain or a hero. To gain some tips on how to write characters properly, check out my post on character writing!

TIP!

I have read this somewhere and I feel it's a really good tip! Use the no-kiss rule. Imagine the couple/ship you're writing. Write them but make sure that they don't kiss. Objectively, can you tell they have feelings for each other? If no, then do better or scrap it. If characters need to kiss to tell that they're in love, then they're not in love. Period.

This is fantastic.

Tacking on to Point 3 - As you build your compelling characters, really know who your characters are and why they act the way they do.  Different people approach life, conflict, and romance in different ways.  A path that is natural for one couple’s romance arc might not work for another couple. 

And that also ties back into the other points this (very great) original post made about vulnerability.  How someone is vulnerable in general is going to determine how they might be vulnerable with a romantic interest.  Different people have different vulnerabilities.  For example, Cassian Andor is not going to have the same vulnerabilities as Anthony J. Crowley.  They’re very different people.  It’s usually tied to either a character weakness or an inner conflict for that character.  By understanding the character and what makes them feel vulnerable, I can better craft a romantic scene with them.

And while this can work for two characters falling in love, it can also add some lovely dynamics for established relationships.  When you’re in an established relationship, you still have to be vulnerable with your partner.  Quiet character moments that allow a couple to share their vulnerabilities and support each other helps the reader believe “yes, these two people are together in a loving, committed relationship.”

^^^^ Wonderful addition to my post!