SloMo WriNo: Instantly Improve Your Writing With One Simple Trick

Want to make your writing instantly better?

Don’t we all?

Promising instant improvement is an easy way to hook eyes, (I’m sort of sorry for click-baiting you— but not too much.) so a lot of writing advice is framed that way.

But is it actually possible?

Generally the advice on those types of posts isn’t anything revolutionary. You’re told to eliminate adverbs/filter words/telling. Or perhaps the advice is additive. You should start using all 5 (or even 6?) senses in every description, do or don’t use certain tenses or povs, change up sentence lengths, use more paragraph breaks, and so it goes.

It’s (usually) all useful advice, especially when applied in moderation. (No one will come and shoot you for occasionally using suddenly or summarizing a scene instead of showing every detail.)

The issues is that a lot of writers (especially beginner writers) are seeking some sort of magic bullet. That one trick that will change everything and magically make you good. (never mind that ‘good’ is far more nebulous and subjective than anyone wants to admit.)

Sadly, once you get beyond learning things like punctuation and when to insert paragraph breaks, there’s not really any single technique that you can quickly apply and immediately lift the quality of your writing.

For the rest, it really takes time. Even if the advice is good, you need to learn when and how to apply it.

As such, there’s only one technique that will definitely make your writing better.

Practice.

Yeah. So boring. The least sexy piece of writing advice. Write more.

But it’s also the simplest. (Not always the easiest, but definitely the simplest!) Writing is not mystic or singular. It’s just like any other art or craft. The only way you get good is by spending time at it. And just like anything else, you’re going to be bad before you can start to get good.

You would never expect to become an accomplished guitarist by spending lots of time listening to and thinking about music, while almost never picking up your instrument to practice. And you will not become a good writer without practicing the action of writing.

It’s a comforting idea that gets bandied around at times, that writing isn’t just fingers on the keys or pen on paper. That it’s thinking and daydreaming and making mood boards etc. While those writing adjacent things are fun and undoubtedly can help you write, they are not writing. They are not practice.

Spending your time doing those things instead of writing do not make you a better writer, and obviously they don’t finish your novel or writing project.

Which is my goal here. To help you finish your project. As such I spend very little time on dispensing advice on plot or prose, and focus mostly on the process of writing.

That’s not to say that I don’t think you should spend time on learning how to write better prose, or how to create compelling characters and plot, those things are important! But if attempting to learn that stuff gets in the way of practice, then it’s counterproductive.

So don’t let the writing advice become the focus of your writing. Apply advice slowly, and don’t overwhelm yourself with trying to fix all your perceived faults at once. (I still have a difficult relationship with punctuation, but I’m learning. Slowly.) If you can, focus on techniques that interest you. Keep things low pressure— fun even?

Yes you want your work to be as good as possible, but also, you’re doing this writing thing because you enjoy it, right? So don’t allow the pressure to be good to stop you from having fun. If trying to apply a certain piece of writing advice is making you miserable, toss it aside. It’s either bad advice, or it’s not the right time for you to worry about it. Above all, avoid anything that kills your joy and makes writing a miserable chore.

So I guess this is my one piece of advice that will improve your writing (process) instantly.

Enjoy yourself, and ditch anything that ruins that joy. You’ll get better at your own pace, as long as you keep writing.

—Maree

Subscribe to my substack to make sure you don't miss a post, chat with me on the WIP Project discord, and tag any posts you make about the challenge with #slomowrino if you want me to see them!

I forgot how lonely it is to write original fiction.

Where are the kudos? The subscriptions? The comments? The people cheerleading me chapter to chapter? Where are the kind words and compliments and reassurances that what I'm writing isn't complete crap? Where are the unhinged emojis? The asks on Tumblr? Where are my mutuals in my dms apologizing for not reading the latest chapter right away (side note, you know you don't have to apologize at all, right??). Where is the fanart? Where are the recs?

Where is my motivation to keep going?

It's something I've been thinking about a lot, actually, lately. How the experience of writing fanfic is so unique. How you already have an audience, willing and waiting and captive. And that's really it, isn't it? You have an audience. It's almost performative, writing fanfic. It's being on a stage, a one-person show (or two, if you do it with a friend); it's getting live reactions to your performance, it's feeding off the energy of the crowd and informing it back in a feedback loop; it's improvised, sometimes, in almost-real-time. It's building something that you couldn't have built by yourself. A thing that takes on a life of its own.

It's an experience you can't get writing original fiction, and, honestly, not having it is making it hard to write something original at all.

"Where is my motivation to keep going?"

It's where it always was before fanfic, before online support; before recs, before asks, before moots, before fanart.

It's in realizing you're the story's only way out into the world.

In a world full of gatekeeping, this is the gate that only you keep. Turn your back on the responsibility to open the portal to the unborn (original) story and keep it open, and the story dies. And that death is on you.

Yes, it's lonely work, without the constant rush of input we've been trained to be used to. It's been lonely work for a long time: since the first storyteller came up against the silence that wanted to keep the story away from the breath that would make it real in other people's ears. And you could make a case that all the online adornments are just our recent generations' way of keeping both the storytellers and the listeners from being overwhelmed by that loneliness. (Because the listeners have their own version of it: the fear of what happens when the people who can tell stories fall silent. Good storytellers respect that fear, and remember every day their responsibility to do something about it.)

Where do the characters come from? A surprising amount of the time, without warning, they muscle their way into the back of your brain and grab you by the hand (or hair) (or throat) and shout Tell about me! You have to tell them, there's no one else who can do it! ...Sometimes you have to sneak up on them from behind, as you do get the shy ones occasionally whom you have to take by the hand and pull into the light. But give them enough silence—build the space for them—and they'll come.

The silence may be key. One of the smartest pieces of advice I was ever given was that, for half an hour in the morning every day, before starting work, I should sit down and do nothing, and listen. No music, no TV, no news, no reading, no nothing. Sit and listen. It's not meditation; it's not mindfulness. It's listening. Story's voice can be hard to hear, sometimes, until you get better at pushing aside all that relentless rush of situational and sensorial input, and better at waiting to hear the story that's as yet too frail to push its way through the portal without assistance.

To be clear: Fanfic work (or any work in universes not of your making) is a different kind of listening. Working well in already-extant universes requires sharp attention to the tones, concerns and qualities of voices already speaking there; and to a certain extent, to the voices speaking about them. And if you love the characters, too—one of the best reasons for fanfic, really—that's a pleasure.

But when working in your own universes, the listening also requires a selective quality, as the characters find their voices and their proper passions. And as for the love... you're the only one there is to love them, till you get them out into the world. If you've ever been the only one to love somebody, you know how tough that can be.

Then add to that the fillip that those people (or situations) won't be really real until you've worked with them long enough, hard enough, all by yourself? It's a tough row to hoe. And you can't ever be really sure that a summer will come to reveal whether the crop's taken root, and whether it's all been worthwhile.

Nonetheless: it's good work. Some of us don't seem able to stop. Some of us even like it that way.

When you're ready, take that leap and come join us.

Things That May Be Causing Your Writer's Block- and How to Beat Them

I don't like the term 'Writer's Block' - not because it isn't real, but because the term is so vague that it's useless. Hundreds of issues all get lumped together under this one umbrella, making writer's block seem like this all-powerful boogeyman that's impossible to beat. Worse yet, it leaves people giving and receiving advice that is completely ineffective because people often don't realize they're talking about entirely different issues.

In my experience, the key to beating writer's block is figuring out what the block even is, so I put together a list of Actual Reasons why you may be struggling to write:

(note that any case of writer's block is usually a mix of two or more)

Perfectionism (most common)

What it looks like:

Things that can help:

Lack of inspiration (easiest to fix)

What it looks like:

Things that can help:

Boredom/Understimulation (lost the flow)

What it looks like:

Things that can help:

Intimidation/Procrastination (often related to perfectionism, but not always)

What it looks like:

Things that can help:

The Problem's Not You, It's Your Story (or Outline (or Process))

What it looks like:

Things That Can Help:

Executive Dysfunction, Usually From ADHD/Autism

What it looks like:

Things that can help:

And Lastly, Burnout, Depression, or Other Mental Illness

What it looks like:

Things that can help:

Tips to increase tension:

1. Establish Clear Goals: Establish clear, compelling goals that are relatable to readers. The more readers care about whether the character succeeds or fails, the higher the tension.

2. Time Pressure: Introduce time constraints or deadlines. This creates a sense of urgency and raises the stakes.

3. Obstacles: Place obstacles and conflicts in the path of your characters, both internal and external. These challenges should grow progressively more difficult, making the reader wonder if and how the characters will overcome them.

4. Unpredictability: Surprise your readers with unexpected twists or developments. Subvert their expectations, but ensure that these surprises are rooted in the story's internal logic.

5. Character Flaws and Growth: Give your characters flaws and weaknesses that they must confront and overcome. As they evolve, readers become more interested in their journeys and outcomes.

6. Foreshadowing: Skillful foreshadowing can build anticipation. Drop subtle hints or clues about future events or conflicts to keep readers guessing.

7. Moral Dilemmas: Present characters with challenging moral choices. Preferably, all choices have high prices, making the reader unsure of which choice to root for.

8. Show, Don't Tell: Instead of telling readers about the tension, show it through the characters' actions, thoughts, and emotions. Let readers experience the tension alongside the characters.

9. Dialogue and Conflict Resolution: Use dialogue to create conflicts between characters. Tense conversations can reveal hidden motivations and escalate the overall tension.

10. Setting and Atmosphere: Craft the setting and atmosphere to complement the mood you want to convey. Dark, foreboding settings enhance danger and tension, while serene settings provide a contrast.

11. Cliffhangers: End chapters or sections on cliffhangers, leaving readers eager to know what happens next. However, use this sparingly to maintain its impact.

12. Relatable Characters: Ensure that readers can relate to and care about your characters. This emotional connection amplifies the tension as readers become invested in their fates.

every time i start to feel cringe for being too deep in the hyperfixation i remember the intense depression i have waded through and have to remind myself that enjoyment is fleeting (so grab it with both hands), and life is for loving (so hold that love close), and if anyone thinks i’m cringe they must not be having a very good time (and i hope they can find a good time soon).

"I am cringe but I am free"

this is my new motivational poster quote

in which i recommend books like the netflix algorithm

you wanted it, you got it, babes! caveat: this list is long (seriously, sorry about the length) and i can’t write blurbs for everything, but i highly recommend going and looking at anything that sounds interesting. some books will fall under multiple headings, so i’m listing them twice. i am linking to their purchase pages on bookshop.org, because amazon sucks and bookshop helps support indie booksellers, but if your local indie bookstore offers delivery or curbside pickup, buy it there. and i’m trying to keep this list confined to pretty recent titles, so even though a few older ones might slip in there, it’s definitely centered on releases from the past few years. okay let’s do this.

if you want a book that feels like a primal scream:

if you want clever social commentary and/or hilarious female protagonists:

if you want to start reading the unhinged women canon (not all recent):

if you liked the secret history:

if you like speculative/dystopian fiction:

if you want a book that reads like a good fanfic:

if you like dark stories about complex relationships between women:

if you like stories about complicated families:

if you like smart and thoughtful books about relationships between women:

if you want something queer that isn’t YA:

you just want something good and are willing to take a chance on one of these books i love (these are not all recent, i just like them a lot):

Common character motivations

If you want to read more posts about writing, please click here and give me a follow!

The single most important piece of writing advice I would give to a lot of amateur writers is to write less beautifully - or at least to write beautifully less.

I rarely find a piece of writing I can't read because it's too simple, or too concise and to-the-point - not memorable, perhaps, but also not a headache on a page. On the other hand, I see loads of pieces which are effectively unreadable because they're far too rich to swallow, and badly in need of watering down a bit.

The absolute worst culprit is the dialogue tags. I'm a big fan of letting people write in their own style, but I would love it if a lot of writers could please cool it with letting me know every time a character blinks or licks their lips. I don't need to know that, especially if it happens every time they speak.

So many dialogue excerpts look like this:

I'm assuming this is a convention that comes from somewhere, given its ubiquity - perhaps somewhere in the world of fanfiction, where there will be short, intimate pieces entirely focused on the ways in which characters interact with each other. But to me, in an original work, it's so exhausting that I can't make it down the rest of the page.

Dialogue tags may be the worst, or most obvious offenders, but the same principle extends pretty much everywhere else. Each line doesn't have to be some great quote you can hang on your wall, and it's hard to read a whole story written like that.

There's been some recent backlash on here against modern films where every line of dialogue is a quip, at the expense of building an authentic conversation, but that's how a lot of people start out writing - thinking that each sentence should be made as flowery as possible, when too many flowers in the same pot will crowd each other out.

You need to leave some gaps to let the sunlight in, and illuminate the beauty of the occasional flourish you do include. Think of it like vanilla extract, to make a reference that was topical when I started writing this post: you need to add a little for flavour, without which the writing will be too dull, but tip the bottle and I will actually be sick. Write beautifully less. Learn to embrace the prosaic.

“Wait,” she said, catching his arm. “You can’t just leave it here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you think it would be helpful if we had some good examples to examine too?”

He squinted suspiciously at her. “Probably. Where are you going with this?”

Her only reply this time was a slow grin. He wasn’t sure if he trusted that.

She set the scene quickly, ushering them to a white wicker lawn table and some chairs. As he took a seat, he blinked and glanced down at his clothes. A brown suit. And she was dressed something like a stereotypical 1950’s housewife. Before, they’d been default templates. Nothing more than a stand-in for the reader to wince at. Now, they were almost feeling like proper characters — and he wondered if that defeated the point of this.

She glanced up at his narration. “There is a point to the elaboration. Trust me! If we’re going to give advice on how much action is too much action, then it might do us some good to examine what the is purpose of action surrounding dialogue. Maybe that will help you clarify why the above example felt so bad.”

“And what to do instead?”

“Precisely.”

“Like what we’re doing now?”

“Don’t call attention to it, just let it happen.” She picked up a glass of apple juice and took a sip. “Now, then. Why use action?”

He wracked his brain a moment, then shrugged. “To use less dialogue tags?”

“That is one way to use it. But why the tags?”

“Dialogue tags let readers know who is talking.”

“We haven’t used tags for several sentences. Do readers still know who is talking here?”

“Ideally, they would,” he said. “This conversation only has two people, so it’s either you talking, or it’s me. That’s pretty easy for most people to follow along with for a few lines.”

“Exactly. And the bad example above still used dialogue tags alongside the action. So, the author of the bad example — the hypothetical amateur who writes like that, not the actual author making a point — must have been using the action for something else.”

“Do you think it was to convey tone?” he asked.

“That’s one possibility. Maybe the author had a very specific image in mind, and overelaborated in an effort to press that onto the reader.”

“But it was too many actions and adjectives all at once, all in the same sentence. It made the tone go all over the place.”

She smiled down at her glass, and swirled it gently in her hands. The ice clinked. “A reader has a limited focus. One sentence at a time, one detail after another. Restricting details to the most relevant helps them focus on what’s important.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Then is the apple juice important?”

“Symbollically? The author has his own ideas. Pragmatically? It’s a fixed object we can interact with. If the reader’s mind wanders, and they wonder what we’re doing while we’re talking, they can remember ‘oh, apple juice,’ and imagine us at the table again.”

“So, objects help?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

They stared at the apple juice a moment. Shrugging, he took a glass for himself.

“Another problem with being too action-heavy is that it strips away paragraph variety,” she continued. “Action can give the reader a pause to gather their thoughts and absorb the conversation.”

“But it doesn’t do that very well if the pause is distracting, or off-topic.”

“Nope.”

He blinked as realization hit him. “Moderating action is all about pacing.”

“Bingo.”

She sipped her drink again, seeming satisfied with his answer.

“Alright then. I’m glad that’s settled,” he said, settling back into his chair at the same time. Now that they had the crux of the conversation out of the way, they could afford to spend a little narration on goofing off. “What tone do you imagine we’re giving off right now? Contemplative?”

“Cordial, I hope.”

“I can manage that, I suppose. You’re less air-headed in this version of the text. It’s a little easier not to snark at you now.”

She flicked an ice cube at him, ending the scene on mutual grins.

She flicked an ice

cube at him, ending the scene

on mutual grins.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

“young adult dystopian novels are so unrealistic lmao like they always have some random teenage girl rising up to inspire the world to make change.”

a hero emerges 

And just like in the novels, grown men and women are going out of their way to destroy her. Support our hero.

And it’s not even like it doesn’t happen regularly.  

Teenage girls are amazing.

Sometimes they’re not even teenagers

Reblog every time a girl is discredited/ignored

Who they are:

Emma Gonzalez

Malala Yousafzai

Ruby Bridges

Greta Thunberg

Mari Copeny

Autumn Peltier

Afreen Khan

Sophie Cruz

Charlottesville Black Students Union

Naomi Wadler

DAPL protestors (names not found)

Ahed Tamimi

This isn’t a coincidence. Revolutions almost always happen when the population of a country is at its youngest and that’s a lot more true nowadays with social media.

Claudette Colvin was actually the first one to refuse her seat in Montgomery, Alabama to a white passenger. The movement chose to promote Rosa Parks as the figure for that form of protest because Claudette was a pregnant 15-year-old girl.

Barbara Rose Johns was a 16-year-old who organized a student strike protesting segregated schools. This strike, after gaining support of the NAACP, became a lawsuit that turned into Brown vs. The Board of Education and resulted in the desegregation of U.S schools nationally.

7th-grader Mary Beth Tinker, disturbed by the Vietnam War, decided to wear an arm band with a peace sign on it in protest. Her school suspended her. Her family filed a suit, Tinker vs. Des Moines, which reached the Supreme Court and ruled in her favor, ensuring that students and teachers maintain their right to free speech while in school.

Freddie & Truus Oversteegen were sisters who joined a Dutch resistance movement in WWII in their teens. They lured, ambushed, and assassinated Nazis and Dutch collaborators. They also blew up a railway line, transported Jewish refugees to new hiding places, and worked in an emergency hospital. 

Our history books may like to showcase male figures, but behind every movement is a young girl ready to make a change. It was true then, it’s true now, and future generations of teenage girls will go on to inspire progress, whether they’re credited or not.

We were raised on these stories of fighting back against oppression, but then the people who wrote them or read them to us act shocked we turned out ready to fight facism even while being anti-social.

There are many reasons why women’s history is so often elided or erased in our education. But one of those reasons is that so MANY of the women who made history, did so for reasons that challenged existing structures of power…and usually in accessible, related ways that modern day institutions feared students learning from.

I feel cheated. no one on Reddit told me that tumblr is a serotonin factory. Keep liking and reblogging my posts please thanks

Donald Duck Goes To Group Therapy For His Debilitating Executive Dysfunction And It’s Just Played Completely Straight For Like Four Pages Like What

[ID: Four images, set up as an infographic with a pastel rainbow background featuring a person with light brown skin, long pink-dyed hair, a floral shirt, and a pink skirt, either in a wheelchair, or standing and dancing.

Each panel is marked with a watermark that reads "@nicolebelieves"

The first image reads, "Let's stop buying into the stereotype that all wheelchair users are paralyzed.

The second reads, "Next time you see a person using a wheelchair stand up, walk a short distance, transfer into another seat, or lift their chair into their vehicle, instead of assuming that the person never needed the chair in the first place, consider that maybe their mobility is fluid and they can't be sure, even though they're able to walk now, that they'll be able to walk for the whole day…"

The third shows an empty black and purple wheelchair, and reads, "Despite the stereotypes, most wheelchair users are not paralyzed.

-1/2 of all Americans will physical disabilities are able to ambulate (walk) in some capacity.

Sources: Disability Compendium.org 2017 Annual Report, US. Census bureau, 2016 American Community Survey

The last image reads, "..Maybe their mobility is limited and they will experience dangerous health consequences if they are standing for too long. Maybe they can walk short distances but need to sit down and rest in between, and since they can't be sure of the availability of a place to sit down, they have to bring their own.

Adopted from "Who Really Needs A wheelchair? Let's stop accusing disabled folks of being lazy" by Gabe Moses.

End ID.]

This is strictly anecdotal evidence, but of the people I've known who use wheelchairs, 4 had limited mobility & 1 had no lower body mobility that I knew about & 1 might have had mobility but I never saw him with prosthetics so I don't know.

These are people I have actually known, not people I've seen in passing (cause how would I know their capabilities?). This also does not include 2 people who could have used wheelchairs but did not have them.

177 Ethics of social relations

Just a reminder my blog is trans inclusive. It’s bi inclusive. It is pan inclusive. It is intersex inclusive. It is ace/asexual inclusive. It is aro/aromantic inclusive. It is queer inclusive.

I don’t support terfs or exclusionists.

If you came here looking for an ally in your bigotry you came to the wrong blog. Go away. You are not welcome here.

This blog also supports:

☑️ pronoun preferences, including neopronouns 🖤

☑️ gender non-conformity of all sorts 🖤

☑️ queerness of any kind 🖤

List of Vocal Sounds for Smut

I present to you a - probably quite incomplete, I’m sure I’m missing a lot of speech sounds - reference list and a bit of a guideline for the different ways one can describe the sounds your characters make whilst writing smut. I’ll definitely be referring to it, because I sometimes get stuck on exactly how to describe a particular noise. (aka, “he can’t groan again, he just groaned last paragraph”)

Sounds (noun, both independently and describing speech): breath/breathe, gasp, moan, groan, pant, whimper, whine, shout, yelp, hiss, grunt, cry, scream, shriek, sob, growl, curse, sound, sigh, hum, noise, squeak, snarl, howl, roar, mewl, wail, choke, keen, purr

Sounds (noun, describing speech): rasp, husk, drawl, plea, murmur, whisper, beg

Descriptors (adjective): loud, hushed, quiet, low, high, high-pitched, little, tiny, soft, deep, unrestrained, restrained, strained, breathy, rough, sudden, short, drawn-out, sharp, harsh, hard, thick, smooth, thin, heavy, impassioned, insistent, hungry, passionate, repeated, filthy, debauched, sweet, slow, deliberate, guttural, languid, surprised, husky, distracted, happy, pleased, satisfied, wordless, cut-off, bitten-off, contented, hoarse, extended, long, depraved, aching, choked, strangled, broken, helpless, shuddering, shaky, trembling, urgent, needy, desperate, wanton, shattered, pained, eager

Combine a descriptor and a sound for best effect - for example, “needy moan,” “pleased hum,” or “sudden scream.” You can even use two: “low, rough grunt,” “sweet little cry,” “desperate, filthy noise,” as long as you don’t repeat a word that means the same thing, unless you really want to emphasize it. Avoiding repetition is pretty key here. You don’t usually want to say “hushed, quiet gasp” except on rare occasions when it’s very important how soft the sound was.

Use your own common sense, as well; some sounds and descriptors don’t generally work well together. “Deliberate shriek” probably wouldn’t work well, and neither would “languid grunt,” but again, this is all very situational - play around! Have fun.

Feel free to add to my lists, use for your reference or pass them around. It would be fun to see a randomized generator made, too, I’m just too lazy to do it myself. ;)

Story Structure Explained: Pinch Points, Midpoints, Plot Points, and Middles (Warrior Phase)

Some writers find the middle of a story very difficult to write. They know the beginning. They know the end. But they don’t know what comes in between. After this article, you should have the information you need to finish filling in that middle! And filling it in, in interesting ways.

This post focuses on the second part of the middle, aka, the “active” or “warrior” phase of the story, and will take you from the midpoint up to the climax.

For the beginning part of story structure–the prologue, hooks, setup, and “orphan” phase–visit this page.

For the first part of the middle, between the inciting incident and the midpoint, or the “reactive” or “wanderer” phase, visit this page.

Midpoint

At the midpoint, new information enters the story that changes the context. It moves the protagonist from reaction to action. He stops being a wanderer and turns into a warrior, trying to fight back and attack, usually with a clearer goal or a more refined strategy. In other words, he is now more empowered than before.

Midpoints can be mind-blowing. Or they can be subtle. In the film Interstellar, the midpoint also serves as a twist. The context shifts and the audience and protagonists realize that there never ever really was a plan to save the humans on Earth. It was all a ruse to provide people hope. Once Cooper learns this, he changes into warrior mode, determined to do whatever it takes to return to Earth and/or save the people there.

Other midpoints aren’t as drastic. It might be the protagonist sitting down to eat and suddenly having a profound realization that changes the perspective of everything she’s been reacting to.

In Spider-verse

The midpoint in Spider-verse happens at the very end of the scene where Miles and Peter B. Parker steal the computer from Alchemax, and it goes into the very beginning of the next scene, the bus ride with Gwen Stacy.

Prior to this, even if Miles and Peter have a plan, they’ve largely been responding. And the only reason they need to go to Alchemax in the first place is because Miles himself broke the override key.

However, by the end of this scene, a few things have changed that steer us into the next phase:

1. Miles learns how to unstick intentionally 2. And how to use his web, intentionally 3. By this point, he’s learned how to listen to his spider senses. 4. Peter and Miles begin working together as a team

In other words, things they were reacting to are starting to get under control. Sure, Miles still doesn’t have control over all his powers, and maybe that’s a variation, but it works because he has control over the iconic, main Spider-man powers.

On the bus ride afterward, Gwen Stacy reveals she knows where they can go to make another override key, promising they’ll make sure the new one doesn’t break, and thus giving Peter and Miles a clear plan and a clearer path to defeating the antagonist.

Warrior State (and Character Arc)

From the midpoint to the climax, the protagonist is in a stronger proactive or “warrior” state. Armed with what they’ve learned as a wanderer (which may include having mentors, friends, and helpers), the protagonist is ready to make more proactive efforts or actual attacks on the antagonistic force.  According to Larry Brooks, they may literally fight back, hatch a plan, enlist assistance, demonstrate courage, or show initiative.

They may not always be successful (after all, the story isn’t over), but they are brave and intentional. And not only will they be fighting the antagonistic force, but their inner demons as well (which relates to character arc and theme).

Keep reading