Every writing advice ever: If you’re having trouble with a scene, skip it and write a different part of the story.
Me: If I don’t write in chronological order, I will die
“That’s my advice with dealing with writer’s block. Follow the fun. If you aren’t having fun, you are doing it wrong.”
From my private meme collection. Since I also work as an editor I often have to remind myself there aren’t actually any rules in writing. I’m happiest when I let myself follow my obsessions, my interests, my fancies and caprices–even if that means it doesn’t “make sense,” or the results are weird, or I never finish it, or no one ever wants to read it or publish it, or it’s 5 words long, or it’s written on toilet paper, or whatever. Sharing for whoever needs to hear this today <3
Wonderful.
I’ll add a gif I made, to remind myself as much as others.
1. Write what you want to read.
2. There is no problem with a story so great that it cannot be fixed in revision. Keep going.
3. If your story is as uncreative as you think it is, you wouldn’t want to write it so badly. You want to write it because there’s a unique spin on it you have never seen, and want to express. Many people may write similar stories, but it’s the details that make it personal. You may not know it now, but there is someone who is looking for exactly what you’re writing. If you don’t finish it, they’ll never see it.
4. You can write something amazing and still be met with silence. There are myriad reasons for this that have nothing to do with the quality of what you produce.
4.1 It’s okay to repeat post your work if no one has seen it.
4.2 It’s okay to post your work in multiple places.
5. You don’t have to agree with every criticism (but take it gracefully anyway).
6. Most writers are scared of the same things you are.
7. Don’t judge your works in progress against the archives of finished, polished stories other writers have put together. Archives are Internet portfolios and generally don’t show all the multitude of failures, incomplete, and draft-form works those writers are also struggling with. They aren’t perfect and you don’t have to be, either. Keep working and you will have a portfolio of your own.
8. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas with other writers. It’s not annoying as long as you’re not self-important about it. Be humble and gracious, and others will reciprocate.
8.1 You can’t write as well in a vacuum; the more people know that you are working on something, and what, the more support you will get for that work. Starting a dialogue before you post something will make it more likely people will read it when you do post it.
9. It’s okay to take breaks. If the ideas just aren’t coming, go do something else for a while.
10. Be kind to yourself. Don’t call yourself names. You are not a failure, or uncreative, or boring. You wouldn’t call other people those things, so don’t do it to yourself.
I don’t know if these are helpful to other people, but they are helpful to me, so just in case, here they are!
[working on a new writing project] Definitely the hardest part of writing is getting started. [working on the middle of a project] Definitely the hardest part of writing is what happens between the beginning and the end. [finishing a writing project] Definitely the hardest part of writing is the end. [editing] Well well well, if it isn’t my old arch nemesis, editing… defiitely the hardest part of writing,
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.”
— Octavia Butler (via writingdotcoffee)
Anonymous asked:
Hey hello, sorry to bother!
I’m new to writing, more so to write a story in English. Not being my native language, however, i’m having a hard time.
My story is told in a first person POV.
I’m having issues with writing it without adding too many “I/my/me/mine” but, sometimes I struggle too much, so i ended up filling this story with many “the”, instead.
Can you please share some tips to avoid that? You would save my day and story as well! Thank you for all your hard work.
theliteraryarchitect-deactivate answered:
Hi there! This is a great question. Rest assured that lots of writers have a hard time with this, even when English is their first language! Here are a few tips.
If every observation is filtered through your POV character, it’s easy to overuse the word “I.”
Filtering:
I heard a bird singing outside my window.
Revised:
A bird sang outside my window.
Filtering:
I saw my mom walk up to the door.
Revised:
My mom walked up to the door.
If every sentence is an action, it’s also easy to overuse “I.”
All action:
I ran across the street. I hesitated for a moment. Then I knocked on Jesse’s door. I nervously twirled my keys in my hand. When no one came to the door, I started shaking.
Action + inner monologue + description + dialogue + summary:
I ran across the street. Jesse said he’d meet me at the bus stop at 4pm. It wasn’t like him not to show. I knocked on the door. The house was totally silent. Had he forgotten about me?
“Jesse?” I called.
No response.
I nervously twirled my keys in my hand. The last time someone bailed on me like this, that was it. We broke up the next day. I’d hoped things wouldn’t go that way this time, but history does have a way of repeating itself.
A neighbor’s dog barked, then another car whizzed by on the street. But still no noise from inside the house. I started shaking.
In a first person story, we assume that inner thoughts and emotions are coming from the narrator. They don’t need to be tagged.
Before:
I couldn’t believe it. Shrimp? She knew I was allergic, I thought to myself. What was she thinking?
Revised:
Unbelievable. Shrimp? She knew I was allergic. What was she thinking?
Remember, you don’t need to eliminate every single instance of “I” in a first person story. If you’re doing syntax acrobatics and constructing a slew of awkward sentences to avoid using “I,” you might be going to far. First person stories will use the word “I” a lot–there’s only so much you can change that. Just do your best!
Hope this helps :)
Honestly, I think the whole “don’t pay the writers” thing boils down to the notion that everybody thinks they can write. It’s the old saw about the novelist at a cocktail party having to hear someone say, for the millionth time, “I’d love to write a book someday.”
Someone–Stephen King? Pretty sure I saw this in a Stephen King foreword–once said they’d like to say to a brain surgeon, “Boy, I’d love to do brain surgery someday.”
We treat “the ability to put words into a sentence” like it’s just the same as “the ability to form a coherent narrative that engenders a variety of emotions within the reader and puts them in a scene and shows them what they didn’t see before”.
And that’s like me drawing a stick figure and saying I’m an artist.
Writers are constantly devalued because everyone thinks they have a book in them and don’t realize the level of skill and commitment it takes to finish even a short story, much less a whole book.
This goes well beyond fandom, but man, I would’ve hoped fandom would know better.
***REBLOGS AGGRESSIVELY***
When I was in college, one of my professors said, “We write because we don’t feel like we belong in this world, and want to create a place for ourselves on paper” and honestly I’ve never heard something so relatable since I took that class
keepcalmandwritefiction
That’s my advice with dealing with writer’s block. Follow the fun. If you aren’t having fun, you are doing it wrong.
