Writing Tips

Alright, to kick off my first 'Monthly Tips' project, I'm gonna explain a little about what this project actually is.

Here is my 2nd tip for you guys, Tip: Synonyms.

If you've studied writing, you may have heard of Stream of consciousness writing before.

Write your scenes like movie scenes.

I am very bad at this one lol but outlining before you begin can help you with a number of things and make life easier to write.

Order of operations when writing.

Last time I talked about backstory and important it is for flushing out your characters and knowing them like a psychometric mind reader.

I talk a lot about characters and what makes good characters great, so Ill try not to get too far into that this time but as characters are an intrinsic part of story telling and given the nature of this months topic, naturally it will play quite a big part.

Beware the never ending seasons 'rom-com' style of storytelling that plagues western culture.

World building is one of the tallest tasks of writing but it's the foundation of your story house.

The ear doesn't lie, read dialogue out loud.

The key to a good story begins with a great threat.

Never describe something that's not there.

Stuck? Skip it.

Impression and atmosphere. Those are the functions and goals of setting.

I recently fell down a Pinterest hole and found a bunch of these super helpful subplot tips, so I decided to share the best of them.

Possibly the best anybody can give you, and the only one you can't go without, is don't be afraid to look things up.

A lot of writing about emotions, especially strong ones, is dancing around it.

Figure out what you want to happen, then how you want it to happen, and then write it.

Muttering your writing to yourself as you go can be very helpful for a few reasons.

You know that moment when you're struggling to come up with what happens next after finishing a scene that feels wrapped up, and you're wracking your brain trying to figure out what could happen after that?

Sometimes it's good to keep your stories focus on the main character and have everything revolve around them in a way that makes it feel like we're reading their story.

Writing has a style, just like art does. And just like art, your style will be comprised of your favorite parts of other styles, to combine and create your own unique one.

Your imagination is a fuzzy thing. It works in blurry, vague images, and doesn't bother with the details.

As some of you may know, I recently attended a Discord convention for writers called 'SaScon' (Scribes and Scribblers is the parent server for it) and I took some extensive notes for the panels and learned a lot about how to teach people these things, and I've expanded a little bit on the things I talked about in "World Building |". So, I'll be sharing my notes and new experience with you today!

Conflict is the soul of history. Conflict and problems are what feed progress.

This is specifically for people who aren't writing for just fun or as a hobby. Of course, if you want to be very good at writing, these are great practices, but if you have no intention to publish your work with profit in mind (even if it's just something like Ko-Fis), then these won't be very useful to you.

Don't worry too much about the technicalities of writing. Aim to improve, but try not to get too caught up in things like proper grammar and the like. You're a storyteller.

Cut the irrelevant detail.

Walking the line between "grammatically correct" and "what sounds right to you/how people think/read" can be a tricky one.

Put simply, a motif is a distinctive repeating feature or idea; often, it helps develop other narrative aspects such as theme or mood. And this can be used to give instant depth to a character.

If you find yourself having trouble with the actual writing part of story-telling, or you're spending a lot of your time wondering if it should be a comma or a period, then it can be a sign that it's time to brush up on your basics and refresh your knowledge about the written language.

Don't treat your magic system like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Try to make your magic, make sense.

I'll be sharing two secret weapons that I keep tucked away in my pocket, and I can speak from experience that both of them work wonders for me.

My editing method is pretty simple. I do all my writing in Google docs because it's convenient for switching between all of my devices and doesn't take up space on my computer, but I use both the free version of Grammarly (which has a google chrome extension which makes it convenient), and sometimes Microsoft word as well because Grammarly can catch most of the obvious mistakes and office is better at catching and suggesting the sentences that sound weird.