The Rain And Me, From ‘letters From Yesterday: A Collection Of Poems’ By Moi

anyway most writing advice is frequently contradictory to other writing advice you might receive from people who have just as much/more writing ~expertise~ and a lot of writing advice is just flat-out terrible even if it’s coming from an ~expert~ so if you’re a writer consider this post a reminder that

writing advice that comes up on your dash should be looked at as tips you can choose to follow or discard as it suits you, not hardline rules you MUST abide by or else you’re a ‘bad writer’

you’re allowed to look at a piece of writing advice and say, “wow, that’s a shit idea and i don’t want write like that” and forget about it – even if the post has thousands of notes full of other people agreeing with it

there is no One True Right Way to write, your writing does not have to be just like everyone else’s – if all stories were written the same way and with the same style, reading would be a much more boring thing to do

if you try to write in a way that pleases everyone, you will fail because pleasing everyone is not possible – your own satisfaction with your work, your own desire to write a story, and your own enjoyment of writing are more important than that

WriterofthePrompts Ultimate Ask Masterlist

I’ve decided to make a masterlist of asks I’ve done to make them easier to find for you guys (and for myself). I split them into categories as best as I could by genre and topic. Also, some asks have some helpful tips in the notes as well to check out (some are marked but not all) and if you have anything to add that you think would help, feel free to reply or reblog with your addition. I’ll try to keep it updated with future asks.

Now without further ado, the strangest and most wonderful list I’ve ever made.

World Building

Urban fantasy prompts/creating urban fantasy world (also linked under fantasy)

Links to help with world building

Creating a pantheon of gods

Things to research when writing a historical novel (also linked under Historical)

Using metaphors in descriptions

Too much world building?

Asking questions to develop a magic system

Wizard school ideas

Why magic would drain from a world

Tips for descriptions

Reasons for civil war

Character Development

Writing confusion in your character

Obstacles to character goals: traveling abroad

Reactions to sadness

Reactions to a devastating event

Showing a character’s anxiety towards something

Showing a character’s secret without revealing it

Reasons a character would die for another

Secrets in a character’s past

Culture shock with loss of rules

Growth of a trainee witch

Characters provoking other characters

Dealing with moving to a completely new place

Why a 19yo would allow a strange boy to live with her

Why a character would want a do-over in life

Showing a character going from good to bad

Possible good messages when the villains aren’t reformed

Kid growing up surrounded only by adults

Quirks for characters

Showing friendship with reserved characters

Introducing an antagonist

Introducing side characters

When you don’t think your character’s backstory fits

Writing Different Types of Characters

Writing antiheroes

The reluctant hero

Writing a violent character afraid of their mind

Making an immoral character likeable

Not a normal girl

Sympathetic villain

Making sure your character isn’t just a flirt

Writing intelligent characters

When your hero isn’t very heroic

Confident characters

Writing an antisocial character

Character Family

Visiting family for the first time

Showing closeness in siblings (opposite twins)

How a joker and a quiet character can become friends

Daughter of a party organizer prompts

Parent jobs where the kid needs to keep up appearances

The mom that left comes back…a vampire

Including character’s parents

Why a character would leave another

Sibling relationships

character with an abusive father (and how to show fear)

Romance

Writing a slow paced love story

love interest vs the ex revamped

Platonic male x female relationships

Random places to get married

Suspense and romance with a “different” male lead

sad relationship prompts

Asexuality and romance

Mutual pining

Romance with large age differences

Childhood friends falling in love

Fluffy unique first kiss

Ways of showing commitment in characters (vampire edition)

Friendship to romance

Small situations for a couple story

fantasy creature and human fluff

characters meeting and falling in love during war

Why best friends might fall in love

Unlikely soulmates prompts

Sci Fi

Using dreams as energy

Time travel prompts (asked for male x female protags)

Time travel: how saving someone can go wrong

Reliving memories

Android characters

Writing humanoids in post apocalypse

Consequences of growing a baby in an artificial womb (theoretical)

The evil AI that characters can’t (shouldn’t) destroy

Girl and guy get trapped in the same body

Rich people in post apocalypse

Discovering you have a doppelgânger

Superheroes

Teenagers, hormones and their superpowers

Weird superpowers

Superhero kids reluctant to be superheroes

Aliens

beings traveling to Earth

Why an alien wouldn’t be able to leave Earth

Reasons an alien would be sent to live on Earth

Human/alien team surviving on hostile planet together

Fantasy/Paranormal

Urban fantasy prompts/creating urban fantasy world (also linked under world building)

gods losing their powers

creations turning on their creators

How elemental powers might work

Why NOT to destroy the world when it’s your goal

Mistreated genies

Tropes of a fantasy (also linked under Writing Motivation/Tips)

Male character ideas in a fantasy

Immortal woman prompts

Beauty and the Beast revamp

How Death and a teenage girl become adventure teammates

Powers for magical beings writing down history

Girl meets demon from forest behind her house

Reverse fairytale prompts

Revamped fairytale prompts 2

Manatees being confused by mermaids

a princess befriends a baby dragon

Making a character believe in a cure for a curse

Egyptian gods living among us

A love between the sun and the moon

What fantasy creatures do on Halloween

Human and fantasy creature become pen pals

Creatures

Monsters and urban legends

Fantastic creatures

A little bit on dragons

Kind dragons

Magic and Witches

witch x wizard romance

witch prompts

Witch being protective over a human-turned-doll

magical boarding school

Ideas for curses

A young witch exploring the boundaries of her powers

Traps a wizard could set for a thief

Angels and Demons

Angels and demons

Angel as a human on earth

Jobs for angels and demons who fall in love

Physical impacts on a demon who keeps dying and coming back

Demons hunter prompts

Vampires

Human meets vampire 1

Human meets vampire 2

How to hide your vampirism from your family

Royal vampires

Vampire hunter gets bitten by a vampire

Reasons a locked up vampire would go after your character

Why a vampire and vampire hunter would work together

Vampire x werewolf forbidden love

Ghosts

Helpful ghost prankster prompts 1

Helpful ghost prankster prompts 2

Human and ghost solving mysteries together

1776 woman with supernatural abilities prompts

A medium whose friend is in a coma

Medium question Pt. 2: their fatal flaws

Battle Scenes

Writing Battle Scenes Tips

How to lead up to an action scene

Keep reading

“The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid’s burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance.”

— Richard Price (via promptly-written)

How to stop researching (or worldbuilding) and start writing

This is actually advice my mentoring professor gave me when I was writing my first thesis.

He said: Accept that you are never done. There is always more to know, more to research, more questions raised than answered. At some point, you just got to start writing.

Now, “easier said than done, this accepting”, I thought.

I started writing because my thesis deadline was looming. But what if you’re writing a novel and you have no deadline? How do you know when it’s okay to stop researching? When is it okay to stop worldbuilding? (Which is just like doing research, but in your own head instead of in reality.)

My advice to you is: start writing, and you’ll run into the gaps you still need to fill. Then you know what to research before starting your second draft. Let your story tell you what it needs.

For example:

Just fill your margins with a to-research-list for your future self.

That way, it’s also managable: “I finished my first draft, and I have a list of 317 things I need to decide on.” Instead of: “I saw on tumblr that you can’t build a world without knowing everything about the sewage system! And gosh, I haven’t invented three languages yet!”

Advantages:

You get things done.

It’s not overwhelming.

You don’t spend your time inventing things you’ll like so much that you want to infodump them into your story.

You mainly research things that are relevant to your story.

Well, knowing you, you already researched enough irrelevant stuff too.

You get things done.

I hope this was helpful. Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, and happy writing!

Follow me for more writing advice, or check out my other writing advice here. New topics to write advice about are also always welcome.

Tag list below the cut, a few people I like and admire and of course, you can be too. If you like to be added to or removed from the list, let me know.

Keep reading

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I hate to break it to ya, guys, but

You’re all so creative and everything you wrote, drew and created made the world a tad bit more beautiful

Don’t ever stop, you little chunks of mess and fabulousness, because in this world today, we need every single drop of beauty we can get

tried writing, ran out of ideas, please have this snippet until I conjure up motivation to finish it

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people talk all the time about “primal instincts” and it’s usually about violence or sexual temptations or something, but your humanity comes with a lot of different stuff that we do without really thinking about, that we do without being told to or prompted to

your average human comes pre-installed with instincts to:

Befriend

Tell story

Make Thing

Investigate

Share knowledge

Laugh

Sing

Dance

Empathize with

Create

we are chalk full of survival instincts that revolve around connecting to others (dog-shaped others, robot-shaped, sometimes even plant-shaped) and making things with our hands

your primal instincts are not bathed in blood- they are layered in people telling stories to each other around a fire over and over and putting devices together through trial and error over and over and reaching for someone and something every moment of the way

weird thing about writing is that like, even if no one decides to rep me and I don't get published and don't become a bestseller, if not one of those things happen, I've still got the book. I still have the story. It's a thing that you don't have to commit your entire life to but that you never have to give up if you don't want to.

it's just ingrained in my head that I will never stop writing, regardless of whether I'm empirically successful or not, cuz it's not about the success. It's always been about the stories.

– i’d hoard jars man // e.d.c.

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The Strength of a Symmetrical Plot

One of my favorite studies of Harry Potter is that of the ring composition found both in the individual novels and overall composition. That very composition is what makes Harry Potter such a satisfying story. It’s a large part of the reason Harry Potter is destined to become a classic. 

And it’s an integral part of the series many people are completely unaware of. 

So what is ring composition? 

It’s a well-worn, beautiful, and (frankly) very satisfying way of structuring a story. John Granger, known online as The Hogwarts Professor, has written extensively on it.

Ring Composition is also known as “chiastic structure.” Basically, it’s when writing is structured symmetrically, mirroring itself: ABBA or ABCBA. 

Poems can be structured this way. Sentences can be structured this way. (Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.) Stories of any length and of any form can be structured this way.

In a novel, the basic structure depends on three key scenes: the catalyst, the crux, and the closing. 

The catalyst sets the story into the motion. 

The crux is the moment when everything changes. (It is not the climax). 

The closing, is both the result of the crux and a return to the catalyst. 

In Harry Potter, you might recognise this structure: 

Voldemort casts a killing curse on Harry and doesn’t die. 

Voldemort attempts to come back to power

Voldemort comes back to power.

Harry learns what it will take to remove Voldemort from power.

Voldemort casts a killing curse on Harry and dies.

But all stories should have this structure. A book’s ending should always reference its beginning. It should always be the result of some major turning point along the way. Otherwise, it simply wouldn’t be a very good story.

What’s most satisfying about chiastic structure is not the basic ABA structure, but the mirroring that happens in between these three major story points. 

To illustrate what a more complicated ABCDEFGFEDCBA structure looks like, (but not as complicated as Harry Potter’s, which you can see here and here) Susan Raab has put together a fantastic visual of ring composition in Beauty and the Beast (1991), a movie which most agree is almost perfectly structured. 

source: x

What’s so wonderful about ring composition in this story is that it so clearly illustrates how that one crucial decision of Beast changes everything in the world of the story. Everything from the first half of the story comes back in the second half, effected by Beast’s decision. This gives every plot point more weight because it ties them all to the larger story arc. What’s more, because it’s so self-referential, everything feels tidy and complete. Because everything has some level of importance, the world feels more fully realized and fleshed out. No small detail is left unexplored.    

How great would Beauty and the Beast be if Gaston hadn’t proposed to Belle in the opening, but was introduced later on as a hunter who simply wanted to kill a big monster? Or if, after the magnificent opening song, the townspeople had nothing to do with the rest of the movie? Or if Maurice’s invention had never been mentioned again after he left the castle? 

Humans are nostalgic beings. We love returning to old things. We don’t want the things we love to be forgotten. 

This is true of readers, too. 

We love seeing story elements return to us. We love to know that no matter how the story is progressing, those events that occurred as we were falling in love with it are still as important to the story itself as they are to us. There is something inside us all that delights in seeing Harry leave Privet Dr. the same way he got there–in the sidecar of Hagrid’s motorbike. There’s a power to it that would make any other exit from Privet Dr. lesser. 

On a less poetic note, readers don’t like to feel as though they’ve wasted their time reading about something, investing in something, that doesn’t feel very important to the story. If Gaston proposed to Belle in Act 1 and did nothing in Act 3, readers might ask “Why was he even in the movie then? Why couldn’t we have spent more time talking about x instead?” Many people do ask similar questions of plot points and characters that are important in one half of a movie or book, but don’t feature in the rest of it. 

Now, ring composition is odiously difficult to write, but even if you can’t make your story a perfect mirror of itself, don’t let story elements leave quietly. Let things echo where you can–small moments, big moments, decisions, characters, places, jokes. 

It’s the simplest way of building a story structure that will satisfy its readers.

If there’s no place for something to echo, if an element drops out of the story half-way through, or appears in the last act, and you simply can’t see any other way around it, you may want to ask yourself if it’s truly important enough to earn its place in your story. 

Further reading:

If you’d like to learn more about ring theory, I’d recommend listening to the Mugglenet Academia episode on it: x

You can also read more about symmetry in HP here: x

And more about ring structure in Lolita and Star Wars here: x and x

And about why story endings and beginnings should be linked here: x

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