Writer Stuff - Blog Posts
Winter: -Does winterish things-
The Northeast: "HOW DARE YOU???"
Me, while defrosting: "My characters shall also suffer this sub-zero misery."
A list of some of the things I use every day for writing and worldbuilding tasks!
I've been thinking about a post with this info for a few weeks now, so here it is! A note that I am not affiliated with any of these sites or services--I just use them :)
WordHippo
Until late last year, I had been using thesaurus.com to handle my never-ending hunt for the perfect word. I switched to WordHippo because it is much more friendly to searching phrases in addition to just words. It also includes rhymes, translations, word forms, and pronunciations. For non-English speakers, the word forms section could be particularly helpful.
Fantasy Name Generators
This site has just about anything you could need in relation to generators, including ones specific to pop culture and fandoms like Stargate, Star Trek, Harry Potter, and more. There are sections to create simple mockups of character armor, solar systems, languages, and even find some royalty-free music.
PhotoPea
As a graphic designer, I often find myself needing to visualize my characters, environments, and book covers to really immerse myself when I'm trying to write a scene. PhotoPea is a free alternative to Photoshop that even uses many of the same keyboard shortcuts (meaning you can often follow Photoshop tutorials while using PhotoPea). If the Adobe Creative Suite is out of your budget, PhotoPea is, in my opinion, the best free alternative.
Seventh Sanctum
This was the first generator site I used back in my days on FanFiction and FictionPress, and I still like to use it for its slightly less daunting interface when compared to Fantasy Name Generators. I also find it loads faster.
Descriptionary
I stumbled across this site not long ago, and I've become a bit obsessed with it. It's a bit clunky to navigate, but there's a lot of information and helpful tidbits to be found including color symbolism, body language, and words to use/not use and why.
No Man's Sky Photo Galleries
While this isn't a specific site, and the one I've linked here is just one example of many that are out there, I've found No Man's Sky to be one of my biggest inspirations when writing sci-fi and environmentally focused scenes. The sheer scale of No Man's Sky and its procedurally generated worlds make it easy to find inspiration for everything from planets, to fauna, wildlife, ships, and structures.
Inkarnate
This site stands alone if you need something that allows you to build beautiful maps for your stories. It has a free and a paid version, and the free version is fairly robust. If you're someone who writes anything that involves large-scale worlds or anything involving military strategies, it can be really helpful to have the lay of the land right in front of you as you write.
Autocrit
While the free version of this is pretty limited, I've really enjoyed having it accessible for identifying adverbs, story beats, and to compare my original pieces to genres and authors.
Cap That
If you need high resolution screen captures from your favorite shows, this is the place to find them!
This was my favorite discovery of this past year.
Fun fact, AI struggles with writing or creating pathetic, sad, men, or just any man that isn't macho and super masculine, ESPECIALLY pathetic or sad men in straight relationships, so go forth, write your stories with a sad man and some Mafia boss women.
Everyone always talks about imagining scenes and not being able to write them, but have you ever had the opposite happen? Cause it's literally me 24/7.
I'll be in the mood to write, having a general idea of what I want, and I can't stop writing, but I also can't keep thinking of things. The last time this happened, I didn't stop for 2 whole days, didn't sleep. Wrote while writing, wrote while crying, literally all day, but I just kept rewriting cause I physically couldn't think of other scenes.
Show, don’t tell
"Show, don’t tell" means letting readers experience a story through actions, senses, and dialogue instead of outright explaining things. Here are some practical tips to achieve that:
1. Use Sensory Details
Tell: "The room was cold."
Show: "Her breath puffed in faint clouds, and she shivered as frost clung to the edges of the window."
Tell: "He was scared."
Show: "His hands trembled, and his heart thudded so loudly he was sure they could hear it too."
2. Focus on Actions
Tell: "She was angry."
Show: "She slammed the mug onto the counter, coffee sloshing over the rim as her jaw clenched."
Tell: "He was exhausted."
Show: "He stumbled through the door, collapsing onto the couch without even bothering to remove his shoes."
3. Use Dialogue
What characters say and how they say it can reveal their emotions, intentions, or traits.
Tell: "She was worried about the storm."
Show: "Do you think it'll reach us?" she asked, her voice tight, her fingers twisting the hem of her shirt.
4. Show Internal Conflict Through Thoughts or Reactions
Tell: "He was jealous of his friend."
Show: "As his friend held up the trophy, he forced a smile, swallowing the bitter lump rising in his throat."
5. Describe the Environment to Reflect Mood
Use the setting to mirror or hint at emotions or themes.
Tell: "The town was eerie."
Show: "Empty streets stretched into the mist, and the only sound was the faint creak of a weathered sign swinging in the wind."
6. Let Readers Infer Through Context
Give enough clues for the reader to piece things together without spelling it out.
Tell: "The man was a thief."
Show: "He moved through the crowd, fingers brushing pockets, his hand darting away with a glint of gold."
7. Use Subtext in Interactions
What’s left unsaid can reveal as much as what’s spoken.
Tell: "They were uncomfortable around each other."
Show: "He avoided her eyes, pretending to study the painting on the wall. She smoothed her dress for the third time, her fingers fumbling with the hem."
8. Compare to Relatable Experiences
Use metaphors, similes, or comparisons to make an emotion or situation vivid.
Tell: "The mountain was huge."
Show: "The mountain loomed above them, its peak disappearing into the clouds, as if it pierced the heavens."
Practice Example:
Tell: "The village had been destroyed by the fire."
Show: "Charred beams jutted from the rubble like broken ribs, the acrid smell of ash lingering in the air. A child's shoe lay half-buried in the soot, its leather curled from the heat."
fellow writers, how do you properly research translations / language info? lately i’ve been googling, not just using google translate, but different sources give me different translations. how do you go about translating? help!
sometimes i feel like writing is a grill and i am the meat.
im so in love with how my characters love each other that i always have to find and then swap the word tender/tenderly like a hundred times when im writing fluff
me when i write: hold on, how many times have i used this word? i've used it 27 times in the last 1000 words
i made this for my fic, to be sure where each relationship is where now. can someone pat my head and tell me im a good boy, pls? :)
i could leave a fic uncompleted? u mean it?
so here's the thing. abandoning fics is good actually.
if you're a writer and you hate writing a thing? you can just stop. slap THE END? on the last chapter if you want to pretend like it's really finished, but mostly just free yourself from the prison of your own guilt. you're spending your valuable free time and mental space beating yourself up about a thing that was your choice to start writing in the first place. you decided to start making the thing, and you can also decide to give it up.
this also applies if you're a reader! starting a fic doesn't mean that you have to finish it. maybe the tags looked good. maybe the summary was intriguing. maybe you even liked the first couple of chapters. But if the story starts going in a direction that you don't like, if the author writes your favourite character in a way that doesn't vibe with you, if you just get bored with the premise and want something new, you're allowed to stop reading. Just because you sit down at the table with a whole entire cake doesn't mean you have to eat the whole thing. Sometimes you just want a little sliver, and that's just fine.
loving a story for a couple of chapters is still a lovely way to spend your time. get your enjoyment out of however much time you want to spend with it, and when that time stops being enjoyable allow yourself to move on.
falling out of love with something doesn't mean the love was never there. the love was there in the beginning, and it mattered, and it stays a part of you - even when it's not still there anymore.
Daydreaming is an important part of writing. Even without words pouring out onto paper, you're still the author of stories.
i think that all the ppl this happens to, me included (especially the days after an update) simply were not loved enough as children
like, if dad had been like "yo, whats that, show it to me. Omg, I love ur drawing! 💖🌈🌱🫶" instead of in some hotel cheating on mom, this wouldnt be an issue now. and mom... lets not talk abt mom lol
how I be staring at my ao3 inbox waiting hopelessly for a comment:
