Getwrit - An Archive

pick-me-ups for writers

for the self-conscious beginner: No one makes great things until the world intimately knows their mediocrity. Don’t think of your writing as terrible; think of it as preparing to contribute something great.

for the self-conscious late bloomer: Look at old writing as how far you’ve come. You can’t get to where you are today without covering all that past ground. For that, be proud.

for the perfectionist: Think about how much you complain about things you love—the mistakes and retcons in all your favorite series—and how you still love them anyway. Give yourself that same space.

for the realist: There will be people who hate your story even if it’s considered a classic. But there will be people who love your story, even if it strange and unpopular.

for the fanfic writer: Your work is not lesser for not following canon. When you write, you’ve created a new work on its own. It can be, but does not have to be, limited by the source material. Canon is not the end-all, be-all. 

for the writer’s blocked: It doesn’t need to be perfect. Sometimes you have to move on and commit a few writing sins if it means you can create better things out of it.

for the lost: You started writing for a reason; remember that reason. It’s ok to move on. You are more than your writing. It will be here if you want to come back.

aww nasa has a page for space technology terms you can use in science fiction

nerds

For as long as you can remember, people in your village have told stories of angels wandering in the forests surrounding you. You never believed them until one stormy night, when an injured angel appears at your door.

im tired of all these askmemes being for otps tbh

so leave a brotp/platonic ship in my ask and i’ll tell you:

who steals french fries off the other’s plate

who jokingly moves in for the kiss when someone asks if they’re a couple

who has to bust or bail the other out of jail

who gives the other advice/comfort about dating issues

who shamelessly cheats at games by reaching over to cover the other’s eyes

who immediately calls dibs on the top bunk

who starts and who wins the pillow fights

who says “your pants would look better on their floor” to the other’s potential crush

Ways to un-stick a stuck story

Do an outline, whatever way works best. Get yourself out of the word soup and know where the story is headed.

Conflicts and obstacles. Hurt the protagonist, put things in their way, this keeps the story interesting. An easy journey makes the story boring and boring is hard to write.

Change the POV. Sometimes all it takes to untangle a knotted story is to look at it through different eyes, be it through the sidekick, the antagonist, a minor character, whatever.

Know the characters. You can’t write a story if the characters are strangers to you. Know their likes, dislikes, fears, and most importantly, their motivation. This makes the path clearer.

Fill in holes. Writing doesn’t have to be linear; you can always go back and fill in plotholes, and add content and context.

Have flashbacks, hallucinations, dream sequences or foreshadowing events. These stir the story up, deviations from the expected course add a feeling of urgency and uncertainty to the narrative.

Introduce a new mystery. If there’s something that just doesn’t add up, a big question mark, the story becomes more compelling. Beware: this can also cause you to sink further into the mire.

Take something from your protagonist. A weapon, asset, ally or loved one. Force him to operate without it, it can reinvigorate a stale story.

Twists and betrayal. Maybe someone isn’t who they say they are or the protagonist is betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. This can shake the story up and get it rolling again.

Secrets. If someone has a deep, dark secret that they’re forced to lie about, it’s a good way to stir up some fresh conflict. New lies to cover up the old ones, the secret being revealed, and all the resulting chaos.

Kill someone. Make a character death that is productive to the plot, but not “just because”. If done well, it affects all the characters, stirs up the story and gets it moving.

Ill-advised character actions. Tension is created when a character we love does something we hate. Identify the thing the readers don’t want to happen, then engineer it so it happens worse than they imagined.

Create cliff-hangers. Keep the readers’ attention by putting the characters into new problems and make them wait for you to write your way out of it. This challenge can really bring out your creativity.

Raise the stakes. Make the consequences of failure worse, make the journey harder. Suddenly the protagonist’s goal is more than he expected, or he has to make an important choice.

Make the hero active. You can’t always wait for external influences on the characters, sometimes you have to make the hero take actions himself. Not necessarily to be successful, but active and complicit in the narrative.

Different threat levels. Make the conflicts on a physical level (“I’m about to be killed by a demon”), an emotional level (“But that demon was my true love”) and a philosophical level (“If I’m forced to kill my true love before they kill me, how can love ever succeed in the face of evil?”).

Figure out an ending. If you know where the story is going to end, it helps get the ball rolling towards that end, even if it’s not the same ending that you actually end up writing.

What if? What if the hero kills the antagonist now, gets captured, or goes insane? When you write down different questions like these, the answer to how to continue the story will present itself.

Start fresh or skip ahead. Delete the last five thousand words and try again. It’s terrifying at first, but frees you up for a fresh start to find a proper path. Or you can skip the part that’s putting you on edge – forget about that fidgety crap, you can do it later – and write the next scene. Whatever was in-between will come with time.