Tips For Writing - Tumblr Posts

Writing tips for long fics that helped me that no one asked for.

1.) Don't actually delete content from your WIP unless it is minor editing - instead cut it and put it in a secondary document. If you're omitting paragraphs of content, dialog, a whole scene you might find a better place for it later and having it readily available can really save time. Sometimes your idea was fantastic, but it just wasn't in the right spot.

2.) Stuck with wording the action? Just write the dialog then revisit it later.

3.) Stuck on the whole scene? Skip it and write the next one.

4.) Write on literally any other color than a white background. It just works. (I use black)

5.) If you have a beta, while they are beta-ing have them read your fic out loud. Yes, I know a lot of betas/writers do not have the luxury of face-timing or have the opportunity to do this due to time constraints etc but reading your fic out loud can catch some very awkward phrasing that otherwise might be missed. If you don't have a beta, you read it out loud to yourself. Throw some passion into your dialog, you might find a better way to word it if it sounds stuffy or weird.

6.) The moment you have an idea, write it down. If you don't have paper or a pen, EMAIL it to yourself or put it in a draft etc etc. I have sent myself dozens of ideas while laying down before sleep that I 10/10 forgot the next morning but had emailed them to myself and got to implement them.

7.) Remember - hits/likes/kudos/comments are not reflective of the quality of your fic or your ability to write. Most people just don't comment - even if they say they do, they don't, even if they preach all day about commenting, they don't, even if they are a very popular blog that passionately reminds people to comment - they don't comment (I know this personally). Even if your fic brought tears to their eyes and it haunted them for weeks and they printed it out and sent it to their friends they just don't comment. You just have to accept it. That being said - comment on the fic you're reading now, just do it, if you're 'shy' and that's why you don't comment the more you comment the better you'll get at it. Just do it.

8.) Remove unrealistic daily word count goals from your routine. I've seen people stress 1500 - 2000 words a day and if they don't reach that they feel like a failure and they get discouraged. This is ridiculous. Write when you can, but remove absurd goals. My average is 500 words a day in combination with a 40 hour a week job and I have written over 200k words from 2022-2023.

9.) There are dozens of ways to do an outline from precise analytical deconstruction that goes scene by scene to the minimalist bullet point list - it doesn't matter which one you use just have some sort of direction. A partial outline is better than no outline.

10.) Write for yourself, not for others. Write the fic you know no one is going to read. Write the fic that sounds ridiculous. You will be so happy you put it out in the world and there will be people who will be glad it exists.

How To Write A Kiss Scene:  An Illustrated Guide

Anonymous Asked:

Can you maybe do a post on the elements of a kiss scene? 

Certainly, and I’m sorry it took so long – I have several post requests I’m working on, and thankfully, I finally have a bit of spare time to answer them. 

If you’d like my tips on how to write a healthy romance, or how to write a killer sex scene, go right ahead and click the links here.

For the time being, here goes!

1.  Keep things understated (especially in regards to tongues.)  

“Our tongues tangled and went to war in our locked mouths, battling madly for dominance.”

No.  Okay?  Just no.  The thought of my tongue “tangling” with someone else’s is an image I would really prefer to unsee, yet I have seen it and countless variants in both published literature and fics.  

Similarly, ask anyone whose ever had an unsolicited tongue jammed down their throat:  it’s not pleasant, and readers shouldn’t be lead to believe it is.  

My advice with kissing scenes is to focus predominantly on lips, and maybe add a little tongue as an afterthought.  Like so:

“His lips were warm and soft.  They parted slightly, allowing my tongue to slip inside.”

If you want something a bit more passionate:

“Our bodies pressed together heatedly against the wall, breathing heavily as our lips pressed together.  I could taste our shared breath, feel the thud of our combined heartbeat as we fumbled to take off one another’s clothes.”  

You could even try, “His tongue pressed between parted lips in ticklish kitten licks,” which, granted, sounds a little awkward without context, but isn’t nearly as wince-worthy as the image of it being jammed in like a tongue depressor.

Literally and metaphorically, tone down the tongue.

2.  Don’t get overly floral about taste.

“Her lips tasted like peaches and honey.”

No, they didn’t.  And her pussy didn’t taste like coconut cream pie, either, or anything else your quintessential sub par male author or pre-teen smut writer might dream up.  

Unless she’s literally just been eating peaches and honey, or she’s using some kind of fancy lubricant, her lips are going to taste like lips, and her pussy is going to taste like pussy.  Full stop.

Granted, that isn’t very romantic, which is why I like to focus on other sensations besides taste.  For example:

“Her lips were soft, almost silken, and pillowy against my own.  I could feel the soft tickle of her breath beneath my nose, fingers carding through her hair as we breathed each other in.”

I occasionally actually will have my characters be eating or drinking something before hand, also, just to add an extra layer of sensation play to the scene.

For example:

“His lips were still sweet with milk and honey from his afternoon tea as Alexander kissed his husband goodbye.”

But my advice is keep these instances short and sweet:  nothing can kill the mood like a good dose of purple prose.

3.  Focus on how the characters are feeling.

Here’s the thing: as I understand it, kissing someone you’re not all that into at the moment is awkward.  

You don’t know what to do with your hands, your hyper aware of everything your body is doing, and you’re really concerned with how you might taste.  You’re also a lot more prone to noticing unseemly things about your partner, like bad morning breath, bad skin, weird grunting breathing, et cetera.

The same goes for writing:  too much physicality can make a kissing scene feel painfully awkward, whereas, just as in real life, a good kiss will be one in which the best part is how your partner makes you feel.

Focus on how your POV character is feeling, and add physical details here and there to make the scene feel grounded:

“Warmth blossomed in Luna’s chest, sparks igniting as Artemis leaned in close, lips brushing together, tentatively, for the first time.  The smell of her perfume, of the soft, peachy scent of her conditioner, was dizzying, butterflies dancing in her stomach.  But warmth consumed her as she leaned into the kiss, Arty’s lips impossibly soft against her own.”

I find this approach much more effective than describing each motion in painstaking detail.

Bonus:  Learn from the masters.

I don’t claim to be the paramount expert on writing, kissing, or any combination of the two.  

So without further ado, here are what are considered to be some of literature’s finest makeout scenes for your benefit and inspiration:  

“It was like that. Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the moving-picture director and his Star. They were still under the white-plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between. It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby    

“I turned around and found her face, and her mouth was already waiting like a question. I’m not gonna make it out to be something that it wasn’t: It was perfect—Coley’s soft lips against the bite of the liquor and sugary Coke still on our tongues. She did more than just not stop me. She kissed me back.”

-  Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post

“She drew him toward her with her eyes, he inclined his face toward hers and lay his mouth on her mouth, which was like a freshly split-open fig. For a long time he kissed Kamala, and Siddhartha was filled with deep astonishment as she taught him how wise she was, how she ruled him, put him off, lured him back… each one different from the other, still awaiting him. Breathing deeply, he remained standing and at this moment he was like a child astonished by the abundance of knowledge and things worth learning opening up before his eyes.”

- Hermanne Hesse, Siddhartha 

“Cath closed the book and let it fall on Levi’s chest, not sure what happened next. Not sure she was awake, all things considered.The moment it fell he pulled her into him. Onto him. With both arms. Her chest pressed against his, and the paperback slid between their stomachs.

Cath’s eyes were half closed, and so were Levi’s and his lips only looked small from afar, she realized, because of their doll-like pucker. They were perfectly big, really, now that she had a good look at them. Perfectly something. He nudged his nose against hers, and their mouths fell sleepily together, already soft and open. When Cath’s eyes closed, her eyelids stuck. She wanted to open them. She wanted to get a better look at Levi’s too-dark eyebrows, she wanted to admire his crazy, vampire hairline—she had a feeling this was never going to happen again and that it might even ruin what was left of her life, so she wanted to open her eyes and bear some witness.

But she was so tired. And his mouth was so soft.And nobody had ever kissed Cath like this before. Only Abel had kissed her before, and that was like getting pushed squarely on the mouth and pushing back.

Levi’s kisses were all taking. Like he was drawing something out of her with soft little jabs of his chin. She brought her fingers up to his hair, and she couldn’t open her eyes.”

-Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl  

ROMEO

If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

JULIET Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.

JULIET You kiss by the book.

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

Writing Resources: WORDS ARE HARD

60 Synonyms for “Walk”

A list of sounds/onomatopoeias for writers

American vs British terms

Descriptionary

Insult names to use instead of "idiot”

Looking for a word you can’t remember

OneLook Reverse Dictionary

One look thesaurus

Power Thesaurus

Researching for WIPs : A Collection

Reverse Dictionary

Synonyms for Very

Using the appropriate vocabulary in your novel

Wild vs feral

Words to use instead of: cry/cried/crying

Writing websites

Character Traits

An interesting trick I learned from scrolling through my Instagram feed (instead of writing) is to focus on the extremes of your character - the two ends on a character’s personality spectrum.

Take a perfectionist, for example. This person strives to be perfect all of the time, therefore, they work extremely hard. However, this person is so obsessed with being perfect that they can come off as condescending or controlling.

A character’s personality traits also depend heavily on the viewpoint at which you’re looking. Take an abusive parent. When the parent is at work, all of their co-workers may see them as a caring, respectful, and friendly person. To their child, they’re seen as uncivilized and a monster.

I’m not saying you have to use the “extremes” concept on every character. In fact, assigning only negative traits helps the reader identify who the antagonist (or villain) may be. However, giving a character both positive and negative traits helps humanize the character.

If you have any questions regarding character traits, or feel as though I’ve missed something, feel free to let me know!

Characters Types

Protagonist: 

The Protagonist is the main character of your story. They are the most mentioned, the one who drives the plot, the one the readers will be paying most of their attention to. Generally, there is only one, but there can be more than one protagonist in a story. 

Antagonist:  

The Antagonist is the character that goes against the Protagonist. An Antagonist doesn’t have to be a person, necessarily. It can be a group of people, society, nature, et cetera. They don’t even have to be evil, they just need to go against the Protagonist’s motives.  

Villain:

Both the Villain and the Antagonist are opponents of the Protagonist. Though, the main difference is the Villain has bad intentions. They are evil.

Dynamic Character:

A Dynamic Character is the person who undergoes a change throughout the story, whether it be good or bad. The character’s motives or morals are different than they were in the beginning. The change is normally permanent.

Flat or Static Character:

A Flat or Static Character is the opposite of a Dynamic Character, hardly experiencing any changes throughout the story, if at all. Generally, the reader doesn’t know much about this character. 

If you have any questions regarding character types, or feel as though I’ve missed something, feel free to let me know!