If You Were Only Allowed To Eat Salad For The Rest Of Your Life... (for Arbitrary Reasons) What Five

I think the funniest dynamic for arranged-marriage royalty would be a queen who came here 100% prepared to murder her future husband and rule as a widow queen in her own right, only to discover that the king is autistic as hell and responds to her wish to rule with "oh thank god please do, I don't want to be bothered by these people. I can just tell them to go bother you instead, if you really want that. I've got beetles I wanted to study."

Underwriting: ways to boost your word count

I wrote a fic recently and the word count for the first draft came to about 40,000 words – roughly the length of a novella or ficlet. And that’s fine because I wasn’t striving for a novel or a 100K slow-burn coffee shop AU.

But coming to edit my first draft I realised something about myself. I am an underwriter. My fic could actually be at least 10k (maybe 20k) longer. Of course it’s not all about word count, it’s about the story, but in this case a smaller word count isn’t because I’m a fantastically efficient storyteller it’s because I’ve missed out a lot of stuff. Like, Important Stuff.

So as I set out to add muscle to the skin and bones I’ve already created in draft one I thought I’d share five tips for my fellow underwriters to help you flesh out your writing too.

1)     Make sure to describe the place and space in which the action happens.

There are quite a few places in my first draft where there’s no indication as to where things are taking place– or there is, but it’s the bare minimum and not really enough to build up a clear picture. This probably because as the writer I know exactly what the place looks like so I make the assumption that a bare minimum description will mean the reader knows too.

Now I’m not saying go into masses of detail about what your settings look like. In some cases it’s not useful to describe setting in a lot of detail (e.g. during really fast paced action sequences) but doing a verbal sketch of the space is essential for putting your characters in context and reader understanding.

I really is a fine balance (which is why beta readers are your friend!) But definitely go back to your setting descriptions if you’re an underwriter, they might need some work.

2)    Make sure to describe your character’s appearance.

Similar to the above point – you know what your characters look like, but unless you describe them, the reader won’t.

It’s fair to say that descriptions are open to reader interpretations, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t describe them in a healthy amount of detail. So you might try to nail down some of the interesting quirks about your characters to help the reader build a picture – not only will it help the readers understanding, it’ll boost your word count too!

Note: This one functions a little differently in a fic because the readers are probably familiar with how the character looks, but there is nothing wrong with adding your interpretation (or even reminding them, especially if the characters are from a book.)

3)   Include character reactions outside of what they say out loud.

Real life conversations aren’t just about the stuff that comes out of our mouths. So much of human interaction is about body language – so include it in your writing! Saying that the character covers their mouth with their hand when they talk suggests shyness. While another character crossing their arms shows they’re defensive -perhaps because they’re feeling threatened. In real life we don’t always say what we mean – but a lot of the time our actions give away what we’re really thinking. By including these actions around dialogue writers can influence how we as readers view characters and how we interpret interactions between characters. And it can boost your word count too.

The big stuff:

4)     Check your pacing.

When you write it feels like your scene is taking place over hours, days, weeks because when you’re writing it takes time. Reading, on the other hand, is much quicker. A seasoned reader can fly through a 100 page novel in a few hours – a seasoned writer can spend hours writing a 100 words.

When you read back your writing, make sure to check your pacing. You might just find that the Impossible Task you set for your characters at the start of the story is suddenly resolved within the next fifty pages. To boost your word count you might want to start by adding more obstacles between the character and their goal.

For example; your character has to find an object such as a precious jewel. Sounds relatively easy, right? But what if the jewel is lost in the mines of an ancient people, amongst thousands of other treasures that look very similar? What if no one has found this jewel because it’s guarded by a fire breathing dragon? What if the ancient mines and dragon are located in a mountain which is miles and miles away across dangerous lands? What if your characters need to enlist the help of someone with a very specific skill set?

You take one simple objective (finding the jewel) and you put into play a series of obstacles that must be overcome in order to complete the objective. Your underwriting tendencies, like mine, might just mean that there aren’t enough metaphorical (or real) dragons in your story!

5)    Sub-plots.

A sub-plot is a smaller scale plot - often involving the supporting characters - which runs secondary to the main plot. It can be directly linked to the main plot, i.e. the info provided in the subplot directly influences events in the main plot. Or it can simply be linked through place, time or themes of the overall story (e.g. Hermione’s elf rights campaign ‘S.P.E.W’ in Harry Potter and the OoTP is linked to the overall theme of oppression.)

Sub-plots are great because they can serve as some respite from a traumatic main plot; your character is fighting a war (main plot) but also fighting and failing (in hilarious ways) to win the affection of their love interest (sub-plot).

Plus, sub-plots can also help with characterisation, can cause your main character to have the moment of realisation which allows them to overcome the obstacles they face in the main plot and is generally a better reflection of real life! Sub-plots often centre on side-kicks and other characters – people who might not be as devoted to the end goal as the protagonist is. In fact, well written side characters seemingly live their own lives with their own goals. You might choose to showcase this in your sub-plot by letting the conflict of interest cause more problems for the protagonist to overcome.

Either way you could find your word count sky rockets as soon as you add in a few clever sub-plots.

I hope this helped!

Got any questions? Send me an ask

Adult Wednesday Addams: Planned Parenthood

**** Spoilers ****

Letters to Jude from Cardan. Only available in the B&N copies of Queen of Nothing by Holly Black.

fake dating to lovers is nice but married for non-romantic reasons to lovers is next fucking level

Happy: “Kid–,”

Peter, looking absolutely betrayed: “Were you ever going to tell me?”

Happy: “I didn’t mean to lie to you, I swear. I thought you knew.”

Peter, dramatic as hell: “Five years.”

Happy: “Peter–,”

Peter: “I spent five years believing that your god-given name was Happy Hogan.”

Happy: “—I’ll buy you ice cream or something, anything, just please don’t cry—,”

Peter, already tearing up: “I don’t even know who you are anymore, Harold.”

“we all know why” just say it’s because they’re white. say it out loud with your whole entire chest. trump supporters aren’t being stopped from storming government buildings because THEY! ARE! ALL! WHITE! that’s it. just say it.

TW Don’t kill yourself today

Don’t kill yourself today

Because your Netflix trial still has a week left

Don’t kill yourself today

Because no one else will finish off the chicken in the fridge

Don’t kill yourself today

Because I know for a fact that Starbucks is releasing a new Frappuccino sometime next month

Yes, your mother will miss you

Yes your bully will make a sappy Facebook post about how what a a wonderful person you were

And yes

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem

You know that

You’ve known that

Everyone and anyone has been shoving that down your throat since they first learned what the word suicide meant

So don’t kill yourself

Until you finish your shampoo and conditioner at the same time

Don’t kill yourself

Until Doctor Who is finally cancelled

Don’t kill yourself

Until you tell someone your best pasta recipe 

Don’t kill yourself 

Because I will keep coming up with reasons for you not to

And I need you

To hear all of them

Don’t kill yourself

I love you

You’re important

It’s a bad day

Not a bad life

There is more to this

The world will keep spinning on its axis without you

But

Think of all the sunrises you’d miss

I know this sounds pointless

But when you’re sitting in front of everything deadly you own

Revising your goodbyes

There will be too much darkness 

To see anything else

But this is not about seeing anything else

This is about turning off the lights

This is about finding the bed instead of the noose

This is about giving yourself one more day

Even if it takes ten thousand of those

One more morning’s

Until

“I can’t wait for tomorrow”

This is about staying alive

Because there’s gonna be a new Marvel movie

No one should miss that

This is about staying alive

Because the future is coming 

And it’s ready for you

I don’ t need you to see it

I just need you to believe you can make it 

Until then

- Hannah Dains