Writer's Life - Blog Posts

The dreadful path from "Omg I love this chapter so much" to "If I read it once again and find yet another thing to change, I might as well set it on fire"

The time you finally let go and post it should definitely be somewhere in between 😂

The holy texts

MASTERPOST (PT. 2)

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

For romance writing prompts, plotting tips & more, check out: MASTERPOST PT. 1

⭐Dialogue

Writing Dialogue 101

Crying-Yelling Dialogue Prompts

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⛰️Words to Use Instead Of...

Synonyms for "Walk"

Synonyms for “feeling like”

Words To Use Instead of "Look"

Words to Use Instead Of...(beautiful, interesting, good, awesome, cute, shy)

Said is dead

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🔠Vocab Lists

Nervous Tension Vocab

Kiss Scene Vocab

Fight Scene Vocab

Haunted House Inspo & Vocab

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👁️‍🗨️Setting & Description

Common Scenery Description Tips

2012 School Setting Vibes - follower question

Describing Food in Writing

Describing Cuts, Bruises and Scrapes

Using Description and Setting Meaningfully

How Different Types of Death Feel

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🗡️Weapons & Fighting Series:

Writing Swords

Writing knives and daggers

Writing Weapons (3): Staffs, Spears and Polearms

Writing Weapons (4): Clubs, Maces, Axes, Slings and Arrows

Writing Weapons (5): Improvised Weapons

Writing Weapons (6): Magical Weapons and Warfare

Writing Weapons (7): Unarmed Combat

Writing Female Fighters

Writing Male Fighters

Writing Armour

Writing Group Fights

Writing Battles At Sea

Erotic Tension in Fight Scenes

Pacing for Fight Scenes

Writing a Siege Warfare

Different Genres, Different Fight Scenes.

Making Fight Scenes Sound Nicer

Fight Scenes For Disabled Characters

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🌎Worldbuilding

Constructing a Fictional Economy

Homosexuality in Historical Fiction

Writing Nine Circles of Hell

Writing Seven Levels of Heaven

Master List of Superpowers

Magic System Ideas 

A Guide to Writing Cozy Fantasy

Dark Fantasy How-To

Dark Fantasy Writing Prompts

Dark, Twisted Fairytale Prompts

Fantasy World Cultural Quirks 

Fantasy Nobel Ranks: A List

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🌠Symbolism in Writing

Plant Symbolisms 

Weather Symbolisms

Symbols of Death

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🪄Writing Magic

Writing Magicians - the basics

Writing Magic Systems

Magical Training Options for Your Characters

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📋Other!

List of Fantasy Subgenres

Beauty is Terror: A List

The Pirate's Glossary

Storyediting Questions to Ask

Writing Multiple WIPs Simultaneously

Idea Generation Exercises for the Writer

Book Title Ideas

Picking the Right Story For You

What If God Dies in Your Story 

International Slang, Slang, Slang!

10 Great Love Opening Lines 

How to Insult Like Shakespeare

Serial Killer Escape Manual

Best Picrew Character Generators for Your Characters!

How to Write Faster

Gonna hold onto this

Writing Weapons (1): Swords

The Thrusting Sword

Type of fight scene: entertaining, duels, non-lethal fights, non-gory deaths, swashbuckling adventure

Mostly used in: Europe, including Renaissance and Regency periods

Typical User: silm, male or female, good aerobic fitness

Main action: thrust, pierce, stab

Main motion: horizontal with the tip forward

Shape: straight, often thin, may be lightweight

Typical Injury: seeping blood, blood stains spreading

Strategy: target gaps in the armous, pierce a vital organ

Disadvantage: cannot slice through bone or armour

Examples: foil, epee, rapier, gladius

The Cleaving Sword

Type of fight scene: gritty, brutal, battles, cutting through armour

Typical user: tall brawny male with broad shulders and bulging biceps

Mostly used in: Medieval Europe

Main action: cleave, hack, chop, cut, split

Main motion: downwards

Shape: broad, straight, heavy, solid, sometime huge, sometimes need to be held in both hands, both sides sharpened

Typical Injury: severed large limbs

Strategy: hack off a leg, them decapitate; or split the skull

Disadvantage: too big to carry concealed, too heavy to carry in daily lifem too slow to draw for spontaneous action

Examples: Medieval greatsword, Scottish claymore, machete, falchion

The Slashing Sword

Type of fight scene: gritty or entertaining, executions, cavalry charge, on board a ship

Mostly used in: Asia, Middle East

Typical user: male (female is plausible), any body shape, Arab, Asian, mounted warrior, cavalryman, sailor, pirate

Main action: slash, cut, slice

Main motion: fluid, continuous, curving, eg.figure-eight

Shape: curved, often slender, extremely sharp on the outer edge

Typical Injury: severed limbs, lots of spurting blood

Strategy: first disable opponent's sword hand (cut it off or slice into tendons inside the elbow)

Disadvantage: unable to cut thorugh hard objects (e.g. metal armor)

Examples: scimitar, sabre, saif, shamshir, cutlass, katana

Blunders to Avoid:

Weapons performing what they shouldn't be able to do (e.g. a foil slashing metal armour)

Protagonists fighting with weapons for which they don't have the strength or build to handle

The hero carrying a huge sword all the time as if it's a wallet

Drawing a big sword form a sheath on the back (a physical impossiblity, unless your hero is a giant...)

Generic sword which can slash, stab, cleave, slash, block, pierce, thrust, whirl through the air, cut a few limbs, etc...as if that's plausible

adapted from <Writer's Craft> by Rayne Hall

The life cycle of a chronically ill aspiring author

Aka: me rn 👁💧👄💧👁

the holy grail types of fanfic

You are a dynamic character in the story of your life.  You are complex and multi-dimensional.  Don’t give up.  Your story isn’t over!

about a quarter through writing the first draft for the third book in my series!

it’s been my fav book to write so far because of all the storylines i have planned, but it’s also been the most complicated to write for the same reason😭

there’s just so much that has to happen — between the main storyline *and* the side plot that it’s literally making my brain feel like this: 🫠

it’s so fun yet so stressful at the same time but hey i love writing!!!!!!😁

Necessity of Creativity

Writing Embellishments?

Once you have a finished fanfiction/novel (assuming its fully edited for basic things like grammar mistakes, plot holes, POV consistency, etc.) what is the next step to making it more literary? I'm talking about extra embellishments for way beyond a first draft. Here's what I usually (try to) add:

Plot twists Uniqueness to character voices Improved description and heightened stakes

More meaningful philosophical dilemma and moral conflict

What else do you think would be a nice extra embellishment to add, assuming you had all the time in the world to do anything you wanted to make a masterpiece? Let's say you wanted to make it read like an absolute literary classic. Let's say your goal is to shock and impress people with how good it is. What are some extra amazing qualities to add in a story that would take it to another level?

Besides the Lorax and Wish, what are some other animated movies that people think could be rewritten better? (Or would just be interesting to expand upon as a novel?) Idk how many rewrites I'll be able to do this summer, but I'm having a lot of fun learning about storytelling from this experiment!

Writers when they finally finish their first draft after months of hard work, blood, sweat and tears 🥹

Screaming relief 😩

I don't even do outlines anymore, but this still happens. Planning means nothing; never has.

Snippet from The Ithaca Mandate

The shuttle door opened, and Judith’s breath shuddered out of her lungs. She expected officers, maybe commanders and ensigns. But the first officer she spotted was the last one she expected to see.

The uniform was familiar.

Command red.

Grey eyes darted around the chamber, mouth gaping a bit in some kind of startled awe. Then they landed on Judith and Lyris, and the face morphed into a scowl.

“Of course.”

Captain Elara Becketts strode forward, combat boots thunking on the debris coating the floor. She came to a stop before them, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You two are like goddamned roaches."

I'm 129,000 words in and my flashbacks are misaligned with my present day scenes and now the main characters rekindle in the present before they breakup in the past gahhhhhh

How did I do this to myself >.<

There is nothing better than walking the dog and managing to come up with a breakthrough for your original fic plot.

Good thing the Godolphin Arabian has a murky origin story...

Sitting here, trying to finish up my new chapter with Ira chilling on my shoulder. Then I notice he's looking at something.

What's he looking at?

THAT IS THE WORLD'S BIGGEST HARVESTMAN SPIDER ON MY BED CRAWLING RIGHT AT ME.

Now, mind you, I'm a farm girl, and I do have a lease agreement with the spiders in my house. If I can see they are paying rent by eating bugs, they can stay. BUT NOW THERE IS A STIPULATION THAT THEY MAY NOT RELOCATE TO MY BED.

Annnnnnyway. I scooped up said spider with the remote and not-so-graciously relocated it to the floor and then tracked it with a flashlight for the next 5 minutes until it was an acceptable distance from my bed.

Happy Friday??

Saw a debate about using s' or s's at the end of a character's name whose name ends in s to show possessive.

My conclusion: it depends on the style guide you're using, and whether you are an ancient prophet (???) holding a stick that belongs to Moses or a friend of Moses holding a stick that belongs to Moses. Also, just be consistent.

I will only use s' and I will die on this hill.

You ever write a really awesome sentence and then just stare at it for a while like, "Damn. I wrote that?!"

And then every other sentence ends up looking like a drunk text and you realize you've somehow offended yourself.

Every time...

IT'S ALL FOR THE PLOT!!!!!

After all, writing isn’t the whole damn world. Fuck this writer’s block.

I’ll walk around, watch Béla Tarr or Andrei. I’ll call Joyce she never runs out of words.

Or I’ll sleep it off, because I refuse to let a blank page make me consider the unthinkable.

Writing Tip #8

Write every day. That’s right, every day. You may have heard this before, maybe you haven’t. It’s a lot easier to eliminate writer’s block and to get pages dished out in a day. If this seems daunting and you don’t believe you have the time, make time. In between work, or studying, or even before class (which is what I do), just start off with what you can get and then go from there.

Don’t worry about the quality of your writing, just write what you can. That’s what editing is for later. Keep at it until you are writing at least three paragraphs or more everyday. It should be easier to start when the time comes to just sit and start typing (or writing in a notebooks) for a whole hour or more.

i hate how you get desensitized to the cool stuff in your WIP if you've been writing it for a long time so when you read back over it you're like "this isn't as cool as i thought :(" but it still is! you just read it too many times

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