​

For example, instead of:

“The room was small, with yellow walls and a narrow window.”

you could incorporate the same visual information into something else:

“He opened the window, but it was too narrow to let enough light into the room.”

Or:

“The walls were a disgusting shade of yellow. He’d have to paint them.”

The basic idea being: if a visual detail is worth including, why not make it serve another purpose: character, action, atmosphere, etc? And if it serves no purpose beyond telling the reader what something looks like, why include it?

What kind of writing exercises, lessons, or even YouTube videos have helped you with your writing?

I can’t go back to college to learn creative writing and of course I can learn from reading and just simply writing but there must be some exercises or free lessons that have helped you.

This would be especially helpful for writing in a 3rd person limited pov as that is what I am working on right now.

This may seem like such a silly question but I have a really basic question about how to bring a paragraph together. I will have a thought like keys are a silly thing, then keys are kept even when we don't know what they're for, and then it will go off on some thought about keeping things we don't need and junk drawers. But I can't find a way to string those thoughts together. They just sit there as separate sentences. They're lacking a train of thought or flow that gets me from keys are silly to junk drawers are silly. Is there some way to practice tying those together? Or maybe videos I should watch to help figure it out?

I’m not saying my writing seems bad, but I know what happens with every word, sentence, and paragraph, so I tend to roll my eyes a little and feel like skipping over it. I’m not able to look at it from a reader’s point of view. What should I do?

I have one novella nearly ready for publication and a second one that i just completed the first draft on. I have an idea for a third novella that i haven't started writing yet. They're crime/thriller theme with a common homicide detective working various cases.

Originally i was planning on trying to have my sister inlaw do my cover art. She's a graphic designer and she does paintings on the side. Unfortunately, her workload and personal projects are taking up almost all of her time and I'm not sure she'll be able to fit my project in.

I'm pivoting to a different/ simpler strategy, and I'm curious how others think this would play. My idea is to take a high res photo of a stack of manila folders on a wooden tabletop. Then using photoshop i could add text and maybe a fictitous police department logo. Each book would use the same template with only the title and maybe a case file number on the folder tab changed.

As someone who has always enjoyed writing and telling stories, writing longer fiction feels like it should come easy.
God it does not! I am only now learning to force myself to keep writing past 1000 words of a story.
Part of that is flatly anxiety, because I don't ever feel satisfied with the writing.
Therefore, the piece I am currently working on:

Project Longshot
Genre: Weird Fiction
Length: At time of writing, 1200 words
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KGcZ4oxkSWOL_22cXEHoDJkuclIBZifThcRU_3lWYs0/edit?usp=sharing

so as the title states i need help writing for my character after seeing someone they know and love die in a war

what are the ways things life grief and ptsd would manifest and be shown in writing and if you have any examples of the above would be great for reaserch

My next scene is a more or less Satanic ritual set during 1926, though to be more accurate it's for the fallen angel Samyaza (who was the leader of the Watchers who decided to mate with human women in the Book of Enoch). It makes the most sense to write it from the POV of the character who serves Samyaza/is his avatar of sorts because of the other things going on between the characters.

To start with, it's purposefully NOT a Thelema or Golden Dawn type ritual. This character has stated point blank that what he does at the behest of his patron is different from that, and in any case it's a small and private thing. My interpretation of Samyaza is that he's mostly just very...lusty and the worship tends to revolve around that. But I still want to have some familiar aspects, like a pentagram and candles.

I know I could just be vague about what the special stuff is, for instance just homemade soap with cleansing herbs or whatever instead of saying it's rosemary, but elsewhere in my writing I tend to be more specific about sensory identifiers, so it would stand out, especially since it'd be in character for him to explain what was going on.

Just wanted to get some opinions on this!

Alright, so I've been playing with a world for a while. Not doing much, simply keeping it and some base information in the background. This isn't totally relevant but it's there. So anyways I have a group of 6 immortal gods. However they're going through a time loop, they don't remember they're gods, and they don't always get to remember every Lifetime.

So for instance:

Lifetime a: All of them remember everything

meanwhile

Lifetime b: character a remembers two of their lifetimes, but character B remembers none.

Character A knows character B, cares for them deeply, but also knows they'll all die and that character B will likely remember them next Lifetime or on occasion that memory will develop. They also understand that they themselves may not remember character B or their other lives come next reincarnation.

What I'm trying to figure out is how much a character will be hurt by their partner cheating, in spite of t not knowing they're doing so. I also am trying to figure out how they'll act and wanted some advice, or at least some theories?

i have a love hate relationship with my brain, i start an idea and go full in on it, but then i get a new idea and now im stuck.

I’m not sure if i should change how my MMC & FMC meet for my new adult dark romance.

option a) FMC arrives 2 weeks late to college, when she is moving in, she bumps into the MMC on the quad, they butt heads, not sure what to think of each other. FMC goes to her dorm, meets her roommate. her roommate says that her twin brothers friend has invited them to a party that night. they go. at the party she bumps into the MMC. they talk again, and things are better easier. sparks flow etc etc (maybe kiss, maybe not undecided). then the roommate comes outside to talk to FMC and reveals that the MMC is her twin.

option b) FMC arrives to college 2 weeks late, she heads to her room, opens the door, there’s a guy there. the MMC. she’s confused and they talk, he teases her. then the roommate walks in, and apologises for her brother, tells MMC to leave. they all go to the party that night, FMC ends up alone outside and MMC finds her they have a connection

option c) same set up. but the FMC and MMC don’t meet until the party. they end up having spicy time. the next day, MMC goes to his twins room and then finds the FMC there and there realise how everyone is connected

soz this is the easiest way to briefly explain it :)

“Katabasis” is Ancient Greek for “descent”; in literature, it refers to a character “descending to the underworld” (often metaphorically), collecting something valuable such as wisdom or strength, and then returning.

Examples include the Odyssey, wherein Odysseus is unable to return home until he gains the necessary wisdom from his trials. Another from Lord of the Rings is Gandalf, who descends into Moria and comes back changed. Yet another may be Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment, who is forced to confront the pain and contradiction of his worldview and is sent to Siberia, following which he can begin his spiritual rebirth with Sonja.

An example of a “negative” katabasis is found in 1984. Winston is thrown into Room 101 and does not come out with metaphorical treasure, but is instead changed for the worse (a sort of negative formulation of Katabasis).

I spent years stuck on creating characters until I started asking “What underworld are they descending into” and “what, if anything, do they bring out of it?”. Suddenly, the story seems to write itself and the characters are alive.

I’m curious if others have used this approach and how well it worked for you.

I finally have momentum with writing and I am getting words on a page, I know a blank page can't be edited

But everything I come up with feels trite and unoriginal

I tried character building exercises and everything I come up with about my characters feels so flat. I'm also struggling a lot with figuring out what my characters want and what's in the way of what they want

I'm putting so much pressure on myself to come up with some fantastical and unique plot when I as a reader don't care about that, but I can't stop expecting that of myself as a writer

How do I fix this?

So I have been, for the sake of fun and to improve my skill, writing a story focused on the events of the videogame The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Now, this story will obviously follow the main story of the game as it was, but during this time the character will meet other individuals some of whom have not existed in the game, find love, experience heartbreak, loss but also many good experiences as well.

I intend to explore the world from the perspective of a character, rather than a player, and I’ve posted a prologue on the Archive of our own but so far, I haven’t had a single click.

To be honest it makes me feel disheartened to even continue. Would something like this even be fun to read? I would love some advice!

I’m sort of in the phase of editing where I’ve read these words a thousand times and I know everything that happens (which seems obvious because I wrote it). But the amount of fatigue I feel for the story is really getting to me. Whenever I take a few weeks off, and read it in full, I love it again. But after each solid week of editing I just find myself scrounging to feel the magic. I understand it’s impossible to experience your own work the way a reader would. But I guess my question is, how do you keep loving your story after you’ve been staring at it for so long?

I am a content writer. I have always had insecurity about my writing skills. Recently, I have started noticing my grammatical errors, and they are making me think that I am an incompetent writer. For example, I wrote her interest range from x, y to z instead of interests. Also, I wrote future occurrence instead of future occurrences. I also failed a copyediting test because I was not able to edit a 500-word article in 15 minutes. Now I am unable to decide if it was time constraint or my incompetence as a writer.

Hi! I'm currently writing the main plot for a dnd campaign I'm going to DM, and I decided to use my fictional world that I have been writing lore for a bit now outside of DnD (so its basically homebrew).

So to get some background on the campaign goal; the players are going to resolve (and stop) a conspiracy of a cult that is trying to put their leader in charge of their country and attempt to reinforce a law that outlaws everyone but a certain group of people. This cult worships the first lord/god of their country, who was a ruthless ruler that saw his kind as superior and was responsible for initiating "The Founder's War" that set the world in big tragedy. This event occured several hundred years but the nations never truly recovered from it, so there has been a couple minor wars in between this event and the time the campaign is set in.

In current times, Ive as of far written the nations a bit varying in states. One suffers from corruption (they're on edge to civil war), two nations just made peace with each other (~10-20 years before current events) and still healing from that, one nation is completely closed off and only one is considered at peace as of now.

So I'm looking mainly for advice on how I can write the homeland of the cult's current state. They were not involved in the other nation's affairs but definetly built some tension due to the overall tension of the world. After hundreds of years, why would a powerful hungry guy only now try to take power over the country reinforce his former lord's tyranny?

Title. I'm running a dnd campaign with some of my friends, and the main antagonists are a Pantheon of False Gods who are really just a handful of really powerful reality benders (it's based off a game we all really like.)

The issue is that they keep getting into situations where they come comically close to being in the sights of said Gods, and I'm having to write around it because I haven't figured out how to justify them not just immediately Dr. Manhattan'ing them into dust.

I've considered making it not apart of their power set, but that doesn't really work when they can do something similar with the exact same result. I've considered motive and playing with their food, but that would only buy them a few minutes and wouldn't give them enough room to do anything without dying.

I'm not sure what else to do, so I'm calling upon the masses of creation to help resolve my plight.

I'm used to make my characters overly complex and the only thing that they do is being explained, not changed. I understand that change is a result of a decision made because of a conflict, but it's still ends up in the same place. My main character was explained from every angle possible, but there was no change... And sometimes I feel like I'm trying to force a change on my character just for the sake of it...

Maybe someone can help me with it or explain how change in the characters really works?

My first time trying to write a story, just to post for fun online.

The issue I'm running into, is it feels like this chapter is like one of those generated monologues where the character describes what they do in the series, rather than actually showing the series (if you've seen those Dexter ones). Now that might be too critical a way to put it, but I'm having trouble judging it personally.

Its basically along the lines of :

My Dad always said.... ya ya ya, he'd come in and tell us stories of.... ya ya ya, We were always moving around a lot, never settled in one place... ya ya ya, misfortune happens, Mum dies, ya ya ya... we kept travelling around, things got worse, he descended into madness, ya ya ya, he kept dragging us to archaeological sites. etc.

But it just feels very voice-overish. The actual story is gonna be first person, immediate. Is it 'wrong' to have the first chapter written like this? My intent is for it to kind of cut in to the story proper towards the end, where the Dad being somewhat crazy gets killed by the MC, this will all be properly first person / action, but the first 500 - 1000 words or so are all like the above.

Keen for any advice, if this makes sense to you guys, thanks.

Hello everyone.
So, this’ll be a weird question, but stick with me. I'm currently writing a MG novel about a 12 year old trying to come to terms with the death of her old best friend. This death occurred a few months before the story started, and the friend also moved away from the MC a few months before then. Also, the current story takes place during summer.

Now, I'm giving each character at least one distinctive hobby, and I'm trying to give them hobbies that’s stood the test of time. A big thing I want is that, despite taking place right now (cell phones, texting and video calls happen semi-frequently), I want the novel to feel as timeless as possible. Thus, all my characters have hobbies that reflect this:

• Reading
• Gardening
• Cycling
• Swimming
• Drawing
• Woodworking
• Writing

Regarding that last one, this dead friend, currently, likes to write funny letters she leaves either in *legal* public places (a library's community board and a little free library) or somewhere in the MCs house. This friend’s an extrovert; loud, outgoing, kind, playful/mischievous, though stubborn and gets anxious sometimes. The letters’re an outlet for her to be herself when others make fun of her. She also likes using wax seals as a fun, decorative element. Right now, there’re four letters the MC finds from her old friend, and each helps her, in some way, process her grief.

HOWEVER, I’m worried I’ve chosen something that COULD end up being a fad, considering wax letters only recently surged in popularity after not being too popular for years. So, I'd like to ask: 

Should I stick with this hobby, or is there something that could work better? I’m willing to change my plot if the latter's the best course of action.

Thanks in advance.

I read,"The anatomy of genres" and have a question I'd like to ask on here. What is the secret to creating a character 'ghost' that isn't just unnecessary trauma for the characters? The ghost is what actively haunts the characters through the story - like an event or something. But its too easy to make it about their whole life or giving them too much PTSD and not making the most of their 'Ghost'.

I know it's big ask but I'm not really a first person kind of person and like getting into people's heads a lot. Moving, the setting is abanonded hospital, meaning a lot closed spaces will be used and the various heroes working to take the gang inside the hospital are groups.

Every fight pretty much 6 heroes versus a various numbers of villains, and I am trying to avoiding writing the battle like some kind of dnd everyone takes turn because it's not even close to what is happening.

How could I protray the chaos of battle without the reader losing track of characters or at least painting a good picture before hand

Hey besties! I need tips, advice, help with my writer's block. Especially if it helps with ADHD. I've been in my slump for TOO LONG and I need help with getting in the groove of things again.

ANY advice or support is welcome. Even if it's for my adhd girlies!! Thanks!!