Writing Tips & Inspiration

When you’re stumped and you don’t know what’s not working for your writing, or you don’t know where to go next, take out a rubber duck (or any equivalent friend/inanimate object, I like to use my dogs) and start explaining every single detail as if the rubber duck knows nothing about writing or about your story. Explain out loud what’s going on, what part you’re up to, why you’re stumped, and what you know you need to get to when you figure out how to get there

the thing i was getting at is there is no right way. experiences of sexual violence are so incredibly diverse, the specifics so important, and are experienced by such a range of individuals, that those experiences and reactions to them are going vary very widely. i have encountered depictions of sexual violence by other survivors or that speak deeply to other survivors which i find offensive or poorly done, politically or aesthetically; i also have texts i treasure for their depictions of sexual violence and which speak to my own reality that other survivors find unrealistic, crass, or tasteless. i think the framework of “good representation” breaks down in a lot of areas, and especially this one. it is never the one i use, when i critique depictions of sexual violence. however, a hallmark of many treatments that personally rankle me is a sensation that the writer in question has not truly mentally or emotionally sat with csa or sexual assault as a real experience. that their writing comes from a place of received cliche and reactive disgust rather than the real imaginative engagement that is the prerequisite to depicting any lived experience well. that is my main advice: really live with it for a while, imaginatively, in some way.

It sounds like a gimmick, but honestly, some of my best writing in that class came from hotspotting. Usually, the sentence you consider the "best" is the one that really gets to the heart of something you're trying to convey. In a rough draft, it tends to be that you're fumbling around a bit before you really hit on the heart of things. So with hotspotting, you're starting from a less fumbly place, which means you're able to dig into your subject in a much deeper and more precise way. It makes you feel like a surgeon, a little bit.

1. Slow down at emotionally important moments.

Big emotions need space to land. If a scene feels rushed, pause the plot briefly to show how the moment affects the character.

2. Add reactions, not explanations.

Instead of explaining what a character feels, show it through physical responses, hesitation, or small actions that reveal emotion naturally.

3. Ground every scene in the senses.

If a scene feels thin, add one or two sensory details—sound, texture, smell, or temperature—to make the moment feel lived-in.

4. Let thoughts interrupt action.

A line of internal thought can deepen a scene without slowing it too much. Thoughts show stakes, fear, longing, or conflict beneath the action.

5. Expand consequences, not events.

You don’t need more things to happen—you need to show what matters. Focus on how events change relationships, decisions, or self-perception.

6. Strengthen setting where emotion peaks.

The environment should echo or contrast the emotion of the scene. Setting is not decoration—it’s emotional reinforcement.

7. Add specific details instead of general ones.

Underwriting often relies on vague language. Swap “they argued” for one sharp line of dialogue or a specific breaking point.

8. Let dialogue breathe.

Short dialogue exchanges without pauses can feel flat. Add beats—silence, gestures, interruptions—to give the conversation weight.

9. Show transitions between scenes.

If scenes jump too quickly, readers feel disoriented. A brief transition helps establish time, mood, and emotional continuity.

10. Clarify stakes early in the scene.

If readers don’t know what can be lost, scenes feel empty. Make sure the character wants something specific and fears losing it.

11. Use the “what are they feeling right now?” check.

After each major beat, ask what emotion is dominant in that moment. If it’s missing on the page, the scene is likely underwritten.

12. Expand scenes that feel “too clean.”

a woman is less likely to go "it's stupid that women are expected to be modest" than she is to go "there is nothing immodest about a woman going out without a chaperone" or even "i can go out without a chaperone because i am so modest"

In the legal field, this is how you get lawyers on opposing sides of a case both citing freedom, or public safety, or justice, as the value at the basis of their argument: they both think that that value is important or particularly compelling for the decision-maker they're appealing to, so they have to find reasoning and evidence that allows their opposite arguments to both lay claim to it. (A lot of the time that reasoning and evidence is incoherent "transcendental nonsense," as one of the originators of this theory Felix Cohen called it. But that's a subject for a different rant.)

Ask yourself "what is this organization accomplishing" and "would this organization, as written, accomplish that thing?" For example, magic academies/schools/universities for adults: what are they training their students for? Is it more like a vocational school or a university? Are students being trained for specific jobs? Is it a training for government? Is it primarily a place to foist the idle rich off to to get them out of the way? For a military training, is the goal primarily training or a weeding out process? Is it basic training or specialized training? If someone fails out of the training, do they end up in the regular forces or do they fail out of the military entirely?

Ask yourself "how did this practice come to be?" For example, a trial or competition system: why was this system established? Do the requirements for the trial/competition match what the end result is (e.g., fighting competition to win a fighting position)? If not (e.g., scavenger heart to become the consort), why is that the competition that is used? Do the potential outcomes of the trial (e.g., death) merit the rewards for it?

Maybe there's a protest group complaining about how magic school doesn't prepare them for society? Maybe there's people looking to cheat the trials? Maybe murder school is training its students to kill protesters who want to shut it down?

You don't need to write a good organization, or even a functional one, but it really does help to know the answer to things like "what is the purpose of this organization?" and "does this organization accomplish that purpose?"

The answer to the latter question can be no. But you (the author) should make it no on purpose.

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

"Kill your darlings" means "if something is holding you back, get rid of it, even if it sounds pretty."

That's it! That's all it means! It means if you're stuck and stalled out on your story and you could fix the whole block by removing something but you're avoiding removing that thing because it's good, you remove that thing. That's the darling.

It does NOT mean

That you have to get rid of your self-indulgent writing

That you should delete something just because you like it (?wtf?)

That you need to kill off characters (??? what)

That you have to pare your story down to the absolute bare bones

That you have to delete anything whatsoever if you don't want to

The POINT is that you STOP FEELING GUILTY for throwing out good writing that isn't SERVING THE STORY.

The POINT is that you don't get so HUNG UP on the details that you lose sight of the BIG PICTURE.

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