By writers, for writers

Search for “there is” or “there was.”

Find all the description or action that starts with “there” and change it.

“There is a strike of lightning” becomes “lightning strikes the sky.”

“There is panic building in his chest” becomes “panic builds in his chest.”

Welcome to Whumptober 2020! We’re doing things a little differently this year so please make sure to read the Event Info carefully. We are also excited to announce the addition of an AO3 Collection, which can be found here.

We hope you’re as excited as us to watch the Whump Community come together once again for a month of bone-crunching creativity and collaboration!

(All 31 Themes + Prompts, Event Information, and FAQs are posted below the cut!)

Hi bahamimani :)

An activity that I can recommend is taking a prompt (you can choose one you like or one at random) and instead of writing about what happened before or what is going to happen after, you just write about the exact moment. This works with normal text prompts and with dialogue prompts.

If it’s a dialogue prompt for example, you can begin to describe how the characters are saying the words, what emotions they put into them and you can describe their body language, is their body language confirming or contradicting what they are saying?

How does the second character react to is being said? Are they flinching or smiling or completely emotionless?

How is their surrounding? Are more people present and are they listening or going about their own business? Is there something that can distract them from the conversation? Are they surrounded by nature or are they in a quiet room?

Is there an urgency in their conversation or do they have all the time in the world?

I would recommend setting a time or word limit for each prompt and then try to imagine everything that is around the scene you’re writing and putting it into words. In a story you often don’t need to be super specific with the details of the surrounding etc. but try it here to practice it.

Here are some text prompts that can be a good practice for writing more descriptive: Prompt #220, #209, #129, #111, #101.

Also, I have answered an ask in the past about describing the atmosphere in a coffee shop, maybe there is also something in there that could help you out.

Good luck!

Alternative words

A Visual #Fashion Guide For Women - Necklines, Skirt Types & More!

Always have back up of your stuff.

Distraction-free software that helps you write do exist.

Pasting your text from google docs onto AO3 will make it look funny.

There’s a script☆ that solves that problem.

Feedback (or the lack thereof) is never what you expect.

Learn to write for yourself in the first place.

Not everything you write will be the best fic ever™.

You can’t control how people react to your stuff.

No self-deprecation. Seriously.

A good summary attracts people. (No “I suck at summaries” there!)

Punctuation and structure are so important.

Don’t be afraid of using a character’s name. That’s why they have one.

Get a beta reader if you can.

It’s YOUR story and only you can tell it.

DO write that 9861th coffee shop AU for your fandom.

Anything is an AU.

Researching is good but don’t let it keep you from writing.

Tag your stuff accordingly.

Advice you see around aren’t supreme rules set in stone.

You’ll learn more about your style as you go.

Don’t compare your writing to others’. Especially “famous” fic writers.

Perfection doesn’t exist. Stop striving for it and just write.

A rough draft is better than NO story.

It’s okay to move on from an unfinished work to a new one.

It’s okay to not write 200K words in an hour.

Any length of writing is okay. Just focus on telling YOUR story.

Slumps and writer block are common.

You can always improve your writing if you want to.

Read lots and notice what you like in other people’s writing.

If you’re not having fun take a step back.

Set up a sideblog for writing on tumblr.

Tag your stuff accordingly. (both on AO3 and tumblr)

Follow spaces for fanfic discussions like @ao3commentoftheday

There’s no consensus about ANYTHING regarding fanfiction.

You can’t please everyone but you can please yourself.

Some people out there are rude and can’t be reasoned with.

Fanfiction is NOT your job. Don’t feel guilty for “not updating in months”.

Publish your stuff because you want to share it.

Everybody write crappy fics. Write yours.

Game soundtracks (instrumental) are great to play while writing. 

There’s always somebody out there waiting for your fic.

Many times you won’t hear but they exist.

Have fun. Indulge yourself. Treat yo self.

Writing is the best thing but also the worst.

Jot down those ideas. You won’t “remember later”. Seriously you won’t.

Inspiration often hits you when you CAN’T write.

It also often leaves when you can write.

Everybody hates and loves writing. That’s the life of a writer for ya.

Even your fave fic writer can feel ehh about the fic of theirs you LOVE.

Starting from the middle or the end IS a thing.

Gelding - An adult male horse (3 years or older) that’s been neutered.

Stallion - An adult male horse (3 years or older) that is not neutered.

Mare - An adult female horse (3 years or older), used interchangeable for both fixed and unfixed female horses.

Pony - A full grown horse under 14.2 hands.

Foal - A newborn horse.

Weanling - A colt or filly that is 6-12 months.

Yearling - A horse between 1-2 years old.

Colt - A male horse under 3 years old.

Filly - A female horse under 3 years old.

Hand - Measurement of how tall a horse is, one hand = four inches.

Tack - Riding equipment.

Halter - Headgear you put on a horse to lead them, can be made of leather or fabric. 

Gait - Speeds a horse can got.

Trot - Gait faster than a walk but slower than a canter.

Canter - Gait faster than a trot but slower than a gallop.

Gallop - Faster than a canter, basically the highest speed a horse can go.

Lunging - Exercising a horse by walking them in a circle, usually done with a halter and lunge rope.

Lunge Rope - A long rein/rope used when lunging a horse, typically 20-40 ft long. 

Colic - Pain in a horse’s stomach ranging from mild to severe, can be fetal if not treated.

Cribbing/Windsucking - Biting onto a fence post and sucking in air, horses do this when they’re extremely bored.

Farrier - Someone who dresses and trims a horse’s hooves.

Bridle - Headgear used to control and maneuver a horse.

Bit - The metal mouthpiece of the bridle.

Frog - The triangular part of the inside of the hoof.

Rain rot - A fungal infection horses can get on their backs, easily treatable with antibiotics.

Mucking - Cleaning out a stall.

Hot blooded - Extremely energetic, excitable horses. Hot blooded horses are used for more speed driven tasks.

Cold blooded - Very low temperament, very relaxed horses. Cold blooded horses are used for more labor driven tasks. 

Draft - Large, working horses.

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

[I.D. A header image of two pencils on a yellow background, with title reading ‘Redrafting’. End I.D.]

I think redrafting can sometimes be a bit of an elusive topic. I see loads of posts with advice for finishing the first draft (which is fantastic!) but advice for what comes after you’ve finished that mammoth task is less common. Here I’ll be outlining my redrafting process, and you can pick and grab whatever bits are useful for you!

1. Let the manuscript rest.

I love to fixate on my projects (what can I say? It’s a serotonin mine!). This focus is great for finishing stuff, but it can get in the way of redrafting, because you get too close to your work to be able to spot things that need changing. When you finish a manuscript, put it aside for however long it takes for you to be able to look at it with fresh eyes. I find this is usually a month or more for novels. This is a great time to work on other projects!

2. Re-read the manuscript, then outline (or re-outline).

When it comes to re-reading your manuscript, try to look at it with a critical eye (note: this doesn’t mean you have to be negative about it! Just have your editor hat on). Don’t make edits as you read, instead, jot down anything you think needs changing. At this stage, it’s going to be big picture stuff, structure, characterisation, plotting, novel pacing etc. Small details like phrasing come much later.

After this, take your list of changes and think about how they’re going to alter your book, then make an outline based on this new structure. I think this step is incredibly helpful regardless of whether you plotted or pantsed your first draft (I’ve done both). It makes the next stage so much easier.

3. Take your outline, and write the book again.

This is a lot of work, and believe me, if I thought I could get away without it, I would, but I haven’t found anything else that improves my books as much as a rewrite. If you start over from scratch, you’re less tied to what you wrote in your first draft, so it’s much easier to make the big changes that you need to make. This doesn’t mean you have to throw your first draft out, though! You worked hard on that, there’ll be a lot of good stuff there. I like to keep it open in another window while I write the second draft, so I can copy and paste scenes I want to put in the new version (with a bit of an edit).

4. Third draft time!

After letting the manuscript rest again, come back for some editing. Don’t worry, it’s not another rewrite (unless you want to do that again…). This is where more ‘medium-picture’ changes come in, things like deleting unnecessary parts, editing the pacing of scenes, making sure character details are consistent and the like. This isn’t an exact science, you can do small-picture edits to get your prose how you want it (I’d probs advise not to go hog wild on these though, since there’ll be more changes later), or you can do more big edits (I ended up deleting a whole subplot when I was doing the third draft of my most recent book). Basically, the idea of this draft is to make it the best you can make it with only your perspective to go on.

5. Let other people to take a look.

This is where I bring in beta-readers. It’s the scariest part, in my opinion, but so worth it. Other people will spot things about your book you’d never in a million years be able to spot yourself. I like to give my books to about 3-5 people, get their feedback, then make changes based on whatever they’ve said that I think is useful.

6. Rinse and repeat.

Keep getting feedback and making changes until you’re happy with your book! This can be from beta-readers and critique partners, also sensitivity-readers and editors if you can afford those services. The idea is that with each round of revision, your manuscript should become more refined, and the changes gradually get more and more small-scale (though sometimes a reader will throw a curveball that makes you realise more big edits are needed). This is a long process, and it can be a bit of a slog, but you can work on other projects at the same time, and actually, I think the editing process itself can be fun! It’s the satisfaction of polishing a rough-cut gem.

And that’s it! I hope you find these steps helpful in developing your own revision processes. Happy editing!

This reminds me of my favourite twitter – Men Write Women

Some examples:

Call Child Services omfg

With depression, it’s hard enough trying to find the motivation to get out of bed in the morning before the next day begins. Summoning the energy it takes to write can be even harder, especially since depression (and sometimes medications used to treat depression) can stifle creativity. Here are some practical tips to help writers suffering from depressive disorders: 

1. Write one sentence a day – on your phone. The sentences don’t have to form a story or even be related. Just set a daily reminder to open your Notes app and type a single sentence. Make it an opening line, a one-line synopsis, a description of the weather, anything! Let it be as vague, boring and inconsequential as “She opened her eyes and pulled off the covers.” The end. Congrats! You have just achieved your goal for the day!

2. Change your work space. Instead of writing slouched in bed, sit at the kitchen table, or vice versa. If you can’t leave your room, sit on the opposite end of your bed or even the floor. You don’t have to clean or decorate your space to make it cute. Your brain has become accustomed to its surroundings and even a small change – like facing the opposite direction – can help break away from this.

3. Thinking about writing counts as writing. This rule doesn’t usually apply but we’ve made an exception just for you! Your depression is affecting your creativity but, ironically, having a creative outlet can help. If you can’t physically write, set aside a few minutes a day to think about writing. Great if you’re bad at meditation.

4. Experiment with different methods of storytelling. Try a voice recording instead of your usual handwriting or typing. This way, you don’t even have to leave your bed. Set small goals like “I will create a one minute voice memo of a character description”.

5. Share your success! And your failures! Post on Tumblr, tell your friends, tell your pet… It doesn’t matter how small your success, celebrate it by telling another human (or otherwise) who will understand what it means to you and congratulate you for it. Treat it like a big deal even if it’s just a single sentence. Similarly, tell people about anything you perceive to be a “failure” no matter how small or silly. Get it out of your system and maybe find some support, so you can move on.

6. Instead of abandoning your goals, alter them! Don’t give up if you failed to meet your goal once or even ten times. You need to retrain your brain to understand that these attempts at bettering yourself are lifestyle changes. If something isn’t working, don’t abandon ship. Make your goals easier, for example: instead of writing daily, plan to write once a week, even if it’s just one sentence.

7. Abandon deadlines and the like – sort of. Some structure is good - even required - in recovery. But if trying to stick to a routine, meet a deadline, keep up your word count, wake up or write at a certain time or similar rules are restricting you from writing (for example, if you feel so bad about constantly missing them that you sink further into depression and write even less) then be sure to give yourself days without them every now and then. Make a note of whether this is helpful (you’re more productive - yay!) or harmful (you backpedal - oops). The trick is to keep experimenting with different methods until you find something that works for you!

8. Accept your circumstances. Instead of seeing yourself as an ex-writer or a failed writer, reaffirm that this is simply a time in your life where your mental health (and possibly other circumstances) have made it difficult for you to flourish creatively. Don’t fret over how long it’s been since you picked up a pen or opened your Word document. Accept that this is a temporary break or a roadblock that will be over one day. Until then, your task is to focus on healing.

Hey there, anon!  Thanks for sending your question :)  This is a subject I’ve been working on for the past few months, actually, so I understand your pain!  Dialogue – or rather, the descriptors around it – is something that doesn’t feel quite natural to write.  There are two reasons for this:

Conversations move much more quickly in real life.  When we talk to someone, we are so focused on the information they’re giving us that we don’t always think about their body language, or even how they’re speaking – “explaining,” “mumbling,” “berating,” “perseverating,” etc.  It’s not something we consciously register, so it’s not as easy to write as setting description, dialogue, or thoughts.

Dialogue descriptors are a relatively new trend in literature.  I’ve found that in most the classic literature I read, dialogue is less frequent – and when it is used, it’s rarely accompanied by body language or dialogue tags.  Dialogue descriptors became more popular when movies and TV hit the scene.  Writing became less information-centered – focusing more on details that make the scene more imaginable.  This makes it much more difficult to do research!

So if dialogue descriptors are hard to recognize in daily life and in literature, how do we write it naturally?  How do we know how much is too much, or when and where to introduce it?

Well, like all aspects of fiction writing – dialogue, description, internal dialogue, worldbuilding – it’s important that it’s only used to the extent it’s needed.  If it becomes distracting or overwhelming, you’re misusing it.  These are my criteria for when dialogue descriptors become too much:

The description takes longer than the action it’s describing.  Descriptors become distracting if they take up too much time – just like if an actor held a facial expression for too long.  It would stall the scene, and the point would be lost.

How to test this: Put one of your dialogue-heavy scenes on your phone to test it out.  While looking at yourself in the mirror, have Siri (or Cortana or whatever the hell else) read your scene to you – while she does, act it out in the mirror.  Make the expressions and perform the body language.  Read the dialogue, external and internal.  Ill-timed or excessive description will become apparent to you this way.

The description is superfluous or too wordy.  Descriptive dialogue tags (e.g. “shouted,” “heckled,” “joked,” “complained”) and accompanying adverbs become superfluous if they describe something the dialogue already portrays.  Examples:

“I knew it was you!” she exclaimed.  (The exclamation point already states that it’s an exclamation.)

“You are so selfish!” he shouted angrily.  (You could get away with “shouted”, but it’s implied that the character is angry by their dialogue.)

“I thought you said you were free tonight,” she said in confusion, her eyebrows wrinkled.  (Confusion is apparent in the dialogue; also, the image of her eyebrows wrinkling is more powerful than the “Tell” version, “in confusion”.)

It doesn’t add to the scene.  Common descriptors, like raising eyebrows, blinking, swallowing, and shaking or nodding of the head are excessive in real life conversations, but not necessary in your scene.  If body language doesn’t affect the tone of the dialogue or move your characters through the scene (e.g. sitting down at a table) then it’s unnecessary and clutters the prose.

As for writing dialogue itself, I’ll refer you to this post I made a little while ago about dialogue improvement.  If you have any further questions, I’ll gladly take them :)  Happy writing!