So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.
I love the lawyer metaphor, because whenever I see “John knew that...” in prose writing I immediately think “how? How does he know it?” Interrogate your witnesses. Cross-examine them. Make them explain their reasoning. It pays dividends.
First, let me preface this with something very important: you can treat all of this advice as SECOND-DRAFT ADVICE. It is so much easier to rewrite this kind of stuff once you have words on the page. Telling yourself the first draft is totally appropriate and acceptable.
What we’re talking about here are FILTER WORDS (and to some degree verbs of being). Yes, “thought” words are included. But so are “heard, saw, looked, tasted, smelled” etc.—most words having to do with the senses.
This isn’t black and white advice; sometimes you’ll use these words and that’s okay. They’re not WRONG. They’re just weaker. And they’re weaker because they create distance between the reader and the experience of the character.*
If you want your reader to feel like they’re experiencing the story right alongside the character, you want to cut down on filter words.
*This is particularly important with first person and close third POVs. The reader always knows whose eyes they’re seeing through and thoughts they’re privy to. So you don’t need to tell them “I saw X.” Or “I heard X.” Or “I thought Y.” You can just jump into the action/observation as it’s happening.
This is also where you want to pay attention to verbs of being.
“It was rainy.” Versus: “The rain pounded against the roof.” Or “The rain howled like an injured animal.” Or “The rain tapped against the window like an anxious lover.” All of these are inviting the reader deeper into the experience of the story by using stronger verbs and similes. And, at the same time, they stir feelings (instead of TELLING feelings). And feelings keep your reader engaged. Engaged readers keep turning pages; engaged readers become FANS.
The most valuable advice that Author Ex gave me through the years that we wrote together was this: the problem with all these filter words is that they create distance in the POV.
That means that when you read a line like
John saw that the curtains were open.
It immediately takes you OUT of the character's perspective and instead tells you what they experience as a secondhand observation.
You don't have to get fancy or purple with how you rephrase things like this. Not everything needs a ton of breathing room.
You wanna know what's perfectly impactful while keeping a tight POV?
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trying out Obsidian, my first setup, my opinions, etc.
Okay, so this is going to be a long post. Earlier this week I decided to give Obsidian a go to see if it would work for my longer writing projects. I heard some of my mutuals use it and others would like to see my setup, so I'm making a post about what I learned so far. I downloaded it three days ago so I'm sure things will change, but this is where I am right now.
I'm shy about my WIPs so what you see there is the beginning of heart worth the trouble. But hopefully, this lets you see my folder structure and the links in the notes.
My wishlist and how I got here
I recently wrote a rambly post about writing software which got way more notes than I expected (bc the lovely @barbex reblogged it <3). After I made that post, I started using Focus Writer (again a recommendation from the writing discord) for my discovery writing in March. After more than two weeks of heavy use, I realized I needed a little bit more than that (but it's a great program).
Initially, I tried combining it with Wavemaker bc I liked that when I played around with it, but that completely pissed me off, bc it turns out it's just not compatible with other things I'm using. Like Firefox. -.-
Still, this whole ordeal made me narrow down what I really want and need from a piece of writing software at this moment. I think it's a good idea to start with such a wishlist if you are looking for a new software. Here is mine:
free
no account required, not stored on someone else's cloud, I can back it up wherever I want instead
Linux support
widely compatible file formats
focus mode, where it's full-screen, and ideally highlights the paragraph you are working on
I can make it look nice and calming on the eyes currently all I want is a cream paper background look, and a friendly monospace font changed to brown or something
clicky keyboard/typewriter noises - luckily I got this covered by Mechvibes already!
something like the card feature in Wavemaker, where I can have individual notes and choose to display them on the side. this might sound like it conflicts with the focus mode but I just want to have the option to have some notes without having to vomit them into the draft
easy to rearrange the order of the scenes
wordcount obviously
Tall order? Weird order? Maybe.
I think the most important is to figure out is how you work as a writer and find tools that match that. This is just honestly what is important for me right now.
It seems like Obsidian might just do this.
it's free
doesn't require an account
text is stored locally in markdown files
works on Linux I'm using the AppImage if you want to know
can be integrated with Github for backup & sync
tons of customization options to achieve the rest of my requirements
The Basics
If you want to use Obsidian for note-taking (or for writing fic but you're not very picky about the how), you can pretty much just download it, pick a pretty theme if you want and you're good to go. It's that easy. I promise it's not as hard as people make you believe.
This is a local-first software, which I love. However, this also means if you are not used to storing your writing locally, you need to get into the habit of backing your things up because if something happens to your computer, there is no copy of your files on the web.
That said, you can pay I think 4USD/month for the subscription and then you'll have an account, and your files will get synched to other devices, and you can restore your files. (And remember, if something is free and doesn't have ads and you have cloud storage space you didn't have to pay for... then you are the product and the company is paying for it with your data. So the fact that this is paid is actually a very good thing.)
The file structure works pretty much 1:1 as your file explorer btw
If you create a folder on the sidebar, it will create a folder on your computer.
If you create a note on the sidebar, it will create a text file on your computer.
If you drag the note into the folder on the sidebar, it will put the text file in the folder on your computer.
Each note is stored as a separate markdown file. Markdown files are widely compatible with various software so that's great. Also, you can even just rename the file to have .txt extension instead of .md extension and literally every text editor will open it for you (you will lose the formatting tho). The opposite also works. If you have a note in .txt format, you can copy it into your Obsidian folder, rename the extension to .md and it will appear in Obsidian.
That all makes it very easy to import things and switch between files to edit them.
There is only one downside to this that I found. You know how in your file explorer you can drag and drop files into folders but you can't drag and drop files to change their order? Well, your Obsidian side-bar is the same. You can choose to order them based on the name, last modified, etc. But if you want custom order, I suggest you number your notes and folders.
I feel like we're not that used to this anymore but again, this is literally like a file explorer, so it's not a big deal imo.
Another important basic concept is linking your notes. You can just right-click a piece of text and link a note, drag and drop the note into your other note, or do [[Note]] whatever you like. Then you can quickly access the other note by clicking on it, or see a preview while hovering over it (If you turned that feature on). Linking notes is also how you get those cool graph views.
I just wanted to mention all of this bc I feel like all the videos I came across on Obsidian intimidate people into thinking it's more complex than that lol
Appearance
I go a little crazy about visual optimization if you give me a chance. You can change a couple of simple things out the box. Light/dark theme, change the font, etc. I'm using a font called Code Saver for the editor (regular is free for personal use).
Then, there are the themes you can download. There are so many awesome ones! I'm using one called Underwater right now bc I liked the rounded edges.
Most themes come with a light/dark version. But if you download the Style Settings plugin, you might unlock more easy-to-customize options. It depends on the theme what you see there. The one I'm using has a couple of built-in colorways. I went with the "rose pine dawn" option and then I switched out some colors in the color pickers. If you want to mess with the colors I highly recommend finding some hex color palettes online, they make your life so much easier. You can find colors that look good together and look up a color and find lighter/darker versions instead of trying to blindly click around on the color picker.
For this theme, you can also add a background image if you want. (If you really want to make it look like Focus Writer for example ;)
Plugins
These are the plugins I'm using right now.
GitHub Sync: This is what I use to sync my progress and back up my files. I started with this before anything else, but I'm not going to go into what I did bc I don't want to make this post even more complicated. If you have a specific question about it, pls feel free to ask me :)
Focus Mode: This is a full-screen mode, very nice for writing
Stille: Dims everything but the active paragraph, again, very nice for writing. I found that the combination of these two plugins work best for me, but there are others like Typewriter Mode that can do both (I couldn't turn down the vignette mode on that one tho and it was annoying me)
Smart Typography: switches the straight quotation marks for curly ones
This is how it looks with Focus Mode and Stiille both on.
And lastly, a bit of a disappointment: Longform. This is the plugin that everyone seems to recommend for longer writing projects in Obisdian. Basically what it does is it can compile your individual notes into one file, and allows you to move the order of them freely, unlike the normal Obsidian sidebar. Here is a pretty good video on it.
Unfortunately, this plugin gets absolutely wrecked by synchronizing to another device.
From what I gathered, this happens regardless of what method of synching you use, meaning it happens even with the paid synching feature. You can read about this more here btw. It's a community plugin so I'm not going to be mad at the creators for not fixing this, however this means it just doesn't work for me.
If it worked on the one computer where I originally set it up, just not on the other, I would be fine with it. But I set it up on my Linux, and after I synched to my Windows, the scene list disappeared from both. (Not the actual files! It just doesn't get recognized as a Longform project anymore so it pretty much becomes useless lol)
So, I just decided to create the the same structure with folders and notes. Right now, this is a discovery draft and I don't have chapters. But I'm making a folder for an "Arc", and put the numbered scenes into them. I'm also making separate notes that I can link with stuff I want to remember/work on.
At the moment I don't require an extensive wiki where I note what each of the characters like to have for breakfast and such. But you can absolutely do that with Obsidian. You can create a folder for Characters, Worldbuilding, whatever you want, really. Put images there, links both internal and on the web and just go wild if you want.
Obviously, without Longform I will need to compile the files into one at the end by a different method, like copy-paste into one, turn them into .txt, and concatenate from the terminal, you know, depending on your comfort level xD. It will probably include more work than with this plugin, but it's not like you don't go through your manuscript about a million times anyways, am I right?
Word Count
Lastly, mentioning the wordcount options bc they are important
there is a built-in wordcount, about which the common agreement is that it's not very good lol
because of this there is a community plugin called Better Wordcount, which is self-explanatory. If you want to get the total word count, you can right-click the top folder of your project and ask it to count the words for you.
Longform also has a wordcount and it will display it like words of the scene/total words of the project if you are using that
if you don't want to have three different word counts displayed I recommend you only have one of these active (:
That's where I am right now. If you have read all this to the end, you're awesome, and also we both should stop procrastinating and go write instead :P But if you also use Obsidian for writing and have cool tips pls let me know xx
a collection of questions i, as a writer, would love to be asked !!!
1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)
2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?
3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?
4. What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of?
5. What do you wish someone would ask you about [insert fic]? Answer it now!
6. What’s one fact about the universe of [insert fic] that you didn’t get a chance to mention in the fic itself?
7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?
8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?
9. How do you find new fic to read?
10. How do you decide what to write?
11. Are you partial to a certain character/pairing or are you more equal-opportunity? If you are partial to any character/pairing, why do you think that is?
12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?
13. Are there any tropes you used to like but don’t anymore?
14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?
15. What’s your favorite AU that you’ve written?
16. What’s an AU you would love to read (or have read and loved)?
17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?
18. If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it involve?
19. If you wrote a spin-off of [insert fic], what would it involve?
20. If you wrote a prequel to [insert fic], what would it involve?
21. If you wrote a “missing scene” in [insert fic], what would it be?
22. Who is your favorite character in [insert fic] and why?
23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?
24. Are there any easter eggs in [insert fic], and if so, what are they?
25. What other websites or resources do you use most often when you write?
26. Would you rather write a fic that had no dialogue or one that was only dialogue?
27. How long did it take to write [insert fic]? Describe the process.
28. Does anyone read your fics before you post them? If so, who?
29. What songs would be (or are) on a playlist for [insert fic]? Explain your choices if you want!
30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?
31. What’s your ideal fic length to write?
32. What’s your ideal fic length to read?
33. If you write chaptered fics, what’s your ideal chapter length to write? Is it different from your ideal chapter length to read?
34. What aspects of your writing are inspired by/taken from your real life?
35. What aspects of your writing are completely unlike your real life?
36. Do you visualize what you read/write?
37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?
38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?
39. Is any aspect of your writing process inspired by other writers or people? If so, who?
40. Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?
41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”
42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?
43. If you take/write prompts: what’s your favorite prompt fic that you’ve written?
44. If you take/write prompts: do you prefer dialogue or scenario/narrative prompts?
45. What’s something you’ve improved on since you started writing fic?
46. Do you prefer writing on your phone or on a computer (or something else)? Do you think where you write affects the way you write?
47. If [insert fic] was a pair of shoes, what kind would it be? Describe the shoes.
48. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?
49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!
50. Answer any question of your choice, or talk about anything you want to talk about!
Listen, sometimes a ship is less about wanting them to kiss or have sex or whatever, and more about needing them to be so endlessly intertwined and connected to the point where they might as well be one creature.
i need everyone reading this post to remember that writing is not "content." writing is art. you don't look at a painting of an ocean and say "eh, it's overdone." you look at it and think its beautiful, because it is, and y'all better start treating writing the same fucking way before you lose your favorite authors for good.
Art is not something to be capitalized on. Stop treating it like it is.
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excited to write the fic but I do not want to actually write the fic I just want to telepathically translate it all to the readers I have so we can be excited together
my dream as a fanfic writer is to write a story which people want to talk to me about and send asks about afterwards and discuss things the characters did and the symbolism and meanings behind certain lines and I'll be all "hehe thanks" but irl I'll be in literal tears because I wrote something that means something to someone
It is a painful truth that actually none of my fics are abandoned, no, not even the ones that haven’t updated in five years. I still know exactly what happens next, and after that, and so on. They’re not abandoned; they’re right here, haunting me, characters climbing up my pants like kittens nagging for dinner.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Hey there! We've finally got the updated prompt cards for the whole week! Graphics for each day below 👇
Let me know what you think, there's still time for changes! Ask box is open.
Reminder: only the days' themes are obligatory - the rest of the prompts are here to give you some inspiration.
Secondary prompts for the whole week - pick anything you like for any day you like!
Thank you to anyone who submitted prompts - you might have noticed some were shortened/slightly modified to fit a bit better in the format, but nonetheless, it was a great help!
there are fics that look untouched for months, even years, I have told those tales inside my head a thousand times but am yet to manage to translate those tales to text
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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