#author tip

If you find that you use the same dialogue tags over and over, try some of these out! Using new words will help you create more vivid description, and help keep your writing fresh. 

Admitted - The person may be reluctant to speak.

Assumed - The person is guessing or unsure. 

Advised - The character is giving advice or instruction.

Beamed - To say happily, with a smile.

Breathed - To say airily or very quietly. 

Comforted - The character is trying to cheer up or help someone who is upset.

Drawled - The character is speaking in a slow and lazy way; they do not care.

Dryly - To say in a hoarse way, indicating the character could be winded or emotionless.

Jabbered - To say quickly and with excitement.

Offhandedly - The character did not think before they spoke; what they said was strange, rude, TMI, etc.

Persuaded -  The character is trying to convince someone of something.

Pointed Out - The character is mentioning something that was not noticed before, or is mentioning again to show importance. 

Retorted - To say sharply with anger.

Slyly - To say sneakily or with the intention of deceiving someone, perhaps the character is lying.

Stammered - The character is uncertain about what they are saying, therefore are stuttering.

Testified - The character is giving important information.

There you go! Hopefully you are able to swap some of these out for some less interesting dialogue tags in your stories! If you’re interested in another post like this, please let me know. I’d be happy to help! Anyway, thanks for reading, and happy writing!

Okay, you know when you give us some random piece of information with the intent of coming back to it? 

For example, using my own book because it’s easier, my female lead goes to a café with our male lead early on and orders roiboos (a type of tea), this comes up two more times in the book, halfway through more or less when the male lead gives her a coffee and apologices saying: “I know you prefer roiboos but the caffeine will do you good”; and at the very end when a third character decides the’ll go for a coffee and the male lead says, “I think she’ll have a roiboos”. Obviously not the exact words or context but spoiler free! 

Two simple little throwbacks. They’re not important to the plot, it’s just a simple beverage preference from the main character and the small detail of the male lead remembering that preference. Funnily enough though, several of my beta readers for this book remembered this, enough that they commented on it in a fond manner. 

Why? 

Well, because it’s a random detail of unimportance, but it’s bought up with enough time in between that, it’s forgotten but when you hear it you remember. You’re reminded of it. 

So, I’ve been beta reading a bit recently (it’s a good way to relax in between classes as someone who loves editing), and I notice a lot of authors will bring something up and then mention it again before the chapter even changes. And it’s just excessive. It feels repetitive. And don’t worry, I do this all the time in my early drafts, it’s something I too have had to learnt to pick up on. 

But trust me, if you give the information time to settle and then remind you’re reader of it. It’s going to have far more of an impact. 

So, what’s you’re favourite tea? I’m currently in love with this Chai tea they sell in my local supermarket that has cinnamon and pepper. (If you don’t like tea, any hot beverage is also a valid answer). 

As usual,  check out my socials and book here.

Aside from posting about TSA, I’m gonna give some short writing tips/writing advice for new writers out there! I’m also gonna throw out a reminder that this is from my own experiences, and I’m not going to be 100% right all the time. Write like you! Be you!

A Rule I Live By: Said is not your friend.

When writing dialogue, it gets kind of tricky finding words to replace “said”. Plus, after you use it a while, it gets boring a repetitive. Some writers make it work! That’s totally cool.

So, what do I use to replace this word? Let’s take, for example, a question.

“How are you this evening? Good, I hope?” I said.

A good alternative to using “said” here would be asked, inquired, wondered, and pondered. For this example, these words help further demonstrate that this is a question, not just any regular sentence.

Characters are more than just names.

When I write my characters, I sometimes refer to them by more than just their name. Here is an example:

“His eyes danced with mine. His breath shook hands and met with my skin. His hands made friends with mine.”

— TSA, undecided chapter.

Here, you can see that I’m referring to aspects Matty’s character without saying his name. It sheds more light and detail about him.

Cut down long paragraphs!

Have you ever been reading a book and come across a looong pararaph? Something that takes up the entire page? I find it easiest to take paragraphs like that and break them down so that they are more appealing to read and easier to write.

If you’re writing a transgender character, there’s always gonna be people to call them an “it”. S i g h s. 

You may of heard about passive and active voice, but may not fully understand them. I know I didn’t for a long time, but it’s actually pretty important if you want to up your writing game! In the English Language, there are five characteristics a verb will have: Voice, tense, mood, person, and number. Today, we’ll be looking at voice! There are two voices for verbs, passive and active. 

Alright, so what is active and passive voice?

Active Voice is when the subject of a sentence performs the verb. Still confused? Let’s break down an example sentence:

The ballerina twirled on the stage.

As you can see, the ballerina (subject) is performing the action “twirl” (verb). Making sentences with this in mind will allow for stronger, and more clear thoughts.

On the flip side, Passive Voice is when the subject is being performed on by the verb. Not clicking? That's okay! Example sentence to the rescue:

The stage was twirled on by the ballerina.

So what happened here was that I put the verb before the subject. That’s not always a bad thing, but in most cases, it creates a wordy, weak, and unclear thought. Because of the way I wrote that sentence, I needed to add a new preposition (by), another verb (was), and another article (the). That’s a lot of unnecessary words! If I added any describing words to this sentence, it would look incredibly messy. On top of it all, the placement of the verb makes it appear as if the stage is the subject when that’s not what I intended. This could easily confuse any readers!

So as a general rule of thumb, passive voice is most likely going to be a weaker, messier sentence. However, let me show you an example of when passive voice may be the better option.

Here’s my example in active voice:

The cop caught the criminal.

In this sentence, it looks as though the cop is the subject. What if I wanted the criminal to be the subject instead? I’d use passive voice.

The criminal was caught by the cop.

It’s still a little wordy, but now it looks like the criminal is the subject, which is what I wanted!

Now, how do we change a sentence from passive to active?

It’s actually quite easy. The first step is to identify the subject in your sentence.

The precious jewels were hidden away by the innkeeper.

The subject in this sentence is supposed to be the innkeeper, but I haven’t written it in a way that makes that clear. So, I’ll switch the position of the subject and the object, like this:

The innkeeper hid the precious jewels.

There! It’s clear who the subject is, what the verb is, and what the object is. Plus, I got rid of some cluttery words. But what if your sentence doesn’t have a subject, like this one?

If there are reservations, call ahead.

While it does have a subject, this sentence could become much clearer if we identify the subjects. How about this?

If you have a reservation, call ahead.

This sentence is better because it outlines who will be making the reservation (you).

Hopefully now, you’ll be able to decide which voice fits best for your sentence, and how to change from passive to active voice. Thanks a bunch for reading, and happy writing!

Everyone edits differently, so allow me to share with you a common way editors will go about editing their manuscript! This method is closer to a step-by-step (as close as you can get regarding the imagination) and will help you divide your workload. Let’s get started!

Plot/Content Revisions

If you are unsatisfied with any subplot, character arch, or even the whole direction of your story, you need to fix it first! The reason for this is so that you don’t go and fix grammar issues or choppy sentences only to have to delete it, because you decided that you didn’t want the story to go that direction.

You draft might look a little jumbled up: key plot things are not consistent throughout the story, a character’s personality changed mid way, all that stuff. That’s totally okay, and expected! Now is the time to back fix any inconsistences that will affect the story. 

Remember: Having completed the story will allow you to clearly see your end goal, which should help you identify anything in your story that doesn’t make sense. You are not done this faze until you are totally happy with the story and characters, down to the very fine details!

Paragraph Revisions

Once happy with your story, you can move on to paragraph edits. There’s two main parts to this:

Writing Style - This is how you want to present your story to the reader, or the overall “vibe”. For example, how long or short you narrate scenes, how much dialogue is said, how you describe things, or even the structure of your sentences. 

An author’s style can change depending on which genre they are writing, but typically it remains the same. If it’s your first or second story and you don’t quite have a style you love yet, play around with this! Developing a style is not only another form of “branding” your stories (so people will recognize your work), but it’s also a way for you to come up with unique ways of writing!

Flow - This can be anything from the order in which you present information to the reader, to adjectives placed in a certain way simply because it sounds nicer. If you notice any paragraphs that are hard/unpleasant to read, or that they give information in the wrong order, make sure to give it another shot! 

Line/Sentence Revisions

This will be one of the last steps you do to edit your novel! In this stage, you will go over every sentence, and ensure everythings is properly punctuated and grammatically correct. This can be the more tedious task, but it’s important if you plan to have reader’s understand your story. If you work better listening, you can plug your chapters into apps like google translate or notes, and have an AI read aloud your story. It might help you spot a missing comma or period, since those robots are pretty literal! 

Thanks for reading! The editing process is an important one, so please give it the time it deserves. A lot of professional authors take YEARS to finish just their first draft, so don’t ever beat yourself up about it! 

Happy writing, 

I see questions all the time from people asking how to write a character from a culture not their own, or from a time period not their own, etc. How do you write something that you don’t exactly know?

I think the first question you should ask yourself is: Am I the right person to write this story? 

In writing, there’s a line between what you can write, (given your experiences, background, etc,) and what you cannot. 

For example, if you are a caucasian christian wanting to write a story about the racial and discriminitory hardships of an east asian muslim, I highly advise that you not write that story. Those types of hardships are not something you can just read about and suddenly understand. Out of respect for the people who have to endure those horrible things everyday, we do not write characters or conflicts that we could never understand. 

But, if you’re asian and wanting to write a story set in Europe, that’s perfectly fine. You will have to do some research about Europe, and learn a bit more about their social norms and language, but that is totally doable. The difference here is that you can learn about another country much easier than you can learn about someone else’s entire life. While in both examples, you may not have personally experienced the life you are writing about, one is much more simpler than the other. Because it’s easier to learn about and understand, there is less room for false information that could be hurtful to others. 

You’re much better off if you do not write anything that has to do with a life you have not lived, or a culture that you do not know. A poor example of this is Sia’s “Music”.

Sia decided to create a story regarding a life that she has not lived, which is bad enough. It would have been better if she included people with autism during production, but she did not. She failed to do the research required for such a personal topic, and that’s why the movie is so hurtful.

So, if you truly feel that you need to write something very personal that you have not experienced, (which I highly discourage,) please seek information from a wide range of people who have/are experiencing what you want to write. 

On the flip side, if you want to write from the experience of someone from a different time-period or lifestyle, that’s perfectly fine as long as you do some research. For example, in a story I wrote, my main character was into the gothic lifestyle. I personally don’t exhibit those traits, but talked to people who did, and did some research. That’s a very small example that I think would be fine even if you didn’t do any research, so long as you went about writing without the intent of hurting that group. I’ve also written time-specific pieces, which require some research as well. (Mainly to be accurate) Your main character might live a cottage lifestyle, and you personally don’t. Or maybe they like wearing feminine clothes, and you don’t. These are small examples, but they are examples of  lives that you could learn and write about. They don’t personally target a specific group.