#omgrandomwords

another mesmerising SCRoONCH

there is so much power in this face,,,you would not believe

That’s fine! 

I possesseth some tips on the writing but I don’t know what you are looking for help with? So I guess here are some general lock writing tips/rules that I live by I guess? Don’t hesitate to ask if you have a specific question!

Keep in mind that there are no hard and fast rules for writing. Many things can be made to work depending on style and there’s always personal taste. These are just some of the major things that I keep in mind when writing.

1) Know who your narrator is. Is it a specific character? God? The personification of Death? A historian? It doesn’t matter who and you don’t have to state it outright but you yourself should know. There is no such thing as no narrator in fiction, regardless of the voice perspective used, just narrators who don’t talk about themselves. Once you know the narrator make sure that they are the ones telling the story. 

2) Speaking of narrators, don’t switch narrators mid scene. Yes, I know that third person omniscient means that you can get everyone’s perspective but please wait until a scene is over to switch. Otherwise you’ll confuse your readers.

3) Every scene should have some kind of conflict, even if it’s passive, and some kind of resolution to said conflict even if the resolution is that nothing is solved. This doesn’t mean that every scene should be a fight scene, just that every scene is doing something. Example; first scene of The Last Will and Testament of Oikawa Tooru, Age 29 is Tooru’s paranoia vs his family members’ rationality (no one wins but at least we know where we stand by the end). Second scene is Tooru’s paranoia vs Tooru’s busy life (busy life wins). Third scene is Tooru’s paranoia vs Tobio’s day to day life (also a draw but progress has been made in the direction of paranoia). And on we go. It’s not about the struggle, it’s about knowing what each scene is contributing to the story. This way you don’t end up with empty scenes that mean nothing. Even a slow scene should give us something.

4) Use words that are easy to understand. For me, a huge part of writing is to entertain someone with a story and that is completely useless if people need a dictionary to understand it. I generally use words that are common and limit myself to one, or maybe two, $20 words in a paragraph so that my readers can use context clues on those bigger words without having to pull up google. It’s not about being the smartest writer, it’s about telling the story. (Note: If your narrator is an insufferable elitist who uses ten $20 words a sentence then do that. Character trumps most things.)

5) “Said” is not a dirty word fight me. Ditto for the “common” adjectives and adverbs that first grade teachers complain about. Writing is not about using the fanciest word, it’s about using the word of your choice well. Get the fuck off my lawn with that shit oh my god.

Anyway, I hope those were of some help or at least give you something to think about. 

My last tip is this; don’t be afraid to be a bad writer. I struggle with this the most but when you’re writing something and you feel like it’s coming out poorly keep going anyway. It’s probably better than you think and even if it isn’t that’s fine. You will learn from the experience of writing it. I’ve been writing for over ten years and I can tell you that every time I’ve written something that I think is bad someone likes it anyway and the next thing that I write is better because I finished the piece before it.