#r.writing

At night, Sua shares beds with Mizi who always falls asleep first and this night is one of those. Getting on top of her, Sua grabs one of Mizi’s hands, placing it on her own chest. She almost instinctively thinks back to her sisters and the mockery they made out of her. She twitches again. The hold she has on Mizi’s hand, still on her chest, tightens. This is the first time her mouth has ever let out a noise during these types of nights. However, she is interrupted by Mizi who wakes up and pushes Sua with utmost force, who ends on the other side of the cramped room.

“H-hey! Sua-“ she gets up. “W-what!? What is your problem, Sua!? Those are private…! You- I was asleep-“ The pale girl forces the pink one’s hands together and grips them, total excitement on her face, like having seen the sun for the first time. “Do that again” It’s an order, but with her delicate voice it sounds more like a request, a suggestion. “What!? Sua-“ Mizi can’t think.

“Mizi, push me, hit me, touch me. Do anything you want, just do it again” Her smile disgusts Mizi, yet she blushes.

“Sua, stop. You know i don’t like it when you get like this… Please!” She’s begging and Sua’s face drops completely. That is when she starts to undress herself, but before she can take her nightgown off, she gets pushed off again, her eyes threatening to shine again.

“I said stop! Why do you want me to hit you so badly? Why!?” Mizi starts crying. Sua crawls to the former, making sure her body exponentiates the pain from Mizi’s pushes. She hugs the helpless one, rubbing her nape carefully.

so i’ve been seeing a few posts on avoiding filter words, especially in third person pov, and i wanted to make a post about some of my own thoughts about it!

filter words are words like noticed, spotted, saw, realized, felt, heard, etc. they take an event and as the name suggests, they filter it through the perspective of the narrator.

filter words tend to slow down the pacing of whatever sentence they’re in, so they can clutter up action scenes or reduce the impact of certain moments. however, they’re also not something you should necessarily avoid altogether, and here are a few reasons why!

introspection

while writing a longer work, you don’t necessarily want to be going at 100% for 100% of the time. it’s good to pull back a little bit to give an opportunity for slower, more introspective moments. with no filter words, the rhythm of each sentence accelerates. there’s no moment for deliberation on either the reader or the character’s part, everything that happens simply is. 

for example, let’s take a look at the sentence, “he knew he should have been there sooner.” “knew” is a filter word in this case, but it makes it seem like the narrator has had time to think things over and come to this conclusion.

this same introspective tone can work well with a character who’s withdrawn into themself for one reason or another. after a traumatic event, for example, the frequent use of filter words can suggest a character numb to their environment, barely registering what’s happening and even then only through a hazy filter.

unreliable narration

in third person in particular, using filter words can be a great way to hint at an unreliable narrator. “the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall” is what is really happening. the reader and the narrator have the exact same description given to them. “she heard the sound of footsteps echoing down the hall,” meanwhile, is filtering the sound through the pov character. for another level in unreliability, we can say “she thought she could hear the sound of footsteps echoing down the hall.” you can also use filter words to state things to the reader to imply unreliable narration, since as readers, people are primed to assume that a basic description is just that: a basic description.

in first person, the reader is already completely in the narrator’s head, and is already seeing everything through their eyes. in third person limited, meanwhile, filter words can be a good shorthand to mark someone as unreliable, and to create a distance between the reader and what’s actually happening in the text of the story.

i love hot people covered in blood as much as the next but calling every character you like a bossbabe girlboss lil meow meow malewife has really negatively affected people’s abilities to view them objectively. 

a good character has a proper motivation, want, & need ; 

this should be the case for almost all of your characters. however, i do understand that there are exceptions, such as stagnant characters. 

a good character is understandable & interesting ; 

your characters do not have to be likable. liking them as a character also does not mean that you like them as a person. good characters do not have to be good people, they don’t even have to be decent. the roles of protagonist and antagonist in themselves are passive and do not equate to good vs evil. 

i feel like so many people are afraid of having an unlikable protagonist for fear of being seen as a bad person or justifying their actions. it’s not. writing about knights doesn’t mean you want to joust someone to the death, writing about dystopian governments doesn’t mean you condone them. 

trust your audience ; 

this post is really only meant for a small portion of people who consume media in a way where characters become caricatures. if your character is an assassin, have them assassinate people. don’t try to shoehorn in ill-fitting traits and arcs in an attempt to “negate” their darker traits. 

and if your narrator is unreliable, trust your readers to figure that out. unless you legitimately don’t see why people hate holden caulfield ig. 

at the end of the day, your characters need to fit their descriptions, and the narrative should support that. don’t accidentally weaken your enemies to lovers romance fam. love you and good luck. 

i’ve been seeing a lot of new and young writeblrs popping up recently, and i know the community can seem a bit daunting at first so i decided to make a post with some tips i wish i’d have known when i first joined!

↳ INTERACTION IS KEY

first off, and i cannot stress this enough, is the importance of interacting with other writeblrs. this community is here to help us all grow as writers, and one of the best ways to do that is to find writer friends. there’s so many incredible wips on writeblr, and it’s a genuine treat to get to see them develop further. interaction comes mostly through reblogs on tumblr, but for making actual friends, your best bet is joining a writing discord server. @welcometowriteblr​ is an example of a writeblr net with an open discord, but there are also many others out there catering to specific genres and subcategories.

↳ CLOUT IS MEANINGLESS

tumblr is bad enough at interaction on its own, but it’s especially true in communities like writeblr. unlike litblr graphics or fanart, writeblr content usually doesn’t come with a built-in audience unless you’re writing fic. so instead of trying to appeal to trends and getting lost in a sea of identical wips, your priority should be creating something you’re actually passionate about. a wip is a huge commitment, and it’s important to find a project you love instead of hopping from trend to trend. it’s ok to drop wips and realize that maybe it’s not the right time to write them, but wips are not solely there for notes.

↳ WRITEBLR, NOT GRAPHICBLR

it may not always seem like it, but this is in fact a writing community, and not a graphics one. making pretty graphics can be really fun, as well as doubly functioning as a procrastination tool. however, the main reason we’re all here is to write. don’t spend all your time on making pretty pictures for tumblr and then only ever complaining about how you never write. a lot of the most popular meme posts are jokes about writeblrs never writing, but the community is called writeblr for a reason.

↳ DO YOUR RESEARCH

so you have a wip idea. now what? now it’s research, research, research. this is especially prevalent in fantasy worldbuilding but really applies everywhere: you cannot pick and choose the parts of a culture you like while ignoring all others and their implications. there are certain topics that need to be handled with delicacy, which in itself requires a lot of research on its own. then there’s writing characters different from you. there is a vast difference between tokenism and representation, and the first thing is to make sure you actually treat your characters and world with respect. don’t rely on people from those groups to call you out for your mistakes—google is free, and it’s not their job to deal with your mistakes. if people are open to helping though, you should reach out to them if you still haven’t found your answers. @writingwithcolor is an excellent resource, and there are many other blogs dedicated to giving advice.

↳ CHOOSE ACCESSIBILITY

this is a community focused on writing, so your priority should be making that writing as accessible as possible. i know scripts and fancy text are a popular aesthetic, but @ikilledmyocs made an excellent post here as to why you should avoid them; namely, they’re an accessibility nightmare. i promise that your posts will still look nice, and more importantly, they’ll actually be readable. the same goes for blog themes. large text and high contrast are your friend! @serpentarii has a wonderful theme recommendation post here with some examples of writer-friendly themes.

↳ DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN PROSE

so you’ve written the beginning of your chapter, and you know exactly how it ends. but when you try to put words down to connect the two, something just gets stuck, whether it’s just dialogue refusing to flow or a blank hole where the transition between beginning and end is meant to be.

it’s in this case that you should remember FLUCK, which stands for:

Feelings 

Locations 

Ultimatums 

Characters

Knowledge

first of all, what is the emotional state of the pov character? what would impact it to shift from what it is in the beginning to what it is in the end?

then where exactly are all of your characters located physically? do they have to move from point a to point b? how do they get there?

ultimatums is a little different; every chapter should have a reason to be there, and should progress the plot in some way. what choices do your characters have to make, and what changing circumstances are they dealing with in this chapter?

next, what characters are present at the beginning vs at the end? are there any that you need to introduce or have enter the scene, or are there some that are going to leave by the end?

and finally, what exactly does your pov character know by the beginning and what do they have to learn/find out by the end of the chapter? is there a specific person they have to talk to or a particular event they need to witness?

over the course of my 3+ years on writeblr and some time on writing twitter, i’ve noticed that a lot of people can come up with characters and worldbuilding, but then get stuck on creating a compelling plot around those characters. so, here are a few tips that have helped me, and that i hope will help you too!

note: this will apply mostly to fantasy and sci fi, since that's what i write and what tends to have more plot-heavy storylines. 

these are also all my opinions! you don’t have to listen to any of this—all of these are tips that i’ve used in my own experience, and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you.

tone

this is one of the first things you want to decide. even within the same genre, you’re going to have a lot of variety in tone and atmosphere. the kind of plot that works for a fun fantasy adventure romp might feel odd and out of place for a darker fantasy with an emphasis on political intrigue. to figure out what kind of tone works best for your wip in particular, you want to look back at your characters. writing is a massive investment of time and energy, so you want to go in a direction that’s actually interesting to you. this is the very first step, and will help you decide what direction you end up going, and will most importantly give you a hint towards what ending will best suit the story you’re trying to tell. if you go with a more lighthearted tone, then suddenly having a tragic ending won’t make any sense since it’s the equivalent of a bait-and-switch. the same applies for having a darker tone—a happily ever after where everyone lives and gets therapy won’t necessarily fit. 

worldbuilding

worldbuilding is important of course, but it doesn’t need to be completely developed before you start coming up with a plot. in fact, you should try to avoid dumping all of your time into worldbuilding, and instead get the basics down before moving onto the plot. i’m sorry to say it, but you’re not tolkien. you will never be tolkien, and you don’t have to aspire to be like him either. you don’t want to write yourself into a plothole because something in your worldbuilding ends up conflicting with the story, so generally it’s good to have a little bit of wiggle room. sometimes you also run into a situation where the plot itself inspires an important piece of worldbuilding that makes the story richer and more interesting. your worldbuilding is there to enrich your plot and inform your character motivations, not the other way around. however, you do want to establish any rules your world has before getting into the plot, since breaking them can itself become a driving factor in characters and their arcs. this is especially common in fantasy, where a frequent premise lies in the fact that everybody can’t use magic while the protagonist can, or the other way around. this isn’t a plot quite yet, but it can be a good starting point.

character driven vs. plot driven

you will also need to decide the main focus of your story. character-driven writing is common in literary fiction and shorter works, and it’s focused specifically on the internal conflict within characters, as well as their thoughts and personal arcs. few external events are going to happen in character-driven stories, which tend towards more towards slice-of-life where not much really happens but you’re still invested due to the characters. plot-driven writing puts emphasis on (you guessed it!) the plot, and this is a lot more common for longer works. the two can and do certainly overlap, but most works tend to lean a bit more one way or the other, and you can determine this by asking whether you’re more interested in the characters as people or in what happens to them. 

motivation

so now that you have an idea of the direction you want to go, how do you actually come up with your plot? no matter if your story is character driven or plot driven, you still need compelling characters, and one way to find your plot is to look at their motivations. every one of your characters should have something they want to achieve or to obtain. your character’s want is going to be their main driving motivation. something is wrong in their life—if it wasn’t, then you wouldn’t be writing this story—and they think that obtaining what they want will fix it. this can be a macguffin-style quest for an object/place/person, the desire to climb the social ladder, solving the mystery behind a disappearance, etc. at this point, i would recommend taking a look at media with similar character motivations to yours and dissecting them to see what works and what doesn’t. you want to be genre-savvy and know what tropes are common to the type of story you’re telling.

gay is not a plot

repeat after me. gay is not a plot. gay is not a plot. gay is not a plot. there should be something to your wip’s plot other than “they’re gay, what more do you need?” (see this post). a romance isn’t going to be interesting if the characters aren’t interesting on their own, and that requires them to actually have their own motivations which (see motivation) themselves create the basis for a plot! in that same vein, having representation shouldn’t function as your plot or your primary selling point. representation should be a given, and making that the only descriptor for your work essentially boils down your characters to just their marginalization.

retellings

i know retellings of fairytales, myths, and shakespeare’s plays have gotten really popular, especially as of late. retellings are a great starting point since they already give you a base off which to work with, and instead of having to come up with all of your concepts from scratch, it becomes a question of putting your own spin on them. these tend to require some knowledge of the genre and common tropes, which you should have regardless of whether you’re writing a retelling or not. here, instead of having characters and a world first and a plot second, you’re working backwards from an existing work to reinterpret the characters and world surrounding a common plot. the important thing to note is that just because you have a starting point doesn’t mean that your work is done—i’d recommend researching other variations of the story you’re retelling and cataloguing similarities and differences, what works and what doesn’t, and moving things around/restructuring them depending on the changes you yourself want to make in your retelling.

prompts

i actually wouldn’t recommend relying on generators and prompt lists for your plots, since they tend to be extremely vague and difficult to get invested in, since you weren’t the one to come up with them. prompts can be really good for sparking inspiration, though, and once you get an idea for a few scenes, you can build off of them to figure out what circumstances lead to each one and what the pivot points are. prompts are a useful tool, but shouldn’t be used as the basis for your entire story.

final thoughts

“don’t write in passive voice!!!! passive voice BAD” 

“don’t use filter words!!”

how about i do anyway, writing laws are a lie and as long as your words serve your purpose it really shouldn’t matter how you go about it

passive voice and filter words are really good for creating detachment, and filter words in particular are a great way to establish an unreliable narrator!

take “footsteps echoed down the hallway” versus “he thought he could hear the echo of footsteps down the hallway” for example. 

The latter immediately introduces doubt into the perspective of the character, and provides a “filter” between what’s actually happening as opposed to what the character is telling the reader.

“don’t use adverbs !!!!!”

There’s also only so many ways to say “said”, and sometimes an adverb serves your purpose far better than any one word. 

“but you shouldn’t use ‘said’!!!!”

overuse of funky dialogue tags got us this iconic exchange from my immortal:

"my name's harry potter, although most people call me vampire these days." he grumbled. 

"why?" i exclaimed. 

"because i love the taste of human blood." he giggled. 

"well, i am a vampire." i confessed. 

"really?" he whimpered. 

"yeah." i roared.

just use “said”. 

now back to adverbs; “said softly” sounds completely different from “whispered” or “muttered”, “said crisply” is different from “enunciated”, etc. 

using adverbs can also improve the flow of your sentences, since you’re not locked into any particular sentence structure and can play around with cadence and rhythm.

“purple prose is terrible and you should never use it!!!”

As for purple prose, you can think of it like a seasoning. writing without a single speck of purple prose is gonna be bland as unsalted oatmeal or whatever people put in oatmeal to make it taste better.

Purple prose can be a perfect way to draw attention to something specific in a scene, and even though it “slows down the pacing”, sometimes that can be exactly what you want.

also? purple prose is just really fun to write! you can go ham with italics and em-dashes and defenestrate all the supposed rules of english for the sake of flow and feeling.