#wqaguide

Guide: Creating Romantic Chemistry 

I want to start by saying that chemistry can exist in any relationship–not just romantic ones. While this guide is specific to romantic chemistry, if you take out the romantic elements, some of these tips could apply to other relationships, too.

Specific to Anon’s question: You don’t spot romantic chemistry between your characters–you create it. As much as we like to think of our characters as real people independent of our imaginations, they’re not. Chemistry can’t exist between two characters unless you put in all the necessary ingredients.

What is romantic chemistry? Romantic chemistry is a balanced exchange of physical, intellectual, social, or emotional energy between two people–a constantly shifting dynamic (or “back and forth”) of opposition and harmony. It’s often said to begin as a “spark” or “click” between two people that indicates there’s something special between them.

How does romantic chemistry work? When two people first interact, or when they begin to interact in a new way or under new circumstances, they begin to respond to social cues and subliminal signals from one another. Social cues would be things like banter, flirting, discovering things in common, sharing, and learning each other’s relationship availability. Subliminal signals are more subtle, such as your brain responding to the other person’s open body language without you realizing it, or your brain detecting hints of sexual desire from the other person and reacting by ramping up your sex-related hormones. It can even be non-sexual but purely romantic, where your brain simply detects a million subtle signs of the other person’s interest without you being aware of it.

Romantic chemistry between two PEOPLE requires two or more of the following key ingredients:

1) Physical Attraction - your characters share a desire to touch and be touched. In romance, this is often but not always sexual.

2) Emotional Attraction - your characters share a desire to connect on a deeper level, to learn about each other’s feelings, beliefs, opinions, and experiences.

3) Intellectual Attraction - your characters share a desire to engage with each other’s interests, knowledge, and intellect.

4) Social Attraction - your characters share a desire to interact with each other on a social level, wanting to do social things together like hang out with friends, go to parties, go on dates, spend time with each other laughing and talking, and doing the kinds of social things that friends and romantic partners tend to do.

Romantic chemistry between two CHARACTERS requires the following key ingredients:

1) Fully realized characters - your characters must be fully developed people with all of the things required for good character development.

2) Something to forge the bond - your characters must discover at least one thing in common when they first begin interacting, which creates a desire between them to continue interacting.

3) Some type of attraction - your characters must feel a “spark” based on one of the types of attraction listed above as they continue to interact, which makes them want to get to know each other and leads to the formation of at least one other type of attraction. Consider which types of attraction would be most important to your characters based on who they are.

4) Dance of “opposition and harmony” - your characters should continue to interact as the story progresses, through banter, flirtation, touch, argument, and conflict, but always in a way that is balanced between them.

5) Conflict, tension, stakes and thematic alignment - every story needs a conflict, every character needs a conflict, and every relationship needs a conflict. Your characters’ personal conflicts and relationship conflicts should play off each other and be pertinent to the story’s theme, with each character representing different elements of the story’s theme and conflict. There should also be stakes to the relationship: what happens if the relationship works? What happens if it doesn’t? What do the characters have to lose by being together? What do they have to lose by not being together?

Romantic chemistry visuals can be achieved in a variety of ways. My post The Subtle Signs of Romantic Interest and Love will help with some of the internal and external cues. Remember, your characters are building a bond. They need to learn to trust one another. They need to learn to share and compromise, give and receive. My posts Guide: Characters Falling in Love and Transitioning Through Levels of Affection  offers additional help. 

Remember: two people with romantic chemistry are like a thunderstorm. Clouds form and crash together producing lightning, thunder, rain, and rainbows. Romance is BIG, messy, and beautiful. The most important thing you can do for your couple once their chemistry is established is to make sure there’s always forward motion. Your characters need to progress through the relationship and ultimately change one another in ways they’d never dreamed of.

Here are some posts that may help you craft your characters’ romantic chemistry. I’ll include the ones from above again, too:

The Subtle Signs of Romantic Interest and Love

Guide: Characters Falling in Love

Transitioning Through Levels of Affection

Enemies to Romance

Playful Dislike to Love

Friendship Turns to Romance

Ways for Love Interests to Meet

Creating Conflict in a Romantic Relationship

Even Romance Needs a Little Conflict

Writing a Kissing Scene

Good luck with your story!   

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Guide: Writing a Slow Burn Romance

I actually have covered this before but this is a good opportunity for a guide on this subject, which I don’t presently have. So here we go! :)

What is a “Slow Burn” Romance?

A “slow burn” romance is one that takes longer to develop than the typical period of several weeks or a couple months. Slow burn relationships can take several months or even years to develop thanks to obstacles that prevent the romance from progressing. Unlike typical romances, which often begin with an open romantic interest, slow burn couples generally start out as acquaintances or friends, usually in situations that aren’t romance-friendly, such as being roommates, co-workers, or in other relationships.

In television, slow burn couples are called “will they/won’t they” relationships, because the romance develops over multiple seasons leaving fans to wonder if and when they’ll ever get together, and when they finally do it’s a really big deal. Think Jim and Pam in The Office, Ross and Rachel in Friends, Niles and Daphne in Frasier, Jane and Rafael in Jane the Virgin, Nick and Jess in New Girl, FitzSimmons in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Jake and Amy in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, just to name a few.

How Does a “Slow Burn” Romance Develop?

As with any romance, slow burn can start out with no romantic interest, one-sided romantic interest, or dual romantic interest, but unlike a typical romance, in slow burn that romantic interest isn’t pursued. This is due to whatever situation makes the romantic interest inappropriate, inconvenient, or otherwise undesirable at that time. Instead, the relationship develops as a friendship and all interactions appear to be platonic on the surface, but on the inside they’re slowly falling in love. 

When the two characters inhabit the same space, you can do a lot with just the eyes:

- stolen glances- sharing a knowing look- their eyes meet and then they both look away bashfully- lingering looks- communicating feelings through the eyes (worry, pain, hurt, pride, affection)

When they physically interact, you can add in things like:

- accidentally touching- intentional but tentative touching- touching in non-intimate ways that feel intimate when touch is restricted- open, affectionate touching- flirting disguised as platonic playfulnessWhen the characters aren’t together, you can do a lot with the mind:

- thinking fondly of the other person- recalling fond memories- worrying about the other person- daydreaming about the future- analyzing a previous interaction- dreaming about the person- remembering moments containing looking/touching moments

The astute observer (whether that’s readers, viewers, or even other characters) should see clues that there are deeper feelings at play, and those subtle hints are the driving force of the slow burn relationship. They’re what make us root for things to work out, but the key is that there are continued obstacles that hamper romantic development, drawing out out over several months or even years.

How the Obstacles Create the “Slow Burn”

Initially, the obstacle keeping romance at bay will probably be situational. In other words, something about the situation of one or both characters makes pursuing a romance undesirable or impossible, so they maintain a friendship instead. But over time, that situation may change or their mutual attraction may transcend the situation, and that’s when you’ll start looking for other obstacles. 

(Spoilers for The Office…) Jim and Pam are one of my favorite examples of a slow burn romance. They were co-workers and work friends who bonded over tormenting an annoying co-worker. Thinly veiled flirting, lingering looks, and bashful interactions made it clear there was “something there,” but Pam was engaged to Roy from the warehouse and had been for years. The fact that they had no wedding date set was the viewer’s first clue that all was not well in Pam’s relationship, and Roy’s constant mistreatment of Pam–and Jim’s subsequent frustration over her treatment–provided some good conflict and tension. When Pam and Roy finally set a date for their wedding, that solidified that obstacle further, which resulted in Jim transferring to a new branch in another town. Despite this new obstacle, Pam ends her engagement to Roy anyway, and as luck would have it, Jim’s new branch was closing and he was being transferred back. In a normal romance, that would be the end of it. With no further obstacles, they could finally be together, The End. But this is a slow burn romance, so things aren’t that easy. When Jim returns, he has a girlfriend, and she’s transferred with him. Not only does this relationship provide a new obstacle, but it creates further conflict and tension as Pam has to deal with working and being friends with her romantic rival, and Jim has to live with the reality that he’s still in love with Pam. Then, when Pam decides to get back together with Roy, it sets off a whole new line of conflict and tension. It doesn’t help that Jim is also being considered for a promotion to corporate, which creates yet another obstacle for any romantic development between him and Pam.As time goes on, Pam breaks up with Roy again, Jim breaks up with his girlfriend and takes his name out of consideration for the promotion to corporate, and finally they’re able to start dating… but, once again, this is a slow burn romance so it just can’t be that easy. After they date for a little while, Jim’s planned proposal is upstaged by another co-worker’s proposal (to yet another co-worker), and they ultimately decide to wait to get married so Pam can move to New York for a few months to study graphic design, and this distance becomes one last obstacle before they’re finally together once and for all. But, as in any relationship, there are still obstacles to be overcome.

Drawing it Out without Dragging it Out

“…but I also don’t want to write 50+ chapters just to show that they’re in a slow burn relationship.”

While you certainly don’t have to draw a slow burn relationship out over anything like fifty chapters, you also can’t make it slow burn unless you “show the math,” so to speak. You can’t just say it’s slow burn, you have to show it, and that’s going to take time… you’ll have to draw it out, and in a novel with a slow burn romance, that typically means they don’t get together until the last quarter/final act.

So, how do you draw it out without dragging it out? Well, for starters, there needs to be something else going on in the story. Slow burn romances work best in a story with a non-romantic primary plot or a strong non-romantic subplot. In other words, what else is this story about? Are your characters fighting in a dystopian rebellion? Are they researchers trying to survive on a dangerous island after a shipwreck? Are they trying to survive a clan war while trying to get your protagonist back through the portal he fell through from the twenty-first century? If your story can be about something else in addition to the slow burn romance, you don’t have to worry about boring your reader because there’s so much other stuff going on.

And remember, slow burn is as much about time and quality as it is about page count. In other words, if you have a novel that takes place over three years, but you want your characters to be together by the middle (two years into the story), that’s fine. What matters is that we see as much of the development as possible. It doesn’t have to literally take your entire book to unfold. :)

1. Developmental/Structural

This step looks at the story as a whole with the intent of improving readability, appeal, and marketability. Things that will be looked at include:

concept, setting, plot, structure, overall presentation

character development, characterization, unnecessary characters

point-of-view consistency, showing vs telling, voice

motivation, goals, conflict, tension, tone

back story, plot holes, loose story threads

scene order, flow, and pace

2. Line Edit This step zooms into the paragraph and sentence level of the story. The intention here is to tighten up and smooth out the writing, and iron out any style issues. Things that will be looked at include:

sentence structure, wordiness, paragraph flow

word choice, word repetition, overused words

clichés (the phrase kind, not the concept kind)

weak transitions, overall clarity

3. Copy Edit This step is about clean-up and consistency. It’s the phase where a fine polish is buffed into the surface of the story. No major edits will occur from this point onward. Things that will be looked at include:

grammar and punctuation

use of active voice over passive voice

continuity and overall cohesiveness

4. Proofread The goal of this step is to look one last time for errors and things that need to be changed. Things that will be looked at include:

typos

overlooked errors in grammar, punctuation, and capitalization

Guide: Starting a New (Long Fiction) Story

Whether you’re writing for practice, publication, or fun, the process for writing a new original story is different for everyone and often depends on the project itself. Here are some things to consider as you start to prepare and get started on your new story.

1. To plot or not to plot?

The first thing you’ll want to do is decide how much you want to plot out the story before you start writing. Some writers are avid plotters, planning out every detail of their story before they begin. Other writers prefer to take an idea and wing it, and some people plot as they go. At the very least, it’s a good idea to make sure you know the following before you start writing:

Who is your protagonist? What do they want, why do they want it, and how are they going to get it?

When and where is the story set? What parts of this setting will play the biggest role in the story and how?

Who or what is the antagonistic force? Every protagonist needs an antagonist to work against them, creating obstacles they must overcome as they try to reach their goal. An antagonistic force is anyone or anything that creates those obstacles, whether a super villain, overbearing but well-meaning parents, a disease, a natural disaster, or a plague of zombies.

Know your beginning, middle, and end. Before you start writing, it’s a good idea to have a mental picture of how the story starts (your character’s normal life before everything turns upside down), what’s happening at the midpoint (what happens to raise the stakes and give the protagonist a big push toward the “final showdown” with the antagonist), and how the story ends (does your character defeat/survive the antagonistic force? Do they reach their goal? How does your character or their world change as a result?) 

2. Research and Inspiration...

Whether or not you decide to plot, you will probably want to spend a little time doing some research and looking for information. If you are choosing to plot, you may want to do this afterward or during your plotting phase. Ultimately, you’ll want to consider whether there are any elements in your story that you need to know more about before writing them. This might include things like learning what it’s like to be deaf, how castles are laid out, or what kinds of plants and flowers typically grow in forests. If you’re setting your story in a real place, or are using a real place as inspiration, you may want to learn more about that place. If your story takes place in a particular era or involves a particular event or type of event, you will want to research those. For inspiration, you may want to look for pictures of everything from characters and clothing to buildings and places. Some writers enjoy putting together pinterest or tumblr galleries to house inspiring pictures. You may also want to put together character, setting, and story aesthetics (collages), put together a writing playlist that has the right feel for your story, or even travel to places or do activities that are related to your story.

3. Planning, preparation, and organization.

If you’re going to wing it, you’re pretty much ready to get started with writing now. However, if you’re going to plot your story, this is the point where you might want to do a little more planning and preparation before you start writing, and depending on how much stuff you accumulate through these early stages, you’ll probably want to do a little organization, too.

When I start a new story, I always do three things:

-- purchase a three-ring binder and dividers for keeping track of my story plans-- set up a story specific folder on my desktop with necessary subfolders-- set up a story specific folder in my browser with necessary subfolders

I like to decorate my binder with a printed out aesthetic picture and a pretty title on the side. The divider tabs for my binders usually contain sections like: characters, setting, outline/scene list, notes, rough draft, etc. If there is more than one major setting, sometimes I’ll give each setting their own divider. It really just depends on the needs of my story, and sometimes I re-organize my dividers as the story progresses and my needs evolve.

My desktop folder usually contains the following subfolders: drafts, storage, notes-ideas, character stuff, setting stuff, inspiration, and then sometimes I do additional subfolders... like my “character stuff” subfolder might have subfolders for each character or characters in each specific setting.

My browser folder is usually kind of a mess. I will sometimes do subject-specfic subfolders, but usually I just bookmark whatever I need to and make sure the bookmarks I access the most are at the top of the list.

Again, you will probably add to all of this as you actually get into the plotting phase. I consider this phase and the plotting phase to go hand-in-hand. This is really just about getting everything set up and ready to go.

This is also a good time to figure out things like a writing schedule (if you need to set one), daily or weekly word count goals, and get your writing space organized if you have one.

4. Plotting...

There are many different ways you can plot your story, all depending on what works best for you and the needs of your story. Some writers simply like to come up with an exhaustive summary of events from beginning to end. Others like to do some sort of outline. You may want to do a timeline and a scene list as well. My post how to outline a plot will walk you through some of the different options, and my plot and structure master list has lots of other posts that may be useful to you during this time.

5. Start writing!

Once you’ve gotten your story plotted out (or not, if you’re choosing not to plot), it’s time to sit down and start writing. Here are some things to keep in mind:

-- This is the very first draft of your story and it’s going to be ROUGH, which is why it’s often referred to as the “rough draft” or “zero draft.” This draft isn’t going to be perfect. It’s going to be messy, ugly, meandering, and kind of awful, and THAT’S FINE!!! This is just the rough sketch or mockup. You’re going to improve upon it later.

-- Because this is the first draft, now is not the time to worry about word choice, sentence structure, word play, grammar and punctuation, flawless story structure, etc. Just get the story down to the best of your ability. You’re going to make it pretty in the later drafts.

-- Also, because this is the first draft, don’t be afraid to go a little hog wild. You don’t have to worry about word count and having a tight story now. Feel free to go off on tangents, delve into fluffy scenes, and follow weird threads. Dive in and explore your world and its characters. This exploratory process allows you to kind of throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. A lot of the time you’ll end up discovering gems you hadn’t considered initially. Again, you can figure out what to cut out later on.

-- AGAIN... DO NOT EDIT AS YOU GO. I mean, look... sometimes, more experienced writers develop a process where they do edit as they go, and that’s fine. But until you’ve written enough stories from beginning to end to know what works for you, don’t trouble yourself with editing as you go. The most important thing right now is to write this story from beginning to end. Once you get to the end, you can go back and make it pretty.

-- It’s okay to feel frustrated and have days where you need to take a break. You may have days where you just want to delete the story and move on, but don’t do that. If you need to, walk away from it for a few days or a week and come back to it later. If the story still isn’t working for you, save everything and start on a new project, but never delete what you have no matter how much you feel like you hate it now. You never know when inspiration will strike and you’ll decide to go back to an old project.

I’ve got a whole post about it, and I’ve actually been wanting to update it. So here goes!

Guide: Naming Locations

1) Genre/Theme/Tone

It’s important to consider the genre, theme, and tone of your story when choosing a town name. Notice how the following place names reflect the genre or theme of the story:King’s Landing (sounds fantastical, from Game of Thrones)Cloud City (sounds futuristic, from Star Wars)Silent Hill (sounds scary, from a horror game)Sweet Valley (sounds happy and upbeat, from a YA series)Bikini Bottom (sounds funny, from Spongebob Squarepants)Radiator Springs (sounds car-related, from Disney’s Cars)Halloween Town (sounds spooky, from The Nightmare Before Christmas)Storybrooke (sounds fairytale-related, from Once Upon a Time)

2) Time/Place

It’s also important to consider when and where your story takes place. For example, “Vista Gulch” wouldn’t be a good name for a town in Victorian England because “vista” is a Spanish word commonly found where Spanish is (or was) a common language. And “gulch” is specific to the American Southwest, though it can occasionally be found in other places in North America. If you’re not sure what would be appropriate for your story, look for similar places in similar time periods. For example, if you’re writing a medieval fantasy set in a fictional world but modeled strongly after medieval France, look at maps of medieval France to see what kinds of names the towns, cities, and other places had.

3) Size/Settlement Type (Settlement Hierarchy)

When you’re naming any kind of settlement, it’s important to have some idea of the population/size, as this can sometimes influence naming conventions. These may differ slightly in different time periods/parts of the world, but this is a good general guide:

Homestead - a single dwelling or cluster of dwellings, typically occupied by one family or several related families. In modern times, often referred to as a “compound.” (Example: Fraser’s Ridge in Outlander, at least initially when it’s the cabin and just a few surrounding families.)

Hamlet - a very small community, typically with 100 people or fewer, and little in the services/amenities outside of possibly a church and a post office. When a hamlet has a small train station, they’re often called a “whistle-stop.” (Examples: Blackwater, Missouri. Whitwell-on-the-Hill, England)

Village - a small community of 1,000 people or fewer, likely to have a church or a few, a post office, a market, and possibly a few businesses. (Examples: Highbury in Jane Austen’s Emma. Hogsmeade in Harry Potter)

Town - a larger community of people, typically with the standard services/businesses, as well as schools and parks, often clustered around a town square/downtown/main street area. (Small town: 1,000 - 5,000, Town: 5,000 - 10,000, Large Town: 10,000 to 100,000) Larger towns may have shopping centers, malls, movie theaters, entertainment venues, etc. (Example: Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls) 

City - a sprawling community with a robust center and a wide variety of businesses and services. Ranging in size from 100,000 (small) to just under one-million (huge.) Larger cities often include suburbs and towns. (Examples: Waco, Texas. Miami, Florida. Manchester, England. Okayama, Japan)

Metropolis - a very large city and its suburbs, of between one-million and three-million people, typically made up of several smaller cities and towns that have expanded into one another. (Examples: San Diego, California. Birmingham, England. Chicago, Illinois)

Conurbation - a group of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that have expanded into one another to create an enormous, polycentric urban area, with anywhere from three-million to ten-million people. (Examples: Los Angeles, California. London, England. New York, New York. Tokyo, Japan)

Megalopolis - a group of conurbations clustered together, with a total population of more than ten-million. (Examples: Sao Paulo, Brazil (12 million), Moscow, Russia (13 million), Beijing, China (18 million), Shanghai, China (24 million)

4) Geography

Words like gulch, butte,and bayou tend to be regional terms. You probably wouldn’t find Berle’s Bayou in Idaho, or Windy Butte in Rhode Island.Words like mount, cape, and valley are dependent upon terrain. Most of the time, you won’t have a town named “mount” something unless there are hills or mountains nearby. You wouldn’t use “cape” unless the town was on a cape, which requires a large body of water.

5) History

Is there a historical person or event that your town might be named after? The Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield is ironically named after its founder, Jebediah Springfield. Chattanooga, Tennessee is named after the Cherokee town that was there first. Nargothrond, in The Lord of the Rings, is an Elvish town with an Elvish name.

6) Combination of Words

person name + geographical term = Smithfield, Smith Creek

group name + geographical term = Pioneer Valley, Settlers’ Ridge

descriptive word + geographical term = Mystic Falls, Smoky Hill

person name + settlement type = Smithton, Claraville

landmark + settlement type = Bridgton, Beaconville

Word Lists:

Types of Settlements

Geographical Features

Place Words

Common Suffixes

Other Descriptors

Guide: Getting Your Writing Noticed on Tumblr

It can be really, really difficult to get your writing noticed on tumblr, especially if you’re just posting stories and hoping they get noticed. 

If you want to get your stories noticed on tumblr, the best thing you can do first is build yourself a little platform. You may want to start a side tumblr for this if you don’t want to dedicate your current tumblr to this new endeavor. Here are some quick steps to follow:

1. Decide on a Main Theme

The key to building followers is figuring out the best hook to catch the readers you’d like to have. If you want to attract writers who are readers, you probably want a blog themed toward books/reading and/or writing. If you want to attract people who like science fiction, because that’s what you write, you probably want a sci-fi theme. Choosing a theme doesn’t mean you can only post things relate to that theme, but the majority of your posts should stick with the theme.

2. Decide on a Blog Name

Choose a blog name that’s related to your theme. If you choose reading and writing as your theme, for example, you might consider a name that reflects books, writing, and/or your WIP or genre. For example, “The Dragon’s Pen” or “Reading and Writing in Space.”

3. Figure Out Content

Try to choose three or four main post types outside of your eventual writing. For example, for a blog dedicated to reading and writing, you might choose to post bookish pictures, book reviews, writing tips, and re-blogged writing resources. Or, if you’re doing a sci-fi blog because that’s your genre, you might choose to post sci-fi inspiration pictures, sci-fi book reviews, and original posts about science fiction. Again, focusing on these types of posts doesn’t mean you can’t post anything else, it’s just that the majority of your posts would be one of those post types.

4. Choose an Aesthetic

For any original posts that you create, whether that’s tip/resource posts, book reviews, genre posts, etc., it’s a good idea to decide on a consistent look for these posts. Do you use the title area or create your own? Do you use a header graphic for your post, or maybe one as a footer? If you use graphics, try to create something unified that you can alter depending on the post type. Ideally, you want someone to see one of your posts in their feed and immediately know it’s one of your posts.

5. Choose a Posting Schedule

Consistency is surprisingly helpful when it comes to building a blog following. If your posts go up at the same general time of day, you have a better chance of the same people seeing your posts over and over again, and if they reblog them, the same people who follow them will see them and hopefully follow, too. If you do more than one post a day, you might want to spread them out to different times, like one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. You can actually schedule posts to go up whenever you want to, even reblogs. (Just click on the down arrow next to the reblog button.) My one word of caution is to make sure you don’t over post. Nothing turns people off of a blog or social media site faster than serial posters. Limit yourself to no more than two or three posts at a time, no more than a few times per day.

6. Follow the Right Blogs

Make sure to follow a bunch of blogs that will produce content you’ll want to reblog as well as similar blogs that might be more likely to follow back. The more blogs you follow, the more content you’ll have to choose from and the more people will follow you and reblog from you, which results in a broader overall reach.

7. Interact with People

One of the most important things you can do to build up a loyal following is make sure you’re interacting with people. After you’ve got a handful of followers, try to make a post every day that briefly talks about something and then asks a related question. For example, maybe you bought a coffee maker to fuel your writing questions, so you can talk about that and then ask people what snacks or beverages fuel their own writing sessions.

Also, when blogs you follow ask questions like that, make sure you reply. This fosters a feeling of kinship so when those people see your posts, they’ll think “I know that person!” and will be more likely to interact/like/reblog. If any blog you follow makes a particular great original post that’s relevant to your blog, go ahead and reblog it. You might even try creating a tag, where you do something like post a line out of your WIP before and after you edit it, then tag some of your favorite writer followers and have them do the same.

Oh! And look for things within the community (tags, challenges, games, follow loops, etc.) that might give you an opportunity to find new blogs and followers.

8. Build Up a Buzz

After you have a bit of a following and are starting to feel a bit of a sense of community surrounding your blog, you can start building up a buzz about sharing your writing. You might start by talking about what it is you’re going to share and the fact that you plan to share it soon. If it’s fiction, you might post an aesthetic or two, maybe some inspiration photos, or even character profiles. If it’s poetry, you might just post an inspiration photo along with the title or a little snippet. Then, choose a date for when you’re going to share it (or the first part of it if you’re sharing it in chapters.) Create a graphic with that “launch” date and post that. Then, the day before, make a post about how excited you are to finally share your story or poem or whatever it is.

9. Post Your Writing

On the chosen day, go ahead and post the poem, short story, or first chapter. If you’re posting a story in parts or chapters, don’t post more than one per day. During this time, you might want to limit your other types of posts a little bit, or at least the text-based ones. This way, the writing posts will stick out the most during that time. Then, when you’re finished sharing, you can take a little break and go back to your regular content. Or, if you prefer, you might choose another site for actually posting your writing, like perhaps ff.net (if it’s fan-fiction), Wattpad, or even another blogging platform dedicated only to posting writing. Whatever works for you! Then, on the appointed day, you’ll just post a link to it rather than the actual writing, but in that case I would probably make sure to post a pretty graphic (matching your chosen aesthetic) to go with it.

10. Did I Mention: Be Patient?

I know I did, but I’m saying it again because it’s sooooo important. It takes a long, long time to build up followers. Like a really long time. It took me months to build up my first few hundred people here at WQA 2.0, and I was building off an existing platform. You’re going to feel like you’re shouting into a wind tunnel for a while, and it’s going to be super frustrating when you log on day after day to find that no one has liked or reblogged your posts, but stick with it. Do it every single day and eventually you’ll get traction.Finally, BONUS! (Because I just thought of this and it doesn’t fit anywhere else... and now my numbering is weird...)11. Know Your Tags

This is a BIG one... make sure you decide on your own posting tags ahead of time so that you can keep all of your like posts together. It also makes it easier for people to find the content that interests them the most.

Likewise, make sure you know the popular tags in your community. If you’re doing a sci-fi blog, what are the popular sci-fi tags? What are the popular tags for sci-fi writers? What about sci-fi readers? Make sure you know, use, and follow those tags! :)

Guide: How to Outline a Plot

The best way to outline a plot isn’t the same for everyone, and sometimes it’s even different from story to story. There are lots of different methods, and most writers use a combination of them, so you just have to try different things to see what works best for you. Here are some of the most common methods:

1. Just Write

Some writers are what’s known as “pansters” meaning that once they have a story idea in mind, they prefer to “fly by the seat of their pants” and start writing without any planning in place. The key to making this method work is to remember that you’re only writing the first draft. Nothing you’re doing is set in stone, so don’t feel the story has to be perfect in one shot. Follow your gut and write the story to the best of your ability. Worry about tightening and polishing in subsequent drafts.

2. Synopsis

Some writers prefer to start by writing beginning to end summary of the story, describing all the important details and events in the order that they unfold. Summaries can be a great way to flesh out an idea for a plot, and they can also serve as a nice guideline if you want to “just write” your story but need a bit more structure first.

3. Old-Fashioned Outline

Do they still teach academic outlining in school? I don’t even know… when I was a kid, we learned how to do outlines with Roman numerals for the main points, capital letters for the minor points, and numbers for sub-points. If you’re good at outlining, this can be a great way to outline your plot. (formatting got whacked over the years, so here’s a picture instead...)

4. Timeline

Creating a timeline for your story can be a great way to map it out. All you need is a beginning event, climax event, and end event. From there you can start filling in the events that follow and precede those events. Even if you don’t know the exact date for when a scene takes place, you can still mark it down in the right general place.

5. Scene List

If you have a pretty good idea of the scenes that need to take place, or at least a good number of them, you can start by writing out a scene list. It’s nice to do them in a table if you can so you can organize important details, like chapter, scene number, date and location, who’s in it, and then a short summary. Though, how you organize it is up to you. If you prefer, you can just write the scene number and then a brief summary.

6. Story Structure Map

Some writers like to map out their story according to whatever story structure they want to follow. They’ll pull up a graphic or chart of the structure, transcribe it onto paper or into a document, and then note each relevant event for each structure “mile marker.”

7. Subway/Tube Map

This is a new one I recently heard about. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but I think it’s fascinating. And there are even subway map creators you can use if you don’t want to draw it out. Ultimately, the goal is to map out the events of your story in the style of a subway/tube map. This method makes it easy to illustrate subplots and see how they relate to the rest of your story.

8. The Mind Map

Mind maps can be a fantastic way to get the most important parts of your story out on paper, and to start figuring out where other parts fit in and how they relate to everything else.

9. Index Cards

Some writers have luck writing out key scenes, moments, bits of dialogue (or anything else they have in mind) on individual index cards, which can then be laid out in order on a table, allowing for cards to be easily moved around, added, subtracted, etc. until a more complete story starts to emerge. Some writers even invest in giant cork boards for this purpose. Others use a dry erase board and draw out the “cards” instead. A lot of story writing software, such as Scrivener, even includes digital bulletin boards and index cards that you can use to visualize your story.

10. Method/Theory/Template

There are numerous methods/theories/templates dedicated to building/fleshing out plots. Some to look into:

- The Snowflake Method- Dramatica Theory- Save the Cat! for Novels- The Hero’s Journey

If one of the above doesn’t work for you, you’re sure to find even more ideas online. Try doing a search for “how to outline a plot” or “outlining a novel” to see what comes up. You might even try searching for your favorite author’s name plus “outlining” to see if they’ve done any posts sharing their own methods. You may also want to look into books, software, and apps/web sites that offer ways to help you plot your story.

Guide: Creating a Sympathetic Main Character

If you want to create a character your readers will love, try including some of the following traits:

1) Admirable Positive Traits

Kindness, bravery, humility, selflessness, optimism, good morals, respect for others, generosity, open-minded, inclusive, problem-solving… these kinds of positive traits, and others, give the reader reasons to like your character. For more help with positive traits, check out the Positive Trait Thesaurus, a super handy reference that I own and recommend.

2) Sympathetic Negative Traits

Real people have flaws, so readers don’t tend to like characters who don’t have flaws, too. But if you want to create a sympathetic character, it’s also important to make sure their negative traits are believable, understandable, and don’t overwhelm or negate any of the character’s positive traits. Think about the negative traits of people you know and love, and there’s also a Negative Trait Thesaurus, which is also helpful. For added benefit, build in something that explains why your character developed this negative trait. For example, if one of their negative traits is that they’re a stickler for being on time and tend to freak out if they’re even a couple minutes late, find a way somewhere in the story to explain why they are this way. Perhaps they went to a school where tardiness was severely punished, or maybe being late once cost them a job they really wanted. Building in an understandable, relatable reason for why they developed the negative trait helps to make them a sympathetic character.

3) Skills, but not Skillzzzz

Readers love it when a character is good at something, but not too good at something, and definitely not good at everything. Maybe your character is a good student who studies hard and gets good grades. But maybe they also get an A- on a paper and are disappointed but happy they still got an A. Or, maybe your character is considered to be the top pilot at the space trucking company where they work, but maybe they also made an error a few months ago that led to a damaged shipment, so they’re currently on probation and could lose their job and pilot’s license if they screw up again.

4) Sympathetic Motivation and Admirable Goals

Every main character needs internal and external goals and motivation for wanting to reach those goals, but if you want your character to be sympathetic, it’s important to create goals and motivations that a reader can understand, even if they may not agree with them. For example, maybe your character witnessed a crime and is now in danger as the key witness. Maybe they are afraid they now present a danger to their beloved family, so they decide to disappear and take dangerous work in a remote mining operation so that they can keep their family safe and also save up money to give them a better life. Your reader may not agree that leaving their family is the best option, but anyone can understand wanting to protect one’s family.

5) Quirky, but Not QWIRKIEEEE♥!!!

Readers tend to like characters who are a little bit quirky, but “quirky” can get annoying really fast if you go overboard. Maybe your character wears their hair in a rainbow-colored beehive, wears cat-eye glasses, and has a few piercings. Maybe they have an unusual hobby, like collecting seashells or medieval coins, and they can identify almost any specimen by sight. Perhaps they’re a lovable geek who wears a different sci-fi movie/show t-shirt every day and can’t go an hour without quoting a favorite movie. Or maybe they’re obsessed with cats, are fluent in ten languages, run a medieval smithy in their backyard, or have an enormous doll collection. A few of these can make for an interesting character, but too many will make your character unbelievable and annoying.

6) Conflict with Aspects Anyone Can Relate To

I’d wager that most readers have probably never been stuck in an arena and forced to fight other people to the death, but that didn’t stop readers from sympathizing with what Katniss Everdeen had to go through in The Hunger Games. Maybe we couldn’t relate to the reality of what she faced, but we could identify with aspects of it: having to be away from friends and loved ones, facing uncertainty and danger, being pitted against someone you don’t want to be pitted against, being in an unfamiliar place, being in a situation you have limited control over, being forced to do something you don’t want to do, wanting to do the right thing but knowing it will come at a great cost to yourself… These are all things a lot of people can identify with on some level or another, so because we’ve “been there,” even though we haven’t been *there* (in the arena, facing down Clove and Cato, and all those other tributes). There are things about Katniss’s struggle that we can identify with, which allow us to sympathize with her even though we haven’t experienced exactly what she’s going through.