#writingresources

Make the relationship feel real first Show small moments of affection and comfort so the loss feels personal.

Let the character notice the little absences The empty seat. The unread message. The quiet that used to be filled by someone else.

Focus on ordinary memories Heartbreak often lingers in mundane moments: inside jokes, favorite songs, shared routines.

Show how their world subtly changes Places feel different. Music feels sadder. Things they once loved feel empty.

Let them try to act normal People often pretend they’re fine long before they actually are.

Use silence and restraint Someone heartbreak is a character staring at their phone for ten minutes.

Let them remember the good parts The pain is stronger when the love was real.

Give them conflicting emotions They might miss someone while also knowing the relationship had to end.

Show how it affects their choices Heartbreak changes how people trust, hope, and move forward.

Leave something unsaid Sometimes the most painful part is the conversation that never happened.

🎯 new post is up on @thewriteedvice: “How to Fix a Flat Main Character” aka the carousel that made me realize my MC is just a sad little narrative sponge 😐

this one’s for writers who: — keep saying “they’re just quiet” — accidentally wrote a background character in the lead role — realize their protagonist is just reacting to plot like they’re in a wind tunnel

💡 save the post for later. 🧃 scream in the comments. ✍️ then go make your MC want something already.

📍 find it now on IG (@thewriteedvice)

Understanding the Types of Scarcity

Material Resources: First, start with food, water, fuel, and ammo. Once you have the basics, move to less commonly thought-about things like batteries, clothing, scrap metal, and wood.

Skills and Knowledge: Doctors, engineers, survival experts, and mechanics would be some people worth knowing or being in a post-apocalyptic world. What if there were none?

Emotional Resources: Once the world goes to hell, trust and community become resources. Surviving sometimes means getting along with others; you'll want all parties to mean it. Getting fed to a zombie so someone can escape sounds like no fun. 

Information: Who are you going to let hold the map for you? Things can get harder on your team if it gets stolen, left behind, or destroyed. In a world without GPS, information is a resource; let's face it, you must trust its handler. 

This is part one of a five-part writing guide to post-apocalyptic scarcity. Tune in next time for a more in-depth breakdown of scarcity and who makes the decisions? Not me, that's for sure. I'd probably be the one used as zombie bait first.

-Indigo Everly

Want more advice? Check out my other articles!

- tips for anyone who wants to write a long series but cant seem to -

go back to what inspired you to write it, if it's an imagination that you daydreamed, write everything that comes to mind.

create art. idc how you make it, moodboards, self drawn, gifs, image sets, collages. MAKE THEM. then you can go back and look at it for inspo

write plot in bullet points before writing them out. SAVES SO MUCH TIME. bc you dont forget it and you can always come back to edit it when you have new ideas.

be detailed with your characters, there should be some detailed templates on tumblr if you dont know where to start (search 'character templates')

that's basically it for me

signing off

lyns :))))

@writinghaven on instagram || NO REPOSTS!

NaNoWriMo: A useful app with multiple writing challenges that lets you create a project and implement goals! You can track your word count or your editing progress and can set up how many words you need a day to reach your goal in a specific timeframe :) 10/10! I personally use this one everyday

Google Docs: I'm sure most of you know of this one, but out of all the platforms I've written on, I love Docs the best for a few reasons. One, it has a lovely autosave feature and as a night time writer, I can get groggy and forget to save at times. Another is that it's very easy to use, the fonts are awesome, and it runs well even on a high word count!

Notion: Notion is honestly useful for everything. I use it for my everyday to-do’s, as a calendar, and I even have a notion page for random quotes I like! I actually recently started using it for organizing my WIP and while it’s not designed to do that, it’s super easy to turn your notion into anything you want since it’s so adaptable. Also, it can be super aesthetic :)

Writer's Companion: A free program with no ads that is custom-made to help you build your world, create characters, write outlines, set goals, and more! It basically helps you keep all the different elements of your WIP organized

ProWritingAid: Alright, so I'm sure most of you know Grammarly. ProWritingAid is basically that, but you can use it for creative writing (and in my opinion their platform is better and their prices are more reasonable :)) Unlike Grammarly, ProWritingAid very at targeting dialogue and it's super useful for grammar and style too!

Pinterest: Super useful for finding face claims and inspiration for your novel :) While it isn't directly writing related, I don't think I'd be able to write as well without it! You can also find some nice writing tips on there too

Scrivener: This platform is purposefully designed for authors so it's super useful and requires less formatting compared to if you're making your manuscript on Google Docs or Microsoft Word! It has a cool management system for documents and notes and a cool thing is that you can write your WIP in any order and easily rearrange it :)

Zepeto and Picrew: There’s a huge portion of writers that can’t draw and find it hard to find the right faceclaims for their OCs, so Zepeto and Picrew are my personal favorite apps/websites for character visualization :D

HONORABLE MENTIONS!!

Notebook.ai

Toyhou.se

Story Planner

Pure Writer

Character Planner

Novelist

Also, just some websites with micro writing communities:

CAMP NANOWRIMO. campnanowrimo.org

CRITIQUE CIRCLE. critiquecircle.com

CRITTERS WORKSHOP. critters.org

FICTIONAUT. fictionaut.com

INTERNET WRITING WORKSHOP. internetwritingworkshop.org

STORYADAY. storyaday.org

WATTPAD. wattpad.com

THE WRITERS CHAT ROOM. writerschatroom.com

I have finally committed to the idea of writing my sci-fantasy novel. I’ve also decided to write down this journey because why not. It’ll be fun to look back on. And hey, it might even be a helpful resource for whoever stumbles across this dairy-microblog-whatever it is.

ANYWAYS

For today I’m simply going to record some of the writing resources I’m currently using.

1. Google Docs. I honestly love this platform, as it allows me to access my work whenever, where-ever. (I’m primarily using an iPad Pro with a keyboard for my work, because portability is a must, darling.)

2. World Anvil. This platform is freaking bomb. Admittedly, I’m still figuring out the ins-n-outs of it- not because it’s complicated, (miss me with that crap), but simply learning how to maximize the incredible organization it offers you. It’s a genuine godsend because I’ve tried self-organizing things many, many times before, but it never really works out the way I want it to, lol. But with this, I can tag and link self-created articles and actual web articles, sort them by category- THERE IS EVEN A TIMELINE. AN HONEST-TO-GOD TIMELINE. Tbh, I hated making these things in history class- we had to like cut things out and color them and ugh it was terrible, but this is so awesome. The timeline is even color-coded, so my lazy-but-also-super-hardworking-butt can easily tell what kind of event it is- be it a coronation, birth, death, war, etc. And it has this secret function, so I can make notes that are part of the main article, but only visible to me, so I can see my plot twists and what-not without the whole world being able to see. Because, oh yeah, this platform is set-up so that you can invite people to ‘beta-read’ it in a sense, so you can make sure things aren’t totally whack and-

Am I raving about this platform or rambling? I don’t even know man. But you get the point. This platform is rad. Only sad part is that it’s just a website, at least as far as I know. Which means I can’t access it when I don’t have WiFi. T-T . Oh well. Nothing can be perfect. *cough* except Google Docs *coughs*

3. Map Creator. Haven’t really used this a whole lot, except for playing around but I do intend to utilize it. NOTE: I have no idea if this like the bast platform for map-building, and it’s probably not, lol, but it a really handy, and, most importantly, functioning one, so. If there’s a better one that you know about that is USER-FRIENDLY, please tell me about it. (Can you tell that I’m an Apple person just from that one sentence. HAHA.)

4. Tumblr. Maybe this is kind of no-duh, but I seriously mean it. I haven’t been rebooting posts or anything like that, mainly because I want to have my blog made-up of only my little daily entries, BUT I have been liking things that are useful and relatable. The latter is merely another kind of useful, honestly, because it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one. So yeah. The posts I’ve liked thus far are visible to all, and in all actuality, you’ve probably seen them, haha. But hey. It counts.

5. My Own Glorious Imagination. Pretentious, aren’t I. hehe. But, really, if your own imagination isn’t your primary resource- Honey. USE IT.

Alrighty, sprite-ies, I think that about covers it. I shall return again tomorrow.

This link opens a google doc worksheet that explores your characters in terms of 8 emotions:

Fear, Anger, Sadness, Joy, Disgust, Surprise, Trust, Anticipation

Robert Plutchik's theory says that these are the eight basic emotions. Where better to look when trying to develop your character’s emotional responses and outlook?

Any feedback is welcome! If you have suggestions of more questions to add, reply to this post or send us a message.

Download and make this worksheet your own.

I always have a hard time organizing information I find on the web. Over the last few weeks, I’ve created a few Pinterest boards with lots of writing-related information to keep myself sane. I realize I’m late to the Pinterest party but if you are interested also, feel free to head over and check out those boards. 

I also have a Writing Resources page on this blog, where I tag relevant writing-related nuggets I find on tumblr. I’m not a writing advice blog but, being a writer, I’m always working on things related to the writing process. I’m also happy to chat it up with you if you have questions on insights. It’s always great to talk shop with folks.