Writing Tips From a Fool

Now, I come to you as a friend and as a foe with the wisdom of a piano from the 80s. In all my time *authoring*, I have learned to read as a writer. And it can be annoying as heck because sometimes I want to read a bad story just to relax and destress, but in my head I’m correcting it. But it helped me! So let me help you.

Strange, what’s the difference?

Great question. The key difference is questioning. Reading as a writer means you are more analytical with what you read. You should be questioning everything: why did I get immersed here, why did I reread this paragraph, how come this scene feels rushed but the next one slow? 

The goal is to implement the best of what you see other authors do into your own writing, and this can be very biased based on your own style. Remember: Not everyone likes the same stuff, so here are some general question to help you analyze what you read better to reach your audience

How did the author create/fail to create a visual setting?

Was there a lot of sensory detail? Were the details easy to visualize, or did they jumble my thoughts and confuse me?

Why am I bored/super excited reading this right now?

Does the author use various sentence structure? Is the pacing too slow, too fast? 

What is making this scene so confusing?

Are the characters’s voices not distinguished enough? Is the sequence of events out of order? Did the author not elaborate on key events in the plot?

Hello, friendly local poltergeist here with some things to say and some demons to seduce. Now, as many know, I just finished a book (and my trilogy), but since it’s been a while since I finished a book, I forgot some of the stuff I have to do. So, let me tell you, fellow writer, so you can prepare better than I did. 

1. Advertising:

Now, this step is super important and probs the most overwhelming, at least for me. As someone who doesn’t like talking about themselves, and especially not my art, I hate this. However, it’s the only way people are going to know your book exists. It’s best to continuously maintain the socials in order to gain traction (lol rip me), but especially focus on your book at least a week before the publication date. FYI, mine is June 23. 

2. Formatting

Books have a format! You can do this in your writing software, and it’s necessary as a self published author if you don’t hire someone to do this for you. It’s more than just page size and font, it’s also indents, line spacing, headers, CONSISTENT CHAPTER NUMBERS, and page breaks!

3. Copyrighting

Depending on your country, this step may or may not be applicable, and I know in the US, the mere action of publishing any work does qualify it to be yours under certain protection laws. However, to ensure your work stays yours, I’d highly recommend copyrighting it. In the US, to copyright a single novel, it costs 65 USD and it usually takes around a month for the official copyright slip to get back to you. 

Hey hey hey it’s your local fantasy author Who is totally not two gnomEs in a trench coAt on their way to infiltrate the human woRld to discover the sEcret of trains. Today, we--I mean, I--are gonna talk about names in fantasy!

There’s that constant stereotype of fantasy naming being super weird and difficult to pronounce. Which, honestly, to each their own. In my world, it is more modern times but it is high fantasy so the character names are familiar but some of the place names (Xeoshacaeus aka the Dark Realm, for example) are...eh. 

Now, you can be like No, I’m just gonna call it the Dark Realm! Beat that! And while that is a worthy way to go about it, as a pantser who usually has no idea what’s going on, anything could happen. Like, a Demon from the Dark Realm wouldn’t call it “the Dark Realm” because that’s not how their language works. Its name is Xeoshacaeus: it’s hard and difficult to say and feels like knives on the tongue. Truth is, in fantasy places, modern language conventions simply aren’t applicable. This kinda depends on the author/story you’re dealing with, and how much HIGH you want to go into the FANTASY. (If you do the complicated pronunciation, at multiple times in the book is a pronunciation guide built into the story and in the glossary at the end of each of my books.)

A lesser version of this and is often seen in city nicknames to make them more interesting to tourists, like New York City as the Big Apple. Is that why it was nicknamed that? No. Is it unreasonable to think cities have been nicknamed strange things to make a mark? No. In my current book, two of my characters are from a desert city called Kihomange and it is the crown of the country. However, the others who are not local, call it Yellow City in their respective chapters. 

Hello fiends! As you may know, we’re in April now which means Camp NaNo! Camp NaNo is kinda like a baby National Novel Writing Month in November (NaNo) and happens in April and June and maybe some other month throughout the year! I know the average word count for camps is 50k, and in November the goal is to finish a whole novel!

What a crazy idea! Finishing a whole novel (aside from planning and editing) in one month! Nearly impossible to balance word counts of about 1k a day with mental health, school, jobs, etc. ISN’T IT INSANE???

YEAH IT IS!! GUESS WHAT I DID CAMP NANO IN JUNE 2020 AND YES I GOT MY GOAL OF 70K AND YOU WANNA KNOW HOW? I JUST ABOUT SELLED MY SOUL TO THE DARK ONE FOR THE SWEET SWEET WORD COUNT! I MADE THAT JUDGY AF TRACKER ON THE NANO WEBSITE (you know the one) PRACTICALLY LINEAR!!

I didn’t care about the quality of words or if I even liked the story I was telling. All I cared about was that there were words!!! And that my word count was hitting my daily goal!! Not only did this feel like I was dragging my WIP through mud while writing, but editing it now? I ned to delete/rewrite so many useless words and things that just draggedddd onnnnnnnnn. IT SUCKS BROSKI

Also there was so much burnout after it! I felt I couldn’t touch that WIP until August and even reading it I was filled with so much hate and despise for what it took to get me to there (to be fair, last summer, not it). 

 Wanda and Vision like I do not know what is going on but damn do I enjoy it! That show is driven by nothing but vibes. Also it’s like past midnight but I took a nap so hear I am LETS GET TO IT!

Plot Driven and Character Driven stories are kinda like categories (oh, humans and their categories! Is O even or odd?) that writers tend to go to in their writing style. One isn’t better than the other, and the best books take a balance between the two: an enticing plot with well-rounded characters.

I tend to write more Plot Driven stories. These are stories that focus on the choices characters make in order to move the plot forward. The characters are developed, but the book may not go into a lot of detail about their minds. Some people like to think about Plot Driven stories as “action.” Jurassic Park is a Plot Driven story. 

Character-Driven stories are stories that focuses on the character making a choice, or their cross-roads. The characters are very developed, and you’ll probs want to reveal that backstory. There’s no real Villain that’s working against the character, but there can certainly be an antagonist. Shawshank’s Redemption is a movie with a character-driven plot. It follows the character’s journey. Something I’ve noticed is character-driven stories tend to have internal problems, while plot-driven have more external problems. 

In many ways, these two concepts overlap. They both require well-rounded and flawed characters whose decisions are impacted by their backstory/personal motivations and their environment, respectively. Its important to develop all parts of a story; both characters and plot. No matter what, you will have characters. 

Make them flawed. Humans see themselves in fiction most similar to themselves, even if the character is fantastical. For character-driven stories, it’s really important to have rounded characters since the reader is focusing on their internal monologue. For plot-driven stories, it’s easy to make your character be perfect and always make the right choices. DON’T. You don’t have to kill your darlings, just make them dysfunctional. 

“Strange, plot is stupid! Characters are the only thing that matters!” This or vice versa is a valid opinion, sure. Nobody is right or wrong cuz both are important! Try to incorporate plots of both types. Maybe one of your characters is going through some type of inner conflict and is super focused on their psych, but your other character needs to kill a dragon. These are vague examples, but if you consider every character having their own plot, this could be a way to establish a varying voice (especially if you write first person and switch perspectives--c’est moi)

From Eli in Vicious by V. E. Schwab to Deadpool in Marvel, self-healing characters are pretty cool to read and pretty hard to write. Their powers seem overpowered, and if nothing can hurt them, how can the stakes be high? This post will provide solutions to nerfing those over-powered healing skillz!

Adding Limitations

Self-healing isn’t normally humanely possible and exists in the rules of magic, so the common rules of magic apply! Add some rules to the self-healing, too, like maybe your character has a kryptonite they can’t heal around or--my favorite!--they still feel the pain for the wound. That one I see a lot, but the most important thing is to make sure the rule makes sense for the power. For example, your character wouldn’t feel blood loss because self healing is quick regeneration of skin/muscle/limb whatever, so that would apply to blood cells too. 

Make The Plot Require Non-Physicality

Did I phrase this title in a non-confusing manner? Never! So like, have the plot favor or need the mind as much as or as more as it requires brawn. If your character is an immortal trying to solve a cryptic message from their evil god sibling, they don’t need their regenerative properties--they need to know how to solve a riddle. Raise the stakes in ways other than physical action and make their power useless yk?

Add a Price

Similar to rules, but maybe just a reminder, what does it cost to heal? Is it painful, or does it tire the user? Is it automatic or does the character need to perform a ritual of some sort? Ask yourself what the character must do--if anything--for this ability, and if there is any sort of toll on them when they expend this ability. 

Add a Character

A sure-fire way to raise tensions is to have someone else around! Usually a weak, normal guy who CAN’T heal themselves with awesome powers like a nerd. If your healing character is taking care of the other one who can’t heal, there’s still that fear in fight scenes. Or, if you don’t want another character, give them something to protect--cuz even if they can heal themselves, they can still be captured and pressed for information. 

My supervillain backstory is having to do my english assignment in this panini. That said, lets talk about writing! Are your scenes flat and you don’t wanna do that? Do you find yourself skimming your paragraphs? Do you wanna just add a little bit of pizazz? If so, then you’ve come to the write place!

✨Character plans✨

First, in case you haven’t already, ask yourself why the scene is important. Boring means that the pace is too slow--and some slow pace is good, it can get bad! Add some drama. So, the evil god is trying to take over the world and y’all are just a bunch of dudes going over the new plan. Don’t go over every meticulous detail because either a) your reader can infer the plan cuz they’re smart of b) they don’t care enough for the details. It can drag down the story a lot! 

Recommendation: Read through the boring scene, and rewrite it without referencing it. It’ll pull out what’s important--and if it’s a plan like the example, If the plan is successful, don’t communicate it with the readers, but if it’ll be a failure, do. If you still find it boring, make the plan recited by your funnies character. 

✨Move the timeline forward!✨

TAKE YOUR TIMELINE AND THROW IT AWAY YOU WON’T NEED IT! Wait,,,wait no bring it back,,,oh gosh. ANYWAY, if you find the pacing too slow or whatever, move up some scenes. Your characters are going to get back after the heist and have some dinner and wake up to the feds? NO! HAVE THEM BE CHASED BACK FROM THE MUSEUM WHATEVER CHARACTER DEV WAS GONNA HAPPEN AT DINNER CAN HAPPEN IN THE CAR CHASE! 

I’m not saying torture your characters always, but make sure there’s enough motive for them to get through the plot. Like, in this case, they’d be absolutely exhausted/stressed, and you also don’t have to write that whole dinner thing for filler. (Not saying filler is always bad, some things to break up the pace are good, but sprinkle it. Make your readers savor the happy moments). 

✨World Details✨

Okay, title isn’t descriptive, hear me out. Your character has been living for a while and they’ve seen a lot. In Chapter One, maybe you referenced the graffiti covering the school that was covered by paint. Now, your character is leaning against the wall and they feel their back kinda stick to it cuz of the drying paint. It adds some depth to your world and makes whatever insane plot is happening more real. 

And you know when the author has a line that’s like “ooh haha so innocent aww :)” and then it’s referenced at the climax and it completely ruins you? YEAH! Same idea, ykyk. 

✨Characters✨

I put tea in a mason jar and call myself the main character bb. Characters are the stars, make your reader have some kind of bond with them! Give them features they can relate to (I went over a post on character appearence for ideas in that aspect) and also don’t always do the “my parents died in a car crash” WHERE’S THE SPICEE! Kaz Brekker’s backstory in I think it was Crooked Kingdom? Unique. Disturbing. I loved it. Inej’s freaking entire life with the “no net” and going throughout all that to UGH six of crows/crooked kingdom *chef’s kiss*

A character is a character first. As they have loves, they have hates. As they have happiness, they have sadness and so on. If your reader never sees them happy, they won’t care (this is something I’ve struggled with and takes practice to make my OCs happy). 

*remembers the multiple creatures i made that would kill me immediately because i’m not very fast*