just a collection of writing advice

"I'm fine."

body image and dysphoria. does this character voluntarily throw their clothes off, do they have to be coaxed, do they enjoy looking in the mirror, are there any areas they refuse to acknowledge? scars? tattoos? what does this say about their past?

what role do they take in the bedroom, and what relationship does it have to the role they take in day to day life?

social/communication skills. how good are they at eye contact, asking their bedmate what they want, are they about verbal communication or body language? what is their body language, is it open or closed off? are they nervously chatty, are their words short and clipped, are they nervously quiet?

touch starvation. how do they react to touch? when's the last time they were touched intimately? how does this touch remind them of their previous encounters with touch, or is this their first time?

glimpses of their education, sexual and otherwise, and the ways this influences their view of the world. what is their understanding of consent? where did they get it from? what do they think of kink vs vanilla? what is their relationship to both?

self esteem. do they take on a role of service in the bedroom because they want to, or because they feel like they have to in order to be worthy, no matter what they really want? how good are they at expressing these thoughts? do they freeze up when their bedmate asks them what they want? do they even know what they want?

how much attention do they want on themselves vs how much are they comfortable with? would they rather the attention was just on their bedmate?

how much guilt, shame, or repression do they have about sex in general? does it feel like a performance, is it true for them? how do they do with being vulnerable with another person, clothes on or off?

how do they feel about submission/domination, about penetration? do they want marks to be left, or do they insist on no trace left behind?

how do they treat their bedmate? loving, rough, tender, gentle, harsh, sadistic, deferring, no matter the scene/dynamic?

what about aftercare? for themself, for their bedmate? do they do it, do they know what it is, how do they do it? do they value it or do they do it just because you're supposed to?

⊹ A prologue is a promise. it tells the reader: this is the kind of story you're in, this is the register, this is what matters. which means a prologue that doesn't match the actual book in tone, character focus, or emotional weight is actively working against you. the reader signs a contract in your first five pages and a prologue that's more dramatic than your actual book sets expectations your actual book cannot meet. you will spend the rest of the novel paying off a cheque your prologue wrote.

⊹ The "character about to die making a mysterious statement" prologue is so common it has become invisible. the reader skims it. they've seen it. the mystery doesn't hook them because they've learned it will be resolved in chapter nineteen and right now they don't have enough context to care. mystery requires investment and investment requires character and character requires time. a prologue that opens with mystery before we know anyone is just atmosphere without stakes.

⊹ The better question: why does the story need to start here rather than there? if you're writing a prologue set twenty years before chapter one, what does the reader need from those twenty years right now, before they know anyone? if the answer is "context" or "backstory" then the prologue is doing exposition in a costume. context and backstory can be woven in later, once the reader cares. the prologue slot is too valuable to spend on information delivery.

⊹ Prologues that actually work tend to do one of two things: they drop us into a moment of such specific emotional truth that we are immediately in the world before we understand it, we feel something before we know anything. or they create a dramatic irony where we know something the characters in chapter one don't, and that knowledge makes every subsequent scene more tense. both require the prologue to be doing active narrative work. not setting a mood and waving at the themes.

☽ character A* saying “ugh you’re so annoying” while giving B* their last piece of food without hesitation

☽ one of them keeps a tally of who saved whose life. it’s always mostly a joke. mostly.

☽ someone quietly patching up another’s wounds and neither of them talks about it

☽ a big fight. like, yelling, rage, “fine then LEAVE”—but they don’t leave. they sleep five feet apart. still grumpy. still ride or die.

☽ A* carrying B* on their back and B* being like “put me down I’m fine” while actively bleeding out

☽ weird inside jokes that no one else gets. like everyone around them is like “is this a code???” no. it’s just dumb.

☽ one of them has a Bad Day and the others just know. they don’t talk about it, they just pull them into a couch pile and put on a movie

☽ dumb arguments like “you cannot name the dog Knife” followed immediately by “...fine. but I get to name the next one”

☽ someone saying “I don’t need help” and getting helped anyway

☽ they threaten to kill each other like every other hour, but the second someone else threatens one of them? suddenly it’s murder o’clock.

☽ found family member B* never had a birthday party before and now they get one every year and it’s a disaster and they love it

☽ car singalongs. chaotic energy. someone takes the harmony too seriously. someone else is off-key on purpose. someone films it. blackmail for later.

☽ someone says “no one’s ever done that for me before” and the other characters all go “????” because it was a tiny thing

☽ shared chores, shared grief, shared joy, shared toothbrush (gross), shared everything.

☽ someone forgets they’re allowed to ask for help now. someone else reminds them.

⟡ Staring out a window for twenty minutes before a single word

⟡ Rereading the same paragraph six times before moving forward

⟡ Lying on the floor thinking about a scene that isn't written yet

⟡ Taking a walk with no phone just to let something untangle

⟡ Reading a book that has nothing to do with your current project

⟡ Sitting in a café doing nothing but absorbing the atmosphere

⟡ Daydreaming about characters like they're real people you know

⟡ Rewriting the first chapter for the fourth time instead of continuing

⟡ Listening to your playlist on repeat until the mood arrives

⟡ Journaling about why you can't write instead of writing

⟡ Reorganizing your notes, your files, your whole system

⟡ Reading your own old work looking for who you used to be

⟡ Researching something minor for three hours because accuracy matters to you

⟡ Sleeping on a problem and waking up with the answer

⟡ Having a full conversation in your head between two characters

⟡ Watching people in public and cataloguing everything

⟡ Cooking or cleaning while your brain quietly solves the plot problem

⟡ Writing the same scene in three different tones just to feel it out

⟡ Abandoning the document and writing by hand for a while

⟡ Reading poetry when prose feels impossible

⟡ Watching a film just to study how a scene transition works

⟡ Making a new playlist because the old one stopped working

⟡ Sitting with discomfort until the scene becomes clear

⟡ Rereading your favorite book and taking it apart sentence by sentence

⟡ Writing a scene you know won't make the final draft just to understand the character

⟡ Doing nothing and trusting that it's filling something up

(๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑) TEXTURE MATTERS MORE THAN TASTE!! "it tasted good" tells me nothing. "The crust shattered into a thousand buttery shards" or "gummy, like chewing a tire" NOW I'm there. Crunch, slime, melt, chew, squeak (yes some foods squeak and it's horrible)

(๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑) Food is memory!!! your character doesn't just eat chicken soup, they eat the chicken soup that tastes like being home sick from school, like their grandmother's kitchen, like the last good day before everything changed. FOOD CARRIES STORY!!

(๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑) Temperature is a character!! scalding coffee that burns your tongue, ice cream so cold it gives you a headache, room-temperature pizza at 2am that tastes like regret. Temperature changes the entire experience!!!

(๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑) The SOUND of eating reveals character. Do they slurp? Chew with their mouth open? Cut everything into tiny pieces? Eat standing over the sink? These tiny details tell you who someone IS

(๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑) Describe what it does, not what it is!! Don't say "the spicy curry" say "the curry that made her sinuses open up like floodgates and her eyes water and why did she think she could handle this"

For coming up with character names:

Behind the name (my absolute fav)

Allows you to choose the origin of where you want the name to be from, whether you want a more feminine vs masculine vs androgenous name (as voted by users), random surname generator, and clicking on the name gives you important info like if there are any famous people with the same name, where it’s from, how common it is, and how people tend to see it, etc.

You can also search their name database by letter or meaning or origin, so if you know you want a character who has a name/surname that starts with an A from Ireland, there’s a whole list for you to choose from.

Census sites

Especially useful if you’re looking for a name from a specific place and/or time period. Just search “(country) census (year)” and you’ll find a database of real people who lived in that place at that time. No one can ever call your names unrealistic again.

For coming up with place names:

Fantasy name generator

This site can basically come up with any name for any person, place, or thing you might ever need. There are also specific generators for different fandoms if you’re looking to make an OC in an established world.

For finding that one word on the tip of your tongue:

One Look Thesaurus

This is my go-to. Not only can you find synonyms like a regular thesaurus, but you can also describe words like “unhappy smile” or “quiet laugh” to find the more specific word you’re looking for.

WordHippo

Works as a thesaurus (very similar to One Look) but also includes search options for words that rhyme, words that contain a specific letter or are a specific length, different word forms, sentences with a specific word etc. etc. It's like Thesaurus++

For coming up with ideas:

Word cloud

When I need to inspire a new idea, I write down all the things I’m interested in (hauntings, academia, lesbians, etc.) and put them into a word cloud to shuffle them next to each other. Sometimes seeing a concept in a new context can spark new ideas!

WWF Discord

This is my discord channel (shameless plug) for when you need to brainstorm off other people but don’t have anyone irl to talk to. We’re also happy to read and give feedback on writing, answer writing questions, or just chat!

For visualizing places and characters:

Pinterest

Pinterest can at times be a bit too sterile for my tastes, but if you use the right words, you can find more realistic photos of places. For example, adding “aesthetic” after basically any word will bring up a more broad collection of photos to help you flesh out places.

This is also a great way to find photos of people and fashion to help visualize characters. I’m bad at describing clothes, so I usually collect photos of outfits to help me know what my characters are wearing. Searching up “character inspiration” will collect more interesting photos and drawings of people who might not exactly be of our world.

(However, to make Pinterest not show you AI results, you have to go into your settings and check the “reduce AI” box. Luckily, it does mostly work.)

Death to Stock

Like pinterest but completely AI free (hooray!) Only drawback is that you have to pay a monthly subscription (about $20 CAD).

Cosmos

Very similar to pinterest but slightly more "artsy". I'm not super familiar with this one but I believe all the photos are human and you can save them and create collections with a free account.

Dupe Photos

Royalty-free stock image site with very Pinterest-core photos!

Minecraft

If you haven’t built your entire fictional city in Minecraft instead of writing, why not? It’s fun.

The Sims

This one is dual purpose because you can not only create your characters in Create a Sim, but you can design their houses. If you really want to go for it, you can bulldoze all the lots in your town and build your world from scratch.

Hero Forge

This character creator is intended for making D&D minis, so it has more fantasy-like options over the Sims if your characters are a bit out of this world.

House Plans.com

I was introduced to this resource through the comments on this post and it has quickly become one of my favourite things to use. If you struggle with the layout of buildings, this site lets you choose beds/baths/sq ft etc. and will show you house plans created by designers that most closely match your specs. You can also search by style instead if you're more interested in the aesthetics.

For checking grammar:

Grammar Girl

Easy to follow definitions and examples, and if you learn better by listening, every article comes with a podcast to follow along with instead.

Grammar Monster

This one is my favourite for checking grammar rules because there’s tons of examples in graphics that helps for any situation.

Reedsy

Among other things, reedsy can connect you to professional editors within your budget.

For writing advice:

One Stop for Writers

This one was recommended from my discord channel and has all sorts of tutorials and resources for the writing craft.

My Blog Directory

Another shameless plug, but if you need writing advice on something specific, you can search through my directory to see if it’s there. If it isn’t, you can always send me an ask about it!

For an alternative to Google Docs:

Ellipsus

Think google docs but without AI. Yay!

Scrivener

A more comprehensive writing software created specifically for writers, however there is a one-time payment to use ($80 CAD).

┈୨୧┈ Give them reasons they CAN'T be together that aren't just manufactured drama. Not miscommunication. Not love triangles. Not arbitrary "I push people away" trauma with no real exploration. Give them REAL obstacles: they're on opposite sides of a conflict, timing is wrong, there are actual consequences to being together, they have incompatible life goals, there's a power imbalance they need to resolve first. The obstacles should be meaningful and require actual character growth to overcome, not just a conversation.

┈୨୧┈ Make the friendship foundation SO STRONG that readers ship them before the romance even starts. They should genuinely LIKE each other. They should have inside jokes. They should seek each other out just to hang out. They should trust each other. They should have fun together. When the romantic feelings start developing, it should feel like "oh no, I don't want to ruin this friendship" because the friendship is genuinely valuable. Readers should be able to believe they'd still choose to be in each other's lives even if romance never happened.

┈୨୧┈ Let the tension BUILD in layers over time. First they notice each other. Then they start seeking excuses to be near each other. Then they start getting jealous. Then they start having Moments. Then they start thinking about each other constantly. Then comes the almost-kisses. Then the accidental intimacy. Then the barely-hidden feelings. Each phase should have time to breathe before moving to the next level. Slow burn means SLOW - readers should be desperate for them to get together LONG before they actually do.

┈୨୧┈ Show how they change each other gradually. He starts smiling more because of her. She becomes braver because he believes in her. They adopt each other's habits and phrases. They start to see the world differently because of the other person's influence. Slow burn is about showing two people gradually becoming essential to each other's lives. They should be woven into each other's character development, not separate from it.

˙⋆✮ Constantly adjusting a new haircut

˙⋆✮ The way someone touches a new piercing/haircut without realizing

˙⋆✮ Wiping rain or snow off shoulders in one specific motion

˙⋆✮ Checking reflection in any available surface

˙⋆✮ The habit of fixing collar even when it's fine

˙⋆✮ Pulling at clothes that feel too tight suddenly

˙⋆✮ Smoothing down flyaway hairs

˙⋆✮ The self-conscious tug at a shirt riding up

˙⋆✮ Adjusting bra straps through shirt (so specific, so real)

˙⋆✮ Rolling up sleeves in that weirdly attractive way

˙⋆✮ Untucking shirt gradually as the day goes on

˙⋆✮ The shoe check to see if they're still clean

˙⋆✮ Fidgeting with jewelry (rings, necklaces, earrings)

˙⋆✮ The way people walk differently in new shoes

˙⋆✮ Brushing something invisible off clothing

˙⋆✮ Fixing a crooked name tag or badge

˙⋆✮ The head-toss to get hair out of face

˙⋆✮ Pushing up sleeves that keep sliding down

˙⋆✮ Checking if tag is showing in the back

As someone who's researched neurological conditions extensively and interviewed people with memory disorders, I'm begging fiction writers to please, PLEASE stop with the "bonk on the head = total life erasure" trope. That's not how any of this works.

⊹ Retrograde amnesia (forgetting the past) is rare and almost NEVER involves forgetting your entire identity while maintaining perfect memory formation going forward. Know what's way more common? Anterograde amnesia: you can't form NEW memories. Like the guy from Memento, except usually less tattoo-based organizational systems and more confused repetition.

⊹ Head injuries causing amnesia? Sure, happens. But it's usually the minutes/hours around the trauma that vanish, not your entire childhood, first kiss, and ability to recognize your spouse. The brain doesn't store memories in one convenient "delete this folder" location. You might forget the car accident but remember your kids' names.

⊹ What's weird about real amnesia: skills often remain. You might not remember learning piano, but your fingers still know the keys. Procedural memory (how to do things) lives in different brain areas than episodic memory (life events). Your amnesiac character might not remember their name but could still speak three languages, drive stick shift, or execute complex martial arts.

⊹ Another thing: amnesia from psychological trauma (dissociative amnesia) is controversial and functions differently than neurological amnesia. It's selective, blocking specific traumatic events while leaving other memories intact. And it doesn't typically include identity confusion unless we're talking dissociative fugue states, which are incredibly rare.

⊹ Recovery is unpredictable and often incomplete. Memories might return in fragments, dreams, or triggered by specific sensory cues, but they're often unreliable, contaminated by suggestion or false memories your brain constructs to fill gaps.

allow yourself to be bored: keeping your mind occupied at all times with music, podcasts, books, shows, tv, social media feeds, or whatever won’t allow it to process the input and develop new ideas. next time you’re on the bus and bored, just let your mind wander

consume media: read articles, books, wikipedia pages, folklore… draw inspiration from anything and everything

curate playlists and pinterest boards

every time you have an idea about a plot, a story idea or even just one line of dialogue, put it in a long list that you can come back to any time

create a rich world with a lot of fleshed out characters and details. it is easier to create a story when you actually know what you are working with rather than having to come up with everything alongside your plot

⟢ PICK THREE DETAILS MAXIMUM! your reader doesn't need to know every piece of furniture. Give them the broken clock on the mantle, the smell of cigarettes embedded in the couch, the water stain on the ceiling shaped like Italy. Their brain will fill in the rest. You're not writing an insurance inventory!!!

⟢ Use the senses people forget. Everyone does sight and sound, but what about: the metallic taste of fear, the way humidity makes your clothes stick, the phantom itch of being watched, that gross feeling when you touch something unexpectedly wet. GET WEIRD WITH IT

⟢ MOTION IN YOUR DESCRIPTIONS!! (Please?) don't just tell me the curtains are blue, tell me they're "shuddering in the AC blast" or "hanging limp like they've given up." Static description is a sleep aid. Make things MOVE

⟢ Your narrator's voice should COLOR everything! A depressed character won't describe the sunset as "beautiful mauve and amber streaking across the sky," they'll think "the sun's dying again, doing its whole performance art thing with the clouds"

⟢ Stop with the mirror descriptions! :( "She looked in the mirror and saw her auburn hair and green eyes" NO. Banned. Forbidden. Find literally any other way. Have another character notice. Show through action. Slip details in naturally. The mirror thing is lazy and we all know it

Spent way too long researching this before posting lol. but please, if something's wrong, tell me. i'd rather be corrected than spread misinformation.

⋆˙⟡ Doctors don't run. Almost ever. Running in a hospital is a safety hazard, knocks into patients and equipment, and signals panic to everyone who sees it, which is the opposite of what hospital staff want to project. In a true code blue situation, there is urgency, but it looks more like extremely fast, purposeful walking and a kind of controlled chaos where everyone knows their role. The sprinting attending dramatically sliding to a bedside is a TV invention.

⋆˙⟡ "She flatlined" does not mean what you think it means. A flatline (a straight line on a heart monitor) means asystole: the heart has stopped producing electrical activity. You don't shock a flatline. CPR, yes. Epinephrine, yes. But the dramatic defibrillator moment everyone loves? That's for ventricular fibrillation, which looks like chaotic scribble on the monitor, not a flat line. Shocking a flatline in real life does nothing. Your doctor character would know this. Your nurse would know this. Your paramedic absolutely knows this.

⋆˙⟡ Medical professionals have a dark, dry humor and it's a coping mechanism, not a character flaw. People who work in high-stress, high-death environments often develop humor that sounds brutal to outsiders. BUT It's not callousness, it's a pressure valve.

⋆˙⟡ Hospitals are obscenely loud and smell very specific. Writers default to clinical silence and "the sharp smell of antiseptic." Real hospitals smell like a combination of cleaning fluid, stale air, cafeteria food leaking through vents, and occasionally something you don't want to identify. They're also constantly noisy. Intercoms, rolling carts, the beep of a dozen different monitors all slightly out of sync with each other, people talking too loudly, visitors crying in hallways. The silence only comes in very specific moments, and it's jarring precisely because it's unusual.

⋆˙⟡ Waking up from a coma is not waking up from a nap. Someone who has been unconscious for more than a day or two will have profound muscle weakness, and they often can't hold their own head up. They'll be confused, possibly for days. They won't be able to speak normally if they had a breathing tube, because their throat will be raw and damaged. They won't recognize people immediately and then have a tearful reunion five minutes later. The brain coming back online is slow, strange, and disorienting in ways that aren't photogenic. Patients frequently don't remember the first several days of recovery at all.

⋆˙⟡ There's a specific hierarchy and it matters to the people inside it. Attending physician, fellow, resident, intern, these are not interchangeable words for "doctor." An intern on their third week is legally a doctor and can barely order a sandwich without second-guessing themselves. An attending has full clinical responsibility and has seen everything. A fellow is post-residency, specializing, somewhere in between. Nurses operate in their own parallel hierarchy that intersects with but is absolutely not subordinate to doctors in the way TV suggests. Experienced nurses regularly catch errors that residents make, and both parties know it.

⋆˙⟡ Patients are almost never alone in their room doing emotional things. Nurses check vitals. Phlebotomists come for blood draws at ungodly hours. Housekeeping rolls in. A different doctor than the one managing the case comes to consult. Meals appear. An orderly needs to take them to imaging. The room itself is rarely private for long. The idea of a character lying in a hospital bed having a long, uninterrupted emotional conversation is something that mostly happens in fiction. In reality, someone knocks and enters approximately every 40 minutes, sometimes more.

⋆˙⟡ Paperwork and insurance are a constant, grinding presence. Discharge doesn't happen because the patient is better. It happens when it's approved, when a bed is needed, when insurance says so. Patients are sometimes sent home earlier than feels safe because the system demands it. Doctors spend an enormous, demoralizing amount of time on documentation, estimates suggest 2 hours of paperwork for every hour of patient care. The administrative weight of hospital medicine is a slow-burn horror that almost no fiction touches, which means the moment you do, it feels startlingly real.