a-writing-trickster-angel

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

#writing reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

"How do I plot a book" You don't. You start writing. You make notes about ideas you have while writing. When you're finished, you bring everything together like a puzzle. You fix potholes, you delete dead scenes, you bring in funky dialogue. You let someone else read it and put some patches on it. Tada! There's your book.

#writing reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

Let’s play a game! How would you describe something vs how would your character describe it?

This can be a fun way to get to know your character(s) more! Depending on their thoughts, feelings, self-esteem, etc, they may view themselves differently to how you see them. For each of the following sets of questions, answer both of them and see how they compare or differ!

How would you describe your character’s physical appearance? How would your character describe their own physical appearance?

How would you describe your character’s personality? How would your character describe their own personality?

How would you describe your character’s fashion sense? How would your character describe their own fashion sense?

How would you describe your character’s flaws? How would your character describe their own flaws?

How would you describe your character’s sense of humor? How would your character describe their own sense of humor?

#character reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

This is a friendly reminder to give your OC a firm and unmistakable L every now and then.

This is a necessary action to keep your OC healthy for the long term.

#character reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

#setting reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

#writing reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

Working on my novel and couldn’t figure out why it felt so empty. I didn’t have any filler. It was all 100% plot. The characters only interacted when necessary. I didn’t prattle on about the scenery or how the birds sounded. I had all my fuller stuff that I loved saved in another file because I “didn’t need it”.

Y’all, I knew this existed in TV shows but it didn’t hit me until this that everything is being whittled down. We are so starving for filler that we snap up anything. I unload all mine on Tumblr or keep it in a massive Google Docs. It SUCKS.

Honestly? Death to plot necessity. Revive filler. Revive unnecessary interactions. Revive just vibing with characters sometimes. I don’t want to just consume the plot and I don’t want to just create the plot either.

#writing reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

List of “I still…” prompts

I still smell the traces of your scent on my bedsheets; my clothes; my pillowcase

I still remember your favourite songs; the way you’d sing them out loud thinking no one’s listening, and then getting flustered when you realised I heard you

I still remember all of your little quirks in which I’ve always found so endearing to me, but you always thought were annoying 

I still remember the feel of you under my palms; every curve, every line 

I still have your number memorised, like the back of my hand

I still remember your smile, the soft quirk to it. How could I not? It’s ingrained in the back of my mind, even though I wish it wasn’t

I still can’t get you out of my mind even though I’m probably long gone from yours

I still remember how you’d laugh at my jokes even though they didn’t make any sense to anyone else

I still have our inside jokes kept somewhere in the back of my mind

I still remember how you taste

I still remember how you sound; your sweet voice you told me you hated when you had to listen back to it over voice recording 

I still remember how you’d be there for me, through both the thick and the thin 

I still remember how you told me you’d always be there for me

I still remember how our love was supposed to be unconditional… until it wasn’t

I still remember how things went down south. Where did things go wrong? I still don’t really understand what happened…

I still think about you, day in, day out

I still miss you

I still want you

I still need you

And I… I still love you, even after all of this time 

#writing prompts

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.

*staples violently to my own forehead*

#writing reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

My story Making the Best of Impropriety now has a Vietnamese translation. Thank you to mietom for translating!

#my stories #inspired by my stories

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

Hey Natalie! Do you have any tips for writing horror?

Horror can be a tricky genre to write because fear is so personal and subjective, so the best thing to do is start writing about the things you yourself are afraid of. What story would you write if you wanted to give yourself a scare?

If your fears include things like "the killer" or "all your blood falls out," you've got a bit of a head start. For tackling more complex fears, like "cancer" or "taxes," I find the best thing to do is think about how the fear could be represented by some external force. Often this external force takes the form of a ghost, or perhaps a dracula, but it could be anything one might find unsettling. Chris Straub once made me very, very afraid of doorways and the spaces under countertops for a very long time.

#writing reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

I really think everyone needs to truly internalize this:

Fictional characters are objects.

They are not people. You cannot "objectify" them, because they have no personhood to be deprived of. They have no humanity to be erased. You cannot "disrespect" them, because they are not real.

#character reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

i hope you write (i hope we both write)

#writing

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

✨You are not a failure for having writers block.

✨You haven’t ��let your audience down” for not updating in a while.

✨You aren’t a bad person for writing about problematic content.

✨You can always take a break from your writing, even if it’s for a significant amount of time.

✨You can always leave a project, work on something else, and come back to it later.

✨You aren’t a “bad writer” for only having a few projects.

✨You aren’t a “bad writer” for only having a lot of projects.

✨You aren’t a “bad writer” if you decide to only write about things that are important to you.

✨You don’t owe anyone continuous updates for a project.

✨You are a writer, and that’s enough.

#writing

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

Memo to everybody :

Never be afraid to recycle an idea you had for a WIP you abandoned. Sometimes the idea needs a different set of characters or a different setting.

#writing reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

Okay if you write. Listen to me.

Set a daily word goal. Not a big one, because you won't be able to make it every day, you will likely procrastinate and not write at all, or feel guilty about not making the goal.

Set a small goal. Set a tiny goal if you have to.

400? Amazing. 100? Wonderful. 50? Heck yes. One fucking sentance? VALID.

Mine is 200 words a day. I haven't felt particularly inspired recently, but over the past month I've written at least 200 words nearly every day.

Which leads me into my next point: if you have to skip a day THAT'S OKAY. There will come a day when you feel really inspired and write 2000 words, and you'll make it up.

Sometimes I write 200 words and then my creativity runs out, but sometimes I sit down and write a whole lot.

Since I started doing this, my story has progressed so fast, and I feel like this is probably going to be the first full-length novel I finish.

Obviously this method isn't for everyone, but I recommend you try it. If it doesn't work for you that's fine! Find something that does.

#writing reference

[a-writing-trickster-angel]

Things that are still writing even if you don't think they are (an incomplete list)

thinking about a story

creating a new document

brainstorming

researching

thinking of a title

explaining your story to someone else

reading other stories and noticing things like word choice, sentence structure, plot development, characterization

thinking of a great line that doesn't have a story yet

getting a picture in your mind that you want to put into words someday

being inspired by others, even if you don't know what to do with that inspiration yet

making notes about how you want to tag your work

editing

cutting out lines or scenes that don't work

stopping work on something that isn't working right now

starting over

writing a summary

rewriting something you've written before

#writing reference