bberrywrites

[bberrywrites]

HOW TO KILL GODS & MAKE FRIENDS CHAPTER 1

happy holidays, here’s a gift! it’s the first chapter of the first book in the Your Local Guide To The Supernatural series, aka bbac originale. 

it is not the final draft of course, but it is not the first draft either, so enjoy

the “Supernatural Hunter Tip #**” things will be numbered after the entire project is done, for consistency reasons (i have a very fun doc full of them right now)

chapter titles will continue to be named after characters, and the first chapter will be vivienne sayre, but again, i’m waiting until this pile of words is done before stressing about titles

i wish i could share more because as you’ll see, some characters don’t get introduced in this first chapter and i wanna throw them at people >C 

#my writing

[bberrywrites]

POV

oh man… let’s go, then. bbac originale opening scene, i guess!

Keep reading

#my writing

[bberrywrites]

whispers to self

what if i worked on originale for nanowrimo instead of the owl

[bberrywrites]

I think the best piece of character design advice I ever received was actually from a band leadership camp I attended in june of 2017. 

the speaker there gave lots of advice for leaders—obviously, it was a leadership camp—but his saying about personality flaws struck me as useful for writers too. 

he said to us all “your curses are your blessings and your blessings are your curses” and went on to explain how because he was such a great speaker, it made him a terrible listener. he could give speeches for hours on end and inspire thousands of people, but as soon as someone wanted to talk to him one on one or vent to him, he struggled with it. 

he had us write down our greatest weakness and relate it to our biggest strength (mine being that I am far too emotional, but I’m gentle with others because I can understand their emotions), and the whole time people are sharing theirs, my mind was running wild with all my characters and their flaws.

previously, I had added flaws as an after thought, as in “this character seems too perfect. how can I make them not-like-that?” but that’s not how people or personalities work. for every human alive, their flaws and their strengths are directly related to each other. you can’t have one without the other.

is your character strong-willed? that can easily turn into stubbornness. is your character compassionate? maybe they give too many chances. are they loyal? then they’ll destroy the world for the people they love.

it works the other way around too: maybe your villain only hates the protagonist’s people because they love their own and just have a twisted sense of how to protect them. maybe your antagonist is arrogant, but they’ll be confident in everything they do.

tl;dr “your curses are your blessings, and your blessings are your curses” there is no such thing as a character flaw, just a strength that has been stretched too far.

[bberrywrites]

Hey, writeblr? 

I know a lot of us love and relate to the, ��omg, I’m a gremlin who never writes and only produces weird trash” memes. But remember that you’re allowed to like your writing. 

You’re allowed to love your writing. You’re allowed to be unabashedly excited to work, and share, and come up with new ideas. You’re allowed to be proud of your work and your craft.

It doesn’t always have to be memes about how much writing sucks and, “ugh, why do I even do this?”

You’re allowed to be proud of yourself.

[bberrywrites]

If you had any doubts, here’s a little reminder from 2013 Pep Talker Patrick Rothfuss that you ARE awesome. 

“You’re awesome. You know that, right? We’re all writers here. We’re awesome by definition.” Read the full pep talk here.

Shoutout to Young Writers Program participant Neo for creating the amazing graphic!

[bberrywrites]

writer culture is having that one scene that really scratches your id, and being willing to write forty thousand words to get to it.

[bberrywrites]

some writer snob somewhere: Do not start sentences with But or And because doing so is grammatically incorrect.

me, writing my fic: But I don’t care. And you can’t stop me.

[bberrywrites]

if you ever doubt your writing, be it your themes, or the reason behind it, remember that h.g wells wrote war of the worlds both as a commentary on colonialism and the horrors it brings, and because he fucking hated his neighbours and his 13 hour job, and wanted to write about the town in which he lived getting blasted to the fucking ground by lasers into an irreparable heap and all of the townspeople dying painfully 

you, too, can channel your hatred for that guy that lives down the hall and blasts music at 4am into the one of the most influential science fiction stories ever written! fuck it! i believe in you!!  

[bberrywrites]

Write because if you don’t someone will never get to read their new favourite book

[bberrywrites]

Writing is 53% saying, “What if?” and 47% saying, “That’s an awful idea. Let’s try it.”

(via bookeworm94)

[bberrywrites]

Ways to make a writer’s day

1. Did you enjoy something you read on Tumblr? Tell the writer! Reblog with a comment in the tags, send something to their askbox - find a way to let them know!

2. Send a question about their writing! Writers love talking about their work. If you want to take things to the next level, ask a personalized question - many writers have WIP pages that will give you an overview.

3. Can’t think of a good question? Send asks when people reblog ask games!

4. Make something for them! A doodle, a moodboard, a playlist, whatever. Clearly, this is time-intensive, but if you’re in the mood and you have the time, it’s a fun thing to do.

[bberrywrites]

just entered my first novel publishing contest! *v* 

[bberrywrites]

I think that there’s some kind of mindset in a lot of creative communities (authors, artists, musicians) that your work needs to be groundbreaking and thought-provoking for it to matter. That in order for it to be considered worthy of its medium, it must have a greater purpose. 

And if you ask me, its bullshit. 

God, it puts so much stress on a creator to have to be important to someone else. I have seen so many people give up because their work isn’t making a statement, that it’s ‘fluff but no substance.’ As though there’s only room for so many people in a community of creators that only people with a point can get in. 

If it made someone laugh, it’s important. 

If it made someone smile, it’s important. 

If someone looks back on it fondly, even for a moment, it’s important. 

If you enjoyed making it, even if you never shared it, it’s important. 

Sing songs about your cat, draw pictures of lizards eating popsicles, and write a series of novels about time-traveling alpaca. 

The world is already full of super-important stuff. Write fluff. 

[bberrywrites]

epub & mobi formats are available for The Rook & The Ram now!

those, plus the pdf format, are all bundled in the same purchase at my gumroad store. :> 

#The Rook #The Ram #gumroad #epub formats coming soon for my fanfic too!

[bberrywrites]

reblog to save an author

[bberrywrites]

This is a congratulations to every writer who put some work into their WIP today

You wrote down some words? Congratulations!

You came up with the way to solve that plot point? Congratulations!

You figured out a character’s motivation? Congratulations!

I don’t care if you wrote 2 words or 2 thousand. I don’t care if you’ve been working on this story for a few days or a few years (or even a few decades).

You got something done today? Congratulations, I’m proud of you, and I hope tomorrow you can do some more