Latest Posts by ficionalmanenthusiast - Page 2

I need everyone’s best character advice. STAT.

I need everyone’s best character advice. STAT.

the problem with reading and writing leading to a strong vocabulary is that you tend to know the vibe of words instead of their meanings.

if I used this word in a sentence, would it make sense? absolutely. if you asked me what it meant, could I tell you? absolutely not.

how did I get past my writer’s block for a specific scene I was rewriting?

i tried rewriting the same scene in the same way with different words

i tried changing character povs

i tried cutting out the first part of the scene

i tried cutting out / significantly changing the second part of the scene

i basically just wrote a hundred false starts and hated all of them.

but all these false starts helped me build context. I learned more about the characters, and I learned about what the scene did and did not need to do to be successful.

i took a step back and looked what was important - primarily introducing the main conflict and giving the reader a sense of the main character’s personality, but on a subtler level I also need to set up the important relationship that the entire story hinges upon. And this last part turned out to be the missing key - I needed to make the inciting incident tell us more about the relationship between the two characters.

So I did a bit of everything in the end. I cut out the initial writing-myself-into-the-story bits but kept the first bits of action, and just did a better job of weaving character development into that. I moved the inciting incident a little further back to allow for more character development time, and also to make the character introduction feel more natural and meaningful.

and yeah, it still needs line edits and some fleshing out (it is still only draft two), but I finally don’t hate this scene and it makes way more sense for what I want out of an opening scene for this story

important reminders for writers

1. save your doc. please. 

2. have a backup doc for important chapters/parts of your story 

3. stretch if you’ve been sitting for too long. 

4. hydrate yourself. 

5. trim the nails of your working hand if you find it hard to type/write with long nails. 

6. write that idea down somewhere. no, you won’t remember it. jot it down please. 

7. read your doc once more before deciding that it’s good enough. 

8. if you have a friend who enjoys reading your stuff, share it with them! get feedback if you’re okay with it! 

9. read other people’s works!

reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something

my dream as a fanfic writer is to write a story which people want to talk to me about and send asks about afterwards and discuss things the characters did and the symbolism and meanings behind certain lines and I'll be all "hehe thanks" but irl I'll be in literal tears because I wrote something that means something to someone

perfect new meme template just dropped

Part of the writing process is listening to the same song on repeat until the words are absolutely meaningless and you're absorbing the pure, undistilled VIBES.

And then you go adding that essence to your draft like motherfucking vanilla extract, baby.

I'm so sad that my favorite teacher is retiring

She is such a real one

She literally made a new seating chart today and put me next to my crush

She's literally the best an I'm going to miss her so much

@pscentral event 18: adaptations

SAM CLAFLIN PAGE TO SCREEN ADAPTATIONS

Daisy Jones and the Six (2023) dir. James Ponsoldt, Nzingha Stewart, Will Graham Journey's End (2017) dir. Saul Dibb The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) dir. Francis Lawrence Love, Rosie (2014) dir. Christian Ditter The Riot Club (2014) dir. Lone Scherfig Me Before You (2016) dir. Thea Sharrock Enola Holmes (2020) dir. Harry Bradbeer Adrift (2018) dir. Baltasar Kormákur My Cousin Rachel (2017) dir. Roger Michell Their Finest (2016) dir. Lone Scherfig

Taylor calls herself crazy all throughout TTPD, but maybe I’m just as insane because I actually think she’s quite normal? Because if I ended a once happy 8 year relationship because the love was gone and we were both no longer in love to then get with a situation-ship who has been pinning for you for years only for them to abandon you when they finally got you, I’d commit full arson.

Ppl rlly be complaining about the decision to cast Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow, saying that he's "too hot" to dislike him when that's exactly the whole point of the saga — to make you forget about the cruelty of everything and focus only on the "pretty side". And that's literally panem et circenses.

Agh I'm so mad💀

You ever just go through an author’s body of work, fic after fic and like want to cry because everything is just so good and you know that this author has got you and you trust them implicitly to take your heart on a wild ride of angst and pining and love and happy feels?

Yeah.

Seriously, bless fic writers. We owe them so much.

Suzanne collins wrote a trilogy where a main media propaganda strategy was to market a horrific act of violence as a love story to distract ppl and then it got adapted into a box office breaking movie and ppl made it all about the love triangle. so then since they didn’t get the point the first time Suzanne collins wrote a prequel story about the main dictator and she makes it so that you as a reader want it to be a genuine love story so badly even tho it’s so very clearly not and instead feels extremely unsettling to make her point even more meta which then gets adapted into another box office breaking film and now ppl are making romantic snowbaird tik toks. do u think she’s gonna write another book that’s somehow even more blatant or just give up and start executing ppl? hard to say but I wouldn’t blame her for the second one

ttpd is like... this fucking sucked... it was my fault... fuck joe... this also fucking sucked... fuck matty... i thought i was gonna die... straight up commit me to an asylum... FUCK matty... fuck joe... no one knows me... fuck kim kardashian... i created every problem and every consequence i have to face... please see me as human... i am exposing my flaws so you see me as a real person... fuck jake gyllenhaal... if you're gonna be so up my business you better realize how fucked up my business is... also hi killatrav ily... there is nothing redeeming about this chapter of my life... hi mom ily... this ALSO fucking sucked... there may be good in the world... here is every sin i have ever committed... i was promised love and forever repeatedly and no one ever delivered... my reaction to trauma was awful... i made so many bad decisions... if you're gonna crucify me do it for good reasons... are you not entertained?

I think Matty Healy is awful but I’m still proud of Taylor putting “but daddy I love him” on the record.

There are songs on the album about her realising he love bombed her and manipulated her. Realising she fell for all of it, she was never going to fix him, and he was never going to be her saviour. She is scathing towards him, but also towards herself for falling for it. She could have left it at that and maybe copped less criticism. Instead she acknowledges the backlash and the defiance she felt in that moment.

It makes me feel the same way her putting Ours on Speak Now does. Grateful that she is open to sharing her stories even when the muse isn’t deserving of the words she wrote, even when releasing it fans the fires of the “I told you so” crowd.

And much like Ours is not a defence of Mayer, BDILH is not an acquittal of Healy. The phrasing she uses is not “he’s a good man they just don’t know him like I do”, it’s “I’m not coming to my senses” “I’d rather burn my whole life down”. The message of the song is not her trying to convince you he’s a good person (he’s not), it’s about a woman stumbling through a crisis and her desperate need to be able to make her own decisions, and that includes her own mistakes - which she seems to be acknowledging Matty was.

“i hate it here” is peak escapism and hearing her talk about how she lives in a garden no one else has access to in her mind (unlike the rest of her life) for most of the year is sooooo. made up scenarios and imagining living in the 1800s… it’s giving the lakes except she’s alone and she can’t actually leave. so much of the album is about feeling stuck and this one is about feeling stuck in herself.

the album is brutally honest, satirical, a bit cringe here and there, depressing and experimental at the same time, I would not side eye anyone for saying "I don't understand this" or "this isn't my cup of tea" or even "what the fuck is this" because it's obviously not a 1989 or midnights kind of album for everyone. I understand why she said she "had to put this out" but while she is at the peak of her career, she released an album that is not for beginners nor really for overall critics, it's knees deep into the taylor swift lore and probably the most herself an album has ever been, that does not mean it is a masterpiece but it makes it so insanely special

Blog Posts Masterlist

Here are all the blogs I've written sorted according to six categories and a lot of sub categories.

Post Writing (Publishing):

Querying/Getting Published

How To Get Published As A Minor—A Step-By-Step Guide

How To Get Out Of The Slush Pile And Make Your Agent Say Yes

How To Answer Some Common Literary Agent Questions

Editing

Everything You Need To Know Before Editing Your Manuscript

Pre Writing:

WIP building

Ten Dos And Don'ts Of Worldbuilding

How To Name Your Characters

A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting a Compelling Storyline

How to Pick The Perfect Weapon For Your Characters

Writing tools

How To Hook Your Readers With Your Chapter's Starting And Ending

How To Write And Create A Sub Plot

How To Immerse Your Readers With Indirect Characterisation

First or Third Person? How To Choose The Right POV for Your Story

Genre-Based Advice:

Fantasy

How To Build A Realistic Magic System

Things To Consider When Writing With Mythologies

Tips To Consider When Writing A Fantasy Religious Story

Horror/Thriller

How To Get Away With Murder...As An Author

How To Get Away With Murder Part Two: Writing Murder Mysteries

How To Build Tension And Make Your Readers Feel Scared

Character-Based Advice:

How To Write An Antagonist

How To Create Realistic Book Characters

How To Write Mythical Creatures Without Sounding Redundant

How To Write A Compelling Character Arc

How To Create A Morally Grey Character

How To Write A Plot Device Character

How To Develop A Memorable Antagonist

Writing Believable Teenage Characters: Dos and Don'ts

'Sensitive' character topics:

How To Write POC Characters Without Seeming Racist

How To Write A Disabled Character: Ten Dos And Don'ts

How To Write And Research Mental Illnesses

Scene-Based Advice:

How To Build Tension And Make Your Readers Feel Scared

Four Tips On How To Make Your Plot Twist Work

How To Set The Scene Without Info Dumping

Writing A Creepy Setting: Tips And Examples

The Dos and Don'ts of Writing Flashbacks in Fiction

Fights, poison, pain

How To Accurately Describe Pain In Writing

How To Create A Well-Written Fight Scene

The Ultimate Guide To Writing Persuasive Arguments

Forgining Epic Battles: Techniques For Writing Gripping War Scenes

The Writer's Guide to Authentic Wounds and Fatalities

Ink And Venom: A Writer’s Guide To Poisonous Prose

Recommendations:

Websites And Writing Apps Every Author Needs in 2023

Seven Blogs You Need To Read As An Author

If you want to write a dumb little story with a dumb little plot and ridiculously silly characters. No one's stopping you. Genuinely, no one should be allowed to stop you. Write that dumb story with your whole heart and don't hold back.

when youre writing but you forget a word that was in your head milliseconds ago so you just die for the next 93 years

Of course I know what I'm doing, I'm a writer! (Hurriedly patching a massive plot hole with duct tape and pins)

the bad thing about writing is that sometimes you just want to read something super specific and when it is nonexistent you think: fuck. now it is my job to write it.

one of my favorite ways to spend the time on this silly little app has to be looking up posts about songs or albums that i am currently obsessed with and see people sharing their love for them. i love it. i love seeing humans care so much about one song, each for multiple different reasons, to the point of writing so beautifully about their fondness for it and post it for strangers to see. it's like, you posted about this song in 2015 and your opinion about it resonates with me in 2024. i love it, please don't you ever stop.

The most attractive thing to me is effort. Someone who really wants to talk to me, wants to see me, wants to make me a part of their day.

ha?

every single person who reblogs this

every

single

person

will get “doot doot” in their ask box

this is beautiful, everyone at Sydney n2 should feel so lucky

Finding joy again in things you used to love is one of the miracles of life