How To Write Flashbacks More Effectively

reminder to worldbuilders: don't get caught up in things that aren't important to the story you're writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics

I probably shouldn't admit this about something I wrote, but I accidentally re-read Carnivore all the time. I'll open it to look something up to reference in Gripped Tight and then start reading like "oh shit, this was good. oh dang i did that so true of me. oh wow i'd forgotten that part i love that jeez!" lol

I jotted down for a friend of mine some tips and notes on how I approach drawing hair, and things I keep in mind while doing so, and thought I’d share. There are loads of other ways to do it, and the learning never stops, so I hope this helps!

How do you write scenery. I always having trouble writing a place where the characters is. Like do I have be specific around the surrounding or just say where it is.

Describing the Setting of a Scene

You should always do some level of description of the setting of a scene. If it's an area the reader can easily envision, either because you've already described it in a previous scene or because it's a common place like a school or grocery store, you only need to include a few relevant details. Here are posts from my description and world building master lists that may help:

The 3 Fundamental Truths of Description (5 Tips for Cutting Back) How to Make Your Description More Vivid Adding Description to Your Writing Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations

I hope that helps!

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better not look too closely

Creating Fictional Holidays

Every culture and society has holidays! They are often one of the most enjoyable parts of societies and bring people together despite all of their differences. For your story, they are a great way to take your worldbuilding to the next level and make everything feel that much more real. But, Ailey, why does my world even need holidays? Well, personally, holidays are so much fun to create. You can pretty much do whatever you want to do! And, holidays can often provide great opportunitiesfor plots and sub-plots in your story. Holidays can give your characters the opportunity to gather with family, remember the family they lost, get a great deal on a super cute maxi dress, go on a blind date, or go to an awesome costume party. We, as people, need holidays, and so do your characters! So here are some tips on creating holidays for your world. 

Basic Questions to Ask Yourself

What are the rituals/traditions of your holiday?

How long is the holiday (just a day, or a week, or a month)?

If the holiday is longer than a day, does it build up? Is there a most important day, and how does that look?

How does religion influence how your holiday is celebrated?

What food is traditionally served?

How do people decorate to symbolize the holiday?

Are there gifts exchanged?

Do people traditionally play games?

Getting Inspiration

The best place to get inspiration for the holidays in your world is by looking at the world around you. Maybe your family has a super cool and quirky tradition that you always wished was a holiday, tweak it a little to fit the circumstances of your world, and boom now it is. Those traditions are important to you for a reason, and often times, family traditions can eventually morph into a national holiday. Outside of that, I would look at the holidays of both modern and national holidays. Ancient Rome and Ancient Greek have plenty of holidays for you to get inspiration from, and there are so many cultures out there that have incredible traditions that you can most certainly turn into holidays! Almost every holiday is rooted in one of five things which we’ll get to next religion, a season, war, labor, and the government. Make sure that applies to your own world as well. 

 Types of Holidays

Religious Holidays: Your world probably has a primary religion or primary religions. Every religion has holidays that they celebrate to celebrate their god or gods and show their devotion to them. For religious holidays, sacrifice and atonement often play a huge role. Lots of religious holidays include fasting in some part of them. Maybe, there’s a holy person who founded the religion or did something super important and all the people love them. Well then they probably have a holiday or a feast of some kind in their honor. For example, in Catholicism, Saints have Feast Days! I don’t think anyone celebrates every Saint’s Feast Day because that would be like every day of the year. Some people, especially those who live in the Saint’s home town or an area which they are the patron of, have a parade or small festival in their honor on the Feast Day. On the Feast Day of my patron Saint, St. Francis de Sales, I normally will pray a novena which is a prayer you say for nine consecutive days timed so that it ends on his Feast Day, light a candle, say another prayer specific to him on the feast day and maybe bake myself a batch of cookies. 

Seasonal Holidays: Seasons are so important to our world, and lots of cultures celebrate them. Lot of important events rotate around the seasons: harvest, planting, fertility, hunting, hibernation. They mark our journey in life, year after year, and allow us to reflect on all of life’s changes. How your people celebrate seasonality is up to you. You could fashion it after holidays like the Summer and Winter Solstice or the Autumn Equinox. A holiday celebrating summer in my world takes some inspiration from May Day celebrations in England. The holiday could literally be as simple as a festival that celebrates the season’s arrival which could be really interesting if your world has different seasons than ours. Or the holidays could be more complex, tying in cultural values with the seasons. I, personally, would love to see a world with different seasons for a world that has more than four seasons because I think that could bring in some really cool holidays and festivals

War/Government Holidays:  There was most likely a war or a series of wars in the history of your world. People love freedom. It’s a core value for so many people and so many countries. Therefore, most countries like to have a holiday celebrating the day they won their freedom. Almost every country has some kind of Independence Day celebration. If your country has never had to gain their independence, they’ve probably still fought and won a war before. They may celebrate their victory and take the time to remember those who died during the war like many European countries on Victory in Europe Day to celebrate the End of World War 2.  Then you have your government holidays like Presidents Day in the US which isn’t really celebrated, but I do get a day off of school, so that’s always nice. Maybe the ruler of your country has decreed that their birthday is a national holiday in honor of them. Or going along with holiday’s celebrating independence, maybe the country celebrates the birthday of their founder every year in a national holiday! 

Labor Holidays: And lastly, we have our labor holidays, which are some of the best holidays in my opinion. Everyone needs a break at times. Labor holidays acknowledge that, and they give you the day off with absolutely zero strings attached. No church, no war to hold remembrance for, just a party with your friends, no school and no work. These holidays are not the best but also probably some of the most important. If the people in your world work five days a week (assuming weekends and a similar calendar schedule) without any long breaks, they are going to get burnt out. Burnt out people are easily irritable, and easily irritable people lead revolutions. Giving your people a holiday where they don’t have to think about anything else other than themselves is a great way to keep the people appeased! 

The secret to avoiding annoyingly perfect characters is less about what they do, and more about what they think and feel. Show that they still want to slack off even if they end up doing what they’re supposed to. The actual plot difference between “I’ll do it, because it’s the Right Thing To Do™!” and “Ugh, fine, I guess I have to do it; it’s…like…the right thing to do, or whatever…” is negligible, but the characterization difference is huge.

writing warm-ups

do you wake up and immediately go to work? no! you have coffee and breakfast first, you wash your face, you get dressed. similarly, you have to warm yourself up before facing a writing challenge. warm-ups are also a great way to fight writers' block. here are some ways to do this:

-keysmash poem; mash that keyboard until you get 6-12 random letters. these are the first letters of each line of a poem you will write. oh, you say you're not a poet? i didn't ask! just mash that keyboard and cough a poem up and never read it again. -letter to the editor; pick a topic that pisses you off. the smaller and more arbitrary, the better. write a paragraph detailing the issue to a neutral third party with as much passive aggression as you can muster. -rewrite; grab a random page of some old project of yours and rewrite it. really think about what you like and dislike about that page, look at it from a new perspective, twist it around until it's different-- doesn't matter if the rewrite is better or worse, because you aren't editing here. you're just getting your gears spinning. -fictionalize it; think of something that happened to you, like a brief interaction with a stranger or a funny mix up at work. turn it into a one-page scene. -dream journal; record an interesting dream. list out details you can remember, or write it like a journal entry, or wax poetic about what it all means. -shitty fanfiction; self explanatory. the more self-indulgent, the better. set a timer for ten minutes, blast off, and then pretend it never happened. -deleted scenes; think about the in between moments of your project. write an email from one of your main characters, or a scene from their childhood, or a text conversation log, really anything that you wouldn't put in your main work. -confessional; pick a fictional character, yours or one from a piece of media you love. write their ten confessions in as much detail as you want.

happy writing! let us know if you try any of these, and reblog if you find this helpful!

how to write relatable characters

writing relatable characters may seem like an easy task, especially when you’re constructing your protagonist. but what if you want to make your antagonist likeable? what if you want people to hate your protagonist but still root for them? all of this and more requires that your characters be relatable. they need to feel real, so how do you do that? here’s how:

- flaws: this is probably obvious. everyone has flaws, so we should give our characters flaws, too. this applies even if your character is non-human; they cannot escape the personification that we as writers or readers project onto them. we are humans reading, so we expect to see human qualities everywhere we look. if you’re having trouble of identifying your character’s flaws, here are some prompts for ways to think about flaws beyond a list:

what skills do they lack? what do they struggle with?

can their strengths be turned against them as a weakness?

what makes them react emotionally or impulsively?

are they aware of their flaws? if so, do they want to improve them or change them?

- quirks: these are what make your character unique or special, and no, i don’t mean purple eyes or unique physical traits. i mean: what makes your character authentically themselves? what traits define them that few others have? some ways to think about this are:

how do they react when nervous? do they have a tell? similarly, how do they react on behalf of any emotion?

what skills do they have that hardly anyone else has?

what obscure thing are they obsessed with?

do they have a unique outlook on life compared to their peers?

- values: these come from life experiences: where we were raised, our family and friends, our community, religious affiliations, etc. i suggest identifying eight to ten values that define your character and then narrowing that list down to five values that mark their core or essence. think about how these values influence their choices, decisions, and ultimately, the plot of the novel. here are some more prompts to think about values:

how do they react when their values are challenged? are they one to speak up or do they sit back in the shadows?

what, if anything, will change or shatter their values?

are their actual values misaligned with their believed values?

- stakes: what is at risk for your character? what is motivating them? stakes don’t need to be over the top or life or death; they can be as simple as maintaining a relationship or reaching a goal. unless there’s an outside influence (ie. percy’s mother being kidnapped in The Lightning Thief), most stakes—especially those relatable—tie back to values. even those influenced by outside factors can tie back to values: the only reason percy is motivated to get his mother back is because he cares for her and she is the one person who has always advocated for him and cared for him. he values family and riordan uses his family to motivate him and incite the plot. generally, there will be one overarching stake for your character, but throughout your novel, there should be several smaller stakes. these may not service the plot but should elaborate on your character nonetheless. some ways to think about stakes include:

how can i use internal or external factors to create convincing, relatable stakes that tie back to basic values?

why does the overarching stake matter to my character? why do they care?

how can i raise the stakes or introduce new ones that are relevant to my character and illustrate them as a relatable being?

- connection: even if your character is an introvert, they will still be connected to someone, something, or even an idea. we, as humans, look to certain people, pets, objects, and ideas to maintain our sense of reality whether we realize it or not. if your character prides themselves in having no attachments, think about the ideas or themes that mark the cornerstones of their reality. most human beings strive for some form of connection, so here are more prompts for thinking about your characters and connection:

what does connection mean to my character? how do they show how they value their connections or relationships?

how does my character’s behavior change when around different connections?

what connections define my character and their reality? how will these connections influence my character and/or the plot?

how will removing or challenging a connection change, influence, or motivate my character?

a good rule of thumb is to treat a character as a human, not a plot device. there is a time or place in which a character must act as a plot device, but if you’re wanting your readers to be compelled by your narration and the characters within them, you should strive to write your characters as human (aka as relatable). one of the greatest pleasures i find in writing is when other’s identify themselves in my writing.

you’re not just here to tell a story, you’re here to connect with others through the illustration of your characters. let the reader navigate your prose as a detective, to search for and identify the evidence provided by you. that is to say, show us how these things manifest in your character. don’t tell us.

happy writing! hopefully this post gave you some ways to start thinking about how to show the relatability of your character. if you have any questions about implementing these tools or about writing characters, our ask box is always open.