How To Write A Death Scene

A Few Tips On Writing Chapters

Give each chapter a descriptive title. 

Especially if you find yourself at sea when deciding how exactly to chop your story into pieces. Even if you don’t want to use chapter titles in your final draft, they’re of enormous use when you’re still figuring out exactly what the shape of your story is. By giving your chapter a descriptive title, you’re giving your chapter a focus and a particular story for your chapter to tell. 

Make sure each chapter has its own self contained narrative arc. 

This is not to say that every novel must be episodic, but that each section should have its own beginning, middle, and end. It should have set up, build up, and resolution. It should ask a question an implicit question at the beginning and provide a slightly more explicit answer at the end. 

Example: one chapter in my book is just 500 words. Two new characters drive into town, get out of a car, knock on a door, and they say their names. The beginning is the introduction of the mystery of these characters. It’s the question “who are these people?” As they drive, you see them and where they are going, which builds towards the answer. As a resolution, you get their names. 

You wouldn’t call this a “short story” by any means, but it does have a firm beginning, middle, end. It is a contained unit. 

A chapter break can–and sometimes should–come in the middle of a scene. 

Twists and cliffhangers can appear at the end of novels, so it would be silly to say you couldn’t end a chapter that way, too. Cliffhangers and twists are usually both a result of other plot points, and the cause of a new problem. Narratively, they function both as the ending of one thing and the beginning of another, so they make for great chapter breaks. Separating the scene at a cliffhanger is often better/cleaner than lumping the entire scene into one chapter. 

Example: Alex is warned to stay away from a dangerous cliff. Alex gets adventurous and wanders toward cliff. Alex falls off of cliff. Beginning. Middle. End. 

Alex is actually hanging from cliff! Alex figures out a way to get back to solid ground, struggles. Alex makes it back to solid ground. Beginning. Middle. End.

You want your readers to “just one more chapter!” their way through your book. Stuffing moments of high tension into the middle of chapters that resolve neatly won’t keep them turning pages.

Always end your chapters on a point of intrigue. 

Using points of tension to bookend chapters is important because chapter endings are usually where readers put a book down during a reading session. They’re very naturally places to close the cover and walk away. 

As a writer, you don’t want this. You absolutely don’t want to give your reader great places to put the book down, because you need them to pick the book up again as soon as possible. Not the next day, or the next week, (or never), but while they have a spare minute during their commute, or during their lunch break, or under their desk in class. 

You want to encourage this by taking that perfectly natural endpoint, that place they expect to be able to put the book down, and forcing them to take even a tiny peak at the next chapter. 

This doesn’t mean ending every chapter on a verifiable cliffhanger, but there has to be something. A character can solve a mystery. A new character can appear. There can be a moment of irony. A new idea. Just so long as it’s something that will make the reader think “I need to know what happens next.” 

u know what, even if my writing isnt the BEST, i still made it all on my own. like there was a blank word doc and i filled it up with my own words, my own story. i took what was in my head and i made it a real thing. idk i feel like that alone is something to be proud of.

The Top 10 Writing Posts From June 2021

Every month, we look at the posts that people read the most.

These were the new Writers Write posts you enjoyed in June 2021:

30 Writing Prompts For June 2021

A Quick-Start Guide For Creating Characters

On Ghosts & How To Write About Them

The Way Of The One – For Writers

14 Boring Expressions & What to Use Instead

How Much Sex Do You Need In A Sex Scene?

The Notorious ‘You’ – An In-Depth Look At Second Person

What Is Imagination & Why Is It Important For Fiction Writing?

The Unintended Consequences Of A Lack Of Setting

7 Writing Observations From Ian McEwan

Dawn do u have any advice for people starting skz writing blogs?

Oh! I definitely do! I’ll put them under the cut uwu <3 These are all tips I wish I knew, ranging from garnering readers to how to deal with other happenings. <3

!!!; this is a fairly long post! also, I am no way qualified enough to be giving advice, these are just things I've learnt in my term of experience.

#1: Write what you want to see on this platform, basically build a niche for yourself.

So this is a pretty obvious and often said point, but write what you want to, and when you want to. If it's domestic AUs that you're the most comfortable with, write that! Of course, you can dabble into new genres to discover what your other interests are, but don't for yourself to write something just because it's a popular topic. When people find a fic of yours that they like, they'll most likely go to your blog expecting the same kind of stuff. <3

#2: Develop your own distinct style, be it in your blog, in your writing in your layout, etc.

Make your blog's aesthetic/layout as distinct as possible, so that it's identifiable. This just gives a sense of uniqueness to your blog, which oft attracts readers. Ofc by this, I don't mean you need to be a master at photoshop/editing to create amazing aesthetics — you can just use simple elements and blend them together in a way that stands out well. Personally, if I'm to be honest, aesthetics, general neatness means a lot to me. I usually wish for a blog to be de-cluttered have a good and efficient way of navigation without having to search through or dig in a lot myself.

#3: Use tags! On all of your posts.

Like I said in the previous section, I wish for a new blog I'm going through to have a good and efficient way of navigation. Use tags, not just on your writing, but all your posts. This can facilitate easier viewing of same posts grouped under one tag, plus if someone prefers to not view something in particular, they can choose not to by blacklisting. Untagged posts are honestly a huge pet peeve of mine dihfuyrharieuhr. That being said, use the correct tags on your post! This post has a good note on how to garner readers as well as tagging.

#5: It takes time for you to gain attention for your work, and it takes time for your writing style to develop into something unique.

This is honestly something I wish I knew when I started writing. I'd see all these blogs get so much interaction and anons and notes on their writing, and while I was happy for them, it made me feel insecure that maybe I wasn't as good enough for them...? fast forward to six months later, I had nearly the same amount of interaction as they did. So it's really all about working towards your way to create a distinct writing style, all whilst improving yourself. Don't be demotivated when you don't get interaction at first, because it takes time for your style to be recognizable and it takes a while to improve, so as and when you write, you'll get better and better! <3

#6: Interact with other writers' writings!

This is also something I wish I knew. interacting with other writers is a way to make new friends, plus give your blog some exposure. of course, that's different from clearly exploiting a blog's status for follows. Make friends with other writers, and reblog their writings (ofc, only if you read them and you liked them, don't force yourself to)! 99% of the time, whenever someone leaves feedback on my writing, I check their blog, and if their writing is something I like, then I follow them! So yeah, this site literally thrives off interactivity, so don't be afraid to interact with writers!

#7: When you're posting your writings, make them clean to look. They should be pleasant to the eye.

What I mean by this is that your layout should not be too compact, hard to read, or straight up painful to look at. Don't use those 𝓈𝓌𝒾𝓇𝓁𝓎 ass fonts, because half the time, they won't render on most devices, and they're often horrible to look at + impossible to read for someone who uses a screen reader. Don't use tinie font on your posts for the same reason.

And! Banners! They're a great addition to a fic, and make it attractive to look. I can't tell you how much a good, well made banner can affect my view on whether I want to read the fic or not. However, i have some negative points about it too. Don't make banners if you don't know how to, only for the sake of making them. This doesn't mean you shouldn't experiment, hell, my first banners were total crap. It of course takes time to learn editing (provided you have an interest in it), but my point is: a banner is used to attract attention to your fic, yet if you have a bad-looking banner, bad layout, bad presentation, (coming from me) I tend to not want to read the fic.

I think a lot of people don't tell new writers that layouts are very important. Most of the stuff is covered in that post I liked, but having a distinct, unique, neat (emphasis on neat — you don't need fancy banners and fonts, just make sure it's not painful to look at) layout really helps. Don't use overly contrasting color combos like this and make sure it is neat, and pleasant to look at. You want to attract attention to your fic, not make it hard to read. While banners and aesthetic photos are not very important, a neat lay!!!!!!out is very essential, to increase your reader count and actually ensure that your fic is readable.

#8: Just know that the number of notes your fic gets is all in your luck.

Just because you get less notes doesn't mean you're any less of a writer! Hell, I know so many phenomenal writers that deserve so many more notes. Your note count can depend on several factors, including (but not limited to) your posts not showing up in the tags, the genre you've written is not a very popular genre (that doesn't mean you shouldn't write it! There will be biases towards genres in the fandom, but write what you want), or the fact that this site is often treated like instagram. So if you get less notes on a fic, don't be demotivated! You have every right to ask for more interaction on your fics from your followers, but don't let it think you're any less of a writer.

That's it! If you have any specific doubts, feel free to send another ask, or a dm! <3

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!

we always say that writing improves with practice, which is true & good to remind people of, but i think we fail to emphasize that literally every part of your writing will get better with time and effort.  sure, your prose will become clearer and more sophisticated, but it’s so much more than that.

you’ll become so much faster, for one thing.  if it takes you two weeks to complete a 3k chapter when you start out, you’ll eventually reach a point when you can crank that out in a matter of days.  maybe right now your story ideas are like a dripping faucet–slow, random, and occasional.  well, the longer you let that faucet run, the more your ideas will start to flow, until suddenly you’re finding inspiration in everything.  the length and complexity of your stories will grow too.  you might start writing stories in the 2-10k range, but you’ll eventually find that you’re writing 20-30k stories without even really intending to.

of course your style will improve.  of course your imagery will become richer.  of course your syntax will start to flow better.  but there are so many other aspects of the writing process, and literally every single one of them will start getting better too.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: House M.D. Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Greg House/James Wilson Additional Tags: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Friends to Lovers, Non-Graphic Violence, Whump, Hurt/Comfort Summary:

Wilson has had to make a few hard decisions lately. When he returns from an oncology conference and finds House hurting and uncommunicative, he soon finds that, even as he battens down the hatches to weather out another emotional storm with his best friend, House still has the ability to surprise him. This is a story of enduring love, hardship, and traversing new territory with an old friend.

better not look too closely

“I’ve found most authors have the wrong mental picture of the process. Instead of a sprint, publishing is more like a marathon. Slow, steady and consistent action will get you your audience and success.”

— W. Terry Whalin