Writing Tip #222

“Dacă un scriitor se îndrăgostește de tine, vei deveni nemuritor, căci veşnic vei trăi în rândurile sale.”

—

every writing tip article and their mother: dont ever use adverbs ever!

me, shoveling more adverbs onto the page because i do what i want: just you fucking try and stop me

“Maybe it won’t work out. But maybe seeing if it does will be the best adventure ever.”

— Unknown 

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.”

— Aldous Huxley

HOW TO WRITE A SLOW BURN ROMANCE

//@writerthreads on Instagram

(Because these things get me slapping my pillow at 3 AM)

Slow burns are romance stories with a slower pace. They’re more realistic, because you need to build the relationship between the two people. This can either be a subplot or the main plot, and usually takes place through the whole book because time is a big factor in slow burn.

You’re showing the reader how their relationship changes from a friendship to a romantic couple, therefore you need to show the chemistry between the two people. Build the relationship stage by stage. Plan down “breakthroughs” that acsends them up the relationship ladder. Think of scenarios and reasons for them to become more close. (Ex. mutual friends, common interests) Reference real romantic relationships that you might’ve experienced for help!

Like any other relationship, consider how they met in the first place. With the method of “show, not tell”, show their initial, intermediate, and final feelings (at the end of the book) through actions or thoughts, instead of making them say it out loud all the time. If you need help with affectionate actions, scroll down on our feed!

If they’re already friends, you’re a step ahead— you don’t have to deal with formalities in introductions and such, but still, you might want to talk about initial feelings. A first person POV is much more intimate than a third person POV, which can be more casual, so it depends on what tone you want to build with the story.

Also, like any other plot, they’ll encounter difficulties. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a life-or-death scenario, but think about what makes it slow burn, what’s preventing from from making it official. A common problem is because both parties are afraid to make the first move either due to embarrassment, or inexperience. They might be scared to be rejected because they’re not sure whether or not the other person is causually flirting with them, or because the feelings are actually reciprocated. You’ll then have to find a solution to it.

Show the reader how they become more comfortable around each other and how they enjoy the other’s company. Simple ways could be long, easy conversations between them, or simply showing how they’re happy when they’re with the other person. Romantic feelings don’t just occur in two days, people don’t (usually) go saying “I love you” in a week.

In a way, you’re teasing readers with the question “will they, or will they not?”. They’ll be on the edge of their seats, waiting for the moment they finally become official. Therefore, even though slow burns are paced, you don’t want to make them too slow. Not baby steps, toddler steps. Throughout the story, you’re giving out romantic hints. If you want to speed things up, include more obvious ones where character go, “oh my god, they definitely like you!”, and if you want to slow them down, include less subtle ones, and create a small distance between the two people.

In the “talking” stage, there’ll be loads of flirting. This is basically the honeymoon phase. Other characters are going to tease them about it, but the two people will still be unsure. They’ll be texting on phones or sending letters, or talking loads in person. If you’re writing in first person, describe the character’s current feelings. If you’ve got bold characters, use pickup lines, with or without humourous intention. It’s all up to you, and as I always say, do what’s best for your story and the way you want it to go.

As an author writing a slow burn romance, you’d likely want readers to like the couple, and here’s the main way:

- show that they’re “perfect” for each other...

At least for the time being. You’re writing about the present, not the future (that’s for the end of the book where you decide whether or not they end up together). Make them “couple goals”, even though they’re not official yet, where their love is being shown, but not said (yet). This could be through heart-to-heart conversations where they deeply understand each other, or as simple as waiting for each other while the other person is tying their shoelace. All in all, make them happy together. Show that they’re happy with each other— big smiles, laughing at each other’s jokes because they have the same humour, etc.

I’m conflicted about whether or not on-and-off relationships are considered to be slow burn. If the process of it is rapid, I personally think it isn’t, but if it’s a series and there’s a long gap between each breakup and you properly build on it, it could be a slow burn.

Just remember, it’s like any other romantic relationship, except it’s being dragged out. Don’t forget about supporting/ other characters and the subplot/ main plot. You’re still writing a story, and all those aspects make your story ten times more interesting!

New Editing Features in Writing Analytics

A few days ago, I posted a preview of a feature I was working on. I’m happy to announce that highlights are now live and ready to use 🎉.

Just choose which words or phrases you’d like to be highlighted, and Writing Analytics will do that as you type. This has a number of use cases, particularly when you’re editing something and want to target specific issues in your draft. 

Stuff like weeding out adverbs, cleaning out unnecessary words, passive voice etc. You can also use these to highlight the names of your characters and their pronouns to visualise better how much space they’re getting in the narrative. 

You can do anything you want — that’s the best part!

How it Works

1. Click on Highlights in the main menu.

2. Add some highlights. You can also click on them to choose a different colour.

That’s it. You can close the widget and go back to writing.

One cool thing is that star works as a wildcard. It will match any word or part of word. So if you want to highlight problematic adverbs use *ly like so:

Colour-coding and visualising what you’re looking for in the text makes revisions so much easier —instead of having to read the whole thing over and over again, you can focus on specific areas and issues.

The highlights show up as you type so you can also use this to break down bad writing habits. Just set up highlights for words or phrases that you’d like to stop using, and you’ll be alerted when it happens.

It took me a while to build this, and I’m very excited to finally see it in the wild — one of my favourite features for sure.

Wanna give it a go? Sign up for a free, no-commitment 14-day trial.

Here’s a tip! If you want to have girl power in your series or movie, normalize women.

Girl power shouldn’t be about proving that women can do things the same or better than men even if they are women! Girl power should be about women being equal to men and not diminished for being a girl.

Avoid having the male characters get surprised that she’s a women, avoid them saying things like “She’s a woman, but she’s strong!” or “Holy shit she’s a woman!?” or “Don’t be too tough on the woman!”. Those kinds of behaviors make it seem that it is surprising for a female person to be strong and/or independant. Equality is women getting treated the same as the men, not having people be surprised that she can do all those martial arts while being a woman! Wether the character is male, female, or non-binary, they should be treated socially equal regardless of their gender!

That's the cruel reality of our times. You can't trust anything you read until you compare it with more than 3 sources.

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

— Mark Twain (via historical-nonfiction)

=Tips for writers=

I used to be a really passionate writer and really enjoyed crafting language but it's been years since I've written anything that's not for school. I really want to start writing again but I don't have any story ideas that I'm excited about. What should I do to start writing again?

When you want to start writing again, but aren’t sure how to start:

1. Read a variety of books.

Various authors, various genres, the more you expand your examples the better because it means exposure to more ideas. Don’t be afraid to take up books you may not like since there’s a great deal of learning to be found in why you dislike something, and the depth it gets you thinking can help contribute to your own ideas. The “spite write” is also a thing, where you hate something, or some part of a thing, so much that you go off and do it yourself.

2. Engage with a writing community.

Every writer likes a different level of engagement, but writing communities can be extra helpful at providing idea discussion. It’s also okay if it takes a while for you to find the right one. Some writers are happy with the ones that are for pure fun and keep away from real critique whereas others want detailed critiques and a push to be better. The community you’re part of needs to align with your goals for writing. 

3. Write what you know… so know interesting things.

Blatantly stolen from my own TbaBW post, but if you think your life is too boring for inspiration or you want to write about something but don’t know how, then get yourself out there and learn. Find new experiences, ask willing people about their lives, try new things even if you aren’t sure about them, research new subjects; increase your inspiration and well of knowledge so you can write what you know. You’re limited by your own knowledge and creativity, so work hard to make sure that limit does not exist.

4. Find prompts or guided writing exercises.

A lot of writers use prompts or guided exercises to get their writer's muscles moving. Aside from providing the base idea for you, they don’t require commitment and are just a form of practice, but can be turned into more polished stories if it really works out. The best use of these isn’t just reading them and deciding if you instantly like it or not, but taking some time to really think about how they can unfold.

5. Brainstorm.

While there are times when ideas just come to you, it’s common for creative people to have to brainstorm and put real effort into coming up with decent ideas. Brainstorming activities can look like, but aren’t limited to:

Inspiration from music. Some songs tell stories, some paint a scene, some capture a mood, and some are just good background music. Listening to music can be a good source of inspiration for writing.

Talk it out. Ask your friend and family what kind of stories they like to hear and why, or ask them anything about stories that you think will get them to talk. You may not want to write those exact things, but the dialogue can get some ideas thrown out there.

Inspiration from art. Similar to music, take a look at paintings, sketches, or maybe even dances that can provide something. Especially pay attention to the details and what the artist could potentially by trying to convey.

Ways to Develop Plot Ideas (link embedded) covers more idea generation!

6. Productivity can be worked on.

Most writers naturally go through a cycle of interest and disinterest in their projects or even writing in general. I have these linked posts for general info on increasing productivity:

Tips for Improving Writing Productivity, Pt 1

Tips for Improving Writing Productivity, Pt 2

Tips for Improving Writing Productivity, Pt 3

Tips for Improving Writing Productivity, Pt 4

You may also want to check out the Motivation and Discipline tag since there’s a lot of info related to productivity and getting back into writing, especially when you aren’t feeling so great about it.

7. Don’t be afraid of not being great.

It’s been a while since you’ve written and it’s normal for skills to get rusty. Your skills before may not even have been where you wanted to be, but all you can do is compare yourself to where you once were rather than other writers. Writing is personal journey and can be a tough skill to build, so don’t beat yourself up if you have trouble. You have to be bad at something before you’re good at it.

Good luck with your writing!

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