There’s Something Truly Exquisite About Stories Where The Real Tragedy Is The Price You Paid To Stand

simongerman600

writers will really have a doc titled ‘fic planning’ and then it’s just blank

A random song: I brought you inspiration...

Me: Oh, thanks!

The song: ...for a new WIP >:)

Me: No-

dark academia book list

The Secret History by Donna Tart

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

A deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Decay of Living by Oscar Wilde

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Dead Poets Society by Nancy H Kleinbaum

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

The Little Friend by Donan Tartt

Vicious by V. E. Schwab

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissa Pessl

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Gentlemen and Players by Joan Harris

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

Maurice by E. M. Forster

A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde

Vita Nostra by Marina and Serhiy Dyachenko

Poems by Oscar Wilde

The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson

Ace of Spades by Fradiah Àbíke-Íyímídé

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

The Lessons by Naomi Alderman

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Wilder Girls by Rory Powers

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

The Bellweather Revivals by Benjamin Wood

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Truants by Kate Weinberg

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

In the Woods by Tana French

The Atlas Six by Olivia Blake

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Love and Friendship by Jane Austen

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Bunny by Mona Awad

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao

The Ivies by Alexa Donne

For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing

The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky

Emma by Jane Austen

The Watsons by Jane Austen

The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter

The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

Confessions by Kanae Minato

Truth Exercise by Susan Choi

We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handle

Confessions by Kanae Minato

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Five Practical Exercises to Deepen Your Characters

Source: https://kingdompen.org/character-exercises/

Post by writingwithacutlass on instagram

Hello loves! Today I’m introducing you to five writing exercises that you can do to develop your characters! Characters are essentially the drive of the story, and are often more important than plot. Without them, your readers don’t care what happens. The key to a well-written story is having well-developed characters. Here are a few ways you can deepen your characters!

defining a well-developed character

First of all, there are two major points to a well-developed character.

Thought. As an author you need to put a lot of thought into the character’s goal, personality, backstory, background, and all the other aspects of a character. The more thought you put into a character, the more developed, realistic, and relatable they’ll be.

Impact. You can put endless thought into a character, but if it doesn’t have an impact on the story then it’ll make the character seem underdeveloped. All the information you thought up must be cohesive and meaningful enough to contribute to the story and impact the plot and other characters.

Right, let’s get on with the exercises!

1: the everything paper

This method isn’t very complicated. All you need is a piece of paper and something to write with. Write down all the thoughts that come to you, put everything that’s in your head down on paper. Ramble as long as you want, fill up as many sheets as you need. Write down every piece of information you think will be useful sometime; quirks, backstory, lines of dialogue, random observations, interesting things about the character, write it all down. You can always pick out what’s important later, just treat this as a brain dump or brainstorm.

2: journal

This method focuses on getting into the character’s head. If you really want to get to know them, you want to know what they’re thinking. What’s going on in their head? You could try thinking like them, pretend you are that character for a while. Or you could write a few journal entries from their perspective, about some important events in their life. This will help you focus on their feelings and reactions.

3: write them at different points in their life

Knowing a character at different times in their life really helps you understand them better. Write down any scenes that pop up in your head, ones that you know won’t show up in the book. You could write about them in the past, the future, important life events, or a time when they experienced strong feelings. You could even write them into another book, sort of like fanfiction! Most importantly, have fun with it! Don’t worry about structure, word choice, or the writing in general. Just focus on the character!

4: role plays

This is the most fun and helpful one of them all! Get together with a friend and role play as your characters. It’s most helpful when you are your character and your friend is someone else, maybe another one of your characters. It’ll help you get inside their head, come up with lines of dialogue, and understand their personality more. You could do it over text or in person. If you don’t have a friend to do this with, you could try doing it by yourself, though it’s a little harder. Whenever you’re in a boring situation, waiting in line, etc; pretend your characters are with you. Have conversations with them in your head, or imagine what they would be doing if they were here. It’s really beneficial as well. By focusing on the character’s actions and dialogue, you get to know them a lot better than if you were focusing on your writing style and grammar.

5: never stop adding

When we start a new story, we often tend to create the characters first, then write the story. But the reality is that as we write the story, the more we learn about the characters. We get to know them through writing them. You might find that the characters at the start of your story might be completely different from the characters you end up with at the end of your first draft. And that’s okay. The first draft is really just exploring the story for yourself. As you come across little details about your characters, write them down and keep adding those details. Real people have hundreds of little details about them, and so should your characters. Keep adding to them until they feel like a real person to you.

Tips for Finishing a First Draft

Credit: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-novel-rough-draft

Set a goal

You want to get the main points of your story down quickly, without getting hung up on word choice and sentence flow. By giving yourself deadlines to complete certain exercises or sections, you become more ambitious with your time and waste less of it lingering on minor details. Commit to completing a certain number of words, or a set number of pages, or writing for a fixed amount of time. A routine will keep your writing consistent so you do not lose momentum and fall behind on your writing. 

Meeting goals can give you the motivation you need to make and complete another one. For example, I set a minimum word count goal for 35,000 words for my WIP because I hadn’t written anything of that length before. I ended up surpassing it by a lot! 

Prewriting

Prewriting is helpful for getting started, and can include performing writing prompts or exercises. For example, freewriting allows a writer to write unencumbered—jotting down ideas fast without a strict form to follow—which is also useful for stimulating creativity when you’re suffering from writer’s block. Prewriting can also be outlining your next chapter, or plot point, etc...whatever you choose to do, it prepares you to write!

Invite all ideas

Let ideas flow free. A rough draft is where your wildest ideas come out. Don’t be shy about content or switching point of views, and don’t hold yourself back from ideas that might be worth exploring. This phase of your writing is for your eyes only, so there’s no need to feel self-conscious about what you put down on paper. The first draft is all about getting it out on the page--save insecurity for later!

Outline

I can’t express how important this is. Even if you’re a pure pantser, you need to have some idea of your major plot points and ending. This is where you start to form the initial structure of your scenes. Laying all the pieces out before you assemble them will give you the clearest picture on how to put together your novel, as well as figuring out which pieces you’re missing and which ones you don’t need.

Don’t edit as you write

This is a bad habit of mine, as I’m a perfectionist, and it becomes a problem, especially when I’m writing my longest project ever. I’ve always focused on making everything right, and it’s hard for me to realize that there is no possible way to do that in a novel.

When you’re writing your story, don’t worry about punctuation, writing complete sentences, or grammar like passive voice or inconsistent tenses—leave the whole editing process behind. As long as you get your ideas down in a way that’s understandable to you, what you write in your first draft is between you and your vision. You can worry about well-written sentences in your second or third drafts.

Start where you want

You want to begin where you’re most excited. Not every story needs to start at the beginning and go step-by-step. If you’re anticipating writing the climax of the story before you have a beginning or end, then write that down first! You don’t want to bog yourself down with story details you’re not ready to establish yet. Writing a novel is a long process, and you want to keep it enjoyable for yourself as long as possible.

Take breaks

The last thing you need is to experience burnout before getting through your first draft. Sometimes walking away from your writing and coming back later with a set of fresh eyes is exactly what your writing process needs. 

Writing every day can be unhealthy or lead to an unhealthy mindset. It can also make you tire of your story. 

Finish it

I know, this seems kind of weird when the post is giving advice on how to finish a first draft. But it actually means  You shouldn’t start the next draft until you finish the one you’re on, and the sooner you get it down, the better. Sticking to your goals and putting in the time will yield workable pages that you can eventually start sculpting into another draft of your novel!

My writing advice for new writers

masterlist. main navigation.

@bluebxlle_writer on Instagram

1. Write for yourself

This is the #1 tip I will always give to writers, so you've probably heard me say this a few times. Don't write for others, but write for yourself.

People have different tastes. There will always be some who dislike your book, and some who consider it their favorite. Lots of people hate famous books like Percy Jackson or Six Of Crows, and I'm sure you've disliked a popular book before. So instead of writing a book that others would read, start writing a book that you would read. If you end up liking your book, I can assure you that many others will too.

2. Flesh out characters

When you're excited to write a new WIP, you might delay your character building process and decide to start writing while trying to figure out the characterization on the way. I've done this a couple of times, thinking that it would speed up my writing process, but trust me, it did not. It actually slowed down my writing instead.

If you start writing your wip without at least finishing 80% of your character building process, you'll find yourself getting stuck in scenes, not knowing what your character would say or do, which is very inconvenient.

If you ever get bored of character building and really want to start writing instead, I suggest writing one-shots unrelated to your WIP. By doing this, you don't have to worry about writing your characters out of character, and its actually useful to their characterization process.

3. Experiment!

If you feel like there's something off with your writing, or you're beginning to feel that writing is a chore for you, experiment with different writing techniques. Switch up your genre, time period, plotting method, etc.

For reference, I used to be a pantser who writes plot-driven mystery stories. But now, I'm more comfortable with being a plantser who writes character-driven low fantasy stories! Basically, don't be afraid of change, because it might help you later.

4. Know your ending

In my opinion, the most important thing to consider while writing a story is your ending - not your beginning or middle. You can rewrite your beginning chapters anytime, and you can always figure out your middle chapters later, noone knows how to write the middle of a story anyway.

But if you don't know the ending of your story, you're screwed, buddy. Without knowing how your story ends, you can't write the events that build up to that ending.

You're unsure about your novel's ending at first and decided to throw in a last minute plot twist? That means you've been foreshadowing the wrong ending the whole book, and you gotta rewrite. You don't know how your characters will develop throughout the book? You won't be able to write the journey of their arc throughout the story. Hassling, right? That's why, try not to start writing your WIP without having a possible ending in mind.

5. If you write, you're valid.

Nowadays, the standards of being a writer is that you have to write a full-length novel and be traditionally published. This isn't true, not even the slightest.

You write poetry? You're a writer and valid. You're a screenwriter? Bro, look at the word. ScreenWRITER. valid. You write fanfictions? Valid, and you're not cringey. You have NO idea how much I worship fanfiction writers for writing what canon won't give us. You're writing but don't want to be published? You're still valid. As long as you write, you're valid, because that's the whole point of being a writer.

6. Don't follow every single tip

There's a reason why they're called writing tips, not rules. You're not meant to follow every single one of them, they're only meant to guide you on the way. Some will be useful, some won't, depending on yourself. So please, don't be pressured to follow every writing tip you see.

realistic expectations of book genres

— so you know how us writers want to have an accurate representation of the real world, right? well, I believe it’s important to include realistic aspects in our writing, even if it’s fantasy-based/fiction (this goes for authors who have published books lacking realism). I asked my community of writers what they want to start seeing and want they want to stop seeing less of in genres such as YA, fantasy, fiction, etc., and they’ve answered anonymously.

✎ an age specification on books (like cassandra clare’s books are specifically for 14+ and say that on the back of all books)

✎ realistic diversity! like, not every friend group has a person of every race, and I rarely ever see it

✎ I think writers should stop romanticizing toxic relationships since it’s unhealthy and ab*sive

✎ I feel like we need more main characters with disabilities

✎ please stop romanticizing toxic relationships in YA! it’s not a 100% matured audience and they may not be able to tell it’s a toxic relationship which can be very dangerous!

✎ more body types

✎ characters that are more relatable, less like supermodels and more like struggling/awkward teenagers

✎ include consent, talking about/mentioning menstruation, and giving male characters emotions

✎ female characters with negative traits other than “shy” and “clumsy”

✎ more female characters with really big life goals/dreams that they actually plan to stick to!

✎ stop including graphic s*xual content in YA!

✎ more BIPOC!

✎ more friendships that have the same tropes but don’t evolve into romance

✎ people with physical disabilities

✎ more accurate representation of grief and trauma!

✎ some characters staying single throughout their whole story

✎ periods. do fantasy women not menstruate?

✎ not getting the guy/girl

✎ in YA contemporary I think that the characters should have less autonomy. I want to see less of adult life in YA. like no, teenagers have a lot of restrictions. show them more often

✎ in fantasy: periods and all the other things that come along with them!

I wish people’s WIPs showed up on Goodreads because I have seen so many excerpts and WIP intros on Instagram that I NEED to read, but I can’t add them to my TBR so that I can remember I need to read them and I think that is awful.

Introducing The OCs of Pawn

Intro

I love how it took me a full theme and a half to actually make a post about my OCs. I would say something in my own defense, but I don’t have one. Looks like I actually have to face the consequences of my procrastination this time. Wait, I’m still procrastinating by writing this intro...but okay, let’s actually get into it now!

Name: Alice Lee

Age: 15

Pronouns: She/her

Ethnicity: Chinese-American

Sexuality: Demisexual

5 words to describe her: Reserved, curious, non-confrontational, logical, observant

Likes: Physics, algebra, math/logic puzzles, chess, listening to true crime podcasts, boba tea

Dislikes: Being wrong, having no control over her life, things not making sense

Fun Facts: She wants to be a quantum physicist when she grows up! Also, she has a deep capacity for empathy and understanding that most people never see or notice. Unfortunately, all too many people are willing to dismiss her as unfeeling and cold, when in reality she’s just uncertain.

Name: Evie Lee

Age: 16

Pronouns: She/her

Ethnicity: Chinese-American

Sexuality: Aromantic

5 words to describe her: Outgoing, vibrant, upbeat, sensitive, optimistic

Likes: Daydreaming, watercolors/art, lacrosse, hanging out with friends, photography

Dislikes: Cold/wet weather, standardized tests, being interrupted, being spoken over

Fun Facts: From the beginning, I knew that I wanted Evie’s faceclaim to be Jessie Mei Li because personality-wise they are so similar! Also, Evie is a maladaptive daydreamer, which plays a large role in the story!

Name: Khalil Qurashi

Age: 16

Pronouns: He/him

Ethnicity: Pakistani-American

Sexuality: Bisexual

5 words to describe him: Funny, easygoing, enthusiastic, loyal, perceptive

Likes: Forensics speaking, traveling, meeting new people, challenges, soccer

Dislikes: The school subject of history, being ignored or patronized, not being taken seriously

Fun Facts: Although Khalil himself doesn’t swear, he carries around a “swear jar” for his friends. Every time they say a swear word, they have to contribute a certain amount of money, depending on 1.) what the word was and 2.) what context they said it in. He’s made about $20 off it so far. (No, I don’t know how I came up with this either, but it just seemed right-)

Name: Mikayla Grace Wong

Age 16

Pronouns: She/her

Ethnicity: Chinese-American

Sexuality: Undecided as of right now

5 words to describe her: Determined, decisive, creative, independent, impulsive

Likes: Pottery, sculpture, loud music, her comfort pair of headphones, overcast days, skateboarding

Dislikes: The American education system, people making decisions for her

Fun Facts: Mikayla’s character design is my favorite out of all of my OCs! She has a really unique style. It also helps that it’s really easy to find pictures that look like her on Pinterest! Her Pinterest board is definitely the prettiest in terms of clothing style.