Tag: writing

elliewritesstories:

Writing is not always writing.

Writing is being on the train and mentally seeing your OCs stumble into other people, or flinching away from the germ-ridden handrails, or sleeping on each others’ shoulders.

Writing is hearing a song on the radio and watching one of your scenes play out to the lyrics.

Writing is laying on your floor or sitting by your computer and spending hours collaging newspaper clippings or pictures or people or plants together and making something that is completely, uniquely, your story.

Writing is drawing your characters in your notebooks, and making tea only your one, picky character would drink, and writing an open letter to all your characters just to remind them you love them.

Writing is moodboards, and playlists, and crafts, and asks, and prompts, and pictures, and memories, and you.

So never think that just because you’re not putting words on a page, you’re not a real writer. Writing is something that follows you everywhere, beyond the word document, and beyond the screen.

Because writing isn’t something you do. It’s something you are.

ms-demeanor:

wordcubed:

prokopetz:

The reason you’re great at one-off compositions but can’t put a long-form comic or animation together to save your life isn’t because you’re a lousy artist, it’s because you’re a lousy project manager.

I know that doesn’t sound particularly positive, but you’d be astounded how many artists I’ve run into who are literally unaware that project management is a) a totally separate skill set from being Good At Art, and b) something you actually have to learn – they think that people are just intrinsically good or bad at doing long-form projects and that’s all there is to it.

Correctly identifying what it is that you suck at is the first step to improving!

This also applies to long-form writing.

Oh.

thebibliosphere:

caffeinewitchcraft:

dragonenby:

writing-under-stars:

rein-reblogs-stuff:

elumish:

Ways to deal with your characters swearing in your story:

  • Include the swearing in the dialogue
  • Say “he cursed”, “she swore”, etc.
  • Don’t have them swear

Ways not to deal with your characters swearing in your story:

  • Uncharacteristic minced oaths (gosh, heck, darn, etc.)
  • Censoring your own dialogue (please don’t write @!%# in the middle of your dialogue)

What’s wrong with gosh and heck, I’m using these myself… Would love an explanation, thanks. (No sarcasm.)

There’s nothing wrong with gosh and heck (I have a few characters that say those things). It’s more of a characterization thing. For example, if you have an immoral character who gleefully breaks the law, their religion doesn’t see cussing as wrong, etc, they’d probably use pretty rough profanity (fuck, shit, cunt, etc). But if your character is innocent, has a strict religious code, has high morals, etc, then yeah, definitely have them use much, much lighter “swear words.” At least, that’s my hot take on it

that’s a good take. use what words feel right, but don’t ever go #@&! in your writing unless you make graphic novels/comic books

Furthermore, giving them unique swears or phrases is great for making it more real! If you’re not particularly fond of swearing in dialogue (or in dialogue description), you can make something mundane read like a swear.

“You and Aunt Laura,” he says, staring at her. She flushes. Aunt Laura ran away to the circus at 25, four years after it left town.

Or even just add “X swears” to dialogue of a complete normal word!

“Crumpets,” they swear. It’s vulgar, they know, but watching the last horse vault over the fence merited a little vocal vulgarity.

That’s very clear and reads pretty funny, imo.

Unless you are Terry Pratchett, in which case you can get away with this:

“D*mn!” said Carrot, a difficult linguistic feat.” –Feet of Clay.

kaylapocalypse:

down-sizing:

markruffalwhoa:

My favorite thing about Victor Hugo is that the Notre Dame Cathedral was a huge eyesore on the verge of collapsing and was planned to be demolished but Victor Hugo was like “hey 😦 I like that building” and wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame to save it. and it worked

In the book he described the cathedral in the state it was in but also in comparison to what it looked like in the 15th century before it got all fucked up in the French Revolution. His book got translated into a fuck ton of languages and was distributed all around Europe. Tourists who were fans of him would go to see it while in Paris and were appalled to see just how bad of shape it was in and it started to become stain on paris’ reputation.

So finally the king funded the Hella expensive restoration which I imagine was one really fucking gnarly project, the structure it’s self being the tip of the ice burg because of how many religious artifacts and statutes and junk that had been ruined.

So thanks Vicky that’s one hell of a beautiful tower.

So you’re telling me that we still have the Notre Dame Cathedral because of fanfiction?

yes.