A bunch of resolutions for writers and people who want to try writing this year. It's in no way something you must do, these are just ideas how you can set out to improve your writing in the new year.
Try something new
Try to write something you have never written before.
Write something silly, write something serious, write in a different genre, try to write characters that you haven't explored yet.
Write consistently
Writing consistently will not only give you exercise to become a better writer, it can also keep your voice as a writer consistent.
If you have a first draft, write it down quickly and without big breaks inbetween.
Don't wait for inspiration
Waiting for inspiration to come can take forever. So don't wait for inspiration: search for it.
Make writing into a habit that comes natural to you every day, look up writing prompts, read a book you like, get yourself into the mood to write and do it!
Do your research
As a writer, you need to know about a lot of different things.
You can do research by reading books, listening to podcasts, watching movies, talking to other people, etc.
Take this year to learn something new and then tell your reader all about it.
Edit that draft
We all have that one story we wrote a while ago and then stopped at the first draft.
Take it and reread it and then rewrite it. You have a new perspective on it now and maybe this will be the year you turn your idea into a book.
Set yourself a goal
This explicitly doesn't have to be a goal about how many words or pages you write.
Your goal can be to finish something, to edit something, to write a few sentences every day, to share more of your writing or to publish something.
Don't compare
Try not to compare your writing with that of someone else.
Writing is about finding your own voice and telling a story that only you can tell. Also: other people's accomplishes don't diminish your own!
Write!
Whatever the outcome of your writing may be and whatever you want to do with it, if you want to publish it, if you want to share it with friends, or if you want to keep it to yourself: just start writing!
Do what you love to do.
To all my lovely writers, I wish you a great year, may everything work out in your favour!
- Jana
i figured it was about time I do a blog intro, so hello! its so lovely to have you here! I'm bi_focal on ao3 and this blog is a mix of writing content, fandom, and fake tweets :)
Writing content can be found under the #writeblr tag (which includes fanfic updates) and my most recent fics are:
-Little Troubles (Itadori & Sukuna, WIP)
-summer daze (katsuki-centric Coraline AU, WIP)
-this rabbit has fainted (bkdk, complete)
The fandoms I'm mostly active in rn are MHA, idolish7, & JJK but there are plenty more that will probably make appearances as well
The fake tweets I make are for MHA and i7 (mostly MHA) and they’re under both #fake tweets and #incorrect quotes (*and these are rated teen for language and occasional innuendos!)
I'd love to interact with you, especially about writing things, so feel free to send me an ask!!
This time I’m doing a 500 word limit challenge to practice effective storytelling and characterization so if you’d like to send a request please leave a comment or send an ask like this:
[Character] + [headcannon] + (optional) [canon-verse or AU]
If you don’t have a preference for the setting, I might play around with AUs or maybe different aspects of the canonverse
I’m gonna limit this to MHA for now but that’s still a pretty wide range of characters so please don’t hesitate to request something! I'd really love to hear your headcanons! As always, please only sfw requests
Here’s one i wrote for practice as an example but i hope i get much better with practice (fic below the cut!)
500 words | Katsuki Bakugou + afraid of frogs + AU: no quirks (and this is part of a larger au of mine where aizawa/present mic are bakugou’s guardians)
"You!" Katsuki shouted, socked feet planted on top of the dining room table and Aizawa's heaviest textbook held threateningly above his head.
Aizawa paused with his hand still resting on the doorknob of their home, blinking slowly. The bag on his shoulder was heavy with ungraded essays.
"Me," he agreed flatly. "What are you doing on the table?"
"I've fucking told you not to leave the backdoor open!"
Aizawa hummed, pulling off his shoes and setting down his things in the entranceway. Vaguely, he remembered stepping onto the back patio with a cup of coffee early this morning, though he couldn't remember opening the door at all, let alone sliding it shut.
"How many frogs are in the house?" Aizawa asked, stepping around the table to warm up the kettle. He could feel Katsuki's glare doing its best to burn a hole through the back of his head.
"Four," Katsuki seethed.
Aizawa kept a careful ear out while he opened the cupboard above the stove, debating between the cat mug he'd found at a yardsale and the orange one Hizashi had made for him last christmas. Faint croaking carried over from the living room. And maybe the staircase.
"Didn't you fucking hear me?" Katsuki demanded, his reflection blob-like in the silver kettle.
"Four frogs," Aizawa repeated, though he suspected there were only three.
"Four pests," Katsuki shot back through gritted teeth.
"I believe the neighbor's call them 'beloved pets', and I'm not willing to cover up another murder like I did with Rafael."
Katsuki scoffed, though the sound was reedy with unease. The croaking had grown louder.
"Stupid thing shouldn't have jumped at me while I was using the blowtorch."
"Do you hear that, frogs?" Aizawa called out, flicking off the stove. "Beware of blowtorches in the hands of teenaged boys who should not have had them in the first place."
Aizawa spared a backwards glance to find the textbook finally drooping, though Katsuki's grip on the pages remained white-knuckled.
"Are you ever gonna let that go?"
Aizawa leaned his back against the cold countertop, cradling the orange mug between his hands and blowing lightly at the steam. "Not in your lifetime." He could see a frog resting on the third stair. "Why don't you call your friend already so she can catch them?"
Katsuki's left eyebrow twitched- temptation, Aizawa was certain- before drawing low.
"Fuck no! Frog Face is my second mortal enemy!" Then he crossed his arms. "Besides, I saw some exposed wiring on their house yesterday."
"You cannot blow up their house," Aizawa sighed. He could still remember a six year old Tsuyu returning a handmade eviction notice to their door, Rafael poking out of her shirt.
"He spelled eviction wrong," she'd said before skipping away, unbothered.
Aizawa tipped his head to the side. "But at least your tactics have evolved."
Katsuki glowered. “You're not. Helping.”
"Fine," Aizawa said, pulling their butterfly net from its place on the wall. "I'll play hero."
"Bastard," Katsuki hissed. “Hurry up.”
MHA tweets pt.21- 🕸️Halloween special pt.2 🕸️ +bonus poll
if the drawing wasn't rigged in the bakusquad's favor, what costume would you want to win?
Chilchuck and Marcille are so sibling-coded in this scene lmao
Chilchuck, embodying the well-known rage of being forced into an apology by your mom only to get a smartass response:
That is the face of a man who swallowed his pride and then choked on it
Midoriya: *yelling excitedly in the distance because AM gave him a rare piece of merch*
Todoroki: What was that sound?
Bakugou: …It was the last thread of my patience snapping
Bakugou, quieter: This favoritism is fucking bullshit
For me, I try to replace words like said with something more specific, but only if the dialogue needs it. So like:
“I hate you,” he said.
can be a lot less effective in an argument scene than,
“I hate you!” he shouted.
So advice #1 is add specificity so you can paint the image that you want your readers to have. If I’m struggling to find the specific word I want to use I’ll sometimes try OneLook Thesaurus, but honestly sometimes the simple ones you think of first work best (he shouted vs he vociferated, yk?)
But sometimes you don’t even need the specificity in the dialogue tag to make the image clear, you can focus on description and leave the dialogue standing on its own, like:
Tommy gripped Clarence by the collar, his nostrils flaring.
“I hate you!”
As long as it’s clear who’s speaking, stand alone dialogue can be really effective and it’s smth I’ve had recommended to me before. So advice #2 would be to simply drop some of the said’s or ask’s that aren’t doing much for your dialogue. (But this doesn’t mean it’s automatically better to cut out all of them, especially if some of those tags do a lot of work for the pacing of your dialogue, it’s really up to your own judgement as the all-knowing author)
And advice #3 is just that writers notice the said’s and ask’s way more than a reader ever does, bc to a reader those words tend to become part of the landscape of what they’re reading and feel very natural but if you choose a synonym of said that feels really out of place, then they’ll definitely notice it
So overall I’d say don’t get too in your head about it :)
Having a lot of said’s and ask’s is totally normal, it’s really just up to you if you think they’re not doing enough work to paint the picture you want or if it might be punchier to have to dialogue be without tags! Might even be worth it to look at a piece of writing you really like to see that author’s balance of said/asked vs more specific tags vs no tags at all, especially to note which ones you, as a reader, like the most
Hope this helps and best of luck with your novel!!
I'm using said and asked way to many times in my writing. Where do you all get your synonyms from??
And don't tell me 'Google'
MHA fake tweets pt.1