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Writing Tips

Maintaining Motivation to Write

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➼ if you’re bored writing a part & want to move on to another scene… imagine how bored your readers must be

➝ keep it interesting and meaningful ; write every scene like it will be your favorite

➼ if you’re stuck on a scene — skip it

➝ use placeholders and come back to it when motivation strikes

➝ personally, I do something like: {ENTER: battle scene} and then I’ll list details, lines, or dialogue I want to include so I don’t lose my ideas

➼ if you’re stuck on where to go with a scene — delete the last line and reroute

➝ keep your last line saved somewhere or in brackets — never actually delete anything, but this can help broaden your perspective and encourage creativity

➼ if you’re stuck on a character name — use placeholders

➝ I love to research my names intensely; I’ll spend way too long researching that I’ll forget what I wanted to start writing ; plus once I get attached to a name I am reluctant to change it, even if I think of a better one

➝ so I’ll temporarily replace the name with something like: [A] or [Villain] or [King]

➼ if you don’t have motivation to write an entire excerpt, write a sentence for each of the five senses in the scene

➝ touch, sight, hearing, taste, smell

➝ having these details can help immerse yourself back into the scene when you’re ready to write it

Writing is not a fanciful venture. It is the most meaningful, purest step forward in your own personal art. Do not diminish the importance and power in your own fingers tapping at your keyboard or wrapped around a pencil. This is the moment in which you embrace the might of your creation.

Karuna Riazi is an online diversity advocate, essayist and overwhelmed undergrad student. Her debut novel, The Gauntlet of Blood and Sand, will be released in 2017 under Simon and Schuster’s new Salaam Reads imprint.

Writer’s Care Packages from Camp NaNoWriMo and We Need Diverse Books.

(via nanowrimo)

How to Write Characters With Romantic Chemistry

Writing great chemistry can be challenging. If you’re not super inspired, sometimes the connection between your characters feels like it’s missing something.

Here are a few steps you can consider when you want to write some steamy romantic chemistry and can’t figure out what’s blocking your creativity.

1. Give the Love a Name

Tropes have a bad reputation, but they can be excellent tools when you’re planning or daydreaming about a story. Giving the romance a name also assigns a purpose, which takes care of half the hard plotting work.

You can always read about love tropes to get inspired and think about which might apply to the characters or plot points you have in mind, like:

Friends to lovers

Enemies to lovers

First love

The love triangle

Stuck together

Forbidden love

Multiple chance love

Fake lovers turned soulmates

There are tooooons of other tropes in the link above, but you get the idea. Name the love you’re writing about and it will feel more concrete in your brain.

2. Develop Your Characters

You should always spend time developing your characters individually, but it’s easy to skip this part. You might jump into writing the story because you have a scene idea. Then the romance feels flat.

The good news is you can always go back and make your characters more real. Give them each their own Word or Google doc and use character templates or questions to develop them. 

You should remember to do this for every character involved in the relationship as well. Sometimes love happens between two people who live nearby and other times it happens by:

Being in a throuple

Being in a polyamorous relationship

Being the only one in love (the other person never finds out or doesn’t feel it back, ever)

There are so many other ways to experience love too. Don’t leave out anyone involved in the developing relationship or writing your story will feel like driving a car with only three inflated tires.

3. Give the Conversations Stakes

Whenever your characters get to talk, what’s at risk? This doesn’t have to always be something life changing or scary. Sometimes it might be one character risking how the other perceives them by revealing an interest or new fact about themselves.

What’s developing in each conversation? What’s being said through their body language? Are they learning if they share the same sense of humor or value the same foundational beliefs? Real-life conversations don’t always have a point, but they do in romantic stories. 

4. Remember Body Language

Body language begins long before things get sexy between your characers (if they ever do). It’s their fingertips touching under the table, the missed glance at the bus stop, the casual shoulder bump while walking down the street.

It’s flushed cheeks, a jealous heart skipping a beat, being tongue tied because one character can’t admit their feelings yet.

If a scene or conversation feels lacking, analyze what your characters are saying through their body language. It could be the thing your scene is missing.

5. Add a Few Flaws

No love story is perfect, but that doesn’t mean your characters have to experience earth shattering pain either.

Make one laugh so hard that they snort and feel embarrassed so the other can say how much they love that person’s laugh. Make miscommunication happen so they can make up or take a break. 

People grow through their flaws and mistakes. Relationships get stronger or weaker when they learn things that are different about them or that they don’t like about each other. 

6. Create Intellectual Moments

When you’re getting to know someone, you bond over the things you’re both interested in. That’s also a key part of falling in love. Have your characters fall in intellectual love by sharing those activities, talking about their favorite subjects, or raving over their passions. They could even teach each other through this moment, which could make them fall harder in love.

7. Put Them in Public Moments

You learn a lot about someone when they’re around friends, acquaintances, and strangers. The chemistry between your characters may fall flat if they’re only ever around each other.

Write scenes so they’re around more people and get to learn who they are in public. They’ll learn crucial factors like the other person’s ambition, shyness, humor, confidence, and if they’re a social butterfly or wallflower.

Will those moments make your characters be proud to stand next to each other or will it reveal something that makes them second guess everything?

8. Use Your Senses

And of course, you can never forget to use sensory details when describing the physical reaction of chemistry. Whether they’re sharing a glance or jumping into bed, the reader feels the intensity of the moment through their five senses—taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell. 

Characters also don’t have to have all five senses to be the protagonist or love interest in a romantic story. The number isn’t important—it’s how you use the ways your character interacts with the world. 

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Anyone can write great romantic chemistry by structuring their love story with essential elements like these. Read more romance books or short stories too! You’ll learn as you read and write future relationships more effortlessly.

Muchas veces, la gente no sabe lo que quiere hasta que se lo muestras.

Steve Jobs (via elcielosobremi)

Writing Tips

Story Endings

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Importance of the Ending

↣ readers invested their time into your publication ; make it worth it!

↣ the conclusion turns readers into fans

↣ endings should be memorable & satisfying ; this will make the readers want to indulge in more of your work

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Choosing Your Ending

↣ know your genre ; different genres can get away with different endings

↣ a thriller novel ending unexpectedly or ambiguously would be more satisfying to readers than a romance novel ending that way ; and vise vera, a romance novel ending emotionally and with happily ever after would be more satisfying than a thriller ending that way

↣ make it unpredictable but fair ; readers should feel like they could have seen it coming

↣ find a happy medium between what your readers want and what is unexpected

↣ be careful with unresolved or ambiguous endings ; regardless of the ending, the readers need to feel satisfied or they won’t come back

↣ be careful with expanded endings ; most editors frown upon relying on epilogues to reach a satisfying resolution

↣ have your ending in mind from the beginning ; this isn’t always plausible, but it’s very helpful — you’ll end up having hints to the resolution you may not even realize, & readers want that

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Types of Endings

⤷ ambiguous

→ an ending open to interpretation ; allows readers to come to their own conclusions

⤷ dialogue

→ ending with a quote from one of the characters

⤷ emotional

→ leaving the readers feeling some intense emotion ; negative, positive, or bittersweet

⤷ expanded

→ expands past the events of the narrative to resolve aspects that may not be explained in the main chapters ; usually takes form of an epilogue with a time skip

⤷ happily ever after

→ type of resolved ending where everything works out in the end

⤷ humorous

→ ends with a joke or in an ironic way

⤷ lesson learned

→ ends with clear, profound character development

⤷ reflection

→ ends with characters looking back on their choices, achievements, and experiences

⤷ resolved

→ leaves reader with no questions or loose ends ; all aspects have been clearly & satisfyingly resolved

⤷ tied

→ brings the story full-circle so it ends where it began

⤷ unexpected

→ a twist the readers did not see coming but also makes sense

⤷ unresolved

→ leaves readers with unanswered questions ; usually to lead into the next book

| 5am | nick |

Por que, Juan, por qué? -preguntaba su madre- Por qué te resulta tan difícilmente ser como el resto de la Bandada, Juan. Por qué no dejas los vuelos rasantes a los pelícanos y a los albatros...

Mira Juan -dijo su padre con cierta ternura- El invierno está cerca. Habrá pocos barcos, y los peces de superficie se habrán ido a las profundidades. Si quieres estudiar, estudia sobre la comida y cómo conseguirla. Esto de volar es muy bonito, pero no puedes comerte un planeo, sabes? No olvides que la razón de volar es comer.

Juan Salvador Gaviota. Richard Bach.

Let me fly 🌅🪽 !.