Tips For Writing Flawed But Lovable Characters.

Reasons to keep writing:

it brings you joy

somebody has to take care of the characters

you have a lesson to teach

it gets you through everyday life

there's people excited for the next chapter

to provide hope for yourself and others

if you don't tell the story, no one else will

it's a way of expressing yourself / what you go through

to make yourself and others feel less alone

people adore your writing

your characters would miss you if you left

nobody can take your place / write your stories for you

to leave something behind to be remembered by

to release your emotions

to inspire other people

hey, i have a question! i hope you don't mind. i am working on my first wip ever and i don't know how if i should use a story structure or not. do you have any suggestion/advice for me? <333

ADVICE INCOMING

Hello! Hi! Thank you for submitting your post! I apologize if you’ve submitted it for a few weeks and I am now just getting back to it. I need to check my inbox more often. 😅

I do not mind the question at all! I love it when people take a shot in the dark and ask me anything! I will try my best to answer your question!

First off, congratulations on working on your first ever WIP! That’s big! That’s major! A first step to many great things! I am so proud of you for taking the initiative — it isn’t easy!

Second, every story has structure whether you know deliberately plan it or not. It is up to the writer, however, to decide which story structure they specifically want to use. Stories, just life everything else in life, tends to have some kind of structure, of course there is randomness but even then there is structure to it (if you want to get all philosophical about it, hehe).

All structures have the same core principles, it’s just that each one tends to maybe focus or highlight different parts or sections of the overall journey.

Think of it this way: ultimately it is a rollercoaster ride with different loops and turns and themes. Rollercoasters are designed to evoke thrill, fun and fear, along with various other emotions. Same applies with a story structure: same cores just different executions.

I would suggest — if you really want to explore different story structures — to sit down and familiarize yourself with them and notice the slight differences between each. You can even look up story examples that follow that structure to help you get a better understanding.

If after that you just decide not to stick to a particular one that’s fine, as I said, you will subconsciously be working on one. The most common structure is the Hero’s Journey: which I bet 100% that’s the structure you will be using whether you chose it intentionally or not.

Here’s a link to the post about story structure I covered to help you. ☺️

I hope this answers your question!

If anyone else has any advice or suggestions that I maybe didn’t mention or cover feel free to reblog and add your own!

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

✧

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

Having OCs is actually the worst because those little fuckers will talk about you behind your back.

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

Clark Kent is a mild mannered reporter. Kal-El is the hero Superman who saves the world every other week. These are 2 separate people, but everybody thinks they are the same person because Clark looks like Kal-El with glasses.

The Emotion Thesaurus: Amazement

Hello everyone! This post will discuss the emotion amazement.

This section is taken from the Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.

Amazement

Definition: overwhelming astonishment or wonder

Physical Signals:

widening of the eyes

a slack mouth

becoming suddenly still

sucking in a quick breath

a hand covering one's mouth

stiffening posture

giving a small yelp

rapid blinking followed by open staring

flinching or starting, the body jumping slightly

taking a step back

a slow, disbelieving shake of the head

voicing wonder: I can't believe it! or Look at that!

pulling out a cell phone to record the event

glancing to see if others are experiencing the same thing

pressing a hand to one's chest, fingers splayed out

leaning in

moving closer

reaching out or touching

eyebrows raising

lips parting

a wide smile

spontaneous laughter

pressing palms to cheeks

fanning oneself

repeating the same things over and over

squealing dramatically

Internal Sensations:

a heart that seems to freeze, then pound

rushing blood

rising body tempreture

tingling skin

stalled breaths

adrenaline spikes

Mental Responses:

momentarily forgetting all else

wanting to share the experience with others

giddiness

disorientation

euphoria

an inability to find words

Cues of Acture of Long-Term Amazement:

a racing heartbeat

shortness of breath

knees going weak

feeling overwhelmed as if the room is closing in

collapsing

May Escalate To: Curiosity, Disbelief, Excitement

Cues of Suppressed Amazement:

holding oneself tightly (self-hugging)

walking in jerky, self-contained strides

clamping the hands to the chest

looking down or away to hide one's expression

eyes widening a bit before control is asserted

mouth snapping shut

a stony expression

taking a seat to hide emotion

making excuses if reaction is noticed

stuttering, stammering

Falcata Fighter It looks so sci-fi to me, but the falcata actually an ancient Iberian peninsula sword. https://www.archangelsteel.com/swords/falcata-fighter-sword