Sometimes I Forget That He Didn't Die. Things Were So Bad For So Long. Sometimes I Think He Did Die,

the “the the monster”

One of the best writing tips I’d ever gotten was from my seventh grade history teacher–that of which he called the ‘the the monster’

the best way to explain it is that you should never start two sentences with the same word. this might seem like a simple idea/very mundane–pretty much something everyone would know. However, you can find yourself doing this a lot more often than you think. 

for example writing this:

The soft, warm blanket lay atop her and keeping her warm as she slept. The boy had been waiting for her to wake up for awhile, constantly checking her. 

is a lot chopper than writing this:

The soft, warm blanket lay atop her, keeping her warm as she slept. Across the room, the boy sat and anxiously waited for her to wake.

personally, I like to give a two sentence space between using the same word to start. Doing this makes the writing seem less repetitive & overall can make you think of creative ways to get certain points across. I find if the sentences sound too similar it will bore the reader fairly quickly, leaving them to skim over what could be important information. Similarly, using the same word twice in one sentence has similar effects. That shows lack of ‘creativity’ so to say. 

overall, try to vary your writing! it might be tough sometimes but you got this!

Date your local necromancer. When you’re feeling down, they’ll help raise your spirits.

“Why are fanfictions always so much better written than canon??”

Because they’re catered to you and your ideas of what the characters, story, etc. should be, which doesn’t always line up with canon.

It’s not a matter of which one is objectively better, but of audience. 

Fanfiction is made for fans by fans with copious amounts of fanon concepts made to appeal to, well, the fandom. This is not inherently bad, and obviously the amount of fanons and which ones will vary from fic to fic, but given that the quote above generally only applies to fics the poster likes…yeah. That fic is written specifically for you and the people who agree with you. Again, not inherently a bad thing.

BUT that is not the case for canon. Canon is not written for the fandom; the fandom can’t form until after the canon exists. How that fandom changes as different people come and go as they decide they do or don’t like the directions canon takes is another story, but nonetheless unlike fanfiction it is not written to cater to fanon concepts and preferences. And “not catering to fanon” is not synonymous with “bad writing”.

Now that said, yes there are obviously fanfics out there that are objectively very well-written and creative, and yes there is canon material out there for whatever book/movie/tv show/etc that objectively isn’t so great.

But most of the time, your perception of fanfics is better because they’re tailored to your biases. Not because they’re objectively better-written.

Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that–it’s completely normal to prefer/enjoy things that fit your opinions/headcanons–but maybe step back and consider that a moment before you go and bash the creators of your favorite book/movie/show for not following the same plot of your favorite fic.

Saoirse Ronan as Jo March in “Little Women” (USA, 2019)

“ he said you were so beautiful it made him shudder “

Okay so a production of Hamlet that ends with “Goodnight, sweet prince,” etc. and then Horatio looks up and sees the audience for the first time and is both shocked and furious, because his world is falling apart and you sat there and watched.

"he said you were so beautiful it made him shudder"

imagine if the oceans were replaced by forests and if you went into the forest the trees would get taller the deeper you went and there’d be thousands of undiscovered species and you could effectively walk across the ocean but the deeper you went, the darker it would be and the animals would get progressively scarier and more dangerous and instead of whales there’d be giant deer and just wow