I had a sweet Nonny the other day asking how to get started, and honestly posts like this are a great way. I know games go kinda fallow during school and events like NaNo, but we can get this one circulating and building up a list of folks to tag when were ready to get back to it :)
The Draft Notebook
Be More Productive with Ambient Noise
How to Steal: Know Your Tropes
How to Steal: Good Writers Borrow
Write What You Know (Not What You’ve Experienced)
The Best Way to End a Writing Session
How To Finish a Draft
A Few Tips on Chapters
“To Be” Or Not “To Be”: What Exactly Is Passive Voice?
Tagging Dialog
Narrative Voice
Writing Better Descriptions
Basic Rules for Metaphors and Similes
Creating Characters: a 4-Step Process
Writing Relationships Your Reader Can Get Behind
Informative Character Names
The Strength of a Symmetrical Plot
How to Foreshadow
Crafting Homes of Paper, Ink, and Neutral PH Glue
On Writing Flawed Books
How to Return to Your Manuscript
The Acknowledgements Page
Staring at Blank Pages
What to Do When You Can’t Write
Motivational Writing Posters
Writing the Perfect Query Letter
How to Write a Synopsis
How to Pitch Your Novel in Under a Minute
A Glossary of Publishing Terms: Vol 1
Why You Should Give Scrivener a Try
Outlining, Brainstorming, and Researching with Scrivener
Drafting with Scrivener
Editing with Scrivener
CTRL+F
The Forest Productivity App
Editsaurus
Why Try NaNoWriMo
October Prep
Why Listen to Writing Podcasts
Pick a New Daily Word Count Goal
How to Write 2000 Words a Day
How to Plan a Novel without a Story
Pacemaker: Custom Daily Word Count Website
NaNoWriMo Master Post
How to Read an Absurd Number of Books
Writing Workshops: An Introduction
Writing Groups
Different Types of Fantasy Novels
Ambient Soundscapes Based on Famous Writers
If you enjoy my posts and can afford it, I would greatly appreciate it if you donated to my new ko-fi page! Each of these posts represents multiple hours of unpaid labor. I love writing for this blog, but I’m also an underpaid 20-something trying to stay afloat. I’ve made this master post of every essay I’ve written for this blog as a way to show my appreciation in advance of any support. If you donate, to further show my gratitude and appreciation, I’ll take requests for essay topics in the ‘messages of support.’
If you can’t afford to donate via ko-fi, another great way to show your support is simply by reblogging posts that you find useful and helping my blog reach new writers.
Thanks so much!
* body language masterlist
* a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does
* a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes
* 550 words to say instead of fuckin said
* 638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again
* some more body language help
(hope this helps some ppl)
I literally had to reblog this twice in a row
i write, or, more accurately, try to write, and i’ve been trying to post more of my writing, but i lack the courage to, so yeah.
The English: This is our legendary King Arthur. His bravest knight is named Gawain who cut off a green giants head
The French: That’s cool, but what if his coolest knight was FRENCH and practiced INFIDELITY with the QUEEN
The English: That’s not…
The French: His name is Lancelot.
The English: Okay actually that name frickin rules. Proceed.
every single person who reblogs this
every
single
person
will get “doot doot” in their ask box
Not every writer wants to post their work online, however there are positives to doing so. If you seek feedback and advice from readers and writers, you might consider posting a draft or two. Even a few chapters or a poem can be uploaded online to get a little audience feedback.
Fictionpress | Original fiction only | Covers Opt. — Has a docs feature so you can save works onsite without posting them, plus moderately detailed analytics to show you individual story traffic. With plenty of keen writers/readers willing to learn and help, written feedback is not uncommon here. Quiet and comfortable, but if you don’t update very often readership grows stagnant. It’s also worth noting that you cannot delete reviews or your account. — Adult Material Prohibited.
Major Demographics: All genders, All ages.*
Popular Genres: sci-fi, contemporary, fantasy*
Fanfiction.net | Fanfiction only | Covers Opt. — Sister site to Fictionpress, thus it has all the same features and drawbacks. However, it gets much more traffic than the original fiction site. When it comes to categorizing your story though it can get tricky, and if you have questions or complaints for the administrators, don’t expect a response email soon…or ever. — Adult Material Prohibited.
Major Demographics: Female, All ages.
Popular Genres: epic dramas, fluff, angst, whump
Archive Of Our Own (AO3) | Fanfiction only** | No covers — Invite only, but getting in isn’t hard. High viewership, well organized, and ad-free. Some written feedback, especially if you ask for some, but the “kudos” button is open to the public so anyone can leave their mark of approval. You can also set individual stories to “users only” along with other useful privacy options.
Crossover friendly, so you can finally post that multi-fandom fic and tag each property for search. Ships, subject material, and trigger warnings are also taggable for search (or to weed out in the case of tws). Lets you group individual stories into a series, and has various features for sharing/gifting your work with others. Overall the best place for fanfiction, hands down. — Adult Material Allowed
Major Demographics: Female, All ages.
Popular Genres: smut, epic dramas, fluff/angst, whump
Wattpad | Original & fan fiction | Covers Req. — Wattpad has been steadily improving its features and policies in the five years I’ve been using it. Here, some writers receive tons of feedback and appreciation, but most receive very little. A few authors have gotten published thanks to this site, others have followers in the hundreds of thousands, and still others become site administrators to support the bustling community.
They’ve recently rebranded, and have also introduced a feature to earn writers money. It is currently in beta and being tested with select authors only.
Unlike other sites, this one has very clear international groups and a high ethnic diversity among its writers. There’s an emphasis on supporting foreign authors and their stories in any language. Contests are set up by the site, but also smaller niche ones can be run by individual users.
It’s very fun to use and if the site chooses to feature one of your works you can get a lot of traffic. For the most part however, you have to practice marketing yourself, and/or develop a group of writer friends and read/promote each other’s work. — Adult Material allowed, but along strict guidelines (lots of kids use this site!).
Major Demographics: Female, Teens.
Popular Genres: romance, young adult, supernatural, celeb fic, fantasy
Royal Road | Original & fan fiction | Covers Opt. — This was suggested in the replies, so I did some research. Haven’t used it myself, looks nice, but here are the main points interested writers should know:
Site does not claim ownership of your work, copyright stays with you.
Popular stories receive much feedback and viewership in the millions.
You cannot remove reviews on your own stories, and you must submit a ticket to remove your story or delete your account.
From their FAQ: “All new submissions are manually checked for appropriate tagging and plagiarism, so expect it to take 12-24 hrs for a submission to be approved.” Also, stories with low-quality spelling and grammar will be removed by moderators.
Keeping a steady update schedule of “polished” drafts seems to be mandatory, and reviewers sound entitled.
One-shots seem to be out of the question, this is a site for novels.
Premium and free options exist for both readers and writers.
Site is affilated with Amazon, has been running for six years, and is based in Israel.
Fantasy, supernatural, epic dramas.
Adult Material Allowed
Smashbook, Livejournal, Inkspired, and Booknet are sites I am aware of, but have too little knowledge of to review. Likewise Wordpress, Blogger, or right here on Tumblr you can regularly post stories or novels and receive feedback. However, for those sites you do have to figure out a blogging system for yourself.
While researching good sites for this post, I found this user’s comments insightful. She suggested Writer’s Digest and Absolute Write as good places to seek professional feedback on your work. They don’t appear to be sites where you post work, but rather they provide tips and resources to help improve your work.
There are dozens of other places online where you can post your original fiction, non-fiction, and fan fiction. Things to keep in mind when site shopping:
READ THEIR SUBMISSION POLICIES & GUIDELINES FIRST
Search for reviews of the site by individuals who’ve actually used the site and are not affilated with the site.
See what the site’s policy is on deleting works & accounts. You don’t want to get your name and work trapped on a site with a bad reputation.
If “popular” stories have very little feedback on them, this means the majority of stories on that site get none.
If most users haven’t updated in months/years, this means the site is practically dead and may soon shut down. RED FLAG: the site does not date anything.
If the “feedback” on users’ pages and stories are “Like my work!” or “Read for read?” and other self-promotional messages, don’t sign up.
If a site looks cool to you but you’re still unsure, make an account with a junk email and post something you don’t care too much about just to test the waters. Good/bad doesn’t matter much right now, what’s important is figuring out how traffic works and what readers there are interested in.
Inkitt—spam/shifty; claims it’s the #1 site for online publishing, but this is misleading. Their idea of getting users is to send copy/paste “invitations” to pre-existing online accounts (often dead accounts), and lie about how good one’s writing is even though they’ve never read it. Signing up with them also gets you endless emails about their pathetic contests.
Dreame—spam/scam; similar deceptive invitation tactic, except they are relentless (they’ve “invited” me five six times on two different sites). Their gimmick is to offer you pennies for 5yr rights to your work (and their site is trashy with very little reader feedback).
FicFun—same as Dreame, both are owned by their Singaporean parent company Stary PTE Ltd. (who personally sent me my 5th “invite”).
+ If you have a question, please review my Ask Policy before sending in your ask. Thank you!
+ If you benefit from my updates and replies, please consider sending a little thank you and Buy Me A Coffee!
+ HEY, Writers! other social media: Wattpad - AO3 - Pinterest - Goodreads
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*Based on what I see as receiving the most traffic and feedback on each site. These are not accurate statistics, merely observations.
** “Is AO3 really just for fanfic?” (tl;dr—YES)
I write fantasy.
Current WIP - A Thief's Story: there's a thief and he steals things
i did words
how do words
Threaten your imagination into compliance and slap them hands onto your keyboard, or get ready to stab paper repeatedly with the pointy ink stick.
Scream angrily into the void for at least thirty minutes.
Wait for void to scream back.
Write down whatever returns, trapping those motherfuckers on your page. Spend at least an hour deciphering and beating them with a stick until they fall somewhat in line, then bask in the fact that you now have words on a page, which is considerably more than you had before.
Results may vary, but there’s always tomorrow.