this is an archive filled with writing tips, prompts, inspiration and resources.
"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it" - Toni Morrison
Do you know of any good guide books for helping with writing? Please do not get me wrong, I love your blog but sometimes I like having something physical in my hands that I can use as a motivator and a place for help and info. Although your blog has been amazingly helpful. I just wasn't sure if you knew of any good books that are also helpful. I really appreciate it. Thank you!
I’m not sure what kind of topics you’re looking for, but when it comes to craft books, I’m a sucker for a good grammar help guide. Particularly because proper grammar leads to good sentence structure, and your writing will really sing if you master it. But grammar can be a dry topic. So here are 2 of my favorites that make it more entertaining and interesting:
Let me give you some advice, though. I love craft books, and sometimes I learn a lot from them, but don’t ever think that everything you read in a craft book is the only way to do something. Take the insight and see how you can apply it to your own writing. If it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, it might not be the right approach for you (of course, the grammar books are a bit of an exception).
Followers, any other writing craft books that you admire and enjoy?
Anonymous asked: What I’m writing is a science fiction story (set in the future with aliens, space travel, etc.) but the trouble I’m having is creating the “science” and the technology behind it. I have some idea but that means nothing if I can’t explain how it’s possible. I have a character that is from the past and it’s in their nature to want to know everything. So I can’t really ignore or be vague about it.
Unless you’re literally a rocket scientist, it’s going to be next to impossible to flesh out every single wing-nut, wire, and microchip that makes the technology in your world possible. It also might be a little boring for your readers, so what you should do is pick a few things your character will be interested in and pick something in particular about that thing to be fleshed out. That way you don’t have a character rolling out an entire spacecraft schematic and spending an entire chapter explaining how the spacecraft is able to fly.
You can look to examples from other science-fiction stories to get some ideas for how different technologies might work so that you have a starting point for research. You can also read some articles about up and coming technology to see what’s on the horizon and how it works. Here are some articles to get you started:
(First, let me apologize if I have yet to post for a particular genre you’re focusing on - I’ll keep with the daily GH updates as best I can and hope you find the inspiration / help you’re looking for!)
Hi, I'd just like to ask you for some advice on how you develop your OC's. I've been trying to start up a story for a while now but it's difficult for me to develop really believable characters and I just wondered if you'd have some advice on that. Thanks). xx
Hey, anon! I got this message while I was at work so I’m sorry if it’s a bit late! I can’t tell you exactly how I do it because some things just click into place and sometimes it feels like magic mixed with sheer dumb luck. But here is some of my advice to you!
Read:
Exploring someone else’s world, their paracosm may help to inspire your own.
The first major book series I read was Harry Potter (surprise, surprise), and when I was younger (though I am embarrassed to say, lord help me), I was in fact in love with Harry Potter, he made me happy (I also had a serious crush on Sirius Black @ baby me, wtf) so I used to imagine myself as a character in HP that came along and fixed all of Harry’s woes, I was his light, his princess in shiny kickass armor, and soon this fictionalized version of me took on a character of her own.
Fanfic & Retellings:
If anyone ever says fanfic isn’t ‘real writing’, they can bite me. Fanfiction is valid, you’re pouring your heart and soul into the work, and not just the work but the characters. As with retellings (of myths, fairy tales, etc.) the world and the characters were already built, but the moment you write for them, for that brief inexplicable moment, those characters are yours.
Let them be yours. And then let those characters spawn, let that world expand, and then cultivate those characters you find in that other world that are truly your own and bring them into your own world.
All in a name:
Sometimes seeing a specific name or even a word that reminds me of a name, conjures a picture or a voice, fills my head with this creature’s story. Knowing the meaning or the origin of that name can add to the back story and depth of a character (i.e. why did their mother or father or parent name them this?).
Sometimes, I have to find a picture first, seeing a model or an actress can sometimes give depth to a character because when you know what they look like on the outside, you can start building the inside or vice-versa when you have a character in your head all built up and then you find that one picture of that one model that completes them.
Research:
Characters are a by-product of the environment they live in much like actual people. If your character lives in a world where robots have become sentient and want basic ‘human’ rights, study robotics, philosophy, dystopias, when you’ve created a world, you can decide how your character is going to react to that world. Are they rebellious? Are they afraid of robots and must learn to get over that prejudice? Will they fight for robotic rights? Will they be the villains of the tale? What are they going to learn from this world?
History has always been an inspiring point for me, other and ancient worlds have always spoken to me so I research them, I get to know the people and the world, and then set my characters loose on it, how would they have reacted if they lived in a village that was hit by the Black Plague or taken over by Vikings?
Headcanons:
Create headcanons for your characters. If you see a text post on tumblr that says ‘imagine your otp’ than imagine your own characters. Play those headcanon games used for someone else’s fictional characters and play with your own.
Come up with a list of random facts about that character (i.e. Emily is the kind of character who will listen to Vivaldi when on a heist but prefers electronica on her days off. Her favorite color is periwinkle. She has a cat named Buffy [after the show], and her favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip.) Knowing all those tiny, seemingly insignificant things will bring depth to your character, those little things make us who we are.
Believability is subjective. There are going to be characters who are too good to be true, either they seem too perfect or they seem to imperfect. Use your own emotions and experiences to give credibility to a character, if there’s something in my life that I cannot control, that has significantly left a mark on me, it’s something I can deal with via my characters, I can work it out through them even though it might not work in real life. I can take my anguish and my sorrow and my humor and wrap flesh around it and send it off into another universe with another name.
I read recently (I think it was on maggie-stiefvater‘s blog) that writing characters is like writing a thesis paper and you’re trying to convince everyone reading them that they exist. I know I probably mangled that quote but I like it, and I think it speaks to what we do as writers. We make these worlds and these characters and we ask others to accept them, to believe in them, and love them.
I really hope at least some of this helped? It’s about 2am for me (I didn’t get home from work until after midnight) and I’m a little worried it’s all over the place, but I hope it makes sense!
Day 1 —Select a book at random in the room. Find a novel or short story, copy down the last sentence and use this line as the first line of your new story.
Day 2 —Tell about a character who lost something important to him/her.
Day 3 —Write about the worst time you’ve ever put your foot in your mouth.
Day 4 —Write a story/excerpt to include the line, “Sorry, we can’t insure you for a journey like that.”
Day 5 —Pick a letter of the alphabet. Now imagine two aisles of your local supermarket. List everything found in those two aisles that begin with that letter of the alphabet.
Day 6 —Write about a person who would buy all of those items in Day 5.
Day 7 —What sets you apart from the crowd?
Day 8 —Tell your life story from someone else’s point of view.
Day 9 —What was your favorite childhood toy?
Day 10 —What do you want to be remembered for?
Day 11 —What was your first childhood pet? Describe it in detail.
Day 12 —What is your favorite day of the week?
Day 13 —Write about a random picture you would find in an envelope of finished prints at Costco.
Day 14 —Elvis still gets 100 Valentines each year. Tell about one of the people who sent one.
Day 15 — Create a character who is falsely accused of a crime.
Day 16 —If we assume ghosts are real, what type of ghost would you like to see?
Day 17 — Write a short scenario set in the kitchen of a fast-food restaurant.
Day 18 —Take a reader behind the wheel with the worst driver you’ve ever known.
Day 19 —Write a list of 25 (or just 5!) things you want to do in your life.
Day 20 —If you could go on only one more vacation in your lifetime, where would you go and why?
Day 21 —Find a job ad in the paper. Write about your life if you had that job.
Day 22 —You wake up with a key gripped tightly in your hand. How did you get this key? What does it lock or unlock?
Day 23 —Pretend you’re a cartoon character. What type of a character would you be? What would a day in your life be like?
Day 24 —Write about the longest amount of time you’ve ever gone without sleeping.
Day 25 —Write a story about ‘What the Neighbors Saw.’
Day 26 —Write about your worst habit.
Day 27 —Make up a near-death experience (unless you have a real one).
Day 28 —You read about yourself in your brother/sister, girlfriend/boyfriend’s diary. What did you read?
Day 29 —You are at a cemetery reading gravestones. Write about one of the people you find.
Day 30 —Write a short entry that ends with the line, “The silver dust of moonlight settled coldly on the night.”
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There are two types of writers, Schopenhauer once observed, those who write because they have something they have to say and those who write for the sake of writing.
If you’re young and you think you want to be a writer, chances are you are already in the second camp. And all the advice you’ll get from other people about writing only compounds this terrible impulse.
Write all the time, they’ll tell you. Write for your college newspaper. Get an MFA. Go to writer’s groups. Send query letters to agents.
What do they never say? Go do interesting things.
I was lucky enough to actually get this advice. Combine this with the fact that I was too self-conscious to tell people that I wanted to be a writer, I became one in secret.
I’m not saying I’m great at it or anything, but I am a bestselling author at 26. I have a column with a major newspaper. I get paid to write professionally. A fair amount of aspiring writers email me about becoming a writer and I always say: Well, that’s your first mistake.
The problem is identifying as a writer. As though assembling words together is somehow its own activity. It isn’t. It’s a means to an end. And that end is always to say something, to speak some truth or reach someone outside yourself.
Deep down, you already know this. Take any good piece of writing, something that matters to you. Why is it good? Because of what it says. Because what the writer manages to communicate to you, their reader. It’s because of what’s within it, not how they wrote it.
No one ever reads something and says, “Well, I got absolutely nothing out of this and have no idea what any of this means but it sure is technically beautiful!” But they say the opposite all the time, they say “Goddamn, that’s good” to things with typos, poor grammar and simple diction.
Good writing saves nothing. On the other hand, a deep, compelling or stunning message can float writers who struggle to even complete a sentence.
So if you want to be a writer, put “writing” on hold for a while. When you find something that is new and different and you can’t wait to share with the world, you’ll beat your fat hands against the keyboard until you get it out in one form or another.
Everything that is good in my writing came from risks I took outside of school, outside of the “craft.” It was sleeping on Tucker Max’s floor for a year. It was working as Robert Greene’s assistant. It was working at American Apparel, watching the office politics and learning how to get stuff done. It was dropping out of college at 19. It was saying yes to every meeting and introduction I got, and hustling to get as many as I could on my own. It was reading dozens of books a month.
It was going to therapy. It was getting into pointless arguments. It was having friends who are smarter than me. It was traveling. It was living (briefly) in the ghetto. I was able to write about the dark side of the media because I put myself in a position to see it firsthand.
All these things gave me something to say. They gave me a perspective. They gave me a fucked up writing style that makes my voice unique. They gave me opinions that tend to piss people off.
It also gave me money and the marketing experience to make my projects a success.
I don’t know the first thing about how to write (as you probably noticed in this post). I nod along and pretend that I know what things like “subject” and “predicate” and “passive tense” actually mean. I mean, I think I have an idea, but it hasn’t held me back so far. To quote Schopenhauer again, “to have something to say” is “by itself virtually a sufficient condition for good style.” I’ll take grade school dropout writing passionately in his prison cell over some empty, superior Yale MFA any day.
Part of what I’ve said here is my opinion. There are many ways to become a writer and though my way worked for me, you may prefer a different route. So you can take that part or leave it. But another part of it is an undeniable change in the economics of the business of writing.
See, it used to be that getting “published” was the hard part. You had to impress some gatekeeper and that gatekeeper was an agent or an editor at magazine, at a newspaper or at a book publisher (all of whom were typically trained writers). Well, today there are essentially an infinite amount of outlets to feature your writing. And no matter where you ultimately do get your writing out, you’ll have to bring your own audience with you anyway.
Getting published is easy. Getting anyone to care? Well, that’s the hard part.
What matters more now than any other single thing is that what you’re saying is different–that it’s interesting, that it provokes some response from people. You’ll only accomplish this if you’ve got something you have to say. Better yet, you need to have something that you can’t NOT say. If what you’re writing is a compulsion rather than a vehicle for your display how smart and well practiced you are.
So think about it one more time. Is it that you want to be a writer? Or it’s that you have these things inside you that you want very badly to communicate to people and writing is the best way to do it?
Getting the answer to that question right is the day you really become a writer.
