Q:So, I've been debating asking this for a while, I was curious about how you got into writing, and how do you get better at it? And do you have any recommendations for resources to help improve writing? I found myself needing a creative outlet outside of work, so I've been trying to write my own fics. I feel so frustrated with my attempts so far- I have all these ideas but no way to effectively communicate them. Any advice at all would be wonderful (if you have the time to give it, of course).

a-tear-in-the-veil

aban-asaara:

I’m so glad that you asked, and touched that you thought of me! ♥

In all honesty, I don’t remember ever getting into writing – for me, it was the natural progression of all those stories I used to tell as a little kid. I roleplayed with friends for years over chat or even just by handing each other a notebook or writing pad (those were the days), then eventually found my way to fandom and cut my teeth on fanfiction for a while before attempting original fiction.

That said, I had to get back into writing after a pretty bad creative sprain a couple of years ago. I fell back into fandom around that time, and met a lot of wonderful writers here who helped me improve and redefine my process and my relationship to writing. Here’s what I’ve learned since and that I really wish I’d known a decade earlier (keep in mind that this comes from someone who hopes to write professionally one day, so feel free to pick and choose the elements that work for you, and to the degree that works for you):

If you do only one thing on this list, do this: write, write, write, write, write. There’s no shortcut. (I’m sorry.) Writing doesn’t involve muscle memory or building calluses, so it feels like you should be able to jump right in and succeed, but it’s really just like any other craft: practice makes perfect, or at least good enough, which is what any of us can hope to achieve. You still need to go through the equivalent of studies for artists or scales for musicians; you have to start somewhere, and the more you do it, the easier it will get. Fandom events or writing challenges are great since the enthusiasm and effervescence that builds around them can be very motivating, but you can also simply pick a prompt list and go through them on your own (here’s a prompt list I worked with last year; here’s another). I try to write every day, though that’s not always possible, and certainly not required. I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique these past couple of months, since it helps me stay focused longer, but building stamina takes time, so start by setting small goals for yourself: fifteen minutes or two-hundred-fifty words, for instance, and build up from there (this bullet point alone is about that long, for reference). Challenging yourself is all well and good, but if you fall short every time, you’ll only end up discouraging yourself. And remember to take a break when you need it!

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Q:1) Growing up, I was told if you don't understand something in a book, look it up. Words, terms, anything. (ebooks are amazing for that). Either way, I read scifi just fine; don't need to know what a whatsamajig is but trust that the writer does. But I'm getting "What does this term mean" comments in my WIP even while Google exists. I can't tell if they think I don't know, or if they feel they need to be spoon fed a definition. So where does the trusting of readers stop and the explaining begin?

Anonymous

writingquestionsanswered:

2) Is it a matter of “it should be explained in context always at some point”? For example, a paleontologist speaking to another paleontologist during a “get to know our characters” scene wouldn’t say “I found a Parasaurolophus mandible the other day” and then go onto say “That’s the lower jaw of an herbivorous crested duckbill.” But that’s what I’m being questioned about, more or less. (Whether or not the term is plot-significant.)


Defining Unusual Words for the Reader

Whether your story uses made up words, foreign words, or special terminology of any kind, the definition of those words need to be clear to the reader, whether you do that directly or in context. Direct definitions don’t always work. They tend to work best when another character needs something defined for them. If your paleontologist was speaking to a young student, it wouldn’t be so strange to follow that up with the direct definition as you did in your example. But if your character is speaking to another paleontologist, that obviously wouldn’t work. One paleontologist wouldn’t explain something that mundane to a colleague, so you have to find a subtle way to do it for just the reader, and that’s where contextual clues come into play. 

In the case of your example, contextual clues will be a bit trickier because it doesn’t sound like the object is actually present during the discussion. If it was, you could do something like this:

“I found a Parasaurolophus mandible the other day.” Ellie led her colleague over to the rock wall and ran her hand over the protruding portion of the jaw, relishing the remains of broad, flat teeth, perfect for chewing plants. She could just imagine one of the impressive crested duckbills pulling up a water-logged clump of marsh grass and chewing it down to nothing.

When an object isn’t present, you can rely on the character thinking back to when it was present. So, Ellie could think back to when she found it, and the contextual clues can be offered in memory. 

And, in truth, you could just leave it at “protruding portion of the jaw” and leave it to the reader to decide whether or not they want to look up what a Parasaurolophus is. The point is that they know it’s a dinosaur jaw, and that should be enough to keep them from asking what it is. :)

Source: writingquestionsanswered

brynwrites:

‘Shitty rough drafts’ doesn’t mean your rough draft is bad, it just means:

The rough draft is the shittiest version of this story you’ll ever write.

You may feel like the rough draft you’re writing is an awful, terrible mess, but it probably isn’t as bad as you think it is. (Or you may feel that it’s a fantastic piece of writing right now, and worry what it will look like to you tomorrow.) No matter your feelings in the moment though, this story will never be worst than it is now. 

It only gets better from here. Your writing only gets better from here.

So keep writing, and keep writing rough drafts, shitty or otherwise.

(via owlsofstarlight)

Source: brynwrites

Q:Hello there ! How we can describe cyberpunk clothing in story ? Those details and accessories seemed definitely hard to write for me

dearofninjasdeviant

I have to say that I’m always desperately searching for some good cyberpunk sources and there’s so few posts. You can find what I have in my http://the960writers.tumblr.com/tagged/cyberpunk tag but it’s precious little I’m afraid and mostly images.

How you want to describe the clothes depends very much on what style you want to follow. If you look at images of cyberpunk, they usually fall into the sexy with tech department or they go towards android/human hybrids. In some cases, it looks more like armor or like wearing the control unit of the machine in Aliens. 

Personally, I would always go from practicality and purpose. For the most part, clothing is meant to cover us, protect us from the elements, and carry our stuff. With cyberpunk, you add technology to it. Depending on your worldbuilding, clothes can be full on wearable systems or a network for connecting modules. 

When you design these things for your worldbulding, you should think about energy sources, connections to the outside world and upgrades and interchangeability. 

Where does the energy for the systems come from? Battery packs? Kinetic energy converters? Body energy converters? Inductive energy receivers? Wireless charge?

Are there standards by country or cooperation? Can systems be interchanged? 

Do you have systems woven into cloth or are there modules attached to the clothing and plugged into connectors?

Once you have these things specified for your worldbuilding, I would describe them from different point of views. For instance: The wearer can talk/think about the creaking of artificial leather because it’s thicker and can carry more modules, while another prefers the lightness of cybersilk because it connects directly to their skin-nodes. From the outside they could describe how someone seems to have thrown tight clothing with bulky modules together with a loose cape that acts as a receiver for wireless power transfer.

In general I would only describe clothing if it makes sense in context. Meaning: a hacker might describe how the cyber-modules look because they interested in connecting to them but a normal user might just describe how comfortable it looks.

I hope this helped.

ai-yo:

maythefouettebewithu:

chasingcarz:

aelin-godkiller:

Hey can I just say that it’s utterly fucked that George RR Martin and Patrick Rothfuss are revered as gods of modern fantasy writing when neither of them has been able to produce a book in years and they also can’t write women

plus George RR Martin just copied wars of the roses

and Rothfuss made a legit plot point that Kvothe fucked a fairy for months

I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy these books, because I do, but I am just saying that I read fantasy books 10x better by women all the time. 

meanwhile, there are so many female fantasy authors who produce brilliant work, but because it is marketed towards women, it’s either YA or it’s paranormal romance (BOTH OF WHICH I STAN OK) and therefore doesn’t get considered “serious” fantasy even though they have better world building, magic, and writing style than most “masters of the genre.”

like, why is it that fantasy books written about women and by women are ONLY READ BY WOMEN AND MARKETED TO WOMEN, meanwhile fantasy books written by men about men are READ BY EVERYONE AND MARKETED AS THE NORM. 

like male fantasy nerds are just sleeping on Ilona Andrews because they write about women and add a romance plot line, meanwhile Kate Daniels is one of the best damn fantasy series I have ever read with some of the best world building and plotting e v e r. 

And I’m not implying that authors have to produce 3 books a year to be serious authors, but it’s a bit ridiculous that the fantasy genre and pub industry keeps pushing asoiaf and kingkiller chronicles at us when we don’t even have a date for the sequel. WHY DON’T YOU PROMOTE BOOKS BY WOMEN WHO KNOW HOW TO WRITE GOOD FEMALE CHARACTERS?? WHY NOT PROMOTE FANTASY BOOKS BY AUTHORS OF COLOR??

WHY IS FANTASY ON THE SAME WHITE MAN BULLSHIT ALL THE TIME????

image

Originally posted by stevienicsgifs

One of my favorite fantasy series of all time is N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. In which every book in the series has won a fucking hugo award! but do you see it getting the same amount of press that these male fantasy authors do? no. and that pisses me off because her books have such amazing fleshed out female (and male) characters and a complex world. 

Honestly we need to get the N.K. Jemisin love train moving and get the Broken Earth and The Inheritance trilogy fandoms popping

Where are the fandom wikis??

(via theherocomplex)

Source: aelin-godkiller

Stories are like pancakes

wrex-writes:

Look, your writing doesn’t say anything about you.

I mean, it comes from you. But whether you write something good or something bad, it doesn’t mean anything. A story isn’t a sign. It doesn’t prove your talent or lack thereof.

A story is something you make, not something you are.

To return to a metaphor I used once: think about making pancakes. Sometimes you turn out an A+ pancake, and sometimes you burn the shit out of one. You make another one, they all go in the pile, and there’s always someone who enjoys the burnt ones. You would never take a single pancake and say it alone represents your pancake-making talent forever, or that it reveals how smart, interesting, or lovable you are. We can’t judge your soul by a pancake. It’s made of batter.

And someone always eats the burnt ones. 

(via hollyand-writes)

Source: wrex-writes

dawen-nightmaiden:

ao3commentoftheday:

better-late-than-nevah:

thedeviantkitty:

Me: *Goes through ao3 tag*

Me: *Reaches the end*

Me: *Goes through ao3 tag with lower standards*

Uh, what happens on the third go-round? #askingforafriend

that’s when you start writing your own

Here’s the order:

*goes through AO3 tag, completed only*

*goes through AO3 tag, completed and WIP, rereading the really good completed ones*

*goes through AO3 tag, completed and WIP, with lowered standards and maybe branching into crossovers if applicable*

*give in to the inevitable and write your own*

(via ladykittenfair)

Source: thedeviantkitty

reeseweston:

pippastrelle:

ghostzzy:

reminder to myself about the process of drafting & revising:

  • first drafts are for making it exist
  • second drafts are for making it functional
  • third drafts are for making it effective

This is the most important thing I’ve learnt in writing my novel. Have fun the first time but know your first pass isn’t going to be perfect

Good stuff! Also will remember those numbers are not concrete; if it takes you three or thirty drafts, that’s fine either way. Only you can be sure how many drafts you need.

(via amandra-c)

Source: ghostzzy