I literally only have one rule in my writing and it is this:
No matter what I put my characters through, they make it. They get to make it to the end of the story and have everything work out and be ok.
Because that’s the story I need. So it’s the kind I write.
If you want a piece of writing advice: write a story that is what you needed to hear at whatever age your target demographic is. I can guarantee you there’ll be someone out there who needs to hear it as much as you did. And maybe you’ll help them the same way someone else’s story did for you.
For some reason, this hit home and I never realized it that I did this for my stories too
you know what actually pisses me off? when I finally start to feel a smidge of confidence in my writing ability and then some JERK POSTS A SINGLE LINE FROM A TERRY PRATCHETT NOVEL AND IT’S BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE NO MATTER HOW MANY MILLENNIA I SPEND TRYING!
Terry was a professional writer from the age of 17. He worked as a journalist which meant that he had to learn to research, write and edit his own work very quickly or else he’d lose his job.
He was 23 when his first novel was published. After six years of writing professionally every single day. The Carpet People was a lovely novel, from a lovely writer, but almost all of Terry’s iconic truth bomb lines come from Discworld.
The Colour of Magic, the first ever Discworld novel was published in 1983. Terry was 35 years old. He had been writing professionally for 18 years. His career was old enough to vote, get married and drink. We now know that at 35 he was, tragically, over half way through his life. And do you know what us devoted, adoring Discworld fans say about The Colour of Magic? “Don’t start with Colour of Magic.”
It is the only reading order rule we ever give people. Because it’s not that great. Don’t get me wrong, very good book, although I’ll be honest I’ve never been able to finish it, but it’s nowhere near his later stuff. Compare it to Guards Guards, The Fifth Elephant, the utterly iconic Nightwatch and it pales in comparison because even after nearly 20 years of writing, half a lifetime of loving books and storytelling Terry was still learning.
He was a man with a wonderful natural talent, yes. But more importantly he worked and worked and worked to be a better writer. He was writing up until days before he died. He spent 49 years learning and growing as a writer, taking so much joy in storytelling that not even Alzheimer’s could steal it from him. He wouldn’t want that joy stolen from you too.
Terry was a wonderful, kind, compassionate, genius of a writer. And all of this was in spite of many many people telling him he wasn’t good enough. At the age of five his headmaster told him that he would never amount to anything. He died a knight of the realm and one of the most beloved writers ever to have lived in a country with a vast and rich literary tradition. He wouldn’t let anyone tell him that he wasn’t good enough. And he wouldn’t want you to think you aren’t good enough. He especially wouldn’t want to be the reason why you think you aren’t good enough.
You’re not Terry Pratchett.
You are you.
And Terry would love that.
I only ever had a chance to talk to Terry Pratchett once, and that was in an autograph line. I’d bought a copy of The Carpet People, which was his very first book, and he looked at it with a faint air of concern. “You realise that I wrote that when I was very young,” he said, in warning.
“Yes,” I said. “But I like seeing how authors grow.”
He brightened and reached for his pen. “That’s all right then,” he said, and signed.
look, im just a slut for some magical exhaustion okay give me your whumpees overusing their magic and having physical repercussions from it, bloody noses, unable to stand, getting progressively weaker, utterly exhausted and spent !!
bonus points: if they know they are running low on magic but they have no choice but to keep using more until they just collapse
bonus bonus points: if their magic is somehow connected to their life force!!
Uncanny valley=things that aren’t normal almost getting it right
Third person limited view
Limited explanations
Rot, mold, damage, age, static, flickering, especially in places it shouldn’t be
Limited sights for your mc -blindness, darkness, fog, refuse
Real consequences
Being alone -the more people there are, the less scary it is
Intimate knowledge, but only on one side
I don’t know I just write scary things but I don’t know what I’m doing.
Rule of Thumb: your reader’s imagination will scare them more than anything you could ever write. You don’t have to offer a perfectly concrete explanation for everything at the end. In fact, doing so may detract from your story.
WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT PRO WRITING AID BEFORE?! THIS THING IS FUCKING GLORIOUS. HOLY SHIT. LOOK AT THIS.
IT GIVES YOU A WHOLE DAMN REPORT ON YOUR WRITING AND WALKS YOU THROUGH HOW TO MAKE IT BETTER AND WHY IT IS SUGGESTING CHANGES. THIS IS JUST A TINY CHUNK OF THE HUGE REPORT IT GAVE ME ON THE FIRST CHAPTER OF ONE OF MY PROJECTS. I AM IN LOVE.
AND IT WORKS WITH SCRIVENER. AND IT IS AFFORDABLE.
WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME?!
Seriously, a couple hours with this and my first chapter is so much better. It helped me see problems I KNEW I had (passive voice, showing vs. telling, adverbs) but was having a hard time sussing out. It has made editing so much more fun and easy because now I know what the hell I’m doing and what to look for instead of stumbling around blind shouting “adverbs? adverbs?” like a town crier. I can already tell I’m getting better at seeing things without the program having to show me too.
people that dont have characters squawking in their heads constantly always tell me how much they wish they could write characters like me because “theyre so alive and well rounded and full of depth!” and im just like thats because that bitch is really in my head the only thing keeping her from crawling into existence like a child of athena are the laws of nature
“While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.”
These are a few of the weird and wonderful things I learnt writing my first fic, The Real Great Perfumers.
Please feel free to add your own revelations …
#1. You can change your mind
Just like any other run of the mill consulting criminal, you can decide to change your mind about killing a character. Yes. No. Yes. In fact, it’s much more important (if you are going to kill them) to do so when it makes sense as the story progresses rather than when/where you originally thought you would.
#2. There are consequences to incapacitation
If you are planning on incapacitating one of your characters, seriously consider how this will affect their subsequent physical activities before you do it. A large amount of alcohol (or in my case, a catheter to the penis) is not particularly conducive to vigorous sexual activity … or any activity really …
#3. Inconvenient lube can provide a very convenient plot twist
Unless your characters are superheroes and can conjure the snip of a lube cap opening out of thin air, they are going to face the same logistical challenges as regular people. Rather than magically solve their problems for them, see if they can find a way through the sticky situation themselves (yes, pun intended 🤗).
#4. Reader input is awesome
Your readers trying to guess what happens next or telling you what they thought was going to happen can lead to some truly wonderful plot inclusions (cue entrance of a warm, cuddly Detective Inspector on vacation).
#5. Remember to have fun
Finally, the more fun you have, the more fun everyone will have. Write when you feel like writing, be that 5K words without editing at 3am in the morning, or a single hastily scribbled line of dialogue in a notebook. Allow yourself to daydream about your characters just as you did BEFORE you self-inflicted the paralyzing pressure of writing a multi-chapter fic. And always remember why you are doing it – coz you fucking love these characters, their story, and this awesome fandom!
I cannot emphasize enough how much you need to read thoroughly through the terms of any publication before you send your writing to them. It is mandatory that you know and understand what rights you’re giving away when you’re trying to get published.
Just the other day I was emailed by a relatively new indie journal looking for writers. They made it very clear that they did not pay writers for their work, so I figured I’d probably be passing, but I took a look at their Copyright policy out of curiosity and it was a nightmare. They wanted “non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide license and right to use, display, reproduce, distribute, and publish the Work on the internet and on or in any medium” (that’s copy and pasted btw) and that was the first of 10 sections on their Copyright agreement page. Yikes. That’s exactly the type of publishing nightmare you don’t want to be trapped in.
Most journals will ask for “First North American Rights” or a variation on “First Rights” which operate under the assumption that all right revert back to you and they only have the right to be the first publishers of the work. That is what you need to be looking for because you do want to retain all the rights to your work.
You want all rights to revert back to you upon publication in case you, say, want to publish it again in the future or use it for a bookmark or post it on your blog, or anything else you might want to do with the writing you worked hard on. Any time a publisher wants more than that, be very suspicious. Anyone who wants to own your work forever and be able to do whatever they want with it without your permission is not to be trusted. Anyone who wants all that and wants you to sign away your right to ever be paid for your work is running a scam.
Protect your writing. It’s not just your intellectual property, it’s also your baby. You worked hard on it. You need to do the extra research to protect yourself so that a scammer (or even a well meaning start up) doesn’t
steal you work right from under you nose and make money off of it.
Exclusive publishing rights have to have a set time frame! Do not agree to anything that doesn’t clearly state “up to five years from signature” or something like that.
What if the publisher goes defunct? What if they get bought by another publisher who doesn’t care to promote or publish your work? You still can’t to anything with it, you don’t own it anymore!
Consulting Witch 