Good Writing Is Supposed To Evoke Sensation In The Reader - Not The Fact That It Is Raining, But The

Eight rules for writing fiction: 1) Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2) Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3) Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. 4) Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action. 5) Start as close to the end as possible. 6) Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of. 7) Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. 8) Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

– Kurt Vonnegut

I’m curious to see if any of my follwers will do this for me? Is anyone actually interested or should I stick to writing advice only?

My Home Library: The Meme

As requested, I have put together a meme based on my Home Library posts. You can do all of them, but feel free to skip a number if you don’t own any books relevant to the day’s prompt (just replace it with an idea of your own). Take a picture, write down the stories attached to the book(s) in question, go nuts!

1. “The System” (example). 2. Favourite female writer. 3. Favourite male writer. 4. Bought on location (where the writer lived, the book takes place, the movie adaptation was shot). 5. The largest and the smallest book you own. 6. Complete works of one author. 7. Favourite poetry collection 8. Favourite biography. 9. Favourite cookbook. 10. Favourite graphic novel. 11. A book you didn’t understand at all. 12. “One of these things is not like the others” (inconsistent editions within a series, like so). 13. Best bargain. 14. Most recent purchase. 15. Favourite lay-out design. 16. Book you bought because of the title. 17. Book you bought because of the cover design. 18. Multiple translations of the same work. 19. Multiple copies of the same work. 20. The funniest book you own. 21. The most expensive book you own. 22. A recurring interest/theme. 23. A book you read so many times that it fell apart. 24. A book you think everyone should read. 25. A book that made you cry. 26. A book you would prescribe for an aspiring author. 27. A cover design you hate. 28. A book that was a waste of your time. 29. Favourite book from your childhood. 30. The book with the most pages in your collection.

Creative writing prof: You’re in control. You’re the puppet master. You control these characters - what they do, what they say, what they think-

Every writer I know: My characters stopped listening to me and now I’m 8272836 words in to a plot that went of the rails on page 3

Sorry for lack of posts guys, it's been finals week. I've had four papers due and most over ten pages.

Please spread and donate.

WHAT TO DO AFTER FINISHING A FIRST DRAFT.

Revise a different draft.

Write a new piece.

Read a craft article. (LitReactor.com is pretty good!)

Read a short story or book.

WHAT YOU SHOULDN’T DO AFTER FINISHING A FIRST DRAFT.

Revise it.

WHY NOT?

You have to be as detached from a draft as you possibly can when you polish it. You have to be able to trim the fat from your baby and take out all those words, sentences and fragments that are stopping it from being a great story. I’m sure those words you used are beautiful and they sound amazing, but if they’re stalling the plot they have to go.

HOW DO I KNOW WHAT TO KEEP AND WHAT TO THROW AWAY?

Read! The best way to know what a perfectly paced story is like is to read one. There’s no black-and-white, two-plus-two way to answer this, but this is what works for me:

Avoid adverbs, those words that tend to end in -ly.

Keep descriptions to a minimum. People are interested in your story. If they want to see what a place or person is like they go to Google images. If they come to you it’s because they want to be entertained.

Change passive voice sentences to subject-verb-complement sentences. You will get the same idea across in less words.

FINAL TIP

Try not to make changes on your first pass! If your word processor has a comment function use that to write the changes you need to make. If you read and edit at the same time you’ll be doing two things at once and you’ll get tired much quicker.

FINAL FINAL TIP

Enjoy yourself! You’re an artist. Write and revise for yourself. Love it.

I know, once again art instead of advice, but @janeopries ugh just look at this. Look at them!

Close up WIP of a commission for @sinedra! ♥

Author Recommendations #1

Genre: Fantasy (No Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, or C.S. Lewis but they are good and should be checked out.) -David Eddings Books: The Belgariad and the Mallorean series. -Tamora Pierce Books: The Immortals and The Song of the Lioness series. -Rachel Hartman Book: Seraphina -Dawn Cook Books: First Truth, Hidden Truth, Forgotten Truth, Lost Truth -Holly Black Books: Tithe, Valiant, White Cat -Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Books: Hawksong, Snakecharm - Martine Leavitt Book: Keturah and Lord Death -Tanith Lee Books: The Claidi Journals -Colleen Houck Books: The Tiger Saga -Peter S. Beagle Book: The Last Unicorn, Two Hearts (story) If you'd like more then let me know.

That random person you met online and now is a big part of your life

@sinedra

Friendly reminder that fan-made content (fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc) are:

extremely time consuming. Remember someone actually took time out of their life to create that, time they could’ve used to, idk, sleep, for example

entertainment you’re consuming for free. I can’t stress this enough: you’re enjoying someone else’s craft for free. You paid exactly zero money to look at/read/watch it.

S H A R E D  with you, not made for you. This is the most important point: someone created that, put it online and you found it. No one forced you to consume that fanwork, you C H O S E  to do it. 

Whenever you feel like leaving a mean comment, anonymous hate or make a ~clever post about how ‘lol look at all of these overused tropes every fic writer crams into their fics’ remember you’re being a dick to someone who shared their work with you. You’re not being funny, you’re not being edgy, you’re not being brave for calling something out - you’re being a dick.