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Forums > Member Help > Guides

Writing Tips

May 25, 2018 10:28 AM

a m b e r

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Disclaimer: If you ever find a writing tip that they say has no exceptions, you should never listen to it. In other words, writing tips ALWAYS can be twisted and broken.

However, the reason writing tips exist is for writers to GRASP a certain concept. You must master the concept to start breaking and playing with it.

For example, art. You MUST learn the anatomy before you decide to stylize it and make it your own. Otherwise, it's just... not good.

I am NotanExpert, but I hope you find these helpful. Be aware that there are exceptions to all of these, but it's important to know them first, which is why these are here.

Please post if anything helped you or if you want something to be covered. If you want critique on your piece, feel free to post it here; looking at critique from other people can be very helpful. If you want to keep it private, feel free to PM me. I will critique and see what can be made better by breaking it down.

Edited at May 25, 2018 10:35 AM by a m b e r

Writing Tips

May 25, 2018 10:49 AM

a m b e r

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Epithets

If you don't know what an epithet is, it's like a little description tag. For example:

Loki, the God of Mischief

Athena, the gray-eyed

Liberty, the paint horse

the male

the taller man

For the most part, don't use them when the epithet is not relevant. Otherwise it's just unnecessary and jarring. Take a look at this:

"I love you," said the blond man.

The reason that "the blond man" part is unnecessary is because you don't have to know that. Like first of all, who cares? And second of all, it completely doesn't fit the mood. Epithets are just clinical and ugly.

However, you may need to know it for context or to differentiate new characters.

"I love you," said Thor to his wayward brother.

He turned the corner, only to see two men waiting there; the taller one cracked his knuckles, stalking toward him menacingly.

Based on the epithet in the first example, you can probably figure out that Thor is saying he loves his brother even though he's terrible. In the second one, you don't know their names, so the epithet's relevant.

Don't use epithets to replace someone's name/pronoun repeatedly. It's OKAY to repeat their name or pronoun!!!

Edited at June 9, 2018 11:40 AM by a m b e r

Writing Tips

May 25, 2018 11:09 AM

a m b e r

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Change your sentence structures.

As you may know, there are several types of sentences:

Simple: He cried.

Compound: He cried, and then he threw a fit.

Complex: He cried because he was upset.

Compound-Complex: He cried, and then he threw a fit because he decided to be exceptionally obnoxious.

Longer sentences and clauses tend to slow down the action. It's like a movie scene where they do slow-mo and have muted music.

Shorter sentences are fast and quicken the action.

You will need both throughout your piece accordingly.

Edited at May 26, 2018 09:31 AM by a m b e r

Writing Tips

May 25, 2018 11:19 AM

a m b e r

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Posts: 1154
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How to punctuate dialogue correctly

What is a dialogue tag? These are things like he said, she screamed, he whispered, she remarked.

WRONG: "No." she screamed.

WRONG: "No," She screamed.

It's one sentence still, so it should be a comma, not a period.

The second one's wrong because why should "She" be capitalized?

RIGHT: "No," she screamed.

RIGHT: "No." She screamed.

The first one is the most common. It's saying that she's screaming the word "no".

The second one is saying that she says "no" and THEN screams. So this depends on what you want.

This happens in other punctuation marks as well:

RIGHT: "No!" she screamed. (She screams it)
RIGHT: "No!" She screamed. (She says "no" and then screams)

These are NOT dialogue tags: he laughed/chuckled, she smiled, he jumped, she drank.

This is because you cannot laugh words, smile words, jump words, or show words through drinking. It makes no sense. Therefore, the character must have spoken before or after that action:

WRONG: "Thanks," he laughed.

WRONG: "What?" she smiled.

RIGHT: "Thanks." He laughed.

RIGHT: "What?" She smiled.

Edited at May 25, 2018 11:20 AM by a m b e r

Writing Tips

May 26, 2018 07:11 AM

Former Pack

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"No." She screamed.

This is too vague. A line break makes sense in this case, but this would be for two characters.

"No."

She screamed.

"She screamed" is a dialogue tag and the reader would expect to see "No!" she screamed, or "No!" She let out a scream.

Writing Tips

May 26, 2018 09:29 AM

a m b e r

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Catoctin Furnace said:.

I see; I had wanted to clearly differentiate the two and how the two "right"s differ instead of focusing on the words, but you are completely correct that that should be used instead.

Thank you for your clarification!

Edited at May 26, 2018 09:33 AM by a m b e r

Writing Tips

May 29, 2018 12:02 PM

a m b e r

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Motivations

If you're struggling to make your audience care for your character, give them a motivation. As Kurt Vonnegut said, "Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water." This is immensely helpful in moving the plot and making the audience root for that goal, so if you're struggling to move the story forward and have a purpose, make sure that your characters have something they want. They probably have one, even if you don't realize it.

This works in RP posts, too. Give your character a goal. I suppose this is why crushes are so popular in RPs -- not only do they tie your character to others, but essentially, it is a motivation.

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