[ DEADSHOT - A WIP. ] 

The 8 Laws of Foreshadowing

Hey, a chart! This is inspired by an ask I got (I’m gonna be honest, I promised the person I’d tag them, but then sent the reply before I wrote down the URL. So, if I told you I was gonna tag you in this, tag yourself!!)

WHAT THEY CALL GOD.

Cain sighs heavily, the cigarette held loosely between his fingers as he rests his forehead against my bare chest. “God, Dima,” he murmurs, his voice thick with self-loathing. “I fucking hate myself.” 

“Good,” I mumble, fumbling with the bottle of vodka. The bed is soft under me as I lift it up to my lips and take a long draught. My other arm goes around his shoulders and presses him to me. “You should. You’re a fucking asshole, Cain. You’re unlovable. No one loves you, and no one ever will. You’re lucky that I let you love me.” 

“I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me,” Cain quotes, almost dreamily, as he presses a kiss to my chest.

“Christ, I fucking hate you.”

taglist: @just-george-here​ @whorizcn​ @semblanche​ @emdrabbles​ @aepreall​ @sol-writes​ @agnodice-writes​ @farrradays​ @nallthatjazz​ @birdquils​ @latrantem​ @sunlight-and-starskies​ @vandorens​ @asherscribbles​ @romanticsrn​

Huevember -green

tried writing, ran out of ideas, please have this snippet until I conjure up motivation to finish it

How I Wrote A Novel.

This, in a nutshell, is what I did to get a book with my name on it.

NOTE: This is just my personal way of making the words go. Other people have different ways to make their words go. In the world of words, there are no right answers. There’s just lots and lots of tea/coffee/tear stains.

1). The Idea

When I get an idea for a story, I open up a document, label it “Brainstorming,” and start making a bullet list of events that consist of the plot.

It has to be an idea with tangible weight. A stray bit of dialogue or something vague like Halloween, that doesn’t give me much to work off of. Halloween creatures living on the same street where it’s Autumn every day- now that’s something I can build from.

What kinds of creatures are they? What do they do? What do their houses look like? The best ideas are the ones that spark more.

2). First Draft

This is the easy part- and the most challenging. Easy, because there’s literally no bar. I just sat there and typed. But it’s a huge mental challenge.

When I was in first draft mode, I wanted that story out. I thought that by making it such a rough, far-away version from the concept in my head, I was only delaying the day where I’d hold it in my hands. Turns out, that’s what got it to take on physical form in the first place. So I quieted down, grabbed my laptop and some hot tea, and typed.

3). Dissecting the First Draft

After I finished draft one, I printed it all off and highlighted the scant amounts that were passable for the next phase. Dialogue, descriptions, setting- anything that didn’t look like it was up to par was scratched out and omitted.

I call the above pictures A Slow Descent Into Madness.

4). The Second Draft

On a fresh document, I rewrote the story altogether- and it make a difference. I was coming up with things I hadn’t even thought of previously. And it was surprising how much better the plot was than the first time around. But it was still rough.

5). Draft Three

My method was to start with the bigger, more obvious issues and work my way down. Any plot holes I found were noted, and my outline was constantly under revision. I cut out entire scenes and made mental notes on ways they could be fixed/replaced.

This is where I started cutting chapters in half to make the story flow better- but I didn’t bother writing in usable chapter titles. Instead, I improvised:

6). Drafts Four and Five

These were dedicated to correcting the smaller, less obvious plot holes. This was the point where the story finally started to look close to what would become the final version.

7). Drafts Seven Onward

With the story line looking how I wanted, I then moved on to sentence structure. That one song that looked terrible? Rewritten. Over-the-top descriptions and excessive prose? Gone.

8). Editing and Proofing

This is where I had outside help. Besides this useful tool, I had two people check for spelling issues and the overall story. Once it was in decent shape to be made public, I asked for some additional help.

9). Betas

My betas were in the age range that my novel was geared toward, along with a couple of teachers and parents (as it was middle grade). I gave them the full manuscript, along with seven basic questions like “Which characters were your favorite/least favorite and why?” and “Was there a part of the story that didn’t make sense?”

I gave my betas three months to read a 42,590 word story, and by the end they gave me back the review sheets.

10). Final Adjustments

After I read over the reviews, I let the comments sit for three days so that I could proceed with a clear head. I smoothed out any flaws, scanned over the MS twice to make sure everything was right, and that is how I got to the end of writing my first novel.

Next comes publishing- which is a different beast entirely.

Obligatory Scenes and Conventions

Today I want to talk about Obligatory Scenes and Conventions™️ 😱 These are things that often writers, particularly new writers, don’t like … all that much.

Why?

Because they are …

Obligatory Scenes and Conventions™️ 😱

Okay, they aren’t all that bad for all of us … but some of us go out of our way to avoid them because they feel so contrived, and it ends up just hurting our book 🙄 (#guilty).

So what are obligatory scenes and conventions?

They are the stuff, the elements, that are “obligatory” for your genre.

Meaning, if I’m writing a romance, I need to write a first kiss scene. If I’m writing a murder mystery, I need to write about the discovered body at the beginning. If I’m writing a superhero origin story, I need to show how the superhero got his or her powers. And if I’m retelling Sherlock Holmes, I better have his deductive reasoning in it.

In some genres, the conventions are really obvious:

Others are a lot less noticeable.

But every genre has them.

Shawn Coyne, an editor with over 25 years of experience, has noted that many writers he works with try to avoid writing obligatory scenes. They feel they are stupid or even “cheesy.” Writers may try to leave them out in order to write something “fresh” and “original.”

But this is sort of like saying you are going to be “fresh” and “original” by ignoring the “Show, don’t Tell” rule, and instead “tell” your whole novel. In fact, it’s like saying you will be “fresh” and “original” by disregarding any writing rule.

In reality, it isn’t ignoring the rules that makes you great, it’s understanding and respecting them, and then knowing when to break them. Ignorance rarely, rarely, rarely (I used it three times, so I hope I get the point across) leads to “fresh” and “original” content. In fact, ignorance most often leads to poor content.

And yet writers often want to try to leave out the “rules” of their genre. Sometimes it’s not because they want to be original, but because they want to be surprising. But this doesn’t work.

Why? Because the most surprising things are surprising because of conventions.

What’s more “surprising,” a story where you don’t have any grasp or idea of where it is going, or a story where you think you know where it is going before it twists a different way?

The most satisfying surprises come not from disregarding conventions, but from flipping, twisting, or inverting them. From breaking them.

In order to create true surprises, the audience must have some kind of expectation. We need to understand and respect the conventions, first.

It’s like that with every rule in the arts.

You have to know the rule inside and out before you can break it.

One of the most important aspects of writing surprises is that the surprise isn’t a disappointment. If you ignore the obligatory conventions instead of respect them, you are more likely to disappoint. After all, the reason your audience is drawn to your genre in the first place is because of the conventions. Surprises usually work better when they are more than what the audience expects, and they almost never work if they are less than what the audience expects. But I don’t want to spend too much time on surprises–if you want to know more about them, check out my post “5 Types of Surprises.”

For some of us writers, obligatory scenes and conventions can be a little annoying. A few months ago, I saw a romance writer lament on social media something along the lines of, “Just HOW many ways can you write a first kiss?!” After writing several romance books, it can be hard to think of new ways to portray it.

But while originality doesn’t usually come from ignoring the conventions, it can come from respecting them.

HOW many ways can you write a first kiss?

As you struggle to write it a brand new way, you may well breathe some originality into the story. Because again, what makes something feel satisfyingly original often isn’t something that has no relation to any conventions, but rather something that bends, twists, and properly breaks conventions.

In order for something to feel “fresh” and “original,” the audience has to have some kind of expectation–formed from what they’ve seen before.

As you respect and bend obligatory scenes and conventions in satisfying ways, your target audience, immersed in their chosen genre and surprised over a sense of originality, may not even notice them for what they are.

For example, in a typical fantasy story, at some point, the protagonist must face some sort of hellish creature or entity. In old stories, this is your traditional dragon. Usually this creature is in the earth or underground, or at least comes from somewhere deep and remote or secluded. In old stories, this is related to tunnels or caves, a sort of symbol of hell, which is “beneath” or “downward”–the underworld.

If you look at some of the most famous fantasy stories, you’ll see this convention respected in some way.

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Hey I love your blog, it helps me a lot and now I've a question myself. How can you write about older people while you're still young yourself? The main character of my story is 43 years old but I'm 17... I try to pay attention to how her life experience has shaped her personality but sometimes I feel like she seems too much like a teenager. Have you ever written about characters older than you? And what helped you the best to make them realistic? Do you have any general tips on writing adults?

Thanks for asking, this is a good question, and I like that your MC is much older than you. You'll learn a lot by writing them.

I've written for a number of ages, and aside from some extremely minimal research online, I just started paying attention to other people. I watched films about X age group, read books by/about X age group, listened to interviews of adults with certain fields and backstories, listened to people older than me at work, listened to customers, neighbors, relatives, my own parents. Kids are tougher since I don't know many little kids, but just asking questions of teachers and family friends gave me insight into the lives of people older than me.

Once you know what a person is like on the inside and why, writing their dialogue and behavior is a piece of cake. Surely you know some adults or can look up some public figures and study their lives, dialogue, and behavior. Base your character off several real people and they will come across as more authentic.

THE POST-APOCALYPTIC WESTERN SCIFI THING!!!!!

shes here!!! shes arrived!!!!!! and im so excited, thank u all for taking the poll, its definitely helped a lot from figuring out what the bad guys are doing to even naming everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!! hopefully this all makes sense skjdnflsdf;sd

shes struggling with a title rn so i might have a poll up for helping with that too………this is just The Poll Wip

tagging some friends + writeblrs who may? be interested? maybe??? lmk if u would like to be added or taken off <3

@emdrabbles @whorizcn @alicekaiba @vandorens @evergrcen​

Plot Doctoring: 9 Steps to Build a Strong Plot

Like the main event itself, NaNo Prep is always better with an incredible writing community around you. Luckily, our forums come with such a ready-made community. Inspired by the Plot Doctoring forum, we asked Derek Murphy, NaNoWriMo participant, to share his thoughts on plotting, and he outlined his 9-step plotting diagram:

Here’s a truth: you must write badly before you can write well. 

Everybody’s first draft is rubbish. It’s part of the process, so don’t worry about it. The writing can be polished and fixed and improved later, after NaNoWriMo, during the editing stages.

What most writers get out of NaNoWriMo is a collection of great scenes that don’t necessarily fit into a cohesive story—and that’s a problem if you want to produce something publishable.

Nearly all fiction follows some version of the classical hero’s journey: a character has an experience, learns something, and is consequently improved. There are turning points and scenes that need to be included in your story—if they are missing it won’t connect with readers in an emotionally powerful way. And it’s a thousand times easier to map them out before you write your book.

Keep reading