Ill Keep Writing About Surviving Because I Don't Know What Else There Is

MASTERPOST (PT. 1)

Daily Writerly Updates! | Open to post requests & questions My Writing Tea & Tips Community: @@writing-tea-tips

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For worldbuilding, vocab lists, weapons &fighting, and more: MASTERPOST PART 2>>

❤️ Romance Writing Prompts

Meet-Cute Ideas

Reponses to: "How Could You?"

Responses to: "Break my heart." 💔

How would you develop a relationship that’s been constantly one-sided?

Enemies-to-Lovers Dialogue Prompts

List of Relationship Tropes <3

Library Romance Prompts

Arranged Marriage Prompts

Responses to: "I love you"

Soulmates AU Prompts

"I love you but I don't" Prompts

Romance Novel Tropes & Subgenres: a comprehensive list

The Romantic Academic

Forbidden Love Dialogue Prompts

Angry Love Confessions

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☕📜Writing Scenes

Scenes: The Basics🏕️

Structuring Your Fight Scene

Writing Funny (But Intense) Action Scenes

Ideas for Flashback Scenes

Writing The Perfect Kiss Scene

Fantasy Battle Scenes 101

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✧𑁍.ೃPlot Tips & Tropes

A Very Brief Outline of the Three-Act Structure

Plot Type 1: "The Quest"

Writing Text Conversations - follower question

Fairy Murder Method Ideas 

Gossiping Scene Idea Prompts

Child Eating Fairies Ideas + The Mysterious Cave Trope - follower question

Writing Political Intrigue

Comforting a Fire Girl Scene - follower question

Energize a Sluggy Middle

2 Types of Deaths in Fiction

Literary vs. Commercial Plots

Fantasy Tropes that I Love

Writing the Perfect Betrayal 

Writing Strong Opening Lines

Plotting Tips for Romantasy

Dark Fantasy Tropes List

Dark Academic Plot Must-Haves 

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✩₊˚.⋆☾ POV Related

1st vs. 3rd POV For Mad Characters

Emotionless Character POV

🧛🏻‍♀️Character Writing Tips

Redeeming The Bad Boy Character

How to Write Redemption Arcs 

Writing Diverse Characters - Things to Remember

Character Nickname Ideas

How to Write Liars Believably

Choosing the Right Character

Organizing Character Relationships

Writing 1st POV Character Fears 

Introducing Non-binary Characters

Teasing Sibling Dialogue Prompts

Writing A Drug Addict Character

No Redemption Villains

Emotions and humanity for the Non-Human Character - follower question

Writing Gangsters

Characterization: Unforgettable Characters

Human Feelings for the Non-Human Character

The Character Arc: 101

Emotional Mini BIO

Writing Autistic Characters

On Writing Blind Characters

Writing Homosexual Characters 

Establishing the MC-Reader Bond

Writing Child Characters Believably 

Toxic Parent Prompts

Writing Morally Gray Characters 

Writing the "Mean Girl" Character

Writing Introverted Characters

Strong Female Characters 

Fantastical Asian Monsters (Part I)

🕐List of Dirty Character Traits

Dark Backstory Ideas

Good Characer Traits to bad

A List of Toxic Traits for Your Character 

Character Names with Unfortunate Meanings

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MASTERPOST PART 2>>

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YOU’RE NOT DEAD YET YOU’RE NOT DEAD YET GET THE FUCK UP YOU’RE NOT DEAD YET IT ISN’T FUCKING OVER DRAG YOUR CORPSE KICKING AND SCREAMING INTO TOMORROW ONE DAY YOU WILL STOP SURVIVING AND START LIVING YOU ARE NOT FUCKING DEAD YET.

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Character Types for Your Next Story

Great ideas for characters will come and go, but there are always concrete character types that you can count on to carry a plot.

Check out the most common types to see if they're what you need to make your next story come to life.

The Protagonist

This is your main character. They're the central focus of the story, the person who resolves the main conflict, or the individual who grows with or from the story's theme.

You can also have multiple protagonists! 3rd-person POV stories/books often have at least two main characters because switching between their points of view furthers the plot, adds tension, or develops their world for the reader.

Examples: Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit; Claire Randall in Outlander

The Antagonist

This is your main character's opposition. They'll be the force against which your protagonist clashes to experience the conflict that results in their growth. Sometimes the antagonist functions as an obstacle for the protagonist to overcome. Other times, they're a lesson the main character needs to learn by the end of the story.

You can create multiple antagonists for one protagonist or multipel antagonist for a cast of protagonists. It depends on the story you have in mind and what POV you'll be using.

Examples: The White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Pennywise in It

The Central (Major) Characters

Central characters are what you would call the individual protagonists who make up your cast of characters. They all grow throughout your plot and are essential to the backbone of your story.

Examples: the seven demigods in the Prophecy of Seven in The Heroes of Olympus series; the multigenerational protagonists in Homegoing

The Secondary (Minor) Characters

Secondary characters are often called sidekicks or companions. They're part of your protagonist's life and is along for the ride with them. Although your plot might not be the same without them (if they're a love interest, family member, or another person close to your protagonist), they primary exist to develop the protagonist.

Examples: Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series; Cinna in The Hunger Games series

The Static Characters

Writers need static characters to essentially remain the same for plot purposes. These characters are typically unaffected by what's happening in the protagonist's life because they're one or two steps removed from it.

Alternatively, your static character can also be antagonist. They're actively involved in your protagonist's life, but they don't undergo any inner changes that result in character growth.

Examples: Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series (she remains unchanged because she has to be a constant source of conflict); Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (he remains unchanged because he represents morality and reason to Scout)

The Dynamic Characters

Dynamic characters change throughout a story. They're most often the protagonist or one of the main cast of characters because they are actively involved in the plot.

These could be your protagonist, antagonist, or any other character that undergoes some time of fundamental change.

Examples: Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol; Celaena Sardothien in Throne of Glass

The Flat Characters

Flat characters experience no change throughout a story. They may arrive at the end with a different opinion or goal, but they're almost identical to who they were at the beginning of the story.

Don't assume flat characters are boring or unnecessary! They always represent something for the protagonist or the reader. They can also be the antagonist!

Examples: Marmee in Little Women (she's a role model for her daughters and remains their true north throughout the book); Suzy Nakamura in American Born Chinese (she helps Wei-Chen face his complicated feelings about feeling like an outcast for his race by being vocal about hers, but that remains her sole purpose in the plot.)

The Round Characters

When someone talks about a round character, they don't mean the character's physical appearance. Instead, this phrase refers to a protagonist or antagonist's internal depth.

Round characters have complex personalities. They may contradict themselves sometimes or the people they love the most. These characters typically have full backstories and embody the phrase, "they contain multitudes."

Examples: Amy Dunne in Gone Girl; Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice

The Stock Characters

Stock characters are flat characters that resemble a stereotype easily recognized by readers. They're your geek teenager with oversized glasses or the best friend who is only there to be the punchline.

Sometimes these characters are written so well that readers don't mind the stereotype. It depends on their relationship with other characters in your story and if they only embody the stereotype up front. Successful stock characters eventually reveal the depth of their hearts or undergo developments that push beyond the limits of their stereotype.

Examples: Rapunzel (the damsel in distress); Alaska Young in Looking for Alaska (the manic pixie dream girl)

The Anti-Hero

Readers love anti-heroes because they're protagonists who start off as the worst version of themselves and grow into the best they can be. There are always external and internal obstacles for them to overcome, which may or may not clash.

They can also start off as versions of themselves that are inherently good, then become more like an antagonist but for the right reasons. Readers may still cheer them on and hope they revert to their previous good ways or read your story to watch your anti-hero follow their worst instincts until the world crumbles around them.

Examples: Dexter Morgan in the Dexter series; Patrick Bateman in American Psycho

The Foil

Typically, the foil in any story is someone who's opposite of the protagonist. They encourage the main character to grow throughout the plot by holding reverse opinions, world views, or values.

Examples: God and Satan in Paradise Lost; Lennie and George in Of Mice and Men

The Symbolic Character

Characters can be great by themselves, but many times they will represent something the author is trying to talk about through their work. A symbolic character is the representation of an aspect of society, an idea, or theme.

Examples: the raven in The Raven (symbolizes the narrator's grief and the presence of death in general); Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia series (symbolizes God/Jesus)

The Deuteragonist

Deuteragonists are also called the secondary characters. They're the closest characters to the protagonist throughout their journey. They give the story more depth, either through their close relationship with the protagonist or by working against them as or alongside the antagonist.

Examples: Edward Cullen in the Twilight series; Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio

The Tertiary

You'll rarely see a tertiary character more than a few times in a story. They're background characters that most often create minor conflict on the protagonist's journey with their primary conflict. Tertiary characters add depth to a story's world, but aren't essential to the plot.

However, tertiary characters are important! Without them, there would be no nosy server at your protagonist's favorite coffee shop or supportive librarian at your main character's library.

Examples: Parvati and Padma Patil in Harry Potter; Madame Stahl in Anna Karenina

The Love Interest

Ah, the love interest. They are the secondary integral part of any romantic plot line and may challenge the protagonist to grow through introducing new experiences or points of view.

Examples: Peeta Mellark in The Hunger Games series; Will Traynor in Me Before You

The Confidante

Characters who are confidants are literary devices that help the protagonist reveal their secrets, state of mind, intentions, flaws, and feelings while all of those things are actively changing throughout a story. They can also represent real-life relationships by maintaining a healthy friendship or a manipulative friend.

Examples: Horatio in Hamlet; Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings series

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Many of these character types merge to create stories with more depth. Defining your existing or future characters with these terms could help you figure out their role in the plot and how to make your story stronger by flexing the purposes of each type.

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NaNo Alternatives

Okay, real post time (but keep those boops booping) - You want to do NaNoWriMo tomorrow, but you don't want to go anywhere near the main organization and their website. Here's a list of alternatives you can try:

Rogue Writers - International group launched to provide an alternative for writers. Their website has challenges, free tools, and more.

myWriteClub - Word tracking tool.

Novlr - A writing app designed to help you meet your writing goals.

WriteTrack - Word tracking tool.

Shut Up and Write - Find in-person or online groups to write together with!

NoQuWriCo - A November writing challenge with tools, tips, and encouragement to make it through the month! (Thanks to someone letting me know - this is a Christian alternative. Try another if that does not appeal to you!)

Writing Month - Write. A Month. Do It.

Your local library - If you did NaNo events through your library, chances are they're still doing it this year. Make sure you check in with all the resources you've used in the past, as they're likely still around.

Whatever you decide to do tomorrow, good luck! And remember, if you want to still use the NaNo website but don't like their AI policies and the rest of it, just don't give them money! Laugh to yourself, evilly, as you update your word count. It's very validating.

(Now back to booping.)

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how could someone get started writing poetry? what are the skills to build and how can i build them? i’m scared i don’t have anything to say…… how can i find my voice?

An excellent and very common question! I can’t lay any claim to being a big poetry maven at this point—it’s been quite a while since I’ve written any, or even seriously READ any—but I can tell you some things I learned and some things I think, and I hope that will be at least a little helpful.

The first thing to note is that finding my voice and something to say was, in my experience, inseparable from living my actual life and thinking for myself. I was writing poetry from the age of 12 or 13, and only now, 18 or so years later, do I feel like I have anything of importance to say. And that only sometimes. It may work differently for other people, but that’s how it worked for me. I would advise you not to worry about your voice for now. The thing I was doing early on is PLAYING with language, trying things out, imitating writers I admired. Take the pressure off yourself!

As for the skills you need to build, the most important one by far is perseverance. Any artist will tell you this. You won’t write masterpieces straight out of the gate; no one does. You have to learn not to be discouraged too much if you look down and your writing and feel nothing but horror. That is a universal experience, and you won’t be able to write well if you can’t push through it somehow and keep going. The rest of the skills you need you can learn by imitation, constraint, trial and error, etc.

If you want specific instructions, see below. These roughly correspond to the way I learned to write poetry.

The first thing to do is to read a lot of poetry. Find an anthology with broad coverage and generous aesthetic guidelines, one that brings together a lot of different kinds of poetry. Flip through it. Read at random. As you do, some things will enchant you, some things will baffle you, some things will make you wonder why people think they’re good, and so on. Zero in on poems that really affect you, and note the poets. These will be your foundation.

Then, read more deeply in these poets that interest you. You’ll find as you read that each poet has patterns, tricks and maneuvers they do over and over again. Note them. And note the conventions of poetry in general—how line breaks are used, what rhythms keep emerging.

Once you have a good idea of at least how your favored poets work, try out their tricks for yourself. Write about anything at all, but try to follow your poet’s motions. As you do this, you’ll discover the interactions and tensions between form and content, and you’ll start to learn why certain topics in poetry take certain forms.

A helpful thing to do when writing anything is to set yourself a rule or two. Write against challenges—write in established forms, or confine your vocabulary, or whatever you like. This will focus your work and allow for creative leaps that would never have occurred to you if you were just trying to summon something out of nothing. Free writing can also help with this—if you’re forcing yourself to write nonstop for a period of minutes, something about the stream of consciousness can unlock unusual and striking connections.

Once you’re doing all that, the next step is just to live your life. But live it observantly, with an eye toward everything—your own feelings, physical objects, images, sounds, patterns. Absorb things. And while you’re at it, tackle some nonpoetic task or project that forces you to really think. As much as poetry is associated with feeling, what a great poem really is is the track of the poet’s thought laid down in as appropriate a form as possible, so that you think along with the poet as you read. Without thought, there is no poetry.

The synthesis and end of all these steps is not only writing poetry, but appreciating, understanding, and loving it. All of these things feed and fuel one another. It’s an engine you have to build within yourself. And if you’re successful, you’ll have enriched your life as well as your art.

I wish you the best of luck.

P.S. It’s fine to discover kinds of poetry or poets that you don’t care for, or dislike, or hate with a burning passion, so long as you understand what it is they’re trying to do.

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super simple low-effort ao3 summary methods that are 1000% better and 1000% less annoying than just saying you suck at summaries:

copypaste the first few lines of the fic. u already wrote 'em. let 'em be their own damn hook

if ur feeling fancy & don't mind showing ur hand a bit, copypaste the first few lines of the fic that u feel are esp. Important or Interesting - the ones where u first start getting into the real meat of things

state the main tropes! theyre probably already in ur tags - just say them again - maybe as a full sentence if ur feelin fancy. or with a joke if ur feelin Extra fancy

ask a question. pose a hypothetical. eg what happens if u take [character] and put them in [situation]?

make an equation. [character] + [thing] = [outcome]

just write like a one-sentence summary of what the fuck is going down. just one (1) sentence. doesnt matter if it doesn't cover every important aspect. or if it sounds bland. any summary sentence is gonna be miles better than "idk i suck at summaries"

just...explain the fic like u would to a friend? it doesnt have to be a polished back of the book blurb. it can just be "[pairing] coffee shop au, but like, still with murder, and also i made everyone trans. enjoy"

just stick a meme in there

honestly who cares

just put literally anything but a self deprecating comment in there & ur golden

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“omg you’re so creative. how do you get your ideas” i hallucinate a single scene in the taco bell drive thru and then spend 13 months trying to write it

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god I just. love ruthlessness as a character trait so much. sexy sexy sexy

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as a mexican i can’t help but laugh at how wrong some americans writing mexican characters get the way our name system works so lemme explain so you can get it right!

so most mexicans (remarking MOST because i do mean 99% of us) have TWO last names that come from our parents. it’s basically like this:

name / paternal last name (dad’s first last name) / maternal last name (mum’s first last name).

the first last name is ALWAYS the paternal last name, it always comes from the dad side of the family. there are some exceptions though. in 3 states of the country it’s already legal to put the maternal last name first but it’s very rare and usually only in special cases, like when the father is absent for example.

there are also cases where the person has only one last name but this is not only extremely rare but it can cause a lot of hardships with legal documentation like school, banks, etc. this can happen for some reasons:

1- they’re the child of a single parent (however, to avoid the difficulties that come with having one single last name some end up being registered with the same last names as the parent, but inverted)

2- they were registered in another country where they only have one last name (for example USA, a friend of mine was registered there and for that reason they only have one last name in their documents)

it’s important to mention that unlike american last names, the two last names are not separated by “-” they’re only separated by a space.

the last names are not necessarily one word, some have two or three. for example last names like “de la rosa” or “del olmo”

also, there’s no such thing as married name here. women don’t change their last names nor mix them with their husbands last names.

as i am aware, last names tend to work like this in all latin america but many specific details may be different depending on the country and i am not that well informed.

either way, i hope this helps anyone who’s developing a mexican character!

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*struggles while writing* i suck and writing is hard

*remembers some ppl use ai* i am a creative force. i am uncorrupted by theft and indolence. i am on a journey to excellence. it is my duty to keep taking joy in creating.

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