Writing advice from my uni teachers:

This is legit good writing advice, especially the first bullet point! In playwriting class we did a bit where every bit of dialogue had to be an accusatory question and it was glorious.

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

#it’s okay if you even have to spoil a little bit of the early plot twists#set the lure; cast the net [x]

Another good one is quotes. Either one line spoken by a character in your fic, or a brief interaction between two-plus characters. Eg:

Or:

Why is everything in fantasy worlds like ten thousand years old why can’t you write a story about something new

Werewolves were invented like five years ago. Nobody knows what that howling is.

Screw ancient orders. We’re founding an order of knights right now. You’ve gotta keep your knights busy or else they’ll raid and pillage the countryside.

I’m opening a magic library. We’re accepting donations of lightly used scrolls and magical textbooks.

“What ancient crypt is this?”

“This is my grandpa’s tomb. He’s not even dead yet. It’s got holes because we haven’t finished it. Please don’t break the sarcophagus. We paid a lot for it.”

i think because of the whole "writers write for themselves" notion that's becoming increasingly popularized, people forget that we still thrive off interaction and kindness. i write for myself but kudos and comments and bookmarks and really any sort of interaction with my fics genuinely motivates me to keep writing and keep sharing my works.

I talked with someone who works in book publishing, and they mentioned they get a lot of AI slop these days. I asked how they know what's human-written, and they said that there's one thing that will reveal AI slop without error, and that's the author not knowing their own creation.

A real author can talk about their story for hours. They love to elaborate every character, every twist, every detail. Because those existed in their head long before they ever made it to the paper. They were loved before they were written.

AI slop wasn't. It was just vomited into existence.

Someone who generates their story with AI will never bond with their story the way real writers do. That's why they may not know what to say when they're asked why did the character do this, or even remember the scene in the first place. It's something they read, not something they wrote. And to a writer, those are not the same.

There's a unique bond between the creator and the creation. If your writing doesn't come of you, you'll always lack that.

I keep hearing soon we won't be able to tell. And perhaps, in a superficial sense, that's true. But there is a difference. It's not em dashes or repeated words. It's whether the story was made by someone who loves it and cares about it.

If the writer's eyes light up when asked why did the character do that? and they start their very own Ted Talk about that specific scene...

then it's real.

what's that one thing where they asked how ripely from alien was so realistic and believable as a female character in scifi for once and they were like "well we just took the dude from the original script and made him a girl and changed nothing else. it works bc men and women are the same?" and people were like "woah no way" and then didn't learn anything from that for 20 years

"how do you write such believable men as a woman?" "how do you write such believable women a man?" and the answer people who are good at it always give is "i just write people. were literally the exactly the same. do you think the opposite sex is some sorta totally different animal???" and people respond "woah that's wild. yea i do. and im not gonna stop thinking that goodbye :)"

I recall they said the same thing about an Angelina Jolie movie that was originally written for Tom Cruise. "Salt" I think. Like, Salt was the surname of the character.

"A man once asked me … how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. … I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also." - Dorothy L Sayers

I want to read a story where one character says, "ok, weird way to propose, but yes," while the other one most definitely did not intend to propose.

"That's a thing your planet just... has? And you consider it normal? That's so weird, it feels like something you'd read in a sci-fi book..." "Well, we think the same thing about the tides on Earth."

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

other things I'm bitching about but which could still be useful as writing advice for 1 eyed characters:

2. they're going to favor their sighted side, obviously, but it doesn't always manifest in the way you think. when I walk down a hall I walk much closer to the wall on my sighted side than on my blind side. which is the opposite of how it might seem logical to do that bc it means the world at large is on your bad side, but the reason is I can't fucking See the wall if it's right next to me in the blind side and I end up knocking into it.

3. door frames and poles are my enemy. If your character is smart this will not be a problem but for me it is. I am King of walking into shit I could absolutely see but couldn't tell how far away from me it was. on this note, their blind side hand is getting bashed into every jutting out thing in a 5 mile radius.

4. having 0 depth perception is less of a big deal than you'd think it is. Especially with driving. I've become a Much safer and more wary driver because I can't tell how far the other cars are from me. however I fucking suck at parking now. because I can't tell how far the lines are from me either.

5. you know how people who lose limbs get phantom pains? that happens with eyes too but like. phantom sights. for me it's like. a lot of bugs. like every so often my brain will just put something suddenly skittering beside me there. hate that.

6. it is completely possible to "get stuck" somewhere because your ability to tell how wide a space is is just Gone. shopping isles especially where bumping something or Someone is matter of embarrassment or potentially breaking something. it can be legitimately paralyzing and also irritate everyone around you because they can tell there is Plenty of space for you to get your cart through even if you can't.

7. if the eye is still in their skull it can still be the normal kind of painful. Glares off of shiny surfaces causing weird sharp pains you can't figure out the cause of are genuinely one of gods greatest tests of my patience.

I too am missing my eye and have advice. But first:

OP I've been missing my eye for 18 years and because of you I'm just now noticing that my neck does in fact list left. Now I will live with that knowledge forever.

1) depth perception issues are more severe if you lose the eye on the same side as your dominant hand. I lost my left eye and am right handed, and only have problems with close-up things. Like pouring water or threading a needle. Sometimes putting the pump in for gas. Walking down stairs is a huge problem I have (walking up is fine), but unlike OP I don't have issues with doorways. Depth perception is different for everyone

2) I've completely lost my eye and need to wear eye patches, no fake eye here. People like me do still rub their "eyes." We also usually say "eyes" and "contacts." Except for comedic effect

3) the people that are in your life with regularity just... forget you have only one eye. Even if, like me, you wear obvious eye patches. This means they get confused when people asked what happened. They'll walk on your blind side and get snippy when you run into them. When my sister learned how to cross her eyes she ask me if I could do it, and it took so much coaching for her understand why my answer was no, and that I would not be "just trying." So don't write everyone around them constantly noticing. Most people don't

memes are fun and relatable and all that, but don't let them discourage you. all of that stuff that doesn't make it into the final product is part of how the final product gets made

SHOUT OUT TO WOMEN!!!!

"She wasn't the best mom" " she was a bad girlfriend" BOOOOOO!!! BOOOO!!! GIVE ME A FEMALE CHARACTER THAT DOESN'T HAVE TO DEPEND ON OTHER CHARACTERS TO BE A BAD PERSON

MAKE HER A LIAR

MAKE HER A TRAITOR

MAKE HER A COWARD

MAKE HER AN ALCOHOLIC

MAKE HER DISTRUCTIVE

MAKE HER EGOTISTICAL

MAKE HER A MANIPULATOR

MAKE HER SELF-VICTIMIZING

MAKE HER ANNOYING

MAKE HER A BAD RULER

I BEG

i don't want " bad mom" or " bitch" THESE ARE FEMALE STEREOTYPES, MAKE HER A P E R S O N

I love it when fan fiction writers are like: “ah shit, this was meant to be one part but I started writing it and now it has to be three”. Like the fanfic is happening to them and not being created by them.

Unfortunately all writing is like this

(chuckle) No it's not, thank Thoth.

(At least not around here...)

Tell us your secret!

It's right here. :)

...But also: I don't do muses* (which seem to be way too common a cause of this kind of problem). I run the local writing show. I don't try to blame its shenanigans on some invisible mischief-maker as a way to avoid taking responsibility for my own creativity.

Solid underlying structure, and (during the execution stages) discipline: that's the secret. ...And don't think there's not a lot of room for things to get busted loose inside that workflow! But at the end of the day, I'm the one with the whip and the chair... and story complies, or it doesn't make it out of the house.

*By which I do not mean the great Nine. I absolutely do honor them... but I don't think so well of myself as to try to drag them into my day-to-day process. I mean... would you ask the Buddha (when They turn up) to do the vacuuming? Please. 😏

On your first archaeological dig you uncover a skeleton with a notebook clutched in its arms. Recognition hits you as you realize that it is an exact copy of the journal that you have in your backpack, it even has the exact stain from when you spilled coffee on it this morning.

Villain: Skullkeeper the Vagabond

Setup: Talk to any veteran of the last war between the duchies and you’ll hear tell of a hulking warrior who fought beneath the banner of Clearwell keep. Plunging heedless into the thick of battle, rending apart foes and fortifications in his massive hands, and seemingly immune to the pain of the many wounds he suffered, this titan of war was a central pillar of Clearwell’s battle strategy for the three years of territorial conflict. 

This warrior is called Skullkeeper, though that was not a name he bore before he went to battle. Long had this giant dwelt in the greybough swamp, an expansive morrass that occupies much of Count Hearthworth’s southern territorial holdings. He was saught out by the fretful count when it became obvious that the feudal levies pledged to Clearwell keep would not be enough to hold against an approaching enemy force intent on ceasing the land.  Skullkeeper cared little for the affairs of men, but was swayed by the count’s promises of tribute and the offer of protection should Skullkeeper wish to travel in order to trade his goods or seek out a mate. 

Hearthworth, clearly, has gone back on his words. Made rash and insecure by the taunts of his fellow nobles over the fact that he couldn’t protect his realm without enlisting the help of a monster, the thin skinned count now seeks warriors to do his dirtywork and make his double-cross final. 

Adventure Hooks: 

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when a character is so badly hurt/sick that their demeanour switches up entirely