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What’s the most recent valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?
Almost everything I learned about writing is from my older sister. She’s legit one of my favorite authors and that’s not because she’s my sister it’s because her writing is just that good.
So, of course, I often ask her for advice. Recently I asked her if she had a tip on how I could improve my writing abilities.
And she suggested writing my favorite scenes from movies in a novel format. She said it greatly improved her writing skills, because of how you have to take the setting, characters, look, and feeling of the movie and transfer it into written form.
It stretches you to write better descriptions and set up a clear tone in writing as you can’t depend on visuals and music. Also to add inner monologue, you have to really study the character and their current state and feelings in the scene to write it well, as obviously movies don’t have an outright inner monologue, but rather show it through the actor’s face and body language.
Anyway, it’s a tip that my sister gave me recently that I thought I’d share. She also recommends writing the scene once, leaving it for a while, and trying to write the scene again and see if you got better at capturing the movie scene more accurately.
It’s a cool exercise that really helps with taking the story in your head and better capturing it in written form.
What about you? What’s a writing tip you received or learned recently?
Ohhh that’s a great piece of advice!! I’ll have to try that!
I’m not sure this is really counted as ‘advice’ or not, but once I was talking to my dear friend Elfwing. Now, she’s great at sticking with her world and exploring it in different books, kind of like Tolkien does. I, however, am the exact opposite. For me, there are just so many worlds to explore, so many places to venture, that once I finish a book, I have a problem with returning to that world. I’m not sure why I’m that way, I really wish I could plant my feet down in a series and just stay there XD @elfwing has really encouraged me to try exploring my current wip more and see if I can create any other stories off of that, so I’m going to try to keep my feet planted this time, even after I finish my world XD
"It's easy to be caught up in stardust and whispers when reality is so dark and loud."
@kathleenramm Hmmm most recently probably comes from my English professor. Probably: “If there’s an upper word count limit then it means that this assignment can be done very well and with quality in this word count or under.” I guess overall, length isn’t everything.
Oh, and there was talk about interpolation and sensory description and sympathetic fallacy, and using them to describe settings.
Lately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into daysSounds fascinating! what’s interpolation?
Sounds interesting!
That’s a great idea! I should try it! (might be what i need to improve my action scenes)
The most recent writing advice I got was from my husband (who actually hates writing, but it was sound) about how guys vs. girls talk. He works with very roughneck coworkers where they will insult each other and it’s a sign that they like you, it’s a little hard to explain. but he said that guys are less concerned with insulting each other than girls tend to be and may be somewhat ruder than girls — there’s always exceptions but playful insulting among guys is likely just them horsing around. (I’m not sure how far this would go, but basically insults that don’t go ‘too far’ I would imagine). (Just to inform you all really quick, I am 19 and got married last August, and we knew each other for a while… just so you don’t think a minor got married😊)
This piece of advice is not recent, but when I heard it, it really impacted me.
I saw a video of Neil Gaiman, as I knew he was a prominent author, I watched it. in the video, he basically said that in order to write great fiction, you have to be honest with yourself and show yourself in the good, bad, and ugly in your work, and that’s what will make it interesting to readers. In short, I’m pretty sure he was basically saying to show your humanity in your work, because that’s what is the most interesting. I didn’t paraphrase him perfectly, but it was something along those lines and it really blew my mind, and I thought that you all would enjoy it as well.
We crazy people are the normal ones.
@scoutfinch180 Interpolation is when your mind fills in the gaps, for example, you read a brief description of a character but a few pages later you already have their face in your mind. It’s pretty cool!
Lately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into daysWow! that’s really cool! I didn’t know that that had a name!
(breif sidenote on recent writing advice in my previous post: Many guys have strong senses of justice and are less concerned with the idea of killing someone if they deserve it than a girl).
We crazy people are the normal ones.
Something that I saw somewhere (I can’t remember where) is that when you’re writing about pain, you don’t want to write about the pain itself so much as how it affects the person. Looking back at scenes that I’ve written, the ones where I put more effort into conveying how the injuries physically and mentally affect the character have more of a punch. It causes more of a reaction from the reader if you describe them this way rather than just glossing over it because you’re showing them how painful it is and why they should care about the character’s injuries. And I think that readers are more likely to take the story seriously if you make the injuries convincing, and don’t just have characters brushing off things like dislocated shoulders and the like.
Great success often depends on being able to distinguish between the impossible and the improbable.
That sounds fun! I’m like you in how I don’t usually stay in one world very long. Usually just one book. Probably because after each book I want to try something totally different.
What current world are you working on right now? Have you made any recent developments with it?
ooh, yeah, I really learned the lesson of word counts when I started participating in short story contests. It’s kinda crazy how much the story improves when you cut out as much as you can.
Interpolation, sensory description, and sympathetic fallacy are all things I really want to learn more about. They really play a huge part in how immersive and vivid a story is. But I feel like they aren’t talked about very often in the writer community. Well, at least in my corner of the internet.
Did your English professor make any interesting comments on those subjects?
lol I can totally understand the girl vs guys talk. My two younger brothers and I get along well and are quite close, however we “insult” each other like it’s our part-time job. But I think it’s a sign that we trust each other and are close. If people can make couple not very nice jokes about each other and it not taint the relationship at all, that means you trust each other and the relationship is pretty strong. Or maybe it’s just a sibling thing. I’m totally sure.
I really like Neil Gaiman’s advice. I feel like if you aren’t willing to be vulnerable and honest in your writing, it comes off too polished and bland.
Have you read any of Neil Gaiman’s books?
That’s a great point. We as readers can much more relate to the feeling of pain rather than a specific type of injury. Unless it’s like twisting your ankle or something like that lol.
But yeah, stories that take injuries seriously are way more intense and interesting. Like if earlier in the story you showed that a stab wound has no big consequences, how am I supposed to care when the character gets stabbed again?
Like no joke, one show I watched a character’s vital organs got stabbed so many times throughout the show that it eventually became funny to me. (Note, this wasn’t a fantasy world were they have magical healing powers) And like, next episode he’d show up like nothing ever happened like, bruh. Writers really be wild with their fight scenes.
@kathleenramm Hmm not really. He focused on other stuff haha.
Lately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into daysThat’s a great point. We as readers can much more relate to the feeling of pain rather than a specific type of injury. Unless it’s like twisting your ankle or something like that lol.
I think the point is to not explain something that people already understand.
But yeah, stories that take injuries seriously are way more intense and interesting. Like if earlier in the story you showed that a stab wound has no big consequences, how am I supposed to care when the character gets stabbed again?
Exactly. Even if you’re emotionally attached, you still need a reason to care.
Like no joke, one show I watched a character’s vital organs got stabbed so many times throughout the show that it eventually became funny to me. (Note, this wasn’t a fantasy world were they have magical healing powers) And like, next episode he’d show up like nothing ever happened like, bruh. Writers really be wild with their fight scenes.
Oh dear…
Great success often depends on being able to distinguish between the impossible and the improbable.
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