Tips And Advice - Tumblr Posts

You have any particular thoughts or rules you follow regarding violence or gore in writing? Certainly your own writing touches darker stuff like the occult and mythological, which often comes hand in hand with the occasional murder, dismemberment, etc. Your works sometimes have violence but others barely at all. What's too much? Is there a too much? How do you find that sweet spot, like with the Corinthian, where it's jarring and shocking but doesn't get an eye roll?

Mostly my rule is that if I do it, I mean it. If there's going to be violence then it will have physical and emotional results in the story. Beyond that, I just try and tell the story.

Writing Tips - Masterpost

From someone with a degree in this sort of thing (the writing and editing, that is).

I've had a list of tips kicking around for the longest time, from way back in my earliest days of hanging out on Fanfiction.net and reading fanfiction day in and day out. I've also read a lot (and I mean a lot) of published fiction in my time, as well as studying at college how to write better fiction and then edit it, for myself and others. So I can't help but notice things crop up in fiction I read online.

And, as usual, what is a Tumblr for if not throwing my opinion on the internet?

So I present to you my list of Writing Tips. Some will be geared predominantly toward fanfiction, but I will try to apply most, if not all, of the entries toward general fiction where I can.

And as with anything an editor tells a writer, ultimately it's up to you whether or not you take my advice. You do you.

The entries are now linked below, and this list will continue to be updated each time I add another writing tip in the future.

1. The Dictionary

2. The Thesaurus

3. Common Word Mix-Ups

4. Beta Readers

5. Google Can Help (checking foreign words)

6. Punctuation

7. Dialogue Tags

8. Show Don't Tell

9. Accents

10. Tense (past, present, future)

11. Points of View (first, second, third, limited vs. omniscient)

12. Purple Prose

13. Research

14. Keep Notes and Reread

15. Constructive Criticism

16. Breaking the Rules

Writing Tips Pt. 1 - The Dictionary

Use a dictionary.

That word you’re 100% certain about? Might not actually mean what you think it means.

I’ve read several stories where an author frequently uses a complex word incorrectly, because it happens to be close to (but not quite the same as) a different complex word. It doesn't have to be that complex, either. I've seen someone constantly swapping "duel" and "dual" before (hint: duel is a fight between two people, while dual means two or double).

Even when you’re absolutely certain you know what a complex word means, double-check it. You’ll thank yourself later.

Writing Tips Pt. 2 - The Thesaurus

Similar to the first tip, use a thesaurus (in conjunction with a dictionary).

It's easy to fall into the trap of using the same words constantly when you write, and this can result in your writing feeling a bit samey. So use a thesaurus to shake it up a bit and help vary your language.

BUT.

Don't overuse the thesaurus.

A thesaurus is a good tool for finding creative variations on certain words so you don't start to sound too repetitive, but there's such a thing as going too far. Not every word in the thesaurus is going to be a perfect one-to-one swap. You can end up saying something unintentional, or completely losing the meaning of what you intend to say, if you overuse it.

Obligatory example: through middle and high school, I wrote stories, and wanted to shake up my writing because I'd heard that "said" is overused (it's not, by the way, but more on that another time). So I had a character shouting something, but because I didn't want to say "he shouted," I hit up the thesaurus.

And that's how you end up as a 13-year-old writer who describes someone angry as "ejaculating" their words.

So make sure that if you're using the thesaurus to swap words, you double-check the meaning of any word you swap to in order to avoid embarrassing yourself or confusing others.

Writing Tips Pt. 3 - Common Word Mix-Ups

People mix up words all the time. It happens. Even when you're checking with a dictionary, even when you're sure the thesaurus hasn't led you astray. Sometimes it happens that you just don't know how to spell a thing, but you're just so sure you spelled it right, so you ignore the spellchecker. Sometimes the spellchecker can't help you because the word you wrote instead is still a valid word.

I know, it's the worst.

There are, of course, the most obvious ones. The ones everyone points out. To/too/two, their/there/they're, your/you're, etc. Here are some others that have come up in things I've read. (This is long, I'm sorry.)

breath/breathe, loath/loathe, wreath/wreathe, bath/bathe, etc.

These ones are unfortunately extremely common, so here's a tip for you: if you add an 'e' to the end, it becomes a verb. That's all you need to remember to get these right every time. Loath is an adjective, breath, wreath, and bath are all nouns, but if you add an 'e' to them, that final 'th' becomes a softer sound, and the word becomes a verb.

You don't "take a breathe of fresh air" or "breath heavily after exercise," friends. (And ouch, that was painful to write.)

would have vs. would of, and related

This one really grinds my gears. I keep seeing "would of," "could of," and "should of" in writing that's meant to be taken seriously (fiction, articles, what have you), and it annoys me because it's just wrong. It's people not knowing what contractions are, or that those specific phrases are contractions, at the very least.

What you want is would've, could've, and should've. They're pronounced just like the typo, but are grammatically correct.

peeked/peaked/piqued

He peeked around the corner.

His physical prowess peaked at twenty, and only went downhill from there. (or) The meter peaked at fifteen, far too close to the red for his liking.

His interest was piqued.

Peeked relates to looking. It's a tiny look. Just a peek.

Peaked relates to something spiking, like a mountain peak. The topmost point.

Piqued relates to irritation or excitement.

In the case of interest, which is where I keep seeing the wrong word ("his interest was peaked"), you're exciting someone's interest, not causing it to reach its topmost point, though I can at least understand the mix-up.

pore/pour

Pore means to read or study with steady attention, to ponder intently.

Pour is what you do when you dump stuff out of containers.

I would much rather see you pore over your documents than pour over them. That just sounds sticky.

wreak/wreck

Wreak means to execute (as in to carry out).

Wreck means to smash and break things.

You wreak havoc when you wreck my stuff.

elude/allude

Elude means to escape, evade.

Allude means to refer casually or indirectly.

He didn't come out and say it, exactly, but he alluded to the method that allowed him to elude the authorities for years.

phased/fazed

Phased refers to stages or states of being.

Fazed on the other hand means "disconcerted, worried, or disturbed."

The change of venue didn't faze her in the slightest. The change of phase did, though.

If someone is unflappable in the face of unusual happenings, they remain unfazed.

weary/wary

Weary means you're tired. Exhausted. Just DONE.

Wary means you're apprehensive, nervous, untrusting.

Picture yourself on a bus, standing next to a guy who just won't stop talking. If you're weary of him, you're tired of his yammering and wish he would shut up. If you're wary of him, you're afraid his constant chatter is hiding something ulterior, such as a distraction from pickpocketing or angling to get your phone number so he can try to talk you into a date.

due time/do time

Due time means eventually.

Do time, on the other hand, means going to prison.

You will do time all in due time, my criminal friend.

wander/wonder

Wander means to roam aimlessly.

Wonder means to think or speculate curiously, or be in awe of something.

If you wander too long, you might wonder where you are.

lightning/lightening

Lightning is electrical discharge from the sky.

Lightening means to grow lighter.

It's a one-letter difference that the spellcheck won't catch, so I'm not surprised this happens so much. Still jarring, though.

Like lightning.

couldn't care less/could care less

Here's the short of it: if you could care less, that means you do care a bit.

affect/effect

This one could really be its own entire post, but I'll give it the short treatment here.

Affect is a verb.

Effect is a noun.

(Except when they're not; that's why it could use a whole post.)

Affect is causing change, while effect is what happens when change is caused, to put it simplistically. To remember the most common uses, just remember that Affect is an Action. (They both begin with A.)

loose/lose

Loose means not secure, not tight.

Lose means to misplace or get rid of something.

If your laces are too loose, you might lose your shoes.

canon/cannon

Canon is what is standard or fundamental within a body of work (such as the canon works of a religion).

Cannon is a very big gun.

Another one-letter difference, and I see this a lot in fanfiction when people refer to what is canon (meaning what is considered standard or fundamental in the original work) and what is not.

Let's just say that if you have a headcannon, we're not talking about what you believe about that work.

And I'll just drop this link here.

awe/aww/awh

Awe is an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc.

Aww is what you say when you see something cute.

Awh is an odd variant for aww I've only ever seen in fanfiction.

discreet/discrete

Discreet means not obvious, being circumspect, respecting privacy. It's where the word "discretion" comes from.

Discrete means separate and distinct.

If you aren't discreet in your dealings around cannibals, you might end up in discrete parts.

defuse/diffuse

Defuse means to remove the fuse (de-fuse) as of a bomb. To disarm something, like a bomb or a tense situation.

Diffuse means to spread out evenly.

If you aren't careful when you try to defuse a bomb, you may end up diffusing it instead.

shudder/shutter

Shudder means a convulsive movement, such as from cold or dread.

Shutter is the opaque, solid covering for a window or, sometimes, a door. It can also mean "to close up," as in those same solid coverings.

I shuddered when I closed the shutters over the window in preparation for the storm.

past/passed

This one's a tad trickier, because they're actually similar.

Passed is only ever used as the past tense form of the verb "to pass." I pass you now. I passed you a while ago.

Past, on the other hand, can mean a few things. It can reference time (before the present). It can also reference something spatial (run past something), and this is where it sounds very much like passed, unfortunately.

If you run past someone, you have passed them.

definitely/defiantly/definately

Definitely means certainly.

Defiantly means daringly or boldly in resistance.

Definately is just a typo. Your spellcheck will catch this if you haven't gummed it up with typos.

She definitely stood defiantly against typos like "definately."

bare/bear

Bare means exposed. Like naked.

Bear means to lift, hold up, or stand firm. It's also a furry woodland creature.

He couldn't bear to bare his soul to the shaved bruin. It was a bare bear, after all.

grisly/gristly/grizzly

Grisly means horrible, gruesome, grim.

Gristly means resembling or containing gristle, which is cartilage.

Grizzly means somewhat gray, or gray-haired (usually in the form of grizzled). It's also a furry woodland creature.

The grizzly bear came upon a grisly scene of carnage, thanks to his mate trying to cut up meat that was too gristly.

for all intents and/intensive

For all intents and purposes means, basically, "the same effect or result as something else."

For all intensive purposes just means that the purposes are intense.

free rein/free reign

Free rein means to let a horse have more control, to not pull back on the reins in order to direct them. This is the correct version.

Free reign sounds like it should be correct, given it relates to rulers, but it isn't. Kings don't have to ask if they're allowed to set the rules.

I know that was long, but hopefully it helped to demonstrate some of the word mix-ups in a way that will help anyone who struggles with them.

Writing Tips Pt. 4 - Beta Readers

Since I just had a long post about commonly mixed-up words, many of which would escape a basic spellcheck, how do we handle that (and other writing gaffes that the most basic of tools will miss)?

You get a beta reader. Or hire an editor or proofreader. Or sign up with a publishing company that will assign you an editor.

Beta readers, editors, etc. can generally do a few different things for your writing, which is something you will need to discuss for whoever you sign on to help you out. Whoever it is, though, make sure they're someone you trust to actually know English well—or whichever language you'll be writing in—since the idea is for them to help you with your writing and catch the mistakes you make.

If English is not your first language, make doubly sure to get a beta reader who is fluent. Yes, Google Translate can be fairly decent, but you should still have someone fluent check it over, if only for the grammar.

Writing Tips Pt 5 - Google Can Help

I mean, Google can help with a lot of things (research for one). But in this instance, I specifically mean for checking words and phrases from other languages. Because sometimes you need to throw in something that doesn't originate from English (or whatever your native language is), and you might not know how to spell it correctly. Or you're using a word in English but aren't quite sure of the spelling but you do know what it sounds like. So what do you do?

Not wing it, that's for sure.

Please don't wing it.

Let's say you're writing your story, and suddenly your word processing program underlines a word in red because it doesn't recognize it. Well, this makes sense in our hypothetical because you've just typed a word in a language other than English, and your spellcheck is set up for English words. So your spellchecker doesn't know what you mean by "kitson" or "Wa-La" or "persay" or "sauter."

Don't just assume you got the spelling right on the first try if this happens. I've seen plenty of stories with those exact typos in them (yes, really), and all I can figure is that the author went, "Oh, the spellcheck doesn't know this word. That's fine. I'll just add it to the spellcheck dictionary now." That would be fine, if they had the word spelled correctly on the first try.

Thing is, it's kitsune (Japanese word for a fox spirit or multi-tailed fox), voila (origins from French for "see there!"), per se (from Latin, "by itself"), and solder (a soft metal used to join things together with the application of heat).

But if you put these into your spellcheck dictionary instead of doing a quick Googling to find out what the correct spelling is, you're going to just shoot yourself in the foot, as now the spellcheck won't point out where you keep misspelling it in the future, even if you do learn how to spell it correctly but just slip up occasionally. Just Google the word. It will usually give you the correct spelling for what you're looking for.

And should Google fail you? Ask around. There are writing forums you can ask on. You might know of a teacher you can ask (especially if you're still in school). Ask a knowledgeable parent or a well-read friend.

Example: I do not speak French. I do know there are phrases that people will use that come from French, though, and I wanted to use one of them in a story since there was a character with a French accent who regularly sprinkled such things throughout his dialogue. Thing was, I hadn't the foggiest notion how to go about spelling this phrase.

So I did the next best thing. I Googled "nes pa French," since I knew it was French and had an idea of the pronunciation. And Google returned results that showed it's properly spelled n'est-ce pas.

Voila, correct spelling achieved.

Writing Tips Pt. 6 - Punctuation

Punctuation is another common trip hazard for beginning writers. The most common fault with punctuation that I see is the misuse of commas, whether it's including them where they aren't needed, forgetting them where they should have been used, or using them in place of more appropriate punctuation.

For starters, commas aren't sprinkles. You aren't dusting them onto your prose for flavor. They should be used to break up phrases within a sentence where one would naturally pause, but don't use them every place you pause if you speak like Captain Kirk. They also go between elements in a list (and while I'm a huge proponent of the Oxford comma, fight me, I won't force you to use it as long as you're consistent).

While they aren't sprinkles, they aren't poison either. Please don't give me a solid brick of text with absolutely zero punctuation whatsoever. Punctuation won't bite. It won't come to your house and beat up your dog if you use it. Promise.

And for the love of Pete, please don't use commas where other punctuation would be more appropriate. I've seen far too many sentences strung together with commas when they should have been broken up by periods, or at the very least semicolons. Are the two sentences related in thought? Semicolon. Are they just different enough? Period. You should not be using a comma to connect full standalone sentences.

For example:

His jaw clenched, she could hear the teeth grinding from across the room.

Bad comma use. Those are two distinct sentences. Much better to do the following:

His jaw clenched. She could hear the teeth grinding from across the room.

The two sentences are also related enough that you could connect them with a semicolon, like so:

His jaw clenched; she could hear the teeth grinding from across the room.

If you absolutely insist on the comma, you need to edit the sentences to work with the comma, like so:

His jaw clenched, and she could hear the teeth grinding from across the room.

While we're at it, be aware of where punctuation should be relative to quotation marks. In American English, which is what I use, commas and periods go inside the quotation marks, while exclamation points, question marks, and ellipses depend on whether they're part of what's being quoted or not.

And learn correct apostrophe use. It's used for contractions and possessives, but not, and I repeat not to make something plural. Apostrophes are not to signal "watch out, here comes the S!"

Don't be this guy:

And remember to go sparingly on the use of ellipses and hyphens to represent someone stammering. It's far too easy to fall into the trap of overusing them. I used to do it all the time myself. I'm not saying not to do it, of course. Just...be aware of how often you use them for that purpose.

Writing Tips Pt. 7 - Dialogue Tags

First and foremost, "said" is not dead. Let me just get that out of the way.

Of all the things that will trip readers up when reading dialogue, the use of "said" and character names are at the bottom of the list. These are safe. By all means, use them.

"But wait," you say, "my dialogue still feels stilted and forced!"

Well then, let me bring up a few other common mistakes that might be the cause of your woes, friend.

Are all of your dialogue sections structured the same way?

"What are you doing?" Diana asked. "Catching fish," John said. "But it's not fish season," Diana said. "The fish don't know that. I'm going to catch them by surprise," John said. "The fish aren't even there," Diana said. "Oh, you're right." John said.

The problem with this section of dialogue is that every line is paced the same way. Someone says something, and then there is a dialogue tag. The novice writer (myself included, once upon a time), would think the solution to this was to change what tags were used (he replied, she queried, he interjected, she retorted), or add a bunch of adverbs (she said testily, he questioned confusedly, she responded sarcastically) to try to spice it up, and consider that good enough. But that just highlights how stilted the dialogue is.

Instead, vary the pacing of the lines. Change up the structure a bit. Also, include actions in lieu of dialogue tags, so that not only are you not saying "said" almost every line, but the reader also gets to see what's going on during the scene besides just a conversation. And if you want to use an alternate tag to "said," that's just fine and it stands out less glaringly if its sparing in its use. It's also worth noting that you don't need to identify each speaker in a conversation every single time if they're the only two people in the conversation. Your readers can infer who's saying what as long as you properly put each person's dialogue on a separate line.

"What are you doing?" Diana asked, sitting beside John on the lakeside bench. John adjusted his grip on his pole. "Catching fish," he said. "But it's not fish season." "The fish don't know that." John smirked. "I'm going to catch them by surprise." Diana rolled her eyes. "The fish aren't even there." "Oh." John's eyes widened as he really looked at the lake, and his shoulders sank. "You're right."

Same dialogue, but now the reader has some visual context for the scene, and the pacing of each line is varied, so nothing feels stagnant.

Just remember that each new speaker gets a new paragraph for their dialogue. Don't lump them together in the same paragraph, as that's how readers get confused.

Also, make sure you identify new speakers near the start of long dialogue segments, not at the end. This:

"May I just say that you look quite lovely this evening? The glitter on your dress really brings out your eyes, and you've done a marvelous job with your makeup. Quite stunning, really. No one else in the room can compare to you. I would be a fool not to bask in your beauty this evening," Bob said.

Is poorly done. It takes too long for the reader to figure out who's talking so if they were imagining the wrong person speaking, they're jarred out of the story when they get to the end of the dialogue and realize the wrong person was speaking. Instead, move the dialogue tag near the beginning of the dialogue so we know who is speaking early on, like so:

"May I just say," Bob said, "that you look quite lovely this evening? The glitter on your dress really brings out your eyes, and you've done a marvelous job with your makeup. Quite stunning, really. No one else in the room can compare to you. I would be a fool not to bask in your beauty this evening."

This goes for action as dialogue tags as well.

On the topic of using adverbs to spice up the dialogue tags, the best advice I've heard is that you should avoid adverbs entirely unless they drastically change the tone of the sentence. And with dialogue tags, if there's a better, stronger word or action to use instead of "said + adverb," then use it.

Writing Tips Pt. 8 - Show Don't Tell

Ah, the dreaded "Show, don't tell." The answer that gets trotted out in many a discussion when the question of "How do I improve my prose?" comes up. "Oh, but this is prose. Everything is telling!" some might cry (to which I say, "yes, buuuuut...that's not the point"). But none of that's helpful if you don't know what it means.

So let me show you.

First, for your consideration, an example:

Alice was scared. Bob was hunting her, and she feared for her life.

This is telling. We've told the reader that Alice is scared, that she's fearing for her life. That's as plain as the words on the screen. But it feels flat. There's no real depth to it. The reader can't really empathize with Alice, because while they know she's scared, they don't feel that she's scared.

We've told the reader, but we haven't shown the reader.

A brief diversion. The best example I've seen for how to write this actually comes from another Tumblr post, about how to write pain, though it can be applied to anything abstract.

Please go read because it's very good. I'll wait.

Done? Good.

The short of it is this: the post compares writing pain (or anything abstract, really) to drawing an egg, but you aren't given a white pencil, because we already know the egg is white. We need to see how the light hits it and the colors of the shadows and where the table reflects against the shell and the background behind it. Draw around the egg.

So with emotions, you need to write around them. Don't tell us Claire is happy. Show us, by writing the things that convey that happiness. Describe the bounce in her step, the brightness of the sunshine, the warmth in her chest. Show us Frank's heartache in his shortness of breath, the clenching of his heart, his narrowed focus, the muffled sounds around him. Set the mood rather than just telling us what the mood is.

Or consider a screenplay. In movies and television, characters don't just walk out onto the stage and announce, "I'm angry," and then deliver their lines. They stomp. They throw things. They slam doors. Their facial expressions contort. They flail their arms around in huge gestures and raise their voices. But they don't announce their feelings. You can use this in prose by describing the actions of a character to demonstrate how they feel, rather than just announcing their emotion to the reader.

Back to Alice.

Alice's shoulders quivered, skin dripping with sweat, breath coming in short, desperate gasps as she hid behind the couch. Bob's footsteps thundered through the silent house. The slap of the baseball bat in his hand tapped a tattoo against her eardrums. Louder. Closer. Beating in sync with the rapid flutter of her racing heart.

Now, instead of simply telling the reader that Alice is scared, we've pulled them into her world with description and metaphor to convey how being scared feels. The word "scared" doesn't even appear in the new example, but the reader still gets the message quite clearly.

This is how you show.

That's not to say you can never tell. Sometimes you need to. For instance, if your characters are going to have a long discussion about the intricate details of their preparations for a journey, you probably don't need to actually show us every last bit of that conversation. You can summarize it just fine. Or shorten a journey to a few lines if the destination is what matters more.

But for the most part, use your action words, flex your descriptive muscles, and show us what's going on rather than just telling us, especially when it comes to abstract things.

Writing Tips Pt. 9 - Accents

Here's a more specific one that can really make or break a story: spoken accents.

You've probably all seen it happen in fiction. A character comes from a locale with a thick accent, and the author feels they have to represent it as faithfully as possible, leading to virtually incomprehensible dialogue.

"Ah dinnae ken what ta tell ye, lassie, but the wee scunner'll do ye dirty if ye don' take a firm hand ta him!"

"Sacre bleu, but zis is zimply unnacceptable! We cannot be having ze Rocheforts and ze Garniers zitting in ze zame room or zey will be tearing ze place apart!"

Absolutely awful attempts to render stereotypical accents aside, the above lines aren't very legible thanks to the deliberate mispellings in my attempt to convey sound. And for what gain? How easy is it to tell that the first is an attempt at Scottish, or the second at French?

Best to leave out the bulk of it. Use idioms, turns of phrase, or the general rhythm and structure of the words to convey the accent without leaning so heavily into sound changes. This way, you'll be less likely to shake your reader out of the story because they're too busy trying to puzzle out what someone is saying.

So let's try that again:

"I don't know what to tell you, lassie, but the wee scunner'll do you dirty if you don't take a firm hand to him!"

"Sacre bleu, but this is simply unacceptable! We cannot be having the Rocheforts and the Garniers sitting in the same room or they will be tearing the place apart!"

I left alone a few words that don't have a direct English replacement that keeps the same feel (lassie, wee scunner, sacre bleu), along with one phrase (do you dirty) and the general grammar structure of the second example, but all the stereotypical sounds have been removed. Much easier to read, and yet the general idea of the accent is still there.

By way of personal example, when I was younger, I wrote a story with a character with a very heavy accent that was supposed to be something...I don't know, thick American South?

"Mah name is Daphne. Ah'm a seer. Are ya deaf er somethin'? Ah s'pose ya nevah 'eard of da seers before? Waell, ya 'ave now. I must be 'least tree-undred years old er somethin'. Come in, Ah've been 'spectin' ya. Now, 'ave a seat. Right dere on dat box. Ah don't 'ave much in da furn'ture d'partment. Ya ain't from 'round here, are ya?”

An entire chapter with one character speaking like that. Oof. There were even points where she had to repeat herself and try to enunciate to make it clearer what she was saying to the other characters.

This is not good writing.

So here's an attempt to clean it up while keeping the idea of the accent.

"My name is Daphne. I'm a seer. Are you deaf or somethin'? I suppose you never heard of the seers before? Well, you have now. I must be least three hundred years old or somethin'. Come in, I've been expecting you. Now have a seat, right there on that box. I don't have much in the furniture department. You ain't from around here, are you?"

Much easier to read, and should still get the idea across.

Of course, you can ignore all of this if the incomprehensible accent is part of a joke.

Writing Tips Pt. 10 - Tense

I wasn't aware until this past year that sometimes people confuse point of view and tense when writing stories. I ran across a fanfiction where the author mentioned experimenting in "second-person POV" for the first time...and proceeded to write an entire story that was third-person present tense. Someone brought it up in the comments, and it turns out that the author was under the impression that what we know as present tense was "second-person POV."

So that has inspired this post and the next (which will be about POV).

There are three main tenses you can use when writing, each with subcategories. I'll cover the main tenses in this post, for simplicity's sake, but I won't go into detail about the subcategories. There are plenty of articles that explain those finer distinctions in greater detail than I can manage here.

The three main tenses you can use are past, present, and future.

Past tense is arguably the most common tense you will find in published fiction. While everything in the story is told as though it has already happened, most if not all readers are so used to this tense that they will still feel a sense of immediacy when reading a story written in past tense.

John ran to the door and yanked it open to reveal his sister, bedraggled but alive, soaked and shivering on his front step. The storm raged overhead as he pulled her inside to warm up, even as she protested that she was fine. That didn't matter. Only her safety mattered.

Subcategories will be based off of more specific structure of the tense, such as "had gone" or "would go" or "would have gone," but they can come across as more clunky and stilted, even flat and passive, compared to simple past tense.

Present tense is less common, but still accepted as a valid tense for published fiction. This tense has the added benefit of built-in immediacy for the reader, since the story is happening in what amounts to "real time." The events of the story haven't already happened, they're currently happening.

John runs to the door and yanks it open to reveal his sister, bedraggled but alive, soaked and shivering on his front step. The storm rages overhead as he pulls her inside to warm up, even as she protests that she's fine. That doesn't matter. Only her safety matters.

I find this one a bit more difficult to write consistently and well, but I've read plenty of stories that put it to good use. This is also the tense that most book blurbs (the summary on the back cover or inside dust jacket of a published book) are written in. This has similar subcategories as past tense.

Future tense is rarely used in fiction, as it is extremely difficult to do well. More power to you if you want to give it a try, but be aware that most editors will probably ask you to change it if it's not handled well at all. This tense gives a sense of events that have yet to happen, which is part of the reason it is rarely used.

John will run to the door and yank it open to reveal his sister, bedraggled but alive, soaked and shivering on his front step. The storm will rage overhead as he pulls her inside to warm up, even as she will protest that she's fine. That won't matter. Only her safety will matter.

One of the only stories I've heard of that did this well (read by my husband, not myself, so I only got this second-hand) was a story telling the main character what he was destined to do, because that's what he'd done on every previous time loop, and ended with encouraging the main character to go and live their own life instead of the one their previous iterations had lived. It was also phrased as dialogue from the narrator to said main character to help facilitate the tense. The only other instances I can think of off the top of my head that work in future tense are children's books. ("Jeremy will turn five tomorrow. Everyone will be at his party. Jeremy will have a good birthday.")

My recommendation is to avoid writing your story in future tense unless you feel it's absolutely necessary to capture the essence of what your story is about.

Regardless of which tense you choose, though, make sure to be consistent. Don't switch tense mid-story, and especially not mid-section. The sudden shift from one tense to another can be very jarring to a reader, and that's something we as writers don't want. If you're combining sections you've previously written (especially as short fiction exercises and "drabbles"), make sure to double-check the tense of each section you add to the story to make sure they match. I've seen stories that took segments previously written separately and combined them together, but some segments were written in present tense while others were in past tense, and the author failed to edit for consistency, leaving very disruptive tense-changes intact.

There are, of course, some instances where tense changes can work to your benefit. An out-of-body experience or dream sequence, for instance, may be done in present tense even though the rest of the story is in past tense. If you switch POV to a character who experiences time differently, you could also justify a tense change.

The short of it, though, is this: choose one tense for your story and be consistent about it.

Writing Tips Pt. 11 - Points of View

So tense involves whether a story is narrated in the past, present, or future relative to events. But what about the POV, or point of view? I've seen a lot of confusion about this, especially among novice writers, so I'll try to clarify what they are.

Imagine you're standing in a crowded space, having a conversation with your reader. You're telling them a story, making you the narrator.

If you are the main character of the story, that is First Person POV. You will use "I/me" pronouns.

If your reader is the main character, that is Second Person POV. You will use "you" pronouns.

If one of the other people around you is the main character (not you and not your reader), that is Third Person POV. You will use "he/she/it/they" pronouns.

So the POV is relative to who the main character is.

Obviously, not every first person POV is going to be literally about you. But they will be told as if you, the narrator, are the one experiencing events. The main thing to remember with such stories is that your viewpoint character needs to be interesting or likeable enough to keep the reader's attention. No one is going to want to read an entire story with a flat, boring, or extremely unlikable viewpoint character. It's also easy to get enmired in the character's thoughts a little too much and forget to tell the story.

Of the three POVs, second person is probably the trickiest to write well, and is not normally encountered in fiction, but it isn't completely unheard of. Classic Choose Your Own Adventure books are written in second person to facilitate the conceit that the reader is the one experiencing the story, the main character. The Monster at the End of This Book, The Book With No Pictures, and other similar books for children that have interactive elements also work well, with the narrator or narrating character talking to the reader throughout the story. Self-help books and other articles will frequently use second person POV as well, as does fanfiction that puts the reader in the main character's shoes in order to ship them with a character.

Now, you may have heard of limited and omniscient POVs, specifically for third person. I've heard different ideas of what each of these mean, or how to use them, with a lot of misconceptions, so let's try to clear that up.

Third person limited POV is limited to one character's thoughts and feelings at a time. Think of it as riding in that person's head. You can hear their thoughts, know their feelings, but you don't know what's going on inside any other character's head. You learn what the main character learns, but if someone else is keeping secrets from them, you won't know those secrets. Limited POV is good for drama because it's easier to keep the reader from knowing things they shouldn't. This POV still allows you to use a character's "voice" in the narration, as with first person POV, just with third person pronouns.

Emily scrubbed the dishes with increasing vigor, glaring daggers at John over in the dining room the whole time. It's like he doesn't even care that I'm angry, she thought, dropping another handful of forks into the drain tray with a rattle. Staying out all night, not a word about where he's been or what he's been up to. And who needs that many shipping boxes anyway? Her thoughts spiraled away from her.

With this POV, you can stick with one viewpoint character for an entire work, or you can change as often as needed for the purposes of your story, but it's best to keep such changes at scene and chapter breaks to avoid confusing your readers.

Third person omniscient POV is aware of all characters' thoughts and feelings as needed. Omniscient means "all-knowing." The narrator of this story might tell us what a few characters are feeling, or inform us of a bit of backstory for a newly-introduced character without necessarily riding inside that character's head. Many older works of fiction were written in this style. This is arguably the simplest POV to write, and yet also the easiest to mismanage.

Many authors make the mistake of trying to write third person omniscient by constantly changing which character's head we're in. This is called head-hopping, and can cause literary whiplash for your readers as you keep bouncing around from one character to the next. One way to avoid this pitfall is to avoid getting so deeply into any character's head that you're writing out their actual thoughts. Create more distance between the narrator and the characters.

Emily scrubbed the dishes with increasing vigor, glaring daggers at John over in the dining room the whole time. Her thoughts jumbled about as she mused over where he might have been the night before, where he might have been every night for the past three weeks, and what all those shipping boxes that arrived every day might contain, unaware that John had been meticulously planning a surprise party for her—one that was about to go horribly awry, all thanks to assumptions and lack of communication.

In this example, you can see where I distanced myself from Emily's direct thoughts, so that it wouldn't be as jarring when I also shared John's side of things, along with a little narrative foreknowledge that neither of our characters could conceivably know at this point in time. I am by no means an expert in third person omniscient—I prefer limited for my writing—so I highly recommend checking out guides online for better examples on how to do it right.

One last thing: as with tense, it's important to be consistent, but that doesn't mean you absolutely must stick to one POV for your entire story. Perhaps you want to switch characters periodically, but you want one character's chapters to be in first person POV. Perhaps you want to include letters written between two characters as interlude chapters and thus need to switch to second person. Perhaps one person is literally a deity and thus has a more omniscient viewpoint in their scenes. This is fine, but be consistent within the guidelines you have set for your story. If Emily's scenes are written third person limited, don't switch to first person for one scene.

Writing Tips Pt. 12 - Purple Prose

Confession time: I like my prose to be a little purple. Poetic description is fun and evocative. So I'm not going to tell you to avoid purple prose entirely.

Unless you're purposely aiming for "minimalist." Then you should avoid it.

Purple prose is writing that is often distractingly ornate and unnecessary for a given writing piece. How much (if any) you should use generally depends on the purpose of the writing piece. Are you writing an academic paper, technical document, or speech? Probably best to avoid purple prose as much as possible.

But fiction is more forgiving. You can get away with some purple in fiction, and poetry is arguably nothing but purple writing.

The important thing is to make sure you're utilizing it correctly.

So here's my advice: don't turn every descriptive sentence into an exercise in just how flowery and ornate you can be. You're trying to tell a story, not show off the biggest words you can find in the thesaurus. By all means, be poetic in describing your setting, your characters, their emotions, etc. Add interest to otherwise routine moments of action. But make sure your writing is still helping to either draw the reader in or move the story along. If your reader is distracted from the point of a section because you were too busy describing every inconsequential tree, you've probably done too much. Use it to set the stage, then simplify.

This is especially important with characters. Descriptions should help your reader visualize your character better. Think of it as painting a portrait of your character. Poetic descriptions can help a reader get an idea of who a character is, but after that, you don't necessarily need to repeat their descriptive traits every time they show up. Trust your readers to remember what your characters look like.

And when you describe your characters, vary up what you describe so that everyone isn't reduced to the same short list of physical traits on repeat. Hair and eye color are important, but they aren't the only features on your character. Give the reader the shape of a jawline, the general build of a body, the angle of a nose, or the line of a neck. Does your character have freckles, blemishes, or a sunburn? Are they stocky and muscular or thin as a rail? Challenge yourself to think of three traits to describe for any given character that aren't hair or eyes.

Finally, be careful how you're describing certain features. If you aren't careful you can easily tread into the realm of silly with your figurative language, especially when you use words that aren't used often (or are used too often, but in amateur writing only) or don't fit the time period. "Tresses" and "locks" are not commonly used for hair, and are more distracting than just calling it "hair," and this is why so many tip lists will strongly advise against "orbs" and "gems" as alternatives for "eyes." It's not romantic or creative, it's distracting.

Unless you're writing Muppet fanfic, I guess. Then you can get away with "orbs."

Writing Tips Pt. 13 - Research

Do Research.

No, seriously. Make sure you do research for your story, whether it's original fiction or fanfiction. This doesn't have to be college-level research, with interviews and experiments and hours upon hours spent combing through the stacks at the library to find every last blessed detail about a thing. But a little Googling can be your friend in this regard.

Researching for original fiction? You might have a character with a medical background and need to know terms or procedures in a hospital setting, or what the difference between a stent and a catheter are. Or your character might be a bodybuilder and so you'll need a passing idea of workout regimens to get the right level of bulk, and what sort of food they eat. Or your character might be a serial killer, and you'll want to know basic anatomy and also what the consistency of blood is or what a burning body smells like. Or you might be writing a fantasy story with characters traveling across the kingdom by horse, and you need to make sure you don't overwork the horse and that you know the basics of camping without modern luxuries like flashlights and RVs and matches.

Many of these things aren't going to be something you just know off-hand (unless you're a major trivia buff, but even then...). A little research can help add that bit of verisimilitude for when someone who actually knows that information then reads your story. The last thing you need is a medical student dropping your book and screaming "a stent doesn't go there!"

And if you're writing fanfiction? It's important to know details about the world you're writing in and the characters you're using. Something as simple as reading the wiki entries for your fandom can help you make sure you don't write someone out of character or forget an important detail about the setting. I've seen stories forget what species a non-human character is, spell a character's name or other terms wrong repeatedly, get the wrong relationships between characters, or make a given special power capable of feats it can't manage normally.

Just as misinformation about real-world topics will bother readers who notice them, so will fandom misinformation bother the fans who spot the incorrect details. Just a little research can go a long way to avoiding this problem.

Writing Tips Pt. 14 - Keep Notes and Reread

Two important details about writing I think a lot of beginners forget is that you should be keeping notes on what you're writing, and you should reread as you go along.

Keeping notes is important so you can reference things you've established in your story. You don't want your readers jarred out of the story because Alice's hair color changed partway through simply because you couldn't remember what color you'd made it and didn't feel like double-checking. If Bob's eye color keeps changing every scene he's in, it should be for in-story reasons and not because of authorial laziness. Other things you might track with note-keeping include which spells you've given your mage character, or who a character's family members are (and whether or not they have siblings). Even professional writers keep notes on the things they'll need to reference again.

I'm partial to keeping documents in a folder on my computer on different subjects, such as character backstories, family trees, magic systems, even something as silly as where everyone sleeps in their home base. Other authors may use index cards tacked up to the wall, or establish a wiki to help them link important things together, or have a series of notebooks they can pull off the shelf to flip through. There are different ways to do this, so find one that works for you.

And make sure you reread, unless you're writing your whole story in one marathon session. Each time you go to add a new installment to the story, whether it be a new chapter to an ongoing piece or a sequel to a previous work of yours, reread the older stuff first, especially if you don't keep regular and extensive notes. You will almost invariably forget important details if you don't do this, and it's quite immersion-breaking if your story loses internal continuity because you didn't review what you'd already written.

For example, if your hero has run afoul of one of the villain's machinations, it breaks immersion if your villain's motivation for the plot changes from chapter to chapter. If he was actively trying to kill the hero, but then later claims to have just wanted to scare him, but then goes back to wanting to kill him, then was just testing a contraption and it's the hero's own fault that he got injured and now the villain doesn't know what to do without the hero, you aren't creating good drama, you're just hurting your own story's continuity. What is your villain's motivation?

Yes, I have seen this before.

So at the very least, skim over what you wrote previously to make sure you aren't breaking continuity or introducing contradictions into your story.

I frequently write stories by hand in a notebook during moments of free time. Rereading also helps me remember what I was working on when I last had to pause so I can make sure I keep the story flowing properly, rather than suddenly cutting to a different scene because I forgot where I was, or having a random character show up because I didn't remember they were supposed to be elsewhere. I've even caught a few times when I went to write a turn of phrase and thought it seemed familiar, and sure enough, I'd used it just two pages prior.

So keep notes, and make sure you reread. Your continuity will thank you.

Writing Tips Pt. 15 - Constructive Criticism

One important thing for any writer is to learn how to receive feedback on their work so they can improve. Even professionals can continue to improve their craft, and having an outside perspective can be very important to this.

One thing I often see among novice writers is a misunderstanding of what actually constitutes "constructive criticism." I frequently see novice authors who say they want constructive criticism, but when someone leaves a comment or review that brings up anything less than absolutely positive (pointing out a flaw, expressing confusion over a character's behavior, etc.), the author responds as though the entire story, and the author by extension, has been outright insulted. They say they want constructive criticism, but what they really want is just praise.

So first you need to know what constructive criticism actually is.

Praise: when the reader is gushing over every good thing in the story. ("This is the best story ever! You're awesome! I love your characters! It was great when your characters did the thing, and I liked how you wrote the fight sequence!")

Constructive Criticism, Critique: when the reader points out the story's flaws, but also (sometimes) what the author has done well. There may not always be positives mentioned, but the overall tone will be informative rather than hateful. If the reader knows of ways to fix the flaws or otherwise improve the story, they'll also provide such suggestions. ("I really liked your story. You captured the main character's personality well, and I liked how they interacted with their nemesis. Your pacing through the fight sequence felt rushed, though. Maybe if you switched to a different POV character for that scene? Or wrote a few extra action beats in there. You also gave one character a fire spell in chapter three but previously they could only do ice magic. I love your magic system, though!")

Insults, Flames: when the reader is negative to the point of offense. The commentary will be unhelpful. ("Your story sucks! You should stop writing! Go jump in a lake!")

Now, it should be noted that praise is not bad. Only one of these three types of feedback is universally bad, and that would be the insults. Ignore these. Block the comments if you can, report them for abuse if the site you're on allows it, and move on with your day. But keep in mind that simply pointing out the story's shortcomings aren't (usually) a personal attack, even if they don't mention any positives at all. The idea is generally to help, not harm. If there is a personal attack, ignore the attack.

But if it's just actual constructive criticism, put on your big kid pants, accept or ignore (because you don't have to accept someone's constructive criticism, even if you asked for it in the first place), and and don't retaliate. Throwing a fit when someone points out your spelling errors or your gross mischaracterization just makes you look like a child. And this applies to grown adults and professional writers just as much as beginners.

But if you take the feedback with grace and dignity, even if it's to politely point out that you're not accepting constructive criticism at this time or that you have an editor but thanks for the feedback anyway, you will come across as a professional in attitude, even if you're just starting out.

Writing Tips Pt. 16 - Breaking the Rules

The most important writing tip of all:

Once you know the rules, you can break the rules.

I've seen arguments before asking why someone should even bother learning how to write grammatically "correctly," because "language is constantly evolving and changing." To that, first of all, I would point out that the whole reason we have standardized spelling and grammar to begin with is to make communication easier. It's far easier to understand what someone has written if they follow standard rules of writing so that you don't have to puzzle out what this creative spelling or that jumbled sentence structure is trying to say.

The same goes for standard writing rules, including the tips I've been posting for the past two weeks. Standardized writing styles make things clearer. This is very important with academic works, but is also helpful in literature.

But the thing with literature is that once you know the rules, you can break them for effect. I read a book when I was younger (much younger, not telling you how much, thanks) titled Sink or Swim, about a kid from the city who spent a summer out in a rural area. This book was written somewhat in the style of the kid's journal, and he was an inner-city kid with a distinct writing style based on that. It was...difficult to read at best. The whole thing was written in this kid's dialect, just like I said not to do regarding accents. But the author conveyed the character's voice well, and was consistent, and it really did lend a sense of life to the story, even if I hated it on an entertainment level. On a technical level, it was very well done and deserves credit for that alone.

You need to know the rules first before you can break them. That is why it's important to learn. Once you've learned? Have at it.

I'm just going to add this link to a Reddit post that gives more insight.

every writing tip article and their mother: dont ever use adverbs ever!

me, shoveling more adverbs onto the page because i do what i want: just you fucking try and stop me

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