“People Do Not Hurt Us, Our Hopes From Them Hurt Us.”

“You have to meet people where they are, and sometimes you have to leave them there.”

— Iyanla Vanzant 

Writing Tip #167

Having the way a character organizes their home mirror how they organize their life can be a really helpful literary tool and a subtle way to flesh out your character.

Writing Tip #222

Use action verbs. Avoid passive voice whenever possible. I say whenever possible and not never because sometimes passive voice can be a good literary technique. If you purposely want to make it ambiguous how something happened or if you want it to be unclear whether a character did something on accident or on purpose, passive voice can be a great tool. However, 99% of the time you want to use action verbs. If you have a lot of passive voice in your story you will slow down the momentum of your story and lose readers. See if you can reword sentences with action verbs instead.

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

HOW TO WRITE A STORY WHEN YOU'RE A PROCRASTINATOR AND/OR A PERFECTIONIST

*step 1. flesh out your characters.

imagine their personalities, roughly line out their backstory and figure out their role in the plot. same goes with the world if you're not writing a realistic story.

*step 2. have a rough idea of what you want your story to be.

do you want angst? fluff? smut? is it a fantasy world, a futuristic city? get an idea of what your theme and genres are.

*step 3. f u c k i t

just write the whole thing. don't care about plotholes,logic or anything. just get it done.

*step 4. rebuild.

leave your draft for some time and don't think of it too much for a week or two. then, take it back, and rebuild your story, correct spelling mistakes, etc. repeat this step as much as needed, until you feel like it's done.

and you're done!

note: this is only a personal thing. that's how i do it because i used to spend way too much time on perfecting the plot before writing. but find wgat fits you the best! everyone is different, this is just a tip.

Character development doesn't refer to character improvement in a moral or ethical respect. It refers to broadening the audience's understanding of that character, giving the character a deeper background, clearer motivations, a unique voice.

Developing a character is about making them seem more like a real person, and real people are flawed. Real people make mistakes. They repeat mistakes. They do things other people don't agree with. Real people are more than just 'good' or 'bad' and character development is about showing all of those other aspects of them.

Their interests and hobbies. The song that gets stuck in their head. The fact that their vacuum broke 3 months ago and they haven't gotten it fixed yet. All of those details help build out the character and develop them more.

And yes, characters change as stories progress but that doesn't mean they get 'better' in a strict moral sense. It means that their experiences change the way they interact in the world you've written for them. Just like real people do.

I wanted to double check that “The Cherry on Top” was a short novel or novella and I found this on uphillwriting.org. I think it’s very informative and hopefully you guys will find it useful!

“Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together? Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences.”

— Emery Allen 

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.”

— Aldous Huxley 

Writing Tip #218

Tightening your sentences and getting rid of unnecessary adverbs and adjectives does not mean writing short sentences. You can have a long sentence without any adverbs or adjectives and you can have a short sentence with too many. Tightening your sentences just means that every word has to matter.