Justanothergirlsblog - =A Weird Girl=

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.

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.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

— Louis L’Amour (via writingdotcoffee)

“Maybe it won’t work out. But maybe seeing if it does will be the best adventure ever.”

— Unknown 

This week’s writing tip comes from the legendary Alice Walker. 

Remember, self-care is as important to the writing process as it is to life.

“Just be fucking honest about how you feel about people while you’re alive.”

— John Mayer

“I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.”

— Ernest Hemingway

Any advice on writing someone who's got a crush? I don't want to make it sound too "omg I think they're perfect" every other sentence.

Writing a character with a crush...

When you’re writing a character with a crush, tension is created through action and reaction. Every time your character acts, hesitates, speaks their mind, holds their tongue, makes a move, get’s discouraged, etc. builds the tension and encourages the reader to become invested. Crushes in storytelling should be shown through the character’s actions and the world’s reactions, not through dialogue or narration. 

Show the reader the character taking 20 minutes to build up the courage to walk up to their locker, where their crush has one right next to theirs because they’re worried they’ll blurt out the wrong thing if the other person shows up. Don’t just tell the reader that the character feels nervous around them or gets butterflies. Show the butterflies threatening to erupt as their crush sits at the only available seat left in homeroom, which happens to be next to them. 

Types of Romantic Tension

Tips On Writing Skinny Love

Guide To Writing Friends To Lovers

Guide To Writing Enemies To Lovers

Resources For Writing YA Fiction/Romance

Guide To Writing Will-They-Won’t-They

Rivalry vs. Abuse

Guide To Writing Forbidden Love

20 Mistakes To Avoid in YA/Romance

Best Friends To Lovers Resources

How to develop an Enemies-To-Lovers story

Prompts

Skinny Love Writing Prompts

Study Date Prompts

Best Friends-To-Lovers Prompts

Enemies-To-Lovers Prompts

Tol & Smol Couple Prompts

Romantic Prompts

Soulmates Alternate Universe Prompts

General Romance Tips

Resources For Romance Writers

Creating A Love Interest For An Introvert

Writing Opposites Who Attract

Describing Heartbreak

Balancing Fluff and Conflict

Writing Great Fanfiction

How To Write The Perfect Kiss

On Romantic Subplots

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Masterlist | WIP Blog

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That's the cruel reality of our times. You can't trust anything you read until you compare it with more than 3 sources.

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

— Mark Twain (via historical-nonfiction)