Writing 101: Tips and Tricks

I remember Cath posting this on Hot Mess. I wanted to share it again.

Hey all,

This thread is going to be about writing. We'll keep it pretty light and general, unless someone has specific questions.

I chose to start this thread because I'm a Creative Writing Major and have actually been writing wrestling fic longer than some members have been alive *Wince*

As mentioned in the title, this can be a thread to share our tips and tricks for writing: whether its how you break writer's block, something you'd like to see more of in posting or stuff that you really like or appreciate when it comes to RP'ing.

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think that one of my specialties in writing is dialogue. Part of this comes with giving each character their own voice and/or mannerisms. To keep this simple, I'll use my two muses on this forum as an example.

Heath and Josh are two very different people. They're different ages, have different backgrounds and are from very different parts of the country. They're not going to sound the same. Rather, their dialogue should not be interchangeable.

EXAMPLE:

He stomped through the hall, running his hand through his hair, his eyes bright with challenge, daring anyone to step up to him. In the mood he was in, he'd knock anyone who looked at him funny flat on their ass. He shouldered past a stage hand, "Outta my way," he snapped.

vs.

Anyone who bothered to look at him would see the tension in his shoulders, the stiff way he held his head, the thin, bloodless line of his lips. He glanced down at his watch, silently willing the stage hand to hurry up. Finally, he sighed. "Excuse me," he said through clenched teeth, maneuvering his way past.

**

You can tell that these two people are extremely different, just by their word choice.

And sometimes, the characters' internal word choice is just as telling. It can really help the reader and the other RP'er get into the character's mindset. Instead of laying out facts flatly, giving your character's personal spin on it can be fun.

"Heath walked down the hall. He was mad about losing his match."

Yeah, it gets the point across, but it's not quite as much fun as something like:

"Heath stomped through the hall, wrenching off his wrist tape and tossing it aside. Stupid freaking Bryan and his stupid ass Lebelle Lock! He rubs his neck, wishing to hell he had an ice pack. But of course he'd forgotten it at the hotel."

--

It's just a little advice. You're welcome to take or leave it. This thread isn't designed to insult or call people out or insinuate anyone is a bad writer. You're free to take the advice and offer some of your own.

hanks for posting Heath.

I have a serious case of writer's block a lot these days but I think this is due to the fact that I do not write fanfiction as much as I used to. As long as I was writing and posting on several fics regularly, I rarely got a bad case of the writer's block. These days I get it quite often. But one of things that helps cure my writer's block is roleplaying.

Not necessarily on here because I feel like I'm writing a fanfic--just with some help. I mean on yahoo or something. If I RP it out with a few friends it usually cures the block as well as give me multiple ideas for new fics.

Another thing that helps me is my beloved I-Pod shuffle. Nothing like randomly listening to music (and by listening, I mean paying close attention to the words) and associating pairings with the lyrics of the song. For instance, I'm a HUGE fan of the band "Journey". I am convinced that Steve Perry was sent to this earth to serenade me into oblivion with his songs. Every Journey song is songfic ready.

"Someday love will find you. Break those chains that bind you. One night will remind you how we touched and went our separate ways..." ~Separate Ways, World's Apart by Journey

For me personally, that song reminds me of HBK/HHH or BHBK (Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels). I use Shawn ALOT in my fanfics so quite naturally it's easy for me to associate songs with him but the pairings usually vary depending on the lyrics. Here's another example:

Why do you keep coming around
Playing with my heart
Why don't you get out of my life
And help me to make a new start
Let me get over you
The way you got over me

Set me free why don't you baby
Get out of my life why don't you baby
You really don't want me child ~ You Keep Me Hangin' On by Rod Stewart

>> I'll let you decide and anyway you get the idea. Just throw on your shuffle and see what happens. Song fics, for me at least, have often led to longer fics. I was once listening to Christmas songs (Oh Come Emmanuel) and wrote probably the best little holiday fic I'll ever write. So just...music. Music leads to creative masterpieces. It does for me at least!

Give and Take - Part One: The Talent Show

I'm splitting this post into two parts because it's something I feel really strongly about.

We all think our muses are awesome. We all want to talk about how awesome our muses are. Sometimes you want to talk about it a lot. But sometimes, just sometimes, you have to be the one who is impressed. Sometimes you have to show some restraint.

Your muse doesn't have to be the best at everything. Your muse doesn't have to be better than my muse at everything. Hell, not being able to do something is more endearing and opens up new avenues for the characters.

EXAMPLE:

Heath sat at the bar, sipping his beer. The other patrons were chatting, drinking, making out, playing pool, but Heath was listening to Jeff on stage, taking advantage of the open mic night. After the blond walked off the stage, Heath closed the gap between them, smiling. "Hey man, that was awesome. I can't play worth a damn myself, but I'd love to learn."

vs.

Once Jeff was done, Josh shoved him off the stage, picked up the guitar that was handcrafted for his family by Orville Gibson himself. He proceeded to rock out so thoroughly and perfectly that everyone in the bar stopped what they were doing and openly wept at the sound of pure musical awesome that poured forward. They were all in awe of Josh's perfect perfection.

**

When I show off a character's skill at something, I'm trying to tell you a little bit about the character, who he is, what his interests are and something the two could explore later.

If the post immediately after mine is your character just stomping all over mine with how much better he is, that's discouraging. To me, it says "Yeah, fuck your character, my guy's better." That's a real enthusiasm killer.

I'm not saying your character can't have talents or stuff they're really skilled at. But at the same time, I would like to show off my character's talents and skills too. Try to have respect for that.

Give and Take II: Listen and Read

When writing, we all have stuff we'd like to see happen in the thread. Sure, you can plan it out in the chatbox, but sometimes you come up with something spontaneous and put it right into the thread.

A few of us here write long paragraphs worth of text. Read it. Sometimes there are clues in there on where we'd like the thread to go.

A basic thing is the rule of threes. If the person you are working with mentions something three times, it is CLEARLY something they want you to pay attention to.

Have your character notice or mention it. If you're really not sure, ask in the chatbox or via PM.

EXAMPLE:

Heath walked into the room with a gaping chest wound. He sighed and went to the mirror, fixing his hair.

*

Rolling his eyes in annoyance, Heath went over to his bag. Lousy gaping chest wound was ruining his best shirt.

*

"Hey Angelina, I think--" Heath's eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted, clearly a result of the bloodloss from his gaping chest wound.

*

Obviously, it's an exaggeration, but if the person you are RP'ing with repeatedly mentions something such as soreness, or something being very weird, ACT ON IT. We all like to be in control, but try following the other player's lead. You may be pleasantly surprised.

DETAILS DETAILS

Details serve a lot of purpose. They can flesh out your character, the scene around them and can really add some meatiness to your posts. Something as simple as what your character is wearing can help the other person write their response. It also gives color to your writing.

You can also describe the school/bar/classroom/hotel room where your characters are.

"Heath walks into the bar."

What kind of bar? High end, Discotheque, filthy dive, trendy hotspot, hole-in-the-wall honkytonk bar? Just specifying will let the characters interact with their environment more.

I forgot all about this!

That was the first place I had rp'd anywhere besides with a sister and this helped me a lot back then, though sometimes I feel I forget these things, but I try to keep those kind of things like descriptions and character differences in mind.

Still confuses me when describing something with different terms though. I'll sit there for ages thinking 'What the hell's the American term for this?' and if I don't ask, I've probably screwed it up and confused people at times; or just amsued them...like people commenting on me saying 'rubbish' instead of 'garbage'.

I can't speak for everyone but I know even if you use your term/phrase for something I can usually figure it out. If you look up synonyms for garbage, rubbish is one of them. As an English major, I don't have a problem with words and vocabulary usually.


What I absolutely cannot stand is when people use incorrect grammar, unless of course it's a part of the characters dialog. For instance:

Harris smirked as he sat in his trailer, shirt stained with a few drops of beer and crumbs from the bag of chips he was eating as he listened to Kip talk. "I ain't gonna do it. I ain't gonna go on out there and do somethin' like that at all."

vs

Wade smirked as he sipped his wine across from Justin at the dinner table. There was a cold look on his face, a look in his eyes that said how upset he was. "I ain't gonna do it."

You see how that doesn't work for Wade? He's educated, knows proper grammar. Harris is a southerner and wouldn't use the correct grammar. In general when you write, however, you should follow the basic grammar that you (the reader, not just you Shea) learned in school.

ALSO

Spelling is a big thing for me. If you don't know how to spell something, look it up on Google. I have this problem sometimes when using Wade because I know the large words I want him to use, I just don't know how to spell them.

Lol I hate that so much, especially when trying to find out if I've spelt American versions of a word right because to me it looks wrong. I usually just put it through Word and use the auto correct it to fix things.

What's hard is writing accents like Sheamus and Keiran's without making them impossible to figure out what the word they're actually saying is, because I remember when I first picked up Sheamus...he confused so many people.

The other thing that I find difficult is staying in character after not using that particular one for a while, or I at least worry they've become out of character, like I often end up thinking with Justin besides on here where the character is able to be altered more to fit the Werewolf part. It also gets hard at times to show the personality of underused characters (like my Devyn for example) when they haven't been used enough for people to know their basic personality but you can't really show it when most other posts on a thread are shorter because sadly, the longer descrptive posts can feel out of place in those situations.

Either that or at times someone may choose or maybe accidentally ignore a section of the post about a less used character for whatever reason ...possibly because they don't know them? Kind of pointless really because the other writers and readers will never know that character if they're lines are left ignored.
I don't know if I've ever done that with someone else's characters, but I have seen it happen.

I can understand that because it's hard for me too. Say in a thread I'm using Harris as a villain (yes, it does still happen). Sometimes I have problems playing him as the villain because he's changed from who he was to a good guy.

That's another thing I find I, along with others, have trouble with: respecting the type of character they are working with. If a character seems like a villain, let him be the villain. If he seems like a good guy, don't make him be a villain. There are a few characters who can change from type to type but it may not always be what the original author had in mind.