Here's some writing tips 😃👍

Tip #1: Paragraphs

Have you ever clicked on a book and all you could see was this:

ESMERELDA HAD BEEN IN THE American foster care system since day one. She remembered one of the workers informing her that her mother, a woman whose name had escaped them, had walked into the building with a small bundle in her arms (Esmerelda) and insisted that the staffers took her in. She had only given them the baby's first name and birth (September 8) and was gone before the files could be completed. That was it. Nothing else. No 'tell her that I love her' or 'one day I'll see her again'. Her mother had just dumped her in the building and walked out without another word. Babies had the highest chance of being adopted from foster care since they were what every couple looked for. Esmerelda, however, was different. Weird things always happened around baby Esmerelda which would lead her foster parents into giving her up, thus rendering her to another cycle of fostering. Foster parent to foster parent, she was always been returned with weird reasons such as 'she made the lightbulbs break with her wailing!' or 'she somehow set our curtains on fire!'. The workers thought they were high or something, but complied nonetheless and sent Esmerelda to another pair. The first foster parents that she could actually remember were Lucy and Melvin Moss. She was five when she was sent to them, and they were very pleasant towards her. She was pretty sure they were even contemplating on officially adopting her but she managed to screw everything up as always.

It's just one big block of text that goes on, and on, and on... Ugh 🤮 Not really flattering, is it?

Nobody wants to read a book where every chapter is just one huge chunk of text or multiple huge chunk of texts, it's painful for the eyes to handle so please try to space it out. Paragraphs are your friend, use them!

ESMERELDA HAD BEEN IN THE American foster care system since day one. She remembered one of the workers informing her that her mother, a woman whose name had escaped them, had walked into the building with a small bundle in her arms (Esmerelda) and insisted that the staffers took her in. She had only given them the baby's first name and birth (September 8) and was gone before the files could be completed. That was it. Nothing else. No 'tell her that I love her' or 'one day I'll see her again'. Her mother had just dumped her in the building and walked out without another word.

Babies had the highest chance of being adopted from foster care since they were what every couple looked for. Esmerelda, however, was different. Weird things always happened around baby Esmerelda which would lead her foster parents into giving her up, thus rendering her to another cycle of fostering. Foster parent to foster parent, she was always been returned with weird reasons such as 'she made the lightbulbs break with her wailing!' or 'she somehow set our curtains on fire!'. The workers thought they were high or something, but complied nonetheless and sent Esmerelda to another pair.

The first foster parents that she could actually remember were Lucy and Melvin Moss. She was five when she was sent to them, and they were very pleasant towards her. She was pretty sure they were even contemplating on officially adopting her but she managed to screw everything up as always.

That's easier to read! Each paragraph pertains to a specific subject, they're all thematic. The first one's about how Essie got into the foster care system. The second is about her life as a foster kid. The third is about one of her many foster parents. It's easier to understand, especially since they're not all bunched up together in one paragraph.

Tip #2: Spacing out your dialogue

I don't know WHY people do this or why they thought it was a good idea, but I sometimes see people write their dialogue like this:

"What's a demigod?" She asked. The word sounded familiar to her... "Yanno, like half mortal and half god. Greek god, to be precise" Basil said, gesticulating into the air with a single hand. "I know it's hard to believe, but that Chimera back there was proof that you're a demigod. Monsters only ever hunt demigods down... It's your scent that attracts them after all."

She felt a shiver run down her spine at his words. "Half god..." "Do you have ADHD and dyslexia?" Basil suddenly asked. "Huh? Yeah, why?"

"Another sign that you're a demigod. The ADHD are actually your natural born battle reflexes and demigods are always misdiagnosed with dyslexia. Your brain's just hardwired for Ancient Greek, so reading and writing in any other language is a challenge for you. Boreíte na katalávete ti léo?" Her eyes widened in disbelief. "I understood you! That was Ancient Greek?"

😓 Why do people do this?!?!?!?!?

If one character's talking, give them a paragraph to themselves. Then when they're done, get to the next paragraph and start what the next character says.

Like this:

"What's a demigod?" She asked. The word sounded familiar to her...

(Essie is done talking, so now I go to the next paragraph and type down what the next person says)

"Yanno, like half mortal and half god. Greek god, to be precise" Basil said, gesticulating into the air with a single hand. "I know it's hard to believe, but that Chimera back there was proof that you're a demigod. Monsters only ever hunt demigods down... It's your scent that attracts them after all."

(Now Basil's done talking so I make another paragraph and so forth)

She felt a shiver run down her spine at his words. "Half god..."

"Do you have ADHD and dyslexia?" Basil suddenly asked.

"Huh? Yeah, why?"

"Another sign that you're a demigod. The ADHD are actually your natural born battle reflexes and demigods are always misdiagnosed with dyslexia. Your brain's just hardwired for Ancient Greek, so reading and writing in any other language is a challenge for you. Boreíte na katalávete ti léo?"

Her eyes widened in disbelief. "I understood you! That was Ancient Greek?"

Don't shove everyone's talking all in one paragraph! It confuses your readers when they read it and it's hard to figure out who's talking.

Tip #3: Weird paragraph spacing

(THIS IS ONLY FOR THOSE WHO USE WATTPAD! IF YOU ONLY WRITE ON QUOTEV, YOU CAN SKIP THIS TIP!)

There's this other weird thing that I only see in Wattpad:

She felt a shiver run down her spine at his words. "Half god..."
"Do you have ADHD and dyslexia?" Basil suddenly asked.
"Huh? Yeah, why?"
"Another sign that you're a demigod. The ADHD are actually your natural born battle reflexes and demigods are always misdiagnosed with dyslexia. Your brain's just hardwired for Ancient Greek, so reading and writing in any other language is a challenge for you. Boreíte na katalávete ti léo?"
Her eyes widened in disbelief. "I understood you! That was Ancient Greek?"

See the lack of line height? 

Yeah, I see this a lot in Wattpad and it's kind of annoying to read. I'm pretty sure this only happens if the author's typing their story out on their phone. If you're typing on the phone, please press the 'return/enter' button TWICE on your keyboard so you can have proper paragraphs instead of the weird ones like above.

Please you guys... PLEASE space your writing out.

Tip #4: Punctuation

Don't overdo it.

Your writing shouldn't be like this:

"Have any of you guys seen my dog?!?!?!??!?!"

Or

"What day is it today????"

Or

"Wow!!!"

Or

She opened the door only to find the murderer on the other side!!!

Just it once, you guys.

Using "..." is okay though because it shows the speaker is trailing off or their thoughts are trailing off.

"!", "?", and "?!" are fine as well, you don't need to add so many other marks after that.

If it was a social media fic or the characters are texting or the book you're writing isn't an actual book (like this guidebook for example), then it would be okay to use your punctuation that way.

But when you're writing an actual piece of literature with a story and everything? Nope, it should be formal.

Now excessive punctuation is bad, but so is a lack of punctuation. It's just a pet peeve of mine, but it always irks me when there's no punctuation in the dialogue.

"This is what I mean" the author stated "See how there's no commas, periods, or anything"

It just annoys me because I always read it in a monotone way like a robot since I have no idea if the person talking is asking a question or being surprised or trailing off BECAUSE THERE'S JUST NO PUNCTUATION.

Please use punctuation you guys, and use it properly!

Tip #5: Emojis and emoticons

Uh, it's kind of the same with punctuation. Only use emojis or emoticons if your characters are texting, it's a social media fic, or it's not an actual story that you're writing. There's no need to place random emojis in the middle of your story.

Tip #6: Capitalization...

Why Do People Write Like This????

How does it NOT annoy them having to capitalize the first letter of every damn word? I'm genuinely curious because WTF?

The second I see a book's summary where it's Written Like That, I don't even bother clicking it. I avoid it altogether.

But uh, I commend them for their dedication and patience though, I Would Give Up On The First Chapter If I Wrote My Book Like This.

So good job, but like... stop???

Only capitalize when you need to. Names should be capitalized, the first letter of every sentence should be capitalize, your lone 'I's should be capitalized, and so forth. Not Every Goddamn Word.

There's also the issue with people capitalizing unimportant words. I don't know if it's an Accident or not but sometimes people Write like this where random Words are just capitalized for no reason. Try not to do That.

Tip #7: Stop abusing the bold/italics/underlining options

I just recently read a fic (a yandere one too, I'm so addicted efhwiyfagf), and they used bold for all the dialogue? And I mean ALL.

"So basically," the author began. "Every character dialogue looked like this and it just doesn't make sense to me."

It's perfectly okay to have your characters talk like this if the person talking was like... some evil entity and you wanna show that by bolding their speech or whatever. But it shouldn't be like this EVERY TIME.

Bold is very eye-catching, so if all your dialogue is bolded it would be very confusing for your readers because they'd just be looking everywhere.

"The same also goes with Italics," the author added.

People mostly use italics in their speech if they're emphasizing or to show that the character is speaking another language. So doing that is okay, but like with the bolding, it's not necessary to italicize every part of the dialogue either.

"Just... have your characters talk like this," the author was nearly in tears at this point. "Bolding or italicizing everything just makes it look confusing."

Tip #8: Stop with the cliche intros

Starting off your book by making your character wake up has gotten really old.

The MC wakes up in their bedroom. 99% of the time someone's trying to wake them up because they're late for school or whatever.

Or having your character introduce themselves like this:

Hi!! My name's Emily! I'm a sixteen year old girl with messy blonde hair and bright blue OrBs. I'm Draco Malfoy's little sister! Yes, you heard that right! I'm a Malfoy despite my painfully plain name that doesn't match with the Malfoy aesthetic at all! I'm also Sevy's goddaughter and blah, blah, blah—

These sorts of introduction are so overused and even worse, they're BORING. You really shouldn't start out the very beginning of your book in such a bland way.

Your introduction is one of the most important parts of your story because it's the first thing readers see when they click on your book.

It's not like with actual authors who sell their books to the public. They can get away with the boring intro because the readers already bought their book so they might as well finish it through or else it would be a waste of money. Fanfic readers though? They can easily ditch it once they're bored with just a press of their fingers.

So fanfics writers gotta make their intros eye-catching and exciting or else you'll bore your readers and lose them. Do what Rick did. His first chapter of The Lightning Thief was brilliant. The action starts right away and there's an air of mystery at the end with the whole "Mrs. Dodds never existed" fiasco. It was interesting. It reeled us all in.

PJO fanfic writers can easily start off their story with a monster attack. It's a common thing, but it works. The action happens immediately, it's interesting, etc. HP writers... I don't really know, but you guys are smart enough to figure it.

The point is, PLEASE try to make your first chapter interesting and not the same old 'waking up from bed' stuff.

Tip #9: Know the difference between canon and fanon

For those who don't know 'fanon' basically means elements that aren't really official or true, but are widely used anyways either because people don't know it's inaccurate or because they prefer fanon more.

I'll use an example: Piper.

Canon Piper: Just how Rick wrote her with her internalized misogyny, obsessiveness, possessiveness, extreme jealousy, 'not like other girls' attitude and so forth.

Fanon Piper: All of her issues are nonexistent. She's still tomboyish but doesn't have any issues with femininity, still jealous of other girls, still a lil obsessed with Jason, still continues to pursue a relationship with Jason even though he has amnesia and her 'relationship' was based on fake memories.

(I like fanon!Piper a little more than canon!Piper, because she's a lot more tolerable but there's so many fanon!Piper fics and never any fics that actually addressed her real issues [the ones Rick unintentionally created and never called out in canon], which was why I decided to stick to canon!Piper but with her issues called out.)

Anyways literally every HOO fanfic I read uses fanon!Piper, but I've come to the realization that it's only because some of those authors haven't even realized she had internalized misogyny in the canon books to begin with 💀

And the worst thing about that? A lot of people read them, and because there's so many of those fics, a lot of people start to believe that fanon!Piper is actually the canon!Piper.

That is not true. You've already read my rant on that little bitch so you should know right now different canon!Piper is from her fanon version. Canon!Piper is absolutely abhorrent with no redeeming qualities, but fanon!Piper has some, and the only redeeming trait is that she's not a fucking misogynist. It's the bare minimum, but whatever.

The same goes with any other character. People start to believe fanon over canon, and they're just plain wrong and misinformed.

Fanon!Harry: flirtatious, arrogant, cocky, seductive. 

Canon!Harry: AWKARD, clueless, angry

Fanon!Snape: a ViCtiM, heroic, secretly nice, in love

Canon!Snape: abusive, hateful, obsessed with a dead girl, apathetic

Fanon!Draco: misunderstood, seductive, sLyThErIn sEx gOd

Canon!Draco: asshole who was taught a very important lesson, arrogant, bratty, whiny

Fanon!Leo: seductive, suave, confident

Canon!Leo: insecure, funny, secretly depressed, flirtatious but only in a clearly joking manner

Yeah, you get the point. 

Writing the fanon version of a character is perfectly fine, but can you guys at least inform your readers about it in the beginning so they don't go around believing fanon is canon???

And it's not just the characters that authors get mixed up with. It's random details of the books too. 

Lemme explain what I mean:

- FANON: Snape is Draco's godfather. CANON: Snape was just Draco's teacher and the only reason he watched out for him was because he did the Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa and if he fucked it up, he would die. There is absolutely no evidence in the book that said that Snape was Draco's godfather or that he actually genuinely cared about the kid

- FANON: Snape and Regulus were besties. CANON: Guys... Regulus was barely even mentioned. I'm pretty sure his name only showed up like five times throughout the whole series. We know very very very little about his life or who his friends were. Plus, Snape was a half-blood with a muggle father. I doubt Regulus would befriend him. He most likely made fun of him in his head because of his clear internalized racism. 

- FANON: Harry released Nagini in the first book. CANON: This was already proven false. The snake in the zoo was a boa constrictor while Nagini's some type of viper. 

You should try and know the difference between fanon and canon. 

Tip #10: Try to write your characters correctly

My biggest issue... is that authors fuck up when it comes to their OCs. 

Greatest example? Piper. Rick tried to write her off as some cool, badass, daughter of Aphrodite when she actually turned out to be a sociopathic, abusive piece of shit with internalized misogyny. The worst thing? THOSE TRAITS WERE NOT CALLED OUT. 

😫😫😫

I know authors don't intentionally do this. They don't just purposely make a horrible character and not call out their flaws. Like with Rick, he genuinely tried to write Piper as a great character and thought that he was calling out her flaws (which in this case, is apparently insecurity). He was blind to all the other flaws he accidentally created and accidentally made a bunch of contradictory traits for her. 

So yeah, authors can't really help this. This is something they do on accident. 

Just... try to pay extra attention to your character. Are you writing them the way you want them to be written as? Reread your book(s) and check to see if there's any character flaws that you might have unintentionally created and either remove them or call those flaws out. Or maybe readers noticed it and pointed it out too! That's constructive criticism (unless they were an asshole about it), so you should probably listen to them! 

So uh... in other words, don't make a Mary Sue 😃👍

Tip #11: Other words for 'said'

There's literally charts for this that you can look up in google images.

Here's one:

Tip #12: Familial relationships... 😂

Do siblings actually call each other "bro" and "sis"??? Like I've stumbled upon so many fics where the characters call their siblings "bro" and "sis" and it just seems so awkward to me.

The only time it doesn't seem awkward is if the character was of a certain ethnicity whose culture has them refer to their siblings in a certain way. For example, in the Philippines we call our older brother "kuya" and our older sister "ate". I call my sister ate (pronounced ah-teh btw) and I rarely ever call her by her name. 

But most of the time, the characters aren't Filipino or apart of any culture that has them address their siblings another way. Most of the time, the characters are just white and from all the white people I've met and seen on TV, they never say "hey bro!" or "hey sis!" to their siblings, they just use a nickname or call each other by their actual names. 

THE SAME WITH COUSINS!

I read one fic where Draco (they used fanon!Draco too 😂😂😂) kept calling the MC "cousin" like... is that how fancy people talk??? They just say "hello cousin" "yes, cousin" "good morning, cousin" he just kept going "cousin this cousin that" to the point where I wondered if he actually knew her name.

OH AND DADS CALLING THEIR KID "SQUIRT" 😂😂😂😂asiurhyegrasihf

Do dads still do that??? I find that so hilarious 💀

Any time I read fics like that, the familial relationships just seem so awkward and forced to an almost cringy degree. 

I can't give you much advice for familial relationships, but I know for sure siblings don't commonly refer to each other as "bro" and "sis", they mostly just use nicknames or their actual names instead. If you're going to write about a character whose ethnicity you don't belong to, make sure you do research on their culture and see if they have to address certain members of their family a certain way. 

(Actually, if you're going to write about a character whose of a different ethnicity than yours, then I advise you to do research on EVERYTHING.)

Tip #13: Speaking of POC, please stop describing our skin colors with food 🙄

It has racist undertones. It's 2021 now, there's already been a shit ton of talk about why this is wrong so most of you should already know this by now. 

Just stop using food to describe how our skin looks. 

The worst thing is that it mostly happens to black or darker skinned characters. Their skin is always described as "coffee" or "chocolate" or "caramel". 

Fuck, I even read one book (and this was NOT a fanfic by the way. This was an actual physical book that was sold to people at book stores) where the ONE asian character there was described to have skin like a "pale lemon". 

😐

Pale lemon. Are you fucking kidding me. A lemon is yellow and we already have enough issues with racists calling us yellow and now we have some dumb bitch author calling us "pale lemons" as if they were doing us a favor. 

(I don't remember what the book was, but I did a book report on it back in middle school because it was my free-read book. I'll try to go through my google docs to see if the report is still there later. From what I recall, it was about some werewolf camp and the asian character was a minor character who was a known runt of the pack or whatever. Yeah idk why I read that, I was young and stupid 🤮)

Anyways, comparing our skin to food is not flattering. It's weird especially since this sort of thing only happens to POC characters and rarely ever with white characters which says a lot.  White characters are just described as "pale" "fair" or "tan". 

Why is this such a big deal? 

Well, if I have any white readers here, I doubt you would like it if authors constantly described you as:

"having skin like moist mayonnaise" 

"with skin so sun-kissed she looked like a cheeto" 

"skin that reminded me of the inner layer of an onion" 

and you get the point. 

Not exactly flattering, is it? You'd be offended too now, huh? Yeah, us people of color don't like it either 😐

So writers, all you have to do is just to use terms like "pale" "tanned" or "dark-skinned" that's it. That's so simple. 

If you want to describe them in a more ✨artsy✨ manner rather than using those basic terms, then try "ivory" "bronze" "amber" "umber" "beige" "sienna" and so forth, just DON'T go to food. 

And here you go! Thirteen tips! 

Here's an update for those wondering about the Wattpad issue: I've successfully copied my drafted chapters to google docs and got comfortable writing there too (I just finished writing chapter 36 of Steresis btw). As for my ao3 registration, I'll be getting my invitation tomorrow! I've heard some people say that putting gifs/pics there is complicated which is why rarely anyone ever bothers, but if I ever get it down, I'll make sure to post a tutorial of it on here!