Writing Advice Posts: A Handy Reference Guide

theliteraryarchitect:

(Updated 5/19/18) Hey all, I’ve got quite a few writing advice posts & answered Asks on my blog at this point, so I’m making this reference guide to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. Hope it helps!

Free Resource Library Downloads

All of these PDFs are available to download in my Free Resource Library.

• Creating Character Arcs Workbook
• Point of View Cheatsheet
• Dialogue Checklist
  
• Setting Checklist
• Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Editor Printable Checklist
• Proper Manuscript Format Printable Checklist
• Short Story & Novel Submission Templates

General

• 8 Ways to Improve Your Writing
• 10 Best Books About Writing Fiction
• How to Spot Bad Writing Advice: 6 Red Flags to Look For
• “Show Don’t Tell”? Not Always. Here’s When to Use Summary
• How to start a story
• More about starting stories
• The first sentence
  

The Writing Process, Writer’s Block, & Inspiration

• How to Train Yourself to Write Faster
• Just a friendly reminder that creativity is difficult to quantify.
• Quick Writing Tip: Make a Note to Your Future Self in Your WIP
• Quick Writing Tip: Take Notes!
• Just a friendly reminder that writing is not always a linear process.
• Quick Cure for Writer’s Block: Lower Your Expectations
• Set Realistic Goals
• Your Skills May Need Time to Catch Up to Your Vision
• It’s Okay to Experiment and Be Weird As Fuck
• Surround Yourself With Supporters
• It’s okay to take a break.
• Your First Draft is Raw Material
• Getting into “The Zone”
• Vomit Brain
• Writing from Your Imagination vs. Reality
• Dealing with Criticism
• Getting Bored with Your Own Writing
• Getting past a block
• Doing research on topics you don’t have first-hand experience with
• Journalling about your writing
  

Character Development

• Creating Character Arcs with the DCAST Method
  
• What Does Your Main Character Want?
• How to Activate Your Passive Characters, One Verb at a Time
  
• How to Use Description to Show Character Development
• How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene
• The “It Depends” Post
• Shifting internal goals
• When to identify your character’s goal
• Writing about normal people with normal problems
• If you’re worried about your character being too similar to someone else’s character 
• Describing your characters without messing up your pacing

Story, Plot, & Pacing

• Quick Plotting Tip: Write Your Story Backwards
• Pause at the Threshold
• Slowing Down the Pace of Your Story Without Boring Your Reader
• Time Transitions
• Creating Conflict
• When & how to cut a scene
• If you’re good at creating characters but awful at creating plot
• When you’ve plotted your story but can’t get started
• En Media Res
• Writing to Your Ideal Reader
• Deus Ex Machina
• Foreshadowing
• Finding an Ending
• What to write between moments of conflict
• Starting a story with waking-up scene
  

Description, Setting, & Worldbuilding

• How to Make Your Descriptions Less Boring
• How to Spot an “Info-dump”
• Adding Descriptions to Intense Scenes Without Messing Up Your Story’s Flow
• How to Use Description to Show Character Development
• Worldbuilding: How much is too much?
• Modeling your fantasy world from stuff in the real world
• Internal Consistency
  

Point of View

• How to Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story
• A Beginner’s Guide to Multiple Point of View
  
• 6 Questions to Ask About Your Point of View
• How to decide if you should use first person or third person
• More point of view basics
• Head hopping
  

Dialogue

• How to Improve Your Dialogue
• 3 Ways to Make Your Dialogue More Interesting
• Starting a story with dialogue
• Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?
  

Publishing & Sharing Your Work

• 7 Tips to Build an Audience for Your Writing
• Pros and Cons of Self Publishing
• Quick Publishing Tip: Don’t Bury Your Gold
• How to Properly Format Your Manuscript for Publication
• A warning about posting writing online that you intend to publish later
• Advice for writers who are worried about people stealing their work or ideas
• Getting feedback on your writing
  

Editing

• Quick Revision Tip: Read Your Writing Out Loud
• How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write
  
• Cut the fidgeting
• Are you suffering from -ing disease?
• Are you Using Too Much Stage Direction?
• What “Editing” Really Means
• Quick Editing Tip: “That”
• Quick Revision Tip: Read Faster
• Editing Tip: Dialogue
• Tips for Editing a Story
  

…if you find any broken links please let me know and I will fix them! xo

*I recently changed the name of my blog. All of these links should work, but if you come across a “Bucket Siler has moved!” page when clicking on a link inside an old post, there’s an easy way to find what you’re looking for: In the url, delete “bucketsiler,” write “theliteraryarchitect,” then hit return. Also, let me know about it & I will fix it :)

@n-o-i-d