@theliteraryarchitect Is A Writing Advice Blog Run By Me, Bucket Siler, A Writer And Developmental Editor.

super simple low-effort ao3 summary methods that are 1000% better and 1000% less annoying than just saying you suck at summaries:

copypaste the first few lines of the fic. u already wrote 'em. let 'em be their own damn hook

if ur feeling fancy & don't mind showing ur hand a bit, copypaste the first few lines of the fic that u feel are esp. Important or Interesting - the ones where u first start getting into the real meat of things

state the main tropes! theyre probably already in ur tags - just say them again - maybe as a full sentence if ur feelin fancy. or with a joke if ur feelin Extra fancy

ask a question. pose a hypothetical. eg what happens if u take [character] and put them in [situation]?

make an equation. [character] + [thing] = [outcome]

just write like a one-sentence summary of what the fuck is going down. just one (1) sentence. doesnt matter if it doesn't cover every important aspect. or if it sounds bland. any summary sentence is gonna be miles better than "idk i suck at summaries"

just...explain the fic like u would to a friend? it doesnt have to be a polished back of the book blurb. it can just be "[pairing] coffee shop au, but like, still with murder, and also i made everyone trans. enjoy"

just stick a meme in there

honestly who cares

just put literally anything but a self deprecating comment in there & ur golden

PLEASE do yourself a favour and check out this wikipedia-styled template for google drive, made by @ Rukidut on twitter

I decided to try to sort my ideas and whats canon regarding my ocs with this and ITS PERFECT. IT ALL FEELS SO CONRETE. and i sure as hell AM Going to continue to use this with every single OC I have until google drives is set ablaze- Just!!!!!!!!

Also; link directly to the doc, just copy the file and you have your own lil template!!!!

One of the most important lessons I ever learned about art was when I became a late addition to the editorial board for the literature part of my high school's lit/art magazine, which nobody ever read.

Because I realized after a couple of meetings that my moments of baffled distress during them were centering around a pattern of our votes electing by majority to reject most of the good, interesting stuff and agree to publish the very bland.

So I was looking around this room of people I mostly liked or respected if not both, trying to figure out what the fuck when there was no reasonable way of asking, until the day we by majority vote sent definitely the best thing submitted all year back pending 'revisions' which of course would not be made, because the poet would definitely either become demoralized or know for damn sure she was too good for our stupid journal. I have no idea which it was; it's a question of mindset, and the submissions were anonymous.

This good poem was rejected for two reasons, both of which were actually manifestations of it being good. One was that it had made a couple of the board uncomfortable--not by having any shocking subject material, mind, just by provoking emotions with unusual descriptive language and indirectness--and they'd transmitted that uneasiness throughout the group during discussion.

And the other, seized upon as an excuse in light of the first, was that by being complex in terms of both structure and notion it had drawn several of us in, interested enough to engage critically and respond in depth, and so we'd marked it up with lots of places we thought a word choice could have been a little stronger, a line break had been a little odd; ways we thought it could have been a more excellent version of the poem we perceived in it. None of them ways it was actually bad. Just places we felt it could have been better.

At the same meeting, we voted to accept a poem that was an utterly tepid rectangle of predictable nothing-in-particular, because no one could find anything in it to object to.

It wasn't good. It wasn't noticeably bad, either, though; it was one consistent level of mediocrity clear through, and thus no part of it stood out as a weakness, and therefore the committee found it more acceptable than the poem that was superior in every way, but which by being daring and interesting had left itself covered in vulnerable places.

The understanding I reached as a result of this experience was multi-layered and difficult to articulate, but the most important part, I think, to share is that the value and quality of a work are not, in fact, very well measured by how many negative things you can find to say about it.

Character developement

- Create a detailed backstory: Develop a rich and layered backstory for your character, including their upbringing, past experiences, and significant events that have shaped them. This will provide a foundation for their personality and motivations.

- Define core traits: Identify a few core personality traits that define your character. Consider both positive and negative traits to make them more well-rounded and realistic.

- Give them strengths and weaknesses: No character is perfect. Give your character a mix of strengths and weaknesses to make them relatable and interesting. These flaws can create internal conflicts and opportunities for growth.

- Establish goals and motivations: Determine what drives your character. What are their goals, desires, or ambitions? Understanding their motivations will help shape their actions and decisions throughout the story.

- Create relationships: Develop meaningful relationships for your character with other characters in the story. This includes friends, family, romantic partners, and even adversaries. Consider how these relationships influence and shape your character's development.

- Show internal conflict: Explore the internal struggles and dilemmas your character faces. This could be conflicting emotions, difficult choices, or battling their own fears and insecurities. Internal conflict adds depth and complexity to their development.

- Allow for growth and change: Characters should evolve throughout the story. Consider a character arc that takes your character from a starting point to a transformed state by the end. Give them challenges and experiences that allow them to learn, grow, and change over time.

- Use dialogue effectively: Craft dialogue that reflects your character's unique voice, speech patterns, and personality traits. Dialogue can reveal their emotions, beliefs, and thought processes, providing insights into their character.

- Show, don't tell: Instead of explicitly telling readers about your character's traits, show them through their actions, choices, and interactions with others. This allows readers to form their own opinions and connections with the character.

- Continuously refine and develop: Characters are not static entities. As you write, remain open to new ideas and opportunities for character development. Allow your characters to surprise you and evolve beyond your initial plans.

NaNo Alternatives

Okay, real post time (but keep those boops booping) - You want to do NaNoWriMo tomorrow, but you don't want to go anywhere near the main organization and their website. Here's a list of alternatives you can try:

Rogue Writers - International group launched to provide an alternative for writers. Their website has challenges, free tools, and more.

myWriteClub - Word tracking tool.

Novlr - A writing app designed to help you meet your writing goals.

WriteTrack - Word tracking tool.

Shut Up and Write - Find in-person or online groups to write together with!

NoQuWriCo - A November writing challenge with tools, tips, and encouragement to make it through the month! (Thanks to someone letting me know - this is a Christian alternative. Try another if that does not appeal to you!)

Writing Month - Write. A Month. Do It.

Your local library - If you did NaNo events through your library, chances are they're still doing it this year. Make sure you check in with all the resources you've used in the past, as they're likely still around.

Whatever you decide to do tomorrow, good luck! And remember, if you want to still use the NaNo website but don't like their AI policies and the rest of it, just don't give them money! Laugh to yourself, evilly, as you update your word count. It's very validating.

(Now back to booping.)

how could someone get started writing poetry? what are the skills to build and how can i build them? i’m scared i don’t have anything to say…… how can i find my voice?

An excellent and very common question! I can’t lay any claim to being a big poetry maven at this point—it’s been quite a while since I’ve written any, or even seriously READ any—but I can tell you some things I learned and some things I think, and I hope that will be at least a little helpful.

The first thing to note is that finding my voice and something to say was, in my experience, inseparable from living my actual life and thinking for myself. I was writing poetry from the age of 12 or 13, and only now, 18 or so years later, do I feel like I have anything of importance to say. And that only sometimes. It may work differently for other people, but that’s how it worked for me. I would advise you not to worry about your voice for now. The thing I was doing early on is PLAYING with language, trying things out, imitating writers I admired. Take the pressure off yourself!

As for the skills you need to build, the most important one by far is perseverance. Any artist will tell you this. You won’t write masterpieces straight out of the gate; no one does. You have to learn not to be discouraged too much if you look down and your writing and feel nothing but horror. That is a universal experience, and you won’t be able to write well if you can’t push through it somehow and keep going. The rest of the skills you need you can learn by imitation, constraint, trial and error, etc.

If you want specific instructions, see below. These roughly correspond to the way I learned to write poetry.

The first thing to do is to read a lot of poetry. Find an anthology with broad coverage and generous aesthetic guidelines, one that brings together a lot of different kinds of poetry. Flip through it. Read at random. As you do, some things will enchant you, some things will baffle you, some things will make you wonder why people think they’re good, and so on. Zero in on poems that really affect you, and note the poets. These will be your foundation.

Then, read more deeply in these poets that interest you. You’ll find as you read that each poet has patterns, tricks and maneuvers they do over and over again. Note them. And note the conventions of poetry in general—how line breaks are used, what rhythms keep emerging.

Once you have a good idea of at least how your favored poets work, try out their tricks for yourself. Write about anything at all, but try to follow your poet’s motions. As you do this, you’ll discover the interactions and tensions between form and content, and you’ll start to learn why certain topics in poetry take certain forms.

A helpful thing to do when writing anything is to set yourself a rule or two. Write against challenges—write in established forms, or confine your vocabulary, or whatever you like. This will focus your work and allow for creative leaps that would never have occurred to you if you were just trying to summon something out of nothing. Free writing can also help with this—if you’re forcing yourself to write nonstop for a period of minutes, something about the stream of consciousness can unlock unusual and striking connections.

Once you’re doing all that, the next step is just to live your life. But live it observantly, with an eye toward everything—your own feelings, physical objects, images, sounds, patterns. Absorb things. And while you’re at it, tackle some nonpoetic task or project that forces you to really think. As much as poetry is associated with feeling, what a great poem really is is the track of the poet’s thought laid down in as appropriate a form as possible, so that you think along with the poet as you read. Without thought, there is no poetry.

The synthesis and end of all these steps is not only writing poetry, but appreciating, understanding, and loving it. All of these things feed and fuel one another. It’s an engine you have to build within yourself. And if you’re successful, you’ll have enriched your life as well as your art.

I wish you the best of luck.

P.S. It’s fine to discover kinds of poetry or poets that you don’t care for, or dislike, or hate with a burning passion, so long as you understand what it is they’re trying to do.

Game-Changing Sites for Writers

A recent search for a specific type of site to help me build new characters led me down a rabbit hole. Normally, that would make me much less productive, but I have found a treasure trove of websites for writers.

Bring Characters/Places to Life

There are a few different places you can use to create a picture of something entirely new. I love this site for making character pictures as references, instead of stock photos or whatever pops up on Google Images.

thispersondoesnotexist: every time you reload the page, this site generates a headshot of someone who doesn't exist. This is great if you're thinking about a character's personality or age and don't have specifics for their facial features yet.

Night Cafe: this is an AI art generator that takes your text prompt and generates an image for it. I tried it for various scenery, like "forest" or "cottage." It takes a minute for your requested photo to load, but no more than maybe five for the program to finish the picture.

Art Breeder: this website has endless images of people, places, and general things. Users can blend photos to create something new and curious visitors can browse/download those images without creating an account. (But if you do want to make an account to create your own, it's free!)

Find Random Places on Earth

You might prefer to set a story in a real-life environment so you can reference that place's weather, seasons, small-town vibe, or whatever you like. If that's the case, try:

MapCrunch: the homepage generates a new location each day and gives the location/GPS info in the top left of the screen. To see more images from previous days, hit "Gallery" in the top left.

Atlas Obscura: hover over or tap the "Places" tab, then hit "Random Place." A new page will load with a randomly generated location on the planet, provide a Google Maps link, and tell you a little bit about the place.

Random World Cities: this site makes randomly selected lists of global cities. Six appear for each search, although you'll have to look them up to find more information about each place. You can also use the site to have it select countries, US cities or US states too.

Vary Your Wording

Thesauruses are great, but these websites have some pretty cool perspectives on finding just the right words for stories.

Describing Words: tell this website which word you want to stop repeating and it will give you tons of alternative words that mean the same thing. It typically has way more options than other sites I use.

Reverse Dictionary: type what you need a word for in Reverse Dictionary's search box and it will give you tons of words that closely match what you want. It also lists the words in order of relevancy, starting with a word that most accurately describes what you typed. (There's also an option to get definitions for search results!)

Tip of My Tongue: this website is phenomenal. It lets you search for that word you can't quite place by a letter in it, the definition, what it sounds like, or even its scrambled letters. A long list of potential options will appear on the right side of the screen for every search.

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Hope this helps when you need a hand during your next writing session 💛

if ur poetry isnt cringe that means you didnt put enough effort in

me: *writes fic*

me: great! time to post to ao3-

ao3 summary box: *exists*

me: 

ao3 summary box:

me:

ao3 summary box: 

me: