If there is something I used to fear as a writer, it was the blank page. But not just any blank page. Sure, I sometimes have trouble starting a draft or a quick outline. But what I was actually scared of was the document named “Worldbuilding”, with a black line flickering menacingly, as I felt my ideas demanding to be put on paper. For me, it was like walking into a completely white, matrix-like room that needs to be filled. But there was just so much space, so much emptiness, it was overwhelming.
I wished I could have just blinked and I would have found myself taking a panoramic view of an almost-tangible place. Maybe there would’ve been a mountain with a castle in ruins, or a space station overlooking a hostile planet. But eventually, I learned that worldbuilding is a slow process. And it demands a lot of effort from writers to fill that white room. We are creating a new world, after all.
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Society is long past the notion of “girl things” and “boy things,” except for, it seems, when it comes to media. Of course, anyone can freely consume any media they want to, but what does gender do for our perception of these movies and books?
And, most importantly, is it harmful? *The end of this article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home. I will be mapping out the three-act structure of the movie. There will be a definitive warning before any spoilers are revealed.*
I first learned about three-act structure back in high school. During a creative writing class, our teacher drew an arc on the whiteboard, broke it down into segments, and labeled them: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action. It was taught to me as a basic outline for plot, but I recently learned that the three-act structure maps character instead. I’ve been taking an online master class, and the instructor dedicated a whole lesson breaking down how the three-act structure model works in terms of characters. Thinking of the structure in terms of character instead of plot can give you a new way to look at your story. Many stories and movies utilize this structure, and you can identify the points of three-act structure within each one. Let’s break it down, act-by-act and point-by-point. Slow vs Fast Pacing : A Basic Guide1/10/2022 When we are bored, a few hours seem like a week. When we have fun, we feel like suddenly we have blinked, and an hour has gone by. Just the way your mind does, books trick people into thinking time is passing by at different rhythms. In a certain number of pages, readers can understand events that took place during hours, days, months, and even centuries (yes, I’m looking at you 100 Days of Solitude). But to create this illusion correctly, the way writers manage time during each scene is essential.
First things first, what is pacing? Pacing is the speed at which your story moves forward. It uses every action and interaction of your characters to generate the perspective of time moving quickly or slowly. Every scene must move the plot forward, regardless of its pacing, to keep your writing fluid and the reader interested. Looking back at Old Writing1/8/2022 I can’t say that I look back at my old writing very often, but I do have a distinct memory of doing so once. I was about fifteen, getting re-initiated into the world of writing and dying to write the next modern day masterpiece, when I stumbled upon an old story I had written. Curiosity got a hold of me, and I sat down and read through the whole thing. It was bad, very bad, and I laughed and cringed at my twelve year-old self who somehow made every grammar mistake and missed every typo in her sentences, while thinking that she was the best writer out there. More importantly than that, however, I realized that I had quite the story on my hands.
If you asked me two years ago if I was a writer, I would have said no. I had ideas for stories back then and even tried writing one, but none of them were fully committed to. But halfway through 2020, the seed of an idea bloomed, and today, I wouldn’t call myself anything else but a writer (except for maybe author, fingers crossed!). At the start of a new year, I find myself reflecting on 2021 and its lessons about writing and my relationship towards it. Here are seven things 2021 taught me about writing.
A “time skip” is any time in a story where a time is glossed over or summarized to move on to the next segment. This can be minutes, hours, days, months, or years. Time skips are an essential skill to learn to master pacing. Often time skips can be used to your advantage, as they keep the story interesting, but other times they can be used to pass over moments that may be incredibly important to the story that you are writing. It’s important to know when and how to use this device, so hopefully, this article should serve as a helpful introduction.
Holidays From Around the World1/6/2022 From fluffy holiday AUs to whole stories centering around the magic of the holiday season to character arcs revolving around changed relationships with the holidays (hello Scrooge), the holidays are a favorite of writers all over the world.
But there’s more than just the candy cane Christmas spirit or the giddy, hopeful New Years. Even within Christmas and New Years, the traditions and food vary all over the world, and bringing hints of cultural heritage into these celebrations can set your story apart from other holiday tales and bring something new to the table. You’ve made it to a new year! Congratulations are in order. Pat yourself on the back. Make yourself a snack. Take a shower.
The New Year: a perfect time to evaluate where you are in life, where you want to go, and how you want to get there. That’s why man invented resolutions; to help us start the year traversing a path towards improvement. What better time to set some writing goals for yourself? I’ve got a few in mind for you. Categories
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