byoldervine - Tumblr blog

byoldervine · 15 hours

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Boosting this before the time runs out - should’ve done this earlier 🤦🏻‍♀️

We’re getting to the end of these now - no new characters to be added!

#oc #ocs #poll #polls #writing polls #tumblr polls

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byoldervine · 1 day

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This is exactly it! I’ve been saying for ages that consistency is what gets a book done, not writing a lot all in one go

To be clear to everyone who never really got it, this is what people mean by ‘write every day’ or ‘don’t just write when you’re motivated’; you need to have some form of consistent progress being made, even if it’s just 100 words every week then you still have a baseline for how much progress to minimally expect on a regular basis

The way I see it, a 500-word chunk of WIP is solid progress. If I get that every day, great. A little less? 300 words is better than none. Some days, I break 1 or 2k and it's a big deal.

Consistency is the key for me. As long as I keep chipping away, the story gets written.

#consistency is definitely key #writing tips #keep going #you got this #writing #writers #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity

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byoldervine · 2 days

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I mean… do we get to pick which OC? Cause we can totally just choose a background character and call it a day, right?

I mean, I already have a main I’d pick, but what are the options here?

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byoldervine · 3 days

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Thank you @ukinea and everyone who got me to 3000 reblogs!

Types Of Writer’s Block (And How To Fix Them)

1. High inspiration, low motivation. You have so many ideas to write, but you just don’t have the motivation to actually get them down, and even if you can make yourself start writing it you’ll often find yourself getting distracted or disengaged in favour of imagining everything playing out

Try just bullet pointing the ideas you have instead of writing them properly, especially if you won’t remember it afterwards if you don’t. At least you’ll have the ideas ready to use when you have the motivation later on

2. Low inspiration, high motivation. You’re all prepared, you’re so pumped to write, you open your document aaaaand… three hours later, that cursor is still blinking at the top of a blank page

RIP pantsers but this is where plotting wins out; refer back to your plans and figure out where to go from here. You can also use your bullet points from the last point if this is applicable

3. No inspiration, no motivation. You don’t have any ideas, you don’t feel like writing, all in all everything is just sucky when you think about it

Make a deal with yourself; usually when I’m feeling this way I can tell myself “Okay, just write anyway for ten minutes and after that, if you really want to stop, you can stop” and then once my ten minutes is up I’ve often found my flow. Just remember that, if you still don’t want to keep writing after your ten minutes is up, don’t keep writing anyway and break your deal - it’ll be harder to make deals with yourself in future if your brain knows you don’t honour them

4. Can’t bridge the gap. When you’re stuck on this one sentence/paragraph that you just don’t know how to progress through. Until you figure it out, productivity has slowed to a halt

Mark it up, bullet point what you want to happen here, then move on. A lot of people don’t know how to keep writing after skipping a part because they don’t know exactly what happened to lead up to this moment - but you have a general idea just like you do for everything else you’re writing, and that’s enough. Just keep it generic and know you can go back to edit later, at the same time as when you’re filling in the blank. It’ll give editing you a clear purpose, if nothing else

5. Perfectionism and self-doubt. You don’t think your writing is perfect first time, so you struggle to accept that it’s anything better than a total failure. Whether or not you’re aware of the fact that this is an unrealistic standard makes no difference

Perfection is stagnant. If you write the perfect story, which would require you to turn a good story into something objective rather than subjective, then after that you’d never write again, because nothing will ever meet that standard again. That or you would only ever write the same kind of stories over and over, never growing or developing as a writer. If you’re looking back on your writing and saying “This is so bad, I hate it”, that’s generally a good thing; it means you’ve grown and improved. Maybe your current writing isn’t bad, if just matched your skill level at the time, and since then you’re able to maintain a higher standard since you’ve learned more about your craft as time went on

#3000 reblogs #tumblr milestone #thank you

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byoldervine · 3 days

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NEED HELP WRITING? (a masterlist)

I have likely not added many that I've reblogged to this list. Please feel free to roam my blog and/or ask/message me to add something you'd like to see on this list!

Synonym Lists

Look by @writers-potion

Descriptors

Voices by @saraswritingtipps

Show, Don't Tell by @lyralit

Tips & Tricks

5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists by @writingwithfolklore

How To (Realistically) Make a Habit of Writing by @byoldervine

Let's Talk About Misdirection by @deception-united

Tips to Improve Character Voice by @tanaor

Stephen King's Top 20 Rules for Writers posted by @toocoolformedschool

Fun Things to Add to a Fight Scene (Hand to Hand Edition) by @illarian-rambling

Questions I Ask My Beta Readers by @burntoutdaydreamer

Skip Google for Research by @s-n-arly

Breaking Writing Rules Right: Don't Write Direct Dialogue by @septemberercfawkes

Databases/Resources

International Clothing

Advice/Uplifting

Too Ashamed of Writing To Write by @writingquestionsanswered

"Said" is Beautiful by @blue-eyed-author

#ayooo I made the masterlist!#thank you!#writing tips #writing tricks #writing advice #writing resources #writing #writers #writeblr #bookblr #book #masterlist #synonyms

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byoldervine · 4 days

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How do you format a book?

I’m still on my first draft so I’m not at that point with my work yet, but I’ll refer you to Abbie Emmons’ video on the subject - she also has a lot of other great writing tips if that helps!

youtube

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byoldervine · 5 days

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Character Info - Princess Kynne

General Info

Name: Princess Kynne of Blackwood

Nicknames: N/A

Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 81 (biologically 27)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

Species: Dark Elf

Place Of Birth: Blackwood, Paracosm

Current Home: Unknown, thought to be Zeilona, Paracosm

Appearance

Like many dark elves, Princess Kynne has dark hair and deathly pale skin. Her attire is often red and black dresses fit for a princess, though when alone she will wear more comfortable and casual clothing around the castle

Personality

Princess Kynne is mostly quiet and distant, similar to her mother in that regard. She isn’t so interested in royal affairs or gatherings, preferring to keep to her room or explore her kingdom. One thing she always took to, however, were her studies and other learning opportunities, which Kynne was always interested in. It was rare that she wouldn’t at least give something a try. She also uses her generally serious demeanour as a source of humour, on occasion leaving people questioning if she’s serious or just coming up with some wild answer out of nowhere

Likes:

• Jewellery-making

• The outdoors

• Picking up new hobbies

Dislikes:

• Big gatherings

• Royal duties

• Being told what she can or can’t do

Known Abilities

• Nature’s healing - like all elves, Princess Kynne is able to heal plant life to some extent

• Tephrakinesis - as a descendant of the original dark elves, Princess Kynne is capable of manipulating burnt matter such as soot or ash

• Princess Kynne is also familiar with using traditional elven hunting bows for sport

Relationships

Family:

• Queen Wink (mother)

• Queen Eilonwy (grandmother, deceased)

Friends/Allies:

• Delphine (ex-nanny, ex-handmaiden, traitor, deceased)

• The Drow (elite guards)

Enemies:

• The High Elves of Zeilona (enemies in war)

Backstory

Princess Kynne was groomed from birth to be the next ruler of Blackwood in her mother’s place. She was always disinterested in royal affairs, but learned quickly not to complain and to simply push on. She prefers to spend her time learning new things, which lead her to be very studious, which Queen Wink was very pleased with. The thing they could bond over most was their shared interest in reading

Throughout her childhood, Kynne was looked after by her nanny, Delphine, who she developed a close relationship with. As Kynne grew up, Delphine became her handmaiden, supporting Kynne in all her affairs. Six years ago, however, everything changed when it was discovered that Delphine was a High Elf who had somehow breached the Tainted Ivy

Seeing how close a High Elf had gotten to her daughter terrified Queen Wink, who ordered a public execution of the believed spy. She thought that this would be the end of it, but Kynne went missing the very next day, believed to have been taken by other High Elf spies who were prompted to act now that their covers were beginning to be blown. Princess Kynne has not been seen since that day

Fun Facts

• Princess Kynne was born in the year 1944, and disappeared six years ago in 2019

• Like all fae, Princess Kynne is incapable of lying - but that doesn’t mean she can’t stretch the truth or find other ways to deceive people

• Princess Kynne’s favourite colour, contrary to popular belief, is green

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byoldervine · 5 days

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We’re getting to the end of these now - no new characters to be added!

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byoldervine · 7 days

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How To Write An Original Story

I’ve seen so many people worrying that their story isn’t original enough or that it’s too similar to other stories or things like that, and I’ve shared multiple times how that’s just not possible; everything’s been done before, people like reading the same things, blah blah blah

But it never really hits, does it? So instead of that, what we’re going to do is take our concept, pick out anything we can find that took inspiration from another media and why, then we’ll say how we did it differently or made it our own for this story. I’ll join in with my own WIP (TL;DR at the bottom)

Glyph magic system -> taken from The Owl House because I thought it was a cool way for humans to use magic -> base elements switched and designs and activation requirements changed to work within my general magic system

Looking at my glyph magic system now, you wouldn’t even be able to recognise it as coming from The Owl House; the only similarity is that they’re both glyph magic systems. You don’t have to go quite that far to make your things original, you’re more than allowed to have similarities to other media, but I won’t deny that it’s pretty affirming when you see that you’ve gotten to that point

The Fallow and Fallow Rose -> taken from Minecraft’s Wither and Wither Rose because I used them in my own Minecraft world when building a desert city -> for the most part I only changed the names from Wither to Fallow and then added lore to it, but the Fallow Roses still drain the life force of those who touch them just like Wither Roses do

Granted this one is a bit more obscure, but the point still stands that sometimes you don’t even have to change much at all. Expanding on the lore will always benefit the distance between the inspiration and the new idea, though

Mythical entities entering the human world and needing to be sent back home humanely -> taken from Pokémon: Ultra Adventures and the Ultra Guardians -> Instead of alien Pokémon I used fantasy creatures, but I did keep the idea of them coming and going through portals of generally unexplained origins and having to fight or calm them before another portal could be opened to send them home

Honestly? I’ve known for ages that I took this from somewhere but I couldn’t pinpoint where exactly I took it from. It was fkn POKÉMON this whole time. Anyway, it’s a good example of something that’s largely generic once you remove the parts of the concept that are entirely unique to its original story, i.e. removing the Pokémon from this no longer makes it sound specific to Pokémon. But that doesn’t mean I’m blatantly copying Pokémon, or just means that I’m using a concept/trope that they also happened to use. If we weren’t allowed to use tropes that other stories have also used, they wouldn’t be tropes because they wouldn’t be popular or widespread enough to be considered as such

So yeah, the TL;DR here is that creativity doesn’t mean you have to have entirely original ideas the whole time you’re writing. Creativity can simply be saying “I like that - what different direction can I take with it?”

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byoldervine · 7 days

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Different POVs In Writing

POV - Short for Point Of View, meaning that the audience is experiencing a story from the perspective of a specific person or outside entity; they are part of the story in one way or another

• 1st Person POV - Experiencing a story from the perspective of the main character. Pronouns will be I, me, my, mine, etc

• 2nd Person POV - Experiencing a story from your own perspective as if you were a character within the story. Pronouns will be you, your, yours, etc. Stories are rarely written from this perspective outside of Choose Your Own Adventure style stories

• 3rd Person POV - Experiencing a story from an outside perspective. No personal pronouns will be used for you, but other characters will be referred to as he, she, they, it, etc

• 4th Person POV - Experiencing a story through a collective perspective. Pronouns include we, us, someone, anyone, etc. I’ve never seen a story written from this perspective. Fourth person perspective is mostly used in livestreams, in which the chat forms a non-specific collective presence that are all addressed as one

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byoldervine · 8 days

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#oops #my bad #poll #polls #tumblr polls #writing #writers #writeblr

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byoldervine · 9 days

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Why do you watch miraculous ladybug

I saw a bunch of fandom stuff online and figured I’d give it a go. It was fun at first but I started noticing the writing issues that many fans have spoken about. I still enjoy watching with my brain turned off but I also love overanalysing it, so on my first watch I’ll go in trying to just have a good time and having a laugh, then I like to go back and consider the writing choices

What they do good, they do very good, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise, but at the same time there’s definitely a lot to unpack with this show and at this point it’s incredibly fascinating to me from a writing perspective how far they can go with this. Also I just in general love to analyse media

#thanks for the ask!#anon ask #miraculous ladybug #media analysis #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writers of tumblr

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byoldervine · 10 days

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Here's the big question; would Persephone die for the Christian Baby?

She’d die laughing at the idea that she’s actually been approached by the Christian Baby

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byoldervine · 11 days

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Writing Tips - Beating Perfectionism

1. Recognising writing perfectionism. It’s not usually as literal as “This isn’t 100% perfect and so it is the worst thing ever”, in my experience it usually sneaks up more subtly. Things like where you should probably be continuing on but if you don’t figure out how to word this paragraph better it’s just going to bug you the whole time, or where you’re growing demotivated because you don’t know how to describe the scene 100% exactly as you can imagine it in your head, or things along those lines where your desire to be exact can get in the way of progression. In isolated scenarios this is natural, but if it’s regularly and notably impacting your progress then there’s a more pressing issue

2. Write now, edit later. Easier said than done, which always infuriated me until I worked out how it translates into practice; you need to recognise what the purpose of this stage of the writing process is and when editing will hinder you more than help you. Anything up to and including your first draft is purely done for structural and creative purposes, and trying to impose perfection on a creative process will naturally stifle said creativity. Creativity demands the freedom of imperfection

3. Perfection is stagnant. We all know that we have to give our characters flaws and challenges to overcome since, otherwise, there’s no room for growth or conflict or plot, and it ends up being boring and predictable at best - and it’s just the same as your writing. Say you wrote the absolute perfect book; the perfect plot, the perfect characters, the perfect arcs, the perfect ending, etc etc. It’s an overnight bestseller and you’re discussed as a literary great for all time. Everyone, even those outside of your target demographic, call it the perfect book. Not only would that first require you to turn the perfect book into something objective, which is impossible, but it would also mean that you would either never write again, because you can never do better than your perfect book, or you’ll always write the exact same thing in the exact same way to ensure constant perfection. It’s repetitive, it’s boring, and all in all it’s just fearful behaviour meant to protect you from criticism that you aren’t used to, rather than allowing yourself to get acclimated to less than purely positive feedback

4. Faulty comparisons. Comparing your writing to that of a published author’s is great from an analytical perspective, but it can easily just become a case of “Their work is so much better, mine sucks, I’ll never be as good as them or as good as any ‘real’ writer”. You need to remember that you’re comparing a completely finished draft, which likely underwent at least three major edits and could have even had upwards of ten, to wherever it is you’re at. A surprising number of people compare their *first* draft to a finished product, which is insanity when you think of it that way; it seems so obvious from this perspective why your first attempt isn’t as good as their tenth. You also end up comparing your ability to describe the images in your head to their ability to craft a new image in your head; I guarantee you that the image the author came up with isn’t the one their readers have, and they’re kicking themselves for not being able to get it exactly as they themselves imagine it. Only the author knows what image they’re working off of; the readers don’t, and they can imagine their own variation which is just as amazing

5. Up close and too personal. Expanding on the last point, just in general it’s harder to describe something in coherent words than it is to process it when someone else prompts you to do so. You end up frustrated and going over it a gazillion times, even to the point where words don’t even look like words anymore. You’ve got this perfect vision of how the whole story is supposed to go, and when you very understandably can’t flawlessly translate every single minute detail to your satisfaction, it’s demotivating. You’re emotionally attached to this perfect version that can’t ever be fully articulated through any other medium. But on the other hand, when consuming other media that you didn’t have a hand in creating, you’re viewing it with perfectly fresh eyes; you have no ‘perfect ideal’ of how everything is supposed to look and feel and be, so the images the final product conjures up become that idealised version - its no wonder why it always feels like every writer except you can pull off their visions when your writing is the only one you have such rigorous preconceived notions of

6. That’s entertainment. Of course writing can be stressful and draining and frustrating and all other sorts of nasty things, but if overall you can’t say that you ultimately enjoy it, you’re not writing for the right reasons. You’ll never take true pride in your work if it only brings you misery. Take a step back, figure out what you can do to make things more fun for you - or at least less like a chore - and work from there

7. Write for yourself. One of the things that most gets to me when writing is “If this was found and read by someone I know, how would that feel?”, which has lead me on multiple occasions to backtrack and try to be less cringe or less weird or less preachy or whatever else. It’s harder to share your work with people you know whose opinions you care about and whose impressions of you have the potential of shifting based on this - sharing it to strangers whose opinions ultimately don’t matter and who you’ll never have to interact with again is somehow a lot less scary because their judgements won’t stick. But allowing the imaginary opinions of others to dictate not even your finished project, but your unmoderated creative process in general? Nobody is going to see this without your say so; this is not the time to be fussing over how others may perceive your writing. The only opinion that matters at this stage is your own

8. Redirection. Instead of focusing on quality, focusing on quantity has helped me to improve my perfectionism issues; it doesn’t matter if I write twenty paragraphs of complete BS so long as I’ve written twenty paragraphs or something that may or may not be useful later. I can still let myself feel accomplished regardless of quality, and if I later have to throw out whole chapters, so be it

9. That’s a problem for future me. A lot of people have no idea how to edit, or what to look for when they do so, so having a clear idea of what you want to edit by the time the editing session comes around is gonna be a game-changer once you’re supposed to be editing. Save the clear work for when you’re allocating time for it and you’ll have a much easier and more focused start to the editing process. It’ll be more motivating than staring blankly at the intimidating word count, at least

10. The application of applications. If all else fails and you’re still going back to edit what you’ve just wrote in some struggle for the perfect writing, there are apps and websites that you can use that physically prevent you from editing your work until you’re done with it. If nothing else, maybe it can help train you away from major edits as you go

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byoldervine · 12 days

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Character Info - Queen Wink

General Info

Name: Queen Wink of Blackwood

Nicknames: N/A

Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 156 (biologically 52)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Unspecified

Species: Dark Elf

Place Of Birth: Blackwood, Paracosm

Current Home: Blackwood, Paracosm

Appearance

Queen Wink has dark skin and white hair. She often dresses very formally, as fitting for a queen

Personality

Queen Wink is a very stoic ruler, believing strongly in keeping a stiff upper lip and maintaining dignity and elegance. She can be cutthroat and unflinchingly practical at times, often forgetting the emotional or social aspects of her decisions and hand waving the consequences as a necessary evil

Likes:

• Peace and security

• Reading

• Hosting events

Dislikes:

• Disloyalty or disobedience

• A lack of control

• Losing face

Known Abilities

• Nature’s healing - like all elves, Queen Wink is able to heal plant life to some extent

• Tephrakinesis - as a descendant of the original dark elves, Queen Wink is capable of manipulating burnt matter such as soot or ash

Relationships

Family:

• Princess Kynne (daughter)

• Queen Eilonwy (mother, deceased)

Friends/Allies:

• The Drow (elite guards)

Enemies:

• The High Elves of Zeilona (enemies in war)

Backstory

As the daughter of Queen Eilonwy, Wink has always been dedicated to her role to Blackwood and desires to avenge her people. She was born not out of love, but out of duty, and this mindset was certainly passed down to her and the tradition followed in the birth of her own daughter, Princess Kynne

Wink raised her daughter to be the perfect heir to the throne of Blackwood, teaching her everything she needed to know about the High Elves of Zeilona and the history of war that Blackwood has with them. But recently a High Elf spy was caught within the palace who had been in a position to remain close to Kynne, and a mere day after the spy was publicly executed, Kynne had disappeared. The High Elves refused to publicly admit any foul play, or even to sending a spy in the first place, but it set what had since become a cold war ablaze once more as Wink fights to reclaim or avenge her daughter at all costs

Fun Facts

• Wink was born in the year 1869. I did not plan this, that’s just the way the maths turned out

• Wink takes special care of the Tainted Ivy surrounding Blackwood, believing the souls of Queen Eilonwy and her lover to be intertwined within the magical thicket. This is a sentiment shared by the rest of the elves regardless of faction

• Under Wink’s rule, Blackwood’s territory has expanded greatly and the civil war between Zeilona and Blackwood had turned cold for decades

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byoldervine · 12 days

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byoldervine · 13 days

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Some of my followers will know by this point that I like to plot five chapters in advance while I write my first draft so that I have a clear structure going forward without restricting myself entirely to just following that exact plan without having to edit millions of pre-written plans

Well I started plotting out the final structure for my story and I’ve finally written down some form of coherent plan for the ending, and for the plotting of the next five chapters I’m finally seeing the first big plotline reach its climax, and I just- holy shit this feels so amazing. It feels like just yesterday that I was introducing these characters and now everything is finally paying off and it’s insane

Riding this writing high and I’m loving it

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