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Writer Help Thread
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Writer Help Thread
Writer Help Thread
This thread is created for writers to post anything they think may be helpful to other writers (from a cure for writers block to an easy way to remember how to spell words) or post questions or pieces they need help with. I hope this becomes useful! Have fun!
submitted by Ann, age 12
(December 18, 2009 - 8:42 am)
(December 18, 2009 - 8:42 am)
Um, I'm currently looking for advice myself, especially help with terminology.
But here's SOMEthing... If you like your ideas, your characters, etc. (this has nothing to do with them) but you think your writing style sounds childish, you can try replacing the adjectives. (or adding more!) By replacing I mean, say you have in your writing the word "brave". It can be replaced with the word, "courageous," which is more descriptive. Or say you have the word "red." It can be replaced with "crimson" or "scarlet."
Some more interesting adjective replacements:
Bad / better
long/lengthy
green/verdant
clear/transparent
boring/dull
confusing/perplexing
annoying/bothersome
weird/peculiar
cold/frigid
glowing/luminescent
happy/delighted (or content)
And so on. You get the idea.
(December 19, 2009 - 8:25 pm)
Hello. I am CJ, a worker from DTRA. This thread is considered "dead" because nobody posts on it. We hope to bring it to the top anyway. Thank You.
(July 19, 2010 - 11:05 am)
Thanks, CJ! I was in Inkwell and I was like, "Hey! It's my thread!" Maybe people will actually post on it now.
(July 21, 2010 - 2:13 pm)
I have advice to give: if you have Writer's Block, write about it! I still have that poem in my journal called "Stuck" about my brain draining of things to write about like water in a bathtub. It could make an intresting story....(The Writer's Block That Destroyed The World)....
(July 22, 2010 - 7:27 am)
I am Emily, from the DTRA. We are currently working to revive your thread. Please help by making a lot of comments. Thank You.
(July 21, 2010 - 1:37 pm)
TOP!
(July 21, 2010 - 2:30 pm)
I need help with transitions. For example,
"Hi! Let's go on a walk!" So Beth and Rose went on a walk. (don't worry, my writing's not that lazy, oh, and the transition is bolded) My transition always begin with So, thus, making it sound weird. (in my case anyway) Can anyone offer advice please?
(July 21, 2010 - 2:39 pm)
Um... Try to think of other transitions? Maybe you should make a list of them and keep it with you as you write. Every time you want to use 'so,' glance down at it. It might help...
I have an extremely odd dilemma. If I write longhand, I wrie all sorts of things and it borders on purple prose, and if I type, it borders on not being descriptive enough. Now why on Earth is that? (Well, actually, I read something about typing having different effects on the brain than writing longhand, so I'm guessing it has to do with that, but)... And what am I supposed to do about it, write a word longhand, then type one, then write, then type, etc, so it comes in the middle? That would be a waste of time.... Oh, well.
I always write longhand first, because it's easier to add and subtract when I type it up if I already have the bones of what I'm trying to say. -Admin
(July 22, 2010 - 12:06 am)
I wish I wrote longhand more, but I get writer's cramp really easily so typing is less painful. Does anyone have cures for writer's cramp? I haven't found any yet.
(July 23, 2010 - 3:06 pm)
I know it's probably not healthy, but I generally keep writing through the pain until I don't notice it anymore.
But, um, shaking helps. Like put down your pencil and relax your hand and flail your arm wildly for a minute or so. It's not a permanent cure, but it helps a little.
(July 23, 2010 - 9:34 pm)
Ann: You could take 5 min breaks after every 30-60 minutes or so and rotate your wrist. You could also use a laptop or a computer or something. That's what I do. (I honestly do not like to write using my hand. It hurts and it makes editing harder) Hope this helps. ;-)
(July 23, 2010 - 8:02 pm)
Thanks, that helps. I found a cure for writer's block! And it works! Write down exactly what you're thinking at the moment. As soon as you've written a paragraph, it's usually gone.
(July 24, 2010 - 7:39 pm)
*blinks* I just found that, too! Sort of... Wow, what a coincidence. I was doing JulNo, see, and I got this urge to to just quite and write something else. Unable to repress it, I decided to see if writing a title page might help. I didn't actuaally have a title, but I wanted to give my word count as much as possile, so I wrote, "A Manuscript That Is As Of This Moment Yet To Be Given A Title By Its Author, A Miss Katie Noble [insert last name here." Then, "Being A novel of 50 000 words Length written within the span of the month of July, because of," et cetera. A definition of JulNo followed, and then this long article about how insane I'd been to want to do this, and how participating had erased any drops of sanity that still remained, and then I went on for so long about the nature of insanity that I just had to mention that anyone who bothered to read that far must be extremely insane, unless they were—" You get the point. I keep ranting whenever I can't write on my novel anymore, and it works! And it's still 'technically' a part of the title page(s), so 'technically' it's allowed! Yay! And it's extremely fun to rant about those things...*giggles for a minute or so* *has been doing that often lately* *means giggling, for no apparent reason* *giggles* *wonders if she should start to be worried* *decides to get back to writing this post, so that she can write her JulNo novel* So anyway, you, well, get my point. Monthlong novellingdoes strange things to the brain....... Oops. I, um, didn't actually mean tosay that. My point was originally supposed to be that writing something different helps you with your story/novel...
Someday, when I'm not doing a WriMo, I'd like to try your approach. Maybe if I was lucky and I kept my non-story-related thoughts on a seperate sheet of paper, I could end up with 2 competant manuscripts being written at a time! Who knows? Even though that's very unlikely ever to happen...
(July 26, 2010 - 12:20 am)
An easy way 2 remember how to spell people?
People
Eat
Oranges
Peeled
Like
Eggs
Voila! Enjoy
(July 29, 2010 - 4:20 pm)
Big
Elephants
Can't
Always
Understand
Small
Elephants
is how my friend always remembers how to spell "Because".
(August 2, 2010 - 11:16 pm)