Writing Tips - Let's help each other not be crap.

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

I am looking for some tips on having the Main Character not be a self-insert.

Now usually I find this easy to avoid because the character motivations, development, personality and beliefs are not my own (though they may be influenced); however, in this next story I'm brainstorming the MC is basically set to undergo a struggle which is deeply inspired by my own thoughts and conflictions (on walking the line of a Christian morality while being holding a Darwinian worldview amidst a 'society' which seems to respect neither.)

Basically how do I keep the character's struggles reflective of my own, while avoiding basically just writing myself into a fictitious world setting?

I'm working on a little cryberpunk project and I'm stuck trying to figure how to start the story. So far, about 90% of the cyberpunk media I've, for lack of a better term, researched always seems to start as follows: You botched the job and in order to get the charges lifted, you have to help a megacorporation do some illegal shit. I'm not looking for anything too mold breaking, just don't want it being trite.

MC is a corporate officer at an evil megacorporation who needs to lift a criminal to help them do illegal shit.
MC is a good-spirited corporate officer who finds his company is lifting criminals to do illegal shit.
MC is an anti-corporate activist who needs to expose the story of megacorporations lifting criminals to do illegal shit.
MC is an anti-corporate activist who busts a criminal out of prison to use in a terror plot against megacorporation.
MC is busted out by anti-corporate activists who is coerced into helping them do terrorist shit.
MC is caught in a shadow war between evil megacorporations and anti-corporate terrorists but turns out the real antagonist is playing both sides against the middle.

See how easy this is, even sticking to the limited plot device of 1) MC being in legal trouble 2) megacorporation doing illegal shit.
Now start subbing in character professions and organization types and see what you come up with.

 

[Pompeii Grammy Awards]

I am looking for some tips on having the Main Character not be a self-insert.

Now usually I find this easy to avoid because the character motivations, development, personality and beliefs are not my own (though they may be influenced); however, in this next story I'm brainstorming the MC is basically set to undergo a struggle which is deeply inspired by my own thoughts and conflictions (on walking the line of a Christian morality while being holding a Darwinian worldview amidst a 'society' which seems to respect neither.)

Basically how do I keep the character's struggles reflective of my own, while avoiding basically just writing myself into a fictitious world setting?

First of all, you have to understand exactly what it is that set up your conflictions. If you want to strip yourself away from the character, while keeping things reflective from personal inspiration. You have to be able to separate yourself and the conflict when you're writing for the character, because the conflict can arise will always vary but there's always 'key' components that make the conflict possible to happen.

It's okay if you go through similar experiences and conflicts, it'll happen. But it's a matter of keeping your own emotions and opinions out of the MC's struggle, because the MC isn't you but someone who's sharing a similar experience that you've experienced. It's easy to insert yourself if you start writing your own feelings and thoughts, so instead you write the MC's separate feelings and thoughts because what happens exactly for the MC won't be exactly the same for you, however; you'll know what they'll feel and what they could be thinking.

As long as it's not direct or exact, keeping yourself separate from the MC, you're fine.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I am looking for some tips on having the Main Character not be a self-insert.

Now usually I find this easy to avoid because the character motivations, development, personality and beliefs are not my own (though they may be influenced); however, in this next story I'm brainstorming the MC is basically set to undergo a struggle which is deeply inspired by my own thoughts and conflictions (on walking the line of a Christian morality while being holding a Darwinian worldview amidst a 'society' which seems to respect neither.)

Basically how do I keep the character's struggles reflective of my own, while avoiding basically just writing myself into a fictitious world setting?

MC is a corporate officer at an evil megacorporation who needs to lift a criminal to help them do illegal shit.
MC is a good-spirited corporate officer who finds his company is lifting criminals to do illegal shit.
MC is an anti-corporate activist who needs to expose the story of megacorporations lifting criminals to do illegal shit.
MC is an anti-corporate activist who busts a criminal out of prison to use in a terror plot against megacorporation.
MC is busted out by anti-corporate activists who is coerced into helping them do terrorist shit.
MC is caught in a shadow war between evil megacorporations and anti-corporate terrorists but turns out the real antagonist is playing both sides against the middle.

See how easy this is, even sticking to the limited plot device of 1) MC being in legal trouble 2) megacorporation doing illegal shit.
Now start subbing in character professions and organization types and see what you come up with.

Personally, I think it's unavoidable. Antonin Artaud said something great that I can never remember exactly but it was to the effect of "All artists put their heart, their soul, their hunger, their sexual diseases into their work." The only other way to get around it is base a character off of someone you intimately know. Kourac's On The Road is often mistaken that Kourac based the main character on himself but it was based on another guy part of his little group.

I'm writing something a little different and I'm trying to approach it in a way that isn't boring. I've always hated long paragraphs of introduction and banter. I presume the audience is smart enough to know general story structure and know where shit is heading. That and I enjoy the characters being mostly a blank. Perhaps I overestimate the audience because a lot of garbage is successful on a mainstream level? But in writing something more traditional I'm trying to subvert the bullshit aspect of it.

 

[Nero You're DeadWeight]

Anyone have basic grammar tips? I just suck ass with my commas n semicolons so bad it puts me off from my writing sometimes because it looks like word salad.

 

[Mr. Skeltal]

Anyone have basic grammar tips? I just suck ass with my commas n semicolons so bad it puts me off from my writing sometimes because it looks like word salad.

From what I remember of grammar you have to determine clause dependency when choosing a semicolon or comma. Commas join a dependent clause to an independent one whereas a semicolon does that for two independent clauses. Over reliance on the comma, non-employment of the semicolon, and lack of brevity cause most run-on sentences.
Additionally, commas may need article words to join clauses together (because, but, and, then, etc.) Semicolons rarely, if ever, need words like that when joining clauses.

I would also recommend learning how/when to use appositives - the semi-related phrases injected into sentences - to aid your writing. They're commonly used with commas but using hyphens in comma-ridden text can improve clarity.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Anyone have basic grammar tips? I just suck ass with my commas n semicolons so bad it puts me off from my writing sometimes because it looks like word salad.

Get to know a good line editor. Just write. Just write what feels right and shit. Then take it to your editor and prepare to get a drubbing for all the errors you've made but learn from it.

For god's sake, do not pay for an editor because there's scammers. Just try to find someone who likes to do that sort of thing and may do a couple pages.

 

[TheRatcatcher]

I've been working on my own plot organization sheet to help move out the clutter of having to come up with random shit.

 

[Bluey]

I like me some good psychological horror, due to I have two characters in their own respective stories suffer from PTSD and other things.

I kind of need help or something a bit personal on one subject. One of the characters in the story is a rowdy character and is a female. I been note taking a scene where by the Captain Character who was going to send her and her hubby for execution in the first chapter. Some notes I have is her being interrogated by the Captain. Unsure if I want him to punch her for answers or not. She kind of bites back with "fuck yous" and face spitting. (She's also one of my fave OCs of mine.)

I do apologise if I don't sound clear on this.

 

[TheRatcatcher]

I'm writing about a dark horror/sci-fantasy story about the Soviet Union, !not Allied Nations or GDI from Command and Conquer, and a bunch of Knights trained by Angels that are fighting against vampires and other monsters in a large several decade spanning war. Each time I will switch between the perspective of what's going on outside of the castle which is the main location of the story and the outside battlefield. Right now I'm on chapter 5 where I introduce !not Allied Nations in the form of seven regiments of hardcore marines with miniguns and machine guns. Is it a good idea or terrible idea to execute this sort of action in a story?

 

[Lapis Lazuli]

Am I the only one who hates these writing advice videos on YouTube? They tend to be pretty basic stuff like talking about tropes or writing advice (as it says on the tin), and they're usually women for some reason.

They start out okay, then they begin to inject their woke opinions into it that nobody asks for. One had a segment where she complained about how there were too many white people in fantasy novels. Another complained that there were a lack of female characters... and said shortly after that there are more than two genders like non-binary and transgender, only to never bring that point up again and continue talking about the supposedly useless and oppressed women in novels (what happened to the non-binary/transgender characters you brung up seconds before?)

I may make a thread on it if there's enough interest in it, because the majority of these writing advice channels treat these opinions as facts and "advice" to writing a story.

 

[God of Nothing]

Am I the only one who hates these writing advice videos on YouTube? They tend to be pretty basic stuff like talking about tropes or writing advice (as it says on the tin), and they're usually women for some reason.

They start out okay, then they begin to inject their woke opinions into it that nobody asks for. One had a segment where she complained about how there were too many white people in fantasy novels. Another complained that there were a lack of female characters... and said shortly after that there are more than two genders like non-binary and transgender, only to never bring that point up again and continue talking about the supposedly useless and oppressed women in novels (what happened to the non-binary/transgender characters you brung up seconds before?)

I may make a thread on it if there's enough interest in it, because the majority of these writing advice channels treat these opinions as facts and "advice" to writing a story.

Let me guess, the girl from Overly Sarcastic? Just watch her alright doodled summary of things unrelated to based writers like our boy Lovecraft. She's incredibly hit or miss and anything related to the discussion of tropes is a complete waste of time.

 

[Lapis Lazuli]

Let me guess, the girl from Overly Sarcastic? Just watch her alright doodled summary of things unrelated to based writers like our boy Lovecraft. She's incredibly hit or miss and anything related to the discussion of tropes is a complete waste of time.

Don't think so? There's a lot of female writing advice youtubers, though, so I might've watched one of her videos before.

One video from her I peculiarly disliked was the one about male protagonists, though.

 

[Bluey]

Am I the only one who hates these writing advice videos on YouTube? They tend to be pretty basic stuff like talking about tropes or writing advice (as it says on the tin), and they're usually women for some reason.

They start out okay, then they begin to inject their woke opinions into it that nobody asks for. One had a segment where she complained about how there were too many white people in fantasy novels. Another complained that there were a lack of female characters... and said shortly after that there are more than two genders like non-binary and transgender, only to never bring that point up again and continue talking about the supposedly useless and oppressed women in novels (what happened to the non-binary/transgender characters you brung up seconds before?)

I may make a thread on it if there's enough interest in it, because the majority of these writing advice channels treat these opinions as facts and "advice" to writing a story.

I seen a few and they

Don't think so? There's a lot of female writing advice youtubers, though, so I might've watched one of her videos before.

One video from her I peculiarly disliked was the one about male protagonists, though.

What was the male one like?


I once saw a post some place, a bit poorly and hastily put together on how to make an OC. One was "Make it based off yourself". Yeah no. Kinda smells of Self inserts.

 

[verygayFrogs]

Write the scenes you come up with/want/have the idea for first. Fill in the gaps later

What do I mean? If you have say a middle chapter all planned out full of fluff and cuddles and you can keep watching it in your head but your still stuck on chapter 2? Come back to that chapter later! It will boost your motivation.

Pinterest moodboards
What am I a 14 yr old white chick? Maybe. It’s probably me but I compile a bunch of like images and songs to help me feel what I want to write and it gives me inspiration.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Question: is it pretentious or seen as condescending or lazy or whatever if you summarize a conversation such as...

They argue back and forth, accomplishing nothing by the end.

 

[healslut]

Does anyone have any tips and fixes for shitty pacing? Always been a prevalent problem in my writing.

 

[Kornula]

The only writing tip I know to be 100% effective from every other published writer I know is..

WRITE.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

i have awoken this thread from it's slumber to bring you video essayist number 11,512, localscriptman, who offers screenwriting advice that is very different from your usual writing tips you may hear from other writers. may or may not actually be useful to you but i dont care. i find the videos and this dude's perspective on writing thing interesting
sample video:

Does anyone have any tips and fixes for shitty pacing? Always been a prevalent problem in my writing.

funny enough, he has a video one this too