A = Dazai

Starting today I’m going to be a man with courage in his heart. When a person falls to the very depths of suffering - where he can find no escape - he is somehow able to find new courage.

Dazai Osamu, A New Hamlet

Cause I’m a ✨FANFICTION WRITER✨

lol please enjoy this stupid little video I made about fanfiction. No thoughts at all. Just silliness.

You’re welcome.

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS!

Why don't more people know about the wonderful interrobang‽‽

It's so sad smh

Literally furious that a ‽ symbol exists and just never caught on. You’re telling me there’s a more streamlined way to ask exclamatory questions than this, and it just never caught on?!?!?! I’m so mad. English has the worst punctuations, I swear.

Revising and Self-Editing

I’m currently revising and self-editing my mermaid x human boy romance novel, so I thought I would share some resources that may help other writers revise and/or edit their stories.

A list of resources to help you during the revision process or when you’re self-editing your story.

Editing and Proofreading An article written for college students from The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina. While most of it applies to writing academic papers, it has helpful tips (under the section titled “Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading”) that can apply to any writer who is revising or editing their own work.

Beginning the Awesome Journey of Revision Provides helpful tips on how to get started on revising your story’s draft. The list of additional resources includes a few broken links, but most of them work.

How to Survive the Editing Process Provides tips and suggestions for how to get started on revising or editing your story’s draft and what to look for when editing.

The Big Bad Guide to Novel Revision A lengthy, comprehensive guide to revising and editing your story’s draft. Explains in detail the elements to consider when going over the story, the characters, and grammar. Includes a few broken links, but the guide itself is helpful.

When to Say You’re Done Revising Offers realistic advice on how to know when you’re done revising and editing (or how to know when you’ve edited your manuscript as much as you possibly can).

For a more thorough guide on editing, check out my post The Different Types of Editing, which also includes links to even more resources on editing.

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I’m a writer, poet, and editor. I share writing resources that I’ve collected over the years and found helpful for my own writing. If you like my blog, follow me for more resources! ♡

There are two types of writers:

1. 'It's fiction, it doesn't need to make sense!'

2. 'I didn't account for the rotation of the planet and how that affects the constalations while my characters stargazed at different times of year, I have failed as a writer, and this entire thing is trash'

Mistaken again! I thought, for just a moment, I saw my lover’s face- but mischievous, capricious, all the little gods of love.

Yosano Akiko, River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

✧

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

And this is exactly at least part of why I'm rewriting HYLY on Ao3. That and the just all around more secure filtering system.

you read stuff on wattpad for shit and giggles where most of the fics there are reader-inserted ones written in 1st person pov where y/n is a barely legal white girl with blonde hair and blue “orbs” who’s so smol and fragile that she’s dependent entirely on this morally questionable guy who’s killing people for a living but for some reason happens to have a soft spot for her.

you read real actual literature on archive of our own where it’s two middle aged men, who are each other’s sworn enemies, with tragic past, trauma and strong homoerotic tension. and while they’ve made each other bleed, killed each other’s friends and loved ones out of jealousy / possessiveness, lied and betrayed and manipulated, the rawness, depth, complexity and slow burn will keep you up all night, haunt you during your day and possibly change your life forever. and also the sex isn’t just smut. the sex is poetry that puts Shakespeare to shame