So, I’ve been asked a lot of times many of the same questions; things like “how do you write so well?”, “where do you get your inspiration?”, and stuff like that. Well, I decided to write this blog and give some writing tips :D for anyone that would like them, or for anyone really wanting to improve their writing, writer’s block, getting more comments and subscribers, and just for fun.

I’ll be covering quite a few things, and hopefully answer your guys’ questions and hopefully help you ^^

1. How to overcome writer’s block

Writer’s block, it’s a killer, right? It makes your head hurt, you get frustrated, sometimes even angry. On occasion, I’ve even seen it make authors give up on a story completely. We all hate it, and it happens to all of us fanfic writers, but there are ways to get rid of it. One way that helps me, is I reread my story entirely, get back into the flow of what I was writing about, and get me thinking things like “if I were the reader, what would I want to happen next?”, think of a few ideas, and expand on them.

Another thing that really helps that I’ve noticed quite a few people forget about sadly is listen to your readers. Your readers are FULL of good ideas, and they can seriously help you with their comments. Not all of them give you ideas, some merely give you the support that you also need to continue, but there are some that will give you ideas. I can’t tell you how many times my own readers have been the pure inspiration for some chapters in my stories, so trust me when I say you really need to listen to them when you need help.

Believe it or not, writing something completely unrelated to your story really does help with writer’s block too. Say that you need to update your story, but you don’t quite have an idea that could make a full chapter yet. What you should do is open up a word document, and just write something. Look around you, and find something to write anything about. No matter how silly or random it is, just write something to any length. It gets you into a creative state of mind, and it can get you concentrating more about your story and give you more ideas. This is actually how many of my oneshots have spawned >.> so trust me when I say it helps.

If you really can’t concentrate, take a nap. I’m not kidding, try to take a nap and just let yourself relax. When you’re going through writer’s block, it can make you stressed out, and stress in no way helps you come up with an idea; if anything, that makes it even harder to think clearly. What better way to relax than to take a short nap? And, if you can’t nap, then just lie down, and close your eyes. Let your mind wander on it’s own and just relax, and eventually, something will come to you.

Read a book, watch a movie, or even read other fanfics for a bit. Let yourself get completely submerged into something else that’s creative, and more creativity will follow. Quite a few times, I’ve been watching a movie and thought “wow, that scene would go really good in my fanfic, if you make a few changes here and there.” It really works, trust me.

If all else fails, maybe just try taking a break. Sometimes, the best way to come up with an idea, is to just not think of it at all and go out with some friends or let your mind loose for a while. Don’t worry about your readers, subscribers, or anything, they’ll be patient with you so long as you update with something eventually. You don’t want to force yourself to write, because that could just produce a bad, short chapter. People will understand if you need a break.

2. Inspiration

Ah yes, inspiration. The thing that starts it all, what we need to have before we even start writing. But, sometimes it’s really hard to get that little bit of inspiration we need to make a full story, or even a oneshot for that matter. We’ve all had issues with it, so what can you do?

Well, that answer is simple; look at everything as more than it is. Have any of you seen that Korean movie A Tale Of Two Sisters? Everything in that movie has a purpose; every action, every word, every person, every object, it all holds a purpose and deep meaning. Look at real life, think of situations that have either happened to you, or to a friend, or perhaps even to a celebrity. Your life is the best inspiration you could have, and the more realistic you make a story, the better it is, and I say that from experience, both as an author, and as a reader.Your readers can easily immerse themselves into your story if you make it based on something real, whether it be good or bad, so try your hardest to make your story have realistic qualities.

Sometimes, you can also derive inspiration from dreams that you have. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had very, very good inspiration just from mere dreams that I’ve had at night. If you’re scared that you’ll forget it, write down the main details of your dream in a notebook or something. That way, if you’re ever striving for inspiration for a new story, just look through that notebook. It works wonders, trust me.

You can also gain inspiration from movies, television shows, books/mangas, anything like that. BUT you need to keep in mind, there is a difference between being inspired by something and plagiarizing something. I’ll cover that later in this blog as well.

3. How to gain/keep subscribers, what your readers want, how to get comments, etc.

Something that a lot of new authors struggle with, and something any of us face is gaining subscribers. Some people have also wondered how to get a lot of comments on a story, and the answer is merely to please your readers and leave them wanting more, but how does one do that? There are a few ways.

First, how to gain subscribers, is merely make something interesting. If no one subscribes to you at first, give it time. Wait at least 24 hours, and I guarantee that you will gain a few if your idea is unique and intriguing. One thing you need to make sure to do in order to even make your idea seem interesting is to make a good description; after all, that IS the first thing a reader will see aside from the title, so make sure it catches their eye. Don’t make your description too informational, maybe only a couple of sentences to a paragraph, but don’t give away the main action or what happens throughout the whole story. What you want to do is provide people with some idea of the plot and maybe a very rough idea on what will happen in the first few chapters. Save the main action/conflict for the story to tell, not the description.

Another thing, if you want to say “this is my first story” (because I see that A LOT ._.) and things like that, say that after you give the informational description. If I were you, I’d format it like this: Informational description giving the reader a basic idea on what the story’s about, THEN do a paragraph saying “this is my first story”, what inspired you to do it, anything you want really. But please, please keep that from being the first thing your readers see; that doesn’t tell them anything about the story, and could prevent you from gaining all the subscribers and readers that you could be getting.

What your readers want, is an interesting, all around good story. They don’t want something that’s same old, same old, you need to do something that will make your story have a little unique pizzazz. Find a way to make your story something that your readers can relate to, so they can easily immerse themselves in the story. Make sure your characters are relatable and understandable as well, and not too over powering or over dramatized. Your main character(s) should have depth, and make sure you go into their personalities, why they are the way that they are, give them their own unique personalities and really make the readers connect with them. If you make your readers connect with your characters, it makes the story powerful and driven by emotion; what your character feel and go through, your readers will too. Your job as an author is to make something that’s not only enjoyable for you to write, but something your readers enjoy reading; you should be able to put your readers in the same position as your main character(s), so they feel like they’re going through the same struggles as your character. If you can make your reader feel the same emotions as your character, then you know you’re doing something right.

Now, how to get comments is actually rather easy. One word: cliffhangers. Readers hate them, and they make you feel evil when you use them, but by god use them whenever possible. You want to keep your readers on the edges of their seats and wanting more after each chapter, and what better way to do that than leave a cliffhanger? Make sure they’re well done, mind you, and not unnecessary, or else that just leaves the reader unsatisfied. If you make your readers want more after each chapter, then they will comment and tell you that it does. Your readers are your friends, and they will tell you if they enjoyed something or didn’t. I’ll cover the readers/subscribers later on this list as well.

4. The difference between ‘inspiration’ and ‘plagiarism’

Okay, I BEG of you, I beg you ALL, do not plagiarize. Anything, at all. Book, movie, another fanfic, nothing. Do NOT plagiarize. It’s okay to be inspired by something, but there is a difference between ‘inspiration’ and ‘plagiarism’. Some of you may not know the difference, so I will tell you. We don’t want anyone getting their story taken down for plagiarism, after all, so I think this is something everyone should know :]

Plagiarism is the direct copying of someone else’s work and calling it your own, while inspiration is getting an idea from something you’ve seen, read, done, thought of, etc. It’s perfectly fine to be inspired by a book, movie, or something like that, which means making a story from a similar idea, but making various changes and twists to make it your own story as well. The key here is to make it your own story, and do not copy things word for word. Form things in your own words, create your own characters and dialogue, make various different conflicts and challenges for them to face. You can still keep the idea somewhat the same, but make it mostly different.

I’ve had my work plagiarized before on another site as well, and some other authors on here I’m sure have faced it, and it’s not fun. So, if you are inspired by a fanfic, make sure that you make it all your own and do not copy the other author’s hard work. If you’re really concerned about it, maybe even ask them or something, but so long as you don’t directly copy anything, then there should be no problem.

So, once again, I will say it: make sure you make the story into your own, and don’t plagiarize it word for word.

5. Respect your readers/subscribers

Behind every author and fanfic, are the readers. The readers are your best friends and sources of support, and same goes for subscribers. Without them, your fic doesn’t get popular, it doesn’t get comments, and it doesn’t even get featured.

You need to make sure that your readers know how important they are, however you see fit. Readers like an author who shows their appreciation, and how you do that is entirely up to you. Your readers will you give the support and constructive criticism you need to keep going and improve, so you need to make sure you listen to them.

I can tell you right now, in truth, I probably wouldn’t keep writing if it weren’t for the comments and readers. They give me the support I need, and some even provide me with new, creative ideas for another chapter, or even a new fic or oneshot. Some tell me how to improve my writing, and they tell me what they want and expect out of me as an author so I can try my hardest to comply. What I do to show my appreciation for them is answer each of their comments, and for every 100 subscribers I get I write a oneshot dedicated to them all. There are many other ways to show appreciation, but those are two of the simplest ways.

Another thing is that not all of your subscribers are going to leave comments. Some people just prefer to be silent readers, but that’s perfectly fine. They subscribed to your story, which means it was interesting enough for them to want to follow it. They’re showing you support still, and they should be rewarded for that. Sometimes, people just don’t like to comment; that’s okay, not all of us are outspoken. Just make sure you keep their subscription by continuing to make interesting chapters.

6. BETA readers, English in stories, proofreading

I am not perfect, none of us are. We all make grammatical errors, even if English is your mother tongue. I myself only speak English fluently, and it’s the language I grew up with, and I even make some horrendous grammatical errors that I sometimes don’t even catch with proofreading. That’s where BETA readers come in.

We all need a BETA reader, whether you’re fluent in English or not, because we all need to make sure our story is well done before posting it. I don’t have a BETA reader, which explains my sometimes horrible grammar >.> but I do at least proofread my chapters/oneshots at least once before posting them. But, if you are not fluent in English and rather insecure about it, I would definitely say find a BETA reader to help you. Readers usually look for stories with minimal to no grammatical errors, and sometimes if you have too many that makes people want to stop reading before they’re even finished. I don’t really mind when people have too many grammatical errors, purely because I have friends in real life who write even worse and English is their only language (that happens a lot here in Idaho anymore, believe it or not), but I do know that a lot of other readers don’t like a ton of grammar errors.

I’ve personally put it out there that I wouldn’t mind being a BETA reader for anyone, and I’m sure there are many others out there that wouldn’t mind either, all you have to do is try to ask around and find someone. You shouldn’t be shy to post something just because you’re scared of grammatical errors, I’ve seen some people with amazing ideas decide to not post things just because they’re afraid of being criticized. We should all be able to write fanfics freely, and if you need help with grammar, there are many people that wouldn’t mind helping you :]

All and all though, I believe that anyone should be able to write what they wish to and not be criticized for mere grammar errors, so I highly encourage people to just post their stories after perfecting it to the best of their capabilities. If you’re very insecure to it, then it’s fine if you would prefer to just be a reader, though :] I just know of a few people that have very good ideas but get afraid to post up their story, which I think is a shame, but it is your own choice what you wish to do ^^

7. Showing with your words

One thing that I learned from day one in writing class is to always “show with your words, don’t just tell.” What that means is you want to be very descriptive with what you write. Trust me when I say my favorite fanfics that I’ve ever read have always been very descriptive, both about physical things and emotions within a character.

You want your readers to actually immerse themselves in your story, and one way to do that is to be very descriptive with your words. Make sure things can be easy to imagine for the reader, so they can picture it within their head as they read. One example (taken from one of my stories because I’m too lazy at the moment to think of anything new):

Undescriptive: “The horrible smell caused him to gag, and out of fear, he laid down on the ground in the shape of a ball.”

Descriptive: “He felt himself gag once again from the stench of rotting meat with the underlying scent of wet dog, and his body continued to shake as he laid his body on the ground and curled up even more until he was in a tightly squeezed ball.”

Not only does using description make your story even longer, but it also makes it all around better and much more appealing to the reader. Make sure you use it whenever possible, and if you aren’t sure if you’re doing it correctly or enough, reread the paragraph you wrote and imagine the words as you read it; or, even better, send it to your BETA reader or even a trusted friend and ask them for advice. It’ll pay off, I promise :]

8.

Ah yes, the thing all of us erts love. The thing that many aspire to write, but become self conscious about it. I remember the first time I wrote . I’ve never felt so awkward in my life, and I think it goes that way for everybody. The first time writing is always awkward, no matter who you are. But, with practice, you can actually become very good at it; just remember, you can go absolutely nowhere but up after your first time writing it.

But, if you do wish to write it, here is one major tip to follow: description is key. That goes along with what I said above; you want to make sure the readers can see what’s going on within their erted mindset. And, one thing that really helped me to write it was what I called ‘research’, which basically meant I read a TON of by different authors with different pairings. No matter how uncomfortable it was, I still did it to make sure I knew what to do, and what not to do. That alone really does help, so really look into the of other authors to give yourself some ideas on what you can do to either start, or to improve. By all means though, if you really don’t want to write , you don’t have to. is a very uncomfortable thing to write for some people, and if it really does make you stressed and uncomfortable to try to write, then don’t write it at all. No one will get mad or anything, but your comfort comes first, and you shouldn’t be forced to write something you don’t want to. Readers will understand, I promise.

9. Updating often

Updating often makes for happy readers, happy readers make for more comments, more comments makes for a happy author. A lot of my readers have told me they like the fact that I update every day or every other day, and if you update often it shows dedication towards your fic. If you are completely unable to update, then that’s fine; I mean, school takes more priority than writing a fic, same goes for actual work and all that. So long as you keep updating, your readers will understand. But, don’t wait months and months, possibly even a year or so to update a fic. So many things change even in the span of a month, and you don’t want your writing style to be one way throughout a fic, and then wait a month or two, and then update; chances are, your writing style has completely changed, and you’ve lost all of the original ideas you had for that fic. If you wait too long to update, you lose readers, you lose subscribers, and sometimes the only thing to do is just scrap it. Then, there goes a whole idea, an entire fic that you put so much effort into, gone.

10. Don’t be afraid to try something new

One thing that really makes for a fun experiment, is trying to write something different from anything you’ve written before. If you get an idea, but you don’t think you can pull it off because it’s new and different, disregard that fear and give it a try. Authors are tested not just on how well they write, but how flexible they are with what they can write. If you usually write sweet, fluffy, romance-y types of fics, try to write something with angst. Expand on your horizons, it will give you more exposure as an author, and gain you more popularity on this site from different types of readers.

You’ll gain a lot of respect and praise if you manage to succeed with writing something completely different, and though it might not be something your past readers would like, it will also give you new readers and new constructive criticism to improve. Don’t limit yourself if you know you can do something else; and never be afraid to try to write something new :] it might be strange at first, but you’ll get more comfortable with it the more you do it.

11. Outlines, and why you should do them

Okay, before you even start an idea, one very, very smart thing to do is to create an outline. Outlines for your plot, what conflicts the characters will face, and where you want your story to end up and how you want it to end. You also want to create outlines for your characters, how their personalities are at the start of the story and showing how they’re going to develop throughout it so you never forget. This is another way to somewhat relieve writers block, so you always know what’s going to happen next and all you have to do is form it into a chapter. It’ll help you keep things on track, and prevent you from building up the plot in a way that you don’t want so you don’t have to scrap the entire fic.

This method has saved me from writers block MULTIPLE times; I’m serious, I can’t even count how many times it’s helped me from forgetting where I want my fic to end up and all that. It also makes it easier to update regularly, because you already know what a chapter is going to contain; all you have to do is write the ideas you had in a full chapter format and then you’re good to go ^^

12: Dialogue

One thing that kind of makes me go “eh” when reading a fic is when it’s written in script format. Script format is for plays, not for an actual story; I do understand that it’s easier to write that way, but it’s a little harder to make your reader picture the character talking in their imagination when you write it like that.

If you don’t know what script format, this is an example:

Sungmin: Hae, are you okay?

Donghae: I suppose.

It’s a little harder to imagine, isn’t it? It’s not very descriptive, and you can’t really immerse yourself into the dialogue. How it should be written, is as follows:

“Hae,” Sungmin said in a soft tone, “Are you okay?”

Shrugging, Donghae merely replied in a monotoned voice, “I suppose.”

That’s the correct format for writing in stories, novels, etc. and script writing really should be avoided at all costs in my opinion unless you’re writing an actual play.

Another thing that you must do for dialogue, is to make sure that it is separate from the paragraphs when writing. When someone speaks, you want to space it away from a descriptive paragraph, it makes it much easier to read and doesn’t make your story into a clumped, continuous paragraph. I know it takes a little more time to do that, but trust me, it’s worth it :] it makes your story a lot easier for your reader to read, it puts your story in the correct writing format, and it all around looks really nice.

Those are all the writing tips I could think of ._. so I really hope they helped you all, even if just a little bit. Remember that your writing style is your own :] don’t try to be like anyone else; you’re talented in your own right, and you shouldn’t be afraid to show it.

If you need any other tips or advice, feel free to ask ^^ and, if I get enough, perhaps I’ll make a part two to this blog :3

Once again, really hope I helped~