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luciferofficial:

i posted this list a few years ago but i thought i’d repost it with a couple edits, since it’s all still perfectly good and plenty of people could do to see it. it works no differently for fanfic and original works.

• For the most part, just don’t listen to anything your English teachers say unless they’re like, a published author. You know that shit about how “you shouldn’t use the same word to start a sentence more than once in 4 consecutive sentences” - yeah, that’s bullshit. As long as you don’t REALLY over-use something, you’re fine. Good flow in a story isn’t even necessarily consistent with proper grammar.
• That being said, be well-versed in proper grammar. Yeah, there’s always artistic liberty, but there are times when you do absolutely need to structure a sentence a certain way. Such as “would have” (correct) vs. “would of” (you’ll look like an idiot if you write that). Know participles and all the different tenses and how to use them correctly, know passive and active voice, etc.
• Keep expanding your vocabulary. Contrary to what your English teachers say, using “said” a lot isn’t that bad, but using other words sometimes keeps it from getting monotonous. Keep learning new idioms and phrases. Know when to use the words and how to use them. Example: “for all intensive purposes” isn’t a thing - it’s for all intents and purposes. Know the connotations that certain words have.
• Know your voice. Even if you’re writing in 3rd person, you’re probably still writing from the POV of a particular character - write as though you’re in that character’s head! Keep to a vocabulary level that that character likely has. Vaguely switch over to first person occasionally. Teachers often say not to write how you speak, but if you’re writing limited from a person who wouldn’t speak like a scholar all the time, write how they would speak. If you’re writing omniscient, you’re hopping from person to person and you can still do that.
• Know how people work. Observe people, keep track of your own emotions, actually think about how different people would react in a certain situation. Make people stutter a little bit in their dialogue or not say precisely what they mean - most people don’t talk like a textbook. Put in thought processes and body movements in between dialogue. A sentence like “He blinked.” is perfectly acceptable in some contexts and could mean a lot.
• Know how the world works. If you’ve never had a job before, research what getting a job is like before you write about it. If you’ve never had anal sex before, dear god please fucking research it. Make your story realistic and keep the “altering real-life events for the sake of a more entertaining story” to a minimum. And if you’re writing fantasy, do some worldbuilding.
• And that being said, know what’s entertaining. Know what keeps your readers hooked. You don’t have to write out every single class a character goes to and all their homework and whatnot if it’s not relevant to the plot or characterization. You can just mention that they had a long day at school. Do time lapses, it’s okay. You don’t even have to give a summary of the things that happened during the time lapse because that makes it seem like you think your readers are stupid. Give them credit and don’t explicitly state everything.
• Really just a follow-up, but DON’T write day-to-day. Unless it’s specifically a day-to-day fic or something that takes place in a very short amount of time. Chances are not every day has something interesting or relevant to the plot going on.
• Write more about thoughts and actions than dialogue. Knowing how a character is feeling about something and how they express it is can be much more telling than what they’re saying. But it’s also good to have a healthy mix of thoughts, direct dialogue, and hearsay.
• Know how to structure your writing, mainly for accessibility. Don’t make paragraphs that are too long and don’t only make one-sentence paragraphs. Start a new paragraph when someone starts talking. Don’t confuse your readers.
• Read. Read a lot. Get a good grip on how the most successful writers of our age write. Read unpublished writers, too. That isn’t to say that you should copy them - just take some pointers from them. No one writes well without ever reading a fuckload. Develop a writing style that you’re comfortable with. Some people are more descriptive than others, and that’s okay. Some people rely more on dialogue to tell a story, and that’s also okay.
• Write. Just keep writing. Like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get. Write things you like to write about and get feedback. Even Shakespeare probably started out with some pretty shitty stuff, so it’s okay if you’re a little rusty right now. You will get better with practice.