General Writing Development/Self-Improvement.

[Arc-on-Fire]

What is this general for?

It's as the title says. This is thread dedicated to providing writing resources, tools, motivation and as a side-dish, general self-improvement cause why not.

Okay but why tho?

Sometimes I see posts from people lamenting about their lack of style, confusion of punctuation, little-to-none creative writing technique, plagued by writers block and how they will never be able to craft a presentable, engaging and most importantly a grammatically correct story. To that I say bullshit. You just gotta get the right resources and apply yourself.

As for the self-improvement?
...
"I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons? Don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought is could give me lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!"

Lmao. Anyway, without further ado, here you go. Also please note that this list of resources is subject to change.

---

Writing Tools

• Focuswriter: simple, distraction-free, highly customizable.
• Obsidian: A free specialized note-taking application that's advertised as a second brain. Highly compatible with Zettelkasten
• Zim-Wiki: it's a personal wiki. Used for structuring and linking information in a more hierarchical way, Great for planning and executing projects, to-do lists, world-building and cataloging.

Grammar & Punctuation.

• GrammerBook: Punctuation Rules
• The Punctuation Guide
• Grammar Once and for All
• LanguageTool Note: it's like Grammarly, but without some disadvantages.

Writing Resources.

• Typelit.io: A website filled with classical public-domain books! Practice your typing by rewriting entire classics! Books include - Ulysses, The Old & New Testaments (KJV), The Call of Cthulu, Crime & Punishment, Anna Karenina and Don Quixote!
• How to Write a Second Person Story
• The Story Goal – The Key To Creating A Solid Plot Structure
• 350 Character Traits – A Fabulous Resource For Writers
• 106 Ways To Describe Sounds – A Resource For Writers
• 123 Ideas For Character Flaws – A Writer's Resource
• Cheat Sheets For Writing Body Language
• How To Write Great Dialogue
• How to Write a Convincing Fight Scene
• Five Golden Rules for Writers
• The One Golden Rule of Writing That You Can't Ignore
• 30+ Ways to Avoid Repetition of "I" in First-Person Writing
• Point of View
• Examples of Writing in First Person
• Storytelling and Writing. With Salman Rushdie
• 50 Tips for Writing Grimdark Fiction
• Other Words for "Said"
• Purdue OWL Note: Purdue OWL may seem overwhelming, but just go on the side tab to where it says General Writing on the side and go to things like Grammar, Punctuation, Writing Style, and so on.
• Punctuation-in-Dialogue
• ASK CORREIA – WRITING STUFF, 1ST VS. 3RD PERSON
• ASK CORREIA #17: WRITING FOR THE EAR, TWEAKING YOUR WRITING TO WORK BETTER IN .
• BEST OF MHN
• Janice Hardy's Blog

Writing Style.

• Wikipedia article on Writing Style
• A Writer's Writing Style: What is it?
• Types Of Writing Styles

Editing.

• How to Edit Your Own Book (with Template)
• How to Edit Your Story Like a New York Publisher
• A Guide to Editing Your Own Book
• The 10 Steps of Editing a Novel
• How to edit your novel: 8 simple steps

Thesaurus.

• Word Hippo
• Power Thesaurus
• One look

AI Tools

• Quillbot
• Wordtune

Other QQ Threads on Writing Advice.

https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/advice-on-writing.4397/
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/advice-on-writing-a-novel.6611/
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/morde24s-guide-to-writing.15988/
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/writing-nsfw-q-a.638/ (This one's NSFW)

Click to shrink...

Shout out to TheMidnightRook for providing me with these.

---

Self-Improvement.
In short, I'll say this much. There's over 168 hours in a single week. All I ask is for you to take an hour or two out of each day to respect yourself.

• Write out goals for the week and month.

A bullet journal is not only good for this but also keeps things simple and concise.

Spoiler: Bullet Journaling in a nutshell

• Tidy your room and keep yourself clean.

Simple enough, just keep yourself and your room clean. A clean room and well-groomed body uplifts your mood.
Link for Men's grooming and Women's grooming.

• (IMPORTANT!) Exercise at least three times a week.

I would say that exercise is vital to self-improvement as a whole really. On that note, here's a beginner friendly guide to general health & fitness, and a 28 day long beginner workout challenge!

• Journal down whatever feelings or thoughts you have before you go to bed.

In short, just write what you want. Get whatever's swimming in your head and causing you to twist and turn, out. It sure as hell worked for me.

Oh, and don't forget that you too can contribute to this list. Contributors will be credited. Feel free to discuss advice and give each other motivation. Help from others goes a long way.

AND! Before i go. In order to not seem like one of those assholes that don't do what they preach... starting tomorrow morning, I myself will start my journey towards being a better person. I'll post updates everyday to help inspire and motivate people. Anybody who also wishes to post their self-improvement progress. I'll threadmark accordingly.

---

​

 

[TheMidnightRook]

https://writingexcuses.com/

A podcast where professional writers give advice

 

[Arc-on-Fire]

To keep things short. Today was a bit of a stumble, it was a very alien experience for me to step outside of my normal instant-gratification/procrastination routine. I spent nearly all day until evening procrastinating! What a start! But, once it was evening, I took a look at my goals that I wrote the night before and firmly decided that I should get started. Today I cleaned up my room, walked around my town delivering mail and taking in wood for the local elders, did my laundry and bought a book online that I plan to study! But even then... taking all day just to do some small things like this make me rather mad. I'll probably write that down before I go to bed tonight.

AND! Because this is an update for self-improvement. That means there has to be a motivational quote from the stoics.

Spoiler: Marcus Aurelius

"At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: "I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?"

So you were born to feel "nice"? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don't you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you're not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?
You don't love yourself enough. Or you'd love your nature too, and what it demands of you."

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

[Buggybuggedout]

To keep things short. Today was a bit of a stumble, it was a very alien experience for me to step outside of my normal instant-gratification/procrastination routine. I spent nearly all day until evening procrastinating! What a start! But, once it was evening, I took a look at my goals that I wrote the night before and firmly decided that I should get started. Today I cleaned up my room, walked around my town delivering mail and taking in wood for the local elders, did my laundry and bought a book online that I plan to study! But even then... taking all day just to do some small things like this make me rather mad. I'll probably write that down before I go to bed tonight.

AND! Because this is an update for self-improvement. That means there has to be a motivational quote from the stoics.

Spoiler: Marcus Aurelius

"At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: "I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?"

So you were born to feel "nice"? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don't you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you're not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?
You don't love yourself enough. Or you'd love your nature too, and what it demands of you."

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Click to shrink...

I can definitely get behind this thread. Pro tip: set the tone of the day by starting your day off with something productive and everything will follow after. Likewise if you spend the entire morning on Youtube, the tone of the day will follow that

 

[Amazon Climber]

Spoiler: Creating the Illusion of Depth

Just something I found. Thoughts?

 

[The-Lewd-Dude]

What is this general for?

Click to shrink...

...
may many traps be in your future oh great one.
I'm going to be using the shit out of this stuff... tomorrow when I don't have to go to bed in the next couple of minutes. *sad trumpet noises*
to contribute a bit of advice to my fellow rookies, don't spend all your time trying to find that one pic that goes well with your story. fallen into that trap multiple times and wasted whole days on it only to throw out the story later because it didn't work.
there's nothing wrong with taking a bit of inspiration or finding a pic later but focus on what people came to see, your writing. not the pics you've saved that other people made.

 

[Arc-on-Fire]

Today was rather unremarkable, it was much like yesterday. I did nothing for the majority of the day - thinking to myself "I'll do it today, I just need to get into the right mood first".
The only notable thing I did until dusk was taking a shower, shaving the miserable neckbeard and mustache-shadow I had grown and taking care of my dry skin for once. After that, I took a nap, woke up somewhat disappointed in myself. Decided to rectify that by exercising. ...spent a half hour watching videos on correct posture before I did though. Once that was done, it was with awkward insecurity and doubt that I descended to my basement.

...I did it though, for over an hour I worked out, feeling all the exhaustion with it, my arms and legs shaking, burning and become stiff. It was agony, nearly stopped several times but I prevailed and completed it. I must say, there is a positive glow to this soreness. And the fact that I have to make this a habit now... I'm gonna do it again tomorrow!

I can definitely get behind this thread. Pro tip: set the tone of the day by starting your day off with something productive and everything will follow after. Likewise if you spend the entire morning on Youtube, the tone of the day will follow that

Click to shrink...

Based. Thank you for the tip friend.

Spoiler: Creating the Illusion of Depth

Just something I found. Thoughts?

Click to shrink...

...It's good, but let's break it down and think about it critically anyway.

1.) How does it work?

In your picture there, the OP markets it as a quick and easy writing technique for worldbuilding. "Create several layers of solutions for plot holes in order to create an illusion of depth."
Okay, got it. Just a problem though. What does that have to do with worldbuilding? Sure you could say it's show, don't tell but that is detail. This is making sure that what happens in an event is plausible and not illogical to the point where it breaks suspension. This is framework, it only becomes worldbuilding when you add on the detail.

2.) When should I use it?

If your building your world (attention to detail, flora, creatures, culture, cities, mythology & pantheons etc...) before you introduce the plot then I would say don't. Again this is a framework that's used to prevent plot holes. There is no need to do any of that when... you know, making your world when there is no plot?

But let's say you are building your world alongside your plot. It's here you can use this... as long as you take two things into consideration though.

• Make sure it's detailed
• Have it be believable

Case in point, let's use the examples and solutions that the OP in the pic provided.

The Vampires cannot invade the city during daytime, they burn up and if they attempt to enter through the sewers, they're horrifically eaten by the sewer-dwelling alligators. The man-eating alligators are fed by an underground monastery of nuns who feed them on sacred oath. The nuns feed the alligators because they know about the vampires lurking in the sewers,

Can you see the problem or rather plot holes here? I'll point it out.
A.) Why don't the vampires attack during nighttime? Traditionally vampires are superhuman when it comes to strength. They should easily kill any human guards. They don't have a reason to go into the sewers when nighttime exists after all.
B.) Why do the alligators eat the vampires? They're already being fed by the nuns. They have no reason to eat the vampires.
C.) It is said that the nuns were feeding the alligators because of sacred oaths, this is contradicted later by them feeding the alligators because they know that vampires were lurking in the sewers.
D.) How do the nuns know that there are vampires in the sewer even though the alligators eat them.

The pic OP said that just two layers can create an illusion of infinite depth. To that I say this.

"A man stood in front of a door, he was told by everyone that the door led to infinity. He opened it up and what he saw was black... nothing but black"
You may be able to create something infinite but without detail... can you even call what you made infinite in the first place? It's only after you pay attention, add in the detail and what matters, that it truly becomes infinite.
Here's an exercise. Improve the examples provided by the pic OP.

Spoiler

Holy fuck it's almost 3 AM I gotta get to bed lmao.

 

[Arc-on-Fire]

Bluntly, day three was well... I did nothing on day three. As it turns out, experiencing DOMS really sucks.

Day Four though was different. I got yeast and some utensils to get started on a baking hobby, continued to make skin-care a routine, worked out and even studied a bit! Definitely a productive day! leaving out all the filler bits of course, procrastination continues to be a killer when it comes to the things I want to accomplish. Whenever I tell myself to get to work, I immediately went "day is still early, I have time to do it later". Sucks when that happens cause next thing you know... it's evening and I haven't done a damn thing!
Managed to tough up though. I did my daily goals today. It's a nice feeling, to know that you actually did something that improves yourself, even if small, it's still there. A satisfying feeling to be sure.

You know, with journaling starting to become a consistent thing that I do... it feels strange to be honest. Don't know what to call it.

Spoiler: Another quote for motivation

"The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way."
― Heraclitus

 

[Mach565]

I'm going to shill Trilium as an alternative to Obsidian. By the looks of it, Trilium can do (almost) anything Obsidian can, but it's completely free and open source.

 

[Hiddenhope]

I don't really put much stock into self-improvement stuff.
My take is that there is no substitute for actually putting in the work.
Ultimately you actually have to do writing in order to write a story.

No writing means your no longer thinking about the story thus the story idea fades in your mind which also leads you to losing motivation.
The best advice I found was when Yaztee was doing that game dev diary when he said that you should always add at least one word to your story a day. Neglecting that is the beginning of the end of you losing motivation to continue.
You also have to remind yourself that you don't have to write linearly. If you can't bring yourself to write what happens next, skip to another part in the story which you can write.
There is one porn story that I got which broke the usual pattern of my porn stories been abandoned soon after they begin because I went "I don't think I can do this sex scene sexy enough, I'll just went ahead and write a sex scene that I am currently horny about."

SO KEEP PUTTING WORDS DOWN! There is no getting around it. Even if you feel like crap.

 

[NightmareWarden]

Hi. A lot of those links seem like they'd apply to the writing used in tabletop game rules creation, campaign creation, character design, and setting design… so I might pop in a few times if this thread holds my attention.

I have researched, participated in, and tinkered with homebrew mechanics for tabletop roleplaying games for a few years. I have only run one session before, with other attempts at taking the reigns as gamemaster resulting in me chickening out. I have dropped off the face of the internet or flaked on groups, I admit. It isn't a good feeling and the idea of doing that to gaming friends I'm blessed to have had for over a year now disturbs me.

I think I want to be a GM though, at least a GM for ultra-small campaigns, one-shots, and similar low-stakes forms of tabletop gaming.

But. I am a bit obsessed with mechanics tinkering. I struggle greatly to put pen to paper when it comes to creating non-player characters, setting elements, plot lines for players… I have toyed with the idea of just stealing an existing franchise for a one-shot (with or without original characters for the party), but I can't say I've taken more than a few steps towards creating a game session in a few years. Three exceptions are in my mind:

Spoiler: Cringy history

First was creating a short campaign, roll20 group and discord sever for two friends for a Warcraft game using 5e DnD rules. Never materialized because, despite repeated reminders, my friends never created their characters.


Next I made a campaign on a RP-focused phone app using Open Legend and an original powerset document (think CYOA and Jumpchain I found. I let the players pick the setting after we threw out a ton of settings for an Isekai story (I had veto power). I… let myself be convinced to use a setting I hadn't read before. I binge read it for the game and just… couldn't say no to the players. And then one player had to leave due to family stuff, while another wouldn't follow my isekai setup for his character's background, behaviors, etc. I canceled the game and sent everyone an apology, just… socially overwhelmed.

And lastly I created a combat-focused battlefield situation using roll20 and the Open Legend ruleset/mechanics. Using Minecraft lore, I'd have the player or two players defending their ally's base from a Terraria-style invasion. None of my friends were interested in the idea. I haven't looked at Open Legend rules since.

Uggghhh.


There are a lot of things besides mechanics which interest me, that I acknowledge could be worked into a campaign. And I've tried sitting down to write a fanfic-style Quest like what we have on these forums, but again… Stumbled at step zero with creating characters I'm happy with, creating events I want to write and reread, firmly nailing down parts of the setting, planning a chain of A leads to B leads to C…

Same for making a regular fanfic. I just can't get my Muse to give me the serotonin I crave for this time investment to be bearable.

 

[Arc-on-Fire]

Rise.
This section is dedicated to providing... books that are about writing, stuff about writing, and in the broad sense — are all about writing.

The Elements of Style: get it at gutenberg here.

The Chicago Manual of Style: here.

AP Manual of Style: here.

Garner's Modern English Usage: here.

What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing: here.

Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style: here.

Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student: here.

The Oxford English Dictionary: here.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary: here.

And that's it for now. Recommend more resources if you wish and I'll add them as threadmarks.

 

[Arc-on-Fire]

He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "Sovereign Lord, you alone know." 4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath[a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.'"

Click to shrink...

Some more tools:

ProWritingAid
Scrivener
The Hemingway Editor

And that is all I can find for now. Feel free to add or recommend tools and resources to the thread.

 

[Arc-on-Fire]

Treeline
Bibisco
Manuskript
Espanso
GitBook
ghostwriter
Scribus
Markdown
LaTeX
novelWriter

And that should be it. If anyone else has any recommendations, forward them to me and I'll threadmark them down.

 

[Ragura]

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/
Free fonts licensed for commercial work

https://www.furaffinity.net/user/ookamkasumi
Tutorials

 

[SamantaDomson]

I think that in writing, as in drawing, it makes sense to first try to replicate someone's writing style. Feel confident about it. Then choose another author.
When you have a clear understanding of what someone else's style is, it will be easier for you to look for your own.

 

[Amazon Climber]

I've heard this before, and I don't remember where, but I just manage to finish a story by using "Words" as a placeholder for a scene I was struggling with, then coming back to it later.

Never underestimate the power of just putting something down and moving on.

 

[evildice]

I've heard this before, and I don't remember where, but I just manage to finish a story by using "Words" as a placeholder for a scene I was struggling with, then coming back to it later.

Never underestimate the power of just putting something down and moving on.

Click to shrink...

When I'm blocked thinking about a big software project, I'll often write an outline and keep breaking it down into smaller parts until there's finally a part which is so small that I can just do it, and then I do it, and then I can write more because there's a thing which exists -- like an anchor -- and I can hang more off of it until eventually the outline is filled and the big project works.

Gotta try that when I get back into writing.