"I won't tell you what names I use when I want to like a character less but there are a few in rotation" 😂

A list, because I like lists: 1.Temporarily change the name of a character with the name of someone you like or dislike to imagine them more complexly. 2.Cut the last thing you wrote as extra words often make it weaker. 3.Stop writing while you still have ideas to have a starting point for the next writing session. 4.Print your manuscript for proofreading, as having a physical copy makes it easier to spot mistakes. 5.Keep sentence-long summaries of your scenes as you write them. 6.Keep a list of topics, ideas--- to follow up later 7.Keep a list of problems for revisions, instead of stopping to fix them while drafting. 8.Sumarize problem parragraphs 9.Swap scenes with a writing partner 10.enter your character's brain.

My favorite writing hack is acting out the scenes, I know its super weird but I'm a D&D and LARPER so acting out the scenes to see if they flow well before I write them actually helps me work through plot problems I hadn't thought of while typing up the outline. If you are comfortable acting weird its actually super helpful.

My weird writing tips: 1. listen to music. A ton of music. Three hour How To Train Your Dragon ambience loop has got the creative juices flowing multiple times. Once, I listened to Hurt by Nine Inch Nails for four hours while I wrote a particularly sad scene. I can now sing it from memory. 2. have several documents open on my computer so I can work on another story or look up notes if current story isn't going well. 3. write a poem about how the character is feeling, an element of the world, or a cultural attitude of a made-up culture. Once, I even wrote a love poem from one character to another to cement their relationship in my mind. (My sister read it and pestered me to include it in my book, but I am less confident in my poetry skills than I am in my prose skills.) Poetry never fails to cut to the emotional heart of the subject, whereas prose can get mushy. 4. eat an apple at the beginning of my writing session. Apples are my favorite food, they're nutrisious, and the physical catharsis of chewing something helps my thought process. I also like to have a cold drink on hand to sip throughout. 5. If I need time to think or if the plot is stuck, I go for a walk in the park across the street. I get in twenty minutes of exercise so no one can accuse me of sitting on my butt all day, and pacing helps me think. 6. I often delete the first thing I said rather than the last. Especially in inner monologues, I work up to the point through several sentences, fleshing out the idea, then delete the often weak, unnecessary beginning sentences. 7. write unnecessary scenes in a separate document. These scenes may not even be included in the book. It could be the MC on their deathbed surrounded by grandchildren, it could be a scene of a group of friends playing volleyball or the MC's first date from the POV of the love interest. It helps me understand the character if I know their life outside what happens in the book. I know that the MC can cook nothing but eggs and oatmeal, I know that he will have six dogs who know him only as "Daddy", I know that his future wife will have a miscarriage at age 37, triggering the only real argument the two of them will ever have. It's small details like that which make the character feel like a living being who has a life beyond the story.

The best tip I've ever heard is "don't tell anyone about what you're planning to write. Tell them once it's done". Something about getting people's reactions before any of the work is done means you're far less likely to see the project through. It rings true as well, since all the people I know who often mention they're 'writing a book' have been working on the same thing for upwards of a decade with little to show for it. There was a psychological study that pretty much reinforced the idea too.

I think this is the best advice I've gotten about writing. My college English professor once told the class that when you don't know what to write, just put you thoughts down on the page. For example, you could write "I don't know what to write but I want to say __ and this is the direction I want to go." This has really helped me as I write a lot of argumentive research papers and I need to get my argument across clearly and effectively. But, I think this could really help if you were writing a novel or poem as well.

Writing tips that aren't just the standard ones you hear everywhere. 😁

"writers just don't know how to shut up." TRUE!! I have used this tip so much and it almost always makes my prose (or any other writing for that matter) cleaner.

MY FAVE WEIRD WRITING HACK. I love to brainstorm characters and plot by taking several sheets of printer paper, laying them out on the table, and putting a circle (which represents a character) in the middle of each page. One for my MC, and others are for supporting characters. I draw a relationship web on each page that shows each individual's CHARACTERISTICS, as well as the ACTIVITIES, BACK STORY, DIRTY SECRET and INTERACTIONS each character has with all the others. The whole story comes to life in the scribbles. P.S. I know all this is supposed to be possible with Scrivener, and other programs, but I can't visualize my story on the computer screen.

My favourite writing tip is using your story/ main plot as a plot for a tabletop roleplay, like DnD. Seeing other people's interactions with your characters or plot (or world, if it's fantasy) is an eye-opener for all angles of the story. Everything from pitfalls to solutions. Seeing your friend's reactions when their shenanigans make it into your book is also a lot of fun. 😅

Tip 8 is it, my writing increased both in quality and quantity when I realised that what you write doesnt have to be "good" it just had to be writing - you can then just go back and fix it later, but also sometimes what you thought was rough and garbage sometimes actually turns out to be alright. It's better to get a draft down however bad it is and just fix it after the fact

I find using Text-To-Speech helpful for not only spotting typos, but catching text that may "Look" like it works but when read aloud don't sound right. making it an easy fix. I also sit down and interview my characters like picturing meeting them in a coffee shop and sitting down and asking them about their life, history, and loves it makes them much more Dynamic because they will tell you things about their life you had No idea about

+1 on the 1-sentence summary, and here's a trick if you're using G-docs/Word/similar: 1. imbed that sentence at the top of the scene within the document 2. give that sentence a "heading" rather than "paragraph" formatting 3. (optional) make the imbedded heading text white or very light gray (so it isn't annoying) 4. add a Table of Contents at the top of your doc Doing this keeps the summary synced with the manuscript, automatically provides hotlinks to let you navigate to the scene, and displays page count. NovelPad is better, especially if you're messy, but gdocs are free.

I don’t write my book in order. Ik weird right? If I have a chapter that has something significant, like a death or plot twist, my brain gets the ideas and if I don’t write it out I will loose the idea before I get to that part in my book. I have used this for my novel I am currently working on and I have been going strong 😊🎉

#10 is how I do most of my writing. Instead of writing the scenes in order, I write a scene that matches my current mood, situations occupying my mind, etc. It is both cathartic _and_ productive!

these tips are SOOOO GOOD hannah. i have one too! something that really humanizes characters i'm struggling with is imagining the kind of music they really like, or grew up with. this might be super specific to my personal experience (and my slightly unhealthy obsession with finding and organizing new music into genre playlists), but i find that the music we listen to says a lot about us, and listening to artists that my character would listen to is a really easy way for me to really sink into their psyche. i like making lil character mixtapes, so i can swap between several different ones based on who i'm focusing on or what part of the story i'm at. it makes me happy to see you on youtube still after all these years

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from Oakley Hall's The Art and Craft of Novel Writing. He basically says that to liven up the scene, finding a way to balance the action, description and "drama" are essential. This helps writers avoid being list-like with their details, or making dialog that turns into a speech, two things which can slow the reading to a crawl. It's best to give a little detail, offer some character sentiments or have them act in place of their dialog, with the action bringing into focus more details, and then show some consequences of their words or actions upon the scene. Basically making sure that the scene is dynamic by not being stuck in just one mode of storytelling, whether it's descriptive storytelling or verbal storytelling or narrative storytelling; always make sure that you're juggling bits and pieces of each in. An example for those who might need one to understand: Jake Towns walked back into the cabin from the soaking rain, shaking his boots upon the wirebrush doormat trying to scrape the mud from his soles. "If this ain't the worst weather we've seen in a minute," he said, fluttering the tail of his longcoat to free it of water, "You'll be lucky to get out of town by next Tuesday. We don't get rains here often, but when we do they like to stick around for a week." "It won't stop me," Jason Cargill said, the blade in his hand reflecting the light of the lamp, illuminating the wood shavings that fell to the floor from his whitling, "I've rode in worse conditions than this. This is piss, but it's not a flush." Jake removed the gray newsboy cap from his shiny head and battered it against his knee, then tightened it in his grip to wring out the water. "That so? I wouldn't do it, 'less I had to." "Well, you don't have to." "Neither do you," Jake started removing his outerwear, dumping them to the floor where their drippings had already started to produce a puddle. "You don't know what I have to do." As you can see, the dialogue is given room to breathe with action, the details come to life with characters interacting with them, the implications of the characters and their attitudes are discernable by the way they talk and their actions; Jake is coming in from rain trying to get dry while Jason is sat down whittling a piece of wood with a knife, showing Jason's bold confidence and Jake's wary lived (and evident) experience with the reality of bad weather; and lastly details are filled out not only by compiling them into a list of doormats, lamps, wood shavings, and puddles, but are gradually revealed as the scene calls them each into action. The doormat is there because Jake is rubbing his muddy soles on it, the lamp is caught in the glinting of the blade, the wood shavings are the product of his whittling, and the puddle is the result of Jake's wet clothes. Not only do they fill in the scenery of the cabin, but they're all given notable purpose as we come to them. All of it combines to tell a quick story of a man's determination to ride the next day regardless of the weather.

a good tip is to try put something i’ve experienced whether it’s an event or emotion in my novel because it makes it more personal and of course its easier to write about something you’ve experienced. Even if it’s something like love, loss, betrayal etc. I wrote a story where one of the side characters were in a really toxic friendship which was something i had just experienced and it was so easy to describe how they felt so useless and they put up with all the comments their toxic friend gave them and how they were there for their friend but the friend was never there for them. it turned out really well and it didn’t take much effort to try put myself in the characters shoes since it was something i had experienced firsthand. It was sort of just writing what i had felt at the time. So yeah i would definitely put something personal in my writing 💕💕

A fun one I've been getting a lot of miles out of recently is to write a scene as just dialogue, write the convos out as a kind of loosely-resembling-a-script format and then going back in and adding dialogue tags and details and other prose afterwards. Only when I know the convo itself is the core focus of the scene and needs to pack the most punch. It helps maintain the flow of the convo instead of distracting me from the interaction.

Tips I have found helpful: 1) Find sounds that match the setting or songs that inspire a scene on repeat, keeps you focused and can write for much longer without losing focus 2) Writing prompts can sometimes help with world building. Some of my best breakthroughs happened while testing out a prompt and changing the tone from what I have been writing.

My favorite hacks I do are 1. Walking, walking can make you calmer and make your mind more clear and run better. Sometimes I write while walking, or sometimes when I need an idea I’ll walk and then write those ideas down 2. listening to music that reminds you of the story and characters, just helps you get in the mood to write for that story, and 3. Making a snack or drink you only really make when you write, I do strawberry milk, and it kinda makes my mind think, yay it’s good to write and gets you also in the mood to write

My writing hack I just made for my shitty memory: When outlining (which I recommend everyone learn to do in some format or another), there are little nuances or details that are referenced like "They go to this hidden place and found so-and-so's spellbook." - if this is a newer concept for the novel, I may actually make a footnote (as I write my outlines in google docs before working in Novelpad (link in the description)) on the hidden place and the spell book. This helps in a few ways. 1) Making a footnote makes you think of the thing and thus you may remember it more. 2) Footnotes are non-intrusive. I can skim past that little number if I know what the reference is. 3) If I forgot, the reference is there, in detail, but away from the section itself so it's not clogging up the flow of the point. This may be excessive but that's what I need lol I also color code the names of every character in my outline. It's a great visual to see if a scene is too crowded or chaotic or if too many people are mentioned (info dumpy scenes).

Switching colors of the font is very helpful too. As a professional editor, I learned that trick. I use it in my own writing now. I have a color for rough draft, a color for paragraph by paragraph rewrites, and a color for first round of copy edits. Then after doing developmental edits I repeat the process. For me, not everyone but for me, color stands out more for me than font.

That assertive yet monotone "don't leave" was fantastic 😂. Subscribed!

With number 4, I like to use the document audio feature to read it back to me. My eyes will miss the error but the audio playback will not. It will help find clunky parts that sound great in my head until I hear it.

not sure if its that weird but one thats really surprised me is how changing my location can really impact my writing. i just spent a day sitting at the computer not getting anything substantial down but sitting on my kitchen counter with google docs pulled up i just wrote a ton more than i expected. just finding somewhere different to be (even better if it matches the vibe your writing) has done wonders for me

00:27 📚 Create complex characters by temporarily renaming them after real people you like/dislike to gain fresh perspective. 01:10 🖊️ Consider cutting the last section of your writing to maintain focus and strengthen your point. 01:39 🧠 Stop writing while you still have ideas to ensure a productive next session. 02:20 📖 Print your manuscript for proofreading to spot mistakes more easily. 02:47 📝 Keep sentence-long summaries of scenes to create an outline as you write. 03:28 💡 Maintain a list of topic ideas to passively generate content for short stories, poems, blogs, etc. 03:56 🗒️ Make a list of problems in your longer project for later revisions rather than interrupting your flow. 04:54 📝 Summarize paragraphs to maintain momentum, then fill in details later. 06:03 ✍️ Swap scenes with a writing partner to gain fresh perspective and ideas. 06:59 🧘‍♂️ Get in your character's head by writing about something you're personally going through.

idk why this video is popping off but i'm scared, join my mailing list pls view.flodesk.com/pages/60a6adbc8c76bb525a084442

I've actually done the second tip a few times after you mentioned something similar previously and it really does work out sometimes to just....chop the last bit off. Authors do be Unleashing Words, and sometimes they gotta be reined in.

One thing/tip I think about a lot because honestly I can be QUITE the people pleaser, is write the book you want to read. Because if you are writing for like a cash grab, or you just hate it, or you think that if you do “blah blah blah” nobody will read it, you aren’t going to feel as motivated to finish it. There’s less passion. Sometimes when I’ve been in a rut, feeling too constrained by my perceived expectations of the people around me or my personal expectations, just thinking “what do I want to read” can really help.

(Mainly for drafting a poem, but can be used for fiction.) I'll make a packet of poems by other writers that share something in common--image, form, syntax, etc.--and outline the approaches to how each poem develops based off of that. Then, I'll make myself an assignment from those outlines--e.g., "write a poem that is six stanzas long, use a made up word as a verb, an image of a swan must appear in either the third or sixth stanza, and must use the line 'suppose you do change your life. Now what?'" Or, I'll make a cento from those packets. Either way, keeps me reading and thinking about writing.

Get a candle that matches the theme or mood of your book. Last year I was writing a story set in a forest, and I had a pine candle I burnt through entirely. Also I don't know if it's weird, but if I'm having trouble getting in the head of a character, I just freewrite their thoughts in deep character perspective, so their literal thoughts as narration, no italics, reacting to the world and people around them. Usually it turns into a lot of them complaining about things lmao and it tells me what their mood is. Then I highlight it to delete later and get back into the scene with their mood firmly set in my mind.

I enjoy connecting my senses to my books. for instance, for my fantasy novel about a young girl taken in by a tavern owner, I listen to tavern noise. I turn the lights down and I have a lamp that flickers like a flame, and I even have a candle burning that smells like fresh baked cookies. for my novel about a girl learning to be a fairy, I listen to forests sounds, make sure I have lots of natural light, and light a candle that smells woodsy. now that I have trained myself like that, if I'm ever struggling trying to write, I just light the right candle or play the right sounds and bam! brain go vroom!

Good tips! It's always about how to sustain the 'keep going' phase until you have a 2nd or 3rd draft that can go out to betas, imo. I also have found a ton of use going into 'summary' mode for scenes I don't have as crystalized in my head. I think about it when I'm doing a Zero Draft as writing either 'narrative' or 'treatment' and just flipping between them as needed and making little notations for myself when I run into an issue. I've consistently found that your story will shape itself through that first draft no matter how much you try to outline and pre-plan, so it's critical to push through that to the end and these were great tips for that!

I like to have a document reserved for loose ends and half-baked scenes/ideas. So like if I write a scene that doesn’t end up fitting the mood or whatever but the writing or characterization or dialogue or whatever was super good, I’ll just ctrlX the whole thing into the loose ends doc so I can use it later if I want. I also put brainstorming, scenes from later parts of the story that haven’t connected yet, and occasionally chapter outlines in there. It works well for me, maybe it’d work for you too:) Great tips in this video!♥️

Love these! Whenever I finish up for the day, whether that's finishing a scene or a chapter, I like to write the next sentence or 2 sentences of the next scene or chapter that way I have a jumping off point for the next session. It's SO MUCH LESS INTIMIDATING than staring at a blank page. I also do chapter numbers and titles, and I like to set up the chapter headings and title the chapter at the end of the session before I write it in the next one, because it feels like a little reward (I'm obsessed with titling things).

These are some great tips!! One tip that I’ve used is to have a notebook or separate place to write ideas down. I use a notebook dedicated solely to ideas for my novel and I usually start the writing session by scribbling down some ideas and get the creative juices flowing.

Keeping track of first draft problems (number 7) is soo helpful! I write in Google docs and I'll just comment on my own writing when I'm worried it'll pose a problem later. I know this is interpreting the tip in a slightly different way, but even doing this for life problems too can help clear your mind for writing. If you are struggling to focus on writing because you're thinking about what you need to do later or you want to fact check something you just wrote, write it on a notepad so that it's out of your head and you know you can come back to it. Hannah, I appreciate that you're straight to the point and informative all the way throughout your videos, which is something not every booktuber can say!! Don't worry about the length of your intros :)

i have a couple of weirdish tips (note i use google docs to write so these aren't going to be relevant for everyone): 1. put everything in different areas, so like one place for your outline, another for a thought dump, your draft, etc. because it makes it easier to find stuff (like you only have to scroll through three pages of your thought dump instead of like 100+ pages of that, your outline, edits, and your draft for one random background tidbit you need) 2. outline your draft before you revise! i like to read through my draft and comment my edits (like if a scene goes too long, i'll comment "have A leave at *moment* and end scene") then i'll outline again with my edits added in that way i don't have to go through 100+ comments and my previous draft when revising. Also, you can work out plot holes, arcs, etc. in the new outline instead of when you're trying to write 3. if you don't have a writer friend to swap scenes or ideas with, ask a friend you like and trust for help. i got stuck on reincorporating a sub plot because i made story changes that made introducing this sub plot hard, so i asked my friend if she was up with helping me and she gave me a bunch of ways to add it in and ideas for other issues and stuff for that story. honestly, i love talking with my friends (non-writers and writers) about my writing issues because they always hype up my ideas or suggest something that adds so much more to my story where i can't imagine it without that suggestion 🥰

these tips are legitimately such great tips, I've stumbled across/just started doing so many of them on my own and they've really revolutionized the flow of how I write and made it so much easier to actually get story structures out of me. so I highly recommend all those structure/verbiage ones at least, such as the story/scene summaries, keeping lists of problems and ideas, and so forth. they're really helpful! I can't wait to try out these other ones I haven't before, thanks!

Thanks for some great tips! I started doing number 7 recently and it has helped to keep my momentum going with writing my novel. I'll be writing and then I'll realise I'm referencing something that I haven't really written much about throughout the rest of the story, but is important, so instead of going back to fix it right then, I'll write a note to fix it in the first round of edits, and just continue my story. I have lots of notes, and little questions to myself in a physical notebook (at the moment). Some are general, but a lot I will put the Scene number next to so I know where I need to look for that issue. I also have a lot of placeholders(e.g. [name], [inn name] etc.) because I don't want to be spending 10 minutes trying to decide on a name for someone or something every time there's a new one.

When I want something to be emotional, it usually involves me acting out what I wrote... as the characters... and if I'm in tears... it will probably be put in 😊😢

but for real, try novelpad, i think ur gonna love it: novelpad.co/?via=hlk10wt

One of my favorite things to do, going off point #10 is that I prepare a list of questions, the same questions, and ask each character to see how they answer. It can be something regular or serious, just being able to know things about them on a deeper level helps me know them better. Yeah, so like acting as them. I don't care if that's weird or not because they're my characters and I should know the most about them.

some things i swear by - writing a poem, freeverse rhyming whatever, about the scene or description youre trying to capture to map it out almost like a summary, every time i do this whatever im writing comes far more naturally. its like both mapping out the scene and giving ideas on word choice. - acting out scenes, gives me ideas for what to write into a particular scene (but if you're scatterbrained like i am, i suggest writing brief summaries and notes down about what you acted out as soon as you can) - taking the messiest, silliest notes ever about ideas - make them funny, make them make you laugh, phrase them in odd ways. when i reread my weird notes it motivates me and cheers me up if im having a hard time writing tip 3 is extremely useful, i use it in a way while reading, i pick an absolutely aweful place to stop in the middle of a sentence so that i actually want to keep reading when i go back to the book

Great video, Hannah! I liked the tip about consistent idea generation a lot. I find it too tempting to put lots of time and thought into an idea right away when instead it would do much better if I let it sit for a while first

This hack seems weird to me, but I almost guarantee someone else does it, is to put your favourite music in and do something else- work out, go for a walk, cook something or have lunch, maybe drive or play a videogame. At surface level that just sounds like blatant procrastination, but then like Hannah here has mentioned a few times you subconsciously work on these problems, and that helps me a lot. I can't count the number of times I just got up, went on a walk, and came back with golden ideas and a new drive. Thanks for the tips!

i’ve been struggling with finding youtubers who talk about writing in a short interesting way and i really love the way you speak about it. it’s almost like a short little class and i adore it

That's an actually new, to me, list of tips! Very helpful, thank you. This is the first video from you I came across and really enjoy how down-to-earth it seems. I'm following and checking out more of your stuff.

Something that helps me when I'm stuck with a part is switching to pen and paper. On paper my creativity flows way better and I'm less focused on making it perfect. Most of the times I just write a few paragraphs to get me out of the mud, worst case I hand write everything. It's less efficient, but at least it's written

I actually just recently found that cutting the last thing I wrote while working on a chapter can be effective at times. Whenever I get stuck with writing a long dialogue where it seems to run for like forever, I backspace all the way to the point where the conversation is still solid. And then I realize it can actually work to redo the whole conversation over and make it more concise and brief, but packing a punch.

To me the thing that helped me the most was consistency. I had my daily objective to write 300 words almost every day for almost two years. Even if I was aware what I wrote wasn't the best and not what I had in mind, I continued writing, I would fix later what I didn't like. Also, my main advice is to stick with one project and not start new ones. You have new ideas? Good, try to re-adapt them to the already existing project, add depth to your work. I'm definitely not a successful writer. Heck, English is not even my first language, but I still managed to publish my book and even get a physical copy, and when you hold for the first time the thing you have worked so hard for in your hands, it doesn't matter if it will be successful or not, it doesn't matter if it's a masterpiece or a piece of crap, you'll still love that feeling. One last thing: write because you love to write, not for success or money.

Print to PDF works, too. Or just use a Text to Speech Program. But, so far it's been solid advice, some I've even used. And there you said it. You're going to go pro one day. You have real advice, not the common platitudes. Yes... sentence long summaries as plot maps. Works wonders. Yeah, when I was writing the Elf in Manhattan and The Riddle in the Sea, I definitely had notes in my books concerning the direction I was going. Still have all of that. I actually have a folder, that contains all my edits and their pagination for all of my books that I found on my latest revision. That's how meticulous I keep my notes. That's another skill. Sometimes when writing my longest books, I'd go periods of a couple of weeks not writing, and to get back into the flow, I had to read the entire manuscript before I wrote even one new sentence. I've never summarized a problem paragraph, but I've definitely mapped conversations. It's fun when your subconscious goes off script, but having that blueprint is a secret weapon, which helps organize your themes. I normally go once through the whole story in my head, and write down plot points, and then when I get to writing the actual work, I expand upon it. Sometimes I even use the same plot maps for other materials, and will write the same story twice, only with different twists. Or, I just pull the blueprint from Bullfinch or whatever source I'm using; like Hercules can be a fruitful plot if you want to write something tight, or a Bible story. I wrote Utopia off of the story of Jezebel and Elijah, and spliced it with a few others. Or Joan of Arc, I spliced Cyrus the Great and Joan of Arc; which surprisingly worked beautifuly.

I don't know if this qualifies as weird, but I recently started writing conversations between my characters. I may use these scenes in the final draft, or I may just keep them for personal reference. The conversations are always about elements of the story and have proved useful in exploring how the various characters feel about what is going on and what reactions they will have. I have also discovered characters that I would not have thought of, which allows me to fill in plot holes and find different paths for the plot. Another useful thing from these exercises is I develop background for places. The local coffee shop or bar become more real in my mind when I include a few more details and I can add those details to other scenes if they are useful.

Thank you for being so direct, helpful, and still aesthetically pleasing to watch. A lot of tips for writers just go off track and take waaay longer to convey information

My most important advice: when taking advice, distinguish whether it is for process (how you do it) or for result (what it should end up being) . If you try to write your first draft as if it was meant for publishing you either block yourself with perfectionism, or you'll have an amateurish text at your hands because you'll be too married to your draft. E. g. "write natural dialog with subtext" is a result advice that would kill your process. There is a lot of great process advice in this video :)

I haven't written fiction in ages, and back when I did it regularly it was mostly for my own amusement. Some of the tips you've given here were similar to things I do while writing academic papers and the like, but I had completely forgotten how much easier it is to proofread your text after printing. I've done a lot of that in the past, but nowadays I don't even own a printer. I guess you've just reminded me of a very good habit that I'm most definitely going to apply to my thesis. Nice to get to know your channel, btw, just subscribed. Take care, Hannah! (Sorry for any mistakes, my native language is Portuguese)

For characters i personify actions that people had done to me in the past, for instance multiple times i have been treated badly by boys or completely ignored no mater how hard i tried really created good characters for me and even the best characters i like them to have flaws that i see in my friends every day, being annoyingly good and right all the time. I struggle to continue to write my villains from a protagonists perspective my main villain i had him echo the same line ‘don’t blow it’ reflecting the constant pressure i have faced and that the very act of ‘blowing it’ still terrifies me to this day and i find this phrase more powerful than any villain.

The sentence-long summaries really do help. I’m starting to include table of contents, and instead of just including the title, I include 1-3 sentences summarizing the main action without giving away spoilers.

my favorite tip is to write the ending first. stories have a beginning middle and end. it's quite natural for us to think up a beginning and a middle and then more middle and more middle and more middle and then dang how do we resolve all these middles? we can save ourselves much of this trouble by writing an ending (or a couple of alternate endings) first. i like this because it can apply to movies, tv shows, parental lectures, anything that any of us may have experienced with seemingly no end, or with a very odd or very wrong end. if you start by writing the end, you'll reduce your risk of everyone loving your show only to hate the ending. you might get better at giving lectures to your kids with a definite ending. you won't be a parent who lectures on and on for literally hours. you'll be mindful parent and you'll waste a lot less time and energy and breath. you'll make more money. your digestion will improve. you'll get better grades. your children will enjoy talking to you. write the ending first.

about keeping a list of problems: for me this approach has one more benefit: when i've written more and know more about the story, i sometimes see a better way of fixing the problem than before. i hate when characters act like fools for the sake of some contrived problem, so i always question their actions, and if i feel that the reason for them to do something is a but weak, i point that out for myself. for example, if i have a "why couldn't he do this instead of that?", later it often clicks with something and explains it better, something that i didn't have in my mind before.

This is the first video I've seen in a while that actually have some good tips !! They are a new and I'll start using them very soon , thank you ~!

I like this. It fits with things I've discovered, but seeing it oranized like this helps. For #4, just changing the window size of my editor so the lines of text re-wrap is fairly effective. For #7, I used to put notes in square brackets right inside the text. I've stopped doing that, but I will have to consider trying it again. Fior #10, I sometimes put my character in a mundane scene, like sitting in a park watching people, or drving down the road, then have him describe what he sees. It works because that scene is not going to go into the story. It doesn't have to do anything, it doesn't have to move the plot or involve any conflict. It's just letting the character brainstorm himself. And sometimes, his observations of other people leads to new, useful characters emerging.

Loved these tips! Awesome video. I've been trying to become a lot more disciplined with my creative writing as of late and will definitely put these tips to use. Thanks for making great content :)

something I do a lot is write all the dialogue of the scene/chapter first bc it makes the conversations flow a lot better + I find I write a lot more in whatever timeframe I have compared to if I did dialogue-action-dialogue-action

I really liked your last tip - to imagine the character living out a problem in your own life and how they would do that. Awesome XD

Hi Hannah, this was without a doubt the most creative tip video i have seen in a long time! Love you just get to it! You are “deleting the last sentences” while you even are talking 😂 Thanks! SUBSCRIBED!

Best tip, the situations can be unbelievable as long as the characters react like it happens to them, eg. freaking out if they get in a car accident/ feeling angry if they’re randomly betrayed etc.

I love that this found me right now as I'm coming to the end of my novel and thinking about the editing process. Thank you for the tips!!! I really appreciate you mentioning some of these, because I don't hear other people talking about them, like the quick "this character sympathises with this character here..." which I actually do XD

3, 5, and 7 are genuinely fantastic tips I had not thought of! Thank you 🎉

Wonderful tips, very handy some of them. Loved them. Keep sharing more. I loved your flash fiction collection LITTLE BIRDS!

I have such a hard time finding writing advice that actually works for me. This feels like something that actually fits with my brain.

This really is relevant, thank you Hannah. Some great ideas I'm going to be implementing straight away.

These are great tips! Thank You so much for sharing! And a great video, to the point with enough explanation to get your thoughts across!

Lots of great tips! I hadn't thought about many of these, excited to try them out!

This vid is really different from the stuff that you can usually see in these kinda advice compilations, great work!

I just listened it while getting ready to college and it's SO GOOD. I'm more an ilustrator than a writer and I must say that your tips shed some light in my art block... thank u xD

These are actually pretty practical advice. I had used something similar to tip number 5 in the past

I stumbled upon your video and I just have to say I LOVED the pacing of it. Most videos I find to help with writing seem to draw out too long and talk way more than they need to. You're video was so easy to follow and understand so big thanks to that! 🙏 Meanwhile, one weird writing tip i find helpful for me to brainstorm and figure out ideas is to rant about what you alresdy have and what you need to figure out with someone you are close to and possibly knows about what you are writing. Sometimes that person will give great suggestions, but at other times I often find my brain working through it as I text them. Ill write psragraphs on end of text messages to my friend, coming with my own ideas and finding things that work, and then I'd thank her for the help and she'd be like, "I didn't do anything, but you're welcome!" 😂

the name changing tip is GENIUS! thank you so much!

Kinda going along with tip 3, I’ll stop a session in the middle of a sentence. That way when I come back, I’m launching into an easy completion and it spikes my feeling of accomplishment

one writing hack that works for me is doodling. i like to doodle my main characters in situations which give me ideas for how the story is going to go. that way i won’t just spend minutes or hours just staring at a blank page. as long as i’m doing something to fill in the page, the words come naturally. i also have specific playlists to get in the zone and get inspired. great video btw, i love reading about everyone’s writing tricks!

Tips 5 and 8 are especially true; it was an important point in scriptwriting school: if you can't summarize an idea, then you don't have an idea. Kinda like why teachers tell you to write your intro last.

Wow! Actual, concrete, useful writing tips! Great job.

Thank you Hannah. This is great. I also do the bullet point thing for the next session it helped a lot with something like Nanowrimo when you dint have great ideas or flow everyday. I live the hack of using someone who you know as a favourite good or bad character and seagoing out the name in the final draft. I can see how that can help to write with feeling about the character. I am going to use that from now on. I loved the other tips too and have subscribed to your channel because of it. I had not really thought about it before but what you said about your subconscious working on problems naturally throughout the day is so true. And I will look at Novelpad. I have a very complicated way of creating and collecting material for my writing. I need something simpler

I like summarizing when getting stuck. I use brackets to indicate what i want then i can keep writing and not loose my flow. I use it when i can't think of the exact right word all the way to summarizing entire scenes. It looks like this... Mary felt [word that means fear + revulsion + terrible curiosity] when Dylan saw her with Theresa. Then I can go back through by searching [. Be careful - don't get too ahead of yourself without going back to do something with the brackets or you'll wind up with too many for your AHDH brain to handle then you'll derail yourself for months stressing about how much work you have do to with it then ignore it for a year. *cough* Side note, I find your content super helpful. Your into, pesentation, and mannerisms resonate with me and I learn things that crack my head open and let the stories dump out. Thanks!!! More please.

Just stumbled upon your page. Wow, you’re such a doll and so brilliant. Looking forward to applying some of your tips that I hadn’t thought of. Going to check out NP too. Thanks!

Thank you I was looking for fresh new ways to help me keep writing my book that I’m struggling to finish, this video was the best video at this time for me. You’re awesome

Favorite weird writing hacks: 1) I help put myself into the mood to write, kind of like a ritual, usually around 6:00pm or later (it has to be dark outside), I make a fresh pot of coffee and blast synthwave music in my headphones. 2) Playing games counts as research.

I used to be here for just the Twilight Rewrite, but through whatever series of life events I'm now pursuing writing and really appreciate these tips. I love that you include some really unique things.

Love the hack of cutting out the last sentence or paragraph. I already hack of the first paragraph of almost all my posts and that has really helped. So excited to try this.

Tip five is SO helpful (so are all of these, but that one instantly clicked for me!). Thank you for this video!

Waaaahh, these all make sense to me. Thank you so much!!! 🧡🧡🧡

i actually really like to open what i am writing in something that has built in text to speech function and then hit play. this is such a good way for me to catch things that i feel i can't pick up on just from just reading it.

Thank you, these are actual, practical ideas, I love it ❤

This was really helpful thank you! These are really smart tips that i am so glad i learned

I really like 10, I do it all the time. Once I go a cramp in my leg while writing and I didn't know what to write next, so I just had the main character get a cramp in his leg as well! It worked like a charm.

I recently learned the thing you said here about just asking what the scene needs or what the character is trying to do and just writing it down as notes makes such a difference, and then half the time the notes turn into the scene anyway!

Great video. Love your relaxing and conversational style. I like to write out the internal conflict of my characters before starting a scene. For instance recent: Happy to be alive - freaked out by close touch with death Upset adult isn’t concerned about brothers injuries - understands the bigger picture Thankful brother is alive - upset the injury wasn’t prevented. Having her thoughts in mind helps put more tension into the scene.

A weird tip I can give is that, when you can't come up with an idea for a new book or novel, go to a random word generator and pick it to give you 3 words and then make those 3 words the main concept or part of your story. Idk why but it's very fun and always works for me 😅