writing tip

Guide To Writing Friends To Lovers

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Here you will find some tips, some advice and other stuff to hopefully help you in writing your friends to lovers romance!

Don’t forget the roots! It’s a friends to lovers romance after all, so try and make the friendship a big part of the story. The friendship is the upclimb where the conflict and tension builds, so don’t ignore the friendship aspect. Find a way to establish a friendship that is unique. Avoid ‘love at first sight’ and try to create a different kind of connection. Do they have a routine they follow when they are together? Did it start off as playful banter or jokes turned compassion? 

Awkward is okay. Let’s face it, how can anyone go from being friends to lovers without there being a little awkwardness in between. But, it is up to you to choose the kind of awkward. Whether it be cute, sexy ,or comedic depends on how you built the characters. 

Make the reader care. Off the bat the reader doesn’t want to already think everything will work out between the two characters. Hint at the beginning the connection between the characters, but don’t give them a full on romance from the start. Trust your reader to pick up on the little things, and let there be some doubt- a risk involved where the two characters might not be able to work it out.  

These are just a few tips and some helpful advice to get the ball rolling on your friends to lovers romance. Please share any additional tips you may have! And check out some of our authors’ very own friends to lovers novels to give you some inspiration!

Happy Friday!

Breaking Down Sci-Fi

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Note: Although we are focusing primarily on the genre of science fiction, most, if not all, points mentioned in this post can be applied to other genres in writing!

  • Star Wars
  • Star Trek
  • Octavia Butler
  • George Orwell

These are only a few names known in the realm of science fiction (sci-fi from here on out.) Our own worlds have broadened because someone took the time to travel to the futuristic unknown rather than entering a fantasy world. But what are some key components to writing sci-fi? Let’s get talking!

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Like any other creative writing project, planning and mapping out your story is crucial and necessarily before you dive into your tale. Not only for plot purposes but you always need to question: “how will this affect that?” You know, the usual. Depending on your sci-fi story, you’ll get the opportunity to create even further. For example, settings are new, language is different than what we know on our planet, races vary even more so than skin color…there are so many details to account for! We always recommend doing research into other novels within your genre range. Take it a step further and watch shows and movies. It’ll help further stimulate your creativity.

Something to help you indulge in your research is looking into scientific journals, new discoveries by labs or space teams, etc. This can influence your story in any way you want it to. Shaping your universe with new discoveries and current-world situations. Not only that but you’re expanding your own knowledge. what a way to kill two birds with one stone!

Our last point we’d like to highlight pertains to another question you can ask yourself. What if…? Utilizing the knowledge in the journals you find and articles you read, you can mix this with the creative details you’ve mapped out thus far. Apply your ‘what if’ question and add more depth to your story, add a new element, or a new plot line. Whatever the case may be, you’re adding something to the story by asking what if.

So what if…you start writing now?

Building Your World

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*We had to repost this blog, yay for technical difficulties!*

Hello dear subscribers!

A couple of months ago, one of our authors wrote a eye-opening article on world-building and fantasy. As a preface: it is not particularly about the physical world-building, our author focuses more on the concept of sexual intercourse and the relationship it has with fantasy. Since I’m not trying to spoil anything for you, go read it for yourself!

Beware: there are spoilers for his novels in this article. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Check out his debut novel here.

From Orwell to You

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George Orwell:

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention.”

Writing With…

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Neil Gaiman:

“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”

Journaling

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intricate journal.jpg

If you enjoy journaling and are also a writer/author, the relationship between the two can get stronger if you put them together. Embracing a journal and writing entries regularly can help develop your skills as a creative writer.

Suddenly Jamie, a blogger, gave 10 reasons as to why journaling helps writing. Here are just a few that I believe are relevant to writing your novel:

  1. Helps develop writing habits.
  2. Helps find your unique voice.
  3. Clears your mind.
  4. Flushes out the crap.
  5. Alleviates the pressure to be “good.”

First, you need to find your own journaling style. If you’re a new writer and want to incorporate your journaling with your writing, there are many different ways to use your journal as a powerful writing tool. You shouldn’t feel pressure from your journaling to write more, think of it as a tool or technique that encourages your writing to happen, instead of falling into the abyss of writer’s block. One style of journaling is like John Steinback’s journals. He chooses to journal about his writing process and keeps himself updated about his writing outside of his current manuscript. Another method is to mirror something like ‘A Q&A a day’, also called “Big-Picture it,” you answer questions in which you revisit the questions after time has lapsed and in revisiting something may pop out in which you can use in your writing. If you enjoy poetry and Twitter, another interesting journaling technique is to use the character-limited social service to write a short sentence about anything. When choosing this route, you could write one tweet a week and compile 52 different poems! A similar tactic is using keywords to write in short hand. Lastly, snapshots are a fun way to journal about one moment in the day.

 

Now, if you’re comfortable with your journaling style but still want to try and weave it together with your writing, Mari L. McCarthy may be able to help. Journaling is not writing, so don’t substitute! Journaling can serve as a warm-up exercise prior to writing professionally. Writing in a journal can jumpstart thinking and test all kinds of limits for your creative writing. Your journal can be your personal therapist – to flush out the unwanted writing you may accidentally include in your novel.

The art of journaling can be a simple cure to writer’s block or can easily be used to keep your writing brain going between projects. Maybe taking a trip down to the local hobby store and picking up a journal is in your future…it counts as “work,” right?

Writing Revelation

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Jonathan Franzen:

“It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.”