Tips For Writers - Blog Posts

How to Tell If That Post of Advice Is AI Bullshit

Right, I wasn't going to write more on this, but every time I block an obvious AI-driven blog, five more clutter up the tags. So this is my current (April 2024) advice on how to spot AI posts passing themselves off as useful writing advice.

No Personality - Look up a long-running writing blog, you'll notice most people try to make their posts engaging and coming from a personal perspective. We do this because we're writers and, well, we want to convey a sense of ourselves to our readers. A lot of AI posts are straight-forward - no sense of an actual person writing them, no variation in tone or text.

No Examples - No attempts to show how pieces of advice would work in a story, or cite a work where you could see it in action. An AI post might tell you to describe a person by highlighting two or three features, and that's great, but it's hard to figure out how that works without an example.

Short, Unhelpful Definitions - A lot of what I've seen amount to two or three-sentence listicles. 'When you want to write foreshadowing, include a hint of what you want foreshadowed in an earlier chapter.' Cool beans, could've figured that out myself.

SEO/AI Prompt Language Included - I've seen way too many posts start with "this post is about..." or "now we will discuss..." or "in this post we will..." in every single blog. This language is meant to catch a search engine or is ChatGPT reframing the prompt question. It's not a natural way of writing a post for the average tumblr user.

Oddly Clinical Language - Right, I'm calling out that post that tried to give advice on writing gay characters that called us "homosexuals" the entire time. That's a generative machine trying to stay within certain parameters, not an actual person who knows that's not a word you'd use unless you were trying to be insulting or dunking on your own gay ass in the funniest way possible.

Too Perfect - Most generative AI does not make mistakes (this is how many a student gets caught trying to use it to cheat). You can find ways to make it sound more natural and have it make mistakes, but that takes time and effort, and neither of those are really a factor in these posts. They also tend to have really polished graphics and use the same format every time.

Maximized Tags (That Are Pointless) - Anyone who uses more than 10 one-word tags is a cop. Okay, fine, I'm joking, but there's a minimal amount of tags that are actually useful when promoting a post. More tags are not going to get a post noticed by the algorithm, there is no algorithm. Not everyone has to use their tags to make snarky comments, but if your tags look like a spambot, I'm gonna assume you're a spambot.

No Reblogs From The Rest of Writblr - I'm always finding new Writblr folks who have been around for awhile, but every real person I've seen reblogs posts from other people. We've all got other stuff to do, I'm writing this blog to help others and so are they, the whole point of tumblr is to pass along something you think is great.

While you'll probably see some variation in the future - as people get wise to obviously generated text, they'll try to make it look less generated - but overall, there's still going to be tells to when something is fake.

I don't have any real advice for what to do about this (other than block those blogs, which is what I do). Like most AI bullshit, I suspect most of these blogs are just another grift, attempting to build large follower counts to leverage or sell something to in the future. They may progress past these tattletale features, but I'm still going to block them when I see them. I don't see any value in writing advice compiled from the work of better writers who put the effort in when I can just go find those writers myself.

Sometimes, we break through and create awesome stories by asking questions.

Other times, we get a breakthrough because we ask ourselves if we are asking the right questions. When it comes to pacing, this is one of those times.

Rethinking pacing

Pacing isn’t all about action. It’s about making sure that everything you write advances the story, even the quiet moments.

Instead of asking whether a scene is exciting, ask whether a scene is important.

Does it develop the plot?

Does it develop your characters?

If it does one of the above, then it's important and will fit into the pacing of your story. If it's important, that makes it interesting. If it's not important, it will be boring — and that's what pacing is all about.

Writer reminder: If you make a situation for characters to get out of, you’re the one who’s got to write them out of it. While elaborate and complex problems can be intriguing and fun to write, they can also quickly become a pain in the ass when you realize that you and the characters are at a dead end.

I'm warning you from experience.

Ignore at your own risk.

Writing Advice

Just write, doesn’t matter if it's good or bad. Just start writing, it could be anything, JUST WRITE, focus on editing and reviewing later and get the idea/ideas down on a paper or a Word document and just go with it. (But make sure you can still understand your typos)

If it doesn’t work, one day it will.

ChatGPT/artificial intelligence is good for WRITING IDEAS, It can technically write for you but it fucking sucks at it and it’s lazy as hell if you don’t want to write then DON’T WRITE

Also don’t get rid of your “stupid” ideas, make a list of them and mess around with them one day they could be great.

Good luck, Take care of yourself and do t be afraid to take breaks if needed. Burnout is a Bitch

Characters Types

Protagonist: 

The Protagonist is the main character of your story. They are the most mentioned, the one who drives the plot, the one the readers will be paying most of their attention to. Generally, there is only one, but there can be more than one protagonist in a story. 

Antagonist:  

The Antagonist is the character that goes against the Protagonist. An Antagonist doesn’t have to be a person, necessarily. It can be a group of people, society, nature, et cetera. They don’t even have to be evil, they just need to go against the Protagonist’s motives.  

Villain:

Both the Villain and the Antagonist are opponents of the Protagonist. Though, the main difference is the Villain has bad intentions. They are evil.

Dynamic Character:

A Dynamic Character is the person who undergoes a change throughout the story, whether it be good or bad. The character’s motives or morals are different than they were in the beginning. The change is normally permanent.

Flat or Static Character:

A Flat or Static Character is the opposite of a Dynamic Character, hardly experiencing any changes throughout the story, if at all. Generally, the reader doesn’t know much about this character. 

If you have any questions regarding character types, or feel as though I’ve missed something, feel free to let me know!

Character Traits

An interesting trick I learned from scrolling through my Instagram feed (instead of writing) is to focus on the extremes of your character - the two ends on a character’s personality spectrum.

Take a perfectionist, for example. This person strives to be perfect all of the time, therefore, they work extremely hard. However, this person is so obsessed with being perfect that they can come off as condescending or controlling.

A character’s personality traits also depend heavily on the viewpoint at which you’re looking. Take an abusive parent. When the parent is at work, all of their co-workers may see them as a caring, respectful, and friendly person. To their child, they’re seen as uncivilized and a monster.

I’m not saying you have to use the “extremes” concept on every character. In fact, assigning only negative traits helps the reader identify who the antagonist (or villain) may be. However, giving a character both positive and negative traits helps humanize the character.

If you have any questions regarding character traits, or feel as though I’ve missed something, feel free to let me know!

=Tips for writers=

I used to be a really passionate writer and really enjoyed crafting language but it's been years since I've written anything that's not for school. I really want to start writing again but I don't have any story ideas that I'm excited about. What should I do to start writing again?

When you want to start writing again, but aren’t sure how to start:

1. Read a variety of books.

Various authors, various genres, the more you expand your examples the better because it means exposure to more ideas. Don’t be afraid to take up books you may not like since there’s a great deal of learning to be found in why you dislike something, and the depth it gets you thinking can help contribute to your own ideas. The “spite write” is also a thing, where you hate something, or some part of a thing, so much that you go off and do it yourself.

2. Engage with a writing community.

Every writer likes a different level of engagement, but writing communities can be extra helpful at providing idea discussion. It’s also okay if it takes a while for you to find the right one. Some writers are happy with the ones that are for pure fun and keep away from real critique whereas others want detailed critiques and a push to be better. The community you’re part of needs to align with your goals for writing. 

3. Write what you know… so know interesting things.

Blatantly stolen from my own TbaBW post, but if you think your life is too boring for inspiration or you want to write about something but don’t know how, then get yourself out there and learn. Find new experiences, ask willing people about their lives, try new things even if you aren’t sure about them, research new subjects; increase your inspiration and well of knowledge so you can write what you know. You’re limited by your own knowledge and creativity, so work hard to make sure that limit does not exist.

4. Find prompts or guided writing exercises.

A lot of writers use prompts or guided exercises to get their writer's muscles moving. Aside from providing the base idea for you, they don’t require commitment and are just a form of practice, but can be turned into more polished stories if it really works out. The best use of these isn’t just reading them and deciding if you instantly like it or not, but taking some time to really think about how they can unfold.

5. Brainstorm.

While there are times when ideas just come to you, it’s common for creative people to have to brainstorm and put real effort into coming up with decent ideas. Brainstorming activities can look like, but aren’t limited to:

Inspiration from music. Some songs tell stories, some paint a scene, some capture a mood, and some are just good background music. Listening to music can be a good source of inspiration for writing.

Talk it out. Ask your friend and family what kind of stories they like to hear and why, or ask them anything about stories that you think will get them to talk. You may not want to write those exact things, but the dialogue can get some ideas thrown out there.

Inspiration from art. Similar to music, take a look at paintings, sketches, or maybe even dances that can provide something. Especially pay attention to the details and what the artist could potentially by trying to convey.

Ways to Develop Plot Ideas (link embedded) covers more idea generation!

6. Productivity can be worked on.

Most writers naturally go through a cycle of interest and disinterest in their projects or even writing in general. I have these linked posts for general info on increasing productivity:

Tips for Improving Writing Productivity, Pt 1

Tips for Improving Writing Productivity, Pt 2

Tips for Improving Writing Productivity, Pt 3

Tips for Improving Writing Productivity, Pt 4

You may also want to check out the Motivation and Discipline tag since there’s a lot of info related to productivity and getting back into writing, especially when you aren’t feeling so great about it.

7. Don’t be afraid of not being great.

It’s been a while since you’ve written and it’s normal for skills to get rusty. Your skills before may not even have been where you wanted to be, but all you can do is compare yourself to where you once were rather than other writers. Writing is personal journey and can be a tough skill to build, so don’t beat yourself up if you have trouble. You have to be bad at something before you’re good at it.

Good luck with your writing!

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