Tag Archives: writing tip

Writing Technobabble: A is for Acronym

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Welcome to my guide on how to write technobabble! Every post will start with one letter of the alphabet, from A to Z, and cover tips and ideas for all you writers of sci-fi. Whether you’re writing about near-future science fiction, far-flung alien worlds, or historical steampunk adventures filled with advanced technology that never was – these posts are designed to help you write convincing and unique tech for your story!

A is for Acronym

Coming up with cool and convincing words, tech, and advanced science for your sci-fi or steampunk story can be challenging. One of most noticeable things in a lot of sci-fi are the names given to pieces of technology: warp drive, light saber, and so on. So how do you come up with cool-sounding names for things? 

I’ll go into more details about naming stuff in a later post. For right now, here’s a quick and easy way to name tech for your stories: use an acronym. An acronym is the first letters of a series of words and is used as its own word. It’s a pretty acceptable way to not only abbreviate a highly-technical term, but the acronym itself can be used as a cool word. 

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Should Fiction be Relatable?

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“Relatability” is a buzzword these days, especially in the storytelling world. People want stories and characters that they can relate to and understand; they want to see aspects of themselves and the world they know in the movies they watch and the books they read. 

This is an important and timeless desire. Even in an “unrealistic” story like a sci-fi adventure or a fantastical fairy tale, we want to see and understand a bit of ourselves and our own world. We want to feel validated, and have a degree of confidence that others might see us in this fictional tale. 

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Tips and Tricks to Get Yourself Writing Again

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This is sort of a follow-up post to last month’s post about not writing. Writers are notorious for NOT writing; but if we want to be writers, then we need to, you know, write.

So here are some ideas or tips/tricks to get yourself writing. I’ve used (or currently am using) several of these techniques myself.

  • Write five sentences or five paragraphs based off a story prompt. There are hundreds of places to find story prompts – from pictures to phrases to songs. Here’s my Pinterest board of story prompt pictures, as a place to start.
  • Set a time in your calendar. A schedule can help you not only have some writing time, but not waste that writing time by doing everything else but writing. Even if all you have is an hour a week, put it in your calendar or set a reminder on your phone.
  • Make your writing space more comfortable/easier to use. Even if you don’t have a dedicated writing desk or space, make your favorite spot more conducive to writing without lots of prep work. Keep your computer and notes close by, keep your favorite pillow in that spot, make sure your favorite coffee mug is clean before your writing time begins—whatever you need to do to reduce prep time.
  • Find the method that works best for you and stick with it. If you write all your first drafts longhand with a quill pen, then do it. Learning from other writers is good, but if you have a method that works and you like it, don’t mess up your flow by trying every new technique that comes along.
  • Journal or write something unrelated to your current project. For those times that writers’ block hits, you can still write.

Now, go write!

What are some of your tips and tricks to make yourself write? Please share! 

5 Reasons Why Writers Don’t Write (and What You Can Do About That)

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If you’re a writer, then you probably know that one of the hardest things to do is actually write. It’s also one of the easiest things to do, which makes the whole writing thing that much more confusing (to both writers and non-writers alike). Anyway, a common theme I’ve seen on writing blogs and Twitter is writers bemoaning their struggles in writing. And I have certainly experienced my share of not writing. Like, a lot. So, why don’t writers write? Well, here are some of the most common struggles that I know about:

1. No Time to Write

There’s never a good time to write, or ever enough time to write. Even during recent quarantine times, when we were all stuck at home with nothing to do but write, many found it hard to write (myself included). Why? Because I was stuck at home, so I could work on ten thousand other little projects, instead of writing. So what can you do when there’s no time to write? Find a minute here, ten minutes there, and write two sentences, two paragraphs. Just write. Continue reading →

Describing a Character’s Appearance

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There are different schools of thought when it comes to describing the physical appearance of characters in a book. Some readers want to know exactly what a character looks like—from hair and eye color, to the size of their hands and the color of their shoes. Other readers prefer little to no description, and give the character an appearance of their own choosing in their imagination as they read. Neither one is right or wrong, or better or worse—and no matter which one you do, you will likely have readers who want more or less description.

Some genres lend themselves to more in-depth physical descriptions of characters. In fantasy and science fiction, where there is a lot of world-building and thus descriptions of scenery, objects, and fantastical creatures, some physical description of main characters is expected. Also most romance genres describe characters’ physical appearances.

But whether you’re writing a fantasy romance or a literary drama, what’s the best way to actually describe the characters? Most editors and experienced writers agree that the info-dump method is not the best way. A full paragraph (or more) of straight “telling” description is not the most engaging way of describing a character: “She had brown hair and blue eyes. She was five-foot-five, unless she wore heels. She wore a brown leather jacket and a red scarf.” Continue reading →