ESCAPISM ━━━ a guide to writing fanfiction

01 | resources

I can honestly say that I don't utilise the many available writing resources nearly as often as I should, but on the occasion that I'm stuck at a total brick wall ━━ they're a huge help to me.

01 ━━━ GRAMMARLY

Grammarly is essentially a proofreading tool, it reviews spelling, grammar, sentence structure etc and provides corrections/replacements.

I won't tell you it's a flawless app, because it's not, sometimes it fails to pick up on your mistakes or labels grammatically correct writing as wrong, but overall it's still a useful tool to pick up on what you might not notice. I use grammarly for every chapter i write.

There is a premium version, I believe. However, i've only used the free and to me, that's enough to provide the corrections I need.

02 ━━━ ONESTOPFORWRITERS

This website is a godsend, truly. Its emotional thesaurus has helped me out of a writing slump countless times. it covers trauma responses, conflicts, character motivations, negative and positive traits and so much more, all extremely in depth with examples of how each one manifests in characters.

The downfall ━━ it isn't free. But it provides a two week free trial, no credit card required. all you need is an email, and because of that, I just make up a new email each time i need to use it (it's expensive, y'all, and i've got bills to pay). Alternatively, you could take screenshots of what you think you'd use and upload them to a pinterest board to look back on.

03 ━━━ TUMBLR

There's genuinely so many blogs on tumblr that provide writing advice, so much so that I couldn't possibly list them all, so I'm going to name a few of my favourites below and let you venture from there.

In no particular order

━━ howtofightwrite

A favourite of mine for sure. I believe the owners are trained in martial arts (please correct me if i'm wrong) so they cover a wide variety of fighting scenarios and are open to answering questions. They've been active for quite a long time, so typically any question you might have has already been answered in some way or form. Definitely a go to for when you're struggling to piece together an action scene.

━━ writingwithcolor

As a white person whose books contain diverse characters, I always want to make sure I'm not playing into any stereotypes or misconceptions, as well as just presenting my characters in the respectful manner they deserve, and this blog is immensely helpful for that. On top of instructing what to steer clear of, they provide lists of the proper terms we should use when describing skin tones, hair, cultural clothing etc. I check this out often.

━━ inky-duchess

They don't have one set area of focus, but off the top of my head they've helped me with writing firearms, fight scenes and maintaining a consistent personality. The owner is very well articulated and their stuff is easy to understand.

04 ━━━ PINTEREST

If you search 'writing tips' literal thousands will pop up and they vary from basic to complex, I'm working on compiling a masterboard, but until i do, feel free to explore the many pins.

05 ━━━ PEOPLE

As someone who suffers from severe anxiety, I can assure i know firsthand that interacting with strangers is not at all easy and that at times limb amputation seems more enticing, but live discussions allows for you to ask for the specific advice you want.

With Wattpad taking away dms, I'm aware that this is a lot more difficult now, but my board is always open for questions and my socials are linked in my bio if you'd like to contact me, i'm also in a discord server with other writers that anyone is more than welcome to join.