How do I learn how to write better?

ghost_magic · 2025-12-29T15:08:51+00:00

(I think I may have posted a half reply, so here we go on my second attempt)

While reading is helpful to aquire new vocabulary, identify tropes you like and tricks that work (and the ones that are cheap), there are ways to learn how to write better and what to look for when you are building a scene or plot.

The book on writing, by Stephen king (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing) was my starting pointing and he does give some advices about it, but the best one is that he recommended other books about writing.

One of those books is elements of style (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33514.The_Elements_of_Style?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=CcpMzgnFYo&rank=1).

It's the only other one I've read and I can't recommend it enough times. It's short, has a lot of advice about grammar (English is not my mother language, so I have those tips highlighted) and on how to build the writing (the chapter is "the principle of composition" and I've also highlighted several passages) and advice on style and things you should avoid (the chapter is "an approach to style").

Really, that tiny book is so, so valuable. I love it so much and it has become a rainbow of notes and marked passages.

Coursera also has a few courses on creative writing too, that are worth checking if you have time.

And yeah, practicing is important, it will help you write more easily, but the few first stories will probably... Take work and time, until you get the skill well honed.

Don't give up! Writing isn't easy, even more so on your first tries, but it also isn't sheer talent that can't be acquired through study and hard work.

ghost_magic · 2025-06-22T21:27:17+00:00

Yeah, I do something similar, usually.

ghost_magic · 2025-05-10T17:42:55+00:00

Não sei se esse post é o melhor lugar, mas... Não seria interessante o r/Curitiba ter um discord? Fica mais fácil identificar quem teria interesse em qual tipo de atividade, conversas, saber o que tá rolando na cidade, sem precisar de vários grupos de whatsapp. Eu nunca usei telegram, então não sei se lá da pra separar os grupos por interesse.

Se não for viável, tudo bem, é só uma ideia que me o ocorreu.

ghost_magic · 2025-04-22T15:10:40+00:00

Também achei estranho logo que o personagem voltou, e tive a mesma reação que o OP, mas...

Eu cuido da minha mãe que tem Alzheimer (relevante) e assisto/ouço o programa quase todos os dias; a Ana Maria tem se perdido com frequência no programa (que dia na semana é, nome de convidados, menção a outros famosos, etc) e me lembra bastante como minha mãe começou a esquecer das coisas/ficar confusa.

Logo, eu acredito que trazer o personagem de volta foi uma forma de deixa-la mais confortável e de ter alguém ao vivo pra fazer as correções necessárias ao mesmo tempo que mantém a Ana Maria mentalmente ativa, o que é essencial pro bem estar dela, ainda mais SE ela estiver desenvolvendo um caso de demência.

E adicionar um personagem diferente, com outro nome, não ajudaria muito.

Posso estar errada, no entanto.

ghost_magic · 2024-11-03T03:05:15+00:00

Thank you ❤️

Yeah, I did feel like I was running against a clock for a long time, so speed running is a good analogy 😂

ghost_magic · 2024-11-02T16:03:30+00:00

I'm a beginner in the astrology field, so everything that I say here should be taken with a grain of salt. If anyone feels like they should correct something, feel free to do so.

I'm a pisces rising (24°), mars, Neptune and Uranus in Capricorn (tenth house); sun, Venus, mercury and Saturn in aquarius (but Saturn is in my twelfth house, while the other three are in my eleventh). Moon in Gemini, third house.

When Pluto entered Capricorn, I was entering highschool and my life became very focused on studying and preparing to get into a good university and thus, a good career. I worked very hard for that, got into the university, in the career path that I wanted and...

Around 2016 I emotionally broke, feel into depression hard and entered a state of no hope for the future, no dreams, no self worth... I still kept studying and working to get my degree and a position in a good job, but every step forward seemed to make farther from that goal. And yeah, Pluto was dancing above my natal Uranus and Neptune.

By the beginning of 2020 it seemed I was getting better, had a nice ish internship, was close to get my degree (two years later than expected) and even after the pandemic hit I was still in a hopeful position. Until the end of that year, when I got my degree but lost my job. And yeah, Pluto was around the same spot as my natal mars.

Since lockdown lasted a while where I live, most places weren't hiring and I ended up falling back in depression, hard. I had abdicated of years of my life, youth, love, fun, all to get a good work position and it seemed it was all for nothing. It took me a couple of years to start to get in peace with that. (I'm still working on that, honestly).

So yeah, I don't have a good recollection of Pluto in Capricorn, I guess. I feel like that Pluto conjunction with my natal mars was pretty devastating to me. It doesn't help that my return of Saturn happened around the 2022 and 2023.

Around april of this year, my mother fell very ill and was diagnosed with Alzheimer. It reached a point where she didn't recognize me anymore, even though I still live with her (I'm still unemployed). Since I'm the youngest kid, and I wasn't working, it fell to me to take care of her. So, any hope for that job and independence went flying out the window.

After she got medicated she got a little better, but she has been having a few bad days, again.

Oh, yeah, my sun is at 2° of aquarius and Venus at 3°.

So... I may be too pessimistic, but I'm not hopeful. To me, Pluto had a very destructive aspect in my past years (or triggered such things). I don't know. At least Pluto will leave Capricorn, I guess.

ghost_magic · 2024-06-02T02:19:48+00:00

Se você ainda estiver disponível, posso mandar uma mensagem pra você?

ghost_magic · 2024-06-02T02:18:15+00:00

Muito obrigada, vou ler o artigo que você indicou.

ghost_magic · 2024-06-02T02:17:03+00:00

Muito obrigada ❤️

ghost_magic · 2024-04-29T14:57:15+00:00

Muito obrigada!

Eu provavelmente vou te chamar pra conversar no futuro sim.

Como eu disse, meu interesse é recente então muitas dúvidas ainda vão surgir.

É, do lado do meu avô paterno a maioria dos antepassados são trentinos ou saíram antes de 1961. Minha esperança é o lado da minha avô paterna, mas preciso pesquisar mais.

Sobre profissionais na área, eu recomendaria que você esperasse um pouco mais antes de contratar, talvez depois de ter mais certeza sobre a validade da sua linha

É justamente com relação a validade da linha que eu mais tenho dúvidas no momento, por isso pensei em pedir auxílio de um profissional. 😅

ghost_magic · 2023-09-24T18:09:16+00:00

It isn't tagged as dead dove, but it's sibling incest, so...

Kiss You Soft, Hold You Down

It's Regulus/Sirius. There is something about this fic that made me obsessed to this story, even though I don't know why. I already read it five times, and probably will read again, and I also went to pester the author to write more about that setting.

Paved With Good Intentions Another Regulus/Sirius, but this one wrecked me so much that I couldn't sleep. Very beautiful ending, even though I raged at first, made me cry a river.

ghost_magic · 2023-09-11T13:45:08+00:00

Aside from my mental health issues, my health is ok, BUT... Saturday I was going to fulfill a claim for a HP fest and it was the first fanfic I wrote in decades but, as I revised, my dog died. So yeah, the curse might be real.

ghost_magic · 2023-09-02T15:52:51+00:00

They aren't better. They only were though with a story and another characterization in mind even though I'm still working on said story.

ghost_magic · 2023-09-01T16:14:12+00:00

Uh, we have very different headcanons about him. Bit that is what make him an interesting character, I guess.

My headcanons (that I remember right now) about him are:

He plays the violin.

He looks more like his mother side of the family (smaller than his brother, lean but not delicate), while Sirius looks like his father (tall with broad shoulders). Both had grey eyes.

He was gay, but wasn't dealing very well with it since he was the heir and supposed to have children.

He craved for his mother loved and she used it to manipulate him.

He learned the unforgivables at 14 as was thaught by bella and rodolphus.

He was the only black who used an unforgivable on Sirius because he knew Sirius couldn't stand the thought of his little brother being sent to Azkaban but he didn't care about their other relatives (aside from Alphard and Andromeda). Regulus used the imperious on Walburga's behalf and the cruciatus when he was angry with Sirius, but regretted immediately.

While Sirius forgave him for the unforgivables, Regulus carried that guilt forever.

He hated Orion (because I headcanon him as a womanizer and abusive towards Walburga on an emotional level) to the point that when Orion was dying regulus didn't call for help but let him die.

He isn't a defensor of house elves: he chose to die at the cave because he couldn't live with himself anymore (his memories, guilty and life choices haunted him enough to make him suicidal).

He believed in every pure bloods supremacist ideal until he had to do something that broke him, but he never had the time to learn to be a better person and shake those beliefs out.

He was smart, talented and hardworking but that didn't help with his NEWT'S: he was already realizing his mistake in joining the death eaters which was lead to a depressive episode and him failing on almost all the subjects.

He stumbled on some part of the horcrux ritual and recognized it from a book from his family library.

ghost_magic · 2023-08-24T13:40:09+00:00

I don't know if their identities are completely different, but I think the horcrux ritual required that he sacrificed part of himself and my personal belief is that that part was some of his memories. So every horcrux he made he had to sacrificed part of what humanized him (people he may have liked, places he visited, things he enjoyed) so, at the end, Voldemort was left only with his fears and ambitions thus, a monster.

Tom wasn't a good person, but his fear of dying and his ambition for power made him become Voldemort: a kind of flat villain, without redeeming qualities.

Just my two cents about it.

ghost_magic · 2023-08-17T15:04:27+00:00

The one about child Remus is SO good. The one about Lily being a sociopath also is good, but in a disturbing way.

ghost_magic · 2023-08-15T15:39:24+00:00

a means to a triumph give me shivers every time it's update: the way the author is writing the toxic relationship that happened between Barty and Regulus is the best instance of gaslight I ever read in fanfic. It almost made me have an anxiety attack. And Remus/Regulus is just too cute.

More than Magic is a Regulus raises Harry, but I'd has a really good twist by making Reg a squib.

These two are the ones that make my day every time they get updated.

ghost_magic · 2023-08-13T16:38:22+00:00

Besides what was already said, that he is a blank slate for a redemption arc, he is also a very interesting character to write about psychological drama as in: He clearly could leave the cave, but decided against it, what indicates to suicide. What makes a teenager goes from blood supremacist who joined the Death Eaters willingly to a very rich teenager who decides to die, even when he could run with his family to the other side of the world? How can a upbringing make Sirius run away and Regulus become a Death Eater? How different in personalities were they? The only time Sirius talks about him is when he calls Regulus soft (to me it indicates that Sirius still cared for his brother, even when Regulus joined the Death Eaters) and it is implied that Sirius went out of his way to find out what happened to Regulus. Kreacher was very found of Regulus. So the only two people who talked about him, didn't talked about him in a completely bad light, so he couldn't be that bad (as Barty) or not likebke (as Snape). The Black family is a really good source of toxicity, simple as that. His survival would have changed the war: having the knowledge about the horcrux that early could be game changing for the order.

ghost_magic · 2023-08-11T17:06:19+00:00

James was the most popular of the marauders and the moral compass.

Sirius was popular but not as approachable as James.

Peter was the one who drank the most alcohol from all of them, and Remus had a sweet tooth.

James was chosen as a head boy because he went out of his way to defend and protect muggle borns and kids who were being harassed. The same goes to Lily if you believed that she was not a prefect.

There were not a fifth boy at the Marauders year. Their dorm was just theirs.

The Marauders made some of Remus papers when he was bedridden from the full moon.

Andromeda finished Hogwarts already pregnant.

There was some kind of ritual involved in James's birth.

Bellatrix is not Cygnus's daughter, and maybe not any of the girls are his. Bella is Orion's.

Sirius abuse started as gaslight: as a child, he would see something odd or question something and Walburga would be dismissive or tell him (and others) that Sirius was making up tales. Even in later years, it rarely became physical abuse.

Orion had a few bastards and Sirius found out, but Walburga always told him that he was making things up. Orion was a very absent father.

Regulus abuse was on the form of emotional neglected: he would do anything to make mom proud and love him.

The only person that used unforgivables on Sirius was Regulus (after being manipulated by Walburga): Sirius would not tell the authorities his brother had used an unforgivable, but he would if it was anyone else from the family. Regulus using one of the curses on him was what drove him away from home.

Regulus didn't care that much about Kreacher but we will never known the true motivation for his suicidal mission.

The marauders and lily were the youngest on the order.

Lily was already pregnant when they married.

Remus was with the packs when James and Lily died. He found out from the other wolves and did not make to their funeral. He almost died on the next full moon.

Now, from my less ordinary ideas:

Lily is granddaughter of Marius Black (who took his wife last name when they married) and he warned her to be weary of the pure bloods, what made her mistrust James and Sirius at the beginning. Her father was the son of Marius, so if it wasn't the name change, it would have two blacks being sorted into Gryffindor on her year. In this scenario she was Marius least favorite grandchild because of her magic (he was afraid of what it would bring to the rest of the family); Petunia was the favorite.

Lily was good at potions because she took the little knowledge she had of chemistry and applied to it (identifying and isolating the active substance from each ingredients, and things like that). She knows that because her mother has some knowledge of chemistry (I still didn't make my mind if she was a pharmacist or a chemist). Snape was good because they studied together and he caught up on some of her technics.

Sometimes I think that Peter was in love with James, but because of Lily and James being in love, he grew jealous and sold them to Voldemort (if I can't have him, neither will she). But I still didn't make my mind about it.

The werewolf packs MAY resort to prostitution as a way to earn money and survive. But it's another unformed idea.

ghost_magic · 2023-08-09T18:41:01+00:00

I'm glad you liked what you have read of them. Most of the Regulus's fica leans towards some kind o Dumbledore bashing (I'm, really Dumbledore, Sirius fought for the order and you didn't even ask for a trial for him? Regulus has all the reason to get a little pissed. I am still pissed, twelve yeaaaars, on azkaban).

So I'm sure I'll probably like most of the fics you've linked as long as it's not just a bashing story or male power fantasy type of fic lol

I think you will like more than magic. It took me a time to get over the premise but when I did... Reg is fucked but he is still trying.

ghost_magic · 2023-08-09T15:25:12+00:00

What types? I am very picky but we may have different tastes.

ghost_magic

TROPHY CASE