Writing advice

have no idea how to proceed, then come up with a bunch of things that could happen no matter how cliché or how much of cop out they are

this works because by letting down your filters awhile, You get a lot of bad ideas but it also lets good ideas that were getting culled before reaching conscious out of your subconscious

have a hard scene, skip to next scene

sometimes writing the next will give you ideas for the scene you skipped and sometimes you will find the scene you skipped will be unnecessary.

have a scene you or your editor feels could be better, write the new version without throwing out the old version

This will in theory make it easier to rewrite a scene you love because you haven't thrown it out yet and gives you time to fall in love with the new version.

having a hard time describing a character, write a couple paragraph descriptions focusing on side of the character each then combine them

This sounds harder than writing one but by focusing one side of the character is easier because your mind will be able to pick out the details that show that side easier than if you focusing on the whole character.

interview your characters

this allows you to hear your characters talk about their selves which help to develop and understand them.

if you don't know what scene work on next list out what scenes you could to work on next(and I mean all scenes you could work on including those hard ones you've been avoiding) and choose one at random(and I do mean at random as in number them and roll a dice random)

this keeps you from getting stuck because you can't decide what scene to write next.

in a third person story: one characters thoughts and actions per paragraph and switch characters with each paragraph

What I mean is if Ranma thinks or says something it better be only Ranma's thoughts and actions in that paragraph and some other character's thoughts and actions in the paragraphs before and after that one. This allows the reader to more easily know who pronouns refer to and know when we have jumped to someone else's actions. note: this is separate from viewpoint. The scene can be in Ranma viewpoint(meaning we only get Ranma's thoughts) but when another character does or says something they get their own paragraph.

something should be invisible or doing two or more things.

This is especially true of any word you put where 'said' or 'asked' could go. Never used an another word to avoid 'said' or 'asked', they are invisible to the reader. You should used a word other than 'said' or 'asked' sparingly.

examples:

1. 'queried' should never be used where 'asked' could because they are synonyms but readers aren't used to reading 'queried' where they expect 'asked'.

2. 'Deadpanned' is okay if used sparingly because it can help emphasize a mood. ex. in ["No, it wouldn't 'dear'." Ryoga deadpanned.] deadpanned emphasizes the sarcasm.

fight scenes should have emotion, blow by blow and setting

where emotion is the character emotion and thoughts, blow by blow is the actions of characters, and setting is the description of the battle ground.

emotion engages the reader.

blow by blow lets the reader know what happening.

setting lets the reader know what the battle ground looks like.

shorten as you revise(trim)

This makes you tight your prose. Removes unnecessary scenes. It makes your writing have more impact.

for fanfiction: Learn canon characters by reading and watching for character

If you want to learn what a character is like watch what they, how they act, and what they said in canon. Then watch the canon at least a second time.

What this does is let you form a model of the canon character in your mind. which will be modified and corrected on subsequent viewings.

I also use rapid snapshot viewing(A bunch of pictures of the character from canon and put them in a slideshow and view them with a 0.001 second delay between pictures.) to help build the model.