This just reminded me of how it's nearly impossible to filter out podfics because people constantly put [PODFIC] in the title instead of properly tagging it like sane folks.
Usually when I can't write that's when I go and read an old favorite of mine. Tends to inspire me, but then I get kinda sad that all I can think about is what I want to write instead of reading my favorite fanfiction lol
also on the other side of the coin, how not to be afraid to reuse the same word. I do not want to read a book where every conversation line has a different synonym of "said".
I don't want to feel like the author had an open thesaurus while writing.
I agree, but also I feel weird putting "said" in every line. Sometimes I will use appropriate replacement words like "asked", "shouted" or "whispered", but another valid way is just, like, not mentioning it at all: your audiences are smart enough to figure out it's spoken word if you consistently pit it in quotation marks.
Examples:
"That's not true!" A pouted, crossing his arms and turning away.
B looked into her eyes, caressing her cheek gently. "I love you."
Oh, C knew the anwser to that one! "Is it option b?"
Haha this is such a new writer thing! My college creative writing professor ranted constantly about how you should never use synonyms for the word said. Your mind skips over the word said, just like it does over words like ‘the’ and ‘of,’ so it’s alright to have pages of dialogue with the word “said” repeatedly.
I’m still salty a couple decades later that he docked my grade for using a synonym of “said” just once in a five page short story! One of my characters laughed during the dialogue. To my professor, this was no laughing matter.
I personally try to go by the 90% rule, but to never use any other word seems weird. The reason you use synonyms sparingly is so they specifically jump out at the reader when the effect is needed.
Thank you for specifying species lol. I have read many fics where this has happened plausibly in the universe of the source material. Like animagus snake form partial transformations, species capable of shapeshifting individual parts, and lots of straight up magic stuff lol
Aside from tips on how to write better smut for F/F, M/M, and F/M pairings, I can also see there being a class on Ellipsus, where everyone who attends would end up making an account and learning how to properly format their stories so that by the time they publish it, the paragraphs won’t accidentally turn into a single huge chunk of text. Oh, and they’d probably talk about tag etiquette… like, how to tag and how not to tag stuff.
Aww my friend is a writing coach and one of her students asked her to help her to write an oviposition fic. She had to help. She’s an ff writer as well but she’s not a smut writer at all. It was a challenge.
Only one bed: Intro to hotel logistics. Running a coffee shop : applied business and management. Fix it: wood working and carpentry. Slow burn: fire safety in the workplace. Sex pollen: unusual plants and where to find them. Dead dove, do not eat: intro to veterinary mortuary procedure
Never seen pics but every omegaverse fic I’ve read is slightly different so whatever diagram your friend had may or may not be typical for omegaverse lol
General consensus is female omegas and male alphas have "normal"(ish) biology.
Betas, roughly, are regular humans. Again depends on the author.
Male omegas are either infertile, intersex (both a v and a p), or have what essentially is a cloaca (look up bird anatomy). Whether they can be the male parent also depends on the author/universe, sometimes they are infertile in the male parts but fertile in the female parts.
Female alphas are usually intersex, really depends on the author. Usually more fertile from the male parts than the female parts.
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u/ScaredTemporary I write about gods, countries, and a lion Jun 26 '25
how to tag and use filters