Enemies To Friends Prompts

♠ Enemies to Friends Prompts ♠

“Maybe…you’re not as bad as I thought.”

“C’mon, give me a chance at least!”

“Slow down, we aren’t that close.”

“Friends? Whoa there buddy.”

“At this rate, we should make a best friend handshake.”

“Inside joke? I thought you were genuinely insulting me.”

“Don’t say that, people might think we are friends.”

“I’m only going to play this game if they’re on my team.”

“I never expected you two to work together!”

“I’m holding back from smacking you because you’ve been nice lately.”

“Did you just compliment me? And I didn’t even gag.”

“Can we high five or are we not there yet?”

“Why are you being nice to me?”

“Are you guys friends now?”

“Everyone’s looking at us real weird.”

“So are you friends or mortal enemies?”

“Hey, leave them alone! Only I can make fun of their stupidity!”

“Don’t take it personal, they’re just a softie on the inside.”

“You being an asshole has become more endearing than not these days.”

“So cute nicknames are crossing the line?”

🌈FRIENDSHIP RAINBOW🌈

Listen. I’m not saying I spent an embarrassing amount of time redrawing some Love Live art to turn my friend squad into magical girls... but I’m not NOT saying it

(Linework by me, color by the absurdly talented @chikuto !)

Living Together Trope

A trope I’ve recently kind of gotten fascinated by.

Characters forced to live together because of:

- poverty (”If we live together we can split the cost, more money for food!”)

- convenience (”Hey, uh, the subway & my fav restaurant are just around the corner so can we…?”)

- secret attraction (”Damn…he’s hot.”)

- forced circumstances (”Listen, we don’t have enough cells to detain you so you’ll be living with me temporarily.” “Oh great, sharing living quarters with a cop. Must be my lucky day.”)

- protection (”I’m sorry this isn’t the safest neighbourhood, but you’ll be safe here.”)

- aesthetic (”I love this apartment! It’s beautiful!” , “Well, I like it too.” “…I’m calling dibs on the bed!”)

- agreement (”You cook for me in exchange for using my art room for your work, deal?”)

Tag your ships/characters/message me  and I’ll try to write a one shot about them!

BTW: You can also choose which reason for living together they have!

A friend shared this on facebook and I’m putting it here for reference.

Dealing with negative feedback as a writer

I've recently gone through the critique partner/alpha reader/beta reader process. I gave people the book I'd been working on for 4 years and asked them to criticize it and pull it apart. To give me their honest opinions. And even though I asked for it, getting negative feedback still sucks every time.

So, here are a few ways in which I've tried to lessen the blow:

1. Rather than sorting feedback into negative/positive, sort it into useful/not useful

You may think that only the negative comments are important. Because that's what you need to fix, right?

Well, I've come to recognize that not all criticism is helpful and not all positive feedback is useless for editing.

The important question when sifting through feedback is: does this point out a particular aspect that can and should be changed?

Some negative comments that are actually not helpful include subjective preferences, generalization and mean-spirited criticism.

If someone says: "I don't like the swearing in the book." - this is subjective. This reader does not like books with many curse words. However, other readers might like the candid narration or dialogue you've achieved with the swear words. Of course, if many of the readers point out that the swearing is so intense that it distracts from the plot, that could be useful feedback. But if it's just one reader, you shouldn't change your manuscript to suit them. You should also keep in mind that readers of a different genre won't always like your book, but that's completely subjective.

Broad/general negative statements also aren't useful. This would be something like "I don't like the book". This can hurt very much, but you have to realize that it's fine to throw out this type of feedback and forget it ever came your way. Because it doesn't help you make the book better. It doesn't address any specific aspect. It doesn't help you understand the problem. And it sure as hell doesn't indicate what you should edit.

99.9% of the time, a mean-spirited comment won't be useful. Because that person isn't trying to help. They're tearing you down and being a prick. Realize that this is more of a projection of their own insecurities than a reflection of the quality of your work. I had a beta reader who gave me incredibly condescending/mocking feedback and I removed him from my beta list immediately. I can take constructive criticism. I don't have to tolerate a dick.

Then, there could also be positive feedback that can help you edit the manuscript. If some comments: "I love character Y, because she has a very clear goal", that may indicate that you need to strengthen the goals of your other characters.

2. Consolidate the useful feedback

I know that when getting negative feedback you just want to crawl into a hole and never look at any of it again.

But, the whole reason you asked for feedback was to help you make the book better. So, you're gonna have to work through those comments.

Once you know which feedback is useful, I suggest making a separate edit document in which you simply list the things you need to look at during your next round of edits.

This way, the notes are in your own words and they are neutral. You don't have to look at the negative comments themselves ever again.

3. Don't disregard the positive comments

I feel like it's human nature to focus on the negative. Especially when looking toward edits, we tend to blind ourselves to all the good feedback.

Don't

Even though it might not be directly relevant to your next round of edits, positive feedback that doesn't point out anything you should change is still valuable.

For your writing career, it's always good to know what your strengths are.

And if you save the praise, you can always revisit it for a morale boost when self-doubt or imposter syndrome gets you down.

Reblog if you found this post useful. Comment with your own tips on handling feedback. Follow me for similar content.