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@mgnemesi
That feeling when... ...you spend the hour(s) of a long car trip imagining a perfect, perfect, PERFECT scene, with a complex dialogue that would absolutely slay in the second half of the book...
...but then you sit down to write, and all you have is basically "Peter yes" "Peter, NO."
Tips for Writing Trauma!
i love you all and i need you to stop writing trauma as a single breakdown scene in the rain after which the character is Healed and Ready to Love Again. that is NOT trauma :(
⊹ Trauma doesn't announce itself. it shows up as your character suddenly not being able to eat a specific food, or going very quiet in a loud room, or laughing at the wrong moment because their nervous system decided that was the appropriate response. it's mundane and weird and it makes no sense from the outside. the dramatic flashback sequence is the least realistic part. the most realistic part is your character suddenly needing to leave a grocery store for a reason they can't articulate.
⊹ The body keeps score and it keeps it in the strangest places. a particular smell. the quality of light at a certain time of day. a tone of voice that sounds like someone who hurt them. your traumatised character doesn't think "this reminds me of the bad thing." their heart rate spikes and they don't know why. they feel wrong and they can't locate the feeling. they're irritable for three days and only later, if ever, do they make the connection. write the disconnection. it's more honest.
⊹ trauma also does not make people universally sympathetic and wise. it makes some people controlling. some people funny at inappropriate times. some people very good in a crisis and completely unable to handle a normal day. some people are generously kind to strangers and absolutely terrible to people they love. trauma shapes behaviour in contradictory, inconvenient ways that don't resolve into a lesson. your traumatised character can be difficult to like. that's not a flaw in the writing. that's the WRITING.
⊹ Healing is not linear and it is not a destination. your character does not get better and stay better. they have a good month and then something small undoes two years of progress and they have to start again with slightly more tools than before. that's the actual shape of it. the spiral, not the arc. the scene where they finally open up and cry is not the end. it might not even be progress. sometimes it just means they were tired that night.
My big, big, BIG doubt with how I'm dealing with Peter's trauma in this first draft is... *Spoiler? Kinda?* ...in chapter 1 he says he will do EXACTLY what he did in the past that traumatised him. And yeah, he doesn't (consciously) remember "what happened that day", so to speak. But to go and say he'll do it again? I NEED him to say that, and, honestly? When I wrote that part (about a year ago?? Omg...) he did NOT have a lingering trauma. He does now.
I'm so doubtful about that whole big declaration of his. I need it. But would he make it? Realistically? 🫣🤔😱😵🥺
GUYS GUYS GUYS
THEY RELEASED THE COYOTE VS ACME TRAILER !!!!!
WE WON !!!
sorry the looney tunes movie that got buried by a massive company for corporate purposes is about fighting back against a massive company trying to bury incidents for corporate purposes?
*screams into a pillow* I've never—EVER—edited this much in my whole LIFE. And. Okay. Okay. I haven't written anything in more than a decade, guilty as charged. And once upon a time I used to write fics, plus jotting down ideas and fragments and new scenarios and nice "lyrics" I thought of daily, but STILL. I've JUST rewritten half the prologue, plus chapter 1 and 2, and I'm not even DONE adding the "new" chapter 3 between chapter 2 and the original chapter 3 and I'm ALREADY side-eyeing all of them. ALL. OF. THEM. How the frickfrack did I manage to write as confidently as I used to, it's a mystery.
what genre do your characters think they are in?
are they right?
Oh, Peter THINKS he's, like, the Hero in an adventure epic. Then he edges a bit closer to the actual truth when he falls in love (and expects everything to be perfect and lovely, the poor summer child). Because, lets be honest. Fable elements? Magic and creatures? Eldritch horrors, mystery, fantasy,morals, memories, battles... They're just a cover. I'm writing Romance. 🤷🏻
Hey y'all. I see 'aspiring writer' all over the place and maybe this is me being nit-picky, but you're not an aspiring writer. If you write, you are a writer. You're aspiring to get published someday. Don't sell yourself short by implying you're not a writer when you're already doing the work.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐔𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐖𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐓𝐨 𝐌𝐞)
Bring back illustrations in books.
I want full page art that makes me pause mid-sentence and go “oh.”
Bring back little drawings at the start of chapters. Bring back weird decorative headers. Bring back maps that are slightly confusing but I will stare at them like I’m planning a military campaign anyway.
Where is my glossary. Where is my pronunciation guide. I am tired of guessing. I want to know if I’ve been saying a name wrong for 300 pages so I can feel betrayed properly.
Give me marginalia. Give me fake documents. Letters. Diagrams that look important but are emotionally suspicious. Let the book look like it’s been handled.
Why did we decide everything had to be Just Text. Who voted for this. Show yourself-
I want footnotes that feel like the author is whispering additional lore directly into my ear. I want diagrams that explain nothing and somehow make everything worse.
Give me endpapers with art. Give me symbols that repeat until I start connecting dots like a conspiracy theorist. Give me one illustration halfway through that alters my brain chemistry permanently.
Books used to come with bonus content like they were slightly haunted objects and now we’re just… behaving? No.
If I am committing to 300 pages, I deserve enrichment.
Let the text do things. Let it shift. Let it breathe. Give me a page that’s just one line in the center so I can sit there like I’ve been personally attacked.
We have the technology. We have the printing capabilities. Why are we acting like books have to behave.
Also imagine the DRAMA. A character dies and suddenly the chapter header symbol changes. A map detail you ignored becomes relevant. A little drawing you thought was decorative is actually foreshadowing. Hello???
Anyway this is my formal petition to make books a little more unhinged again. Add the art. Add the maps. Add the weird glossary entries.
This is not a want. This is a need. Publishers, please let books be weird again- I AM BEGGING
I am not (usually) a writer or a reader who enjoys the double POV of the same scene, or book. And yet...
And yet.
Peter managed to change even THIS.
His first reunion with his future Love Interest in the prologue? You BET I can't stop thinking about the King's side of things. What he thought, how he felt. Peter is pretty. Peter is stunningly pretty. And he doesn't know. I want the King's POV of this beautiful, fey creature bursting back into his life after centuries. I want to see what he saw, feel what he felt, take a peek into his thoughts.
And once I realised I was interested in THAT, I keep finding more and more scenes that send me "oh, how I wish I had the other POV down as well."
🌱✨️
Okay. I know. I know that I'm in such a place now where everything I see makes me go: "That's Peter", but literally????? That's Peter?????? A leaf???? Basking???? In the light of a star????? (Sun's a star) That's????? Petey and his Beloved????????? FR FR
Is it still seggsual humor if it's just Peter constantly saying things that can be misunderstood, but that he means in the most innocent possible way, the sweet summer idiot???
Also, when the King holds out his hand for Peter's for the first time, should I have Peter voice it as:
"Are you asking for my hand...?"
with its "marriage proposal" undertones (he KNOWS he's not being proposed to he just... Doesn't think before speaking), or would a normal:
"You... Want to take my hand?" Suffice to show his sweet genuine confusion?
So, I went online* searching for a replacement word to swap for "suddenly" in a sentence, and all the advice found were more or less "change the structure of the sentence" or "don't use adverbs".
Which... Are not replacement words to swap for "suddenly" in a sentence. So I'm at a loss. Anyone?
*edited to add: I went straight to Reddit, completely overlooking the various dictionary sites 🫣😅
I had a kind of epiphany last night. Maybe I was just too sleepy. Maybe I was in some sort of heightened sleep-induced state. And. I realise that every single thing I chance upon makes me go: "That's Peter."
But.
I stumbled on a certain photo last night. And.
Guys.
Gals.
Whoever is reading me now.
Peter's faceclaim isn't any of the actors I googled, or were suggested to me.
Peter's faceclaim is Emilia Clarke in GoT Season 1.
I'm shook.
I love my soft, cheeky, sweet, entitled, chaotic, idiot son Peter and his hot as hell Beloved ©️™️ to the moon and back but there are times (like now) where I can't stand them.
Why do I have to write their story? Why can't I just imagine it and it'll jump out, perfectly written, from my brain to the page?
I don't want to even think about them anymore. And yet I take breaks from writing about them, and spend said breaks imagining scenes for them that I might never even use.
It's terrible.
Great.
But terrible.
