Special Agent Morgan Connor's job is simple: track down humans with supernatural abilities and assess their threat level. When he looks into the Starr family, he stumbles upon more than he was expecting- sibling Others. The youngest, Cassie, is taken into protective custody while the elder, Orion, is forced to become the Bureau's newest asset. But the government isn't the only one interested in the siblings. Connor and Orion must contend with a group of renegade Others and the mysterious Mr. Lionhart while trying to uncover why both are so interested in the Starr family.
Whisper Glen (Querying)
WIP Intro
Aimless Rachel Brooks always wanted to have an exciting adventure like the heroes of her favorite books, but living in 1998 rural West Virginia limited her prospects to mere daydreams until the ghost of her Nana tells her about the town's population of magical creatures and Rachel finds her little world completely upended. Things quickly become complicated as Rachel begins studying under Nana to learn her responsibilities. Whisper Glen has been without a guardian since Nana's death and several Legends have taken advantage of her absence. Nana also hasn't been completely honest about the Guardians' history. Will Rachel master her new role or will things spiral out of her control?
Shorty Story: Dillon the Werewolf
Short Story: Mathias Harker, Vampire
Short Story: Dottie the Dryad
The Melograno (2026)
WIP Intro
When Amaryllis Volans and Aidric Caldwell wake from cryogenic slumber, they have no memories and no idea how they got on board the abandoned luxury liner Melograno. Unsettling visions of the crew and passengers plague the pair as they try to retrace their steps and signal for rescue. But the first ship to dock with them isn't there to help--Pirates have laid claim to the floundering ship. Amaryllis and Caldwell must work together to find a way to escape before they're killed or enslaved.
Operation Blackout: Lies and Convictions (Forthcoming)
After explosive Waterfront Incident six months ago resulted in euthanasia for all captured Others in the interest of public safety, Morgan Connor decided to work from within BSI to keep harmless Others safe. But his personal mission becomes complicated when he is partnered with old acquaintance John Reeves. And Reeves has a secret mission of his own: he's been tasked with determining if Connor should also be "euthanized". As the lies keep piling up, Connor is unexpectedly reunited with Orion Starr. Can Connor keep Orion's presence secret or will his lies be exposed?
Indefinite hold.
Reject Pile
Short stories that were either rejected or were not good enough to be submitted for professional publication.
something you learn fast and necessarily when you get into the habit of writing is that you are riddled with blind assumptions, prejudices, unpractised rhetoric and all kinds of unchallenged cicada shell thoughts that were left stuck to your mode of being when bad ideas fled you. most people get to move through the world behind a kind of modesty veil that divides their internal thoughts from their external observations, but you have to take that off when you write. you have to suddenly present the whole world to itself nakedly, without the kindness of someone who can stop you mid-sentence and say "hold on, I know you, you can't possibly mean that". people are often scared to show their work to an editor in case the editor points out what they look like without their modesty veil, but god, christ, hell and heaven, you have to be more afraid of what the whole world of strangers will see if you don't let someone pick the cicada shells off you first.
how to write characters that feel like real people and not NPCs in your brain
You ever read a book and think “this character would survive maybe five minutes in a real conversation”? Yeah. Let’s avoid that. Here’s how to make your fictional friends feel real:
everyone wants something
Even if it’s small. Even if it’s stupid. Every character—from your MC to the one-line barista—should want something. A promotion. Revenge. A nap. World domination. That want shapes how they act.
give them contradictions
Humans are messy. Let your characters be brave and terrified, kind but petty, loyal but deeply in denial. That tension? That’s where the magic lives.
let them make bad choices
If your character is right all the time, they’re either boring or a liar. People mess up. Let your character mess up in ways that feel true to them, not just to move the plot.
interior life > cool dialogue
Quippy one-liners are fun, but what’s going on underneath? What are they afraid to say out loud? What thoughts would they take to the grave? That’s what makes a character feel alive.
how do they show emotion?
Not everyone cries when sad. Some get mean. Some go quiet. Some rearrange their bookshelves obsessively. Find their emotional language.
backstory = spice, not soup
You don’t need a 12-page trauma dump to make a character real. Drip in bits of their past when it matters. Let it shape them quietly.
voice matters
Everyone shouldn’t sound like you. Think about how your character talks. What words do they overuse? Do they ramble? Are they blunt? What don’t they say?
tl;dr: believable characters aren’t perfect—they’re specific. They’ve got fears, flaws, favorite snacks, weird opinions, and conflicting goals. Make them messy. Make them human.
Practice by writing short stories and vignettes. It's easy to get obsessed with a new OC, but try to expand your skill set by trying to come up with new characters that are only going to be used once!
...While trying to get professionally published. I don't know anything about personal relationships, although I suppose the strategies might be similar.
Don't Take It Personally
Rejections aren't a reflection on the quality of your writing. Publishing, even with free online magazines, is an industry. What does that mean? It means that editors receive hundreds, sometimes thousands, of queries per reading period. No publication can possibly publish all the submissions they receive, so they have to reject someone. Even publications with an acceptance rate of 50% is rejecting someone.
Taste is subjective. Maybe you thought you matched the vibe of the publication before submitting, but the editor doesn't agree. That doesn't mean your story was bad; it just means that it's not what they're looking for.
Consider criticisms. If you want to improve, you will need to swallow some of your pride and take help when it's offered. If someone has actually taken the time to write a critique of your work, you should take the time to read it; the advice may help you improve, especially if the editor felt that only a few tweaks kept you from being accepted. HOWEVER, that does not mean that you should blindly accept/internalize critiques. You should take advice with a grain of salt and weigh it against other critiques you've received. One reader could simply not understand the story while another might have an insight you'd never considered.
Don't Compare Yourself to Others
Jealousy is the enemy of happiness. Celebrate your triumphs! You worked hard to get where you are and you should acknowledge it, even when you feel down. It doesn't matter how someone else is doing.
You and everyone else are on different paths. You're in different parts of your career, even if you started at the same time. You made different choices, took different opportunities, and had different luck (which everyone forgets). You can be just as talented as the next person and still not make it big. Stephen Gould once wrote, to paraphrase, that people of equal talent to Einstein "lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops". Now, I'm not saying that you're the next Stephen King, but luck (being in the right place at the right time) has a bigger component than people give it credit for.
Don't Avoid
Keep submitting. Don't talk yourself out of possible success. I know it's depressing to receive rejections, but you will be successful. It's just a matter of time, and you will grow thicker skin. When I first started submitting, I was overcome with anxiety with every email response (negative or positive) and it took a while to stop taking it personally. I've had six acceptances, probably hundreds of rejections, and a few nice emails complimenting my work (while still rejecting it). And it's all been worth it because I know that more people have seen my work than I ever thought.
Don't Avoid Submitting Elsewhere
Rejection in one aspect isn't rejection in all aspects. I chose to write this because I've yet to be successful in querying a book and the combined rejection rate is really heartrending sometimes, but if I'd focused only on the rejections for my book, then I'd never have been successful with my short stories. The same applies if you are doing any other kind of art: Maybe your watercolors aren't doing well, but your sculpted figurines are a hit. Don't pack it in; take your success and celebrate it!
Don't Stop Writing
Maybe that story needed more time to marinate: you're struck with genius when you come back later and it's a hundred percent better. Or maybe you realize with distance that your story concept wasn't as good as you thought. Regardless, you're not going to figure that out if you stop writing. Writing is how we hone our craft. It's how we get better. It's how we learn rules and then break them. Plus, why were you writing in the first place? To tell a story. Tell it. Tell it many different ways if you have to, and you'll enjoy revisiting themes and tropes.
Do Something Else
If rejection's really got you down, take a break. Work on a different piece of art. Go out with a friend. Watch a favorite movie... Whatever will help you come back rejuvenated.
Regardless, you're a writer even if you're not published. A writer is a person who writes.
[ID: An illustration of a red basketball wheelchair with a tall frame, low backrest and slanted wheels, sitting in front of an orange background. White text beside the chair reads: "Disability tropes: Sporting mobility aids as all-purpose ones"]
A visual trope I've noticed popping up more often as of late, is the tendency for artists and character designers to give their physically disabled characters mobility aids specifically made for sport as a daily-use aid. It seems to happen most often with leg amputees, being given running-blade prosthetics or wheelchair users being given basketball, rugby or tennis wheelchairs, but that could also just be because that's what I'm most knowledgeable about and so I just notice it more.
So what's the problem with that? Well, mobility aids designed for sport aren't like, say, running shoes where they're designed for one thing, but can be used for another. They are designed for one thing, and one thing only. trying to use them for literally anything else will... well it won't get you far.
Running Blades
Now look, I get why people want to draw these on their amputee and limb different characters, they look cool as hell AND they make you fast! I pestered my prosthetist for years to let me get a pair, admittedly, mostly because of the aesthetic so trust me, I get it.
But running blades are made to run, and only to run. Sometimes to jump, but mainly to run. You see, running blades look the way they do, because they aren't actually based off of human anatomy at all. The original running blade was inspired by the hind-legs of animals like cheetahs, dogs and other fast-moving land mammals. As the furries among us would already know, a lot of these animals have something called digitigrade legs, meaning they don't stand with their entire back foot on the ground. What we see as their paws is actually just the ends of their toes, and their ankle is held up off the ground. The reason so many animal species evolved with this trait is because it makes you really fast (among other things). The entire leg essentially works like a spring, giving the animal more force to push themselves forward, at the cost of the limb being a little less stable to stand on. that isn't an issue when you have another two legs out in front, but it's part of the reason why you don't see many bipedal creatures in nature with digitigrade legs.
Running blades took this general digitigrade leg layout and kind of simplified it, functionally making the athletes run on their toes. The blades are made out of very strong and very flexible carbon fibre sheets, and when the "toe" of the blade hits the ground, the force of the impact causes the whole blade to bend, then rebound, using the runner's own force and momentum to push them forward again. However, unlike most animals, humans don't have another set of legs out in front to keep us stable, so when the person with the blade prosthetic stops running, they either become very unstable or will fall over. This is because, in order to get that spring-like motion, these prosthetics can't have a heel and the way our body's weight is distributed means we kind of need that. Some leg amputees are able to walk a little bit in these running blades, but its not easy and is generally pretty uncomfortable to do, and for double leg amputees, it's exceptionally difficult.
There's also the fact that the running blades need a lot of force applied to them to actually work. A friend of mine brought her blade to an event we were both at, and you could not get the arch of the blade to bend with your arms. At all. One of the other guys at the event was a Paralympic powerlifter, and even he couldn't do it. even leaning on it with all our body weight wasn't enough to make it bend and push back. The only way to get it to bend was by landing on it while running at full speed - which is no small amount of force. Anything less and it won't budge, making these essentially very poorly balanced peg legs when used for anything other than running and jumping. This was actually the reason my prosthetist never signed off on me getting a pair of running legs, because I had an issue that made my stumps too sensitive to withstand the forces needed for them to work properly.
So unless your amputee character is going to be running everywhere at a full sprint, they don't need and probably won't benefit much from having blades in place of a regular prosthetic foot. However, if you want some extra speed for your amputee character, without the significant balance issues that come with a blade, hybrid feet do exist! These hybrids are made out of the same carbon fibre sheets as the big blades, but are shaped more like a regular leg and ankle, with an additional piece attached to the back to give you the stability of having a heel. These hybrid feet, often called active feet or high-mobility feet, take the best of both kinds of prosthetic, while also allowing their user to wear shoes, thanks to the rubber foot shell that goes over the top. They aren't as great for running as the big blades, but they're a lot better than most other prosthetic feet.
The one exception to all of this is if your amputee or limb different character isn't actually human. Quadrupedal mammals like dogs and cats who have their hind legs amputated often get something that looks like a running blade prosthetic as the shape mimics what they'd naturally have without the need for expensive (and completely impractical for animals) electronic parts. When it comes to furry and anthropomorphic animals, I personally make an exception here as well. Technically, the same rule should apply; they're bipedal, so they shouldn't be able to easily stand on a running blade and it wouldn't be practical. However, that rule should also apply to any furry with digitigrade legs, they should be equally unbalanced on their natural meat legs because that kind of bone structure isn't great for a bipedal creature, but it's just kind of an accepted thing to ignore that within the furry community, as long as you can make it look good. In this case, a running blade is the closest a digitigrade furry could probably come to a functional prosthetic without robotics, so I'm more inclined to let it go in that case.
Sports wheelchairs
The wheelchairs used in basketball, tennis and rugby are all different, but the features I see getting used in character designs are, for the most part, in all three, so for the sake of simplicity, going forward I'm going to refer to them all collectively as sports chairs. "Sports wheelchair" is an umbrella term that encompasses a lot more than just these three types, but I don't think I've seen anyone confuse a racing or golfing wheelchair for a general use wheelchair, so for this article, I'm mainly going to be using it to refer to those three. Likewise, going forward, I'm going to be calling normal, non-sports wheelchairs "day-chairs," which was a popular way of shortening "daily-use wheelchair" when I played wheelchair sports.
Just like the running prosthetic, sports wheelchairs are made to do one thing very well, and only that one thing, which is why people who play wheelchair sports of any kind need to have an entirely separate wheelchair to play in. The wheelchairs designed for Rugby and basketball are made to go on perfectly flat, perfectly smooth, indoor basketball courts. Likewise, tennis chairs are made to play on perfectly flat and smooth tennis courts. But it's pretty hard to find anything that smooth and flat outside of those specific spaces and these chairs don't handle any other type of environment well at all, even including the entrances and exists to the courts. These sports chairs are so bad at dealing with anything else, in fact, that people who play these sports will usually stay in their day-chairs, right up until they're on the court's sideline, then swap into the sports chair only when needed.
This is because the features that make these wheelchairs so good for their respective sports, tend to cause a lot of logistical problems anywhere else. For example, when most people think about sports wheelchairs, one of the first things that comes to mind is probably the big, tilted wheels. The wheels on all sports chairs are angled outwards, with the wheels closer at the top, and wider at the bottom - this is called wheel camber. A standard day-chair, though, usually has no, or very little camber - wheels that are not tilted outwards. Giving sports chairs camber has a lot of benefits, with the main one being added stability. When you're playing a game like wheelchair basketball or rugby, which are contact sports, you need to be able to take a hit without falling over, and a wider base of support helps with that a lot. The larger wheels on these chairs also tend to sit pretty far forward, which shifts the chair's centre of gravity, making it way easier to do precise, tight turns. However, this makes the chair much less stable, which the camber also helps with, which is one of the big reasons you see tilted wheels on tennis chairs too. Finally, you also need your hands and fingers on the wheels to move, but if someone crashes into you, having the wheels tilted this way keeps your hands out of the way of being crushed on impact...usually.
As you can see, this feature has a lot of advantages, but you'll notice that having the wheels tilted also makes the chair very wide. So wide that they don't actually fit most doors, except double doors. When I played basketball, to even get our sports wheelchairs inside the courts we practiced on, which only had standard, single doors for some reason, we had to sit in our day chairs and push the basketball chairs in front of us with the big wheels removed, or they wouldn't be able to fit inside. I'm sure you can see now why this makes these wheelchairs impractical for daily use. It's hard enough getting a normal day-chair through some building's doors, let alone through crowded or tight places like shops with narrow isles or down narrow footpaths. You will occasionally see a day-chair with a very minor tilt on their big wheels, but it's usually only done on very thin chairs with active or experienced users, and it's almost never more than a 2 - 5° tilt (whereas sports chairs can have as much as 15° to 20°, depending on the sport).
But tilted wheels aren't the only thing that makes them impractical for daily use. Another feature of these chairs is their anti-tip wheels; little wheels at the back that stop you from falling backwards out of your chair. A lot of day-chairs have anti-tips too, but the ones on day-chairs are usually positioned so that the wheelchair can still be tilted back enough to get up things like curbs and small steps and mildly rough terrain. However, remember how I said sports chairs have their big wheels moved further forward to help them turn easier? this will cause the chair to tip back way easier, and to account for that, the anti-tip wheels on sports chairs have to be basically touching the ground. If they weren't, every time you pushed forward, you would loose a bunch of your energy and momentum from tipping back slightly. You'd also probably damage the courts after a while too from forcibly slamming your front and anti-tip wheels into the ground repetitively. So they make the anti-tip wheels as close to the ground as practically possible to stop that, and also so you can lean as far back in the chair as you need, without having to worry about falling back but this means the chair is prone to getting stuck on everything and anything if the ground isn't perfectly flat and smooth. Even trying to take one of these chairs down a tiny curb-cut ramp is likely to result in your front wheels getting wedged on the road, while the anti-tips get stuck on the ramp with your big wheels (the ones you use to propel yourself forward) getting stuck in the air.
Finally, there's also the size. Even without tilted wheels, these chairs are often quite a decent bit larger than a day chair, mostly to protect their user. Most sports wheelchairs have a protective bar in front and around the sides of the chair, and the anti-tips add quite a bit of extra length to them in a lot of cases. The bar protects your feet in the event of a collision or fall, and makes the chairs more bottom-heavy to prevent them from tipping over whenever you make a sharp turn, and the anti-tip wheels need to extend a decent way out of the back of the chair or else they can't do their job. These things don't matter too much on the court, but once again, out in the real world, it makes a big difference.
There are a few other little differences too that can, in some cases, make them less practical. things like the fact breaks are never included on sports chairs (anymore) because they just weren't needed during the games and increased the risk of hand injuries - I lost a few thumbnails from snagging them on my day-chair's breaks when I was pushing fast. Sports chairs also can't fold down, as making them able to do so is a safety hazard since it weakens the frame of the chair. So that, combined with their larger shape means they can really only be transported by most people by putting them in the back trunk of the car, whereas even day-chairs that can't fold are designed to be able to be placed on a car seat, meaning they're easier to get in and out of a car when you don't have anyone to help you.
I speak about all of this from experience, by the way. As a teenager, my first wheelchair basketball coach intentionally didn't explain the above points to me when he lent me my first ever sports wheelchair. He knew the first thing I was going to do was try to take it to school, and he knew I wouldn't listen if he just told me not to try it, so it was just better to let me figure it out on my own. My old English classroom's door still has a big chunk of paint missing from where I tried to force this extra-wide sports chair through almost 10 years later, and I was late to every single class that day because the school's elevator had a small lip by the door I kept getting stuck on. Not to mention the several times I got stuck on the curb cut just trying to leave our local courts the day he gave it to me.
Sometimes kids just have to learn through trial and error, and I definitely tried, which is why it's so funny to me when I see wheelchair using characters in fiction either using just a straight-up sports wheelchair as a day-chair, or who's day-chair was designed by someone who very clearly just googled "cool/sporty/fast wheelchair" and slapped a bunch of features they saw onto a more standard wheelchair without understanding what those things actually do.
Conclusion
Honestly, as far as disability tropes go this one is mainly harmless. Personally, I find it more funny than annoying or harmful like most of the tropes I talk about, but it does come across to those of us who have used these mobility aids that you haven't really done much more than superficial research.
There's something in the book community especially in the booktok community that genuinely confuses me and the more I see it the more I realize how backwards the conversation has become. Every time people talk about romance tropes, someone inevitably says ''we need more fmc like this'' and by ''like this'' they mean the exact same toxic traits that already exist in male characters obsessive, stalkerish, controlling....... The argument usually goes there are so many mmc like that, so we should get fmc like that too.
And my question is… WHY?
Why is the reaction to a questionable trope not ''maybe we should stop romanticizing this'' but instead ''let's make the female lead do it too?'' are we really that desperate for representation that we're willing to replicate the worst traits just to achieve some kind of symmetry?
Because here's the truth -> copying a bad trope and putting a woman in that role doesn't suddenly make it progressive. It doesn't make it empowering. It just means we've taken the exact same unhealthy dynamic and changed the gender.
And what bothers me even more is that this conversation is rarely about writing good female characters. It's about writing female versions of existing male fantasies.
Not a well written character, not a complex character, not a human character.
Just a gender swapped trope.
Somewhere along the way, the standard for female characters became either:
-> The perfectly moral strong female lead
-> The edgy version who does all the same toxic things male characters do.
And both of those options are still traps.
Because neither one is asking the real question -> is this actually a well written character?
Another reality the community doesn't like hearing is that a lot of the time we're not asking for complexity. We're asking for aestheticized dysfunction.
-> Pain that looks poetic.
-> Trauma that looks empowering.
-> Obsession that gets framed as passion.
-> Control that gets framed as devotion.
And when a female character is written like that, people immediately start calling her iconic, unhinged or a female version of the morally grey man but what we're actually looking at most of the time is not complexity it's just the same trope wearing a different outfit.
Some readers say they want female characters who are messy, dark, morally grey and that's completely fair but morally grey does not automatically mean stalker behavior, manipulation or cruelty packaged as romance or aesthetic.
Real complexity doesn't come from shock value it comes from contradiction, from motivation, from internal conflict, from choices that feel human rather than performative but nuance is harder to write and it's harder to market so instead the conversation keeps circling around the same shallow requests:
-> Where's the female version of this trope?
-> Where's the female version of that dynamic?
As if representation means mirroring every toxic pattern that already exists for male characters and honestly that feels like the lowest possible bar.
The last thing I personally want is to read a female character whose entire appeal is that she behaves like the worst kind of romanticized obsession. Not because women have to be morally perfect but because reducing female characters to extreme tropes is still reduction.
We deserve better than that.
Not girlboss caricatures.
Not sanitized strong female leads.
And definitely not stalker, obsessed, dominate behavior rebranded as edgy female empowerment.
What we should be asking for and what the community rarely pushes for loudly enough is something much simpler and much harder at the same time -> well-m written characters who happen to be women.
Characters whose pain isn't aestheticized into a personality trait, characters whose trauma isn't glamorized into empowerment, characters whose flaws exist because they're human not because the story needs them to perform darkness in a dramatic way.
Because the real harsh truth is that a lot of readers claim they want complex female characters but the moment a woman is written as complicated, uncomfortable, contradictory or realistically flawed without being aestheticized or sensationalized the reaction is often confusion or rejection, we say we want complexity but what we often mean is that we want a dramatic version of complexity that's easy to consume.
And until that changes, the conversation is going to keep looping back to the same shallow question:
-> Where's the female version of this trope?
When the better question has always been:
-> Why are we still measuring female characters by tropes at all?
Women are always tropes or reversed tropes or defy tropes, but men are characters. It's time that women are simply characters too. Because women are human too.
I accidentally added 1k to my word count today while editing. Most of it involves spacer superstitions and mythology, which I really enjoyed writing, but we'll see how much of it stays tomorrow when I go back to editing. I've managed to make it most of the way through Nitana's narrative and I'm pretty satisfied with the changes I've made so far. Going through her storyline alone helps me concentrated on consistency.
I'm also up to 72k, which means that I made my goal of adding 10k from the last draft (version 2)!
i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.
Good advice. I also tend to focus on scenes I feel are underwritten, using these ideas, and keep going through the scene. Sometimes I take a break and come back a week later to see if anything else has come to mind.
Another thing to keep in mind: is the scene really being underwritten or is it just unnecessary? If you can't answer 10 (I know it's not a question), then maybe the reason you're having such difficulty is because the scene no longer belongs. Maybe if you outlined, the information/stakes you intended to put into this scene have been shifted to an earlier scene.
1. Share their posts! Did you guys know I get twice as much views on my instagram posts just from one person adding them to their story? This helps more people see my work and gives us a better shot against the algorithm!
2. Interact with them! Leaving a comment on a post or sending them a message is a simple way to brighten their day and show them they are seen and appreciated! Tell them what you love about what they do!
3. Tell your friends! Sometimes it takes a dozen posts from an author to get a reader to even consider reading their book, but all it takes is one message that starts with "BESTIE YOU'VE GOTTA CHECK THIS OUT!"
4. Request their books at the library! Yes, you can get your favorite indie author's book to a wider audience and support your local library at the same time! Win-win!
5. Make fan content! Seeing fanart, playlists, edits, and other creations based on your creations is always encouraging. As an author, I would be honored if people loved my characters enough to make fanworks of them.
6. Leave a review! Reviews help show the author people are actually reading their book, let others know why they should read it too, and help boost visibility and community!
7. Buy their books! Obviously, the best way to support an author is to buy their books! If you already have a copy, consider purchasing one to gift to a friend, library, youth center, or little free library!
8. Participate in online giveaways & events. Authors spend a lot of time setting up giveaway events to help build hype and boost community, and by participating, you can help them and maybe claim some goodies for yourself!
9. Merch! If an author sells promo items realated to their book, it helps more than just financially! When other people see your swag, you get to spread the hype! If the author doesn't have merch maybe you can offer to help them design some!!
10. Attend events! Seeing people physically in front of you excited about your book is so encouraging, and enthusiastic fans encourage others' curiousity!
Hey. Hey guys. Stop looking at the writing advice.
That sounds crazy but trust me: you see all this advice on how to enhance your characters and dialogue and add depth and theme and blah blah blah
But, doesn't it get overwhelming? At a certain point you're not focused on the story, you're focused more on the mechanics.
And because you're trying to hard to follow this advice to seem good, the words don't flow.
Write first.
Write whatever you want.
It doesn't matter if it's perfect or there's repeats in words or tropes or there's plot holes or things seem silly.
You need a story and it's far easier to get your story down when you're not trying to fit in every other little thing or limiting what freedom you could have if not for the "forbidden" writing "mistakes".
The writing advice, the enhancements to your story, are for editing. For draft 2 or 3 or 4 or whenever your story is fleshed out enough to start refining.
Don't overwhelm yourself trying to write the first draft as perfect as possible. Even if it's full of everything editors and writers are screaming "DON'T DO THIS!!", you want it on paper first so IGNORE THEM!
You're limiting yourself. Start broad before narrowing down, before deciding whether or not to cut scenes.
Start off by including all those scenes and characters and whatever you desire, don't cut off the serpent's head before it's even out of the egg.
(BTW I DON'T MEAN PROMPTS ARE BAD- I LOVE PROMPTS! BUT MECHANICAL ADVICE AND SYNONYMS AND STRUCTURE AND CUTTING OUT REDUNDANCIES ARE ALL FOR LATER YOU!!)
A tip for fantasy artists, from a fellow artist who has raised both reptiles and birds, on drawing just hatched dragons: things that hatch from eggs fill up the space they have available in that egg before they hatch. That includes long snake-y style guys!
As a real life example a baby ball python hatches out of an egg that is roughly chicken sized. Hatchling weight and length can vary but this is a pretty accurate representation here:
If your character is walking around with an egg the size of an ostrich egg and their new buddy hatches out the size of one of these noodles, I can only assume there's a dozen more in there behind it.
It would be more accurate to expect a hatchling from an egg that big to be closer to an adult ball python in size
A dragon shaped more bird-y or lizard-like will also hatch pretty chunky! Baby ostriches are basically the size and shape of their eggs plus a long neck and head situation
And while most babies that hatch from eggs don't start out needing to eat for the first day or two because they're still absorbing the remainder of their yolk sack, they will very quickly develop an appetite. And will EAT. And they will GROW.
Little buddy will not stay so portable sized for very long!
Character Flaws/Quirks in Fantasy Worldbuilding That I'm BEGGING Writers to Explore
Please, please, PLEASE.....
✧ Magic systems with actual consequences that aren't just "ooh I'm tired now." Like your wizard gets hiccups that turn into burps of flame for three days. Your necromancer's hair falls out in clumps. Your healer has to absorb a percentage of the pain they cure and spends evenings crying in the bath.
✧ Fantasy creatures that are just... kinda mid at their designated thing. Dragons who are afraid of heights. Vampires with a garlic intolerance that's more "lactose intolerant at a pizza party" than "instant death." Werewolves who transform but just become a really anxious medium-sized dog.
✧ Prophecies that are vague because the ancient oracle genuinely had terrible handwriting. Nobody can agree if it says "the chosen one" or "the chicken coop" and honestly both are equally possible at this point.
✧ Magic schools where students are failing because the curriculum is actually hard, not because they're the chosen one having drama. Let someone flunk Potions because they can't math the ratios. Academic probation exists in fantasy too.
✧ Dark Lords with the most mundane administrative problems. Yes, he's conquering the realm, but also the castle's plumbing is a nightmare and his generals keep submitting their expense reports late.
✧ Worldbuilding that remembers disabled people exist in fantasy settings too. No, not just "magically healed." I mean fantasy wheelchairs, accessibility spells, sign language variations, service dragons, the whole deal.
✧ Taverns that aren't just quest-dispensing machines. Sometimes the innkeeper is closed for a family emergency. Sometimes there's karaoke night and it's bad. Sometimes they're out of the stew because Greg ordered all of it.
✧ Kingdoms with actual boring stuff that affects the plot. Tax reforms. Infrastructure bills. That bridge everyone uses? Someone had to budget for that. The hero's quest gets delayed because the Transport Committee is arguing about funding.
I’ll play the devil’s advocate here, and will say this.
The premise is alright, and I agree; the idea of being more creative and detail oriented, I’m cool with that. But.
Unless someone is trying to write something comical, almost non of these examples are good. Maybe one or two, but the rest would only be able to be used as comic relief, or would just derail the whole plot. For example.
Imagine if LOTR has Smaug be afraid of flying. Or Mordor having plumbing problems, or orcs being complete imbeciles in delivering reports. It would kill the whole story in its entirety, because it’s extremely unnecessary and limiting.
Or imagine Harry getting sent back home because he failed every single one of his subjects or something.
Also, the point about magic and healers, while I do agree that they shouldn’t be a fix all solution to injuries and whatnot, that is almost never the case (that they actually are). Drawbacks are also cool, but they also require an explanation, and flaming burps are not something that should happen as a result of anything, ever (unless it’s tied to the character eating something or whatever)
If the story is meant to be just regular fantasy, on the more serious side, as I said, almost none of these can be used. The idea behind all of it can, and should be, used, but unless one wishes to revolve the story around the conflict between people and the kingdom they live in, tax reforms is not the greatest thing to be used. It could be general poverty. It could be this, it could be that. But a financial disagreement over a bridge shouldn’t really be a problem in a fantasy setting. That would be a choice.
I also want to point out that I’m just giving the rest of the advice on the topic with this, for the post above is just way too selective. I wholeheartedly agree that people should also focus on details, and to develop creative, unique concepts, but not just take anything random, rather have it fit the story and theme, the vibe they are trying to convey.
I know I’m a sole “negative” reblog of this, but I’m also just trying to point this side as well, hence why I made a reference of the devil’s advocate.
Writing choices should be made with purpose. I'm not saying you can't be whimsical or have fun, but sometimes what's fun for the writer to write isn't fun for the reader to read.
Details should matter, even if it's just to add flavor.
Maybe the "quest-dispensing" tavern being closed for a family emergency means that the protagonists have to meet elsewhere to plan their adventure. Maybe that means they didn't meet the gnarled, retired adventurer who would have otherwise been at the tavern and given them advice that would have saved them from obstacle later on. Or maybe they had to meet at their mother's place and she insisted on packing them extra cakes, which they later fed to the draco-ducks pursuing them and calming them down.
A dragon being afraid of heights should either be an obstacle (her rider really needs to get to the floating city) or a plot point itself than a footnote.
My point is: don't mindlessly put these details into your story. Think about why they're in your story. You'll get more mileage out of them.
something to remember is that writing is hard. and I don't necessarily mean in terms of writers block or trying to solve plot holes etc (although that's part of it), but as in it's hard work. even when writing is going well, you're spending a lot of mental energy on it – on deciding which words to use and in what order, remembering how to spell those words, figuring out if character dialogue sounds good, remembering the things that happened around the bit you're currently writing + what you want to happen next, checking plot notes, remembering your established canon, holding different subplots in your head.... that's like having a whole bunch of programs running simultaneously on a computer, and even the best computer with high end specs can't run like that forever. so if you ever catch yourself thinking "man all I did was write/revise/edit. why am I so tired?" that is your answer. because your brain has been running multiple processes and it needs a break
This. I always feel spent at the end of a day of editing. My word count doesn't really change and I have to remind myself that I've made sure the words I've chosen are the best for what I'm writing. That kind of consideration takes a lot of brain power whether or not we realize it.
