#0asissss

[adayforducks]

Hi!

when she was just a girl she expected the world

i pressed my ear against your back not even a week after we met

you never listen to me

say it once, tell me twice

don’t tell me what to think

[paradise - coldplay | crane your neck - lady lamb | disconnected (out of touch) - trapt | miracle - shinedown | going down in flames - 3 doors down]

let me write you a poem

[scriptlgbt]

Hi there. Hope y’all are well! I fear I don’t have enough representation in my series. Not every character in my series has someone to be romantically/sexually attracted to, plus I have what I’ve come to realize is a rather small cast of characters. Like, the second book only has ten named characters. And none of them at any point are paying any attention to romance or sex. I’ve read that keeping things ambiguous is not a good idea and so I should be clear, but as it stands only one char (1/2)

(2/2) is asexual. And they’re the only genderqueer character. A LOT more characters come in books 3 and 4 but as far as books 1 and 2, there’s a lot of ambiguity, a little bit of clarity, and, I feel, not enough people to represent many different identities. Lots of characters need further developing. But I still feel pretty bad about this and I’m not sure how to fix it. I know this is kinda vague. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated. Thank you ❤️

Hey! Thank you, we hope you are well too.

Out of ten named characters, I think having a few of them be LGBT+ is probably pretty reasonable if we’re looking at the broader population. The issue with it in reality is that LGBT+ folks tend to flock together even when we don’t know who we are then. I think it could totally be acknowledged that there is ambiguity, or that these topics just honestly aren’t something that have occurred to your characters at the point in the story that you are currently writing. You could also easily develop these ideas with small lines throughout that hint at it until you mention it canonically somewhere briefly. That can be enough, if you want to represent things for people who don’t talk about it as a big part of their current everyday lives, or who may be closeted or questioning, or otherwise unsure without necessarily questioning. These things can feel dormant before you self recognize. (For trans people this is sometimes called egg mode.)

You could easily have a side scene where a character asks the asexual/genderqueer character something that indicates the asker might be questioning, like, “how did you know?” in a private conversation at some point.

It’s also important to consider how people are still who they are even without someone there to be attracted to or without a sex life to indicate to the reader what somebody’s preferences are. 

A casual like, “oh cool, I’m bi” (or something else said even just once) in response to the one character mentioning their identity or something can also work. (In my experience people came out to me way more when I have been out of the closet.) - mod nat

[scriptshrink]

Hello, hope you're well! :) Question about Brief Psychotic Disorder. Character is traumatized by having to face his abuser and his manipulation/mental abuse daily. Character is an addict, and, in the throes of the psychotic episode, relapses into abusing Xanax/Valium/Vicodin and the like to deal with the stress. Would that stop the psychotic episode, since it 'helps' him feel less anxious/scared/stressed and 'feel less' traumatized? Or is it not that simple?

From what I can tell, it’s really not that simple. These medications may help the character feel temporarily better and less stressed out, but it would not end their psychotic episode. You’d typically need antipsychotics for that.

However, because your character has brief psychotic disorder, not schizophreniform, schizophrenia, etc, it’s possible that by the time an antipsychotic could kick in, the psychosis could already have ended. Sometimes they can kick in within a few days; other times it can take 6 weeks for the effects to kick in (to qualify for a diagnosis of brief psychotic disorder, the episode can’t last more than 4 weeks).

Disclaimer - psychopharm is not my forte, at all - @scriptpharmacist may help you get a better answer.

[scriptstructure]

Hey! Bless you for this blog ❤ What would you think of a four-book series through the eyes of one character and then a trilogy through the eyes of another that covers time before, during, and after the original series?

Ooh I thought of another ask. Hope I'm not bothering you! No rush to answer :) The four-book series I mentioned before has a MC, the POV characters, but four other characters that it sort of revolves around. In the second book, one character goes missing about a quarter of the way in. Another character is missing entirely from the book. The first missing character's whereabouts are unknown until SURPRISE! in the fourth book. The second absentee has a few scenes in the third book, and full (1/2)

(2/2) involvement in the fourth. I'm cringing at this. The first missing character (Mac) going missing is a huge plot point. How he turns up again and why is huge. The second (Victoria) is only absent from the second book and most of the third simply because there's no place for her in what the other primary characters are doing. What do you think of that? In your opinion, would you still be interested in a character that simply sat on the sidelines for a while and then came back?

(I’ve written several posts about multiple related plotlines HERE, which may have some relevance to your asks.)

Well in longer fantasy and speculative fiction series this is a pretty popular approach to writing long stories. The first four-part series would be a contained narrative, and then the trilogy would be a contained narrative set in the same world and sharing some of the same characters as the first series, if I’m reading this right?

World-building is going to be the thing that holds the two narrative arcs together, you want the world to be distinctive and gripping enough that even when the first group of characters’ story ends the readers are going to be willing to get invested in a second group of protagonists.

You’ll also need to consider that people might pick up the second series without knowing about the first, so when you write that first book it’s going to be a balance between re-establishing the world and characters so that new people don’t get lost in it, and making sure that you don’t lose longtime readers through repetition. It’s a challenging task.

Now on the particulars of what you’ve described, it seems to me entirely reasonable that you could have a character dip out of the first narrative arc and return in the second, but you’ll have to make sure that this doesn’t undermine the consequences of him leaving the first narrative. I have no doubt there are pretty important Reasons that he couldn’t stick around and help the other protagonists in the first arc, and you’ll probably need some reflection on those as the second arc progresses.

Would I be interested in a character who sat on the sidelines for a while and then came back?

Well sure, so long as their reasons for sitting out, and then for returning are compelling and make sense for that character, and so long as the impact that those decisions make on the surrounding narrative and other characters is explored. Inaction is a decision, ‘not being involved’ is a decision, and they can have just as many consequences as deciding to jump into a situation.

A few series that use the same setting but jump between focussing on different groups of people:

Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside by Holly Black: All set in the same world, but focussing on different characters, many of the characters appear in each others’ books as secondary characters.

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice: the first four or five novels are centred around a fairly contained set of protagonists, but as the series goes on the novels are centred on more and more distant characters. There are also spinoff series set in the same world, The Mayfair Witches links up to the main plot of the later books but is self-contained, and several of Rice’s stand alone novels are linked to the VC universe.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King is set in a world that is a meta-space between fictional worlds, it has crossovers from multiple of his other standalone works such as The Stand. Characters from his other novels appear in this series.

The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop also has six followup books that chart the events that take place in the world of that story after the events of the main trilogy, and focus often on new characters, or on secondary characters.*

Content warnings under the read more:

*The Black Jewels Trilogy contains many scenes of graphic gore and sexual violence, as well as child abuse and slavery. If you’re sensitive to these topics I would suggest that you avoid the series.

[adayforducks]

Spoiler!!!!!!!!!!!!

For Aptitude (ofc):

Despite what it looks like, she did not forget about his prosthetic leg.

ask for a spoiler

[adayforducks]

wip description: what would you have guessed ‘Awakening’ was about if you hadn’t already read it? 😂

Without genre? I probably would have gone with some kind of urban fantasy plot, someone being awakened to their true nature as [insert supernatural creature/hunter of supernatural creatures].

send me your WIP title and I’ll guess what it’s about

[scripttorture]

Hi there. I may have asked this before - I apologize if I have. Would someone be able to walk, or maybe limp while holding on to a wall, after being in a stress position (bucking, not suspended or beaten) for ~five hours? What would recovery from that look like in terms of how long it’d take and what they’d have to do?

Well it depends on the stress position so thank you very much fortelling me which one you have in mind. :)

 For something like standing cuffs I’d say a victim would almostcertainly be able to walk after 5 hours. For bucking-

 So for reference and readers that aren’t familiar with the term buckingis a stress position. The victim sits with their knees bent and their arms goaround the knees with the hands tied together. A stick is then put between theelbows and the knees and the victim is lifted by the stick into the air. They hangupside down with their weight resting on the inside of the knee joint. It’sincredibly painful and has a long slavery-related history in the Americas.

 I think the victim would certainly be able to move after five hours butI’m unsure how far they’d able to walk or whether they’d be able to walkupright.

 Their knees are going to hurt a lot; their feet might be completelynumb. The pressure from the entire weight of their body is wedged on thetendons that control the knee joint. They’d probably have some difficultybending and straightening their knees and getting their legs to support theirbody weight.

 I think they’d recover that pretty quickly, perhaps even while they’retrying to get away. They certainly wouldn’t be able to run straight afterwards.

 Actually that’s probably where I’m tripping up with regards to theirability to walk. I don’t think a lotof people would be able to walk without collapsing immediately after five hoursbucking. If the character has the opportunity to rest for a little while, eventen or twenty minutes, I think they’d be much more likely to be able to stand.Especially if they have support (ie the wall).

 There’s also a certain amount that this depends on the victim. How fitthey are, how heavy they are, how old they are. There’d be quite a lot ofindividual variance.

 I think if your character is an adult and very physically fit/strong Imight accept them walking sooner. If they’re very young, old or notparticularly physically fit- then I’d probably expect it to be a more difficultprocess. Anyone heavier, fit or not, would struggle because this torturedepends on the victim’s body weight.

 Generally- I think the character could probably get away from where theywere tortured. They might be crawling some of the way. They’d probably fallover a few times. They might struggle to find and keep their footing. They’d bein a lot of pain.

 Recovery from stress positions pretty much boils down to resting,eating, drinking a lot of water and moving freely. If a character had been leftlong enough to develop ulcers they’d need further treatment but five hoursisn’t nearly enough time to see ulcers developing (unless the character has aserious medical condition making them prone to skin ulcers).

 It would be easier if your character has someone who can take care ofthem for a while. But in this case, in terms of their physical recovery, I don’t think it’s essential. What they reallyneed is a safe place to get a good night’s sleep and as much food and cleanwater as they can stand.

 The long term psychological effects are something people generally needsupport with. I won’t discuss them because I get the impression the ask isfocused on the character’s escape and immediate health needs afterwards. Thepsychological effects should come into the story later, they will have amassive impact on the character. But they’re less important in the immediateaftermath.

 I hope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

[scriptshrink]

In regards to your post about Brief Psychotic Disorder - that's exactly what I was thinking of doing to my poor character, thanks for sharing that! My question is: he eventually returns to his normal self. If the brief psychosis is due to a major stressor, is it possible for him to never experience psychosis again once it's over?

It’s likely he’d have more episodes if he was subjected to major stressors, but it’s definitely possible for him to never have another psychotic episode.

Good luck with your story!