When you are UNconscious, you are not doing anything except having fainted, or being in a coma. Apparently, specifically brain death counts too. It is used most often and correctly in medical settings. You are not actively doing ANYTHING that involves bias or habits because you are NOT LUCID. You are the OPPOSITE of conscious.
When something is SUBconscious, it is a habit or opinion that you are awake to perform, but you are not aware that you are doing it, or you are not aware that it harms people.
When something is subLIMINAL, it is communication meant to bypass one’s immediate consciousness. It is BELOW your awareness. You see it in logo design a LOT, but importantly, *shakily grips your shoulders* YOU ARE AWAKE to INTERACT with them.
What can writers learn from Star Wars? From unforgettable characters to epic storytelling, these lessons from Star Wars will help you create stories readers can’t resist.
In celebration of Star Wars Day, this May the Fourth, here are four tips for writers.
What can writers learn from Star Wars? From unforgettable characters to epic storytelling, these lessons from Star Wars will help you create
I've been taking writing seriously for eight years. Here are eight lessons I've learned.
*Buckle up, this is going to be a long one*
As I squinted at my phone in the darkness, I stared at my Calendar. Blocks of red and pink were blocked into my schedule: do schoolwork, take a quick break, attend an online co-op class, sign up for a school workshop, finally read the first chapter of that thick textbook I bought.
Then, I looked above it all, the day of significance in magenta.
"Anniversary of Secrets." September 9th. The day I chose to take writing seriously. Between unfinished stories on loose-leaf paper, and untitled documents of characters on my desktop, writing had only been a spur-of-the-moment activity.
But then, September 9th came along. From visions of girls riding dragons and comments of classmates writing their own stories, I realized I could be like them. I could take writing as seriously as they did, spending more time on my stories than fixated on my favourite series.
In fact, writing became a fixation of my own. Over these eight years, I have watched countless videos, read a few books, and wrote hopefully around a couple hundred thousand words. As well, I have amassed a fair amount of writing advice. Here are eight of the lessons I learned over the years.
Lesson #1: Outline First, Write Later.
Ideas popped into my head like a game of whack-a-mole. They popped in and out whenever they pleased. I dreamed of cat-eared superheroes, of zodiac themed dystopias, of strange, American-style Isekais before I knew what that word meant.
My attempts to outline the story were inflated by my urge to write it. By the time I started writing my first official project, I decided to write the outline and FINISH the outline before jumping into the story.
Lesson #2: Embrace Diversity
If you've been on the Internet in literature or writing related circles, it's hard to avoid the topic of diversity, and for a good reason. Diverse situations and characters create new perspectives for readers and writers alike.
I learned to embrace diversity through a video made by Jenna Moreci:
After watching this, I thought more about my character's racial and ethnic backgrounds. Along with that, my characters became much more queer, and far more neurodivergent than I could've fathomed back in the day. Their backstories and family situations are more diverse as well: some of them were in foster care. Others came from big families.
The most important thing is to not do this offensively, and honour every culture you come across that's different than yours. Thankfully, there are plenty of resources online, such as Writing With Color(https://www.tumblr.com/writingwithcolor).
Lesson #3: Take Inspiration From Your Favourite Things.
My first story, Secrets, took direct inspiration from the books Harry Potter, Bone, Percy Jackson, Masterminds, and Eragon, respectively. But my second big project became a result of my Voltron obsession (which, assuming you're reading this on Tumblr, I'm sure you're familiar with).
The story formed as a space opera with alien planets I invented myself, and a human species who evolved to conditions on Kepler-22b. I'm not going to deny that I drew inspiration from the "Leakira and the Defenders Of Tomorrow" AU. Though this project is now its own being, I cannot deny where its origins came from.
Lesson #4: Do NaNoWriMo. Seriously.
First of all, I'd suggest staying away from the actual site. There have been numerous controversies, including demonstrating support of AI for creative works, and predatory behaviour on its forums. That doesn't mean we cannot still participate in writing a novel within a month.
Doing an unaffiliated one-month writing challenge will likely not help you get better at writing. Quality over quantity, after all. However, it will help to create a writing habit, and force you to think of unorthodox situations where you could write words… like, on the bus, in a bathroom stall, or in a waiting room.
Lesson #5: This is not going to be a career. Not for a while.
I was a 17-year-old, frothing at the mouth, obsessed with what my hands could produce at the click of keys. I wanted this to be my career. Badly.
However, college loomed around the corner, and I could not fathom spending so much money to learn creative writing in university, when it would have so little pay-off later down the line. Plus, I knew the field was a competitive one, and boy, I was not ready to compete.
If you want writing to become a career one day, go for it. Work hard on your writing. Focus on it like a bird focuses on looking for its worm. Keep in mind, however, whether the pay-off will be worth it for you.
For example, if you are willing to compete and set yourself apart, it would be beneficial to study English, Creative Writing, or Journalism at a university. You could become a copyeditor, a journalist, or a teacher, with some extra learning. However, what if becoming an author feels unstable? You could consider a career in a transferrable field such as office administration, library technician, marketing, psychology, or accounting.
Lesson #6: Fanfiction is good.
When I got into the game Terraria, I spent many hours traversing the right side of my world and building cube-shaped houses, and far too many hours before I thought I was powerful enough to fight the Eye Of Cthulhu. That aside, I started writing fanfiction inspired by the franchise.
Surely, there’s not much canon material regarding the NPCs whose names change when they get killed. So, I made my own. I elaborated on characters that had pre-existing relationships and made up my own where there weren’t any. It was a brilliant practice in writing when none of my other ideas seemed appealing.
I have since finished said fanfiction, but I still write about certain fandoms from time to time. It helps to have an outlet for creative ideas that would not fit your other stories.
Lesson #7: Don’t Fear The Critiquer
Reading my works aloud startled me to the bone. Thankfully, my friend clarified that this writing club gave good critique on his own worldbuilding. So, I showed up, and oh, am I ever so thankful I showed up, because it has, quite literally, changed the way I see writing.
Reading out my writing to others has made me better at sharing, and at accepting critique. I received a lot of praise, and I also realized a lot of mistakes. Most of all, I learned not to fear what people thought of what I wrote: chances are they’d like at least part of it.
Lesson #8: Every little bit counts.
After many years of taking it slow, life started to get busy again. Life became more cluttered, and I fought to balance my classes with any extracurriculars I may have had, with therapy appointments and going to the doctor’s to sort out health shenanigans, with the full time summer job I had, and with nurturing my relationships.
If you had a hard time reading that sentence, that’s what my life has been like for the past year or so. Busy, cluttered, hard to organize, but still manageable in small chunks. This is what writing while busy should look like. Little bits and pieces of writing, whether it be in a chapter or short stories.
The Big Conclusion
Plot twist: These eight lessons I learned were relevant to each of my eight years spent learning the craft. I spent them embracing the craft, learning to make good settings, and understanding how to create interesting plots. At the same time, I have yet to self-publish any fiction other than a short story.
Still, I’m happy with the progress I’ve made in these past 8 years. It’s been a long journey, but with every year, I learn so much more.
If you’re looking for where to start, this is where you should: whether it’s writing down that random idea that’s been sitting in your head, or scribbling down a drabble about the rain outside, just take one first step.
THE CAPE SAVES THE WORLD. THE BODY STILL TELLS THE TRUTH.
Let’s be honest.
Comic book movies are in trouble partly because they keep pretending romance is some embarrassing old-world infection.
There is barely even a male love-interest lane anymore for the female romance demographic.
No hunger.
No courtship.
No tension.
No “oh, I hate him, wait, why is he hot?”
No dangerous smile across the battlefield.
No beautiful idiot with a jawline and a wound.
No man worth choosing.
Just sterile self-actualization in a cape while the script acts like desire is a weakness from 2007.
That is insane.
Human civilization exists because men like women and women like men enough to keep the species running like a horny, tragic factory with taxes.
You can pretend that does not matter.
You can sanitize it.
You can sneer at it.
You can call chemistry “problematic” until every blockbuster feels like HR wrote it with a stun gun pointed at its balls.
But audiences know when the blood is missing.
Romance is not anti-feminist.
Desire is not character assassination.
A strong female lead does not become weaker because a man makes her pulse betray her politics for five seconds.
Sometimes that is the story.
The cape saves the world.
The body still tells the truth.
And until comic book films remember that women are not just empowerment slogans with cheekbones, but human beings with hunger, fantasy, taste, longing, and eyes?
These movies will keep dying in public.
Not because audiences hate women.
Because audiences can tell when the studio is terrified of letting a woman want anything that was not inspected, sanitized, and emotionally neutered by a committee of romance-allergic hallway weirdos.
Very little of what you write will be a completely original idea and that's ok!
In the beginning stages of my English Distinction Project in college, a professor explained that there are 7 kinds of stories we have been rehashing for centuries (with overlap and artful layering):
The Stranger in Town
The fish out of water. The mysterious figure being chased by their past.
Astro Boy
Karate Kid (The Superior 2010 Version)
Ice Planet Barbarian
Leaving Town
Often of self discovery or coming of age; a bildungsroman.
The Little Mermaid
Inside Out & Back Again
Great Expectations
Overcoming The Monster
Can be literal, although the monster isn't always a beast, but people themselves.
Frankenstein
Nimona
Jurassic Park
Nope
Rags to Riches
A reflection of our own wants, complicated by personal sacrifice.
Cinderella
Respect (2021)
Most 1D fanfics
Slumdog Millionaires
The Quest
The reason for the quest is often to achieve or retrieve some kind of "holy grail".
Percy Jackson
Harry Potter
Swarm
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table
The Da Vinci Code
Voyage & Return
The risk of never making it back alive, but gaining wisdom along the journey.
The Iliad & The Odyssey
The Life of Pi
Rio
Comedy, Tragedy, & Rebirth
Many of the classics, complex and yet strips human nature to it's barest elements, allowing these stories to stand the test of time.
Establishing character motivation can be tricky. Sometimes you’ll overdo it and sometimes your readers will have no idea what’s going on, but sometimes, you have the opportunity to set everything up in just a few sentences. You can do this by giving your character a side quest.
Let me explain...
Caught Red-Handed: Chapter 1 Fascinating
After we’ve caught our breath, the stunning girl gets dressed and slips out the door, back into the pulsing music and wandering hands. I can’t remember her name… Oh well, she probably didn’t even tell me. It would have been a fake name anyway. So why do I still feel guilty?
Here we have my main character (Jaune from RWBY) out for a night on the town having multiple meaningless hookups in one night. This concept, detached anonymity, is only briefly mentioned, but it’s one of the first things he thinks about in the entire story.
So, the next night, he makes a point to ask a girl’s name as they strip each other. He repeats in back to her and remembers it when they are introduced later. It’s mixed in with the wider plot and a lot of dialogue which is important for keeping this quest subtle and almost subconscious to the reader.
Why is this important?
This little storyline takes up no more than 50 words. It could have been dragged out, I suppose. He could have learnt his love interest’s name first instead, if they didn’t already know each other. Doesn't it undercut the concept to have it start and finish in the same chapter? Well, that comes down to one very important point.
It was never about names.
What does Jaune want? To be able to call out to strangers? Have something to put as their contact in his phone? Maybe brag about girls he’s hooked up with by name?
NO!
Jaune wants to connect with people. He doesn't realise it for a long time, but what he’s feeling is a discomfort with how disposable he and every girl he meets seems to be. This sets the stage for the entire story. From this point on, every decision he makes can be traced back to his need for intimacy. The point of his quest for names isn’t to identify someone, it’s to highlight this entire facet of his mentality. Those 50 words light the fuse of the entire story.
And I bet you didn’t even notice...
So, here’s the formula:
1) Understand what your character wants and where they're headed
2) Give them a taste of success, one tiny goal in the background
3) Let them have it
4) Show how they react to achieving the goal to pinpoint how important it is to them
5) Leave the success open-ended. It’s not enough and we all know it, but now we understand the direction they’ll take as the story progresses. If a name is important to Jaune, imagine a real relationship with someone he’s already known for years. What would that do to him? What might he do to keep it?
Good luck and thanks for reading, XOX.
If you liked this, click My Writing Tips in the tags for more!
In which we discuss a few ways in which you can consider the rules by which your labyrinth or maze works in your horror fiction storywriting
THE RULES OF THE LABYRINTH
I made it just in time!! We're ending this week's theme with a short episode on Rules of the Labyrinth - in other words, what you can consider when creating the rules by which your maze operates.
If that sounds interesting to you, please give it a listen ^^
SCAREUARY 2025 - THE MAZE
If you're not finding time to participate in Scareuary this year, you can also sign up to my author newsletter to get a PDF round-up of all of the activities at end of month so that you can do them at your own pace later on.
I think the problem with this newest episode is they combined a "Tarlos" storyline with a "Carlos Reyes" storyline. They didn't just combine them but they also marketed the episode to be Tarlos when it was more about Ranger Carlos Reyes.
Lonestar has combined Tarlos and one of Carlos or TK's storylines before and done it successfully but they tend to focus on either the character or the ship more.
An example of this is the story line arc where Tk is dealing with his mom's death (3x08). Sure Tarlos was present to show how strong their relationship is, however TK's storyline was obviously more of the front line (which is why Carlos couldn't be involved for most of the hospital).
A reverse example of this is how the original "kids or no kids, that is the question" conversation (4x12). Tarlos is at the front of this episode as we see progress in the relationship through a huge conversation dealing with both Carlos and TK building a future together. At the same time as a result of this topic being brought up in their relationship, we see it's confirmed that Carlos has major Daddy issues and is not in the right headspace for children.
The common thread between these two episodes is that a resolution and development was made for one storyline and the other was just a side reaction that may be used to confirm something, not progress anything further in that arc.
That's where the problem with this episode comes. The fact that they resolved/developed two storylines at the same time could've worked but became kind of messy.
The Tarlos and Carlos storyline has been meant to go together all season but you can feel it kind of clash. From episodes 1-5 we have a focus on Carlitos and his development then we focus on Tarlos development from episodes 7-8 then back to Carlitos to finish episode 9 but never get a proper resolution seen on screen for Tarlos, it's shown to be a side reaction, when really, it should've been more than just that in the end.
I get where the writers were coming from but damn, it's messy from an audience perspective. It's also misleading when you market this arc as pure Tarlos. Again I get why they did it, as they wanted to finish and tie together the storyline from season 4 and do it within less episodes than usual, but it doesn't read well. I think they also tried marketing towards Tarlos because that gets them a lot of views, not Carlos alone, but that's a whole other conversation.
Bottom line: Great Ideas, Not the Best Execution (to clarify writing wise not acting wise, Rafa killed it this episode)
