Really Valuable Thread. 

Mark pays a visit to his mother’s for the holidays  Hope everyone has the chance to make fond memories before the year ends <3 My Patreon

what’s up im also on Cara now

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Void (@and-void) | Cara - Artist Social & Portfolio Platform

writer/hobbyist artist she/her || 🩷💜💙 propic by @breebird33 on IG!

just so yall know

art block is your brain telling you to do studies.

draw a still life. practice some poses. sketch some naked people. do a color study. try out a different technique on a basic shape.

art block doesnt stop you from drawing, it stops you from making your drawings look the way you want them to. and thats because you need to push your skills to the next level so you can preform at that standard

think of it as level grinding for your next work.

8 Ways to Improve Your Writing

I got a great anonymous ask last week from someone who wanted to know how to identify weak spots in their writing. One of the things that comes with time and experience is finding the language to identify, discuss, and address the feeling that something isn’t quite right or that a story is “missing something.” Not knowing them or their writing, of course I couldn’t help them figure out what specifically the problem was. But I did share with them a list of things I’ve done over the years to be able to identify weak spots and improve my writing. 

1. Analyze your favorite writers.

Figure out why you like the writing that you like. Ask yourself: What are they doing here? What are they doing that I’m not doing? Why do I love their writing so much? Take notes on their stories. Plot them. Write in the margins. Read them slowly. Read their reviews—both good and bad. Did that writer you love once write something you hated? Great, even better. Figure out why that particular book was different from the others.

2. Analyze your own writing.

Do you have an older story you wrote that you love? Figure out why. What did you do differently in that story that you’re not doing in the current story you’re writing? Make notes. Draw maps. Reverse engineer everything.

3. Develop a language to talk and think about writing.

Read craft books, blogs, anything you can get your hands on. Learn about point of view, conflict, character development, dialogue, story structure, syntax, metaphors. Get your advice from good sources, and don’t believe everything you read. If something doesn’t sit right with you, throw it out. But be open to everything.

4. Journal and write about your writing.

Over time, you will identify consistent weaknesses that you have. Then, in the future, when you feel like “something is missing” from your writing, you can reference your notes and remember, for example, that you often have difficulty with your protagonist’s motivation, with theme, with dialogue, etc., and you’ll have a better idea about where to go looking.

5. Share your writing with someone you trust, ideally a more experienced writer than you or an editor or mentor.

Be very careful about who you share your writing with. Friends and family are not always the best choice. You don’t want someone who’s just going to throw around their uneducated opinion about your work, who has a big ego, or who won’t be honest with you. Remember: “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it” are useless pieces of feedback. You want someone who can read your work and say, “Your protagonist’s passion for music made them really likeable to me. I was dying to know whether they would get into the conservatory or not!” or “My attention wandered on page two, when you described the couch upholstery for three paragraphs.”

6. Analyze the areas of your writing which are commonly problematic for new writers (and writers in general).

In my experience as an editor, the most likely culprits are unclear character motivation and lack of conflict. There are a lot of good resources (books and blogs) about this. Try a Google search for “most common mistakes beginning writers make.”

7. Trust your intuition.

Do you keep coming back to the same page or scene in your story, feeling like it isn’t right? You’re probably onto something.

8. Take time away from your writing.

You’d be amazed how much more clear everything will be after a break. Give yourself at least a week for a short story, 3-4 weeks for a novel. It could also be the case that your ambitions for this particular story don’t yet match your skills, and that you’ll have to wait even longer to successfully finish it. I’ve known writers who have given up on a story only to come back to it months or years later once they’d gained the skills and insight to complete it. And then suddenly writing that story seemed really easy!

Hello! So what I've noticed in my writing is that the 'bad guys' the antagonists, generally become the same thing. As in: an organization out to get protagonist and they avoid said antagonists. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to add variety to 'villains' in stories. Because the only other kind of villain I can come up with is one who tries to to take over the world or city and that feels over used and stale....

It might help to try exposing yourself to more stories, because there are many different examples of antagonists out there and a good chunk of them aren’t trying to take over the world.

I’ll direct you to this older ask about writing interesting antagonists as a start!

An antagonist isn’t always a straight-up “bad guy”, in fact, the best antagonists aren’t horrible people. They’re just people opposing the protagonist– that’s what “antagonist” means. They don’t have to be evil or crazy, they just work against the main character. Sometimes they’re just normal people with a bad reputation. 

You need to think of your antagonists like any other character, just with goals that clash with the main cast instead of a “bad guy”. Try thinking smaller than “taking over the world”, what if the antagonist was only a threat to the protagonist’s world or way of life?

“Taking over the world” is an easy conflict to fall back on because it’s kind of black-and-white, but the best conflicts aren’t that simple.A bigger conflict doesn’t make a better story. The world is swimming in shades of gray and good antagonists (and protagonists!) show that. 

Good antagonists also tend to be tied to good protagonists– to find variety in conflict, look at the main characters you create. If all their goals are to save the world, then you’d have to have a main antagonist trying to take it over (or some variation). If the protag’s goal is to win a competition, then the antag would likely be someone on a different team, a rival, or maybe their own insecurity.

It also all comes down to details. Your antagonists need motivation. Why are they trying to take over the world? Did the effects of climate change make them think humans are a plague that need to be destroyed? Do they have a power complex and need to subjugate others to feel better about themselves? Are they immortal and bored?

Start treating your antagonists like real characters instead of a plain force that works against the protagonist. They’re people too (most of the time, man vs environment is a thing) and that means they’re going to have motivation, depth, feeling– everything that your protagonist needs to be “developed”, they need as well! It’s true that you may not be able to explore that development as heavily because they aren’t the focus of the story, but you can use the information to craft them so they work specifically in your story. A cliche antagonist is likely a sign of a cliche story in general.

Here’s Ways to Flesh-Out Characters, and then the only extra thing that would make someone an antagonist is that they’re opposing the protagonist. Try to creating more personal conflicts (revenge can be a decent place to start) and variety of antagonists can come out of that.

Good luck with your antagonists!

on my laptop so i don't have a lot of art files for posting rn. little drawings i did of novel characters for class presentations. my time as an mfa student was very serious i prommy

Hiii I have a new website now!!

https://voids-house.neocities.org/

Coding this was so much fun! I had to learn HTML from the ground up n it was a blast lol. I highly recommend doing this for whatever reason. Neocities rules :) I plan on making some custom animated buttons soon but for now… she is done

writing an autistic character when you are not autistic - a masterpost

completely double spaced version on google docs here – this post is more blocky for the sake of people’s dashboards, but still long so people will be less likely to glaze over it. my apologies if that makes it hard to read

things to look for and avoid in an autistic character

• symptoms only manifesting as “nonverbal and rocking” • super smart / living calculator • super dumb / doesn’t understand anything • all the symptoms you can come up with for them are “awkward” and “has special interest(s)” (please do more research) • trains, technology, and/or math as special interests • acting like a child • getting treated like a baby • unreasonably cruel and uncaring about others’ reactions to them being cruel • if they’re comparable to sheldon from the big bang theory, start over • animal comparisons • a lack of feelings • please no stories about what it’s like to be autistic told by allistics

the right way to write an autistic person

• lots of symptoms, including secondary ones not included on a general diagnosis requirement list (here’s a list i rather like that was made by an autistic person – their blog is also a good resource) • having a good amount of general knowledge and actually talking about it (i cannot believe that i have to say this) • talking about things outside of special interests (again…. come on……….) (special interests are usually the default things our brains go to when theres no stimulation or we want to entertain ourselves – it isn’t literally all we think or talk about ever. if a conversation has no connections to a special interest, reconsider having your autistic character bring it up in a context that is not an introduction.) • explicitly expressed to be capable of attraction and romantic feelings – if your character is an adult, add sexual feelings to this point • capable of general functioning, just with a disability that makes it more difficult – not a walking disability (….sigh) • a wide amount of feelings and emotional turmoil (but perhaps only being able to express it in limited ways) • we’re people • just people whose brains are wired differently

things to avoid in research for an autistic character

• autism moms / autism blogs and websites not run by autistic people • any affiliation with autism $peaks means you should walk away and never look back • a scientist trying to create explanations for what autistic people do without actually asking / not mentioning asking autistic people • anything about a cure for autism • a person that “worked with autistic kids” phrased in the same way as “worked with animals” • talking about autistic people as if they are mysteries, are like animals, or are otherwise othered weirdos instead of people

things to look for in research for an autistic character

• actual autistic people talking about their experiences and symptoms • just stick to that and you’re good but it’s hard to find sometimes ngl. just look for the above red flags

things i would personally like to see in an autistic character

• less easy to swallow sadness and more destructive anger. i would love to see a canonically autistic character who was frustrated easily by small things and had trouble communicating why • not a story about being autistic, a story that happens to have a character or characters who are autistic – it isn’t pointed out or questioned, they’re right at home with the rest of the cast and not othered (a la symmetra from overwatch) • intensive sensory issues / small sounds making large reactions • clear communications about not liking x sensory thing (for example being touched) • poor motor skills / clumsiness and not being laughed at for it • walking funny (body bent downwards, walking very fast, walking slowly, big strides, shuffling, stiffness, etc)  – no one treats it as if it’s funny or something totally strange • a big personality that has a presence so they can’t be cast aside (but feel free to have quiet characters too) – if this was along with being nonverbal they would probably leap to being one of my favorite characters ever • a fear of asking for clarification on sarcasm or jokes because of past experiences and an arc about the character becoming more comfortable asking questions

>> if any fellow autistic people want to add something, feel free <<

allistics are encouraged to rb this

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