Noticing Trends In Your Own Ocs Personalities Can Make You Stare At Your Keyboard Like. Okay Motherfucker

such an important post!

it’s just. GOD. even *slightly* implying that disability could be good or desirable or even completely neutral makes everyone come out of the woodwork to say that Disability Is Nothing But Suffering. and I just want to stare them down and say. my chronically ill ass knows about suffering and I do not need that suffering compounded by some annoying asshole who ultimately imagines me as a burden

the writing community

If there’s one tip I can give to writers of all calibers, new or veterans (since a lack of this is even the case with published authors), it must be:

Watch out for your subtext as much as you can.

No matter how genius the worldbuilding, no matter how 3-dimensional the characters, your text will carry a subconscious message, and you have to be careful with it. The way you phrase things, the way you describe certain groups of people does matter a lot.

If you like it or not, your book will send big messages, even if you believe it doesn’t. Make sure you know exactly what those messages are. Be intentional about your subtext. It’s worth a lot.

There's two kinds of crows that visit our yard.

Funky little guy on his stupid walk for his stupid mental health.

And

I HAVE SEEN EMPIRES RISE AND FALL AND YOURS IS NO DIFFERENT

And we love them both.

BTW when you encounter a character and think "What's this guy's fucking problem?" that's your body trying to give you an out before you fall into obsession.

respect your fellow fan fiction writers. They are the firefighters to the burning nightmares that our published works are. They fix all the merciless terror that we never bothered to. Putting bandaids on everybody. Embracing the side characters with barely any screen time. And they also write those nasty unhinged sex scenes that we never dared to because we knew our families would be reading our work. Say thank you bitch

somebody release me from the pain

#i live there

My everyday battle consists of stopping myself from holding anyone hostage and explaining my entire book to them

Sometimes it's useful to look at your dialogue and ask yourself, "would a real human being talk like that?" But it's also good to ask the follow-up questions of "would the way a real human being talks sound good here" and "does this character actually talk like a real human being or are they weird about it."