ask your writer grandma

Hello!

The easiest way to convey distrust and suspicion is to have your narrator assign unsavory motivation to actions taken by the other person in the scene. At least if you're writing in 1st or 3rd person limited.

So say they're making tea in the kitchen and Family Member says something about what a shame it is that Murder Victim died. Your narrator can then be like oh a shame they died or a shame they were found so quickly? A shame that they're creating such a mess with their death? A shame that everyone is focusing on how they died and not how you feel about how they died? Just in the narrator head.

Conversations with people that the narrator deems likely to have been murderer are either going to be very, very sympathetic to the point that its over the top ("I just wish murder victim had gotten to say goodbye" / "You're so thoughtful and kind!") because your narrator is uncomfortable but they don't want to seem suspicious around a murderer. OR they will be distracted and terse: ("I just wish murder victim had gotten to say goodbye." / "He said goodbye enough in his life, what difference does one more time matter?") because narrator thinks this might be a murderer and they're nervous but also fed up with the lying.

You can intersperse this with moments of complete normality where the narrator is interacting with family members and just kind of being like, no, this person can't have killed anyone. Look at them they have lace doilies for their drink coasters. They don't have the stomach for it.

But these moments of heightened suspicion where the narrator is assigning motivations to the family members need to be moments where there's relatively nothing interesting going on. it's easy to walk in on someone spatchcocking a chicken and think "oh my god they could absolutely have decapitated Mr. Frankenfurter" but real suspicion is watching your Meemaw make oatmeal and deciding she was a stone-cold killer who hung a man upside down by the ankles until he suffocated under his own weight.

I had an idea for a fic that I wanted to write and I was actually in the process of writing it for a bit. It was for a small fandom event in which I signed up for. I was almost done with it and was in the finishing stages of them when I was obstructed by people and circumstances that really ought not to have ever been and as such, I was never able to fully publish it. Ever since then, I have resented the people who did this as I not only failed to deliver the final product I was supposed to, but I also looked like a fool. I hated everyone and myself for this entire thing as this is not the first time I had been stopped from doing something that I chose outside of everyone else's jurisdiction. To an effect, I still do.

As a more notable effect, looking at the document in which all of my hard work sat made me physically ill and enraged. I had also stopped writing completely because of how strongly I felt (and still feel) about this entire situation. Soon after the fact, I also essentially erased myself from the online space for a month because I didn't want anyone to question nor point out that I hadn't done it as I did not want to explain why and doing so would have me spiral out of control and simply delete my social media as I would not be able to live with it. I have only come back recently because I was sick of being socially isolated and alone. You would think that this would be the end of it, but there's one thing that for some reason sticks around.

I still want to write this story.

Yes, I know I essentially left them high and dry but this premise and what I had been working on captivated me to such a degree that I'm still thinking about it when my mind wanders on its own. But I still get sick thinking about my circumstances that I can't change nor budge and as such, I still can't stand looking at the document nor the outline. I desperately want to get to work on it again, but there's so much negative emotional attachment to it that I can't bring myself to do it because I wonder why I ever bothered with it in the first place if everyone and everything in my life keeps stopping me from doing it.

I've tried to write other things in the meantime, but they too are suppressed as I am constantly reminded of my failure and my circumstances that are not only unfair but ridiculous as this is the only outlet I really have and to see it limited to such a degree is sickening and still makes my blood boil.

I love writing things and I love exploring these things, but I don't even know how to do it when all of it is accompanied by rage, despair, inferiority, and pure unadulterated hatred directed at myself as well as others.

So I suppose that my question really is this:

How do I bring myself to write when my entire being hates me for even trying, knowing that I'll never finish what I start because something will stop me?

Oh friend, this is just some shit right here.

Ok so important disclaimer is that I am not a mental health professional. Anything I say is based on personal experience or accumulated knowledge from the internet.

Its important that you know, and really properly internalize, that you did not fail. In fact my first thing directly related to writing that I would advise you to do, when you start to feel this way, is to say 'I did not fail' to yourself. Sometimes things happen that can't control and they affect us in very serious ways that takes time to get over.

Certainly it sounds like what you were working on was important to you and the circumstances that interrupted it were very upsetting. There's no surprise that your story has becoming a focal point for those feelings. Untangling how they are connected is something that you can only do with time and trying.

If you have a safe place where you can externalize those feelings, either through talking to someone, keeping a journal or writing the events but fictionalized I would suggest those things. Sometimes just being able to put it all out there and know that its safe helps you move on from it.

As far as people on the internet questioning you about where you've been, I can't say that wouldn't have happened or that it won't happen in the future, but as a general rule good, decent people extend you grace. Everyone has a life outside of this anonymous mosh pit we call the internet and most people are capable of understanding that. You don't need to compound these feelings of failure with any additional shame from anonymous strangers. Would they have loved to read your story? Yes of course they would have. If you were to finish it they would still want to read it. But they aren't angry or upset with you.

As you try to write, remind yourself that you have not failed. Imagine yourself as a professional athlete who has suffered a serious knee injury. You had to take time away but you're back on your feet now and you're working towards getting back on the field. Every time you sit and try to write, remind yourself that you have no failed, that you are recovering and that you will get better. Writing will get easier.

Send me as many asks as you want, if they help, I'll do my best to answer them promptly.

Hi anon!

This is a really interesting premise. I think you've chosen the perfect set up for toeing that line between rooting for something and recognizing that it's unhealthy.

As far as how do you show the relationship in a way that makes it seem like something you would want to root for? I would lean really hard into your unreliable narrative. Obsessive infatuation like this is genuinely all consuming and generally involves the obsessive person having an idea that everything the object of their infatuation does is secretly meant for them. (I mean not always, but generally.)

Take your narrator and use their knowledge of the Object Of Affection (OOA) to show that they love OOA. So instead of being like 'and I watched her nightly' make it something like, 'I have always loved the way she washes her face, the care she takes to wipe off her make up, the way her skin cleanser smells on her skin.'

By taking basically every observation and every interaction and making it romantic and loving, you're creating the environment where people will be like oh wow i wish I had that. I want them to be together and happy.

And then to break through that, very rarely, especially if OOA does something that breaks the illusion, have the tone completely change. So say OOA says another friend is the one that's always there for them and they really just missed them since they moved (or something). Narrator would interpret that really coldly. Maybe something like: "Her so-called friend had never been anything but a nag on her time. Always calling in the evenings, dragging OOA out after dark to filthy clubs. Friend was conniving, always making sure there was alcohol around, forcing OOA into decisions that were bad for her. It was better Friend moved; better the problem resolved itself before I had to intervene."

Your narrator never actually hurts your OOA/Love Interest but there's an undercurrent that they absolutely would hurt anyone that interferes with their connection/relationship.