I had this dream where everyone knew who they were in their past lives and it caused so much drama and uproar. You had to list your notable past lives on your job and school applications. There was tumblr discourse like “is it morally acceptable to kin someone else’s past life?” There were articles with headlines such as “how to cope if you find out you were a nazi in a past life.” Celebrities were getting callout posts based on their past lives. People would dox your lives. Ariana Grande was a founding father.
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I was just scrolling the pride month tag and came across this as one of the first posts
Do you know how unusual this is? Do you know how this would never have happened 5 or even less years ago?
To be scrolling "pride" and one of the first most popular posts is about someone being aroace?
The only bullying and mistreatment I've ever gone through for being aroace is from allo queer people unfortunately, and most of it on tumblr, to the point where I was so scared of telling the truth about my orientation to many friends I met here, who had cultivated queer safe spaces (that had never been very safe for me), that when the topic finally couldn't be avoided I would shake and cry having to be honest
But in the last few years here on tumblr, aro/ace acceptance has SKYROCKETED, people here are doing the work to understand and be allies, people here are working to make this an actual safe space for us
AND WE'VE DONE IT! I've been so loudly out on my blog for like 3 years now and haven't gotten nearly as much hate as I used to, there are whole aro/ace communities and blogs that have thousands and thousands of followers, headcanons for aro/ace characters doesn't cause nearly as much hostility as it used to
To the point where the main accepted headcanon for a character's orientation, the main character of a mainstream book/movie, played by a AAA mainstream actor, is that the character is aroace, and that headcanon is so popular that it's one of the first things that comes up when you search tumblr for pride month
I never expected to see this day actually be achieved yet here we are and I am so happy
Thank you PHM fandom and tumblr in general for getting us here!!!!
okay. okay here's my thing about "tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit." I like the post, the text has a compelling pace, it got over eight hundred thousand notes for a reason. it's from 2018, and the eco / folk / eldritch horror tumblr genre definitely did already exist then, but it was newer so the post felt more novel at the time. I say variations on the "you cannot kill me in a way that matters" line constantly, I like it, I really do. that isn't how fungus and decay works irl, but I understand the idea being conveyed and can appreciate the emotional effect it elicits, which is really all I'm looking for when it comes to horror media, including social media based horror microfiction. I find the way some people talk about the post nowadays as though it personally Ruined all creative writing circulated on this site Forever and like it is somehow solely responsible for artistic displays of hegemonic christianity to be, like, silly. that is obviously not the case, it's a very "great man" way of analyzing social media trends. this is one person's short horror-comedy prose poetry text post about bursting into tears while trying and failing to shoot a mushroom with a gun. okay. but now, Here. here is My Thing. that is not what "extant" means. like at all. and, again, I understand what it's trying to convey in the context of a punchy one-liner, I don't begrudge the post's author using a word incorrectly, but I think they probably meant auxiliary, external, exiled, or extrinsic. "extant" means "something that exists," what the line actually says is "decay exists as an existing form of life," and if you want to reference it elsewhere then you really neeeeeed to change up the vocab or else you're going to end up saying a line that makes no sense. okay that is all.
I think the character design in FNaF and William Afton are some of the best things in beginner horror (i.e. Goosebumps, Coraline, the mascot horror genre as a whole, Scooby-Doo), but also everything else about the franchise sucks. It has 5 good games out of a billion, it doesn't know where it's going at any given moment, it introduces and discards plot points without resolving anything, it expects the community to do all the work, and it's head writer is so incompetent that he made a leftist story as a religious conservative. Using one name twice is like, the most basic thing that you should not do. You couldn't have named Mike Afton like, Simon Afton?? And made Mike a pseudonym?? I know exactly what I like about FNaF and how I would fix it and maybe I'll make a manifesto about it some day. I could write a novel about how much Secret of the Mimic ALONE disrespects what came before it and the audience
I'll be an avid shipper of something until someone walks in and says "there is NO platonic explanation for this" and suddenly I've never shipped it before in my life and they're just friends and I can't lie i can't really see them being in a romantic relationship with each other yeah sorry I just don't see it
I think the thing that bother's me most is the implication that a strong emotional bond is only ever possible in romantic relationships. Platonic relationships and friendships are just as capable of being deep and emotionaly meaningful as romantic relationships, and I am so so tired of people making them seem lesser or surface level
I feel like I do "secret third thing" here? I write what usually become romance novels. But its rare for anyone to say "I love you", or to actually express feelings of romantic attraction. (Most recently, I wrote a gay transmasc romance where they use each other's first names exactly once in 22k words.) The relationships are usually unequal in status and from the outside might even appear ripe for abuse.
But they are still hugely important to each other and treat each other with dignity and respect.
The bonds they form end up being sexual/physical but almost as a release for the feelings, rather than as an outcome of desire.
There are types of bonds that we dont have good words or even concepts for in the modern, civilian era. Things like the bond between a lifelong servant/aide and employer, between an aide de camp and a general, between surveyors and travelers who will see mostly only each other for months at a time.
Thats what I tend to explore? Those spaces where love and loyalty and devotion and responsibility and duty all collide.
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first of all: 💀
why does every enemies-to-lovers dynamic either hit like a literary gut punch… or feel like two cardboard cutouts aggressively flirting?
there is no in between. i don’t make the rules.
and if you’re here, i’m guessing you’ve tasted both. the elite. the devastating. the oh my god i need to lie down after this confession scene kind…
and also the ones where you’re like “why do you hate each other again? because he smirked?? be serious.”
yeah. we’re fixing that today.
⚔️ if you’re writing enemies-to-lovers, we need to talk.
because most people aren’t writing enemies.
they’re writing:
mild annoyances
workplace rivals with ✨tension✨
people who had one (1) misunderstanding in chapter two and never emotionally recovered
and listen. that’s fine. that’s a trope. it’s cute.
but it’s not enemies-to-lovers.
🩸 step one: define your enemy
an enemy is not someone who:
is kinda rude
disagrees with your protagonist
has a “bad attitude” (???)
an enemy is someone who cannot coexist with your protagonist without cost.
read that again. PLEASE.
their goals? incompatible.
their values? clashing at a moral level.
their existence? actively making the other’s life worse.
what i'm talking about:
opposing sides of a war
hunter vs hunted
“if i let you live, everything i believe in collapses” energy
if they can just… avoid each other and be fine?
that’s not enemies. that’s tension with good lighting.
🗡️ step two: make the hatred make sense
this is where people fumble it CONSTANTLY.
they jump straight to:
banter → sexual tension → accidental hand touch → oh no i’m in love
NO. come back. sit down.
before attraction, there needs to be justified hostility.
and not surface-level “you insulted me once.”
i’m talking about (and yes please quote 'rin t' on this!):
betrayal
loss
ideological opposition
deeply ingrained bias they don’t even realize they have
the kind of thing where, if someone asked your character:
“why do you hate them?”
they wouldn’t hesitate. they’d have a list
the twist:
👉 both sides need to be right. (or at least feel right)
if one is clearly wrong, you don’t have enemies-to-lovers.
you have “problematic person gets redeemed because they’re hot.”
and we are not doing that today.
🔥 step three: attraction should feel like a problem
this is where it gets fun. :)
when they start catching feelings, it should not be:
“oh this is inconvenient but kind of exciting :)”
it should be:
“this is catastrophic. this compromises everything.”
love = risk.
because now:
their judgment is compromised
their loyalties are tested
their identity starts to crack
they should be actively resisting it.
denying it. sabotaging it. making worse choices because of it.
if falling in love doesn’t cost them something?
you skipped the entire point of the trope.
🕯️ step four: force proximity (but PLEASEEE make it hurt)
you can’t resolve enemies-to-lovers from opposite sides of the map.
they need to be stuck together.
BUT-important distinction-
not in a cute “one bed at the inn” way (yet. we’ll get there. don’t worry.)
in a:
forced alliance
mutual threat
political arrangement
survival situation
where they have to rely on each other…
while still fundamentally not trusting each other.
this creates:
tension
vulnerability leaks
moments where they see each other as human (ugh. disgusting. hate that.)
and every time that happens?
it should complicate things further.
💔 step five: the shift is not soft. it’s violent.
i need you to understand this.
the transition from enemies → lovers should feel like something breaking.
because it is.
their worldview? breaking.
their assumptions? breaking.
their sense of self? yeah. that too.
there should be a moment where:
they realize they were wrong about the other person
and it doesn’t feel good.
it feels like:
guilt
confusion
grief for the version of reality they believed in
this is what makes the payoff hit.
not the kiss.
the reckoning.
🗝️ step six: they don’t “fix” each other
if i see one more enemies-to-lovers arc where:
“he became a better person because she loved him 🥺”
i will simply pass away.
they don’t fix each other.
they force each other to confront things they were avoiding.
that’s different.
love isn’t the solution.
it’s the pressure that reveals the cracks.
🖤 final thought (and a gentle threat):
if your enemies-to-lovers could be replaced with:
friends-to-lovers + mild inconvenience
and nothing changes?
you didn’t go far enough.
push them harder.
make it uglier. riskier. a little bit devastating.
so, question to you my chaotic writers... what’s the real reason your characters hate each other?
not the surface answer.
the one they’d never admit out loud.
i’m nosy. tell me everything. 👀 I LOVE HEARING your thoughts (i reply because yes, i am a real person!)
I HAVE DIGITAL PRODUCTS!!!
if you're writing dark academia feel free to check out this packet filled with all the juicy prompts to spark ideas!
A gothic prompt pack for writers who love cursed universities, secret societies, and scholarly rot.✎ Write the Darkness ✎A 75-prompt horror
need help with your opening pages?! i have a free ebook for you all (aesthetic, cohesive and actually informative! it's free! but tips are highly appreciated!)
✦ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages ✦If you're unsure whether your opening is ✨doing enough✨ to hook re
The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity
(Even when life beats you down)
Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.
So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.
Focus on having fun, not on the outcome
This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.
I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.
But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”
So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.
Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it
I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.
I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.
Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.
I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.
I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.
Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.
I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.
Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.
Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.
It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.
I lowered my definition for success
When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.
A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism
Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.
I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.
Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.
The more I do it, the more I do it
The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.
Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.
Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.
The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.
Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.
No pressure
Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?
These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.
Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)
Don’t wait for inspiration to hit
There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.
Accountability and community
Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.
The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.
Your toolbox
The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.
After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.
Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!
Yeah, alright, no. No don't this. I'll do you a few fucking better and teach you right here and now how to do this: You game? Blurb and lesson time. Got you. First up, a SPOOC. This is one technique that can be expanded (gonna give you examples too). WRITING LESSONS AHOY:
SPOOC = Situation, protagonist, objective, obstacles/opponents, climax/cost. So, when Frodo Baggins (protagonist) inherits the Ring of Power (Situation), he must set out on a quest to destroy it (objective). But, will he succeed when the forces of sauron and saruman unite and try to reclaim the one ring and use its power to destroy Middle Earth (climax - cost if failure). This specific example is taught by Jim Butcher so if you want some weight behind it.
There you go. It works.
Want to know how to do a blurb? Practice, but check it:
Who is it?
What's going on?
Why should we care?
What happens if the hero fails?
If you can, end on a snappy one liner or question. You can open on one too or a question like it.
What do shadows darting across the walls, cryptic writing, black fog, and a little girl who can see ghosts have in common? Paranormal investigator and soul without a body, Vincent Graves, has forty-four hours to find out. To make matters worse, his years of body-hopping and monster-hunting are catching up with him. He's losing his mind. An old contact has shut him out. To top it all off, something's skulking through an asylum, killing patients. Three guesses who might be next, and the first two don't count. The writing on the wall is not so clear. But one thing is: if he doesn't figure this out he's a dead man--well, deader--and a strange young girl might follow. Vincent's got his back against a wall, and that wall's crumbling. Some days it's not worth it to wake up in someone else's body.
That's Grave Measures - book two in my urban fantasy detective series.
Who is it - covered. What's going on? Why should we care (the stakes to the protagonist and more). The costs. And the above. It's not rocket science, and doesn't have to be. Here's one from book three: Don't make deals with the paranormal. They're better at it than you, and they never play fair.
Paranormal investigator and soul without a body, Vincent Graves, did just that—a deal made in desperation. Now it's coming back to bite him in the middle of a case. He has 57 hours to investigate a string of deaths involving people who've made some devilish bargains. Too bad devils don't deal in good faith. It'd be easy enough, if he didn't have to deal with things such as:
-Being hunted through the streets of Queens by a dark elf with a motorcycle fetish.
-Ending up the target of a supernatural hit.
-An old acquaintance dragging him to a paranormal ball where he could end up on the menu.
-And having one of his closest guarded secrets brought to light...
Not great for a tight clock, because if he doesn't get to the bottom of this case in time, Vincent and company might just lose their souls. Dirty deals are never done dirt cheap. And the supernatural always collect—big! Same formula. A lot of fiction uses it. You just might not realize it. You don't need a fucking AI. You need a few minutes every day of practice. You got that. You got this.
With SPOOC, you can outline a whole damn novel. You get a snappy two-liner pitch to sell with. YOu can expand it into summaries for each book to make up LOTR in this case or your series. Then you can reverse engineer and keep expanding each summary. It does it for you.
A Couple of Helpful Resources for making Scum Villain Fanworks All in one Spot
Disclaimers - If your resource is here and you would like for me to remove it or change something related to it, just lmk and I will do so as soon as possible! I did as well as I could to make sure these resources are reliable, but if you notice something is off, please lmk! Feel free to add other resources in the reblogs :)
1. The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System Timeline by VagabondDawn on ao3
2. svsss canon log by allpiesforourown on Tumblr/Google Doc
3. [Guide] The Scum Villain's Self Saving System by Jin_Mitel on ao3
(^^ An Index of Jin_Mitel's other guides, many look useful for this purpose/others are scum villain focused! Find them at A Guide to Fictions)
4. Guide of Locations in Scum Villain Self-Saving System by misfitmonarchy and stardust_falling on ao3
5. A Partial Beastiary for Chinese Mythology and Folklore by PyrrhaIphis on ao3
6. Guide to Writing Scum Villain (or XianXia and XuanHuan in general) by velveteentuzhi on ao3
7. Stallion Novels: A Guide by ibex_ascendant on ao3
8. Chinese Names + Naming Resources by lingxhr on Tumblr (Useful for OCs!)
9. Chinese Naming Basics for Fanfiction Writers by miqqumi on ao3 (Danmei/SVSSS Specific! Useful for honorifics! Contains a long list of resources for this subject)
10. How to Name your Chinese Characters by drwcn on Tumblr (Useful for OCs!)
11. ziseviolet on Tumblr (For hanfu fashion history, explanations, and inspo! A lot of helpful history and cultural information/resources as well! Extremely helpful, see their masterposts on their blog to start)
Ziseviolet's masterposts one and two
12. peekofhistory on Tumblr (Really incredible history/arts/crafts/guqin making and lessons(!!)/culture resource! Highly recommend to check them out!)
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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= the action that marks an antagonist as irredeemably evil; once past this point, redemption is no longer an option for the character and any explanation they may have had for villainy no longer excuses it
not all villains have such a moment, but once they do they are considered "pure evil"
moment must be played seriously and does not include humor to soften the blow
onward, all ambiguity surrounding the character's moral standing is resolved and can not be seriously questioned again by all in-the-know of the event
any attempt at redemption is not enough, fails, is interrupted, and/or ends in the death of the villain
depending on genre-typical expectations of violence/morals, the action can have very different degrees of evil
typical examples: killing a fan-favorite character, animal abuse, sexual assault, bigotry, betrayal, infidelity, domestic abuse, hurting the innocent and vulnerable
Examples from popular media:
Ego giving Starlord's mother the tumor that killed her (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)
President Coin dropping bombs on the evacuating children and killing Prim (Hunger Games)
Scar refusing to help Mufasa and throwing him into the stampede (Lion King)
Things I’ve noticed are essential in plotting and would probably have saved me a lot of time if I had considered it earlier
The START of your story - how fucked up flawed is your premise/character at the start? what do they have to change? why are they HERE?
The END of your story - How do you want your main character/theme/universe to change after your story? Does it get better or worse? THIS SETS UP THE TONE DRASTICALLY.
What you want to happen IN BETWEEN - the MEAT of it. What made you start writing this WIP in the first place. Don't be ashamed to indulge, it's where the BRAIN JUICE comes from. You want a deep dive into worldbuilding and complex systems? Then your start and end should be rooted in some fundamental, unique rule of your universe (what made you obsess over it?). Want to write unabashed ship content? Make sure your start and end are so compelling you'll never run out of smut scenarios to shove in between scenes (what relationship dynamics made you ship it in the first place?).
The ANTE - the GRAVITY of your story. How high are the stakes? Writing a blurb or interaction? start with a small day-in-the-life so you can focus on shorter timelines and hourly minutiae that can easily get overlooked in more complicated epics. Or you can go ham on it and plot out your whole universe's timeline from conception to demise. Remember: the larger the scale, the less attached your story may get. How quickly time flies in your story typically correlates with the ante (not a hard rule, ofc, but most epics span years of time within a few pages, while a romance novel usually charts out the events of a few months over a whole manuscript.)
Random pieces of advice about worldbuilding and plot.
If every story is worth telling, there are some elements to take into account to make it right.
Every cause has consequences. A story is logical in one way or another. Whether you plan your story or go with the flow, if you ask about: the origins, reactions and actions to be taken following an event, the pieces somehow will ‘click into place’.
Everything has a cost. Magic system, war, life in general... Don't forget that resources are not unlimited. Consider the societal, social, natural, (magical, if need be) limitations.
Challenge the statut quo and the villain's motivations (if there's a villain in the original sense of the term) : Ask yourself why the villain wants to ‘change the world’ (and really question his legitimacy) and what the world should look like after the final confrontation. If we come back to the original point, it's that the plot didn't serve any purpose, being no more than a ‘historical aside’. Remember that everything happens for a reason, so make that reason a good one.
Make actual research about geography and climate: forest, desert and especially rivers can't pop out of nowhere, they must respect certain natural principles. For example, a river must have its source somewhere, often high up in the mountains. So it seems logical that a river should be close to a mountain. Be careful if you want to incorporate a map in your story !
Be careful when you rely on chance, fate or whatever you call it. I still can't work out whether it's worse than deus ex machina - especially if it's done badly. As far as I'm concerned, if you work well enough with the cause-consequence chain and have a good grasp of the limits of your universe, you won't need to rely on this kind of process. this one is actually pretty personnal, you have every right to disagree.
✏️ Writing Dialogue That Sounds Like Real People, Not Theater Kids on Red Bull
(a crash course in vibes, verbal economy, and making your characters shut up already)
Okay. We need to talk about dialogue. Specifically: why everyone in your draft sounds like they’re in a high school improv group doing a dramatic reading of Riverdale fanfiction.
Before you panic, this is normal. Early dialogue is almost always too much. Too polished. Too "scripted." So if yours feels off? You’re not failing. You’re just doing Draft Zero Dialogue, and it’s time to revise it like a boss.
Here’s how to fix it.
─────── ✦ ───────
🎭 STEP ONE: DETOX THEATER ENERGY
I say this with love: your characters are not all quippy geniuses. They do not need to deliver emotional monologues at every plot beat. They can just say things. Weird, half-finished, awkward things.
Real people:
interrupt each other
trail off mid-thought
dodge questions
contradict themselves
repeat stuff
change the subject randomly
Let your characters sound messy. Not every line needs to sparkle. In fact, the more effort you put into making dialogue ✨perfect✨, the more fake it sounds. Cut 30% of your clever lines and see what happens.
─────── ✦ ───────
🎤 STEP TWO: GIVE EACH CHARACTER A VERBAL FINGERPRINT
The fastest way to make dialogue feel alive? Make everyone speak differently. Think rhythm, grammar, vocabulary, tone.
Some dials you can twist:
Long-winded vs. clipped
Formal vs. casual
Emojis of speech: sarcasm, filler words, expletives, slang
Sentence structure: do they talk in fragments? Run-ons? Spirals?
Emotion control: are they blunt, diplomatic, avoidant, performative?
Here’s a shortcut: imagine what your character sounds like over text. Are they the “lol okay” type or the “okie dokie artichokie 🌈✨” one? Now translate that into speech.
─────── ✦ ───────
🧠 STEP THREE: FUNCTION > FILLER
Every line of dialogue should do something. Reveal something. Move something. Change something.
Ask:
Does this line push the plot forward?
Does it show character motivation/conflict/dynamic?
Does it create tension, add context, or raise a question?
If it’s just noise? It’s dead air. Cut it. Replace it with a glance. A gesture. A silence that says more.
TIP: look at a dialogue scene and remove every third line. Does the scene still work? Probably better.
─────── ✦ ───────
💥 STEP FOUR: REACTIVITY IS THE GOLD STANDARD
Characters don’t talk into a void. They respond. And how they respond = the real juice.
Don’t just write back-and-forth ping pong. Write conflict, dodge, misunderstanding. If one character says something vulnerable, the other might joke. Or ignore it. Or say something cruel. That’s tension.
Dialogue is not just information exchange. It’s emotional strategy.
Try this exercise:
A says something revealing.
B lies.
A notices, but pretends they don’t.
B changes the subject.
Now you’ve got a real scene.
─────── ✦ ───────
🔍 STEP FIVE: PAY ATTENTION TO POWER
Every convo has a power dynamic, even if it’s tiny. Who’s steering? Who’s withholding? Who’s deflecting, chasing, challenging?
Power can shift line to line. That shift = tension. And tension = narrative fuel.
Write conversations like chess matches, not ping pong.
─────── ✦ ───────
✂️ STEP SIX: SCISSORS ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND
The best dialogue is often the second draft. Or third. Or fourth. First drafts are just you figuring out what everyone wants to say. Later drafts figure out what they actually would say.
Things to cut:
Greetings/closings ("Hi!" "Bye!"--skip it unless it serves tone)
Exposition disguised as chat
Obvious thoughts spoken aloud
Explaining jokes
Repeating what we already know
Readers are smart. Let them fill in blanks.
─────── ✦ ───────
🎧 STEP SEVEN: READ IT OUT LOUD (YES, REALLY)
If you hate this step: too bad. It works. Read it. Mumbling is fine. Cringe is part of the ritual.
Ask yourself:
Would someone actually say this?
Does this sound like one person speaking, or a puppet show with one hand?
Where does the rhythm trip? Where’s the breath?
If you can’t say it out loud without wincing, the reader won’t make it either. Respect the vibe.
─────── ✦ ───────
🏁 TL;DR:
If you want your dialogue to sound like real people, let your characters be real. Messy. Annoying. Human. Let them interrupt and lie and joke badly and say the wrong thing at the worst time.
Cut the improv class energy. Kill the urge to be ✨brilliant✨. And listen to how people talk when they’re scared, tired, pissed off, in love, or trying not to say what they mean.
That’s where the good stuff is.
—rin t.
// thewriteadviceforwriters
// official advocate of awkward silences and one-word replies
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1. Law of Conservation of Magic- Magic cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.
3. Law of Equivalent Exchange- To gain something, an equal value must be given.
5. Law of Magical Exhaustion- Using magic drains the user’s energy or life force.
Interaction and Interference
4. Law of Magical Interference- Magic can interfere with other magical effects.
6. Law of Magical Contamination- Magic can have unintended side effects.
8. Law of Magical Inertia- Magical effects continue until stopped by an equal or greater force.
Resonance and Conditions
7. Law of Magical Resonance- Magic resonates with certain materials, places, or times.
9. Law of Magical Secrecy- Magic must be kept secret from the non-magical world.
11. Law of Magical Hierarchy- Different types of magic have different levels of power and difficulty.
Balance and Consequences
10. Law of Magical Balance- Every positive magical effect has a negative consequence.
12. Law of Magical Limitation- Magic has limits and cannot solve every problem.
14. Law of Magical Rebound- Misused magic can backfire on the user.
Special Conditions
13. Law of Magical Conduits- Certain objects or beings can channel magic more effectively.
15. Law of Magical Cycles- Magic may be stronger or weaker depending on cycles (e.g., lunar phases).
17. Law of Magical Awareness- Some beings are more attuned to magic and can sense its presence.
Ethical and Moral Laws
16. Law of Magical Ethics- Magic should be used responsibly and ethically.
18. Law of Magical Consent- Magic should not be used on others without their consent.
20. Law of Magical Oaths- Magical promises or oaths are binding and have severe consequences if broken.
Advanced and Rare Laws
19. Law of Magical Evolution- Magic can evolve and change over time.
20. Law of Magical Singularities- Unique, one-of-a-kind magical phenomena exist and are unpredictable.
Unique and Imaginative Magical Laws
- Law of Temporal Magic- Magic can manipulate time, but with severe consequences. Altering the past can create paradoxes, and using time magic ages the caster rapidly.
- Law of Emotional Resonance- Magic is amplified or diminished by the caster’s emotions. Strong emotions like love or anger can make spells more powerful but harder to control.
- Law of Elemental Harmony- Magic is tied to natural elements (fire, water, earth, air). Using one element excessively can disrupt the balance and cause natural disasters.
- Law of Dream Magic- Magic can be accessed through dreams. Dreamwalkers can enter others’ dreams, but they risk getting trapped in the dream world.
- Law of Ancestral Magic- Magic is inherited through bloodlines. The strength and type of magic depend on the caster’s ancestry, and ancient family feuds can influence magical abilities.
- Law of Symbiotic Magic- Magic requires a symbiotic relationship with magical creatures. The caster and creature share power, but harming one affects the other.
- Law of Forgotten Magic- Ancient spells and rituals are lost to time. Discovering and using forgotten magic can yield great power but also unknown dangers.
- Law of Magical Echoes- Spells leave behind echoes that can be sensed or traced. Powerful spells create stronger echoes that linger longer.
- Law of Arcane Geometry- Magic follows geometric patterns. Spells must be cast within specific shapes or alignments to work correctly.
- Law of Celestial Magic- Magic is influenced by celestial bodies. Spells are stronger during certain astronomical events like eclipses or planetary alignments.
- Law of Sentient Magic- Magic has a will of its own. It can choose to aid or hinder the caster based on its own mysterious motives.
- Law of Shadow Magic- Magic can manipulate shadows and darkness. Shadowcasters can travel through shadows but are vulnerable to light.
- Law of Sympathetic Magic- Magic works through connections. A spell cast on a representation of a person (like a doll or portrait) affects the actual person.
- Law of Magical Artifacts- Certain objects hold immense magical power. These artifacts can only be used by those deemed worthy or who possess specific traits.
- Law of Arcane Paradoxes- Some spells create paradoxes that defy logic. These paradoxes can have unpredictable and often dangerous outcomes.
- Law of Elemental Fusion- Combining different elemental magics creates new, hybrid spells with unique properties and effects.
- Law of Ethereal Magic- Magic can interact with the spirit world. Ethereal mages can communicate with spirits, but prolonged contact can blur the line between life and death.
- Law of Arcane Symbiosis- Magic can bond with technology, creating magical machines or enchanted devices with extraordinary capabilities.
- Law of Dimensional Magic- Magic can open portals to other dimensions. Dimensional travelers can explore alternate realities but risk getting lost or encountering hostile beings.
- Law of Arcane Sacrifice- Powerful spells require a sacrifice, such as a cherished memory, a personal item, or even a part of the caster’s soul.
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Writing Schizophrenia and Psychosis: Hallucinations and Delusions
[Plain text: Writing Schizophrenia and Psychosis: Hallucinations and Delusions]
So you've read our lovely guide on parts of schizophrenia and psychosis unrelated to hallucinations and delusions, you've skimmed our tag, but it's finally time to tackle the most commonly known part of schizophrenia: hallucinations and delusions.
So, hearing voices or seeing shadow people and thinking everyone is after you, right? I'm done?
Nope!
This is a guide to the many many kinds of hallucinations and delusions that exist, written with experience by people with psychosis.
A note obviously that psychosis is highly personal and your mileage may vary. This is not meant to be an all-encompassing post.
Conditions that can cause psychosis (not exhaustive):
Schizophrenia,
Schizoaffective Disorder,
Schizophreniform Disorder,
Delusional Disorder,
Brief Psychotic Disorder,
Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Features,
Bipolar Disorder,
Psychotic Disorder Due to Another Medical Condition (yes that's the real name and the Another Medical Condition usually refers to things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, brain tumors, etc.),
Substance/Medication-Induced Psychotic Disorder.
The first three are also known as the "schizo-spec" (schizophrenia spectrum) disorders, with delusional disorder and brief psychotic disorder sometimes also being included in that definition.
Hallucinations
[Plain text: Hallucinations]
There are many kinds of hallucinations, the most commonly discussed being auditory and visual. However, they are not the only ones! There are also tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and somatic ones (the latter are often categorized under tactile or vice-versa).
The most frequent kind of hallucination experienced changes depending on the exact disorder. Overall, the most common ones are either auditory or visual (e.g. auditory are the most common in schizophrenia, and visual in neurological disorders), then the other one of the aforementioned two, then tactile/somatic, then olfactory, and then gustatory.
A person can experience any number of those, and multimodality (involving multiple senses) is more common than unimodality (involving just one sense) in people who have a primarily-psychiatric condition. In other words, having hallucinations that involve multiple senses is common for those on the schizo-spec, but very rare for those with ocular conditions, for example.
Types of hallucinations:
[Plain text: Types of hallucinations:]
Auditory hallucinations: There are many things a person can hear, the most common and most discussed being voices. However, other common auditory hallucinations are whispering, hearing your name being called, music, and hearing people walking around.
Command hallucinations: a subset of auditory hallucinations. My absolute enemy. A hallucination, usually external voice but sometimes an "implanted voice" that commands the listener to do things, from something simple like standing up to hurting themselves or others. The listener can resist, but I personally find the longer I have command hallucinations the harder they become to resist or ignore. Often the thing that gets me sent to inpatient. The most important distinction for command hallucinations are that they are not intrusive thoughts - the person is insistent they are external from them.
Visual hallucinations: Less common than auditory hallucinations but still incredibly common. Not always shadow people or recognizable people - I see strangers and have never had the same visual hallucination twice, although some people do see returning "characters". I do see shadow people occasionally, but they aren't the only thing people see and can be a somewhat exaggerated depiction. I know a lot of people who see cats, for some reason. If you can think it, someone can see it!
Obviously hallucinations can but don't have to be scary, it simply depends on the person and experience.
A person can see almost anything as a hallucination. Some people experience what are known as "simple" visual hallucinations (as opposed to "complex" ones)—basic patterns, spots, geometric shapes, lights, lines. They are not lifelike or clear, and are visibly out of place. Simple hallucinations are less common on the schizo-spec, but anyone can have them.
Tactile hallucinations: my absolute enemy (hey, different mod here). Tactile hallucinations are less common than visual or auditory ones, and often come with other kinds of hallucinations as a bonus—especially somatic ones, since there's no clear distinction between those two a lot of the time. They encompass touch, feeling, and spatial sense in the broadest sense you can possibly imagine. They can be annoying in their own manner as there is often no way to check their validity; you usually can't just record or take a picture of them to verify them.
Tactile hallucinations can be, as most hallucinations, basically anything. One of the most common types is the feeling of parasites, bugs, or other animals, like snakes, moving across or under the person's skin.
Parasitic/formication hallucination is the main example of tactile hallucinations to the point that there are sometimes used as synonyms. It's also very often associated with delusional parasitosis, where the person actually believes that they are in fact infested, which will be mentioned in the "delusions" section.
For many people tactile and somatic hallucinations will be one and the same, or otherwise inseparable, like the feeling of blood or urine dripping down their body, being burned, feeling their organs or bones "move around", or having their skin stretched.
In my personal experience—YMMV—tactile hallucinations are the most difficult to acknowledge as fake (for me, this is in comparison to visual and olfactory ones). Even if you are aware of the possibility of being in psychosis, since they can't be reliably verified for the most part, are often at least theoretically possible, and frequently co-appear with delusions of the same theme.
Olfactory hallucinations: smelling things that aren't there. Those can be pleasant, gross, or completely neutral, as most hallucinations in general. Smell hallucinations can be (unofficially; this is just a distinction I've used myself) categorized into external (smells "outside" the person having the hallucination, like a fire) and internal ("in/on" the person having the hallucination, i.e. a smell that's coming from their own body). In my anecdotal experience, people tend to have more of only one of these types rather than both.
One of the most common ones is the perception of having extremely offensive body odor or bad breath, but it can also do with urine, blood, even decomposition, etc. The hallucinations generally revolve around mundane things (there's nothing "OMG I must be in psychosis!" about thinking you smell bad), which might make them difficult to spot as fake, even if someone is aware that they are overall psychotic.
Many kinds of olfactory hallucinations might make the person feel insecure (body related smells), paranoid (chemical related smells; e.g. I had a recurrent hallucination of smelling spilled gasoline), or cause problems with things like eating (smelling non-edible things in food; rot, mold...).
Gustatory hallucinations [disclaimer: none of the mods have first-hand experience with this one; this is entirely based on external sources]: tasting things that aren't there. The rarest kind of hallucinations statistically, though it shows up in some non-shizo-spec conditions more often (e.g. epilepsy).
Gustatory hallucinations are mostly realistically plausible (for example, feeling a bitter or sour taste) or realistic but unusual (e.g. metallic taste). They often coexist with other kinds of hallucinations and delusions, often exacerbating the problem (e.g. a person with delusions of being poisoned might experience a hallucination of dangerous chemicals in their food, solidifying the delusion).
Hallucinations FAQ
[Plain text: Hallucinations FAQ]
Q: How to describe hallucinations in a sensitive manner?
A: Sensitivity and hallucinations is less about being sensitive about the hallucinations and more about the person having them. Hallucinations can be anything, and I mean it. For every "stereotypical" hallucination, there's a thousand real people who will have it. Unless you're considering doing something extremely out there, I wouldn't worry about the content of hallucinations being sensitive or not; anything that's common enough to be listed as an example of a hallucination is more than safe. Some hallucinations are scary, a lot are deeply unpleasant. That's okay to show.
So, how do you describe the person having the hallucinations?
First of all, don't make them violent towards others. This is a very harmful stereotype that writers love to use. Psychotic people can be violent since they are people, but they're much more likely to be victims of violence as well as committing violence towards themselves (both in the self-harm context, as well as in attempts of dealing with psychosis that ultimately result in unintentional self-injuries). Don't make someone into a murderer because they are hearing voices or smelling blood in their food.
Second, show them as a full person and that psychosis is part of them as that person. Why* are they psychotic? How do they experience it? When did it start, and how often do they have episodes? Do they go to therapy? Do they take medication? How do they feel about it? Make them seem human while integrating psychosis into their character, not just a "normal" person with a "scary gimmick" slapped on top without considering what it actually means for them.
*—not as in "there needs to be a reason for a character to be disabled", but as in "what condition is causing them to hallucinate".
Third, don't push people with low insight under the bus. Someone who can't tell their hallucinations apart from reality isn't stupid or "worse" than someone who has higher awareness. It also doesn't translate to morals; someone who fully can't tell what's real isn't more likely to be evil. It also doesn't make them blissfully unaware angels that should be treated like children. Don't moralize a mental illness in either direction.
To go back to the actual hallucinations—treat them as what they are: hallucinations. They aren't future-telling, prophecies, visions from an alternate dimension, sources of magic, whatever else, they aren't those things. A delusional person (or character) might believe that what they're experiencing is something "greater", but that'd be a part of a delusion; it's not something you should put as part of your objective worldbuilding. Even just implying that psychosis has some "deeper meaning" can mess some people up.
This is my least favorite form of psychosis representation in media. Honestly, personally, I'd rather be portrayed as violent than like I have some secret gift, but don't do either.
Q: How to integrate hallucinations into a story without the story becoming about them?
A: Depends greatly on whose POV you're writing from, how much insight the character has, and what emotions do they experience while hallucinating.
If it's a non-POV character who is aware they are in psychosis and are relatively unbothered by it, you can just describe them glancing around, or otherwise checking where the hallucination is. In most cases someone with high insight won't be interacting with a hallucination (an exception could be a pleasurable hallucination that the person enjoys).
They might ask another character if they also see/hear/feel the hallucination—even if someone is fully aware they are currently in psychosis, it might be difficult to verify which things are fake and which aren't. Maybe the character is sure that the person they're "seeing" is fake, but aren't sure about the dog that's with them.
You can describe the character being clearly distracted by something; looking into a specific place, moving weirdly, or not being able to stay on topic.
If you're trying to write about the character experiencing hallucinations and having low insight, it might be much more difficult to not make the story (or the scene) about it—if you don't go out of your way to acknowledge them as hallucinations then it will look like there is no hallucinations present, since the character will just consider them to be real. It'd just be another part of the setting—you can obviously throw in something that would be clearly out of place for the reader, but it will raise questions that you should probably address, thus making the scene about the hallucinations.
A similar thing can happen if your character is experiencing an unpleasant hallucination: you kinda have to make the scene about it. if the character is scared, it'd be weird to ignore that. You can of course go "they saw a peculiar creature in the yard, one so weird that they knew right away it wasn't really there, so they decided to ignore it," since you can be aware of a hallucination being fake while still being disturbed. In that situation you can have the character purposefully trying to distract themself, show them being under stress, or having another kind of reaction (e.g., using some sort of grounding technique, having a panic attack, etc).
Q: What are some common ways to tell what is and isn't a hallucination?
A: Visual: taking pictures/videos, taking off your glasses (hallucinations will sometimes stay in-focus when the real world blurs accordingly), asking another person if they also see it.
Auditory: recording the sound, asking another person.
Blind people having visual hallucinations and deaf people having auditory ones usually just assume that the hallucination is fake, especially if it's the only thing they are able to see/hear.
Olfactory: asking another person.
Tactile/somatic: no consistent way as far as I'm aware. In some circumstances you can tell by just looking (e.g. you feel like you're having a nosebleed, you can just look in the mirror to check) or asking another person (e.g. you feel like you're levitating), but for most hallucinations there is no way of telling (e.g. how would you check if there's something happening to your internal organs? Get a body scan of some sort maybe?).
Gustatory: if it's about a real food you can ask another person if they also feel the same taste, otherwise no way of telling as far as I'm aware.
Q: Does being able to logically differentiate between reality/hallucinations stop emotional responses?
A: It can, but it's not a guarantee by any means. Imagine you're on a rollercoaster or watching a horror movie: logically speaking, you know that you are safe—but still, you get scared, it's a natural response. If the insight helps someone emotionally, it's usually partial.
That said, being able to recognize something as a hallucination might (key word here) help someone stop having a psychotic episode, which could end the emotional response. But just because you know that something is fake doesn't mean you'll stop believing it. In fact knowing that you're believing something that is fake can be even more distressing than not knowing it's fake.
For some people, a hallucination could be traumatic or plain upsetting and continue to disturb them even after it's gone and they are no longer having an episode.
Not everyone will be particularly emotional though. Some people hallucinate 24/7 and just treat their hallucinations as another part of their day, even if they're fully conscious of them being fake.
Q: Can blind people have visual hallucinations/deaf people have auditory hallucinations?
A: Yes. For those where the two are connected, the former is called Charles Bonnet syndrome, the latter Musical Ear syndrome. The major distinction is that in both of those, the person experiencing the hallucinations usually has high insight (i.e., is aware that they are hallucinations) and they don't generally co-occur with delusions.
Blind and deaf people with residual vision/hearing can also experience "regular" visual/auditory hallucinations as well (and obviously other kinds too—nothing is stopping a deaf person from having olfactory hallucinations).
The one important caveat is that people with congenital (!) cortical (!) blindness do not, for unknown reasons, ever develop schizophrenia.
Delusions
[Plain text: Delusions]
Delusion is a fixed belief in something that is considered false, even after seeing evidence for the thing being untrue. The delusional belief isn't a part of the person's culture or religion, and isn't accepted as true among other members of their community. The belief is generally disturbing to the person and causes them distress.
The delusions that one can have are basically endless in terms of options, but they can be broadly put into two categories:
Bizarre: delusions that are impossible to occur in real life.
Examples:
being abducted by aliens,
having your thoughts broadcast over the radio,
being a supernatural entity.
Non-bizarre: delusions that are possible to occur, even if highly unlikely.
Examples:
being poisoned,
having a partner cheat on you,
being watched by the government.
Of course, in terms of fiction, what's considered "possible to occur in real life" might differ from these examples.
Delusions can also be categorized in "themes", such as:
Persecutory: the theme surrounds believing that one is being harassed, attacked, stalked, or conspired against, often by powerful entities. Frequently reported as the most common type of delusion, especially in schizo-spec disorders.
Grandiose: surrounds believing that one has special powers, status, knowledge, skills, has relationships with famous, powerful, and otherwise important people, or is such a person themself.
Jealousy: surrounds believing that one's partner is unfaithful.
Erotomanic: surrounds believing that another person—often of higher status, such as a celebrity—is in love with them.
Somatic: surrounds believing that there is something wrong with one's physical body, such as being infested with parasites, having blood replaced with a different liquid, or missing internal organs.
Religious: surrounds believing that one is a god or another religious figure, like a prophet or a saint, and/or is receiving directions/commands from those. A person doesn't have to actually be religious to experience religious delusions, nor has to be of the same religion that the delusion is about.
Thought manipulation: surrounds believing that one's thoughts are being manipulated in some way. Common examples include believing that one's thoughts are being broadcast, or that foreign thoughts are being purposefully inserted into their brain.
Mixed: delusions that match multiple of the aforementioned types. E.g. a character who thinks the government wants to kidnap them for their magical powers (persecutory+grandiose); a character who thinks that they are married to a famous pop star and that she's cheating on them (erotomanic+jealousy), etc.
Unspecified: literally everything else.
There are also specific delusions which are often referred to as their own syndromes/disorders. They are generally considered very rare but they are frequently referenced in media. Some of them are:
Clinical lycanthropy: a delusion that one is turning into a werewolf. Often clinical lycanthropy is a catch all term now for clinical zooanthropy, which is the belief you are transforming into any sort of animal. It's very rare and can be part of a disorder such as schizophrenia or exist as a delusion on its own. Often people with it will start to behave alongside the disorder, such as eating raw meat or feeling somatic transformation, or hiding so as not to hurt others in their beastly state.
Delusional parasitosis/Ekbom's syndrome: a somatic delusion where you believe there are bugs/bacteria/parasites inside your body, generally under the skin. Commonly co-occurs with tactile/somatic hallucinations, adding realism to the delusion.
It very frequently results in self-harming behaviors in an attempt to "get them [parasites] out". That can be anything from skin scratching to auto-amputation or disembowelment. The less extreme ways can result in infections and painful skin conditions, sometimes solidifying the person in the delusion that their body is in fact infested. The more extreme ways can and probably will result in death for obvious reasons.
A common phenomenon associated with it is the "matchbox sign" where the person finds "evidence" of the "parasites" (usually dead skin, fabric, small pieces of food, etc.) and shows it to someone, often a doctor, as proof of the infestation (matchbox coming from it being the go-to container for the "specimen", but honestly it can be anything. Who even has matchboxes anymore). A person with this disorder can also obsess over parasites/other animals that can in fact infest humans, potentially forcing them to avoid certain activities as much as possible (not eating meat, not going into forests, obsessively washing themself, etc).
To my knowledge this is the most common syndromic delusion, though it could be related to the fact that people with delusional parasitosis are also the most likely to see a doctor about it (though the doctor of choice would practically always be a dermatologist, not a psychiatrist) and thus get counted in statistics.
[Disclaimer: the next three are entirely based on external sources since no mods have first-hand experience with them.]
Capgras syndrome: a delusional misidentification syndrome where the person believes that someone else has been replaced by a clone/double/impostor. Most commonly the person who was "replaced" is a close family member or a spouse. Rarely, a person can also think that multiple people or a group were "replaced". Very rarely, the person with the delusion might think that they themself have been "replaced".
The delusion might be persecutory in nature, where the person believes the "clone" is there to spy on them or hurt them. This can sometimes lead to attempts of "unmasking" or confronting the "impostor" in an attempt to get their loved one "back".
Fregoli syndrome: a delusional misidentification syndrome where the person believes that strangers or acquaintances are someone they know in disguise. While generally it centers around people, it can also happen with animals or objects. It usually has a persecutory aspect to it, where the person thinks the "disguised" person is trying to follow or harm them in some way.
Cotard syndrome: also sometimes known as "walking corpse syndrome". It's a wide-spectrum delusion where the person believes that they already are dead, are currently dying, are immortal (and thus unable to die), have died but were reborn in some way, or just don't exist. People who have it might also believe that their organs are gone, rotting, or dying. Some can also abandon their basic human needs (such as eating) since they think it's no longer necessary.
Cotard syndrome is very rare in real life, especially in young people.
This is not an exhaustive list, just some examples.
Delusions FAQ
[Plain text: Delusions FAQ]
Q: What do delusions feel like?
A: So, it primarily depends on "insight"—whether the person has no, low, or high insight into their own delusion. The vast majority of people who experience delusions will have very little to no insight during their psychotic episodes.
Delusions feel like every other thing that's real, except they aren't, well, real. During a psychotic episode, delusions are facts as much as everything else around you. You don't question them since they feel obvious.
In delusions, there's lack of proof—which can be filled in by hallucinations (person believes they have a lethal disease, and starts hallucinating symptoms), explained by the delusion itself (person believes that someone else is in love with them, and interprets regular behaviors as "signs"), or simply ignored (the average person also doesn't know how [random everyday technology] actually works, but knows that it's a real thing that exists—people don't tend to question things they simply consider to be true, even if they don't really understand them).
Q: How to describe delusions in a sensitive manner?
A: To quote myself from earlier: sensitivity and delusions is less about being sensitive about the delusions, and more about the person having them. Delusions can be of anything, about anything, they can sound stupid and seem absurd to outsiders. I'm not saying "write the most ridiculous delusion you can think of for fun", more so "yes, some people do have unusual beliefs due to having the Unusual Belief Disorder".
Delusions are frustrating for everyone involved almost by definition. They aren't true and they directly affect what you believe, so they make you believe nonsense. And you can't "just explain lol" to the person that what they're saying/thinking is untrue because, well, it's a delusion. By definition, the belief being verifiably false really doesn't matter.
What's important to remember is that the delusional person isn't doing it on purpose. It's not a case of someone Purposefully Spreading Misinformation or rejecting factual data to further their agenda, it's a mental illness. Portraying it as a choice or some moral failure is simply incorrect. You can't just "opt-out" and magically stop being delusional.
So, what to actually do?
Recognize that delusions generally aren't fun. Obviously, everyone's experience is different, but delusions tend to be distressing. Persecutory ones will almost always be very negative, while a religious or grandiose one could even feel positive for someone if they think they are an angel or have some amazing talent.
Try to show the character's feelings in a sympathetic way, not a mocking one. What they believe isn't true, but their feelings are as real as anyone else's.
It's also important to remember that a delusion is something you genuinely believe. Try to put yourself in that position: you simply know some things. What your name is, how your pet looks like, where you live, whatever. If someone tried to convince you that you are wrong about these things, you'd think they're crazy. Imagine your coworker talking to you like they know your home life better than you do. Depending on the exact circumstances, you would probably have some sort of reaction—whether that be anger, being baffled, or just kinda weirded out.
It's the same when someone is delusional, and the "things you simply know" just happen to not actually be true.
This kinda leads to considering the ways in which a delusional character interacts with others. Some delusions are ignorable—the other character can kinda just nod and change the topic and move on. Others are a bit more in your face (e.g. the character thinks they are some higher being, or they think the character they're directly talking to wants to hurt them). Again, just telling someone "that's not true lol" doesn't really do much, if anything it can make the delusion worse (again: imagine you confront someone who you think is poisoning you, and they just say "um but I'm not?? what are you talking about lol you sound crazyy"). Try to consider what the relationship between the characters is, and what their personalities are—are they considerate, are they impatient, do they understand how the delusions affect the other character? Does the other character realize/know that the psychotic character is in psychosis at all?
Q: How do I incorporate delusions into a character's voice realistically?
A: TLDR: It's can be hard to make dialogue that sounds realistic for a character who has the disconnect-with-reality disorder.
First, try to consider how your character experiences their delusions in general. Are they extremely disturbed and can't stop thinking about their delusion when they're having an episode, or is it more of a background noise?
If it's disturbing them, then it probably won't sound realistic. When the delusion is all-consuming, the person having it might talk about it in circles and relate everything to it. Depending on how the psychotic character actually behaves, other characters might feel like they're being pranked because it just seems like "too much". It might be "like in the movies". The character can be going in circles trying to figure out how to stop NASA from broadcasting their thoughts around the globe; this happens.
At the same time, sometimes the delusion is much more covert. Sometimes on purpose (e.g. character with persecutory delusions believes that they are being observed, and doesn't want the observer to realize that they are aware of the observing, so they actively choose not mention anything about it), sometimes as a by-product of the way the delusion affects them (e.g. character with an erotomanic delusion isn't distressed by it, and they just vaguely mention their 'partner' in a way that doesn't really even tip anyone off).
If it's the first, you might be dealing with a character who is simply nervous/hiding something (because, well, they are). They might avoid certain topics or visibly get more stressed if the conversation goes into uncomfortable territory.
If it's the second, it will probably be more subtle. Perhaps you-wouldn't-be-able-to-tell-it's-a-delusion subtle. It depends on the character's exact delusion. Some would just be considered non-events (they say they have a partner who's famous, or that they are accomplished in some way), relatively normal/common events (partner is cheating on them, they have some serious illness), and some would be clearly bizarre (they say that their parents have been replaced by robotic clones, or that they are some mythical creature). If it's the first or the second, there might be no "tell", or maybe there will be some logical errors that other characters can catch on to, maybe there will be some inconsistencies when the character asks about it further, or maybe there will be nonsensical changes that happen between different retellings of the story that let others know something is off.
If it's the third clearly-bizarre option, then the "delusion reveal" might feel like it's coming out of nowhere, or create a sudden tone shift. It will be explained further in the post more, but psychosis isn't always obvious. Sometimes you learn that someone is psychotic because they say one thing that makes absolutely no sense. Again: it might feel abrupt, unexpected, other characters might think that they are being pranked at first. Just don't make the narrative make fun or mock the delusional character.
As to what you shouldn't do: no matter how delusional someone is, people still have other traits. Delusions aren't a replacement for backstory, relationships, preferences, or personality. They can and do affect them (and vice-versa), but if all the character talks about is their delusions, it will come off as either boring and flat, or a parody.
Psychosis FAQ
[Plain text: Psychosis FAQ]
Q: Can psychosis go undetected by the people around the person experiencing it, or is it very obvious?
A: Depends (sorry). But yes, sometimes it can absolutely go undetected, especially in case of a person experiencing mundane non-bizarre delusions and/or hallucinations.
It can also depend on the actual cause of the psychosis—for example, schizophrenia often comes with disorganized speech (among other things) which is definitely noticeable.
On the other hand, delusional disorder is often referred to as a "high functioning" disorder where it can be very hard for others to notice anything is wrong. It's generally characterized by non-bizarre delusions, unremarkable behavior ("not odd"), relatively non-impaired functioning, and any hallucinations that come with it are relatively minor and most importantly, fit the theme of the (probable) delusion.
My own absolutely worst psychotic episode went undetected by everyone I was living with at the time (in a tiny apartment at that). For someone else, a stranger could notice that they are experiencing psychosis from the other side of the road. It's a very wide spectrum, and a person can be on different ends of it at different times of their life.
It's basically: could you tell that your coworker who is ranting about their wife cheating on them is having a psychotic episode? Because they could be, and you probably wouldn't even consider it as an option since it's a very mundane delusion. On the other hand, if the coworker told you that their wife has been replaced by an identical evil clone overnight, you will know there's something going on because that's not a thing that happens.
Q: What impacts what hallucinations and delusions come up? Are they random?
A: As far as I'm aware, there's no actual research on this. We know that certain types of hallucinations and delusions are more common in specific disorders (e.g. in schizophrenia, auditory hallucinations and persecutory delusions are more common than other types), but that's about it. We don't know why certain people hallucinate cats meowing, and other ones hear demonic screaming.
Anecdotally speaking, people tend to stick to their delusions rather than have a completely new kind every time they have a new psychotic episode. It could be literally the same delusion following them ("the government is watching me"), it could branch out over time ("the government is spying on me and stealing my thoughts"), or incorporate other delusions that still somewhat connect, either in theme (in this case persecutory) or in subject (in this case government-related). In my experience, it would be very unusual for a person to have a psychotic episode where their delusions center around one thing with a specific theme, go into remission, and then have their next episode center something completely different with a fully unrelated theme (excluding "major event happening between the two episodes" type stuff).
Having unrelated hallucinations is more frequent since multimodality is very common.
The content of delusions or hallucinations is essentially "anything". It can be related to trauma, but doesn't have to. It can be related to the person's daily life, but doesn't have to. It can make sense from the outside, but doesn't have to.
Q: What do antipsychotics do from a more first-person perspective? How do they affect the symptoms of psychosis?
A: Make you sleepy... no, the biggest thing my antipsychotics have done when dosed correctly and on the right mix is they have helped give me a tool to more easily establish what is real or true and not. Even "in remission", a person with psychosis may experience hallucinations or mild delusions. It's less the symptoms that stop and more that they stop being as disturbing and disruptive, in my (mod bert again!) experience. They do not affect speech or negative symptoms for me, however.
Other mod here! When on the wrong antipsychotic, my delusions and hallucinations got meaner. They were more persecutory and I also experienced "old" hallucinations that I had not seen in a while returning. However, on my best dosage, my antipsychotics made my hallucinations nicer and quieter. Not as in like literally less loud, but they became easier to ignore. Like above, I have never seen an improvement in my speech or cognitive symptoms from medication.
Q: What kind of things can trigger a psychotic episode?
A: Technically speaking, anything can. It depends a lot on the actual disorder causing the psychosis (no points for guessing what triggers an episode in someone who has Medication-Induced Psychotic Disorder), but the most common triggers would be:
high stress,
recent traumatic event,
substance use,
sleep deprivation,
and social isolation.
My symptoms can be triggered by talking about them or seeing content similar to my hallucinations and delusions. For example, hearing a bible story triggered a religious hallucination, etc.
Sometimes the trigger is also "nothing" as far as the person experiencing the episode knows.
Things to Avoid
[Plain text: Things to Avoid]
Violent psychotic characters, especially ones that kill others because of "the voices"/"the visions". Psychotic people are much more likely to be violent towards themselves than anyone else.
Magical psychotic characters where the psychiatric disorder is some sort of magic system mechanic. A mentally ill character can have powers or whatever, but don't make symptoms into something they aren't.
Delusions/hallucinations that predict the future or have some other kind of omniscient quality to them. Again, this is a real medical condition, not a writing prompt.
Rule of thumb: would you still make the character psychotic even if their symptoms served no purpose in terms of worldbuilding and/or establishing something supernatural? Because if the answer is no, you have to rethink some things.
Psychotic characters who always have to be one of the like, four possible character archetypes (evil cannibalistic serial killer/mad scientist/Victorian era child in a horror movie/side character whose delusions are played for a joke and/or to show how 'dumb' they are).
Things We Want to See
[Plain text: Things We Want to See]
Regular people who just happen to be psychotic because of a mental health condition.
Psychotic characters who also experience other symptoms of their condition. Schizophrenia, the most commonly portrayed psychotic disorder, has many more symptoms than just that.
Psychotic characters who aren't young. Elderly people are actually the most likely to develop psychosis, childhood onset is extremely rare in comparison.
Psychotic characters who aren't white, physically abled men. Your character can be of literally any background, anyone can develop psychosis. In media it's almost exclusively either white men with poorly "researched" schizophrenia to portray them as crazy and dangerous, or sometimes women with delusions (usually erotomanic/jealousy type for obvious reasons) to portray them as crazy and unbearable to be around.
Characters who experience other kinds of hallucinations than just auditory and visual ones.
Characters who experience cognitive and speech symptoms.
Characters with other disabilities.
Characters who need a lot of support as a direct result from their psychosis. This should be portrayed as a neutral thing.
Psychotic characters who still have a social life! And hobbies!
Characters with MDD [major depressive disorder] that experience hallucinations/psychosis as a result. This was something I experienced during one of my worse periods and I have quite literally never seen anyone talk about MDD with psychosis outside of a medical context.
