✴︎chaos department✴︎

Something I had to unlearn: giving your character a tragic backstory is not the same as giving them a wound. A backstory is just information. A wound is the thing that makes them flinch at something totally unrelated fifteen chapters later and the reader goes "oh." If the backstory doesn't leave a nerve ending somewhere in the present-day plot, cut it. Nobody needs the trauma. They need the flinch.

the idea that every summer will be as hot if not hotter than this for the rest of my life is unbearable i need to (remembers suicide jokes are bad for my mental health) murder an oil executive

i have a suggestion

This makes me feel like such a boomer, but I hate it how all media has been TikTok-ified and algorithm primed. Songs are shorter, designed for short viral clips rather than a full listening experience. TV shows and movies are sloppier, dragging on and on, assuming you’ll be on your phone and have it only in the background. Even books have been chewed up and spat back out as easily consumable tropes, with bite-sized chapters and mannequins for characters. This late stage capitalism hellscape we’re in has made art into something you snack on rather than savor.

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING !!!!!!!

Nobody warns you that writing a slow burn means YOU also have to suffer for 300 pages waiting for them to just kiss already

after crying for an hour and opening up to my lovely partner, I have decided that the good karma will follow and all this suffering will be more than paid off. we'll make this, I know it... even if it takes little bit time. I just need to be patient.

okay not to ocpost again but the worst thing about having an oc is sometimes they become The Character to you. and you need to talk to someone about it like wow I can’t stop thinking about The Character… but in order to do so you have to like sit them down and explain everything about your oc first. and then it’s just you explaining your writing ideas. i need to talk about them the same way i would talk about any random character i love to someone.

but !! when you finally explain everything and they get it, it's sooooo freeing. ESPECIALLY when the other person gets as invested and they're like "lol, this reminds me of [my oc]" ....ah. true love. <3

it takes me a week or a day.. unless it's f/m, then i'll just write few sentences, cringe and leave it for the better day.... (it's been months) (for some reason i can only write gay stuff... hm....)

a lot of writing is sort of watching the film in your head like oh sorry can’t write the chapter yet i have to repeat hallucinate the dialogue first

i think i don't really vibe with most other fans of my favorite male characters is because they usually depict them too much of a man, and i am not interested in men, i am interested in The Character. and i am not saying that they should depict them as women, or nonbinary, or should depict them as feminine, no, not at all. but there's like, you know, you can depict a male character as The Character, and you can depict them as The Man. do you get me? like, i go to the fandom looking for art and fics, and it's just, regardless of his actual characterization, it's all just fantasizing about some kind of an abstract dominant patriarch, wearing my favorite character's face. it may be the most totally-wouldnt-have-normal-relationships (and sometimes even would-literally-abuse-you) kind of guy, and you join a dedicated space for his fans, and all they talk about is how they want to marry and start a tradcore 50s style nuclear family with him. it can be a guy who's arrogance and attempts of domination are explicitly shown to be a facade that hide the fact that he's actually kind of a massive pathetic wet loser, and you go to his fics, and they're all depicting him as a caricaturish daddy dom. at this point it's like, do you even like the character at all, or do you just like The Man, and project this man onto whatever character you find visually attractive? and these people kind of, really really poison actual discussion of the character, who is kind of a fucked up evil person (i only like *those* types, so im talking about them) because they see analysis of the actual character as an attack on their fantasized daddy dom husband, who is actually isn't The Character at all, and is simply a face of the day for The Man

!!!!!!!