Honest Things

I don’t want to hear any writing advice from Stephen king not because I think there would be no value in it but because whatever works for Stephen king is between him and god and that demon he made a pact with that lets him write 3000 words in one sitting daily.

fantasy is so fun until you have to name your countries and make a map someone please end my misery

i'd also add 'bridge' to that short list. there are SO many bridges in japanese place names

I need everyone’s best character advice. STAT.

You're not creating real people, you're creating the illusion of real people. You don't have to mention their favorite food if it doesn't come up, you don't even have to know it, though if they were actual people they'd have one. You can throw plot events at your characters to force them to take certain actions, or you could just rewrite the characters to be the kind of characters who would take those actions anyway. Your characters have a life of their own in their own little world, but don't be afraid to play god to get what you want out of them.

In the vast majority of cases, a character's strengths and flaws should be the same thing. There are exceptions (you can have a character be clumsy for the lols without needing to find some way that it's an advantage), but for most character traits, the difference between a flaw and a strength is the situation at hand and learning when to indulge it.

desire is the source of action, so your characters should WANT things. all of them should have something they want that's good for them, something they want that's bad for them, and something that's just a little silly, for spice.

Treat your secondary characters like they are the main characters of another story. I don't mean you have to know everything about them, but if their role in the story could be replaced by a cardboard cutout, then the story will feel flat where it encounters them. Give them their own motivation/wants/desires, and it will help you immensely in writing their interactions with the main character, and make the world seem bigger/more real to the reader.

Unlike real life, if you want anything out of your characters, you need to put them through meaningful hardship. Angst for the sake of angst is fun to toy with, but at the end of the day, there needs to be a reason for it or it's just not going to be interesting. Make sure that it's something that will get you more character out of your character.

hello tumblr user. in front of you stands a confident and outspoken character. your challenge today & forever is to consider the possibility they may simply have self-confidence and are not just faking to secretly cover up massive insecurities. good luck

"the average fandom person cannot imagine a truly confident person" is a working theory I came up with years ago and every single day on this website my conclusion has proved more & more correct

coming out swinging a year later to say that everyone saying that they do this because "insecure characters have more inherent depth than confident ones" is experiencing what is known as a Skill Issue. get a grip and figure out that there's approximately one million forms of depth and conflict you can write a character experiencing other than generalized fanfictionized Insecurity

Addendum: Not every character who is dutiful or selfless or high-achieving or whatever is covering for trauma. Some people are just this way because that’s how they’re made and there is nothing else to it.

hello tumblr user. in front of you stands a confident and outspoken character. your challenge today & forever is to consider the possibility they may simply have self-confidence and are not just faking to secretly cover up massive insecurities. good luck

"the average fandom person cannot imagine a truly confident person" is a working theory I came up with years ago and every single day on this website my conclusion has proved more & more correct

coming out swinging a year later to say that everyone saying that they do this because "insecure characters have more inherent depth than confident ones" is experiencing what is known as a Skill Issue. get a grip and figure out that there's approximately one million forms of depth and conflict you can write a character experiencing other than generalized fanfictionized Insecurity

Killed this ant that came in the kitchen and the next day it came right back but it was holding a needle. Killed it again and it came back the next day wearing a cape and then I noticed I had a giant HP bar labeled KITCHEN BEHEMOTH and I was like man cmon dont call me that

Your undodgeable bug-spray move is making it really hard to memorize your attack patern

I swear to god the other day I saw it parry a single drop of insecticide. It still died but that single drop hit my finger and I'm worried it's getting better

Wonder Woman casually making every woman she meets question their sexuality in such a way that they’re like “she has to be oblivious, she doesn’t know what she does to us” but she know. She know. 😏

Lois is like “hey Diana I noticed you make more of an effort to Americanize your accent around me but not around Karen or Selina, do I make you uncomfortable?” and Diana’s like “oh, no, I am simply aware of what my accent does to women. And you are married.”

It’s so funny to make headcanons for your own ocs because they COULD be canon but nah it would lowkey just be interesting if it was. Nothing at all is stopping me from making them canon but liek they’re just not. Schrödinger’s oc.

It's frustrating that you can come up with the plot of an entire fic in just a few seconds, but writing it all down can take anywhere from never to forever.

This is amazing. I need to go review all my tags xD

seeing straight men be disgusted by booktok smut recommenders has actually radicalized me to the side of booktok smut recommenders. girls your taste may be atrocious but i will never disparage you for exposing mainstream discourse to the concept of soaking through your underwear. spent my whole life listening to men talk about penises it’s about time they get jumpscared by women talking about pussy in crude detail on social media. go forth and goon my warriors