be gay do crime

joining the war on pigeons on the side of pigeons

no one is coming to Save you but there are probably people coming to Help you and that rocks. embrace it

why did buck get dumped because tommy thought he was going to end up with someone else instead and then directly after that he went to eddie’s house where eddie had just decided to embrace joy and eddie opened the door with no pants on and smiled and smiled and smiled (with no pants on) while they drank beers on the couch together. and then the next season tommy told buck that the someone else he had implied buck would end up with was eddie. and then scoffed at the idea of eddie being straight. meanwhile they’re in the guys house. (but it’s not his because he’s a renter.) and then they haven’t followed up on that yet

Okay this took me embarrassingly long to figure out but, your character needs a thing they do that has nothing to do with the plot. A specific, weird, small habit. She counts stairs. He can't throw away receipts. She reorganises the fridge when she's anxious. It doesn't matter. It doesn't go anywhere. But the moment you give someone a habit that serves no narrative purpose they stop being a character and start being a person. And the reader can feel that difference immediately even if they can't name it.

the replacement of websites with apps sounds so backwards when you actually describe it. like hmm you have to download an entire program onto your device each time you want access to a portal, where it takes up storage indefinitely. somebody should invent an app where you can "browse" any portal just by typing in its address... 🥴

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.