I make stories, theoretically

There are going to be days (or weeks, or months) where you sit down to write and feel... disconnected. From your voice, from your characters, from your ideas. Like the person who used to write your stories just packed up and left.

They didn't. They're just tired. Here's how to keep writing anyway:

Lower the bar (Until it's on the floor) You are not here to write something brilliant. You are here to write something. A paragraph. A sentence. A single line of dialogue. Movement matters way more than quality.

Write around the story Don't force it. If you can't write the scene, try: ⋆ A character ramble / journal entry ⋆ A conversation that won't be included in the final draft ⋆ A list of things the character would never admit out loud ⋆ A messy summary of what should happen Engage with the story from a different angle.

Borrow a voice until yours comes back No, not with AI. Read something that feels close to what you want to write, or watch a scene that captures the tone, then write immediately after. Not to copy, to reignite your instincts.

Write the emotion, not the plot. What is your character feeling in this moment? What are they afraid of? What do they want but won't say? What's being kept from them? The emotion leads, the plot catches up later.

Stop trying to "feel like a writer" first. You don't write when you feel like a writer. You feel like a writer because you write.

For me, opening a new doc and placing it side-by-side against what I've written, and then transcribing what's already been done (and editing in the process) helps ground me in the scene/chapter/voice/characters and helps me discover ways to get unstuck (maybe I didn't explore an emotion earlier that needed to be dug into. Maybe they should not have left that room when they did and lingered longer. Maybe the conversation needed to get cut off before the character made the statement that derails everything). Starting from the beginning is like re-tracing your steps and editing at the same time, and most times it really helps get the brain closer to where it needs to be.

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

Okay. Grammar lesson!

"People of color" is a noun. So use it as a noun.

"I am speaking about people of color."

People who are of color. People. People is a noun.

It is not, as the Internet likes to use it, an adjective!

"POC characters!" is the color blind racist equivalent of "colored characters!"

Do you want to call me colored? Is that the racism we really want to use? Old 1960s racism? Shall I go to the colored water fountain next? I'm sorry- the POC water fountain?

If you are talking about all non-white people as a group, use "People of Color".

"White people are used to being the default- which is why they get to be White and the rest of us are People of Color. The Other."

If you are talking about a specific group of people, and you KNOW that, then SAY their group and NOT "people of color".

"I am not just a person of color, I am Black. Antiblackness is about Black people, not all people of color. Otherwise, I'd just say racism. Words have meaning!"

Further resource:

It’ll depend on your art style so here’s a very simple “cheat sheet” that should hopefully help regardless! I’ll also be reblogging this post with examples of my own art!

Text in image under cut:

Hair doesn’t always lose pigmentation!

PART: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

LANGUAGES

Ancient Greek ⚜ Arabic ⚜ Chinese ⚜ Czech ⚜ Danish

Dutch ⚜ English ⚜ French ⚜ German ⚜ Greek ⚜ Hindi

Italian ⚜ Japanese ⚜ Korean ⚜ Middle English

Norwegian ⚜ Portuguese ⚜ Romanian ⚜ Russian

Spanish ⚜ Swedish ⚜ Yiddish ⚜ Yupik & Iñupiat

COLOURS

Black ⚜ Blue ⚜ Brown ⚜ Green ⚜ Grey ⚜ Orange

Pink ⚜ Purple ⚜ Red ⚜ Variegation ⚜ White ⚜ Yellow

WORDS

Instead of "Beautiful" ⚜ Untranslatable Words ⚜ Archaic Words

COLLECTIONS

For Intimate Scenes ⚜ Found in a Virtual Space

"Poetic" Words: Part 1 2 ⚜ "Ugly" Words

Seasons: Autumn ⚜ Spring ⚜ Summer ⚜ Winter

Amélie ⚜ Anne Frank ⚜ Rebecca ⚜ Sylvia Plath

The Count of Monte Cristo ⚜ The Secret History