Wren Writes

Your protagonist's flaw isn't supposed to be charming. If readers find the flaw endearing, it's not actually costing the character anything, which means it's not a flaw, it's a personality quirk wearing a flaw's clothes. A real flaw should make the reader wince a little, should make them go "please don't do that" and then watch the character do it anyway. That wince is the whole point of writing one.

A non-writer asked me "but where do you get your ideas" and i genuinely did not know how to explain that it's not a place. it's not a website. it's not a folder. it's that i was on the bus and a woman was holding a paper bag very carefully and something about the way she held it made me need to know what was inside and then i needed to know why she was sad about it and then there was a whole person and then there was a whole story and the bus had already stopped and i missed my stop. that's where.

I do not get ideas from anywhere, the ideas get me. They lurk in the smile of a stranger, in the shadows of leaves swaying in an early summer breeze. They hide behind the tears of tragedy and in between the tentative rays of a winter dawn. They lie in wait and lurk and hide, awaiting to be seen. All I do is walk with open eyes.

Beautiful. My ideas barge into the room, bat in hand screaming “HEY, WRITE A FIC ABOUT BEN SOLO AND EDWARD CULLEN. MAKE EM KISS”