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We’ve seen an influx of questions about how to write stories based around characters of color, disability, non-binary, etc. when the author does not fall into these categories. Rather than have these posts take over the site, we’ve decided to compile a list of resources to help our fellow writers become more educated about writing what they do not immediately know. However, this list is not the end-all-be-all of knowledge; one should always try to learn from someone with first hand experience in any topic. The world is constantly growing and changing, and because of that, there will always be more to learn. The admins at Plotline Hotline want to help writers form respectful, informed, and realistic characters that broaden the narrow range we see in literature today. 

*Be wary that some of the topics listed below contain sensitive material. Reader discretion is advised.* 

As always, the links I found to be especially apt will be in bold. Topics are listed alphabetically, excepting the “other” section.

Culture

Appropriate Cultural Appropriation

What is Cultural Appropriation? [1,2,3]

Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible

Voice Appropriation & Writing About Other Cultures

Diversity, Appropriation, and Writing the Other [List]

Disability

Writing Disibilities [1,2,3,4,5]

Guides to Writing Deaf or Hard of Hearding People

National Association of the Deaf - Resources [List]

World Federation of the Deaf

Using a Prosthetic Device

Prostehtic Limbs (Character Guide)

How NOT to Write Disabled Characters

A Guide to Disibility Rights Law (United States)

Timeline of Disibility Rights in the United States

Social Security Disability: List of Impairments, Medical Conditions, and Problems [List] (United States)

How to Write Disabled Characters: An Opinion Piece

Artificial Eye Resources [List][Various]

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Misconceptions and Myths About Blindness

Blind Characters: A Process of Awareness

Writing Blind Characters [List]

Types of Learning Disabilities [List]

Diversity

A Guide to Spotting and Growing Past Stereotypes

How to Prepare to Write a Diverse Book

The Diversity of Writing

Why Diversity Matters for Everyone

Writing a Driverse Book [1,2,3,4,5]

Diversity, Political Correctness and The Power of Language

Diversity Book List [List][Books]

Basic Tips To Write Subcultures & Minority Religions Better 

Basic Tips to Avoid Tokenism

Gender

GLAAD Media Reference Guide - Transgender

Creating Well-Written Trans Characters

A Few Things Writers Need To Know About Sexuality & Gender Expression

Trans (Character Guide & Bio Building)

A Non-Binary Person’s Guide to Invented Pronouns

Gender Neutral Writing [List]

Keeping a Trans* Person a Person  

Suggestions for Reducing Gendered Terms in Language [Photo]

How to Review a Trans Book as a Cis Person

Writing Characters of Different Genders [List]

Understanding Gender

Gender Spectrum Resources [List]

Gender History

Illness 

Writing Chronic Illness [1,2]

The Spoon Theory - Also pertains to disibility

About HIV/AIDS

Sexually Transmitted Diseases [List]

Sexually Transmitted Infections

Sex and Gender Differences in Health [Study]

All Chronic Illness Topics [List]

Coping with Chronic Illness

All Cancer Types

A Day in the Life of a Home Health Aide/Health Coach

Fiction Books With Chronically Ill Main Characters- Not Cancer [List][Books]

Neurotype (Including Mental Health)

Writing an Autistic Character When You Don’t Have Autism

Depression Resources [List]

What to Consider When Writing Mental Illness

Stanford Psychiatric Patient Care

Inpatient Psychiatric Questions and Tips

Don’t Call Me Crazy [Documentary]

(Avoid) Romanticizing Mental Illness [1,2]

A Day in the Life of a Mental Hospital Patient

State-run vs. Private Mental Hospitals

Mental Disorders

Mental Hospital Non-Fiction [List][Books]

National Institute of Mental Health - Mental Health Information [List]

Writing Autistic

What Causes PTSD?

Remember, Remember: The Basics of Writing Amnesia

ADHD Basic Information

What is a Learning Disability?

What is Neurotypical?

Race

Writing Race: A Checklist for Authors

Transracial Writing for the Sincere

Is my character “black enough”

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Challenge, Counter, Controvert: Subverting Expectations

Writing With Color: Blogs - Recs - Resources [List]

Writing People of Color (If you happen to be a person of another color)

7 Offensive Mistakes Well-Intentioned Writers Make

Description Guide - Words for Skin Tone

Religion

Religion in Novels: Terrific or Taboo?

How to Write a Fantasy Novel that Sells: The Religion

Writing About Faith And Religion

From Aladdin to Homeland: How Hollywood Can Reinforce Racial and Religious Stereotypes 

Sexuality

Understanding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity [List]

Writing Gay Characters [1,2,3]

American Civil Liberties Union - LGBT+ Rights

LGBT+ Rights by Country or Territory

History of Gay Rights

Gay Rights Movement

LGBT+ Culture

Gay Myths and Stereotypes

LGBT+ Studies Web Sites [List]

LGBTQ Youth Issues

LGBTData.com

Overview of Gay and Lesbian Parenting, Adoption and Foster Care (United States)

Other

How Doctors’ Offices—and Queer Culture—Are Failing Autistic LGBTQ People

Five Traps and Tips for Character Development

Developing Realistic Characters

I hope that this list will provide topics a writer may not initially think to research when writing. If there are any resources that you think would be fitting for this list, please let us know! We want to have as many helpful sources as possible to maximize learning opportunities. 

Stay educated,

Hi everybody! I was studying for my biology finals when I suddenly noticed, A LOT of it could be used for writing. Especially science-fiction and fantasy where authors often create new species. I decided to create a post all about it, in the hopes of helping some of you out!

How to get started

“What makes a scpecies scientifically realistic?” When they fit in their environment. This applies to all creatures living in relatively stable environments. If, say a magician, has just created a new species and just puts it in the forest, it might not fit in there. It will either have to adapt itself (through evolution) or it goes extinct. It might even change the environment in some ways! So the environment is the key factor to how a species lives.

So, before you go around creating some species, you first need to think about where they live. I highly advise you to build an environment for them as the first step and then actually create the species. It does not have to be complicated at all, as long as you get some of the basics down.

You might think about so called “abiotic factors”. Those are basically environmental factors, that aren’t based on life. This includes:

How intense is the light? (Is there a lot of light throughout the day?)

How much water is there?

What is the temperature?

Where is the water? (lakes? in the air? in the ground?)

What does the ground consist of? (stone, sand, soil, etc.?)

Are there seasons/what changes during the seasons? (are there any seasons at all? What are they like?)

And the list goes on. Please keep in mind that you do not need to know any exact numbers or whatever. It’s enough if you know a little bit about it (e.g. there is very intense light from sunrise to sunset). You also don’t need to have every single one of these factors thought out, in the end it would get too complicated. Now, these factors directly influence how the plants/animals live in this area. I will be talking about more specific things that happen later (only with the animals!). What to do with these informations now? Think about it; Have you ever seen full grown, green trees in the desert? Have you ever seen a flower in winter? This way you can roughly get an image of your plants/animals in your head.

Then there are biotic factors. Those are factors that are based on life. Some examples:

What other species live in the area?

Who hunts who?

Are there plants?

What kind of/how many plants are there?

There are obviously a lot more of those. Especially when it comes to concurrence, it can have an influence on how many individuals of the species there are. Keep in mind that just because a population has a lot of predators, it doesn’t mean that there are only a very small amount of their prey living. They might be perfectly adapted to having so many predators.

Based on this knowledge, you can roughly think about how your species behaves, where it lives and so on.

Traits of animals on the earth

So, now that we know the environment of the species, it’s time to actually create it! I have decided to list a few traits that species living in certain places on earth show and that are very common.

Animals living in dry places usually have a few special traits that help them survive the dryness and with it most probably also the heat. Living beings very, very rarely live in places hotter than 45°C (113° Fahrenheit). This is because the proteins in their bodies break when it’s hotter; and these destructions cannot be reversed. To add: All life depends on these proteins. In order to save as much water as possible, animals living in deserts do not sweat (or only a tiny little bit), have a very concentrated urin and there is barely any water to find in their excrements. If their body temperature normally stays the same (mammals and birds have a constant body temperature), it may be able to have a higher tolerance border without doing any harm (it would kill us humans quickly if the temperature rose only by 10%). This is a thing, so no water has to be used to cool them down. Camels have a lot of fat in their humps. This is both an energy store and a water ressource, as the burning of this fat produces water. Even their nose is designed to save water! There’s a rule in biology that animals living in hot places are smaller than their relatives living in cold places (e.g. penguins in the Antarctic and the ones living in Australia). They also have bigger body attachments (ears, tails, etc.) than the ones living in the cold. Some animals simply move to places with more water during dry periods (mostly if the deficiency is due to the seasons). Very few animals (mostly microorganisms) shrink down in size and sort of “sleep” in order to not waste any water. As soon as there’s water again, they grow back to their normal size.

Animals living in cold places are more or less the opposite. They are bigger, have very small body attachments. A lot of animals sleep during the winter, some of them can be woken up rather easily (bears) and some of them not. They usually have a thick fur or any other type of protection against the below freezing temperatures. If their body temperature drops below 0°C (32° Fahrenheit) they would die. Some animals take advantage of their bodily fluids freezing; but only those, that have a body temperature that can vary (i.e. reptiles, fish). They let their body “freeze” and just wait until winter is over. A few species specifically create fluids with a lower freezing point.

Animals living underwater often do not breathe through lungs. If they do, they have to breathe over the water surface (but they can keep their breath for quite a long time). Their bodies are in an “auqadynamic” shape, making it easy for them to move through water.

Light is the main source of energy. Plants are only able to produce oxygen and biotic material when there’s light around. And that’s what every single species needs, in order to survive (as long as it isn’t able to produce oxygen). But it plays a much bigger role. It synchronises the rhythms of all animals. When to get up, when to go back to sleep, when birds should start singing, when to release hormones, etc. It tells certain animals when summer’s coming/going, so they can move.  It tells them when to search for a partner to make some babies.

June’s Featured Game: Queen Mary’s Script Retold

DEVELOPER(S): Gabicho ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace GENRE: Adventure WARNINGS: N/A SUMMARY: Queen Mary’s Script is a tale of a young girl who finds a happy escape in her own dreams. She lives in a shell closed off from the world and only in her own room can she express her feelings. That is, until she happens upon the doll Clause and all at once, the magic she yearned for in her life is thrust upon her. However, she soon finds that magic isn’t always what it looks like in books and dolls are just as selfish as humans.

Download the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Marisa Kirisame × Alice Margatroid from Touhou

This artwork is once again a collaboration with my wife: Orange

※Visit Orange’s page here: TWITTER→ https://twitter.com/Orangesekaii INSTAGRAM→ https://www.instagram.com/orangesekaii (Most active)

credits Marisa + background by Kawacy. Alice + her dolls by Orangesekaii.

Learn from your doodles rather than resent them

I frequently see artists complain that their finished works got less attention than mere sketches, doodles and other smaller or less serious work. Which is frustrating! But almost as often, I can see exactly why the doodle got more attention. I’m going to cover some of these reasons, so you can use that information so you can do more than fume about it.

The doodle is easy to read, the polished work is busy

The polished work is completely drenched in little details that the artist slaved over, but the details create a kind of overall noise that makes everything harder to understand, making the whole image less appealing.

Don’t get too lost in little details, work from larger shapes to small details, use things like a highly readable silhouette, contrast, variance in line width or negative space to keep the image understandable. Pay attention to the composition to guide the eye where you want it.

The doodle is high contrast, the polished work is low contrast

When you do lots of details all equally well lit and easy to see, overall you lose the strong lights and darks that make a work pop. You have to sacrifice some of those details, let them be in shadow or out of focus in the background, to create a more appealing image overall.

You might also be forgetting that without lineart you need to use strong lights and darks, since lineart creates it’s own natural high contrast.

Contrast draws the eye, use that to create focus where you want it.

The doodle is simple to understand, the polished work is highly ambiguous in meaning and message

Many doodles that outstrip the artist’s polished work are jokes. Jokes usually have a specific clear focus and message, the viewer can understand it immediately (if they couldn’t, it wouldn’t be funny). You don’t have to make everything funny, but like a joke, you need to get to the point and give the audience the information they need to “get it.” More details can be present, but the viewer should not be confused about what to look at from the outset. Remember: people will look at and interpret your art in milliseconds. They might give it a longer look but only AFTER that millisecond look.

The initial glance is like the first page of a book. If it wows them they keep looking to understand more, if they are lost and confused, no second chances, they’ve already scrolled away.

You can use things like composition, basic structures of shapes and simple shape symbolism to give viewers the initial information they need to stay interested. Don’t feel like you have to abandon more personal and difficult to parse symbolism, these things can work together to create intrigue.

The doodle is fluid and expressive, the polished work is stiff and dead

The sketch for your polished work needs to be done with spontaneity and fluidity. When you want to really flex your drawing skills and show the world your beautiful realistic human faces, your sublime anatomy, gorgeous textures - it’s easy to forget about the undersketch and jump to rendering as soon as you can, creating a stiff or boring sketch that isn’t worthy of all the time you’re sinking into the minute details.

Practice quick gestures, read up on line of action, and before you make a polished painting, make sure you have a sketch that’s fun to look at even without the detailed rendering. Thumbnailing helps. Studies too. Sometimes you have to do the bad boring sketch, but you can take a few stabs at it.

You can’t make a bad sketch good by painting more details on it, you need to work out the sketch first before moving to the details.

Remember, if you’re going to spend 20 hours painting the thing, you can afford another half hour sketching a few different takes on your idea before digging in.

Lots of doodles, very few polished works

If you mostly post one kind of thing, your audience will be people who like that. Also, you may not have much practice with the techniques you are using in the polished work, while you have become a pro at doodles. You become an expert at what you practice, do more of what you want to be known for, become an expert at it, make it the only thing your audience is there for.

The audience is familiar with the subject of the doodle, unfamiliar with the subject of the polished work

Many artists do doodles of fanart and get fed up that people like that more, but the truth is, they don’t like it “more” they just already know they like it. You can increase the chances of people appreciating your original works by making sure they can understand what’s going on in the illustration without prior knowledge of who these characters are, or simply sticking to it until you have garnered an audience. Just keep at it.

Remember, the creators of the property you made fanart of are themselves artists who were pushing an original idea at one time. You can follow in their footsteps.

The doodle is quirky and unusual, the polished work is stale and samey

This can happen when an artist has an image in their head of what a SERIOUS and PROFESSIONAL painting looks like, usually based on a very narrow subset of artwork, often itself based on the same cargo cult of seriousness.

Try studying works outside your usual stomping grounds. Look to artists that likely inspired your faves (if you’re talking about realistic artists who inspired your favorite concept artists, here’s some likely culprits to get you started on the google search: JC Leyendecker, Alphonse Mucha, Norman Rockwell, James Gurney, Rembrandt), look to artists outside your genre, and look at your doodles and ask yourself what “not serious, just for fun” source of inspiration is making them so fresh and vibrant that your audience is connecting to them so strongly. Study that, respect that fun and try to pull it into your serious work.

The polished work was hard to make and no one cares

Being an artist is hard, and that we keep at it is commendable, but struggling and taking more hours doesn’t make a piece better necessarily.

There are a few things to consider here. First, you need to realize looking to the vague faceless masses of the internet for a fatherly “I’m proud of you, son” moment is always going to be disappointing and painful and attempting to guilt strangers into fulfilling that role for you is awkward and inappropriate. You need artist friends who can recognize your hard work and cheer you on and you need to be your own cheerleader, value your own hard work and practice.

Second, you need to realize torturing yourself doesn’t in and of itself make art better. Hard work is something people love about art, the meaning of someone spending that time, but if I screamed for 8 hours, drew a single line, then posted that, the internet wouldn’t be wrong to be unexcited about it. Rather than blame the viewer, think about two things: how can you make the art itself more appealing while still doing the painting that you’re interested in doing, and how can you do that faster and with less pointless suffering?

It’s okay to be a masochist when it comes to art, many artists are, just make sure you’re spending your time and suffering wisely.

You’re complaining about someone else’s “doodle”

Sketches and cartoons are deceptively hard to make appealing, rather than fume that they are getting more attention, look to them for lessons. What could you learn from them? Could you do it? Maybe you should try. Would make a good exercise.

And never get mad that their drawings are more appealing to the internet than yours, even though they spent less time on their drawing than you did on yours. See above for why time is not important here, but also keep in mind they may have been practicing longer than you or may be more established than you.

pure cinnamon roll character: *exists*