Hello, if your not busy, could you do 2 and 16 for the ask game please? I adore your writing!
It's been 2 million years but:
2. What are some common elements of stories you are tired of seeing? What would you avoid writing about?
I can't stand love triangles when polyamory exists. I know that like, often people wanting to write love triangles don't give a single shit about polyamory, it just, personally, is something I can't stand. There's very few circumstances where I can be bothered with plotlines like that, because it feels like it showcases all the most like...immature ways of handling jealousy.
I also don't love "classic" happy endings that are very heteronormative in nature, by which I mean, marriage and/or babies. A HEA that features these things to me, is not actually that happy if I don't believe the couple will last through their first big serious argument, or if their banter is so aggressive as to still be borderline abusive (don't get me wrong, I love a toxic couple, I just also think they can be mega incompatible with a stereotypical HEA). I generally try to avoid writing things like this. Even when there's a marriage proposal, I don't write "typical" weddings, and I have no interest in it.
(But then I'm also someone who is politically against marriage irl, not for other people, but absolutely for myself. So that's no surprise).
The only other common element of stories I generally have no patience with is when a story will traumatise a character and then basically showcase all this rich meat on the bone re: characterisation and interpersonal dynamics and do absolutely nothing with it or worse literally forget about it once it's been used as a convenient plot point. That's really common in a lot of media, and while every author can explore trauma differently, it's very obvious when an author literally understands nothing about it and just uses it like a cheap prop bought at the dollar store (Game of Thrones excels at this, especially what the Benioff brothers did with it). And unfortunately that is all too common.
I don't mean that like, a PWP with rape needs to explore rape recovery, I mean like, fully fleshed out novels or shows, in genres like fantasy, science fiction, romance etc. I don't care if they don't do hurt/comfort with it, or resolve it, I just care that it's more than window dressing.
I mean my strong feelings about these things is very much why I write the way I do. Some of these themes are so common. Though it very much depends on genre!
16. What motives do you give your original characters? What drives them? How much tragedy did you subject them to?
There's genuinely too many to list to all of these questions. But needless to say, it's always more than one thing, not every motive is compatible (a character always has more than one goal, and more than one motive, and as with ourselves, sometimes those motives are incompatible - for example, Faber has a goal of appearing perfectly put together, and is a perfectionist, and also craves being validated as an omega, which diametrically is opposed by his need to appear perfect, due to it requiring the ugliness of vulnerability and imperfection, therefore his inner drives compete and clash and ultimately one is often trying to choke out the other in a death match in his head).
The most important thing to me is that all my main characters have more than one drive / motive etc. And the second most important thing is that at least one of those things not be compatible with something else to create internal conflict and mixed motivation (and unreliable narration). It's very few people in life who live in perfect alignment with themselves, for many of us, our values and ethics are important to us and sometimes still aspirational (like the person who wants to work out every day and just...doesn't, and then gets mad at themselves for it, but also wants to live a life where they're less angry at themselves lol).
Not only that, but sometimes people have surface or conscious values, and unconscious values, and it's important to know both in characters. As an example, Gwyn in the Fae Tales canon by and large had the conscious value to be a noble, respectable king to his people, but his unconscious drive was to get away from duty and live untethered to his responsibilities. Those things are quite opposed, so you see a man who attacks himself because he rejects the premise of his unconscious drive (which is going nowhere), his despair when his unconscious drive witnesses his "reality", and his inability to praise himself when he does live as a noble and respectable king, because it will never be enough for his unconscious drive.
So you see I could write an entire useless novel about the importance of character motive / drive / goal as concepts and also about the compatibility of those things within themselves and with other people. As an example, Gwyn's unconscious drive was compatible with Augus' deepest wish for his life with Gwyn, but Gwyn's conscious drive was so incompatible with Augus' deepest wish for his life with Gwyn, that he nearly ends the relationship over it. And so we get this very dynamic interplay where, if Gwyn is being more vulnerable and in touch with his unconscious drive, he's closer to Augus, but more unstable and so he seeks to correct and return to equilibrium, and Augus pushes for instability, because that's when he feels closest to Gwyn, which creates safety and trust issues, even though Gwyn also craves the instability, because it finally gives that unconscious drive a voice.
We can see this playing all the way through from the very beginning of Game Theory all the way through to the end in the final epilogue for Gwyn and Augus.
The conscious/unconscious drives of characters, as well as their ability to self-reflect, contain dissonance etc. these are all huge huge drivers of plot.
As to tragedy, well, in some cases it's obvious that tragedy creates and shapes many of these things in many of us. Sometimes it's a lot, sometimes it's a little. But tragedy is a tricky concept, I tend to think of it as trauma. Because no one talks about "tragedy recovery" but "trauma recovery" is a thing. And it's the recovery I'm most interested in, and how people live a meaningful life despite trauma. And there's also a difference between tragedy and trauma, the former is a lot more complex for me to contemplate, and becomes less useful to me conceptually because of it! But every author is different. :D
