Delta

Nah. but they do have character descriptions (except for Harper) in their character bios. For ease of access

Rebel | Sigourney | Damiana | Verne | Franco | Riley

Everyone wants to write a morally grey character right now, and I get it, they're fun. But there's a very specific way this goes wrong, and it's that "morally grey" quietly turns into "good person who did one bad thing that one time." That's not grey. That's just a good guy with a sob story.

The Don'ts

Don't give them a bad action with a get-out-of-jail-free backstory. If your character did something genuinely awful and the narrative immediately hands the reader a tragic childhood to explain it away, you haven't written moral complexity, you've written an excuse. The backstory can exist. It just can't cancel the action out.

Don't make their morality entirely reactive. A character who's only ever "bad" when provoked and otherwise a total sweetheart isn't grey, they're good with a temper. Grey characters make choices that aren't forced on them, and some of those choices should make the reader genuinely uncomfortable.

Don't let the narrative agree with them too much. If every other character eventually comes around to "well, they had a point," you've built a soapbox, not a person. Let some people in the story stay angry at them. Let the consequences actually land.

Don't confuse grey with edgy. Swearing more or being sarcastic doesn't make a character morally complicated, it makes them a good character with a mouth on them. The moral part has to come from the choices, not the vibe.

The Dos

Do give them a real want that isn't evil, but a method that is. The want should make sense. The method should still cost something. A character who wants to protect their family and starts poisoning knights to do it, that's grey. The goal is sympathetic, the method genuinely isn't.

Do let them be right sometimes and wrong other times, on the same issue. Consistency is for heroes. A grey character can make a correct call in chapter three and a horrifying one in chapter twelve for the exact same underlying reason.

Do give other characters valid reasons to distrust them, permanently. Not everyone needs to forgive your morally grey character by the end. Some relationships should just stay broken. It's more realistic, and honestly, it's more interesting.

Do let them know what they're doing. Self-awareness is what separates grey from misguided. A character who genuinely believes they're the hero the whole time is a different archetype. A grey character usually knows, on some level, that what they're doing isn't clean, and does it anyway.

Why This Matters

The whole appeal of a morally grey character is that the reader isn't sure how to feel about them, and if you resolve that tension too early, you've killed the thing that made them interesting in the first place. Let people argue about your character after reading their story. That's the goal, not a problem to fix.

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks?

Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors!

Two years ago I returned to creative writing, dusted off an old novella I was never able to publish traditionally, and rewrote it as my first interactive fiction. I uploaded it to itchio, hit publish, and prayed.

Now here I am halfway into my second interactive work, 5500+ followers, and a community of mutual authors—all because this little story needed to exist, to be read, to be shared.

I wasn’t able to write anything new to celebrate this anniversary, but I did update Viatica with one small change…

…the name Civet is now an option for MC. 😉🤭

Two years ago I returned to creative writing, dusted off an old novella I was never able to publish traditionally, and rewrote it as my first interactive fiction. I uploaded it to itchio, hit publish, and prayed.

Now here I am halfway into my second interactive work, 5500+ followers, and a community of mutual authors—all because this little story needed to exist, to be read, to be shared.

I wasn’t able to write anything new to celebrate this anniversary, but I did update Viatica with one small change…

…the name Civet is now an option for MC. 😉🤭

artblock hit me like an airship so have some memes instead

Cantata & Viatica belongs to @fir-fireweed

Ch 6 memes under the cut (spoiler alert!!)

more posts like this under #corpseprize writeblr

make sure its the right idea and right time

you might get a new exiting idea every day and start planning it, promising yourself “this is the one im going to finish” but still ending up abandoning it for another one by next week because it either stopped being exiting or you ran into an issue which convinced you its too difficult or just wrong

you can fix this by reflecting and using your revelations to choose the right project

what do you like? what do you like reading about? what do you like writing about? what do you know a lot about? what are you good at writing about?

accept that there may be ideas you like as concepts, maybe you’d like reading them but not writing it into a book yourself.

is there an idea/theme/anything you’ve had in mind for a long time and havent abandoned? why is that different? list things you’ve liked for a long time. doesnt even have to be writing related

there are many new exiting things to put your focus on for a week or maybe even month but if you truly want to be consistent, its time to look at what you’re able to be consistent about

at what point do you usually abandon projects? why? whats the furthest youve gotten? what got you there?

its really important to understand the reason behind abandoning your previous projects to do your best avoiding that in the future

whats your favourite part of the writing process? which one do you struggle with the most? which part do you simply dislike? is it possible that maybe you only like the idea of writing a book or having written a book? why do you want to be a writer

when choosing a project, consider how much you’d get to do the parts you like about writing and how much you’d have to face the parts you dont

what do you usually do when faced with a hardship during the writing process? what could you do better? if someone came to you and told you all of these problems, what advice would you give them? do you think you give up too easily? what makes you give up exactly (a feeling, a thought, a mindset, a trait, etc)? what would happen if you never changed any of this? would you even finish a book ever?

the writing process isnt easy. there isnt a single author that didnt go through writers block or a plot hole that seeemed impossible to solve at the time. this is why its inportant to have the right project that is worth fighting those hardships for while enjoying the journey

try to understand the difference between something not being right for you and something simply being difficult at the time

is this project you?

is this the project you’d like to be known for?

why this project? what does it mean to you? what do you like about it?

is this the project you see yourself writing about, every step of the way? it could be helpful to make a list of everything you’d need to do in order to finish this specific project—researching a specific topic needed for the worldbuilding, coming up with all the characters, etc

which parts of this book would you enjoy writing about? which parts would you not? is it worth it?

if you find that this project isnt right, revisit the first reflection list you made and choose some key elements you’d like to include in your books, be known for, and write about. revisit your book ideas and put together a book idea that includes these elements and do reflection on that one too

whenever you feel like giving up, ask why. is it because you no longer like the project or is it just difficult? why? maybe the problem is not the project but what it has become? try going back to the very start and core of the idea and seeing when it turned into what it has become? if this is true and you realise you dont like your project anymore, go back and change the entire thing. its totally okay and happens to writers all the time. this isnt wasted effort, this is you discovering yourself as a writer and what you want your project to be. its never too late to change up everything about your project.

to solve this, make a mindmap of every possible path your story could take. write down everything and choose 2-3 you like most. then write them all down separately and reflect on which one would be the best. list the pros and cons of each one. remember: reflection is so important in every step of the way

before giving up

lets say you found yourself stuck again. everything seems difficult and you want to give up. remember that you’ve come so far. remember that its okay. and remember how many times this has happened in the past. you’ll most likely run into this moment with every single project and multiple times at that.

do all of those same steps again. reflect. change it up.

what exactly is the problem and how could it be fixed? (yes, it can be fixed but you might be looking at the problem the wrong way. you need a fresh perspective)

if you still feel like giving up, tell yourself “i can give up if i still want to after this step”

let go of all pressure and think of whatever you’re stuck on. maybe its a plot hole, maybe you cant figure out what should happen next, maybe your characters arent working with you how you want them to. now, without any pressure (just let go, maybe take a break, meditate) just think of the stupidest solutions. think of this project as something that barely matters to you. like it belongs to your friend you’re giving advice to.

i was totally stuck on where i wanted my book to go because no matter what i chose, there was an impossible plot hole i had to solve. that was until i let go of all the pressure and a totally unexpected solution just found me. something id never have come up with if i kept on cracking my brains to the point of hating writing, myself as a writer, the project itself, and everything else for that matter. i took a break, i looked over what i had with a fresh perspective and the starting idea it all sparked from. i realised that i could just switch up some things that i never even thought i could change because they were part of the starting point of the idea. i did what i feared would ruin the entire idea but in reality, it saved the entire book.

remember youre not alone, there have been millions of authors feeling the same way you do now. and you can use that to your advantage. look for other peoples stories and advice. look at interviews of (your favourite) authors (or artists in general), look for tips, reflect on everything, learn through trial, error, and reflection

Because from where I stand, Oromis lacking for compassion or kindness was definitely not what the author was trying to convey:

Again and again we are reminded that he feels so much compassion for Eragon that it's straight up overwhelming. That he knows full well what he's asking and would take on the burden himself if he could.

Oromis' flaw isn't that he doesn't see or care about the pain of others. We know that he knows what Eragon is going through, and we know that if there was literally any other way, one that would spare his student the pain, he would take it. His flaw is his complete and utter unflinching sense of duty. His duty is to see to it that Galbatorix dies and Eragon survives, and as much as it might pain him personally to make Eragon go through hardship, he won't let that stop him, he can't.

As for why he objectively isn't great at communicating that to Eragon, well, as he tells us himself:

He says "we have little time", but what he means is "I have little time". He is a dead man walking and he desperately wants to die knowing he gave Eragon at least a fighting chance.

A little while ago I picked up a troll on Wayfarer's itch.io community forum. This person was angry at Wayfarer's game design, and wrote at length about their issues with it. Now, I think if someone doesn't like my game or my writing style or my design choices—that's fine. Wayfarer is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. But what I do take issue with (aside from their behaviour—criticize my game all you like just don't be a misogynistic asshat or I will block you) is that they began their post by claiming that my game is obviously written by an LLM. Any pushback given by other forum users resulted in them doubling down on it, including the claim that because Wayfarer is an in-browser HTML game it must be AI, along with a number of other pretty nasty things intended to make me upset.

I started this project well before the use of genAI was widespread. Wayfarer has been in the works since 2019. The original concept and prototype were done Oct-Dec 2019, I spent 2020 reworking things and writing the game's opening, and I spent 2021 pushing towards its September release. I have written every word of Wayfarer myself (yes, all 1.8 million of them if we're including Episode 3). My UI is adapted from an open-source template created by a human developer, and the game artwork was drawn by human artists and graphic designers, all of whom are credited in the credits.

If there are mistakes, errors, or inconsistencies in Wayfarer's design, if the lore and worldbuilding is derivative or tropey, that is due to my very human mistakes and decisions. If there are elements of my UI that look bad or don't function smoothly, it's because I am a self-taught coder and I am doing the best with the skills I currently have. I am one person writing and coding an interactive fiction game on my own.

It is mindboggling to me that I even have to say that.

[ID in alt text]

"Tutorial" on how to draw an OC with dwarfism (well, some of it).

Boring tired disclaimer: Keep in mind that this is an introductory "drawing" "tutorial" and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. Which happens to be true for everything in general.

You are heavily encouraged to do your own research because this does not contain everything you should know before making a character with any type of dwarfism.

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.