8. Are there any themes, motifs, or approaches to subjects that you have purposefully tried to cultivate in your writing?Â
I think pretty much all of my stories focus on different types of bonds, not just romantic. But also family, working and friendship.Â
My writing tends to deal with the supernatural, fae and other subjects. Though, I can write slice of life as well.Â
I also tend to write all of my characters as people first instead of heroes and villains. Because I think we all have good and bad in us to varying degrees, so I want my writing to reflect that. It’s a good way to write more complex and dynamic characters. On a similar note, I try to have some sort of motive behind the character’s actions big and small.Â
11. What common writing advice do you think is useless?
Can’t think of “common” ones like this. I think the dumbest pieces of writing advice I’ve seen are to never describe your main character and to never use exclamation points.Â
For the first one, I can see where some of it is coming from. Super long descriptions of the main character is bad writing, since it bogs down the proses. Breaking up the description over the course of the story and adding character action makes it easier to digest. But at the same time, unless you are writing a second person self insert, there should be a descriptor of the MC. If you don’t, you can imagine the protagonist as a cinderbox and story will make just about as much sense. Unfortunately, if the protagonist is POC, some people still need that to be flat out stated otherwise they’ll just automatically think the MC is white. Descriptors help out with that.
As for the latter, exclamation points just point out if a person is yelling or if a point is passionate. Sure, don’t overuse them like old school comics, because it’s hard to read. But I can’t for the life of me see why there’s any problem with using them if the story calls for it like when the characters are yelling.Â
12. What common writing advice do you think is actually pretty useful?
I think the one that springs to mind first is how to use the whole “show don’t tell” generalization properly. To summarize, if you want to show the emotions of the characters or get the reader invested in a scene, then show. Add in descriptors like “a fist clenched at his side, glaring at the man” to show that the character is angry and do the same for other emotions. Avoid phrases like “I smelt”, “I saw”, etc. Those bog down your prose in excess. (But there are exceptions, like with anything.) If you want to summarize a situation in order to get to the point faster, then tell. I try to do this in my own writing, but I’m not sure if I’m any good at it still.Â
