"Automation" and friends (1979), by Bill Tolar, Fantasy Factory division, Creative Systems Group Inc., Atlanta, GA. Bill Tolar and Tom Zaken treat us to a surreal tour of the Creative Systems robot factory in episode 1513 of Mister Rogers' Neighbourhood, "Robots & Remotes" (1983).
"Three years ago Bill Tolar and his management/engineering team at Creative Systems Group Inc. in Atlanta produced a cylindrical object with a domed head and dangling arms that ran on a car battery. As soon as Tolar and his team added a two-way wireless radio, they were in the promotional robot business, with a product that resembled R2D2 ā the charismatic beeping robot of Star Wars fame.
Since then, the company, which designs and manufactures imaginative interiors for retail stores, has sold 350 remote-controlled robots at prices ranging from $6,000 to $15,000. Although he has competitors, Tolar, 33, claims his company's Fantasy Factory division, with 1981 sales of $700,000, is "the largest promotional robot factory in the world." Coca-Cola has bought about 250 of the robots for its bottlers to use in mall appearances and similar events. Other customers include Arby's Inc., Kimberly-Clark Corp., and the National Pecan Marketing Council.
The robots are intended to create goodwill by chatting spontaneously with the clientele at trade shows, grand openings, supermarkets, hospitals, and sporting events. Such friendliness, Tolar claims, helps to circumvent the barrier people usually erect between themselves and corporate advertising. "The general public likes to think the robot is real," he says.
Creative Systems was an outgrowth of several earlier Tolar ventures. In high school he and a friend formed T&R Odd Jobs, a sign-painting and custom furniture business. As an engineering student at Georgia Tech, he joined his older brother to form Spatial Effects, a company that built lighting equipment for nightclubs."
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Creative Neurobiology, Somatic Writing, and Narrative Cognition
For years, Iāve struggled to explain the way I write physiologically. Whenever I tried to describe what happens inside my creative process, people assumed I was being metaphorical, dramatic, or describing a personal quirk.
But over time, I realized something important:
There is an entire category of writers whose creative process is tied to their nervous system, emotional safety, and somatic state, and we barely have shared language for it.
This series is my attempt to map that experience.
Not to claim ownership of it. Not to invent a new identity label.
But to map a phenomenon that many of us feel and few can articulate.
Outline & Links:
More coming soon (expected to be ~10 parts, but weāll see)
Part One: The Crux of the Resonant Writer
Part Two: Affective vs Resonant Writers: A Comparative Model
Part Three: The Neurobiology of Resonance
Part Four: Anchor Characters & Self Extraction
Part Five: Systemized Worldbuilding & Somatic Proximity
Terminology
Sources & Further Reading (Coming soon)
Disclaimer (coming soon)
Why Iām Writing This
Because for some of us, writing is not about escapism.
Itās not just a hobby.
It is...
... a processing mechanism
... a survival tool
... a way of staying alive
And when that system collapses, itās not āwriterās block.ā
Itās a shutdown; a full-system failure of the creative circuits.
If youāve ever felt that, or have loved someone who writes this way, I hope this series can give you the language youāve been missing, the clarity, the framework, and the feeling of being seen.
And if youāre someone wondering why your friend suddenly ghosted their fic, or why they use absolutist language about a project ādyingā or being ādeprovisionedā?
Read this.
It might save your friendship.
How Resonant Writers Build Worlds from the Body Outward
If Part 4 was the heart, then itās time we talk about the craft.
And maybe Iām wanting to do this now, partly because I have recently been asked a very pragmatic question:
How in Godās name am I able to track 90-something different storylines at once and map out massive concrete project plans (like a 168-chapter series).
To answer that, we have to look at the actual techniques Resonant Writers use. Not the underlying trauma mechanics or emotional architecture that enables them, but the craft-level engineering that emerges naturally from a somatic creative process.
Because Resonant Writing doesnāt just change how we feel.
It fundamentally alters how we build worlds, structure prose,Ā andĀ design narrative systems.
This chapter will cover:
- Systemized Worldbuilding
- Biomechanical Realism
- Somatic Prose
- Objective Narrative Distance
- āWriting without My Skin Onā (and what I mean by that)
Weāre going to shift our focus from the nervous system to the craft it produces.
I. Systemized Worldbuilding
Or, āEngineering the Matrixā
Worlds are built like operating systems, not playgrounds.
For an Affective Writer, worldbuilding often happens through vibes, aesthetics, emotional tone, and imaginative play. The world is a flexible playground designed to facilitate immediate comfort.
For a Resonant Writer, worlds are built like core operating systems.
Our worlds are not āinventedā so much as they are rigorously engineered from a single point outward, through internal consistency, biological logic, and unrelenting chains of cause and effect. These worlds emerge from a deep translation of:
Somatic logic
Internal architectures
Trauma patterns
Sensory memory
Biomechanical plausibility
Environmental constraints
Its systemās architecture is mapped directly from real-world observation.
Weāre not so much escaping reality, though it may certainly be part of it. We are taking our internal reality, decoding its structural laws, and adapting them to the fictional subject matter at hand.
We are translating.
II. Biomechanical Realism
Bodies that behave like bodies, not marionettes of narrative.
In Resonant prose, characters are never pulled along by the strings of a convenient plot or feeling we want to experience. We write directly from somatic memory, and our charactersā bodies possess that material reality.
The Somatic Rules on the Page:
Characters have weight, inertia, and sensory load. They experience real-time autonomic responses, trauma reflexes, and proprioceptive feedback.
Because we experience it for them as we write and put it on the page.
I do not possess the ability to use the whimsical ādonāt think about itā logic. I genuinely envy writers who do. I cannot simply write: āHe ran.ā
Instead, the system automatically documents:Ā the physical shifts of weight, the torque of the hips, the specific breathing pattern, the sensory overload, and the kinesthetic feedback of the ground beneath their feet. Itās not a stylistic gimmick or choice, but an inevitability. When you write directly from the body, the body shows up on the page.
III. Somatic Prose
Prose that originates in sensations, not imagination.
Somatic prose originates in raw physiological sensation, even when those sensations are prompted by the imagination. It is sensory-forward, interoceptive, and deeply embodied. It tracks respiration, muscle pressure, temperature, olfactory data, and autonomic shifts.
This approach creates prose that feels exceptionally dense, granular, and atmospheric. It isnāt about describing what a character sees from a birds-eye view; itās documenting what their body experiences from the inside out.
Standard Prose: āHe felt incredibly sad and defeated.ā
Somatic Prose: āThe sudden hollowing of the chest and collapse of his diaphragm hit first, his vision blurring at the edges, before feeling the slight, cold slide into a dissociative state where he watched himself from across the street.ā
This isnāt āpurple prose,ā but an unvarnished transcription of human physiology under stress.
IV. Objective Narrative Distance
The craft technique that keeps us from drowning in our own bodies.
Resonant Writersā routine defaults to close-third, objective-third, or multi-third perspectives with āsomatic bleed.ā This is a deliberately highly necessary regulation strategy.
Why?
Because first- and second-person are too close.
These narratives collapse the distance between the writerās body, the characterās body, and the internal part being expressed.
This can quickly become...
too raw
overwhelming
too direct
unfiltered
Third-person gives enough distance to regulate, observe, translate, and process without taking us offline. I can still embody and feel what my characters experience: emotions, biofeedback, sensory details. But Iām not writing from a place of ownership.
In clinical frameworks like IFS and TIST, blending occurs when a protective or traumatized Part takes full control of the conscious Self, hijacking your thoughts, emotions, and real-world actions.
Writing a narrative in the first or second person collapses the necessary safety distance between the authorās real nervous system and the characterās wounds (or, in the case of anchors, whatever they contain for the author). This can quickly become too raw, unfiltered, and unwittingly dangerous.
The Third Person Shield:
Third-person pronouns provide the cognitive distance required to observe, translate, and process intense somatic material without triggering a real-world system freeze or emotional hijack. I can embody and feel what my characters experience, but I am writing from a place of stewardship, not ownership.
Third-person lets me feel the character without becoming the character.
Objective distance, then, is not a stylistic preference, but a regulation strategy.
It lets us write without being consumed.
V. āWriting Without My Skin Onā
The experience of somatic proximity at its most intense.
When a Resonant Writer drops completely into somatic immersion, it feels, quite literally, like writing without your skin.
It is the experience of writing from the inside of a body outward. You are writing from the exact location of the wound rather than circling safely around it. There is zero buffer between raw physiological sensation and the written language.
This state feels incredibly raw, exposed, and deeply alive. However, it can only execute when the internal system is regulated. When the environment is safe, the relational field is stable, and the Anchor Character is safely online, the somatic channel can open wide.
This deep somatic proximity is the primary engine of Resonant power. But it is also the highest vulnerability, and the ultimate source of our shutdowns.
It has a deep cost, and it is the reason we burn out.
VI. The Takeaway
Systemized worldbuilding, biomechanical realism, somatic prose, and objective linguistic distance are not stylistic quirks, aesthetic preferences, or hyper-fixated overthinking.
These are the craft signatures of Resonant Writing.
They emerge naturally from our cognition, born of nervous-system logic and Parts architecture, and given life by interoception.
It is the structural output of a cognitive system that processes reality through narrative. If your stories feel vast, real, dense, and uncomfortably alive, it is because you are building them out of the scaffolding of your own lived reality.
Youāre not ātoo much.ā
Youāre not overthinking your craft.
You are writing from the body.
The system.
The foundations of your own psychological survival.
Youāre not broken.
You are Resonant.
The deepest mechanisms of Resonant Writing.
If Part 1 was the āwhat,ā
and Part 2 was the ātaxonomy,ā
and Part 3 was the āscience,ā
Then Part 4 will be the heart.
This is the chapter where we will talk about the thing that we instinctively avoid naming: Anchor Characters. Because they arenāt just characters, theyāre internal structures.
They can feel like... a lifeline, a stabilizer, a mirror, a processor, a survival mechanism...
... a part of the writer that finally has somewhere to live.
This is the post where we stop pretending this is ājust writing.ā
I. What Is an Anchor Character?
Letās get something clear first.
An Anchor Character is not:
A favorite OC
A comfort character
A muse
A blorbo
A projection
A self-insert
An Anchor Character is:
A somatic extraction of a core internal part or structure.
A character who holds a piece of the creatorās psychological, emotional, or developmental architecture.
This makes them intrinsically autobiographical, embodied, specific, somatically tethered, and identity-adjacent.
They are a translation.
Not a fantasy.
II. āAn Open Circuit to My Actual Soulā
For Resonant Writers, an Anchor Character is not simply a narrative device. Theyāre a direct line to:
The nervous system
The trauma map
The emotional core
The developmental wound
The internal child
The protector
The exile
The unmet need
Theyāre a unique liminal space where the body speaks, the psyche processes, the history surfaces, and the truth becomes legible.
Writing them can feel like...
Stepping into yourself
Remembering something you never said out loud
Touching a wound without flinching
Finally being witnessed
... and even self-healing.
This is why Anchor Characters feel sacred.
And why losing them feels so catastrophic.
III. Trauma Psychology: Why Anchors Form
Anchor Characters emerge because the psyche is doing something incredibly intelligent:
It externalizes an internal part into a safe, narrative container.
This is a known mechanism across trauma psychology, often found in literature on:
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Narrative Identity Theory
Somatic experiencing
Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST)
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Polyvagal-Informed Narrative Work
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Earned Secure Attachments
And many more all describe versions of this phenomenon:
When a part of the self cannot be safely held, the mind creates an external vessel to hold it.
Anchor Characters then often hold a wounded child, a silenced self, an abandoned part, an unmet need, a suppressed identity, or an emotional truth that has nowhere else to go.
They are not escapism.
They are containment.
IV. Why Anchor Characters Hold Survival Mechanisms
Because they carry their creators':
Emotional regulation
Internal coherence
Sense of continuity
Narrative identity
Somatic truth
Trauma, and the ability to process it
Capacity for self-witnessing
They are not ājust characters.ā
But infrastructure.
Writing them isnāt escapism or āplaying pretend.ā
Itās the execution of a survival process.
Resonant Writers might find themselves returning to them during periods of stress.
Stabilize and process through them.
Feel safe in their world.
Feel seen by the other characters that see them.
Feel held by the other characters that hold them.
They are an internal part that finally has a body.
V. Why Losing an Anchor Character Feels Like Losing Yourself
Itās because, in a way, you are.
When the somatic channel collapses, and an Anchor Character goes offline, they take things with them:
The emotional processing they enabled
The internal coherence they maintained
The safety they provided to the Part they were holding
The identity thread they carried
This is why the loss feels so destabilizing and painful.
Itās the loss of access to part of oneself.
And thatās a very real loss.
VI. The Kaskel Example (My Perfect Case Study)
Kaskel is not ājust an OCā I like to write. He is a textbook Anchor Character. While the setting is fictional, the architecture of his mind holds some part of my material reality:
Specific developmental wound(s) and trauma map(s)
A precise Parts cluster (a hyper-vigilant protector protecting deeply buried exiles).
Exact fragments of my somatic architecture and sensory framework.
A lived experience with a synoptic mind.
Kaskel is the part of me that was never witnessed; the part that learned to survive by tracking data and, in particular, behavioral patterns in others; the part that is routinely mocked or told it is āpretentiousā or ātoo watchfulā because it remembers every detail.
When I write him, I am writing myself in a way that is indirect, clinical, and somatic. When I lost access to him due to an external environment corruption, it was a catastrophic system failure. The container vanished, and the raw data flooded my system unfiltered.
It sounds melodramatic.
It sounds unhinged.
But I promise: Itās trauma physiology.
To try to outline this as best I can without using graphics.
[Real-World Stress/Threat] occurs.
[Raw Data] is parsed by [Somatic Extraction]
[Somatic Extraction] passes data to [Kaskel Matrix] for safe processing.
IF [Relational Rupture/Data Corruption/Dissolution of Safety]
System begins [Fail-Secure Lockout].
Lockout closes communication channels.
[Raw Data] floods the CNS.
VII. Why Anchor Characters Are the Core of Resonant Writing
Without Anchor Characters, Resonant Writing as outlined here collapses.
They are:
the interface
the processor
the vessel
the mirror
the stabilizer
the translator
the emotional architecture
the somatic conduit
I have heard them called many things.
But it all comes down to some core, simple truths.
They are the center of gravity.
They are the reason Resonant Writers write at all.
They are the mechanism through which the internal world becomes narrative.
They are the heart of the entire system.
VIII. The Takeaway
Anchor Characters are not optional.
Theyāre not aesthetic or a trope.
They are the deepest mechanism of Resonant Writing; the place where the Self becomes story.
They are the reason:
writing feels like survival
loss feels like grief
shutdown feels like death
safety feels like access
rupture feels like collapse
characters feel like critical organs
worlds feel like memory
To someone experiencing this:
You are not dramatic.
You are not imagining the depth of your grief.
You are not ātoo attachedā to your fictional creations.
You are doing something deeply profound.
You are translating your internal system into a narrative.
This is a remarkably intelligent, beautiful act of psychological survival.
You are not broken.
You are Resonant.
Why Resonant Writers use a Somatic Process, Not a Mood
Before we go deeper into the mechanics of being a Resonant Writer, we need to talk about the body and, more specifically, neurobiology.
Because hereās the truth:
Being a Resonant Writer is not an emotional style, but a physiological process.
If the body isnāt understood, nothing else will make sense.
Letās start with the foundation.
I. Somatic Writing
Writing that originates in the body, not in the imagination.
Somatic Writing is not a genre or aesthetic but a documented mechanism.
For Resonant Writers, the creative process begins in:
interoception (internal bodily sensation)
Autonomic state (where the nervous system sits on the survival state spectrum)
Aomatic memory (trauma and experience stored in the body)
Emotional patterning
Parts clusters (sub-sections of the psyche holding specific psychological data)
Physiological coherence
The physical body generates the data.
The mind translates that into narrative.
This is why Resonant Writers may describe writing as:
ādropping into a body.ā
āsyncing with a character.ā
āfeeling the scene before itās seen.ā
ātranslating sensation into prose.ā
Itās not a metaphor, but interoceptive processing.
II. Interoception: The Core Mechanism
The sense that tells you whatās happening inside your body.
Interoception is the brainās ability to read:
heartbeat
breath
muscle tension
gut sensation
temperature
visceral emotion
autonomic shifts
For most people, interoception is background noise.
For Resonant Writers, itās a primary creative interface.
Characters emerge from this internal data, built off of autobiographical fragments, internal Parts, nervous system patterns, and somatic memories.
This is why the characters feel alive, specific, and irreplaceable to the creator.
Whether reading or writing, interacting with these characters is interacting with a somatic pattern.
III. Why Resonance is Embodied
Because the nervous system decides what stories can be accessed.
The autonomic state determines:
what memories are available
what emotions are accessible
what characters are online
what worlds feel "real"
what narrative threads can be followed
When regulated, the system opens.
Similarly, when dysregulated, the system closes.
This is why phrases like...
... āI canāt get into their bodyā
... āThe world feels far awayā
... āI canāt hear their voiceā
... āThe connection is goneā
Are said sincerely.
They mean it literally.
Because it is gone.
The nervous system has executed a fail-secure and withdrawn access.
IV. Third-Person Distance: Why It Helps
The cognitive trick that reduces somatic overwhelm.
Third-person POV creates self-distance, which:
lowers emotional intensity
reduces physiological arousal
increases cognitive clarity
allows safer access to somatic material and traumatic experiences
Itās true, itās documented.
This is why a Resonant Writer may prefer close third, shifting third, third-person multiple, or third-person limited with somatic bleed.
Itās a regulation strategy for accessing challenging or emotionally arousing materials and life experiences.
First-person can feel like jumping into a frozen lake. Third-person is like standing on the dock with the thermometer. You can still measure the temperature without risking hypothermia.
Where first-person and second-person can feel like itās too much embodiment and emotional load, third-person gives enough distance to stay online.
V. Why Characters Go Offline
The neurobiological explanation.
Characters can go offline as part of a normal creative iteration, and that is not what weāre talking about here.
Weāre talking about the involuntary, painful shutdown.
Characters disappear when the somatic channel collapses.
This can happen when:
the nervous system enters shutdown
the body perceives threat
allostatic load is exceeded
relational rupture destabilizes the system
a Parts cluster becomes activated or dormant in the real world
the interoceptive signal is disrupted.
When the channel collapses, itās felt as a characterās disappearance, emotional tethers dissolving, or the world going dark.
This is not āwriterās block.ā
Itās not ālosing interest.ā
Itās not ādramaticsā or ālack of discipline.ā
Itās a neurobiological severing of access.
You can argue the character didnāt die, but the pathway to access did.
VI. Why Emotional Rupture = Creative Shutdown
The body treats relational instability as a threat.
Resonant Writers are wired so that relational safety, emotional stability, and CNS regulation are prerequisites for creative access.
When ruptures occur, even mild ones, the body interprets danger, instability, and unpredictability.
Or, more simply: Threat.
The autonomic system responds to this by:
withdrawing energy from non-essential functions
shutting down interoceptive access
collapsing somatic channels
breaking down creative architecture
Itās the same mechanism that can cause emotional flatlining and dissociation.
Itās not punishment, but protection.
Creativity is a luxury function, and when the system is overwhelmed, luxuries are cut first.
When the lights go out in your area, donāt argue with the breaker. Wait for the power company to fix it.
VII. To Summarize
Resonant Writing is a somatic process governed by multiple neurobiological processes, including Parts systems, interoception, and safety.
When the system is online, creativity flows.
When the system is offline, creativity disappears.
Understanding the physiology is the first step towards understanding:
why someone writes the way they do
why they might lose characters
why ruptures can hit creativity so hard
why safety can matter to creativity
Itās not about being broken.
Itās about Resonance.
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Affective vs. Resonant Writers: A Comparative Model
Two Creative Operating Systems, Not a Hierarchy
Before we go any further, we need a comparative taxonomy. This is not to divide writers into camps, but toĀ differentiate two fundamentally different creative mechanismsĀ that do not understand each other and are often conflated.
Let me be unbundantly clear:
This is not a personality quiz.
This is a comparative model of two different creative operating systems:
Affective Writers
Resonant Writers
Every writer will have traits of both systems.
The distinction I am trying to make is about the primary mechanism, not exclusivity.
Both are valid, and both produce extraordinary work.
And both have strengths and vulnerabilities.
But they are not the same system, and the mismatch of minds leads to miscommunication, self-misdiagnosis, hurt, ruptures, and unnecessary shame.
Letās define them.
Ya know, for mutual understanding and all that good shit.
But please note that I am in the category defined in this series of resonant. I cannot claim the life experience of other writing systems. I am basing this on research and communications with people in the other system I am defining for comparative analysis.
Itās important that you understand that in case you feel some characterizations are misunderstood. I am not willfully misrepresenting; I just donāt know what I donāt know, which is a lot.
EDIT 5/28: Fixed an unfortunate typo
I. DEFINITIONS
Affective Writer
A writer whose creative process is driven by emotional expression, imaginative play, and external warmth.
Their creativity is fueled by:
emotional momentum
relational energy
imaginative stimulation
external validation loops
social engagement
catharsis
Their system is externalized:
Emotion -> Expression -> Connection.
Resonant Writer
A writer whose creative process is tied to their nervous system, somatic state, and internal safety.
Their creativity is fueled by:
interoception
somatic data
autobiographical extraction
internal coherence
relational stability
nervous system regulation
Their system is internalized:
Sensation -> Meaning -> Narrative.
II. AFFECTIVE WRITER: BASELINE, MECHANICS, GOALS, TECHNIQUES
Baseline State
Affective Writers create their best when they feel:
emotionally activated
inspired
socially connected
energized
validated
expressive
Their creativity thrives on emotional momentum.
Mechanics
Affective writing is powered by:
emotional catharsis
imaginative improvisation
associative thinking
external stimuli (music, prompts, vibes)
character āplayā
Characters are often:
avatars
narrative tools
emotional amplifiers
imaginative companions
Goals
Affective Writers often aim for:
emotional expression
connection with readers
catharsis
exploration
fun
thematic resonance
Techniques:
Common affective techniques include:
fast drafting
writing to music
emotional ramping
improvisational scenes
dialogue-driven momentum
āfollow the vibeā plotting
The system is flexible, expressive, and socially energized.
III. RESONANT WRITER: BASELINE, MECHANICS, GOALS, TECHNIQUES
Baseline State
Resonant Writers create their best when they feel:
safe
grounded
regulated
connected to their internal world
somattically stable
emotionally coherent
Their creativity thrives on the regulation of the nervous system.
Mechanics
Resonant writing is powered by:
interoceptive data
somatic proximity
autobiographical extraction
internal Parts clusters (where applicable)
emotional truth
relational safety
Characters are often:
somatic vessels
autobiographical mirrors
psychological processors
trauma interfaces
Goals
Resonant Writers often aim for:
internal coherence
emotional truth
somatic accuracy
psychological realism
narrative processing
survival
Techniques
Common resonant techniques include:
deep embodiment
sensory anchoring
slow, layered drafting
character-driven structure
somatic pacing
writing only when the system is online
This system is precise, immersive, and physiologically bound.
IV: DIMENSIONS OF DIFFERENCE
A structured comparison across key creative domains.
Below is my attempt at a clean taxonomy.
Character Purpose
Affective: Characters as expressive tools
(avatars, emotional amplifiers, narrative devices)
Resonant: Characters as part of themselves
(somatic vessels, autobiographical mirrors, Parts clusters)
Conflict Resolution (Narrative)
Affective: Driven by emotional arcs, catharsis, and thematic payoff
Resonant: Driven by psychological truth, internal logic, and somatic coherence
Safety Mechanisms
Affective: Low risk of shutdown, high adaptability, can write through chaos
Resonant: High risk of shutdown, low adaptability, cannot write through threats
V. WHY THIS COMPARISON MATTERS
Because Resonant Writers often misdiagnose themselves as:
inconsistent
dramatic
blocked
undisciplined
unreliable
"not real writers"
And Affective writers often misinterpret Resonant Writers as:
manipulative
guilt-tripping
overreacting
catastrophizing
using writing as leverage
None of which is true.
These are two completely different creative operating systems, each with its own:
inputs
outputs
requirements
vulnerabilities
shutdown conditions
I hope that naming it can help build a bridge to understanding on both sides of this experience (and any other systems out there I am not accounting for). In doing so, I hope to help prevent:
self-blame
interpersonal conflict
miscommunication
shame
burnout
ruptures
This is not about dividing writers, but giving each the language it needs to understand itself and the other.
When people hear the phrase resonant writer, they usually assume one of two things:
āA writer whose work resonates with readers,ā or
Some kind of tuning-fork metaphor where Iām āmissing my other halfā (rude).
Most people default to the common literary definition of resonant writing.
But thatās not what Iām talking about.
This series is about a different kind of resonance entirely:
The internal, physiological, somatic kind.
Itās the kind of resonance that happens inside the writer, not the reader.
The kind that turns writing from a hobby to a survival mechanism.
The kind that makes creativity feel less like āimaginationā and more like ātranslation.ā
The kind that collapses when safety collapses.
And that is the crux of the Resonant Writer.
And Tumblr will take my curly quotes from my cold, dead hands.
Yes, I am adding all of these manually.
Resonance as a Creative State
For a Resonant Writer, creativity isnāt a mental exercise, but a nervous-system state.
When the system is regulated, grounded, and safe, writing can feel...
... clarifying
... connecting
... immersive
... inevitable
... like truth
When the system is destabilized, writing can quickly become...
... impossible
... painful
... dissonant
... unsafe
... entirely offline
It isnāt moodiness.
It isnāt āwriterās block.ā
It isnāt a lack of discipline.
Whatās happening has a physiological basis: the body decides whether it is safe enough to grant creative access.
The Body as the Interface
I do not āinventā characters in the traditional sense.
Itās more like... I extract them... from my Self.
These characters emerge as...
... somatic echoes
... autobiographical fragments
... emotional proxies
... sensory containers
... psychological mirrors
... Parts clusters
My characters are not costumes, avatars, or toys.
They feel more like internal organs with names.
This is why I (and others like me) might say things like:
āI canāt feel them anymore.ā
āTheyāre gone.ā
āThe character is dead.ā
āThe world is offline.ā
āThe connection is broken.ā
To an outsider who has never existed within this space, it sounds dramatic. But these are not metaphors. They are accurate descriptions of a somatic event.
Why Safety Matters
For a Resonant Writer, creativity is a high-voltage circuit that requires...
... emotional safety
... relational stability
... cognitive clarity
... somatic grounding
When those conditions are present, the circuit moves a lot of power.
But when theyāre not, the breaker flips, and the system goes offline to protect itself.
This is not an optional process.
Itās not a choice or a vibe.
Itās a neurobiological fail-safe.
Polyvagal Theory refers to this as a dorsal vagal shutdown.
Trauma psychology calls it protective inhibition.
I, a weirdo deeply entrenched in tech, call it deprovisioning.
Different fields, same mechanisms:
When the system perceives a threat, it cuts power to non-essential functions. For a Resonant Writer, creativity is one of those functions.
We Really Do Lose Characters, Storylines, and Worlds
This needs to be said plainly:
This loss is real, and it can be permanent.
While it can occur as part of normal events or even be a positive process, we need to discuss the involuntary loss.
Itās not because we āforgetā or ālose interest.ā We havenāt āmoved on.ā
Itās the collapse of the somatic and cognitive pathways that sustained the character or world.
When this internal channel goes offline, everything held within goes with it. The loss can feel physical, grief-like, and disorienting. Sometimes even identity-adjacent.
It is a loss due to a neurobiological severing of access, and that deserves to be named.
Fact vs. Fault: The Impact of Loss
First, letās get one thing straight and two things gay:
An impact statement describes what happened.
A blame statement assigns moral judgment.
Fault describes what caused it.
These are not the same thing.
Because shutdowns can be triggered by external pressures or rupture, people outside this experience often misinterpret the communications around as a social gambit (a type of manipulation).
They hear: āThe world is offline because of this drama,ā and they assume itās a threat, a guilt-trip, or blame.
But we must separate fault from impact:
Reporting a server crash due to overload is not the service providerās fault. Nor is it a moral judgment on users who tried to access the service.
Iām not blaming the user for trying to use the service. Iām saying the server is down. Fix the grid, donāt yell at the outage.
An impact statement is not a punishment, but a map of cause and effect.
And crucially:
Itās not something the listener can fix on their own. This mechanism does not outsource its repair.
It might be helpful to consider these as reading a system error log and returning a 503 code aloud.
It is a statement of fact.
That fact requires structural accountability, not defensive pivotting.
But itās not something you alone can fix.
Why Resonant Writing Feels Different
Now, I promise Iām not trying to pat myself on the back here or flex my ego. This is not a ānot like all the other kidsā scenario. But there are some behaviors Iāve observed in the broader writing community that just do not seem to apply.
Resonant Writers donāt write about feelings... we write from them.
We donāt write about bodies... we write through them.
We donāt write about trauma... we write with it.
It seems like for many of us, this can make our prose feel...
... dense
... atmospheric
... emotionally precise
... psychologically layered
... somatically tethered
The way that I write isnāt stylistic.
Itās the natural output of a system that processes reality through narrative.
Because the writing is generated from somatic data rather than intellectual construction, the prose often carries a density and urgency that feels lived rather than imagined. Of course, this mileage may vary based on skill, life experience, and analytical tools like tone checkers.
Why This Matters
Without shared language, people end up mischaracterizing themselves:
āIām too sensitive.ā
āIām overreacting.ā
āIām dramatic.ā
āIām broken.ā
āIām inconsistent.ā
āIām unreliable.ā
Or worse:
āIām failing.ā
āIām lazy.ā
āIām giving up.ā
None of that is true because what is happening is mechanical.
If youāre experiencing this, hear me:
This is not a moral failure. You are not failing technically or creatively. You are not imagining this experience. And you are not being dramatic because this is how your creativity operates.
How itās presented and how you handle it are different factors.
To quote one of the great sages of the 90s and early aughts, Robert Hill: āThatās my purse. I donāt know you.ā
You are experiencing a neurobiological shutdown of your internal architecture, triggered by biofeedback signaling intense stress or threat.
You are not broken.
You are resonant.
