#fricknation

i think that tiktok is a platform that nurtures the need for instant gratification and you can see that bleeding into tumblr with all of these people making public complaints about the lack of long fics, or the saturation of smut. with all the 'part 2 when' comments *literally* five minutes after a first part is posted. with the whole censorship craze going on.

tiktok is so censored that people now say unalived instead of killed, graped instead of raped, so on and so forth. notice how almost every smut blog is being USER REPORTED and then marked as mature lately? tiktok users

uuuuh those really vague smut drabbles where the character is just referred to as 'he' and you read it wondering who the fuck you're actually reading about and then the tags say:

#gojo x reader #bakugou x reader #simon riley x reader #armin x reader #thomas the tank engine x reader #my neighbor paul x reader #john the baptist x reader #nanami x reader #mario x reader

feels like a cop-out for notes to me and there's no hate from my end to anyone who writes them but there's always such a lack of personality to the character that you can tell half a thought was put into how he would act because it's meant to fit a mould of seventeen of the most popular characters you can think of. wanting engagement and wanting to write something with depth can be two very different things at times

-🎨

here are my favs, sorry for the tags you stupid dumb losers who i hate

1- read more. challenge yourself with your reading material and try to take note of the authors prose and structure. take what you like and try to implement it into your writing where you can. also try to read a variety of different things; sticking to one genre or media is great if you enjoy it but you’re going to miss out on a whole lot of cool shit you can soak up like a sponge if you don’t branch out.

2- if you use AI, stop. there are a million different ethical conversations to be had about AI but it is a creativity killer and there is no debate to that. your brain is a muscle and if you do not keep using it in meaningful ways (i.e. developing plot, writing your own shit, re-reading and finding error and things to fix) you WILL lose the abilities you already have. even just using it to generate ideas is going to steal from your own capabilities to do so without help. then you’ll be both a shitty writer and not a real writer all at the same time!

3- dont be afraid of plain clothes. i think that the ‘don’t say said’ thing we all got drilled into us in school is fine for encouraging kids to expand their vocabulary and instil a ‘show don’t tell’ approach to writing but i think that some people now use it as law and end up with purple prose for it. its okay for you to use said as a dialogue tag when you don’t need to specify how exactly something was said. its also okay to write ‘the man said hello’ instead of ‘the tall, wary-eyed man opened his big, snarling maw and a greeting dripped out like water from a sweating stalactite onto rock below.’ because when every sentence has 26 adjectives smushed into it, its going to read like shit. if you have a solid story you don’t need to prove your lexicon on every page

4- leave your comfort zone. if you’re a planner, try just going with the flow and pantsing. if you’re a pantser, try planning. try writing a fic for someone you wouldn’t normally write about, or for a pairing you don’t like, or a kink you aren’t into. writing for your own enjoyment is important but i do think it’s equally as important to push yourself to write things that don’t come naturally to you. even if you make it funny and tongue-in-cheek, just try.

5- get feedback from someone that isn’t a yes-man. having support is great but if you’re showing your writing to people who will cheer you on without providing constructive criticism, you are only being validated on things you should be changing.

6- give yourself some mercy. you are most likely your own worst critic. i write things that i think are the worst in the world and then reread them a few months later with fresh eyes, and im able to see where my strong and weak points were. step away from your writing and let yourself forget it, then come back and see how it looks from the readers pov. pretend it isn’t yours and critique it as if it isn’t yours; note what you like, what you think needs improvement, and then make those changes