#plot diagnosis

If you have a piece of a story you’re stuck on & you think I might be of assistance with a transition prescription, plot diagnosis, or a character autopsy, appointments are currently available.

Contact my secretary Lucy HERE (it’s Ask, don’t get excited, you don’t actually speak to her, she tends to be cranky anyhow).

Kindly limit your message(s) to 2 max per a given issue, please-and-thank-you. 😷

* Let’s call this is an 18+ discussion, not graphic or anything, but if you are a young’un scurry on, or if you embarrass easily, may wanna bypass. *

Welp. This one got me. I’m not ashamed to say I had to go to Urban Dictionary for confirmation that this is going down the road I suspected - imagine my surprise when seeing this in the top definition spot:

My presumption, given the context, is that this is not the one K-Bing implies.

Now, medically, the answer is clear as to how such a scenario would play out, with the standard turn-head-and-cough, but that’s not the advice which you seek, and there’s no literature on PubMed that’s gonna solve my dilemma.

So I think the best route for you to go is similar to the medical approach, which is that said cup does not happen unaccompanied, there are other actions. Ideally, it’s going to be surrounded with at least a little plot, an interesting scenario. And you have two options that I can see, one risqué and one that’s just balls-out… um… you know. That. What I said. 

(Keep in mind I don’t write the kinkage and that what I know of them could fit on the head of a pin. But I’m good at the sex. #humbly Let’s hope that transfers.)

I suspect a knee-jerk would be for this to fall under the category of “Never Neglect The Balls”, and to be sure, you can definitely go that route - a stellar beej, or a beej that’s prolonged because of all the attention given to ‘em. You know. A disparate ratio between the tree and the fruit, as it were.

Possibly more interesting - and dancing in the area of what may be another square, if there’s a gettin’ busy in public one - is playing around under the table/tablecloth whilst on a double date scenario. Or dinner with parents. Make it an uncomfortable situation to begin with, is my point. Such a scenario as this one (other peeps in close proximity) takes the beej element completely out of it. And dude can be surprised that she’s unzipping him, but then be into it, but then be like “Hey, she’s not strokin’ the salami here, she’s just being all tickly and tracing little swirls on the boys”. Pretty soon said salami will be totally outta the way, and yahtzee, more access.

I find balls on the whole boring (sports, formal events, these) so this may or may not be good advice. Above all, I’d be creative. And that sounds like a decently creative scenario to me. 😉

.

Easiest trick? Give ‘em a nickname that’s something readers could relate to/have a decent working knowledge of. So, for example, not “Red”, because not everybody has red hair. But! We can suspend disbelief to a degree when it comes to stuff integral to the character. 

Think along the lines of something to do with occupation. I had the lead male call one of my “readers” Snipes, because they are [”you” are] a sniper. “Doc” if a physician, maybe “Teach” if a professor, stuff like that. 

I had another character where she stated she wasn’t comfortable giving her name to another character, so he asked if she had any nicknames, and she said “Grace”, because she tended to be clumsy, and her family called her that as a joke.

I advised a friend recently to give her lead protagonist a nickname related to where they’re from; she went with Dallas. Though I’m biased, I think Nash has a nice ring to it, as well. 😉 

And remember, during scenes where it’s two people talking to each other, there’s no need for them to say each other’s names - they know who they are, and there’s no one else in the room. Unless somebody is yelling (either across the house or because we’re angry), we typically don’t make a point to use the other person’s name.

Also nothing wrong with throwing in “Hon” or “Doll” or “Kid” or whatnot, depending on circumstance/who’s saying it (such as a romantic moment or flirty moment). Otherwise, pronouns do fine. In any event, like I say, I figure there’s already suspension of disbelief that “you” are in their world, say as a hunter in SPN or someone with powers in Marvel or a detective in Sherlock, so a touch more, re: occupation/hometown isn’t too much to ask, I don’t believe.

On a tangential side note, when it comes to reader inserts, I think the bigger mistake - in the sense of throwing readers out of the story - is drilling down too hard on physical characteristics (hair type/color, height, eye color, skin color, etc. - excepting when it’s purposefully meant to be, say, a large-bodied reader or person of color reader or ace reader, etc. - those stories are intending to target an under-served audience).

.

Whilst your story is not afflicted, others may be, those languishing in the drafts of fanfic writers, ready to infect all the other drafts, thus this must be addressed.

Parasites are conquerable, but they are nasty and spread like crazy through some manner or another, be it a thing (contaminated food or water, for instance) or a living, breathing vector. Sadly, we are dealing with both. The things are the stories, and the vectors are twofold: primary are writers, and secondary the readers who further disseminate Whyenne and her adventures to the masses. It will not be possible to remedy the things (stories) already out there, that bell’s been rung, so the mode of eradication must stem from those stories yet to enter the population.

Now, much like the situation with mosquitoes and malaria, the answer isn’t to do away with the vectors, mosquitoes serve a purpose in the ecosystem (though I can’t recall what) and their destruction would surely impact shit we like. Plus, it’s nigh on impossible, though I hear certain sub-species can be rendered null by cutting off the jizz or however mosquitoes get knocked-up. I suspect if readers become more discerning, stop blowing their wads at mediocrity, this would slow Whyenne’s roll. But to do away with either would be of detriment to the fanfic ecosystem, can’t go that route, best to flood the readers with uncontaminated wares: good-to-great, above-average, considered, measured, well-plotted, fun, deep, heart-grabbing, soul-stirring, and in general feels-inducing fics, preferably those featuring no Whyenne, or at least a minimal amount.

At the same time the uninfected writers flood the market, as it were, and begin to have impact upon the infected readers, the primary vectors who are carrying the disease must also be addressed, despite the fact that they likely suffer no symptoms, ergo they have no idea they are spreading the bleccch. As this is clearly a cranial parasite situation, and the brain is a layered place, it will prove difficult. Parasites can get wormy, drill deep, set up shop, and grow to crazy lengths, the kind that makes pythons go: “Well, damn.”

Anti-parasitic is the prescription, it’ll bust through the cell wall and garble up the lil’ fucker’s genetic material so it can’t multiply. And the best anti-parasitic for Whyenne Epidemiosis is Abetadiazole, commonly called “Beta”. But not just any Beta - daily Beta for one week, that which is not merely a test reader, that which serves as editor, that which says, “Hey, you do realize you’ve used Y/N twenty-two times over the course of about 800 words, right? Maybe we throw in a pronoun or five? Ten? Fifteen?” The host of said parasite will, of course, initially display the side-effect of Hurt-Fee-Fee-itis. This is just the beast in their brain talking. They’ll likely need more courses of Abetadiazole. But it’s okay. 

The tough - those capable of self-critique and of accepting critique - will survive, their immune system will kick in and begin rejecting the inclination to use Y/N in every paragraph, assuming they are capable of paragraphs. Signs the treatment is working is when Y/N does not make an appearance in the first few paragraphs. Immunity will shows signs of becoming more robust when Y/N does not appear above the cut. And in some cases, this is the best we can hope for. 

.

Ah, an autopsy. Everybody gown up. Grab the rib spreader. This is gonna be a good one. Characters like Millie are my most favorite when it comes to writing in the vein of “based on…” and “adapted by…” because we have little information on them, meaning we can fill in those cracks ourselves, but at the same time? In this case, at least? The little bit we’ve got on Millie holds a lot.

Brief disclaimer: I am of the opinion that the writers (excepting Kripke, who was playing the long game with a five-year plan) aren’t doing as much foreshadowing and employing other sneaky-tricksy, deep-seated literary gambits as I’ve noted more than a few viewers assert; it seems to me that the writers backtrack and use past plot points (broadly, that is - evidence has shown us that, on the whole, they aren’t precise canon adherents) to bolster present/immediate-future arcs. However, it gives us the opportunity to expound upon the more minute things/characters they’ve forgotten about and/or left to languish.

Let’s do a list of knowns vs. unknowns about The Mysterious Mrs. Winchester, because the former’s more important than the latter when getting our brains on task for an adaptation/based-upon piece, a.k.a. fanfiction. I have used her as a pivotal player (in the backstory) for my big story, so minus some specific lines I just pulled from a script, the following is coming from my (canon-based) notes. You have come to the right person #humbly #not really #Millie’s my jam 

Check this out.

Millie has only come up twice in the show, most recently on Lady Antonia “Brain-Diddle” Bevell’s grossly incomplete mood board, then in a flashback during a conversation between Henry and Josie. Watch your step for that turd of exposition dump up top:

Catch that? 

Ah, I see. This is a case where the diagnosis lies in vision - not the villain’s, but ours, as writers. The best villains aren’t the ones who are EXTRA! whether it’s in a cartoonish sense or in a super-powered megalomaniac sense. The best are the ones who are human.

Yeah, yeah, I know some of them aren’t in stories - werewolves, vamps, alien overlords and whatnots - but we gotta pretend they are. We gotta pretend they are just as human as we are, maybe they’re smarter in some sense or maybe they’ve got more resources, sure, yet at the end of the day, they’re motivated by the same stuff. The vampire nest comes after the heroes not because they’re hungry - well, maybe, but the hunger’s secondary - but because they’re trying to keep their unit (perhaps they’d consider it their family) intact.

The scariest thing about these sorts of enemies is that they think their actions are justified - true, all villains think this - but in their mind, there’s a sense of virtue to it. Same as the hero’s mentality. Heroes will compromise morals, they aren’t perfect, and they chalk it up to the greater good, to the bigger picture, to ends justifying means. Villains are the same.

So try this: flesh out an outline as if you were planning the arc for a hero - then think of the villain as the hero. Hell, think of that villain as your hero: what would your hero do in the same situation? Make the villain do that - it’ll give the hero a wham-dinger of a fight, they’ll be toe-to-toe combatants, matching wits, similar strategies, whatever the case may be. 

Start with what motivates the hero (family? helping those who can’t help themselves? killing bad guys? all of the above?) and mirror that in the villain. Bottom line: make the villain resolute in his beliefs, make him believe he’s defending his family, believe he’s helping people, think he’s taking out bad guys - make him believe he is the good guy.

Unwavering belief in the face of contrary evidence is, in my opinion, a quite frightening and villainous characteristic.

.