The Water Zone

here is a carrd for he/him lesbians

here is a carrd for bisexual people

here is a carrd for nonbinary people

here is a carrd for lgbt activism

here is a carrd for how to help lgbt in poland

here is a carrd for back trans lives matter

here is a carrd for black artist resources

here is the saytheirnames carrd

here is a link to the lgbt freedom fund

“The secrets do not know you. Prepare: they’ll whisper you your fate.”

Lesser known facts when writing women:

High heeled shoes don’t become flats if you break the heels off.

The posts of earrings aren’t sharp.

Nail polish takes a long time to dry and smudges when wet.

You can’t hold in a period like pee.

Inserting a tampon is not arousing or sexual in any way, ever.

- Make up can take anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes depending on how skilled you are.

- Taking hair out of a ponytail after wearing it for hours does not make it perfectly straight when it comes down.

- Hair when wet sticks to the skin it no longer flows, idiot.

-When women with long hair kiss, turn around, do anything, their hair falls in the way.

-a good bra will hide headlights, or at the very least drastically reduce their noticeability. A women with enough pointy nipple issues will opt for a padded or molded bra to hide them.

Lesser known facts when writing women:

High heeled shoes don’t become flats if you break the heels off.

The posts of earrings aren’t sharp.

Nail polish takes a long time to dry and smudges when wet.

You can’t hold in a period like pee.

Inserting a tampon is not arousing or sexual in any way, ever.

- Make up can take anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes depending on how skilled you are.

- Taking hair out of a ponytail after wearing it for hours does not make it perfectly straight when it comes down.

- Hair when wet sticks to the skin it no longer flows, idiot.

-When women with long hair kiss, turn around, do anything, their hair falls in the way.

-a good bra will hide headlights, or at the very least drastically reduce their noticeability. A women with enough pointy nipple issues will opt for a padded or molded bra to hide them.

Do NOT use for scanlating.

All under cut.

Be creative! What is lost may be something material or it may be something more. The person seeking or the lost thing could be the subject of the story or it could even just be a descriptive piece. 

Think outside the box!

But don’t worry, most writers are and I’m here to help because reading them is making me cRAzY.

I’m writing this because I’ve read three otherwise great romance novels back to back featuring characters dealing with PTSD (or PTSD symptoms) and each one of them made the same dream mistakes. I honestly can’t think of a fiction book I’ve read that didn’t make these mistakes, so I thought I’d compile a handy dandy list of mistakes and how to fix them. 

Lucky for you, I have PTSD and a ton of fellow veteran friends who deal with these symptoms. 

*This is based on my experience and things told to me by friends. This is not to say that the below doesn’t happen in real life, only that it’s not as common as you might think.

The issue with these dreams is twofold: on one side is the psychological accuracy of the dream and on the other side is how you’re using the dream within the narrative.

Oh an Black Sails spoilers-ish ahead. 

1) Stop writing the dream as a shot-by-shot accurate retelling of Traumatic Event.

Listen, not only do dreams seldom follow reality, but our own memories are tricky at best. I don’t remember getting beaten up because a) it was horrifying and we block stuff like that out and b) I was going in and out of consciousness. It would be pretty strange for me to dream something I don’t even fully remember. Our brains are simply not wired to do these vivid factually-accurate cinematic retellings.

My friend dreams things that did happen, but in his own words those dreams are always wrong in some noticeable or bizarre way. For instance, he’s getting chased through the streets of Iraq by a werewolf. 

2) Dreams are informed by reality, not direct reflections of it. 

It’s entirely likely my friend dreamt of a werewolf in Iraq because I got him binge watching Supernatural and the two ideas merged in his dreamstate. But see, that’s how dreams work. 

The trauma event exists as a constant in his subconscious, but he has all this other information right there in his conscious mind all day, every day. In dreams, there isn’t a clear delineation between that information.

My dreams are often dependent on whatever I’ve fallen asleep watching on television. The themes are consistent, but not the content.

In Black Sails, Captain Flint’s trauma dreams feature his dead partner and friend following him around his empty ship. You have an element of the trauma (the animated corpse of his friend) + his daily existence (his ship). The two things intersect to form these unsettling nightmares as expressions of his fears and grief. He never once relives the event itself in his dreams as shown on screen.

Speaking of…

3) Trauma dreams often revolve around feelings, not necessarily the events themselves.

The PTSD package generally includes heaps of shame, guilt, anger and fear. As someone who survived a beating when I should have had control of the situation, my dreams tend to revolve around fear that people will know I’m a fraud or being unable to act in a dangerous situation. 

Again, it’s entirely common for trauma victims to not remember large chunks (or the whole thing) of the trauma event. So why should their dreams be stunningly accurate? What we remember are feelings. Real strong feelings.

You cannot go wrong if you write your trauma dream around feelings, not a specific event.

4) If you present trauma dreams as expressions of themes, you can let go of the trauma dream as an exposition dump/way overused suspense trope.

You know you’ve read this: MC has dreams that are a shot-by-shot retelling of Traumatic Event that always cut off right before Traumatic Event, so that the Big Reveal must happen by a discovery later in the novel. 

If I were the MC in a book, the easy and common thing would be to use the “dream sequence” as an expository retelling of Traumatic Event as a way to give some backstory to why I might be surly, mistrustful, afraid to try something new, whatever, and to clumsily shoehorn in suspense where there doesn’t need to be.

The much more interesting thing might be if my dreams were inconsistent in content but consistent in theme. In one I’m on an alien planet (because I fell asleep watching the Science Channel again) and the ground opens up and I fall into a pit from which I can’t escape because I am helpless. In another a man is watching me while I sleep where I am again frozen and helpless. This would force the reader to think: what is the recurring issue in these dreams? Why is it important? What is this telling me about this character and what happened to her? 

It could be a personal preference, but I’d rather see the Traumatic Event either told in narrative flashbacks (not dreams) or verbally retold by the character in question. Let the dreams tell me something deeper about the character. It’s not that I was beat up, it’s that I feel like a failure because of it. One of these things is a shallow factual detail, the other tells you something about me as a person that I’m sharing with you, gentle reader, because talking about this stuff is healthy.

5) The Traumatic Event doesn’t have to be a big secret. 

In Black Sails, we know what happened to Captain Flint’s partner. It happened in real time in the show. That didn’t make his uber disturbing dreams less disturbing or mysterious. Fans still debate exactly what the symbolism was and what they were telling us about James Flint in those moments. We do know from the dreams that he was disturbed, obsessed, and also monumentally guilty and blaming himself for what happened. 

The mystery was perhaps more heightened by the fact that the dreams weren’t direct reflections of reality. We know who this person was, what she believed, and why she died. That Flint is imagining her screaming silently in his ear is horrifying and discordant with what we know to be factual. This adds emotional complexity to his character and the decisions he’s making while suffering these dreams. 

^^^this didn’t happen. It was a dream. A real unsettling dream.

Once you let go of the concept of the trauma dream as a literal retelling and exposition dump, you have the entire dreamscape to work in other narrative elements, like symbolism, metaphor, foreshadowing, etc. 

Protagonist now remembers key facts about important people. He no longer develops convenient amnesia between cutscenes.

Protagonist now has a cooldown on certain adverbs. Adverbs have been buffed by 30% to compensate.

Developer note: Adverbs are important to writing but they are sometimes overused. This change keeps adverbs relevant while encouraging the use of adjectives and verbs.

The horse now has a name.

Leave a card in my inbox! 

The Fool: When has your character been excited to start a new journey? The Magician: How does your character unleash their creativity or resourcefulness? The High Priestess: When has trusting their instincts paid off for your character? The Empress: Who has been a positive female figure in your character’s life? The Emperor: Who has been a positive male figure in your character’s life? The Hierophant: Who has served as a mentor to your character? The Lovers: Which of your character’s relationships has been the most positive? (Romantic or otherwise) The Chariot: What goal is your character determined to reach? Strength: On what issue is your character persistent? The Hermit: Write about a time your character did some soul searching. What did they find? The Wheel of Fortune: What are your character’s proudest successes? Justice: When has your character felt satisfied with the conclusion to a major dispute or concern? The Hanged Man: When has your character needed to step back and look at things from a different perspective? Death: When has your character had to let go of something in their life? Temperance: How does your character balance their life? The Devil: Does your character ever neglect their wild side? The Tower: When has your character lost an ideal or relationship? The Star: When has your character been most hopeful? The Moon: When has your character’s path been unclear? The Sun: When does your character sit back and enjoy themselves? Judgment: Has your character ever been given a second chance? The World: When has one of your character’s dreams come true?

Bonus: Major Arcana in Reverse!

tolkien: no go ahead i want to hear it

cs lewis: they fucking suck

Tolkien: what do you mean

CS Lewis: I just. you describe a lot of trees.  are trees that important

Tolkien: just you fucking wait. trees are SO important.

Tolkien: blocked

CS Lewis: wait unblock me i need to tell you something

Tolkien: unblocked