whumpy writing blog

Write it anyway, write it anyway, write it anyway.

There are so, so, so many reasons:

You gain that skill level only through practice. So practice.

No matter what you’re writing, no matter how badly you think you’ve written it, there is ALWAYS some audience that will love it and cherish it.

You can use what you write the first time around as a first draft and just rewrite it again later when you feel like tackling the story again!

Rewriting the same story over and over is a valid writing process. It’s literally just creating new drafts. Each iteration will be better than the last, because each is building on your growing skill and experience.

If you love the story, it will always be worth telling simply for your own enjoyment. If no one else ever sees it, that’s okay! Your art should be for you first, anyway.

It’s not expressly said that way. It’s couched in gentler, loving phrases like “he’s never felt this way before” and “it wasn’t like this with anyone else.” It’s especially prevalent when there is a canon love interest to be denied, or a mutually exclusive ship to push back against, and it feels like trying to quietly dismiss a contrived love triangle instead of recognizing that different loves can share intensity and one might still not work out.

And I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m not saying it’s problematic or amoral or something that needs to stop, that people shouldn’t be doing this. I’m not saying that one true love is a bad trope. I guess I’m just asking, what are we afraid of?

Why can’t the character have felt that way before? Why can’t they have loved someone with their whole heart before? It’s the tragedy of love isn’t it- that sometimes it doesn’t work. Not that the love was missing or less, but that it was there, that it was whole and full and real, that it mattered… but that it didn’t change anything, couldn’t work out. The circumstances were wrong, the people were wrong despite their love, it was everything and that wasn’t enough. Love doesn’t have to be less or gone to recognize that maintaining a relationship for it is unsustainable. A character can leave behind a great love and find a new great love, and while love is never quite The Same between people, it can be As Much.

And I guess I’m wondering, you know, how it is better, to love wholly only once? “It was never like this with the other person” is surely meant to be a soft sentiment declaring how much greater this love is, but, all it does is make me wonder what is so weak about it that if there was an equal love, this love wouldn’t survive it, wouldn’t be chosen.

STOP. STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP.

FOR YOUR SAFETY, S T O P.

DO NOT VOLUNTEER TO HOST RANDOM STRANGERS. DO NOT AGREE TO BE HOSTED BY A RANDOM STRANGER.

DO NOT PUBLICLY POST THAT YOUR HOUSE WILL BE AN ABORTION SAVE HAVEN. OFFICIAL NETWORKS TO DO THIS ALREADY EXIST, NETWORKS THAT HAVE THE ABILITY TO BACKGROUND CHECK, AND SHIELD THEIR VOLUNTEERS FROM LAW ENFORCEMENT.

Even IF you personally know every person you’re offering this to and know with 100% certainty that they’re legit: YOU HAVE JUST CREATED A POTENTIALLY LEGALLY DAMNING DIGITAL PAPER TRAIL.

I know how obnoxious this is to say, but please: reblog this. I see these posts a lot, and I know most of you have good intentions. But these unoffical auntie networks are dangerous, both for those trying to help, and those seeking help. Law enforcement sees you. Violent anti-abortion extremists see you.

me:

character: allows the person they're fighting to wound them, perhaps even fatally, so that they can get close enough to slip past their defences and destroy them right back

me:

Whumpees that have been absolutely shattered, but instead of breaking into harmless sand they stick themselves back together into razor sharp blades and edges.

Whumpees that have been through hell, and you know just by looking at them that it made them deadly instead of weak.

Whumpees that are starved for touch and affection and will cave into any hug, but will just as easily break the spines of any who would hurt them again without hesitation.

Whumpees that are calculating and clever in the desperate survivalist way that forces them to stay sane and smart and not give in to despair.

Working with a REALLY Big Cast of Characters

Every Character Has to Play a Role

Regardless of what kind of story you're writing--and yes, fan-fiction is story--you need to make sure your main and secondary characters all have a discernible role in the story. They may play a role in moving the plot forward, they may play a role in character development, or they may play a role in world building.

The Role of Tertiary Characters

In addition to main characters and secondary characters--who do need an active role in the story--you will also have background characters or "tertiary" characters. These are the people who fill your story's world to make it more believable. This would be characters like palace guards, teachers, co-workers, customers, people at a party, villagers perusing a marketplace... These characters don't need a role in the story beyond existing and perhaps having light interaction with the main and secondary characters.

Determining Who's Who in a Preexisting Cast

When you're working with a preexisting cast of characters, as you are when writing fan-fiction or continuing an original fiction series, you need to look at each character and consider what role they would play in the story. If you can give them an active role that moves the plot forward, contributes to character development, or helps to flesh out world building, they're good candidates for main and secondary characters. Otherwise, you may need to demote them to tertiary characters or leave them out of the story entirely.

How to Know if the Character Plays an Active Role in the Story

Sometimes it's hard to figure out whether or not a character plays an active role in the story. If you're not sure what they contribute to the story, stop and really think about it. If you were to remove them, does it change the story somehow? And does that change make the story confusing or does it make it more streamlined? If you can remove them without affecting the story negatively, you can demote them to a tertiary character or leave them out. If removing them makes the story confusing, that's a good sign they're playing an important role.

How to Use Characters You Don't Want to Leave Out

In TV and movies, it's common for well-known people or characters to pop up in a scene in what's known as a "cameo." For example, Marvel Comics big wig Stan Lee was known for his cameos in the Marvel Cinematics Universe. For example, here is his cameo in The Amazing Spider-Man:

When you're writing fan-fiction or continuing a series and you have preexisting characters who don't have a role in the story, but you don't want to leave them out, consider making them tertiary characters or giving them a "cameo" in your story. For example, if you were writing an Encanto fan-fiction and Bruno didn't have a role in the story, you could use him as a tertiary character by having him present at Madrigal family dinners and events--which would make sense. Or, let's say your story takes place when Mirabel is grown-up and helping one of her nieces solve a big problem, but there are no family dinner or event scenes in your story--but you don't want to leave Bruno out of the story. You could give him a cameo by having Mirabel and her niece visit him to ask for advice. Or perhaps they run into him when they're sneaking around the marketplace looking for something. Cameos can be a great way to give a nod at preexisting characters you--and your reader--wouldn't want to be left out of the story, but without them taking up space in the story without contributing.

I hope that helps!

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It’s older then you are, it’s older then I am. The leather community is responsible for pride. Leather daddies were the ones chasing away cops when they tried to arrest us for being queer in public back when Pride Parades were illegal in the US. They are still the ones chasing away cops and corporations from smaller pride events and those that aren’t sanctioned by Wells Fargo. The leather community is essential to the queer community and has a long and rich history.

Please fuck off if you’re not going to learn the actual history of pride.

Here is a photograph from 1998, displaying the leather pride flag, the bear gay pride flag, and the rainbow flag. This is our history.

Source.

Here is a photograph from 1987: three queer women entering into the Ms. National Leather Association Contest, or simply gathering as spectators.

Source.

A flyer from 1989, rallying the leather community to march in a Stonewall anniversary protest.

Source.

A photograph from 1988: Tony Deblase, the creator of the leather pride flag, and a gay man, embracing a fellow member of the leather community. Over his shoulder is Judy Tallwing McCarthy, a Native American woman who was part of the leather community from 1959. She co-founded the first lesbian BDSM group in Portland, along with her partner, Sashie Hyatt.

Source. Source.

Just because you don’t know the history, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Be humble, and always assume you have more to learn. Hatred, and outright dismissal of communities you know nothing about, is the most aggressively anti-LGBT thing I can imagine.

Do you have any. Any idea. Any god damn clue. How kink intersects with LGBT and queer community. Queer history. Do you know why the community pushed for, and against, closing the bathhouses during the 80s? Do you know who organized awareness campaigns about HIV, even way back when it was still called GIRD. Do you know who created the safe sex pamphlets, the classes, who pushed for disclosing your health history to partners, who distributed contraceptives and condoms and dental dams at parties and meetings and baths? Do you even know where the safe sex education we have now comes from? Do you know where a bulk of the language about consent came from? Do you have any good god damn idea what the kink communities have done for us, and continue to do for us?

Don’t be so quick to sanitize your queerness and make it corporate pride daytime TV-friendly. Don’t be so quick to jump on the purity bandwagon. Don’t be so quick to speak on what your community should look like before you’ve actually learned the history of your community, and always be aware that there are things you probably don’t yet know.

These things will not protect you. They never have. And all you’re doing is isolating yourself from community, from support, from the strength we all have when we stand together in a world that would gladly pick us off one by one.

Queerness isn’t as hidden or embattled now (in some places) as it once was, but make no mistake: when our existence was illegal everywhere the people you have this knee-jerk “hide the weirdos” reaction to are the very ones who would’ve had your back against the cops and the gay-bashers.