Firstly, look at my dogs, Clark (left) and Wendy (right).
Now that we’ve discussed the important stuff, welcome!
If you’re curious about me, feel free to take a look at my About section, but otherwise, enjoy the words! There will be a lot of them, and I encourage your thoughts about each one. Never hesitate to leave a comment, as I’d love to hear from you.
Now that we have explored why you should or should not portray trauma, we’re going to look at some concrete tactics and experiences regarding what trauma looks like.
Today we’re going after another deep topic that is near and dear to my heart. While I believe you shouldn’t suffer for your art, that doesn’t mean you can’t make your art suffer!
Suffering can come in many forms; if you can think of a bad thing, someone has written it. Whether that’s an acid attack, suicide attempt, a murdered loved one, drug overdose, or infidelity, trauma is everywhere, and it impacts every person differently. Exploring trauma can make for compelling literature, but it can also cause a trainwreck, like The Midnight Library (sorry to those who liked it).
There are many nuanced and interesting portrayals of trauma in media: Jessica Jones and Outlander are two good examples. And, of course, there are absolutely terrible ones which have birthed whole tropes, like the concept of fridging.
So how do you get it right? Let’s take a closer look.
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Hello friends! I’ve been busy writing another little freebie for my world that I’d love you to read, called “Pride Before a Fall.” It focuses on my two beloveds, Uileac and Orrinir, and has very strong domesticity vibes. Great for a low-stress read where you just want to see boys kiss.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about characters!
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Today’s going to be a heavier topic, but one that I feel is incredibly important. I’ve been pingponging this around my head since I saw the disturbing responses on a Reddit post, where a fellow writer was encouraging others to care for their overall well-being.
Many commenters responded very negatively to this, insisting that all their best work comes when they’re in the throes of suicidal despair. They claimed that saying you should care for your mental and physical health is some form of ableism, then promptly got into pissing contests about how terrible their mental health is, as if this is a badge of honor (it’s not).
Well, as someone with bipolar disorder, I’m here to tell you that’s a damn lie. You do not need to be a martyr for your art; in fact, it can really damage your craft.
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Hello again! It’s been a while! I’ve been busy writing “What Is Cannot Be Unwritten,” which you can read for free over on Archive Of Our Own. This story focuses on Mordrek, a background character from my novel, and what made him such a lovable bastard. If you love heterosexual sex, torture, and the worst possible way to die, you’ll have a blast!
Anyway, I had to come up with some new background characters for that story, which got me thinking about names again. This is an underappreciated but critical point of fiction writing that deserves far more consideration, but many don’t find it as flashy as things like worldbuilding and plotting.
However, character names can make or break a story, which is why you should put equal effort into monikers as you do everything else in your story. Let’s dig in!
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A writer’s brain is chaos most of the time. We are all over the place, ping-ponging amongst a bramble of curious thoughts and half-snatched ideas. It can get pretty overwhelming in there, and this can distract us from our ultimate goal: to make something amazing that people love.
More than that, over-cogitation can cause burnout. When you’re on alert all the time, puzzling through difficult passages and plot holes, then you’ll quickly find yourself with no energy to continue your work.
But what if the antidote is to be head empty, no thoughts? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could simply rocket into the blissful void of Orange Cat Energy – whenever you want?
Well you can, my friend. That’s where mindfulness comes into play.
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In the last post, we got out our lab coats and did some differential diagnosis for writer’s block. Now that we’ve started to untangle what could actually be causing the problem, let’s look into solutions!
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Every writer in the world, no matter their genre or skill level, has suffered from this affliction at least once. We hate it, we fear it, we don’t know what to do about it.
I’m not going to waste much time explaining what writer’s block feels like; I imagine everyone has a slightly different experience, anyway. For me, it’s a brain blue screen, where I stare blankly at the page and don’t even know what words are anymore.
For years, I just assumed I had been struck with Orange Cat Syndrome and someone else was using my single brain cell at the time, but now that I glued my ganglia in place, I think there’s something deeper going on.
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We’ve come to the end of my writing tools for now, as the ones I have discussed are my primary methods. Who knows, I may add more in the future, and I will of course keep you in the loop.
If you want to review the methods I have explored so far, check them out:
This one isn’t a writing tool so much as an anti-procrastination tool, but at times, it’s the only thing that keeps me focused enough to reach my word count for the day. As such, I think we’ll give it a pass and let it count!
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If you want to review the tools I’ve discussed so far, check out the posts:
Now, many people use this tool, so I’m not reinventing the cheese wheel. However, I do a few interesting things with my particular method.
Let’s take a look!
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In 2022, I tried to write your typical boilerplate samurai novel called Birds of Japan. Standard fare: bisexual daimyō in an arranged marriage with a retainer’s daughter who prefers getting off with his karō (second in command), but slowly comes to love his wife after she helps him defeat a rival lord. Sword fights, gay sex, beheadings, abductions, etc etc, who cares.
I could have made something interesting out of it, especially if I added way more gay sex, but I got 119 pages in and never finished.
Well, that page count is disingenuous. Only 67 of those pages were actual writing.
Today’s post will be relatively short because the tool is straightforward – but oh so effective.
Seriously, you will marvel at how much you can get done with … floating heart emojis?
The other day I discussed my Speed Demon Word Count™ method, but there’s a corrolary to your beautiful spreadsheet. After all, it’s one thing to get the gumption to wake up and choose violence toward your Google Doc, quite another to actually have thoughts that can be placed in said Doc (who probably wishes you didn’t).
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That’s 104,323 words, for an average of 2,647 words per day. I write faster than Stephen King (sorry buddy).
On the average day, I spend approximately two hours writing. Yes, every single day, regardless of what my horoscope says or whether there are evil portents in the sky.
Now, you may have a few questions, such as “What the hell is wrong with you?” (many things) or “Are you sure you’re human?” (debatable).
The most important question is this, though:
“How do you not get writer’s block if you write over 2,000 words every single day during the drafting stage?”
So, now that we’ve covered some basics of how to write, like that you need descriptions and you should write fun characters, we’re going to get more into the brass tacks of writing.
Every writer is different; we all use slightly different processes to make our masterpieces. You should not take anything I say as gospel, but I’d like to help you explore options that can take your work to the next level. That includes things like workflow and tools that I find useful.
If you already have a setup that works for you, great! Don’t change a thing. But if you find that you’re struggling, you might find some value in what I suggest.
With that, let’s explore a fun tool: ProWritingAid.
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I recently read How Not to Write a Novel, which is a truly marvelous text of everything that is wrong with you, me, society, and the world at large. Perhaps not the last two, but definitely about you and me. Or our writing, at least.
In the vein of this, my new fascination, let’s talk about characters.
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Let’s talk about some of my favorite little guys. Unless you are Japanese or a weeaboo, you have never heard of them. That’s fine! They’re actually not that important to what I want to explain.
Mikazuki Munechika (left) and Tsurumaru Kuninaga (right) are two characters from the Touken Ranbu franchise. They are also the whole reason I have written a book.
They’re not in the book, of course, because that would be a copyright violation. In fact, my original fiction has nothing to do with Touken Ranbu.
I call them the inspiration for my novel because of an undeniable fact: writing about boys kissing taught me how to craft a book.
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In a previous post, we discussed how to become a great beta reader. Unfortunately, because my blog isn’t immediately downloaded into the brain of every person who has ever considered looking at someone else’s work (yet, I’m working on that), some people are not going to get the message.
So this time, let’s explore the side of the recipient: you, my fabulous aspiring author who is going to get their book published and be adored by happy readers. (You can do it!)
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Every day, I hop onto my poison of choice (Reddit) and see at least one permutation of the same question.
At first, I was very annoyed by it, mostly because it made me feel like I was in Groundhog Day and the titular character was mocking me in a squeaky rodent voice, tormenting me with an endless loop of this one question.
But I stopped. I chanted some mantras. I ate a Moon Pie (it’s almost the Total Solar Eclipse in Cleveland, after all).
And I realized something that made me kind of sad.
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Beta reading can be extremely rewarding, both for you and your recipient. We all know that reading is the best way to be a writer, and there is truly no better way to benefit than to read across all spectrums and ability levels so you can start to notice what does and does not work.
However, just like writing, beta reading is an art. You want to encourage your recipient to keep writing and to cheer them on, but you also want to give them actionable advice so their next draft is even better. How do you get this magic mix right, then? Let’s take a look.
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