darling-ocs

[darling-ocs]

Oh hey btw: If you're starting your second draft of something and you're having a hard time editing out the useless fluff that doesn't lead the story anywhere, consider changing tactics: Condense, don't cut.

"Kill your darlings" is bullshit, you shouldn't throw out things that spark joy, just put them into good use or somewhere they're not in the way. Combine scenes, characters and locations. You've got two beloved but unimportant background characters with only a vague scraping role in the story? Combine them. Have just one, who now has the traits, speaking lines and the role of both of them.

You've got a Super Important But Boring scene, and a scene that doesn't progress the story but was basically just you indulging in describing a wonderful location? Combine them. Have the characters have that Super Important Conversation in the pretty rose garden or the lovely bookshop you wanted to include.

You've got two really cool locations that are in the same city but both only show up once, and it feels like a waste to indulge in describing them in detail? Combine them. The smoky tavern and the smoky witch's brew shop are now working out of the same building - the witch and the tavern keeper are now married.

If you feel like you have too much description or too many characters, don't throw anything out before you've checked if you have an empty shelf to put them in. Give the Cool Character Description to a previously nondescript character who only shows up to tell the protagonist the One Important Thing. Make the Cool Location You Described For Three Pages But Which Only Shows Up Once show up again later.

[darling-ocs]

Oh hey btw: If you're starting your second draft of something and you're having a hard time editing out the useless fluff that doesn't lead the story anywhere, consider changing tactics: Condense, don't cut.

"Kill your darlings" is bullshit, you shouldn't throw out things that spark joy, just put them into good use or somewhere they're not in the way. Combine scenes, characters and locations. You've got two beloved but unimportant background characters with only a vague scraping role in the story? Combine them. Have just one, who now has the traits, speaking lines and the role of both of them.

You've got a Super Important But Boring scene, and a scene that doesn't progress the story but was basically just you indulging in describing a wonderful location? Combine them. Have the characters have that Super Important Conversation in the pretty rose garden or the lovely bookshop you wanted to include.

You've got two really cool locations that are in the same city but both only show up once, and it feels like a waste to indulge in describing them in detail? Combine them. The smoky tavern and the smoky witch's brew shop are now working out of the same building - the witch and the tavern keeper are now married.

If you feel like you have too much description or too many characters, don't throw anything out before you've checked if you have an empty shelf to put them in. Give the Cool Character Description to a previously nondescript character who only shows up to tell the protagonist the One Important Thing. Make the Cool Location You Described For Three Pages But Which Only Shows Up Once show up again later.

[darling-ocs]

One trap that All the Time Daydreamers, Sometimes Writers, fall into is this idea that writing is transcribing the daydream.

It's not. The daydream is a fuzzy thing. There are gaps that you don't need to fill in a daydream, because you already get the emotional point. A lot of it is emotion. And because it makes you feel like a complete story would, your brain is tricked into thinking that's what you have.

Then you sit down to actually write the thing and you realize you're trying to write a Space Opera without actually inventing any planets or space ships. You don't even know if the characters start out on the same planet. If they're on a planet at all. You didn't bother to check.

Now you will vaguely reference this in first-second person in any writing guide you make up for the rest of time.

When you write, you're building something. It's not a pale imitation of what you have in your head- what you have in your head can't exist on the outside. This is a whole new beast. It's going to ultimately look different and this is a good thing.

Also the internal critic is dumb.

I'm not even trying to be nice to your writing specifically here. The internal critic is looking for a completed story and you don't have one yet. So anything it has to say flat out does not apply.

[darling-ocs]

thinking about strong (brittle) vs strong (resilient) characters

the first type seem unbreakable because of the sheer amount of shit they withstand without flinching. they stand tall, still smiling, shrugging off every setback in a way their peers can’t help but admire. they’re the last person anyone expects to fold, and it will take a storm of epic proportions to break them, but once they hit that point, there’s no going back. they snap, and that vulnerable emotional core now lays exposed to the elements, stripped of the thick armor that previously protected it

the second type seem weaker on the surface. every storm that rolls in pushes them down, bows them almost to the ground. they’re not stoic. they’re not unflinching. they’ll sacrifice dignity and appearances to get by, and compromise is accepted as a facet of survival. in some ways it may even seem like life has specifically set them up to be knocked down at every turn. but each time the storm passes, they rise back up again with a resilience and flexibility that allows them to bend so much farther without completely breaking

[darling-ocs]

[writing an emotional scene] oh fuck does this sound like my characters are trying to get a good grade in therapy

[darling-ocs]

One thing I’ve learned about writing is ”give everything a face”. It’s no good to write passively that the nobility fled the city or that the toxic marshes were poisoning the animals beyond any ability to function. Make a protagonist see how a desperate woman in torn silks climbs onto a carriage and speeds off, or a two-headed deer wanders right into the camp and into the fire. Don’t just have an ambiguous flock of all-controlling oligarchy, name one or two representatives of it, and illustrate just how vile and greedy they are as people.

it’s bad to have characters who serve no purpose in the story, but giving something a face is a perfectly valid purpose.

[darling-ocs]

You know, when I see fictional characters who repress all their emotions, they're usually aloof and very blunt about keeping people at a distance, sometimes to an edgy degree—but what I don't see nearly enough are the emotionally repressed characters who are just…mellow.

Think about it. In real life, the person that's bottling up all their emotions is not the one that's brooding in the corner and snaps at you for trying to befriend them. More often than not, it's that friendly person in your circle who makes easy conversation with you, laughs with you, and listens and gives advice whenever you're upset. But you never see them upset, in fact they seem to have endless patience for you and everything around them—and so you call them their friend, you trust them. And only after months of telling them all your secrets do you realize…

…they've never actually told you anything about themselves.

[darling-ocs]

Basic rules for analysing fiction, an incomprehensive list jotted down in a hurry:

The protagonist isn’t always right

The protagonist isn’t always good

The protagonist isn’t always written to be relatable or likeable

The narrator isn’t always right

The narrator isn’t always good

The narrator isn’t always telling the truth

The narrator isn’t always the author

The protagonist’s moral compass, the narrator’s moral compass and the author’s moral compass are three entirely different things that only occasionally overlap

Pay attention to what characters do and not just what they say

Pay special attention when what the characters do is at odds with what they say

A lot of the time the curtains are blue for a reason. If they aren’t, you should read better books

[darling-ocs]

writing advice: every chapter should have something that makes you, a sicko, say yeesss… hahaha… yeeesss!!! and it doesn’t quite matter what you are a sicko about but it’ll be hard to get through the chapter if nothing makes you press your face into the window

[darling-ocs]

Ok but before you go throwing random stuff into your story to spice it up or get it un-stuck, consider doing the following:

Grab a few events (minor or major doesn’t matter) from earlier or later in the story and trace out the causal chains. What caused it and what did it cause? Can the domino effect lead to a new event?

Trace out the “story” of the main cast’s motivation. How does the motivation interact with the story and how does the motivation change over time?

Go hunt for story elements you put in earlier that could be escalated into subplots.

Take a few characters who have different levels of information (or are more or less close to antagonists) and go through the story from their perspective. Perhaps you don’t know what should come next for your main character, but it might be obvious what comes next for a different character.

When you throw in new characters, first try to repurpose old characters. This makes them feel less cheap and gives them a better chance at developing depth. And when you do want to use a totally new one, consider someone who’s related to an existing character or a causal chain. The reader might already be wondering where X character’s parents are, after all. 

Point is, the deeper the connections between your story elements, the more satisfying the read. You don’t have to view those connections as a constraint. They can tell you what needs to happen next.

[darling-ocs]

give me two characters who are each other’s home. two characters who feel completely safe, warm and protected in each other’s presence, and who are completely respected by the other. two people who, on some level or another, were missing that little extra spark they needed to feel fully confident and accepted as their whole selves until the other came along. they don’t “fix each other” or “make each other better”–they give the other the support they need to build on what was already inside them. sure they might kiss, or make goo-goo eyes, but they can also just…talk, and make each other laugh and smile, because for once they feel comfortable enough in themselves and with each other to be vulnerable in that way. two complete people who finally find someone to share all of themselves with. and no matter what they do or how far they go, they’ll always have each other to come back home to. 

[darling-ocs]

That post that's like "stop writing characters who talk like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy" really blew the door wide open for me about how common it's become for a character's emotional intelligence to not be taken into consideration when writing conflict. I remember the first time I went to therapy I had such a hard time even identifying what I was feeling, let alone had the language to explain it to someone else. Of course there are plenty of people who've never been to therapy a day in their life who are in tune to their emotions. But even they would have some trouble expressing themselves sometimes. You have to take into account there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable expressing themselves and people who think they're not allowed to feel certain ways. It also makes for more interesting conflict to have characters with different levels of understanding.

[darling-ocs]

“denied the catharsis of punishment” is an underappreciated but hugely effective narrative consequence imo 

[darling-ocs]

Giggling and kicking my feet over my own characters' relationship

[darling-ocs]

if your ocverse was like a published media which character of yours would be interpreted by the fandom in the most horreeendously incorrect ways possible

[darling-ocs]

Tag the OC who needs to be kept at bay with a spray bottle full of water.

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[darling-ocs]

Tag the OC who was supposed to only have a minor role in the story until you got Too Attatched (™️) and now they're integral to the plot

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