liladiurne

[liladiurne]

One of the key elements that make a story memorable is its characters. Whether they’re heroes or villains, the people we create in our writing need to feel unique, complex, and alive. It was a part of writing that I struggled with the most at the beginning. How do you make sure your characters stand out from the crowd? How do you give them a voice and presence that’s distinct and unforgettable?

Give Them Unique Voices

One of the easiest ways to make your characters feel distinct is to give each of them a unique voice. A character’s way of speaking—the words they use, the rhythm of their sentences, their tone—says a lot about them. A witty, sarcastic character will speak differently from someone who’s more reserved and thoughtful. You can achieve this by paying attention to how they express themselves, not just through dialogue but through their internal monologues as well. A character who’s quick-tempered might use short, sharp sentences, while someone more introspective might speak in longer, more reflective phrases. The key is consistency. Once you establish a character's way of speaking, try to keep it consistent throughout your story.

Focus on Their Backstory and Motivations

Every character is shaped by their past, even if you don’t fully show it on page. A character who grew up in a strict, loving household will behave differently than someone who had to survive in a rough, unpredictable enviromnent. You don’t need to go into every detail, but having a clear sense of where your character came from—and what they want in the present—will help guide how they act in different situations. Their goals, fears, and desires should reflect their decisions and relationships, making them feel more like real.

Give Them Distinct Physical Traits

Physical traits can help differentiate characters, but they should go beyond just eye color or height. Think about how a character’s appearance might reflect their personality or history. Maybe a character with messy hair and old clothes is someone who’s always in a rush or doesn’t care about their appearance. Perhaps a character who is meticulously groomed is someone who values control and order. Little details like this can communicate something about their character without you needing to say much. However, avoid making these physical traits stereotypes—make sure they reflect the essence of your character, not just visual clichés. (for the love of god stay away from the term orbs)

Let Them Have Quirks and Habits

The little things can go a long way in making a character feel real. Does your character always hum a certain tune when they’re nervous? Do they tap their fingers when they’re deep in thought? Maybe they have a habit of checking their phone obsessively, or they’re always keeping an eye of their loved ones around them. These quirks don’t need to be extreme or over-the-top, but they should feel like part of who the character is. Quirks can be small behaviors that reveal something about how the character thinks or feels, adding depth and individuality.

Use Their Relationships to Define Them

A character’s relationships with others play a huge role in how they’re perceived. How a character interacts with their friends, family, and even strangers can say a lot about who they are. Maybe your character is the life of the party with their friends but acts shy and withdrawn around authority. Maybe they’re confrontational and hot-headed with others but soft-spoken when talking to animals. These shifts in behavior show different sides of a character, making them feel more distinct. Additionally, relationships are often the best way to highlight a character’s growth—how they change based on their experiences with others can make them more dynamic and engaging.

Give Them Flaws and Vulnerabilities

No one is perfect, and neither should your characters be. Flaws and vulnerabilities not only make your characters feel more human but also give them room to grow throughout the story. Maybe your character is overly self-critical, or they struggle with trust issues. Perhaps they have a tendency to lie to protect themselves or they’re stubborn to a fault. These imperfections make characters relatable and provide opportunities for conflict and development. Flaws also allow you to play with how characters change over time. Do they learn to overcome their weaknesses? Do their flaws lead to their downfall? It’s up to you, but either way, giving your characters room to grow through their flaws adds another layer to their distinctiveness.

Avoid Making Them Too Predictable

While consistency in character traits is important, it’s also crucial to avoid making your characters so predictable that they feel boring. People are complex, and so should your characters be. Let them surprise readers by acting in unexpected ways. Maybe your tough, no-nonsense character suddenly shows kindness to someone they barely know, or a seemingly shy character makes a bold move when it matters most. These moments of complexity help break the mold and keep readers engaged.

These are just a few tips of mine for writing characters. Hope they help! :)

[liladiurne]

How to Avoid the Flawless MC

If you’ve created an MC that you believe is flawed and well rounded, but are still getting the feedback that they feel perfect or flawless—it may actually have nothing to do with them, but let’s dig into it.

1. Their flaws should hold them back

Flaws aren’t additional traits, but rather should be imbedded in the very bones of the plot. They are the reason a character doesn’t have what they want already—why they are going on their journey, and what they need to overcome or learn.

This means that their flaws will butt up against them time and time again and force them to make bad decisions and mistakes. That doesn’t always mean that they are bad traits, but rather that they are traits that sometimes take your characters further from their goal.

For example, in Tangled, Rapunzel’s greatest flaw is her naivete. This makes her an endearing character, and is as much of the reason as we root for her as her other traits. However, it also means that she is easily manipulated by Mother Gothel, and succumbs to her clutches at the midpoint.

2. They should face consequences

As seen above, a flaw without consequences isn’t really a flaw. Flaws hold the character back from their goal, and to do that, they must have consequences. If a character is insecure, that insecurity needs to manifest in them abandoning their date at prom and being subsequently hated by them. If they are headstrong, they need to push forward into a decision that leads to failure.

When they fail, it should be directly related to who they are as a person—and the flaws that they have. Otherwise, the failure falls flat—we could say that it was bad luck, and the MC gets off scot-free.

3. Not everyone likes or forgives them

This is probably the biggest reason why some protagonists are said to be flawless when they aren’t. I saw someone say that Katniss in the Hunger Games is a flawless protagonist, which I think is just untrue—she’s very deeply flawed and makes mistakes that lead to her world breaking out in revolution and many, many people dying. But what makes Katniss at times feel flawless is that she is unconditionally loved and forgiven by almost everyone—especially the people that matter the most: her family, Peeta, and Gale.

              If your character can do no wrong in everyone else’s eyes, it doesn’t matter that they very much can and do, do wrong. It’ll feel as though they fail the above two points. Allow other meaningful characters to fight with your protagonist, to dislike them for a bit, to condemn their actions and maybe not forgive them. Everyone missteps from time to time and upsets the people that they love, I promise it won’t make your protagonist any less likeable. In fact, seeing them experience this real, raw experience will bond your readers to them even more.

[liladiurne]

Cause of my insomnia number one:

[liladiurne]

Tips from a Beta Reading Writer

This one's for the scenes with multiple characters, and you're not sure how to keep everyone involved.

Writing group scenes is chaos. Someone’s talking, someone’s interrupting, someone’s zoning out thinking about breadsticks. And if you’re not careful, half your cast fades into the background like NPCs in a video game. I used to struggle with this so much—my characters would just exist in the scene without actually affecting it. But here’s what I've learned and have started implementing:

✨ Give everyone a job in the scene ✨

Not their literal job—like, not everyone needs to be solving a crime or casting spells. I mean: Why are they in this moment? What’s their role in the conversation?

My favourite examples are:

The Driver: Moves the convo forward. They have an agenda, they’re pushing the action.

The Instigator: Pokes the bear. Asks the messy questions. Stirring the pot like a chef on a mission.

The Voice of Reason: "Guys, maybe we don’t commit arson today?"

The Distracted One: Completely in their own world. Tuning out, doodling on a napkin, thinking about their ex.

The Observer: Not saying much, but noticing everything. (Quiet characters still have presence!)

The Wild Card: Who knows what they’ll do? Certainly not them. Probably about to make things worse.

If a character has no function, they’ll disappear. Give them something—even if it’s just a side comment, a reaction, or stealing fries off someone’s plate. Keep them interesting, and your readers will stay interested too.

[liladiurne]

Important announcement!

In the last year, I’ve been feeling progressively more weary and despondent when it comes to fandom. At first, I thought it was just a phase brought on by unnecessary drama and a succession of broken friendships, and that if I just took a step back, if I distanced myself from fandom spaces that had become toxic to me, I would find joy again. And I did distance myself. I cut ties, I quit logging in, I deleted accounts, until hardly anything remained. And it worked, because my mental health is better than it ever was. But the joy I used to find in fandom hasn’t come back.

Distance has made me admit things I think I was refusing to acknowledge before. The amount of time, effort, and dedication I’ve been putting into my fanworks for years feels like a waste now. It probably makes me sound ungrateful, because some of you have been so incredibly supportive, and you absolutely are the reason I’ve kept going for so long, but I can’t help but feel I need to move on to other, and hopefully better, things.

For a few months now, I’ve been preparing to move on to posting original works. I feel constrained within the limits of the fandom, of the characters, of someone else’s imagined world. Yes, I’ve been writing a lot of AUs, but it’s still not enough. I need more liberties. The stories I’ve written feel small in comparison to what they could be.

I wanted to wait before making the announcement, because it could be well over a year before I’m ready to post anything, but lately I’ve felt like giving an early heads up would be a good idea, mostly because some of my fics will be adapted and transformed and eventually deleted. I don’t know what will go and what will remain yet, so I guess this gives you the opportunity to save what you like before it goes. I’ll try to keep some copies in case anyone would want them, because I know not everyone will read this, and I’ll try to give a warning before any of the big fics go, but like I said, it could be well over a year before that happens. I just felt that if you follow me here, and if you have supported me all this time, you deserve to know what’s to come.

I don’t know if I’ll still post on ao3, or on the same account, or under the same pseud. It might be on Patreon instead, or who knows, it might be actual physical books! Nothing is certain so far, it’s all things I’ll have to figure out, but I’ll keep you updated on what I decide.

Thank you so much for sticking with me for however long you have. I’m so grateful for you all. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

-xx, Lila

[liladiurne]

Excellent tips and habits for writers

The advice I've given before is to write every scene you think of, no matter if it gets used or not. Its always a great idea to go back every once and a while and edit these scenes, or revise them.

Never force inspiration or a scene. If it isn't coming naturally, take a break and come back later or the next day. it's important to give yourself time to think. use your break to day dream about your story and what could come next. if your brain is happy, this should be relatively simple. If your brain isn't happy, then you need to take a longer break, stop writing for the day all together, or write something else.

if you're a pantser, like me, and it's hard to plot. You can practice reverse plotting, and plot your story as you go. make notes of things that happen in your story, changes in a character, changes in the plot, changes in the setting, dates for events, timelines, important information that's been revealed, anything you deem important to your story.

always reread what you've already written. don't try to edit it. turn off your editor brain and reread your story so far before you resume writing, so you can get into the voice and tone that you've already established.

if you're finding it difficult to start writing or keep writing. try turning off your internal editor and free write. it's good practice to be able to write down your unfiltered thoughts or daydreams without having to stop and edit while you're writing. it helps with your writing flow, getting the scene down onto the page, and increases your writing intuition.

before you write, always take time to daydream or think about your story beforehand. it helps things go much smoother in the long run.

if you've been working on something for a long time, don't pressure yourself into confinement. if you want to work on something new but you're worried about what you've been working on, don't. stop worrying and write what you want. forcing yourself to keep writing something when you don't want to is just going to make you burn out faster.

don't be afraid to create visuals or playlists that help you with what you're writing. It's an enviable talent to be able to write something off a photo you saw on pinterest, or a song you really like.

if you find yourself in a mood where you want to write really badly, but you have no idea what you want to write, and none of the prompts you find are appealing enough. find an activity you use to destress, whether its listening to music, listening to asmr, doom scrolling on social media, or browsing pinterest. go do that. chances are, you'll find something that will inspire you what to write when you're not looking for it.

[liladiurne]

musings on april

Sylvia Plath (Leon Dabo), Edna St. Vincent Millay, E. E. Cummings, Naguib Mahfouz (Edgar Degas), E. E. Cummings (Édouard Manet), Rabindranath Tagore, T. S. Eliot (Edgar Degas), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Alphonse Osbert)

[liladiurne]

Louise Glück, from Meadowlands; "Departure"

[Text ID: "The night isn't dark; the world is dark. / Stay with me a little longer."]

[liladiurne]

I always giggle when I think about it...

Am I psycho?

[liladiurne]

How to Write a Character with THAT *Sad Aura*

Have you ever stumbled upon a character, who, despite radiating wholesome, positive energy, also has a subtle undertone of sadness? It's kind of intriguing, isn't it? If you've ever wanted to write a perhaps more complex character or explore writing emotions, why not check this out?

What am I talking about?

Let's do a quick introduction as to what I mean. I've said this a couple times already, but to the reader, this character feels despondent even though they act nothing like it. This doesn't mean they have to act happy all the time (like my first example); they might act cold, or apathetic, but the point is they don't act visibly sad.

This faint melancholic mood provides a charming, or even nostalgic feel to the audience through ONE character! Isn't that kind of fun?

Eye Expressions

This character will not show sadness on their face--that contradicts the idea of "sad aura". But you know what they say, right? Eyes are the windows to the soul; they do not lie!

When trying to highlight some of this unhappiness, write about their eyes. Talk about how their eyes look oddly dim sometimes when they smile, or how they don't meet their friend's eyes when they laugh. These cues are simple but powerful.

Adverbs

You always have to be mindful of adverbs, but here especially, adverbs (and adjectives) unconsciously influence how your audience views the character.

For example, avoid saying too much of "smiled brightly" or "talked excitedly". If these are the adverbs you purposefully want to use to portray your character, then by all means! However, these adverbs add a happier connotation, which you must be aware of. If you want something more neutral (which I recommend for the most part), consider using lighter adverbs/adjectives, such as "smiled softly", or "offered lightly".

Reasons

A reason is normally needed for almost everything. Here, you want genuine reasons to back up why your character doesn't ask for help, thus forcing them to work through their unhappiness alone.

This could be because they think other people can't solve the problem, they don't want to bother others, they don't think their issue is a big deal, or they simply believe there's no solution.

Physical Hints

And if all this isn't enough, then drop some physical hints! Perhaps your character gets distracted often, tends to hesitate before speaking, deflects concerned comments with jokes, or has a hard time acknowledging reassurances, even when it's unrelated to their personal troubles. These habits suggest the idea your character has more than meets the eye.

Mood Changes

When people are upset, their mood tends to fluctuate. For most of us, we're typically upset for a short period, so we cycle through emotions such as anger, sadness, and even joy during these moments.

However, if your character is consistently sad, not just for a day or two, their mood might shift on different days. Maybe they're really tired one day, hardly speaking. Maybe the next, they are more frustrated, snapping at people or ignoring them. Maybe the day after that, they are overly energetic, bouncing everywhere and talking all the time, providing a bit of whiplash.

Purpose

Similar to having a reason for their reluctance of reaching out, you also want to ensure that they have a purpose for fighting. Why haven't they given up yet? This is especially crucial when considering the real world, where feeling upset leads to a lack of motivation.

So, what keeps them going, then? Do they want to fix their regrets? Do they want to change?

Backstory and Actions

To be honest, I wouldn't consider a backstory an absolute necessity, but I highly suggest creating one. Why? Because you can accurately identify the reason for your character's guilt, regret, and sorrows from the past with an actual backstory.

The events of your character's past always influence their future actions.

For example, if they were a part of a severe car accident in the past, perhaps they only feel comfortable when they are the driver in the future because that means they can control the car.

Conclusion

This character is not especially different from any other character, besides the fact that they are neither obvious nor overly secretive of their genuine feelings.

With that being said, focus on embodying their eye expressions, be careful about which adverbs and adjectives you choose to use--I recommend choosing ones with more neutral connotations for a sense of melancholy, explain why your character keeps their sadness to themselves and why they keep fighting despite it, show mood fluctuations, drop physical hints, such as actions and/or specific personality traits, and make sure to connect their past to their present!

Happy writing~

3hks ^^

[liladiurne]

Jane Hirshfield, from "The Weighing", The Asking: New and Selected Poems

[liladiurne]

Best Writing Advice I’ve Ever Received

1. “You can’t edit a blank page.”

This advice hit me like a ton of bricks when I first heard it. It’s so simple, yet so powerful. Writing something—even if it’s not perfect—is better than writing nothing at all. The idea is to get the words out, even if they’re messy, and then fix them later. There’s always room to improve, but the hardest part is starting. So, don’t wait for perfection. Just write.

2. “Show, don’t tell—except when you should tell.”

It’s one of the classic writing rules, and yet, I found this piece of advice to be both a game-changer and a huge relief. So often, we get stuck on the idea that “showing” is the ultimate goal. But sometimes, telling is just as effective. It’s about knowing when to lean into subtlety and when to give the reader exactly what they need upfront.

3. “Write the book you want to read.”

This was one of the most liberating pieces of advice I’ve ever received. So many times, we get caught up in writing what we think people will want to read, or what we think is “marketable.” But when you focus on writing a story you genuinely want to read—one that excites and moves you—everything else falls into place.

4. “Don’t compare your first draft to someone else’s final draft.”

This one is a tough one to swallow, especially in the age of social media where we’re constantly exposed to the polished, perfect versions of other people’s work. It’s easy to feel like you’re falling behind when you compare your rough drafts to someone else’s masterpiece. But every writer starts somewhere, and your first draft is just that—a draft.

5. “Make your characters want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.”

This advice came from a workshop, and it’s one that I’ve come back to time and time again. It’s a reminder that characters need motivation—whether it’s a big goal like saving the world, or something small and personal, like finding a glass of water in the desert. A character without desire is a character that feels flat and uninteresting.

6. “The best way to improve your writing is to read more than you write.”

This advice took me a while to fully understand, but it makes perfect sense. Reading other authors’ work, especially those whose writing you admire, teaches you things that can’t be learned through theory or workshops alone. You’ll pick up on pacing, voice, structure, and what makes a story truly captivating—all while expanding your understanding of storytelling.

7. “Your first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

This was another gem of wisdom that I didn’t fully grasp at first. It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting your first draft to be perfect, but it’s not meant to be. The first draft is for you—to explore the plot, the characters, the world. It’s your chance to get everything down and see where it leads, without worrying about perfection.

8. “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”

This is one of Stephen King’s rules of writing, and it’s a brilliant one. When you’re drafting, don’t worry about anyone else reading your work. It’s your time to be raw and experimental. But when it comes to revising, open that door—let others in for feedback, because the revision process is where the magic happens.

[liladiurne]

Some of my writer’s block cures:

Handwrite. (If you already are, write in a different coloured pen.)

Write outside or at a different location.

Read.

Look up some writing prompts.

Take a break. Do something different. Comeback to it later.

Write something else. (A different WIP, a poem, a quick short story, etc.)

Find inspiring writing music playlists on YouTube. (Themed music, POV playlists, ambient music, etc.)

Do some character or story prompts/questions to get a better idea of who or what you’re writing.

Word sprints. Set a timer and write as much as you can. Not a lot of time to overthink things.

Set your own goals and deadlines.

Write another scene from your WIP. (You don’t have to write in order.) Write a scene you want to write, or the ending. (You can change it or scrap it if it doesn’t fit into your story later.)

Write a scene for your WIP that you will never post/add to your story. A prologue, a different P.O.V., how your characters would react in a situation that’s not in your story, a flashback, etc.

Write down a bunch of ideas. Things that could happen, thing that will never happen, good things, bad things.

Change the weather (in the story of course.)

Feel free to add your own.

[liladiurne]

— call me by your name (andré aciman) / franz kafka

[liladiurne]

I Thought That I Could Not Be Hurt

by Sylvia Plath

I thought that I could not be hurt; I thought that I must surely be impervious to suffering -- immune to mental pain or agony.

My world was warm with April sun my thoughts were spangled green and gold; my soul filled up with joy, yet felt the sharp, sweet pain that only joy can hold.

My spirit soared above the gulls that, swooping breathlessly so high o'erhead, now seem to brush their whirring wings against the blue roof of the sky.

(How frail the human heart must be -- a throbbing pulse, a trembling thing -- a fragile, shining instrument of crystal, which can either weep, or sing.)

Then, suddenly my world turned gray, and darkness wiped aside my joy. A dull and aching void was left where careless hands had reached out to destroy

my silver web of happiness. The hands then stopped in wonderment, for, loving me, they wept to see the tattered ruins of my firma- ment.

(How frail the human heart must be -- a mirrored pool of thought. So deep and tremulous an instrument of glass that it can either sing, or weep.)

[liladiurne]

You know what’s really disturbing to me? The culture that seems to have sprung up around fanfiction. Writers spend weeks and months working on a story – I think my record is six months on A Place For Us To Dream. And so many times readers expect to just be given a chapter even if they don’t give anything to the writer in return.

I’m going to date myself a bit here, but I’ve been reading/writing fanfiction for ten years. And when I first started it was a wonderful community. There was an unspoken rule – if you read/enjoyed it, you review it. You take thirty seconds to tell an author who probably spent anywhere from three days to a week writing that chapter you just enjoyed to tell them you enjoyed it. Even if it was as simple as “Great chapter, can’t wait to see what happens next!”

Writers spend so much time on stories, and then they post it because they have this thing that they’ve invested so many hours into and they want to share it with the world. They know how they feel about the story, and they want to know how other people feel, what other people think.

And when you read it and don’t review, you know what message you’re sending that author? That they’re not worth your time, or you didn’t enjoy their story. So why should they keep posting it? Yeah they might continue working on it in their own time, for their own enjoyment, but you might never see another chapter again because you couldn’t be bothered to take thirty seconds out of your day to tell them how you feel.

I’ve written stories in eight different fandoms, ranging from very small to very big (I’ll openly admit I wrote Twilight fanfiction once. Once. It was an Alice/Jasper story and haters can hate all they want but I’m still proud of it). I took a break for a few years because I fell out of fandoms during college, and when I came back apparently it’d become the norm to just greedily consume writing without telling writers how you feel. And that is one of the saddest things in the world to me because fanfiction is where I really started getting serious about writing. It’s how I’ve honed by skills and become the writer I am today. And that was largely in part because of all the support I got when I was an itty-bitty thirteen-year-old writing crappy W.I.T.C.H. fanfiction.

Everyone keeps saying “reviews don’t matter, you should just write for yourself.” Well, you’re wrong. Reviews make or break fanfiction. Reviews tell writers whether it’s worth their time to continue posting that story online or whether they should keep it on their hard drives and never share it with the world.

Kill the attitude that reviews don’t matter. Start telling writers you like their stories. And if you don’t, if you all just continue to be invisible readers? Don’t be surprised when that writer disappears.

[liladiurne]

The safest place.

ɷ◡ɷ