“What? Like, a disabled protagonist? How would that even work? How could someone with a disability be the hero in an action show?” local anime trash boy wonders while sitting next to his box sets of Full Metal Alchemist, showing no hint of irony or self awareness.
but is Ed really disabled? sure I get he lost his arm and leg
but he’s still able to move and do things perfectly
He has prosthetics. Having prosthetic limbs (that more than once break amd need repair) doesnt make him not disabled
It should also be noted that Ed:
-had to undergo very painful surgery to get automail
-had to relearn how to write because of his prosthesis (there’s a post going around showing he had to switch hands etc) and his handwriting is likely a lot worse due to that. This means automail isn’t super good for delicate work, unsurprising, considering what it’s made of.
-experiences phantom limb pain and therefore other associated stuff (this was only really shown in the manga)
-cannot go anywhere too cold without changing his automail or he’ll get really bad frost bite and it will stop working
-cannot go anywhere too hot, period, because the metal attached and under his skin will overheat and he will be badly burned
-Reattachment is painful, but needs to be done frequently if he breaks or outgrows his automail
- it’s HEAVY so much so that the strain has the potential to cause stress on his body, enough that it’s even theorized as possibly stunting his growth.
-it requires regular maintenance or it will break down, as shown when he forgets to do that and it…breaks down
-when it does need to be repaired, it takes time to do that, during which Ed uses regular prosthetics (that usually don’t quite fit him).
-costs a lot of money (not a problem for Ed due to high state alchemist salary/having mechanics as surrogate family, but explicitly noted to being the reason why most people in the fmaverse stick to regular prosthetics along with the painful surgery)
So Ed can’t actually do everything perfectly and experiences a lot of extra hassle, problems and pain people without automail don’t have to deal with! And any advantages he does have are more suited to fighting than day to day life (being able to incorporate weapons/fake out people who want to blow up his arm).
Arakawa did her research and thought it through. Automail is by no means a magic cure that solves all problems associated with losing a limb.
This is barely an addition, but I’m pretty sure it was proven that it stunted his growth. It was mentioned in Dublith, and then Winry made him lighter automail in Briggs. Now, after a couple of days of being together, the two of them don’t meet up again for months.
When they finally meet up again:
You could argue something about angles here, but at the end of the series?
In conclusion, the original automail did stunt his growth.
As a writer, creating a disabled character can often be difficult. Ed only worked because the world he was created in has very advanced prosthetics which (despite some draw backs) move and acts exactly like real limbs. It’s a very particular case and required some additional write-arounds to make work. And plus the disability factored into the story which is good.
In many scenarios a disabled character simply wouldn’t work. And a writer isn’t obligated to make their character disabled.
Give an example of a story in which none of the characters truly and honestly could not be disabled in some form or fashion. Explain how it “simply wouldnt work.”
Because Im a writer, and that sounds like unimaginative laziness.
Yeah I have no idea how disabled people could possibly be heroes, that’s why Luke Skywalker had all his limbs and appendages through every Star Wars movie, cause if he had a prosthetic he wouldn’t work. And that’s why Tony Stark is never written as having a life threatening heart condition and being on 24/7 life support surgically implanted into his body, then it just wouldn’t make sense for him to be Iron Man. And it’s why Bucky Barnes has all his limbs too, and why Daredevil’s known for having eyes that definitely work. And who could forget that memorable scene at the end of the first How To Train Your Dragon movie where Hiccup slays the Red Death, and then immediately jumps up and talks about how great it is he didn’t lose a foot in the process, before going on to be the lead in six TV seasons and another two movies, while definitely having both feet. God knows people are helpless the second they aren’t completely abled.
Like… the thing about disabilities is that there is always going to be a work around. That’s kind of how it works. If someone is born disabled, or suddenly becomes disabled, they don’t just shrug and go “oh well guess i’m never doing things ever again”. This may shock you, but disabled people actively work to adapt to their situation and find ways to lead the life they want to lead. So people missing limbs are going to have prosthetics, and they’re going to know what they’re doing with them, because that’s kind of the point of having a prosthetic in the first place. People missing senses will find ways to fill in the blanks that leaves behind, cause they still have lives to lead and they figure it out as they go.
Believe it or not, disabled people don’t magically stop being disabled when they’re not completely helpless.
Just nudging in to remind everyone that a lot of us are adapted to living in conditions abled people would struggle with a lot more. Like post-apocalyptic wasteland that isn’t suitable for human travel? I call that going to Tesco. World full of people who randomly hate you and wish you ill? That’s being visibly neurodivergent. We spend more time than you ever will, thinking about unconventional travel hacks and ways to avoid potentially dangerous conflict with others. You think in the event of some cataclysmic event, you’re just suddenly going to learn those skills? Go roll a manual wheelchair across 10 metres of pavement with a gentle camber and come back to me.
^THIS. Being autistic, and an adult with a good amount of control over my environment, I do so many workarounds now that are integral to how I’ve set up my home and routine and life that I do not even notice them anymore until something interrupts the adapted world I’ve built. Even just my “EDC” or EveryDayCarry stuff in my small backpack is highly specific to my needs.
Every time I move now I have to weigh the amount of energy it’s going to take me to make the effort against whatever I want to do the rest of the day, week and MONTH. Every. Time. I move. That’s a lot of statistics. I am constantly running that “math”. Probably from the same area of the brain that lets you throw a baseball by calculating angles and speeds. But I’m doing it with a damaged-functioning brain as well, because this is a neuroimmune condition.
Anyone who has been Disabled for a long time will NOT handle their disabling obstacles presented by the world in the same way as you would if you tried some kind of simulation. We have community, often online, and we learn and teach each other, swap lifehacks, and adapt to how to survive in an often actively hostile/alien environment- a world never meant for us to move through it like most of you do. How inhibited someone looks to outside eyes has nothing to do with whether they’re disabled.
Professional Ballerinas make what they do look easy when it’s actually putting incredible strain on every bone in their body. Disabled people are often very similar. We will often show you only the performance, not the pain. I could write essays on why we choose to or have to do that sometimes- how people see us and treat us is a lot of it- but! I’m outta spoons. ; )
Writing Characters with Chronic Pain and Disabilities
PSA: Writing characters with disabilities and chronic pain is great for representation, but I’m seeing harmful tropes and portrayals perpetuated in the way chronic pain and disability is treated in parts of the whump community. Abled people need to stop using chronic pain and/or disabilities purely for “fun and whumpy” purposes. To help address the (hopefully not ill intended) ignorance that likely causes perpetuation of hurtful tropes and harmful portrayals of disabled characters, I’m sorta writing a guide on what to do and not to do when you write a character who is disabled or has chronic pain. I am disabled myself (connective tissue disorder that causes chronic pain among other debilitating symptoms) but obviously all disabled experiences differ so take this all with a grain of salt.
What to do/what is okay to do: An injury causing chronic pain and that being just a part of a character, or a character who becomes disabled (or has been from birth). Their struggle is/can be obviously present and a significant part of their life BUT they must still be a rounded/whole chataver (background, personality, relationships, etc) if the narrative surrounding their disability was omitted. Writing characters with disabilities and chronic pain is good for representation! I’m not saying it’s bad to have chronic pain be caused by injuries for a character, including whump sustained injuries. A good example of a disabled character done right is Kaz from Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo is disabled herself tho which obviously plays into why he’s done so well). Kaz uses a cane and has chronic pain caused by a wrongly healed broken leg. His pain and his cane are mentioned often throughout the novel and influence his life experience and perspective. However, his narrative doesn’t focus on his chronic pain: he’s not looking desperately for a cure, his goal is not to someday stop using his cane, etc. (These things are harmful tropes because they portray disability as something completely and totally bad, to be avoided at all costs). Kaz is a badass and competent character, as developed as the other (able bodied) main characters of the story, and his disability is one of many trait about him. If you wanna write a disabled character as an abled person, try to keep those kinds of things in mind (make them developed, make sure their narrative doesn’t focus fully around their disability even tho their disability can/could be a large part of their life, don’t use the “looking for a cure” trope as their whole motive, don’t present disability as a fate worse than death or similar.)
What not to do: What I’m sorta mad about is when someone writes a character who’s constantly suffering from chronic pain/disability and is written in a way where they’re constantly miserable from it and can never feel anything other than the constant sadness/pain their disability causes them. (Perpetuates the trope that disability is constantly horrible and sometimes creates the idea that a life with disability isn’t worth living- which is harmful because it creates the idea that people with disabilities can’t be happy/successful/etc unless they’re faking their disability). It is harmful when their pain or disability is their only trait and/or is only used to make them suffer for “fun” or whump (perpetuates harmful stereotypes around disability- gives the idea that it’s impossible to be happy/a successful person/etc while disabled or having chronic pain, makes light of disability.), Do not write a disability unrealistically and do your research to prevent from ignorance turning into harm. When a character is written disabled/in pain purely for whump, harmful tropes usually end up being perpetuated (the search for a cure trope, the idea that a disability is a tragedy and must be avoided at all costs, etc). Chronic pain is not fun, disability is not whumpy. If you want to write it, do it respectfully. Putting it as the focus of a whump story or as the only trait of a character, especially if you’re an able bodied person and just want to write suffering is not okay. Doing so mitigates and makes light of the real shit people with chronic pain and disabilities live through every day.
Abed people don’t clown on this post. Do not start discourse on this post.
This is very eloquent and raises important things to think about.
I’ve been disabled for all my life but only in the last few years have I become extremely physicallydisabled, and writing has been a way to kind of process a lot of that, so I’ve given many of my characters certain problems.
I didn’t even realize that one’s journey through healing from trauma and accepting his new physicality was kind of mirroring me working through my own thought process as I worked from the initial panic at change, to grieving the things I lost, into finding a new life worth living and full of exciting things I plan to do.
I just so heartily agree that any time you’re going to write a character with a chronic illness, pain or disability, you need to keep an eye on what story you’re telling with it, and what you’re saying about the lives of people like that. people like us. Like me.
Have no skill/power to ‘compensate’ for their disability
Are the experts in their own bodies, minds, and needs
If they are newly disabled, get called out for saying ableist shit (as a newly disabled person, self-hatred never ever excuses disrespecting other people)
Have their boundaries being disrespected classed as whump, not caretaking. Yes even if they need the medication. Yes if that includes forced hospitalisation. Yes even if they’re incapacitated-
Have complicated relationships with pain
Are physically active, even if that looks different to how an able person might do it
Get whumped in a way which has nothing to do with their disability
Are not perfect victims
DON’T HAVE THEIR DISABILITY USED AS THE ONLY WHUMP WHICH HAPPENS TO THEM
(A lot of this also implies to those with disabilities which aren’t physical, and I would invited people with all kinds of disabilities to add on ideas)
No human is perfect and the questions of good and bad is an ongoing debate.
But I’m not a philosophy major so I’m not going to get into that. Instead I’m just here to discuss some ways characters can do bad things without changing sides.
1.- Ignorance, of any kind. Sometimes we do bad things because we know no better. This doesn’t make it okay, but it does separate somewhat our actions from our intentions.
Now, when it comes to ignorance an interesting thing to note is there are different kinds of ignorance, here are the ones I can think of:
1.1.-Induced ignorance. Somebody in a character’s past or present has purposefully tricked your character. They believe something because they are ignorant and that ignorance is not accidental.
1.2.-Voluntary ignorance. This is something lots of people, probably including you, definitely including myself, experience. This is where the information is readily available and clear, but there is in some way a choice to not engage. An obvious example of this is companies, there are a lot of terrible unethical companies, and a quick google search for any company, celebrity, you name it, will tell you. So when we enjoy something it’s tempting to… just not want to know.
Now with that example you probably think modern day society, but we can see this in any fantasy setting too. A kingdom where a certain behaviour is harmful, there are whispers in the street of the consequences yet the main character doesn’t pause to listen.They glance at the signs, sigh and turn around, not wanting to hear the explanation. Refusing to learn.
1.3.-Pure ignorance. Something isn’t obvious, the information isn’t available, everybody is ignorant to it. It’s just bad luck. People will argue that with more research but… we can’t research everything especially in a fantasy environment (where pretty much all my stories take place) and there was nothing pointing to needing to research. Everything was going so well!
2.-Second up is, for the greater good! Does this need further explaining? Is killing bad? Yes, but are there times where the alternative is letting others die? Yeah. And this doesn’t need to be killing the bad guy necessarily. I kind of love the trope where a curse, too much power or something means that a good guy must die. Usually it’s the protagonist and they prove it’s not true and there’s another way but… what if there isn’t? What if it’s a side character and your protagonist has to make the decision to end them, something inherently evil, but for the greater good?
This situations aren’t fair but… c’est la vie.
3.-Not greater good but… lesser good. Because sometimes character’s are selfish and being selfish is not the same as being evil. The other day my friends group posed the question of who would you save if only one could live, your pet or a random three year old. It was surprisingly split down the middle. And I consider all of the people at the table good people. And after throughout arguing I could understand both sides.
Offer up this same decision to your character, their sister who is in some way involved in this whole fiasco of a plot, or some random stranger? Let them choose their sister. Let some random stranger die for no reason and know that an innocent person died by decision of your protagonist. Yet they’re not evil, just selfish.
4.-By accident. I hate it when we have the “clumsy” protagonist who never is clumsy. Let them accidentally shoot a weapon they didn’t know was charged and deal with their boyfriend having an arrow stuck in their shoulder!
Shooting your boyfriend is evil (unprovoked obviously).
Accidents do not make you evil.
So those are my four ways to do evil without being evil.
Note I as usual probably used extreme examples (death, death everywhere!) but breaking a belonging that is beloved to somebody, stealing from the poor, polluting the environment or supporting the evil overlord are all evil behaviours too! I was taught to exaggerate when making examples and for some reason that advice stuck in my heart and created the drama queen I am today.
I hope these inspired you to try something new in your current story or a later story.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
So, what’s the most evil thing a “good guy” in one of your stories has done?
Shifters: basically species that shift. In my books I have several. Dragons shift between human and dragon form. Werewolves have several forms and vampires too.
One of the problems with writing this kind of species is it can feel like a cop-out. Yeah they’re dragons, but when that’s not convenient they don’t have to be!
So, how do I personally fix that?
Well, there’s a couple of things.
The first and main way is by never letting them be fully human. They have what they refer to as a human form, but they don’t necessarily pass. They have slit pupils, claws and fangs and occasionally strangely coloured hair (dragons). Vampires too have fangs, white hair and red eyes. Werewolf’s have fangs and claws. They may have two legs, two arms, and a human face but not human is going to mistake them for one of them.
Plus it goes further than that. (From here on out I’m going to focus mostly on dragons as an example which are the species I work the most with in my book). My character’s don’t only have fangs, they use them. When angry a normal person might glare but dragon’s will growl or snarl. They’ll show their fangs and remind people they are capable of far more harm then appearance would suggest.
They exhibit behaviours such as basking in the sunlight.
They are often shown drinking freshly boiled tea without giving it a moment to cool down.
Sitting almost inside the fireplace on a cold day.
They may walk on two feet, but while writing I make a conscious effort to never let them be human, because they’re not. If I wanted to write humans I would. And I do. There are characters who are humans who are shown in contrast to them.
And on the other side of the spectrum, why do they shift? How does that work? How does that change their culture?
I don’t make a species into a shifting species if there isn’t a good reason.
Shifters in my book exist due to history, basically any intelligent species is a descendant of fairies. Humans are fairies who no longer posses any magic. Fairies have a humanoid form which is why many species also receive that form.
Dragons used to shift mainly for mating purposes. But as time went on the human form with their extendable thumbs and smaller size was perfect for much work that goes on.
Nowadays dragons us their human and dragon from almost indistinguishably, it’s often just a matter of preference which form one will take during their downtime. Although some older individuals do consider the dragon form to be the superior form and look down on the youth who choose to bask in the sun in their two legged form.
Making sure shifters feel natural in the world you create is important. Suspension of disbelief is hard to pull of but probably on of the most important parts of being a fantasy author.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
I hope this helped. What kind of a shifting character are you working on? Or what is a shifting character from media you enjoyed?
Most of my writing time goes to “Dear Dragon” which at the moment is one book but part of a larger series. As a series there’s a lot going to happen. And something I find frustration with long YA series, is when character’s spend book after book with just the one single big arc.
It drives me insane.
Not always, but often enough. Because character’s grow and learn, and they don’t always grow and learn in the same direction.
Let’s say your character needs to learn to believe in them self and realice they are the leader the revolution needs (cliché but works as an example), do they really need six books to realice this? Maybe the answer is yes and you have a good reason. But consider this: how much more interesting would it be if they realised they were a capable leader, they begin to lead, and because of this they stop paying attention to others and have to learn to let other’s help out?
One character arc can lead into another.
Or perhaps new problems pop up out of nowhere with new arcs.
I also want do a quick throwback to how character arcs happen before the books begin, character arcs can sometimes go on in the background with side characters and character arcs will continue after the book ends.
I mentioned it in a post once upon a time and I stand by that. Often times we believe the most interesting characters are the ones that grow and change during a story, but to use an example everybody knows: in Harry Potter, many of the most interesting characters are teachers or grown ups who have already grown and learn very little over the course of the books.
Character’s can also take breaks from their arcs to pursue some other lesson. Or character’s can learn something then unlearn it only to learn it again (don’t go over the top on this, but sometimes it can make a point even more powerful, a good example of this is Zuko from atla, he changed but when given the chance to redeem himself in his father’s eyes cannot help but take the chance. It is only once he is back that he realises this isn’t truly what he wants and changes sides properly!)
Character arcs do not have to be linear. They do not have to last forever and they do not have to be standalone.
Have as many arcs as you need.
Let them wonder away from the arc then wonder back.
Let them realise that the things they’re trying to learn isn’t worth it.
Let character’s be more like real people. Sometimes it can be way more interesting than a walking lesson.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
What are your favourite character arcs from media? Or better yet, what’s your favourite character arc you’ve written?
For me it’s perhaps a draw between Henry Warren and Elizabeth Owen. They both grow a lot in different ways and often together.
I chose to use the wording grow up without money here, because poverty is relative. I mean, so is money but words are also limited.
To offer up context, I’m basing this of my own experience and I grew up having very limited amount of money at my disposal, but I was never lacking in food or a roof or anything like that. But there are a couple of things I’ve done my entire life, still do, and I realised, not everybody does. So let’s talk about some of those stuff for writing sake.
1.- I am constantly comparing. When I got my first job at 16 (and I mean 16 and a week, I did not wait long), everything I wanted had to be worth the time. A computer? I would love one, a cheap but functional one is 200 euros, I earn 5 euros an hour so that’s about 40 hours of work. I’m going to use a computer for many, many hours so… worth it! I also compared things to donuts, because the four park of donuts was 1 euro so a computer would be 200 packs of donuts.
This is something I still do. Which is problematic because my current salary is 3 euros an hour, and I need to buy food. So I’ll be in the supermarket like, yeah, that’s cheap and all, but 3 euros is one hour of my work and I don’t take long to eat it, so… ya know.
My boyfriend has to constantly remind me, that’s a stupid way to think, but it’s hard and I don’t think I’m anywhere close to being able to turn it off.
2.- Over-analysing every single purchase. It’s okay for big things, it’s a small problem when you’re analysing phone chargers with a fifty cent price difference, the durability of face masks or watching twenty minute YouTube reviews about a cheap pack of scented candles because, going back to point one “one euro fifty is half my salary and if this candle doesn’t deliver the amount of hours it has promised I will regret it later”.
3.- Over-purchasing things on sale. It’s counterproductive to the goal, but I mean, come on, if the donuts cost 50 cents instead of a euro, how can I not buy it? What do you mean I don’t eat donuts? That’s because they’re expensive, so I best buy seven packs while they’re cheap. You do not need to know the amount of canned goods I have accumulated through sales. And yes, they last for ever. But yes, they also occupy space in my tiny kitchen.
4.- Anxiety from throwing things away. Literally anything, I have to find a use for it, I have boxes of literal rubbish, which, yes, I do use in crafts. I have food in my fridge (in closed containers obviously) that went out of date long ago but throwing it out causes so much anxiety that I just leave it there until my boyfriend can come up and get rid of it for me.
If I get free headphones with anything, do I need them? Not at all, will I hold on to them as though they were the best thing to ever enter my house? Yes.
5.- If you get the chance to get something for free, but it requires a choice, expect a lot of analysing. Even if it’s a stupidly small amount of money. I had a couple of euros in Google credit from doing surveys and I don’t know how many hours I spent analysing the PlayStore for the best choice of games. (I got the game threes for a euro, honestly, good investment, very enjoyable).
6.- Free is free. Are Google Surveys worth my time for the credit they give me? Yeah, actually, I’d recommend it if you are an android user. But I’ve also written 10k word stories on a subject I did not like for 4 dollars, not even euros. I’d say this was a low point, but I fear I’d still take the job today. I don’t actually have more money coming in then I do going out. Which is normal because I’m a student and my income comes from an internship that I do part time for practically no salary. I know it’s normal and I can make up for it later, but I feel as though if I don’t do the work I am offered, even if it’s not fair, by turning down any money, I become culpable of my situation. So, any offer for money, I’ll take. Even if that goes against my morals (minimum wage), against my health (waitressing jobs in the summer that push me to my limits) or just plain common sense.
I know a lot of people are like this. And, I have to point out you should value your time. But, if you can’t, if you need to do the job, at the very least, try not to feel guilty if you didn’t do that good of a job. That writing job for 10k, they asked me to rewrite it, claiming my quality wasn’t high enough (I’d already done several revisions and there was open communication, however the deal was for a first draft which is never going to be the highest quality). And I put my foot down, I explained that I was earning less then 50 cents an hour and I wasn’t going to put more hours into it. Thankfully they still paid my my well earned four dollars, but I think the ability to put foot down was more valuable than the money this time.
7.- When something breaks it can easily cause burn-out or emotional breakdowns. I’m living in an emotional breakdown this year, and part of that is because my ipad (which I am super proud of because I bought second hand years ago for next to nothing) is struggling. It’s very old now, the battery is on the way out, updates are done, and it has several glitches. I depend on my ipad for taking digital notes for university and I don’t think I could go back to using a pen and paper. But the idea of buying a new one is absolutely terrifying. To the point where if I actually stop to think about it, and realise it’s like a year of my income, well, I get physically ill.
In fact, money is probably the biggest cause of mental breakdowns for me. Even when I’m doing well financially. Because I know what it’s like to eat less than recommended portion sizes in an attempt to save a couple of coins. I know what it’s like to track every single cent.
8.- The fear of having nothing never really goes away. The fear that if I make the wrong financial decision, I will lose everything and somehow end up homeless or unable to buy food… it’s a stupid fear. It’s pretty much impossible because I have family, I have friends. But… it’s something I cannot shake. It’s fear that follows me everywhere. And I can’t say that this fear will never go away, because I’m a student, I have never truly grasped financial stability. But I can’t imagine a life without it. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to go to the supermarket without flinching at the prices, but I don’t think I’ll ever truly be at peace with money.
You know the expression: Money won’t buy happiness? Of course you do. Did you know studied have actually been done and it’s kind of true? It’s true over a certain point of money. Which, makes sense, obviously. But I always think about this expression, because people say it to me when I’m obsessing, and I get angry with them. Because I’ve always been beneath that line, more money has always meant more happiness, because it’s always meant further stability.
But it’s a stupid thing to be angry about. Because yes, they are being ignorant, but the truth is, people who say this, probably have never lived bellow that line. And that’s good. I think it’s good that there are people out there who get to grow up without that stress.
And it’s important to realise in today’s society, there are a lot of people who are rich in a way that is wrong. But there are also a lot of people who may feel rich to us (us being the people who are bellow this line), but they aren’t really the problem. The middle class isn’t the problem, even if they are comfortable. And if I truly start going on about financial inequality… well, we’d have a couple more posts because I study finances and am specialising in ethical finances including inequality, so, I’m going to leave it here.
I hope these eight observations are useful to your writing, or just interesting in general.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
Also, if you find yourself lacking in money and don’t think you’re spending that much, please keep track of your money? Excel is a great tool and you will surprised!
If, money causes you a huge amount fo anxiety like me and you do not too much financial trouble, please stop keeping track of your money and just occasionally check your bank balance because the obsessive control is causing you more harm than good at this point.
I recall reading once a post here on Tumblr, one of those sci-fi ones, and it talked about languages, about when writing aliens people often gave the whole species a single language even though humans have a bunch. And it was interesting insight. But one I kind of glossed over seeing as I’m not a big sci-fi fan.
But I remembered it today and it got me thinking.
When we write fantasy and we make different kingdoms with different fantasy languages, we also often make this mistake. You see, the assuming that a country only had one language is kind of flawed.
Personally, I live in Spain, here we have one primary language which is Spanish, but depending on the part of Spain you’re in they will often have a co-official language, where I live it’s Valenciano (pretty much identical to Catalan but there’s ongoing argument over that I don’t want to get into).
It’s both similar to Spanish, but at the same time closer to French, Italian or Portuguese.
There are places like Canda where depending on where you are they speak French or English.
It’s not one country, one language.
It’s not one country, one culture either.
Countries have sub-cultures. And depending on what part of the country you are from, it will be different.
Where I live in Spain, there is different cuisine to the center of Spain. We have different holidays, where I live in Spain we have mountains and beach but that’s not true of all of Spain. There are parts of Spain with a different climate. Even family relationships change.
So, how do we apply this out fantasy kingdoms? So, as usual, I write YA fantasy so I tend to simplify stuff. In my own book there is the culture of the kingdom the book takes place in, there is a monarchy meaning there are laws that apply to everybody. But as well as that there are sub-cultures.
My book takes place a lot in Aerradra, it’s the city where dragons lived. They have their own cuisine, they have holidays only they celebrate, they have their own architecture and even a local government for matters that they are allowed to change without the monarchy’s approval.
Among the people living there, there’s Emily who’s humana and grew up with a different culture. In one of the short stories in my story “Love, Coffee and Dragons” we see her forget a holiday AGAIN. Because it’s not a holiday she’s accustomed to.
This is sub-culture. A very simple example because I don’t want to have to explain too much, spoil anything or what not.
But the point is, culture so much deeper than kingdoms and countries.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
This isn’t a fun or interesting fact but, I take a lot of notes.
I take notes in class for university.
I annotate the books I read because I know no chill.
I take notes during meetings because how in the world do people remember stuff?
I take notes about my book, create maps, timelines and random facts upon random facts.
I take a lot of notes. Both out of necessity and just, really enjoying note taking.
Just look at this school notes from a couple of months ago!
I love note taking.
So, as someone who had tried many different note taking methods and you know, goes to university with lots of different people, here are some random things I’ve noticed:
1.- There are two kinds of people where it comes to note taking, typing or writing. This can also depend on the class and the teacher, but usually people who type are the kind of people who take note of EVERYTHING. Every word the teacher, team leader, whoever says, goes onto paper.
Personally, this method does not work for me, but I know a lot of people do this in the moment and then later read them and creates diagrams and stuff. I can get behind that, I just never have time for this later on.
People who do paper notes tend to be more picky with what they write because they don’t have time to get it all down, thereby they will be paying closer attention to get the right stuff down. They still might need to tidy it up later, depends on how neat they’re handwriting is.
2.- Everybody’s note taking method will change when they are taking notes for other people. Perhaps you make it more neat, perhaps things you already knew and wouldn’t otherwise write down get written down.
When I’m taking notes for other people I will color code everything. Because my notes are digital I have unlimited colours, so every single number in a practical exercise can be traced through colour.
My best friend in uni will write everything down where usually she only takes note of what she cared about and my other friend will tidy up there hand writing.
It’s like when people act different with a camera on them, same principle.
3.- Some people use art in their note taking. As a kid I did this a lot, next to almost every word I’d have a picture, I claimed it helped me remember. But really it was probably because doodling helps me pay attention and I’m used to getting in trouble for it as a kid. But I know people who do this to make there notes more visible because that’s their prefered study method.
4.- Some people like to keep all their notes in one place, they’ll do this by using post-its and having all the writing inside the textbook, or writing on a printed out version of the PowerPoints.
Other people do the opposite, they’ll have a notebook for theory, a notebook for exercises and the book. Having it all together just makes it too overwhelming.
I love how different our brains can be. It’s amazing.
5.- Another reason hand written notes are sometimes preferred over digital can be readability. So, reading printed word can sometimes be difficult, I can’t keep track of what sentence I’m on, the letters get mixed up and I have no visual recollection of what the page looked like after. I rarely struggle with my own hand writing.
I know this is random and specific, but for these kind of oddly specific details are what really sells characters.
6.- Once you get to your last year in university, you don’t care about how professional or unprofessional you look. I have no problem covering my laptop with kitten stickers, I have no trouble doing an exam with my dragon pen. The first year of uni it felt like everybody was trying to look “normal” or “professional”, but each passing year we gives less cares and have more fun with our time here. So don’t bother to hide your character’s creativity, take notes on pink paper with purple ink and cute pen.
Do perhaps keep in mind that professors won’t let you hand that in. We’re talking notes not homework.
EXTRA: Not exactly about note-taking, but about perception. If you take beautiful notes and your sat somewhere professors can see you, expect them to take note. I’ve had plenty of teachers ask me about my methods, ask me what I do with it at the end of the year and make comments in class about how I must be extremely appreciated by my classmates when they miss class.
I also asked for notes often by classmates.
So if you’re making a character who is very academically inclined, might be worth noting. Also, I treat my notes a bit like an art. They take a lot of time and effort and I know from experience, if you share notes, they will get everywhere and to everyone so I tend not to share. Unless with my very close classmates I usually just explain what was given in typed text.
I’m not saying everyone is like this, but I know a good few people who are protective of there notes. So if your character spends a long time taking very high effort notes, it’s worth noting they may not be open to sharing. But I mean, you’ll know your character better than me.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
I’m thinking of doing a whole por on University and academic life, but at the same time I know Spanish Universities work kinda strangely in comparison to other countries and I don’t want to confuse people. But what would you guys like?
We don’t see much disability in fantasy, only a handful come to mind. And not all of them are good.
When writing disability I used to go by a rule, do not cure it past what the real world can.
So, if someone is missing an arm or leg, yes you can use some kind of prosthetics, but those prosthetics should still have some of the real world issues actual amputees have to deal with. Otherwise, what’s the point? Other than it being a part of the character’s design? Not much.
And although there’s nothing wrong with doing some things only for aesthetic, it isn’t quite the representation I think we should striving for.
However,a lot of people break this rule and still make very good disabled characters.
The most obvious example is Toph from Avatar. (Minor spoilers ahead) She’s blind, yet she can see. Not with her eyes, but with her feet, through her bending. It’s a cool and creative idea but, does it not miss the mark? Most would say no. Most see Toph as an inspiration. So, why doesn’t it miss the mark?
Well, it took me a while to understand but I think the key is it isn’t a 100% cure. Yeah, she can see with her feet when on the ground but she still faces a lot of problems.
She can’t see when off the ground (on Appa).
She can’t read.
Swimming is also a blind spot.
She doesn’t lack disability, she faces it with a new and creative way.
The other thing is Toph’s disability isn’t there to represent the struggled of the disabled in a phhysical sense. Instead it’s there to represent how society treats the disabled. Toph’s family treats her like a helpless child when in reality she is capable of a lot. This is an experience a lot of disables people face in there day to day life.
Sometimes, it’s okay to interact with disability (in a fantasy world) in the way that suit your narrative. But please make sure to do your research, I never get tired of saying it.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
What are some good disables representation in fiction you can think of?
Privilege is something thrown around a lot these days, and mostly, for good reason.
We all have it.
If it’s not the colour of your skin, what’s in between your pants, your sexual orientation, your wealth or your health, it’s one of the other hundreds of things I could list.
I am extremely privileged, I’m white, my first language is English, I can talk and read, I have a roof over my head and many others things.
But I’m also at a disadvantage in a lot of other areas, my hearing and sight are both pretty bad, I constantly struggle with metal health, I’m fortunate enough to have a job but it isn’t well paying enough to remove the stress of money, my health is in constant ruins and, well, many other things.
The same goes for every character we make.
I read a lot of books where the author focuses in on the disadvantages a character faces, and it makes sense, that’s often more a cause of conflict, but they rarely take but a second to acknowledge that which they do have. A family that loves them? A stable job? Good health?
I always find it weird when people say something then do another. Reflect your values in your work, in your art, if you believe in the philosophy where we should take a step back and be aware of our place inside society, do so in your art too.
This also goes the other way, feel free to take a priviledged character and show the disadvantages they face. It’s a pretty common trope to show the rich kids with absent parents. That’s a disadvantage, it’s usually shown as though related to the privilege but I don’t think it’s necessary for them to be related.
Why do people always choose absent family for the rich kid as their disadvantage? There are so many good ones out there! Health problems, both physical and mental, discrimination of any sort with the added bonus of it always being lessened due to their financial status, disfuncional relationships because nobody is completely free of the risk of an abusive dick, being incapable of passing at school despite the expensive tutors, having an ill pet…
If you like that trope there’s nothing inherently wrong with it of course, I just yearn for some more variety.
So, how can we incorporate privilege and disadvantages into our stories? As so often happens, I’m going to go over a quick example from my own book because it’s easy.
Itazu is the main character in my series Dear Dragon.
Relevant Privileges: Her father is both loving and wealthy having a good job, because of this there is no true expectation from her, she’s pretty free to do as she wishes. She’s a dragon and thereby more physically durable than humans.
Relevant Disadvantages: She’s a dragon, one of the last of her species with all the social issues that entails. (I’m simplifying so as to avoid spoilers for second and third books, sorry).
The relevant disadvantages obviously move the plot forward at many points. But that doesn’t mean her privileges are ignored. In fact, they are bought up often, sometimes more obviously than others. It’s bought up through reminders like: “Your Father won’t let that happens.” “Henry will take care of it.” “You’ll always have a place to go”. And from her father himself: “You can count on me for anything.”
This is a treatment many other characters in the book (specifically the male lead), don’t get. And it is something that sticks out.
My intention when showing this is several:
1.- Make sure the audience understands that all the accomplishments in the books are not the protagonist’s alone. She has a support system and that does a lot for her.
2.- Show that it’s not all or nothing. You can are both in a situation of privilege and disadvantage. A good character reflects reality.
3.- Split the audience. And this is the most complicated to understand. Mostly because the goal isn’t truly to split the audience, but to understand that a good character, a realistic character, will not be liked by everybody. We all know somebody who was absolutely charming and did nothing wrong! Except for some weird reason you can’t explain, you hated them. No character is 100% likeable to everybody (except for some atla ones but I mean there had to be some kind of dark magic in the creation of that show, too perfect), and I don’t want anybody to hate my character’s because they’re boring. I want them to be hated because there is something about them you don’t like.
I’ve got a whole post coming out shortly about this last point that goes way more into detail so stay tuned!
From what I’ve tested Itazu can sometimes be disliked because, “She complains about her disadvantages while having more privilege than other characters”. A perfectly valid critique. If not one I personally believe in. I and many readers find Itazu’s willingness to acknowledge both her disadvantages and her privileges not letting either one get in the way of the other is a perfectly enjoyable character trait.
Itazu is bullied at one point for who she is, and she doesn’t treat this any less seriously because she gets to go home to a loving father.
She receives plenty of love from her father, even though he isn’t a dragon and can’t fully understand her. And she at no point sees her father as less loving due to this lack of comprehension.
Use both.
And I seriously hope I got the point across because I do now know how ot express these thoughts why now.
Please, I’m begging you if you made it this far, did any of that make sense to you? Please tell me.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
Hey, it’s Christmas Eve on Friday, I hope all the students out there are holding in! Remember, not long left! I hope all of you have amazing holidays, and some extra time to read!
Also, I did a post but my ebook is currently on sale in the US and UK! It’s about dragons. YA Fantasy. Anyway, that’s all! Sorry for rambling, love you all!
1.- Bedtimes stories you tell to children, or lullabies. They can be based in location or species. They can tell us about the world, history, beliefs or something specific about a creature. It can be fun to think of their origin, how they’ve changed over the years and both the meaning that was lost and the meaning that was added.
2.- Fashion choices. I often let fashion be different for different creatures. I usually create a practical outfit that makes sense historically within the context of my world and then evolve it until I get to the present day of my story. Preferably splitting of into branches and allowing more options. It can tell us about a specific species, about their history and about how the climate has changed, or how they moved locations at some point and had to adapt their clothing to a new climate.
A very simple example of this from my own book would be the mage’s cloak! Link to a longer post about it. Basically, mages would wear a simple one piece fabric that was easy to then set an illusion over, no wasting time mixing trousers and tops. Over time some mages stopped using illusions, seeing the outfit as acceptable. It became a staple, you saw the cloak, that wasn’t a human but a mage. And then younger generations began personalising the material, instead of boring black, white or brown they started using floral patterns, adding in cool sleeves or hoods!
Initially, it was practicality, but it evolved.
3.- Think about what each species does for fun! I often read YA fantasy where the stakes are so high there is no leisure, no downtown, no fun, no hobbies. But this is a great opportunity! What’s popular in your world? Books, plays, board games, long walks, playing sport? Seeing characters just chill can be a great change of pace and allow for some insight into their lives and the world they live in.
4.- What is imported? And why? Sometimes imports are just practical, we don’t have wool here (unlikely, sheep are literally everywhere, but you get the point), wool is good for clothes, we import it. But other times it’s more complicated.
Perhaps a species moved across the country at some point, but they were accustomed to a certain type of tea, fruit for certain festivities, so on, so on, and habit dies hard, so, importation becomes a thing.
So those are my four world-building tips for today. I’ve said it before and will say it again, there is no master list, not check list, world-building is something you can figure out as you go in most genres (some epics may requiere more prep time). What’s important is to keep track of what you’ve said and stay consistent, but you don’t need to know everything before going in.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
Misleading your readers can be super important in writing! Especially if you want a plot twist that works, sometimes foreshadowing can get a bit obvious but throw in some red hearings and you’re back on track.
When it comes to unreliable sources, there are a ton, but it is preferable to choose one that your readers will believe. For this I mostly use characters, see, most readers will believe the protagonist or important side characters when they say something. They won’t even question it. But there’s a lot of reasons your main character may not be telling the truth.
They might be retelling an explanation they made up in their head a long time ago and can’t even remember was made up.
They might have been lied to.
They might of misunderstood something they were told.
They might be talking to a child and simplifying or lying for their protection.
Andif you don’t say anything, people will assume whatever they say is true. But characters are allowed to make mistakes.
Remember, if you have an all knowing neutral narrator, they can’t straight up lie. But character’s aren’t all knowing and often think they are.
Another form of unreliable information can be extracts from books, or essays. Books are full of misinformation! Either because of politics, interests or simply new evidence coming around. How many things were supposed to be true until proven otherwise? And students can be terrible! The amount of lies I’ve told in my essays purely from misinterpretation is terrifying.
For both of these you have to be careful. If every time you pull out a book it’s all lies, well, readers aren’t dumb, they’ll pick it up quite quickly. If it is mostly true, with a couple of lies spread in between the pages, now we’re talking.
You can also combine the two. A characters reads something in a book, tells others, they believe it and go with is as though true. Nobody ever corrects the misinformation. The reader certainly won’t be suspecting anything at that point.
Anyway, I hope this was useful.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
1.- Talking too much. Specifically, with adults. I see this a lot with hyperactive children. But a lot of us don’t grow out of this and I want my representation! Plus, this can be very fun and useful! You can use it for exposition and world building. It leaves plenty of room to hide small details. It also can give a lot of context about other character’s around them.
When they start talking word after word for about a hundred words more than necessary to say they are happy, do the other character’s seem entertained? Annoyed but say nothing? Annoyed and say it? Do they look like they’re not listening? Do they look like they’re listening but later on we find out they’re just really good at pretending to listen? So many possibilities! And how does the original character react to this?
2.- Being terrible with names. I mean, as someone who once forgot the name of a co-worker I saw every day and had been working with for years, it’s kinda upsetting when character’s in books just hear it once and remember.
Especially when I’m just dying to be reminded this character’s name because I forgot. It’s not only a very relatable character flaw, it’s useful for reminding readers of who’s who! Something a lot of authors don’t do enough of (including me, I know my characters better than my co-workers, so of course it’s obvious to me).
3.- Hoarding. Not like to the point where’s it’s dangerous and a problem that needs to be solved, but to the point where you have a shoe box full of receipts from seven years ago for stuff that never had a guarantee. To the point where you have leaflets from concerts you went to at the age of ten and can’t throw away “because of the memories!” To the point where you have magazines because, “look at the pretty pictures! I can use that in scrap booking somewhere… some day.” Or stickers from when you were five years old that won’t even stick anymore.
Again, lots of people do this, it’s relatable, but also, it gives you lots of opportunities to show us stuff about the character, about their past and how they’ve changed with time. Natural exposition baby!
4.- Gets anxious when there’s too much noise, or too many people. Not as a plot point, not as a symptom of autism or something. Just normal, over stimulation. Because over stimulation can happen to anybody, and our ability to withstand it is different.
This too can be useful, it can be a good way to separate two characters from the group. “Oh, I’ll go with her, you guys stay, don’t worry!”
Also, it’d be nice to see a character realise the environments not good for them, communicate that calmly and leave before over stimulation. Like, you think after years of this shit I don’t know before things get too bad? You’d be right sometimes, but not all times. Sometimes I know my limits, and I never see that in media (if you know any media that does do this, tell me!).
5.- Having zero sense of direction. Because after four years I still manage to get lost on my own street if I come in from a direction that isn’t the one I use every day and again, I want representation.
Plus, you can have character’s get lost (especially in fantasy worlds with no GPS) as a way to discover new locations or send other characters to find them.
I hope you found at least one of these ideas useful. Or, they inspired you to think of other good and not often seen character flaws.
I want to state that I’ve used the word character “flaw” but that might not be entirely accurate for some of these I just can’t think of a more accurate word right now.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
Which one of these can apply to one of you characters? What flaws did I miss out?
So, if you’re not new around here you may know I’m bilingual, was born and raised for the first six years of my life in one country and then got to experience another. Both a privilege and kind of traumatic. But as such as I have experience with differences in cultures.
I’m not going to however be talking about any real culture. I mostly write fantasy and I’m just going to be talking about some ideas for differences between cultures that you can use to make your own cultures more realistic. Because lets be honest, a lot of things we just assume are the same everywhere.
I was going to do a list, but if I did I’d probably take far too long so instead I’ll probably be doing several of these. For today, we are talking about: Food but more specifically, meals.
Food is probably one of the first things people think about when thinking about differences in cultures (or maybe I’m just hungry). It’s easy to understand and makes sense as different locations have access to different produce.
But more than the food itself, I always find it more surprising the difference in consumption. So, where I was born, we’d usually have three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and supper.
Where I currently live however it’s far more typical to have five meals a day. Breakfast, snack, lunch, evening snack and supper. (Snack and evening snack are actually called almuerzo and berenar, but I don’t think there is an exact translation to English). I have quite happily adopted the evening snack, going for a coffee/tea and some bakery good is amazing. But I still after fifteen years cannot do the morning snack, it’s just too many meals. And this has always been shocking to my coworkers, classmates or friends who tell me off for “skipping meals”.
The other thing is times at which meals are consumed. Supper where I currently live is usually around 9pm. Where I come from it’s like 5pm. My boyfriends is always shocked when we go have supper with my grandparents at 5pm, “it’s not supper, it’s a very large evening snack,” he will claim.
Then there are things like with whom and where you have meals. Who prepared the meals.
Where I come from, eating out is a luxury, despite being a country with far more economic power.Where I currently on the other hand, eating out is almost a routine. It’s a matter of prioritisation, you might have cheap shoes but you still have to go out for lunch everyday with your coworkers because it’s expected of you.
The conclusion and most important point I want to make is: there’s a lot more to food, than what you’re actually eating.
So, maybe take a break from staring at maps and figuring out the climate and produce and the meals that could be made with it, and broaden your culture with simpler yet significant details.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here. I’m going to be doing a sale on my ebook real soon for Christmas/my birthday! (I’ll be doing a post, don’t worry).
What interesting meal differences are there in your culture?
I mean, I love it when I know what to give but that’s rarely the case.
Thankfully, in fiction, character’s will like what we tell them to like. But a powerful gift within the narrative requieres a bit more than for the character to like it. So here’s a couple of ideas to help:
1.-Make it something useful. Show your character having a recurring problem, preferably something unimportant, something trivial. Don’t show them complaining, show their frustration through smaller details such as them taking a deep breath, rubbing their nose or pausing for just a second mid-task.
This shows two important details on part of the gift giver: them paying attention to notice the problem and them finding a solution.
Attentiveness plus problem solving. Meaningful no matter how minor.
2.-Make it something they like, but something they’ve bought up only passingly before. If it’s something they love and go on about, anybody could get the right gift. Make it a small detail, maybe they’re at a farm in an early chapter and the receiver mentions their favourite animal, towards the end of the book the gift givers gets a plush, a figurine or a necklace with the animal.
Same as before, attentiveness. Just make sure it doesn’t happen too soon, if the information is still fresh the reader will be like: “Well, you literally just bought that up to make this gift meaningful.” And they might be right, but give them time to forget and then be reminded and it’s like: “Oh! They remembered!”
I did a whole post dedicated to giving time for things to sit, it’s a thing.
3.-Make it hard. Hard to find. If they make it themselves, hard to make. Maybe they need to get the materials, hard to collect materials for? You ever heard of the McGuffin trope? Some people say it’s bad writing, personally, I believe it depends. But it’s the idea that the item doesn’t matter, it’s just an excuse for the actions to get it. Look at the gift like a McGuffin. But if you want it to be more meaningful, combine it with one of the previous points.
4.-Maybe the gift isn’t the important part, maybe it’s the way it’s wrapped, with her favourite colour wrapping paper, maybe it’s the hand written note with a desperate attempt at cursive because, “You’re hand writing is so pretty, I thought it must matter to you.” Perhaps it a hand-made card that goes with it. Perhaps they’re separated for a mission but the gift givers sneaks away and risks a lot to get the gift to the receiver despite it all. (This could also end in a big argument but that’s up to you).
Remember sometimes the point of a gift isn’t the gift but the situation surrounding it.
5.-Make it something important to the gift giver. This is a pretty common trope but when properly established it still gets me every time. This is the whole, “Here, take my dead mother’s necklace.” “But it means so much to you!” “But I’d rather you have it!” Trope. I’m a sucker for it.
Also, it doesn’t always have to come from the gifter. I have a scene way later on in my series where the love interest actually gives my main character something (not going to say what, that would be a spoiler) that he got from her father that once belonged ot her mother. It’s similar because the father gives it up so she can have it, but then it comes from the love interest. I’m not sure if this makes sense without context but obviously I don’t want to spoil like, final book scenes. But the idea is, there can be other characters involved in this, other than the two giver and receiver.
6.-Maybe it isn’t important, maybe it isn’t meaningful, maybe it become so over time. I have plenty of stupid bits of plastic that were given to me on a night out as a joke in between laughters, perhaps a baby Shark kinder egg or a pretty plastic ring. But then instead of getting rid of it, I put it away. I look back at it and smile remembering those nights. Something can be meaningless in the moment, but become meaningful just for staying around long enough.
Extra points if the grifter dies or otherwise leaves.
And those are my 6 tips. You can combine as you wish. Also, I used a love interest in one example, but anybody can give anybody a gift! I give gifts to my roommates, friends and family. And it’s just as important to work on the relationships that aren’t romantic as it is the romantic ones. (Unless you’re writing a romance I guess, but I only do fantasy, usually YA so, can’t really comment on that).
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
So, with christmas coming up, how’s your gift buying going? I knows it’s not that soon, but I have exams in November so I try to start really early. I have a special box where I just put things in.
EXTRA NOTE: I know, I know, I’ve been missing for a while. I’ve got one month at university and as always, exams, homework, chaos everywhere! I promise I’m still around, I promise I’ve got 18 drafts plus several lists of ideas. As soon as I have time I’ll get back into posting more often. I just have to prioritize school, work, paying for food and those good boring stuff!
Also, I’ll be putting my ebook on sale sometime this December for Christmas! So, you know, if you want a gift idea for someone who likes reading YA Fantasy with dragons, look out for that!
QUICK TRIGGER WARNING: I started writing this as a writing reference, but towards the end talking about trauma I may have gotten a little graphic, I never mentions what the trauma is referencing, just descriptions of, well, fear and how it affects me. But if you think that alone may be triggering to you, please move along and stay safe!
So, I’m thinking about fear right now. And about the different ways in which it is born.
Fears without an origin: Phobias, social anxiety.
From my personal experience these fears are easier to ignore. The fear itself is often stronger but because there’s no underlying cause, no real threat, no past experience that could repeat itself, it can be ignored.
I have social anxiety, and I could probably do a writing reference all about it, but for now, what’s important is the ignoreability of it. As a kid, I couldn’t speak to a stranger, for a very long time I couldn’t order food for myself or go to a store.
Heck, for a long time I couldn’t post online because “people would see it”.
But at the beginning of this term I saw an opportunity, offered by a stranger, so I walked up, spoke confidently and quickly sold myself, smiled, laughed and got given the chance.
There was a time that seemed impossible.
But what’s important here isn’t the improvement in my actions, it’s the lack of it in my emotions. See, I still have social anxiety, and although I do the things, I still feel the things. When I walked up my heart was going at a thousand per minute, my hands were visibly shaken and I was making a conscious effort to breathe.
When I left the situations I had tears of happiness from the pride I felt, but they could have just as easily been me breaking down after a failed attempt at social interaction.
The things with phobias and social anxiety is they don’t go away. Or at least I haven’t gotten rid of any in my twenty four years of life. You just learn to live with them. You learn to act despite them.
And learning to handle them requieres experience and a lot of it. Social interactions is something I both do and force myself to do every day. But others phobias like heights and spiders are far harder to get over.
Most characters won’t ever overcome those phobias, no matter how much you “show” them it’s harmless, because that fear is innate. Most people with phobias know of the “harmlessness”, it just doesn’t matter.
Fears with an origin: Traumas and experience.
Far harder to deal with from my experience.
You’re never going to be able to convince yourself something is harmless when it’s already harmed you in the past. You’ve never going to feel entirely safe in a place where you were hurt.
Traumas for me tend to be more mental than physical. Less shaking hands and tears threatening to escape, more flashbacks, disassociation and panic attacks.
Traumas are often sudden. I’ll be dealing with something just fine, proud of myself that I’m getting back into it, that I’ll recover. Then suddenly, with no warning, my mind fills with the worst scenarios, the one that I’ve already lived, the one I’ve already escaped from yet can never truly escape from. Often I’ll stop breathing, I’ll move very quickly away from the cause of my distress, I’ll break down.
I don’t know how to deal with trauma. I can walk through my fears, I can take a deep breath and force myself to act. But trauma is a different kind of fear. It goes deeper than my outer body, it lies deep within my soul and constantly threatens me with it’s presence, it’s interference.
Trauma threatens to take parts of my life away from me and never ever give them back.
From what I’ve seen, heard and talked to with people, similar to the fears we are “born” with, trauma doesn’t go away. We just learn to deal with it. But from my experience, I learn more to avoid it.Toavoid those situations that will cause me to break down, even if it means giving up on things I love.
We all probably deal with these two types of fears in one way or another. It’s likely the way they affect you is different then how they affect me. I did this intending for it to be a writing reference, it’s kind of what I do, but it got a bit deep at the end. But, if you’d like to reblog this and on some of your experience with fears, maybe we can learn something!
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
I am sorry if this article is a bit heavy and I’m a bit “vanished” right now. I’m really busy yet full of creativity, so I guess when I saw down instead of writing out a helpful series of tips I went full creative. I hope despite that you enjoyed and got something out of this!
It is surprisingly rare in the real world how many relationships consist of people the same age. (The older you get, the more rare it is, which makes sense as age is relative and what not).
For today’s reference I’m focusing on a minor age gap. As usual I’ll be talking from experience so for context sake I’m 23 and my partner is 30. A seven year gap, pretty common especially where I am. I’m saying minor because it’s the average, but averages vary depending on locations and culture so take that in mind.
With all this said, here’s a list of things that happen due to this age gap:
1.- Different shows and music growing up, different games too! My first pokemon game was Diamond on the DS, my boyfriend was around to play pokemon red. That’s like, the first one!
Similarly sometimes my boyfriends and friends start going of about an old show I’ve either never heard of, or binged as an adult because it wasn’t on television when I was a kid.
Sometimes it’s the opposite and I start going on about a show they never saw because they were too old. Or shows that I watched they will laugh at because, when it was on television it was “little kid’s show”.
This leads to both me and them discovering a lot of amazing new shows. I view this as a total positive. But if a relationship was not willing to give new things a chance, this could be a barrier, less things to talk about.
2.- General different childhoods. I’ve had internet since I was like six or seven. My boyfriends grew up without it. If you’re writing fantasy, this can be replaced with any important technological advancement.
Because of this specific one, I’m more technology dependant, I use an ipad instead of paper for example, where he is better at using dictionaries and maps.
3.- Language differences. I’m fortunate enough to have grown up with plenty of terms that weren’t in use when my boyfriend was young. Some are technological, while other’s are mental health or sexuality related. Because of this when we’re discussing news I tend to speak in a more “politically correct” kinda way.
This also affects expressions, I’m going to use an example in Spanish because I can’t think of an English equivalent, “Chachi,” is a word that means cool. There’s a lot of words like that in Spanish (Guay, mola, súper, lindo…). And it’s a term that my generation used a lot in High School, my boyfriend was older, didn’t use it and now it is not a normal part of his vocabulary. He’ll said mostly “mola”.
It doesn’t really make a difference. It’s just a difference I’ve noticed and thought could be fun to implement in a story.
4.- Fashions choices is obvious and I don’t think needs an example.
5.- Playgrounds songs and games. It’s kind of upsetting that I have more overlaps with my little sister than most of my friends. But it’s also kind of funny.
6.- Schoolling! This is a big one. We learnt different subjects, under different rules. Sometimes these differences are minor, back when he was in school he had to study religion. I studied ethics. But other times the entire educations system is changes so that now a degree is worth less and I am forced to not only considerbut consider almost mandatory getting a masters degree. Thank you politicians.
7.- Politics. We are one the same side of politics but the politics we have experienced and lived through are very different and that’s something you can tell when we talk and discuss stuff. I was too young when my country was in crisis to truly understand what was going on. It was just a word to me. He suffered the consequences.
This one is probably the one that can be incorporated the best into a fantasy setting. And now that I’m thinking about it, I believe Poison Study did quite a good job at doing it. Not going to spoil anything too big, but basically there’s a big political incident that happens before the books and the main character barely remembers it, while the love interest lived it. I highly recommend you give Poison Study a read! It’s one of my fave books of all time (even though I haven’t read it in years).
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
Are you in a relationship with an age gap? What’s your experience? Feel free to add to this post! I sometimes struggle with what differences are due to age and which are due to culture so I left quite a few things out.
I love the trope where a character is having a bad day, like stupid small things that add up. Causing them to just want the day to end, then at the end of the day either one of two things happen. All those stupid little things are nothing compared to the bomb about to hit, or they’re friend and family were planing something cool and all that sadness and anger dissipates.
I don’t know why I love this so much. But I always struggle to find small frustrating things that haven’t been done a million times before. So this is a resource for me to list of some ideas.
-Washing your hair but not completely washing out the shampoo. Mostly for character’s with thicker hair, this kills me. I think I got it all but an hour or so after my shower I run my fingers through my hair and under my nails is the creamy texture of shampoo or conditioner. So frustrating. A bad start to the day.
-Being interrupted. Whether you’re taking some time to read, doing important homework, trying to play the piano, having someone interrupt you, innocently perhaps but repeatedly, is so frustrating. Sometimes this can cause a five minute task to become an hour long. It can completely ruin that bit of free time you had.
-There being a constant flow of noise when you just want some peace and quiet. You’re in your room, you just want to read, but you can heard children screaming on the street, there’s some cars in the distance honking at each other, you’re roommates are arguing again, your upstairs neighbour is walking around with heels on. Perhaps it’s not even that noisier, but it just never stops, and you begin to feel overwhelmed. All you want is some peace and quiet. But peace and quiet never comes. Because in this neighbourhood, even at four in the morning the sound of the police and the arguments never end.
-Having a long list of tasks to do, a holiday or something coming up that’s perfect to do it all, and then being ill during that holiday. That feeling of hopelessness as you stare down that list and try to figure out if any of the tasks are easy enough to do despite your exhaustion, not being able to even rest because you’re so stressed with the upcoming tasks. Having the illness hold onto your for longer because as soon as you begin to recover you have to work and lose sleep and eat less. It shouldn’t be such a big deal, but it just is.
-Your usual form of transport is unavailable. Perhaps it’s raining so you can’t walk. Perhaps the battery is dead on your electric scooter. Perhaps there’s a strike and the busses are down. Whatever the case, figuring out how to get somewhere when you had a perfectly good system, having to leave earlier than usual or worse of all, leaving on time but arriving late, are all frustrating.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
Want to show a caring character? Show them loving their pet, show them helping a fallen bird.
Want to show a character being evil? Kick a puppy.
Both super obvious. Let’s check out some more.
Want to show a character as stern but caring? Have a very loyal dog or horse that show no sign of fear.
Want to show a character’s patience? Show them training an animal such as a puppy or a horse. This takes a lot of discipline and patience.
Want to show their bravery and compassion? Show them capturing and releasing a wild and dangerous animal from a location they are not safe at.
If they have pets, say for example a cat, how that cat behaves also says a lot about the owner. Are they allowed on the furniture? If they are allowed on the furniture, is it because the owner agrees with animals on furniture, or do they constantly complain about it? Telling us they aren’t good at being in charge. Does the cat always ask to be fed at the same time? That would tell us the owner is good at keeping a constant schedule.
Do they have books about animal care? Or do they instead claim to have learnt what they know from their parents?
Where did the cat come from? Adopted, bought? Was it sought out or did it just wonder in one day and stick around?
Also, all my posts are mostly directed at writing young adult fantasy, and something you often see in fantasy that doesn’t necessarily coincide with real world is that animals will behave like their owners. This is an obvious way to show a character of through an animal.
But even funner is to show an animal being nothing like their owner and forcing the owner to do things they are visibly uncomfortable with. I absolutely adore the typical serious all business character with his head on his palm while his other hand bounces some string around to help their daughter’s kitten burn of some energy.
Or a hyperactive child coming to terms with the fact their fish just isn’t going to do much. (Be careful with these kind of stuff, make sure to research. Children aren’t usually fit for taking care of animals, if you do have children in your story taking care of animals either express that they are an exemptions, who parents being involved or make sure it’s obvious this is a bad move, I’m sure everyone already knows this but I feel like I have to add it anyway).
Also, on that note, careful what animals you show as pets. I know it’s fantasy but if an animal isn’t a good pet irl you can have influence and cause trouble. An off-hand comment about, “oh, that animal usually isn’t friendly, it must be attracted to your magical power”, can communicate to a reader, hey, this is fantasy. Remember that.
Also, emotional support or service animals! Another great thing to include that can speak a lot about a person. Different people require different support and will have different support animals because of this. I have to recommend doing a lot of research into this though as I have never had a service animales and do not feel qualified to truly explain them. (Also, emotional support animal and service animals are two different things, look it up if you didn’t know, it’s quite interesting!)
Extra:
Here’s something I’ve seen a lot in media. Showing a character as being scared of say a dog as a way of showing them as being evil. Please don’t do this.
I get the theory behind it. Dogs are loyal caring animals and anybody who is scared of them clearly lacks empathy and understanding for the innocent animal that just wants to play!
Except, dogs are still animals, and although rare, they can be dangerous. A lot of people are scared of dogs. Yes, I’m scared of dogs. I love dogs, if I know them. But when I was about four years old, one Easter, sitting in London park with my new Barbie doll, this dog three times my size ran over and jumped on me, took my Barbie and broke it.
It terrified me.
The owner just laughed and called the dog off. I wasn’t hurt or anything but it’s a memory that remains close to me. And whenever I see an unfamiliar dog I may take a couple of steps to the side in an attempt to keep my distance.
I don’t feel attacked when I see fear of dogs used as a villain trope or anything. It just makes me roll my eyes at how people don’t understand the deepness of fears.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
Do you have a pet? What is it? What are they like?
Character’s hair is one of the main defining characteristics, but hair isn’t just aesthetic. Hair has an affect on our day to day life, getting stuck in stuff, requiring care and as kids, an effective chew toy.
It’s something to consider in our writing. So, here are some things I experience as a person with kind of wavy/curly/fuzzy hair.
-It’s way longer than it looks. My hair doesn’t look short, it’s significantly over shoulder length, but it also doesn’t look super long. Of course, if I straighten it while it’s wet it actually reaches down just over my hips.
-It looks like you lose a lot because of it’s length. Because of the previously mentioned point, a single strand of hair of mine seems to go on forever. Whenever I brush my hair it looks like I’m losing handfuls and handfuls of hair. The amount of times people have asked me about my hair loss. And I’m just like, “nah, it’s normal”, because it’s always been like that and I’ve never had any problems.
-Sometimes, you do lose a lot, but it’s not going to make a difference. There are some occasions during exams or high stress moments I do begin to lose quite a bit of hair. But it’s never actually made a difference, nobody other than me has ever been able to tell. Another thing about curly hair is depending on days, weather and other factors, it looks more or less voluminous so even if it made a difference nobody would notice.
-If I cut it, I get horrible little curls. So, the way my hair works is the weight of the curls actually makes the very top of my hair straight. I like this. The style suits me and it’s easy to take care of. If I were to cut it, the weight would vanish and my hair would be completely curly. The problem is, sometimes hairdressers have made mistakes and cut strands too short, and then I’ll be stuck with this one random curls that won’t go away for literally years while my hair grows from shoulder length back to my hips length. Be picky with your hairdressers! Not just anybody can do curly hair, unfortunately.
-A brush will ruin it. A normal brush. Most brushed. Brushed are not only difficult and painful and time consuming, it just makes my hair fuzzy and horrible and far more tangles then prior. I do occasionally use a de-tangle brush before a showers if I moved a lot in my sleep or went on motorbike. But other than that I pretty much exclusively “brush” my hair with my fingers and a lot of conditioner in the shower.
-Straightening it lasts hours. As in a couple of hours and that’s it. When I was younger I tried and by the time I got to school it was fuzzy again. The only way my hair is staying straight is if running water is running down it.
-It gets caught in everything and is extremely painful. I think one of the most painful things I do on a near daily basis is I put my glasses on after my helmet, and every time it gets hair caught in them and pulls and ugh, so much pain. Especially the shorter hairs near the ears from my experience.
And that’s all I can think of for now.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
I’d love to read writing references for hair unlike mine, if you know of any good ones, send them my way! (please)
No, not the close friends, besties, roommates, colleagues anything but lovers, kind of roommates.
Actual people who live together. Specifically I’m going to be talking from experience and I haven’t been independent too long (early-mid twenties so about four years of independece) so keep that in mind.
Character’s who are roommates are great fun. They live together which means there are not limits, middle of the night? No problem, just a room away!
But sharing your space with somebody can be frustrating, so here are some conflict ideas:
-Breaking something valuable to the other, and not understanding. So, I’ve seen a lot of breaking something important, trying to hide it or fix it before they find out, trying to replace it. And that’s enjoyable and heartbreaking at the same time. But what about when they don’t understand the importance? So here’s a personal story, my new roommates broke a plate the other day, not one from the kitchen but one I had tucked away in a spare room, it’s old and a bit dirty, and they told me, promised to buy a new plate. But the thing is, I don’t want a new plate. The only reason I kept that plate is because it was in a big box of stuff my dad gave me when I moved out. Most of it is crap. It was when he gave it to me. It still is now. But he gave them to me. And they remind me of him. And his no longer with me. So I hold onto a good few things that are absolutely worthless. But it’s hard for my roommate to wrap their head around the fact that what they broke was irreplaceable to me.
-This leads onto, banning stuff. My roommate also managed to break two pots, impressive given they’ve only been here two weeks. It’s not important, they just went and bought news ones. But because this has happened twice in two weeks I’ve now banned them form using a small pot my dad gave me.
And when you start telling people you can’t use this kitchen thing, they usually get annoyed. Even though I have a full set of pots and there is literally no use to that forth one. Like, I only have space for two pots to cook at a time anyway. But, to them, it feels like I don’t trust them. And I don’t. That’s the problem.
-Animals and pets. See, it’s amazingly fun when someone brings a pet into your house that isn’t yours, because there’s an animal you get to enjoy, play with, pet, and not be at all responsible for! Like, I don’t have to worry about weather I feed it in the morning or their water bowl is full. Except, what about when the cat scratches my furniture, breaks my things or has an accident while my roommates aren’t around?
Pets are a lot of responsibility. And sometimes, they bring with them a lot of trouble. Because it’s one thing for my cat to destroy my favourite shoes, and it’s another for somebody elses’ to do it.
-Things going missing. See, when I live on my own and something goes missing my first thought is, I’ve misplaced this. But living with others my first thought is where have they left this.
Sometimes I’m right to think this, other times I’m not. You’d think good communication would be an easy solution, except sometimes you ask in the group chat if somebody moved x thing. And they become defensive, like, I haven’t touched this in forever. Why would I move it? Why can’t you trust me put it away? And then them becoming defensive makes you annoyed and more accusatory… it’s a spiral.
-Arguments. Not between you and them, but between them and them. Okay, so say among your roommates is a couple. Couples sometimes argue, sometimes they do that loudly. And you can’t exactly get in the middle of that. So you just have to sit back and wonder when your noisy neighbours moved into your home.
Noise in general can be a problem between roommates, but I find arguing to be worse because of the lack of willingness to get involved. Plus, they are already angry before you open the door to complain.
-Common areas. So, living room, kitchen and bathroom. Who get’s what space? This has always been a hot topic for me because every time I’ve shared space, I’ve shared space from a spot of privliege. First, because it was my boyfriend’s property, now it is mine. Usually I try to make sure everybody has the same amount of space in places like the bathroom and kitchen.
However, the living room is a different story. See, the living room has a style to it, and I quite like a specific style. So I don’t really want other people’s stuff decorating and covering up my own stuff. Because of this, I usually write in contracts that you can use the living room (obviously) but do not get any storage space there. Making that booksehlve entirely mine to full of numerous young adult fantasy novels.
It’s selfish, I admit. And my current roommate have complained a bit that they don’t have enough space in their room for all their stuff, but as far as I’m concerned, the room is spacious they are constantly buying new stuff. If I let them use the living room I fear it would become packed with things I don’t like. So I put my foot down on this one.
But if the flat were rented between several roommates and nobody had more power than the rest, I don’t know how this argument would go down. It could be an interested thing to explore.
I’ve left out obvious ones here like, cleaning, taking the rubbish out, leaving the toiler seat up and locking the front door, I think that’s all been explores so much in media there really is nothing I could add.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
Do you have roommates? What conflicts have you had that could be interesting?
Prior note: As with all my posts, this is aimed at writing fiction, specifically I write young adult fantasy. This isn’t meant for a story about mental illness or neurodivergence, rather it is about writing these things into a story.
Also note, I do use mental illness and neurodivergence interchangeable because there’s not standardised definition of neurodivergence and these are new language terms. I know some people see and use them in different scenarios but I’m of the opinion (and of course this may change with time) that because society is built for those with “normally functioning brains”, pretty much all become obstacles. Simply less or more problematic ones.
When it comes to mental illness in characters there are a couple of points I want to focus in on:
-When to label it. Especially if like me you’re writing primarily fantasy. Mental illness has always existed, but hasn’t always had a label. So who’s to say it has a label in your world?
You can clearly show a character who is neurodivergent without ever straight up saying it.
Sometimes it’s also powerful to just show not tell. An example could be Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, it’s never been officially stated that he had depression. Yet, he’s often used as an example of depression in media. It wouldn’t make sense in the context of the show to say it outright, but it’s still representation and could be helpful to some children to see and understand it.
-How to talk about symptoms. Trying to talk about symptoms when we know they are symptoms can be hard. We end up using technical terms that bring you out of the story. For example, a reader is going to understand a relate more to a character picking at her palm, tapping his leg or playing with their hair, than the word stemming.
I know fidgeting and stemming are not the same thing. But at the end of the day, even people who do stem will refer to it as fidgeting when talking in normal conversations, not in the mood to explain or just prior to diagnosis and understanding.
If we’re working in a setting that does not have the same level of understanding of mental health as our current society, it’s likely characters will talk about it in simplistic terms, the same way we do when explaining to children. Because they themselves are trying to understand it.
-When are symptoms skip-able. I’ve often heard, I can’t represent this, because I don’t want my character to have thatsymptom. And this could be for a number of reasons. Well, you ever heard the expression, “you don’t look like…”? If you do some research, you might be surprised by how many symptoms are not necessarily, and in some cases, not even common.
It’s weird the way society picks and chooses wheat mental illnesses look like. Usually due to media. If you think a character fits, you want to represent something, but there’s something not quite right, do your research.
-Where to research. Research is an important tool in writing. Especially on delicate topics such as this one. I can’t stress this enough because there are so many bad representations that can be harmful. And I’m not just talking about stereotypes! Media often shows “cures” or “treatments” that are absolutely harmful, they normalise things that should never be socially accepted.
So where to research?
YouTube is a good tool. There are a lot of YouTubers who are neurodivergent and happily telling their story and their experience. Make sure to watch several different people with the same mental illneses so as to ensure you can see not only the similarities, but the differences.
Friends and family. Having a friend who you can ask questions can be a huge help! It can be a bit awkward at first, but if you explain your writing and that you want to be as honest as possible with your representations, people are often open to help. If they aren’t open, obviously leave them alone! But people who have lived this first hand and are dealing with your specific questions are going to be the most accurate resource.
Experts, but with caution. See, papers and officialy published articles are great, for seeing things from the doctor’s point of view, of course. But when writing and when reading we don’t care too much about that, we care about the character and what they’re feeling and what they are going through. Experts can be great for understanding what is actually going on. Why would doing certain actions help or harm? Why do they act the way they act? But it can also be dangerous.
There are a lot of non-specialised experts. People who do publications and psychology without specialising in a specific area for example. And there information will be correct, but maybe not helpful. People who actually specialise in your specific needs are going to be far more helpful. So, for example a specialist in child PTSD, is a better source than just a normal family therapist.
-Specialised beta reading. Once all your research, writing and editing is done, it’s time to pick beta readers. And if you can afford to be a bit picky, try and find people who have experienced what you’re writing and see if they relate to that character. They might not, and that might not be a sign you did it wrong. Not everybody with generalised anxiety is the same after all. But it’s certainly going to be a far better hint than your own intuition.
Also, last of all, always write from experience. Your own, your friends, your family, or just that which you’ve observes in society. People-watching is an amazing writing tool.
As usual, check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.
This one more than ever I’d love to hear about all of your experience and tips!
I tend to stick to writing only that which I understand and know thoroughly and slowly branching out and trying to learn more. But sometimes I’m still hesitant. I never want to offend anybody.
