keen2meecha

[keen2meecha]

*friend lying awake in the dark at a sleepover voice* you ever think about how your self-insert characters can start out the same age as you but then you get older and leave them behind and they're trapped as teenagers forever while you get to look back from a position of adulthood and wonder how a literal child could have ever handled the plot they were in

[keen2meecha]

ok so hear me out

[keen2meecha]

me 250 words into a chapter: Gosh, how am I gonna make this at least 2500 words?

me at 6193 words on accident: Uh

[keen2meecha]

trying to finish writing something after the fleeting moment of inspiration has passed

[keen2meecha]

I know unicorns in modern media are kind of relegated to cutsie, MLP, rainbow plastic toys, or shitting rainbows, 'lets go to candy mountain' but man. I WISH more fantasy media would put them in unironically. There is so much symbolic and narrative potential in a creature that is, depending on your mythology:

A guardian of wild spaces, the embodiment of nature untouched by mankind's industry and greed. Fewer and farther between.

The ideal of "Purity" made manifest, elusive and powerful and hunted for fruitlessly by many a person. To kill. To actually kill. Living symbol of the oh-so-coveted Purity, not treated as a sacred thing to protect, or even predated for food to survive off, but a trophy for knights and lords to boast about.

So absolutely fierce and deadly that no one smart dared to fight it fairly. A gentle maiden had to betray it into resting in her lap so that a man could spear it while its guard was down.

Able to heal any wound no matter how severe - it promised miracles, if you could find one.

A creature who's magic vanished if it was captured or killed. In trying to take control of it, you destroyed it. Some things can only be given by free will, and no amount of personal desire or brute force can change that.

#reference

[keen2meecha]

living things are meant to see the sun and when they can’t for an extended period of time they get a bit deranged. That’s why vampires are like that.

[keen2meecha]

Writing tip of the day: whenever you can, plug a plot hole with a character flaw!

Every time you realise that it makes no sense that the characters didn't do some super logical thing in the first place, figure out which character could have prevented it by simply the way they are as a person. You're not only solving the problem of the plot hole, but also the issue of writing flaws into your characters in a way that doesn't feel gratituous and contrived.

Why did the characters not use this weapon they had access to the whole time? - The character who could have told them about it wants to have control over people and had personally decided they shouldn't have it.

Why didn't that one genius character just tell everyone how to dismantle the robots? - They meant to, but being an absent-minded genius, they literally just forgot.

How did nobody notice that this little girl has been hanging out with an actual demon for seven years? - The demon made her pinky-promise not to tell anyone about it, and being naive and overly trusting, she didn't find that sketchy at all.

Why didn't the characters go to The Big Cool Guys for help in the first place? - The character who is stubborn and overly proud wanted to choose death before dishonour and didn't want to ask for help.

Every time there was a perfectly reasonable solution accessible to the characters all along, that could've resolved the whole plot in minutes, always try to find an angle where someone prevented it just by who they are as a person.

#reference

[keen2meecha]

Just in case anyone was confused or concerned.

Drafting is a skill. And it's a skill you can learn. If you ever look at your first draft and go 'actually this is good' do not immediately go 'no it's can't be good it's a first draft'. If you've been writing for a while (like years) writing a draft that is perfectly serviceable and only needs some editing without a ton of cutting is like... fine.

I spend a lot of my time 'writing' and 'rewriting' drafts 6-10 times in my head and when they finally come out as my 'first draft' (or a second in some cases) it's already been through 2-8 revisions. The work has been done and the words I'm writing are the culmination of those revisions. I just didn't write it down.

Not all revisions have to take place in meat space or as text on a screen. Revisions happen as you play out scenarios over and over again in day dreams or bed time stories. Your first draft is not something that Must be conquered and tamed into something presentable. Sometimes you nail it because you've spent all the revision time already.

This is not something that comes to everyone. But it is something you can get good at. You do not have to agonize over a 5th rewrite if the first time you've put words to paper is already the 6th revision that's gotten better every time. There's a lotta 'you gotta suffer to make a book good' in writeblr I just don't agree with. You can just nail it the "First Time". Not every time. But you can.

[keen2meecha]

[keen2meecha]

ok im about to think about the Character!! im so Excited 😊😊

[keen2meecha]

they did not call me any particular nickname in college because I did not have any characteristics or traits

[keen2meecha]

[keen2meecha]

#dream wip #lily lily lily aaahhhh

[keen2meecha]

i'm genuinely having so much fun writing a jock protagonist. can't believe i never tried this before. all these years i've been limiting myself needlessly

[keen2meecha]

nothing makes u feel stupid quite like being a writer. out here googling “rooms in a house” to make sure i didn’t forget one of em. blockhead behavior.

[keen2meecha]

#dream wip

[keen2meecha]