Scribbled Fiction

Photo by  Serkan Göktay  from  Pexels Quick note: this post is a bit of a brain dump, it's not as well thought out as some of my other posts, but I wanted to get it out of my head, so enjoy XD Here's the main thing: characters who have pain and face hardship are the characters we tend to cling to the most, the ones we like the most. So why is that? My opinion, and the short version of the answer, is this: we love them the most because the pain they feel is familiar. Pain is part of life, a big part of life, and it will continue to be until the return of Christ and a time where His people will go up to live in heaven. We all know some kind of pain, everyone has experienced something in their life that tried to break their spirit and block out their light. No one will make it out of this life unscathed. Those are the facts. So if the characters feel pain, we can identify with that. Even if what they're going through isn't something we've ever experienced, we can still...

I first noticed this whole thing while watching Avatar: The Last Airbender(also known as one of the best written shows I've ever seen). Specifically, I noticed something about Prince Zuko, the antiheroic, morally ambiguous ex-prince who is chasing down for Aang most of the show. Granted, Zuko is AngstBoi extraordinaire, but something about him was just. . . different. Better. Even the way the artists made him move and pose seemed somehow more true to life than the other characters. And that's when I first started noticing all the stuff that I'm going to talk about today. I think he definitely looked his best when he had hair like this. Antiheroes are written to be attractive. Deep in our minds, we already know that antiheroes are the cool ones, the favorites, so when we write our own, that's how they come out on the page. But there's even more than that. Antiheroes are also written in a more realistic light than most of the other characters, especially if the antihe...

[If you haven't seen at least up to the Asokah episode of the Mandalorian, you're probably going to find spoilers. You've been warned.] So here's the thing, guys. For some reason with this season of the Mandalorian, people are causing controversy with almost every episode? I don't know if it's just people taking out their 2020 tension, or if there's actually something to cause a controversy about, but that's what seems to be happening. But we're not talking about all the controversies on a whole. Today we're just talking about one: the egg-eating controversy. And why I think people are way overreacting to it. So here it is: first of all, Baby Yoda himself. Even though I'm a little confused on how his obvious baby maturity and baby noises stack up against how he's been trained under many masters and seen the rise and fall of empires, the thing is that he's still a baby. Albeit a very confusing baby. The 50 years old thing and still bei...

 I've written very few girl protagonists. No, it's true. If you were to look at the list of all the protagonists I've written, the list of girls would be much shorter than the guys. Even when I think about my latest WIP, it's pretty guy-heavy. Let's take a look, shall we? Jack, Thief's Son : The protagonist is Jack, a guy, and the villain is a guy. Javi and the Boats in the Sky (2018), has a boy as the protagonist.  NaNoWriMo 2017, Spectacular:  Guy protagonist. Robbing Centaurs and Other Bad Ideas (2019): Not one, but 2  guys as the protagonists. In addition, the mentor is a guy, and most of the main characters are guys too, something that I'm trying to fix, because I want more girls in there. Why do I write so many boys, you ask? *scratches head* Honestly I'm not sure. That's what I'm here to explore. Honestly, I couldn't even figure out all these reasons by myself, so I had my sister discuss with me. Thanks, Rach, you're the best. <...

If NaNoWriMo isn't going well for you this year, then I'm here to tell you that you're not alone. I've heard a lot of people say this year that NaNoWriMo isn't going as well or feeling as good as it has in previous years. And I've been feeling the same way. Personally, I just thought that my hardcore, crazy, 14-day writing prep sesh in October had burnt me out a little bit. I thought I was just tired. And maybe that's still the case. (Isn't going to stop me from finishing, though!!) But having heard so many people say that they felt the same feeling as I did, I'm now realizing that it may be due to just the way the rest of this year has gone. Basically, all our brains are burnt out. Let's face it, we've all gone through a lot this year. I don't even need to begin the list. Everyone else is already done that. But the plain and simple truth is that all this stress and worry and anxiety and turmoil may be putting a huge strain on our minds a...

 I know most of the people in the writer blogisphere write things like '5 ways to write a character arc' or 'how to avoid a boring plot', and I love reading those! They're super helpful and sometimes you can get some super good techniques from writer bloggers. But while I love reading those posts and linking them to this blog when they're relevant, I just... don't feel like I'm one of them? Now, I'm sure that this is all just a matter of perspective, but I never feel educated enough on most topics to feel like I could instruct someone else. I know I don't know everything there is to know about it, and I know I don't do any kind of writing thing flawlessly, so I don't feel that I should be telling people the right way to do something when I don't think I do it the right way. Again, this might just be a matter of perspective, but that's how I feel. So that's why I've gone the direction I have with this blog. Rather than tell...

Yeah, I know the English language already has wayyyy more words in it than basically any other language, and that makes it really hard to learn for people who don't grow up speaking it, but there's still room for improvement! We can always add more words! I've noticed some gaps in the system and words that we really need to invent, like now. A word for dying of thirst We so need a word for this. If I'm dying of thirst, I shouldn't have to go to all the trouble to tell someone that I'm 'dying of dehydration' because I might not have enough hydration left to get all those syllables out. When I'm out of the house and I'm both hungry and thirsty I want to be able to say "I'm starving and ____." You get my point, right? Multiple ways to say 'i love you' This. Needs. To. Be. Fixed. Seriously, I need to be able to tell everyone that I care about them. I want one for friends, one for family, one for a lover, and I also want one for ...

I've been wanting to write a post about this phrase for a while because while it sounds cute in dialogue, it gets soooooo much better if you get down to the nitty-gritty of the individual definitions of the words. Am I probably reading too much into this phrase? Am I an overthinker and overanalyzer? Oh yeah. But I'm not going to let that stop me. First, let's look at the phrase itself. I want to be with you. I Want to be With You. Here's the thing: one can interpret this sentence in two different ways. This is what I love about English. Depending on where you put the inflection, the sentence can take very different forms. The first is this: I want to be with   you. To be with.  To go along with, to accompany, to walk alongside. Like Avril Levine, to say 'I'm with you' as in I am a couple with you, I arrive at a place and say 'I'm with him' because I have arrived with you, I am in a party with you, a group of two. I am with you. I am with  you. An...

I want to talk about the whole thing of cutting out toxic people. The internet and everyone on it seems to be screaming that the only way to be happy is to cut every toxic person out of your life. And who are these toxic people? Take a look around. According to the internet, everyone you love is hurting you, all of them are toxic or abusive in some way. Because if they don't give you their full attention every moment of the day, if they don't understand your every nuance perfectly, if they don't always understand exactly what you want and when you want it, do they really love you? I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, and I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Like yeah, sometimes a relationship with a person can get to a point where it's only causing you harm, and I get that, believe me, I do. But I don't think it's very Christlike to go and cut off your loved ones the moment you start to feel unh...

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a little nervous to post this list. I've posted things about mental health and depression in the past, but I've never talked about it with this level of transparency. And it scares me. I guess a part of me maybe doesn't want to admit weakness like this, but without understanding your own weakness, you can't really get stronger. So we're going to do this. Hurting yourself (losing sleep, undergoing physical strain just because you want to feel something, self-harm) ... it's not worth it. Paint over those wrists instead. Bake something. Create rather than destroy. Having a horrible episode an hour after you were laughing and having a good time does not invalidate the fun you had earlier. Tears after a smile does not mean the smile wasn't real. You aren't faking it. If you feel like this, it's real, and you need to treat it as such. Your struggling is going to be more than one person's, and...

I've still been thinking about the whole optimists and pessimists thing since writing  Optimists vs. Pessimists  a few months ago. There's a lot of ground I didn't cover. And bear with me here. I'm not pretending to know everything there is to know about this topic. I've never claimed to know everything there is to know about any topic. Heck, I've never even claimed to know much about any topic. A lot of what I've learned in my life has been gleaned through careful observation and inner analysis. This topic is no different. With that out of the way, now I can talk. I've talked about what optimists and pessimists are at the core, but I think I left out something very important. There was an interesting aspect of the topic that I hadn't thought of before. And that is  what we take for granted . What you think about, or rather what you don't bother to think about affects your thinking. The things you consider to always be constant a...

This morning I was watching a video on YouTube in which a girl was showing her parents her best and worst YouTube comments. Both her parents had some thought-provoking things to say about the nature of internet feedback and just the World Wide Web in general. And as it provoked a good deal of thought in me today, writing on the subject seemed just the thing to do to get it out of my head. Best: You can be seen by a lot of people. It takes work to get a lot of exposure, but whatever you post can be seen by lots of people, which is a wonderful and powerful thing. But like a lot of powerful things, the internet is neither good nor bad, which means it can be used to either a very good end or a very bad end. Worst: This exposure seems to attract horrible people like moths to a flame. Posting YouTube comments that try to uplift whoever sees them ('you are beautiful', 'it's going to be ok') is using this power to a good end. Putting up endless rants on why you ha...

The terms optimist  and pessimist  have a different connotation today than they were originally meant to. These words used to mean individual things, not represent ridiculous stereotypes. But as culture has changed and as stories have taken more and more precedence in our daily lives, we become more accustomed to keeping certain terms confined to the four walls of the little boxes we put them in. For example, these days the word pessimist  means someone who thinks only dark and depressing things of everyone. An Eeyore, a Grumpy Smurf, someone who never smiles and eats gruel three meals a day. The word optimist  is hardly better. Optimists are thought to be obnoxious and delusional. They see no wrong and think the whole world is made of rainbows and cupcakes. Think Smurfette. This is how we've been shaped to think by stereotypes in the stories around us. And because we've been taught to think this way, this is how we think we should act as an optimist or a...

Dear Lonely One, I see you. You sit alone. You keep your thoughts to yourself. No one approaches you, so you don't approach anyone. You think no one sees you. I see you. I ask myself, are they lonely? Do they need a friend? Or do they just want their space? I see you every day. But I don't know how to approach you. So I don't. When you go home, you're alone there too. You have no one to talk to. You have no one to have adventures with. Sometimes it feels like these four walls are all you'll ever have to come home to. I know that feeling. I, too, would like someone to talk to. I, too, would like someone to have adventures with. I sit alone too. I don't want either of us to sit alone. So, the next time I see you, I move. I compliment your Captain American shirt that I saw from across the room. I tell you how much I love the beautiful pictures you draw. You smile, but there is sadness in your eyes. I can see it. I recognize that sadnes...

I recently saw a piece of advice that in the world of writing you have to be willing to fail for a long time. And right now it feels like I've been doing that for a long time. I have been blogging for over two years, and while some of my posts have done extremely well, most take a few weeks to get numbers I would consider adequate. And while the book I put up in April is only the first decent book I've put online, I don't even know if the few people that have bought it have bothered to read it. I feel as though my collection of attempts has led to nothing. I feel like my cup of failure is overflowing. Often I wonder if I have taken the wrong course in my writing. If I'm doing something wrong. And maybe I am. It would be wonderful to take a glance into the future to see what I need to do in order to succeed. But whether I'm doing something wrong or whether I'm not, I know one thing for certain: It'll be all right. The God I know will always wa...

What if no one wants to read your novel? This question plagues you. Your family members ask you what you're writing about, they even read it when you get up the courage to ask them if they'd like to, but do they really want to read it? Your dearest friends might not have time to read it, even if you offer, even if you'd love to know what they think, and that awakens the question as well: If they had time, would they want to read it? People might buy your book when you advertise it, few people or many people, it makes no difference, because the question remains: Do they want  to read it? Do they really  like it? The doubt you've harbored ever since you started thinking 'I'm might actually be good at this' gets bigger and bigger until it occurs to you that maybe you have no talent at all. Maybe it's all just in your head. Your talent might be an illusion of your overexcited mind. Maybe your writing only matters to you. Maybe the only...

The Young Adult Fiction writers of today are pioneers in a new and rapidly-growing genre, which gives me good news and bad news to give you: The good news: The best YA books of today are going to become the classic Young Adult Fiction of the next generation. Go YA writers! The bad news: Knowing this, today's YA writers need to set a good standard. We learn about classics in school and we're taught how the writers did it, why? Because they were good . If we have subpar examples of YA writing, two things could happen. 1) There might not be any good YA to pass on in the first place and 2) The genre won't have a good start, so it might fizzle out. So, in order to make sure that doesn't happen, let's talk about some of the harmful tropes that are going on in the YA genre. The guy who talks like a Shakespearian narrator. I'm lookin' at you, Austin Ames. You wanna know why the girl always ends up with the 'sweet' one and not the 'broody...