#writing writing writing

[dinomighty]

THIS! Currently writing a fic that feels endless with a scene in my head that I'm looking forward to writing but it's legit near the end of the story. And I don't feel like I can write it until I reach that part of the fic. I'm pressing my nose against the bakers window but I'm not going in to buy, even though I have the money burning in my pocket.

every writer has That One Scene that lives in their head rent-free but they can’t write it yet because “the vibes aren’t ripe”

[conindiundrum]

being a writer is funny because one day you think “is this too similar to everything that’s ever been written before??” And another it’s more like “wow this is completely different and unrelated to anything and entirely unmarketable.” And then you sob. It’s all the same project btw

[tahbhie]

The Act of Writing Psychotic Characters 

Edited

Part 1: Attention vs Intention

It's been a while since I received this request, and I ensured I took my time with the thoughts, evaluation, and analysis. This topic will be covered in three parts, so here's the first.

Before we proceed, please note that I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, or any professional in that field. This is just an insight into how this kind of concept can fit into your novels.

Okay, let's begin.

The Attention vs Intention part of this topic will discuss two ways of portraying these type of characters in scenes. 

First, you need to understand that psychopathic characters aren't psychos based solely on their speeches or actions. If that's all you have in mind before approaching a story, you might leave a huge gap in the execution.

Rather, it's how they feel—the desire to satisfy their current emotions.

They have drives and motives, but most especially beliefs which, in most cases, are hardly understandable by other people. It's wrong and unacceptable by society, but to them, they wouldn't do it any differently.

That's why most psychopathic characters have no remorse. You simply can't apologize or feel sorry if you don't 'believe' that you're in the wrong.

➜ Attention Psychopath

Psychopathic characters whose main purpose in a story is limited to presence (i.e., showing up in scenes and visibly serving the role of a psychopath) are attention psychopaths. You don't flesh out their backstory or why they are who they are.

Their drives and motives aren't talked about enough to the point of justification. Readers hardly care about them, but the action they bring to the scene creates a rich narrative with the purpose of psychopathy.

In summary, their role is minor. We see such cases in movies like The Babysitter.

Let's agree that none of the cult characters in that movie are exactly sane, as their main aim is to end their victims’ lives in the sickest ways possible. However, there's a certain character, Max, who simply enjoys the idea of "killing and seeing people bleed."

That has exceeded the central idea of being a cultist who gets involved in blood sacrifice to achieve their 'dream life' like the rest of the characters. It's now something more and different.

Something that has to do with homicidal ideation.

Max worked in a diner where he dealt with people that annoyed him so greatly that he wanted to kill them. So he got the opportunity to join a cult and do just that.

It was plain clear this guy had something else going on for him, but throughout the movie, his character had no special attention or even a peek into his thoughts. Although, it still worried the audience. Job done.

➜ Intention Psychopath

When a story is centered around a character's mental state, their motives, drives, beliefs, actions, and the story actually unfolds by going deeper into this concept, you have intention psychopathy.

If not entirely, at least mostly, it defines the entire plot surrounding that character. People get to understand why they are who they are, their mode of action, what drives them, and even a peek into how they perceive the world around them.

Such scenarios are seen in movies like The Joker and Pyramid game (Korea). The audience gets a glimpse into their overall life and understands at least to an extent why they are the way they are.

Their beliefs get twisted for certain reasons, and there was just no stopping them. Here the characters were more than a presence; they were a central core.

In the movie Joker, we watched Arthur’s impoverished life unfold, with every event and incident worsening his condition further.

Baek Ha-rin in Pyramid Game literally created an entire game system to watch a student, who happened to be her old friend, suffer both physically and mentally. She went to great lengths to carry out this nefarious act under the guise of the game. Although this movie encompassed more than just this storyline, it was hard to ignore the unhealthy drive and actions of the young lady with an innocent face.

Before incorporating a psychopathic character in your novel, determine their form of portrayal and appearance in the overall story. Are they going to serve as an attention psychopath or an intention psychopath?

Inspired by @sothera

Stay tuned for the next part!

۝ Before you go! ۝

My Characters and I is an extensive one-on-one coaching session designed to create characters that leap off the pages and become best friends with your readers.

What's a great story without remarkable characters? Spots are filling up fast, so grab yours now and get ahead of millions of writers out there.

👇👇👇

[bananaheathen]

So much discourse is discoursing right now, but as I scroll this morning, I find myself thinking again and again about what we owe each other.

Probably someone wiser than me has said all of this better than I have. But if you’d like to join me for a little morning ramble about what we owe each other (and love and art under capitalism??), come on in 💛

I think capitalism has made us believe, on some level (on every level??) that money is the highest and best thing we can ever give anyone. And that if we give someone our money, they owe us. Which, in a transactional sense, they do.

If I go into a store and give the cashier my money, they owe me the goods I paid for. It's worth noting that what I do with those goods when I leave — how much time and energy I give them, how much I think about them or enjoy them, how many memories become associated with those goods, or the stories I tell myself about those goods — are not something I paid for. Those things aren’t at the whim of the little guy I paid for the goods, or even the store that employs the guy I paid. You could argue that how much I enjoy the goods is determined by whoever is in charge of manufacturing/growing/creating the goods. But even then, it was my choice to buy THOSE goods, and not someone else’s. I gave money, I got the thing, and now we’re even. 

Now, late-stage capitalism has also made us believe that we DO have something else to give. And while it isn’t more valuable than money, it can be turned into money, making it sometimes as valuable. And that thing is: our attention.

If we’re paying a lot of attention to something, it can be used to advertise to us. It can be used to get us to pay for something else. To buy more goods. To spend our money for more time with the thing we can’t stop paying attention to. 

And when we’re paying a lot of attention to something, it feels personal. For example, I spent a solid two years of my life writing a more than 600,000 word fic about One Direction. I was (and still am) paying A LOT of attention to them. They got so much of my dedicated time and energy and attention during that time, that it would make sense for me to feel, in the society that we’re in, that they now owe me something. Because on top of all the attention I’ve paid, I’ve also spent money! I’ve streamed music! I’ve bought albums! I’ve bought vinyl! And merch! And film tickets! And concert tickets! I’ve traveled to see shows and that means I’ve spent even more money! And did I mention all that attention I paid???

And this is where we run into trouble. Because actually, those boys don’t owe me anything. I gave them my money, yes. And, like the store example earlier, I got my goods. They gave me singles, and albums, and vinyls, and merch, and concerts. They also gave up most of their privacy and a fair chunk of their childhoods giving me content. And I didn’t pay for that content in money, but I did pay for it in my attention. And I would argue, on that score, we’re actually pretty even. What they gave up to get me to look at them, and what they’re still giving up to keep my attention, is a lot. It’s more than I can comprehend as someone who is not famous. And yes, they have fame! And money!!! Which as you may remember, according to capitalism, is the ultimate thing!!!!! But they’ve lost a lot to get it. And they’ve lost a lot to keep it. We don’t know, and shouldn’t ever have the privilege of finding out, just how much they’ve lost. But even just looking at it superficially, it’s obvious it’s a lot: The right to grow up and experiment with identity outside the public eye. The right to grieve in private. The right to have a private sex life. The right to have your personal physical boundaries respected. And so on. 

And sure, I’ve lost things too. Certainly time and energy and sleep and occasionally my mind. But I do have a certain advantage: I could always stop paying attention. I could always stop giving them my money. They can’t stop chasing my money and attention because that’s part of their job. But it isn’t mine. I have the choice to walk at any minute. And what I have to remember is that if I choose to stay, it’s not because they still owe me something. 

It’s because of all the things that I’ve gotten for my money and attention that have nothing to do with the transactional side of it. The friends I’ve made, the art I’ve discovered, the self-discovery that art has inspired, the feelings and the memories and the connection to community. The love I've found.

(For me, those are the secret things no one tells you are worth quite a lot more than money.)

And the difficult truth is, whether I agree with the choices they make or not, they don’t owe me different ones. I can feel upset if it seems like they aren’t the people I thought they were, in the same way anyone can upset me in this way. But my choice to keep them in my life or not, is on me. If they’re not a person I can hang with anymore, then they aren’t. And that can be painful and sad, and I’m allowed to feel my feelings about it. But it will never be that they owed me something else, or something more. 

And this is, I guess, the point I’m coming to:

Love is not a transaction. We don’t love people so that they will love us back. We love people despite ourselves. Despite the desire to get something in return. Sometimes we love people who love us well, and sometimes we love people who are shit at loving us. Sometimes we love people who make us the center of their world, and sometimes we love people who might never know we exist. Love isn’t a currency. Your love isn’t worth a certain amount in exchange. It’s so much bigger and broader and better than that. It’s so much more powerful than money, but it also doesn’t work like money. Not in interpersonal dynamics, and certainly not in parasocial ones. 

This is one of the more impossibly tricky things about loving anything or anyone. The only thing love means for sure is that you care. That you’ve allowed yourself to be vulnerable enough to put your heart into something. There’s no other guarantee. There’s no speaking to the manager if you don’t get what you wanted from it. (Believe me, I have tried.) 

It can feel, when we give our money, and our attention, and most of all our love to someone, that they owe us everything in return. That they should try to protect us, and love us back, and give us content, and give us goods, and make all the right and best choices all the time. And those should be the ones that we personally agree with, because those are the ones that are RIGHT. (And I know, I’ve made this last part sound childish, but anyone who has loved someone really intensely knows, it feels a little childish sometimes. That young feeling of wanting to be cared for, and taken care of, and surprised and delighted, and appeased.) 

But at some point, we learn that love isn’t a transaction. It doesn’t guarantee us returns. And the way a person loves us, when we’re a nameless, faceless part of a group that has given them a living, isn’t going to be the same as the way someone in our lives who knows us might love us. And the way we love them isn’t the same as the way we love the people we actually know. We’ve gotten our money’s worth. And the content keeps coming in exchange for our attention, whether we like what we get for our attention or not.

And the love — the love that makes it hurt so much when the content we get isn’t what we wanted, when the person does things we don’t understand and we feel like they don’t love us like we love them, the love that makes us believe we were owed something more because our hearts are in this — the love is ours to make of what we will. To write stories with, or make fanart about, and build memories around. To make friendships and families and love stories out of. It’s ours to reblog and retweet and repost and gif. It’s ours to spread and share and extend to as many people as we can. It’s ours to learn from, and grow from, and grow up with. No, the love isn’t transactional, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s wasted. 

I love you.

[icamefromadream]

◦•◦Want to Challenge your Writing? {OR STOP PROCRASTINATING WHILE WRITING?}◦•◦ (ALL apps are FREE)

What better way to challenge your speed, skills and strengths in writing then with these writing apps that will definitely get you writing in no time!

╭•❥• The most Dangerous Writing App

Web: https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app

Description: Don't stop writing for a second or your progress will reset!

╭•❥• Write or Die

Web: https://writeordie.com/

Description: An app that allows you to punish yourself if you were to slow down or stop writing. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SETTINGS TO DISABLE BACKSPACE OR ANYTHING ELSE YOU DESIRE.

╭•❥• Self Control

Web: https://selfcontrolapp.com/

Description: Blocks specific websites so you don't have to procrastinate🤩🤧

Follow @paranoia-art for more!

[noswordinourlake]

Ooh, "firing the wife beam" sounds like it will be hilarious xD

Hello friend 😊

Ahahaha this is the file name for my pre-canon Jiuyuan fic we don't know anything (about love) because I think I'm sooooo funny. Ch 3 should be up...hopefully soon but here's a sneak preview for you! Shen Yuan has accidentally ended up with SQQ at the Warm Red Pavilion:

Shen Qingqiu gives him a long look. Shen Yuan does his best to win the stare off, but the air in the room is heavy with incense and he can feel his eyes start to water almost immediately.

«This system would like to point out that it cannot be a contest if only one party knows they're competing!»

Shows what you know! Shen Yuan thinks, blinking smarting eyes, then, spying Shen Qingqiu hiding a smirk a half-second too late behind his sleeve, And you can't tell me he wasn't competing, either!

«(⁠｡⁠•́⁠︿⁠•̀⁠｡⁠)»

“Huang-shidi said his shixiongmen sent him into town—?” Shen Qingqiu finally asks, after several moments of Shen Yuan just standing and blinking in the doorway.

“Oh! Yes, Shen-shixiong. They said the order of qi-infused inks had arrived and a senior disciple needed to come pick it up. But then I got lost…and I felt your qi signature so I thought I might come find you for assistance…and when I realized where I was the very kind young lady at the entrance had already grabbed my arm and told me she knew you, so—” Now he’s started talking he can't seem! To stop! Why is this his life!

Shen Qingqiu is still just staring at him, face impassive.

“So that's what happened,” he finishes, weakly.

“At any point did Huang-shidi consider that Qing Jing Peak cultivators infuse the ink they use with their own qi?”

Shen Yuan is going to go stuff an ink stick up several shixiongmen’s noses, for once not Shen Qingqiu's. Shen Qingqiu takes a sip of tea with an odd little smile on his face. “In some ways, it is good to know the traditions of the peak never change.”

[sleepystrellaa]

ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁 .⋆☾⋆ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁

I have been writing for HOURS in my friend group discord server. Even tho nobody looks at my writing.

I don't fucking care, they will read it.

I drank an energy drink and a coffee and I can't sleep and I'm extremely hyper focused on my OC Reina's lore (the fallen angel jirai yuri)

fuck yeah I love destroying my sleep schedule im gonna go read AO3 now.

ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁 .⋆☾⋆ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁

[dinomighty]

Am I now inspired to write an August x Adelia x Skreev friendship fic after watching episode 4 of Age of Umbra? Do I think it'll all end up being non canon due to some hideous heartbreak? Am I writing it anyway and enjoying the hell out of all these characters? Yes, yes, yes.

The twins have so much to answer for.

[roxthemoonchild]

hey y’all. i accidentally wrote something soul-shattering.

priest!snape. guilt. devotion. love like prayer.

harry’s unwell. snape is worse. i’m not okay.

read if you wanna ache a little: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65240647

(also fleabag girlies, this one’s for you.)

“Forgive me for loving the shape of him more than the shape of the cross.”

[shatteredwriters]

Can’t believe this WIP is almost finished. I’ve been writing it for over a year, and there were a few months where I didn’t think I’d ever get back to it or find the inspiration to finish. But here we are now! Just one last chapter to go :)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52815814/chapters/164947471#workskin

[birdoncrowtree]

"I had sex last week."

He whispers it, as if its a secret, hidden behind his propped up notepad.

Across from him, sitting at the same science table, Guigsy squints in disbelief. "No you didnt," he accuses. He doesnt bother whispering, just says it into the classroom. "No girl wants you." Liam rolls his eyes at his friends attemp to be funny.

"Im serious....." He shifts his eyes. "But .... She...." It feels wrong on his tongue, "she was older. And.... I dont think i like having sex. I dont wanna do it again. Is that weird?"

Guigsy's face twists in confusion. "Older? How old?" And he can tell his friend is starting to believe him.

Liam hesitates. But he does end up spitting it out. "Ah... T-twenty."

Guigsys tired eyes shoot open. "Twenty!?"

Immediately, Liams shushing him. "Jesus fucking Christ, dont shout it to all of England," he hisses. And before he can stop and think about it, he confesses, "I dont think I even wanted to do it."

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE THIS WILL HURT. excerpt chapter 3 :3

[itsmiahshemakessense]

too many ideas, so little time

fun fact, @bylerweek2025 happens on my birthday, march 20th, and i'm absolutely making a fanfic as we speak, while working on a youtube vid, and MAYBE making an edit. and it's looking more and more like im gonna need to make a new playlist specifically for this, thanks to ana neu bc without her videos i would by DYING rn. happy writing, bylers!

[conindiundrum]

[squishykitty825]

Life moves on

Life moves on,

But I’m still stuck

In the moments before and in between

Life moves on,

But I’m still here in the memories

Left reliving the loss over and over again

Life moves on,

But I still walk into that new kitchen

And wish for the old one just to remember

Life moves on,

But I’m still replaying the moments

The fighting and the crying and finally the ending

Life moves on,

But I’m still fighting my demons

Both real and imagined, physical and not

Life moves on,

To different people

To new experiences

To the future

But I don’t

No

I can’t move on

I’m still stuck

Stuck in the past

With the betrayal of a “best friend”

I’m still frozen

Frozen in the realization of death

I’m still waiting

Waiting for my mind to catch up with the rest of me

But until then,

Life moves on

With or without me

[w1hzz]

— reaching your word count goal

these are the tips that help me with the word count it also explains exactly how i wrote 5 whole novels in the past 3 years

— 1k - 2k alternative method:

so this was actually something i was introduced to by a close friend of mine. the method is simple you just have to alternate your daily word count.

mon/wed/fri/sunday: 1k word count

tue/thu/saturday: 2k word count

by the end of the week your total is 10k, it’s great especially for your first and second draft

— timing yourself:

mind you, this works for people who are good under the clock if not you may get the nerves and not be able to write at all. now when you first write time yourself how long you take for a specific amount of words, eg: i take about 60 mins for 1k, so i set a 45 min timer to get it completed.

— peak writing hours:

whether you are best writing early morning or late night, set your time between those periods. like i set aside 1-2hrs for writing at night before prepping for bed.

— outlining:

now frankly speaking, i don’t care if you’re a “plotter” or a “pantser” or whatever else idk— but if you’re serious about writing outline your book. i’d suggest using the 7 act structure to help with the overall outline.

1. backstory

2. the catalyst

3. the big event

4. the mid-point

5. the crisis

6. the climax

7. the resolution

[@thewritingumbrellas on tumblr]

and also before writing a chapter spend 15 minutes making key highlist of what happens in the chapter of course if your find out you have to add or remove something as you right you may do so, but have an outline.

@iieir.i on instagram @1eiri on pinterest