afiercepen

[afiercepen]

why must a writer write, is it not enough to daydream wildly about our characters? 

[afiercepen]

The main reason I’m ending up uninterested in books

is, I think, excessive streamlining and/or efficiency. 

By this i mean the first chapter gets the plot going immediately and the book zips on from event to event, smoothly progressing the plot without a paragraph out of place. The irony is that books like this, despite being very fast-paced, tend to bore me to death. “Cut out what doesn’t progress the plot” seems like good advice, but I feel like it makes it actually very difficult to care. 

A story needs downtime. Having characters constantly be in life-threatening situations and just never letting up from beginning to end sounds like it would cause nail-biting suspense, but it does exactly the opposite. I find I can’t bond with characters if I don’t see them just hanging out, goofing off, or being themselves in a situation where they are relaxed enough to do that. I’ve read a lot of books where every single second someone is in danger and they have to run again or fight again and the relationships never capture me because the characters have not been given time to develop the relationships or even be themselves because they are constantly in survival mode. 

When a character is trying to run from death, their priority is going to be that. You can shoehorn in information drops of supposedly emotional backstory all you want, but if no one ever gets to genuinely kick back, we don’t get to see what they’re like when they’re fully themselves. We don’t get to see what kinds of things they say when they feel safe, what might spill out of them when they are relaxed. We don’t get to see what makes them smile and laugh and the mundane details of who they are, because they don’t spend more than a few paragraphs trying to not die. 

Downtime is not just important to allow room for character development, it’s important to establish a status quo or at least a “what could be.” What is at stake? What has the antagonist/problem taken away from the characters? What will they lose if they don’t succeed in their fight? What do they have to lose? 

Many of these action-packed books I read try to make the reader care by dropping in references to a past or a future in which characters were able to do things like bake cakes or sit in the windowsill and watch the rain and not have to worry about things and being told about those things never has the same impact as experiencing them. If a character thinks “hmm, what if someday we could hang out and have fun together like friends,” that’s sad, I guess. If we get to see the characters hanging out and having fun together like friends, and then a disaster happens and that is brutally ripped away, that’s WAY more effective. If a character comes home to their house burned down or their dad murdered, that’s…supposed to be upsetting, I guess. If you first wrote about the character sitting on a porch swing with their dad identifying bird calls and eating partially burnt banana bread that dad could never make quite like mom used to…and then murdered the dad…now we’re talking. 

Repeat after me: if you don’t give it to your readers in the first place, you can’t cruelly rip it from their arms!! 

I’ve found it a lot better to alternate downtime and more “actiony”/high tension scenes instead of trying to maintain the latter all the way through. Quiet, relationship building scenes and fast-paced, suspenseful scenes are not antagonists, they are sisters and perfect complements of one another. I exploited this fact to the max on my last WIP. I let my characters have fun and joke and laugh. Then I hit them with some scary event that reinforced the overhanging tension again. Then let them relax a bit, developed them as people and the mundane facts about them. Then out of nowhere, things get worse. They try to pull themselves together. I add in a little bit of fluffy goodness but before my characters can contemplate what this means for their relationship–BAM. Shit goes down. And more things fall apart. And more. And now some more fluff, you deserve it ‘kay? But all of a sudden…

The “down” periods didn’t make the book boring, they seem to have made it nigh unputdownable (one of my readers had to go to work on like three hours of sleep after staying up half the night finishing) because they made my readers really, really, really, REALLY want to see my characters safe for good. I was able to develop the relationships just enough to whet appetites for more, and cause immense frustration when I broke up the good stuff with serious bad stuff. Do you want your betas to curse at you and threaten you? This is how you do it, it seems. 

I read YA novels that give the main couple like 2 pages of breathing room so they can kiss. And then their noses are back to the grindstone. Do I know these people, or care? No idea, because they’ve been too busy running from laser sharks to have much by way of a conversation. But letting them sit down for a chapter or so is “”””boring.”””” 

Give your characters downtime. Keep the tension going in the background, but give them a bit to rest here and there. Do it right and it’ll make things hurt so, so much worse. 

[afiercepen]

shipping two of your ocs together is such a ride bc you know they're endgame, you know how they feel about each other, you know every little detail of their relationship, but you have to bust your ass to get the content

[afiercepen]

[afiercepen]

love me some enemies to friends to lovers trope

[afiercepen]

Hi, I love your writing, thank you for everything you do. Can you write about a submissive villain, they are my favourite :)

The hero strode into the interrogation room, going straight over to the villain’s side. “Hey,” they said. “Hey. Are you okay?” They dropped to one knee and gently took the villain’s cuffed hands. “What happened?”

The villain shook their head, mutely. “You - what are you -” they stared at the hero. A dizzying relief washed over them, followed by a coiling nervous anticipation. “What are you doing here?”

“When I heard they took you in,” the hero said, “I came immediately. Take some deep breaths.” Their voice was calm, but their eyes were blazing, pinning the  villain to the spot. It raked over the villain’s appearance - their slightly torn jacket, the bruise on their jaw.

The villain took several deep breaths, instinctively, at the command and looked away. They realised abruptly how long it had been since they’d taken a proper breath - not since the people turned up to take them in. 

“Good,” the hero said. The hero’s hand reached up, cupping the nape of the villain’s neck, rubbing a soothing circle. They shot a dark, livid, protective look in the direction of the one way glass, but the livid look didn’t vanish when they looked at the villain either.

The villain hoped the detectives behind it quaked. They could feel their magic bristling, bubbling, boiling. They struggled, again, to clamp it back under control.

“I didn’t do anything this time,” the villain said. “I swear, I didn’t. I don’t know what they think I’ve done.”

The hero’s brow pinched as they took in the feel of it - the threat. Did the villain want to blow up the entire precinct? Yes. Did they think it was a good idea? No. Did they have much choice in the matter if their magic exploded? Also no.

They searched for the hero’s eyes, desperately. The cuffs clinked as they reached to take the hero’s hand and squeeze. “You believe me, right?” the villain asked. “You have to believe me.”

Had they done terrible things? Yes. Had they done anything recently? No. 

“I believe you,” the hero said. Their grip tightened a fraction, reassuringly firm. “And we can talk later about why you didn’t call me when they took you in.”

/Crap/.

That explained the look on the hero’s face. The villain resisted the urge to squirm. 

“…you’re still going to fix this, right? I’m going to - I have to get out of here.”

“I’ll fix it. Just - sit tight, okay? Don’t explode.” They pressed a steadying kiss to the villain’s temple. “Can you do that for me?”

“I - yes.” For them, yes. At least they could try. 

“Good,” the hero said. “I’ll be right back.”

They went to sort everything out. 

The villain stared at the table, vision tunneling, and focused on taking deep breaths as they’d been told. 

The hero returned presently, jaw set. An officer hurried along on their heels, scrambling to do undo the cuffs. The hero grabbed the villain’s arm, pulling them to their feet and towards the door without further comment. 

They sat in a thickening silence on the cab ride back to the hero’s place.  

The silence was unbearable. 

“You can’t be angry with me, I didn’t commit a crime!”

The hero’s head turned to them, a fraction. “I’d prefer not to get into this in a cab.” 

“I just didn’t want to bother you,” the villain said. 

“Bother me?” the hero shook their head. “Jesus. It bothers me that you won’t ask me for help when you’re in trouble. It bothers me that you were about two minutes from blowing that place up, and I would have heard about it on the news. It bothers me when you’re upset, and hurt, and getting screwed over and don’t have anyone to look out for you.”

The villain…didn’t have a reasonable response to that. “I can look after myself,” they muttered. 

“You were having a panic attack.” 

“Yeah…well. They wouldn’t tell me what was going on!” The villain hated not knowing what was going on. “That still doesn’t mean I expected you to do anything. I mean - I know we - it’s not your problem, okay! I am not your problem.”

“You most certainly are my problem. You’re mine. Aren’t you?”

The villain’s jaw snapped shut. That might be the first time the hero ever said that. Mine. They didn’t seem to even realise they’d said it, but something warm and stupid lit up in the villain’s chest. 

The hero dragged a hand through their hair and looked away, sighing, glaring out the window.

“Next time,” they bit out, “call me when you’re in trouble. I’m making it a rule.”

It didn’t happen again. 

–

NOT A PR0MPT

[afiercepen]

writing the first 100k words of slow burn romance

[afiercepen]

someone: displays the faintest amount of interest in my wips

me: 

[afiercepen]

Someone: So, tell me about your story!

Me: vague noises

[afiercepen]

there’s a quarantine going on… no pressure but i KNOW ya’ll have WIPs

[afiercepen]

Psst… hey… you need some uhhh… fuckin’ validation?

N E W S F L A S H 

You’re doing a great job and deserve to be proud of your writing

[afiercepen]

*creates something*

oh god……..that was it, my last inspired moment ever. I’ll never make anything else that lives up to that ever again. Oh god, what if I never have another idea?

*creates something again*

oh god….that was it, my las-

[afiercepen]

finding a good song

finding a good song that fits your ocs/story

[afiercepen]

My favorite trope is characters who don’t know what it’s like to be treated nicely, and how they react when they meet kind/decent/non-asshole people.

-the look of surprise when someone brings them a cup of tea, unasked for, just saying they thought they would enjoy it.

-breaking a glass on accident and panicking, expecting terrible, terrible things, but a caretaker just bumbles over with a broom, pulling on a pair of slippers and telling them not to move, not to step on anything.

-being given an unexpected hug, and stiffening, then melting into it.

-relaxing slowly, until one day they’re surprised at how comfortable they are with these new people.

-latching onto the roughest, meanest of the bunch, because that’s who they were familiar with, and the gruff, tough, scary person ending up softening up to them.

-always waiting for the other shoe to drop, even though it doesn’t.

-when someone says good morning to them first, and it startled them because they’re used to being ignored at best.

[afiercepen]

I am a(n):

⚪ Male

⚪ Female

🔘 Writer

Looking for

⚪ Boyfriend

⚪ Girlfriend

🔘 An incredibly specific word that I can't remember

[afiercepen]

Do y'all ever have that one character who is your fav from anything ever at all and they calm u down when ur stressed and they cheer u up when ur sad and they make you happier even when you’re happy? And they are like the ultimate comfort character??

[afiercepen]