linwelinwrites

[linwelinwrites]

Something about Jinshi giving Mao Mao all the attention in the world in every form possible (to the point of annoying her) without knowing she grew up without receiving a lot of attention.

Something about Mao Mao knowing she is Jinshi's "favorite toy" so she never lets herself be taken away from him because she knows how Suiren and Gaoshun would take all his toys away so he can't get attached to anything.

They just complete each other and there are parallels in the way they show their love.

She allows him to be attached and is ready to take responsibility by taking care of him. This is peak attention, giving him what she thinks is the best.

He allows her to be seen and is ready to take responsibility by letting her go so she can live freely. This is peak attachment, he loves her so much, her wellness is his priority.

[linwelinwrites]

There used to be a lot of activities that took place around a populated area like a village or town, which you would encounter before you reached the town itself. Most of those crafts have either been eliminated in the developed world or now take place out of view on private land, and so modern authors don't think of them when creating fantasy worlds or writing historical fiction. I think that sprinkling those in could both enrich the worlds you're writing in and, potentially, add useful plot devices.

For example, your travelers might know that they're near civilization when they start finding trees in the woods that have been tapped, for pitch or for sap. They might find a forester's trap line and trace it back to his hut to get medical care. Maybe they retrace the passage of a peasant and his pig out hunting for truffles. If they're coming along a coast, maybe your travelers come across the pools where sea water is dried down to salt, or the furnaces where bog iron ore is smelted.

Maybe they see a column of smoke and follow it to the house-sized kilns of a potter's yard where men work making bricks or roof tiles. From miles away they could smell the unmistakeable odor of pine sap being rendered down into pitch, and follow that to a village. Or they hear the flute playing of a shepherd boy whiling away the hours in the high pasture.

They could find the clearing where the charcoal burners recently broke down an earth kiln, and follow the hoof prints and drag marks of their horse and sledge as they hauled the charcoal back to civilization. Or follow the sound of metal on stone to a quarry or gravel pit. Maybe they know they're nearly to town when they come across a clay bank with signs of recent clay gathering.

Of course around every town and city there will be farms, more densely packed the closer you are. But don't just think of fields of grains or vegetables. Think of managed woodlands, like maybe trees coppiced-- cut and then regrown--to customize the shape or size of the branches. Cows being grazed in a communal green. Waiting as a huge flock of ducks is driven across the road. Orchards in bloom.

If they're approaching by road, there will be things best done out of town. The threshing floor where grain is beaten with flails or run through crushing wheels to separate the grain from its casing, and then winnowed, using the wind to carry away the chaff. Laundresses working in the river, their linens bleaching on the grass at the drying yard. The stench of the tanners, barred from town for stinking so badly. The rushing wheel-race and great creaking wheel of the flour mill.

If it's a larger town, there might be a livestock market outside the gates, with goats milling in woven willow pens or chickens in wooden cages. Or a line of horses for the wealthier buyer or your desperate travelers. There might be a red light district, escaping the regulations of the city proper, or plain old slums. More industrial yards, like the yards where fabric is dyed (these might also smell quite bad, like rotting plant material, or urine).

There are so many things that preindustrial people did and would find familiar that we just don't know about now. So much of life was lived out in the open for anyone to see. Make your world busy and loud and colorful!

[linwelinwrites]

and because no one can stop me... DOUBLE UPLOAD!

The Bun Incident

Epilogue is up! Fic is now complete!

Click here to read it on AO3! Rating: Explicit (Minors do not interact) Content Warnings: consent play, under-negotiated kink (both consensual) Fandom: Haikyuu!! Ship: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurō (KuroKen) Status: Complete! (6/6) Chapter Word Count: 1.1 k (~5 minutes of reading) Full Work Word Count: 20 k (~80 minutes of reading) Tags: Post-Canon, College, and they were roommates!, Idiots in Love, Fluff and Smut, Porn With Plot, Humor, Mutual Pining, Best Friends to Lovers, Kuroo Tetsurou is Whipped, Bossy Kenma, Bokuto Koutarou & Kuroo Tetsurou are Bros, Kenma and Shoyo are besties. Smut tags on AO3 Chapter Summary: Kenma usually replies pretty quickly to his texts, so the day he doesn't, Shōyō gets worried.

Or, bonus fluff starring bestie!Shōyō and a dash of KageHina. Work Summary: Life was unfair. Especially to Kuroo.

What had he done to deserve this? Had he been a terrible person in a previous life? A murderer, maybe?

That was the only reason he could think of to justify the scene in front of him.

Or, Kuroo loses a bit of his sanity with every inch Kenma’s hair grows.

Disclaimers

My fics are locked to AO3 registered users only. I'm sorry, but there's been so many issues with bad actors scraping the public fics that I've locked all my works, as many other users have. I work too hard on these stories to have them end up being fed to some stupid fucking AI.

Yapping

And I couldn’t help myself, I speed edited the epilogue and double-uploaded because fuck it, we ball. Fic is now complete!

[linwelinwrites]

The Bun Incident

Chapter 5 is up!

Click here to read it on AO3! Rating: Explicit (Minors do not interact) Content Warnings: consent play, under-negotiated kink, unprotected sex (all enthusiastically consensual) Fandom: Haikyuu!! Ship: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurō (KuroKen) Status: In progress, pre-written, 5/6 chapters posted (only epilogue to go!) Chapter Word Count: 4.4 k (~17 minutes of reading) Full Word Count (current): 19k k (~75 minutes of reading) Expected Total Word Count: 20 k (~80 minutes of reading) Tags: Post-Canon, College, and they were roommates!, Idiots in Love, Fluff and Smut, Porn With Plot, Humor, Mutual Pining, Best Friends to Lovers, Kuroo Tetsurou is Whipped, Bossy Kenma, Bokuto Koutarou & Kuroo Tetsurou are Bros, Kenma and Shoyo are besties. Smut tags on AO3 Chapter Summary: “You,” Kuroo panted into the kiss, “and your fucking mouth, are going to kill me.” Work Summary: Life was unfair. Especially to Kuroo.

What had he done to deserve this? Had he been a terrible person in a previous life? A murderer, maybe?

That was the only reason he could think of to justify the scene in front of him.

Or, Kuroo loses a bit of his sanity with every inch Kenma’s hair grows.

Disclaimers

My fics are locked to AO3 registered users only. I'm sorry, but there's been so many issues with bad actors scraping the public fics that I've locked all my works, as many other users have. I work too hard on these stories to have them end up being fed to some stupid fucking AI.

Yapping

I’ve been obsessing over this chapter for what feels like a lifetime, but it’s finally done! Just a tiny epilogue (because why not) and we’re done!

[linwelinwrites]

characters raised to be tools

Weapons. Trained, tested, forged in steel and fire. Failure is an inevitability that ends in death. Pain should not be felt--it should be recognized, familiar, and inconsequential

Martyrs. In the form of servants and princes, of leaders and underdogs. If blood is necessary, the martyr will lift their hands and offer it all

Shields. Like tempering a sword, but only to bear and not to lash out. Wounds are medals--not symbols of pride, but symbols of worth. A pretty shield is useless; scars mean a job well done

Experiments. Raised on the cold comfort of a lab table. Restraints are only necessary when they're not in their right mind. Is it honorable, to be twisted beyond recognition? Or is it just a necessary evil?

Monsters. Cruelty, caution, and regarding one as a creature beyond reasonable thought is tempering in its own right. But if you keep a leash at the right length, perhaps the massecre won't reach you. One can hope.

Idols. Pretty face, pretty name, pretty hands around their shoulders and throat. There to seduce, manipulate, force any feeling to come to the surface and twist it to their favor. Any genuinity stays locked behind the guilded cage that surrounds their pretty little heart

Trophies. Status and wealth and the traditions that keep someone at their heels, on their knees, to display and serve and decorate one's ballroom.

Sacrifices. Drenched in honorable clothes, prepared and adored and cleansed. The gift of hope at the cost of one's life. Is it taken with no fight? How can you escape the ropes you were born in?

[linwelinwrites]

Pssst

Hey, are you an artist or writer with WIPs?

Come here... I got a secret for you pssst come ‘ere

[linwelinwrites]

a scene can start wherever you want it to

writing isn't real life. You don't need to set up a character walking into a room or two characters greeting each other and talking about the weather or what-have-you in order to lead into the conversation you actually want them to have. just start at the conversation.

hell, start in the middle of the conversation. you could even start at the end and then have one of them leave and the other one left behind to reflect back on what just happened.

writing gets easier when you open yourself up to writing the parts that are interesting, to starting where it's easy instead of where you think you should start.

if it ends up not working? that's okay. you tried it, and sometimes just getting something out of your head is a necessary first step to getting the words right

[linwelinwrites]

im going to have a stroke

[linwelinwrites]

Homophone mistakes seen this week in intelligent posts by people I respect. Minor flaws, but worth learning the difference.

POURED vs PORED

"I poured water into the cup."

"I pored over every page in the book."

REPEL vs RAPPEL

"That horrible smell will repel guests."

"We had to rappel down the cliff."

[linwelinwrites]

An Incomplete Yet Somewhat Sufficient Guide to Writing Fiction Based in the UK

As many of you know, I am an American who lives and studies in London. I thought I’d make a little general rules list about aspects of UK culture which I feel are misrepresented quite often when I read fiction written by someone who’s never experienced life here. So here it goes, every American fiction writers’ incomplete yet somewhat sufficient guide to writing fiction based in the UK.

KNOW YOUR SUPERMARKETS. Tesco isn’t the only one. Tesco and Sainsbury’s are the two most popular, like Safeway, Albertson’s, or Kroger. M&S and Waitrose are where the posh white people shop. Everything is over-priced; the American equivalent would be Whole Foods (which the UK has but is not nearly as common). Then there’s Morrison’s and Co-Op which are both good but not as popular as Tesco or Sainsbury’s. And then you have the discount supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi, where everything is off-branded so the prices are lower. And of course there’s ASDA which is Wal-Mart only smaller and not as terrifying.

In the UK, pants = underwear. I thought this would be quite known but I still see the mistake all the time? Jeans and trousers, folks!

Accents are hugely different from one another. First you have to learn the distinction between Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, and English. Then from there you have all the regional accents. And accents are classed and racialised as well. A middle class white person raised in West London is going to have a completely different accent from a working class PoC raised in East London, even though they may live within 15 miles of each other. If you want to really impress readers, study different types of accents and incorporate them into your dialogue, it makes things much more interesting (think Hagrid from Harry Potter).

Pubs are also classed. There are old white working class pubs that don’t do food (besides maybe crisp packets), are always showing greyhound or horse racing, and still smell of cigarette smoke. Only locals go here, and they usually go pretty much every night. Like the Winchester from Shaun of the Dead. And then you have the hipster pubs, which are expensive and do fancy food. The people working at these pubs usually look pretty cool—dyed hair, piercings, that stuff—but there probably aren’t any ‘regulars’ who come there every day. 

Wetherspoon’s is the backbone of society. Wetherspoon’s (or Spoons) is a chain pub that’s pretty much in every damn post code. It’s cheap as shit and beloved by many. You can get a huge cocktail pitcher for under £10, and you can guarantee you’ll get wasted pretty quickly cause they’re full of sugar and have a high alcohol content.

Drinking culture in general is quite different from the US. People start drinking at about age 15/16, and it’s legal to drink at 18. Kids drink WKD (which is like Mike’s Hard Lemonade I think??? I’ve never actually had it but it seems like it’s on the same tier), Smirnoff Ice, Malibu, and cheap fruity wine (Echo Falls, Hardy’s, Blossom Hill, Kumala, and Gallo Family are the usual brands).

Drunk food consists of: fried chicken, chips (+cheese, salt and vinegar, gravy, or curry, depending on the region), kebabs, pizza from a shop with bad graphic design, microwaveable burgers. You can also get delivery from a lot of restaurants, and they bring it right to your house. Indian, pizza, and Chinese are the most common.

Speaking of food, it’s hard to find good Mexican food in the UK. There’s Wahaca but it’s spendy as it’s a sit-down restaurant and it kind of only exists in touristy and gentrified areas. You won’t have any luck finding cheap, authentic street tacos the way you would in Southern California. There also isn’t really any fast food Mexican (although there are a handful of Taco Bells splattered around the country). I’m sure there are some trendy areas which are bringing in Mexican street food in London, but let’s be real, it’s probably not authentic and is also probably stupidly over-priced. I’m getting off topic, sorry.

Nando’s is also the backbone of society. They do grilled chicken there, ranging from mild (but still seasoned) to burn your tonsils off spicy. There’s stuff for vegetarians too, like portobello mushroom and halloumi (a type of cheese you grill—it’s amazing and difficult to find in the US without spending an obscene amount of money) wraps which are incredible. Nando’s is usually packed and they play really fun Spanish/Portuguese/South African music which is really fun when you’re drunk and in the toilets. 10/10, perfect for a cheeky night out with the lads. The kind of place Gryffindors probably love (I’m sorry I keep using Harry Potter references)

You don’t ‘sign for the check’ in the UK. Almost every credit/debit card in the UK has a chip, and you put it in the chip and pin machine, type in your pin, and voila! You’ve paid! It’s actually much more secure than signing, honestly, the amount of times I’ve just scribbled my signature in a US shop and they’ve accepted it without even checking is appalling. 

Public transport is actually good in most cities. Buses are common everywhere, and bigger cities like Manchester, London, Birmingham, Glasgow, etc all have some sort of mass rail system, whether that’s a subway, tram, lightrail, whatever. Also nearly everywhere (even the tiny villages!) at least has a train station. It may be tiny as shit and trains may not go through very often, but they do exist.

All schools have uniforms.

Infant school = preschool, primary school = elementary school, secondary school = middle school/half of high school, further education (6th Form) = second half of high school, uni = college. The first two and last one are pretty self explanatory. At 16, you take your GCSEs, and after that, you’re not required to continue school, but many go to further education and take A Levels, which are like the pre-requisite for uni (although you can get into uni without A Levels, this is quite rare). Most take 2-3 subjects for A-Levels, but I think you can take more if you have a death wish (kind of like AP classes for us Americans). Here’s a good link for people who want to know more about the UK education system: https://www.internationalstudent.com/study_uk/education_system/

No one says “What’s up?” Instead, it’s “Alright?” which is confusing at first, but you get used to it. An example greeting between two friends: ‘Hey mate, alright?’ ‘Yeah, you alright?’ And that’s it. 

Religion is different. I actually know very little about religion so I can’t offer a whole lot of insight on this, but I’ve had a lot of people tell me it’s very different. If anyone wants to have their input here, that would be lovely!

Houses don’t have yards, they have gardens. This is mostly just a terminology thing to be honest. 

Speaking of terminology, use ‘pavement’ instead of ‘sidewalk’. Obviously people aren’t stupid, they’ll know what you mean if you say sidewalk, but still, gotta stay authentic for the plot.

House layouts in general are very different. Houses are either terraced (town houses in the US), semi-detached (duplex in the US), or detached (typical US house). Terraced are most common in big cities, and most houses are made of brick. Take some time to research different architecture styles (Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian, 60s), the differences between them become quite apparent when you do a bit of looking. 

 There are also a variety of apartment/flat styles. Old period properties are often divided up into flats, and there are also purpose-built blocks of flats, which is like a US apartment complex. There are also luxury flats, which I think we call condominiums in the US. They’re all really modern and have lots of glass.

Since the entire country is so damn tiny, long roadtrips aren’t really a thing. It’s more like, you drive somewhere to go camping, like Cornwall or Devon (basically Florida for British people).

Holidays to warm places are quite common. South of France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain and some of the usual destinations. You usually fly to these places on budget flights like Easy Jet or Ryan Air, unless you’re rich, then you probably take British Airways.

Stop signs don’t exist. No, I’m serious. If the intersection (or crossroads) is big enough, there’ll be traffic lights or a roundabout. But other than that, you just have to be careful. Which is generally okay, because people in the UK can actually drive.

No one refers to a section of street as a block. Cities in the UK aren’t really set up in a grid the way US cities are. Streets are kind of weird and curvy and don’t make sense, so saying ‘it’s two blocks that way!’ doesn’t really work. Instead, write about distance in terms of vague relation: ‘It’s just up that road a bit, past the M&S, then left at the The King’s Head pub’.

London, in general, is a fucking huge city. You can’t walk across the whole thing in a day. Hell, you can barely drive across the whole thing in a day. Big Ben and Tower Bridge are 2.5 miles apart from each other. I know, it was a shocker for me too when I first got here! Take a look at a map of London and you’ll see what I mean. It is possible to do most of Westminster in a day, but that would be a very full day and you wouldn’t get to really see anything in-depth. And most people live very far away from these landmarks. So keep that in mind next time you have a character who lives in London saying they can hear Big Ben chime from their flat. That character must have a lot of money.

This is a really short list and I’ve probably barely even made a DENT so if anyone else has something to add, please do so! And please reblog this to boost it to your followers! Thank you my pals, have a good day, and KEEP WRITING! 

[linwelinwrites]

Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

[linwelinwrites]

Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

[linwelinwrites]

Unconventional Writing Warm Ups that Help Me

Every other art has some form of warm up, so why is it less common to hear about when it comes to writing? I don’t have the answer to that. What I do know, is that once I started doing warm ups before writing, I have never gone back, and there’s a few reasons:

It primes me for what I’m going to write that day. No more hours wasted getting frustrated that the tone and voice and style is all off—I’m able to focus on what I want to capture during the warm up, so I can jump right into capturing it during the writing

It gives me extra practice and work to use in other places. I have submitted what began as a writing warm up to journals and contests. As someone who mainly writes long-form novels, having a backup of shorts and putting aside time to make them is super helpful.

It fun.

So here’s some unconventional writing warm ups that I use regularly:

1. Copy down quotes

While I’m reading, I highlight quotes that I really like, that seem to just get me, that are exactly what I want my writing to sound like, and then I spend the first bit of my writing warm up copying them down into my journal.

This has the dual advantage of helping you memorize quotes so you can bring those bad boys out in casual conversation like it’s a normal thing to do, while also helping you study and learn from other writers, and get a deeper sense of what you want your writing style to be.

(And it forces you to read, which is a good thing, as outlined here)

2. Turn your last dream into a short

Maybe it’s because I spend so much of my time thinking about writing, but I often have the strangest dreams that give me the best ideas. These days I’m primarily writing gothics, so now I can even put my nightmares to work.

Anyway, all this to say is that dreams are an endless, free, and you-can-literally-do-asleep inspiration for writing shorts. I had a professor who would get us to write our dreams into short poems as well, or even just list objects or elements of the dream and make something from that. Even if all you can remember is a colour, or a vague feeling or sense, you can turn that into a piece of writing.

Here’s a piece I did based on a dream in that class:

I dreamt we gathered together under a violet sky, Strangers in a van, the retro kind. A Volkswagen! Like the Scooby-Doo gang drove. Someone was playing a guitar, strumming low and quiet despite the way we barreled through the desert, And back home to a town that was no longer mine. It was something out of fiction, our billboards plastered with aliens. Our town’s secret had become some sort of tourist attraction. “What is this?” I asked. It was funny, the way things had changed so suddenly. Though maybe I had been away for longer than I thought. We ended up parked at a friend’s house. I peered through the kitchen window, through a crack in the red and white gingham curtains, and I saw one. I wasn’t meant to. No one was meant to see one. It came out of the wall like it was peeling out of flesh. A grey alien, made up of inhuman pieces: tentacles, fangs, dripping and oozing. It leaned towards our friend, And it spoke in a deep voice and a language I didn’t understand. The friend agreed and left. And just like that the kitchen was patched back together. Everything looked normal. I pretended that I had never looked.

3. Describe an element of your day as if you were…

Describe your day as if you were an ancient ghost, or Dracula, or an author you love, or your best friend, etc. Take the something you know, and drag it into the something unfamiliar. Not only is this a great way to inspire creative descriptions, but it helps expand your voice and forces you to do something outside of your comfort zone.

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[linwelinwrites]

🍖 How to Build a Culture Without Just Inventing Spices and Necklaces

(a worldbuilding roast. with love.)

So. You’re building a fantasy world, and you’ve just invented: → Three types of ceremonial jewelry → A spice that tastes like cinnamon if it were bitter and cursed → A holiday where everyone wears gold and screams at dawn

Cute. But that’s not culture. That’s aesthetics.

And if your worldbuilding is all outfits, dances, and spice blends with vaguely mystical names, your story’s probably going to feel like a cosplay convention held inside a Pinterest board.

Here’s how to fix that—aka: how to build a real, functioning culture that shapes your story, not just its vibes.

─────── ✦ ───────

🔗 Culture Is Built on Power, Not Just Style

Ask yourself: → Who’s in charge, and why? → Who has land? Who doesn’t? → What’s considered taboo, sacred, or punishable by death?

Culture is shaped by who gets to make the rules and who gets crushed by them. That’s where things like religion, family structure, class divisions, gender roles, and social expectations actually come from.

Start there. Not at the embroidery.

─────── ✦ ───────

2.🪓 Culture Comes From Conflict

Did this society evolve peacefully? Was it colonized? Did it colonize? Was it rebuilt after a war? Is it still in one?

→ What was destroyed and mythologized? → What do the survivors still whisper about? → What do children get taught in school that’s… suspiciously sanitized?

No culture is neutral. Every tradition has a history, and that history should taste like blood, loss, or propaganda.

─────── ✦ ───────

3.🧠 Belief Systems > Customs Lists

Sure, rituals and holidays are cool. But what do people believe about: → Death? → Love? → Time? → The natural world? → Justice?

Example: A society that believes time is cyclical vs. one that sees time as linear will approach everything—from prison sentences to grief—completely differently.

You don’t need to invent 80 gods. You need to know what those gods mean to the people who pray to them.

─────── ✦ ───────

4.🫀 Culture Controls Behavior (Quietly)

Culture shows up in: → What people apologize for → What insults cut deepest → What people are embarrassed about → What’s praised publicly vs. what’s hidden privately

For instance: → A culture obsessed with stoicism won’t say “I love you.” They’ll say “Have you eaten?” → A culture built on legacy might prioritize ancestor veneration, archival writing, name inheritance.

This stuff? Way more immersive than giving everyone matching earrings.

─────── ✦ ───────

5. 🏠 Culture = Daily Life, Not Just Festivals

Sure, your MC might attend a funeral where people paint their faces blue. But what about: → Breakfast routines? → How people greet each other on the street? → Who cooks, and who eats first? → What’s considered “clean” or “proper”? → How is parenting handled? Divorce?

Culture is what happens between plot points. It should shape your character’s assumptions, language, fears, and habits—whether or not a festival is going on.

─────── ✦ ───────

6. 💬 Let Your Characters Disagree With Their Own Culture

A culture isn’t a monolith.

Even in deeply traditional societies, people: → Rebel → Question → Break rules → Misinterpret laws → Mock sacred things → Act hypocritically → Weaponize or resist what’s expected

Let your characters wrestle with the culture around them. That’s where realism (and tension) lives.

─────── ✦ ───────

7.🧼 Beware the “Pretty = Good” Trap

Worldbuilding gets boring fast when: → The protagonist’s homeland is beautiful and pure → The enemy’s culture is dark and “barbaric” → Every detail just reinforces who the reader should like

You can—and should—challenge the aesthetic hierarchy. → Let ugly things be beloved. → Let beautiful things be corrupt. → Let your MC romanticize their culture and then get disillusioned by it later.

─────── ✦ ───────

📍 TL;DR (but like, spicy): → Culture is not food and jewelry. → Culture is power, fear, memory, contradiction. → Stop inventing spices until you know who starved last winter. → Let your world feel lived in, not curated.

The best cultural worldbuilding doesn’t look like a list. It feels like a system. A pressure. A presence your characters can’t escape—even if they try.

Now go. Build something real. (You can add spices later.)

—rin t. // writing advice for worldbuilders with rage and range // thewriteadviceforwriters

Sometimes the problem isn’t your plot. It’s your first 5 pages. Fix it here → 🖤 Free eBook: 5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making:

🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:

[linwelinwrites]

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw, a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

[linwelinwrites]

Hey, random writing tip: Instead of having something be a ridiculously unlikely coincidence, you can make the thing happen due to who this particular character is as a person. Instead of getting stuck on "there's no logical reason to why that would happen", try to bend it into a case of "something like this would never happen to anybody but this specific fucker." Something that makes your reader chuckle and roll their eyes, going "well of course you would."

Why would the timid shy nerd be at a huge sketchy downtown black market bazaar? Well, she's got this beetle colony she's raising that needs a very specific kind of leaf for nest material, and there only place to get it is this one guy at the bazaar that sells that stuff. Why would the most femininely flamboyant guy ever known just happen to have downright encyclopedic knowledge about professional boxing? Well, there was this one time when he was down bad for this guy who was an aspiring professional boxer...

I know it sounds stupidly obvious when written out like this, but when you're up close to your writing, it's hard to see the forest for the trees. Some time ago I finished reading a book, where the whole plot hinges on character A, who is 100% certain that character B is dead, personally getting up and coming down from the top rooms of a castle, to the gates, at 3 am, to come look at some drunk who claims to be this guy who died 17 years ago. Why would A do that, if he's sure that B is dead?

Because he's a Warrior Guy from a culture of Loyalty And Honour, and hearing that someone's got the audacity to go about claiming to be his long-lost brother in battle, there is no other option than to immediately personally go down there to beat the ever-loving shit out of this guy. Who then turns out to actually be character B, after all.

[linwelinwrites]

How fucking annoying is it when you feel so restless with creative energy but you can’t decide what to do with it and when you finally try to create something it comes out shit so you just give up and sit there being all creatively annoyed and jittery.