#write what you know

[carionto]

Detaining a Human

It did not take long for the first Human law enforcement officers aboard a Coalition station to show just how powerful and effective they are against most other species. It did take a while before a Human offender appeared who resisted.

He was a rowdy fellow, coming from something called a bachelor's party. For a multitude of reasons, he seemed incapable of remaining quiet, and while noise dampening comes standard for everyone's personal suits and helmets, Human vocal ability and this specific ones lung capacity were of a potent caliber.

Mere moments after the first complaint, a squad of officers arrived on scene and approached to apprehend the disturber of peace.

The Human officer suggested to the others to leave this one to them, and after an initial failure to communicate, they called for additional Human backup. While waiting for the extra muscle, the two Humans exchanged what I've heard described as a staring contest.

Upon looking away from the officer and spotting the approaching backup, the rowdy Human got... excited? Without uttering a word, the on scene officer made a few hand gestures to the approaching ones and both immediately split apart to encircle the troubleseeker and prepared to draw their tasers.

One final failed attempt to communicate and de-escalate the situation, and all chaos broke loose. The loudmouth exclaimed jovially as all three officers drew their tasers. One hit a less protected part of his body and momentarily caused him to falter, but whatever combination of substances were coursing through his system allowed him to shrug it off and lunge for the nearest officer.

We've seen Humans fight before, but before it was one on one and both involved parties were willing to inflict harm on one another. Usually these were over in moments.

The effort the three officers exerted to not cause harm to the offender and prevent him from causing harm to them was intense to witness. Grabs, shouting, failed cuffing, more taser shots, and still the confrontation lasted for nearly six full minutes.

Even after getting him cuffed after two, he continued to resist feverishly, kicking and screaming to the point even our special equipment was struggling to prevent damage to our ears. Yet the Humans were right next to him, unfazed, one even had their helmet kicked off during the scuffle.

To note, this was not a particularly outstanding example of Humanity, in fact, he was clearly smaller and less physically fit than the officers. The power of an unrestrained Human not fully in charge of his decision making in the moment, and three Humans whose duty is to be restrained.

Miraculously, despite all the kicking, screaming, tasing, and grappling, the medical report showed that the criminal suffered only minor bruising and a sprained ankle, while the officers also only had a few small bruises, nothing to impair them from performing their duty the next day.

In comparison, another incident involved two drunk Humans brawling and both ended up in hospital beds for numerous fractures, a broken leg for one, a dislocated shoulder for the other, and far too many bruises, cuts and scratches to count. Their fight lasted less than a minute.

[physalian]

Tackling Characters with Mental Health Issues (or, ‘Write What you Know’)

**Trigger warning for this entire post**

This is completely off the cuff and unplanned but here we go. I just read a book that POV switches between its two romantic leads. One of these leads was intended to be written with a severe case of generalized anxiety. I have confirmation from the author that it’s not an author-insert. This character was entirely based on research, not experience.

Without putting them on blast, because they really did try…. While ‘neurodivergent’ or ‘mental health disorder’ isn’t a protected class, it should still fit squarely under other topics you shouldn’t write about if you don’t experience it with a massive asterisk.

TL;DR: If you yourself aren’t part of X minority or suffer Z physical or mental disability, you should not be barred from writing characters with those traits. ***HOWEVER*** writing these characters struggling, suffering, or overcoming this given trait in a pro-cis, straight, white, neurotypical, able-bodied America is not yours to touch.

This suffering isn’t your story to profit off of, when you didn’t actually suffer any of it.

I cannot remember who said it and I am absolutely paraphrasing but for example: White authors can and should include characters of color (and I am a White author). White authors should *not* write about a character of color as their protagonist experiencing bigotry, discrimination, hate crimes, and all that hardship, at the hands of white society. It’s just not your story to tell, and all the research in the world will never give you the lived experience you need to do it justice.

Like, you can write about the concept of slavery existing in a fantasy novel. Or sci-fi. Or some Alternate Universe historical fiction. You cannot write about the American slave trade like you lived it and still suffer the ramifications of it when you didn’t, especially when it is the thesis of your entire book.

Anyone remember that awful Amazon movie, My Policeman? Based on a book written by a straight, white woman whose straight female lead took an entire narrative to whine about how she was jilted by her gay husband and his gay lover who she got arrested and institutionalized so she could keep her husband… and never told them? With the predatory 3rd love interest and the whole ‘liar revealed’ and… yeah. That one.

Unless you do the work very few authors are willing to do, with permission and encouragement and a backing from whatever minority you’re writing about and their stamp of approval that you knocked it out of the park, just don’t. Save yourself the headache.

—

As I read this book, and this entire character’s arc is about her mental health, for 100k words… why would you *want* to take on that responsibility? Why would you want to take on all that extra research, all the stress of making sure you get it right, all the costs of hiring sensitivity readers and the risk of your character falling apart with readers who do fit these traits?

Characters with mental health problems are very, very tricky to get right for one massive reason: Accurately depicting many disorders and anxieties means your character can come across as extremely unlikeable, uncompelling, confusing, and frustrating. These characters won’t make logical choices or arguments, they’re likely to self-sabotage, contradict themselves, argue in circles, and die on molehills they think are mountains. This is just what anxiety does to people in the real world. We are not always compelling protagonists, and we don’t always get happy endings.

Writing illogical characters takes a lot of practice if you yourself are not an illogical thinker and if you’re writing half a book elbow-deep in 3rd person limited, intimately trying to describe how this disorder impacts their daily life, you, my friend, have so much more work cut out for you than you anticipated.

So why?

It got very sticky very quickly when the message I took away from the book was “character A can love away character B’s anxiety” and that just… it’s just not how it works. That is a very dangerous mindset to have, for both parties involved.

Character A does not exist to “fix” Character B, nor should A exist to be B’s therapist.

Making A B’s “medicine” can encourage some dangerous codependency. Especially if they break up, B backslides and spirals, and A takes on guilt for not being there anymore, as if any of this is A’s fault.

It says that ‘curing’ anxiety just takes a little romance. Which. No. B has to love themselves, first, before they’re able to love anyone else or let anyone else love them.

It got stickier when the author accidentally wrote a trauma-induced ace who wanted to start liking sex to please her partner and not for her own peace of mind (with internalized self-hate for her anxieties around sex as if not liking it after a traumatic experience isn't completely justified), as if she wasn’t good enough with the boundaries she had. And the narrative backed it up because she was *cured* after a couple rounds in the sheets—I worked really hard on my Ace character guide to help stop people from doing this.

Had Character A accepted these boundaries B had, and these two come to a creative compromise around intimacy that B does like, it would have been so much healthier. B liked making out, just not being the 'recieving' partner, while A chose to die on a 'if we can't have the sex I want, I can't be in a romance with you' hill and it just broke my heart for B. B wasn't being picky. B was traumatized.

The worst thing you can do to your ace character is a) reinforce the idea that they’ve failed as a human because they don’t like sex and b) reinforce the idea that they “just haven’t found the right person yet” and this narrative hit both in the bullseye.

The author wasn’t trying to write an ace, I can tell, but aceness aside “good sex is the best cure to your sexual trauma” is… also, not great? If you yourself didn’t experience this? The point of all of this was clearly to attempt exposure therapy, it just got so bogged down with other problems that the nuance necessary to stick the landing was completely lost.

If this was fantasy, like Twilight, with Bella’s dangerous codependency on Edward in New Moon, mental health is not the point of that book. The author didn’t set out on a mission to provide respectful representation of depression and healthy relationship goals. It’s toxic as hell, but it also takes a backseat to the actual story and the audience who loves those books couldn’t care less about how toxic it is.

The books aren’t about Bella overcoming her depression. They’re about sparkly vampires and the dangers of… teen pregnancy?

It got even *stickier* when the character revealed she’d apparently been in therapy for a decade and a half, only for her therapist to shrug and go ‘I guess you’re stuck with it’ while her mental health issue became a physical health issue, because she should have had a crippling eating disorder that the narrative didn't at all take seriously.

Why would you want the stress of writing this?

—

I am not at all saying you can’t write anxious characters if you yourself are not anxious. But make that an ingredient of the pie and not the entire pie, yeah?

Ask yourself why you’re doing this. The fundamental argument of that book seemed to be “anxiety can be loved away” and from the very first page, it was doomed. That was the book’s thesis. The entire story hinged on the success of this depiction.

I can’t even be mad, because it wasn’t intended to be harmful, but it inadvertently reaffirmed so many dangerous and incorrect assumptions and stereotypes about mental health. Good intentions historically do not guarantee good results.

If you do not suffer from anxiety, you are still allowed to write a character who experiences it (Or OCD, specific phobias, BPD, what have you). I tip my hat to anyone willing to do all the work to get it right because those are all tall orders, but you aren’t blacklisted from these characters.

But with any minority, anyone who isn’t “cis, straight, white, male, neurotypical, and able-bodied” write a character who is also X, instead of an X stereotype, who happens to be your character.

[luckystriker30-blog]

Are you a bored, rich, white person who covers up your horribly empty and soulless existence with casual sex, drugs, and alcohol? Congratulations, you are a character in a Bret Easton Ellis novel.

[astaroth1357]

I feel like beel one time, just one time bited or eaten Orbeez or like Into chalk, I will die on this hill.

.... You know. When I was a little kid, like 3 maybe 4, my mother has told me that I used to be OBSESSED with eating wax. I would gnaw on my crayons and at one point over the course of a week, I had eaten the entirety of scented candle before anyone noticed and stopped me.

Because of this, I know from vague memory that scented candle wax actually tastes kind of sweet and I PROMISE you, Beel would eat one without even thinking about it. Hell, he would eat a lot of them. Hide your candles.

[writingwithfolklore]

Don't Write What You Know, Write Genuinely

                One of the most common pieces of writing advice other than “show don’t tell” is “write what you know”. It’s said so much that I think it’s lost a lot of meaning, and people tend to only focus on the literal meaning of ‘write about things that you know about’, which would completely erase fantasy, sci-fi, or just about any slightly fantastical fiction.

                So rather, you should think of it as ‘write genuinely’. Connect with yourself to connect with your readers, create emotional ties to your work, write with empathy, write what you know.

                There’s three things we can do to help connect us with concepts/places/experiences we don’t know, that’ll allow you to basically write whatever you want. Here’s what I do:             

Research

Anything you can learn about what you’re writing about can come in handy. I tend to avoid scholarly articles or Wikipedia when researching because I find having a list of facts doesn’t help as much as having a library of experiences. If I’m writing about California but have never been there, I could learn that rain is pretty uncommon and temperature averages however much during the summer, or I could read about someone talking about their childhood summers in heavy heat and icecream that melts faster than they can eat it.

                Essentially, unless you’re writing something with the intention of educating others—don’t worry as much about the facts, look for more about the feelings. Blogs, vlogs, personal journal entries, and other pieces of fiction is where it’s at.

2. Substitution

This is a method I learned in directing (created by Lee Strasberg) that’s a little controversial when using it with actors, but since we’re using it for ourselves it’s fine. Essentially, if actors are attempting a scene about a situation they’ve never been in before (I’ll use the example of moving out for the first time) the director will ask them to recall a situation with similar emotion even if the situation was different.

                So in our example, if you haven’t moved out yet but are writing a scene where your character is leaving home for the first time, you might be able to emotionally connect to that scene through recalling the emotions you went through the first time you went to sleep-over camp. Or the time your parents left you alone for the weekend for the first time. Anything with the similar emotions you imagine the situation would bring up (fear, anxiety, but a sense of freedom, excitement, unsureness).

                The reason why this is a bit of a controversial technique in directing is because asking actors to recall or share painful memories to get into a scene can be very upsetting or uncomfortable for them, so if you’re a director, be cautious with this!

3. Experiencing

Of course, this all comes back to what we talked about a couple weeks ago. Experiencing to know more. The more you know, the better you can write genuinely about it—so go out and gather some unique experiences!

                Good luck!

[starlitangels]

Me: *writes a Redacted Audio rockstar AU*

Comments in the notes: Wow this is so detailed with, like, the backstage stuff!

Me: *spent my entire childhood and a significant portion of my adolescence surrounded by music equipment, watching musicians set up and take down instruments and equipment with the help of stage crews at various gigs for different genres, all of which involved my dad on guitar*

Me: I certainly hope so!

[soleilsplanet]

As a (fanfic) writer in desperate need of assistance, I’ve always looked for some pieces of advice on the internet, especially when I didn’t know where to start or how to start.

There were times when I’ve found “Write what you know” or “Write the fanfiction that you want to read” and as much as I appreciated these suggestions, they somehow didn’t resonate enough with me.

I’m not saying that I’ve found them useless, because they helped me pretty much most of the times, but here there is another piece of advice that maybe could help you get a start: Write what you need to write.

If you are like me and you vent to your friends to elaborate your pain, your joy, your excitement, and so on and so forth, try to transfer all those emotions into paper.

When I’m in a bad mood I look into myself and try to describe my thoughts, the impact they have on my body, the way I perceive my surroundings, my tiredness and on and on.

When I’m happy I want my characters to be happy, so I try not to force sadness on them but to write something funny, something comic. I give them what I am feeling, I make them laugh and I laugh as well.

To force an emotion on one’s own writing when you’re not in that mood won’t be of any help.

I’m not a published fanfiction writer for reasons I’m not here to explain but I still love to write when I have the chance and I’ve found myself pretty satisfied with my works whenever I embodied myself in my characters.

It may be a pretty vague suggestion, but it had helped me so far, so if I might be of help for any of you then I’m glad I could be!

[anamelessfool]

apparently if i am a hippie weed dealer slut from the 1970s I can write a pretty decent POV reader fic lol

[putah-creek]

father of mine I live fifteen hundred miles from your grave and I am standing in a small stand of pines it is a gray and misty day and somewhere close by a woodpecker is working cold feet bird sounds and a thought of you sir see you are not forgotten

james lee jobe

[serickswrites]

What You Know

Warnings: kidnapping, gun, blindfolds, threats, restraints

“There’s a package for you, Team Leader,” Teammate One said as they walked in with a small box in hand. 

“Thanks,” Team Leader said softly. They had been completely wrecked since Whumper had kidnapped Smallest Teammate. The guilt was all consuming. If only they had been faster, smarter, stronger, then...then Smallest Teammate would still be here.

“It’s not your fault, Team Leader,” Teammate One said as they set the package down on Team Leader’s desk. “We’ll get Smallest Teammate back. Don’t worry.”

“I know we will, that’s not what has me worried.” They ripped open the box lid. “It’s what Whumper will have done to them before we get there. I--” but Team Leader’s words failed them as they stared down at the contents of the box. 

Inside the box were six bullets and a picture of Smallest Teammate. They look physically fine, despite being restrained with ropes at their wrists and ankles. They stood in standing cuffs, their face partially obscured by the blindfold around their head. But what stole Team Leader’s words was the revolver pressed against Smallest Teammate’s temple. Whumper grinned as they stared at the camera while pressing the gun to Smallest Teammate’s head. 

A note was beneath the photo that read, “Six hours. Or we’ll see how lucky Smallest Teammate is in a game of never ending roulette.”

“We have to find them, now.” Team Leader suddenly jumped up from their desk. “We don’t have time. Smallest Teammate doesn’t have time.”

“I don’t understand,” Teammate One replied quickly. “Why?”

Team Leader shoved the box in Teammate One’s hand, but continued out the door. They were finding Smallest Teammate before the six hours were up. They wouldn’t let Whumper start their sadistic game. Wouldn’t let Smallest Teammate down. Team Leader couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t live with themself if they let Smallest Teammate down. Couldn’t live with themself if they found Smallest Teammate after they had lost a round of roulette. They couldn’t let that happen. 

[wanderrealms]

"Write what you know"

How do I utilize my knowledge of IEC61131-3* and atomic layer deposition in high fantasy....

*how did I get that right on the first try?

[baura-bear]

1,600 words into my research essay about the newsboy strike, am I Katherine Plumber yet?

[craycraybluejay]

I'm actually very voyeuristic which I haven't realized up until right this moment. I love knowing people deepest darkest secrets and fears just because. I never even tell anyone them. I don't agonize over it. I just want to know. I like to see people go about their daily lives, note new persons in known persons lives, mentally map relations. I like to observe people's clothing and manner in public and try to parse something of it. I'm best at identifying things that I personally can relate to, such as telltale signs of psychosis related personalities. I do have blind spots which I like to work on.

I think every writer is a voyeur, a little bit. A lot of interesting stories are inspired by completely innocuous events among complete strangers that you just happened to notice and linger a bit too long on. And too, the human condition is an intimate issue for everyone. The more human you can absorb into your mind the better. You and your family and friends are not enough. You should have no illusions that your inner circle is by any means a good enough point of reference and study. Artists, those that sketch, are voyeurs too. I think everyone's a bit of one really but creatives especially. Small worlds do not make for big stories. Big worlds do. And a big world is comprised of many people, ideas, situations. Your jumping off point will be your own life but eventually that juice will run dry. You'll realize maybe what you know and what you see is perhaps not the most interesting thing that can be known or seen. So you take to watching. My number one way to fix any kind of artistic block is simply to go experience things and observe other living things experiencing things. I can write a song about my cat's thought process in knocking over my stuff. He has multitudes.

Anyway yeah. Voyeurism. Fuck I'm tired this is not a very concise or good post but 👍 voyeurism

Mic drop

[zoereeb]

I don't understand why I'm being so patience even in the full rage of anger.... When actually i have to take it out where it belongs. Is it this way I'm becoming a monster? Or is this why I'm being called dangerous. I don't understand.

[... ] Maybe because I'm cold hearted or soft hearted and afraid of getting hurt. I don't know.

~zoereeb//

[morgancrystal]

When your grand-aunt is THE Queen, and at your age she saved the world from a Void-Hungry-God with a ragtag team of misfits and a can-do attitude--

--and you're just roving the land eating delicious food, and collecting recipes for the archives back home.

Oh, and keeping the longing glances at your guard/guide at an absolute minimum.

So, like, no pressure.

[steddiecameraroll]

I don’t read 1st person pov and yet I’ve written 2 of them with a 3rd in my WIP folder. Nothing makes sense.

Ok, I just really enjoy being in Eddie’s head while he’s utterly crushing on Steve because same bae.