Examples Include: Grap3, Unaliving/k*ll, F--ck

Examples Include: grap3, unaliving/k*ll, F--ck

How To Write Character Flaws

One of the most important aspects when writing a character are flaws since flaws increase reader immersion, reader investment, and the overall compelling energy of a story.

Flaws are necessary in creating character arcs where either these initial problems are improved or exacerbated.

Despite the fact that flaws are important, writers can struggle with how to seemlessly incorperate flaws within their characters in an interesting and natural way without just feeling like they're throwing bad traits in randomly.

Here we go!

A) All Character Traits Are Both Flaws And Strengths

Flaws are often dark reflections of the positive qualities identified in an individual.

If your lover is a strong and determined person then you are also likely dating someone who is stubborn.

If your friend is emotional and caring then they're also overly sensitive.

This is due to the fact that flaws are really just character strengths taken to their logical extreme. As the saying goes "the dose makes the poison". An excessive amount of carelessness, curiousity, love, emotion, confidence, and every single virtue inevitably results in personality defects.

You most likely have your character's strengths somewhat laid out whether these strengths be open-mindedness, kindness, determined, and anything else.

Taking these strengths to their logical extreme, you will often find flaws such as naivety, savior complex, stubborness, and other such flaws.

B) Whether Something Is A Strength Or A Flaw Depends On Context

Character A is trusting and Character B is distrusting.

Let's put them in the situation of meeting someone in order to illustrate how both character's defining traits could be their downfall depending on who this character is.

If this "someone" is a helpful individual, then Character B's flaw of distrust create unnecessary discorse within the group and could drive away this positive influence.

If this "someone" is a manipulative someone, then Character A's trusting nature harms the group as it allows someone harmful to enter.

Whether or not a character's actions are perceived as beneficial or harmful depends on if the result is good or bad for the character's goal.

This means that when you are presented with a character who seemingly has no flaws, what you can do is create situations where these good actions result in bad results.

An open-minded character might accidentally walk face first into a cult because they were too accepting of the weird activities

A kind character might cause their allies to become overly dependent on the individual's generosity

A determined character might be so obsessed with succeeding at this specific task that they fail to see the bigger picture and the more effective solution

I "invented" the concept of an internal rhythm to describe how various aspects of character from their beliefs, background, companions, emotions, and everything harmonize together to form a character's orchestral melody. Their identity.

Afterall, it's not just emotions, or thoughts, or beginnings, or companions, or any singular thing that makes us "us". it's the coalescence of all of these aspects.

How To Write Non-Human Characters

From @startheoverseer we have a question about both me and writing!

Here is the quote: "Have you ever written from the perspectives of characters who aren't human and think/perceive the world differently than humans? If so, do you enjoy it? Any recommendations to make it feel more accurate or interesting?"

The structure for this post will be in the same formatting as the question. First, I'll address my perspective and experience and then i'll give some writing advice.

A) My Own Writing Experience

I've definitely written from the perspective of characters who are either biologically inhuman or who perceive the world through a non-standard path. I've written biblical angels, aliens, androids, parasites, and those not considered "sane".

I really enjoy writing from these types of perspectives. It's an interesting thought experiment that demonstrates the fact that what we consider "human" isn't as structured as we tend to think of it.

B) How To Make It Interesting

Think about is "what is the internal rhythm of this character"?

By "internal rhythm", I am talking about the thought processes, philsophy, and values of a character. Even if a character isn't human, presumably they are going to care about something.

Remember: You need to justify this philosophy. Whether or not you believe it or not, you have to be able to convince your audience that this character has the right to have this belief system.

Twist Human Desire And Perspective

A trick I use for conjuring an interesting internal rhythm is to either take a "positive thing" and twist to be disturbing or I take a "negative thing" and make it into a spector of worship.

I'll take two of my characters: Stansevain and Gabriel

Stansevain is an alien character who is based off of "the horror of understandin. Stansevain lives in a "Hive Mind" where he shares the same feelings, desires, and goals of the greater consciousness where Stansevain's individuality is dead.

Gabriel is an angel who worships the ground of suffering. They're someone who delights in experiencing suffering. For angels, if they experience enough unpolished suffering that isn't alleviated by worship, they will eventually "Fracture".

Use Inspiration

For Gabriel, I was inspired by Lana Del Rey's "Kintsugi", specifically the lines "Think by the third of March, I was cracked open. Finally the ground was cold, they wouldn't open. Brought by the sunlight of the spirit to pour into me". I was immediately reminded of the Holy Spirit and the important lessons gained by suffering.

For Stansevain, I was inspired by the thoughts I had towards the mental illness community. The part of the community that tries to pull each other further down into suffering in a desire to find someone who they can relate to. The horror of forced understanding.

Conclusion: I hope this helps you @startheoverseer . I also hope you learned a little bit more about me!

How To Write Non-Human Characters

From @startheoverseer we have a question about both me and writing!

Here is the quote: "Have you ever written from the perspectives of characters who aren't human and think/perceive the world differently than humans? If so, do you enjoy it? Any recommendations to make it feel more accurate or interesting?"

The structure for this post will be in the same formatting as the question. First, I'll address my perspective and experience and then i'll give some writing advice.

A) My Own Writing Experience

I've definitely written from the perspective of characters who are either biologically inhuman or who perceive the world through a non-standard path. I've written biblical angels, aliens, androids, parasites, and those not considered "sane".

I really enjoy writing from these types of perspectives. It's an interesting thought experiment that demonstrates the fact that what we consider "human" isn't as structured as we tend to think of it.

B) How To Make It Interesting

Think about is "what is the internal rhythm of this character"?

By "internal rhythm", I am talking about the thought processes, philsophy, and values of a character. Even if a character isn't human, presumably they are going to care about something.

Remember: You need to justify this philosophy. Whether or not you believe it or not, you have to be able to convince your audience that this character has the right to have this belief system.

Twist Human Desire And Perspective

A trick I use for conjuring an interesting internal rhythm is to either take a "positive thing" and twist to be disturbing or I take a "negative thing" and make it into a spector of worship.

I'll take two of my characters: Stansevain and Gabriel

Stansevain is an alien character who is based off of "the horror of understandin. Stansevain lives in a "Hive Mind" where he shares the same feelings, desires, and goals of the greater consciousness where Stansevain's individuality is dead.

Gabriel is an angel who worships the ground of suffering. They're someone who delights in experiencing suffering. For angels, if they experience enough unpolished suffering that isn't alleviated by worship, they will eventually "Fracture".

Use Inspiration

For Gabriel, I was inspired by Lana Del Rey's "Kintsugi", specifically the lines "Think by the third of March, I was cracked open. Finally the ground was cold, they wouldn't open. Brought by the sunlight of the spirit to pour into me". I was immediately reminded of the Holy Spirit and the important lessons gained by suffering.

For Stansevain, I was inspired by the thoughts I had towards the mental illness community. The part of the community that tries to pull each other further down into suffering in a desire to find someone who they can relate to. The horror of forced understanding.

Conclusion: I hope this helps you @startheoverseer . I also hope you learned a little bit more about me!

If you ever think that your writing and dialogue is not how humans speak, just read some "twitter pick up artist" quotes.

Writing Advice On Self-Harm (tw obvi)

Hi, even though this post is going to be about serious issues such as self-harm and suicidal ideation and all of that fun jazz, I am going to speaking about this topic with the same tone I always do. If that is considered offensive, just remember I am a person who has been sent to the crisis center and does self-harm :)

Remember, these are just my personal experiences. Everything is diverse and it's okay to mention that these experiences are not universal. HOWEVER, don't accuse me of lying about any of this shit!

TW: Talks About Self-Harm, Mental Illness, And Everything Related

Actual Introduction:

Despite the fact that whump and angst tend to include mention of suicidal thinking and self-harm, they rarely feel realistic in my own point of view. Obviously, there are various different motivations and actions for self-harm but I just want to see some of my own representation.

So here are some myths about self-harm and myths about mental illness in general since they tend to overlap.

A) Everyone Who Self-Harms And Thinks Of Suicide Is Mentally Ill

Yeah, this is pretty big misconception in the community so I just wanted to establish this.

Outside influences like unhealthy friend circles, stressful situations, and abuse which are linked yet not conclusive for mental illness can influence someone's desire to do self-harm.

While mental illness is a big motivator for self-harm, self-harm is just a coping mechanism. And not everyone who uses coping mechanisms are mentally ill

B) Self-Harm Can Only Happen Like [EXAMPLE]

There are various different ways of self-harming.

Personally, I tend to scratch my arms and specifically my left hand since my dominate hand is my right. It's also just an easy place to reach.

So I get a tinsy bit upset when the only "serious" type of self-harm is shown by cutting. Especially since I felt that the only way someone would ever take me seriously is by using a knife.

Remember, readers are going to be reading your shit so please try and diversify your self-harming from the physical and the mental since every single self-harm habit outside of "ritualistic cutting" tends to be judged as "less serious" or "not real".

Mental self-harm is real and self-destructive.

C) Self-Harm Is Dramatic

This may just be a me-thing but my self-harming mental struggle definitely isn't like how other people write it.

Genuinely, I treat self-harm like it's just another thing I do.

"Oh yeah, sometimes I write, do a bit of scratching, read a book, and watch youtube"

I self-harmed exclusively in public spaces since my self-harm is mostly conflated with my anxiety. And these people do not notice a thing. Genuinely. LIke, I have literally turned my entire hand red and bloody and nobody noticed.

It's just that nobody ever suspects it since people don't think of scratching casually in class when they think of self-harm.

When I was forced to go the crisis center since I expressed planning of suicide, I was making jokes the entire time.

When I shared a room with this amazing person(they/them) who had bipolar disorder. We just talked about our sexualities, job dreams, and watched The Amazing World Of Gumball.

I miss them.

GRAND CONCLUSION:

The point of this last section is to illustrate the fact that those with mental illness aren't removed from society in the way authors tend to write them.

In the minds of authors, once you express possible symptoms of a mental illness you become this melodramatic inhuman spectacle of misery.

I'm pretty normal. I have hobbies that have no deep psychological justification. I have a family that isn't just pure trauma in a trench coat. I have thoughts of normal sadness, happiness, peace, and anger.

I just also happen to self-harm sometimes.

Again, this section might be problematic and bad but it's just how I feel. And there is no such thing as a "problematic feeling". All there exists are problematic actions.

TO REITERATE, IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH ME THAT IS FINE. I AM NOT THE GOD OF MENTAL STRUGGLE. I JUST WANTED TO THROW OUT MY OPINION.

sorry for offending anyone :(