Expanding a thought from a conversation this morning:
In general, I think “Is X out-of-character?” is not a terribly useful question for a writer. It shuts down possibility, and interesting directions you could take a character.
A better question, I believe, is “What would it take for Character to do X?” What extremity would she find herself in, where X starts to look like a good idea? What loyalties or fears leave him with X as his only option? THAT’S where a potentially interesting story lies.
In practice, I find that you can often justify much more from a character than you initially dreamed you could: some of my best stories come from “What might drive Character to do [thing he would never do]?” As long as you make it clear to the reader what the hell pushed your character to this point, you’ve got the seed of a compelling story on your hands.
this connects to some REALLY good writing advice i remember from @batshaped
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Characters are contradictory, just like people are. What would it take for them to do the thing they’ve told themselves they’d never do, and how would they try to justify it?
So what I’m hearing is, “Under what circumstances would he fucking do that?”
I was having writers block and so I took a break and soon enough it was 3 in the morning and I had impulsively sewn together a tiny mouse you’re welcome
I see people reblogging this with “to buy” but this pattern is free??? Someone even asked me “why don’t you charge money for it, it took you forever to put the document together” and I said “Not a lot of people have money and if they have some fabric scraps and a couple of buttons lying around they can make themselves a little mouse friend for free and that might make them happy and that makes me happier than receiving money???” Make yourself a liddol creacher! Heals the Soul!
Need some indoor crafts right about now? Peaches is here to help soothe anxiety!
I love when people get delightedly flustered by compliments. It activates some kind of insane prey drive in me. Today at lunch we had this cute trans server in a well-coordinated outfit and she got so bashful when I complimented it that I immediately became a dachshund of light flirtation and could not physically stop myself from laying it on outrageously thick just to see her begin to lose her composure and turn entirely pink.
Oh, so that’s the other side of this…
blood in the water baybee!!!!
Blushing or giggling is like the equivalent of a gazelle limping across the Serengeti in front of a leopard.
So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school… let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didn’t take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.
Okay, so, freshman year, I’m deep in my “everything sucks and I’m stuck with these assholes” mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, let’s call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didn’t get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.
One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.
All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the ol’ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.
So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.
And Mr. Hargrove loved it.
It wasn’t just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.
Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, “Some pipsqueak.”
And that’s when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.
Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.
One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargrove’s complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix “ize” to a verb.
That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added “ize” to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.
And, people… The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.
And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying “fuck you” to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)
So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.
Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.
This is the first time I’ve seen this post but I know I’m gonna love reading it every time it shows up on my dash
Before 10th grade we took a test to get into honors English, and I wasn’t on the list.
My mother called the teacher, who looked at the essay I’d submitted, and said, “Someone graded this maliciously, you’re in the class.” (It had been graded by a third party.)
Later, he called her to ask if it was possible I’d plagiarized something because the writing was too mature. She laughed at him. And he believed her when she said I was too cocky to copy anyone else’s work, and from then on, he was my best English teacher at that school.
I butted heads with half that English department, but him? He got me.
I butted heads with
half that English department,
but him? He got me.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
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