Find your tribe in a Sea of Creativity
I recently picked up Chris Baty's book, No Plot? No Problem! and have decided to make March the month in which I try to write a 50k novel! Anyone here interested in joining?
I have a few irl friends who are participating (some with modified challenges) but I wanted to offer it up on here as well. If you're interested, interact with this post in any way or send me an ask/DM! More info below the cut :)
(and a very important vote for those who'd like to participate)
So the whole premise of the challenge is that, in giving yourself a one-month deadline to crank out a full, 50k novel, your attention ends up being placed on quantity over quality, which helps drown out the internal critic that makes you hesitate when you write (or edit something twelve million times before moving on, or never start writing in the first place)
I highly recommend renting the book from your local library for more details on the thought process behind the challenge and other helpful tips (and if you have a library card but transportation difficulty, a friend of mine recently showed me the Libby app, which could be of help!)
I'm aiming for the full 50 thousand words, but my artist friend is adapting the challenge to dedicate a certain amount of hours towards making a comic, and my mom lowered the wc for herself because she's always wanted to write a short story (and doesn't have a ton of interest in writing a novel lol). So if 50k sounds too overwhelming for you or novels aren't exactly your thing, but something else is, feel free to go with whatever floats your boat!
I'm not sure how many people this will reach/ how many would want to play along, but community is a great way to keep each other motivated while also holding each other accountable, so what do you think would be the best method for coordinating that?
Option 1- through tumblr! i could organize writing sprints, word count/progress sharing posts, and some motivational things all under the same tag for easy find-ability (all with a tag-list so everyone is notified when these posts come out and so everyone on the list can interact with each other) Option 2- through discord! theoretically, i can figure out how to make one of these so that there can be a lot more freedom of chatting/sharing etc and writing sprints can be organized on there as well, with extra, optional channels for people to talk about the specifics of their projects or anything else you might want (but absolutely no pressure on the details-sharing front if that'll bring your inner critic back to life) Option 3- tumblr communities! i am not 100% sure how this function works, but if it's smth you guys are into or think would be good, i can absolutely make one Option 4- nuance/something else! if you have a suggestion for a better way to do this, i am all ears
poll duration is only a week, so if there's a lot of interest i will re-cast the poll again in the beginning of february
(and if you like one of the options but have suggestions for things you'd like to see or ways to best organize it, just lmk!)
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying your characters can’t be familiar with therapy keywords. But the use of it in fanfic is just killing off any sort of real, emotional stakes in certain fics. *cough* the my hero fandom
I’ll be real with you; I don’t want my characters to approach a situation with an acute awareness for any possible triggers or emotional responses in an attempt to build rapport with another character who has experienced severe trauma and/or abuse. And sure, let’s say that it is a professional, whose job it is to approach these situations. That doesn’t mean you have to write them like a mental health textbook vs a textbook victim of trauma.
For example; “Aizawa stepped back, not wanting to trigger any sort of trauma response from the abused teenager.”
Yeah, sure. Aizawa is a professional who, as a professional hero, probably has education in dealing with situations like this. But the way it is written is clinically detached, cold, and also way too professional from a man who has probably attended a total of one therapy session on mandate after witnessing the death of one of his best friends (which he never got over btw).
When you want to write a character who is attuned to other people’s needs and fears, try using less therapy bingo words, and be more descriptive of the emotions of the scene.
Instead; “Aizawa carefully stepped backwards, attempting to show he meant no harm. He knew how easy it was to scare a starving alley cat, you would be surprised how the same logic applied to a starving teenager.”
See? Isn’t it so much more soulful? So much easier to connect with? Sure, the first passage got the point across: Aizawa is aware that the kid he’s approaching is likely a victim of something traumatic, so he is approaching it as such. But the average human doesn’t have the dialogue of an occupational therapist, so writing situations like the characters are occupational therapists, kills off any sort of relatability for readers who don’t attend weekly therapy sessions. And even for people who do, it feels more like sitting in the armchair instead of absorbing yourself in the worlds and stories you’re trying to tell.
I’m not saying to ditch the mental health awareness altogether. Sure, having emotionally stunted characters create for interesting stories, but you can tell just as compelling of a story without having to resort to textbook wording. Instead, use that therapy foundation to build something more around your characters. Because using the therapy speak is just the same as telling, and not showing.
With that, good luck with your next hurt no comfort fic, and happy writing!