Candlewriter - Burning At Both Ends

One of my favorite tropes is character with a nasty toxic personality who tries very hard to do the right thing anyway

brain: we’re gonna write a scene while sleeping :)

me: we’re going to remember it in the morning, right?

brain: :)

me: right?

making ocs is so funny, especially when you get so attached to some and not to others?? it’s like yes these people live in my head and I love them. I love that one the most though.

attempted murder is a form of intimacy by the way . don't listen to people who tell you different

fake idgafer. i saw tht haunted look in ur eyes

Actually, can we talk about how Garbage a lot of ubiquitous writing advice in the late 2000's was?

Like "you have to begin in the middle of the action! your first line has to be a 'hook' that draws the reader further into the story!"

This is the bullshit responsible for the amount of books that begin in the middle of some sort of pointless fucking action scene that I care nothing about because I just got here.

Like I guess this makes books easier to "sell" or whatever on some level of the process, but it's garbage storytelling advice because setup and establishment of the Way Things Are is almost always necessary.

On some level I don't think it's actually possible to begin a story right on top of the "inciting incident" because...you don't have the raw materials to "incite" anything with. If you have to set up basic things about the characters and world after the "inciting incident," it's not really the inciting incident anymore, is it?

The event that "launches" a character into their plot line is something that follows from the character's established situation, desires, traits etc. It's a follow-up to a situation that makes a Story of some kind inevitable.

It is, by definition, an event that makes no sense and does not matter to the reader at all unless the "setup" already exists.

If you try to begin right in the middle of the event that "sparks" the plot, you're going to end up including a second, "real" event that actually does the job, because you can't do the job if the character, the stakes, the rules, etc. are not there yet.

Now the action scene you stuck to the beginning of your story is probably dead weight that is getting in the way of the setup.

Writing is not about 'telling an epic story' or 'making something that will outlive you'. Writing is about going "You know what would be fucking awesome?" and then committing word crimes