How To Name And Why Is It So Hard? Especially For Fantasy

How to name and why is it so hard? Especially for fantasy

Finished! @melda0m3

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!

Weird hybrid ask between writing advice and a personal question. 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?

I'll finish this post today! Ok?

How To Write Trauma With Humanity

This short post is for those who think that they might be so focused on writing trauma well that they accidentally forget to write an actual character.

As someone who has an "interest" (read: deeply passionate and completely consuming dedication) for psychology and character analysis, I feel like sometimes writers don't really know how to write a character with trauma.

To quote a quote:

Don't Write A Traumatized Character, Write A Character With Trauma

I'm just trying to talk about those situations where the only interesting thing that we ever learn about this character is the fact that they have trauma and that's sad.

People tend to think that PTSD and trauma in general is just:

sit in dark, crying inconsolably about death

have nightmares

hide the fact that you have PTSD with broodiness

try to revenge

die tragically or happy ever after

Remember: Nobody has time for that

These people have obligations, responsibilities, family members, loved ones, and dreams that don't allow for this type of lifestyle.

Many people with PTSD *seem* like standard members of society. They sometimes participate in community activities. They have hobbies and vague interests that they put on their dating profile but don't really care about.

People with PTSD and trauma are interesting REGARDLESS of their trauma and trauma-related bullshit, not because.

If the only thing that's interesting about a character is what something else did to your character, it's not really interesting.

What's their dreams?

What do they like to eat in the morning?

What's their values?

Stop Trying TO ANSWER These Important Questions With:

"don't care :3 trauma will make this character complete :D"

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

This post specifically focuses on the process of censoring words using symbols and numbers. However, it can also include other practices such as:

Bad Word

BAd W0Rd

Rhyme Similar To Actual Word

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