I've been trying to develop a secondary character who is something of a flamboyant, pirate, jokester, warrior who speaks in a very upper class British accent. When I heard this line I immediately thought it would a be perfect line of dialog for him. 😀 I was just working on this character's profile yesterday, and when I heard Jenna say that line, it clicked in my mind that is exactly something my character would say, and exactly the way he would say it.
In middle school, the class was making person cut-outs and we were supposed to decorate them. My friend wanted to color a shirt and pants on ours, but then I loudly said "NO, I LIKE HIM NAKED". So thats quite an out-of-context quote, if the awkward stares I got were any indication.....
I think the day I write this also needs one, so here's the first line of my book that is currently being written: Alright, just to make it clear: when I said I want to leave this earth as I came, screaming, covered in blood, I did not mean it LITERALLY!
To those of you who can't even keep up a constant tense, fluctuating chaotically between present and past, living the constant struggle to keep your writing consistent: I feel your pain. You're not alone.
I'd be happy if someone would tell me WHERE I'm fluctuating between past and present tense. I know I use past tense for paragraphs and present for dialogue, but other than that I get complaints about my writing.
@@meganthompson6676 That's a pretty solid rule of thumb; present tense for speaking, past tense for everything else. When I screw it up, it's usually that I've been writing dialogue and have forgotten to switch back. It is a huge pain to fix it, but more because it's an hours worth of delete-one-letter-type-two-letters than anything else. Let whatever you've written sit for a week or two before you edit it, and you'll be much more likely to notice any mistakes you've made, including tense shifts.
Related to the "I just want to be normal" trope, I don't see enough "character has life-long goals and the whole magic thing legitimately gets in the way." Like, what if Alice has always wanted to be a doctor and has been working hard at that since she was a kid? The fairies expect her to drop everything and be their queen, but she is studying for her MCATs. Or Leo has always dreamed of opening a business for assistive technology, but aliens abduct him the week before a big presentation. Basically no one "just wants to be normal" but plenty of people don't want the goals they're working toward to be interrupted because all the rules suddenly changed.
That... Actually sounds pretty interesting tbh 🤔 I usually get around the "I just wanna be normal!" trope with my patented method of "Geez, these magical powers are awesome! But this world _will_ kill me eventually, so pleeeaaase just let me go home!!"
@@midnight8341 My teenage protagonist doesn't want magic due to her disability, she's already had to fight to be recognized as a human being so it kinda sucks for her but she does want to be the person who has a huge purpose and now she does its just way more of a cost then she thought it would be.
Or you could make it darkly ironic, like Edgar always wanted to be a detective, but he's failed at that and now just wants to get by in life, but he can't because now he's forced to be friends with a violent madman while investigating whatever magical weirdness is corrupting him.
Yeah, I mean, having the responsibility of being "The Chosen One" pushed onto you, particularly if it costs you something, is not always fun. Remember how Aang's friends didn't want him to play in their ball games anymore after they found out he was the Avatar? And how sad that made him? Now imagine how somebody would feel if they realized they are likely to have to sacrifice a lot of their personal happiness in order to safe the world. It CAN suck. But of course it needs to be written convincingly, not just for cheap whining.
I once read a book about a teenager who attempted suicide. The whole story was about him dealing with the disability caused by the failed attempt and all the psychological effects it had on the people in his life. It was fascinating. I wish I could remember the title.
@@fguzman1030 That's not it. The main setting is his neighborhood and regular school, not a psychiatric ward. I looked at the author's other books. They don't match either. But I think it was published about the same time as Funny Story.
I guess there’s an odd one in every group. As a teenager I never wanted to be noticed. I didn’t stand out. I kept to myself and quiet. I actively hoped people would not look at me and never tried to draw attention to myself in class. I purposely avoided doing projects that made me stand in front of the class and when I had to do them with a group I volunteered to hold the big the poster board so I could hide behind it.
I think a lot of teens at least want to fit in. And the ones trying to stand out are often doing it in ways that are socially trendy or lauded, so they're still trying to fit into what society thinks is "cool."
@@VictorSnider If I did get them I wouldn’t advertise. I’d use them as an outlet to express my feelings, kind of like a journal. And if they ended up getting tired of listening me, I wouldn’t have blamed them at all.
@@joelmavity1467 maybe I’m taking this too seriously, but I totally get not advertising the powers. Like, it depends on what the powers are, but I’ll use telekinesis in my example because they’re the best power. If offered telekinesis (assuming there’s no immediate detrimental ramifications, like I run the risk of exploding my brain) I’d probably say yes. But now that I have them, if I show them off, what happens? Maybe the government tries to study/clone me, maybe I’m standing in the street and a car accident happens and they sue me because “she totally caused this with her mind powers.” It would be safer to keep them hidden from general public, but at the same time, I don’t know if I could keep myself from trying to help people if I have the power to (the age old “with great power comes great responsibility” dilemma). Which is technically vigilantism which is technically illegal and also I doubt I’m smart enough to not get caught. Which means I’d have cool powers but basically never get to use them and also worry about being a lab rat and possibly wracked with guilt from not helping that person who fell off that ladder and so forth. I’d still almost definitely have telekinesis if I could though, it would make chopping onions so much easier
Hey buddy. There's no such this as a disabled writer. In front of a laptop, or whatever instrument you use to write, all of us are writers. Whatever obstacle that is hindering you right now, I know that you can get past through it.
@@alvarezcharlesjoshuah.8086 No, no. I'm disabled. I have cerebral palsy. That's a disability. I use a wheelchair. Not a hindrance. I speak with a communication device. Not a hindrance. Disability is a part of life. Not a hindrance.
@@sarapyszka, I'm sorry to have make it more complicated. I must not have chose the right words to convey the essence of the message. (Well, it is something that I need to work on) By the way, I wish you more success in life.
The last point reminded of a guy that i saw who was proud of himself bc he never read YA novels, not even as a teenager and that he went straight up to contemporary Adult books when he was like 12. He kept acting like YA was inferior and that people who preferred YA novels had less reading capability. Needless to say everyone was annoyed by him.
To be fair, there's a lot of bad and medicore YA and a decent part of the YA that gets popular and ends up in the library or in physical stores is pretty bad. So while I do agree that writing novels for a certain age group off entirely is pretty arrogant, it's very possible the main exposure he had were bad books which he then assumed was the whole of YA which is understandable.
As someone with a disabled mother it was so incredibly damaging growing up and seeing every fictional representation that looked like my mum die. Every story. Every time it was "inspiring" suicide or "noble" sacrifice and it was so horrific as a teen. I still get very animated about it. I'm ND and just swerve a bunch of fiction for that as well, but the inspiration porn was the most harmful for me when I was younger.
@@FaithTheFallen Neurotypical people tend not to like usage of abbreviations before revealing what they are. Please take this advice in consideration for next time.
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 Hi! I appreciate you thinking this is helpful and am going to assume this has come from a good place. It isn't helpful though. I know NT (neurotypical) people who are not used to dealing with the rest of us can find jargon and shorthand confusing. This is good though, because that means you get a sliver of our experience dealing with an over aggressive social expectation of understanding unspoken and undefined rules and emotional cues which are actually highly personal but no one chooses to explain. We have to Google things - you can too! There is a whole online autistic community that will assist with that as well, if you come in with a healthy level of respect and not talking down to people. I expect you didn't think you were talking down to me, but you are asking me to do labour for you, which you could have done in the same time it took to type your comments, for some reason. Consider what that reason may be. You are also "informing" me of what you consider to be broad preferences, which again I will assume comes from a good place but it assumes I am not used to dealing with people. My mother is disabled and I am a carer. I am used to dealing with people, I just expect them to keep up with the basics. Consider how you speak to people next time.
@@FaithTheFallen ...Do LABOR for me? It is simple consideration to not use an abbreviation before establishing what you mean. Not only does it spare the reader confusion but also your time in explaining. ND could mean many different things after all. I do not know how much or little you dealt with people. I was just saying that you should consider establishing the definitions of abbreviations first. P.S. For the record, I do not mind abbreviations and use them myself; it is just inconsiderately confusing not explaining them first.
6:23 "Have you met a teenager? They are constantly stand out. To get noticed. To be famous." I guess I was the exception. I was perfectly happy not standing out and I hate the spotlight IRL.
Yeah, I think that’s her personal bias showing. A lot of people were perfectly content to fly under the radar. It’s the nail that sticks out that gets hammered down.
Same, though I think for teenagers it's a blend of "trying to stand out" and "trying to blend in." Like, there's a certain criteria for teenagers to "stand out" among their peers that they're trying to blend in with. Curious little paradox.
If I well remember my only year in children psychology studies, it's more of a cycle, varying from one another. You try to find the pieces of your future self in others, then you try to make something unique with them comparing the results with your surrounding; gathering pieces; building; gathering; etc. The time taken by each step varies depending on the child's environment and personality.
@@kimifw58 90-95% of the time, me standing out in order to make friends involved hanging out near people who I was interested in being friends with and waiting until they were used enough to me that they invited me into their group. Then I would feel comfortable standing out a bit, but only when I was with them. This is also why I asked out only one of my crushes and only after a year of working up to becoming her friend, then another year working up to asking her out.
The last one really hit home for me. I took a creative writing class and my professor told us that we could only write contemporary fiction, I chose to write the prologue to my sci-fi/fantasy book instead. It’s just about the art of telling human stories in a fictional world
They choose contemporary fiction so everyone not only has fair grounds (As a lot of people have expertise on specific genres but not usually contemporary.) and so they have a standard making grading fairer, more accessible, etc. You can't grade or judge a historical 50s light-hearted romance and a sci-fi murder mystery similarly. It makes it easier for the professor to evaluate your writing for your writing.
guys falling into the present tense trap is real as someone who wrote their first book in present tense and now unconsciously writes in present tense all the time 😔✊
This is the first time I heard bad things about present tense lol. I’ve written stuff in past tense and now my current work is present and I like it and there are others who do it. So it’s okay to write present tense
Hear me out, I wasn’t a fan of present tense either, but then I read The Night Circus. Erin Morgenstern has a gift in present tense writing. I’ve yet to come across someone who does it as well as her, it’s magical. Literally.
@@Luka.shrekie A similar writer is V.E. Shwab. I’ve only read one of her books, Addie LaRue, but she’s pretty good in present tense as well. Her writing reminds me of Erin Morgenstern
Not saying that it can't be done amazingly, but I generally find it to be a hallmark of authors whose writing isn't very good yet. It's rarely done as a stylistic choice, but because it is easier and they lack experience or skill. When it IS done intentionally and well, it's a perfectly fine choice.
That last point really hit home for me. I remember when I took my first creative fiction writing workshop at college, the adjunct spent the first class basically criticizing anything that could be considered genre writing and told us it was beneath a true writer. She told us to instead focus on writing about “absolutely nothing”. What she meant by that I have little clue, but I imagine she was trying to be deep. Overall I still enjoyed the workshop as I met some great friends and learned the value of peer reviews, but the adjunct was bizarre.
Ugh, I don't get creative fiction lecturers who think like that either. Like, I could potentially see the value of encouraging someone who only writes fantasy to try writing contemporary fiction, but it would be just as valuable to encourage someone who only writes fiction to try writing fantasy. Writing outside your genre is a great learning experience, but just saying "ONLY FICTION IS VALID!!!" Is teaching people to be the opposite of creative.
I must've got lucky in my two creative writing classes. My professor encouraged us to write what we feel comfortable writing. We had so many different stories in different genres. We focused on making sure the stories we wrote were clear to the reader. Occasionally we would have to write something with a specific thing to focus on, whatever it was we were learning about that week, but story could still be up to us. I loved that professor!
I write in present tense and in 1st person, but the way she flames present is so funny 😂😂 Edit: I have zero interest in contemporary though, I'm more in the circle of sci-fi, fantasy, or horror 👻
Present tense and 1st person singular can work. But it has to fit the general tone and the style of storytelling. A fast paced, humoristic adventure story will work so much better with it than a philosophical epos.
@@august1837 well, she's her husband's caretaker and has made a video about it. So like, semi-in-the-know when it comes to various terms in the disabled community
Even outside of her personal connection to the disabled community, a lot of people in general have taken it on themselves to start becoming educated to the mistreatment of minority and marginalized groups in recent years. As someone who is trans, and has BPD, a pleasantly surprising number of people these days now at least talk like they've googled what it's like to deal with what I deal with. It's nice.
The Handmaid's Tale, All the Lights We Cannot See, Hunger Games, The Girl With All The Gifts, A Man Called Over, Rising Sun, Room. Just some books that crush it with present tense
Thank you SO much for laying into sick lit, as a chronically ill teenager, I had the wonderful/s experience of having random people comment that my oxygen tank is “just like Hazel Grace”. God I hate sick lit.
I don't remember who said it, but one of the biggest rules I've ever heard was "you can include them, support them,, and acknowledge their struggle. But you don't get to write their story for them."
Jenna says she gonna be hating on contemporary in this segment Me: *writing contemporary 😥😥😳😳 uh oh Jenna: contemporary fiction Me: oh I’m good then😅 Working in contemporary fantasy/ alternate universe with enough people dying that Jenna might nod in approval
I also dislike spoiled brat characters. But I do love reading a non-whiny and hard-working rich, popular character or even a bitch who enjoys their wealth but also shows the loneliness of not having love and friends in their life and the hardship of getting one because of their status, background and maybe even past.
All present tense writing reminds me of that one Hunger Games line that's like "the soup is salty. it reminds me of my tears." so I simply can't take it seriously
What is wrong with present tense? I use it because I like to write my stories as though my readers are watching it all happen before them. I hate using past tense unless I'm purposefully going back in time with the use of a flashback. I mean. I used to write past tense after dialogue, because in my head, the dialogue was already said, so it is past. But looking on sites about writing, they say you can't write with both tenses throughout the book. So I was stuck between choosing past tense or present tense. In the end, I chose present tense because of how I like writing my action scenes.
Going to physical therapy for an injury and my PT and I are chatting and find out we're both writers. What does he ask? "Do you know Jenna Moreci?" Lol, yes. And then I get home and bam, a new vid is up :P
@@danirei789 For me it's kind of similar, except that my political thriller's premise may initially start as a "nice guy," but with a twist: the main character fell in love with a girl after she was treating him like an equal person, unlike most of the people in that society that bullied the protagonist due to his low-status tribal origin. However, after making my main character believe that she doesn't support this tribal-based prejudice, the girl suddenly starts to date my protagonist's bully who is a strong supporter of such tribalism, which creates an identity crisis for my protagonist that later would have these effects when he would fight for power in his native country decades later.
'no one wants to be normal' 😬 Well thanks for informing me that apparently I didn't cry myself to sleep regularly for years as a small child, wanting to be neurotypical but not having the vocabulary to understand what that was. Thanks a bunch. Really. I guess I must've just made that all up. Oops.
Once I started writing in present tense I found reading books in past tense just feels less exciting. You're removed from the action because it's already happened - in present tense, you're there - it's happening now and you're right in the middle of it. Of course, it has to be written well or it can sound as bad as Jenna describes it. I mean, if you've read the Hunger Games, you've read a great book in first person-present tense.
i agree. my biggest pet peeve is movies with narration in past tense, that shít don't make sense when we're literally WATCHING IT HAPPEN in the present
"Why not write a love story about a disabled guy who kills himself in the end and we'll all say it was so, so beautiful" THE SHADEEEEEE I cant 😂😂😂😂 (also thanks, finally, someone said it)
To be fair, that seems like a personal pet-peeve. Some of the coolest timey shenanigans I ever saw was a series written partly in past tense from the view of a major character, and the other half in present tense when the narration "caught up" with the present. There were some hints throughout towards when the character is as he's retelling this, not enough to really spoiler you but enough to give you the the idea he's clearly not done with this adventure and to hint a tiny bit at something having happened.
"If you majored in Creative Writing, then you already know! I didn't because I knew better." You have no idea how validated I feel now not getting a creative writing degree.
I like present tense because it feels like it's happening now, and it pulls me into the story more. I don't mind past tense though. But you say "it's just a tense," so why bother hating it? 🤣
The contemporary world is not boring at all, contemporary fiction has no excuse! It's hard to avoid being political with real world examples so I'll just be blunt with it. One of the political parties in my country attempted an insurrection this year, and even most of their opposition is just treating it likes it's no big deal! The ex-president has been seen, months later, crashing weddings to insist he "secretly actually won" still. If that happened in a book, I'd think it was jumping the shark it's such melodramatic series of actions.
This line made me want to shout, YES. "You're not unique just cause you don't listen to Cardi B and you're not smart just cause you don't read smut". I'm so sick of that mentality in characters or in real people. I used to have it once but in my defense I was a teenager at the time?? And grew out of it??
1. The whole novel is a train of comments to a Facebook post. 2. The hero is affected with COVID 19. 3. The protagonist installs Tinder in the beginning of the novel. In the end he uninstalls it because no one loved him. 4. The hero goes through a lot of adventures. In the end we come to know that it was just in the computer game he was playing. 5. Job loss, break up, Job, finding love, job loss, break up again. The end. 6. Guy uninstalls Tinder and finds love on pubg. 7. Romeo and Juliet; but with Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram and a lot of COVID 19 deaths. 8. Break up, break up, break up...Finally finds love with a robot doll. 9. Some mythological characters trapped in the modern world. Magic vs. technology 10. Something you wrote when you were in quarantine. Trying to make it look meaningful by publishing it. No one buys it, of course!
I absolutely HATED Me Before You. My brother committed suicide and suffered from mental illness all of his life so seeing a book/movie that glorifies suicide was pretty gross to me.
"Want to be normal" is more accurately "there is something special about me *that I did not ask for* that interferes with how I really want to live" -- and that's probably why you see it more in YA Fantasy. It's always something that they got unsolicited and that *is not social currency among their fellow teenagers.* The kid trying to get attention in TikTok at least is exerting agency to obtain attention.
The only good "I just want to be normal" story I've read/watched was " The Disasterous Life of Saiki K". The main character - Saiki - is a psychic and has LEGIT reasons why he finds his powers annoying and more trouble then worth which he clearly demonstrates right away in the first episode and the rest of the series
I actually tried writing past tense for my horror stories but for some reason, it just doesn't work for me and it drives me nuts. I get confused during the writing process because it takes me a while to identify what happened in the past of story events vs now. I find writing present tense easier to write.
@@kevingreene6624 Omg yes exactly. I literally have zero problems reading past tense but when it comes to writing it....I end up screaming into the void 😅
As a deaf person no one is an inspiration for dating me or being friends with me. And I’m not a inspiration for working or making music. I’m a person. I just have trouble hearing.
I'm someone who writes in both tenses and all perspectives (depending on the story, of course). The one thing I will say with present tense is that it is so easy describing something that happened in the past without needing to use a flashback unlike past. It looks like switching perspectives, but it's not since present tense is special. (Something like, "He walks down the hallway where, a week ago, someone decided to slam a penguin down his sock," vs "He walked down the hallway where, a week beforehand, someone decided to slam a penguin down his sock.") That said, I usually only use it for longer first-person and second-person stories since it seems to go with those perspectives better, but eh. And I've come across so many stories that don't utilize present tense to its greatest potential. People usually just adjust the sentences into present tense as if it was originally set in past tense, which grates on my nerves. Lol
i hate the glorifying abuse in romance. like after. 50 shades. twilight. gonna also diagree with your first choice. i write present tense because its easy for me to write and makes me flows easier for me. so, you probably won't like my book xD
for me i write present for first person protagonists only, i once tried present for third person and it just sounded awkward as fuck when i reread it lol
What you said about creative writing students was kind of unfair. That might be your experience but the whole world has universities that teach creative writing and often they arent like that. A guy who took my creative writing course a few years ago wrote a rap album for his dissertation and we study fantasy and childrens fiction more than literary. Theres nothing wrong with taking a creative writing degree, it doesnt inherently make you pretentious. I dont dislike you anpt all and this isnt intended as hate it was just so uncalled for
It has some basis that i kind of agree with because I hear far too many stories of people who've taken creative courses and basically being told they can't write any of that low brow crap because it's inferior to more classical styles.
Oh god, that #10 hit hard. I took one creative writing class to learn to write fantasy and the llfar left teacher forbid anything that wasn’t “historically possible in our modern era”. It’s called CREATIVE writing for a reason
I was just hunting through the comments looking for the book she meant. The closest I could think of was All The Bright Places, except the MC isn’t disabled (unless a personality disorder counts as a disability) Just read the synopsis for this and HOLY SHIT NO. That ending deadass validates the dude’s belief his life isn’t worth living anymore. How the FUCK was this shit published, it’s hecking dangerous
In honor of your recent launch of Trevor Project, how about a video on respectfully writing LGBTQ+ characters? Avoiding stereotypes, offensive tropes, etc?
@@hali_55 apparently it gets worse - there's a sequel "Me After You" which goes into how she's living the high life with her dead ex's money, and then she's trying to decide between two new guys, which one she'll date next - I seriously hated the first movie, but I couldn't actually believe the audacity of the author to write that as a second book.
Okay but I’m sending a clip of #7 to every single english teacher ever. Why is it this fits every single book they’ve made me read good lord how am I supposed to think when every story ends the same, I think it’s a better accomplishment to make me think and end on a happy note instead of how everything is going to end in tragedy life sucks just give up on all your dreams
I'm doing my creative writing MA now, and even on my undergrad, we are encouraged to explore genres and write what we want to. As long as we can explain our reasons and use references from books of a wide range of genres, we can write whatever we want. But that could just be the University I am at.
@Samara Hamilton No like, we are with them as they give us a very detailed narrative of what they are doing right at that moment and then suddenly it'll stop because they've died while they talk to us. Then I guess somebody else might narrate or something. Now I know this isn't often the case, but that's always what it feels like
i once knew a fellow writer who was convinced that stories with happy endings were objectively bad and absolutely refused to give any of their characters a good ending. I forget their exact argument against it but it made everyone feel really awkward with their happy stories.
I didn't study creative writing because I knew better??? Why are you hating on people studying creative writing? What's wrong with people going to college to study something they love doing? And how do you know what they teach when you havnt taken the course yourself? Also, creativity is not just a genre you pick. Stop hating on literary fiction and creative writing students.
I would argue about the "just being normal". At least, some cases of it. Rapid changes in your life could be overwhelming, so I imagine it's usually not much of a "I don't want to be special" but rather a "this is too much, I want my life back" thing. I mean, if you're protagonist of a young adult novel, chances are, with those new powers/revelations you're gonna lose your family and friends, so the new cool stuff could keep you happy for only so long before the reality hits.
I see no reason you would lose your family and friends for it, apart from them eventually getting killed or kidnapped. But that's probably not directly because of the protagonists powers. People dont just automatically hate you because you got some special ability, especially not people who liked you as a person in the first place. And being friends with someone who has magic/superpowers could even be a benefit.
'I just want to be normal' this trope also works in stories when the chance to shine also comes with a ton of stress like in Evangelion, when you've literally never seen this eldritch abomination of a robot before, and suddenly you're forced to pilot it to fight off eldritch abominations that threatens human civilization, and once you fail you're killed, and what's more you already have a ton of mental issues to begin with
I *did* major in Creative Writing. And the atmosphere is pretentious af. The professors *hate* the fantasy genre. I wasn't allowed to write it. Now I'm a published fantasy author. Lol.
#8 Whatever the hell John Steinbeck was doing. Seriously can't stand him as an author most of what he wrote was boring as shit and felt more a Wikipedia article thrown in the blender only to pick out the most sleep inducing parts.
#10...yeah. I took one creative writing course in college and the prof. was one of those who only looked at 'real' or 'contemporary' or the like. Anything outside of that wasn't worth her time to read and she graded accordingly. Since she was the only writing teacher at the campus, I stopped taking courses and stuck with writing what I wanted to write. Maybe I missed out 'learning' something important, but I couldn't take the snobbery and the efforts to force our creativity into one special box.
And that's what kills me! I bet lots of writing students who only write in their favorite genre would be willing to try writing contemporary fiction if they weren't constantly told "All genre writing is trash". Trying to write outside your genre can be a useful learning experience, but IMHO it's just as valuable for a fiction writer to try writing fantasy, for example. It's damaging to a writer's ability to tell them that only one type of writing is valid!
I write fantasy, sci-fi, supernatural...and in RP writing & fanfiction I've dabbled in romance and erotica. I've got one planned that is sorta a supernatural noir mystery type thing. I agree its valuable to push the boundaries and write outside of our comfort zones as a learning tool and its frustrating to have a teacher, in particular, invalidate the work of anyone outside of his/her 'preference'. How many writers end up discouraged and giving up that way?
the isolating effects of wealth can be a serious problem even for those of us who don't have, especially even. an examination of how even those of us at the top of an unfair system are prisoners of it too, and in their attempts to assuage their uncomfortable feelings through greed and power lust they impoverish themselves of anything true and sustaining while dragging the rest of us down a path toward doom could make an epic story
Context is everything. While I would normally agree with you about telling a story in present-tense for no reason, one of my own books is a fictionalized memoir. The introduction explains how certain memories function like time travel, and then the reader discovers herself having dinner with my family in 1967. Use of the first person present tense makes the reader feel she is in my head, experiencing events as they happen to me, but 60 years ago. I originally wrote this in the past tense, but changed in order to make it feel more immediate; so the reader could feel that they'd literally been transported to another time.
As a blind person, inspiration porn pisses me off so much! There's only one piece of media that I can think of at the top of my head that could be considered inspiration porn, and I like it. It's based off a true story, and it's called front of the class. It's available on RU-vid watch it. If you're not that, don't exist please. Thanks.
@@august1837 unfortunately not, but Avatar the Last Airbender, which has audio description on Netflix, has one of the best blind characters in anything ever. Front of the Class is a true story about a man with Tourette's syndrome. Would love to meet Brad Cohon. He seems like a nice guy.
@@ZeldaWolf2000 avatar has a bunch of comics and even books now. I can't think of the title but one the star wars extended universe books has a very capable blind force user named Kyle Katarn. Shame Disney didn't include him he's one the coolest characters in the books even appeared in one the force unleashed games
@@ayajade6683 Yeah. Disney isn't the best at including diverse characters in their work, unless they're Pixar. Coco doesn't have disabled characters, but it at least has a cast full of non-white characters. Plus, that movie is fucking amazing. Oh! and The Dragon Prince is also AMAZING with it's diverse cast. It even has an episode where the moral is that the reason PWDso have to conform is because of society, and not the people. Best three-legged dog character ever! Also, there's a badass deaf warrior name Amara who, just like Toph, has so much character to her that doesn't revolve around her blindness, and she's hilarious and so fucking cool! They even animate REAL ASL!
@Tia Hammad Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner is a wonderful book imho that features a main character who has very high myopia. It's part of a series but it can stand alone. The Broken Kingdoms by NK Jemisin features a blind protagonist. I didn't finish the book and I'm not sure if it's truly good representation but you could always sample the audiobook.
#3 needs to have special circumstances to work. The one's you've mentioned but also stuff like Anxiety or having a specific goal in mind (if you've got something you love and don't want to waste time doing something else like wanting to go to a championship or because you're lazy and you see the amount of work asked of you to be that something other than normal)
I can probably feel some sympathy for a character that’s a lonely rich kid with trust issues, as long as he/she’s not annoyingly self-absorbed. That one episode with Ben’s POV in Never Have I Ever is a good depiction of how being forced to be on your own all the time can eventually have a toll.
"Have you met a teenager? They are constantly stand out. To get noticed. To be famous." Well, yes but actually no. For a teen, "standing out" means doing or being something trendy or popular and ultimately is not really standing out so much as being within a more specific group. There is a criteria. Teens very much want to fit in.
you know, since i started watching your channel recently, i've been seeing a lot of takedown, or at least, response videos about you. it's funny, the ones i actually checked out kinda made me like you more. yo, i seen you talking about crutch words, mine is kinda, but i know that one. i have one character, particularly wordy while obfuscating, but throws a lot of that stuff, you knows, and interjectional sorrys, and i love, just adore, seeing how far i can push it, how many kindas and kind ofs and sortas and sort ofs i can pack into his dialogue , and monologue. he's mostly first person, but sometimes he's more unreliable than others, or in a stupor, or not there, so... i know that's really less of a problem than my variable 3rd person perspective, and since your channel and others have brought that to my attention, i'm trying to examine it, but i'm not ready to ditch it entirely in case it may somehow aid a sort of impressionistic feel i may be going for in places. also see how that sorta creeps into my other writing but i love arthur's voice so much, and yeah, because it's a slightly embellished version of my own, and 90% of what passes for humor in my dark story is him lying to himself. oh, how am i not a man the way i nail the toxic two step, wink and nod?
