Writing "Hot Takes" from Tumblr 

counter to the “fantasy settings shouldn’t have normal curse words” take: it’s funny

personally I think the villain saying "we're not so different" can work *really* well if it's properly baked into the story. Maybe the hero and villain have similar trauma, or have been through the same circumstance and just come out the other side differently. If it's a part of both of their characters it can make a scene like that very satisfying to watch/read.

I think relatable characters are important, but 'relatable' should mean 'has relatable emotions and reacts to their surroundings in a way that readers might also react, if they were in the same situation', not 'has the exact same job, hobbies and habits as the average reader'

I disagree with the mean girls one on just one thing : that person is WORKING in education, you can't know mean girls, they're not mean to YOU, they're mean to people their age. I've had "mean girls" in every class I was in. But they weren't necessary mean to the teacher or in class (or at least not openly)

I'll die on this hill, you're SUPPOSSED to be able to predict where a story is going. If someone is reading my story and they comment something that completely predicts where I'm planning to take the plot, then that makes me super happy and tells me I'm doing a good job of setting up my plot and portraying what I want to portray. It always irks me when I'm reading a fic or story and the author just pulls a red herring out of nowhere and "THIS is the actual solution/problem/bad guy" or whatever. It's fine to have plot twists of course, but if there's no build up to it 9 times out of 10 it will just feel like a cop-out to get one over the reader.

“Fantasy worlds wouldn’t have real-world curse words.” They also wouldn’t speak English or any other human language but stories are written in our languages because they’re meant to be UNDERSTOOD.

My writing pet peeve (for when I’m writing personally) is when you try to type a characters name, but it’s not considered a ‘normal’ name and it keeps autocorrecting it so you have to manually change it on keyboard settings

I once jokingly thought: "What if I name a character after a word in my language?" And then that thought immediately followed by: "Okay, that's a good idea." And so the name Varen Marele was born, which in my language literally translates to: Safe Umbrellas. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I call efficient improvisation of my own damn language. 😎

I agree with most of these takes, but I think this comment section needs some positivity. Here’s a list of fiction things I love. 1. Using the name of a fictional afterlife/plane of existence as an exclamation. For example, “what in the 20 levels of The Abyss are you doing?!” 2. Comically uncreative names. Like a powerful intimidating dragon called Tim, or William the troll. 3. Villain with a child. Think doofenshmirtz and Vanessa. 4. Stories where the hero doesn’t have that “I’m right, you’re wrong, prepare to be murdered” mindset, and is actually a hero. 5. Creative fantasy creatures. Can be obscure, unheard of creatures pulled from mythologies, but you can also come up with your own. For example: Jokeworms. Lovable, black worms that feed off of positive emotions. They can be found near birthday parties, weddings and adoption agencies. They’re very popular with children, and may even share their good vibes if they take a liking to you.

I gave up on the "normal names or fantasy names but never both" concept when I started seeing what people today are naming their kids. Ran into a woman whose children were named Champion, Legend, and Euphoria, and she wondered why her kids didn't listen to her. I have also officially met a Nevaeh, have a friend whose name is S'Aints (pronounced like essence), and have encountered parents whose children didn't even have pronounceable names because it looked like someone had just slammed their face into a keyboard several times to come up with a name. Just name your characters whatever you want, at the end of the day it doesn't matter anyway because I guarantee that someone in the real world has named their kid something way weirder.

8:06 as a sibling I can decisively say betty absolutely screamed at her brother for taking that pancake, 100% correct word choice

I have wanted to write a world where everyone has weird fantasy names like “smnejdjell” and then the gods are just named like “Bob” or “John” or just some other normal name and no one bats an eye

I can say on the one with the whole cishet white female action girl who's also pretty and feminine, I think it can be done right. Give the poor thing personality traits and flaws and not just a hot action piece for a "Progressive" story. If anything, I want more feminine female characters that have complex personalities and aren't boiled down to stereotypes. It sort of continues that idea that femininity should be rejected and despised by everyone, especially women. That's my hot take though.

'If the characters are memorable, the names will be memorable' is absolutely true. Ian Fleming gave his protagonist the dullest, most generic name he could imagine, and look how that turned out.

Writing the fanfiction you want to read is even better when said fic is the exact thing that ticks someone else's 'hates seeing this in a fic' list. It's like the "oh no. Anyway." Meme.

The whole “write for yourself” thing really resonated with me. I’m a terrible writer. I can’t spell, I never learnt what ; is for. And I’ve read more fanfiction than I have books. I’ve been writing fanfiction for, Jesus, like nearly 10 years. And I’ve never shared a thing beyond looking at super old ones for a joke with friends one night. It’s for me. I don’t need people to read it or understand it. It’s my way of enjoying the things I already enjoy with myself. I even have non fanfiction. Honestly I have writings the length of novels. I wrote a paranormal detective story over lockdown. And I don’t feel the need to share it with anyone.

The "taller and shorter" thing is very handy when you're writing a dialogue but you don't want to reveal their names yet.

i do NOT agree with 1:32, uncertain endings are very good if done right. maybe your character just went through something & they’re absolutely broken but character b comes up to them & smiles in an "it's going to be okay, i'll help you get through this" kinda way and character a smiles back hopefully and then they sit there and hold each other in their arms,,,,, like i love that kinda thing!!!!!!

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but I have seen people almost always treat the opposite as the objective truth: I like slow pacing. I want to have time to take in the scenes, the environments, the atmosphere. The more time we spend in the non-action part of the story, the bigger impact the important scenes have. I want to get more character interactions and their emotions.

I LOVE when villains be a villain, just for fun! Like, call it “lazy” storytelling or “boring” but IT’S AMAZING AND FUNNY! Like, imagine, a gang of villains meet up and explain why they became a villain; #1: I watched my friends and family die in front of me. #2: My parents disowned me as a child, now I seek revenge. #3: The hero was my best friend, but betrayed me. #4: I like it. #1: Excuse us? #4: Yeah! Art was like… so boring, tbh. #3: WE HAVE AWFUL BACKSTORIES AND YOU DO THIS FOR _FUN!?_ #4: Pretty much, yeah.

For the one on not using descriptors like “the taller one” I understand where new writers get held up. A difficult things about dialogue is making it flow and seem interesting, but also avoiding too much repetition. Some workarounds for just using names when the two characters share pronouns include: -not tagging every line of dialogue. This is mainly in a convo with two characters, but after a few lines the reader gets the hang of who’s saying what. They’ll get it when the new line of dialogue is the other character. You can then use names and other dialogue tags to emphasize certain words or emotions. - You can also focus on what the characters are doing during the dialogue instead of describing the person talking. If I know person A is carving wood and person B is cooking, then I get more value hearing about how their cutting gets more aggressive or they lose their attention and burn themselves on the stove than knowing that the “taller one” is talking. The distinct differences in what they’re doing, or even the competence of what they’re doing will differentiate the characters for you. If there are three characters practicing archery as they talk, I can tell them apart of one is a veteran, another is average, and the third is a newbie, because their actions will show their level of proficiency. This also works good for showing emotion and building the characters. -Describe different notable aspects with each line. Maybe say that a cheery voice popped in and draw your reader to the more optimistic character. Or maybe say a gravelly voice interrupted so we know it’s the older veteran in the group. If you use more unique tags like this in addition to descriptions like “taller” or “older” then you get an experience with more variety. -describe them more creatively. Say that the other man was towering over the other, or that he strained his neck looking up at his companion. This gives more of an immersive feeling of being there than “taller” and “shorter”

I hate that take on fantasy curse words. Like no Jessica I'm not making a whole new set of curse words just for your personal amusement. Also, if it's written in English then any curse words used would be translated to an English equivalent if we're assuming that the fantasy world doesn't use English. Basically it's like someone being upset that a book that takes place in Japan doesn't use Japanese curse words rather than close English equivalents. If your immersion is broken by something like that then you probably just have a fragile imagination.

On the topic of fantasy names, there's just this strange pattern I've been noticing in high fantasy, which I like to call "The Guy Named Sam Trope." This is when all the other characters in the book have names like Gandalf, Frodo, Daenarys, Cersei, Celaena, Chaol, etc, and then there's just a character name Sam. Be it Lord of the Rings, A Game of Thrones, or Throne of Glass, there just always needs to be some guy named Sam.

Fun fact: Ian Fleming picked the name "James Bond" because he thought it was a boring, ordinary name suitable for a *secret* agent. Now that name is iconic because the character is iconic.

On "relatable" characters, I relate to some pretty unusual characters in ways that I know the author didn't intend. Like, did the writers at Mihoyo intend for Albedo to be relatable? Most likely not. Does that stop me from almost crying because some of his dialogue is just too dang real? Heck no.

Honestly I kind of like giving my characters unique names. A lot of my characters have what could be considered “normal” names, yes, but one of my human characters is called Oreo. I have an entire species in my universe that all have names of more obscure figures from Greek or Latin mythology. I have characters named Undine, Erebus, Calliope and Aquillo, and two of my main characters are called Nyx and Kore - Cora for short. I enjoy giving my characters cool names. A lot of my characters are given names by me just looking at them, and deciding this character should be called _______. A lot of my characters’ names call back to a subject that inspired their design. My main character is called Delilah because I was listening to hey there Delilah when I designed her and her character was built around those vibes. I name my characters on vibes.

on dialogue prompts, i disagree with the hot take because no-one's ever saying you have to stick with that pov or tone. it's a _prompt,_ it's a place to start. it's a place to build off of, and you can always go and change up any part of it. for instance, there was a prompt i wrote once that was like "i was having a nice day. but when the balloon popped..." and i could not explain it to you if i tried but my brain immediately said "ghosts." and so i wrote about a friendly ghost at a kid's birthday party who realized they had become solid again when they popped a balloon. i think that's like the farthest thing possible from that prompt but it still did come from the prompt.

i don't get the weird name argument. just name your character whatever you want and call it a day

"Could a Chinese person pronounce a Nordic name easily?" I feel so called out, I've been complaining for quite a while that I can't pronounce Nordic sh*t for the life of me without making it sound too English or Chinese and it makes it difficult to share about the book/show/movie

here is my hot-take: not every nuanced or redeemable villain needs to be a tragic character! sometimes people do horrible things, while whole-heartedly believing that they are doing justice, WITHOUT having some horrible past. vice versa: a villain's tragic past doesn't necessarily mean that they need to be redeemed!

3:47 YES THIS! Someone told me my fantasy character names were "too weird"' and I... took them from my country's culture. Sure, I often took old names that are a bit uncommon but not always and not weirder than modern ones. Trust me, the name "Loan" isn't weirder than "Goulc'han" and yet the second is probably more common where I live. It's a weird cultural assumption.

9:09 are there actually people who refer to the opening chapters of Jane Eyre as an 'infodump'? As in her traumatic childhood which sets up the themes of the whole novel? As in 100 pages so harrowing they could have been released on their own as a novella and would still be a classic? I'm so confused

writing sims fanfic in simlish? now i know what im gonna do for the next few days

I used to get the "totally helpful" advice to avoid overused character troupes (ie. The Jock, the femme fatale, the edgy relatable villain, etc.) but I find that fixating on originality can completely halt progress on stories. I find cliches can be a great emotional narrative device when carefully twisted and manipulated. Whether it's setting "Jake the jock needs to continue his high protein diet for a sense of normalcy during the zombie apocalypse or he will snap" Or simple exaggeration of character cliches "Sure Mandy the meek self discovery chicklit lady wants to "find herself" but how will she handle living on Mars for a year?"

Hot take, not every story needs a conflict, sometimes it's enjoyable to just watch characters enjoy themselves and having a good time. Kinda like clerks or slice of life

my character's "name" is Root, only because everyone used that name for him and just kinda forgot his original name.

Defining ‘normal name’ can be pretty confusing. In a language my friends and I all understand, our names include Bee, Song bird, Bitter sea, Princess, Date, Ankle, Blessing etc. But we don’t think that we are calling him Ankle, we think we are calling him Jacob. That being said, since I almost exclusively read fantasy books, I prefer it when they make up their own names to detach themselves from our world. Also on the post about swearing, I don’t mind f**k or whatever because I don’t know the etymology but seeing ‘Christ’ in a fantasy book where no one has heard of the Abrahamic G-d is pretty distracting.

4:03 Exactly! A "normal" name is completely subjective depending on where you live.

a lot of y/a authors need to be sat and told about the ''relatable'' protagonist trope but ends up as a blank slate trope, i hate it when the main character's love interest has a more personality than the main character. When a character is in a supernatural setting,when they're over-throwing the government, the relatability factor is already gone. Then the character is white and cishet - if i wanted someone relatable i wouldn't pick up your book white lady? i prefer MCs who are well written and well developed,ofc they can be downright miserable, unlikeable and annoying too over MCs who only serve as a self-insert, the former have aspects that readers can relate to anyways

I like that you had some contradictory ones. My hot take: AUs of magical/sci-fi properties with no speculative elements are overdone. I want to see more urban fantasy takes on sci-fi shows or space opera takes on supernatural dramas. Make up your own genre. Introduce unexplained elements and then explore their ramifications. Do weird world building in your AU. Go crazy with it.

On the fantasy name thing: yeah, there are some pretty memorable protagonists with entirely normal names. Like Paul from "Dune." It's not that deep.

Pet peeve, peoples need to stop making black and poc characters be so 2D and flat. We have other thing in us than the stereotypes (yes I’m black and I like watermelon, but I love onigiri and curry). Just write us like how you’d write your friend or family member. Also the darker your skin is, the less visible your ‘blushing’ is.

Ok personaly speaking i love complex/bittersweet endings everything ending perfectly is boring, and when it all goes to hell it either fells forced or is just way to depressing for my taste.

My methodology for naming characters, and this may not work for everyone, is to think about what kinds of people their parents are, and what kinds of names they'd give their children. My main character's name is Angelica, because her mother is a very conservative christian, so logically, she'd give her daughter a christian sounding name, right? Again, this won't really work for trans characters, but it's a good place to start.

4:24 example: my sister is named Pamela and the etymology is that Sir Philip Sidney invented the name Pamela for a pivotal character in his epic prose work, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, written in the late 16th century. He just took the Latin words for “all” and “honey” smashed them together and is now regarded as a totally normal name. On the other side my name is from Hebrew and could be 4000 years old

i get the point in the "word count good" take but i think a better way would be to set a specific time to write and use the word count as a loose guideline.

I love how you balanced one hot take to immediately oppose the one that came before

Personally, I'm sick of ppl making reader-inserts these soft little ceramic flowers that will breakdown the moment they're nudged or these stoic killing machines that treat everyone around them like garbage. Is it so difficult making a normal reader insert? Like make them act like an actual person with brains and feelings, not overly exagerated either bruh pls

14:20 for some reason, that reminds me of a post that a father did where he played Frozen dolls with his daughter, and she kept trying to pair Kristoff and Elsa together, and this man just couldn't accept his kid's shio. "no, sweety, Kristoff marries Anna, Elsa doesn't need to get married." And his daughter said "okay so Anna DIES and then Elsa and Kristoff get married!" This llttle girl was devoted to her never-to-be-canon ship and one has to appreciate that.

My own hot take is that friends to enemies to lovers is the superior version of friends to lovers and enemies to lovers. Just something about the building of a friendship that got torn away by differing opinions or conflict that turns into love and still has that simmer of friendship and the spicyness of the enemies to lovers is just *chefs kiss*

For the first person vs third person argument, I tend to choose the third option: third person limited. That way I can focus on the character, share thoughts and feelings, but also give a better description and explanation of what's happening that comes with third person (rather than having a detail-oriented 1st person narrator)

Ah names my favorite argument of the writing space, all names are good in my personal opinion. Though I do prefer if they match the tone just a bit, not as in hallmark romances shouldn't have fantasy names, but as in high-fantasy with basic names makes me laugh every time I see the character.

I personally like "weird" names better for fantasy and even non-fantasy. It helps me remember the character, and makes it easier to look up online. I feel like a lot of writers name their characters names that they'd like to name their kids for some reason? I personally choose really stupid names that I just make up or heard but what matters is that it fits in the end. If a "generic" name is what suits your character ultimately, go for it!

I've wrote fanfics in both first and third person. The first person ones are generally character journals or audio transcripts that tell a tale from the characters perspective and give you a glimpse of 'normal' through their eyes and how messed up thier head is. The third person ones tend to take an over-the-shoulder camera and sometimes looks into the characters mind too, but sometimes, first person can convey the how scewed a characters perspective is better.

8:41 , as someone who watches Miraculous Ladybug, yeah…. There are literally so many ships that fans make work better than what actually happens in the show that I genuinely can’t choose a favorite ship.

I really appreciate your consistent subtle censorship that keeps the meaning of the post/review/etc. It's a refreshing way to get around yt rules without bleeps every minute that detract from the video

1:35 is like. A reading preference and not an actual take on writing. And also I wholeheartedly disagree, nuance is important to some people and others like it simple, but it's not really something you can expect, it's apart of the intrigue. Still a matter of reader opinion tho!

3:37 okay but in general, I HATE the "generic fantasy" naming scheme, especially when naming locations. mfers just mash syllables together if they sound right, but then they all just have the exact same vibe in my head lmao

Personally, I enjoy the Dune approach to names, which is naming the majority of your characters wild shit like Thufir Hawat and Duncan Idaho, and then choosing your main characters’ names to be Jessica and Paul. The worst of both worlds!

honestly i mostly agree with all of these EXCEPT for the one about curse words in fantasy my counterargument? i like saying curse words and its funny to see these people in a totally different world saying them. plus i mainly use curse words in writing for emphasis and it doesnt hit the same to make them say absolute nonsense in place of a curse word. there comes times in writing where familiarity might be better than accuracy, and i feel like that can be one of those times.

"If the character is memorable, the name will be memorable." Love that!!

I used to be in a trans Facebook group and I once saw a trans woman celebrating that she had finally gotten her name changed from Harry to Ellen, especially because her last name was Potter. She wasn’t even named after the character; she was middle-aged. I felt so bad for her. My point is, fantasy names all the way!

An unpopular opinion: Writing in first person pov can add a lot to a story and can be very interesting to read! People shouldn’t put down a book only because it starts with an: "I woke up." And not a "He woke up."

0:40 As a person, who relates to the anyone but relatable characters - agreed. No, AshelyUwU2007AnimeOneLuV, I don't like this grey mouse protag, I like her bff who is the popular girl in class but dead inside.

2:34 There are a SHIT TON of mean girls. there's different levels and most of the time, it's subtly being mean.

3:09 That’s why I love Percy Jackson so much. It feels so organized and well written. It’s not like it’s trying so hard to be fantastical that all these wild made up creatures that have no correlation to one another and these crazy long impossible to pronounce names so it feels like “fantasy”. Everything ties to eachother, and the names are relatively simple and easy to pronounce (with the exclusion of Reyna, but I think Rick confessed her last name was a troll.) The *ONLY* characters with “complicated” names tie in with their background culture… like Sam in the Magnus Chase series, for example. Anyways, in conclusion, this is why I personally think Rick Riordan > every other fantasy author 😍🤞 /hj /lh

7:50 If you just have a list of words and don't know their meanings, yeah that's bad. Don't want to use "shouted" when you meant "whispered," for instance. But word variety is good; I try not to reuse a verb if characters are doing the same sort of thing, at least in a single paragraph. Example of what I mean: Harold inched forward, certain in each moment that he stood at the very edge, and was nearly about to tip over and tumble into the waves, yet as his ponderous march took him inches, then feet, and finally yards beyond what he had expected to be the end of his path, he began to suspect that Janice had misled him. _"Oh, how far you have come,"_ she hummed from everywhere and nowhere. "Spare me your games," Harold breathed, "You have toyed with me for far too long already." _"I have toyed with you for three years to the day,"_ Janice purred, _"but today you are mistaken, I have not misled you, you have transcended the limits of mortals."_ Harold opened his eyes, and, glancing beneath him, saw that indeed, he stood on thin air.

"Look at Harry Potter..." I'd rather not to. Also the one about every story needing conflict. I largely disagree, as someone who writes vague and slice of life fics. Sometimes you don't need conflict. Sometimes you just need two characters to cuddle in some forgotten ruins somewhere deep in the woods and that's okay. Sometimes stories can be about just relaxing and inviting your reader to relax with you without any big problems that need to be resolved. The world out there is too cruel and full of problems already. Let's drink watermelon juice of words together.

5:24 I feel like this one depends on the person. Some people work better with a schedule and a set word count, some people don't.

Honestly, my big thing is I really wish people would stop presenting their writer motivation advice as a one-size-fits-all kind of solution to writer's block. Like yeah, sometimes you need to just sit down and write, and sometimes, you need to give yourself permission to take a break, but what needs to happen at what point for any one person is just going to look different. Writing projects are like relationships: you absolutely want to give it the attention it deserves, but it's not fair to yourself if you drop everything in your life to make it work. It's about finding the balance between those two extremes that works for both parties, and that balance is going to be unique to the person and the project. Like, I'm a person with all kinds of different hobbies and a new title from my favorite game series just came out, so yeah, sometimes I'm gonna take a break from a WIP to go do something else. Sometimes I'm locking myself in my room for days at a time trying to fit all the beats together. And it's working for me, so... The other thing too is like the obsession with finishing projects? It's great if you want to make a goal out of finishing a project, but there's nothing wrong with just...fucking around with an idea for a few hundred words and then flitting off to do the next thing. Honing a skill or participating in a hobby is something that should be enjoyable, so there's nothing wrong with just writing for the sake of writing without putting pressure to have it be a Thing. Visual artists sketch out random ideas without any intention of fleshing them out all the time, and there's nothing wrong with writers doing the same So yeah 👍

I think my favorite pov to read, is 2nd person where the audience is another character in the story. I once read a fanfic that handled this beautifully and I've been craving more ever sense. The amount of insight and words left unsaid to that audience-character created this wonderful tension and desire. It also showed a type of character growth I hadn't read before, where the protag. was communicating with a made up version of this audience-character, but the audience-character wasn't like that made-up version. It led to a lot of breaking down expectations and fantasies that resulted in a healthier, more connected relationship. It was really good.

1:00 It reminds me of something my friend said to me once when I said I feel like not a large amount of people liked the memes I sent in this one meme group chat: “not everyone can relate, but for the people who do, it hits really hard.” If you make a unique and interesting character, there’s gonna be a few readers out there who will just feel this extreme satisfaction of seeing a character who is so relatable to them very specifically.

13:09 Nah don'y think so. Autobiography/biography are a thing. And not so long ago I've read a Russian classic story 'bout the guy who told his story, and that one also didn't have a conflict. So nah

Naming a character is a part of designing the character. I'm not gonna name my characters normal names I heard, I'm gonna fit lore and deep meaning behind it because I like coming up with it.

one of my pet peeves in stories is when a character is described as super smart, but consistently does the worst possible thing or fails to see how their actions will affect something. most of the time it feels like an attempt to make a character an independant hero icon like they don't need any help from someone else because they already know how to do this this and this because x y and z or the author just couldn't think of a better way to further the story besides making the character make the wrong choice

Me and my friend did a friends to lovers to enemy’s to friends to lovers rp and LET ME TELL YOU- No other variation of “enemy’s to lovers or friends to lovers” will ever compare to that dramatic train wreck.

I feel like one of the issues with "fantasy name" vs "normal name" that makes people have so many opinions about it is that making up names for fantasy settings can be surprisingly hard, and what works depends wildly on your setting and what aspects you overall put emphasis on in the story. Like, at one extreme of the scale you have J.R.R. Tolkien; very few if any fantasy writers are going to be quite at the same extreme as he, because linguistics were one of the things he was most interested in, and he created languages and determined the relationships between various languages for his setting with extreme care, and the names reflect that as much as the languages themselves do and there's a very clear logic to them. Obviously most fantasy writers aren't going to quite go to that length, as linguistics isn't the thing they know a lot about or isn't what they care about most in worldbuilding and is not a thing they plan on really exploring or showing in the story, but they want the vibe that this is a world separate of our own, and therefore are hesitant to use real-world names. Depending on the writers, some may assign vague aesthetics/systems to what the names of characters from different nationalities are going to sound like in an attempt to create an illusion of different languages existing in the setting, while others don't, and just go with whatever sounds good for the particular character. Both are valid ways, and both have their pitfalls, with the first that being that it can reach somewhat caricature-like levels in what the names of each different group of people in the setting sounds like, while with the second the issue is that all the names can easily end up sounding a little too similar to a point of being boring and sounding the same as character names from a dozen other fantasy series. Both also run the risk of the author giving characters names that end up being complex, unpronounceable, just kind of silly, or otherwise just ones where you can tell the author thinks the names are cooler than they are. But just making up names that sound vaguely fantasyish is the way most fantasy authors go, and it generally works fine as long as you have the patience to think about it a little bit Then there's the people that, for one reason or another, prefer to use real-world names, or ones that are made-up but clearly imitate the sound of names in some real world language. It's a pretty solid way to go, if you can commit to it - your fantasy character can be called Liam or Trisha, and if all the other characters (or at least the majority of the ones from the region where the character comes from) have names that also appear commonly in English, no one's going to blink an eye. However, mixing real and fantasy names becomes trickier. You can pull it off if you do it right, and you can pull it off both in serious fantasy (like A Song of Ice and Fire) and in more comedic stuff (such as Discworld; but considering that many of the Discworld books have stories that comment on British society and culture and some are set in places that have strong British elements, it sometimes works better than character names that aren't supposed to sound like English at all would), but in serious fantasy it may take more thinking on how to combine fantasy names and normal ones in a way that works, since it is more likely that people point out that Liam doesn't really sound like the name of a fantasy hero if he's standing next to a character called Raeialdan. Also, please, for the love of god, if you don't want to use quite real names but want to imitate the sound of some language and you don't speak that language, double check whether the names mean anything in that language. There's nothing that puts you out of the story quite like the famous ancient magical dwarven dagger being called Onion Valley because the author apparently wanted the name to sound Scandinavian but didn't feel like checking a Swedish dictionary... To be fair, probably practically any possible combination of letters is going to mean something silly or rude in _some_ language, but if you're striving for it to sound like a certain language while not actually being that language, at least check that you didn't accidentally make it mean something silly in that particular language, okay? But really, practically anything will work in terms of names, as long as you put a little bit of thought and effort into it. Try to pick a method for your story and then try to be somewhat consistent about sticking to that method. Whether it is crafting conlangs for every single group of people in the story and naming characters by the rules of those conlangs, or whether it's just using English names in your epic fantasy world, or whether it's making things up without going off the deep end with actual languages, as long as you're more or less consistent about it, the reader will get used to it and it will become just how things are in that story/setting. (Certainly, if I hadn't been exposed to superheroes since I was like 5 and I heard about them now for the first time, I would think that most superhero names sound rather silly. But give it a little bit and I would get used to it that that's how things work in superhero stories. It's the same with fantasy. You get used to a certain story's way of doing things very quickly, if it's at least mostly consistent about it) Some readers may have preferences, but readers may have preferences about literally everything, so it's not worth stressing about all that much.

"She looked in the mirror and saw a short dark haired boy. With a sad resignation to something she knew but hoped she was somehow wrong about, her stomach sank into an emptiness. His eyes lowered with hers. His hand moving with hers to knock the lengths of hair over their face" Inspired by put your own spin on the mirror cliché

If your characters have to physically touch each other to show the audience that they’re in a romantic relationship, then it is a ✨very poorly written romance✨ Take Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase for example. Even when they’ve been dating for a short time, you know that they are head over heels for each other through the ways they talk, joke, and advise each other. And through their acts of service for each other. Romance stories should be an extension of the rule “show not tell”.

6:55 I personally love the idea of starting a story with a text excerpt. It allows you to get a jumpstart on a piece that just has not been working for you. Just this week I started one with the dialogue prompt: "How's your day going?" "Well, no one's died." "Those are your standards?" Then I realised that it ties in well with a small idea I'd been holding in the back of my mind, but just could not find a good way to start it; this prompt let me. Sure, some of them are a bit restricting and specific, but that's only some. There are at least double that let the writer take it in whatever direction they want. And, hey, there's probably people out there who prefer the more rigid form of some. It's also interesting to see how different people might interpret or interact with these prompts. I, for example, dislike stories (or at least writing such stories) that begin with a piece of dialogue, so I added a line before the first part. These prompts are suggestion and stimuli to get your ideas flowing, and no one's saying you _have_ to keep it all exactly how you saw it. Or if your issue is that you just don't like the ones you've seen, then come up with your own. A song lyric, something you overheard, a sentence you wish had been written differently. We find inspiration everywhere, and the people coming up with these excerpt prompts would've, too. I fully understand not wanting to use prompts like these, but you can't get pissy at other people for doing so.

oo, the hopeful ending one got on my nerves. nuance & hopeful endings are great imo! in general, i love stories about hope, which is why im an avid hopepunk fan. i personally dont care if their happily ever after is shown, just that there's hope for better days and that they can get their happy ending. i can also kind of agree with the enemies to lovers one? like yeah, it probably wouldn't work in real life. but that's what fiction is for! also, i honestly feel like enemies to lovers works way better in a more homoerotic way than just a straight guy being mean to this girl and they eventually kiss (i'm a gay man, btw). its especially good when its "i have a crush on you but i have to much internalized homophobia to realize it so im just somehow mad at you for Some Reason and you help me accept who i am".

I love Enemy’s to lovers, it’s so fun, cuz you get two charters who hate one another, in a situation where they have to interact, and then gaining a strained ‘ alliance’ as they start to see the each other as actual people, force to re evaluate their preconceptions in this new awkward and strange ‘friendship’ then feeling make it messy :)

5:30 Damn people like this scare me. You wouldn't tell a painter "Just paint for 10 minutes daily 🥺" cause the painting would go to SHIT. Schedules don't work for everyone. I'm all for trying to write everyday but sometimes you just don't have the idea fully formed yet. So many times I stopped writing because I didn't know how to proceed only to be suddenly struck by something I saw, heard etc. that made me think of a perfect resolution. I'm the type of writer who doesn't touch any work for two months and then whips out 40k words in two weeks, not because I count every word but because I was passionate about it. Making writing something you HAVE to do like an everyday chore sucks all the fun and creative freedom out of it.

On the relatable characters take, I feel like it's a large scale misunderstanding about what a relatable character is. There are a ton of boring white bread protagonists out there for the audience to slot themselves into (ex. Bella Swan). I see this sort of "relatable" character most predominately in mainstream media, where the writer or writing team are trying to making their work marketable. I'm sure that in the fanfiction community the "relatable" and boring character ends up being a level of overcompensation from the writer to show that this character is a normal person. There are tropes where a character like this works, like the Straight Man of a group of wacky individuals who's able to comment on the absurdity and may be a much needed counterbalance to everybody else's antics. At the end of the day though, "interesting" and "relatable" are not on a scale together. What makes a character interesting doesn't make them unrelatable and what makes a character relatable doesn't make them uninteresting. What makes a character relatable isn't how normal they and their life are. It's in the little things, as it always is. It's in staying up late cramming for a big test, only to be seen exhausted the next morning, it's running up and hugging that friend who they haven't seen in years. It's showing them as people, doing what people do. An ancient piece of paper with doodles on it because some kid thousands of years ago got bored with his writing homework is beautifully relatable, because even though we don't live like that ancient child, we see ourselves in such a small action as that. Your audience won't be in the same circumstances as your protagonists (unless you're writing realistic fiction), but when you hit that bit of humanity right, they'll be relatable.

can't wait lol The people in premiere chat were amazing, we just had a great time. Glad I didn't miss this

10:10 I'M SO GLAD THE OP SAID THIS. I don't like the trope either in the fact that most people do it with rivals and it makes zero sense. These two go on about how much they hate eachother it doesn't make any sense for them to get together after yelling and screaming at echother everyday. At that point it's just toxic, and the rivals that are shipped usually show *why* they hate eachother so much. My only exception is when it's an already established relationship (like before they choose sides) and then they realize they're much happier being together then fighting all the time and keeping things a secret. The side the choose isn't positive or negative, it's eachother.

I don't think it's that controversial, But I see nothing wrong with putting something like () in my writing then "save as draft" and go on with my life until I come up with the perfect word or phrase to put instead of the perentacese. that way I don't torture myself while being stuck on what is sometimes a single word and lose time that I could spend writing down the story idea that will disappear in a few seconds.

2:15 you are because female heroes is rare enough but female heroes who aren't super masc "I don't need no man" types are even rarer and girls are allowed to be whoever, including feminine girls who are into boys and kick ass.

I'm only this far in, but the "mean girls" take around 2:35, coming from an educator of almost a decade, is probably the most insightful thing I'll hear today, The "teaching kids to be better then their parents" is a huge issue and something that needs to be addressed and talked about more. Edit: I just got to 4:23 and yes! Whatever name you want to go by and feel comfortable using is a valid name. In fiction and real life. And if someone can't respect that irl, they probably aren't good for you.

I really agree with the infodumps comment! Not because I think you can do whatever just because a famous author did it, but because I actually LOVE infodumps, as a reader. I LIVE for those long descriptions of a landscape or a creature or a history. And I can't be the only one, since lore compendiums are basically their own genre now. The hate for infodumps probably comes from poorly-written infodumps (some writers are just better at dialogue) or infodumps that are, frankly, about something that simply isn't interesting (while I love infodumps, I don't enjoy an infodump about an incredibly bland, generic world).

8:36 I will fully agree with this seeing characters being awkward dorks is adorable and I love it

1:37 Okok hear me out so in a fantasy, nobody would be speaking English. Thus, the writing is translated from whatever language to English. Why, then, would the curse words not be?

I normally don't like writing or reading things in first person, with the only exception being diary type works. the only first person fic i've written was called "The Diary of Liam Hill" who was trapped in the backrooms for a decade. i... i have yet to upload it and it's been completed since october... Edit: i posted it :)

That last one was unexpectedly BASED tho

*Relatable Characters* I'm mixed on that one. I feel like the reason why we get bland, boring, quaker oats-like characters is because people tend to think that in order to create a relatable character, they have to be likable. Bad/Morally grey characters can't be relatable in their eyes, and that means if anyone relates to them, they're bad people. That's why some stories that are black and white feel so boring. Just because you relate to one small aspect of a character doesn't make you a supervillain.

My writing pet peeve is when people obsess over subverting Clichés but then...don't do anything with those subversions. Like, apparently it's not good enough to have scenario where the protagonist's parents die and they mourn over it. That's a Cliché, and Clichés are _evil!_ So, in order to avoid this, some writers will make a point to say their protagonist is a hardass and didn't mourn theur parents deaths at all, or maybe their parents were jerks so they're not worth mourning, or _maybe_ the whole event was a momentary fake-out death and the parents are perfectly fine in the next scene with no concequences whatsoever! And that's SO BORING. The problem is that, when you are super focussed on subverting Clichés, you can often get so caught up in the mere _idea_ of being subversive that you forget to give your story substance! Yeah, sure, the protagonists parents die (or don't die), but so what? If the protagonist simply _doesn't care_ or if it's a fake out death, then what was the point of the scene? Why does it even exist? Just to be subversive? Well, sad to say, but _just_ being subversive isn't very interesting. You know what _is_ interesting? Consequences and Reveals. Say the protagonist is a jerk and doesn't mourn their parents death; this Reveals that they aren't very empathetic. Are you going to explore this character flaw further? Is this establishing the starting point for their upcoming character development? Will they eventually learn empathy? Or will they develop ways to work around their flaw? Will they turn villainous? Or will they remain a hero who must constantly suffer Concequences because they literally can't empathise with the dead? Now _that_ would be interesting! Here's the basic truth of things: No matter how many people denounce them, Clichés are basic building blocks of a story. They're tools to be used! That's why they're so common and even popular! If you are going to subvert a Cliché then you have to make it _mean something!_ Don't just use subversions as meta gags that have no concequences on the actual story! Do something interesting with it, damn it!!

Mine is that all Characters don't need a tragic backstory. Sure, You can have a Main character whose parents are dead and their village was burned down yada yadaya , but You don't need to do that for all your Characters. Maybe The Main character 's bestie is a normal Guy with normal life and living parents that likes to Hangout with them because they think the back sad story character has a much more interesting life or because they share same hobby of collecting weird rocks, or just because they just share the dame values Even with their massively diferent upbringings. This also leads to interesting interactions like jealousy for the other's life or the other way around.

My personal hot take is that predictable stories are GOOD and should be so. I like catching snippets of foreshadowing in the stories I read and forming a theory on the futures of the characters, I like having my suspicions confirmed at the end- it gives me a sense of satisfaction, like, the things the story has been building up to have finally been brought to light. I like predicting plot twists because they get me exited about the rest of the story and keep me reading.

Irredeemable villains that you still feel a little bad for is good

I think having normal curse words in fantasy is funny! Coming up with original profanity is cool but if you don’t do it well it ends up standing out and interrupts the flow of reading