I just want to put something out there: Everything I write is deeply personal.
Every single word. I mean yeah, there are times when I stare at the page like what the fuck am I even saying right now? But everything that comes out is a part of me, in some way. I'm not saying that I agree with everything my characters say/do, but all of it is just so personal to me.
I was just thinking about my stories & I realized that I just love the ones I'm writing now because I connect with them, and in turn so do my readers.
Okay, so very few of us are raging Necromancers being hunted by a loony who is the resurrected wife of our teacher, but it's the things she experiences.
Muffy feels alone. She feels excluded. She feels burdened. She doesn't know how to communicate with people. She longs for normalcy. She longs for feeling light & free.
That's something we ALL feel. So I think that's why people connect with her so much. People keep telling me she's weak, but it's that weakness that makes her such a realistic character. That and how she tries to rationalize everything with her quirkiness.
I mean she tries to push on & to me that's strength. Emotional strength. So yeah, she doesn't have the balls to go face Tempest, not really, but I think we all feel for her. I definitely do. The Imperi's Deception is so deeply personal, especially in the last couple of chapters because it documents her struggle. & you can see her losing herself.
To me, that's far more important, and more interesting, than her love interests.
(I'm using Muffy as the example right now because of the three people who read this, I'm sure they're ID fans. That's basically my entire fanbase)
In the end, literature shows us the human struggle. It shows us our weakness. It shows us who we desire to be. It reveals our deepest fears and gives a name to nameless emotions.
People who connect to books do so because they have the ability and the desire to reach out to someone, even if it's someone only they can see. Books, I think, are just as personal for the reader as the writer.
So when people comment about how they don't want Muffy to go crazy and they don't want this or that to happen to her and ___ character, I love it. It means I'm portraying characters you WANT to root for.
But I think even in her darkest moments, we can all connect to her. I think the hardest chapter for me to write was Chapter 21 (if you've read it, you know why, if not: you'll see). It was just so much emotion. So TNS set everything up. ID is showing you the emotional development and how crazy she's feeling. & ID is so much more personal.
Like I said, everything I write is personal, but lately I've felt like it's more so than usual. Because I've been able to make a connection to these characters and bring their emotions to life.
Like Sage from WT, she is just your average teenage girl in the end. All this stuff happens to her, but I think she is probably the most relatable character in that book because she is facing something few of us want to admit exist: our inner demons. I don't want to say she's depressed per se, but she is definitely progressing towards that as the plot opens up.
& literally everything I write, I realize later how much of a connection it makes to my life.
I realized one of my friends is not who I wanted to pretend she was. I mean I guess I knew who she was, but I just wanted to pretend like we were good friends. But the fact is, we're not. We have shallow things in common. We talk about shallow things. & when we try to open up, it just seems so awkward and uncomfortable and foreign and I think we're both starting to feel how much of a failure it is.
& it's making me relate to what happened to Ari in Band Camp so much more. The fact is, we're two people going in different directions, wanting different things, and being different people. & that works for some people.
But lately she's annoyed me. and I'm pretty sure I'm starting to annoy her. It's only a matter of time before we drift apart.
& if you haven't noticed this yet, I'll let you in on the secret just because you're cool, every single protaganist of mine has something wrong with a relationship with a family member, usually a parent, occasionally a sibling.
Muffy & her mom
Muffy and her inferiority complex with Eddie.
Gwen & her parents
Fawn's
(another character you shall see in the next chapter)
Ari and her sister
Ari only has her mother
Sage's relationship with her mother/her relationship with her father
Alec and his father/mother dynamic
Ace's parents are dead, but there comes a few revelations
Iyanna's relationship with her father & mother
Ben and his dad.
Ben and his mother
Ben's relationship with Bailey
Lillyana's relationship with her father
So yeah. I don't think author's sit there and put thoughts of allegory and metaphor and all the stuff every single English teacher tries to make it out to be, but I think each one has a tell.
& the best part is. It's never redundant. I realized halfway through writing BC/while I was working on a chapter of WT how messed up each character of mine's relationship with their family is. I was talking to a friend on Wattpad and she told me she hadn't even noticed, but now that she thought of it, it was true.
The dynamic changes with each character, but it's still there. I'm sure there are other things, but I personally haven't noticed it. Other than I always have the asshole, archetypal character, who is much less of an asshole than they seem. The Haymitch or Jace Lightwood.
Like I said, everything I write is personal. Whether intentionally or not, it is. But maybe that's why so many people love TNS/ID. I keep wondering about it.
Is it the boys? The Dragons? The Magic? The quirky main character?
& it's probably a lot of those elements too, but I think--whether you realize it or not--it's the connection you have. Maybe it's your relationship with your mother. Maybe it's your sibling. Maybe it's how you feel around your friends. Or just inisde of your head. Maybe it's Muffy's attitude. Maybe it's her self-esteem problems
It could be any single one.
So, my challenge to you, is when you write/read, notice the connection you have with a specific character. And think to yourself why?
I connect with the mean, bitchy, hardened Dally-like (I will one day meet SE Hinton and make her explain to me his fate and how it was possibly justifiable) characters. I never really thought about why but it's their internal struggle.
So when I identified with Braeden more than Tristan in Paladin (fantastic book. On Wattpad. Read it!) I was surprised. But then I realized that even though Tristan is the archetypal character I normally love more, it was Braeden because of his struggle. It didn't matter that he was sweet and didn't have fabulously sarcastic one-liners. It had nothing to do with that. It was his thoughts and his self-disgust, and just his all around struggle with dealing with his inner demon (both literally&metaphorically).
Same goes for Abby from Freelander/Ewah (I just keep recommending all these good books. Are you writing them down? Also on Wattpad. Check it!) who also happens to be Muffy's soulfriend. She's so fundamentally normal. Like she's completely realistic and the kind of person you want to be your best friend. & you connect with her. Over her self-esteem, her sibling relationships, her middle-child syndrome (which even if you're not a middle child you totally suffer from if you have siblings), literally everything. And how she used her humor and pop culture references to rationalize everything. She's the kind of character that sticks with you.
So there you have it. That was really longwinded and unnecessary and kind of ranty, but whatevah. It's how my brain works. & seriously. Whether you realize it or not. Art (in any form) is personal. Books, movies, sculptures, paintings, sketches, music --everything is personal.
So when a movie isn't good; the characters were probably terrible. Cause honestly, a good character can carry a sucky plot, but a great plot can't carry sucky characters.
Okay. end rant.
But also, keep that in mind if you're dishing out constructive criticism to people on Wattpad. EVERYTHING is personal. Even if we don't realize it.
Okay now I'm done for real.
Every single word. I mean yeah, there are times when I stare at the page like what the fuck am I even saying right now? But everything that comes out is a part of me, in some way. I'm not saying that I agree with everything my characters say/do, but all of it is just so personal to me.
I was just thinking about my stories & I realized that I just love the ones I'm writing now because I connect with them, and in turn so do my readers.
Okay, so very few of us are raging Necromancers being hunted by a loony who is the resurrected wife of our teacher, but it's the things she experiences.
Muffy feels alone. She feels excluded. She feels burdened. She doesn't know how to communicate with people. She longs for normalcy. She longs for feeling light & free.
That's something we ALL feel. So I think that's why people connect with her so much. People keep telling me she's weak, but it's that weakness that makes her such a realistic character. That and how she tries to rationalize everything with her quirkiness.
I mean she tries to push on & to me that's strength. Emotional strength. So yeah, she doesn't have the balls to go face Tempest, not really, but I think we all feel for her. I definitely do. The Imperi's Deception is so deeply personal, especially in the last couple of chapters because it documents her struggle. & you can see her losing herself.
To me, that's far more important, and more interesting, than her love interests.
(I'm using Muffy as the example right now because of the three people who read this, I'm sure they're ID fans. That's basically my entire fanbase)
In the end, literature shows us the human struggle. It shows us our weakness. It shows us who we desire to be. It reveals our deepest fears and gives a name to nameless emotions.
People who connect to books do so because they have the ability and the desire to reach out to someone, even if it's someone only they can see. Books, I think, are just as personal for the reader as the writer.
So when people comment about how they don't want Muffy to go crazy and they don't want this or that to happen to her and ___ character, I love it. It means I'm portraying characters you WANT to root for.
But I think even in her darkest moments, we can all connect to her. I think the hardest chapter for me to write was Chapter 21 (if you've read it, you know why, if not: you'll see). It was just so much emotion. So TNS set everything up. ID is showing you the emotional development and how crazy she's feeling. & ID is so much more personal.
Like I said, everything I write is personal, but lately I've felt like it's more so than usual. Because I've been able to make a connection to these characters and bring their emotions to life.
Like Sage from WT, she is just your average teenage girl in the end. All this stuff happens to her, but I think she is probably the most relatable character in that book because she is facing something few of us want to admit exist: our inner demons. I don't want to say she's depressed per se, but she is definitely progressing towards that as the plot opens up.
& literally everything I write, I realize later how much of a connection it makes to my life.
I realized one of my friends is not who I wanted to pretend she was. I mean I guess I knew who she was, but I just wanted to pretend like we were good friends. But the fact is, we're not. We have shallow things in common. We talk about shallow things. & when we try to open up, it just seems so awkward and uncomfortable and foreign and I think we're both starting to feel how much of a failure it is.
& it's making me relate to what happened to Ari in Band Camp so much more. The fact is, we're two people going in different directions, wanting different things, and being different people. & that works for some people.
But lately she's annoyed me. and I'm pretty sure I'm starting to annoy her. It's only a matter of time before we drift apart.
& if you haven't noticed this yet, I'll let you in on the secret just because you're cool, every single protaganist of mine has something wrong with a relationship with a family member, usually a parent, occasionally a sibling.
Muffy & her mom
Muffy and her inferiority complex with Eddie.
Gwen & her parents
Fawn's
(another character you shall see in the next chapter)
Ari and her sister
Ari only has her mother
Sage's relationship with her mother/her relationship with her father
Alec and his father/mother dynamic
Ace's parents are dead, but there comes a few revelations
Iyanna's relationship with her father & mother
Ben and his dad.
Ben and his mother
Ben's relationship with Bailey
Lillyana's relationship with her father
So yeah. I don't think author's sit there and put thoughts of allegory and metaphor and all the stuff every single English teacher tries to make it out to be, but I think each one has a tell.
& the best part is. It's never redundant. I realized halfway through writing BC/while I was working on a chapter of WT how messed up each character of mine's relationship with their family is. I was talking to a friend on Wattpad and she told me she hadn't even noticed, but now that she thought of it, it was true.
The dynamic changes with each character, but it's still there. I'm sure there are other things, but I personally haven't noticed it. Other than I always have the asshole, archetypal character, who is much less of an asshole than they seem. The Haymitch or Jace Lightwood.
Like I said, everything I write is personal. Whether intentionally or not, it is. But maybe that's why so many people love TNS/ID. I keep wondering about it.
Is it the boys? The Dragons? The Magic? The quirky main character?
& it's probably a lot of those elements too, but I think--whether you realize it or not--it's the connection you have. Maybe it's your relationship with your mother. Maybe it's your sibling. Maybe it's how you feel around your friends. Or just inisde of your head. Maybe it's Muffy's attitude. Maybe it's her self-esteem problems
It could be any single one.
So, my challenge to you, is when you write/read, notice the connection you have with a specific character. And think to yourself why?
I connect with the mean, bitchy, hardened Dally-like (I will one day meet SE Hinton and make her explain to me his fate and how it was possibly justifiable) characters. I never really thought about why but it's their internal struggle.
So when I identified with Braeden more than Tristan in Paladin (fantastic book. On Wattpad. Read it!) I was surprised. But then I realized that even though Tristan is the archetypal character I normally love more, it was Braeden because of his struggle. It didn't matter that he was sweet and didn't have fabulously sarcastic one-liners. It had nothing to do with that. It was his thoughts and his self-disgust, and just his all around struggle with dealing with his inner demon (both literally&metaphorically).
Same goes for Abby from Freelander/Ewah (I just keep recommending all these good books. Are you writing them down? Also on Wattpad. Check it!) who also happens to be Muffy's soulfriend. She's so fundamentally normal. Like she's completely realistic and the kind of person you want to be your best friend. & you connect with her. Over her self-esteem, her sibling relationships, her middle-child syndrome (which even if you're not a middle child you totally suffer from if you have siblings), literally everything. And how she used her humor and pop culture references to rationalize everything. She's the kind of character that sticks with you.
So there you have it. That was really longwinded and unnecessary and kind of ranty, but whatevah. It's how my brain works. & seriously. Whether you realize it or not. Art (in any form) is personal. Books, movies, sculptures, paintings, sketches, music --everything is personal.
So when a movie isn't good; the characters were probably terrible. Cause honestly, a good character can carry a sucky plot, but a great plot can't carry sucky characters.
Okay. end rant.
But also, keep that in mind if you're dishing out constructive criticism to people on Wattpad. EVERYTHING is personal. Even if we don't realize it.
Okay now I'm done for real.
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