artemiderose

[artemiderose]

Asking whether a writer is responsible for what their character is doing is like asking if a person is responsible for what their hand did.

I think the issue was that being responsible for how the events play out was being conflated with being responsible for the act itself or sharing the mindset of the character committing said acts.

[artemiderose]

have you ever even taken a literary class? you seem to think that stories with no dark parts and characters with no negative past experiences are better than anything that has depth. don’t present your opinion as “edgy stories are bad stories pandering to their fan base”, present it as it really is, “i don’t like watching/reading anything remotely upsetting” i love your work but i disagree with your dislike of something that makes stories better.

don’t present your opinion as “edgy stories are bad stories pandering to their fan base”, present it as it really is, “i don’t like watching/reading anything remotely upsetting”

Isn’t that the same sentence? Either way, neither one is actually true.

Here’s the thing, my reductionist friend: I don’t rail against stories that have depth. I rail against a particular kind of insecure edginess where a story doesn’t have anything to say, there’s just a lot of doom and gloom with nothing of substance going on.

Some of my favorite shows (Avatar, Voyager, ect) are ABOUT something. The tone is generally uplifting, but they’re much deeper shows than their tone would imply. I LOVE writing deep stories, it’s why almost everything I write is in the Slice of Life genre because it facilities actual depth the best.

You can’t say that I don’t like unpleasant things happening in a story after literally everything I’ve put all four iterations of Ascentia through, or what I did to Scars!Valithria and Suzu. 

Have you met me? I am an extremely cruel writer.

The problem we’re having these days is that a lot of stories are taking shortcuts to give off the idea of depth to an undiscerning (or uncaring) audience. A lot of people are VERY insecure about the animation industry’s position in “The Discourse” and really want it to be taken seriously as a media that adults can enjoy.

This goal has actually been largely achieved by Pixar. Pixar movies, especially films like Wall-E, Finding Nemo/Dory, Inside Out and Toy Story are actually about really heavy subject matter. But they LOOK like kiddie movies and so that’s not good enough.

That insecure mindset doesn’t want to have meaningful discussion. It just wants the superficial trappings. Blood, violence, vaguely gesturing to lore as a substitute for a meaty story, grand adventure with high stakes but no payoff. These are people who use the music track of The Last Agni Kai as a sign that it “means something” rather than the conclusions of the character arcs involved. The kind of people who claim Teen Titans was this “super mature show” because Raven had red eyes that one time and ignore the 90% silly comedy happening in it.

The end result are shows that are joyless, soulless AND malnutritious. There was just an epic score and some black paint somewhere and that registers as “deep and meaningful” to some terminally dense people.

Like, you see this?

This is writing and design shorthand for “PLEASE TAKE US SERIOUSLY!” And if you have to beg to be taken seriously, you didn’t deserve it in the first place.

Just making Rapunzel look like a Shiny Pokemon that Game Freak couldn’t be bothered trying with tricked a lot of people into thinking that this was some deep and important scene, rather than just the lazy “reverse power” we’ve seen a thousand times.

I’m reminded of when Bronies spent a long time theorizing about the “Elements of Disharmony” and were legit disappointed when they were told that was never happening. They really thought it would make the story deeper, when in reality it was such an assembly line, lazy trope that no self-respecting producer would allow it.

You ask me if I ever took a literary class, but your entire opinion on storytelling is still deadlocked in a 14 year-old “edgy fanfiction” mindset where it’s less about being deep than it is about feeling “epic” in the most bland and predictable way possible.

Just killing a bunch of people or bringing in dark magic isn’t deep.

Inside Out was deep. Beowulf was not.

[artemiderose]

Writerly shit I learned this week #1

It’s okay if you don’t know who you’re writing for. The market is so saturated with the same tropes and basic plot structures that we’ve been conditioned into thinking that if our work doesn’t neatly fit the conventions of a genre, it won’t have an audience. But it’s okay to break the rules.

I’ll be the first to give you full permission to go buckwild writing that weird, niche story you’ve had in your head for years that you just can’t place whether it belongs in YA magical realism or adult litfic or if there’s even a genre that exists for it.

I can guarantee you if you enjoy what you’re writing, there’s an audience out there with similar interests who will enjoy reading it. Write the story in your heart for now, you can figure out the rest later on.

#amwriting #writing advice

[artemiderose]

This is from months ago but I’m still proud of it so here’s my speshul protagonist child chillin’ in her garden totally not plotting the murder of those who’ve wronged her >w>

#art #my art #anime art #amwriting #artists on tumblr #fantasy art #fantasy #oc #original character

[artemiderose]

So, I’ve always struggled with killing my characters. I always become really attached to them, and the idea of killing them always felt like if my own children would die. I was really self-conscious over this fact, as various voices on the internet often said that stories where no one dies was bad since they became predictable and lacked stakes. A while ago I tried to force myself to overcome my objections by killing of one of my favorite characters. (1)

I really didn’t like this but tried justifying it to myself with “she’s completing her character arc by sacrificing herself to save her friends”. In the end I couldn’t go through with it and scrapped that entire storyline. Instead I started writing about her growing up (she’s a young child which would have made killing her off even more horrifying, I’m so ashamed), going from being the little sister of the group to being more of the group’s leader and eventually finding a girlfriend.

I am so much happier with this storyline! Still, there is that nagging voice in the back of my mind that says that I have to kill some characters sooner or later unless I want my story to be bad, so thank you for shutting that voice up. There is this idea going around that stories, especially those that are fantasy or sci-fi HAVE to have character deaths in order to be good, I’m so glad that you are speaking out against it.

YAAAAAAS!

#damn i had the same exact experience am i on the same wavelength as this anon #writing advice

[artemiderose]

A portrait of Nodoka, a revised version of the first character I ever made 💚

She was kind of like an imaginary friend of sorts for me growing up, but given she’s a masterfully manipulative thief notorious for her holier-than-thou attitude and brutality, I don’t think she made for a great role model XD

#art #my art #amwriting #artists on tumblr #amwritingfantasy #portrait #fantasyart #fantasy #oc #original character

[artemiderose]

Been awhile since I last posted, December was insane! Here’s a portrait of Circe, one of my oldest and most beloved characters. 💖 Maybe I’ll start posting character bios or summaries of their stories or something along with my attempts at these semi-realistic portraits?

#art #myart #amwriting #artists on tumblr #albinism #fantasyart #albino #amwritingfantasy #oc #original character

[artemiderose]

In this pretentious video-essay that took me an unreasonably long time to edit, I refute this weird idea I keep seeing floating around that non-marginalized writers aren’t allowed to write marginalized characters.

I hope this helps anyone who’s been struggling with all the mixed messages out there!

#amwriting #writing #authortube #ownvoices #diversity #writing advice #writeblr

[artemiderose]

I literally only have one rule in my writing and it is this:

No matter what I put my characters through, they make it. They get to make it to the end of the story and have everything work out and be ok.

Because that’s the story I need. So it’s the kind I write.

[artemiderose]

"Own voices" is a great movement. However, I'm a bit lost. I want my books to have diversity. However, many of my friends have had great books (says the agent) declined because the character is Asian but she is a white female. As I am cis gendered, white, female, heterosexual, can I write characters who are not? I'm getting mixed signals. Am I simply restricted to my POV characters between white male/female?

This is such a big conversation that I see endless contributions to daily, so I can only scratch the surface. Also, I am a huge champion for both the own voices movement and the diverse books movement, but I am also very annoyed and a level ten done with some of the ways these movements have manifested into the online book community, and now general publishing industry. So that’s the bias we’re going into this response with. 

If you feel like you’re getting mixed signals, it’s because, well, you are. This is a conversation that many people feel very strongly about, and I mean, there wouldn’t be much conversation if everyone who felt strongly felt the same. I’m also a big supporter of own voice narratives, but I do not believe writers cannot write outside of their own identities. The publishing industry is pretty strung about this right now, because they want to avoid negative controversy while this is a hot topic, which is probably why that agent said that. 

I do think a lot of the people saying you shouldn’t write outside your lane are coming from a place where they’ve seen bad representation and want to avoid it. And that’s fair. There is some pretty bad representation out there, and I understand wanting to prevent more of it. But you also can’t assume what kind of representation will be in a book without reading it, or that representation will be bad simply because the lived experience isn’t there. Yet, people do. Oh, they do. And they will.

But those people are not the entire side of the equation. Many others just want to support good representation. And yeah, we love own voices stories, but we also just want to support writers to write diverse casts no matter what. 

I think a lot of the ‘you shouldn’t write outside your lane’ is coming with a lot of misconceptions about what literature is. Not that these things are being consciously added to this discussion, but they’re emerging. Some of the things literature is getting boiled down to in these conversations, seem to be:

1. Literature is authoritative

2. Literature is morally pure

3. Literature is a safe space

4. Literature is about the author, not the work

5. Literature is based on lived experience

When, if you ask me, my thoughts on these points:

1. Hello no. Literature is not authoritative. Something being written in a book doesn’t make it true or right in any way. You do not have to listen, you do not have to agree, and literature isn’t asking you to. A novel is not a textbook.  Literature is not meant to persuade, or really even to teach, it is only meant to show. It is meant to show humanity in an authentic way. Read the news. What happens in the world is not always right. 

2. Off the first point, literature is not meant to be morally pure, and not meant to teach us morals either. Something happening in book does not make it morally right. This has never been the case, but this is how literature is being viewed a lot these days. Something being in a book does not condone it. Awful things happen in the world. And as writers, we portray the sad or awful truths we see and feel and witness because it’s how we capture the human struggle against these things, how we make sense of the human reason for doing these things no matter how twisted or awful. 

3. Literature is, never has, and never should be, a safe space. Some literature might be, that might be the purpose of certain individual books, but as a whole, literature as a form is not a safe space. It’s a capturing of humanity in all its forms and facets, and you don’t need to look deep into humanity to know many of those facets aren’t good. Literature has never been meant to comfort. Some books will be, but as a whole, that’s not what literature is. Some books want you to feel challenged, or disturbed, or uncomfortable, and the freedom of literature is that the author can push you to feel a range of things, and comfort is only one possibility. 

4. In a well written work, you forget the author is there. You are only thinking about the work, the story, the characters. Someone writing from an own voice perspective can probably get there easier, but if someone is writing from a perspective they’ve never experienced can get there all the same, why close the book afterwards and then make it about who the author is instead of the story they created? Literature is art and it is free, and the fact of the matter is that anyone can write about anyone and any situation. If they do a respectful job of it, I personally don’t care if it’s informed by their personal experience. 

5. Literature is based on felt experience, not lived experience. Sometimes felt experience is felt because it is also lived. Sometimes, it’s just felt by empathy. Fiction can be based on the author, but by definition, what it is, is unreal. Invented. And that should include the possibility to write about anyone. Writing someone different from yourself is one of the greatest exercises in empathy there is. It makes you see through someone else’s eyes. I do not want to encourage writers not to empathize. 

Now we’re going to get controversial (ha like we haven’t already) because let’s talk about some times I wrote “outside of my lane.”

Last semester I handed in a story about a Thai boy, the story was set in Bangkok, and I didn’t want it to be about culture initially, but in the end I couldn’t write the story without writing about cultural appropriation and the effects of tourism as well, because then the story wouldn’t be authentic to its characters and setting. That wasn’t conscious intent, but those themes emerged through what the story was. During that workshop, someone said she felt the story itself was cultural appropriation because as a principle writers shouldn’t write outside their culture. This had nothing to do with the story itself or how well written it was, and the commenter was also a white Canadian like myself. This was just principle, said at the end of a workshop where everyone agreed that this was a pretty darn respectful representation of a culture and a character, clearly well researched and written with empathy, and one that touched on some important topics. And I understand why she made that comment, but I also can’t support “this story is wrong based on who wrote it” because the story was just about the story, not about me.

Maybe I shouldn’t write about being an impoverished teenager in Bangkok, because as many would say, “it’s not my story to tell.” And yeah, those themes, that culture, of course they’re not mine.  But that story is. The specifics of the story are. The characters are. The protagonist, Sunan, might be so different from me in all ways, but he’s still mine. He was still written from my heart, not anyone else’s. And I definitely can’t write Thailand as well as someone from Thailand, but only I can write Sunan. 

That was my mantra while writing that story. I knew I couldn’t capture an entire culture that I am not from, so I just needed to focus on capturing this one person, this one character, as genuinely as I could. 

So here’s what I want to say about this idea that by writing Sunan I’m “stealing a voice.” Sunan does belong to me. His culture doesn’t, in any way, but he does because I created him. Him belonging to me isn’t taking ownership over his culture, though. And yes, that story was thematically about cultural appropriation (how ironic), but this idea that by writing about Thailand or this theme, I’m in some way claiming ownership over them? I don’t agree with it.

If you don’t write your story, it dies. Even if it’s not coming from an own voice perspective, you can’t leave your story for someone with felt experience to write. Because a story is a specific, individual thing. It’s not a large, vague thematic thing. That’s why I don’t agree with the idea that a story can be not yours to tell. No one else can write your story but you. Yes, theoretically if someone else with the felt experience had your idea, and thought of your characters, and managed to think of the exact same story, they could write it better. But they can’t, because no one has that idea except you. So if you don’t say these words, no one will ever say them. You can’t outsource your story to someone with ‘authority’.

Writing about something is just a way of speaking. Speaking is sometimes authoritative, but it’s often not, and it’s the same as writing. Some tries to be authoritative, but fiction rarely is, and as a form sure isn’t. It’s often just part of a conversation. Conversations are what teach people and help them learn about other people and expand their minds to new idea. And writing is the same. Writing this story isn’t a contribution to this conversation that says “listen to me, I’m right.” It just says “these are the thoughts and emotions I have.”

By writing that story, I wasn’t saying “I’m an authority on the idea of cultural appropriation and the global effects of tourism.” No, of course not. I’m just saying, “Hey world, this is my contribution to a conversation about these topics.” Is it stealing a voice? It’s not like myself and a Thai author both wrote a story, we submitted to the same contest, the stories were either of equal quality or the other was better, and yet mine was picked as the winner. No one was prevented from writing anything by myself writing that story. All that happened was that I learned a lot about Thailand by doing all that research, I reflected critically on my own role as a tourist, and I empathized deeply with someone who lives a completely different life from mine. 

Now don’t get me wrong, these things happen in publishing. Publishing houses do have quotas for diverse books and sometimes they’re filled by non-own voice stories that knock out the own voice stories. But the only way to challenge that is to make it known that more diverse books are wanted, and that is to keep writing them, so publishing companies see they don’t need to have a quota because the demand is that high.

I understand why that story was so controversial, and why my professor cautioned me that it might be difficult to publish because magazines will be scared of controversy, but I still don’t think I should be barred from writing it. As well, there are going to be other stories where this isn’t as much an issue. Culture was an intrinsic part of that story and couldn’t be written without it, but I’ve also written a short story where the entire cast is black but that’s not what the story is about. It’s a story about a boy taking care of his sister, but this detail informs their character descriptions and pretty much nothing else, so there was no controversy whatsoever about this when people read the story. If the novel your friend had rejected falls under this category, I’d be quite upset if it was rejected just for that reason, but don’t expect all agents to feel that way.

My stance on diversity is that it’s okay to write from a perspective that is not your own, as long a) it is researched, informed, and respectful, and b) that we consider the entire pool of stories, not just this one story. There needs to be own voice stories and non-own voice stories. For example, if all the stories about trans characters were written by cis authors, that would be a problem, but if we had stories about trans characters by both trans authors and cis authors, that would be okay because then there’s no monopolization, the non-own voice stories aren’t smothering an avenue they can’t speak to from lived experience. But with both, they’re just speaking in a conversation with own voice authors as well. 

My TL;DR is that anyone should be able to write anyone as long as it’s done with empathy, research, and respect. 

[artemiderose]

Do you think there's a limit to who can write certain characters regarding diversity? I want to change some of my characters' backstories but I don't want to overstep, especially when it comes to portraying ones with disabilities.

Read a few books on the subject you want to portray and you won’t have that problem.

[artemiderose]

This brings to mind an incident where a writer friend of a writer friend started getting on me for making my villain a racist douchenozzle. I-- what-- yes, he’s “problematic”. Did you go deaf and blind during the bit where the protagonist immediately voiced a desire to keelhaul him??

[artemiderose]

[artemiderose]

Reblog if I can send you a lyric of a song to your inbox....and you tell me which of your OCs fits that lyric!

#please do!

[artemiderose]

Mon Cher Martyr: Lolita except with actual consequences, also trans runaway princess Deadpool throws shade at YA romance tropes for 10 pages.

A Lost One’s Perdition (or whatever I end up titling it): Three gay autistic orphans attempt an insurrection, until the repressed gay queen realizes the asthmatic one that wants to burn everything is the kid of her dead gay childhood sweetheart and adopts her - weird subtext ensues.

The Inferno’s Courtroom: The chick from Everything, Everything really wants to be Batman so he kills everyone in his dad’s crime syndicate.

Enfer de Mille Blessures (also a work in progress title, I think it’s obvious I just used Google Translate): A predator is too angery to die so in purgatory she slowly realizes she done goofed and comes to terms with her gender identity - little does she know she’ll also develop a crippling fear of boats and large men with weird hairstyles.

Wish: The chosen one isn’t actually the chosen one so the chosen one’s brother gets pissy, meanwhile the real chosen one’s off playing with her imaginary friends in a ditch somewhere - existential weirdness ensues.

The worse the explanation, the better.

#amwriting #amwritingfantasy #writeblr #writer #writing #my writing #lol i wasn't tagged or anything #so if anyone else wants to do this go for it!

[artemiderose]

Open to critiquing your OCs!

Howdy! As I mentioned in my video on how to describe your characters’ appearance, I’m up for reviewing peoples’ original characters. I’ve seen a few people on Tumblr asking if there was anyone who did this kind of thing, so I figured, why not? I love analyzing characters and stories - and not to mention helping beginner writers - so this sounds like something I’ll enjoy.

If you’re interested in some feedback, feel free to DM me/submit (or even just reblog this post) with an in-depth profile of your character - it should include their backstory, personality, maybe some quotes or passages from their story (if you’ve written any of it yet) - just a thorough description of them as best you can. It doesn’t have to be very long, it just has to explain your character well enough for me to be able to analyze them. You can include their design if you want, but please note this will be a critique solely on the character as a written work rather than an artistic one. :P

Finally, if I find your character remarkable enough, I might make my review of them into a video-essay that’ll appear on my YouTube channel since I don’t have that many subscribers yet and I think this’ll be a good way to help keep me motivated to create more content. I’ll give you a heads-up and ask beforehand - especially if I think the review will be mostly negative. I also can’t guarantee a full review of your character if I get a lot of requests, but chances are I’ll at least respond to it!

That’s about it! Keep in mind I can be pretty blunt and critical when it comes to character analysis, but I’ll be sure to praise the positives among acknowledging the negatives. Let me know if you have any questions!

#writeblr #amwriting #writing advice #writingadvice #writer #critique #criticism #critical #oc #originalcharacter #original character #amreading #character contest #fanfiction #beta reader #betareader #i know that's a lot of hashtags but let's be real i have like no followers

[artemiderose]

Writing is not always writing.

Writing is being on the train and mentally seeing your OCs stumble into other people, or flinching away from the germ-ridden handrails, or sleeping on each others’ shoulders.

Writing is hearing a song on the radio and watching one of your scenes play out to the lyrics.

Writing is laying on your floor or sitting by your computer and spending hours collaging newspaper clippings or pictures or people or plants together and making something that is completely, uniquely, your story.

Writing is drawing your characters in your notebooks, and making tea only your one, picky character would drink, and writing an open letter to all your characters just to remind them you love them.

Writing is moodboards, and playlists, and crafts, and asks, and prompts, and pictures, and memories, and you.

So never think that just because you’re not putting words on a page, you’re not a real writer. Writing is something that follows you everywhere, beyond the word document, and beyond the screen.

Because writing isn’t something you do. It’s something you are.

#TRUTH