When Book Romance Makes No Sense

Why do we enjoy reading romance? Tons of reasons. Maybe some people are projecting, and like seeing characters they relate to getting the kind of love and affection they wish they had. Maybe some people like the regality of romance that modern relationships can't replicate, or watching the full scope of human emotion (it is, admittedly, a rich character move). Maybe some people generally just like watching two people fall in love, and all the things included in that. 

But why do we enjoy it? What about the romance itself appeals to us? What makes us root for two people to be in love, and celebrate the satisfying conclusion of their courtship? It all relies on connection. If you do not connect with the characters or their love story, then the romance doesn't hit the way it's supposed to, and in order for the reader to connect with characters and their love story, the characters have to connect with each other and their own love story on the page. 

Let me explain; if I finish a book and I honestly can't explain to someone else why two characters got together or what they saw in one another, that is not a good romance. Are they struck dumb by their partners intelligence, their kindness, their prowess on the battlefield? Do they think they're funny? Do they respect them deeply, and that metamorphosizes into love? It has to be something, and the reader has to know what that something is. If your characters cannot hold a conversation with one another — not about their allotted conflict, or a plan, but about one another — then their romance isn't going to feel genuine, or easy to celebrate. Their love story fits more into the genre of "two people who stand next to each other a lot and have sex sometimes", rather than “two people who are going to grow old together and be cremated and put in the same urn”, and that second one is, typically, what most authors should be going for.

We see this happen most often in books where the main genre isn't romance, and more so in books with snappy, fast-moving plots, because authors (and agents, honestly) cut all of the fluffy in-betweens. Some fluff has to be cut, of course — if you've ever written a book, you know some fluff always has to be cut — but cut too much and your character loses realism, heart, and resonance. Only so much love can be formed on the battlefield, my friends. Some of it’s got to happen in a ditch, tending to wounds. When authors forget that and leave out all the traveling, tending, and the like, they also end up excluding when the character’s bond really takes shape; in the softer, quieter in-betweens. I love my in-betweens. 

In the book We Hunt The Flame by Hafsah Faizal — a book I really enjoyed overall, to be clear — the main relationship happens between our main character, Zafira, and a Sultan’s son, Nasir. Despite having different moral codes, Zafira and Nasir are an easy, obvious romance. You know pretty much from the second they meet that they are going to end up together in the end, and that’s fine! Nothing wrong with an easy, safe romance, only that Nasir believes that Zafira is “not like other girls”, and that’s about the only explanation he ever gives as to why he falls in love with her. Zafira gives practically nothing at all. Their love is dull and uninteresting because neither of the characters state, nor is it implied by the writing, what it is about the other that attracts them. If you had a partner and asked them “what do you like about me?” and they say “you’re different from every girl I’ve ever met” when 1) that’s technically not true and 2) they are unable to elaborate any further, you wouldn’t feel very flattered, would you? That’s what I’m getting at. A reader has to know why a romance is happening, other than because one is a boy, and the other is a girl, and they're in close proximity, so naturally their faces must be smushed together and made to kiss like barbie and ken dolls. 

Skimping on this section also dampens the impact of everything else related to the relationship. Every rescue, sacrifice, and love declaration is muddied and tainted by the fact that it feels like the characters are actors who don’t actually like each other that much in real life. Skimp on the love a character feels for their partner, and suddenly the love they feel for everything else also becomes diminished, lifeless, and a caricature of an emotion. MC’s become disjointed and hard to relate to and the relationship becomes hard to root for, because why bother? You’re anticipating nothing, you’re shocked by nothing, and what’s the fun in that? 

Mind you, I'm not knocking love at first sight. Though it's not my favorite trope on the face of the Earth, I have no huge issue with it. But good love at first sight tropes are amplified by something else after the fact; they fall in love upon making eye contact, and then fall deeper in love as they throw quips back and forth or risk their lives to rescue one another. Conflict is also a goldmine for evolving and improving a relationship; disagreement leaves opportunity for compromise, for stubbornness, for intelligence, for a true myriad of qualities that any person could find a way to adore, even if they’re at odds with the person with the aforementioned quality. Love at first sight and relationship conflict are not mutually exclusive, and good authors know how to maintain tension and appeal, even if they’re in love by chapter two.

Queer romance is a repeat offender of this. Part of that is because authors want to write a "queer romance", without actually writing anything particularly queer, or romantic. Remember what I said about romances that feel like "you girl, he boy, which means you must kiss"? This is the same thing, only it's "you're gay, he's gay, so obviously you two end up together", which is no better. I would actually argue it's worse.

The River Has Teeth is the antithesis of everything I'm trying to preach; not only were both of the main characters, Natasha and Della, utterly unlikeable, but there was literally no reason for the two of them to be together. Natasha and Della are at odds the entire book, arguing and keeping secrets. Della is intentionally rude to Natasha while Natasha is looking for her missing, most likely deceased, sister, and Natasha gets Della’s cousin arrested because he “looks shady”. But it’s okay because they have redeeming qualities that they like about each other, right? WRONG. Natasha and Della are always arguing, and when they’re not arguing, they’re making out. And when they’re not arguing or making out, they are existing in the SINGULAR SCENE that takes place before they begin making out. That’s impossible to enjoy, or feel particularly satisfied with. Ruinsong is another one where the main characters, Cadence and Remi, end up together at the end despite the fact that the last real conversation the two of them had, Remi accuses Cadence of being a willing participant in wide-spread torture and classism. Not exactly the peak of romance, if you ask me. Remi and Cadence don't even get together in the book! There's a time skip where it's revealed that somewhere between the last chapter and now, Remi came out to Cadence AND her family, confessed her feelings (that I still don't understand, because she really didn't seem to like Cadence much), and they kissed and became partners. What's the point of advertising your book as a queer romance if the actual queer romance part is completely blown over?

Even the simplest, coziest of romances know to give a reason for a couple to like one another. Even if that reason is beauty, which is not my favorite reason, I’ll admit, but it is still a reason! It doesn’t have to be the craziest love story to ever exist, it doesn’t even have to have conflict! But how do you genuinely create a relationship where I cannot tell why they love each other? Or even like each other! I’m not trying to tell you how to write a story, or how to organize a romance, because I genuinely don’t know how I would do that other than “make sure they would reasonably like each other”, and that sounds douchey. This is more of a rant on my part, than anything intellectual. Sorry for that. It just drives me nuts. 

The moral of the story is that if you're going to write a romance, write the romance. Be cringe. Be sappy. Commit to the rom or stick to the com. It's Pride Month, for crying out loud, don't make me read a book that's advertised as queer romance only to deprive me of queer romance. That's all. Bye Bye!

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl

     In this day and age, who isn’t at least somewhat familiar with the concept of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Usually tied to a male main character, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a goofy, eccentric individual who wows the main character with her hopeful air, zest for life, and sense of style that is only slightly out of norm, so that we as the audience understand she is an outcast, though she still remains conventionally attractive. As time goes on, we seem to blur the line between a Manic Pixie Dream Girl and a girl who simply feeds into whimsy, is giggly or adventurous, or has firm, optimistic views on life and love. Admittedly, they do have a lot of things in common, but there are several ways you can tell if a character is an MPDG, as well as plenty of straightforward ways to turn her into a well-respected and interesting addition to a story.

What is an MPDG, and What’s Wrong with Her?

“Manic Pixie Dream Girl” is a term coined in a review for the movie Elizabethtown, where Kirsten Dunst plays the vibrant flight attendant to Orlando Bloom’s suicidal and unemployed shoe designer. Kirsten Dunst’s character is said to “insist” on Orlando Bloom falling in love with her, taking their romance that isn’t even an actual romance yet by the horns and yanking it in the direction she wants it to go. Bloom’s character is somewhat against the whole thing at the start, but eventually falls in love with her in return. Thus Manic Pixie Dream Girl is born, the bright and gaudy girl to accentuate an often brooding and realistic male main character. 

Incredibly popular in film, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a staple to many early 2000's coming of age stories about a sad boy who cannot see the joys of life, and the girl who helps him find them. They're colorful, have quirky and endearing habits, tend to be more visibly interested in the man than the man ever is in her, and will inevitably give our main character some life changing advice or wisdom somewhere in between "I like to make weird sounds that no one's made before" and "sounds like a pretty good time for an adventure".

That’s the heart of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl; they exist to be either a counter for the male protagonist, or a stepping stone for them to build their confidence off of or find purpose from. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists to uplift the male character’s story, and are often single-minded (usually on love), one-dimensional, and display clear rejection of most hobbies and interests that could be considered inherently feminine. It’s not just that these characters can be largely uninteresting in books and films where they are prominent characters, it’s that they represent the nasty habit of female characters being used as props for male characters and continuing the idea that this kind of woman - a woman who oo’s and aa’s over every thing a man does, is relentlessly supportive even when the man is being a dick, and who has no real discernible flaws or personality outside of her relationship to the man is a realistic possibility. It’s a sexist and uncomfortable rhetoric that could very easily be solved, if only authors and film writers put a little bit of thought into it! 

Appearance

The MPDG has a style that is easily defined as the sort of outfits a pixie would wear, with lots of colors and different fabrics and glitter. It's youthful, playful, and feminine while steering clear of anything that could be considered hyper feminine. Manic Pixie Dream Girls don’t tend to wear bows or have long nails, and they practically never go for any look that could be considered “sexy”, unless of course we are given a scene where the male protagonist gets to show her just how beautiful she is. Allegedly, this kind of attire is common because when the male protagonist falls in love with her, it shows that he cares more about her interests and “the way she makes him feel” than her appearance, thus making him a kind, trustworthy, loveable man. Personally, I think it’s also because a lot of these styles can be very similar to the outfits eight-year-old girls wear, but that’s just me. Take that with a grain of salt. 

This is, out of all the things I’m going to talk about, one of the only aspects of the MPDG that is pretty okay on its own. There’s nothing wrong with a woman dressing up in fun and bright colors, wearing pigtail braids  - I myself am a pigtail lover until the day I die - or preferring not to dress super sexy. It’s more of an amplifier than anything, making the harsher and harder to ignore sexism of the character much more prominent if they are there at all, and doing little to nothing if they aren’t. Just something to keep in mind.

Depth

For a character who loves to give soulful, wise advice to the male protagonist, the MPDG lacks a whole lot of life experience or backstory to back up how a twenty-something-year-old figured it all out. She might have some past trauma like a parent dying or some past boyfriend abuse, but we are never going to see this negatively impact her personality, or her relationship with the male protagonist. 

This is not to say that the MPDG is exempt from flaws, she just only exhibits what I call “sparkle flaws”, as in flaws that are technically flaws, but never have the fallout or negative repercussions that actual flaws tend to have. Sparkle flaws are handled in a way that makes them come off as endearing, and something that the male protagonist can fix for her. Take Penny Lane from Almost Famous, who is rescued from an overdose by our main man and is convinced by this act to tell him her real name and "see the light", so to speak. The damsel in distress quality in female love interests in relation to their male counterparts is strong as ever, folks. To my complete and utter displeasure. 

MPDG’s exhibit convenient, conditional independence in which they are smart, capable, and seemingly well-adjusted women who conveniently have a singular issue that their bum of a man can solve for them, to counteract all of the wise advice and life lessons the Dream Girl offers them. That’s the way I see it, anyway; it would be an insult to a man’s ability and importance if the woman were to help him grow over the course of two aggravating hours and the man NOT offer a singular comment about how she’s “so beautiful” to change her entire world view. Even with all of her wonderful, world-altering advice, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is only full of meaning because the male protagonist gives her meaning; or rather, she is only full of meaning because the male protagonist says she is. His decree, and his perception of her, is what makes her magical. Not who she is on her own. I really hope I don’t have to explain to you what’s problematic about this. Alas, our Dream Girl is just that, a wild, misogynistic dream. More on that in the next section!

The Male Fantasy

Fun fact: male protagonists rarely approach the MPDG, but she approaches them. The man is often begrudging in giving in to her charm, because he’s super cool and brooding and shit, and she persists anyways. She is rarely sad, rarely emotional, rarely afraid. She wants to hear only about the male protagonist’s worries and goals, she wants to enjoy his bands, she wants to help him by any means necessary. She is, let me say this once so I do not have to say it again, VERY NOT REAL. 

Have you ever been online and noticed that men adamantly want a woman with conservative beliefs - tends to the man, leaves important decisions to the man - without looking conservative? Misogynistic men want an accessory that repeats their own affirmations back to them like some demented fantastical furby in the hopes that, hearing it from somebody else, they might believe it. They also want those affirmations to come from a woman that makes them feel young, joyful, and free, rather than the archetypal conservative woman who dresses, well, conservative, and acts in other aspects of her life, you guessed it, conservative. In a way, that is what the MPDG is. It’s the fulfillment of a man’s fantasy to have a woman who is so bright and youthful be so utterly devoted to him, to mother him in a way that does not actually remind him of his mother, to tend to him without the frazzled hair and irritation a woman so out of his league and forced to do all the heavy lifting in a relationship WOULD have. 

The Distinction

In recent years the Manic Pixie Dream Girl label has been slapped onto every silly female character the general public can get their hands on, which is its own brand of misogyny, tagging characters that are not attached to a man to a man, and often disregarding many of their intricacies for the sake of the label. So what is the distinction between the two? Framing, my friends. 

Does our female character have bad habits that are framed in a negative light, and are those habits explained? Do they have an origin point? Does she exhibit hobbies and interests of her own, separate from the male protagonist? Does she ever disagree with the male protagonist, and if she does, does she stand her ground after the fact?

Lucy Gray Baird from Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a fantastic example of a whimsical lady, and not a MPDG. She is a lively, vibrant outcast with firm, seemingly outlandish beliefs, and she dresses noticeably different from most of the people around her. But Lucy Gray is not a MPDG because she exists beyond the scope of our male main character (I refuse to call him a protagonist)’s perception, she does not act particularly childish, and she has her own strong opinions, interests, and pastimes. She receives help from the male MC and gives him a "look into her world", as MPDG's tend to, but she is not helpless without him and does not need him in her world. Lucy Gray is incredibly kind, intelligent, courageous, and rebellious in her own right, though not without fault. She is enormously complex. 

How To Fix It!

If you’re beginning to worry about whether or not your female character is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, it’s an easy fix! It’s all about asking yourself as an author questions about the character, and making the answers relevant to the world, the story, and your lovely leading lady. Here’s a list of questions to consider;

1. What flaws does your lady have? Why does she have them? How do they impact the people around her? Include her history in her speech patterns, her body language, and the way she interacts with people other than the main character

2. DOES SHE INTERACT WITH PEOPLE OTHER THAN THE MAIN CHARACTER? If the answer is no, my love, you’ve gotta fix that. What kind of people is she drawn to? Are they similar to her, or vastly different? Are they similar or different to the main character? What do you think that says about her friendship / professional preferences, and her romantic ones?

3. Similarly, why does she like the main character? What do they offer her, and what does she offer them? A big part of the MPDG is that the male protagonist is often somewhat unwilling in the romance, falling in love with a loud sigh, but that’s old and tired. Why does your main character love her? SHOW THEM being in love with her, not just them being impacted by the advice she gives. Your character isn’t just in love with the world view, they’re in love with her. Remember that. 

        There’s no shame in not noticing things. I wrote seven drafts of my book before I realized one of my main characters was actually a douchebag. It happens. Check yourself, ask yourself questions, and never be afraid to delete. Happy Writing! 

A Review / Rant for Into The Mist

 

Trigger Warning: Rape, Death, Sexual Assault

Last week I read Into The Mist by P.C. Cast, and couldn’t put my finger on what felt off. The premise is incredibly interesting - a group of female teachers during the apocalypse, where a green mist covers the US killing men and giving women strange powers - but the stakes never felt high, and I was struggling to connect with the characters. 

The issue, I realized about halfway through the story, was that the characters didn’t struggle. There are obstacles, sure, a broken bridge here and an angry drunk there, but every single problem these women face, the solution is discovered or offered either in the same chapter the problem is introduced, or the next chapter over. A little girl falls in a river and begins to be swept away where no one can reach, and suddenly a man comes out of the woods and saves her. If the characters get shot, no worries, starting right now one of the ladies is able to heal people. The mist starts getting too close and a strong wind blows it away. The entire book is would-be problem after would-be problem, none of which lead anywhere. 

The powers these women gain after coming in contact with the mist were a big part of the issue, because why would the characters struggle, if they each conveniently gain abilities that combat every issue they could be having? The youngest member of our party, Gemma, can heal people. Mercury, our leading lady, has super strength and speed. Right at the end of the book one of the other teachers, Imani, suddenly gains the ability to prophesy? This seems almost entirely so she can refer to “The Destroyer” in the last chapter, which was not a thing so much as hinted at AT ALL throughout the entire book, and was clearly a power Imani was given just to tease the sequel. Most infuriating of all the gifts is Stella’s, the gift of insane intuition that completely destroys any sense of tension, because she tells you at the beginning of the scene if you should be scared or not. She says when things are safe, when there’s danger, where they need to go. She can even gather to a certain extent if someone is lying, or if their intentions are bad. Her ability works in a way that they are able to avoid almost any danger, or at least be well prepared when it finds them, and eradicates any sense of apprehension a reader might potentially feel.

More than that, the characters don’t struggle emotionally. So imagine you’re on a work trip and watch a bomb get dropped on Oregon. Imagine immediately after that, your close friend / mentee brutally dies in child birth and two of your coworkers disintegrate into a pile of messy goo, you realize that your spouse / parents / siblings / children are probably dead, and you have to try and find a way off the mountain you’re stuck on while still covered in your friends blood. Would you be having a wine sleepover with all your girlfriends that night? I think not! There is a singular scene where the women - three of them, mind you, which is about half the party - cry for the families they've lost, but they cry for maybe ten minutes, and it happens in between chapters, in a place we can’t see. After the aforementioned wine sleepover, where they all dressed in matching flannel pajamas, Gemma’s mother abandons her. It’s a silent admission that she’s always cared for her husband more than her daughter as she leaves without bothering to say goodbye, and Gemma, a sixteen-year-old, is said to be teary-eyed maybe twice. It does not affect her story any more after that. 

It is nearly impossible to genuinely connect with a character if you are never allowed to see them struggle. You can’t sympathize with them or care about their sorrows when the characters themselves don’t seem to care about them. Stories require hesitation, stutters, moments of reiteration and repetition. An author, to a certain extent, has to tell you why you should care for these characters. There are tons of ways to do this, but even if it's not the main approach they take, about 97% of authors include the angle of "because they're in danger". You care about the character because they're in a stressful, emotional scenario, and you sympathize. If you don't include this angle, and the emotional / physical stress of a situation is ignored or written out, a book becomes little more than a bullet point list of where they went and why, an ongoing “and then they did this and then they did this and then they did this and then…” It offers no consideration or collaboration from the reader, and that makes a book dull.

And then of course, we have a list of uncomfortabilities. Ford, for example, the only Hispanic character, throws Spanish words into English sentences. Stella has some questionable relationships with significantly younger men (more concerning because this woman is a high school teacher, which is just icky), and then we have Karen Gay. Karen Gay, who is said to be incredibly religious and homophobic. Hilarious. 

Here’s the thing; there was such a lovely opportunity here to write a well thought-out redemption arc where Karen sees the error in her ways and grows from it, but that just… Didn’t happen. To start, although we’re told Karen is homophobic and hateful, we never actually see her be either of those things. She critiques one of the characters for cursing - who then promptly threatens to ditch her on the side of the road to die - and is mildly uncomfortable with Mercury and her pagan beliefs, but other than that, nothing. What we do see is Mercury saying that Karen is thirty pounds too heavy, and the rest of the women routinely pressuring Karen to drink, smoke, try drugs, and stop being so reserved. The few times the book actually discusses Karen’s intolerance for other belief systems, Mercury says “get it together or we’ll leave you in the woods”, and then Karen says she’ll get it together, and we move on. So I guess it’s not just about things being reiterated, as I mentioned earlier, it’s about things being reiterated and bringing something new each time, either about a character or about her relationship to another person. Why is it being reiterated? Why is she having trouble shaking this habit, and what does that say about her?

We don’t get that with Karen, arguably the most sidelined character, and arguably the most interesting. She, at least, has the chance to struggle, even if it’s struggling with being tolerant towards other denominations. But that’s struggle! Which we do not see. But it could be there! But it’s not. 

Moving on to book two, Out Of The Dawn, where the journey continues. In Book 2, Mercury grieves the loss of a man she’s known for three days after he dies. And I’m not going to say anything about her grieving him, it’s a high-stress scenario and she really liked him and he died really fucking horribly, so that makes sense. What I am going to say is that Mercury 1) grieving for this man more than we see Imani grieve for her dead husband and two dead children and 2) being told to get back to work after three days of grieving, with those three days of grief joking referred to as her “depression sleep” from then on, is insane. For such a dark, serious concept, it is almost never treated as dark or serious, and it completely kills your investment in the characters and their story. 

I will admit that I did not finish Out Of The Dawn, because about 150 pages in our youngest member, Gemma, is brutally raped in the woods, and it has zero impact on the rest of the story. She stumbles back into camp, describes the encounter intimately and in incredible detail to the entire group (including a man she's known for only a few days, not including maybe one time she met him a year or so prior), and after the man is dealt with, this horrible trauma has little to no impact on the story or Gemma as a character. I flipped through the chapters, I jumped back and forth, I read reviews, and they all gave me the same answer; Gemma’s rape was half-assed shock value, and not much more. 

There is a place in literature for stories of assault and rape. Of course there is. It’s incredibly important to bring attention to it, and it can be a healing and cathartic process for an author to write about it, if they’ve had experiences in their own life. And not every person who experiences a terrible assault reacts the same; of course, there is a reality where Gemma does not react loudly and openly, but in quieter, more subtle ways. But it is a life-altering experience, and if it is written in a book, it cannot under any circumstances be taken lightly. It requires care, research, and an incredible amount of thought, and it requires a certain level of weight and severity while handling that this author simply didn’t give it. It’s upsetting to read it used like it is in Out of the Dawn, as a tool in some grand attempt at fear-mongering. 

P.C. Cast makes dozens of jabs at men, the danger they pose and their inadequate leadership, across both books. Which I’m not against, on paper. But it reaches a point where it’s performative, actively works against the rest of the story, and in cases such as Gemma’s, completely demolishes any belief I had in the book and the author. I do not believe that this author has a genuine grasp on feminism, if she thought this was okay. As someone who has not once shied away from content, I found myself genuinely uncomfortable with her articulation of the content, and that’s what made me put the book down. 

All this is to say, I was severely disappointed with this series. As someone who was raised taking part in Pagan rituals and LOVES apocalyptic settings, there was so much potential for a really beautiful story of women growing as individuals and learning to lean on one another, building their own society which was entirely separate from the capitalistic and patriarchal one we currently reside within. Unfortunately, P.C. Cast completely missed the mark. 

Fantasy Character Design Ideas (because authors don't have as much fun as they should)

     The beautiful thing about fantasy and sci-fi books is that there are no rules, and the shitty thing about fantasy and sci-fi books is that they’ve been around so long people think that there are. When we’re in the world of make believe, there are endless opportunities to create character designs unlike anything anyone has seen or done before, and we just… Don’t. Part of this is because people usually have an idea in mind when they start writing, and it’s often based on something they’ve seen before, and then part of it is marketability. After all, who will care about our main character if they’re not sexy? If their lips aren’t kissable? The desire to keep characters as humanoid as possible has led to ten million books about people with wings, and there’s so much out there! Fantasy is supposed to be fantastical! Fiction is supposed to be wacky! Not everyone has to look hot for the general public to relate and empathize with their story! Branch out, people!  

I am, admittedly, not much of a fantasy / sci-fi writer, but I am a strong fantasy / sci-fi reader, and I’ve thought of a few ideas that I would love to see used more often, as well as some culture and technical additions. These are free for anyone to use for any reason, so if anything speaks to you, feel free to steal!

Horns

The only type of physical alteration that’s getting its own section, because I love it just that much.

We’re all very familiar with horns, I assume. But I’m talking about more than horns at the top of the head. I made a video about this online where I mentioned face horns, as in horns on the bridge of the nose or over the eyes, and I stand by that. Imagine horns like a bridge nose piercing or eyebrow piercing, or ones curling from in between the eyes. But of course, we can stretch out beyond this into horns on other parts of the body. The first thing I thought of was mini ram horns sprouting from each knuckle on a person’s hand, sort of like natural brass knuckles. Rams and sheep have the strong tendency to headbutt one another, and so whatever race of people have horns on their hands may also have a tendency to fight one another, over partners or political disputes. Dueling could be an important political arrangement, like something royals do to challenge one another to the throne, or it could be ritualistic, like something performers do to honor gods (thus making wrestlers a bit like shaman), or it could be something else entirely. Horns could become a display of a warrior’s prowess, if we create a rule that losers of duels must have their horns shaved down or chopped off. 

Horns really can come from anywhere; imagine horns growing from the sides of a person’s hips. Imagine the cultural wear of that kind of nation, designed specifically to accentuate the hips, with horns carved on either side of their body like rococo dresses, the horns decorated with gold cuffs and chains. Longer horns are impractical, and so they become a symbol of wealth by the elite; the longer they are the less you can do on your own, which implies that you have an entire staff to do those things for you. Horns could grow from the collarbone, and awkwardly hook together when lovers kiss, like braces on pre-teen couples. They could come from the knees for mountain civilizations, to help them climb. The opportunities are endless, Lads.

Environmental Factors

Similar to the knee horns for climbing, fantasy civilizations in different terrains should have different physical traits! This is something that Avatar does really well, actually; look at the difference between the reef and forest Na’vi; the reef Na’vi have skin that’s more turquoise to match the water and webbed fingers to help them swim. Follow that model. People who live near water and rely on it for survival may evolve to have wider ribcages, to account for larger lungs so they can hold their breath longer, or might have a second membrane eyelid like alligators to help them see underwater. People who live in colder climates may have bulkier, more fat-heavy builds to account for the cold or scales over their faces to bring in more heat. One of the theories scientists have as to why human beings evolved to be on two feet was because it meant less of the sun was on their back, so in cold climates, maybe one civilization or another has begun evolving back so they could feel more of the sun, and are now significantly hunched over. I think most fantasy civilizations should go by the rule that, if they were to become real, they would be considered to have an uncanny and unnatural sort of feel to them. Sure, having people with wings or sparkling eyes or the like is beautiful, and I have nothing against them, but in a fantasy world, you expect me to believe that every humanoid individual happens to not only have the same notion about social beauty, but fit perfectly into that notion? It lacks creativity and fun.

Though it’s human thought and not natural evolution that’s making the changes, sci-fi can work the same way. Underwater civilizations can have what looks like raised veins under their skin, which transport oxygen through their bodies when they’re beneath the surface. Civilizations in the sky have to force their lungs to expand and contract through a complex medical device that replaces the skin, so you can physically see their lungs breathing and their heart pumping. Body horror is a really fun thing to play with. 

Even more fun, imagine civilizations halfway through the process of evolution, with notches on their back that could be wings in a few hundred years, or legs where the skin is sewn together, but not quite a tail yet. Not to endorse suffering, but there is so much opportunity for it in the harsh evolutionary reality.

Animal Attributes

Gills. Spines. Claws. Literally what can’t you do with animal attributes. Imagine two different groups of people always being irritated because everybody gets them confused based on their spots (cheetahs and jaguars) or races with split tongues having their own very specific brand of cultural food (snakes) or their torso being made of a hollow SHELL (I should not have to tell you what animal I’m referencing here). There are thousands of years of animal behavior studies, amongst themselves and amongst other species, why wouldn’t you play with the practical effects of it? Fangs give people a lisp. Realistically, split tongues would too. People with wings, if you do choose to go that route, probably have back pain. Let’s say you base a civilization off of penguins, with webbed feet, slicked down feathers across the sides of their face and down the sides of their arms (just for shits and giggles), with their backs much darker in color than their stomachs. For the hell of it, they also have beaks. They court one another with ancestral jewelry and precious stones, and they refuse to share these stones with other kingdoms, which naturally springs some hatred between communities. Let’s say you base your civilization off of butterflies, brightly colored and shimmering skin, long antennae, curling tongues. They live somewhere tropical, so their coloring reflects that, although a common myth about the group states that they’re toxic; the air they breathe out is deadly gas, their blood kills plants if it falls on them, and if any part of their body is consumed, it kills you instantly. Turns out they’re just a culture of poisoners, who constantly consume poison for religious reasons and have built an immunity that other people and animals have not. 

It is also your choice to decide whether these attributes are created by evolution, like we talked about earlier, or cultural beauty standards, which we will talk about now. 

Cultural Changes

Culture and societal beauty standards have a massive effect on the way people look. There’s the ones we tend to know about, like small feet and long necks and the like, but this is fiction we’re talking about, so we can go a little crazier. Head to toe tattoos to make you an entirely different color. For fun, let’s say that it’s custom to tattoo your entire body the color of your aura, and the rest of the community makes large assumptions about your character and values off of it that aren't great, but it also holds a complex, tender sort of love for your community and your beliefs. Let’s say that you have to stitch on some attributes of the animal on your family’s crest, like lark wings on your back or badger claws on your fingers. Or a tail. I'm picturing something a tad crude and useless; the animal body parts are not enlarged to be the proper scale or genuinely connected to the body. Imagine what a pacifist daughter, or a character afraid of lizards, would do if they were told they must staple a salamander tail to their backside as soon as they turn eighteen.

        Let’s say it’s custom to have really long legs, so they break and extend your legs over and over again, to your own personal detriment, or women are supposed to have incredibly long nails, to the point where their hands become almost unusable, to show wealth and how well their spouse takes care of them. 

To be clear, I have no real dislike for cultural beauty standards and regulations, even though everything I’ve said thus far has been kind of against them. I just think struggle is more interesting to write about, but let me give you a few others that are more positive! 

Since we’ve mentioned tattoos, let’s say that every child is tattooed with the constellations across the night sky on the day / night of their birth, to display the unity between the child and the universe and to show that they are eternally connected to one another. Or on a person’s wedding day, each family member gifts the bride and groom a feather, and they have to then wear all of those feathers in their hair from that day onward, unless the couple breaks up; the more feathers shows a larger family, and the more worn-down the feathers are, the longer the couple has been in love and together. 

        The belief that every physical attribute or special addition has to be plot-relevant is what got us in this wings-only mess in the first place. Not everything has to be useful, it can sometimes just work to extend the world and add context to a character’s belief and personality, even if it’s in the smallest way. And it’s fun! I might do more installments of this, I’ve got so many ideas. Again, you are free to use any of these if they strike your fancy, as well as build off of or extract whatever you like. I hope you found this at least somewhat interesting! Happy Writing! 

Checkhov’s Gun; What is it and How is it Used?

Someone on Tiktok posted about how she discovered Chekhov's Gun and how useful it was in the writing process, and of course all of the comments are either people asking what Chekhov's Gun is or agreeing that it is useful, but not exactly stating what it is. 

So I’ll do it! 

Chekhov's Gun is a narrative phenomenon where a seemingly insignificant detail or object is introduced into the story, and only much later proves to be incredibly relevant to the plot. Anton Chekhov, the playwright who created this concept, had a pretty decent way of summing it all up; if you introduce a gun in the first act, it must be fired by the third. He believed that pretty much anything a reader brings to the audience's attention in a story has to amount to something useful in order to further plot or character development. If a character mentions a peanut allergy at the beginning of the movie, maybe have him fall into a giant peanut factory at the end of the story, a la 102 Dalmations (2000). An extreme example, but an example nevertheless. 

In the name of honesty, I’ve been sitting in front of my computer trying to think of other examples I’ve seen in books for a good twenty minutes now, and I’m coming up completely empty. I’ve suddenly forgotten the plot of every book I’ve ever read except for a singular MHA fanfiction I read in high school that is, unfortunately, a perfect example, so that’s the one I’m going to go with. 

(I’m acting like I’m ashamed but if I could go back I would do it all over again. This fanfiction was batshit and I loved every second of it.)

So in this fanfiction, we start the story with Character A and Character B (I WILL NOT specify what ship I was reading fanfiction about) as professional superheroes, discussing their plans for after work. They talk about what they’re going to eat for dinner. Character A kicks a rock on the sidewalk. Character B complains about the underwire in her bra being uncomfortable, and Character A tells her to keep that shit to herself. Then we move on.

After work, Character B is kidnapped and transported to a windowless, underground room (I think, it’s been a while since I’ve read this fanfiction and I cannot for the life of me find it online, so this is all coming straight from my memory). For days, Character A rallies to find her and Character B suffers, alone in this room, captive to a nasty villain who has some ability that produces a dog-whistle style tone that, once heard, forces a person to stay awake. Character B spends three, maybe four days in this underground prison, unable to sleep and slightly losing her mind because of it, before she thinks of a plan. 

You see where this is going? I certainly didn’t, I can tell you that fucking much. 

Remember that pesky underwire in Character B's bra? She pulls it out and proceeds to stab it into her ears, damaging her eardrums and deafening herself. She then can no longer hear the dog-whistle, and finally sleeps. Now, I’m not going to tell you that I know for certain whether or not this is logistically possible. What I am going to tell you is that it was cool as shit. I read this fanfiction a minimum of five years ago and I still think about it. That should tell you how cool it was. 

Boom; Chekhov's Gun. 

If the name Chekhov's Gun sounds familiar but the concept doesn’t, you may be thinking of Schrodinger’s Gun. In the words of Joe Vasicek, Schrodinger’s Gun is “what happens when Schrödinger’s cat gets hold of Chekhov’s gun.” Schrodinger’s Gun says that the audience only knows as much as the author chooses to tell them, and that backstory and worldbuilding can be changed as the story goes on. This tool is best used for choose-your-own-adventure type storytelling, like DnD or other RPGs, or authors of webcomics or Wattpad fanfictions which release every week and can be altered depending on what choices an audience favors. For non-RPG examples, think of the movie Clue (1985), which had three separate endings and audiences in theaters were randomly shown one of the three. Think of the many, many writers nowadays who throw time travel into the third season of a show without mentioning time travel as a possibility in the first two seasons. 

Phenomena wise there’s also the somewhat similar Macguffin, which is an object or scene that works as a trigger, plowing the plot onwards. A Macguffin lacks the secrecy and surprise that Chekhov's Gun does, and the payoff is almost immediate. The comm chips in Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte is a Macguffin, which sets the main plot, trying to save the queens from their inevitable murder, into action. The locket in Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan is a Chekhov’s Gun, appearing at the beginning of the story and then returning at the very end to add depth and meaning to our main character. The maps the goonies find in the attic leading to treasure? Macguffin. The little boy at the beginning of The Incredibles (2004) turning out to be the villain at the end? Chekhov’s Gunman. It’s the same concept, only with a human being instead of an object. 

Do you have to use it? No. There’s another very common narrative phenomenon authors love to use called the Red Herring, which is an intentional misdirect where the author brings the audience's attention to an object specifically for them to assume it’s important, only for it to end up being completely useless. 

In A Spark in the Cinders by Jenny Elder Moke, Aralyn is told that there are three things that must be brought together to save her kingdom, and in the same breath, she is told that the “Protectors Blade” had been split into three pieces and hidden across the land, and she had to go find them. Naturally, Aralyn and the audience both assume the three pieces of the blade are the things that must be brought together, but the story ends with us all realizing that it hadn’t been the blade at all; it had been Aralyn, her step sister Ellarose, and her hot lesbian knight lover Vee coming together that would save the kingdom. It just so happens that what brings them together is the search for a sword that also coincidentally is in three pieces. 

Red Herrings can be extremely useful and incredibly interesting, but even if you aren’t using one, you still don’t have to take Chekhov’s Gun into account. There is no one way to tell a story, first of all. If you want to mention objects or details that don’t amount to anything, that’s your prerogative. God knows I dragged myself through two full pages of what a hobbit hole isn’t, so I say do whatever you want if you like it. My rule is typically if it fleshes out something, a character, a scene, a setting, feel free to add it in! There’s a line here, of course, but I’m not going to try and tell you where that line is. It’s all subjective. 

Chekhov’s Gun is intended for reader satisfaction. Readers love to find symbolism and metaphorical meaning in everything, so if you tell them that the curtains are blue, they’re going to wonder why the curtains are blue, who decided they were blue, and could that person be the Blue-Faced Killer? You get the idea. It’s good advice, but it’s worth noting that Chekhov wrote plays and short stories predominantly, and that is what he focuses his advice towards. It can be used for anything, sure, but it doesn’t have to be. When you're pressed for time, I imagine it makes much more sense to skip the curtains being blue. If it makes you feel better, Ernest Hemingway strongly disagreed with Chekhov’s Gun and loved putting insignificant details in his stories. 

Again, it’s all subjective. Take it into consideration or don’t, I hope I’ve given you at least a better idea of what Chekhov’s Gun is, how it works, and how it can be utilized in your own writing. Good luck, and happy writing! 

AI sucks and if you use it, you suck too

 A few months ago, I applied to be a freelance writer for a fanfiction website that specialized in “choose your own adventure” fanfiction. The storyline would change depending on the choices you, the reader, made, which really highlights the whole y/n aspect of x Reader fanfiction in a unique way that I really loved. I sent in a bit of my work with my application, and within a few days heard back from a representative, offering an opportunity.

The more I looked into the website, though, the more uncomfortable I got. The “choose your own adventure” aspect was almost entirely controlled and written by AI. The way the website explains it, you start the intro yourself and create some of the choices, and the AI samples your work to use as an example to continue writing the choices itself, so that audiences have the option to make an original response, different from the pre-written ones the author has created. The website is upfront about its use of AI, to give them some credit, but they market it as a tool used to uplift writer’s, not take anything away from them. 

Now, I’m not here to bash the website, but here’s my issue; I’ve written choose your own adventures before, without the use of AI. It’s tedious and time consuming, but I wouldn’t exactly say it’s hard. I wrote it for a high school public speaking class, and it was one of seven short stories I wrote for the class over the course of two months. It’s all a matter of mapping and planning. I don’t need AI for that, and, to be frank, I don’t want it either. 

AI is a worker bee that’s supposed to die after it stings you, but refuses to do so. It keeps stinging, over and over again, sometimes in the same place and sometimes in new ones, and drops to the ground when you try to swat at it. So you think, okay, it’s dead, good, and then you put your arms down and it whirs back to life and stings you again.

 As a recent college graduate with an English degree, 95% of available jobs for people with English degrees are in training AI to write the stories and scripts that real people could write better. (The other 5% of jobs, if you were wondering, are high school tutoring jobs or jobs that require 7+ years of journaling experience. I’m having a really fun time). It’s entirely based on cost, how little money companies can spend on work in order to make the same or higher profit. I can’t say much about the industry outside of America, although I know AI is a global issue, but as an American I can say that this isn’t a surprise to me, as America, as it stands currently, is built on little else but capitalism and the destruction of natural beauty and creation. Dramatic phrasing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not accurate.  

And we could have the argument that AI could be useful for some things, and that’s a conversation I would willingly have, but do you know what AI is never useful for? Art. Storytelling. Filmmaking. The reason for this, and please forgive me for being incredibly sappy and sentimental and whatever other synonyms you want to use, is because AI likes heart. 

Think about it; half of the jokes you see online about ao3, are they about the stories? No, they’re not. They’re about the authors. They’re about authors going through harrowing (and alright, pretty hilarious) circumstances while writing, or who don't speak English as their first language but write like Shakespeare reincarnated, or who make it obvious where they’re from because they write colour instead of color and apartment instead of flat. AI is soulless. AI has nothing to dissect, find deeper meaning in, connect with. When I read I Who Have Never Known Men, half of what made the book so beautiful and heart wrenching was the ability to look into it further, to see Jacqueline Harding as a Jewish woman during World War II, and that adds something really important. 

Not every book is a literary masterpiece that can be dissected and discussed across three different English classes by a group of 17-year-olds, but it will always have perspective. People write from experience, or interest, or passion. A computer would never be able to write From Here To Eternity by Caitlin Doughty because a computer hasn’t been a mortician for several decades and hasn’t learned to appreciate and respect worldwide death customs. A computer couldn’t have written Open: A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates because no fucking shit, a computer has never been a widow, and does not understand the concepts of love or grief or rage. Stories about queer youth is less than meaningless if they're not written by minds like Andrew Joseph White, Carter Sickels, and Anita Cornwell. 

Computers are empty, and yet they are so void of anything of substance that this emptiness doesn’t even mean anything. They can’t even express the feeling of emptiness, of absence or desolation, because they have nothing else to compare it to, and so in this sense, the singular feeling they could be capable of, they aren’t. 

Even authors who don’t care about what they write offer something of value, because they have the mind to not care. Every author who writes a mind-numbing money-grab memoir - because of course they do, we’ve all been in a Barnes & Noble - has made a statement about themselves. It might not be a flattering statement, but there is a statement. Something is being said. Art is meant to be looked into, personalized, explored. If a computer is filling out a prompt you gave them, none of this is happening. It’s a waste of time and resources, and it’s metallic. I hate it. God, there are few things I hate more than AI art, in every and all mediums. 

Now, is there a point to writing this? No, not really. The sheer amount of AI music, stories, and paintings I’ve been seeing recently has been pissing me off, and that's about all there is too it. I’m no John Keating, but I love art. I dedicated my life to it. I mean, what the fuck kind of job am I going to get with an English degree and a creative writing concentration? What are the options here, other than publish or die? I’m a T1D 22 year old who has to somehow get decent health insurance before I turn 26, and I decided yeah, let’s try the publishing world! That’ll probably go really well! How do you know? Literally how do you know? I don't, but I'm doing it anyway because it matters to me, because I love it, because I work hard at it and after months or even years of writing something, I have enough compassion for and belief in humanity to want to share that with other people. That is a sentiment that no AI can replicate. Happy Writing.