{ ＩＮＫＬＩＮＧＳ v.4 } A Thread For Writers

[Woogwoo Wren]

What race, religion, and sexuality do your human characters tend to be? Do you find yourself guilty of adding token characters, having all characters be the same ethnicity, or are your stories pretty diverse?
For race... I tend to err on the white side tbh, partly because I don't know much about how other races interact. I should look into other races...
Religion is tricky. Honestly, I don't usually give them religion - though in the story I'm writing, I am planning to create a religion. It often doesn't matter though, because I usually write fantasy/sci fi.
Sexuality, I always have straight/heterosexual characters. I'm not comfortable writing homosexual characters. Let's leave it at that.


So I mentioned I was creating a religion... So far, all have is that the gods created this big, powerful being but decided he was too powerfully so didn't make anymore, instead made humans. Yeah, that's all... Any ideas for going farther?

[mr.kingrichard]

What race, religion, and sexuality do your human characters tend to be? Do you find yourself guilty of adding token characters, having all characters be the same ethnicity, or are your stories pretty diverse?

The majority of my characters tend to be black or mixed-race, simply because I myself am black and mixed-race. But I also have characters from all different races and locations.

Religion usually doesn't play a part in stories for me, so that doesn't normally come into play.

Sexualities are all across the spectrum, though I rarely write cishet characters anymore.

[.mist]

What race, religion, and sexuality do your human characters tend to be? Do you find yourself guilty of adding token characters, having all characters be the same ethnicity, or are your stories pretty diverse?

I'm more of a fantasy writer so usually I just make up my own races/religions, but on the occasion that I do write with regular people I am pretty guilty for only using Europeans xD This is mainly because I am scared of writing another race, then finding out I've totally spoiled their culture, because I am European. For religion I tend just to have atheists as again, I'm scared I will miss important details about other religions. Then for sexuality, I am comfortable writing everything and tend to have a variety as I am a bit like Moonblaze-Angel and have many friends with different sexualities cx

@badwolf;; I'm currently in the process for creating a new religion with my friend, so I suggest for ideas for taking it further is to figure out how many gods you are going to have, give them small personalities, perhaps even make legends/stories for them, then figure out what this "powerful being" is going to be (as in whether he is a myth or very real and humans are scared of him). Then maybe you could look more at how people worship the gods- if they do- eg. are there temples or churches? Are there prayers they send before certain actions, such as eating dinner? What is considered sinful etc. etc.

I hope that maybe gave you some ideas for how to continue? c:

[Aliria]

What race, religion, and sexuality do your human characters tend to be? Do you find yourself guilty of adding token characters, having all characters be the same ethnicity, or are your stories pretty diverse?

I don't really think about my character's religion; I feel like they're mostly atheists like me, but they could be anything. My characters sexualities are pretty all over the place, I've actually had to force myself to make a character cishet a few times because it's unrealistic for everyone to be LQBTQ. As for race, my characters do tend to be mostly white. I try to add other races, but since I live in a predominantly white area, it's just kinda what I'm used to, I guess. Interestingly, I've found that I'm better at racial diversity in fantasy/sci-fi settings, probably because people in those settings generally have different attitudes towards race than in the real world.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

What race, religion, and sexuality do your human characters tend to be? Do you find yourself guilty of adding token characters, having all characters be the same ethnicity, or are your stories pretty diverse?
Ehhhhhhhhh.... Heheh. Humans.
I have a few, very few, but they used to tend to be white, though I think I mixed the genders fairly well. But since I've modled one of my creature countries after medieval/ renaissance Europe I changed my predominantly human county to be more of an African/ Middle Eastern type country. Not just for balance, but after thinking about it, Africa is so much bigger than Europe, it would be able to support a much larger population of different dragon species.
I haven't noticed any particular trend in any of my random ideas either, the character runs in what would be necessary.

[The Pirate Dragon]

Oh boy, I was busy yesterday and didn't get to post anything but now I've got quite a bit to do.

@Nitro Indigo - This is waaaaay back (like two days ago, so not that far back) to the post you made on page 174 about the hero being removed as a side effect, but... what if it wasn't a side effect? What if the hero was actually pretty malignant too? Just some thought that came to my head

What race, religion, and sexuality do your human characters tend to be? Do you find yourself guilty of adding token characters, having all characters be the same ethnicity, or are your stories pretty diverse?
Uhhh, okay then. Never thought about it. I don't usually add any sexualities because my stories don't usually focus around any relationships like that (I have a difficult time dealing with couples anyway, it's something I'm working on), and my fantasy world has different history and mythos and all that, so religion is something I don't cover either because real religions wouldn't be incorporated in my world. As for races, I'm not as guilty for being one-sided as I used to be. It's still something I'm working through, but I'm better than I was before. It's a bit difficult for me again because my world geography and mythos are not real world based.

Are there any genres that you like to read rather than write on your own because you don't think you're good at writing that specific genre, etc.?
Yes, actually! Intellectual horror is something that I love to read and indulge in (like tumblr user Sixpenceee reblogged stories) but I have the most difficult time actually writing anything suspenseful.

Do you find yourself reading more online stories/fanfictions nowadays than "real" books? If so/if not, why do you think that is?
I don't really read fanfiction that much, but I do read a bit more online stories in my free time. I'm usually just too busy to dedicatedly read real books (and I'm extreeeemely picky in what I choose to read).

Do you like poetry? Why or why not? (writing and/or reading it)
I used to try to write poetry but I'm not a big fan anymore. I enjoy reading modern free form poetry though.

What's the one word you just cannot spell?
Receive - I usually mix up the "i" and the "e". Like, I can spell all sorts of weird and complicated words, but every now and then something small trips me up.

[Silverhart]

So I mentioned I was creating a religion... So far, all have is that the gods created this big, powerful being but decided he was too powerfully so didn't make anymore, instead made humans. Yeah, that's all... Any ideas for going farther?

Religion first came about in order to answer those questions we can't answer on our own. Think about what questions your people would have. There are the big ones like "what happens when you die", "what came before us", "why are we here", "what is right and wrong", "why do bad things happen" etc. But there could also be smaller questions too, especially if your people have no way of otherwise knowing or clinically testing their ideas, such as "why does the moon wax and wane", "why does milk spoil", "what causes thunder and lightning", "who first discovered music, or fire, or love", "why do dogs wag their tails". There are myths and gods for all of these things in various religions and cultures.

[Greenleaf]

What race, religion, and sexuality do your human characters tend to be? Do you find yourself guilty of adding token characters, having all characters be the same ethnicity, or are your stories pretty diverse?

I think that nowadays, I tend to be more diverse in my characters. I definitely write more male characters than other genders, and I know I need to rectify that and am planning some stories with protags of other genders. Ethnicity-wise, I tend to be all over the place, though I have a fondness for Chinese characters simply for the fact that I myself am Chinese. My characters also tend to be POC more than white.

I haven't considered religion much in my writing, so perhaps that's something I can delve into (after some much needed research, of course). I'm Christian myself but usually write atheist or otherwise non-religious characters. Kind of curious, that, now that I think of it.

I definitely include more LGBTQ+ characters than cishet characters, again for the fact that I am LGBTQ+. I'm fond of asexual characters, being an ace person, and my characters tend to be gay or bi. I know I need to include more identities, however, and intend to do so in my future stories.

[The Worst Username]

What race, religion, and sexuality do your human characters tend to be? Do you find yourself guilty of adding token characters, having all characters be the same ethnicity, or are your stories pretty diverse?

Well, I'm going to answer my own question. My stories are pretty diverse without me even intending them to be, and I don't understand why that happens. When I was really little, I wrote a bunch of white, straight, Christian characters because at the time I was all of those things and they seemed familiar to me. I'm still straight and white, but I'm now an atheist, and my main character is almost always atheist. As for races, I don't really consider them that much, but now that I think about it, most of my characters are black or biracial, and there's usually a white girl. My main characters tend to be bi or gay; I'm not exactly sure why though. My main character is almost always female. The other characters are usually male, and I don't write nonbinary characters when it comes to gender.

I'm going to stop blethering and shut up. Have a nice day!

[Woogwoo Wren]

Guys. Remember the circle stories discussion? Well, I wrote one. It's super short, but here. Might give you an idea of what they're like.