{ ＩＮＫＬＩＮＧＳ } A Thread For Writers

[ri bird.]

My characters have different voices depending on how I want them portrayed. c:
The girlish and flouncy ones usually have high, breathy voices, and most of
my favorite female characters that are girls have deeper voices...I suppose I
just like portraying them as more mature. ^^

[SweetToxic]

Does anyone else get slight anxiety when they write? I do. It's strange, I LOVE to write, yet I still have anxiety whilst I do so. Also, I hate it when you get a great idea for a plot, then realize it's kinda like a book you read. It's like other media always tries to get into my brain when I'm trying to write. XD
I have a question: What is the best method of writing? Typing, writing, etc? I prefer writing because I can work on it at school when I have time, but the issue with that is is that my writing is pretty large. So I get my hopes up thinking that I just wrote a twenty page chapter, yet when I type it, it turns out to be less than ten.

[Bunnie++]

{//hey guys, I have a question for all of you :3
What do you think about characters with a background story that involves pain/suffering?
Such as like how James Bond was an orphan.
Do you dislike them or are they fine?
Or does it matter as long as it doesn't go too far or fits the age (golden age, medieval, 20th century) and or genre?

@ SweetToxic

I tend to like typing. Writing is a pain for me and my hand.
I type much faster and won't have to scribble out word and erase so much to fix a line.
I can just easily look over it, delete, and fix the sentence the way I wanted it to look.
I wrote a whole two pages on my comp and ended up redoing it but keeping a lot of the same paragraphs but replacing them.//}

[Silverhart]

Does anyone else get slight anxiety when they write? I do. It's strange, I LOVE to write, yet I still have anxiety whilst I do so. Also, I hate it when you get a great idea for a plot, then realize it's kinda like a book you read. It's like other media always tries to get into my brain when I'm trying to write. XD
I have a question: What is the best method of writing? Typing, writing, etc? I prefer writing because I can work on it at school when I have time, but the issue with that is is that my writing is pretty large. So I get my hopes up thinking that I just wrote a twenty page chapter, yet when I type it, it turns out to be less than ten.

I'm the opposite of you. X3 I don't have anxiety when I write, but I do get anxiety if I don't write - or if I'm writing a story I know I have to share.

I think what method you use is totally up to you. I also write longhand, with pencil and paper, and then type it up. I like it better that way for first drafts. But my handwriting is very small, so I have the opposite problem. I use a slightly smaller font oftentimes, so maybe you should try using a larger font when you type it up?

To anwser the earlier discussion my characters also have different voices and accents. I've never done the mirror thing, but I do make my character's expressions while I'm writing, or even mouth the lines of dialogue. My mom has often asked me why I'm grimacing at my paper when I'm writing a serious conversation. XD

[abbie-sama]

Haha, so I'm not the only one who does that! :3

Anyway, I'll post it, I guess.

Note: This is my RA (Ranger's Apprentice) fanfic, where Lyssa's father never came back from a mission. She is a Ward, which means orphan in the RA world, along with three other Wards -- all of them bullies to her for a reason that I haven't figured out yet. She ran off to go find some people who could answer questions about her father, but Rusl, one of the bullies, insisted on coming with her. You'll find out more later -- but this is not a romance scene, got it?
Also, I know the grammar might not be good, but I plan on fixing that later. This is just a rough draft, and I only want to know about emotional quality (If that makes sense). <3
This is chapter 18, so I understand if you don't feel any relation to her yet, since I've already built that up with the previous ones. So I gave you guys an exclusive skip.
And it's long, but I put it in small text so maybe you wouldn't notice.
Enjoy.



Lyssa choked on her words, tossed directly into another dream. She saw it forming in her mind, which seemed happy to torture her tonight.
She saw the house that she had lived in up until the age of eight. Transparent like mist for just a few moments, the house finally formed and solidified.
Lyssa wrenched her head away, trying to close her eyes—but her heart told her to keep looking. She tuned into the feel of her own body, not this dream one… and she couldn't move. Her body slept; her brain assisted her in futile attempts to move and maybe, somehow, awake.
Lyssa prayed that she would awake, used all of her strength to try and move, until she finally collapsed. Her imaginary reserves of strength within this dream world were completely sapped. There was no escaping the invisible prison that locked her body away—there was no stopping this dream—there was only waiting for the inevidable, harsh truth of pain and sadness.
In a sudden rush of overwhelming emotion, she was stricken with the urge to cry. The urge to cry like a child, to let out wails and moans, to let the snot bubble at her nostrils and collect above her upper lip—to rock back and forth until she was cradled by someone larger, someone safer, someone who would rescue her from drowning in misery.
Lyssa felt the tears in her throat, in her eyes, in her stomach, in her heart, but not on the outside. Instead, the dream moved the house in a way that made perfect sense within dream. Just about everything made sense within dream, like you had suddenly gone to your own twisted little world, a place where you—and only you—made the rules. Sometimes those rules would betray you, and sometimes not.
The house creaked and cracked like it was trying to sprout legs. Its bulk dragged into Lyssa's vision until it rested right in the middle, right where she could see it. She could see everything.
The house, her house, was normal. If anything, it was a bit too normal, but that had never mattered to Lyssa, because she had loved it all the same. She had loved her house because it contained everyone that she loved. It was a place that she had relied on to house her loved ones, a place of true comfort.
Those reasons were why the sight of the house disgusted her. The dark brown wooden body, the rugged porch, the roof designed to be slanted at one side, was nothing but a part of the house, which was a disgusting thing serving only in bringing back memories.
“Make it leave,” Lyssa whispered to an unseen being. She wrapped fingers into her hair, cupping her palms against her temples, shaking her head as a distraction. The feeling rising up in her throat made her feel dizzy, hot, cold, and nauseated at the same time.
Lyssa shrieked at the grass that her legs rested on: “Stop! I don't want it, I don't want it!” She felt her head pound. She heard her own squealing words fill the air, piercing through her ears painfully.
The house didn't leave, no matter how many times she demanded. Maybe she was demanding her mind or maybe some other being, some other person who she knew was there.
“Shh…” the wind whispered in her ears, cooing as gently as a warm kiss on the cheek.
“I'm here.”
Who was there? Whose voice was that? Why did Lyssa feel joy—no, it was more than that. It was delight. Why did she feel delight when the those words came to her ears?
“Daddy's here, Lyssie. Daddy's here.”
She drew in a breath and felt the comforting warmth of a hand, a familiar hand, pressing against her shoulder. Daddy was there, comforting her—loving her.
A gentle pull from his grip and she turned without hesitation, falling into his arms, breathing in the scent of his cloak, relishing in the feeling of embrace. She had missed the hugs and the kisses. She had missed her father's jokes and his horrible cooking. She had missed the simplicity of a life where, one day, she would be able to shy away from the long hugs like a normal teenager.
Lyssa felt the glow of happiness flicker deep within her rapidly thump-thump-thump-ing heart. She held onto the source of that happiness for dear life, her fingers clutching the body right there, right beside her.
Forever, Lyssa thought, I'll hold on forever.
Her father's warmth enveloped her whole body in a hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck as tightly as she could, her sadness mixing with happiness that gave birth to laughter. The laughter sounded more like tearless sobs, but yet they were a release. A wonderful release.
He was here. Yes, here. Here with her. She was his Lyssie, he was her Daddy, and she loved him.
“I love you, Daddy.”
Lyssa hugged her father until she felt him go limp. She buried herself into his warmth until it burned her.
Her father had missed so much… She would have to tell him everything. That would come next.
Her eyes opened.
“Daddy—”
And a pit of misery, cold misery, followed by flaming disbelief, formed deep within her soul.
The sensation of near-burns were forming on her shoulders. There was a woolen vest in her face, pressing down her nostrils, smothering her. Lyssa felt everything around her, yet she could only lay limp, crunched in the shape of a crescent moon.
Lyssa squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that her father coming alive behind her eyelids. No matter how many times she willed the vision on, there was only the flickering orange light in front of her, an extremely unwelcome distraction.
Was it all a cruel joke—rolling over too close to the fire and feeling the warmth, hugging the woolen vest and thinking that it was a person?
No. Lyssa had smelled her father. She had felt her father. She loved her father. It couldn't have been a dream.
Lyssa sat upright, stiffly sitting on the floor. Even the motion of hugging her vest close propelled a sense of soreness into her half-locked muscles.
Lyssa sat still for the longest time, a part of her waiting for something that inevidably would not come. Every second that passed, the denial would shrink away until it all but left. Slowly, the girl pulled her legs forward in a call for safety, wrapping her arms around them. She rocked her head forward until the soft touch of wool hit her nose, her forehead resting against the dip between her two knees, and breathed a ragged breath.
“Lyssa?”
She was confused for a moment, her gaze darting as if she thought that a monster would leap from the darkness. Then the voice came again, repeating her name until, finally, she remembered who was saying it.
Lyssa's dark, brown gaze trailed to the small bed at her side. She felt extremely drained, as if one movement was dependant on a million urgings from her brain. Her sight turned back to the flickering fire and she sat still, limp as if weighed down by sadness.
“Lyssa…” Rusl said, then stopped to yawn. He mumbled something and rubbed his messy hair.
Lyssa pulled her face out of her legs and said, “What is it?”
“Dream fuel,” Rusl grumbled, teetering as he stepped slowly out of bed. He looked at Lyssa with sleepy eyes and yawned again.
“Right now?” Lyssa croaked, her quiet voice brandishing a forced, weathered tone. Rusl stared at her for a few seconds before nodding. In answer, Lyssa shrugged dismissively, gesturing towards the place where her sturdy, small leather pack had been.
“Lyssa, I can't find it.”
She sighed, turning her head to the direction of Rusl's sleepy, childish words. One of Lyssa's hands twitched before moving to her mass of red hair, which she rubbed diligently. Then she asked Rusl, “Did you try looking on the other side?”
Rusl moaned in reply, flopping down flat on his stomach beside her. He pressed his head into the creaking wooden floor, muffling his next words: “I'm too hungry.”
Lyssa heard the begging for argument deep within Rusl's bored voice, but she just couldn't bring herself to acknowledge it. She wanted him to leave her alone. She wanted to zone into the crackle of ablaze firewood. Most of all, she wanted her father.
Lyssa swallowed quickly, a salty lump rising in her throat. It had become so very alien that she felt scared of it. Gnawing ferociously at her cracked lower lip, she ignored his gesture by simply feeling for the thick leather strap. Her hand reaching it, Lyssa pulled the leather up from an entanglement of her long sleeved shirt, and dropped it onto Rusl's head.
“Wha—?”
Lyssa groaned after a few more moments. She felt Rusl staring at her, and imagined him asking questions in his head, wondering what was wrong.
He still wasn't leaving. Instead, he kept staring at her in that curious, questioning way.
“What now, Rusl?” she asked him quietly, her voice dry and listless. Then, when she got no answer, Lyssa turned her head towards his chocolate brown eyes.
Rusl tilted his head very slightly, wondering why Lyssa was acting so unusual. She didn't have that fire, something that frightened him. Usually, Lyssa's fire was in her stature, in her eyes, and in her words especially, but now the only fire that Rusl saw was her hair.
“I can't open it,” Rusl moaned mischeviously. In a dramatic gesture, he slapped a hand over his forehead.
Rusl couldn't believe it. His eyes widened at the noise of slight movement and his hand immediately unglued itself from his face. When the next dim flicker of firelight came his way, he saw the pack—opened. Opened. It surprised Rusl so much that he thought his jaw hit the floor.
What in the world was wrong with her? Had she gone completely, totally insane? Had she hit het head? Was she sad? Was she angry? Was she scared? Was she regretting something? Or was she plotting to kill him? Whatever it was, Lyssa wasn't there—not his Lyssa. Not the Lyssa that he teased and bullied. Not the Lyssa that had given him that bite mark. Not the Lyssa who he tried to despise because she was someone that he wanted to be.
Stressed, Rusl took a chunk of dried meat strips, and ate. His whole being fought with hunger, sleepiness, and confusion. The whole time that he ate, Rusl couldn't stop stealing glares towards Lyssa. They were probably longer than he had thought, but when he stared at her form, crunched in a tight ball, he couldn't bring himself to care.
For the first time in his life, Rusl realized something: He wanted Lyssa to punch him square in the face and get mad. He always had—because it was… fun. It gave him something to look forward to, even though he had been cruel to get it out of her. Forcing those thoughts away, he added, At least yell at me a bit.
After the longest time of thinking, Rusl felt something scratch at his tonsils. He had forgotten to swallow, but when he tried to, it all got stuck as a huge glob in his throat. Not for the first time, he was on the verge of choking. Instead, his eyes bugged out and he coughed like a maniac.
For a very long time, Lyssa stared back at Rusl, watching as he fought to keep food from going into his lungs. In sudden realization, she screeched, “Oh God!” and proceeded to slap him—none to gently—on the back.
Gosh, she's heavyhanded, was all that Rusl could think until, finally, the ordeal was over. At least his sister, who had dealt with him eating too fast, always patted him gently…
“Idiot,” Lyssa murmured, her hand still raised. She saw the slight grin on Rusl's face that said: I was scared for a second, but I'm just going to play that off. Lyssa felt angry about that, mostly because she'd been scared, too—scared for an idiot. Her way of “playing it off” was a bit different than Rusl's.
Decisively, Lyssa rose her hand a few inches higher. Her arm muscles tensed and a deep frown came to her lips. Once Rusl was drawing in a breath, she slapped the hand down upon his back. He seemed to vibrate from the movement, and so did her hand, which also went red and shot with needles pain. The pain wasn't exactly pain right then, but more of a twisted release.
The incredibly satistfying sound coming from his shaking chest filled the air, louder than the pop of firewood.
“L-Lyssa—” Rusl sputtered, scarcely able to fathom the girl's strength, “You can stop now.”
He turned his head and saw Lyssa's eyes, which scared—no, unnerved him in that familiar way. They were filled with a split second of empowerment.
“Lyssa…? Don't—!”
A sharp pain, which he partly expected, jumped into his left shoulder. Rusl flinched immediately, a silent yelp coming out of his mouth without his consent. He wanted to cradle his arm, but something else distracted him.
It was the rush of recognition that came over Lyssa's face, recognition filled with such sadness. Rusl watched for a moment, surprised at this show of emotion, until she looked away. He'd always thought that, with Lyssa, she was either angry or an obnoxious, “emotionless” introvert. Maybe he was wrong?
Rusl didn't know the details, but he did know that he wanted to cheer Lyssa up. How ironic. He wanted to make her, of all people, happy so that she could pay him back with grumpiness, a temper, and whatever else was in store—the good and the bad.



I can't keep up with sadness for too long. I'm naturally a very bubbly girl, so I had to do something to lighten up the mood a bit. :3

^*embarrassedcoughcough* This got lost on the last page.

I absolutely love characters that involve those kind of background stories. :3 As long as they're not impossibly sad, or Mary Sue-ish...

[Silverhart]

Ahh! Didn't see your post Baccano!

I believe if the author gives their character a sad backstory to gain sympathy with the readers it is not okay. In fact it's really annoying.
But if the backstory does not define the character (i.e. it's constantly brought up by the author/other characters or the character is just depressed all the time because of it), or excuse his actions, and has some effect on the story then yes, a sad backstory can be fine, so long as it's not over the top. There should be both good things and bad things in their life. Otherwise it borders on being unrealistic, and two-dimensional.

[O.G.]

{//hey guys, I have a question for all of you :3
What do you think about characters with a background story that involves pain/suffering?
Such as like how James Bond was an orphan.
Do you dislike them or are they fine?
Or does it matter as long as it doesn't go too far or fits the age (golden age, medieval, 20th century) and or genre?//}

It really depends, in my opinion. Most of the time it really just end up irking me because the character does little more than wallow in self pity and break down every time something reminds them of their past. I mean, it's just...ugh. No one wants to hear some sob story and read about the suffering character crying about it all of the time. It can be pretty disgusting sometimes. Then again, most of the times (if not all) that I have been so repelled by such things is when reading amateur writings or bad role playing. However, what's even worse than self pity, in a sense, is when a character just tells someone that their father beat them, their siblings hated them attempted murder them a thousand times, they were stalked and kidnapped by evil men, beaten more, sold as a slave, still beaten daily, and then their father stalked them down to beat them more. And then the character just shrugs it off like its no big deal while the one who it was revealed to is shocked and horrified by it. I just really hate self pity sob stories where the characters just seem to be begging, indirectly or not, for attention and pity.
However, if it's done really well (I have no examples because I don't read very many books) I believe it could be done well. A person would just have to avoid the whole "omg my life suks 'cause my family abandoned me and blah blah blah pity me," unless, of course, it was in the characters nature to feel self pity and crave the attention of others. Other than that, I think one would have to be pretty careful with the tragic back story. I think the author could bring up the tragic past and even describe it in detail if it was needed so long as they didn't take it so that the character constantly felt sorry for themselves.
Well, I hope that rambling actually made sense. xD.

[winter.]

I would like to know how people feel about amount of dialogue in a story.
I've always been curious whether people prefer stories with more or less dialogue.

[honeydont]

Traumatic backstories can help readers connect to their characters. I don't mind them, as long as they're not constantly rehashed and angsted about.

I really want to write a book/story with unorthodox methods, like deliberately uncapitalized words and backwards sentences. The intent is to be very dreamlike, but I feel like it would just annoy the heck out of the readers.

? i am where
. dark here is it
. scared very so scared am i
. monster comes here
! scared
!

there were a m i l l i o n tiny pieces and i stooped down to pick them up
they g l i n t e d in the sun
my dream f r a g m e n t s

Something like that, I suppose. What do you think? Should I go for it?

[Bunnie++]

{//Thanks for all the replies everyone ~

@ Yami-san

*Bows*
I think a Short story written like that would be nice as long as you tell the readers how it's written.
But if its long (and done in every single sentence) and you don't tell the readers it might get kind of annoying.
But the idea it's self sound really great. :3
Go for it and see how others like it ~!//}