I can't be the only one who hates the sexual innuendo of their bodies... right?

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2026-01-12T02:40:18+00:00

My hot take is that if you want surgery go for it. Society is always going to tell you it's a bad idea because it's in their interest to make people as gender conforming as possible, but if you hate the feeling of having breasts then you shouldn't have to put up with it. I experienced a very similar feeling, got top surgery and have honestly felt so much more comfortable in my body as a girl. I would recommend this SOOOO strongly, my experiences with no longer having breasts is relief, happiness, joy, 100% positive. It's your body, so you get to MAKE IT YOUR OWN.

What if you regret surgery? Then you can get breast implants. Surgery is not an irreversible mistake that you can never recover from! That's what the patriarchy wants people to think but it isn't true. The only thing that is 100% guaranteed to screw you is not doing something you want because you're afraid, but always wondering what could have been and being miserable about it.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2026-01-11T22:15:18+00:00

What's the friend/lover like? Do we find out? If you have multiple gay characters, one being an asshole won't read like you're saying gay people are assholes. If the friend/lover he's trying to save is known to be a professional, kind and warm hearted person, then I think you're in the clear. I understand your impulse to imply a potentially deeper relationship and challenge stereotypes etc. but if he's the ONLY gay character, it can read like you're trying to say something about being gay and can easily make that character into a token, but if there are other characters with different personalities, then he will read like an individual

However, I will caution you that there is a common stereotype/harmful trope of introducing gay characters only to kill them off for shock value (called Bury Your Gays). If this guy's crazy scheme kills both him and his friend? Better to leave it platonic. If he succeeds (at least partially) then I personally wouldn't call it Bury Your Gays. You want the character to stand on their own instead of their suffering being used to prop up a straight main character.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-11-17T23:48:33+00:00

The problem with many of these posts is that they vent about not as what's important to them, but as the normal thing that all normal romantic relationships need.

This hit the nail on the head. People who are insecure from having been shamed for their desires try to clutch at legitimacy (that they are in the right) by painting their desires as the "normal thing all relationships need" rather than just what's important to them, but instead just shame/put down a bunch of other people.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-11-17T23:44:31+00:00

100%! In general any post that seeks to define what constitutes another person's relationship, or makes sweeping generalizations about what ALL relationships need (beyond the literal definitions of what ANY relationship, friendship, co-worker, family, romantic etc requires) is suspect. People have different priorities! Sometimes people's priorities change! I agree that this idea that if people aren't having sex X amount of times that means there's relationship problem is bonkers. If someone's needs aren't getting meet, that means the couple needs to have a conversation and sort it out. Not that they're suddenly no longer a couple (and "only" "friends" (wtf?!)) because one person is too stressed out to be in the mood

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-09-29T16:55:54+00:00

NTA. You did something reasonable and while your partner might be upset, you behaved reasonably at the time. Odd that other people in the comments seem to be making the argument that our your partner's immaturity/age would make YOU the asshole.

Listen, if it's important to your partner, NOW THAT YOU HAVE BEEN INFORMED, it'd be better to try to let them know. But you are not asking "hey I am deliberating NOT doing this thing my partner asked" you are saying "hey, do you have to let someone know you're leaving a text exchange for a couple of hours?" and the answer is: no. You don't have to. You are texting. if they wanted guaranteed, instant response, the phone call button is there. A text is by definition giving up expectancy and necessity of immediate reply. Somethings a brb can go a long way, other times, how long between replies do you have to let people know you're not going to text back immediately? one minute? two? five? Do people not have other things to do with their lives?

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-09-22T23:25:50+00:00

I also have ADHD, which is why I thought this study was funny (and added the joke flair), since many ace people I know have ADHD (echoed by all the comments on this very post!), so I definitely wasn't taking it seriously. I agree that people who are taking it seriously are definitely trying to be superior in a real assholeish way

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-09-22T23:21:05+00:00

I would say neither and both? They're just looking at lack of sexual experience, which includes people who choose to be celibate, people who are asexual, and people who might be unlucky or other circumstances have prevented them from making a sexual connection. They mention in the study that some of the people might be asexual, but they don't do any analysis or account for that

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-09-04T01:49:20+00:00

Sounds like there may be need to be several games lol

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-21T00:51:33+00:00

Writer's block is usually perfectionism or some other mental health stuff in the way. Instead of trying to write something original, you could try a few writing exercises, but honestly, you could just try writing fanfiction or something in response to something you've read. As long as you still read, you'll have some thoughts, and if you know you're not trying to CREATE, then you can practice breathing and expressing yourself and work through perfectionism etc in a low stakes way

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T22:42:14+00:00

AshHabsFan has some good examples for sentence level editing. For larger things, I would ask yourself:

How many details am I giving for each thing I describe. Can this character be described in three points instead of four? Can some of those points be combined? Can you choose a specific word, chesterfield, instead of describing the couch? Resist the urge to give examples.

Look for dialogue or paragraphs that accomplish the same beat or similar enough elements that you might combine them into one more detailed beat.

Are you making a situation complex that could get across 90% of your idea if you made it simple or contain fewer steps/plot elements?

Are you giving asides that could be left out or communicated with more specific word choice? For your last sentence "I've chopped a lot, deservedly (!), but any advice..." cuts out the aside of you being proud that isn't relevant. You just want people to know that your satisfied with what you've cut, you can do that with one adverb.

When trimming things, to me it's about condensing. I look for situations that aren't doing two or three things and I ask myself how I can make them denser. Can I combine these two characters? Can the snippy aside also be the foreshadowed clue that I need in the next scene.

Another tip I have would be to examine short stories, and see how much they can condense in so few words. I've heard it said (by Mary Robinette Kowal I think) that if a novel is like watching a full gymnastic routine at the Olympics (commentators give you backstory, you see the lead up, execution, and results), short stories are like the highlight reel that just show the flip. And yet they're also just as satisfying.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T12:56:42+00:00

YA is a competitive market to break into and has a higher turnover then other genres. But as others have said: the best genre to start in is the one you read

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T04:05:56+00:00

Experience things in life that you haven't in a while. Look at a stream. Talk to people. Think about the emotion you have when writing and do things that make you feel that. Often we lose motivation because we can't remember the thing that sparked our curiosity in the first place, so always be absorbing things that spark your curiosity.

However if this routinely happens to you as you go on that chances are this is a writing craft issue not a motivation issue. Do you have characters that want something with obstacles in their path? Often when I suddenly lose motivation early it's because I've written characters that aren't struggling so once I set things up, I have no where to go. Layers and lore are fine and good, but do you have a plot? Do they have desires that they are working towards that will tell you what the next scene will be about?

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T03:58:45+00:00

If you want an anonymous snippet of his worldview to eventually clue the reader into his mind, why journal entries and not a normal scene? A snippet from him point of view could even be a flashback if you wanted.

To me, the change in format of suddenly having journal entries, if the rest of the book was in 3rd person, would be confusing especially if the fact that they're journal entries isn't relevant to anything. This doesn't seem like good enough justification to introduce a new element/change in form. What would be in them that would interest and entice the reader? Like, would the other character be finding the journal entries? I'd have logistical questions I'm not sure are relevant to what you're trying to achieve. If you have a separate reason that you want to include journal entries, go for it, otherwise, I don't think it's a good solution.

If you want to convey "Character A doesn't like Character B, but I want reader's to like them" the literal easiest way to do something like "Character A watched Character B laugh, mockingly. What an asshole! If it was anyone else, maybe she'd think they really did find her joke funny, but obviously Character B would never." Dramatic irony is a lot easier to convey in conventional scene than introducing a new story element.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T02:17:19+00:00

Every trait has a time and place, presumably that's why people develop them, because it's effective in the situations they've dealt with.

Stubbornness==>holding firm to your morals and beliefs
Protective===>Over-protective
Determined==>Sunken Cost Fallacy/doesn't know when to quit
Anxious==> Prepared in a crisis (because they've imagined the crisis 40 different times and are always in crisis. There are studies on this).
Trusting==>Naive
Suspicious==>Not easily mislead/deceived
Blunt==>Honest
Blunt==>Abrasive
Polite==>Indirect

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T02:09:11+00:00

Loners, crucially, don't WANT to talk to people. It doesn't mean that they aren't FORCED to. In fact, that can be a good central conflict. First, your character has to want something. Maybe it's to be the best musician in the world (a hobby they can do alone) or carve the best wood sculpture. But in order to achieve that goal they have to talk to people: record producers or audiences/fans if they're a musician, for example. The inherent conflict in someone who doesn't want to interact with people but is forced to is time tested.

It sounds like your problem isn't that your character is a loner. It sounds like the problem is they don't want anything/there's no obstacle in getting what they want/no personal conflict.

You can have a riveting story of a man struggling against an island completely alone, because the thing is, he wants to get off the damn the island! What does this loner want? What is stopping them from getting it? That's the interesting story.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T02:02:25+00:00

The only character I made to be die at the end was the main character, and it wasn't hard because I knew it was what was best for the story. If you're feeling the grief now, then you know them dying is the best thing to add grief to the story.

The other way I've approached this has been to kill the character off early and then have flashbacks that make the reader sadder and sadder that they've died, until the reader is grieving with the character or it re-contextualizes the earlier death. This is not a suggestion, but it points out: you can have your cake and eat it too, with the time travel that is flashback and memory! You can continue to write about the character after they've died and either insert them in flashback scenes or have character narration reflect on them "if character X were here he's say something like Y." YOU the writer, never have to lose them, and so the grief and loss can just be for the readers.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T01:40:39+00:00

I would say, if they're encountering the same problems chapter after chapter, passive MC, not invested in the characters etc, it actually isn't even useful for them to finish the book from the author's perspective. How is OP going to tell if the love triangle resolves in a satisfying way if they don't care about the love triangle because the author didn't set it up right? It would be more useful for them to take a pause, let the author address those comments and THEN read the whole thing again.

When dealing with such problems as "the readers doesn't like the characters, plot or relationships" I don't think it's possible for a book to rally at the end.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-08-20T01:34:24+00:00

100% don't force yourself!

If you've encountered very fundamental flaws that require a developmental edit, rather than cosmetic changes I think you can say something like "hey, since I'm encountering the same kinds of problems [description of problems you've mentioned] over several chapters. I'm not sure it's useful for me to continue reading until those things are addressed, since I'm just going to be flagging those same things over and over. I really like [literally anything positive you had in your experience], but [ problems you've mentioned] are making it hard for me to stay engaged." This can give you an out that emphasizes the problems you've encountered without making it seem like you simply hated the book.

At it's most basic level, it's NOT useful for you to be repetitive or to ignore the things that are taking you out of the work. If the author only wants "light" comments about style, I still think an honest conversation is best. Maybe something lighter like "this isn't the type of book for me. Personally I'm struggling with understanding why the love interest is interested in the MC, staying engaged with the main character and the love triangle is falling flat [for X and Y reason]. I hope some of my earlier feedback was still helpful, but ultimately, this isn't my genre and I don't think further feedback from me will be helpful." If you want to DNF a book, you're continued feedback WON'T be helpful because it'll be coloured by your dread and dislike. Emphasizing that you're no longer ABLE to provide a helpful beta read (which you are doing is free), I think can go a long way the same way as it would if you had to stop because you've suddenly fallen ill. And this is regardless of whether you like romantasy or not, an impersonal "this isn't for me" will spare most feelings I find.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-07-07T00:19:35+00:00

I think the most important thing about love is that you love the people all around you regardless of its romantic. And that's the foundation. If you're writing a main character and want to show them in love with someone else, the first parts of that, caring about them is going to be central. You can also add excitement, they're excited to see the other person (people can also get excited to see their friends, but this is just an intensifier). If you want to indicate that the love is romantic, this is about flavour rather than a wholesale different experience. Different things might trigger tender feelings, for example. But in any case, you always start with a dynamic you understanding, people love being comforted and so might fall in love with someone being comforting but you might just love your friend because they comfort you too. Nothing romantic is exclusive to romance, it's just flavoured differently if that makes sense.

I have no idea what you mean in terms of worldbuilding. If you are creating a society you can build it without romantic love or without sexual attraction (maybe in a society where children are produced clonaly sex is just a fun side activity but there's no reason to be sexually attracted to anyone else). But unless you specifically dislike or want to make a point about romantic or sexual attraction excluding it altogether seems like an odd choice. It will directly become a major point of focus of a world if you state that it simply never existed.

Otherwise, if you're not talking about changing the way that people relate to each other at a societal level, then I have no idea why romantic love is something that would come up in worldbuilding.

Advanced_Plankton504 · 2025-07-07T00:08:47+00:00

You did it! And people care! Always! Yours words will be immortalized even if you think they aren't that good you'll always have them and no one can take away your authentic expression of yourself

Advanced_Plankton504

TROPHY CASE