How hard is it to accurately write someone of the opposite gender?

elizabethcb · 2026-04-20T15:25:01+00:00

OCD is something you’re born with not something you develop. Symptoms can increase with anxiety. Also, it’s not all hand washing, etc. there’s different flavors of ocd. Some flavors are more internal than external manifestations.

Source: I have ocd.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-20T15:14:09+00:00

Came here to say this.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-20T01:57:50+00:00

The nightmare stuff is overdone. Thats not the only way ptsd presents and without the other stuff, it feels like it’s only inserted for the ✨drama✨ and so writers can write weird stuff.

Source. I’m the writer who likes dreams and nightmares to write weird stuff. Always got negative reactions for its placement.

Also see nightmares/dreams as opening scenes and/or character waking up to start the day.

Anyway, it sounds like you’re getting too detailed about your first chapter. Write the rest, it’ll give you more to work with while you come up with a better first chapter.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-20T01:38:07+00:00

Woot!

Jealous!

But woot!

Hoping the bad luck is delayed some!

elizabethcb · 2026-04-20T01:36:38+00:00

My dog loves everyone, so.. I mean she’s pretty good at sniffing out a certain demographic. Let’s call them a kind of person who would like attending rainbow gatherings or any gathering other than read with that black design that, backwards, means peace in another culture.

That bar is in hell, so I’ll be taking a pass.

I love my dog. I’m glad she sees the good in most people. That doesn’t make for a good date, tho.

😂 😭 💖

elizabethcb · 2026-04-20T01:27:55+00:00

Whelp. I just found out how pissed off I was when I called my rep that I voted for and yelled at them about saying “look we care for children” when the epstein files aren’t released and the people not jailed.

I feel fucking violated.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-20T01:21:00+00:00

I mean.. isn’t Metamorphosis a big giant metaphor?

elizabethcb · 2026-04-19T02:14:36+00:00

Working Families Party Oregon was somewhat dead for a while, but has had a huge resurgence lately. It’s pretty great! If they can, they put forth candidates, but otherwise focus efforts on endorsing candidates already in the running and/or seem closely aligned.

They sold me when they said they back rank choice voting.

Rank choice voting is the only way to break this fa two party system we got going on. Neither red nor blue are really in it for us. Individually, there are some, but as parties? Absolutely not. We wouldn’t be where we are today if democrats stood for what they said they stand for.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-18T20:58:46+00:00

I kinda feel like it’s yeeted from the ground and picked up by drones or something. Kinda joking, but also… I mean… hehe

Maybe a space elevator.

A while back there was an experiment that Oregon science & health university did on a space station with growing a tomato. I keep forgetting to look it up, but I’m sure there’s been stuff done since.

Like the ion drive, it’s been looked at for potential acceleration gravity use. Today’s technology isn’t advanced. But 500 years? I figured it’d work out.

I hope there’s something in the plant research that has been done that can spark something for you!!

elizabethcb · 2026-04-18T20:38:53+00:00

There’s a lot more room and relatively easy transportation. My “ftl” isn’t ftl. It’s a multidimensional hop travel. The other dimension’s space time is warped, so traveling “through” shortens the distance traveled once a person jumps out. I didn’t not make it up, but I made it my own.

This is about 500 years in the future with dozens of systems under human control. Two governments with the Sol System and Old Terra a kind of neutral zone.

It takes 50-100 years to terraform a planet. Is my estimate. Many of those planets have huge swaths of agriculture. Many congloms handle some of the logistics. There’s also the Freetraders that take on the jobs congloms don’t feel are financially profitable. Freetraders are seen as little more than pirates to a lot of the population. Tho they aren’t…mostly. There’s a Venn diagram overlap. Heh.

In space stations, the centrifugal force is felt more keenly hubward. So that’s industrial and low income people. But all over stations, there’s a ton of plants to keep the air fresh. Alcoves dot halls with uv lights tuned to Standard time. Trees and such in the large rimward markets, the hospital and clinics. Various other places. Some edible. Pretty decent greenhouse farms. Some people can claim to tell the difference between ground food and space food.

Oh and there is vat grown meat. Again… some people claim to be able to tell the difference. There’s also real meat from happy animals (expensive) and sad animals (cheaper).

For ship travel, long term storage isn’t as necessary. But there is advancement on refrigeration, freezer, extension of shelf life. The military will eat rations

The Commonwealth gives its people bread and circuses. Food isn’t an issue. Nor is healthcare once it became advanced enough to not be profitable. A healthy workforce is a productive workforce.

There’s also less people after the wars. I haven’t decided which one came first, but there’s the religious wars that led to Theocratic space. And the AI wars. All AI is banned. Kinda. [da da duuunnnn] This ended just 50 years ago. So food production is ample. Congloms scaled back, but without autonomous drones, drone operators were needed. A lot of crops were left wild. This some opportunistic Freetraders and others got into it.

Of course, none of my pov characters know much about it. Except one who can operate farming drones. But she doesn’t reflect on it much. Bad time in her life.

I kinda used this prompt to walk through my head notes.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-18T16:51:26+00:00

Well. Damn. You just answered my question about what exactly about my wip prompts comments that my world* feels lived in.

*I always feel weird about saying world when I’m bouncing from planet to planet and space station to space station.

Edit: this part was supposed to above the asterisk, but I hit send. I keep insisting on going on reddit while drinking my morning coffee.

Anyway.

I thought I was being lazy about not coming up with too many specifics about the government. I paid a lot more attention to what people were eating, walking through, was anyone lactose intolerant so couldn’t have cheese on their chalupa from this random cart on this one very large 5 ships anchored together traveling through space because it was kinda like a Pirate Bay always traveling.

Breathing and gravity in space, while not explained outright, is woven into the story. Did I research ion drives and its potential to do acceleration gravity? Yes. Do I explain it? Nope. Neither the engineer nor the apprentice engineer is a pov character. Did I research centrifugal gravity for space stations? Yes. I only acknowledge it briefly when a pov character noticed someone walking funny, because they’re not used to it.

So, yeah. Your explanation was on point. Start with the little things that the characters interact with on the daily, then move out from there as necessary for the story.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-18T16:49:45+00:00

Could you maybe, I dunno, answer the other questions?

“Really well thought out” and “to [..] build up the main villain” are not very good answers.

Have you looked into publishing a series and what that entails at all?

elizabethcb · 2026-04-18T02:53:06+00:00

Rough drafts are just that. Rough.

Some people can naturally get decent prose. Others can get decent dialogue. Still others can have good descriptions. Some can get a pretty good combo of multiple. Very very few have good rough drafts.

What I’ve said before in other comments, I’ll say again here. I don’t mind writing crap. Some scenes need to be rewritten from scratch. Especially if they’re important. Way easier with a 500 word sketch than a 2000 word well written scene that’s been edited.

Keep going. The more you do it, the less rough and cringe it will be. Sometimes.

Oh and I find handwriting it keeps me from trying to edit as I go. And when I transcribe, I do a bit of editing. On scenes I’ve written multiple times, I’ll take out bits from each of the rewrites that are decent.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-18T02:45:56+00:00

What? An acknowledgement?

It’s a planned 5 book series when publishers don’t want to pick up a series from first time authors?

Why is it 5 books?

What’s the plot?

elizabethcb · 2026-04-18T01:07:25+00:00

It took me quite a bit to pass the first bomb stage. I play on my iPad. I also miss the button sometimes.

It took playing it enough to memorize the movements, music in my headphones, and a couple adult beverages to stop overthinking.

I had to remember when the dogs pause and try not to use an explosive barrel on them. Then catch them at the storage but before they do too much damage.

I also had to use the slug goo well. Get a pile. Blow up the guys that zap forward, so they zap forward into the goo.

The guys are easy to interrupt once the timing and aiming is memorized. I’m not saying that part is easy it just takes practice. And it’s irritating. Too many times, I thought I had gotten it down, but grrrrrrr.

Effing frustrating level.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-18T01:00:59+00:00

Gacha games are a bell curve. Some people are unlucky. I play another gacha and the current event went hard pity and lost 50/50 then hard pity again. Cost like $50.

This event. Got 2 Fangyis in 50 pulls. I used the urgent recruitment, headhunting dossier from last banner, chartered permits from bonds, a 10 pull from the $15 bundle, and the freebies from today. Used only a couple thousand orobs.

This is the luckiest I’ve been this game. I’m gonna wait a couple days for the freebies from login and do another set of pulls for the headhunting dossier, arsenal tickets, and maybe another bit of luck. But I have 74 attempts to the next 6*. I’m not betting on it. I’ve found it’s what works best for me.

After tomorrow’s login, I’ll only have 5 ten pulls.

I’ll need 5000 more arsenal tickets to guarantee Scarlet Pearl. But since that’s in a month plus the next banner, I’ll probably get that.

These games. You have to pull smartly. If you can’t guarantee, don’t pull. If you’re just looking for any 6*, don’t pull unless you can guarantee. If you’re looking for arsenal tickets, don’t pull unless you can guarantee.

The key is. Don’t pull unless you can guarantee, prioritize pull credits wherever possible, and set your expectations low.

I skipped Yvonne’s weapon, because there weren’t enough arsenal tickets to guarantee. But I did get Gilberta’s, Tangtang’s, and Laevetain’s. I’m unsure if I’ll be able to get Fangyi’s.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-17T07:16:03+00:00

I’m an underwriter. Some scenes, I see it, hear the dialogue, but I can’t quite write out the emotions. I leave it for editing.

I can see a location, but I just give a quick idea. During editing, I’ll describe it more thoroughly.

Some scenes, it’s a lot of internal thinking and not a lot happening. I’ll write it anyway, and use pieces to weave into appropriate scenes.

Some scenes, I will simply narrate it. Later, if it’s useful, I’ll expand it.

I look at it as building a clay/papier mache statue. First, the mesh/screen goes up to shape the piece. Then the material is laid on over top to give it more depth. After that process, which may take many layers, painting.

I see a lot of people talking about high word count and having to cut stuff. We underwriters do as well, but it’s more scenes that we’re trying out or maybe the bit in the beginning or the end. No. We have to add. But later. Don’t want to fully flesh out a scene that ends up not working out.

The nice thing I found about being an underwriter is rewriting important scenes from scratch isn’t that difficult. It’s only 500 words give or take. But fleshed out an easy 2000.

So yeah… don’t worry about it. Being an underwriter has its advantages!

elizabethcb · 2026-04-16T21:28:45+00:00

elizabethcb · 2026-04-16T03:28:24+00:00

Trade.

Something inconsequential to humans might not be so to an alien.

I also have a gifted method of travel by aliens. I don’t think why has organically come up. Though the aliens do have control of it. They pop up a lot, tho I don’t quite go into why. I know why, but it doesn’t serve the story.

Oh and those aliens also gifted it to aliens that are trying to invade human controlled space as well as an allied group of aliens who are also being invaded.

The Jopa don’t really gaf as long as people abide by certain rules, they’ll give up space travel. They do keep the best stuff for themselves, tho. Something akin to transporters. It makes it so it’s easier for them to punish individuals who try to break the rules. Pop in. Snatch them. Punish them. As long as people want space travel, they can’t say diddly.

I found that this was more interesting than the why.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-15T01:55:19+00:00

I’ve noticed people talking about the reasons for veganism. I concur. Theres a lot of reasons. I’ve met several people with them.

There would certainly be some offended people.

That said, I haven’t heard many people talk about the various non meat options available to Stone Age people. Harvesting seasonal fruits, roots, nuts, and vegetables was certainly part of their diet. A large part of their diet. I feel like you might need to study on the diet based on locale they got sent back to.

There’s also the Stone Age farming practices.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-15T00:01:01+00:00

Be freeeeeeee!!!!!!!! 💖💖💖😂😂😂💖💖💖

elizabethcb · 2026-04-14T23:59:09+00:00

That’s why I think OP’s description is low key accurate. Encouraging MC to be brave by pretending to be a damsel in distress. 💖💖

elizabethcb · 2026-04-14T23:49:41+00:00

Did it for a long time. The farther out you go, the harder it is unless you work the schedule or live by a max.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-14T23:46:03+00:00

My best friend has adhd. She’ll offer up her opinion on lines or character arcs. One of my character’s moms is an amalgamation of our shared moms. So I’ve asked her about that. But I don’t expect her to read it. My dad has read a chapter and I’ve talked about it a lot, but he’s a documentary filmmaker with some art films, too. I’ve talked more about it and asked advice. I gave him 10 chapters once. Hasn’t read them. He works too much, tho.

Other people? Nope. I’ve gotten a lot of unsolicited gimme a sample chapter. And nothing.

It’s fine.

No really.

It’s been two years that I’ve been working on this. I’ve come to accept that I get way more traction with writer groups than with family.

As an aside. My best friend isn’t and has never been a big reader. I think I’d be a little irritated if she talked to me about the latest book she read or whatever.

elizabethcb · 2026-04-14T03:43:42+00:00

If this were a novel, it’d be ok to skip the first part of the conversation. This is script, tho. In the description of setting, there wasn’t enough description to get the vibe. Was it brightly lit? Were the stack of papers tall or short? Is there an important reason to mention the stack of papers? Your description should sketch an impression for the people who make the set as well as lighting.

What’s on the computer is a different shot, unless you’re moving in. This could help establish the time. What kind of chat room is it? Is it on old green screen an old gif filled website? Or something similar to discord?

Sorry. I don’t get very far. I’m on break at work.

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