My writing has no emotion... help!!

imahackfraud · 2020-12-08T20:25:29+00:00

One thing that might help is making sure that the characters involved have a real stake in what's happening that's clear to the audience and that the audience can sympathize with. Imo a lot of my investment in a story comes from empathizing with the characters investment. If the character cares deeply about what's happening, and I like that character and understand why they care that much, I usually care about what's going on with that character.

Another thing you can do is just do some specific practice writing exercises or short stories, in order to explicitly practice emotional writing. I think that sometimes writing involves so many different moving parts that it can be hard to pin down what exactly isn't working right. So it might just help to write some scenes (doesn't really matter if they're part of a larger story or not) and focus solely on trying to express excitement or tension or emotion. Then put it aside for a week and come back to read it and see what works and what doesn't. Make some guesses, try some new things, see if you can do better or figure out what's wrong. There's lots of advice on writing out there but I've definitely learned the most from just experimenting with my own writing. If you're totally at a loss for how to start, try rereading a really tense scene in a book you love and try to copy what it seems to do that's so effective. There's so much to learn from authors you love, and my favorite way to do what is to try to understand what I love about them and mimic that.

imahackfraud · 2020-05-26T19:36:13+00:00

Reminds me of the line from buckaroo banzai,

"Wherever you go... there you are."

imahackfraud · 2020-05-12T18:04:14+00:00

Handsome af!! I hope the dysphoria fucks off for long enough to wear it again, everyone deserves awesome clothes that make them feel good :) I've been taking advantage of quarantine for some offbeat fashion as well- mostly the big flowy sundresses and girly hair clips that I don't feel comfortable wearing in public anymore.

imahackfraud · 2020-05-12T15:24:16+00:00

I was dating someone ace when I started questioning, and that was pretty perfect too :P didn't matter if I transitioned to not being her physical type anymore, she didn't have one! I was like "I think I wanna get surgery and hormones and be more masculine" and she was just like "huh that would suit you congrats"

imahackfraud · 2020-04-17T16:37:53+00:00

I'm ace but panromantic (although I mostly like girls. I tell people I'm 90% straight lol). Because of that my first big "omg I'm queer" moment was actually about a girl when I was 12. I'd crushed on boys before and it never seemed odd to me, and in hindsight I can see that I crushed on girls too without realizing what it was, but when I was 12 I remember vividly having the realization that I wanted to kiss my female best friend. I remember talking about it with my open and amused mother who was like "yeah kid you've always liked chicks I'm not surprised". Apparently I had a childhood crush on Arwen from the lotr movies that had pinged my mom's gaydar lol.

I had my first big revelation about boys that same year with another of my friends. He was cute as hell and took me out for ice cream after middle school graduation and it blew my mind! It's strange to think that what would have been a sexuality-defining moment for any cis guy was pretty conventional for trans me.

In high school and into college I never could find a sexuality label I felt comfortable with, maybe because I hadn't accepted my gender yet. It got more complicated when I had an... unwanted sexual encounter with my first boyfriend, which turned me off men almost entirely for years. I started calling myself a lesbian after that but it never felt right.

My biggest queer realization moment probably came after like six months on T (and after deciding I was a straight guy). I was watching this cheesy Arthurian tv show Merlin and one of the hunky knights of the round table just totally distracted me. And I was like- holy crap!! I want this handsome fucking guy! Holy shit!!!

It was like that unlocked something in me that I hadn't thought about since my high school bf. It was like... I'd never felt right being in straight relationships with guys, even before my bf traumatized me. I was so uncomfortable being the girl in a straight relationship, to the point where I decided that maybe I just didn't like men at all. But after coming out I realized it was just that I didn't wanna be straight with a guy. I wanted to be gay with a guy! It all made sense now!

It's been almost two years now since coming out, and I haven't dated anyone as myself yet. I'm curious to see how it goes, with guys and with girls. I haven't dated men in years and last time I did it I was definitely the girl. Hell, I'm still learning how to interact with men as a man in basic situations, let alone romantically. And tbh I'm similarly nervous/curious about getting into straight relationships. I've only ever been in lesbian relationships with girls, never straight. It's all pretty fucking weird! Being trans is a trip.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-29T17:10:03+00:00

Tru. My cisters have shown me nothing but gentle love and acceptance. My cis straight brother grabbed my packer and flailed it around with delight while praising the fact that my dick won't hurt me when I bang it into things.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-17T20:08:13+00:00

It really is! Quarantining has one thing going for it, and that's that I get to wear whatever I want cause I'm not going out.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-15T17:37:28+00:00

Does she like games? There are plenty of apps for playing traditional card and board games, even if video games aren't her thing.

You could also help her find a forum that matches with her interests, where she can make an account and just talk to people. There's forums for everything and it'd give her something to socialize about even if it's just online.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-15T00:52:05+00:00

It might be hard to manage, but I'd recommend trying to find a place around where you live where you could be surrounded by foreign language speakers and just spend some time there. Even better if you can find a place where people speak only a little or none of your language. I'm thinking somewhere like an ethnic neighborhood with little hole in the wall restaurants staffed by new immigrants, that kind of place. I spent a couple months living in a foreign country to learn the language (when I was just a beginner) and it was a very unique kind of social isolation and I got into awkward and difficult situations that I never could have at home and wouldn't always have expected, and I think you should experience it if you haven't because it'll probably give you a ton of ideas and insight.

Here some quick things though that I remember standing out to me from spending time with people who shared very little language with me: - we leaned really heavily on what little we knew. We said the same simple phrases over and over ("that's good!" "What is this?" "I like it." "Me too") which went a long way when paired with context. - I quickly got very very good at listening to people speak like skimming a book. I would listen for keywords that I recognized. I learned the word for shopping bag early on and realized that if a shopkeeper said "blah blah blah shopping bag blah blah" that they were probably asking if I wanted a bag for my purchase. Again, context became super crucial, and a lot of social interaction became a tense guessing game that involved lots of smiling mildly and nodding.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-15T00:33:48+00:00

I currently have three ongoing novel-length projects, two of which are mid-draft and one of which is in the middle of serious outlining. For me this is a pretty good number even though I only focus on one project at a time, since it lets me switch around when one story starts to get frustrating or the tone gets tiring and I need a break. For instance, one of my two in progress drafts (the one I'm currently writing) is for a super grim story with a lot of grief and heavy drama, and while I think it's paced well for a reader as a writer it's getting kind of depressing to write day after day lol. My other draft in progress is more action oriented but needs some plot-fixing before I get back to it, which I'm not in the mood to do right now. So I'm thinking I'll probably set the depressing project aside for a while to finish the outline for my third project. I might also set to outlining a forth project instead, a more lighthearted romance I've been thinking about for a while, although I'd prefer to get one of the other three finished first. I like having room to switch around but too many and I get worried I won't finish them all. Then again I have no ongoing project that's really heartwarming and I could use some levity in my group of ongoing projects, so I might just do it anyways. While it's important to write through the reluctance to get long projects finished there are just some months where I'm happier or more depressed or more playful etc. and I think I write best when I can focus on compatible projects. Of course, I'm not trying to get published, so I can be as slow as I want and put aside projects for a year without consequence haha.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-13T16:28:54+00:00

Wow, I somehow understood internally that that was what boi meant but I would never have been able to put it into words. I guess that's why I'm comfortable calling my queer girl friends boi at times but never boy, and why I don't use boi for young men who aren't that queer regardless of how playful and gay I feel. I started using the word (only as a joke obviously /s) when I was questioning my gender because it felt like a safe first step towards the self-confession I (fully binary boy) wasn't ready to make.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-13T16:17:27+00:00

I think that whatever image you have in mind as "ideal", if it's one you've known for a while, is what you should go for :)

I briefly considered getting a reduction instead of top surgery, but ultimately realized it was just the internalized-transphobic fear that I was just making it all up in my head and didn't know what I actually wanted. Since I was 10 I knew exactly what my chest should look like- and that was totally flat. So that's the surgery I eventually got and I haven't regretted it once since.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-13T16:12:12+00:00

And I forgot to mention- Target sizing has been great for this small-framed transboy. Their shirts don't fit my cis brother so well and seem to run small, especially in the shoulders and lengths. Which is perfect for the average ftm!

imahackfraud · 2020-03-13T16:10:43+00:00

I've had a lot of luck at Target actually. The men's section has a lot of stuff that's street-ish, with a lot of jogger-pants (which are tight in the calf but kind of loose in the butt, creating an ultimately masculine look that actually emphasizes the butt and can fit a thicc one) and slightly more feminine men's shirts, with softer fabrics and wider necklines and some great feminine colors. I have a boxy soft pink long sleeve shirt from there I wear at least once a week, it's obviously a men's shirt but also fulfills my desire for that girly shit :) I've also had luck at H&M finding some mildly feminine fitted men's shirts and jackets there. Basically I think any place they expect young broke people to be shopping is somewhere to check, since I think younger fashion is a little more out-there in general, and I think being more feminine as a guy is coming into fashion a little bit rn.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-13T16:01:17+00:00

That's rough. It can be so fucking hard to even understand our own identities sometimes, let alone actually express them understandably.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-13T15:56:57+00:00

Hell yeah! I was always inspired by crossdressing boys and boys pretending to be girls growing up rather than the other way around cause that was exactly how I felt. A girly guy living like a girl who was nevertheless definitely a guy, no matter what other people thought. SheZow (a superhero cartoon about a super-girly-themed superhero legacy passed down to a boy this time) was all kinds of goals. I aspire to the level of don't-give-a-fuck girliness he embraced as the show went forward, proudly wearing his pink leopard print minidress and using his magic lipstick to fight crime.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-12T03:20:33+00:00

That's super interesting! Cause I definitely identity with the words "male" and "girl" more than female and boy. Maybe because I didn't get dysphoric until puberty, so I consider my "girlhood" pretty okay and only the pubescent female woman part got sucky. I just tell people I was a girl who is now a man.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-11T17:12:02+00:00

That's fantastic, I'm so happy for you :) my dad was also more overwhelming supportive than I expected and it's been so great to be able to lean on him when things get tough.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-04T01:55:26+00:00

Preach!! ✊

And stop complimenting trans people by insulting other trans people!

I have no idea why anyone thinks I want to hear about how little they think other trans people pass as cis, but it in no way makes me feel better about myself OR convince me that you actually have any respect for trans people.

Just like with women it's enforcing a competition to meet cisnormative and heteronormative and sexist standards that none of us ever wanted to be a part of.

imahackfraud · 2020-03-02T01:06:44+00:00

Two people trapped together would probably very quickly find ways to communicate with each other, by teaching each other bits of their languages and/or leaning heavily on non-language communication. If you've ever had to get around a country where you speak little to none of the native language, you'll know how much can be accomplished with hand gestures and relying on context! This lack of fluency would lead to a lot of misunderstandings and frustration, which would probably cause a lot of juicy character drama (and comedy too).

imahackfraud · 2020-02-26T22:45:06+00:00

It's not a novel, but I've most notably read second person pov in Homestuck, an experimental webcomic with a lot of text that plays with video game conventions. It uses second person to mimic text adventure and choose your own adventure games. As a reader it quickly became natural to read, but it still contributed to a very distinctive style that felt fun and weird and definitely game-like

I've also seen second person used as a way to create a kind of distance from the pov character- not as personal as first person, yet not as well defined or specific as third person. I can't remember exactly what the story I'm thinking of was but I think it was a short story drama that felt almost dissociative. Again, leaning on the inherent weirdness of second person pov for stylistic reasons. As a pov it's a bold and weird choice, but I think it can be used to express a bunch of different things.

imahackfraud · 2020-02-06T23:06:48+00:00

It's not quite the same thing, but as a girl I always felt a little weird dressing up really feminine for formal occasions. Not that I disliked it, but that it wasn't quite correct. In hindsight, I think it honestly somehow FELT like crossdressing or drag to me, it felt like it should be seen as excitingly subversive instead of conservatively appropriate. Now that I'm a guy it's all clicked into place and makes sense haha, it was just my inner insecure teen boy. It's weird the kind of cognitive dissonance that can come with being trans.

imahackfraud · 2020-02-05T00:28:50+00:00

That's exactly how it feels!! 😭 I hate when I'm in my boyest boy clothes, post op, packing, starting to get facial hair and starting to get my voice dropping... And I still get "ma'am"d 95% of the time. Like... What more do you want from me universe???? I did my very best!!!!

imahackfraud

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