Writing Rambles - Tumblr Posts

Tropes I don't like

I was reading this book lately with this trope that really annoyed me and now everyone has to hear about all the tropes I hate. Btw, I’m not saying it’s bad to like these tropes or write about them. I just don’t like them. Does anyone else feel the same?

staring at someone’s body + fingers accidently touching

This one is two tropes because it was the combination of them that made the book so annoying to me. I wouldn’t mind as much if the characters interacted in other ways between the staring and finger touching, but nope. That was the only way we could tell they were interested in each other. What I really can’t stand is when two characters meet for the first time and the female mc just stares at the male mc’s body and describes every detail to the readers. It just feels like the author is holding up a sign that says they will get together, and that takes away from the excitement of romance for me. Especially when it’s the second these characters meet.

love triangles

First of all it’s never an actual triangle. It’s more like an angle. Second of all, it’s always so toxic. I have yet to see a girl choose the guy who actually cares about her instead of the one who treats her like garbage.

pick-me girl

I hear people toss around this term loosely so let me clarify. I’m not talking about a girl who has non-feminine interests. I’m talking about a girl who thinks she’s so much more interesting than other girls because she like to talk about war and eat meat. (I’m looking at you, The Last Dragon King)

giving up powers

Is it too much to ask that my favorite characters are special and powerful? (I’m looking at you, A Court of Silver Flame)

writing current events

This makes sense in some cases, like if a story takes place in the 1920s you will have some 1920s references. But if I see a character say “rizz” or mention covid, I’m done.

My Most Hated Romance Tropes

Hi, this is going to be me convincing you to hate these tropes :)

A) Misplaced Sexual Tension

Is this a real thing? I see this trope so much that I'm starting to wonder if i'm the outlier.

This tends to come up in the "hurt/comfort" scene a lot. Basically, a character is deathly ill or even unconscious sometimes. The love interest is sitting by the bed. I would think that this is going to be angst-y scene where you get incite into the deep love that the love interest has for the sick one. And the resulting fear and concern.

BUT NO! The "Love Interest" "feels heat rush in between their legs" as they run off to the bathroom!

I hate this trope because it always turns romance into just more sexual shit. I don't want that. if I wanted to see two characters have lust for each other I would have just read an erotica.

B) Random Sexual Tension

Character A cries about their dead parent and Character B gets a boner

Character A hugs Character B. boobas

Character A promises to protect Character B and Character B immediately thinks about bedroom affairs

Character A is fighting and Character B is staring at their chest

SERIOUSLY!?! Why can't these characters keep it in their pants for just one motherf#cking moment!?

I hate it because I want to see Character A and Character B have their personalities and inner depth explored. I don't want to see literal sex objects!

C) Everything Serves Sex

I hate the belief that writers and fans share that all characters must act either according to their sexual position or as a subversion of that.

Seriously, I'm just trying to read about a nice gay love story and all the comments are talking about is:

"who's da top and who da bottom?"

"who man and who woman?"

GOD Fucking DAMMIT!!! This doesn't matter. Personality doesn't impact sexual habits.

i just want to see gay man love gay man or gay woman love gay woman.

i'm not here to read about erotica :`(

You know, sometimes I think I'm not a good writer but then I remember booktok exists and I get back my confidence to write

Oh I remember the time I wrote a book, a pretty short one, not even 200 pages long. The writing was SO goddamn awful holy shit, granted I was pretty young when I wrote it and had little to no experience & knowledge about writing books, dialogue, character construction, etc. but I was taking a look at it again a few days ago and my god, the dialogue is so unnatural and uninteresting, the plot was extremely convoluted and poorly thought out, the characters feel so one-dimensional, and the sex scenes... don't get me started on how badly the sex scenes are written...

Worst part about all of that is that it was a book about furries, yes, you heard me right, furries. Jesus Christ what was I thinking.

Happy STS! 🌻 and🌼 @catharticallysarcastic

hiii, thank you so much for the ask! and happy STS for sure, though it is sunday now haha ♡

🌻 Being floored by this future-jail-sitter stranger is unacceptable.

(so out of context lmao, but Hyeri's basically suffered through enough blind dates with rude men)

🌼 OKAY, YES. I think I needed this but I also don't necessarily know which character to write about, hmmm. Maybe I should pick the obvious route haha.

HYERI.

STOP LIVING IN DENIAL AND END THIS FAKE RELATIONSHIP WITH TAEYOUNG. YOU (finally) KNOW YOU LIKE HIM YET THE POOR BOY CAN'T READ YOUR EMOTIONS AND HE'LL LITERALLY DO ANYTHING FOR YOU

I GET THAT YOU'RE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR GRANDFATHER, BUT CAN'T YOU MULTITASK??

okay, maybe that's not fair because grandpa's actually sick but JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE SCARED AND USED TO BEING ALONE OR SO SELF CONSCIOUS ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE THINK DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN END IT WITH TAEYOUNG

GROVEL

and TAEYOUNG, I GET YOU'RE ASSERTIVE AND YOU DIDN'T VISIT YOUR DAD'S GRAVE SINCE HE DIED BECAUSE YOU'RE SCARED AND YOU FEEL OBLIGATED TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR FAMILY BUT DO YOU HAVE A FLAW

wait, is that a flaw-

I've been living in my wip for too long, let me take a break real quick

literally me falling into insanity

this was much needed though, so thank you haha from: storyteller saturday

hi hello STS for you! what can you tell me about your vibey fantasy wip? (the vibes sound *excellent* honestly) are we just roadtripping about it or do they have a Quest going on?

Thanks for asking!

Yes, so I'm thinking it'll be a fairly episodic story with them taking various shepherd type jobs transporting heards of stock across long distances. This'll be cows, sheep, maybe horses or deer ect that you'd find around the globe. But I'm planning to play around with slightly magical or fantasy versions as well.

Think deer with antlers that grow valuable plants and are a sought after material when they naturally shed each year, or your more typical Pegasus.

The vibes I'm going for are high fantasy with a focus on exploring the world and its natural wonder rather than having to save it from some great catastrophe or do war. If that makes sense.

I'm more of a character driven person when it comes to writing, so I've given myself Reya Teran (26f) and her friend/younger brother figure Syon Klau (21m) to explore the world through. Neither of them have a home by this point, and both are fairly happy wandering from place to place so long as they get a bit of adventure along the way. They'll both probably also have some type of powers.

But yeah, it's mostly characters taking once off remote cattle driving jobs with whoever needs some extra hands, visiting small towns, and exploring the land.

I'm having fun with the worldbuilding and plan to play around with the common language being similar to our sign language, with dialect or accent differences depending on your occupation. For example, busy shops in the main parts of town have rapid and small movements to keep up with the noise and pace of their work, while the faming jobs in large open plains or in high wind/bad weather have big clear motions to be understood when shouting is tiresome or can't be heard.

That's most of what I have at the moment, but it's been a heap of fun to brainstorm and worldbuild for even though I haven't worked on it much or had it in mind for very long!