I Don't Know What I Miss More, Having Free Time To Draw Or These Fellas

WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS

What’s the lie your character says most often?

How loosely or strictly do they use the word ‘friend’?

How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing?

What’s a hobby they used to have that they miss?

Can they cry on command? If so, what do they think about to make it happen?

What’s their favorite [insert anything] that they’ve never recommended to anyone before?

What would you (mun) yell in the middle of a crowd to find them? What would their best friend and/or romantic partner yell?

How loose is their use of the phrase ‘I love you’?

Do they give tough love or gentle love most often? Which do they prefer to receive?

What fact do they excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity?

If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

What’s something that makes them laugh every single time? Be specific!

When do they fake a smile? How often?

How do they put out a candle?

What’s the most obvious difference between their behavior at home, at work, at school, with friends, and when they’re alone?

What kinds of people do they have arguments with in their head?

What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?

Who do they love truly, 100% unconditionally (if anyone)?

What would they do if stuck in a room with the person they’ve been avoiding?

Who do they like as a person but hate their work? Vice versa, whose work do they like but don’t like the person?

What common etiquette do they disagree with? Do they still follow it?

What simple activity that most people do / can do scares your character?

What do they feel guilty for that the other person(s) doesn’t / don’t even remember?

Did they take a cookie from the cookie jar? What kind of cookie was it?

What subject / topic do they know a lot about that’s completely useless to the direct plot?

How would they respond to being fired by a good boss?

What’s the worst gift they ever received? How did they respond?

What do they tell people they want? What do they actually want?

How do they respond when someone doesn’t believe them?

When they make a mistake and feel bad, does the guilt differ when it’s personal versus when it’s professional?

When do they feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it?

If they committed one petty crime / misdemeanor, what would it be? Why?

How do they greet someone they dislike / hate?

How do they greet someone they like / love?

What is the smallest, morally questionable choice they’ve made?

Who do they keep in their life for professional gain? Is it for malicious intent?

What’s a secret they haven’t told serious romantic partners and don’t plan to tell?

What hobby are they good at in private, but bad at in front of others? Why?

Would they rather be invited to an event to feel included or be excluded from an event if they were not genuinely wanted there?

How do they respond to a loose handshake? What goes through their head?

What phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did they pick up from someone / somewhere else?

If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

What do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding?

What language would be easiest for them to learn? Why?

What’s something unimportant / frivolous that they hate passionately?

Are they a listener or a talker? If they’re a listener, what makes them talk? If they’re a talker, what makes them listen?

Who have they forgotten about that remembers them very well?

Who would they say ‘yes’ to if invited to do something they abhorred / strongly didn’t want to do?

Would they eat something they find gross to be polite?

What belief / moral / personality trait do they stand by that you (mun) personally don’t agree with?

What’s a phrase they say a lot?

Do they act on their immediate emotions, or do they wait for the facts before acting?

Who would / do they believe without question?

What’s their instinct in a fight / flight / freeze / fawn situation?

What’s something they’re expected to enjoy based on their hobbies / profession that they actually dislike / hate?

If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear?

What’s a simple daily activity / motion that they mess up often?

How many hobbies have they attempted to have over their lifetime? Is there a common theme?

Some of my personal favorite underrated Kaz moments from the books.

This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…

Drawing bases & pose references pt 62 🫶

3 extra drawings for patrons!

tipping point kendal and erin are from @comicaurora

Pose references pt 17 🌈

more bases for pride before the month ends 😭😭

7 Tips to Build an Audience for Your Writing

I got a great Ask about this a little bit ago about how to establish an audience for your writing. Here’s my answer!

#1 Start small… with people you already know

When you’re just starting out, many of your fans or supporters will be the people who already know you. Your friends, family, co-workers, peers, acquaintances, etc. Share and talk about your writing with these people, and pluck up the courage to ask for their support! At least a few of them will genuinely like your writing, and you never know who might have a connection that can help get you more exposure.

#2 Don’t feel try to “sell” or “promote” yourself to these folks. Instead, make authentic, person-to-person connections

Sometimes writers fail to create an audience because they have a perception of what it means to “self promote” which leads them to plaster their social media with desperate pleas to buy their book, or feel pressured to “sell themselves” to new friends and contacts. It seems counter-intuitive, but the best thing you can do is to make genuine, authentic connections with people and be open about your writing with them.

That way, when your friend who works at a bookstore needs someone to open for a touring reader… they think of you. Or when you have a release party to celebrate your release, your co-worker will come (and maybe bring their friend who happens to be a newspaper writer… see where I’m going with this?). When you have authentic relationships with people, they will help you grow your base without having to beg or sell to them.

#3 Make friends with readers, other writers, editors, bookstore clerks… basically anyone in the literary world

Truth: There’s a lot of networking, nepotism, and hobnobbing going on in the literary world. Of course, we all know this stuff happens at the super-famous level. People network their way into recognition all the time. Celebrities get book deals. Keanu Reeves is allowed to be an actor. You might not be lucky enough to be bumping elbows with the elite, but your connections can help you no matter how small they are.

#4 Write your social media posts like you’re talking to your friends, not the anonymous masses

This ties into #2. When you use social media to share about your writing, make it personal. A lot of writers feel like they have to sell themselves on social media, so they end up making promotional posts that are basically like “buy my book!” or “read my writing!”

But if you share something real, much like you would if you were talking to a friend, people are much more likely to respond. I know this from personal experience. My highest-performing posts about my writing are always the ones that make a connection and share something personal with my followers.

Additionally, if you’re using certain platforms (Facebook and Instagram for sure do this), your post will get buried by the algorithm if it’s overtly “promotional.” So in certain instances this becomes not just wise but absolutely necessary so that your posts get seen.

#4 Consider trying to get a story traditionally published

This can help in a few ways. First, you’ll have made a connection with the editor of that magazine. (Connections!) Second, your work will be seen by a new audience of readers. Third, it can give you credibility that makes people (editors, readers, etc.) more likely to give your work a second look further down the line.

#5 Get off the internet

My biggest base of supporters are the folks in my town. That’s because they see me and interact with me regularly. It’s way easier to keep the attention of people IRL than it is online, in my experience. Here are some ideas of how to make friends in the real world who can be supporters of your writing:

Attend or give a public reading

Start or join a writing group

Hang out at the bookstore

Go to any and all literary events in your town

Make friends with other creative people: musicians, artists, photographers.

Seek out collaborative projects with other writers and creatives

#6 Accept that, yes, it takes time

Building an audience doesn’t happen overnight. But there can be a cumulative, exponential effect over the long run. Take Tumblr for example. Most people who have a blog can probably remember how it took forever to get those first 10 followers. But once you have the first 10, it’s a little easier to get the second 10, and so on. It’s the same with an audience.

There may be huge surges in your popularity that leave you feeling awesome, then after that you may find your growth starts to lag a bit. That’s totally normal. Which leads me to my last tip:

#7 Remember that it’s quality, not quantity, that counts

Especially in the age of social media, we can get totally hooked on numbers. How many followers, how many email subscribers, how many patrons, etc. But in my experience it’s the quality of your audience, not the quantity, that counts. Focus on building real relationships and delivering something great to just a few loyal readers rather than trying to please everyone. Those people will be the ones to help promote you and have your back when it’s really important.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got for now. I hope this helped!

Hey! Asking for some writing advice here.

How does one write a villain exactly. In a very simple world with no superpowers and stuff how do you give them motivation. How do you make them slowly descent into villainy. Somehow when the villain actually thinks they're doing the right thing until the very end?

Thx love

There are a few different questions here that I'm going to try to to unpick.

I'll start with a brief overview of the connections between protagonist + antagonist, just because recognising them can be really useful in shaping your own ideas. Then I'll dive into motivation. So.

Antagonist + Protagonist = CONFLICT

If you know your protagonist well, then you have all the ingredients you need to write a great villain/antagonist for them too. Here is why.

Your villain/antagonist is, at the most basic fundamental starting point, something that is between your protagonist and what the protagonist wants/needs. As a very simple example, if your protagonist wants to make sure that everyone is free, then your antagonist is going to in some way be involved with making sure they are not free. Once you know what your antagonist needs to do in a story, then it's a lot easier to pose the question to yourself of 'okay, why would someone do that?'

Villains often reflect an opposite or warped view of the values and motivations that your protagonist has. They mirror or foil your main character. So, your antagonist's motivation will often be either opposite to the protagonist (e.g, your protagonist is motivated by selflessness, so your antagonist is motivated by selfishness in some way) or they will be the same motivation or value gone twisted (e.g. we both have people we love who we would do anything to protect...it's the villains way of acting on that motivation that makes them the villain, not the motivation.)

Of course, you can not have your antagonist + protagonist connected in this way. This is often the case if the source of conflict in your story is not another actual character or if you have a more generic villain. Lots of great stories have generic villains. It typically just means the villain is not a focus. It might be, like, about the friendships made in the journey instead.

Motivations:

I find it helpful to think of all my characters having two motivations.

The external story-specific motivation. This is whatever the antagonist is trying to achieve in your particular story and where things like genre and superpowers etc come into play.

The internal motivation that is more universal. The internal motivation is, while still specific to the character, the driving emotions and values. With a villain, that is often hatred or fear or lust for power because they're villains, but as noted earlier it can be a twisted form of love, or a strong sense of an injustice committed against them. This shapes the external motivation (e.g. 'lust for power = I want the throne, 'fear' = I'm going to kill or belittle or control what scares me so I don't have to feel scared anymore', justice might equal revenge or gaining power to ensure that a wrong is corrected. ) It could also be a bias or a prejudice that they're raised on driving them, that they genuinely believe in. Lots of possibilities!

I think this is true of people as well. We have our foundational core beliefs and desires (to be loved, to succeed, to be accepted whatever) and then we have the things we try to get in the real world to meet those needs (whether they really will or not).

Either way, it's the second one that comes into play with the slow descent into villainy and the villain thinking that they're doing the right thing until the end. Because, initially, their heart genuinely is not in a villainous place. They may actually be doing the right thing at the start. And then bad things happen. They are changed by the journey. They are a protagonist gone tragic.

We all experience emotions that can drive us to behave poorly; the desire for revenge or recognition, to ensure that the people we care about are safe, to get money so that we can provide for ourselves and others etc. None of us are without prejudice or privilege. Those things do not make you a villain, but they can be an excellent starting place for one.

Think about times when you've messed up. A villain is often an exaggerated version of that. You start pushing your own boundaries because there is something you really want/need and, depending on how far you push that...do you feel like you can still go back? Or do you feel like you might as well finish it after everything. At what point do you breathe for air, look up at what you've done, and go shit.

That's the villain who realises way too late that they're the villain.

Final note: I've been using antagonist and villain pretty interchangeably here...but they have slightly different connotations. Your antagonist does not have to be a villain to be effective. They just have to be an obstacle to the protagonist. E.g. if two people are going for the same dream job or trying to win a competition, the other competitors are antagonists to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean they're villainous or bad people. Whether you have an outright villain will depend on your story.

I hope this helps!

Some going further questions to take with you.

Is your villain trying to stop your protagonist from reaching their goal? Or is your protagonist trying to stop the antagonist from reaching their goal?

How does the villain's external goal in the story reflect the inner need? Note. They are aware of their external goal. Most people are not aware of the inner goal in the same way.

Do you know what you want your stories themes to be? (This doesn't have to be complicated and it's fine if you don't, that's what editing is for). Your protagonist and antagonist often weigh in on these themes. For example, your antagonist might be a path the protagonist could have gone down, if they made a different choice or something happened differently in their past.

this is so mean but sometimes i see published writing and suddenly no longer feel insecure about my own writing ability. like well okay that got published so im guessing i dont have much to worry about

why the net, kaz?