Request~ Short Comic In Which Luffy Cooks For His Brothers But It Looks Horrible And Ace And Sabo Stomachs

4 Tips for Autistic Writers

Autistic writers can face unique challenges when it comes to writing. NaNo Participant Auden Halligan has tips to handle some of those challenges!

So, you’ve just sat down at your desk, all ready to work on your next chapter, but you just can’t seem to start. Something is itching at your brain, and no matter how hard you think, you can’t figure it out. For autistic writers, that itch might be even harder to get around when compounded with autistic inertia, introspection issues, and sensory processing disorder — even if we were super excited to get started, sometimes the stumbling blocks are enough to keep us from going anywhere at all.

Here are four tips to identify your struggles and work around them rather than against them as an autistic writer!

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Been thinking about this a lot lately... It's especially good advice for those of us that are terrible plotters. Just take it one step at a time.

Basic Writing Terms: Types of Characters

There are a lot of different words to describe the roles that characters play within the narrative, some characters can occupy multiple roles at once, but these terms are not always synonymous. Confusion can occur when one assumes that one term encompasses another with which it is often paired.

These are some terms and a brief overview of how they will be used on this blog.

Protagonist: The leading character. Not necessarily of any particular moral persuasion, can be a goodie, a baddie, or an in-betweenie, depending on the story being told. Can be a group of people either working together, or who inhabit the same narrative.

Antagonist: A person or the person who opposes the protagonist, there can be multiple antagonists for any given protagonist. Does not indicate any particular moral code except that they are in conflict with the protagonist.

Main Character: The leading character. Often in an ensemble cast there is one character who is more central to the story. (Most generic term)

Focalising Character: Characters through which we see the story, their perceptions and knowledge will colour the narrative and influence the reader’s opinions. A story can have one or many focalising characters, but only one can be used at a time (a ‘switching POV’ is a shift from one focalising character to another).

Hero/ heroine: Often a protagonist. Is a character who is explicitly siding with the moral good.

Anti-hero: Often a protagonist. Is a character who is the centre of a heroic narrative while not having ‘conventional’ heroic traits.

Villain: Often an antagonist. Is a character who is explicitly siding with the moral evil.

Anti-villain: Often an antagonist. Is a character who may be explicitly siding with moral evil, but likely has non-villainous motivations or attributes.

Foil: A particular type of antagonist or villain who’s personal qualities compliment or contrast in such a way that they illuminate thematic elements of the protagonist or hero’s character.

Secondary Character: A character who is not in the central protagonist/ focalising character role. Can have significant role/ impact on the narrative, but is not the focus of the narrative.

Minor Character: A smaller role than the secondary characters, may appear only for a few lines, attention to detail on minor characters can help make world building feel more ‘real’.

Narrator: The character who is ‘voicing’ the story. May or may not be a character that is personally a part of the story. (Not all stories have explicit narrators, but all stories have narrative voice!)

AU where Ace can take over Sabo’s body after he ate the Mera Mera no Mi

It is the duty of a writer to give to others the stories they never had themselves. The stories they needed to hear but no one was willing to tell.

Tips for writing dream sequences (from someone who has really vivid, weird dreams on a frequent basis)

My biggest pet peeve with fictional dream sequences is that they make too much sense!! They're too relevant! There's not enough random crazy stuff! That's not always unrealistic per se, but you are missing out on some of the fun ways you can reveal information about your character's mindset, fears, struggles, and future.

Most of my dreams have a goal or objective driving the plot, and it's usually urgent. Ex. "escape the huge storm on the horizon", "find a place to sleep for the night in an unfamiliar town", "find a bathroom". This is especially true of stress dreams.

Everything going on in the dream makes perfect sense to you during the dream. It doesn't feel like reality per se, but you think it is. You're living in a house full of vampires that could eat you at any moment? Seems legit.

Emotions and situations from the dreamer's life can/will find their way into dreams, with varying levels of subtlety. The dream could be about the stressful event itself, or it could be some sort of exaggerated metaphor. Ex. I was worried about whether I was a competent CS major while I was still trying to find a summer job/internship, and I was worried about what my professors must think of me. Such a good student on paper, still without summer plans. I dreamed that I ran into my professors all having lunch together at a restaurant (during a dream with a completely different storyline), and I was wearing my pajamas. They judged me.

Certain things are very hard to do in dreams. This could vary from person to person. For me, it's always driving (the brakes never work right), flying (I can't stay off the ground for very long), and running (it's like trying to run through waist-deep water).

People with PTSD may dream about the traumatic event happening differently than it actually happened. (Take this one with a grain of salt - I don't suffer from PTSD, I just research it sometimes so my blorbos can suffer accurately).

You can have a string of loosely connected or disconnected dream sequences back to back, each with an entirely different plot, setting, etc.

People can have reoccurring themes or plotlines in their dreams, which are often connected to their lives/psyche somehow. I frequently dream about running away from tornadoes and being in situations where there's some catastrophe coming but I'm the only one who understands that there's a problem and nobody will listen to me.

It's common for me to have a dream setting that I KNOW is someplace I'm familiar with, but it doesn't actually look like that place at all. Ex. "I dreamed that we were at my house, but it didn't look like my house..."

Dreams can end in cliffhangers. Sometimes I wake up right before I'm about to eat something delicious.

Sometimes people have dreams about doing things that they would never, ever do in real life, and they wake up feeling disgusted. This is Not a manifestation of their secret desires (*glares at Freud*).

Images are the most memorable parts of dreams. I forget the specific plot points, but I can still picture dozens of liminal spaces my brain has created, even years after I dreamed about it.

Dreams will fade from memory very quickly unless the dream had a strong impression on you, you write details about it down or you tell someone about it before you forget.

If you realize you're dreaming during your dream, sometimes you can control the dream going forward. This is called lucid dreaming. I've done it accidentally a couple times, and it's really hard to "hold on" to the dream and control it. I usually wake up soon after starting. With practice, you can get better at it.

Sometimes a normal/good dream can turn into a nightmare, and vice versa. Most of my dreams aren't really good or bad, they're something in between.

Your subconscious brain is CRAZY intuitive. We can argue over the existence of prophetic dreams (I've heard so many crazy stories), but at the end of the day, your subconscious brain knows things that you don't consciously know. If your character is in love with someone, their subconscious brain will know even if the character doesn't. Relationship problems? Deepest darkest fears and insecurities? Your brain knows. A dream predicted the downfall of my first relationship eight months before it happened, down to the reason why we failed. You can absolutely foreshadow this way. A character might subconsciously know what the consequences of their or other people's actions will be, understand things about the situation they're in, know things about the people they're interacting with, and more, despite their conscious realizations.

There are plenty of ways to make a dream sequence relevant to your story, but don't forget to add in some fun, random details. Character A is secretly in love with Character B? Have Character A dream about Character B confessing feelings to them while in a Vine Nostalgia themed restaurant over a plate of mac-n-cheese. The details are the fun part, and you can get as weird as you want. I once ran into my aunt in a dream, and she was wearing a backpack with a bunch of (fake?) hands sticking out of it, making a fan that rose above her back behind her head like some sort of peacock feather costume piece. I was so freaked out that I woke up. I dare you to get weirder than that.

Not everyone's brain works the same way. I have vivid, random, detailed, memorable dreams on a frequent basis. When I describe them to people they often ask "what were you on?". My roommate only remembers her dreams when they're nightmares. I have some friends who say they don't dream. Other friends have really boring, mundane dreams about their normal lives. Some people have weird dreams but only once in a blue moon. It's a good idea to decide off the bat what kinds of dreams your character has, and how often they remember them.

That's it for now, but I might make a part two if I think of more things to add. Feel free to reblog with your own personal dream expertise!

Once more for the fanfic writers...

There is no wrong or right way of doing this fanfic-writing thing. Free yourself in 2025 by embracing whatever sort of writer you are.

If you can only post a story once a year or you want to post everyday, it's okay.

Whether you can only write drabbles or 100k stuff, it's okay.

Maybe your strength lies in writing fantasy, or romance or adventure, or non graphic smut, or omergaverse, or whatever kinky stuff there is out there, or comedy, or musical, medieval stuff, etc., it's okay.

Whether you're in a large or a tiny fandom, it's okay.

There is an audience for everything and everyone. It's not possible to dip one's toes in everything. Things can be learned and you can diversify if you really want to do more things with your writing. There is no gun to your head though. Even our favorite artists aren't good at everything.

It seems like recently there is so much pressure on fanfic writers to write certain stuff, in a certain way and for certain fandoms.

Let's not forget that from the get-go fanfic-writing is a FUN HOBBY and hence the secret is for you to write what you want to write, how you want to write it, when you want to write it and for whatever fandom you love.

Writers

10 Magazines That Pay for Fiction

Start Building Your Portfolio

My goal for this year is to take everything I've learned over the last 15 years, put it together, and start working towards publication. With that in mind, I've been doing some research into magazines that pay for fiction.

I figured it might be of interest to others, too, so I wrote a short article with links to the relevant magazines submission guidelines to streamline the process.

5 Tips to Avoid Burnout as a Neurodivergent Writer

When taking on a project as big as writing a novel, you may run into the risk of burnout. NaNo Participant Joana Hill gives some tips on avoiding burnout as a neurodivergent writer.

Burnout.  As writers, we all know it. For neurodivergent writers, burnout can be even more damaging than usual. We can be much more sensitive, both mentally and emotionally, than our neurotypical friends and family.

This means avoiding burnout, and taking care of it when it does happen, can be even more important for us.  I’m here today to provide some tips for my fellow neurodivergent writers to tackle just that.

1. Write What Interests You

Write what interests you rather than what you think you ‘should’ be writing.  Many of us get caught-up in pleasing others.  For neurodivergent people who’ve spent much of their life masking, or hiding their true personality and needs because of fear of rejection, it can be a hard habit to break.

If you want to write a 50k slow burn coffee shop AU of your favorite fandom, an epic space opera starring ants, or a main character with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or any other disorder or condition you have, go for it.

2. Get A Support Network

For neurodivergent people, we’ve often lived our lives with special interests no one wants to hear us talk about.  It often results in us not talking about them at all before someone can tell us they don’t want to hear about it.

Whether it’s offline with friends and family, or online here at NaNoWriMo or other sites, having people who are actively interested in listening to you and helping you plot and write can be a game-changer.

3. Celebrate As Many Victories As You Want

Many years, my personal goal is that I can get the new Pokemon game, which always comes out around the middle of November now, once I hit 50k.  But you don’t need just one grand goal.

Get a bag of your favorite candy and say you can have a piece every so many words.  Find something on Amazon you want (and can afford to get!) and say you’ll get it once you hit the halfway point.  Whatever motivates you to keep going, set it into motion.

4. Plan For Flexibility

That may sound like an oxymoron, but hear me out.  Neurodivergent people often love to have a plan.  I know I can get frustrated and upset when I’m expecting something to happen and something different does.  For a big goal like writing a novel in a month, a lot of things can end up going wrong.

Carry a notebook and pen or tablet with a keyboard case in case an errand takes longer than expected.  Back your writing up to several places in case your main writing device crashes.  Make sure at least one of those is a cloud service in case you end up writing on a device that isn’t yours.  The more contingency plans you have, the better prepared you are when life happens.

5. Be Kind To Yourself

Some days you may not get the minimum goal, or you might not write at all.  You may feel like you just can’t do it because you’re behind on your word count, or you decide you don’t like what you’ve written.

I get it.  But don’t beat yourself up about it.  Take a break.  Play your favorite game or read your favorite book.  Go for a walk.  And remember that you’re awesome.  No one can write this story like you can.

Joana Hill is a writer of young adult stories, as well as novellas inspired by Japanese light novels and anime. You can find her books, social media, and anything else you could imagine wanting to know about her on her LinkTree. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

Difficulty with plotting and staying consistent.

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I've struggled with it since starting to plot out my stories.

It doesn't matter if i have a prompt, or an idea, i always go off track. I have a hard time sticking to that prompt, plot point, or idea, and it drives me absolutely bonkers.

Recently, though. I have found a cool little trick that has helped me stay on track, and meet my word goals;

Whether you're writing a short story, a blurb, or a whole novel. Try to split it up into three parts; Beginning, Middle, and End.

Instead of the convoluted, and sometimes overstimulating plot line;

Splitting your plot into its three most important parts; Exposition, Climax, and Resolution. Is supposed to help you plan out your story easier, or in my case, lazier.

Beginning = Exposition | Middle = Climax | End = Resolution

Point of View

Next, think about what point of view you're going to write your story in. If you've already decided on what your pov, conflict, and genre are going to be, you can skip down to Plot Points, where i pick back up as splitting your plot.

1st person = from a characters perspective.

In first person, you're going to be using a lot of sensory words from the characters perspective; "I feel" - "I see" - "I hear" - "I taste" - "I smell" This point of view also means restricting a lot of information to your character.

For instance, if you're writing from the pov of a child. This child wouldn't know the cookie jar is on top of the fridge, because they're not tall enough to see what's up there. So, they would have to get this information in a different way. You could make them accidentally see the cookie jar, but then you have to consider; Do they know it's a cookie jar? Does it stand out enough for it to grab their attention? If no, you could introduce a secondary character, like a parent, who gets a cookie for the child. Now the child knows it's a cookie jar.

2nd person = Telling a story to the reader, and directly involving them in it.

In the second person, you're writing from the narrator's perspective, but you're also addressing the reader, or talking directly to them. In this pov, you're telling the reader how they should be experiencing the story, by using sensory words like; "You feel" - "You see" - "You hear" - "You taste" - "You smell"

Pov's from the second person perspective goes great with unreliable narrators. You get to choose what information you tell the reader, and what information the reader has to find for themselves.

3rd person = Telling a story about someone or thing.

In the 3rd person, you have a lot more creative control. You get to pick which character's you're observing, and sort of play with them like dolls in a doll house. I think this is the most popular point of view and is incredibly versatile, using sensory language like; "She feels" - "He saw" - "They hear" - "It tasted" - "She's smelling"

Genre and Subgenre

Now. Deciding your pov is as simple as deciding what you're going to be writing, and for this, i like to decide what my conflict and genre are going to be. Sometimes it's as simple as picking horror, then deciding you like the slasher trope, because you want to write about a killer on the loose. Now you already have your conflict; There's a killer on the loose, and so and so need to escape.

I like to do this by drawing inspiration from other creators; From that book i read yesterday, or that movie i saw, or i just really like this genre.

Once you have your genre, look into its subgenre's. In horror, you have; Slasher, Supernatural, Monster, or Zombie. The conflicts in those are pretty easy to discern, Slasher = Killer on the loose - Supernatural = There's a spooky ghost in here - Monster = There's a spooky monster trying to kill me - Zombie = It's an apocalypse and i need to survive.

Draw Inspiration from other Creators

But it's always okay to draw inspiration from other creators; Junji Ito, for example, has a book called Gyo. Its a horror story about fish growing legs and crawling on land. You can take that concept and create your own horror story about fish growing legs.

Once you have your conflict; There's fish growing legs, coming on land, and eating people. Try to ask yourself; What do i want to tell the reader? What do i want to say in my story?

For example, if i wanted to write a short horror story about fish growing legs, and coming on land, and i decided i wanted to make the reader be more conscious about throwing away plastic. I would probably have a better time writing in the 2nd perspective, because my short story is meant to address the reader, and make them uncomfortable about throwing plastic in the ocean.

Plot Points

Finally, after we've figured out our genre, conflict, and pov. It's time to go back to our plot columns.

I know that when it comes time for me to decide plot points, I'm always at my wits end. I HATE figuring out what i want my plot points to be. I'm awful at figuring out the big changes in my plot, and sadly, i don't really have a solution for that yet. But, all this stuff I'm telling you has made it a lot easier for me to work on this.

First, how do you want to start your story? No, not what scene you want to start on, HOW are you going to start your story? Are you going to start with a monologue? Are you going to start with a description? How about some dialogue? Or a flashback? A departure? A character description?

This can be one of the first things you can write in your beginning section.

For example;

Then, think about what you want to happen next. Write as many plot points in each section as you want, use prompts, or random scenes you've discarded in the past. Fill it up with as many prompts as you're happy with;

When you start writing, start from your first plot point, make a word goal for that specific scene, and write it. When you're finished with that scene, move onto the next plot point, until you've written all of them.

Once you're done writing your major scenes, go back and edit everything so they puzzle together. If you want to add more stuff in between scenes, now you have guidelines on where and how your new scenes should start and end, so you're technically just filling in the blanks.