Why I Write What I Write

Hey guys. Looks like I lied last week. This post isn’t on time either. Sorry about that. I totally underestimated the euphoric feeling you get when you realize that the semester is over, and you no longer have piles of homework to do every week. But at least I remembered to write one at all so brownie points for that. So, this week I’m writing on why I write what I write. I kind of struggled with the way to write this post. Its kind of hard to explain why you write the things that you write but I’m going to attempt to rely these to you.

First, I think you need to know what things I write to understand why I write them. I write Science Fiction and sometimes Fantasy. I really like creating military governments in my novels or having the character center around some sort of military. These are always the coolest thing to me. I kill my characters any time it helps the plot move along. Unfortunately for my readers that’s quite often. My friends who have read my books sometimes call me the female George R. R. Martin because I kill so many of my characters. However, I also never ever ever ever ever bring characters back to life. I will never kill a character if I need them for a later scene. That’s just not how it works. I also am not a big fan of love triangles. I try very hard not to write those into my story either.

So why I write these things the way I write them. I love military governments. They are easy to write about, but the complexity and motivation can be changed for such societies on a dime. Motivation can be government/military wide, or it could be due to a head dictator who controls such as army. It can be for world power or it could just be to protect themselves from any outside force that wishes to destroy them. All sorts of things could happen, and I love that I can use the same type of government structure in all my books and arrive with completely different plot lines. They are also more interesting to me. In my opinion humans all have unspoken rules and in lots of books a character will cross one of these unspoken human rules and that will destroy the universe or something like that. I, personally, have a hard time on picking up on the unspoken rules between people and so I don’t like writing about them. Military governments have set rules with set chains of command, so I personally find it easier to find places that my character can cross the line because these lines are drawn in black in and not hanging transparent between people. All in all, these are some of the reasons that I like military government structures. Here are some pictures of the most well known military governments.

I kill my characters. I don’t do this one because I am an evil author……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Okay so maybe sometimes I do. But most of the time I really only kill a character if it moves the plot along in some way. I’m a reader and a fangirl so I understand character death and how a reader should feel about it. As a reader and a writer, I get just as close to my characters as an author as I would a reader. This usually helps me write the best death scenes for my characters. If it makes me sad while writing it, it’s a good character death. I usually kill my characters only if its convenient to the plot in a couple ways. Will it cause emotional trauma for the main character that will cause them to do something? Will it cause emotional trauma to the main character that will give them a martyr’s banner to fly? Will it cause some sort of fight between multiple characters that will resolve in a better solution than in that character had lived? Will it be another push in the right direction for some sort of rebellion? Will it simply be because they are in a war and they are in the wrong place at the wrong time? Are they no longer convenient to keep around for the plot? Will this character, with how they react to certain situations, hinder the plot in a bad way in the future? These are all things that I take into consideration when killing a character. If the answer to all of these is no then I don’t kill them. If anyone of them is yes and I don’t need them later in the plot I will go ahead and kill them.

But that’s another thing that I don’t write about. I never bring a character back to real life. Yes, fiction is supposed to be about creating an escape for readers to find joy in. And yes, sometimes the laws of the universe are altered such in fantasy novels where magic exists. But there are some fundamental rules of the universe that don’t change no matter what world you live in. If you don’t keep at least a couple fundamental rules of our universe in yours then the readers will have a hard time living in it. The one that I choose to keep in every world I create is that of death. Death doesn’t change no matter what world my characters are in. Once you are dead you stay dead and I never bring a character back to life. If they are needed for the plot at a latter time I will not kill them earlier no matter how tempting. Because I kept this universal rule I should keep it, or it wouldn’t make sense. To quote Tom Clancy, “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” You can’t simply have something happen because it is convenient to the plot. In reality you can bump into someone you haven’t seen in 10 years have a small conversation in never see them again and think, ‘what a coinkydink’. But in a novel if somethings like this happens in fiction the authors thoughts shouldn’t be, ‘boy that was fun to write’ it should be when am I bringing that character back and why are they important? Nothing happens just for fun or just as a coincidence in fiction.

Alright. Love Triangles. The troupe that I hate more than anything. It is so overused! And I know this probably actually happens to people in real life every once in a blue moon, but it doesn’t happen as often as it does in fiction. I am certain. You can look at any youtuber who talks about writing or reading, and they could inform you quite gleefully how they would crush the love triangle out of fiction. AND YET AUTHORS KEEP USING IT! I DON’T UNDERSTAND! Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say on love triangles.

So that’s it I guess. That’s why I write what I write. Send me some of the things you commonly write or don’t write and why you don’t or do write that thing. Wow that was a long sentence.

Next week I will be talking about some of the research I have done for different novels and how even though I hated research it benefited my story greatly. So, don’t miss out on next week. I know my topic always sound boring, but I think I make them more fun than they sound. So, check it out. Tell you friends about it too I always love writing for new people! See you next week!