Greetings world~ Been a minute since I wrote a blog, but I'm glad that as I exist in this weird liminal space between the end of my summer classes and the beginning of my fall semester, I finally got some inspo to get the ball rolling again. Lately, I've been particularly inspired by a mix of things: The Artist's Way, the movie  Deepwater Horizon , and my own effort to reclaim my attention span from the death grip of social media algorithms. Just like how we shouldn't binge eat, I don’t think it’s wise to binge consume media. And yet, that’s the norm. Pick your poison: Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO, TikTok, YouTube, video games, Twitter (I will never call it X), Reddit, Instagram Reels, etcetera etcetera, the list goes on . The stream never ends. And neither does the expectation to keep swimming in it. Admittedly, I've always enjoyed being contrarian. I've always been drawn to trodding the path less taken. Although, some of this started back when I was a tween and very much in my “pick-me” era—the kind of mindset that whispered, “I’m not like other people… I’m an intellectual .” But over time, that need to be seen as different and distinctive has matured into something far more grounded—it's no longer about being clever, but more about living aligned. Less about being perceived a certain way or being "better", but being more me. And to no longer feel the need to prove myself and more about living genuinely and authentically with intention as someone who values depth and autonomy in a world that often rewards the opposite. Though this tendency to resist the pull of the majority isn’t random. While it is part instinct, it's also part upbringing. Both of my parents are extraordinary people. People who truly stand out from the crowd. With my mom being an incredibly intelligent, emotionally smart, woman in a position of leadership for all her adult life (and long before I was ever born), my dad has also been someone with extraordinary talents and ways of thinking. Their combination and rather unusual dynamic — my mom the "bread winner" and my dad the stay-at-home parent, something that still isn't widely accepted even in the year 2025 —they not only fostered, but instilled the innate desire in me to take the road less travelled. Whether it was politics, pop culture, music, or just how we spent our weekends, they taught me to question what everyone else seemed so quick to accept. Not just for rebellion's sake, but because they wanted to raise their child to be able to think critically, and to therefore think for themselves—to have the courage to stand by my own choices and convictions. In the past, I've even prided myself for not having watched a ton of current TV shows or movies. Not because I think I’m better than anyone, but because most of the time? I'm just not interested. It's rare for something mainstream to catch my interest enough for me to even go looking for it. I tend to enjoy niche topics, so most  hyped shows don't intrigue me. That said, I’m not immune to falling down YouTube rabbit holes. I’ve sunk countless hours into video essays and educational content (and a whole bunch of other unnecessary garbage), convincing myself it was “productive” because, hey, I was learning about dinosaurs or human evolution from Hank Green. But I won't pretend I’m above the dopamine slot machine, because my latest dopamine addiction has been Trixie and Katya. Because being smart and stupid is my Roman empire, and sometimes you need to balance evolution theory with drag queen chaos. And because, well… They're iconic and funny as hell. GIF of the ✨iconiqué✨ drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova serving chaos, commentary, & couture. ( AKA, me and my one remaining brain cell trying to reclaim my attention in the age of streaming.) But the truth is, even that can become a smokescreen—a way to justify avoiding the things I actually care about. Lately, I’ve been working on reclaiming my attention. Especially as someone who is neurodivergent, I know how precious focus is. I don’t want my brain to atrophy like a muscle I never use. So I evaluated my habits and started putting hard stops on my YouTube consumption, and the difference has been  palpable . Less screen time = more energy. More time to create, to move, and just be. But this isn’t about demonizing media altogether. In fact, that’s the other side of the coin I want to talk about. Let's get into it. Table Of Contents Reclaiming One's Attention All Work, No Play The Benefits Of Boredom Review Your Relationship With Art Analyzing Art FML & My High Standards… Let Me Enjoy My Trash In Peace Concluding Thoughts Reclaiming One's Attention Like an on-again-off-again situationship, reclaiming my attention has been an on-going, several year endeavor. The kind where, just when I think I’ve broken things off for good, I find myself back in old patterns I thought I had risen above.   There have come points in time since 2020 where I've deleted all my social media apps, determined to not get sucked into the algorithm because it was eating so much of my time… only to redownload them thinking I could resist their seductive sirens call. And for a while, I can. But the doomscrolling always finds a way to sneak back in. Especially when I’m tired, overstimulated, or avoiding something deeper. I know I'm not the only person who has done this. I've heard time and time again from my friends lamenting about the same behavior. We all think we're Tom Bombadil, when in reality we're actually Boromir. The Ring will always win, unless you throw it in the fire (delete the apps).   The algorithms are made to be predatory, they're meant to keep you on the app and endlessly doomscrolling. But the best way to reclaim your attention and not getting tempted back onto social media is to not redownload the apps. I know, how obvious. So when the siren song snags through my subconscious or conscious mind to seek out a dopamine hit, I have to ask myself: How much of my craving for dopamine is because I’ve cut down on social media, and how much of it is just my ADHD brain, doing what it does best?   Either way, the urge is there. And rather than pretending I’m above it—like Boromir with the One Ring, thinking I can handle its pull—I’ve had to admit that I can’t always trust myself with unstructured access to the algorithm. So I’ve started approaching it differently.   My solution? To stop fighting the craving with shame, and instead replacing old habits with better ones. To build structures that protect my energy. And to do something kind of radical in this hyper-connected digital age: Go silent.   Prioritize  silence. Leave my phone behind when I go for a walk. Pause before reflexively opening an app. Ask myself what I actually need—stimulation or stillness? Distraction or restoration?   I started asking these questions after noticing that I was stuck in a loop—doing the same things over and over again, expecting a different outcome (which, as they say, is the definition of insanity). So instead of doomscrolling, I reach for a book, or go for a talk, or text a friend. Instead of typing “YouTube” out of muscle memory, I open Substack, or Letterboxd, or a podcast I’ve been saving.   And to help me out, I didn’t rely on willpower alone. I installed two browser extensions on my computer and one on my phone that block me from accessing certain sites after a set time limit. If I want to bypass it, I have to jump through e nough hoops and confirmation boxes that I usually stop mid-click—humorously shamed into turning back . And on my phone, if I need to open something, like respond to a friend whose contact I only have on Instagram, it makes me wait 30 seconds before opening, and before it opens, the screen reads in big bold, italicized, capital letters: YOU HAVE DREAMS AND AMBITIONS. DON’T LOSE SIGHT OF YOUR WHY.   Not to shame myself, but to anchor myself. T o not let myself fall unawarely into passivity, and become a side character in my own life. Because it is better to build toward better, sustainable, and fulfilling habits, than escaping into a nonconstructive non-reality that steals my attention for hours. And surprisingly…? It’s working.   That’s what has made me reconsider how I watch shows and movies. I have no problem sitting down in a theater and being immersed—that feels intentional. Sacred, even. But binge-watching a TV at home just to fill space? I don’t love that. I shamed myself out of that long ago. So unless I’m watching with other people, I find it off-putting. Even the few shows I do enjoy, sometimes it takes me months to finish. Even if there are six episodes and the episodes are only 20min long. Too much of a good thing is still too much.   And that brings me to the real heart of this post. Not about demonizing media, or replacing one addiction with another, but about remaining present . To undo the shame I had instilled within myself over binge watching content that I knew was a waste of time. Remembering that some shows and films aren’t just content—they can be capital-A Art. That escapism, when chosen mindfully, can be deeply healing. That getting lost in a movie, feeling your spirit shift and stir, is not a waste of time— it’s the point .   So instead of consuming media as background noise or emotional filler, I’ve started carving out time for it. Purposefully. Whether it’s to be moved, inspired, or simply entertained. Sometimes, it’s research. Sometimes, it’s rest. Sometimes, it’s reverence. All Work, No Play (The Other Extreme) In my effort to reclaim my attention and protect my energy from the algorithm, I’ve noticed another trap—one that’s just as sneaky, just as seductive, and arguably just as damaging: the belief that consuming any media is a waste of time. I've especially seen this with some of my friends. I've certainly been guilty of believing that rest must be earned. That inspiration must be scheduled. That in order to be successful, or self-aware, or evolved, you have to always be on and productive. I’ve written about this before—especially in my post on How To See The World Like An Artist —and I’m still learning how deep this mindset runs. But let’s be clear: that’s just another kind of poison. Some people live for years—even decades—caught in a fog of passivity. Days bleed into weeks, weeks into years, glued to their screens, numbing out, convincing themselves they’ll get around to their dreams “eventually.” Then something shakes them. A moment of clarity. A health scare. A breakup. A lost opportunity. A creative drought. And suddenly, the haze clears. They see how much time has slipped by, and they panic. So they swing hard in the other direction. Hustle. Structure. No time wasted. They cram productivity into every minute like they’re trying to make up for lost time. But now they’re on the other  extreme. Rest becomes guilt, leisure becomes laziness, and any form of stillness feels dangerous. They’re no longer wasting their lives, but they’re no longer living  them either. Just sprinting through a to-do list, afraid of ever slowing down. We think we’re fixing the problem by going from one end of the spectrum to the other. But both are unsustainable. Both are exhausting. And both rob us of the quiet middle ground where true creativity, connection, and life  actually happen. We must find that middle ground. Let's be clear too, not everyone's middle ground will look the same. But in being mindful and existing in that balance, I must call out the massive differences between mindless consumption and soulful replenishment. One leaves you feeling empty; the other fills you up from somewhere soft and sacred. We are not machines. We are not here to optimize every hour of our lives like calendar blocks in Google. There is something profoundly healing, even necessary, about letting yourself sit with a story. To get swept up in something beautiful, human, and messy. To really let yourself feel something. Sometimes, letting yourself watch a movie—not to analyze it, not to dissect the cinematography, not to “earn it” by folding laundry or answering emails while it plays, but simply to enjoy it, that is what your creative self needs. Because as much as I resist binge-watching, I also resist grind-watching—that reflex to turn even leisure into a task. To turn art into utility. To turn rest into performance. Let yourself romanticize your life. Let yourself get bored. Let yourself feel awe again. Let yourself play. That’s part of real rebellion of going against the capitalist agenda. The Benefits Of Boredom There’s a kind of quiet magic that only reveals itself when everything else stops. When the tabs are closed, the notifications silenced, the screen turned black—and it’s just you, breathing, listening, being. In a world that demands constant motion, stillness feels alien. Boredom, even more so. But it’s in that intentional pause that enchantment begins to stir. Without something constantly filling the space, your thoughts stretch, your senses reawaken, and your inner world starts speaking again: You realize the wind is hushing against your window, stirring the branches of a tree outside. You realize how good it feels to sip something warm without distraction. You notice how delicious the food your eating is, despite it being takeout. You realize how your own imagination flickers to life when it’s no longer smothered by the technologies noise. In a Harvard Business Review article by Arthur C. Brooks , researchers found that boredom opens the door to asking big questions—the kind that invite wonder, clarity, and originality. But when we never let ourselves be bored—when we scroll, scroll, scroll to fill the silence—we start to feel hollow. Stretched thin. Like we’re chasing stimulation instead of living. So here’s a gentle rebellion to try: No devices after 8 or 9 PM No phones during meals, even solo ones Do a regular digital “fast” (one day, one weekend, or one hour at a time) Don’t sleep with your phone by your bed Give yourself 15+ minutes of intentional boredom every day Stillness invites wonder. It invites presence. It lets the soul exhale. You may just start digging into the biggest questions in your life: purpose, meaning, significance. You don’t have to meditate on a mountaintop or delete all your apps—but try letting yourself be still for just fifteen minutes a day. No input. No performance. No scrolling. Just stillness. Observe what blooms in the absence of stimulation.   And who knows? You may just find yourself returning to yourself. So when the world feels like too much, you don’t always need something to escape into or a productivity hack. You might just need to be bored. Yes, bored. On purpose . How terrifying. Reviewing Your Relationship With Art  Back in early February, I made friends with a film student—someone who has since become a very dear friend of mine. One of my best friends, honestly. The kind of person you meet and instantly recognize as a kindred spirit. The day we met, she introduced me to The Artist’s Way , and together we started a little book club: one chapter a week, followed by deep discussions over what we've read, how it resonated with us, what it stirred up, and what we’re still trying to untangle.   That book, and the conversations it’s sparked, have led me to review, in-depth, my relationship with art. Not just writing, but music. Film. Drawing. Painting. Creating anything. And not just the making of it, but the receiving of it. The way art holds space for me, reflects me, shifts me. And the way I’ve sometimes distanced myself from it, out of fear or distraction or not feeling “not good enough” to create anything at all. So I wanted to share the abbreviated versions of the first three chapters: Chapter One: Safety is about acknowledging the wounds we carry around our creativity—the teachers who dismissed us, the family who didn’t take it seriously, the inner monologue who tells us we have more urgent things to do, the inner voice that says “you’re not good enough.”  This chapter is aimed to help readers name where we've internalized shame around making things—and even consuming art with full presence and without apology. Chapter Two: Identity is where things got personal. It asks you to pay attention to jealousy and envy, not as something to avoid, but as a compass. It asks: "What are you drawn to? What lights you up with admiration or bitterness?" That might be your creative soul pointing toward what it actually wants. This chapter helped me realize that my hesitations around consuming certain types of art weren’t just taste—they were avoidance. Because sometimes when we envy people who make things we love, it's because deep down, we want to make things like that too. Chapter Three: Power reminds you that you are allowed to make things. That perfectionism is a mask for fear. That there’s strength in starting—even if it’s messy, inconsistent, or private. That creativity isn’t a gift granted to a lucky few—it’s a birthright, something every person carries.   So I encourage you to read The Artists Way too. To read and re-read, listen or re-listen to music that once meant something. Watch a film that made you cry in high school, let yourself sketch in the margins of your journal without judgment—these small acts help to rebuild trust between you and your creative self. Not to produce, not to publish, not to prove anything, just to feel connected again. Expressing ourselves is innately human and cathartic, we should never snuff it. Because art, when approached with openness and honesty, doesn’t demand anything from us. It invites us back into ourselves. Analyzing Art After years of doomscrolling, dopamine-chasing, and passive consumption, our brains have gotten used to being spoon-fed content instead of being invited to wrestle with it. But good, intentional art (if you don't have your brain off, that is) asks something of you . And lately, I’ve been relearning how to meet it halfway. But this means stretching my thinking muscles. God knows that a majority of us haven’t been using them…After years of social media rot and dopamine-chasing, it genuinely feels like our brains have gone soft. Like soup. We’re so used to being fed content in neatly packaged, algorithm-approved morsels that we’ve forgotten how to think  for ourselves; to wrestle with complexity, to sit with ambiguity, to ask: Why did the artist choose that? What is this scene trying to say? What’s the subtext here?  Or even: What’s missing? What feels off? And honestly? I think doomscrolling is one of the main reasons people have become so… dumb lately. I don’t mean that cruelly. I mean it like a bone-deep sigh. Because it’s not our fault. None of us were taught to think in school—not really. Critical thinking wasn’t part of the curriculum; obedience was. Thanks American education system… So now we’re here, trying to unstick our brains from years of passive consumption, wondering why everything feels a little hollow. But the good news? Thinking is a muscle and muscles can be built and rebuilt. So here’s where I've been starting: Watching something because I want  to feel something, because I want to be inspired. To see the world through new eyes. To let my empathy be stretched, or my imagination lit up, to have my soul stirred in some meaningful way. Or hell, even to get mad  at a character. To let them tap-dance on my last nerve and force me to wrestle with the choices they’re making before I inevitably turn off the show or movie and chuck the remote across the room in frustration. That too, is an emotional release. And it’s worth something. Because humans are artful creatures. We tell stories to survive. To connect. To reflect. To understand ourselves and each other. To shun art—or worse, to treat it as a frivolous afterthought—is to do a disservice to the work itself, to the creators who poured themselves into it, and to the parts of you  that are waiting to be moved. Hollywood and the industry at large for cranking out soulless, lowest-common-denominator, algorithm-baiting content. Not everything has to be high art, but can't someone care about what they're saying??… More to be said on this in the next section. So the next time you watch something, anything , try sitting back and asking: What is this trying to say? Who is this made for? Why this  setting, this  costume, this  color, this  line? What feels intentional? What feels lazy? What does this make me feel, and why ? And maybe even: what would I do differently? That’s how we start reclaiming our critical thinking. Not through judgment. But through curiosity. Further Reading & Writing Resources Want to dive deeper? These resources blog posts expand on some of the ideas shared in this blog: You Are the Story You Tell Yourself | An Existential Take on Why Humans Crave Stories   – Explore how the narratives we craft—both on the page and in our own minds—shape our identity, purpose, and perception of the world. This post dives into the existential power of storytelling and how understanding it can make you not only a better writer, but a more self-aware human. How Writing Has Made Me a Better Person (& How It Can Do the Same for You)  – Learn how the act of writing can transform your inner world, deepen your self-awareness, and foster personal growth. This post explores the emotional, mental, and even spiritual benefits of writing—whether you’re journaling, drafting a novel, or just trying to make sense of your life. Now, I want to give some credit where credit is due. The same film friend I do book club with is also the one who reinvigorated my interest in watching movies and shows. When I have sat down to enjoy a movie in the evening by myself, I find myself being a bit more present. I not only enjoy the movie for its aesthetic and beautiful costume design, but for the cinematography, lighting, costuming, color palettes, set design. All the big and small, deliberate and subtle ways filmmakers tell stories within stories. She’s helped me remember how layered and amazing visual storytelling can be, and how much power can exist in a single, well-composed frame. Take this screen shot from season one, episode two, of The Last Of Us on HBO. (Spoiler Alert: I will be sharing some minor details from season one.) Screen shot from The Last Of Us , HBO Max. Season 1, Episode 2. When I first watched this episode, some part of my storytelling brain surfaced and was awed due to the show's visual storytelling. In this one beautifully haunting scene, Ellie sits alone in a dilapidated room, overtaken by moss and plant life, with warm sunlight cascading down upon her, illuminating her and her surroundings. Meanwhile, Joel and Tess sit apart from her in the shadows—physically present, but emotionally and symbolically distanced. Joel, however, is caught in the soft edges of that golden light as he looks at Ellie. Tess remains in the dark. It's a scene that happens so quickly, with so many jumps and cuts in-between that its almost a "blink-and-you-miss-it" scenario. The set up of the shot is no accident. The light and greenery are all intentional, it’s all deliberate cinematography doing narrative work. Ellie is the light. She’s the key to hope, to rebirth, to something green growing again in a dead world. Joel and Tess, cloaked in darkness, still exist in the old world, the broken one. But notice Joel in the screen shot. Joel, still hardened and traumatized, is tentatively turning toward Ellie, toward hope. He's more illuminated in this shot than Tess. Tess, whose fate has already been sealed by infection, remains cloaked in shadow, her story already ending. But Ellie? She represents what comes next. Growth. Healing. Life. And the scene shows us that not through dialogue, but through light and silence and visual contrast. That’s the kind of analysis we miss when we consume art passively. But when you slow down, pause, look , you start to see it: the story beneath the story. When you slow down, when you let yourself look , media becomes something so much more than content. It becomes layered, emotional, intimate. You’re no longer a passive viewer, but an active participant in the conversation the creator started. Lighting becomes a language. Composition becomes prophecy. And suddenly, you’re not just watching something—you’re feeling  it in your bones. It's like lifting a veil from your eyes and being let in on a delicious secret. FML & My High Standards Now, with all that said about analyzing art… FML and my high standards. Because here’s the downside of developing a discerning eye: once you start holding yourself to a higher standard—artistically, creatively, emotionally—you can’t help but start holding everything else to that standard too. And when I’ve spent so much time, energy, money, and soul  honing my own craft, pouring devotion into details, it’s genuinely disheartening to engage with art that feels… lazy. Rushed. Or gutted by corporate greed. I’ve been abstaining from watching things that feel mediocre or poorly written for years, and as a result? I’ve become a serial DNF-er. I’ll start a show or movie, get excited about the premise, and then promptly abandon it when the execution lets me down. Not because I’m pretentious, but because I want  to love it. I want  to be swept away. But when the writing is hollow, the pacing limp, or the production feels like a soulless cash grab—I feel it viscerally. And I mourn what could’ve been. ( Que me furiously writing fanfiction to makeup for soulless writing… ) Case in point: I’m a massive  Addams Family fan. And as a Tim Burton enthusiast, I was cautiously excited for Netflix’s Wednesday . I really wanted to love it. I tried to love it. But I could barely get through the first episode. Something about the tone, the dialogue, the choices, the cringe characters and acting—it just didn’t click. It felt like the aesthetic was there, but the spirit wasn’t. Not to mention, as a die-hard lover of The Addams Family , especially the original black-and-white TV show, the feud between Wednesday and Morticia felt completely unaligned with the canon family dynamic. I’m all for creative liberties—in fact, I welcome them when executed well and done with purpose—but the original premise of the Addamses was a deliberate satire of the “typical” American household: a family that looked macabre on the outside but was, in fact, deeply loving, supportive, and functional in a way that most TV families of the time weren’t. Husbands and wives were adored. Children were encouraged. Neighbors, even though the Addamses didn't understand their normal ways of behaving, were invited in and treated graciously and like royalty. Morticia would die  for her children and support them even if she didn’t always understand them. Morticia would never be threatened by her daughter’s darkness, she’d champion it! ( Addams Family Values  literally hinges on Morticia and Gomez trusting the babysitter’s claim that their kids want to go to summer camp. They don’t second-guess their kids’ desires, they honor them without hesitation.) So to pit Morticia and Wednesday against each other in a cold, antagonistic way felt not just off, it felt disingenuous. It felt deeply out-of-character. Like someone tried to modernize the characters without understanding what made them timeless. These weren’t character evolutions—they were rewrites that stripped away the emotional truth of who these people were. The Addamses have always been weird, but they were also warm, fiercely loyal, and full of unexpected tenderness. What I saw instead were aesthetic replicas: flattened, sanitized versions of the originals, tailor-made for a streaming audience but detached from their original purpose. Characters that were basically hollowed-out versions wearing Addams drag. The emotional beats didn’t land because the characters were out-of-character and no long attached to their core truths. It all just left me feeling like the writer didn’t just take creative liberties… They took shortcuts as well as not doing their homework. The result? Characters that were technically familiar, but emotionally unrecognizable. (And really? Pilgrims  as the villain? Groundbreaking…) Miranda Priestly from the movie The Devil Wears Prada. And that speaks to a broader frustration I’ve been feeling: the not-so-slow decay of storytelling in mainstream media. Fewer writers in the room. More executives in charge. Shrinking budgets. Over-reliance on IP, AI, and CGI. Art shaped by algorithms instead of actual artists. It feels like wonder is being edited out in favor of “content.” But here’s the thing: not everything has to be a masterpiece. And not everything will resonate with everyone. I’m learning (however reluctantly) that it’s okay to let things miss  sometimes. That it’s okay for something to not be “for me.” That doesn’t mean I have to lower my standards. Just that I can make peace with what’s out of my control… There’s still beauty in trying. There’s still value in the attempt . And maybe the real act of creative integrity isn’t just about having high standards—it’s about creating space for wonder, even when it falls short. Let Me Enjoy My Trash in Peace After all that talk of high standards, it’s only fair to say this: I also love trash. And I say that with my whole chest. Not everything I consume needs to be a cinematic masterpiece or a literary triumph. Sometimes, I want something ridiculous. Something predictable. Something deeply unserious. A silly little show with bad wigs and worse dialogue. A fanfic with more tropes than plot. Or a horrifically done movie about a priest who goes to China after losing his parents and inherits a mysterious power that allows him to turn into a "velociraptor." (Velocipastor is such a god-awful and stupid movie, it's so campy BUT IT'S SO GOOD . It's so bad it's good! (in reality it is just trash but I will die on this hill, I think it's hilarious.) You should totally watch it just to hate on it.) And you know what? That’s valid. That’s necessary.  Because while I have a deep love for art that challenges and stretches me, I also need space for stories and media that just let me breathe . Not everything needs to be profound to be pleasurable. Not everything needs to be revolutionary to be fun . Sometimes the joy is  in the cringe, in the mess, in the chaos, and good ol' fashion comedy. And I’m learning to stop justifying that joy to anyone—even myself. So if any of my friends are reading this, don't judge me for my choice of media poison. Let me enjoy my trash in peace. 🫶🗑️✨ Privilege & Boredom Acknowledgment → Side Note:  I want to pause and say this clearly: I recognize the privilege in being able to contemplate boredom, rest, or even media consumption as a choice. Not everyone has the luxury to opt out of hustle culture. For many, rest isn’t radical, it’s simply unavailable. Bills need paying. Kids need feeding. Life demands attention, often at the cost of our own well-being. I’m incredibly fortunate to be in a position where I can even talk about reclaiming my attention, turning off notifications, or giving myself “fifteen minutes of intentional boredom.” That’s a kind of freedom not everyone has and I never want to pretend otherwise. So this reflection isn’t meant as a one-size-fits-all prescription. It’s simply an offering. A meditation. A gentle call back to those of us who do have a bit of space, but have forgotten how to use it. Who’ve mistaken rest for weakness. Who’ve been given freedom, but filled it with noise. Concluding Thoughts God, this post really made me put my attention to the test, hahaha. Which honestly feels a the perfect full-circle moment. Because this whole post wasn't about rejecting media, but to be more present and mindful. To choose intentional consumption  as a form of rebellion and self-care. It’s about remembering that art doesn’t have to be a productivity hack, a background noise, or something you “earn” by finishing your to-do list. Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is sit down, watch a film, read a book, listen to an album and simply enjoy it. Let us feel and be provoked, let us provoke and offer new ways of seeing the world. Be brave to make something that might make someone cry—even if that someone is yourself! Enjoy art and reclaim not just your attention, but your sovereignty. So my two questions to you are:  When was the last time you watched a movie or show for the appreciation and enjoyment of art, not just because you were looking to distract yourself? And what are you watching, or start watching, that actually feeds your soul, not just your algorithm? Let's discuss, I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments below :) “We do not escape into art; we escape into the truth.” — Anaïs Nin. Be intentional, live wisely, love abundantly, and above all, get to art-making! —Bair✍︎ Where epic fantasy meets philosophical ponderings of the self. P.S. If you've gotten this far, I think you would enjoy reading these blog posts: How To See The World Like An Artist (Even If You’ve Never Thought Like One Before) You Are the Story You Tell Yourself | An Existential Take on Why Humans Crave Stories How Writing Has Made Me A Better Person (& How It Can Do The Same For You) References & Further Reading You Need to Be Bored. Here’s Why. (Harvard Business Review) Chris Hayes On The Attention Economy (Volts Podcast) Want to stay up to-date and get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . SUBSCRIBE to the blog on my personal website , Substack , or Medium . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Check out My Writer & Reader Merch Store Like this post? Share the link on your social media or pin the image below to your Pinterest board ! Shhh! You found Mosswing sleeping. Don't disturb him🤫

This is going to be a short and sweet blog post, because lately, I’ve been dealing with burnout. So instead of pressuring myself to show up big by writing a post that is a 15min+ read that takes several hours of writing—followed by several more hours of editing and rewriting—I wrote this 5min read post. This post is to remind myself that showing up for myself in small ways is just as important as completing big projects and accomplishing lofty goals. So, instead of a craft deep-dive or worldbuilding essay, I wanted to share something a little more personal. A softer kind of offering. A list of romance tropes I secretly (or not so secretly) adore. Because while I’m not someone who actively seeks out romance novels—and while I’ve read and enjoyed romantasy stories like  Throne of Glass ,  ACOTAR , and  Fourth Wing  (fun fact, I read ToG and ACOTAR years before they exploded on TikTok)—I’m a hopeless romantic at heart. I may not swoon over every love story, but the ones that  get  me? They stay forever. There are popular romance tropes we all know and love—enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, grumpy x sunshine. But today I’m not here to talk about those. I’m here to talk about the unpopular, fly-under-the-radar tropes. The slow burns. The emotionally complex. The ones that make you whisper "just kiss already" to your book at 2am. Here are 8 of my favorites—and the deeper truths they taught me about myself. Table Of Contents The Secret Identity You Make Me Want To Live Again Rivals To Lovers > Enemies To Lovers Freaky Friday, But Make It Romantic Pretend Enemies, Real Feelings I Hate That I Love You I Swear I Kidnapped You For A Good Reason Forced Proximity What These Tropes Taught Me About Myself Closing Thoughts 1. The Secret Identity Love Triangle… With Only Two People Fuuuuuuck. I don't know why but I looooove this trope. It's t he classic identity mess. One loves the other’s normal self. The other loves the alter ego. One hates the alter ego. The other ignores the normal self. It’s messy. It’s delicious. It’s a screaming match with a little bit of destiny and disguise. I love this trope because it turns the whole idea of knowing someone inside and out on its head. It’s all about layers—who we pretend to be, who we actually are, and what it means when someone sees through the performance. There’s something painfully romantic about characters falling in love with different versions of each other, only to realize they were already halfway there the whole time. It’s identity, desire, and longing in a blender—and I’ll never get tired of it. 2. You Made Me Want to Live Again Not “I would die for you” or "I would kill for you" but:  “I didn’t want to live at all… until I met you. And now I want to live. For me. For us. For the sunrise.”   That shit hits me right in the feels. It's devastating, it's raw. It's powerful and transformational. This trope has always resonated with the quiet ache I often explore in my stories—the ache of loneliness, of numbness, of surviving instead of living. There's something deeply moving about love that doesn’t swoop in to save you, but  reminds  you why life is worth saving in the first place. I love when characters gently help each other rebuild the will to exist—not as a savior fantasy, but as something tender and human and real. It's also far more realistic and healthy. 3. Rivals to Lovers > Enemies to Lovers They’re not trying to kill each other. They’re trying to  outdo  each other. It’s mutual drive. Intellectual heat. Sparks disguised as arguments. A perfect match they’re both too proud to admit (until, hopefully, they're not. Until, hopefully, they just want to see the other succeed). I love this trope because it's built on  recognition , not hatred. Unlike enemies to lovers, where attraction often blooms out of trauma or violence, rivals to lovers is rooted in mutual respect—no matter how begrudging. They challenge each other not to survive, but to  be better.  And that kind of growth-driven love? That hits different. It's ambition meeting affection, pride melting into admiration. It's what I hope to genuinely have and find in my own relationships. 4. Freaky Friday, But Make It Romantic Okay, hear me out—I love  a good body swap trope. Maybe it’s the leftover fanfiction nostalgia from my Wattpad era (don’t judge me), but there’s something wildly compelling about two characters waking up in each other’s bodies and having to live  each other’s lives. It’s chaotic. It’s awkward. It’s vulnerable. It’s delicious . But what I really love about this trope isn’t just the comedy or the fish-out-of-water setup—it’s the deeper questions it invites. What does it mean to embody another gender? Another sex? What happens when a character sees the world through someone else’s eyes— literally ? There’s a built-in opportunity for compassion, perspective-shifting, and oh yes… emotional intimacy disguised as mortifying ordeal. And of course, there’s the tension. The “I hate your morning routine” bickering. The accidental moments of care. The way they begin to understand one another from the inside out— before  they’re allowed to fall for each other from the outside in. It’s romantic, ridiculous, philosophical, and sexy in the weirdest, most wonderful way. I love me some Freaky Friday shit. Especially when it ends in a love confession… from the "wrong" body. 5. Pretend Enemies, Real Feelings They want to hate each other. They’re  supposed  to hate each other. They might have even hated each other at first. But somewhere along the line without them realizing, the walls fell away, and now every insult is just a cleverly disguised compliment. Now they must pretend to hate each other to save face. And every argument and potential moment to "annoy" each other is just an excuse to be close.  And when they’re alone… it’s game over. This trope is a masterclass in emotional tension. The characters are fighting the wrong battle—not with each other, but with their own hearts. I love how the desire to resist affection only deepens the attraction. It's not about  enemies  in the traditional sense; it's about people trying not to fall in love, and failing spectacularly. That kind of vulnerability masked as banter? Unmatched. 6. I Hate That I Love You This trope captures the quiet, internal wars we sometimes fight within ourselves. It’s not about whether they love someone new—it’s about whether they’re  ready  to. I’m drawn to stories where grief takes its time, where love arrives gently, and where forgiveness isn’t owed but earned (gimme that slow burn, babyyyyy). There’s something incredibly human about watching a character navigate love not in spite of their loss, but through it and because of it.  The trope of “Loving you means letting go of the one I lost. And I’m not ready for that”   or the " Accepting and acknowledging this love for you means I've already started to move on from someone I'm not ready to let go of yet " eats me UP . It's emotionally devastating in the best way. It's the kind of story that leaves the reader changed as well. Because it's coming to terms with truths you may or may not be ready to face or even handle. And so it comes out in vicious ways because the character doesn't know any better, but they're doing the best they can with where they're at. The hate isn’t real—it’s grief, guilt, fear. But the love is real. And so is the healing. 7. The "I Swear I Kidnapped You For a Good Reason, Plz Don't Hate Me. It Was to Protect You—And I Couldn’t Tell You Until You Trusted Me" Trope I'll admit it up front, this trope is a little fucked up… but it scratches a very specific itch for me—it’s mythic, symbolic, and filled with restrained emotion. The inability to tell the truth unless trust is earned feels like a love story forged by fate. It puts emphasis on  action over explanation , trust over coercion, and creates space for one of my favorite narrative arcs: when care is offered even in the face of rejection. There’s something beautiful and brutal about love that waits quietly to be understood. A curse. A spell. A divine rule. The captor can't explain why. The captee resents them. But the captor's every action is rooted in love—and once the truth comes out, it’s devastating and beautiful. It’s morally grey. It’s magically tragic. And it's fucked up but I love it anyways. 8. We Were Raised to Hate Each Other, But Now We See The Lies Fed To Us About The Other Side Enemies by birthright. But the war? The divide? It was built on lies. And now they’re uncovering the truth together. Letting go of the past. And maybe… falling in love while they rebuild what was broken. This trope speaks to the possibility of healing in the wake of deep generational pain. I love when characters unlearn what they've been taught, when they realize their enemy isn't a person, but a system or belief they never questioned or had been indoctrinated with. The love story becomes not just about romance, but about reclaiming their agency, their history, and their future. It's cathartic, rebellious, and profoundly tender. 9. Forced Proximity: "I Don’t Even Like You, But We’re Stuck Together" Forced proximity is definitely not a rare trope, but as I was thinking of tropes I genuinely like, I realized this was one of the more mainstream tropes I do enjoy reading. So whether two characters are chained together, shipwrecked and marooned on an island, sharing a room, bound by magic or obligation, I will never tire of this trope. Especially if its paired with the "I hate your guts" trope. It's so good to see the characters get on each other's nerves for entertainment value… until that annoyance becomes fondness. And fondness becomes  oh shit, I caught feelings. I love how this trope forces characters to drop their facades. With nowhere to run, they have to face each other—awkward silences, petty arguments, quiet acts of care and all. It breeds intimacy in unexpected ways, making small moments feel seismic. Forced proximity isn’t just about tension; it’s about closeness without escape, which often reveals what the characters (and the reader) didn’t realize they needed. What These Tropes Taught Me About Myself When I sat down to write this post, I thought I was just talking about tropes I liked. But looking back… there’s a pattern. A truth beneath the fiction. These tropes all reflect something deeper I crave in stories, and maybe in life: love that’s built through trust, not grand gestures; emotional intimacy that unfolds before physical closeness; the slow, aching unraveling of false truths; the choice to grow instead of clinging to power; and the deep, often painful ache of wanting to belong even when you feel unworthy. And this is why I write, because writing helps me understand myself and the world at large. This is why I write fiction and non-fiction. Because all types of writing can lead to beautiful discoveries and fun rabbit holes. Closing Thoughts I didn’t sit down to write something polished today because I’m dealing with burnout—the kind that leaves you feeling hollow but still craving connection. So this post was my small way of showing up anyway. Not with something epic or perfect, but with something real. I thought I was just rambling about tropes I liked. But as I kept going, I realized these stories all speak to the parts of me that still want to believe in gentleness, emotional truth, and in love that doesn’t demand performance, but invites healing. So if you resonated with any of these, welcome. You’re in good company. We’re all just looking for stories that help us feel a little less alone. Thanks for reading. I hope you were kind to yourself today. See you in the next blog~ —Bair✍︎ Where epic fantasy meets philosophical ponderings of the self. Want to stay up to-date and get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . SUBSCRIBE to the blog on my personal website , Substack , or Medium . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! 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Greetings, dear reader! Have you ever felt like your fantasy cultures just aren’t… hitting right? You’ve got the maps, the names, the magic, the dragons—but somehow, it still feels like “the modern day, but with swords.” Western values like individualism, personal freedom, and binary morality somehow sneak into your stories almost by default, even when you’re trying to be inventive and subversive. You’re not alone. I’ve done that too. Most of us are raised with cultural assumptions we don’t even question until they show up in our fiction—and as writers, we bring our cultural lenses into everything we create. Often, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. It wasn’t until I started listening to Sapiens  by Yuval Noah Harari that I realized I was letting many Western values sneak into my worldbuilding. Harari spoke about how different cultures define “truth,” “value,” and even “reality” in radically different ways—and how we often don’t realize how deeply our assumptions are shaped by the cultures we were raised in. That hit hard. Because as a writer and worldbuilder, I want my fictional cultures to feel real, lived-in, and different —but I realized much of my own worldbuilding was still deeply entrenched in Western norms and values. And as I've become more and more committed to building immersive worlds that felt distinct and real,  I realized I had to confront several of those unconscious biases. Because here’s the thing: if we don’t question the assumptions we’ve absorbed, our fantasy cultures can end up feeling… Well… not that different from our own world. They risk reading like “Western society but with swords,” or “modern values in medieval clothing.” And readers notice. They may not consciously know why a world feels flat or unconvincing—but they feel it. I know. I’ve been one of those readers. So if you want to create rich, believable cultures that genuinely transport your readers, one of the most powerful things you can do is step outside Western norms and imagine other ways of seeing the world. In this post, I want to show you how I caught myself falling into that exact trap—and how I started unlearning my Western defaults to build fictional societies from the inside out, ones that feel real, rooted, and radically different. Table Of Contents How To Spot Unconscious Bias In Your Worldbuilding Why It Matter In Your Worldbuilding Deep Dive: Western Values To Watch For Check Your Racism At The Door A Personal Example & Examination 5 Core Foundations For Building Fictional Cultures Permission To Get Messy Writing Exercises Writing FREEBIE: Worldbuilding Worksheet Concluding Thoughts How to Spot Unconscious Biases in Your Worldbuilding Before we talk about how to break free of Western norms, we need to know what they look like when they quietly creep into our stories. Start by asking questions like: Who holds power in your world, and why? If it's always inherited through bloodlines or granted by divine prophecy, you might be echoing the Western ideal of destiny and inherited greatness. If your characters are praised for “breaking free” from family expectations to “be their true selves,” you’re leaning into individualism—a cornerstone of modern Western thought. Consider how morality works in your culture: is it a binary of good vs evil, or something more relational like shame, honor, or balance? What does family look like—are they nuclear units, or large extended or chosen collectives? And lastly, think about space: do your characters all have private rooms, personal property, and a high regard for solitude? If so, that may say more about our world than theirs. These biases aren't bad—but recognizing them is the first step to writing cultures that feel like their own living systems, not echoes of our own. Which beautifully leads us into our next point. Why This Matters in Worldbuilding As I shared in the introduction, I've been one of those readers who could sense when something felt  off  in a story’s worldbuilding. Sometimes a fantasy world just reads like Western society but with magic. Other times, it’s modern values dressed up in appropriated non-Western aesthetics . Like I mentioned earlier from Sapiens , o ne moment in that really stuck with me was when Harari described how, in feudal Europe, even the son of a lord didn’t have his own room. Personal space and privacy weren’t yet valued the way we understand them today—because those concepts hadn’t fully formed yet. So when we write medieval-inspired societies where every character has their own chamber or en suite bath, it reveals more about our current expectations than the logic of the fictional world. (Also, can we please continue moving away from having fantasy's default setting be medieval Europe? Is anyone else over that? Because I sure am…) One example that stuck with me was  Throne of Glass  by Sarah J. Maas. I haven’t read it in years, but I remember democracy being randomly introduced even though Aelin was becoming queen. It felt more like something added to appease the audience than something that naturally evolved from within the world. That kind of dissonance pulls readers out of a story. It doesn’t feel woven into the fabric of the world. There’s no real political, cultural, or historical context to support it. It’s less about how her world works—and more about how the author wants us to view her . The moment reads less like a believable act of leadership and more like a way to crown her as morally superior. Contrast that with The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson, where Jasnah Kholin proposes democracy in a way that feels earned . It’s not a throwaway line and she doesn’t just decree it out of nowhere—it’s the culmination of her arc as a scholar, a leader, and a woman who has seen the consequences of absolute power; a queen who has witnessed the failures of monarchy firsthand. The moment is grounded in the history of her world, the philosophy she studies, and the political instability she inherits. It doesn’t feel performative. It feels inevitable—like a worldview that grew out of the soil of the story itself. It’s a logical outcome of everything we’ve seen her study, believe, and struggle through. Now, this isn’t about criticizing one author or book—it’s about pointing out the difference between a narrative decision that emerges organically from world logic and one that’s inserted for applause. If your world has echoes of Western structures, that’s fine—but they should be questioned, grounded, and challenged. Not inserted to signal virtue. Authentic worldbuilding means understanding what values your fictional cultures  hold—not just the ones you as a writer want to signal to readers. Because w hen worldbuilding choices feel unearned, when systems and values exist in a world just to mirror our own ideals, it doesn’t just weaken immersion. It undermines the internal logic of the world. Cultures don’t evolve to be politically correct. They evolve through belief, survival, myth, power, and necessity. If your story ignores that, the world starts to feel like a backdrop rather than a living, breathing culture. Also also—and I mean this with love, and I hope it's not just me—I’m honestly so tired of the same old trope of "patriarchy oppresses women" as the only form of gender-based worldbuilding. If someone is going to the lengths of writing a novel where society hates women, can it at least be original? Instead of falling into the common trap of “subverting” patriarchy by creating matriarchies where women act exactly like men in power—cold, militaristic, dominating, or emotionally detached—can we please have a world where femininity is powerful in ways that aren’t just masculine aggression with a new paint job? Because it’s not really a flipped worldview. It’s just role reversal. A cheap, low effort role reversal. Don’t take the lazy way out . Have more integrity. Please, for the love of the writing goddesses and gods, please have integrity when you write. If you're going to hate women, hate us for… I don't know… Our  lack  of nose hairs. Make fun of us for not looking  old enough . Make fun of us for our breasts not being saggy enough . Just g et creative. Otherwise, it just feels uninspired, and people will get bored of the same old regurgitated crap we've been force-fed for decades. De ep Dive: Western Values to Watch For The following values often show up in fantasy worldbuilding, not because they belong there, but because they’ve been absorbed so deeply into the Western psyche that they feel “normal.” But they’re not universal. Here are some common assumptions to keep an eye on as you build your fictional societies: Individualism (“Follow your dreams! Be yourself!”) Western culture often prioritizes the individual over the group. In many non-Western or pre-modern societies, community, duty, or family takes precedence. A fantasy world may value harmony over uniqueness—or shame deviance rather than celebrate it. Achievement-Based Value (“You are what you accomplish.”) Tied to capitalism and modern productivity culture, this mindset measures a person’s worth by success. In other systems, worth might come from age, ancestry, generosity, or spiritual insight. Binary Morality (“Good vs Evil”) Western storytelling often frames morality as black and white. But many cultures view right and wrong as situational, relational, or fluid—based on harmony, shame, honor, or spiritual imbalance. Private Property & Public/Private Separation Western societies highly value personal space, ownership, and the division between public and private life. In other cultures, space is shared communally, and boundaries between “mine” and “ours” may not exist. Nuclear Family Units (2 parents, 2.5 kids) This family structure is not the default everywhere. Many cultures function through extended families, matrilineal clans, multigenerational homes, or even chosen families. Linear Time & Progression Western thinking often imagines time as a straight line toward improvement. But many societies view time as cyclical, ancestral, or based on seasons and natural rhythms. Meritocracy The idea that hard work equals success sounds fair—but often ignores structural privilege. Other cultures might measure status by lineage, age, reputation, or divine favor. Equality = Sameness Treating everyone “the same” is a Western liberal ideal. Other cultures may value fairness as respecting roles, hierarchies, or balance, not flattening difference. Written Law Over Oral Tradition Western societies rely on written rules, contracts, and documentation. In others, knowledge and agreements may live in oral history, ceremony, or communal memory. Rationalism Over Intuition The West prizes logic, science, and observable fact as the best way to know truth. But intuition, dreams, emotion, or divination are valid forms of knowledge in many traditions. Work as Identity Western cultures tend to link identity to productivity. “What do you do?” becomes “Who are you?” In other societies, identity may be relational or spiritual, not task-based. Control Over Nature The Western worldview often separates humans from nature—and sees the natural world as something to conquer. Other cultures see humans as part of, or even subordinate to, the natural world. Secularism as Neutral Many Western systems consider separation of religion and state as “neutral.” But other societies view spirituality as inseparable from politics, law, and daily life. Child-Centric Societies Western norms often prioritize the child’s feelings and development. In other cultures, children are expected to conform to the needs of the family or community, not the other way around. Forgiveness as Virtue Western values place heavy emphasis on individual forgiveness and personal healing. Other systems may prize restitution, public apology, shame, or restoring balance with the group. Recognizing these patterns in your writing is not about shame—it’s about awareness. Once you see them, you can choose to keep, reshape, or reject them to serve your story’s logic and heart. Because n one of these are  universal truths.  They're simply one way of structuring society—and often a very recent one, historically speaking. If we never question them, we end up copying our world in disguise. Our fantasy kingdoms begin to feel suspiciously like modern-day Western democracies, just with dragons and dirt roads. Readers  can feel  when something is off, even if they can’t articulate why. If all your cultures reflect your default worldview, you’re not building a world—you’re just mirroring what you know. The more we break free of those inherited patterns, the more unique and compelling our invented worlds become. Check Your Unconscious Racism at the Door Another trap to watch for? Writers often borrow from non-Western cultures—whether it’s East Asian aesthetics, Indigenous symbolism, Middle Eastern architecture, or African spiritual systems. But too often, the values  of those cultures get erased and replaced with Western ideals. And here’s the thing: you can’t just slap democracy on a kimono and call it worldbuilding. This happens when writers try to make their fictional cultures “better” by making them more Western—individualist, secular, egalitarian, rationalist. They “fix” honor-based societies by adding gender equality, or “improve” spiritual traditions by removing mysticism in favor of logic. Stop Western-washing your fictional cultures. This isn’t just lazy—it’s quietly supremacist. It implies that a culture isn’t valid until it resembles modern liberal Western values. But your world isn’t better because it’s whiter—or more American. A collectivist society that values harmony and shame isn’t “backward.” A religious kingdom that fuses law and faith isn’t “unfree.” A hierarchical society with rigid roles isn’t “oppressive” just because you wouldn’t want to live there. Are you writing a culture—or decorating with it? If you’re borrowing architecture, fabrics, foods, and names—but erasing the systems of thought, belief, and social cohesion they come from—that’s not worldbuilding. That’s exoticism. Exotic isn’t a personality trait. None of this means you can’t be inspired by other cultures. But if you’re going to borrow, do it with humility, research, and imagination. Worldbuilding without supremacy means letting cultures be complicated.  At best, it’s lazy. At worst, it’s racist. Because it implies that the culture you borrowed from isn’t complete, logical, or moral unless it conforms to Western values. Your fictional culture doesn’t need to be sanitized to be meaningful. Let them contradict your own values. Let them disturb you. Let them be themselves. A Personal Example: A Rethinking of a Personal Worldbuilding Project In the novel I'm currently writing, The Glass Dagger , there exists a country called Ayvara that is a matriarchal society that follows the teachings of a divine being known as The Great Mother. Coming from a Western democratic, liberal upbringing, my instinct was to imagine this society as pro-choice and individually autonomous—especially for women. But then I asked: what if it wasn’t? What if their values evolved in a direction completely foreign to mine? What if motherhood was considered the highest calling of a woman’s life? What if giving up a child—or refusing to bear one—was not just taboo, but shameful or spiritually dishonorable? That completely reframes how people view freedom, identity, and womanhood in this society. Here’s where I think a lot of writers and worldbuilders fall into a trap: instead of creating cultures with unique belief systems and internal logic, they simply flip the script on familiar structures. They build something that looks different on the surface—but underneath, it’s just the same system with new labels. It’s not really innovation. Again, that's just cheap, low effort, role reversal. I didn’t want that. Instead of defaulting to the trope, I pushed myself further. I wanted Ayvara to grow from its own sacred soil, not from a mirrored reaction to ours. That led me to ask deeper questions—especially around a current hot topic in our world: gender and sexuality. What if woman-to-woman love was considered sacred—the most divine form of love, like how man-on-man love was considered the highest form of love in Ancient Roman society. What if woman-to-man love is normal, healthy, and widely accepted, but man-to-man love is seen as strange and unbecoming—not outlawed, but socially awkward. What if trans women (AMAB individuals who identify as women) are completely accepted, even revered. But a woman wanting to transition into a man? That’s seen as deeply concerning and unnatural. In Ayvara, men are seen as lesser—not hated, but unnecessary. The culture doesn’t understand how pregnancy works on a biological level, so they assume women create life on their own, and men are only useful for labor and war due to their natural aggression. Male bodies are seen as more volatile, and therefore more expendable. In this framework, masculinity is useful—but not sacred. Is this politically correct? Not at all. Is it narratively interesting, thought-provoking, and an honest exploration of what a matriarchal, goddess-centered society might  actually  look like without projecting modern feminist values onto it? Yes. It may be uncomfortable, but that discomfort is where the magic starts. And that’s why I love worldbuilding. It’s one giant thought experiment that leads you down fun, beautiful, uncomfortable, and radically creative tangents. The farther you let a culture drift from what you know, the more vividly it reveals itself. And this isn’t just fiction. We’ve seen this exact kind of narrative distortion play out in our own world… It reminds me of how certain groups in real-world history have been dehumanized through fabricated narratives. In the United States, for example, false beliefs about Black people being intellectually or morally inferior were used to justify slavery—and those same beliefs were then reinforced through laws, education, and systemic exclusion. These myths weren’t just harmful; they became structural, generational, and in many cases, internalized. So what if something similar happened in Ayvara? What if the belief that men are less emotionally capable began as a sacred myth, then slowly hardened into social fact? What if that belief began shaping everything from temple access to public perception to policy? What kind of stories could emerge from that? What parallels could I draw—deliberately or not—to the real trials and tribulations people continue to face in our world? This is where your world can start doing real narrative work. Because stories like these aren’t written to make readers comfortable. They're written because something needs to be said and discussed. Because when belief systems have consequences, when myths turn into policy, and when power justifies itself through story—you don’t just have a fantasy setting. You have a living, breathing society. And that’s when worldbuilding starts to matter. It gives us a way to reframe reality, to ask what if and why not. It lets us explore truths that are too heavy, too charged, or too complex to confront head-on. I’m not writing Ayvara to preach—I’m writing it to ask questions I, and many societies, don’t yet have the answers to. Rethinking Culture from the Roots Up: 5 Core Foundations For Building Cultures If you want your cultures to feel immersive, you need to build them from their core values outward—not just from vibes and visuals. A culture isn’t just clothing, language, or architecture. It’s a whole worldview shaped by what a society holds sacred, what it fears, and how it survives. Below are five foundational dimensions to help you start rethinking culture from the roots up. Stop copy-pasting Earth with new names and call it worldbuilding. This is where you build something that actually feels  alive. 1. Family Structure & Kinship Who belongs to a household? Nuclear, extended, clan-based? Who holds power and honor? What do parent-child dynamics look like? Is marriage romantic, political, spiritual, or optional? Do families form based on love, survival, or duty? 2. Self vs Society Are people expected to stand out—or to belong? What’s more valued: personal choice or fulfilling your role? What does success look like in this culture? Is obedience a virtue or a vice? How are outsiders treated? 3. Morality & Values Where do values come from? Religion, tradition, collective need? Is morality binary (good/evil) or relational (dishonor, imbalance, shame)? (Many of these binaries are rooted in Judeo-Christian traditions, whether we realize it or not) How are sins/errors interpreted? What is forgiveness? Are there moral expectations by caste, gender, or age? 4. Built Environment / Architecture How do values shape physical space? Are homes private fortresses or open hubs? Do people sleep communally? Is it normal to share a bed without it being romantic? (*coughs* ahem … looking at you “ there was only ONE bed! ” trope…) Are sacred and mundane spaces integrated or separated? What’s at the center of the home—fire, shrine, hearth, ancestor wall? 5. Religion & Daily Life Are rituals part of everyday habits (eating, bathing, working)? Are certain seasons, foods, or life stages considered sacred? Is religion private, political, or deeply woven into law and custom? How do people interact with spiritual power: through prayer, dance, silence, sacrifice? These questions aren’t a checklist—they’re starting points for deeper creation. Let them challenge you. Let them lead you somewhere unfamiliar. And if you’re ready to go further, I’ve put together a free worksheet that expands on each of these five foundations with prompts, examples, and exercises to guide you step-by-step. Your world deserves that kind of care. So does your reader. Permission To Get Messy If you’re feeling bold: it’s okay if not everything in your world is comfortable, progressive, or “politically correct.” Real cultures have contradictions. Real people are messy. Your fictional societies don’t need to reflect your personal ideals. In fact, the most compelling worlds often challenge you as their creator. Let your characters wrestle with cultural norms. Let your societies surprise you. You’re not writing propaganda—you’re writing a world. Don’t create harm thoughtlessly—but do lean into the weird, the wrong, and the culturally complex. It’s how you move beyond flat, one-dimensional societies and into something unforgettable. And even if you didn’t grow up religious, it’s worth remembering that much of Western thought—especially around good vs evil, sin, virtue, and redemption—is steeped in Christian (and especially Protestant) frameworks. This doesn’t make them wrong, but it does mean they aren’t neutral or universal. Other cultures may define morality in terms of balance, honor, shame, or reciprocity instead. Don’t be afraid to make your readers uncomfortable. That’s the beauty of fiction—it’s meant to transcend, to challenge, to soothe and to provoke. Good books do that. If a reader shames you for questioning the status quo or exploring something taboo, that says more about them than it does about you. That said… If you’re being intentionally racist? I will gladly stand with your readers in shaming you. That shit doesn’t belong anywhere, least of all in a world you’re creating from scratch (unless that is the topic and theme you’re specifically tackling within your book). Writing Exercises: Building Beyond The Defaults So, how do you start building cultures that feel grounded, distinct, and free of your own unconscious defaults? The first step is asking better questions—and being willing to follow the answers into unfamiliar territory. If you’re ready to reimagine your cultures through a new lens, here are a few short exercises to get started: Exercise 1: Flip a Sacred Value Choose one value your current fictional society holds (e.g., freedom, love, honor). Now ask: What if this value was  shameful  instead of celebrated? What if the opposite was considered sacred? Exercise 2: Reframe a Common Trope Take a familiar scene: someone visiting a friend’s home, a coming-of-age ritual, or a wedding. How would this look in a society that doesn’t value privacy, romance, or individual identity? Could guests share a bed without it being taboo? Would marriage even be between two people—or entire families? Exercise 3: Design a Room Based on Values Imagine the layout of a home in your world. What’s at the center: a hearth? a shrine? a water basin? Are there walls and doors, or open shared spaces? Who sleeps where—and why? Exercise 4: Thought Experiment: Stranger in a Strange Land Take one of your characters and drop them into a culture completely foreign to them. What shocks them? What comforts them unexpectedly? What assumption of theirs gets challenged? Write a 300 word scene of cultural friction —or connection. Practical Tips to Break Free from Western Defaults Start with the sacred:  What does this culture revere above all? What do they fear losing? Question your assumptions:  Is privacy really a universal desire? What if obedience is a virtue? Use cultural contrasts:  How would someone from this world see our world? What would they find strange? Reflect values in space:  Let architecture, rituals, and body language show what matters. Let contradictions exist:  Not everything has to “make sense” by your standards, just theirs. Free Worldbuilding Worksheet Want to dive deeper? I created a  free worksheet  to help you build immersive cultures step by step—without defaulting to Western assumptions. It includes reflection prompts, design checklists, and space to experiment with values, rituals, and systems. Get it sent straight to your inbox when you sign up for my newsletter . Or, if you’re already a member, head to the Members Area to download it now! Concluding Thoughts Worldbuilding isn’t merely about making cool settings; it’s about delving into the essence of existence within those realms. It’s an exploration of values, sacrifices, and beliefs that define societies. And when you stop defaulting to the world you know, you open yourself up to worlds that surprise you—worlds that challenge your own assumptions, and maybe even reveal some truth about the one we’re living in. That’s the power of storytelling. That’s why we build. By stepping beyond our familiar paradigms, we unlock the potential to create worlds that challenge perceptions and reflect profound truths about our own. As J.R.R. Tolkien once articulated: The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power. This sentiment underscores the depth and intentionality behind immersive worldbuilding. So, as you embark on your creative journey, remember: the worlds you build have the power to illuminate, challenge, and transform.  Now I want to know… What’s a cultural assumption you caught yourself making while worldbuilding? Let’s chat in the comments! Happy worldbuilding! —Bair✍︎ Want to stay up to-date and get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . SUBSCRIBE to the blog on my personal website , Substack , or Medium . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! 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Journey Before Destination… But Let’s Talk Destination Imagine this: you’re reading a thrilling, breakneck story full of intrigue, memorable characters, and tantalizing twists and turns. The plot is racing toward its climax, you’re clutching the pages with white knuckles as the clock beside your bed whizzes past one o’clock in the morning. And then…! The book grinds to a puzzling, disappointing, and ultimately unsatisfying halt because the writer didn’t know how to end a story the right way. So while I'm fully on board with Brandon Sanderson's wisdom "Journey before destination," the final destination of your story can make or break your story. Here’s the thing: a great ending can leave readers buzzing with end-of-book euphoria, clutching your novel to their chest in quiet satisfied devastation. Or it can ruin everything. Leaving them confused, frustrated, or straight-up betrayed ( looking at you,  David Benioff and D.B. Weiss… ) and have your novel, that you spent countless hours of your life slaving away to, being thrown across the room and careening into a wall. A strong ending is the final punctuation mark of a story —one that can leave your readers haunted, satisfied, and emotionally wrecked (in the best way possible). A weak ending? It’s a broken promise, and readers will  remember it for all the wrong reasons. ( Just ask literally anyone who watched the last season of Game of Thrones. ) But how do you know if your ending works? Why do some endings feel like emotional sucker punches in the best way, while others nosedive into mediocrity? In this post, I'm diving into: The 8 core types of story endings How different genres shape what readers expect What makes an ending truly land And how to choose the right one for  your  story Table Of Contents The 8 Types of Story Endings How Genre Impacts Story Endings What Makes An Ending Work & Be Truly Memorable Choosing The Right Ending For Your Story Writing Exercises Concluding Thoughts The 8 Types Of Story Endings There are countless ways a story can end, but most of them fall into a few key categories. Understanding these core types of endings can help you figure out the emotional tone and narrative resolution your story needs. From triumphant conclusions to devastating losses, these endings shape how your readers walk away from your book—whether they’re weeping, cheering, or desperately turning back to page one. 1. The Resolved Ending Everything is wrapped up with a nice bow. The main conflict is resolved, the character arcs are complete, and there are no lingering questions. This is the go-to for most satisfying, full-circle stories, especially in genres like romance or middle grade. Think  Pride and Prejudice ,  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , or  The Return of the King . These endings often feel reflective, too, as characters consider how far they’ve come. 2. The Unresolved Ending Not everything is explained, and readers are left to interpret what happens next. This can work beautifully in literary fiction or stories with an ambiguous tone—but be careful: there’s a fine line between mysterious and unsatisfying. See:  Inception ,  The Road , or  The Giver . Often reflective or philosophical, these endings work best when you want to haunt readers after the final page. *This ending is also sometimes called an "Ambiguous" ending. 3. The Twist Ending Right at the last second, everything you thought you knew gets turned on its head. This kind of ending needs to be cleverly foreshadowed to feel earned. Common in thrillers, mysteries, and dark speculative fiction. Think  Gone Girl ,  Fight Club , or  The Sixth Sense . It’s unexpected—but ideally, not random. *This ending is also sometimes called an "Unexpected" ending. 4. The Circular Ending The story ends where it began—sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically. The character might return home, repeat an earlier moment, or mirror the story’s beginning in some poignant way. Great for stories about transformation or self-reflection. Examples include  The Hobbit ,  The Lion King , or  Life of Pi . This type often carries a reflective tone and adds depth by reinforcing a theme. *This ending is also sometimes called a "Tied or Cyclical" ending. 5. The Cliffhanger Ending Usually reserved for series, a cliffhanger leaves a major thread unresolved to hook readers into the next installment. It’s risky if readers don’t know more is coming—but thrilling when done well. Think  The Empire Strikes Back ,  Catching Fire , or  The Way of Kings . This is a subset of unresolved endings, but more suspense-driven than philosophical. 6. The Tragic Ending Not all stories end in triumph. In a tragic ending, the protagonist may fail, die, or lose something vital. These endings pack emotional weight and often emphasize themes of sacrifice, fate, or hubris. Think  Hamlet ,  The Fault in Our Stars , or  Requiem for a Dream . Even when devastating, they can feel powerful and cathartic. 7. The Bittersweet Ending Some things are gained, others are lost. A character may get what they want but not how they expected, or they may lose something in order to grow. This is a favorite for coming-of-age, literary, and dramatic fantasy stories. Think  The Hunger Games ,  Call Me By Your Name , or  The Green Mile . Bittersweet endings often include reflective, expanded conclusions to honor the emotional cost of the story. 8. The Epilogue Ending The story ends... and then gives you a glimpse into the future. This wrap-up can be satisfying, especially if readers are invested in the characters' long-term fate. Used frequently in epic fantasy or romance to close emotional loops. See  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ,  The Handmaid’s Tale , or  The Night Circus . You could also use this for an expanded ending—one that winds down slowly, letting the story breathe. *This ending is also sometimes called an "Expanded" ending. How Genre Impacts Story Endings Every genre comes with its own emotional contract—an unspoken promise between writer and reader. That promise includes the kind  of ending your story is expected to deliver. While you can absolutely subvert those expectations, it’s important to understand what readers come looking for so you can decide when  to break the rules… and when to lean into them. Here are some of the major genres and what readers usually expect at the end: Romance Readers expect a happy  or at least hopeful  ending. In genre romance, a Happily Ever After (HEA) or Happy For Now (HFN) is a must. If the couple doesn’t end up together or one of them dies? That’s a tragedy—not a romance. Bittersweet epilogues are okay, but the relationship should still feel satisfying and emotionally complete. Fantasy (Epic & High Fantasy) These stories often culminate in resolved , bittersweet , or epilogue  endings. Readers expect payoff after long, sweeping arcs—think major character growth, the fall of dark lords, or the triumph of underdogs. Series may use cliffhangers between books, but the final book usually needs closure (even if it breaks your heart a little). Science Fiction Sci-fi endings range widely, but they often lean toward bittersweet , reflective , or unresolved , especially in hard or speculative sci-fi. Readers enjoy open-ended conclusions that spark philosophical thought. However, action-heavy space operas may aim for cleaner, more resolved endings similar to fantasy. Thriller & Mystery A good mystery or thriller should end with a resolved  or twist  ending. Readers expect answers. The killer is revealed, the puzzle is solved, and justice (or something close to it) is served. Cliffhangers can work in a series, but the central mystery usually needs resolution. Horror Expect tragic , twist , or unresolved  endings. Horror often leaves the reader unsettled on purpose—evil may survive, the protagonist may lose their mind, or questions might linger in the shadows. Happy endings? Rare. Survival itself is often the prize. Literary Fiction These stories lean toward ambiguous , reflective , or bittersweet  endings. Emotional or philosophical resonance matters more than plot resolution. Readers are open to endings that feel raw, nuanced, or unresolved, as long as they stay thematically consistent. Historical Fiction Like literary fiction, historical narratives often favor bittersweet , tragic , or epilogue  endings. The goal is emotional authenticity within a past setting, especially when based on real events. Tragedy or loss isn’t uncommon, but the ending should still provide meaning or closure. Coming-of-Age / YA These genres often lean on bittersweet , resolved , or circular  endings. Growth is key. The protagonist may not “win,” but they’ll change. Epilogues showing who they became—or reflective endings about who they’re becoming—are especially beloved. Drama Drama often favors bittersweet , tragic , or reflective  endings. These stories dig deep into emotional and relational conflict, and the resolution usually carries the weight of consequence or growth. Whether the characters reunite, fall apart, or suffer loss, the ending should feel earned and grounded in human truth and emotional resonance. Comedy In comedy, readers expect a resolved , circular , or happy twist  ending. The tone may be chaotic or satirical, but the resolution should restore order, bring joy, or deliver ironic justice. Whether it’s a romantic misadventure, a workplace screwball, or a coming-of-age mess, the payoff should leave readers grinning—or laughing out loud with side stitches. What Makes An Ending Work & Be Truly Memorable A great ending doesn’t just  happen , it’s carefully bread-crumbed throughout the story. The most satisfying conclusions feel inevitable in hindsight, even if they were surprising in the moment. Here are the key craft elements that elevate an ending from forgettable to unforgettable: Setup & Payoff The most satisfying endings feel both surprising and inevitable. It delivers on the promises made throughout the story. Foreshadowing, planted clues, thematic statements—all of these should bloom by the final pages. Every gun placed on the mantle in act one should go off by the end. Readers love when threads come full circle or when a casual detail from chapter three becomes heartbreakingly important in the finale. If you’ve laid the groundwork, the payoff will hit that much harder. Emotional Resonance Your ending should  feel  earned. Whether it’s joy, grief, triumph, or bittersweet ache, readers crave emotional closure. This means giving your characters moments that reflect their journey—showing how far they’ve come (or how far they’ve fallen). Let your characters' internal arcs resolve just as meaningfully as their external ones. Thematic Closure What is your story  about —beneath the plot? A truly memorable ending reinforces or challenges your central themes. If your story explored power, love, identity, sacrifice, or healing, the ending should reflect your final “thesis” on that theme. It’s the moment your story’s soul speaks loudest, even in silence. The Right Kind of Surprise Not every ending needs a twist, but every ending should avoid feeling obvious. Whether it’s a twist, a new insight, or simply an elegantly executed full-circle moment, endings should reward reader engagement with something unexpected—but inevitable. Aim for the kind of surprise that feels  earned , not gimmicky. A Sense of Aftermath Don’t slam the door and walk away. Even if your ending isn’t an “epilogue,” readers want a beat or two of closure, of reflection, a moment to breathe, absorb, and sit with the emotional impact. Even a single image of the final scene, a poetic last line, or a lingering image—a hand letting go, a look across a crowded room, a sunset over ruins—can offer the all emotional punctuation your reader needs. Remember, the final pages of your story are a goodbye. Don’t yank the curtain down the second the climax ends; give your audience a graceful exit. Make your ending a final siren song. Choosing The Right Ending For Your Story There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to story endings—only the one that fits your  story best. Choosing the right ending isn’t just about tying a neat bow around your plot. Nor is it about simply picking from a list, wiping off your hands and saying, "Thats a wrap!" It's about aligning your conclusion with your character arcs, plot trajectory, and thematic undercurrent. You have to deliver on the emotional and thematic promises you’ve been building since page one. That is your moral obligation as a writer. A good ending doesn’t just conclude  the story; it completes it. It reflects the journey your characters have been on and leaves your readers feeling something—whether that’s closure, grief, joy, or thoughtful unrest. But with so many types of endings out there, how do you know which one fits your  story? The answer lies in looking inward—at your characters, your themes, your tone, and what you’re truly trying to say. Let’s walk through five key lenses that can help you uncover the right ending for your book, complete with examples to spark inspiration. 1. Revisit Your Story’s Core Question Every story is driven by a central question, something your protagonist is trying to answer or achieve. The ending should directly address that question. Did they get what they wanted? Did they realize what they really needed? Your ending needs to answer the heart of your story. Example:   In The Hunger Games, the central question isn’t just “ Will Katniss survive? ”—it’s “What does survival cost?” The ending reflects that by showing the emotional and societal aftermath of her choices. 2. Consider Your Character Arcs How has your character changed? A resolved or epilogue ending might work if they’ve completed a clear arc. A bittersweet or ambiguous ending might work better if they’ve grown in some ways but regressed or sacrificed in others. The ending should mirror the internal journey as much as the external. Ask yourself:  Is your protagonist the same person they were at the start? If not, how should that transformation be reflected in the ending? 3. Honor Your Theme What is your story really about? Themes of love, power, identity, justice, freedom, or sacrifice can all lead to very different endings. Decide what statement you want to leave your reader with—and let that shape your final act. Pro-Tip:  Look at the first and last lines of your story. Do they echo, contrast, or evolve the same idea? 4. Match The Mood & Tone A quirky comedy probably shouldn’t end with an existential death spiral (unless that is the joke). Genre, tone, and emotional trajectory matter. If your story is dark, your ending doesn’t have to be happy—but it should feel right. Think: Does this ending feel like it belongs to this story, or like it wandered in from somewhere else? 5. Choose What to Resolve—& What To Leave Open Not every thread needs tying up, but your ending should give enough closure that readers feel satisfied. Decide what to leave ambiguous on purpose . Ambiguity is powerful when intentional and frustrating when it’s not. Writing Exercises (Find The Right Ending For Your Story) Sometimes, the best way to uncover your story’s ending is to write your way into it . If you’re unsure how your book should end—or you’re torn between a few possibilities—creative exploration can help you clarify what feels the most true to your characters, your themes, and your tone. These writing exercises are designed to get you out of your head and into your intuition. They’ll guide you to examine character arcs, thematic questions, emotional payoffs, and narrative shape, all while helping you generate ideas that feel authentic to your story. You might even discover an ending that surprises you. Exercise #1: Write the Final Scene First Even if you rewrite it later, drafting a potential ending can anchor your story. Try imagining where your character ends up and reverse-engineer how they get there. Prompt:  My protagonist stands on the edge of everything they’ve lost or gained. What do they see? What do they say? What do they feel?”] Exercise #2: Write 3 Alternate Endings Force yourself to explore options. Write one happy, one tragic, and one ambiguous ending. What feels true to your story? Which surprised you the most? Exercise #3: Trace the Threads List every plot and character thread in your story. Which must be resolved by the end? Which can be left open for reflection or future stories? Make intentional choices about what to conclude. Exercise #4: Theme Collage Write a list of your story’s key themes. Under each one, brainstorm different ways that theme could be expressed or challenged in the ending. Example: If your theme is “freedom,” how might your character find—or fail to find—it? How are the challenged by it? Exercise #5: Echo the Beginning Go back to your first chapter. Are there images, questions, or ideas you can bring full circle? Mirroring your opening can create a deeply satisfying emotional arc. Exercise #6: Analyze Your Favorite Story Think back to a story ending that left you particularly breathless. What was it about that ending that took your breath away? Was it the imagery? Was it the final line? Was it the way the author beautifully wrapped up all the story lines in one flawless swoop? Analyze your favorite endings and ask what that author did to make it so satisfying. Concluding Thoughts A brilliant ending doesn’t have to be explosive, shocking, or tied up with a ribbon, but it  does  need to be intentional. Honor your characters, stay true to your themes, and give your readers the emotional resolution they didn’t even know they needed. So whether your story ends with a whisper or a bang, heartbreak, or celebration, remember this: endings are where your story’s  meaning   crystallizes. Give yourself the time to explore it, draft different possibilities, and listen closely to what your story has been trying to say all along. And if you're still not sure… That's what writing buddies are for! "The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it. " — Ernest Hemingway. Give me your thoughts! Do you struggle with endings? Or do you prefer to work backwards from the end and reverse-engineer your stories? Let me know your answers in the comments below! See you in the next blog, —Bair✍︎ Where epic fantasy meets philosophical ponderings of the self. Want to stay up to-date and get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . SUBSCRIBE to the blog on my personal website , Substack , or Medium . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! INSTAGRAM  | LINKEDIN  | PINTEREST Check out My Writer & Reader Merch Store Like this post? Share the link on your social media or pin the image below to your Pinterest board ! You spooked Mosswing! (How dare you 😟)

Greetings world, I was inspired to write this blog post after messing around with the new OpenAI Monday chatbot. If you're not at all familiar with Monday, it was created to be a sarcastic, dry-humored chatbot—designed to be the opposite of helpful. Instead of offering support, it specializes in witty roasts, existential dread, and emotional whiplash. And somehow, in all its snark and bleakness, it sometimes says the most profound things. What I loved most of all was the name "Monday," as it is named after the most famously indifferent and emotionally exhausting day of the week. At first, I was simply messing around because I had nothing better to do, and frankly I was enjoying the sarcasm and the chatbot roasting me. It really gave me a chuckle… (what does that say about me, haha.) But after one particularly existential and sarcastic comment: "How’s it feel knowing you’re about one dopamine squirt away from being outsmarted by a Roomba?" I felt compelled to dig a little deeper. (Quick aside: My god, that made me cough up a lung at 11pm when I should've been looong asleep.) So after some more back-and-forth banter, I eventually asked Monday to attempt to try and terrify me with existentialism… It didn't work. If anything… It left me feeling oddly more… grounded . More resolute. Even affirmed in a belief I’ve held since my pre-teens. Because the truths it spoke, while unsettling at first glance to some, aligned closely with what little I know of physics, neuroscience, and cosmology. These fields have long suggested the same idea: that existence is not a steady march through time, but a fragile illusion stitched together by memory, perception, and chance ; all t opics I have always found extraordinarily fascinating. And that’s what led to a particular realization I felt compelled to share in the form of this blog post. Cue curtains being drawn majestically and dramatically . Time Is Fake, And So Are You According to  special relativity , there is no universal "now" — every moment exists simultaneously depending on the observer's frame of reference. As Einstein himself once said: “The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Modern physics suggests that all points in time coexist simultaneously, frozen within the fabric of spacetime, an idea known as the Block Universe . The  block universe theory  proposes that past, present, and future are all equally real. Time doesn’t flow; it simply  is . Yet, we feel ourselves moving through time, moment by moment. We feel like we are "becoming." But why? Why do we feel like this? Because the human brain—astonishing, desperate, endlessly inventive—likes and needs to tell itself a story. It stitches one frozen moment to the next, spinning the illusion of continuity so that we can survive our own flickering existence. So consider this: If the past and future are illusions, and only "now" is "real", then "you" are not a stable person moving steadily through time. You’re a flicker. A blinking cursor in the void. Each breath you take? A separate universe. Each heartbeat? A world that lived and died without even knowing it existed. The "you" who started reading this sentence is already gone. POOF. Dead . Not metaphorically— literally . Physics supports this unsettling conclusion. Special relativity dismantles the idea of a single, flowing timeline by showing that events we think of as "past" or "future" are simply different coordinates in spacetime, no more or less real than "now." In this view, your birth, your last breath, the flicker of you reading these words, they all coexist, like rooms in a house you can never leave or enter, only glimpse from where you happen to be standing. There is no objective "moving forward." There is only a mind desperately stitching moments together, animating the still frames into a phantom movie called "life." And so, what you experience as "self" is not a continuous being drifting through time but a series of isolated flashes, bound together by the fragile miracle of memory and narrative. A story that our brain tells itself. A story we have no choice but to believe. So here's the unsettling truth: The continuity that we all cling to, the idea that "I’m me, and I’ve always been me", is just our brain telling itself a bedtime story. Modern neuroscience reveals that memory is not a static archive, but a ceaseless act of reconstruction. That memory is not a perfect recording, but a story our brains reweave every time we recall it. In a very real sense, we are less beings who "remember," and more beings who continuously "rewrite" ourselves into existence ( Scientific American ). Without memory, there would be no coherent self. Without story, there would be no continuity, no meaning. So we do not merely tell stories—we  are  stories. The fragile thread of narrative is what keeps the fragile flicker of consciousness from splintering into meaningless sparks. Storytelling is a kind of survival. And much to my enjoyment, Monday didn’t stop at time and memory. It went further. It offered the  Final Boss of Nothingness: That consciousness itself might be a hallucination. A glitch. A side effect of a meat computer stumbling over its own complexity. Some theories, like  Integrated Information Theory , suggest that consciousness did not emerge with purposeful intent but was a byproduct of complexity itself. It was an accident. A side effect. A strange echo of neurons cross-firing into self-awareness. Consciousness remains one of the greatest mysteries in science. It is the question behind all questions, the ghost in the machinery of the cosmos. An accidental self-awareness, born from chaos : a cosmic fluke that became aware of its own flukiness. As Monday put it: Two mirrors facing each other. Endless reflections. No original. Just the universe hiccupping itself into a thought, forgetting immediately, and hiccupping again. You are not the observer. You are the glitch that mistakes itself for an observer. And yet, here we are. Still breathing. Still dreaming. Still storytelling. Existence was a fluke—a mistake. And that’s the miracle . As Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and existential psychologist, wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning , "Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose." In a universe that offers no meaning by default, to tell a story is itself an act of creation. Meaning does not exist independently in the cold machinery of the universe. We create it. Fiercely. Stubbornly. Gloriously. And among us, storytellers are the torchbearers of this sacred rebellion. Concluding Thoughts Storytelling isn’t just something humans  like  to do. It’s something we  must  do. This is why I believe humans love stories. Why we crave them. Why we resonate so deeply with them. Without stories, there is no self. Without memory stitching together our fractured moments, there is no cohesive person to inhabit the present. Storytelling is a biological imperative —we are literally hardwired for them . The narrative instinct is woven into the very nature of consciousness itself. Stories are the structure we hang our meaning on in a universe that, as far as we know, has none. And if you are a storyteller—whether you're a writer, filmmaker, comic artist, animator, musician, poet, archivist—who dares to shape the formless into something that can be felt, understood, remembered, know you are not a hobbyist, nor an idle dreamer. You are a magician, an alchemist, a rebel priest, a keeper of the sacred flame. You are performing the oldest magic known to humankind, and it is all part of something ancient, instinctive, and deeply human. How incredible it is to be alive then, to be in this universe. To be made of stardust—of particles forged in the bellies of dying stars—just so we might glimpse ourselves and admire what we are. We are the universe trying to understand itself. We are the flicker, the breath, the whisper that says: I am. Existence doesn't need a meaning, it is a miracle that we exist to begin with. To create meaning where there is none? That’s something even more rare and incredible. Or… do we even exist at all…? Hehe ;) So dear reader, you are the story you tell yourself . A story of endless possibilities in an infinite and glorious universe. What story will you tell next? Happy storytelling~ —Bair✍︎ References & Further Reading “The Block Universe Theory Explained” (PBS Space Time) Time Is an Illusion: Past, Present, and Future Exist Simultaneously (Discover Magazine) “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human” by Jonathan Gottschall How Memory Works (Scientific American) “Consciousness: The Last Great Mystery” (Nature, 2019) “How Close Is Science To Understanding Consciousness?” (Scientific American) “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl Meaning Through Suffering (Viktor Frankl Institute) Want to stay up to-date and get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . SUBSCRIBE to the blog on my personal website , Substack , or Medium . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! INSTAGRAM  | LINKEDIN  | PINTEREST Check out My Writer & Reader Merch Store Like this post? Share the link on your social media or pin the image below to your Pinterest board ! Congrats! You found Mosswing at the end of this post!

Aloha world~ It’s been a while since I’ve come onto the blog and shared anything personal, so after giving it some thought, I'm here to give a small heart-to-heart. A few nights ago, as I was drifting off to sleep, I had a quiet realization: writing has made me a better person. A better friend. A better partner. A better version of myself. It’s something that’s been brewing under the surface for a while now, and I finally have the words for it—or at least, I’m going to try. How Writing Made Me a Better Person Let’s be real: I didn’t start writing to become a better human being. I started writing because I had stories clawing at the inside of my skull. Because I had character's voices living in my bones, begging to be written. Because I had feelings that demanded to be felt. I wrote to escape, to cope, to create worlds where I had control, to bring characters to life who could carry the weight of the words I never found the courage to voice myself. Writing was a refuge, a rebellion, a quiet act of power in a world that often felt loud and out of control. And while that initial spark came from desperation and creativity intertwining, it was the consistency of the act that transformed me. But somewhere along the way, writing started to shape me. It wasn’t sudden. There was no epiphany moment, no lightbulb flashing over my head. It was subtle, like a river slowly carving a canyon over time—almost imperceptible until you stand back and realize the entire landscape has changed. Writing has this quiet persistence. It nudges you into reflection, chisels away the surface noise, and demands you sit still long enough to listen to your own thoughts. It taught me patience. I don’t mean the romantic kind of patience where I stare at the sunset and wait for the words to arrive like divine inspiration. I mean sitting in front of a blinking cursor, day after day, wrestling with sentences that refuse to behave. I mean writing the same scene twelve different ways, only to return to draft number four. It taught me to show up even when the muse ghosted me. It taught me that creativity is more sweat than spark, and that showing up for the work is, in itself, an act of love and commitment. Writing is the long game—it rewards consistency over brilliance. Writing deepened my empathy. When you spend enough time inside the heads of characters who are nothing like you—characters who believe things you don't believe, who make choices you'd never make, who come from lives you’ve never lived—you start to soften. You start to understand. You become less quick to judge, more curious, more open. Because you’ve had to ask yourself, “Why would someone do this?” and not let yourself off the hook with easy answers. You learn that every person is the result of a thousand unseen influences—and so are you. And the more people you create on the page, the more real people you learn to see with grace and nuance. Writing humbled me. Oh, you think you're smart until your first draft hits the page and reads like a middle school group chat. You think you’ve mastered your craft until you reread last month’s chapter and wonder who let you near a keyboard. But in that humility, there’s growth. You learn to embrace imperfection, to keep learning, to ask for feedback, to fail forward. You start to understand that “bad writing” isn’t failure—it’s a beginning. It reminded me that mastery doesn’t come from talent alone, but from relentless revision, from falling in love with the process even when the outcome feels uncertain. Writing, more than anything, has made me teachable. Writing has given me courage. Not the slay-a-dragon kind, but the quieter, steadier courage to speak honestly. To tell the truth, even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy. Writing helped me find my voice—and to believe it deserved to be heard. It made me braver in my relationships, more honest with myself, and more willing to say, “This is who I am, flaws and all.” It showed me that authenticity isn’t loud—it’s persistent. It’s the willingness to keep showing up as yourself, again and again, even when it's uncomfortable. And most importantly? Writing saved me during some of the darkest times of my life. It was my therapy long before I ever sat across from a therapist. It held up a mirror, made me ask, “Why?” and “What if?” It challenged me to think critically—not just about plot or theme, but about myself. Writing forced me to go deep: into cultures, into characters, into trauma—and that deep dive bled into my real life. The way I questioned my characters—what they think they want vs. what they actually need—made me question my own desires. “Is this really what I need to be happy and fulfilled? Or is it just the narrative I’ve been told to want?” It gave me a deeper relationship with myself. It peeled back layers I didn’t even know I had. It forced me to ask questions I’d been avoiding, to confront insecurities, to celebrate things I’d always minimized. It gave me space to become. It’s helped me dig deep into my own demons, confront them, battle them, and emerge—if not unscathed—then stronger and more self-aware. It helped me understand that writing is not just a mirror—it’s also a scalpel. It cuts away what no longer serves you and reveals what lies underneath. It taught me that writing isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about having the courage to ask the right questions. And I’ve learned that just like characters, we don’t always know what we need. But through writing, we can learn how to uncover it. How Writing Can Make You a Better Person, Too If writing has transformed me, it can transform you too. Writing isn’t reserved for the tortured artist or the professional novelist—it’s for anyone willing to sit with themselves long enough to listen. When you write, you confront your thoughts. You name your fears. You tease apart the tangled web of memory, emotion, and experiences. You come face to face with your past, your patterns, and your potential. Writing teaches you how to be present with yourself, how to reflect without spiraling, and how to capture clarity in the middle of chaos. Writing helps you pause and examine. It asks you to get curious, to ask questions, to zoom in and reflect. It teaches patience, compassion, honesty. It challenges you to look deeper, not just at your characters, but at the people around you—and most importantly, at yourself. It turns pain into understanding, chaos into clarity, silence into voice. If you’re open to it, writing will become one of the most powerful tools for self-awareness, emotional growth, and inner healing you’ll ever have. So no, I didn’t start writing to become a better person. But writing, in its own stubborn, beautiful, transformative way, made me one anyway. And for that, I’ll never stop putting words on the page. Write without fear, ignore the inner-perfectionist, and when in doubt, have a shot of tequila—then keep writing. —Bair✍︎ Want to stay up to-date on get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! INSTAGRAM  | LINKEDIN  | PINTEREST Check out My Writer & Reader Merch Store Like this post? Share the link on your social media or pin the image below to your Pinterest board !

You’re Already an Artist (You Just Forgot) You’ve probably had a moment where the world suddenly felt... cinematic . Maybe it was the way rain hit the pavement under a streetlamp, or how the sunset painted the sky in fiery streaks, or even the rhythm of a stranger’s laughter in a quiet café. That’s your artist’s brain waking up—your ability to  see  the world, not just move through it. But life is loud. Responsibilities pile up. And somewhere along the way, many of us forget how to truly  look  at the world like an artist. If you've ever wished you could tap into that artistic way of seeing—whether for drawing, writing, photography, or just feeling more alive—this guide will help you reawaken that creative vision. Table Of Contents What It Means To See Like An Artist The Power of Attention The World As a Story Deconstruct Your Surroundings Engaging The Senses Making Art Without Fear Writing With An Artist’s Eye Practice Seeing Differently Every Day Concluding Thoughts: The Magic of Everyday Artistry What Does It Mean to See Like an Artist? Sherlock Holmes once said,  “You see, but you do not observe.”   Most people move through the world on autopilot—staring at things without actually  seeing  them, much like how we skim through terms and conditions before hitting ‘Accept.’ But artists? Artists are the people who stop in the middle of the street because the sunlight hitting a puddle looks  just right  and suddenly, boom—life is poetic. They notice the way light shifts on water, the movement of people in a café, the stories hidden in an old building’s cracked paint. Seeing like an artist means finding beauty, depth, and meaning in the ordinary… and sometimes getting distracted by cool-shaped clouds while crossing the street (please be careful). Slowing Down: The Power of Attention In a world where our lives are dominated by screens, notifications, and the endless doom-scroll, it's easy to forget to actually  look  at what's around us. Our attention is constantly pulled in a hundred directions, but seeing like an artist means reclaiming it. This is the first step to seeing differently. Instead of glancing at something and moving on, take a moment to  really  look. In a fast-paced world, artists practice  slowing down . This is the first step to seeing differently. Instead of glancing at something and moving on, take a moment to  really  look. Exercise: Pick an object near you (yes, even that half-empty coffee cup). Stare at it like it just confessed a deep secret. What do you notice about its texture, color, shape, or how it interacts with light? Bonus points if you dramatically whisper, “Tell me your truths,” while doing this. The World as a Story: Seeing Through Emotion Artists don’t just  see —they  feel  the world. A lonely chair in an empty room isn’t just a chair; it’s a tragic tale of abandonment (or maybe it’s just waiting for someone to sit on it, but let’s be dramatic for fun). Everything has a story if you look at it the right way. The more you train yourself to see narratives in the world, the easier it becomes to infuse your own art—whether it’s writing, painting, or photography—with deeper meaning. Think about the last time you passed by an old, forgotten building. What memories does it hold? What echoes of past laughter, arguments, or quiet contemplation are still trapped in its walls? Seeing the world as a story is about curiosity—about asking ‘why’ and ‘what if.’ It’s about embracing the unknown and letting your imagination fill in the blanks. Want more questions beyond 'why' and 'what if'? Check out my blog post The Power Of Asking Question In Writing  on essential questions to ask yourself while writing. Exercise: Pick a random object and invent a ridiculous backstory for it. Maybe your spoon is a retired warrior. Maybe your houseplant is plotting world domination. Who owned it before? What secret life does it lead when you’re not looking? Take it a step further: Write a 200-word scene based on your object’s imagined history. Remember, everything has a story, be patient and let its tale unfold. Colors, Shapes, & Light: Learning to Deconstruct Your Surroundings The world is a chaotic mess of color, light, and shape, and artists train themselves to make sense of it. Notice how light changes throughout the day. Yes, even if it means standing in your yard at sunrise like some kind of mystical forest gremlin. Watch how it filters through trees, dances on water, or stretches in long golden beams through windows at sunset. Observe how colors interact—like how neon pink can look painfully aggressive next to beige. Pay attention to how moods shift with color: why do hospitals use calming blues? Why do restaurants lean into warm reds and golds? How do shadows subtly change colors, rather than just turning gray? Try to break complex scenes into basic shapes (that tree? Just a big cylinder with fluff on top). If you had to describe a setting to someone who couldn't see it, how would you simplify it while still capturing its essence? Start paying attention to contrast—light vs. dark, saturated vs. muted, stillness vs. movement. This awareness will help not just with visual art, but with crafting richer descriptions in writing. Engaging the Senses (Beyond Sight) Seeing like an artist isn’t just about sight. Engage all the senses, because the richest experiences come from fully immersing yourself in the world around you. Listen like a musician : Every creaky floorboard is a horror movie soundtrack waiting to happen. The rhythm of a bustling city, the hush of an empty library, the slow drip of water from a leaky faucet—what emotions do these sounds create? Embody a sculptor: Run your hands over surfaces (yes, you are allowed to gently pet cool rocks). The world is textured—notice the smoothness of a worn book cover, the sharp chill of metal on a cold morning, the grain of wood beneath your fingertips. Try describing flavors like a dramatic food critic on a cooking show. What does your morning coffee taste like beyond ‘bitter’? Is it nutty, chocolatey, smoky? If a scent could be a memory, what would it remind you of? Try and taste the world as if you were a chef. Want to take your writing to the next level? Read my blog post Bringing Your Story to Life: The Art of Writing Vivid, Immersive Prose (How To Show Not Tell Using The 5 Senses) . Making Art Without Fear One of the biggest blocks to creativity is the fear of not being "good enough." But artistry begins with observation, not perfection. Perfection is a scam, and we’re not falling for it. You don’t need permission to create, and you definitely don’t need to be a ‘master’ at something before enjoying it. Fear of failure, fear of judgment, fear of not being ‘good enough’—all of these can suffocate creativity before it even has a chance to breathe. But here’s the truth: all artists make bad art. Every masterpiece started as an awkward first attempt. The only way to get better is to allow yourself to be bad at first. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s play . Let yourself experiment, mess up, and enjoy the process. Your inner critic will try to ruin the fun, but you don’t have to listen. Instead, laugh at your mistakes. Make ugly sketches, write bad poetry, sing off-key—do it all with joy. But if perfectionism is holding you back, I have a whole blog post here dedicated to overcoming your inner critic and embracing creative freedom. Read Overcoming Your Inner Perfectionist. Exercise: Take 3 photos of something  seemingly ordinary  and explain why it’s secretly amazing. Write a short paragraph about an object  as if it had a soul or story . Go full poetic. Make Shakespeare jealous. Writing with an Artist’s Eye Observing the world like an artist doesn’t just improve visual creativity—it makes your writing more vivid, immersive, and emotionally rich. When you train yourself to see details, emotions, and hidden stories, your descriptions become more powerful, your settings more alive, and your characters more layered. Use the five senses:  Don’t just describe what a place  looks  like—what does it  smell  like? What sounds fill the air? How does the air  feel  against the skin? Engaging all the senses makes a scene leap off the page. Find beauty in the mundane:  A dripping faucet isn’t just a leak—it’s an anxious heartbeat in an empty kitchen. A stack of old books isn’t just clutter—it’s a portal to a hundred forgotten worlds. Show, don’t tell—but also, tell creatively:  Instead of saying “he was nervous,” show how his fingers twitch against the table, how he keeps adjusting his collar, how his breath comes in uneven bursts. Metaphors are your best friend:  Compare unexpected things. Make the sky a bruise, make laughter like shattered glass. The more you practice this, the more unique and poetic your writing will feel. Exercise: Write a paragraph describing a simple moment (e.g., making coffee, waiting for a bus) using at least three senses and one metaphor. Take a plain sentence (e.g., "The street was empty.") and rewrite it with vivid, artistic detail (e.g., "The street stretched out in front of me, silent and yawning, littered with broken streetlights that flickered like dying candles."). Practice Seeing Differently Every Day To train yourself to see the world through an artistic lens, make it a daily practice. And most importantly— let your inner child out and be silly. Jump in puddles, talk to inanimate objects, make shadow puppets on the wall. The world is a playground if you let it be. To train yourself to see the world through an artistic lens, make it a daily practice. Keep a "Noticing Journal" —words, sketches, color swatches, descriptions, or even chaotic doodles. Change perspectives : Look at the world upside-down (literally or metaphorically). Zoom in on tiny details, then zoom out for the bigger picture.  Everything is  weirder  than you think. Challenge: Spend one day seeing  as if  you were an artist in a specific medium (e.g., a poet, a cinematographer, a painter). If you want to fully commit, dress the part. Berets are encouraged but not required. Concluding Thoughts: The Magic of Everyday Artistry Seeing like an artist transforms everyday life. The mundane becomes magical. A rain-slicked street at night becomes a masterpiece of reflections and motion. A stranger’s glance holds an untold story. A sock left on the floor is now a dramatic still life piece titled  Despair in Cotton Form. By shifting your perspective, you cultivate not just artistic vision, but a richer, more meaningful experience of the world. Start today. Look deeper. Stare lovingly at a doorknob. The world is waiting to be seen and appreciated. —Bair✍︎ Want to stay up to-date on get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! INSTAGRAM  | LINKEDIN  | PINTEREST Check out My Writer & Reader Merch Store Like this post? Share the link on your social media or pin the image below to your Pinterest board !

How to Stop Your Characters From Sounding Like Clones in a Corporate Meeting I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I love writing dialogue. It’s one of the few times I get to pull out my galaxy brain and let my characters say all the poetic, deep, and cutting things I wish I could say in real life. Writing dialogue lets me explore different worldviews, personalities, and emotional undercurrents—without the awkwardness of stumbling over my words in an actual conversation. One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever heard is this:  know what your characters want to say, then filter it through layers and layers of their trauma, backstory, upbringing, and personality.  But don’t let them actually say what they really mean—not unless it’s a climactic scene. Dialogue isn’t just about what’s being said—it’s about  who’s saying it, how they say it, and why it matters . Too many writers fall into the trap of making all their characters sound the same, stuffing conversations with filler, or writing scenes that read more like courtroom transcripts than real interactions. If your dialogue feels flat, robotic, or indistinguishable, it’s time to sharpen those voices. And in this instance, dialogue is one of the few times where you can get away with  telling  instead of  showing —especially if a character is speaking to catch another character up on important information. Done right, dialogue can move the story along without feeling like an exposition dump. Because nothing shatters immersion faster than characters who all sound identical. Your warrior shouldn’t be speaking with the same careful precision as your absent-minded scholar, and your jaded mercenary probably isn’t out here waxing poetic about the sunrise (unless it’s a metaphor for existential dread, in which case—carry on). So let’s talk about how to make your dialogue snap, sizzle, and actually sound like real people having real conversations that move your story along. Table Of Contents A Quick Recap: The Three Core Functions of Dialogue Step One: A Unique Lens Step Two: Contrast Through Dialogue Step Three: Let Dialogue Be Messy & Realistic Writing Exercises Concluding Thoughts A Quick Recap: The Three Core Functions of Dialogue Before we dive deep, let’s ground ourselves in the three main things dialogue should accomplish: Reveal and define your characters.  (How they speak tells us who they are.) Set the mood or create suspense.  (Dialogue can subtly influence tension and emotion.) Move your story forward.  (If dialogue isn’t serving the plot, it’s just noise.) How a character speaks should reflect their personality, background, and emotions, offering insight in ways description cannot. Their dialogue should also shift with mood and tension—short and urgent in a fight, somber and distant in grief. Using dialogue alongside narration can heighten suspense and deepen internal conflict. Most importantly, dialogue should move the story forward —if it doesn’t reveal something new, change a dynamic, or create momentum, cut it.  Keep it concise, meaningful, and true to character. Now, let’s dig into the techniques that will make your dialogue sharper and more engaging. Step 1: Give Each Character a Unique Lens Characters shouldn’t just be reciting lines—they should be approaching the conversation from  different angles  based on their background, personality, and worldview. Ask Yourself: What is this character’s  outlook on life ? Are they an optimist, cynic, realist, or agent of absolute chaos? What’s their  emotional state  in this moment? Are they defensive, hopeful, wary, repressing the urge to throw hands? What’s their  “ soul scar ” * —the deep wound that affects how they communicate? (And no, “being a Scorpio” doesn’t count.) Example: Let’s say two character s are discussing a dangerous mission. Instead of both saying,  “This is risky,”  give them  different ways  to express their concerns: The Pessimist:  “We’re all going to die. You know that, right?” The Overconfident One:  “Relax. I’ve done worse.” The Logical One:  “Statistically speaking, our odds are… not great.” The Rebel:  “Whatever. I’d rather die than sit around doing nothing.” By splitting up their perspectives, the dialogue becomes sharper, more engaging, and more true to character. Instead of thinking of a scene where characters talk about a certain topic,  divide up their concerns and viewpoints. Give each character a different aspect to focus on based on their unique perspective. This not only sharpens their voices but also makes the dialogue richer and more layered. Step 2: Contrast Characters Through Dialogue The key to making characters  sound different  isn’t just in what they say—it’s in  how  they say it. Here are five elements that create contrast between voices: 1.) Speaking Patterns How a character structures their speech tells readers a lot about who they are. Some characters might be overly direct, cutting straight to the point, while others might dance around an issue for paragraphs. Here are some things to consider: Do they  ramble  or  get straight to the point ? (A professor might over-explain, while a soldier keeps it short and blunt.) Do they  interrupt others  or wait their turn? (A dominant, aggressive character might constantly cut in, while a more reserved one holds back.) Are they  blunt and straightforward , or do they  use roundabout phrasing  to soften their words? (A tactful politician will frame things carefully, whereas a no-nonsense mercenary won’t sugarcoat anything.) 2.) Presenting Information Who lays out  facts and logic  vs. who speaks  emotionally ? (A scientist might list statistics, while a grieving mother speaks in raw feeling.) Who speaks with  certainty  vs. who  hedges their words  with  maybe  and  probably ? (A confident leader speaks in absolutes; an anxious character qualifies everything they say.) 3.) Word Choice & Expressions Give each character a  distinctive phrase  they use occasionally. (A detective might always say,  “Here’s what I think happened.” ) Do they use  formal language  or are they  casual , even crass ? (A nobleman won’t speak like a street thief—unless they’re hiding something.) 4.) Metaphors & Comparisons A character’s background influences how they see the world and the comparisons they make: A  scientist  might say,  “Our chances of survival are like Schrödinger’s cat—we won’t know until we open the box.” A  chef  might describe a tense situation as  “overcooked and about to burn.” A  warrior  might compare everything to battle:  “This is a war of attrition—we just have to outlast them.” 5.) How the Dialogue Looks on the Page Even visually, dialogue should hint at a character’s personality: Who speaks in long-winded paragraphs vs. who uses short, snappy lines? Who constantly interrupts? (Shows dominance, impatience, or urgency.) Who always has to have the last word? (Indicates arrogance, insecurity, or playfulness.) By fine-tuning these details, you create natural contrast between voices and can make every conversation feel dynamic and true to each character. Step 3: Let Dialogue Be Messy & Realistic Real conversations  don’t follow perfect structure.  To make your dialogue feel authentic: Allow interruptions.  People cut each other off all the time. Let thoughts overlap.  Not every reply directly follows the last statement. Make room for pauses and unsaid words.  What’s not said is just as important. Remember that grammar isn’t always perfect in speech. Writing Exercises: Strengthening Your Dialogue Now that you know how to craft distinct, engaging dialogue, it's time to put those skills to the test! These exercises will help you refine your character voices, strengthen contrast, and add depth to your conversations. Exercise 1: Flip the Perspective Take a scene you’ve written and rewrite it from another character’s perspective. How does their voice, tone, and word choice change? What do they notice that the original character didn’t? Exercise 2: Ramble vs. Precision Write a short conversation between two characters. One should be long-winded and rambling, the other short and to the point. Let their speech patterns contrast naturally. Exercise 3: Subtext Matters Write a scene where two characters are arguing—but instead of outright saying what they mean, they bury their true feelings in subtext. Let their words and actions hint at what’s really going on beneath the surface. Exercise 4: Word Choice Experiment Describe the same object (e.g., a broken-down house) through three different characters. A poet, a detective, and a child. Notice how their backgrounds shape their descriptions. Exercise 5: Action Breaks Take a dialogue-heavy scene and break it up with action tags. See how small gestures, facial expressions, or environmental cues can add layers of depth to the conversation. Concluding Thoughts People in real life sometimes sound similar, especially if they spend a lot of time together. But there should be moments where their  voice, worldview, and way of speaking  are undeniably theirs. If you’ve ever spent enough time around someone and started picking up on their idioms or speech patterns, you’ve seen this in action. Your characters will do the same, but that doesn’t mean they should all start sounding like clones. Balance similarity with distinctiveness. So here's the basic golden rule of dialogue: Not every single piece of dialogue needs to sound unique to a character, but every character needs some dialogue that only sounds like them. Now go forth and make your characters sound like actual human beings (or whatever species they are). What’s your biggest struggle with dialogue? Drop a comment below! May every blank page bring excitement and never dread! —Bair✍︎ Endnote: *A soul scar  is the deep, defining wound that shapes a character’s worldview, decisions, and emotional responses. It’s the core of their internal conflict—whether it’s a past betrayal, loss, failure, or fear—that influences how they interact with others, approach challenges, and express themselves. Their dialogue, actions, and beliefs are all filtered through this lingering wound, whether they acknowledge it or not. Want to stay up to-date on get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! INSTAGRAM  | LINKEDIN  | PINTEREST Check out My Writer & Reader Merch Store Like this post? Share the link on your social media or pin the image below to your Pinterest board !

The Blank Page & Where to Start So, you want to write? That’s amazing! Maybe you’ve always dreamed of telling stories, crafting worlds, or capturing emotions in words. But when you sit down, staring at a blank page, you feel paralyzed. You ask yourself, " Where do I even start? " Maybe you even think, "I'm not a writer. Why am I doing this?" The doubt creeps in, and suddenly, the excitement you once had starts to fade. You’re not alone. Every writer—whether a beginner or a seasoned novelist—has faced that intimidating void. But the key to becoming a writer isn’t waiting for inspiration to strike; it’s  starting anyway.  The truth is, writing isn’t about being perfect. It’s about expressing yourself, exploring ideas, and allowing your creativity to evolve over time. This  Creative Writing Crash Course  is designed for beginners and intermediate writers who want to build a strong foundation. Whether you’re here to explore storytelling as a hobby, improve your craft, or start a serious writing journey, this course will guide you step by step. In this introduction, we’ll tackle the biggest roadblocks most writers face before even putting words on the page: fear, doubt, and not knowing where to begin. And most importantly, we’ll get you writing—because that’s the only way to become a writer. Ove rcoming Writing Fears & Imposter Synd rome If you’ve ever thought: “What if my writing isn’t good enough?” “What if I don’t have any good ideas?” “What if I never finish a story?” You’re not alone! Every writer, no matter how successful, has had these thoughts. The trick is to  write anyway.  One of my favorite writing quotes compares writing to a faucet. If you let it sit for a long while, it becomes rusty. And when you come back to run the faucet, it comes out as a trickle. Don’t let that discourage you! Keep the faucet running, even if it starts slow—before you know it, it’ll be flowing freely again. You just have to get through some rusty, dirty, muddled water first. Writing is like any other skill—it improves with practice. The more you write, the better you get. But if you never start, you never give yourself the chance to improve. Think of it like exercising a muscle—the more you train it, the stronger it gets. The first few attempts might feel awkward or difficult, but over time, you’ll develop confidence and ease in your writing process. The Myth of “Good” Writing Many new writers think their first draft needs to be brilliant.  It doesn’t.  First drafts are supposed to be messy! Even famous authors rewrite their books multiple times. That voice inside that insists your writing must be perfect on the first try, that’s just your inner perfectionist talking. And guess what? Your inner perfectionist is great at getting you to never start—or never finish. You have to ignore that voice. It’ll keep you stuck in one place, either in a cycle of "I’ll do it later—I’ll write eventually, one day I will" or "This isn’t good enough, I need to keep rewriting this one section." The most important thing is to put words on the page. You can always refine them later. Fear of Failure = Fear of Starting If you don’t write, you can’t fail. But if you don’t write, you also can’t succeed. The only way to grow as a writer is to put words on the page—even if they’re terrible at first.  Perfection is the enemy of progress. It’s hard to overcome perfectionism, but at some point, you have to take the first step. You have to take the leap of faith and just start. Embrace the failures, embrace the road bumps. So don’t worry about being a good writer—worry later about becoming a good  rewriter. One of the best ways to defeat perfectionism is to write with the intention of writing badly. Try setting a goal to write the worst sentence possible, or deliberately make mistakes in your draft. By giving yourself permission to be messy, you take the pressure off and allow your creativity to flow naturally. Mini Exercise: Writing Fears Write down  five fears  that have stopped you from writing. Think deeply—what thoughts creep in when you hesitate to start? Are they related to perfectionism, criticism, or self-doubt? Next to each, list  one small action  you can take to push past it. Make sure these actions are achievable—for example, if you fear your writing isn’t good enough, your small action could be writing for 10 minutes without judgment. Write a short  affirmation or counter-thought  for each fear. For example, if you wrote, 'I’m afraid my ideas aren’t original,' your counter-thought could be, 'Every writer brings their own unique perspective—no story is truly original, but my voice makes it special.' ❌ Example:   “I’m afraid my writing isn’t good enough.”   ✅  Solution: “I’ll remind myself that all first drafts are bad. My job is to get words down and edit later.” What This Course Will Cover Writing a great story isn’t just about having a good idea—it’s about understanding what makes stories work and how to bring them to life on the page.  This course will cover: Finding Your Creative Why  – Understanding why you want to write and what kind of stories you’re drawn to. Genres & Story Structures  – Exploring different genres and the 7-8 basic story archetypes. Conflict & Tension  – Understanding internal vs. external conflict and why it’s essential in every story. Building Compelling Characters  – Creating three-dimensional protagonists, antagonists, and side characters. Plotting & Scene Structure  – Learning how to outline a story and craft engaging scenes. Showing vs. Telling  – How to balance immersive descriptions with clear storytelling. Point of View & Narrative Voice  – Finding the right POV for your story. Editing & Revising  – Turning a rough draft into a polished piece. How to Stay Motivated & Keep Writing  – Tips for beating writer’s block and developing a writing habit. Each lesson will include practical exercises, examples, and challenges to help you apply what you learn. Your First Challenge: Just Start Writing! Before we dive into the first official lesson, let’s break the ice with a quick, low-pressure writing challenge. ✍️  10-Minute Freewrite:  Pick one of the following prompts and write non-stop for 10 minutes. No editing, no overthinking—just write! Prompts: A character stands at the edge of something—what is it, and what are they about to do? Write about someone discovering something they were never meant to find. Describe a place from your childhood as vividly as possible. If you feel stuck, start with “I don’t know what to write, but…” and see where it takes you. Bonus Tip:  Check out my writing podcast! The Tired Writers Podcast  has a wealth of writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing! (Not to mention it's chaotic and funny!) Concluding Thoughts: Writing is a Journey Writing isn’t about being perfect—it’s about exploring, growing, and creating. The best way to start is to give yourself permission to write badly and  keep going . Writing is a valuable hobby that anyone can benefit from. It is a way to explore ideas, emotions, and both real and imaginary worlds. It allows you to express yourself, untangle thoughts, and understand different perspectives. Writing can be therapeutic, challenging, and incredibly rewarding. So, take a deep breath, grab your notebook or open your document, and start writing.  You’ve got this!  I believe in you! “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou. Write without fear and edit without mercy! Carpe scripturam! —Bair✍︎ 🔜 Next Up: Lesson I – Understanding Your Creative Why Want to stay up to-date on get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! INSTAGRAM  | LINKEDIN  | PINTEREST Check out My Writer & Reader Merch Store Like this post? Share the link on your social media or pin the image below to your Pinterest board !

Have you ever opened your manuscript, stared at the blinking cursor, and thought, What now?  Maybe you’ve got a killer opening, an exciting climax, and… a mushy, shapeless mess in between. Where do you go from there? For me, writing is all about asking questions: What happens next? What now? How else can I make my characters suffer for entertainment purposes?  These questions keep the story moving, but answering them on the fly can be overwhelming—especially when your plot starts feeling like a tangled ball of yarn. That’s where scene cards come in. Whether you’re a plotter who loves structure or a pantser who resists planning like it’s a personal attack, scene cards can keep your story on track without killing creativity. Think of them as your story’s GPS—guiding you forward, but flexible enough to let you take scenic detours. Table Of Contents What Are Scene Cards? Why Scene Cards Work How To Create a Scene Card What Is a "Third Rail"? Example of a Scene Card Plotters & Pansters: Why Both Kinds of Writers Will Love Scene Cards Common Scene Writing Mistakes Writer Exercises Concluding Thoughts What Are Scene Cards? (& Why You Need Them) A scene card is a simple tool that helps you organize, track, and refine your story scene by scene. Each card represents one scene and contains key details like: What happens in the scene (the action) Where it takes place (setting) Which characters are involved The scene’s purpose ( why  it matters in the larger story) Conflict/tension (internal or external) The outcome (what changes by the end of the scene) Instead of staring at your manuscript wondering what should happen next , you can glance at your scene cards and instantly know where you’re headed. Why Scene Cards Work (& Why You’ll Love Them) Scene cards aren’t just about staying organized—they make sure your writing stays purposeful. No more filler scenes that meander aimlessly; every scene should develop characters, push the plot forward, or build tension—and scene cards help you catch the fluff before you waste time writing it. Struggling with pacing? Scene cards let you spot slow sections and adjust the tension before the middle of your book turns into a slog. Plus, they make tracking conflict easier—whether it’s internal struggles, external obstacles, or emotional tension, scene cards force you to define what’s at stake before you start writing. And if you ever realize a scene works better earlier in the story? No need for painful rewrites—just move the scene card and tweak the flow without wrecking your entire draft. How to Create a Scene Card Whether you’re using index cards, digital notes, or a whiteboard, a scene card should contain the following: Scene Number – Helps keep track of order. Scene Description – A short summary of what happens. Location & Time – Where and when the scene takes place. Characters Involved – Who’s in the scene? Who’s driving the action? Purpose – Why does this scene exist?  What role does it play in the story? Conflict/Tension – The emotional or external conflict that keeps readers engaged. Outcome – What changes by the end of the scene? (Does the protagonist make a decision? Does something go wrong? Does someone die? Scene # __: Main Point: Subplot: Subplot: The Plot External Conflict Cause What Happened Explain why it matters here Effect The Consequences Explain the Consequences here The Third Rail Internal Conflict Why It Matters Explain why it matters here The Realization Explain why it matters here And so? A Quick Reminder About What The "Third Rail" Is The “third rail” of storytelling, as described in my last blog The War Within vs. The Battles Outside: A Deep Dive into Internal & External Conflict , refers to the internal conflict that drives a character’s emotional journey. Just like the electrified third rail in a subway system powers the train, internal conflict powers the story—without it, the plot won’t move. While external events push the character forward, it’s their deep, unresolved inner struggle—their fears, desires, and misconceptions—that gives the story emotional depth and resonance. Without this internal charge, even the most action-packed plot will feel hollow. Example of a Scene Card in Action To show how this works in practice, here’s an actual scene card from The Glass Dagger , the book I’m currently working on. This scene follows Kyl, the protagonist, as he tries to buy a book—only to be reminded of his low status in a society that values lineage over merit. Scene Number : 5 Scene Description : Kyl tries to buy a book but is refused due to his status. Location : Carpenter’s shop. Time : Late morning. Characters : Kyl, the shopkeeper. Purpose : Reinforce class disparity, deepen Kyl’s internal conflict, foreshadow later events. Conflict/Tension : Kyl is humiliated and made to feel unworthy. Outcome : Kyl skips his next lesson, reinforcing his belief that knowledge is for the privileged. This isn’t just a summary—it tracks the emotional weight of the scene , ensuring it pushes Kyl’s character arc forward. His frustration at being denied knowledge doesn’t just disappear; it lingers, shaping his choices and driving his motivations throughout the story. By using scene cards, I can make sure that every moment contributes to the larger narrative instead of feeling like a one-off event. Want to see this scene card in action with a downloadable template you can use for your own writing? Sign up for my newsletter and get exclusive access to my digital scene card template—plus other insider writing tips, resources, and sneak peeks at my books! Plotters vs. Pantsers: Why Scene Cards Work for Both Whether you’re a meticulous plotter or a free-spirited pantser (read my writing bestie's blog ( Plotter Or Pantser? What Type Of Writer Are You? ) here on what kind of writer you are, and what it means to be a plotter or a panster), scene cards can work for you. Plotters will love the way scene cards provide a structured roadmap while still allowing flexibility—scenes can be rearranged without unraveling the entire outline, pacing stays in check, and every moment serves a clear purpose. Meanwhile, pantsers can use scene cards on the fly, filling them out as they go rather than planning everything upfront. If a scene doesn’t work, no need for a major rewrite—just tweak the scene card instead. Plus, scene cards help keep track of what’s already written, preventing contradictions and keeping momentum strong, so you don’t accidentally send your character on a journey they already finished three chapters ago. Scene cards are about guidance, not restriction. They’re like a compass, not a rulebook—helping you find your way without boxing you in. Common Scene-Writing Mistakes (That Scene Cards Prevent) One of the biggest scene-writing mistakes is aimlessness—if a scene doesn’t contribute to character growth, conflict, or plot progression, why is it there? Scene cards help prevent scenes with no tension or stakes, ensuring that something is always at risk, whether it’s a decision, a consequence, or a shift in power. They also stop repetitive character beats, where a character learns the same lesson five times, making the story feel stagnant. By tracking development and ensuring every scene serves a purpose, scene cards keep your narrative tight, engaging, and always moving forward. Cause & Effect: Why Consequences Are Everything If there’s one golden thread that keeps your story from unraveling into chaos, it’s consequence . Every choice a character makes, every action taken, every moment of hesitation or defiance—it has to  mean something. Otherwise, your story starts to feel hollow. Like things just happen, but nothing really matters . When filling out the “Outcome” section on your scene card, don’t just ask what happened . Ask: What did this change—and what will it change? Cause and effect are the glue between scenes. One event should create a ripple that influences what comes next. That ripple can take the form of: External Consequences : A character lies—and now they’re being hunted. They steal a relic—and accidentally awaken an ancient power. They skip a meeting—and lose an ally. These are tangible, plot-driven results. Internal Consequences : A character lashes out in fear—and later feels ashamed. They confess their love—and are now emotionally vulnerable. They fail a test—and question their worth. These emotional shifts fuel character development and deepen your story’s heart. Both are important. External consequences move the plot; internal consequences move the character. Think of every scene like a domino. The moment it tips, the next domino must  react. Otherwise, you’ve got a scene just standing there doing nothing. So when you’re reviewing your scenes with your cards, ask: What’s the cause  that led to this moment? What’s the effect  it creates going forward? How does the character feel about it —and how does that change their next choice? Because without consequences, there’s no tension. Without tension, there’s no story. And without story… well, we’re just watching people do things for no reason. Scene cards help you catch those gaps—so your characters don’t just do  things… they live through  them. Writing Exercise: Now It's Your Turn To Build a Scene Card Now that you understand how scene cards can keep your story focused and engaging, it’s time to put them into action. Whether you’re a meticulous plotter or a discovery writer who thrives on spontaneity, these exercises will help you refine your scenes, strengthen conflict, and ensure every moment on the page has a purpose. Let’s dive in and start shaping your story—one scene at a time! Take a scene from your WIP and break it down into a scene card: Write a one-sentence summary of what happens. Identify the conflict/tension in the scene. Write down the outcome—what changes by the end? Does this scene move the story forward? If not, rethink its purpose. Concluding Thoughts Scene cards aren’t about micromanaging your writing—they’re about helping you keep focused and intentional. Whether you’re plotting in advance or figuring things out as you go, they help ensure that every scene earns its place in your story. And don't forget! If you want an easy-to-use, downloadable scene card template to start tracking your own scenes, sign up for my newsletter! You’ll get exclusive access to this template and first dibs on writing resources, behind-the-scenes book content, and more. So, if your manuscript ever starts wandering aimlessly like a lost child, scene cards might just be the GPS you need to get back on track. Have you used scene cards before? If not, what’s one scene in your WIP that could benefit from breaking it down? Drop a comment below! Happy writing! —Bair✍︎ Want a FREE scene card template? (+ first dibs on writing resources & behind-the-scenes book content) Sign up for my newsletter to grab your exclusive writing resource pack! Want to stay up to-date on get exclusive updates and insights on future projects, book launches, writer and reader resources, FREE literature, writing freebies, and a more? Sign up for my Newsletter ! Find more helpful writing tips on the rest of my blog . Struggling to get your word count in? Check out my writing podcast ! Need a new notebook? Check out my hand-bound books ! Support the blog on Ko-fi ! INSTAGRAM  | LINKEDIN  | PINTEREST Check out My Writer & Reader Merch Store Like this post? Share the link on your social media or pin the image below to your Pinterest board !