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the-serenity-of-night · 2 months

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Some Vital Scenes to Include in a Romantic Subplot, pt. 1

I’ve been in the plotting stages of a novel I’ve been working on for some time now. It’s not a romance novel, per se, but the romantic aspect is very prevalent… dare I say important. Anyway, so as I was working on my scenes and character arcs, I began to realize that I didn’t have enough fleshed-out about romantic arc, nor deepened the protagonist’s love interest or their connection, for that matter. This led me to devise up some scenes that I felt were crucial to the story if I wanted to keep this romantic angle to it, and now that I’ve most of them arranged, I find now that I’m way more excited about my characters’ love story.

These tips will be unnumbered because, obviously, the sequence of these events and how they will fall into your storyline will probably be different. Also, you don’t have to use only one scene for every suggestion that will be mentioned, as you can have multiple scenes of flirtations or deep conversations, for example. They usually blend all together into the narrative at this point. Just remember that there should be some relevance to the plot at hand in some of these scenes as to not derail completely from the main narrative or other conflicts.

I was going to post this all at once, but decided it was too long and wanted to split it into two parts to go more in-depth and for easy reading. /-\ Enjoy ~

- The meet-cute, or the meet-ugly:

Ah, yes, the first encounter. Or, as we sometimes like to call it: the meet-cute, or the meet-ugly if you’re feeling a little unconventional or perhaps mischievous. Though we may enjoy setting up our star-crossed characters in a whole range of moments from awkward to swoon-worthy, the initial meeting is what’s important (if your characters haven't already met before the beginning of the story, ofc, but this is useful to have in mind). Let us quickly define the two:

Meet-Cute: A charming and serendipitous first encounter between the characters in question that sets a positive, memorable, and oftentimes romantic tone.

Meet-Ugly: An unconventional, awkward, or disastrous initial meeting that adds a unique twist to the start of the romantic connection, often leading to unexpected chemistry and an added intrigue on whether or not they’ll get together.

You don’t have to nail your characters’ first encounter into a label or bubble such as these two examples, but I like bringing these up for a general idea.

- Bouts of flirting and/or banter:

Just as the title suggests, these are scenes containing the flirtaious communication between the two characters. These kinds of interactions will, of course, develop over time and deepen the bond or relationship. Playful interactions, gazes, and witty exchanges between the characters can create a lighthearted and flirtatious atmosphere that hints at their growing attraction.

The way they might flirt or tease can reveal their personalities. For example, one character might be more sarcastic, while the other responds with quick wit, or quiet bashfulness. There’s an element of subtlety, as flirting lets the characters express their romantic interest without explicitly stating it (unless one of your characters lacks subtlety in general and prefers to shout their undying love from the rooftops, which would make for an interesting dynamic, but I’m only spit-balling).

Banter, teasing, and romantic tension underscoring heated debates or loathsome gazes suit just as nicely, especially if you’re writing with enemies-to-lovers or rivalry tropes in mind. But be careful! A little goes a long way: too much all at once can repel any growth for the characters or narrative.

- Initial conflict or struggle:

Depending on your story’s big-picture conflict, the introduction of challenges or obstacles can create tension between the characters, adding depth to their relationship and making their eventual connection all the more satisfying. This might include cultural or class differences, opposing goals or values, history of past heartbreak, personality weaknesses such as stubbornness, or external pressures that threaten to keep the characters apart. Even a nosy family or a disapproving mother can be considered. How the characters navigate and resolve these conflicts contributes significantly to the overall emotional impact of the romance subplot, as well as allowing for some exploration of each character's strengths, weaknesses, and resilience.

- Shared vulnerability:

This kind of scene involves the characters opening up to each other about their innermost fears, insecurities, past trauma, or personal struggles. Shared vulnerability goes beyond surface-level interactions. It involves characters revealing their authentic selves, exposing their emotional vulnerabilities, and allowing the other person to see them in an honest — and sometimes new — light.

This is a symbolic gesture of commitment we’re talking about, here… something that requires trust. As characters share their fears or past traumas, they are entrusting the other person with sensitive information, fostering a sense of trust and emotional intimacy. It might be scary, it could be out from left field, but they will end up learning something new about themselves, their situation, or about the other person, and thus deepen their connection, little by little.

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the-serenity-of-night · 2 months

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5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists

Antagonists, whether people, the world, an object, or something else are integral to giving your story stakes and enough conflict to challenge your character enough to change them. Today I’m just going to focus on people antagonists because they are the easiest to do this with!

1. Your antagonist is still a character

While sure, antagonists exist in the story to combat your MC and make their lives and quest difficult, they are still characters in the story—they are still people in the world.

Antagonists lacking in this humanity may land flat or uninteresting, and it’s more likely they’ll fall into trope territory.

You should treat your antagonists like any other character. They should have goals, objectives, flaws, backstories, etc. (check out my character creation stuff here). They may even go through their own character arc, even if that doesn’t necessarily lead them to the ‘good’ side.

Really effective antagonists are human enough for us to see ourselves in them—in another universe, we could even be them.

2. They’re… antagonistic

There’s two types of antagonist. Type A and Type B. Type A antagonist’s have a goal that is opposite the MC’s. Type B’s goal is the same as the MC’s, but their objectives contradict each other.

For example, in Type A, your MC wants to win the contest, your antagonist wants them to lose.

In Type B, your MC wants to win the contest, and your antagonist wants to win the same contest. They can’t both win, so the way they get to their goal goes against each other.

A is where you get your Draco Malfoy’s, other school bullies, or President Snow’s (they don’t necessarily want what the MC does, they just don’t want them to have it.)

B is where you get the other Hunger Games contestants, or any adventure movie where the villain wants the secret treasure that the MCs are also hunting down. They want the same thing.

3. They have well-formed motivations

While we as the writers know that your antagonist was conceptualized to get in the way of the MC, they don’t know that. To them, they exist separate from the MC, and have their own reasons for doing what they do.

In Type A antagonists, whatever the MC wants would be bad for them in some way—so they can’t let them have it. For example, your MC wants to destroy Amazon, Jeff Bezos wants them not to do that. Why not? He wants to continue making money. To him, the MC getting what they want would take away something he has.

Other motivations could be: MC’s success would take away an opportunity they want, lose them power or fame or money or love, it could reveal something harmful about them—harming their reputation. It could even, in some cases, cause them physical harm.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be true, but the antagonist has to believe it’s true. Such as, if MC wins the competition, my wife will leave me for them. Maybe she absolutely wouldn’t, but your antagonist isn’t going to take that chance anyway.

In Type B antagonists, they want the same thing as the MC. In this case, their motivations could be literally anything. They want to win the competition to have enough money to save their family farm, or to prove to their family that they can succeed at something, or to bring them fame so that they won’t die a ‘nobody’.

They have a motivation separate from the MC, but that pesky protagonist keeps getting in their way.

4. They have power over the MC

Antagonists that aren’t able to combat the MC very well aren’t very interesting. Their job is to set the MC back, so they should be able to impact their journey and lives. They need some sort of advantage, privilege, or power over the MC.

President Snow has armies and the force of his system to squash Katniss. She’s able to survive through political tension and her own army of rebels, but he looms an incredibly formidable foe.

Your antagonist may be more wealthy, powerful, influential, intelligent, or skilled. They may have more people on their side. They are superior in some way to the protagonist.

5. And sometimes they win

Leading from the last point, your antagonists need wins. They need to get their way sometimes, which means your protagonist has to lose. You can do a bit of a trade off that allows your protagonist to lose enough to make a formidable foe out of their antagonist, but still allows them some progress using Fortunately, Unfortunately.

It goes like… Fortunately, MC gets accepted into the competition. Unfortunately, the antagonist convinces the rest of the competitors to hate them. Fortunately, they make one friend. Unfortunately, their first entry into the competition gets sabotaged. Fortunately, they make it through the first round anyway, etc. etc.

An antagonist that doesn’t do any antagonizing isn’t very interesting, and is completely pointless in their purpose to heighten stakes and create conflict for your protagonist to overcome. We’ll probably be talking about antagonists more soon!

Anything I missed?

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the-serenity-of-night · 3 months

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me when i lie about wanting to read classic literature and start another book about magic and faeries

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the-serenity-of-night · 3 months

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*Hofas spoilers*

Don't keep reading unless you wanna be spoiled

The way Bryce annoys the entire IC is so funny she really gives no fucks . I seriously thought Bryce and the gang were going to hit it off 😔(Az is so hot in this book😩)

#acotar #cc hofas #hofas spoilers #bryce quinlan #a court of thorns and roses #azriel shadowsinger #crescent city #nesta archeron

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the-serenity-of-night · 4 months

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This fandom about to learn Portuguese as quick as Feyre learnt to read!

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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he is the moment 😩

artists: @cassandrajean, @parcai and @aliceduke

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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DO YOU WANT A SEASON TWO?

WATCH IT AGAIN. MAKE YOUR MOM WATCH IT. TELL EVERYONE, I BEG YOU

listen to Brian 😩

#blue eye samurai #netflix #blue eye samurai netflix #mizu

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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I don’t know how some of you could watch blu eyed samurai and still debate Mizu’s gender like hello ??? media literacy dead ??? Mizu is a woman, that’s the whole fucking point !!!! That’s her biggest crime !!!

Eiji couldn’t care less about her heritage but he literally cut her off when she tried to confess her gender !!!!

Mikio was fine with her being half white but the moment she dared to show him that -as a woman- she was a greater fighter it was over. His ego was irreparably hurt because a woman defeated him !!!!

And he calls her a monster !!!! He calls her a monster because she’s a woman and she’s strong she’s capable she can fight she isn’t submissive and that’s the point !!!!!!!!!!!!!

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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if next season taigen doesnt shows up on london bridge out of the smog,challenges mizu,gets dropped then confessed to or confesses....i will...............................................................................................................

still watch cause MIZU'S REVENGE COMES FIRST. PERIOD.

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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the reveal that mizu is not only the ronin but also the bride is so well executed. the way she walks the line between man and woman, white and japanese, victor and victim... it's good fucking writing.

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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Immediately thought of this during ep8

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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People are being so weird on tiktok about Blue Eye Samurai. I genuinely think some people have zero media literacy and love shitting on anything popular (I know that happens all the time) but it’s one thing to dislike something, it’s another thing to FULLY LIE about it and convince people to not watch the show on baseless, biased opinions stated as fact.

I watched one person fully admit they didn’t finish the show, then proceed to tear into it for not explaining things that were definitely explained in later episodes. All of their issues revolve around the inclusion of whiteness. The racism that Mizu faces for being mixed, and how somehow that’s white victimization? And also the reason she’s so good at fighting?

Please shut the fuck up oh my god.

Also, people are tearing into anyone who ships Mizu and Taigen, claiming it’s problematic to ship enemies to lovers, and that Taigen never shows remorse for what he did. Obviously you know that isn’t true if you were paying attention.

I think these people are just young and need to find a hobby, but if their stupid takes get traction and season two never gets greenlit, I might just become like Mizu.

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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People have probably already done this but it was just too funny to me.

(pls ignore how messy it is I had an idea and ran with it)

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the-serenity-of-night · 5 months

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fyi the creator of blue eye samurai is a zionist. definitely shouldn't be supporting that.

I see people are making the rounds to stop the growing enthusiasm for the show. I get it.

Seeing Green's posts (via tumblr, since I don’t have twitter or X or wtv the fuck it’s called today) admittedly made me wince. I don’t agree with or support his views. I also feel their dissonance with the show’s blunt criticism of colonialism.

But.

This will be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t actually agree that condemning a show that has been made by a HUGE team of people, who are most certainly as diverse in their political beliefs as in their cultural backgrounds, because of one person’s few posts on social media is entirely fair or fitting.

Yes, he’s one of the creators, sure, his name is slapped onto the lid, but the show is not him. A show is never one person. AND I’m a Death of The Author believer besides, so. There’s that.

So I for one will keep on celebrating the show and what it stands for and the themes it explores, because I feel it’s important to have them out there. While also denouncing one of its creators’ views. After much thought, I’m comfortable with that complication. You, and many others, may not be. Which is fair. And I urge you to block the tag or unfollow me if the distinction makes you uneasy.

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the-serenity-of-night · 8 months

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😩 CC been feedin us lately