Lately I've been talking to my best friend's dad a lot (I don't know why, don't ask, I have no reasons) and he's been giving me life talks. Like, the other day, he came into the bar where I work and was giving me and my coworker (who has a 13 year old daughter she's having a lot of teen issues with) parenting advice and it was the best thing I've ever heard.

He literally said "As a parent, you're always going to love your kids no matter what. But that doesn't mean you always have to like them."

And he went on to tell us how he didn't like any of his sons when they were teenagers, but he eventually started liking them again when they got in their twenties (except his youngest who's still kind of "a drama queen". And I've never laughed so hard. My coworker cried and hugged him because she said it was the best advice she'd ever gotten.

But I can't stop laughing because now he's telling me all the bratty things my best friend and I did when we were teenagers and he didn't like us. It's great. Like, at the time, I remember thinking we were so mature and well spoken and always right. We were idiots. And it's great. I love laughing at myself. He keeps texting me about little things I'd forgotten about and all I can say is: we were smart-asses.

So with a segue, let's talk about: Things Writers need to Stop Doing

That was abrupt.

1. Trying to fill all the "necessary" character roles

For some reason, everyone thinks you have to have a set number of characters. You have to have the villain, the normal girl/boy (MC), the love interest, the best friend/side kick, and typically a token diversity character. What the hell is this all about?

First of all, let me start by talking about the villain. You don't always have to have a villain. You have to have a CONFLICT, but who says this has to be a person? No, you don't have to have the evil queen bee who picks on the MC in a teen fiction. No, you don't have to have the evil ruler that wants to watch the world burn in a scifi/dystopian. No, you don't have to have the dark world ruler in the fantasy. You just have to have a conflict.

So, where do we get conflict? Literally, everywhere. Conflict is literally anything that causes a problem. You know what causes me a lot of problems? Bills. Work. Stress. Sometimes, the MC is the villain. I'm telling you all right now, you will always be your own worst enemy. It's an old cliché, because it's true. No one will be as critical or hard on you as you are on yourself. But we don't see that a lot in these stories. What about a teen fiction where the "villain" is the fact that despite working their ass off, the MC just isn't good enough to get into that Ivy League school? What happens then? Write about THAT.

What happens when the MC creates a horrible disease that could kill millions and they have to find the antibody before it's too late in a scifi? Write about that. Or about the MC not being able to control their own magic in a fantasy. What about someone who decides to quit their job, move out of their shitty apartment, and travel the world on zero dollars for a chic lit? Or the MC who's supposedly not good at anything trying to find their "niche" in society for a humor. There doesn't have to be a single villain in any of those plot lines I just gave you. Can there be? Sure. Does there have to be? Nope.

So, I just took care of that. Also, if you write the humor one (or any of them), lemme know, because I'd love to read them.

As with the rest of the character spaces: I can see how you would need an MC. But love interests? To me, that's a subplot. That should never be the main conflict. The best friend, while nice, usually gets canned after the love interest comes into play, so if you're going to make a sidekick or best friend, let them stick around. Fuck, let them flip sides if you want to get rid of them. Could you imagine is Samwise started working for Sauron? What an interesting take...damn. Someone do that for a fanfic! I don't read fanfic, but I'd sure as shit read that.

And finally, the token diversity character. Seriously, if you're just throwing a character of another race or religion so people can't say you're whitewashing, you might as well just stop. First of all, I don't see why it's necessary to explicitly define the race of all your characters, but whatever. Second, I'd rather you whitewash a story as opposed to stereotyping an entire race. And third, why does it matter so much to label what race everyone is? If someone is proud of the race and culture and heritage, hell yeah! More power to them! But it has to match the character. It can't just be something you throw in to be all "hey, I have diversity". One character does not make you a revolutionary.

Fill the story with characters that have something to say. They need to have something to do. They need to have a reason. A purpose. They can't just be there to fill roles. So fill the ones you need and fuck the rest. That's the moral of this story.

2. Running to the thesaurus every other word

Using big words doesn't automatically make you a good writer, because of two major reasons:

1. Just because they're synonyms does not mean they mean the EXACT same thing

2. Connotation and denotation

What do I mean by this? Well, they can kind of bleed together, but I'll explain it to you the best I can. First of all, there is a specific time and place for certain words and it's extremely important you know when and where that time and place is. Otherwise, you look like an idiot who literally pulled the biggest word out of the thesaurus.

Take for example, I dunno, excited and aroused. Denotatively, they mean relatively the same thing. Hell, if I used the synonym function right now on Word (y'all know Word does that, right?), aroused comes up for excited. But do they means the same thing connotatively? Not exactly.

For those of you who don't know what denotation and connotation means, here's a minilesson. Denotation is the dictionary definition for a word (it's easy to remember, because they both start with "d"). Connotation references the associations people make with a word. For example, while excited and aroused mean relatively the same thing, connotatively, arousal is typically linked to sexual overtones. So while, yes, we can used excited in sexual terms (please don't, it's a pet peeve of mine), we rely on the setting. But when you say aroused, you automatically associate that with sex. People just do.

So let's look at an example of when this can be a problem. If we're talking about a six year old child going to a carnival and getting stoked about the bright lights and sounds and rides, we would want to say excited, not aroused. Because even though they mean "eager", we probably don't want to sexualize this six year old child.

Another problem that I see all the time is people that use synonyms when they don't know what they mean. Like, you all realize most words have a few different definitions, right? Like, let's take the word, appointment. Appointment can mean selection. It can mean job. It can be meeting. So if you're saying, "I've been appointed president of my company", you can't replace "appointed" with "rendezvous". Because they don't mean the same thing. Yet, people do it, because they assume that if it's a synonym, it means the same thing.

I'm here to tell you, synonym does not equal exact replacement. Do your research before you use a word you don't know. Plus, you should do research anyway because 1. It's fun and 2. It's always great to expand your vocabulary.

3. Trying so hard to be unique

I get it. I dislike clichés as much as the next person IF I can predict how everything is going to unfold (and if they're stupid). Hell, I've made an entire damn rant book about them! But I think I dislike when people go out of their way to avoid every single cliché in the world. Let me tell you, it's not possible.

Look at me. Look at my own life. My life could be the formula for a cliché Wattpad novel. So do I think all clichés are bad? No. Am I cool with people having a couple of clichés in their stories? Absolutely. Hell, I do it. Because it's not the end of the world.

It is the end of the world when I waste time by reading an entire story and knowing exactly how EVERYTHING turns out. Okay, fine. I can tell the good girl and bad boy are going to end up together. I can live with that as long as you throw in a plot twist like the good girl's best friend killing their parent or something. Something I never saw coming. Because if I can read the first chapter, make a prediction about the end, skip all the way to the last chapter, and be totally right, then I have a problem with clichés.

Otherwise, if you're trying to be too unique, it's just a mess. So blonde queen bee is out, let's make her brunette. So what? She's still a bitch and I still know the MC is going to end up with the love interest and the queen bee is going to left on the sidelines, jealous as hell of the mousy MC. Changing the hair color didn't help much there.

Write the story that needs to be told. If a character or a part of the plot falls into the cliché category, so what? Our everyday lives fall into the cliché category sometimes. I can live with a little cliché as long as it was something that goes with the story. Which leads me to my next point. Writer's need to stop:

4. Listening more to others than themselves

It's your story. They're your characters. Let them take on a life of their own. Let the story unfold. Let the events happen exactly as they play out in your head. Don't stop yourself if someone says it's cliché, or overdone, or predictable. It's fine. Tell the story that needs to be told and stop worrying so much about what other people think.

Sure it's great to get advice. It's great to hear ideas. It's great to brainstorm with people. It's great to get feedback. But at the end of the day, it's your story and you know what's best for it.

So if you disagree with someone about an aspect, politely say thank you for the input, and keep doing your thing. Maybe explain what you were going for and ask if they have pointers on how to make your intent more clear! I'm fine with people explaining their thought process and decisions to me when I give critiques and they don't want to take my suggestions. It keeps me from feeling like I've wasted my time on someone who just wanted reads and praise (because I have no time and if you've ever gotten a critique from me, you know it takes forever because they're thorough as fuck. I pour over critiques for days, no joke. It'll be about 15+ word pages, single spaced and it doesn't even cover every aspect, just my major grievances.)

My only thing is: if someone offers critiques, advice, ideas, brainstorming, always say thank you. Even if you don't agree and you're not going to listen to anything they said, always ALWAYS say thank you. I'm a bitch like that, because if people only tell me "No, I'm going to keep my story the way it is, because blah blah blah" and they don't include a "thank you for your time" I won't even respond to them. Not even if they ask a question.

I have very little time in this world. I've cut my life expectancy significantly by being an angsty little dumbass and you can't even say thank you. I spent hours and hours writing out a critique and you can't even just take two seconds to say thank you. Explicitly. Don't imply it. Say it. You don't have to like what I say. You don't have to like my ideas or whatever. But you should say "thank you for your time". I realize that makes me a pretentious bitch, but I value my time. Don't waste it.

Boy. That got intense. Anyway, what all do you think writers should stop doing?

Wait. My best friend's dad just text me this great story about how he was talking about how the older he got, the more boring his life became and my best friend told him he needed to be euthanized. And then my best friend went on to say something like, "is it a pun or do I really think you should die? We'll never know" and just walked out. And apparently they weren't even arguing. They were just having a conversation. What a little brat