3 Reasons Why You Should Write Periods (That Are Really All Secretly The First Reason)

1. Normalization

     Once every month people between the onset of puberty and the beginning of menopause who possess a functional uterus shed their uterine lining through the vaginal opening.  This uterine lining contains blood, an unfertilized egg or two, and various tissues.  Since a baby didn't quicken that month, the body doesn't need all that extra material lying around getting old and stale and gross, so it hits the eject button and forces the uterus-possessor into a little mini practice labor, which lasts for somewhere between three and seven days.  For most women, and some men, it happens every month for somewhere around thirty-five or forty years.

     Periods happen.  It's a biological fact and a day-to-day reality.  Sometimes it sucks fat honking monkey dicks; sometimes it only sucks a patch of crabgrass.  Either way, it's something as normal as eating or sleeping, and it happens literally every month for like half your life, if you live a long life.  If you add up your average number of bleed days a month and calculate the math, the average uterus-owner will bleed for somewhere between seven and ten nonconsecutive years of their life.

     If you think about it, it's kind of metal.  I mean, we can bleed for /seven days straight/ without dying!  I'd like to see a penis-bearer do that!  Yet because--one second.  *Steps onto feminist soapbox*  Ahem.  Yet because the Penis is King, our patriarchal society treats periods as something weird and gross and unusual, like having one is freaky-deaky and mad strange, yo.

      There was a photographic series that was popular a while ago wherein a photographer took pictures of women going about their daily lives when their period set in, with blood trickling down their thigh as they walked out of a restaurant or swirling in the bathwater as they luxuriated.  The controversy the series was met with, and the disgusted responses, were really quite astounding--people who watch people fart on each other as a recreational activity acted as if capturing such an everyday aspect of the human condition was crossing some horrible, unspoken line.  Hell, people are more comfortable watching blood siblings bone each other than they are with seeing women bleed (unless it originates from the head, legs, or torso, of course, because a gaping chest wound is perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of).

     We even treat piss and shit better than we treat menstruation, and menstruation is both more hygienic and better smelling.  Imho, at least; matters of sense are of course a matter of taste (buhdum tiss), but personally, I've never gagged cleaning menstrual blood up off the floor.  We even treat the blood that flows from our veins like it's somehow safer than menstrual tissues, glorifying things like the blood brothers ceremony, then acting like so much as touching an unused tampon will give you a horrible disease.

    But guess what!  Unless you have an STD, or a yeast infection or something, your uterine blood is sterile!  And really, why wouldn't it be?  It's all the food that would have nourished a baby had you conceived one within that moon-cycle.  It may not stay sterile once it's exposed to the elements and bacteria find their way onto it (as they inevitably find their way into everything, sneaky little bastards), but when it's coming out, and shortly thereafter, it's totally safe, it usually doesn't smell all that awful....  It's kind of like spit; maybe you don't want it on you, but if someone drools on your arm a little bit while they're sleeping all you have to do is wash your arm and it's like there was never an issue.

     But here's the thing; in this patriarchal western society, Penis=King, Vagina=Prisoner.  Sort of.  We treat male as the default, is what I'm saying; pants are considered genderless but a dress automatically indicates femininity; a flat chest could mean male or female or neither but boobs automatically equal woman; guy is male and gal is female but even though guys is gender-neutral, gals is still strictly feminine; male nipples are a just part of their physiology but female nipples are a political statement; and the list goes on, and on, and on....

     The really weird thing is, if any sex were going to be the default, shouldn't it be the sex that was in the majority?  And yet, despite the statistic that there are 2% more uterus-owners than penis-owners, penises (penii?) are the default sex organ.  And nothing ever comes out a penis that isn't piss or semen (unless you are very very ill, in which case you should please consult a doctor immediately), yet it's more acceptable to talk, in great detail, about a penis emitting biological waste or sexual fluids than it is to mention the very existence of menstrual blood.

     And why?  Because, as I said, we live in a patriarchal society.  This means that everything is tailored to the cis male experience; male is automatically normal, female is automatically abnormal, which is why it's totally cool to have a movie with only dudes in it, but totally weird and sexist to have anything at all ever with only women/girls as the leads.  So penises are funny and normal and vaginas are weird and disgusting, both alluring and vaguely intimidating, greatly sought after--but only if they never do anything that hints at biological processes, because why would you want to fuck something that's like, alive, and like, human and equal to you and stuff?

     Okay, I'm getting off topic, and I could go on for hours so I'll just stop myself here.  What I'm getting at is; periods are not a political statement.  Periods are not weird, they're so normal more than half the world has them.  There are so many myths attached to periods that it can be hard to keep from backhanding someone who tries to plant misinformation within your range of hearing, and some families are so embarrassed by this biological fact of life that they never tell their uterus-bearing children about it until it's too late.

     Some people still call it "Eve's Curse."  Kids make fun of you in the locker room if you don't have it, then they make fun of you when you do.  People get laughed at for leaking through their pants or skirt or what-have-you, like they could have helped it.  People act like putting in a tampon provides a sexual thrill, or if you're involved in sports you can get ridiculed by your coach for choosing to wear pads instead.

     I repeat; there are teenagers who don't even know that periods are a thing!

     Periods.  Are.  A.  Thing.  That.  Happens.  And chances are good that if you have a uterus, you have either had one, or will have one in the future.  And yet in all the many, many, many years that I've been reading books, I've only come across periods three and a half times; in the Earth's Children series, Ayla's period isn't a big plot point, but it is mentioned from time to time.  Jean M. Auel talks about the method Ayla uses for dealing with and collecting her menstrual blood, and the small effects it has on her life, such as her sex life with Jondalar.

     In what I believe was A Girl Named Disaster (I'd forgotten the name of the book over the years, and this is the only book I could find in which a girl from Mozambique makes her way to Zimbabwe whilst becoming a woman, so I'm going to say that it is the one I read as a ten-year-old), young Nhamo begins to menstruate for the first time while alone on a deadly journey to find her distant relatives, and struggles with the pressures of becoming a woman while so utterly cut off from everyone she loves.  Later on, she also struggles to let go of the concept that menstruation means that one has become a woman, since the fact that your body is technically ready to bear children has nothing to do with emotional and intellectual maturity.

     It was a sizable enough plot point that it's most of what I remember from the book, and it touched on important aspects of the experience of "first blood" that no one ever talks about because no one ever wants to talk about it.  If I hadn't been raised with a mother who saw no reason to be ashamed of biology, this book could have been my only exposure to menstruation outside of school "your body and you" seminars, and that kind of writing is pretty important.  "Your Body and You" seminars ghost over the details of pubescent changes and what's happening physically, but it never delves into the emotional and psychological effects of a reaching a milestone that one is being constantly told one should be both proud (you're a woman :D!) and ashamed of (you're a woman >:|).

     Menstruation is so, so, so physiologically simple, but as simple as it is to explain biologically, it is every bit as difficult to navigate socially, culturally, emotionally.

     These books both treat periods as a normal thing in different ways--Earth's Children by incorporating it into the world as a fact of life and mentioning it largely in passing, and A Girl Named Disaster by supersizing it, bringing it out into the light where young uterus-owners can stick knives in it and say, "Even though it's normal to feel this way about these things, maybe I don't have to."  At the very least, they can identify with the struggles of the character, which is sometimes all a kid needs.  To know they aren't the only one.

     So why should you write periods?   Reason number one:  Normalize.  How can something be seen as normal if we lock it in the dark and pretend it doesn't exist?  That's why there's been such a big push lately to write more female characters, more gay and bi and pan and trans and genderqueer and PoC and disabled characters, etc etc, it's why I talk about Tourette's and did presentations all across New York state--because you can't normalize something you don't talk about.  If you can't talk about it, it must not fall under our current societal definition of "normal."

     So let's talk about periods.  Let's write about periods, write about characters having them, write about characters talking about them, hating them, laughing about them, bonding over them.  Let's write about people having to borrow a tampon from a friend or offering a spare pad to a stranger on the bus, about the infinite kindness and desolate cruelty that surround the biological process.  Let's talk about it as a scientific event, as a social milestone, as just a daily bother.

      Let's normalize, normalize, normalize, so that maybe one day, when one of our grandchildren reads Carrie, they balk at the motives and actions of the characters, seeing them as completely unreasonable.

      Bleeding from your vagina is not weird, damn it.

2.  Plot Complications

     Okay, so the desire to normalize menstruation isn't strong within you, or you can't find a good reason for it in your story.  Consider:  Plot Complications.

     "How could it complicate my plot?" you ask.  "My character getting PMS and tearing someone's head off?"

     "No!" I shout, thwacking you with the hammer of Don't-You-Sass-Me-Fool.  "That's one for the garbage fire!"

     See, periods are normal, they're usually sterile, but they can be messy, they can be embarrassing, it may not smell as bad as feces but menstrual blood does have a distinctive odor, and when it hits you unawares, it's definitely something that needs dealing with.

     There could be a whole subplot wherein a character has to sneak off to the nearest hygienic-materials-dispenser at an inopportune time, or they could meet the love of their life by offering them their jacket to help cover the stain forming on their ass.  Hell, a young person's quest for a Maxi Pad when they find out the bathroom dispenser is jammed could be what leads them to find the Sword of Destiny or discover the horrible secret that the principle's been keeping.

     And if your story takes place out in the wilds, your uterus-owners coming into their monthlies could be a deadly issue if they don't have a good means of flow-stoppage and/or self-defense.  Predators are hella good at sniffing out blood, menstrual blood in particular since in a lot of animals it indicates heat, which is a great time for boning.  If a predator gets a sniff of that blood trail, it can mean big trouble, and if your team is already being hunted by something with super senses, it can be all the more deadly.  ESPECIALLY if it hits in the middle of the night, when the character in question is defenseless and unawares.  >:3

     And yes, the symptoms that go hand-in-hand with the blood can be used to complicate the plot, too.  Some people do experience emotional sensitivity or mood swings during menstruation, which can cause arguments that might not otherwise happen, especially under stressful situations.  Periods can also be very painful, particularly on day one, making it hard to so much as get up and walk around, which if you're trying to get somewhere fast--or get away from somewhere fast--is going to be a problem.

     Even if the stakes are only maintaining your character's current lifestyle, period day one can muck things up, dampening desire for social interaction, diminishing social and intellectual energy as well as physical, embarrassing you in front of your friends, whatever the case may be.  Plus, that pain I just mentioned?  Makes it a lot harder for a lot of people to maintain a pleasant attitude when talking to assholes or misogynists, so maybe when Angelina gets her period on the day of the big test and has to walk around with her sweater tied around her waist all day is also the day she punches Big Bigot Bob in the face and gets suspended from school.

     If your villains tend to be of the misogynist sort, oh boy, is there no end to the shit you can stir up!  Like I said, menstruation can be messy and uncomfortable, and just like anything else, that can be used to kickstart drama, to heighten tension, or to cause problems, and as we all probably know by now, causing problems is the best way to keep a story going strong!


3.  Realism

     It comes down to this; periods happen.  And you can write a perfectly good book without ever once mentioning menstruation, as many have done!  You can also write a great book that's all about menstruation, or centers heavily around it, or just bandies it around a lot.  Or you could just mention it in passing.

     One of my favorite parts of a fanfiction I read recently was a passage in which a woman excuses herself to use the restroom, realizes her period has started, puts on a pad, and returns to her date.  Why is it my favorite?  Firstly because it wasn't that great a fanfic, but mostly because it was just so casual.  Just a detail.  One of the many small details we pepper in that don't really matter.  The fact that her period had started mattered as much as the color of the diner walls, and I had never seen it dealt with so realistically before.

     The thought that ran through the protagonist's head when she realized she was menstruating?  I'm glad I don't work tomorrow.

     That made me smile because, I mean, how fucking real is that?  My first thought when I realize I'm bleeding is usually, So that's why I've been so tired today.  Plus, I had an instant connection to the protagonist (an OC) because for me, the first forty-eight hours are always the worst, and life is always better when I don't have to be responsible for the first day or two.  I relate.  And I may not have loved the direction the story took after that chapter (the character became too impossibly humble for all her incredible talents for my liking), but that section of that fanfic is now stuck in my head, and I think I'll remember it for a long time.

     Mentioning something small and real--"Mike took a piss behind some weeds while Edgar scoped out the scene," "Johnny pulled at the loose tabs of skin around his fingernails and chewed on the inside of his cheeks," "Mary stopped by the store to pick up Kotex and Raisin Bran,"--can make your world and characters seem more real.  You don't always need to be detailed about it, but mentioning that your characters do normal human things is often refreshing in our world of godmodded protagonists and underpowered villains.

       Let's be real.  Let's be complex.

     Let's naturalize.

3 Ways That Knitting Is Like Writing

Knitting is a wonderful hobby--it’s soothing, it keeps your hands busy (great for all those nail biters out there!), it can be done while most of your attention is affixed to something else--TV, or a conversation, or a game or something--and it’s creative.  I mean that literally, you are literally creating something fantastic out of nothing more than yarn and metal rods.  Plus, there’s all sorts of different stitches and patterns to try out.  

And knitting is also a bit like writing--the tools look similar, there are people who use patterns, people who don’t, and the mechanics and emotions that go into it can look really similar, when you get right down to it.

Here are three ways that knitting is like writing, and how seeing the connection can help you with your prose.

1.  Sometimes you need to unravel it

Over the course of a knitting session it sometimes becomes necessary to undo seconds, minutes, or even hours of your hard work in order to fix some dastardly mistake--a dropped stitch, a mix-up in the patterns, etc.  It’s frustrating, but every writer knows that feeling. It’s not as tangible as it is with knitting, you can’t just look and point out where it all went wrong, but we all know, deep in our souls, when Chapter Fifteen just won’t work, that something needs to be done--and sometimes what needs to be done is to trace back the problem and start over from the point that things went wrong.  

Unlike knitting, however, it’s important that you don’t discard your work so far--when unraveling a knitted something, you are by definition discarding everything done right with what’s been done wrong--to minimize your losses, you should copy and paste your “unraveled threads” in another document, which you can always reference later, much like you might take a picture of your knitting thus far so that you have a clear idea of where it was going before you noticed your errors.  

And like with knitting, sometimes it’s only a quick fix--maybe you need to rewrite a paragraph, not a big deal, we’ve all been through it, but maybe you start realizing in chapter fifteen that this character should have been introduced on page two, while this other one that’s been center stage since page one should never have been put to paper in the first place.  Plus the setting is all wrong, the mythos is too simple or too complicated, the plot is inconsistent, etc. etc. etc., in which case unraveling may not be enough.  Which brings us to...

2.  Sometimes you need to start over

Sometimes a knitting project goes awry.  Yo had this amazing idea in mind, but now you’re forty rows in and the string is tangled, the connections are weak, the pattern looks awful, the loops are too tight or too loose, and you realize all at once that your options amount to 1. abandoning the project immediately or 2. starting all over from the ground up.

In writing you have the same options--and yes, there are manuscripts you’ll want to abandon, and that’s okay, but the other option is a tad bit more interesting, so that will be our exploratory topic for now.

When things get too messy to unvravel the yarn, you’ll want to open a new word document (or notebook, depending on what it is you’re using) and start writing the story as you believe it should have been told in the first place.  

It’s daunting, I know, but sometimes it needs to be done--in order to be your best and produce your best work, you need to work your hardest and give this story the attention and time that it deserves.  If some irreparable evil has occurred, unless you go back to ground zero, you will never do it justice.  HOWEVER, many problems are nowhere near this severe, and

3.  You can always fix it in post

I find that knitting has a far wider appeal than many might think--almost every time I start knitting backstage during a play, I’m either beset by people who also knit, or asked to teach someone (or someones) to do the same, which I’m always happy to do.  

During Dream Barn’s production of Legally Blonde a couple years ago I taught two of my friends, Casey and Chris, to knit; Chris was a natural, and was knitting on his own in no time.  Casey was also very good--she had a nice, tight knit, and the few mistakes she made were the same ones that all beginners make; dropped stitches, knotted yarn, etc.  

But Casey was very nervous about her work--she would come to me, anxious and panicky, every time she screwed up.  I didn’t mind, I showed her that her mistakes were nothing to worry about, and showed her how she could just keep going and fix the little things in post, tie off the dropped stitches, cut, untangle, and reattach yarn, etc.  It wasn’t a big deal.

That neuroticism for perfectionism is something many writers (if not most all of them) share, and it’s understandable--what we write is a piece of our souls bared for the world to see, and we want them to see only the best of what we have to offer.

But how can we show them the best of what we have to offer if we spend so much time workshopping a single chapter that we have nothing to offer in the first place?  There will always be time to fix grammar, spelling, plotlines, characterization, etc. when you’ve finished actually getting the story onto the page.  

One of the great things about NaNoWriMo is that the speed at which you’re forced to write keeps you from going back to look, reference, and fix, fix, fix.  

You just have to take a deep breath, close your eyes, and plunge right in.  Your first draft will never be perfect anyway, no matter how hard you try; that’s why we edit.  

5 Things I Learned Writing/Editing/Re-Reading My First-Ever "Novel"

1. A notebook of words does not a novel make

My first-ever “novel” was a 42 page book about a Mary Sue superhero getting powers and defeating a dragon.  In between all that, though, lots of bullshit happens that doesn’t have anything to do with the plot, and is mostly just 9-year-old wish fulfillment.  It was, more or less, a notebook full of vaguely connected words and ideas.

But that’s not what a novel is.  First of all, this 42-page story, at around 10,000 words, wouldn’t even qualify as a novella.  It would be more like a novelette at best; a novella is 18,000-40,000 words, and a novel is 40,000 words or more (though most publishing companies prefer that your wordcount be at least 60,000, and often nearer to 80,000, to consider publishing it as a novel).  

Not only is a wordcount required, but a novel has to have a cohesive plot, compelling characters that are more than self-indulgent caricatures of real-life people or cardboard cut-outs, and villains with realistic motives.  You could have a novel that was more anthological, too, as long as all the pieces were woven together to form an overarching narrative, but it still has to say something.  

A bunch of pieces smashed together isn’t a novel just because you want it to be.  Kaleidoscopes are pretty, but there’s a reason we don’t call them paintings.  

2. Tangents Must Go

As I mentioned above, my first “novel” had a TON of tangents.  There was a cringe-worthy sequence where my trio of main characters went off and discovered a new species of weasel that were rainbow colored just … because???  They could???

 

As I said, it was very self-indulgent.  

And it was painfully evident, re-reading it, that it did. not. work.  It didn’t matter, it was a dumb stand-in for conflict, it wasn’t interesting, and it contributed nothing to the plot, such as it was.  

Bottom line; tangents--by which I mean, tangents that contribute no value or actively detract from the audience’s understanding or enjoyment of a piece--have no place in your novel.  In your first draft, sure, stick in as many tangents as you want, they may turn out to have little pockets of information or entertainment you could later rework into something saleable, but when you go back to edit, cut that shit down.  Hack the jungle down to a garden and breathe deep the fruits of your labors.

Then choke, because you can’t breathe fruit.  Why were you trying to breathe fruit?  Who do you think you are, Fruit-Breathing Man?

3. Daydreaming isn’t the best way to write a book

Again; I was basically day-dreaming when nine-year-old-me wrote this.  And I should probably state, if it wasn’t clear already, that while I’m posting this for the education of all, this post is primarily a letter to kid me about what she could have done better.  

Namely, written a fucking BOOK instead of an IMAGINATIVE DIARY.

Little me had a lot of passion, but she was thin on the execution.  (Don’t worry, she’ll learn ;) )

4. Demonizing childhood bullies isn’t a recipe for a compelling villain

Honey, this is a lesson we all have to learn someday, and you’re learning it *checks watch* ten years ago.  You may have some unresolved issues with the kids that are bullying you right now, and demonizing them in writing can be cathartic, but if you want this book to be great, you need a better villain than a strawman.

Your villains have to be every bit as three dimensional as your protagonists; they need to have realistic reasons for having the goals they do; they need motivation, and even if their goal is to use a dragon to kill someone because they just don’t like her, they need to have a reason not to like her in the first place.  It doesn’t have to be the character’s fault (though it’s often more interesting a story if it is), but the villain needs to be able to see it that way.  

Every character is the protagonist of their own story; find the ways that your villains are the protagonists of theirs.

5. Paragraph usage

This is one thing that school never taught me, which I thank my eldest brother for.  One day, as I was typing away, he stopped behind me, reading over my shoulder, and gave me a piece of advice that forever changed the way I write.

“Include a new paragraph every time a new character speaks.”

And then he disappeared in a puff of dragon smoke and blood-orange incense, never to be seen again until dinner.  

It’s a very simple thing, so obvious a rule that schools don’t even bother telling you to do it (because they teach technical writing, so they don’t bother thinking about what the conventions of creative writing are until you’re already expected to know them all), so I see a lot of young writers making the same mistake.

So.  Every time a new character speaks; new paragraph.  It makes it so much easier to keep track of who’s saying what.  Trust me, you’ll love it.  And so will your readers. :)

In Defense of ReaderX

     You may or may not know what I'm talking about with the title there.

     To start, some of you may have read my ode to fanfiction sometime back, in which I espoused the joys and even intimated the necessities of the craft.  Fanfiction is in my heart and soul and there's pretty much literally no downside; it allows fans of a work to express their love for it, critique its flaws, play around in the sandbox that was left to them, and even advertises the original work--there's more than one story/webcomic/movie I've read/watched/consumed primarily because my friends were writing fanfiction about it.

     Of course, fanfiction, like all fiction, has its downsides, like the dreaded (or maybe overblown?) Mary Sue character that wrankles everyone's hides, or the inevitable kinky stories that come about, inspiring nosebleeds and squick in roughly equal measure.  But perhaps most divisive, and extremely unique to the fanfiction genre (medium?) are ReaderX stories.

     These are stories that are typically told in the second person (the "you" form), and insert the reader as a character into the world of the story (or often an AU), as a potential love interest or current paramour to one or more of the characters within.  Occasionally these stories are told in a platonic sense, the Reader just hanging out with their best buds or going on an adventure, but it's usually romantic and often sexual.

     These types of stories take Mary Sue to the next level--Mega Sue perhaps?  MarySuetron?  Sailor Maryoon?--and don't even try to disguise the self-insert into the narrative; it is blatantly and purposefully an adventure of wish-fulfillment in romance land, often poorly written and more than a little clunky in execution.  This is largely because these types of stories are usually written by young (usually teen or preteen), inexperienced writers still trying to get a feel for how to write a story in general.  To compound the issue, that very phenomena creates an echo chamber of young, inexperienced writers with very few solid examples of how to pull off certain techniques which are in actuality quite advanced--the very idea of a ReaderX, while an old tradition, is still experimental, seldom done, and more extremely seldom done well.  How often have you seen someone write well just in the second person?

     R.L. Stine, Andrew Hussie, and a few fanfiction writers are the only examples I can think of.  Then you add an attempt to actually make it about the audience member sitting at home--not just a character which the audience member assumes the shape of in the telling--and it becomes a thousand times more complex.

     But many are still enjoyable despite the clunkiness, and some are even excellent in quality!  Like any other genre of fiction, there's a whole spectrum of quality.

     And yet, regardless of the quality of any individual piece, the ReaderX is a genre which is extremely polarizing; it seems like you either love it (in which case you consume and produce it voraciously) or you absolutely detest it, in which case you either distance yourself from it or make it part of your life's work to shit on it.

     To be clear, there are a lot of very valid reasons for people to hate the genre; some people don't care for second person, some people can't separate certain conventions of the genre from the potential that lies beneath, some people just don't care for it, and that's fine.  I'm not writing this to insist that everyone love ReaderX stories; what I am doing is entreating you to listen, open your mind, and allow me to make my case in their defense--and thereby, in the defense of those who write and read ReaderX.

   
     There's this thing that's very prevalent in the fanfiction community in which people are unable (or unwilling) to separate a fictional work from its author, so when something bothers someone they take it out on the person who wrote the piece.  Sometimes this is rooted in validity--when an author writes something that very clearly promotes queerphobia, misogyny, or racism, for instance, the desire to correct them stems from a good place, and is usually the right thing to do.

     But often the issue isn't with the author at all--the reader just doesn't like the genre of the fic, or the way it's written, or something about it squicks them, and instead of just saying, "I don't like this" or trying to give the author constructive criticism, they take it out on the author for having the audacity to write something so atrocious, how dare they, and they lump anyone and everyone who writes in that genre into this category of HORRIBLE BAD EVIL and toss them in the public fires of shame.

     Again, there's nothing wrong with not liking something!  But publicly shaming an entire group of people for the things they like to read and write isn't a solution to the problem; the solution is to not look that thing up.  Put it on Tumblr Blacklist, read the tags or summary before you dive in, and avoid it if you know you don't like it; don't beat kids up for liking something.  Because that's what you're doing, in this specific instance; beating up kids.

     ReaderX fics are silly, self-indulgent, are often poorly written, contain too little substance, and can on occasion develop their own cultish subfollowings that are breeding grounds for toxicity (like any and every work of literature that has ever existed), and they're difficult at times to take seriously. but they aren't meant to be taken seriously!

     In my experience, ReaderX fics are written and read by preteen and teenage girls that are absorbed in a fictional work to the exclusion of social lives they probably didn't have to begin with.  They have crushes on the fictional characters in a given work--as many people of all ages, sexes, and sexualities do--and they want to explore that attraction in the only place possible; fiction.  There's no chance that they'll ever meet these characters in real life, let alone have a relationship with them, and they know that.  They're not deluding themselves into thinking that the laws of reality will bend so they can smooch APH Germany or go superhero hunting with Megamind.

     The kids who wind up deeply entrenched in ReaderX culture are often depressed and isolated.  They're the type of person who has always retreated to fiction because the real world didn't want them, and all they want is to be wanted; they need that outlet, those twenty minutes of smiling as they pretend that this person they've attached themselves to cares about them.  It's no different from pretending that you're your favorite character as you read a book, except the story in question was specifically written with that in mind.

     To kids like this, ReaderX stories can be very therapeutic.  It's like daydreaming on paper, but sharing that daydream in such a way that others can experience it too, exposing themselves to daydream scenarios that they never would have thought up by themselves while simultaneously allowing themselves to step outside their own heads.  

      As one of those kids myself, ReaderX stories helped me survive depression.  It definitely wasn't the prevailing reason that I lived through it, but it helped; in the seven and a half years during which my depression was at its worst, I probably put in enough hours reading ReaderXes to fill up at least a month.  ReaderXes allowed me to leap into the head of a blank template that had friends that loved her and a romantic interest that valued her, and because it didn't just happen in my head, like a daydream, I wasn't beholden to all the things my brain insisted were Cold Hard Fact--the "you're unloveable"s, the "this is stupid"s, the "everyone hates you"s that often made daydreams unsustainable and entirely unsatisfying.

     Even if a kid isn't depressed and has no mental health issues, if they're just a perfectly healthy child with an active imagination and they want to indulge themselves in a fluffy adventure of which they're the central figure, so what?  It's as healthy as daydreaming, and more productive, since any writing at all is practice in story-telling and reading can teach a great many things (even if it's just what not to do).

     Actually, it may be healthier than daydreaming, which has been linked to Alzheimer's; daydreaming can cause false memory paths to be created which go nowhere--they trail off and wither, taking up space in the brain.  At least if it's written down, it has a basis in the concrete world, and when read it's neurologically no different from reading a short story.

     Reading and writing ReaderXes is really no different from playing pretend as a child and trying to save the princess from the tower, though admittedly it is a less physically active pursuit.

     Are ReaderXes the pinnacle of literature?  Hell no!  But there's nothing wrong with them, and I think it's time we stopped acting like there was.  More to the point, it's time we stopped acting like there's something wrong with reading or writing them.  When you attack someone for reading/writing something you don't like, you're telling them that it's not all right to like that thing, and in my experience the kids who revel in self-indulgent literature are the ones who are most likely to believe you when you badmouth them.  Saying they're shitty isn't revealing new information, you're just reinforcing what they already believe about themselves, and shoving them deeper into the very mindset that made many of them flee to self-inserts in the first place.

     I mean for Christ's sakes, just let kids be kids!  The act of enjoying a story about themselves isn't hurting you, or anyone else for that matter.  You liked ridiculous stuff when you were that age, too, and no matter how far you try to run, you'll never be able to escape that; nor should you.  Interest in things that seem silly or unproductive is nothing to be ashamed of; we're all human, and we all like to indulge ourselves from time to time.

     So next time you're thinking about tearing someone down for reading or writing ReaderX fanfiction, type "Reader/[your favorite character]" into AO3 and see if you still hate them when you're done.

     Or better yet, just don't.  Keep your complaints to the fics themselves if you have to, and away from the people who write them.  Otherwise you might have to put up with me *cracks knuckles* Tourette's Girl, protector of outcast children everywhere!

     (But seriously guys, being mean to kids isn't cool and it doesn't make you "edgy" or anti-establishment; it just makes you a bully.  Grow up.  Learn to separate the wrongs of an author from flaws in their artwork.)

Maggie C's 7 Commandments For Writing Diversity

     White cisheteronormative wealthy able-bodied, neurotypical males; we all know how to write 'em and they're not hard.  They're literally the most vanilla character to write and read about, and yet we keep cranking 'em out like they're Mountain Dew and we're Bros and/or emotional teenagers dealing with their problems by self-medicating with sugary beverages in an effort to not completely destroy themselves while they self-destruct.
     And I get it.  Writing diverse characters is a scary prospect.  It's not as difficult as we make it seem when we talk about it--it's work, yes, but it's not like you're driving screw drivers into your eyeballs in an effort to excise your spleen.  You're writing about a person.  And writing about people is kind of your job, friend.
     I don't pretend to have all the answers.  I'm an eighteen-year-old with no current profession pursuing an education and career in the arts.  What I have to offer are my own life experiences, the research I've done, and fifteen or so years of experience writing fiction.  I'm not perfect, and I can only do so much.
     But diversity in fiction is important to me.  It's supposed to be the goal of an artist to reflect real life, to, as Shakespeare hath proclaimed, "hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
     Modern art doesn't even reflect half of the human experience.  It's white-washed and full of narratives about the wealthy and/or middle class, usually about men trying to succeed and/or get their dicks wet.  When women are included, it's usually as props, or as thin paper creatures that don't really know what they want until a man comes and tells her; when LGBTQ characters are involved, it's usually G, sometimes L, and the entire narrative typically revolves around how difficult it is to be queer, or else they become a stereotypical gag; when a person of color is included, they usually have few speaking lines, or are also stereotypes; when a person with disabilities is included, it's either a cure narrative or an acceptance narrative or a pity-me narrative, and they're usually a stereotype.  By and large, diverse fiction these days is largely made up of stereotypes people pass off as characters to try and reach some sort of quota, and it's not good enough.
     I've been writing fiction featuring diverse protagonists since I was eleven.  I've learned a lot, I've unlearned a lot, I've done a lot of research, I've done a lot of research that negated that research, I've done a lot of researched that negated the negation of that research--and I've come to develop a personal code to write by, compiled here for the first time ever.
     Maggie's Laws of Fiction Diversification:

6.  Thou Shalt Never Assume That You Know Everything: Do Your Research

     Never assume that you're qualified to write a story about someone or something you don't fully understand.  Even if you think you understand it, do some research; trust me, you'll benefit.  Find some surveys, get books out at the library, read articles online, binge relevant tv shows on Netflix, spend hours scanning relevant pages on Wikipedia and eye-guzzling related tropes on tvtropes; the more you can take in, the better equipped you'll be, and the closer to the source these things are, the better.
     Read articles straight people write about the gay experience, sure, that'll help you write relationships between gay and straight people, but always give more credence to first-person reports, because in the end, no one knows something as well as the one who's lived it.  Abled people can totally understand and sympathize with disabled experiences--they just usually don't, and they'll never be as intimately familiar with the teeter-totter of acceptance and resentment, or societal stigma, or the physical/emotional sensations as someone who's lived it.  Any source is valuable, if only because it gives you some idea of how different people see the issue in question, but some are more credible than others.
     And no, that stuff you learned in school about the Civil Rights movement is not enough; I could go on forever about subpar nature of the public school system, but suffice it to say you have an internet, so use it.

5.  Thou Shall Ask Questions; Get Involved

     Routinely ask yourself questions as you write; is this respectful?  Is this accurate?  Does my research support this?  What do other people think?  Is this portrayal stereotypical?  Is this stereotype justifiable, or would people take offense?  Don't be afraid to reach out to people who know what they're talking about and ask questions or contribute to discussion; follow @WeNeedDiverseBooks on Twitter, or keep an eye out for the #DisChat tag, follow authors that frequently discuss life as a marginalized person, and don't be afraid to DM someone from an advice blog or an advocate who welcomes questions (such as myself).

4.  Thou Shall Get Betas

     Okay, so you did a great job, you used your research, you asked questions, that's wonderful; now get Betas that belong to the groups you've casted your characters into.  You protagonist is a black paraplegic?  You should have both black and disabled CPs/Betas, paraplegic if at all possible.  You may not be able to find a beta or CP for every demographic you cover, but the closer you can get, the better--and absolutely do not assume that you don't need this step.  You can do all the research, avoid stereotypes like the plague, and still make a mistake--it could be something simple and stupid, a mistranslation of a language you don't really speak, you used the name of the wrong tribe, you used a term or grammatical structure that only seems offensive to the people to whom it would actually refer.
     There are a lot of things you can get wrong and never realize, and a lot of other people might not realize either--which is why it's important to fix them before your MS goes anywhere near print.  Just because most people won't notice doesn't mean it's okay not to fix it.
     Make sure the right people are betaing your work.

3.  You Will Get It Wrong

     It's inevitable.  No matter how much you rake over that MS with a fine-toothed comb, you're gonna fuck it up somewhere along the line.  It's inevitable.  That's why we have CPs and Betas and Editors and Agents and more Editors and Publishers and more Editors; humans err.  That's kind of our thing, and it's to be expected.
     You're gonna fuck up.  Just like I fucked up the 10 Commandments theme right here right now.  That's life.  Sometimes you screw the pooch.
     Don't let it get to you.  Don't let it scare you.  Every mistake is something to learn from, a lesson you needed but just got a little late, and it's okay.  As long as you don't close yourself off and insist that you're infallible, things will be okay; you'll figure out where you went wrong, apologize to whoever you offended, and get it right the next time.
     Also:  If you've done the research and you did your best, anyone who screams at you for making a mistake isn't worth your time.  Listen to the people who critique your work, but don't bother trying to please everybody because

2.  Someone Will Always Be Offended

     There was that "Trans-Ginger" episode of South Park a while back that stirred up quite a controversy; I knew a lot of trans people who were really pissed off about it, but I also knew some who were really pleased with the way it turned out.  Likewise, I'm sure there were people who were offended by the South Park episode featuring Tourette's, but I personally have found it to be the most accurate depiction on television I've ever seen.
     I've also seen a number of cases where people were offended by someone's story only for it to come out that the experiences of the marginalized character were based off of the experiences of the like-marginalized author.  Actually, that one's not uncommon--I can't tell you how many times I've seen long, drawn-out arguments on Twitter break out because so many people don't want to hear autistic stories written by autistic authors.
     Point is: there's always going to be someone who likes what you write, no matter how terrible, and no matter how factually and emotionally accurate, there will always be someone who takes offense.  You can't let it get to you.  Consider the reactions of your audience, take them into consideration, ask yourself if you could have done better, but if you honestly wouldn't change a thing?  Don't sweat it.
     I, for one, fully expect people to be offended by the way I write characters based off myself.  I certainly won't like it, but I expect it.  That's how the internet often works these days.

1.  Everyone is human

     As I see it, this is the most important thing to remember when writing diversity--no matter who they are, no matter what they look like, no matter where they come from or what their motivations or limitations are, this character you've chosen to create is a human being.  They have thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams; they are three dimensional, with hobbies and passions and friends and complex relationships with those friends or families and hopes and dreams; they're the best at something, they're the worst at something, they're decent at some stuff, they're bad at other stuff, they have things they do for profit and things they do for others and things they do just because it makes them happy, they have virtues and vices, talking points and flaws.
     Your characters are not just what makes them diverse, and forming their entire arc around that one (or those multiple) thing(s) is a failure on your part as a writer to impart life into your character.
     Before anything and everything else, I make sure that my characters are three dimensional; the rest will follow.  People are people are people are people, and that's what it all comes down to.  You might get things wrong--your research might be from the wrong sources, you might have conflated two groups on accident, you might have played into stereotypes without realizing it, and if that's so, you fix it--if you can--and apologize and learn from that mistake; you make better decisions next time.  But at least you'll know that you created something real.  Maybe not perfect, maybe not fully accurate, maybe not what everyone wanted!  But you didn't steal away anyone's humanity in the process.

0.  Do No Harm

     I don't do stereotypes; I don't half-ass my research; I don't pin "types" into certain categories, and I try my damnedest to make sure that I'm not accidentally demonizing diversity (and since I have a soft spot for writing objectively terrible, immoral, and amoral protagonists, I have my work cut out for me) or giving in to harmful tropes and plots.
     As writers, we have an obligation to be honest and hard-working, well-researched and goodwilled, because artists determine the fate of mankind.  That may seem a little overdramatic, and maybe it is, but who would you say has been most influential to you over the course of your life?  After your parents (for good or for ill) and possibly your siblings or extended kin, it's probably an artist--a writer, a movie-star, a photographer, a director, a comedian.  Artists have immense power in this world--we are the voices children are listening to, we are the modern philosophers.  Science teaches kids the how and the what; we deal with the whys.
     Doctors and psychologists take an oath to Do No Harm, and it's my firm belief that it's our job to do the same.  We can't promise we won't accidentally do harm, but we should strive, at all times, to make sure we aren't making life hard for ourselves, our kith, our kin.
     Art is exceedingly influential, and we should never use that influence for evil.

#SueQuest: Questioning The Validity of Mary Sue

     The other day, trying to find a control to use for The Mary Sue Litmus Test (for the sake of a blog post, you see), I asked my friend Rebekah if I could use her, thinking that she, a real person, couldn't possibly test positive for Mary Sue.  I started asking questions, and Rebekah and I ended up turning it into something of a game, then into a livetweet session, which we lovingly entitled #SueQuest. 

     But the more questions we answered, the more it seemed like my friend truly was a Mary Sue--something straight out of a bad high school drama, almost.  Even with a metric fuckload of desuifers, she ended up scoring a forty-five--five points away from "BURN IT AND RUN!" territory!

     It seemed hilarious, of course, but it really got me thinking.  Thus, I tested myself--and I also came out a Mary Sue, with 43 points of Sueness!   And this is without answering any of the "Is this character named after you?" type questions.  In fact, the only person I tested who didn't end up a Mary Sue was my dog, Amy--and she still had 27 points, placing her in the "be very careful" range.
 

She is little more than a very tiny bug.

     I'm not about to say that this means anything--certainly not anything concerning Syera Miktayee, whose website I enjoy and frequent quite...um....frequent...ly.  Shut up.  It's not like it's just this one test--Rebekah and I came up a Mary Sue on every test I could find.

     But it does remind me of a few posts by the women down at Rewriting Mary Sue, and some points that have been made--how the term Mary Sue began as a term for bad fanfiction author inserts who bent the entire fabric of the universe to their whim so that things would turn out well for them; for whom there was never any question of winning, for whom the best always occurred, the worst flitting through only briefly, trivially, and with great contrivance; but how it has now come to mean any character who happens to have too much power or be too good at too many things--and the fact that the term is disproportionately leveled against females.

     As Jenn Lyons pointed out in one of the above links, male characters have to be so Mary Sue that they're freaking SUPERMAN before anyone will call them a Mary Sue--or Gary Stu, if you prefer the more masculine term.  When a man is Batman, he's Batman; when a woman is Batman, she tends to get slapped with a citation.

     One of our goals as writers is to create realistic, three dimensional characters that still manage to be out-of-this-world fantastic--most of us don't read superhero stories to see how regular "normal" people are processing the events.  We read superhero stories to watch people with amazing abilities overcome impossible odds using their incredible talents!

     But how can we ever expect to see realistic, three-dimensional characters if two American teenagers from the real world (without superpowers, I might add) register as Mary Sue right off the bat?  I definitely agree that characters who bend the world to their whims are a problem, as are overpowered, unflawed characters (though the term for this, I was originally taught, is God-Modded), but I think this is something definitely worth considering the next time you decide to trash a Mary Sue.  Do you have a problem with this character because she doesn't have realistic flaws, because she makes things stop making sense?  Or do you dislike her because you think she's too smart and too beautiful and too talented all at the same time?  There's an expectation in society that women are to be only one or two of these, never three, and never, ever any more than that.

     If you're ever in doubt, play the sex-swap game; if you make this character a man, do you have the same reaction?  If you compared her to a male superhero, how does she rank?  Is she really as bad as Superman?  Or are you just upset that this portrayal of a woman is going against the grain of the stereotypes you've been taught to separate them into?

     I encourage you all to play the #SueQuest game; test yourself, your friends, your family--just don't forget to tag it if you do, so I can see what your outcomes are!  What are your thoughts on Mary Sues?  Feel free to discuss your Sue Views or deconstruct some characters in the comments section!

A List of Things People Will Say to you When you Have Tourette's

     I love it when people ask me questions about my disorders.  After all, Tourette's and Fibromyalgia aren't exactly common, and I know how important it is to teach people about such things--if you destroy ignorance today, it could save a life tomorrow.

     So when people work up the courage to ask about how things work or feel, I'm almost always thrilled!  I love teaching, I love learning, and I love open, fearless discussions about the realities of life, peeling back the layers of stigma and ignorance that do nothing but fester when left opaque and undiscussed.  Transparency, in this case, is a good thing.

     But there are certain things that are said to someone with Tourette's that don't fill me with the warm fuzzies, things which are best left unsaid.  While I'm glad that I was able to address some of the things that have been said to me before they reached the ears of anyone else in the same boat, I'd appreciate it if anyone reading this didn't make the same mistake--unless, of course, you put them in the mouths of your characters, in which case it might add a touch of realism to the story.

• "What's that disease you have?  Can I catch it?  Is it safe to drink this?"
   

       Tourette's is NOT a disease.  It's a Syndrome, a disorder, a disability, but it's not a disease or an illness, a virus or bacteria or infection.  It cannot be caught or contracted, and the worst you'll catch if you drink from my water bottle is probably a sore throat.  

  
  

   

• "Have you tried medication?"
  
  

       Yes, actually, I have.  But as I've mentioned in other posts, due to low visibility and nil fatality there aren't any medications designed specifically for Tourette's Syndrome; the best you'll find are seizure medications, many of which can be very cognitively suppressant and/or harmful to your heart.  Clonidine is just about the only medication that does neither, but it's used primarily to treat ADHD, and didn't help me at all.

       The problem with this question is multifaceted; firstly, it implies that neither I, nor my family, nor the myriad of doctors I've been to have ever considered looking into medication.  Unless you're a homeopath, trust me when I say that medication is the first thing you think about when you're diagnosed--sometimes before you're diagnosed!  The better question would be "Does medication work?," the answer to which would be no, most of the time it doesn't.
  
       The second problem with this question is that it implies that medication is necessary.  For something like Tourette's, medication can sometimes help manage tics, yes, and if you have very severe tics or a particularly misunderstanding set of peers it can put you in a much greater sense of comfort.  But because it isn't deadly, there isn't a driving need to use it if you don't want it, and most people who ask this don't really care about the comfort of the afflicted individual--they care more for their own comfort and sense of worldly normalcy.
  
• "Can't they put you in a coma?"

       People have said this to me.  Please, take a second to think about this; human beings have approached me, called me by name, and very openly and genuinely asked me if (or told me that) a medically-induced coma could be a solution.  I honestly don't know where this comes from--what would that solve?  What would it change?  I think it just links back to the prioritizing of one's own comfort above the comfort of the afflicted individual, but to a new kind of extreme--imagine if you started coughing and someone came up and told you that your cough was so annoying that you needed to be locked in a closet for an indefinite period of time.  Yeah.  Not a great feeling.  

• "I wish I had Tourette's!"

      No.  No you don't.  You really, really don't.  You don't want the stares you'll get in public, or the ableist comments from your peers, the cruel nicknames people think are funny, or the way half the population doesn't even believe that what you have is real.  You don't want the loss of bodily autonomy or the mental illnesses that usually come hand-in-hand, and you absolutely do not want to be yelled at by police officers in the driving rain, or teachers who tell you you're lying when you try to explain yourself, or substitutes that were never told about your condition.

       You just really don't want this, so don't act like you do.  I know you mean well, but you clearly have not thought this through.

• "If I had Tourette's I'd swear all the time!"
  
       Well yes, maybe you would.  Or maybe you wouldn't have coprolalia at all, like ninety percent of people with Tourette's Syndrome.
  
       I'm also often asked if I ever swear on purpose and use my Tourette's as an excuse, and the answer is always no.  Yes, I swear, and yeah, having coprolalia has made me pretty callous about it--if I'd continued to care about it after it started I'd be in a pretty bad place, so the best thing for my own mental health was to embrace the practice and take a little control back.
  
       But never once have I used my Tourette's to excuse my own words.  When you have Tourette's, there's a separation that happens in your mind.  You delineate between "Me" and "It;"  Me and It are always battling for control over mouth and body, and you feel the need to protect the Me, to take credit where credit is due.  You learn not to feel pride or shame for what It does, and instead focus your energies on how Me functions.
  
       I cannot control it when It swears at my teachers, but I CAN control it when Me swears at teachers, so Me keeps its mouth shut where applicable; I've had tics that keep me from talking and tics that keep me talking, so when dealing with Tourette's silence is as much a weapon as speech.
  
• "You're just faking."
  
       Also, see; "Tourette's is fake" and "Stop it anyway" and "No you don't" for varying degrees of ableism.
  
       This is one of the worst things you can say to someone with Tourette's--or any disorder, disability, or illness, really. With Tourette's it often connects to the comments above--people are only faking so they can swear, after all, never mind that tons of children are injured by or beat up for tics every day that have nothing to do with cursing.  Tourette's is hell enough without the disbelief that accompanies it.
  
       I've also been told stories about kids that were faking it, like it hurts my case to have someone else screw up--not that I know they screwed up in the first place.  The story I best remember is one in which my sister-in-law's stepfather walked in on some of his students talking about how "awesome" it was they got to swear in class, at which point he told them that if they ever swore in his class again they'd see their comeuppance.
  
       My question, of course, is how does he know they weren't just trying to make the best of a bad situation?  That's kind of the status quo of the disabled.  "Look at this awful thing I have to deal with!" we say, and everyone says "Shut the fuck up you whining loser!"  "Well I guess at least I don't have to do gym anymore," we mumble, curling up into a ball.

• "You don't know what it's like to lose control of your life!"
  
  
       Of all the things that people have said to me over the years, I think this one is probably the one that pissed me off the most.  A girl I had known for years turned to me in the lunch line and said this to my face.  
  
       No, I don't know what it's like to lose control of your life.  I mean, I can't control what my arms and legs do, I never know what my mouth is going to do next, my emotions might as well be tied to the movements of the Earth around the sun and the moon around the Earth, I had to give up almost half my personality in response to and in order to cope with my disorders, and for two years I had to give up my personal passions because it was too exhausting to try to juggle Tourette's, Fibro, and plays, but yeah, no, I have no idea what it's like to lose control over my life.  None whatsoever.
  
       Never fucking say this to anyone with a disorder.  Never.  
  
  
  
  
       So there's a list of a few things people might say to you when you have Tourette's.  If any of my fellow Tiquers have anything they'd like to add or share, or if anyone has any questions, feel free to comment!   I'd love to hear your stories and answer your questions.
  
       If there's anything you've thought about saying to someone you know or any questions you've thought about asking, and you aren't 100% certain that it's appropriate to ask them, don't be afraid to send me a message instead, especially if the two of you aren't that close, and I'll try to be gentle with you no matter the outcome.  I'm not trying to dissuade you from sating your curiosity, but I am trying to protect other Tiquers from the damages of thoughtlessness and ignorance.