It always irks me when the hero is outraged when his love interest is sexually harassed or assaulted, but doesn't seem to care if it happens to any other women in the vicinity. She shouldn't get special treatment just because of their relationship.
I can see it kinda working where the "protagonist" is a villain like Conn Iggulden's Conqueror series or where it's a more tribal mindset but even then it'd have to be stressed that the attitude is either due to the character being a villain/sociopathic or it due to the standards of a time and place that aren't ours.
To me, that always reads as possessiveness rather than protectiveness. The dude is like, “All the other sloots at this bar WANT random guys pawing at them, but I’M the only one allowed to paw at MY lady (who may or may not realize I’ve claimed her yet).” It’s not an insult to HER if someone else harrasses her; it’s an insult to HIM because she’s his. 🙄🙄🙄
It's even more irritating when he himself sexually harassed her before they started dating, or if he did it to other women before he met his love interest.
@@ReturnToSenderz Well I mean it makes sense considering that people generally mostly care about stuff effecting them. Like, you are more likely to risk your skin for someone you give a damn about. However, there shouldn't be a glaring difference between a romantic partner and platonic friend.
I've seen it done almost right once. Millennia old creature so there's maybe 10 individuals in existence who aren't way too young for him, he finds his soulmate and sees a teenager, and his though process is "welp, I can wait, but I'm not banging a child"
"It's called grooming." and Vampire the Mascarade doesn't shy away from admitting that. It's kind of the point, really. (talking about Sire and Childer, not about the romance)
I remember reading a book when I was a kid where a couple of actors performing Shakespeare suggested in the middle of an onstage swordfight that they change the choreography, resulting in the death of one of them. Even at the age of ten, I remember thinking, "This guy doesn't have a clue how theater works."
Regarding pregnancy, my wife actually enjoyed being pregnant and she's been missing it since. The last few weeks or so were a tad more difficult and the labour was hellish and stressful, but she's got only good memories of the first eight months. She did not feel any nausea or pain. But yeah she's an exception and her friends envy her.
My first pregnancy was the same! I loved being pregnant! Then my second pregnancy was absolutely godawful from start to finish, so… it really can vary. 😆
Another tip I'd add, if you're a non-US writer with your story set in the US (and your character is also a US person), you must learn the common-use terms we use. Goes the same for US writers who want to write a foreign-based character in a foreign country. You must entrance yourself in that culture to understand its nuances. And modern language in historical fiction is another one of those things that I roll my eyes at. Like modern songs played on a violin during a Bridgerton episode. GROAN!! It's like they forgot there was period music--play that!
I agree with first part completely. And I'll add that if author decides to write character from specific country/culture they should at minimum put an effort to give character right name. It's my pet peeve - too many authors think that they can "invent" name that will fit into other culture but what they achieve is butchered monstrosity. If one wants realistic name it's quite simple - go to some babynaming site, select country and check statistic for 20 or 100 most popular names in the year your character was born. And ffs please do not confuse surnames with first names, please. In defense of Bridgerton it's not technically period drama, it's period-inspired drama. Just like Knight's Tale and Marie Antoinette(2006) it's not historically acurate or not even tries to be. It's meant to give specific vibe that can be easily understand by modern viewer. I kind of treat these period-inspired movies/dramas as (sometimes very)loose translations :)
i disagree to an extent about making language historically accurate. could you imagine writing a book set in say the viking age and using the language they would have spoken in? i’m not saying you have to have a regency character saying hey dude but language does get modernized to some extent to be accessible and entertaining
Ooooh, the one with the language is something I'm really scared of. I'm Hungarian and my novel will be played in the late Victorian Britain. I'm planning on translating my work to English (and Spanish, my third language) so obviously I still have a lot to learn. There are two ways I'd use to avoid making this mistake: 1) I'll read some books (in all three languages) from that time period to get the vibes and style of the era 2) I'll try to get someone whose native language is English to read it before I publish (if possible, someone British since the story is set mainly in Scotland and a bit in England). I have some American friends and even family members but even though they are lovely people I don't think my book is for them so I guess I'll have to keep searching.
I wrote a piece of shit script back in high school where the man was a middle aged widower and the love interest (kinda sorta) was a centuries old witch who looked eternally teenaged. They both agreed that it would never work.
Lol. My POS script in high school was chock full of tropes, cliches, and excessive lore dumps. Scrapped the whole thing but I later did a short story where the main couple goes on a trip to Earth and eats Burger King while talking smack about the lack of magical duels in politics.
So basically even as a teenager you realized this kind of relationship was not such a good idea. Good for you, you had better reasoning skills than some adults, apparently.
Definitely agree with most points. I will say though that as an actual woman who is 4'11" at 28 years old. It's frustrating to think that a character like me couldn't exist without being infantilized or that any man who may be sexually attracted to me falls into the default predator category. I'd say it's perfectly okay to have a romantic female lead who is petite, because you know, those women do exist. Personally, I find it far more gross when an adult woman acts childish and is then sexualized as opposed to how tall/full figured she may or may not be.
I only disagree with one thing in this video. The part about the person being excited for the date to the Macaroni Grill isn't super inaccurate for people from extreme poverty. I remember the first time I was taken to Applebees, and I thought it was a Ritz. I need to clarify that this event was NOT a romantic thing, but when I was in the same situation romantically, I still thought it was the sweetest thing ever. At the time, a meal costing more than 99 cents was a luxury, so the idea that someone appreciated me enough to treat me to a meal costing more money than I spent on food in a month. I teach a lot of kids that come from the same background as me, and being taken to any restaurant is a life-changing event for them, which is consistent with my personal experience. I don't know the exact case that is being referenced in this video though, so I'm sure that you're correct about that one. Not related, but the reason I became a teacher is partly because of that teacher that treated me to Applebees after a physics event.
Agreed. Olive Garden is expensive to me. I've been taken to a grand total of TWO restaurants that had anything on the menu over $30 a plate, and I was uncomfortable the entire time. The first time was a friend that showed up to support another friend for her divorce and wound up being asked to watch the kid (and said friend had ZERO experience with kids). She panic-called me, and took me out to lunch at some Italian place the next day as a 'thank you for the save'. The second time was actually just last month, and was dinner with my husband and one of his co-workers, out with their boss. We'd been eyeing the place we wound up going to...and I don't think we'll be going there again. They specialized in steak, and I nearly had a heart attack looking at the menu. 😭
But you just explained it. You told us why a character might be impressed with a chain restaurant at the mall. That is completely different from just dropping it into a book without justification.
@@robertawalsh2995 Like I said in my response, I don't know the specific case Moreci is mentioning in this video; however, a character being poor is enough information to justify that reaction. That may be because of my background in life, and I understand that someone not growing up in abject poverty wouldn't understand that immediately. Given my life, I would not need any extra justification.
That sibling point just reminds me of a point in my books where sibling banter almost causes a war. Some territory got split up among a conqueror's children after said conqueror died, and two of the siblings happened to really dislike their messengers but couldn't fire them for bla bla religious reasons. So they made their messengers constantly go back and forth delivering insults and threats, always knowing the other never meant it, trolling their messengers with constant work. Anyway, one of the siblings got sick and so their advisor, who wanted a war, brought their grandson in. Grandson doesn't know about the trolling of the messengers, thinks they're receiving an actual declaration of war, raises an army. Sibling gets better and manages to prevent a war, but now has the problem of all these fighters having been raised, expecting to be paid for their trouble, and not having the money to pay them because they're usually paid with stuff that's stolen from the places they invade, or using the reparations that failed invaders are forced to pay (plus anything of value stripped from enemy corpses). Advisor is executed and their stuff used to compensate the fighters.
@@Carm9nD I'm making yt videos, a few are out already. Currently working on a bunch about the country/region this happened in. (splitting them up, geography, government, religion, cultures, and maybe a fifth video linking them all together. 2 minute video gets over 500 views. 4 minute one gets less than 50. I do love making the videos and the stories + setting said videos are about but am intent on monetizing said stories + setting so that I can spend more time on them, so while I'd prefer to make a 20 minute video covering it all in one go it's clearly not feasible for my long-term goals).
"Quirky relatable losers" are character types I despise. I think Fry from Futurama is the only character of this type I genuinely like. When I was young and dumb, I loved age gaps. Now it's like, "I grew up, and so did my characters."
Yep. I loved them up to about 30yo, when I realised that it was kind of gross and the relationship I'd been in was far, FAR more abusive than I'd realised as a 20 year old with a 33 year old "boyfriend". Admittedly, I was a LOT more naive then most 20 year olds, because I grew up in a fairly isolated cult and had only been out for about 8 months when he found me... but still. Looking back there's no doubt in my mind that I was being manipulated, used and assaulted. I just had no idea what was happening between my neurodivergence, my upbringing and my past trauma. There's no accident that these stories rarely describe a healthy and well adjusted "barely legal heroine" either. They are always vulnerable/insecure/isolated. Honestly, I could even tolerate a one night stand more than I can tolerate the whole romanticised "fated mates with a literal teenager" these days. It's not romantic, it's grooming. And don't even get me started on the creeper supernatural character "knowing before the child is born that they're made for each other". Ugh 🤢🤢
@@noctoi I do have one sitting in my notes where it's "older guy marries a young bride to give her status and protection above her abusive family, but never consummates the marriage and treats her more like a daughter," but I keep going back and forth on whether or not I want to use it somewhere. On the one hand, it's a platonic middle finger that could easily go into the intricacies of royal politics/intrigue, have some neat plot potential, and somewhat subvert the "creeper marries a teen for nefarious reasons" trope, but on the other hand, there's already the built-in unfortunate implications just with the age gap, and I know someone, somewhere (multiple someones in multiple somewheres XP) would ignore the plot and message of, "this isn't sexy, this is a loophole to platonically protect someone within the confines of this society" and ship them anyway because we can't have nice things.
@@VNightmoon See, this is the kind of age gap relationship I could get behind, because it's protective, platonic and has an actual valid reason. Bonus points if the older partner becomes a mentor figure until the younger party is strong enough to forge their own path, then sets them free to live their own life. I"m all for this. I can imagine a LOT of confusion/backlash if you didn't market it and write the blurb *very* carefully though. And yes, much to the dismay of everyone who *actually* wants to write healthy (non-romantic) scenarios like this, Rule 34 exists and I hate it. It's exhausting.
@@noctoi I have accepted Rule 34 is going to happen no matter what it is. There's Rule 34 of My Little Pony, for fuck's sake. I accept that if I publish, people are going to make platonic relationships anything but. That said, it's definitely 10x trickier when the overall concept is so close to an already problematic trope. It's easier to second guess writing my outlined scenario than, say, a traditional friendship.
I enjoy age gap romances where the lovers are both adults upon meeting. It makes sense, because reasonable adults aren’t interested in high schoolers, and it ensures that both lovers are mature enough to navigate through a relationship. I also like when the expected power dynamic is shifted, like instead of the high powered 50 year old lawyer trying to woo the poor undergrad barista down the street it’s the 25 year old business prodigy falling for the security guard twice their age. I think it makes the story more interesting because the main worry in romances like this, both in fiction and in real life, is the implied power dynamic between old and young lovers.
A friend of mine and I are working on an age gap romance kinda like that. The man is old enough to be his biological daughter’s grandfather, and he’s a semi-poor carpenter who needs a cane to walk. Meanwhile, his love interest is a smoking hot swordswoman in her late thirties who could kick his ass. They’re also exactly one another’s types. She’s a brunette, and he loves brunettes. He’s stout and used to be blonde, and she loves stout blondes. She also helps him slow dance because he needs to lean on something due to his weak left leg.
I like dificult/conflicted romances where the problem is not the peoples actions, but outside of there control factors like an age gap. What I do not like is fetishising it, using the forbidden romance trope to then not make anything with it, things like that. The older or otherwise in a situation of power has to be absolutly aware of that and activlly trying to even out playing field. Like what is the point of writing about incest, if literaly no one in the story cares bout it?! Then just do not!!! Age differences can have so many pitfalls, feeling inadequate, societys expectations, being in different phases of your life and lacking understanding where the other is mindwise or maybe they knew eachother long before and the older struggles like hell nd feels dirt about later finding someone attractiv they had known in a context before, where it would not have been appropriet at all and fearing what people will think about it. Or have the younger be in a position of power of the older to mix it up, truely complex relationships . . .thing of ways to avoid a clear and harmful powerdynamic so if they end up togeather we can be sure it is sane safe and consentual . . . or well, dont and let them not be togeather in the end because of that
I'm currently working on a story with my sis where one of the pairings is a 30 yr old F with a 42 yr old M. She rides horses, he travels, and both of them are equal in magical strength. However, I subscribe to the 'half your age plus 7' rule in literature, so long as both people are above the age of consent. If it's teens, no serious dating before 14, keep it to less than 2 years age difference, and for the love of everything, do not write graphic scenes including anyone under 18. Just- NO.
I like the first trope actually, as long as it is done well. Reading/writing about characters navigating pregnancy has helped me to deal with my own feelings (read: anxiety) on the matter, and overcome the negative stereotypes surrounding pregnancy that I've grown up with (ie. Babies ruin women's lives, and once a woman is pregnant she loses all her agency and identity other than being a "mom."). I would much rather see pregnancy plotlines that deconstruct that notion than to do away with it as a plotline altogether.
I read a book recently, set in the 1600s, where the authors gave a clearly researcher description of the MC picking a pin tumbler lock, which wasn't invented until 1848.
Ah yes... Anachronistic equipment... Right next to armor that is pierced like it's cardboard... protagonists hitting moving targets while running with an old revolver all the while the goons aren't able to hit a garage door standing ten meters away from it with an assault rifle... I guess it's expectations gained by equally inaccurate movies... Don't even get me started on the ton of stories that have pathologists doing autopsies for the police! I don't know about other countries, but here in Germany pathologists examine samples of organs and blood and stuff removed in surgery and maybe a rare entire body... Medical examiners are their own distinctly different job. They have completely different training and their own facilities and only use rooms in a hospitals pathology lab in rare cases were it is easy to get a body there than transportation to their institute.
The number of times I looked up "History of ..." to know if that item or that item existed at the time. (Book is set in the Viking age so it's extra fun when there's a debate about whether or not they had access to said technology)
Age gaps lose the ick once both are over their 30s. At least time, experience, and knowing somewhat what emotional maturity is makes things less likely to be a grooming trope
Fake death/resurrection: I find it lazy most of the time. I just watched a movie where, while I’m glad the character is back, why does this character now have this power? If she’s always had it, why is her boyfriend still dead?
it can be pulled off if resurrection has already been established as a possibility or is a main element of the story, and the character isnt already treated like they’re dead
So true!!! It just takes away any impact. Supernatural did this a lot, and eventually it makes the reader (or watcher in this case) not feel as invested
related to #7, a trope i see literally all the time in romance stories is like, the female mc is literally just minding her own business walking down the street or something and all of a sudden some man comes along to try and assault her and then the male love interest steps in to save her out of nowhere and the woman is immediately head over heels for him. like theoretically that's not necessarily a bad thing, he prevented her from being assaulted, but it's always like that's the reason why she loves him, not because of his personality (which is usually sucky) or anything about him, literally just "omg he saved me with his big strong muscles and rippling abs omg he's hot I want to make out with him right now" and then they hook up like two scenes later. And most times I've read this, it's with characters that literally have superpowers that normal people don't, so why did she need to be saved in the first place? like every single time I've seen it, the attacker doesn't have some kryptonite or something to stop the female mc's powers or something, it's just some regular dude. Like you're telling me she can summon water from thin air and create hurricane level rain and massive waves, but she can't use that all of a sudden to save herself? and then like most of the time when the male love interest saves her he doesn't do much more than like tell the attacker off or push him away (or even sometimes "the pure rage behind his eyes was enough to send the attacker running for the hills" like ???? why is this situation, why did you just throw in an almost SA just to bring the male love interest up? and even in stories where previously the mc hated the guy with a burning passion, suddenly her mind just flipped entirely and now it's not even like a "wow omg thank you maybe I was wrong" and then have some internal questioning about him at all or even just take the time to get to actually know him after changing her mind, it's just an instalove with a couple extra steps. or another one I see all the time is slut shaming but "oh it's ok because it's not the mc". Like the main characters will be at a restaurant and half the time they won't even be dating yet and there's a waitress like flirting with or ogling the male love interest and it's written as if it's so disgusting and slutty to do that and oh how dare she look at him like that and ask if he's free later and be a normal person flirting with this guy but then the female mc will say something to the waitress and suddenly the waitress is depicted as super rude to her, and the male love interest will be none the wiser about the situation at all. but then the female mc will do the EXACT same thing and ogle the male love interest and flirt with him the EXACT same way even if they aren't dating yet, so why is it so slutty when the waitress did it but when the female mc does it it's cute and endearing and sexy???? Or another one I've seen a lot is like the male mc is at a strip club with friends and he's looking at all the female strippers and he thinks they're all super slutty and whores and that's such a bad thing and all the guys there are just pervs and the strippers are "basically manipulating" money from them and the money is all they care about (as if that's a bad thing???) but then suddenly he sees the female love interest who's also a stripper and she's so perfect and the way she does it is just so perfect and all the guys suddenly flock to her instead and all the other strippers get angry and huffy but the love interest is just so perfectly shaped and dancing that suddenly it's ok that she does it and suddenly it's not pervy at all for the mc to be ogling her and being horny and thinking really sexual thoughts about all the things he could do to her body, and then out of Everyone there the love interest picks him out of the crowd and decides to give him a free lapdance and a free session in the back and he didn't even tip her at all. like those are both such SPECIFIC situations but I've seen them SO MANY TIMES it's honestly exhausting why do people write this so much, is the double standard not immediately obvious??? and I see other people just eat it up as if that's the pinacle of romance and relationships and respect but it's literally so toxic? i don't see how those relationships end up lasting as long as they do in the story, it's honestly mesmerizing. sorry for the rant, it's just so annoying to see these things so much
I love how obvious it is when a writer doesn't have siblings. My brothers were more likely to walk by and hit me in the shoulder more than saying "hey lil sis!" Lmao
Preach, it just sounds really forced, and if you tried it in real life, you'd get a funny look, and probably a "Yeah, I know how I'm related to you, why bother pointing it out?"
Actually, not always. My sister and I don’t have the kind of relationship you have with your brothers. We’ve always been best friends with the occasional fight. And we definitely greet each other with “hey sis.”
Actually not really, it depends on cultural value. If you have characters from a culture that heavily emphasizes respect to your elders and use of honorifics it makes sense they wouldn’t call their siblings by their name. It’s a stupid to make a broad statement on, just because your relationship with your siblings works that way doesn’t mean writing different dynamics is “invalid” or “inaccurate”.
@@appletart7262 I mean, it's pretty obvious we aren't talking about the few specific cultures that do that. In general, the majority of cultures (especially western, which, lets face it is what we are discussing) do not approach their siblings by acting so formally. It's a criticism lots of writers have received for years, especially in cheesy kids shows like Wizards of Waverly Place or something. I also never claimed it was invalid or inaccurate, so idk why you are misquoting me lmao
My younger brother went through a phase of calling me lil sis when he was like 15 because he was taller than me and that was important for some reason. He eventually cut if out when his friend kept saying I was too pretty to be his sister, he might have cared about height but no-one else did.
My younger brother still counts me his little sister to taunt me lmao. We're both in our mid-twenties but he adores the fact he's now taller and stronger than me
I agree about the world dump. I understand world-building is a massive undertaking, and have so much respect for those who can do that, but when it's all dumped in the book at one time, I can't remember 1/10th of it two chapters later. Also, so glad to see Fictionary mentioned. I use it and LOVE it. Highly recommend it!
I mean, you mentioned a daddy kink for the accidentally pregnancy, but there's such thing as a pregnancy kink, or an impregnation kink. If it's selling, it's someone's kink
If your sibling ever calls you "sis/bro" they want something really bad or did something really bad. Either way it's unsettling and not normal at all lol.
Nothing bad ever happens when my much older sisters call me "bro". It's just rather embarrassing or annoying. Also the fact that two of them are married so I guess they miss me or something.
Btw 18 to early 20s dating an older person is not grooming, and that's a gross and harmful improper use of the term. I had a jealous ex girlfriend tell me when I was 22 that I was groomed by my partner based on age gap alone and went on to make nasty public Twitter posts about it to try and shame me. I've been groomed by an adult family member starting when I was 6 into early 20s where I have had hands put on me when I did not want it. That's what grooming is. My partner has never done something to me that would make me feel uncomfortable. Please educate yourself because you're not helping this issue by regurgitating false information.
Finally someone who actually thinks about those stuff before speaking. I won't be surprised if the only reason Ms. Moreci called such behaviors grooming was simply that she didn't feel good reading about them in books.
Side note: I don't know if this is a quirk of my earbuds but this video, I heard only the voice in my left ear, and the music/sound fx only in my right ear.
Thank you for mentioning the siblings thing! I was wondering what's missing from my stories. And absolutely everyone talks so decently to others, even the villains. I'm the type of person who never finds themselves amidst a quarrel... I s'pose it's time for some research.
The thing with age gaps is it is way way more nuanced. Jenna mentioned how late the brain finishes development and how easy it is to mold someone younger in a harmful way . . . .well, not just an older partner, someone your age and younger as well as fiction can mess you up just as much. Soooo they should be abstinant until then to prevent that? The difference between someone young and dumb fucking you and someone older maybe doing it on purpose, does it matter that much if the result is a mess either way? I am way more worried about the nature of the power dynamic then a number, for that is ultimatly what makes an age difference potentially harmful. It is so easy to stick to a black and white world view but reality does not work that way. It is often not possible to tell how old someone is, there are a lot of ways that can mess with a power dynamic leaving the older one in a position of being more vunerable. Age does not equal experience automaticly, like I got a lot less experience in regards of relationships then many people 10 years younger then me for example and I am not one to shame people for things they have no control over like who they are attracted to, what they do with it though very much, so I am way more concerned with the individual dynamic, then one factor that does not mean as much as people tend to think.
I agree with you, I think, although I always cringe when I see the term "power dynamic". A young woman can twist an older man around her finger, so to speak, because youth and beauty makes for a powerful power dynamic, especially when the older man loves her.
@@retiefgregorovich810 I agree people use the term "power dynamic" too loosely, when young women are perfectly capable of being just as manipulative. This idea is also perpetuated so some women don't have to take responsibility for their regretful decisions.
Fictionary is great, I'm currently editing my novel in it and it's highlighted all my writing bugs. That goes for not describing the settings enough, not using the senses enough, being stuck in my main character's head waaay too much. Those are just the tips of my personal icebergs, but there's so many more...
Early 20s is considered barely legal? At what age are adults allowed to make their own decisions? I'm 25 in a few months. Am I allowed to finally make my own decisions and move around in life? I'm in an age gap relationship with a man who genuinely values what I add to his/our life, and I am happy! I find it silly that one of the biggest complaints in storytelling is female characters not being strong and independent enough, but then we regularly take away young female adults agency and infantilize their mental capacity to make their own decisions. Young adults need life experience to grow. I'm sure Johnny Depp groomed Amber Heard right? Bad tropes can make you close a book, but bad ideas in a video make me pause and click away.
Hun, early 20s is too young for someone who's for example well into their thirties, the amount of people who have their lives figured out enough by the early 20s is massively low, meaning that someone who has about 15 years more than them can have a big change at manipulating said person, yes, technically if we got to extremes, even a 40 year old can technically treat a 17 year old "right", but that's not generally what ends up happening and that's why life stages are more important, and such age gaps are just a set up for toxicity in most scenarios, there's a difference between being empowered and thinking your above any harm.
@@juanmanuelmoramontes3883 This is a year old comment. I’m sorry you feel uncomfortable about adults exercising their freedoms and put a blanket statement over this entire topic. One of the biggest things I’ve learned growing up is there are so many different paths in life that people go through, and many will judge because they can’t see others perspective.
I’m an only child, yet I too cringe at books or tv shows that always have siblings call each other by their relation and barely use their names. Especially in fantasy settings. ‘Sis’ is the worst! All you need is someone to naturally and casually bring up in convo that they are their sister or brother and don’t worry, we CAN remember that!
The last one i was about to write about, lots of straight women write m/m erotica AND IT SHOWS. Please don’t do this lol. Thanks for the video Jenna I love watching the top 10s. Day makers
It seems many of them don't understand the concept of no such thing as a self lubricating asshole. I get irked when I read m/m love scenes where there's 0 prep and only spit for lube. Like, girl, no. Also, ouch
I just finished writing a fanfic story (hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?) where the love interests conceive a child when it was assumed the man was sterile. I honestly wanted to create a tag that read "the birds and the bees DO exist" because I get tired of reading works where the characters are having repeated sexual encounters with nary a fetus in sight 🤔
I think maybe the surprise baby happens in real life and we want to see someone dealing with it better than we are. Like…my husband and I found out we’re having a surprise baby! :D and I’m freaking out! Because we don’t have the space for a third child! It’s nice to read someone else in my circumstance that has it together lol
with no agency comes no responsibility. no need to contemplate and worry about the potential effects of your actions because you have no actions. someone else made that choice for you.
my grandparents had an age gap... mind you, she was thirty and he was sixty, and this was not the first marriage for either of them... yeah. You don't really see that in romance fiction. They always do something awful like 14-40.
Strong disagree about worldbuilding. Minimalistic worldbuilding is a reason to drop a book for me. When it comes to incorrect representation of genders, I just want to add, this works both ways. Same is true for terrible love interests however, as men write toxic, abusive female love interests almost as often, as women write toxic abusive male love interests. And did I hear that right, are male fairies a thing now? (I knew they were in the original mythology, but not in modern fiction).
#2: I read the first two pages of a feelgood written by a male with a female main character. In those first pages the main character is in a hotel room in Italy and undresses in front of a window with the dapes open. Outside, some construction workers see her and encourages her and to her own surprise she enjoys the attention. Gross. That is such a male fantasy, not a female one! It gave me the creeps and I did not buy that book.
Regarding the last point, it reminds me of a reading experience I had. Little bit of context: I'm from Québec but live in England. My brother had bought me for Christmas a signed copy of a novel from his neighbour, a brand new published author. It was set in England and was about the Arthurian legend. The main character was doing a master degree (in medieval literature) in a university there and she had been selected by a cult or something. Now I live in England and I studied medieval literature. The novel was rigged with inaccuracies. About England, English culture, academia and of course Arthurian literature. I didn't know whether I had to laugh, cry or shout un anger. I didn't finish the book.
I’ve been in a situation like that plenty. Blind person here. Why does it feel like nobody can write a blind character properly? They always either aren’t realistically blind, have a magic power to let them see, or have no personality beyond the helpless disabled damsel, and it pisses me off. It’s a shame too because I once was having an absolute ball reading this book series, but I had to stop and really think about if I should finish it or not due to a character going blind and it being written poorly. I did end up finishing the series and don’t regret it, but that part just seriously disappointed me. Another time, I ended up hate reading a book by an author I actually really like because the love interest was blind and, because of course she did, the first thing she did upon being alone with the MC was to feel all up on his face, including his TEETH- Like am I the weird one here? Am I the weirdo because I don’t, I dunno, put my hands literally in somebody’s MOUTH upon meeting them? Sighted folks who write blind characters, you’ll have to help me out here. I’m genuinely confused.
For the world dump problem, I’d say that it can be useful to have a bit of world dumping if there’s something important you need to give a basic understanding of before you proceed, such as a magic system, but your explanation should be simple and to the point, literally no more than a paragraph or two, and you can elaborate on the topic later through action instead of description.
The "hey big bro"/"hey lil sis" type of stuff is usually the fault of "too much anime without context" nowadays it seems like. Now in asian households, you absolutely DO have to refer to your siblings as such, at least when the parents are around. It's an authority and respect thing. But when that's not what you're writing, it's just cringey. As for the age gap thing, I just think it's part of the fantasy lust leaking in again. Something about age beyond mortality just horseshoes it back into being attractive. "What's that, you're the 10,000 year old mother of all dragons. That's kind of hot. Can I buy you dinner." One part fantasy kink, twenty-seven part desire for older partners, and a heaping spoonful of power fantasy.
Can confirm, living in an Asian household and we usually call older siblings as 'big bro' or 'big sis' regardless how much respect you had for that person. Seems like an Anglophone thing to view his as 'unrealistic'
I don’t understand the whole poo thing when delivering. There was no poo in the delivery room for me. In fact I never once felt the urge to poo when I had my kids lol all the pushing pressure was up front. I’ve heard women say that many time but I wonder why I’ve never experienced that urge? It’s weird how different everyone’s experiences can be.
it has a lot to do with your digestive system. some people carry a lot of crap in their intestines. I was told not to eat about 24 hours before my delivery. Didn't help though. all that pressure and muscle contractions...
It’s to do with the baby literally squeezing it out of you. Not about the urge. Delivery nurses just clean it up and throw it out without ever telling the mom!
@@mrs.marken4609 my stepmom said she felt like she had to go poo when she pushed. So I just assumed some women had back labor and some had front labor. I know I didn’t poo for the last two kids since it was videoed both times and my first kid was actually delivered at home because I had him too fast to make it to the hospital. Pretty sure I would have seen the poo then but it was so fast and new I can’t say for sure. I would think my friends or husband would have said something though but maybe not, I’ll have to ask them lol I think every experience can be different though. All my kids came so fast we joke how my husband just has to catch them as they shoot out like a football 😂 my sister had 5 kids and they all took 30 plus hours to come. It’s amazing hoe the same thing can be so vastly different for us.
@@JoJo-zl7qh "I think every experience can be different though." pretty much sums it up perfectly. Similarly for siblings - while there might be a family where siblings casually fling small insults at one another without really meaning it, it doesn't mean it should be used as a template for every sibling relationship in every story. Generally speaking, the writer who has *some* experience with a certain topic should avoid the pitfall of depicting it as something universal. In the end, if someone wants to show broad patterns related to the topic, they'll *need* to do the research and maybe even hire sensitivity readers when applicable, regardless of their own experiences and standing.
@@JoJo-zl7qh Yeah it's a similar urge for some people! That's why getting women to push on the toilet sometimes works well. It wasn't like that for me either and I have no idea if any poo came out, I was kind of focused on other things..... My one sister has been a maternity nurse for over a decade and its very, very common. They don't say anything since a lot of women feel ashamed (they shouldn't!) and just clean it up quickly. I delivered my other sister's baby while she was in the shower, that one sure did come quick, and there was a bit of poo there that I pushed down the drain after. Your body also commonly gets diarrhea during labour to clear some space, so that makes it easier to just slip out. Wow this a great topic to discuss before 8am... Hahaha
I recently read a description about a high school student and her teacher and it was a romance. I had only ever seen that in thrillers or things like that, not glorified. Someone actually told me "it's fine, because he waited until her 18th birthday". I do like age gap books, as in like a 25 year old dating someone in their 30s or maybe 40s. Where both are legal adults and have some sort of life experience. If he had to "wait until she was 18" there is an issue.
Scissoring isn’t a myth. It’s nowhere near as common as porn makes it out to be, and it’s more difficult than they make it look, but some lesbians definitely do scissor. Source: am a lesbian.
I agree with all of these, but when you do videos like this I frequently wonder where you find your books. I'm not doubting that they are out there, but many of them I rarely encounter. But, like you, when I do come across them they tend to be a quick DNF. On point #10, I'm a historian and history teacher so while I generally don't mind minor errors here and there, it really takes me out of it when the author obviously hasn't got the most basic grasp of the values and customs of the time and place in which their book is set. I would also point out that - in a sign of progress? - the sex scene thing can now go both ways. Not long ago there was a huge bestseller written by a woman essentially fetishizing a gay male relationship. I mainly enjoyed the cute story except for the overly long, tedious, and confusing sex scenes. I read a couple of them multiple times puzzling over the choreography, before I realized the confusion wasn't mine. The author clearly didn't really understand male anatomy. Still, it hasn't stopped the book going from strength to strength, and I suppose we can count it as a victory for equality if not equity.
I feel like the way you attacked the small women trope was extremely rude to women who actually look like that. Just because you find something weird, doesn't mean you should disregard people who may fit that criteria. It's no different than targeting a specific race, gender, or sexuality. Just because there's no group name for them, doesn't mean they are fair game to be treated poorly. It may have not been purposefully offensive but I've had friends and I have family that look like that and it's extremely aggravating to see their looks be treated in such a way. Their husbands and boyfriends aren't pedophile just because they didn't treat looks as the most important things to pay attention to and men and women who date women who look like this shouldn't be treated as weird, abnormalities that probably have horrendous ideals and shouldn't be allowed around schools. Just wanted to get that off my chest because I hate when this happens and it happens A LOT. If the character is basically a sexual object and looks like that then sure it's probably something going on with the writer but the appearance type shouldn't be considered taboo.
I agreed with all the other tropes though. Wanted to say that because I didn't want to be purely negative in the description of a video I actually enjoyed.
The last one is EXACTLY why I'm going to be looking for someone to check my military accuracy in the first draft stage. I'm gonna do my best, but I want that shit fixed early because I have a hate-hate relationship with keyword searches.
I think Age Gap couples definitely have to do more with maturity and experiences, rather than just the age gap itself. I mean which one do you think would be more mature when dating a 40+ year old? A 30 year old that has had plenty of experience with relationships and children, or an 18 year old that just graduated high school and barely knows anything about the real world? You get my point here?
I'm not sure I get your point b/c it sounds like an alternate version of what Jenna said. One person (usually the girl) being in high school or freshly graduated is often going to have much less real-world experience than even a person in their mid/late 20s. Young adults also tend to have a stronger sense of idealism about love and adulthood in general. Plus, there's always the historical angle of younger women being perceived as being more vibrant, youthful, "untouched," manipulatable, etc. vs. the man with real-world experience who's rugged, handsome, notices her in a way that no one her age ever does, etc. So, no, it's not literally about the age gap, so much as it's about the factors that naturally/customarily result from an age gap, esp. one in which one character is a teen or barely an adult.
In one of my stories, I have a couple where there's an age gap of about 20 years... *but* they don't hook up until he's in his 70s and she's in her 50s.
Honestly I didn’t have much more experience with relationships, children, or the ‘real world’ when I was 30 than I did when I was 18. I still got married at 30 though, not 18.
I never fought with my friends, we do disagree at times and we do question some life choices, but we have enough respect for eachother and communication skill to not fight over it. Like we can advice but if they made a stupid choice, it is theirs, they are entitled to that and support them through the consequences is all we can do.
My wife was 5 ft 2, 94 lbs at age 25, and not anemic, just slender. There's some Asian ancestry involved. You are saying I shouldn't write a book about a character that resembles her?
I get the pregnancy thing and I do not get it, it is not my typ of jam, I do not like kids, I am terrified of the idea of pregnency and it should not be in a book all about sex . . . but on the other hand, it is the whole point of sex, the reason many want relationships to beginn with so in a more relationship oriented story it can absoutly have its place and with the inherint conection between sex and fertility . . . I kinda get why people could find it very sexy.
Sex is literally what creates babies. Unfortunately people seem to have issues with this fact nowadays and just want reckless ‘fun’ without consequence...
I do not have any kind of pregnancy kink, BUT I don’t think I’ve ever felt better about my body than when I was pregnant. I know most women hate the weight gain, but I was so amazed by and proud of what my body was doing that it gave me more confidence and positivity about my body than I’d ever had before (or since). So, in that weird sense, I can maaaaaybe see if the pregnancy trope is giving the character a self-confidence boost ghat leads to more sexy times? Also, there are points in pregnancy where the hurricane of hormones going on make you preeeeeettyyyyyy eager for said sexy times, so. There is that.
8:48 True, my brother and I are both adults now, and we still don't call each other by our real names unless we're calling each other from a long distance. Other than that, we insult each other on the daily, lol. Like we do care about each other, but it's a lot of, "Shut up," or, "Shut your face." Or you're stupid," or a bad driver. Whenever we greet each other, he says, "Noob," and I say, "Says you." So when I try to write sibling scenes, I usually kind of mirror similar dialogue, because that's my experience, ahaha. Super good point though
My sibilings and I refer to each other with brother/sister or diminutives, and we all out dogs always responded to our language equivalent of dog as well as their name. It's not a cultural thing, any more than it's in US, but it's not unheard of. Most of our friends considered it my family's quirk. But i think it's unfair to dismiss that way of comunicating just because it's not the most common thing. For us it comes from a place of genuine love and coonection to one another - they are not just anyone - theyre my sibilings and I'm ther sister. I't started when my older brother was overjoyed when younger was born and would lovingly call them brother, and being the only "girl" i''m sure my younger sibilings didn't know my proper name until they were teenagers, and diminutive for sister in my language, "Seka", basically became my nickname. Literally, when they would introduce me to their friends, they would just say and this is my sister and I would introduce myself. One of my younger sibilings is NB and being adressed as brother by one of us is only gendered thing they don't mind.
This is the second time that your audio only works on my left earphone. While im typing this comment i can still hear that with my right earphone so it is the video
I am a male author and sometimes do objectify my female character. However, I stand for gender equality, so from now on I will be objectifying male characters as well - I am a bisexual, after all.
Also, nope, you can claw worldbuiling out of my cold dead hands but I won't let it go. It is literally the most interesting thing about a lot of fiction works.
Hey, I hope this isn’t rude at all. But have you noticed that your voice can only be heard on the left side of headphones in your recent videos? I can hear the background music and the pencil sounds from your intro in both ears, but your voice is only in the one.
Health warning: do not drink a cup of tea while watching this video. I spat at my computer monitor; choked a little; and snorted it out through my nose with Jenna's astute observations. I think we're dating now.
There's actually a psychological component to men's perception of a pregnant woman. It's instinct to be more protective and more attentive to the female during this time. As a consequence, the level of attraction increases. So yeah, pregnancy is kinda sexy.
That depends, it's sexy for the women seeing the man's attention, but unless the men have a pregnancy kink, they don't find them attractive enough, they often find them unappealing.
3:52 I can add onto that: 1. I almost died at birth because the nurse thought it was okay to cross the legs in labor so as to not have the baby without the doctor present, so I almost died from asphyxiation. How I made it past NICU is beyond me (I was born in October 2000 for reference). 2. During that time, I’m sure my mom threw up at least twice and once near me (an omen that I’d be a letdown 😅😂). 3. My mom had gestational diabetes while pregnant with my sisters. 4. Also during that time, my sisters as fetuses decided it was a good idea to jumble around in my mom all day to the point the next day they were exhausted and not moving and my mom thought something happened and was nervous as get-out. And that’s just a SMALL reason of why I’m not having kids. I’ll make sure of that one way or another.
This is a book which has trope #10: In Salem (A book on Wattpad), the OC MC (Because I feel she is) is descendant to Samuel Wardwell. He had a daughter named Elizabeth in the book which is false because he ACTUALLY has a daughter named Mercy and a stepdaughter named Sara Hawkes. I was SO happy that this author proved she had not idea what she talking about.
Has anyone found a book where the 100 year old vampire or whatever goes for an actual adult? I'd be curious to read a book like that and see if it changed my take on that trope being stupid and harmful both...
The closest thing I've ever seen was a fanfic my friend wrote recently where a full-grown man went through Vampire Hunting Schooling just so he could be able to defend/protect himself if he needed to while seducing vampires because he was a horny monster fucker. But, like I said, it was fanfic, and, honestly, the fact that I've only really seen this kind of thing WAS in fanfic.....doesn't really bode well for original fiction, imo. :(
An actual conversation I had with my older sister: “Greetings dork face.” “I’m not a dork face!” “Yes you are!” “You’re a dork face times two!” “You’re a dork face times infinity!” “GAHHHHH!” I have NEVER, at any time in my life, referred to her as “big sis.” Usually it’s either “dork face,” “nerd,” or some variation thereof.
. . . . there are lots of siblings that are like that, just cause it does not match your own experience does not mean it is not a thing at all, I know siblings like that despite my brother and I being different . . . unless he is drunk ^^
i noticed that the audio had been kinda wonky these past couple of vids with the sound only coming from the left side its not a problem with my headphones since all other videos work fine i really want to watch your videos but i cannot because of this issue
Bad clichés - Tiny cute women. Me - Writes a literal 2-meter-tall hyena girl who's fighting monsters like a boss, but is still a cute fluffball with her best friend. :) I think I passed the test on this one. XD
In my first novel the main character is the same size as my wife when I first met her, 24 years old, 5 ft 2, mid 90 lbs. I did compensate by having a main supporting character be a 6 ft 200 lb woman who was pure muscle that people would take for a man if they didn't look closely. Makes for an interesting contrast between them and provides content for the story. Short leading ladies, tall leading men was the norm not that long ago, with exceptions, I'm sure.
Trigger warning: SA You don't know how much I HATE SA tropes!!! The worst of all is that when the male leads "have" to SA and drug the female lead for the greater good or something. The acotar series is a great example of it and I'm always being hit with the "He had to touch her or else she would've died!". Ah yes, he *needed* to touch, kiss, lick, tell her that he would've raped her if it wasn't for her other LI, drug, force this 19 year old girl to lap dance (on him) nearly naked in front of thousands of centuries old fae people while she's crying and feeling so disgusted (He's an centuries crusty old grandpa too). Rereading these chapters to realize he actually didn't need to do it all. Evil lady didn't notice nor care about her much until the centuries old grandpa brought her around. Guess what? He never really faced consequenzes, just a "Sorry but I had to do it" with a pitiful sob story. What is so sexy about SA? How is touching someone without their consent and making them feel so uncomfortable hot? Why are we always excusing the toxic male leads that do this?? Any form of SA that the MLs do is overstepping lines that should NOT be overstepped. As soon as SA is involved and it's romanticized, the book is trash. Age gap trope also makes me 🤮. The only age gap trope that I'm fine with is if both of them are grown adults (example: 100 ♡ 30). A grown ass man going after a teen is just so disgusting and predetory. I'm 18 and I feel like a complete child still.
Fictionary is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G-!-!-! I’m so grateful to have found this company and their software. The 38 story elements have given my novel new life! I’ve learned so much about how to craft a story readers will L-O-V-E-!-!
Honestly, pregnancy is not that different from a couple going through other hardships together. And that is a very beloved trope: a couple having a difficult time but they’re there for each other, supporting each other, and are eventually stronger together than before. Just with pregnancy, not everything about it is bad. But I think it’s just not everyone’s kind of thing and that’s totally fine. Not everyone wants to be a parent. With big age gaps, I don’t mind them much as long as the younger part is 20+. But I think I might differ here because in my country you’re of legal age at 18. I graduated school when I was still 17 and had already lived two years on my own, worked and just taken a flight half around the globe to go off studying in a completely different country when I was 21. I‘d say it’s less about age, it’s about experience and life circumstances. My partner is six years older, but when we met both of us were still in university. Granted, he was doing his PhD and I my bachelor, but other than that our daily life hadn’t been all that different. Now that we’re mostly working we’re in similar positions again, we can just really relate to each other. And that is what really matters. As long as an author can convey that to me, I’m fine
I don't know if is only my PC or something else, but since the last video, I hear you only from one side of my speakers, I just wanted to notice this detail 'coz could be some record problem. IDK.
Actually, my sister-in-law calls my husband (and his brothers) "Bro" all the time. I think it's code for "I've had a brain blip and have temporarily forgotten your name."
Number 9: Jenna, I think those authors are trying to add characters who AREN'T average size like 99.9999999999% of characters in both fiction and nonfiction. Just like how some authors are trying to add characters who are LGBQ or from a different region in the world. Let me ask the people who read these comments: On a scale of 1 to 20 (20 being the most common) how often do you read about characters who are average height, weight, straight (sex-preferance), and WHITE?
I can't even tell you tbh I don't see pictures in my mind, so unless the description is strictly given to me (the author says this character is a white 5'6" lady with red hair, freckles, green eyes, a white shirt with an alien saucer on it, short cut shorts, worn shoes) I just don't *see* them in the traditional sense. I don't have a default setting. But I guess the default setting you're going for is a 5'6" white female, 5'9" white male? 5'8" is the average female height in Ohio, United States btw. Fun fact! Anyhow, I think there's a difference between infantilizing and introducing someone who's short or who has dwarfism. My little sister is short and she looks sixteen despite being a month away from being nineteen. Were I to write her in a book, I wouldn't describe her as being "childlike and innocent", though. I'd describe her as being "short". Maybe I'd say "younger than her true age" or "an ID check waiting to happen", but nothing to do with children. Comparing someone who is short or has dwarfism to a child is demeaning and gross.
I think the issue is more about the fact that it's always a tiny little woman (with a big tall guy), never the opposite. Personally, I'm a very short woman, so I always write my female protagonist taller than average, and then envy them XD
The issue is that in those books (and especially in anime) those very short women DO NOT ACT LIKE WOMEN, they act like children, it's gross and fetishising
So, the date at Macaroni Grill thing - I once brought a date to Red Lobster, and it was, in her words, the nicest restaurant she'd ever been to. It will depend on someone's socioeconomic status and experience what counts as upscale and classy. Though I'm sure in the actual example, we aren't talking about someone that grew up Mennonite and lives in the middle of nowhere like my date did.
I once dated a gal who told me about different dude she had dated previously who considered going to Olive Garden as rare, high-end, gotta get dressed up fine dining. I asked if "dressed up" meant a clean shirt and putting on pants. AKA the bare minimum you should do for a going out to eat date.
You don’t need to necessarily grow up Mennonite to think Red Lobster is fancy... It’s probably one of the fanciest places my husband has been to and he grew up in Detroit. I think people who grew up upper class class are just really out of touch with how the majority of people live and see the world. And I’m saying this as someone who grew up upper middle class myself.
Halloween costume to a black tie event? That makes me think of legally blond. In this case it made sense because she was lied to about the nature of the event. She was set up to look foolish.
Like my singing teacher used to say: "Everyone has a right to his lack of taste."
It always irks me when the hero is outraged when his love interest is sexually harassed or assaulted, but doesn't seem to care if it happens to any other women in the vicinity. She shouldn't get special treatment just because of their relationship.
Which stories do this?
I can see it kinda working where the "protagonist" is a villain like Conn Iggulden's Conqueror series or where it's a more tribal mindset but even then it'd have to be stressed that the attitude is either due to the character being a villain/sociopathic or it due to the standards of a time and place that aren't ours.
To me, that always reads as possessiveness rather than protectiveness. The dude is like, “All the other sloots at this bar WANT random guys pawing at them, but I’M the only one allowed to paw at MY lady (who may or may not realize I’ve claimed her yet).” It’s not an insult to HER if someone else harrasses her; it’s an insult to HIM because she’s his. 🙄🙄🙄
It's even more irritating when he himself sexually harassed her before they started dating, or if he did it to other women before he met his love interest.
@@ReturnToSenderz
Well I mean it makes sense considering that people generally mostly care about stuff effecting them. Like, you are more likely to risk your skin for someone you give a damn about. However, there shouldn't be a glaring difference between a romantic partner and platonic friend.
You mean you think it’s weird when the centuries old vampire spends all his time hanging out at the local high school trying to pick up a teen girl?
Does sound like Buffy, doesn't it?
And Twilight. And Vampire Diaries
I've seen it done almost right once. Millennia old creature so there's maybe 10 individuals in existence who aren't way too young for him, he finds his soulmate and sees a teenager, and his though process is "welp, I can wait, but I'm not banging a child"
@@itspienoon7883 for all it's faults at least twilight establishes that mentally they remain the age they were when they were turned 😂
"It's called grooming." and Vampire the Mascarade doesn't shy away from admitting that. It's kind of the point, really. (talking about Sire and Childer, not about the romance)
I remember reading a book when I was a kid where a couple of actors performing Shakespeare suggested in the middle of an onstage swordfight that they change the choreography, resulting in the death of one of them.
Even at the age of ten, I remember thinking, "This guy doesn't have a clue how theater works."
queen nah. That guy has NO clue 😂
"Your werewolf erotica isn't that deep Jessica"
Well I mean it is, just not in the way you're referring to.
😂
Lol
Regarding pregnancy, my wife actually enjoyed being pregnant and she's been missing it since. The last few weeks or so were a tad more difficult and the labour was hellish and stressful, but she's got only good memories of the first eight months. She did not feel any nausea or pain. But yeah she's an exception and her friends envy her.
I agree, I actually loved my birth experience 😅 I find it quite romantic when a child is created out of a beautiful loving relationship.
My first pregnancy was the same! I loved being pregnant! Then my second pregnancy was absolutely godawful from start to finish, so… it really can vary. 😆
Jenna is being subjective here. She doesn't like the idea, but why does she think people write about pregnancy if no one likes it?
Another tip I'd add, if you're a non-US writer with your story set in the US (and your character is also a US person), you must learn the common-use terms we use. Goes the same for US writers who want to write a foreign-based character in a foreign country. You must entrance yourself in that culture to understand its nuances. And modern language in historical fiction is another one of those things that I roll my eyes at. Like modern songs played on a violin during a Bridgerton episode. GROAN!! It's like they forgot there was period music--play that!
I agree with first part completely. And I'll add that if author decides to write character from specific country/culture they should at minimum put an effort to give character right name. It's my pet peeve - too many authors think that they can "invent" name that will fit into other culture but what they achieve is butchered monstrosity. If one wants realistic name it's quite simple - go to some babynaming site, select country and check statistic for 20 or 100 most popular names in the year your character was born. And ffs please do not confuse surnames with first names, please.
In defense of Bridgerton it's not technically period drama, it's period-inspired drama. Just like Knight's Tale and Marie Antoinette(2006) it's not historically acurate or not even tries to be. It's meant to give specific vibe that can be easily understand by modern viewer. I kind of treat these period-inspired movies/dramas as (sometimes very)loose translations :)
i disagree to an extent about making language historically accurate. could you imagine writing a book set in say the viking age and using the language they would have spoken in? i’m not saying you have to have a regency character saying hey dude but language does get modernized to some extent to be accessible and entertaining
And this is why I write most of my stories in worlds on other planets where I get to decide everything. Problem solved. LOL
@@randomspirit Yeah, the easiest way to avoid those kind of problems XD
Ooooh, the one with the language is something I'm really scared of. I'm Hungarian and my novel will be played in the late Victorian Britain. I'm planning on translating my work to English (and Spanish, my third language) so obviously I still have a lot to learn. There are two ways I'd use to avoid making this mistake:
1) I'll read some books (in all three languages) from that time period to get the vibes and style of the era
2) I'll try to get someone whose native language is English to read it before I publish (if possible, someone British since the story is set mainly in Scotland and a bit in England). I have some American friends and even family members but even though they are lovely people I don't think my book is for them so I guess I'll have to keep searching.
I wrote a piece of shit script back in high school where the man was a middle aged widower and the love interest (kinda sorta) was a centuries old witch who looked eternally teenaged. They both agreed that it would never work.
Lol. My POS script in high school was chock full of tropes, cliches, and excessive lore dumps. Scrapped the whole thing but I later did a short story where the main couple goes on a trip to Earth and eats Burger King while talking smack about the lack of magical duels in politics.
"I wrote a piece of shit script back in high school" lmao, haven't we all? Looking back on it now, it is CRINGE af.
So basically even as a teenager you realized this kind of relationship was not such a good idea. Good for you, you had better reasoning skills than some adults, apparently.
Definitely agree with most points. I will say though that as an actual woman who is 4'11" at 28 years old. It's frustrating to think that a character like me couldn't exist without being infantilized or that any man who may be sexually attracted to me falls into the default predator category. I'd say it's perfectly okay to have a romantic female lead who is petite, because you know, those women do exist. Personally, I find it far more gross when an adult woman acts childish and is then sexualized as opposed to how tall/full figured she may or may not be.
I only disagree with one thing in this video. The part about the person being excited for the date to the Macaroni Grill isn't super inaccurate for people from extreme poverty. I remember the first time I was taken to Applebees, and I thought it was a Ritz. I need to clarify that this event was NOT a romantic thing, but when I was in the same situation romantically, I still thought it was the sweetest thing ever. At the time, a meal costing more than 99 cents was a luxury, so the idea that someone appreciated me enough to treat me to a meal costing more money than I spent on food in a month. I teach a lot of kids that come from the same background as me, and being taken to any restaurant is a life-changing event for them, which is consistent with my personal experience.
I don't know the exact case that is being referenced in this video though, so I'm sure that you're correct about that one.
Not related, but the reason I became a teacher is partly because of that teacher that treated me to Applebees after a physics event.
Agreed. Olive Garden is expensive to me. I've been taken to a grand total of TWO restaurants that had anything on the menu over $30 a plate, and I was uncomfortable the entire time. The first time was a friend that showed up to support another friend for her divorce and wound up being asked to watch the kid (and said friend had ZERO experience with kids). She panic-called me, and took me out to lunch at some Italian place the next day as a 'thank you for the save'. The second time was actually just last month, and was dinner with my husband and one of his co-workers, out with their boss. We'd been eyeing the place we wound up going to...and I don't think we'll be going there again. They specialized in steak, and I nearly had a heart attack looking at the menu. 😭
But you just explained it. You told us why a character might be impressed with a chain restaurant at the mall. That is completely different from just dropping it into a book without justification.
@@robertawalsh2995 Like I said in my response, I don't know the specific case Moreci is mentioning in this video; however, a character being poor is enough information to justify that reaction. That may be because of my background in life, and I understand that someone not growing up in abject poverty wouldn't understand that immediately. Given my life, I would not need any extra justification.
That sibling point just reminds me of a point in my books where sibling banter almost causes a war. Some territory got split up among a conqueror's children after said conqueror died, and two of the siblings happened to really dislike their messengers but couldn't fire them for bla bla religious reasons. So they made their messengers constantly go back and forth delivering insults and threats, always knowing the other never meant it, trolling their messengers with constant work.
Anyway, one of the siblings got sick and so their advisor, who wanted a war, brought their grandson in. Grandson doesn't know about the trolling of the messengers, thinks they're receiving an actual declaration of war, raises an army. Sibling gets better and manages to prevent a war, but now has the problem of all these fighters having been raised, expecting to be paid for their trouble, and not having the money to pay them because they're usually paid with stuff that's stolen from the places they invade, or using the reparations that failed invaders are forced to pay (plus anything of value stripped from enemy corpses). Advisor is executed and their stuff used to compensate the fighters.
Okay, I usually don’t like misunderstandings in books, but this one’s really funny.
Ok, that's hilarious 😂. Do you have any links you could share that we can check out your work?
@@Carm9nD I'm making yt videos, a few are out already. Currently working on a bunch about the country/region this happened in.
(splitting them up, geography, government, religion, cultures, and maybe a fifth video linking them all together. 2 minute video gets over 500 views. 4 minute one gets less than 50. I do love making the videos and the stories + setting said videos are about but am intent on monetizing said stories + setting so that I can spend more time on them, so while I'd prefer to make a 20 minute video covering it all in one go it's clearly not feasible for my long-term goals).
Omg 🤣
"Quirky relatable losers" are character types I despise. I think Fry from Futurama is the only character of this type I genuinely like.
When I was young and dumb, I loved age gaps. Now it's like, "I grew up, and so did my characters."
Yep. I loved them up to about 30yo, when I realised that it was kind of gross and the relationship I'd been in was far, FAR more abusive than I'd realised as a 20 year old with a 33 year old "boyfriend". Admittedly, I was a LOT more naive then most 20 year olds, because I grew up in a fairly isolated cult and had only been out for about 8 months when he found me... but still. Looking back there's no doubt in my mind that I was being manipulated, used and assaulted. I just had no idea what was happening between my neurodivergence, my upbringing and my past trauma. There's no accident that these stories rarely describe a healthy and well adjusted "barely legal heroine" either. They are always vulnerable/insecure/isolated. Honestly, I could even tolerate a one night stand more than I can tolerate the whole romanticised "fated mates with a literal teenager" these days. It's not romantic, it's grooming.
And don't even get me started on the creeper supernatural character "knowing before the child is born that they're made for each other". Ugh 🤢🤢
@@noctoi I do have one sitting in my notes where it's "older guy marries a young bride to give her status and protection above her abusive family, but never consummates the marriage and treats her more like a daughter," but I keep going back and forth on whether or not I want to use it somewhere.
On the one hand, it's a platonic middle finger that could easily go into the intricacies of royal politics/intrigue, have some neat plot potential, and somewhat subvert the "creeper marries a teen for nefarious reasons" trope, but on the other hand, there's already the built-in unfortunate implications just with the age gap, and I know someone, somewhere (multiple someones in multiple somewheres XP) would ignore the plot and message of, "this isn't sexy, this is a loophole to platonically protect someone within the confines of this society" and ship them anyway because we can't have nice things.
@@VNightmoon See, this is the kind of age gap relationship I could get behind, because it's protective, platonic and has an actual valid reason. Bonus points if the older partner becomes a mentor figure until the younger party is strong enough to forge their own path, then sets them free to live their own life. I"m all for this.
I can imagine a LOT of confusion/backlash if you didn't market it and write the blurb *very* carefully though.
And yes, much to the dismay of everyone who *actually* wants to write healthy (non-romantic) scenarios like this, Rule 34 exists and I hate it. It's exhausting.
@@noctoi I have accepted Rule 34 is going to happen no matter what it is. There's Rule 34 of My Little Pony, for fuck's sake. I accept that if I publish, people are going to make platonic relationships anything but.
That said, it's definitely 10x trickier when the overall concept is so close to an already problematic trope. It's easier to second guess writing my outlined scenario than, say, a traditional friendship.
I enjoy age gap romances where the lovers are both adults upon meeting. It makes sense, because reasonable adults aren’t interested in high schoolers, and it ensures that both lovers are mature enough to navigate through a relationship. I also like when the expected power dynamic is shifted, like instead of the high powered 50 year old lawyer trying to woo the poor undergrad barista down the street it’s the 25 year old business prodigy falling for the security guard twice their age. I think it makes the story more interesting because the main worry in romances like this, both in fiction and in real life, is the implied power dynamic between old and young lovers.
A friend of mine and I are working on an age gap romance kinda like that. The man is old enough to be his biological daughter’s grandfather, and he’s a semi-poor carpenter who needs a cane to walk. Meanwhile, his love interest is a smoking hot swordswoman in her late thirties who could kick his ass. They’re also exactly one another’s types. She’s a brunette, and he loves brunettes. He’s stout and used to be blonde, and she loves stout blondes. She also helps him slow dance because he needs to lean on something due to his weak left leg.
I like dificult/conflicted romances where the problem is not the peoples actions, but outside of there control factors like an age gap. What I do not like is fetishising it, using the forbidden romance trope to then not make anything with it, things like that. The older or otherwise in a situation of power has to be absolutly aware of that and activlly trying to even out playing field. Like what is the point of writing about incest, if literaly no one in the story cares bout it?! Then just do not!!!
Age differences can have so many pitfalls, feeling inadequate, societys expectations, being in different phases of your life and lacking understanding where the other is mindwise or maybe they knew eachother long before and the older struggles like hell nd feels dirt about later finding someone attractiv they had known in a context before, where it would not have been appropriet at all and fearing what people will think about it.
Or have the younger be in a position of power of the older to mix it up, truely complex relationships . . .thing of ways to avoid a clear and harmful powerdynamic so if they end up togeather we can be sure it is sane safe and consentual . . . or well, dont and let them not be togeather in the end because of that
I'm currently working on a story with my sis where one of the pairings is a 30 yr old F with a 42 yr old M. She rides horses, he travels, and both of them are equal in magical strength. However, I subscribe to the 'half your age plus 7' rule in literature, so long as both people are above the age of consent. If it's teens, no serious dating before 14, keep it to less than 2 years age difference, and for the love of everything, do not write graphic scenes including anyone under 18. Just- NO.
I like the first trope actually, as long as it is done well. Reading/writing about characters navigating pregnancy has helped me to deal with my own feelings (read: anxiety) on the matter, and overcome the negative stereotypes surrounding pregnancy that I've grown up with (ie. Babies ruin women's lives, and once a woman is pregnant she loses all her agency and identity other than being a "mom."). I would much rather see pregnancy plotlines that deconstruct that notion than to do away with it as a plotline altogether.
In my experience, short women tend to compensate for it by either being extra loud and bubbly or extra mean (if provoked). Nothing childlike here.
I read a book recently, set in the 1600s, where the authors gave a clearly researcher description of the MC picking a pin tumbler lock, which wasn't invented until 1848.
I read a book set in 12th century England which had someone smoking tobacco.
Ah yes... Anachronistic equipment...
Right next to armor that is pierced like it's cardboard... protagonists hitting moving targets while running with an old revolver all the while the goons aren't able to hit a garage door standing ten meters away from it with an assault rifle...
I guess it's expectations gained by equally inaccurate movies...
Don't even get me started on the ton of stories that have pathologists doing autopsies for the police! I don't know about other countries, but here in Germany pathologists examine samples of organs and blood and stuff removed in surgery and maybe a rare entire body... Medical examiners are their own distinctly different job. They have completely different training and their own facilities and only use rooms in a hospitals pathology lab in rare cases were it is easy to get a body there than transportation to their institute.
The number of times I looked up "History of ..." to know if that item or that item existed at the time. (Book is set in the Viking age so it's extra fun when there's a debate about whether or not they had access to said technology)
Thanks to historical research, there is now a bathtub in my character's kitchen.
@@moustachmallow559 Yep. It's where the fire is.
Age gaps lose the ick once both are over their 30s. At least time, experience, and knowing somewhat what emotional maturity is makes things less likely to be a grooming trope
Fake death/resurrection: I find it lazy most of the time. I just watched a movie where, while I’m glad the character is back, why does this character now have this power? If she’s always had it, why is her boyfriend still dead?
I agree. I've only read one book/series where the fake death trope is actually really cool
it can be pulled off if resurrection has already been established as a possibility or is a main element of the story, and the character isnt already treated like they’re dead
@@-frankieroisnotreal ooh which one
@@clementine127 Agent 21: Reloaded by Chris Ryan
So true!!! It just takes away any impact. Supernatural did this a lot, and eventually it makes the reader (or watcher in this case) not feel as invested
related to #7, a trope i see literally all the time in romance stories is like, the female mc is literally just minding her own business walking down the street or something and all of a sudden some man comes along to try and assault her and then the male love interest steps in to save her out of nowhere and the woman is immediately head over heels for him. like theoretically that's not necessarily a bad thing, he prevented her from being assaulted, but it's always like that's the reason why she loves him, not because of his personality (which is usually sucky) or anything about him, literally just "omg he saved me with his big strong muscles and rippling abs omg he's hot I want to make out with him right now" and then they hook up like two scenes later. And most times I've read this, it's with characters that literally have superpowers that normal people don't, so why did she need to be saved in the first place? like every single time I've seen it, the attacker doesn't have some kryptonite or something to stop the female mc's powers or something, it's just some regular dude. Like you're telling me she can summon water from thin air and create hurricane level rain and massive waves, but she can't use that all of a sudden to save herself? and then like most of the time when the male love interest saves her he doesn't do much more than like tell the attacker off or push him away (or even sometimes "the pure rage behind his eyes was enough to send the attacker running for the hills" like ???? why is this situation, why did you just throw in an almost SA just to bring the male love interest up? and even in stories where previously the mc hated the guy with a burning passion, suddenly her mind just flipped entirely and now it's not even like a "wow omg thank you maybe I was wrong" and then have some internal questioning about him at all or even just take the time to get to actually know him after changing her mind, it's just an instalove with a couple extra steps.
or another one I see all the time is slut shaming but "oh it's ok because it's not the mc". Like the main characters will be at a restaurant and half the time they won't even be dating yet and there's a waitress like flirting with or ogling the male love interest and it's written as if it's so disgusting and slutty to do that and oh how dare she look at him like that and ask if he's free later and be a normal person flirting with this guy but then the female mc will say something to the waitress and suddenly the waitress is depicted as super rude to her, and the male love interest will be none the wiser about the situation at all. but then the female mc will do the EXACT same thing and ogle the male love interest and flirt with him the EXACT same way even if they aren't dating yet, so why is it so slutty when the waitress did it but when the female mc does it it's cute and endearing and sexy???? Or another one I've seen a lot is like the male mc is at a strip club with friends and he's looking at all the female strippers and he thinks they're all super slutty and whores and that's such a bad thing and all the guys there are just pervs and the strippers are "basically manipulating" money from them and the money is all they care about (as if that's a bad thing???) but then suddenly he sees the female love interest who's also a stripper and she's so perfect and the way she does it is just so perfect and all the guys suddenly flock to her instead and all the other strippers get angry and huffy but the love interest is just so perfectly shaped and dancing that suddenly it's ok that she does it and suddenly it's not pervy at all for the mc to be ogling her and being horny and thinking really sexual thoughts about all the things he could do to her body, and then out of Everyone there the love interest picks him out of the crowd and decides to give him a free lapdance and a free session in the back and he didn't even tip her at all. like those are both such SPECIFIC situations but I've seen them SO MANY TIMES it's honestly exhausting why do people write this so much, is the double standard not immediately obvious??? and I see other people just eat it up as if that's the pinacle of romance and relationships and respect but it's literally so toxic? i don't see how those relationships end up lasting as long as they do in the story, it's honestly mesmerizing.
sorry for the rant, it's just so annoying to see these things so much
I love how obvious it is when a writer doesn't have siblings. My brothers were more likely to walk by and hit me in the shoulder more than saying "hey lil sis!" Lmao
Preach, it just sounds really forced, and if you tried it in real life, you'd get a funny look, and probably a "Yeah, I know how I'm related to you, why bother pointing it out?"
Actually, not always. My sister and I don’t have the kind of relationship you have with your brothers. We’ve always been best friends with the occasional fight. And we definitely greet each other with “hey sis.”
@@Akigirl2004 I think your experience is definitely the exception, not the rule lol
Actually not really, it depends on cultural value. If you have characters from a culture that heavily emphasizes respect to your elders and use of honorifics it makes sense they wouldn’t call their siblings by their name. It’s a stupid to make a broad statement on, just because your relationship with your siblings works that way doesn’t mean writing different dynamics is “invalid” or “inaccurate”.
@@appletart7262 I mean, it's pretty obvious we aren't talking about the few specific cultures that do that. In general, the majority of cultures (especially western, which, lets face it is what we are discussing) do not approach their siblings by acting so formally. It's a criticism lots of writers have received for years, especially in cheesy kids shows like Wizards of Waverly Place or something. I also never claimed it was invalid or inaccurate, so idk why you are misquoting me lmao
"We get it, you've never pleasured a woman!" LMAOOOOOOO
Yeah, seems like some people wouldn't recognise a clitoris if it bit them on the arse and asked if they came...
My younger brother went through a phase of calling me lil sis when he was like 15 because he was taller than me and that was important for some reason. He eventually cut if out when his friend kept saying I was too pretty to be his sister, he might have cared about height but no-one else did.
My younger brother still counts me his little sister to taunt me lmao. We're both in our mid-twenties but he adores the fact he's now taller and stronger than me
Am i the only one who got distracted the absolute cuteness of a sleepy Butters in her arms???
No?
Just me?
Solid.
I agree about the world dump. I understand world-building is a massive undertaking, and have so much respect for those who can do that, but when it's all dumped in the book at one time, I can't remember 1/10th of it two chapters later. Also, so glad to see Fictionary mentioned. I use it and LOVE it. Highly recommend it!
Is it just me, or does Butters look like all she wanted to do is take a nap? 😊
It's not just you. She napped for most of the video 😄
"You are 100% entitled to your horrible taste." Yes. You are. This applies to many thing.
Btw, my sister is 4'10" She can handle herself.
I mean, you mentioned a daddy kink for the accidentally pregnancy, but there's such thing as a pregnancy kink, or an impregnation kink.
If it's selling, it's someone's kink
If your sibling ever calls you "sis/bro" they want something really bad or did something really bad. Either way it's unsettling and not normal at all lol.
Nothing bad ever happens when my much older sisters call me "bro".
It's just rather embarrassing or annoying.
Also the fact that two of them are married so I guess they miss me or something.
Btw 18 to early 20s dating an older person is not grooming, and that's a gross and harmful improper use of the term. I had a jealous ex girlfriend tell me when I was 22 that I was groomed by my partner based on age gap alone and went on to make nasty public Twitter posts about it to try and shame me. I've been groomed by an adult family member starting when I was 6 into early 20s where I have had hands put on me when I did not want it. That's what grooming is. My partner has never done something to me that would make me feel uncomfortable. Please educate yourself because you're not helping this issue by regurgitating false information.
Finally someone who actually thinks about those stuff before speaking.
I won't be surprised if the only reason Ms. Moreci called such behaviors grooming was simply that she didn't feel good reading about them in books.
Side note: I don't know if this is a quirk of my earbuds but this video, I heard only the voice in my left ear, and the music/sound fx only in my right ear.
Yeah it did that in her previous video too :/
Yeah. I can hear the background music though in the right earbud. I hope it gets fixed next video, I get a headache.
Thank you for mentioning the siblings thing! I was wondering what's missing from my stories. And absolutely everyone talks so decently to others, even the villains. I'm the type of person who never finds themselves amidst a quarrel... I s'pose it's time for some research.
The thing with age gaps is it is way way more nuanced. Jenna mentioned how late the brain finishes development and how easy it is to mold someone younger in a harmful way . . . .well, not just an older partner, someone your age and younger as well as fiction can mess you up just as much. Soooo they should be abstinant until then to prevent that? The difference between someone young and dumb fucking you and someone older maybe doing it on purpose, does it matter that much if the result is a mess either way? I am way more worried about the nature of the power dynamic then a number, for that is ultimatly what makes an age difference potentially harmful. It is so easy to stick to a black and white world view but reality does not work that way. It is often not possible to tell how old someone is, there are a lot of ways that can mess with a power dynamic leaving the older one in a position of being more vunerable. Age does not equal experience automaticly, like I got a lot less experience in regards of relationships then many people 10 years younger then me for example and I am not one to shame people for things they have no control over like who they are attracted to, what they do with it though very much, so I am way more concerned with the individual dynamic, then one factor that does not mean as much as people tend to think.
I agree with you, I think, although I always cringe when I see the term "power dynamic". A young woman can twist an older man around her finger, so to speak, because youth and beauty makes for a powerful power dynamic, especially when the older man loves her.
@@retiefgregorovich810 I agree people use the term "power dynamic" too loosely, when young women are perfectly capable of being just as manipulative. This idea is also perpetuated so some women don't have to take responsibility for their regretful decisions.
Fictionary is great, I'm currently editing my novel in it and it's highlighted all my writing bugs. That goes for not describing the settings enough, not using the senses enough, being stuck in my main character's head waaay too much. Those are just the tips of my personal icebergs, but there's so many more...
Early 20s is considered barely legal? At what age are adults allowed to make their own decisions? I'm 25 in a few months. Am I allowed to finally make my own decisions and move around in life? I'm in an age gap relationship with a man who genuinely values what I add to his/our life, and I am happy! I find it silly that one of the biggest complaints in storytelling is female characters not being strong and independent enough, but then we regularly take away young female adults agency and infantilize their mental capacity to make their own decisions. Young adults need life experience to grow. I'm sure Johnny Depp groomed Amber Heard right? Bad tropes can make you close a book, but bad ideas in a video make me pause and click away.
Hun, early 20s is too young for someone who's for example well into their thirties, the amount of people who have their lives figured out enough by the early 20s is massively low, meaning that someone who has about 15 years more than them can have a big change at manipulating said person, yes, technically if we got to extremes, even a 40 year old can technically treat a 17 year old "right", but that's not generally what ends up happening and that's why life stages are more important, and such age gaps are just a set up for toxicity in most scenarios, there's a difference between being empowered and thinking your above any harm.
@@juanmanuelmoramontes3883 This is a year old comment. I’m sorry you feel uncomfortable about adults exercising their freedoms and put a blanket statement over this entire topic. One of the biggest things I’ve learned growing up is there are so many different paths in life that people go through, and many will judge because they can’t see others perspective.
I’m an only child, yet I too cringe at books or tv shows that always have siblings call each other by their relation and barely use their names. Especially in fantasy settings. ‘Sis’ is the worst! All you need is someone to naturally and casually bring up in convo that they are their sister or brother and don’t worry, we CAN remember that!
The last one i was about to write about, lots of straight women write m/m erotica AND IT SHOWS. Please don’t do this lol. Thanks for the video Jenna I love watching the top 10s. Day makers
That's more of a pet peeve than a distinctive writing trope
It seems many of them don't understand the concept of no such thing as a self lubricating asshole. I get irked when I read m/m love scenes where there's 0 prep and only spit for lube. Like, girl, no. Also, ouch
I just finished writing a fanfic story (hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?) where the love interests conceive a child when it was assumed the man was sterile. I honestly wanted to create a tag that read "the birds and the bees DO exist" because I get tired of reading works where the characters are having repeated sexual encounters with nary a fetus in sight 🤔
I think maybe the surprise baby happens in real life and we want to see someone dealing with it better than we are. Like…my husband and I found out we’re having a surprise baby! :D and I’m freaking out! Because we don’t have the space for a third child! It’s nice to read someone else in my circumstance that has it together lol
with no agency comes no responsibility. no need to contemplate and worry about the potential effects of your actions because you have no actions. someone else made that choice for you.
3:06
I love how Butters is just sleepin in your arms 💕
my grandparents had an age gap... mind you, she was thirty and he was sixty, and this was not the first marriage for either of them... yeah. You don't really see that in romance fiction. They always do something awful like 14-40.
Fr, and also she said that anything above 30 is fine.
To be fair, counting is hard, and when you're counting backhanded, you deserve another degree.
Strong disagree about worldbuilding. Minimalistic worldbuilding is a reason to drop a book for me.
When it comes to incorrect representation of genders, I just want to add, this works both ways.
Same is true for terrible love interests however, as men write toxic, abusive female love interests almost as often, as women write toxic abusive male love interests.
And did I hear that right, are male fairies a thing now? (I knew they were in the original mythology, but not in modern fiction).
#2: I read the first two pages of a feelgood written by a male with a female main character. In those first pages the main character is in a hotel room in Italy and undresses in front of a window with the dapes open. Outside, some construction workers see her and encourages her and to her own surprise she enjoys the attention.
Gross. That is such a male fantasy, not a female one! It gave me the creeps and I did not buy that book.
Regarding the last point, it reminds me of a reading experience I had. Little bit of context: I'm from Québec but live in England. My brother had bought me for Christmas a signed copy of a novel from his neighbour, a brand new published author. It was set in England and was about the Arthurian legend. The main character was doing a master degree (in medieval literature) in a university there and she had been selected by a cult or something. Now I live in England and I studied medieval literature. The novel was rigged with inaccuracies. About England, English culture, academia and of course Arthurian literature. I didn't know whether I had to laugh, cry or shout un anger. I didn't finish the book.
I’ve been in a situation like that plenty. Blind person here. Why does it feel like nobody can write a blind character properly? They always either aren’t realistically blind, have a magic power to let them see, or have no personality beyond the helpless disabled damsel, and it pisses me off.
It’s a shame too because I once was having an absolute ball reading this book series, but I had to stop and really think about if I should finish it or not due to a character going blind and it being written poorly. I did end up finishing the series and don’t regret it, but that part just seriously disappointed me.
Another time, I ended up hate reading a book by an author I actually really like because the love interest was blind and, because of course she did, the first thing she did upon being alone with the MC was to feel all up on his face, including his TEETH-
Like am I the weird one here? Am I the weirdo because I don’t, I dunno, put my hands literally in somebody’s MOUTH upon meeting them? Sighted folks who write blind characters, you’ll have to help me out here. I’m genuinely confused.
For the world dump problem, I’d say that it can be useful to have a bit of world dumping if there’s something important you need to give a basic understanding of before you proceed, such as a magic system, but your explanation should be simple and to the point, literally no more than a paragraph or two, and you can elaborate on the topic later through action instead of description.
The "hey big bro"/"hey lil sis" type of stuff is usually the fault of "too much anime without context" nowadays it seems like.
Now in asian households, you absolutely DO have to refer to your siblings as such, at least when the parents are around. It's an authority and respect thing.
But when that's not what you're writing, it's just cringey.
As for the age gap thing, I just think it's part of the fantasy lust leaking in again. Something about age beyond mortality just horseshoes it back into being attractive. "What's that, you're the 10,000 year old mother of all dragons. That's kind of hot. Can I buy you dinner."
One part fantasy kink, twenty-seven part desire for older partners, and a heaping spoonful of power fantasy.
Can confirm, living in an Asian household and we usually call older siblings as 'big bro' or 'big sis' regardless how much respect you had for that person. Seems like an Anglophone thing to view his as 'unrealistic'
Since I have stories in draft and the story is rather 'Eastern' in culture, the 'big bro' thing gets to stick around.
I don’t understand the whole poo thing when delivering. There was no poo in the delivery room for me. In fact I never once felt the urge to poo when I had my kids lol all the pushing pressure was up front. I’ve heard women say that many time but I wonder why I’ve never experienced that urge? It’s weird how different everyone’s experiences can be.
it has a lot to do with your digestive system. some people carry a lot of crap in their intestines. I was told not to eat about 24 hours before my delivery. Didn't help though. all that pressure and muscle contractions...
It’s to do with the baby literally squeezing it out of you. Not about the urge. Delivery nurses just clean it up and throw it out without ever telling the mom!
@@mrs.marken4609 my stepmom said she felt like she had to go poo when she pushed. So I just assumed some women had back labor and some had front labor. I know I didn’t poo for the last two kids since it was videoed both times and my first kid was actually delivered at home because I had him too fast to make it to the hospital. Pretty sure I would have seen the poo then but it was so fast and new I can’t say for sure. I would think my friends or husband would have said something though but maybe not, I’ll have to ask them lol I think every experience can be different though. All my kids came so fast we joke how my husband just has to catch them as they shoot out like a football 😂 my sister had 5 kids and they all took 30 plus hours to come. It’s amazing hoe the same thing can be so vastly different for us.
@@JoJo-zl7qh "I think every experience can be different though." pretty much sums it up perfectly.
Similarly for siblings - while there might be a family where siblings casually fling small insults at one another without really meaning it, it doesn't mean it should be used as a template for every sibling relationship in every story.
Generally speaking, the writer who has *some* experience with a certain topic should avoid the pitfall of depicting it as something universal. In the end, if someone wants to show broad patterns related to the topic, they'll *need* to do the research and maybe even hire sensitivity readers when applicable, regardless of their own experiences and standing.
@@JoJo-zl7qh Yeah it's a similar urge for some people! That's why getting women to push on the toilet sometimes works well. It wasn't like that for me either and I have no idea if any poo came out, I was kind of focused on other things..... My one sister has been a maternity nurse for over a decade and its very, very common. They don't say anything since a lot of women feel ashamed (they shouldn't!) and just clean it up quickly. I delivered my other sister's baby while she was in the shower, that one sure did come quick, and there was a bit of poo there that I pushed down the drain after. Your body also commonly gets diarrhea during labour to clear some space, so that makes it easier to just slip out.
Wow this a great topic to discuss before 8am... Hahaha
I recently read a description about a high school student and her teacher and it was a romance. I had only ever seen that in thrillers or things like that, not glorified. Someone actually told me "it's fine, because he waited until her 18th birthday". I do like age gap books, as in like a 25 year old dating someone in their 30s or maybe 40s. Where both are legal adults and have some sort of life experience. If he had to "wait until she was 18" there is an issue.
Scissoring isn’t a myth. It’s nowhere near as common as porn makes it out to be, and it’s more difficult than they make it look, but some lesbians definitely do scissor. Source: am a lesbian.
yip, I don't get why she thinks it isn't real. It's definitely real and it's quite nice.
I agree with all of these, but when you do videos like this I frequently wonder where you find your books. I'm not doubting that they are out there, but many of them I rarely encounter. But, like you, when I do come across them they tend to be a quick DNF.
On point #10, I'm a historian and history teacher so while I generally don't mind minor errors here and there, it really takes me out of it when the author obviously hasn't got the most basic grasp of the values and customs of the time and place in which their book is set. I would also point out that - in a sign of progress? - the sex scene thing can now go both ways. Not long ago there was a huge bestseller written by a woman essentially fetishizing a gay male relationship. I mainly enjoyed the cute story except for the overly long, tedious, and confusing sex scenes. I read a couple of them multiple times puzzling over the choreography, before I realized the confusion wasn't mine. The author clearly didn't really understand male anatomy. Still, it hasn't stopped the book going from strength to strength, and I suppose we can count it as a victory for equality if not equity.
I feel like the way you attacked the small women trope was extremely rude to women who actually look like that. Just because you find something weird, doesn't mean you should disregard people who may fit that criteria. It's no different than targeting a specific race, gender, or sexuality. Just because there's no group name for them, doesn't mean they are fair game to be treated poorly. It may have not been purposefully offensive but I've had friends and I have family that look like that and it's extremely aggravating to see their looks be treated in such a way. Their husbands and boyfriends aren't pedophile just because they didn't treat looks as the most important things to pay attention to and men and women who date women who look like this shouldn't be treated as weird, abnormalities that probably have horrendous ideals and shouldn't be allowed around schools.
Just wanted to get that off my chest because I hate when this happens and it happens A LOT. If the character is basically a sexual object and looks like that then sure it's probably something going on with the writer but the appearance type shouldn't be considered taboo.
I agreed with all the other tropes though. Wanted to say that because I didn't want to be purely negative in the description of a video I actually enjoyed.
The last one is EXACTLY why I'm going to be looking for someone to check my military accuracy in the first draft stage. I'm gonna do my best, but I want that shit fixed early because I have a hate-hate relationship with keyword searches.
I think Age Gap couples definitely have to do more with maturity and experiences, rather than just the age gap itself.
I mean which one do you think would be more mature when dating a 40+ year old? A 30 year old that has had plenty of experience with relationships and children, or an 18 year old that just graduated high school and barely knows anything about the real world? You get my point here?
I'm not sure I get your point b/c it sounds like an alternate version of what Jenna said. One person (usually the girl) being in high school or freshly graduated is often going to have much less real-world experience than even a person in their mid/late 20s. Young adults also tend to have a stronger sense of idealism about love and adulthood in general. Plus, there's always the historical angle of younger women being perceived as being more vibrant, youthful, "untouched," manipulatable, etc. vs. the man with real-world experience who's rugged, handsome, notices her in a way that no one her age ever does, etc. So, no, it's not literally about the age gap, so much as it's about the factors that naturally/customarily result from an age gap, esp. one in which one character is a teen or barely an adult.
In one of my stories, I have a couple where there's an age gap of about 20 years... *but* they don't hook up until he's in his 70s and she's in her 50s.
Honestly I didn’t have much more experience with relationships, children, or the ‘real world’ when I was 30 than I did when I was 18. I still got married at 30 though, not 18.
I do have a small woman character, however she does look older and not naive. Curious yes but not naive and have alot of self-respect and kick ass
I never fought with my friends, we do disagree at times and we do question some life choices, but we have enough respect for eachother and communication skill to not fight over it. Like we can advice but if they made a stupid choice, it is theirs, they are entitled to that and support them through the consequences is all we can do.
Is the volume still coming only on one side of anyone's headphones/earbuds/etc?
My wife was 5 ft 2, 94 lbs at age 25, and not anemic, just slender. There's some Asian ancestry involved. You are saying I shouldn't write a book about a character that resembles her?
Wtf not at all lol. It's ok to write shorter women. Take it from me, a short Asian. It's important to note just not try to infantilize them. Thats all
I write small women because I am one and I hate being treated like a child, so I try to write about that experience and how effed up it can be.
Is anyone else getting the audio all fucked up, sounding only in the left side??? D:
The RUclipsr did write in captions "Sorry for the terrible audio" somewhere early in the video.
butters is such a sleepy little baby and I adore them so much I can't breathe
Hi Ms. Jenna, I'm so excited to read your book, got it earlier in the year 🎉❤
Puppy doggy. The wuppy. The gogy. The fuffy
Lore Olympus fans are quaking right now
I've never read about a surprise baby - wait, never mind.
I get the pregnancy thing and I do not get it, it is not my typ of jam, I do not like kids, I am terrified of the idea of pregnency and it should not be in a book all about sex . . . but on the other hand, it is the whole point of sex, the reason many want relationships to beginn with so in a more relationship oriented story it can absoutly have its place and with the inherint conection between sex and fertility . . . I kinda get why people could find it very sexy.
Sex is literally what creates babies. Unfortunately people seem to have issues with this fact nowadays and just want reckless ‘fun’ without consequence...
I do not have any kind of pregnancy kink, BUT I don’t think I’ve ever felt better about my body than when I was pregnant. I know most women hate the weight gain, but I was so amazed by and proud of what my body was doing that it gave me more confidence and positivity about my body than I’d ever had before (or since). So, in that weird sense, I can maaaaaybe see if the pregnancy trope is giving the character a self-confidence boost ghat leads to more sexy times? Also, there are points in pregnancy where the hurricane of hormones going on make you preeeeeettyyyyyy eager for said sexy times, so. There is that.
8:48 True, my brother and I are both adults now, and we still don't call each other by our real names unless we're calling each other from a long distance. Other than that, we insult each other on the daily, lol. Like we do care about each other, but it's a lot of, "Shut up," or, "Shut your face." Or you're stupid," or a bad driver. Whenever we greet each other, he says, "Noob," and I say, "Says you." So when I try to write sibling scenes, I usually kind of mirror similar dialogue, because that's my experience, ahaha. Super good point though
It's every lady's dream to go on a date where the waiter writes their name upside down on the tablecloth.
My sibilings and I refer to each other with brother/sister or diminutives, and we all out dogs always responded to our language equivalent of dog as well as their name. It's not a cultural thing, any more than it's in US, but it's not unheard of. Most of our friends considered it my family's quirk. But i think it's unfair to dismiss that way of comunicating just because it's not the most common thing. For us it comes from a place of genuine love and coonection to one another - they are not just anyone - theyre my sibilings and I'm ther sister. I't started when my older brother was overjoyed when younger was born and would lovingly call them brother, and being the only "girl" i''m sure my younger sibilings didn't know my proper name until they were teenagers, and diminutive for sister in my language, "Seka", basically became my nickname. Literally, when they would introduce me to their friends, they would just say and this is my sister and I would introduce myself. One of my younger sibilings is NB and being adressed as brother by one of us is only gendered thing they don't mind.
This is the second time that your audio only works on my left earphone. While im typing this comment i can still hear that with my right earphone so it is the video
I am a male author and sometimes do objectify my female character. However, I stand for gender equality, so from now on I will be objectifying male characters as well - I am a bisexual, after all.
Also, nope, you can claw worldbuiling out of my cold dead hands but I won't let it go. It is literally the most interesting thing about a lot of fiction works.
Not to change the subject, but I can't get over how on point your eyebrows are.
Hey, I hope this isn’t rude at all. But have you noticed that your voice can only be heard on the left side of headphones in your recent videos? I can hear the background music and the pencil sounds from your intro in both ears, but your voice is only in the one.
Health warning: do not drink a cup of tea while watching this video. I spat at my computer monitor; choked a little; and snorted it out through my nose with Jenna's astute observations. I think we're dating now.
There's actually a psychological component to men's perception of a pregnant woman. It's instinct to be more protective and more attentive to the female during this time. As a consequence, the level of attraction increases. So yeah, pregnancy is kinda sexy.
That depends, it's sexy for the women seeing the man's attention, but unless the men have a pregnancy kink, they don't find them attractive enough, they often find them unappealing.
3:52 I can add onto that:
1. I almost died at birth because the nurse thought it was okay to cross the legs in labor so as to not have the baby without the doctor present, so I almost died from asphyxiation. How I made it past NICU is beyond me (I was born in October 2000 for reference).
2. During that time, I’m sure my mom threw up at least twice and once near me (an omen that I’d be a letdown 😅😂).
3. My mom had gestational diabetes while pregnant with my sisters.
4. Also during that time, my sisters as fetuses decided it was a good idea to jumble around in my mom all day to the point the next day they were exhausted and not moving and my mom thought something happened and was nervous as get-out.
And that’s just a SMALL reason of why I’m not having kids. I’ll make sure of that one way or another.
This is a book which has trope #10: In Salem (A book on Wattpad), the OC MC (Because I feel she is) is descendant to Samuel Wardwell. He had a daughter named Elizabeth in the book which is false because he ACTUALLY has a daughter named Mercy and a stepdaughter named Sara Hawkes. I was SO happy that this author proved she had not idea what she talking about.
Hilarious and thought-provoking as usual. Thanks Jenna!
Anyone else has audio issues ? like hearing the video sound in "one ear"?
Has anyone found a book where the 100 year old vampire or whatever goes for an actual adult? I'd be curious to read a book like that and see if it changed my take on that trope being stupid and harmful both...
The closest thing I've ever seen was a fanfic my friend wrote recently where a full-grown man went through Vampire Hunting Schooling just so he could be able to defend/protect himself if he needed to while seducing vampires because he was a horny monster fucker. But, like I said, it was fanfic, and, honestly, the fact that I've only really seen this kind of thing WAS in fanfic.....doesn't really bode well for original fiction, imo. :(
There are plenty of adult match-ups in Anne Rice.
Try Blood Games by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
An actual conversation I had with my older sister:
“Greetings dork face.”
“I’m not a dork face!”
“Yes you are!”
“You’re a dork face times two!”
“You’re a dork face times infinity!”
“GAHHHHH!”
I have NEVER, at any time in my life, referred to her as “big sis.” Usually it’s either “dork face,” “nerd,” or some variation thereof.
. . . . there are lots of siblings that are like that, just cause it does not match your own experience does not mean it is not a thing at all, I know siblings like that despite my brother and I being different . . . unless he is drunk ^^
i noticed that the audio had been kinda wonky these past couple of vids with the sound only coming from the left side its not a problem with my headphones since all other videos work fine i really want to watch your videos but i cannot because of this issue
Bad clichés - Tiny cute women.
Me - Writes a literal 2-meter-tall hyena girl who's fighting monsters like a boss, but is still a cute fluffball with her best friend. :) I think I passed the test on this one. XD
In my first novel the main character is the same size as my wife when I first met her, 24 years old, 5 ft 2, mid 90 lbs. I did compensate by having a main supporting character be a 6 ft 200 lb woman who was pure muscle that people would take for a man if they didn't look closely. Makes for an interesting contrast between them and provides content for the story. Short leading ladies, tall leading men was the norm not that long ago, with exceptions, I'm sure.
Anyone wondering how the hostility and contempt for: her audience, writers, readers, intuitive writers, and humankind in general shows upin her books?
What hostility and contempt? You... know shes acting up an exaggerated caricature of herself for entertainment value... right?
Decided to have ChatGPT rewrite a paragraph for me (for the heck of it), and it used terrible purple prose.
Didn't use it in the story.
Trigger warning: SA
You don't know how much I HATE SA tropes!!! The worst of all is that when the male leads "have" to SA and drug the female lead for the greater good or something. The acotar series is a great example of it and I'm always being hit with the "He had to touch her or else she would've died!". Ah yes, he *needed* to touch, kiss, lick, tell her that he would've raped her if it wasn't for her other LI, drug, force this 19 year old girl to lap dance (on him) nearly naked in front of thousands of centuries old fae people while she's crying and feeling so disgusted (He's an centuries crusty old grandpa too).
Rereading these chapters to realize he actually didn't need to do it all. Evil lady didn't notice nor care about her much until the centuries old grandpa brought her around. Guess what? He never really faced consequenzes, just a "Sorry but I had to do it" with a pitiful sob story.
What is so sexy about SA? How is touching someone without their consent and making them feel so uncomfortable hot? Why are we always excusing the toxic male leads that do this??
Any form of SA that the MLs do is overstepping lines that should NOT be overstepped. As soon as SA is involved and it's romanticized, the book is trash.
Age gap trope also makes me 🤮. The only age gap trope that I'm fine with is if both of them are grown adults (example: 100 ♡ 30). A grown ass man going after a teen is just so disgusting and predetory. I'm 18 and I feel like a complete child still.
Fictionary is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G-!-!-! I’m so grateful to have found this company and their software. The 38 story elements have given my novel new life! I’ve learned so much about how to craft a story readers will L-O-V-E-!-!
Honestly, pregnancy is not that different from a couple going through other hardships together. And that is a very beloved trope: a couple having a difficult time but they’re there for each other, supporting each other, and are eventually stronger together than before.
Just with pregnancy, not everything about it is bad. But I think it’s just not everyone’s kind of thing and that’s totally fine. Not everyone wants to be a parent.
With big age gaps, I don’t mind them much as long as the younger part is 20+. But I think I might differ here because in my country you’re of legal age at 18. I graduated school when I was still 17 and had already lived two years on my own, worked and just taken a flight half around the globe to go off studying in a completely different country when I was 21.
I‘d say it’s less about age, it’s about experience and life circumstances. My partner is six years older, but when we met both of us were still in university. Granted, he was doing his PhD and I my bachelor, but other than that our daily life hadn’t been all that different. Now that we’re mostly working we’re in similar positions again, we can just really relate to each other. And that is what really matters. As long as an author can convey that to me, I’m fine
I don't know if is only my PC or something else, but since the last video, I hear you only from one side of my speakers, I just wanted to notice this detail 'coz could be some record problem. IDK.
Actually, my sister-in-law calls my husband (and his brothers) "Bro" all the time. I think it's code for "I've had a brain blip and have temporarily forgotten your name."
Number 9: Jenna, I think those authors are trying to add characters who AREN'T average size like 99.9999999999% of characters in both fiction and nonfiction. Just like how some authors are trying to add characters who are LGBQ or from a different region in the world.
Let me ask the people who read these comments: On a scale of 1 to 20 (20 being the most common) how often do you read about characters who are average height, weight, straight (sex-preferance), and WHITE?
I can't even tell you tbh I don't see pictures in my mind, so unless the description is strictly given to me (the author says this character is a white 5'6" lady with red hair, freckles, green eyes, a white shirt with an alien saucer on it, short cut shorts, worn shoes) I just don't *see* them in the traditional sense. I don't have a default setting. But I guess the default setting you're going for is a 5'6" white female, 5'9" white male? 5'8" is the average female height in Ohio, United States btw. Fun fact!
Anyhow, I think there's a difference between infantilizing and introducing someone who's short or who has dwarfism. My little sister is short and she looks sixteen despite being a month away from being nineteen. Were I to write her in a book, I wouldn't describe her as being "childlike and innocent", though. I'd describe her as being "short". Maybe I'd say "younger than her true age" or "an ID check waiting to happen", but nothing to do with children. Comparing someone who is short or has dwarfism to a child is demeaning and gross.
I think the issue is more about the fact that it's always a tiny little woman (with a big tall guy), never the opposite. Personally, I'm a very short woman, so I always write my female protagonist taller than average, and then envy them XD
@@msmageautrice Guess I’m problematic since I’m on the shorter side and my husband is a giant. 😅
The issue is that in those books (and especially in anime) those very short women DO NOT ACT LIKE WOMEN, they act like children, it's gross and fetishising
is this audio problem a RUclips wide issue or something? so many channels I subscribed to... I can't hear from the right ear audio.
I thought my ear buds were the issue.
So, the date at Macaroni Grill thing - I once brought a date to Red Lobster, and it was, in her words, the nicest restaurant she'd ever been to. It will depend on someone's socioeconomic status and experience what counts as upscale and classy. Though I'm sure in the actual example, we aren't talking about someone that grew up Mennonite and lives in the middle of nowhere like my date did.
I once dated a gal who told me about different dude she had dated previously who considered going to Olive Garden as rare, high-end, gotta get dressed up fine dining.
I asked if "dressed up" meant a clean shirt and putting on pants. AKA the bare minimum you should do for a going out to eat date.
You don’t need to necessarily grow up Mennonite to think Red Lobster is fancy... It’s probably one of the fanciest places my husband has been to and he grew up in Detroit. I think people who grew up upper class class are just really out of touch with how the majority of people live and see the world. And I’m saying this as someone who grew up upper middle class myself.
Halloween costume to a black tie event? That makes me think of legally blond. In this case it made sense because she was lied to about the nature of the event. She was set up to look foolish.
I was thinking the same thing! 😮
Butters is so super cute. Thanks for showing her off.
Didn't knew two legal adults dating can be considered creepy.
Is it just me or does the sound only come from the left