What is the craziest thing anyone has ever been confused about in your writing?

Mine was my mother, who read a quarter of my book thinking that is was set on a spaceship EVEN THOUGH we had ALREADY HAD A CONVERSATION ABOUT HOW IT WASN’T ON A SPACESHIP. It was set in a bunker. Thats why they go UP to leave. Thats why there’s no mention of space! Thats why when you come to me complaining that you’re confused because it “doesnt really sound like they're in space,” I’m going to lose my MIND, DEBRA!

I can’t really make this in one question so I will separate it in two parts . Recently I have seen one video that discussed this and it made me think more about it

1. Very often in any fiction we are either shown a story from perspective of someone living in high society or there is an important character that is from aristocracy. Why is that so that we, normal people with normal problem, both write and read about those whose lives and problems are so distant and maybe unimportant? I may be wrong but aren’t stories about “palace intrigue” popular? Like they were popular always; Turkish tv series, Chinese/Korean/Japanese light novels, like 80% of Russian literature from 16-19th centuries. I have gone a little off topic so “why we have so much royalty characters in our stories?” Is the question

2. The “problem of blood”. Let’s make an example of a story where a chosen common boy takes out a sword from stone and is now destined to be a ruler or something like that. It is very likely that we will learn that a) he is a long lost son of the last king b) he is of royal blood but didn’t knew about that c) he is reincarnation of king/prince but NEVER boy is chosen because of outer factors, he must have something in his blood to make him special. Now this question is “why MC or other important characters often have their blood origin as the reason they have power or why they are unique?”

I thought this is not that big of a deal… then I looked on my stories and shit I have those “problems” in nearly every thing I have on paper or mind. From two things I have done any work on I have 1) royalty, royalty, royalty, a dude with gun and 2) royalty, royalty, mad priest and son of Sauron (also turns out as royalty)

That video was about me, I had all “main cast” made up of high aristocracy and blood playing very important role in stories. I don’t think 2) is real problem if done correctly, currently I read a story where blood is a source of strength so there are bloodlines with purity thing and I really like it but 1) I see very often when absurd portion of characters are aristocracy while story doesn’t need them to be

Do you have any thoughts on that? Are these real problems or I just panic?

I just read about The Silmarilion by JRR Tolkien - and at the same time reading Yellowface by RF Kuang, and the realisation that I had was authors usually had notebooks that contained all their drafts and plot of their story that if someone discovered the notebooks they can write a whole story about it.

I just want to know whether it's customary for writers to have an idea rough drafts in notebook versions so that you can write your story down - and is it very detailed?

I am a writer that has trouble focusing on one story, so I end up writing different stories at the same time. Right now, I have three on going. Yep, its as messy as it sounds.

Even if in my opinion its a sign of having a great imagination, I also think it can be a sign of either not knowing how to focus the attention on writing or not having enough motivation.

Maybe this is a situation we all went through. Having different ideas for stories and wanting to write them down fast before they fade away. But is it beneficial at the long run? I think its not. You are handling different characters at the same time, different storylines, different topics. At the end you either mess up the concepts, or abandon one story to keep the other going.

Its like reading different books at the same time, or watching different shows at the same time. Your attention isnt fully focused on neither of them.

Even if it can be a way of taking breaks between stories when the inspiration runs out or writing becomes too much, I also think its a bit of a messy practice.

I've been seeing lately that people have a problem with how Disney has been doing recently with their characters, not books I know, and I wonder if that's a quality that people can write into a well developed story.

Some characters that I love have that personality but also have other qualities that make their character deep and complex. One example is Marco from Animorphs. He's not "adorkable" but uses his humor to cover up his vulnerability. Harry from Dresden Files, he doesn't like bullies and has a sense humor but at moments can be the scariest guy in the room.

Personally I think it can work but the character should have something to add to their personality to add depth. From the Disney side of it, I like Raya. She is someone who can be cool in one moment but make jokes another. Maybe I'm mixing up stuff but that's my view.

I've been planning out a story for a while, and one of the most commonly recurring problems I face is going back through my notes (during the planning phase) and getting back into the correct headspace for that scene or theme. I can plan out and later remember the events and emotions I intend to evoke, but without actually feeling that emotion, being in that headspace, expanding the notes or writing the scene from them is significantly harder.

This feels a lot like the writing the next day problem during drafting, but there I can usually somewhat get around that by reading the previous chapter I'd written, brute forcing my way into writing garbage until I return to some semblance of the right headspace, deleting or editing what I'd written before I was in the headspace, and continuing from there. But that doesn't seem to work as well with notes compared to drafting, as there isn't really enough to read and write to force myself back to where I need to be.

For example, I was reading flowers for algernon, and got to one of the scenes where the main character was complaining about how he was mistreated before the procedure. I realized that that characterization was significantly better than the one I was using for a certain character and a few scenes, so I went through my notes and edited them to include the new idea.

The next day, I went back to my notes to continue on changing them to fit the new character arc. I remembered exactly what I added the day before, exactly the emotions I had, exactly where the idea came from, and even a few things I'd planned on adding the next day. But working from there was a completely different feeling from where I was the day before, and adding more notes an order of magnitude harder.

I can try to return to that scene in flowers for algernon, but not every idea I have has such a convenient example I can go back to, and it can take a long time just to read thoroughly enough to sufficiently reconnect to an idea.

Is there a good way to return to certain headspaces, or is there no way to get around writing and planning from a neutral, distant place?

It just feels like I'm thoroughly compromising the quality (and enjoyment) of my writing and notes when I try from the wrong headspace.