10 REAL writing advice without sugar-coating

I always saw the term "Forced Diversity" whenever mainstream media just put whatever character who is X in and don't even bother with developing the character and just do it for "brownie points" for being diverse so the audience can praise them. Not saying that all mainstream media and creators do this, but it is trend that some of them do this which is a trend that should stop.

Clearly, you are not getting things across as well as you think you are, if so many people seem to be misunderstanding you're points. So I'm going to speed round this, because you seem to just be digging your heels in defensively rather than actually wanting to engage critically with people's views on your advice that seems more like a bad experience you want to rant about than actual advice. Reminds me of those people who always used to turn up here complaining that to get ahead on Tapas, don't write proper stories, write trashy cliches because that's all the top stories are.

• You separated technique and story telling, but most of those "everyone has different tastes" are about story telling, not technique, because very few of these writing advice book/podcast/articles ever cover technique like SPaG. Your point was badly presented at best, disingenuous at worst.
• This was also another case of your presenting it badly then, because from the responses, basically everyone took it as you saying you had dropped it because people didn't focus on what you wanted them too. You bringing up GL constantly makes it look like a romance, because GL is romance. You're giving out that impression, if you'd just called it a mystery, or a mystery with background romance, people would have understood more. You put GL Mystery, giving the GL as much, if not more weight than the mystery. You say you don't want to put too much focus on the ship, but your presentation is doing so.
• Again, what you described in the main post was no necessarily forced, and has been attributed just as often to straight romances, and just rookie romances in general. That you focused on romance over any other representation made that seem more the case. Nothing you pointed out was exclusive to representation, LGBTQ+ or otherwise. So another case of you needing to present your points better.
• Was there a reason for him not to be dark-skinned? Please, tell me the reason why he shouldn't be dark-skinned. Or why any anime/manga character shouldn't be dark-skinned. Especially since the moved it to America, where there's a high population of darker skinned people than Japan so why not reflect that in your casting? (it makes as much sense a secret detective orphanages do) and tried to pass that other kid off as Light? If anything, dark-skinned L was the least of the issues with characters in that film, at least he'd clearly seen Death Note and was trying to bring L to his character. Are you really telling me making him white or Asian would have saved that at all? Death Note was a pretty badly done movie, made worse by trying to say they were the same characters but writing them completely differently. Bad writing all round. Pick a different movie and try to make the point again rather than picking a not great movie with bad writing and saying it was casting the person of colour that made it bad. (Also, by all reports, the original creator liked the Netflix Death Note, which having seen his latest work, I believe, so don't bring him into it to make a cheap point).
• You make a point about the difference between forced and badly written but use badly written as an example of forced.
• Again, being unnatural doesn't mean it's "forced" by some exec. Sometimes, it's just badly written by a newbie writer who wants to write it but has no idea how. Sometimes, straight romance is just as unnatural and forced. Putting it all on representation and ignoring the same problem in default straight white characters/romances is cheap.

TL:DR you seem to have an issue with getting across what you want to say and people apparently focusing on the wrong thing.

You have not answered the question. Why is L dark skin considered forced diversity and not Light being white? Why?

Once again this is less advise and more just cheap takes, very poorly made takes that does not reflect the currant market or consumer consumption or makes even finical or literary sense. You may say you are not racists or homophobic. No one has called you that, but it can come off as that due to how poorly its written it all is, (lol poor writing puns). Especially when most people critiquing you are queer or POC themselves so they know what they are talking about and have issues with. Most people here are just questioning and have either professional experience or researched and really that mentality of doubling down doesn't go too well. Makes people wonder your credentials. especially questioning things as you claim. (Im suspecting shenanigans)

"My black co-workers..." bruh....Say that out loud again, slowly

Being able to take critique is a good trait as a writer or creator. Doubling down in face of it is not and more a sign of creator who has alot of growing up to do. Sensitivity readers and a diverse set of Beta Readers (that are not your friends) are necessary for that reasons.

Once again creator with common sense would just call this thread "redditor give advise" or "poorly done takes" or "My black co-w-"

I’ve heard the term brownie points. It’s kind of a stupid buzzword if you ask me. I love diversity and in my opinion it’s great no matter what! Though there are some instances where I feel like there is too much that it stops characters from developing which is super annoying. If I’m going to make a character who historically has been persecuted or marginalized or not represented I will give them a purpose in my story and really I don’t care if my characters are black, white purple orange, gay, straight nonbinary male female, a cat a dog I literally don’t care. They are characters that should represent humanity and creatures as we are, living breathing humans all in this together and on one rock.

Yeah, I can tell, or you would have realised I called you none of the things you're bringing up and even agreed with some of the points you're making here. Especially that the biggest issue was trying to call them the same characters while totally missing the point of those characters or even their American social equivalents. But please, make yourself the victim of things I didn't say, by all means and claim that responding to points you made and discussing them and your responses is dragging you into something.

Doesn't this just say everything about how much you actually want to discuss things?

For the record, I have no issue having conversations about harsher or unpopular advice, I did my own thread on this a while back and it was an overall very positive experience. So here, let's try a little positivity and try to actually make sense of this advice, rather than you just getting defensive and talking about your own points, huh? Less edge, more advice.

1. Lower you're expectation and manage them. Solid advice. People coming in here thinking they're the next big thing are almost always disappoints.
2. Perseverance is important. Webcomic/novels is a long, hard slog that can and will take years to pay off. It's unlikely to happen immediately, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.
3. Originality and quality are not the same. Just because something is original doesn't mean it's good. Predictable does not mean bad. There is very little that's entirely original these days anyway. Don't let people comparing you to something else put you off, as long as you're not actually just changing the names or something.
4. Don't use personal taste as an excuse not to improve. If the readers aren't biting or you're lacking in engagement, rather than complaining that people only like trash or don't appreciate you're taste, look at your work and be introspective before blaming the others, maybe there are improvements to be made.
5. This is weirdly conflated with Point 4 and is really just an odd thing to make it's own thing when if you take out the stuff about (correct) inspirational advice, it's exactly the same. Improve your craft before blaming other people.
6. Use the right words in the right places. Said is not dead, but a well placed bellowed can have a lot of impact. At the same time, every time you use a dialogue tag that stands out, you diminish their effect. If every line is shouted, bellowed, yelled and screamed, it all becomes noise. The same with vocabulary. It's all well and good to use big, complicated smart words, but if I have to stop every other word and look it up, I'm putting the book down. Your narrative should be accessible, fit your character's voice and your target audience's vocabulary. Doing it all isn't easy, but that's why it's a skill. Knowing big words makes you smart, knowing when to use them makes you wise.
7. Internal consistency. The best way to avoid plot holes is internal consistency and simple rules and planning. Even if you're pantsing something, take notes as you go of any rules you set so you don't cross them later. But also, remember, as long as it's not distractingly bad, only the minority will care. So either plan like a master, or wing it like a master and go "yeah, I totally meant to do that".
8. Write what you want to write, not what you think will be popular. On the flip side, don't pick a genre because it's got less competition so you think you can dominate. Marketing is important. If you tag your genre wrong, you might get an influx of readers to start, but they'll soon realise it wasn't what was promised and either leave, complain or focus on the wrong things. And maybe you won't be perfect at it, but an honest attempt is always better than a cynical one, even if it's bad.
9. Your first project will more than likely suck. Use it as a learning experience, but don't take too long. While it's good to practice, if you wait for the time to be right and to be ready, you'll never get started. There's a medium between jumping in headlong and hesitating forever. You have to find it for yourself.
10. Research is important, but remember not to use it as an excuse not to actually write. You can research forever.

As I said, I made a post very similar a while back and we got some good discussion out of it, even hitting a lot of these points. It's definitely your presentation that has seen this spiral the way it has.

Ahh, sorry. I missed the "don't take it seriously" part. That's my mistake. And yeah, it depends on the type of story you're telling and the style you're going for. I just wanted to apologize for that misunderstanding before something happens to this thread.

Ohhhh, that makes more sense. Like me and other people said, it's normal for people to latch onto things like that. Plus with a lot of people not being the type to comment, it probably looked like that's all your readers cared about. You said there were other reasons that you dropped that story, so I'm not going to say that you shouldn't have. But if enough people were reading to comment on the relationship, there were probably even more people that enjoyed other aspects of the story along with it.

Yup, wanting a specific type of audience is not entitlement or elitism. The only problem is when you make a huge deal about it, and/or openly and directly say insults to the wrong audience. Though, the 'wrong' type of audience will always find a way to show up even with a calculation to avoid them, so in a public site like this it's hard to avoid. (I admit sometimes they're even not as bad as I thought and it's just my judgement)

(Though it's always sad when creatives have to stop creating because of their audience.)

LOL. Only in novel medium you can see people ripping off an airing drama series by turning it into prose form.