madarasgirl

[madarasgirl]

I give up

[madarasgirl]

I’m a writer and I wanna ask for help! I’ve been writing better lately but I got stuck from my old habits of using too many “you”. I’m an x-reader fic writer and I’m redoing an old fic I’ve made two years ago. I’m actually writing the earliest chapters of my fic and I’m trying to write out the banal scenes of the daily dose of Y/N’s life. So far, I’ve actually improved greatly in my writing skills but I couldn’t help write too many “you”-s when I couldn’t make it detailed for the rest of the scenes.

How to Avoid Overusing "You" in X-Reader Fiction

Hey there! This is a super common problem, which I touched on from another angle in my post How to Avoid Overusing "I" in a First Person Story. Basically, the trick isn’t to eliminate “you” completely (since it’s essential to the style), but to balance sentence structure and vary how scenes are described.

Here are some tips:

1. Remove Filtering

Instead of filtering every observation through “you,” describe things directly:

You hear the coffee pot beep in the kitchen. → The coffee pot beeps in the kitchen.

You see the sky turn gray outside. → Clouds gather, darkening the sky.

2. Balance Action with Description & Inner Thoughts

If every sentence starts with “you,” it can feel repetitive. Mix in setting details, dialogue, and inner monologue to help reposition the "you" to a different part of the sentence:

You open the fridge. You grab a drink. You sit down. → The fridge hums softly. Cold air brushes against your skin as you grab a drink. The chair creaks as you sit.

3. Remove “You” from Inner Thoughts

In second-person, we assume thoughts belong to the reader, so adding the "you" is often unnecessary.

You think to yourself, “This is a terrible idea.” → This is a terrible idea.

Hope this helps!

[madarasgirl]

[madarasgirl]

“Show Don’t Tell”? Not Always. Here’s When to Use Summary.

I was inspired to write this post after getting a great anonymous question in my Ask: “What’s your opinion on the whole ‘show don’t tell’ advice? Do you have any tips for when to show and when to tell?”

Here’s my response:

I honestly think that “show don’t tell” is one of the most over-quoted and least-understood pieces of writing advice out there.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, “show don’t tell” means that instead of explaining or telling something to your reader (“Sheila was reckless and impulsive”), you should show Sheila’s impulsiveness through action or dialogue. For example, “Even though her rent was overdue, after she got her paycheck Sheila spent $400 on an antique toilet.” This would allow the reader to draw the conclusion that Sheila was impulsive for themselves, rather than being told.

Theoretically, this is great advice for new fiction writers, who, left to their own devices, tend to write their stories entirely in “telling” mode.

But summary (telling) has a place in fiction as well, and it’s an important one.

For one thing, summary allows you to pace your story. If everything is shown in the moment, a story can sometimes seem to be unfolding with breathtaking speed. Alternating with a bit of summary allows your reader to slow down for a break every once in a while.

Secondly, scene takes a lot longer to write than summary. In the earlier example, it might take several scenes or hundreds of words to thoroughly show and convince the reader of Sheila’s impulsiveness. Whereas the sentence “Sheila was impulsive” takes three words. So summary can allow you to fit more into your story or novel and keep it a reasonable length whereas if you wrote every single little thing that happened in scene your story might be prohibitively long.

So summary helps control the pacing of the story and also helps the writer moderate the story’s length.

Even the most fervent supporters of “show don’t tell,” as far as I know, do not dispute that every story can make use of and benefit from summary.

Try it yourself: Pick up your favorite story or book off of the shelf and see if you can locate parts of the story that are told, explained, or summarize to the reader. It’s there. It’s part of the package. Good writers use summary, and they know how to use it well.

So how do you decide when and where to use summary?

The answer is in itself another question and topic. But here’s a quick guideline:

Use summary to give the reader any information she needs which is not important enough to the story to warrant a scene, or to show the passing of time between important parts of the story.

Example #1 Using summary to quickly present inconsequential information.

If the fact that Sheila is reckless and impulsive is a central part of the story—maybe this is a story about how Sheila, your protagonist, learns to overcome her impulsiveness, for example, or maybe in this story it becomes a major issue in Sheila’s relationship that she is impulsive, etc.—then by all means show Sheila’s impulsiveness in scenes.

But if Sheila is, for example, a minor character who is only mentioned by two or three times in passing, and whose behavior doesn’t really affect the story one way or another, then go ahead and summarize Sheila’s behavior. For example, if Sheila is a distant cousin of the protagonist and is only mentioned in a few sentences when the protagonist bumps into her at a family reunion. She is not a central part of the story, but for whatever reason it’s important for the reader to know a few minor details about her.

Example #2: Using summary to show time passing between important scenes.

If your story is about a couple being trapped inside a cabin for a long winter, by all means show the bitter cold days in full scene. That’s the essence of your story, you wouldn’t want to summarize it and deny the reader the chance to experience it.

But if your story is about two friends who share a friendship at summer camp every year, you might want to recap the winter that passed between their visits in a paragraph or two.

Another time to quickly summarize time passing is to use a sentence or two when characters transition from one important location to another, e.g. “They left the movie, drove back to the house, and started dinner.” Again, check up on your favorite writers. I promise you they are not showing every single tiny action blow-by-blow. It would be tedious as hell and make it almost impossible for the reader to figure out what’s important and what’s not.

A few final words about “show don’t tell”:

If you’re having a hard time deciding what to put in scene and what to put in summary, you might not understand your story well enough yet. Go back and make some notes, or have someone you trust read your story and give you feedback.

Everyone has different levels of tolerance for summary and exposition. Find out yours. You want to be the kind of writer that you would want to read, right? Go through your favorite short stories and novels with a highlighter and highlight any passages or sentences that are telling. Are you the kind of reader who loves a page of summary about the snow falling outside, or do you prefer your stories to be more action-heavy?

There is a lot of bad advice out there about showing versus telling. Some writers would have you write: “She sighed deeply as a single crystalline tear gently glided down her face, tracing the line of her button nose before splashing onto the yellow formica countertop” instead of “She cried.” “She cried” is not telling! Cried is a verb: it shows. “She was sad” or “She was upset” is telling.

Similarly, beware of anyone who applies the “show don’t tell” advice prescriptively, or who seems to be repeating it like a parrot. Those people usually don’t know what they’re talking about. They heard that advice somewhere, and they’re just repeating it. Anytime anyone reads your writing and says, “You should show more,” without giving any further explanation, question them. Get them to specifically tell you what they’re talking about. If they can’t, find someone else to look at your writing.

Summary doesn’t have to be boring. When it is appropriate to summarize, look for ways to add verbs and sensory details to your summaries to keep them more vivid. Give your reader something to visualize. “My father was restless” is hard to visualize. “My father was like a squirrel on cocaine. By the time I woke up, he’d been out in the yard for hours, stuffing Easter eggs into his pocket like they were acorns,” is, well, absurd. But easier to visualize.

/ / / / /

@theliteraryarchitect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler, a writer and developmental editor. For more writing help, download my Free Resource Library for Fiction Writers, join my email list, or check out my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

[madarasgirl]

“Come on fraulein, control your “dog”…“ [x]

[madarasgirl]

Meme belongs to @coffin-of-dust I’m on a comedy roll today

[madarasgirl]

i don't need to explain myself you all know what i'm talkin about

[madarasgirl]

screenshots of the Captain [Hellsing Ultimate]

We have a talent sniffing out good boys and THIS! is a good boy. Maybe this is a bitter, messed-up world but remember, there are good boys out there. Learn to sniff them out, include them in your environment and make yourself happy✧

[madarasgirl]

A Night for Hunting Ch.25 – Hope on a String

CW: Alucard (Ultimate) x F!Reader, hostage, psychological trauma, unethical experimentation, angst, pining, suicidal thoughts, canon-typical violence, OVA 4 WC: 4952

Happy Chinese New Year (it’s the Year of the Snake. Ouroboros is a good snaky)! Have some Valentine’s heartache as well! I ended up tweaking the last chapter just a smidge. Let’s say it took a few days (instead of overnight) for Integra to arrange access to the SR-71 Blackbird. It helps align Alucard and the Reader’s timelines better. It’s been quite some time between drawing up the outline of these chapters and writing them. I forgot some of the details that would have ensured better consistency.

On AO3

An excerpt under the cut

Alucard touched your belongings with what gentleness he had left, a gloved finger tracing the plush material of a robe. He brought it to his face and inhaled, aching for more than the wisp of scent he was rewarded.

Integra had wanted to rebuild his basement after the manor was destroyed, to renovate it so the lower level was suitable for housing a living person when you returned.

Only you were missing. Stolen. There was no point in remaking his home if you weren't going to be there. He forbade the evidence of your time there to be desecrated by the workers seeking to demolish the sacred grounds in order to rebuild, so he chased them out of his sanctuary the few times they tried to begin work until they surrendered to his will. 

A low hum vibrated in his throat as his head stayed bowed. Nostalgia turned to worry.

The vampire king felt your stomach folding into knots and your repeated sense of violation, yet here he was, rendered helpless and impotent to defend you. The distant recollection of a labouring man’s weight on his back surfaced, though it was no longer of consequence. It came from another life, the experiences of another version of him who was long dead.

Dracula had known war his entire existence. It was safe to assume the Nazis had defiled you. Rape was part of their conquest and armies did not stop at one male per female. His fangs dug into his lips and drew blood – he despised himself for his failure. There was no question he'd welcome you back into his arms after your multiple violations once he exenterated his enemies, but what if Millennium infected you? 

What if you were a ghoul when he found you?

He knew what he would do, recalled what you requested of him. It would destroy him, but he would not let you suffer that fate and indignity because of his blunders. Taloned fists clenched and unclenched uselessly, his mouth curled into a snarl. The crimson tincture of arcane power seeped off his broad shoulders.

He considered other possible outcomes. There was also the potential they chipped and damned you as an artificial vampire. His blood boiled at such foul mistreatment. That was not how he wanted to turn you. His human deserved only a queen’s coronation if you were ever to choose vampirism, under a full moon in his coffin. Could he reverse their inferior methods by removing the chip and infusing his own blood? Would you be entirely beholden under the Major's control? Alucard did not know the answers to these details, but he would cross whatever bridge caring for you required once it came up, after he found you.

Crushed under the strength of his feelings for a mortal, his insides churned with festering dread. How was it that he allowed such a bond (a weakness) to develop? He was complicit and willing in his descent, and now he was wholly enraptured by your existence. The Nosferatu was a prisoner to your needs and he wouldn't have it any other way. 

The first vampire was absolutely, fecklessly in love. This affliction should not have been possible for a creature of damnation like himself.

~To be Continued~

Ch. 26 - A Valuable Lesson (Short chapter)

[madarasgirl]

Hiii! I love your fic ANFH, I saw you have another series for it planned after its complete. Will that be a one-shot or chapter fic? I’m rather just curious and by no means rushing you, just really excited 🥹❤️ always looking forward to another chapter of ANFH it’s soo good

Hey!!! Thank you for dropping by! I love these messages/asks. I think the next one is likely to be a one-shot. From the outline alone, it seems like it'll be another lengthy one. It is about the Reader choosing the path of vampirism and staying with Alucard forever. Could it be a potential two-shot? Maybe, but right now, I don't know where to split the story in a place that makes sense. We will see once I start writing that one!! The title will be "The Queen of the Night." Cliché for sure, but I think it's fitting for this couple.

I'm delighted that you are so excited for ANFH! I've been writing more lately. Ch. 25 is almost done. It should be posted this week once I look it over a bit more :D

[madarasgirl]

“…you are dumber than you look…” Madara Uchiha

[madarasgirl]

which ao3 tag are you?

[madarasgirl]

Commission open 🦭 talk to me for info.

By the way, I haven't been able to respond to your messages T_T but I will soon, please don't think that I'm ignoring you.

[madarasgirl]

Rating Alucards Cuz Why Not

Hellsing Ultimate Alucard: 40/10. Beautiful animation for a beautiful man. Traumatic backstory and covers up depression with confidence. Overall gorgeous.

Gonzo Alucard: 50/10. The strangest mix of ugly and hot. Goblin rat man, overall funky little man and the reason I fell in love with this character.

Vladcard: 60/10. Could go from staking nazis to giving headpats in a matter of seconds. Would bury my face in his tits. Overall teddy bear king.

Straight Jacket Alucard: 55/10. Feral and murderous as fuck. Honestly a little concerning how attractive I find him. Overall would let him rip my head off or fuck me into oblivion.

Girlycard: 30/10. Honestly, she looks a bit young for me? But like, she’s still Alucard, so overall ????????

Riocard: 75/10. FUCK 👏 YES 👏 THAT’S SOME GOOD SHIT RIGHT THERE!!!! Admittedly does look like Ozzy Osbourne if he didn’t fry his brain on drugs back in the day, but that’s not such a bad thing. Overall would suck him off on the airplane

[madarasgirl]

A Night for Hunting Ch. 24- Gossamer Dreams

Alucard (Ultimate) x F!Reader, Millennium, hostage, canon-typical violence, medical trauma, unethical experimentation, implied torture, angst, pining, soul bond, OVA 4 WC: 5208

Happy New Year! Thank you for your patience and everyone's kind words. The lack of time and motivation and a plethora of distractions during a busy December caused the writing delay. On another note, I know people say not to write for stats, but we hit a new milestone! This story which was originally a 1.8k oneshot is now 100k words. The show of support has been incredible. I never thought I would make it here!

An excerpt under the cut

The sensation of being cradled steadied you. From the ether, an unexplained feeling of hope suffused your being, the feathery softness a tangible thing to get lost in. Within the haze of sleep, you reached through the bond to try touching it, but though you willed your arm to stretch out, you stayed frozen. Neither could you call out to that presence.

MOVE! You commanded your limbs to obey. Even your fingertips were immobile. You couldn’t flip around or wiggle your toes either. Unable to overcome the paralysis or bestir yourself into wakefulness, you could only spasm.

All that was left was to breathe and experience whatever this was. You found yourself eager to explore this phenomenon. Fear had no place here, so you relinquished reason and plunged headfirst into darkness. The space constricted around you in the abyss, swaddled by phantom arms that you somehow knew. 

Purring. A vibrating cage surrounded you. Despite the claustrophobic state, the tension of days past ebbed and finally you could relax in the solid embrace, like being wrapped in a weighted blanket inside the cramped nest of a coffin after a trying night. Claws ghosted over the nodules on your spine as words like smoke whispered into your soul. 

The velvet wings of a bat sheltered you. A bat? A dragon? You must be losing your mind, but as long as your dragon kept you safe under his wings, you would gladly stay there forever.

The creature drowned you in a sea of purrs. Fuzzy and delirious, you twitched and keened and basked in his glory, assured you were cherished and missed.

Everything was going to be okay. You knew this as though it was gospel. 

Time was strange, but under the trance of the rolling purrs and the promises for tomorrow that thawed the frightful iciness from inside out, you found peace, already fully surrendered to the world of dream and fantasy. 

He turned away. The dragon's mirage was starting to fade to translucency, slipping away with the likeness of water through stone. You scrambled after his silhouette which was growing less and less substantial by the moment. You would give anything to have another minute, another fraction of a second with him.

“Don't go! Alucard, please!” You chased the vampire to the edge of the plane before passing through him. 

He looked back at you. Warm burning cinders scorched your soul.

Wait for me, my little human. His buttery voice echoed.

“Don’t go!” Screeching desperately into the void, you begged him to stay as you clung to the lingering tendrils of dream. But trying to keep him there was a futile exercise, like attempting to catch mist that was passing through the threads of gossamer webs.

Your curdled screams were fruitless. Your brows knit together in a frown as you tried to sink deeper into unconsciousness to stay with him. You wanted to sleep forever. Because you knew instinctively that to sleep was to see your love’s face and waking would be to lose him again.

~To be Continued~

Ch.25 – Hope on a String

[madarasgirl]

HELLO! Omg I love your “A Night for hunting” fanfic so much. You don’t even wanna know the amount of times I visited that fanfic…I love the combination of fluff, smut, angst, and horror that fic has. You write everything so well and this fanfic has the best pacing I ever encountered. I recently reread chapter 18 and the part of Alucard wanting the reader as his queen in his past so that he would have been less brutal and then him wishing to have a little princess daughter hurt ugh…but so beautiful. You ignited my love for Alucard again so much. I’m savoring this fanfic because idk if I’ll ever read an amazing Alucard fanfic like this again since there isn’t that many fics for him to begin with🫠

Omg thank you 🥹🥹!!! It warms the dark pit that is my heart knowing there are readers out there who enjoy this story as much as you do!!! ❤️

Real life has its ups and downs, as well as moments that can be downright terrible. Imo a story shouldn't be only sunshine and rainbows, especially if it's trying to capture a relationship over time (with a being like ALUCARD). Their relationship is a journey :)

Ahhhh I'm so happy you enjoyed Ch.18! Tbh it was horniness that originally spawned that chapter. Those other details including his fantasy of making her his queen and having a daughter together was a spur of the moment decision! I'm glad it turned out the way it did!!!

The pacing! That's very reassuring. Thank you so so so much for reading and loving this fic!

[madarasgirl]

When it comes to sex scenes, the rules say things like: Don’t write them at all, and if you do, don’t use these words. Don’t write them silly, porny, dramatic, tragic, pathological, grim, or ridiculous.

My whole practical thesis around the craft of writing a sex scene is this: it is exactly the same as any other scene. Our isolation of sex from other kinds of scenes is not indicative of sex’s difference, but the difference in our relationship to sex. It is our reluctance to name things, the shame we’ve been taught, our fraught compulsion to an act a theatre of types. It is indicative of the lack of imagination that centuries of patriarchy and white supremacy has wrought on us. 

To teach sex scenes is to talk about plot, dialogue, pacing, description and characterisation: all those elements that make a captivating scene. A sex scene should advance the story and occur in a chain of causality that springs from your characters’ choices. It should employ sensory detail that concretises and also speaks symbolically to the deeper content of the story. Or if not, it should service your work of art in whatever ways you want from your scenes.

“Mind Fuck: Writing Better Sex” in Body Work by Melissa Febos