#( imma need to clean up this and add icons maybe )

[gloireceleste]

“ why? ”

because it is so.

“ why me? ”

because it could be no one else.

“ why then? ”

because you were needed where you are now.

[ilguna]

hi- I’m not sure if you’re the right person to ask, but I wanted to know how to start a fanfic writing tumblr- I mean, I’m just not sure how to start since I’ve never posted anything on my account- I’m sorry if this is an inconvenience-

Don’t worry about it. I’m a little offended that you would think you’re coming to the wrong place 😂.

Imma break it down for you.

BTW this post is long bc I wanted to cover all bases

—

First of all, if you’re on tumblr mobile, then that’s fantastic and we’ll start with that first. If you’re on desktop, I would like to suggest getting it on your phone because it’s more accessible and easier to manage than doing it on the computer. The only time I go to the computer is when I’m going to post fics, but we’ll get there.

I know you said you’re wondering how to start posting fics but I gotta give you some advice before that. Because there are just some things I cannot stand when it comes to some fanfic blogs, alright?

Be easy on your color scheme. I wouldn’t put any bright colors because it could hurt someone’s eyes, and sometimes it looks really bad. Going along with that, you should be careful what your second color is on your blog (let’s say that your base color was a maroon, and then you’d choose a color similar to that/darker than that. It’ll be hard to read the things in your bio, and it’s frustrating)

This is obvious, but make sure you have a profile and header picture, it’s more appealing rather than tumblrs default.

Turn ON asks and then proceed to do it for anonymous questions, because that’s the only way you get requests. Some people do it off anon but that’s not as common.

You can do this on desktop and a safari browser. It’s not possible to do on mobile just yet. Open up safari > log in > little person icon in the top right > edit appearance. Scroll until you see “let people as questions” turn that on. Turn on anon, and edit the box to whatever you want. Keep it short

Turn off “share posts you like” and the following one below it. It’s a risky game to play when it comes to what you’re looking at and liking.

No submission posts, normally people don’t submit things anyway. Turn OFF “on blog advertising” and then that’s it. It automatically saves so you can just leave to the next screen imma bout to tell you about

IF you go to my blog on desktop, you’ll see that there’s a theme. My font is different, I have a different set up than most blogs, etc.

If you wanna mess around with that, scroll to the top of page (you should still be on the same page from the anon instructions) and tap “edit theme”

It might take a second to load, but you’ll get there.

THIS SCREEN IS VERY IMPORTANT.

Besides the fact that it lets you edit your theme, this is how you put in a Masterlist, and all other links you might want in your bio.

You said you haven’t written anything yet, so there isn’t a need for a Masterlist just yet. But when you DO start posting, please come back to me and I’ll let you know how to put one in your bio, okay? Nice and shiny for your future followers.

If you wanna change your theme go to browse themes, change it from “all themes” to “free themes”. If you like mine, it’s called “Accesible”. If you just want the font, get out of the theme screen and scroll the screen on the left. Turn ON “open dyslexic

Remember, you can do all of this on desktop too, it doesn’t have to be on safari

—

Now onto posting, I have some opinions that might offend my mutuals (oopsie)

I can’t tell the difference, but PERSONALLY, I think posting fics on tumblr from my phone is gross. But that’s also because I’m writing 1000+ words normally and it gets difficult to post

If you want to post fics with more than 100 paragraphs, then you have to go to desktop or maybe safari tumblr (I don’t post from safari tumblr so idk if it works) because tumblr says NO paragraphs after 100 on mobile. There is no restriction on computer

I write in Google Docs, because it’s neater and I’ve discovered some hate for Word after deleting some of the shit I wrote over and over. Plus it’s an app, and you can open it up on computer. Easy to use.

If you use Notes on your phone, or type directly onto a tumblr post, then that’s fine but you don’t know your word count and it’s a little difficult to navigate.

When it comes to formatting, I used to have it be really long. But I’ve narrowed it down to 3, sometimes 4 things.

Summary: this is where I put the request so the anon/person knows that it’s their request. (I copy n paste the entire request in the summary part, I don’t answer asks (requests) anymore because it’s easier to answer them after I posted).

Warnings: my permanent is swearing, and then I add on (what type) violence, murder, suic*de, gore, etc DEPENDING ON THE REQUEST

Word count: and I do this because I write long imagines sometimes and some people don’t want to sit through 5k words of boring shit

And the optional—Note: I put this if I thank someone for their patience on the request, if I say happy holidays or some shit like that. I don’t have notes on every post anymore because they just turn out being the same every time

Apart from that, give it a title (make it unique but not too long!) who it’s for and then copy and paste the fic in

I’m using my own posts as an example right here, okay. But I have the summary and all of that bolder because it’s easier to see, and I want it to be different from the actual post. Most fanfic writers do this.

I also put 2 —‘s between the authors note at the top and the fic to also make a difference there

Don’t have the entire fic italicized, it takes away the special part of italicizing a word

Finally, it’s tagging.

I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT tag things that have nothing to do with the post. It’s my biggest pet peeve and it’s because I can’t comprehend why people tag (for example) Katrina Stuart when it’s a fic OR A RANDOM POST about someone else

Instead, let’s keep it simple.

🌸 STOP 🌸

I forgot to mention this. But choose your username wisely. You can change it later on, but it’s a goddamn pain in the ass when you have 50+ fanfics you wrote and your Masterlist is nice and clean only to realize that you have to RELINK every post individually

Listen, I changed my username on my old blog, and it took me 8 hours ROUGHLY to relink and fix every individual Masterlist. I had to create new masterlists, with so many tabs open to fix it

Instead, change it before you start fics

If you wanna be a colby brock blog, I have a canon url (which means that it’s so fucking GOOD and I’m angry that i realized it was open only a month ago rather than when I created this account) and it’s colbysbrocks (it’s a plural canon url). And I have colbysecrets too. If you don’t like either of those, I have a couple of other ideas that I wrote down if you want them

🌸 okay continue 🌸

This is how you should tag:

(I’ll give an example after this)

Your username first, the person it’s about, the fandom (if it’s not Colby brock, then something like marvel, etc). Then the persons name, imagine, fanfic, x reader, and oneshot. Then if it was requested

EXAMPLE ONE:

Azurebrock, Colby brock, Colby brock imagine, Colby brock fanfic, Colby brock x reader, Colby brock oneshot, requested

Simple, right? You can even use this method for Wattpad too.

EXAMPLE TWO:

(This is Star Wars, im using my own username again)

Kylorenlovesyou, Kylo ren, Ben solo, kylo ren imagine, kylo ren fanfic, kylo ren x reader, kylo ren oneshot, Ben solo imagine, Ben solo fanfic, Ben solo x reader, Ben solo oneshot, Star Wars

Notice that I tagged both of his names. I do this because it draws more people in, and more people will be attracted to it (however, in the Star Wars fandom there’s a difference between Ben Solo and Kylo-Ren, so you would have to specify in the title Ex. Resistance (Ben Solo) or Struggle (Kylo-Ren). It would depend on which persona you’re using

This works for a couple of fandoms, like twilight and shit like that

EXAMPLE THREE:

(Final one, I just wanted to cover this base just in case)

If it’s a request for more than one person. Let’s say Colby Brock and Sam Golbach (like a Polyamorous relationship, if it’s just about a bunch of people, tag the people in it and don’t put the imagine, fanfic, x reader, oneshot after any of them, it doesn’t apply)

If it’s a poly relationship (or maybe more) then do everything you normally do for one person, and then just add on the second;

Azurebrock, Colby brock, Sam Golbach, Colby brock imagine, Sam Golbach imagine, etc

If you’re on desktop, I would suggest putting in a Read More (this goes BEFORE your fic but after the authors note, below the 2 —‘s). The way you do that is press enter, and hover over the new break in the fic.

Off to the right you’ll see a . . . Click that and then you have the read more. I would only suggest using this if there’s more than 500 words, so that if the fic is super long, it doesn’t take up the entire dash for the follower (it takes forever to scroll and it’s annoying

If you’re on mobile, it isn’t possible. Just post and you can go back and edit later if you have a computer