#I am invested :0

[defiledtomb]

you know when you're going through a high stress situation that is prolonged and agonizing but you've put on a brave face and you think you've got this! 💪 and then a week into it you accidentally burn your quinoa and there's smoke and all of a sudden your skin is sloughing off and you feel like alice about to be swept away in a tide of her own tears? mmnnmm yeag.

[starredforlife]

what if trump started campaigning on an anti genocide stance. would that finally convince the dems to fucking say something or would they continue to double down and sink themselves further

[yellowocaballero]

Styles of Storytelling Structure

OK love of God I'm so embarrassed that every post I make gets insane long. I tried to match this explanation up with the previous ask but it got so long, so this elaboration gets its own post. For reference, these tags are referencing this post. Read that one first if you want.

I hope I can find a way to explain this succinctly and non-judgmentally. I do mean it extremely nonjudgmentally. I write both kinds and they both have their own merits.

For me, there's two kinds of fanfic writing. I call 'em Fic Style and Novel Style. This isn't about tropes or content, but about how the author composes the story.

Novel style is the 'traditional' way of writing a story. It has a three act structure, rising action/climax/falling action, tight pacing, every scene does five plot/character/theme related things. It reads like a published short story or a book.

Fic style is often reliant on the source material to make complete sense, and its plot or characterization is usually scaffolded onto the main material. For many of these stories you use the pre-existing canon structure. The story isn't as structured or tightly written, scenes are more likely to be there for vibes, and there tends to be more worldbuilding and a slower pace in general. It's worth noting that fic style can often really resemble soap opera, comic books, long-running manga, Dr Who, etc. Anything serialized, meant to continue on for a long time with no definite end point.

(If you're a frequent flier, to give you some idea: New Wave and Good Luck Jake were novel style, Hope Etc and Listen 2 Ur Heart were fic style. Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge was novel/short story style, reel to reel was fic style.)

Neither is better or worse than the other. They can be both equally enjoyable. One of my favorite fics is 'a simple thing' by iridan and it's fic style. Case fics are more likely to be novel style [I suck at case fics]. Shortly, fic style is easier to write, more likely to be enjoyable, and harder to make very good. Novel style is really hard to write. Super hard.

This is because novel-style writing just requires more skills. You need to lock down story structure, plotting, tension, connecting physical/emotional/plot/theme, pairing story beats with character beats, and dealing with a lot of different plot threads at once. I think of it as braiding, kind of: weaving three character arcs, a plot arc, growth of character relationships, and development of the themes and messaging. A scene should ideally do all of these things at once. Everything needs to be perfectly matched together so it all moves as one. The longer the story is, the more content of all of this you have to deal with, and the more difficult it is to do well. You're just juggling more balls. I had to write one bad 100k story and another mediocre 100k story before I got to a kinda-good 100k story. Forget about how long it took me to get to a decent freaking 60k story. I wrote really enjoyable 60k fic style stories before an actually good 60k novel style story.

This is why skills have to scaffold. I think a lot of beginner writers are constantly trying to fight those level 60 boss fights at level 20 and they get frustrated when they lose. You have to figure out how to write decent dialogue and decent prose before putting together a good scene. Then you have to figure out how to string a series of scenes together in a way that makes sense. Then you have to figure out how to put those scenes in the right order to make some kind of coherent and interesting story with conflict and character arcs. Then you start tossing one ball in the air and figure out how to write those 20k short stories. Then you add more and more balls as your stories get longer and more complex. You have to develop a lot of different skills individually to put together a well-structured final product that's fun to read.

Stop getting so frustrated when you can't beat out a 60k story that's Barnes & Nobles worthy when you're a beginning writer! Stop dreaming big! I know how frustrating it is not being able to put what's in your head down on paper. It's not going to be perfect. Of course you're having issues writing longer things, you're still figuring out how to put longer things together.

Pick something to work on. Figure out what skills you still need to develop. Figure out how stories work and what makes a good story, and then try and build it yourself. You do not need to write a traditional novel style story to develop your skills in dialogue, prose, characterization, tone, tension, POV, etc. You can get that stuff down first. If you're interested in working on story structure and pacing you'll have to practice doing things traditionally. No, you're not going to be happy with it. Be proud of yourself that you improved and developed a skill. Be proud of yourself that you're writing. Writing is hard. It's fun, but hard. If you aren't having fun then you're just left with the hard.

Writing isn't about the finished product. It's not about if you wrote something that people enjoyed or said was good. It's about enjoying writing. Everything else happens naturally from there.

[suddencolds]

getting into a new fandom and finding 0 fics for it on ao3 😭 is it over

[nemo-of-house-hamartia]

@memoriesofafallen just so you know.

You have awaken a freaking sleeping dragon in my brain, and now I am brainrotting SO MUCH I will probably end up doing BOTH version of what you suggested.

NOTHING

and I mean

NOTHING manages to take me by the neck and hold me like freaking nostalgia!!

NOTHING.

fml.

I am done for, because the brain is braining HARD.

[pasdetrois]

they should invent a person that listens to you

[rapidreptile]

star citizen is always like "here's our newest ship: the BEST, most FIERCE fighter ever. $300 (real money)" while power creeping out their last "best, fiercest fighter ever" that was $280.

[frogmascquerade]

.

[fashionbitchgd]

damn tumblr really is dead. twitter has been on fire the last 2 days since the gayest aespa member showed up dating a guy but i still haven't seen a word about it here lmao

[destinationtoast]

(Okay, I just posted a big thinky meta, and somewhere in there I asserted that I didn't have shipping expectations/hopes going into the finale. And I think that's mostly true... but it's also possible that my enjoyment of the finale was swayed somewhat by the door having been left wide open for my OT3. I don't want to imply that I'm completely above all earthly shipping desires, even if I mostly don't care about canon endgame and will write my lil fics regardless.)

[nicholasdwuffwood]

tristamp s2 confirmed AND timeskip p much confirmed ??? if im readin mutos tweet on twt right & timeskip (n tristamp s1 at least being like... kind of a prequel?? Idk what else to call it) is confirmed everything abt s1 will finally make a little more sense to me lmao.

[visdiefje]

Stuck in "can't think of anything about my OCs" block again. Sorry to my D&D character. Yes I will play you in a session soon. No I have no concept of your personality, motivations, backstory. Trying to do so is like pulling teeth. Sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyy 💔

[mythtiide]

argh i would love to break out my gouache more often but getting ready for it is literally a whole entire process and i am . lazy......

[clownpassing]

freaking out a little bit because i don't have any work for my first OR second job next week :)

[majispec]

some day rggs will write majima in a game for reasons other than "we made him exist and now we must acknowledge this". i have hope. and i am not lying to myself

[bucketofchum]

I want you guys to know that every time I post.a snippet about the KingTumu story on here, I read it about 25 times.