#I just cannot write it out in an actual word doc until I've got the feel the vibe the essence

[imwritesometimes]

I buy notebooks specifically for writing out WIP rough drafts/notes. I feel bad when I use half a notebook for WIP rough drafts/notes and then start all over again to get the fic in better shape/more coherent. the cycle repeats ad nauseam. I feel so bad I stop trying to write. This is my hobby 🙃

[gurugirl]

Heya girlie!! I hope you’re having the loviest day and have been drinking plenty of water💓 cheeky nosey question? Do you have anything sitting in your drafts that you’re undecided on posting?👀 or any concepts you’ve thought of or like that you might put out soon!

OH HI! I'm having a good good day yes! Just writing and sipping some iced coffee with my dog next to me so I have no complaints. I haven't had any actual water today but iced coffee counts yeah? 😬 I hope you're also keeping hydrated and having a lovely day :)

And I love these cheeky nosy questions!! Do I have anything sitting in my drafts??? Does this answer your question? 🤭

Let's see...

Of the things in my drafts that I feel like I can talk about (buckle up, it gets wild!)

I've got another subrry that's partly done (based on this couple),

I've got an extra part to go with this but it's not finished,

I have a few requests for a bunch of things that are really similar that I didn't share because I started writing them but never finished - and still intend on getting to them,

an idea with a housesitter!yn I started cooking up based on a cute/cheesy movie from the 90s with Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin (🙈) called Housesitter.

AS WELL as another idea I started based on another 90s late 80s (just checked and this one is 1987 lol) movie with Michael J Fox called Secret of My Success (I don't know what to tell y'all, sometimes I just go off the rails and start something to make it my own and it's based on cheesy older movies but I can't help myself 😂),

military!harry x military!reader

A Don't Stand So Close check where Harry grows a bit of a mustache

a stepdad!h idea someone sent me with a lingerie shopping spree

a MFM threesome idea I've been working on FOREVER

the beginning of a part 2 to Sex Ed with Harry that never got finished

a body guard harry (but i wanted to wait bc it was at a time when there were a bunch of body guard harrys coming out and I didn't want to feel like i was competing with the other amazing authors already doing it and doing it better most likely lol

a request for harry x his wife's best friend 🫣 that I have two versions of and cannot figure out how to finish and also wanted to give y'all a break from the cheating trope for a bit

hitman!harry who's very protective of yn and she has no idea he has feelings for her (or that he's a hitman) until one day she's in trouble and he saves her 👀

dark!harry who's your bartender and winds up talking you into going home with him and things get... interesting but you wind up LOVING it - felt a lot like MCC Harry with those kidnapping vibes (even tho yn doesn't get kidnapped it felt too similar at the time so I didn't finish it)

Phew! So that's some of what I've got in there. That's not to mention what I've got in my actual Word docs drafts (that's where I have most of my WIPs and unposted, unfinished fics). Potentially I could just hit post on some of the things but uffff!!! I really prefer everything to be readable and perfect.

Is there anything on this list y'all would be interested in currently??

xoxo

[scoonsalicious]

Wow, that was such a sweet ending. I can't believe we're here now. and guess what YOU DID IT! you finished a whole series so huge congratulations! That's not an easy feat. I'm proud of you!

Tony being dramatic with Pocket moving out as if she is going to move to another country only to find out it's just a couple blocks away? Hilarious. Also the umbilical cord line was so so funny. I'm glad for this fresh start though! Pocket absolutely needs it.

And here's me thinking "Where the hell is, Bucky?" and well there he is! So happy to see them be in such a better place now and I'm glad they were able to go to couples counseling and truly got to work on themselves. It might be rare but it's not impossible for couples to work out even after similar events that Bucky and Pocket have fone through. And well, they've grown a bond so strong with what they went through and I truly believe they're going to be better and healthier than before. I know there's going to be more of these two but for now, I will miss the shenanigans they'll get up to. Especially now that they've got their own place to christen hahaha those poor neighbors, doesn't matter if they're a whole floor down. They're going to hear it no matter what.

What a journey this has been. As I said, I've got all my reports compiled into one document. Would you believe me if I said I've written a total of 19k words from all these essays I've sent you? Insane, I tell you. I absolutely don't regret it one single bit. I enjoyed this ride so much, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'll try and keep up with the future installments, sequels, and your other series (which has peaked my interest ngl) But with school and work, I'll try my best. I'll for sure pop in here whenever i can though. Until then, I'll see you around! Lots of Love!

— Jnon 🤍

WE did it, Jnon! All of us, together!

Although, if people ask what my Greatest Life Accomplishment is, I'm gonna say "oh, that book I wrote." I will *not* say it was Bucky Barnes fanfic smut; just a book, lol. Actually, lemme go check that off my Bucket List rn...

(Actual photo of my Bucket List. Please ignore the fact I used Papyrus. It was 2014, and yes, I was still old enough to know better.)

I loved the idea of Tony acting like Pocket moving out was the biggest affront to him that could be made. In the original draft, Bucky and Pocket were going to be going at it on the balcony like the touch-starved rabbits they were, and then Tony was going to fly over in his Iron Man suit, but I ended up not wanting to write the awkward, lol. Maybe I'll save it for a smutshot someday, lol.

So, I wrote the epilogue a long, long time ago. Like, way before I wrote the actual ending, or even up to... like Chapter 10, I think? I confess to deliberately playing with it so you didn't know if she and Bucky had gotten back together or not, because at the time, I didn't know myself. I wasn't sure if the ending was going to be truly happy, or just hopeful for them. I had a *brief* (and I mean very, very brief) moment where I had her coming home to Steve, but that died very quickly, because Ew, Steve. I mean, seriously. I think the only reason I thought of it was that it would make people's jaws drop, lol.

Yes, their neighbors are going to hate them, lol. Most definitely. Well, at least until the middle-aged woman who lives downstairs comes up to yell at them to keep it down, but Bucky answers the door in a two-sizes too small tank top and smiles his Bucky smile at her and then she gets it, lol, and did I just come up with another idea for a smutshot? ::sigh:: TO THE GOOGLE DOC! I think I'm up to 13 now? I definitely will do my best to keep you fed with the shenanigans.

I cannot believe you've written 19k words! I have loved reading each and every single one! Focus on school, and don't worry about keeping up with what's going on over here-- it'll be here waiting for you for whenever you have the time. It's been an honor, my friend. A true honor.

[jenroses]

Outstanding advice, all of it. Some additions (I've written quite a number of long works.)

Outlining can be:

An actual structured classic outline Bullet points A copy paste of a chat with your favorite enabler (thanks sis!)

A first rough draft where you just sort of spitball in casual style

Outlining does not have to be:

Complete Organized What the outline would look like if someone worked back from your end piece

You do not have to write the story in order

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WRITE THE STORY IN ORDER

You do not have to pick sides between pantsing and plotting.

Like, I have stories where I did a 10k outline ahead of writing the full story and it ended up 50k and I have stories that started out as 15k of notes that ended up being chucked and a final product of 180k and I have stories where the outline is the digital equivalent of "and then they fucked" on the back of a coffee-stained napkin that ended up at 250k. Some stories lend themselves better to seat-of-the-pants writing than others.

And it is ALWAYS good to leave some room for the story to evolve. No story is complete from the start, they all develop as they are written.

Often my writing starts out as bare bones dialogue. That's a "squeezed accordion." I pull it apart and fill in what is necessary to make it not two disembodied heads floating in an empty space. Then I pull it farther and fill in emotional color. Then I look at what I've written to see if everyone sounds like who they are (character voice is important.) Then I have other people read it to tell me if I've missed spots of pulling the accordion. Some stories get more "pull" than others--I have one story up that I honestly could have pulled from 50 to 200k but just didn't feel like navelgazing that much.

But writing comes much faster if you are not trying to create perfect paragraphs on the first go. Let the characters and the story in your head pull you along. Spend some time in the shower with the scene in your head, so you understand it, before you write it.

I've never had a word count goal in my life. In the past 26-ish years I've written about a million and a half words. This past year I didn't even start writing until like, two days ago, because I didn't have anything to say. But a story just itched at me until I had to start writing and the next thing I knew I had 3000 words, and it's just the beginning. I often have months go by where I write nothing, sometimes years, and sometimes I write 200k in six to eight weeks. And there are people who just write 500 words a day but do it all the time. The important thing is to find what works for you to write the amount of writing that you like doing.

Let's see....

There are a zillion ways to write, and I've written in notepad, in wordpad, in word, in open office, in google docs, and I'm now working in Scrivener and I puffy heart Scrivener because it keeps the brain weasels working together well and lets me do a funky side-by-side thing so that I can word vomit onto a page and then stick it next to the actual document and really write things out in an organized way. But my first works were done in notepad, mostly to keep me from getting bogged down in formatting. Now I have a personal style guide that keeps me from getting bogged down in formatting because I've already done it.

If you do not touch type, I cannot stress enough how important touch typing can be for writing output. Find a typing tutor program, or a typing game, and follow the basics, and most people can get competent within a matter of weeks with practice. One of the most prolific authors I know types at about 220 wpm. I type at about 70-90wpm depending on how much thinking I'm doing at a given moment. And there are still authors who work longhand on paper, and that's valid, I guess, but typing fast still saves a lot of drudgery in the long run, and it spares a lot of thought of the cognitive process of typing if you can do it pretty much by muscle memory. Even if you write longhand it's got to get into a word processor at some point, no? So touch type. I went from plodding to 40wpm in about 9 weeks when I was 15, only learning at school on a craptastic old fashioned typewriter, resenting it every step of the way because my mother made me learn typing rather than being in jazz choir, and while I'm still salty about jazz choir, she was right that I absolutely needed to be able to touch type. If you don't touch type, practicing 20 minutes a day is a hell of a lot more useful a goal than a specific word count of actual writing until you're a competent touch typist and it will give you uncountable dividends in the long run. Once you are good at touch typing you no longer have to think about the process of letters-to-computer. Like, forever. (this message brought to you by the number of people in my life who are avid computer users who do not touch type, to my endless frustration.)

Writing tips for long fics that helped me that no one asked for.

1.) Don't actually delete content from your WIP unless it is minor editing - instead cut it and put it in a secondary document. If you're omitting paragraphs of content, dialog, a whole scene you might find a better place for it later and having it readily available can really save time. Sometimes your idea was fantastic, but it just wasn't in the right spot.

2.) Stuck with wording the action? Just write the dialog then revisit it later.

3.) Stuck on the whole scene? Skip it and write the next one.

4.) Write on literally any other color than a white background. It just works. (I use black)

5.) If you have a beta, while they are beta-ing have them read your fic out loud. Yes, I know a lot of betas/writers do not have the luxury of face-timing or have the opportunity to do this due to time constraints etc but reading your fic out loud can catch some very awkward phrasing that otherwise might be missed. If you don't have a beta, you read it out loud to yourself. Throw some passion into your dialog, you might find a better way to word it if it sounds stuffy or weird.

6.) The moment you have an idea, write it down. If you don't have paper or a pen, EMAIL it to yourself or put it in a draft etc etc. I have sent myself dozens of ideas while laying down before sleep that I 10/10 forgot the next morning but had emailed them to myself and got to implement them.

7.) Remember - hits/likes/kudos/comments are not reflective of the quality of your fic or your ability to write. Most people just don't comment - even if they say they do, they don't, even if they preach all day about commenting, they don't, even if they are a very popular blog that passionately reminds people to comment - they don't comment (I know this personally). Even if your fic brought tears to their eyes and it haunted them for weeks and they printed it out and sent it to their friends they just don't comment. You just have to accept it. That being said - comment on the fic you're reading now, just do it, if you're 'shy' and that's why you don't comment the more you comment the better you'll get at it. Just do it.

8.) Remove unrealistic daily word count goals from your routine. I've seen people stress 1500 - 2000 words a day and if they don't reach that they feel like a failure and they get discouraged. This is ridiculous. Write when you can, but remove absurd goals. My average is 500 words a day in combination with a 40 hour a week job and I have written over 200k words from 2022-2023.

9.) There are dozens of ways to do an outline from precise analytical deconstruction that goes scene by scene to the minimalist bullet point list - it doesn't matter which one you use just have some sort of direction. A partial outline is better than no outline.

10.) Write for yourself, not for others. Write the fic you know no one is going to read. Write the fic that sounds ridiculous. You will be so happy you put it out in the world and there will be people who will be glad it exists.

[ladywaffles]

hello fellow enjoyer of things >:)

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

💖 What made you start writing?

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

💞 Who's your comfort character?

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

😈: i am so bad at writing smut scenes so i always fade to black, even when it feels like there should be a scene there and i've built up to it, and it just feels cruel. i would say like 60% of the time there was a sex scene there but i just couldn't get it right so i always end up cutting them out before posting. also i wrote a story once where the entire thesis was "what if the villain deliberately broke the rules on bioethics, as a character study and worldbuilding exercise" and well. readers did not seem to like that. conversely, i also have not updated either of my big WIPs in over a year, so like, that too.

🛒: music and sound are a very big part of my life, so they come up in my stories pretty often! i really enjoy writing to set the place of a scene/story, so i do a lot of touch/smell/hearing similes and metaphors. in terms of feelings, there's a lot of contemplating of loneliness, but not the kind that is, "i am alone in my room," rather the, "i am the only one who has this set of experiences and circumstances, and i cannot explain myself to this person who i care about so they can understand my actions/affections/choices fully, and that makes me feel isolated."

🛠: i primarily use scrivener to write fic, although if you catch me without my laptop, i'll sometimes use google docs or just a plain old fashioned pen and paper. if i'm plotting something out for a longer story, i might use a handwritten timeline on a blank sheet of paper and then just cover it in highlighter and sticky notes as i tack on addendums, if i'm not just screaming about it in a friend's DMs. thesaurus dot com is my best friend.

💖: i started writing fic when i was maybe 11 or 12, right around the time that i first learned that fic existed when i was looking up pictures to make my nook wallpaper, and you could do self-inserts and change the story around to suit your desires, like play-pretend but better. there were just so many permutations to explore, and i really liked that idea! i didn't start publishing fic until i was about 15. that first fic is still out there on ao3 somewhere, but i've since anonymized it so i don't have to look at it on my profile anymore lol. (not because i think the fandom is cringe, but rather because i've grown a lot as an author and it's not necessarily representative of my ability anymore!)

👀: so i know the answer you want me to tell you about is the comphet iceman accidental lovechild aaron tveit AU but sadly i have no more words on paper than that which i have already told you (iceman, very gay and upset over breakup # 3 with maverick, comphet rebounds with a woman who is also very gay and rebounding comphet style and whoops there's a baby now and here comes a bouncing baby aaron tveit). i'm still working on the timelines, because the top gun timeline in relation to the actual universe timeline of when everyone got married/how old aaron is versus when CMIYC was on broadway/aaron's nearly 10-year long absence from broadway is a hot mess and i'm trying to piece things together in the way that is the most true to form/makes the most sense.

💞: donald scripps from the history boys ("I have never particularly liked myself but the boy I was, kneeling in that cold and empty chapel that winter morning, fills me now with longing and pity," spoke wonders to my eighteen-year-old self who was also off to university and questioning reality) and obi-wan kenobi from star wars ("until this very moment, he had never realized he’d always expected, for no discernible reason—that when he died, anakin would be with him." his place in the series as a man who fights for good because it is the right thing to do, because he believes in goodwill, even as the world crumbles around him because it is inevitable that he fail in his mission and ultimately lose everything and everyone he loves, and we all know that he must fail so that others will succeed where he did not... i eat that shit RIGHT up.)

✅: there are at least three separate instances where i have used the righteous brothers' unchained melody in my writing, and two of them are because the song plays on a jukebox in a greasy spoon diner. it was completely unintentional, that's just a song that keeps popping up lol.

fanfic writer emoji ask

[walkingstackofbooks]

Just shouting into the void ~

So my job application writing is going great /s ...

Lol I can't even focus on writing down these thoughts I'm already thinking on here what hope do I even have of writing a coherent personal statement?

Gah

I'm on #6 since April and they've got progressively harder. Like, I guess that makes sense in terms of motivation and whatnot, and also I am pretty burnt out after spending half-term with family instead of resting (it was nice but god, I should not have gone back into work straight away after) but also I'd started on meds for #1 and they worked GREAT but now it seems that initial burst has worn off and even after increasing they're not as good?

#1 - 12 weeks ago - Solidly worked on it for 2 days and did not procrastinate overly much - barely at all on day 1! It was wild! Magic!

#2 - 7 weeks ago - My expectations were high - and not quite met. More work than expected, there was less that I could copy-and-paste from the last than I thought there'd be. Got really tired in the afternoon and napped, had a sudden revival about 10 at night 😅

#3 - 4 weeks ago - Lots of productivity just... housework-wise. It was great for getting stuff I needed done though! Did bits and starts, didn't really get a good go at anything till Sun eve and even that was hard.

#4 and #5 - 3 weeks ago - Really productive evening at a friend's who offered to body double. Was fairly good the next day after a nap, too; bit of procrastination that weekend, but generally okay.

#6 - now - Did a fairly solid bit for a few hours yesterday, but then solidly procrastinated and lost belief I could do it. Have solidly procrastinated this morning, including some housework productivity, haven't been able to bring myself to even open the word doc.

I just haven't felt like this at all during this round of applications I don't think - back to what I felt during essay-writing and all that other shit that uses this sort of brain power. Most of the others was working to a tighter deadline, but not all of them were next-day affairs, and I was able to hold myself to my own deadline for once - I didn't pull any all-nighters, which is out-of-the-norm for me. This one isn't due until the end of next week (and gosh there's actually a #7 also due in next week which I've just put to one side bc I cannot) but I've got something on next weekend that I want to go to and haven't been able to go to in years but I'm just so aware I could miss it and wouldn't that be easier, Andi?, then you wouldn't have to do this damn application now!

Dammit I just hate my brain and the way it just slides over the paper when trying to get a grip on what I've done so far and doesn't take anything in and just can't be assed with the consequences of not doing it now, even as I get more and more anxious, and the whole spiral that is doing-things-now-but-not-enjoying-them knowing that if I just do the damn thing I can enjoy future things more!

(I think this all comes in the context of I cannot enjoy anything until I get a job bc my life is currently on hold and I just have to go through endless application processes but there's only this short window in May-June for most jobs and fricking hell I don't even WANT any of these jobs I'm just legally required to get it so I can resume my current, enjoyable job in two years time... Which is fun.)

Anywayyy

This is just more procrastination.

(I'm also not sure if I'm procrastinating going to the shops or putting it off in the hope I'll do some work but it's a Sunday so they'll close in two hours which is a good thing tbf otherwise I might procrastinate it longer than tea but also AGH I don't have TIME to go to the shops but I can't afford NOT to and I seemingly have time to procrastinate so just go out to the shops already you damned fool.)

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Uno reverse on the deep fic questions: 9, 15, and 17 :)

But of course! ;)

9. what's your writing process like?

Chaos.

Lol, I'm gonna focus on longer onsehots and multi chapters because for me, drabbles are usually just word vomit. Okay so I feel like my writing process generally takes one of two paths. Path A starts with one vivid image or scene in my head, then a second one, and when I start seeing connections between those two and a third image or scene, I know it's time to either start writing and see where we go, or start outlining. (Unmasked, Break, Spellbound all started this way)

Path B will start with the actual writing -- usually to fill a prompt, but sometimes because of a bit of inspiration from a picture, something someone says to me, a song I hear, a snippet of dialogue. And that is chaos writing. It's like a fever or a frenzy that I can't walk away from.

Path A is more rare for me but it usually turns into something workable, whereas with Path B, it's hit or miss. Since I start with the writing, it usually ends either with me pounding my head on the keyboard partway through and then going "Ugh this sucks why am I doing this?" At which point, I shelve it. I am ashamed to admit how many fics like that I have. Sometimes I come back to the idea if I find a better angle from which to approach it (Spellbound was like this. Until I hit on the shapeshifter and Haymitch as a ghost aspect, I couldn't get it off the ground. Maybe Tomorrow was also a shelved idea until the efe prompt had me seeing it from a completely different approach).

OR, if I get to a point where I cannot stop writing and cannot keep up with the thoughts and plans in my head and the characters feel alive and out of my control, then I know... I've got a good one. When that happens, I'll usually stop myself where I think the first chapter would end and circle back to planning or outlining. (Pure my friends. And the latest one Where the Stars Crumble... started like this. Also a ton of my older, unfinished fics that haven't seen updates in 7 years started this way. They're on hiatus because of a computer crash years ago ate a bunch of things and I never really recovered from that loss so I moved on to other stories).

Usually the writing frenzy is the opening of my fics. Sometimes, that initial frenzy of writing is actually in the middle of the story (Outside Chance, 9000 r.p.m., and Lay Me Down, Let Me Dream started with me writing somewhere in the middle).

Once I'm going, I leave myself open to changing directions, altering the outline. I am not a stickler for "this is the way I planned it so this is how I'm going to write it" because when I try doing that, I wind up hating it. There's a few dead fics in my folders that died this way (anyone remember the stripper!Peeta drabble I wrote eons ago that I said was going to turn into a multi chapter but never did? yep this is how that one died. I tried to force it into the outline and it didn't work).

Outlines will take different forms for me. Some of them are highly organized, bullet points with bits of dialogue, scenes sketched out, setting details etc etc divided by chapter. Sometimes they are a summary dump in a google doc that may or may not actually get used ahahahaha. Sometimes they are post it notes on the wall that I move around until I like what I see. More often, they're a blend of two of those, and that gets deleted as I write a chapter, and whatever is left in the outline when I finish that chapter gets moved to the document where I'm writing the next chapter.

And all of this is a really long winded way for me to say that my writing process is flexible, whatever is working. Or as my fiction writing professor keeps saying... whatever is in service of the story.

15. How do you think your writing as improved over time?

Answered here! :)

17. What’s the best engagement/interaction/feedback you’ve received from someone who’s read your work?

Anything that makes me see my own writing in a new light or when people tell me that I made them feel something in a visceral way. I live for that.

I'll confess to shamelessly adoring it anytime someone tells me they think I could turn something into a really good original work, because that is what I someday want to do... write originals.

Also... there are a few people I now consider my friends or internet pen pals because they started commenting on my fics and at some point the conversation shifted away from fanfiction and writing.

Thanks for the ask, love!

Ask me something deep lol

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

22, 41, and 70!

22. describe your writing process from scratch to finish.

step one: putting on the right background music (usually a movie soundtrack or lindsey stirling, it needs to be mostly instrumental for me to focus).

step two: most of the time, i start with an "idea dump" in one of my journals, where i'll literally just record any ideas that come to mind re the fic i want to write. afterwards, i try to take those ideas and put them into an outline. for shorter fics, that's usually just the basic order of events. for longer oneshots or multichaps, i tend to write out what i expect to happen in each event/section of the fic.

step three version A: once i have an outline, i like to handwrite my fics in nice notebooks with colorful pens 🥰 if im able to do so, i eventually type up the fic, wait at least one day to do a read-through edit for major issues, and then wait at least one more day to use NaturalReaders to read my story aloud to me so i can catch smaller typos (a common one: and vs an).

step three version B: if i can't handwrite the fic for whatever reason, such as if im on a tighter deadline or the story is longer (or both), i'll type the fic straight into a google doc. if time allows it, i'll retype the entire fic after a few days in another google doc. if time does not allow that, i do the same read-through and NaturalReaders editing pattern that i do with handwritten fics (although sometimes with two read-throughs).

step four: after that, i'll post the fic!

41. what is the weirdest story idea you’ve ever had.

well, The Wrong Note is weird by virtue of the fact that it very well may be the only monk x medium crossover on the internet 😂 that said, the plot is a pretty straightforward murder mystery that's fitting for both shows, so i wouldn't necessarily consider it the weirdest story idea i've ever had. hmm...

Sigh No More, my maiko much ado au, is kind of weird ngl, since it's such a... unique au to apply to atla and maiko 😂 WAIT WAIT, i've got it: in Exposition, a fic i wrote for the kataang valentine's bash last year, one of the aus i explore involves aang as a kind-of-but-not-quite-ghost. i think that's the weirdest story idea i've had just because all the other aus in the fic are way more traditional (college au, superhero au, mermaid au), but not the ghost-ish concept lmao. i cannot for the life of me remember what inspired it or how i would have taken it further, but yeah. ghost-ish aang. maybe human, maybe once human, maybe never again human, perpetually toeing the line between life and death. definitely one of the weirder fic ideas i've had

(in terms of non-posted weird story ideas, i tend to forget anything my brain comes up with if i don't write it down, so regretfully im not sure 💀 atla heathers au?? kincoy sort-of-kind-of striptease?? ladybug dies fic?? are those weird?? i feel like i have no standard to measure against lmaooo)

70. are you very critical of your own writing? how much do you find yourself editing (either during the writing or after the fact)?

yes and no? fanfic is a hobby and i try to treat it as such, but i am also not immune to getting frustrated when a scene doesn't come out in words the way i see it in my head. i've already talked about my writing process in 22, including how i edit, but i'll add here that i have a pretty hard rule that i don't allow myself to go back and edit until i've finished the entire story. if i want to change something later, i'll make a note in the margins/leave a comment in my doc to remind myself about it, but i won't actually revise anything until the story is complete.

[ryanwellence-screenwriting]

Word and the World

When it comes to screenwriting there's plenty of software out there today, but there's two that come to mind: Celtx and Final Draft. Final Draft being the most used by the highest echelon of screenwriters, according to themselves.

When I took my first screenwriting class I was taught not to use Word as it was easier to put in the money than the hours of work to design the format each time. I saw that as a challenge. I followed a tutorial online on how to format to screenwriting standards, but after 4 hours and not getting it to work exactly I had to go my own way and figure a few things out.

I would write my first short-film using this and I was able to pass by my writing professor successfully.

Over the next couple years I wouldn't have much use of the document since I wasn't in any writing class or was making a narrative short film. I wrote some practice screenplays to keep me busy one Summer. I would tweak the font from Microsoft's Courier New to a cleaner looking Courier Prime which I found. I told a couple friends about what I was doing and tried to advertise it for them to use for their films. I got one person interested, so I looked back to the doc and saw how I could give it a face lift. I tried adding scene numbers, bolded the slug lines, corrected some spacing issues. It served his purpose.

It was only until this semester that I needed it again. I was looking at with new eyes and I noticed a couple things. The bold slugs were distracting, the scene numbers were breaking at times and aren't usually used when writing but in shooting drafts. But the worst thing was the dialogue. I thought its margins (how far away from the edge of the paper the text is) were too big on the left. After scaling the paper on my screen I measured it with a ruler--now that I'm thinking about it though, they was already a ruler on the page that scales with the view, but nevermind. I found about an inch bigger than it should be. I fixed that and its right margins.

A heuristic of screenplays is that one page is equal to one minute of screen time. This is for filmmakers to judge how long the film will be and an idea of how much work they have. So, before that fix, my columns of dialogue were thinner and longer, making dialogue take up more lines than after the fix. Meaning, both in my screenplays and my friend's (whose film was produced) we had less than accurate estimations of screen time. The screenplays would've been shorter in length than they actually were.

That all being said, what my professor and all other screenwriters will tell you is correct: buy the software. You don't have to worry about formatting, but if I'm honest there's a lot of other tools in those programs that I can't make in Word. There's tables of content for each scene, automatically number scenes, tells you how many characters you have and who they are. Some programs can migrate easily from script to shotlist and storyboards. If I hadn't put myself through all this I probably would have just bought in to Final Draft.

But I cannot tell people to use other programs just because you don't have to worry about formatting. If you know Word I'm sure you could do what I've done over 3 years and with a keen eye do it in an hour or less.

[voidwaren]

Heyyyyy, I'm the person who wrote a short story for class based off WIS. I'm here to update you on that right now actually! So I had a collection of stories and characters around that time, nothing really connected them to each other until I decided to continue developing the tiny little world building I made for that particular short story. I'd like to note that the world building doc I created now encompasses an entire Space Westerns worth of worldbuilding, and that the original draft wip is 47 pages. I'm mostly doing this just to thank you, I've come to really love writing and I have you to thank for it. I'm genuinely considering writing an entire novel for the world and characters I created with the help of a fic that YOU made! I think I've found writing to be the career I truly want to pursue and I cannot express how much I appreciate you and your works. I went from having a huge jumble of loose characters and plots to an entirely new world spawned from a short story about time travel I was inspired to write from a fic for a fandom I'm not even in. Sorry this got wordy, I just really need to tell you how grateful I am.

I don’t get notifications for asks anymore and have to physically open up the browser version of Tumblr to see if I got any asks (or go through the motions of checking on mobile, which I rarely do because I’m lazy), so to say I was reeling when I checked and found this is. not enough of a statement. holy shit.

(then I was having trouble figuring out how exactly to reply in a way that conveys my gratitude that you sent me this at all, but words just don’t do it justice. I tried, sure, but it doesn’t properly convey my feelings. if I could give you a fraction of my soul I would, jsyk. I’d give you all of it but I’m pretty sure not all of it is there anymore.)

first off, holy crap dude. to find out what you want to do as a career alone is like, the dream. and I’m so fucking glad I was able to help with that. thank you for coming by and updating me, because my god do I thrive on things like this. I’m genuinely floored, like. I don’t know how to explain how cool that is to me or how much it means to me that you’ve supported me and in turn I’ve been able to help you in some way. I don’t get that from anyone else but people like you, and it’s honestly one of the only (if not THE only) things that keeps me writing at all. thank you so much.

if you ever do end up writing a book, please hmu. I would love to read it, or read anything of yours at all, honestly. (you don’t have to of course, I won’t hound you or anything, but just know I would LOVE to if you’d be willing to share.)