#Mostly I think I just really like playing with repeating format/structure for paragraphs and sentences.

[yume-fanfare]

hi i am that anon from like 29th Dec (last dang year) who said i read ur tsuki no hime and loved it and that u understand Aizou. i have read more of ur stuff since then and now i NEED to ask you for writing advice, on both characterization and general writing tips since I didnt mention it before. Sorry about that! i just forgot i sent an ask and i do not get notifs at all (or does anon asks not get notifs?) Also, ART STUDENT! That's why the nice art and art leaning!! I feel smart for sensing it

oh yup, tumblr doesn't send notifs for anon asks! but i'm glad you did see the answer anyway

this post is hideously long, so answer under the cut!

so, on characterization: it is mostly a matter of what would they say, rather than what you want them to say. the joke about "the characters do what they want to" instead of what the writer wants is pretty much true if you want them to be in character lol (that's why sometimes a little bit of OoC isn't too bad)

checking the source material is the most important thing: look at prior similar interactions the characters have had and how they reacted

this is kind of hard with LIPxLIP, as there aren't that many translated texts about them but with honeyworks the most canon and reliable thing to use as reference are the mvs. the mvs are drawn in a way that can pretty much be understood even if you don't have the lyrics, and sometimes it's even better if you can't read them, to properly focus on the images better

look at their expressions closely: while aizou is always explosive in his anger, yuujirou often has a more indifferent expression. so, when they fight, aizou is probably the one to blow up first while yuujirou maintains his composure better. it's kind of the classic "this was only a brief passing panel but i am going to expand on it" www

but the thing about fanfiction is that it's always a bit of a character analysis in itself. you don't start writing having already a color-coded folder of possible situations and reactions a character would have for each setting. you just throw the characters in a scenario and then think from there onwards, and eventually you'll be able to have the folder of situations and what you think their reactions would be like. (though, this links back to the prior point, if the characters have gone through a similar situation in canon, use that as guide! plus, finding little references to canon when reading is always fun)

for general writing, i'm going to mostly talk about my own experiences and process! i'm in no way a professional though

the basic is reading a lot. not just books but also fanfic. in fact, since you're writing fanfic, i Encourage you to read fanfic. even if your story ends up novel length, the way of treating the story is different from that of an actual novel. for example, because you're working under the premise that everyone knows the characters already. the general style of fics is different as well.

in fact, the style is the main reason i'm saying this slfkslfkslkf

read a lot of stuff and find a style you like. think of it as sewing together pieces from here and there to make a frankenstein amalgamation: this person's metaphors, the comparisons from here, the descriptions from there

personally, i adore the "long one-shot with a long title formatted (like this)" fics that are mostly feelings and descriptions and as little dialogue as possible, and some that occasionally play with the "show don't tell" rule, and some months ago i read a book whose descriptions amazed me because you could feel what the character was focusing on the most, rather than being general descriptions of the situation (i actually have a lot of thoughts about descriptions but that's a post for another day). but also i really like dialogue and plot-driven stories, descriptions can get boring and before trying to break rules, you have to be really good at following them

but, let's go step by step: developing an idea

for this i'm going to mostly reference the multichap i finished a while ago as an example

i started with just a few vague concepts in mind: non-idol au with aizou who does some sport and likes music but is insecure about his singing and yuujirou who does some music related thing and encourages him to sing in a way that's somehow related to the hozier song to noisemaking (sing), because it's what inspired me to write in the first place

then, from then onwards i wrote down what would happen in the first chapter of the story bullet-point-list-style, including things like the roommates part or the clubs the boys were in (at first yuujirou was in the choir club lol the change was a last second decision that idk why i took) and then bits of dialogue here and there that would be The Turning Points. those first dialogues were for the fight at the end of ch 1, the apology-date in ch 3 and then some vaguely unused ones for the "yuujirou encourages aizou" part, as those were the first key moments i thought of

because, since it's enemies to friends to lovers, an important aspect was character development

not all fics have character development bc not all of them are long enough (if you're aiming for short and sweet then there's no need). but if they do, i recommend you write down how the character was at the beginning of the story and then how they were at the end and then fill in the middle later, think of what those key turning points that made the character change were (the more little things you add, the more gradual it'll be)

samishigariya illustrates this very nicely: the song starts and finishes with the same lines, but the ending ones feel more light-hearted. the beginning has pre-arisa ken and pre-getting-along-with-yuujirou aizou, when they were the lonely people the title mentioned, and the ending, when they're not lonely anymore. the in between can be seen in depth during the other songs: ken before arisa was a playboy who didn't take love seriously, but after meeting her he realized that games were not all there was to love; and aizou used to be quite cranky and high-key a loner, but then he "meets precious things and knows of love". i will not elaborate on that because this isn't an aiyuu post but Oh You Know

for the fic, aizou would go through that same process, more or less: someone who doesn't really form meaningful connections with people but who, in the end, would end up having quite a bunch of people who care about him as his relationship with yuujirou advances too

since the relationship was the main focus, i wrote a very simple outline for how it would develop throughout 5 hypothetical chapters that was just: 1. civil w each other but mostly bad > 2. bad > 3. half friends > 4. pining > 5. date

and then with that in mind and the bullet point list, the final basic outline ended up like this:

there were scraped ideas and ideas that made it in later, but i believe having a simple outline, a bare skeleton to add things to, is important. stories need continuity, development requires a prior buildup

it's especially important in multichapter fics where you post as you write, you need to have a more or less clear idea of what's going to happen because you can't ignore scenes you've already posted

shorter stories don't need it as much, you can think as you go, but it's still helpful to know where you're going with things to avoid getting stuck

and, on getting stuck: don't be afraid of deleting things. if you can't figure out how to continue things, then delete the situation and start again. it might feel like you'd be wasting time but in the end, it is so much better than being stuck on the same scene for weeks

in fact, you don't have to write in order. jump to the next scene and you'll figure it out later. you Can write the scene you want to write and then build everything else around it

it's normal to write a scene and then realize it would make more sense later in the story, or that it would be better if you added another scene earlier, or sometimes you just find it easier to jump from one part of the story to another. rely on your outline to keep track of what you've written, what you have left to write and what's the best way to arrange your story. make your story understandable

which bring us to editing

there's a lot of much better posts on editing stories, but yeah ctrl+f is your best friend: don't repeat yourself too much. and be sure to vary sentence and paragraph length, as well as sentence structure, to give dynamism to the writing

now, i've mentioned before the show, don't tell rule, but i'm going to talk a bit more about it because it's quite important

once again there's a lot of posts that explain more in depth what it is, so i'm not going to expand too much on that, but, very basically, try to avoid things like "then some time passed and they became friends". explain it: what happened exactly? how did they become friends? if it's important, show it to us, instead of summarizing

since things like these make the story longer, it also gives room for more development and proper explanation for things that happen

for example, the fic was originally going to start with them already in the room, and the whole situation would have been explained in a single paragraph somewhere, but by actually adding the scene where they first arrive to the dorms and argue with the lady at the main desk, the story flows better and it let me actually describe their first meeting

and uuuhhh i think that's all? this took super long to write i hope i didn't forget any super basic stuff lol

i want to add that for enemies to lovers i greatly recommend this post bc it's super good but yeah i think that's basically it, if you have any more specific questions just shoot me an ask

[roleplayercritiques]

SAMPLE CRITIQUE (my own work from October 2017) - Mod Renoir

[X] glanced over the woman. She seemed eager to impress, which was fine by him, with a steady head on her shoulders. She would be a tough one, he could tell.

He shook the woman’s hand, a little surprised at her strong grip despite appearing relatively slender. It raised a few red flags in his mind. This woman was most definitely not just a lawyer. A lawyer would have no need for working out. She clearly had some ulterior motive, and he needed to find out as soon as possible. He had some inklings, perhaps the government sending in an agent to make sure no one was purposely flubbing their reports about [Y], but he needed to be absolutely sure before he acted. [X] briefly wondered how easy it would be to get rid of her if she proved a problem, mostly by somehow making sure she was taken off the task force, but decided that the wiser course of action would be to let things play out. The higher ups would be suspicious if the first actually competent person to enter the task force was so quickly expelled despite being very well qualified for the job.

“Correct,” he replied, stone-faced. “If you would follow me, we will meet in the conference room where I have a few documents for you giving you the specifics. I can answer your questions on the way.”

He let go of her hand to gesture towards the door leading further into the station, where the offices and conference rooms were. The conference room he mentioned was one of the smaller ones, meant for smaller or video conferences. He had an aide provide the materials, which should already be sitting on the table, ready for him to give to the new member.

“Now that I think about it, I suppose I did not properly introduce himself. I am [X], as you well know. It is a pleasure to meet you…” He waited for her to introduce herself.

For the sake of making a good example, I’ll pretend I’m criticizing someone else. This is a reply that I wrote in October 2017.

Hi there!

For starters, I like the amount of detail included in the first two paragraphs. It allows us to see into the mental processes of X as he greets this mystery woman. Just from reading this reply, I can tell that he is a deep, analytical thinker who appears paranoid about governments, spies, and issues happening. Based on evidence from the writing, it appears that he is investigating someone (Y), as a part of a “task force”, as mentioned in the reply. I also like how the reply specifically mentions taking the mystery woman off the task force, and how X measures the pros and cons of kicking her off. This shows not only that X is intelligent and suspicious, but that he could possibly be involved in some shady business. After all, it appears that he doesn’t want the police to find Y, even though he’s been assigned to that case. I think that this attention to detail shows thoughtfulness and understanding of the muse.

In terms of what could potentially improve the quality of the reply, I think that varying sentence structure would help. The second paragraph is an example of good variation. There are longer sentences sprinkled with shorter ones to break up information. However, as the reply goes on, it begins to become repetitive. For example, there are two sentences in a row that are “complete sentence, comma, fragment modifier”. I feel that makes the writing feel a little monotonous. In the future, perhaps think about splitting up the sentence fragments and complete sentences in order to promote emphasis on certain information. Another solution would be to add or subtract details.

Another problem I see with this is pacing. The pacing feels awkward, like X’s thoughts and actions are completely disconnected. The second paragraph and third paragraph seem like they have no connection with one another. One possible solution would be to put the third paragraph at the top and move everything down. Or, you could add just one sentence connecting X’s thoughts to the dialogue.

In general, I think what is done well is X’s internal dialogue. I got a good sense of his personality just from reading one writing sample. In the future, I think it would be good to watch out for repetitive phrasing/wording (such as the use of ‘smaller’ twice in the same sentence in the second to last paragraph). Also, it would be good to reread the reply a few times to make sure that everything flows correctly from thoughts to action to dialogue. I understand that this is a reply, but there are still ways of organizing dialogue and action to make it appear seamless and smooth. I think you have the basics of writing down. I did not spot any grammar or spelling mistakes. All you need is a little more proof reading and editing to make your writing even better!

--Mod Renoir

Alright, so back to not talking to myself. Basically, what I try to do is create a ‘critique sandwich’. The first part is ‘what is great so far and what I really enjoyed’. The second is ‘what do I think you can do to make your writing better?’ And the last part is a summary of the above and small things that aren’t important enough to merit their own paragraph. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, in my opinion. Plus, positive critique isn’t inherently a bad thing, just like negative critique! Positive critique can indicate what people are doing well, perhaps something they hadn’t noticed about their writing. Negative critique can give advice or shed light on what someone might be stuck on. It’s all meant to help, and that’s the most important part of why I want to run this blog.

Also, some notes: I will try to directly reference the submitted text as often as possible, pointing out specific details and nuances. I’ll also mention when I think certain decisions are made for creative reasons. For example, repetition in sentence structure can be good sometimes! Having sentences repeat one another can emphasize a point or create a certain mood. It’s only when used badly (such as in my writing above) that it can feel like “ugh, this again?”

In addition, feel free to comment/reblog with your own critiques! You don’t have to follow my format obviously, but it’s what I find makes critiques easier to handle.