#and just structurally i can't cut anything because then the basic theme of the piece doesn't work

[james-stark-the-writer]

word count limits are the devil's work. started out 3 hours ago trying to edit a short story draft to cut 400 words somewhere to get it under the limit, 3 hours of edits later, ended up rewriting a bunch of it and somehow adding 100 words. the final draft is like at least five times as strong as it was before because of the rewrites and new stuff but. i have to somehow now cut 500 words from a great draft that is already cut as much as it can be, and cutting anything else will tear away essential parts of the story and the tone and themes and i hate it.

[astralartefact]

Placeholder Name for Atarase's Media Diary

Entry 003 - NieR Reincarnation <<Prev: Dragon's Dogma 2

Synopsis

Living in the shadow of its predecessors a [g___] grapples with the fact that it was born shouldering the burden of Reincarnation.

And don't forget, Mother is watching. Don't. fuck it up.

gambling that whatever they announce next week makes parts of this post irrelevant

How much did I know before playing?

I played it since the JP launch despite not understanding a single word and I've played every DrakeNieR Adjacent thing in existence except for DoD2 (no interest, sry) and... NieR Automata which I refuse to play at this point - but I guess that just means you can't complain that I haven't played DoD2 lol.

Did I like it more than I expected?

I did in fact not expect the Gacha game to turn out the best NieR game but here we are.

Since I liked it, here's what I hated about it

Despite its (to me) clear intention to present a diverse and not particularly "objectified" cast it still has a visible bias towards a certain group of characters - by which i of course mean the waifus, because those make more money. But it means that certain characters never get the 'worthless' free event units while some only get them - snd I mean, just look at Priyet who has 3 less costumes than Yurie who came out months after her.

Also, the story was clearly supposed to be longer, especially with 10H's more-than-swift in- and ex-troduction, but tbh I didn't particularly mind it? 'Cutting it short' didn't ruin anything even though it could have taken the game a bit longer to end - but I wouldn't have said no to a Purple Season 3 Chapter either.

Also also, 'Tis evident that this ludus has maybe one singular mention of our Lord and Saviour YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse (henceforth referred to as Y:DA) - and even that one mention is marvelously vague. Father, are you ashamed of your best work? Is it because it doesn't qualify as its own game? Please, I beg of you to acknowledge the existence of the Crime & Punishment fanfiction sequel you wrote in a MMORPG cross-over! Do it for meeee!

What did this game make me think about?

Reincarnation is a Cage.

Specific Impressions that will stick with me

Honestly? A lot, so this is very non exhaustive.

The Art, both 2D and 3D, especially the very limited usage of color.

The Story and how exactly it was written. Every single line in this game pulls at the same rope and that's impressive for a game that's basically a very, very complicatedly put together Collection of Vignettes written from more than 5 people.

How thought through this game's structure is - how and when what kind of story was introduced/unlocked, stuff like that. I even thought "the grind" wasn't pointless okay, sue me but it makes the pay-off from the ex stories feel better.

Sarafa and Priyet

Outstanding Audio

The entire soundtrack, as always the crew at MONACA is beyond mere mortals - and honestly, Shotaro Seo deserves more credit for his NieR work!!! (also he's cute but that's besides the point)

Here are some fave picks:

Inori, Kizuna & the S3 Main Theme

Kusabi (i love seo's voice i think its so funny that they just used him as the male voice)

Mizukagami

Madan & the S3 Battle Themes

The Return of Normandy

The Mourning Mother Theme, All Versions (if this one doesn't come back in one of the next games i swear to mother)

The Final Boss Theme

Favorite Character

this is so hard why would Past!Me make me choos- Sarafa.

also mama, dark mama and papa and fio and levania and saryu and yudil and priyet and yuzuki and hina and argo (bc he's an idiot) and akeha and frenlise (still not sure why that's the only name they changed) and- all of them, i love all of them, some more than others but all of them except for the carrier, fuck the carrier also anogg y:da should be on this list

Favorite Arc/Story Line

Sun/Moon Story

Favorite Set Piece

The S3 Cage is so fcking gorgeous, around every corner another compositional marvel, they went above and beyond.

Favorite Scene

Priyet's Hidden Stories

The Library

Mourning Mother

Best Performance (I played with JP voices)

Yumi Hara as Mama.

--- ENTERING THE PRETENTIOUS SECTION OF THIS ENTRY --- reminder that the pretentious section is called that way for a reason, don't take it too seriously

What about this game gives me Hope for the future of gaming?

I guess the death of the Common Gacha is somewhat imminent if even Square Enix is giving up on it. A shame that what's left in its wake (the Gacha with "Gameplay Value") is so much more worrisome than shitty jpg dispensers ever could be.

And I don't know, I guess I'm just excited for Yoko Taro's next big hit because he has yet to really miss. Sadly this game won't set any industry standards in the ways I would like it to :/

What about this game makes me scared for the future of gaming?

The Internet has figured out that complaining about things that everybody agrees is bad is fun - and that's nothing new. What's new is that they have at this point seen enough video essays to make their incessant complaining sound like "Criticism."

The problem I have with that is that these surface level "Criticisms" taint the stage, so to speak. Everyone is constantly mad at the mere mention of Microtransactions or of Gacha Games (except, of course, if it's one of the popular ones) and it makes it so that "not critizising" Gacha Games for even just existing in the first place makes you "uncritical."

Can you tell by my usage of Quotation Marks that I do not like the word Criticism anymore?

And I wish that my only stake with this is that I think this shit is annoying as fuck. That I think it sucks that every person having something, anything genuine to say about this game feels the need to state how they know Gacha games are bad because Capitalism sucks - a so surface level fact I would genuinely struggle to believe anyone who would agree with that hasn't already caught on to it yet.

But no - that's where our public interrogation of this type of media starts and ends, because god forbid we have a more nuanced opinion about this shit than "Gacha Bad".

Instead of talking about anything below the surface, good or bad, be it the artistic merits of this game I really like or the actually deeply fucked up evolution on the Gacha Formula the Industry is going through to make their practices more palatable despite being so much worse and deeply ingrained into everything else - resulting in an ecosystem that's so much more dangerous than anything Square Enix could ever hope to come up with.

Instead of talking about any of that I get to hear people act high and mighty about how smart and brave they are for voicing an opinion everybody shares with them.

Meanwhile Hoyoverse has made it cool to just take whatever game is currently popular and turn it into an industrial-grade FOMO machine printing object women of the week and money and everybody unironically endorses it, creates endless amounts of free publicity through fan-art & co, feeding into this FOMO cycle that's already exacerbated by games solely built to drive you to FOMO through all of its built-in game design mechanisms - all so you gamble your money away for your own enjoyment - but that's 'better', actually, 'because it has good gameplay.'

[This is where I cut a lengthy section about how Japanese Idols and Gacha Games are both selling the same things. It was very informative and you are disappointed you're missing out on this quality content.]

Because clearly, the problem with Gacha Games has all this time been that Gacha Games have boring gameplay and not that they do everything in their power to addict people into spending money on parasocial relationships to people (mostly women) that don't even exist, all to impress themselves and their friends.

and also you guys it looks kind of silly when you say 'good riddance, you cheap cash-grab' to a game that a) clearly wasn't that cheap and b) clearly didn't grab that much cash

The Ramble Section where I get to actually talk about what I thought about

[This is where I cut a lengthy section about my complicated feelings towards Video Game Archiving and how Lore is a blight. It was very informative and you are disappointed you're missing out on this quality content.]

So a couple days ago Yoko Taro met up with the Stellar Blade guy and the only thing I can think about is... well...

Was 2B a mistake?

I mean, it's kind of a sign of how good he is at analyzing the topic at hand so take that as you will, but the fact is that Yoko Taro set out to create the most objectifiable women he could think of - and he was so good at it she has become what is probably the most objectified female character of our time.

And yet, despite knowing that that's not really a good thing - because clearly he did all of that for a reason and Reincarnation didn't really do all that despite being a Gacha - he continues to just... enable people (and by people I do mean Men) to keep doing these kinds of disgusting behaviours to an entire gender, fictional or not. Things that Automata at least to some degree criticizes through 9S (like there's a reason he's the final boss you guys)

And I guess it just feels shitty to see Yoko Taro publicly give this game his stamp of approval when the entire existential premise for Stellar Blade seems to be that clip of Yoko Taro saying "I just really like girls"; a shitty quote that 100% has caused women some societal harm he has yet to r3pent for because Gamers took it and ran - and now we have another game with a big tits SciFi Woman for Men to objectify and I'm pretty sure this one won't have the underlying subtext of "maybe objectifying women is not all that great you guys"

But then there's stuff like putting a shallow husk of 2B - and they somehow also always feature the butt out version too, isn't that interesting - into any game that will take her - which is pretty much every game that is physically able to because thanks to her standing for nothing but ass woman in the popular conscious everyone wants a piece of that free money from horny gamers.

And I guess I have to legally state that that's fine or else the horny fun police is taking me in, but with how he's treating this character outside of the game it feels like it does such a disservice to the points he makes in his games (plural bc of dod3) and that fucking sucks because clearly the world isn't ready to move on from 2B so she'll be around, and with her a symbol that actually, it's fine to objectify your female characters - full stop because nobody but us few cares about the things he's criticizing through subtext.

And it sucks that to SquareEnix her stupid ass (like literally just her ass) is going to overshadow anything Reincarnation has ever done, all the interesting points it makes about societal agency and human relationships and gender and consent and family - because I wouldn't be surprised if NieR 4 manages to barely acknowledge Reincarnation's existence at all while still churning out YoRHa DLC - I mean just look at how they treat Drakengard, which for its 20th anniversary got... an entire tweet.

Like. They didn't even play Reincarnation Music at the NieR Concert!!! Not even Inori!!! It's been three years, why was there no Reincarnation Music at the fucking NieR concert??? I guess we'll just hear Grandma and Kainé and Weight of the World Remixes forever because squeenix mandated that everything that's not the big 2 games can only be referenced in vague subtext (and listen, I love how NieR treats Drakengard Lore, I will be severly disappointed if he ever actually explains any of it - it just hurts my soul that Kuroi Hana has never been performed live) (also y:da's final boss theme should have been a kuroi hana arrangement and not kainé but i guess licensing is a bitch so there's that)

But I mean it is kind of funny that NieR Reincarnation is in a Reincarnation Cage of its own. It's living in the shadow of its predecessors, grappling with the fact that it was born shouldering the burden of Reincarnation. Another Yoko Taro story whose story is about itself. (can i interest you in a german review i wrote where i explain which other yoko taro story also does that) (it's y:da, it's always y:da)

I guess all I can say is that you're clowning about Women, Yoko Taro, and I really hate that. Do Better, as they say. I wish you would publicly talk about literally anything else at this point, especially since you made a good point and then ruined it by not just simply shutting up about it like you do about anything else you do. (remember the ff14 live stream where he proceeded to not answer a single question about y:da? iconic behavior and absolutely the right choice)

And you have so many other good points to make that you could talk about instead! ...then again I swear to mother if Kamierabi really is about how Abortions are bad I will abort you, we have a perfectly capable successor in Yuki Wada right there. (btw praise be Yuki Wada, the true hero of this story, living his dream with his two nier ocs hina and yuzuki)

[deadcool14]

Here's Part 2 of my Non-Canon Devil Fruit tier list.

Here are all the A-Ranks:

-Kama Kama no Mi (Sickle-Sickle Fruit): It gives the user long, sharp blade-like fingernails which can create razor-sharp gusts of air capable of cleaving through rock. The only real weakness of this power is that you have to keep your nails sharp to use it properly, so better start carrying a filer around.

Good for jobs that require cutting, I guess.

-Kachi Kachi no Mi (Clack-Clack Fruit): Allows the user to harden their body and raise their body temperature. Is kinda like Haki at home, oh now that I think about it, that could be a really good for confusing opponents, they can't tell when it's Haki and when it's the fruit. Not much use outside of combat... you could use it similarly to the Hot-Hot Fruit, won't grant you the ability to stop paying for gas but it could allow you to pay less.

Most DF names come from onomatopeias, this one comes from Kachikachi, which is the sound for stones knocking against one another to create fire and for something hardening; the english name for this fruit is the "Hard-Hard Fruit", but I didn't think i'd fit, then I thought of calling it the Coal-Coal Fruit, because coal is hard like a rock and can store heat, but that didn't feel right either. I ended up picking this one because 'clack clack' is the onomatopeia for rocks knocking against each other in english, feels more adequate.

-Kopi Kopi no Mi (Copy-Copy Fruit): Allows the user to copy the abilities of another Devil Fruit user. Really damn broken, but it has two big weaknesses. One: You have to touch another fruit user so you can use their power, which is damn near impossible if you wanna get a good power, like Whitebeard's or Kizaru's or any Logia really, but you could get a good power used by a really sucky character, like Foxy or Buggy, seriously their powers are really good, they just don't know how to use them well. And two: you need to have great concentration when using a power, like, if you sneeze, you stop using the power, literally. If it weren't for that, this fruit would be an S.

-Mini Mini no Mi (Mini-Mini Fruit): Allows the user to shrink themselves down to 5 mm in height without reducing their strength. They can also return to their full size at will, as well as change to any size in between. The fruit also affects the users clothes and any weapon in their possession. If the user becomes too overly excited about something then some parts of the body will grow disproportionate from the others. The biggest downside to this fruit is that it permanently changes the user's default height to the height of two human hands, so if you fall in the ocean and your powers are negated, you turn to that height. You basically become Ant-Man, and that's dope.

This fruit is better utilized by Giants, who can shift between super tiny to enormous, which was actually done twice, in a game and a filler in the anime. The filler character Lily, has a move that is literally the Ant-Man-Thanos meme before it was even a thing! Except she goes the other way.

-Kyubu Kyubu no Mi (Cube-Cube Fruit): Allows the user to transform anything they touch, including air, into a cube shape, or break it into multiple cubes. You can move the cubes around and stack them however you want to form any structures, use them as floating platforms, throw them at people; you can even turn air into a cube, either as a platform or to shoot it at someone as an explosive attack, hell you can even turn that someone into a cube! Tho they can break out of the cube shape if they have enough willpower, and if Buggy of all people can break out of that, then it can't be that strong a move.

You could become both the greatest one man construction crew and the greatest architect in the world with this fruit! Tho you'll definitely not be known for design versatility. Or you could make a Minecraft themed amusement park! This fruit feels like it should be an S, but it doesn't feel like it's there to me, Idk why.

-Nuke Nuke no Mi (Through-Through Fruit): Allows the user to phase through solid objects. The power also extends to whatever you're touching, like weapons or even walls and the floor. The only weakness of this power is that you can't phase through living tissue, so if you're fighting someone that's too fast or are in a forest, then you're boned.

This fruit could work very well for a detective, a PI, a spy or maybe even a jailer; they make cells without any doors and only you can get the prisoners in-and-out.

-Jara Jara no Mi (Chain-Chain Fruit): Allows the user to create and control chains. You can use them to attack, make bridges and even for defense by wrapping yourself in chains to make armor.

Perfect for working construction, security, police, sex shops.

-Ute Ute no Mi (Gun-Gun Fruit): Allows the user to transform their hands into guns, as well as sprout gun barrels on any nearby surface. You could turn an entire island into the world's largest battleship. The one downside of this is that your hands permanently become gattling guns, so yeah, that blows.

You could be an assassin or the most profitable gun shop owner in the world, that is of you don't get kidnapped by every military in the world first.

-Dero Dero no Mi (Melt-Melt Fruit): Allows the user to dissolve themselves into a liquid, and then control the acidity of said liquid, being able to melt through almost anything. The user can also shoot a beam from their eyes that causes the hearts of people hit by it to melt —both metaphorically and literally— and put them under the user's control. In 24 hours, their actual hearts will dissolve and they will die. You can also shoot a beam of acid from your mouth, but the acidity of the beam gets weaker the more frequently it is shot. The only weaknesses of this fruit is that while in a liquid state, the user can be harmed by electricity, as they are a liquid, and in order to user the 'heart melt' power, the user needs to make direct eye contact with someone.

The only Devil Fruit to debut in a novel, of which there aren't any pictures, which is why the image is a screenshot I took of it's wiki page.

Name made by me

-Chuni Chuni no Mi (Tune-Tune Fruit): Allows the user to increase or decrease the abilities and powers of others, themselves and even the enviroment, or in other words, tune them. You can increase with Age Age Beams and decrease with Sage Sage Beams, and with physical contact you can make finer and stronger changes.

You could bankrupt every person who wants to teach a skill or martial art; this fruit is basically AI art for... everything, but more effective and less crappy. You could also help endangered species of plants and animals by increasing and decreasing certain attributes to help them survive, hell do that to people too, make crash-proof humans.

Name made by me

-Neko Neko no Mi (Cat-Cat Fruit), Model: Cheetah: Allows the user to become a full cheetah or a half-cheetah hybrid. Zoan type fruits are best suited for combat, this one specifically since it's a carnivorous Zoan, which can increase your combat capabilities aswell as your bloodlust, so you might wanna think twice about eating this one.

Aside from the aforementioned bloodlust increase, how could tranforming into one of the fastests creature's on the planet not be helpful? Plus you turn into a gatito.

Obvious name made by me

-Tori Tori no Mi (Bird-Bird Fruit), Model: Eagle: Allows the user to become a full eagle or a half-eagle hybrid. This one is a predatory bird, so it is also a carnivorous Zoan, think it well.

You get to fly; again, how could this not be helpful?

-Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Nue: Allows the user to become a full Nue or a half-Nue hybrid. A Nue is a yokai in japanese mythology; it's called the japanese chimera. It has the head of a monkey, the body of a raccoon dog, the torso and limbs of a tiger and a snake-head for a tail. It also makes a terrible eerie bird cry "hyoo hyoo", that resembles that of the Scaly Thrush (a bird). Now, you might be asking why the hell this thing is considered a bird, well, besides the bird cry, the Nue is very connected to birds, given that originally it was stated to be a green pheasant. And yes, you can fly.

It's also big enough to ride, so you could make a living as an amusement park attraction, or go out at night scaring the shit out of people.

-Pasa Pasa no Mi (Paper-Paper Fruit): Allows the user to create, control, and transform into paper. In the game it debuted this fruit is established as a Logia, but like I stated before, It fits the description of a Special Paramecia better. Since paper is very light you can turn into paper and fly, as well as throw paper at people to give them paper cuts if you're in trouble or wanna be asshole. Also it could possibly interact with certain books to gain extra powers, since the fruit's user used his powers in conjuction with an ancient book to use elemental attacks like explosions, electricty and poison.

Very helpful for a lot of situations, in several jobs, if you need to write something down, cleaning spills, wiping bodily fluids.

Obvious name made by me.

-Kani Kani no Mi (Crab-Crab Fruit): Allows the user to become a full crab or a half-crab hybrid. This fruit was conceptualized as the Devil Fruit of the character Inazuma, but this was later changed to the, frankly much better, Snip-Snip Fruit, which allows the user to turn their limbs into scissors, which then can be used to cut anything and manipulate it like paper.

Not much you can do with this one really but it's still cool. I would give it to my friend, or eat it myself to scare the hell out said friend because she hates crabs. And if it's you seeing this then 😈😈😈😈

Name made by me.

-Neko Neko no Mi, Model: Black Cat: Allows the user to become a full black cat or a half-black cat hybrid. This fruit was also conceptualized to be given to the character Marguerite before it was dropped, because if it appeared in the arc where Marguerite debuted then it would have been a huuuge plot hole.

Porn... just porn.

Obvious name made by me

-Kona Kona no Mi (Flour-Flour Fruit): This Devil Fruit was a concept created for the prototype version for the character of Katakuri, who was probably not intended to be a main antagonist in the Whole Cake Island Arc. Besides it's name, nothing is known about this fruit, but in my opinion I think it would also be a Special Paramecia like Katakuri's canon DF, the Mochi-Mochi Fruit, tho due to the nature of flour this one probably wouldn't be as versatile as it's successor, earning it's A Rank.

Great for baking.

-Kaju Kaju no Mi (Fruit-Fruit Fruit): Another concept Devil Fruit, this one being made for Katakuri's sister, Smoothie. This fruit would have most likely been a Paramecia, which would have allowed Smoothie to generate fruit of various sizes and chuck it at her opponents. Imagine someone throwing say a watermelon, a coconut, a pineapple or even a freaking durian the size of a car at you. Or maybe she could have done something similar to her other brother Cracker, who has the power of the Bis-Bis Fruit (biscuit), and create soldiers made out of several fruits.

Become the world's greatest fruit salesman. Or also help with world hunger.

Thank you! See ya at Part 3 with the Bs.

Here's the link for the tier list if you wanna make your own:

[pynkhues]

I love brio and I've read almost every fic on ao3. I've made little notes here and there of some fics that I would like to write, but I've never wrote anything like fan fiction. I can think up scenes in my head, but I just can't seem to get it out on paper. What are some tips you can give me to help? Because I would really love to write, i just dont even know where to start?

Hi, anon! And how cool! Welcome to the wonderful world of writing. :-) 

My advice on how to start – as wishy-washy as it sounds – is always just to start. Pick up a pen, or open a word document, and just start throwing words together. See what comes out, and try not to edit or self-police as you write, particularly when you’re just starting out. It’ll cripple you creatively – gosh, it still does sometimes for me, and I’ve been writing for over 15 years.

A good way to try this out is to set a timer for fifteen minutes or half an hour, and just free-write – so just write, and don’t let yourself re-read any of it until the timer bings. Give yourself the space to write words – some will be good, a lot probably terrible, but you can always make bad words better. 

You can’t make nothing better. 

And look, I’m going to maintain that that’s the most important piece of advice here, haha, but I get that that sort of advice can also be sometimes frustrating to people who are looking for more structure, so hey!

Here’s some more meat-and-potatoes advice too.

(Put behind a cut to not eat your feeds!)

Plotting a story in three questions

Building a plot really comes down to asking three questions: 

1. What does your character want? 

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want? 

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want? 

It might sound basic, but it forms really the backbone of every story. Take the Harry Potter series for instance, for which these questions are crucial. 

1. What does your character want? 

Harry wants a family.

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want? 

Voldemort is a direct threat to the new family Harry’s found. A threat he feels acutely because Voldemort murdered his original family.

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want? 

Harry will do anything to save this new, found family – the stakes of which escalates with every book. 

Of course, stories are more than this too – they’re themes and settings and arcs and dialogue, and character motivation tangles up in those things which means that the story world appears to expand well beyond those three questions I listed above. After all, Voldemort’s never just a threat to Harry’s family, he is for the whole world, right? But the thing is the threat to the world is never what drives Harry through the story, and therefore isn’t what drives the story overall. 

The plot is always the threat to Hogwarts and the life and family Harry’s found there.

Good Girls is exactly the same. 

1. What does your character want?

Beth, Ruby and Annie want to provide for their children. 

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want?

All three of them are in dire financial situations because Dean’s lost everything, Sara needs a transplant and expensive medication, and Annie can’t pay for her son’s needs. 

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want?

They’re going to get into crime and make enough money to save themselves and their children. 

The answers to these questions can change and evolve too – after all, the ‘what’ has certainly grown more complicated for Beth, Ruby and Annie across the show’s run, but those changes should evolve out of plot progression aka cause and effect. 

Beth’s original want was for financial stability for her children, and she still wants that, but she wants more than that now too – something that has been explored through the instability of her circumstances, and her growing attraction to power after having lived a powerless life.

So let’s talk about cause and effect a little more.

Cause and Effect

With those questions in mind, it’s important to remember that the way a story takes shape should be a sort of domino effect of cause and effect. Scenes aren’t placed together in a haphazard order. They’re not stacked on top of each other like three children in a trenchcoat! One scene should always cause the next, and that scene should lead onto the next, and so on, and so on. 

The enemy of good storytelling is ‘and then’. 

So when you write a scene, don’t think ‘now what happens?’

Look at what you’ve written and say ‘okay, what does what I’ve written here mean? What is the fallout of this? What is going to happen to these characters and this story now given what I’ve just written?’

This is also a good way to reverse engineer a story (and something I often do!) If you have a scene in your head, but you know it’s a middle scene, or an ending to something, ask yourself what happened that made that scene happen. 

In one of my most recent standalone fics, Drive You Mad (wear me out), I actually started with two scenes in my head – one where Beth and Rio were soaking wet for a mystery reason I didn’t know yet, haha, and the fact that it lead to them having sex in his car, and I had a vague idea that I wanted it to be  related to a crime job. 

Similarly with the pornstar!AU! I just wanted Beth and Rio to make a porno, haha, but I wanted it to feel like a genuine choice for these characters, so I needed to think of authentic reasons that would put them in that room, opposite each other, about to throw it all to the wind and bone on camera. 

I reverse engineered  both these stories by just asking myself ‘but why did this happen?’ What choices did these characters make to get them here? How did Beth and Rio end up soaking wet? Why would they have sex in that car? What would get somebody like Beth to shoot porn? What would make somebody like Beth connect emotionally with somebody like Rio in this AU (and y’know what? It was the exact same thing as in canon – a combination of parenthood and validation).

In other words, your story should never say this happened and then this happened, it should always say this happened and so this happened. 

Agency

Every character in your story should make choices. Good choices, bad choices, choices they think are not choices at all (because never forget - you always choose to do nothing. Nothing is never thrust upon you). 

Your characters are what drive your story forwards, and they drive your story forwards by making choices, not by standing still and waiting for the story to come to them. And look, it’s great if they make the right one, but it’s so much more fun (and opens up so many and so possibilities!) when they make the wrong one.

Grounding Your Story

Grounding stories in a place or a space is something I think a lot of new and emerging writers struggle with, and it was something I was really, really bad at when I started writing and worked really hard to get better at. Characters should never be interacting in vacuums. We don’t exist in them after all. 

Stories come alive when characters are engaging with spaces, or when those spaces are utilised effectively. Horror does this especially well, but a lot of other stories do too (again, Harry Potter is actually a great example of this!)

This is something Good Girls pretty consistently does fabulously too – think of any of their heists for starters, but particularly the one in 1.01. Settings can open up and close and add conflict and provide release. Use them! Think about them! I can guarantee you’ll become a better writer for it.

When I was really struggling with this area, I got some incredible advice that I still use to this day from Kim Wilkins, a gothic fantasy and horror author from my home town. She told me that when I start writing a new scene, go through the five senses - what can your character see, smell, taste, touch, hear. Write all of it. Then pick the best two descriptions, and dump the rest. 

Then think about the function of those descriptions. Okay, so the character’s in a park and can hear the metal whine of a rusty swingset. Does the chain link snap? Harming their child? Or maybe they can hear thunder in the distance while they’ve been trying to have a romantic anniversary picnic! Do they make it to the car in time? How does that affect their dynamic? Does it lead to a passionate make out in the rain? Or a furious fight in it? (Notice how this is all cause and effect too?)

These descriptions don’t always have to lead to a plot point – sometimes they can be reflective of an emotional state – an oncoming storm can foreshadow an oncoming fight between characters as much as it can lead to those characters getting caught in it after all – and sometimes it can just be for atmosphere too! 

All of this serves though to build your story into something evocative and grounded for the reader, plus it can be really fun to play around with. 

Love it or have fun! Try for both, but never have neither. 

Sometimes writing is a slog. 

Sometimes you sit down for a session and want to pluck your own eyelashes out because the story’s not working or the words aren’t flowing or you know your characterisation is falling flat, but there’s a difference between not enjoying a writing session, and not enjoying writing overall.

Writing can be really hard work sometimes, and when it is, you either need to love it, and love the story you’re trying to tell, or you need to move on to something else. 

That can be your silly, fun crack fic that evades all logic and you just straight up enjoy writing, or it can be something that isn’t writing at all. 

You’ve got to make it work for you – and if you don’t love it, and you aren’t having fun? It’s not worth it. 

You can take a break and come back to it, or you can take a break and never come back to it. Just do what’s right for you. 

Don’t get turned off by The Gap

Ira Glass describes this perfectly in this interview, and it’s something I always recommend to people starting out. Writing is, like practically everything else, a trade. It’s something you grow and develop and should never stop growing and developing and learning about. 

Writing though I think is also something that’s really easy to give up when you feel like you aren’t immediately good at it, and, well - - 

I think he says it better than I ever could: