#but i should probably write out all the chapters first. or at least outline them

[shanastoryteller]

Hi, long time reader. Thank you for your incredible brain and bringing your writing into the outside world. You might have answered it before but I don’t remember ever seeing it. How many times do you read/watch/refer to your source material? Like, do you decide to rewatch a series once every couple of years or do you watch it once, get inspired and then mostly focus on your own interpretation

hi! thank you! :)

answering publicly because it got kinda long and i thought other people might be interested

it depends! usually on how closely a fic is in conversation with the source material and if i've consumed it recently. like for my dead boy detective fic, i'd just watched it, i didn't need to review anything, and i'm often inspired to write after reading/watching

i haven't read harry potter since maybe high school, possibly middle school. i was 13 when deathly hallows came out and i remember being so underwhelmed by it, especially since i hadn't really liked half blood prince either, and i don't think really reread it after. for siat i just use sparknotes or google something something if i can't remember because for a long time it was in pretty close conversation with canon. i'd literally read the sparknotes for a couple chapters, think about how i wanted that to go in my fic, and update the outline. my other hp fic i'd just google something if i couldn't remember

while writing lynchpin, which was very in conversation with canon, i'd literally watch an episode, or to a certain point in the episode, then go and write until that point. i had stuff and arcs in mind, but that's how i kept pace and made sure i didn't miss anything on accident. however, i haven't watched untamed since completing lynchpin, which was my first untamed fic, but nothing else has been so closely in conversation with canon

i didn't consume any canon prior to writing my avengers fic because what good would it do me lol. speak of her is directly after infinity war pt 2 which i've never seen. i just knew that tony died and i thought it was bullshit

at the rind was while i was in the middle of a house rewatch, but anything after season 4/5 i probably googled because that's when i thought the show started to decline

pour herbel oil was definitely in pretty close conversation with the canon. i did with nirvana in fire kind of what i did with untamed, watching any scene with yujin and figuring out how i wanted to slide it a little to the left

supernatural is probably one where i'm most frequently checking the source material directly. this is partially because i first watched it a looooong time ago (like watched real time through most of season 4, although i really hated what they were doing with dean, then fully fell off when season 5 started because i hated the direction it was going so much) and because the boys and their relationship have gone through so many arcs and cycles that i want to make sure i'm hitting them both correctly for the time period they're in. see something say something i'd rewatch the episodes with cases i was including, but not much else, but that fic is probably in the least conversation with canon. back was a direct result of me rewatching when the levee breaks and hating it. no safe investments was just me being like, i think dean should have crashed out waaaay more about sam dying the first time. once i decided to expand the great puzzle i rewatched season 5 so i'd know what i'm working with and it was a SLOG at times, especially early season 5, because the way sam is treated just fills me with rage. but it's like, if i'm going to have the boys dig themselves out of this hole of bullshit, i need to know how deep it goes

so the broad answer is usually not at all, except with specific fics that are in such close conversation with canon that i have to make sure i'm hitting the timeline/references right. i have a pretty good memory so unless we're getting that specific, i don't feel the need to review source material that i haven't in a while

[27dragons]

Deeply Unwell

Back in, idk, March or April, I read a story on AO3. It was a Jayvik college AU in which Viktor comforted a homesick Jayce. It was very short, but it crawled into my brain and set up shop. I left a sort of crazy comment on the fic talking about what I imagined happened in that 'verse after that.

And then I decided I needed to write it.

I started writing on April 28. Which I know, because I keep a writing spreadsheet.

I wrote the first chapter or two, and at the time, I thought I would post each chapter as a standalone story. That way, I could start and stop at my leisure without activating the part of my brain that has anxiety about partially-posted WIPs.

And then I was like, well. I should probably at least have a loose roadmap of where this AU is going, because the comment I'd left on that first fic had an actual plot of sorts built into it.

So I started plotting it out. And I showed it to @zillac, thinking they might be amused at the way it was unfolding.

Zil made it worse.

Between us, we expanded what I'd originally guessed would be 5-6 individual stories into 22 chapters. That could no longer stand as individual stories, because parts of them were interconnected. And some of them ended on cliffhangers.

TWENTY-TWO CHAPTERS. The vague outline, in which each chapter had approximately one paragraph of summary, was 4000 words long all by itself.

I finished the first draft of the final chapter today. One and a half months after I started.

The first draft of the whole thing is about 134,000 words. (Ish. My works tend to grow when I edit, too.) That's an average of around 20k per week. Just shy of 3k per day. JUST on this story. It doesn't count the BottomJayceWeek fics that I wrote. Or the Regency AU. Or any of the other WIPs I've worked on that haven't been finished or posted yet.

How DEEPLY UNWELL am I about Jayvik?

134,000 words in 45 days unwell. That's how unwell I am about these two.

I'm going to start posting this next week.

Brace yourselves.

[lapseinart]

Nobody's told me not to so here's a vague outline for the Anthony Bridgerton allergy fic inspired by the fic a thousand cuts by wall_e_nelson and also every single time my brother's had an allergic reaction. I imagine this fic being five stupid long chapters but in reality I probably won't write it at all. I should put this in my docs or something that's not my notes folder if this is going to see the light of day.

The night before the Conservatory Ball (which means Kate and Anthony have already seen each other at dawn), the Bridgertons go to dinner? tea? at Hastings House. Anthony has an allergic reaction to a rhubarb pastry, its only minor shock, but man’s perpetually stressed and pretty much sleeps a full 24 hours after the incident. He swells and has hives all over and throws up a lot, but his airway isn’t actually really compromised, he just hyperventilates and panics because he thinks he’s dying the same way Edmund did. In any case, the doctor prescribed bed rest for at least five days, and for him to avoid exertion for at least a fortnight which goes down about as well as you'd think. Anthony mostly sleeps the first three days, and the eldest Bridgertons take shifts at his bedside. Daphne takes much of the day, as she’s not meant to leave the house due to being pretty heavily pregnant, and Benedict tends to stay the night, alternating with his mother. Eloise stays at Bridgerton House with the children. Francesca is called home from Bath, but Benedict can’t find Colin’s new itinerary in Anthony’s office with the address of his lodgings in Greece and once they find it, Anthony’s already awake and on the mend, so they don’t send word.

Benedict’s lowkey a bit overwhelmed. He’s the one with Anthony for the most severe part of the reaction and he’s never been so scared. That’s his big brother laid low by a pastry. He’s floundering as he’s told he’ll have to take over his brother’s duties, until Anthony wakes briefly and asks if he’s dying and tells Benedict to contact the solicitor. And Benedict’s so grateful for the assistance that it doesn’t occur to him at first like why does Anthony have a detailed plan of what should be done if he dies? It’s not even what to do if temporarily viscount or if he’s on vacation or anything it’s literally if Anthony dies. And it’s disconcerting and Benedict can do absolutely nothing about it. Because Anthony spends half the day sleeping and the awake times reassuring the children.

In my head, Ben’s POV covers the reaction, the day Anthony’s unconscious while Ben’s trying to keep everyone under control, and the first day he’s semi-conscious, when he tells Ben to talk the solicitor and. Ben realizes how fucked up it is that Anthony has a letter written to him telling him what to do if he dies.

Daphne feels exceptionally guilty because the reaction occurred at her house and because she and Simon had been needling Anthony about eating a biscuit or pastry and also her craving for rhubarb. Pregnancy does not help her volatile emotions. She’s having conversations with Simon because he feels especially guilty because they haven’t resolved their fight. And she’s stressed because of Eloise, since Anthony being ill and Violet being out of it/absent means she feels obligated to step up to plate, especially when Benedict shows an utter disinterest in taking Eloise out in society. So she’s frustrated with just about everyone, especially Simon, who doesn’t want her going to all the balls and soirees and such. So Simon asks Lady Dabury, who’s with the Sharmas, to help out, in exchange for granting them his male protection. This also pisses Daphne off because what the hell he’s springing this on her?

Theoretically, Daphne’s POV covers Anthony’s other semi-conscious days. He’s still not awake enough to take charge, but awake enough to tell her it’s not her or Simon’s fault.

Violet’s lowkey out of it half the time from trauma and the memories of her husband’s death. Daphne is pregnant and she and Simon are looking after Anthony. Benedict is taking over matters of the estate, doing his best to take care of Anthony, and grappling with the fact that Anthony is really concerningly prepared for his own death, so it ends up falling to Eloise to look after their mother. And Violet’s out of it enough to just talk, say the things the says to Anthony without a second thought, the things no child should hear their mother say. And obviously Eloise is horrified but doesn’t feel like she can say shit. Literally prefers going to balls then dealing with her. At this point, she’s becoming fast friends with Kate, getting Eldest Daughter Syndrome insights. She writes Colin to come home because he’s Mother’s favorite, and maybe if he’s here she can escape to do literally anything else.

Eloise’s POV is about some aspects of Anthony’s semi-conscious days in Bridgerton House as opposed to what Daphne hears from Hastings House and the Ton. It goes into his fully conscious state as well.

Colin gets the memo and races back (he's already on his way back? he arrives by the horse races right? idk when things happen) but by this time Anthony is mostly recovered. Still rather weak, and everyone is shoving him into bed, but awake for longer stretches of time. It’s all rather anti-climactic for him as he expected Anthony on his deathbed from Eloise’s note. But then he starts noticing little changes, the way Eloise is eager to go to balls and leave their mother at every opportunity. Their mother, for that matter, is not ill, as he’d thought from Eloise’s note, but still plainly unwell, staring off into the distance. And everyone is so careful around Anthony now, almost protective. And it’s like they’ve all bonded except for him because he was out of the country. Yet for some reason Anthony is coming to him because he’s the only one treating him normally, which is weird in and of itself.

Colin’s POV is of Anthony’s and recovery period when he is back in Bridgerton House. He’s weak but on the mend.

Last chapter is Anthony’s POV. He’s recovered enough to be going to balls and the like, but Benedict still insists on splitting the work. It’s disconcerting to him, having his siblings doing stuff for him because he’s usually the one doing stuff for them. Anthony is a man of action, acts of service is his love language, and so to him it kind of feels like it took him nearly dying for them to decide that they do like him. He’s thankful, sort-of, but it’s also like this is what it took? He’s off-put by the fact he missed so much time on the marriage mart, though his family insists that he does not need to find a wife this season, can wait for the next while he recovers. In any case, Anthony’s a bit of a wreck torn between what his family wants and what he perceives as his duty. And he’s having a hard conversation with Benedict about his view of his own mortality and the like. And maybe also half a conversation with Eloise about their mother? Anyway, they go to some ball, and Anthony’s siblings keep grabbing anything he picks up to eat or drink and take a bite/sip before handing it to him and saying “No rhubarb�� and he’s equally exasperated and thankful (more thankful when its the pastries than anything else) when Eloise introduces him to the Sharmas and Anthony’s like “OH!” Because it’s riding astride girl. So he asks her to dance and she’s like yeah okay and while they’re dancing they start talking/bantering and Anthony kind of vents to her a little. And the fic ends with the dance and hopefulness and shit.

I imagine the whole courtship and how everything is affected by him being gone would be resolved in a sequel or something. Like he never declared he was going to wed the diamond, so it's not like he's fixed on Edwina for Honor and Duty and Kate still has a relatively favorable impression of him since Eloise hasn't been disparaging him because she's maturing and realizing that Anthony's got shit on his plate.

[knox-knocks]

I've been thinking of rewriting/revisiting a few of my fics a lot lately. There's a few I left unfinished and others I wish I had done differently, and I can't really get them out of my head. I've been dying to write fanfiction again and even though I want to write new fic for aftg + tsc and have a ton of ideas, I think I really need to get these out of my system first.

Soo, I have a few ideas, but I wanted to gauge interest! I have more information about each of the project under the read more, and if anyone has questions, I'm always happy to answer :)

Fic summaries and rework explanations below !

The Court Motel

Andrew is the unfortunate owner of a haunted motel, Kevin is the shiny, new detective looking for Nathaniel Wesninski, and Neil is caught somewhere in between.

Neil is a ghost in this one. I had at least three chapters planned for this fic, one chapter for each pov character (Andrew, Kevin, Neil). I think I tried writing chapter two but for whatever reason, I was never able to get past the beginning. But I have a soft spot for this fic and the weird little motel Andrew and Neil have found themselves in. I definitely want to edit the first chapter and finish the story.

The Absence of You

Neil Josten has been a liar his entire life. Neil's secrets got him killed and they linger after he dies, making the Foxes wonder who Neil really was, if they knew him at all. The aftermath of their beloved striker's demise still hurts the Foxes, most of all Andrew Minyard, who probably knew him the most when he was alive. What they don't know, is that Neil Josten has thwarted death ever since he was a small child and he's done it again.

I actually hate the description of this but Neil is basically the human embodiment of a headache for everyone involved in this (including me 😔). I don't know why but this fic was s hard for me to write, despite actually having a substantial amount of outlining and notes behind it. plus I feel a lil bad for leaving it after like two chapters

Timeless

Neil has died more times than he can reasonably count. No matter how much he resisted, he would always be returned to the void eventually. The void, as Neil called it, was a dark and empty place, and Neil had spent more time there than in any of his lives. With no family left and hardly any time to start a life of his own, he never bothered to think of a solution to his cycle of deaths. And then Andrew Minyard came along.

As you can see, I like killing Neil and I'm definitely on Andrew's shit list. I really like writing this but I literally had no idea where I was going with it at all times. I think at one point I was planning on Andrew getting kidnapped by Nathan/Lola which did not end up happening. thankfully. But it definitely feels disjointed and I want to clean up the plot a bit.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Neil inexplicably comes back to life after being seven months dead and buried. He has no memory of how he crawled out of his grave, or even when he died. He has a heartbeat, he needs to breathe and eat and sleep, he's irrefutably alive, but that should be impossible. But he doesn't have time to dwell on it, because some very weird things start happening to him, and they all seem to revolve around Neil's mysterious reappearance and a certain countdown to Halloween.

....another one where I've killed Neil. okay. I swear I love him like that;s my boy.

This is fic is another one I've been wanting to rework the most. The plot itself is okay though the writing could definitely be cleaned up (I was rushing to meet the self-imposed halloween countdown deadlines and it really impacted that I think rip).

I mostly want to expand on the story and world building. I was thinking of rewriting it, but starting at the beginning of canon when Neil joins the Foxes. For some reason I keep coming back to the magic system, which admittedly is not very well fleshed out in the original fic, and I want to make it a larger part of the story. And the idea of a runaway Neil harboring an illegal book of magic to protect himself while he's playing sports ball at his college sounds like so much fun to me.

[undertalerainbow]

Comic Update

Current page count is 14 and everything's going smoothly, and part one of chapter 1 should be released before the end of the month at the most and in a week at least. We do have a few updates on how it's going to be posted, though. Part one was supposed to be one post with 30 pages, which is what we had planned for part 1; however, thanks to something weird with pc version of tumblr I can't add more of the pages via pc, see my issue here (yes, it's still doing that). I've been using my phone to upload the images on the draft post, but as some know here, the mobile version only allows 10 images :(((( So that means instead of one post for part one, its going to be around 3-maybe 4-posts for part one chapter one. So instead of three posts for the total of chapter 1, it may be upwards to 9 or above posts for chapter 1 alone. I seriously don't know the issue with my pc version, but I hope these many posts will be ok with y'all. This also means there will probably be posts released in bursts, as while I'm in the boss fight right now and thus going much faster than before (doing almost a page a day), when I'm doing full color it may take longer as I've been nonstop drawing this since around march (minus that break in late april to finish finals). The goal is to finish chapter 1 before Underevent applications in December, maybe even get to chapter 2. All of volume one is outlined, planned to be 3-5 chapters in length, and each following volume being longer afterwards. Nick's volume (volume 2) is overall conceptialized, and some familiar characters will take either center stage or comeos. Stella's volume is being conceptized with a clear goal in mind, and overall plot beats are thought up. The overall story was the first thought of, having a beginning, middle major plot points, and an ending which is fully thought out. Overall, ideas for Percy's, Rosemary's, Clover's, and Asriel's volumes have been thought of, but have not been as detailed as the other three as we do want to write as we go along. Point A and Point B of the story is thought of and will not change, but the landmarks we have to go through to get there has to be detailed as we go along so the story flows well. There's so far a total of 12 planned new areas (this includes areas within areas like snowdin village is to snowdin forest), and we are thinking up more when needed in the story. We have a lot of new main characters tied to the past of these fallen children, both alive and dusted. There is planned new background NPCS that we hope our current concept and possible new concept artists will help out with. We also have the idea that when chapter 1 is done, we'll also post them on places like Webtoon, Bluesky, and maybe Reddit, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Music is still being made, now having over 10 tracks total! Those songs may be posted as a way to keep our account alive, we also have pride month drawings being done as relaxers on the side (though they may be late as we want to work hard to release the comic). And here's the biggest thing....ahem....

We have a Discord now

Yep! We have an official discord where you can come in, ask questions with more immediate responses (as the answers to any questions provided on Tumblr, I'd like to draw it, which I never have time for). You can also audition for different positions if you'd like, which would also add you to the development team, able to see the comic as it progresses. If you don't know if you can provide anything product wise, then you can apply to be a beta reader; however, those who apply to that must be at least 16 or above. I just want more constructive feedback when it comes to beta readers unless I know you personally which than I may make exceptions; otherwise, no younger than that. If you don't want to be on the dev team at all, that's also ok! There are other channels to share your own products, promote your own projects, and just generally make friends. Please read the rules before proceeding, but otherwise have fun! The link is riiiiight here! https://discord.gg/XZAVctaE (this link will be updated if it expires)

The need we have right now is voice actors, as we do plan that when the first chapter is completed, we want to make an official dub for the people following the YouTube channel. We already have a Flowey, we just need the following characters: Frisk (gender neutral, feminine leaning) Chara (gender neutral, tomboy leaning) Toriel (Female, warm but slightly gruff) Napsablook (gender neutral, whispy and quiet) Miscellaneous Ruin Monsters (Froggit, whimson, vegatoid, etc) Southern Rock (southern voice gender neutral for the scolding rock)

But we do have other roles such as: Concept artists (for background characters or major side characters who do not have designs yet), Comic artists (to help with coloring, backgrounds, etc so things can be streamlined better), video editors (for things like trailers or animations), animators (promo stuff), artists (promo stuff and answering the ask souls questions), and story editors (to help TheEverManiac with the paneling script).

Hope to see y'all join and meet us there! (only if you want to though haha)

Cya later!

[thefangirlingdead]

Okay SO. I've been a little MIA cause work got crazy, but I'm still working on some new Mattdrai fics and want your opinion on which one I should start posting first?? Honestly equally stoked about all of these so no wrong answers, really.

I've got general outlines/some chapters done for most of these but options are:

1. Girl Matty:

Okay so like, I went on a whole tangent about girl!Matthew which you can see HERE. But essentially the plot would be Matty playing in the NHL (cause fuck it, anyone can play) and getting traded to the Oilers. Thinking Leon is a sexist asshole because of his "I'd get off the ice" comment, then obviously lots of sexual tension, Matty being an absolute shithead, and eventual love.

2. Leon to the Panthers:

I have a few chapters of this fic already written, but essentially it's a fluffy/horny/maybe sometimes slightly angsty fic about Leon getting traded to the Panthers the summer before the 2023/2024 season. (So like... the drama of the Panthers/Oilers cup run with Leon on the other side, anyone??) Also the added complications of the fact that he and Matthew used to hook up during the BOA days and Leon trying to come to terms with the fact that they're teammates now and Matthew doesn't want him anymore (spoiler: he does, Leon's an idiot)

3. Leon to the Lightning:

Angsty as fuck. Leon gets traded to the Lightning (inspired by rumors that there could've been a Draisaitl/Kucherov trade at one point in time). Also gets traded before/during the 2023/2024 season and has to watch his old team and his ex's team to to the SCF without him. Lots of Leon trying to figure out who he is without Connor and Matthew. Renewed rivalry between Tampa and Florida with Leon and Matthew leading the charge. Leon totally not being over Matthew and longingly watching Matthew live his best life in the aftermath of the cup win. Lots of healing angst and eventual growth and self-love and reconciliation.

4. Dating app/hidden identity:

If you've watched Ted Lasso: think Bantr. Essentially, Matthew downloads a dating app that doesn't allow you to post any photos while he's on a roadie because he's feeling lonely/looking for connection. Unknowingly matches with Leon (who's going by Tim in the app) and ends up getting really close with them. Of course, there's lots of bumps in the road and they end up finally meeting up after waaaaay too long and that's... something.

5. Time loop:

Someone prompted a time loop fic HERE and I immediately was soooo intrigued. Might be a slightly shorter fic, and this is probably my least-outlined one. But I would love to do something that takes place during the 2023 ASG and Matthew and Leon falling in love while they're stuck in a time loop.

I'm also suuuuuper open to a/b/o prompts or McMattDrai ideas because I've been DYING to write either, but the right plot just hasn't tickled my brain yet.

[sabrecrane]

Feedback

By far the hardest thing I have ever had to do and experience in my uni degree is workshopping. It's needed of course and certainly incredibly helpful but when you're a very reserved person who prefers keeping things to yourself it can feel like a nightmare. Unfortunately, it's something I'm having to face as much as I hate to do so.

I attended a lecture today ran by a lecturer who is also a fiction writer and she brought up many good points that I'm going to share here. During the lecture she had us access a website where we were asked to answer a couple of questions and I'm going to share a few of them and my answers below.

What motivates you to write?

Reading stories that don't necessarily focus on a specific subject I wished it focused on such as dragons, etc as a main plot point. Knowing I have the ability to make the stories I wished were out there encourages me to develop my skills as a writer.

Describe what it's like for you to sit and write something

It's a chance to wind down and reconnect with fragments of myself that I gave to my characters. An odd sense of therapy I guess.

Do you have a daily writing practice? What does it involved?

I write a bit as soon as I wake up even if it's just outlining a chapter. Then after I've done my stuff for the day I sit down and write from 6pm to 12am sometimes later. I like to get at least seven A4 pages written.

Now you're probably wondering why I shared these questions from my lecture with you and the short answer is, I think it's important to reflect on your skills as a writer. Writing means different things for everyone and every writer has their own motivations, dreams, and stories they wish to get across. But to even be able to do this you need to be able to accept criticism and feedback in general.

Something I found incredibly reassuring was when we were asked how confident we felt about sharing our writing with others ninety percent of my class had admitted they didn't feel confident at all. We were also asked how confident we felt about giving feedback on other people's work and these results were more mixed. Some were afraid they would be too critical and hurt the writer's feelings while others were confident in giving criticism but not receiving it themself.

In response to this my lecturer brought up some really helpful points:

When I had a beta reader they were so scared of telling me what they thought I should improve on that they ended up complimenting a lot more than giving criticism. This helped me feel confident but at the same time I wasn't getting the criticism I think I needed. Eventually though, they brought up a section of my story where I dove into a backstory of a character. Instead of saying it wasn't necessary, they asked if I thought it was necessary. And I thought about it and ultimately decided that it was fundamental to the story and insisted the plot wouldn't make sense without it otherwise. As a writer you know your plot in and out and ultimately, criticism is there for you to pick and take. While my beta reader thought the book was strong enough to work without the backstory, I disagreed and felt it was necessary to add. After I explained my reasoning, they understood and let it be.

Feedback is necessary as a writer. Without it, you can't sharpen your skills and your beta readers are more likely to capture little plot holes or odd sounding paragraphs than you would be because they are reading your work for the first time.

At the end of the day, this is your story. Try your best to not let criticism discourage you. You know your plot and your characters, feedback is there for you to pick at and either accept or dismiss.

I can't believe I didn't cover such an important topic sooner. Unless I already have and forgotten. Anyway, I hope this helps all of you! Happy writing!

[memento-morri-writes]

4, 17, and 20 for whatever you’d like ❤️

Oh my fucking god. I'm SO SORRY. I SAW THIS THE INSTANT YOU SENT IT BUT I WAS STRESSED (for unrelated reasons) AND CLOSED MY INBOX AND TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THIS ASK UNTIL I GOT AN ASK ON ANOTHER BLOG TODAY. 😭😭😭😭

ask game here. (yes, I'm still accepting them.) (and any other questions, tbh. I just love talking, lmao.)

4. pick an alternate setting you would want to put either the main cast of your work in— zombie apocalypse, medieval fantasy, regency era, office hijinks, etc. describe what it would look like and/or write 100+ words in this universe.

So, I really fucking suck at making AUs, because most of the time I literally cannot separate my OCs from their setting. Like, Rook belongs in a high-fantasy setting, and nothing else works. Cyra needs some tech-y elements in her world or it doesn't work. Fallon only works in a no-magic fantasy world. Etc. Like, in my mind, if I wanted to write those characters in a different setting, I would have put them there in the first place. I know that's not a very satisfying answer though, so I'm gonna give you a sneak peak at the Worst Timeline AU for Rook that lives rent-free in both my head and my google docs.

In this AU Rook ends up becoming the 2nd-to-last boss of the campaign, with a complete set of Gambits (his special combat moves that Sigmar was teaching him, named after chess pieces), instead of the three he has in canon. This is maybe the most evil thing I've ever come up with and it was the result of me and the DM "yes, and"-ing each other for like an hour or more. (this also reminds me that I should share the Liars lore dump on this blog so people actually have some fucking context for this shit, but it's 5k words, so idk that will anyone would read it.)

the rest is going under the cut because I talk too much.

17. do you have a specific structure or method of plotting? what does your drafting process look like?

So, to be perfectly honest, I've never figured out how to plot or draft. I've never finished a draft of any project that was more than 10k words long (and even then the only completed short stories I've finished were for a grade in school), and my plotting and drafting process has changed for every project I've ever started. For my D&D writing, my "plotting" is pretty much just me typing one or several rambling messages in one of the threads in my "dnd idea dump" channel in my private discord server (I'm the only member). In most cases those messages get edited or rewritten completely at least a couple times before I actually get around to writing the thing. Drafting for D&D writing is usually done between 9pm and 3am, with me writing the whole "vignette" in one sitting, regardless of length (usually in the 1.5-3k range). (The sole exceptions to this so far are Snakebite and kind of the Carrion Backstory, which I chipped away at over a few days / weeks.) For ATQH, I had a very detailed plot setup in Milanote that was broken down into Acts > Chapters > Scenes like this:

As for drafting, I did my drafting for ATQH in Scrivener, writing completely out of order whenever inspiration struck. I've tried more "standard" outlining (for Political Fantasy WIP, for example), but I never actually ended up writing much for that WIP. What very, very little I did write was also out of order, though. Here's a pic of my outline doc, though, which lives in Scrivener.

20. do you think there's anything about your work which is predictable from your previous works/interests, or to anyone who knows you well enough? if the work was written by someone else, what would a recommendation designed to personally bait you look like?

This is a fucking HILARIOUS question to ask me, ngl. All of my writing is extremely self-indulgent, so yeah, almost all of it is textbook Morri's Interests. Rook is probably the best example of this: "A reckless, self-sacrificial lying bastard of a pirate with self-worth issues who gets the shit beat out of him on a regular basis and is generally miserable most of the time." Like, that's Morri catnip. All of it. Pirates? catnip. Whumpy shit? catnip. Self-loathing character? catnip. (One of my friends (who also happens to be a fellow player in one and the DM of two of my dnd games) knows well enough by now that she can convince me to read/watch ANYTHING as long as there's pirates. And literally just today she told me "you need to make [my woman character] more pathetic. You love your two pathetic men so much." Also, Rook having a Bad Time / almost dying / actually dying is pretty much a "and the sky is blue" situation to my friends atp, lmao.) In general, my Specialty seems to be pathetic men who get injured frequently and not-so-low-key hate themselves. (Rook, Carrion, Kris, just to name a few.) My favorite characters not written by me also tend to fall into this category. (Locke Lamora, my beloved.) I'm also just a sucker for characters who are Massive Fucking Idiots. Extra bonus points if they're Smart But Also Stupid. (ie, competent in one area, but absolutely failures in another. Especially if the thing they're Bad At has something to do with emotions / people skills.) Also, in terms of D&D characters in general, being a rogue, barbarian, or paladin is pretty much my MO at this point. I'm playing two rogues (Rook + Avra), a barbarian (Carrion), a paladin (Odynia), and a college of dance bard (Rune, who was kind of a shocker for everyone, since I usually never play full casters). And my characters from my previous, abandoned campaigns were another paladin (Asola) and another barb (Cyra). And we're stopping Odynia's campaign, and I'm thinking about recycling my other barbarian (Cyra, my beloved) for the next one. Basically, I'm the martial bitch, hahaha. Specifically high-damage martials. (Rogues with sneak attack, paladins with divine smite, barbarians with brutal critical...) Being super tanky (as a barb or paladin) is a huge bonus, but not a must. If we step aside from D&D it's really funny that the WIP that got me back into writing is so Not My Style, lmao. As an aroace person, I'm not a big fan of romance books, and I don't really like writing romance. But ATQH -- the first thing I had done any writing on in YEARS at the time -- is most definitely a romance. However, it came from a place of me wanting to write the kind of romance I wanted to see in the world: one with a lot of depth and characters who had strong identities, personalities, and problems outside of their love interest. Also, NO INSTA-LOVE. My most beloathed of all time. (Looking back, it was also partially a product of my parents collapsing marriage and me coming to terms with / realizing my own aromanticism, so in many ways it was kind of therapeutic to write.)

[starmapz]

Your writing is amazing. I'm in love with the college! sukuna series you're working on! Can I ask how you got into writing/how your writing process goes? I really wanna get into writing but I struggle with outlining plots and just like to write and make up the story as it comes to my mind 😭🫶🏽

hiiiii love!! this is so sweet thank you sm <33 i'm so glad to hear you're loving college!kuna because i'm loving writing for it 🥹

you are absolutely more than welcome to ask! so i've been writing for about 12 years now but haven't published anything until recently but i've always enjoyed it. i don't think i ever finished any of my pieces until recently either bc i struggled with outlines and completing things.

i think what helped me the most personally to get past that blockade is that i got into writing for jjk specifically around the same time as a close friend got into writing for another fandom so we beta one another's work and bounce ideas past each other as well, bless her

as for my process itself, i think i actually have a fairly messy process tbh? most of my inspiration comes from music but the majority of fleshing out those ideas comes from the fact that i daydream more than the average person probably should LOL. my mind is just constantly writing the next scene.

i also physically can't write scenes in advance bc if i do i won't write the scenes i'm less inspired for that come before what i've already gotten down, so i write in the order that you all are reading it. i do have notes/planning docs with basic outlines of what i'd like in each chapter but it's genuinely just the word vomit i've sent to my beta reader. it's messy and totally not concrete and i don't stick by it if i feel what i've got planned isn't/won't work.

another thing that i find works well for me is that i actually really enjoy the editing process so if i'm not fully happy with a scene but i'm having a bit of a block, i'll move along if it's at least complete enough to call it 'done', then go back during editing once i've had some time to think it over. i know a lot of people don't like editing, so this may not work for everyone, but taking a step back and thinking things over can always be a good strategy.

my best pieces of advice would be these: - just start writing and see what happens, bc honestly even my work from like 8 months ago or so when i first started this blog i sometimes read again and i can see my improvement and it makes me proud of where i've come from. - if you have an idea, even if it's the middle of the night, open your phone and jot down a note. it's saved so many of my ideas from disappearing into nothing. - read lots! i think the fact that i read a lot of fics alongside writing them has helped me improve as well, bc i try to learn new words/styles from other writers. i find my older writing used to be a lot more rigid, like i wasn't willing to use capitals or multiple exclamation marks to signify yelling, but at the end of the day i realized i like when others do that, so why shouldn't i? i enjoy more casual prose as it feels more realistic at times, so i've adapted that into my writing as well. by knowing what you like to read, you can figure out more how you like to write. - lastly, don't overthink things! remember, if you enjoy what you wrote, others will too. write for yourself and do what you love :)

tysm for all the love, i hope this helps even a little bit <33 sorry for the word vomit LOL and i hope you have a great day/night bb!

[toriwritesstories]

Unsolicited Ask that I thought of tonight: have you ever written anything about your reasons for writing the whole fic out before starting to publish it? I think you’re the only person I know who does it this way (I know many people try to ‘write ahead’ a bunch, but usually not the whole thing). I sometimes try to do finish first, but lately I end up starting to publish once I’m most of the way through as a way to force myself to finish the fic 😂 Nothing deep here, just curious 🙏

Hey friend!!! I always appreciate an unsolicited ask because as everyone probably knows about me, I could talk forever about writing or fandom or... probably dozens of other things!

So thanks for asking! I would love to explain why I do it this way! And I apologize in advance for how long of a story time this is going to be - just remember, you asked 😜

So I've been posting fanfic for just about 12 years now (almost exactly, I think) since I was 13 (oof) and I used to post a chapter immediately after completing it. Back then, I came home from school, cranked out a 2k chapter, updated my fic, and then did the same thing the next day. I didn't proofread anything and it was all just vibes haha.

I had a few instances of abandoning fics after a while, things that I didn't end up feeling like finishing, and I hated doing that to people especially because I personally really struggle to read WIPs for that reason. I'm a binge reader through and through and I want my fics to be bingeable without leaving off in a weird place.

So by the time I started writing for Clexa and moved to writing on Ao3, I'd started loosely following a 7ish chapter ahead rule. If I was cranking the chapters out like crazy, sometimes I would let myself post more than 7 chapters ahead, but I roughly kept that number. While writing this way, I realized another major perk to writing ahead, which was that I could go back and change things if I realized I needed to to make something work that I hadn't planned. And since I don't really plan a fic much at all (I don't outline or even usually jot down more than a few ideas, although it does depend on the fic), it was nice to have some of that wiggle room.

However even doing it this way, there was still something that sometimes threw a wrench in my writing process - comments. Specifically, comments where people would say what they hoped would happen or hoped WOULDN'T happen... and my anxious brain would feel like I should change things based on what readers wanted. And sometimes this would really get to me and I'd suddenly lose steam with writing.

I do want to be clear that there's nothing wrong with these kinds of comments, at least not to me and definitely not anymore. Nowadays, I always encourage people to tell me what they think will happen, what their predictions are! I love to hear them! I just have anxiety, which used to be untreated, and am a people pleaser and so sometimes I used to take these kinds of comments the wrong way....

To give a specific and the biggest example, there was a Clexa fic that I wrote that had a plot twist that a couple people did not like. Someone commented that they didn't even want a Clexa endgame in that fic anymore, and that short circuited my brain - in my mind, that meant I had really messed up, because of course I was planning on a Clexa endgame. I abandoned the fic for a long time, and then a long while later, I actually rewrote that plot twist and finished/reposted the fic with a new ending on Ao3 (originally it was on FFnet). To my horror, the same commenter came back and said that I didn't need to change it and that they still felt like I should've continued without a Clexa endgame. Anyway the whole thing threw me off and really stuck with me.

But it was actually Choni that I started this pattern of always finishing a fic first with, but it wasn't exactly intentional at the time. It was the start of my sophomore year of college, I'd just broken up with my ex and fallen into a Choni spiral. It was the first week of classes and I knew I was soon going to be swamped with homework, but I had this fic idea so I was using every ounce of free time to write. I wrote all 93,716 words in 12 days, no input from anyone else, just me and my brain.

Then I posted it over the course of the semester, one to two chapters a week, and dude, it was like free seratonin! People left comments and kudos, and even if people had thoughts or ideas, I had this comfort knowing that I'd already finished it and when I finish a fic, I don't really go back to change much other than small edits. So every week, I posted a chapter, got feedback, and I used the excitement from the readers to motivate myself in writing something new at a slower pace while I posted - once again without anyone else's input. I never went back after that.

As I discovered my specific flavor of neurodiversity, I also realized that having a fic incomplete posted will literally weight on me in my mental to-do list, and will overwhelm me so much that I'll kinda get stuck and not be able to finish. This actually almost just happened to me again with a Shadowzel epilogue I needed to finish. I created a Series on Ao3 to make sure I would finish, and I had already written like 10k, but then I got distracted and then it was hanging over me and it didn't feel fun anymore for a second, it felt only stressful. But I did finally take a breath, reset, and finish. My brain just struggles with that, I think.

Anyway, there was an unfortunate side effect to my realization, though. Somehow, my anxiety managed to convince myself that I actually had to keep the entire story a secret for me to be able to finish it. So I wouldn't tell anyone any bit about it - I couldn't even tell the ideas to my partner or my close fandom friends, because I was worried the idea would die before I could finish it.

I've been working against that false belief slowly but surely. One of my recent Shadowzel fics I had a friend as my alpha reader the entire time, and now I always tell my spouse all about the ideas I'm writing. So I'm breaking through that box I've put myself in.

But I don't think I'll go back to posting as I go. I am lucky that if I love an idea enough, I can motivate myself to write from start to finish, and then sharing it is, like I said, practically free seratonin and dopamine haha. I do sometimes still get anxious about whether I made the right decisions and whether people will like how I wrote it, but my lovely friends and readers never hesitate to build me up and reassure me. So I try to just trust myself and tell myself that if someone doesn't like it, they can click off of it, but at least I know I am happy with how I wrote it, because I always write exactly what I'd want to read.

Apologies again for such a long answer, but I actually enjoyed detailing all of this. It's a question I've answered a few times in some group chats and stuff but never in this much detail. 😄

[snugglesquiggle]

I have a question, how do you structure your stories? like Hostile Takeover for example. What is your technique on plotting?

there are two answers to this question. “do as i say”, and “do as i actually do”

here’s the most direct and unhelpful to this question: to plot stories i think really hard about what would be cool to happen in the next chapter. then i write five chapters and now journey and destination are both unrecognizable and my crops are dying

for all that it doesn’t much matter, Hostile Takeover actually has the unique distinction of being the first story i’ve both outlined and polished. while i have a lot of stories that are written like stories rather than summaries, and while i also have a lot of outlines, usually i end up with one or the other

on 2023-10-31, not long after reading Tessaract, i had a thought about how to structure a J/Uzi dynamic. (it was your classic ‘what if Uzi reminded J of Tessa?’ idea, but back in 2023, i didn’t see anyone else thinking of that yet)

i noodled on the thought some, ended up crossbreeding this idea with an old V/Uzi idea that didn’t pan out, and the pieces started clicking together

now, to be clear, at this point i still had no plans to write this. i wasn’t a fanfiction writer. instead, i pulled open up a brainstorming channel on discord and starting typing. i didn’t stop typing till long after it had grown far, far too long to post on discord

i wrote 10k words that day, in fact. if you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know this is a pretty common pattern. i think of a story idea, lock into hyperfocus, and yap a whole novella trying to explain why the story idea is so cool

if you dig around on my site, you can find a few example of outlines written in this fashion. the fact that i went on to flesh out that outline with actual prose is what seems most miraculous about hostile takeover — without exception, this is the step that has killed every other outline

but i’m really getting off track here. you asked about how to structure stories, so circling back to talk about my outline process rather than my fleshing-out process seems prudent. (but put a pin here, we’ll come back to this later because there’s a big caveat to mention)

also i should probably put a read more thingy here for the people scrolling past this

there’s a difficulty in me talking honestly about outlining, because i barely structure my stories, at least consciously. i first notice an idea is really cool, and i think about who in my friends list i’m going to subject to my bullshit explain it to, and it naturally adopts an “okay, but before i can get to that, you first need to hear about this so that everything hits just right” and on and on until i’m starting off ten pages away from the actual point.

but i guess there is a structure even in that, because i’m not consciously thinking about these sentences i’m writing either, yet that’s not because i don’t know how to structure nouns and verbs, it’s that i’ve spent so long thinking about them that i don’t need to anymore.

there’s something deceptively, lede-buryingly coy about me acting like i have any difficulty talking about outlining. i think my tumblr audience largely doesn’t know, but i’ve been writing essays about how to write for years. outlining might be the thing i’ve written about the most!

the three most relevant are, “Ur-Development”, “Outlines as Temporarily Embarrassed Drafts”, and to a lesser extent, “Pacing is Madness”

Embarrassed Drafts is the one i’d suggest you read, if you’re going to read one, because it’s specifically my response to a friend asking me a very similar question (i.e. “how does one start plotting a story”)

Ur-Dev is an old essay, written two years ago a this point, and i’m not linking it because it’s a bad essay. mediocrely written, and i don’t fully agree with its prescriptions as much as i once did, but it was still a major turning point in how i thought about stories. it’s essentially my take on the hero’s journey (part of why i dislike it)

but the outlining essay was written before i wrote hostile takeover, so i have about a year’s more experience now. so here’s how i would boil it down in 2024

telling a story is just raising then answering a question using drama and detail. now, drama comes down to how you write characters, detail comes down to how you write prose (or render images) — but the questions themselves? that’s what plot is

vaguest of all, this is questions like “what happens next” or “how does it end?”

but these questions suck because they ask you to draw the rest of the owl. the really good questions are ones like “how does this happen” or “why is she like that” — they’re directly prompts for you to explain

now, i don’t think think in terms of questions. like i said, i think of cool stuff first

if you read or watch videos about how to write, you’ll quickly run into the idea of “plotters” and “pantsers”, and i think the essence of this distinction is whether the answers or the questions come first

and how best to answer this ask depends on which you are — do you have a premise that you want to explore and find a story in, or do you have a payoff that you want to lead the reader to appreciate?

i’m ambidextrous myself, i’ve gotten good results from either approach, but i identify as a planner just because i can never feel comfortable starting paragraph unless i already know what the last word is.

but both kinds of writers are producing the same thing in different orders. the structure that arises when you raise and answer questions has three steps: presentation, transition, and conclusion. (or if you prefer, beginning, middle and end)

to make this all less abstract, let’s sketch out an example. i have a whole vault of juzi fic ideas i dont have time to write but one of them is based on a simple idea: what if Uzi pointed her gun a little lower when she fires the first shot in the pilot, taking out N’s core?

and since i’m the one writing it, this will lead back to juzi somehow. that already gives us two tentpoles to structure a story around

my first piece of advice for the presentating the beginning is that stories should start in a state of ambiguity or falsehood. what every the story is about, whatever the big question might be, in the beginningwe must not know the final answer.

to see what it looks like if you don’t do this, imagine we wrote the fic like this. Uzi kills N. she goes “holy hell” and does a fistbump, and walks back to the outpost high on her accomplishment. she tells her dad and her classmates about how she killed a murder drone, and they’re all impressed. she goes to bed feeling super cool. the end.

now in fairness, it’s all about the execution. this could very well be a good fic! (i think there’s a nice oneshot to be written in the sheer novelty of uzi actually doing what she planned to in the pilot and winning her dad’s respect and stuff). but i think a good fic would only be good by virtue of adding stuff that’s not there in this short summary.

this summary isn’t a good story (arguably not a story at all), and there can exist one-paragraph ideas that are good and story-shaped

the problem is that all those scenes of uzi walking back and talking to other drones don’t add or explore anything that wasn’t presented at the start with her killing N. it doesn’t inform the audience of anything or transform the ideas, it’s just a repetition of the “Uzi killed N” core idea

here’s an improvement. it goes mostly the same — Uzi’s thrilled, the whole colony is proud of her, everything seems great, but then that night when she goes to sleep, there’s a tremor of unease. she’s remembering the battle without the thrill of digital adrenaline, and did she see that yellow cross flicker to fear a frame before the end? that night, she has nightmares, witnessing silver hair and yellow eyes torn apart as she watches.

this is would be a pretty cliche story, but i do think it’s a story, and it illustrates what i’m talking about. here, we’ve decided the core question is “how does Uzi feel about killing N?” and the this fic starts with a false answer to that question (“she’d think it’s awesome”), and builds to the real answer (“she’d actually feel a bit guilty about it”)

but here’s another angle. uzi killed N the same way she canonically killed J at the end of the pilot — this implies that after Uzi leaves, we’ll wind up with eldritch N worming it up. we know that material collection starts off pretty stealthy, so we might imagine that when J and V return, N’s corpse has already skittered off.

J could be thrilled to be rid of a synergistic liability (or maybe she knows he has backups), but V would be shattered. her whole reason for playing along with killing workers was to protect N. maybe she spends night after night searching for sign of him, or sinking into a depression, but either way J immediately grow frustrated with her tanking productivity.

meanwhile in the outpost, there’s celebrations at Uzi’s accomplishments — but one drone is giving her a very significant look. for once, Lizzy and Doll aren’t laughing at Uzi. Lizzy’s smiling with all the rest of them, of course, but Doll has a calculating stare. that night, when Uzi goes to her room, Doll’s waiting for her, red eyes shining the dark, a cheerleader jumpscare.

Doll has a question. she watched her parents be killed by murder drones. but her father managed to snap a picture of it. she shows that to Uzi, asking if the goth killed that drone. she hadn’t. Uzi expected disappointment, but Doll smiles. excellent, she says. i’m going to kill this one — you may assist me. Uzi’s indignant — assist her? excuse me? she’s the hero here! Doll doesn’t respond, simply stating to meet in the locker room after cheer practice if she’s interesting.

i’m getting carried away here, so let me stop before i outline a whole fic. the point here was to illustrate the other way to draw a proper story out of a premise.

more complex than correcting a false answer to the question, you can extrapolate a chain of answers. characters react and make plans and new scenarios arise as a consequence of what happened before.

what happens when j & v arrive to an empty nest? what happens when Doll and Uzi work together to take down V? in order to answer these questions, you have to go step by step

now, there’s hidden magic even in this tutorial. i could have written this scenario any number of ways — i chose to have Uzi make it home, instead of encountering V and J in the spire, or along the way back. i chose to have J and V react in a way that pit them against each other. i chose to have Doll want to recruit Uzi rather than be jealous, and i specifically chose to have her appear all creepy-like in Uzi’s room.

part of plotting stories is coming up with these ideas and making these choices as to how events progress. some of these choices make for better stories, but it’s hard to give much specific advice for learning how to generate and evaluate these idea-seeds — “keep reading and writing stories” will get you there, though

i do want to highlight how i already i can see neat beats to steer this nascent story towards. for instance, what does Doll and Uzi’s partnership look like on the every day level? wouldn’t it be interesting if, riding on the wave of fame and appreciate Uzi gains from her heroics, Lizzy and Doll tried to integrate the goth into their clique — genuinely preparing her to be popular?

but ideas are honestly cheap. the beginning of the story is all about presenting interesting questions to the reader. the middle of the story is all about exploring, developing, and working out the answers to that question.

the word i used earlier is transition, but transition to what? you can’t really understand middles or what their purpose is until you understand endings.

many centuries ago, the greek philosopher aristotle said something i love to repeat. the conclusion to a story should be surprising, yet inevitable. (i think there’s a single word that captures this spirit: ingenious. or perhaps even just creative)

this is why i insisted that a story should start in a state of ambiguity or outright falsehood regarding its core question. the final answer can’t be any surprise if it’s something we already knew, so we should be uncertain or falsely sure until the very end.

that can’t be all of it. after all, “Uzi kills N. will she go home or stay in the spire?” is a question we start off unsure about. but this can’t be a core question, because there’s nothing surprising nor inevitable her choice either way. it’s filler worth eliding over, as i did in my summaries above.

except we can make it a more interesting question. what if Uzi wanted to scavenge more than the railgun macguffin from the murder drones lair — what if the murder drones had tons of useful supplies that she could bring back to the outpost. …but her railgun is in cooldown and as she looks around the base, she sees clear signs there are other murder drones.

so, is Uzi the type to risk it, or play it safe? posed that way, suddenly it not only seems like she would stick around in the spire, but it also feels like it’s satisfying writing to resolve the dilemma this way.

…except, remember that she nearly died in her fight with N. remember that he stuck her hand with his nanite acid, and this time he’s not around to kiss it better. uzi can barely hold her railgun, let alone scavenge for supplies.

(her return to the outpost will play out differently, won’t it? instead of celebrations the next morning, she’d probably stagger in, exhausted from pain and oil loss, wake up in the repair bay with her concerned father giving her a stern talking to.)

but i digress again. you might notice that i’ve incidentally been demonstrating what it takes to craft a middle here. story transitions are all about drawing out the reasons why a plot point ought to go one way or the other, pitting them against each other and crowning the victor.

payoff needs to be earned; transitions are about building toward the conclusion. if stories about about answering a core question, why not just write out the question and the answer? “what happens if Uzi kills N? she’d feel guilty about it. the end.” that’s lame as fuck. you need the triumph and celebration, to see Uzi getting the recognition she always craved, so that when she lays down and feels that one atom of guilted unease tug at her, it lands like a poignant gutpunch in miniture.

middles are so hard because they serve two contradictory purposes. you have to convince the audience that this is all building toward the final conclusion, and you have the convince the audience that it’s not gonna turn out that way at all ;]

surprising, yet inevitable. too inevitable, and the audience loses interest in the predictable slog. too suprising, and the audience starts to think you’ve lost the plot and forgotten what the story is supposed to be about.

there’s another stumbling block for endings. remember worm N? what was i cooking with that? there’s a very similar version of this post where i never mentioned or thought of material collection at all, and just said Uzi kills N like she killed J in the pilot and continued plotting out the rest.

i can already tell you, i have ideas for where that story goes from there, and right now worm N doesn’t factor into any of them.

it’s a loose plot thread. sometimes, in the process of trying to answer one question, you raise another that you have no interest in answering. but the audience has no way of reading your intent, so they could be following along expecting a synthesized "Giggle." and never getting it.

really, there’s a whole host of missteps i probably should have brought up before now. sometimes, you try to raise a question and the readers dont catch it, or they don’t care for it. it’s not enough to ask “what if Uzi kills N?” (though fanfiction has the definite advantage that, because we’re murder drones superfans, we already care enough about these characters to be piqued by that alone). you have to convince the audience that this is a really interesting question, and they need to see where you’re going with this.

but i dont know how much of that is a question of plot stucture vs writing well generally.

so let’s start wrapping up this essay

you can explain a lot of otherwise finnicky writer-speak through this lens.

what is a hook? it’s the core question the story aims to resolve. it’s the protagonist’s goal, it’s the mystery, it’s the crazy what if scenario.

what are stakes? it’s the possible answers to the question presented early on, especially ones that that would be bad for the characters we’re invested in.

what is setup? it’s plot points and exposition that give the reader the pieces that’ll eventually click together into the final answer.

what is tension? it’s pieces that don’t fit; it’s setup for one of the bad ends specified by the stakes.

what is payoff? it’s when all the build up finally arrives, in spite of all the tension, at the answer promised by the hook.

so, what is my technique for plotting a story? start with the hook or the payoff. whichever one comes first, i know that the other has to be different, inverted via a surprising twist. then figure out what faultline of conflict runs between those two points. what interacting plotlines must collide to transform one to the other?

after that comes the detailed work of crafting lines of logic that follows that flow.

and this, finally is where i pull out the pin in that big caveat i mentioned thousands of words ago — this is where i finally start talking about Hostile Takeover.

i mentioned that i outlined Hostile Takeover from start to finish in one day, producing a 10k word first draft. but in a meaningful sense, that outline was not hostile takeover (on my computer, i now have it saved as “Lethal Acquisition”)

Hostile Takeover is 186k words, and barely covers the first thousand words of the outline. here’s what that looks like

Chapter 1

j&v are out hunting drones. v’s making a mess as usual, and j’s a bit annoyed at her splashing oil all over her. then, on the visor of one dead drone, the absolv glyph flashes. v gets super spooked and it leaves her off balance for the rest of the hunt and j ends up calling it early

back at the spire, j’s trying to do a debrief or postmortem of their last hunt but v is all of out of sorts, unresponsive. (she’s having flashbacks to cyn). this keeps going until j’s about to do something invasive — reboot her? mess with her configuration? — but n steps in to protect her, saying he’ll talk to her and get her back to normal without hacking her. j rolls her eyes, but leaves them to it.

j’s mad, and copes in a private room while straightening her hair. she rants to herself about their quota and how at this rate they’ll never make best team. n’ll fail, he usually does, and when he does then j can reformat v, but till then she’s stuck with two synergistic liabilities. fuck it, j will just go on a hunt on her own. she’s better than them anyway. she’ll fill their quota singlehandedly if she has to.

Chapter 2

j is interviewing the new disassembly drone. at first, she’s relieved at her team getting an extra hand, but it quickly becomes clear this drone is even more defective than v or n. in fact… a lot of this isn’t adding up. she’s missing the last few hours of her memory, one of her sensors is offline — this isn’t a disassembly drone, is it? j requests some data transfer so she can confirm the drone’s identity. uzi of course refuses, starts to run — but j easily overpowers her. with her sensors offline she cant be sure she didn’t just attack one of the company’s drones for no reason, so she checks uzi’s memory.

it’s becomes obvious this isn’t a murder drone, but she plays back her fight with the drone from another pov. she sees uzi’s shock at seeeing a murder drone. but her first thought was: pigtails? why does it have hair? why does it look so… immaculate? j’s laughs. because she’s just that great. but then her eye is caught by something else: the sick as hell—, excuse me, highly effective magnetically amplified blah blah

j steps out of uzi’s memories and sighs. with uzi pinned, she sighs and starts monologuing. uzi struggles to get up, but it’s ultimately in vain, so she has to suffer through it. uzi says, “i can’t believe i lost to the one murder drone on copper-9 who monologues. j’s like, you should feel honored, toaster. do you think i monologue for anyone? i’ve killed thirteen drones today. do you know how they died? she presses a claw to uzi’s throat.”snip, sip. i’m not v. i don’t make messes." “so why?” she holds up the railgun. “this. it’s a remarkably effective weapon. shoddy, unreliable, but the concept? if it were manufactured to jcjenson’s standard of quality… well. do you think your colony’s walls could withstand this?” uzi’s eyes hollow, then she’s like, “ha, outpost three has the finest doors in all of copper-9. my dad made them. do you think i’d create something that could destroy them?” “oh well, it doesn’t matter anyway. all of this is tragic preamble. it never mattered. because you’re a worker drone, and my orders are clear. you would have made a good disassembler.” “is that a compliment? just fucking bite me. i’m nothing like you.” “are we really so different? ha, what am i saying, of course we are.” j stabs uzi and it’s over.

Chapter 3

j’s dragging uzi’s body back to the corpse spire, so she notices when the absolv glyph flashes on her screen. “oh uzi, even in death you’re interesting.” instead of placing uzi with the other corpses, she stows her away in her room.

the next day, j’s flipping through the schematics she stole from uzi’s memories, trying to reproduce them and failing, growing increasingly frustrated. that worker drone wasn’t better than me. n stumbles across her like this, and he smiles. oh j, have you taken in interest in human technology? she snaps at him, then regrets it a moment later. say n… she contemplates giving him to specs to puzzle it out, then stops. nevermind. she doesn’t want to share uzi’s schematics. why?

v hasn’t had her fill of oil in a while now, and is getting hungry. she checks the spire’s corpses for dregs, most of them cold and congealed, or empty, but there’s one fresh, warm one, brimming with oil. did someone forget to drain this one? v doesn’t question her luck, tears off a limp and eagerly feed.

j walks in on this.

Chapter 4

seeing v feed on uzi, j attacks v. (in the course of the battle, she bites v and feels that familiar sour taste of another disassembler) j says “that was mine.” “ugh, someone’s stingy. aren’t we teammates?” “aren’t we disassembly drones? you wouldn’t be so hungry if you were doing your job. did n talk sense into you yet?” “you have no idea what you’re talking about. you think you’re in charge, but you don’t understand anything.” “i understand that i’ve given you an order. this drone is mine, and you are not to feed on it. am I clear? by disciplinary code 31c, insubordination will result in—” “i get it. i’m sure overheating is just what i need to get back to hunting. your drone tastes like shit anyway.” j glares at her, and v glares back. then she leaves.

j watches uzi’s corpse. the absolv symbol is faint, flickering. despite being dead, claw right through the motherboard, there’s still electricity humming through her. her oil is still warm. even in death. “oh uzi, uzi, uzi.”

n is bouncing a ball towards v while v occasionally, carelessly, knocks it back. despite her apparent disinterest, n is consistently able to catch it, and he whoops in joy. v sticks a knife through the ball when j shows up. “j”. “that’s captain j to you, serial designation v.” she rolls her eyes. “am i going to get flagged insubordinate for reminding you of something?” “why, it is foundational to jcjenson’s philosophy to maintain and open and receptive relationship between employ—” “that’s corporatespeak for no, right? i was thinking about what you said, j. we’re disassembly drones. so it seems odd to me that you haven’t disassembled that drone you keep in your room. you know that’s the whole point, right?” j lunges at v. (n watches on with concern.) “while we strive to remain open and receptive, I can’t but feel your reminder isn’t more than a dressed up personal attack on my intelligence and capability. and that—” “—is insubordination, yeah yeah. whatever j, that’s not the point and you know it. disassemble it. you know what happens if we don’t.” “what happens, v?” she asks sweetly. “you don’t know. neither of you know. neither of you remember. ugh. can you trust me, j?” “i trust results, v. there was a time, not too long ago, when i thought i could trust you. maybe we’ll go back to that.” “i’m not playing games, j. if you take too long it might be too late.” j grins. “that sounds like a lot of employee incentive, doesn’t it? get back to work, v.”

back in her room, j is calming her nerves by fixing her hair. she glances at uzi. she fixes uzi’s hair too. then, she connects to her system, and checks to see how her abberent processes are handling the lack of motherboard. she pings and gets a response. she’s excited (why? shouldn’t she disassemble uzi?), and queries the system for a log of activity and errors. and that’s when she finds op codes that are very familiar from diagnosing herself and her teammates, and never any worker drones. it’s repairing itself. it’s draining its oil reserves. just like us. “we really aren’t so different, are we? maybe jcjenson did send me a new teammate”. J feeds uzi some of her spare oil, piles on the parts of discarded drones hope it’s enough mass for repairs to commence.

what you’ll notice about this outline is that it’s mid as hell. all of the most interesting parts of HT aren’t here. now, some of the drafting process involved repurposing later beats earlier than expected (the first tessa flashback was at the start of chapter 6, acting as a sort of bridge between “act one” and “act two”; and N and V’s hunt together repurposes some ideas i planned to introduce in battle among a field of windmills) but that can’t explain all that bloat and sprawl.

it would be a understatement to say HT grew in the telling. it’s not so much outlined as loosely inspired by the outline.

i say that in the tone of a joke, but this represents my new outlook on what outlines are for. it’s not like guidelines in a sketch layer, where subsequent inking and rendering might refine bits of anatomy and tweak the pose while being defined traced over what came before. it’s a musician improvising new melodies and chords while playing an old standard.

the outline is the prototype, the test run. it’s a route from A (the hook) to B (the payoff), but it’s just one route through the landscape. it lets you get familiar with the terrain, spot some of the landmarks and hazards, but it’s a birds eye view; when you’re traveling on foot, you’re going to have to diverge, and you’re going to stop and smell the flowers.

the embellishments that define what HT really is are nonetheless the result of applying these principles at the lower level, though.

the outline called for an AS glyph to flash on a random drone’s screen just because. wouldn’t it be more of a payoff if it’s hidden in the catacombs beneath a church the squad has to battle to penetrate? and if there’s a whole spooky solver cult, that definitely suggests other plot developments, and this is how things compound and snarl

this post has gotten long. maybe, just maybe, i managed to convey a thing or two about how i plot stories.

thank you for the ask and for sitting through all that; i hope it wasn’t too long and rambling.

[spiritsglade]

hello hello!!!! i'm so fascinated omg, i and p for suicide watch perchance?

[wip wednesday]

suicide watch is very rude. this fic fucking bit me. and then it did the gila monster thing of continuing to chew into my flesh instead of letting go. i am truly not on speaking terms with it right now.

okay okay. i think the first thing to be understood here is that this thing is a monster. i have the word count estimate tentatively at 75k but honestly i have no idea how accurate that is at this point and i'm scared to find out. like here's what we're trying to cover:

an adaptation of the all-caste arc from rhato v1, which by itself is already something that shows up across like... over 15 issues of that run

meetings with mia and dick that are loosely (very very loosely--jason's motivations, the circumstances of the meetings, what they talk about, etc. are all very different) inspired by seeing red and brothers in blood respectively

jason's emotional arc with regard to the suicidal ideation. steph/tim/robin in general, talia, and also bruce are very very relevant to this and why he's like that despite never making an appearance in the fic

essence also has her own issues. that i also want to deal with and address. jason may be the main character but i'm also forcing her to undergo growth

gold lazarus pit propaganda and fanony side effects (not pit rage) because i let myself indulge

this is in some ways a case fic-ish thing (essence and jason do have a thing they're trying to do) but it is also a lot of the way character drama and maybe some sort of weird exes-to-platonically-codependent-...friends(?) thing. it becomes a sickfic for like a chapter. jason alone goes through at least four distinct significant shifts/phases in his character development. at various points they end up in gotham, colorado, star city, nyc, the himalayas, guilin china, and some desert in the middle of fucking nowhere.

the outline is... done, in some sense of the word. i know the order of events, but with something of this scope i honestly don't know how long i should spend actually plotting out when they have individual conversations vs. just writing those conversations lol. we do have the timeline sorted out in nearly it's entirety!

sidenote i do need to read several comics to make sure i know what happened during this time canonically before i start picking and choosing how much i want to keep. i know i can just make shit up but i like knowing what i'm working off of before i start disregarding it. so there's that to worry about, also.

i have 10k words written. i need to go back and change some of these 10k because i'm not happy with them anymore. all 10k is literally just exposition and set-up. haha. i'm not entirely sure about chapter cuts yet but that 10k does sort of break itself into two chapters. ish.

this fic is hard because it is absolutely going to be the longest thing i've ever written and i am also trying to pre-plan it. lies of omission, for example, is gonna end up at like 65k probably, so similar in size, theoretically, but lies of omission is flexible in a way that suicide watch cannot be while i'm trying to achieve what i want to achieve and that makes this difficult!! every day i get a little closer to making it a series of interconnected oneshots instead but considering that i already have like 3 ongoing series of interconnected oneshots going already i am simply not allowing myself to do that.

but we do have a plan and i do have an unerring belief in my ability to do things as long as i put my mind to it. i will make this fic happen. i swear.

can you believe this fucking bitch started as a 1.3k oneshot for jason todd week (for the substitute prompt lifeline). i could have just posted essence showing up at his shitty ass safehouse as its own little thing and been done with it but noooooo. i get to experience horrors of trying to organize a massive project for 10 thousands years.

anyway here's a lil snippet :]

"The memory spheres came to me two days ago," Essence says. "I started looking for you soon after." "It took you two days?" "Gotham is a large city, and you've been quiet." She pauses for a moment, then, voice softening. "It's not as easy to sense you as it used to be."

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

When you are writing a new chapter for a fic, how do you decide what to put in, and what to leave out?

I see a lot of advice about killing your darlings - whittling the scene down until it contains only what's necessary to advance the plot.

But I also see advice that says it's okay to include more than this, because you need to advance the characters as well, by giving them quiet moments in between all of the plot advancing parts.

I really struggle to find the balance. I love writing the quiet moments, and fleshing the characters out, but sometimes these moments run away on me, and I end up with a bloated mess that barely advances the plot at all.

Do you have a process or a rule-of-thumb you follow, to help you decide what does or doesn't make the cut?

How easy do you find it to remove stuff later, when you realize the story is better without it? Do you cry and have wine while you bury your dead, or are you a ruthless assassin? :)

Oh man, great question.

I’m going to answer for what for my original fiction. I don’t heavily edit my fanfics in any meaningful capacity, as any of my readers can attest, since that is my hobby and editing is work. Also, since it is my hobby, I am pretty self indulgent with what I include. I meander and wander all over the place with my plots and don’t keep them as tight as they probably need to be.

Exhibit A, the visual representation of the plot of Thus, Always 2.0 (one line being present day and the second being the past):

But for my original fiction, there’s a very long, drawn out process of editing.

For House of No Return, the current book (known as The Venetians in my tags), I wrote out the first draft. In that draft I put all the self indulgent stuff I wanted. Character studies, side plots, random asides, plot cul-de-sacs, and so on.

Then, when done, I rewrote the entire thing. Top to bottom second draft. This is because, by the time I was done with draft one, I knew my characters a lot better than when I started. I knew, more clearly, the story I wanted to tell. I had a better vision of how the plot should work.

Once the second (or third) draft is done, I let it sit. Ideally, you should let it sit for a few months. I don’t have patience and am riddled with a deep need to always be writing, so I can usually only make it a few weeks.

When I take it back out, I print out the manuscript and read it in one or two sittings. This is because I need to remember what the fuck I was doing. As I read, I make margin notes of where I bump or where things drag a bit. My second read through is much more methodical. I sit with a note book and jot out a detailed outline as I read. When I eventually type them up they usually look something like this:

As I read through the outline, that’s where I can see if there are baggy parts that need trimming. When I note them, I decide whether to completely remove, or shorten, or shift to another part of the story, or if I can convey any central information in other areas.

Sometimes colour coding helps – highlighting all the parts that are faster paced in red, the slower bits in green, the pure character study bits in blue (or what have you). The visual representation helps me, at least, see if there’s a part that’s bunched up with only one colour and may need to be broken out a bit.

I make edits to my outline in blue, usually, of what needs to be added or changed when I go to do the next big rewrite.

--

Throughout this whole outline review process, I’m also thinking through what sort of plot pattern/design best serves the story. There are a lot out there and each has a purpose and can strengthen aspects of the story that’s being told.

Good reference: Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison.  

For House of No Return, it’s a pretty classic mountain form: start | rising action | point no return | climax | resolution.

Something a bit like this with the little plateaus representing times when the plot slows for a bit to allow the reader a break and an opportunity to sit with a character or an emotion or some new information.

These breaks can also ratchet up tension and help keep people on the edge of their seat. The horror genre is a great example of this. You know that when we’re having a quiet character moment, or a humourous moment, we’re about to get something horrific on the other side of it and we’re in trepidation until it happens. But the book can’t be all horrific moments or else the audience gets bored.

(Unless the author is Doing Something/There’s a Purpose Being Served in having 85,000-100,000 words of only horrific moments. Which can abosolutely be the case! Again, it’s about what you’re trying to do, how to best tell the story, and fundamentally what that story needs to be.)

Grief and trauma writing also benefit from the breaks. I think about this in fics where it’s all bleak torture and there’s no resting or lighter moments—it’s hard on the audience. Which, again, can be the author’s intent! And that’s fine! But usually if you want to keep people going with you on the journey you need to give them breaks. That is just reality.

So, when writing the classic model I would say write, write, write. Get every thing onto the page. Every little indulgement moment, every little character study etc.

Then think about how you want the story to be paced. Do you want it a heart pounding fast paced piece? Then yeah, trim it down to mostly bare bones with just enough breaks for character study/get the audience invested in who they’re reading about and to give them a bit of a breather. But it should be super tight, over all.

Steep, steep, steep – little moments here and there for a break – then shattering fall and people should be reading going “what the fuuuuck is going to happen next??” (Grady Hendrix is a master of this.)

 Some traditional mountains, though, are slower.

There's a long, langurous start. We’re all along for a gentle ride then it begins to build bit by bit until we realize we’re riding down the Tuscan hillside in a cart with no breaks.

This is the sort of story where you can really relish your character studies and soft moments between people and little side bits. But you do need to keep enough movement to keep the audience interested. This is one that is harder to pull off because the balance can be tricky.

I tend to write like this. Hilary Mantel has books that hit this kind of approach. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic is a good example of a slow burn start but a good ride at the end. Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions is another example.

-

All that said, not all stories need to follow the traditional approach! Some are meant to be tangled meditations. A lot of weaving, a lot of introspection, the story is more about the journey and not the destination. Sometimes the plots look a little like this:

Peak Literary Experimental Fiction shit right here. This can be a lot of character study, a lot of philosophical musings, a lot tangents or backtracking or jumping around a little. Justin Torres’ Blackouts is a great example of a meandering story that is as much about the characters and their conversations as it is about queerness and history.

Other stories are meant to be rolling hills or waves: up and down, up and down.

Jane Austin has a bit of a wave quality to some of her stories, not all, but some. Long, drawn out family epics that span generations tend to have this quality to them. Books like Pillars of the Earth tend to be more wavey than mountain climax.

-----

Anyway. I've done a diversion myself. Back to editing.

When I’m doing my trimming, I don’t have an exact process for determining what makes the cut or what stays. I go with my gut on a lot of it. Sometimes, there are scenes that are hitting the same note but coming at it in different ways.

Cristof’s anxiety over his friend’s gambling addiction, and his guilt around feeling as if he is enabling it, is something I overwrote in the first few drafts because I was trying to understand the psychology of their friendship and Cristof’s own inner demons. Therefore, as I trimmed, I picked three key things that the audience needed to know about Cristof and Jacopo and made sure those were captured. I cut and trimmed accordingly.

However, I do have some babies that get reused in different places once I realize the original scene wasn’t working.

This stupid joke was originally in a completely different scene and was said by different characters but that scene wasn’t working and so I had to cut it. But I was very enamoured with this little interaction, so I found a way to incorporate it.

-

It’s also important to remember that some character studies/the resting pauses can be brief. By all means write out the full seven page version but I bet it’s possible to trim it down to a really powerful short beat that can pack a bit of a punch. Writing out the full seven pages is sometimes necessary to get at the heart of what you’re trying to say. Then cut it back.

I had a full multi-page version of this paragraph:

But it’s a rest-beat in the middle of the apothecary/barbershop scene that is moving the plot along, and therefore this memory/character beat needed to be tight. Still, we get a bit of a glimpse at Cristof and Nicolo through it, and while it might not seem important on the surface, we do need to care about these two idiots and the fact that they’re dumb about each other and in love.  

-

Quiet moments can also be interspersed within action. You can weave them through, so you have:

Active Scene/Plot Moving

Restful introspection or memory

Back to the Active Scene.

If done right it can give a bit of a melodious, wave-like quality to what you’re writing. It’s not for every story, nor every scene, and shouldn’t be overused (I may be guilty of that), but it allows you to still get in those meaningful character moments without stopping the plot too much.

As for the ease with which I kill darlings? Depends on the darling. Some are easier than others. Some I like, but if I can incorporate the important bits in another fashion then I’m fine with it. The more I write, the more I edit, the more ruthless I become.

--

A lot of this is, fundamentally, all about practice and doing it a lot. And also all writing rules aren’t rules so much as broad guidelines and each story has its own needs and requirements to make it work.

Apologies for the long reply. I'm not sure it's what you're after but I hope it helps. There is, unfortunately, no "quick trick" that I have to do it. It's really just a very involved process.

[verbenaa]

7, 10, 19 and 22 for the Edgy/Misc OC asks!

yay thank you for the ask my friend!! 💖

(answering from this set of questions here!)

7. What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them? Rin hasn’t gone through a ton of changes, honestly, but I think the biggest one I made is deciding to make her more vulnerable earlier in the story than initially planned. during my original outline/notes, she was a little more unbothered and it took her longer to realize her feelings about Astarion and the situation at large but I decided it fit the narrative better and made her a more dimensional character a few chapters in to instead make her the who falls first and is forced to reckon with those feelings and figure it out before Astarion manages to do the same. this change also gave me more time to torture them (and myself) with my brand of poetic angst, so it was a win/win decision.

10. What's an AU that would be interesting to explore with your OC? the one I am currently writing! I had the inspiration recently to write a modern day AU with Rin and Astarion that explores the what-if's revolving around if they ended up just being friends instead of lovers and how they manage that relationship. spoiler alert: they actually manage it very well. until they don’t. and then from that point on they manage it very, very poorly 😎

19. How does your OC behave when enraged? I actually have a bit written about this in the upcoming chapter of to eden, which should be out soon! I think this snippet sums this answer up easily enough:

She knows she couldn’t look any less threatening—camp clothes still slightly wrinkled from where she had pulled them on hurriedly after bathing, her curls still slightly damp, and a full head shorter than Astarion. Anger has never been her strong suit, she’s far better at using words as a weapon than she is at yelling at someone and she realizes she probably has all the intimidation of a hissing cat rather than something terrifyingly ferocious and beautiful.  At the very least, the letter she writes him later tonight will be properly vicious—or at least her version of it. She’s not sure she’s capable of the raw rage of someone like Karlach or the steel-sharpened vitriol of Lae’zel, but she can at least use several choice adjectives to describe him that she has no doubt will irritate him. 

so basically she will insult you to your face and maybe that very most get a little stabby (but you'd have to really piss her off or be someone really truly evil), but more than likely she'll say something snarky/vaguely threatening and then run away and pout about it until she's not mad anymore 😂.

22. What character alignment would you consider your OC to be? she starts out in act 1 as being chaotic neutral (or something akin to that), but as the story progresses into acts 2 and 3 she begins to lean more towards neutral good. she totally has morals but they’re just a little bit lax most of the time. she’s unafraid to do what she needs to do in order to survive, even if it means lying, stealing, cheating, starting fights, and definitely maybe committing arson or other crimes if necessary.

[coralhoneyrose]

I really enjoy your works and I'm wondering (in the least pressure-y way possible) how far ahead you plan? Both within a single work (like half orange) and outside (sequels? Another big story you want to share?).

Hi! Thank you so much for reading and enjoying my work! I don’t think that’s a pressure-y question at all—I’m thrilled that you’d be interested in hearing about how I approach writing my stories :D

When it comes to planning within a single work, I *do* use an outline for all my long fics, but it’s admittedly not… super detailed LOL. I’d say my process can best be summed up as having the broadest strokes of what will happen in the story planned quite a ways in advance (typically either from the very beginning or over a year before I’m going to be getting around to actually writing that part) but that the finer details of how those plot beats play out are often not figured out until I’m actually writing the scene itself or a chapter or so before. Mid-sized details and plot beats (unsurprisingly) fall somewhere in the middle and are usually planned / outlined at the beginning of the individual arc they’re a part of. 

To use PtLY as an example, when I first started writing it, I didn’t have a whole lot of plan beyond the scenario that got them into the fake dating in the first place and some of the romantic antics I wanted to take place. I was initially planning for it to be quite a bit shorter and more simple only to pivot pretty quickly once I got started. I think I decided while I was working on chapter 3 / 4 that I wanted to take things in a more political direction (which was within a few weeks of starting the fic, since I used to upload way more frequently back then). At that point, I already decided I wanted the fic’s climax to involve someone trying to assassinate Robin at the ball. I also knew I wanted a council member to be behind it, but I didn’t actually lock in which council member I wanted it to be / what their motive was until several chapters later (I think around chapter 6-ish?). I came up with the idea for truth serum then as well, but it wasn’t until I was literally writing chapter 13 / 14 that I actually sat down and ironed out HOW the assassins would have gotten into the castle, how they were trying to kill Robin, how they got her alone, or where it was happening. Which…those are arguably pretty important details ahjskd. 

And probably I *should* have figured those things out earlier…but truthfully my brain has a hard time feeling out what it will need to know in order to plan for a scene until I actually get there. Leaving the details open also helps give me more freedom to follow creative whims when they arise. When you’re working on something over a really long period of time, I think it’s only natural that you may wind up coming up with new ideas you like better than your original plans at some point during all those months. I like the flexibility of being able to tweak a lot of the “how’s” without changing the main “what’s” of the story, if that makes sense. 

It does involve having to do a lot of “trust the process”-ing though. Honestly I keep thinking one of these days I am going to leave things a little *too* unplanned and wind up writing myself into a corner, but fortunately it hasn’t happened yet. To some degree I think following those creative whims can help with that too. A lot of times I’ll opt to include a detail in the story without having a clear plan for if I’ll ever wind up doing anything else with it or not, only for it to wind up being pretty essential later on (Robin writing in that journal in chapter two of PtLY being one notable instance that comes to mind). 

Outside of single works, I do like to have at least a general idea of what I will be moving onto when I finish a fic—mostly because I have a compulsive need to always have some sort of Chrobin story lined up for me to daydream about when idle. At this point, I don’t have any plans for sequels to my stories—I try to structure them in a way where I’ll already be writing everything I am interested in covering anyway.

I do have a (loose) plan for the long fic I want to work on after Half Orange, though! I think I first mentioned the idea in a text post when the baby Chrobin unit released for heroes, but I’d love to do something with Chrom and Robin having been childhood friends and eventually getting pushed into an arranged marriage to broker peace between their countries. I’ve actually been mulling on more of the particulars for that idea this past month, but I learned my lesson with the fake dating fic and I don’t want to actually start on anything new until Half Orange is done haha. 

So…yeah! That’s an overview of how much planning I do / when it typically happens! I’m not sure if my work comes across as being more or less planned out than it actually is, or if this is about what you expected. Regardless, thank you so much for wanting to hear more about my process! <3 I love talking about this sort of thing 

[nestavadavat]

Nests "Oh god how to get my long fix actually plotted" Guide for the Damned

If you’re someone like me who’s wanted to write a long-fic but has had a really hard time this is the guide for you.

So the main problem I encountered while trying to plot out fics was that I didn't know what plot points I should meet! When we’re young y’know you’re taught the beginning-middle-end type of story structure, maybe a basic version of the hero's journey. If you don’t already know that follows the;

Exposition > Inciting Incident > Rising action > Climax > Falling action > Conclusion

Now at least for me it was kind of hard to use this for fics! Mostly because this isn’t a structure built for romances! The structure I’m showing you I found from this article which I built on! Feel free to just go wild with this structure honestly!

(PS you can also use the hero's journey as outlined by this article but I don't particularly find that layout helpful!)

So here’s your rundown! Long read ahead!

(BIG TEXT) The Hook

Meet the protagonists, give your story a theme, etc! Now because I’m adapting this for fic, you actually have less work to do here. But let's say you’re doing an AU, you need to establish to your readers what situation your characters are in! What's their everyday like, what's the new change in their life that makes your story relevant?

You’ll also want to set up your issues! Maybe you’re writing about Dean Winchester, you’ll want to establish his daddy issues to come up later. If you have a twist in mind this is where you’ll want to lay your little crumbs.

Inciting Incident

Whats changing? This is where your characters should meet properly. Now’s when you establish their dynamics.

Are they enemies at first? Maybe they’re instantly making heart eyes at each other. The article I’m basing this on says it should be about 9,500 words, but you may not want this, so generally it should probably be in the same chapter as your introduction to the character/s. Maybe have it continue into the second one. This is your setup!

Plot Point 1

Our article talks about how your characters should be “stuck” together. You can do this literally or figuratively depending on how quickly you want them together. This just means you want to give your characters a reason to be together. Maybe they’re roommates now, they’re trapped in an elevator, or they’re working together.

At this point personally I’d want to have your characters starting to be attracted to each other if they aren’t already! You want to start giving your readers those swoony type moments where they want the characters to get together! Also define what the characters want, or give hints. Do they want a relationship or are they focused on something else? (Already have in your mind whether or not they’re going to get to that goal or change their mind)

“Pinch Point” 1

Now’s when you start getting into conflict. Now this could be internal or external conflict.

Is someone keeping them apart? Is one character too afraid to go into a relationship? This is also when you maybe want their first kiss, or a semblance of something building between them. They should start falling in love/being drawn more to the other character.

Maybe they share a moment, or complete that work project, maybe they carpool home together after something! Just give them reasons to be together and reasons for that established conflict and goals to come up.

Midpoint

Boom something new just happened. Our article tells us that this can be formed in a false-high or false-low. This should be when at least one character solidly admits (even if just to themselves) that they’re in love with the other character.

A false high means that it seems like everything is going super good, trick your readers! Maybe your characters sleep together or they have a touching moment. You definitely want this route to seem like an endgame where they're all happy.

A false low means that your readers should be thinking “oh my goodness how are my blorbos supposed to come back from this”. Maybe that love confession goes poorly, or they get in a big argument, or something goes poorly with one of their goals!

“Pinch Point” 2

More problems!!! This relates back to your characters conflict you set up in the beginning. Maybe they need to make a big choice related to their goal or something from their past comes up. Maybe your characters are getting closer still but this conflict should be brewing.

Your character should be nervous about their relationship because of these conflicts. This should blend into the midpoint, so these conflicts are starting to arise during for false-high or false-low and maybe creating a strain on this newfound love.

Plot Point 2

More stakes! Your characters really can’t catch a break! This is when that thing your character was afraid of actually does happen! Maybe there's a misunderstanding, or their plans fall through. The article says that this is the moment when your character should be going “i knew better than this”.

This is when your readers should really really think that there's no way the characters can come back from this. Maybe they call it off or split up because of all this not-so-sexual tension created. The characters have to chose between wanting the relationship or being afraid (and its super heartbreaking and compelling when they chose fear btw)

The Crisis

Now your characters need to choose. Is it worth it? The answer to this for your main character is usually “yes”. This is when they should start looking for their solution to their big problems and start learning and changing. (Character arcs <33)

The Climax

Yay they got back together! Your theme has been explored, and their problems are solved/being solved. Usually this means a big gesture like a love confession, a proposal, something big and dramatic that makes your heart ache. Your readers should go feral rn!

The End

Now’s when everything gets tied together. All of your characters big plans come together. You may want to timeskip forward to show us their lives. Happily ever after and all!!!

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Thank you for reading all this! Just as some ending notes, a lot of these points probably blend into each other. Also feel free to mix these around, this was mostly a way for me to really get this into my brain so I can practice it more but I hope this also helps other people who may struggle with finding a plot structure for longer romance oriented fics!! :)))