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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 4 months

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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.

#writing #writing is messy and hard and long sometimes #ask #reply #anon #thank you!!#the venetians

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trans-cuchulainn · 1 year

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i see a lot of young writers asking questions like "how do I structure a chapter" "how many words should be in X" "how do I join up these plot points" etc and the truth is. there is no answer. there are no rules you can follow that will turn your painstakingly thought out list of plot points into an actual story. it is at least as much about vibes and gut feelings as anything else and at some point you just have to jump in and stop looking for a template to follow to do it "right"

how to structure a chapter? go read the first chapter of five books. notice any common threads? probably more differences than similarities, right? i mean they'll all probably give you some basic info about the characters and world you're dealing with, but they're not each going to follow the same formula of "two paragraphs of X, three of Y, a dash of Z", because that's not how it works! what do those opening chapters think we need to know about the story ahead? what do your readers need to know? great now you know what needs to go in that chapter

how many words in X? go find five books that have the same kind of mood and pacing as what you're trying to achieve – that make you, as a reader, feel the way you want your readers to feel. read them. get a sense of their rhythms. look up how long they are if you have to, but once again: writing isn't maths. it's about knowing in your gut where the beats of the story fall, and you learn that by doing: by reading and by writing, over and over again. how long is a piece of string? stories take the words that they take. sometimes they need trimming or lengthening in edits but i cannot stress enough how much "before you've written a single word" is not the time to worry about that. the more stories you read and the more you understand those intangible vibes, the closer your first draft is likely to be to the length the story needs to be, but it's okay if it's not, because that's what editing is for!

because if you do it "wrong", which is to say, if the story on the page doesn't look like the one in your head? if the pacing's wrong or the chapters feel awkward or the plot doesn't turn out as neat as it did in the outline? that's literally part of the process, bro. you do it wrong first and then you either try again with a different story and get it closer to right, or you edit the first story, but either way it's a process of doing it wrong until gradually, with practice, it becomes easier to do it right. doing it wrong is not something to be afraid of. it's a thousand times more useful than not doing it at all because you got stuck on the need for perfection

you can ask all the questions about How To Write that you want, but you're not going to learn a damn thing about writing until you actually sit down with a blank document and try to put that into action. and that's not a flaw! that's a feature! writing is something you learn by doing – no prior qualifications needed, no rules to memorise, just a chance to explore what a story is through taking it apart and rebuilding it

how to learn to write: read, and write badly, until eventually you write well. that's all there is to it. stop being afraid to start and you'll be 50% of the way there already. the other 50% is learning to finish what you started. then you just keep doing it.

sorry and/or you're welcome

#writing advice #this is my genuine advice to newbie writers by the way #1. don't be afraid to write shit books #2. seriously i cannot stress enough how much writing shit books is part of the process #3. There Are No Rules #writing #i wish writing advice blogs would stop taking some of these questions at face value #and instead point out to the asker that there is no single method to do xyz

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snugglesquiggle · 11 days

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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.

#🐍#my answers #my thoughts #hostile takeover #creative writing #writing #writing advice #writeblr #on writing #writing community #how to write #fanfiction #murder drones

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nestavadavat · 4 months

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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!!!

———

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!! :)))

#my writing #writing tips #writing guide #ao3 #fanfiction #Yippee #i had so much fun writing yjis #hehehhshs

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erisenyo · 8 months

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20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @ofherlionheart, thank you!!

1. how many works do you have on Ao3? 36?! When did that happen...

2. what's your total Ao3 word count? 1,612,719, and now I'm eyeing the shibari fic and my written WIP where chapter 4 of 6 is going to be 60+ word document pages all on its own...

3. what fandoms do you write for? ATLA! Though I'm starting to eye The Radian Emperor too, if I can figure out the writing style

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Love is in the Hair 2. These Things Written 3. These Things Known 4. These Things Unsaid (lol the middle of the series having the least kudos of the three, middle book syndrome strikes) 5. Lessons in Proper Asset Management

5. do you respond to comments? I do! I do my best to reply to all of them, I love hearing people's thoughts and chatting about the fic or the characters or canon. Though I am currently egregious behind after the holidays, doing my best to catch up...

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don't know that I do angsty *endings* versus just highly emotional situations that end in (hopefully) satisfying ways? To Cleave These Roots We've Made is probably my angstiest run into an ending, and Of Tea and Turtle Ducks (and the Turtle Duck Guy) just had a very high-emotion end. I don't know, what do you guys think? I don't always have a good read on the tone of my own fics lol

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Ohhh this is tough, maybe To Be Named, To Be Known (To Be Loved) or (With Wonder and Care) Reach for Far-flung Dreams, in part because the endings are just a culmination of a lot of like warm feelings? Or Didn't Know What I Was Missing (But I Guess I Found It) because we were all so happy the three of them finally talked lol?

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not really, though Katara in Burning Bright has been fairly polarizing. It's not hate but it's also like...not happy haha

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Oh, do I ever! And...all the kinds (m/m, f/m/ poly, f/f incoming)? Full on, graphic, self-recognition-through-the-boner character-developing smut.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I don't!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? oh man I hope not. I don't even know how I'd find out, unless someone told me

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! Into Russian!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, though I got close with certain installments in the Zukki series with the way Ash helped me outline haha. I wouldn't be opposed to it, but it feels more like long-form roleplay when I imagine it.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? This is a hard question! Because there's stuff I read fic for and stuff I write and then stuff I've like, read and gently rotated in my head for the rest of my life. But to make it easy--Zukka haha

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I tend not to let myself have too many simultaneous WIPs, and I don't really break my rule about finishing a work before starting to post, so no, looking at the current set. There's ideas I'd like to write that I'm not sure I will, but nothing started.

16. What are your writing strengths? I'd say dialogue, characterization, and building narrative tension and momentum

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Fight scenes lol. I don't know why they're so much harder than smut scenes, they should be the same, except smut is like intensely close and intimate and full of sensation and emotions and fight scenes have to be go-go-go but still full of sensation and emotions just different ones haha

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I've never tried! It seems like it would be difficult, me knowing only the one (and Latin, that doesn't count haha) and so much of the fun of language being in the wordplay and clever turns of phrase and the world of difference between someone saying "father" or "dad"

19. First fandom you wrote for? ATLA! I wrote some original fiction back in the day, but fandom-wise ATLA is my first go

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? So cruel to make me choose! I am a little bit in love with everything I post. And I will cheat by saying either To Open Every Door to Night, To Meet Each Rising Sun or Just Let My Love Adorn You (You Gotta Know that I Adore You) right now, I'm so pleased with how they both came out, and they were so much fun to write. Both really came together so well from what I initially imagined.

tagging @queendollophead-ao3 @lizardlicks @ranilla-bean and anyone else who wants to play! I'd love to see your answers

#tag games #fic writing #if we take Burning Bright as one fic for Q4 then Part-Time Plumber and Oh the way your makeup stains are the next highest by kudos #Also asking me to pick a favorite is so cruel I love all my creations so much and for such different reasons

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jamietarttsnorthernattitude · 8 months

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For the fan fic writer asks! I’ve actually been curious about ‘2. Do you read/reread your own fics’ since you posted that you’d updated/edited an existing fic 👀

I’d also love to hear about 13 and/or 27 if you feel like it!

💚💚💚

2. Do you read/reread your own fics?

Absolutely! I am my own biggest fan lmao. But especially if it’s a multi-chapter, I’ll reread to remember the vibe and/or just plot points or minor details I forgot about. I’ll also reread some of mine, not all, and skim through, but yes, I definitely reread them and continue to notice typos months later.

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

For some of the shorter Whumptober entries, I basically just had the general idea of the whump event and result, and some vibes and I would just write. For any multi-chapter, I usually have at least a rough outline, but I don’t really do detailed outlines, and I probably should. Probably the most in depth outline I did was on not to me, not if it's you to outline what teammate was going to do to help Jamie cheer up each day. I flow way more on vibes which is probably not the best lmao.

27. Is there a fic you were nervous to post/share? Why?

I am a bundle of nerves posting every fic I write. Definitely my first one because it was my first. But after that when I told you I was fine you were lied to I ventured into supernatural and I just don’t think I did it well and I put pressure on myself to post it for whumptober and when it was Friday the 13th and I was going out that night so I didn’t have time to just let it sit so that was maybe the most nervous I was to post.

For this ask game.

#thank you thank you thank you #ask box is always open

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etoilesombre · 14 days

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Any plans for a What Lies Beneath sequel?!?

Oh the demon one?? 👀👀 So, the short answer is probably not, though I wish so.

My pace of actually producing writing has paradoxically slowed since I've started, I wish I could crank stuff out chill and easy but I have not yet cracked how to do that. And I have prior commitments. So. In order, here's the likelihood of sequels:

Flintmadi Book Thing: (By Faith of my Body, first chapter published) is the next real project I need to pick back up, I have it outlined, I have done all the research, I had momentum, and got side tracked. Because its HARD, god that one takes so much, they are both fuckin smarter than me, and they don't talk all that much in the show, making it Feel Right takes a lot.

Longfic (Another Troy to Burn): I need to wrap this up. I always said I would do it if it killed me, its my baby, its already a novel, its my Vision I had for them while watching the show. On the other hand, it has now been 2 (count them 2) years since an update, and honestly I have explored a lot of the things I wanted to explore in that in other places. When I think about just letting it go at this point, I'm more relieved than sad. But I do feel like I owe it to everybody, and also, it is the more practicing-for-writing-novels fic, I need to figure out how to wrap it up and actually do that, just to get my head back in that style of writing. But instead of following the whole way through canon, I will probably let this installation be the last and let it wrap up during the season break.

For to Fight the Cold: This one needs a sequel, it will be fun easy porn (this is a lie I'm telling myself, but, I do know in my head what happens next and I feel like I should share with the class.)

And then once all THAT (some part of that, at least the first two) is done, my plan is to work on Russia AU, which I am very excited about and I think will be totally able to be for real published with names changed.

And of course the thing I am ACTUALLY, CURRENTLY working on, has nothing to do with any of this (and is AwfulDark I'm so stoked)

Which is to say I would love to do followups for demon and also for cooking verse, but, I'm also happy with where I left them in those. FWIW, in demon, I did think a LOT when I was writing it about how Flint just is starting to come to terms with all this stuff about himself, but then when Miranda is killed.... he would very much give in to the darker side of a lot of those impulses, in a way that I personally am very interested in. I definitely have fun thinking about it and am happy to talk about it it's just... I have other obligations.

#how's that for more answer than anybody wanted #at least i'm not putting it in the tag this time #anon ask #fanfic #my writing #asks #answered

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ddarker-dreams · 1 year

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Lock, where do I start.. Nexus really is blossoming? I can tell you're extremely invested it makes me so happy. I read pretty much all of your works but this one specifically is full of so many details. The whole world building, the relationship reader has with different characters.. the fact that you're spending so much time and thought into this story is so refreshing. You're able to maneuver us into a completely unique world a new planet its own little past and future.. I also want to mention that I love how you're taking the actual time to write it properly. Splitting Nexus into 5 chapters was probably the right decision after all. There is so much input in chapter 4 I'm glad you didn't cut it out. It's not just a simple Blade x reader it has so much quality and uniqueness I'm in awe. As I've mentioned it before: I'm scared of Nexus chapter 5 I don't want it to end and we all are going to be HURT cause that twist is not going to go easy on us (and you). Anyway.. take care and take your precious time with the next chapter. We are all so intrigued by Nexus thank you for writing such wonderful works <3

SCREAMMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUUUUUUUUUNGS

while i was working on the beginning section, i kept thinking to myself, i can't wait until i get to the later parts gjsdkfgsjd there were times when i wanted to throw in the towel and just skip straight to certain scenes. however, i knew for them to have the proper emotional weight, i couldn't rush it.

i'm glad i split the chapters as well!! i was undecided on how much of n darling's childhood should be explored. i knew i needed to include the sequence where she met lear, and while that was a pivotal moment in her life, it felt like something was missing. specifically, the immense pressure n darling experienced ever since she was a kid. where she tries to do her best but seemingly always falls short (from her perspective, at least).

i wanted to show that n darling's inadvertent id inducement isn't a strictly terrible thing. it completely varies from person to person. regarding kafka's 'One who incites madness,' comment, while she is using this negative language to further her own ambitions, it's also the unspoken consensus of those who know the true nature of the phaeales' bloodline. the value or detriment that comes from suppressing basic instincts has always been interesting to me.

nexus chapter 5 will grind my soul into goop but i've been looking forward to this suffering since i first started outlining the story.

thank you so much for your feedback, i'd put it straight into my veins if i could 😌😌

#sweet asks #nexus #answered #mimyun

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blorbology · 4 months

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how i learned to love outlining

For the last year or so, I’ve been compiling ideas for stories and then outlining them, mostly because I genuinely love the planning stage of the writing process, but also because if 2023 taught me anything about writing, it’s that I can finish a project if I know where it’s going—if I can point myself in a meaningful direction. If I have a realistic and attainable goal.

I spent years of my life writing aimlessly. I wrote every silly idea that came to mind, no matter how stupid it was and with no regard to whether or not I was bothering to tell a story anyone would want to read. I had plenty of fun concepts but the actual works themselves were largely mediocre—unmemorable, as someone once told me—or, in the cases of a few, embarrassingly bad. Terrible, even.

In 2004 I started writing a longfic for ToS. I had no direction. No plan. I didn’t write anything down for where the story should go next. What the fuck were character arcs? I sat at my computer and I typed words. I put them out into the world: chapter by godawful chapter.

I’m not saying this to be self-deprecating; it’s just the truth. I was not a talented writer in 2002 when I started posting online. I was self-taught. I didn’t write a real paper until I was 26, the first year I attended a college English course. In 1999, I was 13 years old. We were all given an assignment to write a short story with a title that began with the word “Almost.” I hated school. Rather, I hated the social landscape of it, and I was miserable that year. I didn’t take this assignment seriously. I thought, I’ll just make some absolutely stupid shit up, who cares. My story was called “Almost Mowed Over” and it was about a blade of grass named Bob who watched in horror as his friends were murdered while he was, for reasons unknown, spared. I remember very little about the story other than that, and the fact that this got me nominated to write for Power of the Pen for reasons that still confuse me. I went with a few others to compete that autumn and, when I got my stories back, I was more or less told they were shit.

It felt bad, but a few years later I started posting fanfiction anyway. Why? It looked fun. I felt inspired.

So I wrote.

A lot.

I got attention, my stories got traction, and I even finished the first three longfics I ever started. They were shit, too, but I had fun, and through one of them, I met my now-husband—on April 22, 2003. We were married on April 22nd, 2017. Strange how fanfiction can bring people together. Strange, that he felt compelled to not only read my shitty fanfic, but then to email me about it afterward—something he had never done before, and hasn’t done since. I’ve known him for more years of my life than I haven’t known him, all thanks to some shit I typed up off the top of my head without a plan.

And it was the success (or at least, overwhelmingly positive and kind response) of those first fanfics that propelled me into other fandoms.

So there I was in 2004, writing a longfic for Tales of Symphonia. Those of you who knew me back then might remember the story in question. I’m not proud of it. Actually, I’m embarrassed by it. I deleted it in 2016 and I’ve no regrets about deleting that or the 600 other stories I had online at the time. I’m certain that story was a stepping stone to greater things (it was Baby’s First Foray into darker fiction, after all), and for that reason alone I can’t bring myself to be ashamed of it, but…it was shit.

Drama for the sake of drama, no end goal, the worst summary imaginable. I had no idea what I was doing. But people read it anyway. I stopped writing that story early into 2005, and when I deleted it, it was sitting there abandoned at 8 chapters, 32k words, 138 reviews.

I wrote a lot of other ToS fics back then; they were all shit. Some were unhinged nonsense. But for some reason that ‘fic has staying power.

Probably because I’m embarrassed by it. I guess it always just feels kind of bad to know that even though you tried your best on something, it still somehow turned out poorly.

And I’m sure there’s a lot to say, too, about the fact that I honestly didn’t learn from this experience. I went on to start a bunch of other longfics over the years and, unsurprisingly, finished absolutely zero of them (though some went on longer than others).

And the truly insane thing here is that out of nowhere, very suddenly in 2023, after years of barely writing (and even then mostly just re-writing old stories): I had some kind of…epiphany?

One night I dreamed that a baby was more or less dumped on Raine Sage’s doorstep. The dream was pretty detailed up to a point very shortly before I woke up. I told one friend about it and then another. I let it marinate. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, which is weird, because my experience with ADHD is that far too often things just slip through the cracks never to be considered again. But this dream—that idea, the concept—stayed with me.

And then one day I thought, well, I’ll just…outline it. It can’t hurt anything. It won’t be a huge waste of time even if I never use it. It could be fun to try to puzzle out a real story. Real character arcs.

I’d never finished an outline for anything in my entire life.

So let’s go back a few years.

In 2011, I began doing more serious RP. I RP’d as Regal, actually, in a ToS RP I did with a friend of mine. It was my first introduction to multi-para RP. My previous experience had been pseudo AIM RPs and the Dressing Room RPs on Livejournal. They were fun, but this was on a completely different level; it felt like cooperative writing, like cowriting a real story with someone else. I was immediately taken in by it, by the process. I grew obsessed waiting for responses. My eyes were always on my email. The two of us stayed up far too late typing responses back and forth to one another. It was a great time.

When that fizzled out after a couple hundred thousand words (probably due to lack of overall planning and the expectation that we should match one another’s reply lengths) I coerced I MEAN LOVINGLY SUGGESTED to a different friend of mine, someone I’d known much longer, that we should try doing RPs together. There was no expectation of either of us matching the other’s reply length, and my favorite response ever from her was just a character saying, “No.”

We wrote a million+ words together over the course of a few years, and it was all for the Fire Emblem fandoms. It was addictive and fun. If you’ve never participated in RP, or you aren’t really a writer yourself, I think it’s hard to really understand the appeal of what looks to be a glorified group project. After all, in RP you’re giving away 50% of your control over the story. But with a good partner who vibes with your writing style and characterization, and with the (get this!) addition of Communication, it never really feels that way.

In 2014 I started doing RP on Tumblr. I can’t even begin to tell you how many character blogs I had.

I hopped around RPing characters from a bunch of different fandoms, and in 2017 I stopped RPing on Tumblr (because it fucking sucked) and instead roped the bestie into RPing with me. We shrugged off the mantle of multi-para blah blah email bullshit and instead RP’d like lazy slobs. This is not an exaggeration for the sake of humor. Dialogue tags? No thank you. Asides? Yes. Retconning? Sometimes you get halfway through a story and want to change a detail from the beginning! Proper capitalization? Absolutely not. Screaming/crying/emoting/posting gifs in the middle of RPs when someone’s reply just hit right? Yep! Doing the same exact storyline with a different combination of blorbos? Oh, definitely.

We continued to do this until mid-2023 with startling regularity. We’d have at least 3 RPs going at once most of the time. We kept having to make more discord channels to start new RPs in.

And you’d think the years I was busy RPing sloppy-style instead of writing fanfiction would mean that I was getting rusty at the craft, but really, it helped me cut out all of the fucking bullshit with regards to the process of writing.

Like, what matters in a story is that a story is being told. I want to hit THIS point and THIS point and finally THIS point. I want to cover THESE THEMES. THIS is where I want my characters to end up. As writers it’s so easy to get lost in the detail sauce…to the point where the story and themes, and sometimes even character arcs, just get buried beneath the rubble of intricate details.

And while multi-para RP definitely taught me a lot (particularly about the importance of discussion and communication with a writing partner), I think it’s the sort of environment where it’s really easy to let yourself get lost in that stuff. The typical expectation is that you reply to your partner with a response of equal-ish length, even if the story being told doesn’t require it. This forces you into the head of your character more to try to suck out the details, but in my experience what this tends to do is just…bog down the story, and therefore the RP. Responses start to feel like a chore instead of like a fun activity you’re doing with a friend. And yes, it is, 100% just writing words to fill some kind of arbitrary word count. Nobody has five paragraphs of thoughts to cycle through between every sentence of dialogue they speak, and writing that way can be exhausting.

This is just my personal opinion, of course, but what I personally get enjoyment out of is seeing stories come together, seeing character arcs tie up and end on satisfying notes. And the expectation of having to write five paragraphs when all my character needs to do is say “No” is just…not it for me.

Writing the way my bestie and I do helps us fly through stories so that we end up with a completed story relatively quickly…and can then fill in those details—the ones I used to get lost in, which led to me never finishing anything. Better yet, when the structure is solid, it’s much easier to sprinkle those details into the story in a way that manages to also feel very meaningful.

Again, don’t get me wrong: I love multi-para RP. And RP in general. I think it’s fun and engaging, and if you can find the right partner it’s a wonderful hobby. Hell, I’m RPing as Regal again with the same partner I had in 2011. I’m having a great time. We’re communicating. We’re not stressing too much about matching RP lengths. We’re past the 200,000 word mark. We know where the story is going.

So in 2023, I had that dream—the doorstep baby dream—and I decided after a few weeks of it lingering at the back of my mind that I would try to outline it. Again, I’d never outlined anything in my life. This was a safe option to work on, because, at the time, I thought, “I probably won’t even finish this.”

A few hours later, and…it was finished. I then thought, all right. Now I guess I outline by chapter? It didn’t have to mean anything. I probably wouldn’t finish it anyway.

But I did. And when I say these chapter outlines were short I mean that. I didn’t want to get bogged down by details. I asked myself what was important to cover in each chapter and only wrote that down. The details would follow. Multi-para RP taught me how to fill space.

Here’s an example for you. Chapter 2’s outline was:

If you read the story, you know the outline seems completely at odds with the actual events of the chapter. I did not ‘outline’ any of those specifics.

I started writing. The story got away from both outlines. I reined things in again and restructured the story to make room for the changes by adding two more chapters to it.

I finished the story.

I started writing a new one, and then I outlined it. Weird tactic, but it worked. I finished it.

And I have spent the last year just. Coming up with ideas and then outlining them. I haven’t written more because in the throes of hyperfixation I completely and utterly destroy my health (and I have never operated much outside of that), so I’ve been avoiding sinking into it despite the allure of having more completed stories.

But maybe I should practice doing that anyway—writing like a normal person instead of a crazed lunatic.

But we’ll see.

I don’t know. I just wanted to talk about writing…and while I started this intending to talk about all the stories I’ve been outlining, I ended up just kind of walking you (if anyone actually read this far!) down the path I took to learning how to write the way I write now.

And the very weird path I took to learning to love outlining.

#writing #thoughts about writing

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bambiraptorx · 5 months

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1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71

this one's been answered here

11. Link your three favorite fics right now

Okay honestly favorites are hard and I'm bad at remembering the ones I actually like, but some that I really like:

But First They Must Catch You series

creation, haunted and holy

vigilantism for fun and profit

21. Would you ever collaborate with another writer for a story?

Yeah, I'd be down for it! I love getting to interact with other creatives, it's part of what makes fandom fun for me. I'd probably want it to be fairly short though, just because I already have so many stories lol. Maybe like a crossover fic? Or just helping someone figure out the lore and details and plot and whatnot for their story, which is a little less involvement but still fun.

31. Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

For fanfiction, I start with "here's these characters in this situation". And then ask stuff like: how did they get there? what needs to happen for them to be in that situation or act like that? The characters already exist, so I don't have to build up their characterization so much as understand it.

For original stories, I tend to start more with the characters and their world, and then figure out what might be an interesting conflict to follow within that situation. I actually do want to get into sharing some original stuff here at some point, but I need to decide on which story and how to do it lol. The one I've been thinking about the most recently is also kind of the oldest, so I need to reboot it a fair bit before I shared any of it.

41. Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?

Oh, I absolutely reread my fics. If I actually put the effort into writing it it's because I think other people would like it too, sure, but I totally reread my stuff a few times.

51. What’s your total AO3 word count?

152,868 words. About two thirds of that is Minor Interference, which is far and away the longest thing I've ever written.

61. Why do you continue writing fics?

Because I enjoy it, and because sharing my writing with other people is fun. Honestly, if it weren't for the component of "other people might like this too", I think I would write and draw a lot less. Something about having an audience makes me more likely to actually get stuff out of my brain lol.

71. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

Poorly. (/j)

In all seriousness, a lot of this stuff is in my head, which isn't the best option but whatever lol. I have a bunch of planning and outlines and whatnot written down in various places, sometimes actual notebooks, but that doesn't mean that I end up using it lol. My original outline for Minor Interference is literally defunct at this point. Honestly, a lot of it is just that I go back and re-read stuff when I'm writing to make sure it's at least somewhat cohesive, and even then I don't always succeed.

For example, at one point in Minor Interference I forgot about Raph learning to use his ninpo in ways beyond the constructs around his body, and logically that should have showed up in the fight in chapter 19. Also, for whatever reason I never pictured a table in Draxum's kitchen? (It's fine, I've decided it's just the one in the training room lol.) And there's a couple other things, but I work on the logic that if no one's bothered to point it out, it must not have been that disbelief-breaking.

#asks #bambi's rambling

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jazzythursday · 6 months

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hi hi for the fic ask game hmmm 1, 20, 35, 48, and 74! <3

ahhh friend! Hi Sparrow!!!

1) Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

I just answered this one in another ask, so I’ll paste in what I wrote for that here ;3

So much. So so much. I come up with so many little bits and moments for fics to find places for later. Usually they end up in bullet pointed lists that eventually make sense. Sometimes I spend weeks just jotting down random ideas or lines of dialogue before I try to write a single paragraph. Other times I go straight in with no outline or planning though, and those fics always feel particularly raw to me because they came straight out of my feelings in the moment.

20) Do you prefer writing AUs or canon fics?

I want to get into writing AU fic, but for now all my posted works are canon. AUs kind of terrify me to be honest. I also just... don't get that many ideas for AUs. So much of how I see my favourite characters is rooted in their canon backstories, so taking them out of it has never been something I've been that interested in. Maybe once I exhaust myself of filler scenes and canon continuations I'll catch the AU bug, but for now I have waaaay too many ideas that are set in canon.

.....That being said, I still think about the sun summoner!Jesper au I wrote the first chapter draft of pretty often.....

35) What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

This should come as no surprise to anyone, but it’s Everyday, Just a Little or a Little Bit (shamlessly plugging it again here lol) It’s the first fic I started for soc/wesper and the last fic I finished, and definitely the one I’d recommend highest!

48) Who is your favorite character to write for? Has this changed since you’ve started writing for that fandom?

Again, no surprises here---it's Wylan!

The funny thing is that just yesterday I was ranting about how much I miss writing from Wylan's pov. Because I really miss it. The last few things I’ve worked on have all been from Jesper’s, and then I randomly went back to work on a Wylan wip and realised that it was sooo much easier to connect emotionally and know what I wanted to say. Wylan's has been my go to from the get go (woah, that's a mouthfull), but I don't think I clocked how much I was struggling until then.

(It’s getting to the point where I considered trying to pre-write Wylan’s pov of a scene just to figure out where it was going so I can put it in Jesper’s. Which is crazy, and probably not worth it, but it's where we are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Another thing I noticed is that a lot of writing I do for Jesper inevitably ends up being about Wylan (to be fair, a pretty large amount of my Wylan povs are about Jesper too) or else they rely heavily on dialogue, whereas my Wylan povs get paragraphs and paragraphs of inner monologue and thought, which doesn’t come as naturally to me for Jesper.

74) Do you have a fic you wish got a bit more love?

hmmmm... Familiar Strangers is my least popular wesper fic, so maybe that one. I get why it might have been a harder sell since it's pre-relationship and unresolved, but I do really like it as a little peek into Jesper's head between ep 1 and 2.

Also, not wesper (gasp!) but Homewards, to Land is a Good Omens fic I wrote few years ago that I reread the other day and really liked. I just went back and added a few lines/fixed some typos, so if anyone wants to go show some love to it, I'd definally apreciate it!

Thanks for the questions! <3

#wesper #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #jazzy writes #six of crows #shadow and bone #jazzy answers questions #good omens fanfiction #good omens

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leofrith · 1 year

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Fic qs: 3, 40, 65?

3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

For one-shots it's usually an idea for a scene or even a line of dialogue that I end up building the whole thing around, which is to say I have no fucking plan whatsoever and I'm just winging it. For long fics I need more of an outline or I'll die, but I also don't write in order so my WIP docs are basically a bunch of separate scenes in more or less chronological order which I connect together as a go. Which isn't really a good system. I need a better process but I'm still figuring things out as I go in terms of writing something long.

As far as chapters go, I mostly just write until I think I've reached a good stopping point. I don't really write to a specific word count or anything like that because the content is more important than having an even length for each chapter IMO..... all that being said, I do not recommend my creative process to anyone under any circumstances ever. 🥴

40. If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

I THINK ABOUT THIS CONSTANTLY and I have like soooo many moments from my long fic that I would love to commission at some point, but I feel like I should probably at least publish them first. 🫠 But there's a campfire scene (these bitches sure love a campfire huh) fairly early on with Eivor and Leofrith that would be a nice to have illustrated, and I would also kill to have someone draw Leofrith's Hidden One look as it exists in my head.

Unrelated to the long fic, I neeeeeed Eivor with the darksaber from the Star Wars au. I need it. That fic also has a lot of vision/dream sequences in mind that I think would lend themselves to some really cool art. I think all my fics would be illustrated if I had any artistic ability whatsoever. :(

I should also mention that beloved @sarma did a bunch of art inspired by my concept for a post Mando s2 fic that, if I'm being realistic, will probably never see the light of day. But they still make me fucking crazy when I look at them :))

65. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

I answered this one here! But I'm also going to add the little one shot that has been percolating in my brain ever since I finished the Dead Kings DLC for AC Unity. I need to write more about Arno and Leon and their accidental little found family. And I will. 🤪

send me a number!

#thank you!!! <3 #answer #aeide #ask games

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andorerso · 8 months

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TALK SHOP TUESDAY: what does planning a longfic look like for you?

welllll the only proper longfic I wrote so far is Blood Red Rose (all the others just kinda... ended up being longer? but still only a couple of chapters vs 28, there's no contest here) but it's not so much different from what I do in general

the first phase is to just throw all my ideas in a word doc and then I can start organizing them. I organize them into three main parts: questions for the stuff I still need to figure out, ideas for stuff I may or may not use in the end, and outline, which is the stuff I'm already sure about. I generally already have a main idea of where the story goes so I fill in the outline as much as I can which usually raises a billion questions for me to answer so that's how I continue.

this is stuff like... backstories for the characters, the plot holes I noted while outlining, world-building if it's necessary (in BRR, I spent so much time just figuring out the vampire lore), etc. ideally I figure out all of them but there's always some that remains tbh. but if if it's not anything essential that needs to be answered right this second, that's ok, the answers tend to come to me when I start writing.

ideally by now, the story should be shaping out nicely, so I go back to ideas and try to see if I can use anything there at all. then I read through the outline once more to try and spot any holes or inconsistencies or anywhere where I might have to swap out scenes or something.

now this usually where I would stop for a regular fic, but for BRR I had to go further. timeline's important to me and I want it to make sense and this is a longfic with lots of stuff happening so I went ahead and figured out the rough dates for everything that happens. and then I finished by organizing the whole outline into chapters (originally it was like 22 and now it's 27 so it definitely evolved but I just needed a base). and there you have it! this takes me at least a week for a regular fic and several weeks for a longfic and it's probably a bit messy but it's worked for me so far

talk shop tuesday

#replies #woahpip

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mysticstarlightduck · 1 year

Text

This or That Tag Game:

I was graciously tagged by @lyutenw for this game, and invite anyone who would like to participate to do so!

HISTORICAL OR FUTURISTIC?

I truly have a thing for worlds inspired by medieval, ancient, and Victorian settings, and though I truly adore science fiction in all its forms, it seems that the historical genre will always be my favorite to actually write.

OPENING OR CLOSING CHAPTER:

Both honestly. Finding the right first line for a chapter is just as challenging as discovering in what way should that chapter come to a close, and I love them both. When done right, both are really compelling to write!

LIGHT AND FLUFFY OR DARK AND GRITTY:

While I like a good lighthearted scene myself and believe they are extremely important to any plot, writing darker or grittier things always seems to come easier to me - and I think that the world of my main WIP The Last Wrath makes that very clear, lol. However, I hate it when the darkness and grittiness are too drawn out, and even in the darkest scenes I would like to see that there is at least a glimmer of hope in the future - otherwise it gets far too depressing to read or write about. There has to be a balance between them both, but the latter is often the overall vibe of the settings for my works.

ANIMAL COMPANION OR FOUND FAMILY:

Found Family! While I like a good animal companion and there are some in my works, found family will always be my personal favorite to write, read and watch! It comes very easily to me, in a way that writing an animal companion does not - while I still love that trope dearly.

HORROR OR ROMANCE:

Both. My favorite writing genres are dark or gothic fantasy, as you probably can already tell from my WIPs, and that comes with its own elements of horror, mystery, and fear. But all my stories contain romantic arcs, as I find that those - amongst other things - help balance out a bit of the darkness that comes along with the genre.

HARD MAGIC OR SOFT MAGIC:

Soft Magic. I like being able to weave magical elements into my stories without getting too caught up in having to explain how they work or the hard rules of it. While there is a magic system in my WIP, it is definitely a soft magic one. It is much easier for me as a writer to keep the plot and character arcs moving for me if I don't have to keep explaining or remembering detailed technicalities that come along with hard magic systems.

ONE PROJECT AT A TIME OR JUGGLING TWO PROJECTS:

I always have one main project at a time, to which I know how to direct my focus, but I have some smaller projects that I dabble in for fun in moments when I need to write something else. It helps keep my ideas fresh and my flow of thought clear without mixing up the vibes or outlines.

ONE AWARD WINNER OR ONE BEST SELLER:

.... maybe both... who knows... (:

FANTASY OR SCIENCE FICTION:

As said in the first question, my number one favorite will always be fantasy with historical inspirations or elements when it comes to the things I actually write down, though science fiction is something I deeply adore and takes a very, very close second place.

LOVE TRIANGLE IN ANYTHING OR NO ROMANTIC ARCS:

None of these options. I am extremely lukewarm in love triangles, and I always feel the need to add one or more romantic arcs to my stories, even if that is not the main type of relationship in focus in the book at hand.

CONSTANT SANDSTORMS OR RAINSTORMS:

Please.... constant rainstorm. I despise dry weather and sandstorms are a nightmare to write about in any way, especially if they are constant, so rainstorm - my beloved - it is.

Tagging (happily) @lassiesandiego @sam-glade @writernopal @rickie-the-storyteller @clairelsonao3 @elshells @gummybugg

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mmuffncakes · 10 months

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20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @voidcat-senket who is a wonderful person defo check them out!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

15, shockingly.

2. What’s your total ao3 word count? 142,962, which 60k of that is towards yeehaw/shadow currently.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently just Star Wars, but I do write for L4D2 on tumblr!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Love In An Elevator - a VERY old SpiderVenom fic that is by far probably my legacy on a03 despite it having been abandoned back in 2016. It was mainly a massive fluff piece of Eddie and Peter falling in love while meeting each other in the elevator of their shared apartment complex and soon enough, Eddie's past comes back to haunt him. There was a time where I had planned to make a 3-parter to finish it, and I lost that outline for it years ago and just never had the motivation to write it again.

2. Burnt Coffee - Another fluffy SpiderVenom of them waking up together post sex and just enjoying each other's presence. Another very old one. But it was a short and sweet one-shot that even I still read back on to this day.

3. Pipe - This was a Corvo/Outsider fic that was based around a single tweet from Harvey Smith about how Corvo would, on the occasion, smoke a pipe for something special. So I wrote about Wyman proposing to Emily and them becoming engaged and Corvo smoking a pipe as a celebratory thing. There he's visited by Outsider and some trippy vague sex happens and the god spends the night. This was probably the fic that really solidified my repetitive writing style that I still use today.

4. Pluvial - Another Dishonored fic. This one was written post the first game, with uncertain chaos ending of just the Outsider giving Emily her first meeting with him. It was more of a character study into the two and was before the novel and the second game had been announced. I had planned on making a sequel years ago called Petrichor, but never got around to it. I'm now realizing that 2/3rds of my Dishonored fics are titled with the letter P.

5. This Isn't Bourbon - I'm actually... shocked that this is the next one for Kudos. This is a short Modern AU fluff one-shot of Ronin and Tara from the movie Epic. Where Ronin fucks up on asking for a Bourbon Old Fashioned and asks for chocolate milk because he's smitten with the bartender (Tara). I wrote this one in a night when I SHOULD have been working on a project. To be honest, I was shocked this one even got up as high as it did for anything, as it was just a silly little thing. But then again, the Ronin/Tara people are hungry for anything,

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do respond to comments! I don't get to all of them, but I do try to respond to all of them. Certain ones on old fics (like Love in an Elevator) I tend not to as they're just reminiscing on the fic being left alone. But if I post something new or I'm just flattered by the comment (wHICH TO BE FAIR, I'm always flattered???? some of y'all are too fucking nice), I try my best to respond! Interaction is always fun for me.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

OH FUCK that would be Birdcall! I had been playing L4D2 once and everyone had died (playing realism mode, so no respawns) and Ellis caw-caw'd out expecting a return (as if the team gets separated they'll caw-caw back, or at least Coach will?), and never got one as the team was dead. So I decided to write up a literal all hurt no comfort fic of the team dying one by one and Ellis have to make it through the Parish chapter himself. And when he gets to the end of the game and onto the helicopter, he gets excited and turns to tell the team but remembered he was the only one left alive. I cried typing it ngl.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

If we're talking the longer fics I have, that would be Connor Get Your Priorities Straight, an Assassins Creed 3 collection I did of Connor and Mason Wheems connecting and falling in love over the course of a year. Each chapter was written during the season/weather I was currently experiencing (since the game took place near home of good ol' Boston) and was just them living their lives. And of course, it ends up with them together .

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Since moving to AO3, I have not received any hate. I used to get a lot of hate back on fanfic.net from the infamous Fox Familiar if anyone knows of her. And then some general odd hate in ways of mockery from others. But since moving from there, I've received none, and let me tell you it helped a LOT with the self-esteem with writing as I was still a minor when I got the hate.

9. Do you write smut?

I doooooo~ On occasion, for the most part. I've done a few PW/oP's and then emotional PW/P's. Of all the longer pieces I have none have smut chapters (very soon to that changing). I've come to realize, however that my best smut is when I write it as like, an experience, rather than explicitly. It's about the intimacy, the connection, the feelings, the experience, rather than just Person A does this to Person B. Person B does this to Person A. Which, do not get me wrong, I still love it when I see it, and it's a VERY fun way to read and write, but I find that I struggle with that style. So weird experimental stuff it is!

10. Do you write crossovers?

I could. I don't think I've ever written a crossover outside of roleplay? But I haven't yet!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

ONCE. There was that HUGE breach a few years back on AO3 where a bunch of peoples fics got stolen onto a website that requires you to pay to even look at it, and I had to send like 3 e-mails to customer support with a copy-paste about stuff. This was back in like... I think 2019? And they'd nagged I think my Uncharted fics and my SpiderVenom ones.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not! I do know that I have a few Spanish speaking readers (who've made a few comments before) that I would love to translate the fic for, but I know I'm not skilled enough in Spanish (and the Spanish I know is Puerto Rican-slanged Spanish) to do so. I know, in time, I do plan on writing a fic in Irish once I get better at the language (I'm still learning!).

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not! It's something I think about a lot when it comes to my friends and such, writing something together but I have no idea if I can beat my walls down to let someone else take over on things when it comes to how I write and such. It's SUCH a thing for me. In time, I would love to. Where I'm at right now? Probably not.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

All-time??? Gosh. I think, of all the ships I have, there's one I keep coming back to, regardless of time and place, it's something that I think of so much and how much I joke about how it's the blueprint for all future ships of mine, and that's Corvo/Outsider. It's the one I think of the most between all my hyper fixations, and it was one of the first ships that my partner and I had gotten into and done so much with before we even started dating. And to this day it is an important ship to the two of us.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

Love In An Elevator. I feel like it's awful parent, neglecting it for years despite the fact I had written out a whole 3-parter outline to finish it up. Maybe, in time, I may try to again, down the line. But it would be a wild jump from 2016 writing and 2023 writing as I went through an entire degree and developed more and more of my writing style. But I lost motivation for it years ago. So there's always this hesitation of "Oh I'll pick it up!" and then I sit there knowing I would end up dropping it again.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I don't know. From my point of view, there's always things to improve upon. I've come to discover, with the recent writing of shadow of the mountain, that I've got a good voice for many of the characters, understanding their motivations, their tones, etc. And I find that my sense of writing pure dread and fear tends to work well as that's something I've been working on in ttrpg horror campaigns. (Hi Barq, I still think about the time I genuinely scared you and I'm still very VERY SORRY, I LOVE YOU)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Planning. I have only recently started making outlines for my works. And even then, I don't follow it to a T as I tend to keep adding and adding. ALSO, FUCKING COMMAS. I USE THEM TOO MUCH! SOMEONE STOP ME.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It's a situational thing. Certain things, like shouting out surprised ( "DIOS MIO!" for example) is fine, as it's part of being bilingual. I found myself shouting in Irish the other day at someone who cut me off! Without even thinking! As well as if the other person is also speaking in that language, go for it. But those fics where the character says something in a language that they had never spoken in in cannon without the explicit headcannon being mentioned, and then all of a sudden "oh sorry, I forgot you don't speak that"/"oh sorry, it's hard to switch out sometimes", I DUNNO MAN, rubs me the wrong way. This is also coming from someone who has English as their first language and is currently learning Irish through an app, and Puerto Rican Spanish through proxy of partner's family. But that language stuff CAN work, it just has to be in the right setting and make sense.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

First one I wrote for on AO3 that wasn't me moving things over from fanfic.net was actually Uncharted! But over all, from years ago? Wee me who was probably 14 or something? Either Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

That would be the one I'm currently working on: shadow of the mountain. This is the first BIG fic I've written in a long time. The last big one being to catch smoke for the Dishonored Big Bang 2017, of which feels tiny in comparison to the current one. Shadow has been such a test of my skills to where I joked about "nothing is a coincidence" to the point where I had to make a tag for it because of how much intertwining and interweaving this fic has with itself. There's still so much I haven't fully revealed yet and so much I've hinted at (that some have caught on to) that I'm just--it feels good to write it. It feels good to push myself to something so intricate for each and every detail since the very first sentence. I can't wait to finish it.

Tag 20 people: TWENTY? THAT'S SO MANY. i think senket tagged some of you already but im retagging :D @nightingalesighs @etoiline @missinkylace @xenalistair (DO THIS FOR YOUR ART <3) @paper-crane-castles . I got 5. Meg ain't got a fuckin tumblr so I can't assault her with it.

#ask meme #a03 meme #20 questions #this took me an hour to write out #senket i hope youre happy

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