#chapter length will also vary so theres that

[pmd-etu]

how long is ETU going to be??

Uhhhhhhhhhh. long! I have 32 chapters [ish] and 5[ish] "special episodes" [mini comics about the length of a chapter about characters that aren't about Team Ultra] [The special episodes are about characters I add, not the canon ones that are in Sky, those won't be part of the comic] in the google doc and that's about. Halfish. of it. Hard to explain how its half of it without major spoilers lol. It'll probably end up somewhere between 60-80 chapters. We're in it for the long haul over here!

[not-poignant]

salut pia!

ive been wondering? how do you handle/change modes when you’re writing across AUs/fics? i mean not only the personality/attribute changes (like role reversal with ef and gwyn) but also change in…oh how do i say this..when a character is a MC in one but side/minor in another? bc they are different devices to different stories, how do you keep an overview of how much you reveal, go into so as to not side track from the main story or change the “flow”. example: whenever theres mentions of gender identity and betas somethin somethin feeling like omegas somethin somethin comes up “casually” sirens go off in my head and then i realise wait faber is NOT the MC in this story this is not about him him but its a little bit about him him. and then i feel like im standing behind a glass wall looking from Utb/Utg to Utr screaming at faber but he is a NPC here so we dont know whats going on in his head. that scene with ef and him eating carrots?…. i would give my right foot and skin tone copic markers to be a fly on the wall in fabers POV (the timelines probably wont align for it to happen but would you ever consider sth like this?? a scene overlapp across stories i mean?)

i’ve mostly read within that universe but ive also read spoils where your characters have completely different..positions? roles? weight? than in rainbow. so yeah how do you keep it all “appropriate” or “fitting” for their roles in different stories. like a puppet master

cheers xx

Hi anon,

So this is going to be not very helpful, but I don't write this stuff down for the most part.

This is the stuff I find so easy that this is why this is my job, in a way. I don't have a list of 'different Efnisiens' to keep track of, or 'different Gwyns.' They become themselves within the story. If I read a chapter of the story I get back into it (actually often I just need to listen to a song or put on the right playlist). Every version of a character is kind of there right now. I know how each would respond to something, and how those things would be the same or vary based on life experiences and the question etc.

I don't do really much at all to change modes. I just...do. There is no overview. It's all in my head. I'd say some of this goes down to how long / how many years I've spent studying character and dialogue overall. But even when I was younger I found this pretty easy, and transplanting characters into different situations to see how they'd react similarly / differently was one of my favourite kinds of exercises even when I was a teenager.

Some of it is knowing focus. Faber's side story is interesting, for those who like Faber and/or Underline the Red, hints about his gender struggles are fascinating, but they can only ever be hints, because I'm mindful that many readers aren't interested in Faber except as a minor character, and haven't read Underline the Red.

The focus is always Efnisien and Gary. Other characters can have their own lives and motivations, but it won't be more than that in the main story. Though I can go into a bit more detail because of the length of the story which is really nice for building out side characters / ensemble cast.

As to crossover perspectives, I don't know! I know we'll see some of Faber's perspective of Efnisien arriving at Hillview in Underline the Red, but obviously things impact characters differently at different times, I don't know what will be most important by the time we get to Faber's side of things. I used to write alternative perspectives as side chapters for Fae Tales though, and that could be a lot of fun.

so yeah how do you keep it all “appropriate” or “fitting” for their roles in different stories.

I saw a video by Hank Green I think once where he said the reason sportspeople are so good at their sports is in part because they're physically often the best at that sport anyway. Like, ballerinas have a certain build, swimmers have a certain build, and any training they do works to support that and make them better, but they were 'built' out for those sports in the first place. Some people have yoga bodies. I have a swimming body and swimming shoulders.

And I feel like this is true sometimes with writing. I don't try to keep it appropriate or fitting, I just know that the ensemble characters can't matter as much as the main characters in the course of the story. That's what a story is. That's what a main character and an ensemble character is. I would say years of experience has made this part of writing mostly easy and fun for me, so I don't have to think or overthink about this stuff anymore. At worst I might think 'was that too much Faber? Eh, it's helping Efnisien, it's still important to the plot and his character arc.'

I'm 'built' for writing big worlds with big ensemble casts where all the characters are important but where the focus is only on a couple of main characters per story. I'm built for character-focused stories and seem to be very built for transplanting characters I love into different worlds (and different roles) to see how that changes things. I started wanting to write these kinds of worlds and characters when I was 10 years old, and had my first sprawling ensemble fantasy series started by the age of 11. By the age of 15 I had a 3 novel fantasy trilogy built out with about 20 significant characters, and it was ridiculous and silly but that was what I wanted to write.

And I guess you could say I haven't really changed, I've just gotten better at it. I hope to keep getting better at it! The challenge now is to figure out how to break down some of these skills so I can share them with others. But...I do think there's an element of 'this is just what I love, it's a special interest, I don't know how to convey that I have 30 years of special interest in reading, writing, and studying this thing across television, manga, manhwa, fanfiction, AUs, and fictional series.' There will be teachable skills in that, but I don't know how much osmosis / absorption / and being obsessed with entangled tapestries of stories makes up what I do.

In some ways it would be 'better' if I was built for more conventional storytelling. My bank account might like that more! BUT, I'm doing okay where I'm at, because I love it, and I try to share that with other people and see if I can tell stories that resonate with them too.

(There are aspects of what I do that are very hard for me - timelines, aspects of worldbuilding, pacing in the first arc, and so on, but the actual characterisation part, and creating multiple versions of the same character is as easy as breathing. I could give you four more different versions of Faber in an hour. Maybe even twenty minutes. It's not hyperbole, it's just...how I daydream, what I think about. And it's fun!)

I'm very very very lucky that other folks are willing to read the same characters across different narratives, because it's a very strange thing to do in writing outside of fanfiction, case in point being that we almost never see any other professional authors doing it with their original works. x.x

[jellifysh]

I just reread the most recent gbist chapter bc it’s just that good. I also just realized that you included in your hashtag that the chapter is getting longer. Please don’t worry about the length. I will gladly read chapters that are super long because I’m sure you’ve thought through the plot so each scene within the chapter serves a purpose. 🥺 Whether it’s to move the plot along or to develop a character or to build up to a new arc in the story.

I am looking forward to (would be) Thursday here in my country for the regular update. 🤧

Keep up the awesome work! All 👏👏👏! Hope you still take some time to yourself though & make sure to never overexert because it’ll only cause burnout 🥺 GBIST really has been one of my ways with coping with my current shitty mental state. 🤧

I am dealing with it surprisingly well actually, I have something to do in my downtime now and I'm actually making myself do work faster so I can focus on this story lol, its fixed my schedule somehow instead of wrecking it. I'm writing an essay as we speak, what a miracle

and yeah the chapters are getting a bit longer, when I write i focus on what I want to achieve on that chapter and try to make one thing change per chapter so every chapter is progress and not just filler. Sometimes theres less, sometimes theres more, so chapters are varying lengths. They all seem to be about 3,000 words though, so they're like bite sized! A bite per week :D

I'm glad you like it and I'm glad I could help you get through the week, nothing like a good story to keep your head soft and fluffy ☁️ i ran out of stories so I started making one lol

[webtoongreed]

Hi. Do you know what part of the manga the webtoon got up to before deleting a lot of them, and which part got deleted, and if the now missing parts are archived anywhere? 😯 also, please could you give me credit for the FMA PSP assets I ripped, that you're using as a banner 🙂

the webtoon was up to 180 parts (each part usually contains a quater of or half a manga chapter, every part drastically varies in length so it's hard to say for certain), and the part it was at before a good chunk of the webtoon got deleted was sloth's introduction. as far as i know there are no archives of the full webtoon, but i got the greed screenshots before they were deleted. theres also screenshots of a few other characters that float around but thats the closest thing to an archive there is as of now. the webtoon in its current state goes up to chapter 36.

ill provide credit for the assets you ripped, also

[bigowlenergy]

fanfiction play bill 2021

okay! im using this to get my head on straight about the new year. i want (Want) to go over my old fic and either revamp or finish it. all these old unfinished fics just moldering in my ao3 are killing my vibe, it does not spark joy, im gonna spring clean and fix it.

this will not happen all at once. but this is how i think it can happen:

1 finish Till Death, Parted. its almost done as is, i just need to do the climax. does not need edited afterword. should take 2-3 more chapters and a steady update schedule is not something that helps me keep on track it turns out, but if i can manage it, then itll be back on thursdays, i think.

2 completely overhaul Through Sharpened Teeth. i used the dannymay prompts, so the chapter lengths vary wildly and quality is pretty low. i’d like to go through and make it into actual, full chapters and not care about the prompts. they were great for inspiration and getting me to make things on time in may, but after that they only made me impose restrictions on myself. this is ridiculous. i love this fic, and want (Want) to finish it dearly. it will take some work. i should probably get a beta for this.

3 deep sigh. Maman. i should just finish it. i think the chapters themselves are probably fine? i do rememeber avoiding dialog because i didnt think i was good at it at the time, so the tense and pacing sucks. i’ll finish it, but only overhaul it IF i get a beta to work with to keep me on track. this would also include incorporating the sidefics into the actual thing bc i sort of hate having those sad little chapters floating off to the side for no reason now.

4 Heirphant needs one last chapter, and it is mostly done. just lost steam and interest in the show itself ngl. but i get lots of comments on this one and a ton of subscribers, so it should get finished. literally should take a day of sitting and writing it out to do so. i just need the motivation.

5 i do like participating in fandom events! i do. BUT i dont like feeling rushed to create content for things, and end up losing steam. theres nothing wrong with keeping prompt lists and going back to it when i want to. i do like creating new things when i have ideas, just not with what i have convinced myself are hard deadlines.

6 more nsfw? i was super hesitant about it at first, and Maman was my first go at it. but its been fun and interesting to work on, so sure.

[graffitibible]

how do churn out fics so quickly? i feel like every month there's a new 35k word chapter out, meanwhile i've written 3 words on an empty doc 🤣 do you spend like 5 hours per day writing or are you just super fast?

OKAY REAL ANSWER 

basically, writing is very baked into my everyday schedule at this point lol. it was admittedly way easier before all this quarantine business started - my work gives me an hour long lunch and it takes me like 5 minutes to eat it and with virtually nothing else to do i just started bringing my laptop to work and banging out words there. now that my work hours have been drastically reduced, it’s harder for me to stay on task - i can bang out 3k words one day and only edit a stray sentence on another with no consistency whatsoever. 

i’m BIG on routine, so working writing into my daily routine more or less “tricks” me into being hyper-productive on it. there are certain periods in the day when im more productive, like the aforementioned long-ass lunch hour, but also like, when im making dinner or something. ive got to sit near the stove for like 30 minutes while im cooking some shit up to eat so thats thirty minutes to do some plot outlining or dialogue threading or editing or plain old writing. its not a whole lot of time but like when im working in my lunch hour, it works for me because its this window where i can trick myself into a burst of productivity in a condensed time frame without browbeating myself for not fulfilling a nonexistent standard. the amount of stuff i get done in those timeframes will honestly vary - sometimes its a paragraph and sometimes its a page. 

it also helps me personally to keep all my writing in textedit instead of a document that has an accessible wordcount or page count, so that way im not stressing about the length of the thing. this is also how i end up with like. 70k words crammed in one chapter and my pacing is SHIT because of it so thats not a sure thing by any means.

some people do daily wordcounts, which is a trick i do to keep myself working on my original fiction (i make myself write 200 words of original fiction per day, minimum. 200 shitty words isnt very much, and even if its not great, its some progress that i can go back to later.) but i dont apply the same tactic to fic, in part because i dont want my daily wordcount to feel overwhelming. 200 words is a simple, accessible goal for me even on days when im feeling like shit, and if i fall behind a day or two, its not an insurmountable barrier to overcome. its a good trick to kinda spur your brain into productivity. the downside to this is that youre basically playing a long con with yourself and theres a big chance that youll burn out on the project if youre stuck too long on it - ive been doing “200 words a day” for years at this point and ive written A Lot Of Stuff but not a lot of it is very refined because its a lot of words i have to go back and edit down.

wrt fic, i basically have multiple word docs open at all times so that they’re there and i can always turn things over in my head. this can sometimes feel like a big fucking “YOURE NOT DOING ENOUGH YOURE NOT BEING PRODUCTIVE” sword of damocles so that can be a double-edged thing that aint always so great. it usually works for me because its a good way to kickstart spontaneous bursts of creativity. ill always have these windows open, idly click into one, and go “oh hey thats a good sentence that ties in with this sentence” and then im writing again before im doing much active thought about it. if i spend too much time hyping myself up about “god i gotta get this done i have to do this now” then i start to dread the task so i try to eliminate that window whenever i can. 

LONG ANSWER IM SORRY. it comes down to me knowing my habits and my brain quirks and figuring out how to work with them as best as i can. im a routine-based person, so i built writing into my routine. i have memory issues, so if i get ideas at an inconvenient time i write em down to go back to em later. when executive dysfunction makes just starting to write feel insurmountable, i go back to what i wrote earlier and do editing instead. when im grappling with self-esteem and self-worth and i feel like my writing is flagging, i circle back to works i enjoy, both fanfic and published fiction, and study the writing styles of writers i admire for inspiration.

this is stuff that works for me personally! obviously every person is different and what works for some people aint gonna work for everybody. motivation issues are no fucking joke. its super tempting to like compare your pace of productivity to other peoples but honestly thatll just get you down. especially given current global events like, im lucky ive managed to be relatively productive during a Fucking Pandemic but some people wont be and that is COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE, GIVEN THINGS. even then im certainly no stephen king. though i am also no george rr martin. in fact i think we can all take comfort in the fact that we are not george rr martin.

[vamprefaggot]

Fic recs??? Any fandom, ya girl just needs some fresh recs

khameleoneight, theviolinbowy e s gladly 

aight so starting off with phan(it was my first fandom and i still have a soft spot also the fic is,,,, rlly good)

Hawk and Dove by Emmamazing15 is,, so good,,, its a superhero fic based on the comic(idk ive never read the og) and its r e a l l y well written and long and it makes me Feel things e v e r y t i m e 

Dan and Phil- a History of Two Spoons by thealphafox is lowkey the first fic i ever read ?? its written by one of my best friends who i adore and its unfinished but still like 100+ chapters of varying length and its snippets n stuff and theres a cat

In My Way by INeverHadMyInternetPhase is hhhh so good its film star!dan and college student phil and its 25 chapters and highkey i started reading around chap. 11 and it just Blows me away

Thanks To That Little Shit by an orphaned account is a darling lil one-shot which i adore tbh

and finally, Stirring In Love by andthenshesaid-write which i read two nights ago lmao is a great british bake off au and its 10 chapters and like,, so good,,, i love it

moving on to sherlock(i actually wrote a bunch for this one and none of it is good lmao)

Laws of Aviation by khameleoneight and theviolinbow which is a hysterically stupid chatfic and i love it tbh

The Dragon’s Soldier by twistedthicket1 which o h m y g o d is one of my all time fav fics and is possibly one of the best bits of writing ever i !!!! its incomplete but hella long still and literally the characterization, the world building, the f o r e s h a d o w i n g ,,,, hhhhh i just. really love this fic. even if u arent a sherlock person b l e a s e read it

Biology by lookupkate is like,, a super short and adorable fic lmao thats p much it its all fluff

and then a lil bit of harry potter that were almost all suggestions from @federalfelines and v v good suggestions at that

Magical Relations- Year 1 by evansentranced is rlly r l l y good(the whole series is tbh i read it all in like two days which was an Adventure) its slytherin!harry and !!!!

Hermione Granger’s Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run by waspabi is literally So Good and im slkfjlskfj !!!!!

a n y w a y i hope thats enough to keep u busy lmao enjoy !! 

its a sleepover ;3