#i feel like the advice i give is a little redundant but it’s what works for me and i’ll repeat myself a 100 times if i have to!

[cathedralcomic]

sorry if this is too broad of a question - can you tell me a little bit about how you go about planning all this? i struggle so much with figuring out a theme and worldbuilding when i try to write. i never know where to even start. i really admire what you have going here, i dont know how to explain it but it feels so special. ur really talented and i cant wait to hear more ab cathedral :3

first off thank you SO much!

theme and worldbuilding had definitely been a struggle early on, and sometimes only time will build them for you. i’ve worked on this story for… a while, its modern incarnation going back to 2018 while its first is from 2013. i know that timeframe sounds daunting and a little ridiculous to some writers, but maybe you haven’t given your stories space to breathe and grow organically. using inspiration from your favorite movies/books/tv shows/etc. is also huge. cathedral wouldn’t be what it is today without my inspirations. and obviously listening to seasoned writers explain their process or offer advice helps. i’ve listened to so many podcasts and tedtalks and video essays over the years about creative writing, i even watched a few masterclasses. you won’t enjoy all of them but it’s good to hear multiple perspectives.

buuuut try not to get caught in a loop of always learning and never writing, pair the two throughout your journey. + puhleeeease write a guide for yourself. it is so crucial for planning/keeping track of everything. it doesn’t have to be fancy, just throw all your ideas and character/world notes into a google doc so you can readily access them. don’t be erin hunter make a story bible (new shirt idea)

[lialacleaf]

A Touch Too Personal

Chapter 1

Simon Riley x Reader

Summary: You had a crush on Ghost since you started working for Price in communications, but the gruff, reserved Lieutenant only acknowledged your existence on the job. That starts to change with a simple, thoughtful gift.

Warnings: Fluff, Simon is bad at processing emotions, past trauma

Chapter 2

You cared deeply about every single one of your teammates. It didn’t matter that you were sitting in an office talking to them over the radio, you were still providing them with intel and directions that kept them alive.

They were like a second family, and so Task Force 141 slowly began to feel like having a lot of older brothers.

Johnny was your go to partner in crime when it came to making mischief, and you knew he was always down for a good prank.

Kyle on the other hand was good for having deep conversations and was the one you always went to for advice.

Ghost…well ghost was a bit different. Your feelings towards him weren’t exactly that of a sibling. Maybe it was because he was more reserved than the others, a mystery or puzzle that you couldn’t quite figure out, but you couldn’t help but feel warm inside on the rare occasion that his intense gaze did linger on you.

Which lead to your current dilemma.

Every time you went home, you made sure to bring one of the boys a gift when you returned to base.

Being that Price was like a father figure, you brought him a handcrafted mug from your hometown’s local pottery festival. Soap had gotten a pocket knife with his call sign engraved on it, and Gaz had received a baseball cap with a hand stitched 141 on the side in his favorite color.

However, now it was Ghost’s turn, and you were at a loss. What would he even like to have? You knew he had an array of tactical gear, you’d seen him knit pick through it on occasion, but you didn’t know enough about working in the field to know kind of tools he’d like. He had so many knives already, that it felt redundant to get him another.

What on earth were you supposed to give this man?

“Maybe you could make this Ghost fella something yourself?” Your mother suggested as you sat in your parents living room to ponder the issue.

Your mother liked Ghost’s nickname, and laughed whenever you brought it up. You could only assume she was picturing a little boy in a Scream costume, and you had to admit that was a little funny. Ghost was the only one to not have shared his real name with you, and thus always ended up being teased by your family, not that he was aware of that.

“Like what?” You asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m stopping by the craft store, how about you come with me instead of sulking in the living room?”

~

You watched your mother peruse through the holiday decorations and shook your head. That woman was amassing quite the Christmas village collection.

You wandered through the store with dwindling hope until you saw it. It was in the fabric section that you found the most perfect pattern for your Lieutenant.

The fabric had a black background, with white Ghosts all over it. You picked up the roll with a brilliant smile on your face, and ran over to one of the fabric department employees.

“I need some of this,” you said, giddy and bouncing on the balls of your feet.

“How much do you want?” The woman asked, preparing her scissors.

Ghost was a pretty large man, and you took a moment to think about just how much fabric you were going to need.

“Uhhh, a lot.”

~

“Lass! How was the family?” Johnny asked, pulling you in for a tight hug as you pulled your luggage into your room on base.

“It was good, ate a lot, took my cousins shooting, family stuff,” you said with a grin. “I gotta show you something,” you insisted, pulling him inside your room.

“Oh? What’s that?” He asked curiously.

“You know how I always bring back a surprise?” You began, a grin on your face.

“Who’s the lucky winner?” He chucked.

“You tell me.” You beamed at him as you pulled out the larger than life knot-tie blanket you’d made, and Johnny’s jaw dropped.

“You did not!” He gasped, chuckling at he inspected it. One side was the Ghost fabric you’d found, and the other was made from the softest army green material you could find. In the top corner. You’d stitched in a small British Flag patch, and each corner has a sandbag sewn in.“You made him a bloody weighted blanket? What gave you that idea?” He asked.

“We’ll I couldn’t find anything I thought he’d like at first, but then I saw the fabric and it just fell together so perfectly!”

“Oh man, I would kill to see his reaction to this,” Johnny said, giving you a pat on the shoulder.

“You say that like we ever get to see his reaction to anything,” you stated. You’d never actually seen him without some sort of face covering.

Johnny tisked softly and shrugged. “Alright, you got me there,” he admitted. “He’s in his room now, probably as good a time as any.”

You couldn’t help but grin broadly. “Perfect.”

~

You felt a lump form in your throat as you approached Ghost’s door. You knew it was just the nerves that came along with your little crush on the Lieutenant, but it still made the task at hand a little daunting.

You took a deep breath, knocking softly on the door. Maybe you should have wrapped it for him. What if he didn’t like it? How were you supposed to react if he just brushed you off.

The door opened before you could rethink your decision. It always came as a shock how large Ghost was, no matter how many times you stood mask to face.

“You’re back.”

You felt your heart rate spike. He had noticed you were gone? Had noticed you? Of course he had noticed, it was his job to notice, it didn’t mean anything.

“Yeah,” you said, waiting for him to ask how your trip was, or if you were glad to be back. He didn’t.

“I got you something!” You said suddenly, holding the folded blanket out to him, and his entire body seemed to freeze. He stared at it for a moment or two, as if he were slowly processing the object.

“What is it?”

Your smile faltered. “It’s a weighted blanket,” you said as he inspected it as if it were some kind of trick. “It’s a weighted blanket,” you said as he took it carefully from your hands.

“Where’d you get it?”

Shit, he hates it.

“I- Uhm. I made it,” you admitted, your cheeks blazing. This was stupid. You were stupid.

He looked between you and the blanket in his hands, and nodded. “Thanks,” he said before stepping back into his room and closing the door.

You pressed your lips together firmly in an attempt to not start bawling. You walked off on shaky legs, taking deep breaths. At least he hadn’t told you he didn’t want it.

~

Simon sat on his bed, his thumb brushed over the small flag patched into the corner of the blanket. The fact that you had made him a gift by hand had his stomach in knots. He knew about your little gift tradition with the rest of 141, but he hadn’t expected to be included, nor did he expected you’d go to such trouble. The two of you weren’t even very close.

He swallowed thickly as tears pricked his eyes. This was the nicest thing any teammate had ever given him.

He brought the fabric to his face and gave it a deep whiff. It smelled fresh, like laundry detergent. You must have washed it before you gave it to him.

Simon spread the blanket carefully over his cot, admiring how the fabric felt against his hands. It didn’t catch on his calloused fingers, and wasn’t too fluffy.

It was large too, as if you’d taken his massive size into account. He was certain he could easily caving himself in it. His bottom lip wobbled slightly, and it was an effort to hold his tears at bay.

That night, Simon slept soundly, wrapped in your carefully crafted gift, and you were the only thing on his mind.

AN: Let me know if you'd like to be tagged!

[aroacecharacters]

I have the opposite problem. As someone who's quoioromantic I don't know how to write alloromantics correctly. I know both of you are Aro-Spec but please post this so others can, thanks!! <3

~💖✨

Okay let’s see if I can help a bit…

So I believe allos start out with some form of attraction, usually aesthetic which for them combines with romantic and sexual attraction. Though appearance isn’t necessarily a factor when they feel attracted, it seems to frequently start with thinking the other person looks good.

That usually leads to them getting to know the other person a bit before deciding to be partners. Sometimes this can be casual, or sometimes this is going on dates. It’s best for them to have a few things in common. This is sometimes called the “talking” stage.

Then they agree to become partners and this is the “dating” stage. This has its own “honeymoon phase” where at first the characters are excited to be together. They are still getting to know each other more and figuring out boundaries and things.

Then after dating they get engaged and married but those are usually after a good amount of time.

So when you are writing these romances you want to give readers a reason to want these characters to end up together.

Give them chemistry. Give them reasons to want to be around each other. Develop their friendship along with their romance.

When they start “having feelings” for each other describe how it makes them feel. Butterflies in their stomach, they blush more around them, they get nervous just talking or being near them. But they always want to be near them.

(For example: If I like someone, I don’t care what they are talking about, I just enjoy watching them be passionate about something.)

There’s a lot of things people do when they have crushes and it takes some work, but just sprinkle these things in, and that’s a start.

Also, just like in your plot in general, throw in a little tension. Relationships aren’t always sunshine and rainbows. But please have your characters communicate! (Unless you really like the miscommunication trope. Also, that advice applies to real life.)

I can’t cover everything, and I’m hoping I’m not too redundant, but just like other topics you’re writing, it’s best to do some research. And there’s a lot of media about romance.

I hope this helped a little, I only have a tiny amount of experience dating someone but I do like reading romances.

-Mod Ryn

[sorcerous-caress]

My writing used to be really descriptive and environmental, but I've abandoned that for more a narrative heavy storytelling where a narrator is your window for the world.

And honestly idk, the narrative comes naturally to me, and the descriptive has to be actively put in, I have to train myself to write it each time and squeeze my brain.

It also gets dull with time. there are only so many ways and times I could describe the sun shining in the morning before it gets redundant. but the same can be said for how much I love narrating longing and end up resusing the same phrases.

So far I only describe what I think is important to the environmental telling, unless it has a purpose then I leave it up to the reader to imagine what colour the couch was or what sheets the bed had.

But I didn't realise that readers' default response is just... to keep it blank. if I don't tell them there are curtians then they'll never imagine it, If I don't spell the way the food smelled then they'll never find it delicious, if I don't describe the ways the tree swayed then they'll never get a meter of how windy it is.

I never got criticism or hate comments for it, the opposite, I got compliments on my descriptive works saying how much they could imagine the world clearly, praising how well I've painted it. And those compliments motivate me to try more and put in more effort than a wall of criticism ever could.

I guess I need to hit a balance. "a beautiful webbing" was one of my works where I hit that perfect spot of balance between narration and environmental telling, but also that fic was a special case, a project I held immense passion for and it seems exhausting to have to do that to each fic especially with how i need to post at least once every three days.

ik quality over quantity and all but let's be realistic, this is fanfiction and not every story is a one I want to be top tier quality. not everyone wants to read an S tier fic, sometimes the B and C tier are absolutely preferable and easier on the mind. like a snack, there are many of them and they get to the poin faster.

I hate people who claim they're hard to please in fanfiction and only read completed works with 20+ chapters and 60k words. Who demand perfection for free and are proud of it whilst being willfully ignorant of how each type of fic shines differently. Not everyone wants to tell a story the same way, one shots are not less superior than multie chaptered works.

Your preference isn't superior to everyone else's, that one shot you glossed over could've been the most in character thing every written in the history of the fandom. Could've told a complex story through a couple lines. I've always admired people who can say so much in so little, who can summerise long paragraphs in multiple words.

It could also just be an average normal one shot, and that's fine and okay and is absolutely someone's preference. A lot of people like comfort snacks to enjoy.

Anyway the point is. I will try to get more descriptive, i try to avoid watching writing guides or reading about writing tips and tricks. The advice they give is really generic and I find that it boxes you in this regressive view of how writing should be. No matter how good the advice is, If it gets too overwhelming and it feels like you're doing nothing right then please take a step back and ignore everything everyone else has ever said.

Art is you, it's expression and communication. You want to feel it so you make it, you want to tell it so you share it. That's all, that's the end.

Be it erotica, crack fics, alternative universe or whatever. No one in this world can make it like you, it's fully personalised to your own mind and no one in this life could tell that story but you.

Oh I also have a clear lack of dialogue, I feel like it's one of the trickiest things to write because how easily it could break characters. How I have to keep spreadsheets analysing the way each character speaks.

Which, there are no spreadsheets, btw. I keep it in my mind.

Take Minthara for example, she is direct, forward and orders things. She never says "I think" or "maybe" she never asks either, she demands.

She wouldn't say "I hope we don't lose" instead she'd phrase it as "We will emerge victorious."

She likes using complex or flourishy words but never like Gale or Wyll, their type of flourish is entirely different and means to honey the words, whilst Minthara's mean to make the sentence more regal, aristocratic rather than noble. She uses them deliberately to show off statues while Gale uses them to show off intelligence, and Wyll does it for charm and theatrical poetry.

She doesn't take shortcuts either. She doesn't say "don't." Instead she separates it to "Do not." And forces you to listen to her long phrases, a small form of power play where she never makes herself or words smaller, she always uses them fully as they are.

And I have to do this for each character, you see how exhausting this easily can be. How every character also speaks as if they're from a different time. Karlach speaks more modernly but it's never like the common people talk in bg3, so she just...has access to modern dialogue and phrases for some reason?

Astarion never speaks like he is 200 years old either, not like an elf either. Halsin speaks like an elf, Cazador speaks like an elf, but not Astarion for some reason, and I have to keep that in mind.

Wyll is the easiest to write because his way of speech flows so well with my own writing, they compliment each other. Unlike how jarring Karlach dialogue in one of my fics.

Shadowheart is a character who uses filler words a lot, stalling or just uncertainty? She uses "I think, Maybe, is that so, I don't know but, I guess." Inbetween her sentences.

Maybe it's bc of the gaps in her memory? But it works in her favourite because I just need to remove the filler words whenever I want her to appear serious or whenever I want to flush out an important moment, it brings attention subtly to how reassured she is of her self.

Lae'zel speaks her heart in a way, she vocalises her observations to others and they take it as either criticism or praise when it's most likely that she meant neither and is just observing. Honestly to make it simpler, Lae'zel speaks autisticly which I relate to a lot, and which is why so many misunderstandings happen around her character when people assume she is mean or making fun of them when in reality she is indifferent and saying her thoughts loud and clear as they are.

People don't usually do that, they don't express their feelings as directly as Lae'zel. They hint it at, subtly or they play it down or exaggerate it. Lae'zel does neither, she speaks directly from the source and every word is deliberately chose and is exactly what she meant it.

But people aren't used to that, taking words at face value. And because they're used to people exaggerating or down playing their words, they assume Lae'zel is doing the same and filter her words through the same social protocol which ends up making her look too horny or too mean when she is neither. They needlessly attach meanings to her words that weren't there and complain about the results that they themselves made up when she already delivered the final results herself.

Astarion speaks like a 13-year-old who just learned what irony and sarcasm are. But put it through a modern dracula adaptation Snapchat filter, and you get the final results. He thinks he comes off as smooth, and sometimes he does, but it mostly falls flat and he comes off as johhny bravo.

His looks are what's important here, since they more than make up for his failure in words. Much like most of Edward Cullens lines were absolutely wild but because a sexy vampire was saying it then suddenly it becomes palatable.

But Astarion has his moments in relatablity. He is by far the most relatable character in dialogue. He says what we all wanted to say, but we didn't just to save face. He makes the crude jokes, he makes the sex innuendos andpenis dagger lame puns.

He also screams at the word and calls out. He also curses back at the gods who dammned him. He embraces his rage and resentment and expresses it without any shame. He lets the smooth facade fall and claws at the other performers on the stage of life as his own masks start to crack down. The only thing Astarion has ever been fully honest about is his own wrath, it's the single unpolished spot on his perfect surface, the single crack in his procline mask.

And there is something about how a one can't describe Astarion without resorting to poetry, how it writes itself at certain points because just like the sea, he is as beautiful as he is ruthless, as tender as the crashing waves against the jagged rocks, as fleeting as the dissipating sea foam receading back from the shore.

He can never be broken much like the fluid water can never snap. And it's this burning flame behind his failed flirting that pulls you in, the sparks of his passion that slip through that make his lame lines actually work, that make him so enticing.

[mary-is-writing]

Patreon, moving and trying stuff for the heck of it

The tl;dr is that my writing and tag games are moving to Patreon, for free. I'm still using this blog as my main and a writeblr. You'll likely won't see more writing here but you'll probably see lots of links to patreon posts. Since I'm new to Patreon, I'm open to advice about how to use it, if I should use it at all, and anything else. More details under the cut owo)/

You probably know that they've started approaching AI in here, which is a big turn off for creators. It's me, I'm creators.

While my main blog here works both as a personal and a writeblr, I've been thinking if, how and where will I migrate my writing to, specifically excerpts and small stuff like writing related tag games. After thinking for a while and getting reassurance from some writer friends, I've decided to migrate it to Patreon.

What does that mean? I hear you ask. It means that all the excerpts, character designs and art related stuff of my wips that would've been shared directly to Tumblr will now be shared directly there. Other stuff like updates on the state of the writing progress I'm making, that's not my writing itself, will most likely continue to be posted on Tumblr since that's kinda the only social platform I use.

So it'll be behind a paywall? You may wonder. No, it will not: all of those things I mentioned earlier (excerpts, lines, character designs and more) will be free to read and see for everyone. After all, they'd be free if they were in Tumblr, so I want to keep it like that.

You won't post them in Tumblr anymore, then? Like I said, no; not directly at least. I plan to try and see how it goes with me linking the patreon post to my Tumblr every time I upload there. It may be redundant to do all this just to post it here anyway, but it's a way to avoid the Tumblr AI that makes me feel more at peace than just an opt-out button.

What about writeblr tag games? A valid question, in a lot of those you have to share your writing. For now my plan is to do them in bulk so I can have one big post with all of them there, every other month or so, instead of a lot of tiny ones, and then link it over here. I think that'll work better, and it'll also give me time to stock on them. In other words, wether we're mutuals or not here, please tag me in things!! It'll take a while, but I promise I'll get to it. Eventually.

Why Patreon though? Well, I don't need to tell you that we live in capitalist times, and as a recent college graduate without a job that wants to be an indie writer, Patreon is a good option for me to make some sort of revenue. However, I don't work fast enough to show stuff on Patreon as rewards on a regular basis, that is, if you don't count stuff like small excerpts and tag games (which are sometimes one and the same), nor do I have a massive following that'd be willling to wait more between rewards. This is the second reason why I decided to migrate things there; first, to avoid the AI; second, to have something to show for my writing and do a little nudge to say Hey, if you like what you read, there's a way right here to support me so I can continue it. I could use other platforms like Ko-Fi, but if I'm gonna put time into something that allows me to earn some spare cash, I prefer it to be the one that'd let me have those earnings on a more regular basis.

Unless Ko-Fi has changed how it works, in which case I'll be checking it out later.

I don't have a set goal nor does my income currently depend on this, so I think it's a good time to start posting things to a Patreon without stressing myself that "it has to work". In the end, this is all just me trying things around to figure out what works and what not. If it doesn't work and people don't want to do an extra click to read my stuff, like I said, it's not like there's a lot of pressure on me right now. I've had a few years living with a Just Do It mentality and this is a extension of that, so for now I'll try this out, see where it goes, and how it develops.

I have a few things to tweak and prepare for the Patreon page to be ready for launching, so if you have any suggestions about how to use Patreon or if my approach is wrong and you know a better platform for this, please do tell me! Like I said, this is all just trial and error, so I'll learn as I do.

Thanks for reading!!

[withlovelunette]

Hey! do you have any tips on assessing your own writing better? Im fairly new so I can't tell if what i write sounds decent or amateur (I am an amateur so it probably does sound that way but still)

Hello there! A perfectly valid question regardless of skill, this can be tricky for anyone if you ask me :,)

Read it out loud!

This is definitely my number one tip to check if my writing sounds clunky and if it flows well. In my experience, when I’ve been working with my own writing for long amounts of time, there comes a point where my internal monologue kinda just skims what I’m reading. I don’t pause as much when I come across punctuation when I read it in my head vs when I read it out loud. Try to read it out loud as if you’re reading it to someone else (or even read it to someone else if you’re comfortable with it!). If you find yourself struggling to get through a sentence out loud, then chances are that something about the word-choice or sentence structure is clunky and wordy (though I’m also the type to just stumble in general when I read out loud; but this is an intuitive thing you’ll be able to pick apart with better accuracy as you learn!)

Take a break!

Step away from your writing!!! How long you choose to step away from your writing can really depend on preference and how much you intend to edit. If I find myself stumbling through my writing but I can’t quite figure out exactly what’s wrong with it, then that’s usually a sign for me to take a break from it for a day or two. A lot of times you’ll be able to troubleshoot your own writing much more objectively when you approach it with a fresher pair of eyes, because you’ve detached yourself from the writing a little bit.

Have someone else read it!

If you’re comfortable and want an even fresher pair of eyes to look at your writing, have someone else read it! Whether they do so out loud to you or just for themselves is a preference thing, I’ve found both to be very helpful in different ways.

When someone else reads your writing out loud, you get to experience what it’s like for someone to read your writing without your voice influencing it. (When I say your voice in this instance, I’m not talking about your literal voice, but rather your “writing style”, preference in sentence structure, word choice, etc. Even when you read your own writing out loud, there’s a chance that you can miss clunky writing because it’s in a “voice” that you’re already accustomed to!) But I understand that it can be scary to have someone read your writing, especially out loud to you, so it's definitely not a method I turn to all too frequently :,)

Focus your nitpicking!

It can be very easy to get caught up with fixing every little problem, especially because there's almost always something that can be improved. However, I think I usually get more out of my own assessments by focusing my nitpicking instead of nitpicking... Everything. That isn't to say you should ignore problems that you come across if it's not part of your primary focus (especially if it's a relatively easy quick fix, like readjusting sentences a little bit). However, when tackling larger issues, like story structure, themes, character arcs, environmental descriptions, etc., it can be helpful to focus on only one thing in the editing process, or you'll easily find yourself lost and disorganised in the process, at least from my own experience ^^;

Read books!

And finally, I highly recommend to read! This is sort of a redundant tip to give, but this really does help me for a variety of reasons. The main thing is that it helps me "escape" my own voice, so when I come back to my own writing, it feels fresher and easier to approach objectively.

The second thing is that you can pick up on a bunch of advice whilst reading without even realising it! It's much easier to assess your own writing if you have something to compare it to, particularly if you're new to writing and might not be as "conscious" of the various writing choices you're making.

Outro

I won't make a very fancy outro, as this answer is long overdue, but I hope these tips were helpful! If there's anything I missed or you want me to elaborate on something, don't hesitate to shoot me another ask and I'll do my best to answer :,D Can't promise it'll be super timely considering my health situation, but I'll try to get to it as timely as I can manage :,) Thank you for the ask and good luck with your writing! <3

[leclsrc]

Your writing is capable of making me cry, laugh, jump for joy. Truly, I didn’t know what it meant to love writing and want to hold it close to your heart till I read your work. I want to ask how you achieve this. How do you write so well? I would love to write like you, and I just want to hear some words of advise, maybe, if you’re willing to give them? 

do u have writing tips for aspiring authors :> how did u get into writing? and get good at it asw?

i will never not feel like i’m the wrong person to ask for writing advice but this ask is so incredibly sweet, and it was one of several asking for advice, and i want to give you anons a bit of what you’re all asking for so i tried my best not to sound too redundant… some of my ideas under the cut :)

i got into writing at a youngish age and probably just got better at it via practice and reading, like many others! writing is definitely a romantic thing for me—not just in the sense that i write romance, but in the sense that for me, writing is and should always come from a place of love. i think all of it should in some way trace back to how we love… i always always try to include a bit of that, and more often i draw from my own experiences and habits, or the people i love and how they speak of/treat/experience love.

in the same vein my experiences always come into play when i write. my love of crosswords, my city, my experiences with boys, female friendships, moving, loneliness, etc—whatever it is, i like drawing from life because it’s an emotion i know and can write the grit of out, narratively speaking

i treat writing like my work is one big vision board… i always scrap and add things at will. i have to suss out passages i know won’t work (and maybe save them for another piece) and add some necessary ones that i find boring to write sometimes.

i love to play with time (this is soo clear i think) i love a non-linear plot, little jumps of time in between as you move forward. on a pragmatic level it works as a context device; on a more emotional level it’s kind of a metaphor for being constantly drawn back to memories that can either encourage the character’s, or keep them from, moving forward — same reason why i like not closing endings. it gives you the opportunity to sit with what you read. AND same reason why i don’t usually do sequels

i am not an outline girl! i’ve tried the schtick a few times, it worked for me until it didn’t. if i do make one, it’s in the middle of writing when i’m faced with a plethora of material that i just need to organize somehow, and i make a rough outline to iron everything out for myself. otherwise i don’t

probably the thing i pay most attention to when i write is dialogue… i like things to sound fluid (esp non-smut because i think with smut u can get away with more suspension of belief haha) and natural and lovely and real, so i take extra time to write stutters/rephrases mid-sentence/um/uh because as opposed to film, u won’t hear them, so i need to convey the emotions somehow! i also love writing out how people talk at the same time, it feels less like a one-on-one, feels realer

if i’m short of inspo i read, i walk, and i listen to music especially movie scores. so impt: i rely more on the instrumental of a song > lyrics when i write. i always imagine: what would i want to play in the background if this scene was happening in a film? i also use pinterest to suss out what an outfit might look like so i can write its description better, a city, a hug, etc

i sincerely hope this was helpful. reading it back, it sounds like an idea dump but i hope it suffices anyway! i’m sorry if i wasn’t more technical!

[erabundus]

@vitreousmortis &&. said... I have stumbled upon your account on Tumblr for as long as I could remember and reading your works truly amaze me. I was hoping to ask if it is alright for me to inquire a bit of your time and ask for some writing advice? Thank you very much!

thank  YOU  so  much,  honestly?  i'm  really  happy  you  enjoy  what  i  post  here  —  i  can't  overstate  how  flattered i am to hear that!  i  love  having  the  opportunity  to  meet  so  many  cool  writers  who  share  a  passion  for  this  niche  little  hobby,  and  i  also  love  knowing  there's  people  out  there  who  genuinely  enjoy  the  stories  we  create  together.  i  just  think  it's  neat  knowing  something  that  makes  you  happy  also  makes  someone  else  happy.  that's  probably  why  i  prefer  roleplay  to  writing  fanfiction  —  i  have  a  lot  of  fun  with  the  interactive  /  collaborative  element.

my  babbling  aside ...  as  far  as  writing  advice  goes,  i  think  the  most  important  part  is  probably  having  the  voice  of  your  character  down  —  and  everything  else  will  sort  of  fall  into  place.  i've  always  been  deeply  fascinated  with  speech  patterns,  vocabulary,  etc  —  i  feel  like  it  really  helps  give  you  a  lot  of  insight  into  how  a  particular  muse  ticks.  i  like  to  read  over  canon  dialogue  often,  and  sometimes  i'll  compare  it  to  my  own  writing  just  to  make  sure  i'm  staying  on  track.  (  i  think  at  this  point  i  could  probably  recite  wanderer's  voice  lines  from  memory.  )  sometimes  i  also  take  it  a  step  further  and  try  to  weave  that  tone  into  the  narration  as  well.  a  lot  of  my  posts  on  this  account  are  rife  with  metaphor  and  a  somewhat  antiquated  vocabulary  and  tend  to  veer  more  towards  the  pessimistic  /  cynical  side  of  things  —  that's  because  it's  all  supposed  to  be  from  ren's  perspective, and that's just how he thinks.  i've  written  other  muses  before  that  are  considerably  less  grim  and  adjusted  how  i  write  accordingly.

on  a  more  technical  note!  another  way  to  make  your  writing  flow  better  is  to  shake  up  your  word  choice  —  avoid  redundancy  like  the  plague.  "the  glass  door  was  made  of  clear  glass,"  sounds  clunky!  i  try  to  reread  everything  at  least  once  before  i  post  it  just  to  make  sure  i  don't  keep  using  the  same  phrases  over  and  over  again.  if  i'm  describing  a  forest,  i  don't  want  to  use  "green"  every  sentence.  if  you're  really  stuck  on  a  particular  word, try googling  synonyms!  rearrange  things  a  little  —  look  over  what  you  have  and  think  about  how  it  flows.  writing  has  a  certain cadence  to  it  the  same  as  speech  does;  that's  why  people  often  recommend  you  recite  what  you've  written  out  loud.  

in  a  similar  vein,  i  also  like  to  break  up  dialogue.  having  a  muse  blurt  out  a  whole  paragraph  of  text  can  be  a  chore  to  read  through.  even  if  it's  a  very  speech-heavy  scene,  there's  still  ways  to  make  it  a  bit  less  bland  while  doubling  as  a  way  to  better  flesh  out  the  character.  what  are  they  thinking?  what  is  their  body  language  like?  their  tone?  if  you  want  to  go  even  further  with  it,  everyone  has  their  own  quirks;  do  they  have  any  particular  habits  they  fall  into  under  certain  circumstances?  biting nails, fidgeting, etc? to use him as an example ( again, oops ) ren  tends  to  hide  his  face  when  he's  upset  or  feeling uncomfortable. it gives me a lot of room to play around with — how does his behavior change if he doesn't have his hat? removing it can be used as a visual metaphor for him allowing himself to be vulnerable around someone else ... and so on.

also,  it  may  be  something  of  a  cliché,  but  practice  genuinely  does  help!  i  started  writing  on  tumblr  ages  ago,  and  the  difference  is  like  night  and  day.  keep  at  it,  and  you'll  eventually  find  your  style.

i hope this was useful!

[zaptap]

uhhh i just bought a second gamecube lol

like. my gamecube is a dol-101 which means it doesn't have a digital out port (which means converting it to hdmi is always going to look like shit) and i've wanted to get it modded to add the port but that seems to be impossible at least for the time being (the kits have been sold out for so long and now the one site selling them seems to have taken down the listing. plus on top of that i'd have to have someone do it for me and idk where to go for that either) (from what i can tell getting a modchip added also seems trickier than on a dol-001?)

most of the advice ive seen for this situation is "just get rid of it and get a dol-001" which is uh. not the point. this is my childhood gamecube i want to keep using it. it's also a perfectly good console so it's annoying to see people so eager to just throw them aside

but i looked... and for just $100 i found a dol-001 that was already modded with picoboot (ipl replacement that makes the console boot into whatever you want) and they refurbished it (cleaned all the parts, recapped the motherboard which according to them will extend its life by 25 years). disk drive doesnt work but with picoboot that's kind of unimportant. seller seems to be pretty reliable too, they have almost exclusively good reviews going back to 2016

feels a little redundant to get a second gamecube, especially since i can technically already get a digital signal out of natively run gamecube games on my wii u and wii... it does add that to the game boy player though (also: with picoboot you can set a button to hold to automatically boot into the game boy interface, which btw is the homebrew replacement for the game boy player software that does a better job displaying the games apparently). also been thinking about getting a gba flashcart anyway (ez flash omega definitive edition) to add more to that

also my experience using nintendont on my wii u has been kind of awkward. you have to go all the way into wii mode and the homebrew channel and nintendont and then pick the game (sure, injects are a thing, but i've tried a few and they all black screen, and i've tried everything the devs of the inject program, uwuvci, say to do to make them work--and they also say for some people it just doesn't for some reason and nobody knows why). sometimes i get in there and it gets some kind of error and i have to start all the way over. meanwhile modded gamecube boots into swiss and you pick a game from there and that's it

the drawback is that since you're loading from an sd card (either in a memory card adapter or in a serial port 2 adapter, they're functionally the same) there's compatibility issues since it can't always read from there fast enough to run the game full speed. however there's also something called the M.2 loader coming that'll be able to load the data faster (from the ssd you attach to it). you plug it into serial port 1 (where the broadband adapter would go). but anyway if there are any games that don't run right booted from the sd i could probably just do them on the wii u or wii instead

anyway. my hope is that someday i'll be able to get my original gamecube modded (and then either sell this new one or give it away i suppose?), but it's good to have a backup

and it's not like gamecubes are going to get cheaper, probably, so getting that now is good i guess? like. that's a really good deal .a gamecube that's pre-modded and refurbished and apparently comes with an sd card? (the seller casually mentioned they could include some games if asked. the only way to run games on this one is through an sd card, so those would have to be iso files. on an sd card. if theyre giving me the card already then copying files doesnt cost them anything. so maybe there's a card in there). anyway yeah all that for $100. pretty good i think

well. maybe someday as they become more scarce people won't be so quick to abandon dol-101s and there'll be more resources for modding them

[starlightkun]

okay but what if changer is my favourite starlightkun fic ever. what then 😳

also me the moment sungchan says he does astrophysics:

WE GOT IT! WE GOT IT EVERYONE, THE STARLIGHT IN THE STARLIGHTKUN, THE MEL SPECIAL, ONE STARGAZING DATE™ COMING RIGHT UP!!!

also y/n being absolutely so done with hyuck and jaemin is hilarious like when they're at jenos party and shes like is this chenles doing? no the terrible duo woke up again this morning and decided to make it my problem i see i see. or when shes trying not to ✨romance✨ sungchan and is like yeah i can say this to my pals. i could say this to shotaro and jaemin because they're both my pals. maybe not hyuck tho idk the vibes are off

no but genuinely this is one of my favourite fics you've ever written, it feels so natural and the way you wrote sungchan makes me feel so warm and fuzzy (i love finding people as insane about him as i am) i want to be there. also the denim baseball caps with lavender embroidery???? so fucking cute holy shit.

honestly with this pair i could see them pulling a tdhea and start dating but decide not to tell jaemin, hyuck or shotaro. like shotaro sees her walk out of sungchans bedroom in the morning and hes all 🤨 and y/ns like "studying werewolf anatomy is so HARD 🤪🤪🤪 thankfully sungchan is such a great teacher and goes slow at first so i can get the hang of it" like really fucking with them as payback for their meddling. or sungchan going up to hyuck and jaemin lamenting about his unrequited love and asking them for advice on what flowers to give someone who doesnt like you back and the dryads are like 🥺🥺 but they do like you back and sungchans like 😓 i am a man with faults, i have made mistakes 🤧 and i am not worth the pain or suffering 🫡🥲💀 like really playing into his loserboy potential

anyways thats all lives were changed, changer changed lives

-✨anon

omg 😳 ur fave 🥺🥺

and literally me writing any sort of learn'ed man who knows things about the stars like....at this point its inevitable its a canon event that i cannot interfere with in every single universe i will write a stargazing date like ajsfgjdfgkjg;; anywayyyy i hope they've all been different enough to not be too redundant??? or i hope that yall at least like stargazing dates too lmao

the rest of my response got sooo long and contains minor/vague changer spoilers so it's under the cut :)

dryad!hyuck: *exists*

half of the characters in the strawbsunday universe: idk the vibes are off

and im fr soooo glad there's one other person out here that's unwell in the head abt jung sungchan. im on my sungchanist shit 24/7 lately like between changer pt 1 being 22k, phantasmagorical pt 1 being 21k, and the both of them having pt 2s in the works........ im down bad and im never getting back up im telling u 🫠🫠

nahh bc if hyuck had to deal with ANOTHER oblivious (or "oblivious") pair after woos x strawbsunday reader and sungie x tdhea reader (bc in my canon timeline that i keep in my notes, changer does take place after both of those) he would literally kill somebody. like somebody would Die. he wouldn't bother beating around the bush either. he'd just sit the both of them down and very calmly say "you two have big fat stupid crushes on each other and if you don't fucking admit it im going to walk outside and commit vehicular homicide right now" with one of his eyes twitching. my bestie would be Fed Up. like sungchan x changer reader were only safe bc hyuck wasn't as good of friends with sungchan but if they pulled THAT shit they wouldn't be spared twice

NAWT the werewolf anatomy 😭😭😭 poor taro their rooms share a wall....... but, you know, reader IS an MCS student, and "there's so little literature on half-werewolves, it's a fascinating opportunity to get hands-on experience and research— hey taro why are you running away i haven't even told you about my thesis question yet"

also i agree w u that i could totally see changer reader and sung trying to pull a tdhea (with it being either one of their ideas tbh, they'd both think it would be hilarious), but werewolf sungchan is way too much of a simp (affectionate) and ruins it almost immediately. it's day 2 and they arrive separately to a movie night at jeno and jaemin's and reader is trying to ~coyly~ sit just close enough to sungchan on the couch but he's just so excited to see them he's like "oh hi baby!!" and pulls them onto his lap and and kisses them in front of EVERYONE. and their friends r all just like. "uh, fascinating way to tell us that ur dating, guys. cool." bc they all think that it was an intentional grand reveal and not sungchan royally fucking up them keeping it a secret [not canon but hilarious to imagine]

ALSO also your imitation of sung "😓 i am a man with faults, i have made mistakes 🤧 and i am not worth the pain or suffering 🫡🥲💀" had me cackling at my desk at work today like so true he IS loserboy (beloved) but we have not yet witnessed his peak simp behavior nor his peak loserboyness

[halfcrackedguru]

A Message From the Universe ~ Get 'Er Done

A Message From the Universe ~ Get 'Er Done, Multiple Wild Unknown Pocket Tarot Cards Today’s Message from the Universe urges you to take action. It seems that you have a lot of things going on in your head regarding choices about what you’d like to or need to work on at this time. You may be quite overwhelmed, not knowing where to start even if you do know what you’re working on. It’s possible that your intuition is trying to give you an idea of which direction to go but you’re having a hard time hearing it over all the chatter and clutter going on in your brain. You may also be ignoring your intuition because your approach is quite different from how others might think it should be done. I once worked in a job as the head of a program for our top client. How we were doing things was a complete mess, not even slightly efficient, but I was told that I could not change a single thing. Of course, I needed to get my bearings a bit and have a little time to get to know my client but I ended up changing our whole process and doubling the amount of work we were able to do for them in the first year. The people who told me not to change anything had no idea how anything was done before or after until I told them about it. People, especially in the world of business, don’t like change no matter how beneficial it would be for them. Obviously, there will be plenty of times when you won’t be able to initiate the change you know is necessary, like trying to get a place to digitize and/or automate some of their processes - they love their paper and redundancy! So use discretion when implementing changes that might involve others, otherwise, just give it a go! If this is something you are doing just for yourself, then the advice is to do it in the way that feels most natural to you. Take into account the examples and advice from others but don’t consider that the way things should be done, just use it to enhance your own process. TODAY’S CRYSTALS: - Tiger's Eye - Jade - Moss Agate TODAY’S DECK: - Wild Unknown Pocket Tarot CHECK OUT THIS DECK: - Angels of Atlantis Oracle TODAY'S MUSIC: - Foo Fighters, I Should Have Known - Lauren Hill, Can't Take My Eyes Off You Thank you! Your tips and donations help to pay for the website and other costs that help me to bring these messages to you :) Read the full article

[prophedis-stiction]

Writing Initiative #6

Which piece did you present to the class today? How does it relate to the other pieces previously presented?

I presented process for my Mitten (4D project). This project relates more to my reflective piece than my 2D or my 3D because while those projects are extremely abstract ways of experiencing stiction. I went a little more literally with this project by taking a fashion object that has specific usage and added stiction in various ways to deliver my narrative.

Describe 2–3 specific strengths your classmates found in your work and their reasons for identifying them.

Gaia and Sonya talked about how they enjoyed my mitten because Gaia actually had marking on her skin from putting the glove on.

Describe 1–2 specific ways your classmates thought you could improve this work going forward.

I remember showing this to someone and they suggested that I try to download patterns from online and cut my materials accordingly because my mittens were more oven mitt like than anything else.

I was stubborn and wanted to go through the process of figuring it out so I did not follow this advice. I would definitely get some patterns for the next time I will be making anything because it only make sense. Especially as a beginner, those patterns were made by people who understand garments so much more than I do.

Consider the remaining outcome yet to be presented in a couple of weeks; why have you put it off the longest? Describe your reasons for presenting this outcome last.

I have been putting off my 3D and reflective piece for very specific reasons that vary from each other

I have been putting off my 3D because I basically have one shot at doing this because I am ruining a white crewneck if I fail. So I wanted to make sure I was taking the right decisions in terms of composition colour and making sure the stiction aspect was strong enough.

I have been putting off my reflective piece because I was spending a lot of time wondering how I an be purposefully redundant in the ways that my viewer will be experiencing stiction. I was also spending a lot of time wondering how I can bind my book unconventionally.

All my pieces are grounded in how humans are with themselves and how their interconnectivity. My 2D is about mental health and the loss of mind, my 3D is about how we are the sum of the people we are closest to and how the people that touch our souls impact the way we are. Literally leaving imprints on us. My 4D is about how we need to move away from situations that make us feel uncomfortable and get rid of the people that hurt us.

With that logic, I wanted my reflective piece to reflect on the ephemeral relationships that happen in our lives. Some relationships wether they are significant or not live and die for very short periods of time. Those relationships also give meaning and importance to relationships that are ever lasting kind of like how the bad days give meaning and some kind of wonderful feeling to those beautiful euphoric days.

Finally, you have now had a chance to present each of your projects (2D, 3D, 4D, Reflective) in process to the class. Produce an image of each one and describe how an aspect of your word is manifested in each piece.

I think that I gave meaning to the stiction relationship narrative in the previous question but to resume,

2D: The relationship of stiction between the body and the mind if the body had material characteristics.

Stiction and Van Deer Waals forces

3D: What is leftover from surfaces interacting with each other

4D: increasing the stiction between two objects by adding the latching system of velcro to items that we are very accustomed to so that they can communicate a story

Reflective: although I previously wanted my piece to be ephemeral, I changed it into showing various ways of experiencing stiction or augmenting the stiction between surfaces

[duckprintspress]

How to Edit an Over-Length Story Down to a Specific Word Count

One of the most wonderful things about writing as a hobby is that you never have to worry about the length of your story. You can be as self-indulgent as you want, make your prose the royalist of purples, include every single side story and extra thought that strikes your fancy. It’s your story, with no limits, and you can proceed with it as you wish.

When transitioning from casual writing to a more professional writing milieu, this changes. If you want to publish, odds are, you’ll need to write to a word count. If a flash fiction serial says, “1,000 words or less,” your story can’t be 1,025 and still qualify. If a website says, “we accept novellas ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 words,” your story will need to fall into that window. Even when you consider novel-length works, stories are expected to be a certain word count to fit neatly into specific genres - romance is usually around 80,000 words, young adult usually 50,000 to 80,000, debut novels usually have to be 100,000 words or less regardless of genre, etc. If you self-publish or work with a small press, you may be able to get away with breaking these “rules,” but it’s still worthwhile to learn to read your own writing critically with length in mind and learn to recognize what you do and do not need to make your story work - and then, if length isn’t an issue in your publishing setting, you can always decide after figuring out what’s non-essential to just keep everything anyway.

If you’re writing for fun? You literally never have to worry about your word count (well, except for sometimes in specific challenges that have minimum and/or maximum word counts), and as such, this post is probably not for you.

But, if you’re used to writing in the “throw in everything and the kitchen sink” way that’s common in fandom fanfiction circles, and you’re trying to transition only to be suddenly confronted with the reality that you’ve written 6,000 words for a short story project with a maximum word count of 5,000...well, we at Duck Prints Press have been there, we are in fact there right now, as we finish our stories for our upcoming anthology Add Magic to Taste and many of us wrote first drafts that were well over the maximum word count.

So, based on our experiences, here are our suggestions on approaches to help your story shorter...without losing the story you wanted to tell!

Cut weasel words (we wrote a whole post to help you learn how to do that!) such as unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, the “was ~ing” sentence structure, redundant time words such as “a moment later,” and many others.

When reviewing dialog, keep an eye out for “uh,” “er,” “I mean,” “well,” and other casual extra words. A small amount of that kind of language usage can make dialog more realistic, but a little goes a long way, and often a fair number of words can be removed by cutting these words, without negatively impacting your story at all.

Active voice almost always uses fewer words than passive voice, so try to use active voice more (but don’t forget that passive voice is important for varying up your sentence structures and keeping your story interesting, so don’t only write in active voice!).

Look for places where you can replace phrases with single words that mean the same thing. You can often save a lot of words by switching out phrases like “come back” for “return” and seeking out other places where one word can do the work of many.

Cut sentences that add atmosphere but don't forward the plot or grow your characters. (Obviously, use your judgement. Don't cut ALL the flavor, but start by going - I’ve got two sentences that are mostly flavor text - which adds more? And then delete the other, or combine them into one shorter sentence.)

Remove superfluous dialog tags. If it’s clear who’s talking, especially if it’s a conversation between only two people, you can cut all the he saids, she saids.

Look for places where you've written repetitively - at the most basic level, “ ‘hahaha,’ he laughed,” is an example, but repetition is often more subtle, like instances where you give information in once sentence, and then rephrase part or all of that sentence in the next one - it’s better to poke at the two sentences until you think of an effective, and more concise, way to make them into only one sentence. This also goes for scenes - if you’ve got two scenes that tend towards accomplishing the same plot-related goal, consider combining them into one scene.

Have a reason for every sentence, and even every sentence clause (as in, every comma insertion, every part of the sentence, every em dashed inclusion, that kind of thing). Ask yourself - what function does this serve? Have I met that function somewhere else? If it serves no function, or if it’s duplicative, consider cutting it. Or, the answer may be “none,” and you may choose to save it anyway - because it adds flavor, or is very in character for your PoV person, or any of a number of reasons. But if you’re saving it, make sure you’ve done so intentionally. It's important to be aware of what you're trying to do with your words, or else how can you recognize what to cut, and what not to cut?

Likewise, have a reason for every scene. They should all move the story along - whatever the story is, it doesn’t have to be “the end of the world,” your story can be simple and straightforward and sequential...but if you’re working to a word count, your scenes should still forward the story toward that end point. If the scene doesn’t contribute...you may not need them, or you may be able to fold it in with another scene, as suggested in item 6.

Review the worldbuilding you’ve included, and consider what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. A bit of worldbuilding outside of the bare essentials makes a story feel fleshed out, but again, a little can go a long way. If you’ve got lots of “fun” worldbuilding bits that don’t actually forward your plot and aren’t relevant to your characters, cut them. You can always put them as extras in your blog later, but they’ll just make your story clunky if you have a lot of them.

Beware of info-dumps. Often finding a more natural way to integrate that information - showing instead of telling in bits throughout the story - can help reduce word count.

Alternatively - if you over-show, and never tell, this will vastly increase your word count, so consider if there are any places in your story where you can gloss over the details in favor of a shorter more “tell-y” description. You don’t need to go into a minute description of every smile and laugh - sometimes it’s fine to just say, “she was happy” or “she frowned” without going into a long description of their reaction that makes the reader infer that they were happy. (Anyone who unconditionally says “show, don’t tell,” is giving you bad writing advice. It’s much more important to learn to recognize when showing is more appropriate, and when telling is more appropriate, because no story will function as a cohesive whole if it’s all one or all the other.)

If you’ve got long paragraphs, they’re often prime places to look for entire sentences to cut. Read them critically and consider what’s actually helping your story instead of just adding word count chonk.

Try reading some or all of the dialog out loud; if it gets boring, repetitive, or unnecessary, end your scene wherever you start to lose interest, and cut the dialog that came after. If necessary, add a sentence or two of description at the end to make sure the transition is abrupt, but honestly, you often won’t even need to do so - scenes that end at the final punchy point in a discussion often work very well.

Create a specific goal for a scene or chapter. Maybe it’s revealing a specific piece of information, or having a character discover a specific thing, or having a specific unexpected event occur, but, whatever it is, make sure you can say, “this scene/chapter is supposed to accomplish this.” Once you know what you’re trying to do, check if the scene met that goal, make any necessary changes to ensure it does, and cut things that don’t help the scene meet that goal.

Building on the previous one, you can do the same thing, but for your entire story. Starting from the beginning, re-outline the story scene-by-scene and/or chapter-by-chapter, picking out what the main “beats” and most important themes are, and then re-read your draft and make sure you’re hitting those clearly. Consider cutting out the pieces of your story that don’t contribute to those, and definitely cut the pieces that distract from those key moments (unless, of course, the distraction is the point.)

Re-read a section you think could be cut and see if any sentences snag your attention. Poke at that bit until you figure out why - often, it’s because the sentence is unnecessary, poorly worded, unclear, or otherwise superfluous. You can often rewrite the sentence to be clearer, or cut the sentence completely without negatively impacting your work.

Be prepared to cut your darlings; even if you love a sentence or dialog exchange or paragraph, if you are working to a strict word count and it doesn't add anything, it may have to go, and that's okay...even though yes, it will hurt, always, no matter how experienced a writer you are. (Tip? Save your original draft, and/or make a new word doc where you safely tuck your darlings in for the future. Second tip? If you really, really love it...find a way to save it, but understand that to do so, you’ll have to cut something else. It’s often wise to pick one or two favorites and sacrifice the rest to save the best ones. We are not saying “always cut your darlings.” That is terrible writing advice. Don’t always cut your darlings. Writing, and reading your own writing, should bring you joy, even when you’re doing it professionally.)

If you’re having trouble recognizing what in your own work CAN be cut, try implementing the above strategies in different places - cut things, and then re-read, and see how it works, and if it works at all. Sometimes, you’ll realize...you didn’t need any of what you cut. Other times, you’ll realize...it no longer feels like the story you were trying to tell. Fiddle with it until you figure out what you need for it to still feel like your story, and practice that kind of cutting until you get better at recognizing what can and can’t go without having to do as much tweaking.

Lastly...along the lines of the previous...understand that sometimes, cutting your story down to a certain word count will just be impossible. Some stories simply can’t be made very short, and others simply can’t be told at length. If you’re really struggling, it’s important to consider that your story just...isn’t going to work at that word count. And that’s okay. Go back to the drawing board, and try again - you’ll also get better at learning what stories you can tell, in your style, using your own writing voice, at different word counts. It’s not something you’ll just know how to do - that kind of estimating is a skill, just like all other writing abilities.

As with all our writing advice - there’s no one way to tackle cutting stories for length, and also, which of these strategies is most appropriate will depend on what kind of story you’re writing, how much over-length it is, what your target market is, your characters, and your personal writing style. Try different ones, and see which work for you - the most important aspect is to learn to read your own writing critically enough that you are able to recognize what you can cut, and then from that standpoint, use your expertise to decide what you should cut, which is definitely not always the same thing. Lots of details can be cut - but a story with all of the flavor and individuality removed should never be your goal.

Contributions to this post were made by @unforth, @jhoomwrites, @alecjmarsh, @shealynn88, @foxymoley, @willablythe, and @owlishintergalactic, and their input has been used with their knowledge and explicit permission. Thanks, everyone, for helping us consider different ways to shorten stories!

[bunny-carrothunter]

Bigslie? (For the domestic ask game!)

YAAASS 😎 MY OTP 💕

Big spoon/little spoon

Big is a big (ha) cuddler so he would unintentionally automatically make Leslie little spoon. Leslie likes the fact he’s just a big pillow.

Favorite non-sexual activity.

Snack dates. Big gets his frozen yogurt and Leslie treats herself to a waffle cone, more often than not trying each other’s flavors with a spoonful. 🍨

Most trivial thing they fight over.

“Shelly, did you buy another set of Squishmallows?” “No.” “Open the closet, then.” “...No.”

Who leaves their stuff around?

Big may drop a squishy bunny around every now and then, but Leslie leaves coffee mugs and pens around from overworking herself and then forgetting about it, to which leads to Big having to remind her to take breaks and has her relax (he almost poked his hand with a pen again).

Who remembers to buy the milk?

Not Big.

Who remembers anniversaries?

Big. Leslie wasn’t into remembering dates or anniversaries prior to being with him. She didn’t have a lot of dates she was particular fond of until theirs and does try to enjoy them. And Big loves any opportunity to buy her a gift.

Who cooks normally?

Leslie. If Big even touches a kitchen, he’s burning it down.

What do they do when they’re away from each other?

Leslie hangs out with her friends Lady Redundant Woman and Ms Question going in girl day/night out, either a shopping or crime spree. At home, she chills on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa working on her laptop or watching her shows.

Mr Big gets dragged into shenanigans by his friend Two-Brains (after the latter learns Leslie is away, and he’s bored) into crime sprees, or just something he wants to do (raid a cheese factory, use his helicopter for a heist, etc). At home, he relaxes surrounded by squishmallows.

Nicknames for each other?

Big tried to use “honey bunny” once and Leslie almost quit for a second time/j

Leslie is more casual about her nicknames, using Biggy, Bigsy (canon nickname she’s used in the doll episode), and dear or darling when she lets herself be affectionate with him.

Big on the other hand, uses every couple nickname there is and extra. “My dear Leslie,” “Leslie, my darling,” “Leslie, my love”, among other phrases that make her blush every time.

Who is more likely to pay for dinner?

They share a wallet/bank account.

What would they get each other for gifts?

Big would at first get her expensive gifts like perfumes, jewelry, exotic flowers, etc. until Leslie tells him he doesn’t have to spoil her, she’s already with him and knows he loves her. That quickly changes when Big somehow manages to get a jewel-encrusted Pretty Princess and Magic Pony figurine for her (a suggestion that was mostly a joke by LRW when he asked her for advice).

Let’s say he very much enjoyed the extra affection the weeks after that.

Who cusses more?

Leslie.

Who made the first move?

Mr Big tried to flirt/drop hints after he caught feelings for Leslie but she was either oblivious or actively ignored any of his possible advances. After all, she was just his assistant, why would he want to get her attention. It’s not like he could ever actually be interested in her, right?

It’s only after he stopped trying due to discouragement from rejection that she finally picked up on it.

Who kissed who first?

Mutual. Driven from a moment they both realize at the same time they saw each other as more than just “partners in crime”.

Who started the relationship?

Both, after agreeing to take things slow given their... complicated positions, but knew they wanted to give it a chance.

Realized it was useless anyway as 90% of the villains already thought they were an item if not married.

I heart them so much ty anon<33

[wunderlustwriter]

y’all i had a dream last night so you know what that means

another george weasley imagine

you and gw got paired up for a research project in potions that you have to work on after class and is due at the end of the week

also, you are the cool edgy half-blood, muggle-born chic ™️ who knows a little bit about everything

oh, and you’re slytherin, ofc

so there’s immediately this tension between you and george bc he’s intimidated by you and lowkey judging bc you’re a slytherin, and you’re on edge bc the slytherin slander is so annoying and you don’t know if the 1/2 of the school’s biggest pranksters can be trusted

but whatever, you two meet at the library after his quidditch practice monday evening and at first both of you just stare at your textbook for a while basking in the awkwardness

eventually you say “Okay what the fuck does half this shit even mean. I feel like I’m reading something written in russian. I mean why do we even have to write a paper about the effects of thistle root on lycanthropes, vampires, and mere-people? Seems kinda niche to me.”

to which george snorts and nods along. “yeah, I think snape just loves to pick the most useless and redundant topics for us to learn about just to inconvenience and torture us.”

“sounds like a sadist to me.”

the two of you start laughing and from there things seem to be less awkward so you both start writing things in venn diagrams and other notes for your paper

nearly half an hour later you start pointing to different parts of a book you’re reading asking him for advice on what it means when he says “wow those are some cool rings you have, where’d you get them?”

then you awkwardly chuckle “uhmmm you know just here and there...” he gives you a look

“honestly?” he nods “most of them i just found around on the ground or at the bottom of the lake. I look for their owners of course, but if i can’t find them i just keep it or give it to someone else. but for the other ones...”

“what, did you rob someone’s grave to get them or something?”

“ha, what no, well not exactly” there’s that look again. “okay okay, so sometimes when I find someone really douchey or bigoted or just an asshole i make it a game to take it off their finger. only if they deserve it!”

“wait so you do that while they’re wearing it.”

you nod “yeah, but like i said only if they’re a douche. like yelling at a kid or about to kick a puppy kind of douche.”

“hmm...”

“what, you don’t believe me?”

“i mean how can you just grab something off of someone’s person without them noticing, do you use your wand or something?”

“no, i’ve actually never tried to magic for that. i usually just create or wait for some kind of diversion, basically anything that attracts their attention, while i quickly grab it. like one time- wait a sec, you’ve got something in your hair.”

after moving a little closer and running your fingers through part of his hair you smirk and hold up your other hand “here’s your bracelet by the way”

it takes a second for him to realize what’s happened as he’s staring at you for a few seconds longer than he should and begins to turn red. “holy shit! how did you do that?”

“it’s all about misdirection, also i think you have something behind your ear” he pulls out a pencil that you tucked in there and just gawks at you while you giggle. “oh and your shoe’s untied.”

“bloody hell, did you use your toes to untie my shoe too?”

“nah i just noticed that’s been untied since you walked in”

you both start laughing, making the librarian shush at you.

“oh you definitely have to teach me that”

still laughing, you nod and respond “one day, but first we need to finish this project.”

when you’re finished for the night you both pack up and head your separate ways

two days later in class a familiar tall red head slides into the seat next to you at your table

“oh, i didn’t realize we were supposed to be sitting with our partners today, i’m sorry.”

“we’re not, i just wanted to sit with you. to learn about your pickpocketing skills, of course.”

“oh nice, i didn’t realize that george told you about that fred “

and with that fred gives you an amused and wide eyed look “uh...” he freezes before turning around and going to his seat while george walks over to you.

“sorry about him. Fred just asked me how my project was going and didn’t believe me when i told him what happened”

“it’s okay, but here’s the parchment i got from his robes, don’t know if you guys need that for later.” you say as you look over your shoulder and wave the paper at fred who starts patting his robes aggressively, looking for the marauder’s map

“Oh, no, yep, mhm, that paper is very important, let me just...” he goes to reach for it in a hurry making you pull it back and question him as his face is closer to yours

“hold on a second, why are you so worried about this paper? what are you two scheming red??” he goes to reach for it again

“hah! wouldn’t you like to know?” fred says from behind you, causing george to shoot him a glare as fred’s grin widens

you’re just about to say something when snape enters the room and ominously stares at the class until everyone sits down and shuts up.

“here’s your paper,” you say when george sits next to you, “just leave me out of whatever prank you two are planning with it please”

“don’t worry love, you’ll be safe this time” he says with a smirk, causing you to blush and take your seat as class starts

the rest of potions goes by as usual, snape almost making someone cry, half of the class imagining 50 different ways to kill him, and him treating all of the pure blood slytherins as if they’re the queen herself

after everyone finished their assigned potion snape tells us to use the rest of class to continue our research project. while everyone else moves to sit with their partners, george turns to you and speaks up “so how did you know the difference between me and fred earlier? not many people do, especially people who don’t know us that well”

“oh, well last night when i was messing with you i noticed that you have some freckles on your neck, but even then i wasn’t really paying attention. I just had a feeling that’s something you two would do so i took a shot and guessed.”

you could see george slightly smile to himself as you both kept talking and turned to work

later that night you were sitting down at the slytherin table with your friends and dorm-mates naiomi and selena [[2 OCs]] for dinner.

the three of you are talking about the charms quiz you just took when you feel a presence come and sit down next to you on your right. when you turn your head you see a very familiar red head grinning at you.

“hey y/n” george says, reaching over your tray and grabbing a bread roll while he leans his back against the table

“uhhh hey Red, what’s up...? you know you’re at the wrong table right?”

“mhm, i know. i just wanted to see you and make sure we’re still on for the project tonight after dinner”

“yup, i’ll meet you at the library” you say raising an eyebrow because something fishy is obviously happening

“actually, i was thinking we could meet at the end of the corridor at 8 and walk down there together, yeah?” he says getting a closer and closer to your face, you’re starting to turn red when you feel his fingers reaching around for your pocket

that’s when you grin and ruffle up his hair with one hand while grabbing his wrist with the other. “how sweet, and awe, look, you’re trying to pick pocket me. you see your diversion was good, not great, but still effective, it’s just your execution that’s sloppy.”

both of you are laughing and george is about to say something when a silver-headed prat interrupts him

“what the bloody hell are you doing here you little rodent blood traitor? don’t you have some kitchen scraps to go eat?”

you watch george’s face falls and hardens as you feel his hand ball into a fist. before he can say or do anything, however, you butt in

“oh piss off and suck my dick malfoy.” rolling your eyes you continue to interrupt Draco while he tries to snipe at you, “and shut it. I really don’t care what lame ass come back you have to say, because, honestly, they’re starting to become downright atrocious. do better. and don’t even think about calling your father to come ‘punish’ me or else i’ll suck his. YUP! THATS RIGHT! YOUR DAD IS A DILF MALFOY. I SAID IT. so Please shut the HELL up unless you want me as your new step mommy to boss you around.”

draco is just staring at you, red faced, wide eyed, and trying to think of a come back. “yup. that’s what i thought. now before you ever open your little trap to speak to me or any of my friends you better think of your dad’s bare naked ass as i’m going down on him.”

he gets up and leaves with his little possy

you’ve attracted the attention of some raven claws behind you and a few slytherins around, but naiomi and selena don’t bat an eye, seeing as stuff like this is normal for you.

george is just grinning from ear to ear and staring at you adoringly “I think you might be my new hero”

you chuckle and shrug your shoulders “i just have to remind draco a few times every year that he’s not invincible and he’s not at the top of the good chain. he should be off of your backs for a month or two now.”

“you, my dear, have just made yourself immune to weasley pranks for the next three months” he says while getting up from the table, still not letting go of your hand. “and i’ll see you at 8” he winks and brings your hand up to his lips for a light kiss before turning around like nothing happened

taglist:

@gaycatlord-stuff

A/N: y’all, the dream i had wasn’t even this part, i just wanted to write something that led up to this one idea i have in my head and i got hella wrapped up in the background LMAO but i’m not mad i really like this. i might even publish part two tonight we’ll see. ALSO i’m sorry i don’t know how to put the “continue reading” button in to make the cover text shorter 💀💀

pt. 2

[amjustagirl]

Hogwarts AU (Haikyuu!!)

feat. Kita Shinsuke

Previously: Miya Atsumu. Miya Osamu. 

Masterlist link here

Warnings: Tooth-rotting fluff

A/N: Any other characters you’d like to see? Send me an ask! 

You knew of Kita Shinsuke, certainly - at least from your gigging girlfriends.

He’s known for his stellar grades (second only to your own) and his reserve position as the keeper on the Hufflepuff team. 

You found him serious and studious when you partnered with him once or twice in class.

But otherwise, you weren’t well acquainted with him. 

That all changed when you were appointed head boy and head girl respectively, and had to share an office for prefectorial duties. 

‘Shall I get started on the disciplinary reports due this week, or draft the allocation of duties for the month?’ You ask him when you met him to split up the work for the first time. 

‘Neither, I’ve done them both’, he replies curtly. A stack of reports in his neat, square handwriting drops in your lap.  

‘Oh’, you say lamely, feeling a little redundant. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with then?’ 

He shakes his head, a clear dismissal as he turns back to his work. 

He’s too high-handed, you complain to your friends. He takes charge of all briefings, tries to refuse your help for most tasks, only accepting when you archly remind him that you’re his peer, not his subordinate. 

He’s infuriating, you continue to complain. He doesn’t have a spark of humour in his eyes when you try to joke around with him, he’s stern and harsh with the other prefects, who all end up protesting to you. And worst of all - his grades are catching up to yours, slowly, steadily - your pride doesn’t appreciate him nipping at your heels. 

 You don’t dislike him. But you don’t like him either. 

That is - until you’re two months into your final year, and you’re off on a solo round one night. 

Your mind was full of the entrance requirements for the Healer course that was just released this evening that you completely forgot where you were (the side staircase between the ground floor and the second floor is tricky, even the first years know that) and stuck your foot right into the vanishing stair.  

It’s a full moon tonight. Your foot is stuck in the stair. All incontrovertible facts. It’s so late that you’ve long given up hope of anyone rescuing you until dawn, so you crouch on the stairs, head huddled in your arms, prepared to camp here until dawn. 

Anyone, that is - save for one Kita Shinsuke. 

He clears his throat, rousing you from your nap, and though you glance up with hope, you end up deflating when you realise it’s him. 

‘You didn’t report back after your round’, he says, the faintest shadow of a smile on his face as he looks down on you, uniform rumpled, eyes heavy with sleep. 

‘I kinda got stuck’, you admit, letting him pull you up, and you mutter a resentful thanks when he frees you from the accursed stairs. 

‘I can see that’, he chuckles, and you blink owlishly. 

Kita Shinsuke, laughing? You must be hallucinating. 

Still, for all his flaws, he’s a gentleman, insisting on walking you back to Ravenclaw tower. It’s such a shock to your system to find that he’s actually human that you find the courage to voice out your long held complaint that he’s not letting you do enough work, that it makes you feel redundant. 

He apologises earnestly. ‘I didn’t mean to do that - I’ve been so used to just tryin’ to do everythin’ by myself that I forget I’ve a partner to help me with this’. 

You accept his apology with a laugh, wishing him farewell and goodnight. 

As you get ready for bed, your face heats up for some reason when you think about him referring to you as his partner. You’re glad he didn't pick up on it.  

------------------------------------

That marks a turning point in your relationship with him. 

True to his word, Kita starts to treat you like his partner in all prefectorial tasks, splitting all tasks equally with you, seeking your counsel when he needs to. And you start to see why your friends giggled helplessly when you told them that he would be head boy, and would share an office with you. 

‘He’s hot!’ They protested, when you scolded them for being silly twits. 

And now, you have to agree - staring shamelessly at the sight of his broad shoulders filling out his quidditch uniform, his light grey hair tousled in the wind as he glides gracefully down on his broom towards you. 

‘Yachi-san forgot to get you to sign the report’, you tell him, waving the sheaf of papers at him. ‘And don’t scold her, she’s still terrified of you’. 

The younger girl still shakes whenever Kita speaks to her, and she even begged you on her knees to seek him out in her stead. You should be the one thanking her, you think amusedly, appreciating the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the proud curve of his neck as he signs the documents, giving you a wave as he returns back to practice. 

Then you discover he’s not as heartless as his demeanor led you to believe. 

‘Kita, what are on earth are you doing?’ You gasp at the sight before you. 

You heard some rustling in an empty classroom, and assuming it to be another amorous couple getting frisky (you would turn a blind eye, really but you’ve had to clean up after them far too many times for you to have lost your patience by now), you kicked the door open, only to be greeted by the absolutely adorable sight Kita Shinsuke surrounded by a whole gaggle of younger students seated in a circle around him. The younger kids giggle, and even Kita breaks into a smile. 

It turns out he’s been tutoring the weakest students in his downtime because, as he says - magic is hard for those not born into it, like him. Refusing to be left out, you join him in these tutoring sessions, cajoling him to hold it in your office, magicking up beanbags and cushions to make the entire tutoring session a much more comfortable affair. 

‘Well done!’ he exclaims in excitement as the shyest first year succeeds in casting a wingardium leviosa for the first time. 

‘Good work!’ he tells another second year approvingly, as she shows him her top marks for her transfiguration essay. 

Watching him take the whole brood of younger kids under his wing makes you look at him in a different light - a softer light, for the first time. 

------------------------------------

‘Would you like to go to Hogsmeade together?’ you ask him after a prefects’ meeting, as you walk back to your office together to gather your things. You’ve practised far too long in front of the mirror to channel your inner Gryffindor (even though you’re at heart, a studious Ravenclaw) to mess this up. 

‘Sure’, he responds without skipping a beat, and you grin, fist pumping behind his back. 

But when you turn up at Hogsmeade, the entire batch of final year prefects is there too. 

‘It was a good idea to have a batch outing’, Kita says, as he turns around to chat with Kiyoko from Gryffindor. 

Kuroo from Slytherin, who you hear would’ve been head boy if Kita didn’t beat him out, grins knowingly as he notices the lip gloss you used specially for this occasion, and even kind, funny Aran from Gryffindor bumps your shoulder sympathetically as you look utterly downcast for the rest of the afternoon. 

------------------------------------

You’re a Ravenclaw, for Merlin’s sake, so you take a hint, lick your injured pride, and stop any further romantic overtures towards one Kita Shinsuke. 

But when you notice his eyes growing tired, his hand faltering over another report he should’ve delegated to someone else, you shoo him stubbornly out of the office, pertly telling him it’s time to take his own advice and rest - or you’ll write to his grandma, and see if she doesn’t send him a howler to take care of himself. When he’s gone, you promptly take over the report, and in complete defiance of your own words to him, you keep yourself up all night finishing not just that report, but the rest of the reports on his plate for the week. 

It’s what a friend would do, you tell yourself, gritting your teeth and setting your quill viciously on an accounting report that bloody Daishou managed to push off to Kita instead of doing it himself. 

It’s dawn by the time you faceplant into the stack of reports you managed to plow through. 

‘Et tu, brutus’, he mutters when he finds you asleep on the desk the next morning, head still pillowed on the mountain of reports. His eyes crinkle at the edges when he gazes down at you, laughing softly when you shy away from his attempts to wake you.

‘Kita?’ you mumble, when he finally takes hold of your shoulder and gently shakes you awake. ‘Didn’t I tell you to go to sleep?’ 

Wait a minute. Is it morning already? 

You jolt awake, swiping the drool collecting at the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand, flushing red in embarrassment at cool, collected Kita catching you like this. This is a bloody nightmare - you grab at your things, making hurried excuses to leave the room when he catches your wrist. 

‘Would ya want to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?’ 

‘With the rest of the prefects?’ you mumble shamefacedly, not even noticing that he doesn’t let go of your hand. ‘Sure, I guess.’

Kita laughs again. Twice in a day, you note distractedly. Did you miss something in Astronomy class about the stars aligning with Jupiter or something? 

‘Nope, just with me.’ He tugs you towards him, standing so close your ears flame bright red. You’re sure that if he takes a step closer, your ears might explode. 

‘Kita?’ you stammer, unsure if you’re awake or lost in your dreams. 

‘I owe you an apology’, he says, eyes trained on your lips. 

It definitely isn’t a dream because oh Merlin you can feel his breath fan against your lips. 

‘I only realised you were askin’ me on a date the last time after Aran set me straight. And I’ve been waitin’ for the right moment to ask you out to set matters straight.’

‘You don’t have to - ‘ you squeak, but your words are swallowed by his mouth slanting hungrily against yours and oh gods you’re one of those couples you have to book for making out in school, aren’t you - but does it count if you’re doing it in the head prefects’ office - and wait, does this mean you have to book yourself -  

Then you lose all train of thought when Kita swipes his tongue into the seam of your mouth. Clinging to him for dear life, you tangle your fingers in his hair. 

‘I want to’, he promises, when you separate for breath. 

Your mind is still blank as you nod dumbly, agreeing to meet him at the Great Hall next weekend. You’re still touching your swollen lips, completely distracted that you don’t even notice the squeals and whispers in the corridors when he walks you to class, hand in hand.