#i need to finish it but i have a 20k trick fic in my google docs that needs to be finished but theres a chapter where they share everything

[happyvoltz]

thinking about troy and nick sharing clothes (out of convenience/necessity) because nick wears baggy clothes so everything would fit troy and troy’s clothes would be baggy on nick but what’s he to care? he wears baggy clothes anyway

[astronomical-bagel]

🍂 leaves: what does your editing process look like? how does your wip typically change as you work on it?

!!!!!! my guy i am SO glad you asked. i LOVE my organization of my fics. this will probably be a very long ramble LMAO

so: my first step to Actually writing a fic that i am planning on finishing, is laying out the plot in an outline, usually in this form:

If it's not planned out enough to do that, then i need to go back to the Idea stage (aka listening to music and staring at my ceiling for hours) to figure out What Happens. Either that, or i ramble about it on my google docs or at one of my siblings.

after figuring out major plot details, I start mapping out chapters. In my Pirate au from Jan. 2021, I worked on an train-of-thought outline that ended up to be over 20k long, (over 50k if you count the side stories i outlined and the character sheets and everything) and took me several months. That was really fun! but horrible for actually writing the story. It'll probably never get posted, aside from when I get nostalgic and infodump about it. So nowadays, i keep my outlines very simple, and only use train-of-thought for fleshing out an already thought-out plan.

Usually, the pattern goes: Idea stage -> Outline -> Train-of-thought -> Refine outline -> start on a chapter -> listen to music and get more ideas -> have a burst of inspiration at 12 am and train-of-thought an entirely new arc into the story -> try to refine the outline but end up having to start the outline over -> continue to chip away at the most concrete chapters while putting a hold on the more nebulous ones -> repeat the cycle several more times until you are finished writing.

the trick is that, after every time i refine or remake an outline, the changes get smaller and smaller until i have everything locked down in a way that I can write without making shit up as i go. I also dislike writing in order, because that makes me focus too much on wordcount and gradual changes, and ends up spoiling the real heart of my work. i also tend to work on a lot chapters at one time.

I am currently on the third installment of my original outline in my TMA au: this one feels very concrete, unlike the last ones where it was hard for me to visualize an order. I'l give you an idea of what it looks like:

this is just the list of chapters-- i have a nother with notes next to it where i list the general gist of what goes down in it, but i didn't want to spoil too much XD

with my actual *writing* i like to have lots of different docs, all organized into folders. In my priate fic, the project was so big i divided the fic into four quarters to make folders for, and organized the snippets I wrote by determining what quadrant of the fic they were from. I also had a separate folder for my shootoff stories, that all had their own four quadrants, and so on and so forth.

My Tma au isn't as big as the other project was supposed to be, though; i have a folder for my outlines and train-of-thoughts, for my wips, and for my finished chapters.

anyways, ive rambled about this for a suprising ammount of time (I've!!! barely scratched the surface of my amazing fic organizing skills tho!!!btw!!!!jsyk!!!!! and im sleeby now so goodnight

[blau-s]

11, 12 and 22 for the writers ask, please!🐹

Hey! Sorry it took me a couple of days to reply, but I was in post DP depression hell and it took me a while to describe my thought process, but here we are. Thanks for asking, it was fun!

11. Describe your writing process from scratch to finish.

12. How do you deal with self-doubts?

22. How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?

11. Describe your writing process from scratch to finish.

Oh boy, okay. I have to add the disclaimer that this is what works for me, but there are no set guidelines or rules to follow when it comes to writing. And I'm sure that there are more efficient ways to get these stories out of your chest, but here we are.

Also, I'm going to assume that you are familiar with my work because I use them as an example to explain the process.

1) An idea strikes. It usually happens at the most inconvenient times, mainly when I'm trying to sleep or focus on something else.

2)I let the idea marinate (it doesn't let me sleep again). I feel like there are people out there that go for it immediately, but I have to be sure that the story has the potential to go somewhere. I've read plenty of times that it's better if you just write them, but I prefer to have a plan.

3) I write an outline. I try to focus on the main points of the story and how I want the characters to get there. Then, I see if I need to research (that's always a yes). Here is when I estimate how many words is going to take me. Exit Wounds was supposed to be an 8k story, and El Monstruo was originally meant to be a 20k fic. I love to fool myself it seems.

4) I see the topics that I want to address and how to do it. I love working with intertextuality too, EW followed Jonah's story, and EMA continues the theme of the feather pillow.

5) I pick the parts of the list that seem more entertaining and fun to write. Here is when I get in trouble and one of the reasons why EMA is not in chronological order.

6) I get distracted in the process, probably trying to research a cake recipe and I end up on Youtube watching a small documentary about the Dies Irae.

7) Despair and panic.

8) I focus on the parts of the story that stick everything together. This is probably the hardest step.

9) I complain about how hard it is to write and why I chose to do it and why is this my hobby really.

10) I'm more or less done.

11) I edit like there's no tomorrow in whatever word processor I'm using (I've found that changing them sometimes helps to trick your brain into writing in a new environment). Then I paste it to another (for example from Word to Google Docs) because they pick different mistakes and then I use Grammarly.

11) I post, forgive myself for the typos and grammar mistakes that I didn't see, and hope for the best.

12) Despair again.

13) Lately, after a while I edit again once it’s posted. It’s not ideal, but It's easier to spot typos after you forget what you wrote.

And I think that's about it. I'd like to add that the process doesn't always work like this, I wrote the list to make sense of the process, but it's never as structured as it appears to be here.

12. How do you deal with self-doubts?

I don't ahahaha.

Okay but I try to remember why I started writing in the first place, and I try to focus on the reasons that made that idea so important that I had to give it shape. In one of those ao3commentoftheday posts, someone said that no matter what, you are the only person that can write *that* story because the world you could potentially create is as unique as your vision of the world.

In the end, I'm writing for myself, and even though I'm my harshest critic, I am the person that enjoys those stories the most too.

And sometimes, I go back to the comments that some lovely people have left in my works (if there are any), it always helps. That's why supporting your local writer is important, that is, if you can.

(Sometimes, truly is sheer stubbornness).

22. How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?

I would love to say two or three, but after the first, I'm done. And that's mainly because I don't have the time to rewrite 74000 words twice or thrice. With Exit Wounds, I had to write it twice because I had no choice, and I actually think it helped because I could go back and edit some of the parts that didn't quite fit and add other scenes that seemed more appropriate, but that's a luxury I don’t have now.

But the thing is I'm such a slow writer and I overthink so much about what I want to say that I am, at least, okay after the first draft. Then I edit with all my might.

Sometimes, however, when a paragraph doesn't work I write it again under the original version. Then I compare them and see if I'm writing the same thing again and which of them works best.