#i've been outlining and drafting and daydreaming like never before

[transkingcobra]

Just thinking about Nix feeding Little Dove some goopy baby food and she signs "more" as the first thing ever, she's not speaking yet but she figured out that motion means more food

Nix tugging at Diex's shirt to get him to turn around from washing up some dishes or whatever to show him, his baby is signing!

and now he has to finish feeding his baby through happy tears

He's too worked up to leave the house so Diex goes to find Halsin and bring him back, so he can see his baby's first word too

[slayingfiction]

How I push through writing when I don't feel like writing.

Here are some of the techniques that I use to help me write more often or more consistantly when my laziness/depression/anxiety starts to take over.

I watch TV. I don't do it with the purpose of zoning out though. I watch something popular and well-liked such as the LOR or Harry Potter to get new ideas on how I can develop my story and apply their in-depth world-building ideas to help develop mine. Without plagarizing of course!!!!

Zoning out and daydreaming. As I have mentionned before, daydreaming is a huge part of my story outlining and world-building process. I'll stand in the shower, or take a walk and think about how my charcaters would act/react/behave in situations, mundane or not. Doing this gives me a better sense of my characters, and sometimes gives me ideas for scenes I use later on.

Work on writing related projects. These work well at keeping me distracted while still being productive on my writing goals. Example, I have one story I am working now, I made a new language (alphabet and numbers included) to include as a cool and fun component for the book. So, at times when I don't wan't to write, I continue creating the dictionary (very fun, 8/10 would recommend). Also, for the same book, my characters don't work off the Georigian calendar and 24 hour clock, so I've been working at creating a new calendar (harder than it seems, 2.5/10 dont recommend). These are side projects that help my story, without having to write.

Reading. You saw this one coming, I know. Reading is great, especially when you're editing, your writing style will unconsciously change to be more similar the author you were just reading. Also, most importantly, I'll be reading and think, "this story is really good, but you know what story I like even better? Mine." then change to writing.

This one is my biggest life saver!! I learnt about a year ago that sometimes I'll get bored of writing a story, and have difficulty keeping on track. That's why I finished my first book in 2016 and just started editing the first draft last week. The solution for me was to work on multiple projects at once, because it was much harder to be bored of multiple stories. I stick to 2, but will sometimes add a third. This is easy for me, because I have a list of over a dozen series I want to write. Don't abandon one project for another, use them as a distraction/ motivation for each other, so you're always furthering at least one project. I've never heard someone say, "oh no, i accidentally worked on this other writing project for three months instead of the other writing project I was doing. Dammit." No, we're just happy we have written something. Be sure to have well outlined story lines before starting, don't just start writing randomly or you'll reach a point where you don't know where to go from there.

Author/ writer projects. Maybe this is building a following, or community to share your projects and engage with. Tumblr, Insta, Reddit, whatever it is. My hope this year is to start up my website to offer publishing services (editing, graphic design, short writing courses) and build a following as a writer. (See what I did there? Never a bad time to self-promote ;) ) Having your own projects like this will help you in the future when you're going to try to publish and sell your books!

Talk with friends and a writing community. Never underestimate the passion that will burn inside you when talking about your story, or when others are talking about theirs. Surrounding yourself with a positive writing community can be the best thing for you as a writer.

Write or read (your story) every day. I'm not going to be one of those people that say you need to write 1000 words a day, that's a lot. But maybe try for 100? That could maybe only take 5 minutes, and at the end of the year that's still over 36 thousand words of a novel. Or just read your story, and I've always found it helped me get in the creative mood.

Make a playlist of songs that remind you of your characters, your story, or just puts you in the mood to write. Then play it ONLY when you're having trouble writing. Playing it while writing will not help, you'll get annoyed with the songs.

Just really can't do it today? That's okay, take a break. You deserve it. There's always tomorrow.

Does anyone else have ways they push themselves to keep writing? Let us know in the comments!

Happy Writing!

[fazedlight]

20 Questions More

A deeper and more detailed version of the 20 questions for AO3 fanfic writers. Thanks @eqt-95 and @inkedroplets for the tag!!

1) How do you keep getting ideas for your ship/fandom?

Daydreaming. Writing fanfic is secondary to that. It was only in the past couple of years that it occurred to me that I could write some of it down and see what happens.

2) Which authors inspire you in your fandom, and why are they so freakishly good?

@searidings is my absolute favorite, the way she unravels the characters' emotions and angst is absolutely superb.

3) Aside from the characters of your main ship, who are the characters you love to write?

Ohhh I really love this question:

Cat in Inauthentic, as well as this ficlet and this one. I love her sense of humor.

Lillian in Darkness in All Things. For the same reason as Cat, I just love her snark.

Zor-El in Even Though You're Kryptonian. He kind of surprised me when I started writing him, and to this day I don't know if some of his lines are driven by genuine confusion or if he's just trolling.

4) Are there pairings or tropes you know for sure you'd never write about? Which ones?

I'm a never-say-never kind of person. There's a lot that I don't think I would ever write, but I've been surprised on where stories have taken me before, and may be surprised again.

5) What is your writing process and why is it cursed?

"Process" might be an overstatement...

I have a "scribbles" doc where I keep my ideas. I cull ideas often (though ideas often make their way back anyway). As I write more into the doc, a certain idea may get too big for it, so I spin it out into its own doc.

From there, I kind of go back and forward between outlining and writing. I write completely out of order. Which is why, so often, my multichaps are almost fully drafted by the time I publish chapter 1. I've usually already made it to the resolution point of the plot (meaning, no one's in danger anymore, the bad guy is gone, etc), though the final chapter often doesn't get written until later.

6) What is your favorite part of your writing process?

I love when I've finished the first pass of a chapter/one-shot, and I'm in the editing stage. The story really feels like it's coming together at that point, and it's before all the self-doubt starts bubbling up (that hits hard just before posting).

7) What’s the weirdest thing you’ve had to research for a fic?

A friend of mine is a professor in astroparticle physics, so I spent a couple of hours asking him about quantum mechanics stuff. But only a small portion of that ended up being relevant to the fic and the rest was just for fun.

8) Is there a particular writing rule you struggle with (grammar, spelling, tense, reality in general)?

When I'm first sketching out a scene, about half the time I write in present tense (it feels more like I'm writing a play at that point sometimes), but I publish in past tense. So I end up needing to do a bunch of revisions 😭

Also TYPOS.

9) What was your hardest scene to write so far and why?

Fight scenes are ROUGH, man.

This is probably one of those answers I'll change every time depending what's at the top of my mind. But writing out a fight scene - like in Even Though You're Kryptonian, Darkness in All Things, or It's a Metallo Life - gets surprisingly difficult if there are more than 2 people.

I know exactly how I'd shoot those scenes if I had a camera crew, special effects, etc. But it's hard making sure the audience is aware of where everyone is positioned, why they can/can't act in the moment, etc.

10) Have your characters ever done something you didn’t expect, changing your plot completely?

All the fucking time, man. From the very beginning, even. I was trying to have Lena still be angry by the DEO scene in So I Kept Pretending, but that didn't make sense anymore.

I actually recently had a fic idea dissolve because it wasn't vibing with the characters. Which is fine, it became a ficlet instead!

11) If you could converse with any of the characters, who would it be and why?

Absolutely Kara. I have so many questions about kryptonian culture and how it drives her character.

12) What are some of the tropes or themes that you find yourself returning to in your writing?

Trope-wise, I definitely return to the Rift again and again. I find themes around forgiveness and understanding to be really interesting. Can two good-hearted people with conflicting needs hurt each other while still loving each other? How? What does that mean for the aftermath?

I think that's part of what draws me to supercorp - the complexity of their relationship. How they can both be right, and both be wrong, and love each other enough to rebuild from the ashes.

13) What's your most important resource as a writer?

Coffeeshops and libraries. Getting into slightly busy, cozy environments, out of the house, really helps shake loose the stuff in my head.

14) Can you share some of your strategies for editing and revising your work?

Especially for longer works, I tend to put the work down (and circle to other works, or go outside, or whatever) before coming back to it. It helps to step away for a bit - it's easier to pick up on repetitiveness or unclear passages when coming back.

Though I always find mistakes in my stories much later, so I'm not sure I'm one to give advice on this anyway 🤣

15) Which is worse: making the summary, picking the tags, or the anxiety when you post your fic?

Posting anxiety is the absolute worst. If I leave myself in front of my computer I'll end up refreshing constantly waiting for the first kudos (if it's a one-shot or first chapter) or the first comment (if it's a later chapter) to figure out if I've accidentally pissed off everyone in the fandom somehow.

Luckily, my partner will usually pull me away to go on a walk or grab lunch or do something else to take my mind off it 💗

16) How do you define success for your fanfic - hits? Kudos? Comments? Bookmarks? Or just if you like it?

I only publish what I like. Sometimes I'm nervous that other people won't like it, but I will always like it. Stories that aren't going a way I like - even if I think the idea is cool! - will dissolve. Just recently I dissolved one that felt like it was a cool idea, but it didn't make enough sense for the characters.

Kudos and comments always make me feel appreciated as an author!! Sometimes I'll get a user subscriber out of it, too, and it feels like an honor that someone would want to hear from me more than once.

The thing that feels most precious, though, is when someone comments on how something made them feel (I love making people laugh at my dumb jokes, or cry when a story is supposed to hit emotionally), or when they pick up on something that I wasn't sure would get picked up on.

I tend to lean towards understatement in my stories. For me, the biggest success is knowing that someone recognized what I was going for, without me being overt.

17) Do you have a playlist for your favorite character/ship?

Alas, I don't. But given that Kara is canonically a Britney Spears fan and musicals nerd, I feel like my default playlist works 🤣

18) If fan art was going to be made from your work, which fic would you pick and which fan artist would you like to create it?

Oh gosh, I don't want to pick someone and create pressure, or not pick someone and make them feel bad. This fandom has so many great artists!

That said, some of my favorites do commissions, you can see everything I've commission here.

19) How many WIPs do you currently have?

1 supercorp & 1 rojarias (for @supergirlmayhem)

For me, 2-3 is my happy number, so I'm relieved to be down to this after being so high (I think up to 11?) for so long.

20) What's your advice to new fanfic writers?

If you're wondering why you can't find that story you want, it might mean that you're the one to write it 💗

- - - - -

Tagging (respectfully and without pressure) @rustingcat @luthordamnvers @sssammich @tinyvariations @thatonebirdwrites @theredcapeofk @sideguitars @luthordamnvers @mycatismyeditor @inkedroplets @nottawriter @snowydragonscave @jetgirl1832 if you want some rapid-fire q's thrown your way. But also anyone who'd like to do this!

[transmasc-wizard]

hey nico! been a while! i think since around the time i first started following you i wanted to ask how you personally go about outlining your wips! i never used to outline my stuff but recently i've been getting back into writing so i figured i might as well finally ask you for any advice you can give :)

im so sorry if this took me a really long time to answer, my perception of time exploded awhile back and i have no idea how long this has been sitting in my ask box. but on we go

so basically. my outlines. are a mess. but it is a mess with PROCESS so i will try to explain (<- hasn't outlined in like 8 months)

my outlining process always starts with. idea. like a scattered handful of ideas that i have. major themes, the biggest plot point i have in my head, whatever the actual concept is, etc. and then i pull together my characters FIRST. i don't try to outline till i have a good grasp on who those fuckers are (their motivation, main personality traits, biggest fears, what makes them feel safe, main philosophy, style, culture, what's important to them, their approach to other people, what they want, what's stopping them from getting it, that sorta thing). once i've got my blorbos, i take the concept i have and wonder why They're there. i figure out why they're the main characters, basically. what they have to do with the plot. how they get INVOLVED. and with that, i've got my inciting incident (the shit that made them have to Be There and Have/Solve Problems!)

then i decide generally how i want it to end. i need to know where i'm headed. this can change later on somewhat but usually i have a pretty good idea of it. then, extrapolating from my concept, characters, their dynamics with each other, anything i know about the world, that end, and the scattered ideas that i started with, i make like. 5-10 major scenes i want. and i write those down. THEN is the fun part

i open a new document, with all my notes to the side, and make. literally just a list. i list off what i want to happen. i can get really detailed here; i've had like 300-500 words describing a scene before. but, depending on how much i've got in my head, it can be as little as one sentence. i just keep going till i've got a bullet point list of every single scene i want to happen in the book, with all the plots and subplots and arcs and thematic moments, and then maybe go back and flesh some of it out, and then. im Done . and i can start writing ! i don't follow it exactly all the time, and often i add or take away entire scenes while drafting, but like. it gives me a really good road map that helps me stay with a project a lot longer and make the draft a lot neater than anything i just wing.

as for actually coming up with all that plot and subplot and character arc stuff for the list, it's mostly a loooot of daydreaming while drawing or on walks or generally doing something else, and then also letting the parts naturally connect to each other (this is part of why starting with fleshed out characters helps so much; they Are going to do certain things if they're defined people, so coming up with plot becomes much easier).

i hope that ! makes sense ! i am scattered and sleepy ! if you have any follow up questions about my process or if your immediate reaction was "nico what the fuck are you talking about" please feel free to ask !

[jazzythursday]

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

ahhh friend! Hi Sparrow!!!

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

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

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

20) Do you prefer writing AUs or canon fics?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the questions! <3

[transgender-scout]

Question about Volitation (or the writing process of it, I suppose)! It sounds like you've planned out some key pivot points in the story where the dominoes fall exactly where they feel they need to and their consequences seem inevitable and I'm curious how you go about nailing them down! When it comes to planning that sort of thing, character decisions + consequences, do you imagine the consequences first, and then work backwards from there, or do consequences fall into place as you go? Or maybe a mix of the two, or something different?

Haha good question!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m much more of an artist than an author. I only started writing because I wanted to make sure I keep the lore on my ocs in line. So please take everything I say with a grain of salt lol

I have the main points plotted, mostly in terms of what happens to the characters if that make sense?

It's usually kind of a toss up between "this is what I planned on happening the entire time >:)" and "WAIT WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF-"

Sometimes I write out my thought processes through the character, going through their options mentally. If something bad needs to happen, I purposefully leave out them thinking of that option. A lot of the time, it’ll look like this:

I could maybe fly it. But I needed a running start. And I still had almost no practice flying. And I would have to land again, which I was also not good at. I groaned. It sounded easier but there was so much that could go wrong with it so fast. Getting spotted, losing more blood from the extertion of flying, passing out mid-air…

Torture by walking for five blocks it was.

But sometimes the process is like. I have an idea of what bad thing is going to happen and I make a vague outline of how that happens, completely ignore that, and kind of write as I go.

I've been working on and off on Volitation for... over a decade now, so I've had a lot of time to see which plot points work and which don't. There's really only one plot point from the very first draft which will never see the light of day that's still relevant to the story now.

idk haha I spend a lot of time daydreaming about my ocs and the stuff that happens to them. Sometimes it just falls into place and makes perfect sense somehow.

Not sure if any of that made sense but I’m happy to try again if it didn’t! Just shoot me another ask or something :33

[heavenssexiestangel]

Happy STS! What does your planning process look like? Do you have things you typically do to prepare to draft a story, or do you just jump in and start writing?

Hiii I just noticed this ask has been in my inbox for months (since February...)

I kept going "I'll answer it later" and then never did... So I guess it's time... I'm so so sorry for the delay .-.

So, my method has recently been changing, if I gotta be honest. I've usually always started writing after getting a basic idea, and hardly ever wrote down what I wanted to be in the chapter/story. This is because I usually daydream the story before writing it. Lately, I've either been writing down the idea itself with one or two scenes if it's a small story. If it's a multichap, I've been trying out planning before writing! Usually, it's a short outline of the scenes of at least the fist few chapters, and then I keep making outlines while writing the chapters that have already been outlined. This worked really well with Heaven is a Place on Earth, where I outlined all the chapters and even made a whole Notion page for it - which means I'll use the same method for my other long fics from now on before starting to actually write :)

This ask motivated me to write 266 words

Experiement Total: 1410

[ghoste-catte]

I was curious what advice would you give to someone new to writing fics? I've been wanting to get back into it but haven't seriously written something since high school. I hope this isn't an annoying question or anything!

Not an annoying question at all! I'm just a little worried that I won't have terribly good or useful advice. To be honest, I also sort of stopped writing in earnest right as I finished high school, and didn't pick it back up until my late 20s. It's certainly an adjustment! But I think the few things that really helped me get back into writing fic as a hobby and something I spend quite a bit of time on would be:

Write for yourself first, then find your other motivations. My original inspiration in getting back into fic writing was that there just were not that many fics I liked for my favorite pairing, and I wanted more of them, and I especially wanted more with the tropes and characterizations I wanted to see. I think at the very core of anything you need that internal spark that drives you. At the same time, for me at least, if I just relied on my own drive, I would not get much done; I need some external guardrails. So having people send prompts, or writing for particular events, or writing stuff for friends really helps me to get my ass in gear and finish stuff. That may not be the perfect motivator for you, and that's fine! You just gotta figure out what is.

Be open to inspiration. Anything and everything can be spun out into a story with the right tweaking. Obviously stuff like music is a classic inspiration source, but I've also pulled ideas from poetry, from memes, from Reddit threads, from YouTube videos, from rambling conversations on Discord and from real life to make fics out of. So many times, someone will post a silly Twitter screencap, and I'll think, There's a fic in this. And a lot of the time, there is! Research is a wonderful thing, but so is serendipity. If you're out there actively looking for ideas, eventually one that you like will stumble past you.

Find your community. I can genuinely say I never would have finished more than one fic if I didn't have fandom friends to talk to about even stupid headcanons, to bounce ideas off of, and to encourage me (and to encourage them in turn!). Discord has been a godsend, and some of my closest online friends are people I met in the GaaLee discord server. As I've gotten more comfortable as a writer, I've also joined general writing servers and Reddit communities and have found them immensely helpful on both a motivational level (bingos, sprints, owe-me challenges) and on a craft level (plot workshopping and writing ethics and live grammar help). It's a lot easier to think about fic ideas and hash through problem moments when I have a constant stream of fandom-related chatter coming from the little people who live in my phone! Ao3 is an amazing website, and it's great as, well, an archive, but it isn't social media by design. If you want conversation and human connection and cheerleading, you've gotta forge out and find it.

Make it a habit ... If you want to produce anything longer than a couple hundred words, you really have to set aside time for it. And writing is just like knitting or dirt biking or painting little model figurines: the more you do it, the more easily it comes. When I was first getting back into the proper swing of things, I committed myself to 30 minutes of writing per week. Just 30 minutes. I didn't even hit that goal every week, but there were tons of weeks I got on a roll and went over that amount, and by the end of the year I'd written over 200,000 words. I used to spend an hour laboriously tip-tapping out 200 words, but now I can easily blow through 1k in a 50 minute sprint. It's all about training that muscle.

... But don't make it a chore. With fanfic, you aren't doing this as a job, and you aren't ultimately doing it for anyone other than you. That means you can take breaks when you need them, you can set deadlines and then fail to meet them, you can write stuff and then decide to never post it. When you start getting burnt out, when the practice loses the joy and energy, stop. There's no 'hustle' here. In our capitalist society we're so trained to push past our limits and keep going even when it hurts us, but the hobby you do for connection and relaxation and whatever else shouldn't be like that.

Ignore metrics. Sometimes stuff isn't gonna get hits, or kudos, or comments. There are some basic 'rules' as to the stuff that does and doesn't get traction, but every time you post something it's a roll of the dice. If you're focused on watching that kudos counter tick up, you will get bummed out fast. And any writer will tell you that the stuff you think is your best work will never be the stuff that gets the most accolades. So you have to find something else to give you a sense of success. For me, it's watching my wordcount go up in my stats and those occasional comments where someone has a lot to say and that one person who always leaves me a <3 emoji (and, shout out to @egregiousderp, having someone to have long one-on-one conversations with about the stuff that never made it to page).

Don't strive for perfection. It's really easy to want your first ever fic to be a complete showstopper, the best fic fandom has ever seen, hitting all the tropes and the ideas and the characterization that you just know fandom is missing and would be everyone's top favorite if only it was written. This is a trap. No one fic can be all things. Most people who want to write an epic as their very first venture will not see the end of that epic, because they haven't put in the practice hours to make something on that scale work. That's not to say you can't start out with a big, sprawling multichap, just don't expect it to be the greatest thing since sliced bread if you're just starting out, and be okay with abandoning it for greener pastures if you get to that point. Think of the first time someone makes a vase out of clay or bakes a loaf of bread. That's never their best vase or their best bread. If they keep up with it, they'll make more and better vases and loaves. Likewise, your first fic is probably not gonna be your best fic. See it for what it is: your launchpad.

You can't edit an empty page, but you can over-edit a full one. This kind of spins off of #7, but if the words aren't there, you can't fix them. Daydreams and headcanons are fantastic (and god, how many times have I wished for a speech-to-text engine that projected my falling asleep thoughts onto a Google doc for later perusal), but they aren't fic. If you want to write fic, you've gotta get comfortable with the idea of sloppy outlines and rough first drafts. You can't build a house without a frame and you can't build a man without a skeleton (I mean, you can, I guess, but he'd be one floppy man). The nice thing about fic is that it doesn't matter if that frame is structurally unsound or the skeleton has 18 too many bones, you can clean that up in the editing process. But you can't start hanging curtains and arranging furniture in something that doesn't even have walls. That's the process. But! Also know when to set down the editor's pen and say, "Okay, this is good enough for government work", and call it done. ("Done" doesn't have to mean "posted", but it does mean, "I'm done picking at this for now, and I'm gonna go write some more stuff".) Over-editing can make stuff seem laborious and forced, and it prevents you from actually improving. To continue belaboring the house metaphor, you can spend your whole life rearranging furniture in just one room, but the end result of that is a pretty narrow existence and a room with a lot of footprints and tracks in the carpet.

Write shit down. When you have ideas, jot them down--in a notebook, in a Google Doc, in the Notes app of your phone, in pen on the back of your hand. You think you will remember that brilliant line of dialogue or sparkling snippet of narration or genius plot that came to you in a dream, but you Will Not. Write it down. Write it down. Write it down! There have been so many times when a fic was completely saved by past!me having written down my shower thoughts about what happens next in the fic, that present!me had completely forgotten about and was floundering over.

Have fun with it! Try different stuff. Try stupid stuff. Try experimental stuff. Do stuff you've never done before that you aren't sure will work. It's important to get comfortable with your niche (for example, I know I'm never going to be the sort of person who writes intricate plots of intrigue or super long 100k epics or detailed battles), but you can't find that niche unless you explore lots of different niches! Figure out what you love and what you absolutely hate, and then keep doing the stuff you love.

Okay, so that was actually TEN things, but ... I hope you still found this helpful. Feel free to send another ask if any of this was confusing or unclear. Good luck with your fic writing and, if you want, send me a link to what you've written once you've written it! I'd love to read it.

[leyyvi]

ley I need writing advice, how do you write out your stories? Do you just start writing and whatever comes to mind just gets put in or do you write a writing plan beforehand like a summary of what u want to happen

Hmmmm my writing process is like...super erratic tbh. It's a mixture of both honestly. Sometimes I get ideas when I'm out doing stuff and I'll quickly jot down a summary or dialogue for it in my notes to put later in a doc.

IDK if it'll make sense but I've written Paychecks as if I was writing a screenplay or like...episodes for a long running tv show. Every chapter is intended to feel like an "episode" and I usually start thinking of things with dialogue first. A lot of them are just conversations I'd want to have between characters or what I'd think they say.

More below the cut because I have a bad habit of rambling

My process has definitely changed like when I first started writing the story I'd write out entire scenes which were mainly derived from my own experiences, just tweaked a bit. I didn't outline or anything I kinda just....wrote. (I was drafting paychecks for a couple months before I posted the first chapter). I think it was easier for me to sporadically write instead of outline because at the time I was really craving just...going to places? Like travelling and stuff, and I was SO bored at work I'd just start daydreaming 😭 and then my coworkers started talking about sugar daddies (one of them had some experience in that stuff)

I had a lot of stuff just written out of order randomly on this doc (it's got around 90k words on a single doc, never doing that again LOL) but then after a while I started to actually think of a plot and move some scenes around. But for the first several chapters I kinda just rewrote a lot of what I had drafted. Butttt I don't have anything drafted after a certain point anymore so it's more difficult for me to write. It's a big reason why it takes me so long to update now.

But noooow I actually put a very vague outline at the top of my doc for the chapter. I have an idea of what I want to happen for the story as a whole, but there's also a bunch of stuff I add in that I think of while writing. Here's the outline for chapter 16. (Granted some things are changed when I wrote the final draft)

And then I'll usually write out the scenes in that order. Sometimes I have dialogue already for it so I'll start out with that. Dialogue is the easiest way for me to determine how the scene will go (I'm basically talking to myself in my head thinking of them lol). Then I'll add things after that, like what they're doing when they're talking. If I have a thought about some inner monologue or introspection I'll add that too.

If I'm feeling stuck on a particular scene, I may write a summary of it and come back to it later when I have an idea.

Another thing is I have this story planned out in arcs. So there's the beginning arc where Levi and Reader first meet, then the Vegas arc where some sort of connection is established, the Eren arc which is what we're in right now, and then I have another one planned. I found thinking of it in arcs broadens it when I get stuck and helps me see the story and how it's flowing as a whole.

I will say that listening to playlists has helped a lot too. I’ve been listening to the first few songs that I added to my playlist and as weird as it sounds it gave me a lot of...nostalgia of when I first wrote it. It brought back a lot of feelings I had last year when I was writing ;; That and I have a pinterest board for Paychecks Levi and Eren for inspo too and I liked to look through/add to it when I’m not sure on what to write.

Good god this got very long I hope there's an answer to your question in there somewhere lol feel free to ask for clarity on anything! Hope this helped ❤️

[pasiphile]

idk if this is something you've either a) ever felt the desire to talk about (if not, please excuse the curiosity!) or b) talked about before, but how do you go about writing your ep(f)ics? it's one of those things i've always been curious about because there's plenty of chat about how to start an original novel and plot it etc but usually a good chunk of those hypothetical word counts come down to character building, which is less relevant in fic. any thoughts?

I don’t mind at all! Especially because after writing four (five?) of these fuckers I finally feel like I got the hang of how I actually tackle them.

(that is, the general method. If you're asking about knowing what scenes to write/how to decide what actually happens, there I can't help you. Imo, that's just a case of having imagination)

First a caveat, though: I don’t write chronologically. I know people who do, and honestly it seriously impresses me, but it’s not something that I can do. If you can write chronologically, please do, because you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches. But if you’re like me and you just hop around...

So basically I start out with a vague idea. In Laws that was picking up after ACWNR and showing how they got from there to the point at the start of the series, for TVD it was I wanna show Moriarty’s pov for most of the series, and for the Untamed it was what if post-canon someone starts fucking around with the Yin Metal again. Basic, huge ideas, that give me a start, a middle and an ending.

This is also the point where some people outline. Again, if you can, great! do it! give yourself structure! I personally keep trying and it never works so I’ve given up, and try to keep track in my head instead.

Once I’ve got the basic idea, I basically just... start writing. By which I mean, more specifically, that whenever I have a bit of free time I retreat into daydream-land and start imagining things that might happen. Anything might be a jumping-off point there; a thing I read in another story, an interesting meta I read, a detail I saw in canon. Anything that fits the general storyshape. 

(A lot of those scenes start their life in the space before I fall asleep).

The trick after that is to get to a keyboard asap, before I forget what I actually had in mind, and write it down (this is also why fic fragments tend to show up in the notes app of my phone). Once I start writing those down, usually I go beyond what I initially thought of - they write themselves, in a way.

If you do that often enough, eventually you’ll end up with a critical mass of scenes. I do try to put those scenes roughly in the right place, chronologically, but that’s only an estimate. This phase two is basically one giant shuffle game: trying to see which scenes can follow on which, whether there’s a logical connection between them, and then cut-paste and adapt all over the place. 

I don’t actually edit in this phase, to be clear. I might put in a placeholder and a note if I have an idea what needs to show up to make two scenes link to each other, but I don’t go any deeper. At this point, you need a bird’s view on your story.

Once that’s in place, I start the hard work, which is taking those scenes and turning them into a coherent whole. Basically I just start reading at the start (of the story/chapter) and then run through the story as if I’m watching a series. The bulk of it has been written by now, so I now have room to write in the connective bits, the references to previous happenings, more internal thoughts and reflections...

And at the end of that phase, you’ve got something that resembles a (clunky, messy, occasionally weird) story. 

So then I reread. This is usually when the bigger things start showing up, the character arcs and relationship-building. Some of that is already present, but it isn’t until I’ve got the whole thing in front of me that I actually start seeing the patterns. I try not to edit straight in the text at this point (which is why I often put the file in epub on my ereader, so I don’t get tempted) and take notes about general trends. Detailed editing is later.

(sidenote: fanfic needs less character building than original fiction, but you still need character development. if you’re writing an actual long thing instead of series of vignettes or one-shots, the way the characters are at the start can’t be the way they are in the end. Something’s gotta change, both in terms of characterisation as in relationships, otherwise you’re just going to end up with a boring story.)

And once that’s done, the process starts over, basically. Based on the notes, I start writing missing scenes and shuffling around scenes again if needed, and while I’m at it, I also try to edit the more detailed things. Said editing process keeps going until right at the end: I line-edit in AO3 one last time, just before I post, with the chapter copy-pasted from words straight into the drafts there.

Is this an efficient, logical or neat system? Fuck no. But it’s the only one that works for me, and I’ve gotten some good results with it. 

It is, however, a rather intuitive system, because I know roughly how stories work, how tension and character building works etc. When I read, I tend to sense where it needs a cliffhanger, or a spanner in the works, or a big dramatic reveal. If you don’t have that sense (which honestly, I think you can only get if you read/watch/consume shitloads of fiction) you’ll need a way more structured approach - but those have never worked for me, tbh.

TL;DR

Phase 0: have an idea. can be as vague as you want, but try to know the beginning, middle and end of the story. 

Phase 1: just fucking write. give no fucks about writing ‘complete’ scenes, just put it down on the page, even if it’s just a dialogue fragment. try to put things roughly in the right place but don’t spend too much thought on that. Put all your energy into imagining things, and then scribbling them down as soon as possible before you forget them again.

Phase 2: shuffle. Move the scenes around until you’ve got an idea what happens and in what order. Don’t bother edting. Just try to get one coherent plotline going.

Phase 3: read-and-write. Start from the beginning and walk yourself through the story, writing as much connective bits and embellishing everything you can.

Phase 4: read-and-check. Read your story as if you were a reader, not the author, and try to see if it makes sense, what the characters’ arcs are, what the story tension is like, and what’s happening plotwise. 

Phase 5: Adjust accordingly, ie Rinse and repeat.