#my thing is mostly making texts about the technical parts of the narrative (themes/plot choices)

[da-janela-lateral]

Every day I wake up and open Tumblr only to see the most soul-crushing excruciating mind-expanding MP100 meta which explains and elaborates on the emotional complexity of these characters better can my mind could ever conjure in the timespan of 85 minutes of profound reflection. And my brain is pried open with shock because. Where are you guys getting these god-tier interpretations. How can one unlock this kind of transformative epiphany as if they were blessed by the lights of pure undistilled psychoanalysis. And I never see it coming. I thought I knew about these characters before. You guys have some really stupendous analysis skills holy shit I'm reading and shaking. I don't know how to describe my raw reaction to the stuff I've seen, so if you ever receive any kind of note from me on your post, please assume this is what I mean. Keep going on 👍.

[serendipitous-magic]

what's your writing process like? do you plot things out beforehand? or do you sort of write it as it comes? a mix of both?

Depends on what I'm writing!

In general I'm a planner. I can't write from a blank page, unless I'm just like... really really captivated by whatever I'm writing, which was what happened with the first chapters of both The Art of Living Your (Second) Life and The Partnership Plan.

a) In general, if it's a fanfiction I'm writing, I tend to build the plan as I write - meaning, oftentimes I'll be inspired to write the first chapter, and I'll write that with little idea what the rest of it will be. Or, even if I have an idea what the rest will be, it's more of a vague skeleton than a full plan. And then, as I continue to write, I think more about where the story is going and I continuously add to and refine my plan kind of alongside the actual writing. In this way, the plan grows at the same time that the actual chapters do - but because the chapters take significantly longer to write than planning does, the plan outpaces the "real" writing and I usually know the basic story arc from fairly early on. Then it's just a matter of fleshing it out, adding detail, writing down scenes I thought of, etc. And then when I get to that point in the actual writing, I have a framework in place already.

-_-_-

b) Sometimes for fanfic, I have a more complete plan upfront - although I use "complete" here to mean "from beginning to end," not "completely detailed." So, more like a full skeleton than a full body, if that makes sense. I did that with Roll for Strength. What usually happens is that my plan will look something like...

...

Chapter One

-Will suspects Mike has a girlfriend and is kind of put out about it but thinks he's over Mike so he tells himself he doesn't care

-Will walks in on Mike and his BF (name??) and has a crisis (they don't see Will, so Will knows about Mike but Mike doesn't know that Will knows)

-Will might get off to that later, guiltily? (Or move to chapter two)

Chapter Two

-Do Mike's POV to tell about how he ended up dating a guy, how he got very disillusioned with the world after canon events and got into a "fuck it, the rules don't matter and I hate them anyway" mentality, which eventually snowballed into him kind of realizing and accepting his sexuality earlier than usual fanon

-Also introduce BF (name??) in a scene

-Set time and place - season should set the mood if not already mentioned in Ch 1

-Maybe also do BF's POV briefly to introduce him?? Or leave that for later

...

Etc.

And that's the original skeleton plan. And then it gets expanded upon more and more and more as I continue to think about the story, sometimes even with full pages' worth of unbroken text blocks as I get inspired and start basically thought-vomiting an entire scene. So by the time I get around to actually writing it, it might look like the above, or it might be a few steps shy of an actual draft already, depending on how much I've thought about / worked on that part.

See #5 in this writing advice post to see what I mean about a "thought vomit" draft.

-_-_-

c) Here's the thing - the above was for fanfic, or for short stories, or stories that I'm just kind of having fun with.

For original stuff, I adhere much more tightly to the "rules," because the guidelines for original work (that you might try to publish in the actual publishing market) are much stricter - and for good reason! Fanfiction is a sandbox, and we're all invested in the characters and worlds and settings already. We're all reading and writing fanfic because we already love these characters and this world, and we just want to play in it.

It's a different situation with original novels that you hope to publish. The plot, pacing, tension, and story beats have to be much, much tighter and more polished. Because people reading original work have no prior reason to be invested in it or care what happens - that's work that you have to do. For fanfic, that work was done for you by the original thing. Not to mention, the publishing world is so absolutely choked with competition, and the emphasis lies so heavily on sales, that if your book isn't fucking top-tier compelling, no publisher or agent will take a second look at it. Which is kind of unfortunate, because there's value in slower, more relaxed, more reflective storytelling, too - it's just not what capitalism has decided to value, which is sad.

But anyway.

When writing an original thing, I basically need a full plan - beginning to end, covering all plot points. Not necessarily all the details, just all the plot points - I need a skeleton and I need connective tissue. The rest comes later. But to start, I need to know what happens, why, and how the characters get from event to event. I need to know the physical story events, the emotional beats, and how those things logically flow throughout the story.

Some people can write without this and it still turns into a compelling story, tight narrative, etc. I envy these people. I have all respect for these people. I cannot do this. If I write original work with no plan, and especially without at least like 50-75% of a plan, I end up with something slow, meandering, and kind of limp. No bueno.

So, I usually use a beat sheet.

What's a beat sheet?

It's a 15-beat plotting structure used by screenwriters. And, yeah, technically it's for movies / screenplays. But storytelling is storytelling. And it's highly flexible. (And my favorite professor ever taught it to me in college so you can pry it out of my cold dead hands.)

Google it. It's what I use to make sure my (original work) plots are tight, have momentum, have a satisfying character arc, etc.

Okay, okay, I'll paste the basic structure below just so you can see wtf I'm talking about:

-_-_-

-Act I:

1) The First Frame

-What is the first thing we see? This should be a snapshot of the main character’s problem, before the story begins

-Ex: the Star Destroyer in A New Hope

2) The World Around Us

-What is the main character’s world like at the beginning of the story?

-What is missing in the main character’s life?

3) State the Theme (sneak this into The World Around Us)

-What is the story secretly about? This should happen during The World Around Us

4) Inciting Incident (smol tentpole)

-What happens to put the hero on the road? This is where the hero’s life changes forever.

5) The Hero Questions

-1st introspective moment

-Can the hero really do this? Should the hero chicken out?

-Oftentimes the hero fails at something

-Ex: Luke gets his ass beat by the raiders

-Act II:

6) Crossing the Threshold / The Emotional Hurdle (big tentpole)

-The main character makes a choice

-Beginning of Act II

7) The B Story / The Love Story

-Introduced here

-Often but not always a love story

8) Promise of the Premise

-Fun and games in the world you promised

-Horror movie? Creeps here!

-Sci fi? Space battles!

-Animation? Shenanigans!

9) Midpoint (big tentpole)

-The hero finds out that what they want is not what they need

-Luke rescues the princess - turns out that’s not really what the story was about

10) Bad Guys Close In / Throwing Rocks

-Events conspire to tear the hero’s goal to shreds

-Wesley is mostly dead, Inego is drunk, Fezzick is part of the brute squad

-This is the other side of the fun and games coin where things are no longer fun

11) All is Lost

-Something super bad happens, and that goal is impossible

-If someone important is gonna die, it’s probably now

12) The Pit of Despair (smol tentpole)

-The hero mourns the death (if someone died) and wallows in his/her lowest point

13) Inspiration

-A fresh idea

-Act III:

14) Come and Get Some / Final Confrontation (big tentpole)

-The final confrontation - the final showdown

-A and B stories wrapping up at the same time

-The theme makes sense and the battle is engaged

15) Final Frame

-Opposite of the first frame

-The hero is changed

-_-_-

It's what I use. But hey, you don't have to. What works for me might not work for you.

I'll finish this off by pasting in a section of actual real-ass planning I have open in a document for one of my novels at this moment (it's giving me the evil eye, I swear) so you can see what I kind of mean by "thought vomiting." Also note that in my actual document, the bullet points are indented incrementally to be kind of "nestled" underneath the relevant points, if that makes sense, and that it's a whole eye-watering mess of different colors. But for Tumblr, it's this:

-_-_-

-You have to be rescued by the rest of the team, because you fell down that hole - and you are, eventually, after screaming yourself hoarse some more (plus it’s been like an hour or more now, so they have since noticed that you were missing)

-I could gloss over this, like end the chapter when you run away, and open the next one with “It takes another half hour of screaming your throat nearly bloody before the team finds you,” or something

-They berate you for chasing after ghosts - you say you didn’t find anyone down there, because you know for damn sure nobody’s gonna believe what you think you saw, and you don’t even think you believe it

-This leads to a trip to the local doctor (a clinic, probs, akin to UrgentCare), which you’re not happy with because that’s more people taking notice of you

-However, you’re also going through the change in mindset here - see below

-Note: I as the writer don’t have to worry about the paperwork or whatever that you’d normally have to fill out, getting hurt on the job, because you weren’t officially hired - however, it would be a good “humanity is okay” moment if the guy who hired you came in and helped you with the medical expenses because he felt bad - he’d also probably be a little nervous about you suing or something, but you assure him that you have zero interest in that

-I could include a funny line where the guy says he’ll pay for your doctor bill and you try to say no (being indebted to someone is bad news for you) but he insists, because he says he feels responsible, and you just kind of stare at him and then blurt, “Do you need me to kill anyone for you?” (Something you probably regret as soon as you say it, not because you expect him to accept but because you abruptly remember what happened two days ago.) (Would it be too much to also add like “You want me to murder anyone for you? You want a blowjob? I will do anything,” and he gets flustered and bats it off like “Nah, nah, nah, chill out. You’re crazy, man.” And insists that you don’t need to pay him back)

-Here’s a decision I have to make - does the guy pay for your doctor bills as well as paying for your work today (leaving you enough money to potentially split town, but you decide not to), or do you have to pay the $2,500+ in doctor bills with no insurance for the injury, which raises the stakes by depleting all your money?

-I think I like Option A best, because it gives Sam more agency as a character if they decide to stay despite having the option to leave, versus them just being stuck completely - plus I don’t know how else I’d be able to explain away you having money for the hotel

-The guy who hired you pays you for the work day here - and maybe, just maybe, that gives you barely enough to buy that used car (although, why would it? It couldn’t have been more than like $200 for 8 hours of work, maybe $300 if he was really really desperate - if it was a really cheap used car, that might give you barely enough to buy the car but literally nothing left over)

-Point being, maybe you have enough money to bolt now, if you chose to - and you have to make the choice not to

-The car you found might be a $1,500 Honda Civic (or Jeep or whatever) with a dead battery, and the guy selling it says it should run fine with a new battery, which you Google (apparently it would be somewhere in the range of $100-$200) - maybe you think of how nice the mechanic was for you and wonder if you could cut a bit of a deal with him, if you get this car - and if the guy pays for your trip to the doctor and pays you for the temp work, this could just tip you into the margin of being able to afford the car, if you haggle with the seller

-_-_-

Or another example, with more actual sentences:

-_-_-

-As you approach the trailer you start to register a smell that turns your stomach - something like a porta potty and something like the sharp tang of rusting metal. It makes you pause - maybe there really is someone in there, using the place to live whether there’s a sewage hookup or not - it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing you’ve heard of. But after standing for a bit, silent and listening, and then hiding behind a large tree to chuck a rock at the vehicle to no response, you continue forward. You’ll just have to be cautious. Your spirits lift when you see the door. It’s completely grown over. (Leafy vines lace over it, tangling in the handle, yellowing and unbroken. If someone is living in there, they’ve been using the window to come and go, and that doesn’t seem all too likely. Bolstered by a new swell of confidence, and picturing the unlikely riches you might find stashed away in a cabinet or a glove compartment, you cross the last few feet towards the shape.

-You find the body and recognize it as one of the two obnoxious vlogging dudes from the motel

-I’m kind of imagining the moment of discovery like the wardrobe moment in Narnia where, during your nice forest trek, there’s been some pleasant acoustic music playing (like All the Pretty Girls by Kaleo maybe) and then it just stops abruptly in the middle of a phrase, maybe echoing slightly, when you see the body, and all at once everything is sickly silent.

-Oh dude, maybe you continue thinking it’s a duffel bag (possibly feeling pretty upbeat, though cautious until you’re literally about to step over it, and then you happen to glance down and get a sickening, chest-slamming shock when an empty human face is staring up at you

-Note: there should be mushrooms growing in, on and around the RV, because mushrooms are Creepy

-You go to investigate the RV

-Maybe you recognized the body as one of the vloggers and you’re trying to see if his friend is around - or maybe, in a kind of sick daze, you short circuit and find yourself doing the only thing you can think to do: continuing along your trajectory, stumbling towards the RV and tearing the rusted-out door free from the lattice of brittle vines that held it in place (this is what alerts The Dude that someone has been here), like if you just get to your original goal that’ll fix everything - somehow, if you just keep moving forward on the track you set out on, that thing won’t be real anymore - at the very least you have to get inside, to put a door between you and the body, like you’re pulling the blankets over your head to shield yourself from the boogeyman. Just as long as you’re not out there with, with...

-_-_-

Anywho, I'll stop.

I apologize again for... (scrolls up for a million miles) all of that, but you asked me about my passion and now you pay the price, lmao.

[desdemonafictional]

2020 Fanfic Year End Summary

Hey ho let’s go

Nev does these every year and I think they’re interesting, so for the first time I’m gonna give it a go too. I feel like this has been the longest fucking year--the Zine feels like it was two years ago and last January feels like it was ten years ago.

I’m gonna answer some questions and do a little reflection on the year 

This year I technically finished Icarus with 2k words of a 36k story, and after that I went on to produce 197k words not even COUNTING the stuff from GPAU which I do not know how to divide up for 2020. 

That’s 23 fics in one year, 8 of which were cowriting projects. This year has been, objectively, insane. By comparison, in 2019 I produced 17 fics and at the time I thought THAT was doing pretty impressive work. Now it’s not my best year by sheer number of titles--2018 was an oil boom while I was into JTHM and I actually put out 25 fics that year, some of which were short oneshots and some of which were two- or three-shots. But in terms of words? 2020 knocked them all out of the park. Which is absolutely something I owe to my amazing friends who let me ride around in their brains like the parasite I am.

In 2018 I started cowriting with Chokopopo, in 2019 I started cowriting with Neveralarch, and in 2020 I just did a fucking ton more of that with no looking back. It’s so incredibly motivating to have someone to show your progress to! And to have someone to hand the project over to when you’re stuck. If I hadn’t had Nev to bounce off of, most of this fic wouldn’t have been thought up at all, let alone finished. And don’t even get me started on GPAU! Choko and Zephyr and me have done such amazing things with “Welcome! Everything is fine”, and I can’t wait to be able to wrap that up and leave it for posterity.

I switched job positions around July of this year, and it’s changed the way I produce fic. Not sure if it’s good yet or not. I was never actually under a stay at home order this year because I work for a state agency, so to a degree I’ve missed out on the ways that quarantine affected other writers. I think I was fortunate?

Best Title 

Ahhh this is tough, I put a lot of effort into my titles this year--I promised myself in 2019 I was going to stop using song lyrics for fic titles because they make songs loop in my brain and it’s self inflicted torment, which is a promise I... mostly kept. “Dress Your Idol in Gold and Ashes” is the one I put most effort into probably, because I kept toying around with it trying to find something that was evocative of the right pagan imagery, and also the idea that got me started on the fic was a passage in a text book about the daily dressing of an idol statue in ancient Egypt.

“Broke My Last Glass Jaw” gets special mention because I named it after an essay that I wrote in undergrad for my African American Lit course, in which I broke down themes of the spoiled american dream via the lens of 90′s rap.

Worst Title

“Take one for the Team” is definitely my laziest title. It’s just super self indulgent kink fic, no character arc or anything, so I couldn’t find a good image or phrase to bring in for the title. Also I remember I really wanted to post it quickly, since it was a response to some art I was looking at, and I wanted the artist to see. I’m sure I could have done better with the title.

I did end up titling “Fear and Delight” after a song but I forgive myself because I literally only wrote the fic because the song existed first.

Best Summary

Some of these summaries I wrote and a some I did not, but of the ones that I wrote I think.... “ I'm All Full Up on Yesterdays, Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is the best one. It launches you directly into the action, while preserving the surprise reveal at the end of chapter 1. I actually wrote chapter one with this summary in mind, so it was baked in there from the start.

Jazz turned in his seat, cube at his lips, just in time to spot the white pursuit vehicle steaming and panting in the doorway. “Jazz of Staniz,” the enforcer shouted, “surrender the matrix and come quietly!”

Jazz knocked back his drink. “Well!” he said to the open-mouthed bartender, “time to split!”

Worst Summary

I mean, summaries are hard for everyone, right? That’s the thing we all universally struggle with, I think? I usually end up liking mine, and this year I was less afraid to just let a section of the story speak for itself. Anyway the worst one is “ Broke My Last Glass Jaw” by virtue of the fact that I had to come back months later and add another line because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was reaching audiences.

After the war, Impactor is at loose ends.

(They were friends once, weren't they? After all this time, Impactor wonders if Megatron hasn't managed to forget.)

I really wanted that one line to say it all, but honestly it requires a lot of trust in me as the author and most of the people who pass by the fic in the archive aren’t gonna know me from adam. The second line clarifies what kind of story it’s going to be in terms of tone and theme.

Best First Line

I’m pretty ambivalent about most of my first lines. Since Nev already pointed out the first line in “ Apotheosis”, I have to admit, it is pretty good. It gets off to a real jaunty start.

“Excuse me,” Starscream said, striding down the steps of the senate chambers with his cape flaring out behind him, “get your cowcatcher out of his face, you tin-plated amateur despot, he’s with me.”

I also like the audacity of a run on sentence that is the opening to “ Desecrate You”

Ratchet clicks the video because it was auto-recommended, and because First Aid is always dropping hopeful hints that he wants her to watch his show when he’s supposed to be grading papers, and because something about the title (“This is Definitely a Hoax! None of this is Real! Short Cut Footage Episode”) makes her wonder why the hell someone who runs a Ghost Hunting youtube channel would bill their own hard work as a hoax right out of the bag.

Worst First Line

Definitely the least interesting is from “Tantric Sex, and Other Mysteries of the Divine”. I guess it’s another fic where I was really eager to get to the meat of the fic, and so I just went back after I was done with the fic and wrote a paragraph of bare bones setting context so we could move on already.

It’s game night at Swerve’s, and Nightbeat is out in the thick of the crew for once, getting the lay of the land.

I have the same problem in a few fics, which probably arises from the fact that when I read a fic, I often skim the first paragraph or so to see if I really want to commit to the read. So I sometimes write like I’m expecting the audience to do that too. I probably need to work on that. Man, I even did it in Sexy Staycation.

Best Last Line

I like endings! I usually have a good gut instinct for where stories should end, and how to pace that, and what image I want to close the fic on. Often times I’ll be writing a story and feeling really lukewarm about it, and then the ending will come to me, and I’ll feel totally won over by it. That happened with my Suicide Squad fic years ago. So this is for the most part me picking the best of the things I already like. “Broke My Last Glass Jaw” has a good pithy one; I like how it isolates this moment as a moment of choice, and how it’s also ambiguous whether he will change because of this or whether he’s doomed to go back to his predetermined pattern.

And despite the unguarded door and the empty inviting streets beyond, where no one wants or expects anything of him but his feterless bitter trog onward into the next waiting prison cell, Impactor lays down, and Impactor does.

Special mention goes to “ The Sky Dark in its Eclipse : Orange Light Remix”, because the ending section is one of the big changes I brought to the remix, and I’m really happy with how it alters the shape of the narrative and also how it changes the focus of Rung’s arc. Most of the actual words in this fic were written by Choko in 2018, so this is like a collab in slow motion--I changed loadstone moments mostly, some of the framing, all of the backstory, and updated the setting for Cybertron. But the ending is all me.

On the morning of Intro to Psych finals, while Hot Rod hums and taps and scrolls back and forth through his test on the front row of the testing hall, Rung will sit behind his desk and brush the dust from the rotors of his fateful archetype, and start the long process of putting the pieces together once and for all.

Worst Last Line

Again, I like my endings, so this is really the worst of the best. The original ending line I wrote for “ All Our Urgent Restless Sighing” was:

Deadlock’s finials twitched. “...I am a reasonable amount of interested,” he said, “in this topic.”

And in the beta process, Nev came back in and added the line about Ratchet and cuddling, which was a big hit with the readers it seems like. So clearly I benefitted from some help there haha!

Looking back, did you write more or less than you thought you would this year?

you know what, I definitely wrote more than I thought I would. I didn’t see “Don’t Sing Me No More Blues” coming at all, and that was once a month for most of the year. I was hoping that I would be able to write a few things outside of Transformers, because I always worry that my long spans of hyperfixation are driving away my longtime readers... and I did manage to get one hxh thing written that was good, and one hxh thing started that is mediocre so far. So I guess I’ll call that good enough.

 What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, just your favorite.

hmm I’m really proud of the Pharma chapter me and Choko put together for GPAU--the body horror, the tragedy, the lotus eater machine plot. But even though that felt like a whole ass story of its own, I guess it’s only a chapter at the end of the day. So my favorite story would be “Apotheosis”. It’s just SO much, and we had SO many things we wanted to do, and somehow we managed to do them ALL. Corpses! Children! God! It’s got everything! The only thing it doesn’t have is the idea that literally started us plotting out the fic. And that was “ritual public sex with Starscream and Rung”. Oh well. Maybe someday. Probably not.

Okay, Now your most popular story

Ha! I tend to view the success of a fic more based on its bookmark ratio than its hit count, but by the numbers, unsurprisingly, “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is my most popular fic of the year at a whopping 3k hits and 113 bookmarks. Well, it is jazz/prowl which means it has a built in audience of considerable size, and it also updated seven times this year which increases its net range, so no surprise. But I think people also just really vibed with it--it’s very much a product of the times we are living in, and I don’t think it could have been written in any year except for 2020. 

“Dress Your Idol” has 58 bookmarks, by the way. I’m extremely proud of that fic for having such a high bookmark to view ratio. I guess the people who did read it liked it a lot.

Story most underappreciated in its Time.

Okay nothing is as under-exposed as the stuff I produced in JTHM, so I’m definitely not complaining. It’s hard to think about leaving TF because TF is such an enthusiastic community. That said, “ Neggnog Cozy” did not get eyeballs. I’m not surprised, it’s short and it’s gen, and Thundercracker doesn’t have the built in audience of say Starscream. Still, I thought it was really funny and cute and I would have liked it if more people would have given it a chance.

Story that could have been better

Oh, “ Melusine Among the Tombs” for sure. I went into that with only the first chapter planned and immediately after realized that I had no idea where the fic was going and also I had lost my grip on canon characterization after a couple years going rusty in other fandoms. I plan to finish it eventually, but I need a better plan than “wing it???” first.

Sexiest Story

I wrote SO much weird kink this year. Like. Shout out to past me for writing some pretty spicy JTHM fic, but this year I really leaned into how weird you can plausibly get with an all robot all alien cast. 

“ The Sensual Machine” is the most unabashedly horny because it was written specifically for a weird kink themed zine that I was an editor on. “Desecrate You” is also quite horny but I almost exclusively wrote the frame device for that, so I don’t get sexy credit lmao. “Fear and Delight” was a big hit with all the hxh readers and I think it has an element of sexiness more so than pure horniness--its has a kind of glamour and style to it.

Most fun story

“Starscream's Sexy Staycation” is by far the most unabashedly comic and sexy and silly and low stakes. It has one of my favorite kinks, a beautiful stupid moment of Ratchet suffering, and Rung calling safeword which is something new and fresh and I want a lot more of it in the world.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

“ Lacunae” was given to me as a yule gift prompt with the express intention of explaining who the fuck Carmilla’s mother was, and what the deal is with Carmilla as well. This would have forced me to reevaluate my understanding of the novel except for the TEENSY insignificant fact that I realized I had never finished reading Carmilla, somehow, and ended up reading it for the first time in December in preparation for yule. So uh. Hmm.

I think “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” made me think about Prowl in a different way. I wasn’t really expecting him to be this hard-edged idealist when I started out on the fic. He was originally going to be much more like the autistic coded Prowl of “The Cop and the Cryptid,” one of my favorite fics ever. Also, I started writing the fic about a month before the riots and police protest kicked off in America this year, and it really caused me to zero in on how Prowl being part of a system like that affects his relationship to the world and other characters.

Hardest Story to Write

“ Elegy for Actaeon of the Hounds” took me a total of six months to write from start to finish. I don’t know why. Well, It’s partly because there are three involved sex scenes and sex scenes are actually very difficult and time consuming for me to write. It’s also partly because I kept wanting it to have a character arc, and I kept getting stumped on how to handle that. Beauty and the Beast plot lift? Have Rodimus be a rabbit? Eventually I settled on the version that kept the cast tightly cinched down around Megatron and Rung, and I’m happy with the result.

Easiest Story to Write

When we were writing “Apotheosis” it felt like we were on FIRE, we were so productive and we started three other projects between us while it was in motion. But “Take One For the Team” was absolutely the most fun to write, it basically wrote itself

Most Overdue Story

“Champagne in the Final Days of Rome” was based off a conversation I had with Nev pretty early on in our friendship--Discord says it was June 2019, so that’s uhhh ten months between discussion to actual writing? And it still didn’t turn out to be the fic we were originally outlining, haha.

Oh god you know what was really the most overdue? The last chapter of “Icarus; or, Look Who's Digging His Own Grave”. It was literally a year, January to January, between chapter 12 and 13. For a while I thought maybe I was just going to have to leave it there, without resolving the time loop problem at all.

Did you take writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing for the zine was a big risk. I remember Nev had to reassure me at least twice that what I was writing wasn’t too weird or off-topic or embarrassing to be part of the project. Now, of course, I’m very happy with it. But my god I was nervous to post something that was like.... straight up actually bimboification applied to one of the most popular toy characters of all time.

What I learned from this is that people love horny shit, are READY to take a chance on a weird fic when its in the right wrapping paper, and when in doubt you CAN sell people on a kink they’re not really into by making the kink actually a reflection of a character arc. Are you writing this down?

Do you have any goals for writing in the new year?

Finish GPAU!!!!!!

I’d like to FINALLY sit down and do some hard work on my original fiction. I’ve been kind of waiting for the tf hyperfixation to wane so I could move forward, and I think that process is in motion now. But who knows. If Rung shows up in the new comics I might get nerfed again.

Other than that I’d like to write at least one fanfic that isn’t TF, and I would like to get this really crunchy Rung/Pharma fic off the ground so I can make some people CRY

[smartspo]

Based on both my school notes and experiences, I’ve decided to write this guide on how to write a commentary on both prose and poetry for your English class! Please bear in mind that I’m an IB student and while other high school diplomas might like to use a slightly different method, there are also many other ways you can do it for IB as well! This is just the way I’ve been taught and like the most.

So here we go!

What do we look for in order to write a commentary?

1. The what

In order to write a commentary, we need to analyse the meaning behind the passage/poem. To do so, we think about what its intention could be, and what is the meaning behind the word choices - all things we respond to while reading.

What is the subject of the passage/poem?

What is the intention? (prose)

- Intention prose examples: To develop plot, reveal character, create the setting, establish the tone, dramatise a significant episode… (It could be more than one intention) - Intention poetry examples: To convey an accident, a memory, an insight, praise, criticism…

2. The how and why

The next step is to identify and discuss the choices that the author has made, and why.

If it’s prose, we’ll then talk about:

Perspective

If it’s verbatim dialogue/reported speech

Tone (reflective, serious, emotive, comic…)

Diction (choice of language; poetic, elevated, formal…)

Use of punctuation, paragraphing, sentence length

Use of rhetorical devices

If it’s a poem, we’ll then discuss:

The structure (metre, rhyme, scheme, stanzas…)

Diction (choice of language)

Choice of metre

Use of poetic devices

How do I put it all together?

Now that you’re aware of what you’re working with, you can assemble all this information into the commentary. That’s why I think that planning your commentary before actually writing it is very useful, even if you do it quickly - this way, you just need to put everything together elegantly.

The structure of your commentary is important too. Here is a summary of what you should include in each paragraph to make it as organised as possible:

1. For prose

The first chapter, your introduction, firstly should include a summary of the passage, ideally without any kind of interpretation. This is mostly to show you understood it, and to introduce the following part: the intention. After the summary, you can list which narrative intentions can be applied to the passage - the what.

The second chapter will then discuss the overall “technical stuff” of the text: the development of the central idea, the structure, diction, tone, perspective… - the how and why.

The following chapters will be the detailed analysis. You’ll divide the passage in the most appropriate way (usually by paragraphs) and discuss each of them in detail, with clear summaries of the content and showing how the intention(s) you mentioned earlier in the first paragraph of your commentary is being conveyed. 

The conclusion is optional, but avoid repeating things you’ve already said.

2. For poetry

Like for the prose commentary, you should first include a summary of the poem without any interpretation, to then present the intention(s) behind it - the what.

Again, similarly to the prose commentary, for the second paragraph you can describe the overarching features of the poem: development, structure, tone, poetic voice… - the how and why. You should also consider the meaning behind the title.

Now the detailed analysis comes into play. It is advisable to divide the poem into 2 to 4 parts, and write a paragraph for each, but you can do it however you find the most appropriate. Each paragraph should include a summary of the content and how the intention(s) mentioned in the first paragraph of you commentary is being conveyed. You should include quotes, pay attention to caesuras, enjambements and rhymes, while identifying figures of speech and diction.

Again, the conclusion is optional but you shouldn’t repeat things you’ve already said.

+Bonus tip: This is actually a tip from my teacher, but in terms of effect, you can try to come up with a short sentence related to the theme of the poem to start your commentary.

So there we go! I hope this post will be useful to other English students, so please don’t hesitate before asking me any questions. Happy studying!

[the-seas-song]

Tolkien Gen Week Day 5

DAY FIVE: diversity How does diversity affect Tolkien’s characters and your interpretations of them? Does a disability or orientation affect relationships with other characters? Have you lost sleep thinking about hobbit race relations? This is the day to consider all the other factors that go into a character’s life.

Work has been insane lately, so unfortunately I wasn't able to write everything I wanted to for this amazing week, but I really wanted to make sure I got this one done.

This is mainly a thank you post. First, I want to give a big thank you to @starlightwalking for creating and running this week. A lot of time must have gone into it, and I've had a great time.

I love all forms of love, and one of my favorite things about Tolkien's works is that he highlights a large variety of emotionally intimate platonic relationships. Thank you Tolkien. And also thank you to everyone who worked on the films, for not only portraying those in the texts, but actually adding and expanding the amount of deep platonic relationships.

As someone who is gray aro/ace, another one of my favorite things about Tolkien's works is the diversity in racial sexualities.

Elves only fall in love once in their life (technically it is possible for them to fall in love a second time, but we are only given two cases in all of Tolkien’s works, and both times there was a greater power at work). The foundation of elven-kind is memory and emotion. Their souls control their bodies. Elvish memories remain crystal clear, no matter how many decades or centuries pass. They never fade, even the slightest bit. Connected to memory is emotion. Elves feel things in a clearer way. They are ruled by emotion. They can literally just lie down and kill themselves with their mind, if they wish. Also, because of this clarity, they know from the beginning if they are feeling romantic-love or friendship-love for someone. There is nothing more important to an elf than their relationships, of any kind. Their anti-possessiveness goes so far that they will not even say 'I have two children’.

Tolkien says in LACE that almost all elves marry, and marry young. However, the entire legendarium contradicts that. Over half the elves we meet very marry/are never said to be married, and almost all of those that do marry do so well into their centuries and millenniums. Feanor and Nerdanel are literally the only elven couple that we are told married young.

Also, who could ever forget the tragedy of Beleg's death? “Thus ended Beleg Strongbow, truest of friends, greatest in skill of all that harboured in the woods of Beleriand in the Elder Days, at the hand of him whom he most loved; and that grief was graven on the face of Túrin and never faded.” - The Silmarillion

We are also given a tantalizing hint of one deep female friendship: “Fingolfin’s wife Anaire refused to leave Aman, largely because of her friendship with Earwen wife of Arafinwe (though she was a Noldo and not one of the Teleri). But all her children went with their father.” - The Shibboleth of Feanor

Another thing I rarely see people mention is Tolkien explicitly separating sex and gender:

According to the Eldar, the only 'character' of any person that was not subject to change was the difference of sex. For this they held to belong not only to the body but also to the mind equally: that is, to the person as a whole. [cut] Those who returned from Mandos, therefore, after the death of their first body, returned always to the same name and to the same sex as formerly.

[cut]

For the [souls] of the Elves are of their nature male and female, and not their [bodies] only. - LACE

Because their souls control their bodies, there are no trans elves. However, the fact that Tolkien took pains to explicitly say this for elves, throws the door wide open for all of the other races!

We're also told that about two thirds of dwarves are naturally aromantic, and those who aren’t only fall in love once. So, another gray aro/ace race!

There are so many amazing fanworks out there that diversify Tolkien's works even more.

Throughout my years of being a fan I've met a fair amount of purists, and there's nothing wrong with being a purist. Most of them are lovely people. I am, however, a firm believer in Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author (found here) theory. The great thing is Tolkien was too:

The Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. But even from the points of view of many who have enjoyed my story there is much that fails to please. It is perhaps not possible in a long tale to please everybody at all points, nor to displease everybody at the same points; for I find from the letters that I have received that the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved. The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short.

As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit.

[cut]

Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. It is also false, though naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have overlapped, to suppose that the movements of thought or the events of times common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences. One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. Or to take a less grievous matter: it has been supposed by some that 'The Scouring of the Shire' reflects the situation in England at the time when I was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset, though in the event modified by the character of Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed some basis in experience, though slender (for the economic situation was entirely different), and much further back. The country in which I lived in childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important. I never liked the looks of the Young miller, but his father, the Old miller, had a black beard, and he was not named Sandyman. - LotR Foreward

And:

The Lord of the Rings as a story was finished so long ago now that I can take a largely impersonal view of it, and find 'interpretations' quite amusing; even those that I might make myself, which are mostly post scriptum: I had very little particular, conscious, intellectual, intention in mind at any point.* Except for a few deliberately disparaging reviews – such as that of Vol. II in the New Statesman,3 in which you and I were both scourged with such terms as 'pubescent' and 'infantilism' – what appreciative readers have got out of the work or seen in it has seemed fair enough, even when I do not agree with it. Always excepting, of course, any 'interpretations' in the mode of simple allegory: that is, the particular and topical. In a larger sense, it is I suppose impossible to write any 'story' that is not allegorical in proportion as it 'comes to life'; since each of us is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time and place, universal truth and everlasting life. Anyway most people that have enjoyed The Lord of the Rings have been affected primarily by it as an exciting story; and that is how it was written. Though one does not, of course, escape from the question 'what is it about?' by that back door. That would be like answering an aesthetic question by talking of a point of technique. I suppose that if one makes a good choice in what is 'good narrative' (or 'good theatre') at a given point, it will also be found to be the case that the event described will be the most 'significant'.

* Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called 'Treebeard', from Treebeard's first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (except for labour pains) almost like reading some one else's work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the 'unconscious' for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till 'what really happened' came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life.

[cut]

That of course does not mean that the main idea of the story was a war-product. That was arrived at in one of the earliest chapters still surviving (Book I, 2). It is really given, and present in germ, from the beginning, though I had no conscious notion of what the Necromancer stood for (except ever-recurrent evil) in The Hobbit, nor of his connexion with the Ring. But if you wanted to go on from the end of The Hobbit I think the ring would be your inevitable choice as the link. If then you wanted a large tale, the Ring would at once acquire a capital letter; and the Dark Lord would immediately appear. As he did, unasked, on the hearth at Bag End as soon as I came to that point. So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the comer at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlórien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22.1 knew nothing of the Palantíri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore' that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and one white tree. These rhymes and names will crop up; but they do not always explain themselves. I have yet to discover anything about the cats of Queen Berúthiel.8 But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his pan, and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider. And if that has anything to do with my being stung by a tarantula when a small child,9 people are welcome to the notion (supposing the improbable, that any one is interested). I can only say that I remember nothing about it, should not know it if I had not been told; and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath! - Letter 163

Tolkien's loathing of allegory is well known. However, most don't talk about the fact that his fundamental reason for loathing it is because it enforces the domination of the author over the freedom of the reader - “I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”

So, as we continue to love these works and create our own, let's never forget that Tolkien himself believed in our agency.

P.S. I have to share this quote from Letter 66. It's too funny!

A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir – and he is holding up the 'catastrophe' by a lot of stuff about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the appendices — where already some fascinating material on the hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have gone.

[jungblue]

→ writing & other tips!

Hello! This entire post is essentially stemming from the fact that I get messages often about the subject of writing / running a writing blog, and what advice I have in the area. In all honesty I’m not sure how new this information will be to anyone looking at it, but it’s more so to serve as something I can have linked in my FAQ, for anyone interested in my opinion on the matter. This post will be updated as I think of more things to include, but the basics that will be covered is writing advice, writing-blog advice, and just my overall opinion on certain aspects of writing in general on a public platform. 

↠ Running a Writing Blog

My initial advice for this is just going to be technical / formatting aspects of posting your writing. Nothing all that earth shattering, just creating masterlists, links in your bio, dealing with demands kind of stuff.

Formatting

When it comes to formatting, choose one that really displays what your fic is about. For example, my usual format is: Pairing, Genre, Word Count, Description, Gif / Banner. I find this important just because I think some people might underestimate the importance of a good format. Because if I’m being honest I usually won’t even click on a fic if there’s no word count. Not to say it’s necessary, because I’m not here to tell people specifically the 100% way to run a writing blog, but this is just my experience / personal preference. 

Tagging

Now once you’ve got your fic written and post formatted, next you have to put some tags. I tend to use very broad general tags such as, bts fanfic, bts scenarios, bts smut, bts angst, ect. Once you get into specifics there are tags such as seokjin fanfic, yoongi scenarios, hoseok smut, ect. This simply allows for people to find your fics when searching. 

Creating a Masterlist / Linking

Once your first scenario is posted you might want to make a masterlist to post in your bio. This probably isn’t new information for some, but I get an ask about links every couple of weeks, so I figured we might as well cover all of the bases. In order to create a masterlist, simply open up a new text post, type in the title of your fic (or however you’re wanting to organize it), get the url to your fic and copy it, highlight the title you’ve written on the text post, a series of buttons should appear above, choose the one that is the fourth from the left (it looks like an infinity sign), paste the url into the box that appears, and you have yourself the start of a masterlist. Once you have that done you might want to link your masterlist in your bio. In order to do so you simply:

1. Go to edit theme

2. Paste this code into your bio <a href=“url of masterlist”>masterlist</a>

3. Replace the things I’ve put in bold with your actual masterlist url, or whatever you want the link to be called, so masterlist, writing, mlist, ect

Dealing with Demands

It’s unfortunate, but more than likely you’ll get a demanding ask at least once in your tumblr lifetime. Sometimes it’s asking for updates, requesting repeatedly, or someone just being plain rude. To combat against the update asks, make an FAQ. It’ll cut down on some of the demands, but of course not all. As for the straight up rude anons / users, just block them. Don’t give them the satisfaction of allowing them to stay on your blog. If you really want to respond, screenshot it and answer it that way, but still block them. This is your blog. No one has the right to be demanding of you, and to make it a place that you come to detest. 

↠ The Actual Writing Part

I would say the first piece of advice I have about writing in general is to make sure that you’re writing for the right reasons. This is only because I’ve seen a common trend of people saying how stressed writing makes them, to the point of them actually hating it. I think this is because before people start posting on tumblr, they sometimes don’t get what comes along with it, or some aren’t necessarily doing it for the right reasons (of course regardless of anyone’s reasons, it’s your hobby, so really do what you want! this is simply an opinion).

For instance if you’re doing it strictly for notes, you might be highly disappointed when the pwp smut that took your three hours to write gets a 1,000 notes, whereas that fic that took you three weeks to plan out, and six weeks to write gets 300. It’s going to really stunt your creativity if you’re doing it strictly for that particular reason, because unfortunately the previously mentioned scenario is quite common. Or there are some who start writing because they want to have a ‘popular’ blog of sorts with lots of followers who will message them… But unfortunately even with a lot of followers, people just tend to not send messages for the most part. You might really love a fic that you posted, but get maybe six or seven comments on it. So again, if that’s your specific underlying reasoning behind wanting to post your writing, it might not turn out how you expected. 

I just wanted to say the above points because I see it time and time again, and I don’t want people to get discouraged if it’s not what they were expecting it to be. Don’t get me wrong, as a writer on this site, I appreciate so, so much the notes / comments / ect that people give to my fics, but if that is what’s specifically tethering you to the craft, then you might not enjoy your time posting on tumblr. But again, this is your choice, so if you want to write simply for notes or for whatever reason, then obviously that’s completely fine! I’m mostly just saying the above because writing can become tiresome after a while if it doesn’t bring the outcome you’re expecting and it’s not something you truly enjoyed in the first place.

Okay, so now that I’ve gotten this disclaimer out of the way, I’ll try to give tips on writing, sorry if they’re generic. Honestly, my writing process is really simple, so I’m not sure how helpful this will be, but I’m going to try my best. 

Forming an Idea / Plot

This is probably the simplest part. Just the general idea that you want to write about. Not the details, just the main focus. Sometimes it can stem from just knowing what au you want to tackle, so college au, expecting parents au, werewolf au, ect. Or perhaps you don’t know the setting yet, but you know the conflict or emotions you want the characters to elicit. Maybe you just know in your head that you really want to write a Jimin fluff. With that you can sit back and mull over what the best template for displaying that would be. So maybe a first date, anniversary, cute frat boy takes you to the greek formal, it can literally be anything. So really play around with things. Write that vampire hanahaki au or fic that’s so cheesy you cringe (I’ve written many of those lol). Just explore the wonderful world of genres or aus, because in the end you should write what you want to write. 

Planning

This section is quite flexible. I mean all of these points are flexible, but this one most certainly. If there’s one thing that varies to a great degree between each and every writer it’s planning a fic out. There’s hundreds of methods, and you really just need to find the one that works for you! I personally have a very simple approach to writing. I’ll use Loving Him, Loving Her as an example.

1. Simply think of an idea: Unrequited love + best friend AU

2. Make mental bullet points of plot: flash-forward scene, the oc and Taehyung meeting, time-skip, party at Taehyung’s lake house, sex scene —

3. Write it out with this loose template

4. Once the writing process is over, go back through, re-read for misspellings, grammar issues, spaces where a bit of added narrative is needed

5. Post

It’s honestly a very simple process, but it’s what works best for me, and everyone is of course different! Personally, planning a fic out down to the very scenes, just doesn’t work for me. Because then when I’m writing I feel very constricted. I much prefer just having a vague idea of what I want the plot to be, and tackling it that way. However, again this is my approach, and it’s obviously okay if it doesn’t work for everyone. Lots of people love to outline, and that’s a totally viable option. Plan out each scene, one by one, jot down the emotions, dialogue, actions, ect that you want to happen within the scenes. That way once you go to write your fic, everything is planned and you just have to follow the template you’ve set for yourself. 

These are just two methods of the many that there are. Eventually, after writing a lot, you’ll find a specific process that personally works for you!

Process

Writing can honestly be really stressful. Even if the constant asks for updates or demanding messages don’t bother you. Sometimes it’s just stressful because you want to write, but it just isn’t coming as easily as you would like. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in front of my laptop, wanting to write, but then I just blank. It’s incredibly frustrating to have a plot locked in your head, and knowing exactly what you want to happen, but then not being able to find the words to formulate it. So just understand that it’s okay to take breaks, to throw away a wip, to take a seven month hiatus on a series. It doesn’t mean that you should give up on writing, it just means that you need a break, a change in direction, or just something. People get burnt out on things they love all the time. Sports, drawing, writing, whatever it is, you just have to understand that it’s all a part of a process. 

Know when to take breaks. Put your health at the forefront of everything, because finishing a fic isn’t worth jeopardizing that. Understand that the fic will be there tomorrow, the next day, and the next day, so take your time!

Again, I know all if this is stuff that you’ve all probably heard, but sometimes people ask for my writing advice, and this post pretty much encompasses my opinion on writing and the process of writing / posting on a public format such as tumblr. I hope it was somewhat helpful. Just remember that this is supposed to be fun. Don’t let the stress destroy your love for writing if it’s really something that you honestly enjoy!