#phyn writes

[phynoma]

an extant form of life- chapter eleven!

“Oh, well, great!” Martin snaps. His cheeks are getting brighter again. Tim can almost swear he feels the heat radiating from everywhere Martin is flushed. “That's just wonderful, Tim! I'm so glad you made the choice to go– to go shag someone while we're having a-an emergency here; that's just lovely for you, isn't it? What a horrible time you’ve had!” “Actually, it has been, a bit!” Tim snaps back, spurred on by more than a little guilt and his own frustration over the whole damnable situation. “It hasn't been a walk in the park!” “Oh, it hasn't been a walk in the park?”

Everything's great, guys. It's cool. Everyone is totally fine and acting like their best selves

[phynsmutstravaganza]

TMA One-Shot!

While I toil over my TMA longfic, I threw together one of the softest smut pieces I've written. First TMA fic up on ao3 let's gooooo

Takes place post-canon, Jon/Martin, trans Jon, a bit angsty but mostly fluff. (non-sexual kink) Check out ao3 for full tags!

The subway car isn't that full for a Friday night in Glasgow, but Jon still feels the eyes. 

He pulls anxiously at his shirt, feeling the odd rub of the cotton against the layer of latex underneath. It's easier to get dressed at home than at the club, with how long it takes to get into the damn gimp suit, but it means taking the SPT all the way to the club already sweating in the unbreathable layers. The terror that someone will know beats through him: an awkward, thrilling paranoia that feeds his patron as much as it discomfits him.

Jon adjusts his shirt cuff for the umpteenth time, stopping only when Martin's fingers press gently over his.

"No one can see," Martin murmurs. He smiles, soft encouragement and glittering enjoyment all at once. It's alright for him, of course–he's wearing a normal t-shirt and trousers under his leather jacket, and he won't change much even at their destination.

Of course, Jon looks normal on the surface, too– button-down shirt, slacks, collar buttoned to hide the latex that comes up to his neck–but surely people can just tell, by the way he's sitting or the sweat beading down his face or–

Martin picks up his hand and kisses the tips of his fingers. Jon winces at the almost inaudible squeak of the latex, and then again at the subtle glances they receive for their innocent PDA.

"We could–" Martin begins, in a gentle tone of voice Jon knows all too well. We could go back. It's okay if it's too much for you. You're dealing with so much. You're just a sad little wet sack of a man who can't handle being in crowds. Okay, so Martin never says that last bit, but Jon certainly feels it every time he has to cut their dates short, or calls Martin to pick him up from errands that should be simple. He shakes his head.

"No, it's fine," he says, his voice steady and dry and not at all betraying how fast his heart is beating. "I'm just warm."

Martin raises his eyebrows but doesn't speak his disbelief, which Jon is grateful for. He's not trying to be convincing to Martin, anyway. He's convincing the other people on the subway who might be watching, who might be wondering, who seem to care only for their own business but who could be subtly judging him, and–

It's their stop. Jon doesn't stand until the doors are squeaking and other people are standing. He can feel the sweat pooling, awful, under his hair on the back of his neck and soaking through his collar. He ignores Martin's offered hand because he just needs to get out of the station, and away from all of these eyes.

If he takes Martin's hand they'll look, and they'll wonder, and they'll guess because why would the two of them be getting off here if not for the club two streets down? Why would two men who seem to have nothing in common, one in leather, for godssake, be so physically close unless–?

Jon gulps down the cool night air as soon as they emerge from the escalator. It's not exactly fresh, but it seems like there's more of it, at least. The breeze doesn't penetrate the latex, but it at least cools his face.

"Hey," Martin says, taking his elbow. Jon lets him, this time. "Are you alright?"

Jon nods. It's doing something to him–the anxiety, the pressure of being noticed, the relief of escape, all bound up in the tightness of latex against his skin. He takes a few breaths, as deep as he can make them. His head swims. Martin smiles again.

"Already, hm?" he says, and he sounds pleased and amused.

Jon nods, and then says, "yes," because he needs to make sure he can still speak. He can. It's a bit of a relief. Martin's smile doesn't widen, exactly, but there's a change in it nonetheless. Jon suppresses a shiver.

"Come on, then," Martin invites, and Jon catches up to him with another thrill of fear that's a lot closer to excitement.

There's a couple people queuing outside the nondescript door that leads into the club, but Martin flashes a membership card and they're waved in. Jon volunteers, sometimes–it was an easier welcome to the club than play–and Martin has started to, as well. As expected, Martin is already friendlier with the staff than Jon is.

Jon had teased him about it–an avatar of the Lonely, making easy friends–until Martin pointed out that he'd been friendly with the Institute staff, too, and that hadn't stopped him from being marked. Furthermore, Martin said, if Jon was jealous enough to be making comments he could put some effort into actually making friends instead of complaining–and unfortunately that was too close to the truth for Jon to have any properly sniping comebacks.

Now, there's an instant comfort that comes from entering the dim-lit club. A reception desk blocks entrance to the narrow hallway that funnels guests to the lockers and playrooms, but already Jon is feeling more conspicuous for the button-down than the latex underneath. He refused to dress up the first time he agreed to come with Martin, and spent the whole time feeling obvious and painfully vanilla. There's a satisfying anonymity in the black latex, skintight though it is.

They make awkward small talk with the receptionist–another volunteer, like most of the "staff"--before finally being ushered back to the lockers. Jon strips off his street clothes with relief and tucks them away, while Martin simply takes off his shirt under the jacket and changes to shorts instead of trousers. He unzips his duffel and hands Jon a folded, latex hood.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks, his brown eyes warm and solemn. Jon takes the hood. He can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips.

"I'm sure," he says. He wants to put it on right away. He wants to leave.

"Your hands are shaking," Martin observes.

"So they are."

"If you want to wait–"

"Martin."

"Okay, okay! Just checking!" Martin raises his hands in surrender. "Gloves, too?"

Jon nods. His palms are sweating, which will make putting the fingerless gloves on a pain, but just thinking about it makes him feel lightheaded with want.

"Okay," Martin says, and his voice has taken on the breathy, excited quality that tells Jon that yes, that feeling is an altered state of awareness. He's already slipping under, and Martin can tell. "Let's go over things. You won't be able to see with the hood on, but you'll be able to talk."

Jon nods, forces himself to speak.

"Right," he says.

"You'll be able to hear me, but it'll be muffled. If I need to get your attention, I'll tap three times on your arm, like this." Martin demonstrates with two fingers, each tap firm and deliberate. Jon closes his eyes automatically, as if it will feel different if he can't see. The air feels much thicker, all of a sudden.

"Got it," he says. It's the right thing to say, and he feels a small sense of satisfaction that he knows this. He can't make mistakes in this conversation; or at least he has no urge to say any of the wrong things.

"If it's too much, I need you to let me know right away. The hood will take a couple moments to unlace, and it's better to be cautious. You don't want to panic in this. And there will be plenty of time to experiment, okay?" Martin fixes Jon with a firm look, warm brown irises taking on an iced chill like permafrost. "Don't push it, Jon. I know you."

"I won't," Jon says, and winces when Martin doubles down on his glare. "Really! I don't want to push things too far. I promise I won't–not on purpose, at least."

"Okay," Martin says grudgingly. He leans in and presses a kiss to Jon's mouth, startling him. Jon catches himself in time to kiss Martin back, and Martin responds at once, holding his head to kiss him deeper. There's a strange sterility to it, the latex keeping away Martin's body heat, but it still makes Jon feel dizzy. He lets out a shaky exhale when Martin pulls away.

"Anything else you want to go over?" Martin asks, leaning their foreheads together and keeping his hand on the back of Jon's.

It gets a bit more explicit from here-- read the rest on AO3

[phynoma]

I feel like part of my automatic "cringe-away" reaction to OCs is the idea that all OCs are some sort of poorly written self-insert

And honestly? That's just something for me to get over. Because the most BRILLIANT fics I've ever read have had OCs that stole my heart far more than the canon characters. OCs are just the characters canon didn't have time to get around to. They're the world stepping up.

And even if they are self-inserts, even if it's a fic-writer's first attempt at fanfiction, those OCs are still going to resonate with someone. They're going to change the story for someone, even if that person is you. They're going to make that story alive in a way it's never been before, and when you put that story up for someone else to read you're inviting them on a journey you've taken as an author, and that is MAGICAL.

So yeah, fuck cringe culture. Fuck the haters. Write the story as it's been told to you in the deep recesses of your soul, even if it's a goddamn Goofy x self-insert slashfest. It's worth it, just to write it down.

pls write oc x canon character fiction I don't understand how that's cringe or why cringe is even a word we've affixed to fanfic in the first place

also sometimes the canon character needs a perfect partner written for them bc canon refuses to so yes write away

[dyed-red]

I just wanted to say I love your samdean fics! Especially Desiderata, it so next level!

No pressure, but if you ever get around to finishing it, I'd be stoked.

Wishing you a great day/night! <3

thank you!

this fic has received some attention recently and honestly it's becoming very top of mind to get it finished <3 stuff like this helps, and i appreciate you letting me know you enjoy it :)

[name-centrum]

Name of the day...

Finn ˎˊ˗

ִ ࣪𖤐. ִ ࣪𖤐. ִ ࣪𖤐

Origin: Irish, Scottish, Old Norse

Meaning: Fair, white, clear; From Finland; Warrior, brave; Intelligence or wisdom; Thunder.

Notes: An androgynous name that is primarily used as masculine.

"Coming from the Irish Fionn, Finn was the anglicized name of a mythical Irish warrior and folklore hero. As a child, this little boy was blessed by the salmon of knowledge, giving him the wisdom and bravery to later, along with his followers, protect the king." (Source)

"The name Finn has several interpretations depending on its origin and usage. Generally, the name is associated with traits such as strength, courage, intelligence, and purity." (Source)

Finn is often short for the names Finnegan, Finneas or Phinneas, Finnean, and Finley.

Alternative spellings of this name are Fin, Fynn or Fyn, Phinn or Phynn, Fen or Fenn.

Nick-names: Fi, Fy, or Finnie

Popularity:

[wordsandrobots]

Welp. Here's hoping the amount I've been listening to 'Great Night' by NEEDTOBREATHE doesn't convince Tidal to recommend bands tagged as Christian rock to me on the regular. I do not want a repeat of the 'accidentally adding a track about sinners going to hell to my playlist because it had a good beat' incident (I am often very shallow about music, as the above probably proves; I have gotten better at listening to lyrics on the first go).

But hey ho. I'm listening because it's perfect for the crack(?)ship Iron-Blooded Orphans slash pairing that Wishing on Space Hardware has totally not been building towards (it honestly hasn't but I need about ten years of character development for this nonsense to work so --).

A free writing request to anyone who can guess what that pairing is (Phyn, Walrus, you two are disqualified on account of knowing already). I'll add an IOU to the pile along with said nonsense, the other side of the Venus debacle, more Yamagi/Shino smut and that McGillis/Cyclase meet-cute I should probably jot down (cute = potentially murderous) . . .

[phynoma]

wow ouch

Actually tho

I have a theory about this

I used to think that "old soul" was just a phrase that meant (whether adults knew it or not) "traumatized beyond their years"

But now I think it's something different. This is still a theory in development, but this comes from readings posts on here, observing children, etc. And I think it has to do with how most adults develop the ability to be interested in the mundane

For a lot of kids, what they gravitate towards is big, flashy, exciting colors and things. They look at the world through broad strokes. They're not going to be excited about a new dish sponge when there's something more blatantly for *them* out there

Whereas kids that get easily overstimulated might have gravitated towards the things they saw adults doing: quiet crafts, especially those that involve counting and precision. Reading. Becoming obsessively good at something.

And after being praised for this your whole childhood, maybe you grow into an adult that is suddenly fascinated by all those things you avoided as a child-- bright colors and supposedly simple stories and carefree fun, only you still bring that serious deliberation you've always had, you bring a bit of snark, and just like always people don't know quite what to do with you.

So you become "childlike" instead of an "old soul," because you have a sense of wonder the world hasn't beaten out of you

That's my current theory, anyway

dunno if it's a neurodivergent thing or just me but do you ever feel like you've maintained roughly the same level of maturity your whole life

like as a kid you were "gifted" and "wise beyond your years" but as an adult you're just a grown child who just can't seem to grasp how to act like an adult

[coldtomyflash]

I've seen your speech pattern analysis on Flash characters. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to create speech patterns for OC characters?

oh heck this is one of the coolest questions i’ve ever received.

i’m gonna try not to go overboard/overwhelming and just give a bit of advice, and then if you want more details please come back and follow up!

There’s a few things to think about up front with character voices / speech patterns. The biggest and most obvious is language and cultural background. The second is personality. The third is personal history. Fourth, briefly, is gender. And the final one I’d say is idiosyncrasies to avoid ‘same voice’.

Culture and Group Dynamics

Depending on the setting, there’s a decent chance you’ll be writing characters from different cultural backgrounds. Even if you’re focusing on a single culture, there will be subcultures. Even if you’re focusing on a single narrow group of people, there will be age and generational differences.

Think about where your character is from. If it’s a fantasy world, that’s still (and even more, in some ways) important. What country, what ethnicity, what mother tongue? Did they grow up urban or rural? High socio-economic status or working class? What sort of educational background and peer group did they have growing up (and presently) and how does that factor into their vocabulary and mannerisms, if at all.

All of these can influence how people talk. There are regional accents and different modes of speaking to signal your group membership. There is code-switching across groups, for those who have had to learn multiple linguistics codes to survive and thrive in society. 

How much slang does this group and therefor this character use? What references (modern, outddated, topical, etc) do the rely on? What kind of references (pop culture, music, academic, etc)? What colloquialisms and proverbs do they say? Are these the same or different to their characters, even within the same culture, subculture, or group, and is it because they’re from a different place/sub-group or because of their idiosyncrasies?

You can use these to help your reader get to know more about your character’s background without having to spell it all out directly. Speech patterns and style are a great way to show instead of tell when it comes to details that are hard to drop in organically in other ways.

An important caveat: don’t write a bilingual character who switches languages in speech unless you’re ready to do a bit of research on that. In AATJS I did an absolutely horrific job of this because I was thinking more about fronting the fact that character was Italian rather than thinking through how people actually talk, and it came out exotifying and embarrassing. It’s important to make sure that the way you use language to bring in a character’s cultural and/or ethnic background feels authentic and manifests is a way that respects that language and its users. You can write a character with a complex cultural history without using multiple languages if you’re unprepared to do research and talk to bilingual speakers.

Personality

Probably the most salient thing in a writer’s mind when they’re trying to write character voices: is this the funny character? the serious one? the brainy one? etc.

Don’t overuse stereotypes and archetypes for creating speech patterns (or characters in general) if you’re trying to make a rounded, 3-dimensional character. Instead, go about three levels deeper.

Think about whether they’re introverted or extraverted, whether they are neurotypical or neurodivergent, whether they are introspective enough to express their own emotions clearly or whether they stumble when asked why they did a particular thing or feel a particular way (most people don’t or can’t clearly articulate exactly why they did something or how they feel, and come at things a bit sideways to circle around their motives and interior realities when pressed to make them external and concretely verbal).

Is this character calm, is their voice soothing, do they speak slowly? Are they excitable and loud and is their speech free-flowing? Are they angry? Do they swear? Do they use references for humour or are they more into puns? Do they laugh at their own jokes? Do they talk with their hands?

This character has social anxiety: how does that manifest in her speech? Does she clam up and get very quiet when she gets nervous, or does she go rapidfire and a little too loud (does she process by turning in or by distracting herself by turning outward)? Does she get very careful and deliberate in choosing her words (is she a bit high-strung?)? Ask yourself which fits best with the other elements of her personality and what you want the reader to know/interpret about her. 

This character is incredibly smart and a bit awkward: how does that manifest in their speech? Do they tend to use 5-dollar words, or do they expend a lot of energy choosing their words more carefully (how considerate are they to their audience when speaking and does that influence their speech)? Do they stumble over their words and explaining things, or are they good at making points with clear language learned from a lifetime of tutoring and helping others?

This character is the bff, who tries hard to make sure everyone else is happy first: how does that manifest in his speech? How does he switch between his happy-mask versus his more authentic self, and what changes in tone, word-choice, and inflection come in when he does?

-

Personal History

I’m only drawing a distinction between this and personality (archetype, really) so that I can draw attention to ways to add simultaneously unique and shared layers to characters that are distinct but related to group dynamics.

Here’s sort of what I mean: the level of education of a mother (or primary caregiver) of an infant can determine that infant’s vocabulary size. While we can break down all the ‘why is that’ layers to this, the one I want to point is to the simple truth that the more education a person does, the more specialized language they end up learning over time. This doesn’t have to be formal education though -- the more you learn about something and the more you read and access new knowledges and perspective, the more and more words you learn, and then if you start using those words, they trickle down to those close to you.

So.

What’s your character’s educational background? Is it the same as their friends who you are also writing? Is the same as their family’s? How does this character’s family influence their speech? Are they formal, informal, warm, authoritative? 

If you’re writing siblings, they’ll have some shared things! But also some very different ones! Me and my sister talk nothing alike in terms of vocabulary, but a lot alike in terms of mannerisms whenever we spend a bit of time together!

If your characters grew up around each other, they’ll have a lot of the same references. People from the same cities or regions will have things specific to that region, either due to sub-culture effects or because of local references. 

The city of Calgary, Canada for instance has the Plus15 which are a connected pedway system between the buildings in downtown, so named because they are 15feet above the ground. Drive 3 hours north to the city of Edmonton, and you have an underground pedway just called the pedways, no special name. Go a few provinces east to Toronto and their underground pedway system downtown is called PATH. These are all known to locals and part of the vernacular, but are opaque to people outside those cities. And the whole idea of them is probably opaque to people who aren’t from super cold cities that don’t require building-connecting pedway systems for pedestrians to get around high-density areas like downtown (or university campuses) without going out into the cold. 

Friends, families, and groups are like that too. In-jokes, shared histories, speaking in references. What are your characters’ relationships to each other and how does that history influence the way they approach talking to each other?

-

Gender

I don’t want to spend too much time on this one because ugh, gender. What even is it?

But like it or not, it has an impact on our speech patterns. There are cultural and societal norms in how men and women are likely to speak, and breaking those norms will be noticed regardless of whether you’re trans, enby, queer, or not. There are norms that people who are queer may fall into as well, sometimes without even noticing at first. A lot of these aren’t about word choice per se but instead about mannerisms and tone and body language, but some overlap or are specific to language.

Speaking in broad generalizations here, women use more emotional language and tend to speak with more hesitancies/qualifications. So more “i think, i feel” and less “it is”. More conversations that front emotions and dig deeper into those, with longer sentences to explain in detail. The obvious caveat is that personality matters more (i.e., is this a person who likes to talk about their emotions in detail or not) but it is something to consider because there will be general but subtle differences that you can use to help further distinguish your characters’ voices. 

Sidenote: this can also be exacerbated by different cultural backgrounds and languages (a simple example is Japanese which has different words for “I” depending on your gender as well as your personality, familiarity with the other persons in the conversation, and situational appropriateness, so interesting ways that gender and social expectations intersect in language).

Anyway this isn’t typically a huge problem except that I’ve found that a lot of writers have a tendency to overgeneralize the speech patterns that fit with their ascribed gender due to early-life socialization, or conversely to overgeneralize patterns that fit with their gender identity (when not cis) either due to heavily identifying with their gender identity’s speech model (or sometimes possibly due to a knee-jerk sort of backlash). I say this as an enby who both struggles with it and notices it and tries to edit and correct for it. 

I could get into all sorts of examples of ways this can lead to voice issues, but in general i think the point here is to make sure you’re writing any given character in view of that character’s personality and history, with gender only as a modifier for how some of these might come out in subtle ways but which can be important to help tell us about your character (and if you’re writing queer characters, it’s all the more important to consider how their relationship with gender and socialization might impact which speech models and styles they identify more with).

-

Idiosyncrasies

So, you’ve got a character. You’ve got their personality and history down. You know how they manifest in their speech. And you’re still getting some ‘same voice’ issues.

People really are unique snowflakes. Let that be reflected in their speech.

This person uses contractions differently than that one. This one says “ain’t” and that one says “isn’t.”

This person makes Simpsons references and that one doesn’t like Simpsons, and makes Brooklyn Nine Nine references instead. That other one doesn’t use referential humour much at all. This one loves old movies and hasn’t seen any of the new stuff so they make references all the time but no one ever notices.

This one loves the word “excoriate” and that one doesn’t even know what it means because what the hell, who uses the word excoriate?

This one talks about food a lot, it overlaps with their interests. This one uses metaphors. This one grunts in response. This one exclaims. This one says “like” and that one hates it. That one refers to themselves in third person. This other one uses reflective language an usual amount (e.g., “love me some candy”). This other one keeps misusing the word inconceivable and that one speaks almost without contractions but still comes off as more charming and humorous while correcting him.

I have an aunt who says “girl” or “girlfriend” a fuck-ton and she has been my whole life and I don’t know why because none of her sisters do, but she does and it annoys me so much the way she says it. I swear a lot when I’m feeling casual despite never ever doing it in a professional or even slightly-less-than-relaxed space, so the idiosyncrasy of comfort levels has a massive impact on my vocabulary in ways which, I promise, almost no one who meets me first in a professional space expect.

Let your characters be individuals and try to make them as unique as possible without overdoing it, or over-relying on a single verbal tendency or habit. 

-

And ... that’s all I’ve got for now. Completely failed at being concise. I meant to give like 2-3 bullet points or examples for each, not paragraphs, but here we are. That’s one of my verbal tendencies: long flowing verbosity :)

Hope this helps! 

[phynali]

The Player Killer [antagonist]

"You knew what you were getting into."

[phynoma]

an extant form of life- Chapter 10

In which a familiar friend finally makes a reappearance!!

Tim loves people.  This isn't a surprise to most. He's well aware that he's considered charismatic, although he suspects that has something more to do with the people he's around nowadays– Ivory Tower types whose niche of ‘academically stringent paranormal filing clerks’ makes them unpopular with both academia and the usual monsterhunters– than any particular skill on his part.  What most people get wrong is why Tim loves people. It's nothing to do with some great, magnanimous love for humanity. God, no. He loves people because they are, objectively, fascinating. 

[phynoma]

Some advice I found really helpful:

1.) Know where your character is coming from-- it effects how they talk! Did they grow up poor? Are they high class? Are they pretending to be high class? Do they have an accent? Are they rural? City?

2.) Make a cheat sheet of some identifiable characteristics: stutters when nervous, or loses train of thought halfway through sentences, or always uses "like." These should be things you can tie back to who they are! Maybe your brutally quiet character speaks in short, clipped monosyllables. Maybe your character with ADHD and a phD goes on long rambles. Sentence structure can be a useful tool!

3.) Listen to your favorite characters and make *them* a cheat sheet to get ideas. Notice their inflection, their phrasing. How would you write their dialogue down? I find video game characters and podcasts work really well for this, because the voice is usually isolated-- but shows/movies are good too, to get an idea of how physicality effects voice!

i'm gonna try to write character dialogue today for the first time. does anyone have any pointers? i struggle a lot with everyone sounding exactly like me but any and all advice is welcome

[phynsmutstravaganza]

Ongoing fic: Waelite

Well, that will make it easier to get down. Aloth gave the hidden stairs a rueful look. This is what I get for trying to think like the Watcher.

What was it ye said ‘bout him? Iselmyr piped up. How intelligent and clever he is…

I still hold to that. He also just has a penchant for doing things the most difficult way possible first. Aloth sighed. “Onward it is.”

Ayyyyyy it's a new fic!

Well. It's a fic I've had for literal years, finally making its way to the public eye.

There's a sorta actual plot in this one! Which is why it took me so long to finish it

[dyed-red]

i did it!

i finished Folded at the Edges!!

i had to kill a few of my darlings along the way because i couldn't fit those scenes but

it's done!

it will be posted by or on Nov 20th!

for anyone curious, it's a post-finale heaven fic in Dean Junior's POV, just over 47k words, and introspective and thinky with a bunch of my worldbuilding thoughts about the afterlife in SPN snuck in in the form of plot.

it guest-stars as many side characters as i could sneak in without making myself too crazy, but the focus is on DJ getting to know more about his father, his family and family legacy, and most especially his father's relationship with his brother.

[acircusfullofdemons]

DREAMSET CIRCUS [MASTERLIST]

––––––– ✧ ꒰ DREAMSET CIRCUS ┊ABOUT ꒱

TBA.

––––––– ✧ ꒰ DREAMSET CIRCUS ┊MISC ꒱

Intro

Tag

Playlist

What Everyone Does

Fun Facts 1

––––––– ✧ ꒰ DREAMSET CIRCUS ┊WRITING ꒱

tba

––––––– ✧ ꒰ DREAMSET CIRCUS ┊CHARACTERS ꒱

Bethany Crowley Raymond [bio / tag]

🎪 Calypso Raymond

Clairette Raymond [bio / tag]

Delilah Lazzari [bio / tag / playlist]

Diana Harding [bio / tag / playlist]

Dice Van Doreen [bio / tag]

Guinevere Van Doreen [bio / tag]

Isaac Raymond [bio / tag]

James Porter [bio / tag]

Jamie Monroe [bio / tag]

Jason Moore [bio / tag]

Liam Bradley [bio / tag]

Lucy Fisher [bio / tag]

Phyn Raymond [bio / tag]

Prism Raymond [bio / tag / playlist]

Reagan Morningstar [bio / tag]

[phynoma]

Tim in my upcoming TMA fic

sorry i came back wrong do you still wanna hit it

[coldtomyflash]

Hi there, I thoroughly enjoy and admire your writing! :) Since you sometimes mention in your author's notes how the rest of a fic is already mostly outlined, would you like to share some more insights into your writing and outlining process? E.g. What do your outlines usually look like, what level of detail are they, do you outline oneshots differently than multi-chapter stories? Did your writing process change over time? Do you outline whole stories before writing or just a few chapters ahead?

Hi there!

I’ve got a tag for writing advice that I think addresses a bit of my writing process, if you want more insight. I’m happy to talk about here at a broad level, and if you have any more specific questions, feel free to poke me here or at my new blog @phyn-writes for details.

Now on to your actual question, about outlining. This is going to sound convoluted, but I’ll try to keep it coherent. There is a tl;dr at the end though, because this got long as hell.

Broadly speaking, I have a few different ways of outlining. 

For really short pieces, I don’t do any conscious outlining at all. I just sort of start and go, and see where it lands. With fanfic that tends to be easy? Drabbles and one-shots are short and scenes end up with a natural conclusion. I stop as soon as the ‘end’ feels right. With a smut scene that tends to be an obvious place - the characters do their thing, get off, and then flirt or there’s some establishment for what this means for them and where things are going next, and then it’s over. For not smut pieces, it’s similar in that there’s a central tension, and as soon as it’s resolved, I like to figure out the final emotional beat the piece should leave on and cut it there.

(Endings establish a lasting emotion. You can intuit as you go through a piece what the ending should feel like and what you’re building toward. It shouldn’t create a sense of whiplash for the reader, though it can be abrupt or sad if that fits the tone of the piece).

But let’s talk about longer stories. And let’s talk first about the beginning/opening original outline.

Outlining for longer pieces sometimes starts by following the same logic as one-shots and drabbles – that is, no outline at all. This is true for a few of my longer works, like Seventy-Three Seconds and These Violent Delights. With those works, I just jumped in. I didn’t have an outline in mind at the start, I just let my fingers type out words and it just sort of unravelled into the opening of a story, with a conflict built in that would have to be solved.

I say this only to highlight the fact that if you don’t have a full story idea in mind when you start - that’s okay. You can still start. It’s alright to jump in, if that’s what you need to do, and if outlining is causing you grief and getting in the way of just getting words out.

Because even when I start with no outline, and no real concept of where I’m going, I automatically end up with an outline quickly. This is probably the case for most people. And for most of my longer workers (AATJS, Tumbling Together, Melancholic Temperate, and Needs Must), I do start with an outline, one that looks similar to what the other stories’ outlines end up as.

And what that “outline” looks like, when I start, is just ideas in my head. Sometimes jot notes or conversations I’ve had with others about story ideas that I saved, but really, there’s no solid “A will happen, then B will happen, then C will happen” flow the way you might have an outline for an essay for school. There’s definitely never ever a “chapter 1 will have X, chapter 2 will have Y” right at the outset.

Instead of a concrete series of events, what there is is a series of what I call “milestones”. These milestones are scenes I imagine in vivid detail that I want to see happen in the story. A lot of these scenes come up earlier on in the story, but not always. And my original “outline” for a story involves basically these scenes connected by a string. I know the story will have to bridge the gaps between them, but I’m not fussed, I just know that I want the story to head in the direction to make them happen.

After I’ve got the milestones, I start to fill in the blanks. How do we get from A to B? I can do this mentally, or in writing. I don’t stress early on in the narrative about outlining the chapters, I just sort of let them write themselves and see what comes out, knowing that I have a specific scene or milestone that I’m building toward and all the words on the page are explicitly or implicitly working toward that scene. 

And then I get to that scene and - sometimes it happens exactly like I planned. And sometimes I have to completely change it because the narrative changes once you put it on the page and that scene no longer works the way you planned.

And when I talk about outlines changing, that’s a big part of what I mean: that in the process of building toward what I had planned, something has changed, and my plan no longer feels authentic to the narrative. And when that happens, I change the narrative. It’s that whole idea of “kill your darlings”. I might’ve already written out that milestone scene (more than once, if I really like it) but that doesn’t mean it actually works with the story I’m trying to tell. And liking that scene doesn’t mean that scene likes itself. 

And so the outline updates. And writing becomes this beautiful iteration of imagining scenes and milestones for the narrative, filling them in and the blanks between, then editing and updating and changing it because it’s necessary, as the story has grown beyond what’s in my head.

As to how I decide what to change? Well, most of everything I write is in the service of the characters. They guide their stories. They have to be consistent in some manner within their core selves, and if they’re not then I’m doing something wrong. I write for and about people. With that in mind, when I hit a roadblock and realize something doesn’t work, I ask myself what would/should the characters be doing in this situation. I ask myself if there’s enough tension, enough release of that tension. 

And I work hard - and I mean well and truly - I spend a lot of my outlining energy on narrative build. I only discovered this past year that not everyone learns about this in grade school, but narratives tend to follow this standard form, which apparently is called ‘dramatic structure’, and I use it strongly in my story scaffolds:

Exposition / Setting / Introduction 

Initial incident (introduce the conflict and characters)

Rising action (build tension into the story)

Climax (highest point of narrative tension)

Falling action

Resolution

I adhere to that like it’s my writing bible when it comes to how I set up a story. Except with fic, I get to skip the vast majority of the exposition and setting when it comes to introducing the characters. Which suits me well - I really like jumping right in. And even when I do have an AU or exposition to bring in, I still aim to jump kind of straight to the initial incident then give exposition throughout. I like to open with a ‘hook’.

But anyway, when “outlining”, I have to have some idea, even if I don’t put it into words, of what the climax of the story is. Everything else in some way needs to be in service of that. All the tension and release and everything else needs to build, ultimately, to that moment, where the conflict is resolved and it all clicks. Then I speed through the falling action and resolution quick because after the climactic moment of any given story, my own personal attention wanes with it (when I’m reading, I mean). After things are resolved at the climax, you know it’s just housekeeping, so if the falling action drags on and on and on, why would I bother continuing to read? I know they get to have a happily ever after (or whatever the case is) so this doesn’t matter except to give me a bit of closure. 

So when my outlines change, it’s partly because I’m fucking up something to do with this dramatic structure. I’ll realize that I’m resolving a major aspect of the conflict too soon, and have to turn it into a more minor release of tension. Or I’ll realize that I have a scene planned for later in the story but if I keep it where it is, it’ll be after the main conflict is resolved. It might be the resolution of a more minor conflict, but at that point, something is out of order. For me, personally, I don’t like to leave too much to mop up after that climactic moment, and I don’t want to have other semi-serious conflicts left that are going to be creating any real amount of tension in the reader still.

Final notes before I get to some examples: I have a strong tendency for my stories to unfold in three clear acts. Almost all of them can be separated that way (though Tumbling Together is a little meandering and doesn’t fit quite so well, but that’s half because the conflict of that story changes about halfway through in a weird way…). And each act tends to have it’s own minor conflict and resolution, to help give the readers a build and lift to buoy them through the story to the major moment of climax. And though those aren’t explicitly part of the outline in a conscious way, I have outlined my more complicated stories as being in three acts before to help me figure out where to place scenes and how to have things build.

Now, to bring some of this down to earth in a more concrete way, I’m gonna use some examples of how I outlined different fics.

I’ll start by talking about AATJS, which had the most outlining I’ve ever done. In that story, Len and Barry are soulmates and it creates a massive clusterfuck lasting 275k words. I had hashed out the story idea/outline with a friend as a quick conversation, and the basics of it were them bonding and Barry panicking about it, Barry avoiding Len and hiding his bond, and Len doing increasingly vexing shit to more or less get his attention, the military getting involved and kidnapping (and torturing) Len because of his connection to Barry. 

Those were like, the basics. And led to a few especially vivid mental milestones for me in the early stages of writing: Barry panicking after bonding was very vivid and narratively essential, a scene where Len gets in a bar fight and gets his knuckles cut up and bruised and Barry goes to comfort him about it, even though they’re not on good terms, but it creates some softness between them, a scene where Len steals something halfway to get Barry’s attention and Barry is really pissed at him for it, and a scene where Len’s tied to a chair being interrogated by Eiling, and his bond with Barry is being used against him.

If you’ve read the fic, you might recognize that not all those scenes happened, and didn’t all happen like that. What did happen is that I had to answer the question of “how does Len see Barry’s soulmate mark and thus bond with him?” and the answer was that he’d have to fight alongside Barry to be in a situation where he sees it, and the obvious answer to kick Barry’s ass and also tie the narrative to the military was Grodd, so I just kind of threw Grodd into the story without thinking. 

And then things built with Barry hiding the bond from his family and friends, and I needed to introduce more shit going on on Len’s side as he’s kind of spiralling, and other Rogues accidentally wrote themselves into the plot. And Len does steal something which pisses off Barry, but instead of being to get his attention, he does it with Mark Mardon and completely different motivations. And the fallout from that created a whole different mess for me to solve. And shortly after I started working on the fic, a new milestone presented itself as necessary: the moment where Barry and Len actually come together, and start being honest with each other, which is a really poignant scene where Barry basically offers himself to Len because they’re both suffering in this toxic way, and they realize a lot about each other and realize how much they each care about the other. And it was pivotal for the narrative, but built itself into the outline only after I began to work on the story.

And things changed and updated from there, all leading to a central climactic moment that combined the main and sub storylines into a single moment of resolution. The main storyline was Barry and Len’s romance, with a key conflict being their ability to be together authentically and in a solid, forever kind of way, because even though they’re soulmates, Barry has this hesitation through the whole story that evolves into not being able to say he’s in love with Len. And the subplot of the story (or one of them) revolves around the military, and Grodd, and it creates so much conflict throughout the story that I realized eventually that I couldn’t resolve it before (or after) resolving the other, that both of these narratives had to be resolved simultaneously. And every edit in the outline from then on was about making sure the story was building in a direction of resolving these tensions at once.

Okay, whew. This post is getting long.

Final bits - with Melancholic Temperament, my outline consisted of a couple of milestones scenes, and with a basic structure / scaffold in place. I wanted the first 2/3 of the story to involve de-aged Len, and the final 1/3 to involve grown up Len, and I had a few pivotal scenes in mind (young!Len misreading Barry’s intentions and propositioning him, adult!Len at the moment of re-aging) when I started, and most of the in-between outline was like “here’s the villain. Is she really a villain? Let’s explore that later. Also do young Len and Barry get together? It adds to the conflict and tension, let’s build to that. We need scenes where they get closer, and have this poignant kind of connection, possibly with Len having nightmares or with midnight conversations”. 

Some stuff wasn’t in the outline at all, like Mick just hijacked the plot and wrote himself into the story and I was like “huh, okay, hi Mick, what are you doing here?” but I didn’t let it change the ultimate narrative.

 With Needs Must, things have been bizarre in terms of outlining. Originally, the story was just an idea in my head that I never planned to write and it was just coldflash. I had some milestone scenes in mind, a lot because the fic was rolling around in my head for a long time (the first time they get together, the second when they realize it’s not cured and the sense of dread that sneaks into the narrative, a scene at some point in the story where Barry was going to go too far and Len was going to freak out, and Barry was going to back off and this was going to lead to them having to shift gears). 

But a lot wasn’t in the original outline in my head, and was only added once I switched to coldwestallen and started writing. Like the villain? Wasn’t in the original, and in the first version, was an actual villain. Kat in the current version is contrite and out of her depth and while not innocent of wrong doing, never intended for this to happen. But as soon as I pivoted to coldwestallen, a really important milestone the narrative (and thus outline) had to build toward was the moment at which they realize what’s going on with the ‘curse’.

And in terms of dramatic structure, I also had to make sure that moment didn’t feel like a resolution. Normally that would be the climax of a story, or come shortly before it: catch the villain, find out how to fix things, then fix them. But this story is a bit different, and the central conflict has never been the sex curse (though it’s tied up in it), it’s about these three characters falling in love. And the story can’t be done, and the tension can’t be released, until that happens.

So I used that scene to up the ante rather than letting it release the tension. And because it needed to go that way, if the real underlying conflict is these three people falling in love, then the curse itself had to lead them there and be resolved by that. I didn’t decide the curse was about falling in love until I decided that the story was going to be all three of them, and until I realized that I wanted a scene where the truth is revealed to them but doesn’t fix a damn thing and only makes it potentially worse.

And then there are a bunch of other outline changes within it. That scene where Mick finds out about the curse? There was a long debate about whether to keep or kill that entire piece, or move it in the story, and deciding what purpose it serves to the overall conflict and resolution. It almost replaced the potion Barry drinks, because I almost shortened the story by a good deal, but ultimately decided I wanted to extend the narrative and let it build a little slower so that Iris has more time in the narrative.

And Iris and Len slowly orbiting and falling into each other was originally only going to happen as / after the curse was broken. But then I realized, back to that dramatic structure, that if the central tension of the story comes from Barry’s ability to love Len, I had to move Len and Iris up. The conflict was originally going to be more about them being able to be together and getting together, but because of how the story naturally wrote itself (with the love as the central conflict moment), it started to feel unnatural if I were to resolve the curse and still have a chunk of the story and a conflict left afterward. In the original outline it would’ve been a whole act (act three) but the story wasn’t writing itself that way and I had to tie Iris and Len into the build up to the narrative climax that exists in the actual story, rather than the one in a bygone outline. And thus the current version of events in the story has unfolded.

So - major tl;dr here. 

My outlines more or less consist of knowing what the central tension or conflict of a story is (which sometimes changes a bit as it goes) and making sure everything else works in the service of building to the moment that’s resolved, then being able to wrap up really quickly afterwards with no major sources of tension left over. I pick scenes as narrative ‘milestones’ that act as a scaffold or guide for the rest of the story, and these scenes can change the but idea in them, of tension or of conflict, of what they accomplish for the broader narrative, tends to stay the same.

Sometimes I write down a formal outline, sometimes it’s just in my head, but it always evolves in iterations as the narrative unfolds and everything in it acts in service of a satisfying climax and moment of resolution.