#this fic made me realise i’m a very dialogue heavy writer

[hellneedsaruler]

Last Sentence Tag Game

Post the last sentence from your WIP or wherever you left off in your art. Then tag as many people as there are words in the sentence. Don't reblog, make a new post.

Thanks for the tag ! @groundbreakingdot872 @kairenn-n

AHHH so yeah this is a fic i’ve been playing with for a bit now and it’s a very very rough draft

“you see , love . He has to because the gods are rarely kind ; they choose the hero and they make him one . but only to serve their purpose and once it’s done the gods fear their creation . they fear that the light of the hero has outshined them , that the people would only see him and have no need for them anymore . so they kill him” his mum shrugs, “the hero has to die because the gods can't help having the last word . They kill him as a reminder that no matter how great the hero was they’re still greater . that he is and always was a mortal”

Sorry this is a whole ass paragraph but i didn’t think the last sentence was giving much tbh 😭

18 people is A LOT omg , @shana-rosee @lost-for-writing @i-was-once-a-flower @lauradonnelly @sauraunderscore @magicinavalon @nextstopparis and anyone who wants to join is most welcome !

[piteouspeculiarity]

Defining Home: Extended Author's Note

Warning: This might contain spoilers for the series

(For clarity, when I say 'Tommy' etc in this post, I'm talking about the characters from my fics, not the content creators themselves.)

So it's done, huh? This note will include the sappy shit, the fun facts, then some of the more serious stuff, because I just didn't want to add an essay to the end of that chapter.

First of all, thank you all for the support along the way. Defining Home is easily my most popular series of fics I’ve ever written and I’ve been writing fanfic for years now. The comments and the kudos and the bookmarks were so very validating when I was new to the fandom, and still are. Hell, people have gifted me fics and written related fics to Defining Home, which blows my tiny mind. I haven’t gotten the chance to read a lot of them yet (procrastination I know thy name), but when I do, I’ll be leaving my best comments in thanks <3

I'll be honest, when I posted the first chapter of Enough, I never expected it to turn into what it did.

That first chapter was written in my phone notes at 3am, hours before an exam. I hadn't interacted with the fandom at all at that point, didn't even have a Tumblr for it, but boy oh boy did I get a warm welcome.

The point is, that first chapter was a very spur in the moment thing, mainly consisting of one scene I couldn't get out of my head (Tommy on a train to Wilbur's). I've gotten a few people telling me since then that they wished that they could write as well as I can, which is a huge compliment, but every person can write a fic like Enough. There are things that we all struggle with when it comes to writing: dialogue, prose, starting scenes - I have my own things I struggle with, things you might have noticed, things you might have not. You don't have to be a perfect writer to tell a story, especially in fandoms, where betas are easy to come across.

Write your story, even if its just for yourself. Posting that chapter gave me the chance to make new friends and I'll never stop being grateful for that.

One of those friends is Kat, who I've mentioned a couple times in the author's notes, but who honestly, I owe a lot to. Kat has encouraged me and been one of the main motivators to write this fic when I felt like it would never be finished, or that I'd never live up to other people's expectations. Sometimes, that meant motivating in some weird ass ways, but hey, it worked.

People who know me in discord servers might know that I'm a simp for Kat and it's damn true. Kat, I love you, you've improved my life more than you know in the last couple months and you deserve so, so much happiness.

In fear of love reciprocation from Kat, we'll move swiftly on to the more fun side of things.

Anyone feel like fun facts? You might already know some of these because I tend to overshare in author's notes, but I'm pretty sure some of them are new to all of you.

Barney the dog? Named after my own late labrador, who I love very much and loved to jump in lakes and need rescuing, time and time again.

I had no plans in moving Tommy in with Techno, hell, I had no plans in Techno moving to England at all. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to everyone else when he told Tommy the news, but I latched onto the idea and ran with it. I think it worked out okay, in the end.

Techno has a draw in his bedroom full of parenting books, most of which were stolen from Phil.

After Tommy asked for help about what to do with Dream, Wilbur sent Dream a dm telling him he better not fuck anything up and if he did, Wilbur would not hesitate to humiliate him in front of millions of people. It was unnecessary, of course, but Dream was definitely a bit more cautious about what he said when he listened to Tommy’s explanation.

Some of my favourite things about writing Defining Home:

The Tesco v Asda discourse. Look, some of you just need to accept that Asda is the superior shop and get off your Tesco stanning bullshit. /j

The offers I would get for new chapters, some honourable mentions being newborns, siblings, diamonds and kidneys.

Now, I know that as much as I tried to, I won't have managed to include everything that everyone wanted from Defining Home, whether that's certain confrontations or scenes, I am sorry if I haven't included.

I don't imagine myself writing any more in the series, not because I think there isn't more I could write about, but because as a whole it feels complete to me, and any added oneshots I write would disturb that.

Right now Defining Home feels well rounded in a way that I'm proud of. The minute I realised that Enough was going to turn into a series I planned out how I wanted it to work. Maybe its just the maths part of my brain, but I like how there's three fics, with three chapters in each and how Tommy heals as you progress throughout the series.

My aim for the series was for the tone to get lighter as you went through, because yes, things kept happening (confrontation with dad, beach incident etc) but the point was that Tommy dealt with those things in different ways that he would have earlier on in the series. I have lots of thoughts and lots of emotions about how he felt safe enough with his family to experience nightmares and such. I made an effort in The Truth Behind Family to include more fluff, especially in the last two chapters, because I think it’s important to show that yeah, his parents’ abuse effected him, but it didn’t dictate how he lived his life. 

Like yes, I could write about their first Christmas together, for example, and add it onto the series, but I don’t think that I’d be able to do the rest of the series justice in that. Defining Home is largely about what the title implies, Tommy discovering what words like ‘home’ and ‘family’ mean beyond what he’s been told he’s stuck with and I believe that by the end of the series, he’s been successful in that. 

I'm so proud of the characters I wrote, Tommy in particular, for how far they've come in Defining Home, but I think that in a way, it’s time for me to let them go.

That’s not to say I’m done with writing for sbi! Hell no! 

I have a couple long fics in the works and a one shot I’m working on. The main fic I’m excited to focus on now Defining Home is finished is heavy heart, heavy head, heavy hero which, to put it simply, is an sbi royalty au, where unfortunate circumstances mean Tommy is forced to become King. It’s going to be a little more plot focused than Defining Home was and I am so very pumped to give it my full attention instead of leaving that lonely one chapter on AO3 like I have been doing.

I was 🤏close to making a Discord server, but ultimately decided I’m much more suited to causing chaos on other people’s servers than running my own. I think at this point the karma would be too great to even consider making my own server, so if you’d like to talk to me on Discord, keep an eye for me on other people’s servers - I mainly lurk, but I’m pretty active on one or two :D

On a more serious note, Defining Home deals with some heavy topics and I’ve had comments tell me that they relate to Tommy’s situation and wish that they had their own found family to run to. 

This Tumblr post has a list of phone numbers and places you can contact if you need help or want someone to talk to. Saying that, I recognise that a list as long as that can be daunting, so feel free to shoot me a message and I can either help you find the right one for you, or keep you company for a bit if you need it. 

Not all of us are lucky enough to have our own found family, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t forever, or that you’re alone. My dms and ask box are always open if you want someone to talk to.

Keep yourselves safe <3

- Lee 

[pleasantanathema]

my apologies for writing an essay of almost 700 words RE: Blood of Eden, i don't know how to fit it into an ask so i'm submitting. in my defence i was having a shit day and you made it so much better

OKAY I’M BACK I’VE READ IT AND LET ME PREFACE MY LONG ASS MESSAGE WITH: I LAUREN I’M HORNY ON THE OUTSIDE AND SCARED SHITLESS ON THE INSIDE

First point: this Erwin is giving me MAJOR the governor from the walking dead vibes in the filthiest most depraved and hottest way idk if the character was an inspiration, but IT SHOOK ME TO MY CORE

You deserve your ass ate for making me visualise an even buffer and gruffer Erwin who’s more often than not covered in blood and adorned in battle scars. Even though I know and prefer Erwin as a good and kind man the predatory atmosphere of his character in this fic had me blushing like a nun in a brothel the obscenities that come out of his mouth…… you are a genius!!!

It was equal parts ‘this is so deliciously wrong’ and ‘this is so realistic and scary’ seeing how he lost people who used to trust him with their lives bc he turned into a narcissistic breeding bull, making him kill poor jean and making it very clear he was a very dangerous man made me physically want to snuggle against his broad chest for safety jhfgbkjsdf you made me realise how susceptible I am to fall into a cult if the big authority handsome man said I was his favorite little special lamb LMAO

Knowing that levi and miche KNEW what Erwin’s plans were with us but being unable to change anything dkjfhgsjdf this part was what made everything so believable and actually scary instead of like roleplay

Little details like erwin’s manipulation tactics to make us depend on him, ignoring and love bombing, him keeping us perpetually naked, basking in the admiration of the people of Eden, showing us off, making us verbalise how much we want him, love him, adore him to make us complicit in what he’s doing to us… goddddd

“How long have you wanted me?” GOD this line ARE YOU KIDDING MEJDFKHSJDF too fucking long commander

“You know what I want from you, don’t you, little lamb?”

THE ABSOLUTE HORROR of finding out the kids were his, the jealousy I felt!! When I tell you the blood drained from my face when I realised it. Not my proudest moment when I also realised it made me madder to know he was going around breeding women than finding out what the poor women were going thru god bless I ain’t seeing them pearly gates any time soon

The smut was just right, just devoted enough to make you forget the situation you’re in and give into him but not mean enough to put you off. Oh to be erwin’s little cadet and hear him say  “You’re mine now. Your home is my bed, where you belong.” Literally zero arguments to that even after he smashed a guy’s skull in with his gorgeous foot

And the crown jewel of the entire fic for me: the branding scene, I took maybe 3 (albeit very heavy) breaths thru that entire part. I’m not the writer you are so I can’t do justice to the emotions you forced out of me with anything other than “ACHIVEMENT: New kink unlocked.”

Final point: I love how immersive your writing is. Usually when I read x reader stories, I come into the story ready to at worst cringe and at best listen to someone else’s daydream about someone I like. But whenever I read your stories I feel there’s a weight to the characters, like they are alive and I am only visiting them for a period of time before leaving them to keep existing. Idk if this makes any sense but I truly love your worldbuilding (? Idk the exact term unfortunately), your dialogues and characterisations. No explicitly writing Y/N, no unnecessary descriptions, full immersion.

In conclusion I hope this ask doesn’t weird you out with its length and conveys how much I appreciate your works! If we were in the olden times and I were a rich merchant I would be your ever faithful patron, commissioning Erwin piece by smutty Erwin piece lol. BLESS YOU!!!!!!

-c

[fandom-star]

Writer’s Tag

@its-all-ineffable tagged me to do this, but it’s a long one so I’m doing it in a different post! Thank you very much! I love doing these so much!

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How many works do you have on AO3?

164 (possibly 165 by the weekend if I post the Witcher one I finished the other day)

What's your total AO3 word count?

181468

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

It’s Okay (Merlin: Merthur) - 569 Kudos Pulchra (Night At The Museum: Jedtavius) [NSFW] - 286 Kudos A Father’s Wisdom (Merlin: Merthur: Uther-centric) - 270 Kudos Crush (MCU Spider-Man: PeterNed) - 262 Kudos Comfort Blankets For Sleepy Gods (MCU Loki Series: Lokius) - 245

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Sometimes. I try to if I’m not in a non-social mood. Mostly, if I start off on my page before reading any fic and see that I have something in my inbox and it turns out to be a comment on my fic, then I’m more likely to reply to it. Idk why it works like that. Otherwise, it’s kinda touch and go whether or not I’ll reply to something, you’ve got a 50/50 chance, but I always read and appreciate every one that I get.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

*Looks at my abundance of angst fics* There’s... a surprising amount of angst without happy endings in my repertoire. Um. I’ll give you three that I vividly remember. (All of these are Star Trek and Spones) Written In The Stars - This is one of my really early works, and was gonna have a sequel that made it have a less angsty ending, but I could never get into the rhythm of writing it. I won’t spoil it, but this is probably the only fic I’ve written where Sarek is a straight-up dick. Battlefield - As the title suggests, there’s war with no real context. And major character death. It’s sad. I genuinely made people cry with this. I am both proud and apologetic of that. Unreal - This is probably one of my more complex concepts, and I’m really proud of it. Features ooc Spock with contextual reasons I won’t spoil, defensive/protective McCoy and major character death of a sort.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending

This is kind of difficult, bc while I have excessively written angsty endings (see: above answer) I do usually write happy endings, and I can’t remember all 160 fic endings left over, and even then it’s difficult to rank them by happiest. I like Nutcase {Murdoch Mysteries: Watts-centric) a lot, oh and also Blame It On Me (Star Trek Pricard: Hughnor) which is angst with a happy ending (and has amazing art accompanying it). There are many others with happy endings, but like I said I have no idea how to rank them by “happiest”.

Do you write crossovers? If so, What is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

I don’t really, but I have written one as a request that I really really enjoyed. A Good Day is ThorBruce and is set in the DS9 era of Star Trek, in which Thor is a captain and Bruce is his chief science officer. It’s really adorable and features sleepy, over-worked Bruce and a very characteristically happy Thor.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, I don’t think so, unless you count unsolicited advice I felt I couldn’t turn down on ff.net when I was struggling to write Uhura. I’m kind of surprised I haven’t tbh (not that I’m complaining) since I do write for some very popular fandoms and ships (although, conversely, also some very niche fandoms and ships).

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I write it but have only ever posted it thee, four times if you count the exploratory one I posted under a pseudonym that wasn’t really that smutty. I’m hoping to get the confidence up to post some of what I’ve written tho, bc I do really like hat I’ve managed to do with some of it.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I’m aware.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, I have! A lovely person found my fic 1967, which is probably one of my favourite Spones fics I’ve written, based around the UK’s decriminalisation (well, partial) of homosexuality, and traslated it into Hungarian here. I’ve not been able to check it out, due to not knowing a thing in the language (tho I could probably ask my friend to) but the translator seemed really lovely, so I trust them to have done a good job.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not something I posted, but before I even started posting fanfic, me and my best friend really randomly started writing a Star Trek TNG x Star Wars crossover whenever they were at my house. We gave up on it after about a year and never wrote much for it, but it was... it was something.

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

This changes all the time with my hyperfixations! One that will always be in my heart is obviously Spones, my og ship and within my special interest. Currently I’m obsessed with The Witcher so I’ve got Geraskier on the mind but who knows when that might change!

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

In terms of fanfic I don’t really have any that I don’t think I’ll ever finish. I have an original script that I started writing months ago but only got about three scenes into and haven’t touched since bc I don’t actually have a plot for it.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue; Is situations one? That sounds like a good and fancy way of saying AUs; Finding synonyms should be one, that’s like half my search history

What are your writing weaknesses?

Description; Despite my talent of finding synonyms I feel like I do repeat words a lot; Planning and outlining, I just don’t do it - it works for me tho.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’m pretty sure the only times I’ve really done it is for Jedtavius (having Oct speak in Latin occasionally) and I might have done it once or twice with Spock speaking Vulcan, both times it’s mostly terms of endearment or Oct wanting to be romantic. Idk, I don’t really care about reading dialogue in other languages as long as there’s a translation somewhere in the work or I can easily pick it up or search it. Just do whatever, it’s your writing. As long as you do it well and it makes contextual sense, I don’t really care.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Unposted: Star Trek: The Next Gen Posted: Sherlock (I actually recently reread my first ever posted fic, it’s a long haul (just over 45k), but if anyone ever wants to see a work where my writing visibly improves lemme know and I’ll email the pdf to you)

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

Why would you do this to me??? I love most of my fics!!! I’m just gonna link a few here cause I’ve been doing this for an hour now and it would definitely take me an hour to choose just one! The Relationship Series - modern AU, autistic Spock (written by a self-projecting autistic writer), there’s angst spattered about but is especially prominent in part 6, I just really love this series Promises You Can’t Keep - Loki spoilers, I love this bc it’s based on “what if my finale theory was right instead of being debunked three minutes into the episode”, definitely angst with a hopeful ending I love all of my Charite At War fics, but I’m gonna link my 20 years post-canon fic Grow Old With Me and my modern AU You Give Me Your Light - both have some heavy topics (post-canon is set in 1960s East Germany, modern AU topics are tagged) but I adore both with my entire heart You’ll Never Burn - Merlin/Merthur, again kinda heavy (not as heavy as the Charite ones in my opinion) but short and everything is tagged I love all of my Babylon 5 fics but Secret Rendezvous will always have a special place in my heart. It’s very sweet and essentially follows Vir and Lennier trying to navigate coming out about their relationship to their ambassadors I also recommend all the of the fics I’ve already linked in the post ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now for the hard part - tagging!

@esperata @tallysgreatestfan @iwritesometimes @marlinspirkhall and any other writer mutuals I’ve likely forgotten but I’ve already spent WAY too long writing this post asfdhdskjdgha So I apologise, but if you wanna do it, absolutely go for it, this was so much fun and really made me realise how much I’ve achieved in 4.5 years.

[thequeensbastardenglish]

Hi! I just wanted to pop by and say how much I absolutely LOVE Dust! I can’t count how many times I’ve re-read it, it’s easily one of my favourite fics ever. I can’t wait to see what happens next with Lou! How did you come up with the idea for this fic?

Ah, man, ah man! Thank you so much! I’m still sitting in thehappy pleased and kinda shocked corner over the fact that people read Dust andenjoyed it so the fact that you’ve read it multiple times is a astonishing tome.

But wow, what a question! How did I come up with the idea? Urggh…Slowly? Most of my ideas begin with a single scene or piece dialogue that justpops into my head. Then I start thinking about how the story gets to that particularscene or what lead the character to say whatever it is they said. Dust was alittle bit different because I knew that the image in my head was the verybeginning of the story. This might have been a blessing. In others fics I’vewritten once I get to the scene I tend to lose interest in the story because itfeels like I’ve achieved my goal even though I very clearly flipping haven’t. 

But Dust – Duuuuuuust!For Dust it was the image of Lou and Debbie standing alone on a desert road,with Lou wearing her riding leathers and Debbie dressed in a designer dress andlooking like a million bucks. I knew straight away that it was a first meetingand, honestly, that almost killed the idea right then. One of the things I loveabout Debbie and Lou is their history and the weight it lends to them, and Itend to prefer writing established relationships rather than characters firstfalling in love, so apart from the aesthetic value of the mental image it wasn’treally something that I wanted to explore. Thankfully desert scenery is toodamned pretty to ignore so I felt compelled to stare at pretty pictures of variousdeserts and watch time lapsed videos of people driving through them. And then Istarted thinking about loneliness and desolation and what leads someone to justsay fuck this and move out to live in an environment that is so hostile, and Irealised I had the basis for Lou’s story. 

(Since I was thinking about loneliness I was originally goingto set this fic on route 50 – the Loneliest Road in America, but because of Fallout:New Vegas I really love the Mojave so it moved there. It would have been alittle heavy handed to set it on the Loneliest Road in America, I think I madethe right call to move it) 

Usually I’m a fly bythe seat of pants style of writer; I just start writing and see where I end up.But for this I actually worked out a structure for the story even if I didn’t havethe full plot mapped out. This is possibly gonna sound a little boring and I’maware that you didn’t really ask me aboutstructure but for this fic the structure informed the story. I’d been readingabout circular narratives and decided that I wanted to try it out (because Isuck at structure with my stories and I’m trying to improve my writing – I alsofind smut very difficult to write and will be forcing myself to write more of itfor the same reason – I can’t wait to post some of it, then reread it a weekafter I’ve posted it and have to put my face in my hands and be all like: “Oh,gods, what the fuuuuuuck it’s so bad”) so I mapped out a very quick circular narrativemap that looked a little something  likethis: 

A – Lou saves Debbie

B – Shenanigans ensue

C – Debbie saves Lou 

So then I just had to answer questions like: What did Lousave Debbie from? Dehydration, obviously, but also from a douche bag. What didDebbie save Lou from? The same douche bag! Also herself but that’s a littleless flashy then what went down with Claude Fucking Becker. And thus we end thestory in a similar vein to how it began. 

The bit on the middle was just answering more and morequestions that I asked myself, big questions and small. Things that ranged from:Why Claude is so determined to find Debbie to where does Lou get water from? Iwanted to keep the characters as close to how they are in the film as possible.And really all that makes this AU is the idea that Lou and Debbie didn’t meetwhen they were younger and lived separate lives (because I’m an actual idiot Ionly realised this the other day). I wrote out an entire back story for Lou; fromwhen she was child and her relationship with her mother up to the bank job thatwent wrong. So a lot of the middle bit was just intuitive to the characters andwhat felt right to them. Often once I’d answered a question it raised anotherquestion that needed answering, and that just kept leading me on through thestory. It was honestly a lot of trial and error and a heap of stuff wound up onthe cutting room floor. 

I’m going on a bit of a tangent at this point so I’m goingto shut up. This was probably a much longer answer than you were expecting andI’m not even sure it actually answered your question.

[zombiesbecrazy]

Things I Learned While Writing and Finishing a “Long” Fanfic For the First Time

I’ve written a lot of fanfic over the years but it’s usually been one shots or very short multi chapter stories, and recently I wrote and finished a 78K fic for the first time. I just write for myself, for fun, as a way to unwind and have zero aspirations to become a writer, but I learned a few things from writing my first ‘long’ fic, and thought I’d share.

1. You become really familiar with your own writing style, habits and mistakes (and you keep making them).

I’m a dialogue heavy writer. I knew that before but, wow. My characters are chatty even when they aren’t. At one point I had a chapter outline that was seven pages long and it was 100% dialogue. I need to work on this. 

I also over use commas but I think that stems from the dialogue thing. I’m a fast talker. Think... Six on Blossom because I’m old and can’t think of another fast talker in pop culture. I never understood the jokes on the show about the speed of her speech because it never seemed weird to me; everyone else just speaks super slow. Because of that, commas (especially in dialogue) seem right. My life is a giant comma and it is being reflected in my writing. Remember that periods exist and not everything talks/thinks in one giant run on sentence.

I use “look” as a verb waaaaay too often. It was rather ridiculous after I noticed it. At one point I yelled at my computer to get someone to stop looking at things. Did that stop me? No. Look, looking, looked. Blah. My New Year’s Resolution - stop having characters look at things.

2. No matter how well you have something outlined, you are going to screw yourself over at some point and not in the fun way.

My story was entirely outlined from the start. It started with a simple question to myself and then I had a 12K word explosion all at once, but that 12K was spread throughout the entire story. I had things that had to happen in specific chapters, things that had to happen along the way and an end point. My number of chapters changed, but it was mainly because certain things needed to be split into multiple chapters, not because the story changed. I always knew where the story was going to end up.

Despite this, I still managed to write myself into a corner at least three times. Two of those times were completely avoidable if I wasn’t such an idiot. Twice I had something happen or a character said something that seemed innocuous at the time, and I liked it, but then later I realised that it caused problems for later down the road for something miniscule. One I wrote around and one I just ignored and hoped no one would notice :)  The other main one that I’ve noticed (I’m sure there were more) was an editorial decision to focus on other things and I think I should have probably done it in a different way because it made something seem a lot more sudden or just thrown in than I intended. Hindsight is 20/20!

3. Posting chapters online when you are still in the writing process for the story is amazing and terrifying.

As someone who only usually writes one shots, I didn’t really realise what was going to happen when I started posting an installment of something on a weekly basis. People were commenting and invested in something that I was creating? Like, I knew it was a thing, but it didn’t register in my brain that it was going to happen? I loved people giving feedback and predicting things, but at the same time I can see how it can be a little nerve wracking. It was a pressure that I sort of loved but sort of hated at the same time. Don’t get me wrong. I loved getting comments, but I started to get the worry of “but what if I take this in a direction that they don’t like any more?”.  It definitely helped that I knew where I was going from the start because if not I think it would have changed what I was doing (and not for the better). I don’t think I could be one of those people who could write something without a solid direction to which I knew where I was going. I’d totally cave to peer pressure.

Personally, I think this has changed (or hopefully will change) how I do things as a reader. I am terrible about leaving comments. I can love something so, so much and then never say anything to the writer about it besides leaving a kudos or bookmarking. Knowing that something small, even just a heart or a smiley face, can bring a smile to the writers face (because I totally grinned at every single comment I got), will hopefully make me be a better (or at least more frequent) commenter.

4. The diverse scope of what people can take or interpret from your writing is fascinating.

Some of the comments that I got were truly amazing, but surprising because even though I was the writer, I didn’t make the same connection or take the same thing away as the reader did.  Sometimes there was a little detail that someone picked up on that didn’t really have a deeper meaning (other than I liked it) but they saw something more or bigger in there.  And that is OK. If a reader can take something away from my writing for the better, I’m thrilled. 

The reverse is also true. I found it very interesting to see things that were in there and that people didn’t comment on. I had a few plot points or things that I dropped into the story that no one mentioned or asked about and I was surprised, because I was convinced when I posted them that I was going to get called out (either for good or bad) and then no one said anything about it and focus turned to other things instead. I’m not disappointed in the slightest, I just thought it was interesting.

I was also not expecting so many people to have an emotional response to something that I wrote. I was a little overwhelmed (in a good way) a few times, and I never thought I’d be so happy about how many people were telling me that I made them cry. 

5. Finishing what you’ve started gives you the biggest sigh of relief and a little bit of “but now what?”

Congratulations! You’ve completed your story! But... now what? New project? Finish another project? Be judged by all your other unfinished projects? Stare longingly at your finished story and fight back the urge to rewrite the entire thing?

Personally, I’m just going to kick back a little, maybe fiddle with some half thought out ideas and just enjoy the thought that I don’t have to try and post something next Monday :)

[weconqueratdawn]

#fannibalselfrec event - Hannibal season one

Thanks to @hannibalficwriters for organising this, I’m looking forward to checking out everyone’s recs :)

I nearly decided not to take part - I have problems with self-reccing, especially when I think something has received ‘enough’ attention. It just seems greedy. But that’s a) stupid and b) I have a story I want to tell about the writing of this fic.

I have literally only one (1) which qualifies. Others have strayed too far into AU-land to count as taking place in S1. That fic is *drumroll*:

Cathexis

Hannibal/Will ~ 57k words ~ Explicit

A Season 1 BDSM AU

Summary: What if Hannibal's sadistic tendencies only find expression through consensual BDSM relationships? Set in a Season 1 AU where Will is allowed to continue teaching, relatively undisturbed by Jack, and seeks Hannibal's professional help of his own accord.

The story I want to tell is how I went from not even thinking about writing, to writing something which juuussst about qualifies as a short novel (if we go by word count) in the same bound. (And how you can too! No, just kidding - I hate those kinds of terrible advice blogs. But stick with me, there’s things in this story which might be relevant for anyone reading.)

Before this fic, I wasn’t writing. Anything. Not only that, but I wasn’t even a frustrated writer who wanted to write but couldn’t. The idea of writing had never occurred to me. Sure, I was a frustrated creative person - I have been all my life, even since I was a very small child. Just before this fic, I had been studying fine art with a load of other adult learners and trying to engage with the contemporary arts scene in a fairly amateurish but genuine way. I would have described myself as an artist. My creative friends are sculptors and printmakers and painters. We had just finished putting on a group exhibition - just to see if we could - and were thinking vaguely of other things we might do together in the future.

Enter fandom. I had come to Hannibal post-cancellation and watched all three seasons breathlessly, then wandered around Tumblr reading meta and finding great fic and thinking WHY OH GOD WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS in a way which is familiar to anyone who has just Found Hannigram.

My gf is a fandom-savvy individual and we usually talk about our obsessions, whether they're shared or not. We came up with something which we found funny and which you most likely won’t - after steeping ourselves in Hannibal's god-complex we thought it would be hilarious to reduce him down to a common-or-garden bedroom sadist. He would make bad bondage puns and have a dungeon instead of a murder basement. Lololol etc. I even went so far as to refer to this as Fifty Shades of Graham, which if you know me, demonstrates how un-serious I was about it.

I DID NOT INTEND TO WRITE THIS is what I am trying to say. It was a joke, a bad one, and a private one. I never intended to be a writer* at all. 

Because apparently, unbeknown to me, that’s what I’ve been all this time. Secretly, under the surface somewhere. And what I think is this: I just wasn’t ready to be a writer before. I wasn’t ready to discover this about myself. The things that I did before - all the visual art, all my academic studies and crap jobs - all have, in differing and subtle ways, all fed into this part of me which wasn’t ready to come out yet. 

And I also think that this is happening to all of us. It’s just as true for you as it is for me. We all have hidden pockets of potential, things even the most self-aware of us do not know about, or refuse to look too closely at. Those pockets might not lead directly to anything life changing, they may be paths to other, deeper and more difficult to find pockets. Or simply to activities and interests we find enjoyable, a way of doing something just for ourselves or of meeting people we need in our lives.

A wise person on the internet said “follow the rabbit-holes”. They all lead to the same place anyway, and the easiest path there is the one of least resistance. Follow that strange tug, dive in, see where it leads you without worrying about the destination. You might end up being very surprised.

*It took me maybe six months to start to feel I could use the hallowed word Writer when talking about myself, and now I can even tell complete strangers this without blushing and feeling like a fraud.

18 months later and I can't imagine not planning all my not-work time around writing - I think about it constantly. It nags at me when I’m prevented from doing it by other commitments. My weeks and weekends are based squarely around which project I'm working on and how much time I have until that deadline, self-imposed or not. I have so many projects lined up they are constantly being juggled and re-ordered so I can try to maximise my available writing time in the most effective way. I’m even looking beyond fandom and beginning work on an original novel. And it all started with this fic.

For the really curious, here is how Cathexis got written (under the cut):

I read even more fic (really amazing and intimidatingly good fic too) and even more meta and I thought more and more about Hannibal and Will’s complex dynamic. The BDSM AU became less of a joke and more of a place where that could be explored without getting too tangled up in the difficulties of Will’s relationship with Hannibal. I thought about it often. There was so much discussion and activity in the fandom that the idea of putting down your feelings in the form of a story didn’t seem so strange.

But still, it didn’t seem like that was the route for me. Until, one morning after Christmas, I woke up with dialogue in my head (those moments just before and after waking are so good for weird happenings like this). I didn’t move, didn’t do anything at all, before I wrote it down on my phone. It felt like a strange thing to do at the time - trespassing in a place I didn’t quite belong. It was a compulsion. I just knew I had to do it.

I had no idea if more would follow or if I even wanted more to follow. But more did. I wrote that down to, in the same place (which, by the way, was the note app *not* anything as official as a Google Doc - the very idea :0 !!) 

It took me maybe three-four weeks of this to brave the idea of doing something with the snatches of dialogue and scattered notes which had built up. They had become pieces of a puzzle which I needed to solve - until then, I knew I wouldn’t find any peace.

I had been talking with @wraithsonwingsposts​ about the show and had encouraged her to work on a fic idea she had been playing around with. She returned the favour and was so fantastic and supportive all the way through - and therefore, this is all her fault, as she already knows ;)

The rest of the story was the same for anyone undertaking a piece of writing - one word at a time, much time staring at a blinking cursor, a lot of editing. But overall, I think what got this written and completed was keeping my aims simple. The were 1) see it through to the end (i.e. solve the puzzle), and 2) try not to make a complete tit out of myself.

I know for certain I hit one of those goals.

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Bonus: for the very-very-very curious, here is the original and un-edited version of the I wrote that morning (a version of which appears in Chapter 8), and the first thing I wrote since school:

"What kinds of things do you say when you... afterwards?" "I thought you found it too difficult to hear?" "I want to know. I can catch the odd word, but the way you say it... I like the way you sound." Hannibal hesitated for a tiny moment. Will smiled and said, "I thought it was for my benefit only you don't say it in English." Hannibal sighed and conceded, "Perhaps it's easier, sometimes." He moved closer to Will, made it almost impossible for Will to escape from what Hannibal had to tell him, and to study his face as he spoke. "I call you my darling, my lovely Will, so precious to me. I tell you how beautiful I find you, how complete my desire is and how abandoned you make me. I tell you that you are mine and belong to me, that I shall never leave you, that you have made me yours. I praise you, for being so very good, for indulging me, and for indulging yourself also. I tell you that you deserve it, and more, and I tell you I love you." Will went very quiet, almost not breathing. He had known what to expect but to hear it stated so simply was almost too much. Hannibal continued to look steadily at him, waiting. Will turned over suddenly, so he no longer could watch Hannibal's face, and pressed himself back into his body. Hannibal moved to accommodate, folding him arms around him and holding him tight. He brought his legs up so his thighs pressed into the back of Will's, and his ankles tangled with Will's also. They lay there for a few moments without speaking, bodies perfectly aligned. Will felt safe again. "If you wish to explore these issues, I have a suggestion. There are things you could wear, even in public, which could serve to remind you of my possession. Something more concrete than a bruise or a bite mark." Will considered how it might feel to have such a reminder, one he could feel wherever he was. An image came to him of a collar made of plain but good quality leather. It could be concealed under his shirts, especially if he wore ties. It would be slim but solid, with one heavy buckle to fasten it. He could almost feel it's weight resting on the back of his neck, like Hannibal had placed his hand there. Will opened his mouth to speak and then realised Hannibal was holding and touching his hand gently. The gesture was so soft and specific that Will had to look, to watch Hannibal's hands. Realisation dawned on him. Hannibal was meditatively rubbing small circles up and down in between the second and third knuckles of his third finger on his left hand. Will turned over to catch Hannibal around the shoulders and demanded, "Did you just ask me to marry you?"

Cathexis on ao3