#with some excitement

[not-poignant]

Hi! I love all of your stories that I’ve read so far (there’s so many but it makes happy cause I finish one and then can go to another). I was wondering, do you have any tips for character creation and story planning? I never know how to set everything up and section and organize.

Hi anon!

I feel bad because this is a very 'how long is a piece of string' question, like, to the point that I have literally tags that have multiple posts in them like 'pia on characterisation' and 'pia on worldbuilding' and 'pia on writing' and that would be a good place to start.

I'm not someone who is good at condensing a lot of information into short bite-sized pieces. You can tell by how long my stories are.

And honestly I organise differently every time. Anon, I don't plot most of my stories. Do you think Palmarosa and A Stain that Won't Dissolve and Underline the Black have a plot somewhere? They don't. I don't have a document that's even a list of plot points. When I say sometimes that I'm making it up as I go along, I'm literally making it up as I go along.

Sometimes my setting up is sitting down and starting the first chapter and then being like 'oh shit, characterisation.'

Sometimes I'll do worldbuilding. Sometimes I'll do behind-the-scenes characterisation. But often I don't.

Nothing writes a story faster, imho, than sitting down and starting to write the story if you have some characters and an idea in your head. But not everyone likes writing that way, and organisers hate that, and I hate being an organiser, so like...

Part of this is also - what works for me, what tips cracked the code for me, might make it a lot harder for you! You need to learn the kind of writer you are by experimenting. Maybe you're a faithful plotter and organiser, maybe you fly by the seat of your pants and don't want to truthfully plan anything at all. You can try it all! There's no one right way of doing it, there's not even a single one way right way of doing it for you, there's literally 'right ways per story' - because different stories sometimes need different things (at different times.)

Idk what kind of writer you are, anon, but it sounds like I don't do some of the things you think I do! I hate plotting with a fiery, passionate vengeance, and it makes me want to write so much less, for example! Story planning is my nemesis!!

BUT, to write a story that feels planned without planning, you have to read and watch a lot of stories.

And you have to not just enjoy them, but start thinking about when they feel fast and when they feel slow, when they feel important and when they're giving you a break, when they're telling you details, and when they're telling you action, and how they're doing that.

And you know, it might benefit you to research story structure overall, and classive narrative arcs - like the Hero's Journey, for example. As a good starting point, you might want to look into a personal favourite of mine (which I don't consciously use, but still use anyway) - Dan Harmon's Story Circle, mostly because the starting image is free, and it applies to tiny mini-stories, and broader over-arching stories, and it's colourful and pretty. And also because Dan Harmon is an extremely clever and accomplished story writer, so he knows what he's doing :D

[obsob]

i am a being capable of immeasurable love and whimsy

[cheescheesy]

nari your exams start next week, focus!!

[vesperosy]

happy dungeon meshi day!!!

[girlboyburger]

fat dog 4 fat dog !!

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Gregory is NEVER getting unbanned at this rate

[idiotsonlyevent]

i really like this detail in chapter 51 where tall-man chilchuck pulls ahead of the party as they're walking.

i know it's in part because there are gaps and grates in the floors, and since he's physically larger, it's easier for him to walk around or over them, and his step length has increased, but it also makes me think that he's had to adopt a faster walking speed to compensate for his size. now that he's larger, he's turned into the dungeon's faster speed walker lol

[millacm]

mini bad kids ! I'm making this into a sticker to hand out to folks at D20 live in Glasgow !!

[jq37]

Rowan is such a funny person to get Quangled into Neverafter because there's no shock factor for her. The weirdness, the gore, the magical peril--very run of the mill fae stuff. It's all, "Yeah, yeah, the time knife we've all seen it" vibes. But she's still EXTREMELY annoyed by all of it so the vibe is less Shock And Horror and more Stuck At Thanksgiving Dinner With Your Annoying Relatives In The Small Town You Grew Up In And Left As Soon As You Could. I love it.

[nevesceramics]

WIP peek at the hugging werewolves ♥

[egophiliac]

roll out the red carpet guys we're going to the SHAFTLANDS

[troutpaws]

fish requests #1 :-D

[aurabora]

i’m being so serious rn if assad zaman isn’t rawdogging eric bogosian on my tv screen in s2 i am going to raise anne rice from the grave and telling her that AMC is writing fanfiction and she needs to sue them

[emacrow]

Um.. Superman.. what that thing stuck on your cape?

Clark's brain short circuit for a moment as he just got back of flying at great speed in the middle of deep space to thrown one of Lex's giants bombs destroy the city and come back in record time.

He turn a bit to look at his cape to see a tiny humanoid starlight dust covered child with white hair, glowing full green that look like white specks stars were implanted themselves into his big ol eyes, nawing on a handful of stardust with inhumanly sharp itsy bitsy fangs.

A small yet floating crown that look similar to one of Nasa pictures of far out space.

Did he just accidentally abducted an royal alien child/teen?

[demi-pixellated]

✨⚔ The Veilguard 🛡✨

[rusty-gloinks]

im sos;sorry I’ve never drawn many kisses ever.consider this a forehead kissy….thing or whatever. SOB