#writers brain

[bipolaritysucksbutslaps]

brb gonna daydream about writing fanfiction for several hours without actually writing a single word

[deanscherrypie420]

i need more tumblr friends to yap about SPN and Criminal Minds with. send help- I feel like talking to people helps me get motivated to write ya know?

[byoldervine]

Tip I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Writing My WIP

Act structures work. I started writing Byoldervine after I'd done a bunch of fantacising about the kind of story I wanted, but I never actually structured it out. I still stand by my plotting scheme of plotting out five chapters in advance so I have the space and time to work through things and make adjustments as I go, but because I didn't create an overarching structure to the story I've got a bit of a pacing problem where I'm now cramming everything into the end when it could've been paying off much sooner

Luckily this is a problem that can be handled in the editing phase easily enough, and I've structured the last parts of the story so I know what's still left to go, but it still would've been helpful to have set it out in advance; it would also make the plotting sessions easier too

[duitb]

I have story ideas, and I can outline the plot, but I cannot turn them into stories with proper dialogues and descriptions. It feels like I only build skeletons but cannot add flesh and skin to make them properly human.

what to do?

[rookie-chenford]

Can someone remind my brain that it’s bad to come up with a story idea at 11 o’clock at night, when I have to be up at 6 a.m., and then decide to write the idea down so she doesn’t forget but then decides to start writing because the idea is flowing and “it won’t take me that long” but she’s an hour and a half into writing when she realizes she has to be up in 5 1/2 hours

[babysnakekisses]

that feeling when you as a writer feel like a God and you wanna work on several story ideas but then you remember that even God rested on the third day

[neverenoughmarauders]

I posted a chapter that I knew I wanted, but I couldn't figure out why and I could feel that it lacked the 'so what'. But eventually I decided to let it go. Today I was discussing it with my husband who very clearly picked up on the same thing, although phrased something like: 'who was the chapter about?'

So I launched into a looooong explanation of what the various elements represented and what I wanted to tell with the chapter. He then had the AUDACITY to ask me why I hadn't put that more explicitly in the chapter. Well, obviously because...

I HADN'T REALISED ANY OF THIS UNTIL I TOLD HIM

Honestly... Does he expect me to understand why I write stuff?!

[just-french-me-up]

this is a PSA for fic writers who haven't updated in a while :

there are fics out there I'm subscribed to that have gone double digit months without updating.

rest assured the moment those babies catapult an AO3 email my way i'm dropping from the face of the earth to sink my teeth into them

i'll wait, and so will your readers

[trick-r-treat421]

Pretty sure I just came up with the ending for The Worst in Me.

Don't worry there's plenty I have planned between now and then though.

[maddie-zylophone-hatter]

Me when I plan out a story and want to tell everyone

[stedesbonnets]

i can't stress it enough how crazy the love triangle situation is. mizu and akemi have a slow motion romcom first glance at each other. mizu and taigen are enemies to lovers. mizu taunts akemi about taigen while wearing his scarf. mizu imagines taigen while seeing a threesome. mizu and akemi have sex scenes juxtaposed with each other. taigen and mizu's brawl is an obvious parallel to mizu and mikio. "this isn't over" "i know". both could happen. neither could happen. all could happen all at once. and i'm watching it all like this

[nyxiswrites1200]

Thinking of John Price being married to the prettiest wife. He invites Soap, Ghost, and Gaz over to his house where his pretty girl is sitting in the pool in the smallest bikini.

Getting all flustered because of the other guys but Price kisses her and says it's fine.

Ghost especially can't help but stare. He's never seen something so pretty in his life. Price knows you like him, you like the masked brooding L.T.

You sweetly ask for permission and of course Price grants it. You get to flirt with Ghost and hold on to his muscular arm while you try to convince him to get in the pool. However you just end up beneath him on a pool chair as he touches you.

"You take good care of your husband, love?"

"Mhm, I do. Let daddy fill me up all the time"

"You got room for one more?"

Letting him fuck you as Soap and Gaz try not to stare but they sit on the edge of the pool with their cocks hard. Price watching as he shamelessly strokes his cock, asking you how you like Ghost's dick in your tummy because it's so big.

Ghost fucking you in the backyard of your husband's house as the rest of em watch, trying not to be pervs. But you're just a sweet pretty little thing :( they can't help it.

Ghost is pounding you, making you moan so loudly. Good thing there's a tall fence surrounding the yard. He's got you pinned under his large frame, not even undressed.

Soap and Gaz cum in their swim trunks and Price's shoots over his happy trail on his stomach as Ghost pumps you full, leaving you dripping with his cum. You already know Price is going to want to fuck it back into you tonight along with his own.

Ghost was sweet though. Sent you flowers when he was away because he didn't want you to feel used even if you did want his cock anyway...

An: I don't know what came over me guys <3

[melodicwriter]

When you finally won the battle of opening up your WIP to edit but your brain is fighting you on touching the document so you’re in paralysis like

[ivaspinoza]

not me writing this giant synopsis of my own wip to myself so i can understand what i am actually trying to create

[ionomycin]

Forest Guardians

[dduane]

Do you have any recommendations on what to do when you can’t write?

I’ve been struggling to write for years, but telling stories is all I want to do. I have ideas and plots and characters all figured out! But actually getting the words onto paper? I just can’t do it. There’s a mental block or something getting in the way.

I want to write, I so badly do. I want to tell my stories! But no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I love the story, the words never work properly. I can day dream scenes up perfectly, but as soon as I’m near paper the words all vanish.

I guess what I’m actually asking is: how did you defeat the blank page?

Well, first of all, I can confidently tell you that your storytelling per se is working just fine. You just told me a perfectly cogent story right there, in writing. So that's good to know.

Now let me put your mind a little at rest by telling you something reassuring about the Writer's Brain:

It's not the sharpest knife in the block, if you take my meaning. It can be tricked. It can be fooled. It can be bamboozled into working when it doesn't want to... sometimes with embarrassing ease. (And this approach is, by and large, far preferable to sitting around over-analyzing one's interior life to figure out what went wrong with your developmental process somewhere in the dim lost past. Just hornswoggle the silly thing into working and then do the analysis later, if you can be bothered.)

Sometimes just changing something basic in the process the Writer's Brain is expecting is enough to make it lose the plot (so to speak...) and let you get on with work. And in your case I'd say, more or less immediately: Have you tried telling the story to yourself out loud, recording it, and then transcribing the recording?

Because this problem is a commonplace among storytellers. Sit them down in the pub and give them tea or a drink and start them going, and you'll get half an effortless hour of hilarious prose about What The Cat Did In The Middle Of The Night or When The Neighbors Were Fighting In The Street Again Yesterday. But show them blank paper, or an empty screen, and (now that the pressure to perform is suddenly in place) they freeze.

So try doing an end run around your writing brain. Borrow or otherwise procure a little recorder of some kind. (Or if you've got a smartphone, add a voice recording app to it.) Go get comfortable somewhere and get yourself into that daydream state, and then—making sure the recorder's on—start talking.

It doesn't have to be perfect unblemished prose. The pursuit of that comes later, after draft zero-minus-one. Just tell the story... or some of it. Or a fragment of it. Even a few paragraphs is a triumph, in a situation like this. You may, during the recording, have to talk yourself into the story stage by starting out talking about something else first. Let that happen.

Then when you're done recording, listen to it and transcribe it (typed or handwritten, as you please).

And maybe a day later, do this again. And a day or two later, once more. And so forth.

You're going to have to keep at this, because your Writer's Brain may start suspecting what you're up to, and try throwing spanners into the works. (Its favorite being "Oh, this isn't working, I may as well give up..." Pay no attention to that nagging little voice behind the curtain. Just keep doing what you're doing. Persistence is a superpower.)

The thing to keep reminding yourself, as you settle into this process, is that sooner or later the WB's resistance is going to flag, because you really do want to tell stories. It does too. What you have to teach it is that—to coin a phrase—resistance is useless. :)

Anyway: give this a try. You'll need to be doing this daily for at least a couple of months to find out whether it works or not. So let me know how it goes.

(BTW: once you've broken through the barrier, you may well find that dictation is a good routine way for you to generate your first draft. At that point—should you feel inclined to go a little higher-tech than recording and hand transcription—let me recommend Dragon Anywhere. This is a month-to-month subscription version of Dragon's flagship text to speech program—the one @petermorwood and I got Terry Pratchett to use when he started having difficulty typing. I use Anywhere a lot, on days when it's easier to write stretched out or lying down than it is sitting up. It transcribes what you say, and then you can just email it to yourself and cut-and-paste it into your writing document. Very handy.)

Hope this helps!