#writing SHIT

[eiraisnthere]

I got roped into reading "10X is easier than 2X" and its repetitive, full of "well duh" advice and questionable business practices but! But! It might also be the most exciting book I've read in a while, because this entrepreneurial manual on how to realize your true potential as a business-person starts, without a hint of irony, with a story about Michelangelo breaking into morgues to illegally cut open corpses so he can learn anatomy. The book seems completely unaware of how this example translates to "in order to become a master at your craft, it is not only okay but encouraged that you commit crimes equal to corpse theft". Cannot compare the experience of reading this book to anything else. I'm hype af.

The most annoying thing about 'self-help' and 'business advice' books that are full of vacuous garbage and outright false bullshit is that they actually are very inspiring and fun to read. :(

[fourraccoonsinacoat]

*Me sitting down to write smut.*

But first! We must thoroughly understand this man's fractured and devastated sense of self. Only then can we truly appreciate how connected he feels to her while finger-banging the soul from her body.

[vvixes]

It must be so frustrating to name your kids when you're a writer. All the cool names are already taken by your fictional characters, and I can't name my kid after my fictional punching bag. They don't need to start out with all that trauma.

[ashyblondwaves]

New Synchronicity Link

Hello!

I just re-posted the first chapter of Synchronicity. The link is here.

Bear with me as I get all 24 chapters reposted!

[bloodinwine]

Overthinking writing sucks. Sometimes you can just feel that something is off or isn’t working but you can’t pinpoint what. It can be hard to move on and accept that it���s fine. Come back to it later or just say fuckit who cares. It’s fine. Fuckit who cares. We’re here to have fun.

[imjunebitch]

one of the cool things abt being a writer is once you reach a certain level of writing you can close yr eyes and think about the character and have it be yr own character. you can rotate your own character in yr mind. im doing it right now

[fuckyeahdindjarin]

How not to ask a writer for updates

Do not use phrases like ‘will you ever update XXX’, not even if you use heart emojis with it. The tone implies that it’s been a long time since the last update, and there’s no such thing as ‘a long time’ when it comes to fic updates because we write for free in our spare time. Writers don’t owe anyone updates.

Do not ask for an update when a writer just announced that they have burnout.

Do not go into writer’s DMs asking for an update when you haven’t even reblogged or at the very least left a comment on the fic.

I can guarantee you, any of the above will lead to even ‘slower’ updates.

Instead, consider liberally using phrases like ‘I love your fic’, ‘not rushing you at all’, ‘no pressure to answer’, ‘thank you for your stories’.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[redvexillum]

Every. Time.

[sutherlins]

@mon-chef made this post earlier with the tag #fic writers can we start writing him this wayy? and 1) valid and 2) it made me want to clarify the 'versions' of them i was imagining for each of my fics lol

down in the heart: (first one is them every day and second is the last chapter 😭)

how will i know:

faucet: (my fave little shits who would bully the other versions of my sydcarmys)

brigade:

(i think the faucet carmy pic is the hottest jaw has or will ever look)

[sylki221b-of-the-shire]

born to be a writer, forced to actually write

[x-exis-x]

Question timeee (not writing related but writing related)

If you cut yourself somewhere, let's say your leg, and then cut your hand too and press the wounds together till they heal, will the skin connect or something like that? Need this for a torture arc

[bullet-prooflove]

Hi, this is a totally silly question just to satisfy my own curiosity. When you add someone to your prompt list do you have a journey for them mapped out in your head or do you go where prompts etc take you?

Love your work! 💐

It’s not a silly question at all so please never worry about that.

So what usually happens is I take a liking to a character and I’m like huh, let’s see if we can work together so this progresses in one of two ways:

I already have an idea based on the scene I was watching

Or

2. I choose a prompt from one of my prompt lists that speaks to me to test it out.

There some characters I can just not work with, I don’t know why. I like them well enough but I can’t find the spark when I try to write for them so I have to say goodbye.

When I start writing I’m not really thinking about a journey, I’m testing the waters to see how we gel (in other words – find the characters voice.) These pieces are usually told from the POV of the character  I‘ve chosen and I begin to learn things through them that form their partner and the circumstances of their relationship.

An example would probably be Billy Butcher. He kind of exudes a raw sexuality but also a very deep undertone of caring with the women he has loved. The trial scene took place in a motel room after sex and he’s thinking about how he keeps coming back to this one woman, like an addict to a fix. This showed me two things, that they had slept together before, that this was not a new thing for them and that he cared about her deeply. The fact they were in a motel room, raised questions about their relationship because they both have homes so why not there, which made me consider it was a road trip as part of an investigation. The Boys are a very tight knit group so they’re not going to invite anyone in meaning they probably ran into each other during his time at the Bureau.

All those little details that were included in what was quite a short scene, start to establish a foundation and throw up possible plot options. Questions appear which add  more plot points such as:

Why were they apart until they ran into each other at the bureau? – This became a scene fic about him being surprised she worked there and an awkward first meeting where it’s revealed Butcher accidently got her dishonourably discharged from the SAS for fraternizing with a superior because of the way he reacted to a male colleague talking about her. This created bad blood between them but also developed a plot line of Billy wanting to make it up to her, how would he do that?

How have they changed? – They’ve both lost people to supes, giving them both physical and mental scars. This also answers the question of how Billy would make it up to her – he offers to find the supe that hurt her and her partner – this lead to a scene where he watched her drown the fucker and she told him about her own loss.

How did they end up in bed together? – At the end of that last fic Billy exhibited a slightly more caretaker role after the murder of the supe because he knew her adrenaline was going to crash. This softness may be what lands them back in bed together and gave me ideas for the next fic featured around the car journey home.

On the other side of it, when people prompt for characters it has the ability to take them in a completely other direction, one that I wasn’t expecting. This can lead to scenes being added to their timeline or a completely different journey.

An example of an additional timeline scene would be Pope Cody. In the current timeline, Smurf’s just found out he’s having a baby with Dylan and has threatened him to conform to her whims. However I had a prompt in my inbox for him that was ‘skateboard, sweat and sunrise’. I couldn’t use that as a plot/future piece because Smurf has such a tight grip on him so I used it as a part of their history instead creating a scene where he had been out there skating on this ramp for hours because Dylan had said I love you and he didn’t know how to deal with that. That was drawing from past fics where he had said to her, ‘you know I can’t say it but I feel it with every fibre of my being’

Prompts can also really help kick me out of a box I’ve wrote myself into. There’s been a few times where I’ve been stuck with a character and then this prompt comes along and I’m like and now I see the way we’re taking it.

That’s why when my ask box runs low, I ask for prompts because they can give me fresh ideas I might not have thought of.

Sorry this was such a long one. I hope it helped with your question!

[calswildflcwer]

hi!

soooo… i maybe might’ve written a whole new carlos madrigal fic, that is completed! it isn’t posted anywhere yet and only @tigreost has known about it until now… buuuuut i am contemplating finally posting it cause i just love it so much. it is a carlos x reader fic too!! uhm… but yah, it’ll probs be posted on ao3 first but if anyone wants to see it posted here then let me know and i shall maybe post it to here too 🤭

[ashyblondwaves]

me, staring at my keyboard: why won't you write yourself?

also me: oh right, I need prompts.

That’s where you all come in! Please send me your best Everlark or Haymitch centric (or both) prompts!

I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to write things that make me question my grip on canon.

Drop them in my inbox like you're tossing bread to geese.

[homosexual-wizardry-13]

Do people besides me ever have those times when you’re writing and it’s like 12:30 AM and you hit a wall in your story so then you just go on Google and start looking up murder cases and then three hours later you know how much skin sells for by the square inch (it’s between 10 and 20 dollars per square inch if you really needed to know that) and you know all the details of Elisa Lam’s murder/“suicide”/“accidental drowning” but have written two sentences to add to your story?