#24 pages in total below the cut. etc etc idk

[syrupspine]

[bipercabeth]

Hi you are such a good writer I was hoping you could give me some advice! I’m trying to write more consistently and more understandable for people to read, because I tend to just write my stream of consciousness and hope it sounds coherent but whenever I try to do that I totally lose my train of thought and the ideas I had trying to write it in a way people would understand? Idk if this makes sense, but how do you tackle writing out a story and not forgetting the details you want in it?

phew okay! i got all of these within 24 hours so i’m going to combine them and hope that i can answer them all. i’m both honored and terrified that i’m the person y’all came to for advice, that’s wild! i’ll do my best to be coherent. (also thank u ur all very sweet). i made a post about this a while ago, but it’s pretty half-baked. i’m putting this under a read more because i know it’s going to get out of hand. 

as far as software, i don’t think you need anything more than google docs! it’s what i use for everything and it’s so functional. you can access it from any device with internet, it automatically saves, the mobile app is decent, it’s easy to share, easy to format, and you can download different docs to work on offline! the share feature is versatile depending on who is reading, so friends can just view and/or comment and betas can edit/suggest. it has never let me down. 

plotting really is its own beast because it’s different for every writer. i’m just going to take you through my process and hope there are parts that will work for you! i’m also going to use examples from a few of my outlines (mostly roommates but i’ll probably dip into a bellarke one or two) to make more sense of what i’m sure is going to be a slightly feverish post. i really love plotting and talking about writing and i’m already getting excited. 

with writing, there’s kind of a spectrum of plotters vs pantsers. plotters stick by outlines and planning out their writing whereas pantsers go by their gut. i know people who write both ways, and there’s no difference in the quality of their writing or plots! it’s just about what works best for each person. i’m a pretty hardcore plotter, but i leave myself room to improvise and for the story to grow. 

okay, so my general first step once i’ve got an idea for a story is to open up a google doc, make a bullet point, and just word vomit every single idea i have onto the page. separate bullet points for each idea, but if i have multiple ideas that relate to each other, i indent to keep them together. the point of keeping similar things together is to make the next step easier: organize them. once it’s all on the page, put it in chronological order, or if your story has flashbacks, the order the scenes appear in. here’s an example of what i mean (from my bellarke superhero au):

it’s quite half-baked! pretty vague language, but it ended up being enough for me to write the scene. each indent further explains the point before, making it a lot easier to sort your thoughts and structure scenes once you get to them. it’s by no means a blow by blow account of what’s going to happen, but the language is just enough to make me recall what i was thinking when i wrote it. 

after that, i look at what is usually several pages of scenes told through bullet points, and i start to look for common themes to separate them into chapters. this is also where i try to fine tune scenes and clear up any immediate plot holes i find. i try not to force myself to completely outline everything in the beginning because i end up changing several scenes anyway! sometimes you get to the actual writing part and realize a scene you thought was perfect misses the mark. sometimes you write and realize there’s a theme or issue you need to address through a specific moment. leave yourself some room to grow! this is also a great time to weave in parallels, callbacks, and important themes you want to include throughout the story. 

this is usually where i start writing! if it’s a complex story with lots of research, formatting, or character building, i might take more time before jumping in, but these asks are fanfic-specific and fanfic tends to be pretty straightforward. for writing, i like to use a different doc than my outline. there’s less scrolling that way, and i find that having my outline open on the same screen while i’m writing really cuts into my flow. i end up staring at point a and point b trying to figure them out rather than starting at point a and letting the scene run it’s course. it’s much easier for me to switch tabs when i get stuck. 

that’s the majority of my plotting process! i’m going to leave a few miscellaneous tips that have helped me immensely down below. 

i find that certain things just don’t help me in an outline. scenery, description, and most body language are things i think about when i’m actually writing and fully immersed in the story. my outlines tend to be dialogue, bare-bones plot points, and quotes/lyrics/links for inspiration. dialogue comes very easily to me and sets the tone of the scene, so having it the outline helps me get into the flow of a scene, after which everything else follows. and if a whole scene of dialogue comes to you, why risk forgetting it? some of my best scenes have come from two pages of dialogue in my outline. sometimes you just know how a scene is going to go. 

nobody is seeing your outline except for you and maybe a trusted friend or beta. it should serve you! there’s no right or wrong way to write a story, so find the things that work for you! there’s a lot of advice in this post, and it all works for me, but there are some people who wouldn’t benefit from any of it. a lot of figuring it out might be trial and error. 

let yourself be indecisive! you don’t have to have every moment figured out right away, and some room to breathe usually serves your story better in the long run. i really didn’t have any clue where i’m going in either of these parts of my outline, but once i got to these points in roommates it became more clear what they needed to be.  

finding inspiration to get back into a fic after a while away is really hard for me, so i like to leave myself reminders of art, other writing references, reminders of the Energy i’m going for, song lyrics, etc. like so:

writing can be stressful! make yourself laugh in your outline! most of these are me objectifying percy but it’s okay i’m valid

okay those are my general tips! i know it’s a lot! you might not use any of this! but i worked for a long time to find the things that work for me and maximize my ability to write, so i hope this makes the search a bit easier for people who are starting out. feel free to come to me with any writing problems you have, whether that’s through my inbox or dms. always happy to talk about it. happy writing!

[mcjour]

the other day S reached out of me out of the blue to ask about what happened during the retreat. kinda caught me off guard. also, I remember S was a toxic friend to the point where i knew i had to end it, but I think I blacked out whatever it was that she did due to (other) trauma. i literally don’t remember what she did. So that’s awkward. but we are friendly and have just casual conversations, so i can live with whatever pseudo friendship we have.

and honestly it was a good conversation. i gave her the play by play of what i could remember from each of the days. and she was like wow what a shitshow. but then she disagreed about the last day. long story short, if anyone is reading this without context, the second day we did this shitty ass cross the line activity that was highly triggering and traumatic for everyone, (in what workplace is it appropriate to say cross the line if youve been sexually assaulted and make eye contact with the people across the line and other similar intrusive questions) but especially hard for me given that i have quite a lifetime of trauma and cptsd on top of it. so by the next day, i had totally lost my mind. like full mental breakdown triggered by my ptsd, lost control of my mind and body, felt like i was drowning, having trouble breathing, had weird visions of me cutting myself, etc. So i said listen like i need to go home, i can’t stay here any longer i am very sick, i literally can’t stop crying and i don’t even know what is going on. but they forced me to stay so i sat out of the activity. it was a bad situation because they activity changed to be a conversation about race. i knew i shouldn’t sit out of it as a white person, but like i’m not kidding when i said that i was very sick. they made me make a split second decision when my brain was fried and i chose to sit out, thinking that the last thing that the people of color in the room needed was me uncontrollably sobbing in the corner and taking up space during a very tense conversation (there were other events that led up to this tense atmosphere). i fully intended to try to catch up on what i missed, but also knew it would be no substitution for the real thing.

anyway S was saying that if she was there, she would’ve been upset that i was in the room and i totally got that. if anything, i have been waiting to have that conversation since that day, but my therapist is not quite there to have that conversation, she’s a white lady and while i think she generally is good about social justice issues, she would definitely be like oh no! you’re not racist! kind of a thing. S and I were on the same page, I think. We agreed that i was very triggered in put in a bad position where like no matter what i chose would be a bad choice sort of a thing. it wasn’t anything “new” but it helped clear things up all the same. and maybe she is right, maybe i DID make the wrong choice. But like I said, both choices were bad and i was literally not even in the right mind to make any decision let alone that. S was also saying that she would’ve understood anyway, because this was like a one time situation and she knows i am constantly standing up and speaking up on social justice issues and she would know i was supportive even if i wasn’t in the room. 

SO yeah. i left that conversation feeling good. ok not good. but felt like i had some clarity and i thought it was a productive conversation and we both listened to each other even though we were initially kinda disagreeing.

anyway turns out that wasn’t the end of hte conversation. the next morning she was brining up some of the people we both knew and she also mentioned someone had been talking shit about me to her and i was like oh? and she sent me screenshots.

the screenshot looked like it was in june, so it was in response to something else, not specifically my latest expose LOL. 

but basically this girl V was like saying that i am biased in my hate against the organization, i can’t separate my feelings from what is actually going on, i was fired because i caused harm to my team and with teachers and never take accountability for my actions.

would love to know how V thinks she knows all this shit..? like where is she getting this info?? her own asshole??? or fed to her from my abusive boss’ friend? like?? what’s happening???

can’t separate my feelings from what’s happening?? ok... so where do you think my feelings are coming from if not from what’s happening....? did i just pull some hate out of my ass? like i don’t just hate shit for no good reason LOL.

yep, i did cause harm to my team and and i took accountability and i actively worked on it and got positive feedback for it. so i’m confused what is happening here. did i right every wrong before i was fired? no. but to say i didnt take accountability is ... wrong.

the thing is just that i don’t just view actions in a vacuum. so there were legitimate things happening that caused me to act the ways that i did. aka my abusive boss fucking with my head. of course i struggled to support my team when my boss made it clear that she would never consider me a part of the team. and i don’t say that to shift the blame from me to her. but you can’t just focus on me and not her role in that?

and it’s wild you say that i caused harm on the team and with teachers? because my boss did all of that and at least ten times worse than i ever did and she didn’t get fired.

ALSO they told me i was getting fired for my mental health issues. which is fucked up. maybe they lied and V is right? i doubt that first of all. but ok, even if they did, they did tell me i was leaving as a compelling personal circumstance, on good terms, would still be eligible for my scholarship. of course i never got that scholarship because they asked for wild fake documents. BUT if i was getting fired for doing such a bad job, wouldn’t they have told me that? or at the very least not told me i was leaving on good terms??? IDK is it legal to lie in an exit meeting? 

and also wtf is the harm with teachers???????? i know my boss accused me of shit talking her with the teachers but that simply was not true lol. a lot of teachers actually came up to me on their own accord to shit talk my boss LOL. they decided on their own that she was shitty, they had their own eyes and ears and brains. but even then i would redirect them and tell them to talk to my boss about their problems with her! the only thing i can think of was a situation with the teacher next door.

the teacher next door hated her cy. she liked me better. it was super awkward. she was also really good friends with my teacher. so i was put in a weird uncomfortable position where i liked her (as a friend/ coworker lol) so i felt awkward telling her off especially when there was this power difference of her being a teacher and then with her being friends with my teacher too. like if i told her to fuck off, would i ruin my relationship with my partner teacher? my partner teacher was all i had left because of the way that my abusive boss isolated me from everyone else. i admit that i believed this teacher over the cy and i have since talked to the cy and we both apologized and understood each other’s perspectives so like, as bad as i feel, there’s nothing else to be done, i guess. well, not that i could do anything so long after the fact anyway. and like it wasn’t llike i did absolutely nothing anyway. i kept in contact with my manager about it but like i was already overworked and underpaid and all that and sorry but im getting paid below the poverty line so trying to solve this weird dispute that has nothing to do with me is a bit above my pay grade

but here’s the kciker: this woman was literally a pedophile who was manipulating all of us! like me, my teacher, the cy, even up to the assistant principal! so hello! no wonder i felt so trapped! how the hell was i supposed to outsmart a pedophile at this below entry level job! and i don’t say that to get out of accountability, V. trust me, it eats at me to know that i was blind to a lot of fucked up shit that was happening. but once again, actions don’t happen in a vacuum. this woman was a manipulative mastermind and she used us as her puppets! dude i am 24 years old and this is my first job out of college and how the hell was i supposed to see that coming without any training. 

so i would love to know how v came to these shit ass conclusions without ever stepping into my school or into my life or having a single ounce of perspective.

which is so fucking wild to me because these people are working with highly traumatized kids????? so if y’all keep viewing everything through your stupid tunnel vision eyes then you are gonna fuck some kids up the way you fucked me up.