#But I wanted to mess around with my more ''stream of conscious'' writing styles

[maideninorange]

"What are we?" "Human, at least I hope we still are."

For TsubaKuro obviously

Me? In a horror mood? Why never ever! Now with more mad science shit!

(TW: Graphic Descriptions of Injuries (Bone Malalignment), Body/Transformation Horror, Past Human Experimentation (Well, Youkai Experimentation, but the sentiment still applies))

The flicker of busted ceiling lights was the hazy sight that greeted Kuroji when consciousness began trickling back to them.

What... happened...? Was the first clear thought that came to their slushy mind. The rest were vague ideas and shards of memories without any sort of coherency. It was like they, the person and the body they inhabit, had turned to mush.

Kuroji hears someone groan. It takes a moment for them to realize that someone was actually Kuroji themself, their tongue lolling out of their mouth like a gaping moron.

It took them another moment to realize they were leaning against some kind of flat surface. Well, lean wasn't exactly the right word. Their mind was too foggy to think of the proper word for being bent into a right angle against said flat surface, so "lean" will have to do.

Another groan forces itself from their lips. Slowly, sensation starts to return to their body. It starts from their jaw and throat, then spreads down to their chest and up to the rest of their head. Their fingers twitch as feeling overflows through them again, the splinters of corroded wood still slightly chilled from...from...

...What caused this? It's all coming back to them now...

They had agreed to help with some kind of...experiment? Study? ...Yes, experiment. They remember being asked to bring someone here...Wherever here is again...For...Some kind of extraction? Of what? The answer floats away from them the moment they reach out to touch it.

Kuroji raises a trembling hand up to their temple, massaging it. Come on...Work stupid brain...

Some kind of explosion occurred. The last thing they vividly remember is the wide-eyed expression on...

...Tsubakura? Oh shit, Tsubakura!

"Tsu...Tsubakura?" They croak out, bleary eyes scanning their filmy surroundings for any sign of the monochrome figure or their top hat, "Are you...Are you here?"

A moment of silence passes. Kuroji is almost convince that Tsubakura is either still unconscious, isn't in the room at all, or...No, they wouldn't perish from this, would they?!

But then, they hear it. A loud cough somewhere across the room, followed by the sound of debris being shuffled about. A small smile forms at the corners of their mouth, all the tension suddenly seizing their body at their earlier fears draining away in an instant.

"Ugh...Yeah...Still alive. I take it...you made it too?"

"...What do you...think...?" Their voice sounded hoarse, parched and sore, like they needed a glass of water. They probably did, if they were out for a long while like they suspect.

"Good... I'd miss your stupid face if you did die from that."

Kuroji can just hear the wry grin they are making in their direction. Their heart skips a beat at what they were implying, but they pay it no heed. They didn't want to think about that when they were barely conscious as is.

"Shut up..." They shake their head gently (more to be mindful of it than to communicate properly), "What...happened...?"

"You mean you don't remember?"

"I do...Details are just...more than a little fuzzy..." Kuroji blinks rapidly, trying to clear their vision. And maybe, just maybe, find the strength to stand.

A groan, "You're no fun...Why can't you be like Yabusame and bounce back from a small explosion or two?"

"Because...I'm not Yabusame-kun? What kind of question...is that?" They try to roll their eyes. This is probably why they're never asked to help out during experiments. They ask too many questions, and can't take as much punishment.

Hell, Kuroji is pretty sure the only reason they got asked to be their assistant for this one was because they were the only one who could reliably catch Saragimaru!

Wait...

...Ah.

If Kuroji wasn't awake before, they were now. Their vision clears away to blinding lights, breath coming in short gasps. Everything was coming back to them now. And with it a very important question.

"Saragimaru...Where is Saragimaru?!"

"Gone, it seems. Must've busted out of their restraints after knocking that vial over," A sigh, followed by more shuffling of debris, "Ugh, inhaling so much pure mana could not have been good. Must've caused that explosion when it touched the bunsen burner too..."

Kuroji swallows hard. So that's what Tsubakura wanted Saragimaru for, huh? They long learned the hard way that you shouldn't mess with magic, but it seems they never got that message, now did they?

And considering how... spectacular, to put it mildly, Tsubakura's failures in the lab typically are...

"You told me...This was a simple venom extraction...Not some kind of experiment with fucking magic!" Kuroji hisses.

"Duh! If I had, you wouldn't have let me get past Step 1. Maybe Step 2 if I was lucky."

Kuroji grits their teeth. They can just hear the half-hearted shrug they were making at them. It made them want to punch the smug grin they knew they were making right off their face.

If only everything wasn't so, so sore...

That's when a hand enters their line of sight. Their eyes naturally follow the hand up to the figure above them.

Sure enough, it was Tsubakura Enraku, only a little worse for the wear. Their hat was crooked and their clothes had more than a few tears, but that was nothing a good patch job couldn't fix. They weren't in fact smirking like Kuroji thought they would be, but only because their eyes were wandering over their body, lips pressed into a feigned neutral line.

"Geez...Can you even move?" They ask, brows drawing together, "You don't...look so good."

Ah, there was the bite. They had a feeling they must've been injured in the accident. Probably in the back or a leg given how much those ache. Kuroji shudders as they take Tsubakura's hand, "I can move my arms at least..."

"That's somethin'. Now here's the better question: Can you walk?"

"That's...A very good question," They admit.

"Well then let's find out. On a one...On a two..."

Kuroji doesn't even get time to prepare themself. Not that Tsubakura ever does anything on three. Two, if you were lucky, and this time is no different. The next thing they know, they were being peeled away from the operating table, and yanked to their feet.

...

...They should not be walking.

"...Agh!" Kuroji bites down on their lip to keep from screaming. All they could focus on was the blinding pain radiating from their leg, impossible to keep on the ground.

When they became aware of their surroundings once more, Tsubakura had slung their arm around their neck, keeping them upright.

"Guess not..."

They help lift Kuroji onto the operating table. The restraints used to tie Saragimaru down were now mere ribbons of leather, some of which are scattered across the whole lab. The whole table is drenched in rainwater mixed with blood (that was probably Kuroji's from earlier). Whatever happened after their slave got loose, they did a damn good job destroying the lab, without ever even lifting a finger to harm either of them.

Which is, quite frankly, rather odd considering how much that snake likes to talk about their future slow, agonizing death. But the stressed look on Tsubakura's face brought them out of their intrusive worries and into their present ones.

Kuroji lays down without much of a fuss. Though they couldn't help themself when they ask, "What? Not gonna bring me back to your room for a...more further examination, as you typically call it?"

A snort escaped Tsubakura's throat, their tongue sticking out, "Oh hah hah. You must think yourself clever for throwing my words back in my face."

They shrug, "Perhaps a little. Like I could ever best you in that department, but I ought to take a little victory every once in a while, yes?"

"...I guess. Although it's kinda hard to take you back to my room with the number your stupid snake did to my lab entrance. So we're sitting ducks until Yabusame or Sensei can dig us out! ...Just to answer your question."

Their smirk doesn't reach their eyes. Kuroji lets their head fall back, letting out a deep breath they didn't realize they had took, "...How bad is it, Dr. Enraku?"

(They won't call them "Doc" like Hoojiro had. This smug ass who bewitched their sister does not deserve that informality, even now. Not that they ever, ever notice...)

"Well let's see..."

Tsubakura gets to work almost immediately. They start by grabbing their injured leg and feeling it up. Kuroji closes their eyes tightly, bracing for when they find the fracture.

"Hm...Mm?"

...The strike of agony never leaves its mark. Kuroji cracks open one eye, catching a glimpse of Tsubakura's pinched expression, a raised eyebrow the only hint as to its cause.

"...Well, you apparently don't have a fracture somehow. In fact, your leg would probably be working just fine if not for the impossible angle and the swelling."

...Huh? "How...?"

"I dunno," Tsubakura lets go of their leg, much to Kuroji's relief, "You have more symptoms of a broken bone healing wrong than an actual broken bone. Hence my confusion."

...That makes literally no sense, even by the madness of this lab's standards. Kuroji couldn't have been out for more than a day at most, and their leg was working just fine when they first came down here. So how could they have such an injury?

"Did you develop some kind of accelerated healing factor or something?" Tsubakura jokes, a wry grin plastering itself on their face, "Cause the only explanation I can think of is 'you broke your leg in the initial chaos and it healed itself wrong while you were out."

"No!" They shout. Then, the fight drains from their body as they stare up blankly at the ceiling, "At least...I don't think I have..."

But now that they had proposed the idea, it made a disturbing amount of sense. After all, now that they are really thinking about it, they didn't have a single scratch on their body besides the leg.

Neither did Tsubakura, for that matter. In fact, Kuroji swears they can see patches of scales on their hand, collar, face...

Kuroji must've made a face or something, because Tsubakura's eyes have widened, their delicate, tactile hands having turned to tight fists. (And were those claws where fingernails normally are?)

"Alright Kuroji, what's with the face? You don't just pale at anything, so what's wrong?"

They were...pale? They went pale? They were usually much better at hiding their more... cumbersome feelings, especially under Tsubakura's hawkish eyes. But they couldn't help it for this. Not when...When...

No...There's no way...

"...Forgive me for this. I just need to test a theory."

"Huh? What do you mean by-" And that's all they manage to get out before Kuroji's hand claws at their arm. Or at least tries to. Fatigue infecting every inch of their body meant only a couple red slashes were formed, but it was more than enough.

"Ngh!" Tsubakura staggers back, clutching their arm, "What the hell was that for?!"

"Testing a theory, like I said I was." Kuroji shakes their head, jaw hurting from how hard they were clenching it, "Watch."

Tsubakura yanks their sleeve down, revealing the red welds from Kuroji's "attack" once again, "What the hell could ever require you to-"

Their grumbling abruptly stops. Now they too are making a wide-eyed expression.

They both watch as the welds shrink, folding away, until all of it has faded back into Tsubakura's normal skin tone, good as new. Well that just proves it then, huh?

Kuroji's breath hitches, "Ah...I knew it. Thanks for being my willing test subject..."

They couldn't even snicker at Tsubakura's irritated snort. They were too busy wishing the operating table would fold in on them.

For if Tsubakura had the same accelerated healing factor they seem to have, and they were quickly...They don't even know at this point, then...

Then what did it mean for Kuroji themself?

Kuroji drags their hands up in front of their face. They look like their hands: normal human hands, with all the same old scars from countless injuries as they invent or dig. But then they notice how their fingernails are tipped, ever so slightly sharp. Hiding razor sharp talons, no doubt.

Just like Tsubakura's.

"...What are we?!" Kuroji asks with no recipient in mind, voice warbling from near hysteria. They knew the answer, but at least a question can be answered with a comforting lie, unlike the blanket statement their mind wanted them to confront.

"Human. At least I hope we still are..." Tsubakura replies, the waver in their voice uncomfortably noticeable. Never have they ever wanted them to be right about anything as hard as right now.

And yet, as they watch Tsubakura itch at their collar, the flaking off of skin to reveal similarly colored scales was going out of its way to prove them wrong. They look at the patch, then their nails, and all the certainty leaves their voice as they mumble a quiet, "Shit..."

If Tsubakura's pale expression was the expression they had pointed out Kuroji had, then that isn't a good sign at all. And to make matters worse, as if watching them do it triggered something inside them, various spots on their arm began to itch like mad, begging them to scratch at them.

They didn't want to, and yet their hand moves automatically to perform the motion. And sure enough, flakes of skins fell away to reveal scales of their own. Kuroji kept scratching at the scales, praying for it to all be a cruel prank, and found only pain and blood for their efforts.

And not even that lingered for longer than a moment. It was enough to drive even a hardened scoundrel like Kuroji Shitodo to tears.

"...What have you done?!"

"I dunno...Heh heh..." Tsubakura pants, their legs shaking. They rub their back, tears forming in their eyes, "I...probably shouldn't have done this...All of this...Should I?

"What...Do you think?" Kuroji huffs out, blinking back tears, "Whatever happens next, I want you to know this is all your fault. Even if you die."

Tsubakura reels back, as if slapped. It wasn't undeserved in the slightest. But even so, the pitiful way their figure seems to shamble back made a twinge of guilt stab Kuroji in the chest...

"Hah...I think...I'd deserve that...There's no coming back from this, is there?" They let out a light laugh, as if this was merely a prank gone awry. The scratching at their back becomes a full blown madness, a struggle to take off their vest and shirt even, "My back...Hurts like hell..."

And then, like someone had flipped their killswitch, Tsubakura falls backwards into an overturned table behind them. Kuroji doesn't have the energy to raise their head up to see, but from the sudden tearing and scratching at the ground, they didn't think they wanted to see what caused that.

And when that morphed into screams and muscles tearing, they knew they definitely didn't want to see.

It's so funny...They think to themself as a throbbing started in their backside, I wanted to see Tsubakura scream someday.

But not like this. Never like this...

They wanted to take those last words full of venom back. Apologize even. But as the throbbing worsened and worsened into full blown burning, Kuroji's remorse left in favor of bracing for agony.

After all, this was only the beginning of a long, long transformation. Days of agony awaited both of them, no doubt.

They close their eyes, sobs echoing as their body prepares itself for its next phase. All they can do is sink into the biting metal of the operating table, and hope someone, anyone, manages to find them sooner rather than later.

And hopefully before both of them lose their minds.

Psst, hey! My requests are still open! Checked these two links here for details in the tags!

[v0rewhxre]

QUICK SHORT THOUGHTS (MDNI)

If you remember how back in the One Direction Days, everyone would create those short blurbs about each of the boys? Well here's one with the Bad Omens boys!

MDNI!!!! 18+++++++

CW: SMUTTTTTT: f masturbation, mentions of male masturbation, dom/sub talk, talks of p in v, talks of rope play, talks of handcuffs, some fluffyness (Let me know if I missed any!)

This is my first go at writing something smutty in a long long time so go easy on me :)

How each boy would interact while you masturbated in front of them:

Noah: Noah is a little bit devious when it comes to allowing you to masturbate. On one hand, he LOVES that you feel sexually free enough to masturbate in front of him. He loves the confidence you have in doing it, despite the sheepish smiles you give him when you catch his eyes. That man STARES right at what you're doing with your pussy. When he's in a sub mood, you make him beg to look at your throbbing pussy. And boy does he whimperrrrr when you finally allow him. When he's more dominant he'll tell you what to do. He punishes you by rubbing his own cock, which he knows you get slightly jealous of. Why does he need to use his hand when he has you. It becomes a competition, who moans the loudest, who is going to cum first. It turns into Noah pulling you to the edge of the bed and fucking you doggy style. After you both finish, he helps you with aftercare which turns into him munching on you for a bit.

Folio: Folio is a very sweet boy, and he is submissive to your every will. You have him handcuffed and tied up, forcing him to watch as you ride your dildo in front of him. "You wish this was your cock love, right?" "Could you make me feel this good, love?". He politely says, "yes ma'am" with quick nods. His cock is so angry and hard, bobbing with every moan you let slip. He has tears streaming down his face, watching as you enjoy your toy more than he thinks you enjoy him... which isn't correct. Eventually, you guilty conscious takes over and you decide to make love to Folio instead. Riding him slow and sensually, kissing away his tears when you finally let him cum. You press your forehead against his as you finally allow yourself to finish. Once you're done , you'd both get in the bath and goof around with the fishing rod you bought him (which is a toy that is made for 3 year olds for the bathtub).

Jolly: Jolly is a little selfish, he loves the idea that you would want to get off in front of him but why is he not involved more. He wonders if your vibrator feels better than his fingers on your clit, he also wonders how often you do this when he's not there. When you close your eyes, you better be thinking of him. He often breaks the 'don't touch, only look' rule by slowly creeping his hands to your caress your thighs. Eventually he is sitting so closely that your butt is in his lap. He is slowly rubbing his tip all around your over-stimulated and over-wet slit, he can't help but join in. He doesn't even let you cum by yourself, he's fucking the shit outta you. You both finish at the same time, ending the night lounging around naked playing guitar together.

Nicholas: Let's be real Nicholas is a LOVER, but he also has quite a dominant side about him. He would lovingly watch you, not watch you play with your pussy or the way you use your toy, but intently stare into your eyes which drives you CRAZY (in many ways)! "Nicky look at how wet I am!" "Nicky, look at how well I play with my pussy". But he wouldn't, he would just stare at you with love which honestly made everything feel much more intense. He would watch you cum, and then fuck you slowly and punishingly afterwards. He would edge you until you were practically screaming, begging for some type of release. Only when he was ready to cum would he allow you to go over the edge with him. You both end up a sweaty mess with tangled hair. You would both fall asleep in each other's arms, Nicholas' lips pressed into the top of your head.

[merge-conflict]

💕 self-love time! talk about which ones of YOUR creations (edits, artworks, fanfics) you like the most then send to other creators to do the same 💕

🥰

Alright, so unfortunately all I have to share for this one is pieces that are either technically a WIP, or a cut scene, but c'est la vie.

When I'm drafting out an important scene that isn't dialog-heavy I tend to write in stream of consciousness, hitting all the sensory descriptions and metaphors at a high level, which sort of gives me a frame to actually write the rest of it along? I had to search to find a small example because I've started just deleting them after I've written it.. so from cyberhanami I had:

Born To Die [Johnny Silverhand - thats what the name is for, a construct just like the tower. the whipping wind, the smell of burnt plastic, scorched metal and ganic flesh. moving into the belly of the beast. gummy lids. pain too intense to think. half blinded by the blast but it doesn’t matter. from hotblooded to sluggish. triumphant and then just Dead. he wakes up to see the tower. he wakes up to see the tower!]

I took me a while to start doing that, I think because I felt like it wasn't the Proper Way to outline anything, before I realized that was a dumb reason not to use a tool that works lol. Anyway, at some other point I also realized that if I clean this up a little, it has a very particular energy that is perfect for writing a sensory overload moment, or a sort of dissociative scene. Think like those moments in movies where all you hear is a loud ringing sound while a character is trying to deal with either too much at once, or the literal or metaphorical outcome of an explosion. And I really like having found a distinct style to tell those scenes in, which I did first roughly in a now outdated scene (probably 2-ish years old..) for my longfic:

Which direction she picked she couldn’t tell. Johnny’s voice buzzed in her head, subtle as a jackhammer and just as incomprehensible. She passed people on the street, who regarded her with the well-founded hostility all Pacifica had for outsiders, and she had to strangle the absurd desire to shriek with laughter.

Her throat ached. Her body ached.

Her heart, her sorry bruised broken dead heart, sat in her chest and she wanted to pull it out and scrape it clean, bite it, cut it, eat it, anything to make it stop.

The sun was too loud, glinting off concrete like a spotlight. Her skull heaved. She could feel thick blood oozing out of her nose, her ears, her mouth but though she kept wiping at her face she found only sweat. Tears, too, which stung at her eyes. Every part of her vibrated with panicked fury, shivering in the heat of the midday sun. Johnny’s speech gradually had more pauses, more profanity, demanding a response, but it all washed over her like autumn wildfire.

Which was a lot of fun to write, but even though it's kind of pushing at what the Rules of writing are that I vaguely remember from school, it's still pretty regular. So I thought, what happens when I say fuck the rules, and really mess around with style and presentation. Who gets to decide the format and encoding of this piece I'm sharing? Me! :3

And so even though this is an out of order scene that I still have so much to get through before I decide how and in what form to keep it, I'm very attached to the extremely dissociative style of a WIP I've shared in a few iterations:

“Valentina?”

it was a calm voice, a strong voice, wielded in the kind of tone reserved for something feral and dangerous and pathetic. she could not be valentina, and she could not be johnny, and she could not be human, but the awful cacophony in her head would not allow her to be nothing.

Just with the lowercase formatting, it creates a sense of unease, a sense of distance from being fully conscious and fully present. The sentences run into each other, over each other. Not a fully formed thought, but more of an animal stream of consciousness. The following should resonate with anyone who has had to bear the mortifying ordeal of being comforted during a breakdown:

“I need an answer, Valentina. Yes or no. You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, but I still need your answer.”

“No.”

her voice weak. her voice soft like rust. an impression where once something used to be.

“Thank you. Now how are you feeling?”

her lungs wheezed, a madman’s laughter, but that was hers that was her right and she was weak and tired but her laugh was sharp like a blade and so long as she could hide her face from light it was enough to keep the ground underneath her feet.

“Valentina–“

“No.” Wrong.

this doctor was not stupid. “V?”

agreement could be a sort of silence– if you were petty about it, if you were cornered and angry and helpless like a cat in alley. a fox in a trap. (no. no more. no more–) if you were coiled in and around yourself, where you could not be, but could not afford not to be, that could be yes.

Even like this, you can see that the panicked animal brain is still being managed by V's reflexive and somewhat painful self-awareness. And I'm really happy with dipping into that style when the story is specifically about sense of self, how far self-control can go, and fighting against your own nature.

Aaaaaanyway this got stupidly long and I'm sorry for that, but I just love deliberately playing with writing style and finding and playing to my strengths, even if it's not everyone's cup of tea. :3

[the-leader-in-blue]

Ooc//can tou tell i Also yearn?

It was horrible,Orpheus pressed her back against the door as her hand covered her mouth,trying to stifle the sobs that shook her shoulders. God,how did they become such a mess,their friend (the word felt wrong to discribe Leo,he wasn’t a friend,he was so much more to them..) was on his way,after moths of radio silence Orpheus has finically gained the courage to contact him again,he was ok his way and Orpheus was a mess,their mascara smeared the side of his cheeks and his lips bleed from how much they bit them trying to silence her cries. Months of loneliness has broken him,but he hasn’t cried this much in years,he gasped for air as he slid down the door and brought his knees close to his chest,loud hiccups echoing across the empty apartment as she buried her head in her knees,hand arms wrapped around herself as a pathetic attempt at comfort. There where so many things they wanted to tell him,they wanted to hold him while the sun falls,they wanted to wake up next to him and have that briefest moment of peace,she wanted to be able to not be alone,and have that feeling of love they craved oh so much. They knew it was just a daydream,she knew she wasn’t loveable,she knew all her worst traits, and still he was coming over. Another choked sob escaped her as she curled up impossibly tighter, he know how horrible she was,he had seen the worst parts of her and he still cared,he still cared enough to come to her apartment ,to stay with her,to make sure that she was okay. Their nails dug into their legs as they sobbed,in the back of their mind they could feel their nails digging into their skin,but it was pushed aside. It was funny,Orpheus never wanted much,but the one thing they wanted,they couldn’t have, they wanted something so soft and gentle they knew that I’d they came close it would shatter. They wanted quiet mornings with someone they loved,they wanted to be able to bask in the silence without feelings so alone. Orpheus never understood yearning until now,for years they had heard of people falling head over heels ,and it seemed so funny to them until now,they weren’t falling no they where plummeting,it was so much more that anyone else discribed,it was so much to them. Their nights where plagued by thoughts of someone,someone they wanted so badly but they knew they would never have, it was cruel,because what god would let her love someone so much? Who would be cruel enough to watch her suffer through love? She hates that this isn’t the love they’ve seen before,they hate that it treads the line between friends and lovers,just as they felt like they where on a tightrope around him,ready to plummet any time

(this was just stream of conscious style writing ,but I’ve also been reading Shakespeare so )

-🦭

ooc\\ oh my fucking god oh god oh my actual god im in tears AGH

orpheus :( im so fuckigngj sad

[no-gorms]

Your stories are so well constructed. If you have time and the inclination to do so, would you be willing to write about your plotting, planning, or outlining process? Inquiring beginners would love to know. :) Thank you for reading this ask.

Oooh! Thank you, that’s very nice of you, I appreciate it a lot. :))

I feel kind of self-conscious writing this out, but if it’s helpful to anyone, why not? I’m gonna use my recent Steve/Tony fics for examples (I preemptively apologize for my handwriting). This got long and messy, oops.

Plotting, planning and outlining! Is very useful, but not the first thing I do. 

First up is The Idea.

Most of my fics come about because of some single idea that captured my imagination. Eg. Role of a Lifetime is from an idea of Steve having a secret identity that enables him to see different sides of Tony. The basis is a single, simple idea that can be summed up in one sentence. Even the somewhat plotty Ticking the Moments Away comes down to a basic idea of 2023!Tony unintentionally tricking 2014!Steve into confessing his feelings to 2014!Tony.

Then, Brainstorming.

The idea is the central germ, and I let that germ roll around my head for a while, seeing what spins off from it – scenes that can happen, dialogue the characters can have, backstory for how the characters got to that point. There’s no plot structure at this point at all, just the fun of coming up with ideas.

I’m a notebook person. While all this brainstorming goes on, I note down the ideas as they come. I don’t worry about how these fit together yet, because it’s just about letting the inspiration flow. As an example, here’s a brainstorming page for If I were a Bell. My brainstorming pages are just brief lines of scenes, pieces of dialogue, or stream of consciousness ideas of things that can happen.

Not everything from this stage is going to make the final fic, but that’s okay! It’s just about letting the creativity flow, building energy and excitement about the story itself, and coming up with bits that you’re going to have fun writing down in fuller prose.

Brainstorming also helps coming up with backstory, which also may or may not be part of the story proper but helps create the setting before the “present” action starts. Like, here’s a page for Something Beautiful where I was figuring out the backstory and what’s different about the alternate timeline.

The thing about brainstorming a story like this is that it’s natural for us to focus on the Big moments. Most of my energy is definitely spent contemplating the BEST bit, which is usually the big reveal or confrontation about feelings, and the fallout from there. Because of that, it becomes clear where the story will end, and because I’ve figured where the story will end, I can roughly figure out what needs to happen in order to reach that ending. Eg. Steve & Tony’s relationship starts like [this] and needs to become like [that]. How do we get to [that]? By having Steve & Tony achieve [x] amount of emotional intimacy or address [x] issue, which is achieved through [x] interactions/dialogue/escalating scenarios.

Then I start Outlining. 

The magical thing about having brainstormed smaller ideas is that now there’s accumulated details ready to fill up the middle portion, which is (for me) the main challenge in putting an outline together. Most of the time we know where a story starts and ends, but what’s in the middle? That’s where all those smaller ideas come in, and I do that by listing out the various ideas I came up with in sequence. 

Sometimes the order of this sequence obvious, but most of the time it isn’t, so I usually list them semi-randomly and move them around as necessary. The brainstormed ideas are like puzzle pieces, and they don’t always fit, so sometimes you gotta keep brainstorming to figure out how it works as a whole story.

But once I have an outline at all, that’s a Go for me to start writing. I use the outline as a basis for what’s to happen and to make sure I don’t get lost, but you’ve still got to be open to changing things up as you notice shortcomings. Unless it’s a slice of life fic, there’s usually a tension that needs to be resolved, and you won’t necessarily “see” if the story is resolving it until you’re actually writing it. Eg. Steve and Tony aren’t together – why? What’s the obstacle? Why didn’t they get together before, and if there was an issue stopping them, is that issue dealt with by the fic’s end? These questions might seem obvious, but sometimes I can lose sight of it and need to come back to the outline to adjust it.

For example, here’s my simplified outline for Ticking Away the Moments, after the initial brainstorming was done. 

I knew where to start and where to end, but you can see the crossed out part where I changed things. As I was writing I realized that I needed more shippy moments and Steve & Tony had to spend more time together just the two of them, so instead of them crash-landing on Asgard and Steve being treated by healers there (as initially planned), Nebula brought them to another planet instead, where Steve & Tony had their not-date.

Brainstorming doesn’t necessarily stop once I start writing, either. Sometimes a story does flow 100% once I start writing, but that’s rare, and more often I still get stuck here and there. So, much like how artists do warm-up sketches before working on their main piece, I sometimes do brainstorming “sketches” to deal with this. Like, if I can’t figure out how to make certain things happen, or what the characters’ motivations are, I stop writing the fic itself and instead do stream of consciousness writing that’s more like meta instead of prose/dialogue to work out the problems. 

For example, here’s some character “sketching” for Splenditudinous Figment of Wonder, where I was trying to figure out Steve and Tony’s motivations: 

And some plot “sketching” for Ticking Away the Moments, where I was trying to figure out what 2023!Tony, Nebula and Gamora’s game plan should be:

This kind of sketching puts into words the problems I’m facing, and I can make a carefree mess in searching for solutions. It saves time to do it this way instead of trying to solve the problem while I’m writing the actual story, for that usually leads to having to delete whole chunks of fic which is VERY difficult because we tend to get attached to what we write! I find it better to sketch.

Basically, the goal of the brainstorming & outlining & sketching is to minimize the amount of actual writing of the story itself. Don’t get me wrong, writing is still labour intensive, but I find that by working out the story before sitting down to actually Write The Thing, it removes a lot of the struggle to figure out what happens next, and cuts down on cruft that tends to build up when you stumble on problems or are trying to work out the “middle part”. Plenty of writers can do the figuring it out as they go along, and that’s fine, too! But this is what works for me. 

Also, a general advice which might be useful! I used to push myself in my writing, but nowadays my philosophy (lol) is that writing fanfic is for Fun, so if the stress/difficulty of any part of it outweighs the joy/satisfaction, then I just don’t do it. This is totally subjective – some people like pushing themselves into new writing styles or topics, and I totally did, too, but nowadays I don’t want to do that.

What does that mean, in effect? It means that if I find any scene a slog or just plain boring, I drop it entirely or find a way around it, maybe by summarizing what happens or having it explained in flashback. If it’s not fun to write, I don’t write it, and I don’t stress out about it. I find this REALLY freeing. This doesn’t work for published fiction, of course, but I’m not talking about published fiction. 

I hope you find some part of this useful!

[katsitting]

7, 18, 24 for the get to know your author ask

7) When I'm asked, I'm very enthusiastic about telling others that I write. I've never been ashamed of it. It's more than just a hobby for me, and it shouldn't be something I treat like some dirty secret. (Though I don't tell them the contents of what I write. That would certainly raise a few brows and make a couple people squirm lol)18) I've answered this one before but I'll paste it again. My writing style is a bit complicated. I spent a long time hating writing, specifically poetry. It was only around high school after discovering Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sylvia Plath that I started to appreciate that my poetry wasn’t pretty or very…flowery and fluid. I wanted my words to be like stream of consciousness, to be a mess of thoughts that somehow made sense onto paper.But that didn’t quite work. A mixture of academics and my own abrasive personality just didn’t allow for it. I was always about impact, about leaving you with your brain sort of echoing the words. I wanted readers to experience the force of my emotion and my words, rather than spend a long time on the minute details. It was meant to be a way for me to explode, and I couldn’t very much do that by putting myself in a box these lovely poets and authors were in (at least, I had thought they had when I was younger).Then I found Yeats, Margaret Atwood, and many more amazing writers and poets. I don’t think I fit any of their styles, but I love them all for showing me what works and doesn’t for me personally when I write. (I will add that I do think fanfiction shaped a lot of my writing. Some of them good and some...not as much. I used to be very adjective and adverb happy, but now I've become more selective with my word usage. It's better to get your point across through more powerful verbs than to vomit too many things in one story sometimes).24) Yes I have. I've acquired quite a bit of medical knowledge for nefarious purposes in my stories. It's sort of become rather necessary in order to be able to...evoke the sort of emotion I want in others. I've also researched significantly about the human body, have incorporated psychological and physical reactions to a variety of different stimuli, whether of the sexual variety or of the not so sexual sort. I especially like to hunt down myths and other sorts of mythos and stories to lay the groundwork for my stories. I've always liked creepy, scary, and uncomfortable things so that tends to rear its head without conscious thought. I am fascinated by history, but this area is one I have more difficulty with. There's so much information that the vetting process can be tedious.

[theycallmeshaggyrogers]

A Retrospective of Digital Literature: Part 1 (OR I’m Not Impressed by Lesbians and Postmodern Writing)

This past semester my class and I have been exploring and discussing the attributes and merits of digital literature, works of written fiction that are exclusively hosted by a digital platform. This style of writing is still pretty new and experimental, which is to say it is not nearly as mechanically polished as say, the print medium, which has been around for 500+ years and is simple enough for the average person to get a grasp of. Digital literature on the other hand demands a degree of proficiency in whatever medium the product itself is being hosted on, be it a website or a smartphone app. 

The first book we had to read was Caitlin Fisher’s These Waves of Girls, which from my experience was a giant clusterfuck of the narrator’s inner thoughts and memories connected together by hyperlinks. It definitely hasn’t aged well visually; the UI is an incomprehensible, unfocused mess that only an early 2000s web page could be, the voiceover overlays itself like three times (though my professor insists that this was intentional, hence the title of the book), there’s no way to keep track of all the hyperlinks you went through with each passage that pops up onscreen, and the most egregious of all, none of these issues have been addressed in a future update in the 15+ years the book has been online. Needless to say, I found this interesting take on digital storytelling to be a frustrating endeavor. 

The best way I can explain what happens in this story is that it depicts specific memories of the POV character, many of them related to personal trauma, human sexuality and growing up in an environment with sexually active children. The character herself realizes early on that she does not like boys, and we are continuously reminded of this fact for better or for worse.

The only thing more frustrating about this ordeal was how other students in class were eating it up, specifically the three resident milquetoast white girls who sat in the same column and dominated most (if not all) of the conversations we had in class. One argued that the disconnected appeal of These Waves of Girls is that Fisher is deliberately challenging the binary of storytelling by neither providing a beginning, middle, nor and end to her story. Providing structure, they unanimously asserted, is a means in which the reader has autocratic control over how they consume the literature. From my interpretation of their argument(s), they painted story structure as a bad thing, as an oppressive thing freed only by the postmodern adherence to identifying the old structures of literary narrative and tearing those structures down. What this accomplishes morally and/or creatively I have no idea. I don’t know if These Waves of Girls can be considered a postmodern novel, but considering its conscious lack of literary structure, I wouldn’t be surprised if people considered it as such.

Needless to say, I was not satisfied by this answer at all. As an aspiring screenwriter for broadcast television, I adhere to the three-act structure like a secondary religion. To construct a narrative around a structure itself and label it as an oppressive, restrictive binary by a bunch of students lapping up my professor’s Kool-Aid without hesitation is both frustrating and insulting. Books are created by people. We establish structures for all written narratives because it is convenient, not because we want to actively control how we consume a medium. The best stories have some form of linear narrative because it works. Shakespearean plays have a five-act structure because  it’s something that both the author and the consumers can easily navigate and comprehend for convenience’s sake. Television and movies have three-act structures because, understandably, you only have so much broadcasting time to tell a story. These Waves of Girls, in a strange way, is kind of like an early blog rather than a book. It does not have a linear narrative that displays the POV character’s life but instead is written like a free-flowing stream of thought. This is an interesting concept, but I don’t think These Waves of Girls did a great job in conveying it through the medium in which it is written. Again, I believe the book is in a dire need of an update. It needs some means of keeping track of every link the viewer clicks so they don’t forget what they were reading literally 5 seconds ago. In my experience, since there were so many hyperlinks, I ended up opening each new one in a different tab and reading it that way, just for a single goddamn page of writing that was barely a paragraph long! I also muted it because 12 voiceovers with three overlayed recordings on each page is absolutely intolerable. I don’t think three overlayed recordings are a clever way to shoehorn in the title of the story. I think it’s lazy, inept programming. 

I don’t see the appeal of These Waves of Girls, but I have a hunch that its appeal is exclusively for literary academics, which makes me dislike the book even more. Personally, I operate under the notion that written mediums should be conceptually accessible to anyone who is interested in pursuing them, not deliberately closed off to anyone who is not part of the rigid community of collegiate academics, which in the Anglosphere, mind you, is almost universally composed of upper middle-class social liberals who are, for the most part, conditioned to agree with the progressive culture in which they have been raised into anyway. Reading These Waves of Girls and getting reactions from other students like “this is innovative storytelling” or “this book is an early stage pioneer for digital fiction” or “the lack of binary story structure is deliberate because humans like to have power over everything” made me realize how much I don’t like this book, its message and the academic community as a whole. They were not establishing their own views on These Waves of Girls. Rather, they were just agreeing with what my professor was talking about. Its reception was ultimately mixed, but those who did like it strike me as the kind of people who have plans to remain within insular academic culture, where every new innovation in writing demands thorough examination and praise for whatever it brings to the table, even if that innovation is not realized to its fullest extent.

So yeah, in short, I believe These Waves of Girls needs its UI updated to be better accessible to people to don’t want to write 20-page academic papers about the groundbreaking way in which a fictional twentysomething Lesbian living in cosmopolitan Canada strings all her traumatic thoughts into an interactive webpage. If academics like my professor want digital literature to be pushed into the mainstream, then such an act demands that these kinds of audiovisual mediums are more accessible and visually concise for a culture that has adapted to well-structured visual user interfaces.

You can find These Waves of Girls here. Allow me to reiterate that it has not aged well visually and your mileage may vary in tolerating it:

http://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/waves/

[lucianb]

California and Alaska

Friday June 23rd

Today is day 7 of our trip, and it is the first time I have worked up enough energy to write. I have been physically and mentally exhausted up until this point, but I feel like I need to play whirlwind catchup to record our adventure so far before I can get to my current thoughts. I am writing this from the deck of Denali Brewing Company in Talkeetna Alaska. Everyone around us has a southern accent and we have a view onto the one road that leads through town (there is a lot of “one road” in Alaska). This place is packed with people from off the train on their way up from one cruise or another, an industry which keeps this town alive. After miles of nothing, being surrounded by people is a little jarring.

Saturday June 24th

I am writing this the next morning on the porch of our cabin, after being greeted enthusiastically by a brace of golden retrievers. The sun is at the same level it has been at practically our whole time here, which hasn’t been as much of an issue as I was expecting. I guess my new habit of taking naps has conditioned me for sleeping in the sunlight.

I feel like my brain is running processes that are eating up all of my RAM, and despite not doing a ton of strenuous stuff, the system updates are slowing me down. At the conscious level, I feel like nothing has changed. I talk about my plans, leaving my job, my new program, but it feels abstract, like it is happening to someone else. I suspect my brain is protecting me from too much at once, but I would appreciate it letting a bit more slip through so I could more quickly come to terms with how much my life will be changing.

Let me back up a bit. My final few weeks at work I was counting down the days until I was done. Time seemed to crawl. I would go sit at my desk, with work the last thing on my mind. Both at work and at home, anything mildly mentally strenuous seemed like more than I was equipped to handle. I was incapable of planning of any kind. Stuck looking towards the future but unwilling to do anything about it. I took solace in the cat, bad tv, and time with friends. Time alone seemed to yawn ahead of me endlessly. Then, abruptly, we left. I said my goodbyes at work and shuffled off into the sunset with my hiking bag.

When we landed, we headed to Alameda, going through familiar territory on our way to Chris and Maria’s. I have been back to California since we left in 2013, and returning felt like I was just jumping back into my old life. Laura on the other hand, experienced the same shock that I did my first time back; descending into that uncanny valley of the same but slightly different.

Sonoma was a blast. Mallory joined us for a day of Lagunitas and catching up in the hot sun, and Emily stayed with us in a tiny, hot KOA cabin for two nights, canoeing down the Russian River in 105 degree weather. We passed an endless stream of families cooling off during our paddle, and we navigated as best we could through the bodies and the whirlpools. After, we went to Russian River brewing and partook in style, drinking sours and bringing enough bottles back to last us the rest of the trip.

In Santa Cruz, we visited all of our old haunts. The bookshop, the sock shop, verve coffee, Henry Cowell and the redwoods… I even climbed in my old climbing gym, which feels smaller every time I go back. I struck up a few conversations with climbers there, climbed worse than I expected, and met Laura back on the beach. Our bodies sporting weird sunburns after falling asleep on the beach, we would have low key nights in our airbnbs.

We have now spent three nights in Alaska, but it barely feels like we have done anything. Our first night we got in after 11 PM, and Joey took us in his converted taxi to Cook Inlet to see the midnight sun. The next day, we explored Anchorage, met Greg and Moira at the Bubbly Mermaid for champagne and oysters, and then went with Joey to a bar and back to his place for games. Yesterday we explored Talkeetna and went for a 4 mile walk around the Talkeetna lakes. We are going rafting today, which I will write about soon.

 Sunday June 25th

I am writing this from our campsite in Denali. On our way up from Talkeetna we picked up supplies, and we are enjoying our homemade pita pizzas just like we made when we were campers…

Monday June 26th

Funny how I start an entry and then get too tired to continue. I could write about our writing trip like I promised, or about our hike around horseshoe lake (easy but stunning), but right now I am buzzing after our discovery hike today. This is what I have been looking forward to more than anything in the whole trip, and it didn’t disappoint. So the way this works is, up to 11 lucky people sign up for a hike with a ranger who has done some scouting. They don’t know the exact route or terrain, but generally have some idea. You hop off the bus somewhere along the one road that runs through Denali (only buses and bikes allowed), and just walk into the wilderness. No trails, no nothing.

Because the spots are so limited, when we got to Denali we jetted for the visitor center worried we wouldn’t get on the trips over the next two days. When we got there, we found out that only 4 people had signed up. It seems that most people who visit Denali stay on the bus, and those that don’t go much deeper into the wilderness, backpacking without a ranger.

After a very chilly night in our tent, we woke up, left the comfort of our tent, and made sandwiches while we tried to get our bodies to stop shivering. An hour and a half bus ride down the one road in the park, and our small group got off and left all trails behind. We climbed up areas no people have been this season, our only company a trio of curious sheep. It was gorgeous when we reached our first windy vista, with untouched landscape in all directions. Denali is vast, about the same size as the state of Massachusetts, and it is hard to get a sense of the scale of the place without actually visiting.

After lunch, we made it down a steep scree slope, up another ridge, and were slapped in the face with an amazing view of Denali’s peaks. The day ended with some bushwacking and creek crossings, and a nice nap on the way back. Last night, I got anxious about my impending trip to Norway. 14 days hiking, 17 days traveling alone… Why was I doing this? Back on the trail, I remembered how much I love being out in the wild. I reach this state of being I can’t find anywhere else. There may be discomfort, but that discomfort is the reason I have the trail to myself or with a small group of like-minded people, instead of spotting animals from the bus.

In our time in Denali, we have seen moose of all sizes, birds, sheep, and tons of ground squirrels. It would be nice to see bears or wolves, but not during our hike tomorrow please! Sitting here, drinking a beer, I am so thankful that I have this time in Alaska with Laura. I had grown skeptical in Anchorage and Talkeetna, but I am well and truly sold. Now I am wishing we had more time up here!

June 30th

I am writing this in Girdwood five days after I last wrote. I really need to step up my game. The second discovery hike was deeper into the park, but was much mellower. Our ranger was an old-timer from Tennessee who encouraged us young folks to just go wandering into the park by ourselves. He had had many run-ins with bears during his time working in Denali, and was much less worried about running into one than our first ranger. Our walk was shorter, less pretty, but we saw a ton of wildlife. We saw a massive herd of caribou, grizzly bears, and an alpha wolf, running across the tundra at an alarming speed. It was a reminder of just how wild Denali is, and how much more there is to see there. The mountain itself calls to me, and the park is the best reason I can think of to come back to Alaska.

We left Denali wanting more, and did the long drive down to Seward. It rained our whole time there, but it wasn’t a total wash. We ate fantastic seafood chowder, and did the Harding Icefield Trail that I had been looking forward to. It was 9 miles with 3,000 feet of elevation gain. We passed through forest, above the treeline, through the snow, and eventually above the glacier itself. I was a little sore at the end, but I feel even more confident about my trip to Norway. The hike was covered with curious marmots, running across the snow, or chomping on flowers. Hiking through the Alps, seeing a marmot was a big deal, and they kept their distance. These marmots seemed pretty used to humans, and went about their adorable business.

We then headed for Girdwood for the beginning of wedding stuff, which was surprisingly stressful I have been away from the real world for a while, and it was a reminder that life is still going on outside of our vacation and I still have responsibilities that I will have to reckon with. Greg is doing really well, and I am super happy for him. This will be my first Catholic wedding that I am in the wedding party, so I am going to do my best not to mess anything up. It is great to have the gang back together again, probably for the last time until the next wedding. I am loving the mini-reunion, but after recovering over the past few weeks and feeling more like myself, these late nights are tiring me out again.

July 5th

10:15 PM our last full day in Alaska and I am feeling really antsy. I am tired, but sleep seems like the worst idea. Transitions have always been hard for me, as I have said over and over again in these pages.

So. The wedding. The whole thing just felt so surreal. The whole catholic wedding with a wedding coordinator thing means much less responsibility for the bridal party. We walked in, stood where we needed to, sat where we needed to, and took some pictures. There were also 8 of us on each side which changed the feel significantly. Being in the church, large parts felt so different from what I have come to think of as a wedding. The catholic rites and rules are just so intense, with call and response, pomp and circumstance, and the flesh and blood of Christ.

The reception was fun, and we drank more after the wedding when we were asked to take a keg back with us after the reception. The next day, we took a train to a nearby glacier, got lost on an adventure, and then hung out with the bride and groom later that night.

 July 11th

It is Tuesday, we left Alaska on Friday. My sleep schedule is still all out of whack, staying up late and waking up late like I haven’t since I was a teen. It is about 2 PM and I just left the house. I still haven’t eaten.

I could write about Homer and kayaking, otters, puffins, eagles, and beautiful bays, but let’s leave it at saying check out the pictures we took and add Homer to the list of places people should go when they go to Alaska. What has been on my mind is the return of my drive, and my desire to keep moving forward. Being in Alaska was a great break from all of the stress that I put myself through. I was able to live in the moment for most of the trip, despite what I have written here, and I really enjoyed where I was. I wasn’t making lists, asking myself what I should be doing instead of whatever I was doing at the moment, unlike now. Even writing this entry is me scratching something off of my to-do list. I am energized by doing. I get a feeling from completing tasks that I can’t get from anything else, but the PhD is this monolithic thing looming over me that I can’t start working on. This will be the longest and most difficult endeavor I have ever undertaken, and I have no idea what I am getting myself into.

That said, I have seen some of the bios of the people that will be in my doctoral cohort. They are an intimidating group, but Laura reminded me how lucky I am to have these people as my peers. I will of course be worried about keeping up, but that is the kind of environment I do best in. Give me more than I can handle. Trust me to grow, to fill the role. I sure ain’t perfect, but I work until I literally can’t any more. I may be nervous about the future, but I got this. Well, I’ve got this after I grab some lunch.