#Mikau's Writing Process

[mikauzoran]

Title Finessing - Adrienette AUs Project

Friends, is “Adrien in AU-Land” or “Adrien Trapped in AU-Land” a more appealing title?

Just FYI, this is for that project I was talking about over a year ago where canon universe Chat Noir gets hit by an akuma, and then Adrien keeps waking up in a series of different AUs until he realizes his feelings for Marinette and manages to break free.

As for the AUs I’m planning on featuring, so far I have coffeeshop, ballet, fake dating, and roommates. I’m also seriously considering life swap, royalty, and enemies.

But which title do you think is better? I think it rolls off the tongue better without “trapped”, but I kind of like the inclusion of “trapped” because I feel like it colours the title differently. Adding “trapped” makes it feel more ominous, I think, whereas “Adrien in AU-Land” kind of sounds more whimsical.

What do you guys think?

[miraculousfanworks]

Writer Spotlight: Mikauzoran

The Miraculous Fanworks Discord server is introducing the creator spotlight! Each month, one artist and one writer will have their accounts and content promoted on our social media accounts. This month's writer of the month is Mikauzoran! See the artist of the month post here! Mikauzoran is a fantastic fanfiction writer! She has written for multiple server events, zines, and more. We've interviewed Mikau about her writing, history, advice, and thoughts about the show! 1. How long have you been writing in general?

I started writing short stories almost as soon as I learned how to write, and, before that, I told anyone who would listen the stories I came up with orally. I’ve been inventing stories for as long as I can remember, and my mum assures me that I was inventing stories even before that too. I first started writing novels when I was around ten or twelve, and I completed my first one at fifteen. I’ve written several more (original fiction and fanfiction) since then, and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

2. How long have you been creating for the fandom, and what's your favorite part of the process?

I started writing The Rejects Club in December 2018, and I published the first chapter on January 11, 2019. This January will be my three-year anniversary of publishing content in this fandom. I’m considering holding a prompt giveaway event because three is one of my lucky numbers, and it seems like an appropriate milestone to celebrate. I think my favourite part of the process is the ideas stage. I love when the new ideas start flooding in and all I have to do is take notes on whatever napkin or scrap of paper is at hand. Things get a little harder when I have to sit down and iron things out and make everything work as a cohesive whole. That part of the process in and of itself is very rewarding, but the initial stage of the project when I’m filled with enthusiasm and inspiration for a new idea is the most fun.

3. Has there been anything in particular that influences your style?

I would say that the biggest influence on my writing is what I read. My mum always read to me as a child, so I grew up on the classics. Consequently, I developed a love for and still read a lot of old books. My favourites are French and English novels from the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. Alexandre Dumas (Père), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lewis Carroll, Charlotte Brontë, Gaston Leroux, Victor Hugo, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Maurice Leblanc have all been big influences on me. Shoutout to H.P. Lovecraft and Sir Terry Pratchett. I hope to one day write as beautifully as Lovecraft and with Pratchett’s wit. If I could trade my own style for anyone’s, it would be those two.

4. Do you have any advice you'd like to give to other creators?

Read voraciously. When you come across a new word, look it up. When you read a description or piece of dialogue and think, “Wow. That’s really good”, write it down in a little notebook and then use those notes later when you’re writing to get inspiration for how to phrase things. Don’t lift it word for word because then it won’t sound like you, but figure out how to say something similar in your own voice. The filmmaker Kurosawa Akira once said that when you read, you should do it at a desk with a notebook at hand. Analyze what you read and see what you can learn from it. My other piece of advice is to use everything. Everything bad that’s ever happened to you. Your greatest joys. Your failures. Your fears. Your regrets. Your victories. Your heartbreaks. That horrible meal you had at that greasy restaurant with abysmal service. That bright red leaf that drifted down and landed on your head. That time you played basketball in the pouring rain. That song that’s stuck in your head. That painting that moved you to tears. That terrible movie you saw the other day. Use everything from your life in your stories. It will make them feel more real…because it is real.

5. How do you think the identity reveal is going to go? Feel free to write something quick if you want to!

In canon, it will probably be a dumpster fire, honestly. I anticipate drama and multiple timelines and Marinette losing her memories at some point before the identity reveal finally sticks. I’m sure it will be a rollercoaster. What I really want, though, is something calm and fluffy. I want Ladybug to realize that her partner is struggling and needs her support, and then I want her to say “forget the rules. I need to be there for him”. I’ve written several stories like that such as Everything, I’m Learning to Love (Walking Away from Things), Behind the Masks, and Depressing Christmas Carols with Chat Noir.

Mikau can be found here on Tumblr @mikauzoran and on AO3 under the name Mikauzoran. Some of her works include I'm Learning to Love (Walking Away from Things), Your Hands Hold Home, and Drunk Ladybug on My Balcony? Yeah. This is Fine. Go check them out! Interested in being featured? Come join the server!

[mikauzoran]

This Outline is Anemic

So, I’m on Chapter Six of This City Needs You But Not as Much as I Do, and my outline just says:

Adrien and Marinette make dinner together and then watch a movie and snuggle.

XD That’s it. That’s all Past Mikau gave me to work with. I guess I’ll have to flesh that out a bit, huh?

Though, I don’t normally outline in such detail, so maybe I’ll just go in there and wing it and see what materializes. It’s just that previous chapters of this fic have been springing almost fully formed from my head this past week, and this one is a little anemic in comparison.

I guess I’ll sleep on it and see what happens tomorrow.

[mikauzoran]

Seems these recent episodes of Miraculous Ladybug have taken a flame thrower to your interest in this fandom. Any particular part of the episodes or special jump out at you and have you say, “I need to write a fic about this!”

I wouldn’t say that the new content has destroyed my interest in the fandom? ^.^; I wrote a lot of one-shots in March, and now I’m polishing them up and posting them weekly on Saturdays. I was also on holiday the last week of March/first week of April, so I did a lot of writing then, and now I’m publishing the new Lukadrien multichapter story I wrote during holiday on Sundays.

I’d say I’m just about as active as I’ve been since I first started posting content in January of 2019. I’ve actually been pretty consistent this whole time these past two years. There have been a handful of weeks where I didn’t post anything, but, even then, I was posting every other week. I typically post at least once a week. Sometimes I do daily updates like for Études, Lukadrien June 2020, and I Would Give You Some Violets. There have been a lot of times where I was posting two or three or four times a week.

While it’s true that I don’t actually like new content (it stresses me out to have to adapt to new canon, and I get really anxious about change), I wouldn’t say that the new content has torched my interest in the fandom. I’m still as interested in it as always.

[mikauzoran]

(A) because I have always loved your titles. Like Shadows 🥰

Thanks for the Ask!

A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?

I decided on the title To Waltz Among Shades basically because I’m a nerd. ^.^; And dramatic. 

In Greek mythology, shades are the souls of the dead. The story has a lot to do with Adrien confronting his past and his relationships with his parents, Marinette/Ladybug, and himself. Obviously, not everyone is literally dead, but they’ve changed. Adrien’s relationships with them have changed, and they’re not how he always remembered them anymore now that he knows their identities. He’s letting go of who he thought they were and accepting this new reality as it is. In that sense, who he thought these people were and his relationships with them are the “shades” of the title.

The waltzing part comes in because a big part of Adrien’s healing process is music therapy. In the story, Adrien learns to navigate through the shades of his past and come out the other side.

Ask Game.

[mikauzoran]

For Science! (Or, You Know...Writing Fanfiction)

The Anecdote:

Mikau: *Sitting in the den, writing*

Mummsie: *In the kitchen making pies*

Mikau: *Gets up suddenly* I need a key.

Mummsie: For what?

Mikau: I need to drop it in there on the wood floor.

Mummsie: *Unfazed* To see what it sounds like?

Mikau: Yeah.

It feels so validating when I don’t have to explain my odd behaviour to my mother. I was writing a scene where Adrien drops a key on the Liberty, and I was trying to decide how to describe it. I’m actually really glad I did this little experiment because the key was a lot louder than I had anticipated, and the sound echoed and rang a lot more than I had initially thought it would.

The Fanfic Excerpt:

“Luka!” Chat Noir choked out as he stumbled into the room, eyes wild and tears streaming down his cheeks. “My father is—”

The words died on his lips as his mind processed Marinette and Luka’s position.

The apartment key that Luka had given him dropped to the floor with a clatter and a resounding ring that echoed against the silence of the room.

Marinette blinked at her partner in confusion, trying to comprehend his presence. “Chat Noir?”

A hollow feeling expanded outward from the pit of Luka’s stomach as he realized what Adrien thought he was seeing.

“S-Sorry,” Chat mumbled, reaching to retrieve the key. He gripped it tightly, cradling it to his chest. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

The above excerpt is from Where the Heart Is which I’m planning on posting Tuesday, 02/02/2021, so keep an eye out for it. ^.^

Summary: A misunderstanding with Luka on top of discovering his father’s secrets leads to Adrien’s akumatization. It’s up to Luka to prove his love to Chat Blanc and save him from the darkness inside of himself.

[mikauzoran]

So I might've read every single MLB fic you have on AO3 that wasn't Adrien/Luka, and some that were... there are a few that seem abandoned (or maybe hiatus?) so I was just curious if you intend to continue any of them. Particularly The Rejects Club, it stole my heart, but I'm aware you're working on other fics and projects and probably work full time as well! Your writing style is fantastic and I hope you continue to have fun with it all! <3 <3

Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoy my work. ^.^

So, every few months I do a status update here on Tumblr with all of my current WIPs and where I'm at with them and what new projects are coming out in coming months. I tag it "status update" and "Mikau's WIP", so you can check out those tags if you're ever wondering what I'm working on.

I just did an update today which you can find here.

(The rest is a brutally honest, TMI status update on Rejects and Springtime and me that got too long, so I'm putting it under the cut. ^.^;)

Honestly, I'm in really bad shape mentally. I work full time at a law firm where the stress level is toxic. A lot of days I dread getting out of bed. Writing is kind of an escape from that.

At this point, Rejects and the Springtime in Wonderland universe stories put me in really bad headspace. They cause me stress and anxiety, and I don't feel well when working on them at the moment.

2019 was a bad mental health year for me, and I was able to use writing to sort through some of that. Back then, Rejects and Springtime were kind of cathartic, but then they turned into a sort of unhealthy rumination on my negative feelings, so I put them aside until I felt better mentally and felt like I could work on them again without causing damage to myself.

2020 was hell. I think it was hell for everyone in unique and horrible ways. I personally lost eight family members and a close family friend during that time, so I'm still grieving and processing and trying to get back to "normal". Right now, my main goal is trying to feel safe leaving my house and being around people again.

So that's where we are. I'm not in good shape, but I'm working on it, and it's getting better. I'm working really hard to manage work and my health, and in my free time I'm writing things that help me process my feelings and make sense of my world.

I know you didn't mean me harm, so I'm not angry at you at all or anything, so no worries. You're very sweet, and I'm so happy that you enjoy my work and are eager to read more. I can see that you tried very hard to ask politely and respectfully while acknowledging that I have a full life outside of sharing my work online. I really appreciate that, so thank you. You treating me like a human being means a lot to me.

What you couldn't have known is that you're unwittingly pressuring me to do something that's harmful for me at this point in my life. I know you don't mean to. You just want to know if I'm planning on continuing a story. There's nothing wrong with that in theory. You have no way of knowing the rough state of my mental health and the negative impact forcing myself to work on those stories would have on me, so I just wanted to take the time to sit down and explain it to you and other readers like you who love my work and are eager for a continuation.

I'm sorry. I can't right now. I hope to continue in the future, but I have to take care of myself first and foremost because if there is no Mikau, there are no stories.

Hopefully things will continue to get better and I'll feel stronger and capable of working on epic-novel-length works again in the coming years, but that's not where I am right now.

So please don't ask about updates to my four works on hiatus. At the moment, I have sixty-six completed works for you to enjoy, and there will be others in the coming months. Since I started writing for the Ladybug fandom in January 2019, I've updated something or other almost every week. Some weeks I missed, but there's been an update at least every other week. Sometimes I've updated daily for long stretches at a time. I devote the majority of my free time to writing and posting. There's always something new, so when people ask about my works on hiatus, I always wonder, "Am I not already doing enough? Why isn't what I'm doing enough? I already give them everything I have. What more do they want from me?" I'm updating daily right now, and I don't know what more readers could want from me. Getting messages like yours makes me feel a deep despair and inadequacy. It also makes me feel like people don't appreciate the work I'm already doing. It makes me want to stop sharing my work.

I know a lot of other writers feel similar negative feelings. I know a few people who have dropped out of the fandom because their readers didn't respect that they have lives outside of fandom and badgered the writers for updates. I know people who have deleted the works they had on hiatus and decided to discontinue them so that they wouldn't be bothered by readers anymore.

This is really tragic, and I don't want things to get this bad for me. I don't want to delete Rejects or Springtime because I'd really like to finish them when I'm feeling mentally healthy enough to safely do so.

So. Please don't ask any author about updates. You never know what's really going on in their lives and in their minds. You don't ever want to be the last straw that pushes someone over the edge.

While I appreciate the respectfulness of your inquiry, at the same time, it caused me a lot of anxiety and frustration and depression. In the future, if you want to show your support for an author and their works, leave them a comment and let them know how much you loved their story, what it meant to you. Don't mention updates. Just send them love and remind them that their story means something to someone. Maybe that will get them thinking about the story again and inspire them to write more. Mentioning updating only brings dread and anger and the desire to delete works so that they can't be used by readers to hurt us anymore.

Thanks for reading. It really does make me so happy to hear that my work is still being cherished by people. ^.^

[mikauzoran]

Send Song Ideas for Lukadrien One-Shot

Guys. I need your help. I think I decided to work on the supportive!Adrien Lukadrien one-shot(?) story (described here) tomorrow.

Aged-up (24), post Papillon defeat Adrien is broke and back in Paris. He sees a flyer about auditioning to be the new lead singer of a band, and he figures he doesn’t need legit papers to do that and it should be easy enough money so that he can get some food and a roof over his head, so he auditions, not realizing that it’s Luka’s band.

Adrien needs a couple songs to audition with, and I’m coming up blank. I’m thinking the band is probably punk/alternative. Something like that. (I don’t know what I’m talking about. XD) I was thinking maybe something like Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, or Motion City Soundtrack.

I’m trying to think of what song Adrien would know well enough that he’d be able to sing. He’s probably most familiar with songs in Japanese or maybe something he picked up from Luka back when they knew one another.

I don’t know. I was thinking of using Charles because that’s a fun, emotional song. I’m also toying with the idea of This is Gospel. I figured I’d ask you guys and see if you came up with anything I liked better. I just don’t think Adrien listens to that kind of music though, so I don’t know what he’d be familiar with to be able to sing. :/

Thanks in advance!

[mikauzoran]

Do you do requests?

Hi there! Thanks for the Ask. ^.^

Yes, I often do requests. Not one hundred percent of the time, but pretty often if readers ask me, I'll usually produce something eventually.

It might not turn out how the requester imagined, and it might be written months to a year after the requester asked, but people are usually happy with what I come up with.

So, yeah. No promises, but it never hurts to ask me if there's something in particular you'd like to see me write.

Thanks again for the Ask!

[mikauzoran]

Ask Game: Characters you find easiest to write?

@marichat-luv asked:

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write?

Thanks for the ask! ^.^ 

In the Ladybug fandom, I would say Adrien. He’s definitely the easiest to work with because there’s so much there to work with, and I can personally relate to a lot of it.

I find it easiest to work with characters who are like me, so I’m drawn to Adrien. He has a lot of problems and issues that offer all kinds of possible plot conflicts to work off of. He is, fundamentally, a strong, competent, resilient person, however, so it’s easy to break him down and build him back up again to prove that no matter what happens, we can get through the hard times and rebuild our lives into something beautiful and worthwhile.

That’s at the center of a lot of my writings. A lot of the time when I write, I’m trying to prove to myself that it’s worth it to keep fighting, to keep believing in love and happy endings, no matter what happens in my life. I’m able to use Adrien to explore the depths of despair, but he’s a tough, indominable person, so I have faith he can overcome his present circumstances and come out on the other side of whatever I put him through. He’s the kind of person you just can’t keep down, so I feel safe exploring trauma and fears with him because I know everything is going to work out. Adrien is the kind of person who gets a happy ending, so it’s okay to go to dark places with him. I know he’ll make it through and come out stronger.

Plagg is another great character to work with. He’s easy because he can just say whatever is on his mind. He’s not terribly complicated. Yes, he has layers to his personality; he’s not a flat, one-dimensional character by any means, but he’s not mysterious either. He’s very “face value”. He can be rude and selfish, but he can also be sweet and thoughtful. He generally knows when it’s time to be a little gremlin and when it’s time to step up and be emotionally supportive. I particularly like writing Plagg bantering. ^.^

Marinette can be a little complicated at times, but the thing that I really relate to with her is her propensity to mentally spiral when she’s having an anxiety attack. Her anxiety looks a lot like my anxiety, so I can relate to her a lot when she’s freaking out. Like, just two months ago, my brother laughed at me and told me I was ridiculous when I was catastrophizing, and, objectively, I knew that. It’s just that when you’re catastrophizing, it all feels so real and imminent and inevitable. So I can really relate to Marinette when she’s freaking out about how she’s going to spill orange juice on Gabriel’s tie and ruin her chances of ever becoming a fashion designer and how Adrien’s going to hate her and she’s going to end up alone forever. I sound JUST like that when I’m catastrophizing, so it’s easy to transfer that aspect of her character onto the page.

Luka is a lot of fun too. I’m a huge music nerd, so I enjoy the opportunity to funnel that through Luka’s character. He’s also super sweet and supportive. I really enjoy hurt/comfort, and Luka is excellent to use in those situations because he’s very patient and kind, and he’s a little older, so he has experience to share with younger characters. He’s a wonderful big brother to Juleka, and I could see the way he is with her transferring to his interactions with Adrien and Marinette if they ever came to rely on him for guidance. Luka’s a great person to have in your corner. I have a lot of fun writing him.

Thanks again for the ask!

Ask Game.

[mikauzoran]

Ask Game: What are you writing about?

@marichat-luv asked:

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

Thanks for the ask!

Like I mentioned in my last ask game post, a lot of my work is about convincing myself to keep going because there’s happiness and good things waiting ahead. I write about characters facing and then overcoming impossible-seeming problems or situations.

A lot of times I base stories on how events in my own life have made me feel. It’s not strictly autobiographical. Like, the events I portray in my stories didn’t literally happen to me, but the feelings I put into the stories are authentic.

For example, There’s a Daisy and Betting Against the House are partially about my experiences being bullied. Nothing in the stories literally happened to me, but the feelings in the stories accurately reflect how I’ve felt at times.

Save Yourself (I’ll Help You) is another really personal work about dealing with reality and believing in happy endings. It’s an example of me giving my own problems to a character to work out for me in a safe, fictional space. I do this a lot, and I think it’s a part of what makes my work feel authentic. At least, I hope so. ^.^;

Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses is actually, in part, about my fear of not being able to find someone to love and accept me due to my asexuality. A lot of the time I wonder if it’s worth it to try to find love because people are just going to cheat on me once they find out I’m asexual and it becomes inconvenient for them, right? This story is partially about me challenging that fear and disproving it.

So, yeah. I mostly write about my own fears, traumas, and feelings disguised as the fears, traumas, and feelings of fictional characters. It’s good to work out issues in a safe, fictional space.

And then sometimes I just write whacky, fluffy things because it’s important to have fun and be silly. ^.^ We can’t be serious all the time, can we? XD

I also do a lot of requests and prompts. I’m notoriously easy to inspire. It’s very easy for people to put the seeds of ideas into my head only for them to spring forth a few weeks later as a fully-formed story. I really enjoy doing prompts people send in, and I flatter myself that I’m pretty good at them. XD I always try to take the ideas given to me and make them my own.

Thanks again for the ask!

Ask Game.

[mikauzoran]

WIP Folder Challenge

List the titles of your WIP files.

I was tagged by @freedom-shamrock. Thank you for picking me! ^o^

I’m tagging: @komorebirei, @kasienda, @ominousunflower, and @pawsomelybuggy, if you guys want to share the titles of your current WIPs. No pressure.

My readers are probably familiar with most of these, but...here’s a little status update along with the titles and descriptions of those you’re not familiar with.

- By Any Other Name - This was supposed to be a Ladrien companion piece to “I Would Give You Some Violets” and “There’s a Daisy”. The document just contains a partial outline. I never wrote any of it. Maybe someday. In my head I think of it as “Rose” (kind of like “Violets” and “Daisy”). Do you get the reference? Violets and Daisy are from Ophelia’s flower speech in Hamlet, but this title comes from a line in Romeo and Juliet, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. It’s a secret identities reference...if you’re a nerd like I am. ^.^

- El and Em - That’s not the real title. It doesn’t have a real title. It’s just my headcanons about how Gabriel and Émilie met and everything. I started compiling these headcanons back in 2018 before Season Three, so I don’t think they’re anything like what canon has planned, but I like my headcanons. Émilie is a total hellion (you know, in a fun but scary kind of way that only a teenage girl can be). I don’t think this is ever going to see the light of day, but you can read an excerpt: here.

- Happenstance and Magic - This is my Marichat May 2019 story. ^.^; I kind of got sidetracked from it when Daisy turned into a monster. I’m actually planning to work on this after I finish Serendipity, so you should be seeing chapters early next year, if all goes according to plan.

- Lady Noir Secrets - This is a working title too. It’s probably going to end up being Rooftop Secrets or something, but I started it late last night and haven’t gotten around to christening it yet. It was supposed to be a one-hundred-word drabble based on the prompt “Tell me a secret.” Emphasis on supposed to be. It probably won’t be more than two thousand words, but...maybe I’ll have it up on Sunday (10/11/2020).

- Late to the Jabberwocky - Lukadrien and Lukadrienette with some Lukanette. It’s the companion piece to Daisy. I’m not really in the right headspace to work on this right now. The universe is kind of heavy. Next up is Adrien and Luka’s reunion and trip to the opera, though, and that’s fluffy and cute, so...

- ML Prompt Drabbles - This is where my one-hundred-word drabbles are supposed to go. T-T I currently have no one-hundred-word drabbles. Sitting in this document is one seven-hundred-word drabble based on the prompt “I’m pregnant”, but I doubt it will ever see the light of day because I accidentally wrote Chat Noir/Adrien as a trans guy because it was late at night and I thought, “Oh, wouldn’t it be interesting to explore a scenario where Chat/Adrien was the one who was pregnant because the expected route to go is Marinette being pregnant”. I’m kind of permanently scarred from my one attempt at writing about gender identity, so it’s probably horrible and offensive and wrong and not worth reading. So it will probably die in the word document while its brothers and sisters go out into the world...you know, once they exist. -.-; I hope to write an actual one-hundred-word drabble eventually. Wish me luck. I NEED it apparently.

- Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses - I’m working on Chapter Thirty-Eight right now, and I have basic ideas for most of the remaining kiss prompts. I just need to sit down and bang the rest of it out. I’m not feeling very motivated, though. ^.^;

- The Rejects Club - I just finished posting all the chapters I have of this story. I plan to continue eventually, and I have my outlines and notes, so...someday. I have other things I want to work on first, though.

- There’s a Daisy - Adrienette. It’s the companion piece to Jabberwocky. Like I said, I’m not really in good mental space for this universe right now. Maybe next year.

[mikauzoran]

She’s So Unreasonable, the Contrary Little Priss

Mikau: *Pleading* Come on, now. You figured the whole thing out this afternoon. You had the dialogue and everything! It was brilliant! All you have to do is sit down and bloody write the thing. Come on. You can do it!

Also Mikau: *Pouting* No. Don’t want to.

Mikau: Please? Pretty please?

Also Mikau: Hmmmm...no. Don’t feel like it.

Mikau: But it will only take an hour or two. What else were you going to do with yourself all evening? You have no life.

Also Mikau: *Clicks tongue* Mean. I don’t know. I might...read...or something.

Mikau: *Turns to audience* Please make her write the darn thing.

[mikauzoran]

Hello! I hope your doing well!!! For fanfic writer friday, what's your writing process?

Thank you for the Ask! ^o^ I hope you’re well as well.

Hm. I think my writing process is a little all over the place, and it can change from story to story, but the gist of it is that I get inspired by something I read, something I learn in a lecture, a line of dialogue, a writing prompt, something that happens to me, something I overhear, a piece of music, a movie, a painting or some piece of art, a play...whatever. My inspiration sources are varied, but step one is always the spark of inspiration.

After that, I sit down and start brainstorming. I try to get a rough outline of the main points of the plot. This can include specific lines of dialogue I want to use or just an idea for what I want to accomplish in a scene. Sometimes I take detailed notes and make a formal outline to keep myself organized. Sometimes I just have the ideas floating around in my head.

Next, I start writing. This is the sloppy part, honestly. ^.^; This is where the characters take control and drive the story in directions I hadn’t anticipated. I just kind of go with it, honestly. Sometimes you go into a scene thinking that the character is going to react a certain way, but then the character tells you, “No. I’m not mad. I totally get why she feels that way and did what she did. I’m not mad at her. I’m sad and hurt”. Then you realize that he’s absolutely right and it makes no sense for him to be mad like you had originally planned. Of course he’s hurt. Duh. Why didn’t you realize that before?

You have to be really flexible during the writing stage. Sometimes entire chunks of the original outline get thrown out because you realize that it would be completely unrealistic for the character to do or say what you had initially planned. You basically just go with the flow here and see where it leads. At the end, you have your finished product and it’s never exactly how you had envisaged it at the beginning, but it’s still good, sometimes better even.

Sometimes I get stuck or inspiration peters, and when that happens I go for a walk while listening to music. A nice long walk usually straightens things out and opens up new insights into what needs to happen to get things moving again. I also take long showers. I do a lot of my best thinking in the shower, so it helps to stop and take a shower over a problem when I get stuck. ^.^;

The last step is editing. Frankly, I don’t do much editing. ^.^; My first drafts and my final drafts are often almost identical. I just kind of read through and tweak words or phrases here and there. I add a few sentences. I rarely delete anything. Usually I just switch the order of verbs and their adverbs. If the verb has been coming first followed by an adverb, I’ll switch it so that the adverb comes first. ”Blah blah blah,” he replied insistently will become “he insistently replied”. Sometimes I’ll decide I’ve used the word “replied” (for example) too much, so I’ll swap that out for “he insistently responded”. Those are the main kinds of changes I make while editing. Sometimes I decide I don’t like how I’ve phrased a sentence, so I’ll retool that. The meaning is generally the same, but I’ll find a more precise or eloquent way to say what I wanted to say.

That’s pretty much it. ^.^ The large part of it is sitting down and getting it written once I have my idea and have figured out how I want to approach it. The hard part is remaining flexible when things don’t work out how I had originally planned.

Thank you again for the Ask!

[mikauzoran]

3 and 4 for the writer questions 👀

Thank you so much for the ask! ^o^

3. Do you write fics from start or finish, or jump around?

This depends on what kind of story I’m writing, honestly. For some stories like I Would Give You Some Violets or Études: Fifty Lukadrien Kisses the chapters are not written in chronological order, and I jump all around the timeline. I did, however, write the chapters in order. I wrote Chapter One before Chapter Two, and then I wrote Chapter Three, so the order in which the chapters appear is the order in which I wrote them, even though the chapters themselves jump back and forth in time.

So, I guess I do write stories from start to finish, even if the chapters aren’t in chronological order. Nachtmusik is kind of the exception because it has extra scenes and outtakes from all over the Springtime Universe. But ninety-nine percent of the time, I don’t, say, go work on a scene in Chapter Four before I finish writing Chapter Three. I have ideas for things that I want to write later, but I don’t actually write them until I get to that point. The reason being that by the time that I get to that point, things invariably have changed, so the way I was going to write it no longer meshes with the flow of the story up to that point. I think this links well with the next question.

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline?

I usually do have some kind of outline for what I’m doing, but that “outline” can be very different from one story to the next. In some cases, I do sit down and write a fairly detailed plan of what I want to do. Sometimes I just jot down little bits of dialogue I want to use or the general idea of what I want to happen or things I want the characters to discuss. Sometimes the outline is just a vague idea of the general direction of the story that I keep in my head while writing.

It really depends on the piece. For Rejects, I printed out a calendar page and wrote down what events I want to happen on the days that they happen. I have a separate piece of paper where I have little blurbs about the individual events.

Sometimes I scribble down my notes on post-its. Like, wanna see some behind the scenes nonsense? Here are two of my sticky-notes for future Rejects chapters:

As you can see, this is utter chicken scratch that I jotted down as fast as possible. (The two Japanese characters in the second note are the symbols for “Friday” and “Monday” respectively. There are some words like that that I just use Japanese shorthand for, so the note reads, “the Louvre is open late on Friday” and “Adrien confronts Marinette on Monday”.) These just serve to refresh my memory about what I wanted to do and in what order. When I go back to Rejects, I’ll probably end up scrapping some of the ideas I had when I was working on it last year, but at least they’re preserved for me to work with when I get around to it.

As for a different kind of outline where I go in-depth, please see below. I was in the shower two weeks ago Thursday when I had this whole idea for an Adrienette one-shot called The Adventures of Off-Brand Ladybug and Chat Noir. Later that night, I sat down and typed out a six hundred and seventy-eight word outline of what I wanted to do with the story. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning:

Adrien skips fencing and invites Marinette to a café because she’s seemed stressed and upset and self-isolating recently.

Asks about Luka.

Marinette talks about boy she’s hung up on.

Chat Noir?

No! …Yes. Sort of. Developing feelings. How know?

Guess because of Papa Garou.

How know Papa Garou? Not even Alya knows about Papa Garou.

…Uh…heard from Chat Noir? He felt really bad about turning you down because you’re so amazing. We talked

Explain how Papa Garou mistake. Transfer feelings. Brokenhearted over other boy and Glaciator was romantic and felt connected talking to him. Feelings weren’t real, not like now.

…How are things with Kagami?

Oh…uh…not…good. Hung up on other girl. Whenever Kagami tries to kiss, gut instinct is to pull back. Don’t want to lead her on. Do have feelings, but…not like for other girl. …And crush on other friend too, so always feel like cheating. Just waiting to get her akumatized a third time.

This is my most in-depth level of outlining. See how I include descriptions of what I want to happen along with some proto-dialogue? I’m slowly working on fleshing this out into the actual story.

Funny story, though. You see that first line about Adrien asking Marinette to dinner? I’m two thousand five hundred words into this story, and I’m still on the first sentence of the outline. T^T Adrien hasn’t asked her how things are going with Luka yet. They’re just talking and being goofs. This is going to be longer than anticipated. ^.^;

As for how much my stories change from outline to posting, that also depends. I guess, on average, I’d have to say “a lot” for my longer stories. The one-shots sometimes go in unexpected directions with added dialogue, but they generally stay pretty close to the Major Events I had planned for that story.

Phantasmagoria went completely AWOL with Luka and Adrien just talking and talking and talking, so that story really grew. Even though it checked off all of the Major Events, there was a lot of extra content that naturally grew out of the story once I started writing.

That’s the most common thing that happens. I start writing, and things start growing organically. Once I get into the story, it takes little twists that I couldn’t have anticipated when I was just looking at it and planning from the outside. My stories tend to be true to the spirit of my outline, but they don’t always follow the letter of the outline. Once I get in there and start writing, things usually change for the better, and I’ve just learned to accept that and roll with it.

So, yeah. That’s a little bit about my process. Thank you again for the ask! <3 I’m so pleased that you were curious. ^o^ I hope all my rambling was interesting? ^.^;

[mikauzoran]

Ask Game: A common writing tip you ignore?

No one asked, but I wanted to do these, so… ^.^;

Yellow: What’s a common writing tip that you mostly ignore?

Supposedly there’s this “rule” where you’re not allowed to head hop in a scene. You’re supposed to stay in one character’s head and only convey their thoughts and feelings and observations. If you want to portray another character’s thoughts or feelings or observations, you’re supposed to wait until the start of a new scene. You know. So that you don’t confuse your reader. Because I guess the people who wrote the rules think readers are easy to confuse.

Anyway, I think this rule is dumb, so I completely ignore it. I will be in whoever’s head I please whenever I please.

I can understand that you can give a reader whiplash if you’re constantly jumping back and forth from character to character, especially if there are more than two characters in a scene. Head hopping can be done poorly, and, if done poorly, it can be a confusing mess, so I can see why whoever writes those writing guidebooks and textbooks generally advises against it.

If the transitions between characters’ thoughts and feelings are done smoothly, however, I feel like adding the perspectives of multiple character’s can enrich the scene and add insight into where everyone in the cast is mentally.

I mean...I hope I do this well. ^.^;