#October Themed Asks

[avrablake]

👻 and 🌧 for the October asks!

October-themed writeblr ask game

*screeches* Ooooh you've done it now with these asks.

👻 ghost: can you tease some wip ideas that have been haunting you/something you want to write in the future?

It is very important that I write a very painful and devastating scene about Jonah dealing with Iris's death

I also need to figure out how I'm going to tie Jonah into my wip. It was easy when he was a garbage dad. I didn't have to mention him because he didn't matter. Now I'm thinking of bringing him in at the end of my wip, maybe he moves to the town near base becomes part of the found family, starts cooking in the tavern?

I've also had a few Merpeople and Space Angels ideas marinating.

Ambriel's sister needs a space cat

Merpeople are aliens too. Maybe Ambriel's ancestors tried to wipe them out for some reason and they took refuge on earth?

Maybe Ambriel's mom launches an invasion of earth

maybe in the end her mom is overthrown and her sister steps into her place. Ambriel returns home to help her sister but because of the empathic connection she has with FInn they can know what the other is feeling even from across space

🌧️ rain: share a sad or emotional scene from your wip!

Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Too many spoilers! I want to give up all the spoilers!

I just finished revising this scene yesterday and it is one of my favorites. I won't share the whole thing because I don't want to fully reveal what is going on. Let's just say right when they thought things couldn't get any worse, Nix does something stupid.

“I’ll be sure to buy you plenty of time,” Nix strained to transmit the message to Gram. “Get the girl to Ryu. Keep her safe.” “We’ll come for you,” Gram thought back. “We’ll come for you and we’ll get you out of there. When we do, I swear I’ll kick your dumb ass so hard, you’ll wish we’d left you there to rot.” “Forget about me.”

[author-a-holmes]

Ahh, moon 🌙 for the October themed asks, please 💗

🌙 moon: do any of your OCs have dark backstories or secrets they’re trying to keep?

You know me well enough to know that they do... and I don't know whether to love you or hate you for this ask Rofl.

*Clears throat*

ANYWAYS; Fey Touched TRILOGY Spoilers beneath the cut, and maybe some Stolen Stories Series Spoilers too. Depends how long this post gets <3

Fey Touched

Lizzy and Booker actually don't have any dark backstories, or secrets. At least none that the reader doesn't know about right from the start. They, for obvious reasons, don't tell the vampires that they travelled to the mortal realm illegally, right from the get go.

Andric has a secret, but it's not so much a secret, as something he doesn't want to talk about, or acknowledge. While it's mentioned a couple of times throughout the first book that he's grieving his brother, Isaak, Andric's brother isn't actually dead. As far as vampire society goes, he's worse than dead. He's turned rabid.

Mia Harris doesn't have a dark backstory, per se, but a tragic one. Her older brother became a Kavian, and so her parents have put a lot of pressure on her to be perfect to try and remove that smear upon their family name. Both her mum and dad are members of the European Vampire Council, and having one Kavian in the family tree is bad enough, so Mia is pushed to be perfect to compensate. The perfect student. The perfect over-achiever. Skilled, and talented, and intelligent enough to step into her own job at the council the moment she graduates.

Cara has a bit of a dark backstory, and a secret. From Lizzy and Booker, specifically. Both her parents are dead. They chose to consume human blood, accepting the risk of turning rabid, in exchange for enhanced strength, speed, healing, ect. She'd treated as an outcast amongst the Speculo students because of this, so she tries to keep it from Lizzy and Booker for as long as possible. What she's never told anyone is that her parents were dosing her with human blood too, and although it was without her knowledge, she narrowly escaped their fate.

Stolen

I won't go into too many of the Stolen Characters, but Reilly has a lot of good and bad in his past. One particular mistake will come back to haunt him in book three, when an ex-partner who manipulated him, almost to the destruction of the guild, comes back into his life.

And may, or may not, lead to Stella's life being put on the line ;-)

[theimperialnuisance]

🌙 moon: do any of your OCs have dark backstories or secrets they’re trying to keep?

October themed asks!

Ooohh I was hoping someone would ask this! <3

I would say 3 of my 4 oc's fit this in some form: Kien, Noah, and Ciel. (Not so much for Syren as he's pretty much an open book if you ask him and had a rather peaceful backstory, well, as peaceful as it can be in Ishgard. /shrug X3) Anywho!

For Kien, it's a mix of both but not intentionally. His past before arriving in Eorzea was rather unplesant and talking about it to anyone naturally brings painful memories to the surface--he is a lot better in the healing process of it all but he still rather not say anything about his past or how he got his scar unless he has to. Only two people know the truth about his scar and past (including his birth name) and that's G'raha, and his adoptive father Ranald. Anyone else would only find out if it was necessary. (Which unless we venture to Meracydia in near future, he won't deem it necessary)

In N'noah's case, she definitely has secrets she doesn't want anyone to know--but that's mainly the nature of her job as an undercover informant. There are a few secrets about herself that not a lot of people know (like how she can always win at card games spoiler alert she cheats XD) but the biggest one is the fact that she technically owes a debt to the pirate crew she used to work for. (It was occurred by her mother and passed on to her after she died) When she escaped the crew, she vowed to keep that part of her life under wraps for security reasons--she knows she won't be able to run and hide forever but the longer she can delay it, the better.

And as for Ciel, it's similar to Kien in the sense that it's both but he doesn't intentionally keep a secret, he only keeps his secrets because he fears revealing them will bring about painful memories he rather just block out. (Which his nightmares never let him forget) Long story short, his village was attacked when he was about 13 and he and his oldest brother Malek were the only two survivors. The day of the attack was rather traumatic for him and has brought about a lot of his current fears and dislikes (ie fears to be completely alone and cannot stand the absolute silence) and though he is trying to heal and move past that part of his life, he finds it easier to do so when no one makes him talk about his past so he keeps it a secret.

It is technically November for me as I answer this but nonetheless, I loved answering this one c: Thank you @arbiterofthedead for the ask! <3

[365runesofthesystem]

Hi! ✨

For the October-Themed Ask Game: 👻 & 🌙

hello and how are you?

Thank you so much for dropping by and asking! We ended up posting this to our Main instead of our Writeblr, but hey, we are always down to answer some asks! :D

The Ask Game In Question! c:

👻 Ghost: can you tease some wip ideas that have been haunting you/something you want to write in the future?

So, we actually answered this ask already here!

But just for your, our wonderful and lovely Mimi, we will give you another idea that we have been thinking about but trying not to focus on!

Good Versus Evil: She pulls her sword out, cleans it off with a swish to the side and a small splatter as the blood flings from the metal. She pushes the corpse away from her, walks over the body as she walks up to the villain, eyes dull and mouth a thin line. The villain shakes, eyes flickering from their fallen comrade to the hero before him. “How can you choose to be good when you can’t feel it?” She stops, a small frown moving her mouth down as she points her sword at him. “How can you choose to be evil when you can?”

This one is just a small thought and response we ended up writing about, but we would be lying if we said it wasn't giving us some sorts of brainrot.

🌙 Moon: do any of your OCs have dark backstories or secrets they’re trying to keep?

Oh okay, this question!

We actually do have a few OC's with darker backgrounds and some who are keeping secrets, even within their stories and all!

For example, one of the only OC's who have an intro, our beloved Immortal Neal Anderson, holds a very dark backstory about how one of his closest people ended up betraying him, and also trying to kill him.

And in regards to a story, in Marathon Runners, we hold a characters with a very important secret that he would rather die with! Lux is a holder of something very important, and he doesn't really trust anyone with the Knowledge for a while.

[terristre]

I know request says closed but I just wanted to tell you that we’ll finally be getting the Glorious Masquerade event this month. Any thought pookie? You excited?

I AM COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS til i can bully this man 💥🥊

[phoenixmetaphor]

Oct 13 &

Oct 14 - Chreon Aquarium Date (prompt from @cerul-skyefrost ‘s ask to @thebrandywine 😛)

[obey-me-headquarters]

IMAGINE taking pet Mammon to the vet to get a vaxx. My poor baby. He would be so scared but so cute. And after that McDonald's/ new shiny stuff and a hundred billion pats. Also MC singing him "he's so brave, he's well behaved, he is not afraid" anyways auiysdvbjhdsfgisaygf (I love him)

Now you have made me consider how each of the brothers behave when they have to go to the vet….

Lucifer: one of the easiest ones to bring to the vet because he doesn’t want to appear “wild” or “childish” by throwing a fit. So you can write his vet appointment date in the calendar, and when the date rolls around, he’s perfectly fine with getting into the car. Actually, being at the vet, though?.... He’s not the most well-behaved pet…..  He’s very compliant, he sits in the waiting room and doesn’t make a word of disagreement. He listens to the vet when they tell him to sit. Just when the checkup actually starts, he gets a little testy. 

Each procedure is met with a question, why are they doing this, what are they testing, don’t they see he’s perfectly healthy? 

If he does need to get a shot, he sits perfectly still and stays quiet. Putting on a brave face and acting like the sight of the needle doesn’t bother him at all. But if you insist on holding his hand then you can feel it shake slightly. 

The worst part? When the visit is done Lucifer accepts no treats for his behavior or a way to smooth him. He views it as “beneath him” and thinks that only little pups and spoiled pets get treats for getting their health looked after. To him, having an owner that cares enough to even be concerned about his health is enough for him. 

But, if you just so happen to order dinner from his favorite place, well, he won’t complain….

Mammon: Like you said, he does not do well with going to the vet. He’s definitely the kind of pet you need to hide vet visits from, as when you openly told him about his vet visit a week in advance before, and he spent the whole day hiding under the bed and no amount of bribes or treats could convince him to leave. Crying at you that the vet will put “weird” things in him, or force him to wear a cone. Causing you to miss your vet appointment and having to beg them for another. 

So now you’ve learned from your lesson, and don’t even tell him where you’re going as you load him into your car. Mammon thinks you’re taking him to the park, or better yet, the casino (even though you gave absolutely no induction that is where you’re taking him). He works himself into a freezy, talking about all the winnings the two of you will make at the casino. 

When you pull up at the vet, suffice to say he’s a little bit betrayed (even though, again, you never told him that you were going to the casino). You have to physically drag a whining Mammon in through the vet doors and hold his hand in the waiting room so he doesn’t bolt away.

When you two go into the vet’s office Mammon is talking a mile a minute, trying to convince them that he feels perfect, that he’s a 100% - no - a 1,000% healthy and does not need to be looked at. Really doc’, you’re just wasting your time! 

If he does have to get a vaccine he is SO scared, you have to have him in your lap as one hand is holding his hand while the other is running a comforting hand through his hair. The whole time you’re singing to him that song, “he’s so brave, he’s well behaved, he is not afraid” in between peppering his face in kisses. While Mammon is curled up into a little ball on your lap, eyes squeezed closed. 

And when that’s finally done? Yes, give him all the treats lol. He’s asking for McDonald’s, ice cream, cookies, a new watch, to go to the casino. He has absolutely NO shame in milking all your guilt for things. In his mind, he deserves it since he was so “brave” and “well behaved”. He expects kisses every time he complains about his arm hurting.

Levi: He’s another demon that you have to hide his vet appointments from. When you first get him, and he’s still terrified of you, he makes no verbal compliments at going to the vet, even though he’s so scared and hates going. He’ll look at you with the saddest, wettest eyes from the car mirror as you drive him to the vet. When you two get there, he actually starts hyperventilating a bit in the waiting room. And when you two actually go into the vet’s office? The vet actually asks you if he would like a treat to “calm down”. If he has to get a shot at this stage of your relationship he’ll shakingly hold out his hand and squeeze his eyes shut, fully expecting the vet to be rough as they give him his vaccine, too afraid to be grateful when it doesn’t hurt at all. 

You definitely lose some relationship points with Levi after this, and for a long while he gets very suspicious whenever he gets into your car. 

If you take him to the vet when your relationship with him is better though? He feels completely safe to whine and complain to you the entire time. You’ve learned that you have to hide his vet appointments from him after he locked himself in the bathroom on the day you’re supposed to go. 

When you successfully trick him into getting into the car, he’s still a little suspicious of where you’re taking him. When you pull up to the vet he loudly starts proclaiming that he has so many shows and games to catch up on! Don’t you know that a new chapter of his manga is dropping soon? That an online raid is happening right now?? You two have to go home right this instant!!

Also has to be dragged into the vet’s waiting room. 

He will sulk the entire time you’re waiting, curling up into a ball on the waiting room chairs as he taps away on his phone. It’s only when his name gets called does the fear return to him and he starts to shake. Even though he was sulking and refused any contact with you in the waiting room, he starts to cling to you in the actual vet’s office. You have to bribe him to sit still and let the vet do their job by promising him anime merch and that you’ll play a new game with him. 

When it’s all over he sulks for days in his room, being quite cold to you if you knock on his door. It’s only after significant treats, and the fact that he needs a player 2 for a lot of his games, does he start to seek you out. 

Satan: throws an absolute fit when you tell him that he has a vet appointment. Being an ex-fighting ring demon, he doesn’t have the best experiences with medical personnel. Most of the time the “vets” at the ring just patched someone up enough to continue to fight, and they were never gentle. In his mind he’s fine now. He’s not getting into any more fights, he’s uninjured, he’s not deathly sick, going to the vet just seems like a waste of time to him. 

You have to have many talks with him about annual checkups and how people still go to the doctor’s even when they feel “fine”. Satan doesn’t really get it until you explain to him that there could be something wrong with him but he doesn’t know about it, especially after he reads a few books about hidden illnesses and diseases. But he only agrees to go when you tell him that you also go to the doctor’s for your check ups. 

When you’re driving him to the vet he asks you a lot of questions about what will happen at the vet. Who is his vet? How trained are they? What kind of tests are they going to do? He worked himself into a bit of a tizzy thinking about all the things that could be wrong with him, so he’s fully expecting the vet to tell him that he has this rare hidden illness. 

So he’s very fidgety in the waiting room, eyes constantly scanning around the room as he looks at the other pets and wonders what hidden illness they’re harboring. 

Satan does not trust the vet at all, still half expecting the rough treatment from the vets from the ring. He asks them a million questions, where they went to school, what their degree is in, what grades they got, how long they’re been practicing, etc. Satan is still expecting to be diagnosed with some rare illness, so when he isn’t he thinks the vet hasn’t done their job correctly, asking if they’re “really sure” that he’s “perfectly healthy”. Honestly, it’s a little better when he’s getting a shot, because then in his mind this visit “meant something”, even though he still flinches at the sight of the needle. 

Asmo: He actually needs to know when his vet appointments are days in advance as he hates leaving the house without getting “done up”. If you forget about a vet appointment till the day of, he will make the two of you late when he locks himself in the bathroom to get ready. 

Asmo doesn’t have much of a problem with vet visits. Being a former sex demon, he’s used to going to medical professionals for tests. I feel like he also doesn’t quite understand what an “annual checkup” entails, as his opinion is influenced by his past experiences. So he doesn’t quite understand why he needs to go for a checkup when he’s only sleeping with you (or, alternatively, if you two aren’t sleeping together, then he’s even more confused on why he needs to go to the vet). 

It’s only when his vet appointment rolls around does he start to get a little nervous. If his usual appointment is unneeded, then why is he going? What else could be done to him? He keeps his concerns close to his chest, hoping that you think his usual check up is necessary, worried that if he brings up the fact that he doesn’t need to get checked for sexual diseases (as he was already checked before being sold to you) that you will have the vet do something else to him. 

Asmo has faced quite a few horrors from medical professionals before, but the idea of having absolutely no clue what’s going to happen to him scares him more than any repeat performance. 

So even though he’s smiling and acting unbothered in the waiting room, and when he gets into the vet’s office, you can see the way he shakes, how his eyes scan around the office looking for something. Even though he tries to suppress it, every time the vet touches him he can’t help but flinch a bit. If he needs to get a shot he actually starts crying a little bit, and you have to assure him that nothing bad is going to be put in him. 

After the appointment Asmo acts a little… off for the next couple of days. All that stress with no actual inciting incident causes him to stress a bit in everyday situations. During this time you have a better chance of actually getting Asmo to open up about why he was so on edge about the vet visit, and even after you assure him that the purpose of the visit was to only check up on his general health it takes him a few visits to really internalize that fact and get used to normal vet visits? 

When he does though? Asmo takes great pleasure in being “a pleasure to have” at the vet, and actually likes how the vet fusses over him lol. Probably one of the few demons that actually starts to like general checkups if it means he’ll get praised for acting so well behaved. 

Beel: He doesn’t have any strong opinions about the vet. Like Satan I can see him being confused about why he needs to go to the vet, but once you explain to him that you want him to go so you know for sure that he doesn’t have any hidden illnesses, he’s fine with going. 

Being a farm working demon, I feel like Beel has never been to the vet before. Outdoor working demons only go to the vet when they get injured, and even that’s not a guarantee. So he is a bit worried about the unknown, but he trusts you, if you think that it’s going to be ok, then he believes it as well. 

I feel like he only gets a little stressed if you don't double book an appointment with Belphie too, only because he doesn’t like being away from his twin. 

It’s really interesting watching Beel at the vet because it’s very obvious that he has no idea what the vet is doing, or why they’re doing it. He breathes in why they tell them to, and opens his mouth so they can look down his throat, but he does try to eat the stick they’re using to hold down his tongue. 

He does get a little uneasy if he needs to get a shot, only because he’s never seen a needle before so he doesn’t know how much it’s going to hurt. He takes your offer of holding your hand as the vet gives him his shot, and lets himself get distressed when you start talking about dinner and all the different dishes you can make for him. He gets distracted that he doesn’t even notice that he’s been shot, and asks when the vet is going to do it. 

He’s so well behaved that when he spends a full minute drooling over which loopypop to pick, the vet allows him to take the jar. 

Belphie: He’s suchhhh a brat that he throws a fit whenever he needs to go to the vet lol. He will pretend to sleep, or actually fall asleep when it’s his turn to go. Causing you, or Beel, to carry him to the car. He doesn’t trust humans at all, and while he may think that you’re alright, that trust does not extend any further. So the idea that this random human is going to touch and prod him? That he’s just going to sit there and let them perform “tests” on him? 

Yeah. No. 

When you explain to him what a vet visit is, and what a checkup entails he doesn’t like the idea at all. He’ll start arguing with you that he’s fine, and that the visit is unneeded, and unlike the other demons, no amount of explaining or scientific evidence will convince him that it’s necessary. He doesn’t believe that the vet has his best interest in mind, in his mind there has to be some hidden reason why the vet wants to check up on him, and believes that you’re being too naive to not think the same. 

In the actual vet’s office he’s garling and growling at the vet, his eyes watching their every movement, believing that any second now they’ll take out something to harm him. If he’s actually getting a vaccine, he’s firmly refusing it. He doesn’t know what’s in that! What if it makes him sick, or hurts him? 

Absolutely no amount of convincing from you can make him change his mind, as he believes that you’re being lied to. 

I feel like the only way to actually get Belphie vaccinated is to do it in his sleep lol. He’s such a heavy sleeper too that he doesn’t even notice the prick in his arm.

[nordicbananas]

ᴘʀᴇᴛᴛʏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏʙᴏᴅʏ ᴅɪᴇꜱ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇ!

shroom, they/her! <3 very active, pop in to chat whenever! :)

check out my side blogs! art/writing @burnt-pygmalion, crochet @amigushroomie, iwatex @exoshroommie. ask for url of selfship blog <3

old pinned <3 matching pfps with @the-twiggles!!

[night-raven-miscellany]

✨not a RP post BUT I've been prepping an ask game for Casimir's bday so. I very much hope that that's something ppl will vibe with HFJDJFJDJFJDJ. I'll try and post the basic game tomorrow at some point but probably starting from tomorrow afternoon (probs about... 4 pm EST throughout the day Thursday) I will be running the epic awesome Casimir birthday event!!!! Hooray!!!

✨maybe I'll prep an extra lore related post or smth too for funsies but I gotta suffer thru my classes tomorrow first and foremost LMAO

[sunnimint]

Hello! Can you tell us more about Ghostly Visage? 👻👻

Gladly!!

Ghostly Visage is a horror themed one-shot that takes place in rottmnt. The turtles were essentially haunted by the malevolent spirit of Shredder via the teapot Splinter kept. Shredder was tricky and never let Splinter suspect anything and the turtles never knew what was the cause of this tiny little voice in their head that kept saying "you should kill everything" or "evil is what you were born to do" and more stuff like that over the years that caused incidents here and there throughout their entire childhood and when they were out fighting bad guys. They even kept April at a distance, afraid of hurting her.

They didn't know what was wrong with them and thought that Baron Draxum had made them this way. Only to be surprised when the head inside their voice was actually Shredder the entire time. And then they beat the crap out of Shredder and started healing with no pesky voice in their head demanding them to wreck havoc.

[avrablake]

👻 ghost for the October-themed ask game!

October-themed writeblr ask game

👻 ghost: can you tease some wip ideas that have been haunting you/something you want to write in the future?

The scene that goes with this post has been giving me serious brain rot lately. I haven't actually written the scene out yet but I have been daydreaming about it a lot. Sadly, it has Major Spoilers for Beyond the Darkness, so I can't even share it when I write it, and it wont' be making it into the actual story, as it's the wrong pov. I might be able to work in a mention. If I ever get my wip finished and published in some form, I will probably release it as a bonus story or something.

Anyway, Gram gives Nolan some shocking news and it spurs him to finally read the letter from Iris that has been sitting unopened in his desk drawer for years. The letter devastates him and it also changes him. I needed a reason for Nolan to do a complete 180 on a hard stance he'd taken, and once I started fleshing out his relationship with Iris, I knew this was the perfect thing.

This has led to lots of other ideas including maybe adjusting a conversation between Gram and Thea to mention the choices Iris made and how things could have turned out differently if she had chosen differently. Basically now that I have fleshed out more of Iris's story, I want to weave mentions of it into my wip, especially in ways that build Thea's character.

-

Today I had an idea for a bit of a wholesome scene between Nix and Nobu, which is really interesting because Nobu was the enforcer for all Nix's harsh punishments. Nobu basically tells Nix that he thinks he's smarter than Ren and that makes him a better fighter even if Ren's technique is better. He trusts Nix with a responsibility and teaches him a new skill.

-

I've been thinking a lot about my next prequel, which will include the origins of the Syndicate and how the War began. I have some ideas on how the original conflict may have started and why the original members of the Syndicate split off from the Military. I'm still definitely mulling these ideas over but I'm liking more and more the idea of the Syndicate founder being friends with a high-ranking Military official and these friends eventually becoming enemies.

Thanks so much for the ask!

[author-a-holmes]

Leaves, warm coat

Hello Anon! Thank you for the asks <3 This is going to be a bit of a long post, because my editing process is... detailed, so I'll answer Warm Coat first, in case you get bored about reading my long-ass editing process <3

Warm Coat: Share a happy or fuzzy scene from your wip!

This is a cute moment that I love. It's from Chapter 20, and it really shows how Lizzy and Cara's friendship develops over the course of the book. Poor Lizzy though, they fey just don't celebrate birthday's the way we do...

"It's Lizzy's birthday," Cara said, pretending that she wasn't still blushing, and Lizzy rolled her eyes. Cara slid on the straw sun hat she'd been carrying in her hands, the orange band of fabric encircling it the brightest splash of colour on her entire outfit, and Cara's hands fussed with the ribbon tails as they trailed off the brim and down her back.

"It's— Your birthday?" Andric asked, switching his attention from Cara, as she fussed with her sunhat, to Lizzy mid-sentence, and Lizzy shrugged.

"It's not that—"

"It is important," Booker cut her off with a growl. "You're eighteen. This one's important... even without Maddy," he added, voice softening.

"I was thinking; Shopping, movie, meal," Cara said quickly, stepping closer to Andric, and Lizzy watched, bemused, as Andric got hit full blast by her roommate's wide-eyed pleading.

He seemed to hesitate a moment, and Lizzy half expected him shut down Cara's extravagant plans, but then she leant forward and added, "Did you know that fey don't do birthday parties?" and he caved.

"Sounds like you've got it all planned out," he said simply, holding out an arm towards the front doors of the school, "if we want to fit all that in, we'd better get started."

"Yes!" Cara celebrated, jumping on the spot and throwing one hand in the air as Lizzy looked on bemused.

"Looks like you're getting a mortal-realm style birthday," Booker teased as Cara and Andric moved towards the doors, and Booker began dragging her after them with the arm that had curled around her shoulders, "whether you wanted to or not!"

Leaves: What does your editing process look like? How does your wip typically change as you work on it?

My editing progress is... in depth? I guess? I know that grammar is my weak spot, so I kind of just do the best I can to get it as clean as I can before I send it off to an editor.

The way I do that, is to edit in layers, and this ties into the second half of this question about how my WIP changes. Because once I have a completed manuscript, my WIP's core story doesn't change all that much.

So, it might sound strange, but step one of my editing process is actually to create an outline of my story before I start writing. I know. Sounds weird. Bear with me...

So I make my outline. It's very rough, it's not in depth, it's not detailed (Sometimes it's nothing more than a list of bullet points), and I'm not going to stick to the outline as I write. So why do I make it, you might ask... because I can use it when I come to edit.

For example. Changeling's outline. The first version I wrote before I started the series. I changed the outline after I finished the first act. By the time I'd reached the 3rd act, I had to entirely rewrite the final act of the outline, because my story had drifted so far that the original outline no longer worked.

So now I have a finished manuscript, and 3 versions of the Changeling Outline, because while I was editing the outline, and rewriting it, I never deleted the original.

The first thing I do to edit, is I reread my original outline. I look at the story I wanted to telll, and the things I wanted to include, and I decide if I managed that. If I didn't, do I still want to include them? Or is the story better without them? I'll make handwritten notes about all this while I'm reading the outlines, because I don't edit the manuscript straight away. I have to let it rest, but I go over the outline as soon as possible after finishing the manuscript so that it's still fresh in my mind.

The second thing, once I have all my notes from re-reading the outlines, is to let my manuscript rest. The length of time varies. Stolen I let rest for 8 months. Changeling I was happy going back after about 3 weeks.

The third step is to actually edit. I don't reread my manuscript. I've let it rest so it's fresh, and I don't want to lose that by rereading it. I have the notes I made from the outlines, after I first finished it. These are usually large, plot structural changes I need to implement, so I have that notebook beside me as I work through the project. For example, in Changeling, I realised I needed Booker to have a 'Tell' for when he's using telepathy (for plot reasons), so that's something I needed to weave in throughout the story as I went.

And then I edit the manuscript one chapter at a time.

This is still step three, but I do each chapter in small, easily repeatable steps.

(A) I copy/paste the chapter from my writing program into the Hemmingway App. (Warning for Anyone who uses Hemmingway; It will not save your work. If your browser page refreshes, closes, or your computer restarts, you will lose ALL your work. If you need to navigate away from Hemmingway, copy your work into a googledoc or something)

While it's in the Hemmingway App, and before I use any of it's functions, I use Ctrl+F (Find in my browser) to search through the chapter for Weak Words, Filter Words, and my commonly overused words.

Caveat; If any of these are found within character dialogue, I ignore them. Character's shouldn't speak perfectly and so Character Voice always wins out.

Weak Words

Suddenly

Then

Very

Really

Started

Just

Somewhat

Slightly

Somehow

Seem

Definitely

That

Filter Words

see / saw / look / looked

hear / heard

taste / tasted

smell / smelled / smelt / scent

touch / touched

feel / feels / felt

wonder / wondered / think / thought

decide / decided

realise / realised

know / knew

My Personal Overly Used Words

Own

Though

Quickly

After I've searched for each of these words, looked at the paragraph it's contained in, and decided if it's the best word for the job/if it can be rewritten to remove it/if it can be deleted outright/if i want to keep it there... then I move onto the things Hemmingway App can actually do.

Hemmingway highlights a bunch of things, but the only two features I actually use or pay attention to is it's highlighting of Adverbs and Passive Voice.

If my Passive Voice is below the recommended, then I'll still go and have a look at them and see if I can reword to remove them, but I don't worry about it too much. I've usually only got 2 or 3 instances per chapter, and that's a comfortable quantity for me, as most of the time these are within character dialogue.

Adverbs are where I'm quite weak, I usually have a painful number of Adverbs, so I will painstakingly go through and check each adverb to see if it's a strong or a weak adverb. To see if I really need it there, or if I can cut it. If I do need it, then I try and see if I can rewrite the sentence or paragraph to remove the adverb, and replace it with a stronger verb instead.

I always try and get my adverbs below Hemmingway's recommended number, but as long as I've checked over each one, and made a decision on them, that's good enough because that usually gets me within 5-10 adverbs of their target anyway.

As I'm going through editing Adverbs, I'll also work in any new content I need to add from my notes. I'm rewriting paragraphs during this stage, so it's the easiest moment to slide in extra, additional, or changed content.

(B) Once I've done my final Adverb check in Hemmingway, I copy/paste it from Hemmingway into Grammarly.

I use Grammarly's free version. I've tried their paid, but I don't think it's worth the price, especially if you're also paying for a professional editor. ProWritingAid is another good grammar checker, but I find it too complex to work with. Your Milage May Vary.

So, my document gets placed into Grammarly, and I wait for it to run it's grammar check. I then go through each of it's suggestions. I don't accept every suggestion, I read it and make a decision based on how I want my story to read.

Honestly, this is probably the fastest step.

Once I've said yes or no to each suggestion, I move onto Natural Readers, but KEEP the Grammarly Document open in a different tab.

(C) Keeping my chapter open in Grammarly in one tab, I go to Natural Readers Online. Natural Readers have really GOOD sounding voices, and they will read back to you any text you paste into their website.

So I'll copy the chapter from Grammarly, and paste it into natural readers. You can get 5 minutes of their Plus voices for free per day, and I think it's 20 minutes of their Premium voices for free per day. Their basic voices are free, unlimited, but do sound more like the robotic voice you'd expect.

I hate reading my own work aloud, so this is the way I bypass that embaressment. I have Natural Readers read my work back to me. I find this step invaluable. I can hear the flow of the text, I can catch spelling mistakes that a spell checker thinks are correct, but aren't what I intended (like Brian instead of brain, for example).

I also find that I can spot repetativeness more easily when it's read back to me too. I can hear I used "running" three times in two paragraphs easier than I can see it.

I can also spot where I've duplicated paragraphs. Sometimes, at the Hemmingway Stage, if I need to rewrite a paragraph, I'll go to the next line and retype it out from scratch, but will forget to delete the original. Natural Readers, and hearing it read back to me, is where I'm most likely to catch this mistake.

The reason I keep my Grammarly tab open, is that any errors I hear in Natural Readers, I edit in Grammarly. That's because Natural Readers doesn't like my Em-dashes. It breaks them. So it's easier for me to copy/paste from Grammarly that it is from NR and to fix all my Emdashes later.

(D) So after Natural Readers has finished reading my chapter back to me, and I've fixed any error's that's highlighted, I copy my final version of the chapter, and I paste it into my manuscript's Googledoc File.

I run Googledoc's spellchecker, to catch any tiny, last things every other step missed, and then I log the final wordcount of the chapter so that I know how many words I cut or added, and so that I can keep track of my manuscript's final word count (Because final word count is what I'm paying my editor to check)

(E) Then I do it all over again on the next chapter. This process can take me anywhere from 2 hours to 6 hours, per chapter.

Final Step, once I've completed all my self edits, is to read through the book from start to finish myself. At this point, I'm hopeful, I don't find anything else I think I can change.

Then I hand it over to Beta Readers. I'll make any small changes they find, then it'll be time to send my manuscript off to my professional editor, Nicole at Evermore Editing.

She edited my prequel short story, Whatever Happened To Madeline Hail? and I have every intention of going back to her for Changeling

So that's my editing process. It's also why my core story doesn't really change a whole lot once the manuscript is completed. Any huge, structural changes happen during the outline, and during the actual writing process. If I reach the end of a manuscript, it's almost entirely how I wanted it to come out, or I go back and rewrite.

Editing is really the final stage, and some once I'm reached that point, there's not a whole lot that is due to shift.

So I whine about editing a lot, but it's more that I find it highly tedious, and repetative, than stressful or difficult.

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Burzum  - Dominus Sathanas

[braisedhoney]

excuse me why is your captain now captain (?)

Are you retiring?!

retire?! goodness no, dear anon. i wouldn’t dream of it.

just…

branching out a little.

(just for october, anyway.)

[rose-bookblood]

☕️

Send me an October-themed ask.

☕ coffee or tea: describe your OC’s favorite place to relax.

I'm gonna go with Evelyn, because she's one of the few characters of mine who ever chill lmao.

On the Academy's grounds there's a pretty big lake, with a willow tree by the shore and a picnic table underneath the leaves. When the weather allows it, Evelyn goes for a swim there, and when it's too cold, she grabs a book and sits at the picnic table. Since Evelyn likes photography, she sometimes takes pictures of the lake, though at this point she has photos of the landscape for every season and time of day.

Thanks for the ask, Pixie!

[dailyfigures]

hihi!! could i maybe request some ddlc figures ? :D

yeah ofcourse i'll post the nendoroids and the pop up parade as bonus figs! :)