#also don't take seriously i am not criticizing any fic or fic writers out there I love you all

[docholligay]

Do you think having such a personalized and detailed headcanon makes it harder to enjoy fic about the show/game that's written by others?

I mean sure, probably.

But unfortunately things I adore, for people named Doc who are me, fall into one of two buckets:

The character work and plot in this show are incredible, I find myself turning it around in my mind like a rotisserie chicken. I constantly discover new things about the show/book/game or the characters in it. I do not read fic about this, because why would I? Every answer I search for is in the text. I want to talk about this with someone, but about what is THERE, not what could be there. Ex: The Haunting of Hill House, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Piranesi, Bioshock:Infinite, Watership Down, Yellowjackets, among others.

The concepts of this could be amazing but are handled so fucking badly so consistently, in a shocking contrast to how INCONSISTENT the character work is, that all I want to do is steal it and make it better. All i want to do is turn it into something that doesn't suck ass when you look at it too hard. So I am going to take it SO seriously, and I am going to develop the rich inner lives for these characters that they lack, with intense backstories and families and motivation for how they got to be the person we know, or know sometimes, in certain episodes or shorts. Ex: Sailor Moon and Overwatch are the biggies here obviously, this is actually not an emotion I feel very often. I don't have intense backstories and extra-textual feelings and ideas about most of the stuff I read and watch, these two are just my Spiders Georg.

So! The odds on me being into something in the correct way to make me want to Seek Treasure Elsewhere but also I have a chill enough attitude about how the characters are that Any Dream Will Do is almost nil. I do not in ANY way mean this in a shady way, but I mostly read published adult fiction for entertainment and not fanfic. I am very picky about my fanfic. So, "plus these two new red and blue girls into Starbucks" often won't work for me, because the reasons to have Haruka and Michiru meet in a coffee shop are completely different from any of the reasons Fareeha and Angela might meet in a coffee shop, and so many of those types are archtypical plug and play stuff. Honestly, I have skated the idea of making a cheat sheet of fanon archetypes of various characters and buying a typewriter to sell 100-200 word 'quick fic' at cons with my sister. That's how common it is to use these archetypes. This is not a criticism! At all!

But, to take the two couples above, I have read so much BORING SHIT about both HM and FA that I could throw up. Lesbian couples have a lot of very milquetoast writing about them, and a lot of meet-cute which isn't really my bag.

But there are authors I love! @oathkeeper-of-tarth was and is one of the best harumichi writers out there and we don't even have all the same headcanons. The rare occasions @verbforverb decides to grace me with "Jewish Mercy I don't Have To Write" I pop a can of bubbly in the tub. And on both fields of battle @keyofjetwolf has stuff I've had bookmarked for years, and there are some things even within Rei's backstory and history that we disagree on.

Actually, to that point what I like is good writing. You can write me into believing nearly anything. There are things I believe about Amelie when I'm reading @lemon-embalmer's stuff that when I go back to my own world, aren't true, but when I'm in her world who the fuck cares, I'm having a great time. EVEN MORE to the point, I read @moonlight-frittata's stupid sun and moon lesbian League of Legends shit and I would rather shoot myslef than know ANYTHING about the game, but unfortunately she has a beautiful turn of phrase and plot flow to her work that I just....read anyway, because it is good. Fucking @tallangrycockatiel had me like 25 pages or so into a story before I was like, "OH SHIT, IS THIS SLASH??? WAIT I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT BOYS' LOVE!! NO!!" *hits next page* And I still could not care less about that podcast and would never listen to it, and if I did I would be massively disappointed because to my mind, her John and Arthur are the actual article, and whatever the fuck is going on in the source material can eat my dick.

So, yes, I DO think that having a very particular point of view is going to mean I back out of a story where like, "Lena stepped out of her Chelsea flat, custom leather high heels clicking against the step" sometimes, or, you know, "Haruka put down her copy of War and Peace, each meticulous note codified by a color-coded tab. Blue was for historical references to research, green for character analysis, yellow for themes, blah blah blah*" But I am actually shockingly open minded in what I will read, often to the point that I'm reading stuff from SHIT I DO NOT LIKE OR CARE ABOUT, because the quality of the writing is excellent. So, also no.

*I met someone who read books like this and I suddenly realized what the literary equivalent of 'knowing someone is a serial killer' was.

[girlgeekjf-blog]

I made a powerpoint to break my writer’s block

[andypantsx3]

andie's info desk — blog rules, ask rules, writing info, tagging, and faqs!

˖˚˳⊹ — blog rules

★ minors please do not follow; all others please have your age in your bio or i may block you for your safety!! ★ read and interact in good faith. please assume i am doing my best and mean everything with good intentions. if i've said something you find hurtful, you can politely let me know! ★ be respectful and polite. i am not a blog, i am a person! i have a full time job & other life commitments and can sometimes take a long time to write fic, respond to messages, or read recs. my online fooling around time is my recharging time and i try not to put pressure on myself to do things super quickly.

˖˚˳⊹ — ask rules

★ please do not message me the same thing over & over! i ask for your patience with how slow i can be to respond; i will try to get to as many messages as i have time and energy for!! (please also note i am also a serial hoarder of praise & nice messages because i love rereading them, i apologize!!) ★ please don't ask when a fic will be updated! i don't have an update schedule; i post as i write unless otherwise already specified. ★ i only accept fic recommendations off anon & from non-blank blogs. previously i've had people recommend me their fics and harass me when i took a while; now i'd like full visibility on who is recommending me what! apologies to any shy people this affects!! ★ i will only accept recs & asks that respect my rules/will not read/will not writes. others will be deleted, my apologies.

˖˚˳⊹ — writing (and reading)

★ do not repost, translate, plagiarize, or otherwise input my work into any ai interface. if you'd like to post something inspired by one of my works, i'm generally cool with it but would appreciate if you'd message me first! ★ i do not take requests and have no plans to! i already struggle to write my own ideas lol. ★ i don’t maintain & use tag lists—my apologies! i recommend subbing to the fic on ao3 if you have an account! ★ yes, i accept constructive criticism! i want to grow as a writer, any help would be appreciated. please do be constructive with me, though!! ★ i don't write or read any of the following tropes: pregnancy, babies, motherhood in general, daddy kink, degradation, gore, blood, pain kink, death, piss, scat, vomit, kink involving bodily functions in general, rape, noncon, cheating, break up/getting back together, incest including stepcest, dom reader, teacher/student, pet play. ★ i don't write or read any of the following characters: endeavor, afo, any of the teachers except aizawa, any of the lov except dabi, any of the pros except hawks, any of the girls as i am tragically heterosexual :/

˖˚˳⊹ — faq

★ can you rec some fics? i rec things as i read them!! you can check here for all the x reader fics i’ve recommended so far!!  ★ will you beta my fic? it seriously means a ton to me that anyone would trust me with this! i'm currently prioritizing writing my own fics (and also don't have the proper chops to properly beta to be real with you), and will decline; my sincerest apologies!! ★ what are your thoughts on <controversial fandom subject>? going forward i have decided not to answer these. i’m not here to participate in discourse, i just want to have fun. obviously there are many things that i will be happy to shout down (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc) but there are a lot of topics that come up in fandom that i believe are largely more nuanced than "x thing is bad!" (interpretations of storylines, character motivations, dark content, the eternal aged up character discourse, and inter-blog beef that is none of my business). ★ do you have any tips on getting noticed? you can check out some of my previous suggestions here but honestly i'm not the best person to ask! in truth i think just telling the kinds of stories that you want to tell is the best way to make the most of your time in fandom. ★ will you face reveal? nope! you will have to imagine me as a pink parrot always.

˖˚˳⊹ — tagging

#andie.chat for posts containing personal ramblings and/or personal opinions. PLEASE block this tag if you are upset/triggered by opinions on characters/tropes/storyline interpretations that do not match yours. #ask andie for all my asks/replies. please feel free to block if the amount i respond bothers you! #fic recs for all my fic recommendations #bnha spoilers for any spoilers for new episodes/movies/manga content. #tw: i try to tag potentially triggering content in the format of “tw: triggering content here” but please let me know if there is anything i can tag better in the future!

[stevethehairington]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

ty to the lovely @thefreakandthehair and @hexiewrites for the tags!! this looks like a fun one!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 117 so far and still counting!!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 662,484!

3. What fandoms do you write for? currently stranger things and i've been toying around with the idea of jumping back into writing for good omens! just gotta get the worms to worm, yknow?

but i have also historically written for: skam; marvel; love simon/simon vs; it; shameless; supernatural; (and once for hp and once for trust but i will likely not ever write for either of those again sooo how much do they really count? lol)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. good for my boy (steddie) 2. can't hide the way you make us glow (steddie) 3. i want to hold your hand (steddie) 4. sloe gin fizzy, do it till you're dizzy (steddie) 5. the world will follow after (steddie)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? YES!!! i DO!!! i am INCREDIBLY behind on replying to comments, i got busy and didn't have the chance to reply to any and then they started to pile up and now there is an overwhelming amount in my inbox (currently around 450 sdkljfds) so i just gotta. carve out some time to start tackling all of them. but i am firmly of the belief that if you took the time to leave me a comment i will take the time to respond!! it... just might be a hot minute before that response comes... but it will!! that is a guarantee!!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? haha if you know me you know that writing angst is not something i do all that often. i am a Certified Soft Bitch, and when i do write angst i always try to end it on a happy note because my blorbos deserve that happiness. but i suppose there are a few fics i've written that have... less than happy, perhaps more ambiguous endings. i think there are probably two that i can think of that could potentially fit the bill here...

keep me on a rope, which is my unrequited stommy fic. it IS a happy ending for steddie, but certainly not for tommy lol, so i suppose that counts!

and then i'll throw in beneath the stars too, which is the very first good omens fic i ever wrote (directly inspired by samson by regina spektor!) in which in the early days of their acquaintanceship, aziraphale shows crowley kindness, crowley makes a move and kisses aziraphale, and aziraphale pushes him away and is vehement about the fact that they can't. though, this one kind of ends with aziraphale having an italicize ohment (literally), sooo i guess it's not all that angsty of an ending?

if we wanna bring tumblr drabbles into the mix tho... i definitely have some angsty ones that do not end happily...

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? happiest ending!!! oh boy!!! try, like, every fic i've ever written basically?? dakljfsd as previously established, i am a Certified Soft Bitch, so pretty much all of my fics end with my blorbos happily in love and living/on their way to living their best lives. i really don't know if i can pick one that is the "happiest". i suppose if i absolutely had to pick, i'd maybe say let me know your future plans, which i wrote for the stucky big bang way back when. it's PURE romcom and it ends in a happy wedding so!!

8. Do you get hate on fics? i have not! which, considering how many fandoms i've written for and how crazy some of those fandoms can get, i am INCREDIBLY grateful for. i've got good egg readers and i am very very thankful for it. i think the worst comment i've ever gotten on a fic was one where someone like criticized robin in my fic and called her a bad friend, but that was because they THOROUGHLY misinterpreted her actions in the fic and like seriously misunderstood that she wasn't actually genuinely being an asshole. but yeah, i wouldn't really classify that as hate, that was just lacking reading comprehension lol.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? i do! i feel like it's been a hot minute since i have published any lol, but, historically, i have! and i certainly will (eventually) write and publish more! as for "what kind", gay. i write gay porn. dskljfs. all of the smut i have ever written has been gay and very likely all of it ever will be lksjfs. i also don't think my smut writing ever gets, like, super wild or anything. i'm fully one of those people that likes my smut to be very feelings heavy and like there's gotta be that emotional connection, that seals the DEAL for me, so yeah i tend to write it that way too. fun fact though, the first fic of mine that ever hit 1k kudos was a smut fic! lmao.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? nope! i am very much NOT a crossover fan. don't like to read 'em, don't like to write 'em. i just think there's too much going on in them and i don't like to mix and match my fandoms.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? not that i'm aware of! and hopefully it never will happen either!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? honestly? i cannot remember. sdkfjlsd i feel like i maybe had a request to translate a fic a looooong time ago, but i genuinely do not remember.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? none that have ever been posted! i've started co-writing fics before, but those have never been finished rip. i would really love to actually co-write something and finish it eventually though!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? ohhhhhhhhhhh MAN. that's a TOUGH question. i've loved so many ships over the years, and they've all been incredibly dear to me. obviously, my favorite at any given time is going to be whatever is my current favorite, whatever is actively snagging my attention and digging it's claws into me (so atm, steddie or ineffable husbands). BUT. since we are talking favorite of all time... i think i gotta go with stucky here. there is just something SO beautiful about that one and there is SO much to work with there, the possibilities are truly endless.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? well i've got a MILLION wips i want to finish in my wips folder that will likely never get touched again skljgfsg but. oh man. i think i gotta say if you love me, if you hate me, which breaks my hEART to say. but skfljdf it's been five years since i posted it and i STILL have not ever gone back to finish it, despite desperately wanting to (because gOD DAMMIT IT HAUNTS ME, IT FUCKING H A U N T S ME!!! THAT IS THE ONLY FIC I'VE E V E R POSTED THAT I HAVE LEFT UNFINISHED AND I HATE THAT SO MUCH!!! I WANT IT TO BE COMPLETE!!!). i always say that i would love to go back and finish it one day, and that sentiment still stands!!! i really would!!! but man, i havent thought about skam in a writing-sense in, obviously, years. and i truly don't know if i ever will be able to get back in that mindset. like i always say though, never say never...

16. What are your writing strengths? writing strengths ooh hmm... well. i personally spend a lot of time on making sure i get my characterizations right when i'm writing any character - that is one of thee most important parts of fic writing to me, because a poorly characterized character is one of the QUICKEST ways to take me out of a fic. so i take that shit seriously. and i like to think that i understand the characters well enough that i am successful in this, that i do do a good job of it, that you can read any one of my fics and go YEAH he WOULD say that. i've gotten compliments about my characterizations on lots of my fics before too (which is genuinely the highest compliment to receive, it makes me so happy to hear), so i like to think that my judgement of my own skill here is not wildly off base lol.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? hmmmm. well, i tend to get super in my head about everything when i've been staring at a doc for too long. i start to like,,, forget how to write well lol. i feel like when that happens i start to like get repetitive and super basic in my writing, which is, obviously, not what i want lol. also, endings. i have so much trouble writing endings. also i struggle SO HARD with just like. writing a random scene that doesn't have like. all this buildup and background. like i cannot for the life of me just start writing in the middle of a scene adflskd. i have to have some sort of setup, which makes it very difficult when i cannot figure out what that setup should be lol.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? don't really have many thoughts on it tbh. i don't do it. mostly because i don't really include any other languages in my fics lol. but i suppose if i ever did and it wasn't like a well known phrase or something that the fandom would know without a translation, then i'd definitely include a translation somewhere. there is nothing i dislike more than when a fic throws in a significant amount of another language (aka not just one or two tiny phrases here andnthere) and doesn't include a translation. like i'm not out here trying to switch between tabs just so i can understand your fic. so yeah if i ever did include other languages, i would definitely be sure to include translations too.

19. First fandom you wrote for? first fandom i wrote for and published my written work for was skam!!! skam my beloved, you will always be special to me. i diiiiid dabble in fic writing before skam, but none of that was ever finished or posted and it never will be and i will not be saying what fandom it was for skfljgdfg (if you know me though you probably know the answer sdfkjsd). but yeah!! skam was baby's first fic writing fandom!!

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? omgggg this is like asking someone to pick their favorite child... i CANT skdjfsl. can i cheat and list a couple favorites? sdkfjdsf. im gonna cheat and list a couple favorites. OKAY. so some of my favorites i've written include:

let me know your future plans - my fic for the 2018 stucky au big bang! this is the first bang i ever did, and it is the longest fic i have ever written! i'm honestly incredibly proud of myself for having done it; bangs are hard sldslkfs. writing a fic over that long of a time period and sticking with it until the end is hard, but i did it! i stuck with it and i finished it and wrote the whole thing i wanted to write and honestly it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my writing career. also, i fucking love a good romcom and that fic is pure romcom so. yEAH.

good for my boy - my wayne pov steddie fic! i'm ALSO super proud of this one because writing from wayne's pov was something so different for me and it was a challenge to make sure i got the balance of getting his voice right without crossing the line and making it sound like a caricature of him, and i think i did a pretty good job of getting him right!

under my umbrella - another steddie fic! this one was just something that came to me totally randomly and i just remember how easily the whole thing spilled out. it was SO incredibly fun to write and it combines some of my favorite things (steddie and RAIN kafjsd) and i just love this one a lot.

keep me on a rope - my unrequited stommy, steddie fic!! i LOVE L O V E LOVE writing tommy pov, and i LOVE L O V E LOVE writing tommy lore and this fic let me do both and it was just SO fun to write and to explore that fucked up little guy and i'm so so pleased with how it turned out. and also the response it got? THRILLING. having people tell me that me and my fic got them thinking about tommy as more than just some random side character that shows up in a couple episodes and disappears and that it got them appreciating that character? THEE BEST!!!! LITERALLY!!! spreading the tommy agenda to as many people as i can is my goal in life and this fic FULLY helped me open some eyes sdkfljsd.

imagine being loved by me - you know WHAT im gonna add this one to the list too because i think it is the best smut i have ever written. this was my first and only (so far anyways) foray into good omens smut lol and i'm actually suuuuper proud of how it turned out. like feels a little weird calling something i wrote hot but,,,,, i kinda went off with how hot it turned out adlkfjdslkf. at least to me it did anyways skjflsd.

that's the end of it now!! so i will tag: @withacapitalp @toburnup @2btheanswertothequestion @flowercrowngods @cheatghost @steddielations @henderdads @harmonictechnicality @sidekick-hero @frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe @steddieasitgoes @aidaronan @phoeniceae @pizzaqueen @fastcardotmp3 @wynnyfryd @maxineholtzmann @maxinemaxmayfield and anyone else that wants to do it!! (also if you've already been tagged feel free to ignore! i did not look at anyone else's tag list before doing mine lol)

[willkimurashat]

Looking for Gabi fans to follow and MC/Gabi fanfics to read. Some of my favorite lgbt litg blogs have either deactivated or are no longer playing litg Suresh fans are trying to hijack Gabi's tag with biphobia and hate posts. I'm scared to open her tag. Suresh fans are hating on lgbt players because FB made Gabi a LI and they can no longer use her to justify Suresh's action. We get enough bigotry from the writers. =( I have met some lgbt fans on reddit and IG, but they don't have blogs

Hello anon, and welcome to ✨Gabi Fan Club✨

From the second I saw her design, I completely swooned (and maybe drooled a little too, but we don’t talk about it🤫) and kept imagining the Frida Kahlo scenario between Gabi and MC, passing down the clown red nose of shame to Suresh lol!

In all seriousness though, I am so sorry you encountered hateful posts and biphobia, and I am not surprised - the Suresh debates can get heated. I think fusebox did us dirty for only giving us Dana as an li (who, let’s be real, wasn’t written great, especially with the kissing Eddie part) and Gabi aka the girl Suresh cheated on MC with. Idk what reaction they were expecting from fans because there’s something problematic with every single character this season, and I’m so sick of fusebox perpetuating these racist and biphobic stereotypes time and time again. So naturally, it sparks further hate and -isms from the players, trying to defend or offend some pixels. I am personally not on a Suresh route, so I don’t really care about that side of drama. I like Gabi and I think she is an interesting character, she has a cool back story, she’s interested in MC, and jee is she hot (sorry for being shallow). I also think it’s weird to shame people for liking a game character. Like, I guess I can understand it if someone’s into Dylan, who is just beyond problematic, and good friends wouldn’t and shouldn’t let you date someone like that. But other than that, my philosophy is that LITG is a game - that’s literally all it is, just a story with some 2d pixel art, and we shouldn’t be taking it so close to heart. If people like Suresh - you do you, if people like Gabi - please, by all means, suit yourself. They’re not real, so we shouldn’t let the hate and bigotry and racism get so out of hand that it hurts real people.

Anyways, this got very long, and idk if any of it is coherent, but in short: we shouldn’t bully people on which characters they like and we shouldn’t let the hate hurt others. What we should do, is criticize fusebox for continuingly villainizing and stereotyping LGBT characters and characters of color, and we should be able to have some fun playing:)

P. S. To people spreading hate and biphobia: check your privilege please. Before posting hateful comments about LGBT characters, ask yourself, why does this reaction come up to me in the first place? Why am I so angry about a wlw route? Who do I see in Gabi? Maybe it’s someone who hurt you before or maybe it’s internalized homophobia speaking? Food for thought. And honesty, if you do have so much hate on your mind, maybe just put your phone down, take a breather, and just.. close out of the post/comment/reply? Your bigoted opinion is not worth the pain it can cause someone.

P. P. S. Also, just wanted to mention as well, there’s definitely a lot of wonderful people on here, who I know would not judge you or anyone for liking Gabi or what have you, and I really hope you stay safe out here because cyberbullying is real, so please, take a step back if hateful posts get too much - always always always put yourself first, lovely!

P. P. P. S. Also also, I haven’t written any Gabi x mc fics and I don’t know if there are any, but you can definitely check out @litgwritersroom - they’re a bunch of wonderful, talented, creative lovelies that are very open and accepting of every player. I’m not sure if their asks are open currently, but they do take fanfic requests!;)

[hauntedpearl]

hi doe! its me again. (wow this ask got long — feel free to disregard at any point). i was wondering what your thoughts, as a writer and reader, are with regards to writers writing about cultures or religions that are not their own in fantasy settings? i’ll give you an example from my perspective. i love researching and i love adding things from all around the world into my stories. i was torn about naming a character as an Aztec god, or writing them as an original character but drawing their characteristics from this god, with inspiration from other sources.

i feel as though, as a white australian, by naming them specifically as Aztec, i would be doing a disservice to Mexican people and people of Aztec descent, similar to stephanie meyer writing jacob’s tribe into her book, where many feel now as though she was capitalising and commodifying a culture that has nothing to do with her and not only that but enforcing white colonialism (the topic is nuanced, but that’s one criticism i’ve seen). i would never want to do that!

i also wonder about this with regards to Judaism, which i do not expect you to speak on specifically, it’s just an example. like, i want to write fic about dean and cas being counsellors at a Jewish summer camp a la wet hot american summer, bcos that movie is a banger and also i can’t see them as any religion/faith except Jewish. i know a lot of my Jewish mutuals would be cool with that, but i just want to do it in that doesn’t hurt anyone, is well researched, and is also fun! same with the original example.

and also i understand that you are just one person with your own opinion, so if other people want to weigh in i would love that! 💜

okay I've been thinking about this ask for a while now, and you're so right in saying that I am just one person. and i am still growing. any opinions i have right now are informed by my experiences so far and personal biases, and I'm always open to learning and understanding and being better. so i want that to be a disclaimer to anything i might say here. take it with a huge grain of salt, don't hesitate to tell me if you feel like I'm being stupid about anything.

I spent a lot of time on "bookternet" before i got active on tumblr again, and this is a pretty common topic of conversation there. i feel like I've basically run through all kinds of arguments for and against doing this in books and my thoughts are. a little complex. so let me try and order them for you.

First of all, i think there's a huge difference between a writer wanting to write a different culture into their book if they're self-publishing/posting it on the internet v/s them doing it when they're going the tradpub route. Traditional publishing is pretty fucked up as an industry, and very unfairly skewed towards cishet white authors. Not only in, like, picking their books up in general, but in how much they get paid/the marketing budgets for their books etc., So I'd definitely advice *against* completely basing your book on a poc/marginalized culture if you wanna get published traditionally.

Secondly, i think, as well-intentioned as it might be, research is just. not enough. I mean it's okay if you're writing fanfic and/or are posting your story online for the time being. Because, again, i feel like in these scenarios, it is more about just exploring the craft, as it were, and learning to navigate these tough questions. And you'll make mistakes and that's fine. But even then, it's always better to. like. bring someone in to do a sensitivity read for you. Of course you can't always gauge how this will be recieved by your audience, but it's still going to help in some way! And take their feedback seriously. if, in the end, you have to axe something, you should just do it, no questions asked! (think Naomi Novik, when she edited bits out of the finished edition of A Deadly Education when the final ARCs went out and people had a lot of criticisms!)

And lastly, always constantly self-examine! Definitely think about your motivations behind wanting to add these elements to your story. why are you doing it? is it exotic to you? is it strange and new? or are you trying to tell a story that needs telling? i have absolutely nothing against casually represented characters, but there's a line there where it can turn into something exploitative and i think you should be consistently working to make sure you don't cross it.

Now, as a reader, i don't have the ability to know that all this work has been done. but i think it comes through in some way.

when I'm picking up a book, if i see that it's entirely based off of my culture and the author is white? i am literally quaking in my boots ajgdjskd. i don't mind if there's a side character or another main character, even! — Victoria schwab is one of my faves and one of the main cast of her most popular series, ADSOM, is like. brown. Fantasy culture but still. it was fun and i don't think she needs to be cancelled or whatever, because she made the world so that it all kind of fit in.

but i do get uncomfortable when the entire world and the in-canon culture and people are based on a poc culture. like that's weird and sus. i might still read it, but I'll be extra careful because sometimes the things that can feel violent will be super small and you'll be upset for weeks over it and it won't make sense but yeah.

in conclusion, i think it's okay if you want to borrow these elements as long as you not only do the research, but actually reach out to people and make sure you didn't accidentally do a racism in the story. don't make it all about them, tho, because that will never be your story to tell, and you won't be able to do it right. and that's just. idk. i think it's worse than having no story at all sometimes yk?

i hope this made sense it's hard to. like. properly express what I'm thinking bc this is a very complex topic and i think I'd do better in conversation but yeah. good luck!

[literaturelocker]

20 Questions for fic writers

I was tagged by my good friend @ahunter8056. LOL I don't know if these answers are what you're expecting, my good sir, but it's a good way to get me into my own version of NaNoWriMo since I had to miss last month due to work. Anyway, let's crank these out so I can get to finishing up chapter 4 of season 2.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

The technical number is 8. Two of those works are co-authored pieces, one is a special chapter I wrote for a friend's longer piece, and five are mine.

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

This one took some math so I didn't take credit for anyone else's work in the colabs I have going on. Roughly the number sits at

685,899 give or take a few thousand.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

More recently its WWE and Tom Clancy's The Division in my ongoing story with AtkPlatypus, and the WWE and Dr Who universe with @ahunter8056. I've also written for Supergirl and Blindspot, and if you want to do a super deep dive, I have stories for Criminal Minds, Secret Circle, and Chicago Fire that are posted under a different name over on FF.net. And before you ask, no I'm not giving you that info, you have to go find it. Happy hunting!

4. What are you top 5 fics by Kudos?

Fairytales Start With Curses, The Four Horsewomen: Directive 51, Time Bomb, After Rain, Waiting for You to See Me

I went with works I'm either the solo author for, or ones I am posting regularly on. I'm not going to lie; the fact that Directive 51 isn't the top spot threw me for a loop since AttackPlatypus and I have been writing that one for 4 years. And the best part? Fairytales isn't my Supercorp fic! Look at you go, AgentCorp fans!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Are you kidding????? This is my favorite part of posting! I LOVE interacting with the readers! The readers have taken the time to not only read my story, but then comment on it.... the least I can do is interact with them. Not only that, I love reading different reactions people have to chapters I've written. I get a huge sense of pride when a reader correctly guesses a plot twist or picks up on something subtle that I've written in. And just like readers feel certain things while they read, I feel certain things when they guess these things right. It makes me want to keyboard smash right back at them.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm with @ahunter8056 on this one. The ending for me should provide the reader with at least a small sense of hope. I'm not saying you can't write an angsty ending, but it's just not for me. I think everyday life is angsty enough, so it doesn't do it for me in my chosen forms of escape. Plus, I'm kind of notorious for writing hugely angsty chapters in my stories, so I like to wrap them up with a hopeful/happy ending.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Easily it's Fairytales Start with Curses. A lot of nonsense goes down in that one, so the ending feels that much more rewarding in my opinion. HOWEVER, Directive 51 is still in progress, so it's very possible that whenever we get around to ending that one, it'll be the happiest ending. But at the rate we're going with that one, it won't end until 2050, so.... let's just stick with Fairytales

8. Do you get hate on any fics?

I can't say that I have. I've received constructive criticism and people disagreeing with the ending or what not. But I can't say it's ever elevated to the level of hate. Now, I did get a chuckle when someone DM'd me to tell us to hurry the hell up on Directive 51. AttackPlatypus and I take the word slow-burn very, very seriously.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Not really. It would be extremely awkward if I did, and I don't think it fits into most of my writing.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Yep! I sure do! I find crossovers open up a whole different world for our favorite characters to play in. And what's the point of fic if you can't do things like that. I think the craziest is the Four Horsewomen of Pokemon series. But I'd also say that Directive 51 is kind of out there, but if you know the four horsewomen of WWE, it's not too big of a leap to put those badass women into the Division universe.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. And honestly, if you think my mediocre writing deserves to be stolen, have at it lol. There are much better writers out there that would get you so much more attention. That being said, stealing is bad so knock it off.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of, but if you want to translate one, go for it.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Sure have! I'm currently writing The Four Horsewomen: Directive 51 with AttackPlatypus. That one is a WWE/Division crossover that we try to update weekly, and it's been going on for four years running. If you like slow-burn shenanigans in post-apocalyptic Chicago, might I recommend taking a look? I've also had the esteemed honor of being asked to co-write the sequel to A Hero Will Save Me Just in Time with the tremendous @ahunter8056. He's brilliant, and I can't believe he asked me to play in the sandbox of that fantastic series. Seriously, go check it out, it is well worth the read!

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

This is like asking me to pick a favorite child. And quite honestly, the answer will change depending on the day. So I'll answer it this way: my first ship was JJ/Emily from Criminal Minds. The ship that will always hold a special place in my heart is Clexa from The 100. My angsty ship is Caitlyn/Vi from Arcane. Favorite canon ship? Wayhaught from Wynona Earp. But my all-time favorite? I think I have to go with the four horsewomen on a poly. It's not a popular choice, but those four are so good together, that I just have to give in.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

The Four Horsewomen of Pokemon series. I think that series had some solid potential, and the writers involved were all extremely talented. It just became too difficult to stick with on an individual level, which unfortunately brought the whole series down. But I do love those characters and hope to one day pick it up again.

16. What are your writing strengths?

hooooo boy.... um.... I think I'd say quiet, emotionally charged moments between characters. It's kind of a staple of mine, especially in my earlier writing. In the same vein, I'd say characterizations. I love dissecting characters to discover what makes them tick, so a lot of writing could also be seen as a character study. Oh, and angst as a plot device to get us to the happy ending.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

FLUFF. I cannot, under ANY circumstances, write fluff. It's like I'm deathly allergic to the stuff.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue language in fic?

I honestly don't understand this question. But if I had to guess at what's being asked here, the question is about writing in a different language if it's being spoken between characters. And I think if it's done in moderation, it's fine as long as there's a translation at the end of the chapter. But to do large chunks of dialogue in a language other than the original language the fic is written in can be a detriment to the overall story. I think too much of it will take your readers out of the world you're creating, and they'll lose interest.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Mutant X. It was a horrendously written Mary-Sue that got posted on FF.net and then deleted a few years later when I realized just how cringe it was. And no, it no longer exists, so I can't post it even if I wanted to.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Oh, easily Directive 51. I never expected it to become what it has when AttackPlatypus approached me about it. My stories are usually only one-shots, or small multi-chapters. And here we are four years later and the story has 888.388 words and 196 chapters. And we're not even close to being halfway done. This story has such a special place in my heart, and I don't want to consider what my life will look like once it's done.

A close second would be Fairytales. That story started out as a dare from my roommate at the time. She had gotten tired of listening to me whine about my several-year-long writer's block. So she went out and found a prompt that was followed by a dare that I couldn't write an AgentCorp fic for it. Needless to say, I was able to write a rather solid story if I do say so myself. It got me back into writing, and I will always love that little story for that.

Well, that was an interesting practice for me. I don't usually stop to think about things like this, but I had a blast doing it. Thanks for reading if you took the time! Any questions you may have about my stories, feel free to drop me a message and we can chat about .... well, anything really.

[kiribakuhappiness]

How do you deal with the hate comments you get?? (Not that I think the last ask was particularly hate or anything) but I never see hate stuff on your blog or in your comment sections either. I feel like I see tend to get them a lot abd sometimes I don't know how to handle them :( love your work!!! Sorry if this is rude to ask...

Not rude at all - but there's a lot to unpack here, so I’m really sorry if I ramble or go off on a few tangents in my answer!

The short answer is: I don't deal with hate comments.

The medium answer is: It depends on the type of 'hate' that I’m receiving.

The longer answer is this:

I have been really lucky (I think) to have been able to grow a little community on this blog of similar, like-minded people who enjoy the same things that I do (Tsundere characters, characters that can help show more representation in the Alphabet Mafia community, dumb boys who deserve to just be dumb boys, etc). I've rarely received any hate comments since my time here on Tumblr, and I think there's a lot of reasons for this.

1.) If someone comes rearing into my Ask box just LOOKING for a fight (ie, random death threats from Anons, homophobic comments, an obvious attempt to bait me into some kind of long-winded debate, etc) I simply just do not deal with it. Those people (especially Anons) are just looking for a reaction out of you. They want you to get upset, to post some long rambling defense, to be snarky and rude back to them, that's what they want.

But at the end of the day, I don't owe any of them a response. Hell, I don't owe anyone a response if I don't want to answer something.

But I answer Asks because I like talking with people, and getting all amped up and excited over the same things, that's part of the fun of creating and sharing that creative work online and being an active part of the fandom. I LOVE hearing from the people that follow this blog (even if I don't always get the chance to respond to all of them) because I know that they're happy or excited enough to hit that Ask button and send me a message, and that makes me feel good to know that I was able to get them so pumped up!

But those Anons aren't looking for that kind of connection. Most of the time, they’re not even looking to have a mature discussion, even if that’s how they come across at first. They're looking to hurt. To ridicule and make fun of, to make me and my followers feel bad or low. And, most of the time, the people who are sending that hate are young. So young. Like... way younger than what you might be picturing in your head right now.

So when I get the really bad hate - the hate that makes your skin feel hot, the hate that spikes your blood pressure, the hate that makes you start typing in a blind rage because you want to hurt them just as much as they've just hurt you - then they've already won. And I'll be damned if I let myself be led by the hand right into a losing battle.

So I simply do not engage. I don't reply with some snarky comment thinking I'm oh-so clever, I don’t reply in a holier-than-thou manner because I think I’m just so much better than them, and I don't reply with a long rambling post about why they're wrong and why they're childish and why they're hateful because that in itself is a hateful act, and I have far more important things to be spending my time and my energy on than fighting with a random on the internet and fueling that (quite frankly, pointless) hatred.

When I don't respond, the anon grows bored. Why send hateful things into someone's Asks if they aren’t even going to showcase it to all of their loyal followers? The reason you don't see hate on this blog is because I simply do not allow them to sink their roots into this soil. I pull them out like weeds and refuse to let them grow here.

I also don't respond because, while I may be able to take a death threat or a homophobic slur with gritted teeth and a roll of the eyes and keep on going about my day, some of my followers may not be mentally or psychologically equipped to see such rude backlash. They range from pre-teens to adults, and when they choose to follow me and my blog, I see it as a responsibility on my end to shield them from that unnecessary hatred. There's no need for them to see such toxicity, and so I act as a stubborn guard blocking the front gates. This temple is for relaxation, for laughter and excitement and love, and I'll protect it until the day that I decide to send that last post and go off to do something else with my life.

2.) Another reason that I believe that I don’t get much hate on this blog is because I don’t cross-platform my content. Does this lower the visibility of my work? Sure. I don’t have a Twitter, or a Youtube, or a TikTok, or an Instagram. This blog is just that - this blog on Tumblr, with a link to my AO3 for my writing. And while that limits my audience and perhaps bottlenecks my views, the safeguard it brings from distancing from toxic mindsets that tend to leak into the more problematic social media sites is well worth it, in my opinion.

I don’t write these stories for kudos and hits. I don’t write these stories to push out as much content as possible, to gain a following as quickly as I can, to reach the entirety of the fandom. I don’t want that. I want to write stories to get better at writing, I want to write about the boys because I crave more gay representation and quite frankly I am obsessed with Bakugou as a character and how much fun it is to write from a Tsundere mindset.

If other people happen to find my work and they like it too, then that’s so awesome! But the extent of my dedication to this blog is just that, my own dedication to something I love and something that brings me joy.

3.) The final reason that I think why I don’t get a lot of hate comments or hurtful asks is because I put a lot of pride and effort into my fics. When I write a piece of work that contains heavy levels of smut, I work really hard to make them realistic, to make the characters motives and emotions clear and concise, to showcase a healthy depiction of what it means to be sexually attracted to and/or engage in sexual activity with someone that a person cares very deeply about.

I see a lot of smut centered around the bnha fandom, and there’s nothing particularly wrong with that, in my opinion, but sometimes I do see things that I personally feel are a little tactless. They’re not handled well, or they promote toxic behaviors, or it really is incredibly self-indulgent and sometimes grossly ignorant.

However, just like with the hate that I sporadically receive in my Asks, it’s of my own personal belief that if I see something I don’t like or don’t agree with on the internet, then I simply do not engage with it. I don’t give it the attention that it so desperately wants to get out of people, I don’t give it a platform to grow on, I refuse to allow it to think that it has the upper hand anywhere in the situation.

I am entirely in control of the things that I promote on this blog, and I take that responsibility very seriously. It’s why I refuse to reblog art if it’s so obviously not being posted by the original artist (there are SEVERAL kiribaku blogs I have seen gaining popularity recently that simply post art from other artists without any credits or any permission). I have even seen several of my own mutuals reblogging art from those particular blogs, and so I find it incredibly important to be diligent in which accounts I reblog art from.

That being said - I’m not perfect. I’m a human being behind this account, a singular entity the runs the entirety of this blog, ever growing and learning and working every day to be better than I was the day before, and sometimes I make mistakes.

Sometimes I reblog stolen art, and need a follower to nudge me in my inbox and let me know that it’s stolen and where to find the original art, so that I can take the responsibility of deleting the stolen post and reblogging the original content to show support for the original artist. Sometimes I write something in a fic that (to me, from my own experiences) I might not consider to be harmful or inappropriate, but that might be damaging in a way that I may have never considered before because I had grown so used to receiving that kind of treatment myself that I fail to see its toxicity on my own, and so when people come to me with genuinely helpful constructive criticism, I feel it is my duty as a writer to be level-headed and humble enough to admit that perhaps what I have grown so accustomed to is just that - behavior I’ve simply grown accustomed to - and to then take a good hard look at that example and make a decision about whether I want to change it or not.

The important thing to remember is that we’re all entitled to our own opinions and feelings, but that we’re also individually responsible for the way that we react to these types of circumstances.

Becoming defensive, becoming enraged, becoming aggressive, becoming jaded - these things don’t do anything but make a situation worse.

That’s why I love Bakugou so. fucking. much. He IS all of those things. Defensive. Easy to anger. Inherently aggressive. And Horikoshi is teaching him through many trials and errors why those types of behaviors will be his inevitable downfall, why falling into the pit of ‘you hurt me, so I must hurt you back’ leads only to repeated failure and internal anguish, why you will forever be forced to run in place and can never continue to grow and move forward if you’re so busy ignoring the reality that we are all humans, that we are all flawed, that we all experience the same emotions, even if we don’t agree with them or think that they’re justified.

The reason I love Bakugou’s character so much is because he is so deeply flawed, he is told time and time again that he is the epitome of a villain, and yet he refuses to accept that. He refuses to believe that he is anything other than the greatest hero-to-be, and he’ll push his bruised ego and damaged pride aside time and time again to relearn what has already been so solidly ingrained into his being, to continuously be watching and listening and learning while still whole-heartedly remaining unabashedly true to himself, to know that he came to this amazing hero school and is being taught by these incredible heroes “not to learn what he can do, but to learn what he can’t do.”

So, to wrap up this entirely incoherent rambling mess of a response that you no doubt didn’t care to read about, I deal with hate the same way that I deal with everything else; circumstantially, and with as much empathy as I can possibly muster.

If it’s random hate just looking for attention and wanting to hurt, I refuse to give them a stable platform to stand on or an audience to be subjected to. I force them to go somewhere else, cause it’s no fun to hit someone over and over again who refuses to ever hit back. If it’s in regards to my fics, I think I work really hard to provide healthy representation work for this fandom, to showcase the characters in not only challenging situations but also how they can realistically overcome them, and to create an environment where love can be seen as just that, love.

Whether it’s with Bakugou and Kirishima learning how to recognize their own weaknesses and become better people because of them, or whether it’s with Bakugou and Hikaru discovering that experiencing love and relenting in trust doesn’t make them weak but in fact makes them infinitely stronger than they will ever consciously realize, the end result is always the same. I just want to share stories, hopefully ones with positive messages, that make people feel things and maybe might teach them a lesson or two along the way.

I hope this somewhat answered your question anon! Sorry it’s so long and jumbled but is anyone really surprised anymore? When you ask me a question like this, just know I am always going to go off on a long tangent :,D

If you’re ever experiencing a situation where you feel harassed or unsafe or you want advice on how to properly handle a situation, please feel free to reach out to me, and we can work together to try and come up with a mature, responsible solution!

Happy reading!! xx

[butmakeitgayblog]

hiiiii! hope you're doing okay. i really love your fics and yours are one of the few that i look forward to reading whenever you have one out. as a baby clexa fic writer, i personally try not to read other fics because i'm afraid that i might unconsciously copy an idea of theirs that i already have in mind, or might just be fitting in the story i try to write. have you had any troubles like this or is it just me being more of an academic writer than one who writes for leisure? which im also having trouble with, btw. i find it hard to write conversational dialogues that are authentic because english isn't my first language and the only time i ever write in it is when i do schoolwork. i might be thinking too much of it, idk. 🤷🏻‍♀️

all in all, really this is just an appreciation ask for you and your works from an anon who devours clexa fanfics, most of which are your works. you write with a flow (idk if that makes sense). so thank you so much for your works, and just want to say (again), you're works are some of the best I've read and keep on rereading again and again. hope you have a great day!!!

Thank you so much, this was such a lovely message and I'm so glad you like them 💕 and if you stories are on ao3 send the link!

Tbh I do think you're being too hard on yourself. Dialogue is seriously so hard to write, and the fact that you're multi/bilingual and doing it is impressive all on its own. My dumbass can't speak two languages and am even shit at just English as it is. So yeah that's something to be proud of.

As for the question, honestly not much. At least not consciously. I haven't really struggled with it myself but also I was a silent reader for years in the fandom before I ever tried my hand at writing. I had no idea what I was doing when I first started (still don't 🥴) and I actually think the fact that I had read so many fics helped me immensely. It helped me see different styles and approaches and techniques that were successful. Listened to criticisms people had and things they liked in others writing. Helped me see how stories were best structured. And then applied all that to my writing when I finally got the guts to try and put my thoughts into words, and slowly over time I've developed my own style just through trial and error. But I absolutely give it up to the other clexa authors for being a bit of a collection of crash course teachers that helped me even if they didn't know it lol

And beyond that, I honestly think reading other's stories can help give you inspiration, rather than looking at it like you're copying. I think reading others work is invaluable actually. Who cares if an idea seems close to another, that's nothing. Heck, my niche in the fandom is literally taking movies and rewriting them as clexa🤷‍♀️. Can't copy more than that. But there's really no such thing as a unique idea anymore, and even still if you had 3 writers all sit down with the exact same prompt, you get 3 completely different stories. Even if the general idea or plot points are similar, your voice and your story will always be it's own thing (obviously barring intentional plagiarism but I know that's not what you mean)

It actually reminds me of a post I saw years back about another writer saying they were afraid that they had no unique ideas for a fic and the person answering them said something like, think of your story as a cake. You see your cake sitting there on the table next to someone else's and all you can think is, "mine isn't as pretty as theirs. Mine's vanilla and their's is chocolate and look at how much taller there's is than mine." You're looking at your cake and seeing all it's flaws, all the ways you think yours is subpar to the other, but the birthday person is just having the time of their life because "HELL YEAH, TWO CAKES!" That's how readers feel. They wanna read your coffee shop au and the 1300 other coffee shop aus because hell yeah, 1301 coffee shop aus 🥳

[hughjidiot]

I mean absolutely no offense with this but I noticed something in ur writing that I wanted to point out. In ur amphibia fics in particular theres a lot of descripters for Anne being Thai, or Marcy being Asian, but never Sasha being Caucasian, or anything like that. It almost insinuates that white is the default and not really worth noting from the standpoint of me as a reader. This isn't accusing u of racism by any means, I seriously mean no harm, but its just something I noticed that bothers me a little;; it comes off as selective, tho I know there was likely no malicious harm intended. I hope its ok to bring this up, ik some authors don't like constructive critism and thats valid. Love ur fics!

Thanks for enjoying my fics! And don't worry, I'm always open to constructive criticism, thank you for taking the time to write all of that out.

In response to your point, that's one of my weaknesses as a writer: I don't like listing character's names over and over again in descriptions (kind of like how other authors don't like using "said" over and over in dialogue tags) so I often pepper in references to other physical characteristics that separate the girls. It'a also a bit of an issue for me when it comes to pronouns; since I'm writing about women in love I often end up using "her" over and over again, which leads me to worry that I might confuse my readers with who is doing what. And in response to your specific point about it insinuating that "white is the default," I admit there may be a bit of unconscious selectiveness going on there since I myself am white.

In any case thank you again so much for the constructive criticism, it's something I'll take into account in my future writing endeavors.

[favoniuscodex]

Hewwo I really love your writing and I want to improve my own to a form similar to yours. If it's okay, can I ask what your writing process is or if you have any writing tips? Sorry if you already answered questions like this. I am not a native speaker by the way, can i also ask about how you built your vocabulary as well? Thank you very much in advance and I hope you're having a great day/night! Drink lots of water and don't forget to eat three meals a day.~

hello, anon! you’re actually the first to ask about something like this and i’m honored you think my writing is good enough for me to give advice on (and honored that you think it’s good enough to take inspiration from!).

i have two different writing methods, which are as follows:

long fics (10k+ words)

i write an outline and have my friends look over it to make sure that the scenes are both impactful and enjoyable, along with being organized. the most important part of writing a long story is making sure the timeline is coherent and that you have proper buildup to the climax of the story.

before i write a scene that contains foreshadowing to a future event, i write down what themes i wish to convey with this scene, along with any future information that will be relevant later in the story. this is helpful because you never write something all at once if it’s this long! you might forget important details, so having notes is always nice.

if i’m hesitant on writing a scene, i’ll talk it out with some of my friends and see if i’m still comfortable with writing it.

one of the biggest things i can recommend is being adaptable! being willing to change your story plans is crucial, because (typically) the first idea you think of isn’t always the best one. in my own experience, i change my ideas a lot as i write something. this is because i will get bored writing otherwise.

this is from my own experience, other writers may disagree, but i NEVER set word count goals for myself. i write when i want to write, otherwise i will get discouraged when i do not meet said goals.

take breaks or you will hit burnout fast!

have a glass of water and set a timer every 15 minutes to relax your eyes from your screen and drink some of it. it gives your mind a chance to soothe itself from the bright lights of a screen and also gives you a short break. and you stay hydrated!

short fics (<10k words)

when i write short fics, i typically don’t have an outline (unless if it’s a series) and i just go with my gut

if i don’t really like where a story’s going and i know it’s short, i finish it anyways because a finished product is better than giving up in my eyes? at least i know what not to do next time!

sorry a lot of these tips don’t pertain to actual writing! they relate more to planning. :( i’ve been writing stories for fun since i was 6 or 7 (i have journals upon journals of my first stories in my basement!) so most of what i do is just... gut instinct at this point? i apologize if that’s not very helpful of me to say. ;.; i don’t think of myself as very talented but like... i wish to say this in case it happens: please don’t compare your writing to mine! i’m sure your writing is lovely in its own right.

now that that’s said, here’s some stuff i can actually help with, which is under the cut because this is getting long:

word choice / vocabulary

first off, the best thing you can do for yourself is read something complex. like... the type of book where you have to pull out your phone and look up what words mean. if you’re not exposing yourself to new words, even if it is annoying to have to pause, you won’t learn new words.

this typically means ditching the fanfics and looking for actual published novels, typically older ones. i love fanfics (i write them lol), but the word choice in fanfics is typically limited to casual conversational language as they are written for fun, not necessarily to challenge the mind.

next, the best thing you can do is use a thesaurus. i personally use thesaurus.com but it’s different for everyone! but this is dangerous. using a thesaurus can be one of the worst things you can do for your writing if you don’t use it properly. you use a thesaurus to get synonyms for words that are commonly used, but may have a lot of other alternatives (i.e. happy, sad, etc.) and NOT super specific words.

ONLY use words listed as synonyms in a thesaurus if you know them and it’s safe to assume your readers likely know them as well! for example, i used the word ‘insouciant’ as a joke in my last fic. however, if i used that seriously, that probably would’ve been bad as it’s a SUPER rare word. nothing will ruin a reader’s experience faster than a story that blatantly uses too many words from a thesaurus and, worst of all, uses them improperly.

let me give an example:

starting text: “she was happy to see that he had returned safely. she could see relief in his eyes that she was safe as well. he smiled happily at her as she ran into his arms.” this is good enough, but it’s rather plain. it’s an easy read, but nothing about it is super engrossing.

good thesaurus example: “she was overjoyed to see that he had returned without harm. she identified relief in his eyes that she had stayed out of harm’s way as well. he smiled enthusiastically at her as she sprinted into his embrace.” it sounds a lot nicer before and definitely more polished, but nothing about this requires someone to whip out their phone in frustration to google a word. the point of typical writing is not to challenge your reader’s intelligence but to entertain them.

bad thesaurus example: “she was jocular to perceive that he had reappeared in an unharmed manner. she prognosticated solace in his blue orbs that she was guarded as well. he smiled jovially at her as she charged into his forelimbs.” this is a bit of an exaggerated example, but this is actually how i feel some authors tend to write. it’s very blatantly using a thesaurus, it uses words incorrectly, and it overcomplicated things to where it feels like the reader has to do a mental exercise to read it.

tl;dr for this section: if you don’t know a word, do not use it. if you are familiar with a word, it’s probably good to use as long as your writing still seems natural. thesauruses are your friend but can be your enemy.

i would like to clarify that i am a native speaker and it’s not necessary to read books forever in order to keep your grammar and word choice up to date. i have not picked up an actual published book within the last 4 years (don’t laugh at me i know this is bad). however, in learning to expand your grammar, reading books is essential.

some miscellaneous writing tips i have include:

you don’t have to take every request that comes within your inbox if you do decide to do tumblr writing. i probably, much to the behest of the people that submit, throw a good chunk of my requests out. write what you’re passionate about and your writing will improve and your followers will be happier.

if someone criticizes your writing, this does not mean they’re trying to criticize you (usually. don’t go on twitter if you want this to remain true). they are providing something most people don’t want to offer: advice. many times you will find yourself surrounded by people who will applaud you for writing nearly anything. this is not good. living in an echo chamber will ensure that your writing never improves. you want to ask people for advice and find those who will give you genuine advice, even if it may hurt to hear.

try to discern what authors you like do with their writing versus authors you don’t like. consciously making these comparisons will allow you to directly apply them to your own writing and help you emulate someone’s style as well.

please don’t write meme references into your work. it will get outdated fast. try to write something you can look back on within a few years and not cringe at. :) this is just my personal opinion lol, someone might disagree.

i do not proofread my writing. it makes me second guess everything. everything on my blog, as you see it, lacks proofreading, aside from inheritance, in which i had a beta reader glance over it. for beginner writers, this is probably shit advice if you’re not used to grammar BUT that’s just how i roll and i wished to share that.

the most important thing i do for my writing is have a good music playlist in the background. NOTHING will make you write better than listening to music that fits the mood of what you’re writing. find a premade youtube playlist or slap together a spotify playlist of songs you think fit the mood and get grooving to it. you’ll find that you’ll write better and you’ll enjoy the process of writing much more with the mental stimulus.

don’t write jokes in which you have to overexplain them. if you have to explain to the reader what the joke is, it won’t be funny. humor is difficult to write, but no jokes involved are better than a bunch of failed ones.

don’t worry about pinpointing fanfic characterization of a specific character perfectly. i get praises for my characterization of diluc and kaeya within inheritance a lot, even though i specifically altered them from canon (??????? this confuses me a lot that i get praised for this but anyways) and haven’t even read the webtoon. as long as it’s within reasonable expectation, you should be fine. zhongli shouldn’t be written as going off the walls crazy with excitement just like venti shouldn’t be written as super serious about frivolous matters. as long as you get the general gist of a character, people will enjoy it.

try to find some writer friends. they don’t necessarily have to be in the fandom, but being able to shoot off ideas with other people is amazing at improving both your plot and your writing overall. (shoutout to @shannara because for as much as i annoy him, he’s always willing to listen to me blab about any story and any idea, even though he doesn’t read reader-inserts nor should he care about my dumb OCs, but he cares about mine because he’s a cool dude)

don’t get discouraged if a fic doesn’t get good reception. in fact, it’s probably better if your first few fics don’t blow up in popularity if you do post them because it’s humbling and you can decide if you’re actually writing because you enjoy it or if you’re just doing it for clout.

i hope this made sense and if you (or any other people reading this!) need any more writing advice, my ask box and DMs are always open. if you ever want me to beta read something, please send a DM and i’ll see if i can as long as it’s like... not super long and i have spare time.

sorry this turned out to be so long but it turns out i had far more to say than i thought! good luck writing and i believe in you!

[lalaangeldust]

aaa hello!!! as a fellow sero simp, i have to say your writing and works give me ✨LIFE✨ the amount of serotonin 😩🙏🏽 asksjfk ok i’ll leave now-

aKDJSJF NO BUT SERIOUSLY- I’ve been putting this ask off for a while now bc i didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable but,,, as a black reader, i kinda get a bit sad when i see stuff or descriptions of the reader “blush” or turn red or pink or whatever. maybe for future writings, maybe like- take that consideration???? im not really sure how to word it bc im obviously not demanding and I don’t wanna make anyone uncomfortable or obligated to do anything-

more like,,,, a suggestion?? but yeah, you can totally delete this, just rather get this out of the way so i can stop overthinking it sjdjsk,, but anyways, love your blog n your work! love ya bestie! <3

hello love!!

i'm so glad you brought this up dear nonnie because i've been thinking ab this for a couple of days now.

please don't ever feel hesitant to come to me about this kind of stuff either, ( as well as any other readers who want to bring something up to me ) these kind of conversations i feel are important to have. i can't really say that for other people though because not everyone can take this kind of criticism lightly which is unfortunate but 🤷🏼‍♀️ what can you do about it...

as an "x reader" writer it is my job to make my works as inclusive to every kind of reader and i'm very sorry for not doing that for you in my previous writings.

i'm not saying this to suck up and i am very genuine about this but i was thinking of rewriting my two most popular stories, mi mariposita and closed space because one, i need to correct the spanish cus it's shit and kinda insensitive and also because i've seen other poc readers and writers saying how they feel left out when a fic mentions "y/n" face going red or anything like that.

you have given me motivation to actually do thar now, haha, motivation is very hard to come by lately

again, thank you for bringing this up love and also for feeling comfortable enough to do so because i understand how nerve wracking it can be sometimes <3

i want my blog to be a safe space for everyone

one might say my goal is to provide serotonin *wink wonk*

haha, anyways i am so happy you enjoy my blog regardless. i hope you have a lovely day / evening and i promise that i'll do better <333

[mindninjax]

Hey, hey, hey! I hope I'm not disturbing, but I was wondering if you have any advice? I'm a baby (fanfiction) writing blog, and would like some tips on what I should do. I don't take pride into my writings, and I just needed some words from a great writer such as yourself. Again, I apologize if I'm intruding, but it would be appreciated. Have a wonderful day, babes. Take care! 🥺👉💖👈

Hello there!  No worries you are not a bother at all!

Ok so I am the exact same way. I don’t take pride in my writing or really anything because my self confidence is shot to hell lol. However I have been working on it  so here are a few tips. 

1.) Write for you- Seriously this idea is key. I know it sounds dumb but literally the second you start to thinking about doing something you enjoy for other people the joy get zapped from it. If you’re writing, because you enjoy it and it makes you happy, you’ll be able to build up confidence and gain a bit more pride in what you’re writing. 

2.) Have a support system or circle- It’s always great to have someone read your work and help you edit or get out of your own head for a bit.  I always love reading things my friends have written and getting into their head or helping flesh out ideas. Of course you have to be open to criticism, but I personally am always super super happy when my friends tell me when shit doesn’t make sense or if something is bad. Not to mention having people telling you that your writing is actually good and your brain is being mean to you lol. 

3.) Another hard thing to do I know, but I try not to worry too much about the notes on my fics. Do I pay attention, yes of course, and am I happy when a fic hits like 500 notes or something, yes of course. But I try not to obsess over  it because again at the end of the day, I wrote it because it made me happy. 

4.) Read other’s fics, find out what you like about them, what you dislike about them. It’s like research and also you get to feast on a bunch of yummy content lol. 

5.) It’s cliché I know, but have fun. Have fun with your writing. It’s not a chore, it’s something you do as a release or because it makes you happy. If you’re writing and having fun and you find an amazing group of people  who also are having fun writing then you’re golden. 

I hope this helps lol I’m no where near being a pro or anything lol. I hope to see some of your writing soon Nonnie! Stay Golden! 

[flyingcatstiel]

1. Hello again, I am the same anon who sent both of your latest two anonasks. I think there was some confusion so I'll clarify. I don't even ship stony(I've only read handfuls of fics), I ship destiel and I like all mcu characters equally and I am not team cap nor iron but I am a bitter cas girl. There was NO intention to bring any wank or ships/characters bashing to your blog. I was just so angry with 'we are' and your answer to the first ask got me thinking about stony.

2. But my ask was poorly and inadequately worded to confuse you of the ulterior intention and I apologize. Though I shouldn’t have use the ship names when I meant their general relationship both in canon and fanon, what I meant was in regard to the same situation, which is their mother’s deaths, Tony actually drew blood and all Dean did was say some words,

3. so one might think that actual physical conflicts not induced by any supernatural event indicate bad relationship but I feel Dean and Cas’s friendship and general relationship more unhealthy and unbalanced.

4. Now I just decided for my self that that’s probably because Tony and Steve has different visions, families, groups of friends and support system so even if there is conflict between them, Tony still got Pepper Rhodey and Happy and Steve got Bucky Nat and Sam.

5. So no one is left alone in the world. But if Dean’s angry with Cas, Cas is alone in the universe. I meant unhealthy like that. Cas has no one except Winchester families and if that makes Cas desperate for sense of belong and makes him apologize like that, that imao is unhealthy. But all in all, I am sorry for the confusion. I shouldn’t have been so blunt and out of the blue. Post 1502 made me go blind with unreasonable fury.

6. On a different note it’s interesting how wording and context make differences between being perceived as wank baiting anon hate or anon thanks. And I hope that this message is accepted as the latter because I am always grateful of all your reasonable words about Spn and fandom fruits. :) thanks for reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heey, sorry for total misunderstanding with the previous ask and thank you for coming back and clarifying it! And yes, I’m kinda jumpy lately, since couple of my spn critical posts were hijacked by destiel haters and also earned me the blocking from destiel positivity crowd. That’s the fandom we have and that is one huge reason why I’m slowly sauntering into MCU fandom. To be brutally honest, that’s my advice to all bitter Cas girls - get out before you get too frustrated and hurt. The show will continue Cas whump because they don’t know what else to do, and destiel metas will spend all their energy justifying it. Instead of, you know, just saying that bad writing is bad writing. You can always come and vent in my inbox or via DM tho, I’ll try to answer as much as I can, because I feel you. 

OK, very quickly about CW movie and Tony’s anger vs Dean’s anger. I don’t think Tony’s situation is comparable at all here. Tony learns about Bucky killing his parents on Hydra’s orders after a long chain of very intense conflicts. That was literally the last drop, there’s little time to process it, and it is the culmination of the movie. On the other side, Dean and Cas conflict is never the centerpiece of SPN, it’s all subtext and Dean’s POV. Dean blaming Cas for Mary’s accidental death comes absolutely out of nowhere. They all knew that Jack is using his soul to do stuff, they all knew Jack needs supervision. FFS, Jack just brought Sam back from dead by using his soul. And now Cas is to blame for it? Not to mention that Dean and Cas relationship is way more complicated than MCU stony. Even if we take out romantic destiel subtext out of it, textually, Cas still is the closest person to Dean after Sam. Dean has called Cas his family, his brother several times. Dean grieved Cas in s13. And now, suddenly, it all means nothing because Dean is angry? Unpopular opinion about SPN writers under the cut.

I said it already back then and I still stand by my words - Berens wrote the line “You are dead to me” deliberately to yank the fandom. There are plenty of other words he could have used if he simply wanted to show Dean’s grief and uncontrollable anger towards Cas. Instead, SPN focused on one thing that would hurt the most and then used it in the promo. I literally saw post on my dash saying that OP was not gonna watch the episode because SPN is just meh, but, after seeing that promo, OP wanted to know why Dean said something so hideous to Cas. Remember how fans hoped that it’s a misleading promo? Remember how fans hoped that Dean will apologize to Cas? There’s an understanding that that line was too much. And, after s14 finale, I saw posts talking about how this is not relevant anymore because surely Jack’s death and Chuck’s machinations override whatever anger Dean could have towards Cas for not telling him about snake. And then 15x01 brought us that passive aggressive scene and, well, 15x02 took the cake. 

So, while I totally agree with you that the scene between Dean and Cas was terrible, my way of dealing with it is to blame SPN writers. First of all, I don’t understand what Dean is talking about there. Nothing was real? Does he mean some kind of Matrix type of reality where the real Dean is sleeping in a pod? Otherwise, it was all real. Tell Kevin Tran that his death and time after death was not real. Tell it to Jo, Charlie, Eileen that their deaths were not real. Cas speech is nice, but, honestly, not a groundbreaking revelation. Whedon’s Angel said it wittier, Dumbledore and Gandalf said it more fitting for their stories. There’s a Jewish proverb with similar sentiment. Like, this is nothing new! Our choices matter, sometimes it is the only thing that matters. I mean, everyone who has lived under authoritarian regimes, everyone who’s a minority and has to deal with privileged majority, knows this. To make Dean to refuse it in s15, is honestly very baffling. 

Like, I see that SPN writers want to draw some parallels with s4 by flipping Dean and Cas beliefs, but, scene subversion works only if you know why the first scene worked in the first place. I think this scene would have worked better if Dean would be just venting his understandable frustration with the situation. But instead, we got Cas apologizing, Dean still blaming Cas for Mary’s death (seriously wtf?) and then Dean walking out on Cas and refusing Cas’ belief in their choices being real. 

And here I come to my last point. Dean saying that their choices were not real because Chuck manipulated everything sounds very much like privileged middle class white people suddenly realizing that they are not calling the shots and then throwing into a towel. This really looks like the most “profound” revelation Bucklemming could’ve come up with. They gave similar moronic lines to Cas in 9x03, when Cas, former angel who watched humanity for thousand of years, was surprised that poor people are kind and generous. 

So, to me it looks like SPN writers are trying to be deep but in the end they write what they know best - angry white man is always right trope and le omg, if I’m not the center of the universe then everything was not real story. Which sucks, tbh. And clashes with older seasons of SPN. But here we are. And, since the conflict between Dean and Cas is based on such a weak argument, there can’t be real resolution, catharsis and growth. The current conflict serves only one purpose - to keep Cas and Dean on bad terms and to make Cas leave (because Misha’s contract something something). My worst fear - this stupid conflict will set Cas on self destructive/sacrificial path, and that will be it. Because let’s be serious, destiel is not the most important thing in s15. It’s just not. 

[zombolouge]

Ah you are too kind!

(cont) Maybe it's because I'm only at the beginning and I take things reeeally slowly, but still, it'd be nice to be able to fix this. One huge question though: how do you write from a child's perspective? For example, in the story I'm writing, Link is 10 in the first few chapters. I'm having trouble with conveying his thoughts across, since they either sound too mature or too childish. I keep saying 'his mother' whenever she does appear, and after a while it gets repetitive - but I don't think I'd use her name since Link wouldn't call her that. So how to go about writing from a third person child perspective? Thank you so much for your tips!

Ah, yes! I went through this same thing when I started writing again myself. I wrote a LOT when I was younger, then stopped for about 9 years before I came back to it. (I started writing again in 2014, seriously about a month later). Then it was like picking up a rusty bike and trying to make the wheels go. There are several things I wrote that will never see the light of day because they were terrible. But that’s all part of the process! So don’t feel bad if it all feels like a disaster at first, because it gets better. In the beginning, your main concern is to just try and write as much as possible, and to finish things. Once you get that down, you can start making things better through editing and more critical thinking. ^_^

Okay, so I can certainly share what helps when I write longer fics, though this process doesn’t always work for others. When I wrote Tearing Down the Heavens, it started as a mish-mash of scenes that I had half-written that I was stringing together. I think by like chapter ten I had already gotten overwhelmed trying to do that, and I opened a word doc and just made a list of the “important plot moments”. Over time this grew into a true, blue outline. 

I don’t think I could write such longform fic without the use of an outline. Some writers can, and some writers even find that an outline completely ruins their creativity, but for me it’s a necessity. Sometimes my outline is incredibly detailed, including lines of dialogue or descriptions or notes about backstory and themes. Other times it’s not more than a line or two about a scene. For instance, the first chapter of A Hundred Years in the Making has a very detailed outline, where I wrote out almost all the dialogue between the King and Vallus. I ended up changing it as I wrote the scene around it, to make it flow better, but the base was there. In contrast, my notes for the portion where Link is traveling to the castle were vague (I actually only put “Write shit about Link’s feelings while he’s on the horse”, which is not particularly helpful notes to myself, but there you have it). I also don’t tend to flesh out the outline all at once. For instance, I may know that I want a certain thing to happen, but I don’t know how I want it to play out or any other details. So I’ll make a note in the outline that says something like “Character tries to leave, gets caught by other character” or something. Then, as the earlier chapters get written, I may add more context, so I could end up with something like this (I’ll use some of the older outlines for Facing Down the Void for this example):

“Autumn wakes up in a panic, convinced something is wrong. 

- Solas is trying to leave, she races through the cold night air to find him and confronts him. He is hurt, miserable to be back around her and torn about what he must do, so he is cold to her. His attitude breaks through her calm, and she starts to cry as she yells at him, demanding to know why he’s leaving again. She doesn’t understand, he doesn’t want her to, but the sound of her voice breaks his heart. He turns and makes his confession, kissing her even though he knows its the worst thing that he could do. She is stunned, and finally lets him go as she processes thing.”

That eventually turned into a pretty complex scene that I wrote very early on and edited several times before it was published.

The reason why I find outlines necessary is that I have trouble writing something if I don’t know where it’s going. I need to have at least a general idea of what I’m building to, or it takes me about 8 times longer to write a chapter. It helps me do proper foreshadowing, and it helps me understand character motivations and growth arcs better. For instance, in As Bright as the Stars, I knew that Saeyoung was going to lie to try and hurt Nicky from the get-go. I had been setting that betrayal up from the start of chapter one. If that moment had been a surprise, however, if I hadn’t planned it, then it wouldn’t have the proper groundwork laid before it. Twists and turns in the plot are what make a story gripping, BUT, they can’t come from nowhere. Your reader should look at surprises and say “I did not see that coming, but I should have”, not feel like it came completely out of left field. You should be able to point to your previous chapters and say “see, there is the proof that this could happen”. Otherwise the shock is cheap, and people tend to lose interest. 

Outline will help you map out events, get foreshadowing in place (important for pretty much all types of stories, including things like slow burns), and understand the characters better. Because when you outline, you are forced to think “what would this character do in this situation”, which then makes you think about the character and think about how they react to things and how they think. Although your story is still going to throw you curve balls, and you shouldn’t be afraid to change an outline when needed. In As Bright as the Stars, I didn’t realize that Vanderwood was going to be such a huge part of it at first until I wrote her first chapter and realized “oh shit I have feelings about this character that need to be told”. I then paused writing the story and worked on my outline to expand it to include this new revelation. So things will still happen that weren’t planned, but at least you have good starting points to handle them better. 

I’ll be honest, though, part of my process is pretty much nonstop consideration. If I am not actively writing, I am usually thinking about writing, or thinking about characters, or word choice, or themes. I’ve written entire scenes in my head on my morning commute and then hurriedly outlined them once I arrived at work. I’ve spent actual hours thinking about something a character did and trying to figure out WHY they did it, to understand that character. So don’t feel bad if a good chunk of your “writing time” is just sitting around and thinking about it, because you have to work those things out at some point before the words will start to come. 

Flow!! Okay, so one of the best things for flow is reading it out loud. You will, in fact, feel like a moron reading your own work out loud to yourself, especially at first. But hearing the words spoken into your ears will trigger different processes in your brain than just reading them. This can often highlight points where there are problems, or where the word order doesn’t work. This goes double for actual dialogue, which should be read out loud until you feel like you have become the characters. If a scene feels weird, it’s usually because your making a character say or do something that doesn’t feel like something they should say or do, which will throw everything off. 

Another thing that I find helpful for both flow in general and dialogue is to map out a scene in very specific, very bland details. (ESPECIALLY FOR ACTION OR SMUT, THIS MAKES THOSE SCENES SO MUCH EASIER). So I would open up my outline, or an empty doc, and write something like this:

“Character A (Jeffrey) opens the door. 

Sees Character B (Heather) arranging matches. 

Jeffrey: Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware...(pauses, curious) What are you doing?

Heather glares. “I’m arranging matches.”

Jeffrey: “Oh.” (pause) “Why?”

Heather (upset): Because it’s what Sebastian would have wanted!”

Jeffrey closes the door slowly.”

I can then look at that outline and turn it into a scene because I have enough notes to go off of, and I know what’s supposed to be happening at any given time, so it lets me focus more on the descriptions rather than the ideas. I wrote up a quick example scene based on that outline (it is rushed, so forgive me if it isn’t a masterpiece XD)

“Jeffrey placed his hand on the cold door handle, already feeling the weight of the other room bearing down on his shoulders before he had even turned the brass. The house was quiet, and the room was quiet, but he was certain that there was unhappiness beyond the threshold. Still, it was a door, and what purpose would doors have were they not meant to be opened? He twisted his palm, pulling the knob along with it, and pushed the wooden boards forward to reveal the room beyond. 

He was surprised to see Heather within, standing in front of a table with one hand on her half-cocked hips. She didn’t look up as he blinked at her, taking in the silent scene with all the dignity that he could muster in such a situation. The house was silent, so he had presumed that it was empty. His error had been the source of his ominous premonitions, knowing that the room had held misery without knowing why. Heather’s presence had that effect on them all lately. 

He cleared his throat, wishing that he could be a thousand miles away from this position at precisely this moment. “Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware...” his words trailed off, flat and lame in the deadened air as she shifted, moving just enough so that he could see the stack of matches on the table before her. She lifted one in her long fingers, the tip of the match the same ruby color that was smeared across her fingernails. She held it aloft, inspecting it for something, judging its character like a redheaded soldier that had been stripped and homogenized before being shipped off to war. She then took it and placed it atop a second stack of matches, piled in a tower that shuddered with the weight of the new addition. “What are you doing?”

She narrowed her eyes into a sullen glare as she looked at him, clicking her tongue before offering the obvious. “I’m arranging matches.”

“Oh.” he nodded, a compulsory action, as though this made perfect sense. He should have left it, should have mumbled some apology and retreated from the room, but his damnable sense of curiosity burned too brightly in the back of his throat to clamp down on the question before it came tumbling out. “Why?”

She rounded on him, her hands clamping into furious fists that stuck to her sides, the matches in the tower tumbling across the table in careless disarray. “Because it’s what Sebastian would have wanted!” Her voice wavered between madness and grief, and he winced at the force of it, seeing the tears that he had unleashed. It was too much, too great a burden to bear in this moment, on this day. He felt sorry for her, sorry enough to furrow his brow in a voiceless apology that would do less to disturb the fraught air than words would. He felt sorry, but not sorry enough to reach an olive branch across the divide between them. Instead he backed out of the room, shutting the door with the slow deliberation of someone who knows he could have been a better person if he had just left it open. Her cries of frustration followed him out, and he knew that he was a terrible man.”

I think I spent about ten minutes on that little scene, and that was mostly because I had the blueprint of that outline to go off of. I knew what the characters were doing, and I had notes about when it was important for them to feel a certain way, so it was easy to create a bunch of flowery prose around it (well, not EASY, but certainly easier than if I had just tried to plop it out onto the page from nothing). Now, I usually write out all my dialogue in this manner before writing the full scene, ESPECIALLY important dialogue or dialogue involving more than 2 characters. Just write it out like a script, with the name of the character followed by what they said, and that’s it. Maybe a note or two of what they did or how they said it, but only if it’s really important. What this does is let you focus on what they’re saying and if it fits their character, without getting bogged down in irrelevant descriptions or worrying if you’ve used the word “said” too many times. It also makes it easier to read out loud to yourself to check how it sounds. The dialogue should always be able to flow and sound good on its own, with the rest of the text removed. If it doesn’t, then there’s a disconnect in the way they are speaking that will interrupt the flow of the whole scene. 

Okay, now on to your more specific question. Writing children! 

So one important thing to remember is that children are not stupid, nor do they think in baby talk (or talk that way). They also don’t tend to think of themselves as juvenile, because in their minds they already know enough to be basically an adult. This is especially true for a 10 year old, who usually wants to be out in the world experiencing things on their own, unless they’ve experienced something in their past that would dictate otherwise. They think they know everything, and that parents are just being dumb when they restrict them or make them follow rules. 

One thing about writing children is that they tend to be a bit more literal than adults. You won’t get a kid saying a lot of cutesy babytalk, but you will get them being point blank enough that it can be adorable or comical. It is also important, when writing a POV from a child’s perspective, that they will be lacking certain knowledge or ways of expressing things, but they won’t know that. So, for instance, if I were to write the scene of Link from Ocarina of time seeing Ganon taking off with Princess Zelda (just before she throws the Ocarina), I might try something like:

“He saw the horse thundering across the bridge, massive and domineering. He couldn’t quite see who was riding it, but he felt a sickening feeling in his stomach all the same. Anyone who rode a horse that mean couldn’t have been a good person. 

His fear was confirmed when the rider yanked the reins of the beast, causing it to rear up above Link’s head. He felt like an ant, hapless and waiting to be crushed under the foot of something dark and nameless. The horse returned to all fours, flaring its nostrils, and Link could see that man - Ganondorf - was astride the saddle, Zelda clutched in his metal-clad arms. The Gerudo smirked, and it made the feeling in Link’s stomach coil and writhe like a snake. A furious snake that was trying to flee from the scene, trying to force the person around it to move away, but Link stayed rooted to the spot, his feet as still as tree trunks. He could have gone his whole life without seeing something so evil as Ganondorf smiling, the glint in his eyes like poe-fire. It made him feel small and insignificant, a spec of dust in a whirlpool. It made him feel sick, and if he had been able to move he might have turned and wretched into the grass beneath his boots.

Ganondorf dug his heels into the horse’s ribs, and then everything happened in a flash. The horse surged forward, straight towards where Link was standing, and he had to leap out of the way to avoid being trampled. He felt something big and heavy bump into him as he was in the air, and the breath disappeared out of his lungs with a short wheeze. He hit the ground, and he thought he heard someone yell his name as he blinked, trying to clear the daze. Everything felt fuzzy, like reality had become a vague humming sound in his ears and nothing more. The sound of hoof beats turned from thunder to drums, and then faded slowly as the horse galloped away. Link tried to breathe, unable to keep himself from trembling as he did so.

Zelda had been right. That man was a terrible man.”

So, in this little snippet, I tried to keep things more simplistic than I normally would have. I avoid phrases that are overly flowery, and get to the point a bit quicker. I also avoid saying “Link was terrified”, because a 10 year old might not have the experience to know what terror feels like. They also may not want to ADMIT they are scared, especially not in the moment when adrenaline is high. Instead, I went for describing what he feels, so that the reader gets the idea. Additionally, when he gets hit, I made it more vague. If Link were an adult, I would have changed “He felt something big and heavy bump into him as he was in the air, and the breath disappeared out of his lungs with a short wheeze. He hit the ground, and he thought he heard someone yell his name as he blinked, trying to clear the daze. Everything felt fuzzy, like reality had become a vague humming sound in his ears and nothing more.“ to “He felt a blunt object slam into his side, just below his ribs, driving the breath out out of his lungs on impact. Shock rolled through him as his dodge carried him into the ground, the princess yelling his name as the horse retreated. He was dazed from the blow, and as he floundered on the ground he tried to shake away the humming buzz that was affecting the clarity of the world around him.” The difference here is that Link would have known he was hit by something, and where, and he would have had the words and understanding to know that he was in shock from the blow, and been able to take better effort to try and restore himself. 

Okay, so on to your final question, about what Link calls his mother...you’ll want to avoid using all forms of the name, because that would sound weird. If you feel like he would call her “mother”, than you should stick to that. If you feel like it’s getting repetitive, you can try changing up sentence structure to add variety, but be careful you don’t do it too much. Depending on the scene, you may not need to continue listing her, and just revert to “she”. 

For example: 

“Link’s mother smiled, as warm as the sun above them. “Come, sit with me.” she pat the grass beside her, and he ambled up the hill to join her. She was still smiling, and he tried not to look sullen. He must have failed, because she folded her hands in her lap, giving him a knowing look. “You’ve been bickering with your father again, haven’t you?”

“No.” he sounded like a spoiled brat even to himself, and rolled his eyes as he gave into her ability to know everything he was thinking before he had to say a word. “He’s just...he’s so...”

“Stubborn?” She quirked her eyebrow skyward, and he laughed and nodded, feeling the anger in his chest dissipate as she brushed his hair off of his brow. “He can certainly be...firm. You know that he means well, don’t you?”

So, in that, I only had to mention “mother” once, but you still knew exactly who I was talking about (I think, at least lol). There are also other ways to indicate things, but you definitely want to avoid things like switching from “mom” to “mommy” to “mother”. In this instance, “Mother” is the stand-in for her name, so you would treat it as such. You ALSO wouldn’t switch to her actual name if you’re in Link’s POV, because he wouldn’t think of her that way.

Oh boy, I rambled for waaaaay too long. Hopefully this helped??? Haha, I am very sorry that this is so terribly verbose, I got carried away. 

If you have follow-up questions, feel free to let me know. And if anybody else has different questions, you can also feel free to let me know. ^_^ And of course, this is not a hard-and-fast rulebook. These are just the things that work for ME, which may not be helpful to anyone else. Everyone’s process is different, so don’t feel too frustrated if you try this stuff out and it is utterly useless XD

Thank you so much for thinking of me, and I hope that at least some of this is usable to help you get your story written!!!!