#and right after we finished reading the first draft i started rewrites

[ninawolv3rina]

I'm incapable of drawing anything but them rn

[ohcorny]

hey corny. so i always see people recommending to outline their story before starting it, but could you talk a little bit more about what that means? what is an outline and how do you structure one? how long are the ones you write, depending on the project? do you focus on plot beats or feelings? how specific do you get? can u recommend any readings for learning more?

up front i don't have any resources for this, only experience. and outlines feel like one of those things where it's like... there are a million ways to do it and the way that works for me might not work for you. i have a friend who writes out all his ideas on index cards and that, for me, is insane. but he's also a better writer than me so who can say what is right or wrong.

anyway an outline is essentially a sketch but for a story. you go through the whole thing, start to finish, and figure out what goes where and what happens when. the idea is that this is the stage where you work out all the big picture stuff and make sure it all fits together, now, and not after you've drawn twenty pages and suddenly go "wait shit that doesn't work" and have to do it over. it is much easier to delete and rewrite a paragraph than to redraw several pages.

doing anything more, ie including dialogue or feelings, depends entirely on how useful that information is to you at that point in the process and whether the purpose of the outline is for your own guidance, or so somebody else can tell what you're trying to achieve.

this got really long with multiple examples

here is an excerpt from the original outline i used to pitch Hunger's Bite to publishers. this one had to be polished to a professional standard, because somebody else was going to read it and decide whether they wanted to give me thousands of dollars to tell this story. (also several of the details are no longer accurate. for instance it now takes place 9 years earlier lmao)

this paragraph represents the first eight pages of the book. the final book is 264 pages long, and the outline was 12 pages of paragraphs as dense as this one.

it establishes where we are, who's there, and what they're doing. i describe their conversation, but i don't commit to the dialogue. i will occasionally include snippets of literal dialogue, but usually only if it's Important Dialogue, or i just don't want to forget a good idea i had while outlining. it's not expected at this step.

an outline written as part of a pitch to a publisher should tell the whole story, with all the important details, and leave nothing ambiguous. they need to know the tone, shape, and the arcs. no secrets! all the spoilers. outlines for yourself should do this too, but outlines for others need to be as clear about your vision as possible. again, an outline like this exists for the purpose of getting you paid thousands of dollars. you should write it like that.

in comparison, here's an excerpt from the outline i wrote for revisions to my WIP prose novel, so i could show it to my agent (who already read the draft) to be like "do these changes sound good?" i'm not selling it to anyone yet, just making a guide so i can have a conversation about it. so it doesn't need to be neat, it just needs to be functional and clear. the first chapter was entirely new stuff. the second bit was just writing down what was already in the chapter that existed.

i have historically been very bad at outlining things when i don't think i "need" to, and only wrote this one after having written like 60k words of the book without any overall plan. i gave what i had to my agent for feedback and then sat down and figured out how i could apply it. it's made the whole revisions process significantly less daunting. now i have a checklist for things i need to do! this one was a paragraph or two for each chapter, with the ones that needed a lot of rewriting given a bit more detail.

lastly, here's a bit of the outline for the first roger crenshaw book. i was the only person who had to see this, and since the story was planned to be very short i didn't have to worry about a whole lot. as long as i knew what was supposed to go where, it would work. honestly it's not a whole lot different from the previous example.

this one was like five paragraphs and it did the job, and this story was like 15k words. you only need as much or as little as will actually help you on the page.

basically if you take nothing else from this, it's that there are multiple ways to write an outline, that it does not need to be perfect if you're doing it for yourself, and that it only needs what you think is important (unless it is for other people. then it should have everything). and also it's a good idea to do it earlier in the project than after you've written 60k words or drawn--jesus christ i got up to 12 chapters in never satisfied? it's amazing i didn't quit sooner

[dduane]

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, given the previous thing about different ways people write, but I just wanted to tell you because I'm so excited: I finished the first draft of that script! I actually finished a writing thing for the first time in over a decade! I've never attempted to write a script before, and now I've finished my first first draft. My friend said that's a big deal, and it makes writing other scripts much easier when you finish your first. Is that what you've found?

Oh apparently I have a few more questions, sorry: The first time you finished a project, and you knew you were on literally the last few paragraphs or scene, or what have you, how did that feel for you? And when you were done, did you initially love writing, or did you debate ever writing again? Did you start working on something right away, or did you break for a little bit?

Sorry, I'm just so excited and proud of myself right now, and wondering what feelings might come next. I haven't been this proud of myself in I don't know how long. I mean, I know I have to finalize it, and even still, I know I'll never be able to get it made. However, for right now, I'm proud of myself! I'll probably go back to being sad I'll never get it made tomorrow though, which sucks, but it's a good night right now!

I hope you're doing well today! Sorry for the bombardment of questions.

First of all: congratulations! You've got every right to be excited. Screenwriting isn't easy or simple even at the best of times. Doing it well requires that you write in ways that can seem really counterintuitive when compared to working in prose. And it's always, ALWAYS a big deal when by completing something you break a long creative dry spell. So GOOD ON YOU! You got the job done. :)

(And now, of course, comes rewrite. The brain—yours, or someone else's—always has notes. But I'm sure you knew that.)

While I know how it is to be relieved on finishing a first script, my weird work history makes me kind of an outlier when it comes to discussing this. I went with unexpected speed from "I'm Just A First-Time Novelist, What Do I Know?" to "I'm Just A First-Time Screenwriter, What Do—WAIT WHAT??". Because the man who was soon to be my story editor on Scooby and Scrappy-Doo walked in the door one evening, having just read The Door Into Fire, and said, "Would you be interested in writing cartoons?"

It was kind of a surprising career development, but I quickly learned at that point in my life that when the Universe turns up on your doorstep with the Moon on a silver platter, you don't tell it to try next door: you say "Wait right there and I'll get a knife and fork." In the space of a given month of being walked around Hanna-Barbera for the first time, I turned in my first animation script... and then sagged in my chair on getting the phone call when my story editors told me, "That's a strong start. Now we have some notes." And all I could do was collapse with relief that I had not fucked it up.

However, this situation also left me in no position where I'd be able to debate ever writing a screenplay again... because suddenly there were a couple of very intent guys telling me "Okay, new story premise coming over to you, we need the outline by next Thursday and the script the Thursday after, you okay with that?"

(Are you kidding me? I thought. Let me get the knife and fork!)

So as I said, I'm really an outlier in this regard. The next three years of my life pretty much went as above, as Tom Swale and Duane Poole (great Thoth rest both their gentle souls) took me with them from one show to another, and kept me busy. (Thereby financing the writing of So You Want To Be A Wizard and The Wounded Sky and assorted other work.) But there's no question that each time you finish a script, each time you type FADE TO BLACK, you feel better about the whole enterprise. It doesn't precisely get easier. But it gets more familiar. And that helps. (If I have to be locked in a haunted house, I'd sooner it was one I'd played in when I was a kid than one I'd never been inside before...)

Anyway, again: congratulations. But also: Do not be too sure you'll never have it made. ...Granting you that "made" can look a lot of different ways in different times and places, and can shift under your feet without warning. But the world that depends on scripts can do very, very weird and unusual things without warning. Best to do your homework and be ready for them... and know where the knife and fork are.

Also, a side note: As you do more of this work you may well find that finishing a script leaves you with more energy, not less. I think this may be a lot more normal than we routinely allow ourselves to believe. It makes sense to me, from the psych-nurse end of things, that successful completion of a project allows the release of a lot of energy that you've been holding in reserve to help you cope if something went horribly wrong with the piece of work you just finished. Me, when I've felt that rush, I do a thing that C. J. Cherryh taught me: immediately roll another sheet of paper into the typewriter. ...Though these days, it'd be "open a new file." You don't necessarily have to do anything with that blank page or screen if you don't want to. But it's wise to be ready.

In any case: all the good luck to you (because sheer blind luck plays its part in this business, no matter how much we wish all our hard work counted for more)! ...And let us know how you get on.

[em-dash-press]

How to Set Writing Goals for the New Year (or Any Time)

A new year is a chance to set new goals! You creative writing skills will grow in incredible ways this year, especially if you set benchmarks for yourself.

Here are a few ways to do that.

1. Consider What’s Realistic

If you’ve never written a story before, you may not write and publish a trilogy in the next 11 months. That’s so much pressure to put on yourself! You’d have to experiment with novel writing, complete over 180,000 words, understand the publishing process, market your work, and get your stories to readers. Traditional publishing doesn’t even work that fast with experts on each writer’s team.

Everyone needs realistic goals, creative or otherwise. We’ve all set our minds on doing something that was nearly impossible and then felt terrible after not achieving it

Let’s not do that with the stories and characters we love so much!

Instead, set realistic goals. They could be things like:

I’ll write a short story in a new genre.

I’ll rewrite an older short story that I love.

I’ll start making a list of novel ideas as they come to me.

I’ll outline a novel by the end of the year.

I’ll attend a writer’s retreat this year.

I’ll read a book on the craft of writing this year.

I’ll get 10 query responses from literary agents.

I’ll get 100 reviews on my collective fanfic uploads.

I’ll get better at receiving constructive criticism from beta readers.

Put your list where you can see it, even if you only have one goal. When you see it hanging on your mirror, monitor, desktop, or phone screen every day, you’re more likely to accomplish it.

2. Make Your Goals Actionable

Let’s pick a goal—imagine you want to write a short story in a new genre. That’s a great goal, but its not actionable. You could feel the same way right up through New Year’s Eve and never accomplish it.

Instead, let’s define the goal. You could make a list that looks something like this:

I want to write a short story in a new genre. Here are my goalposts:

∙ I’ll create a story idea by the end of February. ∙ I’ll draft an outline by the end of April. ∙ I’ll finish the first draft by the end of June. ∙ I’ll finish editing the draft by the end of August. ∙ I’ll submit the story to five publications or contests by the end of December.

The general dates will be actionable goalposts you can add to your planner, calendar, or set reminders for in your phone.

You can also break those into weekly goals. Set a reminder to spend 10 minutes thinking of story ideas in your new genre each week through the end of February. After that, you could schedule 15 minutes per week to create your outline through April. Set aside 30 minutes a week to write the first draft through June, even if it’s five or 10 minutes every other day.

You’ll know how to break down your goals based on your writing routine, how your creativity flows, and what your schedule looks like.

3. Check Back In With Yourself

If you’re anything like me, your new year’s resolutions may not seem as appealing a month, six months, or a year from January. Check back in with your writing goals each month.

You can always change them if they no longer interest you!

It’s healthy to set new goals because you’re learning about yourself. Maybe your skills develop faster than you intended or your creative focus goes to another genre/project. That’s great!

Give yourself the grace to adjust your goals accordingly and you’ll experience your main goal: strengthening your writing abilities.

[finnglas]

gonna use tumblr like livejournal for a minute, just personal musings under the cut.

I'm so scattered today. I can feel my brain reaching frantically for anything it thinks will give us a little hit of dopamine to combat this horrible feeling of entering the pet-with-cancer gauntlet again. The last time I did this was in 2010 with my heart-cat, and it was fucking awful. I had nightmares for almost a year afterward where I would wake up screaming and crying from dreaming that she hadn't died after all and she'd just been slowly starving to death while I neglected her, or some other equally terrible narrative my subconscious made up out of the guilt of not being able to save her.

I'm hoping that in almost 15 years maybe my subconscious has learned some better coping methods than just torturing all of us.

It also means that I'm questioning any plans that take me away from home, or any decisions to change jobs or... Well, you probably get it. Her first appointment with the oncologist is Thursday, so we'll know more then. Feeling guilty that I have to request time off from work again right after I finally got my requested schedule, but they don't do evaluation appointments on any days I'm already off.

(Just talking out the guilt at this point.)

Anyway. I was going to talk about the projects I want to work on and how I can feel my brain fluttering around them like "maybe this would distract us." Let's see if it does.

I want to finish the final Maya & Grace story and collect them all into a little omnibus that I can do a print run of. Problems: I have to decide where I want them to go. It will also have to be a slightly longer story than the other two-and-a-half to make the collection long enough to print. I also want to revisit/rewrite "Shiver," since I felt like it wasn't ready to publish when I put it out, but I had promised a friend that we would both write Halloween stories that year and then they passed away over the summer, so I felt like I needed to keep that promise somehow. But it needs some finessing.

Night Is For Hunting needs some rewriting too. Basically what got published was my first draft. And that's how I learned that I cannot write to someone else's deadline, even with an extension. I'll have the rights for all three books back in April of next year (April? June?) and would like to celebrate by releasing the Director's Cut of NIFH so that I can get on with the business of writing Wilderness of Horrors.

I wanted to write a thoughtful blog-article type piece on the effect of economic class on my choice of narratives. I realized that I write a lot of stories about people's complicated relationships with their hometowns - wanting to leave, but also not feeling confident in where they're going. I read an advice book once that was like, "What does your character want?" and the answer to almost all of them was "To get out," and it really comes back to the fact that I write small town, working class characters as a default. And when you're from a small town in an economically depressed area, you understand from the start that there's not a bright future for you there. You can graduate high school and get a job at the 7/11 or the Piggly Wiggly and get married to one of your old classmates and have kids that you don't have the time, attention, or money to care for -- or you can leave. You can go to a bigger town with more opportunity and people you don't already know. And you might end up worse, but hey, the dice are there for you to roll. Add to that if you're queer or neurodivergent, especially in a time before the internet, and whew buddy! You've heard that all authors just write the same stories over and over? That's the one I keep writing. I guess because it's mine, in a lot of ways.

Blackthorn is languishing thanks to all the stress and stuff but it was going so well and I really want to finish writing it before I focus on the rewrite projects (there are three). But the rewrite projects are so seductive because lmao they're already written. I just have to fix them. And I'm so much better at fixing them.

All right. clawed myself out of the worst of the abyss for now.

[dutifullylazybread]

I am so in love with your story Deeply and Immovably So. I am heavily invested, I am a bit embarrassed to say that right as I found your story I was writing my own fic falling into the same theme of Tav and Rolan living in the tower together. I am currently rewriting my story to make sure I keep our stories different.

I guess I wanted to ask you a question, how did you mange to write a story all in one go? I tend to write in fragments and post my chapters one at a time. I guess If you could give me some advice on writing series and how you approach it?

Your amazing and can't wait for the chapter update on Friday!

I'm so glad you like the story!! :D. I'm honestly not worried about there being similarities between our fics. One key point for Rolan's character is establishing a home for his family after what happens in Elturel. On top of that, Tav (even a Balduran Tav) doesn't actually have a home that we can ever visit, so gravitating towards staying in the tower makes a lot of sense! So if that is a big part of your story and it would be strongly affected by you changing that part of it, don't feel like you must make those revisions. I'd rather you be happy with where you story is than worry about similarities like that. Regardless, I'm really excited to read your fic! If you'd like, please drop me a link when you begin posting! :)

As far as how I wrote the fic all out? I won't lie, I haven't really ever thought about my process, so when you asked, I sorta resembled Patrick (more below the image, I promise!):

That being said though, I can definitely share how I wrote the fic and how I am working with the story now, but my big rule with writing is that writers should do what works best for them--what works for me might not necessarily work for someone else. So if what works best for you is posting as you finish chapters, then absolutely do that. There are some extremely talented writers in the Rolan x Tav corner that do the same or something similar. If you haven't read @underdark-dreams's A Strand to Climb, @lemonsrosesandlavender's Sharp Teeth, or @graysparrowao3's What If Rolan Was A Companion? I highly recommend them (and not just these fics--the rest of their repertoires are delicious too!).

This is my tl;dr for my explanation below--I can be super long-winded (I'm sorry about that!!). Like I said, this is what works for me, but if you don't think these things jive with you, then do what you feel is best for you and your story. :)

Write the story out first. Don't edit until you have finished the fic.

If you run into a writing wall, work on a different scene and come back later.

While it's fun to add in details, a lot of that can be supplied during your editing/revisions stages. Worrying too much about this can bog you down when you're in the middle of writing.

Don't immediately jump into editing your story after finishing a chapter. Take anywhere from a few days to a week to let the draft sit before you work on it again.

Avoid burnout - take care of yourself and take brain breaks.

Here are the longer explanations:

Write the story out first. Don't edit until you have finished writing the fic.

I started writing the Rolan x Tav story as my NaNoWriMo project back in November and I kept working on it through December. For those who may not be familiar, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write 50,000 words in a month. These do not have to be good words, they just have to be words on a page. So already out of the gate, I knew that, if I wrote this fic, it might not be well-written at first, but it would be a story. I had to give myself permission to write a bad draft, basically, and that is sometimes the hardest thing in the world (I am still irked by it). If you're anything like me, the thought of not having perfection on the page during a first writing pass feels awful. BUT I do sincerely believe it is why I wrote as much as I did in two months. Because I just focused on writing and not editing. And, if I could tell I was getting close to hitting a wall, I would make a note in my manuscript to come back, and then I'd keep writing the chapter. My notes are parentheses that basically say (Add more detail here), (make scene more sexy), (Review dialogue exchange). It's really weird to write down, but when I'm writing and struggling, it honestly feels like my brain is coming up against an actual wall. Basically, I'm giving myself a headache. BUT this is my warning sign to come back later, because I'm getting too lost in the weeds and I won't be happy with the end result of whatever I force out.

2. If you run into a writing wall, work on a different scene and come back later.

The rationale for coming back and working through the wall later comes from a combination of reasons: 1) From past experience, forcing myself through a block can work, but it is the most agonizing experience ever. And it is exhausting. Writing can be exhausting, that is okay. BUT, what if I force myself through the block and then I'm unhappy with the result? For me personally, pushing against a block/wall can feed into burnout. So 2) it's better to take a break and work on a part of the story that I am excited to pursue and then revisit the wall later, because 3) if you let yourself take a brain break, you're going to come back and find that the wall isn't really a wall anymore. If anything, it's a really fun idea. You just needed to come back when the lighting was different.

3. While it's fun to add in details, a lot of that can be supplied during your editing/revisions stages. Worrying too much about this can bog you down when you're in the middle of writing.

I find that, while I am in the drafting stages, I often write at a pelt. I do my best to write the first draft well, but I write so quickly that I might not pause to ask, "So what does the setting look like exactly? What color is the sky? How does the Chionthar look at this moment? What does it smell like?" Some of those details might make it in while I'm drafting, but I think that I focus in on those during editing/revision, because that is when I let myself slow down and focus on the details.

4. Don't immediately jump into editing your story after finishing a chapter. Take anywhere from a few days to a week to let the draft sit before you work on it again.

Due to how I wrote this fic, I didn't actually revisit a lot of these chapters until about a month or two later. And that has led to a combination of "Hey, this isn't too bad," to "What were you thinking??" BUT, I do sit quite firmly in the camp that taking a few days to just breathe and not immediately jumping into editing helped give me a fresh perspective. When we spend so much time working on our stories, it goes without saying that we are very close to what we are working on, and sometimes that can work against us. SO, putting some distance between yourself and the chapter in question can help you identify what needs to be cleaned up/revised when you return to it.

5. Avoid burnout - take care of yourself and take brain breaks.

In my experience, one thing that stopped me from working on long fics was burnout. For previous fanfic projects I tried to work on, all of my free time would be poured into writing, and not a lot of it would be used to relax. I would work on these stories nonstop. I would argue that this is probably why several long-form fanfictions don't get finished by several writers (and that's not even considering how school, work, and family obligations might also take a toll on your energy). The last thing you want is to feel apathetic or frustrated over the thought of working on your story, so taking the time to relax and take care of yourself. While I think having a writing habit is extremely helpful, I also think taking an evening to just relax once a week is just as nice. Typically, I start writing around 7 pm every night, and I'll wrap up around 10:30 pm - 11:00 pm. BUT, I don't do any intense work on Mondays (since that is D&D night in my house).

I hope that this helps! But again, do what you think is best for you. I'm super excited to read your fic!!! :D

[futbolfanficpunk]

The Barcelona call

 Player: Eric García Word count: 1970+ Summary: Eric gets a call while at an away game with Man City from his agent, if he says yes to his agent, it will change everything for his future and yours. Warnings: Angst, fluff, slight smut. Author's note: This took me various drafts and rewrites because it's the first one I write with a bit of smut in it, hope you like it. -----------------------------------------------------------

It was late in the spring and it was starting to get a bit warmer. Eric and y/n have been dating for a few months now. He was away in London playing against West Ham. You talk every day, even if you only see each other an average of two days a week right now. Man City is playing in the Champions League, Caribou, and the Premier, so, that means, you could barely see each other in person but you video call constantly. You even came up with a fun idea of watching movies or series at the same time wherever you are and texting each other while you both watch it, just so you could feel like you’re spending time together.   

      That night, after the 1-2 victory over the London side, Eric called you when he got to the hotel. You were already in bed, getting some reading done for one of the classes at uni. You click the green facetime button. 

“Bona nit, Eric” you said when you saw him on your screen wearing black thick frames, trying to impress him with one of the three Catalan phrases you know

“Bona nit, Y/N” Eric said while smiling “Did I wake you up?”

“No, I’m in bed reading something for tomorrow’s class but I saw a bit of the game, though, you guys did well” you responded

“Yea, we did. No minutes today but hopefully some soon” Eric said while fixing his glasses

“Oh, I’m sure!” you said trying your best to be supportive “you’re the youngest defender, it’s normal, right?”

“Yea, exactly” he replied “but, anyway, I wanted to ask you if we can get together tomorrow night, if you’re not busy with school.”

“I have some things to do for a class, but I can take care of it and we can meet up, not a problem. I want to see you, I miss your face, so much!” you said raising your voice in excitement. You really were craving to hold him and have his scent nearby when you’re close. You had fallen hard for Eric. Every time you met in person, you felt like fireworks were going off around you, you talked and laughed, and couldn’t keep your hands off each other. You were always looking forward to seeing him, hearing his cute Spanish sounding Catalan accent in person and taking off his thick nerdy glasses to make out with him. You made out everywhere there wasn’t a lot of people, and made love constantly. The chemistry was undeniable. 

“Great! And I miss you too, baby! We’ll fly first thing in the morning, go in for a recovery training, and then I will go home. I want you to come over to my flat, I have some big news that I want to share” he finished saying as he was grinning.

“Big news? Can’t you tell me now, please?” you pleaded

“I could, but I want to tell you in person, it’s important” 

 “Oh, is it something bad or…?” 

“No, it’s good.I think you will think it’s great.”

“Hope so!”

“I’m going to let you finish your work. I’m going to sleep, ok? Long day”

“Okay, sleep well, love”

“Good night, baby” he said as he blew a kiss for the camera, you blew one back.

“Night” you said as you waved to him through the video camera and he hung up.

What could it be? It made you anxious to know. Hopefully it was the news of a renewal, or a new contract with better salary or that his parents are moving to the UK. You had no idea.

You arrived at Eric’s apartment all dolled up in a dress, smelling of a soft perfume and subtle makeup. You let your hair down because you knew Eric loved to touch it and run his fingers through it when you were near each other. You rang the doorbell, and Eric immediately opened the door, you both said hello, he gave you a quick kiss, and let you in. Once in, he took your jacket off, and hung it for you, like a perfect gentleman, he turned around to face you and gave you a soft and small kiss that lingered on for a few moments as you felt your body melt with tenderness. When you opened your eyes as he pulled back, you smiled, he squeezed your arm and said  “I’ve missed you”. 

“And I’ve missed you” you replied. 

He had wine and tapas on his small dinner table waiting for you both, he took your hand and guided you to it, signaling for you to sit as he tells you to do ahead, to eat and drink because he made it for you. He pulls your chair closer to his before you sit down, and pats it so you'll sit.

“So, how’s uni?” he asked while sitting down and reaching to grab some of the tapas “It’s fine, but, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” you asked, while sipping a bit of wine, you were desperate to know and couldn’t do any more small talk. “The big news?”

“Yes, Eric, the big news, Can you just tell me? It’s driving me crazy” you said, truly feeling anxious. “Ok, so,” replied Eric“ my agent called me last night and told me Barcelona wants to sign me!”

“Oh! WOW! Fc Barcelona? That’s huge! Congrats” you said as you clapped with excitement

“Yes, I’m so happy! Of course, I told him to make the move happen. I’m going back home this summer, playing for the best club in the world!”

“Oh!” 

Your heart sank. Barcelona, this summer? You thought. How is that supposed to work out? You were so excited for Eric you hadn’t thought about the fact that he would not be around anymore. Your relationship was going well and you had fallen for each other but it wasn’t a super serious one yet, certainly not a moving in together in another country serious. You felt flustered and hot, your heart was racing and your chest was burning. You drank the rest of your wine. Eric was staring at you, noticing how your body language changed and how fast you were drinking while you were lacking a vocal response. He had some wine too. 

“Hey,” Eric said as he traced your jaw line with his finger “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…I’m thinking…that I’m going to miss you a lot. And that I’m happy for you. I know it was your dream growing up, playing in the Barça academy, to play for the first team,” you said as you refilled your wine glass and then raised it “so, cheers, darling!’ and you drank half your glass in one gulp. You wanted to cry.

“Miss me?” asked Eric as he pulled you in and gave you a kiss on the cheek “Why would you miss me if you’re in Barcelona too?”

“What are you talking about? I’m working in the summer, I can’t go on vacation to Barcelona with you, I can’t afford it, plus what is the point of it? We’re going to be so far away from each other afterward, it’s not going to work, is it?” you felt like you might burst into tears

“Y/N. I’ve been thinking about this since I hung up with my agent. I’m going to Barcelona and I want you to come too. I love you and I need you to come. And not just the summer, I mean, permanently. I really thought about it, kept me up last night, and it’s fine if we both agree that moving in together right now is a little much but I’ll get you your own place, your own apartment. No pressure.  I’ll get my family to help us with the whole university situation, to get you transferred. You can get a part-time job, or focus on studying, you don’t have to worry about money. Whatever you want. I’ll help you. I just want you to know that I’m not leaving you here, in Manchester. There’s no chance of that happening. I don’t want us to be apart more than we already have to. I’m not letting you go” said Eric in a rant, he sighed and asked, “ Is that okay?”

“Are you serious?” you asked back, in shock

“Totalment, amor meu” said Eric “ Playing for Barcelona, I will be able to afford it and I’m not taking no for an answer”  

“This is a lot to process” 

“I know, I’ve been thinking about this all day, but, Do you love me?”

“You know I do, Eric” 

“Then, that’s all we need. We’ll make it work. Please, say yes” he begged as put a strand of your hair behind your ear.

You felt so overwhelmed by everything that had been said but you couldn’t deny that you were head over heels for Eric, you wanted to be with him, plus he just said one of the most romantic things you’ve ever heard. Although you were skeptical about how everything was going to work you couldn’t find a reason to say no, you were in love, it made you hopeful and you felt you could trust him. “Okay,” you said as you shrugged “Let’s try it!” as a small giggle came out.

He kissed you right away, and said “Good! I was scared you might said no” as he put his lips on yours again “I’m so relieved” “I was afraid we were breaking up there for a second, I’m glad that didn’t happen ” you said putting your hands on your cheeks, blushing.

“That’s never happening. Come here!” he said and he pulled your body towards his, making you sit on top of him as you were facing him. You embraced each other in a kiss, he slowly deepened the kiss and slipped his tongue in your mouth with palpable desire. You responded with as much passion to kiss him back, then paused to kiss his face and neck, you let your lower lip feel his neck all the way up to his chin where you gave him a lick. He chuckled. You took off his glasses and went back to kiss him some more. You wanted him, you put your hands around his neck while he hung onto your waist. He had been thinking, fantasizing about being with you all week and he let it be known. “I couldn’t wait to get back,” he said as he put his hands underneath your dress to touch your ass, “I want you,Y/N, you have no idea”. He pulled you closer to him, making your legs spread wider. You grind on top of him while you kissed him, as you felt your hips crave for him, you could feel him growing under his pants. You softly moaned in his mouth while your tongue danced around with his, you pulled away to respond “Me too, all the time” catching your breath. Your heart now was quite agitated, you were quite turned on. “Let’s take this to the bedroom, yea?” he asked while kissing the cleavage your dress offered. “Si us plau” you responded while looking at that beautiful dark hair man kiss your tits, you remembered how to say please in Catalan. He looked up “Speaking Catalan already, beu? Maybe this move won’t be so hard”

You stood up, took off your dress, smiled, and walked towards the bedroom in your underwear saying a flirty “Maybe”

He smiled and followed you saying “ I can’t wait to fuck you when we’re there too” 

[zeawesomebirdie]

hi !!!! did NOT consider you might like to have the ask again to answer it. if you do:

seeing you post about your old west au is motivating me to at least draft my stuff out for my fic, too!!! so, firstly: good god thank you. secondly, what kind of drafting process do you normally go through? you don't have to answer this but everyone i know is pretty particular about how they write so i'm always curious!!!

Gosh okay I'm still so embarrassed about accidentally posting this before it was ready!! Lesson learned: only work on long posts on desktop (very affectionate). I'm going to copy paste what I had originally said, but there will be added stuff because it wasn't anywhere near ready to go (if you thought it was long before, honey you ain't seen nothing yet!)

Also I still am so proud of you for working on your fic, we are writing buddies now hand in lovable hand I love you thank you for enabling my rambling <33

Buckle in, here we go!

SO! My drafting process is always a moving target. I do what works best for the work in question, and things change depending on my energy and fatigue levels plus my motivation and interest levels

So that said, right now my process usually looks like:

ramble at someone in DMs, copy and paste rambles into a google doc for safekeeping and marinating

zero draft, aka word vomit until a plot forms, block out actions and the occasional dialog, determine chapter and story arcs

first draft, aka Where The Real Writing Happens

optional second draft, but only if the fic is under 10k

line edits

post :)

find a bunch of typos that I somehow missed during line editing, fix those before anyone notices

I will be showing examples because this is a bit hard to explain and Extremely Intense to a lot of people, and yeah that's because it is! I approach writing fanfic the same way I approach writing original fiction, and I find it works best for me as a plotter

If you are metaphorically inclined and familiar with oil painting: I write the way an oil painter paints. First I block in the big shapes, the gestures, and the colours. Then I come back in subsequent drafts and increase the detail until I'm done!

Further information and actual examples of my drafts will be below the cut, because this is gonna be super long and I love talking shop ^.^

And general content warning for non-graphic violence and graphic smut (and shitty early drafts); the examples are from Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson fics

So before we get into the zero draft, I want to point out two things: first, I do full rewrites. This is why writing takes me one million years. I retype each and every word in each and every draft. Second, I'm actually trying something new with the Old West!AU, for reasons I will explain in a moment!

I started doing full rewrites in 2019 after a college writing course, in which we read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott; she encourages the reader to embrace the shitty first draft. I ended up really benefiting from a zero draft too, something I first learned about in 2020 from someone on authortube who I no longer remember the name of. The zero draft is essentially a pre-draft, in which one gets the gist of the story out of their system before the prose clogs up the spigot

For me, zero drafts are something that need to be finished as fast as possible in order to get done at all, so due to the sheer length of the Old West!AU, I'm trying out writing little bullet points instead of my full zero drafting. Right now this fic is at 27 chapters, and this is part 1 of 3 total. I will be going back and filling in the actual blocking once I have all the scenes roughly accounted for

Context for the Old West!AU: Bruce is the Bat, a vigilante gunman who only kills when he needs to but still has the fastest draw on this side of the Mississippi. Now that he's taken care of the man who killed his parents, he's returned home to his Uncle Alfred and gone straight, meaning that he's hung up his guns and gone back to homesteading the family land. He adopts Dick and then a year later Jason as well, when small burglaries start happening in town, so he takes the Bat out of retirement and goes to investigate.

My bullet points started out like this:

Open on comparison between Bruce's first gun and the Bat's guns. Introduce Joe Chill, general drunkard. The Bat calls out Chill, shootout, Chill is killed. Chill drew first. Moment of reflection between Bruce's first gunfight at 15 to this one, at 21. Bruce goes home.

And that's the whole entire first chapter!

However, now they look more like:

The Sheriff runs up and shoots at him. The Bat has him disarmed with his own gun barrel to his throat in an instant. It doesn't take the Bat much time to get info out of him either. The burglar is only going after small change, not enough to be noticeable. That rules out the gambler, easily. The Sheriff can't do shit about it, because no one is willing to start an investigation for such small change. The Bat shoves the Sheriff to his knees and is gone before he notices. Alfred is waiting for him when he gets home, and asks. Bruce tries to deny it, but the clothes are in his hands and he can't. So he sighs and says he may have made a promise, but… there might be more to this than there seems, okay? He just… has a bad feeling about it. Alfred can't accept this, what about his sons? Bruce can't take this, and tells him he doesn't have to. Their yelling wakes up Dick and Jason, who stand in the doorway to their bedroom and look on with the door mostly closed.

Eventually both Alfred and Bruce yell each other out, and they sit down for coffee as dawn breaks. Bruce breaks the silence first, saying Alfred is right. Alfred tells him he understands. Bruce decides to let the Bat go for real now.

This is about half of the chapter, and closer to the blocking I normally do in zero drafts

So far this pre-zero draft seems to be working, given I've already finished part 1, but I also can't wait to come back and do the blocking in because that's when the fic really starts to take shape!

Usually though, I just start with a zero draft. I'm going to show you two different fics for the zero draft examples, because they were done differently, and like I said at the beginning, I try to adjust my process based on what is called for by what I'm writing

This first is from the fic I'm writing for @ful-crum. It's a 5+1, in which it is five times Dick fucks Bruce to distract him from discussing his emotions plus one time they actually discuss their emotions and then fuck about it.

Tim and Jason turn up an hour later, and they're incredibly concerned. Dick waves them off. Tim takes him at his word and heads to bed (he has a meeting with Wayne Tech at 8am tomorrow, ugh), but Jason sits down next to the bed and asks Dick what he thinks Bruce is going to say. Dick tells him he's not sure, I mean, it's B, y'know? Jason just nods, and they lapse into silence. Then Steph and Cass come in, and Bruce is most noticeably not present. Cass signs something about bed, and Steph tells Dick that she's worried about Bruce, to which Jason snorts and says they all are, but she insists that Dick talk to him. Dick doesn't even need to take more than a moment to decide that won't be happening. But Steph goes to bed, and it's nearly 04:00 when Jason heads up too, saying he'd love to help Dick lecture Bruce about staying out late but he's got stuff to do tomorrow. Dick asks if he wants to know what stuff, and Jason gives him a smirk and says ask him no questions and he'll tell him no lies. Dick can live with that.

As you can see, this is just general staging directions and vibes

This second example was supposed to be for BruDick Week 2024, but I accidentally got carried away and ended up deciding to write a longfic for it instead. The prompt was "brudick meet their AU!selves," so I did 66!brudick meets the Gotham Rogues Polycule, an AU in which Bruce, Dick, and Clark are in a very elaborate polycule with half of Gotham's villains.

Batman and Robin were on a normal mission in the middle of the day, on the trail of Catwoman, who's been stealing from the Gotham Museum of Art again. One moment they were walking into the museum, the next they were in a weird swirl of energy. Robin clings to Batman and asks what's going on, and Batman tells him steady Robin, we just have to stay calm and see what happens. The energy clears as someone calls out “incoming! Clear the floor!” and they find themselves in what is clearly the Cave, except it's even more high tech than anything they've ever seen. There's three people in suits like theirs standing in front of a massive screen, and Robin identifies the Riddler immediately, even if he doesn't recognise the other two. Before Batman can stop him, he charges the Riddler, who jumps behind the man in black and blue with a laugh. Batman does call out for him to stop, but he ignores him. The man in black and blue meets his every move, almost like he's fighting himself, and he calls out to the man in red and blue “a little help here, Supes?”

The biggest difference here is how drastically these fics changed from their zero draft to the first draft rendition, and that is entirely because of how fleshed out they ended up being (or not being, lol)

When I zero drafted the 5+1, it was with the intention of that specific part simply being a chapter, whereas my original zero draft of the 66! meeting the polycule! fic was actually intended to be a two shot at most. I unfortunately lost control of the plot during the first draft of that one, and it spiraled into a longfic, which will become more clear in a bit!

Basically though, the goal of the zero draft is to know who's where and why at all times! With longfics, there is often a restructuring that happens after the zero draft is written, where I move scenes and sometimes whole chapters to their best locations. This is where I make the most use out of a beta! Pacing is a big struggle for me and it is easier to fix at this stage, before I have all the prose and have become attached to what I've written

Next up is the first draft, and this is a whole new document. This is where I write The Actual Words. This is more or less the final version of the fic, for longfics, give or take a few paragraphs and a shit ton of line edits. Having said that though, I write in fits and bursts, because y'know disabled and stuff. So I write a paragraph or two at a time, and I am constantly adding and subtracting words and lines and sometimes whole paragraphs while I am actively working on a chapter

I'm going to show the first draft versions of both of the above fics, and due to the length these will be extremely excerpted but they should serve as examples regardless. Generally speaking, my zero drafts are about 1/3 of the length of my finished fics, however the 5+1 is currently proving to be an exception so that number may not be super accurate

First, the 5+1:

“You did take care of them, right?” Dick asked, groaning when Jason’s mouth thinned as he looked away. “Is Steph at least still with him?” “Last I heard, they were—” Jason started, cutting himself off when the Cave’s alarm signaled the arrival of newcomers. A moment later, two muddy bikes roared into the garage, leaving dark tracks behind them as they parked haphazardly together on the far side of the garage. With the return of Black Bat and Spoiler, the only empty place on the garage floor now belonged to Batman himself. Dick tried to catch Jason’s eyes as they waited in the med bay for Cass and Steph to strip off their suits and join them, but Jason turned away from him, though he didn’t rise from the bed. Something must have gone down after he’d fallen unconscious, Dick was sure of it. Why else would Bruce have sent everyone else home early on a patrol night? He could already see it in his mind’s eye, Batman doing God-knew-what out in Gotham alone, Bruce coming home with a busted lip that Dick would have to personally clean up before they went to bed, how that lip would scab over and feel under his tongue when he kissed Bruce the next morning after waking up in their bed—Bruce’s bed—on accident. How that scab would stretch when the ghost of a smile caught Bruce by surprise after one of Dick’s terrible puns. “You okay?” Steph called across the Cave as she and Cass walked toward the med bay. “Never been better,” Dick replied, trying not to be put out at Jason’s eye roll. He put up a hand for Cass to inspect when she came up to his bedside, and after she had nodded her satisfaction of his health he smiled. “I’ll be right as rain in no time.”

And the 66! meets polycule! fic:

“You!” Robin shouted, not waiting for Batman to back him up as he charged toward the Riddler. Riddler didn't move—in fact, none of the three moved—then Robin was on him, punching his face hard enough to hear a distinct crack. That startled all three into action, Riddler swearing up a storm before throwing himself behind the blue masked man, who blocked Robin's next hits without hesitation. “Robin!” Batman called from somewhere behind him, but Robin ignored him, focusing his energy on striking past the masked man's defenses to get at Riddler. “I know you're behind this, you– you scum!” Robin snarled in Riddler's direction, placing a perfectly timed jab toward the masked man's left cheek and then feinting to the right. But the man met him easily, as though they were merely sparring. “I'm not who you think I am!” Riddler exclaimed, his hands cupping his face but doing little to staunch the blood streaming from his nose. “Let's slow down for a minute, okay?” the masked man said, his voice maddeningly level as if Robin wasn't trying every trick he knew to get past him. “We can explain.” “Yeah kid, there's a good explanation here, we promise,” Riddler added. Robin growled and spun around the  masked man's reach only to find him once again directly blocking him from Riddler. How in the dickens did he know exactly where Robin was going to strike before Robin himself knew? And why on earth was he protecting the Riddler? “Supes, we could use a hand here,” the masked man said, still obnoxiously calm, once again blocking Robin's fist and this time circling his hand around Robin's wrist to twist his arm behind his back. In a blink, Robin was lifted into the air by his collar, the blue and red suited man holding him at arm's length. Robin continued to struggle for a moment, but finally Batman came into view, frowning up at him. Seeing Batman's disapproval took every bit of wind from Robin's sails, and he deflated instantly. If Batman didn't think he needed to fight, then he probably didn't need to.

So as you can see, I just kinda fill in the details with each draft!

Which is where we come to the optional second draft. I try, I really do try, to do a full second draft of everything I write. I always am glad to have done one, once it's done. The problem is, I really do have very limited energy, and anything longer than a chapter or two just doesn't get finished if I try to give it a full second draft. I've instead been doing really vigorous line edits, which I don't have an examples of because those are done in the same document as the first draft!

Now, you're probably wondering why on earth I gave a smut content warning at the beginning of this post. WELL.

I am calling myself out as a newbie when it comes to the art of smut writing. My 5+1 fic, the one where literally every single part has extremely explicit smut, has the following in the zero draft:

Yes, that is not one, not two, but three "cue smuts." Clearly I was new at this (affectionate)

Shout out to past!me for this in the last part though, because at least it actually has some semblance of blocking even if it is still extremely lacking:

The kissing escalates (as it often does) to smut over the desk (though Dick does try to move the documents out of the way, even if Bruce is growling at him to leave it alone; he doesn't want to be the reason Tim has another caffeine-induced breakdown).

I didn't figure this out until I was actually writing this fic, but it turns out I not only need to block in regular action scenes, I also need to block in the smut, because otherwise I will be sitting there having no fucking clue what to write (very affectionate)

So I now present what a zero draft of smut looks like! This is from a 5+1 in which there are five times Bruce and Dick fuck because of Poison Ivy's sex pollen and it "doesn't mean anything," plus one time they fuck because they actually want to:

Dick asks if they can take off their suits, it's too hot he's too hot, and Bruce says okay, that's a good idea, and internally he's panicking because oh no. Oh no. But the moment the words are out he sees the relief in Dick's face, and realises Dick needs to be told what to do right now, so he tells him clearly to strip, it'll help. Once Dick is fully naked in the other seat, he turns to Bruce and asks if he needs help with his armor. His hand is tentatively, almost shyly stroking his cock, and Bruce is really struggling to not watch. He tells him no, he doesn't, and takes off the chest plate and arm armor, but leaves what's left of his leg armor on. He decides he can safely put his hand under his boxers, but Dick makes a little noise, and when he looks over he can clearly see Dick watching him stroke himself. Oh fuck. He's cumming before he even realises it, his boxers getting wet and sticky and his cock still so maddeningly hard and he strokes himself through it, unable to stop himself from moaning even as he tries to keep himself in a clinical mindset. Dick asks to see him, and Bruce, despite knowing what a bad, horrible idea this is, pulls down his boxers to reveal his cock. Dick shifts his hand on his own cock to mimic what Bruce is doing, and Bruce has the horrible realisation that he doesn't even really know how to jerk himself off. Dear God, hopefully Alfred stays the fuck out of the Cave tonight.

So it's really just more of the same general blocking directions and vibes!

Another thing of note for zero drafts, I try to use as few words as possible to get what I need across. These are only ever intended to be seen by myself and a beta, assuming anyone else besides me even sees them at all, so I use slang and shorthand and leave notes for myself in the text itself

This can be a bit weird for when I show it to betas (or anyone else, for that matter!) because there are some fics where the tone or the vocabulary in the zero is incredibly modern despite the fic being in a historical or pre-modern setting!

And I have yet to actually write the first draft of that one, so I'm going to give you the first draft of the "Cue more smut (but this time against the batmobile 😌)" scene so that you can see the difference between the blocking and an Actual Scene:

Bruce had turned his back to him, bracing himself against the batmobile, and Dick took hold of Bruce's hip to hold him steady when he slid a finger into his hole. A soft moan was all he got in verbal response, but Bruce pushed against Dick's finger despite Dick's best efforts to do this slowly. Chuckling under his breath, Dick slid in a second finger, relishing in the clench of Bruce's muscle as he began working him open. “Easy, B,” he said softly, leaning over him enough to move his hand from Bruce's hip to his cock. Bruce growled and arched into his touch, taking in Dick's fingers completely. “Someone's in a rush tonight, huh?” He didn't get a verbal response, not that he ever did. Bruce rarely spoke while full, relying instead on nonverbal communication to indicate his needs. It hadn't taken long for Dick to become acquainted with his movements back when they started this; after all, fucking was no different from fighting, not for them, not when they had flown side by side across Gotham for more than half of Dick's life. And Dick knew Bruce would always try to get him to rush just a little, knew he'd give in like he always did, wanting to have his cock inside Bruce as soon as physically possible just as much as Bruce did. He wasted no more time, sliding his fingers out and releasing Bruce's cock just long enough to slick up his own. The small whine from Bruce at the loss of contact ought to be ignored, ought not be acknowledged, and Dick knew that, but he couldn't resist leaning over to kiss the small of Bruce's back. Bruce huffed at him, glaring over his shoulder. Dick met his eyes with a grin. Then Dick gripped Bruce's hip again, holding him steady while Bruce leaned back to meet him, and slipped into his tight heat. There was a soft moan from Bruce the moment he bottomed out; Dick leaned forward again to kiss up his spine, keeping his cock buried deep even while Bruce began to rock back into him.

I do think the fic for @ful-crum would be easier if I had proper blocking for the smut, but also I do love a good challenge and you live and you learn, so I'm not super invested in going back and blocking in the smut at this point in time!

And honestly, once the line edits are done that's pretty much it!

I keep a little "posting info" doc for each and every fic I write, to which I add tags as I come to them in writing, so that I don't have to think about what needs to be tagged at the end after I've already forgotten what I've written. That has saved my butt so many times ngl, especially for longfics!

But really what keeps me from posting more often, despite how much I write, is that I fully finish fics before I post them, even if I'm posting them on a weekly or whatever basis. This is mostly because I can't guarantee when I'll need to randomly take several months off of writing, and I don't want to leave anything unfinished, but also because I don't want to actually end up leaving something unfinished for a few years until I cycle back into the fandom

And that's it!! Thanks for tuning in to this little master class :) If I can clarify anything please let me know; I tried to explain everything that I thought needed it but I can never tell what others will need more clarification on!!

And also, thanks again for asking this!! I don't know many people who do full drafts, or even many people who don't completely pants everything they write, and so I'm always excited to discuss my process!! I also am a firm believer in "take what helps and leave the rest," so if you find something in my process that sounds like something you'd like to do, give it a whirl!! I think it's super important to share the different kinds of processes there can be for writing, because everyone really writes so differently, you know?

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed my shitty early drafts (very affectionate)!!

[asteria7fics]

pookieee i'm trying to write a fanfic but holy shit- i can not get my first sentence or paragraphs right!! how did u start ur fic? like what process did u use? -idk man- I've been harassing ur inbox for a bit <(￣ ﹌ ￣)>

Hellooo!!

You are not alone, dear goober. The beginning of any project is hands down the hardest part to write!

We want that opening line to be ~perfect~, but holding ourselves to that kind of standard can really hinder our creative process!

Truthfully, the first chapter of TSOB was pretty much forced out of me. I had plans to write with a friend the following day, but I knew if I waited to actually start the thing while out with them I wouldn’t actually get much done.

SO, that night, I asked myself a couple of questions:

What is the inciting incident of my story?

How do I get there efficiently?

My favorite rule is to have the beginning of your story start as/just before something important happens. That’s especially convenient in fanficition, when there’s little necessity for lengthy world introductions. If someone is reading your story they’re probably already pretty familiar with the world, so you can use a lot more shorthand to get to the good stuff quicker.

So for TSOB I settled on starting when Heidi takes Butters (i.e. Paris taking Helen. Let me know if you guys want a full breakdown of character/event correlations to the original text!) because that’s really the inciting incident of the whole story. Without Butters being taken by Heidi, the war would never even happen in the first place.

Beyond that, I had a list of events that I knew needed to take place. I had an easier job because I really didn’t have to come up with most of these events, just had to figure out how to change them to fit into the show’s universe/characters behaviors. I really, really do recommend outlining though, at least a little bit. Having your ideas laid out in front of you is so helpful in the long run, and it’s helped me see plot holes and contradictions before writing myself into a hole!

But that’s a little beyond what you’re asking. My real, best piece of advice?

Just write the thing.

Put words down on paper. Any words. The great thing about writing is that the rough draft never has to be the final one. Editing and rewrites are your best friend! Do not expect perfection out of every line the first time they go from fingertip to page. I edit my work a ton, usually multiple times over! Once after the whole thing is finished, again as my betas are reading it, and then again right before I post a chapter. Perfectionism can be useful in moderation, but you can’t let it control you.

Besides, it’s just fanfiction! Embrace imperfection, that’s what makes this medium so fun!

I hope this was at least a little bit helpful! Thank you for the ask, I love talking about this stuff!

Happy writing, anon! (´⌣`ʃƪ)

[skarlette1]

Making It Tick: Vivacious Voice

I promised a bit of “behind the scenes” for Libido League #14: Vivacious Voice, so we’ll start out with non-spoiler bits for those who haven’t read it yet. I’ll clearly label where spoilers begin. If you wanna skip the “inside baseball” about my real-life writing process and just discuss fictional plot and character stuff, scroll right on down to the “SPOILER” section.

To anyone expecting that the next novella-length Libido League e-book was going to feature Mnemonica and Lashlust, I say this: So was I! I have the rough draft of that novella done, but it is very, very rough. It needs a LOT of editing. It will get there, but it’s going to take some time. Hopefully, you’ll see it in the first half of 2024.

So, after I posted the penultimate chapter of Pearl Girls in mid-November, I looked at the calendar, the state of the Mnemonica/Lashlust novella, and realized that I wouldn’t be able to give it the editing it deserved before the end of the year. That meant that 2023 would be the first year I published NO new e-books! I didn’t want that to happen!

So, I got creative.

Ever since I published the first version of “Quid Pro Quo” here on the blog back in June, I’ve been wondering about the next meeting of Platinum Panther and Allie Kaza’am. I’d already written a little bit of Penelope tracking down her father’s car, to relax between larger projects. It was shaping up to be pretty hot. Maybe I could finish that before the end of the year?

However, when I offer an e-book for sale, I do my best to ensure it’s a complete story. Even when it says “#14” on the cover, I want a reader to be able to pick up just that e-book and understand the characters and situation well enough to enjoy the story. That meant that the new story couldn’t stand on its own, it needed both “Quid Pro Quo” and “Horny New Year” in the same e-book.

Easy-peasy, right? It’s just copy-and-paste, right?

Not quite! “Quid Pro Quo” featured Flechette and was kind of a sequel to her previous run-ins with Allie Kaza’am in “Ambushed” and “Prove Me Wrong.” So they needed to go in, as well. But those flash fictions were originally written in the 3rd person point-of-view. All my e-books are told from a 1st person POV. It’s kinda my style at this point. Rewriting them from 3rd to 1st person POV couldn’t take that long, could it?

It could! Particularly when I hadn’t finished writing the new “Vivacious Voice” story yet! Plus, rewriting Flechette’s chapters into 1st person revealed that there was a missing piece to her story, so I also had to write “Missing Time”! The whole time I was wondering if having two different 1st person POV narrators in the same novella would be too distracting for readers. What do you think? I’m considering using it again in future projects and would love some feedback.

I hope you’re beginning to see why I posted no new stories on the blog in December! But, I finished all that writing and formatting (plus three possible covers that you helped me choose the best of) and managed to hit “publish” before the end of the year! Yay!

But enough about me. Let’s chat about our girls, both good and bad.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE

Flechette: Let’s start with the new girl on the block. Although she’s shown up in my flash fiction since the very early days, and the character’s “secret origin” is kinda the first story I ever posted to the EMCSA, she’s never featured in an e-book before. Part of that is that I’ve never been at a loss for characters, but part of that is that I didn’t quite understand her well enough. I think I do now.

We all understand the trope Flechette is built off of, right? Every A-list superhero team needs to have an archer, right? Even though it’s patently absurd that when you’re facing opposition that can crush tanks like candy wrappers and shrug off grenades, the person you most want on your team is armed only with a bow-and-arrow, right?

Right!

So just building out from the stereotype, we know that Flechette needs to be both stunningly talented and tirelessly dedicated. With no superpowers, how else is she going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Doctor Q and Captain Alpha? It takes a special kind of crazy to do what she does. The messed up lives of Clint Barton, Oliver Queen, Kate Bishop, and Roy Harper can attest to that.

Rewriting her previous flashes from Flechette’s POV, I really found her no-nonsense dedication to the job coming to the forefront. The bit that really unlocked her character for me is when Platinum Panther is telling Flechette why she’s the most qualified for this mission and Flechette just cuts her off her flattery by acknowledging that she’s the least dangerous person on the team if she succumbs to Allie Kaza’am’s voice and then compliments her on the strategy. She’s got no ego to bruise here. Flechette is driven to be her best self every day, but doesn’t need to be better than anyone else to do it. She just needs to be better than she was yesterday. That’s the thing that drives her to put in all the hours at the gym and on the archery range (and never skip leg day).

It’s also the thing that makes her frustrating to Allie Kaza’am. With no secret shame to toy with, and no repressed joy to tease, Flechette doesn’t offer Allie anything to play with. That’s why she ends up tiring of Flechette rather quickly, tricking her into straightforward “deals” to do Allie’s bidding, and eventually underestimating her. “Driven and dedicated” might not get Flechette laid very often, but it comes in handy when capturing supervillains!

Allie Kaza’am: Speaking of supervillains, Allie drives this whole story like a stolen car. We already discussed the original influences of her character back in a previous “Making It Tick.” Let’s talk about what’s driving her in this story.

After the events of “Daring Truth”, where she humiliated the leader of the most powerful team of superheroes, the smart thing to do would have been to get as far from Skarlette City as possible! Instead, she worms her way into a high-class New Year’s Eve party just so she can manipulate Platinum Panther’s boss into revealing how to get in touch with the armored heroine. Does she stop when she uncovers Panther’s secret identity, knowing that will make her a number-one priority for the League to capture? No! Even when Flechette gets the drop on her, she keeps going, looking for a way inside Libido League Tower so she can meet Penelope in her own “home turf”. Playing the “get captured on purpose” card scores her everything she could want: an A-list superheroine (with a billionaire’s bank account) kneeling, meek and submissive before her. She could have had her fun, made off with a lifetime score, and vanished into the wind. Instead, she steals a prize possession that Penelope won’t be able to let go. Why does she do all this?

It’s simple: Allie Kaza’am wants to be hunted.

It makes her feel desirable to know that Platinum Panther is searching for her. To know that Penelope’s brilliant brain is obsessed with her, and is daydreaming about becoming Lily for her. Allie can’t be content with winning because her real game is getting Penelope to wrap her whole life around Allie.

Why does she care about that?

A big part of it is simply how audacious all this is. Allie gets a huge thrill from the risk itself. The more dangerous something is, the more exciting.

But if that were the only thing, she’d get more out of outwitting Flechette. Flechette is one dangerous heroine to have on your tail and a one impressive victory when she sinks to her knees. But Allie finds Flechette boring. Once she finally turns Flechette’s resistance against itself in “Prove Me Wrong”, the best Allie can do is force the heroine to forget all about her!

Until there’s a way that Flechette can help Allie capture Panther. Because, in her own twisted way, Allie Kaza’am is smitten with Lily/Platinum Panther/Penelope Payes. She’s just as obsessed with Lily as she wants Lily to be obsessed with her. That’s why the thing that sticks in Allie’s craw about Lily is not that she’s constantly trying to capture Allie and bring her to justice. It’s that Penelope insists that she’s “100% straight” and the only reason she could possibly have so much sex with Allie is because of her voice powers.

It’s not enough to have Penelope obsessed with her, she wants Penelope to admit that she’s attracted to her.

When Allie’s tactic of “look how irresistible I am, even your hardass archer submits to me, so why can’t you?” backfires, that’s why Penelope’s outburst hurts her deeply. That’s why she finally loses her cool and launches into the rant that allows Flechette to break her conditioning.

Like so many supervillains, it’s the thing she wants most that proves her own undoing.

Platinum Panther: So what about our central heroine? Coming out of the events of Libido League #13: Panther’s Passion, Penelope is kinda reeling. She took a chance, trusted a “normal” guy (at least, not a superhero), and got betrayed. She’s ready to reject any chance at connecting with anyone new. She’s goes to a party out of a sense of obligation to an old friend, ready to reject anyone he introduces her to. Surprise: She’s met with someone from her “secret life” as a superheroine that completely takes her by surprise. Allie strips off Penelope’s defenses of wealth, status, and connections as easily as she stripped off Platinum Panther’s armor in Libido League #3: Daring Truth. Penelope is left exposed, open, and vulnerable in a setting she’s supposed to be powerful in. She’s tried to be clever and stubborn and outwit the villainess, but she gets outmanueverd and the most surprising thing of all happens:

Nothing terrible.

Allie does get away with Penelope’s secret identity, but she doesn’t hurt anybody. As a supervillain, she skates on the edge between being a threat that needs to be stopped and being a nuisance that can be tolerated. So Penelope can rationalize that she’s seeking her out “to bring her to justice” rather than “because she’s fun and sexy”.

Which, of course, leads to her getting outmaneuvered in “Quid Pro Quo” and the beginning of “Vivacious Voice”. Penelope is really getting sucked into the cat-and-mouse game with Allie (the mouse, of course, is Penelope/Lily). They could easily settle into a pattern of this: Penelope tries to capture Allie, Allie tricks her into becoming Lily, many orgasms are had, Allie slips away.

But Allie pushes Penelope too far, too fast. And Penelope very nearly goes for it. She gives into everything Allie asks of her until Flechette shows up. Looking every inch the upright superheroine that Penelope feels she’s supposed to be, all those voices that drive her come roaring back. While she’s furious at herself for submitting, she lashes out with all that rage directed at Allie. Which leaves her where she started: frustrated and alone.

Oh well, at least Penelope can console herself that her arch-nemesis Terence Tartarus is headed to prison. No way anything could possibly go wrong with that!

Sorry for the long blog post. I didn’t have time to write a short one.

I’m dying to know: What did you think of the e-book? (spoilers okay in the comments)

[strscrossed]

What are your Top Three Do's and Don'ts when it comes to Writing and generally what are some helpful tips you would give to new writers

ah! I always hesitate with this because there’s really no right way and everyone has their own style. I guess here are some that are more about the process! and because most of the advice I see I don’t necessarily agree with.

1) Do not: edit while you write. now this is really tempting to do but sometimes, it actually hinders the creative flow. because you’re going back and forth, doubting yourself instead of just writing it all down. there’s a whole editing process to follow but first, just write it down. rewrite later.

2) Do: read a lot! I think the biggest thing that helps as a writer is reading others. of course you’ll have your own style but different books and different genre’s can offer so much. like maybe fantasy can help with world-building. drama can help with tension and conflict. I’d say find books that you like and really take note of the things you liked and didn’t like.

3) Do not: force yourself to write! I know there’s a lot of advice that says “make yourself write even if it’s just a few paragraphs!” and while that might help with the skill, it doesn’t really help with creativity. honestly forcing yourself to write while in writer’s block is actually more detrimental. sometimes it’s good to take a break.

4) Do: write down your ideas! I know we may not end up writing every idea that we have but sometimes leaving small notes here and there can go a long way. personally I get a lot of good ideas in the middle of the night and if I don’t write them down, I’ll forget them the next morning. so even if it’s one or two words, write it down somewhere!

5) Do not: rush yourself! this sort of goes hand in hand with don’t force yourself to write when you’re not feeling it. a lot of the time you’ll make errors, you’ll stress yourself out, and it won’t be as fun if you rush. so take a deep breath and write at a comfortable pace. even if it takes you weeks just to write something,

6) Do: proofread and edit after you’ve finished the first draft. also yes, draft! go through one time, make notes of what you liked about what you wrote, what could be better, and what can be rewritten or changed. recently a friend told me that they color code their drafts and I thought that was seriously so helpful so I’ve started doing that.

I kept it more to the writing process because within writing itself, it really depends on what you do and don’t like. it’s individual preference. for example: my brain completely tunes out of there are paragraphs upon paragraphs of description about something. personally I like one to two paragraphs giving me just enough but leaving the rest up to my own imagination.

my biggest advice: JUST WRITE! don’t doubt yourself, just write your idea down if you have one. follow your muse! 😊

hope this is somewhat helpful.

[amtrak12]

Fanfic Meta: First Draft vs Final Draft w/ Examples (1/2)

Does anybody remember those LiveJournal posts on fanfic meta? Like not actual fanfic, but meta on how to write/post a fanfic? There was a whole big table of links that I can no longer find, but I HAVE tracked down synedochic's posts on dreamwidth. These were hands down the most helpful things I've read on story structure until I discovered Helping Writers Become Authors years later. Just INCREDIBLE work.

Anyway, you still see meta on how to post fic on Tumblr, but you don’t really get writing meta much, unless someone is analyzing the text of a specific fandom. So now that I’m finally hitting the point where I can write to the level of my tastes (or near enough to enjoy reading my own work), I thought it might be fun to bring back that vibe and share some writing meta. Maybe some other fic writers or aspiring writers will find it helpful :)

My current WIP is a Lucifer story called “Can We Keep Her”, and it’s a full sci-fi/fantasy novel length fic. Like it’ll be 190k words long when all is said and done, easy. (And there’s still two sequels planned oops.) It’s my longest fic to date BY FAR, and I am utilizing every skill I’ve ever learned and still learning five more with every chapter. One of the biggest techniques I’ve been utilizing is using multiple drafts to take the story from concept to final draft. Now, I am not following the common writing advice that says to write the entire story first before editing. Maybe if I wasn’t writing fanfic that could work? Or maybe if this wasn’t my first story over 100k words? But right now, that common writing advice is firmly not for me. Instead, I’ve settled into a pattern of drafting several chapters (anywhere from 2-4 with several more outlined in detail) and then going back and editing them into a state that I’m happy with. Then, when they're edited to at least "readable", I go back to drafting. This pattern is working for me and, as a result, means I’ve gone through the outline -> first draft -> second draft -> final draft stages many times over the last few months. Which is why I figured it was a good place to start with fanfic meta :)

Some caveats on my writing system for this fic before I begin:

I did have a broad strokes outline (the major plot points) completed before I started the first draft, and certainly I had those before I started posting any chapters on AO3.

I might be an underwriter when drafting, but I’m an overthinker when outlining and editing so I don’t really struggle with plot holes. It’s more likely I’ll be able to fill in a plot hole later because of some detail I had already slipped into the story.

“Can We Keep Her” is by far my longest fic, but it isn’t my only novel-length fic or my only plot-heavy fic. I gained a decent understanding of what works for me when it comes to multi-chapter fics from my previous attempts.

All that is to say: your mileage may vary on editing chapters as you go vs writing an entire draft start to finish before editing. But the information I’m covering here should apply no matter when you prefer to edit.

It just so happened that Chapter 10 in “Can We Keep Her” provided a prime example of first draft vs final draft. I had a to rewrite the final scene in an entirely new POV, and as a result I still had the original first draft preserved in a separate document. (Typically, my first drafts get absorbed into final drafts through editing or else they get straight up deleted after I rewrite.) So I’m going to provide the first draft of the scene in this post below the cut, and then I’ll share the final version in a separate post (linked here and at the bottom of the post). Separate posts isn’t ideal, but Tumblr formatting doesn’t allow for better options. This way, though, you can open the posts in separate tabs (on desktop at least) if you prefer to view them that way.

At the end of each version, I’ll share my thoughts about them and cover things like why I chose the original POV, why I changed it, what my goals were for the scene, how the second version supports those goals better, and where I still think it could improve but ultimately ran out of time before it needed to be posted. I hope you find these thoughts helpful or at least interesting!

Original closing scene for Chapter 10 behind the cut:

Chloe was late for lunch. After waiting hours, watching time drag on, a family member of Joey Pillegi agreed at the last minute to speak with them over his lunch break. Chloe wore every professional mask in her arsenal to hide her impatience. Dan knew her too well to be fooled, but she didn’t think the grieving brother noticed. Unfortunately, the interview didn’t lead to another clue. The brother didn’t even know where Joey had been living the last six months, let alone that he’d joined a mob.

At least, Lucifer had finally texted after his therapy session had ended. ‘Apparently pink was the missing feature of the infant’s car seat’ wasn’t the most descriptive message, but it offered a few insights. Lucifer had bought a new car seat for Rory, and Rory liked it. Now hopefully, the rest of their morning had gone as well.

The penthouse elevator opened to the sounds of Rory’s happy chatter against the backdrop of the television. Lucifer spotted her immediately, but Rory remained out of sight, presumably tucked inside the largest blanket fort Chloe had ever seen.

“You two have been busy this morning,” she said.

“Hm? Oh, yes the fort.” Lucifer frowned. “The infant has this frustrating tendency to scoot herself underneath the couch. She’s bound to get herself stuck if she keeps that up!”

“So you made a blanket fort instead?” Chloe’s mouth quirked up into a smile. He’d done this before: complain about something and then do something incredibly thoughtful and sweet under the guise of removing an annoyance. She shouldn’t be surprised at this point, and yet it still managed to impress her every time.

Rory finally noticed her arrival and came crawling out of the blanket fort. “Mommy!” She sprinted over and Chloe dropped to her knees to catch her in a hug.

“Hi, baby!” Chloe grinned. Relief crashed over her as she got to hold Rory in her arms again. The morning had lasted way too long, and she was so glad she could check on Rory again. “Did you have fun with Daddy?”

“Lucifer,” said Devil corrected her. “Get her to use my name.”

“Right, sorry.” Though, internally, Chloe rolled her eyes over his continued denial.

Rory bounced excitedly on her toes. “I saw Aunt Linda!”

“I know you did. Were you good while you were visiting Linda?” Chloe stood up and asked Lucifer, “Did she give you any problems?”

“Yes,” Lucifer said. “She accused me of not listening.”

Given the context of therapy, Chloe wasn’t entirely sure who he meant. “Who did, Linda?”

“No, the infant!”

Chloe bit back a smile.

“She also accused me of arguing with her which I wasn’t doing,” Lucifer gave Rory a pointed glare, “until she said I wasn’t listening.”

Chloe leaned down to talk to Rory. “Was Lucifer not listening to you?”

Rory gave her a conspiratorial smile. “No, he didn’t listen at all.”

“At all?” Chloe gasped. When Rory giggled, she grinned.

Lucifer was far less amused. “Okay if the little demons-in-training are going to team-up together then you’re not allowed to gang up on me too.”

“I’m not making promises,” Chloe said, crossing her arms. She smirked at Lucifer’s annoyance.

“Mommy, Mommy!” Rory tugged on her jacket.

“What is it?”

“All of Charlie’s toys were gone!”

“They were? Oh, no!” Chloe had no idea what toys Rory was talking about. They might be toys back at her mother’s house or at a friend’s house or even a daycare her mother had taken her too. But playing along with the girl might get her more answers than asking direct questions.

“Yeah, they were all gone because Charlie’s mad at me.”

“You think someone’s mad at you?” Chloe asked.

Rory nodded. “Charlie is.”

“Why would Charlie be mad at you?”

“Because I flew without him.” Rory pouted either in a mimicry of how she imagined this Charlie must feel or because she didn’t like the idea of someone being mad at her.

“I see,” Chloe said, though Rory’s responses had only generated more questions. “Well, maybe we should just keep our feet on the ground and not fly for awhile. What do you think?”

“Maybe,” Rory said, stretching out the word in a very unconvincing agreement. Chloe hoped Lucifer was right and that Rory couldn’t truly fly with her wings. She seemed to grasp hiding her wings when they were in public, but if she could fly, Chloe feared the temptation would be too much for the little girl to resist.

She turned to Lucifer and in a quieter voice asked, “Who’s Charlie?”

He threw up his hands. “I have absolutely no idea. I thought she was trying to say Charlotte at first, but either that’s wrong or the girl has a poor grasp on gendered pronouns.”

“No, she seems to have pronouns down,” Chloe said, remembering Rory’s firm correction that Roger Bear used ‘she’.

“My only other guess would be an imaginary friend,” Lucifer said. “Apparently young children can have those.”

“Yeah, an imaginary friend is possible… or,” Chloe braced herself as she suggested, “it’s someone she knows back home with her mother.”

Predictably, Lucifer’s face twisted in disagreement.

“You think she was still made by your parents,” Chloe said.

“It’d have to be my father if she was,” Lucifer said. “Mum doesn’t have a way back to our universe. But I still don’t know why my father would try making a baby angel.”

Or why that angel would think you were her father and not her brother, Chloe thought as Lucifer walked off towards the bar. She could almost understand why he was having such a hard time accepting the obvious. If an angel child being born was so impossible (and for Rory to be Lucifer’s only child over the course of humanity’s entire history, it certainly seemed like angel children were pretty damn impossible), then why couldn’t something equally preposterous like God creating a toddler angel on his own be a valid explanation for Rory’s existence? The problem was, they weren’t trying to determine which explanation was more or less likely to have happened. They were looking for the explanation that best fit the evidence, impossible or not.

Rory desperately wanted to give her a tour of the blanket fort. Chloe assured the girl, she could show it off soon and they could even eat lunch under it, but first Chloe needed to talk to Lucifer. After pulling a pinky promise out of her, Rory toddled off to continue her Fringe episode, and Chloe walked over to join Lucifer at the bar.

A large stack of paper rested on the countertop, but Lucifer leaned on his elbows beside it, staring off into nothing.

“Celestial craziness or not,” Chloe began, “maybe you should start looking at this like one of our cases. Keep your mind open to all of the possibilities and follow the leads until you can rule something out.”

“Not everything is possible,” Lucifer said.

Chloe replied, “In Rory’s case, it sounds like none of it is possible. But she’s here, so there has to be some explanation for her.”

Lucifer sighed. “I know.” He turned his gaze down towards the stack of papers, but he didn’t touch them.

“What is that?”

“Just some names I need to look into.”

That was purposefully vague. Chloe reached across him and pulled the stack towards her to read.

“They’re just some names, Detective,” Lucifer repeated.

He sounded concerned, but he didn’t stop her from taking the papers or try to pull them back. Chloe really hoped he hadn’t backtracked to hunting down the mysterious Sinnerman he was so obsessed with. He had a daughter to worry about now.

The stack was indeed a list of names printed out on computer paper, but each name had a date recorded beside it.

“What are the dates for?” she asked.

“It’s when I last saw them,” Lucifer explained. “It’s probably a fruitless endeavor.”

All of the dates were from 2014. Three years ago and some change. Now, Chloe understood what this list was.

“You’re looking for Rory’s mother.”

Lucifer pulled away the stack of papers. “Like I said, it’s probably a waste of time. She might not even have a mother.”

The denial wasn’t as strong as he wanted it to be. He did realize Rory being his daughter was the only explanation that fit. He just wasn’t ready to accept it yet.

“It’s a pretty big list,” Chloe said.

“My printer can’t print on both sides,” Lucifer replied.

Chloe wasn’t commenting on the length of the list specifically. She remembered all too well just how many people he managed to sleep with in [a week? Two weeks?]. Multiply that out to an entire year since they didn’t know Rory’s birthday, and Chloe almost expected the list to be longer. Then again, not all of his sexual partners could’ve given birth, so that would’ve narrowed down the list.

“Give me half.”

“What?”

“That’s a long list to go through on your own,” Chloe said. “I can help, so give me half.”

Lucifer shook his head. “You have a murder to solve. At least one of us should get to investigate something fun.”

“That murder investigation is stalled until we can either analyze those hairs we found or someone comes forward with information. There’s nothing ‘fun’ to do on the case right now.” Chloe held out her hand for the list. “I bet I can get through my half first.”

“Really?” Lucifer said. “You think turning this into a competition will get me to hand the list over?”

Chloe shrugged. “I mean, it’s not really a competition when I have every California and federal database to work from and you’re just crawling through social media.”

“I am very adept at finding information on social media,” Lucifer argued.

Chloe smirked, already knowing she’d won. She leaned in again to split the stack of papers up. “Here, I will take the bottom half so you can continue where you left off in the beginning of the list.”

“You don’t know that I’ve already started investigating,” Lucifer said, but it was nothing more than his game night protests as he searched for a loophole in the rules that allowed him to not actually lose. He was an extremely sore loser.

“Uh oh!” Rory left her castle-sized blanket fort to run over. “Fringe stopped, Daddy. Look.” She pointed back to the TV where the current episode had ended and the question of whether they wanted to continue watching had interrupted the end credits.

“That’s because the episode’s over,” Lucifer said.

“Fix it.”

Chloe answered, “Hey monkey, how about we get lunch first? Are you hungry?”

“I want more Fringe,” Rory said, glancing back to the paused TV.

“We can watch more Fringe, but let’s get food first, okay?”

It took a little more coaxing and challenging her to a race to the kitchen before Rory pulled her attention away from the television. But then she grinned and ran off down the hallway with Chloe while Lucifer yelled after them about falling. His list of names hovered in the back of Chloe’s mind all through lunch. She didn’t know which of them would ultimately find Rory’s mother, but if she found them first, that mother was getting such an ass chewing for giving the girl up. Chloe didn’t understand how anyone could look at Rory and decide she wasn’t worth fighting for. She’d been away from the girl for just a few hours and had still missed her desperately. How could Rory’s mother not be frantic after days apart? It was infuriating.

---------------

My Thoughts:

Yes, I do use the square brackets for notes to myself. :P I told y'all this was the first draft version!

So I went with Chloe’s POV originally for several reasons. First, I just kind of default to her POV? I tend to default to women characters in general in my fandoms (maybe because I’m a woman, maybe because I’m queer, maybe both). But also Chloe’s POV is a little more clear-headed and therefore easier to show the reader what’s going on. I do step out of her POV when she becomes super emotional like in Chapter 3 when she learned Lucifer is the Devil. (If a character is too emotional, it can be hard to portray their POV so I like to swing outside of them in those scenes.) But if Chloe’s present in a scene, she tends to be my default POV.

But there’s also a downside with being more clear-headed and not as emotionally invested in the plot (yet): sometimes it means you have less interesting things to say. Which is exactly the problem here. Chloe has nothing real to add in this scene.

Well, she has exactly one thing to add and that thing is the other reason I chose her POV initially: she missed Rory while she was at work and I desperately wanted to show her relief at getting to see her again. I’m more than a little obsessed with all the parental feelings in this story, and Chloe definitely has the stronger parental feelings in this moment since Lucifer is still in conflict over Rory being his daughter.

Except Lucifer’s conflict is exactly what we need to see at this point.

In addition to showing Chloe had missed Rory as if she was the girl’s mother (the dramatic irony, of course, being that she is the girl’s mother), I also wanted this scene to end with the decision to search for Rory’s birth mother. Which it does! Technically. But it doesn’t do it very well, and I always knew I’d have to smooth that out during editing. And while it wasn’t the primary focus here, I always want more Rory cuteness (the family domestics is kind of the whole point of this fic) and I wanted some glimpses into how Lucifer and Rory’s morning alone together went. This version of the scene covers both of those things, but again, not very well. And if I want to show how Lucifer and Rory’s morning went, then why wouldn’t I use Lucifer’s POV to show that more directly?

I realized pretty quickly when I went to edit this scene, that I should switch POVs. So go check out my second post over here to see what changed when I used Lucifer’s POV. Or if you’ve already read it because you’re reading “Can We Keep Her”, then just scroll down to the bottom and check out my thoughts on the changes.

[myrrhmaidwrites]

Sunstruck Writing Wrap-Up

I think I’m going to start posting writing wrap ups here for my own benefit. Writing about writing is supposed to make you better at it, or something.

This fic was not only my longest ever, but it also ended up spanning 12 google docs, 6 Word files, 8 pages in Notion, and 100+ DMs. If you think my writing process could use some improved organization, well, you’re right.

Originally, Sunstruck was about Trevor writing the book. He had finished it, and the book was in some ways a love letter to Jamie, and a lot of their conversations revolved around what was in the book. (Have you read The Next Next One? Yeah.)

Anyway, that didn’t end up happening. Somewhere along the way I switched the story to Jamie’s POV and moved away from the book idea. I just couldn’t get it to fit. I don’t think I’ll write a sequel to this, but if I did, it would be Trevor POV and it would be about the book.

Now I’m going to talk a little about the writing process for this fic.

16k words isn’t that many for a lot of people. For me, it’s the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I think that deserves some note. Woo! May there be longer fics to come. Also I genuinely have no idea how people write novels, haha. Practice, I suppose.

Shortly before I started this fic, I did some reading about various approaches to the editing process. The method I ended up using, which worked well for me, was to basically just get some words down for the first draft (“shitty first draft), and then rewrite the whole draft based on that. This worked well for me because I was able to get the pure words down pretty well via writing sprints and typing on my phone in bed before I went to sleep.

Then came the rewriting. I took one scene, slapped it in a column on Notion, and used it as a guide to write a new version of that scene. No copy+paste allowed, but I could rewrite the original words if I did want to keep them. I almost never kept them exactly. The second version of scenes were almost always better than the first.

During this period is when the story feels most like a confusing mess that I have to muddle through. I have scenes missing that I don’t know I need, I have to rearrange things and delete things and realize that something I wrote won’t work anymore because I changed something earlier. I’m constantly re-outlining, adding notes to scenes, writing new bits and deleting them, etc.

To give you an idea of some of the things I changed in this stage, in an earlier version of the fic, Jamie said something really heartfelt for Trevor’s video and they cut most of it out for the public video. Trevor only sees it after the Ducks staff send him the full video, and their reunion/get together scene happens at home the day after the ceremony.

At another point, I really wanted to have that long distance/breakup/dark night of the soul moment that would require a big gesture from Jamie (flying across the country for Trevor or similar). In the end, I couldn’t get it to work, so we have the condensed crisis that starts during the sex scene. I’m not mad about that change, but I do sometimes wonder if I could have made that scene hit harder if the separation/downturn had been worse.

Anyway, after getting through this horrible muddled mess, there’s a third re-writing, where I have the scenes mostly in order and I go through and rewrite everything from beginning to end for a third time. This time around, there’s a lot more that stays the same. What’s nice about the earlier stages is that when I write something I don’t like so much, I don’t have to worry about it at the moment because there’s an incredibly low chance it’ll make it to the final fic.

After the third rewriting is when I like to loop in my beta reader. I usually try to have a couple of specific questions for them as they read. I think technically this is called alpha reading (and beta reading is just for spelling/grammar), but if I’m honest, I need this kind of help more.

Then I go about incorporating changes from my beta reader, which usually involves a major overhaul of 1-2 scenes, almost always the finale and another scene in the second half of the fic.

After that, I go through and re-read the fic in order and look for places where I need to make major additions. This typically includes descriptions of emotions or settings and additions to dialogue where characters get to the point of what they’re trying to say far more quickly than is realistic.

Finally, in the last couple of days before posting, I look at sentence structure and word choice. I tend to use the same sentence structures over and over in my writing as well as certain words. In this phase, I try to mix it up as much more and make the sentences and words sound interesting.

In the “adding” and “sentence structure” phases of this fic, I added about 5k words. Yep, the fic was only about 11.5k words before this. That means the fic my beta reader read, while kind of close to the finished version, is also hugely different from the fic up on ao3. It’s kind of crazy to think about.

Finally, I do one last read for typos, and the fic goes up.

There’s one thing about this fic experience (and others I’ve had) that I haven’t really gotten to talk about yet, though.

This fic was part of a big bang, and as a part of that, I worked with a hard deadline, and I also had an artist relying on me to be finished so we could post at the same time. Last year, I participated in an exchange that had a similar type of deadline.

Both times, I’ve had horrible insomnia for ~3 weeks leading up to the deadline. We’re talking 3+ weeks of not sleeping, sleeping extremely poorly, or not sleeping without pills. (And I’m talking sedatives here, not melatonin. God, I wish melatonin did something useful for me.)

It didn’t matter that I could have pushed the deadline back. It didn’t matter that I could have just dropped out. It didn’t matter that I was actually quite on top of this fic and not particularly concerned about finishing on time. My brain was not interested in sleeping.

Luckily, I got through it. Most of this week after posting the fic I slept just fine. But it does make me think about whether doing something like this is useful for me, or sustainable in the long run. I really love the community aspect of writing fic. I doubt that without doing a bigbang that my fics would have art made for them. I doubt I would have produced such a long fic so quickly without a deadline.

Maybe these are just things that I need to accept about myself. If I don’t want to cause myself weeks of insomnia (and I don’t because it fucking sucks), maybe I need to just accept that. Really what I need to do is probably talk to my therapist about this, but it’s hard.

Does this happen to anyone else? Just me? Okay.

To end this on a less depressing note, one final observation I want to mention is that after I choose one fic to concentrate on, my ideas for other fics tend to slow down, and then once that idea is close to wrapping, they tend to speed up again. Now I’m stuck in the middle of 4-5 fic ideas and I want to write all of them. Of course I don’t have the time, and I’m sure I’ll end up concentrating on just one or two eventually. But for now I have like five different gdocs that I want to keep open at all times. It makes me wish I didn’t have a job so I could just write. (Plus my two anons that I owe fics to…oops!)

If you read this far, thank you. Sometimes it’s nice to hear whispers in the void when you know you should expect silence.

[ramabear]

what's your writing process like! specifically, what made you first start standing in awe of death, and it's subsequent rewrite/recreation, trustfull

Oh gosh, what a long time ago that was, the beginning of SIAOD.

[this gets quite long, so, tucked under a readmore it goes]

If I recall the timing right, it was right after I'd finished reading Ajin, and right around the time I was...lets say slightly untethered. As in, periodically I'll acquire a close friend and hash out story ideas with them, and I tend to keep them within a certain wheelhouse, depending on the friend and their tastes. I don't do that as much, anymore, and certainly not that way either. (These days I'm much more likely to just explain out my idea and rubber duck a problem rather than do a proper back and forth).

Anyway, it was both the premise (immortal characters) of and the aesthetic (slight horror, body horror, sci-fi and experimentation themes) of Ajin that called to me and I essentially slapped it onto the fandom i was currently invested in. (I've done this also with Tokyo Ghoul, borrowing aspects of that and putting it on top of other fandoms.) I came up with the general plot (immortal!izuku + obsession + poor oversight from adults = horror and chaos) and then ran with it.

If you were around for that first month or two, you'll remember the updates for SIAOD were almost daily. when things were short and the idea fresh, i was writing and posting every day, then as things got more complicated it became every two or three days. the story grew and the further along i got, the more i had in mind, the more i had to work in and the more holes i came across.

as we eased from laceration to phlebotomy, things got more out of hand than i could really reign in. it's a somewhat common problem i have, biting off too much and posting it before i figure out some of the problems. it's a big reason why things hit a grind and then a stop for me. my largest WIPs almost all share that trait, where I'm struggling to figure out the next step to lead to the point where I'm trying to go.

so, i finished phelbotomy, began writing the sequel (euthanasia) and was massively disappointed with what i was coming up with. to the point that i had started posting and then removed it. i didn't like it. i wasn't going to keep it up.

and so, SIAOD fell into limbo. complex and interesting, it gathered people in and kept their interest, but it was, technically, unfinished.

and then Clementine came to visit.

i had, for a while, been considering a rewrite. its a natural thing, i think. rewriting a draft into something better is just a process of writing, one i kind of... skip over, for various reasons, but one that calls to me whenever i hit my brick wall. so, i wanted to rewrite SIAOD but better, you know? a more thorough storyline. a more complete plot. less outlandish crossover background nonsense, OCs that mattered, a story that was just as compelling as the original but could stand on its own.

and, with Clem as my sounding wall, i managed to work through the basic plot of the whole damn thing. all the twists. all the little loops. the beats that i wanted to hit and all of that. i had to hammer out smaller details, of course, but the overall story was discussed and dissected.

so i began to rewrite the fic into Trustfall. i kept the aesthetics of the naming (everything linked but along a different subject than SIAOD) and i kept some of the core elements (izuku's dad being a scientist, the eventual kiritodo relationship, izuku and katsuki's entirely unhealthy relationship) and i cranked up other parts. (terminal velocity quadrupled in size with the rewrite)

i still have some more to write, of course. I haven't finished it yet, but i wrote a damn lot so i decided to start posting it (and got a beta this time around, which is very nice, hello berg)

i wrote SIAOD because i liked the idea of Ajin!Izuku and the horrific implications therein. I wrote Trustfall because I saw the bones of SIAOD and i knew i could write something better, something more meaty than before. I still really want to finish it. I take the WIP document out and pick at it, dropping a few lines in it whenever i can, but I've always written according to my mood and interests. I write for pleasure, so as long as I'm enjoying it, I'll work on it.

i hope that answers your question, anon.

[besthorrorenthusiast101]

Note: I've tried twice to post this and it would not work :( and i couldn't save it as a draft either so I've had to rewrite it twice, so forgive me if it seems rushed or like I forgot certain parts because it was probably included in my earlier copies. Thank you and enjoy!!

Movie: Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey

Release date: 2/15/2023

Budget: $100,000

Rotten tomatoes: 3%

My rating: 2/10

Spoiler-Free Commentary:

This movie tells the story of pooh and his friends after Christopher Robin left them in the 100 acre woods.

I believe they made the characters look strange which made them look more like monsters and took away from what the movie could have been.

The producers had to make changes to the characters looks to avoid copyright laws.

This movie does not follow a straight timeline which made it very confusing and really just all over the place.

Spoiler Commentary:

This movie opens with a storybook-like telling of what happened to pooh and his friends after Christopher Robin left

We are told that they could not hunt for themselves so they were forced to eat eeyore.

This letter them traumatized and they vowed to get back at humans.

In the first 15 minutes of the movie we see Christopher Robin coming back to the woods with his girlfriend and being shocked to find that the animals that were once his friends are now turned against him

Pooh and piglet kill his girlfriend and take him captive

We then move to seeing our main character, Maria, getting told by her therapist that she needs to get away to forget about this man she keeps mentioning

Maria and a few of her friends take a trip up to a cabin, with no phones (guess how that works out)

Maria tells the group about the man and we find out that he had been stalking her for a while and the cops couldn't do anything about it

We see all of Maria's friends getting picked off one by one with some pretty creative deaths, however these deaths didn't look well done so that took away from the possibility of it helping the rating of this movie

We get scenes where Christopher robin is being tortured by pooh and whipped with eeyores tail

All of this happens really fast, it seems like the second they got there they started getting attacked and all of the "character growth" and "depth" was forced into a 5 minute span

At the end piglet is killed and pooh is upset so he goes to finish off Maria and one of her friends because they are the only ones left

Maria's friend tries to run pooh over and it does not work, he decapitates her.

Christopher robin shows back up and tries to trap pooh between the two cars and that doesn't work either.

The movie ends with pooh breaking his vow of silence and saying "you left"

Overall this movie seemed very rushed, as if they got bored midway through and just tried to finish the movie without following through with what they originally planned for it.

I think the ending scene was the only thing they did right, this cliffhanger gives the movie more depth and I believe if they didn't have that the movie would have just been pointless and stupid

The kills in this movie were creative and they had the possibility of being very good if they were done better.

The lighting for this movie was also very dark, which is typical for a horror movie but it made it hard to see any details.

Overview:

Overall I cannot reccomend that you watch this movie because I think it is just a waste of time. I understand they had a smaller budget but I still just don't like it.

Later on this week I will be starting a series of in depth review of the Halloween series, this will include reviewing each movie, reviewing and explaining each timeline, and probably just dropping some facts about each movie (The Halloween series is my absolute favorite)

I will include some other movies between posts so its not too Halloween focused but I would really love to be able to share my knowledge about Halloween with people :)

Thank you for reading and I hope you join me for my next review :)

[everythingwritingg]

Things to do after Nanowrimo

@everything.writing on IG

So for 30 days, you wrote 1667 words a day for a total of 50K words. You reduced your screen time, sneaked in a couple hundred words at work/school, locked yourself in your room on weekends, and sold your soul to the devil. Now that it’s over, what do you do next?

Keep going. Unless you exceeded the 50K for nano, have a short book, or started your WIP before November, chances are, you’re not finished with your first draft. In this case, you can keep on going, maybe at a slower pace if you so desire. Keep that fire going and get closer to an editable draft!

Move on to the editing stage. If you’re writing a novella, used Nano to finish an existing draft, or are crazy and finished your first draft in a month, you may be finished! (I envy you!). You can move on to rewriting, revising, and editing. But first set your draft aside so you can come back with fresh eyes.

Work on another project. This could mean starting another project while you distance yourself from your current WIP or working on another existing project. Just make sure not to start too many projects that you can’t handle.

Maybe think about publishing. You’re a little too early to be publishing right after the first draft, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start planning ahead. Think about whether you want to go to the traditional or self publishing route, or even Wattpad! Research reputable agents, publishers, or ways to self publish. Maybe speak to some people in the publishing industry or other published authors.

Do other writing related things. This includes making character aesthetics or playlists, or playing IG story games with each character. This could also include cover design or illustration if you’re artistic. Now is the time for the fun stuff.

Take a break. Sometimes, we need time to rest and recover. You may be creatively or mentally burnt out. If this is the case, step back from writing altogether. If you feel up for it, read or even beta read for other writers. Maybe watch a little Authortube if you so desire. But if you feel like you need a break from anything writing-related, take one!

Get back to tasks you neglected. Have you procrastinated studying for important exams because of NaNoWriMo? Is that work deadline rapidly approaching? Or do you have a growing pile of laundry? Face it, most people gave something up during Nano and maybe it’s time to get back to it (unless it was 4 hour Insta scrolls). This might also be a great time to start holiday season planning!

Cope with the post-nano blues. When you’ve been intensely working at a goal on something you’re passionate about, you’re going to feel the blues after the task is done. If you’re feeling a little sad, cheer yourself up by doing other things you love or creating new goals. Remind yourself that there are plenty more Nanos to do, like April 2023 Camp Nano (hope to see you there!).

So we survived the 30 days of hell productivity and fun. Different writers might choose to do different things after November. Whether that’s continuing to write the same amount of words and nothing changing or taking a break, I hope one of these options will work for you :)