#blorbettes through time

[crimsonbits]

She is so pathetic cringefail girlfailure blorbette or whatever. Blow her up now. I understand why some people might not find Mizuchi interesting but that literally couldn't be me. She's so bulliable (extremely important fictional character trait) but also I am so so so intrigued as to what her past is, and her general implied connection to Reimu / the Hakurei Shrine / Shrine Maiden Theory. She has risen to the top of my favorites list almost instantaneously. Probably because the idea of Reimu, one of my absolute favorite characters of all time, having to reflect on her own flaws and hypocrisy for the first time in her life through a character who serves as a warning and a dark mirror of sorts, has latched on to my brain like a parasitic worm. I doubt canon will actually go there because we must never undo the status quo or whatever, but I can dream alright.

[shallanigans]

So, you want to write fanfiction? Here's some advice from someone who spends too much time on ao3, Part 1:

Hey everyone! This is a bit of a deviation from my usual shitposts. I was looking at the "#writers on tumblr" tag today, and I got inspired to post this after some interesting discussions. I'm someone who has read a lot (and I mean A LOT) of fanfic, as well as written some myself... so I thought I'd make this little (no, I lied, it's Very Long) post with some writing tips that I find personally meaningful for those of you who may be getting started or want to try something new.

My qualifications? Honestly, because I said so. This is just my opinion. Feel free to ignore, disagree, hate, ask questions, whatever. I'll be discussing some common fanfic writing advice and what I think about it, as well as giving some general pointers.

Disclaimer: What is "good writing?"

Good writing is effective writing. There is no one way in which everyone should write. Effective writing compels the reader; it makes them interested in your story, keeps them turning the pages, makes them click that "next chapter" button and stay up all night to finish your 500k epic. Some people achieve this through flowery, descriptive prose. Others do so with their quick wit and snappy dialogue. Others write all their fanfictions in second person epistolary format only and make you cry harder than you ever have. The first thing to know is that 1) tastes vary and 2) confidence matters. Find your voice, and be proud of it. If you feel that what you are doing is working for you, and you love it, then keep at it. Someone has already made every "writing mistake" and made it well. Don't fall into the trap of getting bogged down with 674835 contradictory tips and being too terrified to write at all. The only real writing sin is being boring.

Furthermore, this post is for fanfiction specifically. A lot of this advice might be useful for traditional fiction, but it's not a 1:1 carryover. A lot of fanfic advice will be irrelevant for traditional fiction, and vice versa.

That's all fine and dandy, but what do I do?

Good question. First, let's break down what makes a fanfiction effective. Most people searching ao3 for a story probably want:

A compelling premise

With in-character characters

Good spelling, formatting, grammar, and syntax

Stylistically strong writing

A coherent plot

With a certain degree of wish-fulfillment sprinkled in (this is fanfic, after all)

In this series, I will be mostly discussing elements 2-6. Number 1, unfortunately, comes down to "don't be boring," and I can't tell you how to come up with an idea that's going to hook your reader. However, assuming that you already have The Coolest Idea Ever, and you only need the reader to see that, then here's what you can do:

Effective Summaries

No, seriously. Tell people what your fucking story is about. One of my favorite stories on ao3 has the worst, vaguest one-liner of a summary I've ever seen. It is a gem, and if it hadn't been for a friend's recommendation, I would have never read it. You may think that your epic out of context quote from the paragraph you spent hours perfecting will make people care, but it will probably just confuse them. This is likely to be the most controversial thing I say today, so I'm starting off strong.

When I say effective summary, I mean a summary that will tell people the basic premise of the plot while also making them want to learn more. I don't mean something fancy. I mean something like:

When Blorbo started his new tech development job at Tumblr, he never expected to have Blorbette for a boss. She is smart, cold, calculating - and, to his horror, totally irresistible. In order to win her heart, he decides to make her jealous by fake-dating his colleague and frenemy, Blorbinson. But he soon finds that there is more to his mysterious friend than meets the eye. Could it be that the real Tumblr sexyman has been next to him all along?

That's a pretty standard summary for a relatively long fic. It's nothing fancy, but it tells the reader what the story's about. Now this same summary, in the hands of someone who refuses to inform the reader about the premise of the story, would probably say something like:

His eyes are the color of spring.

You can get away with that kind of stuff more often in a one-shot, but best practice is always to tell your reader what the story is about. Say to your reader:

Blorbinson's eyes are too easy to get lost in. Blorbo cannot find his way out.

If you MUST include a quote from your story, then do it alongside your informative summary, in the much-loved format below:

"What do you mean Welcome to Nightvale is winning the contest?" --- In which things get heated at Tumblr dot com, and Blorbinson's the one making Blorbo get all sweaty.

I can already hear you arguing. You say to me, "But there are people who choose quotes that are both pretty AND informative! But writing anything is better than writing nothing in the summary!"

True. My response to the first point is this: if you had mastered that skill, you wouldn't be here. A simple, to-the-point-summary is almost never going to make the interested reader scroll past your story. You know what will? An out-of-context block of text about how much Sans Undertale loves the player from chapter 3, paragraph six.

To the second point, I say: obviously. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't seek to improve. No one is perfect. I'm certainly not. But you're doing yourself a disservice by spending so much time and effort on the content of your story and then fumbling it on the home stretch. If you take pride in your work (and I'm assuming you do, because you posted this story for a reason), then make like a chef at a five-star restaurant and start caring about presentation. It goes without saying that there shouldn't be any typos in the summary.

A note on tagging: I will make a separate post on tagging your stories appropriately. This is a writing-related rant.

Now, onto characterization:

If you're one of those people who thinks that there's no such thing as "too OOC," congratulations. May you enjoy fanfiction free from the shackles of the narrative. Tag appropriately and have fun. If you're like the rest of us haters, you probably want to keep your characters as faithful to canon as possible. Yes, even in an AU.

I've included this wonderful addition because entryn17 said it better than I ever could have. There's difference of interpretation, and then there's Severus Snape deciding that James Potter was actually just misunderstood.

Being "in-character" is an elusive ideal that we all strive for, but no one can quite tell you what it means except for "the vibes." The way I like to define it is this: If you asked yourself the question "Would He Fucking Say That/Do That/Feel That?" and the answer is "yes, absolutely," then it's in-character. If the answer is "absolutely not," then it's out of character. If the answer is "maybe?" then your goal is to move that needle firmly into the Yes camp.

To do this, you must first determine what is making you unsure. Is it the dialogue? Is your stuffy Edwardian speaking like a Gen Alpha well-versed in Cocomelonese? Is your overconfident flirt stammering and stuttering through a conversation? Often, the content of what a character is saying agrees perfectly with the source material, but the how doesn't match it. Beta readers can help with this, as can going back to the source material to study a character's speech patterns in canon. You don't have to get it perfect. Just make sure it doesn't stand out. Would Snape perhaps say "Come over here!" in a much wordier, snarkier manner? Maybe. Maybe not. But he sure as hell wouldn't say, "Yo! bring your ass over and check this out!"

Actions and feelings are a bit trickier. There's always some leeway in personal interpretation here, and most of the time your reader won't question this very much so long as the rest of the story keeps them engaged. One OOC action or thought is easy to brush off. Ten, not so much. Read up on the wiki pages for whatever you're writing, go back to the source material, and maybe get the opinion of a willing beta reader. Ultimately, if your characters start feeling like featureless puppets subject to your whims rather than people with established personalities, you might want to go back and revisit what made them stand out to you in the first place.

Keep things consistent within your story. Especially in AUs and canon divergence fics, there are certain character traits that are malleable. Maybe Draco Malfoy wouldn't have been such a dickhead if he'd had caring adult mentors in his life. So, justify that within your story. You don't necessarily need to keep the characterization faithful to the canon, but you do need to convince the reader that their beloved character has a reason for their behavior. Keep things consistent. Whenever a character deviates from their canon behavior, make sure there's a valid explanation for it in your narrative.

Don't fall for the trap of confusing canon and fanon. Fandom is like a game of telephone. Someone writes one story of Blorbo adopting a cat, and suddenly he's the biggest cat person in the universe. The poor author who posts about Blorbo's canonical love of dogs gets trashed for writing OOC. You can't prevent people getting mad at you, but you can always grin smugly and go to bed happy with the knowledge that you were right. Someone will love you for it.

SPAG

Ew! It sounds like something your dog spit up. Spelling and Grammar might be boring, but they're necessary. You shouldn't break the rules until you know the rules. One day, you will write a run-on postmodern epic to rival the worst of Wallace's page-long sentences. Today is not that day. No one wants to open a story only to be greeted by a massive block of text, a lack of punctuation, and a heretofore undiscovered form of there/they're/their.

In the modern age, we have many tools at our disposal to clarify our SPAG doubts. Dictionaries! Spellcheck! The weirdos on those Substack forums! Oh, my. If you wrote your story at 3AM directly onto the ao3 editor, perhaps take a moment to run it through some kind of spellchecker before posting. Microsoft Word has a pretty good one, but Grammarly and other such software can help you if that's not available. There's also nothing quite like a beta reader. There are people in this world who love picking apart every comma, period, and quotation mark, and they'll be happy to do it for you. I am one of them, and I volunteer. There are many of us.

Here are some SPAG mistakes common in fanfiction.

1.Your/you're, they're/their/there, "could of," and "lie" vs "lay."

"YOUR" means that something is yours. You possess that thing. YOUR story is going to be great if you fix the grammar. "YOU'RE" is a contracted form of "YOU ARE." If you fix your grammar, YOU'RE going to be a great writer.

They're: Shortened form of "they are." They're going to the beach. They're very nice people.

Their: They possess a thing. A thing belongs to them. They're going to the beach in THEIR car.

There: Related to a place. You are going to be THERE. THERE are many pretty horses in the field.

"Could of" does not exist. It is an incorrect way of writing "could've," the shortened form of "could have."

The verbs lie and lay are tricky ones. You (a person) LIE down on your bed. You LAY an object down on a surface. However, the past tense of LIE is LAY. I know! Who invented English, am I right? Blorbo LIES on his bed in the present tense. He LAY on his bed in the past.

The past tense of "lay" is "laid." Blorbo LAID down his water bottle.

2. Run-on sentences.

Sometimes, when we're writing, we get a little excited. We have so many thoughts and we never know how to end them. You might think the solution here is to just keep throwing down commas, but you'd be wrong.

Run-on sentences can be effective if used intentionally, but a lot of the time, they're not. The period isn't your enemy. In general, you want to make sure your sentences have a subject, a verb, and an object, and that they end when you've finished your thought.

Blorbo was the most beautiful of all the tumblr sexymen. He really liked to show off his sick gains at the gym. He had a hot wife and an even hotter side piece.

This writing isn't very exciting, but it's correct. Contrast that with:

Blorbo was the most beautiful of all the tumblr sexymen, he really liked to show off his sick gains at the gym, he had a hot wife and an even hotter side piece.

Finish your thoughts. There are ways to connect independent clauses (a group of words that can work on its own as a sentence) correctly, like the semicolon; the semicolon is a great piece of punctuation. There is also the em-dash. Sometimes, you really need to add clarification to a thought — you really want to emphasize the second part of what you're saying. Em-dashes also work like a cooler version of parentheses — because who uses those, am I right? — and can help you seem like a chic and seasoned writer. Don't overuse them, though. I know you want to. And no, I don't heed my own advice here.

Look, these rules aren't intuitive. I can't possibly go through all of them in a way that's easy and digestible. There are smarter people than me who have written all about it, and I use incorrect punctuation all the time. Misplacing a comma isn't going to be the end of the world for your story, but at least give it a once-over with a beta or spellchecker to fix the worst of it. At the very least, make the reader think that run-on sentence was totally on purpose.

3. Paragraphs

Make sure your paragraphs stick to a single theme or thought. Fanfiction writers love to have one-sentence paragraphs for the impact, but you don't need to do that. Just keep them coherent. For example, if you're writing about Blorbo's weekend, you might say,

Blorbo loved Saturdays. On Saturdays, the world seemed to sparkle and sing with the whole of the city's shared happiness over not having to work. He would wake up on those mornings and leap out of bed while singing a jaunty little tune. Then, he'd text Blorbinson a string of heart emojis and plan to meet up for their weekly ice cream date. But Sundays — oh, how he hated Sundays! Sundays were the day before Monday, and he'd always spend so long worrying about going back to the office that, by the time he decided to do something, it would be dark outside already.

Each of the paragraphs above, clumsy as they are, have a clear idea that starts and ends within the same paragraph. If you talk about Blorbo's Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday all within one paragraph, your reader will be confused!

On the other hand, if you make every single paragraph one line, your reader is going to resent you. You have unwittingly made them take part in a bad action thriller. One-line paragraphs are supposed to be impactful and create suspense. When writing, a good tip is to consider the word "impactful" a synonym of "sparing." See below:

Blorbo loved Saturdays. On Saturdays, the world seemed to sparkle and sing with the whole of the city's shared happiness over not having to work. He would wake up on those mornings and leap out of bed while singing a jaunty little tune. Then, he'd text Blorbinson a string of heart emojis and plan to meet up for their weekly ice cream date.

Doesn't it suck? Not to mention all that scrolling!

3. Dialogue

Right off the bat, I'll say that the best way to learn how to format dialogue is by reading books. Not fanfiction. BOOKS. They have been checked by an editor, so you know you're getting the real deal. Generally, well-formatted dialogue achieves an engaging and seamless conversation between your characters. Poorly-formatted dialogue forces your reader into a game of Who's Who?

See for, instance, the following abomination:

"I can't believe you cheated on me with Blorbette!" Blorbo had been crying about it for a week. His tears would soon erode a riverbank down his cheeks. Blorbinson sneered at him, "I can't believe you ever thought this was real." "I was only with you for the tax benefits." No! How could you? Blorbo said. Blorbinson laughed a wicked laugh and looked at him. "My heart is shattered into a million tiny pieces. Love isn't real!"

Did you follow that? Because I sure didn't. Generally, here are the rules of dialogue:

Start a new line for each character that speaks, and keep a single character's dialogue within the same paragraph.*

Use dialogue tags to CLARIFY who is speaking. Note: I said clarify. If it's redundant take it out. I will write more about good (not merely correct) dialogue in a follow-up post.

Put a period after or before an ACTION tag in dialogue, but a comma before a SPEECH tag. The reason you do this is that ["Here is an example line of dialogue," he said] is a complete sentence, but ["Here is an example line of dialogue." He looked at his watch.] is TWO sentences. The quotation marks are merely to indicate speech. Whether or not something is a sentence is determined by the content of what the writing actually says, not by any punctuation it may have.

Use quotation marks to indicate speech. If you want to quote something within quotation marks (in American English), you put it in single quotes, like so: "And then he called me 'a lost cause who's doomed to be single forever.' Can you believe that?"

By following these rules, we get the much nicer:

"I can't believe you cheated on me with Blorbette!" Blorbo had been crying about it for a week. His tears would soon erode a riverbank down his cheeks. Blorbinson sneered at him. "I can't believe you ever thought this was real. I was only with you for the tax benefits." "No! How could you?" Blorbinson only laughed a wicked laugh. "My heart is shattered into a million tiny pieces. Love isn't real!" Blorbo said.

Obviously that's still pretty bad, but now it's readable. Formatting your dialogue properly will fix a lot of problems with your story, make it clear who is talking, and make the reading experience much nicer for everyone.

* An Important addendum: sometimes, characters will speak for a long time, and you'll want to split up their dialogue into paragraphs. To do that, you start the dialogue in quotation marks, but you leave them open until the character is done speaking, like so:

"My favorite thing about Blorbinson was that he always knew just what to say. He had this magical ability to always tell when I was sad, and he showed up with ice cream every single time. It always made me feel better," Blorbo said. "I can't believe our relationship is over now. I should probably tell you all about how that happened. "I walked into my house one day to find another pair of shoes by the door, where Blorbinson's usually are. I knew Blorbinson would never wear those shoes, because his style is more boho-inspired. Anyway, my worst fear was confirmed when I walked into the bedroom and found him there with Blorbette! My two loves, betraying me so callously!"

This is common in fantasy stories where you need to impart some deep lore knowledge on the reader, or for characters who like to talk a lot.

4. Verb tenses (edited after posting, in true fanfic writer fashion)

Us writers tend to have very strong opinions about verbs. You could even say things get a little bit... tense sometimes. Ok, but seriously; whether you write in past or present doesn't matter. What matters is that you keep things consistent.

Nothing takes the reader out of a fanfic faster than abrupt tense switches in the middle of the narrative. If you are writing in a specific verb tense, stick with it.

Don't say:

Blorbo is never sure what Blorbinson is thinking. He watched him chew his pencil from across the office, that beautiful face scrunched in concentration as he stares at his computer. Blorbo knows he's in love the minute Blorbinson looks back.

DO say:

Blorbo was never sure what Blorbinson was thinking. He watched him chew his pencil from across the office, that beautiful face scrunched in concentration as he stared at his computer. Blorbo knew he was in love the minute Blorbinson looked back. or Blorbo is never sure what Blorbinson is thinking. He watches him chew his pencil from across the office, that beautiful face scrunched in concentration as he stares at his computer. Blorbo knows he's in love the minute Blorbinson looks back.

When we write in past tense and we want to talk about events that happened prior to the narrative, we use the past perfect. When we write in present, we can use either simple past or past perfect. This one's kind of iffy. As you write more, you'll get a sense of what "sounds correct."

Ultimately, your choice of verb tense is personal opinion and what you feel best fits your story. Just make sure that you keep whatever you choose consistent. A beta reader can help you with this.

And that's it for Part 1!

This post dealt with some technical, basic things about fanfic that will mostly be useful to new writers. I will be going more in depth about making your prose stronger at the sentence level in Part 2, where #4 is getting an entire post. It'll probably be even longer than this one. I hope it was able to help someone!

[rey-jake-therapist]

Why is it that each time I'm looking for canon x OC fics I always find only Canon x reader fics because authors of canon x reader fics ALWAYS have to tag "canon character x OC"? I just don't understand what's the point in doing that, because to my knowledge many people who are looking for canon x OC fics WON'T read canon x reader fics. I know others will, but I had this conversation several times with canon x OC enjoyers and I'm not the only one who's put off by canon x readers fics. No hate, it's just not my thing!

They may be the same for those who read only canon x OC fics and for canon x reader authors, but everybody I talked with who like to read canon x OC fics know they're not 🤷

And I don't think that canon x reader fics enjoyers have any interest for my blorbettes, that's why I personally never tag canon x reader when I post a new canon x OC fic.

Sorry to vent here but I'm a bit tired of seeing that so many people keep thinking that OC (original character) = reader, to the point that it makes the research for canon x OC fics nearly impossible. Even on AO3 it can be hard because people tag canon x OC for canon x reader fics there too, I spend more time scrolling through stuff I don't want to read than reading anything.

When I say I write and read fics featuring an OC, I don't mean self insert characters. Those for me are canon x readers/Y/N fics. What I'm looking for is fics where there's a new character entirely created by the author to interact with a canon character, a character with their own personality, their own desires, their own LIFE, a background story etc. "Reader" is generally the author or whoever reads it, so most of the time 'reader' isn't really fleshed out. They're not the same.

Again sorry, it's absolutely not an attack against canon x reader writers and readers, write and read what makes your heart content!! I just wish you stopped using a tag that doesn't match with what you write, so the research is easier for people like me who want a different type of content.

I know this post will have as much effect as planting a knife into the water, but after spending nearly twenty minutes searching in vain for a Sherlock x OC fic that's not a Sherlock x reader one, I need it.

[lazyturtleshell]

I know the book gained popularity through Twitter user Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood but is there a fan base for This is How you Lose the Time War here? I wanna be dipped in the maelstrom that would be that book’s fan base like a chicken nugget in the hands of Lebron James. and also maybe have a reason to check out Trigun too.

please I just wanna see my two blorbettes

[daisymeade]

OC tag game

Tagged by @mxanigel! Thank you. :P No pressure tag for @milesmentis, @camelliagwerm, @themaybug, @molochka-koshka, @mountainashfae, @dmagedgoods, and @angrygoatwoman!

Favorite OC: It's Heulwen Surana, no question. I've put so much into her, she's the blorbette of all time. Newest OC: Tisiphone Kalesko, my Commander from the Exile IF! Oldest OC: I was unsure at first but then remembered my Warcraft gal from when I played - Yue Softstrider! Meanest OC: Considered only doing canon/main ocs but this is too perfect - Talfryn Mahariel. He's a blood magic using, Jowan-kissing, mean little bitch lol. Softest OC: Heulwen! Baby girl baby. Most aloof/standoffish OC: Either Kaskka Dragonborn or Birgir Fjarason. They'd get along, tbh. Dumbest (affectionate) OC: I don't really play characters that aren't smart asf but probably Cyrian (from pwotr's through the ashes dlc). Smartest OC: Marion Hawke. Surprised y'all, didn't I? If he were real, that man would qualify for Mensa. Horniest OC: Yue, closely followed by Marion lol. OC you'd be best friends with irl: Fennelilac of the Shire. :3c

[martensite-triangulation]

Also sure, I've said this like 300 billion times already but I've been dancing around with female characters for the second year now. "give more focus to female characters" I am doing that. Are you okay with me putting my blorbettes through the most coked up deranged [DATA EXPUNGED] scenarios known to man? You better be.

[hostilemuppet]

IF you are here from the lesbian post. allow me to introduce you to SOME OF my own original flavour blorbettes of various flavours of sapphitude

zircon. bisexual. obsessively crushing on her best friend of several centuries and making it everyone elses problem. manipulative shedemon. shamelessly horny but GOD should she feel shame

jade. lesbian. aforementioned best friend. stressed out of her mind ALL the time. not the brightest but she means well.

obsidian. bisexual. alcoholic with self esteem issues. leading on HER best friend bc if theres one thing i love its longterm friendships with unrequited feelings and intense sexual tension#

copper quartz. lesbian. obsidians bestie who really likes her for realsies but is trapped in fwb prison.

sunstone. bisexual. insufferable influencer. she has a manager for her tiktok

moonstone. lesbian. he is sunstones tiktok manager. you would not BELIEVE the pussy he gets on the side

diamond. lesbian. going through a nasty breakup with someone who was never really her partner.

[bandydear]

I posted 23,254 times in 2022

192 posts created (1%)

23,062 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@hotvampireadjacent

@iamnotlanuk

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@appsa

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I tagged 3,111 of my posts in 2022

#the locked tomb - 470 posts

#arcane - 126 posts

#nona the ninth - 86 posts

#gideon the ninth - 85 posts

#harrow the ninth - 63 posts

#griddlehark - 58 posts

#gideon nav - 58 posts

#nona the ninth spoilers - 58 posts

#ianthe tridentarius - 42 posts

#harrowhark nonagesimus - 42 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#especially when i first played dishonored 2.. beautiful beautiful game. it has the most beautiful wooden wall paneling in any game ever lol

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

If there’s one thing I want from Nona the Ninth it’s Camilla getting her pussy ate and maybe a nap. She’s been through too much… third wheeling two different annoying couples going through dyke drama, the loss of her special boy, keeping an immortal shebeast from eating fries directly out of the deep fryer… someone please give this woman a bubble bath and some orgasms

698 notes - Posted February 23, 2022

#4

John Gaius is so MUNDANELY UNSPEAKABLY evil. He has the Just Some Guy energy of a tenured professor, and he wears a laurel wreath made out of BABY FINGERS. Hi, yes, welcome, have tea and a bikkie while I show you how to kill a planet and every living thing on it. He is become death, destroyer of worlds, and he has a yogurt stain on his shirt.

709 notes - Posted February 12, 2022

#3

You are Mercymorn. You have scattered memories of a world pre and post-apocalypse. You know few and many things. You know you love Cristobel. You know you hatelovehate Augustine. You know what parts are supposed to be in a body. You know that John is God.

You sit down at the canteen to have your peas and your cannoli. A looming shadow drifts over to sit across the table from you. An image from your past that seems to sit on the tip of your memory. Blonde, teased out hair, a small nose, small ears, wide pink lips, and luminous yellow eyes. An eight foot tall Barbie doll setting her tray down to eat. You see she has cannoli and peas too. You nervously take a bite and watch her mirror you. She wrinkles her nose at the taste of food and begins eating the fork instead. You watch in fascination and horror as she starts chewing the tray next, mechanically moving a jaw with far too many sharp teeth. She blinks at you and tells you, “It wouldn’t make you happier if you kissed Augustine, but it would make you less tense about it.”

You say to John, “She has to go.”

2,030 notes - Posted September 24, 2022

#2

Just gonna share some pictures of Māori people here for the members of the fandom calling the Nona cover white washing

Jemaine Clement is Māori

Rima Ti Wiata is Māori

See the full post

2,040 notes - Posted January 30, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Must we gender blorbo as default male? Is there something inherently masculine about the fixation on a fictional character? I read blorbette and it gave me psychic damage. Blorbo is genderless you fools.

4,519 notes - Posted October 27, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[intosnarkness]

do you have any thoughts on how to balance dialogue and description/plot/action in your writing? I find that every story I try to write just turns into characters talking to each other forever

I have the same issue, friend! I could write a thousand conversations and I often do - things that have to get cut down to manageable scenes. And because I cut my teeth as a playwright, I am very susceptible to just writing dialogue going back and forth forever.

So, here's what works for me:

Outlining. When I outline I often include long bits of dialogue that I plan to put into a scene. They may or may not make it. But it gives me the shape of the conversation I want to highlight.

Dialogue is character, but reading it takes time. The conversation has to have a point for the reader to make it worth reading. What are you telling them in this conversation? Does it advance the plot? If not, what are they learning that they didn't already know?

Learn what needs to be said and what doesn't. It drives me insane to read a story that glosses over important dialogue. If you want me to believe Blorbo and Blorbette are in love, you have to show me their interactions. You can't just tell me they talked about "things". Conversely, I do not need to know what anyone ate for dinner unless it is a character thing. "She ordered for both of them." tells me more than "Hey, I'll have the steak medium rare with mashed potatoes.", you know?

As for balance, in my recent story, most of chapter 7 is one conversation between two characters. But to make the pacing more dynamic, I change locations partway through, and I gave them a setting with enough stuff in it that they could interact with - they go to dinner. It gives them what we call "business" in the theatre world. There is no plot reason for them to go have dinner. They could have that conversation in any room in the city. But I sent them there to give the reader's brain a little bit of new scenery.

For the overall story, it depends on what the story is and what you're trying to do with it. Something like Don't Fade On Me, which is a character study, is literally a series of conversations between two people. That's all it needs to be. I move them around the world and put them in new situations to provoke new conversations and emotions. The closest we get to an action scene is three lines where someone hits a punching bag.

Something like The Only Soldier Now is Me or Used To Pain, which are missionfics, have a lot more action in them, and like a good sex scene, a good action scene requires dialogue, too! I actually hate writing action scenes, heist scenes, mystery scenes. They're hard. So I write them poorly, and then I go back and add things to them. The Emerald Palace chaptes in Adding On Weight were originally much, much shorter. But once it was on the screen, I could massage it.

Find a good beta reader, who will be honest with you. The only way to find the balance is to fail at it a lot, and have someone tell you honestly how it's going.

Also, write the long pointless conversations. Write them for as long as you want. Then edit them. Shitty first drafts are so important. Take the stuff that you don't use and put it in a document somewhere called "deletes" and then you can use them later. I have over 10k of words in my "avengers deletes" file. We won't talk about Star Trek. There's so much. Kill your darlings, and store them in formaldehyde.

(Ask me anything.)

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

Is there decent adult media with non-human (meaning robot, alien, monster, etc) women in protagonist roles? Right now it seems like most of the ones with designs that range from ‘good’ to ‘tolerable’ seem to be characters in media designed to milk money out of young boys, and a lot of the ones in adult media tend to be either in an antagonist role (horror films) or stuff I have no interest in at all (monstergirl harem nonsense with a bland self-insert main character).

I guess I don’t really mind watching/playing the stuff targeting young boys. But on the other hand, I feel like I am very regularly outgrowing it. The other niche genre fiction things I have cultivated an interest in lately have been ‘dark/weird magical girl fiction’ and ‘adult sff with feminist themes and/or interesting female characters’. So like, it does feel weird going from Utena and Madoka and Atwood and Butler, then engaging with something very targeted at young boys. Mentally, I’m wondering how many times Blorbo needs to learn the same lesson, and I’m wishing that Blorba his friend (who I like more), Blorbette his love interest (who I wish got more development), and Blorbatrix the dark sorceress (who I just think is neat) get more screentime.

I guess I could try to look through American comics again, but American comics tend to be pretty weird and confusing and I don’t know if I have the patience to navigate that.