#thank you so much for asking though!!! lmk if you want me to clarofy anything or get more specific!

[unseeliekey]

Hello gem!! This may seem a little weird, but when you're writing a new fic how much planning do you do in advance for it? Like as an example, You Have The Right, how much of that was carefully planned? Or did you just jump into writing it after coming up with an idea and thinking about how you wanted the story to go? How do you plan out emotional beats and where to plant the symbolism and all that in your fics?

 aha hehe this is truly embarrassing um. putting this under a readmore bc its long and sort of differs from fic to fic!!! ＝(￣□￣;)⇒

when it came to planning you’ve got the right i got. the premise. and then i figured out names for dice. and then i titled it with an owl city song because i thought it was funny.

and then i guessed at the plot of the following chapters going by lyrics from the song:

and i had scenes i knew i wanted- the masked slow dance, the chandelier, the ending, but beyond that i had absolutely ZERO plot until i was about midway through chapter two and realized i was also writing about self-destruction issues and i was like “i can use this (≖ᴗ≖✿)”

calling all cars, there’s an officer down - initial meeting, starting to live together

shot through the heart on a night on the town - at this point they start getting gay

and evidence of your fingerprints was found - cant really remember my plan here but it was basically saihara being more secure in deciding ouma was the thief of cards

and now/you’ve got the right to remain right here with me - i initially planned this to be one chapter bc when i started writing i was like “hm yep 4 is probably enough!” but i ended up splitting it into two. anyway i knew that was the resolution and i knew i wanted a dramatic rooftop confession.

but yeah beyond that absolutely nothing for that one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i do. very little shit for my more lighthearted fics. i’ll give you the notes for my recent halloween one, actually! (so. spoilers for that go read it. it’s not good but i DID work too hard on it.)

obviously i ended up shuffling some scenes around a bit and i cut some stuff bc it was getting lengthy but uh. yeah that’s what i started with and tends to be what i generally start with for most stuff!

i don’t write chronologically, though! i write sort of by tone and by mood. usually i’ll start with the first scene in a fic, and then jump down to fill in a few lines later if i’ve thought of some banter/ a good action sequence/some nice description, and then i’ll come back and work around those. i think i plan dramatic beats to some extent? like i usually have a vague idea of my pacing and how long things tend to get, and sort of arrange other stuff appropriately around it. i think writing out of order kind of helps- in the halloween fic, for example, it made it hellish to keep track of injuries but also having most of the final confrontation written fairly early gave me quite a concrete idea of where i was going to end up?

therefore you and me has an eensy bit more planning put into it- again, i plotted that out with lyrics and had a couple more notes for each chapter, but it sort of adapted and morphed as i went! i planned for the ng code/second game thing after about... chapter two, i think. i also had notes on themes/things i wanted to develop as the story progressed from the very start, which i didn’t have for you’ve got the right! yay for improvement?

symbolism in stories is stuff that just pops up from me! i use pinterest to help me out with it sometimes, but often i’ll just get a good visual and then sort of try to implement it in a recurring way- or i’ll find a theme and then try to think of ways to represent it in the story.

for the first example, um- in kattar shuffle the card symbolism was an accident, but i had multiple characters use them in the first chapter and then i started thinking about chance and poker and gambling games that rely on assessing other people and having a dealer and i thought it worked really well, so i’ve sort of rolled with that!

for the second, in you’ve got the right, i really wanted to build sort of a. domestic-y homey  parallel to all the crime and high drama, which is where the coffee comes in! i think making someone coffee is just. so intimate. that’s why it happens so often!

anyway this is all contrary to kattar shuffle, which as a mystery built up of smaller mysteries, has about four physical papers lying around my study rn that all look like this, both for individual ‘arcs’ and for the overall plot and as opposed to me looking like someone who puts zero thought into his writing, makes me look like an insane person ☆*。★ﾟ*♪ヾ(☆ゝз・)ノ

(obviously i cant show the others bc. spoilers.)