#the visual style of it was my idea. so mostly im just afraid of it looking shit next to all the other films

[kashimos-hajime]

Hi! So I have a question, I’m a new writer to some fandoms and I was wondering if you had any advice on how to become a more well known writer / achieve more notes on works as a new writer in fandoms. I love writing and I really don’t put my stuff out solely for notes but, when I put effort into fics I just wish more people would reblog or comment, and I just wish I knew a better way to make my blog “bigger” or more well known :/

hi!!! welcome to writing for fandoms. it ain’t much but it’s fun. here’s some advice i can give to you below the cut :) this is all my opinion/my experience so keep that in your mind when you read.

1. tags are your best friend: exploit every tag relating to your content as possible. only the first 20 show up in the tags when people search them up so use those wisely. after you post, it’s also a good idea to just check that it showed up in the tags. most of the time, they do but it’s just good to double check.

2. links kill your posts: unless you’re certain that your stuff will show up, more often than not, links to other posts/websites will cause your post not to show up. it’s stupid but it’s how tumblr works now which is really annoying.

3. participate in writing challenges: a good way to get your name spread is by participating in a lot of writing challenges and to keep track of which ones youve entered. besides being an incredibly nice way to get feedback, more people see it. it’s also really fun to write with a specific prompt or song in mind.

4. interact with your community: if you have time, read some fics and reblog them, follow some other writing blogs. i have mutuals that i don’t talk to but i greatly enjoy seeing their blog on my dash and i tag them in things im tagged in for games. i try to respond to most of the reblogs/comments i get and all the asks i receive. if you think you can handle doing requests, inform your followers that they’re open and have them send stuff in or reblog prompt lists. don’t be afraid to be who you are on your blog bc most of the time, people follow you for the writing but there are a few who follow you for who you are as a blog owner as well. it’s about the personality too. sometimes, you can remind them at the end of the fic to leave a reblog/comment just to remind them after they’re done reading :)

5. keep an updated masterlist or a place where someone can find all your stuff easily: this is including drabbles, headcanons, etc. someone is more likely to follow if they know they can find your masterlist post that could be linked in your bio or a certain tag they can search up to find all of your stuff. it’s just easier to navigate. make it easily accessible!

6. timezone reblogs: SUPER helpful because when you post, only a certain amount of people will see it due to timezones. i normally reblog every 4 hours and schedule them onto my blog to be posted while i sleep as well. this is super helpful for keeping your work rotating through different tumblr user’s blogs and reach more people who might not have seen it otherwise bc they were busy, asleep, etc. also helps keep your work in the tags bc it boosts your notes. (i have examples of how i do timezone reblogs. you can search it up)

7. it’s your blog: write for whoever you feel like, in whatever genre, and do whatever you want. don’t be afraid to be multifandom and don’t think you have to write for a certain character or under a certain word limit for it to be successful. although there are certain popular characters that people are more likely to read and readers often like shorter fics full of fluff and smut and such, you can write whatever you want. i write angst A LOT even though my fluffier fics have done better. and that’s what i think is my trademark: super long fics and a lot of angst. it’s up to you to do what you want which leads to my next point.

7.5. remember that you can curate your own style and niche for your blog. if readers know you write for these characters, know your interests, they’ll be more likely to follow you. for example, i’ve gained more harry potter-related blogs as followers even though i have never posted hp writing on here that was like a one-shot or anything. i’ve just started reblogging hp content recently. some of my followers reblog the witcher posts that i reblog as well. some followers dont even follow me for my writing.

8. on a more aesthetic note/relating to 5: keep your posts tidy. make sure they’re fomatted correctly bc pasting from your writing app to tumblr is sometimes hell, and just make sure you always doublecheck your work. no one wants to read a big chunk of text or paragraphs that are single-spaced. there’s the trend where writers often add gifs/pictures to their posts which catches a reader’s eye and helps with the visual.

9. it takes time: don’t keep your expectations too high. sometimes, the thing you work for months on won’t do well and other things you worked on for like 20 mins will do extremely well. that’s just how life works sometimes. lately, tumblr has sucked at keeping likes/reblog ratio even at all and mostly, you’ll get more likes than reblogs/comments. it’ll suck, but at the end of the day, they’re the consumers. they respond to your fic how they see fit. but you’ll grow. sometimes you’ll have bursts of followers, sometimes they trickle in. mostly, once you get rolling, you sometimes get those bursts after you post a fic and people begin t o see it. lately, i’ve been getting a few followers a day and it slowly builds up. seriously, don’t worry about the “followers” number even though sometimes it’s all you can think about. one day, you’ll check and be pleasantly surprised by how many people follow you.

10. it’s mostly how much you write sometimes: i’m sure if i posted more i’d gain more followers but as it is, i write like one fic a month bc they’re normally on the longer side and burn me out pretty easily since i work on other writing projects beside the stuff i post on here and i am a senior in high school who is just tryna graduate at this point. potential followers like a blog that puts out work. however, this doesn’t mean force yourself to write. if you wanna get big, you also wanna present quality work that you’re proud of.

11. i’d say lastly, though this is not so important and therefore the last but not least platitude falls flat here, is that keep your blog active. i do this by keeping a queue running from 2am to 12pm aka from night to day. it’s just nice to be a presence on your followers dashes which keeps you present in their minds.

this is all i could think of but i hope this helps!! if you have any more questions, need any clarification, or anything of the sort, please don’t hesitate to send another ask or pm me.

[walkingnorth]

How did you pick the colors for text boxes in Always Human? It seemed to be somewhat linked to the hair color of the character speaking? And what font was that? It isn't quite Comic Sans, but it's similar (and better) looking. (your art+music is amazing btw!)

Hello! This is going to be a giant ‘reply to asks’ posts, sorry for how long I”ve been keeping you all waiting.

Yep, it was roughly the hair colour of the character speaking, but lighter and shifted a bit to fit in with the colour schemes of the scene. I mostly just winged it? The font is Komika, which has a lot of variations and is a very handy lettering font.And thank you very, very much

More asks under the cut

Anonymous said:I really really wanna start making comics, you’ve inspired me a lot! Do you have any advice for story telling, and character backgrounds?

Hello, I hope you enjoy making comics!

Please check out my webcomic advice tag, and my how I write tag (these are only viewable on a desktop, I think.)

Anonymous said:Hey Walkingnorth, I saw that you use DAUB Brushes on clip paint studio, Do you have a tutorial about how to use the DAUB's watercolour brushes by any chance or any way how I can learn to use them?

I don’t have a tutorial, but I’d suggest playing around and having fun! Find out which brushes you like best, then go into the brush settings and play around with the settings too, until you’ve found a way to make the brushes work exactly the way you want them to. I think tutorials are never quite as useful as messing around and seeing what happens :)

I’ve had a lot of people ask about my art process, so I’ll put together something for how I work on Aerial Magic panels (and maybe upload it as part of the Q&A episode that will happen I promise XD)

Anonymous said:I just wanna say your art gives me the happy tears. Always human was the webtoon that got me into webtoons and im glad to see you working on new things bc i love it all. I hope one day i too can make something that others will coment on and think "wow i made that forever ago glad it still makes people happy"

AHHHHH thank you so much ; - ;It’s really amazing to me that people still occasionally talk to me about Always Human, it’s such an incredible feeling. People are so nice!Good luck with your own works - storytelling is such a wonderful thing to do and I hope you have fun with it :)

Anonymous said:Question, How did you take the first step to moving to a new country, Cause in Always human, You were in Australia and now the United kingdom, How did you feel about taking that step and how did you manage to cope with a new country, Also bonus question if you feel up to it, How did you and your husband first meet?

Actually, during Always Human I was also in the UK :)I’m Australian, but my then-boyfriend-now-husband (who is also Australian) decided to study over here, so we moved. He moved first and got everything settled, so I didn’t have to do much organising beyond my visa, which was a relief. When I came over I was working as a substitute/casual primary school teacher, and I signed up with some teaching agencies before I travelled over, and they gave me e an idea of what to expect and what work would be like. Having them helping with bank accounts etc. definitely made everything much less stressful :)

Overall living in another country has been a great experience, I’ve learned a lot and I’ve had fantastic experiences. I’m glad I did it (though I’m also looking forward to when the two of us move back home - some time next year we think.)

If you get the chance to work overseas, I definitely recommend it!

Aaaaand my husband and I met at a mutual friend’s birthday party. He was funny and kind and he talked to me about books, and then he made an excuse to get my phone number by offering to lend me a book which is 100% the way to my heart :)

Anonymous said:Hey there! What are your primary artistic inspirations for the writing and art of your webcomics? What are your thoughts on Jack Kirby as an artist? Would you like to do a sports story some time in the future? Sorry fir being rambly😅

mmmmmm Kristin Cashore and Umino Chika are probably my biggest inspirations writing wise. Always Human was very shoujo manga inspired, Aerial Magic is very iyashikei inspired.I’m not sure I can point to any one particular influence on my art - obviously I’m very very anime/manga inspired, I’ve been inspired by other webcomics, I’ve been inspired by anime-esque Western shows, I’ve been inspired by Disney etc.(Mostly though I’m anime/manga inspired, I love the big eyes, small nose, small chin aesthetic it’s so pretty!!! Though not very good for facial diversity.)I’m afraid I have no thoughts on Jack Kirby, sorry. I never got into US comics (partially because I don’t particularly enjoy the aesthetics of the art style, partially because I prefer the more cinematic paneling of manga.)I love sports anime/manga a lot, and I’d be keen one day to do a story about a girl’s sports team :DBy the way, please let me recommend to you the webcomic Champs and the visual novel Butterfly Soup :)

[mxladymorgan]

❤ Here is a quick rp policy guide I snitched from another blog. I have included explanations about my bolded options.

Bold all that apply to you and your blog. Italics if you’re on the fence about something. Strike any that never apply. Either reblog or repost. Feel free to add anything I may have missed in the appropriate category, or recategorize something that is in the wrong place!

My blog is _______

Open to all* Semi-selective Selective Moderately Selective Highly selective Exclusive Semi-Exclusive Only going to RP with mutuals Mostly going to RP with mutuals Indie Affiliated with a group Spoiler free Spoilers tagged Spoilers mostly tagged

My blog is free for everyone to follow, read and send asks. Do keep in mind that if we are not mutuals and you send me an IC ask, I will gladly get to it but will not wish to develop it any further. 

I am exclusives with a couple of accounts.

I will RP with ______

Any fandom Most fandoms Only fandoms I know Only people in my fandom OCs OCs with no fandom ties Only one version of any particular character People who have rp the same muse as me People who do not have a rules page Multimuse blogs People in RP groups Indie RPers

I prefer to rp with characters from OP or from other fandoms I know - I’m afraid I don’t know that many, so as long as your character has a setting we can both use, such as a modern verse, interacting is possible. Feel free to send in ideas for fitting AUs.

If you do not have a rules page or if your visual choices make pages and posts alike hard to read, I will not follow you. I will follow and engage with multimuse blogs up to 3-4 characters, otherwise I won’t follow.

When RPing, I like to use _______

Novella Multi-paragraph Paragraph Shorter forms of text *Action* Icons Gifs Gif icons Formatted text Whatever my partner is using My own style regardless of my partner’s reply

I absolutely detest one-liners and as such won’t follow people who love them, as we would not match. Short answers are absolutely fine for asks and memes but for threads and plots, I’m afraid I am not fond of them - that being said, it’s not that big a no-no if one paragraph contains enough information for me to use. 

I like to illustrate my posts with an icon at the bottom but I might not use one at all with some partners/replies. I don’t mind if you use icons or not.

The only formatting I do to my text is using bold and italics when adequate. You are free to change it to small text for your blog but please do not cut my posts for me without prior discussion - it’s rude. On this topic, I don’t mind if you format your posts or not provided you use capitals as adequate AND provided your formatting is not too heavy - I am sorry but some people format their text to the point it’s impossible to read. I would very much like to keep my retinas intact. 

I will ship with _______

No one Anyone Chemistry Plotted ships Select ships   OCs Others of my own muse Crossovers with characters from different fandoms Only one version of a particular character One person in my main verse Multiship, all ships independent of each other & main ship Polyamorous ships - V’s, OT3s [and upward], or a combination thereof. One main/canon ship within my main verse

I can’t explain this topic very well but the idea is that, for us to ship our characters, they must have a dynamic that can be used as a base and we should either plot it or be in tune. Sometimes people just go *squeal* over a pairing at the same time! I would not object to plotting a ship from a time the characters are not that fond of each other, but that would require the same feeling of companionship between the two of us as writers as other ships do. 

When I ship with someone, it applies only to their interpretation of that character and not with another. I see no sense in doing it differently! In fact, if we get to that stage, I would rather be exclusives with you and rp only with your portrayal of the character in question in the sense of developing this dynamic over different situations, verses, etc.

My blog WILL contain ______ in it’s content

Fluff Angst Gore Violence Smut  Blood  Torture Shipping Death Dark humour Cheating Assault 

Any and each might happen at some point. Naturally, heavier topics should be plotted. This being said, most of my posts are either fluffy/friendly, sad or adventurous. Again, it’s all a matter of agreement between both writers. I do not object to smutty things but only with selected partners.

I will follow ______ back

Everyone Only some people Most people Only people in my fandom Every RP blog Only people I actively wish to RP with People who do not post a lot of OOC People whose posts I am comfortable with on my dashboard

In general, I will follow people whose writing I appreciate, whether or not I expect a follow back. Naturally, this means I would like to write with you! 

OOC posts are a fine thing, for behind every blog there is not a machine programmed to answer things all day long, but bloggers of flesh and bone. I can never have anything against status updates on your life - in rp-related things, in things that make you happy and want to share, things that are saddening you and you could use a friendly shoulder for. However, I won’t follow people who, in 10 posts, have 8 or 9 as OOC - the way I see it, that makes it a personal blog instead of rp and I like to keep these contents separated in my respective blogs. 

To RP with me, you should _______

Follow back Answer an open Message me OOC Message me IC Make a starter Answer my starter Send in a meme Like a starter call 

Feel free to send me an ask. You can send me an IM too but I’d be thankful if you sent me an ask about it first, for permission. It’s ok if you don’t, though. A meme can be a fine way for us to get acquainted but please keep in mind I am not a fan of continuing a meme without discussion. Please don’t write me a starter out of the blue - send me a message first. Bottom-line to deal with me is: most things can be solved with a chat.

Other:

I practice reblog karma with memes I expect reblog karma with memes I expect my rules/about to be read I always read the rules/about before following/interacting If you follow me, I would like suicide and assault tagged I expect all smut to be beneath a read-more I expect smut to be tagged I am a multiverse blog I am multi-muse I use/my blog has NPC characters/OCs I do not wish for my OOC posts to be reblogged I do not wish for my threads to be reblogged by those not involved I expect post length to be matched I expect icons/gifs to be used in a reply if I have used them I don’t expect post length to be matched, but I will try to match your own. I am patient when waiting for replies and expect the same courtesy. I will tag squicks/etc upon request

If I reblogged a meme you want to reblog as well without sending me a prompt, you’re free to! Really, not all memes work for the characters or with our mood and I understand that. I just won’t like it if you reblog every time without sending me something every now and then. Similarly, if I reblog a meme from you without sending you anything, be rest assured I will send you a prompt (and no reblog) the next time or send you an IC ask! Feel free to tell me if this arrangement bothers you.

I expect smut to be tagged but I expect everything as well. I will not follow blogs that don’t tag their posts in some way. It’s fine if you forget every now and then!

I will write as much as I want. If it’s in the published answer, it’s because I found it important, even if not to advance with the story, to express Morgan’s thoughts, memories, opes, body language, etc. Do not expect short answers as the rule and you will not be disappointed. Expect the gospel according to Sparrow and be glad if it’s shorter! A reminder: I tag long posts as #long post for ts - you can always add it to your blacklist.