#wheres my 16 commas in one sentence tag

[loonysama]

20 questions for writers

Thank you for the tag @thebiwifeonao3!

How many works do you have on AO3? 88

What's your total AO3 word count? 1,090,772

What fandoms do you write for? Mostly Frozen (Kristanna, especially), sometimes crossing over with other Disney movies. I've also written 7 fics for Wednesday (TV), and one or two for Good Witch (TV), The Americans, Beetlejuice, and What We Do in the Shadows. Oh, and a fic about the song, "Brandy."

What are your top five fics by kudos?

Woe is Your Master (Wednesday/Tyler, E)

Cat Scratch Fever (Wednesday/Tyler, T)

Woe is Me (Wednesday/Tyler, E)

Sweet Poison (Wednesday/Tyler, T)

Black Lace on Red (Wednesday/Tyler, E)

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, I try to! But to be honest, if I get a super long comment or something that needs a long response, I usually put it off because I want to answer with as much effort as the commenter put into it. So sorry to the people whose comments I haven't responded to. Please know that I read them and loved them and will respond as soon as I collect myself from the puddle on the floor.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I've yet to write anything with an unhappy ending. But the closest I got was The Ice King (Hans/Elsa, E). I can't say because it's a spoiler. Let's just say that everyone got what they wanted, but it didn't work out quite the way it was supposed to.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Everything else? I guess if I have to pick one it's She Holds a Candle (Kristoff/Anna and Stephanie (transfemme Sven)/Ryder). I ended up giving Stephanie and Ryder their own chapter because I loved them so much and just wasn't ready to let them go. So Kristoff and Anna ended up together and then Stephanie and Ryder got married at the end. (Y'all know I love Ryder so much that I named my cat after him.)

8. Do you get hate on fics? I have. Mostly on ffn, so I stopped posting there. And I've gotten a little on AO3, too. Mostly it's been from people who don't know what archive warnings and tags are for, or who have contempt for the characters, ships, fandoms, etc. and haven't even read it.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yes! Mostly m/f, usually femdom, and sometimes with mild BDSM (mostly bondage)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I did more when I started out, but I don't do it so much anymore. I guess the craziest was Hans/Elsa in an animated Addams Family fusion AU (The Magenta Cravat, T). At one point I was going to write a WednesdayxFrozen AU where Anna was Wednesday's roommate instead of Enid and Elsa was a teacher at Nevermore. There's also the Frozen/Midsommar AU (Elsa/Pelle) which will never happen either. C'est la vie.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, a couple of my Wednesday fics were translated into Russian!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic? Yes, but it never saw the light of day. It was with a few other Frozen and Beauty and the Beast writers in the Frozen Hearts Will Melt Discord server (DM me if you want an invite).

14. What's your all-time favourite ship? Kristoff/Anna from Frozen.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? All of them? Seriously, though. I've determined that none of my WIPs on AO3 are going to be finished except for Head Over Feet. I'd love to finish The Refugees, All Tied Up, Sophisticated Grace, and Pour Some Sugar on Me, but I don't know if I have it in me. I dunno. Maybe someday.

16. What are your writing strengths? I've been told character dynamics and descriptions of body movements.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Repetitive sentence structure, head hopping. And I have no idea where commas are supposed to go. Every time I think I'm right, my grammar check tells me I'm wrong.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for fic? I generally prefer to write dialogue in English and indicate that it's in another language. I don't want to make the reader do extra work just to find out what happens next. I also want the reader to be in the character's shoes the entire time without even realizing it, and having to read in a language they're not as familiar with can take them out of it. But, at the end of the day, it's a technique and a choice the writer has to make about what's best for the characters and their story.

I wish I knew another language well enough that I could write a whole fic in that language, but alas. I hold writers who write in foreign languages in the highest esteem.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Frozen (Kristoff/Anna)

20. Favourite fic you've written? Pretty Please (Kristoff/Anna, E). I wrote this for @99goosebumps for the 2023 BDSM Exchange. It was so much fun to write, and all the stars aligned with it. Aside from writing some new kinks I loved, I'm really happy with the quality of the fic and I really loved Kristoff and Anna's dynamic in this one. I don't think I've ever gotten it quite as right as I did in that fic. It's definitely not for everyone, but I hope the people who have read it found something they liked there.

Tagging @thefamilybruno @glassslippers-n-cowboyboots @bad-at-names-and-faces @thecassadilla @99goosebumps @paigebstorey @butchbetty! And anyone else who wants to participate.

[logicgunn]

20 Questions Game

Thanks for tagging me @maria-de-salinas!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

97!!!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

444,377

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Stargate. A few other lone fandoms that are gifts for people.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Your Attention

Suspicious Packages

And All The Rest

In A Manner Of Speaking

Ex-Communication

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

Always. It's important to me that people know I've read their comments. Even if it's just a 🖤, I want you to know that I see you and I acknowledge you and I am thankful for you.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

All of the Whumptober fics, the last thing you never see (a Fallout/Stargate fusion), and Subnautica (another video game fusion).

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

It'll probably be the last part of The Long Dark if I ever get there...

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yup, somewhat regularly. Mostly it's bigotry because I dare to to write characters that aren't cis in my fics...

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

Not really. I have a couple of E rated fics, but mostly I stick to the M rating. I'm more comfortable there.

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

Yes, but more fusions than true crossovers. It's a lot of fun taking characters and dumping them into video game worlds! Subnautica was an early fic I wrote that was a complete experiment. It's entirely dialogue, and I wasn't sure it was going to work out. I like what it became.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

IDK. I hope not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. But I have an open Transformative Works Policy, and I am happy for people to do so if they want to. (I have a bunch of podfic gifts, for which I am so utterly grateful and excited!)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No, but I have written other people's prompts and gifted works to people based on their ideas. @bunny-bopper does so much shaping and idea bouncing that there are a couple of fics I'd gladly credit her on, but she wouldn't let me.

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

McShep.

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

Gosh, I have a few. I get bogged down in my serial killer fic when I'm in a mood, it keeps heading too dark for me to be comfortable sharing it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

People seem to feel like my characters stay in character in my AUs, which is a relief because I often ask myself "What would Rodney or John do/feel/say in a world where *his life is very different*" and the answers always surprise me.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Commas, semi-colons, run-on sentences, and I have zero consideration for any of the school-taught writing rules which I am certain can be offputting for some people. If I want to open with dialogue then I'm going to open with dialogue.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I think if you feel competent enough to do it then go for it. I am not, but I will throw in words and common phrases if a canon character does so.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The X Files. I wrote a little Scully/Milder kiss fic when I was a preteen. I wish I still had that. I never showed it to anyone. not even Bun.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Possibly an unexpected answer, but 101 Contritions is my most self-comforting fic.

Tagging: @massharp1971, @colonelshepparrrrd, @dedkake, and anyone else. If you like to do these, consider yourself tagged!

[sleepyfaceandsnark]

Fic writer interview

Tagged by the boo @bellafarella

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

116.

I used to have close to 300 but I deleted or orphaned a lot of them (especially the 5 sentence prompts which were like 50 lmao) and some I was just not liking or felt I could've done better or felt like I could add it to another fic instead.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

340,713 --- damn i didn't even know this existed. I wonder how much it ws before I deleted lmaoo

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Actions Speak Louder Than Words - Ian/Mickey 753 kudos

I Don't Love You, But I Always Will - Ian/Mickey 723 kudos

Parent/Teacher Conference  - Ian/Mickey 712 kudos

Frank Fucking Gallagher - Ian /Mickey 644 kudos

Never Have I Ever  - Ian / Mickey 540 kudos

genuinely surprised by these lol

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

Always! Or try my best to. I lovee getting comments. Half the time I write it's just to see people's comments or tags lol. Idk they make me happy (unless they're mean)

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Yikes lol well I have several death fics so those? lol

The Highwayman

Skype Calls 

If You Loved Me, Why'd You Leave Me?

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Happiest oof...hmm Soul Meets Body  where Bucky and Steve get reunited after Bucky gets trapped in the soul stone and they retire? Or the gallavich one where Ian wakes up and Mickey never got arrested (post s5) and they're good.

I have a lot more but those are usually just fluff oneshots not a whole story

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I think I've only technically done one. It was where Mickey gets attacked by a Djinn and basically ends up seeing the mickey version of what Dean saw in the Supernatural episode "What is and What Should Never Be". If I recall Sam and Dean saved him.

oh and the She's the Man Fic I don't remember if it had characters from the movie or not though lmaoo but maybe. I'll have to reread

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Oh yes. Usually they didn't like where I went with it. (even though i'd make it obvious). Accuse me of not knowing the characters. And that one person that got mad me and @bellafarella made lip too "likeable" ?? weirdos. Always had issues with the shameless fandom with giving nasty comments tbh.

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

Not anymore tbh. I like putting them in turmoil instead.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Actually I think so?? Or they tried it. Def had someone write a fic about my fic which was interesting.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

OH yes! A lot of gallavich ones

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

Yes! So far just the Shameless/She’s the man crossover fic with @bellafarella

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Stevebucky </3

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

All the one in my head but especially 1960's stevebucky, musician stevebucky, and deathfic but plot twist not a death fic stevebucky but like I said they're in my head and have been for yearss

15. What are your writing strengths?

angst lol I used to be really good at description but my brain has rotted through the years lmaoo

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Grammar. Commas confuse me and dont get me started on ;. Passive voice or active voice (apparently) , repeating words too often. I need to get good at description again and better word choice.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It depends. As long as it's in character and the correct way for it to be typed. Otherwise I'd put "says in ___ " or what not

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Shameless US or a long time ago when I started a fic for Crisis Core but i never got far at all

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Currently none. Ask me a month ago I would've said Tarlos

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I'm too lazy to look through my Ian/Mickey ones but i had a lot of faves there.

My Lakehouse Stevebucky fic is my favorite as of late Distant Lover, One Day I'll Hold You Like the Sun Holds the Moon 

Tagging: idk who to tag in these anymore lol so anyone that wants to do it :D

[katie-delaney]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks to @thepiper0fhameln for the tag.

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 68

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 666,406

3. What fandoms do you write for? At the moment just Captain America but also have done X men, Castlevania, Supernatural, Harry Potter, Witcher

4. Top five fics by kudos:

Obsessions Release (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy)

Game Changing (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy)

That Sinking Feeling (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy)

The Vampire Sex Club (Trevor Belmont/Alucard)

He Ate My Heart (Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes

5. Do you respond to comments? Yeah I try and reply to all of them

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?God uhhh I don't usually do angsty endings but probably Betrayal which is a Drarry one but that's only really cos I never got round to finishing it, it was meant to end in a happier place

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? lol god idk I am a sucker for a happy ending so that's hard to pick, it's probably gonna be The Officers Tent just cos that's gonna have a sappy as hell ending

8. Do you get hate on fics? I don't think I ever had apart from the first post I ever did on ao3 where someone told me my formatting looked ugly but someone replied to that comment before I'd even read it telling the to shut the hell up :D

9. Do you write smut? all of it is smut

10. Craziest crossover: oh uhhh I wrote a Libertines/Harry Potter cross over once but its safe to say you won't find that shit anywhere :D the other one I wrote was throwing Hannibal into The Meat Grinder

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don’t think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? no

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, but it was with one of my friends and a very long time ago

14. All time favorite ship? I mean Stucky at the moment but I may change my mind on that one day

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I WILL FINISH THEM ALL how dare you

16. What are your writing strengths? probably smut, conversations and I've been told I'm funny?

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Long sentences with a million commas, repetitive sentence structure (according to every editor I've ever sent work to) over using the em dash, putting the word 'just' in about 5 million times to every fic...over exaggerating?

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? idk like I get why people do it but I have to stop and either click and translate or scroll to the bottom and that's gonna interrupt the flow of the fic, unless your intention is that I'm not supposed to understand it. I'd probably more go for 'he said something in Russian Steve didn't understand' . That being said one of my favourite fics at the moment does it all the time so it clearly hasn't put me off that much as it :D

19. First fandom you wrote in? Harry Potter.

20. Favorite fic you've written? Probably He Ate My Heart but I don't know if that's just cos it's the one that got the most likes/interactions in this fandom and I'm a praise slut?

[naralanis]

Fic Writer Review!

Thanks @mssirey for the tag! I totally didn't have a crisis with the very last question, not at all bwhahaha

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

41, soon to be 42. ASJKLDBLAHSDSD how. And also why. But mostly, how.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

565,934 EXCUSE ME WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. I was going to check my unpublished works but ya know what. Maybe I've written enough akdjsa

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Technically speaking, I've written and published fics for five fandoms. However, I only have one story for OUAT (and I have @shadowdianne to thank for that... or do I?) and one for Captain Marvel. Mirandy was my first love, Cissamione the second, and Supercorp has burrowed in my brain and just won't let go.

I've also technically written for Xena, Legend of Korra, and Criminal Minds, but since I never published those, we're going to pretend they don't exist!

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Only two are WIPs! YEAH! They're the top two, but WHO CARES, here they are:

1) Perhaps, aka my baby, my child, my darling, the apple of my eye. If I ever had to choose to finish only ONE of my WIPs, this would be the one. This story has grown with me, and I think you can tell when you read. Or maybe not!

2) For the Better. If the former is my baby, this one is like... my moody teenager. I love it dearly, but... it takes a lot out of me. An ode to one of the first fandoms I actively wrote for, it sits unfinished, but nearly, oh so nearly done. I will finish it, damn ittt.

3) The Date. Honestly, this one really surprised me -- it's one of my oldest one-shots, and something I definitely dashed off between lectures back in Scotland, maybe alternating with FtB chapters. It's one of my first attempts at humour, I think.

4) Bits and Pieces. AYY, I wasn't sure Supercorp would make the cut, WOOOT! This one was the second Supercorp fic I ever wrote, and I did it because Lena Is Baby and the idea just wouldn't leave my brain.

And lastly, the fabulous number 5... Perfect. AKA Nara's First (published) Explicit Fic, featuring Praise Kink and an Enchanted Dildo (for... reasons). I'm not gonna lie, I am so HAPPY this one made it, because it has a special place in my heart. It's where Soft Butch Hermione comes to life, and if you don't love Soft Butch Hermione, I'm sorry, we can't be friends. I love her.

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

Eeermmm... some? I do want to respond, but I'm terrible with keeping up with comments, I really am. For whatever reason, even when I do my best, I don't really love responding directly on AO3. I also turned off all email notifications for AO3 because turns out my brain WILL be distracted by even a single one.

I'm much more responsive on Tumblr, I promise!

6. A fic you've written with the angstiest ending:

Any of my Narlily works, I guess? Like... All Flowers Wither or Carry On.

Unshackled would be another one, though it's Cissamione... but I caved and made a happy(ish) second part for that one.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Nope! Crossovers just don't do it for me, generally speaking (reading or writing).

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

EvEr rEcEIvEd hAtE-- yes. Oh, yes. I've been told my writing is terrible, I've been told my stories were a 'waste of time,' or 'overhyped,' I've had people tell me there was only One Way to write a certain pairing and my way was definitely Not The Way.

The list goes on.

It used to really, really bother me--still does, but in a much smaller way. Delete/Block buttons are my friends.

9. Do you write smut?

I write an absurd amount of smut. I just don't publish any of it because. Fear.

My pretty, pretty pens have created some filthy, filthy things.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A couple of times -- only once or twice like, straight up attributed to someone else who acted like they were the one writing it. The other times were reposts or translations (without my permission, so still. stolen).

11. Ever had a fic translated?

I've authorized a couple of translations of a few of my DWP works. I'm usually cool with people translating my stuff IF THEY ASK ME FIRST and GIVE ME PROPER CREDIT.

9/10 it's some Brazilian who translates it to Portuguese without my permission and then gets upset when I, another Brazilian, do not endorse it and politely ask them to take the thing down. Thankfully it's been a while. ASK ME, DAMN IT.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Nothing published bwhaha!

13. All-time favourite ship?

Right now SuperCorp is definitely barking a little louder, so to speak, but I don't really have one favourite overall. It depends on the fandom, sometimes! Cissamione is very dear to my heart, because it's just so fucking out there and literally every one in this ship has some of the most fascinating headcanons for this pairing and it's just. So wonderful.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don't think you ever will?

Eeeeuuughhh.... Right now? Probably The Appraisal. I forget what I wanted to do with it, I'm not sure if I'm still feeling the premise... IDK.

I think the same could be said of For the Better, but I PROMISED to finish it, and GOD DAMN IT, I am so close I can't throw in the towel just yet.

15. Writing strengths?

You want ME to say good things about MYSELF? I'm still learning how to do that asldkjbasdn it's a work in progress. But I think I'd say... maybe world-building, at least on my longer works?

I would also like to think I do pretty OK in... IDK, some of the punchy stuff? The 'oh wait a minute' moment? IDK if that makes sense!

16. Writing weaknesses?

Organizing. Plot (HAHA IKR). Consistency. Editing (which is rich from someone who literally edits shit for a living... but go figure). Pacing. Weirdly long sentences? Commas for DAYS.

I could go on.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I am a-OK attempting it in French/Spanish/Portuguese. It may not sound natural, but it will be correct. If I'm trying another language, I'll definitely get help! But I've got no problem with it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Harry Potter, Dramione specifically, and you'll never find a shred of it. I was like 12, and almost a decade later I figured out Hermione was much better off with Draco's mother.

19. What's your fav fic you've written so far?

DON'T MAKE ME CHOOOSE asdkljasdl I CAAANNN'TTTT

I mean, obviously Perhaps is one of them -- it is my baby, that has been established. I think Little Bumps in the Road is also up there, because it was just a random writing exercise that got out of hand, and honestly? I'm here for it. Andddd.... I GUESS I'll put A Valentine's Evening up there as well, because it was the first time I didn't second guess every word I wrote when posting smut. I just... felt it, went for it, wrote it, and it felt really, really good to release some of that into the world lol

WHEW, this was a long one! I'll be tagging @intheinkpot, @shadowdianne, @delirious-comfort, and @16-pennies because I am a curious bastard. But, as always, feel free to treat this as an open tag. Go nuts!

[justlightlysedated]

20 Questions

20 questions, writer's edition, I was tagged by @lambourngb 😊❤❤

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

71! 70 for roswell and one for vagrant queen

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

468, 583!!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

not entirely sure tbh, but let's count now:

timkon, bandom, glee, specifically pukurt, but some other ships too, merlin, doctor who, torchwood, teen wolf, agents of shield, runaways, the old guard, vagrant queen, and obviously, roswell new mexico

i think there might be more, but i don’t remember rn

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

the cost of greatness, which i cowrote with marlo

a cure i know that soothes the soul (does so impossibly), the first pwp i wrote for this fandom lol

the person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger, which i wrote for marlo

for better or for worse (til death do us part), which i also cowrote with marlo lol

it might be your wound but they’re my sutures, which i also wrote for marlo

so the pattern im sensing here is that my most popular fics were written with/for marlo which sounds about right lol

5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

i am not sure tbh, i write some pretty angsty one shots and longer fics, but i TRY to at least give a slightly hopeful ending, tho now that i’m thinking about it, i think the angstiest thing i’ve written was that prompt fill based on the song, for island fires and family, i remember SOBBING the entire time that i wrote it (there is miluca in that one), but ALSO there is the fic i wrote in reaction to the season one finale, which also made me cry, which was called, we both know how this story ends

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

once again i’m not sure, like i said before, i try to give my fics hopeful endings if they’re really angsty, and i love me some hurt/comfort, but i’m not entirely known for writing happy, fluffy fics, tho i do TRY sometimes for certain people

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

yes!! i do love me some crossovers, and i guess i would have to say the malex, sort of doctor who au, i’m technically still writing for tove

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

yes??? but i’m not sure if i could classify it, like i’ll write pretty much anything within reason and if it doesn’t squick me out

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

okay, so like don’t hate me, but no, i rarely, if ever respond to comments, i just don’t know what to say at all, like i’m the type of person that really wants every single message to be unique and special, but there are only so many ways to thank someone for reading your fic, so i just tend to post things and then thank everyone for reading afterwards, if there is someone that shows up often on my notifications, or if someone asks me a specific question pertaining to the story, then i will answer, i also answer back if i wrote the fic for someone and they left a comment, and if i’m sent an ask on here about something that i wrote, but i am simultaneously the world's most shy and confident person ever, when it comes to my writing, so i’m so sorry

this doesnt mean that i dont appreciate every comment that i get because i really do, im just super shy and awkward and i may write good-ish, but i do NOT have the same way with words in person

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not really?? if i have i don’t remember it, usually i’m the one who talks the worse about my own writing

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, the only kurtbastian fic i’ve ever written was translated into russian

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

yep!! as y’all probably saw from my top five fics up there somewhere, marlo @bestillmyslashyheart is basically my fic writing soulmate, we just really click when it comes to writing

14. What's your all time favourite ship? to write for?

atm it’s malex, which is more than obvious, BUT before they hijacked my brain and made their home within my neurons, it was skimmons!!! i wrote fic for them for YEARS, even after i stopped watching aos

15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, i’m just gonna talk about fics that i’ve posted and haven’t updated and not any of the hundreds of wips that have never seen the light of day, my original witch au tbh, i just, roswell made maria and isobel somehow related, and just made me really uncomfortable with the ship, which is the main reason that i’m not gonna finish the fic if i’m being perfectly honest, there is ALSO that au i had where michael’s daughter from the future comes back to the past and she had been raised by alex, because of reasons that are petty, probably my space opera au as well, and only because i just want to write other things MORE

16. What are your writing strengths?

i think i’m good at describing things, especially kisses, i LOVE writing kisses, it’s one of my favorite things, that and my fight scenes are two of the things i pride myself the most on

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

dialogue, sometimes i feel the characters are ridiculously out of character, but then i don’t care because sometimes in canon characters are also ridiculously out of characters, also describing things, because sometimes i just feel like scenes don’t flow right, i am definitely a comma whore, and use dashes and hyphens in places they definitely shouldn’t be used, run-on sentences are my best friends, also english isn't my first language, so, sometimes the way i phrase things just come out wrong

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

tbh completely honest, i follow the nora sakavic method where you just write the dialogue in english like, “hey there love,” they said in perfect french, and i only break this rule if i actually know the language because just translating straight from english always makes things sound stilted and weird

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

dc comics, i wrote several timkon fics which i posted on livejournal

20. What's your favourite fic you've written?

oh, i know that love is all about the wind, how it can hold me up and kill me in the end (still i loved it), no specific reason why, i just love it with my entire heart!!

and that's it!! im not gonna tag anyone cause I saw that most ppl were already tagged, but if you want to do this just say that I tagged you!!

[miraculousfanworks]

Miraculous Fanworks’ Grammar Guide: Commas

Image credit.

Grammar. It’s confusing, isn’t it? English has so many rules to follow!

Well, worry no more. We here at the Miraculous Fanworks Discord server have got your back.

Here is the first section of the Miraculous Fanworks’ Grammar Guide, 24 Hard and Fast Rules for Commas--Miraculous Fanworks Style! 

I just want to preface this by saying that it’s okay to break grammar rules in fiction writing for stylistic choices. Especially in dialogue.

But in order to intentionally break rules or guidelines, you have to recognize what they are and learn when it’s best to break them.

The Miraculous Fanworks’ Grammar Guide is a collection of basic rules of grammar and writing tips condensed into a single document, with examples from our very own Miraculous Ladybug.

If you have suggestions for the guide, feel free to join the server, DM me directly on Discord at @Cass6177, or drop a suggestion in my inbox.

Thanks, and enjoy!

-”Server Mom” Cass Maylis

24 Hard and Fast Rules for Commas--Miraculous Fanworks Style

1) Commas are all about authorial intent and indicate pauses. Basic rule of thumb: if your sentence needs too many commas, it needs to be rewritten and you probably have clauses in it that should be sentences on their own.

2) Never use a comma after "but" if it's the beginning of a sentence. This is actually because of commas as a clause separator. "But" can serve as a transition word to contrast against the previous sentence (this actually has some open grammatical questions as to whether or not it's completely precise), or it can be used in the middle of a sentence to conjoin two clauses. In the second case, you use a comma to separate the two clauses, but in the first case there is no clause to separate.

3) Using a comma before but in the middle of a sentence is only acceptable when the second phrase can stand on its own. For example, you wouldn't use a comma here: "Marinette was happy but also sad," because the second part isn't a complete sentence. But you would use a comma here: "Marinette was happy, but she was also sad," because the pronoun makes the second part of the sentence stand on its own. A sentence that can stand on its own is called an independent clause. This rule of thumb also applies to "and" and "or."

4) You need a comma before the word "too" if the word needs emphasized or requires a pause before and after it. Like, “Marinette, too, was Adrien." The commas are needed because the too interrupts the flow of the sentence. If the two doesn't come in the middle but at the end, then a comma isn't needed. Like, "Marinette liked bananas too." Too is all about authorial intent.

4a) From C-Note#9640: Commas surrounding "too" is actually a meaning thing. "Too" without commas means "in excess." ",too," with commas surrounding it means "also."

5) You always use commas to separate out things in a list. But how many to use and where to use them are subjects of contention. For example, in the sentence, "Marinette liked red, green, and blue," I place a comma after the word green and some people do not. This comma immediately before the “and” is called the Oxford comma, and it drives a lot of people up the wall. People get into fights over this, haha! I like to use them because it separates the words in my head. For example, someone saying, "Adrien owes $100 to Nino, Alya, and Chloe," makes the $100 owed to each of them. Whereas saying, "Adrien owes $100 to Nino, Alya and Chloe," makes Adrien owe Nino $100, and Adrien owes Alya and Chloe some other numbers making up 100, like 50/50. This is why I go to bat for the Oxford comma.

5a) Addendum to guideline 5: Lists are complicated, because you need a comma with three items but not two. Like, "Marinette likes red and green" does not need a comma, but "Marientte likes red, green, and blue" needs commas.

6) You need a comma before a dialogue tag unless you’re using an exclamation point or a question mark (or dashes, which indicate an interruption; more on that later). For example, “‘What?’ Marinette exclaimed” does not need a comma, where as “‘You have got to be kitten me,’ Chat said” does. Dialogue tags are also called attributive tags. They can even come in the middle of the sentence, in which case you need commas. For example: “‘You,’ Chat said, ‘have got to be kitten me.’”

6a) You need a comma after the word said or a dialogue tag if you're using a gerund (ing word). For example, "'Haha,' Marinette laughed, wrinkling her nose," needs a comma. But "'Haha,' Marinette laughed as she wrinkled her nose" does not need a comma. Does that make sense?

6b) In American English, commas always go before closing quotation marks. For example, “‘No freaking way,’ Marientte said,” requires a comma inside. But in British English, the convention is the opposite; the comma goes after the closing quotation mark. For example, “‘No freaking way’, Marinette said.” If you are writing for a British audience, use a comma after the closing quotation mark.

7) Using a comma after then is complicated. Here are some examples for sentences using the word then: http://sentence.yourdictionary.com/then

8) There are also things called compound predicates. From Grammarly, "You get a compound predicate when the subject of a sentence is doing more than one thing. In a compound predicate that contains two verbs, don’t separate them with a comma." For example, "Marinette smiled and waved" does not need a comma. But "Marinette spotted the man who entered the diner, and waved" does need a comma because we want to make sure the reader knows that Marinette waved, not the man. Make sure your reader doesn't misread.

9) Comma splices are interesting, too. When you're trying to join two independent clauses, you need a conjunction or a semi-colon. For example, "We were out of milk, I went to the store" is incorrect. You need, "We were out of milk; I went to the store," or "We were out of milk, so I went to the store."

10) Participial phrases that introduce a sentence usually need a comma. For example, "Grabbing her umbrella, Marinette left the house."

11) Interrupters and parenthetical phrases need commas. Interrupters are used to show tone or emotion. Like, "Marinette, sadly, went to camp." Parenthetical phrases are little pieces of information that don't affect the sentence as a whole, but give information. Like, "Adrien’s cooking skills, if you can call them skills, left something to be desired."

11a) Em dashes are interesting, because they're used to set off parenthetical phrases. If you use an em dash, you have to accept that what you place inside the em dashes is skippable. The sentence still has to make sense without the information contained inside the em dash. To use Treees' example from before (or something like it), "Adrien's car--a blue van--was a junkheap." The bit about the blue van is bonus information that the sentence doesn't need. But you also don't need an em dash in that sentence, a comma will do. As a good rule of thumb, em dashes are used when the bonus information phrase is super long. From Fight: "As soon as they were inside--a process Chat didn’t even pay attention to; one moment he was outside on her balcony, in the next he was standing in front of her on the floor of her room--Ladybug dropped her transformation."

12) From Grammarly: "A question tag is a short phrase or even a single word that is added to the end of a statement to turn it into a question. Writers often use question tags to encourage readers to agree with them. A question tag should be preceded by a comma." For example, "I think question tags are silly, don't you?"

13) When addressing someone by name, use a comma. For example, "Marinette, find your shoes." But not, "Marinette doesn't understand her letters yet."

14) From Grammarly: "An appositive is a word or phrase that refers to the same thing as another noun in the same sentence. Often, the appositive provides additional information about the noun or helps to distinguish it in some way." Appositives that are necessary for the sentence to function are called essential and do not need a comma, whereas unnecessary appositives are non-essential and need a comma. An essential appositive would be "Edgar Allen Poe's work The Raven is neat." The Raven is the essential appositive to the noun work. A nonessential appositive example is this: "My mother, Sabine, is a great cook." Sabine is the non-essential appositive to the word mother and needs a comma.

15) Commas in dates are tricky. Month-day-year formats need commas. "June 15, 2020." Day-month-year formats do not. "15 June 2020." If you are using a day of the week and a date, use a comma. "Tuesday, June 15, at three o'clock, ..." When referencing only a month or a year, you don’t need a comma. “June 2020.”

16) When using multiple adjectives to modify a noun, they might be coordinate, which means they are interchangeable and should be separated by commas. If a sentence still sounds natural (rhythm-wise) then the adjectives are coordinate. For example, “That man is a self-righteous, pompous, annoying idiot” vs. “That man is an annoying, self-righteous, pompous idiot.” If adjectives are not coordinate, don’t separate them with a comma. “The adorable little boy ate ice cream.” Little adorable doesn’t sound natural because of rhythm, so don’t use a comma to separate the non-coordinate adjectives.

17) Don’t separate a transitive verb from its direct object with a comma. A transitive verb is one that acts on an object. Similarly, an intransitive verb is one that doesn’t act on an object. Intransitive: “Marinette eats.” Transitive: “Marinette eats food.” Food is the object, so don’t separate the verb (eats) from the object with commas. Intransitive: “Adrien cleans often.” Transitive: “Adrien cleans his bathroom often.” Bathroom is the object being acted upon, so don’t separate the verb (cleans) from the object with commas.

18) From Grammarly: “A nonrestrictive clause offers extra information about something you have mentioned in a sentence, but the information isn’t essential to identify the thing you’re talking about. Nonrestrictive clauses are usually introduced by which or who and should be set off by commas.” For example, “The Agreste manor, which Adrien lived in, was freaking huge.” The clause, “which Adrien lived in,” is nonrestrictive because “Agreste manor” is already specific. The clause doesn’t add anything to the sentence; it’s just bonus information.

19) Opposite from nonrestrictive clauses are restrictive clauses. Restrictive clauses offer necessary information about the specific noun you used. They are often introduced by that or who and are never set off by commas. For example, “The bakery that Marinette’s family runs is fantastic.” If you removed the clause about the Dupain-Cheng family, you’d have no idea what bakery this was talking about.

20) From Grammarly: “Correlative conjunctions are conjunctions that come in pairs (such as either/or, neither/nor, and not only/but also) and connect words or phrases in a sentence to form a complete thought. Typically, commas are unnecessary with correlative conjunctions.” For example, “Either the black undershirt or the red sweater will look good with your jeans, Adrien.”

21) Parenthetical asides are used to give bonus info to the reader when a nonrestrictive clause would disrupt the flow of the sentence. Commas are placed after the closing parentheses, but not before either the opening or the closing parentheses. If the sentence would not require any commas if the parenthetical statement were removed, the sentence should not have any commas when the parentheses are added. For example, “After opening the new cookie tin (and eating several of the cookies), Adrien had a hard time replacing the lid.”

22) Don’t use a comma between an article  and a noun. An article is a part of speech that indicates, specifies, and limits a noun (eg. a, an, or the in English). Incorrect: “I’ll eat an, apple.” Correct: “I’ll eat an apple.” Often times we pause when speaking and want to add a comma there in our writing to indicate the pause, but this is grammatically incorrect. If you want to indicate a pause between an article and a noun, use an ellipses: “I’ll eat an… apple.”

23) The phrase “as well as” doesn’t need commas unless it’s part of a nonrestrictive clause. For example, “Adrien wore a white overshirt as well as a black undershirt.” And also, “Adrien’s black undershirt, as well as his white overshirt, were garments he wore.”

24) The phrase “such as” requires a comma if it introduces a nonrestrictive clause. For example, “Coniferous trees, such as pine and spruce, smell great.” But if it introduces a restrictive clause, omit the comma. For example, “Trees such as pine and spruce smell great.”

[ed-edward-blackbeard]

Fanfic Author Meme.  Keep Reading after question 2 for 3-50.

1. What was your first fic and could you stand to reread it today?

Jesus Lord, no.  I’d die of secondhand embarrassment before I got halfway through it.  It was never published online, thank Christ.  It was called … ugh, I don’t remember what I called it, but it was a line from Edmund Spenser.  (Don’t judge.)  It was an OC female character and Autolycus, from Hercules and Xena, played by Bruce Campbell.  It was… a SHAMBLES.  Self-insert, wish-fulfillment of the worst kind.  But, my friend Alicia read it at the time and she told me how great she thought it was, and I should keep at it.  So, thank you, Edmund-Spenser-titled-fic.

2. What’s your most recent fic and how far do you think you’ve come?

It’s called “i commit sins every day but i never give my soul away”, and it’s on my AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/22951009.  And I actually don’t have a unit of measurement for how much I’ve improved.  But it’s also been… God, I’m 43 today,  so it’s been 27 years I’ve been writing.  Almost thirty years.  Shit, I’m old.

3. In your opinion, what’s your best fic?

Oh, man.  Tricky question.  If by best you mean technically written, most enjoyable?  I’d say maybe wasting the dawn.  Definitely By Inches We Fall.  But to be totally honest with you?  I think my best fic, the one that got me, personally by the throat, shook me, and hasn’t let me go?  Shoah.  It’s one of my earlier fics, from the Sentinel fandom, but man.  Writing this was rough.  I did my research on concentration camps, and I couldn’t sleep right for weeks.  Lisa and Patt were holding my hands over AIM practically every night when I was sobbing that I couldn’t finish it, that I couldn’t do it, that it was too much.  (I’d have been about fucking seventeen, maybe nineteen, when I was writing it.)  I bit off way more than I was prepared for, but I didn’t quit.  And I’m proud, quite frankly, that I even finished the damn thing, but even this far removed from it, I still feel that gut-punch when I go back re-read it, which is why I don’t.  And haven’t for a couple of years.  

4. In your opinion and without looking at any numbers, what’s your most popular fic?

It’d probably be Consortio.

5. Is there any fic that makes you super happy to reread and remember you wrote that?

I actually feel that way about 99% of my stuff.  Even some of the older stuff, I re-read it and I get really happy because not only do I see myself changing and maturing, I realize I was harder on myself than I should have been.  I didn’t suck like I thought, and I get the warm fuzzies.

6. Is there any fic that makes you super embarrassed to reread and remember you wrote that?

Er, not really?  I mean, there’s some cringey shit I wrote when I was like, twelve, but not even I know where those notebooks got off to.

7. What’s the fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

By Inches We Fall.  It’s my only Game of Thrones fic, and I feel like I really want to continue the story of Jamie and Brienne and their kids, and of Jaime being Hand to King Jon and Queen Sansa.

8. What’s the oldest (longest since last update) fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

How Firm A Foundation.  It’s a Deadwood fic, and I (many years ago, when Deadwood was actually on the air) actually sketched out how every chapter would go.  There’s a few things I’d change today, if I started it again, just because I can plot better than I could ten years ago, but I think the thread of the story is gone forever.

9. Have you ever written for a fandom without watching/reading/playing the source material?

Yami No Matsuei.  A friend of mine was actually heavily into YnM, and I wrote several stories for her.  Later I’ve watched some of it, and I realize I did okay on my characterizations, but there’s always things I could have done better.

10. Have you ever written for a fandom without reading other fanfic for it?

Pretty much every fandom I have ever been in.  I don’t read a lot of fanfic, because I’m afraid (almost paranoid, in fact) that I’ll internalize something I’ve read and later spout it out in my fic, and I don’t ever want to copy anyone, deliberately or otherwise.

11. Have you ever written a fic for a concept you know someone else has done before? How did it impact your writing process or feelings after posting?

I have, and I didn’t publish it for the reason above; I didn’t feel like my take on it was original enough to bother.

12. Have you ever written a fic and decided never to publish it? Why?

Lots of reasons, actually.  Sometimes I write with the intention of not publishing, it’s something just for me.  I’ve also written a few fics that I ended up absolutely hating, and they’ve never seen the light of day.  I’ve also done some that I felt wasn’t original enough, or they were written about the trope du jour, and I had nothing else to offer that ten other people hadn’t already done.

13. What’s the biggest change between your style when you started in fandom and today?

Sentence style and structure.  I used to do the whole, “He said.”  “In reply, she said.”  “The sky was blue when he rode in.”  And then a few of my better friends (and betas) took me in hand and showed me how to mix it up, chop my comma addiction in half (seriously, I once had a single sentence run on for twelve lines.) and I feel like I get a better grip on characterization.

14. What’s the biggest change in your taste between when you started in fandom and today?

Sex.  I used to write it in everything.  And then the more I wrote, and the older I got, the less I wanted to write it (or read it, or talk about it.)  So I’m a lot more comfortable writing non-sex stories than I used to be.

15. Have you ever purposefully written one fandom/fic idea over another because you knew it’d be more popular?

Of course.  I think everyone has, at one point or another.

16. Have you ever stopped writing a fic/for a fandom because it wasn’t receiving enough attention?

Anything I’ve ever abandoned was lack of my own attention, not anything else.  I’m kinda used to not getting a lot of attention.

17. In your opinion, what’s your most overrated fic?

What He Wants.  It’s pretentious wankfic, for a pairing I don’t actually like all that much (Lucius/Harry), and I just feel like everyone loves it way more than it deserves.

18. What’s your most underrated fic?

I’m gonna pick on Shoah again, because I feel like it just doesn’t get enough love.  I’m biased, because of how emotionally attached I am to the fic, but I feel like it’s ignored.

19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?

Wasting The Dawn.  It’s a Magicians fic, and it showcases every character from the show, and I think I did a passable job of hitting every voice.  So I’d be proud to show that one around.

20. Have/Would you ever rewrite a fic? If yes, would you take the original down?

Would I rewrite it?  Sure.  Would I take down the original?  Um, that’s a little more difficult.  On the one hand, I’m not really ashamed, as such, of anything that I did.  But having two copies of things would get really complicated and onerous.  I might actually start a second pseud, like maybe kelex-originals or something like that, and move the originals over to that, and leave the rewrites on my main, with a link to the original in the notes.  Yeah, that’s probably what I’d do.

21. If someone starts kudosing and commenting your fics in a spree and has a few works of their own, would you go look through theirs?

HELL YES.  Mostly because I’m always looking for shinies to read in fandoms I don’t write for.  I also kind of like to read their stuff and get a feel for who they are and why they like what I’ve got.  But mostly, I just love it and it makes me giggle watching someone go through my fics and like EEEE THERE YOU ARE AGAIN.

22. Has there ever been anyone who’s made you freak out because they read your work and followed/favorited/reviewed?

Fucking scads of people, actually.

23. What’s the nicest review you’ve ever gotten?

Oh man, I’ve got a fuckton of good ones.  But the one that I always get a kick out of is on one of my Gotham fics, and the comment was along the lines of, the tag mentioned bed-sharing and they thought that was all it was going to be, but it was so much more and they got caught up in it and it was wonderful.  And that’s my favorite (if not the nicest) because I love the fact that I was able to give someone something they enjoyed, even more because it was unexpected!

24. What’s the meanest review you’ve ever gotten? Do you think the reviewer intended it?

It was a review back in the days of OneList, and I was told that my pencils should be broken and my keyboard taken away because I was a terrible writer.  And yes, I know they meant it.

25. What constructive criticism, however well-meaning, always makes you feel bad when you see it in a review?

It’s less a concrit and more a crit.  But it’s always, “why did you do X?  It was out of character!” and that makes me grit my teeth.  Mostly because I feel like I’ve always explained, thoroughly, why I’ve done something (whether in dialog, in the writing itself, or heavily implied in monologues), and that question always makes me want to throttle someone because either they didn’t get it, or I didn’t.  

26. What aspect of your writing do you most enjoy to see praised?

Humor.  I’m a sarcastic bitch, and when it’s appropriate (and sometimes when it isn’t), I have funny characters or have characters deadpan things.  And it delights the fuck out of me when someone highlights that as one of their favorite parts.

27. If you could only ever write crossovers or single-fandom fics ever again, which would you pick?

Single fandom fics.  I’m not a fan of crossovers, though I’ve written them from time to time, and probably will again if I think it’s appropriate.  I just prefer not to cross the streams, as it were.

28. if you could only ever write for a single crossover or a single fandom again, which would you pick?

Good Omens.  Hands down.  So. Many. AUs.  So many ideas.  So many delightful characters.

29. Does the division of your writing across fandoms line up with your reading? What’s the biggest discrepancy?

It does not.  I read far, far less than I actually write.

30. Do you continue to write for a fandom after you’ve moved on or do you focus solely on the new one?

I usually focus on the new one, however, I’ve occasionally re-visited a fandom after I’ve left it, because inspiration hits me, or I’ve gotten back into it.

31. Who’s the one character you’ve just never managed to get perfectly right?

Margo Hanson, from the Magicians.

32. Who’s the one character who shines without you even trying?

There’s a few.  Eliot Waugh, Lex Luthor, Jack O’Neill, the Doctor (9 & 10 mostly)

33. Is there any particular character whose scenes always wind up being longer/more frequent than you expected? Does the quality hold up?

Not really?  Characters and scenes are as long as they need to be.  I do think the quality holds up, though, because honestly, by the time they’re done, I’m done.

34. Was there any fic that you wrote that really surprised you in the fandom reaction? Was it just by the numbers or did they take it an entirely different way?

Not really, or if there was, I don’t remember it.

35. Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?

Yup.  It snuck in there, especially in the background early on, and by the end I was like, what the fuck, I don’t even ship you, YOU DON’T EVEN GO HERE.

36. Have you ever sincerely written a ship you do not support into a fic?

Nope.  If I don’t like a ship, I don’t write it.

37. Have you ever purposefully bashed a character/ship in a fic?

No.  Not as a writer.  But like, I have written a character saying “I don’t think X belongs with Y, they belong with me!” because that’s pretty much how the actual relationship went down.  (Spike, Buffy, Riley most specifically.)

38. Have you ever purposefully written something you know your readers would find uncomfortable/would not enjoy? If yes, why?

Very, very, very many years ago.  I wrote it just to see if I could.  I could, I did, and I haven’t written it again.

39. Do you consider yourself to have a readership?

No.

40. Do you feel like you put out enough content?

I feel like I put out what I need to.  Is it enough?  idk.

41. If you cross-post your fics on multiple sites, do you have a favorite? Are there certain fics you would only post on certain site?

AO3 is, hands down, my favorite.  For awhile, I was posting to WWOMB (Wonderful World of Make-Believe) but I’ve stopped there, sadly.

42. How many views has your most popular fic gotten?

Consortio is my most popular fic, and it’s gotten 21,658 hits.  Although the fic is multi-chapter, so I don’t know how to break that down into individual hits. In fact, four of my five most popular are multi-chapters.  The only single-chapter fic is What He Wants, clocking in at 6,743. 

43. Your least popular?

The Rose and the Yew Tree, with 0 hits.

44. Do you follow/favorite/kudos/comment/review more stories than you have received?

Unfortunately, no.

45. If you had to call yourself an author of a single genre (besides fanfic) what label would you give yourself?

Pornography.

46. Do you consider yourself a diverse author?

Diverse as in fandoms?  Yes.  Diverse as in style?  Not so much.

47. If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?

I’ve done that before, and I’ve tailored it to the person and what I know they like.  For example, my old boss got me hooked on La Femme Nikita (the Peta Wilson one), and so when she wanted to read my writing, I gave her my LFN fics to read.

48. Does anyone you know from outside of fandom know you write fanfic? Are they involved in the same fandom too?

Yes, and some of them.

49. Has anyone in your life ever read your fanfic just because you wrote it?

Yes.

50. Has writing fanfic had a significant impact on your life? Would you say it’s entirely positive?

It has had a very significant impact, and no, it hasn’t been at all positive.  Some of my best moments, as well as my worst, are because of fanfic and fandom, but fanfic in particular.  Fic’s brought me close to people, fic’s pushed me away from people, and it’s made people change the way they look at me.

[courtesan-of-garage]

Morning, honey. [Ethan Ramsey x f!MC]

Author’s note: Helloo dear mutuals! I had enough, yesterday I spent a lot of time reading fanfictions with this pairing and 90% of these were just... Sad. And made me cry. So I simply decided that I need to write something by myself, fluffy and carefree. Let’s say, it is 16+.

Special thanks for my lovely internet wife @queenkaneko, this time she was my editor, and believe me, she saved you from MANY commas in bad places and other things. 

Word count:  435 (short and fluffy, just how I like it)

Tag list: @queenkaneko , @choicesarehard, @poeticscolt, @zig-nazario, @paisleylovergirl, every Ethan stan! 

‘Rookie…’ Ethan murmurs softly, his head buried somewhere between pillow and her hair, his hand gripping her bare waist somewhere under sheets, their limbs still intertwined   ‘... where are you going this early?’

 ‘Ethan, god damnit, can you please let me go? What do you want me to tell the patient waiting for me to finally show up for my shift? That my boyfriend put his life at stake because he wanted to...’

She wanted to finish the sentence, she really did, but Ethan’s delicate kiss had silenced her effectively. She felt hands roaming over her body, caressing softly her curves, yet putting in enough pressure to make her body burn. She moans softly, dazzed, just about to give in to pleasure, when she recalls her duties.

‘Ethan, what the hell is wrong with you!?’ she tries to get out of his arms, but he holds her still, not letting her go. ‘I need to take a shower, make breakfast, go to the subway station…’

Another kiss, this time it is much more heated and urgent, after few seconds it wanders from her lips to her jaw, her neck. She closes her eyes and rolls her head backwards, sigh of pleasure escaping her throat as Ethan descends lower and lower, involuntarily she runs her hands through his hair, forgetting where she is and what she’s supposed to do. She almost lets herself to be consumed by the thrill, but realisation comes, making her mind working properly again, all of a sudden.

‘ETHAN!!!’ she screams, at the top of her lungs.

She can feel him freeze for a short moment, and then he slowly started to move up, finally his rumpled hair emerged from beneath the sheets, followed by his still half-asleep face. His hands are now on both sides of her head, he is holding himself on his strong arms, sizing her up with his cold blue eyes, little smirk playing on his lips. Finally, he speaks.

‘My dear… Doctor.’ His fingers move to her face, he takes a blonde ‘rebellious’ curl from her sight and tucks it behind her ear. ‘Can you explain one thing to me?’

‘Yeah, I think I can try.’

‘Where exactly do you want to go and who do you want to save on the first day of your vacation?’

Her eyes go wide as she slowly becoming aware what date it is. She is just about to laugh, but Ethan silence her with his finger, as hoarse sound leaving his throat

‘Amazing. Now, all these things concerned, just let me make sure, that our vacay is going to start properly.’

[char-writes]

Another 11/11/11 tag from @hyba this time! Thank you!

1. If you were to give your WIP(s) a rating (PG/G/16/18/R/etc.), which would it be and why?

Traitor would probably be PG-13 due to all the murder. Allure could be PG since it’s pretty sweet but there’s also language and references to “mature content” that could up that rating.

2. What do you think most characterizes your writing?

Pretentiousness? I like paragraphs of pretty metaphors and 20th century sentence structures-- the kind with all the commas and semicolons-- and I’m sure it gets on everyone’s nerves. 

3. Would you call yourself a full-time writer or a part-time writer?

Honestly? Full-time. I dedicate so much time to my fanfiction and have always been rather focused on my original works ever since I started them in fifth grade. I also write for a local newspaper so... Yeah. Full-time.

4. Would you prefer for your WIP(s) to be published digitally or in print?

Okay, confession... I have two things self-published digitally on the kindle ebook store and it’s not as satisfying as I might have hoped. I feel like having something tangible would make it feel more real to me so that one.

5. What’s one thing a lot of people don’t know about you?

Um... I don’t really hide anything about myself from anyone that I consider a friend... I guess that I fixate on relationships more deeply than I should. Like, with friendships, I make the mistake of nearly idolizing my friends and end up wanting to give them anything and everything they want. I think I’m kinda terrified of losing all my friends so I’m usually trying to make sure they won’t get sick of having me around, haha. It’s not good but it’s a thing for sure. Sorry, that’s deep but I’ll talk about the little things too much for them to be secrets, haha

6. Do you like to infuse your stories with morals/lessons?

Not on purpose. I’ll come up with a plot I like and then a lesson will show up the more I flesh it out.

7. Which WIP did you have to do the most research on, and which resources did you find helped you the most?

Traitor but that’s probably because I’ve been working on it longer. And, admittedly, I usually just use google as my resource and hope that the information I collect adds up

8. If you were a villain in a story, what kind of villain would you be?

Dramatic. Tell me you don’t want to be able to have windows and light bulbs shatter as you walk past. 

9. What’s your favourite character archetype?

I have quite a few favorites but one that will always get me is the character that is unappreciated by those around them-- but only if they get their moment to shine and prove everyone else wrong at some point.

10. Do any of your characters have nervous habits? What are they?

Elizabeth fidgets and talks to herself. She’s my most anxious character by far. She also gets caught in her head too easily and forgets about reality.

11. Which setting - that you have written - is your favourite?

There’s this nation in Traitor that’s nothing but ice and snow, and the palace is almost like glass. It has dozens of huge windows and I love the image I have of it.

Thank you again for these questions! I always love answering them :D

My questions:

1. How do you come up with names for your OCs?

2. Which OC is most like you? Which is most different?

3. What’s one word that describes your current WIP?

4. Do any of your OCs have bad habits? What are they?

5. What genre is your current WIP?

6.  Do you associate any colors with your OCs?

7. How long have you been working on your wip?

8. How in-depth do you go with world building?

9. What is the most difficult scene you’ve had to write for your WIP so far?

10. Do you listen to music while you write?

11. What’s your outlining process?

Tagging:

This is gonna be another one where I tag anyone who sees this. If you have time and the desire to do so, answer these questions and let me know some more about your wips! Thanks again for the tag!

[anthropwashere]

@proserpine-in-phases tagged me in a thing about writing, so naturally I’m going to do this instead of write!

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

A lot of my deadfics end up stalling out over research roadblocks. I’ll flub my way through one scene with the intent to come back after I’ve done my Google-fu, and then another, and another, aaaaand that’s now too much work. 

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

A JTHM fic I wrote in high school that ended up deadfic because I ran off to BMT. It was well-received at the time but looking at it now? It’s just so ow, the edge. I’ve low-key considered tearing it down and rewriting it, but it’s been ten years and I can’t even recall where I was going with it. 

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

90% chronological with a lot of snippets for later scenes piled haphazardly at the end of every Gdoc. of all the things that might have been was the big exception. There’s 28k posted and another 50k trapped behind a heap of writer’s block. :C

4) favorite character you’ve written?

Gee, I wonder!

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing?

Winry Rockbell. Not my usual character type to write by far, but she was just as surprisingly fun to write.

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now?

A ton of older fic on AO3 has a lot of weird formatting and grammatical errors. I think it’d be easy to get hung up over changes I’d want to make to various giftfics I’ve written over the years as well.

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

I can count on one hand the number of real life people who know I write and have fingers left over. I hate talking about my writing face-to-face. 

8) favorite genre to write?

Mmm, suspense/horror? Whatever you call ‘presenting a problem to a character that gets insurmountably worse, and also it would be justified if the character just huddled screaming under a blanket instead of confronting it.’

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Read other fics that handle similar topics/ideas. Look through the literal GBs of refs I’ve got saved. Get out of the house and do something even a little bit out of my norm. Get lost on Wikipedia.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

Music always, rarely near people.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

Man, I’ve been writing and posting fics for 15 years now. I have to hope every aspect has improved since I was friggin’ 12 years old writing garbo Mary Sues.

12) your weaknesses as an author?

I can’t concentrate on anything long enough to finish it. More fic ideas than I’ll ever have the energy to commit too. Run-on sentences. I don’t write women almost at all. COMMAS. 

13) your strengths as an author?

I feeeeel like I do a good job of getting the reader into the character’s headspace? I adore limited narrative so when I write a fic I try to commit to that character’s style and personality. I also think I do horror/suspense decently.

15) why did you start writing?

11 year old Lorelei found ffn and went, “Oh shit, this is a thing? Sign me up.”

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

...I’m not sure what this means? 

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

It’s okay to write positive endings, edgelord. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes more is good too, but damn girl, tread carefully. 

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

These seems like a dangerous rabbit hole to fall down, so I’ll just link the most recent fic whose style and impact left me speechless the first time I read it (and envious, and determined, and more than happy to read it three more times).

Divine Right of Kings by Oedipus Tex

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

Badly! Which is why I’ve never successfully finished a longfic! But I do try and make outlines or at least a tidy splash of notes at the bottom of the Gdoc. One fic I’m working on right now requires spreadsheets.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Little spurts. NaNo’s been excellent in the past at making me do more than a couple hundred words on a good day. Alas, the last Camp NaNo I signed up for I dipped out of because of my migraines, and I didn’t even bother signing up for July.

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

For the most part I consider it all passable, as far back as AO3 goes at least. Anything earlier than that I pretend doesn’t exist. 

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Intimacy, be it porn or fluff. Anything technical I can’t gloss over with some hastily gathered Wikipedian knowledge. Comedy.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

I don’t think so? Not much of my personal experience has been applicable to what I’ve written. A bit of geography, maybe?

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

I’d never claim to be an expert on anything, but I do try and do my research for fic. Learning new things is my favorite part of writing.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

You may have a snippet from my four biggest FMA wips (all of which are over 15k words and nowhere near done, send help).

- We Are Sisyphus (03 fic where alternate Ed lives.)

Other Ed and Alfons are unpacking groceries, picked up on their way back to the tiny flat above not-Gracia’s flower shop that seems all the smaller with a fourth person inside. Gratia’s come up as well, bearing fresh vases of flowers too damaged to sell but still smell just as sweet. It helps to mask Hohenheim’s reek, something he can’t really help with how advanced his decay’s gotten in their time apart. 

“Surprised you even recognized him,” Ed says under his breath, under pretense of showing him some of the notes he’d brought back. He gives Hohenheim a long, quelling glare out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, considering you left when Al was still practically a toddler.”

“There were more recent pictures at Pinako’s house,” Hohenheim replies, apparently uninterested in taking the hint to back off. “But it’s the way you look at Herr Heiderich that made me realize just who he reminded me so sorely of.”

“Oh yeah? And how’s that?”

“Like you’re grieving.”

- your head will lie in dust (Father wins, makes the five sacrifices immortal. AKA, the Hohenheim fic with the group chat that can’t stop, won’t stop.)

“There was a cut on your cheek,” Hohenheim says.

Edward brings shaking fingers to his face. He digs his nails in as if he’ll tear his skin open just to spite Hohenheim on principle. Then he stops. Shuts his eyes. Lets Mrs. Curtis slide from his lap. “I,” he says. “You’re wrong. You have to be.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. He has said this so often now, to so many people over so many years, that the words have lost all meaning. He tongues at the space where regret should be and finds only an empty hole. “Do you hear them?”

Edward flinches in slow-motion, an exercise in arranging the muscles of his face into a tense knot to display his anger, his fear, his grief. Little words for emotions greater than any person should have to bear. Edward flinches and struggles to breathe. He presses his hands over his ears and tilts rigidly to the floor.

- our hands were first to forgive (The Mustang remains blind and gets automail AU nobody asked for.)

It’s unsettling, how easy clapping alchemy has turned out to be.

He’d expected it to be difficult, to be something he’d have to learn through trial and error. He doesn’t know why he thought that. Edward’s never shown any hesitation in the use of it—though when has Edward shown hesitation in anything? Bad example. Not that there are a lot of examples to choose from, and of those he’s only been able to see Alphonse transmute without a circle. That’s a somewhat recent development, isn’t it? Before the boys went up to Briggs. He never thought to ask what had happened to allow Alphonse to abandon circles. It hadn’t occurred to him to think that anything needed to have happened to allow it at all. Knowing the source of clapping alchemy, he doubts it was anything pleasant. One more thing to ask after, once he can see again.

This ability, this… gift? He hesitates to call it that. Unwanted, unasked for, received all the same. Fine. This gift wasn’t learned. It feels grafted into him, weird and rough at its edges, like the scars on his torso his shirts still catch on months after burning Lust to ash. Unnaturally a part of him, but a part of him still. For all the knowledge that was poured into his mind in the Gate, he doesn’t feel like he learned anything.

He feels burned.

- Pour Out Like Light (9 years post-series, Ed finds out Trisha’s illness is hereditary. This absolute bastard of a wip is currently stalled out at over 46k words and nowhere near done.)

He peels a potato, sets it down. A broken, twisted hand reaches over his shoulder to pick it up.

He sets down the vegetable peeler. “Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you tell Granny?”

“Tell Granny what?”

“You knew it wasn’t the epidemic, didn’t you?” He cups the potato in both hands, in the hand he’s always had and the hand he’d traded away and Al had given back. “If you knew, why didn’t you warn her I’d get sick too? Why didn’t you warn me?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead there’s the heavy, loose-limbed thud of a body collapsing to the floor. It has a wet sound to it, a splattering sound. Her death rattle sucks the sunlight out of the kitchen, strangled and thick with fluid. There is almost, almost the sound of his name.

This post is huge now, wow. Um. Never sure who’s cool with being tagged in these kinds of posts. @ladyyatexel @leda-x @haikujitsu I don’t really talk writing much w/ any of you but you’re all fantastic and it’d be cool to hear some of the thought process behind the fics? No obligation, of course.

[littlemissmeggie]

first lines

rules: list the first lines of your last 20 stories. see if there are any patterns. then tag people! 

i was tagged by @narrymusings. thanks, kayla! this should be interesting!

(i’m going in the order they were written, from most recent to oldest, because i’ve reposted some of my older fics lately. i’m also only going to include a few of my zarriall week fics and a few of my family!narry drabbles because there are excessive amounts of both.)

1. you’re a terrible cook— Harry knew he had no reason to be nervous.

2. (all afternoon) in love— “Niall,” said Harry, sitting beside the boy where he sat on the floor, leant back against the sofa with a bottle of beer on the coffee table in front of him.

3. played with myself— “Holy shit, Z,” said Niall, reaching out to smack his friend on the arm.

4. dirty laundry— “Niall,” said Eoghan, gesturing at something behind the blonde with a tilt of his head.

5. a little drop for me— Niall looked at the white stone front of the Tate Britain before turning off of Atterbury Street and walking across the large stone courtyard in front of the Chelsea College of Arts.

6. lilac— Zayn walked into the bedroom, eyes landing on Niall where the blonde was standing in front of the full-length mirror adjusting the skirt of a pretty sky blue sundress.

7. i’ll always hold on ‘cause you make me strong— Harry and Niall had been spending most of their nights together lately, the last few weeks, cuddled up in one of their hotel rooms while the other boys went out after the evening’s show.

8. seafoam green— “Niall,” said Harry to the pretty boy sitting in his lap. 

9. not even a mouse— “Theo,” Louis asked his cousin, eyes squinted as though trying to detect any signs of lying, “is Santa real?”

10. darling just hold on— Louis walked into the large dressing room and his eyes fell on the sofa in the middle of the room.

11. tea kettles and bathroom taps— “Harry,” said Niall, walking down the stairs, “I think this house is haunted.”

12. coming up roses— Niall leant against the counter, head propped up with a hand under his chin, and stared out the window of his little record shop.

13. i can feel your heart inside of mine— Harry had been away from home, and away from Niall, for nearly three weeks, filming on location in Brooklyn and Greenwich Village, and he couldn’t wait to get back to London.

14. and i wanna tell you everything— Niall woke up slowly, warm and comfortable under the blankets, untouched by the reality of life outside his bedroom.

15. chocolate chip pancakes— “Har-ry!” giggled Niall quietly, opening his eyes as Harry’s hands trailed down Niall’s tummy toward his soft length.

16. tonight you’re mine— “Harry,” said Niall, sounding like he was scolding a small child, “what’s this?”

17. birthday genie— “Ni-all! Kit-ten,” singsonged Harry from where he lay on the bed beside Niall, stretched out on his side with a bent arm propping his head up off the mattress.

18. i’ll show you a hole in one— “The master suite is truly unique,” said the realtor as she led Harry into the room.

19. poor kitten— “You’ve been a naughty tease,” said Harry, looking at Niall appreciatively from where he stood by the door.

20. let me be your last first kiss— Harry and Niall had been neighbours for fourteen years; the Horans had bought the house next door when they moved from Mullingar to Holmes Chapel when Harry and Niall were only three years old. 

i guess this tells me that i use an inordinate amount of commas, compound sentences, and dialogue to open my stories. 

i’m tagging @nialltomlinson , @narry-is-the-winning-team , @ferryboatpeak , and anyone else who might like to do this.

xo

[theharrybakery]

Get To Know Me

Rules: complete the survey and say who tagged you in the beginning. When you’re finished, tag people to do this survey. Have fun and enjoy!

@domestic-styles tagged me for this...yay for new mutuals!

1: Are you named after someone? I’m named Grace after my great grandma on one side of the family and my great aunt on the other. Fun fact: My middle name, Anne, also means “grace.” So my name is basically “Grace Grace.”

2: when was the last time you cried? Last week Thursday watching Beauty and the Beast. Maybe multiple times...

3: do you like your handwriting? The best thing I can say about my handwriting is that it gets me out of taking notes in meetings because none of my coworkers can read it. 

4: what is your favourite lunch meat? None of them. Sub sandwiches are actually the bane of my existence. 

6: if you were another person, would you be friends with you? This question is messing with my head because if I were another person, would I have the same taste in friends? I like to think I would be a friend to anyone who needed one though. Sooo probably?

7: do you use sarcasm? I was going to say I’m a recovering addict, but that would imply recovery was taking place. 

8: do you still have your tonsils? Yup, fully intact.

9: would you bungee jump? I would have to be drunk, but probably.

10: what is your favourite kind of cereal? Cinnamon Toast Crunch was my favorite as a kid. I don’t really eat cereal much anymore.

11: do you untie your shoes when you take them off? I don’t even unzip my boots tbh. I peel them off my calves by sheer force of will.

12: do you think you’re a strong person? Yes, but I question whether being strong in the stereotypical sense is really a good thing. For me, it takes way more strength to tell you I’m having a rough time than to pretend I’m fine. So I’m at my strongest when I’m showing where I’m weakest.

13: what is your favourite ice cream? Mackinaw Island Fudge (I think this might just a Michigan thing, which is too bad, because I firmly believe every taste bud should experience it at least once.)

14: what is the first thing you notice about people? The way they talk. I’m kind of obsessed with accents, and I love trying to guess where people are from. 

15: what is the least favourite physical thing you like about yourself? That I’m a vampire who can’t go out in the sun without smothering herself in SPF 70.

16: what colour trousers and shoes are you wearing now? Black leggings and black boots.

17: if you were a crayon, what colour would you be? Jazzberry Jam.

18: favourite smell? Old books. 

19: who was the last person you spoke to on the phone? My mom.

20: favourite sport to watch? Gymnastics.

21: hair colour? Brown.

22: eye colour? Bluish green.

23: do you wear contacts? Yes.

24: favourite food to eat? Pizza, forever and always.

25: scary movies or comedy? Comedy.

26: last movie you watched?: La La Land.

27: what colour of shirt are you wearing?: White with a blue pattern on it. 

28: summer or winter? Fall.

29: hugs or kisses? Depends on who is giving them. 

30: what book are you currently reading? The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

31: who do you miss right now? My friend Addie, who I totally forgot I was supposed to Skype yesterday. :/

32: what is on your mouse pad? I don’t have one. If I did, I’m guessing there would be a mouse on it. 

33: what is the last tv program you watched? Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

35: rolling stones or the beatles? I listen to the Beatles more often, but I’d rather see the Stones in concert. 

36: what is the furthest you have ever travelled? I think the furthest would be South Africa, but I’ve also been to a lot of European countries (I’m from the USA).

37: do you have a special talent? I know a little too much about sentence structure and can debate comma usage for hours. (Can you tell I’m an editor?) Also, I love to sing.

38: where were you born? Michigan, USA

I tag @harryshippudge and anyone else who wants to do it. 

[letsravime-blog]

Search Engine Optimization and Design

Building an attractive even beautiful is the goal of most website designers. In the process, sometimes the effectiveness of the website is diminished. We need to keep in mind that our goal is not only to have a beautiful website that will make people want to stay and look around and enjoy, but also a website that will be helpful to the engines in determining what our website is about or what it is relevant to.

Udi Manber, Google vice president overseeing search quality, in response to a question about webpage content evolving to be more search engine friendly explained, "It's definitely still lacking. I wish people would put more effort into thinking about how other people will find them and putting the right keywords onto their pages." Popular Mechanics - April 16, 2008

Search engine optimization or SEO is arguably the most essential way to drive targeted traffic to your website because it leads to improved search engine placement. Optimizing the benefits of a well-designed web site will result in much more traffic coming to the website thereby generating income for the company publishing the website. With this fact in mind however, optimizing your website might cost you thousands of dollars if you are not skilled in this area. Good search engine optimization that leads to improved search engine placement will, on the other hand, bring you a much higher return on the investment of either time or money you put into it.

My goal in this article is to give you the basics of search engine optimization so that you can understand it and incorporate it to help you accomplish your task. This will help you to improve your relevancy and search engines rankings for the best results possible through proven search engine optimization techniques.

What are the major mistakes in design

First is is important to remember that search engines are machines and read words they don't see images or pictures. The most common mistakes form a search engine optimization standpoint are:

Making a website totally in Flash(TM)

Images without alt tags

Minimal or nonexistent meta title or title tag

Flash(TM) to the search engines is just like an image it is invisible although the Flash(TM) may capture the intrigue of the viewer it won't help the search engine to know what your website is about. While the text display as a part of the Flash(TM) my be rich in keywords and information it will be lost completely to the search engines and you will go unnoticed. Flash(TM) and pictures can be used to enhance a website but the site must have text in order to build relevance for the search engines.

In the same sense images are also invisible, however we can include alt tags that will give the search engines an idea of what the viewer will see. In fact the alt tags can be very helpful since the search engines will place a little more emphasis on the text in alt tags. Don't go overboard using keyword phrases in the alt tags but use some to help where appropriate.

The title tag as well discuss later is an important place to tell the search engines what your webpage is all about.

Where do we start?

Why is search engine optimization (SEO) so important? SEO is important because this will make your website relevant to your keywords during the search engine ranking process and will lead to improved search engine ranking. This is the reason why some businesses hire an SEO company to do this task.

You can get information on low cost related services anywhere on the internet. However, few are really showing you how to work out an inexpensive plan for improved search engine placement. Some companies will even use antiquated techniques that may slow the process down. Good search engine optimization should help you to start improving the search engine ranking of your website and start driving traffic to it in a matter of days or weeks with expensive processes.

Search engine optimization begins optimally on your website, as you plan and build it. If it was not done at first you are not too late, you can do it after you have it built and go back and revise it to improve the exposure to the search engines and still lead to improved search engine placement. It consists of the following elements referred to as "onsite optimization".

Keyword Research - choosing the primary and secondary keywords you will use on your website or webpage

Implementing the keywords naturally into important elements in the website header and body.

Keyword Research and Usage

Let's start first with keyword research. Why is keyword research important? The keyword research helps us to find the keywords that connect us with our targeted audience. They are the words that we want to use on our website in a variety of ways to build relevancy on our webpage so when search engines find our website and view / crawl our pages, they will then index us for those keywords. Once that happens, then when those keywords are typed into the search engine by potential customers, the search engine will then display our site in the search results, which is how they tie us to our targeted audience.

Ideally you will use a reverse search tool that will enable you to type in words you think are keywords people would search for and which will tell you the number of times those keywords were searched for over a given period of time. Depending on the tool you are using and the databases and the search engines they have access to for their search results you will get different numbers in your reverse search results. Your search engine optimization professional will know and have access to these tools and which ones are appropriate for specific uses. These tools can significantly speed up the process of onsite optimization lead to quicker improved search engine placement.

One tool you can use for manual research is http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html Keyword Discovery's Free Search Term Suggestion Tool. It will limit your results to 100 keywords for any given search. Another manual search tool is http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword SEOBook.com's Suggestion tool. Both of these manual reverse search tools will allow you to find the keywords that people type into the search engines and how many times they were searched for. Remember keywords are how we connect with our targeted audience.

How Do I Use My Keywords Once we have identified the keywords, next we need to know where and how to use them for improved search engine placement. The first and arguably the most important place to use our keywords would be the title tag for your website. The title tag appears in the header of the page and is the first opportunity we have to tell the search engine what our page is about.

The title tag should be 60 - 80 characters in length and use one or two of the most important and/or relevant keywords for that page and possibly your website domain name, especially if your domain name includes keywords in it. The title tag information appears in the blue header bar at the top of the window and is also used as the title of your listing when your website is displayed in the natural or organic search results.

The meta description should be about 2 - 3 sentences or up to about 200 characters that describe for the customer and the search engine what the webpage is about. In the natural or organic search engine results, this description will be the first choice for the text the search engine displays beneath the title. This description does not appear on the website page when the website is displayed for the visitor but is readable by the search engine and used in the search results primarily.

A third meta tag is the keywords meta tag which is also not displayed to the visitor of the website. The keywords meta tag is a hold over from early methods of search engine optimization, but because it was abused by website developers, it is seldom use by search engines. We still use the keywords meta tag, but most search engines ignore it due to those previous abuses. Some search engines may still evaluate it and you never know when search engines may start to use it again. The Keywords meta tag is simply a list of up to 12 keyword phrases separated by commas.

The example below exclude the angle brackets due to this article being written in HTML but the angle brackets are the less than and greater than signs.

"meta content="Basic search engine optimizations concepts presented to give business owners and website developers and understanding of good SEO techniques..." name="description" /" enclosed in angle brackets.

"meta content="keyword phrase 1,keyword phrase 2,keyword phrase 3,..." name="keywords" /" enclosed in angle brackets

Your keywords used in the title, description and keywords tags now need to be used on the page to validate to the search engine that your page is actually about what you told the search engine that your page is relevant to. If the search engine doesn't see any of the keywords on your page, then it can only assume that your page is not relevant to the words you used in the title, description and keywords tags in the header area of the web site.

Now that we know that we need text on the page how can we use that text to help emphasize the relevancy of the keywords on the page? Mechanisms such as header tags for headings using keywords will give more emphasis to keywords. Hyperlinks where the anchor text is a keyword phrase will add relevance to the keyword phrase and since the anchor text and the associated hyperlink reference are indexed by the search engines, using a keyword phrase as the anchor text both on the website and in offsite marketing will increase your ranking for that keyword phrase. Bolding and italics also draw some attention to the keywords for the search engine. Each page needs to have enough text on it to allow that page to demonstrate the relevance of the keywords it displays in the header of the page to the search engine, if true search engine optimization is to be achieved.

Lets take a look at some of the other tags mentioned in the previous paragraph. Header tags alert the search engine to more important text on the page, much like the headline on the page of newspaper does to the reader. A header tag is a tag that contain a "H" and a number between 1 and 7. The lower the number the larger the text and the more important it is to the search engine. H1 tags can be formatted using font tags to control the size or .css files to control the formatting.

Hyperlinks consist of at least two components. The first component is the link destination represented by the term "href" referring to the hyperlink reference and the anchor text located between the beginning and ending anchor tags. An anchor tag is an "a" in angle brackets and ending with "/a" in angle brackets. The beginning tag also include the destination reference. Remember that you you could use a keyword phrase in place of the word home to designate your home page. That keyword phrase would be a link and would help to build relevance for your website for that keyword phrase.

As we use these structures in combination in a natural way we then are able to help the search engine to know what our page is about and also create a page that is functional for the user.

To optimize your website well for the search engines you should use unique meta tags on each page on your website. The keywords should be used in:

The title tag - big three

Meta description

Meta keywords

Header tag - big three

Opening paragraph - about 4% density

Alt tags on all images and using keywords on about 3 images per page

Link / anchor text or hyperlinks - big three

Body of the page - about 4% density (visible text)

Closing paragraph - about 4% density

They should be used in such a way as to feel natural on the page. If the page feels awkward, then look for ways to reword the information on the page and make sure you are not forcing the keywords in too many times. This in combination with other activities to build your page rank are the best ways to get your page listed on page one of the search engines.

These strategies are what we call onsite page optimization. Each page needs to have its own unique page optimization for the content on that page. Don't make the mistake of using the same title, description and keywords meta tags for every page on your site.

Using these strategies in conjunction with the design of your website will vastly improve your search engine placement

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seo local

Building a beautiful even beautiful is the aim of most website designers. Along the way, sometimes the potency of the website is reduced. We have to bear in mind our goal isn't just to possess a beautiful website that can make people wish to stay and appear around and revel in, but additionally a website that'll be useful towards the engines in figuring out what our website is all about or what it's highly relevant to. For more information on the best local seo company, visit our website today!

Udi Manber, Google v . p . overseeing search quality, as a result of an issue about website content evolving to become more search engine friendly described, "It's certainly still missing. If only people would put more effort into considering how others will discover them and putting the best keywords onto their pages." Popular Mechanics - April 16, 2008

Search engine optimization or SEO is perhaps probably the most essential method to drive targeted visitors for your website since it results in improved search engine placement. Optimizing the advantages of a properly-designed web site can lead to a lot more traffic visiting the website therefore generating earnings for that company publishing the website. With this particular fact in your mind however, optimizing your website cost you 1000s of dollars if you're not skilled in this region. Good search engine optimization leading to improved search engine placement will, however, bring a much greater return around the investment of either money or time you place in it.

Transpire in the following paragraphs is to provide you with the fundamentals of search engine optimization to be able to comprehend it and incorporate it that will help you accomplish your career. This should help you to enhance your relevancy and search engines rankings for that best results possible through proven search engine optimization techniques.

Do you know the major mistakes in design

First it's remember this that search engines are machines and browse words they do not see images or pictures. The most typical mistakes form a search engine optimization perspective are:

Creating a website totally in Flash(TM)

Images without alt tags

Minimal or nonexistent meta title or title tag

Flash(TM) towards the search engines is like a picture it's invisible even though the Flash(TM) may capture the intrigue from the viewer it will not assist the search engine to be aware what your website is all about. As the text display as part of the Flash(TM) my be wealthy in keywords and knowledge it will likely be lost completely towards the search engines and you'll go undetected. Flash(TM) and pictures may be used to enhance a website however the site should have text to be able to build relevance for that search engines.

Within the same sense images will also be invisible, however we are able to include alt tags which will provide the search engines a concept of exactly what the viewer might find. Actually the alt tags can be quite useful because the search engines will set a bit more focus on the written text in alt tags. Don't overload using keywords and key phrases within the alt tags but apply certain to assist where appropriate.

The title tag too discuss later is a vital spot to tell the search engines what your website is about.

Where will we start?

Exactly why is search engine optimization (SEO) essential? SEO is essential because this makes your website highly relevant to your keywords throughout the search engine ranking process and can result in improved search engine ranking. Because of this , why some companies hire an SEO company to get this done task.

You will get info on inexpensive related services anywhere on the web. However, couple of are actually demonstrating working out an affordable plan for improved search engine placement. Some companies may even use archaic techniques that could slow the procedure down. Good search engine optimization should enable you to start increasing the search engine ranking of the website and begin getting visitors or traffic into it within days or days with costly processes.

Search engine optimization begins optimally in your website, while you plan and make it. If it wasn't done initially you aren't far too late, it can be done once you have it built and return and revise it to enhance the contact with the search engines but still result in improved search engine placement. It includes the next elements known as "onsite optimization".

Market And Keyword Research - selecting the secondary and primary keywords you'll use in your website or website

Applying the keywords naturally into important components within the website header and the body.

Market And Keyword Research and Usage

Let us start first with market and keyword research. Exactly why is market and keyword research important? The market and keyword research allows us to to obtain the keywords that connect us with this targeted audience. Those are the words that you want to experience our website in a number of methods to build relevancy on the website then when search engines find our website and examine / crawl our pages, they'll then index us for individuals keywords. Once that occurs, when individuals keywords are typed in to the search engine by prospective customers, the search engine will display our site within the search results, that is the way they tie us to the targeted audience.

Ideally you'll use a reverse search tool that will you to definitely key in words you believe are keywords people would search for and which will explain the amount of occasions individuals keywords were looked for more than confirmed time period. With respect to the tool you use and also the databases and also the search engines they get access to for his or her search results you're going to get different figures inside your reverse search results. Your search engine optimization professional knows and get access to these power tools and which of them work for particular uses. These power tools can considerably speed up the entire process of onsite optimization result in faster improved search engine placement.

One tool you should use for manual scientific studies are http://world wide web.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html Keyword Discovery's Free Search Term Suggestion Tool. It'll limit your leads to 100 keywords for just about any given search. Another manual search tool is http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword SEOBook.com's Suggestion tool. These two manual reverse search tools will help you to discover the keywords that individuals type in to the search engines and the number of occasions these were looked for. Remember keywords are the way we interact with our targeted audience.

How Do You Use My Keywords After we have identified the keywords, next we have to know where and cooking techniques for improved search engine placement. The foremost and perhaps the most crucial spot to use our keywords will be the title tag for the website. The title tag seems within the header from the page and it is the very first chance we must tell the search engine what our page is all about.

The title tag ought to be sixty to eighty figures long and employ a couple of of the most basic and/or relevant keywords for your page and perhaps your website website name, particularly if your website name includes keywords inside it. The title tag information seems within the blue header bar towards the top of your window and it is utilized as the title of the listing whenever your website is displayed within the natural or organic search results.

The meta description ought to be about two to three sentences or up to around 200 figures that describe for that customer and also the search engine exactly what the website is all about. Within the natural or organic search engine results, this description would be the first choice for that text the search engine displays underneath the title. This description doesn't show up on the website page once the website is displayed for that customer but is readable through the search engine and utilized in the search results mainly.

Another meta tag may be the keywords meta tag also is not displayed towards the customer from the website. The keywords meta tag is really a hold over from early ways of search engine optimization, speculate it had been mistreated by website developers, it's rarely use by search engines. We still make use of the keywords meta tag, but many search engines neglected because of individuals previous abuses. Some search engines can always evaluate you and it don't know when search engines may begin for doing things again. The Keywords meta tag is only a listing of up to 12 keywords and key phrases separated by commas.

The instance below exclude the position brackets for this reason article being designed in HTML however the position brackets would be the under and more than signs.

"meta content="Fundamental search engine optimizations concepts given to give business proprietors and website developers and knowledge of good SEO techniques..." name="description" /" enclosed in position brackets.

"meta content="keyword 1,keyword 2,keyword 3,..." name="keywords" /" enclosed in position brackets

Your keywords utilized in the title, description and keywords tags now have to be utilized on the page to validate towards the search engine that the page is really by what you told the search engine that the page is pertinent to. When the search engine does not see the keywords in your page, it are only able to think that your page isn't highly relevant to the language you utilized in the title, description and keywords tags within the header part of the web site.

Now that we understand that people need text around the page exactly how should we use that text to assist highlight the relevancy from the keywords around the page? Mechanisms for example header tags for headings using keywords can give more emphasis to keywords. Hyperlinks in which the anchor-text is really a keyword will prove to add relevance towards the keyword because the anchor-text and also the connected hyperlink reference are listed in the search engines, utilizing a keyword because the anchor-text both around the website as well as in offsite marketing increases your ranking for your keyword. Bolding and italics also draw some focus on the keywords for that search engine. Each page will need enough text onto it to permit that page to show the relevance from the keywords it displays within the header from the page towards the search engine, if true search engine optimization will be achieved.

Lets check out a few of the other tags pointed out in the last paragraph. Header tags alert the search engine to more essential text around the page, similar to the headline around the page of newspaper gives the readers. A header tag is really a tag which contain a "H" along with a number between 1 and seven. The low the amount the bigger the written text and also the more essential it's towards the search engine. H1 tags could be formatted using font tags to manage the dimensions or .css files to manage the formatting.

Hyperlinks consist with a minimum of two components. The very first component may be the link destination symbolized through the term "href" talking about the web link reference and also the anchor-text located between your beginning and ending anchor tags. An anchor tag is definitely an "a" in position brackets and ending with "/a" in position brackets. The start tag likewise incorporate the destination reference. Keep in mind that you you could utilize a keyword instead of the term the place to find designate your house page. That keyword will be a link and is needed to construct relevance for the website for your keyword.

Once we begin using these structures together naturally then we are capable of helping the search engine to be aware what our page is all about as well as produce a page that's functional for that user.

To optimize your website well for that search engines you need to use unique meta data on every page in your website. The keywords ought to be utilized in:

The title tag - big three

Meta description

Meta keywords

Header tag - big three

Opening paragraph - about 4% density

Alt tags on all images and taking advantage of keywords on about 3 images per page

Link / anchor-text or hyperlinks - big three

Body from the page - about 4% density (visible text)

Closing paragraph - about 4% density

They must be used in a way regarding feel natural around the page. When the page feels awkward, discover methods to reword the data around the page and make certain you aren't forcing the keywords in a lot of occasions. This in conjunction with other pursuits to construct your page ranking would be the best methods for getting your page for auction on page among the search engines.

These strategies are what we should call onsite page optimization. Each page will need its very own unique page optimization for that content with that page. Don't result in the mistake of utilizing the same title, description and keywords meta data for each page in your site. Want to know more about the best local seo? Visit our website for more information.

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Search Engine Optimization and Design

Building an alluring even delightful is the objective of most web specialists. All the while, some of the time the adequacy of the site is reduced. We have to remember that our objective is not exclusively to have a delightful site that will make individuals need to stay and glance around and appreciate, additionally a site that will be useful to the motors in figuring out what really matters to our site or what it is significant to.

Udi Manber, Google VP supervising look quality, in light of a question about website page content advancing to be more internet searcher amicable clarified, "It's unquestionably as yet deficient. I wish individuals would put more exertion into contemplating how other individuals will discover them and putting the correct watchwords onto their pages." Popular Mechanics - April 16, 2008

Site improvement or SEO is seemingly the most basic approach to drive focused on movement to your site since it prompts enhanced web crawler arrangement. Streamlining the advantages of an all around planned site will bring about substantially more activity going to the site in this way producing pay for the organization distributing the site. In light of this reality in any case, streamlining your site may cost you a great many dollars in the event that you are not talented around there. Great website streamlining that prompts enhanced web search tool position will, then again, present to you a significantly higher profit for the venture of either time or cash you put into it.

My objective in this article is to give you the nuts and bolts of site design improvement with the goal that you can comprehend it and consolidate it to help you finish your assignment. This will help you to enhance your pertinence and web search tools rankings for the most ideal outcomes through demonstrated site design improvement strategies.

What are the significant mix-ups in outline

To start with is imperative to recollect that web search tools are machines and read words they don't see pictures or pictures. The most well-known mix-ups shape a website streamlining angle are:

Making a site absolutely in Flash(TM)

Pictures without alt labels

Insignificant or nonexistent meta title or title tag

Flash(TM) to the web search tools is much the same as a picture it is undetectable despite the fact that the Flash(TM) may catch the interest of the watcher it won't assist the web crawler with knowing what truly matters to your site. While the content show as a piece of the Flash(TM) my be rich in catchphrases and data it will be lost totally to the web indexes and you will go unnoticed. Flash(TM) and pictures can be utilized to improve a site yet the site must have message with a specific end goal to construct significance for the web crawlers.

In a similar sense pictures are additionally imperceptible, nonetheless we can incorporate alt labels that will give the web crawlers a thought of what the watcher will see. Truth be told the alt labels can be exceptionally useful since the web crawlers will put somewhat more accentuation on the content in alt labels. Try not to go over the edge utilizing watchword expresses in the alt labels however utilize some to help where suitable.

The title tag too talk about later is an essential place to tell the web indexes what really matters to your website page.

Where do we begin?

Why is site improvement (SEO) so vital? Web optimization is vital in light of the fact that this will make your site significant to your catchphrases amid the internet searcher positioning procedure and will prompt enhanced web crawler positioning. This is the motivation behind why a few organizations contract a SEO organization to do this undertaking.

You can get data on minimal effort related administrations anyplace on the web. Be that as it may, few are truly demonstrating to you generally accepted methods to work out an economical arrangement for enhanced web index situation. A few organizations will even utilize outdated strategies that may back the procedure off. Great site design improvement ought to help you to begin enhancing the internet searcher positioning of your site and begin directing people to it in a matter of days or weeks with costly procedures.

Site design improvement starts ideally on your site, as you plan and fabricate it. In the event that it was not done at first you are not very late, you can do it after you have it fabricated and backpedal and change it to enhance the presentation to the web crawlers and still prompt enhanced web index situation. It comprises of the accompanying components alluded to as "on location improvement".

Watchword Research - picking the essential and auxiliary catchphrases you will use on your site or site page

Executing the watchwords actually into vital components in the site header and body.

Watchword Research and Usage

How about we begin first with watchword look into. Why is watchword look into essential? The catchphrase look into helps us to discover the watchwords that interface us with our focused on crowd. They are the words that we need to use on our site in an assortment of approaches to assemble importance on our site page so when web crawlers discover our site and view/creep our pages, they will then file us for those catchphrases. Once that happens, then when those catchphrases are written into the web index by potential clients, the web search tool will then show our webpage in the query items, which is the means by which they attach us to our focused on group of onlookers.

In a perfect world you will utilize a turn around pursuit apparatus that will empower you to sort in words you believe are watchwords individuals would scan for and which will disclose to you the quantity of times those catchphrases were scanned for over a given timeframe. Contingent upon the apparatus you are utilizing and the databases and the web indexes they approach for their query items you will get diverse numbers in your switch list items. Your website improvement expert will know and approach these devices and which ones are proper for particular employments. These apparatuses can fundamentally accelerate the procedure of on location enhancement prompt speedier enhanced web search tool arrangement.

One apparatus you can use for manual research is http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html Keyword Discovery's Free Search Term Suggestion Tool. It will restrain your outcomes to 100 catchphrases for any given hunt. Another manual pursuit device is http://tools.seobook.com/general/catchphrase SEOBook.com's Suggestion device. Both of these manual turn around inquiry instruments will enable you to discover the catchphrases that individuals sort into the web crawlers and how often they were looked for. Keep in mind catchphrases are the means by which we associate with our focused on gathering of people.

How Do I Use My Keywords Once we have recognized the watchwords, next we have to know where and how to utilize them for enhanced web search tool situation. The first and ostensibly the most imperative place to utilize our catchphrases would be the title tag for your site. The title tag shows up in the header of the page and is the primary open door we need to tell the web crawler what truly matters to our page.

The title tag ought to be 60 - 80 characters long and utilize maybe a couple of the most critical as well as important catchphrases for that page and conceivably your site space name, particularly if your area name incorporates watchwords in it. The title label data shows up in the blue header bar at the highest point of the window and is additionally utilized as the title of your posting when your site is shown in the regular or natural query items.

The meta depiction ought to be around 2 - 3 sentences or up to around 200 characters that portray for the client and the web index what truly matters to the page. In the normal or natural internet searcher comes about, this depiction will be the main decision for the content the web search tool shows underneath the title. This portrayal does not show up on the site page when the site is shown for the guest yet is decipherable by the web index and utilized as a part of the list items basically.

A third meta tag is the watchwords meta label which is likewise not showed to the guest of the site. The watchwords meta tag is a hold over from early techniques for site improvement, but since it was manhandled by site designers, it is at times use via web indexes. Regardless we utilize the watchwords meta tag, yet most web indexes disregard it because of those past misuse. Some web indexes may in any case assess it and you never know when web crawlers may begin to utilize it again. The Keywords meta tag is just a rundown of up to 12 watchword phrases isolated by commas.

The case underneath avoid the point sections because of this article being composed in HTML however the edge sections are the not exactly and more prominent than signs.

"meta content="Basic site design improvementss ideas displayed to give entrepreneurs and site engineers and comprehension of good SEO techniques..." name="description"/" encased in edge sections.

"meta content="keyword express 1,keyword expression 2,keyword expression 3,..." name="keywords"/" encased in point sections

Your watchwords utilized as a part of the title, depiction and catchphrases labels now should be utilized on the page to approve to the web index that your page is in reality about what you told the web search tool that your page is important to. In the event that the web index doesn't perceive any of the catchphrases on your page, then it can just expect that your page is not significant to the words you utilized as a part of the title, depiction and watchwords labels in the header zone of the site  Search Engine Optimization

Since we realize that we require message on the page how might we utilize that content to help accentuate the pertinence of the catchphrases on the page? Systems, for example, header labels for headings utilizing watchwords will give more accentuation to catchphrases. Hyperlinks where the stay content is a watchword expression will add pertinence to the catchphrase expression and since the grapple content and the related hyperlink reference are ordered by the web indexes, utilizing a catchphrase expression as the stay content both on the site and in offsite promoting will build your positioning for that catchphrase expression. Bolding and italics likewise attract some thoughtfulness regarding the watchwords for the web search tool. Each page needs enough content on it to enable that page to exhibit the importance of the watchwords it shows in the header of the page to the web search tool, if