misc-obeyme · 9 months ago
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hi ur writing is literally amazing can i ask u some stuff regarding it/how you go about writing/advice? feel free to ignore this if its not something youre comfy with
were u ever nervous to post fic? i just posted my first one and am like. super embarrassed (i also have a Guilt Complex that influences that lmao). if so, did you find it easier as you kept writing?
also how the hell do you write endings/get the motivation for them? youre really good at tying things together nicely at the end (or the occasional Leave 'Em Wondering) and im curious about your process for it. i can pretty steadily get up to the scene i started the fic to write but after that brain and motivation go honk mimimi
anyways thank you for sharing your work with the internet! i love reading your stuff its always a highlight in my day :)
Hi there, anon!
So first of all, I absolutely LOVE questions about writing, so please always feel free to send me any you may have! I'm such a nerd, I really love talking about the process and I'm happy to discuss it or share advice and so on!
Secondly, omg you're so sweet! Thank you, I'm so glad you like my writing!
Now then, lemme answer your questions! I apologize in advance for the LENGTH of these answers, but I seem to be incapable of writing about this sort of thing without it turning into an entire essay.
Yes, absolutely, I was extremely nervous when I first starting posting my fics. Some of that may have been that I hadn't written fic in a while and I was nervous enough about sharing, but I was extra nervous about messing up characterization. I wasn't used to writing for characters that I didn't create myself. I got nervous again when I started posting smut, too lol.
The thing about this type of anxiety in general is that exposure therapy really is the cure. It's like that for a little bit at first, but the more you do it, the more you prove to yourself that it's no big deal. Nowadays, I have almost no anxiety when I'm posting something fluffy and even most smut pieces are easier for me to post, too.
Another piece of this is remembering that the reason you write fic is for your own enjoyment. You're putting it on the internet on the chance that someone else might like it, too. But really, you have to focus on the things that make you happy. It's easier to deal with posting anxiety if you keep your focus on the joy of creation rather than the adrenaline of sharing. It's hard to do, but it gets easier the more you do it!
Okay, so endings! Uh, here's a fun fact about me, endings are my weakness lol. I have a lot of practice starting things and then never ending them because I absolutely get bored at a certain point. So I know exactly what you mean by the brain going to honk mimimi land.
For me, the trick was to write short stuff. Most of my fics are just scene length. This allowed me to get some practice with writing more endings because I didn't get bored when I was pretty much just writing one scene. So I found a couple things that I like to do for endings specifically, but then I also discovered a way to sort of keep my brain engaged while writing longer stuff.
It kinda all comes down to what you want to leave the reader with. That final paragraph or sentence can really deliver an impactful emotion. So you kinda have to think about what the rest of the scene is about, what specific feeling do you want the reader to have when they get to the end? If you're not sure, you can also frame it as what kind of feeling do you want to have at the end?
One technique I like to use is tying everything back to the beginning. I've used it multiple times, but it's probably most obvious in this Barbatos drabble. The first and last sentences are the same, but you don't have to be that blatant about it lol. That was mostly a stylistic choice. But if you look at the third paragraph and the last paragraph, they are parallels of each other, but they're different. What they convey is that something has changed by the end. So by repeating pieces of the beginning at the end, I'm deliberately illustrating what changed in the middle.
It's like thinking of the ending as a sort of summary of everything that happened in the middle of the story. If you're writing something longer, you can apply this to individual scenes as needed. But you might end up with an entire scene at the beginning and an entire scene at the end that do the same thing (rather than a couple of paragraphs).
Another thing I like to do is leave an implication of further action that isn't included. Something like "You wouldn't leave his room until morning." or maybe "You had a feeling something like this would happen again soon." Like this isn't really the end, but the rest is up to your imagination!
This is more specifically about the last paragraphs/scene/sentence, though. It's good to think of a way to recall the entirety of the story you just told, leaving the reader with the overall feeling you were going for.
But when it comes to longer stories, if you're finding you make it to one scene and then stop, well, that might be the end of your story. For this kind of thing, it really helps me to think about what the end game of the story is. For instance, in my longest fic, The Threads That Bind, I knew it was a Barbatos x MC love story. So the "end" couldn't happen until they had confessed their feelings to each other. A lot of other stuff happened before that, but it all contributed to that final plot point. And there isn't much story after that. The final scene is their confession. (There is a spicy epilogue, but that was just a bonus lol.)
So if you can decide before you even start writing what the goal is, you can write to that goal, filling in a bunch of cool scenes along the way. It doesn't have to be that you know exactly what happens or what the final scene is. When I started writing Threads, I had no idea how the confession was going to go. I just knew that Barbatos and MC had to end up declaring their love somehow.
But I tied that into the rest of the story with the theme of the threads. It was a visual anchor as well as a metaphorical one - magic let them see threads binding them together, but the feeling of belonging to each other was kind of the point of it all. So I was able to take that concept that I'd already used and incorporate it into the final confession scene.
NOW THEN all of this might also be easier if you're an outline type of person, but I most definitely AM NOT. Other writers swear by an outline and you'll probably find a lot of information on how to use one if you Google it.
But outlining for me is like pulling teeth, so I never do it. I write my first draft in a fever dream, with the end goal and a handful of ideas about overall themes and a couple things that I just think would be cool or fun to write. I spend a lot of time daydreaming about the story first, too, but I don't write anything down until I'm writing that first draft.
I could probably write a whole book on my methods for writing, but my biggest piece of advice for this kind of thing is EXPERIMENT.
The best part about writing is that aside from the basic fundamentals (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc), there are NO RULES. So if you're finding you're always struggling with finishing, try out anything and everything that might help you with that. Try writing outlines, try not writing outlines, try ending your story with the scene you were working toward, try thinking of a new scene you want to write as the ending scene. If it works, great! If it doesn't work, no problem! Just chuck it and try something else.
Sometimes the best thing for me to do is to ask myself what would be the most fun to write next? And then just going for it. My opinion is that you can always edit things later!
Anyway, I hope some of that helps! I'm sorry I really rambled quite a bit, but like I said, I love talking about this kind of thing lol.
Good luck, anon, and I believe in you!
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softluci · 3 years ago
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family friendly dialogue prompts ^_^
[ i just wanted to make a list of all the fun things that bounce around in my head, in the form of dialogue/action prompts/lines that i can (and probs will) draw from whenever. it can (and probably would) be mc saying these things, or it can be a man of your choice, but anyone can use these if they so choose, but if you do, just tag me so i can see what you’ve done with the chaos of my brain. or, if you wanna send me a number, i can write a small thing for you ^_^ ]
1. “if i have to—shut the fuck up—if i have to open this fridge again and find that we have no juice, i swear—”
2. “woke up today. never wanna hear jesus loves me ever again.”
3. “it is time for the immense power of violence.”
4. “no because if vivaldi ‘didn’t intend’ for me to shake my ass to his music then why do i feel such an inclination to do so?”
5. [holding a can of lysol and a lighter] “do you wanna see a magic trick?”
6. “and then i said, ‘because god don’t like ugly, and you’re not cute,’ and i got in so much trouble.”
7. “i can’t tell you what we do in there, it’s a total violation of the bro code.” [i was absolutely, 100% thinking of beel and his teammates.]
8. [“are you ticklish?”] “are you willing to die to find out?” 
9. “i think if barbatos appeared even a little bit annoyed with me, i would just have to die.”
10. “i’m not saying i’m attracted to him or anything, i’m just saying, given the chance—”
11. “if you guys see me, like, shaking my ass to big time rush, just don’t say anything.” [“what?”] “i said if—you—see—”
12. “and i was like ‘you have to die,’ even though, at the time, i didn’t even know what death was, but i meant it—”
13. “one time i was babysitting this little girl, and we were making bracelets together. i see she’s making two, so i ask who the other one is for—she fucking goes, ‘oh, it’s for the man in my closet!’ my heart very swiftly falls out of my ass.”
14. “some of you bitches are very odd.”
15. “me, personally, i think i’m pretty neat, but lucifer seems to think i’m a public enemy.”
16. “stop that.” [“stop what?”]
17. “bye, squidward, bye, mr. krabs! byeeee, squidwaaaard.” [but it’s two obm men. it is barbatos and dia, in that order, don’t ask questions.] 
18. “i am formally apologizing in advance for the person i am going to become if i ever see [man] with his hair pushed back.” [barbatos. this is about b—] 
19. “did i commit arson? technically.” [“‘technically’?”] 
20. “if i were to bite you, like, a little bit—”
21. “all everyone does is stare at me from afar and whisper, like, bitch, if you don’t give me a fucking kiss—”
22. “everyone is like, ‘are you okay?’ i eat breakfast at four in the afternoon, don’t ask silly questions.” 
23. “one time, one of the boys walked up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek while lucifer was talking to me— i have never seen someone look so murderous and confused.” [again, was absolutely thinking of beel and his teammates.] 
24. “i think my parents tried so hard to make me religious because they could tell from my eyes that i thoroughly believed god was dead.” 
25. “and he was like, ‘you like me?’ and when i tell you i almost fell over.” 
26. “you know, under normal circumstances, i am pretty laid back, but i was in the middle of my second nap for today, and you have just committed a felony.”
27. “in theory, it was my fault. in actuality, it was also my fault, but what we should be focusing on is why none of you made any efforts to hide that trap door.” [“it was hidden.”] “then how and why was it so easily found by my dead little eyes?” 
28. “what was i supposed to do, let it go?” [“yes.”] “well, i’ll tell you what, i was never known for my virtue.” 
29. “and then he ate my poptart, so i had no choice but to show him that actions have consequences.” [“what’d you do?”] “i threw a desk at him.” 
30. “embarrassing mammon is my favorite pastime.” [“you know you’re not actually embarrassing him, right?”] 
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