Books By First Line

Inviting all writers, artists, and betas to join the Monsters and Myths Good Omens Collab!

Join us for a creative celebration through the lens of mythology, folklore, and legendary creatures. Whether you want to explore ancient folklore, cryptid chaos, or gothic horror, this is your canvas to rewrite the myths with your favorite Good Omens characters. Let's make something beautifully monstrous together!

⛔Restrictions: Please note that the The Art of Yelling host server is an 18+ community. Participants must be 18 or older to join the collab. All ratings (G/T, M/E) are welcome. 

✍️ Writers: Bring your best folklore and creature ideas. 

🔍 Betas: Help us keep the chaos contained and polished.

🎨 Artists: Give us your most stunning, mythical visuals. Your canvas, your rules! All art styles welcome! You'll get to look at the writers' story summaries first and pick the concepts that spark your inspiration. Come help us bring these monstrous myths to life!

What You Get From This Event: Access to a Discord community of lovely fandom creators sharing ideas, collaborating, and cheerleading. We have channels for brainstorming, feedback, writing sprints, WIP progress sharing, fic recommendations, cute pet pics, and more!

📅 IMPORTANT DATES

July 4……..... Event opens

August 4…... Deadline to join and submit your story summary/rating if you are an artist, a beta, or a writer who wants to be paired up.

August 16..… Deadline for betas and artists to submit their pairing survey

August 29.... Beta and artist pairings announced

October 1.…  Posting period begins and deadline to join for solo writers/ artists (Those who do not want a beta, writer, or artist pairing). ⚠️ Note for Solo Creators: While you can join up until October 1, keep in mind that your story/art must be ready to post by the end of October.

💡 Quick Facts: Any rating welcome | No word count min/max | New works or current WIP chapters welcome | Choose from our prompt list or create your own! Click here for more information/ FAQ

Contact @ajconstantine on Tumblr or Discord (same name) with any questions.

The thing is.

If I had to choose between GO canon and fandom works-- and I know, I too HATE hypothetical choices like that, just bear with me for a moment-- if i really had to choose between not rereading the book, watching the show or even seeing photos of them from the show ever again, and not being able to read fic or see fan art ever again, there is NO fucking question. Yes, I always loved the book, that's the garden all of this started in, and I adored s1 and most of s2. But what fandom has created is so much more. Losing access to canon would suck, but not being able to reread my favorite fics, or get that thrill when a writer I've subscribed to posts something new, or see my favorite artists' works ever again is unthinkable. You all took these characters and asked so many 'what if?'s about them, and then CREATED THE MOST AMAZING ANSWERS YOURSELVES, and just... shared them with all of us! You asked SO MANY different questions and created so many different answers that I never would have dreamed of, and I got to see it and read it and it lives in my head rent free forever, in a gorgeous gilded frame with a little tag next to it that says, I loved this one so much. This one made me laugh til i cried, and it's so them. This one helped get me through the Very Bad Time. This one is just so, so beautiful.

Well, it’s actually been 30 years now, but here’s a spew I did 5 years ago on the bird app to commemorate my 25 years as a TV writer. 

I’ve edited it a bit for clarity. Hopefully some of you will find it useful.

1. In TV writing (and writing in general) there is only one unbreakable rule: Thou shalt not be boring.

2. Write characters people want to hang out with for an hour or so once a week for years to come. Even if they’re bad people, make them interesting, engaging bad people.

3. If your lead is a bad person, make them funny and/or sexy. Direct most of their bad behavior toward other bad people or themselves. Make them well motivated. Maintain rooting interest.

4. What makes a character special should be intertwined with what makes them struggle. Perfect people are boring.

5. Characters should complement/conflict with each other. No two characters should serve the same purpose/have the same backstory/have the same voice.

6. Cast the best actor, adjust the character to suit.

7. Give your leads the best lines/moments. No one is tuning in to watch the funny guest star. Like Garry Marshall said back on HAPPY DAYS, “I’m paying Henry Winkler $25,000 an episode. Give the Fonz the jokes.”

8. Your characters, good & bad, should reflect the reality of our wonderful, diverse world. White male shouldn’t be the default.

9. Avoid stereotypes. Stereotypes are boring.

10. If all your POV characters know some secret, the audience should know it too.

11. If your show hinges on a big mystery, know more or less what the truth is from the beginning. You can change it later if you need to, but write to a specific.

12. If your story doesn’t test your characters mentally, physically, psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually, you don’t have a story.

13. You can start by figuring out the Beginning, the Middle, or the End, but you don’t have an episode until you have all three.

14. Big suspenseful act outs (the last moments before the commercials) aren’t just a gimmick. They’re a good way to structure an hour of entertainment to make sure the audience is invested and your pacing is solid.

15. Every scene should be a consequence of the previous scene or a refutation of it.

16. A scene also needs a Beginning, Middle, and End. The end should propel the characters and/or audience into the next scene.

17. Every scene is a negotiation/confrontation between two or more characters who want different things or have different ideas on how to solve the same problem.

18. A good action scene is still a character scene. With punching. (This applies to sex scenes too, but you know, with sex.)

19. A crap page is better than a blank one.

20. It’s easier to cut than to add.

21. Good things rarely happen in the Writers Room after dinner. Go home, get some rest, write pages at home if you have to, start fresh in the morning.  Writers who have a life outside the writing room are better writers. Beware the showrunner who doesn’t want to go home to their family. That said…

22. Script by day one of Pre-Production. No matter what.

23. You’re a writer first. Almost nothing happening on set or in post is more important than the writing. Delegate when possible.

24. Make an extra effort to surround yourself with writers who are different from you (background, race, gender, orientation, etc). Listen to their perspectives, especially on experiences alien to you.

25. And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. In TV writing and life in general. 

PART TWO HERE:

A sweet, tender epilogue - and we're done:

Chapter 12

If you don't know this story yet, now's the perfect time:

Every Colour Of You

It's been quite the journey. I've learned a lot and I owe all of it to @handyowlet and the magic of @fandomtrumpshate.

It feels like they keep telling us it’s over, and while, yes, the series is done, that does not mean we have to stop creating. Good Omens has belonged to the fan for a long time and as long as we keep creating stories and art then Crowley and Aziraphale will never be gone.

I have some big writing projects in the works, but this damn heatwave is melting my brain and I have summer seasonal depression which has made things hard to focus.

If you don't write fics, I'll let you in on a secret: Some of us experience a drop in mood after we finish posting a long fic. After engaging with a story for many hours (over months, and sometimes, even years), it's hard to say goodbye.

Over the past 2 years, I've done a few things to stave off the sadness, but the Anchored Stories I wrote are among my favorite coping mechanisms. The week after I posted Anchored's last chapter, I released five one-shots, one each day related to the main Anchored story. The first, was a look at Crowley's origins as a racing sailor. In the first chapter of Anchored, I wrote a flashback to teenage Crowley learning to sail in Liverpool so I could introduce some sailboat terminology. I enjoyed seeing him as a cheeky, mischievous student.

Several Anchored commenters remarked about Crowley being under the thumb of his boss, Nik, the owner of the Scratch fashion empire (extra points if you get the relationship between "Nik" and Scratch; it's one of my cheeky references that only some readers got). I wanted to explore how the independent young man fell under the influence of his dominant boss.

Turning of the Tide is Crowley's origin story. But it also highlights a story of a real young person who fascinated me since I learned about him watching the sailing documentary, Morning Light. Steve Manson learned to sail in a program for inner city Baltimore kids. He ended up a finalist for the crew to race a sailboat from California to Hawaii, despite being one of the least experienced seafarers. Others on the team had been Olympic hopefuls, members of the Merchant Marine, and full time live aboard cruisers from childhood with their families.

Despite being one of the weakest swimmers, Manson volunteered to jump into the Pacific and tread water until his crew recovered him in an overboard drill. Telling some of his story through Crowley was my way of writing a homage to this brave and amazing person.

The other thing I wanted to do with this story was give an explanation for why Crowley stayed with the Scratch organization for so long. I'll admit, I was surprised by how strongly readers reacted to the relationship between Crowley and his boss, Nik. Turning of the Tide allowed readers of the multi-chapter story to see Nik through young Crowley's eyes. Very few people who read Anchored continued to read this additional stories. I think they add interesting context to the original story. But, if you don't want to commit to a 72K story about Aziraphale and Crowley as sailboat racers, maybe you'll enjoy some of these one-shots. I think they can stand alone. And who knows? Maybe it will intrigue you enough to read more. Thank you to @copperplatebeech whose thoughtful look back at their multitude of fics inspired me. I'd encourage other writers to give us a peek behind the curtain of their creativity. I love learning about why and how you write what you do.

A Summer Omens Big Bang collab by @maon25 (art) and me (story)

Now posting in instalments on AO3!

Summary:

It’s summer once more in Kensington Gardens.

The white marble statue of an Angel, half hidden under a canopy of trees, is content enough with his life, his animal friends in the park, the here and now.

Until an unusual Black Nightingale lands on his left wing and sings to him stories of woe, of mystery, of a dear friend lost, of his quest to find the love of his life again.

Every summer, the Nightingale, who remembers only fragments of what really happened to himself and his long-lost soulmate, revisits the Marble Angel, having gathered more hints and ✨Clues✨ to help his quest. The Angel’s marble heart melts with empathy for him, and with other feelings that seem new - but are they?

~~~

This is a romantic fairytale, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Happy Prince’, retelling Good Omens in symbolic language.

~~~

This story is fully written, will have 8.3 k words in 6 chapters, and will update twice per week.

Thank You to:

@maon25 for the beautiful art (there is more to come in later chapters!), beta reading, helping with decisions, and a fun and fruitful collaboration!

@gosummerbang and all the writers and artists of the SOBB discord server, for making this bang such a fun and friendly experience! Check out the other SOBB collabs posted on that blog!

@thinkinginscripts , who is the best beta in the world!

The Duke of Morningstar risks losing his title if he doesn't settle down and get engaged within 3 months. The Viscount Eastgate is tired of the suitors lined up outside his door. Can the two come to an Arrangement that will benefit them both?

This story is a delight to readers who love bitchy Aziraphale and softer-than-he-wants-to-admit Crowley. Best of all, the fic is written and updates every week. So you can jump right in. Don't read WIPs? Make sure you subscribe or bookmark so you don't miss out on the fun.