pinecavity

Idk if I do, since I think everyone’s smut preferences are different. It really depends on what you like and what you find sexy!! For me, there are two things that I tend to focus on when writing physical scenes:

1. Emotional intimacy. I mostly use smut/physical interaction as a vehicle for emotional connection--usually these scenes come at a time where the reader is gaining insight into the love interest, or at a moment of resolution where the emotional conflict of the last few chapters is being concluded. For me, it’s important to use cues that indicate that the love interest is intensely and solely focused on the reader character in that moment. Usually I do this with dialog choices, either questions (“Do you want me to kiss you here too, kitten?” or “Like that, do you?”) or statements that reaffirm interest (“Been wanting to fuck you since the second you opened your mouth,” or “I've been waiting three years. Be good and say it for me, angel.”) There’s nothing sexier than good communication lol.

2. Small, specific sensations. I think I tend to write about the things that I like/remember most from being in those situations myself. Probably in almost every fic, I’ve described some variation of “a man’s weight over you, pressing you down into X surface”, and a lot of temperature stuff (“a warm mouth”, “the heat of him spilling inside you”, and even “the chill of the evening washed over you, and you pressed yourself into him for warmth”) since these are the sensations that most stand out to me. I think including a couple small details on specific feelings--at least to me--makes a scene more believable and satisfying to read.

(if thats alright to ask, i just love how you write the reader’s personality 😩 i think love’s an understatement tbh)

Lmao thank you for loving them, you're so sweet. I apparently had a lot of thoughts about this one lol—I'm sorry this ended up getting so long and disorganized.

I think it all depends on what you want from an xReader fic! Some people prefer leave the reader truly vague so that all kinds of personalities can step in and fill their shoes. Some people prefer when the reader is more like an OC, with their own name and personality and visual characteristics. It just depends on 1) how much characterization you personally like to read in a reader, and 2) what those traits are.

In terms of amount of characterization, I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't write their appearance or highly specific backstories, but I like to give the reader a goal or values, and usually an occupation, just because I feel like those things are so central to my own identity and I can't imagine how a person could live without them.

The occupation I get creative with, usually because it ties into the plot, but the core things about the reader, like their goals—"I want to achieve a promotion," "I want to graduate," "I want to survive my final project"—I try to make vague and relatable, and the same with their values—"I think there's beauty in every human face," "I wanna do my best and use my skills to help people out," etc.

In terms of more specific type of characterization, there's one thing universal to all of my reader characters: I try to make them specifically Just Like Other Girls and Fine With It.

One of the reasons I started writing in the first place is because I wasn't always finding the kind of reader who thought about the world or behaved in ways that I would. I was encountering a ton of those uber bad-ass, angsty girl readers (literally no offense if you like reading those, or you write them. I think there's so much feminist value in them, I just don't personally enjoy them!) But I don't relate—I'm rarely angsty, and I talk a big game but I probably couldn't throw a punch to save my life. And these characters were so special, so standout, impressing the love interests with their sheer bad-assery, or how pretty they were, and I was just like...cannot!! relate!!!

So, I write the kind of reader I wanted to read then. They think of themselves as average but they're not salty about it, they're whipped for the love interest but they try their best to mind their own business, and they're just having a good time and doing their best with the small slice of life that they have. They're also super embarrassing and they stick their feet in their mouths when it comes to most situations, instead of looking or feeling cool.

And that's really the core of any specific characterization I do. I think about how an average girl would live her life—thirst tweeting Bakugou's abs but getting flustered with him IRL, wanting to know more about Hawks' wings but accidentally getting sucked into a reddit thread about poultry care, daydreaming about Shouto getting her a valentine but knowing that's deeply unlikely.

And then boom. Their averageness is either the inciting incident for their introduction to their hero, or their entire appeal to their hero overall. And that's what I value in an xReader fic.

so its totally okay if you dont want to answer this, but do you have any tips on how to describe what a character’s strongly feeling? like…, as much as id like to put “__ felt sad” as a writer, i feel like it wouldn’t make the reader feel anything 😔 (im asking you because you describe??? feelings???? so well????)

Hello my love!!

Ahh I'm happy to share what I've figured out so far, but I'm still kind of working this on myself!! I'd love to hear from other writers what their tips are on conveying emotions!! For me, there are three different ways I think I end up doing it.

1) The main way I usually do this is I explicitly name the emotion lol, but I also add a couple sensory details to it to soften it. Like instead of "you were ashamed," I will write, "a hot, twisting feeling like shame welled up in your gut," or something similar. I usually spend a minute thinking about the physicality of what I feel when I feel those strong emotions, and add that to the page! I feel hot and squirmy when I'm ashamed? Then boom, "a hot, twisting feeling like shame," and there you go lol.

2) The second way I sometimes do it is similar; it's just focusing purely on the physical reaction and not even naming the emotion. In a lot of contexts, the reader already has expectations for how someone would be feeling, so you can just focus on the sensation instead. Like:

Shouto leaned into your space, peering closely at your face. "Are you well?" he asked, in his low, even tone. His eyes trailed slowly, almost gently over your features.

The tips of your ears went hot, and you took a fumbling step back.

Like, again you can tell without me even saying, that Reader is a little embarrassed and a little startled, just from her physical reactions.

3) The third way I convey emotion is adding details from Reader's internal monologue. Again, this is a place where a reader can intuit what the emotion would be, just from the statements a character is making.

"Yeah, princess? You think you can do anything to me?" Bakugou asked, his mouth pulling up into a crooked smirk.

That fucking asshole. You would show him what you could do.

Like, again you can tell Reader is here is frustrated, maybe angry, even though I haven't said anything to that effect.

So, those are the main three ways I have figured out so far!

Ahhhh hello my angel!! I'm happy you'd trust me to answer this lol, since I think I'm still kind of figuring that out myself.

I think it mostly depends on what you want to achieve with him, plot-wise, or which aspects of his canon characterization matter to you the most. You'll want to play up some things vs others depending on your personal preferences. But I can tell you what I focus on when I'm writing, and maybe that will help!!

Technique-wise, I use a very standard bit of description to move Shouto around on the page.

For me, writing Shouto is mostly about super tiny hints of emotion. In canon he's got that deadpan expression when he's saying like the most insane stuff, and--except for in the heat of battle/at majorly emotional plot points (you know the ones)--he doesn't show all too much outwardly. So I'll often write just a hint of what he's feeling on his face. You're probably sick of all the "tiny smiles pulling at the corner of his mouth" and the "smallest hint of a furrow at his brow" at this point lol, but that's how I do it--I choose a microexpression and let it deliver the vaguest hint of what he's feeling.

Plot-wise, I try to have the storyline tie into the aspects of his personality I want to play up the most.

Personally, one of my favorite things about Shouto is what a brat we've seen him be--like in the WHM prequel + all the times he's ghosted or shaded his dad. So I like to make him a little bit of a shit in my own fics too. I usually show that via him doggedly insisting on the things he wants--like a date with Reader, and using underhanded methods to get it if he has to--or getting slightly jealous when he absolutely does not need to.

The other aspect of his canon personality that I love is how genuinely kind he is. His whole character arc really shows how he actively thinks of and prioritizes others--whether that's giving Midoriya a little bit of his soba when Midoriya's upset, or giving his father the chance to redeem himself when he owes him absolutely nothing like that. So I also try to lean into that in my fics, having him take care of the people around him (usually Reader) by feeding them, actively listening to them, etc.

Dialogue is probably where I deviate the most from canon Shouto. In the manga, he's shown to be a little bit rude, often not using the appropriate honorifics, speaking very directly--so you might want to keep his language a little bit more abrupt. I do tend to give him shorter lines for this reason.

For some other reason, though, I have it in my head that he's old-fashioned, having grown up moneyed in an established hero family--Camie Utsushimi called him "hero royalty" basically. So I give him more formal dialogue, usually, with very few contractions--I'll make him say, "I would like," instead of "I'd like," and kind of old-fashioned phrasings like "are you well?" instead of "are you okay?" or "did you not?" instead of "didn't you?"

Uhhh and that's it, I think. Like I said, it's really just using your plot to underscore the personality traits you want to play up, and applying some different techniques like the micro-expressions/shorter lines to cement it!! I hope this was at least a little bit helpful!!

Lmao once again I am honored you would trust me with this!! Omg I for sure do not write Bakugou nearly as well as some other writers in this fandom--I really feel like Bakugou in particular attracts some of the more character-driven authors because he's just like, an absolutely immaculately written character on his own.

But once again I can offer you the things that I personally do when I write him, and you can kind of pick and choose what might work for you depending on the kind of story you want to tell.

Technique-wise, Bakugou for me is all about power words. Everything he does, I make him do with force--he kicks open the door, he throws himself down in his chair--even when he's still, you get the sense that he's seconds away from blowing a hole in something. I'll always go for like the most exaggerated synonym for his actions possible, and try to come up with ways to communicate tension even when he's not doing anything.

Plot-wise, I like to shape the story around what I see as some of his strengths as a character: deeply apparent flaws (lol hear me out), and tsundereness lmao.

Canon Bakugou is such an interesting character specifically because of all the problems he has. He's short-tempered, he's desperate to prove himself, he misinterprets things and communicates so ineffectively, especially at the beginning of BNHA. I like to tie at least one of those things into any story involving Bakugou--that's why they are so often enemies-to-lovers romances, because he and Reader fundamentally misunderstand each other, and I will make it all Bakugou's fault.

I also really like what a total tsundere he is--especially in more recent chapters, you can tell that what he says doesn't match how he feels. He'll yell at Mina and Denki for trying to stuff him into the Christmas outfit, but ultimately let them do it. He'll go berserk on the Todorokis for involving him in their family drama, but he'll crop up in Shouto's room after the ~reveal~ to talk about Shouto's feelings about it. So I like to play this aspect of his character up in my fics too--make him call Reader an idiot but kiss her, make him claim to loathe Reader but protect her, etc etc. It's words vs actions with this dude.

Dialogue-wise, Bakugou is super distinct. He's got a foul mouth and he knows how to use it, so all of the dialogue I give him is abrasive or smug, even in some of the more intimate moments. With Bakugou, I always give him a nickname for Reader that is slightly condescending--"princess", brat", etc--and those always get tossed around a lot.

He gets a swear word in basically every line, and he makes a lot of very direct statements, like "I'm not taking care of this brat," or "That nerd couldn't do shit anyway," like he has always reached a decisive conclusion. Even when he phrases things like a question, he'll really just be using it as a tool to advertise his own opinion--"Anyone tell you you've got a mouth on you?" or, "You think I'm your fucking maid service?"

He also gets a bunch of contractions--it's never "I am not," it's always "I'm not,"--and I also give him the occasional elision too, where words get cut up into shorter sounds like "'S not my fault," instead of "It's not my fault," or "You fuckin' wish," instead of "You fucking wish." Lastly, he also gets a bunch of dialectic tics and sounds, like "Oi," or "tch" if he's being judgmental.

Omg I'm so thrilled you think my fics are long lol. It's my dream to one day hit like, novel length fics, but we're still a little ways away!!

That being said I do think there are some specific considerations that go into planning a multi-chapter fic!!

I think the first thing is to gauge where you're at in terms of motivation & interest. One of my biggest sticking points with multi-chapter fics, and also the reason I have not written anything longer than like 40k at this point, is that I lose focus/motivation the longer I work on something!! Try to have an honest conversation with yourself about how much interest you have in a particular fic idea, and where you think you are in terms of like, general motivation to keep working on that idea. For me, some ideas will be like, only 4 chapters worth of interest & motivation, while some will be 9.

Once you have that, use that to shape the level of detail or complexity of the plot you're going to include. If you're only going to work through a short number of chapters you can't have an overly complex plot and huge cast of characters, etc. Maybe limit your plot to just one or two story lines, like the central conflict and the romance. On the opposite side, if you truly believe you have motivation for a huge fic, scrounge around for extra C & D plots you can include to keep the fic moving!

In actually sitting down and planning a fic, I think others would have better advice for you! And I think this is also somewhat of an area where you have to try and see what works for your personal style, but I will give you the general tips that work for me!!

Choose a central conflict. This doesn't have to be anything intense (like for fingerprints it was just Reader coming to terms with the nature of Shouto's feelings for her, but for you're the one that i haunt it's that Bakugou becomes a ghost only Reader can see). But if you're going to write anything at length you will need some general conflict to keep it moving and tie everything together, otherwise it meanders.

Figure out how that conflict progresses from beginning to middle to end. For you're the one that i haunt, I outlined it as 1) Reader sees Bakugou and establishes that yes he really is there, 2) Reader and Bakugou team up to investigate why he's a ghost and how to fix it, and 3) Reader and Bakugou decide how they want to fix it (shoving ghost Bakugou through real Bakugou's body) and follow up on that plan. From this point you can sort of figure out what the key scenes will be for your fic, as well as how well some scenes you already had in mind may fit/not fit this fic.

Establish characterization. Think on how your Reader and their love interest are going to engage with the conflict progression. Is Reader smart or oblivious, and how will that shape how they respond in the scenes you are writing? Similarly, what is the canon character love interest like in canon? How does that mean they would respond to the events of your fic? This will give you a general idea of the actions and shape of the dialogue you will need to include in each scene. And it will also help you by keeping your characters somewhat consistent!!

Don't plan too much. Sometimes if you outline a fic too intensely it can feel like you have already written it and you end up losing the motivation to keep going on it! At least for me I like to outline the general events and characters' attitudes, but leave the specifics and the detail up to future Andie to decide as she's writing, so it still feels like I'm getting to explore and daydream as I go lol.

Anyway that is the general advice I have for you, although if you think of any more specific questions I'm happy to answer!!

I do! I use kind of a basic method and I'm not sure if it will work for you too, but I'm happy to tell you what I do!! (If it doesn't, I recently came across this resource that might be helpful to you instead!!)

I also don't always use this consistently, depending on whether the story I want to tell is like actually plot-driven or a fluffy bit of nothing like fingerprints lol, so you can adapt or ignore bits & pieces where needed.

Typically I start with the main concept, like the general gist of the story I want to tell. For example, with Deceiving the Duke it was just "maidservant Reader in disguise accidentally woos Duke Shouto" lol.

From there I usually use a four-phase type of structure, where I give the story 1) the inciting incident, 2) follow through and build up, 3) climax/conflict, and 4) resolution. So I'll take my general concept and give it all these things.

For Deceiving the Duke the inciting incident needed to get Reader into disguise as a member of high society, so I made Camie run off and gave the Utsushimi family higher stakes that required Reader to impersonate her (they're poorer and can't afford to marry their eldest daughter off in the face of scandal).

Then for follow through and build up, which is usually a longer phase than the others, a character will need to basically follow along with the inciting incident and from there, slowly build up all the conditions needed to meet the climax/conflict. So for Deceiving the Duke, Reader had to actually follow through and impersonate Camie, meet Shouto, and accidentally fall for him despite her best efforts, knowing she will be unmasked at the end of the season and never be able to be with him.

For climax/conflict, obviously you need for things to go to shit. It's more satisfying, I think, if it's something of the main character's own doing or related to their actions. So again with Deceiving the Duke as an example, I had Reader get so caught up in her forbidden feelings for Shouto that she gets caught in a romantic tryst with him, which leaves her with the option either to unmask herself or to run away as Shouto can't marry Camie Utsushimi when she's already married.

And lastly for resolution, you want to give your characters that bridge from the conflict to their happy ending. With Deceiving the Duke, it was the revelation that Shouto had known all along, and had schemed plans to get Reader made into a member of the nobility so he could properly wed her, which required me to go back into the follow through & build up phase and hint at the fact that he'd known and he'd had the connections that would make that happen for them in the end.

I think once you have that structure in your head, you will understand the types of scenes you need to include to fully flesh out the story. Like for the follow through and build up phase, for example, I needed scenes for 1) meeting Shouto, 2) trying to avoid Shouto and failing, 3) becoming more familiar with Shouto with hints that he knows something, 5) realizing we are falling for Shouto (again with some hints that he's got something going on behind the scenes), and 6) wanting last moments with Shouto before we never see him again, which leads perfectly into the conflict.

And then from there you can get as granular as you want!! I usually leave it here with vague details of things I want to include because otherwise it feels like I've already written the story and don't want to tell it anymore lol. But you can add the key snippets of dialogue you will need, scene-building details like everyone's dress and the location, etc etc.

Then once I have everything mapped out in full, I will start breaking things down into chapters, figuring out where within that structure and those scenes can I chunk things up such that they make sense and feel full & complete sort of within themselves. Usually that ends up just being at the scene boundary, where each chapter is just one of those scenes with its own objective. Ex: chapter three will be Reader meeting Shouto again, trying to high-tail it, and failing, such that she is forced to reckon with the fact that she will be seeing a lot of Shouto over the coming Season.

And then I start writing!

Also, I’m excited to read your upcoming works! I already know that they are going to be amazing!!!

Omg thank you Kaelyn!! You're literally one of the nicest people in this entire fandom, idk how you are this good all the time!! 🥺😭

My writing process is embarrassingly basic. This ask outlines my planning process which is like, most of the critical thinking lol.

After that, I'll divide the outline I've drawn up into a table in a google doc and keep that open, and then just work chapter-by-chapter in another doc, methodically hitting all the bullet points I've compiled in each section of the outline!!

I think everyone's process is really different but I'm also a huge advocate for the draft-before-you-edit approach!! I try really hard not to touch anything until my chapter draft is all down on paper. Then I like to take a couple days' break from everything until it's not so fresh in my mind and go back and rework it, usually at least twice.

My first editing pass is usually for tone and flow, making sure everything is coherent and reads somewhat naturally, changing dialogue I don't like, etc. My second pass is then usually for grammar/typos/etc. I usually miss a lot of them though lol.

I also work through the entire fic in chronological order. I know myself too well and if I left all the parts I didn't want to tackle until the end I would just never get to them!!

Hello my love!! Omg sending you my best plotting vibes and hoping you come up with something good!!

I have to say the conflict really varies from story to story and depends on the kind of story I want to tell. A lot of my fics are lighter, so they don't have much in the way of central conflict. So I'm not sure I will have great answers here, but I will try my best.

For the lightest level of fun, feel-good fic, I think the things that work best are common struggles that the average person faces, and/or ridiculous situations, because those are not very mentally taxing to read or work through along with the reader, except in terms of second-hand embarrassment lol.

For example, I've previously gone for project deadlines and working with a difficult partner (savvy, statistically significant), overcoming self-doubt/obliviousness and realizing someone loves you (if i could keep cool, fingerprints, vested interest, unconventional).

Or I've given the characters some ridiculous prop/costume (just my (blood) type, baby are you playing tricks 'cause you look like a treat?) or situation like a quirk accident that actually facilitates a confession rather than prevents one (damage, all in a day's quirk).

For fics of like, intermediary lightness, I think some sort of situational obstacle that prevents the characters being together works well, just because it is a more complicated situation, but you can get kind of fun/ridiculous with how absurd the situation is as well. I obviously have a super huge thing for class differences so that is usually my main bag (Deceiving the Duke, in cinders), and I will throw in some hidden identity element on the side to complicate it just a little bit further.

Only on rare occasions do I try my hand at a larger-scale external conflict. I'm not quite sure how to give tips on how to pick one out. I generally tend towards a sort of case fic/mystery approach to these, like, who is committing a string of crimes? (ab intra, war paint) or how do we confirm someone is doing bad stuff? (something in the water), and lastly, how do we keep someone alive in the face of targeted hate? (incendiary). It's these kinds of fics where the fight scenes generally come into play, and act as a sort of pay-off or climactic moment in the fic.

What I have never tried my hand at but I think makes a truly amazing conflict is a combination of case fic plus some societal snapshot/commentary, like Mermie does in her fics.

The throughline in Mermie's fics for the big three (surrender, something (just like this), and the eventual Shouto fic), is an anti-quirk terrorist group targeting quirkless civilians and attempting to give them quirks, which typically results in them being unable to handle the new power and either accidentally killing themselves or hurting others around them. The pro heroes are constantly working the case, trying to figure out who is behind these efforts, while also trying to protect the Reader characters who inadvertently get involved.

It's really consistent with the themes of BNHA as a whole and serves as a similar snapshot of a society still struggling with the concept of quirks. And it allows for a very strong throughline of tension as you have opportunities to lay out a mystery, grow the tension, and insert fight scenes or other scenes of societal devastation.

Omg completely understandable, I'm in a similar situation and only have the brainpower/willpower to do a little bit at a time right now!!

The good news is you are not cooked! You are not even a little bit warmed through, in fact lol. You can just start small and I promise it will start to come easily again after a little while. To me, a period of not writing is like not having any homework to do over the summer. You're not actually sitting down to do it, but you still have all of the necessary cognitive skills + all the tools you need to slip right back into the practice when it becomes necessary.

For example, you still know how to sit down and focus, you still know how to plan something out to your level of preference, you still know how string words together to convey your point!

My advice would be to just get in the habit again and start super small. Break things down into steps--when broken down to composite pieces, anything becomes way more approachable a task. "I want to nail down the vibe of the piece I want to write" or "I want to write 50 words today" is so much less intimidating than "I want to write an entire fic again," but those pieces build up into your end goal over time.

So I would say, first reserve just like, 15 minutes to think about what you want to write again. If you'd already plotted or started something you know you'd be interested in writing right now, read that over and get familiar again. If not, scratch out what it is that you'd be interested in writing these days so you have it front of mind.

Then let everything marinate for a day and come back, and sit down for another 15 minutes and start to write. Literally just try to get like, one paragraph down, maybe 50-100 words or even fewer. Then do that again the next day and the next, setting goals so small that they feel laughably easy.

Unless you have insane willpower (I do not) and can just like, sit down and make yourself write a zillion words again off the bat, writing is literally just about settling into habit and working through bits at a time. The smaller you start the easier it is to slip back into a habit, and inevitably your word count will grow larger each time you sit down (let it happen naturally, do not set bigger goals lest you intimidate yourself out of the accomplishment lol).