so this is my first year writing for dcbb and I was wondering if you had any advice you could offer?? On time management or general story planning? I'm kind of intimidated by the whole thing but it's something I've been wanting to do for a while now so imma go for it.
Welcome to the DCBB! It’s always great to see new people signing up for the challenge–you’re going to have a lot of fun :D
Now, as for advice! YMMV, because everybody goes about writing differently, but this is what works for me and people I’ve spoken with, so it might work for you, too :)
Work out your plot before you start
If you can break down each important beat in your plot to few short lines, it’s going to make your life a lot easier. Your basic trope-driven mechanic!dean/teacher!cas fic would look something like this;
Moving day. Cas’ car breaks down. He’s new to the town, doesn’t know anyone. His car is overloaded with boxes and bags. His cell is dead after a very long day on the road.
Dean is driving home from work + sees Cas looking in his car’s engine. He pulls over to help. Cas is cranky at first because he’s tired. Dean takes pity on him. He goes back to work to get the tow truck.
And so on and so forth. I’d have kept going, but I’m not going to write an accidental ficlet right now because I should already be in bed :P
Once you have your plot in bullet point form, it’s just a matter of expanding each beat into a whole scene or chapter.
Set an achievable goal for every writing day
Right now it is April 6th, and drafts aren’t due until the 15th of August. That works out as 131 days.
If you write every single day, you only need to write 77 words per day for a 10k mini bang, or 153 words per day for a 20k big bang, both of which are far less daunting to think about than the total words needed.
What’s more, that small a number is pretty damn easy to exceed once you’re in the swing of things. A lot of people consider a 400 word target a comfortable place to start, so maybe try that and see if it works for you.
Get self control (or something similar)
Basically, any program that will limit your internet access during writing time is a godsend. They work by either blocking all websites except for what you include on your allow-list (I usually only allow myself access to the superwiki) or by choosing specific websites to temporarily block (like this blue hell we find ourselves in right now) for a set period of time.
When you have to stop, do it in the middle
If you have to break away from writing for some trivial thing like food or sleep or human contact, I recommend doing so in the middle of an action scene.
This is purely because (for me) it’s much easier to jump back into a scene when you can read up to that point and continue naturally than it is to start from scratch every time. This may just be me, though :P
That’s all I can think of right now, but if anyone else has any suggestions, please reblog and add them :)
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