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It's really so beautiful, the plot, their relationship, the details, oooh

Reblog for good luck 🍀

I bought these Saturday and so far:

1. $230 was randomly deposited in my account

2. I was gifted a whole bag of edibles

You have encountered "Here... have a bag of money" Yakko. Reblog for good luck and fortune

If not...

If you're planning your story out in advance and then following the plan, then my guess is that your story does make sense. That means that there's likely something else going on that's making you feel this way.

When I do something I'm not confident in, it can be really difficult not to give up. It can feel really uncomfortable to do something that you aren't 100% certain that you're going to do "right" or "well," and that discomfort can lead to fear. Fear of doing a bad job. Fear of being judged by others. Fear of failing in a public space.

All of that fear and discomfort can sometimes make me want to give up - because it's safer not to try than it is to try and be seen failing. But saying "I give up because this is hard and makes me uncomfortable" also feels uncomfortable because I don't want to be a quitter. So instead I convince myself that I'm giving up or some other reason. It's not that I'm scared, it's that this thing I'm doing is dumb.

The reason why I'm asking is because depending on the "Length" of your fic it might what's causing some discomfort and anxiety on your part.

For example: I have no problem punching out 500-1k words on an average day of writing for me. If I'm in the zone then I can crank out anywhere between 2k-5k words. And that will just be one chapter for me!

So, what I mean by "Length" of the story is, I've seen some people plan out, "Update every Saturday," "Update every Wednesday/Thursday." With the story only being 5 Chapters, 10 Chapters, 25 Chapters. I'm currently reading a couple of fics that are literally novel level of 60+ Chapters.

Okay, so I didn't mean to overwhelm anyone with that info! My point is, if you're trying to a "Long Fic" 10+ Chapters. Then that might be what the issue is. The fics too long and you might be experiencing early stages of burnout. If your planning only like 3-5 chapters and you feel like it's not working because nothing is "Going to Plan." You might want to try to add a couple of chapters to see if that helps.

The definition of a Multi-Chapter Fic is literally 2-3 chapters. That's it! A "One-Shot" can be anything from 500-5k words but it's just a one post of the story. A Multi-Chapter is more then one chapter.

Also, Anon, if Multi-Chapters is something that you are not completely comfortable with, then you can easily make a "Series" of different One-Shots.

The first trick is to detach yourself from your idea. You don’t have just one novel inside you, and it’s not a big deal if you don’t finish this novel.

She was skeptical of the common advice “just write!!1!” - she talked about how long ideas for her most popular novels were marinating inside her before she properly wrote them

As a continuation of that, she was a big believer in knowing what you want to write before you write it. Not what you’re going to write, what you want to write. 

The first thing she decides about a novel is what the mood is going to be, and this informs every other decision (e.g. the mood for Shiver was bittersweet)

Ideas should be personal, specific, exciting and they should exclude secondary sources. A personal idea isn’t necessarily autobiographical (which should be avoided), but it speaks to your emotional truth. 

She said she had been read Ronsey fanfiction and she couldn’t view her car in the same way since. 

Story is the thing that seems most important to reader but is most changeable to the author - story is subservient to your mood and your message. Change what you like in the plot as long as your book retains its sense of self.

Story is conflict, exploration and change. A good story has active tension -the characters want something, instead of just wanting something not to happen (e.g. wanting to kill an enemy instead of simply defending a stronghold against an enemy) 

A story needs to have a concrete end, something to be done. 

Satisfaction is important - deliver what you promise to the reader. The other shoe has to drop. Ronan Lynch doesn’t ever talk about his feelings, so its rewarding when he does. 

Earn your emotional moments (she threw shade at Fantastic Beasts lmao)

Forcing a character to be passive is dissatisfying to the reader. 

Characters are products of their environments, consistent/predictable, nuanced and specific, moving the plot, and subservient to other story elements. 

She always starts with tropes for ensemble casts like sitcoms. Helpful for building good character dynamics.

Write scenes with characters saying explicitly what they’re thinking and then go back and make them talk like real people in the edit. 

An action can also prove what they’re thinking, instead of making them say it or another character guess it (e.g. Ronan punching a wall). 

Move the reader’s emotional furniture around without them noticing. 

All her books follow the three act structure. Established normal -> inciting incident -> character makes an Active Decision -> fun and games -> escalation -> darkest moment -> climax. 

Promise what you’re going to do in the first five pages. 

Read your book out loud. Record yourself reading it. 

The longest fic I’ve got posted on AO3 is just over 70K. I took almost 2 years for me to write it due to a couple of long hiatuses in there. I went through periods of loving that fic and other periods of absolutely hating it. In the end, it was partly my own stubbornness and partly just the fact that I knew people who liked it and wanted to read the end that got me through. 

Motivation is one of those weird things that you need to figure out for yourself. Are you motivated by praise? Spite? Finishing the thing? Maybe you can bribe yourself by setting up a rewards system of some sort. Maybe you need to pace yourself by writing at a breakneck speed but only posting 1-2 times per week. 

For me, I do better when I write one shots alongside any multichaps I have in progress. I need that burst of “I finished a thing!” to keep me going through the longer slog of “it’s not done yet :(”

You can always cycle between works if you can handle that rhythm of changing between long WIPs, but you can also write parts that excite you and make your shipper/fix-ficcer/alternate universe maker heart go SWOON and then save it. Live in that world and you’ll end up loving the story. Think a lot about the characters and their motivations, and write small snippets on Tumblr and AO3 if you want.

If you’re like me, though (I can’t write out of order bc I start to freak out about chronology [which is rich coming from the guy who’s always ignoring Canon, lol], and then I freak out bc the story stops being appealing to me since I already wrote what happens, so it’s not as exciting anymore), I can reccomend adding any twists that make no sense or sound ridiculous, write. It. Down. Trust me. You’ll end up in new places.

And if not, you can always use the “it’s a dream sequence” trick. Or “it’s all a simulation”. I’m speaking from experience. I don’t really mind those plot twists, so they’re harmless to me. And anyone else who says that your fic is trash bc of those twists… Well, they can go read another one. Or find a Word document and start doing stuff with it if the loved it enough. Also, there’s a place for everyone in fandom.

Headcanon posts are also a big yes from me. You’re still engaging with the WIP, but not actively working on a new chapter if it stresses you out. I know I sometimes do when I start writing something new instead of my old WIP, which isn’t as interesting as before (but it’s not that I don’t love it, but rather, I just want to take a break from it, and that usually happens right at the 20K mark).

One really important thing to remember is that you can only ever do your best. Another important thing to remember is that your best will be different on any given day and at different moments in your life. 

Your best used to be 2000 words in a day. Now, your best is 500. Your life probably looks a lot different now from what it looked like back then, and that’s having an impact. 

I used to be able to answer 5 questions a day on this blog. Sometimes 10. Per. Day. Can you imagine? Nowadays I can barely manage 10 in a week most of the time. But I had a serious health issue last year. I’m living through a pandemic. I got a promotion that gives me more responsibilities at work. I’ve got a lot of shit going on right now, so expecting myself to be able to do what I used to be able to do is just setting myself up for failure and guilt and a lot of feeling not good enough. 

You’re not pathetic. You’re going through a rough patch. Instead of aiming for 2000 words, aim for something else. Celebrate having the time to write. Celebrate getting a paragraph down, or a sentence. Realize that planning a story and deciding on a title and figuring out the tags are all part of the process too. If you can’t write the story, do some research for it or edit something you already wrote. All of that is important too and all of that might be easier than being creative right now. 

If your battery is depleted, that’s a sign that you need to take a break. That might mean allowing yourself to write less. It might mean allowing yourself to stop completely for a little while. 

I have to write for work and I am a postgrad student so I have lots of shoulds from elsewhere about writing. I don’t want that for something that is a hobby, a passion. I don’t count words per day. It makes it feel too much like work.

One really important thing to remember is that you can only ever do your best. Another important thing to remember is that your best will be different on any given day and at different moments in your life. 

Your best used to be 2000 words in a day. Now, your best is 500. Your life probably looks a lot different now from what it looked like back then, and that’s having an impact. 

I used to be able to answer 5 questions a day on this blog. Sometimes 10. Per. Day. Can you imagine? Nowadays I can barely manage 10 in a week most of the time. But I had a serious health issue last year. I’m living through a pandemic. I got a promotion that gives me more responsibilities at work. I’ve got a lot of shit going on right now, so expecting myself to be able to do what I used to be able to do is just setting myself up for failure and guilt and a lot of feeling not good enough. 

You’re not pathetic. You’re going through a rough patch. Instead of aiming for 2000 words, aim for something else. Celebrate having the time to write. Celebrate getting a paragraph down, or a sentence. Realize that planning a story and deciding on a title and figuring out the tags are all part of the process too. If you can’t write the story, do some research for it or edit something you already wrote. All of that is important too and all of that might be easier than being creative right now. 

If your battery is depleted, that’s a sign that you need to take a break. That might mean allowing yourself to write less. It might mean allowing yourself to stop completely for a little while. 

->Stop thinking about your word count.

At least to start.

If you sit there looking apprehensively at your computer, notebook, phone, chalkboard, whatever it is you write on, going "ugh okay... gotta hit 2K today", you're already starting out stressed and worried about 'failing'. And (if you're like me) you'll probably wind up obsessively checking your word count every few minutes or sentences and stressing even more about it when it doesn't climb fast enough. But for me, there's no better way of killing my writing groove than by interrupting it constantly like that.

And even if you don't obsessively check your word count like I do when I'm in that mood, if setting yourself an arbitrary word count goal is making you force yourself and then not even enjoy it, well:

->Figure what it is you're actually trying to get out of writing sessions

Why is the 2K word goal so important to you? Like COTD said, things have probably changed for you since you were hitting those word counts in a session. It's even possible, if you weren't actively aiming for the 2K mark in the past, the simple fact that you're trying to hit it now is making it harder because you're fixating on it so much.

Again, what I do is.. I figure out what writing mood I'm in. Are you stuck on one particular WIP that's frustrating you? Try working on something else for awhile. Do you want to make progress on something but it's slow going? That's fine, I've posted really short chapters and one-shots that I only finished through months of poking at, maybe once every week or two, adding a few sentences here and moving a paragraph around there; but I still got it done and it still counts.

And at times when I just want to churn out lots of words because the very act of writing just feels good, I do a series of writing sprints. I spend some time thinking about and mentally planning out a scene or short one-shot I want to write first, and then I turn off distractions (i.e. social media, for me), set a 20 minute timer, and just write without pausing until the time is up. And when I say without pausing, I mean stopping for nothing. I don't edit. I don't backspace or correct typos. If I think of two ways to write a sentence or paragraph, I write them both and keep going, just to get those words out - because I can make them make sense later. That's the best way I've found (thanks, nanowrimo goal) for just pumping out big-word-count sessions, if that's what you've got your heart set on.

If you can’t focus on one thing, then don’t. 

The great thing about fanworks is that they aren’t your job. They’re your hobby. You do them for fun and amusement and a creative outlet. There are no deadlines. There are no responsibilities. Any rules you make are entirely made up in your own head. 

Write the stories that you want to write, when you want to write them. For some people, that means writing one story at a time. For other people, that means having 12 stories on the go at once. When I was writing and posting fic regularly, I’d often have 2 multichaps happening at the same time, and I’d post oneshots in between chapters because I got an idea that I wanted to write right away. 

Find the way that works for you and that gives you the most happiness. What works for you and what works for someone else might be entirely different. And when it comes to finishing fics, remember that sometimes you just have to let a story go. 

To be fair, this works for me because:

If I don’t have the mood for one fic, no matter how much I love it, I just won’t write a single word to it. Why not work on something that I have the right mood and energy for?

I write every single day. Yes.

If a wip needs to chill (that means I need it to rest til I can read it with fresh eyes or it has a problem I need time for) I don’t feel guilty, because I have other things to work on. I never have to look at a blank page, because I have other stuff to work on. This takes away the anxiety and dread to open the fic that has a problem.

I don’t care about deadlines and writing slow. This is much, much slower than working on one thing at a time, and as much as I desperately wish to be one of those writers, I’m just not and I accepted that.