Avid fanfiction reader.

With over 20 years in fandom, I dedicate myself to binding the stories I like: with more passion than talent 😂. I also reblog the work of others as a way of celebrating fandom and these beautiful works of fan art that are bound fan fiction. For other ficbinders' work, I always use the same hashtag so that they can be found easily: "Fantastic ficbinders and where to find them"

If Simone de Beauvoir wrote about Lily Evans, she would not see her as a saintly mother or a romantic prize. She would see her as a woman who fought to define her own existence in a world that insisted on defining her by her "blood," her "talent," and her "attachment" to men.

De Beauvoir was the philosopher of transcendence versus immanence—the idea that women are often forced to be "the Other" (the object) rather than the "Subject" (the agent of their own lives). In this view, Lily’s story is about the struggle to remain a subject in a world that keeps trying to turn her into a symbol.

The Beauvoir Blueprint for Your Fic: Lily Evans

If you’re tired of the "Chosen One" trope, it’s time to break your fanfic. Postmodernism isn’t just a literary style; it’s a toolkit for questioning the very foundation of the story you’re writing. It’s the ultimate "What if the canon is lying?" approach.

What is Postmodernism (in plain English)?

Postmodernism is the suspicion that there is no "One True Story." It’s the realization that history is written by the winners, and that your narrative is just one of a thousand ways to interpret the events of Harry Potter.

It’s about deconstruction: taking the tropes of Harry Potter and showing how they are flawed, constructed, or just plain weird.

Why It’s Perfect for Fanfic Writers

If you’ve just started writing fanfiction, the biggest pressure you’ll feel is the need to be "original." But here’s a secret that the best writers; and legends like David Bowie, know: you don’t have to invent everything from scratch. You just have to be a better listener.

Bowie lived by the "Open Ear" philosophy. He wasn't just a creator; he was a constant student of the world. His letters reveal a man obsessed with everything: the next trend, the next obscure book, the next experimental sound. He didn't lock himself in an ivory tower; he treated the entire world as his resource library.

For you, this is the ultimate creative hack: If you want to stop staring at a blank cursor, stop being a picky consumer.

Read the books that bore you. You’ll learn exactly why they don't work, which teaches you how to make your own scenes tighter.

Watch the films that confuse you. When you don't understand the narrative, you’re forced to analyze the structure. What is the director doing to keep your attention? That’s a trick you can steal for your next chapter.

Keep your ears open. Everything you consume—a weird conversation at a cafe, a line from a poem you don't fully get, the aesthetic of a music video: is potential fuel for your story.

You aren't just "reading" or "watching" anymore; you’re collecting ingredients. When you approach your writing as an ongoing, hungry student, you’ll never run out of things to say. Your story becomes a collage of everything that makes you you.

Stay curious, stay hungry, and keep building your collection.

Ever feel like your characters are just… cardboard cutouts? You’re writing the dialogue, but it feels flat, like you’re just reading a script instead of living the moment. Sometimes, the problem isn't your plot: it's your proximity to the character.

David Bowie knew this struggle better than anyone. His personas; Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, weren't just flashy costumes: they were creative filters. They were tools he used to bypass his own inhibitions. He understood that if you want to write something truly evocative, you have to stop "writing" and start "becoming."

If you’re stuck on a character’s voice, don’t just sit at the keyboard and think about them. Adopt a "persona." Treat your writing session like a costume change. When you step into that headspace, your vocabulary shifts, your sentence structure tightens, and suddenly, you’re not choosing words, you’re speaking from a perspective.

Putting on the Mask: A Harry Potter Example

Let’s take Regulus Black. He’s a minor character with a massive, tragic arc. If you’re trying to write him, don't just aim for "sad" or "scared." That’s too broad.

1. Build the Persona (The Filter): Before you type, ask yourself: What is his specific "voice"?

The Filter: Regulus is defined by the suffocating pressure of an ancient, aristocratic lineage and the cold, crushing realization that his "hero" (Voldemort) is a monster.

The Persona: Imagine yourself as a boy who is physically freezing, trapped in a house that hates him, speaking in hushed tones because he’s terrified of being overheard by the portraits on the walls.

2. The Drafting Session: When you sit down to write, don't just think "Regulus feels guilty." Instead, adopt the mask of that cold, observant, disillusioned boy.

Instead of: "Regulus felt bad about the Death Eaters."

Try (The Mask): "The air in the drawing-room always tasted of dust and rot. He traced the silver embroidery on his robes—a uniform for a war he’d already lost. It wasn't about regret; it was about the sickening realization that the 'purity' he’d been promised was just another word for decay."

See the difference? By "wearing" the persona of the cold, trapped heir, your word choices (rot, decay, uniform, silver) shift to match his specific worldview.

If you think you’ve got a handle on "plot twists," you need to stop what you’re doing and go read Edogawa Ranpo immediately.

For the uninitiated, Ranpo is basically the godfather of Japanese mystery fiction. He’s the guy who popularized the genre in Japan, and his work is a wild, often unsettling cocktail of logic puzzles, psychological obsession, and downright bizarre atmosphere. And honestly? He is the ultimate masterclass for anyone currently rotting in their Google Docs trying to plot a slow-burn or a complex thriller.

If Edogawa Ranpo were to write Severus Snape, he would strip away the "redeemed hero" narrative and lean hard into the psychological grotesque.

He would transform Snape into a figure of obsessive, stifled voyeurism, trapped in a claustrophobic, labyrinthine Hogwarts. Rather than a secret agent, Snape would become a tragic, unhinged protagonist obsessed with the mechanics of his own ruin—a man who meticulously orchestrates his own suffering as a form of perverse self-punishment. The story would be thick with sensory details of potions, cold stone, and unsaid things, framing his double-agent status as a terrifying psychological puzzle where the greatest mystery is whether Snape even knows his own true motives anymore.

Here is what we can learn from the master:

If William S. Burroughs wrote Percy Weasley, he would strip away the "earnest bureaucrat" trope. Instead, Percy becomes a terminal patient of the Ministry, a man whose nervous system is hardwired into the bureaucratic machinery of the state. He does not want to work for the government because he is ambitious; he wants to work for the government because he is terrified of the void. He sees the Ministry as the only thing preventing the world from dissolving into a chaotic, unorganized smear of biological rot.

In a Burroughs-style narrative, Percy’s ink-stained fingers are not just signs of hard work. They are the stains of the transmission, the physical evidence that he is slowly being digested by the filing system.

Burroughs would treat the narrative not as a linear tale, but as a series of intercepted transmissions, cut-ups, and recurring, hallucinatory images of societal rot. The protagonist is not a person with a "soul" to be saved; they are a recording device, capturing the static and the nightmare of a world that is fundamentally broken.

The Burroughs Blueprint for Your Fic:

Ever feel like you’re stuck in a loop? You open your document, and suddenly every interaction feels the same. Your characters keep having the same types of conversations in the same types of settings, and you find yourself leaning on the same crutch words and tired tropes. You’re not a bad writer: you’re just too comfortable. When you know your fandom inside and out, it’s easy to cruise on autopilot.

That’s exactly when you need to sabotage yourself.

On Creating "Constraints"

David Bowie once said he’d force himself to write using only five chords to avoid falling into his own predictable habits. He knew that total freedom can actually be a cage; if you can do anything, you often end up doing nothing interesting.

The secret is to build yourself "writing prisons." Here are a few ways to force your brain out of its rut:

The Lipogram Challenge: Try writing a 200-word scene without using the letter 'e'. It sounds absurd, but it forces you to drop the flowery adjectives and find stronger, more precise verbs.

The Silent Treatment: Set a 500-word limit where no character is allowed to speak. You have to convey all the tension, subtext, and character development through body language, environmental detail, and internal monologue alone.

The "One-Location" Lockdown: Force a high-stakes emotional confrontation to happen in a mundane, low-stakes setting (like waiting for a bus or standing in line at a grocery store). It creates a "pressure cooker" effect where the setting's normalcy clashes with the dialogue's intensity.

When you artificially restrict your tools, your creativity has to work twice as hard to fill the gaps. You stop relying on your "greatest hits" and start finding new, weird ways to solve narrative problems. And honestly? That struggle is usually where the best writing happens.

What is the one "autopilot" habit you catch yourself falling into when you’re mid-draft, and what constraint could you set to break it?

If your plot feels stale, stop trying to write in a straight line. Bowie used the "cut-up" method to break his brain out of autopilot. Just take a page of your draft, chop it into random phrases, and shuffle them. You’ll find these weird, brilliant connections you never would’ve planned yourself: i’s basically letting your subconscious do all the heavy lifting.