You Should Be Writing

writing is 10% storytelling and 90% rearranging three sentences for an hour like you're trying to solve an ancient curse

“I want to write a fic about this but I don’t think anybody will be interested in it” ummm hello excuse me ma’am what do you mean you don’t think anybody will be interested in it??? YOU. YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT???? write it because YOU are interested in it and YOU want to write about it. fanfic writing should always be first and foremost about YOUR enjoyment, not other people’s.

is there such a thing as a beta but instead of reading for line edits or plot notes, they just read my work and recommend what tags to put on ao3 outside of like. warnings.

This is a good guide!

This is one of the things r/ao3 is actually pretty helpful for, in fact I think centrumlumina's guide is almost word-for-word match for advice that i see posted regularly on there. Its also great for "here's a thing that happens in my story/i want to warn readers about, is there a tag for that?" (Or even "this tag i already know about doesn't suit my purposes for xyz reasons. What can i do instead?")

I can do it. I can write a chapter. I am capable of putting sentences together. I know what a comma is. I am Aware of the Character.

Write that one-shot. Those 3 chapters will be the best 10 chapters you ever wrote

honestly sometimes there's no better feeling than rereading a fic you've written and coming out of it going, "yeah that actually this DOES slap. exactly what i wanted to read. fucking nailed it."

Reblog to give prev the power to write their fanfiction

Reblog to give prev the TIME to write their fanfiction

Reblog to give prev the hocus focus to write their fanfiction.

Reblog to give prev the energy to write their fanfiction

Reblog to give prev the executive function to write their fanfiction

Can I cast this on myself?

ai can never ever write half as good as an average tired writer who pulls an all-nighter writing a slow burn gay fanfiction for their favorite fictional characters out of hyperfixation, love, passion and spite they have for the way canon treated their little gay ship

I love how the notes for this are just chock full of examples of the most batshit specific things people research for their fanfics. Truly a treasure trove.

I once spent hours doing research and math to figure out, first of all, what general type of ship the Dragon Hunter ships are based off of, and how much said type of ship weighs. For a single line. In a 470k word fanfic. With lots of anal.