#origfic

Love Minus Zero

"A love story with major consequences. Tristan Lind is a dropout artist with movie star parents and a mother running for President of the United States. Eli Murphy is a trans political science major at Princeton with high ambitions. When the two of them meet at an art exhibit, sparks fly and don't stop, even when circumstances should keep them apart."

What is our project?

Royal Flowers (or the Flower Gardens) is a book series in planning about one of my favorite things: gay royalty! More information will be in a different post, but what does Royal Flowers include? Well, let me tell you!

We have two main couples, Amara/Maeve and Nikandr/Andrei! We also have a number of other background characters, including a nonbinary pirate named Felix!

If you’re interested in lgbtq+ fantasy with plenty of adventure and lots of ups and downs, join us here as we go along, and come along with us!

Members of the project: @sky-neverending @twistyyyyyyyyboo @chancellor-reno5 as well as Isla and Shoto!!

here’s the premise, and the little bit is under the read more!

so basically it’s about a teenage prince named Charlie, and the son of the royal photographer, Lucas. Lucas teaches Charlie how to live a normal life and what it means to be his own person, and the two fall for each other.

ok here’s the beginning!!

This is an anthology of original stories written by fanfic writers. One of them is my own. For so long, fanfic writers have been discouraged from sharing their links to fandom in the original stories world and from disclosing they write fic to the publishing industry. Fic writers have been told many things. We're told we are inferior writers. We're told fic isn't real writing, but practice for originals and, simultaneously, that our originals will never fly because we cling to our beloved tropes and the conventions of our genre. I took these things to heart, for a long time, even as I knew there was an audience out there for the kinds of stories I wrote. Folks who would love the slower, more character driven adventures I wrote with fluff scenes interspersed throughout the action. Who consumed character studies and emotional prose as if they were as necessary to life as food and water. Who were desperate for the sort of inclusiveness in origfic that fanfic has always had. The same inclusivity the publishing industry has barely begun to tap into. So many of my fandom friends can point to a 200k word story they swear is better than any published novel and that it would suffer greatly from being forced into the 100k word or less box Big 6 publishers insist on to reduce risk. It can seem impossible to get your name and your words in print when you want to tell your stories, not those of the publishing industry, and you don't want to stop writing fic, much less renounce it. Self publishing, too, can seem like an insurmountable mountain of work and self-promo. I could sit here and talk about indie presses and niche zines and how they are, for the most part, a friendlier place for fanfic writers, but I mostly want to get the word out that there are two (that I know of) who specifically only take on fanfic writers and have built platforms around supporting those of us who want to be published: Duck Prints Press (@duckprintspress) and OFIC Mag (@oficmag). In the interest of full disclosure, I am both published with Duck Prints Press and became a part of the editorial staff after my story and contract were finalized for printing. I don't speak now as a staff member, but the author I am. I don't ever want to hoard opportunities, because we all benefit when there are more stories out there for us to read. I've got no affiliation with OFIC Magazine and haven't submitted a story to them (yet), but they appeared on my wall and inspired this post. I truly, deeply, down into my very core, believe in the missions of these companies and want to see them succeed (it's why I accepted a staff position in the first place). Publishing needs diversity; not just in authors and characters, but also in style and structure. It needs new stories. Fresh stories. The kinds millions of fandom folk already love to read. We don't need to grow out of our tropes or write something to Market with a capitol 'M'. It's not the only market, and it excludes so many people and so many beautiful, impactful stories. And I am glad there are people willing to put in the time and effort to publish books, anthologies, and publications to showcase all of these amazing tales of adventure, sorrow, intimacy, fluff, and love. If you're looking for paid opportunities to write the kind of stories you love, please check out https://www.oficmag.com/ and https://duckprintspress.com/ for upcoming opportunities. As I learn of more fic-writer-friendly publishers and zines, I will try to share them here as well as my fic-friendly general writing advice and answers to Asks on writing, making the transition from fic writer to origfic writer, and how my birds/guinea pigs/child/wife are doing. And, if you aren't interested, pass these opportunities along and keep on writing and reading. You're all amazing.

I don’t expect the story to write exactly like this, but... here’s a bit that came to me of Jason panicking about a problem in his situation. Bear in mind I’m using the rule of thumb, “start your idea for what the character thinks of with what you know out of your own head, then research to find out if it’s actually a good idea.”