#relationships especially

historical accuracy: I think that jml has got to be my most historically accurate fic and I’ll point out that it’s almost my first. New writers can tend to be more concerned with this which is fine, but those of us who have been around for awhile kinda don’t give two fucks bc you’re already adding an entirely new person, which itself is inaccurate. That being said, it can be cool get the dates right if you wanna write about going on tour and the stops they had and for that Wikipedia is amazing it has basically all their tours laid out easily. Also say it’s a roger x reader fic and you are going to be talking ab John, Fred, and bri, you can absolutely use their actual partners (Veronica, Jim, chrissie, etc.) but if you don’t want to deal with that feel free to make up names and whole new characters. When it comes to uni and stuff, I definitely feel free to mess around with ages, like making them all the same year, but I think most of us wouldn’t make John the oldest and Fred the youngest. Also most of us keep their majors the same bc they are pretty important to them. Lots of people write refernces to the movie which is always fun to read but note that the movie itself isn’t terribly accurate. Basically the thing with historical accuracy is to be as historically accurate as you want to, if it’s super fun for you to research and get things right, go for it, it’s cool to learn things as you read, but if you don’t want to, don’t fee obligated and that’s exactly what au’s are for!

characterization: there are definitely some widely accepted characterizations of the boys. Fred is fun, creative, flighty, fashionable, kind, loving, a little superficial, gossipy, material, the life of the party, shy, and motherly. Brian is studious, intelligent, kind, caring, proud, arrogant, a know it all, soft spoken, thoughtful, horny, moody, and sardonic. Rog is clever, cheeky, self centered, materialistic, immature, so funny, sweet, also gossipy, caring, charitable, a bit of a slut, and also a baby. John is sassy, technical, smart, funny, tender hearted, The baby, shy, stubborn, blunt, family oriented, in love, money man, and at times selfish. But some of my fav fics are ones that make me see them in new lights (in the wings by @/just-my-sickly-pride I’m looking at you). Interviews are great resources but follow your gut! Also drawing inspiration from other fics is totally valid and if someone told me that one of my fics inspired what they did with a certain character I’d be more than flattered.

planning out a plot: this one really varies person to person. Some people like doing outlines and planning the whole fic out and others just start with some ideas and see where that goes. I’m somewhere in the middle, blurbs are never outlined (even tho they’re consistently over 1k) and most one shots aren’t but series might be to keep things straight. That being said, I did not outline at all with just my luck. Smth that I’ll do is write out any ideas or scenes that are in my head. In high infidelity, I wrote the ending practically to a t before I started it, but the ending was the most important part of that story to me. I also knew the ending words of just my luck as soon as the idea popped into my head. But sometimes I’ll write down a scene that’ll end up being like two scenes ahead or a particular line of dialogue so I don’t forget it. Experiment and find what you like!