#sincerelycam

I wrote a whole reply and it got completely eaten! No draft or anything! Nightmare.

I'm skimming the basics you already know (read more, write more, stop waiting for inspiration, skimp on speech tags and use said as often as possible when you have to, spend as much time editing as writing) to give you an abridged version of advice I'm obsessed with that I call Total the Car. (I didn't coin this idea, but I may be the only one who ever talks about it. Forgive me if you've heard this lecture before.)

This advice references Ryan North's excellent Tumblr blog, BttF, on which he did a page by page reading of the novelization of Back to the Future. Ryan North is a very funny guy, and so it's an entertaining read, but it is also educational. Back to the Future is one of the tightest screenplays ever written, and the novel is a strange, meandering mess, made more so by the idiosyncrasies of its author and the likely fact that it was based on an earlier draft of the a screenplay. This allows us to compare and contrast the two works.

Early on in the story, Biff Tannen wrecks George's car. In the novelization, Gipe calls the car "nearly totaled," which causes Ryan to melt down; why nearly total the car? What value does the car have not being utterly totaled? The state of the car is mostly irrelevant. "Total the car!" Ryan says, on his blog. "You're the writer! You have the power! Total the car!"

I love this advice. I think writers often get bogged down in details like this; we're married to realism, or some research we did, or we think that going that far will be "too much," and so we rob our scenes of their own power. The phrase "nearly totaled" is not only weaker - it lacks the emotional gut punch - but it also raises questions where there should be none.

I think, when making a choice like this in writing, you should always err on the side of totaling the car. Kill the survivors. Burn the house to the ground. Make it harder on yourself. On your characters.

Stories don't happen in the almosts. They exist in the things that happen, the things that can't be undone. I love forcing people to go through a piece and circle every "almost" and "nearly" and "started to," and force them to write the piece that would have happened if there had been less restraint.

That's right. Come sit on me. Put your teeth right here. That's a good puppy. Bite down.

Now, now. I know you're nervous. Don't be. You'll know if you're being too rough, if you've bitten too hard, by the way my hands grip your hair. By the way my fingers squeeze your jaw. How my nails dig into your flesh when I tell you no.

But you're such a good puppy. You don't mean to. You just have to learn! That's riii--iight... Oh, you found a very sensitive spot, didn't you, pet? Did you like the sound I made just now?

Your werewolf boss has seemed mad at you ever since you started testosterone.

At first, you thought it was just your imagination. He started watching you more closely about a month after you began your shots, his eyes narrowed, head tilted to the side. Like he was trying to figure something out. It made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up the first time you felt it, your body's natural reaction to being watched by a predator. You could feel your blood under your skin.

Of course, that's everything, lately. Your veins are on fire. Everything is electric. Your cock has started growing, twitching in your pants throughout the day, reminding you it's there. What it wants. You have bigger things to worry about than your boss. Like how to get through the day without going insane.

Then he starts avoiding you entirely.

But it can't be transphobia, you reason. No one at work knows yet. You can't really figure out why he'd have other people deliver messages to you, manage you instead of him, but as long as things get done and you get through the day without crying from need, you're happy.

Until today, when he slams you back against the wall without warning while you're on your break, your back pressed hard into the brick wall behind the building.

"You have to do something about that smell," he growls. He has one hand next to your head, and his nostrils flare as he peers down at you.

"What--" you stammer. Your face goes hot. Smell? Something sick and humiliating threatens to descend over you.

"Your... Persistent excitement," he says, voice low. "It is distracting. Don't you know how to handle it?"

The humiliation floods your body.

He can smell it.

Of course he can. Fucking werewolf.

"Of course I do," you say, with a little more edge than you intended.

"Then why are you always so... desperate?" he asks. He looks unimpressed, his eyes raking over your body like it's a mystery for him to solve. "You are like a whelp in his first rutting season. Overwhelmed with the sights and sounds of the females. At a loss for how to get what you need from them."

"I am not," you protest instinctively, even though, truthfully, you're only half sure you know what he's talking about. You're pretty sure he's calling you a useless virgin.

"You are," he says. He's completely unconcerned with your arguments. "And it is distracting. Your body is changing, and you have no idea what to do with it."

His eyes have gone dark. Heavy lidded. There's something there now that wasn't before; a kind of feral steel. A hunter's focus. He leans in just a fraction of an inch closer, inhaling your scent, and his pupils go wide.

"Someone needs to... Teach you. How to handle your new needs."

It's a growl. And not a question. He doesn't waste time before he's shoving his hand into your pants.

You're so wet already (so wet and so hard all day, every day) and you gasp involuntarily when his calloused fingertips brush your sensitive head. You twitch between his middle and index fingers. He slides them up and down your new growth experimentally; his tongue darts out to wet his lips as you buck immediately into his palm. God, it's so sensitive that you nearly collapse against the wall.

"See?" he says. You can feel his voice in his chest where he presses against you. Pinning you, keeping you upright with his weight. "Already so responsive. Don't worry, pup. I'll take care of you."

He's panting, now, as he strokes you more confidently. He's staring down at you, eyes piercing and claiming.

Everyone knows about hybrid vigor: two bloodlines competing to make the resulting individual stronger. Strengths are sharpened, weaknesses sanded away. It's why werewolves are so fast, so strong, have such good stamina. Why they are, everyone knows, so fertile.

It's why everyone knows you should always wear a condom with a wolf hybrid.

On your first date, your werewolf lover didn't bring one.

"I didn't think I'd need it," he growls, crawling over you in the truck bed. It's more than a little defensive. "I'm a gentleman. I don't fuck on the first date."

"Well, you definitely aren't fucking on this one," you point out before gasping; he's grasped both of your wrists in one massive hand and is pulling you farther up the length of the bed by your arms. The cold metal rings out as you slide across it, your clothing snagging and catching on debts and rust. Something rips. "Fuck. Some gentleman."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says again. He can't seem to stop applogizing. It's all he's done all night. Apologized for ripping your shirt. Apologized for forgetting the condoms. Apologized for finding your musk so irresistible that he led you out of the restaurant by your sleeve and around the back to throw you in the back of his truck.

"I'll buy you a new one."

But you don't hear the apologies. You're too focused on what he's doing. Fumbling with your belt, and his belt, and buttons. His cock springs free before you can even ask what he has planned: long, and tapered, and red. It thickens in the middle, curving up toward his stomach.

"Fuck," you breathe.

"No," he promises, tugging at your pants. Literally pants. Tongue out. "Not that. I promise. Just-- lift your ass, okay, help me get to-- there you go, good little thing, okay..."

He groans as the fabric slides down and bunches at your thighs.

"Beautiful."

And then his cock is against your bare cunt.

"Just... Like this? Okay? Just this."

It sounds like he's asking, but he doesn't wait for your permission before he's sliding into place among your folds, into the wet channel. The angle puts pressure on both of you, hot and sharp, and you buck up once, instinctual.

"Stay," he growls, his free hand finding your hip, shoving you down into the cold metal below you. The truck squeaks as he thrusts against you again, collecting all the slick you're giving him and sliding it along both of you. Again. And again. Utterly lost. Rutting like a wild animal. The head of his cock bumps against your entrance, and you squeeze your thighs together. The sensation makes him whine. But it doesn't stop him.

Priest who slowly falls victim to the frequency of your lustful thoughts. Grows captivated with the vivid pictures you paint in what become nightly phone calls. Who finds himself instructing you to tell him inmediately when you find yourself plagued with such fantasies, texting in as much detail as possible. To help him understand. To help him help you.