when one starts writing stuff (and dreams of being, well, you..) how does one actually manage to scrape together a whole fic with a beginning, an end and something in the middle? i only have scenes here and there and never manage to come up with enough to make it a whole story. do you happen to have any tips?
Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this! I have been extraordinarily busy with Life things.
The thing to remember with fic is that it absolutely doesn't matter if you follow standard conventions about a beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes, a finished fic can just be vibes and unconnected scenes. One of the joys of doing fic over anything that even looks passingly like "industry standard" whatever is that you get to set your own rules. Make the scenes into a drabble! Make them a one shot! String them together into an out of order vignette series!
That said, if you want to follow the standard beginning, middle, end structure, I think one of the easiest ways to make sure you get there is to figure out what the ending is first. If you know where it ends, you can usually figure out the steps to get there. It's like planning a trip. You have a destination in mind, and there are certain ways to get there that will be easier. Some of them will be out of the way and some of the stops you plan might not make it to the final outline of the finished product. You might discover hidden gems along the way that you weren't expecting to be there.
You know, I had typed out this whole huge thing that details my drafting process for actual novels because I write those in my spare time (as yet unpublished because the publishing industry is a nightmare and I just don't have the energy for selfpublishing; godspeed those who do) and it's simply not applicable to fic unless the fic you want to write is in the 50k+ range.
I guess the advice I do have (unless for some reason y'all actually want to know what my novel drafting process is like) is:
don't worry about it. It's low-stakes, and it doesn't have to do anything you don't want it to
finishing things gets easier every time you do it
it's all the kind of skill that you develop with practice. everything you write, finished, fragmentary, fic or not, is actively developing the skill.
and as flattering as your opening question is, you don't want to dream of being me
