#writing bitching

anyway. originally it was going to be a few scenes of harry and ginny communicating in different ways. there was going to be a talking in the flames bit, a-la sirius, here is the starter bit for that:

Ginny felt like someone had set her throat on fire. “Fuck!” she coughed, looking up at Harry who looked half concerned, half amused.

“We don’t have to do this.”

“Mum’s just seen the phone bill,” Ginny coughed and physically felt soot go up her nose, “She thought this whole time calls were free.”

anyway this went nowhere, because i was too preoccupied with harry and ginny flirting on the phone. such is life. the hard bit was figuring out why they would be calling in the first place, but harry was always in australia with andromeda, and once i had it that magic was far away from his life at that moment, that he hardly used it, it made more sense

also, he had the phone installed for a joke, and then she used it as a joke and then that was how they talked, or however i wrote that line. the point was, i liked that it rooted back to everything they did being, really, to make the other person laugh. they talk on the phone for a year and a half as one long bit.

the file on my computer is called 'wow what' which is how i felt when writing it

unbelievable ammount of googling went into figuring out whether its called 'english breakfast' tea in england like it is here in nz, and i still have no idea.

i had the first two scenes: ginny & harry joking about rons mostashe, harrys explaination as to why he was in aus, and then the joking in the post office, written for ages. a year or more, because i had no idea what to do with them or where to go

and then i thought of 'i really dont want to die. i really don't want to die and miss out on you' which is so harry about ginny it was obvious, and i knew i had to keep writing to make that moment hit how i wanted

'it makes sense, he's never been anywhere he wasn't hunted too' was another line i liked and had to find a way to use. that poor boy!!

there were 800 versions of this:

Andromeda sat on a towel by the dunes under an enormous hat, tears running down her face, abruptly laughing when Teddy tried to eat sand or fell over a sandcastle. Harry knew how she felt. Impossible, how two years ago Teddy had two living parents and Harry had been seventeen, dead and walking, and now they were sat on the beach, people they loved dead for real, as Harry and Teddy lined up shells on the shore.

here's one:

Andromeda sat on a beach towel in a big hat, crying and smiling, and Harry knew how she felt. It was crazy, how two years ago Teddy hadn’t existed at all and how many people were still living and now lots of them weren’t and Teddy was here, trying to eat sand, watching Harry line seashells up in a row.

this one i almost used:

Impossible, how two years ago he’d been seventeen, dead and walking, and now he was here with the sun for miles, more people dead than he could count, lining shells up with Teddy on the shore. He couldn’t picture Remus on the beach, he’d never seen him on one before.

but i knew i couldn't have that (that horrible image, never seeing remus on the beach, never seeing him ever really be at ease) and have this stuff later, which i liked more:

Teddy turned two and Andromeda make him a cake by hand with a spider on it that moved. He blew out the candles and looked bemused, sat in a top Hermione had sent, still holding onto a scrap of ribbon. Harry took him outside and sat him on his Nimbus Seven Series, entirely too long, and Teddy did slow circles while Harry held the end, watching him laugh, tiny hands grasping the handle. Suddenly, like being thrown through a window, Remus was in front of him, standing in the Hogwarts Hallway, breathless and happy, saying his sons name.

i actually had a whole bunch of ideas i wanted to work through in this. the main one is like 400 different horrible things happened to this kid, and now he just has to go on and be a person. all this horrible shit happens, and he still has to make lunch everyday. that's what i wanted this to be about, the making lunch. the everyday stuff even while you know horror like that

that's what the bit about him forgetting sirius is dying is about. he forgot! for a second he forgot, he saw a big dog, and he thought it was his godfather. also, because i wrote down The memory looped in his brain, how Sirius’ name had risen in his throat, how odd it felt there, how long it had been since he’d said it aloud. and got so sad i had to stop working, so i knew i had to include it

i didnt really like eleanor and park when i read it, god, like seven or eigh years ago, but i have always liked the line "You're my favourite person of all time, I want everyone to met you" which very clearly inspired this:

Harry grinned, “You’re brilliant, I’m hanging my copy on the front door, framed.”

“The moving logo may cause problems for the muggles”

“Who cares? I want to tell everyone about this. Chaser for the Harpies–“

speaking of, this bit:

“Do you want– if you want, we could take a break-“

“No” Harry said, so fast, “No, no I don’t want that. Do you want that?”

“No. No. I just– I don’t want this to be difficult. I don’t want you to feel, like– obligated. If you want like room away from everything I get it. Just tell me– I don’t want– Just tell me.”

Harry’s heart was going into his chest like an endlessly slamming door. How to explain it? You wouldn’t believe the space here, all this room, all this time I have. I didn’t think I’d get it. I want space but never from you.

heavily heavily inspired, almost nicked really, from these howard moss lines:

Pleasures, complacencies, Are habits remaining serviceable. I am tired, yes. But not of you.

the diner summary ron writes is also inspired by the bus trip in adrian mole book, which are the funniest three pages in all of literature, full on not kidding

all of rons letters were written quite late actually, because by the time i realised how big i wanted this to be i knew that ron and hermione had to be there, only i sort of dread writing them. their dynamic is hard to get and i'm always wary of writing canon characters we have so much time with in the books. but i think the letters were a good split difference, they're there but they're not there, which is kind of how harry feels. they're far but not far

wrote this a hundred years ago, before i even started writing for them again, and had no where for it, and then it ended up here

“You like me.” Ginny said, not really serious but also deadly so.

Harry smiled, said dryly, “What gave me away?”

also so harry deciding to go home to england looks like this right:

He was walking back to the car from the post office one day, Teddy plodding beside him infatuated with a passing goose, with Ginny’s voice still swimming around him, the sound of Ron telling her to shut up, pass the receiver, I’ve got to tell him the Cannons score, and he walked into the travel agents and booked one-way ticket to England for next week. Just like that.

Stupid, really, how he heard their voices all the time (walking in the street, making a sandwich, fixing the plumbing) but had never made the connection. He was in the street like always, hearing the call all again, and thought I wish they were here for real, and then walked into the air-conditioning and pulled out his chequebook. It really was that easy. The goose was still outside when he left holding his ticket, Teddy squirming to get closer to it with a full-on beak that Harry was trying to hide with one hand.

but for a minute it looked like this:

It was stupid, some unspoken rule that no one from England had ever visited (hes never been anywhere he wasn’t hunted too) so a year passed without him seeing anyone he loved, except Teddy and Andromeda, in person. It was like they had all agreed silently to give him physical space but write and talk so often he could almost hear them in every room. Driving to the post office and he could hear Ginny’s voice, Ron's scoff, Hermione's laugh

He has this dream when he walks into the kitchen and theyre all standing there, Hermione sitting at the counter with a tea, Ron leaning against the counter eating a biscuit, Ginny sat next to him next to the toaster. They looked so strange, odd, out of place, where they didn’t belong. And Harry thought I don’t want to be where they don’t look right, and, like they could hear him, they turned to look at him,

there was also this, which had no where to go and couldnt really justify its own existance:

The land was so big that Harry had to apparate to get to the post office in town to use the phone or get letters. Hermione wrote twice a week, always with instructions to send back Teddy photos, and Ron normally scrawled something on the back. Luna sent him odd smoking packages that he had to sign for once a month full of herbs of some sort, and Mr Weasley, ecstatic to have some reason to use international muggle post, sent him random Ministry memos in envelopes covered in stamps every couple of weeks.

favourite bit? changes every time i read it. i love ginny cutting potatoes and cutting herself by accident. also harry hitting the swan. also the closer, where harry realises hes about to be on a plane for hours while ginny makes fun of him. basically, i like any bit where harry potter and ginny weasley are making each other laugh

Another thing, but people say um and like or can't speak or cut themselves off, especially when they’re nervous. James when Lily says she loves him for the first time: ‘“Wow,” He breathed, “I’m– wow.” He put both hands on her cheeks and kissed her crazy, abruptly, dumbly. Her head spun.’ He can’t even speak! Dumb boy.

I think natural dialogue sometimes just requires you to read it aloud, which is very embarrassing but ultimately quite useful in trying to figure out whether something sounds normal or not. Use casual words, and try not to go dictionary hunting: if you cant think of the word chances are your character can’t either

In terms of concepts I have no idea, but I do have a few tips. I write all my short one-shots in one document (its called ‘just bad’ lmao) so its easy to start something, write a few lines, and then if it doesnt work just start a new concept, but still have all the old stuff handy. if you feel like you’ve written yourself into a corner its probably because you took a wrong turn earlier, so its just a matter of going back up and figuring out where you turned onto the dead end, or where a line could be funnier and/or sadder and/or more meaningful. Sometimes the bare bones of a decent line is there but you have to work it a little.

In this harry/ginny thing where harry is apologising for all the attention and ginny brushes him off she says:

“It’s nothing,” her voice, all force, “Anyway, it’s more funny than annoying.”

The response went through a few drafts, all variations on the same thing:

(1) “You’re funnier.” [too short, doesn’t make sense, and not really that funny. unholy trinity]

(2) “You make it funny.” Harry said, looking at her for real, “It’s not– you make it like that.” [this could work! I have no idea why I cut this, I think I forgot abt it lmao]

(3) “You’re the funniest person I know, Harry said, sincerely, and Ginny felt her heartbeat all through her, “You make it funny.” [jumping from ‘its more funny than annoying’ to getting this sincere out of nowhere is a little much, even for harry who is famously whipped]

I ended up going with this:

“It’s nothing,” her voice, all force, “Anyway, it’s more funny than annoying.”

“You’re funny.” Harry said, looking at her for real, flustered, “I mean– you make it funny. That’s all you.”

It follows the flow of the conversation and I think the way he says it, ‘you’re funny’ like its obvious, and then being like oh fuck and over-explaining it stumbling a little “I mean– you make it funny. That’s all you.”. You know when you like someone and you say something that gives you away before you can stop yourself? I wanted it to sound like that. Just gotta keep in mind how people behave, we are so stupid a lot of the time, we give ourselves away.

The thing about short stuff i find is implying a lot of history without actually describing a lot of it. I normally do this by having memories come up as almost shards, one second of feeling. You know when you’re in a conversation with someone and they mention someone or a past event, and it rises to the top of your brain, but only for a second? i find sometimes when you’re reading stuff people will try and replay entire memories or events mid-conversation, which is not something you do when you think. You don’t need to replay it beat by beat, you were there! This sounds vague as hell so I’ll try and show you what I mean:

From good crimes: “Petunia is engaged.” Lily’s voice, raw and wrong, “To Vernon. Eliza Hunt told me at the supermarket.” Sudden flashes of Petunia, the only time he’d ever met her, sat in the back of Lily’s twenty-first, pinched and whispering. “Whose Eliza Hunt?” This seems as good a thing to say as any.

pretty on the nose (the phrase ‘sudden flashes’ is pretty so i'll allow it from past me). But see how you don’t need to know how Petunia didnt talk to anyone, how she left early, how she was the odd one out: you don’t need to read all that, you already know because she was sat in the back and because pinched is such a mean verb, spiteful and sharp, you can already imagine how the evening went without me saying so

From my proposal take, after Sirius finds out they’re engaged: Sirius’ grip on his shoulder tightened for one second, still grinning, and James knew what he meant. “I know.” He said, because only Sirius had been there for all of it, when they were fifteen, drunk on Firewhiskey for the first time and James had said I think I’ve fucked it, I think I’ve fucked it but I like her for real.

you don’t need a description of the whole night, what party they were at, who they were with, what they were talking about: the important bit is that Sirius was the first person he told, and that they’re both remembering that at the same moment because they’re soulmates lmao. You know when something big happens for a friend and you feel so full of pride & love that you feel like you’ll burst into confetti?? this needed to feel like that, and you only need a flash for it

I feel like I’ve sort of strayed off from what you asked me, which is really advice on how to start something. I normally start with a line, usually of dialogue, and then try and build from there because dialogue is my thing. You might have a different thing! Some people write from concepts or locations, or an image. i might start with one or a few lines of dialogue, write them down, and then try to build from there. For example for the proposal thing I started from james just saying “Marry me”, which I find more romantic than ‘will you marry me’, purely because it sounds like he simply couldn’t stop himself from saying it, like it rushed out. Another example, this thing started from just “don’t be mad at me” “okay” James agreed instantly, because he is such a sucker for her.

When I write I don’t normally know where I’m going! I normally set out to write something I think is vaguely funny and evokes An Emotion, and then I just play around with stuff until I get there. when I write certain stuff and I have scenes in mind, stuff I want to happen, but I find that if I try to plot it to tightly its not exciting to work on, because sometimes you write a good line by accident, that you hadn’t thought of when you sat down, and you surprise yourself. That is a really nice feeling! i want to maximise that feeling.

'What I mostly try to remember is that writing something down, anything down, is useful. Sometimes you write for a whole night and dont get anything useable, but its like clearing pipes. Sometimes you have to flush through shit to get to the good bits. All the rough stuff, the things you don’t like or didn’t work, you wrote to get you to the stuff that did work. All of the bad shit got you here! It wasn’t a waste, you were working to find the good thing

If I had any tips its just the usual stuff, read! It is annoying how much that helps. Also, and I know this may make you shudder, but reading poetry is useful just because in no other literary or media form is language so important. In comics you have pictures, in novels you have plot and character, in film you all that and cinematography, but in poetry you live and die by how good the words are. If you want recs here’s my poem roundup tag, that I do sometimes, or if you want something just now read this by Anne Carson, which uses words like ‘smashing’, ‘boatwash’, and ‘green’ in the best way possible. Also it has these lines: “Recently having learned to recognize the type of tree called sycamore, / I see them in any forest— / the ones that look harrowed, / in shreds, but / go also / straight up into life,”

I mean, think of a sharper image than that?? It’s not possible. Just try remember to stay true to your characters and that in real life, the little stuff is the big stuff. Little things the people around you do normally show they care more than big speeches, and if you want to show love that’s how to make it feel lived in. You want to build a world! the little stuff is usually the world. Take some from your own or dream the ones you wish you had.

This truly was a very kind message and I’m so grateful you like my stuff, I hope any of this was even half-useful, although now reading it back it is borderline nonsensical. I’m going to bed now, good luck with the writing, and don’t forget to send it to me!!

trying to find a balence between these two is kind of hard, but its all about your character baby!! they normally know where theyre going. for instance, when i write james he normally goes for the joke and loads it with Secret Meaning, where lily goes for the joke if shes trying to avoid Secret Meaning. both of them are funny, they just use humour differently. 

i also think when its short you kind of have to boil the character down to the bare essentials. for instance, in all the my short stuff its kind of clear from the word go that james really really (really) likes lily, see these opening lines: 

“You look pretty.” James said to Lily, who didn’t (x)

He’s very close to her. Unfairly so. The broom in the supply closet is pressing into her back. They’re definitely going to get caught. “I have a thing for you.” James says, softly. Even in the dark she can see his eyes moving all over her face, nervous. (x)

“Sirius told me,” James said, letting himself be dragged down the eleventh-floor corridor, “that you’re going to blow me in McGonagall’s office” (x)

when its short you dont have the luxury of a long arc when you can dick around for a while. you can start by just throwing your characters in the middle of a weird sitatuation and not worrying about handholding the reader through it. one of the most popular things ive ever written has lily & james in a broom closet, hiding from filch, and you never find out why

basically when its short you dont have of time, is what im saying, to do all the build up and get to know the character. they have to come out swinging and you have to know how they feel from the first few lines 

also, for short stuff, i try to avoid characters coming to Earth Shattering Revelations. when ur a real person you rarely have moments where everything just comes together and you Know something you didnt before. youre trying to make your people seem as real as possible, character driven stuff can really work when its just a little slice of someones life. this thing i wrote is just lily getting james a dumb birthday gift, theres so big realisation, its just them having fun and liking each other

sorry this has just been me plugging my own shit, i always feel bad for explaining stuff without linking examples so people can see what i mean. elle @fuckjamespotter has some really good character shit here cause shes the best. ayesha @october31st1981 is also stellar in this fic, which is really dialouge driven.