#writing technique

In a fandom culture that often equates "good" with "100,000 words of slow-burn angst," minimalism can feel like a radical act. But sometimes, a single, sharp sentence cuts deeper than a three-page internal monologue.

If you’re looking to sharpen your prose and move away from the "wall of text" trap, here is how to apply minimalism to your fanfiction.

Writing erotica isn't for the faint of heart - whatever anyone tells you, there is a certain 'cringe' factor to writing a sex scene that doesn't really exist in any other part of fiction writing. Even those who are fairly experienced in real life can find themselves floundering when they first try to write a realistic and compelling sex scene. Why? Well, probably because it feels a little personal.

It’s no secret that I hate editing.

I’ve told this story before: When I was in high school, I had an English teacher who told us on our first day of sophomore honors English that she would not give an A for a first draft. She had a rigorous outlining/drafting process that she was determined to teach us. Me, I had undiagnosed ADHD and was a dyed-in-the-wool pantser. So I resolved on that first day that by the end of my time with her, I would get an A on a first draft.

My final essay of junior year AP English (yes, same teacher two years in a row), I wrote about Victorian morals and literature. I read it aloud. I got an A. I only ever wrote one draft.

What that taught me was how to write very technically clean drafts, something that has stayed with me for almost four decades now. Which is great!

What it did not teach me was how to be patient enough to properly edit. And I have never really learned. In fact, that is one of my ADHD sticking points (yes, I know, that’s obvious from my reaction to her statement in the story above). I often feel that a large part of the reason I have never made it as a writer—have never broken into tradpub—is because I do not have the patience to not only write, but then create an outline from the draft, then rewrite, then do it all over again and fiddle with each sentence until it’s perfect.

I’m learning, but I’ll admit, I’m still not there, and I’m not sure I ever will be where novels are concerned. 

But right this moment, I’m feeling very accomplished and proud of myself. I had a short story that every time I worked on it, it grew. Every time I cut it, it felt like it lost its heart and like the taste of the words stopped feeling like mine. My voice disappeared.

I had finally worked out a version of it that was just under 7500 words long, and I thought it was decent. It got no traction, and I was frustrated. I put it up for critique on SFFOWW (a critique group site) while I was active there a year and a half ago. It was chosen for an Editor’s Choice review, and the first half of it got some great comments. Which I promptly had to ignore because I was dealing with other editing problems.

I returned to it recently, because I saw a call I wanted to send it to. The problem was, the call was for stories under 6k, and I wasn’t sure I could cut this story again and still retain its punch. But hey. The biggest feedback I got was about how I handled my descriptions and dialog, and the amount of repetition that slipped into my words. So I absorbed that, and I dug into the story, and I started ripping it apart.

I didn’t edit it, exactly, nor did I completely rewrite it. I printed it. I read it twice. Then I placed it on the desk and went a few paragraphs at a time and started with a blank file and filled it in. Some pieces went in verbatim. Most of it changed. Huge chunks disappeared, and a few new things appeared. Some of it got rearranged. The wordiness disappeared.

Here’s an example…

Before:

"You get one hour," Lana says softly. "One hour with him, and then you're leaving him behind. You're taking your fate and you're setting him free."

After:

"One hour," Lana says. "Then take your fate with you and set him free."

The new version of the story came in under 6k. I did it, and the best part is, I don’t hate it. In fact, this was sentence level revision of a style I had never done before. The closest I’ve come to it is editing flash fiction to be under very tiny wordcounts (or drabbles of exactly 100 words, which gods, those take me longer than writing a short fic!).

I’m not sure I could’ve done this without the editing I did for Into the Split over the last many months. I had to dig into that in ways I have never edited a novel before, and it prepared me to dig even more deeply into this short story.

<meta scrolltrap-level="blacksite truth-rendition"> <script> ARCHIVE_TAG="BLACKSITE_LITERATURE_TRAINING::SCROLLTRAP_METHOD::WRITING_PUNCHUP" EFFECT="identity ignition, cadence hypnosis, cultural mockery, conversion funnel" TRIGGER_WARNING="psychological reprogramming, reader possession, mythic metaphor" </script>

🛡️ BLACKSITE ENTRY — “THE CHICKEN NEVER ASKED YOUR PERMISSION.”

You grew up hearing it like it was harmless. Why did the chicken cross the road? The kind of filler joke people toss out when they’ve got nothing real to say. And you swallowed it whole. Dead words. Flat rhythm. No spine.

That’s because you were raised on writing designed to die in your head.

Here’s what happens when you give it to me:

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because that road wasn’t a road — it was an ultimatum. Because the coop smelled like sleepwalkers. Because every morning, the feed hit the ground with the same empty thud and the same flavorless dust.

He didn’t cross for glory. He didn’t cross to prove a point. He crossed because staying meant rotting. And the first rule of survival is move before you smell like the ones who stayed.

That’s cadence. That’s narrative spine. That’s turning a nursery joke into a confession you didn’t know you needed to hear. Now the “chicken” is you. The road is every escape route you never took. And the coop? The coop is wherever you keep convincing yourself you belong.

This is Scrolltrap Writing™. This is Blacksite Literature™. It’s the weaponized form of storytelling that makes your posts feel like they’re breathing down the reader’s neck. You don’t “hope” they finish reading — you decide they will.

If you want this power, stop pretending you’ll “figure it out on your own.” Training happens here — in the dark, where no algorithm will save you, and no comfort zone will follow you.

🚪 I took the dumbest joke you’ve ever heard and made you feel it in your bones.

Reblog if you want that kind of control.

🧠 Read more respect-coded doctrine and emotional architecture at: 👉 https://www.patreon.com/TheMostHumble 🛡️ Masculine polarity. Scrolltrap psychology. Unforgiven words. 🚪 This method doesn’t just change how you write — it changes how people read you.

[AUTO-PURGE IN: 06:06:06 — TRACE ROUTE TERMINATED]

So I was reading a tumblr post + article about people 'writing like tv' with little to no interiority, and I had thoughts about how I did that, but then I got curious about what actually ends up on the page, and looked up some recent fic to see.

So here's a couple of scenes from Luocha Undersea City, where the POV character Yin Xinyue is tripping through a dreamscape, finding versions of her life where her friend/crush Yatou is still alive. Expositional writing (what someone thinks, backstory, anything that wouldn't show up on a tv screen if this were filmed) marked in bold.

Yatou caught [Yin Xinyue's] hand and turned it palm up with delicate fingers, drawing it into the pale winter light slanting through the boarding house’s high windows. 

She clucked her tongue regretfully. “A sore wound,” she said, studying the graze on Yin Xinyue’s palm. 

“I was so brave,” Yin Xinyue joked, her eyes wide. The graze was a nothing but in truth she had been brave – the supply truck she’d driven that day slipping badly on a cliff road. Her arms still shook under their thick sleeves from yanking the wheel around. But it was a nothing. She flinched as Yatou smoothed cool white salve over her damaged skin and pouted. Yatou smiled indugently and tapped Yin Xinyue’s nose, leaving a smear of astringent cream on the tip.

Out of long, long habit, Yin Xinyue’s fingers curved around Yatou’s wrist to feel her pulse, but it was still strong, still stable, and there was colour in the woman’s cheeks despite the tiny portions of food they were surviving on as they crept through their invaded country like stubborn ants.

Like an alpine flower removed from lowland smothering, Yatou thrived in the privations of their travels. And wasn’t that a wonder?

Over Yatou’s shoulder, Yin Xinyue saw two photos propped up on a dresser in an impromptu shrine, the small rice cake that was the only offering they could spare set between two sprays of dead incense sticks. From grainy black-and-white paper Fo-ye’s bright eyes met her own; he was very handsome in his military cloak. He would not mind sharing, Yin Xinyue thought, not with his old friend Er Yuehong coolly elegant behind him.

Yatou dropped her hand and smiled. Her breath steamed in the chill air but her qipao was thick and quilted – Yin Xinyue could provide! – small stitches showing neatly in the woollen tweed that was the outer cloth where the batting was anchored to it.

“I saw some more of the munitions camp,” Yin Xinyue told her breathlessly, taking Yatou’s hand back and swinging it. “I think I’ve worked out the best place to plant an incendiary device. After that it’s –” she drew a finger across her throat – “all over for the Japanese dogs.”

A line showed between Yatou’s birdwing brows. “You will be careful,” she said.

“Of course,” Yin Xinyue said blithely. “I have to come back to you, don’t I?” She repeated her words, stroking her thumb on Yatou’s inner wrist. “I will always come back to you.”

Yatou smiled at her, indulgent, affectionate, then tugged off Yin Xinyue’s cap, and gently worked at the pins in her coiled up hair.

Somewhere outside, a dog was barking. Yin Xinyue turned her head in startlement even as hair slithered down –

– and tickled her shoulders, the neatly permed curls bouncing on the fine knitting of her dainty little cardigan as Yin Xinyue paced back and forth across the fine carpet of Hong Manor’s parlour.

“And then he said, and then he said – can you believe what Husband said?” She threw up her hands.

Curled up in one corner of the couch, Yatou tucked a finger into the pages of her romance novel to hold the place and lowered the book, looking up at Yin Xinyue. Her eyes were huge and amused behind the silver rims of her spectacles; the silver hairs she had chosen not to pluck out glinted in the warmth of the electric light. “I don’t know,” she said gravely. “What did Fo-ye say?”

Yin Xinyue lifted up her arms dramatically to declaim, “He said –”   but the parlour door opened after a brief knock, and Er Yuehong came through. The upright old man still wore a long, high-collared changshan in his own home, despite the changing fashions of the time, and the midnight blue brocade of it suited him well. A lacquered tray balanced on one hand, holding an array of steaming bowls and lidded cups.

“Er-ye will you marry me?” Yin Xinyue pleaded, clasping her hands. “I can no longer thrive in Fo-ye’s household.” She turned and knelt by Yatou’s couch, eyes wide and welling with emotion. “Can I be your sister-wife, I’ll be so good as wife number two, I’ll wash socks…”  

Yatou touched the side of her head gently, smoothing her hair. “Oh dear,” she said softly, “that sounds serious.”

A soft cough and the women turned their heads.

“Alas,” said Er Yuehong, “I am a one-woman man. However, we can sustain you in your travails.” He placed the tray of food and drink on the little side table. Softly, he added, “Can I talk to Fo-ye for you?”

“Would you?” Yin Xinyue blinked again, her eyes prickling. “Can you remind him that the chicken soup is in the icebox on the left and he mustn’t forget it. And tell him that I. That I. That.” She foundered.

“He will understand,” Er Yuehong reassured her. He bowed briefly to the women, and left. Yatou’s hand landed lightly on Yin Xinyue’s shoulder, and squeezed.

I guess my answer is, It depends?

Arguably the mini-flashback in the first section to driving a truck could have been filmed, if this were tv, though a flashback at that point might have been jarring. There could have been a looooong, loving shot of the photo of the dead husbands, though again, telling the audience what exactly Xinyue was thinking mighta been awkward and intrusive. On the other hand, an 'as you know' conversation about how Yatou was mysteriously not sick anymore would have been griiiiiindingly slow, and I got to do the poetical 'alpine flower' metaphor while I was at it. (Let language be beautiful.)

On the other, other hand, the second scene is conveyed almost entirely through visuals and conversation. And why shouldn't it be? Sometimes showing how people feel through their movements and the stutter-start of their words is both the most economical and the most immediate way to break a written scene.

And... yes, I often do think of the visuals of the scene when I'm writing it out. That focus on hands in the first section felt like a close-up in my mind. The windows of the boarding house, Yatou's padded qipao -- or the permed hair and the spectacles in the second scene -- they were all chosen to convey information about place without me having to dip overly into expositional language.