#zoranight16

Trick or treat! ^-^

Last nights stream! I drew some ocs as ponies OwO

Ponified OCs belong to:

@ssunnybee @graphitesblog @zoranight16

That's my biggest worry, I've recently been inspired to try to write some fanfiction again and I want to make sure I do the characters justice.

If you don't have any advice over characters, that's okay! Some advice for starting the first page instead would be nice if possible ^-^

No bother at all! I love talking about writing! This got kinda long too so I apologize for the info dump.

I think my best advise about characters is to write them as a whole character. You and I have both positive and negative traits that make up who we are. As much as we love our characters, we can't just dump every good trait into them and ignore everything else.

Write down the traits that make the character and show off all of them! Plus it's totally okay to change those traits as you go. People grow and change as they live their lives and encounter new people or situations, so your characters can do that too(though not a the drop of a hat, change takes time).

When I'm going through a scene, I tend to think about how this character would realistically react. It might not always be the socially or morally correct reaction to the situation. It might make the situation worse in fact, but if they were to chose the positive solution every time, the chance for that character and the characters around them to learn disappears. It also takes out any tension or opportunities to explore the scene/characters more. On the flip side, don't make your characters fail and choose poorly every time either.

Finally, give yourself space to not completely know your characters. It's okay to sit down and have just a couple of traits and ideas for them. As you write, ideas will pop up that most of the time are better for the story than a lot of pre-planned scenes. Let it be organic and have fun with it!

For a first page, write a scene. Write action. Write your characters doing something or reacting to a situation. Stick us in the middle of their life. Showing your readers action will tell them more about your character than paragraphs of you explaining the world ever will.

It doesn't have to be super exciting or crazy either. A simple showing of their evening off of work, or how they react to meeting an unexpected person or situation will do to kick off your plot. You can always sprinkle in more as you go. It's called character growth and world building for a reason. It takes time and energy to get to the end result. You got this!

Trick or treat! ^-^

you get......... treat!!!! paw marshmallows for the kitty !! :]

Trick or treat! ^-^

But I was wondering how you plan out your stories?

I have several things in mind that I'd like to happen for the work I spoke of last time, but where I'm at currently isn't the right time for said events/interactions. I've been very tempted to do small drabbles or vague outlines of them, however, I worry about getting a head of myself and then not being able to fill in the sections between the current and future one(s)

Hello! And thanks for the ask! It makes me happy to know that I can help out fellow writers where I can so, ask whatever you want on the topic!

Believe it or not, I was a bit all over the place with how I planned out my stories for the longest time. Bone Pile was about 10% planned and the rest was me just throwing ideas at it to see what worked and what didn't as well as experimenting with writing techniques. Which is why that story is such a hot mess lol.

Remember, your first draft is just that, a FIRST draft. Your thoughts on a scene can change, how things develop can change. So let it. Writing out a drabble can be an amazing anchor for you to tether your story to so you know what direction you should go in. The destination might look different when you get there, but it could be a better place than where you originally thought you were going.

I think I changed up the last chapter of Bone Pile about 7 or 8 times as I wrote just because my characters were evolving in better ways than I first anticipated and I wanted to fit those better personalities into my ending. So follow your instinct to get your scenes on the page and work towards them, it's a great way to do things! Just remember that you're never stuck with what you first wrote down.

My outlining process now is really simple. I write 1 to 3 sentences stating the broad strokes of what I want done in the chapter that is plot relevant then move on. It holds me to what needs to happen but gives me the creative freedom to play with the setting, dialog, emotions, and blocking in the moment. Then when I write, I make what needs to happen happen based on how my characters would make it happen (remember your character sheets friend). For example, in Marrow Deep, I outlined the first chapter (after the prologue) like this:

Chapter: News of starving monsters coming out of mountain on TV, Lelia unable to go home. Protests at blockade. Volunteer to help, meet Temmies and learn a little about magic food.

Then when I wrote the chapter I looked at what I have down for Lelia's personality and built the chapter on how she would follow those plot points based on the world that she is in, not how I would follow those plot points based on my world.

If you want more structure, you can always add more details to your outline. I just personally like to have the baseline there and free-form the rest.