#and I essentially just write what the fic requires as far as backstory goes

[egginfroggin]

I remember in the seventh chapter of WTST, that Emmet didn't have his voice, like "when they were young and scared of the world", so a thought struck my tortured mind.

What is your headcanon about the twins' childhood ?

Honestly, probably not as tortuous as that line might have made it sound.

Specifics are vague, but essentially, my general HC for the twins' childhood is that their parents died when they were kids. That sudden loss made them cling all the more tightly to each other, and made them terrified of getting separated -- be it temporarily or permanently. They had a bit of a severe case of separation anxiety going on for a while.

"Scared of the world," indicates that hard line in the sand, or crack in concrete, between "safe" and "unsafe." Each other? Safe. Their uncle Drayden who adopted them? Scary at first, but after a while, safe.

Everything else? Dangerous. Scary. Unsafe. Very, verrrrry unsafe. Do not touch, do not interact, do not let go -- the unfamiliar is bad, the distant is bad, and the familiar is safe but also scary because it isn't permanent.

That is my general HC for the twins' childhood.

The most specific one that I have for a different fic is that the four of them were taking a plane trip, the plane crashed, and their parents died from their injuries while holding the twins to keep them safe from debris and fire.

The boys were physically fine, aside from a few minor scrapes, but developed a severe phobia of planes and heights.

There wasn't any abuse in either of these HCs -- as a matter of fact, I like to imagine their parents as very, very good! But that shining aspect of them made the loss that much more frightening, because the twins hadn't experienced such a thing before.

As for the muteness -- Emmet never spoke much as a child, and tended to clam up when pressured or distressed. Processing the sudden loss of his and Ingo's parents took a lot to work through, and his already-scarce voice just disappeared until he healed enough emotionally.

Thank you very much for the ask, Anon! Hopefully this is a satisfactory answer to your question, though it's not the most specific.

Thank you, and I hope you have a very good day. <3

#thank you! #submas #subway boss emmet #subway boss ingo #eggin's writings #asks #anon ask #the general HC is mean but not as mean as I could be #the plane variant is about as mean as I'm willing to be #and honestly the only reason that I discern the two is because my general HCs for basically everything are vague #and I essentially just write what the fic requires as far as backstory goes #just about the only permanent thing in it is that they're orphans and drayden is their uncle who adopts them #that's. that's basically the only permanent fixture #and even that is removed for one of my fics #emmet gets quiet when he's upset while ingo gets loud #almost a freeze response but not quite #he might freeze for a bit but then he is extremely active #I think that I tend to imagine the twins' responses to distress and trauma to be #emmet tends towards freeze while ingo is either please or flight #maybe #possibly #again my HCs are very quixotic and tend to shift around #they wriggle like worms my thoughts do #*looks at the twins* *looks at Sabi in I told you so* where did all this childhood trauma come from

[dawnquafam]

Any tips on actually plan a fanfic? I've always wrote my fics without planning beforehand but it isn't working very well for me (as I end up with big plot holes and fanfics that have no plot whatsoever), which makes me really sad because I end up wasting hours of work on something I will never post online. Thank you for your time and have a nice day/night! 🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈

I’m just gonna startthis off with a little disclaimer saying that everyone needs to do a differentamount of planning, and different lengths of fics are gonna require differentamounts of planning. Every author and every fic are unique. Me personally, Iair on the side of laziness, aka minimal detail when I do actually sit down andforce myself to plan something (which I never do for one-shots, onlyintentionally multi-chapter fics and my actual book). Luckily, you sound likeme, so hopefully this’ll work for you too.

Second, before I explainmy strategy, heed this quote from Leonard Snart: Make the plan. Execute the plan. Expect the plan to go off the rails.Throw away the plan.

(Ok, don’t actuallythrow away the plan. It’s the first three sentences that are important.)

If I’ve learned anything since I started writing back when I was 12, it’s that fictional charactersmay be figments of your imagination, but they have minds of their own. Thatjoke you think is absolute genius? Yeah, they ain’t gonna say it. Where didthis piece of backstory come from? Not your head, that’s for sure. Thisplotline that was supposed to be resolved within a chapter? Nope, it’s fivechapters and counting now.

Basically, they’regonna tell you what they’re gonna do. They’re like unruly children who’ll dowhatever they damn well please. Don’t bedeterred by this, and definitely do not force your will on them. If you’vegotta force it, odds are the writing will come out unnatural and clunky andyour readers will notice and you’ll hate it. You’re gonna be sad that yourgenius moment didn’t make it in, but believe me, your characters know best – it’stheir lives, after all. And sometimes, those spur of the moment ideas are farbetter than anything you could’ve come up with ahead of time.

(If you’re really attached to the idea they’rerejecting, write it in a separate doc to do something with later. Keep it foryourself. Maybe post it as a deleted scene once you’re done with the fic. Or,there was one time I started a one-shot, couldn’t figure out where to go with it, abandoned it, and it later ended up as a flashback scene in a different fic that did get posted.You never know.)

Essentially, just bewarned that no matter how much planning you do, things are gonna change. Thoseplot holes you mentioned, they’re going to create themselves, because that’sthe nature of the beast. Forge ahead anyway – fixing those is what editing isfor.

Now that I’ve spent six(6) paragraphs explaining why planning is gonna get derailed, here’s how Iplan:

First, write downkey details. Making up a new place or alien species? Give it a name (GIVE IT ANAME BEFORE YOU START WRITING ITS SCENES FOR THE LOVE OF ALL YOU HOLD DEAR, NOTDOING SO COULD TRIP YOU UP FOR HOURS) and describe it briefly (nothing fancy,you can get fancy once you’re actually writing, planning is just to get thebasics down). Same goes for any OCs you may be incorporating, be they villains orside characters or whatever – name them and give them a basic appearance andpersonality/motivation. Basically anything that needs a name, come up with itsbasics before you start writing.

A couple examplesfrom my fic Operation: Memory:

Ascorix- Criminalplanet, crowded slums, overpopulated and heavily polluted, tall narrow greybuildings, little to no plant/wild animal life

Kutral- Moarian,tall and wiry, long wavy sky blue hair, navy blue skin, unnaturally brightgreen eyes, expert art thief and murderer, superspeed (top speed 100mph);motivated by money for fancy expensive things

And while we’re onthe subject, here are some sites I use to name things, I’d be lost without them:

http://www.behindthename.com/ (forhuman peoples, and I think it can even give your person some background detailsnow!)

http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/alien-names.php#.WvjToUxFy3A(alien peoples/species)

http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/planet_names.php#.WvjTskxFy3A(planets/alien species - take the planet name and change the ending to -an or -er or something, like Andorians live on Andoria, Asgardians live on Asgard, etc.)

Now for the scenes(not entire chapters, just individual scenes). Just write down shortdescriptions of what you want to happen. Keep it specific enough that you canremember what you meant weeks or months later, but vague enough that you’re nottrapped and the idea isn’t completely ruined if and when an earlier scene veersoff-course. For example:

Team (minus Mantis?) goes hunting on Ascorix,split in half to cover more ground, Loki gets nervous and guilty cause itreminds him of Sakaar (“Sometimes I wonder…” “You’re a hero, Loki” “…Maybe”), trio(quad?) kidnapped

Vague enough to beflexible, specific enough for me to remember where I’m going (the level ofdetail you’ll need depends on your own preferences). And yes, you are mostcertainly allowed to not know exactly what’s gonna happen – your characterswill fill in the gaps for you. As weird as it sounds, trust the figments ofyour imagination.

If you’re like me,you’re gonna want to mark down where you think each chapter will end, and byall means, do so. But keep in mind that some scenes could go on far longer thanyou think (in my fic Hidden Heartbeat, Nidavellir was supposed to be onechapter and it turned itself into three), while others might struggle to reacheven half the length you wanted. Sometimes a good cliffhanger pops up mid-sceneand you’ll decide to end the chapter there to torture your readers (I am guiltyof this). You won’t really know until you get there.

And that sums up theofficial planning that happens before the writing begins.

Unofficially, nomatter where you are in the fic: If and when you have a random idea, WRITE IT DOWN. On a napkin, in yourphone, in your planning doc, at work/school, at 3 in the morning, it doesn’tmatter. I don’t care how good you think your memory is, just run on the ideathat YOU WILL FORGET IF YOU DON’T WRITEIT DOWN IMMEDIATELY.

And if and when yourplan switches tracks, WRITE DOWN THECHANGES BUT KEEP THE OLD SCENES SOMEWHERE. They could still inspiresomething, they could still happen but just later than you intended, the main ideasthe original scenes were supposed to convey could still be perfectly relevant,and if you’re in the middle of the story, you could eventually wind up back onthe original track. Keep every bit of your plan. Leave deleting for the actualstory.

To sum up:

Outline key details,names, and scene ideas.

Keep it flexible,but know where you’re going. Odds are details will change, but your overarchingplot will stay relatively intact.

Make a plan, butlisten to your characters if they wanna go off on a tangent. Best-case scenario,that tangent is the best part of your fic. Worst comes to worst, you can cutthe tangent from the final draft.

And, last but notleast, delete nothing, absolutely n o t hi n g, from your outline. Move it down the page, move it to a differentdoc, whatever, but keep it for futurereference.

(Whoo, that gotlong. I hope at least part of it was helpful, and good luck in your writing!)

#writing tips #planning tips #planning #fic planning