#i've always been very happy with the blank dashes it was such a fun writing technique

[pokimoko]

hi so i just finished reading your Eternal Sunshine of the Absent Mind duology and OMGGGGG reading that was such an amazing experience?? 

your handling of the unreliable narration was SOOOOO well done–it left the perfect amount of gaps in the narrative to keep me hungry for answers but included enough details to not be confusing or disorienting!! that stuff seems suuper hard to pull off but you did such a great job,, your handling of Steven's amnesia and the way his mind blocks certain things out is really awesome too because there are a couple scenes where it works REALLY well (like the part in the library where Cynthia says United — and it could EASILY be US or UK, and also the k—ing scene in the first work; that emotionally destroyed me as with most of the fic).

the headspace imagery also had such creative and interesting ideas,,, khonshu as the pigeon,,, the scrabble magnets,,, the symbolism of the changes happening over time to the phone and the computer,,, 

your depiction of all the characters feels on point—love how you were able to demonstrate a lotta familiarity steven and marc's speech mannerisms from the show—and i really love your characterization of jake,,, he's always struck me as a very tragic character n i feel like you got that across perfectly,,, plus, the "that'll be $2.50" line killed me

also i just really adore how you skillfully organized everyday events to lead to varying conflicts in the story and connect to plot points in the show (ex. steven's pigeon experience leading to him becoming vegan); you seem like an incredibly facile writer and i am excited to devour your other fics

*proceeds to not be normal about this*

#ask #my fic stuff #fic ask #THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU #i'm never going to be normal about people just out of blue complimenting my work it makes me bubbly me with joy everytime #i am too incoherent to really like put into words how much I appreciate this BUT MY FRIEND I APPRECIATE IT #i'm so glad you liked both stories :D #and that you liked all the little details and the dashes and the characterisation #i've always been very happy with the blank dashes it was such a fun writing technique #esotam series #hehe....'duology'...i know something you don't hehehe #(all i'll say is if you think jake is tragic now...it can get worse)

[sparklepocalypse]

Fic Writer Interview

@energievie tagged me in this, and it looks like a fun way to pass the time... so while I'm waiting for it to be midnight so I can post my New Year's exchange fic -- here we gooo!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?  98 (as of January 1st, 2024. I'm counting tomorrow's fic today because by the time most people on my dash see it, it'll be next year. 😂)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?  396,868 words (as of midnight; 386,482 prior to midnight tonight).

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? They're all RWRB, sooooo:

What's Symbiotic Will Always Be [E, 2.6k words; 1.2k kudos]

Take it Down Low / Make Me Get High [E, 2.1k words; 1k kudos]

In the Low Lamp Light, I Was Free [E, 3.1k words; 798 kudos]

I'd Wanna Be Felled By You, Held By You [E, 2.3k words; 766 kudos]

On My Mind (Let's Go) [E, 10.7k words; 704 kudos]

More questions (there are 20 total!) and a blank version of them below the jump!

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to at least reply with an emoji if I can! But generally, I try to match the energy of the commenter. I really enjoy hearing from people about my work and want to make sure they know I appreciate them for taking the time to leave their feedback.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Oh jeeze, we'll have to harken back to pre-therapy Mags, well before 2023, for this question. (Current Mags has had a ton of therapy.) Probably I Stole Away and Cried [Supernatural RPF, M, 5.7k words]?

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? I am a lady who loves a happy ending. I'm going to nominate So I Will Weather the Storm [Red, White & Royal Blue, E, 9.8k words] for Happiest Ending in a Mags Fic.

7. Do you write crossovers? I used to write fics with elements of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series, but I feel like that... doesn't really count. I also cross canons in the Red, White & Royal Blue fandom... but again it feels like it doesn't count.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? Absolutely. The early 2000s were a volatile time on the internets, as we fandom olds say.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? AHAHAHAHA wait, you're serious. Um... M/M, with a pocketful of kinks thrown in for flavor? My Kinktober 2023 [Red, White & Royal Blue, E, 92k words] series is a good place to get an idea of what sort of smut I write.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge, but I haven't been on Fanfiction.Net in approximately 15 years, and don't have a Wattpad account, so... who knows!

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? I don't believe so? But that might be fun.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Many moons ago, I used to co-write fic in the Glee fandom. I was one of the authors of the Kurtofsky IMs, for those of you who are in the know.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship? Don't do this to me, fic writer interview! Umm... probably either Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes or Jim Kirk/Spock. And no, I've never written anything for either of them. But I've read both voraciously.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? No comment. Because I don't wanna jinx it. Seriously. I haven't even started posting it because I don't want to jinx it.

15. What are your writing strengths? Smut, lol. Quirky, bantery dialogue. Making @hgejfmw-hgejhsf cry (complimentary, I think??).

16. What are your writing weaknesses? Finishing multichapter WIPs. 😐 Outlining -- I'm very much a "do what the characters want to do" sort of writer.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I'm generally down if I have a reputable source for any translation! I speak English and German fluently, but when it comes to Alex's Spanish in my RWRB fic, for example, I rely heavily on online lexicons and people who actually speak the language natively.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? Nope, not even thinking about other fandoms because I go where the dopamine goes, and I don't want to redirect the dopamine before I finish the fics on my Big Giant List.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? Written and published? Be Worthy Love, and Love Will Come [Red, White & Royal Blue, rated E, 30.8k words]. Written and not published? The Big Giant AU [Red, White & Royal Blue, rated E, wordcount still growing].

Want to play along? Blank version below!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

7. Do you write crossovers?

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

15. What are your writing strengths?

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

#fic writer interview #my fic

[meistoshi]

6. is roleplaying the only writing-based hobby you have, or are there other things you like to write?

8. do you expect your answered memes/asks to be turned into threads? regardless of answer, what’s your reasoning?

12. what roleplay trends do you remember from the year you started tumblr rp? how did you feel about those trends?

questions for muns.

is roleplaying the only writing-based hobby you have, or are there other things you like to write?

i've written a handful of ficlets n drabbles, i like writing out little character study one-shots. i also dm'd a homebrew campaign for about a year, so i got to write a lot of worldbuilding stuff ; the campaign exploded due to personal reasons, & the group isn't playing together anymore, so i haven't had chances to do dnd-related writing in while.

do you expect your answered memes/asks to be turned into threads? regardless of answer, what’s your reasoning?

i don't expect it, but i do encourage it, as i very rarely manage to wrangle up plotted starters, & i've always found asks to be great jumping off points for interactions. not everything has to be planned, & sometimes the greatest threads can come from off-hand replies that simply grew & spiraled.

what roleplay trends do you remember from the year you started tumblr rp? how did you feel about those trends?

so. i've been here since 2009. smile.

muse a: My first true threading experience was with the chat post format for threads. muse b: Threads that went on for at least 30 replies without trimming. muse a: That looked like the backlogs of IM threads. muse b: Complete with-- *actions*

it's in a similar vein to how often threads wouldn't get trimmed until the oldest reply was squished by the blockquote to individual words. good riddance to that, i can't believe there were people genuinely upset by the loss of blockquote walls, but the chat post thing is a fond memory, if only for that being how i did my first ever threads here.

big fuck-off jpegs instead of icons, even before gif hunts solidified themselves, think dollmaker game downloads, like how some people nowadays use picrews but with zero of the cropping. i was part of the crowd, & i was more than happy to switch to scouring gif hunts, then icon hunts, then learning to make icons myself.

magic anons were literally everywhere you blinked, & even if they weren't Magic Anons a bunch of people treated anons as simply blank-faced characters that could interact & talk to the muses like any dedicated-blog character might. they were fun, & i know anons still get treated with some degree of agency now, but no one's really threading with anons these days, y'know ; i like where we are with them right now.

everyone had the same handful of free template blog themes, the most widely used ones being fluid & redux. i've all but entirely switched to dash-only, but the template themes were nice, & seeing an ancient blog that still has one of them feels like stepping into a vintage bookshop.

#experthiese #answered #i'll take that veteran's discount #ooc. pkmn is autistic culture.

[yeoldontknow]

do you have any tips for writing? Your writing is the best i've ever read, and I'm not exaggerating. I really want to be better, but i don't know how to improve. Is writing something you can improve in or is it just something you're born with?

hello anon~~ 

heres the thing: some people are born with a natural proclivity towards a certain skill. like you can be born with a good singing voice if it runs in your family or something - but that does not necessarily mean you are born being celine dion. you still have to work to hone your craft, practice, engage in ongoing trial and error. every talent or craft is something that needs to be continuously worked on - like a muscle! if you dont do the thing for a while, itll revert back to a previous state you might not be happy with. so, while you CAN be born skilled at something, no one is born perfect. AND YES. there are many things you can do to help yourself improve

- read. honestly, most of the authors/writers i admire are also avid readers. when you read a book or a fic or something, your vocabulary naturally expands. certain authors use certain words to describe things, others have various stylistic choices that determine how their story is paced. someone like hemingway might use very brief, short sentence with words that have high impact; while someone like isaac marion might use many sentences to get the same feeling across. its important you read BOTH authors because this will help you develop a style in your own writing, will help your own vocabulary grow - hemingway might say ‘the red seat looked like a feast’; isaac marion might say ‘the seat looked as though it were bleeding, and it made R terribly, terribly hungry.’ same sentiment - different way of explaining something (*note: those are not actual quotes, im just using an example idk) 

reading also helps your imagination expand!!

- consume various forms of media/art. what i mean by consume is just engage with different types of arts. listen to music - music ALWAYS helps me get inspired, either in the sound or in the lyrics. and its to a point where i cannot write if the music/soundtrack isnt right. watch tv or films - i can assure you that hero is only as gritty as it is because i was watching sense8 while writing it. show is dark and foreboding constantly, and it definitely helped me structure my mindset to be in that world. 

for both reading and tv and music - i dont mean copy the work. dont ever do that. that is plagiarism. but these things all help a person get inspired or feel creative or help them visualize a certain thing for their story. 

- destroy the blank word doc. its easy to fear a blank document. EVERYONE fears the empty word doc. something about all that white is terribly imposing and threatening and you immediately start to doubt yourself. its like looking into a void. so how do we combat that? put down a sentence or three. WHO CARES IF THEY ARE GROSS? the void certainly doesnt, the void is just like ‘wtf these words are so itchy’ and youre like ‘fuckin...deal with it.’ put down sentences for your story and get rid of that blank page. these are not final sentences, you are going to edit them. do you know how many times chapter 13 of hero has been edited? literally, over 5 at this point. i cant seem to get it right AND THATS OK!! because i will! and you will too! just throw some shit onto a page and then go back and change it. (more on this later)

- start in the middle. while its also easy to be intimidated by a blank word doc, its also easy to be intimidated by not knowing where to start. if you have a great idea of the middle of your chapter - WRITE THAT PART FIRST!! if you get inspired by a dialogue or by a vision you have, you will kill it almost instantly by going ‘ok but i have to get them there first’ and then trying to wrap your mind around it. immediately, the mood dies and it feels like pulling teeth to get some words down because thats not what your muse wants you to be thinking about. so, write that cool scene first. i PROMISE once its out, more will come. the ending of chapter 7 for hero was written before chapter 6 AND before even the start of 7. WRITE WHAT INSPIRES YOU AND I PROMISE MORE WILL COME!!

- edit, edit, edit. so. you started in the middle, drafted your Cool Scene and burned the white doc down. AMAZING GO YOU!! but youre not done. you have to edit that. the first thing your mind brings forth will not (not saying it cant but when youre trying to burn down a doc it likely isnt) be the final thing you release to the public. once you have your cool scene down, go back and edit. fill it in. make it better and pretty. change some words, fix your typos. when you think its great, move onto something else and THEN GO BACK. AND FIX IT AGAIN. i edit at least 3 times before i post something. no one ever puts a perfect thing down that they like first time round, and the only time thats ever happened to me was when i wrote pusher in a fit of GLORIOUS INSPIRATION THAT LIKELY WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN.

- have a friend read your work/be a hype man. rome was not build in a day and certainly was not built by one man alone. if you have a friend in the fandom or community, or even just a friend you trust enough to share work with, SHARE IT WITH THEM. my housemate likes kpop, but does not care nearly enough about it as i do, and also has no inclination to write fanfic whatsoever. BUT. hes super supportive of me and LOVES reading whatever i write - especially hero. sharing your work with a friend to get their opinion is the most vulnerable you will ever be but its EXCITING. i shared hero with him and all at once he was giving me tips on weapons and how the ear responds to gunfire and like his random interest in military strategy has helped guide hero so much. so while you might be shy, your friend might be dumb excited and become an incredible plot bunny. 

and lastly the biggest tip i can give you is: 

do not compare yourself to other writers. EVERY SINGLE PERSON has a different life experience or reason of interest that drives them to writing. for me and a few others, its therapy. for others, its simply a way to pass the time. for all of us: it is fun. keep this fun. comparing yourself to someone else almost instantly ruins any enjoyment you can get out of it. if i walked into this fandom expecting to be The Best, i certainly would not ever be that (gross, who does that anyway) and i certainly wouldnt be having fun. comparison pressures you unnecessarily and also taints your enjoyment of the fandom. write, enjoy what you write, DO NOT WRITE FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF PLEASING OTHER PEOPLE, and accept the fact that sometimes its going to be hard. BUT IT WILL ALWAYS. BE. FUN. so pls dont compare yourself. im an old fart who has been writing for a long time. walking in here and going ‘omfg im not that i cant be that jesus’ is not good! no, my hun. you will not be me. YOU WILL BE YOU. AND THATS EVEN BETTER!!!!

i hope this helped you dove

#the cutest anons #writing advice #Anonymous