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monocotyledons · 3 years

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on writing “a body at rest”

This is a companion blog post for my KazeTsuyo fic, A Body at Rest, written for the Ekiden Runners 18+ Discord server New Year’s exchange! I tried a different approach for this fic, so here’s a little bit about my writing process.

For context, I normally follow this writing process for my fics:

Come up with an idea

Let idea develop in my head for a little bit, so I can test if it will work as a full fic or not

Write detailed outline of fic

Turn outline into a first draft. This takes several days, and I often go back and edit already-written sections as I get ideas on how to fix them.

Let draft sit untouched for a few days

Edit into second draft with fresh eyes

Edit and proofread into final version. While doing this, plan out summary, notes at the beginning and end of the fic, and tags; make fic graphic.

Post and promote!

I don’t follow this process to a T all the time, but a lot of my fics do, and even fics that don’t follow the exact process will still have most of the steps in order.

Anyway! For this particular fic, I followed steps 1-3 as is, taking care to make sure the idea followed my giftee’s prompts. But when I got to step 4, I was stuck. I had just written Concrete and Earth, which was also a domestic established-relationship NicoYuki fic, because it turns out that my giftee and I are suckers for the same tropes?? So I struggled to write a fic that was different but had the same tropes, since they were what my giftee asked for.

Then I remembered encountering this article on Twitter, about the different engines that power a story. Not just plot and character, but theme, setting, language, point of view, and so on -- any element of a story can be an engine. So I started thinking about the kind of story engines I put in my fics.

Most of my fics are powered by plot engines, judging from the description of how “plotters” work: outline first, then expand on character interactions from then. The character engine usually gets boosted in the editing stage. But I’ve also worked with situation engines (Breach, On Midnight’s Door), and even a point-of-view engine (a breath of fresh air, a reader-insert fic written in second-person POV).

I had written C&E with the standard plot and character engines (and maybe a little bit of theme engine - shiny new world of Yuki vs. comfy old world of Nico), and I was trying to do the same with this fic. But the engines weren’t working this time around, so soon after using them. I needed something else to power my story -- but what should I use?

It didn’t click until I reread the first sentence of what I had written so far: “Yukihiko nurses a headache as he exits the subway.”

Headache.

Head ache.

That was it.

The next day, I opened my draft and wrote this on top of the document:

The idea was that I needed this fic to be sensory. This was a fic about Yuki being taken care of by Nico, and I needed to make the care felt. I needed to ground that care in palpable, concrete sensations, and anchoring that care in the body felt like a sensible way to go about it. I mean, I had planned a massage scene in the fic, so bodily sensations are important to it.

At the same time, I gave myself the leeway of a first draft. I didn’t intend to keep every single body part mention in the fic, and I did cut out a few that sounded awkward later on. The whole point of the linguistic engine was just to make sure that the fic was written, not for the body part mentions to be the star of the show. I could always fix the fic to sound more coherent later.

The linguistic engine worked. I pushed out around 1.8k of words in a single sitting. And I had fun writing! I didn’t let myself worry too much about how the fic started! As long as I met my linguistic engine goals, it was all good!

After that, I followed my usual process of letting the fic sit for a few days. (I wrote the fic pretty early in December, because I didn’t want to worry about it too much during the holiday rush.) During this resting phase, I worried that the fic might be too focused on the sensory descriptions, when it was still a NicoYuki gift fic. And since it’s a Yuki POV fic, I started thinking: Okay, so this is timeskip established relationship Yuki, what’s he like at this point? So when I returned to it for editing, I wrote this at the top of the document:

I edited with these sentiments in mind. The draft ended up longer after editing, mostly because of additional character POV thoughts and character moments that I added. I also cut out or reworded some of the body part mentions that sounded forced, but to my surprise, a lot of them still made it to the final version.

And that’s it! After working on these two story engines, I didn’t make any more major changes to the fic.

#mono logues #writing

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shadowolven · 6 years

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A Poem from Me to You

(AO3 link here!)

I find that the words that fascinate me the most are the ones that you speak.

They are melodious to my ears, soothing any anxieties and hesitance that I may have.

While to some I may sound like a fool, to myself I am in awe at the things you do to me.

I have admired you from afar so long now, but perhaps, if you are willing...

You’ll accept my bleeding heart?

His fountain pen lingered atop the parchment paper, the black ink seeping out into small edges radiating from the dot of the question mark with every passing beat of his quickened heart.

This was wrong. So terribly, terribly wrong.

The assignment was to write a poem for his English class, but before he knew it he wrote a confession letter instead. Let alone it didn’t even seem very poetic in his eyes.

Izuku sighed, throwing his palm onto his face as he set the fountain pen delicately beside the inked parchment paper. He couldn’t believe he even wrote this much in the first place. Sure, he had a poor habit of mumbling out streams of consciousness, but that’s verbal. That was easy to forget you were even doing.

But writing? Writing required thought from the brain into his fingers, into every movement of his wrist as he watched with his own eyes the letters that poured out in its black inkiness onto the faded yellow sheet of paper. Not only did he watch every stroke in every letter he wrote out, but he watched as those letters formed words which then formed complete, coherent sentences.

And he wrote it all without hesitating, without stopping and scratching any of it out. It was like he needed to get it off his chest, to expel it out of his brain before it poisoned the rest of his thoughts in a negative pool of stupid pining over his childhood friend who, undoubtedly, showed no returned interest that he could detect.

Izuku groaned, shoving the paper out of his way as he buried his head in his arms.

Why was he like this?

He certainly can’t turn in this filth to Present Mic tomorrow. No, that wouldn’t do. If he had to read it out loud in front of all his classmates, he would rather 100% One for All himself into dust right then and there.

Izuku peeked out over the top of his arm and through his messy curls, staring at the parchment paper, still unsigned. He grumbled, sitting upright as he gingerly took the thick paper into his hands. Then, with a pained hesitation, he crumpled it up and threw it into the trash beside his table.

It’s fine. It’s not the end of the world. He had time to write a new poem—one that isn’t a confession—before class tomorrow. Yeah sure, it was past midnight, but he can make time if he needs to. It’d still be better than turning in a confession letter.

With tired but renewed determination, he picked up his fountain pen and began scribbling furiously onto a new sheet of parchment paper.

--------

It’s been three days since he turned in his poem. It wasn’t anything special or anything, just about the cherry blossoms and how it made him feel. Some standard stuff, he’d say, because he wasn’t the only one who wrote about them it seemed.

He flopped onto his bed, tired from a long day of classes. Reciting their poems in front of the entire class was nerve-wracking since many (including himself) felt embarrassed about revealing their inner “poetic” thoughts to their fellow classmates. But it was also beautiful, because hearing others’ more private and deep thoughts were honestly such an eye-opener. Kouda, for instance, had the most wonderful poem about his experience with nature and animals and his growth so far, and Izuku would be lying if he said he wasn’t moved to tears by it.

Overall, today was an emotional adventure, but Izuku enjoyed every second of it. Especially Kacchan’s poem, even if it was surprisingly childish and basic at its core.

Izuku smiled to himself. He should go write his newfound appreciation for his classmates into his hero journals...

A loud knocking on his door jolted Izuku out of his thoughts. “Open up, shitty nerd!”

Speak of the devil...

“Coming, Kacchan,” Izuku rolled off his bed with a sigh, taking a few quick deep breaths to steady his beating heart as he unlatched his door and opened it up. “What’s wrong?”

“Your trash not being outside your door is what’s wrong. Now hurry up and give me your shit,” Katsuki said with a scowl as he motioned with his half-filled trash bag towards Izuku.

“Oh, right,” Izuku said, picking up his trash can and bringing it towards Katsuki. “Thank you.” He tilted the mouth of the basket towards the open bag when Katsuki snatched it out of his hands. Izuku blinked, confused. “Wha—?”

“What do we got here, hmm?” Katsuki said with a devilish smirk on his face, the trash bag fell onto the ground with a “fwump” as he fished something out of Izuku’s trash bin. Out he took a crumpled up piece of parchment paper. “Is this a failed draft?”

Izuku instantly turned red and flustered, scrambling towards Katsuki with flailing arms. “Ka-Kacchan, wait, what do you think you’re doing going through people’s stuff like that?!”

Katsuki grinned, his hand held above his head at a length that Izuku’s natural height couldn’t reach. Not like he was going to give Izuku a chance at stealing it back, not when he was curious to a fault. “I don’t see why it’s a problem, you were just going to throw it out anyway, weren’t you?”

“That’s not the issue! Give it back!” Izuku jumped, but Katsuki shoved him roughly away with a sweaty palm to the face.

“You really want it back after you were going to chuck it out without a second thought?” Katsuki laughed, unfurling the crumpled page. “’One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,’ isn’t that how the saying goes?”

“Kacchan, please, whatever you do, don’t read that!” Izuku begged, his face beet-red as he tried one last time to swipe at his embarrassing letter.

“Oh c’mon, it can’t be that bad of a draft,” Katsuki said, scoffing at Izuku’s overly-the-top reaction. “Here, if it helps, I’ll show you my failed draft too. Now let’s see...” His eyes scanned the inked paper.

“No!” Izuku’s body lit with green sparks as he dove towards Katsuki, determined to take that paper and shred it before it was too late.

But Katsuki was ready. With a small blast from his free palm, he pushed himself out of danger while leaving behind a cloud of black smoke to temporarily distract Izuku as he continued to read.

“Kacchan!” Izuku practically screamed as he pushed himself off the opposing wall, tackling Katsuki onto the ground. As he wrenched the paper free from Katsuki’s hands, tearing it into pieces in a quick second, he realized that the blonde below him was strangely quiet.

He glanced up, and the pieces of parchment that were in his clenched palms fluttered down onto his body and on the ground below. Katsuki’s face was of an expression that Izuku hadn’t seen on his friend in... well, ever.

Cheeks a warm pink glow, ruby eyes surprisingly soft despite his furrowed brows, lips pulled back in a half-snarl. “You...” Katsuki grunted out.

“You read it?” Izuku squeaked.

“You wrote that for me, didn’t you?”

Izuku’s heart skipped a beat. He hated how perceptive Katsuki was. But at the same time...

Perhaps this was what he needed. To get it off his chest and take the consequences as they came.

“... Yes.”

Katsuki fell back down onto his back, arm over his face as he groaned. “You idiot...”

“... Do you hate me now?”

Katsuki lifted himself up on his elbows, staring into Izuku’s eyes with a determined glint. “No,” he said.

Izuku pursed his lips, his heart rate increasing. His chest still felt tight as he managed to whisper a hesitant, “Then?...”

“I guess now’s a good time as ever... Here, a deal’s a deal,” Katsuki said, pushing Izuku off of him as he fished around in his back pocket for a few seconds. Once he found it, he presented Izuku a folded piece of paper, singed around the edges. “Just... read it. Okay?”

Izuku took the paper into his trembling hands, staring at it and back at Katsuki’s reddening face. He didn’t understand what this was about. What was going on?

But he opened up the piece of paper, careful not to touch the delicate burnt edges.

For as long as I could remember, you were there.

Behind me, a follower trailing in my wake, an admirer from afar,

Until the sands of time made it clear as air,

That your company, unwelcome at first, became a presence I no longer want to bar.

Through pain and grief I have given you,

Only to find that they were misconceptions fabricated in my mind.

Forgiveness is ideal if we can redo,

But a part of me desires more than what I have defined.

So with heavy feelings I ask,

If I gave you the key to my soul, would you take it?

“It’s shitty, I know,” Katsuki said, his voice quiet and self-deprecating. “Too cheesy and shitty attempts at rhym—”

Izuku hugged him, tight. Tears stung his eyes as he buried himself into Katsuki’s shoulder, his voice fighting back choked sobs, “I love it. Kacchan, I love it so much.”

Katsuki fell silent. With hesitance, he, too, put his arms around Izuku. “So is that...?”

“Yes, Kacchan,” Izuku said, sniffling. “If you’ll take my bleeding heart, I accept.”

#bakudeku #bkdk #katsudeku #izukatsu #bnha #mha #kacchan #deku #i can't write poems for shit so plz dont look at my poems too much okAY #i wrote this on a whim as i usually do so JUST HHH TAKE IT OK #shadowolven writes #fanfic #drabble

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