#and this is just counting the times it has actually been story/character/worldbuilding notes and scene/dialogue fragments and timelines | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

procrastinatorproject · 3 years

Text

Fic writer review, thank you to @thelaithlyworm for the tag <3

how many works do you have on AO3?

Ten? Oh no, it’s actualy 12 now!

what’s your total AO3 word count?

86,468

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Grand total of 1: Star Trek: Picard - although my latest offering might branch a bit into other Trek as well.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

“Passengers”

“And a Barrel of Gagh”

“CMO’s Log”

“Preparations”

“Game Night”

Which is actually kinda interesting. I wrote Passengers, Preparations, and Game Night while the fandom was still a lot more active (especially in the Aramis in Space corner), so that makes sense. The CMO’s log has had chapters added every few months, giving it probably the most exposure of any of my fics. Barrel of Gagh, though? I think I’m gonna attribute that to Thimblerig turning it into a truly, TRULY brilliant piece of podfic. Also the fact that it’s whump involving a character played by Santiago Cabrera. ‘tis A Thing..... :D

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really try to! I love talking with people in the comments and just... thanking the people who found the time and energy to leave comments. But especially in the last few months I have gotten very bad at keeping up with the comments and now there’s about two dozen that I have neglected to reply to for a painfully long time 🙈

But I will get there! Because I love that kind of interaction!

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

So far, none of them have had angsty endings. Angsty middles, yes, but not endings. I’m just a sucker for everyone being happy in the end. Or at least on the way to being better, and supported and cared for on that way.

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven’t yet, but I’m definitely not opposed. One of the threads of my 200k unpublishable whump scenes takes place in a continuity that has existed in my daydreams for... I wanna say six years at the very least, probably longer. It’s mostly straight-up Star Trek, but with the twist that it involves the Wraith, the telepathic, hive-minded alien race from Stargate: Atlantis that suck the life force out of you with their hands? Or, well, at least a variation thereof.

I once typed up the world building for that particular setting and it took me three hours to try and make it all make sense. So it’s... involved. But not necessarily “crazy”. And I’m not sure I’m ever actually going to publish any of the stories I have set in it (not least because that would envolve finishing any of them and bringing them into a form that is interesting to read for anyone but me...)

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Hm, not yet. I do enjoy reading smut, but only under very specific circumstances. I think I may eventually try my hand at smut, but the inner prude is still very strong. Writing about Rios and Xyr making out (which, honestly, was really tame, all things considered) made me melt in a puddle of blushing embarrassment, so full-on smut is probably beyond me at the moment. One day!

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Though litigating that in a fandom like ours would be... tricky. ST:Pic is way too small to steal stories outright. But similar or the same ideas pop up all the time. And it’s a complete coincidence. Reading the book that recently came out and that has a kinda similar setting to a lot of my stories (pre-season 1, early in Rios’s history as captain of Sirena, dealing with original characters, holo shenanigans, friendship with Raffi, etc.), I was struck by just how many elements, both scenes or story beats and little details, were similar to things that have cropped up in my writing. And it is entirely coincidental, because I am beyond certain that the author doesn’t read fanfic. Just... for legal reasons. Not to mention I wrote a bunch of the things I saw parallels to while the book was already in production, and some of them are only in my drafts.

So there is a ton of convergent evolution going on in this particular section of the fandom, and trying to litigate who came up with certain plot ideas or character beats when would be a sysiphean disaster. Some things are clear and whenever I use any of them I give credit where I can, but people will have very similar ideas. It just happens. So no, I haven’t had either a full-on story or “an idea” stolen, and I might change my tune if it ever does happen, but so far, I’m trying to practice equanimity, so I’ll be better at it should I ever need it.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Sadly no. My dad keeps complaining that all my fic is in English so he can’t read any of it, but honestly? I’m kinda glad for this very convenient excuse. Maybe if I ever feel like I want to practice my interpreting skills, I will give translating the stories into German a shot. We’ll see. Otherwise, if anyone feels inspired: Have at it! Just let me know, okay?

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not quite. I have a draft of off-the-cuff worldbuilding that I wrote on Discord with @curator-on-ao3 and that I would love to turn into an actual short fic (letters from a conference on holo-ethics), but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

what’s your all time favorite ship?

I don’t really do shipping.

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

I WILL NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT!!!! One day, I will write the next installment of Star Trek: La Sirena! I have so many ideas for that continuity and those characters. I’m not going to abandon them!

what are your writing strengths?

Hmmmmm. Probably detailed worldbuilding? Ask me something about, say, a technological or cultural aspect of Star Trek and chances are, I have thought about it in the past or will come up with three different sets of intricate lore within half an hour. (Things like... the architecture of San Francisco, or Will there still be taxi drivers? or the treaty between IKEA Intergalactic and the Borg Collective, or the Universal Translator, or Emergency Services or Why There Are Very Few Ambulances On Earth Anymore etceterah etceterah...)

I’m also good at slapping together off-the-cuff plot ideas (if, say, you need an explanation for how Seven and Agnes ended up stranded on a desert island, I could probably give you three different scenarios pretty quickly. Just don’t ask me to make them poignant or actually write them.

I’m also very, very good at beginnings.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Everything that isn’t a beginning. Especially endings, or rather: finishing something, but also just... keeping momentum.

I think my dialogue is somewhat samey and not distinct enough between characters. (Also my witty banter is... let’s just say it doesn’t come to me naturally...)

And I also struggle with keeping things brief and to the point. I can write you 30k of whump covering a span of three hours, but fitting a whole story in the same space? Much more difficult!

I have also avoided writing full-on action so far, but where it has crept in it has always been a struggle and been workshopped a lot with the indefatigable beta.

Otherwise, I don’t know. My self-perception is always a little warped, so I’m not sure what other people would say my weaknesses are.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Oof. Well. I have used Spanish sentences in my fic and done the thing where they’re translated in the end note, but I’ve mostly done it sparingly. I’ve also done the ‘“What do you want?” he said in Spanish.’ It’s tricky. But I will likely keep doing it in some instances, even if it’s a bit annoying.

(It also really helps to have a native speaker of Spanish as a beta, even if it’s Spanish from a different region than you’re character.)

Speaking of regional: I’m also torn about the whole “phonetically writing out accents” issue. Some people love it, some people hate it, I’m really unsure because I’m not a native speaker of English, so I’m not even sure I’m consistent in my narrative voice’s regional quirks. So far, I’ve mostly gone with describing that an accent is happening, and only writing out when phrasing actually differs from standard English. Like Ian (Scottish) saying “dinnae” but not writing “I” as “ah” as you’d see on, say, Scottish twitter.

Though it can be a very useful tool if, for instance, you want to indicate a characters accent getting stronger as they get tired or upset. 🧐

Anyway, I don’t think there is one right or wrong answer here and everyones milage will vary.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Published? ST:PIC

Actually first? Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Pretty much simultaneously, though I did write more for LotR. On graph paper, mind, with my fountain pen turned upside down so I could write smaller. I still have folders worth of those stories that I urgently need to digitize before they fade and I lose them forever...

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I’m going to quote @thelaithlyworm here: I Love All My Children Equally! I honestly couldn’t say. They are different and I love them for different reasons but I love them all.

Thank you for the tag! ❤ I’ve kinda lost track of who all has done this already or has already been tagged, so feel free to ignore me! But I tink I’m tagging @curator-on-ao3, @aini-nufire, @29-pieces, @flowers-creativity, @highfunctioningflailgirl, @cristobalrios and @the-goofball. And anyone else whom I forgot or who feels inspired to do this!

#ask meme #writing #lili's writing adventures #this was fun!

21 notes · View notes

bedlamsbard · 3 years

Text

Writing tag game -- tagged by @lessattitudemorealtitude

how many works do you have on Ao3?

Discounting podfic on which I’m listed as a co-author, 24. My concept writing doesn’t go to AO3 and the vast majority of my Narnia fic was never cross-posted there. (Or reposted there, actually, I think most of it pre-dates the AO3.)

what’s your total Ao3 word count?

1,050,810. oh, huh, I didn’t actually realize I’d passed the one million word mark (probably with Crown).

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

all of these ended up being Star Wars, which is not a huge surprise. Morning will probably reach Dirt in the next couple of updates, I’d guess.

Immutable, or, Five Times Obi-Wan Kenobi Compromised His Jedi Ethics for Anakin Skywalker -- this is not the oldest Star Wars fic on there, but I think it’s the second oldest. people just really like 5 times fic.

Wake the Storm - did you know that when I started Wake I assumed it was a very niche trope in what was, at the time, a pretty dead fandom? the kudos count on Wake actually outnumbers Gambit by more than 1600 kudos, so the number of people who go from Wake to Gambit is a lot lower than you might think.

Queen's Gambit - a significantly lower kudos count than Wake or Immutable. Gambit’s such a weirdo of a story, tbh, I can’t be surprised by anything about Gambit anymore.

On the Edge of the Devil's Backbone - about 600 kudos less than Gambit, so less difference between Gambit and Backbone than between Wake and Gambit.

Dirt in the Machine - another older fic. I’d rewrite this one if I cared enough to do so, because it’s not at my current standards (Immutable isn’t either, for that matter) and I kind of wince every time I get comments on it. this is the first one of the top five to have below 1K kudos.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I’ll usually respond to direct questions, but I very, very seldom respond to comments in general. This is an old standing policy of mine that’s now more than a decade old -- it used to be I’d wait twenty-four hours before responding, then I’d respond right before the next chapter went up, and for a while I’d only respond to comments on the first few chapters of a story. Now I just mostly do not. The reasons for this are: (1) many, many years ago, I lost my temper pretty badly at a comment on a fic of mine (this was pre-AO3, this was back in my LJ days), and after that I moved to the “wait twenty-four hours” response so I didn’t say anything without thinking about it, (2) I do go back and reread comments but I hate rereading my own responses, (3) I prefer to know the comments numbers on my fic are all from actual comments and not from me saying “thanks for reading!”, (4) I can’t take that kind of responsibility for answering every single comment, man.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Of stuff I’ve written in the past ten years? (I can’t really remember before that.) Maybe Backbone, because it ends on that pretty upbeat “yay team we’re going to be rebels now!” note. or Devil’s in the Details (other side part 1), though I don’t really want to consider it a finished fic even though it’s technically finished; it has another “yay team we’re back together (minus Ezra)” ending. I tend to end on complicated and reasonably open endings, not like...happy endings.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably Gambit for the “everything is super fucked up” factor and also the fact that I never wrote the sequel. plus it ended with the entire Wake trio split up in a whole new universe, plus back in the Gambitverse Amidala not able to go back to Naboo, Ahsoka shunned, Palpatine’s new empire, Rex trapped in the Gambitverse, etc.

do you write crossovers?

I did in my Narnia days. I don’t anymore. Working in widespread fandoms like Star Wars or the MCU is basically like writing crossover fic within the same universe, anyway.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

*hysterical laughter*

...yes. yes I have. it’s the reason every time I get a comment notification on Gambit or Wake I freeze in absolute terror. people HATE Wake and Gambit. I hate to say never, but I will probably never write those characters or in that series again.

do you write smut? if so, what kind?

not really? I’ve done relatively non-explicit sex but it’s not something I’m super comfortable writing, especially in recent years. I’m much more likely to do a fade to black.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think Gambit got scraped once when it was still in progress and my response was something along the lines of “good luck, bro,” given the whole “still in progress” thing.

have you ever had a fic translated?

I’ve gotten a couple of translation requests but I can’t recall if anything’s ever been translated. (Or if I responded to them...I know a few I forgot to respond.)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, back in my Narnia days. Some SW concept writing and that ended so badly that I’ll never co-write again.

what’s your all-time favourite ship?

Kanan/Hera, of course!

what’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

gods, Dust in the Air, my Narnia Last Battle AU. Back when I started it in 2008 or so I didn’t have the self-control or discipline I do now, even if I had a lot of the worldbuilding ability and the ability to conceive of if not execute long plot arcs, and I broke off more than I could chew. If I ever went back to it I’d probably have to do a complete rewrite and it has the unique problem among my WIPs of being the last major fic I wrote in present tense -- I now write exclusively in past tense. The bones of the story are good, I’d just have to go back to the bones and not just pick up where I left off.

what are your writing strengths?

Plot, worldbuilding/environment, action. I also do genuinely think I’m very good at characterization too, but I think they’re all inter-related. (Except the action, that’s me alone. I love writing action and I generally get a lot of compliments on my action scenes.) look, I know it’s conceited, but I’m good and I know I’m good, and I’m good in a pretty well-rounded way for the genre I write.

what are your writing weaknesses?

brevity. can’t do it.

honestly, there are others, but I don’t write stories where they’d come up. I think I have a tendency to get to bogged down in dialogue in a way that I’ve never quite solved. I also let my emotions take over too much and not in the good fannish way, in the “I’m having a fucked up relationship with canon or fandom and it’s affecting my ability to work” way.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

please stop having your Asgardians speak Latin for magic, man, that’s my feeling on it.

okay, my feelings on it for me -- I’ve sprinkled bits and pieces of Huttese, Twi’leki, and tee-tiny bits of other stuff here and there in fic. I’d not be comfortable doing more than that because the only other language that I really feel comfortable doing anything significant in is Latin, and even then I’d hesitate. also, like, Latin! not a language that comes up in the fandoms I write in. even then, like -- any extended dialogue should be intelligible to the audience, and I don’t expect my audience to be able read anything other than English; I’d rather just say “they switched to Twi’leki to say” or something similar.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

like, online? Harry Potter. for things that I didn’t post online because I didn’t know what fic was yet? probably either The 10th Kingdom or The Mummy.

what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

On the Edge of the Devil’s Backbone. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, I think it’s the most tightly plotted, I think it’s got the best worldbuilding, I think it’s remarkably consistent thematically, and it was, at the time, a fic that I was very devoted to finishing or dying trying, because I was going through it at the time and some of it was connected to the fic.

I don’t tag people, but please go for if you want!

#meme response

16 notes · View notes

falsegoodnight · 3 years

Note

Hi Ris! First of all, I want to tell you that you are such an incredibly talented author and I enjoy your works so much. I'm curious as to how could you write a lot in short amount of time? I mean, can you explain a bit about how do you plan your fics, if that makes sense? Sorry to bother you, have a nice day❣️

hi!! ahh thank you so much!! i’m so glad you enjoy my fics! <3

so for your question, i got a bit carried away so i’ll be adding a cut so you can read more!

just a quick ramble:

first of all, i just want to say that there’s going to be people that write really quickly and people who take more time to write but that difference doesn’t have any holding over one’s worth as a writer or anything like that! in other words, there’s nothing wrong with taking your time when writing a fic/story so i hope you keep that in mind and don’t be too hard on yourself when you’re struggling! every writer is different - it’s the same as how some writers have tons of ideas and some only get a good idea once in a blue moon or how some writers can write dialogue or a different element of a story easily and others can’t. it’s just a characteristic and not a representation of your success/achievement!!

that little bit is hopefully unneeded but i wanted to include it just in case!!

anyways, even though speed is relative to your own person and it’s different for everyone - there are factors you can control!! and you’re right in that planning is one of them!! if you have a detailed outline (or basis for how the story is going to begin, progress, and then resolve at the end then you’re going to have less struggle when it comes to writing the story because you know what you’re characters are striving towards!! obviously, some writers don’t use outlines and i can’t speak for anyone because this is what’s worked for me but it has helped me a lot so if you haven’t tried an outline before, i’d definitely recommend doing it at least once!

i’ve talked about it before but my outlines tend to be super detailed!! once i get a basic idea of a fic, i like to delve as deep as i can into the characters/plot/world. the first thing i’ll do is type out my idea in full detail so i don’t forget anything important and so i can see it all in print. then i’ll usually make some character profiles for each of the main characters (usually just louis and harry but sometimes i’ll include small ones for side characters!!)

an example format:

louis:

- age:

- job/career: (if they’re in school or it’s a fantasy/paranormal then this could be something like ‘student, english major’ or ‘witch’)

- background/history: (everything important to the story but also a lot that’s not dhjdk)

- positive traits:

- negative traits:

- character growth: (if i want to include character development, i always write that down!!)

then i begin my scene list which is basically a numbered list of every scene that takes place in the story!! it’ll usually start with a beginning scene, maybe a few scenes i know will take place somewhere in the middle, and also the ending scene (which is typically one of the first things i figure out when outlining the story!) and as i get more ideas and dive deeper and deeper into the story, this scene list grows longer and longer! some scenes are more outlined than others depend on how self-explanatory or complicated they are!

it’s also important to note that outlines are fluid, in that you can tweak/change them anytime you want! even when you’re 3/4ths of the way through a story and you decide you don’t like the ending you initially had and have a better idea! i can’t count how many times i’ve changed things in the middle of the story!!

having a super detailed scene list helps me know exactly what’s going to happen in a scene so i can just write it instead of spending time trying to figure out what’s going to happen in this scene while i’m in the middle of writing it!

and if i’m writing a fantastical/paranormal world, then i also always write down every detail of the worldbuilding that i want to include in the story - but also a whole lot of information i don’t end up including! knowing your story and your world is KEY to writing something quickly!!

i could go way more in detail if you wanted but i won’t ramble this time!! if you want more insight into outlining, i’d be happy to do a longer post one day (i already plan on it actually - i’m just lazy haha) but basically, planning has definitely had a huge impact on my writing productivity!

it doesn’t work for everyone though!! so here are some other things that contribute to my productivity:

- finding as much time as possible to write

as a full-time student with a part-time job and other responsibilities and just a life in general, it’s difficult to find time to write! but i try my best to carve out even just ten minutes per day to write and when i get that time, i take advantage of it. i think we all know that there’s time in our days that we usually just let get away from us - whether that means scrolling through social media without actually retaining anything, staring aimlessly at the ceiling, or just sitting around and doing nothing - i’m not saying that’s a bad thing or anything (i do all three all the time) but i am saying that it’s possible to stop yourself from letting that time slip away and instead choose to channel it into getting down a few words! even if you only write eleven words, that’s eleven more than you had before!

it sounds a bit obsessive but here’s what i’ve been doing when i wrote my last few fics: waking up thirty minutes earlier every morning before class so i can start my day by writing (honestly this is one of my favorite things to do because it helps wake me up and also gets me feeling productive when i’m usually just groaning and complaining about exhaustion - ofc not everyone will be the same), staying up late to write on my phone while in bed (again, i have unhealthy sleeping habits so maybe this isn’t a good tip but the point is that i take advantage of free time hdjkdk), and my favorite thing to do to get out words quickly:

- writing sprints

this is honestly one of my favorite things to do whether it’s a ten minute sprint or an hour long one! just setting aside a time dedicated to getting as many words as possible on paper (don’t focus on whether they’re perfect, just write - everything else comes later!) is always beneficial to me!! i do this frequently!!!

setting goals also helps for goal-oriented people like myself!! well, goal-oriented and competitive people such as myself haha. i love a good challenge to reach a certain word count (or even a goal like finishing a certain scene!) so if you’re like me, this could help a lot!

- accountability

this one can relate back to the writing sprint/competition thing if you do a sprint with someone else (super fun!) and keep each other accountable!! you can even just tell someone close to you that you’re aiming for a certain word count in a certain time and then tell them to check in with you! the satisfaction of being able to tell this person that you succeeded rather than didn’t (once again, not that that’s a bad thing!) can be particularly motivating!

- incentives

again, if you’re someone like me who works on reaching goals and reaping rewards, then this could be really beneficial! rewards can be anything from candy (i used to let myself eat a sour patch kid for every 100 words i write and let me tell you, that really helped hdjkd) or letting yourself watch an episode of a show you want to see!! they can be big prizes for smaller chunks of words or small prizes for bigger chunks of words - it doesn’t matter!! just do whatever gets you motivated!!!

also:

- get rid of distractions

i use sites like blocksite to keep myself from getting distracted by things like twitter/tumblr/youtube so i can focus!!! they have things like passwords so you can’t deactivate the block so if you have someone around you that can put in a password to make sure you don’t get tempted, taking advantage of that when you really want to get some work in is always good!

this is also something i do for assignments and other things in day to day life so just a helpful resource in general!

---

yeah so those are my main tips for writing a lot - do keep in mind that i’m naturally ambitious and also that i enjoy (or enjoy the results of) doing all of these things (even the harder ones!!!) but that may not be the same for everyone!! and not everyone writes as much or me, or even wants to in the first place! and that’s fine!

the most important thing to do is to cater to what you want. the goal you’re aiming for, the progress you want to make, etcetera.

at the end of the day, progress is progress - no matter how miniscule it may seem to you!! and also, quality is always better than quantity in my opinion!!!

this is way longer than i intended but i really hope it helps even in the slightest and if anyone else that’s a writer sees this and wants to rb with their own input (or comment!), feel free!! <3

#asks #:)#writing advice #writing tips #my writing tips #to save

27 notes · View notes

chaoticspacefam · 3 years

Text

2020 In Review: Wordcount Tag

I was tagged for this by @actualanxiousswampwitch , thank you! I’m not sure who’s already done or been tagged for this cause I am, once again, late to the party LOL but I shall (no pressure and sorry if you’ve already done it!) tag: @rainofaugustsith , @darth-bagel , @thatmmolesbian , @thelastenvoyyy and anybody else who wants to do this. Yes, I promise I mean you!

Words: 45,314

Published: 0 (I’m not counting the couple of Six Sentence tags I’ve gotten, they’re snippets of an unfinished piece & are included below instead :), or roleplay replies, cause that feels like cheating lol.) I actually wrote a lot more than I thought I had, this is a rough guesstimate as well, as my oneshot WIPs tend to be all over the place across something like 6 different documents, some of which have existed since 2018, so I had to guess at how far up to count from the end for some of them, but I think it’s a fair guesstimate XD I also have included lore/worldbuilding docs in this because that was a 3-month long Lockdown 1.0 Boredom/”Canon is a trash fire so I’m ignoring that and making up my own lore” passion project and I’m goddamn proud of how much I wrote for that. It’s the most I’ve written in one stretch (think I finished it over a span of 3 nights or so, once I’d done all the research and made all the notes ofc ^^)

Not Published: 45,314

The Breakdown:

swtor - 45,314

for creeping shadows (my main longfic/part one of the subterfugeverse series) - 1,553 - Aria, stop being difficult! *shakes fists* XD

oneshots - 16,223

lore/worldbuilding (for subterfugeverse naturally) - 23,001 (is this ALL tomato alien lore? pretty much, yes, yes it is :’D ~400 words is “the WIP reworked timeline to correlate my worldbuilding with the canon timeline that was released”, but 98% is just...me thinking way too much about Purebloods and how they deserved way better goddamn lore. I blame @fluffynexu ‘s amazing tomato worldbuilding posts, reading them when I went looking for “canon” lore one day for the rp is what got me started down that rabbithole (it’s awesome and if you haven’t already you should totally go check hers out too :DD), I had a “fuck you then canon I’ll do it myself too >:L” moment and once I started I couldn’t stop until I’d crapped out literally over 20k words on the subject *whispering* thank you LOL)

zephyrverse au bonus oneshots - 4,537 (stuff I wrote to fill in time gaps or “just cause I had a plot bunny”, relating to mine and k-christine’s zephyrverse au rp. None of these will likely be posted publicly, but they still deserve to be counted as words I wrote this year :’D

As you can see, most of my “muse” this year came from sporadic oneshots :’D The Ahaszaai twins also properly plot-bunnied their way into my brain in late 2019 and haven’t stopped making a nuisance of themselves the whole fucking year. Every time I tried to carry on with a chapter, one of the two of them would pop up like “Nooo write about ME! pay attention to ME!” - Yes, Ni’kasi, I will get to you this year, I promise XD

New Things I Tried:

Just Writing. Not worrying about whether “it wasn’t part of the next chapter” or “it comes from a part in the story that I’m nowhere near close to posting yet”. If I felt like writing something, or for a specific pairing/feeling/scene, whatever. I wrote until I ran outta muse juice. Yeah, it meant I didn’t technically “finish” anything this year BUT - the important thing is I wrote stuff. and that’s all that really matters, eh? :’D

Polyam ships! May not seem like a big deal but I spent a long time talking myself out of them because of internalised toxic monogamy and finally saying “you know what, fuck it! I can ship three or more people together and it can still be a perfectly wholesome, healthy and loving relationship and that’s okay” was a BIG thing for me this year.

Dialogue Scripts: which I didn’t count as wordcount because really it’s just word vomit of general tone/inflection and dialogue that I came up with right before falling asleep which I didn’t want to lose. Basically, if an exchange or a particularly punchy or moving line of dialogue popped into my brain but I wasn’t ready to write the whole scene that it fit into out, but didn’t want to forget the line(s). I wrote it out in movie script/script-style roleplay fashion e.g. Character’s Name: (emotion, hand gestures etc.) [Dialogue here] and so on. I know this is probably a well known trick of the trade, but I never took it seriously until this year. Seriously, do it. It’s great.

Favorite Thing I Wrote:

Hmmm, a snippet for Andronikos/Ni’kasi that I started this week which isn’t posted yet (saving it for this week’s Six Sentence Sunday so look out for it! :D) was pretty fun to work on, I love their dynamic and Kas is suprisingly fun to write for.

Also the Aria/Vano proposal scene that I posted a snippet for the week before last. I’m having great fun with that scene, and I really enjoy putting a non-serious spin on the classic “proposal scene” tropes. Can’t wait to finish it, though it may be a while before the full one goes up on AO3, as it depends whether it ends up fitting in as part of the mainfic or as an additional oneshot

And I have a D’leah/Kissai oneshot that I need to give another once-over before I finally yeet it onto AO3 and Tumblr for you guys to see :’D

Favorite Fic I Read:

@sleepswithvillains Eleanora/Quinn fic, Helplessly Hoping. I’m horribly behind on chapters and I gotta catch up and read the finale this week, but it’s been a helluva great ride and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the story! <3

Also The Invitation collab with @tishinada featuring Zas and Fiona had me squealing, I can’t wait to catch up on HH and see more of these two, they’re adorable ;-; @a-muirehen ‘s Relu/Merkara series of course! I’m a complete sucker for (friends to lovers to in Ariano’s case but yea pfpfpf) enemies to lovers ships and these two are just so good, I am on the edge of my seat every time we get a new snippet for them, ngl (grimace emoji) @darth-bagel ‘s Sylvas/Graz’zt and Sylvas/Liz/Rilfaen snippets which they’ve been spoiling me with on Discord @mercurypilgrim ‘s Ven’fir/Quinn AU oneshots, Cloudbank (Western was a particular favourite, but all are very good!) and of course @rainofaugustsith ‘s Lana/Viri updates are always fantastic, some personal favourites from this year were Almost There & Memory of Healing :3 (I totally still go back to read Commander & Advisor too sometimes, getting to see Viri be a little diabolical and messing with “MiNiSTeR LoRMaN!” was and still is my favourite thing XD)

If I’ve left you out I’m sorry!! These were the ones that stuck out in my memory, but I’ve loved everyone’s writing this year, it’s been great :3

Writing Goals:

to actually finish and post chapter 8 & 9 of Creeping Shadows. Then we’ll get to the meat and potatoes of the story and maybe Aria will stop being a brat and fighting me every time I try to stick to a semi-regular update schedule Get off my butt, finalise the name and get started on Ni’kasi’s part of the Subterfugeverse story. Maybe run the updates in-tandem with Creeping Shadows but idk if I want to wait till after CS is done before I start posting Kas’s side, or do them side-by-side yet, we’ll see ;) Keep writing! I know better than to pressure myself by setting a specific word count goal, that’s never worked well in the past

At least 2 chapters of each of the works mentioned above would be great though, more would be better! We’ll see how I go

Words of Thanks:

honestly, to everybody in the fandom I’ve met this year. Anybody that I follow, thank you for being there and engaging with me and/or posting amazing content for me to look at! I came over from deviantART where the SWTOR fandom is incredibly small and generally quite inactive and the contrast since moving over here has been incredibly uplifting. I very nearly cancelled Creeping Shadows and stopped posting fic for my SWTORverse altogether because I got next to no engagement on dA and it was very disheartening to the point where I felt I could enjoy the game and the rp partners I had, but the solo projects I’d put so much thought, time and love into already weren’t worth continuing. You guys took that spark and kept it going and I really don’t have enough words to say how grateful I am for that. Even if I haven’t published much this year, making posts on this tumblr, interacting with everyone and working on lore, plot points and so on for Subterfugeverse has kept me going through the Hellish Year of Nightmares that was 2020 <3

to the amazing new friends I’ve made in this past year, who have listened to me ramble about headcanons, character backstories, writing snippets (and rambled/sent some back), keep being awesome: @walk-ng-d-saster , @darth-bagel , @kyber-heart , @deepseacritter , @thedinalixlegacy to further friends and meme tag buddies, I get so excited every time I see a mention for a new meme or ask game in my inbox, so thank you!! : @mimabeann , @palepinkycat , @a-master-procrastinator , @raven-of-domain-kwaad , @actualanxiousswampwitch , @thatmmolesbian , @a-muirehen to my regular commentors/rebloggers/likers/askbox lurkers, I see every one of you and every time your users pop up I grin like a kid in a toy shop: @starlightjedi , @sparkles-and-rust , @wilvarin-chan , @sunsetofdoom , @ask-an-andalite , @thelastenvoyyy . @lyrishadow and more because Tumblr only goes so far back and I have the memory of Swiss Cheese. If you regularly comment, like, reblog, or anything, from me, know that I see you, and I love and appreciate you for it! <3

I couldn’t possibly remember to tag everyone and I promise if I missed you out it’s not because I hate you! Anxiety just sometimes be a bitch and I don’t wanna look like a clown calling someone a “friend” if I’m not explicitly sure we are, in fact, friends. I think you’re all awesome and I’m so glad to have moved over here and met you all <3

#long post #wordcount year review tag #elven's writing: stats #repost bc i goofed some links woops sorry everyone #^^;#will i eventually post any of this stuff? yes!#i will. i just...don't know *when* the time will be right for most of it hahaha #the only bits i won't post are the zephyrverse-specific oneshots cause i just don't feel like i want to #but everything else will (eventually) in some capacity be thrown into the void for all of you to read #shameless friend appreciation post #shameless mutual and follower appreciation post #<3 #swtor sort of

10 notes · View notes

bethygauw · 4 years

Text

Mahoyaku Interview: Tsushimi Bunta (Main Screenwriter) and Kazuma Kowo (Worldbuilding Supervision) + Coly Scenario Director

Released: 28 February 2020

(!) Warning (!): Some spoilers for Main Story chapter 17 towards the end of this post.

TL note: I feel like going by surname-given name in this article;;; pardon the inconsistency Also support the fab fan translation site if you haven’t already: https://mahoyaku-eng.com/

Blurb: This is a world where mages and humans coexist, and this is a story that depicts the journey to save it—brought to you by screenwriter Tsushimi Bunta, known for their subtle writing style that retains a realistic touch, and Kazuma Kowo, who oversees not only character background but also the worldbuilding of each country, among other things. In this issue, we’ve asked what sort of things they were being mindful of during the game’s creation and if there are any behind-the-scenes that they could share. In addition, we’ve also included a few comments from the scenario director, who’s in charge of bringing together all story elements in this game from the Main Story to Training Location stories. We hope you enjoy everything that Promise of Wizard has to offer as you play through it.

Tsushimi Bunta: Freelance screenwriter. Main scriptwriter of Idolish7 as well as the author of the novel adaptations. In this game, they’re in charge of writing the Main Story, Training Location stories, and Event Stories among others.

Kazuma Kowo: Manga-ka and illustrator. Representative works include Junsui Adolescence (Ichijinsha Inc.), Dear Tear (Hakushensha Inc.), and Hinemosu Futari (Takeshobo Co., Ltd.). In this game, they’re in charge of worldbuilding supervision.

----- * * * -----

Part 1: Interview with Tsushimi Bunta (Main Screenwriter) and Kazuma Kowo (Worldbuilding Supervision)

Q: How did you get involved in the development of Promise of Wizard?

I got my first offer around five years ago, but I had to decline because I was already working on something else. They’ve continued to contact me a number of times since then, and then finally the right chance came along. There was the worldbuilding, and then the management and creation of character setting sheets that would shape their sets of values et cetera, which seemed to be a lot for me to handle. That’s why I asked Kazuma-san to help us out. We made games together in the past.

Q: Kazuma Kowo-san is in charge of worldbuilding supervision. Together, the two of you came up with the mages’ world as well as the story. What sort of discussions did you guys have when you were creating the character setting for the wizards as well as the world construct?

We decided on the fantasy genre, but it can range from fairytales to light novel stuff to something as massive as high fantasy. We started from discussing what extent would attract the audience’s attention the most. We talked over and over about it, and in the end, we moved forward with the idea of the countries having their own fantasy taste. We had Kazuma-san sort which wizard into which country first, and then we made adjustments over time. Oz was in the North at first, for example, and then there was Figaro in the Central country. Shino was more reserved, Heath was the flirt, whereas Leno was someone ruthless. Then we figured we should be finalising the characters that would be “the face” of each country first, so that people can remember the characteristics of each country more easily. These are Arthur, Murr, Shino, Rutile, and Mithra. Things that have wizards and witches vibe such as precious stones, stars, plants, fortunetelling, incense, books—a lot of these things are what girls usually like, so we tried to be brave and implement as much as we could.

Q: How did you develop the personality and other characteristics of each wizard from each country? Was there anything you paid attention to in particular when creating these wizards?

The central country has wizards with heroic qualities, so they lean more towards heroes, leaders, and priests. The Western country’s qualities stress on the eccentricity, the bizarre, and entertainment, so they have themes like the Cheshire Cat and Halloween. The Japanese equivalent would be the kitsune foxes and the shapeshifting tanuki racoons. The East has wizards that are gothic, dark and gloomy with melancholic feel to them. The Southern wizards are like the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella. They're good at helping others, honest, and pastoral. The Northern wizards’ image is like a demon lord or great witches who rule over humans—the power type that screams horror.

Q: In this game, wizards have powers that humans don’t have. Because of it, humans rely on them and they adore them. But, there are also occasions where the wizards are feared and detested. You’re depicting not only the “cool wizards”, but also the gap between the wizards and humans. There are also characters who have power but suffer and feel lonely because of it. I think things like that are what makes this game charming, but was there anything you were being mindful of in the process of writing that sort of aspect?

I don’t want to make the loneliness that the wizards feel to be theirs alone. Instead, I want the players to feel something similar, seeing as we all live in a society. I think anyone who lives in a society feels that they “want to be understood” or “want to understand [others]”. But at the same time, they also feel some sort of indignation where they “don’t want to be understood” or want to say “don’t you dare think you’ve understood”. I want the players to take any of these emotions and observe from the wizards’ point of view. I want them to let their imagination expand and enjoy themselves that way.

Q: Many of the wizards’ incantations are phrases that we’re unfamiliar with. I believe a lot of fans have put a lot of thinking into figuring out the meanings and the origin. How did you come up with these incantations?

In regards to incantations, I had Kazuma-san take the wheel. We had it in katakana so that it reads more smoothly in text, but we also adjusted it as we prioritise things like how easy it is to pronounce and for people to catch it. The impression you get from these incantations (sounds powerful, weak, ominous, or it’s still too early for you, et cetera), and how powerful they actually are—we have it all ranked and organised, so it would be nice if it shows one at a time.

Q: Was there anything about the “fantasy parallel universe” genre and the “relationship between wizards and the sage” you find to be the reason why you can deliver particular ideas? Was there anything you found interesting during the writing process?

I actually had to restrain my thinking process because I had to remind myself that I’m writing fantasy, so it’s like I can’t include things that are normal and already exist in the real world. Even if I come up with a good idea, I’ll end up thinking that it’s a little too normal and then it gets scrapped.

Q: The existence of the previous sage who doesn’t put on airs and has an approachable personality becomes one of the attention-grabbing elements in the storyline. In your mind, what sort of character is the previous sage?

A white-collar worker who works at an exploitative company. They can say pretty irresponsible things to the mages and amuse themselves with it. But they also get scared simply from scary things, and they have the boldness to say something selfish.

Q: Please tell us, if there are any, things that seem trivial but it’s something that you were being particular about during the process of writing the Main Story. These can include scenes, specific lines, or portrayal of something.

The same goes for the Main Story and the Sub Stories, but I want people to feel excited and let them imagine all sorts of things. I always have that in mind and that’s why I’ve added lots of details into the setting. “If I were a mage”, “If I were a citizen of this country”, “Which country would my friends come from”, “What does this taste like”, “What are their previous love stories like, and what’s their life been like until now”... I think being able to have so much freedom in imagination is what the real pleasure of the fantasy genre is. I hope it’s become a world that allows the players to indulge themselves in daydreaming.

Q: Lastly, please leave a message to all fans who are out there supporting Promise of Wizard.

Thank you for playing the game! It’s pretty much my first time writing fantasy, so right until it was released, my heart kept pounding thinking if it would really count as fantasy… But I’m so happy that a lot of people are having fun with the story! Please continue your support for Promise of Wizard from now on too!

----- * * * -----

Part 2: Interview with Mahoyaku’s Scenario Director

Q: How did you make this job offer to Tsushimi Bunta-san? What is it about Tsushimi-san’s works and writing style that makes it charming to you?

Right around the early stages of the establishment of our company, Coly, one of their past works touched my heart. Their script writing ability was so mind-blowing that I thought I just had to make this offer. In the end, that also instigated Kazuma-sensei’s involvement, and that’s how we got them to help us out as well. I think one of the things that make Tsushimi-sensei’s work charming is the universally relatable characters, the writing that makes the reader want to cheer the characters on, as well as a whole new world that they bring to the readers. Tsushimi-sensei has the ability to transform unsaid feelings and unwritten motions into breathtaking scenes. Sometimes, trivial dialogues can depict genuine feelings within human hearts, like that of a child’s. You can feel through the writing affection and gentle point of views towards those in a weaker position.

Q: The setting of this game involves the main character who suddenly wandered into another world where mages live. Then, they became the “sage” who gather up the wizards and guide them. How did you decide on what the story was about and which direction it was going?

We had the people in our company come up with several ideas and we went through them to see which ones had and hadn’t already been used in regards to the fantasy parallel universe genre, which was the direction we were going with. From there, we ended up with a story where the sage, someone who wandered into another world, and wizards fight together. We don’t want you to forget reality. Instead, we want you to enjoy it even more. We want to bring a world that gives you courage and positive energy, and we want to deliver the wizards’ world that’s blinding, mysterious, and exciting.

Q: Could you tell us a scene or a line from the main story that’s particularly memorable for you? And why as well, if possible.

Every scene in the main story is memorable for me, so to be honest with you, it’s really hard to pick one. But I was particularly driven in the execution of Chapter 17’s “Rustica’s Request”, so I cherish it a lot. It’s something that Rustica said to Chloe, who was tearing up silently as his feelings were hurt, “That’s because there’s only one of it in this world. This is something that only you can make.” It’s a sweet line, one that will always stay close to you and give you warmth. It may sound cheesy, but no matter how many times you read it, it echoes through in every corner of your heart.

#spoon2di #mahoyaku #staff

46 notes · View notes

rhetoricalrogue · 4 years

Note

all 10 for the writer asks 💕

THANK YOU!

1. How do you approach worldbuilding (if it’s an AU) or research (if it’s an established canon)?

I usually make some preliminary notes if it’s an AU on what main sort of things I would like to have happen, for example, looking up fashion trends, top music hits, and some sort of big current event that an everyday person would be aware of. Then I’d sort of spiderweb out (80s AU: who wore popped collars and khaki shorts? Which character from this fandom would fit that? Who would throw a watch party for Luke and Laura’s wedding or talk endlessly about who really shot JR? If these characters were going through a recession and changing politics, how would they react? What sort of jobs would they have and/or be getting laid off from? Is there a chance to have a Mr. Mom character?) to form the meat of the story’s details. Of course, this means going through research rabbit holes and spending hours finding things that I only use for a throwaway line, but that’s usually the way it is.

For established canon research, I’m usually pulling up Wikis, looking up fansites for details, checking out maps or guides to remember plotline specific missions, or pulling the old reliable “Oh NO. I have to play/read/watch this thing AGAIN. WhatEVER shall I do?”

2. What do you do to understand the characters better and get into their head space?

I usually pull out those boring party icebreaker type questions and throw them at the characters. I”ll also make playlists or moodboards and just list out random little personality facts and character quirks until things start to take shape.

3. How long do you usually spend writing a chapter? (considering only the actual hours you spend writing/typing!)

Actually typing? It depends on how much free time I have. A chapter/one-shot normally takes a week or two total to write during a busy work week, or roughly anywhere from 8-10 hours on a weekend if I have uninterrupted time and energy to focus on something for a solid block of time. Lately the norm has been 5-10 minutes here and there pecking on my phone at a rough idea so that whenever I do have time set aside to write, I’ll already have most of the main idea laid out, even if it’s full of [insert big, dramatic scene here] or [LET THEM KISS] notes to myself in the middle of actual written paragraphs.

4. How does your writing happen? Do you visualize scenes playing out in your head, or do they come out in words as you type?

Usually I’ll have an extremely vague idea on where I would like the story to go and then keep everything as flexible as possible in case characters decide to go out onto left field and start doing their own thing. Sometimes I’ll have a very set “this is how I want the story to end” and sometimes it’ll just...stop all on its own. The middle parts are usually the most difficult to pin down, but what I’ll usually do is write until I get stumped, make an [IDEK where this is going, future!me, help!] note for myself, and then move on to another part. Eventually, I’ll get to a point where I can tie things together, or if I can’t, then I can decide if I want to keep going with the story as-is, or if I want to cut and paste what I have to salvage for something else later and then start fresh. If I’m stumped, I’ll read back what I’ve read and try to visualize what’s happening as a scene in a movie to troubleshoot what’s not flowing correctly for me.

5. How long do you spend editing each complete chapter/story?

It depends! If I’m pressed for time (or if I’m tired of writing and just want to be done) then I’ll spend about 15-20 minutes. I usually regret that time frame because I’ll hit Post and then find so many typos or half-finished sentences and whole paragraphs I wish that I would have structured differently! Normally, if I’m not working on deadlines, I’ll finish writing and then let a day or two pass, maybe even a week, for me to forget details and then I’ll spend an hour reading through it with a fresh set of eyes to catch inconsistencies or grammatical errors.

6. When you write emotional scenes, do you feel what the characters are feeling?

Sometimes? I mean, if you’re asking if I’ve ever made myself cry writing something, then the answer is yes. Then I usually go wail in a mutual’s messages because if I have to feel all the things, they do too. That’s the rules.

7. To you, what is the most important part of writing a romantic relationship?

Building on mutual trust and respect and then showing little intimate moments, like Character A remembering what Character B’s favorite food from this one place is so they can surprise them when they know they’re having a rough day or Character B leaving little hearts in the steamed up bathroom mirror for Character A to find when they get out of the shower, that sort of thing.

A relationship is not all sunshine and rainbows. Writing them having arguments and disagreements, but then understanding the other’s stance and coming to a compromise or apologizing. Having them work together to solve a problem.

Making their relationship a part of them, but not the end all, be all of their characters. They’re whole characters unto themselves, a relationship just so happens to be a facet of who they are instead of the linchpin of their personalities. Making them “Significant Other of Character A” and not elaborating on who they are when they’re not with Character A makes them flat, IMO.

8. What are three things you’re proudest of when it comes to your writing? Dialogue, descriptions, humour, romantic fluff, kisses, action, pacing, worldbuilding, setting, anything! Even small things like sentence structures and the way your characters banter counts!

Answered here

9. What are three weaknesses in your writing that you’re very aware of, that you’d like to spend time working on to improve your works?

Action scenes, especially fight scenes

Working on taking more time to edit and catching things before posting

Trying to plot longer multi-chapter stories with arcs instead of one-shots

10. If you were to visit your past self now and give them a piece of writing advice, what would that advice be?

Answered here, but what the hell, here’s another one: don’t be afraid to reach out to fic writers or fan artists that you admire. 9 times out of 10, you’re going to find that the people that you’ve been too intimidated to talk to were just as nervous about talking to you too and there’s a possibility of making new friends.

#chuckhansen

3 notes · View notes

thespooniewrites · 5 years

Text

This is where the ‘write’ part of your writeblr really happens. Personally, I find this stuff scary. I think I waited three months before letting anyone see my writing, but when I did it was met with love. Be scared, but don’t let it stop you. Writeblr is a really welcoming community for the most part. If you want heavy interaction on any of the things listed below, you have to use your writeblr tags, and ideally you’ll have already had people interacting with some of the stuff you posted as suggested in the list of easy & slightly harder things.

Post snippets of your canon writing

Maybe you’ve just written three lines of dialogue that you find hilarious, or you wrote a few paragraphs you’re proud of. You’ve been talking about your writing, people have been getting to know your characters and little blips of the plot and worldbuilding, but maybe they haven’t actually gotten to see your writing yet! Post some of it. [example of a canon excerpt by @elliewritesstories here]

Post any of your writing at all, really

Got a little drabble? Slap it on up there. It doesn’t have to be a scene in the story, it doesn’t even have to be canon-compliant (but please let people know it’s not canon-compliant when you post it), just POST! YOUR! WRITING! I’ve seen a lot of people write AUs and post those [ @lux-scriptum has many AUs if you wanna go check those out]. These tend to get attention because they can be posted in full, instead of teasing little excerpts and snippets that usually get posted from canon work since the writer understandably wants to keep spoilers and stuff secret. Same as canon-noncompliant drabbles, let people KNOW that your AUs are AUs or else they might mistake it for canon. Don’t force yourself to write an AU just for interaction, though.

Make a WIP powerpoint

This was apparently started as a meme but it quickly evolved into a way that I think people really like getting acquainted with a WIP. It’s a bit like your WIP intro post in that people can reblog & interact, but has more detail, as well as images & colours which are more likely to attract a wider audience. WIP powerpoints tend to include a title page, a page about the setting, about the plot, fun worldbuilding facts, and characters. Some of them will have little “random facts” thing at the end, for any of those little bits that the author wants you to know but they couldn’t find space for in the other categories. Keep in mind when making your WIP powerpoint, the tumblr photo limit for photosets is ten, so fit it all into ten pages. You can really have fun and be silly with this, people don’t take it too seriously. Also, most people just use MS paint, I don’t know of many people out there really making their slides on powerpoint. [example of a WIP powerpoint by @raiswanson here, and another example of my own here, the title of the wip and several character names are different now but I still had a lot of fun making it]

Talk to writers

Hit up their inbox, send them a message about how you really liked that excerpt they posted, ask a question about their characters or how they came up with the idea for their story or whatever it is that you’re interested in knowing. I know it’s scary, we’re basically all socially anxious introverts here, but you have the potential to make really good friends this way. Not everyone will be down to talk, not every conversation will be big and exciting, not every big conversation will be followed up another, but there’s a chance some of your best writeblr buddies will be met this way. (Though, I’ll happily confess to always interacting publicly in ask games and responses to posts first, so I’m not a totally strange face appearing in their inbox)

Make advice posts about things you genuinely know about

Whatever it is you know well, post about it. Do you work with wolves? Do you study poisonous plants? Do you know a lot about the medical field and see a lot of writers making mistakes? Post about it. These make the rounds. I made a post about writing characters with disabilities in a moment of spite & anger expecting nothing but a couple likes, and it ended up being one of my biggest posts. I still see spikes in my follower count every time it gets a new burst of reblogs, and it’s been a while since I posted it.

Build a tag list

A tag list is a list that a writeblr compiles of URLs that have asked to be tagged in posts about the writeblr’s WIP(s). These posts include things like excerpts, aesthetic boards & art, writing updates (ex. If you rename your story or are ready for beta readers), and whatever the writer feels those on the list would appreciate. Sometimes when you start putting your writing up, people will ask to be added to your tag list without prompting. Of course, this won’t always be the case. There’s no shame in asking if people want alerts. It can be simple as:

I want to compile a proper tag list for (WIP NAME, ideally with a link to your wip page) so if you want to be tagged please interact with this post and I’ll tag you in future updates! Likes, reblogs, and comments will be counted as interaction and you’ll be added to the list.

Don’t get discouraged if nobody responds. This could be nothing more than a day that a lot of people are off tumblr and don’t see it. Try again another day (maybe at a different time of day).

Accept that it takes time

Oh yes, this is one of the hardest things to do. Building a solid following and getting a lot of interaction takes time. It takes time and effort and good connections and all this random stuff that’s basically out of your control, and I do believe a lot of it comes down to luck. It’s all luck that someone stumbles upon your blog, luck that someone notices you’re a regular in their notes, luck that a big writeblr reblogs your moodboard. Of course you can sort of nudge this luck with good post timing (queued and scheduled posts are your friend), with using your proper tags, and by being consistent in your interactions with other writeblrs, but ultimately it comes down to luck and timing and probably magic or something. I know it sucks, but you have to accept it or you’re going to take every single instance of low interaction as a personal failure instead of what it really was - luck simply not being on your side that time.

Just keep trying. You’ll get there, friend.

Main Navigation post

Part one: The Launching point

Part two: The Easy Things

Part three: The Slightly Harder Stuff

obligatory disclaimer: These are only suggestions for boosting writeblr interaction. Never post anything you’re uncomfortable posting. The levels of difficulty are subjective, based on what I found emotionally challenging.

#new writeblr #new writers on tumblr #new writing blog #long post

148 notes · View notes

apocalyvse · 5 years

Text

11/11/11

I was tagged by @water-writings <3

1. Do you write fanfictions or original stories and did you ever write fanfiction?

I write (and always have written) both; I actually started writing fanfiction when I was like 10 years old, before I even knew what fanfiction was, and then later discovered that it was a whole thing. For quite a few years now fanfic has been my main thing, but I’ve got a few original things that I’m knuckling down on this year and really enjoying, so we’ll see.

2. Did you ever write your stories in the middle of class instead of paying attention?

Not in the middle of class really, but I did write like half a harry potter au fic sort of thing based off of some rp characters at the end of my year 11/12 exams. The exams were like 3 hours long each, and like, I’m not smart but I am pretty quick at theory stuff so I’d have 1.5-2 hours per exam to fill, and I would never use the note paper for notes. So I’d fold my note paper into 8ths and write reeeeeally really small and fill it all up during my extra exam time. (I still have the sheets of paper if anyone wants to see xD)

3. How many notebooks do you have filled with your writing?

Since somewhere in 2015, I have filled 25 notebooks; not including anything I wrote straight out on a computer, on my phone, on random pieces of paper, or in other notebooks that aren’t included in my numbering system, which I have lmao.

4. What’s your favorite way to write? Notebook, Word Doc, Google Docs?

By hand in notebooks. I used to write in a word doc, and I still use word to type up into and edit it, but I find writing by hand really pushes my word counts up, and forces me to do an initial edit when I type it up, especially with fanfic because I don’t draft fanfic.

5. Do you write by yourself or do you need people writing with you?

I’ve always written alone - most of my friends don’t even know that I write, or don’t write anymore themselves, so it’s just me and myself over here. I was in a writing club at school for a while, and we tried to do a couple projects together, but the group got off course way too easily and nothing really got done, so I prefer to be alone with something I’m really passionate about finishing.

6. Have you ever cowritten with someone?

When I was liiiiiike 12, my friend and I co-wrote a lot of Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic lmao, which to this day is one of my favourite writing memories. And I co-wrote an entire 50k ‘novel’ with my friend during middle school, which was actually pretty good fun - we traded off chapters and worked together on plot and worldbuilding and actually finished the whole thing. It was horrible (I can’t look at it anymore it’s so cringey), but a good experience to have. I’ve co-written with a few friends online too, with mixed results - nothing that’s ever really gone anywhere though.

7. Who do you bounce ideas off of?

No one lmao. I just throw them into the story and see if they work.

8. Have you ever taken an experience from your life and written it into a story?

Definitely! The most obvious example would probably be the series of short stories I’ve written and posted on this horse racing game I play, Flying For Home, which are sometimes drawn directly from stuff that happens around my workplace in real life, seeing as I work with racehorses in a big stable (the premise of the short stories lmao).

Another example I can think of is, funnily enough, my other horse-related project; a novel called Vertigo, for which I have drawn on a lot of my own personal history and people that I’ve met in my life and thrown it into the mixing pot. It’s a bit of a personal daydream tbh xD Other than those, there’s a little bit of myself in everything I write, I think, though it’s hard to pick out sometimes.

9. Favorite type of music to listen to while you write.

I usually don’t let myself listen to music when I write, but if I do, it’ll be the playlist I inevitably have for the story, turned down very quiet so that it fades into the background - usually just pop and alternative/indie sort of stuff.

10. Have you ever had anyone give you “advice” that hurt you and prevented you from writing for a while?

I don’t think I’ve ever had anything that stopped me from writing, and I’ve certainly never had criticism from outsiders/strangers or whatever (generally people just ignore me). But I do keep my mum at a distance from my writing, as she tends to just push and push me to ‘publish something already’ and gives off the mentality of ‘it’s not worth wasting your time on if it won’t make you money’. She uh...doesn’t know that I have published over 100k of fanfic this year. Lol. She’s only trying to be supportive, in her own way, and I appreciate it, but I just don’t mention it to her very often, because she’s never really ready to listen to my point of view on it.

11. Have you ever had fans of your writing pester to write a certain way?

I don’t have fans xD

And from @starsandstormyseas because you asked good questions and I Want To...

1. Have you ever had an idea that sounded really great in your head, but when you started writing it, came out terrible for whatever reason?

Yesssss, Flicker has gone through 9 versions in 2 years because every time I start it, it just goes very quickly in directions that I don’t want it to and it never feels right. This version I’m working on now is the first time I’ve really liked all the ways I could go with it so hopefully we’re past book 2 blues and back on track.

2. What’s your favorite part in writing a story? The relationships (or shipping), the plot, the worldbuilding, something else?

The like, ‘main’ scenes, the big hitters. The culmination of all the middle bits into that one main plot point. And relationships too, though not romantic persay - I just really enjoy the scenes where two characters will bounce off of each other for like 7 pages of dialogue, whether its enemies, or friends, or romantic.

3. And weird habits you do when writing, or to keep yourself writing?

I write by hand mostly, and I have my own system to mark as I’m going sentences I don’t like, or words that don’t really fit but I couldn’t think of the right one, or facts I’ve made up on the fly that need to be googled. If I just mark down stuff that I want to change later as I go, I find that I set myself free in a way, and I can just move on without getting stuck on a google spiral (also I don’t forget to fix my plot holes later).

4. Do you keep the internet on or off when you write?

On, though it’s very distracting when I’m trying to write straight on my laptop lmao

5. What books, authors, fics, or any media, have heavily influenced your writing style?

I spent a lot of my childhood reading Enid Blyton and authors like her; older books, mostly my mum’s books from when she was a child, and things from my hometown’s very, very outdated library. So they had a huge impact on the way I learnt to write (they also had an impact on the way I talk too, but that’s another story). More recently, the whole tone and way that fanfic in general is written has really influenced me, and I’d like to think I’ve adopted it and made it my own in a good way.

6. What time is the best time to write? Day, night? Morning, evening?

Evening/night; some days, I cannot focus until like 8pm when I go to bed. And then I lose sleep because I’m writing but y’know. For editing/typing up, that’s a late afternoon kind of job.

7. Is there anyone IRL that you let read your work?

I have a group of friends that I’ve known for 8 years now that are allowed to read my work. We used to rp together and all used to write and so we all know how bad we were back in the day xD. One girl from that group has been my friend since kindergarten, so she has always had me shoving handfuls of words in her face. There’s been a few other friends that have read some of my stuff, but not all of it, and the older I get, the less I share.

8. How do you handle negative or unhelpful reviews or critique? Does it impact the way you write?

I’ve never had any negative response, so I don’t know. The silence when you’re 4 chapters deep and no one has reviewed is deafening though.

9. Do you respond to every comment/reply you get? If not, which ones get your attention and why?

I only respond to the long/sincere ones, because I feel like they deserve some encouragement in return for taking the time to really let me know what they thought.

10. Ever gotten weird, unsolicited messages asking to join an RP group or some such because this person apparently read your writing (but probably didn’t)?

Hah. Once or twice.

11. What is your favorite platform to post your writing, talk about writing, or anything like that?

My favourite place to post and to read by far is AO3 - but I find the best platform to get feedback on is FF.net. My favourite place to talk about writing is over here on tumblr.

MY QUESTIONS

How do you get yourself to focus on writing?

What’s your favourite thing you’ve ever written?

Tell me about your current WIP.

Do you write for yourself or for an audience?

Do you share your writing with anyone you know in real life?

What’s the nicest comment/review you’ve ever gotten?

What platform do you prefer to post your work on?

Do you plot or pants?

What have you learnt while writing your stories?

Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?

Can you give a spoiler for your WIP?

Tagging (from writer peeps) @converginglives, @pen-in-hand (if you want another one I think mel got you xD), @aethryos, @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword, @siriusguided, @insertpenname-here, @indecentpause, @writing-at-dusk @sillyliterature @anoddconstellationofthoughts @writingtomorrow

#if you join ffh #the referral number is 24 #;)#tag game #nah for real though this was fun

8 notes · View notes

wiredandrewired · 5 years

Text

Was trying to actually work on something but my brain is stuck on loop. So instead I’m gonna make a post of the Voltron stuff sitting unposted in my writing WIP folder to help me organize my thoughts.

I guess since I’m posting this, if you have anything you wanna say/ask about any of these feel free. I respond well to outside interest.

1. Project ReVolt is without a doubt the project I’ve posted about the most here. And talked about in random tags. And tangents. Originally it was just the name the project had in my internal brain filing cabinet but it’s kind of spread and stuck to where my wife and I just refer to it as that when we talk about it.

ReVolt is basically going to be a VLD series rewrite more along the lines of how my wife and I would have done it or at least liked to see it done. In some places it will probably stick pretty damn close to the events of the series canon, but in others go completely off the deep end. We’re each going to be doing one, so a lot of the headcanon and worldbuilding and such that we’ve worked out together in various other stories and RPs will be consistent between the two stories, but it will also give us a place to veer out and do things without the others’ input (as we’re not gonna let each other see our fics until they post, tee hee). I’ve done a SHITPOT of rules and infrastructure work using actual alchemy tracts to try and make sense of the series’ largely Powers As The Plot Demands system, and am pretty convinced I’m going to A)fall hard into my very common Esoterica Ranting Mode pitfall and B)enrage literally everyone who reads it with my character and plot choices. Most conservative estimate says this will be six ‘books’ long as again, we’re doing literally the entire series. Current status: at the ‘ridiculously large amount of notes and setting up actual arcs and outlines’ stage, and waiting for the wife to finish ‘Happier HOPEless’.

2. There Are No Monsters Here is a fic I really want to do but cannot seem to get off the ground, set to take place entirely in the ‘last universe’ from season 8--the one native-Honerva died in and crazed-death-god-Honerva picked out as her ideal and tried to wedge herself into. I guess the basic idea was that, like the ‘main’ universe, it got rebuilt pretty much as it was prior to Nightmare Mom Ruining Everything, and I have it with no one fully remembering the events of season 8 that took place there, but characters really closely tied to those events having some itching feeling that something happened, and all the Altean alchemists agreeing that some kind of massive quantum Event certainly occurred even if they don’t know what.

Mostly the story exists as a place for me to have a canon-compliant AU that still lets me explore stuff like Altean history, the racial and cultural tensions of the Coalition, dink around with Oldadins that DON’T die in one fell swoop, a living Daibazaal and Altea, Lotor growing up with a decent-but-not-without-strains relationship with his dad, teen Allura and tiny Lotor being absolute shits to each other while also coming to terms as they grow up with who and what they MUST be both on a political and quantum scale, and generally prove that even a perfect universe isn’t, all in one place. The title is entirely facetious, and anyone who’s read any of my alien culture headcanons for this series knows that. Lol. Current status: lots of bits and pieces, but no good beginning or connective tissue. I have a lot of notes, some arc outlines, and a few scattered scenes and bits of dialogue from later in the story, but my god, I CANNOT get it off the ground.

3. Someone Must Get Hurt (But It Won’t Be Me) is supposed to be a pretty wholly Honerva-centric fic that starts...sometime in her youth?...and carries forward to an as-yet-undetermined point. Probably her death. I mean the first one. I’m not sure. Another chance to dig my fingers into Altean culture and Alchemy, this time leading up to All The Bad Shit That Happened, with the added bonus of being done from a focal point of a character I have a lot of really strong feelings about both positive and negative that’s resulted in me somehow being EVEN MORE wrapped up in her than I was before I added abject knee-jerk trauma hatred to the mix. In no way meant to make Honerva more sympathetic, I think I just want to write her even more like my mother so I’ll feel EVEN BETTER about killing her? Idk man my feelings about her are so complicated. Also an excuse to write a shitpot of her and Zarkon because listen, I’m really glad they’re married because I ship them so fuckin hard. Current Status: SO many notes. SO much infrastructure. Like three pages of an opening I’m almost definitely throwing away because I can’t decide where, when, or how to open but feel like this isn’t it. One short but very telling scene of Honey and Zarkon from late in the story. I’m obsessed with it but I can’t get anywhere.

4. Currently Untitled Demon Hunter AU started because my wife talks to me about Happier HOPEless a LOT and I just got an itch in my bones to work on one myself. In spite of the entire Demon Hunter AU thing getting started by a prompt on a Shance blog, neither Shiro nor Lance are set to appear for at least a chapter? And I am not confident in my ability to not veer off into utter non-shipping anyway because man, am I bad at it. Or like...just an entirely different ship for either or both of them. Current Status: A lot of vague notes, a POWERFUL urge to structure the chapters and overall arc after Ripley’s Gates even though that limits my chapter count and means I will DEFINITELY have 20k+ word chapters, and about seven pages of the first chapter so I guess I’m committed now?

5. Currently Untitled Post Series Fic basically exists for me to vent my frustrations about two main things: The Universe is Fucking Huge And There Are Dangers Other Than Galra, and The Galra Empire Was Huge and Is Not Going To All Fall In Line Behind Voltron Coalition and Especially Behind Keith Who Just Arbitrarily Fucking Decided To Tell Them They Couldn't Pick A New Leader According To Their Own Traditions And Need To Do What They’re Told Now What The Fuck. Also there was a lot of stuff in the series that got left hanging, and while ReVolt is an IN-series fix-it fic, I wanted something that patched up loose ends in a way that was satisfactory to me but also kind of canon-compliant. Current Status: A lot of notes and screaming. No one has seen my progress on this and they might never.

6. Dog Runs And Death Dreams is a warmup file turned deeply self-indulgent series of scenes in which I choose to assume that Shiro’s rare neuromuscular disorder was left so ambiguous so I could plug the symptoms of mine into it. It’s genuinely not any deeper than that. The whole thing is set pre-Kerberos, and includes copious Shiro x Adam content because of it, but also not the kind that makes me feel good about writing because that means it includes the ‘slow fizzle’ that leads up to their breakup before the mission. Ugh. Working on it does make me feel better when I've been having symptoms, though, and I’ve been letting myself write it, unchastised, in a really loose rambly way that I usually deride myself for. It’s just cathartic. Current Status: no notes, no plan, just strain-writing between seizures, but somehow it feels like it has some kind of structure and just keeps growing? Possibly too close to the bone for me to ever post.

7. Birth and Rebirth was born out of two things: the fact that Zarkon is shown to have two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT reactions to first being presented with his baby son in different flashbacks and different seasons, and the fact that in spite of the flashbacks we get at the end of the series, earlier on, the impression I got of Lotor and Zarkon’s relationship wasn’t of a young man who had never had affection from his father, but who had instead lost it. Well, three things: I have a lot of underlying issues at work, at play, and at large when it comes to the Galra Imperial Family. Also, anyone notice the monitor blips in the first baby Lotor flashbacks indicate a heart murmur? Anyway, it was supposed to be a thoroughly self-indulgent and thoroughly self-hurtful examination of Lotor’s early life and the death by degrees of what was left of his father in the husk Rift Adventures left behind, but I got stuck on it a little way in. Current Progress: ten pages, a lot of notes, and some wistfulness. I keep hoping I’ll get inspired to pick it back up again. Contemplating rewriting some of the beginning, maybe it’ll help?

Bonus entry that is not actually in any form of progress soever:

50/50 Voltron Trashfire Edition is spawned from the ‘50/50′ challenge on an old TF board I used to haunt. It’s a fifty-prompt smut challenge using the list of ‘50 reasons to have sex’ from some tv show, and the idea is to write a different ship for every prompt (hence the name). My wife is blazing through it and has several (like twelve?) up on her AO3, but I’ll be utterly blunt: I haven’t written fifty porn fics in my LIFE. Over ALL my fandoms. Current Status: Literally all I have done is assign a ship to each prompt, and I might actually have some prompts with just question marks beside them still. I have one aborted start to one entry. That’s it. It’s not happening. But the empty file is technically in the folder, SO.

#things Rewire Writes #disregard I'm decompiling #writing woes #fanfiction: the struggle #the state of the rest of these makes me a little worried about Revolt tbh #I need to unclog the writing pen in my brain

2 notes · View notes

taz-writes · 6 years

Text

25 Writing Questions

@whycanthisnotbeeasier tagged me in this pretty massive tag game, which is pretty cool! Thanks for the attention! Here goes nothing...

1. Is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

A few of them, for a few reasons! The most obvious is Book 3 in my Feilan series, under the working title Storm and Shadow (it’s edgy I know). Reason being, it just got too damn messy. The end of book 3 is the low point of the whole series in every available subplot--so many things go wrong, a few MASSIVE things happen that are game-changers for book 4, and it’s hands down the most difficult scene I’m going to have to write for this series. When it came down to it, I couldn’t do that. The real end of the story at book 4 wasn’t that clear to me either, which is a major problem. So what I’m doing now is working backwards, a little bit. I’ll return to the Purple Sands once and for all after I’ve tackled book 4 and I know where I’m actually going with this.

Also, I’ve been delaying work on a few other baby WIPs because they’re just not developed enough to see the light of day yet. But that’s pretty minor.

2. What work of yours, if any, are you embarrassed about existing?

Uhhhhhh... literally the entirety of the original drafts of books 1 and 2. They’re beautifully-written bullshit. Also there’s some really bad Homestuck fanfiction from six years ago still floating around the Internet somewhere under an old pseudonym of mine. I like to pretend it doesn’t exist.

3. What order do you write in? Front of book to back? Chronological? Favorite scenes first? Something else?

I like to write front-to-back, which in my case is the same as chronological. I’m a bit of a pants-er, and my outlines often don’t make any sense once I’m actually a few chapters in and I realize that the planned plot point coming next is painfully out of character (or just impossible in general). I tend to use the exciting parts as motivators to get me through when I get writer’s block.

4. Favorite character you’ve written?

Violet. Hands down, indubitably, Violet Ravenhart. She’s probably the best fictional character I’ve ever created--she has so many layers to her, and she’s so nuanced, and genuine and close to my heart in ways I never expected. I think I’ve done a really great job creating her, and I only hope I can write her as well as she deserves.

5. Character you were most surprised to end up writing?

Kyrina, I think... she was originally supposed to be something COMPLETELY different than what she’s become. All of my villains used to be really two-dimensional and flat, but Ky’s come the furthest away from there. She used to be an Azula expy? Now she’s just a dumbass.

6. Something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late / complicated to change now

Part of me wants to say that I’m proud of everything I’ve made, and I do plan to stick to my guns, but there are a lot of aspects of Feilan’s worldbuilding that are incredibly messy. The magic system is the most obvious... if I could go back and change that, and make it significantly less complicated and hard to understand, then I probably would. But the whole thing is built into the structure of the world, and I’m emotionally attached, and besides, it’s unique! It’s definitely got plus sides.

When it comes to things like that, I’m more likely to retcon or explain the weird thing than erase it altogether. Any dumb trope can work if you write it the right way.

7. When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

Oh god, I love telling people about my stories. I talk about Being A Writer all the time! I don’t share my work very often, though.

8. Favorite genre to write

Fantasy!

9. What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

I like to take walks, or just go sit alone in places. I draw my spirit and energy in writing from the natural world... when I feel drained and creatively empty, I go to the creek behind my house, or I take a walk around Schenley if I’m at school. It even helps to just sit outside for a while. Nature inspires me.

10. Write in silence or with background music? Alone or with others?

Depends on the scene! Always alone, though. Other people tend to distract me. I write with background music most of the time, but if I’m working on poetry or the scene is particularly intense then I turn it off. My writing style, especially in emotional moments, is very reliant on the rhythm of the words. Having music in the background interrupts the natural flow.

11. What aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

DIALOGUE. Dear lord, I used to be so bad at dialogue. I’ve also improved at plotting, but that improvement is... nebulous.

12. Your weaknesses as an author?

I like tropes, and I also like doing weird stuff. I often like both of these too much, resulting in plots that jump from point to point with little clarity. I’m also a consistent retconner, so my characters’ motivations and goals can change with little to no warning. I’m working on that.

13. Your strengths as an author?

I’ve been told that my prose has a very strong flow to it, especially in descriptive passages. So for all my faults with the construction of my stories, my actual mechanical writing is consistently excellent. And I’m also a fan of my character concepts, even when I don’t write them out as well as they maybe deserve.

14. Do you make playlists for your work?

Absolutely! I have spotify playlists for most of my stories and all my main characters. I don’t actually listen to those while I’m writing, I prefer listening to video game music, but making playlists for my writing is a lot of fun.

15. Why did you start writing?

Because I couldn’t find any books that told stories I wanted to read, so I decided I’d make them myself. I wanted to read stories with characters who dressed like me and thought like me and did amazing things without people questioning it all the time. Also, I wanted stories with fairies who weren’t vapid useless girly-girls.

16. Are there any characters who haunt you?

Most of them, at some point or another. All of my main characters in Feilan are manifestations of some part of me. I wrote Violet to cope with depression in high school, Dusk came directly from how trapped I felt when my parents wouldn’t listen to anything I said, Sayara is the physical manifestation of righteous fury against the world. So their muses lean pretty hard into me when I start running into those problems again.

17. If you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

Please use an outline. I know they “cramp your style,” but please, for the love of God, use a freaking outline. And figure out the ending FIRST.

18. Were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? What were they?

Yes!! Some of those were things I watched more than things I read, but it still counts. I was really into the Redwall books as a kid, and they’re a direct cause of the weird tropiness inherent in my early writing. I think I still favor a lot of cheesy tropes that I learned there--I like to think I write them with more nuance, though. The TV show Avatar was also a MASSIVE influence in how I create stories and characters. I mentioned earlier that Kyrina used to be an Azula expy, but on a larger scale ATLA introduced me to grey morality that works. Zuko’s redemption arc is on a level I strive for to this day. Rick Riordan’s books inspired my character voices, I’ve always liked his humor and his writing showed me that you don’t have to cling so closely to traditional grammar rules to write well. Fullmetal Alchemist was another big influence on my stories’ morality,

There are probably more, but I don’t remember any right now.

19. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, etc.?

See: Taz’s greatest flaws as a writer.

Jokes aside, I like to keep one single print paper outline for each story that I’m working on. I’ll write out notes to myself there, create a chapter-by-chapter outline, and edit things in the outline as I go. They’re a great time capsule of all the things I’ve retconned over the course of my series. Recently I’ve also started using Evernote to track things digitally, but I’m still figuring out how it works.

20. Do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Both! Depends on the day. I write when I have the spark and the attention span, and I write for however long it lasts.

21. What do you think when you read over your older work?

Some of my old work is actually quite good! So I’ll appreciate that for what it is. The parts that are less good I laugh at, and I’ll send excerpts to my friends going “hey look at this ridiculous bullshit I created three years ago isn’t it funny??”

22. Are there subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Yeah. There are a lot of uncomfortable things lurking on the periphery of Feilan that I’m super awkward with. Violet’s trans-ness is the main one that comes to mind, because I want to confirm it in canon but there’s really no way she would ever bring it up of her own volition. Sayara’s too stupid to notice anything and definitely wouldn’t be rude enough to ask about it if she did. There’s also, well, the fa Viandre situation. I’ve avoided going into too much detail about the abuse there, but every situation with Dusk and fa Viandre gives me the willies. I write it because I think it’s important, and it’s a powerful arc, but it’s fucked up.

More generally? Sex scenes are uncomfortable to write in general for me, I don’t mind reading them but writing them is super awkward. Romance in general can be that way sometimes. I just don’t know how to handle it.

23. Any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

I don’t know if there’s anything obscure, necessarily. I think being a musician helped my writing improve, because I’m very sensitive to what Sounds Good, and with poetry especially it’s become more of an instinct than conscious knowledge.

24. Have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

I wouldn’t say I’ve ever become an expert on anything in the interest of research, but I’ve become moderately proficient with a few things. I’m in the process of learning everything I can about conlangs so that I can finally give all my made-up words some internal consistency, so that’s cool. I took a couple group fencing lessons. I’m pretty lazy about my research, honestly, and when I don’t already know something I lean towards just making it up from wholecloth.

25. Copy / paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of.

I knelt by the crack, peering into it, hoping, even as the desperate stillness grew stronger and the silence did not change and time almost seemed to stop.

Cool starlight slid like molten silver through the shimmering gaps in the trees, sinking into the world around me. This cool starlight illuminated everything: the pocks and picks in ancient stone, and the knife-point edges of blades of growing grass, and the dust that had settled upon the little hiding place and the child’s bones it hid.

This is an old excerpt, from my newer draft of book 2. I think I wrote this almost exactly two years ago. I’m rather fond of it, though. This is Feilan’s aesthetic in a nutshell.

This was an essay at the end, but also a tag game, so... @jade-island-lives @firewritten @thewingwriter @lady-redshield-writes, if yall wanna do this, go for it! No obligation of course. :) Anyone else who sees this and thinks it’s cool, feel free to do it and say I tagged you, too!

#taz shut up #tag game #this was fun! thanks!

3 notes · View notes

gingerly-writing · 6 years

Text

Questions Tag Games

explanation: I’m super late to these, I suspect not many people will want their dashes spammed with my random answers, and I’m not tagging people, so I’ve amalgamated all of these into one post.

tagged by @concealeddarkness13! haven’t spoken to you in a while, hope you’re doing great

1. Would you rather write a more classical hero or an anti-hero as a protagonist? I’d rather write a hero for the protagonist, but an anti-hero as a general character

2. Who is your favorite character you have written and why? Ever? That’s cruel. Out of people that y’all would know, Urial does seem to generate the most emotional reactions

3. How many WIPs do you have? 3 proper ones, currently: Iron Flower, Space Royalty and Piracy Pays

4. Who is your least favorite character you have written and why? To write? Klarion from Young Jutsice fanfic. Motherfucker would not follow the assigned plot. Hate-wise? Possibly Coincidence or Accord, neother of whom you guys have met yet. Those two are a pair of nasty criminals/villains, and they are a little too good at punishing anyone who gets in their way

5. What is your favorite aspect of writing? Finishing!

6. If you had only one sentence (per WIP) to get someone to read your books, what would the sentences be? They wouldn’t because I suck at loglinesss...humourously though?

IF: an entire continent is saved from the ravages of war by the ancient art of sexting via treaty negotiations Space Royalty: ‘she stabbed me? god-fucking-dammit I am so in love with her’ Piracy Pay: you get to chug your drink every time I kill a character

7. If your protagonists fought to the death, which one would win? Protags? Depends if morals were removed, and whether it was on-on-one. Koronis, if not -he’s an emperor with black magic and an entire galaxy-wide army. If it was on-on-one with minimised morals, Ace would stand a damn good chance. Boy is smarter than he gives himself credit for, and very adaptable. Galaxy is also pretty viable. Girl can swing a superpowered punch like she means it, and she hasn’t survived this long on luck alone.

8. Which protagonist(s) would survive the zombie apocalypse? Koronis would. Ace would die trying to save someone else. Solaris would...provided Monarch was dragging him around, and even then they might go down together in a dramatic last stand. Galaxy would be in charge of a small, benevolent queendom. Cleo would, those plant skills would make her handy to any new civilisation. Fact would go down staving off the hoardes so everyone else could run. Rosalie would think she was the weak link of her group, but they would probably keep her alive; L’aura would kick zombie ass.

9. Which is your favorite story you have written or are working on? Space Royalty is damn fun to write -the benefits of extravagant, overdramatic space operas I suppose. Piracy Pays has had a good reception, so I’m pretty proud of that. Hopefully I can keep the momentum going until the end! It is a huge pain o write though

10. Which of your characters is your favorite villain and why? Raph is my evil supervillin crimelord Big Bad and I adore him utterly

11. When do you find is the best time of day for writing? Evening! 8pm-1am

*******************************************************************************************

tagged by the lovely @a-sundeen! this is so old I bet you don’t even remember tagging me, oopsie

1. When you’re describing a new character, what feature do you usually note first? Build, usually, as in their height/weight ratio, muscles/skinniness or lack of, how they carry themself etc. The reason for this is that I often start with the macro ‘impression’ of the character before zooming in on a few specifics. I try to use an interesting description or comparison here as well.

2. Do any of your characters play an instrument or really enjoy music in general? If so, what instrument (or what genre, if it’s the latter)? I am the least musical person on planet earth, so making my characters musical often doesn’t occur to me. Koronis can sing and play the space-piano (forced childhood lessons), and Jade can play the violin, but neither of them are passionate about it. Kolya/Cynosure (the popstar/supervillain) is very very musical, but I skip around a lot of the specifics because I’m a big cheater. He mostly makes anti-establishment and anti-hero music, but he’s one of those artists who strays all over different genres.

3. Which musical artist usually gets you the most pumped to write? Les Friction does good dramatic music and they’re not so well known, so I like to tell people about them when I can

4. Do you prefer writing fight scenes over other types? (This is a weirdly worded question I’m sorry, rip) It’s worded fine, sunshine! And no, I don’t like writing fight scenes because I don’t like the logistics of them. There are too many limbs to keep track of, and then I feel like I’m neglecting their surroundings and potentially useful items in favour of mentally tracking who’s where and what their arms and legs are doing. I cover up for my fight scene weaknesses with too much dialogue, and I’m fully aware of that fact.

5. Is there a city or country you’d really like to write in or about? Write in is probably just where I’d like to travel, so Russia, India and South America (I know that’s general but it’s the only continent except Antarctica that I haven’t been to) are my top choices. Write about…I’d like to sink myself deep into east coast USA to really nail the feeling of Galaxy’s city and her character, and then be able to confidently write about it. I do have a study year abroad coming up in 2020, so here’s hoping…

6. Do you prefer to be warm or cold while you write? Warm! I love blankets and my big fluffy dressing gown, and on top of that all my friends always complain about how hot my house is

7. Do any of your characters have hobbies you’d like to try out someday? Fiction wise, glo-ball from Space Royalty sounds like a very entertaining game, especially when I’m kept safe behind a pod. sodding netball injuries Jade paints and draws, and I’d love to get better at art. Likewise, Rosalie sews, making and decorating her own clothes, and I’d love to be able to do that. Idk, does being a supervillain count as a hobby? I’d love to rob a bank…not even necessarily for the money, just the #aesthetic

8. What is your favorite type of character to write? Villains! And morally grey people. And characters where the POV character has no idea what they’re really thinking, who they really are, what they actually want etc. And, on the flip side, balls of positive sunshine, because they make me feel better about the world

9. Halloween is here! Which character has a costume made for them by their mom? Ahahahahaha can you tell how late I am to this.

10. Halloween is here (again)! Which character thinks the holiday is childish but dresses up anyway? I AM SO LATE. Rosalie thinks the holiday is childish but dresses up in the most elaborate homemade princess outfit ever and entertains all the kids she can find. What, it is a children’s holiday, surely she should be making them happy on their special day…

******************************************************************************************* tagged by @blackfeatherantics who is now @mbovettwrites I think? I hope?

1. How long have you been working on your WIP(s) for? Iron Flower is the oldest current one, and I started it on Christmas Day 2016

2. What song would you assign as your protagonist’s theme tune? I’ll just pick one, and Koronis’ is Young and Menace by FOB. No real lyrical reason, it just reminds me of him

3. Do you have any favourite spots (gardens, parks, cafes, etc.) where you like to write? The sofa in my living room next to my family

4. Poetry or Prose? Prose!

5. Where do you draw inspiration for your writing from? Everywhere! Other people’s writing and prompts and published novels and TV and movies and random stray thoughts and daydreaming and chatting to other writers and-

6. Is there any popular book that you wish you had written and why? The Lies of Locke Lamora because I’d take out the first 100-ish page of solid worldbuilding and backstory that seemed almost completely irrelevant to the rest of the plot?And the domino-effect of all the plot elements knocking each other into action at the end was so clever, it annoyws me that the beginning means I don’t like reccing it to people

7. What’s your planning process when you start working on a new WIP? I daydream about it for at least a few weeks to make sure the idea has staying power. Then I come up with character names, quirks, descriptions etc. finally, I lay out the plot chapter-by-chapter from the beginning to the end so I have a guiding rope throughout the whole process and I’m less likely to get stuck. Of course, that’s when I plan on letting a WIP bloom into being. Some, like Space Royalty and Piracy Pays, start off as short drabble ideas and then refuse to leave, which means I have no concrete plan for them...

8. Do you work best in mornings, afternoons, or at night? Evening!

9. Would you prefer to self-publish or work with an agent and publishing company and why? Agent and publishing company, because I value the help they can provide more than the ability to retain complete creative control over my book (since I’m crap at titles and designing book covers anyway)

10. How do your emotions/moods affect your writing? Not a lot tbh. If I’m very very tired I can’t write anything good, but I’m not sure that counts as an emotion.

11. What’s your favourite line of your WIP/one of your poems? I’ve written both of my current favourite lines for prompts, which were: ‘Time hollows all victories’ and ‘The hero doesn’t die in this one’. I’ve had other favourites in WIPs over time, but I can’t think of them right now

******************************************************************************************* tagged by the ever wonderful @time-to-write-and-suffer

1) How are you so awesome? Genetics.

2) What’s your favorite thing about your writing? The dialogue! Or the romances, which I mostly like because of the fun/cute dialogue.

3) Who’s your favorite character that you’ve written and why are they your fave? This is so mean. At the moment, Raph, because I can’t stop thinking about him and he’s so incredibly dangerous, yet on the low down (like the Mariana Trench level of low down) he has all these cute little quirks that only one or two people know about

4) One of your characters has been placed in the world/plot of a book you love. What happens? Rosalie becomes a Grisha in Leigh Bardugo’s world. She finds a sense of self-worth and gets to enjoy the little luxuries that come with the position.

5) One of your characters has been placed in the world/plot of a book you hate. What happens? X takes the place of Celeana Sardothien. He murders everyone in his path, tells the crown of Terrasen to get fucked because there’s no way he can run a whole government with any level of competance, probably murders Rowan with extreme prejudice, opens the Wyrd gates just to search the universe for Raph and bring him through so he can construct a decent government for Terrasen, would probably sleep with Dorian, would make it his new life goal to highfive Manon.

6) Your characters must fight each other to the death until only one stands victorious. Who wins? Raph. Koronis could conceivably stand a chance against him, but Raph would decimate pretty much anyone else. I think Raph would be able to stay above the fighting for longer, whereas Koronis would jump in just a touch earlier, which would be his downfall.

7) If you could steal a cover and a title from other books to use for your own WIP/s, which ones would you steal? Cover-wise I’d steal the minimalist Red Queen aesthetic, because that sleek shit is the bomb. Title-wise? That’s harder. The Lies of Locke Lamora has some sick alliteration, but I think I’d rather steal the style of it rather than the exact title

8) If you switched places with one of your characters, what would happen to you and to them? I would die, pretty much everywhere. If Rosalie swapped with me, she would slowly come out of her shell and become a fashion designer -not an A-lister, she wouldn’t like how vicious and ruthlessly businesslike you have to be, but maybe making her own high-end clothes in a small shop in London

9) What makes your style unique compared to other writers? Thanks for the existential crisis, Eff.

10) Describe your antagonist’s song number if they were a Disney villain. No Good Deed from Wicked, for Darklight

******************************************************************************************* tagged by the lovely @itstheenglishkid

1. Have you ever realized how similar an oc is to you and felt the need to change them so they aren’t so similar? I mean, Jade from Iron Flower almost shares a name with me, and she’s ginger, which did concern me for a while, but hopefully she’s nothing like me personality wise (or else I’d have to do some serious self-reflection)

2. Do any of your ocs like candles? I bet Rosalie loves pretty candles, especially patterned or strongly scented ones! Anything luxurious that she can’t afford, really

3. Do you normally write settings that are (or are based on) places you know intimately (ie your home town)? Oh god no. I like sweeping Chinese-inspired castles or creaking pirate ships or far flung space universities and man-made planets. I’m really not a contemporary writer though, so I guess this isn’t much of a surprise?

4. What is a book that feels similar to your own wip? Ahahaha, which WIP? Piracy Pays has similar vibes to @boothewriter‘s pirates and probably also @noodlewrites’ pirates (I’m guessing? I haven’t read any excerpts from you I’m sorry). Space Royalty is just weird. Iron Flower is probably similar to a lot of generic fantasy YA, like Red Queen and whatnot.

5. Do you have a dream cast for your ocs? I don’t really faceclaim? Or know much about a wide array of actors, so no, not really.

6. Are you good at story titles? Do they come easily to you? I am abysmal at story titles, holy shit. I mean, you can see the evidence scattered around this post. Piracy Pays and Space Royalty are just placeholder names, but I’m not convinced I’ll come up with anything good to replace them. Iron Flower is alright in that its relevant to the story and fits into the series title (The Flowers of War) but…idk, its not setting the stars alight or anything.

7. Do you ever change oc names once you’ve started a wip? Not often, though I am considering changing Ace’s name because I don’t think ‘Seb’ suits him. Only question, what to??

8. Which people have you let read your work? I mean, all of y’all have the opportunity to read Piracy Pays. No one has read Iron Flower, and I’m stretching myself by letting @rrrawrf-writes @lux-deorum@haphazardlyparked read Space Royalty in its raw first draft stage.

9. What usually catches your attention about a book first? Style? Characters? Plot? I’m quite an easy reader to catch and hold tbh. What makes me love a book is a clever plot. For me, a very strong plot can carry weak-ish characters, but I can never read super deep characters with no plot.

10. Do you have a favourite author? Probs Rick Riordan, or Julia Golding.

******************************************************************************************* tagged by the wonderful @typeaadventures

1. How many works in progress do you have? Properly, three. Iron Flower, which is written (143k) but needs editing, Piracy Pays which y’all are reading, and Space Royalty which crossed 30k about a week ago

2. Do you/would you write fanfiction I used to! I stopped in Y12/13 because I didn’t have enough time to do fic and original writing, and I haven’t really had the time to pick it back up.

3. Do you prefer paper books or ebooks? Either, I’m not fussed. Though if it has a really pretty cover, I’ll be hankering after a paper copy

4. When did you start writing? 14-ish on Young justice fanfic

5. Do you have someone you trust that you share your work with? Not all of my work, but yeah, I have a lovely server and also some irl friends that get the junk landed on them

6. Where is your favourite place to write? At home chilling with my family while we all do stuff

7. Favourite book as a child? Dragonfly by Julia Golding

8. Writing for fun or publication? Hopefully publication, but I know I need to improve a lot first, honing my skills etc.

9. Have you taken writing classes? Not a lick

10. What inspired you to write? Gotta get those stories out of my head and onto the page, man. Gotta get that sweet sweet representation out there too.

thanks everyone! xx

#tag game #about the author #long post

12 notes · View notes

some-flyleaves · 7 years

Text

for “no particular reason” some thoughts on stuff I’ve watched/read lately

spoilers ahead but most of these have been out for a while by now

Beauty and the Beast remake

overall entertaining and well-animated, though I still prefer the original

some of the story tweaks were neat and I especially liked the subplot about the cursed servants becoming less sentient(?) as time went on

others were kinda unnecessary imo, the whole opening scene being a glaring example. also giving the Enchantress a bigger role is neat in theory but kinda definitely raises a few Questions

not fond of the autotuned lead singer which is even more obvious comparing soundtracks

the furniture designs cannot grow on me They Simply Can Not, you can’t get nearly as many lines of action or squash & stretch out of a hyperrealistic CGI teapot

on that note the original’s beast design is still the best design, shout-out to my family for calling the live-action prince a “surfer dude”

at the end of the day idk what to make of the LeFou Discourse(TM) but shout-out to the little bit where Potts was like “you’re too good for him [Gaston]” and all things considered I thought it was a biiit more than what those cynical meme posts suggest. mind I’m not sure what I would’ve thought if I didn’t know about the whole shebang beforehand

it was apparently enough to get the film banned in a few countries, which doesn’t equal Instant Representation Pinnacle obviously but ehhhh that’s another topic for another time

Maleficent is still the best live-action “remake” of the films disney’s been churning out lately imo my onion, but I can’t say any of them have really disappointed me? (unless the first Alice counts; all I remember is that it was weird, which I guess is a given considering the source material but idk live action loses so much charm. definitely haven’t watched the second and have no interest in thereof)

anyway Mulan is one of my favorites so fingers crossed...!

Moana

very predictable but heck if that oscar bait song hasn’t been intermittently stuck in my head since

big earworm shout-outs to “You’re Welcome” and “Shiny” too but this website has ruined the latter sequence to an extent because I’m half convinced someone in production there has a vore fetish

in any case that was way too good a villain song for a one-scene show-stealer wtf the fuck

Moana’s voice & overall expressiveness fuels my soul

also it was GORGEOUS, more than compensates for another ~coming of age~ plot with fantastic colors

I have a lot of questions about the sentience of the ocean

what do you mean the Obligatory Animal Companion was a chicken and not the pig

okay ngl I didn’t quite catch the angry volcano spirit woman also being the green lady? I don’t think...? aw heck it’s been a little while by now but the ending was neat

how fucking old is Maui

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle - if you recognize that name it’s because, as I found out after reading, he’s the guy who leads the band responsible for a song I had on repeat hell for at least a couple months after discovering it via this wonderful, wonderful "lyric.. comic... thing” </ungodly run-on>

if this seems completely out of nowhere it’s because it is. I’ve jacketed and shelved a lot of new books, and while a good handful catch my interest, few compel me to check it out before heading home for the day

off the top of my head the other most recent book this happened with was No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale (heads up for a non-graphic image of hanging on the cover), which was... oh holy shit that was over three years ago I don’t read often enough nowadays x_x

that one started strong but, around if not at the point where the protag was making out with the secondary dude, took a sharp turn towards the cliche & general What Is This Fuckery. but I digress

seriously no image on the internet can do this cover justice, the vaguely vaporwave-lookin part is actually very dark and the whole thing shines like one of those rain puddles mixed with.. gasoline? oil?? whatever makes it rainbow-y at a certain angle

I only skimmed the inside flap description before diving right in the night I took it out, and I realized a good chapter or two in that I’d unintentionally picked up a horror novel.

well. kinda? horror-ish?? despite there being no killer on the loose, no supernatural monster on the prowl, not even an invasion of alien farmers federally paid to invade your small town, basically no imminent looming dagger above the protagonist’s head, it’s VERY unsettling for the most part and I gotta give it major kudos for that

<SPOILER class=“mild”>also huge shout-out to the subtle switch to first-person at a key moment, then scattered throughout from there on.</SPOILER> it was at that point I had to reread the description to see what I’d actually gotten myself into and decided I was gonna read this sucker in one sitting or I wouldn’t be able to sleep

(skip this bullet point if you don’t like vague ending spoilers) despite that it manages to leave off on a somber, even sentimental note. pretty darn satisfying, though upon further thought there are a few big questions left unanswered that probably should’ve been addressed. (/vague end spoilers)

overall I’d recommend it if you’re looking for an interesting little read that might send a few chills from atmosphere alone but also makes you think*. just don’t start reading expecting a chapter or two before bed will do help you fall asleep.

*yeah yeah I know “makes you think” is something of a meme phrase at this point, but screw it I like my media when it actually engages the viewer/reader for more satisfying payoff. I’m not a fan of the “lol intellectualis” thing anyway V: but I digress.

Kubo and the Two Strings

ftr the record I called Beetle being the dad from his debut

my god Laika really likes their bugs and creepy hands (based on this and Coraline at least, I’ve seen ParaNorman but don’t remember much). this is absolutely a compliment.

voice acting didn’t thrill me, with the exceptions of the old lady & spirit sisters, but got dang those facial expressions

magic worldbuilding left a lot to be desired but it took place in fantasy China(/Japan? as with The Last Airbender I think we’re looking at another fictional Asian blend) and I for one am a sucker for that so I can let it slide

climactic fight felt kinda shoehorned, when the moon spirit dude showed up looking like a nice old man I almost thought they were gonna go for a less confrontational ending sequence - which I guess it kinda did but also the obligatory “join me and we can rule forever” stuff came up. I dunno I liked the spirit fish form ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

don’t get me wrong here I did enjoy it, I guess I was just expecting a lot more from all the talk about kids being able to handle mature themes and whatnot? ah well the conflict wasn’t quite Good Versus Evil so that was neat

was the moon spirit just a regular old dude all along though? is the moon going to rise again even with him hanging out among mortals? is he mortal now?? how does the Plot Amnesia work???? can someone tell him who he really was even if it’s not flattering??????

idk for some reason I feel like I’m being harsher here than anything else so far, really did enjoy it though. LOVED the 2d animation in the credits and I absolutely must emphasize how fucking awesome the animation is, being primarily stop-motion and all. they set a very high standard with Coraline and cartwheeled over it with Kubo holy hell

also I have a new desktop background

Wings of Fire Book 1: The Dragonet Prophecy - Iiiii actually haven’t finished reading this one just yet, saving the last part for when I finish at least one mcfucking assignment, but here goes nothin:

if you take a shot for every blatant violation of Show Don’t Tell you’ll be dead three chapters in, not sure if that’s because this is a middle-grade book or what

that said I find the plot & its overall direction intriguing enough to continue and, much as I may internally groan at the repetitive characterization and disney villain dialogue, I thought it was worthwhile and already have the next book checked out ;V

what can I say there are dragons there’s a war and it’s a very interesting take on the whole “because you are the Chosen Ones we will raise you here for hero training” deal

there’s also some intriguing worldbuilding with regards to the “scavengers” and “the Scorching,” not sure how much those are covered in this book but a friend who recommended the series in the first place says it’s some kind of post-apocalyptic thing?? nice.

not really related but shout-out to that one commenter in Script Frenzy who told me it was jarring or weird or something to have my dragon protags straight-up eat a few human researchers. I mean they weren’t wrong and it’s not like the WoF good guys have eaten any people (onscreen, at least) but still. I don’t read dragon stories for the humans >:T

in any case, sorta wondering if that one surviving scavenger will come back in any way later...? chekov’s human.

but seriously we don’t need to be beaten over the head with exactly why each dramatic plot twist is indeed dramatic, I could practically hear the manufactured gasps

despite that there are also descriptive passages of fun events like characters getting their necks snapped or screaming in agony as poison seeps through their scales! and we've barely scraped the surface of the Horrors of War!! >:Dc

conclusion of sorts for this disorganized mishmash of bullet points: why yes I am one of those unrelatable fucks who doesn’t buy the whole “I will defend a shitty shebang of a plot if the characters connect” thing how are you. what can I say, even if I don’t have any particular fandoms right now, I still have Thoughts On Media and no one can stop me from throwing a good ~90 minutes into typing ‘em up despite having other responsibilities ;’V

tune in next time for... well honestly I dunno if this is gonna become a regular thing, but whatever thanks for readin feel free to like reply and follow and see you next time on a-flyleaf dot tungler dot corn~

#''no particular reason'' by which I mean Procrastination Supreme #.rtf #*watches this get longer than my current essay in progress* swell!

3 notes · View notes

kraken-with-a-plan · 7 years

Text

Thoughts on “Down to Agincourt”

(After reading less than a fifth of it)

This is not a review, just some thoughts and an opportunity for myself to reflect on what I’ve read.

-I’ve heard a lot of great things about “Down to Agincourt” by seperis, but I have to say, the first work in the series seemed more like a prologue to me than a 150k words long first “part”. It was missing the typical structure of storytelling one might expect from a complete work, and for that reason I don’t think it could be translated into a first “book” in a series, were it ever to be officially published. It also gave me the impression of being unnecessarily long in a way only fanfiction can get away with. Don’t get me wrong, “unnecessarily long” in terms of fiction is usually a good thing, as it makes for much more detailed and in-depth explorations of characters than is usually afforded by published fiction, but in this case I felt that it was unnecessary in the sense that large parts of it just weren’t very engaging. I felt like the same thing could have been said or conveyed in far fewer words. At the same time I can appreciate the stylistic side of it, and how it might contribute to a certain tone that might be necessary for the rest of the work. I do have to hand it to the writer, if there’s any place to use length as a stylistic tool, it’s in fanfiction. That’s the only avenue where it really works, in my opinion. The question is, perhaps, if it was deliberate or not.

-I’m a little ways into the second work now, though, and I’m still waiting for it to start going somewhere. There are a lot of depictions of daily command decisions and technical operations, and many of them feel like poorly concealed bits of exposition (or worldbuilding, I guess). There’s a lot of worldbuilding.

-On a base level, I can’t help but compare DTA to the only other really long piece of Supernatural fanfiction I’ve read recently, which is “Ninety One Whiskey” by komodobits. In contrast with DTA’s million words and counting, Ninety One Whiskey is complete at 400k. The difference, I guess, is that the latter is a historical wartime AU while the former is an apocalyptic, Endverse AU, but I have to say that unlike DTA, Ninety One Whiskey was gripping and engaging more or less from beginning to end. There may have been some slow parts in the middle, but though there were many depictions of battles, they always served a purpose and were gripping to read in and of themselves. Maybe they’re just two entirely different works of literature, in that Ninety One Whiskey was a ‘can’t put it down’ work of fiction from the start while DTA relies on extensive worldbuilding and more introspective development. I couldn’t tell you, but either way there is still something that makes me want to continue reading DTA. Keep in mind I’m less than 200k words in.

-I have two thoughts on the language itself, one positive, and one not so much. There’s obviously a lot to say about the style, none of which I’m equipped to express, except that it is obviously a competently written piece of fiction, and that Dean and Cas’ voices are accurate and distinct from each other.

--The positive thing I took note of was that I came across quite a lot of words I don’t know, and I should be keeping a list of words like that to look up later and memorize, but I haven’t been doing that nearly as diligently as I should be (as I’m looking at getting a bachelor’s degree in English at some point but I’m not a native speaker). Reading this prompted me to start actually taking down the words I don’t know, and it’s always nice to feel like you’re learning something, like you’re receiving some mental stimulation when you’re reading fanfiction instead of what you’re supposed to be reading (I mean, perspicacity? I could have sworn there were already several other words in English that mean the same thing).

---As a sidebar, one of my favorite scenes of DTA so far was in the very beginning, when Castiel gets back to his car after witnessing Lucifer incinerate Dean��s body. The author doesn’t explicitly say that Dean’s in the car but Castiel’s immediate reflections of “Don’t look back” and that he wouldn’t make the same mistake as Orpheus, these are clear indications that yeah, Dean’s in the car (even though we might not know exactly which Dean). I feel like this scene is kind of indicative of the rest of the story. Due to the implications of Castiel casting himself as Orpheus - and by extension, Dean as Eurydice - we get an immediate feel for how deep Castiel feels that his connection with Dean is, something that is later reflected by the whole talk of Dean as Castiel’s charge (and what that means). For a large part of the story that follows, Castiel doesn’t show any of this emotion or regard towards Dean, but that scene stuck with me, and for a while it was what made me keep reading.

----The negative thing I keep running into in this fic, that just seems to be a part of how the author writes, is when a line of dialogue said by one character is immediately followed by another character’s name. This is an example taken from chapter 3 of work #2, “It’s the Stars That Lie”:

"Dean thought it was an accident." Cas smiles at him, admitting nothing. "Lecture all the way home?"

I wonder if this is a legitimate thing that happens in published works - I couldn’t tell you - but it’s definitely a pet peeve of mine either way. My brain, at least, is conditioned to read the above line and immediately assume that Cas is the one speaking, since his name appears right after the dialogue (Dean is the one speaking). It happens several times every chapter that I have to re-read a line of dialogue and the surrounding context to be sure I understand who’s speaking. Sometimes context takes care of it and then it’s not a problem, but the author does this fairly frequently, and a lot of the time it’s just confusing. If I were the one writing this, I would have written that line something like this:

"Dean thought it was an accident." Cas smiles at him, admitting nothing. "Lecture all the way home?"

This may sometimes also be context-dependent, but for me at least, this format is a lot more intuitive. While the language itself in DTA is slightly challenging from time to time, this aspect is what’s most challenging, and not in a good way.

-I’ll keep reading, because it feels like a lot of groundwork has been laid and I’m expecting it to pick up, but if it still feels stationary by the end of work #2 I don’t know if I’ll be interested enough to continue. For what it’s worth, I had come across this author before, back when I was reading a lot of Adam Lambert RPF, and this author has written one of the more well-regarded works within that fandom, “(This Is) Not a Statement”, and while it was a long time ago since I read it, I have nothing but good things to say about it.

I also already like Down To Agincourt, but I want to like it enough to read a million words of it, and as of now that’s still up in the air.

#down to agincourt #destiel #fanfiction #dta #also i'm pretty sure the author described chuck's eyes as brown somewhere in the beginning and that's just unacceptable

1 note · View note