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#just my way of doing it
kathaynesart · 1 year
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I love your storytelling! I was wondering if you’d give tips for outlining and planning a story, I adore your pacing and different arcs. I’m new to writing and I’m having trouble keeping things cohesive even with an outline and I just wanted to know if you had any perspective or tips to share. Don’t feel pressured to answer. I love your replica au and hope you are doing well!
Aw thank you so much!  Sure I can talk about that.  Mind you aside from a screen writing course I took in college I am entirely self taught.  This is just information I’ve absorbed and worked out over the past couple decades of personal writing. More below the cut.
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WRITING/OUTLINING STYLE
For starters you need to figure out what style of outlining works for you.  I’ve been told there are two types  of writers.   The Architect and the Gardener.  The Architect is someone who has the entire framework plotted out and builds off of that.  The Gardener starts with a basic setup and lets the story flow naturally and chronologically from there, basing it entirely off of their extensive knowledge of the world, characters, and how they interact within it. 
There are draw backs to both sides. Gardeners can often times write themselves into a corner or lose track of where the story should go (leading to lots of unnecessary fluff and loose ends).  While architects have a habit of ignoring a lot of the important “middle stuff” that leads to their major predetermined plot points and sometimes don’t realize how the story is naturally leaning in other directions, making it jarring when they try to force it back on track. 
I like using both methods but in different situations.  For example before I even put pen to paper I already knew what I wanted the beginning and ending of Replica to be as well as a few pivotal scenes. I had a basic framework.  However that framework has grown and changed over time as I’ve nurtured it.  So I’ve come up with my own term I like to call “the Greenhouse Method,” where you may create the basic framework but understand that things within it can change and warp the structure to something entirely new. Just make sure it doesn’t go too off course. 
That method may not work for everyone  so I recommend looking inward to see what variation of the methods work best for you.  Because if you’re not enjoying the process then there’s no point. 
With this method I tend to list out major scenes of importance and then slowly figure out how they flow or cut into each other.  Doing this involves several other factors I will state below…
THEMING
One important thing is to know what is the theme or message of your story.  This doesn’t have to be obvious but every good story normally has an underlying theme.  There needs to  be a point.  For example, Sherk is about accepting yourself for who you are.  Jurassic Park is a warning about playing God.   
Replica at its core is about cherishing your self worth and holding onto hope and loved ones even in the darkest times.  Even when they’re not there anymore.  
Whatever it may be, find that theme that means something to you, and make sure that feeling stays with you and the plot, even if subtly.  
CHARACTERIZATION
Have a strong knowledge of the characters in your story.  I achieve this by doing little exercises on how they would react to certain incidents or answering questionnaires.  By doing this it allows them talk to each other within any scene I have setup but leave void of my own input. Instead I simply take notes rather than force them to say something they’re supposed to say (very Gardener style).  Often times letting the characters be themselves allows them to say and do things I find far more entertaining than what I initially had planned. 
It’s important with characters though that you make sure you let them be themselves rather than have them act out for pure drama/plot sake.  I see that a lot in fan communities where characters will begin to cry or overreact in ways that seem out of character and it can really break my immersion. So know your characters.  Know everything about them from what their favorite cookie is to how they deal with trauma.  It’s all important to lead to the most natural of interactions. 
SCENES
When plotting out scenes make sure that every one of them has a point. Every single scene.  If there is nothing new to be learned, or changed, or shared, then there is no point beyond a few brief sentences to transition it to the next important scene.  Avoid fluff that is just fluff for the sake of fluff.  You can have fluffy scenes, sure, but make sure there is something else to be gained from it.  I’ve read scenes that are literally just the same character harping over the same issue they’ve been dealing with without coming to any new conclusion or going through any sort of change, be it internal or external from the plot.  I don’t like having my time wasted as a reader and neither should you as a writer!
THE ZONE
I don’t see many people talk about this but I think it’s important for any writer to find a space where they can zone out and let the story bloom in their mind. No judgement, no analyzing, just pure fun. For some this happens in the shower, or sitting in front of the laptop with a cup of tea, or me driving too fast down the freeway blasting music in my ears.  I come up with all my best stuff while driving.  Sometimes I will extend a drive just to finish a scene properly.  Whatever it is, find what helps you get in that zone and see if you can play something out in your head.  It helps keep me inspired for sure. If you've managed to come up with something you like, make sure to write it down and then come back to it later to look at it from a more analytical perspective. Does it work with my theme? Are the characters reacting realistically? Where does this happen in the timeline and how can it impact future store plot points? Etc.
EXTRA: EASY MISTAKE TO AVOID
This isn't so much about outlining, just writing in general, but when you start writing, be sure to choose a tense and stick with it.  Many writers, myself included, prefer past tense.  Though I’ve seen some people do present that can work well.  Just make sure whatever you do stays consistent. 
Example BAD: “Jane WENT to the store, hoping to find some crackers.  She  SPEAKS with the clerk to ask if he had any.” 
Example GOOD: “Jane WENT to the store, hoping to find some crackers.  She  SPOKE with the clerk to ask if he had any.”  
SUMMARY
Know your theme/message
Know your characters
Know your genre
Every scene should have a point and be interesting in some way 
Recommend for beginners having an idea of where you want the story to conclude and see how that links up with your theme
Hope that helps.  Sorry if I went off on a tangent but I feel like a lot of the story telling process is interconnected when done correctly.  Let me know if you have any more specific issues you want addressed!
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butchfalin · 5 months
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the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again
#yeehaw#1k#5k#10k#posts that got cursed. blasted. im making these tag updates after... 19 hours?#also i have been told it should say speech loss bc nonverbal specifically refers to the permanent state. did not know that!#unfortunately i fear it is so far past containment that even if i edited it now it would do very little. but noted for future reference#edit 2: nvm enough ppl have come to rb it from me directly that i changed the wording a bit. hopefully this makes sense#also. in case anyone is curious. though i doubt anyone who is commenting these things will check the original tags#1) my friend did not do this on purpose in any way. it was not intended to distract me or to hit on me. im a lesbian hes a gay man. cmon now#he felt very bad about it afterwards. i thought it was hilarious but it was very embarrassed and apologetic#2) “why didn't he use 🫵🏼?” didn't exist yet. “why didn't he use 🆗?” dunno! we'd been using a lot of hand emojis. 👌🏼 is an ok sign#like it makes sense. it was just a silly mixup. also No i did not invent 👉🏼👌🏼 as a gesture meaning sex. do you live under a rock#3) nonspeaking episodes are a recurring thing in my life and have been since i was born. this is not a quirky one-time thing#it is a pervasive issue that is very frustrating to both myself and the people i am trying to communicate with. in which trying to speak is#extremely distressing and causes very genuine anguish. this post is not me making light of it it's just a funny thing that happened once#it's no different than if i post about a funny thing that happened in conjunction w a physical disability. it's just me talking abt my life#i don't mind character tags tho. those can be entertaining. i don't know what any of you are talking about#Except the ppl who have said this is pego/ryu or wang/xian. those people i understand and respect#if you use it as a writing prompt that's fine but send it to me. i want to see it#aaaand i think that's it. everyday im tempted to turn off rbs on it. it hasn't even been a week
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ibtisams · 3 months
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My father was martyred by Israel on 10 October 2023 after sacrificing his care in hospital so the injured children could take priority. Today would have been his 60th birthday. He was always selfless, kind, and giving for others. My father gave up everything for me to be able to have a better life, because that is what he always dreamed for me and my sister. The world suffered a great loss when he died, and my heart is always with him and every Palestinian who has lost someone.
In his honour and memory, I would love for anyone who is able to do so to consider donating to The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
The PCRF is an amazing organisation that does so much for those in Gaza right now, including helping provide food, water and medicine. You can donate any amount you are able to- there is no minimum! My father would have given his very last cent if he saw the way Palestine was continuing to suffer after over 100 days with this limited aid, so I know celebrating him by helping others is the least he would have wanted.
I saw @parrot-parent do a very successful donation match and I thought it was such a good idea so I will also match all donations up to $500! If you feel comfortable sending me proof of the amount of your donation, I will match it as a donation at the end of February. (My messages are set to mutuals only, but if you donate and we aren’t mutuals if you send an ask with the proof I will make sure to answer it privately.)
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oars · 7 months
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lgbtlunaverse · 7 months
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Nothing will dispell the "the curtains were just blue" myth faster than writing something yourself, because the amount of pretentious symbolism i am putting in my silly little fanfics is ridiculous. I mean SO much with these words, literally every single one of them. This fic has twenty five typos and zero correct uses of punctuation but if there's curtains you bet your ass I put thought into what colour they were.
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squidsmeister · 10 months
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dungeon meshi is my favorite road-trip comedy film
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mobius-m-mobius · 6 months
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#the Nowhere Man who waits and the God of Stories who watches
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hinamie · 14 days
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surprise it's yuri!!!in 2024
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inkskinned · 1 year
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probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
#this is true#writeblr#warm up#relatedly for some reason one of our Favorite Jokes#amongst the Siblings#is like - ''this is so good u will love it''#while we are reacting to something we OBVIOUSLY find viscerally disgusting#like we will be actively retching and be like ''nooooo it's so good''#to the point that i sometimes get nervous if someone outside my family is like oh u should try it its good#(obvi we never force each other to eat anything. we are all just curious birds and#like. we're GONNA try the new thing.)#edit to answer why we had so much vanilla:#my mom is a very good cook and we LOVE to bake. so she just had a lot of staples in the house.#it's one of those things that's like. have u ever continuously thought ''ah i should get butter im probably out''#even tho u are not out of butter. so u end up with like 5 years of butter.#my mom would do that in a costco but like with vanilla extract#to be fair we WERE always using WAY TOO MUCH bc we were kids#so like she was right to stock up#ps. yes we were VERY sick after this lol i just didn't want to include it in the post in case ppl had an ick about that#u can tell it's real bc we knew "oh no we fucked up that's too much vanilla to waste'' but our reaction was to just. keep drinking it#> sibling understanding that vanilla extract isn't free > knowledge mother doesnt mind if we use it for milkshakes#> sibling choice to maybe get in a loophole of ''not wasting it'' if we drink it bc that's the same as using it (not throwing it out)#listen bud i was like 13 and my sister was like 9#when my mom discovered this we. got in. A LOT. of trouble. a lot of it. a LOT of it.#3rd edit bc i guess it isn't clear - i am 1 of my brother's 2 little sisters#i am the middle child#out of all the ways i have had to explain a post before being like ''did u forget a middle child can happen'' is my favorite
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thriftdyke · 6 months
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it really does bother me how no one can seem to answer the question “what even is romantic attraction, really.” like some people are like “it’s who you wanna kiss and cuddle <3” and I’m like ok well kisses and cuddles can be either sexual or platonic depending on context. “It’s who you feel passion/desire/arousal for” well that just sounds like sexual attraction which you can have without even knowing somebody so I fail to see how that’s romantic. “It’s who you want to go on dates with” I go on dates with friends all the time plus “date” is a social construct anyway there’s really no innate difference between a date and hanging out. “it’s who you have deep feelings for” great news for you that can be literally any type of relationship. my friend told me she defined it as “who you wanna give roses to” and I’m like do u hear urself??? like the more I talk to people the more I’m convinced romance and romantic attraction is an elaborate socially fabricated illusion that has no real defining characteristics. and like there’s nothing Wrong with it being a constuct but why people are so attached to defending the supremacy of it is something I cannot for the life of me figure out
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tawnysoup · 3 months
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The one eyed Siffrin Wink™
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andthebeanstalk · 11 months
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Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
#hlep#original#mental health#my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need.#the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it#i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support#and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist.#the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28!#a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents.#they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of#huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the#longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong.#and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives.#you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead?#or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of.#no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow.#i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel#i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong.#just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop
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taichouu · 6 months
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My favorite Ygo Fandom phenomenon is people editing cards out of anime caps so it just looks like the duelist is flipping the bird
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sapsolace · 3 months
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obsessed w these boneheads as of late :]
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bigfatbreak · 16 days
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Birds of a Feather previous / next
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#my art#feralnette au#birds of a feather#long tags#sorry I went apeshit in the tags#LETS SAY IT ALL TOGETHER NOW#I - M - A - G - OOOOOOOOO#its fun drawing marinette's back to Alya and having her appear stout and unstoppable and totally logical#and then you see her face and she's like two seconds from completely snapping and is keeping it together by a thread#as a note just because mari feels very certainly abt smth doesnt mean she's right. feelings can be valid and also irrational#in the throes of grief she decided it was better to be alone than to lose someone again so she started pulling away#and lila made pulling away very very very easy to do#shes also vaguely aware she's being unfair in pinning this on alya which is why she started spinning the drain on cockmoth again#legitimately all the shit that's happened to her wouldn't have been so catastrophic if he was never in the picture and she knows it#but the bitterness of her bestie choosing a fantastic liar over her at the worst of times stiiiiiings#alya's personal timing was bad but lila really took advantage of the fact that marinette had been acting off and weird#she basically clocked marinette as being unstable from SOMETHING and made up a lie about her#knowing she wouldn't have the strength to defend herself#between her social life going tachy bc of lila and losing fu in a way that felt like personhood death marinette was really put on the spot#and alya doing her thing of busting in there and assuming her bias is correct was a terrible combo#essentially marinette is highly unstable and alya is just realizing that#busting in and giving her a lecture when she's slightly hysterical and definitely delirious from exhaustion is NOT the way#to show her she's self sabotaging#cuz thats just gonna make her double down on self sabotaging. bc marinette will not accept that she is also a CHIIIIILD
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spiderversegf · 3 months
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i have started asking myself “how can i make this more fun?” in regards to the things i have to do and it is such a small difference but it brings me so much delight
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