Miscellaneous Fanfiction Writing Thread (Solicit Advice Here)

[Raylen Cypher]

Is there any recommendation on spacing between installments? Say, if you have a couple chapters written, should you post them in quick succession or try to keep a consistent update time between them?

Personally, if I didn't update for a time or didn't meet my self-appointed deadline, I would wait until the next set date and post/update an influx of installments at once.

[Frostyvale]

Is there any recommendation on spacing between installments? Say, if you have a couple chapters written, should you post them in quick succession or try to keep a consistent update time between them?

You can definitely post the first chapter alone, simply to get a feel for the community's reaction. I would recommend releasing everything in installments especially if you're testing an unfamiliar audience, because it's a substantial amount of mental effort to start reading a very large amount of text. If you're Dullahan, then you have established yourself and this will not be a problem and is in fact preferable. However, almost everyone else would benefit from a slow release under all circumstances.

Additionally, there is the question of burnout, or feeling overwhelmed by the rapidity of your initial release. You can obtain more commentary if you release things in pieces.

[Tobias]

depending on chapter size, I would wait at least a bit. when there is to much in a small amount of time, people get a little intimidated and put off reading it, I have found. I actually do that myself, I am like 5 chapter updates behind on prisma mayhem for a similar reason

[Prix with a Silent X]

Since this thread is a cool idea and I'm now writing an installment fic, I'll throw something in. First, my issue: When I am writing a fic that involves more than one scene in different settings (chapter-fics, or longer one-shots) I have a hard time knowing where to skip. It's not that I don't know when a conversation is concluded, exactly. It's more an issue of if Character A and Character B are going from Location C to Location D that I often don't know when it's going to be good to show them in-transit or wen it's best to just have the next chapter/section jump to the next location. I'm not sure if I can make the writing consequences of this clear without coming up with a better example, but I think that my tendency to drag and get stuck has a lot to do with not knowing what to cut. It's not a situation where I have written a scene, it needs to go, but I keep it anyway. That might happen sometimes, but this is something that happens in the plotting process itself where I am stuck not knowing exactly where clean scene breaks and time-skips go. Anyone have advice about this?

As for Xamusel's question and also to some extent Tobias's concern about his writing time, I think that it is good advice to spend a few minutes of your allocated writing time looking back over a section of your own writing you have already done and actively like before you start again. I also think that looking over at least some part of the source material or, if it's fresh enough in your mind, fanart or something like that can help get you in the headspace you need to be in. I also like music to help me shorthand associate with things. This doesn't always work, but I often have little playlists that remind me of a particular emotional idea I want to convey in my writing. Lyrical music, for me, is for brainstorming pretty exclusively, whereas I like to use instrumental music during the writing itself. I think OSTs either from the source material or that convey a scene to your mind that feels right are the most-useful. This just depends on how easily distracted and mentally-noisy you feel, though. Sometimes my life is so noisy that silence is precious for writing. Still, having just one song to listen to or something that sort of is your little writing theme-song, whether it's fic-specific or not, might help trigger the mood if you teach yourself to associate it with that.

[Xamusel]

That's... actually pretty sound advice, Holy Grail Grand Prix. I don't know why I never thought of it that way before, but thank you for that.

[VelspertheCat]

It's more an issue of if Character A and Character B are going from Location C to Location D that I often don't know when it's going to be good to show them in-transit or wen it's best to just have the next chapter/section jump to the next location.

If this period of time moves the characterization in terms of how you need to develop them for your story to get to the next step, let it stay.

[Highwayman]

It's more an issue of if Character A and Character B are going from Location C to Location D that I often don't know when it's going to be good to show them in-transit or wen it's best to just have the next chapter/section jump to the next location. I'm not sure if I can make the writing consequences of this clear without coming up with a better example, but I think that my tendency to drag and get stuck has a lot to do with not knowing what to cut.

While people often say that showing is preferable to telling, uneventful trips/transitions can be summarized in a sentence or less. Unless the trip from point C to D is a convenient location for a meaningful conversation, or unless the characters find it remarkable for some reason (Arcueid or Soujuurou might have never ridden a train before, for example), a trip/transition mini-scene is a chore to read and write.

Part of writing an engaging narrative is selecting what scenes will have the greatest impact on your reader IMO.

[Historia]

anyway, long story slightly less long, how do you handle it if you dont have a lot of time but still want to get in the zone more or less "on command"

Well, I'm late in answering, but I find that it doesn't work like that. You can't just sit down at a certain time in front of your keyboard with a document open, or in your kitchen with a pencil and pad/notebook/etc. and tell yourself to write. Forcing it will lead nowhere. Let the content of your story come naturally. Like when you're taking a shower, for instance, and you're thinking of something and then, bam, a scene of your story pops into your head. You don't know where it'll be in the story, how it'll correlate to overall narrative, but damn if it isn't something good.

First chance you get, write it down. Jot some notes. For instance, this scene came to me while I was cleaning dog-shit from my shoe: a girl looking down from a balcony at lights in the dead of night. Wrote it down soon as I got a chance. Came back it later, thought more into it, wondered, brainstormed, etc.--the scene turned into the opening of what's going to be the third chapter of You Are My King.

... Basically don't try and force out the story, but instead let it come to you.

- - - Updated - - -

With that said I was watching a movie earlier and realized first two chapters of said story could use more revision and that's the first thing I'm going to do before continuing the third. When you're constantly going back and rewriting, checking over it, etc. usually that's a good sign. So, to reinforce, you know, don't be afraid if it takes too long to get the juices pumping and the gears churning.

Oh and always make sure to get a second pair of eyes (or three or four or however many) to help look over your work.

[Sesto]

i feel like he meant the physical act of writing

because i mean i've thought up thousands of scenes for my stories that and jotted down hundreds of notes but it's all useless if i don't actually write anything.

[Historia]

i feel like he meant the physical act of writing

because i mean i've thought up thousands of scenes for my stories that and jotted down hundreds of notes but it's all useless if i don't actually write anything.

Hm.

Same thing, then. Don't force yourself to write.

Or, better yet, just write something. Anything. It doesn't matter. Long as you're writing, eventually those random lines about the boy who went to zoo or the lion that escaped will lead to, say, something relative to the story you actually want to tell.

- - - Updated - - -

But, then, you know, everyone's process is different. So take my crappy advice for what y'all will.

(I took a page from Stephen King's On Writing, so really the advice ain't even entirely mine).

[Dullahan]

as much as it's fun to sit around in a thread exchanging suffering and advice, I've been thinking whether there might not be a way for writers on this site to learn from each other in a more practical sense

I was thinking a thread centred on the idea of rewriting - where someone can post a passage or a scene they are working on (to keep things quick and responsive, unlike the Dare thread, perhaps a strict 1000-word limit would be imposed) with a few notes for direction (viz. what it is trying to achieve) and anyone in the thread could rewrite said passage as they see fit. minimalise, maximalise, disorder time, switch perspectives - go nuts.

this wouldn't be a replacement for the kind of critique people want out of beta-readers and fanfic contest judges, but it would operate in parallel. it would, in effect, provide detailed prompts for smaller, more manageable snippets that could appeal to people who are stuck in the 100-word-per-week hell of writer's block (hello) while at the same time getting people to develop the mechanical skills of writing, either by having an alternate, perhaps unexpected approach to their own work presented for consideration (the rewritee) or having to think only about the business of conveying things without the stress of having to think up something to convey (the rewriter)

create thread (y/n)?

[Frostyvale]

Yes, that's the sort of thing I find myself doing inadvertently every time I edit anything.

[SeiKeo]

y

[Rafflesiac]

Y

[Sesto]

well that's the kind of thing i thought could go in this thread but maybe a separate thread might be better

[Historia]

well that's the kind of thing i thought could go in this thread but maybe a separate thread might be better

A separate thread connected to this one, maybe?

- - - Updated - - -

But I say Yes, do it.

[Dullahan]

it's the internet fam, it's all connected

anyway, it'd be better in its own thread; this thread should remain a graveyard of ambitions doing what it's doing, while rewrites would have an independent existence, much like the dare thread

[Kirby]

Wonder if anyone would still do dares nowadays ._.

[Historia]

Wonder if anyone would still do dares nowadays ._.

Only if it's Scathach or Jeanne related.

[Dullahan]

demimondaine will surely finish one day

will surely update