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bye-bye-firefly · 8 months

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Ooh! So, ya know how a few days ago you were talking about how the first fic you wrote was a choromatsu x reader fic? I suddenly remembered you mentioning that the first fic you wrote was a time loop fic and now I’m curious as to what the plot for that was

Also, I just came to the realization that I don’t have to scroll through my following list to find your account, I can just use the search button. I know this is probably like really obvious to everyone except for me but I am very excited about this!

okay so the plot was essentially like. it starts out super normal right. for a WHILE its a normal x reader was the idea. like you get you (reader) just hanging out with the boys and getting closer to them, though i really wanted to focus on choromatsu at the time. long after this fic was deleted, i also had the idea of making it be like a multiple-choice thing so i have a bunch of chapters with the same numbers with different letters beside them to differentiate choices, which was ALSO going to play into the fic. i wasnt really that far into the story when i deleted it, so i couldve reasonably added chapters where you get to know all the boys and get closer to them. but yeah you think its normal youre lulled into a false sense of security and then i was going to reveal the time loop like BAM theres a time loop. and it was going to become CRAZY TOWN in there but i never got to that part because i was very flustered and frustrated with it. but choromatsu was aware of it and then the reader became aware of it

i also had the idea of it being like. the end of the choromatsu route feels like its all settled and done with but then it reveals its not. the loop keeps going or the reader resets. and then if a reader was really curious they could go through the other x reader chapters and see what the fuck is going on and it would basically be like There is no proper end. and the whole thing hinges on the fact that you, the reader, are NOT COMPLIANT WITH THE CANON OF THE UNIVERSE. you DO NOT EXIST in this story and you SHOULDNT. this SHOULDNT be something thats happening and YOU ARE AWARE OF THIS. i wanted it to get really meta and the horror was going to be amazing i had a scene planned where the reader goes to hang out with one of the boys, walks into the house, and theres nothing there and you just get to talk to god. i wanted it to very quickly spiral out of control with the multiple options that you could respond with and for the text of god to become very jumbled and nonsensical (because theyre answering ALL THE RESPONSES instead of JUST ONE because there is NO WAY to tell which response you choose in the format i was writing the story in) until you get to the end, where god kicks you out and tells you to keep going. i wanted the final chapters to be either a) the reader systematically removing themselves from the story as a selfless act for the boys or b) the reader KEEPS FIGHTING the will of the universe until the fic collapses in on itself. like the universe just gives up and you can TELL it just gives up. the universe lets out a final breath

talking about it you realise that this is a really huge idea that really i could not do on my own. i think that i could write an individual story like this and i do love the idea of meta-commentary, ive always wanted to get meta in my stories, but this is a REALLY BIG idea. especially considering there are six brothers? and because they are six different people, there needs to be six different plots? like yeah im not doing that . sure its all going to eventually focus on the time loop but like. i need to keep lulling the people who choose osomatsu into a false sense of security until he learns about the time loop.

and also its juggling a reader that may or may not know theyre in a time loop. you have to constantly write as if it could be either or so that readers can come back and be like Holy fucking shit because that is probably the best feeling as a reader is being able to go back and Realise. and i cannot pull a nameless and have the reader character be expectant that theyre in a time loop because when that comes out, it would make more sense for the reader to be in shock no matter WHAT version of the universe theyre in. the person who should be acting like they know is choromatsu because he has a reason to. and of course, as time goes on and as you continue reading through the routes, choromatsu becomes more and more suspicious of you. but its hard to write this when its like. do you want this to be multiple choice or do you want this to centre on choromatsu. because wanting it to centre on choromatsu makes this make sense, but then adding in multiple choice and writing the multiple-choice sections at the same time, it makes the whole concept fall apart. if a reader comes into the story and starts reading the ichimatsu route, theyre going to be hit with these things that they dont even understand. theyre reading the story completely out of whack BUT THATS HOW ITS MEANT TO BE READ me making it multiple choice means that im ALLOWING this to be the experience they get.

like as banging as this story sounds in my head and as banging as the chapters i have written are (as banging as they could be considering i was 16 years old writing them) i do not think i could actually post this because it would just be really confusing to follow if you consumed the story as it was meant to be consumed which could potentially be TECHNICALLY out of order. people do this with the how to: series as well there are a lot of people who have read how to: happy and have NOOOOO fucking clue what is going on in there. they came for KARAMATSU ANGST and NOTHING MORE they DID NOT expect there to be HORROR NIGHTMARES but that is exactly what they got. so i just know that is how that would go with this series which i know for sure would fuck people up. you walk into a 150k+ jyushimatsu x reader and on the 14th chapter youre in there talking to fucking god like HELLOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

#fae's asks #also that is silly. search bar activated ^_^#love that

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jiilys · 3 years

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would u help me out for a second. im in the mood to write for the first time, and i think your style is beautiful. sitting down n actually trying though, im stuck as fuck! i’m realizing that in your dialogue/scenes you’ve got a lot of Little Things. little tiny elements that are subtle & just enough. how are you deciding that lily is building a house of cards at the moment or sirius is sitting in a tree or whatever during a given scene? how do you come up with those ideas for dialogue that are so silly & real & sneakily tender? do you know where it’s going when you begin? any advice for just… starting something?

ps: i appreciate you. you make it look easy & that’s very very cool

This is a lovely question!! Sorry it took me so long to get to it, I didn’t want to get it wrong. Also I’ve included some examples to try and explain what I mean in practise, but it also comes off rather like plugging. tragically this is unavoidable. Anyway, all that being said I have no idea how to advise you about dialogue and coming up with it, I think just listening to people talk helps. Don’t forget contractions, and when in doubt always trust the reader to keep up, real people don’t say perfect or even grammatically correct sentences a lot of the time. We also cut each other off all the time, especially when we’re trying to be funny. Like, here’s an example from warm front:

“He’s not even two. He probably would have thought it was, like, having a lie down or something.”

Harry was laughing now, “A lie down?”

“Yeah, a spontaneous, truck-induced–“

“–Permanent–“ “

–Permanent, lie-down. I’m almost jealous now actually.”

Another thing, but people say um and like or can't speak or cut themselves off, especially when they’re nervous. James when Lily says she loves him for the first time: ‘“Wow,” He breathed, “I’m– wow.” He put both hands on her cheeks and kissed her crazy, abruptly, dumbly. Her head spun.’ He can’t even speak! Dumb boy.

I think natural dialogue sometimes just requires you to read it aloud, which is very embarrassing but ultimately quite useful in trying to figure out whether something sounds normal or not. Use casual words, and try not to go dictionary hunting: if you cant think of the word chances are your character can’t either

In terms of concepts I have no idea, but I do have a few tips. I write all my short one-shots in one document (its called ‘just bad’ lmao) so its easy to start something, write a few lines, and then if it doesnt work just start a new concept, but still have all the old stuff handy. if you feel like you’ve written yourself into a corner its probably because you took a wrong turn earlier, so its just a matter of going back up and figuring out where you turned onto the dead end, or where a line could be funnier and/or sadder and/or more meaningful. Sometimes the bare bones of a decent line is there but you have to work it a little.

In this harry/ginny thing where harry is apologising for all the attention and ginny brushes him off she says:

“It’s nothing,” her voice, all force, “Anyway, it’s more funny than annoying.”

The response went through a few drafts, all variations on the same thing:

(1) “You’re funnier.” [too short, doesn’t make sense, and not really that funny. unholy trinity]

(2) “You make it funny.” Harry said, looking at her for real, “It’s not– you make it like that.” [this could work! I have no idea why I cut this, I think I forgot abt it lmao]

(3) “You’re the funniest person I know, Harry said, sincerely, and Ginny felt her heartbeat all through her, “You make it funny.” [jumping from ‘its more funny than annoying’ to getting this sincere out of nowhere is a little much, even for harry who is famously whipped]

I ended up going with this:

“It’s nothing,” her voice, all force, “Anyway, it’s more funny than annoying.”

“You’re funny.” Harry said, looking at her for real, flustered, “I mean– you make it funny. That’s all you.”

It follows the flow of the conversation and I think the way he says it, ‘you’re funny’ like its obvious, and then being like oh fuck and over-explaining it stumbling a little “I mean– you make it funny. That’s all you.”. You know when you like someone and you say something that gives you away before you can stop yourself? I wanted it to sound like that. Just gotta keep in mind how people behave, we are so stupid a lot of the time, we give ourselves away.

The thing about short stuff i find is implying a lot of history without actually describing a lot of it. I normally do this by having memories come up as almost shards, one second of feeling. You know when you’re in a conversation with someone and they mention someone or a past event, and it rises to the top of your brain, but only for a second? i find sometimes when you’re reading stuff people will try and replay entire memories or events mid-conversation, which is not something you do when you think. You don’t need to replay it beat by beat, you were there! This sounds vague as hell so I’ll try and show you what I mean:

From good crimes: “Petunia is engaged.” Lily’s voice, raw and wrong, “To Vernon. Eliza Hunt told me at the supermarket.” Sudden flashes of Petunia, the only time he’d ever met her, sat in the back of Lily’s twenty-first, pinched and whispering. “Whose Eliza Hunt?” This seems as good a thing to say as any.

pretty on the nose (the phrase ‘sudden flashes’ is pretty so i'll allow it from past me). But see how you don’t need to know how Petunia didnt talk to anyone, how she left early, how she was the odd one out: you don’t need to read all that, you already know because she was sat in the back and because pinched is such a mean verb, spiteful and sharp, you can already imagine how the evening went without me saying so

From my proposal take, after Sirius finds out they’re engaged: Sirius’ grip on his shoulder tightened for one second, still grinning, and James knew what he meant. “I know.” He said, because only Sirius had been there for all of it, when they were fifteen, drunk on Firewhiskey for the first time and James had said I think I’ve fucked it, I think I’ve fucked it but I like her for real.

you don’t need a description of the whole night, what party they were at, who they were with, what they were talking about: the important bit is that Sirius was the first person he told, and that they’re both remembering that at the same moment because they’re soulmates lmao. You know when something big happens for a friend and you feel so full of pride & love that you feel like you’ll burst into confetti?? this needed to feel like that, and you only need a flash for it

I feel like I’ve sort of strayed off from what you asked me, which is really advice on how to start something. I normally start with a line, usually of dialogue, and then try and build from there because dialogue is my thing. You might have a different thing! Some people write from concepts or locations, or an image. i might start with one or a few lines of dialogue, write them down, and then try to build from there. For example for the proposal thing I started from james just saying “Marry me”, which I find more romantic than ‘will you marry me’, purely because it sounds like he simply couldn’t stop himself from saying it, like it rushed out. Another example, this thing started from just “don’t be mad at me” “okay” James agreed instantly, because he is such a sucker for her.

When I write I don’t normally know where I’m going! I normally set out to write something I think is vaguely funny and evokes An Emotion, and then I just play around with stuff until I get there. when I write certain stuff and I have scenes in mind, stuff I want to happen, but I find that if I try to plot it to tightly its not exciting to work on, because sometimes you write a good line by accident, that you hadn’t thought of when you sat down, and you surprise yourself. That is a really nice feeling! i want to maximise that feeling.

'What I mostly try to remember is that writing something down, anything down, is useful. Sometimes you write for a whole night and dont get anything useable, but its like clearing pipes. Sometimes you have to flush through shit to get to the good bits. All the rough stuff, the things you don’t like or didn’t work, you wrote to get you to the stuff that did work. All of the bad shit got you here! It wasn’t a waste, you were working to find the good thing

If I had any tips its just the usual stuff, read! It is annoying how much that helps. Also, and I know this may make you shudder, but reading poetry is useful just because in no other literary or media form is language so important. In comics you have pictures, in novels you have plot and character, in film you all that and cinematography, but in poetry you live and die by how good the words are. If you want recs here’s my poem roundup tag, that I do sometimes, or if you want something just now read this by Anne Carson, which uses words like ‘smashing’, ‘boatwash’, and ‘green’ in the best way possible. Also it has these lines: “Recently having learned to recognize the type of tree called sycamore, / I see them in any forest— / the ones that look harrowed, / in shreds, but / go also / straight up into life,”

I mean, think of a sharper image than that?? It’s not possible. Just try remember to stay true to your characters and that in real life, the little stuff is the big stuff. Little things the people around you do normally show they care more than big speeches, and if you want to show love that’s how to make it feel lived in. You want to build a world! the little stuff is usually the world. Take some from your own or dream the ones you wish you had.

This truly was a very kind message and I’m so grateful you like my stuff, I hope any of this was even half-useful, although now reading it back it is borderline nonsensical. I’m going to bed now, good luck with the writing, and don’t forget to send it to me!!

caro xoxo

#writing bitching #said it already but loved this message it was so thoughtful. seemed pretty articulate to me i think ur writing is gunna be just fine!!!#rooting for you & anyone trying to write something rn. words suck and are difficult! they are also better than drugs & sex. regretable #kindnesses

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