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linabirb · 4 months

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how to write characters, voice dramas and mvs for your ocgram! (kind of? sort of? i'm not an expert?)

do you want to make an ocgram? do you have no idea where to start? maybe you don't know how to come up with characters for your ocgram? voice dramas are way too hard to write? how the hell are you even supposed to write mvs??

well hello there! i hope this guide can help you with doing just that!

as someone who has an ocgram (@linagram hi) and is currently trying to get everything prepared for season 3, i also was struggling. a lot. i'm kinda getting better at organizing everything now, but still, all the work you need or supposed to do for ocgram can be overwhelming, especially if you don't really have much prepared at the moment and you're just getting started.

before we proceed, if you're able to make art, edits or any other visuals for your ocgram, i recommend checking out this guide by @tsuwmya, it has a lot of useful info, references and resources. if you can't do any of that, that's fine too! you having fun with creating is more important and if you don't have the ability to create visuals, that's perfectly understandable. this guide is more about the writing part anyway, haha.

let's get started!

(warning for some spoilers for the milgram novels (at least the first one) just in case!)

this guide will be separated into parts so that it's easier to understand and you can find the part that you think is the most difficult one for you.

worldbuilding.

before we start working on characters and voice dramas, let's say you're just starting out. you want to make an ocgram, but you don't even know where to begin!

now, this is probably going to sound a little scary, but what i recommend doing before writing characters, vds and mvs is some worldbuilding. no, no, i'm not telling you to figure out everything about your ocgram lore (but if you want to, feel free to do so! i actually think it's gonna help you a lot in the future), but try to answer these questions first.

"when does your ocgram take place?"

it can be as specific as a certain date or it can be as vague as "some time before/after canongram". canongram lore doesn't really give us much info to work with so you can go wild. but figuring out even something as simple as whether your ocgram takes place before canongram or after can actually help you a lot!

"is your ocgram closer to canongram or novelgram?"

the music project and the novels' settings have their differences and both settings have their strengths. you don't have to write mvs for the novels-like ocgram, though you will still have to write the memory scenes. also, for a novel-like ocgram your characters are expected to be named after some sort of adjective that could describe their personality or be a reference to their crime/backstory (example: "nervous", "gentle", "two-side"), but their names are still supposed to be revealed closer to the end. meanwhile canongram uses the voice dramas, timeline convos and mvs (and apparently earbuds voicelines) to tell you more about the characters. figuring out the "format" of your ocgram like that can help you a lot too.

now, you have figured out these details. great! if you're feeling like writing more about how your ocgram works, let's think about these parts more.

is your ocgram just like the milgram project you've chosen as a "base"? maybe it even has the same jackalope? is the guard still named "es"? maybe there's more than one guard and more or less than ten (or five in case of novelgram, if i remember correctly) prisoners? does the prison still look exactly the same? maybe something has changed over the months or years? all of this depends on your own preferences and what you decide to do with the story. you can make your ocgram as different from canongram or as similar as you like.

again, we don't know much about canongram at the moment, so don't be afraid of coming up with the whole backstory for the prison.

when you feel like your world is ready, it's time to fill it with characters!

characters.

oh boy, the fun begins. i'm not your mom, so you can do anything you want with your ocs, but if you don't have any character concepts in mind and you don't know what to do, here are some tips!

(we're going with the canongram formula here, but you can adjust it as needed)

as you probably already know, the canongram prisoner pairs have some sort of theme. both haruka and yuno's crimes have something to do with children. both fuuta and muu's crimes have something to do with bullying. you see what i mean. figuring out themes for your prisoners could be a nice start if you don't really have any characters in mind. pick themes that sound interesting to you and that you would like to explore more.

let's go with the theme of "luck" for example. how can two (or one, or three, or any number, really) prisoners share the same theme? how can you show that? maybe one of them is really lucky and the other one is extremely unlucky?

okay, but here's the fun part. how can you apply this theme to murder? maybe one of them was able to successfully get away with murder, meanwhile the other one accidentally killed someone because of their bad luck? and this way you can come up with really cool characters even if you didn't have any ideas in mind before that!

okay, so the milgram's whole thing is that all characters are morally gray in some way. and the character's moral "grayness" is a spectrum. for example, it can go from "eh, they shouldn't be here, honestly" white to "okay this one is kinda fucked up" gray to "JAIL. NOW. OH WAIT YOU ALREADY ARE THERE" black. but again, even the sweetest and kindest characters should have their questionable moments and even the scariest and most dangerous ones should have moments that make you feel sorry for them.

let's take some canongram prisoners as an example. we have haruka. an adorable squishy blorbo, everyone's skrunkly, the guy who everybody kins. don't you feel sorry for him? don't you want to give him a hug? oh, he kills animals, by the way. he also killed a young girl. just so you know.

now, we have muu. a spoiled teenage girl who always get the things she wants and is proud of it. a girl who literally said she's okay with haruka killing himself for her. literally has a song called "it's not my fault". cries every time a minor inconvenience happens and whenever someone suggests something to her, she just goes "i don't wanna..". her father is a landlord. except she also got bullied by her own friends, doesn't understand how real friendships and human connections work, still brings haruka food and checks up on him when nobody else does and it's heavily implied she actually does feel guilty for killing rei. yeah.

my own personal formula goes like this: i come up with a character. i write some things about them and then i take a look at their crime and personality and if i feel like they're a bit too sympathetic, i add a little bit of spice so that it isn't so easy to forgive them.

let's take my oc aimi for example!

she's such a cutie, isn't she? she's also a victim of bullying too.. oh, also she has the biggest number of victims out of all my prisoners. she also seems to be very obsessed with the concept of friendship and if you refuse to be her friend, she will not take it well. she will most likely try to kill all other prisoners in season 3 or at least hurt them in some way because she doesn't see them as friends anymore. she's been voted innocent twice. she has way too much power in her hands at the moment.

okay! now, let's take my oc kei!

a pretty guy! seems like the flirty type. oh, by the way, he takes photos of people being tortured and that's how he makes money (not counting his job as. well. a normal photographer). "oh, well, maybe he didn't have a choice-" he did. he literally does it because he wants to. he likes it. he enjoys it more than his boss. he likes seeing people in pain and believes that hurting someone means showing you love them. he physically and emotionally abused his own little brother for years and the poor guy still can't walk and move properly because of it. he has five victims.

but for some reason, he also has these huge scars on his back. he also was shown crying in his second mv. he was shown as someone helpless and someone who ended up in a very dangerous situation because of his victims. so.. is he the real victim here? or is he just trying to look more pitiful?

i think you're already starting to understand what i mean. of course, you have all the freedom to do anything you want with your characters. make them as dangerous or as cute as you like. but if you want them to have this "milgram vibe", i suggest you try to find "balance" between their traits that make them look forgivable and the ones that make them look unforgivable!

we can't forget about the guards though! does your guard have all their memories intact? do they remember their name, their past, etc? maybe they're just like the canon es and they don't remember anything at all? do they have their own jackalope or maybe they do their job without a fluffy little bunny around? what is their role here? are they more of a "self-insert"/"audience surrogate" or are they their own character with a backstory and everything? maybe they're an active type who has very deep relationship dynamics with the prisoners and talks to them a lot even when they're not interrogating them? or maybe they're just a creacher? maybe they just do their job and don't really talk to them? they're just standing there.. menacingly.. all of this is up to you to decide!

of course, the relationship dynamics between the characters are very important! first of all, look at your overall cast, when you're done with them. what kind of relationship do you imagine them having? maybe you see them as a found family? maybe all of them are friends? maybe all of them are kissing passionately in the moonlight? maybe all of them hate each other? maybe they even don't care about each other at all! again, it's all your choice and it depends on what kind of characters you're working with.

if you're stuck and you're not sure where to begin, i think a good start would be taking a look at your prisoner pairs and try to figure out the dynamic between the prisoners from each pair. what are their parallels like? how similar are they? how different? do they like each other because of their similarities/differences or they hate each other because of them?

okay, so when you're done with characters, a much scarier part appears.

plot.

so, what do you write first? is it the voice dramas? maybe mvs?

i think it really depends on a person and what you personally find most comfortable, but from my own experience i actually would advise you to work on the vds and mvs first before writing and posting a character's profile.

you see, it's possible that while you're in the process of writing the voice drama, you will notice that the character's personality is much different from what you had written in their profile and originally had in mind for them. of course, it doesn't mean that it will definitely happen to you, but this happened to a lot of my ocs, haha.

so that this doesn't happen but you also have an idea of how your character is supposed to act, try writing down or simply making a mental note about your oc's main personality traits. maybe they're the most extroverted one? maybe they get tired easily? maybe they flirt with everyone they meet? keep those traits in mind, but also give yourself the freedom to explore their character and make them more deep in the process. maybe while you write the most extroverted prisoner's voice drama, you will realize that they actually don't like other prisoners that much or while you write the sleepy prisoner's voice drama, you will get an idea about them not wanting to face their reality and use sleeping as a method of escapism.

if it helps, i personally work on my ocgram in this order: voice dramas > music videos > character profiles, but of course, you can adjust it to your preference.

i think it should be obvious that you should work on the characters' crimes and backstories before you actually start writing the voice dramas and posting stuff about them. sure, you can make it up as you go, if you're confident enough, but i strongly recommend you have a plan or at least a concept of what your character's crime is supposed to be. it will make everything much easier for you!

about backstories: you don't have to, i don't know, come up with names for every single member of your character's family, but i recommend thinking about your oc's backstory outside of their crime. what was their childhood like? what about their teenage years? do they have any friends? what's their relationship with their family like? all these details can help you understand your character's motives, personality, crime and other stuff. also it's simply fun!

so, let's start with the voice dramas.

voice dramas.

(i've also answered a vd-related question here!)

voice dramas can be very hard to write, so let's think about what makes them hard for you first.

maybe you just don't have any ideas? maybe you don't know what the characters are supposed to talk about?

what personally helps me when i start writing the voice dramas is asking myself this question:

"why are these guys even here?"

probably sounds weird, but if you think about it, it actually makes everything a little easier to understand.

why is the guard here? most likely to interrogate the prisoner.

why is the prisoner here? most likely to answer the guard's questions.

okay, we're getting somewhere.

now, how would your guard interrogate the prisoner? of course, it really depends on your guard's personality. maybe they would try to make the prisoner feel more comfortable? or would they rather threaten them and scare them?

now, let's add the prisoner's personality to this equation. what is your prisoner like? how would they react to the guard's questions? what do they think about the guard? are they scared of them? maybe they want to be friends with them? what do they think about milgram in general?

let's put these personalities in one room now and give them a moment. how will they interact? what will they think about each other?

if you're not sure what your guard is supposed to ask about, you can always use the canon voice dramas for reference, but my personal method is simply thinking about what my guard is most concerned about or interested in. and yes, this goes for the guards who don't care about anything too!

maybe your guard wants to make sure the prisoners are doing okay? in this case, they'd probably want to ask about how they're feeling first. or maybe your guard is more focused on the prisoner's crime. then they'd probably start asking about that right away.

okay, your guard has asked a question! how will the prisoner answer?

depending on your prisoner's crime, personality and backstory, they may be okay with revealing some things, but would never want to talk about something else. maybe they're okay with talking about their murder method, their victim and all, but they will never tell you what their motive is. if you're only getting started with the first season, try to reveal something they're okay with first! then you can talk about the other things in later seasons.

what helps me a lot is separating my prisoners' crimes into parts and sort of.. figuring out which parts should be revealed very early and which ones should be saved for later.

for example, maybe we can reveal the prisoner's murder weapon and method in the first season, their victim's identity in the second one and their motive in the third one.

what also helps me with writing the voice dramas is simply "visualizing" everything and imagining how it would go in a visual novel, anime, actual voice drama, etc. also remember that since it's a voice drama, you're kinda supposed to tell everything through sounds and, well, voices! so for example, if you want to tell the reader that the prisoner is nervous, maybe you can make the guard say "you look nervous" or simply make the prisoner say "i'm kinda nervous".

music videos.

mvs are something everyone does a bit differently. maybe you can actually draw/animate your prisoners' mvs. maybe you can write song lyrics for them. maybe you can simply write their mvs' descriptions. it all depends on your skills and what you're working with. so here i will simply talk about how to come up with an idea for a music video.

firstly, what are you supposed to reveal in your prisoner's mv? is it their murder method? is it their victim's identity? maybe something else? keep that in mind so that it's easier for you to drop hints to that thing.

now, what can we do for the visual part? is there anything you associate with the prisoner? a certain theme, aesthetic, etc? even simple objects can help, think about how many canongram prisoners have an object as their "theme": yuno has balloons, muu has an hourglass, kazui has an apple, etc. now, try to think how you can reveal something about the prisoner through this theme. for example, in yuno's case, balloons are a reference to her pregnancy. milgram loves symbolism, so take advantage of that, haha.

what also helps me a lot is simply listening to music that i associate with that prisoner and kinda coming up with music videos in the process. watching actual music videos can also help when you're looking for inspiration.

also, don't forget that everyone's music videos literally come from their brains. what does your prisoner think about their crime? what do they remember about it? how do they feel about it? do they feel guilty? do they feel like they've done nothing wrong? do they wish to forget it? do they see it as their biggest achievement? it can also help with writing song lyrics, if you're doing that.

if you're writing a mv description and you're not drawing/animating a music video, i would advise you to try to describe as many things as possible, as long as it's important. yes, we all love noticing small details while rewatching the milgram mvs, we all love the tiny things that are important for understanding the character's crime, but sadly, if we can't see it, how else are we supposed to know about it? so yeah, if the color of the curtains is important in your story, you should describe it too.

anddddd i think that's all for now! this is mostly done for people who haven't gotten to the second/third seasons of their ocgrams yet, so stuff like the prisoners' reactions to their verdicts, their punishments, etc, is not here. but you can ask me about it (and if you have any other questions, you can also ask me)!

hopefully this helps someone <3

#milgram #milgram project #milgram oc #ocgram

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lacefuneral · 5 months

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ok i've seen some posts about the tumblr alternative cohost but none that were actually helpful so!

(disclaimer: i am very new to this website. users who have been there longer can and should chime in with additions and/or corrections)

Cohost Introduction Post

What is cohost?

Cohost is a fledgling website that is essentially a tumblr clone, but with its own culture and site-specific features. It is also very much a work in progress. You are encouraged to talk in the cohost forum to suggest changes for devs, report bugs, and upvote other people's suggestions. This website WILL grow and change over time. And as such, I do not know if/when the information I share here will be outdated. Edit: To answer an ask I received, anyone can join cohost without an invite. It used to be invite-only. It is not this way anymore.

Is "adult content" allowed there?

Yes. Cohost is not on the app store, meaning that it is not subject to Apple's specifications. You can post illustrations, writing, and photographs (cohost does not support any video formats at this time, just gifs). Cohost has an elaborate filtering and trigger warning system (moreso than tumblr), and you can disable adult content for your entire account or for individual tags. I actually don't engage with the adult content at all on there. Visual CSEM (both real and fictional) is specifically forbidden (although frankly I think the guidelines could be stricter wrt written content. Still, does seem to handle this better than AO3 does, going as far to say that written content about real minors is forbidden.)

How are minors protected?

The minimum age to join cohost is 16, and requires proof of parental permission to join. Users who are under 18 are automatically age-gated and cannot view adult content.

If cohost isn't on the app store, how is it used?

You can, of course, use cohost on a computer, but it is designed with mobile in mind. Opening the website on any IOS browser, clicking "share", and then "add to home screen" will install an app for you to use. The same can be done on an android. There is a guide here.

How does cohost work?

First, you create an account. Then you wait for approximately two days (read: weekdays) for the account to be activated. This is done to prevent spam bots. In the meantime, edit your profile. List some interests, your pronouns, your other social media links. Give yourself an icon. Note: icon and banner file sizes are small. You may need to shrink and compress images.

After the two days are up, make your first post! Write a basic introduction (with what you feel comfortable you feel sharing) and list some interests you like, maybe some hobbies, media, etc. And then tag this post with "#welcome to cohost". This will let existing members know that someone new has joined, and they may initiate conversation and/or follow you.

Next, go to the search and type in "The Cohost Global Feed" and click on the tag. Bookmark this tag. This is essentially one giant community space where you can find random users. (There is currently some discourse on the website as to whether this tag existing is a "bad thing" or not because "cohost isn't supposed to have a global tag". Just ignore that lol). Next, go back to search and type in things you like. TV shows, maybe. Video games. Music. Anything. See if people have posted in the tags. Follow them. Comment on their stuff. Click "like" to bookmark the post if you want to.

Most crucially, make sure that you bookmark the actual tag so you can look in that tag again later without having to manually type it each and every time. Also, you get a feed called "bookmarked tags" which allows you to scroll through all of them at once, which replaces the "for you" feature other websites have.

You can "share" a post (called "rebug" in user slang) which serves the same purpose as a reblog on tumblr. In a rebug, you can add your own tags or comment in the body of the post. Cohost users do not talk in tags as much as tumblr users - they tend to prefer to speak in the body of a rebug, or in the comment section (replies). At this time, you cannot view all reblogs. But you can view all comments in the comment section. Any post that is rebugged will preserve the tags of the OP, with any additional tags added being attributed to you. Rebugs are named after the website mascot Eggbug, a purple bee-like insect.

Posts are called "chosts" - and shitposting is called "shitchosting." Two examples of global shitposting tags are "#css crimes" - which is when a person does goofy things with the HTML/CSS editor to make colorful text, fake chat windows, and such - and "#shitchosting" which is a general shitposting tag. I've also seen people use tags like "#random".

If a post makes you laugh, check out the OP's profile. See if they post frequently, and if you have any common interests. If you realize you want to block or mute someone instead, you can.

You can send asks just like on tumblr, but your inbox must be manually opened first. So remember to do that.

How do I look at my own blog?

This is one of my gripes about the UI. You would think, intuitively, you would click here (at the top of the screen). But you would be wrong!

It is ACTUALLY under the sidebar menu, called "Profile." And I'm not the only one to to complain about this. (To get back to your dashboard, by the way, you click on the cohost logo.)

Are there sideblogs?

Yes! Each sidepage (sideblog) has its OWN set of likes AND followed pages (blogs). This allows you to easily switch between multiple sets of dashboards. A lot of users use this to have a SFW dashboard and an adult content dashboard. But it works like tumblr, too. You can have a side page/dashboard for whatever you'd like. Maybe one of your pages is for programming. Maybe another is for photography. You switch between your pages by clicking the arrow next to your icon/username at the top of the screen. ("Ohhhhh.... THAT'S what that's for.")

What's the userbase on there like?

Mostly programmers. Trans people. Furry artists. Plural systems. Furry trans plural programmers. Certainly a lot of shitposters. The website is trans-run and, as such, has zero tolerance for TERFs. Everyone seems pretty friendly from what I can tell. And there's very much a culture of "follow someone randomly based on their vibes" that doesn't happen as much on tumblr. Tumblr is more like "I really like this TV show, I'm going to follow 40 blogs about just this interest." Because the cohost community is so much smaller, there is a lot less content overall, especially fandom content. You can't follow 40 fandom pages because your fandom tag has a total of 3 posts, all made by one person approximately a year ago (well. for me anyway).

Cohost, then, actually has much more in common with real-life socialization. You seek out people with interests that may be very different from your own, and to find a common interest is very exciting! Unlike tumblr, you are encouraged to tag as much as possible. This allows your posts to be seen, to find common interests. And, of course, don't forget to look in "#Welcome To Cohost" too! You may find some new friends there.

What file formats can I post in?

Currently, I am aware of basic image formats working (like jpeg, png) animated gifs, and mp3s. You currently cannot upload videos to cohost. I believe the reason is not related to server costs, but rather as a way to curb the uploading of copyrighted content.

How does cohost make money?

There are no ads, and yet, as far as I am aware, cohost is operating comfortably. There is, however, an entirely optional "cohost plus" that is $5 USD a month. Currently, there are a few perks, but not enough to convince me.

What if I think something about cohost should change?

Cohost has a forum where users can submit ideas for features and other users can discuss/upvote those ideas.

Here is a list of posts made for newcomers to read:

#long post #cohost #tumblr migration #tumblr alternative

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writingjourney · 7 days

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I’m in need of some advice and kind words. As a fellow writer I’m really struggling to believe people will and want to read my stuff. There’s no real engagement anymore and I’m worried that if I post my long-form fic that no one will give it a chance. It’s really bringing me down because I love it so much but it feels like no matter what I try to do my stuff just doesn’t get seen or liked? I’ve even thought about changing my entire way of how I do things since I don’t think the way I write is working for the masses. How do you keep up the motivation as a popular writer and do you have an advice?

Hello anon!! I feel like this is something many of us currently deal with. And first of all I seriously hope that you do share your story!! ♡

To be completely honest with you the lack of engagement in the fandom has for sure impacted my own motivation which is why I haven't been putting as much time into longer fics (nor the Friday Nights series or IKNBS, I do write but I refuse to force myself). I don't feel any urgency because uploading fics hasn't made me as happy as it used to. It feels like only other active writers are reading fic atm and it creates a lot of pressure on creatives to stay super active.

I'm aware that I'm insanely privileged to have the engagement that I do have, that the type of stories I want to write are also the type of stories that generally seem to appeal. However, engagement tells you NOTHING about the quality of your work, only how many people are active in a fandom or like a specific pairing/character/trope. Your own unique voice matters more than numbers.

I also notice that a lot of people who used to read my works have disappeared which I completely understand. The fixation can ebb away during times of inactivity or when a certain hype dies down. People just don't get that dopamine hit anymore and move on. It's also entirely possible they get tired of a certain style of writing and prefer other writers at times, what do I know. I definitely don't blame anyone for that. First and foremost people should read for their own enjoyment and engage with fandom in a way that makes them happy. It makes no sense to pressure people into engaging. A huge issue right now is people overthinking these things which makes support transactional instead of genuine.

I don't care much about notes but I REALLY miss the feeling of sharing a fic with people who are excited for it, that sense of an active community. BUT the activity will come back – the movie will come out, new music and videos, heck even a whole new Papa!!! That's the natural flow of things. We can't be excited and super active all the time, we need phases of calmness as well (which is an act of rebellion in the capitalist hellscape of overproduction and churned out content. I am honestly glad Ghost is taking it easy).

Now, I recommend you write your story exactly how you want to!!! do NOT change it for the sake of popularity because it will lose its very soul and you will struggle to be happy with it by the end. You know how you want to tell your story and nothing else matters. It will find its readers or you can wait and share it at a later point. I recommend that you approach other writers and readers and intensify that contact, make friends and talk to them about your stories, hype each other up, share snippets. It's even more meaningful to know people you like enjoy what you do. I am currently working on super niche fics for non-Ghost characters and I'm honestly having a great time chasing that dopamine by just writing what I'm really into and sharing it with friends. Fandom is community, fandom is fun and we can work to make it better for everyone.

A few general tips when it comes to making stories accessible: Format them to be readable (paragraphs!!), add a "read more" break, add proper content information and a nice summary to draw people in, add some visual appeal like a banners or stock image edits (like i do for IKNBS) and then tag the fics with relevant tags (and only those). Also make sure to tag the OG post, tags on reblogs do nothing for reach. Engage with the community when you feel like it and it's likely that the community will engage back. Being supportive is worth it, being kind is always worth it even if it amounts to nothing.

#your fear is valid and wanting engagement is valid!!!#but don’t let it stop you from writing :)#asks #anon

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musashi · 1 year

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I’d LOVE to talk about it!!!! There is NOTHING like holding a physical copy of a fanfic you love in your hands, whether it is yours or someone else’s. Though I do recommend you get a physical copy of your own work first and foremost, it really cements the fact that you wrote a whole ass novel, or a collection of short stories. The first few fics I ordered were ones I wrote myself and I still go out into my living room to pull them off the bookshelf and just hold them, sometimes.

There are a lot of websites that exist where you can print books without publishing them. The website I use to print fic is Lulu. There are other websites but this one is my fave. Some people have probably written beautiful guides on book binding but I would rather just have a service do it for me. i thought it might be fun to make a whole ass tutorial on my process, if anyone is interested? Because I really think this should be something more people do, I am telling you it'll change your LIFE. Wanna re-read that old fave in your bookmarks? Cut down on screentime! go GRAB IT OFF YOUR SHELF and settle in all cozy :3

SO: HERE IS A WHOLE ASS TUTORIAL ON HOW TO ORDER PRINT BOOKS OF YOUR FAVE FICS.

I use google docs. There are probably ways to do this in other word processing software but google docs is my friend. So this is how I do it. Google is also your best friend when figuring out how to make these adjustments in other word processors fghdg.

So you kinda want to set up the skeleton of your physical fic first. You wanna make a blank document, go to file > page setup and change the paper size to A5. This’ll put it in peak book format! Hurray. You’ll notice things are a bit cramped here but don’t worry, the margins are supposed to be like that. I like single spacing with the typical indent (.50) so thats what I do. I know some people prefer double spacing, so if that’s your jam do it! Just keep in mind it’ll make your book a lot thicker, it really depends on how you want to condense things. Font size is also a factor here. Personally, I LOVE to condense–12 point times new roman font and single spacing is my jam, heres what that looks like:

But again, depending on how long of a story/collection you want to make, you can space things out too.

Make a nice title page! Mine are pretty simple, just the title and the username. Sometimes I’ll put the fandom name like ‘a [fandom] fanfiction’ but for the most part thats just for PDFs i share of my own fic. When it comes to my own fic I also like to put little dedications at the beginning for flair. Again, that’s just for me.

this is from my sicktember anthology, which is just all my sicktember fics in a neat little book. here's Down's:

this is my favourite part of printing my own books. i like to get sappy with it.

Add page numbers! This is something you can do automatically in most word processors. You can put em anywhere, I always put mine as footers ‘cause I really just like my fic to feel like a real book. This is under 'insert' in gdocs.

If you’re doing an anthology collection or a lot of fics in one book, a table of contents is good to have! If you apply a heading effect to each story/chapter in google docs, you can automatically insert a table of contents. I usually have to play around with mine a little (and edit it after, pin in that for later) but it’s a good thing to have. But in order to make a table of contents you have to actually have the fic in the doc, so let me teach you how to do that.

Congrats @pictureswithboxes, you are hereby my guinea pig. Because your fic is a good length and it’s the first one that isn’t my own that I’ve turned into a physical copy. Everyone please watch as I turn Turnabout Substitution into a book.

There are many ways and many formats you can download an AO3 fic in. Personally I prefer the HTML format–don’t ask me why, it’s just the best one I’ve seen for keeping things easy to edit and intact. If you work better in PDF or EPUB feel free to download those, but it’s my tutorial so you get HTML.

I drop the HTML file into docs. When you open it, you get this nonsense:

'cause that's a whole ass webpage, obviously. so open it AGAIN, this time using this button up top:

And that gives us… well, a lot more nonsense–it drops all the tags in, authors notes, whatever. You’re welcome to keep author’s notes if you like, personally I do without them (i love to read them digitally! I just keep them out of my physical copies) and everything is in 11 pt times font. The first thing I do is highlight the body of the fic and ONLY the body of the fic. I do this chapter by chapter.

Once I have chapter 1 highlighted, i change the font to my preferred size and typeface–in this case, 12 point times new roman. And then, with the body of the chapter still highlighted, i fix the margins/indent–left to 0, first line to .50, and right to 6.50. Then, with all of that highlighted, I paste it into my ‘book’ doc and all the indents/font choices carry over. Easy peasy.

I go ahead and make a chapter header. I think when doing a proper manuscript a chapter is supposed to start at the mid-point of the page, but i usually have the title at the top and the body text starting halfway down.

(my doc is in grey to avoid eye strain. if you do this, make sure it's white when you save it xD)

After a chapter–or any time you want to move onto the next section–use a page break! These are under the ‘insert’ tab. They will automatically jump you to the next page, and they will be necessary, for many reasons, but also because!!!

A new chapter should always start on the right page. In order to keep this correct, I take note of if my right pages are evens or odds in page number. Your first page will always be on the right. If you add a table of contents, it should also start on the right–so add a couple page breaks between the two to make a fully blank filler page. In my experience, because page 1 is always right, this usually means your right page will always be an odd number, but for some reason I'm having some weird mandela effect where i swear it wound up evens one time. huh. never hurts to double check! and triple check.

I ignore this all while I’m pasting the chapters in, but then at the end I go through all of them using google docs’ outline feature. Which is honestly NECESSARY for something like this, if you aren't already using it:

(anything marked as a heading will show up here! or you can highlight something, right click, and add it to outline manually. It's great!)

If my right page is odd-numbered, i check each of them one by one to make sure they all start on odd pages. I add an additional page break in the chapter before if they’re not, to make a filler page. it might feel weird to have all these blank pages in your doc but trust me you will appreciate them when you are actually holding the book.

As I am doing this, I also scroll up to the end of the previous chapters to look for orphans/widows. These are single lines that wind up on their own on the page and look kind of awkward and personally irritate me. Most word processors also have a feature to get rid of these, in google docs you just have to highlight the whole paragraph the line is in (or the paragraph before it, if it’s dialogue or a single line on its own) and apply a heading to it. You can highlight it and click ‘update heading to match’ to do this without changing the font. Good as new! It’ll show up on your outline on the side, but you can delete it by hitting the x beside the lines.

Another thing I do with the body text is i scroll through the whole doc and look for line breaks. AO3 has built-in ones you can insert, and you’re welcome to keep those if they are in a fic you like. Personally i prefer the look of a space to separate, though, so I actually edit them out and replace them with 3 line breaks. Literally just hit the enter key 3 times.

TS here is a case fic, told in the style of the ace attorney vn, which means each chapter has a few locations and timestamps displayed. I do 3 blank line breaks before these, and two after. Because it’s what looks nicest to me. You can play around with aesthetics and see what you like.

Once everything looks good, I scroll back up to update the table of contents if I have it. Google docs has a feature where you can ‘refresh’ it, but… I do not recommend this, because if you formatted your table (which you most likely did, it looks kinda terrible on its own) this will reset the formatting, and that will more than likely space out things or add unnecessary things (like those widows and orphans you marked before) which will add to your page count which means your TOC will be wrong ANYWAYS. So what’s the alternative?

Open your doc in two tabs. Same doc, two tabs. In one tab, stay on your TOC. In the other, click through your outline and input the new page numbers yourself. A little painstaking, but less prone to error. Easy peesy! Here's a bit of my finished TOC for my sicktember book:

Like all things, you can play with fonts and margins.

Your book is READY TO GO. Save it as a PDF, you can do this by hitting the print button in docs and most other word processors. Then instead of choosing a printer hit ‘save as PDF.’ Scuttle on over to Lulu and make an account. Yes it is worth it. Fic!

Lulu is awesome because it has lots of customization options. If you wanna get fancy with it, you could insert images into your PDF and get a colour book! But I just order print books, basic black and white. Once you name and upload your PDF, you can choose EVERYTHING. What kind of paper you want. If you want hardcover or paperback. The world is your oyster. Lulu will then give you a template for your cover, fitted to the dimensions of your fic book based on page number and what options you choose. They technically have a guide that lays this all out for you, but I find it incredibly confusing, so here is the streamlined wendy version:

There are a lot of options for how to make this cover. You can use an image editor, like photoshop, or you can draw fanart, or you can simply go into MSpaint and add some shitty little text to a solid colour if you don’t feel like anything fancy. A lot of people also use canva, which has tons of templates and assets you can throw together. I use canva so much i actually paid for a pro subscription lmao fsdghfgh but I also use photoshop a good deal. I made DTE’s covers in photoshop:

And Down’s cover in canva:

When I’m doing canva covers, I always just save the PDF, pop the template into photoshop, and then paste the images over it and rearrange them to my liking. I think Lulu also has an in-site canva editor but I don’t like learning new software. Photoshop is easy gfhfhg.

WHEN YOU ARE SAVING YOUR COVER. LISTEN TO ME. LISTEN THIS IS IMPORTANT ESP IF YOU NEVER TOOK GRAPHIC DESIGN OR HAVEN’T PROFESSIONALLY PRINTED ANYTHING. When you are saving your cover. SWITCH YOUR COLOUR PROFILE TO CMYK!!! Do not save it as RGB! RGB is good for digital graphics, but if you EVER print something you need to switch it to CMYK. I FORGOT TO DO THIS SOMEHOW when I printed my first two fic books, so their covers look a little washed out. When you do this in your photo editing software, they will look washed out there too–this is normal. They will print SO much better. Just trust me.

Make sure you save your cover as a PDF and pop it onto Lulu! It’ll show you a preview of your book and cover which you can go by page by page to look for mistakes or anything you may want to change. In this preview the cover will ALWAYS look like a shitty, jpeggy mess. IT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THAT IRL. I was so concerned fghfg but they print fine the preview just sucks.

wow so cool. this is for Down's hardcover which has a lot of margin. the closest summation of what your book will be like is to turn everything here off but the folds:

so cool. thats my book.

And you’re good to go! Enjoy your fic!!! PHYSICAL FIC IN YOUR HANDS!!! I got to experience the most magical thing recently: my friend bought a copy of Down, and then SHIPPED IT TO MY HOUSE, and i got to SIGN IT. I got to SIGN a copy of a BOOK I WROTE. They loved it that much. And I had the PDFs. PDFs I need to update, because I didn’t know half the shit I just wrote here when I made them. BUT I GOT TO SIGN MY FIC!!! SOMEONE LIKED IT ENOUGH TO BUY IT, AND THEN SEND IT TO ME, TO SIGN!!!

All the money here goes to printing costs, if that wasn’t obv. Paperbacks on Lulu can be under ten bucks depending on how thick they are, and hardcovers are usually under 25. It’s insane to me how cheap it is to print fanfic, and once you try, you WILL be addicted.

I tried to make this tutorial easy to follow, i hope it was! If anyone has any questions about the process, I am always happy to answer. Or, um, if you just want me to do all this formatting FOR you… I might be open to doing it for free. Mutuals get first dibs but I genuinely LOVE formatting docs for printing. I can’t help you with covers (i flounder even making them for stories I love) but I’ll always format a fic or several fics for you. Just HMU ghfghgf

#fic printing #fic printing tutorial #wendy rambles

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copperbadge · 9 months

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You know, I'm going through Nameless now for formatting reasons, so I'm not reading it per se, but if you're fixing all your chapter headings and page formatting it does get a bit unavoidable that you read bits of it. I'm actually...kind of impressed by it. There are some things I itch to edit, but it's all what you'd call technical edits, like rewording for clarity or using a slightly better word in places. For now I have a policy of absolutely zero edits, because that's a slippery slope, but there may be a word I change here or there eventually.

Overall the novel holds up, I think. Especially considering I was 29 and it was my first book. There are things I'd change, but they're relatively small tweaks, mostly. And certainly the character of Lucas is almost uncomfortably revelatory in light of the ADHD diagnosis thirteen years later. Really...workin' some stuff out there, Sam.

It's also funny to see 2009 Sam doing his best to format a book to look professional without having any idea how Word formatting truly works -- I can see what I was trying to do and I even remember doing some of it, but god damn, son, some of it is very imaginative and highly unnecessary problem-solving. Fortunately most of it is easily corrected with what I know now.

It's a very off-and-on project, but I've always enjoyed typesetting even when I was bad at it, so it's something nice to work on during breaks from other stuff.

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etsuven · 2 years

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rating: smut warning: inazuma spoilers includes: male masturbation, thoma thinks about you all the time, mentioned reader, implied dom! reader, mentions of gorou & taroumaru, usage of s€x toys, mentions of fuck!ng (can be seen as thoma getting it or reader, but reader will always be the dom. unless you don’t want it to be that way. i managed to make this fic kind of readable by both doms and subs!) summary: thoma finally gets alone time to himself (and your vibrator)

note: i’ll edit this later with proper warnings and formats or whatever when i get on my laptop but rn im writing on my phone i have work tomorrow but who cares i’m getting this out NOW anyways, etsuven finally writes a fic without ten million lines of dialogue??? this has to be a joke???!!! :00000

the entrance of the komore tea house was quiet. the usual bustle of the place was gone, and the only thing you could hear was the soft snores of resident good boy taroumaru.

in one particular room however, there was a light buzzing sound, coupled with the small gasps of someone. were they okay? streaks of moonlight shone through the windows, highlighting the room in a soft blue glow.

and then there was thoma.

pretty boy thoma, laying only in a loose white shirt and thin boxers- he was the splitting image of innocence. that is, if you ignore the vibrator being held in between his legs

soft moans escaped his lips, his back arching as a particularly strong wave of pleasure washed over him. it wasn’t an orgasm- not yet at least- but if thoma had to decide, the build up was sometimes better than the final product.

now, the young man didn’t have a vibrator with him originally. how would he have known to bring one along with him on his journey to almost get his vision stolen by the raiden shogun herself? well, it was all thanks to you.

during his time hidden in the tea house, thoma was making use of an old futon that was being stored for guests. it wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but he couldn’t really complain. luckily you pulled through.

on one of your weekly deliveries of food and supplies, you had brought along a much more comfortable futon for him to sleep on. thoma was overjoyed, as he wouldn’t have to wake up with back pain anymore.

but later that day as he rolled out the bed, he found a little… surprise inside. hidden in the thick material was one of his favorite vibrators, as well as a handwritten note.

“here’s a little something for you, love. i know it’s been hard for you lately, and as much as it hurts for me to leave so soon every time i deliver supplies, we just can’t afford to blow our cover. make good use of it, and also- think of me while you’re at it <3 i love you!

-(y/n)”

thoma felt a smile grace his face at the letter, but it soon faded into a pretty pink blush and a grimace as he took note of slowly tightening feeling in his pants. suddenly he could wait for night to come sooner.

and goodness, could it have come any slower. his anticipation for the later hours made the passage of time feel slower- and it didn’t help when every few minutes, his eyes would wander to the toy that was once again hidden in his new futon.

once the night was upon the city of inazuma, thoma changed into the thinnest clothes he had with him. it was going to get hot really quickly. laying out the futon, he got the area ready, making sure the sliding door was locked before finally continuing with his business.

taking his hair down from its ponytail, thoma laid back, his pretty blonde hair spreading in a little halo around his head. his hand trailed down his body, eyes closed as he imagined you doing it instead of him.

you were always so soft with him, making sure he was happy and prepared for what was coming next. a gasp escaped his lips when his fingertips brushed against the semi-hardness in his boxers. teasing himself wasn’t as fun when you weren’t around.

he could almost hear the playful banter between the two of you. “stop teasing, just touch me- please!” and “oh? but i just started?”

goodness. being without you for so many nights really seemed to take a toll on him. opening his eyes, he reached over and wrapped his slender and long fingers around the base of the vibrator. flipping the switch, he was pleasantly surprised at how it was already on his favorite setting.

a low buzz that slowly increased before quickly dying back down.

after waiting for the buzzing to get near the highest setting, thoma placed the toy just under his clothed cock, a strangled groan leaving his mouth at the sudden feeling. his free hand flew to his mouth as he looked around warily, checking to see if someone had noticed.

once he concluded that he wasn’t hearing any footsteps (all while muffling his pretty moans) he removed his hand, reminding himself that he needed to stay quiet so taroumaru wouldn’t hear. who knew what he could tell people?

well, he couldn’t really tell anyone, but there was a time where general gorou came by to see the dog. taroumaru barked and the young man seemed to understand.

yeah, he should try to stay quiet for now.

thoma spent the next few minutes on that setting, groaning softly at the feeling of the steadily increasing vibrations before it all died down and left him on the edge. he thought about you the whole time, wondering if maybe you would jerk him off while holding the toy on his twitching cock. or maybe you would lick and suck at it while staring up at him with those faux innocent eyes.

a choked laugh left his mouth at the thought, and thoma found himself looking up at the ceiling with his fingers tangled in his bangs. this hunt for him needed to end soon. all he wanted was to be in your arms for one night…

with a flip of the switch, the vibrations changed to a more constant setting, one that made the young man’s fingers tangle into his hair more. his cock continued to twitch in his underwear, the tip peeking out slightly every once in a while. he would have taken them off, but he was simply too preoccupied to do so.

“a-ah, (y/n)…!” he was getting close. he fought the urge to squeeze his legs shut, reminding himself that you would not have wanted that if you were with him. his gasps got louder and quicker, combining with moans that he tried his best to keep quiet.

oh, how he wished you were here with him. the vibrator was fun, but you were way better. the vibrator couldn’t kiss him until he got dizzy. it couldn’t teasingly bite at his thighs before finally kissing where he wanted it to go. it couldn’t call him pretty and make him all flustered. it couldn’t sit in between his legs and make him wonder when it was going to make a move, and-

oh. oh, he was cumming. hard.

thoma’s back suddenly arched, and his thighs clenched around the toy. he managed to cover his mouth seconds before a particularly loud moan escaped his lips, saving himself from the stress of wondering if someone could have heard him.

his orgasm washed over him like a large wave, sending cum splattering across his stomach and underwear as the vibrator continued to buzz in between his legs. thoma tried his best to cut the toy off, fighting against shaky hands and the sudden overstimulation before he finally managed to shut it off.

collapsing against the futon, he let out a large sigh, running his fingers through his hair in exhaustion. the orgasm had taken a lot out of him, and he found himself looking around absentmindedly as the euphoria slowly faded away.

once thoma was in his right mind, he looked down his body, grimacing at the sight of his cum on his lower stomach and shirt. you probably would have cleaned it up already. in what way, he didn’t know.

after unwillingly standing up (and grabbing at the wall due to his legs almost failing) thoma opened the door, heading to the bathroom where he finally managed to clean himself up before going back to his temporary room. the vibrator still lay on the ground, practically begging him for a little more usage. he just cleaned himself up, he couldn’t! but you gave it to him, hoping that he’d make good use of it.

a few seconds passed by before thoma grabbed the vibrator with a sly grin, his teeth biting at his lip in anticipation. perhaps… one more orgasm wouldn’t hurt…

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin fanfic #genshin smut #genshin impact smut #thoma fanfic #thoma x reader #thoma smut #sub genshin impact #sub genshin #sub thoma #genshin thoma x reader #genshin thoma #thoma #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader

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the-s1lly-corner · 3 months

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Getting into an argument with them (Jeff the Killer edition)

Written as platonic as per usual jeff writing's!! I know I just started a series of character scenarios with the "undressing them to get to a wound" thing but this one hit me like a sack of bricks I need it so so bad anyways imma write this and maybe one more entry for this new mini prompt series thing.... i need to come up with a better name hisshiss... will write more characters in the coming days, hopefully!

it gets nasty really fast, i think... do i think there would be any physical aggression? he might push you a bit when he leaves the room but i think he would storm off before he does anything stupid; i mean youre one of his only friends and hes not about to ruin that

^ ignoring the fact that you guys got into a heated screaming match over something that probably wasnt even that deep in the first place

jeff is not one to compromise a lot of the time, i think, and hes a bit of a hot head so him getting at least a little irritated during conflicts is a fairly common occurence

arguments kind of bounce between him trying to play off the problem and water it down, and him doing everything he can to justify his stance

not likely to apologize first, unless it was a case of him being so deeply in the wrong that even he can pull his head out of his ass

less of a verbal apologizer as he is an action one; will clean up your place a bit (something he never does) or might buy (steal) you some of your favorite snacks

the topic still might be a little sore so be careful if you want to approach him again to try to work on a solution/compromise

overall i think out of all the characters, hes the worst when it comes to arguments simply because hes stubborn on his stance and can get riled up very easily; tends to also leave a sour taste in the air after it

if this were formatted as one of my group posts i'd probably put him in dead last of... idk some list rating each character whos the most calm/understanding during disagreements

he probably also sometimes eggs other people on because he finds it a little entertaining; will laugh in their face, hes already done it before

really most of his anger comes from if you try to insult him or change his plans rather than just being mad at him for like. i dont know kind of being an ass, he knows hes an asshole and he thinks its kind of funny that people get so mad

#creepypasta x reader #creepypasta x you #creepypasta imagine #jeff the killer x reader #jeff the killer x you #jeff the killer imagine

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joaneunknown · 1 year

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Eight steps in making the editing process of your book easier

It is that time again. You have finished telling the story and now, you have to edit it, so that your novel will be perfectly edged like a diamond. But, although it may seem easy, it is not. I have gone through it three times and a new editing process is coming way soon and, honestly, editing the first draft of the novel you have written sucks. I would describe editing your novel as a non-editor the work of the fucking devil, and I am not speaking about its grammar. I am speaking about the plot and the storyline. Just think of how many things you have learnt since you have started writing your book, and with the more things you have learnt, the better your writing became Unfortunately, no one knows everything from the first page and your writing style can also change throughout the book which makes everything even harder than it already was. So, now that I have finished procrastinating, I am going to show you eight steps into making the editing process of your book more bearable and less terrifying.

Step 1: Make a list with the editorial changes while writing

Writing a book takes a lot of time and during that time, you learn a lot of things. Your writing fluidity changes, the book's ideas start having a clearer form and your entire writing style changes. Since your ideas become clearer, you have to edit each chapter, from the beginning to the end, which means that once the writing process is done, you will have to start from the introduction and change some things. Those things could be names that you have changed throughout the book, wrong dates, different descriptions of the same characters or places and so on. My advice is to make a list of all the tiny things that you will have to fix during the editing process, while and after writing your draft. Tiny things can also include formatting changes that you think are necessary to make your book better. Maybe, it can be important information that you might have altered which should stay intact during the plot. Remembering specific information is vital when editing your draft. The main point of this step is to know the tiny details you will have to either clean up or rewrite, besides the more important information that your future you shouldn't forget while editing.

Step 2: Read your book after finishing it

I consider that reading your unedited work is also a very important step because it can give you an idea of what must be changed and how the book looks so far. I would personally give it a few days after finishing the last chapter to start reading it, so then the story wouldn't be so fresh in your mind. Also, while reading your book, whether that would be on paper or on a device, I would recommend having the list that you have made at step one next to you, so then when you spot a mistake, you'll write it down right then.

Step 3: Make a list of the chapters/moments that must be rewritten

Unlike step one, this is more serious because if there are holes or discontinued chapters that just don't fit the book, you should not only acknowledge them but rewrite or cut them off completely. I, for example, am going through this right now. My introduction is not only awkward and cringe, but it doesn't fit the book at all, and in a couple of weeks when I will be done writing the book, I will have to take out the introduction and write another one to fit the whole. So, find the biggest problems and resolve them.

Step 4: Rewrite what has to be rewritten in another document

I believe that writing those parts in a separate document is going to make your official draft look cleaner and give you more freedom in rewriting or just writing the problematic chapters. Obviously, after you have written those chapters/parts/moments, you must insert it back into the official draft and that takes us to the next step...

Step 5: Make the rewritten parts fit into book

Now that you have got rid of the parts that didn't fit the book, you should make the rewritten parts fit with both the pages before and the pages after it. I don't think it is a problem with gluing the rewritten parts back into the official draft just as long as they are on a straight line with the other pages before and after them.

Step 6: Edit the details in your editorial notes

I would call this the easiest part of all. You already have the direction, now you have to stick to it. Besides those details, it could also be grammar problems that you could solve easily with a few changes.

Step 7: Delete the useless and fill what hadn't already been filled

Just like an editor, you must know what parts have no chance of being entertaining or important to the book. You must read all your pages and edit them like a critic. What is useless and bores out your readers goes out into the trash pin and what could be fully developed must be fully developed. If you feel like a paragraph just didn't fulfill its potential, then you should grow it out until it becomes the best you could have ever made it.

Step 8: When you finish editing it, leave it off for a while before reading it

I heard this advice from Neil Gaiman during one of his masterclasses on Masterclass and since then I have found this advice extremely useful. After a while, the story will no longer be as fresh as before and when you will read it, you will feel like the reader.

I hope those steps will make you feel less frightened by the editing process that is standing on your shoulders. All you do is to make your book better and even if that could annoy and bore you, that is part of a writer's job. Just because you have written it doesn't mean it is ready to be published. You may edit your book a couple of times before feeling as if your book is ready to be posted and I think that is also fine. All that counts is to get your book edited and ready to be given to your readers.

"Most of writing is editing...It is the responsibility of the writer to provide the reader with the best material possible"- Harry Heckel

This was Joane Unknown for #TalkingUnknown, more like these on my profile and at the link in my bio. Have a good writing day and see ya next week with another one of these!

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barren-heart · 4 months

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From Panera Bread You Came, To Panera Bread You Shall Return.

Guillermo's been working at Panera Bread for about a week now. Luckily, his old manager agreed to give him his old job back.

A Nandermo first kiss one-shot

Blood and violence. Hurt/comfort. Somewhat Christmas-themed. No death. Post-s5. Nandor/Guillermo.

Author’s note: I wanted to write in script format, but got too lazy tbh and I also wanted to keep some of the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Canon compliant for the most part.

Bright lights flicker in a near-empty Panera. The lampposts outside are lit, as snow drifts towards the ground in thick piles.

In the lobby, Guillermo mops the floor. He’s focusing on a spill of broccoli cheddar soup that accidentally fell off the table as he was cleaning. He sees the cameras and waves them in.

“So, yeah,” Guillermo says. He sits at a table, camera facing. His title reads, Former Familiar and Bodyguard. Panera Bread Employee. “You can probably tell that I’m no longer working for Nandor and the vampires. I moved out about a week ago, I guess.”

A flashback to Guillermo cleaning up his room at the Vampire Residence. He takes his suitcases and the vampire portrait of him and Nandor. The room is just as empty as when he moved in.

“It was just getting a bit, you know, sad,” Guillermo continues. “Not being a vampire anymore, I just didn’t really feel like I could go back to being a familiar. So,” he pauses, “I left.”

A cut back to Guillermo looking at Nandor’s closed coffin as he lays a letter on the table. A moment later, a cut to Nandor picking up the letter as his face grows solemn.

“I’m trying to find my purpose in this world now.” Guillermo smiles. “There’s so…so many possibilities of who I can be. I have my whole life ahead of me. But, searching for your next passion doesn’t really pay the bills. So, in the meantime, I got my old job back at Panera. So that’s…that’s good.”

The documentary crew flashes edits of Guillermo performing various duties inside of Panera. Kids run into tables, knocking food onto the floor. Loud customers shout at him as Guillermo tries to remain calm.

When the camera cuts back to Guillermo’s talking head, his smile fades. “Can’t believe this time, last week I was mopping up blood in the Fancy Room, and now I’m mopping up soup.” He laughs. “Crazy how things could change so quickly.”

“Guillermo?” A man behind the counter says. “Do you mind taking the trash out?”

Guillermo stands, ending the talking head segment. “Yeah. I can do that. Sorry.”

“Oh no, take your time,” The man says smiling to the cameras. “I’m sorry, did I come off as a bit aggressive there? I’ve been working on not sounding too demanding, you know? I learned that from the Being a Better Boss self-help book I read last summer.”

“You’re good, Chris.” Guillermo laughs to himself. His boss has no idea the orders he was given as a familiar. “I’ll take it out now.”

“Okay, be careful out there,” Chris says. “It’s looking like a blizzard. Haven’t seen snow like this since when I was a kid in Vermont.”

The camera follows Guillermo as he grabs his coat and scarf. The cold is much harsher with the wind.

He drags the rather heavy bags of trash out the back door. He can barely see as he lifts the trash bags into the dumpster. It was nothing like the human bodies he would bag daily for the vampires. Come to think of it, taking a whiff outside, maybe there is rotten flesh in there?

“Guillermo, is that you?” A voice calls out.

Guillermo immediately recognizes the voice. It’s his master, or ex-master now? He left the vampire residence so suddenly that he wasn’t really sure anymore.

Out of the shadows, Nandor appears. His hair disheveled and cape covered in snow. Almost like he’d been there for hours.

Guillermo meets him under a streetlight. “Have you been waiting here for me?”

“Yes. Not long, though. Maybe two…or three hours?”

“Three-three hours?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you while you worked,” Nandor says. “So, I waited here until you were done.” Nandor points to a body slumped against the wall of the building. “I had a light snack while I waited.”

“That would explain the rotten corpse smell…” Guillermo whispers to the camera.

"I like what you've done with the place." Nandor observes the scenery. "Very twinkly lights."

“Oh, no that’s the…you know…” Guillermo stops, knowing well he shouldn’t say Christmas in front of Nandor. His voice lowers to a whisper, “Holiday lights.”

“Your roommates must be so festive. So very human and not vampires at all.” There’s a smile on Nandor’s face, but it’s absent of joy. If Nandor could tell the truth, it’s painful that Guillermo left again, this time to be with humans.

“Uh, yeah. They…they are human.” Guillermo says. "Do you think I live here?"

"Well, now that you don't live with us anymore, I thought you would move in where you work."

"Actually," Guillermo says, his eyes on the snowy ground beneath him. "I live with my mom now."

"Oh, Silvia?" Nandor genuinely smiles. He enjoyed Guillermo's mothers’ company the last time he saw her. So kind and full of energy. And so many photos of Guillermo. "How is she?"

"She's doing-" Guillermo begins to say. “Wait. How did you find me? I never said I was going to work here.”

“I thought you would return to something familiar. Just seemed like something all humans do. I flew around to all the Paneras in the area, until I saw you in the window. I came to congratulate you on your new job.”

Guillermo smiles to himself. “Oh, I thought you’d be upset that I left.”

“I’m not upset. I actually think that it’s okay.”

A cut to talking heads of Nandor in his room. “Am I happy with Guillermo for leaving? Of course not. But, I’m not upset. Little rascal is probably thinking about apologizing right now. He’s probably on his way home. What, it’s been, like, just a few days?”

Someone talks offscreen.

“A week?” Nandor says.“Really? Oh. Maybe I should try and find him, then?”

When the camera cuts back, Nandor says, “I know you were looking to find some greater purpose and you’ve found it here at…The Panera Bread.”

Nandor gives a quick look to the camera.

“Uh, yeah,” Guillermo says. “Well, it’s-it’s temporary. I, uh, don’t really have much of a work history with 14 years working as a familiar. Uh, my old boss is actually still working here and got me my job back.”

“That asshole?” Nandor says, remembering the guy was such a dick. “Yes, I remember. Fucking guy.”

“He’s actually pretty cool now. Mellowed out a lot.”

“Oh?” Nandor says. “That’s-that’s great that you have such a mellow boss. Really…cool.”

A moment of silence passes between them.

“How’s the gang?” Guillermo says, wistful. “I miss them.”

“They’re, you know. Moving on. Doing lots of things. With stuff. Vampire stuff.”

Guillermo feels a pang in his heart. He shouldn’t expect a heartfelt plea to come back, especially with how sudden he left. It still feels like it was the right thing to do in the moment.

The sound of a door opens behind them. It’s Guillermo’s manager, Chris.

“Hey, just checking to see if you died.” He sniffs around. “Almost smells like someone died.”

Chris takes in the dead body. “Hey, what the fuck is that?!”

Nandor approaches Chris. “You will not remember seeing the dead body on the ground and will go back inside and finish your duties for the night.”

Before finishing his hypnosis, Nandor adds, “And you will give Guillermo a raise in pay.”

“Yeah, everything looks good,” Chris says, leaving. “I’ll see you inside. And hey, you’re getting a raise on your next check there, buddy.”

Once Chris is inside, Guillermo says, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I kinda did, though. Didn’t want him to remember the dead body there,” Nandor says whispering as if someone could overhear.

“I meant the raise part,” Guillermo says.

“Oh.” Nandor continues in a normal tone, “You deserve it. I know how hard you work. And how important it is to tell someone that you appreciate what they do for you. I want to wish you well in your new position. And I’m sure you will do just great.”

“Thank you, mast-” Guillermo stops. “Um, Nandor.”

Nandor doesn’t comment on the change of title. “Of course.”

“I should probably get back inside,” Guillermo says. “Fly safe. It’s really snowy out here.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Guillermo turns towards the camera, away from Nandor. A few tears well up in his eyes.

“Oh, Guillermo?” Nandor says. “One last thing.”

Guillermo faces him again, sniffing his tears back. “Yeah?”

Nandor steps closer. He reaches inside his cape, and pulls out a dozen of flattened red roses. “I forgot to give you these.”

“Flowers?” Guillermo sniffs them. A few are wilted, and some petals fall to the ground.

“Sorry. They were alive when I picked them.”

“Wait. You picked them? It’s the middle of winter.”

“Yes. I picked them from a nice grave I found while flying.”

“A grave?” Guillermo eyes go wide.

“Yes,” Nandor continues earnestly. “I saw them lying there and I thought of you.”

“You did?”

Nandor continues, “And I wanted to tell you that…I’ve missed you.”

“Really?” Guillermo swallows. “I’ve missed you, too. I’m sorry for leaving. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay. I really wanted to stay. I just don’t know if I belong there anymore.”

“You do belong there, Guillermo. You were more than just my familiar, but my greatest companion. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Marwa’s wedding scene plays and then we cut back to Guillermo. The camera zooms in on his face. He grins, now realizing. “Maybe you don’t have to think about that.”

“What do you-“ But Nandor doesn’t finish as he notices Guillermo leaning in towards him. Nandor mimics him, leaning in as their lips finally meet. His hand brushes along Guillermo’s neck and down his coat. He wraps his arms around Guillermo’s waist.

A familiar feeling of heat creeps up Guillermo’s chest and into his throat. The hairs on his arms raise as he wraps his hands around Nandor’s shoulders.

A voice stirring breaks them apart.

“What was that?” Guillermo says.

The body against the wall moves. “Ughh. Is there anyone there?”

Guillermo eyes Nandor. “I thought you said he was dead?”

“Yeah, I thought so,” Nandor says. “I just had a little snack. I don’t think I drained him enough.”

“Hey there,” Guillermo says approaching the body. “I can help you. Are you okay?”

The man, probably in his 40’s, slowly stands while gripping onto the wall. “Yeah, I think-” He slips on a puddle of his own blood, his head hitting against the wall as he falls with a thud to the ground. He doesn’t move.

Guillermo covers his mouth in shock.

“I think he’s dead now,” Nandor says. He kneels beside him. “Little man, are you alive?”

Nothing.

Nandor rolls him over. “Maybe we let the snow cover him up?”

Guillermo sighs. “I’ll get a trash bag.”

When Guillermo comes back, they both toss the man into the dumpster.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Nandor starts, “that was the guy yelling at you earlier. I could see it through the window. He said some bad things about you as he left.”

Guillermo smiles to both Nandor and the cameras. “I think we should leave before any cops show up.”

“Good idea.” Nandor reaches his hand out to Guillermo. “Can I fly you home? I’m sure Silvia is worried about you.”

Guillermo puts his hand in Nandor’s. “How about our place instead?”

#a quick holiday ish inspired one shot #I know I know I’m a bit late for Christmas #I’ve never worked at Panera so don’t hate my inaccuracies #😭#what we do in the shadows #WWDITS #nandor the relentless #guillermo de la cruz #nandermo #wwdits fic

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foone · 1 year

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After pulling my hair out getting a VM of Win95 running, only to forget to install the graphics drivers and wonder why the colours of my game were all wrong, i can only marvel at your soft-hardware necromancy. How do you learn this stuff? What do you do when you encounter a filetype you've never seen before? (What do i even do with the file CD_AUDIO.kpx?) Can you download all your knowledge into my brain?

I mainly learned this stuff by just fucking around with computers for a long time (I think I got my first computer in 1993, so I'm coming up on my 30th anniversary of being a Big Nerd). You pick up stuff eventually.

Also yes. Setting up Win95 VMs is hard (real hardware is also hard, for the record) . The bearsoftware VBE drivers seem to have some glitches but they work well enough, and the scitech display doctor drivers work better... If they work. Sometimes they are a nightmare to get working. My advice is start your win95 VM setup, immediately work on getting everything working (graphics/sound/networking drivers), then clone or savestate that shit. Then you have a working base to build on. Don't dirty your clean base, just clone it when you need to start fresh because you've messed it up somehow.

As for an unknown file, my first approach is usually a hex editor. Look for signature info towards the top of the file, Google that. I find that's more useful than searching on the extension, because extensions are reused too often. Sometimes you can search the full filename or game name plus extension and hit gold, but sometimes you just get nothing, and then it's up to you to figure it out.

So the first step is make sure you have a hex editor that can do integer decoding. I usually use HxD. See the data inspector on the right?

It's decoding the value of the number at the position of the cursor. This is very handy. File formats tend to have commonalities, like a count of how many sub-files there are, either right up front or at the end. (up front is more common these days, but in the Old Times it was easier to put them at the end, because of RAM limitations. That's why Zip has the index at the end)

That's a good place to start, because once you know how many subfiles are in there, you can figure out where they are, and deal with them separately. Often you only care about one part, so this lets you ignore most of the bits.

The other big tip I can give you for figuring out files is to be hands on. You don't have to just stare at a file and go WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

Change the file. Make a backup and then edit parts of it. See what changes in the program when you do that. Or if it's something the program writes out, save a basic file, than change something minor, then save it out again to a different file. Now you can compare the two and see what changed!

The next step up for figuring out an unknown file format is to reverse engineer the program that reads/writes them. Use a tool like Ghidra/Ida Pro, and disassemble the EXE. Figure out where it reads and writes the datafiles. This is often easy to find, you can look for imports on CreateFile/OpenFile or search for strings like the filename.

Another option is to hybridize your tools: use a debugger (I use OllyDbg usually, but it is getting long in the tooth sadly) and set a breakpoint on file opening. Run the program and step through all the files it opens and then you'll find the time it opens the file you care about. Now that you know where it is, you can locate that same function in the disassembler/decompiler.

Anyway. There's a bunch of tools and they all can help with different parts of this sort of reverse engineering, and it's often just about collecting as much info as you can, and then trying to compile it together. I usually have a text editor open on another monitor, and just keep a sort of running journal of anything I learn, so I can easily refer back and cross-reference things.

Also keep in mind that even if you can't solve the whole problem, you can learn some things, and it's useful to share that with the world. Sometimes just getting part of the solution means it'll inspire others to help finish the work, or point out stuff you missed.

#Reverse engineering

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emailsfromanactor · 2 months

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So, the new edition of Letters from an Actor! Here's a photo of it on my ereader!

And here's a photo of the same bit from the artisanal version:

I don't think they tried with that divider at all. :( I spent hours fiddling with pixels trying to get it just right. I didn't quite succeed, but it's better than that. It looks like they just copied and pasted one from a PDF and called it a day. Also I, uh, centered it? Though theirs is centered when I open it on my computer, so maybe it's just an ereader problem. But I've been checking to make sure everything works on my ereader! (Will it work on others? Dunno. I hope so! I'm also checking on my phone and iPod - the dividers look too big there despite me limiting the size in the epub's code, so I might revisit that issue.)

Also, typos from the original printings that I fixed but the professionals didn't:

"Linda March" for "Linda Marsh"

"employer's" for "employers"

"the The Film Industry"

"overselves" for "ourselves"

And possibly more, those are just the ones that I posted about when I was first editing. It's not unlikely that I've introduced new errors, but hey, at least I caught some old ones! Editing with love for the win!

The Kobo edition has a whole lot of new errors, but I checked the Kindle preview and the ones I saw weren't there, so... good, I guess? Hopefully that goes for the printed copies, too. And that Kobo people get an update. Errors aside, the formatting is a nightmare. :P

The original text has two letters dated "5 February." I changed the second one to "6 February" - based on Sterne, it seems to fit. The new edition didn't change it.

And oh yeah, I made each letter a different chapter so you can navigate right to a specific date! The new edition is just divided into "PART I: The Toronto Rehearsals January 30–February 25," etc.

In the professionals' favor, they were able to make columns for the cast list. Maybe I can copy their code...

But anyway, check out the official edition for Adam Redfield's afterword! There is new-to-me Redfield lore!

#the kobo cast list features “fortinbra” and “pries” while the kindle one is fine #what the HECK is going on with kobo #should i indent the paragraphs? meh too late; not gonna bother #emails from an actor #edit: AUGH a photo i added to a footnote doesn't work on my ipod WHYYYYYYYY

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gender-buddies · 2 months

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Final Thoughts on Gender Buddies

All in all the project wasn't too bad! I thought that I'd run into way more artist's block, but I managed to come up with a lot of good ideas pretty quickly. Once I stopped overthinking it, it was easy to come up with some good designs. It helped that I stopped making the Buddies so high-concept after phase 1. At a certain point I was coming up with these designs on the fly rather than sketching them in my notebook, taking a bunch of notes, then moving them to a digital format. Streamline!

There are a few designs I would love to redo (looking at you, Aesthetigender.) I also had some lofty plans to have "items" that followers could use on Buddies to change their elements, or to turn them into the fluid or flux version of the genders they represent, meaning I would draw new designs for them. I was also hoping to release some "special edition" Buddies to commemorate important dates, like when I posted Neogender on New Year's Day (another design I didn't like all that much.) I was also supposed to post Demiboy as a birthday Buddy (I'm a demiboy and would have posted it on my birthday to celebrate my identity), but never did and instead posted it as part of the original 120.

Yes, I do want to take requests. I didn't accept or deny requests that I got because I didn't want to give away which Buddies were or weren't planned, but now I can do the requests! There are two that I plan to draw in the near future, but I mostly want to take a break for a month or two before touching them. But I'll totally take requests. If I have time, I'll post a list of every single Buddy I drew so it's all in one place and followers don't have to search so much.

I think my biggest disappointment was the lack of follower interaction (like comments and asks) and the lack of popularity. I was hoping for more followers and more talk about it (I barely saw anything discussed in the YB3 server even though I was posting a lot of updates.) I don't typically worry about the numbers, but I feel like it would have at least pulled in some new followers from my YouTube channel or something! That feels silly though, but this is the first time I've ever finished a planned project, and it was a big deal for me.

Maybe I'll do another similar project in the future, maybe one with a lot less structure. I put a TON of thought into the stats and into which Buddies would make it into each phase. I use Trello for all my planning and you should see what it looks like! It legitimately looks like I'm programming a Pokemon game or something!

This project really helped me get better at drawing because I was drawing so regularly, and that's after spending years not drawing anything at all. I have some newly developed muscle and nerve issues in my dominant hand from intense restaurant work, so that was a struggle for me. But I eventually embraced the shaky lines and slightly off proportions and saw those things as features rather than mistakes. It's not great as an artist to embrace things that clearly need adjusting, but it is what it is. I'm an amateur and self-taught. It's okay if I suck at drawing!

Feel free to send asks about any of the Buddies and I'll gladly talk about where I got the ideas for them and what they're based on. Phase 9 and 10 Buddies have artist commentaries in their replies and I do have posts with artist commentaries for previous phases, but I would love to talk more about individual designs!

Anyway, thank you for supporting my silly little project. Now my focus is on my dragon story worldbuilding crap (@project--eclipse.)💙

#gb.txt #gb.update #artist commentary

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genericpuff · 8 months

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Hi, you would have more knowledge in this bc I’ve seen people say the color changes in LO are a result of the books being printed in CMYK and Rachel is trying to avoid the misprint colors in later editions, but that can’t be right, right? that feels like giving her more credit that she’s actually due. Bc the books are now post the colors changing to the current neon and they still look bad in print. Is there any actual reason for the colors getting this way, or is it really just laziness?

potential bonus question: what art tips would you give to achieve that early LO look, with the texture and lights and all that? Love Lore Rekindled btw <3

Honestly, I really don't think it has to do with the books. I think some of it does have to do with the TV show deal (like they're trying to give it a cleaner 'animated' look) but when it comes to the books, most of its issues is less of the color expression and more just the composition of panels. I mean, it's kind of a given considering how big of a pain in the ass it is to turn a vertical webtoon into a print book (which is why it's kind of bitter irony now that Webtoons is turning back on their whole "phone format is the future" mantra from way back when when they realized they weren't making any money off that LOL) but man you can tell they're struggling to just make the books work.

When it comes to the actual oversaturation of colors over the course of the series, I feel like it comes down to several other things that aren't related to the books:

1.) Rachel's stated in interviews that she got criticism (pointless criticism from non-fans I'll add) about how the colors were 'too bright' back in LO, so she went "nah make them BRIGHTER" as a way to get back at those critics. Which is just absurd because it's resulted in her shooting herself in the foot with uglier art that's turning off even the fans.

2.) She and her assistants aren't unified across software. Some panels are drawn in Clip Studio, some are drawn in Procreate, some in Photoshop, it's a mess. And the real kicker is that all of these software have different color bitrates so some of them literally don't have as many colors as others (ex. Clip Studio is able to express about 16 million different colors, vs. Photoshop which can express up to 281 trillion, which is obv WAY better for print, but meanwhile Rachel can be seen working in both Procreate and Clip Studio).

3.) Rachel doesn't have her assistants using a shared color palette. They're literally just eyedropping colors. You may as well be playing a game of telephone at that point, where the original message gets more and more twisted as its passed down the line, but in this case, it's with colors (which is especially problematic when you're eyedropping panels that haver texture overlays which will automatically distort the colors, AND when you're using multiple different software which come with different color bitrates). That one definitely falls under laziness IMO.

All of this is VERY silly to me btw because Rachel started off with Photoshop, like I'm fairly certain most of her work prior to LO was done with Photoshop. Clip Studio is the generally recommended software for people making webcomics as it comes with way more support for them (such as panel rulers and speech bubble pens) but it doesn't have the same color expression that Photoshop does which I feel would be way more beneficial for LO, it's not like it's working with the same color palettes that most traditional webtoons using CSP are using.

But a lot of it is also Rachel just shooting herself in the foot by not maintaining any sort of consistency between herself and her teammates. Which is even MORE absurd because Clip Studio LITERALLY comes with teamwork support, I use it with Banshriek on Rekindled where we can literally share files, with the addition of a Google Drive folder we can both access that has files for color palettes, references, model sheets, etc. and with none of the incompatibility issues of working between two different software because we both use CSP and know how to use it.

To answer your bonus question as simply as I can, the biggest thing I've found with trying to replicate that old LO style is just... not caring, if that makes sense LOL like I've recreated multiple of Rachel's old panels just for the sake of research and I've learned that she REALLY didn't know what she was doing back then, there's NEVER been consistency in LO but back in S1 it was obvious she actually still cared. So when it comes to recreating that style, it's sort of difficult to pin it down to any one "method" because she really has none, she just treats every panel as its own individual painting (esp back in S1).

So get loose, don't be too strict on yourself (like I am, sigh) and mess around with gouache brushes, they're definitely her go-to. Prioritize lineart in places where shadows would cast (such as under the neck, limb bends, etc.) and then in post-production, slap a canvas texture on top.

I can definitely give a more in-depth tutorial at some point, but again, it's REALLY difficult to perfectly mimic her 'style' because it relied on her winging it every time without any real standardization LOL Which makes it tricky because I'm someone who REALLY relies on that standardization, so even I still look at Rekindled art and go "yeah, it's nice, but it's not LO" because I'm following too many 'rules'. People seem to like it anyways tho, so I'm not gonna go feeling bad over it LOL

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #antiloreolympus #anti lore olympus #ama #ask me anything #anon ask me anything #anon ama #lore rekindled #lore rekindled comic

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eliashirsch · 10 months

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I thought it’d be interesting to look back on how much my writing has improved in a year!

Top Gun is the only fandom I’ve ever fallen into a rabbit hole deep enough to want to write any serious fanfiction for. It’s actually why I approach my writing today in a ‘professional’ manner (actually revising and doing line edits etc) and for the first time in my life, I’m considering it as a viable career. So it’s safe to say Top Gun has changed my life in ways I never would’ve expected it.

I knew of Top Gun from watching Maverick and was so impressed I decided to immediately go to Ao3 because I knew there were going to be some fics about Mav and Rooster (I remembered the exact moment I got home and opened my phone and was delighted to know I was right). Back then the tag wasn’t even official yet. It’s great to see it grow over a year! (I’m still refreshing the Top Gun Movies tag for any new fics. Does anyone do that still?)

So here’s the fic that I decided to write on a random day in June 2022, featuring Mav and the Dagger Squad after the mission, and Ice being exasperated over their antics. It’s a little silly, definitely in a time when team as family fics were popular. I actually wrote about 45k in two months, which was fast for me back then!

I think a canon event for a beginner fanfic writer is when a character ends up in the hospital, there’s a scene where their injuries are described in detail (which as a reader, I usually skim those). I think it’s to create a ‘realistic’ setting, but really, there are better ways to describe said character’s injuries.

Looking back, there are a lot of scenes that feel very unnatural. Real people don’t really talk this way, it feels very like, cartoonish for them to reveal information this way. Again, just very fanfic-y. Not really good writing.

But I had a lot of fun writing these! The Daggers don’t exactly act like adults or have nuances and stuff. They’re mostly there for humor (or more like injecting my humor, which is kinda cringey when I read these back) but hey, at least I can look at these with nostalgia the same way a burnt-out artist looks back at their childhood drawing and remember the good times when life and pressure didn’t get in the way of creating.

Compare these with my more recent writings. I don’t know I just look at this and I’m proud of how far I’ve come. How better I am at pacing and characterization and making believable scenes and everything. It’s just asdkasjfhankakljk so proud of myself. (Excerpt from my fic.)

Another comparison, this one’s a first draft rather than a finished work. So it’s not super polished, but still infinitely better than how I started. I mean, you can even see the difference in format. I started out writing with Arial and a white background, and now I can't stand writing in anything other than a dark bg. Also, Calibri is the best font idc what anyone says.

That’s it! Thanks for reading to the end! A reminder that the more you practice and hone your work, you are going to improve! It’s possible, just keep going!

#icemav #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #iceman x maverick #top gun #writing #i had so much fun writing the daggers playing uno

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thatdesklamp · 4 months

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Hi! I looked at your writing advice page and I think it was really good advice and has helped me a lot, but I was also wondering if you have advice on how to write dialogue?

Because I don't want it to sound boring and cheesy, but I also don't want my characters to be spewing pure Shakespeare lol.

When I read your works, I think you do really well and make things balanced and interesting, with even 3 word sentences :)

Do you have advice?

yo yes I kind of do.

I struggled with writing dialogue most out of anything when I started writing--I'd have to force myself to write it, instead of writing paragraphs upon paragraphs of internal monologues--and so developed a 'Beginner's Method' that ended up working for me:

Talk to yourself as the characters and then write down what you end up saying

For me, this involved pacing around my room and muttering to myself like I was slightly deranged, and then pouncing on my laptop every few minutes to speedtype anything good I came up with. It works best when there's an exchange between only two characters, and you have a general idea of where the scene should go.

Now, this may be the theatre kid in me, but 'acting out' what the characters should say helped me figure out their characterisation better, as well as their vocal mannerisms and inflections to try to make each person 'sound' unique, as well as figuring out how the conversation should flow naturally. It's easy for things to sound forced when you're sitting down and staring at a laptop, so actually getting up and moving actually helped a lot.

Only write out what the characters say, nothing else

At the beginning, I only ever wrote the dialogue. It was just lines and lines that looked like this: I don't think you're right about this made-up conflict we're going to be talking about / maybe i'm not / what do you mean / i mean maybe i agree with you, i'm not right about this made-up conflict / yes you're not

This helps so much with figuring out the flow of the dialogue: you don't get bogged-down in making the writing flowery, or figuring out a really clever way to 'show' that a character is sad without 'telling' they're sad... firstly, just figure out what they're saying.

Add in the flowery bits afterwards

Adding in the 'Person A said' / 'She stared at him' / 'His voice wavered, like [blah blah blah words input here]' after you've written out dialogue helped me loads in the beginning. It then helps you structurally: you can look at your work 'zoomed-out', and make sure you're not clogging your writing with too much description, or too little description, or too much blank space, or too little, or... etc. Nowadays I don't need to really do it like this, as I've got enough practice in that I can figure out the 'flow' as I go (haha) but there are still loads of times when I have a fab idea for how I want a scene to go, and so I just whizz out the dialogue as quick as I can, with only a few markers to help me figure out what I want the characters to be doing. Let me have a look in my notes app to try to see if I've got any IW examples.

[EDIT: HUZZAH!!! I FOUND ONE!!! Here’s literally proof of me doing this for a scene in Chapter 19 of ‘Intrinsic Warmth’:

Which was then expanded (by a biiiig degree!!) into this:

In the first one, I didn’t care about formatting, grammar, anything like that. I’m just concerned about getting the words onto the page, as I know I’ll be able to go over it later.

Other general tips:

Nothing is ever solved in one line

The reader's eyes skip over two lines of dialogue (Person A speaks / Person B responds) so, so quickly. I always noticed that it was like two lines were pretty much redundant until I padded them out with just... more lines. For something to seem significant to the reader, or for there to be a purpose for you to include it, I go with a general rule of four lines minimum.

This is because nobody's mind ever really changes in one or line of dialogue. People don't work like this:

Person A: I'll give you £5 for that dress.

Person B: No way. Minimum price, £10.

(Person A is now convinced and will pay £10)

There needs to be some more back-and-forth, for 90% of people. It's very rare that you'll ever find someone so naturally persuasive that they can change someone's mind in one line, or that someone is so easily convinced that their mind can be changed in one line. Most of the time, it'll look something more like this:

Person A: I'll give you £5 for that dress.

Person B: No way. Minimum price, £10.

Person A: I don't know... I've only got £10 in my purse, and that's for everything today.

Person B: Don't worry, Person A. You know I wouldn't cheat you out of your money!

(Person A is now convinced and will pay £10)

However, each line should still add something new. It could be that Person B tries a new method of convincing Person A, or that Person B tries again, saying essentially the same thing but in a different way. That 'different' way should convey something: are they more irritated, more casual, more angry?

Essentially, don't be afraid of writing more dialogue than less. This doesn't mean you should write random stuff, or dialogue that doesn't serve a purpose, but people talk a lot more than you think. Let them talk.

Use single lines of dialogue, it's okay

As in, the bits in italics:

"Hello," Person A said.

"Hello!"

"Heyyyy. What's up?"

Your reader can keep up with who's saying what, especially once you work on developing each character's 'voice'. I used to get so bogged down by making sure every line of dialogue had the character's name attached to it, but in truth you can write these 'single lines' much more than you think. It helps speed the writing up, and it stops your reader from getting that bored, imo.

I don't know what I'm doing to be so fr

Here's the truth: I don't think dialogue is one of my strengths, at the moment. I've spoken a lot about all of your characters finding their 'voice', so you could basically look only at the character's dialogue and you could know which character it is solely from the words that they're saying. It's important for character development, with dialogue being such an important tool to characterise your characters!

But I honestly don't think I'm the best at that. It's something that I'm consciously working on, and I think writing things other than IW will help me stretch those muscles, but it's honestly not something I've got cracked yet. Which is fine--I'm developing as an author! Everyone is, constantly--and I guess a way to say that I'm not tip-top at this, but as long as you're willing to put yourself out there (as in: start writing, start putting words on paper, that's all) then you're going to improve. And that's great! Ha-haaaa

#asks from la lamp de desk

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