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quaranmine · 4 months

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How do you go about writing mysteries? Like how your firewatch one has its slow drip of discoveries and backstories and stuff. I keep getting totally lost, cuz I already know my endings, and keep forgetting the audience doesnt and shouldnt know the same. Mysteries are fun. They are also the hardest thing ive ever tried to write.

Honestly, mysteries are SO hard. I don't really know how to write them well either. And your ask honestly surprised me some, because up until this point I have never really considered my AU to succeed as a mystery. There is some legitimate mystery in the story (as to where Mumbo is) but, as it becomes clear in chapter 10 I think, most of the things about the Forest Service, Grian's conspiratorial thinking, and finding someone to blame are just set dressing. Or, to give myself more credit, more character study than reality. Something I've had written in the outline since day one is "Is this a mystery, or is Grian just convinced it's a mystery?" Half of the mystery in the story is finding out what actually happened, and half of the mystery is actually just a character study on Grian's grief and thought processes.

I going to put the rest under a cut, it gets kind of long. I can probably talk about my AU forever honestly. And if anyone reading this isn't caught up to at least chapter 10 this will spoil things:

But anyway. I think the best advice I have is to work backwards. You say you already know your ending so it seems like you're doing that already. I knew from the moment I started working on the story how it was going to end, so working backwards from that is a matter of arranging things to be in the places you want them. Having a complete outline also helps because that's what helped me create that "slow drip of discoveries and backstories" because I wanted to reveal things at a relatively steady pace. As for forgetting that your audience doesn't know things...idk I just try to focus super hard on what has/hasn't been revealed and where everybody's povs are. I think that just becomes a learned thing. I don't just know more than the audience, I know more than all the characters too, and I have to make sure they all operate on exactly what they currently know. I think rereading your already-done work as you go helps to refresh you on this.

Another hard thing about mysteries is like....trusting the audience to make connections. I think that I often overplay my hand and spell things out because I am inexperienced in knowing where to draw the line. For this AU, I didn't really intend it to have any big twist ending. I wanted the truth to be telegraphed as the audience uses their own logic to realize that Grian's POV is biased. And even though I haven't released chapter 11 and 12 yet, I....think I succeeded? Based on the difference in comments from chapter 1 to chapter 10, I think most of my readers are where I want them to be. But I didn't know that until I actually released the chapters. Anyway, I think the surprise is less about what the answer is and more about how it all goes down.

In terms of backstories, Firewatch AU has an almost parallel "before" section. There is never a "flashback" to before Mumbo disappeared. The first scene of the story is the ground zero and we never go before that. So the timeline of the story is always "contained" despite skipping around sometimes? Over the course of the fic I slowly introduce scenes that eventually lead us into exactly how Grian got here in the present-day plot. Pretty much all the "before" sections emphasize one way or another that Grian has been struggling.

I guess I can summarize my intentions with the chapters? There's a specific structure to them and their purpose (if I could help it.) Sometimes I feel like I have this story structured within an inch of its life, which is one reason that I have been able to post as I go without needing to make any retroactive changes to already done chapters.

Chapter one: establishes the central problem in the story, introduces the main characters to each other, and introduces Grian's goals. Honestly, I think this is a great first chapter since it introduces everything it needs to. It swaps time periods more than any other one but that is because I specifically modeled it to reflect the intro of the game Firewatch.

Chapter two: introduces fire as a major plot element, and serves as character development and relationship development between Scar and Grian. Also introduces more of Grian's grief, his thoughts about search and rescue, and specifically (vitally, to the plot) allows Scar see just a glimpse of what's happening with Grian that Grian isn't telling him.

Chapter three: mostly vital character development (especially for Scar) and relationship development; I've got to set them up as becoming friends before the big stuff kicks in. also, fire lookout knowledge!

Chapter four: first big clue (found by chance, not by Grian, which sort of emphasizes the idea of things being out of anyone's control that comes up in the narrative a lot.) Bigger spotlight on Grian's emotions (understatement of the year.) Scar gets officially looped into the Real Story. From this point on the plot progresses relatively regularly.

Chapter five: more character development, and another backstory hint about Scar. also, now that Scar is looped in, he gets to contribute information to the plot by bringing the newest clue (that builds off the information revealed in chapter four) (hey grian, it turns out when you communicate to people they can assist you)

Chapter six: this chapter is mostly a flashback section, which i wanted to avoid in chapters but IIRC it was simply too long to include with chapter five. This section with Pearl serves to emphasize a few different self-destructive tendencies Grian has (isolation, his living space, his financial situation, etc.) And finally, more information Scar gives him since he has contacts from working there so long. Also, from here on out Grian's conspiratorial thinking grows.

-> side note, one part of this story being a mystery that was difficult was that like. without internet research being available in the 80s, most "detective" actions would naturally involve talking to people, interviewing, looking at documents, etc. but since grian is Alone, in the middle of the Wilderness, he has none of that. it's, uh, difficult to introduce clues when the main character has little ability to find them. I had to sit down and be like, realistically HOW can he solve this without just wandering around in the woods endlessly? It's not a fun story if all he does is hike around the forest. In the game Firewatch, that sort of worked, but that's because you're controlling Henry. It doesn't translate well to reading. But with Grian entirely on his own, exploring the forest is the only "tool" he has. So Scar is a useful addition since he actually knows people to talk to that Grian doesn't and can move things forward by bringing more information to the table. But I have to proceed carefully to ensure he isn't just a deus ex machina for any hard parts of the plot. Scar talking to someone off-screen can't solve every problem in the story or else it's a bad story.

Chapter seven: some conflict/roadblocks introduced, because Scar cannot just endlessly poke around and find information without repercussions. also, the govt loooooves to make information available only to specific people. you can and will get slapped on the wrist if you consistently overstep the boundaries of your job. also, i need Grian to contribue his own piece to solving the mystery without Scar, so with his boots-on-the ground he finds the trail Mumbo took to get to from point A to point B. He gets a dangerous idea that will later escalate the plot closer to the climax, since we're officially in the second half of the story. There's a flashback that is purposefully the first part of the story so far to have someone outright state they think Mumbo is dead (and of course it's Jimmy.) Ends with more character development for Scar.

Chapter eight: WOOOO SCAR CHAPTER! but not before some egregiously obvious foreshadowing and a distinct reminder that this is a story about fire. i break from my deep character pov for the first time just to give the readers some scientific and historical background. we finally learn more about Scar, which should in theory retroactively piece together why he specifically wants to help Grian so much: because he sees his own experiences reflected in what Grian is living through now. also, since so much of this story is Grian isolating himself and pushing help away, it is vital for him to be shown someone else Does understand him

Chapter nine: beginning of the end pt 1 of 3. we re-center fire as a risk in the story again. grian commits a few crimes, because his main motivation this whole time has been information. and he simply can't get that information sitting in a tower by himself in the woods. he is desperate to find puzzle pieces to slot together so that everything makes sense. this is also the height of his conspiratorial thinking and there's a big disconnect between how he views other people, and their actual actions. I initially didn't want the story to "leave" its main setting, I wanted it to be a bottle. But that just didn't work in practice when plotting this out.

Chapter ten: beginning of the end pt 2 of 3, and we bring the flashback scenes full circle by including grian's decision to become a lookout in the same chapter we learns he gets fired. a somewhat anti-climactic reveal of there not being all that much conspirarcy to Mumbo's disappearance, in a way that hopefully is not disappointing since hopefully everyone reading realizes Why grian was convinced of this and Why he's wrong. woooo fire again! the return of the mystical bike location that was introduced early in the plot! grian finally being forced to reckon with things he's been avoiding thinking about all story! a fallout between our beloved main characters at the 11th hour!

Chapter eleven and twelve: ???? coming soon but you can guarantee they'll deal with the loose ends here since this story is standalone in its plot

So, idk if that type of analytical breakdown is useful to you. But you can kind of see how my plot was guided by the constraints on my narrative--a lot of my choices involved either needing different characters to help grian, or needing grian to go somewhere else. but i constantly wanted to make sure that it made sense for Scar to help Grian, that Scar never overstepped his place in the narrative by being "all-knowing", and that all of Grian's decisions are driven, even to the point of Problems, by his grief. Also, to kickstart the plot, I needed at least one major shake-up to happen (in this story, finding the bike) or else Grian probably would have been just as doomed as everyone else to look in the wrong places. Since it's more or less a cold case, a breakthrough needed to happen to move things forward. So I suppose what I needed was: first, to know the ending I needed to get to; second, to know where I was starting; and third, to provide at least one major clue to give the characters an opportunity to unravel the rest.

Also, this is less about mysteries and more about characterization, but when writing Grian I put Mumbo at the highest priority in all situations. This means he is willing to tank his financial situation, his jobs, his relationships with his friends, and even commit crimes for Mumbo. He consistently does not consider his own future when making decisions. He's reactive and more than willing to take things to the extreme, which I think makes him honestly more fun to write about. I think his Drive pushes the story even when there's just dialogue sitting in a fire tower. One thing I never wanted to do in this story was soften characters' emotions or actions into something "easier."

anyway, this is a story about trying to find logic in places where there is none, coping badly and learning to cope, accepting support from others, grief, and finding closure <333 thank you for your ask it was very sweet to be asked for advice and hopefully SOMETHING in this essay helps <333

#twirls hair hiiiiiiii #i can analyze like every bit of this au like an english assignment u have no clue #i think uhhhh half my enjoyment in writing is not just writing but engaging in analysis of things. it is Enrichment for me #there's so much to talk about with the theming in this story honestly. i do A LOT of things on purpose in this fic.#this story is not gonna join the ranks of the Literary Greats but it is my first shot at trying to do many things and i've enjoyed it a lot #from here on out any other story i write (that i take as seriously as this) will just continue to get better because i learned a lot here #hc_firewatch_au #quara asks

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aurathian · 7 months

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20 questions for fic writers!!

thank you for thinking of and tagging me @mistresslrigtar !! this gave me a nice break from my studies <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

31 blushing emoji

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

99,127

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Zelda. mostly BOTW (but i dont discriminate) there are also some Hades fics sprinkled in there

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

for all time (a collab with @zelzenik !)

Of Memories

demeter nipping at your nose (one of my 2 hades fics)

one last look

Life in a Dead World (??????? why)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Usually yes!! I love getting comments from my readers and I want them to know I appreciate it. if i don't reply it's usually because i think the comment is strange/rude or i just dont know what to say lol

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

def love me (and leave me to die) but it was hard to pick bc tbh im the angst queen (TOTK SPOILERS IN THIS FIC!!)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

HyMart i'm going to pick this one because its happy all around and tbh idk what fic of mine is necessarily "happy" or has an ending that isnt streaked with tragedy or pain in some way whoops

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not that i remember but ive gotten like. weird passive aggressive comments

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i write SO MUCH fade to black because writing smut is way too weird for me... like i get embarrassed just typing certain words LOL (reading it is another story...)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

no, not a fan

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

no!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes!!! I love to collab with my friends and @zelzenik and i are literally an unstoppable force when we write together. when we combine our powers nothing can stop us

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

zelink obvi

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

probably my Post-SkSw fic for my Aftermath series . I have restarted this fic 3 times now and I just have no idea how I want to structure it, what I want the tone to be, things like that. Everything I put down never sounds right. Also I just don't have time lol

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue for sure.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Character's inner monologues and scene transitions, I think. I find inner monologues interesting, but I don't think I excel at making them interesting for the reader. I tend to give too much away. As for scene transitions, I find that when I write them they come out very short and rushed.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I usually don't do this because I'm just not a fan. in my world everyone in Hyrule speaks perfect American English lol. jk but kinda not. it's just not something I'm really thinking about when I write? and if I do include other languages, the main character(s) are usually oblivious to it and I don't include actual syntax. I'll just say "they muttered something in a different language" or something similar.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Super Mario. In Kindergarten. I made picture stories. LMFAOOOOO

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

love me and leave me to die this one probably. i worked super hard on it for zelink week 2023 and thought i presented some unique ideas. totk spoilers abound though lol

ok im tagging people now. but u all have probably been tagged already. sry @hyylia @zelzenik @nocturnalfandomartist and anybody else who would like to join in <3

#tag game #zelda

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purpleyoonn · 1 year

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Hi ! I'm a new anon who find the courage to send you a (pretty long maybe ?) message..... idk why I'm so talkative when irl I'm a quiet person LMAO.

First, I hope you're doing fine and your day went well !

Second, just wanted to say that I'm in love with your writings ! You're one of my favorite writer on Tumblr and AO3 !! I'm totally addicted to soulmates + poly!bangtan x reader more than I was before thanks to you 😭 /pos

My favs ones are The Line between Love and War, Dance of Time, Baby you complete us, Doughnuts and Shell Casings and of course the My universe One shots (Yoonie as a dragon... so soft omg he has all my heart and soul omg I'm OBSESSED... Jinnie as a vampire ? YES PLEASE. And Joonie as Hades ? On my knees. )

I don't finish reading all of your stories tbh, but it's in my plans, hehe. I started Ethereal today ! I already love it, I can't wait to binge read it !!

AND if I send you this, it's because I have some questions... because I'm a writer too, and I want to try and write a poly bangtan x reader soulmate AU too 🥺

Do you plan your writings ? Like taking notes in a notebook about your ideas, characters, story, any world building when you write something fantastic ? Do you plan your chapters and everything in advance, or do you just write what pass in your pretty head ? Do you have any tips for a baby writer like me ? 🥺

Again thank you so much for sharing with us all these stories, really, I read your stories in the bus, at uni waiting for my classes or during my breaks because I don't have any friends, and I'm a very anxious person who suffer from adhd and bpd, plus I'm autistic so reading your writings helped me to cut myself to the noisy world a little, and it helps me so much so thank you...! (you'll probably find all of this weird, I'm sorry 😖)

Ah! Sorry I talk too much... it's always like that when it's about my specific interests like bangtan, writing, and fantasy world....

Also, sorry in advance for any grammar mistakes, English is not my first language (I'm Belgian, so I speak french hehe), I hope you'll understand what I'm saying 😣

Have a nice day/afternoon/night, wish you all the good things in your life, you deserve it !! ♥ - 🐋

omg hello new anony! Im gonna call you whalien❤️

My day has gone really well so far! My little sister had a field trip and used her spending/gift shop money to buy me an octopus plushie (she knows I love octopuses and that they are my favorite animal) so im super duper today!

thank you so much! im glad you love my works! (I have no clue what /pos means though)

omg so you favorite almost all of my works so far then! watch out for ethereal though, there is a loooott in there and pls pls take the warnings seriously for each chapter!

but yeah, I love dragon yoonie and pretty much any and all dragon bts aus. like there is something about possessive bangtan that treats mc like their greatest treasure!

So as for writing, I do actually plan everything in my notebook! I write out like hopes for the story as well as like, a summary and plot line weird box structure thingie. I also write out anything for my characters like backgrounds and likes/dislikes. I try to plan everything in advance but I don't plan the small details. I plan ahead for the big like, plot changing things but other than that, I write what comes to my head! Its fun when you don't necessarily know where things go but have an idea of the plot! as least to me😊

My biggest tip for any writers out there is actually pretty simple.

write.

like everything.

any little or big idea that comes to your head. write it down. you are never going to get any practice or improve your skills if you don't write. for me, the little fox was the first like actual fic ive ever written (besides a twilight fic on quotev that I will happily take to my grave) and I want to go back and rewrite it so bad but I won't because I like knowing how ive improved my writing over the years.

im the same way with fics ive falling in love with. ive like perfected my straight face in public, ive got the best poker face. ill even read directly in front of my grandpa and he'd never know I was reading the dirtiest smut ever. Im happy though that I can help you escape your world and all the noise for even the slightest second. as a fellow autistic individual, I know how overwhelming and overstimulating the world can be so im glad you can find comfort in my works!

Please never think that sharing your thoughts on something you love is weird or strange. I could go on for hours about the history of fan fiction or octopuses for hours. ask me about my favorite book and you might as well plop down on the couch with a nice pillow and a snack because we will be there for hours while I bring out my white board with theories and characters connections.

also pls don't ever worry about any English grammar/comprehension mistakes when talking to me! I am goof about asking questions and my comprehension levels are usually through the roof so pls don't ever worry! I wish I could speak French! I only remember some words! my family is from one of the states that was a French colony so its pretty common to still hear some French being spoken. but unfortunately my family didn't like it, (mainly my grandma sooooo) .

I hope you have an amazing morning/day/night!!!!

#purpleyoonn #purpleyoonn ask #🐋 anon

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bi-bats · 11 months

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for the get to know the author asks!!! 3, 6, 11, 18, 23, 25. i know thats a lot so feel free to pick and choose haha

p.s. i am LOVING your jaytim week works!! ive gushed in the comments but i really am having a blast reading everything that youve shared so far <3

ASLKDJFALSDKJ omg thank you!!! I'm so flattered that you want to know that much about me actually, cause I never shut the fuck up so this is going to be long 😂 And thank you SO much abt the jaytimweek fics!!! I worked so hard on them 😭 also!!! what's your ao3 username? I usually recognize my serial commenters (and as you probably know sometimes have full conversations with them) so let me know which one is you, if you're comfortable!!

Also, I answered all of these so I'm putting it under a read more because it is. So much lmaoooo

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

I write favorite scenes first- usually there's an idea that gets stuck in my head or a bit of dialogue and that hits the page first. Then that spirals into other thoughts I have to write down, until I have something that actually resembles a plot and has the beginning and the climax of the story. (For Know yourself it was chapter 1, then a scene from chapter 8, then the scene where they finally get together, then the scene where they fall asleep watching star trek for the first time, then a bunch of scenes I ended up having to cut. For Rooftops and Bookshops, it was chapter 1, then them getting together, then the scene in the breakroom, then the scene where Tim gets drunk.)

Then for a longfic I take my plot to the corkboard™️ and sort it out, and then I start writing in order. Usually, I end up completely rewriting the scenes I wrote beforehand as I go along, and sometimes I end up replotting the whole thing. Then I work on it chapter by chapter until I get to the end, but I usually along the way I keep writing scenes for future chapters when inspiration hits!

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

Honestly? All of rooftops & bookshops. I would rewrite the entire thing and change absolutely none of the plot or dialogue. It's just... the rest of the writing. God. It seems so rushed to me now? something something I've improved as a writer, but like. I would rewrite it if that wasn't so much work. And also, whenever I say that I hate it people rage at me, so. fine. I guess it stays. 🙄

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

Actually, plotting. I've been writing since I was in the third grade, and it took me FOREVER to realize that the reason I never finished anything was because nothing had a plot. Like, within the last 4 or 5 years I bought a book called Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell after listening to a writing podcast (No Write Way with VE Schwab) where Marie Lu (I think) recommended it, and suddenly, it wasn't just that I could write, it was that I couldn't stop writing.

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

Oh I get to talk about actual books!!! akdfalskdjfkj YES!!

Vicious by V.E. Schwab and the Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey, but honestly anything by either of them is amazing. The way both of them write is just so. SO. ASLKDFALSKDJ. For me, they both scratch the itch for sci-fi and characters that are incredibly fucked up but justified and logical and their prose is just perfect, especially when it comes to lines that just fucking slap. Sincerely, I don't have any fic recs for this one. Just book recs lmaooo

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

LMAOOOO okay so specifically when it comes to writing in this fandom, I have a lot of life experiences that have helped me write what I write, especially when it comes to writing Tim. Some of them are not so fun (<- overachiever perfectionist who thinks they need to do everything by themselves), but some of them are funny so we'll talk about those.

I have a coffee problem. Like, I know off the top of my head that the FDA recommends that a healthy adult doesn't ingest more than 400 mg of caffeine a day (I try not to ingest more than 384 mg a day), and you would overdose around 1200 mg of caffeine a day. I use this fact at least once a month when someone expresses concern about my caffeine intake, and I did not have to google that, just ask my girlfriend 😂

Also, I have severe insomnia, which predates the coffee problem. Usually, I average 5-6 hours of sleep on a good night, but I can go about 5 days straight getting between 2-4 hours of sleep before I have to do a night with at least 6 hours. I am intimately familiar with what running on that little sleep looks like. I once was not able to sleep for 4 days! So also, I know what that looks like! I have gone over 40 hours without sleep within the past four months! It just. happens. Like, at some point in the night the calculation stops being "how much sleep am I going to get if I fall asleep right now" and starts being "if I do sleep, will I be more tired than if I just don't?"

And it is such a useful reference when it comes to writing any of the bats, but especially Tim 😂

That also helps because in the time I am not sleeping, I am usually reading or writing. I'm a huge reader and that really has helped me. There's that one quote that's like "a person can be an expert in any field if they put 10,00 hours into studying it", and I have put in my 10k hours. If you write, reading is basically a part of the job.

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

YES YES YES OKAY SORRY THEY'RE ALL BUMMERS BUT I'M SO PROUD OF THESE BITS. THE FIRST ONE ISN'T IN ANYTHING AS OF RIGHT NOW, THE SECOND ONE IS IN MY JAYTIMWEEK PIECE FROM TODAY, AND THE REST ARE FROM KNOW YOURSELF!!

Tim was his own worst critic. It was just self-defense, something he’d picked up while he was learning how to stay alive. He’d learned how to slip binds, and how to take a hit, and how to be so harsh on himself that whenever someone found a new hurtful thing to say to him, it was the second time he’d ever heard it, because he’d already thought of it first.

But the strangest thing is how everyone believes Jason anyways. Just like that. Then again, Dick is backing him up, so of course they believe him. Everyone believes Goldie, all of the time. He just flashes that gorgeous smile like a fucking master key, and Jason’s always been a tiny bit jealous that everyone else turned out so goddamn endearing.

But apparently, his body had been hiding that instinct somewhere: Jason’s angry. Defend yourself.

He’d done what he did best: tried to freeze over his white-hot anger, and still managed to be surprised when the ice cracked and steam shot out.

Now he knew Tim wasn’t just some kid who slipped into his life like it was a suit that fit him better.

This was what he did. He wrecked things. He couldn’t be trusted with anything delicate or valuable, because he’d crush it in his clumsy, blood-stained hands.

This was so much fun!!! Thank you for popping into my inbox and giving me a chance to ramble for a while, I had such a blast!!!

#🫘 this-was-a-terrible-idea #batsasks #bibatrambles #ASKDFLKJ SORRY THIS GOT SO LONG ALSO #I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT!!!#AND IT WASN'T JUST INSANE RAMBLING AT 3 AM!!!

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makethatelevenrings · 1 year

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1) s(he) walks in beauty, pretty bird, just a name!

2) two scoops/two scoops (and a danish), assassin!verse

3)JASON!!! you get his characteristics absolutely on POINT.

4) the assassin!verse reader and dick, i wanna squeeze them both 🥺

5) angel by the wings! i don’t know anything about the character but it seems really cool!

6) the batfam showing up in the ice cream shop 😭 two scoops is the first thing i read from you a long while ago and it’s still my fav/comfort jason fic!

7) the sovereign beauty. still makes me teary because i wish i had someone like jason with me during my most vulnerable time. (tmi but it was horrible and it’s still such an awful & traumatic moment in my life, and reading that fic brings me so much comfort bc he’s so sweet and gentle. i love it and i love you for writing it)

8) the way you structure/set up each scenario is so well done; the visualization of each one is so vivid, you do such an amazing job at explaining everything!

9) literally anything with dick/jay. doesn’t matter what it is, i will gobble it up entirely

10) dick! i never used to read anything about him bc him and babs were always my otp, but you write him so well!

11) i would never request it bc i know how sensitive a topic it is, but something of jay comforting his s/o after a traumatic sexual experience. he seems so tender and kind. but idk, could be me projecting my trauma onto him or something 😂

12) half-eaten bagels, fuck up/fix up the friendship!

13) i have! ironically it was the one fic i haven’t read from you (angel by the wings) but one of my closest friends is obsessed with top gun/rooster + hangman, so i figured i just had to tell her about it since your writing is so well done

14) puzzle pieces, any of your bruce fics. pregnancy = a big nope for me but it was so sweet!! and i was never a bruce lover (in that sense) but i took a chance on them, and they’re some of my fav bruce fics now!

15) not really, but i guess.. are you planning to continue assassin!verse? its one of the best dick fics (heh) ive ever read! i love them so much!

🖤💛

what if I just started weeping from how sweet you are akfnakfnakf

And YES assassin!verse is still going and I have plenty of requests. I am just at a stage of life where all I do is run around like a chicken with its head cut off and contemplate the future (I graduate on Saturday)

BUT NEVER FEAR more is coming mwahahahah

#honey.txt

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chasingfictions · 2 years

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1, 10, and 23 for the writing ask thingy :)

Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

hmm okay well the thing im currently actively working on (though actively is a really strong word because my job has been Insane lately) is a novel (non-fic) n she is a tiny little baby mollusk just screeching into the world so i dont wanna talk abt her (also working on a non-fic short story i dont wanna talk abt for the same reason n also privacy). but in terms of fic that i currently have open in tabs!!!!

ats season 4 for my faith series - the progress of this is pretty minimal bc im holding off on starting work on it until i make more headway on my novel outline, bc writing these faith fics inevitably takes over my life . but! mostly right now my notes are full of like, rambly ideas about how to Fix the Jasmine of It All because i want Jasmine to be a character but, by keeping connor a baby, and my determination to keep cordy herself, i need to change How she comes about . but ok the thing i love most about getting to rewrite this part is that to me ats s4 is where it All Goes Wrong. like, it's the character assassination of cordelia chase, and the show really hitting a misogyny peak which is impressive when u consider how misogynistic it already was . to me the ats s3 finale has so much promise which s4 inevitably makes mean essentially Nothing -- mostly in terms of the show's treatment of cordy. so im basically really hyped to write an s4 that is very much About cordy - about cangel! about angel working through (read: getting bullied by the entire fang gang about until he does something about) some of his misogyny, to become the kind of person who could be in an actual long-term relationship w cordy. this s4 rewrite said Angel's Madonna Whore Complex is On The Chopping Block . also im just really hyped to write jasmine. like, writing mind-altered states to me is very fun-- i love writing dream sequences and ritual sequences and intense emotions . so writing faith under jasmine's thrall ??? im hyped. also maybe half the reason this series exists is to occasion a faith/gwen fling sooooooooo.

i also have open a russian doll fluff fic - basically nadia and alan do a marathon watch of all the timefucky episodes of btvs . i simply love to Make Characters Watch TV . i LOVE writing their dialogue i love them so much. i love getting to rant about btvs filtered via the voice of nadia . the progress of this is decent !! i have like a quarter written and the rest roughly outlined

also have a VERY sparsely outlined succession fic about shiv being a lesbian . essentially a 5+1 (5 times shiv lost to her comphet and 1 time she didn't teeheeeee) . what im excited about here is simply that shiv roy is a lesbian and the world has to know. and also ive never written a 5+1 but i think the concept is just so fun.

ALSO i have another lottie lee yellowjackets fic in drafts . this is very new, mostly just popping the vague vibe of it and a few dialogue ideas into a document . but basically it's based on the new florence song 'casssandra' and it's going to be like, half taking place before laura lee's death and half after. what im hyped about this one is that lottie's precognizance makes me INSANE it makes me INSANE INSANE INSANE and i really wanna dig into just a very heavy heady fucked up littel tone here . also i just . i love lottie lee but i cant even think abt them and im excited to Think About Them In A Structured (lmao) Place bc hopefully that will make the process more tenable!!!!!!

10. How would you describe your writing process?

i've often described it as "building the ship as i sail it" . i love to outline, it's the way that i can write the quickest and with the most energy -- i like basically having little story headings for plot beats, and writing each segment, bc then i can have in my head exactly what im building towards, and can keep a sense of pacing in my head bc i know what else the story is going to contain . but also this allows me to write things out of order , while still having a general sense of the shape of the overall story, bc otherwise things can get really topsy turvy in my head.

but also im a big outliner-as-i-write. like often i will start out with a few story headings that are very sparse, and as i get the idea for one, ill get a sense of how to flesh out another, and im gradually filling in the whole picture, which each part interconnecting to and allowing me to fill in other parts.

like, i guess i write in the same way i solve crossword puzzles.

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

ooh okay -- gonna keep it to fic bc again my original writing is my Sensitive Little Boy (and also i aim 2 have more of that published n and dont want to connect my tiny internet corner to my public writing, in the interest of current n future privacy). but!!!! the two fics ive had in my head the longest i think are both from my spike fluff series:

a spuffy happily ever after wedding fic . exactly what it sounds like on the tin . spuffy getting married - their engagement and wedding and them establishing their life together . also an Everyone-Lives fic, literally partly bc i just want it to be the fluffiest lightest thing possible, and partly bc (as ive demonstrated lol) i simply love writing a Big Chaotic Wedding Where Everyone Is In the Room and Interacting . so like, jenny is alive and wesley and and cordelia and anya and tara and fred and everybody and probably even also joyce-- not kendra just bc i cant undo her death without changing too much of the timeline? but i am Trying to find a way to work her in like, idk maybe ghost kendra is at the wedding idk guys. anyway i love this fic so much i have so much of it drafted and just havent had time 2 devote to it yet . but married spuffy is so real to me theyre SO real to ME!!!!!

a spike and harmony do laundry together fic okay hear me out. early s5 . spike finds out harmony has never done laundry . her parents always did it for her and then her minions and after that she legit panicked bc it felt too late to learn and either paid for a cleaners' to do her laundry or just kept stealing new clothes when her old ones were dirty. but then the cleaners refuses to do her laundry anymore bc she killed too many of them . spike finds this out . he's like. you cant do LAUNDRY? harmony is like what like you CAN? he's like yeah i learned last year at xander's (he's very proud). spike and harmony descend on the 24 hour laundromat . it becomes clear that spike is Very Bad At Laundry Still but Moderately Better Than Harmony . they may or may not break several washing machines from bashing them in a fit of rage. gradually harmony becomes the queen of the late night laundromat demon social scene . this fic means so much to me i could cry. also ive never written spike/harmony before and simply put i think they are so FUN . they are SO FUN.

#this was FUN #ask

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actualbird · 2 years

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Oh man I wasn't expecting the dragon fic to get even better! My favourite morning fairytale is ramping up and I'm definitely not complaining.

No matter what lives they live Ria and Luke will never be able to cook properly before they start learning. How did Luke catch a soup on fire...?

I like how it's Luke this time who has the nightmares of the canon event instead of Ria. Just one of those things that are different yet similar in their different yet similar lives. Also I was going to make a looming nightmare pun here but I couldn't make it work so you get marginally more insightful commentary instead dryifdtud

Oh man when Luke realised his hands couldn't move I actually got worried for a second aha. It's definitely a Vyn move to be dramatic and ominous especially when he doesn't know Luke that well but also dammit Vyn why.

Nice owl motif reference, I always really like it when ToT fics make use of the boys' associated animals to describe them. It always feels like a nice small reference for fans who know about them.

I really wasn't expecting Vyn to be a fae what that's so clever???? Using the canon of him having changed his name to match the fae lore of names having power and thus them hiding their true names I honestly would never have thought about that. Does that mean Vyn still goes by Vilhelm here normally?

Luke being that one guy on dragon threads is absolutely accurate oh my god those questions I'm wheezing. What was going through Vyn's mind when he read those I really want to know now.

So I really like all the nods to the canon versions of these characters and how you use them in ways that make sense. Luke finding Vyn an easy person to vent to as a nod to him being a therapist in canon is so clever and I'm really looking forward to how many more references there'll be.

Ria eating a deer's heart sure is a strange moment for Luke to feel warm and fuzzy in his own heart but I'm not judging Luke you do you.

That's about it for my comments on the fic! I absolutely agree with that point in the author's note about Luke thinking like a hero. Having someone who thinks like that for a partner seems like you have an ideal partner on the surface but part of having a romantic relationship, hell of loving in general, is going through tough times together as a team and supporting each other. It's the trust to let yourself be vulnerable around your partner, and you won't get that with a hero type who solves everything themselves, and that can feel awful sometimes. Man, even when I don't go on character study tamgents in the main fic commentary your author's note finds a way to send me off on another one digdtif anyways!! Thank you for the delightfully long chapter, and I look forward to the next one! Don't worry about the longer wait between chapters, it's absolutely justified when the tradeoff is for longer chapters and a deeper au!

🌌

EYYYY, hi hi milkyway!!

thank u for reading ch2 of "yes, she’s my lover, yes, she’s a half-dragon. any more questions?" and HHRGHRH THIS COMMENT IS LOVELY, i owe u my life. im glad this cld be a nice morning fairytale to start off ur day :D

---

now to my thoughts on ur thoughts cuz i love rambling HAHAJHSFKJ:

how did luke burn a soup? well, it hasnt been completely talked abt in the fic itself, but i did slip in a little mention in this chapter that luke knows how to forge metals! in this au, ive got it in my head that luke has some pretty nice swordsmithing skills, it felt like a nice way to bring his canon skill of weapon-making and gadgetry into a medieval fantasy setting.

why did i bring that up abt his on-fire soup? cuz luke basically went about cooking the soup like how he heats steel in a forge when swordmaking. whoulda thunk that steel and soup are Not The Same

(i say this bit now cuz i rlly did have this whole backstory but it didnt fit with the sentence structure and of how i wanted to write that bit, so this is a behind the scenes exclusive i guess, HAHA)

luke in this au 🤝 mc in canon nightmares about death regarding the other

they all need therapy JHVSKJFSD

ngl, my desire to write vyn's Entire Thing is one of the key factors that made me restructure and further deepen this Whole Fic sjhfvjkskjVKJH.

my outline at first only had luke and mc, but that version felt so...empty. so i brought the other boys in, but their personalities are so distinct and itd be a waste not to give em each a fun little role in this medieval fantasy aaaaand, the rest is history.

keep an eye out for who the nxx boy of chapter 3 will be >:3c

i had so much with vyn btw. i knew he was a fae from the moment i brought him into this fic and tried my best to like, foreshadow it but only truly go HUZZAH, REVEAL! at that one line

the owl thing was fun to do to, im a sucker for like...giving magic a tangible image to draw the sensation out from. cuz magic (sadly) doesnt exist!! how tf do i describe it!!! with OTHER THINGS

and it's always been my modus operandi to make magic feel like different things based on who is using it. it's kinda like how i feel abt writing, in a sense? theres a set list of stuff it can do, but the intent and style and how it feels differs for everybody

HEHE, the name thing was what made me wanna make vyn a fae here in the first place!! and as behind the scenes commentary once again, i think he does still go by vyn. it's not his "true" name but i figure he still likes it better. plus, it gives him some more protection, since saying a fae's name shifts the power away from the fae in question and onto the speaker

and vyn? giving control to somebody else? oh he'd rather find a ditch to go die in JHVSKJDFHJ

i adore luke and he is so intelligent but that does make me wanna nerf him sometimes, esp when hes more focused on His Beloved and is wracked with worry jshfvkjs. his braincells took a vacation, he just wanted all the answers and he is new to this entire environment

vyn, reading luke's letters: oh this poor thing needs to learn how the magic community works or else they'll eat him alive

me: hehe references go BRRRRRR

im so glad u enjoyed that tho, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine to be tongue-in-cheek abt the 4th wall whenever it can be entertaining ajhsvfkjashfja

love is stored in the "watching ur dragon!gf absolutely go to town munching on a dead deer while eating the dinner she made for u that is delightfully Edible" <3!!!

im SOOO GLAD U ENJOYED my little character thought in the author's notes huhu. i am Incredibly Passionate about dissecting luke's character and it just delights me to no end that many traits that make him strong are also the same traits that can be his downfall

cuz idk, i figure character traits arent inherently good or bad, they become good or bad based on situations. him thinking like a hero when he was alone was alright, but now that hes got somebody who loves him and wants him to be here with her, he cant think like a hero anymore. at least not with her. he has to think like a partner for all the reasons u so wonderfully articulated hhHHHH!!!

im so emotional about luke and mc so much all the time, basically

---

thank you so SO much for this in depth comment!! and also for ur reassurance that wait-time is okay huhu, that rlly soothes my soul since ive got big damn anxiety abt wait-timez.

that being said, im raring to write ch3 HAHA but i have to wait until im a bit more rested cuz...i am SO SLEEPY TODAY for staying up late last night KJAHSVFKJAS

#asks #milkyway!anon #commints #i could go on and on and ON about luke's character. like i could do a powerpoint party presentation on him

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rosaaeles · 2 years

Text

ive realised recently that when i write THG fics, i generally find it easier to work with prompts/shorter reqs because they allow me enough space to take the fic where i want. they give me inspiration, but they don’t limit me because they're never too specific.

so i just wanted to put out there that prompts, suggestions and short requests are easiest for me (e.g; “Katniss freaks and panics over a Peeta choking her flashback” or “sleepy katniss demands to be carried by peeta”). they’re what i like to receive because they plant inspiration and help me think of new settings and plot lines. i like the freedom that they allow me.

however, i’m less keen on requests that are longer in nature or too detailed. i struggle to write things which follows a rigid structure and when i try, i often find myself worrying that im going to mess it up somehow and not end up with what the requester wanted. ive received quite a few requests like this over the past few days on ao3 and tumblr and honestly? i dont know what to do with them. i want to make people happy and i want to write something that’ll bring them comfort, but i truly struggle doing so when the requests are so specific.

i feel like im not phrasing any of this very well but my main point is that i like short prompts a lot more than complicated or specific requests (this isn’t the same for everyone btw, it varies from writer to writer). if you have an idea for a fic you’d like to see me write, please send it, but be aware that if your request is quite detailed, i might not be able to write it.

finally, please be kind and patient with me. im trying to write more consistently, but i have a life outside of writing too, and some days the words just don’t come to me. sending me the same request over and over just fills up my inbox and stresses me out. receiving asks like “i want you to write this for me *insert long description with not even a thank you at the end*” makes me feel unappreciated. please remember to be polite in your asks, and also please let me know if you’ve sent the same exact request to other writers.

i get that people might want updates or to make sure i’ve received their reqs, but it becomes overwhelming after a while :/ here’s a post I found regarding fic requesting etiquette - if you’re ever unsure about a request, feel free to check it out!

im going to make a navigation post tonight so that i can clarify everything ive said here. i’ll also highlight what i like/don’t like writing seen as people ask me quite often.

thank u for reading this if u got to the end :’)

#rosa talks ❁#I just thought this was important to say #thank u for understanding

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jayflrt · 2 years

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alright im back again bc i need u to know how much i like ur crack fics. they genuinely made me laugh all day n theyre so well written n put together. im not even into kpop or even fanfiction as much as i used to be but i saw enhypen was trending and i found you by coincidence. i didnt even expect to read anything but i though "hell, why not." and boy howdy am i very glad i did. i cant express how much better my day got like literally ive been smiling all day, youre so hilarious. i hope you have the chance to keep going and continue them bc theyre genuinely so cool n entertaining. anyways good luck w college n life in general

AHHH HELLO HELLO AGAIN 💖💖 oh my gosh this is so sweet of you to say :’)) it makes me so happy that they were able to make you that happy !! ALSO so honored you chose to read mine even tho you’re not into kpop ff 🤧 honestly i’ve never thought about making a super well structure story or plotline when creating a smau (i usually save that for my written fics) but hearing you say makes me so happy that ppl can still see some underlying plot in there HAHAH 🥹 but thank you so much and i wish u the best luck in ur future endeavors as well :D

#💌 : love notes #u3v #makes me smile

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woncarnation · 2 years

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i was living and then i had a thought as all thoughts do come about while alive

is your name woncarnations wonwoo + reincarnations or wonwoo + carnations

and then what if minwon reincarnation au where carnations are a main theme because they give each other carnations in every life but you didn't hear that from me (:

while im here i'd like to say your fics are so healing i swear to god you're able to paint such an incredibly striking picture that makes me want to really snugly wrap myself into a blanket burrito and sip earl gray tea and just cry (fond).... and like your writing has really made me realise so much about my own writing namely how impactful metaphors are when you litter them in tiny places instead of being me and covering the entire text in them

and also just how wonderful sentence structure variation can be (ive been slowly improving with that but honestly wow you delay the actual impact of a certain action with the way you phrase sentences and it makes such an impact subconsciously wow) so thank you truly <3

9.30pm and the most random thought crosses my mind lmfao 😭😭😭😭 my lack of impulse control is to blame

Anon, firstly, i would like to Apologise.....it's been 33 days and i didn''t open my tumblr notifications at all? Not even once?? (preposterous, please never forgive me)

To answer your question, it's wonwoo + carnation! As you can tell i Like flowers. Like embarrassingly so, even. But now that you've mentioned it, reincarnation work too...and the story idea... hold on. Hold on. I've actually been playing with a reincarnation story idea since forever, but never got around to it because of a lot of reasons. I will simmer in this delicious premise but I do have a lot in the docket at the moment. Planning to post something this year at least (hopefully soon), but let us see where it goes after that. Though, if we're talking about a drabble here, then! I might be able to do something about it sooner :>

And oh anon... thank you. truly. sincerely. One of the biggest joys of writing in fandom is to be able to give even the littlest bit of comfort, joy, etc etc to others. I've mostly written things that make me happy and excited, things i want to read at the end of a long day, all the while hoping that it would elicit the same feelings from whomever my fics reached. To know that my writing has such an impact--especially on your outlook about your own writing--is such a big honour to me? :'') My esl brain often wonders if what I put out is even half intelligible (I don't even know what I'm writing right now, lest what I want to say). I'm the last person deserving of this, buat AH thank YOU anon.

I'm in a massive writer's block currently, being in such a big life transition stage has not been kind, for the most part--but finding this message in my little dusty inbox has made me smile. Big Time. I will sleep happy tonight. Crying happy tears. Makes me supper giddy and excited to get back into writing the moment i get the time to.

I don't know if you'll ever see this reply since it's literally been a month...but thank you for dropping by lovely anon <3

#asks #anon i love you

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class1akids · 2 years

Note

are u by any chance a creative writer or someone who studied film or something to that effect? (ive read ur fics so ik u do write but i mean like to some formal/study capacity) just bc your takes on characterization and story arc are so well-put and on point and manage to word things i never know how to articulate while capturing all the nuances etc and being concise and digestible. idk lol just—very impressive i love ur metas keep up the good work! c:

Oh, thanks a lot.

No, I've never had proper training with creative writing beyond a high-school English teacher who was passionate about teaching us how to write college-level essays. (EN is not my first language btw - so I suffered a lot in the beginning).

But I've read and re-read heaps and heaps of books since I was 6 and some story structures and turns of phrase just stick with you.

Also, my formal training is law, and they do teach you a thing or two about putting together written arguments and I do have to write a lot for my RL job.

So like all things - practice makes you better.

It's funny though - writing and reading even very long texts comes very easy to me, but a lot of times people send me YT videos to watch, and I can't for the life of me sit through a 10-minute spoken analysis and have a much harder time processing the information. We all have our preferred medium.

#c1a asks

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wexhappyxfew · 3 years

Note

i literally choked on my pizza when i saw your writing and analyzing questions post, I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!! first of all, what sort of process do you go through when creating characters? what kind of things do you take into consideration when creating them? i’m fascinated because creating characters is far from easy, especially when you’re creating someone like agent mortem! i’m always interested to know what the writer’s thought process was when creating a new character!

okay, so secondly, i wouldn’t say i’m having trouble with keeping all my planning organised and ‘precise’ in a way, but it’s really not easy 😅 i was wondering what kind of processes you go through when planning, whether you have like a specific structure or a set of steps to follow, or if you just kind of roll with it? at the moment when i plan it’s okay and it makes sense, but it’s literally just 4 or 5 pages of really chunky paragraphs which makes it really difficult to pick out the events again when i come to needing the plan to help me. i don’t really know if you do anything different, but if there is any way you know of that i could keep it more organised and easy to follow, that would be great :)

i’ll keep the last ones a little shorter because this ask is already looking veryyy long — what have you enjoyed writing about natia, what struggles have you faced and what have you learned? and basically the same with agent mortem if that’s possible :) i have asked a LOT of questions in this, so don’t feel like you have to answer them all because it will probably take quite a while 😅 anyway, thank you for putting up with my endless questions, and i hope you have a good day <33

ROSE AH HELLO MY FRIEND!!!! <333 sorry ive just gotten to this omg! it’s been sitting here for a little while but i’ve just had so much going on right now and wanted to make sure when i answered that my *full attention* was put on this! (because i’ve been very excited to answer this ESPECIALLY as i see agent mortem questions poking up on here and that just makes me even more hype!!! :D enjoy! <3

Ooooo this is a cool question! I’ve been asked it before but I feel with different characters and such, it always seems to fluctuate for me at least? In the sense, it’s almost never the same process for me in the developmental stages of a character haha! Sometimes I get characteristics first hand, or sometimes a certain scene pops up that just makes the character click and I can build from there, or sometimes, it’s just a last name or a first name that I work with and suddenly have an idea for!

For example, since we’re on the general topic of Landslide, I’ll talk about some things I did when creating specifically Natia. The “Natia” who is currently portrayed in the fic, was not always really like that. Natia initially was not a SOE Agent/Polish Resistance Fighter and instead a Dutch Resistance Member who would meet with Easy in Episode 4. I always sort of knew Natia, in whatever form she was, would meet Easy in Episode 4, but I wasn’t sure how, so the building in the first 17 chapters was the toughest part to come.

I did heavily feel the Polish were underrepresented in terms of the situation of the war along with everything that happened in the Warsaw Uprising and so I felt it was important to see if I could do something with that and that’s really where Natia came into play!

Natia means “hope” essentially and something I really like doing with her character is to parallel or juxtapose different ideas together, to continue on this sort of theme of her being a quite ominous and ambiguous character — you get the general sense of what her morals are, but in certain points it’s questionable. Morally-ambiguous characters have always been fascinating to me, especially female morally-ambiguous characters and so creating Natia in that respect I felt would be interesting to see what I could do!

Something major that I’ve slowly began to take into consideration with characters more and more, is the sort of general theme I want to be present with them — what’s that goal i that they are moving towards in the end and what’s the them surrounding it? For Natia it’s a multitude of things; family, revenge, being silenced, numb, grief, mentor vs protégé, lone wolf etc….the list could truly go on! And with these basic sort of ideas and themes, I can then move on from there and expand.

Why did she want REVENGE? Because the enemy killed her FAMILY, which is extremely important to her, and she wants to feel some sort of REDEMPTION for them.

Why was she BEING SILENCED? Because of the *past* conflict of the HARMFUL MENTOR VS SILENCED PROTÉGÉ situation that occurred between Agent Mortem and herself, where she allowed herself to be silenced by someone who abused the SUDDEN POWER he never had before in his life, ultimately leading to her continued issues of TRUST that she would meet throughout.

Why is she NUMB? Because at a fairly young age she experienced heavy and intense GRIEF that struck unforgivably at a time where it seemed things were safe. To rip something from a character, especially the main character, like FAMILY which is extremely important, you pull at the heart strings and it makes that character move forward on a quest for that in a way, ultimately by the end of the fic. (Basically you up they are least get a semblance of that lost thing, found again by the end)

Why is she a LONE WOLF? Because of the MENTOR VS PROTÉGÉ situation yet again, where she was taught to rely strictly on herself and no one else and so when TRUST and COMPANIONSHIP and TEAMWORK were introduced to her character, she didn’t know how to cope because she had been so desensitized to the ways of Agent Mortem that working back in the morals of family and friends was a challenge in its own respect.

It’s sort of a like a ripple effect if you think about it and that’s what helps me eventually move forward and develop the character arc I want to take place. She’s this way because of this — sort of like cause and effect. It’s really helped me out with major scenes or plot holes that have risen throughout the fic!

AGREED! Writing in general is not an easy feat and now including mind you ORIGINAL CHARACTERS, you’re literally, essentially, creating human beings from scratch and giving them characteristics, a backstory, trauma if you wish, friends and family, people they love, people they hate, morals, standards EVERYTHING! ITS INSANE! AH AND AGENT MORTEM! I’m so very glad that you brought him up, because his creation definitely stemmed directly from the want to experiment with the relationship of failed mentor vs protégé, entirely. I wanted a foil to Natia that was not directly with her all the time. Mortem plays such a MASSIVE role in her story and yet any interactions between the two are either from her mind or from memories and that’s just such a fun way to play around with their dynamic! (I just finished the creation of his backstory and character arc I want him to take and it’s only made me even more excited for what’s to ultimately come for him as well as Natia!)

A song that HEAVILY represents their dynamic is Ghost by Marvin Brooks (2WEI) and I’ll explain why. Even though Mortem is not always inherently *with* Natia, he still is a huge factor of her life, and still heavily controlling many aspects of her life such as recurring memories, reactions, and how she is also conditioned to react to certain things as well. He is essentially a “ghost” who is “haunting” Natia and I feel that’s an interesting take on their connection because they’re two people who clearly had a power struggle and a difference of opinions of multiple things and that just makes it so incredibly interesting to write!

song:

OOOOOO good question!!! So many people have such different ways of approaching story writing and planning and drafting and writing and editing and it’s honestly amazing!! I will say, I’m not an excessive planner or even a real great planner with writing, I never really have, and even as I’ve developed my writing and learned that “it’s okay to slow down”, or “it’s okay to take time for different portions to provide a deeper focus”, I still have not been someone to plan out every bit of my writing.

Reason being is I enjoy seeing where I can take the story in that time and place. Maybe if I’m doing a quick little writing segment and suddenly this idea just appears and hits me, I work it into the fic and it takes it a whole new direction and I end up not being super upset about it because it just…it works! And of course, this is not how other people operate and I have every respect for people who plan and have every detail laid out and figured out and just….completely and utterly planned to the dot. Lile kudos to people who genuinely get the planning all cleaned up before even writing, truly.

I just finalized Agent Mortem’s backstory and where I want his character arc to go and I’ve had him as a character since August of last year LOL! But ya know sometimes, I sit and I think back and go, maybe I wasn’t ready at that time to develop him completely yet because I, the writer, didn’t understand him enough to and I had to write more of him to be able to get a grasp of who he was and his character (and just about everything else!) and that’s okay!!! :)

Going with this idea I just stated above — the 4 or 5 pages of info — KEEP IT MY FRIEND!!! I swear, half the reason ideas even come to me is simply because I just write a big info dump that has all my little ideas somewhere inside and will ALWAYS be there. I recommend maybe taking a day though - away from focusing on writing or editing - and just picking that apart. (That’s what I did the other day and it helped me out MAJORLY! and it was worth it in the end!) Maybe keep the original 4-5 pages and then copy and paste the same thing in another doc so you always have the original!

And then just go through and split ideas apart! If you start reading and see it moving into another realm of headspace of ideas, just press enter and separate the two — you didn’t delete it, it’s still there and still intact! It’s just easier to look at now because instead of two, jumbled and completely different ideas, you now have two paragraphs and portions of text that relate to their own respective idea. It definitely makes it an easier pill to swallow when trying to get yourself organized!!

This really helped me when I was in my beginning stages of figuring out Landslide ESPECIALLY the first 17ish chapter where Natia was not in contact with Easy yet. I’ve explained it before but those chapters are there because we are seeing her final days with the resistance in Warsaw and how she ultimately ends up with Easy PLUS we see who she is as a character by herself and how she is not merely an extension off of Easy, but her own character, her own person. She has her own story and her own morals and ways of going about her life that don’t even relate to Easy. Their paths just happened to cross!! :)

By getting those first 17ish chapters planned, not extreme planning though I will admit, half the scenes were very much thought up on the spot for example like Natia driving to Munich in disguise or the introduction of Zdzich — two very important scenes that show us something about Natia. (1) She’s willing to go to extreme lengths for the people she loves to ensure that in the end they are safe, even if it means sacrificing herself and (2) she has trouble realizing that there are people out there that genuinely care for her, a connection to her ultimate, unruly and upsetting past. And the best part about it is THESE WEREN’T EVEN PLANNED! So sometimes, just let the story take the reigns and your mind and just guide you through it. Sometimes it is for the best :)

If you have your basic ideas and concepts and themes for how you want your fic to eventually go, the scenes for me most of the time just appear I guess when they should. Sometimes even in the times I'm not writing, I sit theorizing and questioning and thinking and developing ideas in my mind and it's a real good exercise, so when you get back to writing, you already know where you want the fic leading in the end!

MAN I LOVE THIS QUESTION. Anytime I can provide some meta or give some insight to Natia who is just one of the best characters I’ve gotten the pleasure of working with, I’ll gladly answer!

The thing I enjoy writing about Natia the most I feel, and I’ll probably always say this, is her complexity — as a writer, her character orders a healthy challenge for me that I gladly have accepted! You don’t know everything about her as a reader and as you read each chapter, that’s how you slowly uncover and discover what she hid about herself to protect herself. There’s so many different aspects of her that I could discuss truly!! (There has been so many parts that I’ve scrapped because I read through and just think “Man this doesn’t seem like Natia!”. She’s tricky sometimes to stake down exactly how she would react because of her past and her trauma and how long she’s been in war, but I just LOVE it!)

Many different aspects of her character though, come from her past and that’s what makes her interesting. I’ve really enjoyed working with the ideology of “Chekov’s Gun”, a writing device that can be used, with how I will mentioned something and it almost might seem out of the blue, yet later it all just makes sense?! When the flashback is revealed or a small portion of her past is finally allowing *light* in. It's a device I've used with Natia that has just really helped to develop her story at the pace I want it to be revealed! :D

For example, the OCEAN is mentioned many times. I make constant reference to the WAVES, the RECESSION of them from time to time, the comparison of the OCEAN both ABOVE and BELOW surface — all of that sorta stuff! For her character, it seems a bit out of place. She’s COLD. She’s NUMB. She’s BROKEN. What does an open body of water consuming at least 70% of the Earth have to do with an OC based in Warsaw, Poland?

This is where the importance of her PAST will play it’s role, as it has a major INFLUENCE on her and her CHARACTER and her MORALS. One of the main reasons the OCEAN is inherently connected to Natia is because of her PAST and one of those main reasons is AGENT MORTEM and her TRAINING, especially WATER training. I can’t comment further on this though as readers have only touched the tip of the iceberg for the use of the OCEAN and it’s IMPORTANCE so far in this fic! (Ask me again about it once this fic is finished up for the most part, unless….by Part 4 readers understand why!)

Natia just remains a character who constantly is developing and changing inside my head - where I want her path to ultimately end up leading by the end of the fic, where I want both her mental head space vs emotional head space should be and etc. So many portions of this fic are dealt specifically on her internal monologue and how she calculates and problem solves from that portion of her sort of *engagement* within the conflict. There never seems to be a dull moment when writing her!

Another thing I really have enjoyed about writing Natia is her clashing personality traits that make her interesting to write in both different scenarios and reactions. She's stubborn yet humble. She's numb and cold but internally extremely caring and giving and filled with these bottled up emotions. She's mentally strong yet she's been through so much and let the war take so much. She never complains about what she's doing, but she's lost nearly everyone she loves. She's a fighter in this war and refuses to back down from a battle she know she can wage, but the second she is pulled from the aspect of war, things crash and burn around her. Just even these few combating sort of things, really show her character and what, through writing, has slowly developed! They always lay around in the back of my mind and it's one of the main things I remind myself when I write Natia all the tme.

I think one of the most important things I've learned from both writing and creating a character like Natia is that (1) it's okay to ask for help, about anything, literally anything. You don't have to confine everything to yourself and build up this immense pressure to do what you must to continue moving forward. It's okay to have people there to help you and support you. (2) It's okay to be strong alone and even if you seem to be the only one on the current path you're are on, it does not mean you are wrong. it can still lead to the right destination in the end!

Oooo okay! AGENT MORTEM!! I am totally down to chat about some things I've loved to write with him with and some challenges I've discovered, but as far as what I've learned from him, I will be holding off and could answer that when the entire fic is both completed and then updated on platforms....just because ;) don't want to give away any spoilers haha! <3

Something I've enjoyed about writing and crafting Agent Mortem is letting him remain as mysterious and secretive as he is for so long. Initially, I can't even begin to recall what his character would be like even a year ago, but seeing where he has developed now, I'm really happy with where he is. He's mysterious, he's shadowed, he seems like a figure in the background, a past mentor who is half deranged and lost his mind with a background with so substance. It makes for such a fascinating way to begin to reveal his past! (something I've began to insert into part 4 of Landslide and man I'm just so HYPE!)

I feel I'm excited simply because he's finally getting the time and moment he deserves to finally explain and show himself as to what has occurred. There's so many fractured and disconnected parts of what is currently going on with Natia and her connection to both Agent Mortem and then Death is tossed in the mix and it seems this big complicated mess of 'how' Agent Mortem got to be this way, 'why' he does a thing such as this, just different and varying aspects such as that. it makes for those big final reveals to all be even more worth it!

He has been quite the challenge though I will admit. There's so many perspectives he could quite possibly be viewed from and his *character* + morals/values could be pulled in a various amount of ways as well. Making sure he accurately comes across the way I want him to both appear and come across to the reader and to myself has definitely been tricky. He's not as easy as suspected, you know, not just a 'dude who had a bad day and went insane in the end', there's a whole multitude of levels and reasons and a deep, heavy and traumatizing background starting from his birth really (which is a whole other story). Managing and balancing that all in one has definitely been something I've had to keep on top of and monitor but I feel has really been worth the challenge in the end. Because at the end of the day, I'm someone looking to constantly challenge myself.

And a good challenge, whether it be writing or academics or a workout, is healthy and GOOD! That's what Landslide in a whole has really shown me, to challenge yourself daily to see where you can push yourself and your imagination and creativity, just to see where you can even go!! it's exciting and refreshing!

Thank you so much for this wonderful ask Rose! I appreciate it more than ANYTHING as you well know, and I know it's taken me *quite* some time to answer, but I've been working on it for weeks now and finally got it out because it was ready! I really wanted to take my time with it and develop it to its full potential in the end and I feel I have (without giving away any spoilers haha!) As always, please know if you have any further questions regarding Natia Filipska, Agent Mortem, Death (along with other characters of Landslide), writing, the process (my own included), tips for writing/planning, or just anything else in general, I will always be happy to help in anyway I can! You're always welcome, anyone always is!!! <3333 Thank you again, I had so much fun doing this more than anything! :D

#writing #writing tips #band of brothers #bob fic #band of brothers fic #also hello landslide day tmr and it’s a good one hehe :d #natia filipska #agent mortem #death (character)#basic aid on characters + writing/planning #plus gathering thoughts #thank you again for this rose! i had so much fun! <3333

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peachcitt · 3 years

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okay, so style reference you say? I'm 👀

YES STYLE REFERENCE I SAY

this is going to be. a very long post i think with probably a lot of tangents and probably with a lot more thorough explanation than you could ever want but. here we go

because all of my theory/explanation posts end up So Long, i like to organize myself by keeping myself to a structure, and i also like to think if i put stuff in sub categories with bolded titles, people reading can skip ahead to the stuff they want if they're low on time or don't feel like slogging through everything. so here's the structure of the official Peach Style Reference Narrative

1. Early Days - how i started writing, my early inspirations, origins

2. Current Days - discussions of current style references plus examples and comparisons, discussions of original content versus fan content

3. Future Days - where i expect my writing to grow, trajectories i want, conclusory thoughts

without further ado, let's get into it!

1. Early Days

like i mentioned on the discord server, ive been writing creatively for. a very long time. i just turned 20 (like. literally today. we love to see it) and that seems very young, but i remember writing creatively when i was maybe six or seven, and before that i played with dolls a lot, which meant every day i was creating little narratives for myself. in addition to this - and this is probably why i started writing so young - i was (and am!) a very avid reader. i was that little jerk in elementary school reading chapter books and going into the older kids' section in the school library because i'd already mentally surpassed the books in the section meant for kids my age. so, basically, ive been writing for maybe 13 or 14 years at the least.

when i was young, my favorite books that i remember trying to copy in my own stories were: the magic treehouse books, harry potter, and percy jackson.

the magic treehouse

i honestly could not tell you which magic treehouse book it was, but i remember reading a specific magic treehouse book where the magic lady that left the treehouse for the kids sends the kids (jack and annie??) a note in distress, and she didn't get to finish signing her name because whoever had gotten her had interrupted her. it had been printed in the book with the ink on her name running.

i could not tell you anything else that happened in that book, but i can tell you that at some point in time soon after i read that book i started writing a story with an interrupted letter just like that. i loved the drama, the mystery of it all. i wanted to do something that was a little scary like that, a little exciting.

harry potter

harry potter isn't much of a style reference, but it was a huge impact of my childhood. truth be told i kind of hated the books when i was really young because i grew up watching the movies, and when i tried to read the books when i was in elementary school, the teenage angst that hits about book 5 simply Did Not make sense to me. i also find the language of harry potter to be super cumbersome, and sometimes it feels to me like the books are long just for the sake of being long. they have a huge cultural impact, but i feel the same way about harry potter's style as i do about dickens. cool and interesting, but, like, could you get to the point already? (and also my opinion of j.k. rowling has steadily been growing worse and worse over the years, for obvious reasons. harry potter is nostalgic for me, but i can't look at it now without thinking about it critically, which really lowers my opinion of it)

however, you could probably call my first fanfiction a harry potter fanfiction. i started it when i was maybe six or seven, and it was a rewrite of the chamber of secrets with my childhood best friend as the main character (she didn't know about it, i just had her as the main character because i thought she was cool). i of course never finished it, but harry potter probably did a huge part of planting that seed of magic in me. everything i want to write included some form of magic - although my perspective on what can be considered magic has steadily expanded over the years.

percy jackson

of all my childhood "style references" that still influence me to this day, percy jackson has got to be the biggest. for starters, it's magic. second, it's main themes are about friendship and family - things that i like all my stories now to always include. third - and most important - is the narrative voice.

in terms of narrative voice, percy has a huge personality. he's witty and snarky, but also very thoughtful and poignant. a lot of my early writing was in first person, and it's probably because of percy. also, percy jackson was the first fandom i really got into, and it was the first media that i started officially writing and posting fanfiction for. percy's voice is so clear and hooking, and i wanted to be able to write something funny and real like that.

also - chapter titles. the original pjo series is famous for its weird and hilarious chapter titles, and even though i didn't really start writing fics or stories that were long enough to need chapter titles until a while later, i loved the idea of putting in a chapter title that would make a reader laugh, or maybe even make a reader feel a little apprehensive about the events to come.

but back to percy's narrative voice. i loved that style, almost conversational, so much that i started thinking like it. when i wasn't doing anything, like walking home in middle school, i often found myself narrating my life in my head like percy would, trying to find that humor and spark in my every day surroundings. i still find myself doing that very often, but not necessarily in the classic pjo style. now i narrate everything in my head a little differently, but that practice narration in my early days really helped my shape my voice, i think.

other series i read when i was younger include: a a series of unfortunate events and the name of this book is secret. i don't remember seeing a lot of influence in my early writing from those books, but i definitely think the styles of those books hit me a little later, which i will talk about in the next section.

but, yeah. these were the big three of my childhood. i also read a lot of ya romance, children's mystery books, princess stories, and various types of fantasy, which i think you could probably tell from the genres i like to stick to now. except i don't write a ton of mystery because, as much as i admire the complicated plots, im not sure if i'd have the patience to plan all that out.

in terms of the rest of the genres, a ton of my earlier writing included classic ya romance and fantasy tropes - chosen girl, love triangles, angsty overpowered teens, etc etc. even though those kinds of stories are not necessarily the kinds of stories i want to write or read now, i think my early writing of those kinds of things was really valuable. it's kind of a dirty secret with finished or unfinished works generally considered 'cringe' - often that writer is a new writer, or they're trying something new, or they just haven't found their voice yet. all of those things are perfectly okay and normal, and a lot of people in the writing community preach that kind of thing, but i don't necessarily see people cutting new writers slack in actual practice. writing "overrused" tropes isn't cringe, it's normal, and, besides, what trope isn't overrused? people have been writing and telling stories for thousands of years - nothing is really new. what matter is that someone new is telling the story, and that's what makes it valuable.

so, yeah, a lot of my childhood writing is cringe to me now, but i wouldn't be where i am without it.

with that being said, let's actually look at where i am now

2. Current Days

im going to break this section down into two parts, sort of: original fiction and fanfiction. because i think both of these things have become really important to me, and i don't believe i personally could exist as a writer without one or the other. it's a symbiotic relationship.

we'll start with fanfiction.

my relationship with fanfiction is relatively positive in online spaces: i write what i want to see from media that i like, and i have fun doing it. i also get some comments on my fics by lovely people that detail exactly what they like - some even go so far to talk about narrative style, voice, or tone - and that's really helpful. generally, i see fanfiction not only as a fun hobby and vent space for my strong positive feelings about certain media, but also as a place for me to try new things, experiment, and earn positive feedback.

i don't often share my original fiction online (and if i do, never at the same scope as my fanfiction), so i don't get that same opportunity to see what "works" with readers. fanfiction gives me the space to see that, and i apply new knowledge ive learned to my original fiction. that's what i mean by a symbiotic relationship.

in terms of specific style references for specific fics (which is what i know you probably most want to see), i'll try my best to pick them all out and give specific examples.

those benevolent stars and i am the messenger by markus zusak

in my favorite book list, i saw you mention tbs, so i'll start there. to be honest, i had no idea what my style reference for tbs was when i first saw your tags, and i almost didn't think there was anything specific. style references are a bit sneaky like that - if you've been referencing for someone for a long time, it becomes less of an intentional reference and more of just a you think, so it gets harder to tell.

lucky for this post, i just finished doing my yearly reread of zusak's i am the messenger, and as i was reading, i noticed a few spots where i was like wait hey i remember doing that.

for starters, iatm has been my favorite book for about six or seven years now, so i would say that some aspects of my style certainly comes from zusak because of how much i love iatm but also his other books. zusak has this huge talent for writing short, punchy sentences that convey so much in just a few words, and i think i've ended up trying to do that in my own writing. often, in my writing you'll see fragmentary sentences such as "He stopped. Blinked. Looked at her." that's not from anything specific, but i know ive written something like that maybe a million times over. zusak doesn't do the same thing - often his fragments are jam-packed with imagery in a way that mine aren't - but there's a thoughtfulness in his fragments that are in mine, too. a sort of pause. a hint that there's thinking happening in the narrator or a certain character. for example, i did a quick flip through of my copy and we have:

"We stare across the table.

Just briefly.

At each other." (I am the Messenger, p.144)

so you see how my common sentence fragment of "he stopped / blinked / looked at her" tracks with a fragment like this? i like the way zusak broke up sentences to make you dwell on them a little longer, consider the importance of each section, so i started doing that wayy before i wrote tbs i think.

also, at the time i wrote tbs, i think i was in the process of, or had just finished doing my reread of iatm, and, like i said, zusak loves imagery. tbs is a very imagery-heavy fic. tbs was influenced by a lot of music - a lot of the scenes have very specific pieces of music that i wrote imagining the tone and vibe of. iatm also references a lot of outside media sources, mostly music and films.

there are a couple of scenes in tbs that i think i wrote specifically mimicking or accidentally referencing from iatm. for example, we have this scene in tbs:

"It was almost like he could feel Marinette’s eyes on his back, steady and gentle. 'But you still love her.”

'Yeah,' Adrien said quietly, 'I still love her.' His eyes moved along a streak of purple that bled into a dark blue. 'I hate her a little bit, too.'

Marinette was silent.

He turned around, giving her a smile." (Those Benevolent Stars, chapter 3)

and this scene from iatm:

"'Do you hate me, Ed?'

Still stupid with bubbles and vodka in my stomach, I answer. Very seriously.

'Yes,' I whisper. 'I do.'

We both smack the sudden silence with laughter." (I am the Messenger, p. 233)

obviously there are differences, and i don't think i did it on purpose, but the interaction is very similar. i love the gentle intimacy of that scene in iatm, that weird complication relationship between the main character and the person he loves, the hurt, the brushing it off with laughter. so i wrote a scene that incorporated those things

zusak is also really good at writing moments of quiet into his books that aren't necessarily important to the plot, but are still important. if you've ever read that ghibli meta post talking about the 'quiet' between scenes in studio ghibli scenes, meant to give both the audience and the characters space to breath, it's like that. nothing in iatm is not imporant - it all serves a purpose, even the quiet moments, and i try to do the same thing. there's moments like that in tbs i think, like:

"Marinette gave him a small smile before turning back to her ice cream. Adrien tried to eat his ice cream a little faster, licking up where it had dripped onto his hand.

They were quiet for a while longer, and Marinette finished her ice cream. She leaned back on her hands and looked up at the dark sky, littered with stars.

He could see them all in her eyes, too." (Those Benevolent Stars, chapter 3)

and in iatm, you get scenes like:

"Our feet dangle.

I watch them, and I watch the jeans on Audrey's legs.

We only sit there now.

Audrey and me." (I am the Messenger, p.120)

so i definitely think tbs is a very i-am-the-messenger/markuz zusak-inspired fic. there's a lot of zusak's quiet, and there's the pieces of zusak's style that i've picked up along the way that really shine in tbs

tomorrow and this body's not big enough for the both of us by edgar cantero

ive talked about cantero a few times recently, but, as you've probably noticed, in relation to my fic called 'tomorrow.' i wrote tomorrow pretty soon after reading this body's not big enough for the both of us, and i used tomorrow specifically to experiment with cantero's visual writing style. in all the books by cantero ive read, there's this kind of hyper-awareness of a film gaze - how a certain scene would be shot on a camera, dialogue as script writing, and other things like that mixed with prose. i thought it was fascinating, and after finishing this body, i really wanted to play around with that idea. so i wrote tomorrow keeping in mind a "film gaze." for example:

"Two figures sitting on a rooftop, silhouettes. The moon hovers over them carefully, a crescent afraid to break the silence. One of the figures takes a breath, looks up into the sky at the hesitant moon, and he sighs. He closes his mouth again." (tomorrow)

versus in cantero's work, where we get descriptions like:

"And then, like a high-heeled coup de grace, she arrived.

She paused briefly outside the door, her hourglass silhouette cast upon the glass panel with the fresh shiny vinyl letters" (This Body's Not Big Enough for the Both of Us, prologue)

the tone of the two excerpts are very different, but there's a very visual sense to both of them, like they are being described from a shot in a movie rather than a regular work in prose. in tomorrow i also work a lot with specific camera imagery - saying where the camera goes in the scene, what it focuses on - and this body doesn't do this too much, but cantero's meddling kids does at least once that i remember.

regardless, after finishing this body, i wanted to try my hand at the visual structure that cantero uses in his works, so i really leaned in to the idea.

chat noir's white french man hit list for feminist purposes and grasshopper jungle by andrew smith

this is, as of right now, the most recent fic on my ao3, and i started it the literal day i finished grasshopper jungle. i think you might be getting a theme here - i read a really good book, and then immediately after i start writing something. the easiest way to get inspired as a writer is to read.

chat noir's hit list is a fic that is very much aware of the fact that it is a story being told - you don't know by who or for what real reason until the end, but it's a self aware sort of story. it's also very snarky and sarcastic, and it expands past just the confines of its own story; it's about chat noir and his hit list, but it also talks in depth about emilie agreste, chat noir's relationship with ladybug, and his relationship with himself. this is very much the kind of thing that you would find in an andrew smith book - grasshopper jungle is a story being told to you, and it's also about more than just the original pieces of the plot. the narrator tells the story that expands past regular confines of the story he means to tell - he's telling the 'history' of his life and his town, but he also talks about his great-great grandfather, the origins of the ketchup his girlfriend's dad eats, and what's happening in other parts of the country as he and his best friend are hanging out. the line in chat's hit list of "stars exploded, the sun did not, life continued on" was very much a grasshopper jungle and andrew smith-inspired line.

at the end of adrien's narration in chat's hit list, he says:

"It should be mentioned at this point in time that this story is not over, although I’ll stop telling it here.

So that’s the story of Chat Noir, who is also Adrien Agreste, who was very much a normal boy, except for the fact that he wasn’t. It’s a sad story, but it is also a happy story, and it is highly confidential. I’m sure you understand." (Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List for Feminist Purposes)

and at the end of grasshopper jungle, as the main character is closing out his narration, we get:

What I have written here is not the history of Eden. It is the history of the end of the world. All real histories will be about everything, and they will stretch to the end of the world.

The end of the world started when Andrej Szczerba slid into the cold sea as his boy, Krys, watched and wept and drifted closer and closer to the United States of America.

Nobody knew anything about it." (Grasshopper Jungle, p.382-3)

It's not overtly similar, but the structure is the same: recognition of the end, short summary of where we started and left the story, tag phrase that was used prior in the work. when i was writing the end of adrien's narration, i didn't mean to mirror grasshopper jungle so closely, but sometimes things just happen that way - honestly, so many of the things i do in my writing aren't intentional, they're subconscious. when i make a conscious choice, it's related to plot or to a new strategy im applying to style or voice that i'm not used to, but a lot of the things i do fly under the radar in my brain unless im purposefully trying to piece them apart like i am here.

i will say the meta-story of chat's hit list was pretty directly inspired by grasshopper jungle because i love meta stories, and i like using opportunities to put them in. i just love the idea of reading a story of someone telling someone else a story, which is what the two books by andrew smith i've read have been, and i think that's just fascinating, which is why i used it here.

ive gotten a couple of comments on chat's hit list that liken the narrative style to pseudonymous bosch's the name of this book is secret and lemony snicket's a series of unfortunate events, which i thought was really interesting, because i was purposefully trying to make the voice an impression of andrew smith's voice adapted to the tone of ml, but i could definitely see their reasoning.

andrew smith, like i mentioned before, likes specifics - what exactly people were doing at certain times, where a specific bottle of ketchup came from, etc. from what i remember of the name of this book is secret and a series of unfortunate events, i remember the descriptions included in those books chock full of highly specific, snarky details that aren't truly necessary, but do a whole lot in terms of adding a certain flavor to the narration. i won't try and look up examples from unfortunate events and the name of this book, but here are a couple examples:

"See, the thing about Emilie Agreste, formerly Emilie Graham De Vanily, is that she was what could be generously called a ‘radical.’ Born in 1969, like most amazing and world-altering things, Emilie Graham De Vanily grew up in London alongside her twin sister, who is a nice enough woman and who is not really that important to this story, and she was raised with the firm and gentle hands of people who had witnessed war and cruelty and had found that they did not like at all. Emilie Graham De Vanily grew up learning about the true history of England, which is not a very nice history, truly, and she grew up knowing that people with white skin like her were historically not all that great. That, historically, was a very radical thought." (Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List for Feminist Purposes)

from chat's hit list, and this:

"In 1905, being seventeen years old made you a man. In 1969 when hungry Jack fought in Vietnam, seventeen years old was a man. My brother, Eric, who was somewhere in Afghanistan, was twenty-two.

Krzys Szczerba came across the Atlantic with his father. They planned on working and earning enough money so Krzys's mother, brother, and two sisters could come to the United States, too. People who did that were called Bread Polacks. They came here to make money." (Grasshopper Jungle, p. 68)

from grasshopper jungle. once again, obviously very different, but you can tell im playing around with that same feeling of giving a surplus of facts in my narration in the same way that andrew smith does. you can't really tell in the grasshopper jungle excerpt, but oftentimes the surplus of 'facts' serves almost a comedic effect, which is definitely something that you can feel in chat noir's hit list.

[REDACTED] and six of crows by leigh bardugo

as a reward for sticking around through this, i'll give out something fun here. the current long fic that ive been working on recently has proved to be very bardugo-inspired, particularly six of crows-inspired.

in six of crows, bardugo gives us action right off the bat and then integrates flashbacks into lulls of action so that there's never truly a dull moment. i found [REDACTED] to be a fic where i wanted to use flashbacks in a similar way, so that i would get something like:

"She doesn’t stay for the whole parade, but she stays for enough of it. Nothing unusual happens, just like always, but she still makes cursory patrols around the city, ending up at the Eiffel Tower, just like always. She sits on the railing way up at the top, and she crosses her ankles, swinging her legs back and forth and humming softly to herself as she watches the sun set.

'Little kitty on the roof, all alone without his lady,' he used to sing when he’d gotten back to their meeting point from patrolling his half of the city before her. It was just a silly little song, one that he’d clearly made up for himself."

It didn’t hurt until he’d been akumatized, and she’d seen that one version of the future - the one where he’d destroyed the whole world because of Gabriel Agreste. She’d seen him then, a lonely figure in white, humming his little song to himself. Who knows how long he’d been like that before she’d been transported to him, how long he’d been really and truly alone. (REDACTED, chapter 1)

and in comparison, we get a lot of scenes in six of crows like:

"Kaz leaned against the ship's railing. He wished he hadn't said anything about his brother. Even those few words raised the memories, clamoring for attention. What had he said to Geels at the Exchange? I'm the kind of bastard they only manufacture in the Barrel. One more lie, one more piece of the myth he'd built for himself.

After their father died, crushed beneath a plow with his insides strewn across a field like a trail of damp red blossoms, Jordie had sold the farm. Not for much." (Six of Crows, p.205-6)

bardugo uses most of the flashbacks during a time in which the main characters are on a long sea voyage, which means they have a lot of time to reflect on their pasts and what brought them to these situations - it's a smart way to fill the empty space of the sea voyage and to really dwell on how important the voyage is. in a similar way, i chose to use the flashbacks in dull or lulling moments in the events of the story, ones in which marinette lets her mind wander or sees something that makes her remember something specific.

however, here's a situation where you can see me adapt the style into something that makes more sense for me, personally: in my excerpt, the tense changes between the current events and the flashback events, while in bardugo's excerpt, the tense stays the same at a comfortable past tense. when i was writing my fic with the flashbacks, i thought the constant, sometimes abrupt, switching would get confusing, so i made sure to always have a clear line using the past and present tense that readers could consciously or unconsciously take notice of.

so there are a couple of instances within some fairly recent fics i have that have specific callbacks to specific books. there are a whole bunch more, i think, but these are the ones that ive played around with intentionally the most recently or the most often.

3. Future Days

based on my recent rapid experimentation in fics (the most recent four fics on my ao3 have been very experimental in comparison to most of my works), i really anticipate a lot of growth in my overall style. ive been having a lot of fun experimenting and throwing in things that a few years ago i would've never even thought of, so im really excited to see where that might lead me, style wise.

i think as a writer there's always room for growth and learning, and that kind of growth and learning comes from not only practicing writing, but also reading. i cannot stress enough how valuable and impactful reading is on writing. considering ive been trying to read a lot more than i have been in recent years, it makes a lot of sense that ive been making a lot of weird decisions and learning more about what i want to see in my own writing.

honestly, if you ever want to know about any of my other fics, or you want to see how this kind of thing translates to my original works, just shoot me an ask! this post is already long enough, so i think i'll go ahead and end it here, but just know you can always ask questions<3

thank you so much for asking me this question and letting me indulge, and thank you for reading!!!<3<3<3<3

#ask #miabrown007 #writing #writing meta #writing style #writing style reference #my writing meta #this took. actually i will not say how long this took because i do not want to hurt myself that way #just know that this took a while. did it need to? fucking no absolutely not you didn't ask for something this long i did this to myself #this is why i didn't answer this for a couple days btw i wanted to take time to actually sit down and write down a thorough post like this #for you and i didn't have the time when you first sent it #technically i should not have had the time today but that sort of thing doesn't count in the middle of the night #happy birthday to me im giving myself a super long meta post where i info dump about some of my favorite things #also you did not. you did not ask for writing or life advice and yet i also gave that. im sorry it just happens i don't know how to stop #im so tired. i have class tomorrow (today) my cat's being a little piece of shit. we love to see it #thanks so much for asking this and i seriously mean it when i say you can ask any time #i obviously didn't go over the majority of my fics and most of this was done off of memory alone #(in terms of my own fics. the books i had to flip through to find the quotes i wanted)#so if you have any more questions about a specific fic don't hesitate to ask!! that goes for everyone btw #anyway now i have to pay attention to my cat and then go to sleep goodnight love y'all

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