#showyourprocess

[druidx]

#showyourprocess

Yoinked from woodhousejay

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content! To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Tagging: @strosmkai-rum @spacetimewraithwrites @wildswrites @tetrodotoxincs @odysseywritings @ayzrules @morganwriteblr @my-writblr @bexminx @writingingraves @dreamwishing @aalinaaaaaa @wardenoftheabyss @pleaseloathemyveryexistence @jaguarthecat @catharticallysarcastic

I know the rules say for me to choose, but I'd rather you answer for a work that you can recall your process for.

I thought I'd cover Before it Shatters with this, because I can remember very strongly what the process for this one was.

1) Inspiration

There was a prompt event on one of the discord servers I'm in. Part of the prompt was "A heart made of glass", which really resonated with me.

2) Preparation

I kept turning the idea of this fragile item over in my head, the picture of an actual anatomical heart made from glass... At some point, it gained an angry flame, and I considered what would happen if that got too hot...

Another part of the prompt was "Warm tones", and my daydream about the heart became set with red sandstone, and then a man in a white cloak passing over the stones... At which point it was time to write.

3) Art Process

I banged this 790 word story out in two days. Flush with the daydream, I managed the introductory paragraph in the late hours of a sunday; the notes I left myself before I went to bed on sunday read:

Princess with glass heart filled with fire that is cracked, she's clearly venerated, something about how it burned to hot and the glass cracked and it's slow to be mended, she is motionless a half alive and half not, like the god-emperor from 40K

The rest of the story was completed after work on the Monday. Looking back at the version changes (I write in gDocs these days), I edited as I went, so there were minimal changes to be made before posting.

4) Thoughts

This was one of those rare, special stories that was just waiting to be written. I had clear vision, the story didn't have to be forced. I'm especially proud of the veneration given by the preist:

[The Capelian] touched the tips of [his] fingers to his chest, lips, and forehead, ere raising his hand in supplication to the dais. "My breath, my words, my mind, for you, my Princess,"

This story was very popular, with a lot of people praising the worldbuilding (that I hadn't even realised was worldbuilding). However, people did seem to miss that the Princess was alive, mistaking her for some kind of statue. Maybe if I were ever to rewrite this, I would put more emphasis on that aspect.

I was surprised by its popularity, as to me it was a quick, almost throw-away story. There were requests for more, or assumptions that it was part of a larger whole. I can see where more story of this might lead, but I'm not inclined to follow its path at this time.

5) Tagging See above

#meta writing #tag game #showyourprocess #story analysis #meta wandering words

[heuheu-art]

I thought I’d show my comic making process! The sketch stage of this comic was probably the most challenging artistic thing I’ve ever done, it really pushed the boundaries of what I was comfortable with and I learnt so much from it.

#showyourprocess #sketch vs final

[avrablake]

#showyourprocess

Thanks for the tag @emelkae

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Beyond the Darkness

1) Inspiration:

I wrote a lot of fan fiction in high school and college, but then I didn’t write for a long time—over 10 years. I was going through a pretty low period when I happened to have a conversation with a friend about the fact that I kind of wanted to get back into writing but didn’t think I had good ideas to write any actual novel. They encouraged me not to stress about writing something good or to think about what other people might like. To just pick something that sounded fun and try to write at least a little bit every day.

I dusted off an old fanfic idea. I had a few OCs and a few scenes but no real plot. I just started writing. It was more a collection of character interactions than a story, but I started to see the characters evolving beyond their source material and decided it was time to try to turn them into their own people.

2) Preparation

I’ll be the first to admit that plot and world building are not my strong points. I spent a lot of time just developing my characters and writing some scenes from writing prompts. But I still had no real plot. I had a cast of characters I loved and an idea of what I wanted their arcs to look like. I had a few scenes from my 30k fanfic I wanted to transfer over, and I had a bulleted list of things I would like to see happen. And a very rough magic system. At that point it was almost November. I had always wanted to do NaNoWriMo so I decided to give it a try. The point of NaNo is to take random ideas, put them in a bag and shake them up to see what comes out, right?

3) Art Process

I wrote 50k words of Beyond the Darkness for Nano 2020 (my first time ever yay) and finished up my first draft a few months later. It was around 80k and it was a complete mess. I was making up plot as I went along and not editing as I wrote. I changed my mind pretty frequently and took the story in a different direction multiple times. I took about a month off from writing after finishing that first draft then dove into tackling my mess. I read through the whole draft and made a bunch of notes. My goal with my second draft was just to fix all those continuity issues and try to get the plot to make some sense. It was still pretty rough and still had a lot of issues, but I had the plot pretty much worked out at that point. I still had some [this goes here] scenes but that 2nd draft was still around 110k. 

I have since restructured the story to cut about a quarter of the book. I’ve also added a lot of new scenes that I think deepen the characters interactions and also help some of their actions make more sense. 

4) Thoughts

I still have a lot of work to do but I’m happy with the progress I am making. This project got me through a low point and got me through the last two years. I love it. I love my OCs. I hope someday I can share it. I have had a lot of really amazing support from people in real life and here on tumblr and I appreciate it immensely.

Tagging (no pressure): @diphthongsfordays @ashen-crest @author-a-holmes @kaiusvnoir @zonnemaagd plus Open Tag for anyone who wants it

#showyourprocess #tag game #beyond the darkness

[dontjudgemeimawriter]

Share your Progress Tag

tagged by @jessicas-story-blog22 ty!

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Using Syndicate

Original to Current Iteration

I'm changing the format the previous one was in and adding this category instead of Inspiration because of the process of this.

So, when I was a baby writer, I started a story I called The Light at the End of the Tunnel (I got attached to the name but it was never perfect). It was one of the first things I wrote on a computer, and the first typed story I finished. Because of that it has always been important to me.

(gets longwinded so under the cut)

Anyway. It was even more edgy angsty than it is now. That story was about a kid named Cecil, who went through various torture methods at the hands of a group of torturers. His only friend was Mika, who cared for him and kept him relatively safe, as best she could. (I was like, 12, when I came up with this.)

From that grew some really good components: I learned how to write dark really well. I fell in love with betrayal and with secrets as plot elements. Terran became a character-- at the time, a twist that he was on their side, and a dip into exploring the pressure he was under for having to pretend. And, most importantly, the twist that Raymond, someone Cecil had only heard about, was alive. (There was also magic in this version, Mika always had emotions poers and Ramyond always had mental ones. But it was just there, not very salient, and no worldbuilding.)

Anyway. I finish that story. I celebrate in relief. I take a break, I work on other things. I take writing classes, I get practice. I rewrite it, mainly just tidying things up and adding some scenes. I develop Raymond and Terarn's romance more (that was there almost since the beginning, but fun fact-- I didn't originally intend it, it was my best friend who said she shipped them). I leave it. I write other things. I write a one-shot taking place after the events of the story that's just kinda fluffy, as fluffy as anything in this story can be. I write a full backstory, with everything that happened in the past. I leave it.

I go to college. I have other stories. I consider TLATEOTT an old draft I remember fondly but know is not very good. I miss parts of it. In a few sad moments, my girlfriend asks about stories to cheer me up, and I tell them about Terran.

I take an advancd writing class and we're supposed to start something new. She says, we can use old characters, but for the most part it has to be new. I brainstorm I try to pick other plots. It occurs to me-- what if I just take the good parts from TLATEOTT?

I go off memory. What was the good parts? How can I change it? I brainstorm. I come up with the magic system, with Calson City. I change it to assassins, as it does what I need it to and works better. I write down notes about Terran. I draw form everything I know already, applying it all to this new world and circumstances. A new story forms, where the twist halfway through is now the premise. I change what didn't make sense.

In all that, the one major thing that didn't fit? the original main character. R.I.P Cecil.

Preparation

I touched on this already-- I don't really have much research for this I usually have to look up things like how burn healing works and the laws regarding fire escapes and how hostage negotiations usually work. Most of my prep is worldbuilding and plot planning, and brainstorming ideas about what's gone down in the past. I have a notebook for brainstorming, which I try to copy into documents on my computer so it's easier to find.

Art Process

I don't have art but I do have a moodboard, playlist, and I've made picrews of the characters. Oh am um... my best friend did make fanart of the original. It doesn't make sense now, but it's fantastic.

Thoughts

I didn't say this about the process: first of all, it's on and off. I go though such long periods where i can't write more of this, can't figure out where it's going. But I'm gunna do this one. I know it. This is a big one for me, and my soul is in it.

Second, writeblr is a part of it. I decided to catch up on tags... and I might have enough inspiration to get back to writing it. seriously,it is unbelievable the amount of help it is to share snippets. especially when people reply to it.

Tagging @sleepy-night-child @diphthongsfordays @thegreatobsesso & open tag for anyone who wants to!

#showyourprocess #share your progress tag #my writing #syndicate

[thequeenofthewinter]

Show Your Process Tag

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag other people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

I am not sure who to tag here, so if you see this and would like to participate, please consider yourself tagged. (I was tagged by a double team of nocturnalswarehouse and oblivions-dawn. Thanks friends. <3)

Inspiration

What inspired me to write my long fic? Well, um, I guess I wanted to see more of Skyrim and more of our dear Ulfric Stormcloak. At least in my personal opinion, I think that his character is more complex than just a black and white “egotistical and power-hungry man”, and I think there is a lot more going on there and in Windhelm. I guess perhaps you could say that was the reason why I started; I wanted to share my own version of him with everyone else and also my Dovahkiin. Pretty simple, I think. As a little “fun fact”, I was actually pretty scared after I would post for the first 10 or so chapters that I would have someone come after me about how I am portraying him or would come after me because well, Ulfric is a pretty controversial character.

 

Preparation

Oh, the answer to this is going to be pretty fun. I had no idea I was going to start writing a fic, so…um, yeah. I didn’t really prepare? 

 

I have been reading fanfiction for YEARS, but I didn’t even consider that I could do such a thing as write it until last August. I was actually in the middle of reading a fic when I thought…“what if I tried doing this”? I debated it for a while and thought about what exactly I would write about and went back and forth about if I should really do it or not for a few weeks. Then in September, I started writing, and I almost immediately gave up because filling up a page was SO slow, and I would have to write SO many words. How could I ever finish something like a fic? …and well, here I am 9 months later, and I have almost 200k words, and I regularly write around 5000-7000 every week to two weeks. Yup.

So, the fic kind of started with a few ideas, and then I composed a rough outline of what events would happen next, and then I began to fill it in. Sometimes ideas come to me while I am writing, and I will add those in too. I guess having an overactive imagination was my preparation? 

 

Art process

Art process…mmm, well, I guess I would say that after I had an idea of where I wanted to start, a few plot points, and where I wanted to end…I just let the characters do the writing. I would say I am a little chaotic in that sense. I would like to think I have a very vivid imagination and a very strong idea of who my characters are. Sometimes I will pace my kitchen while I think about new ideas for what will happen next and imagine how they would play out in my head. (I have seen that this is pretty common among writers, so it makes me not feel as crazy.)

 

I also don’t like the idea of really detailed outlines or needing to know every single little thing that happens before or while I write. (But if you do, there is NOTHING wrong with that! All of us writers are different!) I also do not keep rough drafts. I know, I know. I am a MONSTER. I write in small sections (after I have an idea of what is going to happen in the chapter), and I do not stop to read or re-read until I am done. Once I am finished, I will read what I wrote and make any changes to what I am writing right there on my Word document. I have ONE word document for ALL of my fic (with a table of contents and links to where each chapter starts), and that Word document is my fic. (The document is currently 424 pages.)

 

 Thoughts

Writing fic has been a real wild ride and a process of discovery for me. I started out this whole thing wondering if anyone would even want to read what I write or if I would be any good at it. However, as I have gone on, I have discovered a lot. (Sometimes I like to share these thoughts here on my blog.)

If I had to pick a few of them, I think the most important discoveries would be:

I can absolutely do this, and being “good” at it doesn’t matter at all. What is more important is if you ENJOY what you’re doing.

Having patience with yourself and listening to what your creative brain tells you is really important.

Not everything that I write has to be mind-blowingly amazing. Perfection doesn’t exist and is actually very harmful to the creative process.

Oh, and I would definitely be remiss if I didn’t mention the most important thing of all about this whole process which has been meeting great friends and other writers. I'd like to mention three people in particular: @nocturnalswarehouse @dumpsterhipster and @oblivions-dawn. I have had the most joyous and amazing experience getting to know all of you, speaking with you about writing or other things, and reading what you write. You are all absolutely outstanding human beings and writers. I wouldn’t be here without you all. Thank you for sharing and accepting me into your space and your community. It has truly meant a lot to me.

#showyourprocess #this is how I write #yes it's chaos #but I love it

[emelkae]

#ShowYourProcess

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thanks for the tag, @my-writblr!

For WANNABE:

1) Inspiration

I got a strong urge to write an AU fic a few weeks after the season finale of a show I'd been watching. Like, a frenzied urge, driving me to write faster than I'd ever written in my life (and consequently producing content riddled with typos haha). It ended up over 50k words long. If you count the hits and kudos on every part, that series is my most popular fic to date.

I finished the series, but something about it wouldn't let me move on. It'd sparked a love for writing that I'd thought I'd lost. I wanted so badly to keep playing with that AU. What was the harm in reworking a bunch of things, changing up some dynamics, overhauling personalities, and molding a world of my own? For funsies?

What was supposed to be a sweet AU one-shot developing a potential friendship spiraled waaaayyyy out of control, and I ended up writing an original novel 94k words long. As one does. It's book 1 of 3.

2) Preparation

Because I am The Way I Am, the first thing I did (after declaring most of the characters were going to be robots for no reason other than that seemed cool) was come up with a villain, the Engineer. The second was the protagonist, the Engineer's son. Briar is a shy little boy who'd grown up repressed and traumatized, eventually using the help of found family to find his own way, which I thought would be more relatable than the typical strong-willed sixteen-year-old YA girl.

And then I got an exceedingly patient beta reader because oh man did I need one-

3) Art Process

From there, the challenge was changing things up to suit the new character dynamics. Their relationships were different, so the dialogue would have to be different, which would change the plot, etc. I ended up expanding on a bunch of stuff since I'd created new worlds and given the characters new priorities, nearly doubling the word count. By the end of the novel, the MCs have definitely diverged quite a bit from their source of inspiration, and it's very different from the end of the fic. I also hope I've gotten away from some real problematic stuff in the inspiration.

4) Thoughts

One thing I wanted to play with is the concept of forgiveness. Sharpe ends up being the cause of permanent injuries for some of the War Machines, and Claw never forgives him for it. But they still become close again despite that. I'm just sick of the narrative that you need to forgive someone for unforgivable things just because they thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I wanted to show two characters still being fond and affectionate, even though things will never be the same between them.

There are some directions I wish I hadn't gone--it is definitely my first novel--but WANNABE will forever be special to me, and I'm happy to have my name on it.

Leaving an Open Tag, but also tagging some people!

@mrseddiediaz @avrablake @aalinaaaaaa

@arigalefantasynovels @zmwrites

#me. #showyourprocess #tag games

[oblivions-dawn]

Showing My Process Because I Was Kindly Asked

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

I know you were already tagged @thequeenofthewinter but I'm tagging you again! c; And thank you @theartofimaginaryfriends for tagging me!! Now I have the daunting task of choosing which story to rant about because I have. Too many. All works-in-progress, some in better places than others . . . I suppose it's only right that I talk about my published story despite it undergoing heavy construction right now, Petrichor!

✑ Inspiration

Petrichor is, obviously, just my long-imagined, finally fulfilling dream of writing a more in-depth version of the Dovahkiin and Serana's journey. I love Serana. There's so much to her character--and yet, there's so much more that's left unsaid about her. After spending years daydreaming of my fanfiction-to-be, I decided that I would pour my soul into her, breathe life into my Dovahkiin and Serana, and fill in the cracks that Bethesda left out for me to fill. What started off as just fun scenes and one-shots is now being converted into the full-fledged fanfiction it deserves to be! And I hope I can continue to do it justice for as long as I'm writing it

✑ Preparation

If I do any kind of preparing at all, it's usually handwritten-in-black-gel-pen ideas in notebooks or typing small reminders regarding plot right at the top or bottom of the page--enough to remind me of what I want to achieve with a character within said chapter and, hopefully, motivate me to do so. Sometimes I'll even put character notes, descriptions of their appearance and/or personalities because taking notes is really helpful for me personally--it sticks a little better to my brain that way.

✑ Art Process

My writing process is probably every fanfiction/published writer's nightmare. I don't keep drafts. If I rewrite something, that original writing is gone for good. If I want to change it back, I write what it once was from memory. Why, why do you torment yourself this way, you ask!? Because I thoroughly believe that having multiple drafts stumps my creativity. I may refer to my original writing when rewriting something, but I do my best to not re-read it entirely. I take snippets that I like and extend them, create something new. Some of my best writing has come from deleting entire paragraphs and rewriting them from memory. Why this works, I don't know; perhaps my mind distorts and warps what was originally there and is able to bend it in ways I couldn't see when it was written there in front of me. Every writer has their weird process and this just happens to be mine. I also am very imaginative--I vividly see the scenes as they occur in my head, like a movie in real time. Sometimes I crawl into a character's skin to know their emotions and thoughts, other times I have to make them talk to me through it. And, to top it off, I write in Word 90% of the time. I'm . . . not sorry. If it's not broke, I'm not switching!

✑ Thoughts

Petrichor has been . . . a journey. For a long time I was happy with the one-shot format as it was, finding time between classes to be a little creative and happy to write something I wanted to write. But now I'm graduated from college and I realised that I need to practise writing full-length novels--and what better way to do that then to do it to my fanfiction? Writing essays has made me rusty and it's time I sharpened my creative fiction pen for the real world. And I hope everyone that reads it enjoys it as much as I have! I fully intend on finishing it, but when that will be I can't say. For now, I'm writing when I can and taking breaks away from it when necessary to make sure that my writing is almost always as good as it can be. c:

#Senu Dialogue #tag game #showyourprocess #Now that I've rambled for 50 years

[authorlaurawinter]

#ShowYourProcess

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Dropping this for The Curse of Broken Shadows

1) Inspiration

Basically, Brela was the inspiration.

Every time I write something new, I try to challenge myself with something new. The first book I ever wrote was to prove to myself that I could. The second was to prove I could write a sequel. The third was to test out writing in a different perspective. The fourth was to write a series and create my own world and magic system.

With TCOBS, I wanted to write adult fantasy with romance and magic but also test myself to see if I was capable of writing epic fantasy. Add in my signature flare - a FMC who is absolutely, unapologetically herself and makes all of those things above stand out on the page. Enter Brela, whose character creation alone formed the backbone of everything that happened in this book.

2) Preparation

As a chronic obsessor of having the perfect first line before I can even start writing, I spent weeks writing on a different project while I ‘brainstormed’ TCOBS. Read that as I procrastinated writing the project that was slowly consuming my every thought because I was afraid to start. I came up with so many excuses:

“The magic system isn’t perfect” - spend days altering the names of the core magics and their affinities.

“I don’t have the world set up” - create a map, name all the cities, oh but wait what if I need to add something later, I should make up a ton of other cities just in case, oh and those cities will also need history and people and maybe a story that makes it unique...

“i’m not quite sure what the ending looks like” - so why even start?

Until I just went for it. I said “screw it” and just wrote the characters to see what story they wanted to tell.

3) Art Process

Because I had the five characters (two main) already fleshed out, it was mostly about writing their adventures based on how they would react to situations. I knew the basic timeline of events until the middle of the book and a few scenes that I knew needed to happen for the plot that were scattered through the last half, so it was just about letting the characters dictate what happened in between.

The fleshed out chapters were the hardest to write because I had this idea of what needed to happen and I tried too hard to make it perfect the first time around. The other chapters were easy - just having the characters do what they do - and I found those days the most fun because it shaped what was to come in a way I didn’t expect when I started out.

I’m an “edit while you write” type of person. Usually to start the day, I read what I wrote the day before, make edits or changes or just add detail, then continue where I left off. At the end of the day, if I have thoughts about what needs to happen, I’ll write the bullet points at the end of my page so I know where I wanted to go. If I am stuck, I’ll leave it blank and let my brain daydream about it to figure out the next day.

4) Thoughts

I definitely covered some dark elements in this book, which made for a lot of challenges but also a lot of fun (that sounds morbid). It really forced me to look deeper and explore the spectrum of human emotion. Ex. I wrote a character with stockholm syndrome which gathered a few negative comments from reviewers who didn’t understand why she or her friends didn’t intervene to stop her from going back to that person. There was also other triggering moments that were explored and the consequences of those memories/thoughts/actions. In the end, it made my characters who they were in this story which might not go over well with others.

I also love this book because it really focuses on characters over other things. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a plot, but at its core we get to see characters flourish separately and together.

Plus, there’s a found family of assassins. And knife flirting. It’s the best.

--------

Sorry, y’all it’s been a lifetime so I don’t know who has done this yet. Tagging anyone who wants to do this plus @avrablake, @emelkae, @mel-writes-with-her-dragons, @the-orangeauthor

#showyourprocess #show your process #tag game #writeblr

[look0utbehindyou]

Show your process tag

I was tagged by @dgwriteblr - thanks for the tag :) basing my layout on theirs because I’ve never done this before.

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

So I’m going to talk about Risen because it’s my only published work right now (putting work on the internet is scary, my dudes 😂). It’s a TWD fic, so I hope that still counts!

Inspiration

So obviously it’s based on TWD, and inspired by that interview where Norman Reedus talks about how they almost played Daryl as gay, but it never came to be. This got the wheels turning and once the idea was there I couldn’t put it down.

Preparation

Honestly, I don’t do a whole lot of preparing when I’m writing anything. I’m more of a see what we need when we get there/burn all the bridges as we cross them kind of person. Mostly I kind of sit with the character, the situation, and try and let them take me where they want to go. It’s sometimes super easy and sometimes super hard, but I find it a pretty trustworthy method.

Art process

So I actually started this fic a while back with a completely different character and plan in mind, but it didn’t go anywhere. I took a new approach this time, and just wrote a flow of thought first few chapters to see if it would take hold in my mind, and it definitely has. Posting the first chapter as soon as it was edited meant I didn’t mull over it for days, wondering and worrying about the state of it until I finally realised I hated it and deleted it all. Instead, people read it, I got some positive feedback and that inspired me to keep writing. It’s working so far.

Thoughts

It’s a bit daunting posting anything for the first time, whether it’s art, a novel, fanfiction, poetry. But I think this fic will always be quite special to me because of how nerve wracking it was to post for the first time and get my work out there for someone to see.

Tagging: @theartofimaginaryfriends @writingonesdreams @casualwriter @muddshadow @kumoriwrites

(I don’t know many other people on here so feel free to ignore this random tag of you don’t know me well 😂)

#showyourprocess #writer #writers on tumblr #writing

[sculpture-in-a-period-drama]

#showyourprocess

Thank you to the lovely @shiloh-is-typing for the tag, I'll take any excuse to ramble

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of it's creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

I haven't shared much about my wip for a multitude of reasons but this was too fun to pass up

Inspiration: I had several worlds similar to this (that is, a magical world based in ancient Indonesian culture), but I lost interest in those stories. Not the setting, just the stories. My inspiration for the setting was basically me going all "fine, I'll do it myself" because I wanted a (good) fantasy story with south east asian representation. So I was waiting for myself to come up with a plot good enough for this world. And lo and behold, on the first day of 2022, an idea sprung up in my head and I leaped across the room to get my phone so I could write it down.

Preparation: Since I absolutely loved (and still love) this plot, I wanted to be careful with what I did with it. So I made the world more detailed; created names, terms, places, social norms, and so on. Normally I would have just jumped into the first draft, but I can't, for the life of me, ever fully go panster mode. I always end up confused and discouraged. I need a some sort of base, somewhere to work from and somewhere to work to.

Process: I always develop world and current circumstances before characters. I find it easier to make characters in an already existing world and plot rather than make a world and plot for existing characters. So I let my mind run wild, squeezed out every idea from my brain and let myself have fun. Right after the world and it's circumstances took shape, I immediately started getting ideas for characters. Now that I have a sure grip on both the world, characters, and plot, I'm making an outline. I made a whole template for myself. There's the big timeline, subplots, and chapter-by-chapter outlines. I'm still working on it.

Thoughts: I have been waiting for "the one" in writing idea form for a while, and I think this may be it. This isn't to say that I'll never come up with an idea just as good or maybe even better, I just haven't loved a story as much as I've loved this one. I'm so excited to start writing this, and I hope other writers come up with stories they love just as much.

Tagging (no pressure, friends <3): @myeekyoban @thepixiediaries @writing-is-a-martial-art @euphoniouspandemonium @sparrowandwriting

#writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #showyourprocess #yes me clarifying that i wanted good representation instead of just representation #was a dig at raya and the last dragon

[theartofimaginaryfriends]

Show Your Process Tag

thanks for the tag @thewrathofquietminds!

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

I'm going to talk about my process with fanfiction and my original works, because both are different :)

Inspiration

At Long Last (fanfic): I had an itch to write a Skyrim fic, was in the middle of a Brynjolf hyperfixation, and one of my friends helped me work out the plot based off what I wanted to do with the Thieves Guild Main Quest with my own twists.

Mage of Annoros (original): Well initially I wanted to write a story around the idea of an arranged marriage between royals, but neither of them wanted it because they're both gay but in opposite directions. It's evolved since XD

Preparation

ALL: I wrote out the backstories for Adi and Bryn separately and together. After that, I wrote out the events I wanted to happen in the book and turned that into a timeline. From there, I've followed the timeline to make sure my story doesn't delve away from the plot.

MoA: OneNote binder. All my notes and world development are organized in different tabs.

Art process

Honestly, I have one answer for both. I let the characters write the story. The timeline is to help me let the story have a throughline that the character can only delve away from a little bit.

Thoughts

ALL: This one is going really well! I've finished 12 chapters and am writing chapter 13. I've only published 6 chapters, but that just means I have a ton of backlog. A sequel is also being planned. I've got the main plot for that figured out :)

MoA: I haven't gotten far in the actual writing but I know the direction I want to take with this story. My characters for this are,,, stubborn to say the least.

tagging: @thequeenofthewinter, @oblivions-dawn

I won't tag 5 people because I don't have enough mutuals XD

#showyourprocess #writer #writeblr #fanfic writer #original writing

[heuheu-art]

From sketch to final!

#sketch vs final #showyourprocess #it took me 30 minutes to colour this which is UNHEARD OF for me #usually it's 3 hours minimum to choose a palette

[vampire-himbos-of-santa-perdita]

#showyourprocess tag game!

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Full disclosure, I’m not directly tagging anyone, but if you see this post and think it’s cool, consider yourself tagged!

Thanks so much @mr-writes for the tag! This one sounds super fun!

Inspiration: It’s no secret that Heaven’s Tiny Daggers is my My Chemical Romance novel... It didn’t really start out that way though. I jokingly started rumbling about a girl punk novel after watching Mad Max: Fury Road and seeing that three second shot of the pyromaniac guitarist harnessed to the stereo rig. I knew I wanted to write some sort of rival girl gangs novel, but it didn’t wind up that way...

As any OG emo might tell you, MCR’s breakup was a true tragedy that took several years to recover from. I couldn’t listen to “Welcome to the Black Parade” without having a complete breakdown until 2019, where I finally decided to bite the bullet and listen to their entire discography. I started catching myself up on all the MCR lore I missed over the years and stumbled upon the story of how they wrote The Black Parade in a haunted mansion. All the pieces started coming together from there...! It somehow became this novel about grief and the intensity of that feeling when you find out your favourite band breaks up. ...and then MCR promptly got back together a few months after I started writing it...

Preparation: I didn’t know anything about punk rock music beforehand, so I took about a year to listen to so much music, reading so much music history, and generally  immersing myself in the culture. The fun thing about writing a music-centric novel is any reading you’re doing can be easily supplemented by listening to whatever artists you’re reading about at the same time. So it was a lot of that and a lot of learning how to put on messy eyeliner and red eye shadow and sobbing it all off, watching old MCR concerts on Youtube. A lot of that.

Art Process: Prior to Heaven’s TIny Daggers, I was something of a pantser, but I was just coming out of a year of query rejections and a lot of editors telling me my best bet would be to start planning my plots more thoroughly. So, this is the first novel I really put my head down and plotted everything. I downloaded Scrivener and plugged in the Save the Cat 3 Act Structure into separate folders to keep everything in order. To keep myself on task, I would write every morning on my ipad Notes app and then copy/pasted scenes into Scrivener when I was done. First draft was just getting it all out of me and onto the page and then when I had wrung myself out of as much plot as I could get, I went back and refined and filled in scenes here and there, moved things around... all that good stuff.

I think one of the biggest changes that happened between the three drafts is I had this one scene that happens reasonably early in the original draft that I couldn’t figure out, so I just kept pushing it back until I realized it was sequel fodder. I had this idea that the main villain would be behind this big scheme where they were creating doppelgangers of female artists whenever they started standing up for themselves too much. I was feeling the Avril Lavigne is Dead conspiracy fantasy, but it wasn’t gelling with where I was going with the characters over all, so I moved it to the second book.

 The original plot was going to end a lot more tragically, and I’ve changed the ending about ten times by now and I’m still not 100% sure what is happening yet (which is why I keep going back and playing with more drafts instead of actually finishing it, RIP). I also don’t think it was going to be a murder mystery until the second draft. Once I cleaned out the doppelganger angle, the main concept was just a bunch of punks in a haunted house. As soon as the mansion became sentient and started fucking with everyone’s nightmares, it all came together in this demonic crescendo between drafts 2 and 3.

...and now I’m just finishing up Act 2 so I can finally fully write up Act 3 and send it out for querying by September!

Thoughts: I think in this whole process, it’s been so important for me to write something I love because it’s what teenage me would’ve been obsessed with reading. When you get stuck in a rejection spiral, it’s easy to forget why you’re writing what you’re working on. At the end of the day, it should be for you, and if you love it, you will find people out there who love that same topic too.

#showyourprocess #writeblr #sophie writes #am writing #heaven's tiny daggers #girl punk novel

[imaginationxlost]

Show your process tag

Tagged By: @frankieinthebackground

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

I guess I’ll be doing this for Storms, my main WIP right now.

Inspiration

Gosh, to talk about the inspo for Storms, I have to start with the Inspo for Sparks, which Storms is a sequel to. And it’s very silly. I was, uh, fourteen and Sparks essentially came from me falling into a rabbithole with Urban Arcana- which I never did play a campaign of, but it made me very interested in a secret magic world under the surface of ours. Masquerade settings are just fun to me, especially when said masquerade is actually incredibly fragile and only still exists due to active effort (which is why I fell off Urban Arcana, actually). And so I started vaguely building a setting (with Seattle being chosen as My City for it largely at random). And the starting point of the story was... a pun? Off of “sparks flying” referring to romance at first meeting, and Lightning. 

It’s come a long way since then, when I was fourteen (I’m 25 now), but that was the starting inspo. And Storms built off of that.

For the Storms-specific inspiration, it largely came from thinking more about the setting, and the history of it and how it got to the point it was in Sparks, hence Storms having time travel elements, and the Enemy being a Force From the Past.  

Development

Sparks & Storms have been on a rollercoaster as far as development goes, since I started toying with it eleven years ago.  

There’s fun things I could point to, like the character design changes, or all of this, but it’s honestly fascinating to me how similar the core story still was across so much little change. It’s always been Anna is struck by lightning & Issac witnessed this, after said lightning she’s got magic now, Issac was always magic and is trying to help her adjust, and then surprise Issac is magically important himself as the “Master”. And then Storms was always “an evil force the previous Master fought is coming back and time travel is a Thing and said previous master helps deal with that”.  

Like almost every detail around that has changed, very much including the entire magic system (the only remainders of the original system are different specialties and the Master as the one person who doesn’t have one), but the basic core of the story stayed relatively intact for a decade. I really can’t say that for any other story idea I have.

Actually Writing

Well Storms is a Sequel to Sparks, so I had to write Sparks first, but since I... did that, and edited it through three drafts, I started on Storms.

And by started on Storms, I mean I did it for NaNoWriMo in 2020. 76,604 words for the first draft. And I’ve been editing it to a second draft since then, which I do by printing it, editing on paper with a red pen, keeping notes of structural changes I want to make. Then I reoutlined, and started to retype it. I finished the second draft at the end of May, at 123,878 words, and it’s with my beta reader right now!

#showyourprocess #tag game

[nopoodles]

Show Your Process Tag

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag others. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Tagged by the ever intriguing @saedoeswriting

I hope npbpdy minds if I go a bit theoretical on this, I have this paranoia about sharing project information too early and hyping people up only to later realise I can't finish the project so I don't want to chat too much about stuff that's far away on the publish-o-meter, but it also feels weird to use a sequel for this, and the inspiration and preparation parts of Merry Arlan: Breaking The Curse were such a long time ago (that book took me 4 years to finish, not including the very first ever draft of it)

Inspiration

Usually inspiration comes from a brief blip of a thing. A "what if" on a story by someone else. A song that builds images in my head. A ride at Disneyland Paris on my honeymoon in 2018 followed by 3 days of my wife being snowed off site and us tellng each other stories wrapped up in blankets to pass the time(okay, that's pretty specific, it's my NTK Pirate Project).

Actually, a lot of my inspiration comes from my wife, she gives me a lot of "what ifs" to follow, encourages me when I start rambling about stories and potential stories. She's said before "Yes, take my ideas and turn them into stories because I don't want to write, I jus want to read them"

Preparation

The most prep I ever did was for my 2021 NaNoWriMo project (current title share is Untitled Space Opera, it's part of the Inter-Planetary Alliance Novels, coming ????), I printed off two different prep booklets and built characters, wrote down scene prompts, gave each character their own theme song. And then I used exactly none of that and just wrote what came to mind. (Have I mentioned lately that I'm a pantser?)

Most of the time "preparation" looks like "I can't write this full thing right now, let me just write this scene I have in my head" and "Do I have anything planned on Tuesday?"

Like, I have a plan to be finished with rewrites of the second Guardian Cadet Series book by 30th June and then spend at least the first week of July (possibly longer) just letting the whims take me where they will. That's prep, right?

Process

I write, majoritively, in order. Except in cases where I've written some kickass foreshadowing and I want to write what has been foreshadowed lest I forget that the foreshadowing exists.

I can write in any format, at any time of day, in almost any situation. If I have an idea, I'm writing it down, even if I'm trying to sleep, or trying to catch the bus, or in the middle of a conversation, or making dinner (am I hard to live with? Probably but I've asked my wife and she said she thinks its cute so that's fine, right?).

I will also write scenes that I don't have a location for yet, just because they come to mind. Draft 2 is for putting the puzzle pieces in order. Speaking of draft 2, I usually write 5-6 drafts before anyone else lays eyes on it, then it goes to my wife so she can translate it out of dyslexic-language and tell me that, while I am getting better with full stops, I still haven't quite mastered the art (semi-colons though, those I get).

Thoughts

Sometimes I wish I was more linear. I see people who outline smashing out books like they're frying tattie scones in a bright kitchen with all the proper utensils. Me, on the other hand, I have a fork because the spatula is broken, and the lights keep flickering off so I have to take great long pauses to stay safe and sane.

On the other hand, I know my process makes the books I want to make. (Poorly lit kitchen, fork instead of a spatula or not, those are some damn fine tattie scones.) Not to mention, I probably wouldn't be able to do it any other way (because I've tried).

I've always been impatient with myself and my output, I have so many ideas that I want to write, being able to write faster would be such a boon because it would mean I could get to them faster. But some things take more time. Spaghetti bolognase and Lasagne (okay, I can't spell, I'm sorry) are made up of mostly the same ingredients, but one takes a lot longer than the other. They're both tasty, they're both of the same value, they're both great. So slow-written books can be just as good as quick-written books too.

Tagging

I'm not sure who hasn't already been tagged in this one but if you happen across it and yu want to do it, tell them I tagged you

#showyourprocess #show your process #got a bit meta my apologies #also this is way long #anyway #tag games!

[myfeelingshavefeelings]

#ShareYourProgress Tag Game

Tagged by the lovely @saedoeswriting 

Rules: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

So this relates to my Pinned Post which can be seen here. More under the cut.

Inspiration:

So I had a number of dreams that took place in what I knew in my heart to be a beach town, despite a distinct lack of a beach. The memories are a little fuzzy now, but two still tick with me to this day: one involved me and a boys’ soccer team running through an oddly proportioned hotel looking for my cousin, another had me trapped in a never-ending, ever-changing beach house where I kept seeing members of my extended family but was unable to interact with them. And a common thread was just this sense of not-quote-right-ness that was present every time I had a dream that took place there. 

First Draft:

The first draft was typed up in the Notes app of my phone, and was mostly a collection of disjointed imagery that attempted to capture the atmosphere of the beach-town-without-a-beach. It then got buried under a bunch of To-Do lists and Notes-to-Self until I went to go clean out my Notes app and rediscovered it. This led to its...

Second Draft:

I took that original note and I cleaned it up, making it a little more cohesive, turning it into something I was happy with, even a little bit proud of. I then posted to tumblr dot com because I’m trying to be better about sharing my writing with people lol. And I made it my pinned post because why not. A bunch of time passed, and then we come to my...

Third Draft:

I took a creative writing class last semester, and over the course of it we had to create a fiction portfolio to be submitted as part of our final grade (in lieu of a traditional final). I took this original little piece of basically-flash-fiction and fleshed it out into full on short story in which ‘you’ wander around this strange town and encounter forces both benevolent and vaguely sinister. It even finally got a title - I called it ‘Vacation Blues’ because that was lowkey the vibe. And I got a good grade so I guess my teacher didn’t hate it too much, which is nice since he’s literally a published author. I am now onto the...

Fourth Draft:

I am currently in the process of doing some final revision on this story in order to submit it to my school’s literary magazine this upcoming semester. Fingers crossed they accept it 🤞

I don’t really know who to tag in this, but anyone who sees this post should feel free to do it :)

#showyourprocess #writeblr #tag game #the beach town without a beach