@anavar-immela / anavar-immela.tumblr.com
in my experience, no matter how hard you plan there will always be something in writing the scene that you didn't anticipate
such as your protagonist being completely undressed at a significant early plot point because his clothes are soaked and he's stuck in a place where no one is going to see him anyway.
absolutely wild to me that a particular story of mine now has a complete plot outline. like what do you mean it's not just a disjointed series of scenes anymore.
sometimes you head out for your day with no expectation of having ideas and your brain goes 'nah mate, it's worldbuilding day' and you spend the entire day scribbling about things you need to research in between other tasks
As someone torn in two with my love for both logic and creativity, I constantly have to remind myself that I can write anything I want into existence in my fantasy world.
Like, yes bestie, you can have someone live forever, even if no one else in the story can do that. I just have to negotiate with my logical side to somehow make that make sense.
I like to involve things in my stories that don't make sense in the context of that world's magic system because they come from a completely distinct magic system.
I think one of the funniest things about my writing is that someone, somewhere down the line, is going to assume I was somehow traumatized by gnomes in my childhood, when in truth my encounters with gnomes have been minimal and I just think it's funny to include them in my fantasy worlds as vicious little pack hunters.
my fellow writers, what is a piece of writing advice that never did it for you?
I go first: "don't edit, rewrite".
"cut out adverbs to strengthen your writing"
my writing is plenty strong, thank you very much, and you can pry the adverbs from my cold dead hands. they're for flavor, and I love flavor.
me age 15: *writes almost an entire draft of a 'novel' in 16k words* me age 30: I could not write this book in fewer than 150k words if my life depended on it.
Why is it so much easier to feel satisfied with your writing when you write children/tween books? Like I feel like it is so much more stressful to write adult novels, maybe that is because adults are pickier with what they're reading? Or it might be because every person my age or older wants to read smut in their novels and I ain't touching that with a ten-foot pole, so instead I just write books for kids that just want like magic and adventure. What is up with that? Why does every novel for anyone above 16 have to have smut in it?
Things I don't need: more ideas
Things I have: more ideas
I was about to make use of one of my nice empty notebooks but I didn't have a pen the right color
so I went to sleep last night fully intending to spend today working on the story I'd been working on. my brain had other ideas, and I woke up from a dream that I absolutely had to turn into a new story.
like, thanks brain, I guess? but I really do not need more new story ideas. I have. so many.
Me: *trying to write anything other than fantasy or sci-fi*
My brain: Okay, now hear me out, just, just what if we added a little bit of fantasy or sci-fi? Huh? Huh? What if?
me: *trying to write any other kind of fantasy or sci-fi story*
my brain: ok but what if we put time travel in it
absolutely wild being creatively productive again. I'm working on worldbuilding and scene writing and melodies for one story, making notes inspired by the soundtrack-playlist for a second, itching to draw the characters from a third, and contemplating a partial piece of music that exists only in my head and whether it can be applied to a fourth.
the unfortunate downside of all this productivity is I’ve realized the current iteration of the map is incapable of serving the needs of all the existing plot elements across the series and so YET AGAIN I have to make a new world map from scratch
but I’m still fond of this unfinished one I have to give up on so I’ll keep it in my back pocket to hopefully use for another story someday
having the usual second thoughts about posting Story Content on tumblr but it’s too late I’ve committed to doing this. it’s coming.
I love coming up with in-universe reasons to excuse a lack of realism in one or another area of worldbuilding
