Villainous Thing

Don't write the stories that you think you should write, write the stories that you actually want to write.

I have a lot of 'big idea' stories, too, and snapshots are definitely the way that I deal with them most of the time.

There is NO need for everything to be a 'full novel' or even a full chapter. Short stories and flash fiction are valid forms of fiction both in original works and fanwork.

I think posting short works and snapshots is great, and I definitely think it can help you overcome a lot of the anxiety and panic that come with scale!

If those characters are having sex, and they are under 18 years old, it should be tagged as underage.

Only fics in which characters have sex (and are underage) should be tagged as underage.

Here are the important things when you're posting your first fic on AO3.

ONE: Make sure to select any of the four appropriate archive warnings for your fic.

These are:

TWO: Give your fic a summary. It doesn't have to be long, sometimes the shorter the better! If you can't think of how to summarize your fic, you can just take a excerpt from the fic itself and put it there.

THREE: Tag the characters in your fic. Some people tag every character who appears in their fic no matter how minor, but this actually makes it more difficult for people to find fic about the characters they like. It's usually better only to tag the characters who are important in your fic.

FOUR: Tag the ships in your fic. Like with character tags its best to stick to only the major pairings that you're writing about, and not to list background ships. If you want to warn for background ships, its better to do that in an author's note.

FIVE: Additional tags. You don't have to go crazy here, fewer tags is often better. You want to tag the genre of your story (is it romance? adventure? fantasy? horror?) and tag a few tropes if there are major common tropes that pop up in your fic so people can find it by looking through those tags. People often also use additional tags to say what kind of ending the fic has, and what POV the fic is written from (first person, second person, third person.)

If your fic has a main character, consider adding the additional tag (character)-centric, or POV (character) as well to help people who are interested in that character find your work!

And that's all you really need to know!

Other than that, there are no rules to writing fic, and no hidden "social norms" of AO3.

There's no algorithm to game to get better stats, so just write your fic, tag it, and post it!

Then you can share it on tumblr!

If there were more specific questions that you had, or if I missed the nuance of or misunderstood your question, please, please feel free to send me a follow up message, but I hope I could help!

There is no story that you are "not a skilled enough writer" to write.

If you have a story you want to write , write it, even if you're worried about not doing it justice.

A first draft does not have to be perfect.

Your writing can always be improved later.

Your writing will never improve unless you actually write.

The worst kind of story is the kind that never gets written at all.

I would tell them this:

Hate comments are never the majority.

Hate comments are from a small number of people, often ONE person pretending to be several, who want to control your behavior by using emotional violence to force you to conform to their desires.

Don't let yourself be emotionally manipulated into defeat by a single or small number of loud assholes who use violent tactics to force others to conform to their own wishes.

The block button is your friend.

Don't respond to hate, delete it every time and block it where possible. You are in control of if hate comments get a voice on Tumblr and AO3.

Nothing pisses a hateful troll off more than when you delete their messages, block them, and go about your day acting like you never even got the message.

That's because it absolutely is puritan religious crap. Its sad that we've gotten to a place where this kind of bullshit is parroted and perpetuated in supposedly progressive spaces.

So like. Scope. I always feel like I see people talk about pacing, and I never see people talk about scope.

The way people talk about stories in fiction writing circles, especially fanfiction writing, it often feels like people treat it like there's only two types of scope for a piece of fiction: a "one-shot" 5k or under short story, or a 100k+ beast of a novel.

But like, scope is important, and there's so much more range between those two poles!

And here's the thing. Here's the thing.

You don't need to know the scope of your story when you're coming up with your idea. In fact, you should come up with the core of your idea, and then decide on the scope afterward!

Here is the revelation I have for you.

Your "idea" can span a whole intricately world built series of events that you know the chain of for 1000 years.

And then you can take that 1000 year idea and decide on the scope. You decide which part of the story to tell! What's the important events, or character beats that you want to focus on, and how long will it take you to tell them?

You can have your 1000 year idea, and your first thought might be "well, I need to write 6 whole novels in this series before I get to the part I'm excited about"

But no! You don't have to do that! With Scope (tm) you can actually choose to just focus in on that one part you're excited about and tell a short story! Maybe 5k. Maybe 30k! Bring back the novella!.

Just because you have 1000 years worth of material doesn't mean that the reader needs all of it to understand the beautiful shining jewel of your story.

Scope is like gem cutting and polishing. When you decide on scope, you cut away the parts of your story that stop the part of it that you want people to see from shining.

Hey pal. Yeah, that sucks, that sucks *a lot*, and it's something that we struggle with, too.. I wish I had some good tips for you, but we actually have a lot of bad habits.

Our "writing station" is the couch, with the footrest up and two pillows behind our back. We stay away from the arm rest because having our elbow lifted makes our shoulder pain worse.

we have a series of cold packs that we keep in the freezer, and we ice our shoulder frequently. We also have a hot water bottle that we keep filled to keep us warm.

We often write with a pair of pressure/arthritis gloves which help with blood flow.

and honestly, we push ourselves too hard. We often ignore low grade pain and treat it with ice and aspirin until it's so bad that we have a flare and can't work any more, and then we take a week or so off writing. I don't think you should do that, specifically.

I think my best advice is to push yourself, but also take care of yourself.

I hope some of this is useful-- I wish I had more helpful tips to share!

Sometimes I don't understand why people are so shocked that I love writing 100 word drabbles so much, or why they're so impressed by them. but then I am reminded that there are a lot of people who just don't know how to boil a scene or story down to its essential elements.

Scope and pacing are not concrete and immutable. Not everything you write has to have the same level of detail, nor always be a 100k novel.

It's completely possible to tell the story of a romance that blooms over months or years in a 1000 words of short, snapshot scenes-- as long as you show the important scenes.

This is especially true in fanfiction where the set up is done for you, but can, in the right circumstances, be achieved in original fiction just as well.

Sometimes you don't need to write the whole novel. Sometimes you can just boil the story you want to tell down to its impactful, punchy essence. (and then it doesn't take a year to write.)

‼️Optional Quest: Doom the narrative back.

I think I really prefer the term "rehabilitating' for a villain who's going through a character arc and becoming a better person, over 'redeeming'.

Not only does it take away the culturally christian connotations that "redeeming" has, but rehabilitating also better shows the context of, you know, actually putting in the work and effort to overcome their problems.

From now on, for me, it's not a "villain redemption arc" its a "villain rehabilitation arc."

*opening a new document to start writing a fic*

Fuck it, I'm gonna give me everything I want, and damn the consequences!

Where's the "comparison is the thief of joy" post?

I compared, and it was in fact, the thief of joy.

Managed somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 words today! Hope everyone else who has been writing today feels just as successful <3

Thinking about the description of a person (usually a woman) as being "oversexed". (usually to mean lascivious, sexually forward with connotations of being kind of vain and stupid)

I saw it enough in the novels I was reading as a kid (mostly fantasy/scifi, mysteries and adventure stories from the 1900s-1980s) that the description stuck in my brain. But I can't remember any specific instances when it was used or the last time I saw it in a book at all.

Definitely not a word I'd expect to see in a modern context.