Writing Tips For Long Fics That Helped Me That No One Asked For.

Writing tips for long fics that helped me that no one asked for.

1.) Don't actually delete content from your WIP unless it is minor editing - instead cut it and put it in a secondary document. If you're omitting paragraphs of content, dialog, a whole scene you might find a better place for it later and having it readily available can really save time. Sometimes your idea was fantastic, but it just wasn't in the right spot.

2.) Stuck with wording the action? Just write the dialog then revisit it later.

3.) Stuck on the whole scene? Skip it and write the next one.

4.) Write on literally any other color than a white background. It just works. (I use black)

5.) If you have a beta, while they are beta-ing have them read your fic out loud. Yes, I know a lot of betas/writers do not have the luxury of face-timing or have the opportunity to do this due to time constraints etc but reading your fic out loud can catch some very awkward phrasing that otherwise might be missed. If you don't have a beta, you read it out loud to yourself. Throw some passion into your dialog, you might find a better way to word it if it sounds stuffy or weird.

6.) The moment you have an idea, write it down. If you don't have paper or a pen, EMAIL it to yourself or put it in a draft etc etc. I have sent myself dozens of ideas while laying down before sleep that I 10/10 forgot the next morning but had emailed them to myself and got to implement them.

7.) Remember - hits/likes/kudos/comments are not reflective of the quality of your fic or your ability to write. Most people just don't comment - even if they say they do, they don't, even if they preach all day about commenting, they don't, even if they are a very popular blog that passionately reminds people to comment - they don't comment (I know this personally). Even if your fic brought tears to their eyes and it haunted them for weeks and they printed it out and sent it to their friends they just don't comment. You just have to accept it. That being said - comment on the fic you're reading now, just do it, if you're 'shy' and that's why you don't comment the more you comment the better you'll get at it. Just do it.

8.) Remove unrealistic daily word count goals from your routine. I've seen people stress 1500 - 2000 words a day and if they don't reach that they feel like a failure and they get discouraged. This is ridiculous. Write when you can, but remove absurd goals. My average is 500 words a day in combination with a 40 hour a week job and I have written over 200k words from 2022-2023.

9.) There are dozens of ways to do an outline from precise analytical deconstruction that goes scene by scene to the minimalist bullet point list - it doesn't matter which one you use just have some sort of direction. A partial outline is better than no outline.

10.) Write for yourself, not for others. Write the fic you know no one is going to read. Write the fic that sounds ridiculous. You will be so happy you put it out in the world and there will be people who will be glad it exists.

More Posts from Loolybool and Others

loolybool

3 weeks ago

can you do I Am All Of Me from Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)

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Can You Do I Am All Of Me From Shadow The Hedgehog (2005)

on the "you're the cruelest of all" scene

the moment where kakania attempted to use hypnosis on isolde ... that broke me for real. it was at this moment that isolde felt utterly betrayed and hopeless. it should be noted that kakania had no ill intentions and only used hypnosis as a last resort, but in isolde's eyes, that only goes to reaffirm that she is in fact unfixable. if someone with such strong principles was willing to forsake said principles just so that there may be a hope of "saving" isolde ...

but what really gets me the most is the way isolde accepted it. out of her own volition? i can't say for sure, she's been through too much in such a short period of time. but her exact words were "i will embrace it with joy". whilst feeling betrayed by kakania, whose actions in that scene went against what she initially stood for, she still desperately clung onto salvation and the fact that kakania still cared for her. isolde doesn't want kakania to ostracize her for her condition the way the rest of society does, especially since kakania had shown her true compassion. and of course kakania never wanted to make her feel that way either, she's just at a loss of how to deal with isolde. no one is really to blame in a situation like this, and that's partly what makes it so tragic

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loolybool

7 months ago

some highlights from my students’ romeo and juliet modern interpretation projects:

- someone made a username for friar laurence with 420 at the end - the same kid who put 69 in romeo’s username like i wouldn’t know what either of those things mean - the girl who added ‘clean’ at the end of all the songs on her juliet playlist like lmao girl i know spotify doesn’t have the clean version - the kid who said romeo and juliet killed each other - the weird dichotomy of kids who put love story on their playlist vs the kids who choose bad blood - the kid who wrote ‘get a room’ as tybalt’s comment on romeo’s couple pic - the kid who said ‘romeo is probably one of those douches who follows a ton of people so they follow him back and then he unfollows all of them’ - the one who legitimately used the word ‘alrighty’ do kids say this in their text messages???? i thought i was the one talking like an elderly person but okay - the one who made romeo’s username ‘montagoose’ - the only kid who acknowledged that posting about your secret relationship on instagram was a bad idea - the girl who wrote that romeo would unironically say ‘#blessed’. she’s right. - the one single solitary girl who wrote mercutio as gay as shakespeare did (she’s also the only one who used mercutio at all which is a tragedy but whatever) - the one who wrote romeo’s insta bio as ‘thus with a kiss i die… LOL RIP ME 😂💀’ - the one who made benvolio’s username benvoliYO

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loolybool

10 months ago

Foreshadowing Ideas

• Character themes/motifs. I’ve heard of one writer who tries to give each character their own theme for similes, metaphors, descriptions, etc so there’s like a theme to the way they’re portrayed. You could use that to foreshadow notable secrets about the character that will later be revealed, or if at any point they’re disguised then you can use that to tip off the reader that they have the same motifs and so might be related/the same person

• Tiny details hidden in lists. Say the MC was trying to work out the identity of a bad guy, who we know was wearing a red shirt on the day of a big bad event. A few chapters later, MC is checking around their best friend’s room to find them, with the place its usual mess with discarded takeaway boxes, the bed unmade, a red shirt left on the floor that could use a good sweep. The red shirt might not click with all the readers, but those who register it upon their first read will eat it up

• Inconsistent behavioural patterns. Once we have a good idea of what a character is like, having them act out of character can set off alarm bells and make us question what’s occurred to make them act this way. Let the other characters register it too, if it’s reasonable that they would, but let them ultimately brush it off quite quickly to keep it subtle. Or just call it right out, whichever you prefer

• Unreliable narrators. Let one character say one thing and a second character say another, even if they both ultimately agree on the same thing but get one or two small details wrong. Ideally do this two or three times in order for the reader to know it’s not just a mistake in the plot but an intentional inconsistency, but even if it’s only done once and it’s taken as a mistake it’ll still slot together like puzzle pieces in the end and they’ll be kicking themself for dismissing it

• In-universe red herrings. If you’re going to add red herrings as foreshadowing, it’s helpful if the red herring aligns with the intentions of someone person aware of the upcoming plot twist who’s trying to control the narrative. Say the plot twist was the reveal of a mysterious character’s identity to be the best friend of the MC, the best friend might have deliberately thrown the MC off their scent by planting suspicions in the MC’s mind that a different character was the mysterious character’s identity all along. This is less about foreshadowing the actual reveal, of course, but rereads will be a punch to the gut when everyone realises that all this misinformation and red herring business came from someone trying to cover their own ass rather than coming from misunderstandings or multiple other random sources

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loolybool

8 months ago

Isolde's udimo being a nightingale with a rose on its chest reminds me of the story of The Nightingale and the Rose, and how much it parallels Isolde.

The Nightingale stabbed its chest with thorn and sang to death so the Student could obtain a red rose and realize his dream with the girl he loved. But after being heartbroken, the Student abandoned the rose to focus on studying logic and philosophy.

Isolde as the Nightingale... Kakania as the Student... Manus and Heinrich as the Tree promising the red rose... the red rose symbolizing Kakania's dream... and Kakania abandoning/refusing Isolde's realization of her dream that has been twisted by Manus...

Do you. Do you see my vision

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loolybool

9 months ago

You're not immune to being the bully btw. You're not immune to being in the wrong

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loolybool

1 year ago

ngl i genuinely feel more patriotism towards the morally questionable and possibly imperialistic Mojani nation than I do towards the country I actually live in.

#mojani

Madd culture is forgetting that your paraculture isn't real :(

This is so real

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loolybool

1 year ago

#ayo KNOWLEDGE

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Alison

Coursera

FutureLearn

open2study

Khan Academy

edX

P2P U

Academic Earth

iversity

Stanford Online

MIT Open Courseware

Open Yale Courses

BBC Learning

OpenLearn

Carnegie Mellon University OLI

University of Reddit

Saylor

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

TED

FORA

Big Think

99u

BBC Future

Seriously Amazing

How Stuff Works

Discovery News

National Geographic

Science News

Popular Science

IFLScience

YouTube Edu

NewScientist

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

wikiHow

Wonder How To

instructables

eHow

Howcast

MAKE

Do it yourself

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

OpenStax CNX

Open Textbooks

Bookboon

Textbook Revolution

E-books Directory

FullBooks

Books Should Be Free

Classic Reader

Read Print

Project Gutenberg

AudioBooks For Free

LibriVox

Poem Hunter

Bartleby

MIT Classics

Many Books

Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbook Library

WikiBooks

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals

Scitable

PLOS

Wiley Open Access

Springer Open

Oxford Open

Elsevier Open Access

ArXiv

Open Access Library

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

Duolingo

BBC Languages

Learn A Language

101languages

Memrise

Livemocha

Foreign Services Institute

My Languages

Surface Languages

Lingualia

OmniGlot

OpenCulture’s Language links

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

Codecademy

Programmr

GA Dash

CodeHS

w3schools

Code Avengers

Codelearn

The Code Player

Code School

Code.org

Programming Motherf*?$%#

Bento

Bucky’s room

WiBit

Learn Code the Hard Way

Mozilla Developer Network

Microsoft Virtual Academy

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

Learning Yoga

Learn Meditation

Yome

Free Meditation

Online Meditation

Do Yoga With Me

Yoga Learning Center

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

Exposure Guide

The Bastards Book of Photography

Cambridge in Color

Best Photo Lessons

Photography Course

Production Now

nyvs

Learn About Film

Film School Online

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

Enliighten

Ctrl+Paint

ArtGraphica

Google Cultural Institute

Drawspace

DragoArt

WetCanvas

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

Music Theory

Teoria

Music Theory Videos

Furmanczyk Academy of Music

Dave Conservatoire

Petrucci Music Library

Justin Guitar

Guitar Lessons

Piano Lessons

Zebra Keys

Play Bass Now

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Investopedia

The Chess Website

Chesscademy

Chess.com

Spreeder

ReadSpeeder

First Aid for Free

First Aid Web

NHS Choices

Wolfram Demonstrations Project

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites.

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.

532K notes View Post

loolybool

9 months ago