I Hope None Of You Disappear In The Coming Days. Seriously Don't Do Anything That Can't Be Undone.

Writing Advice For Fanfics or Novels

Hello, my dears! As requested by @ilay-snt I thought I’d share my writing process with you all! I’m going to split this post into two sections of general advice and then how I personally construct a story.

Disclaimer: I’m no professional by any means. I’m basing this solely off two creative writing classes I took in college and what I find to be personally helpful so if it doesn’t work for you, that’s totally fine! Everyone writes differently!

General Advice:

1. First and most importantly: You Have to Write for Yourself.

Write the story that you want to read. Not only will it keep you motivated to keep going but it frees you to try whatever you want without being worried how it will be received by others. As long as you’re happy with your work, that’s all that matters. Your audience will find you.

(Hello audience! *waves excitedly*)

2. Write Everday

This one might sound a little daunting, but it doesn’t need to be a lot or necessarily “everyday”. It’s just a way to consistently practice, to help you find your author voice, and create a habit.

Writing everyday could be a poem or a paragraph or a whole chapter! It’s whatever you choose to make it just as long as you get something down. It doesn’t necessarily even need to be good. You can always go back and edit, but if you only write when inspiration strikes, you might never sit down to do it in the first place. Practice finding your way through the words to get at what you want, rather than waiting for the words to come to you.

If you’re REALLY really stuck. Then might I suggest you-.

3. Get Feedback

As a chronic second-guesser, I can’t tell you how helpful it is to have someone read your story and help structure the plot. I’ve had a lot of instances where something I’d been struggling with for days was resolved by getting coffee with a friend and having them look at it with new eyes.

Get yourself a beta reader or just someone who has good taste whose opinion you trust to help you work out problems. Two heads are often better than one!

4. Analyze media you admire

A lot of people like to limit it to reading authors you love and looking at the way they create stories, which is very helpful, but don’t neglect other forms of storytelling like movies and TV shows or even videogames! Think about what you like from your favorite things and why you like them.

As an example, one of my favorite pieces of media is the Mass Effect Trilogy. Mostly because it subverts the narrative of the Lone Hero archetype present in other franchises like Halo and Assassins Creed. The protagonist Shepard relies on their teammates abilities and support throughout the game to complete missions and eventually save the universe. Similarly, I like stories where there’s a cast of interesting and diverse characters surrounding the main protagonist who are essential to the plot.

Go dig through your own favorites and figure out what kind of characters you like, tropes you enjoy, and overarching themes that speak to you. From these, you can draw inspiration for your own stories and figure out what you want to write.

4. Take Breaks and Be Present

Writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum! If you feel like your inspiration is running dry or you’re in the middle of a block, go out and do things you enjoy or, better yet, try new things!

Be fully present in the moment and look at the world around you as if for the first time, talk to people you run into, or draw from your friends/family for inspiration. There’s a whole world of possibility out there just waiting to be written down or reinterpreted. Don’t be afraid to take breaks and have fun! Writing should never become a chore!

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s dig into my own personal process:

My Writing Process

1. Everything Begins with the Outline

When I have an idea for a story, I try to do a rough outline first of the big plot points: the beginning, the middle, and the end, then fill in as much as I can in between.

My chapter outlines are never very well defined up until I reach the point where I sit down to write. It’s only then I begin to flesh out what I want to do. I take everything from the previous chapter and what I know is coming up to shape what needs to happen in the moment. I work better with flexibility so I can wander off the path a little rather than rushing from point A to point B.

2. After the Outline, The Character Sheets

Character sheets are probably the most important part of my writing. I like to give my characters as much agency as possible and allow them to steer the story rather than the story steering them. Unfortunately, the only way to accomplish this is to know them inside and out.

Most of my character sheets start with the basics: what does this character want more than anything, what do they actually need, and what do they fear. From there, I can identify their goals for the story and for each chapter, their personality traits, their likes and dislikes, how they respond to conflict, etc.

When I’m writing, the character sheets are my own personal holy book. If I can’t make them move around the scene anymore, a quick look at that will normally get me back on track.

3. Structuring Each Chapter

Normally, I have a goal in mind (or several) I want to reach. Whether it’s progressing the plot or just one character’s arc, I allow those goals to drive the action, then set the characters loose like rats in a maze.

Often, I try to think “what can go wrong here?” and then how that character would react to the set backs or interact with each other based on that.

In a few cases, the characters just do what they want and then entirely new scenes develop I didn’t plot out beforehand from following after that instinct.

On the whole, I allow the characters A LOT of free will to shape the story while holding up the basic structure for them to work within and I’ve found it really makes the story come to life.

4. The Point of It All

Generally, everyone I’ve met who’s a writer has something to say and the story is the medium for that. The most important thing when I’m writing and I’m buried neck deep in the twists and turns of the plot is to not forget why exactly I’m writing it in the first place. So I have a little manifesto of sorts at the top of my outline, only a couple sentences at most, that strips the entire story down to the one central idea I’m trying to convey or an overarching theme.

For example, if I had to sum up the central idea of House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (Great book by the way, can’t recommend it enough) it’s that true family accepts you for who you are and can come from unexpected places. Also, it’s essential to stand up to unjust systems in defense of others.

I try to find my own my own theme like this to keep in sight for my story. So I don’t veer too far from the purpose of it.

Anyway, that’s my advice for any other writers who are starting out, hope this was helpful in some way! All of you have a good day! 💖💖

Just found this song.

Needless to say, I immediately thought of Ford and some of the scenes I’ve pre written for upcoming chapters of A Human Condition especially considering this is mainly a piano song.

Nothing too soon, but… it’s coming 😉

FANART FROM STAN AND BILL’S MIRROR ADVENTURE!! @knockknockwhosthereartistism really nailed it! Come check it out!

Some scenes from Chp. 26 of A Human Condition, also known as Bill taking 2 steps forward and 8 steps back

@sapphosscribe

SOME MORE CH. 28 FANART!! @knockknockwhosthereartistism has done great work with Mabel and Bill’s dream sequence and the Euclydia flashback! Feast your eyes!👀

From chp.28 of " A Human Condition"!

@sapphosscribe

Bonus: Bill's full sweater initial sketch vvv

-The planets and the bigger stars are embroidered and more 3D

-The silver thread is like tinsel and glittery

-Some of the stars have glitter in them

It’s shitty quality cause I drew it super small on the canvas but I wanted to show the full basic design since I couldn’t in the piece😭😭😭

That Summerween comment fells like an omen...

(almost as much as that eventual smut tag, I'm worried)

The two are not related, but one of them is definitely an omen 😂😉

Hey everyone! Come check out some of @orpheuswasmine fanart! 🤩 They’ve done a great job with all the costumes leading up to summerween!

A human condition fanart dump 😼 I wasn’t going to render but I emded up loving the sketch of Bill in Ford’s outfit so I chose happiness 🥹

I was on a PLANE rendering him, and when I tell you my ears have not been free of the aftermath 😭 this might be Bill’s karmic justice against me

Always on about my love for long hair yet I still struggle to draw it 😭 I have a lot of concept ideas for environments in mind like Bill’s and Billy’s headspace. Left brain Right Brain at it’s finest !!!

Of course !!! I had to draw the twins !!! My sibling had looked at my collection of A Human Condition fanart and started DRAGGING ME for completely blocking out Dippers face in my comic canvas 😭 He clocked me, by pointing out the obvious that I didn’t want to draw another face 😿 obviously came to redeem myself I do not like Ford’s face once so ever, so I’ll probably have to make a more updated face model chart for Ford and Stan since they are twins 💀

I want to draw the enviorment headspace between Bill and Billy now as a warmup😼 and maybe get a headstart on the grunkles 🔥🔥🔥 but for that eviorment concelt to work, I might need to rewatch a movie I mentioned before 🐺 So with that, I leave with one of my MANY favorite quotes from The Last Unicorn that fits Bill a little too well:

“Do you hear me? You lost her! You trapped her in a human body! She’ll go mad!”

This isn’t my ultimate favorite quote, it’s what Almathea says when she wakes up after what Molly just said 🥹 But I’m begging everyone to gp watch the Last Unicorn if you haven’y sern it !!! It’s free on YouTube i always start crying after finishing it

@sapphosscribe i might dm you again to show the concept of environments, but I am currently in a whole other country at a party so it’ll probably take a while 😭😭 ENJOY THE SNACKS I HAVE PROVIDED

@knockknockwhosthereartistism has done it again! Enjoy these spooky Billford Summerween vibes. The temperature is climbing as well as the ⚡️dramatic tension ⚡️.

From Chp.32 of "A Human Condition"!

@sapphosscribe

Kind of out of pocket question, but I had it for weeks in my head.

I know it's too early for this, but I keep seeing the so called "Eventual Smut" tag before reading a chapter. But looking at your version of Bill it's really hard for me to see happening. Not bc I want it that much tbh, but how can a human phobic being that hates every inch of human body (not just his) get suddenly interested in it? Also I know Bill's relationship with his body is less than ideal, but are there no parts at all he likes about it? Like nothing? And also what about Ford? Is there anything in him physically he finds appealing or beautiful?

Or maybe I'm thinking too much into it and the tag is not valid anymore, I guess I'm just curious, but only got around to ask this now

✨ Hey, Hey! ✨ 

No out of pocket questions here!

The “eventual smut” tag definitely still applies 😉. When we reach that point, I’ll probably be updating tags again. I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants with those so far.

Regarding the rest of your question, I don’t think Bill is ‘human phobic’ so much as he hates being reduced so vastly from the being of pure energy that he was to a mortal shell with constant needs and no magic when he’s been firmly in control of everything around him for millennia. I think he mostly hates how weak and vulnerable that makes him more than anything else. Though he’ll be getting used to being human sooner rather than later.

In terms of sexual attraction (and while tiptoeing around spoilers) I headcanon both Bill and Ford to be somewhere on the sapio/demisexual spectrum in the sense they’re more attracted to intangible qualities in other people.

Bill, the last of his species who’s been roaming the multiverse for thousands of years, I think is most attracted to beings who are outcasts or have some ‘weird’ physical aspect. Also those who are particularly cunning, hedonistic, resourceful, intelligent, or just plain chaotic.

Ford, on the other hand, I think was largely uninterested in sex for most of his early life or saw it as a clinical/biological act that humans did to reproduce. It wasn’t until he developed a strong connection for the first time with Fiddleford that it really clicked for him. There were probably trysts in the thirty years he was in the multiverse with aliens who were intelligent, open minded, or experts in their field with a passion for their work (I think little Ford would have had a huge crush on Spock ☺️) but these wouldn’t last long since he was always on the move.

Bill and Ford’s current and past intimate relationship (in my opinion) is always rooted in their deep (sometimes obsessive) attraction to each other’s personalities and life experiences. Anything physical will always come from that.

To put it metaphorically, it’s not one color in the picture Bill likes, it’s the whole painting. I personally don’t think it would matter to Bill if Ford was an Euclydian, a Klingon, or a Space Whale.

Bill doesn’t love and want Ford because he’s human, he wants him because he’s Ford. And vice versa.

Hope this answered your question! Take care! 🥰❤️

@anon-22866634

It’s my birthday, dear readers!!

In honor of the occasion, I present to you Spoilers Without Context for Act 2 of A Human Condition on ao3 😉🥳

See you all soon 😉

Tomorrow is the Summerween update, dear readers! 💀

How we feelin? 👀