.webp?h=8 "Top Hat (kek) - Technically a top hat, shut up")
Anyone else write fanfiction?
I recently decided to get back into writing, and wanted to do something low stakes. I really only wrote technical documents, design or worldbuilding docs, and like 500 words of an original story that never went anywhere. I finished a short fanfic story (not lewd) the other day, and was able to keep a 1k words a day pace. Been a good chance to learn about how I write, and I'm starting to see where I have a lot to work on. Maybe it is the fact I like the original work a lot that it motivated me to actually complete it, but I do feel like I'm improving at how much I can write in a day. Unrelated, but org roam in Emacs has been a pretty good ecosystem to write in. I am a vim-strag so I have to use evil mode, but I like the built-in tooling and the nodes system that roam has.
Not having to worry about describing certain relationships or settings is nice. Especially when you aren't writing a whole series out of it, just a short scenario. Also, I definitely pulled punches on how I wrote the scenario because I want the characters to end up in a good place. If I had written something original, I'd have probably let my cynicism take over. It's a good opportunity if you just want to practice getting words on a page, especially if you are like me and can't even start writing because your worldbuilding or something is not absolutely perfect.
Bad part is you can't really share that shit with anyone you know to get feedback. I'm going to post it on AO3 at some point, once I do some edits.
Also, I've been reading a shit ton of fanfic for this fandom as a consequence. That shit is a rabbit-hole. It's all just pure slop, but there have been some gems here and there. I really had the impression that most fanfics were just excuses for smut, obviously that's a lot of it, but I was actually surprised how much were just pure romance. Female-dominated fandoms probably have way more lewd writing than the male spaces.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Why don't you try some original short stories? You can mold your characters and setting based on sagas you like on that way without being fan-fiction or maybe limiting the world-building to something more familiar or some ambiguous setting if you're worried about that while adding your original ideas.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I think that will be my next step, trying to take some of the ideas I've written about in this fic, and then trying to see how I'd write it in an original setting with my own characters. I'd like to get to a point where I can write something in a serialized kind of way. Like, posting weekly chapters to a substack or my own website. But I definitely need more experience.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Just post weekly chapters to royal road like all the other spergs.
Short stories are really the only way to hone your storytelling skills. The setting is less important because you see less of it, you can't build a world in 1 to 4k words. Writing sub 1k word short stories with beginning, middle and end will do you way more good than novel length fanfics
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Yeah, you're right about reigning in length and trying to actually tell a story. I tend to make characters monologue and do cringey stream of consciousness stuff. I read a lot of modernist lit so it just kinda comes out naturally. I struggle with the more 'kinetic' parts of a story, how things move and people get from point A to B. I focus more on feelings and aesthetics, which just ends up a wordy mess of 'NOTHING HAPPENS BUT THEY FEEL DIFFERENT'
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Everyone starts off like this but it's incredibly important you stop this immediately
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context