Gonna yap about my Battleship writing process
if you all don't know, battleship was an event put on by the wonderful modteam at @mcytblraufest in which we, as teams of writers/artists/podficcers/webweavers were trying to clear boards of tags by including said tags in our works. This caused me to have an interesting writing process during the event that I felt like sharing here:
Step 1: Pick a tag
Usually I'd get inspiration from a single tag. Using my fic "There Can Only Be One" as an example, I started with the Outsider POV tag and from there developed the idea for a hunger games outsider pov fic. During this step I'd ruminate on an idea, or maybe dig out an old one I never bothered to write
Step 2: Add tags
Since we could add 1 tag for every 100 words (and I was almost always under capacity) I would next go through the tag list to see which tags I had either already included in my idea, or could very easily slip in. For There Can Only Be One this included tags like "betrayal" "organ removal" "begging" and "sword fighting" amongst others. This step got easier as the event went on because I started to remember the list of tags more and more, which meant they got included in the first step more and more.
Step 3: Add more tags
So this is where things would get interesting. In this step I would go back through the tag list and see which tags I feasibly add, should the fic take a little detour. For example, in There Can Only Be One I decided to include the "non-consensual body modification" tag, and added in a conversation between the gamemakers in which they discussed what plastic surgeries they thought Grian, the victor, should or would get (without his permission, of course, as tributes have no say)
This step was maybe my favourite consequence of battleship, because it pushed my fics into interesting directions they might not have otherwise taken, had I not thought "hm, could I fit this in? How would I?" many, many characters ended up in lingerie because of this
Step 4: The List
In this step I would list out all the tags I planned on including, and then would begin writing. As I wrote I would cross off tags as they appeared to ensure I wasn't forgetting any. In this step, as I wrote, I sometimes removed or added tags if I decided they didn't work for the idea anymore, or if new inspiration struck me.
From there on I would then find a match to gift it to (or a beloved AFIATOD), race to post before work checks, breath a sigh of relief as you believe you're way ahead of Team End only to discover that actually no they're right on your tail get back to that writing doc no resting till you're dead or done battleship!
Battleship was super fun, I wrote way more in 3 weeks than I ever expected to, and I'm really bummed I won't be able to dedicate the same hours I did this year next year, but hopefully I can still find the time to sign up! As always, thank you mods for subjecting yourselves to the work processing torment nexus running this event, and I hope to see you all next year!
