Another year, another bunch of Drarry fics! Like in 2022 and 2023, here is the list of the fics that made 2024 such a cool year to me. Thanks to the writers for making me happy with these wonderful stories of my favorite boys <3
More than one chapter:
Dwelling by aideomai (83k)
In Every Universe by @skeptiquewrites (27k)
Can I tell you something? by GallaPlacidia (33k)
A Big Black Sky by alexmeg (90k)
All Life is Yours to Miss by Saras_Girl (114k)
Harry Potter: DILF Hunter by @vukovich (11k)
What We Pretend We Can't See by @gyzym (131k)
The Day Before the Wedding by @kbrick (39k)
Eclipse by Mijan (287k)
Secrets by Vorabiza (395k)
Twist of Fate by Oakstone730 (302k)
Finely Drawn Lines by @the-sinking-ship (61k)
A Pocket Full of Stones by @amywaterwings (67k)
The Devil's White Knight by orphan_account (64k)
One-shots:
Truth or Dare? by @lettersbyelise (3k)
Always the Last to Know by @nv-md (10k)
Lovesick by @corvuscrowned (7k)
Tangled Up in Midnight Memories (and you) by @ronbinary (8k)
Seven Ways to Get Harry Potter Hard (in Public) by @curleecue (7k)
Ten Thousand Reasons Why Not by @lqtraintracks (8k)
telepathy by @hogwartsfirebolt (2k)
Howl by @tackytigerfic (8k)
Letâs go dip it low (then you bring it up slow) by @andithiel (3k)
The Boy Who Only Lived Twice by @letteredlettered (54k)
When you want to show an emotion instead of naming it
When dialogue alone feels flat
When you need subtext (what they wonât say out loud)
When two characters feel differently than the words theyâre speaking
When you want to make a scene more sensory and grounded
Are they really calm, or is their foot tapping like a warning signal?
Are they truly angry, or is it just the way their jaw tightens when theyâre hurt?
Are they saying âIâm fine,â but refusing to meet anyoneâs eyes?
Body language adds layers. It tells the truth when your characters wonât. It can add to the rage bubbling on their lips, letting the reader know when they're just about to blow up.
Use it intentionally, and your scenes will read less like conversations on a stage and more like real people breathing on the page.
Really excited to post my very first Bang entry. I've had a fantastic time participating in the @gowinterbang and I think I'm super lucky to vibe really well with my writer @goldensnowspider. It's been a lot of fun.
Also I'm now a huge fan of Discord... đ¤Ł
Please go read their fic, it's so good, I couldn't put it down.
Rated: Teens and up
Word count: 15k
Written by: GoldenSnowSpider on AO3
Art by: Me đ Siobhans_world on AO3
Crowley's Christmas Angel
Summary:
On a brutally cold Christmas Eve, Crowley finds himself locked out in the snow.
Fortunately, his far-too-merry neighbour invites him in.
Crowley only plans to stay for a little while.
He would never stay the night.
But nothing ever goes to plan, does it?
Everybody should hopefully be using the hashtag #WOBB. Oh I can't tell you how much amazing art and writing and passion has gone into this Bang. It's blown me away. I have so many bookmarks. You have to look it up đ
Iâm so grateful to have collaborated with the talented @siobhans-world on this. Your art is gorgeous â it radiates Aziraphale and Crowleyâs love â and your suggestions helped shape some of my favourite moments in the fic.
How to Write Severus Snape: What I Learned After Getting Him Completely Wrong
Or: Why "He Just Needs the Right Woman" Missed the Entire Point
I've been writing Severus Snape for about three months now, and I need to be honest with you: when I started planning this story a year ago, I got him completely wrong.
Like, embarrassingly wrong.
I read the Harry Potter books as an adult about three years ago. Snape didn't really stand out to me as someone I'd ever want to write about until his death scene, which absolutely gutted me. I remember thinking "this is terrible, he deserved better than this," and that made me go back and pay closer attention to him. But I still wasn't thinking about writing him. That came later.
When the idea for my fic hit me last year, I was excited. I had the whole concept mapped out, and I started writing scenes to test it out. The concept was solid. The characterization, however, was absolute garbage.
I had somehow, in my memory of the books, turned Snape into this misunderstood figure who just needed the right person to see past his walls. You know the tropeâdamaged man meets understanding woman, he softens up and shows his real feelings, they heal each other. That's what I wrote. He was more expressive, more obviously conflicted, more emotionally available than he actually is.
Then a few months ago, I rewatched the movies with my stepdaughter (she'd never seen them), and halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban I had this horrifying realization: I'd written him completely wrong.
Snape isn't misunderstood. He's exactly what he presents himself to beâhe's just hidden half of it away and shoved it down so deep he can barely access it himself. He's not going to open up with "the right woman" because he's not even open with himself. That was the thing I'd completely missed.
So I scrapped everything and started over, this time actually trying to understand his psychology instead of projecting what I wanted him to be.
That's what this post is about. Not some definitive guide (I've been writing him for three months, I'm hardly an expert), but what I've figured out so far and what I got catastrophically wrong at first. I've had a lot of readers tell me they like how I write him now, and I think it's because I finally stopped trying to make him something he's not.
A note: I saw the criticism that my first version of this post looked AI-generated because of the formatting and some canon errors. That's fair. I got overconfident, didn't double-check my canon references, and formatted it like a textbook instead of, you know, a person talking. So I'm rewriting this entirelyâin my own voice, with my actual experience, and without pretending I know more than I do.
The Thing I Got Wrong (And Maybe You Are Too)
Here's what I thought when I started: Snape has all these feelings buried underneath his cruel exterior, so the goal is to get him to express those feelings. Get him to open up, be vulnerable, show his soft side. Right?
Wrong.
The problem is that Snape already feels everything. He's not emotionally stuntedâhe's emotionally overwhelmed. He's been feeling too much his entire life, and he's built this elaborate filtering system because feeling things has only ever hurt him. His mother couldn't protect him. His father abused him. Lily abandoned him and chose his bully. Dumbledore used him. Every time he's felt something deeply, it's destroyed him.
So when you're writing him, you're not writing someone who needs to learn to feel. You're writing someone who desperately needs to learn that feeling things won't destroy himâand he absolutely does not believe that. He believes the opposite. He has decades of evidence that feelings are dangerous.
That changes everything about how you approach his character.
How His Brain Actually Works (As Far As I Can Tell)
After three months of writing Snape and really paying attention to how he operates in canon, here's what I think is going on:
He defaults to analysis, but bias can override it.
This is his preferred mode. When something happens, he assesses it, categorizes it, looks for angles. But here's the thing: his analysis is colored by pessimism and trauma. If something can go wrong, he assumes it will. If someone's being nice to him, his first thought isn't "they're being nice," it's "they're being nice... why? What do they want?"
Does this mean he never reacts without analyzing? Obviously not. Prisoner of Azkaban is basically one long trauma response for him because Sirius Black (who tried to murder him) is loose and Remus Lupin (friend of said attempted murderer) is teaching at Hogwarts. He's triggered constantly. In the Shrieking Shack he's beyond reasonâshrieking, spitting, with a mad glint in his eyes that shows he's completely lost control.
But that's my pointâwhen he reacts explosively, it's because his control has failed. That's not his preferred state. His preferred state is cold, analytical assessment. Strong emotion overrides it, and he hates when that happens because it means he's lost control.
And here's where I think the person who criticized my first post had a valid point: Snape's analysis is often poisoned by bias, especially with Harry. He does analyze Harry constantlyâhe's always watching him, noting his behavior, comparing him to James. The problem isn't that he doesn't analyze; it's that his analysis confirms what he already believes. He sees Harry through a broken framework where everything looks like arrogance and rule-breaking because that's what he's determined to see. His trauma has made him incapable of seeing Harry clearly.
So yes, his default is analyticalâbut with certain triggers (anything James-related, basically), that analysis is so biased it might as well be pure reaction.
He's confident in his own judgment, often because he's proven right.
Snape doesn't think he's smarter than everyone alwaysâthat would be ridiculous, and Dumbledore exists. But he does have high confidence in his own judgment, and he's frequently validated. He was right about Quirrell being suspicious. He was right about Lockhart being a fraud. He was right about Lupin being careless with his werewolf transformations. Even when he challenges Dumbledore with "you've been raising him like a pig for slaughter," he's not wrong.
This is more pronounced with students and incompetent adults. Of course he thinks he's smarter than a classroom of teenagersâhe is. Of course he thinks he sees things more clearly than Lockhartâhe does. The confidence isn't entirely unfounded, which is what makes it so entrenched.
With genuinely competent adults like Dumbledore or McGonagall, it's more complicated. He respects their abilities even while disagreeing with their judgments. But he still thinks his read on situations is accurate, and honestly, he's right often enough that this belief is reinforced.
He filters every emotion through sarcasm or anger.
Any feelingâpositive or negativeâgets immediately processed through his defense system. Sarcasm is his go-to because it lets him seem unbothered. He can feel superior and detached at the same time, maintaining control while deflecting whatever made him feel something.
Anger is his fallback when sarcasm isn't enough, and he hates resorting to anger because it reveals he's been affected. It means something got through his defenses. The calmer and more sarcastic he seems, the more in control he actually is. The angrier he gets, the more you know you've genuinely rattled him.
When you see him losing it in the Shrieking Shack or bellowing at Harry to get out of his office after the Pensieve violationâthat's not calculated. That's control failing entirely.
He believes he's fundamentally unlovable.
This is the core wound that affects everything else. Snape operates from the belief that nobody will ever truly care about him, that anyone who tries has ulterior motives, and that pushing people away is survival, not cruelty.
And here's the devastating part: he creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone tries to get close. He pushes them away to test them or protect himself. They leave (because that's a natural response to being pushed away). He interprets their leaving as proof they never really cared in the first place. See? He was right all along. Better to push people away first than let them leave later and hurt him more.
It's devastatingly effective at keeping him isolated, and it confirms his worst belief about himself every single time.
The Contradiction Thing
One thing I really struggled with early on was trying to make Snape consistent. Is he cruel or is he caring? Is he brave or is he a coward? Is he selfless or selfish?
The answer is yes. He's all of those things simultaneously.
He saves Harry's life repeatedly while also making Harry's life miserable. He's brave enough to spy on Voldemort but too cowardly to face his own feelings. He's capable of immense love (Lily) and immense cruelty (basically everyone). He protects students but also traumatizes them. He's loyal to Dumbledore and resentful of Dumbledore's manipulation.
When I first started writing him, I kept trying to smooth out these contradictions. Make him consistently one thing or anotherâconsistently cruel with hidden kindness, or consistently protective but with a sharp exterior. That's not Snape. Snape is walking contradiction, and the reason is that he's never processed any of his trauma. He's just shoved it all down and kept going, so he's fragmented. He contains multitudes and he hates every single one of them.
Don't try to reconcile his contradictions. Let him be unfair. Let him save someone's life and then be needlessly cruel to them five minutes later. Let him care deeply about something and then mock someone else for caring about the exact same thing. That's who he is. The contradictions aren't a flaw in his characterizationâthey are his characterization.
Why Control Matters So Much to Him
Something I didn't understand at first: Snape's obsession with control isn't about power. It's about survival.
His childhood was chaos. Spinner's End, poverty, his father's abuse, his mother's inability to protect him, being the weird poor kid at school, being sexually assaulted by James Potter in front of a crowd while teachers did nothing. He couldn't control any of it. He was powerless, humiliated, and helpless.
As an adult, control is the only thing standing between him and that childhood vulnerability. If he can control the situation, he can't be hurt the way he was hurt as a child. If he can see everything coming, he can prepare. If he can manage every variable, he's safe.
This manifests in everything he does. His intellectual superiority means if he's the smartest, he sees things coming and can't be caught off guard. Emotional suppression means if he doesn't feel it, it can't control him or be used against him. Anticipating worst-case scenarios means if he expects the worst, he's prepared and can't be disappointed. Cruelty as a preemptive strike means if he hurts you first, you can't hurt himâhe controls when and how pain happens. His rigid environment means predictability, and predictability equals safety.
When Snape loses control of a situationâwhen someone surprises him, when things spiral beyond his management, when someone makes him feel something he didn't authorizeâhe doesn't just get angry. He gets vicious. And it's not proportional because it's not really about the current situation. It's about that childhood powerlessness surging back up. It's panic dressed as cruelty.
How I Actually Write His Dialogue Now
This is probably the thing I'm most proud of figuring out, because it came from analyzing why my early drafts felt so wrong.
Snape filters everything before it comes out of his mouth. Every thought passes through multiple layers, and understanding this process has completely changed how I write him.
Let me show you what I mean.
Let's say Snape sees a flower he likes (a lily, perhapsâtoo soon?). A normal person's internal reaction: "Oh, that's a really pretty flower! I'd love to have one."
Here's what happens in Snape's head before he speaks:
Layer 1: Analysis: Why does it appeal to me? What specifically am I responding to? â "That flower looks well cared forâit's bright, healthy, colorful. I would like one."
Layer 2: Intellectualization: Remove casual language, add precision and formality. â "The plant appears well maintained and visually appealing. I believe I would want one for myself."
Layer 3: Emotional Removal: Strip out any indication of personal desire or feeling. Make it observational. â "The plant is well maintained and visually appealing."
Layer 4: Minimization: Use the fewest words possible. Add careful pauses where he's selecting words. â "The plant is... adequate."
And that's how you get Snape dialogue.
He's gone from "I love this and want it" to "adequate"âbut if you understand his filtering system, you know those mean the same thing. When I'm writing his dialogue now, I actually run it through this process. I write what he's thinking or feeling first, then filter it down layer by layer until it sounds like him. It's made a massive difference in how authentic his voice feels.
The key is that each layer removes vulnerability. By the time something comes out of his mouth, it's been stripped of anything that could be used against him.
Body Language: What I'm Still Learning
I'm going to be honestâthis is something I still struggle with. Snape communicates so much through body language, and I keep catching myself making him too verbal when he should be expressing things physically instead.
I'm still working out the specifics of how he moves. From what I can tell, his movement is purposeful and controlledâin Philosopher's Stone, Rowling describes him "sweeping around in his long black cloak," watching students. He's not a fidgeter, not an anxious pacer. The text says he has "the gift of keeping a class silent without effort," and that seems to come from his presence and voice (barely more than a whisper, but everyone catches every word) rather than from standing perfectly still or from shouting.
His hands tell the truth more than his words do. When his hands are clasped behind his back, he's restraining himselfâstopping himself from acting on impulse. When they're clenched, there's barely contained emotion. When he touches his wand, he's grounding himself, checking it's there, preparing for threat. When his fingers are steepled, he's thinking, calculating, judging.
And his voice works on an inverse scale: the softer he gets, the more dangerous he is. Shouting means he's lost control. That silky, quiet drawl means he's in complete control and enjoying your discomfort.
When Snape's control is slipping, his body betrays him before his words do. A hand moving too quickly. Standing too close to someone because he's feeling invaded and retaliating by invading their space. His voice going too soft because he's overcorrecting for emotion. A sharp intake of breath. Eyes widening fractionally before he can stop it. These are the things I'm constantly trying to catch and include, because they're how you show what he's feeling when he'd rather die than say it.
What Actually Matters to Him (And What Earns His Respect)
This is important if you're writing him in any kind of relationshipâfriendship, mentorship, romance, whatever.
Snape doesn't respect desperation. He doesn't respect people who need his approval or who fold under pressure. He doesn't respect blind optimism or people who coast on charm, looks, or privilege. These things repulse him because they remind him of everything he's never had and everyone who's dismissed him.
So what does earn his respect? These are patterns I've noticed, not absolute rules:
He respects competence without arrogance. Do good work, don't brag about it. Let your results speak for themselves. He recognizes capability when he sees it, even if he'll never voice approval.
He respects people who stand up to him with facts or logic, not emotional appeals. Challenging his conclusions with evidence might intrigue him, even if it also infuriates him. Challenging his authority with feelings will get you destroyed. The distinction matters.
He respects people who see through his bullshit and call him on it without backing down. This only works if you're also competentâotherwise you're just annoying. But if you can see what he's doing (deflecting, testing, pushing away) and refuse to play along, that gets his attention.
He respects people who genuinely don't care if he likes them. Desperation repulses him. Indifference intrigues him. If you don't need his approval, you're automatically more interesting than ninety-five percent of people he encounters.
McGonagall is probably the clearest example. She's competent, she doesn't need his approval, she'll call him out when necessary, and she's not trying to fix him or get close to him. He respects her even when they disagree.
The absolute worst thing you can do when writing someone trying to reach Snape is make them desperate for his approval or trying to "fix" him with patience and love. He'll destroy that person. Not just because he's cruel (though he is), but because desperation repulses him and pity is humiliating. Nobody wants to be someone's project.
If you want to write someone who actually gets through to him, they need to earn his respect first. Be genuinely good at something he values. Stand their ground when he pushes. Not need him. See through his defenses without making it their mission to tear them down. Then maybeâmaybeâover a long period of time, with some form of forced proximity that prevents him from just cutting them off entirely, he might let them in.
Slowly. With frequent backsliding. While hating every minute of it.
But here's where I need to be honest: I'm figuring this out as I go. My fic requires Snape to eventually be vulnerable with someone, and writing that in a way that feels like natural progression rather than "he's vulnerable now because the plot needs him to be" is the hardest thing I've ever tried to do as a writer. I'm constantly second-guessing myself. Does this feel earned? Is this too fast? Is this in character? I don't have definitive answers. I'm just doing my best and hoping it works.
The Lily Question (Because People Always Ask)
"Wouldn't Snape feel like he's betraying Lily if he moved on romantically?"
No, and I think this comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of what Lily represents to him.
Snape's devotion to Lily's memory isn't romantic loyalty. She wasn't loyal to himâshe dated and married James Potter, the person who sexually assaulted him, who tormented him for years, who made his life hell. That's not just moving on. That's choosing his abuser's side. She didn't just leave Snape when he called her a slur (which was unforgivable, and I'm not defending that)âshe erased their entire friendship by ending up with James.
His obsession with Lily is about guilt, debt, and Dumbledore's manipulation. He told Voldemort the prophecy. He got her killed. Keeping Harry safe is how he atones for that. And Dumbledore used that guilt masterfully, turning it into a leash and calling it redemption.
Lily represents Snape's lost happiness, his biggest mistake, his last connection to who he was before he became what he is. But that doesn't mean he's incapable of caring about someone new. It means he'd need someone patient enough and compelling enough to let him hold both truths at once: I loved her and I lost her, and she's gone, and I can still care for someone new.
Moving on doesn't mean forgetting her or stopping his protection of Harry. It means accepting that he can honor her memory and build something new. These aren't mutually exclusive unless he makes them so.
But againâI'm writing this in a fanfic where I need him to eventually be capable of a relationship, so maybe I'm just justifying what I need for my story. I genuinely don't know. Canon gives us almost nothing about how Snape would function in a healthy relationship because he's never had one.
What I'm Still Figuring Out
Because I'm three months into this, not three years, and I don't have all the answers:
Vulnerability is hard. My story needs him to be vulnerable at certain points, but doing it in a way that feels like natural character progression rather than plot convenience is something I'm constantly reconsidering. How much can he let down his guard before it stops feeling like Snape? What circumstances would actually force vulnerability from someone this defended? I don't know. I'm just trying things and seeing what feels right.
The formality balance is tricky. Sometimes I make him too formal or too wordy. There's a sweet spot for his voiceâprecise but economical, formal but not archaicâand I don't always hit it. He's not going to say "I suppose one might consider" when "perhaps" works. But he's also not going to say "yeah" or use contractions constantly. Finding that balance is ongoing.
Romance is really hard. There's basically no canon basis for how Snape would behave in a healthy romantic relationship. His thing with Lily was one-sided and obsessive. So I'm working backward from "what would it take for him to even allow this" and building from there, but I'm genuinely just guessing. Maybe I'm getting it completely wrong. I won't know until it's done and I can look back at the full arc.
Body language versus dialogue. I mentioned this earlier, but it's worth repeating: I still catch myself making him say things he would only show physically. He's not going to say "I'm angry"âhis jaw is going to tighten, his hand is going to move to his wand, his voice is going to go dangerously soft. Getting that right consistently is something I'm still working on.
The Misconception About Love
Here's something I want to address directly because I think it's fundamental to understanding him:
Snape is not incapable of love. He's terrified of it.
He loved Lily. He clearly has some kind of complex attachment to Dumbledore (whether you call that love or loyalty or dependency, it's a deep connection). The man is capable of profound feelingâthat's actually his problem. He feels too much, and every time he's loved someone, it's destroyed him.
His mother couldn't protect him. Lily left him and chose his bully. Dumbledore used his love for Lily to manipulate him into a life of servitude and eventually death. Love, for Snape, equals devastation.
So he's not emotionally unavailable because he can't feel. He's emotionally unavailable because he can, and it's never ended in anything but pain. He's convinced himself he doesn't deserve love and that nobody would love him anyway, and he has decades of evidence supporting that belief.
The tragedy of Severus Snape isn't that he can't love. It's that he canâdeeply, painfully, all-consuminglyâand he's convinced himself that nobody will ever love him back, and his life has more or less proven him right.
What I've Learned From Writing Him
The biggest thing: stop trying to make him nicer than he is.
He's cruel. He's unfair. He holds grudges foreverâhe's still bitter about things that happened when he was eleven years old. He makes students cry. He's bitter and sharp-edged and will say cutting things just to watch people flinch.
And he's also capable of immense bravery, sacrifice, and love. Both of those things are true at the same time.
When I was writing those early blurbs a year ago, I was so focused on showing his "soft side" that I sanded down all his sharp edges. That's not Snape. Snape is the sharp edges. The soft parts are buried so deep that even he can barely find them, and he's certainly not showing them to anyone else.
If you want to write him well, you have to be willing to let him be genuinely unpleasant. Let him say things that hurt. Let him be unfair to people who don't deserve it. Let him hold grudges. Let him be cruel to someone he actually cares about because he's too damaged to know how else to behave.
Then show the complexity underneath thatânot instead of it, but in addition to it. He saves Harry while also tormenting him. He protects students while traumatizing them. He's loyal to Dumbledore while resenting him. He loved Lily while calling her a slur. All of it is true. All of it is Snape.
The contradictions are the character.
Some Mistakes I've Made (That You Might Want to Avoid)
Based on my own failures:
Don't make him suddenly emotionally articulate. Even when he cares, even when he's trying, he's not going to say "I care about you" or "I'm worried" or "that hurt my feelings." He'll say "don't be idiotic" while actively protecting you. He'll assign you extra work that happens to address a gap in your knowledge. He'll make sure you're safe while insulting your intelligence. Learn to read the subtext, because he's not going to spell it out.
Don't make him warm. His version of warmth is the absence of active cruelty. A comment that's slightly less cutting than usual. Allowing silence instead of filling it with sarcasm. The corner of his mouth twitchingânot quite a sneer, but not quite not a sneer either. That's as warm as he gets in most circumstances.
Don't make him apologize easily. He's not going to say "I'm sorry I hurt you" or "I was wrong." He might change his behavior. The next day he might be less cutting, or he might do something that indirectly addresses the harm he caused. That's his apology. If you're waiting for the words, you'll be waiting forever.
Don't forget he holds grudges forever. He's still angry about things from decades ago. He doesn't forgive, and he doesn't forget. This is important. If someone wrongs him, that's it. They're on the list forever. The only exception seems to be Dumbledore, and even that relationship is complicated by resentment.
Don't make him a different person in private. Some characters have a public persona and a private self that's softer. Snape doesn't work that way. He might be slightly less performatively cruel when there's no audience, but he's not secretly soft. The walls don't come down just because you're alone with him. If anything, he might be worse because there's nobody watching him maintain appearances.
Why I'm Even Posting This
Here's the truth: I got Snape completely wrong for months. The stuff I wrote a year ago is embarrassing. He was too open, too available, too ready to be "fixed" by the right circumstances. I didn't understand him at all.
When I started getting comments from readers saying they liked my characterization of him, I realized I'd figured something out that I desperately wish I'd understood a year ago when I started. Maybe this will help someone else skip the "writing him completely wrong for six months" phase that I went through.
Or maybe you'll read this and disagree with all of it. That's fine too. I'm three months into actively writing him, reading the books with him specifically in mind, taking notes every day about his patterns and speech and behavior. That's a lot of focused attention, but it's also nowhere near the expertise of someone who's loved this character for decades. I'm not the definitive authority. I'm just someone who made a lot of mistakes and is trying to share what I learned from them.
The person who criticized my first version of this post was right about a lot of things. I got canon details wrong. I relied on memory instead of checking the actual books. I presented some fanon interpretations as if they were canon fact. This is my attempt to fix thatâto make this actually useful instead of just confidently wrong in places.
If you take one thing away from this, let it be this:
Snape isn't cold. He's afraid.
Every wall he builds, every cutting remark, every person he pushes awayâit's all fear dressed up as superiority. He feels everything, and he's spent decades learning to show nothing because feeling things has only ever destroyed him.
The tragedy of Severus Snape isn't that he can't love. It's that he canâdeeply, painfully, consuminglyâand he's convinced himself that nobody will ever love him back. And his entire life has basically proven him right.
Write him like someone who's already been hurt as badly as a person can be hurt, who's determined never to let it happen again, and who's built elaborate fortifications to make sure of it.
Then watch what happens when, despite his absolute best efforts, it starts to happen anyway.
If you want to see how I'm trying to write him (and whether I'm succeeding or failing spectacularly), the fic is called Wandless and it's on AO3, FFN, and Wattpad. Fair warning: it's a very slow burn. Like, glacially slow. Because that's how long it actually takes for someone like Snape to let anyone in.
I am by no means an expert on this subject. Please don't assume I am. This is just me, talking about a character I've been obsessed with for three months, trying to help other people avoid the mistakes I made.
Thanks for reading.
Dividers by strangergraphics-archive
Thank you to @tiphprince. I'm not saying they gave their approval of this post whatsoever, but I do think their criticism helped make it better than it was.
5 Tiny Writing Tips That Arenât Talked About Enough (but work for me)
These are some lowkey underrated tips Iâve seen floating around writing communities â the kind that donât get flashy attention but seriously changed how I write.
1. Put âhe/she/theyâ at the start of the sentence less often.
Try switching up your sentence rhythm. Instead of
âShe walked to the window,â
try
âThe window creaked open under her touch.â
Keeps it fresh and stops the paragraph from sounding like a checklist.
2. Donât describe everything â describe what matters.
Instead of listing every detail in a room, pick 2â3 objects that say something.
âA half-drunk mug of tea and a knife on the tableâ
sets a way stronger tone than
âThere was a wooden table, two chairs, and a shelf.â
3. Use beats instead of dialogue tags sometimes.
Instead of:
"I'm fine," she said.
Try:
"I'm fine." She wiped her hands on her skirt.
It helps shows emotion, and movement.
4. Write your first draft like no one will ever read it.
No pressure. No perfection. Just vibes. The point of draft one is to exist. Let it be messy and weird â future you will thank you for at least something to edit.
5. When stuck, ask: âWhatâs the most fun thing that could happen next?â
Not logical. Not realistic. FUN. It doesnât have to stay â but chasing excitement can blast through writerâs block and give you ideas you actually want to write.
Whatâs a tip that unexpectedly helped with your writing? Let me know!! đ
On every What is Wednesdays I will explain a trope, a rhetorical device, or a literary technique in a few sentences. Put in the comments what you would like me to explain next.
What is... a drabble?
What is... dead dove?
What is... archetypal characters?
What is⌠deus ex machina?
What is⌠whump?
What is... plot bunny?
What is... canon vs. fanon?
What is⌠a headcanon?
What is⌠a plot hole?
What is⌠retcon?
What is⌠WIP?
What is⌠a sequel hook?
What is⌠a crossover?
What is⌠crack?
What is⌠a rarepair?
What is⌠a red herring?
What is⌠fluff?
What is⌠smut?
What is⌠OOC?
What is⌠a missing scene?
What is⌠Coda?
What is⌠a trope?
What is⌠Alpha vs. Beta Reader?
What is⌠a cliffhanger?
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For a limited time only (for now) I will be bringing back the "What is Wednesdays"! Do you have a question about what something in regards to writing, fanfiction, tropes, etc. is? Tell me and I'll see if I can enlighten you :)
It's starting again next Wednesday, so be excited.
my 10 holy grail pieces of writing advice for beginners
from an indie author who's published 4 books and written 20+, as well as 400k in fanfiction (who is also a professional beta reader who encounters the same issues in my clients' books over and over)
show don't tell is every bit as important as they say it is, no matter how sick you are of hearing about it. "the floor shifted beneath her feet" hits harder than "she felt sick with shock."
no head hopping. if you want to change pov mid scene, put a scene break. you can change it multiple times in the same scene! just put a break so your readers know you've changed pov.
if you have to infodump, do it through dialogue instead of exposition. your reader will feel like they're learning alongside the character, and it will flow naturally into your story.
never open your book with an exposition dump. instead, your opening scene should drop into the heart of the action with little to no context. raise questions to the reader and sprinkle in the answers bit by bit. let your reader discover the context slowly instead of holding their hand from the start. trust your reader; don't overexplain the details. this is how you create a perfect hook.
every chapter should end on a cliffhanger. doesn't have to be major, can be as simple as ending a chapter mid conversation and picking it up immediately on the next one. tease your reader and make them need to turn the page.
every scene should subvert the character's expectations, as big as a plot twist or as small as a conversation having a surprising outcome. scenes that meet the character's expectations, such as a boring supply run, should be summarized.
arrive late and leave early to every scene. if you're character's at a party, open with them mid conversation instead of describing how they got dressed, left their house, arrived at the party, (because those things don't subvert their expectations). and when you're done with the reason for the scene is there, i.e. an important conversation, end it. once you've shown what you needed to show, get out, instead of describing your character commuting home (because it doesn't subvert expectations!)
epithets are the devil. "the blond man smiled--" you've lost me. use their name. use it often. don't be afraid of it. the reader won't get tired of it. it will serve you far better than epithets, especially if you have two people of the same pronouns interacting.
your character should always be working towards a goal, internal or external (i.e learning to love themself/killing the villain.) try to establish that goal as soon as possible in the reader's mind. the goal can change, the goal can evolve. as long as the reader knows the character isn't floating aimlessly through the world around them with no agency and no desire. that gets boring fast.
plan scenes that you know you'll have fun writing, instead of scenes that might seem cool in your head but you know you'll loathe every second of. besides the fact that your top priority in writing should be writing for only yourself and having fun, if you're just dragging through a scene you really hate, the scene will suffer for it, and readers can tell. the scenes i get the most praise on are always the scenes i had the most fun writing. an ideal outline shouldn't have parts that make you groan to look at. you'll thank yourself later.
Wanna find your fav old fic but it's now lost? Aaronmelzak's Harry Potter Fanfic Archive of 100+ Sites/Forums Is Now Hosted Via Me In Accessible Formatâ¨
Someone archived/collected over 100 sites/forums for HP Fanfic. This doesn't only include popular ones like AO3, FFN, HPFF, Mugglenet but very small pairing-centric and smaller communities like Checkmated, Gryffindor Tower, The Full Moony, The Restricted Section and so much more.
This is not only an extreme service to data preservation in regards to creative works, but for fandom history as a whole. Upon my post in the hpff subreddit, I had people backing up these files from the torrent & my hosted link to their own cloud service of choice, and people planning to do the above once their dl was finished. You have free reign to do the same, including taking my folder and uploading it to share. The only request is that you of course link back to the original archivist, and if you choose to change the file structure, disclaim how it has changed from the very original structure.
To help the apparent confusion: This comes as a torrent file unless you choose to look through the archive link by zips. This is a good way, but doesn't allow to see the file structure as the archivist created. So I downloaded almost 100 GB & uploaded it, file structure as is, besides a few changes which I will put below. You are now able to browse at will through the folders, which are sorted. This was done due to ease of access. You will need to use a program like winrar/7zip which is as simple as opening the zip through said program, which allows you to view it. This is also available on smartphone. To view the directories, you need to open the .csv files through excel which is just as simple as the above, and is also on smartphone.
The list of archived sites is long, so I won't be including it here. If you don't wanna look through the folders yourself at which zips are provided, send me a PM and I'll get back to you as quick as I canđ
To note: I'm only sharing 50% of transfer quota. Wish I could share more, but I've already shared 200 GB.
Changes made from original archivist file structure:
"No longer updated" + "Assorted" folder: now mixed and called "Original Fan Sites- Misc- Assorted"
"Actively Updated" folder: now called "Last Updated 2023"
This obviously needed its own post and here it is, a collection of blog posts and resources I have found and used for my own writing, I hope they help you too! Go forth and write that spice!
The Smut Writers Dictionary By @maybeeatspaghetti Seriously, how many different way are there to write cock? Does anyone else wonder if they've used the word 'lips' too many times? Well, this is a good place to start!
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Smut This is the first one I found and I go back to it frequently! There's also some great information about specific areas of sex that may not be common knowledge for first time writers!
How to Write Smut By @urfriendlywriter Another great source of information from different verbiage to use and a few tips to hel you along (giggity)
Smut Thesaurus By @prurientpuddlejumper just what it sounds like and you can never have too many words at your disposal.
6 Steps to Writing Better Sex By @chaoschaoswriting If you're at a loss or just want some more help this is antoher fantastic blog!
Writing Prompts NSFW By @seidenbros Need some dialogue? Or a story idea? Have a look!
#100 NSFW/Smut Dialogue Prompts By @a-cure-for-writers-block More? More. This is also a fantastic writing blog with lots to offer!
Intimate + Sexual Headcannon Questions By @petalsprompts Good questions to ask your characters to get to know them better and make more well rounded characters!
Smut & Mature (18+) Master List By @pendarling A great list dialogue prompts, scenarios, and helpful bits!
Poly NSFW Alphabet By @smaoineamhsalach Another great way to get to know your characters and maybe a handful of ideas for story ideas.
Kink Prompts Another from the previous blogger above and I didn't know what half of these are! I'll work on a kink dictionary next!
Writing Smut 101: Overcoming Smut Shame @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 There's a lot to be said for this particular subject! It's hard to write stuff like this, so how do you get over it? Start here!
How to Write a Kiss Scene By @youneedsomeprompts Yes!!! I still struggle with this one! There's a thousand ways to kiss, find your favorite!
Smut Oneliners By @deity-prompts you can never have enough one-liners!!
How to Write a (Great) Sex Scene Another great article for new smut writers
9 Tips for Writing Steamy Scenes More tips to help you wirte good steamy stuff!
How to Write Erotica and a Damn Fine Sex Scene A WEALTH if information on writing, structuring, and helpful tips!
@saradikahas a fantatic blog with graphics for you to use to add some fun to your posts. Things like MDNI Banners, 18+ Content Warnings, Support Your Favorite Writers and Reblog banners! They are free to use but she does ask that you reblog her stuff if you do! She's also a very talented writer and she writes some AMAZING Din Djarin stories!
Gay Sex Positions Guide This is a WONDERFUL adition and thank you so much @b7bubby for bringing this to my attention, I didn't have any resources for writing M/M fairings but this is a much needed addition to the spicy community! i've never written an M/M pairing and I feel like such an idiot for overlooking the need for a resource like this!
Writing the Perfect Kiss Scene provided by @writers-potiona fantastic little guide to writing better kisses!
If you find any other great smut writing resources feel free to tag me so I can add them to this list! Good luck with your writing! Now go write that story and LET THE SPICE FLOW!!!!
Crowley exhaled sharply and set his cup down with a quiet clink.
âIâm still angry, Angel.â
Aziraphaleâs stomach twisted. He lowered his fork and curled in on himself. âI know I deserve your anger. Itâs all my fault.â
He glanced over. Crowley was staring blankly into his tea.
âNo, not at you,â Crowley said, voice cracking. âYou donât deserve any of this. And neither do I. But â you left me, Angel. Then I watched you die. I grieved you. I cried every day for you.â
Tears welled in his eyes, spilling over and rippling the surface of his tea.
âI shouldâve known. I shouldâve found you. I was so fucking useless. And I keep thinking â if youâd just stayed. What Iâm trying to say isââ He looked up, red-eyed and trembling. âHow could you choose Heaven over me?â
Aziraphale stood and walked to him, placing both hands on Crowleyâs shoulders. âCrowley, I never chose Heaven over you. Donât you remember? I asked you to come with me.â
âNo,â Crowley snapped, his voice rising. âYou asked me to change, Angel.â
His eyes burned.
âWhy wasnât I good enough for you?â
Aziraphale dropped to his knees so he was eye-level.
âYou are good enough for me. Youâre better than me. Iâm the one who was weak and stupid. I wanted to help the world â make a difference. I thought â as Archangel â I could make it safer. For humans. And most importantly â for you.â
Crowley wiped at his eyes, voice thick. âYouâre not weak or stupid, Angel. You never were. Youâre â incredible.â
âAnd I said I wouldnât be gone forever,â Aziraphale whispered, cupping Crowleyâs face. âYou must have known I always meant to come back to you. We always find each other.â
Crowley blinked. âYou never said that, Angel.â
âYes, I did!â Aziraphale insisted. âI said nothing lasts forever â that I wouldn't be in Heaven forever.â
Crowley let out a dry laugh. âAngel â I thought you meant us. That our friendship was over.â
Aziraphaleâs eyes widened. âOh.â He looked thoughtful. âI suppose there are â multiple ways to interpret that. I just assumed you knew Iâd never leave you. Not forever.â
Aziraphale sat back on his heels, tears glistening. âOh, my dear. You really thought I chose Heaven over you?â
Now it was Aziraphale who broke down, sobs wracking his entire body. Crowley watched him, feeling his own heart twist, until he couldnât bear it a moment longer. He slid off his chair and wrapped his arms around his angel, pulling him into a tight, much-needed hug.
There are only 2 rules when it comes to writing fanfics:
Write whatever you want.
Have fun doing it.
Thatâs literally it. There is no âshow and donât tellâ. There is no âmake it realisticâ. There is no âfit in with the trendsâ. And of course, there is no âwrite as fast as possible to keep up engagement and please othersâ.
No.
Most fanfiction writers are not professional writers. This isnât a job, weâre literally writing for shits and giggles. We donât have a team of editors behind us to make our story perfect. Fanfiction isnât about creating the most perfect plot with the most perfect prose and the most perfect pacing.
Fanfiction writing is for you first. To make your heart happy. Other people just get the benefit to also enjoy it if they wish.
Thatâs it.
Write whatever makes you happy, with whatever writing style you want, whenever you want.
Goldensnowspider @goldensnowspider - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
