Heyy, I've admired your writing for a while, and I was wondering if you could give me any advice or tips about writing.
(I've finally decided to attempt to be slightly productive...)
I'm sorry if this is annoying-
Also, I'm absolutely in love with your fics!! <3
Oh my gosh, I'm so honored! Of course I'd be happy to give some tips, and it's not annoying at all.
I know a lot of things say "Plan out the background before you write."
And that works for some people, and if it works for you, great!
But I'll tell you a secret. I have not planned out A SINGLE ONE OF MY FANFICS.
I just sat down with a vague idea and started typing to see where it would go.
Then after the word vomit was done, THEN I refined it. Then I planned out what would happen next, and what to add, and where it was going.
But here are my main tips:
1. Don't worry too much about a concept being overused. Sure it's been written before, but it hasn't been written by YOU.
2. Don't overthink things, there is the delete button for a reason if you don't like where something is going, but don't spend too much time considering if it's a good idea or not.
3. When in doubt of what line to write next, consider the following: How does the main character feel? What are they thinking? What emotions are they feeling? Then write a line about that.
4. Smut is hard to write, and I don't think enough people talk about this. Eventually you start to get this feeling like every scene feels very similar.
5. You can skip past a scene that is hard to write and move on to the next one. There is no set way to write a story
6. DO NOT COMPARE YOUR WRITING TO OTHER WRITING. I cannot stress this enough.
7. If a line seems odd or a scene does, get a second opinion before you delete it, because you may just be over analyzing it.
8. You are under NO obligation to finish a prompt or story that you have lost interest in. Don't stress over it.
9. There is no shame in looking up a prompt
10. You don't need to write a full story just to write something. You can write a random scene with no context. That's still writing and it still improves your skills
11. Try to step out of your comfort zone, but there is nothing wrong with writing inside of it, and only sharing stories that you are comfortable with
12. Writing is hard. Don't be harder on yourself. (If anyone says writing is easy, they're lying)
I'm sorry if some of those didn't make sense, or if it was a lot, but I think they are all important.
Feel free to reach out about anything to do with writing, and if you do end up writing some things, I'd love to see them! (Only if you are comfortable with sharing of course)
13. If you think of a cool sentence, write it at the bottom of the page. Then you can add it in later, and they can give you ideas on what to write next. (I personally keep like 5 related ones at the bottom of any draft I'm working on)