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How to Fix Underwriting

1. Slow down at emotionally important moments.

Big emotions need space to land. If a scene feels rushed, pause the plot briefly to show how the moment affects the character.

2. Add reactions, not explanations.

Instead of explaining what a character feels, show it through physical responses, hesitation, or small actions that reveal emotion naturally.

3. Ground every scene in the senses.

If a scene feels thin, add one or two sensory details—sound, texture, smell, or temperature—to make the moment feel lived-in.

4. Let thoughts interrupt action.

A line of internal thought can deepen a scene without slowing it too much. Thoughts show stakes, fear, longing, or conflict beneath the action.

5. Expand consequences, not events.

You don’t need more things to happen—you need to show what matters. Focus on how events change relationships, decisions, or self-perception.

6. Strengthen setting where emotion peaks.

The environment should echo or contrast the emotion of the scene. Setting is not decoration—it’s emotional reinforcement.

7. Add specific details instead of general ones.

Underwriting often relies on vague language. Swap “they argued” for one sharp line of dialogue or a specific breaking point.

8. Let dialogue breathe.

Short dialogue exchanges without pauses can feel flat. Add beats—silence, gestures, interruptions—to give the conversation weight.

9. Show transitions between scenes.

If scenes jump too quickly, readers feel disoriented. A brief transition helps establish time, mood, and emotional continuity.

10. Clarify stakes early in the scene.

If readers don’t know what can be lost, scenes feel empty. Make sure the character wants something specific and fears losing it.

11. Use the “what are they feeling right now?” check.

After each major beat, ask what emotion is dominant in that moment. If it’s missing on the page, the scene is likely underwritten.

12. Expand scenes that feel “too clean.”

If a scene resolves too neatly or quickly, it probably needs more tension. Messy emotions and unresolved feelings add depth.

bessmertny

why do you never see baby pigeons

legallyblained-deactivated20130

#what if all pigeons are baby pigeons and there is one masterpigeon the size of a whale

brainbubblegum

This is too funny NOT to draw

callmesel

Are people on Tumblr aware that you can customize your kudo message??

got it from this twt post (has more stuff in the thread)

og reddit post here

clytemnestraaa

i'm going to say something insane. i think the overall pronounced fandom cultural slide away from complex plotty violent work and towards kidfic and coffee shops AUs and cozy domestic romcoms is a symptom of fascism.

clytemnestraaa

okay actually this is a great phrase for it

thelibrarybat

Reblogging this for the term "neopastoralism", because I think that's fantastic.

Coffee shop AUs are, like... fine. They're not my thing, but they're hardly going to end the world. We don't need to have a moral panic about people enjoying coffee shop AUs. I'm also not about to come for anyone seeking escapism in the current hellscape.

However, I do think it's interesting to examine the tendency within these AUs to project a sort of idyll onto the coffee shop: here is a whimsical place where you can spend time with your friends and potentially meet your true love; here is a world where the greatest dilemma you may face is choosing the right coffee syrup for a new beverage or sneaking your number onto that to-go cup without being obvious.

The fantasy of the coffee shop AU is divorced almost entirely from the reality of an actual coffee shop. There are no abusive, creepy customers or bosses; there is no mention of the barista's wages; we don't see the dishwasher sweating at their station, the cashiers' aching feet; the person whose job it is to clean the (customer-only?) toilets. These topics are Political and Depressing and Must Be Avoided, because Political and Depressing things are antithetical to this kind of escapism.

The coffee shop AU exists, not in a world without capitalism (because this is a setting where commerce is actively happening) but in a world where capitalism has no teeth: a world where capitalism somehow works. In order to be convinced and soothed by this fantasy, you must suspend your disbelief and avert your eyes. You must filter the coffee shop through a neopastoralist lens.

To me, there's something very uncanny about it.

athingofvikings

I've made this observation before, but there's a distinct and strong correlation between "wanting simplistic, saccharine, and morally binary media" and "authoritarianism". It's not a 1 to 1, which is where a lot of people seem to misunderstand things; it's not "If you like fluff, you're a jackbooted authoritarian." Very much not. This is a pattern that grows up out of thousands--hundreds of thousands--of individual interactions, out of culture, out of a shift of perspectives on what is seen as the norm and what is seen as outrageous.

Individual people liking cutesy fluff? Not a problem. Thousands of people insisting that fluff is the only acceptable option and if you dare make them think and consider, you're the problem?

That's a Problem.

It's the shifting of norms in culture, and fandom is not an isolated bubble--it's a representative of larger trends. And the trend right now in our larger culture, especially in America, is authoritarianism. Authoritarianism that has gone past "creeping" and is now "prancing", "dancing", "galloping", or dare I say goosestepping. Of course that's going to have an impact on the cultural scenes, including fandom!

And there's a correlation in societies that want saccharine fluff and their own authoritarianism. I can point to numerous examples--Victorian England with the censored stories for children. The USSR with an entire kitschy style of stories and art. The USA before the rise of Trump with Thomas Kinkaid's art. And that's just scratching the surface.

The main point in bringing this up is to be aware of the trend, not to take it as a personal attack for enjoying fluffy stories.

valentineish

I would like to add a paper recommendation via @gonefromthegraysea from another version of this post. I was delighted to see it, and it feels especially apt with this addition.

In this work we collected and analyzed social media posts to investigate aesthetic-based radicalization where users searching for Cottagecor

To reiterate: coffee shop AUs and cottage-style architecture have existed for longer than the neopuritanism or tradwife movements. The aesthetics do not belong to conservatism. Fluff or fantasies in and of themselves are not the issue.

These are systemic observations – not individual condemnations. It's consideration of how art reflects culture, how cultures are shaped by their sociopolitical landscape, and the large scale shifts within individual aesthetics that follow. That sort of art & media analysis is worth applying to fan works, too.

lastvalyrian

the neopastoralist coffee filter

shithowdy

this is your periodic reminder that for all the artifacts and errors and "tells" one could possibly list, the only reliable way to actually determine if an image is ai generated is to investigate the source. it is becoming increasingly common for "fake classical paintings" to circulate around curative aesthetic blogs, and everyone should be using this as an opportunity to not only exercise their investigative skills but also appreciate art more in general. you're all checking out the artists you reblog, right? 🫣

so what are some signs to look for? let's use this very good example.

lost-in-eriador

in 2026, remember how GOOD writing feels. remember how satsfying it is to get your characters to the point you have been dying to get to, where they will experience the love, fear, relief or whatever the feeling you want to bring to life may be. let this year be the year of writing, prgress and of satisfactory endings.

allthingswhumpyandangsty

mythicamagic

One of my favourite things when reading fanfiction is when you click with an author's style so much that you adore the fanfiction you're reading, and once it's over you need more. So you go to their page and hope that there's more for any fandom you might know- only there isn't any. They've written for other fandoms you aren't familiar with and never would've thought about before.

But you're down so bad for their style and talent that they got you wading in like:

the-pen-pot

This is your semi frequent reminder that there is no official AO3 app

All those are unofficial and available on the Google play store as of August 13th 2025. They mirror AO3's content and insert ads, for which the developer gets paid by page impression (that's every time the ad appears in the fic you're reading) not just clicks.

No money goes to AO3, nor to the fic writer. It goes to the person who did the bare minimum.

Many of these apps have poorly worded or non existent privacy policies, so they may also be mining as much data as possible and selling that on to unknown third parties.

Please, just use the official AO3 site and the browser.

seleneelune-deactivated20251014

no

anneapocalypse

So, reading it again, I feel like interpreting that post about good smut being a character study as saying "smut has to be intellectual to have value" is kind of a bad faith reading. I mean I get it, free expression is under attack right now and we're feeling rightly defensive about our right to enjoy porn for porn's sake, and I don't disagree with that.

But that's just the thing. Sex scenes are character studies because sex is just another piece of the human experience, like gardening or cooking or solving a mystery or getting into a fight. It's a thing people do sometimes which it can be very enjoyable to watch fictional characters do. Sometimes, a scene where a character does something can show us a lot about that character. I think that is a neutral statement. I'm not disparaging mystery novels by saying that how a detective solves a mystery says a lot about that character.

Yes, of course it's okay to write a sensationalized and unrealistic car chase just because you enjoy watching high-speed car chases. Does the chase scene still not say something about the characters involved? Can we not still be interested in what kind of vehicles they're driving and what choices they make to propel the scene and make it exciting? Can we not still appreciate a well-choreographed car chase knowing it was made primarily to give us a fun little adrenaline rush as we watch?

What I'm trying to say it, sex is just a thing people do. It's not a special category of behavior, regardless of how our culture treats it. Smut isn't a special category of art with special rules. If you can say that you enjoy character study in fiction generally, there is no reason to read sinister motives into someone saying they like character study in porn. Horniness is no more and no less valid a reason to engage with art than any other, and by the same token it's not somehow anti-smut to engage with more than one reason.

Art about sex shouldn't be required to be "high art" (whatever the fuck that means) to have value because no art should. Complex readings of art that embrace multiple motives and meanings isn't in itself a "slippery slope" to devaluing art, and to say that it is... starts to feel like anti-intellectualism to me.

mentalmeles

Hey, real talk. How does one write smut??

norelationtoatticus

Ooh that's a fun question!! I hope you don't mind, but I threw some thoughts together. I could definitely send you some resources if you'd like, there are other people who have written about this with way more finesse. But these are some of my tips for smut writing. Sorry this isn't well organized, this is just what came to mind! Some of this is big picture scene structure, some of this is little details.

1) Type out the sounds! Moans, grunts, groans, etc. Type 'em out. Type out the sputtering breath of a name that trails off into a moan, the "O-Ohhh!" or whatever it is. Feels weird! But it works. I think it makes the scene more immersive.

2) Euphemisms are okay sparingly, but it's usually better to just say the words you mean. Ie: Cock instead of throbbing member, that kind of thing. (I learned this particular smut writing tip from my mom. Fun fact: my mom has the distinct honor of being the first ever author to use the word 'cock' in a Harlequin romance novel. She fought hard for the right to use that word. Say 'cock' and my mom will be proud of you.) The Lewd Vocabulary In Erotic Fiction survey is a great resource for some good words that people like to read.

3) Use all five senses. Use the whole body. Sex happens in the body, so let your writing get really into the body. Every so often, do a sensory check: have I described the sounds they're making? What are the colors that stand out here? If they're in that position for a while, where are they going to feel tension or muscle strain? That kind of stuff. Keep coming back to sensory descriptions.

4) Verbs. A lot of verbs. Good, strong, interesting verbs. It's an action scene, after all, so choose good action words. Make sure your verb choices are strong enough to carry the action forward.

5) Don't lose sight of your characters. Sex scenes can be intimidating, but this is just a scene like any other. It's an opportunity to show how this specific character is going to act and feel in this scenario. Use dialogue, use their personality, use whatever baggage, or assumptions, or fears, or humor, or desires, or voice, or quirks, or strengths, or whatever they have in the rest of their day to day life. Let them carry all of that into the scene. What would make This Person In Particular feel really vulnerable? What would make them feel the most satisfied? What do they need? How do these two (or more) characters communicate? How do they match each other? Keep them in character. Specificity is sexy.

6) Tension and pacing. Tension is: why does this scene have to happen right now? Narratively, why does this have to happen right this second? Has this been building for a while and now there's a big emotional outpouring? Is one of them leaving in the morning and this is their only chance? Do they need this intimacy for their relationship to move forward? Whatever it is, the tension drives the action. The tension is the need. Why do they NEED this? And then pacing. By pacing, I mean the pace of the writing, not the pace of the sex act--although that can be related! My tip for pacing a sex scene is don't keep it all one note. Don't rush through it, let it build, then pull it back, have action and then a lull for some emotional connection, etc. Layer in dialogue to push things forward or to slow them down. Keep it moving, keep things happening, but not all in a breakneck straight line towards an orgasm.

7) Decide how much you want to describe and how explicit you want to go. You can have hard kink that is written subtly with description that is evocative to hint at what is happening. You can have vanilla missionary sex that is graphic about every drop of fluid and bit of friction. No wrong answers!

8) Re-read your favorite smut scenes and think about why they work, what the author does well, what it is about them that you like. Make a list of what stands out to you.

9) My biggest tip for writing smut is... never apologize for it. You should write any level of explicit or heat that you want, whatever you are comfortable with. But don't hold your writing back or censor yourself because you're embarrassed to be horny on main. It's devil's sacrament principle, we're all here writing and reading it with you.

Anyone else want to chime in? (If you do, I will also be taking notes, I want to hear everyone's favorite smut writing strategies!!)

hey-its-sybarite

What a great list! I will add that in addition to 5) and 6) that surprise and revelation also serve to delight readers. It is an action scene, after all, and how often are you satisfied with an action scene that proceeds exactly as expected? The surprise or revelation can be emotional, it can be physical, it can be kinky, the can be an unexpected moment of candour or vulnerability or even humour. Because it wasn’t in the reader’s more generic expectations it pulls them into the intimacy a bit more.

i-will-write

loveroftoomanyfandoms

To all my writer friends who are on the struggle bus/suffering from writer's block/just dealing with life stuff right now!

howtokillavampire

but what if i read one of your fanfics and then went to your ao3 accounts and read all of your fanfics and left a comment on every single chapter of every single one and you got spam emails from all of my kudos and comments and it made you smile, what then? what if i brighten your day with my words like you did mine, what then???

marrage

weddning

honmoon

Babby

Fanfic update

in that order

PSA

Just a heads up, there are bots going around on AO3 accusing people of using AI. Considering the timing, this is likely AI bros' retaliation for AO3 users calling them out for scraping their work. Examples of what you might be sent:

Screenshots from here.

If you get a comment like this, just report for spam and delete.

lottiesnotebook

This happened to me on Monday! Just to note, they seem to be using the usernames of real AO3/Tumblr users, which is creepy and upsetting, and also a weird way to sow discord in our communities.

aeonchangeling

As a fanfic writer, this makes me sick.

waywardstraysau

Letting me readers know about this nonsense. Don't bother with engaging if you get something like this, do as the OP says and continue to write.

formlessvoidbeast

Report as spam and move along.

letsmeetinourdreams

“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated—with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. “Folks,” he said, “I know you’ve had a rough day and you’re frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here’s what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight—just leave ‘em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I’ll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?”

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who’d been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious.

At the next stop—just as promised—the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up—but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it’s extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.

But what if you are the light? What if you’re the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?

That’s what this bus driver taught me—that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy “influencer.” He was a bus driver—one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious—sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated—one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.“

–Elizabeth Gilbert

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