Ooh, this is actually kinda a neat thing, because you can think of it as a checklist:
Who: Main character(s)
Why: Character goal or desire (stated)
Why: Character need (implied)
When: Inciting Incident
What: Means (that achieves the goal/need)
Where: Place A >> Place B
How: The Plan
Obstacle(s): antagonist or challenge
For example:
Who: Bilbo Baggins, a respectable hobbit of Hobbiton
Why: Treasure, wealth (stated)
Why: Adventure, self-respect (implied)
When: After supper
What: Quest
Where: Hobbiton >> The Lonely Mountain
How: A company of dwarves, a wizard, and an ancient map and key
Main antagonist(s): a dragon
Thus, in less than 100 words:
Bilbo Baggins is a respectable hobbit in Hobbiton, never making any trouble or having any adventures. But when a wizard and a company of dwarves invite themselves to dinner, Bilbo finds himself joining their quest from the shires of Hobbiton to the legendary Lonely Mountain, the home of a long lost treasure, and quite, possibly, a dragon.
~~~~
The Anatomy of Story by John Truby is a really good book by the by, if anyone’s interested in this sort of thing.
things I wish I’d known when I started writing fic on ao3
use & for friendships, colleagues, familial relationships and use / for romantic or sexual relationships (or encounters)
not everyone reads fic. Lots of people use screen readers, and screen readers can’t see what’s on images. use descriptive text to help them out.
lots of people download fic to read on other devices, not all downloads capture images too.
there’s a big difference between No Archive Warnings Apply (NAWA) and Author Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings (CNTW). NAWA means that there’s nothing in the fic that needs to be warned for using the official Archive Warning system. CNTW means there might be something that requires a warning and the author is either avoiding giving out spoilers or they are unsure how to interpret their plot point with respect to the official Warnings. (in both cases, additional tags are where it’s at - you can explain yourself there)
the reason why the number of bookmarks in the fic is different from the number of bookmarks on your stats page is because your stats page number includes bookmarks that are hidden
there’s a preference setting where you can receive emails with your own comments/replies.
there’s a site skin that hides stats so you don’t have to see them
writing in rich text format makes my life easier
knowing html allows me to do fun things in the comments section like comment/reply with reaction gifs
knowing html also allows me to do interesting formatting in my fics that I can’t do with rich text alone
those little blue bubbles with the question marks in them will answer my questions a lot of the time - and also teach me something new
the FAQ is linked under the word About in the header
if you write your fic in the draft window, you might end up losing it so make sure you copy the text before you hit Post, just in case
they aren’t kidding when they say drafts are deleted after 30 days
The Anonymous collection will allow you to post anything you want and retain ownership over it.
Your identifying information will not be anywhere within the fic to any other reader. Though you will see it from your end when looking at it as a logged in user.
When you reply to a comment, it will anonymize you, so feel free to respond to your commenters!
You can take your fic off Anonymous at any time
When you are signed into AO3, you can easily access your Anonymous fics by looking at the “Works In Collections” tab on your page. Nobody else will see these Anonymous works on this page.
Works can be added to the Anonymous collection at any time
Just because a fic is Anonymous does not mean it is Abandoned or Orphaned.
Speaking of Orphaned fics:
If you have posted a story and for whatever reason you no longer want it on your account or associated with you, you can Orphan the fic.
Orphaning fics will remove all of your control and ownership of the story.
Orphaning fics is not a reversible process. Once a fic has been Orphaned it cannot be taken back. You cannot delete it. You can’t check stats and it does not show up on your Works page anymore.
Orphaning and the Anonymous collection are great options for when you no longer want a fic associated with you, but you don’t want to delete it either.
Don’t know if someone else has already said this in the notes but unless your bookmark is private the author can look and see what tags or additional notes you’ve put on the bookmark (I like to check them to see if anyone has :D). Also, yes, you can add your own tags to bookmarks and make different lists to organize them!
You can comment on fics anonymously (though I think you have to log out to do so as of now, really wish it was an option while signed in but still great it’s even an option at all!)
You can save new chapters on fics as a draft (without the 30 day limit if I remember). I do this a lot.
There is separate sections for both beginning and ending author’s notes (you can use both on the same chapter or one shot) and using the author’s note doesn’t include your rambling as part of the word count. Which is nice as it doesn’t artificially inflate the numbers.
You can combine existing skins by creating you own skin scroll to the bottom under ADVANCED and then Parent Skins. Example, i use AO3s Reversi and then XParrots Shortening Long Tag Field
Also, you can exclude stories in this area too! I got this from another tumblr post so i can’t take credit for it, nor do i know how to expand it to other things like tags or pairing or author.
.blurb#work_430075 { display: none; }
Just replace the numbers with the work you dont want to see anymore.
Just a few points to add that I hadn’t seen listed above:
-In addition to beginning and ending author’s notes for the overall story, there are also beginning and ending author’s notes for each chapter of a multipart story. When you first create the story, before you add additional chapters, it will treat your author’s notes as overall story notes – meaning your “so that’s chapter 1!” note will be kicked to the end of every subsequent chapter unless you move it to chapter 1 specifically.
-There is, in fact, a character limit in the author’s notes. I’ve run up against it a few times.
You know those things you think you can't write because they're an emotion not a plot?
Try oneshots!
Oneshots are great because they can be just a single scene or moment. They allow you to write that one conversation you want to write without needing to create a whole story around it.
You wish you could just write about that character getting a damn hug for once? Do it! Who needs a huge context? Just put it out there!
Oneshots, people! Write them read them. Love them. They're awesome.
May I also suggest for consideration, the drabble?
100 words. Just enough for that trivial exchange you can't get out of your head. Or a sucker punch of an emotional moment. All with a handy word limit to give it a 'writers challenge' credential.
And if you're looking to explore a character or a relationship in more than 100 words but still without having to have plot, may I suggest my favorite form, the 10x100?
Ten separate drabbles of 100 words each, all little windows into a life or a pairing or a place or whatever tf you want. I use them to figure out who characters are and how they've changed over time. Has the bonus of feeling artistic and moody and meaningful even though you just slapped ten disjointed thoughts together and called it a day.
I was thinking about writing and how one of the things that prevented me from doing it for a really long time was thinking, “But I’ll never have the talent/technique/self-discipline to write a novel, so what’s the point of writing anything else?”
Which, first, who even cares about writing a novel? Maybe I will, maybe I won’t, but why should it be the be-all and end-all of writing? (Short answer: the western canon, (old) white dudes, blah blah blah.)
But more importantly – I had this idea of what writing a novel (and, by extension, any writing worth doing) would mean:
That a novelist is a master of self expression. That he (gendered language not incidental) has total control over his writing on every level – plot, character, scene, paragraph, sentence, word, sound; that he can produce a perfect chapter with a perfect beginning and a perfect ending, each scene within it serving a purpose, and then string those chapters together like perfectly round pearls and lo and behold: a perfect novel, that conveys in full the story and underlying meaning intended by the author; his themes woven expertly throughout.
Ugh – seeing this written out is making me a bit sick. Anyway, the point is, of course I could never reach that level, so why write at all, right?
What I’ve come to realize since I gave myself permission to write what I want, as useless and imperfect as it is, is that you can create something really good (whatever that means for you) even if your process is just random. Something that achieves what you set out to do in meaning and/or style, something that speaks to people, that makes them say, “Oh, right. That feeling.”
It doesn’t have to be astoundingly brilliant; it doesn’t have to be something that no one has done before; it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just sit down and fucking write something.
(And then maybe do some editing. I’m not saying I don’t do a fuckton of editing.)
Now, just in case anyone stumbles upon this post and thinks I’m being pretentious, I will mention in closing that I exclusively write gay fanfiction about dudes in bands. But maybe that’s the point. What I write is so utterly unpublishable – so far removed from any society-sanctioned concept of literature – that I don’t feel like I need to write for anyone except myself and a bunch of perverts that share my very limited sphere of interest.
(It’s still writing, and I can take it as seriously as I want to.)
here have 10 pieces of writing advice that have stuck with me over the years
every character’s first line should be an introduction to who they are as a person
even if you only wrote one sentence on a really bad day, that’s still one sentence more than you had yesterday
exercise restraint when using swear words and extra punctuation in order for them to pack a punch when you do use them
if your characters have to kiss to show they’re in love, then they’re not in love
make every scene interesting (or make every scene your favorite scene), otherwise your readers will be just as bored as you
if you’re stuck on a scene, delete the last line you wrote and go in a different direction, or leave in brackets as placeholders
don’t compare your first draft to published books that could be anywhere from 3rd to 103rd drafts
i promise you the story you want to tell can fit into 100k words or less
sometimes the book isn’t working because it’s not ready to be written or you’re not ready to write it yet; let it marinate for a bit so the idea can develop as you become a better writer
a story written in chronological order takes a lot more discipline and is usually easier to understand than a story written with flashbacks
just found out you have to write if you want something to be written....... feeling shocked, devastated, and blindsided. please respect my privacy and space during this time xx
This guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s one of the lead writers for Leverage and if you ever watch the series on DVD, do yourself a favor and listen to him talk about how the scripts got written. Some of the advice he has is stuff I use all the time:
1. Don’t introduce an important plot person or thing after the first half of the story.
2. Always tie up loose ends.
3. Introduce important things in the middle of unimportant things.
4. If you have to infodump, find an emotion to tie it to and it will seem less like infodump and more like a motive rant.
Seriously this guy knows how to write.
I have decided to call my frequent misspellings and grammar bendings “vernaculiarzations”.
I love language.
People who ransacked the larders of other languages to create English are all dead and have not responded to my necromantic challenges to fight and/or update this verbal/written forest fire.
As a young thing I clearly remember “vernacular” on a school vocabulary sheet and standing up and shouting “yes, YES” in the middle of the lesson to the startlement of exactly no one (I was respectful but a tad loud) (I’m still respectful but a tad loud)
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has trouble remembering developmental milestones. I put these together, but can’t take credit for any of the photography. Hope someone finds them helpful!
Warnings: Child abuse (mostly in the form of neglect), pregnancy, referring to a child as “it” and “thing,” kidnapping (changeling switch), harm to minors, brief thoughts of child murder
Notes: The fic absolutely no one asked for and no one wanted. LOAFT verse by @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors. This is exploring Eirwen’s thought process behind having a child and switching him out for a different baby. There’s no father because Magic and Fae Are Different, and tbh I don’t see Eirwen particularly tolerating anyone else’s input in regards to a kid. We don’t know what Logan looked like as a newborn since he was glamoured to look like Thomas and then grew into those looks, so I took a slight liberty. I think the warnings make it sound worse than it is, personally, but I wanted to tag for anything that might adversely affect a reader. Please be safe!
2 things. one is that i went back over the four fics where Eirwen is featured, and i had completely forgotten that she calls Logan “Raindrop” so when i read that i made it ANGSTY (”It was this small, pathetic little thing–a raindrop where she deserved to raise a glacier.”) as well as a reference to the fact that Logan is a Spring as opposed to a Winter
two, i lifted Dot’s exact words from the fic, because like i said, i went back and reread. and you already put Dot and Eirwen in direct opposites and i wanted that to be evident immediately–so Logan is Her Son the moment she sees him whereas Eirwen has barely touched Logan. and Logan responds in kind–this baby who was born silent, didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes, is suddenly fussing and waving his hands and opening his eyes to look at his Mother
Warnings: Child abuse (mostly in the form of neglect), pregnancy, referring to a child as “it” and “thing,” kidnapping (changeling switch), harm to minors, brief thoughts of child murder
Notes: The fic absolutely no one asked for and no one wanted. LOAFT verse by @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors. This is exploring Eirwen’s thought process behind having a child and switching him out for a different baby. There’s no father because Magic and Fae Are Different, and tbh I don’t see Eirwen particularly tolerating anyone else’s input in regards to a kid. We don’t know what Logan looked like as a newborn since he was glamoured to look like Thomas and then grew into those looks, so I took a slight liberty. I think the warnings make it sound worse than it is, personally, but I wanted to tag for anything that might adversely affect a reader. Please be safe!
2 things. one is that i went back over the four fics where Eirwen is featured, and i had completely forgotten that she calls Logan “Raindrop” so when i read that i made it ANGSTY (”It was this small, pathetic little thing–a raindrop where she deserved to raise a glacier.”) as well as a reference to the fact that Logan is a Spring as opposed to a Winter
two, i lifted Dot’s exact words from the fic, because like i said, i went back and reread. and you already put Dot and Eirwen in direct opposites and i wanted that to be evident immediately–so Logan is Her Son the moment she sees him whereas Eirwen has barely touched Logan. and Logan responds in kind–this baby who was born silent, didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes, is suddenly fussing and waving his hands and opening his eyes to look at his Mother
Warnings: Child abuse (mostly in the form of neglect), pregnancy, referring to a child as “it” and “thing,” kidnapping (changeling switch), harm to minors, brief thoughts of child murder
Notes: The fic absolutely no one asked for and no one wanted. LOAFT verse by @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors. This is exploring Eirwen’s thought process behind having a child and switching him out for a different baby. There’s no father because Magic and Fae Are Different, and tbh I don’t see Eirwen particularly tolerating anyone else’s input in regards to a kid. We don’t know what Logan looked like as a newborn since he was glamoured to look like Thomas and then grew into those looks, so I took a slight liberty. I think the warnings make it sound worse than it is, personally, but I wanted to tag for anything that might adversely affect a reader. Please be safe!
2 things. one is that i went back over the four fics where Eirwen is featured, and i had completely forgotten that she calls Logan “Raindrop” so when i read that i made it ANGSTY (”It was this small, pathetic little thing–a raindrop where she deserved to raise a glacier.”) as well as a reference to the fact that Logan is a Spring as opposed to a Winter
two, i lifted Dot’s exact words from the fic, because like i said, i went back and reread. and you already put Dot and Eirwen in direct opposites and i wanted that to be evident immediately--so Logan is Her Son the moment she sees him whereas Eirwen has barely touched Logan. and Logan responds in kind--this baby who was born silent, didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes, is suddenly fussing and waving his hands and opening his eyes to look at his Mother
Warnings: Child abuse (mostly in the form of neglect), pregnancy, referring to a child as “it” and “thing,” kidnapping (changeling switch), harm to minors, brief thoughts of child murder
Notes: The fic absolutely no one asked for and no one wanted. LOAFT verse by @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors. This is exploring Eirwen’s thought process behind having a child and switching him out for a different baby. There’s no father because Magic and Fae Are Different, and tbh I don’t see Eirwen particularly tolerating anyone else’s input in regards to a kid. We don’t know what Logan looked like as a newborn since he was glamoured to look like Thomas and then grew into those looks, so I took a slight liberty. I think the warnings make it sound worse than it is, personally, but I wanted to tag for anything that might adversely affect a reader. Please be safe!
Anyone will say that there is effort in bearing a child.
For Eirwen, it involved a ritual that took two years to complete. And then it happened overnight.
She woke with an impressive baby bump that she had seen on human women. It was hard, cold, and smooth as she ran a hand over it, a thrill of pride and possession running through her.
The trouble with fae birth is that it’s as different and as individual as fae are. Eirwen could carry this child for two days. She could carry the child for ten years.
Of course, what she wanted was for it to be born on the solstice. She was wild and powerful; her child should be as well. Having it born on a magic day would be even better. But as winter faded and the Court prepared to turn--honestly, the worst time of the year, by far--Eirwen was not terribly expectant of the birth. She quietly whispered to it, “You better hold on until Autumn,” and felt like it heard her.
She should have known better.
It was the equinox, the very day that signaled spring was here, when Eirwen had the child. She was alone when it happened, thankfully. And when she saw it, she hissed.
A Spring.
Two years. Two years of work, just to bring another Seelie to the court?
The child was pale, though not as white as her. Its green hair stood every which way like unmowed grass. It was small and unmoving, though still breathing. Eirwen ought to kill it right here.
It was not impossible for a fae child to die so close to their birth. It could easily disappear. She could get away with it.
But she still wanted a child.
Eirwen looked around her home for a place to put it while she decided what to do. Eventually she settled for putting it on the ground at the foot of her bed. Then she went out.
It took her a few days, mostly because the Serpent King didn’t want fae around the humans anymore, but finally Eirwen found what she was looking for: the human with the newborn. Wickhills was small enough that only a few people were pregnant at the same time, and she had just come upon her one stroke of luck. Eirwen interrogated some of the fae familiar with this human, who said that the baby was just seven days old.
Perfect.
Eirwen returned home, where the child lay exactly where she had left it. It had not moved, had not opened its eyes at all. She picked it up, wrinkling her nose as she touched the child. She supposed it would need a name, something she could call it once it had been raised by the humans to reclaim it. Eirwen looked down and saw everything she wanted and nothing she had.
“Leith,” she said, and the name settled on it like a mantle. It was this small, pathetic little thing--a raindrop where she deserved to raise a glacier.
Well, the new baby would actually be a credit to her. He would be a proper Winter.
It was only two nights later where Eirwen slipped into the yard. An early morning feeding had just been completed, and the human mother had gone to sleep after the baby. The window to the nursery was open, and it was barely a thought to get inside. In the cradle, the baby was sleeping. He looked soft, almost ethereal, his heavy breaths the only sound in the room. Eirwen took a long, deep look at the baby was about to be hers. A quick gesture of her hand and a glamour is cast on the thing in her arms to look like this baby in the cradle.
She switches the children, heaving a deep sigh of relief to have her son in her arms. Without a second glance, Eirwen turns her back on it and slips back into the forest.
~
Dot slept later than she had in--goodness, months. It was so strange that she was disoriented for a minute when she woke and saw dazzling sunlight. She looked at the baby monitor, but it was silent. Almost too silent.
She knew she was being ridiculous, but she still shot up and hurried to Thomas’s room. Dot sighed with relief to see the baby in the crib. She quickly walked up and picked up her son, then paused. “Well, that’s no good,” she muttered.
The baby in her arms fussed and waved his angry little fists. He looked so much like her Thomas, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t, but he was.
Dot rocked him gently, and he calmed quickly. His eyes, closed for so long, opened, revealing beautiful silver. Very much not Thomas.
“Larry,” she called down the hall, “We have a bit of a situation, dear.”
~
Eirwen stalked away from the house, absolutely furious. How dare that woman! Keep both the children! What was she supposed to do, show up to the court childless? Everyone would laugh at her! She was bested by a human!
No, no. This would never, ever go. No. Never.
She would tell everyone that the child was stolen from her. It was deep treachery, and they bound her power, somehow--refused to give her what she deserved. Yes, Eirwen could twist this. And in the end, she would still reclaim what was hers.
I call upon the fan fic writing gods to bless you with the perseverance to finish one of your unfinished drafts.
May your fingers dance along the letters upon your device with ease, may the devil of distraction stay far from you, and may your work not need much editing.
I pass this blessing upon every fan fic writer out there.
