How I Learned To Write Smarter, Not Harder

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

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angrykeese

1 year ago

Israeli army shells reach us. They saved the lives of me and my wife, by making a financial donation through my PayPal wallet.

paypal.com

Emergency: Help Belal family to evacuate from Gaza

Help Nada W N Alsaqqa reach their goal by donating or sharing with your friends.

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angrykeese

1 year ago

In the law, there's this idea called the "last clear chance" doctrine.

If you are in an accident, and you had the last clear chance to avoid the accident, then you are, at least in some portion, responsible for the accident.

For instance, if you are driving and a car pulls out in front of you, and you could've slammed on the brake but do not, you're responsible for that, even if the turn the other car made was illegal. Moreover, you might be held partially responsible for the other person's injuries, depending on how things work in your location.

This is even true if you can merely mitigate the damage. If you have a chance to limit the damage -- again, let's say you don't brake and the result is a collision at 40MPH instead of 10MPH -- the additional damage you cause could be considered your fault.

To me, this seems very applicable to voting.

The two parties in the US are going to put a couple of candidates up in the next few months. Both of them might be dangerous. But in the end, everyone who can vote is going to have one last, clear chance to avoid, or at least mitigate, damage.

It sucks that both parties are out there driving like maniacs.

But the fact of the matter is, they've put us in this position. And if you don't put on the brakes -- that is, at least mitigate damage -- you are responsible for the additional damage caused.

In the national elections, a choice not to vote for Biden is a choice not to brake when some jerk pulls into your lane. And if there's an accident and a lot of damage -- to voting rights in general, to reproductive rights, to the health and safety and life of trans and other queer people, to education, to the environment -- then you are responsible for not attempting mitigation.

You have the last clear chance to minimize danger and damage. And while you can yell until you're blue in the face that the Democratic party put you in that position in the first place by not running another candidate, you are still responsible even if you try to abdicate that responsibility.

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angrykeese

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New In Stars and Time sequel idea just dropped.

Tags

funny memes isat

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You know, if you’re a goy, and you want to help with antisemitism online, you want to know one of the biggest things you could do right now?

Just reach out to some Jews to shoot the shit. Not about Israel or Palestine or Hamas or Netanyahu or any of it. Just…how was Chanukkah? Half your blog is OFMD, who do you ship if you roll that way? Love your cat posts, what’s the kitty’s name?

We have been reduced to Good Jew Who Hates Israel And All Things Jewish, and Evil Jew Who Doesn’t Want To Die To Be Absolved Of Palestine. We are not allowed to be people anymore. Someone I know on here, a goy, got harassed because she was having a crummy week and asked for cheer-up things and when I reblogged with a picture of one of my cats she reblogged from me with something like “HE’S SO FLUFFY.” Someone literally went after her for thinking a Jew had a cute cat. Apparently an Australian reblogging a cat pic from an American is somehow oppressing people in Palestine.

We’ve been isolated and alienated and people are calling for our deaths because apparently killing Jews will help Palestine, or something. Please, just…let us be people. A lot of us have lost a LOT of friends in the last two months. One of my losses was someone I’d known for seven years who instantly started simping for Hamas. That cuts. That cuts DEEP.

If you want to help, start by being a friend. It’s really that simple.

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angrykeese

10 months ago

for the love of god, do not use chores to punish your kids!!!! it's just going to make them struggle deeply to keep their houses tidy as adults since you made them associate necessary chores with punishment and suffering, and it's going to take years of therapy to undo. don't use chores as punishments!!!

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angrykeese

2 years ago

I love that there’s three puns in Batten Rouge’s name. One, it sounds like Baton Rouge, a city built on the Mississippi River. Two, batten the hatches is a pirate expression. Three, batten has bat in it

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angrykeese

1 year ago

I read a fic yesterday that focused on body dysmorphia while establishing the importance of gender affirming care and disavowing violence and bigotry towards trans people

and then said that fear and distrust of men is inherent to the afab body rather than a learned and reinforced behavior

think you might still have some stuff to unpack there bud

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angrykeese

1 year ago

Congratulations on finishing Arc 1! I've been following this comic since pretty much the beginning (I remember when everyone thought Alinua was a cat girl because of how her ears looked under her hood). This comic has come a long way since then, and it's been a pleasure and inspiration to watch your journey!

So with Arc 1 done, how do you feel? Any thoughts about the early days of the comic, or some lessons you've learned? What are you most looking forward to in Arc 2?

(Side note- thank you for Erin. My brain chews on him regularly and I gave a presentation on him in speech class. He brings me immense joy)

Whoof! I feel like it's slowly sinking in, tbh. I'm pretty bad at appreciating my own accomplishments - I have a tendency to Fire And Forget to avoid getting bogged down by "oh I'd have done this better now" or "eek I don't like how I did that" or "oh no this aged badly" or "what if I just redid it but Better this time" - but I've gotten better at accepting all those things as Not The End Of The World and they do not make me a Bad Artist or Bad Person, and as a result, I'm able to look back and just be happy about this one. It's an odd feeling.

At some point in the last several chapters I decided the ending of Arc 1 needed to feel like a conclusion. Not a full series finale, but a season finale. Character arcs needed to hit points of resolution; setup needed to pay off; cool moves needed to get some airtime. It's not in my nature to end stories, but as I worked on this arc I got comfy with the idea that an ending wasn't mechanically locking in the last part of a story and saying Nothing Past This Point, it was resolving the major elements of the story that cried out for completeness. Stories can have many endings before they're actually done, and in order for Arc 1 to feel like a complete thing, I knew it needed to bring those dangling plot threads home.

The fun thing about resolving chunks of the plot is those resolutions open the door for entirely new problems, and I'm excited to play with those! Part of why I wanted to make sure I had the rest of the year off was so I could take my time and just sit in the new status quo, because freeform creative idea-spinning is my favorite part of the writing process, and it's a rare treat for me to have such a wide-open swath of possibility ahead of me.

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angrykeese

6 months ago

how dare you question the amazing method of farming that gives us so much food by simply killing the soil and leaving lands barren without maintaining the resources that make it work in the first place.

last year i got 1800 bushels of corn by killing the soil, as opposed to before when i only got 1200 by not killing the soil. surely i can simply keep killing more soil

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angrykeese

1 year ago

The Hill

Why the cease-fire protest movement is good for democracy — and potentially for Democrats in November

The ongoing protest vote movement is reinvigorating the 2024 presidential primaries.

Though the nominees are locked in, the stakes of the remaining 2024 presidential primary elections are still gigantic. In fact, the health and evolution of American democracy may hang in the balance.

That’s because of this year’s protest vote phenomenon, as primary voters increasingly use their ballots to demand a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

In previous uncompetitive primaries where the front-runner was a shoo-in, protest votes ran around 7 percent. This year, as it became apparent that more than 1 in 10 primary voters were casting protest votes for a cease-fire, the Biden administration “freaked out” and changed course.

A majority of likely voters polled, including 76 percent of Democrats, have consistently called for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, but their demands went unheeded by U.S. policymakers. In fact, on Feb. 20, the U.S. vetoed a widely supported United Nations resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.

Being deaf to voters’ foreign policy preferences is nothing new; it’s business as usual. The Constitution has no provision for national referenda on policy issues, and no formal mechanism to register voter preferences on policy issues in national elections, other than by voting for candidates. As democracy scholars have long observed, “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

But that pattern began to shift on Feb. 27, when more than 100,000 protest voters in the Michigan presidential primary checked “uncommitted” on their ballots, so delegates at the national convention would be free to call for a cease-fire. A week later, the Biden administration began calling for a six-week cease-fire. Then, as March primaries continued to rack up larger-than-expected numbers of protest votes, the U.S. dropped its opposition to a U.N. cease-fire resolution, allowing it to pass.

These are pyrrhic victories for Palestinians, as civilian casualties continue to mount in Gaza. On the other hand, protest voting may also be part of the reason why President Biden is disagreeing so publicly with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, and why Israel’s planned ground assault on Rafah, with its massive refugee camp, hasn’t happened yet. It may also have played a part in developments adjacent to Gaza, including Israel scaling back its counterattack on Iran under pressure from the U.S. and other allies, and the U.S. considering sanctions on an Israeli military unit occupying the West Bank. Whereas former President Trump vows lockstop support of Israel, Biden seems to be signaling willingness to pressure Israel to moderate its attacks in hopes of winning back protest voters’ support.

These signals may or may not have saved lives in Gaza. But they’re important and could yet have far-reaching consequences because they demonstrate protest voters are accomplishing something exceedingly rare in modern American history: moving the needle on U.S. foreign policy.

The shift began with the New Hampshire primary in January, when a small group of grassroots organizers mounted the Vote Ceasefire (VCF) campaign, which proved the concept that primary ballots could be used creatively to register demand for a cease-fire. Since Biden wasn’t officially on the ballot there, voters had to write candidates in anyway. From there it was an achievable step to get voters to write in “cease-fire” instead of the candidate’s name. Starting just a week before the primary and operating on a shoestring budget, VCF convinced 1,500 voters to do just that, and got state election officials to count and report those ballots.

The idea that primary ballots could be used to convey demand for cease-fire struck a chord, and VCF got inquiries from groups across the country. Local groups in some states with write-in options on their ballots launched their own Vote Ceasefire campaigns. In other states, advocates found different techniques. The Listen to Michigan campaign got 13.2 percent of Democratic primary voters to mark “uncommitted” on their ballots. That stunning result spawned a national “uncommitted” campaign. Other variations emerged, like vote “uninstructed” in Wisconsin or “leave it blank” in New York.

What they all have in common is creative use of the primary ballot to demand a timely, permanent, meaningful cease-fire in Gaza. Taken together, they are converting the disaffection and sense of powerlessness many primary voters feel as their support at the polls is presumed while their demand for cease-fire is ignored to a sense of agency and power to make a difference. That represents a historic shift in U.S. politics, and perhaps in U.S. democracy.

More needs to be done to translate demand for a cease-fire into action. Protest vote campaigns in upcoming primaries in Maryland and Oregon will keep pressuring Biden to secure a cease-fire — not during the Democratic National Convention in August, not in November, by which time tens of thousands more Palestinians may die, but now.

While this poses some risks for the Biden campaign, it’s also an opportunity. Widespread protest voting is a sign of disaffection, but also of how voters hope to be heard. If Biden is responsive and effective in demanding cease-fire and preventing wider war, he’ll win the vast majority of them back.

Either way, the ongoing protest vote movement is reinvigorating the 2024 presidential primaries. In terms of the race for the nomination, these elections are mostly alienating, irrelevant formalities. But as laboratories for showing how voter preferences can affect policy, they are now vital exercises in building a stronger, more direct American democracy.

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