"You don't know me. I'm not the same person anymore."

"That's okay. I'll get to know you again."

fic planning be like:

don’t talk to ME about gay yearning. in 2020 during lockdown i lived alone on a boat for three months. i went ashore once a day to work in a marine bio lab. we all had to access the lab at different times so we were never together & risking infection. i was alone all day every day, from my boat to the lab and back to my boat. one day a woman anchored her boat beside mine. we passed each other ashore just once at the harbor and she hit on me and invited me back to her boat. i told her i’d love nothing more but i could not risk exposure because of my weak immune system. she said it was a shame but that she understood. that night i was watering my vegetable garden i grew in 5 gallon buckets up on my roof and playing music on my speaker. “american pie” came on and she climbed up on her roof and shouted all the lyrics to every verse at me across the water and we danced together on our respective roofs. she raised anchor and moved on a few days later.

so yeah i know what it is to die a thousand deaths in an instant while your heart beats on.

not doomed by the narrative but saved by the narrative. yeah i know you'd rather die than keep suffering but the story doesn't actually care what you want. you have to keep going, even when it hurts. even being erased from existence won't stop you from being salvaged from the wreckage of un-being. get up. keep pushing. keep bleeding. keep living.

the curse is lifted! you are no a beast no more! congratulations! but you'll never forget the way they looked at you, will you.

the romantic tension between the blood related parent and the found parent is so fucking crazy gotta be one of my favorite ship dynamics

I dont have parental issues

PLEASE HEAR ME OUT PLEASE HEAR ME OUT PL

@jasontoddiefor

i hope you dont mind the tag but i knew you’d get it

feels like fake news

How to Plot Your Story Using the But/Therefore Method

Here’s another sneak peak from my forthcoming book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers!

The but/therefore method* is an easy way to create your plot and test the cause-effect connections between your plot and character motivation.

If you don’t have a plot yet, it can help you create one. If you already have one, the method almost always reveals gaps that need to be addressed with new or stronger chapters/scenes. (For help with your character motivation, check out the PDF “Creating Character Arcs” in my Free Resource Library.)

Use this template for each scene or chapter:

[Main character] wants ______, but _______, therefore ______.

In the first blank, put the motivation for that chapter or scene.

In the second blank, the conflict or obstacle.

In the third blank, the result or action the character takes, which leads into the next goal, and so on, and so on.

Chapter-by-chapter it might look something like this:

Chapter 1: Julian wants to ask Matt to the dance, but he’s scared of being rejected, therefore he slips a cryptic note into Matt’s locker.

Chapter 2: Matt doesn’t see the note. Now Julian wants to get into his locker and retrieve it, but the principal sees him trying to jimmy open the lock, therefore Julian is given detention for a week.

You can also do this scene-by-scene. My suggestion would be to start with the chapter outline, see what it reveals, then move into the scenes. If you’ve already written a draft, you can outline your draft using the template, which should reveal holes in character motivation, plot, and cause/effect, all with one fell swoop!

Hope this helps!

*I adapted this method from South Park writer Trey Parker, who first introduced it in the documentary Six Days to Air.

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The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, check out my Free Resource Library, peruse my post guide, or hire me to edit your novel or short story.

The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers will be available for purchase soon. Follow the link if you want to be notified when it is released. xoxo

We don’t talk enough about how fanfiction writers love to give character large amounts of non-specific paperwork they hate doing

say more pls

Yeah sure why not.

So most stories take place when Events are Happening, and this means that no matter what kind of job the characters have, they’re probably not too focused on them. Fanfics, on the other hand, often show the down time. Which means that the writer has to figure out what the hell these characters do in their jobs. Unless the characters have a job the author understands or knows well, the author is often at a loss for what to have the character doing.

So they sit them at a desk and give them paperwork. What is the paperwork for? Rarely specified. It is Paper Work for the characters Important Adult Job they have and they need to read or sign it or something. And there’s always a line about how Character Hates Paperwork. Doesn’t matter if Character is a Mafia Boss or a General or a Diplomat, here they are in an office trying to get out of Doing Paperwork.

There’s also a sense of, like, humor and mundanity that comes with it. Like the examples above, it always particularly stands out to me when a dangerous individual is griping about some paper they need to sign or something. The less you can picture Character doing paperwork, all the better to force it upon them. If Character is saddled with Paperwork, they’re usually now concerned about the physical damages their motley crew causes, because damage = More Paperwork.

Anyway I just think it’s fun or funny, Sephiroth doing paper work and Sawada Tsunayoshi doing paper work and this just in, Tony Stark is doing paperwork. Sorry, Phoenix Wright can’t play right now. Yeah, it’s paperwork.

A very non-exhaustive list of actual paperwork they could be completing/reviewing/approving, in no particular order:

Your Royalty or Nobles in your feudal society should be doing this constantly unless you want to show how they're losing the kingdom and about to be usurped or overthrown.

petitions, speech-writing, complaints, requests, assignations, disputes, judiciary forms, declarations that need signing off on, matters requiring the Royal seal, matters requiring a royal endorsement, pardons, judgments, invitations, rebuttals, census data, crop yields projected or actual, livestock records, water rights, Sumptuary laws, taxes taxes taxes...

solid point there!

even when the royalty look like they're just fucking off to have fun, they're doing Socially Mandated Fuck-Off and Have Fun Time

Tournaments? Gotta show you're manly and virile through sport, or the nobles will supplant you. Feasts? Gotta show you're wealthy through conspicuous consumption, or the nobles will supplant you. Patronizing the arts? Gotta show you're cultured and erudite, or the nobles will laugh at you behind your back and probably supplant you.

Lawyer here. Here’s some more mundane/modern ones for you:

And if you want to get into modern military, the forms are numbered, and people will refer to them by either their actual name, or the number. (Have you filled out the 4187 for this? Yes, I filled out the personnel action form.)

The military has so many forms.

If you want to add a rage level, there’s the Regular Paperwork and then the special hell of Fuckup Paperwork.

Cause there’s the invoice, and the follow up invoice and the we are about to have a problem follow-up invoice.

There’s the incident report and then the I swear I yelled at that worker about this don’t be mad at me if they do it again second warning documentation

The requisition form and the it has been six months now get me the fucking thing or you’re gonna hear from Cindy escalations form.

Paperwork has layers and protocols and backups.

For law firms, there's also the 'I am asking nicely for you to send me this legally mandated document' and then the follow-up 'My please was a social nicety, I am no longer asking, I am telling you to send me this document or explain to a court why you refuse to do so' which, depending on the type of law, can fill a significant amount of the day

i really do love those military jackets with embroidery that resembles a gilded ribcage they serve sooooooo much thanatological cunt it's unreal. the memento mori of it all. the bastardised martyrdom. the self-fulfilling prophecy of dressing yourself in silver and gold evoking the final, fragile shield between the most vital, vulnerable parts of you and annihilation, just to go to a place where the objective is to hack it to pieces as cruelly and efficiently as possible until you resemble nothing more than ground meat trodden into the dust you came from. fuck the military for real and forever but they went harder with horrifically ironic self-deceiving propaganda than anyone ever has or will. give it up for the old lie everyone!

me as a writer

i could add a few more stages to grief if they let me