I wish people would learn to pay compliments without putting others down. Telling me my book is “too good to be labeled Romance” is not actually a compliment.

The book is Romance. You finding it good doesn’t negate that. You’re just precious about liking a genre you consider lesser.

one argument you often see about fanfiction is that it's like 'training wheels' writing? like 'oh it's fine to do that while you're still learning, it's easier than coming up with your own ideas'. and I have to say I have just never agreed with that.

in my experience it's actually pretty common for newbie fanfiction writers to gravitate towards coming up with OCs rather than writing about the canon characters (hence the infamous Mary Sue); this suggests that many people find that 'easier' than attempting to write about pre-existing characters.

I would say that recreating the characterisation, mood and general vibes of an existing work of fiction is in fact a skill in and of itself that's acquired via practice. A common compliment delivered to fanfiction writers is how well they have captured the spirit of the original work. Inexperienced fanfiction writers fail to do this.

When creating an original character you can, ultimately, say anything about them and now it's canon bcos you created them and you said so. conversely, well, if you are covering a well known song and start playing the wrong notes people will notice immediately.

In addition: a lot of fanfiction, IMO, is in actuality a form of metafictional literary analysis. a story where two characters sit down and talk about their feelings about a canonical event? literary analysis, which is of course a skill. Sometimes fanfiction is bad bcos the writer is not good at interpreting texts.

finally I have made this point before but you never really see anyone suggesting that fictional works based on existing public domain texts are on 'easy mode'. is it 'easier' to write something based on a copyrighted work than a public domain work? Of course it isn't.

I know I said 'finally' but I forgot a point:

A major strength of the transformative work is its ability to create dramatic irony. If a fanfiction's emotional resonance is dependent on being familiar with the source material that's not necessarily a bad thing. sometimes it's a sign that the author has done a really skillful job of engaging with said source material.

on reflection, a further thought:

the 'training wheels' argument probably contributes to the fanfiction writer to published author pipeline by creating the impression that writing a load of fanfiction is a good way to improve your writing overall? which is just flatly not true. don't get me wrong, there are definitely transferable skills, but ultimately writing fanfiction principally makes you better at writing fanfiction.

How my writing process looks to anyone who doesn't write

people often think i'm doing it for the bit but unfortunately i Am the type of guy who just says shit like "pray tell" and "indeed" and "naught but the human heart can hope to capture the moon's beauty" (that was actually about my shitty phone camera) and nobody really knows what to do when they hear those words come out of my mouth. myself included.

800 WORDS IS BETTER THAN NOTHING

500 WORDS IS BETTER THAN NOTHING

200 WORDS IS BETTER THAN NOTHING

50 WORDS IS BETTER THAN NOTHING

10 WORDS IS BETTER THAN NOTHING

ANY WRITING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING

REVEL IN YOUR SUCCESS AND REPEAT

There's this weird tendency among fandom types where they'll take a character, and insist that they are fans of them, before changing their design, age, pronouns, backstory, blood type, species, hometown, favorite color, zodiac sign, medical history, and every other facet of their being.

They will then violently insist that this version is superior to the canon one and act like they "fixed" them and it's like. Buddy that's not the same character anymore. That's just your own oc commiting identity fraud. Like. I get the desire to experiment with different interpretations of a story. But first of all it's okay to just make an original character if that's what you really want to do. And second of all, are you even really a fan of the character you "fixed" if they're a completely different person afterwards?

Like. Idk dude for somebody who claims to be a fan you sure don't seem to like them as they are :/

Gonna remember "buddy that's not the character that's your OC committing identity fraud."

ship of OCtheus

#barelyholdingittogether

A friendly PSA for everyone migrating from Wattpad to AO3!

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AND DON´T USE AI.

Edit: if you do use ai... tag it

This! And AO3 allows original works as well as fanfiction, meta, essays, fanart, podfic and other fanworks, but not recommendation lists. It's an archive not a social network.

Got forbid a female character have a moment of irrationality or snapping in an emotional moment or not having everything perfect or even just be kind of mean, because fandom will hold it against her like she kicked their pet.

To all the writers who haven't written in a while. May the right words come to you and may they actually get written down.

the unimaginable power of saying "huh, guess that's not for me" and moving on with your life

there is this really specific thing that very Online women of a certain age (mostly older millennials and younger gen x in my experience) who are married to a man will do where they will refer to their husbands as "Mr. (Part of My Username)"

so like if the username is something like "dancingwithbears" they'll refer to their husband as "Mr. Bears"

i think it is extremely charming

S1 vrs S3 Percy Jackson and the Olympians - S01E01 vrs Season 3 Trailer

you cannot headcanon your way out of overt thematic structures on which the entire narrative is built

So many people never learned to live with harmless discomfort at any point in their lives and holy fuck does it show

“But I wanna know!” You’re gonna have to learn to be ok with not knowing some things, especially when those things involve personal details about strangers that they’re not comfortable sharing.

“But it’s confusing!” If you take the time to educate yourself it’ll no longer be confusing. Otherwise you’re just gonna have to learn to be ok with being confused.

“But it’s weird!” You probably do weird things all the time. Everyone does weird things sometimes. Life goes on.

“But it scares me!” Is it hurting you? No? You’ll be fine. Being scared and being harmed are not always the same thing. Learn to tell the difference and then act accordingly.

“But I want it!” And I want a million dollars. You can’t always get what you want.

Addendum:

"But it makes me uncomfortable!" The world is an uncomfortable place and complete strangers are not required to fix that for you. Learning to endure harmless discomfort is a life skill for existing in public.

"But I don't like it!" There's plenty of things in the world and not all of them are fun or enjoyable or For You. This applies to everyone and we all have to deal with that in a mature fashion.

"But I want to do the thing!" You can't always do what you want. Most people learn this in preschool. Wanting something does not entitle you to be inconsiderate to the people around you.