Weekly Update – March 24th

Things are returning to a sense of normalcy now, thanks for bearing with me last week <3 I have an extra long and probably not-at-all-helpful post today to make up for it, featuring some (very minor) spoilers from a fic coming out on the 25th! If you don't want spoilers, read this later. They're not very big spoilers though haha, most of them will be in the plot summary on Ao3 anyway.

This week in WIPs:

DSH is finally going up on Ao3 and seems fairly well-received so far, so yay for that? 8SR is still climbing, right now it's at number 5 on my most-viewed works and number 6 on most-kudos'd so I guess that means you all liked it? Yay?

I spent this whole week on one fic instead of like seven (shock horror) as I was also balancing with university assignments. That fic will be up soon, and you get a preview of the plot down below!

Goal Updates:

So my official goal for words is now 600k by the end of the year, averaging out to 50k a month. Right now I'm at about 130k, so as long as I write another 20k this week I'll be on track! :D

Mostly kidding, that doesn't include the coming-soon fic I mentioned (it doesn't have an official name yet but just pretend I'm being cryptic on purpose) and it's not entirely accurate on DSH, so I will likely only have to write about 10k this week!

Writing Tips(??):

This is my new blog segment for... Whenever I have something to talk about. Today we talk about plotting fics! Because I get asked about it a lot. I have three main methods of plotting out my stories:

a) Vague idea in head, start typing, let fingers do the work (ala DSH);

b) Concept, ramble about it to friends to generate more ideas, write fic from screenshots of conversations (ala 8SR);

c) Brainstorming/Mind-mapping. My preferred method when I have a lot of notes or prompts etc to fit in.

C is (obviously) the one I'm gonna talk about, haha. Using [Insert Title Here] to illustrate my point!  

The program I use is called Freemind and is, funny enough, free. This is what it looks like when I start a new file - with the working title House Party being my center node.

From here I start adding nodes for each of my main plot points - these are the vague bits that don't give a lot of spoiler info. Eventually it comes to look something like this.

Now from each of these nodes, I can't start adding the more in-depth notes - certain things that are going to happen in that scene, dialogue I plan to use, etc etc [minor spoilers in next image]

I can also add more nodes off of those ones if I want to - in this instance I didn't need to, but sometimes I get 4 layers deep! These can all be collapsed and reopened at any time, so I can just open the info for whichever scene I'm working on at the time. 

Now that I have an idea of how much content will be in each section, I can number my scenes or chapters. 

And voila, a completed and numbered fic plot plan. I really need to come up with a better name than that. 

Obviously when I open all the nodes it looks a bit different, more like this:

You might notice some of the nodes are empty on this one - I delete things as I write them, and those two scenes are fully written. Makes it easier to keep track of what I haven't used yet, and for commissions like this fic, it helps me to ensure I've included everything that was asked for (you can also change the colours of nodes if you're so inclined, I sometimes use a different colour for commissioner requested scenes and my own ideas, so I know what can and can't be cut out)

As you can see, I am 100% nerd, and only slightly ashamed of it.

If you have any requests for future Writing Tips(??) sections, let me know!

Song of the Week: Superfly - The DNC
(It feels like the sort of thing that would be playing at a 1-A House Party to me)