Happy Thursday The 20th

"Many Times Our Plans Get Derailed, But the Secret is to Let Go of Them" by acopinesandaspens

Hey I was re-reading ECM and I noticed how awesome your the writing style was and wanted to know if you'd be willing to share how you write like that?

(I've got exams and have to really work on my english lmao)

Thank-you very much! I'm glad you've enjoyed my writing so much!

(I want to preface any notes here by saying I started seriously writing when I was 12 and I am now... not that. So I have almost 20 years of writing under my belt)

I've actually done a post about writing that gives a few pointers so I won't re-hash those points, but will add a few extras about crafting 💖💖

I know I said I wouldn't re-hash things, but this point always bears merit in saying: the first thing you write is the worst thing you write. It's called a first draft for a reason and you shouldn't be precious about it. That means don't go stressing about getting your phrasing perfect. Rewriting your draft can do wonders (and that doesn't mean you have to completely change things on the rewrite!), especially if you're not a confident writer.

Vary the start of your sentences. It's a very easy habit to fall into (I still do it all the dang time); you write sentence after sentence starting the the subject ('It was...'; 'Peter did...'; 'She saw...' etc). It makes your writing feel repetitive. We fall into patterns in our writing and forcing yourself to think about how you can change up the way your sentences begin within a paragraph is an invaluable challenge. Consider your paragraphs too: when I'm on my first edit, I pay close attention to how they start to ensure they don't all begin the same way. That doesn't mean every sentence has to start differently, but keeping things mixed up adds variety.

Avoid info-dumping. Exposition (where you give relevant background information) is a useful feature but it slows the pace of your story significantly. What I see a lot of fanfic writers do is freeze time (quite often at the very start of the story) to give us 500+ words of information that could have been drip fed over the chapter (or several chapters). I'm absolutely not saying I'm innocent of this - I do it all the time, including the opening to ECM! - but something that I find can help is to a) make it interesting by setting up a mystery that the exposition doesn't answer, b) intersperse exposition with description to keep up the pace or c) try to make your exposition feel as authentic as possible to your narrator.

Be decisive: avoid phrases like 'seemed to' and 'felt like' etc. Instead of, "She seemed to glow with happiness' make it 'She glowed with happiness'. Simple changes like this just make you seem more sure of yourself as a writer because you're committing to the image. Again, this kind of indefinite phrasing is an easy habit to fall into but it's a very easy fix! Very often, the sentence will still make perfect sense if you simply delete these phrases (although sometimes it will need a few minor tweaks).

Metaphors, not similes. Honestly this is just a continuation of the previous rule! Rather than, 'It looked like an ocean of silver', 'An ocean of silver swelled before them' is much more interesting and committed to the bit! Again, that's not to say you can't use similes at all! They're great, but you should ask yourself if a metaphor would be better.

Don't be afraid to extend your metaphors. Extended metaphors are such fun. Consider my earlier example : 'An ocean of silver swelled before them'. If I was to extend this, I'd think about other images associated with the ocean. Waves, tides, sea creatures, the scent and sound of the water. And since I've compared it to silver, I'd also consider things that are semantically connected: gold, copper, jewels like emeralds, sapphires, pearls etc. Then I'd start crafting additional clauses/sentences to build upon that original metaphor.

Brush up on a wider range of writer methods. Honestly, teaching English helped me out a bunch here, but here are a few of my faves: polysyndeton: this is where you list with the same coordinating conjunctions (and, but, so, for etc) rather than commas. If you look at my writing you'd see I do this all the damn time. Anaphora: in the typical form I use it, it's where the start of successive clauses begin with the same opening word/phrase (think like MLK's 'I have a dream speech). Best used in a group of three in my experience. Again I use this all the time. The opposite of this (where successive clauses end in the same word/phrase) is called epistrophe. Oxymoron: a fun one. It's a paradoxical phrase (e.g. burning cold, loving hate etc) Hyperbole: an over-exaggeration (e.g. It's boiling hot. I walked a million miles to get here!). Very fun to use with an unreliable narrator or you want to get across just how unbearable/significant something is (but the key here is that it's got to be obvious you're over-exaggerating!) Synaesthesia: where you mix different senses together (e.g. The lights sang in harmony; the room smelled cold).

Planning does wonders for your story structure. For the longest time I was a 'pantster' and would just throw myself in writing on vibes only, but now I find that knowing where I want to take my story makes it much easier to place critical themes and the much loved foreshadowing.

I hope at least some of these can be helpful to you! These are methods that have helped me over the years, but the beauty of writing is of course that all of us over time develop our own 'voice'! Just because I say these are things I do doesn't mean that's what everyone has to do!

Good luck on your exams too!! 💖

I just had a talk with my thesis supervisor and I want to check something real quick.

I want to write my bachelor's thesis about fanficion and AI - specifically about fanfiction writers' attitude towards the use of generative AI in fandom spaces

The survey (and the rest of the thesis) is still v much in the making, I just want to check how many potential responders I could reach from this account

Pls reblog after voting

What I can say about the survey for now:

1. The survey will be anonymous!

2. The survey will be in English (but the rest of my thesis will not. I am however required to write an abstract in English)

3. My supervisor said it's fine if I want to focus on one fandom - In this case it will be the HP fandom. However I would like to include as many reposnes as I can, so it will probably not be a requirement to be in the HP fandom.

4. You don't need to write fanfiction to take part in the survey (but there will be a question if you read and/or write fanfics). You need to be in the fandom though

5. You need to be over 18 (most likely)

I want to keep myself anonymous as well so there is a possibility I will have to make a separate sideblog/account for it.

If anyone will be interested in the results, for some reason - I am required to write the abstract in English, so I might share the abstract. Maybe. More info after I write anything for my thesis.

reblog to make prev stop having headaches

reblog to share some mint with your followers. just don't let it escape containment, okay?

Claim your title as “tumblr freeloader” (meaning you haven’t spent ANY kind of money on tumblr) here.

These posts are cousins to me.

suck, and i cannot stress this enough, my cock to the fucking base