/oc/ - Original Creation

Alrighty! To start us off here are various links that I think are/could be helpful in regards to writing fic. If you've got other suggestions/helpful things, by all means, post them!

>The basics
https://eznguide.neocities.org/
This is a general beginner's guide. Don't let the MLP focus put you off, near everything it covers can (and should) be applied to other types of fan work. Greatly recommend if you're totally new.

>Punctuation
http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/
https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/

>Smut
https://retroactivebakeries.tumblr.com/post/158905766411/writing-smut-like
This is extremely helpful. While the ranking is obviously subjective, I generally agree with it and think it's good to have at hand if you're writing and feel like you're on the verge of using absolutely off-the-wall euphemisms for penis.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9661958/1/The-Ultimate-Guide-to-Writing-Smut-Fic
I personally haven't looked all that deep into this. It does seem to offer up a lot of synonyms/varying descriptions you could use, though, so maybe it's alright?



>Various
https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/18/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/
This is a great link. While it may present itself as something for Sci-fi writers, quite a lot of the terms/examples cover things that can occur in a whole range of genres/fics, especially ones written by newer writers. I encourage a peek into this.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TerribleWritingAdvice
TWA covers a wide range of tropes/topics with a comedic slant. Generally solid advice and enjoyable enough to watch IMO.

https://www.thesaurus.com/
Woo, synonyms!

http://theeditorsblog.net/fularchives/
A site filled to the brim with various writing/editing related blog posts.

>Sites for viewing/posting content
https://archiveofourown.org/
https://www.fanfiction.net/
https://www.wattpad.com/
https://www.royalroad.com/welcome

>Other Writing Communities
https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/

>>342
Nona thank you so much ily!!! I was hesitant to make this thread since I didn't have any resources or tips to share so I'm eternally grateful that you made this post

>>342
Thank you so much for that MLP link! I needed a thorough overview like that.

I have no links to give, but one thing I've discovered in my, admittedly mediocre writing, is that having a bunch subject-focused dictionaries around. For example I have pdfs of Military dictionaries and witchcraft dictionaries so I can find the terms I'm looking for in fields I'm not an expert in.

I have read some of the links here and now I have slowly build up the courage to write my fanfiction. I started writing it two days ago and so far I have one whole sentence!! let's gooooo let's hope that someday I will finish it
Also thanks to all the nonnies in this thread

>>342
Thanks a lot for the resources anon! I went back and reread some of my fics after reading that mlp guide and I noticed so many glaring issues with my writing. The grammar was fucked, the paragraph spacing was fucked, you couldn't even tell which character was saying which line. I hadn't even noticed how borderline unreadable my writing was lol.

Weirdly enough, I still do get kudos on those old fics somehow. So to any of the anons who are nervous about putting their work out there, don't be. No matter how awful you think your writing is, as long as you're passionate about what you're writing, there will always be someone who is willing to read it ;)

Yw to all the other nonnies itt! I'm very happy Ezn's guide was so helpful. I'll also post this site link;

https://brians.wsu.edu/common-errors/
It covers a ton of errors/misuses that can be made when spelling or using common phrases. The author's American so there'll be some obvious differences but I do think it could still be helpful even if you're EU/AUS/Etc. I'd definitely consider a look into this, ESL or otherwise. Affect/Effect still fucks me up lol

Thanks nonnies for the thread. It's helped me improve my writing a bit already. I hope kind anons keep sharing resources! I'll drop some too if I find them.
>>342
EZN's guide is a good starter if you're wanting to write conscientiously. Great tip about pacing, which has been one of my biggest struggles.
>As you can see, the simple act of making one’s sentences and paragraphs shorter can create an urgency not present in more long-winded writing, and more long-winded writing can be relaxing in a way that tiny sentences just can’t. You can use these simple techniques to great effect in pacing different scenes in your writing appropriately – choppy writing with few transitions is good for an action scene or a tense situation, whereas slower sentences full of clauses and commas are great for description, introspection, exposition and downtime between high-intensity scenes.
The reminder to "show, not tell" is probably the most important.

I'm ESL and although my english doesn't suck and i'm capable of constructing coherent prose, i'm a beginner at writing fic and I have this bilingual problem where I would attempt to start writing in my native tongue and then shift to english halfway because some words are easier to remember in english, and then overwhelm myself with both tongues because thinking in english is hard too. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Makes me feel dumb everytime and it slows my process.
Anyway thank you for the thread and the resources!! definitely gonna absorb everything I can.

>>447
GIRL! I ran to my documents and half if not all are structured like what you mentioned, pic rel something I was working on last weekend, the story is garbage and the fujo I was writing it for quit being a fujo and we don't talk anymore so I ditched it.
I can't for the life of me not alternate between languages because one has more flow and rhythm, more emotions and hard hitting insults, the other is easy to write and pick words from since it's not vocabulary heavy and the format won't get messed up because the apps are all in English anyways. I do agree that it slows down writing fics tremendously and once you finally finish and translate to the other language it just doesn't feel the same and you've wasted even more time with the translation.
_:(´ཀ`」 ∠):_
What I'm doing is forcing myself to only write in English no matter how badly the story I'm writing sounds to English speakers, I've purchased an English-English dictionary from local shop but I recommend you download one online, PDF search ability will be more handy than flipping pages, plus it'll be free.
I'm hoping with doing this my writings will improve and finally break the ESL curse. Only issue is when wiring in English word count doesn't even go past 500 because there isn't much ways to be descriptive without repeating same phrases, have you experienced this issue as well?

>>451
Yes this is exactly what I meant,
and when I get stuck I tend to translate all I have constructed up to that point in order to feel a lil bit less unproductive and i end up wasting even more of my time as a result lol
>when writing in English word count doesn't even go past 500 because there isn't much ways to be descriptive without repeating same phrases
Oh wow, that happens to me too a bit, I find it difficult to write long pieces, I always assumed it was simply because I tend to prefer to be more direct and simple with descriptive prose but it makes sense that language differences have something to do with that as well.
My first language is Spanish and a lot of the vocabulary tends to be composed of longer words or whole sentences that English can easily shorten in a few words to convey the same meaning.
Good luck with your endeavors noni! I enjoyed the little bit you shared here. Let's do our best to beat the ESL curse.

rest in pieces old post

Here are some tools that you can use to help you proofread/clean up your story!

>https://www.grammarly.com/
Probably the most popular, you can paste your fic into this and it'll catch misspellings and offer general sentence formatting suggestions. It isn't perfect, however, so don't take every single suggestion as gospel. If you like something stylistically that it paints as an error, you don't necessarily have to change it!

>https://quillbot.com/grammar-check
Another tool in a similar vein as Grammarly. I personally haven't used this one all that much, but it looks decent. Just as above, use it as it suits you. Free ver should be fine for both this and Gram, I'm pretty sure.

>https://www.expresso-app.org/
An interesting one! This isn't for finding errors specifically, but it'll analyze your writing and drop a lot of neat metric insights. It can let you see phrases you may have used more often than you may like, offer up synonyms for variety, stuff like that. I highly suggest taking it for a spin yourself since I don't think this post'll do it justice.

Is there an android app that bothers you like Duolingo until you spend a daily 10-120mins actively writing? I found what seems to be one for apple, but I don't have an iphone. I know there's discord bots you can program but I don't want the distraction of discord channels on screen.

>>578
i use an alarm that activates an hour to 30 minutes before writing that helps me "prepare" for the flow i'm about to enter. like a permission-giving signal that allows myself to put everything aside and just focus on my story for however long.

>>579
Going by my track record with getting up with an alarm on days off, just an alarm isn't enough to guilt me into doing something. I need a pestering power that bullies me if I stop.

>>578
>>580
i don’t use android, so this i don’t know if this would work, but is it possible to use some sort of parental control app to lock you out of the apps you spend the most time on? so that way you can’t use social media, the browser, games etc for a certain time, and get writing done in the meantime.

I've been thinking about makinc a story since a very long time with my OCs. My art is pretty bad and I stopped practicing a few years ago because of circumstances so I want to write it in my first language instead but now I realize I have too many ideas so the story could potentially be really long, do you think I should just write a summary to make things consistent and then write the scenes that interest me the most and that seem the most important to me and then I fill the gaps little by little? Or should I stick to writing chapter 1, then chapter 2, etc? It's just a project for fun tbh I don't plan on publishing it, I'm not even sure I'd be comfortable showing it to my friends so it's not like I'd have a deadline to take into account or anything. I want it to be a urban fantasy story with mostly female characters but I plan to have a gay recurring character whose future love interest would be very important but show up late for plot related reasons. It's gonna be mostly something about stuff I like in stories all compiled in my own story.

How to go about getting ideas for a fic? I really enjoyed writing my last one but it was a lot of improv. I want to try writing something based of a structured idea I have rather than just throw myself at a blank paper and see how things evolve.
I'm more of an artist than I am a writer, so what inspires me to make art is usually music/looking at other people's art but I'm less familiar with writing I guess. I assume the process is similar but I'm still curious to see if some of you have tips available for inspiration. I mainly read VNs (not exclusively BL) and fanfics so I base a lot of my writing on that.

>>654
If you're going for a longer fic I'd suggest considering it in a "three act scruture." What is your beginning, middle, and end? Once you have that you can begin making a skeleton outline of all the steps the characters need to do to get to those beats.
For short fics I usually just look at two characters canon interactions and pick something to expand on. I'm a big fan of writing extended scenes, alternate canon,and post canon. They fun for short fics and you have a good base to build off of.

>>655
Extending scenes is great advice actually! I didn't think about it. Thank you nona. It helps a ton especially if you're not used to writing yourself.

>>657
Yeah I thought they were a good starting point when I was tipping my toes into writing and they're still some of the most fun things to write imo.
Good luck with your writing nonna!

You know how to learn to draw, the best way is to start drawing still life from observation and work through fundamentals, construction etc? Cause if you just draw from imagination without learning, it still looks like shit. Is there any system like that in drawing for improving writing? Cause reading good literature doesn't automatically rub off on my writing, and when I try to write my own scenes they are capital S shit. They are Shit.

>>702
>They are Shit.
Do you understand why they are Shit or are you just being hard on yourself? What helps me with prose is not only reading "good" literature, but sometimes engaging with popular genre fiction that I know is mid/bad because it's easier to critique another person's work. For as long as I can stand to read I am thinking about why things are written the way they are and how I would write them instead. Borrow or pirate them; you don't even have to finish!

If you are getting your ideas down but don't like how they are written for a reason you can't identify, a common culprit is passive voice.