Do you have any writing tips? I’ve just started writing Loudtat fanfiction, and I’m not that good at writing. Is there any do’s and don’t’s?

January 2, 2018 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

Hmmmm well that’s really tough! FIRST OF ALL to quote @monstersinthecosmos on a similar post:

Dude! Just write some stuff. 😀 😀 This is a teeny little sleepy fandom and it is so thirsty for more content, just do it! You can do it! We all want you to write fic!!!!!!

…Fanfiction is awesome to flex your writing muscles a bit and get some practice in, and it’s helpful because it invites attention and feedback. It’s also easy to apply flash fiction or drabbles to fanfic because we don’t need exposition and backstory. Like, yeah! WE GET IT, WE KNOW! Quit dicking around and just jump into the story, we already want it! This is so valuable when it comes to just getting WRITING done and you really don’t even need a plot. You can elaborate on the teeniest mental images, headcanons, goofy or angsty situations, and that’s all it has to be! No one expects it to win a Pulitzer, it’s okay if it isn’t perfect!

In fact!!!!!!!!!! It shouldn’t be perfect! And you are not going to get better if you do not start somewhere!

I still get really nervous when I post fics and I doubt my abilities BASICALLY CONSTANTLY ALL THE TIME LOL but good and bad feedback are imperative to honing your craft and learning your strengths and finding things to fix. PLUS LIKE, it can really help to motivate you if you get some people on your side who like what you’re doing! Like I am consistently sappy and overwhelmed by the response to my fics and it’s what keeps me writing. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Anyway idk man, here’s an ungraceful dismount to my post lmfao but, listen!

Write! Do it! Share it with us we are thirsty.

^*APPLAUDS* Rules are made to be broken. Write the way you want! I had a teacher who told me that to begin a sentence with “And” was blasphemy, illegal. punishable by DEATH practically, but I know Anne Rice does it OFTEN, in published fiction, so that teacher was wrong. Maybe she was just trying to start us off with the rules so we could then break them. Probably that.

BTW I’ll reblog a really good graphic I saw once that described different types of fanfic.

So my advice?

Even though I write fanfic myself, I have my own tastes about it. Writing fic is an art in itself, you’re creating smtg, like sculpture or cooking, and as such it’s very subjective. There are courses taught on writing in schools at all levels, books written about writing, so while I can’t give you a thorough and objective answer in a short blog post… I can give you this much and NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN.

For me, writing is about 1 or more of these basic setups, sometimes combined and interwoven:

(a) presenting a problem and exploring it,
(a) presenting a problem, exploring it, and (b) offering a solution,
(a) presenting a problem, exploring it, (b) offering what the author feels is a BAD solution and (c.) showing the consequences of that bad solution.

^That’s all you really need. Everything else is in service to that. Even the fluffiest fanfic has some issue, even if that issue is just, “What shirt am I going to wear tonight?” Mundane, probably, but hey, it’s still a decision that needs to be made! 😉

~My-own-taste-based advice on writing fanfic~

Fluff tastes better with at least a dash of angst, Angst tastes better with at least a dash of fluff, etc. A friend of mine took a cooking class and was told that salt brings out the flavor in other ingredients. I definitely think that corresponds with fic. I’m not saying to use every ingredient at your disposal, but in an angsty scene, can you toss in one character trying to placate the other by doing smtg fluffy, idk, bringing them flowers?

^X A flower offering might get rejected by the recipient in the scene (or it could provide ammunition!), but just the act of doing that can enhance the scene by so much. I MEAN LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. Is there not a rich story here??

Use epithets sparingly. PLEASE just use their names if you don’t want to use their gender pronouns. I can’t tell you how far it kicks me out of a fic when I see “the elder vampire” or “the brunette” so many times in close proximity bc it fixates the reader on those characteristics, which generally have nothing to do with the scene itself. YES I KNOW SHE’S OLDER/YES I KNOW HER HAIR IS BROWN. SO WHAT?? Even when it’s two characters of the same gender in a scene alone together, your reader can usually figure out by context which “he” you mean when you write: “he reached up and touched his shoulder” One way to do it is by leading with one of the characters in the para, so it’s clear who’s doing the actions in it, ’[Name 1] tentatively went in for a hug. He reached up and touched his shoulder.’ In the next para, the other character can take over the action. ’[Name 2] batted the offending hand away. “Don’t touch me!”’
“Said” is not a curse word. Go ahead and use other words for “said,” but too many ‘“Oh!” she cried’ ‘“Oh!” she moaned’ also kicks me out of a fic bc I become more aware of the writer sitting there trying to impress me. “Said” is just a notification that it’s a spoken word, let me breeze past it, it’s okay, really. Don’t let your “said” substitutes do so much of the work that the words of dialogue should be shouldering.
Purple prose when it matters. A fic with all dialogue and little descriptive details can read like a report. If you’re going for that, good! But purple prose adds texture and helps immerse the reader. Readers don’t need it in every para and every line of dialogue, it tends to slow down the action. It can be used to great effect, maybe describing the interior of a room gives a nice pregnant pause in the dialogue to increase the tension. Just don’t drown the reader with it unless you’re doing it for a reason.

To return to my earlier point, What is the purpose of your fic? Even if you’re just aiming for the fluffiest fic, I feel like it gives it a little extra substance if there’s some underlying thing/moment you’re exploring.

I did a fic about Louis, Lestat, and Claudia getting ready for Halloween, but I also included some exploration of Claudia getting upset and missing her mother, and that led to her being informed that Louis and Lestat also missed their own mothers. It’s one of those defining but subtle moments in everyone’s life, when you realize your parents were also children with parents of their own. So the fic was not just about the premise “dressing up for Halloween,” but what other things that could stir up, and what we can reveal about the characters whether or not it was explicitly given to us in canon. In this instance, we didn’t get this in canon, this was in the interstices of canon.

Anon, start slow, dip your toe in, look at fic you love and try to figure out what makes it so good for you! Don’t be afraid to fail.

I’ve collected some somewhat more objective things in my #on writing tag, so you might try there, but again, those are things that I probably agree with, too 😉

What do you do when you fall in love with two fictional characters who are in love with each other? (Cough cough Lestat And Louis *cough cough)

December 31, 2017 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

There’s room for you, anon! In between them…

[^Don’t share with him bc Lestat’s pig ok, we all know it]

No but really, I think that’s what shipping is about. You can live vicariously through one or the other of them, and get the best of the whole ship ❤

I do think there’s some truth to the idea of shipping as a way of learning about relationships and in engaging with the characters, who are otherwise just ink on paper and only really exist in your imagination. Lestat speaks directly to the reader, breaking the fourth wall, but he can’t really speak to each individual reader, he doesn’t know your name or anything about you specifically, but it’s a form of intimacy bc you know so much about him. It’s the one-sided relationship of an actor to their audience. He knows he has an audience and he can see faces in the crowd, but he can’t actually have a relationship with a real reader since he’s fictional.

But you can get close to the characters by identifying with them. I can love Lestat for some of the reasons Louis does, and I can love Louis for some of the reasons Lestat does, and in agreeing with them, it’s a form of connecting with them individually. Like we’re sitting at a cafe together gushing about how cute it is when Lestat throws a tantrum over someone (usually just himself) spilling blood on his new Gucci blazer (bc deep down he doesn’t mind that much, he just likes having smtg to throw a tantrum about), or Louis defending his right to making stacks of books in the parlor (bc deep down he likes having an excuse to talk about books in any capacity). That kinda thing.

I think that’s where ppl are really going when they say, “My son” or “My husband” or whatever, about fictional characters, you want to express a form of devotion to them bc they belong to you, too; your vision of them (your headcanon) is truly your own.

So you can have them both, you’re invited into that ship whenever you open a book or read/write fanfic about them, enjoy/draw fanart of them, individually and as a ship!

One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (via magpiefngrl)

December 30, 2017 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

fuckindiva:

flowerais:

2018 is the year of recovering from the past 5 years in every possible way

My mom got me into The Vampire Chronicles a couple months back, and now I’m looking for the fandom. Why is the fandom so small? Why is there so little fanfiction? I often have to write fanfiction that I want to read. (Which is fine by me, it’s just I’m not that good at writing.)

December 30, 2017 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

Hey, welcome to our little corner of tumblrland! Share your fanfic with us, step out into the light, Anon! I’m often critical of my own writing, and I often have a beta reader, a dear friend who gives me constructive criticism and even rewrites lines if I ask her to do so, like an editor, a beta can offer a huge improvement on one’s writing. Maybe you’d like to find a beta reader?

-PREAMBLE SORRY BUT I MUST- and no TL;DR for it-

Sometimes when ppl ask those questions, Why is the fandom so small and Where is the fanfic b/c I can’t find it, it’s argument bait, I’m sorry to say.

But I’m taking it at face value that you are somewhat or totally unaware of our history, that your mom might not know, and that you are not putting out bait for argument. I’ll try to give you a synopsis in good faith, and hope that other ppl see this post as such. I’m not interested in taking sides, reopening those old wounds for the millionth time. I think of us as the bastard children of fandom, beaten in to a corner by a formerly abusive parent, and we are survivors of that. As such, I would hope that we could offer each other even more compassion than other fans in other fandoms. It doesn’t always work that way. Things can be misread and emotions misinterpreted; this is a text-based communication so we are cheated of facial and verbal cues, it is far too easy to misread intention.

What draws ppl to VC? From what I’ve learned over the years, a lot of us felt marginalized in one way or another and we related to something in VC, we drew strength from it as we were struggling with something in real life. It helped at a time that we needed it. It might still help us. Some ppl just like the purple prose! For real!

Whatever the case, and however you choose to engage with canon or fandom, no one’s relationship to the books or characters supersedes anyone else’s. Not mine, not yours, Anon. We all have our own personal relationship with it. I hesitate to use the word “valid,” bc no one needs “validation” to love a book series or character(s). No one can be “invalidated” for loving a book series or character(s).

I was in fandom before the internet, and even tho, as I’ll mention below, it was with only one other flesh-and-blood friend, we had our own 2-person fandom! We liked what we liked. We didn’t agree on everything, we still don’t, but it was always civil, and any argument was always based on curiosity and trying to gain a better understanding from each other. It was never about this public display we have now on tumblr and other social networking sites of idk, “My 10K notes means my opinion supercedes yours!”? I don’t subscribe… Unless those 10K notes are turning into dollars, then we’ll revisit it, lol.

What even is the point of my blog? It’s for entertainment, my own experience, a collection of other ppl’s experience, and fanworks. When ppl say that I exert all this influence on an army of ppl, I am, in actuality, preaching to a big pile of cats, that’s how it feels. I serve catnip to cats. That’s the intention, anyway.
~~They don’t even Like some of it, I’ll get like 5 notes on this post, lol~~. I have no need to be Right. I have no need to be anything other than a brief reprieve from how insane Real Life is and can be.

Fandom isn’t a contest. No one is keeping score. No one even knows your follower count unless you tell ppl (and I wouldn’t, bc even if you only have 10 more followers than smne else, it generally leads to envy).

TL;DR for the below info: The fandom was small, but it’s growing now, and there is fanfic, try here on tumblr, and try Archiveofourown.org (AO3). Fandom, however, like Real Life, takes your own work to make what you can of it.

FRICKIN’ WALL OF TEXT™ NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN

A) The fandom is was small bc:

^Gawds this is gonna be me on the outside eventually, it’s me on the inside sometimes lol.

It’s an old fandom, over 40 years old! IWTV, the first book in the series, was published in 1976.
Back then, fandom was just the ppl you could gather together, physical mailing lists, idk. It progressed to zines, probably, like other fandoms, but you had to know who was making them. I wasn’t born yet so I don’t know!
As the internet was born, ppl began to find each other on webrings, but even then, it was hard, bc Anne Rice did not approve of fanfic. So you had to know where to look or be lucky enough to stumble upon it.
By the early 90′s when I came into VC, there were some fic sites like Rotoli dela Lune (IIRC?) but AR waged a #war on fanfic, sending threatening cease & desist letters to writers, and that made everything EVEN HARDER to find.
There were official VC graphic novels for a few of the first books and they are hilarious and cringey. Here’s Louis feeding on Daniel jeez… ~~Looks like he wants a lick of the trachea first?~~

Of course, the IWTV movie in 1994 (in development hell for nearly 20 years) did bring in a wave of new fandom ppl, but they really only found whoever they physically met bc of the movie, and the VC books that were out at the time. Meeting in the audience at the movie? Or in bookstores in the Fantasy/Horror section under R, maybe? Probably?

[X] And TBH the movie got backlash bc it was reviewed as being too gay to some, and as not gay enough, but overall, it did well financially and is still considered smtg of a cult classic bc they drag it out and show it on TV leading up to Halloween or whenever Tom and Brad have new movies out ;D (one near-to-Halloween weekend I watched it 4 times, and that was too many, even for me).

Which was my situation, I had my one VC friend, we met in middle school bc I saw her reading QOTD on the bus, I pestered her that morning, and she had to tolerate almost 20 years of my fannish behavior ever since, all directed at her like a fire hydrant, and then she forced me to start a Tumblr and here we are.

*ahem*

We had another small influx of fans with movie!QOTD in 2002, but as the story was barely tethered to canon, and for a number of other reasons, idk if it was the blockbuster ppl had hoped it would be. STILL, there are fandom ppl who find it nostalgic, or love it and embrace it even admitting its canon non-compliance. So I try not to trample it too hard, but trampling it hard was once encouraged! anyway… suffice it to say, someone(s) has to watch it with me and mock it to help me through it, lol.
In 2012, we got a graphic novel of Claudia’s POV during IWTV called Claudia’s Story. You can find it on Amazon.

B) The fanfic IS out there.

CURRENTLY, the fandom is experiencing a revival, we liiiiive!

with the recently published books and AR no longer fights the fanfic writers! Woo!

AR has a FB page and an official VC FB page, where she communicates with her People of the Page and whoever else comments on her posts.

There’s also a thriving community of ppl here on tumblr, who make fanart, write fic, do podcasts, write meta, cosplay, etc. Dig around in my archive and you’ll find them. We just did a @vcsecretgifts exchange and there’s fanfic in there.
Another great place to find fanfic is archiveofourown.org (AO3). You can set up an account and post your fanfic there, and I bet you’ll find readers who want what you have to offer!
There’s also fanfiction.net, and wattpad, but I don’t know those sites very well.

^^^All this taken into account, the thing is, anon, fandom is not an open door.

Fandom is not a ballroom with everyone listing their url name down and committing to staying or even having civility, we can’t make a VC RP directory bc inevitably ppl aren’t invited for whatever reason, and feel left out, or they move on to another fandom anyway. It’s not everyone extending their dance-cards for you to sign your blog url for a dance with EVERYONE. We have had arguments and in-fighting, call-out posts, cliques… there are heated posts about certain characters or ships still getting reblogged with their 10K+ notes and an implication that if you “like” those certain characters or ships, that you’re contributing to real world harm.

Fiction’s affect on reality is a debate that’s started before the internet and will go on as long as we are capable of communicating. Societies have waves of being more or less pure, like a pendulum. That’s not the focus of my blog.

All debates aside, fandom is what you make it, it’s not guaranteed easy friendship. I once thought it was, but I learned the hard way that it’s very much like real life. You have to do the work of finding and reaching out to those ppl who you find a spark of connection with, and actively nurture that spark. On a public site, you have to extend yourself and show some opinions and thoughts, gush about what you love, reblog from ppl who you relate to, and gradually build your own network of friends. Nothing is handed to you. No one will crowd into your inbox bc your url sounds cool (well, maybe a few urls get attention bc of that!)(there is an exception to every rule).

So whenever I say “Welcome to our little corner of tumblrland!” I mean it, I do welcome all, and I hope that I’m going to see you flourish as you make your way into the space. Are you a new fanartist, or writer, or someone who’s supportive even if they don’t have the skills to create fanwork of their own? A combination? Show us, and reach out, and if we’re compatible, we’ll reach back.

December 27, 2017 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

thatwriternamedvolk:

megan-cutler:

lokasennahiddleston:

relucant:

remellarkable:

Writing fanfic

Mixing tenses

Losing focus

Doubting myself as a writer and a human being

every single one of these has been me in the last thirty minutes

Procrastinating

Editing a manuscript

Writing the same sentence over and over

Crying into my tea

Finding plot holes

Forgetting words

Gallery

December 23, 2017 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

axe-fx:

wow!

Gallery

December 16, 2017 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

graybles:

how to walk like a queen [x]

Gallery

December 15, 2017 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

i-want-my-iwtv:

gothiccharmschool:

cvlwr:

How can you have lived for so long and still not get it?

Important. Truths.

(And vampires.)

#PREACH

December 15, 2017 iwantmyiwtv Leave a comment

aivelin:

I’m back here to recommend another movie but this one is way more personal to me. Its Only lovers left alive by Jim Jarmusch.

You know, movies nowadays are more close to people when it comes to representation. You can see all kinds of characters, like them and dislike. Somehow I’ve never came across any movie that shows my type of characters and/or my way of living. However Only lovers left alive did it in a second.

What about this movie that made it so personal to me? Characters, both of the main characters are related to me, I have a good part of Adam and Eve in my mind. The way of living, hobbies, free time spending, relationships, talking topics, things they admire… This movie is a slice of life, full of calm,

contemplative look at everythng going around. It’s visually pleasing, everything about it is full of meditation, inner connection. Characters are looking at life like they are in a museum. They share they emotions about every piece of art, is it new music or nature wonders, old buildings or beautiful people… they are very natural to themselves as if nobody is looking.

I loved a philosophy fight between Adam’s dissapointment in life and Eve’s calm admiration of it. I loved that no matter how many death they had around themselves, they are ready to see beauty of life.

Another thing about this movie that makes it a visual art to me is its cast. I’m a big fan Tilda Swinton and she is gorgeous in this movie. I also watched it because of Tom Hiddleston, and if you liked him in other roles, you will be pleased too. These two actors made a perfect image to me, I find androgyny very beautiful, it’s a blessing to my eyes and this movie delivered it exactly how I needed.

I didn’t spoil you anything, so I hope it will be interesting to you. The movie is a bit specific: very calm, no plot, no action, no drama or romance… but it’s a beautiful piece of still life, so close to me that I could not help but mention it.

“Life is about surviving things, appreciating nature, nurturing kindness and friendship… and dancing.” [X]

^Also, cute moments like this!

I-want-my-IWTV

I-want-my-IWTV is Under Construction

Tag Archives: advice

Do you have any writing tips? I’ve just started writing Loudtat fanfiction, and I’m not that good at writing. Is there any do’s and don’t’s?

My mom got me into The Vampire Chronicles a couple months back, and now I’m looking for the fandom. Why is the fandom so small? Why is there so little fanfiction? I often have to write fanfiction that I want to read. (Which is fine by me, it’s just I’m not that good at writing.)