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The Fanfic Writers’ Craft is a podcast that discusses all things fanfiction with a focus on the art and science of writing for the enjoyment of fan communities. Every two weeks, Jo and Lani (otherwise known in fandom as @pebblysand and @copper_dust) sit down for a fun, multi-fandom, fanfic-related chat and delve into particular topics such as: the particularities of writing and reading fanfiction, monetisation, how to build a fanfiction plot, etc. Hope you enjoy!
You can find us and contact us at: https://thefanficwriterscraft.tumblr.com/
Introduction:
The Fanfic Writers’ Craft is a podcast that discusses all things fan fiction with focus on the art and science of writing for the enjoyment of fan communities. My name is Jo, a.k.a pebblysand, and I’ll be your host for the next hour or so. My co-host, Lani, writes online under the name copper_dust - you’ll meet her shortly.
In this episode, we talk about how we come up with new ideas for fanfics, our relationship to plotting and outlines, how we usually try and dig ourselves out of plot holes, and about the value we find in getting comments from our readers as we go along. We also go on a rather long tangent about a condition I have called “aphantasia” and talk about how that impacts my writing style.
But for now, buckle up, get yourself a nice cup of tea, and welcome to the Fanfic Writers’ Craft!
Show:
Jo: Hey everybody and welcome to the Fanfic Writers’ Craft! This is Jo - pebblysand - and I'm here with Lani! Hi, Lani, how are you?
Lani: I am… hanging in there ‘till the end of the school year!
Jo: Yeah, God. Have you written anything or done anything - anything you want to share, since we last spoke?
Lani: I've continued chipping away at Merry Men, which is my AU. I haven't made a ton of progress this week because I've been pretty dead tired when I get home every day, but I've continued on the research front. I've continued with some scenes - I probably wouldn't share them yet because it’s the kind of story where you don't want to spoil anything, but yeah, I appreciate everyone who's been patient with my work!
Jo: Yeah, same! I've been writing a lot lately, I have been working on castles - I have one chapter that's more or less ready to go but I would like to get three out at the same time, so I'm kind of working on that. I'm about halfway done with the first draft of chapter 12, so we'll see. I would like to get that done before the holidays I’m taking in August, so that I can go home and have a nice time at the beach, but again, we shall see.
Have you been reading anything interesting or anything you want to share?
Lani: Yeah, so I've actually just got through a number of books. I finished reading The Candy House which is Jennifer Egan's newest novel - she's a really interesting writer and one of my biggest inspirations. This book deals with the same characters as A Visit from the Goon Squad, which - I think - was from 2011. I also recently finished up Meditations in Green which is a novel long since out of print about the Vietnam war. Right now, I'm reading Close Quarters, which is another novel set in the Vietnam war, and I'm also reading Truce, which is Primo Levi’s memoir and is a follow-up to Survival in Auschwitz. So, very light-hearted material!
Jo: Yeah, wow, I admire you for doing this much research on the Vietnam war and everything for your fic. I think that's really cool!
Lani: Thank you!
Jo: Anyway, welcome to our second episode! As you’ve probably already heard in the intro, we're going to talk about plot, today. All things plotting, how to come up with a plot, how to dig yourself out of a plot hole, and all that good stuff! I think it's gonna be fun!
So, the first thing we wanted to discuss is a question that a lot of people always ask me: where do you get your ideas from? Like: how do you come up with all that stuff? So, can you talk to me about your process?
Lani: I think for the both of us, we like to have something of an outline done before we start writing the whole story, but that's never gonna include all the stuff that ends up in the story. I think you said before that you would typically get interested by coming across something like a TV show or a movie or a song that would kind of trigger an idea for you. Is that right?
Jo: Yeah. For me, usually, the ideas I get - at least for fic ideas - will typically come from the source materials. So, either, you know, I’ll re-read a book, re-watch a show and there will be a moment or a character or a scene where I'm like: “Oh, I've never thought about that before!”. So, you know, it kind of sparks something.
Music as well - most of the fics I write have a sort of “theme song” where a song “evokes” the story for me. Sometimes, it’s not even about the lyrics of the song, it's more about the mood or the way the song makes me feel. I suppose I'm very “vibes” oriented, I think I've spoken about that on Tumblr - I'm about 90% vibes! So usually, it'll be a song I'm vibing with, where I'm like: “Oh, yeah, that could be a good idea.” But it might not even be related to the prosaic meaning of the song, it can be something completely remote, just the way it makes me think and feel. What about you?
Lani: I was actually gonna say, I’m also about 99% vibes-based, so it's hard to explain where an idea comes from. When it usually comes up, I feel this energy and I'm trying to find something that matches the energy that I have in my mind. It’s really just an emotion that, prior to coming up with a story for it, exists in a way that just can't be communicated with words - until I figure out that story.
Music is also a big part of it for me: having a song that connects some kind of feeling. Although, sometimes, I'll come across other things that give me a vibe, other than a song. One time, I stumbled across a website that was describing realistically what Spinner’s End would have looked like. What the houses would have looked like, based on real historic research into the types of Victorian terraced housing that would have been available to millworkers. A really deep dive, complete with multiple floor plans and research on everything from what kind of plumbing they would have had, to what kind of playground would have been in the vicinity, what were the different possibilities for the internal layout of the house, how many bedrooms could it have had, when would they have had running water - every single thing that you could possibly think of was covered in this. And that, I think, was what made me interested in Snape as a character. It was almost - not even him but the details about the house he might have grown up in.
So, definitely coming across a setting helps me. Then, that interest can lead me to want to tell a story that is set in that place. I guess for me, aside from being vibes-based and just waiting for certain vibrations from the muse, I definitely like having a combination of place and time to work from.
Another example is when I was working on March Hare. Even though I ended up finishing it in May, I started writing it in March because I was thinking about how March isn't a time of year where a lot of stories are set. There isn't really a significant holiday, the weather is kind of bleh, the snow is melting, the grass is muddy, there's hardly any grass, there's patches of snow. It’s not a nice time of year and I kind of wanted to go into that. I wanted to have a story set in March, having that natural environment, this sort of melting, soggy, decrepit, moulding leaves being uncovered as the snow melts, water dripping off plants as the ice also melts - that kind of weather. From there, I kind of went further into: why am I in this place? What's going on in this space?
Jo: This is so interesting because that's not something I think of at all. It might be because I have a thing called “aphantasia” where, if I close my eyes and you tell me to visualise a tree or an apple, I can't see anything in my head. When I read, I don't see anything either - I just can't visualise stuff. So, I think that's probably the reason why I hardly ever think of place or setting in my stories. That said, I do think a lot about characters. Often, I'll read something or I'll see something that will make me think: “Oh, this character is interesting,” and I’ll want to deep dive into their personality. Explain why they’re like this, how they grew up or what happened to make them like this. I've not finished that fic but I'm in the midst of writing a story about the character of May Carlton in Peaky Blinders - she's a side character, and I like that we don't know that much about her. Yet, there's enough provided by canon with certain elements of personality where I'm like: “Oh, I want to see or know how what happened. I want to know what hides behind that.” I think that's one of the things that I look at, a lot more than places.
Lani: I really like that question of: “Who made you like this?” When we meet someone in real life who seems very nice and well-adjusted you don't ask yourself that question, but when you meet somebody who is really weird, who's mean-spirited or socially-inept, or incompetent at life, or has some kind of obvious personality issue, that's when you're like: “What did your parents do? How did you end up like this? Who enabled you to become this way?” You want to know more about: “What was your upbringing? What allowed you to become this way?” And I think even with a character who may be kind and likeable, when there's something about them that seems deeply troubled or a problem, that's when you're like: “What went on in this person's childhood? What happened?” Definitely, for me, that's also something that motivates my writing. It's never the most friendly, well-adjusted character -
Well, who would be an example of a very friendly and well-adjusted character?
Jo: I think the thing with friendly and well-adjusted people is that they're not particularly interesting-
Lani: -until you find that secret thing about them-
Jo: Yes! For instance, I would argue that maybe at the beginning of the books, someone like Ron may seem like a well-adjusted kid, you know. He's in his magical world, his parents love him, etc. But then, the more you dig into him, you see that there's a lot of unresolved stuff he also struggles with. So, I think, that's the thing. I think that's why I'm so character-based: there's something to tell about most people. There's something there, you know? You just have to find that angle.
Lani: Yeah, definitely. I mean, in real life, nobody is 100% friendly and well-adjusted. And, as a writer, you have to identify the thing about a character that's troubling or weird in order to make them interesting, you can't just let them be friendly and well-adjusted and nice if they're going to be a major character. I mean, obviously, we have plenty of background characters who are just not going to get that much time in the spotlight, but anyone important has to have some weird skeleton in their closet.
I did want to ask you a little bit more about aphantasia because I find that so interesting and shocking that you can't like visualise things in your head. I mean, when you say that you can't do it, do you mean you don't automatically do it or even if you tried you can't?
Jo: No, even if I try, I can't. It's all black.
Lani: So, if I said “tree” - you know what a tree is, so how can you describe a tree if you can't see one in your head?
Jo: So, the scientists explain this a lot better than I will, but basically I can imagine a tree in sentences. I know what a tree is, obviously, so I can describe it, but I'm not going to describe a tree that I visualise, I'm just gonna describe a tree on the basis of what I know to be a tree. If you ask me to describe a tree, I'll be like: “Oh, it's got a trunk, it's got leaves, it's got branches, whatever,” because that is what I know to be the general characteristics of a tree. But, I'm not going to describe a specific tree that I see in my head, because I can't see anything.
Now, I'm one of those people where I can visualise a little bit. Aphantasia is a spectrum, so personally I can sometimes see very blurry outlines. I have a friend of mine who can see nothing - absolutely nothing.
Lani: What about a geometric shape? Like a triangle?
Jo: No.
Lani: Do you have dreams?
Jo: I very rarely remember them. And, I've heard something that definitely applies to me: people with this “thing” - I mean, I don't know if it's a “condition,” it's not, like, incapacitating in my daily life - apparently, we tend to have less memories. And, that is 100% true for me. A lot of people will have memories from their childhood and stuff, but I barely remember anything. I know things happened like an “event”, but I don’t have a visual memory associated. So many times, people are like: “Don't you remember this happened?” and I'm like: “No, I do not remember.”
Lani: But you can recognize a familiar face or place?
Jo: Yeah, yeah, but I can't see them in my head. Which I know is weird.
Lani: You know, I had read about this condition a while ago, before we had this conversation. I actually read about a few things: I read about people who have no internal monologue in their heads. They think without any words, there's no inner voice in their head. I'm beyond unable to imagine how that works. For aphantasia, I would say it’s just below that. I really struggle to understand. Of course, I can understand being physically blind and therefore having no idea of what things look like. But for me, I guess, I'm really struggling to understand, firstly how you learned to read. Because I know we're explicitly told as teachers to instruct kids to visualise while they're reading. It helps with reading comprehension and kids who don't visualise or can't do it well usually struggle a lot with learning to read, especially following along with the story. Was that an issue you faced as a kid?
Jo: I don't remember. I think I had difficulty reading out loud. I could read in my head just fine but translating words I could see into sounds was harder. But I don't know if that's related.
It's funny ‘cause I discovered I had aphantasia very recently thanks to reading about it online. A friend of mine has it as well and so she sent me a link to an article and she was asking me if I could see things in my head. I was like “no” and then she was like, “Yeah, we're both the same, but other people can!” And, throughout most of my childhood, when teachers were telling me, “think of an apple” or “think of a tree,” I thought everyone was pulling my leg when they were like “Oh yeah, my tree has seven branches and leaves and stuff.”
Lani: You thought they were making it up?
Jo: Yeah, I thought people were making it up! Especially because I can do that, I can make it up as I go along, so I thought people were doing the same thing! And then, at age, like, 27, I discovered that no people can actually see things. So yeah, I mean, that's a bit of a tangent but the point is: one of the things that I really used to struggle with in writing, and that I've kind of taught myself to do, is describing places and describing things and objects because it doesn't come to me naturally. So, when I'm writing (or every time I'm reading a book) if there's a description, because there's no image in my head, I'm like: “Why do people read this? This doesn't mean anything to me!” So, I've had to force myself to include those details in my narrative. I used to think that I was just not visual, like: “Oh, you know, I'm just not a very visual writer,” but now I kind of understand why I'm not a visual writer.
Lani: So, that's really interesting to me because I think visualisation is on a spectrum, right? A lot of people are probably between where you are and where I am. I'm probably on the extreme end of visualising where I see things in my mind in incredible detail, highly specific with textures and things. I know that for instance, with a lot of people, when they're designing a character, they'll find a picture of a model or celebrity on the internet, in order to help them imagine what that person's face would look like, because they struggle to imagine a unique face that isn't a recollection of a face they've seen before. To me, that's a learned skill. When I was a kid and I wanted to make up a story, I had to think of a face that I had seen before. It could be from a magazine, it didn’t have to be someone I knew, but I later had to train myself to try and imagine a new face that I had never seen and to give it detail and specificity in my mind. That’s something that I learned to do.
I think, as I said, there's a spectrum between seeing nothing in your head and what it’s like for me. Personally, I know that I don't like reading something where it says that a character was “wearing a red dress” because I don’t like the word “red”. There are too many shades of red for that to be specific. And, for a dress, there are too many types of dresses, too, so that means nothing to me. I wouldn't say a “red dress”. I need to know: does it have a smocked Empire waist? What is the length of the hem? Is it puff sleeves? What fabric is it? I need to have a sense of specificity. So, for me, it's just such a different experience of reading and writing that we have. It would make sense to me that you would write a certain way and not include certain things, whereas I might include all this stuff that you might think of as boring because if you can't visualise what I'm describing. It's not helping you understand what I'm seeing.
But, as it relates to plot, I think it's interesting because I think we're both familiar with the maxim of Chekhov’s gun: if a gun is on the mantle in the first act, it has to go off by the third. You have to be placing relevant objects and people into a scene to prepare for the payoff later where those things are going to be used. And, I wanted to know what your process was for that kind of stuff. Are you just making it up as you go along, or are you considering in advance what stuff you will need later?
Jo: I will very rarely consider objects in a scene. For me, the gun thing is metaphorical. It means I will have to set up all the milestones in a story, so that the reader gets their payoff in the end. For example, it’ll be a throwaway scene in chapter 1 that becomes more important in chapter 3, or something. That's the way I view it. I wouldn't think about it in terms of specifically plotting a space and the objects, and the people who are in that space. It isn't something that I think about, to be honest.
Lani: Yeah, so I think that again, it reflects a different process. Because, for you, when you write, you are really writing. You’re imagining your work as a book or as a story on paper. Whereas when I'm writing, sometimes I imagine it as a movie, and sometimes I imagine it as a play. Especially when there's a lot of people and objects in a scene, I imagine it as a play. In a play, you have a props table marked off with tape, and every individual item that is needed in the scene is gonna have a place on the props table, and you have to keep track of them, and you have to know what's going in and what's coming out. There's choreography for when somebody's gonna pass something to somebody else. I think of it in those terms: at a dinner table scene, where people are sitting around the dinner table, if somebody picks up a cup, then: when are they gonna put it down? Otherwise, they're sort of frozen, holding that same cup the whole length of the meal. So, for me, the plot is not just the overall dynamics of the whole story, it's also about giving things a certain logic so that it doesn't feel like you've picked up certain things and then forgotten about them.
Jo: Yeah, that makes sense. Visual details, like props and things, is stuff that I add when I edit. It wouldn't ever feature in my first draft, and it's something that I will add as a conscious move to be like: “Okay, people who are visual will need to see something, and so I will give them something to see.”
Lani: Right, yeah, you’re making accommodations for the visual people amongst us!
Jo: Yeah, exactly. That’s something I do in a very conscious way, when I'm editing.
But anyway, as we’ve been talking about this for way too long now, I also saw that you added a point about the writing methods that people use, the infamous planners v. pantsers debate. So, do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Lani: Yes! So, in the fiction writing world, there's this idea that: some people are “planners” (i.e. who create an outline with varying degrees of detail, and will plan ahead for the plot of an entire work of fiction), and there are “pantsers” who are literally on the seam of their pants, making it up as they go along. Of course, we know there's a spectrum between these two, but one thing I find really interesting is some of the most famous pantsers are people who you would think, based on their writing, that they definitely would have had to have an outline. For me, my favourite example is Diana Gabaldon (who's the writer of the Outlander series), because if you've read her books, there are a lot of instances where something is set up in an earlier chapter and a long time later, it will come back in this way where there’s a real emotional payoff, you know? She’s a real Chekhov’s gun writer, everything is sort of intertwined in a very satisfactory way with multiple storylines for different characters. I was shocked to find out that she’s just making it up as she goes along because her writing is also incredibly research-heavy and requires a huge amount of prior knowledge. I just feel like asking: “Did you really just sit down and made that up?”
Stephen King is another one although, as somebody who’s read a lot of Stephen King, sometimes you can tell! Margaret Atwood is another one. So, some of the most shocking people are pantsers. And, I’m thinking, you know, what are the advantages of being a pantser versus a planner?
Jo: That’s a tough one! So, for me, as you said, there’s a spectrum and I think I’m a little bit of both. Usually, when I have a story, I know what the theme is, and I know where I want the characters to start, and where I want the characters to end. Then, I usually will have maybe a handful of scenes that have come to me that are very precise in my head. Usually, conversations between the people that I see as important, and having to happen in that story. And then, I will build an outline between those big scenes to bring the story together. But then, when it comes to actually writing, I will often ignore the outline, and do something completely different.
Lani: Right, so sometimes the outline is telling you what not to do, because that's the only thing you won’t stick with!
Jo: Yeah! And, usually, I'll try and follow the outline in the first draft, then I'll sit with it and I'll be like: “This doesn't work.” Don't ask me why it doesn’t work, I don't know, it's just vibes. I'm not vibing it. So, I’ll sit or go for a walk, and try and think of something to make it work. That's when I'll change the outline, or I'll just make the changes in text. I think, to me, that method is how it works best because I am able to have a neat narrative and something kind of coherent and still outlined where I know where I'm going, but still having the flexibility of being able to say: “Okay, that doesn't work, and I'm gonna go another way.” For me, that is the benefit of having an outline.
At the same time, I can’t really fully stick to the outline - I think if I was outlining only I would lack the flexibility. If I was only a pantser, I think I wouldn't know where to go, where to start and where to finish. And, usually, whether I aim to or not, I'll still have scenes that I want to write. So, that's still a form of an outline, you know? I never just sit down in front of a blank page and be like: “Okay, well, let's write a story.” Usually, I kind of have an idea of a couple of scenes that I want to get to.
Lani: For me, I'm also sort of the combination. Sometimes, I'll have a story that's so detailed in my head that I don't need to write it down because I just know it all by heart in my head. But, when I sit down to write, I'm not starting from scratch because I know how it's going to end. When I write something that is more slow-paced or character-driven, I will sit down and do an outline because I find that if you're writing something where the events and conflicts are not major physical events, it sometimes helps to actually sit down and make sure that you do have a plot, and not just a series of vignettes. I got a recent comment from a reader on one of my stories who said something like: “I really liked this even though it didn't have a plot,” and I felt like this person was not understanding what a plot is. A plot does not mean that there has to be explosions or a treasure that is found. A plot is a journey that a character takes. Not necessarily a physical journey but a series of events that happen that involve conflict and problems that gradually change the character, so that by the end of the story they've grown or learned, and changed from the beginning.
But, certainly there does have to be stuff that happens, and that stuff cannot be exclusively things that are good. There has to be conflict. So, I felt that that story did have a plot, but maybe it wasn't the kind of plot this reader was used to. But, I know that when I was writing this story, it was one where I actually sat down and outlined it beginning-to-end before I started writing, because I knew I needed some direction, otherwise it would just be meandering and aimless.
With some stories though, the setting and the context of the story will make it easier or harder to come up with events. With the story I'm writing now, because it's a war story, it's almost too easy to come up with conflict. The conflict is so obvious and so prevalent, it would be easy to just add more combat, more explosions all the time. But, I'm trying to not do that and not rely on the obvious as a source of conflict because then it just becomes repetitive.
For some of the best plotters of original fiction, in my view, the conflicts they create are always something where you wouldn't have thought of it or really expected it. If you look at Jonathan Franzen for instance, his characters always face problems, but they always end up being a different problem than what we would expect that character to have.
Jo: I can see what you mean. I think it kind of relates to what you said when we were preparing for the podcast, which is that your general rule is that if there's two outcomes that the reader can foresee, you'll go with the third. I think it’s an interesting view of plotting, and trying to surprise your readers.
Lani: I mean, yes, to me, surprises are important. Sometimes, when I'm writing a fic and I feel that it's starting to lag, that's when I know there needs to be what I call an interruption. Not even necessarily when a story is starting to lag, but I've learned from the writers I've read who I felt were the best plotters. One thing they had a handle on was to determine when in a scene is the natural moment where it's time to redirect, change the context or introduce a new element that somebody wasn't expecting. Like having a scene where at the start of the scene, you thought it was going to be one thing, and by the end, it's another. For example, you could start seeing what you think is going to be a serious heart-to-heart conversation between two characters at a slow pace but by the end, it's become a man versus nature survival thing where a hail storm has started. I mean, that's not a particular scene I've written but that's as an example.
Jo: That's very interesting. I think for me, there's two things. There's surprising your readers and ending a scene in a way that you wouldn't necessarily foresee, but I also think that you have to do that within the contract that you have with your reader or your viewer. I think you can't do anything too wild either because then you're breaking that contract that you've set from the get-go with the person who's consuming this piece of media.
A series that I think does that really well is Peaky Blinders. For anyone who’s watched it, you will know that at the end of every season, the writers have set up an expectation that the show will turn around at the last minute. Tommy - the main character - has a plan, and at the end of every season, you feel like suddenly the plan is failing, and he’s going to die and not succeed. Then, something happens - something that is very close to a deus es machina event - and Tommy “miraculously” succeeds. And, it works within the universe of the show because I think it’s one of those shows that aren’t trying to be realistic, and this unexpected event becomes almost expected. You get to the end of the series and you know something’s going to happen, but you just don’t know what. And, I think what they've done brilliantly is that they sort of got the end of that trope in series 4 where, although I loved the end twist, it did feel very deus ex machina where Tommy miraculously reaches out to a third party you’ve never heard from before to beat the “bad guy.” I think the end of series 4 is so trope-y and so Peaky Blinders that it’s almost too much, you know? But then, because I think Peaky is a show that is very self-aware, in season 5, they subverted expectations again where there is a deus ex machina event but this time, it doesn’t play in Tommy’s favour. The unexpected turn of events ends up being quite devastating to the plan, and causes it to fail for the first time in the whole show.
And, I think that's a very important thing to think about when you're plotting is: what are the expectations that you're setting for your reader? From the get-go, what is the kind of event that you can expect from the story, and how can you surprise your reader/viewer, while still staying coherent in-universe? What's the tone? What are the types of things that can happen?
Lani: I think it also depends what type of fan you want. Some of these sorts of shows that have a small but incredibly dedicated loyal cult following are shows that will have the wackiest plot twists. I'm somebody who's more on the side of: I want to see the most insane plot twist that I have no idea could possibly happen. I almost want my viewing contract to be violated.
So, the first example I can think of is Lost. A lot of people fell off the Lost train when-
Jo: Oh, yes! I know exactly what you’re talking about! I fell off the Lost train exactly that way!
Lani: Yeah! So, you know, when you watch the first few episodes of Lost, you're like: “okay, this show has surprises and plot twists, but it's realistic in the sense that all of this stuff technically could happen.” And then Lost decides: “Oh, you thought it was that kind of show?!” I mean, what I admired about the writers of Lost was that they were almost willing to lose viewers in pursuit of the wildest, most unpredictable storylines, I really loved it! A lot of people couldn't cope with the time travel, interdimensional-
Jo: Yup! I couldn’t cope!
Lani: Then, the absolute number one show I can think of in terms of being like, “I honestly promise you that you don't know what's coming in each episode” is The OA. My friend and I are huge cult fans, we cried when the show was cancelled, but I understand why it's not popular. I don't know if you've seen it, it was on Netflix. In my mind, there is no piece of media - book, TV show or movie - that could possibly have a wilder sequence of events than The OA. In the first scene, you're like: “Okay, this is gonna be a bit of a crime story where a character was blind and she regains her sight when she wakes up after she's just attempted suicide.” You think you have some idea where this is going - let me tell you, no you do not!
The second season was sadly cancelled but to tell you the number of plot twists, let's just say, I mean, if you were still on board by the time the octopus came around, you were obviously okay with this. But then, even when I was like, “Okay, it's the OA, the only thing you know is going to happen is that it's not going to be anything predictable,” I still wasn't ready for the octopus. But, yeah, that's gonna get a small, dedicated cult kind of viewership. So, I think that's something to keep in mind when you're writing and you're thinking of a plot twist is like, you might gain some die-hards but some people might also drop off. It’s just a matter of what you want your story to be and there's no right way or wrong way, it's just a matter of what kind of story you are writing.
Jo: Yeah, and I think, obviously, there's a lot of things that come into consideration: the quality of the writing is obviously a thing, the quality of character development, etc. You can have like the wildest plot twists possible, if it's backed with good writing and good characterisation, then that seems less wild. I think plot is something that you can obviously work on, but I think you have to keep in mind that plot is related to all the other aspects of writing your story. It’s codependent because you can have the best plot possible, if your character is just not relatable, then a lot of people are gonna drop off. It's a balance between what you can and cannot do and what you feel capable of doing.
I think for a lot of people starting out, there’s a temptation to almost maximise surprise all the time. For example, end every chapter in a cliffhanger, you know? And, obviously, you don't actually have to do that to maintain your reader’s attention. If you want to do it, then good for you, but I think back then, for me, it was like: “Oh, I have to do that or else everybody will stop reading,” and actually, that's not true. If your plot is heading into a good direction, you don't have to be so out there.
Lani: Yeah! And, also, if you always end every chapter on a cliffhanger, that gets formulaic. If you do it once or twice but not all the time, then people really don't know when it's coming.
Jo: So, moving on, I also wanted to talk about plot holes, and what techniques one might use to dig themselves out of a plot hole, or find a way to make the story work when it feels like you’ve hit a wall. Do you have any takes on this?
Lani: Yeah, so I would say that first, you need to look at your story and go: “What is the problem here?” Is the problem that I've writer's block and I just don't know what comes next? Is the problem that the thing that I wrote doesn't make logical sense? Is the problem that I have created an issue which I don't know how to resolve? Or, is the problem that I've created a conflict that I do know how to resolve, but I am not willing to write that storyline? You have to figure out what caused the problem first.
I'm going through a situation right now with a story that I'm writing where, when I go into the reasons why I am having difficulty writing the next chapter, I think it's because I've set up a pace that I don't think is sustainable. I think it's too slow-paced. In that case, I need to go back and delete a lot, and increase the pace of events in the story. I think, in other contexts, if your issue is that you really want a character to do a certain thing, then you need to find a reason why they would make such a risky or difficult or painful choice. If you’re really committed to having a character go through that moment, then you need to work backwards and ask why they would do this thing.
Jo: Agreed. And, I think another thing to consider when you're trying to fix issues is to get an outside perspective. I think that's very important and can be extremely helpful in trying to see how you can fix something. And, to be honest, the beauty of fanfic is that getting an outside perspective is probably easier than it would be writing original fiction. A lot of us (not all of us, but a lot of us) tend to post as we go along so you end up in this situation where you’re getting feedback in your comments just by virtue of posting. It’s a lot easier than if you're just sitting in front of your laptop writing original fiction on your own until you can finally send it to a publisher. Taking these outside perspectives into consideration has been incredibly helpful to me at times, in deciding where I should, or shouldn’t, take a story. Now, of course, you can’t make everyone happy and you do have to make choices and stir the ship at the end of the day, but it can be helpful to look at your comment section or get a beta to help you see things you’re not necessarily seeing.
Lani: Yeah. I find also for me, I'm writing a story at the moment that has a really strong sense of mystery, where there's an expectation that the mystery will be resolved at the end. And, so people are starting to leave me comments where they're guessing what the thing is, and I like to judge by the comments whether I am giving too much information or not enough. What I want to see is people making guesses where none of them are right, but they're gradually getting closer. I’ve seen that start to happen lately and so I've been encouraged that I’ve done the right amount of foreshadowing but also misdirection.
Jo: Yeah, that reminds me that under chapter 10 of castles, there's a whole thread going about who killed Amycus Carrow, which is a subplot in the story. I love these guesses! I think one is correct out of all of them and I was kind of happy about that: I think that’s a good ratio and I love the engagement!
Another thing that I do if I ever get stuck with a story is to honestly just let it go. I will stop writing that story for - well, sometimes a week, sometimes like 10 months! Until I've worked out a way to make it work, basically. That's 100% what happened with the fault in faulty manufacturing. I started writing it in May or June of 2021, I wrote about 14,000 words, and then I hit a wall. Something wasn't working, I couldn't tell what it was, and I was like: “Okay, whatever, I'm just gonna put it aside for X number of months.” I came back to it in February 2022 and finished it. So, I think time also helps.
And for smaller issues, if it's just a scene or something, I like just taking a walk and trying to work it out in my head. And, I mean, obviously, it's not like you have to take a walk specifically, a lot of people just can't take walks, but I think it’s about finding an activity that’s not-
Lani: Yeah! That’s kind of mindless, like cleaning your bathroom!
Jo: Exactly! Something where you can let your mind wander and work through whatever it is that’s causing you an issue. Whether it's knitting or walking or cleaning your bathroom, but something other than writing that will give you time to think and sit, and rework the story in your head.
Lani: Definitely. I find walking is good, driving is good but yeah, walking can be some of the best stuff. Another thing that might be less common is to do something with your body that can cause you to have different ideas. So, sometimes, I'll go on a swing set that I have in a park, because moving at that pace and in that way can get me thinking about more fast-paced oriented scenes. I sometimes feel like I have to feel some adrenaline, I have to feel some movement, to get into that mindset. Sometimes, I will also listen to the sounds of - like, if I'm writing a scene where there's heavy rain, or there's a thunderstorm, or whatever ambience, I'll listen to the sounds of that. For me, a lot of the writing is very sensory, so I want to experience what it would feel like to be this character. And then other times, I'm thinking more cinematically in terms of: if this was a movie like what would happen next, you know? It really depends on your writing style. Some of my stories, I wrote in a way where I was imagining being that character, and other stories I wrote in a way where I was imagining sort of watching a movie.
Jo: Yeah, that makes total sense. And, so, I suppose one of the things that we also want to talk about is pacing. I think you had a lot more thoughts than I did about pacing, so do you want to talk about it?
Lani: Yeah, so: pacing! I guess I would define it as a kind of ratio between the amount of real time that passes in the reader’s world as they read your text, and the amount of concrete actions that happen in your character’s world, and how much imaginary time passes in the character’s world in your story. So, quick pacing will usually involve a high ratio of action verbs to other types of verbs, and maybe less description. It also might involve time jumps (you know, a few months forward or a few years forward), compared to in real life, how long it takes for the reader to read your story.
Slow pacing, on the other hand, might be very meditative. There might be a lot of sensory description, there might be a lot of more passive actions such as characters lying down, eating, drinking, driving, as opposed to fighting, or searching, or that sort of thing. And then of course, it might be set over a very short period of time.
Having said that, you can have a very fast-paced story that can also be set over a short period of fictional time. For example, we know there's the show 24 where every episode takes place over the course of only one day. It's an action show, very fast-paced. So, those are a few different things to consider in terms of pacing.
And, for me, when I think about pacing, I also think of when the most relevant plot developments happen, or pieces of information are revealed. How close together in terms of: how much time would a reader have to spend physically reading, to go from one major revelation to the next one? Is it five minutes? Is it half an hour? Even just the visual weight of text on the page is something that I think about. Obviously, when you're having dialogue, you’re frequently starting a new paragraph as each person speaks. For that reason, you're going to see a lot of white space on the page, and the text looks a little bit fluffier. If you have a lot of description, you're gonna have these long, dense paragraphs, and there will be a heaviness to the text. That's not to say that any of these things is necessarily good or bad, but you have to think about what you're going for, and you need to consider some sort of balance.
There are some writers who manage to do the wall of text, and extremely slow pacing, who pull it off very well, but those tend to be writers who have a smaller, more serious audience, like David Foster Wallace. He’s probably in the Guinness Book of World Records for writing details at an extremely slow pace, and writing wall-of-text paragraphs that last over 10 pages. He’ll spend, like, 45 pages describing the ducks in the air conditioner, you know? But, he does this with an artistic purpose. When he's boring you, he's doing it intentionally 'cause he's making a comment on the nature of boredom and entertainment. He’s not doing this by accident. On the other hand, if you read an airport thriller by James Patterson or whatever, that would be a very fast-paced book.
So, for me, I guess it's about finding a pace that feels right for the kind of story I'm telling. And, also, thinking about what kind of readers I want. You definitely win some, and lose some. Whatever pace you choose, some people are gonna say: “No, this feels too much like an airport thriller, it doesn't feel sophisticated enough,” and some people are going to go: “This looks dense and heavy, I want something that's more fun.” So, I definitely think about it in that way. Would you say you have a similar perspective?
Jo: Yes and no. I think the thing with pacing is that it's not really something that I think about; it's something that I feel. I can tell there's certain rules that I have. For example, I tend to not have too many action scenes together, or too many dialogue-y scenes together. I tend to limit myself in terms of back and forth in dialogue because I find a lot of times, when you've got these books where there are pages and pages of people talking, that tends to be annoying to me, personally.
So, I tend to have more general rules. I don’t do more than 10 lines of back and forth conversation, unless I decide to break the rule if there's a specific thing that I want to say. But, generally speaking, I don't really think of pacing as much as I think about just building the story. It's more like: when I'm writing (or when I'm editing), if I'm bored, then I'll be like: “No, this is boring,” and just delete everything. That's the way I deal with pacing. I tend to write more in the way that I'll throw words at the page and see what sticks. On edit, I'll delete certain things where I think they’re unnecessary, or the pacing is too slow. If I'm bored by my own writing, then that's not usually a good sign!
Lani: Yeah, I find that there's two competing issues with pacing. Because, to me, good pacing sort of competes against show-don't-tell. When you want to speed up the pace, you have to go from showing into summarising, and that will allow things to happen more quickly. That being said, it's a big thing in writing that you're supposed to show, and not tell, so sometimes I feel for me I'm probably a big shower-not-teller, but then I struggle with having a really slow-paced story. You're probably more of a teller, and you have a more fast-paced story, so it’s a question of: how much telling versus showing are you okay with?
For me, the idea is: the more important something is, the more you have to show it. If it's less important, then you can tell it. But again, you still have to decide because if you're showing everything, you're gonna have a slow pace of story.
Jo: Yeah. I think most of the time, when I write a first draft, it's a lot of showing because it’s mostly just me going through the motions of describing what is happening. Then, on edit, I'm like: “No, there's no need to show this, this could be a sentence summarising what went on.” A lot of time, that's how I will edit. I will write out a scene with every little thing, but then it will end up being a paragraph of stuff I've summarised, and only kept the scenes that I found were interesting or that are worth showing.
The issue with showing everything is not only that, as you said, it takes more physical space and time to craft the scene itself, but it also takes more time for you to show, and for the reader to understand what you're trying to show. Most of the time, you'll have to show the same thing multiple times or show it from a different aspect, for the reader to pick up on it. Whereas, if you just write it as a “tell” thing, then that's much easier for the reader to understand. They will pick it up right away. So, I think that is the balance that you have to find with pacing.
Lani: Yeah, and what I would say to people who are struggling with pacing vs. showing and telling is: if you want to pick up the pace - which a lot of us, honestly, need to do (that's a big writing problem, not knowing when to edit) - follow the advice of Gypsy Rose Lee, who was a famous burlesque dancer - sort of like a stripper - and was famous for the fact that over the course of an entire show, she would take off only a single glove. So, she's not showing a whole lot, but when she shows you she makes it count, right?
Jo: Yeah. And, I think one thing I used to do - I have not done it in a while because I haven't needed to - if I had like a draft that was too long is: I would make a copy of it, park it to the side, and then in one of the copies, I would delete every other sentence. I know this sounds weird but it’s a trick that really shows you what is important. Because then, when you go back and you edit and you read, there's so many things where you're like: “Oh, actually, this sentence is not important at all because I deleted it, and I didn't even realise it wasn’t there.” That is something that I found helpful in certain circumstances. Not all - obviously it doesn't solve all your problems - but I find that deleting every other sentence, you can then very easily see where you're missing that information you’ve deleted, and where you aren’t.
Lani: And, in FanFiction your readers will leave you comments being like: “Who was that guy?” and “What was that thing?” And, you know, if one person asks, sometimes they have bad reading comprehension, but if everyone's asking you, maybe you just weren't clear and you do actually need to explain that a little bit more. Because I write a lot of historical fiction, I probably have some younger readers who will leave me a lot of comments asking “what was that thing?” or whatever because they don't know what a certain device was, or they don't they don't understand the subtle euphemisms that I'm using because they don't know what it means when a character says that a girl “got in trouble,” they don't understand that’s a euphemism for pregnancy. So, sometimes, when I get that I just want to be like: “ask your grandma.” Because, yeah, I don't want to make it more obvious.
Jo: Yeah, that's funny. I tend to explain these things as much as I can whilst remaining within something that makes logical sense and that isn't too burdensome for the story. When I wrote and the fault in faulty manufacturing which happens in Ireland and obviously talks a lot about Irish history and the Troubles, I tried as much as I could to explain what had happened - what’s necessary to know to understand the plot. Or, you know, pronunciation. There is an OC in that fic who is Seamus’s sister who is a very major character in that fic, and her name is Aoife. I just wanted people to know how to pronounce her name without having to Google because I think it’s the kind of thing that will take you out of the story. I like to explain as much as I possibly can fit without sounding boring either. Like: if it’ll take me one sentence to explain, then I will but I'm also not gonna explain to you that Ireland was occupied by the British for 800 years - if you don’t know that, you’re going to have to figure it out on your own. But, I will explain little things that I think are necessary for you to understand as a reader.
Lani: Yeah, and I think that gets into the topic of audience and accessibility which could be a topic for a whole other episode about what is your relationship to your audience, and who are you trying to reach? What kind of concessions are you willing to make for your audience? I think that's such a rich topic it could be a whole episode.
Jo: Definitely.
Well, anyway, for this episode I think we're quite done, so I think it's time to wrap up. Do you have any recommendations to give us this week?
Lani: I don't think I have any fresh recommendations this week. I don't want to recommend any of the really dense and heavy war books that I've been reading. I just feel like if you want that, you'll seek it out yourself. That's some really heavy stuff people don't necessarily need right now.
Jo: Fair enough. I think there's two things that I wanted to recommend. The first one is something I wanted to mention at the top of the show but then I forgot, is: I've been reading a fic that I really like which is called Knowing Where To Look by ala_baguette. I think I sent it to you before but they have just released a new chapter which is why I wanted to mention it. It's a Harry Potter post-war story, and I would definitely say if you're reading castles and if you know what I'm writing and you like the weird Wizarding world admin, and the themes around rebuilding the world after the war that I’m exploring, and the politics of it all, Knowing Where To Look is one you’ll want to check out too. It’s also told from the point of view of Gawain Robards who's Head Auror at the Ministry of Magic. I think it's a very interesting point of view, it's a completely OC sort of situation -
Lani: -does it contain Dawlish abuse?
Jo: I don't -
Lani: He’s always attacked-
Jo: Er, I don't remember that it does. But, no, it's a very good story with an interesting point of view that you don't get in anything else, so I would definitely recommend.
And, the second thing that I wanted to recommend, which was kind of building on our discussion last time in the first episode about the line between original fiction and fanfiction. I think one thing that you can think about as well in that realm is adaptations. And I’ve just seen the TV adaptation of the Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix, which is also a book by Michael Connolly and a film. Connolly has two series of books: the Harry Bosch one and then this one; they're basically procedurals. But, it's very interesting to see how different people handle the same characters - I will admit that the TV show is really not great compared to the books and the film, but I think it's kind of an interesting one to see if you've read the books or if you've watched the film, where you can compare how each is made.
Lani: Okay so thank you for listening, thanks for sticking around for our second episode! We want to remind people that if you have any questions or ideas for future episodes or I topics that you want us to address, our ask box is open and we are at thefanficwriterscraft.tumblr.com on the blue hellsite.
Jo: And, I’m pebblysand, you can find me on Tumblr - the blue hellsite - as well as AO3.
Lani: And, you can find me at copper-dust on Tumblr and copper_dust on AO3. Right, thank you very much, bye guys!