I Always Tell Myself I’ll Keep It Cute, Keep It Light, And By The End Of Draft One It’s Always Dark

Every writer has that one story that they don't even intend to write down anymore, but that is forever stuck in their brain.

Writers, I need your opinions:

My story is like focused on two characters, and I have this scene where we switch between their perspectives. They are texting each other throughout an evening essentially, and we switch each time someone reads a text.

I don’t know if I should keep it or not. I love it, but I don’t know if it’s confusing or not. The overlapping scenes are very important for the development of both plot and story.

Also, I do have a beta reader but I lowkey have a crush on them so I’m too embarrassed to send the fic to them until I’ve done a couple rounds of self edits, and I don’t wanna get too far in just to realize it doesn’t work

Have I written every day since I made my schedule?

Yes.

Did on work on any of my wips?

No.

Did I start a new story and get way too invested?

Hell yeah!

I just made an actual schedule for what writing projects I should focus on each day for the next week. So that way I can hopefully make progress on my fic and on revising poems for my slam team at the same time. We’ll see if the adhd cooperates.

And you know what, we’re just not gonna talk about how many wips I’ve started lately. We’re just not gonna do it. And I’m definitely not coming up with world building for another one based on a tiktok.

On an unrelated note, should I start writing really indulgent one shots for my favorite fandoms? I’m tired of searching for my specific preferred flavor of bullshit and not finding what I want

Yea no I'm fine it's just the dialogue is coming out so neat and I can't show anyone because that would be massive spoiler so I guess I'll just sit here vibrating.

me rereading a scene: omg why is she acting like that who wrote this? i wrote this.

Nothing like a halfway decent incomplete fanfic to crawl into my brain and lay eggs. At some point between now and when I die, I will be writing some sort of paranormal situation, forever peeved that I didn’t come up with this world building first and can’t just rip it off because morals.

Things I’ve noticed are essential in plotting and would probably have saved me a lot of time if I had considered it earlier

The START of your story - how fucked up flawed is your premise/character at the start? what do they have to change? why are they HERE?

The END of your story - How do you want your main character/theme/universe to change after your story? Does it get better or worse? THIS SETS UP THE TONE DRASTICALLY.

What you want to happen IN BETWEEN - the MEAT of it. What made you start writing this WIP in the first place. Don't be ashamed to indulge, it's where the BRAIN JUICE comes from. You want a deep dive into worldbuilding and complex systems? Then your start and end should be rooted in some fundamental, unique rule of your universe (what made you obsess over it?). Want to write unabashed ship content? Make sure your start and end are so compelling you'll never run out of smut scenarios to shove in between scenes (what relationship dynamics made you ship it in the first place?).

The ANTE - the GRAVITY of your story. How high are the stakes? Writing a blurb or interaction? start with a small day-in-the-life so you can focus on shorter timelines and hourly minutiae that can easily get overlooked in more complicated epics. Or you can go ham on it and plot out your whole universe's timeline from conception to demise. Remember: the larger the scale, the less attached your story may get. How quickly time flies in your story typically correlates with the ante (not a hard rule, ofc, but most epics span years of time within a few pages, while a romance novel usually charts out the events of a few months over a whole manuscript.)

Everything else follows….?

Literally me right now

Me after a long day of writing: *closing the lid of my laptop nodding to myself* that was a good sentence