Write us a fic, whether long or short Write us a fic tonight ‘Cause l we’re all in the mood for some Johnlock now And you’ve got us feeling alright
Now John and his Sherlock are cuddling There’s only one bed, you know But they won’t be too quick to see each other’s dicks ‘Cause the burn it has got to be slow
Well the sexual tension is killing us And the misunderstandings are dire But we’re sure that they could be compatible If they’d only light true love’s fire
Oh, la la la, di da da La la, di da da da dum
It’s a pretty good hit count, for a Saturday And the kudos they give me a smile ‘Cause I know that it’s me they’ve been comin’ to read To forget about life for a while And the podfics, they sound like a carnival And the pub scenes they smell like a beer And we read in our car and reblog from afar And say, “Man, I just love bein’ here!”
If you ever doubt whether you should leave a comment on a fanfiction you loved or not, please keep in mind that the only reason why I wrote and published 170k words of fanfiction over the last year is that every time I posted something, every time I updated a fanfiction, someone left a comment on it. Those comments included things like just a simple “Loved it!”, people writing down everything that has happend in caps, people yelling at my characters, and all sorts of thoughts people had after reading my stories. All of those comments are valid and great and I appreciated the hell out of every single one of them.
So yes, you should definitely leave a comment, because they will make the writer’s day and more comments = more of the content you loved.
Oh man…I’m not the best person to ask, but I guess something you could do is just keep going? I mean if you at least try to put your thoughts down on paper you’re likely to get somewhere right? I think if you figure out what’s really keeping you from writing; fear of your work not being good enough or fear of people not reading your work, know that is completely normal.
I’m actually going through something similar. I’m one of those weird people that has an entire detailed story in my head, but when I go to write it disappears. It’s incredibly frustrating and I can rarely get anything down and out because of it.
Don’t give up anon, we’re all here for you to support you and talk further if you need.
One of my friends @prettysherlocksoldier just go a similar ask and I think her response was great and you can find that here
I’ve definitely been there. Here’s my advice (pick and choose what fits for you):
Keep a notebook with you and jot down ideas as they come to you. I’ve heard of authors that keep “first line” journals, “title” journals, “what if” journals, etc. I have a google doc in which I keep screen caps and notes of prompts and ideas. I may not get to some of them but I like having them all in one place.
Write something else. Write a letter to a friend, capture a dream you had, revisit a favorite childhood memory.
Doodle. Listen to music. Dance. Bake banana bread. Do something, anything creative, to get things flowing again.
Accept that a first draft of anything isn’t going to be a finished piece of work, and it isn’t supposed to be good. It’s supposed to be a start. Writing happens in layers, just like a painting.
Start with an outline or some basic plot points instead of jumping right into the story. Make a timeline, do a character study, imagine the physical setting in which your story takes place. Flush it out bit by bit by bit.
Set a goal to write for a reasonable period of time, and then write without rereading or editing as you go. When you’re done, walk away. Look at it again in a couple of days and you’ll see where you can make improvements.
Be aware of “productive procrastination.” For example, you’re going to sit down and write and then you decide to do the laundry, clean out a closet, and take the dog for a walk. Resist the urge to do those things. If it’s too hard to not get distracted by that stuff, take your laptop to your local library and write there.
Create some writing routines. Maybe you need a cup of tea by your side, or certain lighting, or you write best first thing in the morning or right after lunch. Maybe you like to have some music playing, maybe you need silence. Create your own writing environment.
Write in a coffee shop. Research shows that the level of noise in a coffee shop is just right to foster productivity without being too distracting. Of course, this depends on the coffee shop.
You don’t have to write in chronological order. If you can’t stop thinking about something that happens 2/3 of the way into the story, go ahead and write it. If you’re writing one story and get an idea for a second, go ahead and start the second.
Don’t wait for everything to align. If we wait for motivation we’ll be waiting a long time. Sometimes we have to just go ahead and start.
I get writer’s block badly sometimes. When nothing else works, I write when I am supposed to be doing something else. This is what I mean: when I am really, really having trouble, I sit down for like 5 minutes before I leave the house. because I don’t have long, it turns off the self-critical part of my brain and words just flow. It can be hard to stop when I am supposed to leave, but I find that if I get excited about it, then my brain wants to keep adding pieces and I will think about that story more during the day and when I come home, I can usually add more. I have also had success with writing ANYTHING because even if what you are typing is something like “I am not sure what to write. this is stupid but here are some words on a page,” pretty soon that is boring and my brain longs for more and I will start something. even if it is just basic things like, “I am not sure what John and Sherlock are doing right now but I know they are at a crime scene,” or whoever your characters are. The titles, situations, or inspirations documents can really help. I often have 2 or 3 documents open when I’m between projects and I will add a sentence or two to each until I get inspired and things start flowing on one of them.
If
you’re still feeling shy about writing fic, if you’re feeling that
that’s now how you’ll grow as a writer or publish, know that some pretty
well-known names wrote fan fiction—and then went on to write original work, work that
generated its own fandoms.
Hugo-award
winner Lois McMaster Bujold, author of stories like The Mountains of Mourning,Paladin
of Souls, and Cryoburn, wrote Star
Trek fan fic as a young girl. Andy Weir, writer of The Martian, the book from which the movie was made, wrote Ready Player One fan fic. Mark Gatiss, co-creator
of Sherlock, has been writing Doctor Who stories for decades.
There’s
more. R. J. Anderson, best-selling author of young adult fiction and writer of
the novels Knife,Arrow, and Swift, started out with fan fiction and says getting online,
sharing her stories with other readers, and meeting other writers, encouraged her
and improved her skills.
Neil
Gaiman, author of Neverwhere, Stardust, and American Gods, used to write fic, saying he earned a Hugo “for
a story that ripped off Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and H. P.
Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos.”
Gaiman
goes on to say that all writing helps
you hone your writing skills. “I think you get better as a writer by
writing, and whether that means that you’re writing a singularly deep and
moving novel about the pain or pleasure of modern existence or you’re writing
Smeagol-Gollum slash you’re still putting one damn word after another and
learning as a writer.”
Then there are fans who took their geek passions and turned
them in to award-winning programming. Irish filmmaker Emer Reynolds devoured
sci-fi growing up, her shelves full of Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock and
H.G. Wells. In this last year Reynolds released to world-wide and award-winning
acclaim the feature length science documentary The Farthest.
Writer Chris Charter couldn’t get enough of The Twilight Zone, loving it so much he
kept fiddling with the format—leaving failed TV shows in his wake—until he went
on to create The X-Files, a programme
so popular in the early 90s that people avoided making Friday night plans—me
among them!
These examples are just the tip of the fic and creativity
iceberg and the take home
message is simply this:
Just
damn well write the stories you want to write. Create the art you want to
create. Love the fandom you love.
It’s
that love and passion and practice that can take you so very, very far.
I want to jump into the Sherlock Holmes playground, but good lord it’s intimidating. A fandom that’s spanned over a century and has writers like Neil Gaiman and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Chabon. I just want to write some bee-keeping in Sussex retirement fluff, but even in that there are so many pitfalls. The language! I’m not in the worst position—I’ve been soaking in Victoriana since I was an annoying bookish child and early moderns since not long after. I have a live in Brit-picker, but that doesn’t help for 100 years ago. Then you get into their age, class, education—every word choice they’d have made was influenced by so many factors I know nothing about. The setting? I’ve never been to Sussex! I can’t grow roses to save my life! Bees scare me!
But, there’s something comforting at jumping into something so many people have done and continue to do.
And there’s always Garashir to come home to.
Hey, i hope you write your ACD Sussex fluff! I don’t think every detail had to be “right” for it to be enjoyable. Also, you can look for a research beta to help you with geography/bees/whatever.
I haven’t read any Victorian fic except for Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice in 9th grade, a Christmas Carol, and Treasure Island to see if it was too graphic for my son ( it wasn’t).
I do not have a Brit picker. I take out all my ‘z’s add ou a lot, and rely on others to tell me about things like candy floss.
Ok. I’ve been to Sussex. But I wrote first. Before I went to Sussex.
Every plant I have dies. And I hate roses due to a very complicated story involving the death of a family member that is rather unpleasant.
I am allergic to bees and they terrify me.
Write the thing!
❤
But we’ve read their stories. We haven’t read yours!
@papallion that’s the single most helpful comment I’ve ever read.
Oh please give it a go! I can only repeat what everyone’s already said, but this is a great, welcoming community and I’m sure people would help you out if you needed it. Plus, I’m a sucker for retirement fluff. 🙂
No one else can write your story! It doesn’t matter if it is perfect. We all get better as we go. In any genre there are amazing writers already and fanfic is no different, but don’t let it intimidate you. WE want to read your stories too. Please give us more retirement fluff!
I love how internet best friends show each other how much they love each other by dedicating fan fiction to one other It’s like “Hey, You’re a fantastic bestfriend, Here’s two guys fucking in a kitchen”
if you want concrit, ask for it. if it’s not requested, don’t fucking leave it
IMO if someone asks for con crit and you have any place to send it other than a comment on the fic, that’s where it should go. The comments section isn’t critic’s fuckin corner; it’s squee-town, population: excited to be here
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 