The "canon Isn't Real We Make Our Own Rules" To "i Am Begging You People To Revisit The Source Material"

the "canon isn't real we make our own rules" to "i am begging you people to revisit the source material" pipeline

You know that thing where you don't have time to write, but you spend all day turning a scene this way and that in your head and getting the words in order in your head? And you do that for hours measured out in stolen moments of giving the scene a big think, and you finally open up the document and...

What do you mean the page is blank? The scene isn't written? Like? Whaaat? How is that possible?!

They say you should make art for yourself, but the folks writing long-form fic on AO3 where the last reader comment was thirty-five chapters ago and they're still updating every week like clockwork are putting that into practice in ways I can only dream of.

I just think people write out of obligation too often.

"How do I motivate myself to write through the boring part of my story?"

"How do I make this boring scene not boring?"

Don't write it.

Don't write boring things just because you think the structure of the story demands it. I promise it doesn't need to be there.

If your characters need to have gone shopping for a later part of the story to make sense you can just have a sentence about how they went shopping and move on.

You are not obligated to write the boring parts. No matter what those parts are.

You are not obligated to make the parts of your story that you're not excited to write interesting somehow.

You can just write the fun and interesting parts and gloss over and summarize boring things.

Your audience will thank you and you will thank yourself.

someone: hey I noticed this thing you did in your writing!

me, kicking my feet up flirtatiously: oh??? do you want to hear my thoughts on why I did that? do you want a play-by-play of the language choices in every related sentence? do you want an exhaustive breakdown of The Themes???

Level 1: Porn with plot

Level 2: Porn with social commentary

Level 3: Porn with troubling philosophical implications

Level 4: Porn with maddening revelations of humanity’s place in the cosmos

Level 5: Porn with math