Working On My Novel And Couldnt Figure Out Why It Felt So Empty. I Didnt Have Any Filler. It Was All

Working on my novel and couldn’t figure out why it felt so empty. I didn’t have any filler. It was all 100% plot. The characters only interacted when necessary. I didn’t prattle on about the scenery or how the birds sounded. I had all my fuller stuff that I loved saved in another file because I “didn’t need it”.

Y’all, I knew this existed in TV shows but it didn’t hit me until this that everything is being whittled down. We are so starving for filler that we snap up anything. I unload all mine on Tumblr or keep it in a massive Google Docs. It SUCKS.

Honestly? Death to plot necessity. Revive filler. Revive unnecessary interactions. Revive just vibing with characters sometimes. I don’t want to just consume the plot and I don’t want to just create the plot either.

"Some days, writing feels like unlocking the universe's secrets; other days, it's more like forgetting how to spell 'the.'"

I'm trying to write but it's not 2am and I'm not hangry and half delirious with exhaustion so of course it's not working.

My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.

Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?

What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?

Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.

Writing References: Plot

Basics: Plot Structure & Narrative Arcs

Basics: Plot & Other Elements of Creative Writing

Plot Methods: Save the Cat! ⚜ The Story Circle

Plot Development: The Transformation Test

Plot Twists ⚜ Types of Plot Twists ⚜ Subplots

Ten Story Genres ⚜ Elements of the 10 Story Genres

The Shape of Story ⚜ The Shapes of Stories by Kurt Vonnegut

Tips

From Margaret Atwood

From Rick Riordan

Editing

Chapter Maps

Plot Holes & Other Structural Issues

Self-Editing

For Inspiration

Character & Literary Tropes

Ways to Generate an Idea

Writing References: Character Development ⚜ World-building

They call me 007: 0 motivation, 0 ideas, 7 thousand WIPS