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the writing Process
i wrote a post with commentary on my 2019 and 2021 olymfics which obviously i can't post yet bc olymfics isn't over, but it got me thinking about how the process of writing from start to finish...so this is me explaining how i write fic:
how is fic formed
i assume? that most people are like this? but the two main ways i come up with ideas for a fic are 1. starting with a pairing/dynamic and coming up with a plot to accompany that or 2. starting with a plot idea and figuring out what pairing goes with it. in my mind, i think i've written a lot of fic with the second but when looking back at my ao3s i was like oh lmao i can't rly find that many examples. maybe those are more the fics i want to write, but never get around to? for example, for yrs i've been wanting to write idol/pd (or stylist, or backup dancer, or anyone connected to the industry) and at various points i've attempted to slot in whoever i think works. or like, immediately after ggjb's first mixtape round ended i decided the next time i would claim the bad genius the series theme song and write a school cheating au even tho as it stands i have no idea who i would write it about.
i've written a lot of slice of life over the last 1.5 years, and those are primarily the fics where i start with the pairing and a single mental image and then i think about what scenes would go with it to tell a "complete" story. it feels like it's been literally forever since i wrote a fic about getting together even tho those are some of my favorite types of fic to read. i feel like that process involves a different line of thinking, bc you also have to consider whether or not you've given the romance enough development. writing a bunch of established relationship fic is comparatively easier. that's probably why getting into bl fandom drove me into a writing frenzy.
for most of my fic written with Purpose (that is: an exchange fic, a fic with a specific plot instead of just slice of life), i tend to outline. sometimes those are more informal outlines (just popping scene ideas into the word doc i'm writing in or a google keep note) and sometimes it's a whole separate word doc with other notes and timeline details. some examples would be 2019 ficmix, 2019 olymfics, 2020 yuletide. sometimes i have a rly clear idea of what scenes i want as i brainstorm and sometimes i have to approach things from the perspective of "i need a scene that shows x emotion" (which is usually when i enlist the help of friends fkgkgk). plot is not my strong suit and it's something i used to really struggle with, but i think i've gotten better!
i find it rly difficult to get into writing a fic if i don't have a title for it. it's like step two of my writing process after coming up with an idea, because the title serves as a shorthand for the mood or tone of the whole thing. i draw a lot of inspiration from poetry (the main reason i read poetry these days, unfortunately) or song lyrics. if nothing ends up speaking to me i twill slap something vaguely relevant or goofy on there. for longer or more challenging fics, i like to have one or two songs i listen to throughout the writing process. i have a loooong commute so brainstorming while i drive by listening to a song on repeat is where i get most of my plotting done. put on the song, pay attention to what mental images come up.
for me, it's always really important to keep moving forward if i am stuck. sometimes a fic is littered with "[MORE]" or "[FINISH]" and i would rather move onto the next scene than get stuck trying to finish a scene. i think this is why a lot of my endings (of fics, of scenes) feel half-assed because uhhh they usually are. if i let myself get stuck, i stay stuck.
i am obsessed with research. i think when i am asked to visualize things, like the apple test or whatever, i see a pretty clear apple. it's when you're asking that apple to like...move around and interact with things that i am like HOLD UP. for a lot of types of scenes, i feel like i can't write something unless i have a mental image to go along with it. whether that means looking up airbnbs for apartments in a certain neighborhood or watching MULTIPLE videos of a car ride from bkk to hua hin or looking at multiple images of a recording studio before settling on one. i once lost an hour of my life reading academic papers about speech development in korean children to reference an articulation error in a child. i am unhinged, don't be like me. i just cannot seem to get started on a scene if it feels like it's taking place in a void. i think that too often i get excited to add a specific detail that doesn't rly add anything to the plot but makes me feel Special for knowing that detail or incorporating it. regardless i would like to think that if you fact checked many of my fics, they're pretty realistic.
staygame specifics
a few years ago, i sent reet a fic to look over and she responded with "ur clean prose and natural dialogue" and i screencapped it to refer to whenever i am plagued with self-doubt. those are the things i tend to associate with myself: prose that is fairly simple, rarely grandiose, and dialogue that attempts to mirror how people actually talk to each other. i luv writing dialogue and a lot of times when i am stuck on a scene, i will just write the dialogue and come back to fill the rest in later, because comparatively it just comes easy to me. i can't stand shows or writing where characters just don't talk to each other like real humans, whether that's characters who constantly monologue at each other (sorkin) or characters who constantly speak in zingers.
like i said, my prose leans more towards simple and er...factual? i have been writing fanfiction for a decade but i've been reading fanfiction for even longer, and i would say that if anything, my writing style has been most shaped by bandom. i tend to associate bandom fic with tight third person, present tense, and a kind of breezy storytelling where things just happen and aren't dwelled on for long. (don't ask me why this particular fic has stuck with me for 13 years but this is an example. and not that it's bandom but this is another example of a fic that exemplifies the kind of style i've always been drawn to.) after getting into kpop, the two authors i always come back to are lj users drugsex and colorfunk. one time someone said a fic of mine reminded them of drugsex and i took it as THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE COMPLIMENT. i don't think it's super accurate because i'll never be as good as the gross, sexy imagery of drugsex (how do you manage to make pimple popping or putting in an earring erotic? because you're that good) but still. i take what i can get.
i'm going to post some passages from each author that i assembled a while ago as "examples of writing i wish i wrote like" (click on the name)
or maybe it was just a cut and dry case of sympathizing with one's captor, extended exposure and proximity causing him to misdirect affection and yeah, probably, jonghyun thinks, that was probably it.
2. jonghyun comes looking at minho, his hand trembling, cupping the head of his dick with his fingers to avoid ruining the sheets, smearing it back down his shaft for the last few strokes. minho wants to reach out and touch jonghyun but he stays still and watches his dick get soft instead, the entire situation coming back into an awkward, uncomfortable focus.
all of my friends are amazing writers in their own right and i always think about how cathy comes up with the most evocative metaphors and how reet is so funny and always gets to the heart of the Human Experience. i have been inevitably influenced by so many of my friends since early kpop fandom and shaped by their creative input and thoughtful feedback. i sincerely love talking about fic and brainstorming and hearing other people's ideas, all of which, i think, contributes to my own writing, especially when it comes to characterization or emotional notes.
you may be reading this (let's be real, no one is reading all this) and thinking, "hey staygame, don't you write a lot of pwps?" and 1. yes but 2. intimacy is a great vessel for all kinds of emotions and relationship dynamics without having to come up with a real plot. the kind of porn i wrote for chanyeol/tao back in exo is fundamentally different than the kind of porn i've written for idk...khai/third. ultimately, regardless if i'm writing victory blowjobs or wedding planning or crossdressing, characterization is still going to be my priority. this is probably also why my characters talk so much while they're banging.
here are some passages that feel like #me:
if i had to come up with a staygame bingo, it would probably look like this:
future plans:
i will AT SOME POINT write kpop fic that isn't specifically for a challenge...idk how i became a fromis_9/lovelyz writer exclusively these days except for the fact that ggjb is all i participate in anymore. someone please hold me to writing the seungjun/changyoon and changyoon/yuto fics i want to write.
there are also a handful of bl fics i want to write as well. pray for me to last until work slows down and i finally have more than four minutes of alertness left in the evenings. i don't know if i will replicate the output of the last two years but here's to hoping.
(me: i am too tired to write
also me: spends two full weeks slowly writing 2k words about my own writing)
how is fic formed
i assume? that most people are like this? but the two main ways i come up with ideas for a fic are 1. starting with a pairing/dynamic and coming up with a plot to accompany that or 2. starting with a plot idea and figuring out what pairing goes with it. in my mind, i think i've written a lot of fic with the second but when looking back at my ao3s i was like oh lmao i can't rly find that many examples. maybe those are more the fics i want to write, but never get around to? for example, for yrs i've been wanting to write idol/pd (or stylist, or backup dancer, or anyone connected to the industry) and at various points i've attempted to slot in whoever i think works. or like, immediately after ggjb's first mixtape round ended i decided the next time i would claim the bad genius the series theme song and write a school cheating au even tho as it stands i have no idea who i would write it about.
i've written a lot of slice of life over the last 1.5 years, and those are primarily the fics where i start with the pairing and a single mental image and then i think about what scenes would go with it to tell a "complete" story. it feels like it's been literally forever since i wrote a fic about getting together even tho those are some of my favorite types of fic to read. i feel like that process involves a different line of thinking, bc you also have to consider whether or not you've given the romance enough development. writing a bunch of established relationship fic is comparatively easier. that's probably why getting into bl fandom drove me into a writing frenzy.
for most of my fic written with Purpose (that is: an exchange fic, a fic with a specific plot instead of just slice of life), i tend to outline. sometimes those are more informal outlines (just popping scene ideas into the word doc i'm writing in or a google keep note) and sometimes it's a whole separate word doc with other notes and timeline details. some examples would be 2019 ficmix, 2019 olymfics, 2020 yuletide. sometimes i have a rly clear idea of what scenes i want as i brainstorm and sometimes i have to approach things from the perspective of "i need a scene that shows x emotion" (which is usually when i enlist the help of friends fkgkgk). plot is not my strong suit and it's something i used to really struggle with, but i think i've gotten better!
i find it rly difficult to get into writing a fic if i don't have a title for it. it's like step two of my writing process after coming up with an idea, because the title serves as a shorthand for the mood or tone of the whole thing. i draw a lot of inspiration from poetry (the main reason i read poetry these days, unfortunately) or song lyrics. if nothing ends up speaking to me i twill slap something vaguely relevant or goofy on there. for longer or more challenging fics, i like to have one or two songs i listen to throughout the writing process. i have a loooong commute so brainstorming while i drive by listening to a song on repeat is where i get most of my plotting done. put on the song, pay attention to what mental images come up.
for me, it's always really important to keep moving forward if i am stuck. sometimes a fic is littered with "[MORE]" or "[FINISH]" and i would rather move onto the next scene than get stuck trying to finish a scene. i think this is why a lot of my endings (of fics, of scenes) feel half-assed because uhhh they usually are. if i let myself get stuck, i stay stuck.
i am obsessed with research. i think when i am asked to visualize things, like the apple test or whatever, i see a pretty clear apple. it's when you're asking that apple to like...move around and interact with things that i am like HOLD UP. for a lot of types of scenes, i feel like i can't write something unless i have a mental image to go along with it. whether that means looking up airbnbs for apartments in a certain neighborhood or watching MULTIPLE videos of a car ride from bkk to hua hin or looking at multiple images of a recording studio before settling on one. i once lost an hour of my life reading academic papers about speech development in korean children to reference an articulation error in a child. i am unhinged, don't be like me. i just cannot seem to get started on a scene if it feels like it's taking place in a void. i think that too often i get excited to add a specific detail that doesn't rly add anything to the plot but makes me feel Special for knowing that detail or incorporating it. regardless i would like to think that if you fact checked many of my fics, they're pretty realistic.
staygame specifics
a few years ago, i sent reet a fic to look over and she responded with "ur clean prose and natural dialogue" and i screencapped it to refer to whenever i am plagued with self-doubt. those are the things i tend to associate with myself: prose that is fairly simple, rarely grandiose, and dialogue that attempts to mirror how people actually talk to each other. i luv writing dialogue and a lot of times when i am stuck on a scene, i will just write the dialogue and come back to fill the rest in later, because comparatively it just comes easy to me. i can't stand shows or writing where characters just don't talk to each other like real humans, whether that's characters who constantly monologue at each other (sorkin) or characters who constantly speak in zingers.
like i said, my prose leans more towards simple and er...factual? i have been writing fanfiction for a decade but i've been reading fanfiction for even longer, and i would say that if anything, my writing style has been most shaped by bandom. i tend to associate bandom fic with tight third person, present tense, and a kind of breezy storytelling where things just happen and aren't dwelled on for long. (don't ask me why this particular fic has stuck with me for 13 years but this is an example. and not that it's bandom but this is another example of a fic that exemplifies the kind of style i've always been drawn to.) after getting into kpop, the two authors i always come back to are lj users drugsex and colorfunk. one time someone said a fic of mine reminded them of drugsex and i took it as THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE COMPLIMENT. i don't think it's super accurate because i'll never be as good as the gross, sexy imagery of drugsex (how do you manage to make pimple popping or putting in an earring erotic? because you're that good) but still. i take what i can get.
i'm going to post some passages from each author that i assembled a while ago as "examples of writing i wish i wrote like" (click on the name)
(->) drugsex
1. jonghyun thinks the general gist of his hypothesis is pretty simple—there had to be something about the synthesis of two bunk beds, four walls, a door, minho and him that must've been the perfect breeding ground for some mutant strain of stockholm syndrome, the only thing that jonghyun can think of to explain the increasingly frequent instances (pangs? waves?) of like—no other word really fit, and it's the only way jonghyun can come up with to describe it.or maybe it was just a cut and dry case of sympathizing with one's captor, extended exposure and proximity causing him to misdirect affection and yeah, probably, jonghyun thinks, that was probably it.
2. jonghyun comes looking at minho, his hand trembling, cupping the head of his dick with his fingers to avoid ruining the sheets, smearing it back down his shaft for the last few strokes. minho wants to reach out and touch jonghyun but he stays still and watches his dick get soft instead, the entire situation coming back into an awkward, uncomfortable focus.
(->)colorfunk
EXO-M was out in L.A. He weighed the option of pulling out his phone and shooting Zitao a message just to say hi, but that was how problems began. Problems like Baekhyun mixing up his priorities. Like Baekhyun feeling too tender, hung up on moments as small as drinking from the same water bottle, their fingerprints superimposed in the condensation. Baekhyun getting the crazy itch to jump on a plane, fly the stupid thing himself, for the chance to fall asleep next to Zitao on a Thursday night. He hadn’t forgotten that missing someone half the time, then having to tiptoe his way around the other half, didn’t sound romantic, it sounded shitty. But he wondered how long they could keep this up, before he was shielding his eyes from the sun and tracking every trail of white exhaust he came across.all of my friends are amazing writers in their own right and i always think about how cathy comes up with the most evocative metaphors and how reet is so funny and always gets to the heart of the Human Experience. i have been inevitably influenced by so many of my friends since early kpop fandom and shaped by their creative input and thoughtful feedback. i sincerely love talking about fic and brainstorming and hearing other people's ideas, all of which, i think, contributes to my own writing, especially when it comes to characterization or emotional notes.
you may be reading this (let's be real, no one is reading all this) and thinking, "hey staygame, don't you write a lot of pwps?" and 1. yes but 2. intimacy is a great vessel for all kinds of emotions and relationship dynamics without having to come up with a real plot. the kind of porn i wrote for chanyeol/tao back in exo is fundamentally different than the kind of porn i've written for idk...khai/third. ultimately, regardless if i'm writing victory blowjobs or wedding planning or crossdressing, characterization is still going to be my priority. this is probably also why my characters talk so much while they're banging.
here are some passages that feel like #me:
Mijoo meets her at the fence gate. She has to fumble with the lock, unfamiliar with this particular section of the Pyeongchang house, and she pries it open with a triumphant aha!.
Soojung, on the other side, does not look amused. She is wearing a t-shirt with big, baggy pants. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun and her cheeks have the plump, pinkish shine of someone who had just finished her skincare routine when Mijoo called. Mijoo remembers nights spent lying on the edge of the bed so she could watch Soojung in the bathroom, swiping toner-wet cotton pads over the bridge of her nose, under her bangs. Unlike Mijoo, who preferred to roll over and marinate in her sex sweat, Soojung almost never skipped her evening routine.
There is some maneuvering, an elbow to Changyoon's windpipe and ankles knocking painfully, like neither of them have ever shared a bed with anyone before. Changyoon ends up on top of Yuto, seated with knees straddling his hips. From this vantage point, Changyoon can see the freckle next to Yuto's eye that he's never noticed before. Yuto's eyelashes are full and dark as he blinks, slowly, watching Changyoon watching him. The conviction that Changyoon held momentarily when he agreed to this faded somewhere between the kitchen and climbing the ladder to Yuto's bed and this position only seems to emphasize the weirdness.
"I'm just gonna," Changyoon says, and leans down, sliding a hand around to cup Yuto's face.
Man deposits Tine across from a tall guy picking something out of his teeth with his pinky nail. "Where'd Sarawat go?" Man asks him, and the other guy shrugs. The name sounds weirdly familiar.
"I'm here," Tine hears behind him. He turns, and he's met with a face like something out of a 90s rom-com. Sarawat has teen heartthrob energy all over him, from the long hair that flops softly in front of his face to the way he holds himself, his posture casually cool. Tine is not a teenager anymore but his heart does throb at the sight. It's either that or the chili prawns he'd had earlier.
"This is Tine," Man says to Sarawat.
Sarawat nods at Tine. "You any good?" he asks, leaning into Tine's space for a private conversation.
"Honestly, my aim is shit," Tine confesses.
"Tine's a five-time beer pong champion," Sarawat announces to Man and the other guy, Boss. "You'd better watch your backs."
If Shin was finally feeling steady on his feet, the wattage of Neo's smile, dimpled and genuinely thrilled, threatens to knock him back. For a moment, Shin's body feels weightless, like the moment a boat rises up to meet the wave's crest, his heart suspended mid-air. Then Neo closes the distance between them, his presence solid, and Shin remembers that his feet are on the ground.
Neo's hug is full-bodied, damp with sweat. Shin tries to wriggle away, mumbling gross into Neo's chest, but this only encourages Neo more and he reaches for Mew, pulling her in under his arm. The three of them sway under the force of the hug, until finally Mew taps out, claiming suffocation.
"I'm glad you're here," Neo tells Shin, then releases him with a pat on the back.
if i had to come up with a staygame bingo, it would probably look like this:
future plans:
i will AT SOME POINT write kpop fic that isn't specifically for a challenge...idk how i became a fromis_9/lovelyz writer exclusively these days except for the fact that ggjb is all i participate in anymore. someone please hold me to writing the seungjun/changyoon and changyoon/yuto fics i want to write.
there are also a handful of bl fics i want to write as well. pray for me to last until work slows down and i finally have more than four minutes of alertness left in the evenings. i don't know if i will replicate the output of the last two years but here's to hoping.
(me: i am too tired to write
also me: spends two full weeks slowly writing 2k words about my own writing)