Discussion You Know You're a Fan Fiction Writer When...

When you haven't been active on the boards in a decade, but looked forward to joining the "Over 30 Writer's Club" since you were a teenager, so you log in as soon as you hit 30..... only to find the thread defunct....

 

When you experience relief about something in the real world and say "Thank the Force" because your characters keep saying that...

 

When your mind keeps showing Return of the Writer's Block on replay.

 

The continual low level anxiety of "just sit down and write it. It's in your head. Just write it." but being unable to commit to it.

 

This happens to me from time to time. But I've somehow integrated the word 'Stang!' into my vocabulary.

 

...When Sheevy is actually an adjective
...When each new OTP/MMM challenge is a TREAT.

 

This. 100% this.

 

YKYAFFWW not one but two fanart sites, pixiv.net and virink.com, contain glorious fanart captioned in Japanese and Russian respectively that prompt fetal plot bunnies, and you can't understand either language, plus the alphabets aren't Roman to give a minim of help. And another thing to artistic types: stop changing your names, willya? Dang, first it's one and then another (using the same artistic style so I can stalk tell) and my Danish sense of indexing gets bent out of shape.

 

When you wish you had written a scene on a favorite show because it hit all the right feels.
#travelers

 

Seeing some damaged person on Cops or some other police reality TV show, and wondering how they would fit in Star Wars.

 

...seeing the above guy, @GregMcP 's time travel question on the Character Interview Thread, and viscerally thinking Agent Mitch Nifesta, intervening at the Jedi Temple during Order 66, then remembering, Oh hang on, I've already done that.

Saving Rory and Amy? Yeah done that too. Didn't go too well.

Aaron Hotchner's wife from the Reaper? ...

 

YKYAFFWW you discover a fetal fic on lined paper from your college years during spring cleaning and as it burns in the fireplace, your smile is evil.

 

...you finally finish that epic and part of you is and part of you is “wait, now what?”

 

Muchísimas felicidades.

 

When the muse is tossing you fic ideas for three different fandoms, and your brain has to juggle them.

 

. . . you open documents on your pen/thumb drive in an effort to find out what they are and stumble on unfinished fan fics that you completely forgot you started writing and only sort of remember where you were going with it.

A particular one I'm thinking of features a Chaotic Good Loki in a crossover with the MCU and the Ultimate Spider-Man Cartoon baking cookies for the Avengers and SHIELD Agents but won't share with Peter and his friends for a reason I don't fully remember but I think he was testing their patience or see if they were willing to wait to be given the cookies. I think that shenanigans were going to happen as they tried to get their hands on some cookies because they're hungry and want some cookies.

 

Being unable to write the second half.

I have four unfinished stories right now where we meet the protagonists, and the scene is set, and it all feels detailed and emotional, but.... now they have to do the actual thing that the story is about but the right words are stuck and refuse to be typed.

And.... arrgh.

 

When what seemed like a few paragraphs of intro, in your head, turned into a four page epic on screen; and you are now sitting a bit stunned, thinking, If this took that long, the rest is going to take...[mind collapses with perceived enormity of effort].

 

"A Meeting of Minds"
What I wrote for that is not The Story.
It's an introduction to some characters. It was supposed to be a few paragraphs before I got to the point, but it stretched out to three large postings, and eventually when all the characters finally met, I couldn't put the words into Google Docs. It's half a story, and it's not the story commenters seemed to want me to tell.

One day I'll go "oh yes, of course" and write the rest, and people will wonder why I am dredging this old thing up.

(Sorry, that story's gotten a few mentions lately, and I'm getting pangs of guilt. And yeah yeah, I know. I'm off topic.)

 

Fic-gifts, or writing to order, is a different skill from general writing, so I think that it can be risky diverting from your planned plotline to create content that your commenters are asking you to pursue. Although writing stuff inspired by them, is okay.

You could try rounding off and ending a story if it won't proceed any further. My entry into the Star Peace Index, was the start for a longer disaster fic, but catching it before the action ramped up, made it really suitable as a story for that thread, and I really enjoy reading it in its new incarnation. Just my OCs at a holiday resort.

 

. . . it seems you're double checking how a scene went down in an earlier chapter every five minutes because someone is watching a recording of said scene so you need to get scenes and actions right and doing 'copy and paste' probably will make it harder to write the scene because you have to change a little too much because it isn't a flashback.

 

. . . when your muse finally decides to stop pestering you with ideas because you have already told them that university is your number one priority at the moment - praise the sun!!

 

....your jet-lagged, sleep-deprived brain comes up with the perfect springtime beastwarden plus baby animal story...but it’s from a part of your timeline you weren’t ready to start on

 

....When you feel pretty good about how your first DDC is going so far. Until you remember it's only March.

....when you then remember that March is the 3rd month, and 3x4=12, so therefore you're almost a quarter of the way through already. Awesome!