gnutmeg | How to Write a "Thousand Year Fic" like Starligh

How to Write a "Thousand Year Fic" like Starlight by nutmeg

Step 1: Find yourself a writing partmer - it helps if you find someone who writes in a similar style to your own, so there's less editing. It helps even more if you work with an awesome friend (like

my2browneyes for me <3) so you can have a lot of laughs along the way. It also helps in assigning roles, say if I'm Steve, she's Loki, who will play Bucky? And if we add Carol? Or Jess? Or Matt? Or Thor? Or Tony? Damn it, let's stick to one on one. XD

Step 2: Find your preferred writing place - Starlight is written as a series of short messages/texts via google hangouts. This is awesome because everything is backed up straight to my gmail and I can access it anywhere. Other char forms work too, as long as they have that back up capability. (Way back in the day, AIM was my favourite just turn history on.) Google docs could also work, or any other program that lets two or more access the same writing space. We like Hnagouts because we can do it from any of our devices throughout the day at our own pace and still collect it all in one place in the end.

Step 3: Editing! - this is definitely the hardest part for me, so we called in another friend on Starlight. Dear [Unknown site tag] helps. First I transfer about a month at a time from gmail to a text window them Find&Replace as much of the markups as I can (message from x to x) then stick it in google docs, where [Unknown site tag] edits out stuff the find and replace didn't catch, and asks all the good questions, catches weird spellings, and other such funness. Then it bounces back to me for one last check, fixing what she pointed out and any timeline things that may have changed that she wouldn't know about.

Step 4: Find a place to post - Ao3 is great. As is Dreamwidth, WordPress, Tumblr(ish), FF.net... wherever you like that fits your needs. We like to sometimes explore dark themes, so Ao3's higher ratings is best for us.

Step 5: Share it - as far as I'm concerned, writing is about enjoyment. Especially fandom writing. I'd keep writing Starlight even if no one else ever read it, but we do have a few fans an they have fun with it, so we have fun with them. Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect, not even the originators can do perfect. So just have fun.

Yup. That's it. Fic for fun. AKA The never ending soap opera. XD If you like Marvel and rarepairs, feel from to come on over and see what we're doing in Starlight. We're legit a year behind in editing largely due to my being sick. (When you are exhausted 99% of the time, it can be really hard to focus on editing, let me tell you.) But there's so much there. We've been doing this for years and don't plan to stop any time soon. Perhaps never! lol