alexxphoenix42:

I had a nonny ask me a question last night – how do you
write a good Omegaverse story, and I gave as good an off-the-cuff answer as I could.
It’s a good question, and one of course that applies to all writing, and I
think it deserves a longer answer. How do you write a good story?

I think good stories start by asking the question “what if .
. .” After watching S4, Sherlock fans might ask “What if Mary faked her death?”
or “What if all of TFP was really John hallucinating in a fever dream, and then
he wakes up?” I think some good Omegaverse questions might have started with “What
if men had to have babies?” or “What if men were considered the weaker sex?” Once
you’ve asked a question that challenges the status quo, you’re off and running
with a story.

Everything you write needs to rotate around your “what if”
question. What kind of people need to inhabit the world of this “what if?” Even
if you are using established characters from a fandom like John and Sherlock,
you have to ask yourself, what is THIS John and Sherlock like? How did this
world or scenario shape and crack them? If you are creating a new world, you
have to ask how is it different, and also the same to our world? Creating some
ground rules helps a lot.  Some authors like
to keep a file on their world, a fact cheat sheet they can refer to. If you are
writing a SF or fantasy or Omegaverse fic, what are the basic rules that make
up this world? Jot them down for future reference.

Next, you need a good conflict. What is getting in the way
of your character’s finding peace and fulfillment? What is blocking them from getting
where they need to be and how do they get there? A popular way of writing
stories is in three acts, the set up, the crisis, and the wrap up. Often
writers will build the tension, having character face a few minor problems
before the biggie, and then they are on to the resolve and the ending. How did
the big problem or the crisis change things? Are the characters different? Is
the situation different? Each story will answer this their own way.

Then you need your details, the small things that make this
story come alive. When people give advice for writing and say “write what you
know” I don’t think they mean just write stories about your day job, and
waiting in traffic, and going to the grocery store. They mean bring your
thoughts, and feelings, and experiences to this story and breathe life into so
it feels like things happening to real people in the real world. If your
character is remembering their childhood, remember YOUR childhood. Put the
smell of your gran’s apple pie, or that mean kid who made you afraid to go to
lunch, or the realization that you were probably never going to actually BE a
famous rockstar one day into your story.

Also, it’s fine to write about things you know nothing about.
Learning weird new stuff for a fic is part of the fun in writing I think. I’m
old. There wasn’t even an internet when I was in school. Now we have so much
fabulous information at our fingertips. Some will say don’t use Wikipedia, it’s
often wrong, but I would hazard to say that for fanfic, close enough is close
enough. Put a note in your fic that this probably isn’t an accurate
representation of neurosurgery or the British law system.  You can always update later if more accurate
info comes your way.                              

Don’t be afraid to write crap your first go around. When you
write, you have at least two hats you need to wear – the creator and the
editor, and they are very different jobs. Many talk about writing not a first
draft, but a zero draft when they first start a story. Write the worst thing
you possibly can that just gets you started. When you aren’t sure of a fact or
a name or whatever, leave brackets in your story (fancy breed of dog) or (city
in the south of Wales) to be filled in later when you start editing. Your beginning
draft doesn’t have to be or do anything beyond just existing. It’s a beginning.
You build from there.

A couple of books that I just adored for writing and like to
rec to people are … How
Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them–A
Misstep-by-Misstep by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, and Wired
for Story by Lisa Cron. Both are fun fantastic guides that really
helped me understand the concept and process of writing better.

Don’t give up, and keep going. No one runs a marathon their
first day. It takes days and days of stretching and training and smaller runs
before someone works up to big race. So it is with writing. Write your
drabbles, and your awkward poetry, and your half-baked ideas, and keep going. With
practice, it all gets easier and your writing gets better.

Happy writing out there!