How To Write Marvel Fanfiction

The Great Disappearing Act

I swear, some writers are secret magicians. They update their story, and then randomly just disappear to never be seen again. 

Okay, so a lot of us are complete fucking hot messes when it comes to updating fanfics. Which, honestly, is valid. That shit is hard and it takes too many brain cells to make the words work, sometimes. I don't blame y'all. Update when you can, and don't get too hard on yourself for vanishing into thin air sometimes. Shit happens, readers get it. 

But if you actually want some fucking tips to staying on track with an updating schedule, then here ya fucking go.  

First of all, have an update schedule. 

If you want your fanfiction to seem all fancy and proper, have a fucking update schedule. Whether that schedule is updating every Thursday or every other Thursday or Mondays and Fridays, whatever. Your schedule can be as stretched out or as bunched up as you like, it's all up to you and what you think will fit best into your personal writing schedule. Obviously, you're going to fuck up sometimes, you're not perfect and it's fine if an update is a day or two or three or twenty late. 

But the important part of having an update schedule is having a fucking writing schedule.

Some writers get so caught up in update schedules that they forget they have to actually write the updates first in order to update the story. Shocking, I know. 

If you want to get more routine with writing your fic than fucking make it a routine. Give yourself a time or word goal to meet every day. It doesn't always have to be big. You can just say 'alright, I need to write at least 100 words a day to get to the 1k mark for my next update' and if that works for you, it fucking works. Find what works into your life and roll with it. I tend to write chapters all in one sitting, but some people are not as lazy as I am and can space it out. You do you.

The thing to realize though is that a writing schedule is not a writing routine. I know some writers who need to go through their perfect little routine otherwise "my muses won't speak to me!" Fuck off, you're making it weird. You don't need to pray to the blood moon and sacrifice your cat to Baphomet every time you need to write. You're only limiting yourself by making up excuses as to what environment you "need" to write. Stop Pavlov-ing yourself.

"But I have writer's block!"

You wanna know a secret? Lean in real close, this one's a dosey. 

Writer's block isn't a thing. 

You have writer's block because you just don't want to write, or you don't know what to write next. And both of those problems are pretty easily fixed.

If you don't want to write? Well, why the fuck are you a writer.

If you want to be serious about writing and get better at it, you need to fucking write. You wouldn't go to your boss and say "Hey man, don't feel like working today, the stars aren't aligned. Sorry." That's stupid as fuck and so are you.

Just write. Give yourself a small word or time goal. Eliminate all distractions. Put on some nice studying music or a white noise website, and get to fucking writing. There are slow and boring scenes, I get it. But you've got to write them, and that's that. 

Now the other problem of not knowing what comes next.

Well, why the fuck are you writing a story that you don't know?

Generally speaking, you should at least know what's going to happen in the next few chapters. I'm a huge outliner, and love to outline every minute detail of a fanfiction before I even start chapter one. But you don't have to do that, you just need a basic plan.

If you don't know what comes next, then work backwards. What needs to happen for you to get to the plot point that you know is coming? If you're at Step C of the plot, how do you plan to get to Step Q? That sort of thing. Decide what plot points you need to hit in your next chapter, and write them.

And if you don't know how your story is going to end at all, then I'm just fucking concerned at this point. You should always have a beginning, middle, and end planned before you start writing, or at least before you start posting. If you're just winging it the whole time and don't know what's coming, your readers will be able to tell and the plot will look sloppy. 

Basically, learn how to fucking manage your life, dudes. It's easier than it sounds, I promise.