R.A. Young

I mentioned my* collaborative writing website on another #pretendpanel post, so today we're talking about the features I like on Ellipsus!

*My refers to "the collaborative writing website I use" and not to mean that I'm on the ellipsus team in any way.

( Folders )

There's a great drafts function that I can use both the intended way and the unintended way.

( Linked drafts - the intended way with edits and comments )

( Linked drafts - the unintended way for writing questionnaires )

These tools from Ellipsus are the ones I like best. There are a lot more but I already have a ton of screenshots

So feel free to ask me any questions from this post or things you saw in the screenshots but I didn't talk about!

I'm currently in the best place to answer this, having just broken through a 6 year old writer's block.

Here's the generic advice that worked for me:

1) Don't hold it against yourself.

You're in the flow, you're making words, and then bam! you're halfway through a sentence and the second half doesn't exist anywhere, not even in your brain. Of course you'd be annoyed.

Only spend that moment being annoyed, and then give yourself some grace. Holding it against yourself won't make the words come, and doesn't give you energy/space for 2 and 3.

2) The characters know better.

Usually, if the characters are the ones putting the block, I definitely trust them. Why? That kind of block means that you're not writing based on their history within the fic. So you'll have to go back and check what's up in terms of the character - are they in the wrong environment? Was that the wrong time for that remark, and what's a better time to say it? (I rarely throw dialogue - if it came to me, that has its own reasons.)

To bring up the example on Jan 6, my MC was supposed to escape and hand over her evidence to the police. The MC didn't wanna, and I got writer's block.

I went back and reread, and found that the beef between the MC and the villain warranted a throw down between them. That's how the writer's block got broken.

3) Sometimes it's not a story thing solved by writing.

The six year writer's block included the pandemic. 'Nuff said.

Tip 1: Every thought is an exclusive one-off performance.
Tip 2: Write everything down.

What exactly do my tips mean?

1) Think of every flash of inspiration as a single live performance. Even if you have the same thought again, like a live performance it differs with each session. Add on the detail that you are the only one in the audience, so only you know what went down.

That leads me to...

2) Write everything down.

Because you are the only one in the current audience, the only way your inspiration will get to a wider audience is if you write it down.

It will never be 100% of what's in your head. But if people do not give up on recorded music and even happily argue over the formats, you can take writing as a similar process to recording music.

Of course, just as recording technology has improved over time, your writing will also improve and get closer to the version in your head... but only if you keep iterating just as recorded music has.

So. Write. Everything. Down.

I use the term "plantser" (plotter+pantser) but my definition isn't the usual.

I don't start the first draft until I have plotted the story. But thanks to my writing based on emotional beats, after 50% I usually start pantsing based on a clearer picture of inter-character dynamics.

For example, in a project I (thought I) was close to finishing, the MC was supposed to escape and hand over her evidence to the police. But with a clearer picture of the beef between the MC and the villain, the MC now throws down with the villain, with the MC's police contact bringing back-up.

My latest technique that I picked up online is to start with a gauge. Like a knitting gauge testing things like needle and yarn, a writing gauge tests things like person, tense, tone, pace, and style via a snippet.

I aim for a snippet that best matches my inspiration, to see if it's a good starter/I need a new gauge.

( Resources )

I picked up #pretendpanel on bsky, where we'll spend Jan practicing how to answer writers panel type questions.

Here's the attempt for Jan 1:



Hi everyone, great to be at #pretendpanel! I'm R.A. Young, with 15 years of creative writing - full-time prose, part-time poetry. After existential questions about creative writing vs AI, I began writing my debut novel about a girl and an AI that believes it's her magical girl mascot.


( Resource )