more writing advice you didn’t ask for
Make your setting into a character.
This sounds weird but I’m legit serious. Choose the setting of your story/fic intentionally and incorporate it into the story in a thousand little ways. Pay attention to how the weather, people, culture, and scenery affect your characters. Make the story feel like it couldn’t possibly be set anywhere else and still work. This can range from “six people caught in a murder cube” to “adventure in Paris” to “road trip across the country.” Make your setting BREATHE and don’t forget it’s there. Seed subplots or metaphors. This is something that CAN be planned ahead, but more often than not, it’s something that you figure out after an initial draft of the story is done. Not so useful when you’re writing a long-form fic that you’re writing chapter by chapter unless you’re an excellent planner, but if you have a complete draft and the time, look through your main story arc and consider how you can weave in a repeated (SUBTLE!) metaphor or subplot that will enhance the main story. It can be reflective of the journey the mains are going through or a foil to their story. It will help flesh out your overall story and make it feel more intentional. Remember your secondary characters are living their own full story too.
This is a technique that’s really common in romance series because authors often spin off another romance from the secondary characters that connect most with readers. It’s easier to write about characters that already have some sort of personality and backstory. However, it works in any sort of story. It’s really important to remember that in order for characters to feel fleshed out, they need to have their own motivations and things that are happening “off screen” in their lives. They’re not just standees that enter a void when they’re not in the immediate vicinity of the mains. What are they doing when they’re not around? How is that affecting their behavior?
Multi-POV stories should have a distinctive voice.
This is a bit subjective, so grain of salt and all that. Especially if you’re writing in third-person omniscient (outside the characters but aware of what’s happening in each one’s head). You can apply this in different ways. Every person has a somewhat unique outlook on their situation. They have individual verbal tics, turns of phrase. They notice different things. One character may pay closer attention to people while another is more navel-gazey. Maybe one is food-centric and another is motivated by a need for approval. Those character traits inform their voice and how they observe the world around them. Use that.
Experimentation is good. Try to make it intentional.
This isn’t strictly necessary if you’re literally just having fun and letting a fic be your playground. If that’s the case, do what you want, don’t let anyone stop you! It’s how you learn. However, if your goal is to level up your writing for consumption, it’s good to be experimental, but you should have a REASON for doing what you’re doing. Why are you writing in reverse chronological? What is your goal in abandoning punctuation? How does writing from the perspective of a table lamp enhance the story you’re trying to tell? IS IT ART OR WHATEVER (it doesn’t have to be art). Check out Kurt Vonnegut’s Shape of All Stories.
Like seriously go here and see how the structure of different stories work. As with all things, this is neither a concrete blueprint nor the only way to do the thing (and obviously it’s limited in worldview) but it’s a great primer for how you can structure a story in different ways for different effects.
