op on the version of this I saw has turned off reblogs while posting lots of frustrated messages about how they don't care about people's actual responses. I'm adding some things they didn't think of.
I care about y'all's actual responses.
I wanna hear all about your writing in the tags. do tell.
LAST DAY!
Too long to hide in the tags so Imma just throw it on a reblog.
I'm pretty good at multiple of these I think, but the real skill that I think I have is remembering random details I've mentioned and figuring out how to make them important later. I look at a story like a bundle of threads that I'm trying to make into a strong enough rope to hang a plot on. Every thread is something I can potentially weave back in later: a setting detail, a character, an offhanded comment, an event, whatever. At all times I'm thinking about how I can pull prior stuff back in and reincorporate it in a way that feels like a new twist but isn't just dropping unestablished shit into the story with no warning. It's established! It's fully set up! And you'd also never notice if I didn't use it.
I actually learned this from years of DMing. It's straight up improv. On a scale from plotter to pantser, I'm the ultimate pantser, and you'd probably never know it because I've got so much practice making everything look premeditated. It's super not, though, I'm making it up as I go, but I'm making it up like a pyramid, not a tower. (If that makes any sense...)
Anyway that's the secret to how I write so fast. There is no secret. I just have a good memory for shit I've already said and a good sense for when to bring it up again. We are absolutely leaving multiple Chekhov's guns lying around and if any of them get fired, it looks super intentional.