Alan Turing: Hermann had to at some point dress as his idol. All the costume really entailed was a slightly different tailored suit and styling his hair just a little differently. Most people assumed he hadn’t dressed up. Newton immediately walked into the lab, shouted how good it was to see The Turing gracing their presence and called Hermann “Al” all day. It secretly pleased Hermann a great deal despite how many times he insisted that Newt should still call him the appropriate name per protocol.
Spock: This one took some persuasion from Newt to get Hermann to follow through with it. They were at work after all and he didn’t want to seem unprofessional. Hermann perhaps used the term “illogical” more frequently throughout the day. At the annual Halloween party Tendo put on Newt and him both got a bit tipsy and Newton took his hand and held onto it while joking about how they were technically making out.
Newton Geiszler: Vengence for Newton dressing up as him the year before. Hermann ended up losing his voice after a full day of mimicking Newton’s voice and being far louder than he typically would each day. Newton wasn’t annoyed nearly enough by his attempted retribution as he seemed to find it hilarious more than anything. Still, Hermann kept up the act most the day while they were in the lab alone just to hear his laughter.
Daniel Jackson: By this time Hermann was finding he rather enjoyed getting to dress up for Halloween (something Lars had strictly forbidden cause he’s fucking Lars). If he also took joy in seeing Newt almost fall over himself when he came into the lab to see Hermann wearing a fitted black tshirt, green cargo pants and green military jacket with the Stargate symbol on the sleeve so be it. It ended up leading to an entire day of debating the movie vs. tv series and discussing how the knowledge gained from the breach would factor in.
This is such a damn /jewish/ thing to do and I’m living
Whew, ok so added a bit to TOWOID 16 and did that awesome thing where I linked like… the very first scene I wrote for the Kidnapping AU up to the story that leads up to it, so now I have TWO completed (if still rough) chapters that are actually the FIRST two chapters, and an emerging sense of the shape of the story. Each chapter is roughly 5k words, and who knows how long the fic will be because I’m hyperfixated garbage~~
How to produce a high word count as a fiction writer
I got asked the other day by a very lovely person “how” I produce as high a word count as I do (for reference, on my last big project I wrote about 90k words in a couple months, but there are fic writers out there who do much more than me).
There’s a few answers to that. First a caveat though: having a high word count isn’t always a good thing. It’s perfectly fine not to have a high word count, everyone has their own pace and style. Being careful with your words is also important, so I’m not going to advocate some NaNoWriMo-style write-’til-you-drop daily word count thing, that’s just a good way to get burned out and never want to write again (in general I don’t think NaNoWriMo is an all-around great thing for writers to do, though it can impart some valuable lessons, but that’s an essay for another day). With that out of the way, onto the tips.
1) Writing is like marathon running. It takes time to build up endurance. Especially if you’re a very young person, it’s completely natural to not have that endurance yet. I used to literally sweat chugging out 500 words over the course of an entire evening (or two) when I was a teenager, nowadays I can do that in 15 minutes (this is 15 years later though). It just takes practice. That doesn’t necessarily mean writing every day, but it does mean trying to write as often as possible. I heard a good tip once that said, “If you have 15 minutes in your day to spare to help out a friend in need, then you have 15 minutes to spend on developing yourself and your chosen pursuit.” Which in this case could be writing. Again, easy words to say when possessing time and inspiration, I’m no stranger to the multi-month or multi-year dry spell. But it’s a good way to think about being kind to yourself and realistic with your time and energy while also continuing to pursue your goal.
One of the reasons to pursue a high word count is stamina. If you can chug out a lot of words, it means you have more energy for writing good words without wearing yourself out. However, this isn’t true for everyone! This is just my experience. Being able to churn out a lot means that you’re writing more, practicing more, and have a larger body of work to look back on which is a pretty great feeling in itself.
You can build up endurance by pursuing your passion, this means writing the story you want to write and that you’re most passionate about. Forgive yourself for not completing things (though you will learn and grow a great deal when you do complete things!). This also means not beating yourself up for missing writing days. Despair and self-hatred are more likely to slow you down than help you grow.
You can also build up endurance on tough days, or days when you just don’t have a story to work on by doing 15 minute drills. Take a story prompt, expect to never let anyone see it ever, and write for fifteen minutes. One fun exercise is to turn on a song you like and write a story or a scene or just a bit of description for what you see when you listen to that song. Another is just pick a random concept like “Storms” or “Mirrors” and write to that.
2) Stop censoring yourself. As a visual artist can probably tell you, it’s really hard to fix a drawing that doesn’t exist. Likewise, it’s really hard to edit writing that doesn’t exist. The biggest breakthrough I had in chugging out high word count was to stop holding myself back. So much time is lost by trying to write and edit a sentence the first time you put it down on the page. Stop doing that. Generally speaking, your first instinct on what the sentence should be is right. At the very least, you will then have a more words to look at later and edit.
Writing is a two-step process: writing, then editing. Every piece of writing advice you receive on how to improve your prose is something you should wait to worry about until the second draft. You’ve been reading all your life. Your instincts are good. The story is in your head. Just tell it to yourself first and forgive it for not being polished. You can’t polish it until it exists on the page in some crummy form. Let the words flow. Write the first word that comes to mind. Pretend you’ve got a gun to your head and you have to keep the story going. Whatever works best for you. Just trust yourself. Everything can be fixed in post-production and it’s so much easier to fix when you can see it.
3) On days when you can’t write, write down why that is. Your brain is like any muscle and needs stretching. You should do a warmup walk before you run. Sometimes if you’re staring at a blank page, bitching to yourself about not knowing where to start, the best thing you can do is write out your bitching. Some writers have reported that engaging their fingers with their brain to start putting words down is enough to clear all the initial junk out of their mind so they can get back to their story.
4) Write the scene you want to write first. I know a lot of people lament that they have a fic they want to do, but the scene they’re lusting to write isn’t until way later. The thing is, you might be able to make a shorter piece where that scene is more central. This isn’t dinner. You can have your dessert first. And people can sense when you wrote a part of the story at the point where you were most excited for it.
That’s about all I can think of for now, besides continuing to practice and read. Hope that helps!
Avelera 