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[Sakabelle]

I try to make sure every scene I write has a purpose, whether it's moving the story forward or developing the characters and/or relationships.

Oh man, definitely this. There was a story I was writing a few years ago that I was really enjoying and when I was editing it to post I realised I had a couple chapters at the end that were just me drawing out writing it because I didn't want it to end. So I cut them out completely and just shifted around the couple of important things they did contain (which wasn't a lot) to other chapters. I ended up sending them to a friend of mine who had been hounding me for a sequel just to placate her, but I still never ended up doing anything else with them and probably never will.

I hear you with the sex scenes, too.  Just out of curiosity, do you prefer writing het sex scenes or slash ones?  Any slash writer can answer that question as well, if you want to.

This is going to sound weird but I much prefer writing the slash scenes. Actually, I got more comfortable writing the slash scenes than any het scenes. I don't even remember the last het sex scene I wrote? Or the last het fic I wrote, to be honest. The slash scenes are just so much easier because I don't feel like I'm awkwardly trying to (or trying really hard not to) picture myself in the female role. If that makes sense. It's also probably because I've just written more slashy scenes than het ones and I can use the boys that already exist rather than having to create a completely fictional female for them to sleep with. Which I feel like should make it more uncomfortable. .. but somehow it doesn't lol.

[RokofAges75]

There was a story I was writing a few years ago that I was really enjoying and when I was editing it to post I realised I had a couple chapters at the end that were just me drawing out writing it because I didn't want it to end.

This reminded me of a question I thought of earlier in the summer and didn't ask.

Does anyone else get anal about ending their story on a nice "round" number of chapters, or is that just me?

I have this weird, OCD quirk about numbers...  Like if I'm adjusting the volume on my TV or in my car or the temperature on my thermostat, I have to set it at a nice, "round" number - ideally a multiple of 5 or 10, but if I have to go somewhere in between, it has to be an even number.  Never an odd number and DEFINITELY never a prime number!  I'm the same way with chapters - I like my stories to end on multiples of 5 or 10.  I wouldn't be able to stand finishing a story on Chapter 51, for example.  I would either make sure I finished it at Chapter 50 or stretched it out to 55.  That is why the last few chapters of my stories tend to be super long, 'cause I'm trying to make sure I end on an appropriately-numbered chapter LOL.  Or why I invent things like "post-epilogues" so I can make the last numbered chapter 200 and not 201.  Can anyone else relate?

[RokofAges75]

This is going to sound weird but I much prefer writing the slash scenes. Actually, I got more comfortable writing the slash scenes than any het scenes. I don't even remember the last het sex scene I wrote? Or the last het fic I wrote, to be honest. The slash scenes are just so much easier because I don't feel like I'm awkwardly trying to (or trying really hard not to) picture myself in the female role. If that makes sense. It's also probably because I've just written more slashy scenes than het ones and I can use the boys that already exist rather than having to create a completely fictional female for them to sleep with. Which I feel like should make it more uncomfortable. .. but somehow it doesn't lol.

That doesn't sound weird.  I was just genuinely curious, and your answer explained it well.

[Mistral]

RokofAges75 yes it is very different to try a new style of fanfic, but this idea wait waiting for too long in my writing notebook and for the chapter it depends where the story goes. For the sex scene it is more easy for  me to write it since I go on a forum where is only slash roleplay. I'm happy that you are talking to me here, because you didn't on twitter.

[RokofAges75]

Sorry, I'm not on Twitter as much these days, so I'm sure I've missed some things.  It's also harder to have a discussion there, 140 characters at a time.  I'm on this forum all the time, so I'm glad you've joined us here!

[RokofAges75]

Stephen King tweeted this, and I thought it fit well with BSB fanfic:

"The best stories, it seems to me, deal with friendship put under stress."

I would definitely agree with this, especially thinking of BSB fanfic, because it fits most of my favorite stories.  I love bromantic stories where the Boys' friendship is tested, whether it's by their internal demons or external conflicts.  Even my favorite fanfic romance, Cover Me With Dreams, fits that description.  I guess I don't really have a question to go with this, other than maybe "Do you agree?", or "What are your thoughts on this?"  I just thought it was a good quote.

[Sakabelle]

Yes, I definitely agree with this! I don't have a lot to add, but the BSB bromance stories over the years have been some of my favourites. Their group dynamic really works well for any type of story like that. Even in romance type stories, the boys relationship makes it easy to add a subplot for the group. Like in SAMS, Julie, where Nick was struggling with telling the others about his relationship with Howie and how they'd deal with it.

Are there any BSB-centric stories that haven't been done yet that you wish existed?

[FrickingKaos]

I love a good bromance. I also like drama and suspense but occasionally I read slash depending on who writes it.

[RokofAges75]

Kinda going along with what both of you said, I agree that their relationship with each other makes for a great subplot in any kind of story.  I think it's a major reason WHY I love drama and suspense so much in this fandom - it's not just about bad things happening to the Boys, but how they deal with bad things happening to each other.  I love stories where they have to protect each other, take care of each other, or struggle with the fact that they can't do those things.

I am definitely in a bromance phase right now, where most of my story ideas have a focus on the relationship between two of the guys or the whole group.  Not in a slashy way this time, although I wouldn't be opposed to writing another slash at some point, probably with a different pairing.

Oh, that reminds me of another question I thought of at some point this summer and never posted (at least I don't think I did... ignore me if I did and already forgot LOL).  For those of you who write slash and have a favorite pairing that you always write about, how do you keep it fresh from story to story?  I'm talking stand-alone stories about the same couple, not stories in a series.  This is not a criticism, just a curiosity.  In my very limited experience writing in this genre, I feel like I put everything I had into developing the relationship between Howie and Nick in SAMS and its prequel, so the thought of writing a completely different story with that Howie/Nick pairing doesn't appeal to me at all, anymore than taking a het couple from one of my romances and writing a completely different, unrelated story about them would.  How are you able to keep it new, different, and exciting each time?

[mare]

Stephen King tweeted this, and I thought it fit well with BSB fanfic:

"The best stories, it seems to me, deal with friendship put under stress."

I would definitely agree with this, especially thinking of BSB fanfic, because it fits most of my favorite stories.  I love bromantic stories where the Boys' friendship is tested, whether it's by their internal demons or external conflicts.  Even my favorite fanfic romance, Cover Me With Dreams, fits that description.  I guess I don't really have a question to go with this, other than maybe "Do you agree?", or "What are your thoughts on this?"  I just thought it was a good quote.

I saw that quote yesterday and wanted to post it on fb but couldn't save it to my IPad. I love his tweets in general but especially, I love his thoughts on writing based tweets.

 I of course agree with that 100%. If the guys didn't have such a brotherly bond, I wouldn't have even entertained the idea of reading or writing about them. Most likely I would have just been a fan of their music and probably nothing else. It's their interactions with each other that caused me to want to know more in the first place. Anything I have ever written or the stories that I've really loved all have that brotherly interaction and how they deal with things in common. That's why I never read stories about only one of them and a generic guy or girl or an AU where they aren't connected in that way. Doesn't interest me at all.

I am the same way about my TV shows I watch. Most of the ones I watch are very family based or bromantic based shows. Even ER at the time. I loved that show but it had more to do with the relationships that the guys had with each other, particularly Benton and Carter, then the actual medical stuff. I started to lose interest when that started to go away.

Girls, I don't care about at all lol although I did love Desperate Housewives. I think that's been my only exception to my rule. Oh and I guess Alias but I have always had a girl crush on Jennifer Garner so her relationship to the characters has always drawn me in. And Alias rocked!

Come to think of it, I think that why I love baseball as well. I fell in love with the Mets way back in the day because of the relationship they had with each other. They've always been a very brotherly bonding type team. How weird lol I base my whole love of things on bromance.

[Sakabelle]

For those of you who write slash and have a favorite pairing that you always write about, how do you keep it fresh from story to story?  I'm talking stand-alone stories about the same couple, not stories in a series.  This is not a criticism, just a curiosity.  In my very limited experience writing in this genre, I feel like I put everything I had into developing the relationship between Howie and Nick in SAMS and its prequel, so the thought of writing a completely different story with that Howie/Nick pairing doesn't appeal to me at all, anymore than taking a het couple from one of my romances and writing a completely different, unrelated story about them would.  How are you able to keep it new, different, and exciting each time?

I feel like I can answer this because I have written... 17 stories about Niall/Harry in 1D. (Wow that's a lot! I thought it was more like 10 until I actually went and counted LOL) Anyway. I guess it's possible to do it in two ways. First, by having the romance not be the only portion of the story. I don't think it should be this way anyway, but when writing about the same characters over and over again it's important to have outside elements that affect the plot. The slashy bits should come as secondary.

Another thing that helps is twisting their character traits differently. Out of those 17 stories I've written, I think only 5 of them are AU. The AU portion definitely helps because I can change the extenuating circumstances a lot more than when keeping it in canon. A lot of the canon stuff is me just writing a short story based around something that actually happened. Even within the canon, I think I only did the "oh god I can't believe I might be gay" plotline once with that pairing. After getting that out of the way there were other, more interesting ways to twist their characters... like for instance most people in that fandom go with the sterotypical Harry's a womanizer character trait and Niall is pining for him. I switched it around. No one has to have an identity crisis, they can still be themselves, just the situation I threw at them was different.

But yeah, changing the extenuating circumstances and making the romance part of the story secondary I think is key to writing about the same characters multiple times.

[RokofAges75]

Mare, that is interesting what you said about everything you like involving bromance.  I agree about ER - the characters and thelr (not just sexual) relationships with each other are what set that show apart from every other medical drama I've tried to watch and haven't gotten into because it's just not as good as ER.  I gave Grey's Anatomy another chance this summer and actually made it to Season 2, and I can see why people like it, but it's still no ER.

Baseball, too - I've never thought about it that way, but I can see what you're saying with that.  I think of the story Between the Lines, and how the author Carrie used the Boys as members of a baseball team and how well that worked as an AU because the dynamics were definitely similar.  The mark of a great team in any sport is how the players get along with one another.  I would love to see a movie made about the 2016 Cubs because they had it all - the bromance, the drama, the highs and lows, overcoming the odds, all of it.

[RokofAges75]

That makes sense, Steph.  I think the AU thing would definitely help, as well as different subplots  outside of the romantic storyline.  I also think it's easier for people who regularly read and write slash to just accept that the characters are gay right off the bat without feeling the need to show the characters coming out or struggling with the fact that they're gay.  I think that's the stuff that I wouldn't want to have to write over and over again.

[FrickingKaos]

As a slash convert it was really hard at first to write Frick and Frack in a romantic sense and not a bromance. I'd been writing their friendship forever so to change to romance took me  a while to adjust. I've also written Nick/Kevin slash as well. I think getting ideas for me comes from music usually or something I read, depending on my mood. I also take ideas from things happening in the boys lives (like in One Phone Call).

[mare]

Between the Lines was a great baseball AU. I think the key to any winning team is the bond they all seem to have. The same with the Royals who had won the year before. The neat thing is no matter where the players end up going after that World Series win, they will still be forever bonded because of it. Those 86 Mets are always together for things. Two of them actual do the broadcasting for all the Mets games together. It's awesome!