Wait. How Do I Stop My Plot Points?

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This Month's Font: Playpen Sans

I had been debating with myself for over a week on how to start this update. I probably would have had this published days ago, but I just could not get started. I had the middle. I had the end. But not the opening.

And, boy howdy, is that ever a metaphor for my writing as a whole lately.

I come up with a cool scene, but it makes no sense without set-up, and that's the part I can't seem to figure out outside of a generic exposition dump like the text-crawl at the start of Star Wars movies. Or I have an opening, and I know how I want to end it, but what happens in between? What's the actual plot? 

This right here is why One and the Same hasn't gone anywhere for years. I know how I want the middle to go, and I know what I want the end to be, but I can't seem to get the set-up - the opening act - to make sense. For Seduce with Caution, I have an opening couple of chapters I'm happy with, and some cool scenes throughout the rest of the story, but that connective tissue between those scenes still alludes me. I even have two nearly-finished chapters that just sort of abruptly start in medias res and feel short without a proper opening to transition into the scene I wrote.

Like... how does one start things????

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No one I've talked to about these struggles in the past really had any answers. Likewise, there's crickets on my Discord server channels where I talk about my writing.

So, naturally, I decided to add another WIP to the mix... that'll help, right?

I mean, Linda Sejic created Punderworld as she stepped away from her main comic Blood Stain in an attempt to shake herself out of writer's block. So, maybe this WILL help? I hope so.

If you've been following my LycoRogue's Reading Corner updates - or if you've simply read my blog updates in 2024 - you're aware that I've been reading a LOT of isekai stories lately. Also, as I frequently talk about, these portal fantasy stories tend to come in 3 main flavors.

The first is your standard portal fantasy. A person from the real world full-on teleports into a new world. Various examples of this type of story includes: 

• The Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia
• Dr. Daniel Jackson from the movie and spin-off series Stargate
• Anne from the Disney channel series Amphibia
• Fellow Disney channel character Luz from The Owl House
• Hitomi from The Vision of Escaflowne
• Miaka and Yui from Fushigi Yûgi
• Saito from The Familiar of Zero
• Naofumi from The Rising of The Shield Hero

So on, and so forth. I hope you get the idea. For this category, I'd also include the multitude of isekai-adjacent stories that have been prevalent lately: the "Main Character gets trapped in a video game via their VR headset" genre made popular by stories like Sword Art Online and Overlord.

The second concept is the reincarnation isekai. A person dies in our world and is reincarnated in a fantasy world, but retains all of their memories and adult intellect from their previous life on Earth. I personally haven't come across this style outside of Japanese stories, and even so, this isn't the main genre I watch. That said, I have watched at least three animes within this subgenre of isekai stories:

• The Saga of Tanya the Evil
• So I'm a Spider, So What?
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

There's also those stories adjacent to the reincarnation isekai, where the main character is TECHNICALLY reincarnated in this new world, but they are "rebirthed" fully-formed in their "adult forms" like Athena or Aphrodite from Greek myth. Some examples of this would be My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 or the delightfully absurd Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon.

The final flavor of isekai is transmigration. This one is my current pet genre to watch/read. If there's an isekai on my reading list, you can bet that it's a transmigration story. Basically, a person from our world ends up possessing a fictional character. This could be because they died in our world, but they don't HAVE to have died. 

While most reincarnation isekais (that I know of) seem to be predominantly male protagonists, the transmigration stories seem to be largely female protags. The fictional characters in question (that the main character possesses) tend to be from romance novels or dating sim games. This is where the ever-increasingly-popular subgenre of villainess isekai stories grew from. 

An adjacent subgenre is the pseudo time-travel transmigration story, where the main character dies, but their spirit then possesses a younger form of themselves so they can relive their life. Again, this is largely a female-dominated subgenre, but one of the more popular reincarnation/transmigration isekais - Re:Zero - does have a male lead, and takes this trope of "possess your past life" and cranks it to 11! (Also, death time loop stories like Edge of Tomorrow are tangentially part of this subgenre, I'd suppose...)

Now, why did I give you yet another primer/refresher on what isekai stories are? Shouldn't I save this for LycoRogue's Reading Corner? Well.... as you've probably guessed, this does indeed relate to my writing.

As I mentioned last month, I had come up with a little transmigration isekai story idea where a pair of lovers unknowingly transmigrate into the same fantasy world and re-find each other. Well, a little over a week ago, I came up with another one!

For those who haven't read this month's LRRC yet, I started reading a new isekai: I Am The Villain. The long-and-short of this story is that Lucy ends up teleported into her friend Sena's romance novel. Originally, both the readers and Lucy believe that she transmigrated into the body of Sena's villainess Lucia, who looks identical to Lucy. Meanwhile, Sena has become her protagonist Claire, who is Sena's self-insert character. The added complication is that (a) Lucy and Sena don't know that the other also isekai'd into Sena's story, and (b) the original novel version of both Lucia and Claire are still their own people, essentially creating two of each character within this story's world. Sena wrote Claire to look exactly like herself, so she easily stole Claire's identity and stepped in as her story's protagonist. Meanwhile, Lucy unintentionally usurped Lucia's life when the real Lucia went missing, and her brother thought he found her when he came across Lucy.

Going back to Sena as Claire, however, that is what sparked my latest story idea.

Sena is in awe that she gets to walk within the world she built and among the characters that she created. She marvels at how much more handsome the male cast is compared to what she even pictured. She notes how real they all are, but then casually laments that one character has to die so soon within her plot. Meaning he is not long for this world. 

That would kill me if I were Sena! I have a hard enough time causing physical pain to my characters. I struggle to leave lasting scars, let alone maiming/dismembering my characters, causing them to become physically disabled at all. To kill them?! I'm getting choked up just thinking about it!

So.... what if the main character of an isekai is a writer like myself, but teleported into their story like Sena? As of right now, I'm picturing the main character as female. Mostly because (a) that's just common for this genre, and (b) I'm a female, so it's easier to write.... I don't have a name yet, so I'm gonna call her MC (for Main Character) for this.

Introducing MC, an introverted writer vastly lacking in personal connections. She's chronically online, getting her socializing done almost exclusively behind anonymous internet handles on social media.

She loves her fans, and enjoys doing meet-and-greets with them, but she doesn't have too many actual irl friends. They all drifted away from her as they aged. She became more engrossed in her fans and the worlds she builds to compensate.

Sometimes, she gets so engrossed in her WIPs that she goes radio-silent as she spends nearly every waking moment either researching or writing her latest story. People have gotten used to this, so no one (including fans) really bats an eye if no one has heard from her for weeks at a time. As long as she still checks in at least once a month and she hits her deadlines, everyone simply assumes she's hyperfixating and is otherwise fine.

She's a bit of a prolific writer, but her most popular stories are all within the same regency fantasy franchise (think Bridgerton). Franchise title TBD.

One night, MC is particularly worn out. She had just published the latest installment in her franchise, but way overworked herself to get it done by her deadline. Due to her hyperfixation with her story, she hasn't been eating well (if at all), has become very dehydrated, and has been pulling way too many all-nighters. Her poor self-care has caught up with her. She's feverish. She's all alone in her small apartment. She's weak, but assumes she just needs to finally rest. She falls asleep fantasizing about being pampered and nursed back to health like one of her protags. (Yes, I swiped this idea from the inciting incident of My Housemate Sano-kun Is Just My Editor!)

She is rudely woken up the next day as someone whips open the curtains in her room. Except, she's not in her room anymore! She's in a queen-sized canopy bed with intricately carved posts. The sheets are the softest fabric she's ever felt. The mattress is so cozy she never wants to leave. And the woman who woke up MC is dressed as a regency-era maid. She greets MC pleasantly but a bit sternly, as if expecting MC to be in that bed; as if she recognized her. However, she doesn't call MC by her name. The name DOES sound familiar, though (I'm thinking maybe Olivia???). The maid verbally encourages MC to get out of bed and greet the day, rattling off that day's schedule. When MC complies, the maid instantly starts getting MC ready for the day: fetching water to wash up with, laying out her clothes, helping her get dressed, doing her hair, etc.

Upon seeing herself in the mirror, MC realizes why she recognized the name the maid called her. She has transmigrated into her self-insert character within her story franchise! Understandably, MC assumes she's having a fever dream brought on by thinking too much about her story lately, and enjoys the pampering.

...Except... Would a fever dream include uninterrupted bathroom breaks? Or uneventful meals, no matter how delectable the food is? Or the boredom of filling a slow evening post-supper?

It soon dawns on our MC that this is no dream! Somehow she ACTUALLY transmigrated into her story franchise as her self-insert character! She now has a comfortable life of luxury and all the free time she wishes. Writing might prove more difficult without the aid of a computer to type or research on, but that's a small inconvenience for everything she just got! Easy trade! Best yet, it's not like all of those typical transmigration stories where the main character becomes the villainess! She's her self-insert, who is just a minor character in her franchise! She has little-to-nothing to do with the plot. Just an extra body to fill in a few scenes to make the world feel more alive. She can live a cozy, cushy life of an aristocrat just on the outskirts of drama. (Aaaaand I swiped this part from Her Wish to be Isekai'd. Don't steal the whole crown, but feel free to steal some jewels to make your own crown....)

It's not long before MC is invited to one of those high-society parties that her character was created to help populate. She delights in getting dolled up and rubbing elbows with the nobility within her world. She is gobsmacked at how real and alive her characters all are. They're more elegant than she could picture, and their outfits more intricate and gorgeous than she could imagine. They are cunning and witty and playful. Just as she designed each one to be. She tears up a little, like a proud mama watching her grown children.

Then, she bumps into one particular character. He's a sweetheart to her. He's exactly as gentlemanly and noble as she wanted him to be. As he walks off, she reflects on how many people would have died to have been able to interact with such a fan-favorite character. She then starts tearing up, realizing how relieved she is that she had the chance to actually meet him before he was brutally killed. It had pained her to do it, but the battle just didn't feel realistic or as impactful if there weren't some named casualties. "For the story," she had wept as she wrote his bitter death scene.

But he's right there! He's alive and well! Oh, lord! He's destined to die, and it's all her fault! All of these lovely people are about to Go Through It, and it will all be by her design! No! Her precious characters are all living in their lovely Status Quo. How can she stop the plots of her novels from kicking off??? At the same time, though, there WERE some satisfying endings where characters were able to find their true loves and villainous characters got their comeuppance. Can she still get that to happen without too many of the tragedies that she had worked in????

There HAS to be a way, right? She created the plot, she must be able to influence it, right???? And it doesn't have to be entertaining anymore, just effective. It doesn't matter if a battle doesn't seem impactful or threatening. The attackers can be pushovers that are easily captured without a single casualty. Who is she trying to entertain anymore anyway?

With the same hyperfixation that got her in trouble and isekai'd in the first place, she is determined to direct her characters to their fated happy endings, and stop her villains (maybe rehabilitate them???), all while avoiding death and bloodshed, if possible. Problem is... she's not the author anymore! She's just a silly little side character now. A lower noble that the main characters rarely interact with. How can she affect anything????

Also, you KNOW I have to have my own romance subplot. I'm thinking at least one knight or noble or royal or whomever starts to fall for her, but she's so fixated on saving all of her precious characters that she is OBVILIOUS to the flirting and romantic advancements. Those are a distraction! Maybe there's a popular crack ship of her self-insert side character with one of the secondary love interests of the main plot? All of the fans wanted him to find someone after the story's protag chose the other love interest, and thought the MC's side character would be a perfect match for him. The MC never understood the ship, especially since she never actually had the two characters interact. However, he is definitely paying more attention to her than the protag he was SUPPOSED to be wooing, dammit! Were the fans right all along????

Lastly, I think it would be important for her to finally form a social group. She starts awkwardly doing so as a way to garner more influence over her characters to try to protect them, but it becomes a legitimate and caring friend group. Problem here is that she falls into the same pattern she had on Earth: she becomes too focused on her work (in this case, saving her characters, as opposed to writing her novels) and starts to isolate herself again, assuming none of her friends truly want to spend time with her anyway.

As for the broad strokes of the plot, that's all I have right now. More than I thought I had, honestly. And the rabbit hole goes deeper, but I'll get to that. 

When I first thought of this story, I only had a basic elevator pitch:

Instead of the person possessing the villainess trying to change the plot to avoid her death, my protag would be the transmigrated author now going, "OH SHIT! HOW DO I STOP THE PLOT POINTS FROM HAPPENING! EVERYONE MUST LIVE HAPPILY-EVER-AFTER!"

Problem is, this author's self-insert character was just a side character with little-to-no authority over anything....

Aurora Morgen jumped in and told me, "I like it. 10/10 would read. That problem is a good plot element. Makes it that much more exciting when they do figure out how to stop the plot points."

That was all the encouragement I needed. After thinking about it a couple more days, I decided the plot bunny had stuck around long enough to talk about it here. I started writing up the above synopsis, unsure if I was going to give more than that original elevator pitch. But then more just kept flowing! I'm definitely more locked-in on this idea than the "lovers re-find each other" plot bunny I shared last month. I'm super excited about this. If I can't break my current writer's block over my Miraculous Ladybug fanfics, maybe I should spend next month focusing on this instead. I mean, there's still some pretty key things that I need to sort out.

• What is the main character's original name?
• What is her self-insert character's name? Do I lock in Olivia? I did a quick search for regency-era names, and found this link. There isn't a single O-name listed for females. Does that mean Olivia won't work? Should I make that the MC's original name instead? (I'm kinda feeling Olivia for her one way or another....)
• What is the name of her regency-era franchise?
• Should her franchise be more like Bridgerton and be based in reality? Or should I lean into most of the fantasy worlds used in these villainess transmigration stories? Add some magic/monsters/attacking demons?
• What are the plots of her books that she's trying to prevent?
• Who would be the main characters she's trying to save? And which one(s) would be her love interest?
• Did she die from her illness and now lives the rest of her days as her side character? Or is she in a coma, and she has the option to return to her real body at the end of the story? If the latter, does she???

Lots to think about.

In the meantime, I already had a nice glimpse into how my main character thinks. How she plots out her stories, poking holes in her plans to make sure they're strong before committing them to paper.

*Note, the next passage would all be presented in the story as the main character's thought process as she problem solves.

The main character comes up with what seems like the obvious solution to explain away why she knows that bad things are coming, and to convince her characters to listen to her advice. She'll tell everyone that she's clairvoyant! Duh! She can see the future!

Except... she never established in her stories that this character is clairvoyant. She never even included foresight/fortune telling in any of her novels. For all intents and purposes, this kind of thing isn't real/believed by sensible folk. How does she convince everyone?

She has to let a more mild plot point come to pass and let people know about it. That will prove that she has The Gift... but why would it start NOW, when she's in her early 20s? Why wasn't she clairvoyant earlier in life? What changed?

A HEAD INJURY! She could get a minor bump on her head, ham it up to make it seem more serious. Then claim it did something to her mind and she can see flashes of the future now!

There's a montage of her orchestrating minor head injuries.... only to be protected from them each time. (yes, I did steal this failed head injury plot-point from At Your Mercy) If the main character keeps trying to seemingly get a nasty head injury it will become obvious that she's doing so on purpose.... She needs a new plan....

A CURSED ITEM! Perfect! She can start having visions due to this item, and then, once the plot changes enough that she doesn't know what will happen next, she can get rid of the item to explain why she can't see the future anymore! Why didn't she think of this first?

OK. So, she has to find an ominous-looking, mysterious jewel from an "disreputable" source that is still appealing enough that it feels organic that this side character would not only buy it, but would want to keep it with her. How is she going to manage THAT without raising any flags???

After a few more antics and shenanigans (TBD), she manages to find the perfect jewel to play the part of her mysterious cursed item.

Except, in the process of trying to fake a head injury and then acquiring said item, she's already changed more than she realized. She goes to showcase her first premonition by claiming something unexpected would happen to a specific noble during this exact social gathering....

... and it doesn't happen ...

People wave it off as her having a very weird and vivid dream, and think nothing more about it.

She sighs. Back to the drawing board.... Only now she's unsure if she even can still predict the plot enough to stop the more distressing plot points from happening!

Man! Look at everything I already thought of for this concept in about 10 days!!!

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Edited by LycoRogue

I keep thinking, "man, I haven't written in a while. I'm not getting any writing done. Do I even remember how to write? Why is this so hard for me? Why am I slacking?" And yet, I seem to have something new to tell all of you fine folk every month! So, I guess I'm doing better than I thought. 

One of the benefits of having this blog is being able to see that. To properly reflect and see my writing for what it is, as opposed to how I feel or think it is.

Speaking of, I actually got another comment on Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell? Despite that story being one of my most popular ones - 2nd in kudos and hits, 3rd in bookmarks, and 2nd among my one-shots in comments - I haven't had a new comment on it since September 2023! What's even more fun is that I had included a dumb little The Road to El Dorado reference in my story, and this reader not only picked up on it, but joked back about it. Man, I love that!

She really needed that cold splash of water now, and certainly couldn't share this bed with that man. Nope. Can't do it. Not today. - The Stars not in alignment?

Also, the love for You Pretended Not to Care is still pouring in. Usually, it's just one new kudos, but I have had a couple of days where 2 or 3 people left kudos on it. I also get at least one kudos notification per week for this story, and that's with it being nearly a year old! (Good golly! It's almost a year old!)

The weirdest thing for me, however, is that I Think I Like You (Maybe More Than I Should) is getting relatively significant love again. As much love as YPNTC throughout March. Huh!? That story was published last May. It's over 10 months old! That's practically ancient in the flood of ML fanfic. There is just shy of 76k different stories within the fandom's tag on AO3! Out of that mountain of content to read, the VAST majority (62,938 stories; 83%) are written in English and aren't crossovers. That is a LOT of competition for older stories to push against. And yet, both Could Your Paradise and I Think I Like You are managing! Since both are spin-off stories of fics that MostLovedGirl wrote, I hope that means her stories are still getting flooded with love too.

Maybe that's what's happening. People are still reading MLG's stories, and my fics are listed as "inspired by" at the end of her work. People find my stuff that way. I mean, I'll gladly take it. I can't think of many other reasons for my stories to be found and read now, months and years after they are published. Then again, I haven't started watching the latest season yet - although, we FINALLY have an air date for EPISODE 1 finally! - so maybe something happened in canon that also relates to my stories somehow? And that's why people are finding them so late???? I guess I'll find out once I catch up after April 26th....

Getting back to that flood of stories, however. I had looked up how many total works on AO3 were in the ML fandom last Thursday. When I looked it up again today to update the above numbers, FIFTY-FOUR new stories had been added in the last four days! 

Comparatively, there's One Piece. Specifically, the manga/anime fandom, as opposed to the sub-fandoms of the live action Netflix show, the video games, or a D&D web series within the world of One Piece. The manga started WAAAAAY back in 1997, and the anime started in 1999. BOTH ARE STILL GOING! This is a much-beloved series that has been around for over 25 years! There has been PLENTY of time for fans to write fanfics for the show, and yet it "only" has 88,086 stories on AO3 (66,221 stories if you're only looking for non-crossovers written in English).

HOW DOES THE MIRACULOUS FANDOM - which has "only" been around for 9 years - NEARLY HAVE AS MANY FICS AS ONE PIECE???

Prolific. This fandom is filled with prolific writers. They are insane. Bless them all.

I know I've poked at this idea in the past, but I'm starting to finally have enough confidence to really believe it is a factor. The reason I get so lost in the shuffle within the fandom is (probably?) because I don't write as prolifically as the Big Name authors. I don't post something new daily or weekly or even a couple of times a month in order to stay towards the start of the fic search results. When I do post, it's generally a chonker of a story. Easily 4500+ words. Not the shortest/easiest fics to read and digest quickly between classes or while commuting on the bus or while taking a lunch (or bathroom) break at work. Stories 4500+ words long can be intimidating. Especially when you have 20 stories under 3k words that you could read instead.

It's basically the same mentality as those who can binge 4hrs of TV episodes, but can't sit through a 2.5hr movie.

Which is a lot of people, to be fair....

So, maybe that truly is my problem.

1. I don't publish frequently enough to be towards the top of search results
2. My stories are too long, and

Sweet Brown/Ain't Nobody Got Time for That meme
(yes, I'm still using a meme from 2012. I'm old. Leave me alone)

Maybe if I found a platform that wasn't so crowded I could find space to plant my flag. Nothing's really had a chokehold on me the way Miraculous Ladybug does, though. Not since I got introduced to the show, at least. So, who knows?

In the meantime, I'm gonna keep reading my isekai stories on WEBTOON, and hope it helps inspire me to keep working on my latest plot bunny. Or, maybe one of the stories will take hold the way ML has, and I'll have a new fandom to spread my wings into. Keep your fingers crossed!

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Before I go, though, it's time for March's blessing. It feels like I'm cheating, especially since I've done this two months in a row now, but I think I've already talked about what I'm thankful for in March. Namely, that I not only found inspiration for a new story, but also that it's an original story - instead of fanfiction - and that I thought of so much of it already with barely a week to ponder.

I mean, let's let that second bit sink in for a moment. Aside from Scum & Villainy or D&D plotlines, I have not thought of an original story since I wrote Blame Fate for This for Ronoxym's 30th birthday back in 2019! Five years! Actually, closer to 5.5yrs since my brain was able to come up with an original story!

And yet... boom! Two new story concepts in as many months! And one has a decent structure started already. I'm having so much fun with this concept too. I'm really excited about seeing how much more I can develop it. It's been AGES since I've felt THIS excited about writing. So.... yeah... may be a bit of a cop out since this was also the main topic of my update this month, but I don't care. My blessing is definitely my Muse returning to me on the back of these endless isekai/transmigration stories I've been reading.

Thank you, Muse, for stopping by to chat for a while. I hope you enjoy your stay and decide to extend it.

In the meantime, I'll catch all of you peeps in about two weeks for my next LycoRogue's Reading Corner!

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