coaltide | One Wank After Another

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2025

One Wank After Another

A blank assignment is a funny thing, isn't it? When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone.

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Yuletide Discord for Hippos & Exchanges After Dark for namespace ~~drama~~ 18+ discussion.

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I'm just confused that everyone is apparently writing fic with so much plot that it needs background characters. And I kind of get it when you match on a single character, but otherwise? Nah.

This coalie: so. much. plot.

Actual plot: two characters hang out in public place

Not everyone can live the kind of high octane lifestyle you do. Imagine! Characters leaving the house! When I DNWed action/adventure!

Dunno what to tell you, Coalie, some people don't always write exactly the kind of fic you do.

Even if I'm writing intensely shippy plotless fic tightly focused on two characters, I'm interested in how their relationship reflects off other people and what that tells you about it, not just two people in a box. Probably I won't use OCs if there are other canon characters that work (except, like, a one line mention of a barmaid) but a story with only the two requested characters mentioned at all would just not occur to me because I have zero interest in it. Like even if they're marooned together on a desert island for a thousand words they're probably gonna talk or think about who they miss back home at least once because not doing that would make them deeply unwell. Maybe if it's pure porn nobody else will come up naturally.

some people don't always write exactly the kind of fic you do

I get that, but unless coalies are same anoning, it sounds like y'all write the kind of fic that needs background characters, which is totally wild because I think I received that maybe three or four times in two decades of Yuletide. (And one of that was 20+k, so that makes sense for a fic that size.)

There's a difference between "the characters think about their friend/brother/kid back home" and "the plot needs a unnamed guard and a named OC barmaid and a scene with Ernie's father to work".

We're definitely offering and requesting different kinds of fic, yeah! I've never written pure two-people-in-a-box for yuletide. I've gotten it I think twice; once was very odao and not in a good way (I requested three characters interacting, they wrote me their otp in a box and the third is mentioned in passing) and once wasn't odao but was objectively bad in other ways (like if your fic is pure dialogue learn how dialogue punctuation works bad.) That is probably influencing my opinion, sure.

But also like yes, I agree with your second paragraph! Most of the people talking about how they would find it difficult to avoid all unrequested characters are talking about the "can't even mention in passing" version. Unfortunately that's what the dnw (and, apparently, "new drinks must appear from thin air" coalie) actually mean. And, even then, a lot of times you're going to end up with a story that has at most a few references to other canon characters. It's just for most people it feels really unnatural to have to shape your story around that first and foremost, characters turn up where they're needed to make your story work and sometimes you need them.

That said, yeah, my natural writing length has been trending longer the older I get; my fics are usually 5-9k these days, and that generally means at least a couple scenes and a minor setting change.

It's just for most people it feels really unnatural to have to shape your story around that first and foremost, characters turn up where they're needed to make your story work and sometimes you need them.

+1000
That's exactly it. And I may add that unnatural = unfun in this context. I can make it work but it's just not an assignment I'll enjoy writing.

Most of the people talking about how they would find it difficult to avoid all unrequested characters are talking about the "can't even mention in passing" version. Unfortunately that's what the dnw (and, apparently, "new drinks must appear from thin air" coalie) actually mean. And, even then, a lot of times you're going to end up with a story that has at most a few references to other canon characters.

The bartender in the example does appear as a character in the fic, through - a very minor background character, granted, but not just someone the characters talk about. I would also understand a "DNW: unrequested characters" to include her. I would not understand an "unrequested characters" DNW to include requested character Ernie mentioning his brother in a conversation with requested character Bert.

That said, yeah, my natural writing length has been trending longer the older I get; my fics are usually 5-9k these days, and that generally means at least a couple scenes and a minor setting change.

My natural habitat is 3-6k, but it rarely includes more than two characters actively appearing on the page, unless I write the kind of canon that needs a view faceless goons one of the protagonist kills off, or a third canonical character I like enough to give a cameo. I just checked my last ten fics like the other coalie below did. They range from 1.5k to 5.5k, and 3 of them have more than two characters in the fic - one of them is an ensemble piece, two have one or two line appearances of nameless OCs. The three longest ones have neither, so even in that word count range, I think it just depends on what types of fics you prefer. After a certain wordcount, including more characters is probably par for the course, but I'd put that well beyond 10k.

sa

And, perhaps more interesting, of my last 10 exchange gifts:

1 has a background canonical character
2 have unnamed OC villains
1 alludes to the past relationships Ernie/Big Bird and Bert/Cookie Monster so heavily that they are tagged as relationships, but neither Big Bird nor Cookie Monster actually appear in the story, so I wouldn't really count them

The rest only star my requested characters.

See, I would say "the waitress dropped off another drink" is not a character appearing in the fic, because she's literally just a shadow puppet who does nothing but set the scene. Whereas Ernie and Bert having a conversation that is substantially about Ernie's brother is. If someone specifically DNW'd Ernie's brother that would absolutely be a DNW violation.

Huh. Interesting. For me it would be on-page appearances vs. mentions, so "waitress dropping off another drink" would feel more substantial and ping my 'another character is in the fic' whereas "protagonists talking about their brother" would not feel like the extra character was actively in the fic. If it was in a movie, the waitress would be credited, the brother would not, and that's how I handle it with fic too.

For an actual DNW, I might ask through the mods if mentions are okay if the prompt called for the type of fic that needs or is significantly improved by that mention.

DC

Purely out of curiosity, this made me do a tally of the ten most recent fics I posted.
1: ficlet, genre: missionfic, 3 characters, 1 unnamed OC (enemy goon)
2: ficlet, genre: humor, 5 characters, 0 OCs
3: fic, genre: adventure/horror, 2 characters, 0 OCs
4: fic, genre: adventure/suspense, 3 characters, brief interactions with multiple unnamed OCs
5: ficlet, genre: shippy/humor, 3 characters, 0 OCs
6: drabble, genre: humor, 3 characters, 0 OCs
7: drabble, genre: humor, 2 characters, multiple nameless OCs
8: ficlet, genre: shippy/humor, 2 characters, 0 OCs
9: ficlet, genre: shippy missionfic, 2 characters, 3 OCs mentioned or appearing
10: fic, genre: shipfic/drama, 2 characters, 0 OCs

So out of 10 fics, 4 had OCs. I'm not surprised it's a low count, because I find OCs challenging to write/flesh out and tend towards fic with tight casts of characters interacting in a limited space. OTOH, 4 out of 10 is actually more than I expected.

I'm trying to chip away at a massive WIP that's all about two of the cast getting separated and trying to live a "normal" life for a bit, which obviously has to involve OCs (and quite extensive fleshing out of them, too) or it just doesn't feel right. More canon-typical fic can go either way.

Interesting, I feel like it takes barely any plot at all to need to at least mention background humans existing. I don't read or write smut so maybe that's what skews it?

I'd say maybe half the time, I write characters talking alone together in a room, so no OCs appear. But not every fic takes place in a closed room, and I don't always have any good story ideas for just locking two people in a room for 1k words with zero plot. About half the time my characters will be *somewhere* and describing what's around them and how they interact with the environment is just part of building the scene. If they order a drink, someone will make it. If they're at an army camp there will be guards standing around. If they're at the park there will be some mention that other people are also there, like IDK, maybe a mention of joggers off in the distance or someone walking their dog? Of course it's not necessary to mention the dog-walker, but it feels awkward or like bland writing to either not describe the park at all or describe it without mentioning any other humans, unless there's some reason why the place would be desolate. I can find a way around it if there's a DNW I need to follow, but it would be a deliberate choice and I might have to change how I write a bit to make it work.

If they're at the park there will be some mention that other people are also there, like IDK, maybe a mention of joggers off in the distance or someone walking their dog? Of course it's not necessary to mention the dog-walker, but it feels awkward or like bland writing to either not describe the park at all or describe it without mentioning any other humans, unless there's some reason why the place would be desolate.

That really is interesting, because I wouldn't think of putting these descriptions into the fic unless they're plot-relevant. If the dog walker doesn't have a purpose in some way, I'm not going to randomly mention him. I guess I prefer that kind of "bland" writing.

That may not have been the best example, because I can easily think of times when I wouldn't bother describing the park at all. But I guess my point is that if I do describe a setting, like a park, I'll mention people exactly the same as I'll mention trees and benches, not because they're plot-relevant but because I want the scene to be vivid for the reader. "Bland" was a judgy-sounding way of describing fic that doesn't do that, and I should clarify that I don't think every fic or every scene needs vividly described settings. But they make reading more immersive for me as a reader, so I usually include them in places where I think they improve the story when I write.

-1 this just for the sake of data. It depends on the fic and feeling of the story but this kind of little detail brings the fic to life for me in a gift and I appreciate having it, while not having it can often feel weirdly empty and sterile.

On the writing side, I find that including off-the-cuff trivial details involving the environment or background characters, and having focal characters react to them (or having conversations spring up around it), can take the fic interesting places that wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise.

+1

Also, it often feels right for the main characters to refer to other people in their lives. If I’m writing about A and B meeting up for drinks and the scene is going to end in a deep confession of love, it still might make sense for it to begin with “small talk” where A mentions a that he saw a mutual friend C the other day, or complains about a coworker who is making his life difficult. That gives B something to react to with concern, and the conversation can go from there.

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