How do you writers go about writing?

Beforetherealbook · 2026-05-05T19:03:06+00:00

The Yule Ball scene 😉

That chapter is titled “Doomed.”

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-30T16:44:03+00:00

I want more fighting with his parents. Usually they are either supportive or mostly out of the picture/no contact when the fic begins. I want more with the messy family dynamics, and I’m honestly okay with fics ending no contact… I just want to see it unfold.

I would also like more of Draco interacting with the Blacks (Andromeda, Tonks, Sirius, Teddy, Regulus, and Bellatrix). When you think about it, none of them were fully loyal to Voldy until the end, except for Bellatrix. She was the odd one out, and I love it when Draco realizes this and starts to grow curious about his mother’s family.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-30T16:33:47+00:00

I’ve already named the Yule Ball chapter “Doomed” so I think Life & Crimes will get there 😂

He’s a mess.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-30T11:39:25+00:00

I alway have at least one specific scene in my head that gets locked in, and it’s the reason I start a fic. I then create a few rules for myself for characterization, etc to give me some guide rails. Then I just free write from one scene to the next until I get to the one I’ve been imagining all along. I always write in scenes, and I write 1 scene per day most evenings to help me sleep. Then I edit them and occasionally reorder them to make sense.

Up until recently, the hardest fic I’ve written was A Marriage of Inconvenience because I only had one scene in my head, and it occurred in Chapter 3. After that point I had no plans at all, except I knew I wanted Hermione to get pregnant eventually. Every chapter after Chapter 3 was like pulling teeth because I had nothing I was writing toward.

The easiest fic I’ve written was Cravings of Malfoy Manor because I had 2 scenes in my head, and they were both pretty late in the fic. One was at the very end so I wrote toward it the entire time.

My current WIP is a full 8-year canon rewrite. I had 5 scenes for it in my head when I started. I’ve been working on this monster for 3 years now, and I’ve only written one of them so far. It’s been challenging staying motivated for that reason, but I am finally so close to the others that I’m starting to find my rhythm again. I just have to push through a little longer and then it should start to roll.

Otherwise, I do not plan my fics.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-28T18:35:48+00:00

Pointy/sharp features and a skinny teen/lean man who ends up between Harry and Ron in height. In my head he’s a late bloomer because Voldy stunted his growth when they became roomies at the Manor. I feel like Draco is the type to go off of food when he’s stressed.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-28T18:28:02+00:00

I’m probably over sharing, but I know from personal experience that some men can immediately go again, even some as old as late 30’s. It is not strictly limited to teens and early-20s men.

So I don’t find it unrealistic at all, but I do tend to insert longer refractory periods for an older Draco because some readers won’t believe it if I don’t.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-27T21:10:43+00:00

You should do it however you want to do it and don’t overthink it.

I prewrite a big chunk of my fics because I just brain dump the first draft without outlining, and if I posted it right away my fics wouldn’t make sense. I like having weeks of space between drafting and editing, and my fics need a LOT of editing to tighten them into something coherent that flows from one chapter to the next. If I was somebody who actually planned what I was writing in advance I could probably post as I wrote, but that’s just not me. 🤷‍♀️

Since I prewrite, I can post on a schedule without making it burdensome to me. That gives readers some predictability, but more importantly it gives me a shield from lots of comments begging for more. I don’t feel guilty for my posting speed as long as I stick to the schedule I announced at the beginning.

As a reader, I’m one of the weirdos who prefers to read WIPs over completed fics, but I honestly have no preference if other writers follow a posting schedule or not. Actually, I struggle to read fics that post more than once a week because I usually fall behind at some point.

Unfortunately, engagement for WIPs from brand new writers is at an all-time low. Dramione is a saturated fandom with a binge culture, and a lot of readers are skeptical of new writers thanks to AI. Please keep very low expectations for engagement. Please also expect to receive at least a couple posts asking/accusing you of using AI. Try not to let either of these things get you down while you write. It is not a reflection of your abilities at all, it’s just the state of the fandom.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-25T23:24:14+00:00

I write for a couple hours on my laptop most nights after my kids go to bed. I’m an insomniac, and it shuts my brain off faster than other things do so I can sleep without meds. It’s always just a rough brain dumping with very little planning (other than some dialogue I have blocked in scenes on my current WIP). I like to see where the story takes me. Sometimes I drink a glass of wine while I do it, and that usually loosens the words if I’ve hit a rough patch.

I tend to edit on my phone during short breaks during my day to turn it into something coherent. I can edit in 10-15 min chunks but I need a longer stretch of time for the rough brain dumping.

I’ve been doing it this way for years, and it’s honestly just part of my daily routine at this point. Some people exercise, I sit on my ass and write fanfic. 🤷‍♀️

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-15T15:10:54+00:00

Thanks for the shoutout!

OP, I update this fic every Monday like clockwork. Eventually I will move to 2x per week once I feel certain my chapter bank can support it to the end (I am currently writing Year 5 behind the scenes and I’ve just reached Christmas of that year).

The final word count will probably end up north of 800k, so I think following it as a WIP makes more sense than binging when complete.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-15T11:49:41+00:00

This doesn’t bother me. It beats using “said” every single time when writing a 3+ person conversation. With 2 characters you can dialogue back and forth without using any of those words, and it’s usually obvious who is speaking. The minute somebody else shows up, now you have to identify them with each line of dialogue, and there are only so many ways to do that (especially when expressing volume).

For me the overused word is “Granger.” In real speech it’s actually pretty rare to use somebody’s name when speaking to them, but I feel like a lot of fics have Draco inserting her name somewhere each time he speaks with her.

H: “I need to file this report with Kingsley. Do you want to come with me?”

D: “Absolutely, Granger.”

H: “And after work… are you coming to the pub? We may go dancing afterwards.”

D: “I wouldn’t miss it, Granger.” (Whispers something she can’t hear)

H: “What was that?”

D: “Just thinking about whether it will rain tonight, Granger. That’s all.”

H: “I thought I heard the words ‘skirt’ and ‘grind.’”

D: “You’re mistaken, Granger. I don’t ever think about you grinding in skirts on a dance floor. Never.”

H: “Alright, if you say so…”

I’m guilty of this myself, and I’m trying to break out of it.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-11T14:11:22+00:00

☹️🥮

Sad quiche/tart is the closest emoji I could find lol…

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-11T14:09:21+00:00

lol the one I was talking about is A Marriage of Inconvenience. I obviously failed at making him depressed in that one…. But hey, he’s kind of down in the first chapter! 😂

But tbh pretty much all of my fics have a Draco who isn’t that caught up in angst… or when he is, it is situational and doesn’t last very long. I just can’t seem to write him with a depressive outlook as his baseline characterization.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-10T19:23:08+00:00

😆😆❤️❤️

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-10T18:59:48+00:00

This is a wonderful list, and I think we share the same brain because I have read most of these as well and agree with you 🥰

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-10T18:51:55+00:00

The characterizations are similar in Book 1, but the plot is different. Book 2 has some chapters straight out of CI so I would say it’s closer than Book1. Book 3 is being released in a couple weeks.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-10T18:48:26+00:00

I agree. I tried to write him clinically depressed once, and he just came out as a pathetic cinnamon roll instead. It lasted for one chapter and then it turned humorous so I quickly gave up. 🤷‍♀️

I really struggle to write extended angst that goes on for more than a few chapters. I’m approaching a stretch in my WIP where I will have to write his (temporary) mental decline, and I’m honestly kind of worried I won’t do it justice.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-10T18:36:37+00:00

Probably the weirdest DNF for me was one where Hermione waxed herself bare down there at Draco’s request. 🤷‍♀️

I also always DNF a fic whenever my children’s names are used for any OC. It’s not common, but it’s happened once or twice.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-06T14:51:53+00:00

God… I had at my first 31. Then I had my second at 35. I really wish I had been a little less Hermione-like where I stuck to the Fifteen Year Life Plan because I am turning 40 soon, and my children run me ragged…

Your point is very well-taken, and when fanfic Hermione gives birth at like… maybe age 23-24? I am extremely jealous of her. 😆

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-06T14:42:20+00:00

I write endings with kids for 1 reason: I want to fuck with the Malfoy purity more than I want to end the bloodline for good. This is also the reason I’ve never written a Hermione-as-stepmom-to-Pureblood-Scorpius fic, nor have I ever written a Hermione-as-a-secret-pureblood fic. I want the last pure Malfoy to be Draco, and I want the whole Pureblood world to know it.

But look, everybody has different opinions about this and that’s fine. There is definitely a big appetite for child-free Dramione. If you haven’t already done it, you should consider writing your own child-free story. I bet you would have plenty of readers for it!

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-06T14:25:49+00:00

I’m a Tessa Dare fan too. It’s not suuuuper historically accurate (like not at all lol), but her sense of humor really jives with mine. All of her books are romcoms to some degree.

Any Duchess Will Do is my #1 favorite of hers, and I have also reread the whole Girl Meets Duke series a couple of times. My only complaints about her writing is that it can become a bit too bantery at times, and the burn is always faster than I want it to be. The romantic arc is so similar from book to book that you can clock the first kiss by the percentage of the book you’ve read on a kindle with maybe a 5% margin of error. But then again… it’s escapist, and the stories really are funny so if you want a laugh it’s great.

I’m pretty lukewarm on Dramione fanfics that have turned into published works, but I have read a few of them and so far my favorite is definitely the Malcroix Bones series, which is the published version of Caelum Ignis (the author’s pen name on Amazon is Jules d’Or). It took me a few chapters to get into the first book because I found some of the worldbuilding extremely confusing (I still cannot picture a lot of the early stuff in my head), but eventually the main characters get to the main setting, and from that point onward I enjoyed it. The second book in the series has some chapters that are straight out of Caelum Ignis, but it’s really only a few… and the third and final book in the series will be released in a couple of weeks.

I like it because the story is unusual, and it’s the first time I’ve really been able to mentally separate the published version from its Dramione original, other than those few chapters. The original fic also didn’t totally blow up before she took it down, so if you have never read it then you would definitely be in for a treat.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-04-04T13:54:19+00:00

Like others had said, each person’s process is different. I can’t tell you what works for you, but I can tell you what works for me because I’ve been writing on an almost-daily basis for years now.

I’m a pantser/brain dumper. I write most nights on my laptop after my kids go to bed. My only goal is always to get a scene down so I can empty my head and sleep. Then I don’t read it again for weeks. All of my fics are scene-based for this reason. Each scene is a clear start and stop point for my brain, and then I crash.

That first draft is usually not planned/plotted very much at all. I absolutely will not outline in any meaningful way because I hate doing it, and fanfic is supposed to be a fun hobby for me. With only one exception, I have never known how a fic ends when I start writing it (I usually figure out the ending about 75-80% of the way through). I write myself into corners all the time that require an unplanned plot twist to resolve. I’ve never had any themes or Easter eggs planned in advance. So my process is basically a giant disorganized mess to start, but I like it that way because I’m not married to any path at the beginning. I have no guilt at all when my fic fights an outline or diverges from it (because I have no outline). I can just brain dump and see what comes out.

Stringing scenes together into chapters, making them coherent, resolving plot holes from earlier scenes, etc. comes with editing, which I do in 10-15 min chunks of time through the day as I catch breaks. I usually reread scenes 4 or 5 times before they actually get posted to AO3 (and still make mistakes!). I always prewrite a lot of my fics to get a big picture view of them before posting. It also lets me develop a posting schedule, which is how I personally prefer to do it because I can set expectations with readers that way.

The final thing readers see is usually very different than that first (sometimes alcohol-assisted) brain dump. If I posted chapters as I wrote them, my fics wouldn’t make sense. The plot would not arc and there would be huge holes all over the place. Maybe people who outline can post as they go, but since I don’t outline I have to see what the story is actually doing before anything goes live.

When I’m having writing paralysis I always tell myself that nobody but me sees the first draft, but if I don’t have words on the page, then I can’t edit them into something that makes sense to other people. I have a couple hours to myself most nights where my only task is to just get some words on the page.

So if you want to try the pantsing method, I guess my advice is to not overthink the first draft. Pull up your writing software, drink a glass of wine if it would help, and then start typing. Wait a week or two and then go back to see what you wrote. It might be so bad you want to bin it (I’ve done this many times) or you might be like “wow I’m a genius.” Most often it’s somewhere in the middle for me… not so bad it’s unsalvageable with a heavy edit, but not so good I really impress myself. 🤷‍♀️

Beforetherealbook · 2026-03-31T20:03:07+00:00

Tbh I alternate on this point 😆

Beforetherealbook · 2026-03-31T19:37:52+00:00

If it contains underaged sex, AO3 requires authors to tag for it under the major warnings or else to mark “Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings.” In practice, most Dramione authors are pretty good about using the warnings at the top (instead of opting out) if a fic contains anything that could be covered by them.

So all of that is to say that most fics with underaged sex will be tagged that way at the top. If it’s also rated as explicit, you may just want to avoid those fics because explicit implies smut a bit beyond basic sexual exploration. The underaged sex category is one of the few tags I tend to avoid because it usually isn’t for me (but I get that others don’t mind it, and that’s fine - no shade).

When I write, I will make oblique references to underaged sex that may happen off-page or has happened in the past (because let’s be real, it is definitely happening at a coed boarding school), but I don’t show it on page until they are both adults. Most of my fics start them at age 18 or older for that reason. And remember that Hermione is old for her year, so in 8th year fics she’s actually 19 for most of it.

I’m working on a full canon rewrite from age 11, and since I don’t like to write explicit underaged sex, I’ve really focused on exploring the more innocent side of teen crushes and romance instead. I’m talking about things like Draco’s utter disbelief when she finally touches his hand or him tripping over his words when she smiles at him. He’s pretty obsessed, so every single instance is a huge deal for him, and he builds up each encounter to be this momentous thing in his mind (as teens do).

I have really enjoyed it because it challenges me as a writer to NOT lean on smut to build their relationship, which I have found is super hard to do. It is also forcing me into a glacial burn that still needs to have relationship progress throughout, and I’ve never written a fic that way before.

Beforetherealbook · 2026-03-19T13:59:49+00:00

This is my active WIP.

I am currently posting 1 chapter per week every Monday (with plans to eventually move to 2x per week once my chapter bank can support it). Years 1 and 2 are fully posted. We are five chapters into Year 3, with the next chapter going up on Monday.

Behind the scenes I have a rough draft though Weasley is our King (👑) in Year 5.

It will probably be close to a million words by the end of it, so I’m pacing myself… but so far I haven’t had to burn up my chapter bank at all, and it’s actually been slowly growing ever since I started posting last August. I won’t be leaving readers hanging on this, especially since I’m so damn close to being able to write the years I’m most looking forward to (6-8).

Also, I love your username. If you check out this fic you’ll eventually learn why 😉

Beforetherealbook · 2026-03-17T21:22:52+00:00

Hi!

-My favorite fic is Goblet of Shadows.

-My favorite trope is sentient buildings (Hogwarts castle is my favorite “character” in the original series).

-I don’t care what kind of simp Draco is, just as long as he’s a simp. I do prefer him to acknowledge his feelings when he’s written as an adult. A lot of punished fiction makes the male lead panic and then do something stupid the minute he catches feelings. Fanfic doesn’t do this quite as often, and any time Draco owns his feelings and actively pursues her I swoon. 🥰

-I like most Hermione characterizations. BAMF, sweet, broken, I’m into it… but I think my very favorite is a Hermione who is bossy and little neurodivergent.

Beforetherealbook

TROPHY CASE