daasgrrl

Probably most people who are interested have seen this already - thank you for reading! - but I'm posting it for completeness

Title: Habits
Status: Complete
Fandom: Sherlock
Characters/Pairings:  Mycroft Holmes and Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 221(B)
Warnings/contents: drug use
Notes: For and with thanks to splix <3, who threw me a prompt for The Abominable Bride.

Summary: Sherlock keeps his promises.

Read at: AO3

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While I'm here, this is a question I've been threatening promising to ask for a while - for you amazing people who write 'long' fic, which I will loosely define as anything over 20,000 words - how do you approach it? I realise for some of you that's a one-shot (sigh) but the longest 'continuous' fic I've ever posted is around 26,000 words (In His Image). And while I loved writing it, I could actually feel the panic creeping up on me once I passed 15,000 words or so. I can comfortably hold about that much plot in my head, more or less, but over that it just felt like it was spiralling out of control. Also, I'd written the first chapter a long time before continuing it, so the writing was split up as well. I wasn't very organised about it - I just had an ending in mind and went for it, typing furiously. Hence the panic *g*

Since then, I've been trying to write fic composed of 'episodes' that total > 15,000 words, but the idea of one continuous story makes my head hurt. However, I think it would be cool to be able to do that. Now I know there's writing advice all around the 'net, but for a lot of you I know your personal styles, which helps a lot. Getting advice from some random person isn't the same thing at all. Is it easy for you, or do you struggle? Do you plan/outline? How much - what level of detail? Plot, characters? Once you outline, is it set in stone, and does that work for you? Have you ever abandoned what you were going to do and gone elsewhere because it wasn't working? Or do you just sit down and write until it's done?

I'm clinging onto dioscureantwins slightly flippant advice, which was to "just keep writing". LOL. I mean, I KNOW that's what it comes down to, so it probably is the only real approach in the long term. But I'm also curious. So if you'd like to share thoughts, advice, whatever (only if you're so inclined, of course), I'd love to hear it! Thank you :)