Retrospring is shutting down on 1st March, 2025 Read more

Anon-ie · 6mo

HI!!! I read Walls Down a few days ago and I am now a changed person. All the yearning and regrets and bittersweetness hit me so hard and my heart was both torn apart and healed by it. Thank you very much for that beautiful piece of work <3
I wanted to ask if you're cool with answering - how long did it take to write and how did you go from the idea/planning to the final fic? I personally really struggle with writing any fics longer than like, a single scene, so being able to write a longer, slower-burn style of fic like Walls Down is something I've been trying to improve :') A big struggle I have is that once I have an idea, I find it really difficult to actually come up with the scenes (aside from the "big" scenes), so I would love some insight on your personal process!
Thank you! Hope you have a nice day!

hi! i am so sorry this took a month to answer. life got busy and god knows i was in the trenches (still am now, please free me). i also really wanted to put some thought into this answer bc you're so sweet aggh and i understand the struggle completely.

so a few things about walls down! i actually contacted the awesome person who made the art sometime around november asking if i could make a fic out of their work. they said yes and theeen i procrastinated and never got around to it. picked it up again when i realized geto's bday was in legit 2 days. as for the plot and planning, i’m a super impulsive writer. i had 2 scenes written prior to picking it back up. the first was stsg's first time acknowledging each other (first time gojo knocks on his door) and the second was gojo bearing his heart to geto via a confession. what i wanted to convey most when i was writing walls down was geto gradually accepting gojo into his life, and every interaction was meant to build on that. those 2 scenes guided the atmosphere i wanted to curate, and i filled in the blanks to connect em. that was abt as much planning as i did to write walls down, and the final product was done in those 2 days leading up to geto’s bday! so in total, i planned for a couple days inconsistently (some in november, 2 days in february).

funnily enough, the way you write your stories is exactly how i write mine. think about your “big” scenes and the emotions you want your readers to feel. how can you hint that the big scene is coming, and what scenes can add to the feelings you hope will resonate with people once they read the climax? that’s the approach i take to writing slow burn and one shots with a bit more punch to them. if you get stuck, also try thinking abt how each scene can introduce new info to the story. it doesn’t have to be big, it doesn’t have to be poetic, but the scenes leading up to the ones you’ve prewritten should increase the tension!

writing something with emotional impact is difficult. all my props to you for tackling it. it can be so exhausting on the author. anyway, i hope i provided some insight. feel free to reach out again via retro or ao3 comments or dms if you wanna chat more! sorry this response is so long haha, and i hope it helped :)

Retrospring uses Markdown for formatting

*italic text* for italic text

**bold text** for bold text

[link](https://example.com) for link