Place to discuss, rec, and generally squee over fan fiction about Steve Rogers and Tony Stark
Thursday: Weekly Writer's Assistance
While imzy is still missing the functionality of displaying when a post has new comments, we’re offering the writing assistance thread now on a weekly basis!
Need help with creating the atmosphere for that sleazy bar Tony likes to hang out in? What would a college student in the 1980s spent his money on? Looking for someone to help beta read your fic or just cheer you on? Ask a weird question that now taints your search history (Don’t we all have those? I once spent three hours researching the rent prices in Paris in the early 2000s) but still have not found the answer to? Would you like to share a great resource that you found recently?
Feel free to direct all your questions here, no judgement, no shame :)
Handy Resources (previously shared by @ChibiSquirt)
- Info on Steve’s Medical Forms
- Words, words & words
- Pricing of things you’d rather not google
- How to create conflict in a story
- Writing anti-heroes, villains and antagonists
- Avoiding “very”
- Twenty basic plots
- Steve’s art and reading list
- SciFi and technical terms
Other things the resident Stevetony writer might find useful:
- Avengers Assemble: SteveTony Episode Guide by @boop
- An Unbelievably Abridged Guide to 616 Stevetony by @boop
See our permanent Writing Assistance post which already contains a lot of great info and beta offers!





I'm not really sure if this goes here hahaha but!! I'm writing a post hydra!cap fix-it fic and I was wondering how many years have passed since current canon and the first Civil War? I need to know for science :))).
Welcome to the Marvel telescoping timeline! As I understand it, the idea is that everything since the founding of the Avengers (and all those other early 60s events) happened in about ten or twelve years. So given that that's, what, fifty years of canon, and the first Civil War was ten years ago our time... I usually put it at maybe three years.
Ahahaa, thank you! I was calculating something like-- 3 or 5 years. It still feels confusing to think that the time gap between the war and the incursions is so small (saaad).
OK, how does everyone find time to write, and manage their writing time and brainspace? And how do you pick which projects you work on?
Weird question, I guess, but my example is... I have... (counts on fingers) four shorter WIPs that I really, really want to finish in a timely manner, and in addition to that, I have some ideas for Remix Madness.
I know I am not the only one with multiple WIPs. I think that's actually the natural state of things... but how do you y'all DO it??
I've been trying to write whenever I can, but I'm constantly having ideas about them all, and it's honestly kind of distracting during work and other commitments I have.
And additionally, the switching costs feel real--I'll jump around wherever I have inspiration, but I kind of feel like I'm getting nothing done on all of them. That's... not exactly true, the word counts are going up, but it doesn't feel good, you know?
How do you manage it? I feel like you are all super prolific and dedicated, and post so many works. It's really inspiring and I feel like I can't quite get on your level, to be honest.
I'm terrible at managing multiple WiPs. I don't see how people do it! The most I can handle is two, but it is hard for me to switch between stories and characterizations like that. I'd love to hear how people have figured this out!
I'm lazy so I'm gonna recycle what I posted last week on how I multi-WIP
But I'm still an extremely slow writer. Case in point, I only posted six works in 2016. I have a Stony fic I've been chipping away at since September. Sometimes I can whip up 2k in a day and on others I struggle to get 50 words on a page. I try to get in daily writing time because the routine helps me avoiding writer's block. My usual goal for the day is 60 in 60, i.e. writing (at least) sixty words in sixty minutes. That one is doable even when I'm blocked.
But in the end, deadlines remain the most effective way to get me to work.
The best thing for me is talking to people. I couldn't tell you how many ideas I go through a day, and the only way they don't distract me (too much) is to air them on people. I have only written fic since November/December, but the ones I write are the ones that won't leave me once I've aired them a couple times. So that's more an answer to how to narrow down WIPs than how to manage time, idk if that is a problem of yours too (like me!), because I'm always distracted at work or anywhere.
I write scene by scene on slower days; if I'm motivated, I'll write until a particular scene. That helps me focus it in my mind, because it's one puzzle at a time. Again, talking to people also helps me, but it kinda requires patient people who are okay with drive-by AU dumps.
Snapple. God, everyone on campus had Snapple iced teas.
Thanks! Never even heard of Snapple before haha
Anyone of the Americans or those familiar have suggestions what non-alcoholic drink Tony might have gone for as a teenager or in his early 20s? Like, what was the cool thing to drink in the late 80s/early 90s?
I always think about Cherry Coke... Looks like cherry coke came out in '85, and a quick google reminds me that it had this crazy packaging in the 90s. Apparently it had a hip hop marketing campaign in the early 90s, too... That was a little before my awareness of it, but DO vividly remember Savage Garden (ahahaha) singing about ch-ch-cherry cola back in 1997.
What didn't have a hip hop marketing campaign in the early 90s? lol. Interesting though, Cherry Coke became a thing much later here.
I'm with Sabre on the Snapple. Also maybe Surge? It's was like Mountain Dew on steroids! Just green caffeine!
How do you even put Mountain Dew on steroids? That stuff already looks like it's sourced from a nuclear reactor. But it sounds like something Tony would chug…
Crystal Pepsi. Wait, was Crystal Pepsi cool? I thought it was cool.