I promise there is no secret formula 😭 I do not sit down and magically know what to write
I’ve been writing fanfic for nine years and I started exactly like this. Completely blank brain. Back then I only did academic journaling so fiction felt impossible to me. I had to actually learn how to tell stories

At first I copied my favourite authors a lot. Like a lot a lot. Reading them, mimicking rhythm, seeing how they described emotions. Over time you stop sounding like them and start sounding like yourself. That’s how voice happens

Even now plots don’t drop into my head fully formed. It always starts with one tiny idea. Then I keep asking questions like
What caused this
What happens after
Who are the people here
What kind of person would react like this
What's the setting like

I actually build characters before plot. I write character sheets by hand first so I can scratch things out and rearrange. Then I do the same for the plot, then I move everything into a doc once it makes sense

So honestly the trick is just… write anything. Fanfiction is the one place you’re allowed to be imperfect. It’s literally an archive, not a final draft museum

If you keep showing up you will find your footing. Consistency matters more than talent at the start, I promise. Also most of writing is not dramatic inspiration moments. It is staring at a line, changing one word, deleting it, putting it back, and realizing the sentence works after the fifth attempt. You are not failing when that happens, that is the process

And sometimes you won’t like what you wrote that day. Keep it anyway. A lot of good scenes come from returning later with clearer eyes. Progress in writing is usually invisible while it’s happening

So don’t wait until you feel ready to be a writer before writing. Writing is the thing that makes you ready. I hope you write whatever you want after this. 🫂🫂

You’re not wrong at all. That instinct tracks painfully well because if Xinlong had looked at him properly, really met his eyes, the armor would have cracked instantly. Avoiding Geonwoo’s gaze wasn’t indifference, it was survival. He needed distance in every possible way: body turned away, hands busy, voice flattened. Eye contact would have undone the performance, because Geonwoo’s eyes are where the truth lives. They always have been.

That’s why the cruelty reads so foreign even to Xinlong himself. He’s not choosing coldness because he doesn’t care. He’s choosing it because caring is too dangerous in that moment. One look and he would have stayed. Or broken down. Or told the truth too soon, without knowing how to live with the consequences.

So yeah. If he’d looked at him even once, properly, I think he would have folded. And the fact that he knew that about himself makes the whole scene hurt worse, not better.