wanted a secret service au but add magic to it plus make ten an assassin sent to kill his future love interest, that shit’s always exciting. so there came the outline A. [this is bullshit at this point but there are still some spoilers to earlier published chapters so be careful]

after that, came the character outlines. for me, backstory is as important as the current events and behavior of the characters. you want to be consistent in your characterization, and for that, you need to know everything about them.

what the character went through, how they were brought up, what traumas and significant events they’ve lived through, what tradition and faith, if any, they follow, and how all of that shaped them. so the first thing i did was writing down and establishing who’s who.

ets is a story about fantasy creatures, and almost each of the characters is of a different race. once that was decided, i went deep into the pits of the internet and my own memory and past research to note down the things that set each creature apart or connect them.

the races have their different specific traits and habits (like seeing your future destined person and sweet tooth for fairies; silver is poison for shapeshifters and werewolves; there are different kinds of witchcraft, etc.).

most of the ones written in ets are based on folklore, some are taken from supernatural and that one episode of love death robots (for sicheng), and some are things i came up with on my own (but here remember that you have to justify everything and make it logical).

after that’s been established, i started on the character stories and past. once again, you have to explain and justify absolutely everything. you have to believe in it in order for the readers to believe in it.

why is ten so mistrustful of people? why does jimin keep his legs covered? why is jaehyun such a bookworm? why does taeil believe he is cursed to condemn his loved ones to death? these are the questions the readers will ask, and you have to know the answers to them beforehand.

you have to be able to explain every little detail you wrote about your character, and if you come up with those on the go (which also often happens with me), it still has to have a justification in their character and their past.

hence, there comes the “character stories+timelines” folder, which includes at least two separate notes — the timeline itself and the profiles that i use for easier identification (you can find them in my carrd under the character profiles section in the ets section)

a side note for the timelines — in ets, these also serve another purpose. it is written in the format of flashback-present-flashback-present. actually writing the flashbacks as separate scenes instead of describing them briefly in the main text helps to establish the character

and give the reader a glimpse into their head. some flashbacks can just be brushed upon in speech, others need to go as scenes, but more about that later.

so, for example, here’s a timeline and profile of Sicheng, our favorite resident bitch. you can see his general timeline and profile tips to which i turn when i’m writing his pov (altho at this point he’s one of my favs and i know him enough to not consult the notes)

overall, i have 29 of these — 21 for nct, 7 for bts, and 1 for an oc that became so big she needed her own folder lmao. a lot of them haven’t appeared fully yet but rest assured all of them will have their minute in the limelight.

even tho i don’t technically need these notes yet, it’s still useful to have them around. one way or another, they are mentioned and referenced by other characters — especially if their pasts are intertwined (which they often are)

and this way, i can sprinkle in some teasers and little details that show that the character “on-screen” isn’t a standalone — they have friends, close people who influenced them or are big parts of their lives.

more so, details and little things enrich the story and create a bigger backdrop for the characters to shine on. they also create a setup for the events to happen later, even if it’s going to be several chapters later.

details also help with my most favorite and evil method of all — foreshadowing. most of the time, the reader won’t pick up on some minor things unless you shove them in their faces (and honestly sometimes even then lol jk i love my readers <3)

but later on, when they’re retreading the story or coming back to something while already knowing what happens later — they will be blown away by the fact that it’s been there the entire time.

like, what would you say if i told you that i’ve already spoiled the entire ets ending in these little details and even jokes? every single major plot twist? i’ve already laid ground for and spoiled them

and it’s very entertaining to watch people miss that but lose their shit over the gays (which is, let’s face it, the point of it all, so i love it nevertheless)

foreshadowing is probably something i should make a separate thread on because lmaooo that is my turf but anyway the main tip —

either make it so obscure people will still be confused when everything’s said and done OR make it so obvious nobody believes it will come true. at this point i’ve got my readers so scared they jump at any odd phrase and i love to see it hehe yes be scared

anyway moving on! you did the characters — good. remember that it’s just a foundation and it can be changed later on, this is a blueprint for you to work with.

another major part of worldbuilding a sophisticated believable story is, well, the worldbuilding. you have to give your characters a realistic and extensive playground, and it’s up to you to make it easy or hard enough for them to navigate it.

ets is a magic realism world with fantasy creatures and secret agencies that investigate cases connected to those creatures and their relations with humans. a big question i had to ask myself at the beginning was — how the hell did it happen?

humans suck and we have so many source material to prove that peaceful cohabitation of creatures and humans is near damn impossible. you know all those times you watched/read something that had something dumb going on and you were like, “you can easily solve it by doing A, B, C”?

this is what you do here!

so i wrote down the brief history of this world. at the start, it was just a general outline of things that went down to bring the world to what it is now.

we don’t need to invent a bicycle here, as you have the entire history of the world to work on — a little tweak there, a little war here, change the dates and reasons for the second world war and mention that hitler died in the womb, and boom — you have your alternative history.

ask yourself the most obvious questions you would pose at any alternative history story. when did the creatures come out of hiding? how did the humans take to it? how did it go wrong (because in the case of ets, it did)? how did it get resolved? etc

after that, i developed more on what TOUCH is and how it operates and when it was created and even where they have HQs, Academies, and other administrative aspects that are needed to set up an organization of this scale.

then came the communities like First Families and ingenious tribes — which are also the details, but this time, they are the details of the world that give it flavor and depth.

there is no set-in-stone order for developing your world. you can do the characters first and the world second, or in reverse, or both at the same time — which what happened with me and ets, since i tend to create while i create.

ie, while outlining Seokjin, i came up with the tradition of some ingenious fairy tribes to remain closed from the rest of the world — why do they do it? they don’t approve of something. -> what is it? the union of fairies and elves that previously existed as enemies

-> when did it happen? when Taeil’s brother married Aretha, the fairy princess -> why is she important? she tells Taeil the legend of the lost prince and her half-brother -> who’s the lost prince? Taeyong -> Taeil recognizes him when they meet and has grounds to be loyal to him,

since Taeyong is the only family Taeil has left and family and honor are Taeil’s top priorities.

boom. there goes the interconnectedness.

sometimes, i plan out characters that seem to have absolutely nothing in common or connecting them, and then along the way i find that they actually play some role in each other’s story.

this is how you make the story seem full and developed even when you think you’ve no idea what you’re doing (like i do most of the time tbh). but an important part is also not to overdo it.

unfortunately, you can’t have almost three dozen characters of the most varying backgrounds and races and ages all be immediately connected. first of all, it’s way too hard to develop. second of all, that would be good old munching.

anyway moving on again! after that’s said and done, i could already see the outline B, a developed and grown version that, much like a skeleton, got more muscle and tissue added on it and therefore had to grow bigger to accommodate it all.

at that point, i could already see that outline A was like only a THIRD of the story that will go down, and honestly? it was scary. it’s still scary, even tho i’m 280k words in. but it’s also exciting as hell, because all that long hard work meant a great story would be born.

(it took me a few months of non-consistent research and writing to come up with all the races, characters, and worldbuilding. i had another multichaptered fic, other wips, and a masters thesis to write and defend, of course,

but ets remains the leader in the time it took me to claw it out of the depths of my brain and put on paper)

after the outline B was developed, it was immediately rewritten into outline C, which became the one that lived the longest lmao. once it was done, i developed it further on the basis of a system i already had — a folder per chapter. here comes the crazy part [spoilers ahead]

a lot of ets vibes comes from focusing a chapter on a certain character and/or city. you can see it in the screens of the future chapters. inside the folder, there is the outline and notes with headcanons and bits of dialogues and things to keep in mind while i write the chapter

after the chapter is done, i move the outline and notes into archive and delete the folder to keep it organized. as example, here’s an outline from a published chapter to avoid even more spoilers lmao. let’s look at chapter 12, Johnny!

so this outline note contains the outline with some details, little quotes and moments that are vital to the chapter, plus the states of main love interests (in this case ten and taeyong) feelings toward each other. these help me not rush the development

a chapter folder also contains separate notes that i later transfer to the chapter “assorted shit”. I don’t delete them bc when i need to rehash things, it’s easier to look at these notes that skim thru 280k words lmao

so that’s how this shit is done! every time i get a new headcanon, i have a folder to put it into. this system helps me quickly find whatever i need and keep the story consistent. some part of the outlines are pre-done, some i do before writing the chapter.

when the time comes to write a new chapter, i look at the outline and fill it up to update it and match it to whatever my brain decided to spit out during the previous chapters. for the flashbacks, I dip into the characters folders for their backstories.

here, i decide what is important enough to separate as a scene, and what can be omitted - usually, i write the scenes that directly correlate to what happens to the characters in present time, or whatever is ironic and metaphor-worthy enough lmao

then, i write in google docs, send it june’s way (shoutout ily you’re the real one), she fixes my dumb mistakes, and i post! and then people scream at me which is also fun hehe

I think that’s about it? I’m sure i forgot a ton of shit, so if you have any questions, send them my way pls! thanks if you managed to stick around until here and i hope this gave you some inspiration or ideas to organize your own planning! <3

and already know what i forgot to mention. the prompts folder. this little thing contains all of the headcanons that come to me randomly and for which i still haven’t decided a chapter. it helps to look here when i’m looking for spicy stuff to put into the chapter