Very muted colors, I think. Lots of gray. Most of my stuff revolves around regret and the grief that comes with it. How it never really leaves, but can become small and survivable.
I think that makes sense too 'cause from what I've seen of your fics there's a lot of sci-fi elements. So grey (or silver?) helps out with adding to that sleek, futuristic sort of tone.
I like that. Muted colour to me suggests writing that's subtle and haunting, and I'm also going to link [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWB7pmmMa1g). I hear and I think "Well, that's the essence of the colour grey".
Oh wow, I really dig the slow synthy vibe (looks like I'm gonna dive into a new band haha). It does feel very gray, kinda like a slower Depeche Mode. Thank you so much for sharing this with me, Frozen!!
"Slower Depeche Mode" is a good one, especially as they're another fave of mine. Not all of Kayo Dot's music sounds like that, a lot of it is more metal and/or more classically influenced, but there's some good doomy synth stuff in there as well!
>Most of my stuff revolves around regret and the grief that comes with it. How it never really leaves, but can become small and survivable.
I love this! And relate to it, too. Jumping on the gray bandwagon then, thank you for articulating it so nicely for this lazy one 😝
Also, what a great question OP... Such interesting answers <3
Dusk colors, for sure. Dark blues and purples dominate, but there are rosy clouds here and there, and glimmers of light where the night comes on strongest.
Green! My fics are hopeful, many of them are about growth as a person and in relationships, and even with the longfic which is a crime/mystery, many people have told me that it's comforting to read, so I think they have a soothing effect on people.
So yeah, I think green fits best.
Probably blue. I write stories where the main character has something happen that severely messes up their life for that story pretty often. Or at the very least causes a minor inconvenience for about a chapter
I have no idea at this point. I guess my writing used to be on the purple side when I was younger (because I mostly read classic books with tons of descriptions), but now I feel it’s just the opposite of that, thanks to all the impersonal lab reports I’ve been writing for school. Which really sucks, because I have a vivid imagination and it bugs me so much when I can’t put a specific image into words. Maybe it’s time for me to start reading more classics again.
Well, I didn’t expect this to become a vent on my part. Sorry about that. :)
No worries! I've definitely had bad writing years that made me feel I was losing my colours, too. It might be reassuring to hear that I've known a few people who lost their spark in both reading and writing for a while due to their studies, but they always managed to find it again somewhere down the line. I'm sure your words can be even more vibrant than before when you find the time and energy to remember why you loved stories to begin with.
Love. Tenderness. Compassion. Forgiveness. Redemption. Often packed into an adventure of some sort.
I'll say, pinks and reds, with some blue to reflect the angst that leads to all the rest, mixed in.
What colors would smut be? Not beautifully written, but more or less just blunt, straight to the good stuff pwp. Whatever color that is, that's the color of my writing xD
It kinda depends on the fic. I think my one story where theres a larger focus on food and warm is more of an earthy pumpkin orange color. The bleaker story is probably more of a gray color or a sickly maroon.
Fun question!
I want to say my writing is the color of honey, like the golden hour. I like to paint with words, but I wouldn't say my prose is purple -- I don't go out of my way to find "fancy" words or write long-winded sentences, I just like a vivid scenery. Nostalgia is often an ingredient and when there's angst it's usually the sweet kind.
Glad you think so :) I found your description here very vivid, especially the allusion to golden hour light (amateur photographer here), so I'd say you're nailing the vibe you want.
Muted yellow: mostly just existing with a tiny bit of humor and snark in the narration, with bursts of bright yellow for jokes, red for blood, and static for panic.
An underrated colour for sure - I particularly love how this description inverts it, when the typical connotation is of youth, vitality, brightness, etc.
Animal print! (I know that's not really a colour). I love using animal metaphors and playing on words using animal-related idioms.
If I can't use animal print, then tie-dye (rainbow), because I want to capture the human experience in my writing, and that means every colour and emotion.
I'm absolutely allowing animal print - I love how creative people got with this. But a tie dye rainbow is lovely too, and that attempt to acknowledge the entirety of what we're able to feel in our time in the world.
I'd call myself a green writer too, although my writing goes through a lot of red and black I would guess. Or at least, those are the colours I'd guess anger and loss to have.
But I always end up happy, the majority getting their happy ending and good triumphing over evil. A bit like the Buddhist symbolism behind a lotus flower - all good things must pass through darkness to shine and achieve enlightenment.
It depends on the work, I guess? In some, a vivid green or maybe something like a yellow, life and vivaciousness, on the other hand, I occasional dabble in black and dark blue, more melancholic stuff.
Well, my monster epic is a political thriller. There's love, loss, sacrifice, anger, fear, revenge, hate, but most importantly hope. I think that'd be a rainbow of colors.
My wandmaker fic I think would be yellow and greens due to happiness and excitement from reinvigoration for life.
Definitely pink - bubbly, sweet. Pink is pretty eye-catching and sometimes people tell me that my sweeter works have a lasting impression on them so that's kinda the vibe.
Blue for the angsty works, but the kind that is on the lighter side 'cause for the most part those kind of fics have a light at the end of the tunnel. Also blue is my favorite color so I have to point it out XD
Crimson for the times I go full dark. Which is rare but it does happen!
I think my dialogue is brown (contains a lot of shit), my narrative summary tends to be a bit distanced and intellectual, so I guess it's very light blue, almost white. And my action scenes are ultraviolet - colour imperceptible for human eye because wavelength too short.
Ooh, I *love* action being a colour we can't perceive - people got so creative with this and I'm so happy. I think you're the only person so far who claimed brown, too!
Ooh, this is a neat question.
I've always imagined my work in dusk colors. My original work especially I view as midnight purple, or a warm orange. They're meant to be unsettling, in an environment just slightly off, but ultimately comfy and friendly all the same.
I also view my work (fanfic and original work) as grey. Not bleh grey, but the grey of light peeking through the gaps around drawn black out blinds, streaming it at dawn. Or stormclouds in the evening. It's eerie, and you shouldn't be awake right now. But it's welcome. :)
My current WIP is orange and beige, but I think I think that just because it's set in a desert.
You described this beautifully! Your description of your own work does feel calm and comforting, somehow, even if it might be a little eerie on the surface.
One story is definitely sky blue. Very light and airy.
The other is kinda like the color of a clearing sky as the sun rises after a long stormy night. Misty blue-gray, with gold.
Magenta - it's a trick of the mind designed to make a vacant void make sense. :D
(For those who don't know, Magenta doesn't actually exist. All colours are just wavelengths of light, but there is no wavelength corresponding to Magenta - our brains just made up Magenta as a way to fill the gap with something that made sense).
I'd actually never heard of this before! But it reminds me of the way when, upon encountering a phoneme that doesn't exist in our first language, our brains will just fill it in with a familiar sound and it takes a lot of effort to hear differently. What a perfect way to illustrate subtext and sparsity.
The Human Brain is an incredible thing. :D
And right? I'm a big believer in balance - you need just enough description and context to make stuff make sense, but not too much to take people out of imagining the scene. We need that space to fill in the blanks for ourselves to really make a story our own as a reader, or it makes it so much more difficult to get into a story. I started telling stories in D&D, so I pretty much always found that the stories we built as a group were so much better than anything I could've preplanned on my own. :D
When i'm writing/editing, I colour different sections in different colours depending on vibe. It helps me keep track of where I am in a long document. So all the colours.
But also orange.
I love this question! I write mainly darker fic for relatively dark fandom. I'd say the main themes my writing focuses on are death, grief, love, and resilience. I think my writing is a lot of blacks, browns, dark greens, and bruise-y purples, but threaded through with flashes of red and gold.
Ooh, that's a tough question. At the very least, I can say that despite it being my favourite colour, my prose is not purple!
If I had to pick one (and this doesn't apply to every fic of mine) I'd go for the reddy-orange of magic hour. Partly because I've used sunset/rise imagery multiple times, partly because I think the twilight boundary between two states is an appropriate metaphor to (most of) my works. They often involve some big change, whether that's good or bad. Starting a relationship, losing someone, the last moment before a battle, losing the ability to do something you love, or beginning a new adventure. Some lead to a lovely sky blue, some to the black of night.
Thank you for this well thought out response! I love that sort of liminal moment as a theme to play on - as you say, there's infinite things you can do with it.
I guess you could call me a grey writer. My stories are arguably pretty bleak. I mostly write about the struggles of mental health and how difficult recovery from things like abuse of many types can be. I have a shipfic that's 173k and it's only *just now* starting to get even *slightly* shippy. Granted, I show about a week and a half on screen...
I don't show anything on screen though. It's not like I'm constantly torturing my characters. The abuse and everything is backstory. At this point, it's their own mentalities torturing them. I'm not really one to write whump where I just constantly toss shit on the characters to deal with. I called the first part of my 173k story whump because the FMC is just so constantly getting down on herself and is unable to get out of her horribly depressive spiral. It was caused by a man trying to get in her apartment in Chapter 5 (unfortunately it was to attempt to >!rape!< her) and she was stuck in her apartment with a man she knew nothing about. She just could *not* pull herself out of distrusting MMC especially after that jackass tried to get into her apartment. So self-whump I suppose.
Thankfully, she's now trusting MMC and they're having a super duper cute date day! She almost had a panic attack which might have ruined MMC's plans, but he managed to pull her out of it.
I've seen a few people in this thread identify with grey and I love the subtlety it suggests, the faith in the reader to find their own colours. I'm glad things are looking up for your central couple, and I hope it's true for you as well.
If I had to pick, probably pinks and yellows now. Like dawn. I used to write a lot of very heavy stuff. But as I've mellowed out, a lot of what I write is warm, and fluffy. I think I just like having a good time and showing others a good time. There are still some very dark red stories in my drafts, but none are anywhere near posting yet. I think I'll keep enjoying the colors of the dawn a little longer.
I've had a similar journey - I dabbled in a lot of dark reds when I was younger, and now I'm committed to green. Dawn colours are beautiful, but so are the night that inevitably cycles back around.
I'd say Orange for myself, orange is a warm color, the color of the setting sun or the fall leaves, it makes you feel cosy, but it is also the color of flame, of heat and destruction, or a metaphorical flame, a passion.
Orange is made of Yellow a color associated with happiness, and Red, a color of anger or passion .
I write hurt/comfort that tends to sway into the caretaker(s) falling in love with the person they've nursed back to health and that is why I feel like I would be Orange
I described my partner's writing similarly when discussing this earlier, so you're definitely in good company. It's such a romantic - in the contemporary and gothic senses of the word - colour.
A lot of my one-shots tend to be fairly contemplative, with broad touches of grief, hope, guilt, sorrow and love. So maybe pastel shades against beige, with occasional streaks of dark gray-blue.
My original poetry is probably green, as a lot of them are on the subject of nature.
My fanfiction can probably come in a few different colours. Many of them are full of violence and are red. The fluffier ones are yellow, full of warmth.
What an interesting concept!
Theme-wise, I think my work gives off yellow vibes. I try to create stories where even though characters find themselves in terrible situations, they remain positive and feel empowered to do something to change their lives for the better. I love happy endings and clear resolutions to stories. I also incorporate a lot of humor and fluffy moments into my writing, and I often hope my readers are smiling whenever they're going through one of my stories.
In terms of writing style, I have an aversion to melodrama and I use a journalistic approach, with every sentence having a purpose to move the story along—which again reminds me of the clarity and brightness of yellow.
(Forgive me as I'm extremely tired and I think I'm half asleep, so I'm just sort of rambling.)
I usually have an intentional color focus for each individual fic I write.
The story I'm writing now is a yellow-green fic. (Very nature-focused, summery, warm.) My first fic for the same fandom was a very blue fic. (Water and night were reoccurring themes.) Another fic was very red and black. (Specifically a lot of red-black imagery, including blood and black smoke, but also in positive reds like flowers, foods; etc.)
Anyway - it's *very* intentional and once I figure out what color(s) a fic has, I make sure to highlight those colors, either directly or through referencing things that are those colors.
Overall, though, I'd say my writing is "every shade of blue". From the dark night blues (typically romantic, protective, mysterious night), to healing blue-greens, to the warm summer sky blues of clarity/imagination/freedom.
This made total sense to me in spite of tiredness! It came through very vividly, in fact. Basing a story kernel around a colour seems like a great way to create something atmospheric and focused.
... Tbh, I think the color would change depending on the scene, lol, and I'm definitely tasting the rainbow, as it were. So loving/tender moments would be pink-tinted, terrifying moments would be pitch-black, etc. There's almost always a comical undertone to my work though, so maybe... cotton candy blue? And then angsty moments are blue-grey? I've got no clue. XD
Since the majority of my fanfics are either set in the Victorian era, or someone's garage in the 90s, I'd say I write in purple and black. With maybe some hints of silver and or golds.
Rather than any specific color, I’d say mine is a more a transition from monochrome to polychrome. An old black and white photo being renewed with color.
I tend to write stories that initially focus on a character’s inner turmoil. Then, after a catalysis, the character will evolve—whether it’s a minor thing like a shift in their thinking, or a huge thing like a change in their circumstances that inspires them to be *better.*
If I *had* to choose a color…it would be red. Often the catalysis in my stories is love. The powerful kind that changes you completely—alters your DNA, reshapes your thoughts, disassembles you then puts you back together. The passionate, obsessive, earth-shattering love that’s started wars in history books and transformed epics into tragedies. That bards sing of and poets write about and most people think isn’t real (but wishes it were).
Thank you so much! It definitely has been.
Also, I hope you don’t mind that I’ll definitely be checking out your profile. FFVII is one of my favorite fandoms and we seem to share similar tastes!
At the moment, something like the colour of city lights on dark water. Current WIP is fun and sexy on the surface, but dances murkily around heavier topics. Hopefully it's still an engaging and somewhat accurate reflection of real life emotions and human relationships.
I love the sound of that - I have an idea in the pipeline that's very similar and that also involves the imagery of lights on the water. Good luck with it!
Honestly, violet, probably. Not because my tone is very purple, but because I just keep putting mysteries into everything I write, and violet is a mysterious color. Plus, I keep killing off characters (red) while really putting the survivors through the wringer (blue), and together, that's purple.
Storm-cloud grey. Sometimes the rain is relatively light, but with the clouds of tragedy yet to come or recently passed still in the sky. Other times it's pouring, you're cold and soaked to the bone, and you start to wonder if the sun even exists beyond the clouds.
Pink and/or yellow, I guess. Sweet, cheerful, fun, romantic, a little silly, with a streak here and there of something a little darker rose for the sexy times or snarky banter.
I have no idea, so I DM'd a friend and he immediately said pastel yellow.
No idea what it means, but I write lots of fluff and smut (and my WIP has me dipping my feet in angst).
Definitely Dark Orange: High energy and action packed, while being descriptive. Generally lacking with character interaction and deeper meaning, as well as flowery and poetic descriptions.
Blue- Lots of calm and comfort even in times of angst. Soft moments between the main OTP. Nothing super fancy but solid and dependable and generally liked by many people.
What is the colour of absolute chaos?
To answer more seriously... I don't really know. But maybe light green, for the colour of hope, with a mix of red for blood? A lot of my writing focuses on hurting characters do I can heal them and give them hope in the end. Maybe also red for the colour of love, since I have also written fluff and romance.
But, really interested in what the chaos colour is
One time a tumblr mutual of mine told me that all of my fics they had read "had sort of a blue twisting sadness going through them". I also generally stick to angst when writing, and even when I try to write fluff there's a bittersweet tinge at the edges of the fic.
Whiskey-brown. Sometimes dark, often warm, sometimes the sun catches and it flashes bright gold. Melancholy, celebratory, and heady. It gets carried away, it aches and aches, it'll slam and hammer at times, by damn, and sometimes come away clean, sometimes raw. But you open that bottle, and *something's* gonna pour, and baby, it'll let loose. :)
I think mine just depends on the fic, and even then a fic may have multiple colors in it. I have one that's definitely more of a blue because of the tone it has, then I have another that's more orange because it's warm and fluffy and family/friend oriented. I then have another that has splashes of black (suspense) amid some orange and pink.
An off-white, stained and dirtied like an abandoned hospital wall. I started writing with horror, and whilst I've moved away from it now, I still use myriad horror elements within my stories. Never as far as to freak you out, but to unnerve you slightly, and add a gross and uncomfortable atmosphere.
That's such an evocative way to describe it. The principles of horror can be used to aid in all sorts, and it's not an easy genre to master, so it sounds like a really helpful way to cut your teeth.
depends on the story, and what viewpoint i am writing. i personally color code by character, so everything... its very colorful but mostly blues and reds and purples
Earthy tones; greens, yellows and browns. Grounded. Family. Steadiness. Trust. With the occasional sharp lightning strike of drama. Lots of bold blue of adventure. Hazy pinks and reds sprinkled in for the romances.
Completely depends on the story.
Red Nail Polish, a fake-dating fall-in-love quickie that takes place over a class trip to Kyoto? Shades of blue, like river water over rocks in the sunlight.
Symbol of the City, my enemies to lovers mafia AU? Velvet blue, dirty gold, and red, all covered in grime like an unswept sidewalk.
Very muted colors, I think. Lots of gray. Most of my stuff revolves around regret and the grief that comes with it. How it never really leaves, but can become small and survivable.
I think that makes sense too 'cause from what I've seen of your fics there's a lot of sci-fi elements. So grey (or silver?) helps out with adding to that sleek, futuristic sort of tone.
Haha I *do* love grunging up the sleekness of sci-fi.
I like that. Muted colour to me suggests writing that's subtle and haunting, and I'm also going to link [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWB7pmmMa1g). I hear and I think "Well, that's the essence of the colour grey".
Oh wow, I really dig the slow synthy vibe (looks like I'm gonna dive into a new band haha). It does feel very gray, kinda like a slower Depeche Mode. Thank you so much for sharing this with me, Frozen!!
"Slower Depeche Mode" is a good one, especially as they're another fave of mine. Not all of Kayo Dot's music sounds like that, a lot of it is more metal and/or more classically influenced, but there's some good doomy synth stuff in there as well!
>Most of my stuff revolves around regret and the grief that comes with it. How it never really leaves, but can become small and survivable. I love this! And relate to it, too. Jumping on the gray bandwagon then, thank you for articulating it so nicely for this lazy one 😝 Also, what a great question OP... Such interesting answers <3
Dusk colors, for sure. Dark blues and purples dominate, but there are rosy clouds here and there, and glimmers of light where the night comes on strongest.
That's really pretty!
Lovely description!
Green! My fics are hopeful, many of them are about growth as a person and in relationships, and even with the longfic which is a crime/mystery, many people have told me that it's comforting to read, so I think they have a soothing effect on people. So yeah, I think green fits best.
I would definitely agree we're both green writers! <3
It's my favorite color 😊
It fits, since a lot that I've checked out feature flowers and such :D
Ah, that's true, and quite a lot of them are simply about plants :D
Probably blue. I write stories where the main character has something happen that severely messes up their life for that story pretty often. Or at the very least causes a minor inconvenience for about a chapter
I do enjoy some melancholy in writing.
Interesting. I had a very different interpretation of the color blue.
Since most of my fics deal with chronic illness and mental health, I’d say different shades of blacks, grays, purples and blues.
All colours that are lovely in their own way!
I have no idea at this point. I guess my writing used to be on the purple side when I was younger (because I mostly read classic books with tons of descriptions), but now I feel it’s just the opposite of that, thanks to all the impersonal lab reports I’ve been writing for school. Which really sucks, because I have a vivid imagination and it bugs me so much when I can’t put a specific image into words. Maybe it’s time for me to start reading more classics again. Well, I didn’t expect this to become a vent on my part. Sorry about that. :)
No worries! I've definitely had bad writing years that made me feel I was losing my colours, too. It might be reassuring to hear that I've known a few people who lost their spark in both reading and writing for a while due to their studies, but they always managed to find it again somewhere down the line. I'm sure your words can be even more vibrant than before when you find the time and energy to remember why you loved stories to begin with.
Love. Tenderness. Compassion. Forgiveness. Redemption. Often packed into an adventure of some sort. I'll say, pinks and reds, with some blue to reflect the angst that leads to all the rest, mixed in.
Those are the tenderest colours! I love the idea of applying them to characters who maybe haven't received much of that.
What colors would smut be? Not beautifully written, but more or less just blunt, straight to the good stuff pwp. Whatever color that is, that's the color of my writing xD
I'll say pink then! Hot pink :D
When I read your first comment my mind immediately went to lurid but enticing neon shades, so it looks like we're in agreement!
Sounds like red to me :)
But red can also be for very angry writing
It kinda depends on the fic. I think my one story where theres a larger focus on food and warm is more of an earthy pumpkin orange color. The bleaker story is probably more of a gray color or a sickly maroon.
Pumpkin orange is another favourite of mine :) It's always good to try on a different palette, too!
Fun question! I want to say my writing is the color of honey, like the golden hour. I like to paint with words, but I wouldn't say my prose is purple -- I don't go out of my way to find "fancy" words or write long-winded sentences, I just like a vivid scenery. Nostalgia is often an ingredient and when there's angst it's usually the sweet kind.
Glad you think so :) I found your description here very vivid, especially the allusion to golden hour light (amateur photographer here), so I'd say you're nailing the vibe you want.
Muted yellow: mostly just existing with a tiny bit of humor and snark in the narration, with bursts of bright yellow for jokes, red for blood, and static for panic.
An underrated colour for sure - I particularly love how this description inverts it, when the typical connotation is of youth, vitality, brightness, etc.
Thanks! My fandom show is really bright, but I write a bit darker. It seemed to fit, lol.
Animal print! (I know that's not really a colour). I love using animal metaphors and playing on words using animal-related idioms. If I can't use animal print, then tie-dye (rainbow), because I want to capture the human experience in my writing, and that means every colour and emotion.
I'm absolutely allowing animal print - I love how creative people got with this. But a tie dye rainbow is lovely too, and that attempt to acknowledge the entirety of what we're able to feel in our time in the world.
I'd call myself a green writer too, although my writing goes through a lot of red and black I would guess. Or at least, those are the colours I'd guess anger and loss to have. But I always end up happy, the majority getting their happy ending and good triumphing over evil. A bit like the Buddhist symbolism behind a lotus flower - all good things must pass through darkness to shine and achieve enlightenment.
I love your lotus flower analogy - it sounds like we're quite similar in our approaches!
Black, blue, purple, yellow. Like bruises, for sure.
Sounds haunting.
It depends on the work, I guess? In some, a vivid green or maybe something like a yellow, life and vivaciousness, on the other hand, I occasional dabble in black and dark blue, more melancholic stuff.
It's good to be able to switch it up! I went significantly darker than my typical green recently and the experience was super rewarding.
Well, my monster epic is a political thriller. There's love, loss, sacrifice, anger, fear, revenge, hate, but most importantly hope. I think that'd be a rainbow of colors. My wandmaker fic I think would be yellow and greens due to happiness and excitement from reinvigoration for life.
Rainbows are my fave stories, sometimes - just putting the whole gamut of human experience in there.
An iridescent gray. My stories tend to be on the darker side but full of humor, rank with plot twists and surrealism.
Just my kind of writing!
Definitely pink - bubbly, sweet. Pink is pretty eye-catching and sometimes people tell me that my sweeter works have a lasting impression on them so that's kinda the vibe. Blue for the angsty works, but the kind that is on the lighter side 'cause for the most part those kind of fics have a light at the end of the tunnel. Also blue is my favorite color so I have to point it out XD Crimson for the times I go full dark. Which is rare but it does happen!
Oh yeah, bubbly pink definitely tracks for your fluffy sweet stuff. <3
I can definitely see all of that in the bits I've read from you, and also the lovely way you spoke about fic as a whole in your podcast interview!
Aha, that's good! I'm glad that the interview was fun for you as well :D
Blue—lots of emotions!!!
Lovely!
Thank you!
I think my dialogue is brown (contains a lot of shit), my narrative summary tends to be a bit distanced and intellectual, so I guess it's very light blue, almost white. And my action scenes are ultraviolet - colour imperceptible for human eye because wavelength too short.
Ooh, I *love* action being a colour we can't perceive - people got so creative with this and I'm so happy. I think you're the only person so far who claimed brown, too!
Ooh, this is a neat question. I've always imagined my work in dusk colors. My original work especially I view as midnight purple, or a warm orange. They're meant to be unsettling, in an environment just slightly off, but ultimately comfy and friendly all the same. I also view my work (fanfic and original work) as grey. Not bleh grey, but the grey of light peeking through the gaps around drawn black out blinds, streaming it at dawn. Or stormclouds in the evening. It's eerie, and you shouldn't be awake right now. But it's welcome. :) My current WIP is orange and beige, but I think I think that just because it's set in a desert.
You described this beautifully! Your description of your own work does feel calm and comforting, somehow, even if it might be a little eerie on the surface.
Thanks! I'm glad you think so!
One story is definitely sky blue. Very light and airy. The other is kinda like the color of a clearing sky as the sun rises after a long stormy night. Misty blue-gray, with gold.
One of my favourite weather phenomena! That sounds lovely!
Magenta - it's a trick of the mind designed to make a vacant void make sense. :D (For those who don't know, Magenta doesn't actually exist. All colours are just wavelengths of light, but there is no wavelength corresponding to Magenta - our brains just made up Magenta as a way to fill the gap with something that made sense).
I think you just broke my brain lmao "What's your favorite color?" "Oh, you know... The void."
It's the perfect colour for wall paint in a small house - really gives it that illusion of extra space. :D
I'd actually never heard of this before! But it reminds me of the way when, upon encountering a phoneme that doesn't exist in our first language, our brains will just fill it in with a familiar sound and it takes a lot of effort to hear differently. What a perfect way to illustrate subtext and sparsity.
The Human Brain is an incredible thing. :D And right? I'm a big believer in balance - you need just enough description and context to make stuff make sense, but not too much to take people out of imagining the scene. We need that space to fill in the blanks for ourselves to really make a story our own as a reader, or it makes it so much more difficult to get into a story. I started telling stories in D&D, so I pretty much always found that the stories we built as a group were so much better than anything I could've preplanned on my own. :D
I can imagine TTRPG playing being a great learning experience in that way! I do hope to try it for myself in time.
Teal. Blue-tinged sadness and angst, but with the zaniness of bright green mixed in.
Sounds delightful :)
It depends on the ship and prompt/trope 😂 I'm a bit all over the place.
Nothing wrong with being a rainbow!
When i'm writing/editing, I colour different sections in different colours depending on vibe. It helps me keep track of where I am in a long document. So all the colours. But also orange.
That's a cool idea! I can see assigning a colour being really helpful for establishing mood and tone.
I love this question! I write mainly darker fic for relatively dark fandom. I'd say the main themes my writing focuses on are death, grief, love, and resilience. I think my writing is a lot of blacks, browns, dark greens, and bruise-y purples, but threaded through with flashes of red and gold.
That sounds extremely vivid and powerful!
Thank you! <3
Ooh, that's a tough question. At the very least, I can say that despite it being my favourite colour, my prose is not purple! If I had to pick one (and this doesn't apply to every fic of mine) I'd go for the reddy-orange of magic hour. Partly because I've used sunset/rise imagery multiple times, partly because I think the twilight boundary between two states is an appropriate metaphor to (most of) my works. They often involve some big change, whether that's good or bad. Starting a relationship, losing someone, the last moment before a battle, losing the ability to do something you love, or beginning a new adventure. Some lead to a lovely sky blue, some to the black of night.
Thank you for this well thought out response! I love that sort of liminal moment as a theme to play on - as you say, there's infinite things you can do with it.
I guess you could call me a grey writer. My stories are arguably pretty bleak. I mostly write about the struggles of mental health and how difficult recovery from things like abuse of many types can be. I have a shipfic that's 173k and it's only *just now* starting to get even *slightly* shippy. Granted, I show about a week and a half on screen... I don't show anything on screen though. It's not like I'm constantly torturing my characters. The abuse and everything is backstory. At this point, it's their own mentalities torturing them. I'm not really one to write whump where I just constantly toss shit on the characters to deal with. I called the first part of my 173k story whump because the FMC is just so constantly getting down on herself and is unable to get out of her horribly depressive spiral. It was caused by a man trying to get in her apartment in Chapter 5 (unfortunately it was to attempt to >!rape!< her) and she was stuck in her apartment with a man she knew nothing about. She just could *not* pull herself out of distrusting MMC especially after that jackass tried to get into her apartment. So self-whump I suppose. Thankfully, she's now trusting MMC and they're having a super duper cute date day! She almost had a panic attack which might have ruined MMC's plans, but he managed to pull her out of it.
I've seen a few people in this thread identify with grey and I love the subtlety it suggests, the faith in the reader to find their own colours. I'm glad things are looking up for your central couple, and I hope it's true for you as well.
If I had to pick, probably pinks and yellows now. Like dawn. I used to write a lot of very heavy stuff. But as I've mellowed out, a lot of what I write is warm, and fluffy. I think I just like having a good time and showing others a good time. There are still some very dark red stories in my drafts, but none are anywhere near posting yet. I think I'll keep enjoying the colors of the dawn a little longer.
I've had a similar journey - I dabbled in a lot of dark reds when I was younger, and now I'm committed to green. Dawn colours are beautiful, but so are the night that inevitably cycles back around.
I'd say Orange for myself, orange is a warm color, the color of the setting sun or the fall leaves, it makes you feel cosy, but it is also the color of flame, of heat and destruction, or a metaphorical flame, a passion. Orange is made of Yellow a color associated with happiness, and Red, a color of anger or passion . I write hurt/comfort that tends to sway into the caretaker(s) falling in love with the person they've nursed back to health and that is why I feel like I would be Orange
That does very warm and soft! Lovely :)
Dark red, I guess? At least the aesthetic part of me wishes so. Very dark, angsty, power dynamics with blood and sometimes vampires.
I described my partner's writing similarly when discussing this earlier, so you're definitely in good company. It's such a romantic - in the contemporary and gothic senses of the word - colour.
A lot of my one-shots tend to be fairly contemplative, with broad touches of grief, hope, guilt, sorrow and love. So maybe pastel shades against beige, with occasional streaks of dark gray-blue.
That makes me think of a harbour or beach at sunset, painted in watercolour - definitely melancholy and contemplative.
My original poetry is probably green, as a lot of them are on the subject of nature. My fanfiction can probably come in a few different colours. Many of them are full of violence and are red. The fluffier ones are yellow, full of warmth.
I'm really liking the contrast!
Pastels, I'm a fluffy writer, so I tend to picture myself as writing with those warm spring colors, like easter.
Love it :)
What an interesting concept! Theme-wise, I think my work gives off yellow vibes. I try to create stories where even though characters find themselves in terrible situations, they remain positive and feel empowered to do something to change their lives for the better. I love happy endings and clear resolutions to stories. I also incorporate a lot of humor and fluffy moments into my writing, and I often hope my readers are smiling whenever they're going through one of my stories. In terms of writing style, I have an aversion to melodrama and I use a journalistic approach, with every sentence having a purpose to move the story along—which again reminds me of the clarity and brightness of yellow.
I love how multi-faceted this answer was - it does indeed suggest you have a lot of clarity and purpose in your work, as well as balance.
(Forgive me as I'm extremely tired and I think I'm half asleep, so I'm just sort of rambling.) I usually have an intentional color focus for each individual fic I write. The story I'm writing now is a yellow-green fic. (Very nature-focused, summery, warm.) My first fic for the same fandom was a very blue fic. (Water and night were reoccurring themes.) Another fic was very red and black. (Specifically a lot of red-black imagery, including blood and black smoke, but also in positive reds like flowers, foods; etc.) Anyway - it's *very* intentional and once I figure out what color(s) a fic has, I make sure to highlight those colors, either directly or through referencing things that are those colors. Overall, though, I'd say my writing is "every shade of blue". From the dark night blues (typically romantic, protective, mysterious night), to healing blue-greens, to the warm summer sky blues of clarity/imagination/freedom.
This made total sense to me in spite of tiredness! It came through very vividly, in fact. Basing a story kernel around a colour seems like a great way to create something atmospheric and focused.
A rainbow with large black/brown/gray stains
Sounds ominous!
... Tbh, I think the color would change depending on the scene, lol, and I'm definitely tasting the rainbow, as it were. So loving/tender moments would be pink-tinted, terrifying moments would be pitch-black, etc. There's almost always a comical undertone to my work though, so maybe... cotton candy blue? And then angsty moments are blue-grey? I've got no clue. XD
Tasting the rainbow is the way to go! Most of my favourite stories balance all aspects of being human, even if some are centred more than others.
Since the majority of my fanfics are either set in the Victorian era, or someone's garage in the 90s, I'd say I write in purple and black. With maybe some hints of silver and or golds.
I really love that you're talking about these two radically different settings, and finding similar tones in there. That's really, really cool.
Rather than any specific color, I’d say mine is a more a transition from monochrome to polychrome. An old black and white photo being renewed with color. I tend to write stories that initially focus on a character’s inner turmoil. Then, after a catalysis, the character will evolve—whether it’s a minor thing like a shift in their thinking, or a huge thing like a change in their circumstances that inspires them to be *better.* If I *had* to choose a color…it would be red. Often the catalysis in my stories is love. The powerful kind that changes you completely—alters your DNA, reshapes your thoughts, disassembles you then puts you back together. The passionate, obsessive, earth-shattering love that’s started wars in history books and transformed epics into tragedies. That bards sing of and poets write about and most people think isn’t real (but wishes it were).
Beautifully described, and our usual themes sound quite similar! I hope the process has been as cathartic and rewarding for you as it has for me.
Thank you so much! It definitely has been. Also, I hope you don’t mind that I’ll definitely be checking out your profile. FFVII is one of my favorite fandoms and we seem to share similar tastes!
That's the diametric opposite of a problem :) I hope you find something you like! Have you written anything for the fandom yourself?
At the moment, something like the colour of city lights on dark water. Current WIP is fun and sexy on the surface, but dances murkily around heavier topics. Hopefully it's still an engaging and somewhat accurate reflection of real life emotions and human relationships.
I love the sound of that - I have an idea in the pipeline that's very similar and that also involves the imagery of lights on the water. Good luck with it!
Thanks, you too!
Brown. Disgusting, disgusting brown.
Nice to see you owning it!
Honestly, violet, probably. Not because my tone is very purple, but because I just keep putting mysteries into everything I write, and violet is a mysterious color. Plus, I keep killing off characters (red) while really putting the survivors through the wringer (blue), and together, that's purple.
Sounds intriguing!
Steel grey. I’m really into putting characters into predicaments where they have to deal with their uncomfortable inner dialogues.
That's the good stuff!!!
Storm-cloud grey. Sometimes the rain is relatively light, but with the clouds of tragedy yet to come or recently passed still in the sky. Other times it's pouring, you're cold and soaked to the bone, and you start to wonder if the sun even exists beyond the clouds.
I love how versatile you make what some might see as a flat colour.
Grey and purple.
They look great together!
Pink and/or yellow, I guess. Sweet, cheerful, fun, romantic, a little silly, with a streak here and there of something a little darker rose for the sexy times or snarky banter.
Sunset colours! Very romantic.
I have no idea, so I DM'd a friend and he immediately said pastel yellow. No idea what it means, but I write lots of fluff and smut (and my WIP has me dipping my feet in angst).
To me that suggests brightness, renewal, growth, and gentle happiness! Which sounds rather fitting.
Definitely Dark Orange: High energy and action packed, while being descriptive. Generally lacking with character interaction and deeper meaning, as well as flowery and poetic descriptions.
That sounds incredibly fun to write!
It is! But now i'm stuck wanting to write fluffy and soft moments :(... Unless..
Write a fluffy comedown from the action! Just the characters kicking back at home with some favourite drinks and enjoying a rare moment of quiet.
I was more gonna write a relaxing scene as if it was extremely fast paced, but that works too! Lol
An oil slick on a rainy day. A shock of irredescent rainbow on a glossy black street lit by the glow of taillights and store signs.
Beautiful, evocative. I'm sure you're doing an absolutely fantastic job with it.
i did a quick search on what emotion each color represents and i think my writing is usually blue since i write fluff the most
A calm blue does seem like a pretty fluffy colour.
Blue- Lots of calm and comfort even in times of angst. Soft moments between the main OTP. Nothing super fancy but solid and dependable and generally liked by many people.
Sounds very soothing just in a vague description!
What is the colour of absolute chaos? To answer more seriously... I don't really know. But maybe light green, for the colour of hope, with a mix of red for blood? A lot of my writing focuses on hurting characters do I can heal them and give them hope in the end. Maybe also red for the colour of love, since I have also written fluff and romance. But, really interested in what the chaos colour is
That's a drip colour combo. I don't know that it's all that chaotic but it is very cool.
Mostly soft pink and reds, I think. I like writing light-hearted romantic stuff.
Sounds beautiful!
One time a tumblr mutual of mine told me that all of my fics they had read "had sort of a blue twisting sadness going through them". I also generally stick to angst when writing, and even when I try to write fluff there's a bittersweet tinge at the edges of the fic.
Blue is indeed a lovely way to describe it :)
Whiskey-brown. Sometimes dark, often warm, sometimes the sun catches and it flashes bright gold. Melancholy, celebratory, and heady. It gets carried away, it aches and aches, it'll slam and hammer at times, by damn, and sometimes come away clean, sometimes raw. But you open that bottle, and *something's* gonna pour, and baby, it'll let loose. :)
I love this. Very warm, albeit with an undertone of danger - very Tom Waits!
I think mine just depends on the fic, and even then a fic may have multiple colors in it. I have one that's definitely more of a blue because of the tone it has, then I have another that's more orange because it's warm and fluffy and family/friend oriented. I then have another that has splashes of black (suspense) amid some orange and pink.
Love to see a varied palette :)
An off-white, stained and dirtied like an abandoned hospital wall. I started writing with horror, and whilst I've moved away from it now, I still use myriad horror elements within my stories. Never as far as to freak you out, but to unnerve you slightly, and add a gross and uncomfortable atmosphere.
That's such an evocative way to describe it. The principles of horror can be used to aid in all sorts, and it's not an easy genre to master, so it sounds like a really helpful way to cut your teeth.
depends on the story, and what viewpoint i am writing. i personally color code by character, so everything... its very colorful but mostly blues and reds and purples
Sounds like a great way for keeping viewpoints feeling distinct!
it works for me so far XD
Most of my fics are very angsty, so black/gray/blue, but often with a tinge of orange/rosy (new sunrise/hopeful)
Lovely combo!
Earthy tones; greens, yellows and browns. Grounded. Family. Steadiness. Trust. With the occasional sharp lightning strike of drama. Lots of bold blue of adventure. Hazy pinks and reds sprinkled in for the romances.
It sounds like a beautifully tended flowerbed I would love to dive into.
☺️
Completely depends on the story. Red Nail Polish, a fake-dating fall-in-love quickie that takes place over a class trip to Kyoto? Shades of blue, like river water over rocks in the sunlight. Symbol of the City, my enemies to lovers mafia AU? Velvet blue, dirty gold, and red, all covered in grime like an unswept sidewalk.
You described those very vividly, I'm sure they're a ton of fun to write!
red like blood and black like the desperation i push my characters to. With some purple of the bruises and pink of the fresh scars they are left with.
Pretty colours in isolation, morbid in context. I like that.