8. aesthetics

This is basically presentation continued, but that chapter was getting a little long. 

Fics on Wattpad tend to have a lot extra chapters in addition to the ones that are the actual writing for the fic.  These include (but are not limited to), cast chapters, graphic galleries, intros, and act separators.  There are some others, but I don't use them, so I'm not going to say I know anything about something like that.  I don't want to be telling yall any lies bc I love you.

INTROS

An intro chapter is basically a continuation of your description.  Some people combine this with the cast chapter (I usually do this). It sometimes includes a more extended summary, but not always.

In Star Wars fics, they usually begin with "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" which I think is really cute.

They also tend to have a lot of aesthetic little symbols and spacers— I've linked my favorite websites to find those in the previous chapter, but you can always just google "aesthetic symbols" "text symbols" or "text spacers" and you'll usually get a good copy paste website for those.

Sometimes, these chapters include a playlist or a Spotify thingie you can scan to get the playlist.  I like to put quotes in mine and for my personal Anakin fic, I made moodboards for each main character (my mc was an oc and not y/n, but you could probably do it for y/n too). I always make a Pinterest board for my fics and I have it linked in the description most of the time, but I think I'll start putting it in the comments soon too.

Format for all of these aesthetic "filler" chapters is kind of hard to say.  I actually get the inspiration for mine just by reading and looking at other people's intro chapters and cast chapters and all that, and I just kind of collect all the elements I like from theirs and make it my own for my fic.

CAST CHAPTERS

A cast chapter usually features the names of the actors that are playing all the characters, including the mc, Anakin's love interest.  (Y/n fics don't often have cast chapters.) I personally think that your mc and their faceclaim or drawing or whatever you used to show what they look like should always come first, then the rest of the characters, whether they're Star Wars canon characters or more ocs.

Most of the time, people use gifs for these characters, but photos and moodboards are used sometimes too, and I think both are good.  People usually list the actors name and then the character they play in the book/movie.  Sometimes, people add a quote from that character, but I usually like to just leave it as is.  It's hard to pick quotes sometimes!

In aesthetic chapters like these, people tend to like to play around with aesthetic symbols, the bold, italic, and underline features, and fonts.  I see a lot of fonts on Wattpad, and I use them in all my titles and sometimes in my chapters.  But I write all my stories in app on my iPad, and on the app, you can actually choose what font you want to read in, which I think is much nicer looking than on web.  No shame if you're reading on web, I just think app is more ✨ aesthetic ✨.

My favorite way to get fonts is using this twitter fonts generator on lingo jam.  If you google "Twitter fonts generator" it's the first one that comes up, and there's also another few you can use, and they usually all have the same fonts.  I'll link my favorite one in the comments here >

All you have to do it type in your text, and then copy it from the other column and paste it into Wattpad to make your text look nice.

Now, gifs.  Gifs can be hard to find, but some of my favorite places to get them are Pinterest, Tumblr, and even just Google itself.  Google usually leads me to Tumblr, bc there are so many gif makers on that wonderfully helpful website.  I'm always using Tumblr for gifs of my faceclaims.

Sometimes, ur favorite gif is too large, or sometimes you don't like how long it is, or you want a certain size or shape for your gifs... my holy grail for gif manipulation is ezgif.com

Their optimizer can reduce the size of gifs without messing up the length or the size, and just adds a little noise.

They have cropping, cutting, and all sorts of gif editing tools. It works best on a computer or a tablet, but you can use it on your phone, the loading just takes a little longer.

Ezgif link in the comments here! >

GRAPHIC GALLERIES

A graphic gallery is basically just a place to showcase all drawings, special made gifs and manips, moodboards, and cover alternates for your fic. They're not always necessary— I use them because I tend to make a lot of drawings for my fics, plus I've made a few different covers for some theme changes and I wanted to keep them in the books.

There's no need for them to be to excessively aesthetic, I like to just put the name of who made them underneath. And again, not every story has one— only if you have a lot of things to show your readers.

ACT SEPARATORS

Act separators are usually the shortest of what I like to call the "aesthetics" chapters.  These are basically used to separate the parts of your story, naming the movie/show each part takes place in.  In Anakin fics, you usually have 3 acts— Attack of the Clones, Clone Wars, and Revenge of the Sith.  If some of your story takes place during Phantom Menace, you can add that as well.

My Anakin fic, FAULTS, features an extra fourth act that takes place after Revenge of the Sith's events sort of end— it's not an epilogue, but I have a whole act of my main characters going on a big enough mission to basically defeat the Empire.  I'm trying not to add too many spoilers just in case you want to read it lol.

These chapters usually just include a gif, maybe a moodboard, the name of the act, and sometimes a quote.  They're basically just a way to separate the parts of the story— and again, not always necessary.

You don't need to have any of these chapters. I really don't think they're necessary, and honestly, are just for fun.  If your writing is good, people will still read your story— these "aesthetics" don't really matter as much.