Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

It was another not so hot writing week (though I did get 2,300 words). I'm still trying to settle in at work. It's leaving me brain dead at night. The threesome crew spat out an opening and then went quiet.

At least I got my picfor1000 story done but it wasn't easy. It did get me thinking on my writing process. People ask me how I write. I can easily say what I don't do. I don't really outline. I take notes yes, but outline no.

I'm more akin to Stephen King's 'let it spin.' Though in my head, it's more like 'make a snow man.' I start with a little nugget. I think this is why I really like prompt communities and open call anthologies with a theme. It gives me the nugget to build on.

Just like making a snowman, I take that nugget and roll it over and over in my mind until it gets bigger, more compact, more visibly a snow man. When it works, I get scene upon scene in my head (and if I'm smart I'll go write those notes down).

Case in point, when it works well I start off with one thing, such as my help_haiti fic. I got a prompt of future fic with Roy angsting but NOT about his blindness. Started twisting it around and got several scenes right off the bat (yes a couple are influenced by the blindness)I know a few things now, it will be multichaptered, it won't be done overnight but I have enough to be very excited about it

I did the same thing with the Pompeii story. Guardian SPirits was the prompt. I knew immediately i didn't want to do angel fic so I spent a few moments researching other guardians. Once i had the Roman Lares, I rolled them around. I had the whole story in my head very quickly (writing it wasn't as easy but conceiving it was)

Sometimes it works out not so hot and you end up with Dumpy the Snowman. THat's where my threesome story is right now. The prompt is very open. threesome sex. Okay. I rolled that around and got a lopsided snowman. I have a head and a bottom but no middle piece (and they want to fill it with nothing but sex)

Sometimes my snowman never gets to be more than a snowball that I want to fling far away from me. Case in point this pic for 1000 prompt. Deviled Eggs. Even using it not so literally it took out most of the anime/manga fandoms i write in. NCIS...to me deviled eggs means party time and everything I've done for this fandom has been a party so no. Buffy? Dresden Files? Buffyverse spoke up first. The story is kinda cracky and lame. I dont' feel like it ever rolled up the right way.

so if you're stuck, give it a try. just roll an idea around and see if it shapes up.

9135 / 175000 words. 5% done!

Comments

[raceulfson.livejournal.com]

I love your snowman analogy. That's how I write, too - typically I start with a line of conversation, then pull back to find out who said it and why, and build around all that.

What I also do is keep a folder called "scraps". When a scene or even a line isn't working, but I like it anyway, I cut and paste it to that folder. It stops me from forcing a scene that isn't working. Then, sometimes years later, I will use the bits I saved in some other fic. Sometimes, even another fandom.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thanks. I'm glad you enejoyed it.

I've been slowly accepting the idea of that scraps folder too. It gets bunnies for stuff, names of characters I might want to use later and research bits (like the stuff I just got off America's Most Wanted, a serial killer I have never heard of)

[enemytosleep]

I usually hear and write out all of the dialogue for a scene first, then outline the action and fill it in form there. Unless we're talking RanFan, then she gives me nothing, threatens a kunai, gets stopped by Ling, and then I sit there and glare at her across the way while trying not to be distracted by ling.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort to Ran Fan. Well if you're a dialogue person then she WOULD be a bitch to handle.

Actually I hear/write the dialogue too. I'm not that visual. I don't get to see the movie in my head too often (usually only a few select scenes that keep rolling). The problem with that is I get lazy then don't want to go back in and fill in the other stuff

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

Ha, I have a scraps folder like that, filled with stray lines and bits of ideas I might use some day. And I keep another scraps folder in my brain.

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

I wrote that (very short) Ran Fan POV fic and found at the end I still had absolutely no idea what she was thinking. She's a quiet one, all right.

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I do start out with a situation I want to tell a story about (e.g. that Ed/Win get-together story I keep banging on about that I must write after NSI is done) and then I imagine how it might have happened - but a lot of time it is like this for me, I get a line of dialogue or a visual or a short scene, and build the rest around it. Even if I've got my basic situation, it still comes to me like this. Usually when I'm doing the dishes.

For short fics the piece often comes together as I write it, but longer pieces I do tend to build in my head before I write. I've been trying to write on the fly for Big Bang, but 40% in I've got my plot outline with a beginning, middle and end. Heigh ho. I'd like to be surprised more.

This morning I was bashing out my Big Bang OC's background and it was all sadly motivated by the needs of Chris's story and the plot rather than the character emerging/speaking to me. I suppose it's potentially good in that it's easier to keep her in check as the story is, after all, primarily about Chris and Roy, but I hope she doesn't come off as too much of a walking plot device. But it's difficult - she's fifteen and so of course far far too young to be working in this dubious hostess bar (not Chris's - she's working there in the story, and it's not a nice place), and so it all has to be played carefully or Chris will look like a douche rather than the tough-talking mother hen we know she is. Sigh.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

good luck with that thing with the young OC. That sounds rather difficult.

Even if I've got my basic situation, it still comes to me like this. Usually when I'm doing the dishes.


or the shower or driving the car or whatever time you can't possibly stop and write it down and then you forget later

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes I find her very difficult to use (hence me not using her much. It was the same with Oz on BtVS, liked the character but since he was a quiet one it was hard to write him)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i keep one in my brain too but that scraps folder has pot holes in it