Writerly Ways
Jun. 8th, 2025 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessBefore I get into my writerly ways let me just say, diabetes is going to steer me around the bend. Today I was bad. I ate fries for lunch and pizza for dinner. My sugar is 90. Two days ago I ate nothing but proteins and my sugar was 360.... WHY?
So into the writing crap. I have been thinking about timing of scenes this week. Early this week I watched The Night House and finished reading The Witch's Orchard. Let me start with House. This was a horror movie and without spoiling too much, she is learning terrible things about her dead husband (while dealing with what she thinks is his ghost). After learning this, when the ghost wants to get frisky, she's into it.
And I'm thinking what woman who learns her husband might have been murdering women who look like her is going to want him touching all over her? Had this scene come before she learned this about her husband, maybe it would have hit they way they wanted it to (unless disbelief was their goal)
Same thing with Orchard, it went a place SO many stories have gone. The protagonist nearly gets killed, does get injured and then in spite of having her leg torn open and breaking in meth lab explosion fumes, feels like having sex. If there is one thing you'll see in my sex scenes, they don't tend to come after times like this because it makes no sense to me. I suppose the whole 'nearly died celebrate life' thing is a trope. It's just one that has me rolling my eyes. Having had some serious injuries, I can tell you sex is the last thing on my mind in those times.
In my novel (still need to get more betas on this) I DID mess up the timing. I ended up having to reorder things and expand some of the beginning in order for the timing to not feel off.
How do you handle timing? Do you find timing issues that bother you?
OPEN CALLS
Anomaly July 2025 Window Science fiction stories under 300 words in length
Brink Literary Magazine July 2025 Window Hybrid fiction with the theme of Obsession
Fraidy Cat Quarterly Volume 7 Rage
The Quiet Ones 2025 Window Quiet Horror and Intimate-Scale Dystopian Fiction
The 13th Floor 30,000-50,000 word stories that take place on the mysterious 13th floor! (details in the post)
The Orange & Bee July 2025 Window Original and contemporary short stories, poems, and essays that explore, expand on, and subvert the rich traditions of international folklore, with a strong focus on fairy tales (though we also sometimes dabble in other forms of folklore, such as fables, myths, and legends)
Ten Manuscript Publishers Open to Direct Submissions in June 2025
Fish Barrel Review: Now Seeking Submissions
36 Themed Calls and Contests for June 2025.
star crossed
From Around the Web
Advance to Adaptation
Three Strategies for Creating Progressively Escalating Complications
The Art of the Twist: Adding Surprise to Your Story Structure
How to Publish a Novel in 2025
Unusual Writing Formats: When Your Story Demands Footnotes, Letters, or a Series of Haikus
Tim Weed: Five Things I Learned Writing The Afterlife Project
From Betty
Six Important Differences Between Filmed and Narrated Stories
Ten Easy Jokes for Your Dialogue
Why the Mysterious Badass Hero Is a Trap For New Writers
Seven Ways to Create Rifts Between Close Characters
The Strategic Author's Guide to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited
Dual Protagonists
Communication is the Key to Critique Partner Success (still looking for new members for mine)
Three Strategies for Creating Progressively Escalating Complications
The Importance of Beginning a Book with Publishing End Goals in Mind
Your protagonist’s plans are useful, especially when they don’t pan out
How Do I Deliver My Self-Published Book to a Reader?.
Adventuring in Utah Gave Me Insight into Important Writing Truths: Part 1 The Brutal Beginning
Six “Soft Skills” To Make You a Better Writer
Be All-Seeing By Writing Third Person Omniscient
So into the writing crap. I have been thinking about timing of scenes this week. Early this week I watched The Night House and finished reading The Witch's Orchard. Let me start with House. This was a horror movie and without spoiling too much, she is learning terrible things about her dead husband (while dealing with what she thinks is his ghost). After learning this, when the ghost wants to get frisky, she's into it.
And I'm thinking what woman who learns her husband might have been murdering women who look like her is going to want him touching all over her? Had this scene come before she learned this about her husband, maybe it would have hit they way they wanted it to (unless disbelief was their goal)
Same thing with Orchard, it went a place SO many stories have gone. The protagonist nearly gets killed, does get injured and then in spite of having her leg torn open and breaking in meth lab explosion fumes, feels like having sex. If there is one thing you'll see in my sex scenes, they don't tend to come after times like this because it makes no sense to me. I suppose the whole 'nearly died celebrate life' thing is a trope. It's just one that has me rolling my eyes. Having had some serious injuries, I can tell you sex is the last thing on my mind in those times.
In my novel (still need to get more betas on this) I DID mess up the timing. I ended up having to reorder things and expand some of the beginning in order for the timing to not feel off.
How do you handle timing? Do you find timing issues that bother you?
OPEN CALLS
Anomaly July 2025 Window Science fiction stories under 300 words in length
Brink Literary Magazine July 2025 Window Hybrid fiction with the theme of Obsession
Fraidy Cat Quarterly Volume 7 Rage
The Quiet Ones 2025 Window Quiet Horror and Intimate-Scale Dystopian Fiction
The 13th Floor 30,000-50,000 word stories that take place on the mysterious 13th floor! (details in the post)
The Orange & Bee July 2025 Window Original and contemporary short stories, poems, and essays that explore, expand on, and subvert the rich traditions of international folklore, with a strong focus on fairy tales (though we also sometimes dabble in other forms of folklore, such as fables, myths, and legends)
Ten Manuscript Publishers Open to Direct Submissions in June 2025
Fish Barrel Review: Now Seeking Submissions
36 Themed Calls and Contests for June 2025.
star crossed
From Around the Web
Advance to Adaptation
Three Strategies for Creating Progressively Escalating Complications
The Art of the Twist: Adding Surprise to Your Story Structure
How to Publish a Novel in 2025
Unusual Writing Formats: When Your Story Demands Footnotes, Letters, or a Series of Haikus
Tim Weed: Five Things I Learned Writing The Afterlife Project
From Betty
Six Important Differences Between Filmed and Narrated Stories
Ten Easy Jokes for Your Dialogue
Why the Mysterious Badass Hero Is a Trap For New Writers
Seven Ways to Create Rifts Between Close Characters
The Strategic Author's Guide to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited
Dual Protagonists
Communication is the Key to Critique Partner Success (still looking for new members for mine)
Three Strategies for Creating Progressively Escalating Complications
The Importance of Beginning a Book with Publishing End Goals in Mind
Your protagonist’s plans are useful, especially when they don’t pan out
How Do I Deliver My Self-Published Book to a Reader?.
Adventuring in Utah Gave Me Insight into Important Writing Truths: Part 1 The Brutal Beginning
Six “Soft Skills” To Make You a Better Writer
Be All-Seeing By Writing Third Person Omniscient
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no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 01:14 pm (UTC)Perhaps I've forgotten what it's like to be young and horny, haha.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 02:35 pm (UTC)But yes, sometimes it just feels stupid and I want something looks natural.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 05:07 pm (UTC)Oh man, characters getting it on at any point in time no matter what else has just happened really confuse me. But I suppose there are writers who just care about having a sex scene without actually caring if the characters would mentally/physically be in a good shape for it?
I belatedly realised that the month my current story's set in didn't really work and moved things to a month earlier which initially seemed like a smart move until I calculated what time (round about, they're not actually checking the time 24/7) it'd be by the time I claimed nightfall was happening and that gets increasingly less realistic if you're a month closer to summer solstice. So now I'm conflicted between making it even later in the day and moving a month closer to autumn rather than summer -which would mean having to go back and adjust all comments about things that happened earlier in the year and their plans for the next couple of months-.
(The thing that amuses me is that it's unlikely anyone else would actually notice -especially as the time frame's relatively vague- so I could just leave it. But I'd know that it's off, so I'll probably have to change it anyway.)
Thanks for your WED work, it's wonderfully motivating. (I'm not officially participating, but I've been writing & editing alongside you guys on a daily basis.)
no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 05:55 pm (UTC)There are times I think sex scenes make sense (depending on what you're writing of course) but man sometimes it drives me nuts. Oh hey I have fresh stitches in my leg, let's do it thought no woman ever, I swear and yet here it is in this book...
ha you're probably right about no one but you noticing but I getcha on how you want it to be right (I am forever annoyed when authors change EVERYTHING about a city to make it match their story.)
Right now I'm looking over my 80s Slayer thing and double checking that the movies/music are right for 1986. I did screw that up originally. I will say though historical readers ARE very aware of that sort of thing.
yay, glad the WED is helping you
no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 06:11 pm (UTC)Oh I don't mind the average sex scene, but thee are limits to when it makes the remotest bit of sense for them to come up.
It'll be resolved, one way or another. And I agree re not wanting too many changes to a story unless they're there on purpose. (As in, if you're working in increasing hints that your storyline's not actually set in the same universe and that's why things don't add up it can be pretty impressive.)
As well they should be! I sometimes feel that I spend more time on research like that than I do on the writing process if I'm writing on anything more involved than a one-shot.
It's a fortunate combination of you guys doing wed (on your journal, not elsewhere where I wouldn't notice) and a plot bunny coming my way at just the right time.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 07:28 pm (UTC)Oh definitely the research takes up so much time. I have no idea why my brain wants to do h istoric short stories. it's so much work for so little pay really
great to the new plot bunny
no subject
Date: 2025-06-10 10:03 pm (UTC)Maybe your brain enjoys the exercise? I do suspect that mine does.
Thanks, it's completely insane, but fun.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-11 02:18 am (UTC)My brain loves research
you have me intrigued now
no subject
Date: 2025-06-11 10:12 pm (UTC)That might be the "problem"? :D
Hah I'm not sure it'd be up your street (part of it is just me trying to find out how many sentences I can build with alliterations in them).
I hope your writing's going well. <3
no subject
Date: 2025-06-12 03:31 am (UTC)ha, to the alliterations
no subject
Date: 2025-06-12 09:17 pm (UTC)Hey, you gotta have fun, right?
no subject
Date: 2025-06-13 04:22 am (UTC)definitely you gotta have fun