Talking Meme: Writing Process!
Jan. 9th, 2015 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mithenCrooked Halo asked me about my writing process!
I don't tend to write on the spur of the moment, which is sometimes a problem--that is, I don't tend to think, "Oh, that would be a great story" and immediately sit down and write it while my emotion is high. I have a file of story ideas and they can sit there for literal years before I get to them (I think I planned and researched this wrestling AU for two or three years before I even started writing it). That means that sometimes the inspiration and emotion can drain out of an idea if I'm not careful, or canon can move so far past the idea that it doesn't make sense anymore (I had a story planned where Clark was the avatar of the Flamebird entity and Bruce the avatar of the Nightwing entity, but the reboot happened and the concept of Nightwing and Flamebird as Kryptonian gods with human avatars disappeared and it just became too much hassle to do the info dumping in the story to make up for that). On the plus side, it means I tend to write stories that I'm committed to on an intellectual level in addition to an emotional level, which I hope leads to stronger stories.
Usually once I decide what I'm going to write next I sit down and talk it over with my husband to see what he thinks might work and where it might go. He's really the "plot-maker" and if a story has a lot of plot you can be pretty certain he had a hand in it. This is the stage I'm at right now about a story I want to write with Bruce asking Clark to help out training a superpowered Damian--it's a great idea, but it has to be more than a few scenes, there have to be changes in the Clark/Bruce relationship brought about by the situation, and I'm not sure what those will be yet.
Once I've got the plot hammered out in tandem with my husband, I sit down and write it--my favorite part, but it's pretty mundane. I'm a very linear writer, so I just plod ahead doggedly until I reach the end. At some point, I generally have a crisis where I can't think of a good title and I threaten to junk the whole story because I hate having boring titles. Both of my long series right now have basically I-can't-think-of-anything-else-ah-screw-it titles, alas.
Once I'm done, my husband gives it a beta look, fixing (I hope!) any spelling/grammar errors, finding places where the action isn't clear, most recently pissing me off by informing me that Sindarin lacks the proper phonemes to make a convincing word that sounds like "cheetah." ("FINE OKAY I'LL MAKE IT A DWARVISH WORD ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?")
For posting...lately I've been posting almost as I'm done, which just reveals that time has been tight for me recently. There've been times in the past when I had a backlog of six or seven chapters waiting to be posted.... *sighs* I try very hard not to let more than twenty days go by without an update in my series, and so far I have never failed at that, but it's been a scramble the last six months or so! I've never written two long series simultaneously, and I underestimated how much of an energy drain it would be to keep both of them going at a reasonable pace. They've each got another twenty chapters or more to go, though, so there's no respite in sight anytime soon. Fortunately, I love them both and they're really different so they give me a lot of variety in writing, but I miss having time to write one-shots!
I don't tend to write on the spur of the moment, which is sometimes a problem--that is, I don't tend to think, "Oh, that would be a great story" and immediately sit down and write it while my emotion is high. I have a file of story ideas and they can sit there for literal years before I get to them (I think I planned and researched this wrestling AU for two or three years before I even started writing it). That means that sometimes the inspiration and emotion can drain out of an idea if I'm not careful, or canon can move so far past the idea that it doesn't make sense anymore (I had a story planned where Clark was the avatar of the Flamebird entity and Bruce the avatar of the Nightwing entity, but the reboot happened and the concept of Nightwing and Flamebird as Kryptonian gods with human avatars disappeared and it just became too much hassle to do the info dumping in the story to make up for that). On the plus side, it means I tend to write stories that I'm committed to on an intellectual level in addition to an emotional level, which I hope leads to stronger stories.
Usually once I decide what I'm going to write next I sit down and talk it over with my husband to see what he thinks might work and where it might go. He's really the "plot-maker" and if a story has a lot of plot you can be pretty certain he had a hand in it. This is the stage I'm at right now about a story I want to write with Bruce asking Clark to help out training a superpowered Damian--it's a great idea, but it has to be more than a few scenes, there have to be changes in the Clark/Bruce relationship brought about by the situation, and I'm not sure what those will be yet.
Once I've got the plot hammered out in tandem with my husband, I sit down and write it--my favorite part, but it's pretty mundane. I'm a very linear writer, so I just plod ahead doggedly until I reach the end. At some point, I generally have a crisis where I can't think of a good title and I threaten to junk the whole story because I hate having boring titles. Both of my long series right now have basically I-can't-think-of-anything-else-ah-screw-it titles, alas.
Once I'm done, my husband gives it a beta look, fixing (I hope!) any spelling/grammar errors, finding places where the action isn't clear, most recently pissing me off by informing me that Sindarin lacks the proper phonemes to make a convincing word that sounds like "cheetah." ("FINE OKAY I'LL MAKE IT A DWARVISH WORD ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?")
For posting...lately I've been posting almost as I'm done, which just reveals that time has been tight for me recently. There've been times in the past when I had a backlog of six or seven chapters waiting to be posted.... *sighs* I try very hard not to let more than twenty days go by without an update in my series, and so far I have never failed at that, but it's been a scramble the last six months or so! I've never written two long series simultaneously, and I underestimated how much of an energy drain it would be to keep both of them going at a reasonable pace. They've each got another twenty chapters or more to go, though, so there's no respite in sight anytime soon. Fortunately, I love them both and they're really different so they give me a lot of variety in writing, but I miss having time to write one-shots!
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-09 04:59 pm (UTC)You have an awesome husband :-)
I am fortunate to have a couple very supportive online friends to talk over ideas with, but damn it'd be nice to have a face-to-face friend!
my husband gives it a beta look... most recently pissing me off by informing me that Sindarin lacks the proper phonemes to make a convincing word that sounds like "cheetah."
Oh f--- your husband is a complete NERD! Holy sh--- I didn't know there were nerdier husbands out there than mine but yours wins, hands down (has he been on the Colbert Report? That's the one with the utter Tolkien geek on it, yeah? He should host like a Tolkien-linguistics geek-out sometime and invite ppl like your husband :-)
Also, cheetah? Really? I mean, c'mon, it's an ee and an a with a soft sound in front and a hard sound in the middle: shi-jah, then? See-dah? (I know nothing of Sindarin, but unless it's an extraordinarily limited language, it's gotta do vowel sounds and soft(er) and hard(er) consonants). I think your husband was just lording his UTTER NERDINESS over you, cuz where else could he? :D
At some point, I generally have a crisis where I can't think of a good title
Oh yeah. That would be all of mine. My working titles are usually stuff like: "The One Where They Get Married" and "The One Where He's a Cat". One of these days that's gonna be the final title, too. Fortunately I am not hung up on titles cuz if I were like you I would never have posted anything, and I could never have stood doing ALL THAT WRITING and not posting it. If I write something GODDAMN it is gonna get posted I don't put that much effort into something just to do nothing with it :-)
If you can't come up with an interesting-yet-relevant title go with something obscure. Get your husband to make up a nice Sindarin title, since he's such an EXPERT ;-)
Regarding tackling two long epics AT ONCE - yeah I do not know how you are even that brave and committed and all that. I get scared if I even come up with an epic-like story idea, cuz sticking with anything above 5-10K is like torture to me. (Last spring I posted a 20K (which qualifies as epic for me :-) that was supposed to have one or two or maybe three sequels, but am scared to even pursue them, cuz the first part was so damn difficult. also did not get the reception I was hoping for and I can't put so much effort into something without getting an equally big pay-off (is there an "indulging in self-pity" emoticon? insert that here *g*)
I do tend to write out-of-order - I write whatever scenes come to mind first. This makes it easier to get myself to write than trying to force out a linear sequence when I'm not feeling the writing love. The benefit to out-of-order writing is that it encourages me to write those connecting scenes, because I want to get up to the bits I've already written :-) Also I find that sometimes those connecting bits are not as intimidating? lengthy? detailed? as I originally feared, because I know exactly what is required in them to get to the good bits :D
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-11 02:06 pm (UTC)Is is WONDERFUL, I will not deny it! It's always nice to have someone who'll while away some time in a boring line discussing fic. :)
Sindarin is shockingly limited! No Ch or Sh or Jh sounds at all--Seetar would have been closest, but I was afraid it wouldn't have been clear what it meant.Luckily Dwarvish is a lot less recorded, so I can fudge that a lot more. :)
My working titles are usually stuff like: "The One Where They Get Married" and "The One Where He's a Cat". One of these days that's gonna be the final title, too.
I've been known to eventually go with something bare-bones like that! It never seems to influence other peoples' opinions, but it bothers me, lol...
Regarding tackling two long epics AT ONCE - yeah I do not know how you are even that brave and committed and all that.
It was much more ignorance than bravery, I'll admit! I just hadn't really processed how much time two combined would suck up until I was well into them... (And I hear you on the feeling of "Eh, is this really worth it?" when something doesn't get a satisfying response. I know, I know, "write for the love of it," but damn it, responses are important too, I don't want to tell stories to the wall).
Also I find that sometimes those connecting bits are not as intimidating? lengthy? detailed? as I originally feared, because I know exactly what is required in them to get to the good bits :D
That makes a lot of sense! Sometimes it's like standing at the edge of a desert I've got to cross to get to the next oasis and I have no idea if it's a day's stroll or if I should be filling up my canteens for a month...
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-11 03:58 pm (UTC)Nah, once you know a writer the title hardly matters. I think authors are much more worried about them than anyone else *g*
"write for the love of it," but damn it, responses are important too, I don't want to tell stories to the wall.
yeah, if I wanna tell stories to the wall I just talk to my kids *g*
I can tell stories in my head all I want, if I just love the story - but to go to the effort of finding all the right words to convey these images and feelings in my head - I want to know that "message received", y'know?
I find the best way to write the boring connecting bits is to figure out an interesting scene to write them in. Like world-building exposition - I hate just plain ol' expo, so you have to have scenes where it comes up naturally in convo or character actions. If you can think of a good scene, it can turn into another fun thing to write (or many times I figure out I can stick a bit of it in a scene I'm already writing).
But then sometimes it just doesn't get written, esp if I learn the story can live without it. I meant to have a character do all this research on an obscure (in the character's world) issue that becomes plot-important, but writing about a character doing research is dull. So there were some hints at his borrowing books and doing a lot of reading, but that had to suffice. If he tried talking about it he'd get cut off when the char he was talking to got bored and turned the convo to something more interesting (yeah there's a reason this issue is obscure - no one much cares except this one guy :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 09:03 am (UTC)I try for either conversation or at least a nicely-written description in some of the more poetically-inclined canons... Though conversation comes much more naturally to me.
Doing research is the most boring thing in a story! I somehow ended with a long story about a character traveling to different libraries in search of something (whyyyy) and had to basically always have someone come along and bother him as he did it so he could growl stuff like "Can't you see I'm almost done translating this obscure poem about blah blah blah plot point blah?" :)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 04:09 pm (UTC)And then:
A: "Hey B, did you know that blah blah plot point blah?"
B: "Wow fascinating. Hey, let's have sex!"
A: "...um, OK."
Then hope my readers forgive me in exchange for porny times :D
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-15 11:12 pm (UTC)THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!!!!!!!! AND THE DELICIOUS IMAGES AND THE CONCEPT WILL STAY WITH ME FOREVER!!!!
(so much for payoff!)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-23 01:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-09 08:42 pm (UTC)I don't think the titles of your current long runners are bad at all, I would never have guessed that they're last ditch efforts! I too am plagued by titling, fortunately my work isn't at that stage yet...though I have wracked my brain over it and come up with nothing. In my head it will always be the working title no matter what I eventually call it.
I think you should still write the Nightwing and Flamebird thing, that sounds AWESOME. I think with a 'set pre-new-52' disclaimer tag plenty of people will eat it up. I know there's many folks currently living in denial about the reboot, myself included.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-13 08:44 am (UTC)I have a hunch the title for the DRH will only become clear once you figure out the ending! I would guess it might have something to do with the color of Dade's eyes, somehow...I always like the way that shade of green is a line that twines through the generations, like an emerald vine...
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-15 11:17 pm (UTC)Regarding payoff - you may have missed this snowy Thorin sketch in November. This time it really was a rough sketch and has only been posted so I wouldn't forget about it completely. In the meantime I have started so many other things and right now I am so busy with my move... alas!