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The Fic That Ate My Brain.
B. I use words to get the thoughts out of my head. They just keep coming and coming and don't make sense or feel real--sometimes I don't feel like a real person--until I write it down. So if I've got a story or idea, I need to write it just so it will go away. But that means if I write something down, it will go away, like Dumbledore's memories into a Pensieve. So in general I hate writing outlines/plans for stories/essays, for fear I'll waste the idea of what I want to write in the form of an outline instead of a story, and so never be able to write the story itself. How bout you? Like writing outlines? Thoughts, notes, ideas? Hate it? Why?
R. On another level, I sometimes feel like saying something will make something real, which will of course jinx it and make it unreal. For instance, I don't like to talk about it with my friends if I'm sort of seeing someone, trying to get a job, trying to publish a story. I always want to wait until I've already done it, or until after I've failed, and say, "look, see?" The thing is, it's not about needing to be successful; it's about hating the limbo, but being able to stand it better if I don't admit it's limbo and just wait for the outcome. The point? Is once again that I don't, or usually don't, talk about, or feel the need to talk about, things I'm writing. If I talk about it something unfinished it makes me a little crazy, because I don't know whether I'm going to finish or like the outcome. If I decide to abandon, or hate the outcome, I failed, but I don't mind talking about it then--it's the interim. This is why I have difficulty discussing and bouncing ideas around with friends/betas. I've rarely tried and when I do it makes me intensely uncomfortable. I know lots of people discuss fic they're writing with betas--why do you do it, how does it affect your process, do you ever feel you lose anything in doing it?
A. The point? The real point this time? I'm writing a fic which is EATING MY BRAIN and I want to talk about it because my BRAIN IS GONE. It's 150,000 words and it just keeps growing. I finally did write a bit of an outline for it, but parts that I think are going to be a measly 5,000 words jump to 30,000 words, and it keeps going ON AND ON. I feel like it's mauling me, seriously. (ETA: I feel the need to add I don't actually want to talk about it in an I'm having trouble with it kind of way, but in an I need to complain about it kind of way, which was really the point of this whole post. That is, IT ATE MY BRAIN AND NOW IT'S GONE. That was the point, really.)
I. And I just wrote slash. It was supposed to be a B/A fic! Okay, it still is, but one slash scene turned into 3, and 2 of them are pairings I never saw myself writing, and the other is turning into those 30,000 words. I don't understand. Stop it, fic, you're hurting me.
N. Now we cut the whining and get on to the important stuff. Which would be more entertaining: dubbing Spartacus so that it has dude after dude standing up and saying, "I'm Charlotte Lennox! No, I'm Charlottle Lennox!" or dubbing Spartacus so that it has dude after dude saying, "I'm MsScribe! And I'm Ms Scribe! In fact, we're all Ms Scribe!"? Who's with me on crossing out all the "Who is John Galt"s graffiteed everywhere and writing "Charlottle Lennox" instead? And lastly: tkp, I know who you are.
S. I saw that Keenau Sandra Bullock movie today. God, it was stupid. Someone explain to me why I thought it might be good?
R. On another level, I sometimes feel like saying something will make something real, which will of course jinx it and make it unreal. For instance, I don't like to talk about it with my friends if I'm sort of seeing someone, trying to get a job, trying to publish a story. I always want to wait until I've already done it, or until after I've failed, and say, "look, see?" The thing is, it's not about needing to be successful; it's about hating the limbo, but being able to stand it better if I don't admit it's limbo and just wait for the outcome. The point? Is once again that I don't, or usually don't, talk about, or feel the need to talk about, things I'm writing. If I talk about it something unfinished it makes me a little crazy, because I don't know whether I'm going to finish or like the outcome. If I decide to abandon, or hate the outcome, I failed, but I don't mind talking about it then--it's the interim. This is why I have difficulty discussing and bouncing ideas around with friends/betas. I've rarely tried and when I do it makes me intensely uncomfortable. I know lots of people discuss fic they're writing with betas--why do you do it, how does it affect your process, do you ever feel you lose anything in doing it?
A. The point? The real point this time? I'm writing a fic which is EATING MY BRAIN and I want to talk about it because my BRAIN IS GONE. It's 150,000 words and it just keeps growing. I finally did write a bit of an outline for it, but parts that I think are going to be a measly 5,000 words jump to 30,000 words, and it keeps going ON AND ON. I feel like it's mauling me, seriously. (ETA: I feel the need to add I don't actually want to talk about it in an I'm having trouble with it kind of way, but in an I need to complain about it kind of way, which was really the point of this whole post. That is, IT ATE MY BRAIN AND NOW IT'S GONE. That was the point, really.)
I. And I just wrote slash. It was supposed to be a B/A fic! Okay, it still is, but one slash scene turned into 3, and 2 of them are pairings I never saw myself writing, and the other is turning into those 30,000 words. I don't understand. Stop it, fic, you're hurting me.
N. Now we cut the whining and get on to the important stuff. Which would be more entertaining: dubbing Spartacus so that it has dude after dude standing up and saying, "I'm Charlotte Lennox! No, I'm Charlottle Lennox!" or dubbing Spartacus so that it has dude after dude saying, "I'm MsScribe! And I'm Ms Scribe! In fact, we're all Ms Scribe!"? Who's with me on crossing out all the "Who is John Galt"s graffiteed everywhere and writing "Charlottle Lennox" instead? And lastly: tkp, I know who you are.
S. I saw that Keenau Sandra Bullock movie today. God, it was stupid. Someone explain to me why I thought it might be good?
no subject
Plan B. I have a start point and an end point that I want to reach, and I like having a title that's appropriate enough to keep me on track, and that's it. I walk in my head from start point to end point, and I write down what I see and hear (oh yes, there are voices in my head).
I rarely forget scene ideas, which is why I don't do an outline most times. But that's because I don't quite get the idea and then NEED to write it down. I get the idea and think about it and think about it and write it and rewrite it in my head and then BAM! Need to write it or I'll go crazy!
Me too. I generally remember the main ideas that come to me, but advancing age means that I'm going to have to start writing down a key word or two, I think! But some scenes just write themselves in my head, word by word, with matching visuals, whether I'm at that point in the story or not. Sometimes it's in the car on the way home from the supermarket, and then the shopping has to sit unattended until I write down what I heard - if I don't do it right away, it's never as good.
I'm very happy to talk over what I did in a story after it's written, but I never talk about my stories while I'm writing them. I don't want anyone else's ideas, because then they wouldn't be mine. That's very important to me. If I don't know something factual, I might well ask around about that, but not the story ideas, or general direction. Besides, how could I, when I don't know where it's going? If I'm writing for something specific, and I have serious choices to make that fundamentally affect the story - Dark Star's Project Paranormal, for example - I might ask if there are any preferences, but that just means that I keep the alternative choice for another day.
And I am really looking forward to reading this gigantic story of yours... I think once it's done you might find you have a brain left - I'm sure the story will give it back. Hope so, anyway. Can't have tkp sans brain...
And I agree that not every word and sentence in a story should be so polished, so brilliant and so sparkling that the reader suffers from brilliance-fatigue after a page and a half. Even in this, contrast is needed. And I am more than happy to send the reader off to find a dictionary, but not for so many words that they don't understand any of the sentences... Particularly for plot-based story-telling, the simpler the wording in critical points of the action, the more the reader is sucked in. That's what I'm learning, anyway.
no subject
Anywho, I do get scenes writing themselves in my head that I need to write down RIGHT AWAY, but that's generally after I've thought about the scene for a while. I work in layers. First I get the idea of what's going to happen in a scene. Then I break the scene down into smaller parts, especially the beginning. Then I break the beginning down into smaller parts, usually with some dialogue and visuals. Then I write it word for word in my head, and that's the part where BAM, have to write it down. The thing is though, if I can't write it down just then, I can sometimes review it over and over until I remember it word for word. A while ago I was having computer trouble, and kept losing my work--had to write the same three pages over three times before I could back it up. What was freaky is I'm sure each of those three pages were exactly the same every single time--because I knew exactly the words I wanted. I guess it was freaky because verbatim memorization has always been hard for me, but not when I'm writing.
I tend to be not so concerned about the ideas not being mine. That is, it's very very important to me that I don't steal ideas, but I feel like once I get my hands on something, I have a natural tendency to twist and change until it becomes my own. Possible arrogance on my part; I should watch myself!
Me sans brain is dangerous.
And I agree that not every word and sentence in a story should be so polished,
I've said (ad naseum, I'm afraid) before that I kinda have two modes of writing: one I just spin out what's popping into my head, I write really fast, and they're long stories. The other is like pulling teeth, every word is agony, and they end up shorter. I'm writing this fic in the former mode, but sometimes I worry that what I'm doing is just splooging crap everywhere, if you know what I mean, and that people who expect good writing out of me will be disappointed. But the key is that I'm really having fun with it, and that's what matters most!
Particularly for plot-based story-telling, the simpler the wording in critical points of the action, the more the reader is sucked in.
The thing about that is simple wording is sometimes sparkly in itself. Hemmingway's stories, for a hoidy-toidy literary example, are written very simply, but it still feels like each word is extremely polished. I think a lot of people's natural mode of writing falls somewhere in between wordy convoluted beauty and that crystalline simplicity, and the result is that the prose of generic novels and stories, the mysteries and best-sellers and romance novels calls no attention to itself because it is utterly mundane. But I don't think that style of writing is bad, though I do believe it could be better. It just gets the story across, which is sometimes more than enough. Um, I have more thoughts on this subject, which I need to think about because I'm having trouble articulating, and I don't have a way to end this sentence, so I'll just thank you for making me think :o)