December 8: your fic writing process (for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sabriel) [Tumblr crosspost]
In brief: endless procrastination followed by compressed panic. *wry* More seriously, what and why I am writing has a significant effect on how I write.
Fifteen-minute ficlets are obviously tiny finger exercises with a time limit, so I spend a minute or three turning the prompt word over in my head and holding it up against various fandoms and original worlds to see if any associations click into place. Then I write something as fast as possible -- short works, with a single focus, and no time to overthink myself or get too fancy. (I do go back and edit some of the results at much greater length, if I'm not happy with the initial effect.)
If I'm answering a prompt that I solicited from someone, I have some added outside incentive to sit down and make myself type. Those also tend to be short works, because I want them done and posted in a relatively short time window. (The obvious exception here would be "Trollstuck: Make Her Pay," which began as a prompt fic and turned into a monster... which I need to get back to and finish. *headdesk*)
If I'm writing for a fic exchange, there is an actual external deadline, which I find is wonderful for concentrating the mind. Stressful as all hell, sure! But brilliant for making myself think and write so fast I don't have time to second-guess myself. Now, if I were better at time management I'd get stuff done well before the deadlines get scary, but I've always been regrettably prone to procrastination, so my usual exchange writing habits go like, "Receive prompt, ponder prompt, get idea, do a tiny bit of preliminary research/outlining... and then ignore the whole business until about a week before the deadline, whoops." (I am currently doing this for Yuletide, incidentally. I reread canon, came up with an idea, wrote a one paragraph scenario sketch, came up with the first three lines, and... yeah, I'll get back to it at some point. *wince*)
Things I'm writing solely for myself -- well, okay, there is always an implicit audience, but sometimes that audience is so tiny it might as well be only me -- are variable, to say the least. I do have enough of a work ethic that if I start something, I want very badly to finish it... but I am extremely lackadaisical about when that endpoint must be reached. Sometimes an idea burns up in my head and won't leave me alone until I write it right now. Other times things drag out for years -- one-shots as well as multi-chapter works!
I can often get stuck on a particular fic that's not working, but that my brain insists MUST come before any other projects, which means I don't write much of anything for weeks until I either gnaw through the difficult passage or finally manage to knock my brain into a different channel and focus on something else.
I am fairly lackadaisical about research as well. I mean, I do research things I don't know, and I always try to be canon-compliant unless I am deliberately breaking something (which requires its own form of 'research'), but I am much more likely to write about things I already know for one reason or another. I'm lazy, you see, and I have a fairly good memory for random things I've read over the years. (Stories written for other people tend to get more research than stories written mostly for myself, because they are gifts and I want them to look good.)
I don't usually outline one-shots, unless they are over, hmm, 5,000-7,000 words, or they're for an exchange. Past that, I do make outlines, though the level of detail is wildly variable: anything from a single paragraph roughly telling me how to get from Point K to Point Z (those happen when a one-shot ends up a lot longer than I expected, and I get a bit lost halfway through) to a full-fledged timeline split by days and multiple character POVs and plot threads. (You do not really want to see my outline for "The Guardian in Spite of Herself." It's a giant, confusing mess.) I also tend to write running background files, which contain notes on things like character profiles, the physical layout of certain locations, the rules of magic, cultural quirks, alien biology, and other stuff. Those are organized chronologically by the date any particular thing occurred to me, which makes them a little hard to sort through -- especially if I retcon something later on -- but useful as a journal of how my thoughts developed as the story grew.
My second drafts are almost invariably longer than my first drafts, because I am bad at remembering to include descriptive passages -- Vicky once told me one of my original works felt like a bunch of people talking in front of a blank white page, which was a fair assessment -- and also bad at little connective transitions, like how a person gets from Thought A to Thought D. So I have to go back and fill stuff in because, oddly enough, people cannot read my intentions if I don't actually put them down on the page. *wry*
That's all I can think of for now. If you have any further questions or want clarifications or examples, please feel free to ask. :-)
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December Talking Meme: All Days
sabriel) [Tumblr crosspost]In brief: endless procrastination followed by compressed panic. *wry* More seriously, what and why I am writing has a significant effect on how I write.
Fifteen-minute ficlets are obviously tiny finger exercises with a time limit, so I spend a minute or three turning the prompt word over in my head and holding it up against various fandoms and original worlds to see if any associations click into place. Then I write something as fast as possible -- short works, with a single focus, and no time to overthink myself or get too fancy. (I do go back and edit some of the results at much greater length, if I'm not happy with the initial effect.)
If I'm answering a prompt that I solicited from someone, I have some added outside incentive to sit down and make myself type. Those also tend to be short works, because I want them done and posted in a relatively short time window. (The obvious exception here would be "Trollstuck: Make Her Pay," which began as a prompt fic and turned into a monster... which I need to get back to and finish. *headdesk*)
If I'm writing for a fic exchange, there is an actual external deadline, which I find is wonderful for concentrating the mind. Stressful as all hell, sure! But brilliant for making myself think and write so fast I don't have time to second-guess myself. Now, if I were better at time management I'd get stuff done well before the deadlines get scary, but I've always been regrettably prone to procrastination, so my usual exchange writing habits go like, "Receive prompt, ponder prompt, get idea, do a tiny bit of preliminary research/outlining... and then ignore the whole business until about a week before the deadline, whoops." (I am currently doing this for Yuletide, incidentally. I reread canon, came up with an idea, wrote a one paragraph scenario sketch, came up with the first three lines, and... yeah, I'll get back to it at some point. *wince*)
Things I'm writing solely for myself -- well, okay, there is always an implicit audience, but sometimes that audience is so tiny it might as well be only me -- are variable, to say the least. I do have enough of a work ethic that if I start something, I want very badly to finish it... but I am extremely lackadaisical about when that endpoint must be reached. Sometimes an idea burns up in my head and won't leave me alone until I write it right now. Other times things drag out for years -- one-shots as well as multi-chapter works!
I can often get stuck on a particular fic that's not working, but that my brain insists MUST come before any other projects, which means I don't write much of anything for weeks until I either gnaw through the difficult passage or finally manage to knock my brain into a different channel and focus on something else.
I am fairly lackadaisical about research as well. I mean, I do research things I don't know, and I always try to be canon-compliant unless I am deliberately breaking something (which requires its own form of 'research'), but I am much more likely to write about things I already know for one reason or another. I'm lazy, you see, and I have a fairly good memory for random things I've read over the years. (Stories written for other people tend to get more research than stories written mostly for myself, because they are gifts and I want them to look good.)
I don't usually outline one-shots, unless they are over, hmm, 5,000-7,000 words, or they're for an exchange. Past that, I do make outlines, though the level of detail is wildly variable: anything from a single paragraph roughly telling me how to get from Point K to Point Z (those happen when a one-shot ends up a lot longer than I expected, and I get a bit lost halfway through) to a full-fledged timeline split by days and multiple character POVs and plot threads. (You do not really want to see my outline for "The Guardian in Spite of Herself." It's a giant, confusing mess.) I also tend to write running background files, which contain notes on things like character profiles, the physical layout of certain locations, the rules of magic, cultural quirks, alien biology, and other stuff. Those are organized chronologically by the date any particular thing occurred to me, which makes them a little hard to sort through -- especially if I retcon something later on -- but useful as a journal of how my thoughts developed as the story grew.
My second drafts are almost invariably longer than my first drafts, because I am bad at remembering to include descriptive passages -- Vicky once told me one of my original works felt like a bunch of people talking in front of a blank white page, which was a fair assessment -- and also bad at little connective transitions, like how a person gets from Thought A to Thought D. So I have to go back and fill stuff in because, oddly enough, people cannot read my intentions if I don't actually put them down on the page. *wry*
That's all I can think of for now. If you have any further questions or want clarifications or examples, please feel free to ask. :-)
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December Talking Meme: All Days
