Your Writing Process, And/Or Problems with Same Options

[mALX]

*Attempts to wrench eyes away from Orc in thigh high boots and thong... ...*...
Goes off to make coffee...*...

Urgh... ...

SPEW !!! I saw that top line in my email and sprayed Pepsi-One all over my monitor, lol. Had to stop by here and see what you were talking about. ROFL !!!

[haute ecole rider]

I'm with treydoggie here.

My writing process is pretty much organic. Often I start with a scene that won't get out of my head, and I start asking questions such as:

Who are these people?
Why are they in this scene?
How did they get there?
What are they doing?
Where did they come from? Where are they now? Where are they going?
When did this scene happen?

The five basic questions of journalism come in handy when writing fiction, I've found. I've crafted an entire story around a character in a falling elevator. Another originated from a character being attacked by her fellow passengers on a luxury liner. Stuff like that.

[Kazaera]

At the moment, I'm doing pretty well by writing when I'm meant to be working - um. By that I mean, I'm a PhD student and I'll frequently go work in a coffee shop and write fic in the breaks where it feels as if my brain will melt if I have to write one more equation. But as soon as you give me other things to distract myself with, writing never happens. :/

(Should add: I have a vague idea of where the story is going that gets more fleshed out the nearer things are. Although frequently surprising things /will/ happen in a scene, or a plotline will insert itself where one wasn't before, the overall framework remains. And I actually have a lot of subtle plot threads going on that will get picked up later on.)

Something fun I realised the other day - I deal very badly with mastermind-type characters. I just think the world is too random for their plans to ever work out! And I think this is something that had been bothering me about the Tribunal plot forever - it just seems as if it shouldn't /work/, and I never actually finished playing it because I felt so railroaded.

However! I realised that I do absolutely love it when you have several mastermind characters and their plots all crash into one another until nobody has the slightest clue what's going on anymore. And now I have some plans for Tribunal, ohohohoho I do. *rubs hands together evilly*.

...also, I tried playing Daggerfall a while back - it's sort of relevant for Adryn, how will become clear with time - but I died at the first enemy or something. I /sucked/ at the controls. Very embarrassing!

This post has been edited by Kazaera: Oct 30 2011, 10:20 PM

[Thomas Kaira]

One of the specifics of my preferred style: details matter. You might note that LtD has a lot going on in the background, from the everyday lives of the townsfolk to the major events such as the Oblivion Crisis and the attack on Cathedral Dibella. Sometimes, one thing that happens to someone that seems mundane enough might re-emerge later down the road. The crowd and the world is as much a character as Derelas and Ariella and Carahil. Another is how strictly I adhere to the first-person viewpoint of the story. Every single observation is from Derelas's point of view, every single world-building or story progression is through his eyes. There are some exceptions, though, but so far only one has ever surfaced.

My goal is to make the reader believe they are him, experiencing the world as he would, and learning about him as he learns about the world. Every little detail exists to help put you there. Some are simply random, others are seed-planting for later adventures, but all are designed to engross the reader.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Nov 6 2011, 09:25 PM

[McBadgere]

Pacing...

Right, I've got a story where it could be said that I have a few characters...And I love them all...I can hear them in my head...Shut up Drell!!...And I want them to have decent "screen" time...And of course then new ones that hadn't been intended to be in there turn up and they just demand time...As happened this morning when I was having trouble with something...A character turned up, and instantly he was just what I needed. I knew exactly who he was and what he looked like and sounded...So there's another one...

Dammit, I've gotten myself lost...

Oh yes...When yer writing your stories...How do you keep everyone interested and not lost?... ...'Cause I've got Plot A (Outside the fort), Plot B (The Commander et-al in Kvatch) Plot A then divides into C and D, D then splits into E, B and A combine (oo-er) with "Overall plot" making it's first appearance there...

You see what I mean?...How would everyone else manage something like that in 1500-2000 word episodes?... ...

And yes, I can see answers of Too Many Characters, Too Many Plots...But I swear, I have it all worked out...And the next two stories too...Honest...

[Grits]

I can’t answer as a writer, but I can give you some ideas about what helps me as a plot-impaired reader.

Putting cues into the story that wouldn’t necessarily be there if it was a book read in long sittings, like you did with the “Beyond the windows they covered, lay the city of New Kvatch” line.

Starting with a little last-episode recap outside the story, like Acadian and several others do here. For your story it could be a last-time-we-saw Caroline recap, or whichever plot you’re picking up in the current post.

Occasional faction/plot updates when it gets really complicated. mALX does this for A New Sun Rises, and I am tremendously grateful. I can refresh my memory and then dive right into the story without any head-scratching.

I haven’t seen anyone do this, but maybe a character index somewhere with a list of original characters? This may seem extreme, but I know I’ve had to search back through stories when an original character pops back up after only a short time in the story but months of real time. Maybe there could be an appendix thread for this kind of thing. Others with more experience probably have better ideas about how to do it. And for everyone who is laughing themselves out of their chairs right now, just think how fortunate you are to keep everything straight in your head!

[Athynae]

I raise a toast to you Grits, HERE HERE!!! Yes, and yes and....well, yes! The recaps are worth their weight in words! Without them I would just be reading the same things I have already read over and over thinking "Hmm, this seems familiar..." As for the rest, well, I can't say much, I am just writing Thyna's words and letting Trey deal with all that PLOT stuff. Sorry, I know it seems like cheating, yep it's cheating. But I am working on one, we just have to get through BOTM first.

[Thomas Kaira]

My strategy for recaps is that I don't give them during the body of the current thread, I instead go in roughly 200 post blocks (similar to the BGSF posting scheme, where a thread is closed and restarted after 200 posts). In my final post for that thread, everything that happened in that particular thread gets recapped in one post. This way, any new reader who wants to catch up quickly can simply jump to the end of the threads and there they are, consolidated on one page. Of course, I still encourage people to read the whole thing, but just in case they simply want to be on the same page as everyone else and are relatively new to the forums, they are there, easy to find.

My objective for keeping people up-to-date with the story is to keep things simple and concise. It may seem like there are a huge number of plots going on, but that's not true. there is only one main plot: Dere's experiences and journeys. Also, the story has gradually shifted from being story based (as in thread 1) to character-based in the current thread. Thread 2 is much slower-paced than thread 1, and also easier to follow as I have gotten everything together with the story and know what I want to do. Some things in the first thread didn't work out that well and got dropped (and if there were to be a revision, that would be reflected), but I am still aware of everything that happens that I wish to continue, although most of the major plot points are currently on hold so we can explore Dere's character a bit better.

Now, another musing of mine:

Character building: I don't like using straight-up archetypes that pre-define my characters' actions or decide exactly what they are at the start, I prefer to build those as I go. The idea is that I don't want to have my characters easily summed up in a few words. By not doing that for myself, it makes it easier for me to keep others from doing so, too. I try to make then distinct, but at the same time ambiguous. Every major character we've encountered so far has a mystery behind them, Dere's is why a vampire Ancient is hunting him, Faith's (who will return) is her motivations, and now we have Ariella, who quickly retreated into herself at mention of her birthsign. I then build my characters around how they react and cope with these overarching mysteries, and eventually, what happens between them when the secrets are revealed. Each major character exists not only to further the story, but to develop the others. The only planning they really get is their personality and what their secret is, and then you learn of their deeper selves as they interact with each other. You could call it "social development," in a way.

[McBadgere]

OOooh, good idea with the recaps...I shall endeavour to mess about with the "Previously on KOTN," idea... ...

I can see how a thread about Dramatis Personae (oooh see that? And at half four in the morning too!! ) would be good, but I think for some of the longer running threads to go back and find all of them might be a problem...I'll see how it looks at the start of the section...Y'know...Starring - J'Drell!! Caroline McWylde!!...Special Guest Boo-Hiss Baddie -...Y'know?... ...

As for character archetypes...As a lot of my chars, and indeed a lot of the types of chars that I read are Knightly or Heroes™ then I will admit they tend towards the same sort of thing...But I'm hoping that there will be subtle differences between them in there...

I'll be going into this more in the second bit, but Caroline is a former Legion General's daughter. She was trained in sword technique by her father, who also trained several other notables including, Robert McWylde, Farn Olfsson, The Emperor...Aaaand someone else that's apparently alright with a sword these days...

J'Drell was one of the top Investigato officers before being called to the Knights...

Thedret, Oholin and Mazkay Dinai are all basically Legionaires to the core...

Y'know...I'm going for the subtle in amongst the cliche... ...

[ghastley]

Technical change of subject.

What external editor are folks using to draft their content before pasting it into here? I've been using Wordpad, and re-adding the markup for italic and bold etc. after pasting, but I'm sure there's something better suited to the task. The perfect solution would have grammar and spell checks and know all about BBcode markup and the forum's selection of emoticons, but what's out there short of the impossible?

[SubRosa]

I always use Word to do my writing in. Then I copy and paste as you do when it is finished. Likewise, I have to manually add italics and bold tags to everything afterward.

[Acadian]

Like SubRosa, I use Word. I've been doing it long enough that I just draft things using the bracket symbols required when I want italics etc. I also conduct several of my edits, along an episode's long journey, in the forum format . I find the simplest (and safest) way to do this is via a PM to myself in the preview mode right here on the forum.

As far as the formatting I use (bold, size) etc on each episode for the title and such, I use a template for that so I just have to change the number and name of the episode in the heading.

After the episode is posted and before I archive it, I do go through it again to remove any forum-unique symbology.

[liliandra nadiar]

For now, I write in note pad and use the board post to spell check. Writting in the codes is pretty close to second nature by now, but codes are the easy part.

[minque]

I....use an expert!

[Jacki Dice]

I use Word and if I'm going to need any html in the story I just type it in manually so when I'm ready to cut and paste, its all set

[McBadgere]

Word... ...

Umm...Yes, I use Word...Add all the Italics tags and size tags 'nd stuff on a new page, then copy and paste it to my reply...Preview it to check it's all alright then voila...

My drivel is presented... ...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: Nov 9 2011, 10:57 PM

[Zalphon]

To all the newer writers,

A list of things to help you succeed:

Don't plot the little things. Let them come naturally. If you plot every aspect of the story (beyond the over-arching storyline (which I rarely plot, just have the beginning and end in mind), then you're bound to feel mechanical).

Let characters do what the character would do! This was one of the hardest lessons it took for me to learn (and I learned it from practice). Do not control the characters. Let them make choices (and I know this probably doesn't make sense, but when you've spent a while writing, you'll understand).

Make three-dimensional enemies. Nothing is more boring than Lord Bob Soulcrusher the Destroyer of <Insert Place Here>. Use enemies who have feelings, who care about certain people, who may (or may not) have scruples. Essentially: Don't make the big evil bad guy the big evil bad guy. Give him a reason to do what he does.

Let their actions have adverse effects. Sorry, no one's perfect. In Legacy, Kalian (the protagonist of the prequel, Oblivion's Edge) is revered as a God. And in the Theocratic Tamriel that exists in the story, he is the only god worthy of worship (all others are heresy). If you save the world from seemingly impossible odds, people are going to love you and even worship you. That seems great...until fanatics appear.

Heroes who are actually every-day people with delusions are just as interesting as actual heroes. Read Don Quijote. The story of Don Quijote is known across the world and in many advanced literary classes in college, you'll read about him and study him. He's an average individual who believes he's a knight and fights everyday things believing they're fantastic monsters! But in the end of each encounter, he'll realize it's a real thing and believe a wizard transformed it into a normal thing.

More to come...

[McBadgere]

I read somewhere that you don't have to be well-read to write well...

Aaanyways, what does everyone else read?...And does it influence the way you write?...

I read Star Wars, Warhammer, Clive Cussler, Dr Who...Stuff like that...All of which are basically multi-character romps...And I think it shows... ...

Aaamywho...What about everyone else...To read or not to read?...

[Saquira]

I read as much fantasy books as I can. I also read some books that have been inspired by history, and science fiction books, but then I'm a lot more selective. There are books laying all over my room, because even though I've got a card for the library I never use it(mostly because they've barely got any books in English), I buy them instead.

But then I love reading, not everyone does. I don't think you've got to read a lot to be a good writer, though it certainly helps a bit(I think). You get access to a lot more variety in language when you read. And I think it have influenced my way to write a bit, though I couldn't point out anything specific. I use a lot of words that none of my friends or family understand, and I'm quite sure I've picked them up from books I've read.

[liliandra nadiar]

I'm very fond of reading. The library was a safe haven in middle/high school. About half the boxes still waiting to be unpacked are books, though since I don't have any bookshelves they'll be in thier boxes awhile yet, probably a near equal amount are electronic and I have dog earred bookmarks to 'story-sites' on the web. I stick mainly to Sci-Fi/Fantasy, but I've several Romances as well as Supernatural/Horror. Anne McCafferey (RIP) is my favorite and most common name. About the only requirment I 'have' is the leading female not be a doormat, the more focus on her the better so a lot of my books feature strong female leads. This means several 'classics' are not in attendence, though I have read and enjoyed some, just not enough to make them a perminate part of my collection.

As far as them influenceing, probably more then I've realized. I'm more an avid fan of writing then a writer myself, but it has stimulated my imagination a tad. Lonely childhoods make for very active imaginations, I just have issues actually 'getting' it down. I also suffer from the 'Ohhh Shiney' effect when it comes to things, so my own writing has suffered with Skyrim, though I'm setting an hour or so a day this week to writing.

This post has been edited by liliandra nadiar: Dec 6 2011, 05:46 PM