Home » The Crystal Hall » The Crystal Hall » For those who write
| For those who write [message #58058] |
Fri, 11 May 2012 00:17  |
polarone
Messages: 430
Registered: May 2011
Location: Orion Arm of the Milky Wa... |
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What are your strategies for writing, your inspirations?
Link Brandon Sanderson, a famous fantasy/scifi writer, is having his class lectures posted on how to write novels well.
"Quote."
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| Re: For those who write [message #58066 is a reply to message #58058 ] |
Fri, 11 May 2012 03:14  |
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 mikisha
Messages: 128
Registered: May 2011
Location: UK |
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I write the same way I draw: rough sketches (sentence per scene), then fill it in a bit, then go back and add detail.
I find it best to rough out a good lump (cackling madly all the while), then leave it for a while. My subconscious will ruminate while I'm doing other things, and when I come back to it I can write it up quite quickly. Then take another break and read it through again.
The breaks are good, like sleeping on a problem. Don't force it, come back to it when you're ready.
As for inspiration, I find that the fun characters keep running in my head during the day, and when I notice something interesting I think 'how would such-and-such react to that?' which often leads me to something interesting.
My Webcomic, Verity's Ark
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| Re: For those who write [message #59690 is a reply to message #58058 ] |
Sun, 10 June 2012 17:40 |
polarone
Messages: 430
Registered: May 2011
Location: Orion Arm of the Milky Wa... |
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Interesting online story about the plot to kill Hitler via time travel.
"Quote."
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| Re: For those who write [message #59694 is a reply to message #58058 ] |
Sun, 10 June 2012 17:58 |
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Aranis
Messages: 730
Registered: October 2008
Location: Mid-Atlantic US |
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My process is always evolving, but that established --
I start off with the characters, and then I set the goal of the story. I then work backward from that goal until I get to the beginning, and then I have my story.
I generally don't have exhaustive outlines, but I do know how all the key events will flow into one another.
That would make me an outliner, really, though I started off as a person who just wrote by the seat of my pants.
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| Re: For those who write [message #59918 is a reply to message #59699 ] |
Thu, 14 June 2012 08:42 |
Thrythlind
Messages: 642
Registered: June 2012
Location: Fukushima, Japan |
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I also usually start with the characters...
Greenwater and Zodiacs are exceptions, I started with the setting on each, for Zodiacs that's because it is primarily an RPG setting and the short story book is just added flavor
I get a handle of the character originally, often they will show up in isolation in things like fanfics or short stories first.
For some stories, where I create them almost entirely from scratch,
Then I will start to work on the bones of the character's psychology and where I want them to end up, for some characters I have entire files dedicated to an analysis of their status and planned development
while the concept of "girl with x powers" might come before the personality, the mechanics of the powers come afterwards.
When I've got the idea for what I want the character to be able to do, I write up a nice file on the mechanics and workings of their abilities.
This gives me a working rosetta with which to create the overall metaphysics of the world at large (third file)
I then start developing a rough plot and consider just how that sort of world came into being and create some history, timelines and organizational write ups...and languages in the case of Greenwater (fourth file)
I start detailing specific support characters around the prime character, which might cause me to have to go back to tweak the history or metaphysics powers
I maintain an excel cast list including allegiances, age, gender, race, attitude, whether they are planned to die or not, when they are planned to die in the overall plot and so on
once I have a specific plot in mind for the first story, I start writing it...and periodically tweak my background files as things come to mind...the prior work is all guidance, until something in a novel confirms the nature of one point or another, I can freely go back and change anything and frequently do, once a mechanic, history or other fraction of the story enters continuity for the public eye, it is hard and confirmed as The Way Things Are
Generally, once I have a set of characters and their motivations and abilities, the story writes itself. Stories are by and large predictable once you've read enough of them (only about 36 separate plots and only four types of conflicts) and it is the details of character action and reaction that become most interesting to me.
After that I pass the story on to pre-readers
at least one pre-reader from a group that does not usually read my genre
recently I have begun to do this on a chapter by chapter basis as well as doing one major read through at the end
Divine Blood had 8 pre-readers and a formater who caught some errors for me as well, this is in addition to myself. I put each individual chapter through 3 separate pre-readers point by point and tweaked the chapters as they went along in relation to that.
Then I added the other 5 at the end and had them read through the entire story for errors. I read it both per chapter, before handing it over, after receiving it, handing it back to the pre-readers again and receiving it back a second time from each pre-reader.
Then I handed it to my formatter looking through his suggestions and then giving it back to him for final format.
The process took somewhere between two months and a month and a half, which does not include the chapter by chapter writing and tweaks.
Part of that is because Divine Blood is an ascended fanfic and I needed to make sure I'd taken enough of the owned portions of the story without giving up so much that it was significantly different in flavor than what I wanted.
For example, I was sorely tempted not to use a supersecret submarine for the Avalon personnel since it screamed "Mithril" and "Full Metal Panic" to me, especially in combination with the Avalon cast and the use of mecha....though my pre-readers claim they more scream Warhammer 40k, which is odd because I've never played or read the novels and am not a fan of the setting concept. However, my other options were less tactically and strategically practical, so the Melian stayed
However, I'm trying to make that a standard practice now (though collecting enough pre-readers will be difficult...suppose I could do another kickstarter...)
Also, my most productive writing times generally involve earphones and max volumed music set to shuffle...I currently have something like 30 hours of assorted music on my portable hard drive for that purpose...Huey Lewis, Metallica, Tchaivosky(sp?), John Williams(Jaws, Potter, individual songs from Indiana Jones and Star Wars, need my Jurassic Park and Star Wars CDs), Alanis Morissette, MegaDeath, Powerman 5000, Tom Petty, Alizee, Lee Soo Young, Final Fantasy 10, Park Ji Yoon, Shinohara Tomoe, Slayers(anime), Assorted anime soundtracks, assorted movie soundtracks, Rap, Country (need a Reba CD), Prince, Beatles (though my preferred disk was stolen long ago), Creedence Clearwater Revival (see comment with the Beatles), Creed...so on
My process for fan fic is sloppier
usually no pre-reader
two to three hours re-reading or re-watching relative parts of canon
wiki-diving for stuff I haven't discovered yet
writing for about 2k to 6k words
[Updated on: Thu, 14 June 2012 08:44]
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