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 Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:44 pm
Huh --
I just tried to go into my two writing guilds and they both seem to no longer exist. I didn't know Gaia did that.
Anyway, I've been thinking recently about kicking up my writing habit, again. And I wouldn't really be writing about it here (as I consider anything posted online to be potentially public), except I think that talking about stories might help me actually create some, by getting them out of the concept stage and into the dialogue stage. Writing and talking about things helps me feel like it isn't all just in my head sweatdrop , though I do know I have to be careful because I could be ripped off...it potentially may have happened, before.
In the TG thread, I mentioned something about having had a story whose protagonist was Satanist. I was also pushed by Error to look up some sources for a claim I made as to the actual (Roman) origin of "Lucifer". In the process, I found both that 1) I actually enjoyed finding and expanding my knowledge on the topic, and 2) that there was more depth to what I had been talking about than I'd known (such as that the term "Lucifer" was demonized for political reasons, as it was a religious leader's name which someone wanted to smear). Normally I'd tend to shy away from research, but this was actually fun.
Do other people here do fiction writing? If so: when you write, do you like to have everything planned out first and then fill in the details after making a solid skeletal structure, or do you like to write out rough drafts without a solid idea of where the story is going to end up, and let your mind carry you along, with your (lack of) knowledge of the resolution held out before you as a stimulus to keep going?
The latter is more like John Irving's method (as in the preface of The World According to Garp), which I learned about in high school, and which seems more effective for me. The former, I've seen a lot more among worldbuilders and other people involved in creating Sci Fi/Fantasy -- which I suppose could be called genre fiction.
My problem is that when I know too much, I tend to force the story to go according to plan, and that tends to handicap me and make my writing sound forced. A lot (and I mean a LOT) of my work comes out of my subconscious. My waking mind just doesn't seem to be all that creative. smile
No one ever really told me how to write a novel, even in college. Of course, there really is no reason why the work needs to be a novel -- it could be a series of short stories. The problem with the latter is how to balance the self-containment of each story within itself, with an overarching narrative thread. I tend towards the aesthetic of leaving endings open, which is (in the West, at least), generally not good narrative form; people tend to want resolutions.
I also tend to ramble. sweatdrop
I am thinking, though, if I do this project in a series of short stories, it's probably going to end up like Cowboy Bebop; in that you have a different theme and feel to each, probably with a random horror story or two thrown in. biggrin Of course, I tend towards a Shyamalan-like aesthetic (like in "The Lady in the Water" and "The Sixth Sense"), where it's possible things are just going to be bizarre, not necessarily scary. Unless, of course, things slowly coming together to form a strange apparent "reality" is scary. smile
What am I looking for? Why am I writing this?
I need this to be real. Talking about it is the first step. And I'm pretty much separated from most of my fictional prose-author peers, since I graduated three years ago and people seem to have scattered. I didn't keep up most ties.
I might write a little about the story in my head, in the next post. Be warned that the content of the next post may change, depending on if I find out that I feel I've said too much...or if Gaia decides it wants to try and own my copyright 'cos it's on their servers.
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:44 pm
Okay, so making an overview of a set of short stories with an overarching commonality is more difficult than I imagined. (Who says they even all have to be in the same universe?)
Plus, I haven't reviewed my notes.
On second thought, maybe I shouldn't publish plot points on Gaia. Even if no user steals it, Gaia might use it for their own work (even if I do make it general enough so that it's barely recognizable, I wouldn't want to be known as "the writer who copied Gaia's plotline.") Hm. I'll keep writing it offline, for now.
And anyway, this post and thread would probably be better off not being all about me. I can reserve this spot for anything which might come up later.
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:45 pm
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Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:47 am
The only writing projects of mine I have online are my comics, which, being webcomics, pretty much have to be online, or no one would ever see them! Not that I have too many readers anymore, since I took such a long hiatus (over a year), without warning. Boo me.
I do always have several other projects "in the works" though, including a novel or two and several short stories. For the last decade or so, my concentration has been primarily the Arthurian legends, and I've done tons and tons of research. To me, that's really the fun part, reading as much about a subject as I can get my hands on. You never know when something will spark that next Great Idea, taking your project in a wholly new direction.
Like you, I have a lot of difficulty "writing in a void." I need constant feedback, or my projects tend to stagnate. It was a lot easier to get feedback when I was in college, surrounded by other writers. Now, more than a decade later, I have only a small handful of people I can talk to about the things I'm writing, and every one of them is online. Consequently, most of my non-webcomic projects are mostly on hold. During the comic's big hiatus, I wrote up a storm, but without feedback, it only lasted two or three months, then got shelved again. I keep trying to get back into it -- I really want to finish this book before I die! But I just can't seem to get anywhere.
However, as it's a very specialized sort of project, I'm not sure it would be helpful trying to talk about it here. I'm just not sure anyone has enough interest, let alone background in the material. I'm not quite as worried about anyone stealing my work, though I suppose I should be.
The comics: Sit-N-Bull Cafe and Enchanted.
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Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 12:48 am
I write like I Gm, really. I have a general picture in my head of the shape of the project with a background and what's actually going on and a collection of key themes. Then i make a bunch of characters and let them talk to each other and do what makes sense for them to do and if it doesn't go where i intended, I don't mind.
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Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:30 pm
I've done a Fantasy piece that I really ought to try to get published and I'm working on a science fiction piece right now off and on.
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Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:57 pm
sadly this isnt where my creativity goes. i'm more of a homecraft, traditional fibercraft artiste.
I will say that i do like batwulf's comics. good storylines even got some tears out of me at points.
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Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:07 pm
LashanaSerene sadly this isnt where my creativity goes. i'm more of a homecraft, traditional fibercraft artiste. I will say that i do like batwulf's comics. good storylines even got some tears out of me at points. Thank you! And thank you for reminding me to update Enchanted tonight, I'd completely forgotten. redface
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