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pensnestFound this on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
turps33's LJ.
Ideas Where the hell do they come from? Can you make those little fuckers show up?
Ideas aren't really a problem. A *vast* number of my stories are written to some kind of prompt anyway, either a challenge or a specific story request (eg at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fic_requests), but I also have a bunch of my own lurking in wait to be written. Where they come from... may be something in canon that I've noticed, or a 'wouldn't it be fun if' or a 'that's an interesting thought'. The problem is turning an idea into an actual story. Sometimes, the problem is recognising that a neat idea is not substantial enough for a story!
Wild horse-bunnies When a story just gets pulled right out of you. Do you get them?
Oh, yes. My sole Lance/Reichen story, Six Words, almost wrote itself. Unnatural came from a dream I had, and assembled itself on the screen. With If you want to fly I was pretty much discovering the story as I wrote it.
Writer's block Have you been scourged?
Hmm. Well, I wrote nothing between about 1999 and 2005, because I'd given up on Trek fandom and didn't feel able to write Buffy... More recently, I sometimes have weeks when I can't summon up the determination to write, but that's different. I do have one story which I just can't figure out, I've got most of the way through it and just cannot get the guys to do what I have in mind.
Clean up duty Do you like editing?
I'm lazy about it, I guess. With the big challenge fics, and anything else I write which is particularly important in some way, I want to get someone else's input, but I'm not at all the kind of writer who works out plot problems in advance with a beta - partly because it's *my, my, my* story, partly because I hate working out all the details in advance, because then, why write the story? I like to get it written first, and then poked at. My first beta, back in my ST:TNG days, was a terrifying experience, as I got a bunch of comments back, and read through what I'd written thinking, OMG she's right, about everything. But after a day of gibbering I got stuck in and ended up with a much better story. Of course.
As for editing-for-spelling, grammar etc - I quite enjoy it, but I tend to get caught up in the story.
The ending Is it hard for you to find the ending?
Not usually. I know where the story is going before I start (usually), and mostly I manage to find a 'sign-off' line that finishes it with a little flourish. Though occasionally I have to cheat a bit by going back to insert precursors to the sign-off line.
The title Where do you get yours? Do you have yours when you start the story?
The general rule would be that the title arrives at some point during the writing of the story. 'The Christmas Tree Conspiracy' arrived before the story did, though, and it's one of my favourite titles. 'The Little Dustbuster That Could' arrived rather early in the writing process and refused to leave!
Occasionally, I have to figure out a title when the story is finished. My MTYG story, 'A Tale of Dreams and Asses' is one such, I don't think it's a particularly good title, and I wish I'd called it 'The Magnificent Traveling Yenta Guys' instead, though I'm not sure that that's really right either. OTOH, 'If you want to fly' is the perfect title for that story, and arrived more or less when I had to put the story on the website.
I have a lot of fairly workmanlike titles ('Broken', 'Horny', 'Fettered', etc), but there are a few duff ones and a few that I'm really pleased with.
Plot If you plot out your stories first, raise your hand
Dear me, no. I have a mental outline. Sometimes a story is complicated, and must be worked out at some point - my ST:TNG time travel story, 'A Matter of Timing', was actually printed out and cut into sections and rearranged on the floor so that I could check it made sense. But mostly, I know where I'm going and I just have to get on with it. And there are always interesting things that crop up which I hadn't thought of. I don't write mighty epics - the nearest I have is the Chronicles series, and that is an 'episodic' - so it hasn't been something I've had to do.
POV How do you choose your POV for a scene? For a story?
Um. Mostly, I just... start writing. Sometimes, I do make a point of working from the POV of the person who is least aware of what's going on. Generally I think I just write what feels right.
Challenge Do you like them? Do they inspire you?
Thank God for popslash, with its vast array of challenges and special days and story requests and prompts. Rather less than 20% of the stories I've produced in popslash were *not* written for a challenge and/or afic_requests prompt. And deadlines are good for me.
Sex Do you like writing sex?
Not particularly. It tends to bring out my worst stylistic flaws. And sex scenes are by far the most difficult to translate from the pictures/sounds/sensations in my mind into actual words.
turps33's LJ.Ideas Where the hell do they come from? Can you make those little fuckers show up?
Ideas aren't really a problem. A *vast* number of my stories are written to some kind of prompt anyway, either a challenge or a specific story request (eg at
fic_requests), but I also have a bunch of my own lurking in wait to be written. Where they come from... may be something in canon that I've noticed, or a 'wouldn't it be fun if' or a 'that's an interesting thought'. The problem is turning an idea into an actual story. Sometimes, the problem is recognising that a neat idea is not substantial enough for a story!Wild horse-bunnies When a story just gets pulled right out of you. Do you get them?
Oh, yes. My sole Lance/Reichen story, Six Words, almost wrote itself. Unnatural came from a dream I had, and assembled itself on the screen. With If you want to fly I was pretty much discovering the story as I wrote it.
Writer's block Have you been scourged?
Hmm. Well, I wrote nothing between about 1999 and 2005, because I'd given up on Trek fandom and didn't feel able to write Buffy... More recently, I sometimes have weeks when I can't summon up the determination to write, but that's different. I do have one story which I just can't figure out, I've got most of the way through it and just cannot get the guys to do what I have in mind.
Clean up duty Do you like editing?
I'm lazy about it, I guess. With the big challenge fics, and anything else I write which is particularly important in some way, I want to get someone else's input, but I'm not at all the kind of writer who works out plot problems in advance with a beta - partly because it's *my, my, my* story, partly because I hate working out all the details in advance, because then, why write the story? I like to get it written first, and then poked at. My first beta, back in my ST:TNG days, was a terrifying experience, as I got a bunch of comments back, and read through what I'd written thinking, OMG she's right, about everything. But after a day of gibbering I got stuck in and ended up with a much better story. Of course.
As for editing-for-spelling, grammar etc - I quite enjoy it, but I tend to get caught up in the story.
The ending Is it hard for you to find the ending?
Not usually. I know where the story is going before I start (usually), and mostly I manage to find a 'sign-off' line that finishes it with a little flourish. Though occasionally I have to cheat a bit by going back to insert precursors to the sign-off line.
The title Where do you get yours? Do you have yours when you start the story?
The general rule would be that the title arrives at some point during the writing of the story. 'The Christmas Tree Conspiracy' arrived before the story did, though, and it's one of my favourite titles. 'The Little Dustbuster That Could' arrived rather early in the writing process and refused to leave!
Occasionally, I have to figure out a title when the story is finished. My MTYG story, 'A Tale of Dreams and Asses' is one such, I don't think it's a particularly good title, and I wish I'd called it 'The Magnificent Traveling Yenta Guys' instead, though I'm not sure that that's really right either. OTOH, 'If you want to fly' is the perfect title for that story, and arrived more or less when I had to put the story on the website.
I have a lot of fairly workmanlike titles ('Broken', 'Horny', 'Fettered', etc), but there are a few duff ones and a few that I'm really pleased with.
Plot If you plot out your stories first, raise your hand
Dear me, no. I have a mental outline. Sometimes a story is complicated, and must be worked out at some point - my ST:TNG time travel story, 'A Matter of Timing', was actually printed out and cut into sections and rearranged on the floor so that I could check it made sense. But mostly, I know where I'm going and I just have to get on with it. And there are always interesting things that crop up which I hadn't thought of. I don't write mighty epics - the nearest I have is the Chronicles series, and that is an 'episodic' - so it hasn't been something I've had to do.
POV How do you choose your POV for a scene? For a story?
Um. Mostly, I just... start writing. Sometimes, I do make a point of working from the POV of the person who is least aware of what's going on. Generally I think I just write what feels right.
Challenge Do you like them? Do they inspire you?
Thank God for popslash, with its vast array of challenges and special days and story requests and prompts. Rather less than 20% of the stories I've produced in popslash were *not* written for a challenge and/or a
fic_requests prompt. And deadlines are good for me.Sex Do you like writing sex?
Not particularly. It tends to bring out my worst stylistic flaws. And sex scenes are by far the most difficult to translate from the pictures/sounds/sensations in my mind into actual words.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-25 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-25 05:42 pm (UTC)I suspect I had a note to remind me who was who! But with the body swap story, the *really* difficult thing was POV, because if I was in, say, Chris's POV, I had to remember that he had Joey's body, and thought Joey had his body. Whereas in fact, Joey was somewhere quite different... Readers must concentrate! It was definitely a challenge to try making it clear who was who, and who looked like who, without reminding the unfortunate reader of the details all the time.