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Post by Uncle Bob on Aug 5, 2008 0:40:23 GMT -5
So, what is your style of writing?
Do you start at the beginning and know your way to the end or does the story (characters) tell you the ending?
Do you have an ending and figure out how you got there?
Outlines anybody? Storyboard?
I usually have a setting and basic plot. Then I meet one or two of the characters and we talk a bit. If I decide I like them, they tell me a few things from there past to give more depth to them.
Next, I will encounter a series of scenes, not necessarily in chronological order but, still pertaining to the story. As the scenes become clearer, connecting scenes begin to emerge and the story gains a chronological order. Eventually all the scenes form up into a coherent story. (I hope <g>)
Sometimes, the ending is not what I first envisioned. I just blame it on the characters; they are the ones who told me the story.
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Post by Anna on Aug 5, 2008 0:58:19 GMT -5
Sometimes I just start writing, with a general idea of what I want to do. Sometimes I do a chapter by chapter synopsis. And sometimes I just despair of ever having an idea good enough, with an original enough twist, to even write. I've got a couple of stories in the works. One's the chapter-by-chapter and the other is just the general idea in my head, and I'll follow where it goes.
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Post by erin on Aug 5, 2008 10:30:24 GMT -5
My traditional method is to be struck with an idea about a particular scene or situation my character is involved in and the need to write it down right now. Sometimes I have a resolution in mind but I almost never know what happens between the beginning and the end. I struggle with story middles.
I've been trying to become more outline-oriented, but my "outline" is typically just a few one-line notes about other things that might happen in the story, probably in the order I wrote them down by maybe not.
My stories tend to be heavily character-oriented and I usually must actively work to add any action at all. My fatal flaw is writing stories where the protagonist doesn't do much to resolve the story but instead relies on outside forces. My second greatest weakness is insufficient scene detailing (particularly sounds/smells/colors).
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Post by Andrea on Aug 5, 2008 22:18:35 GMT -5
Normally, I have an idea. Like "Kadyra will get scored flying 'Fall" and then I'll run with that. That may be somewhere in the middle, beginning, or end of the story. It may end up onmly being a small part of the story and unravelling something I never knew about the character, which is always just fascinating to me. I am always asking, "Now why couldn't you tell me that when I was writing your persona sheet?" i find, the more detailed my story outline is, the more difficulty in writing the story I have. Sometimes I will have a loose outline because I'll have a multi-story plot. But that is more rare. And that is will be something like" story 1- girl Impresses dragon, story 2- girl flames clutchmate in weyrling training and he dies, story 3- girl gets threaded in 'Fall because she is afraid to direct her dragon properly, story 4- all's well that ends well. And all kinds of stuff happens along the way.
I use a lot of dialogue and not enough descriptors. My stories are almost all talking. It is like pulling teeth to write even a small paragraph describing a scene. I breathe a sigh of relief when I can get people talking again. And I fret if I am working with someone via e-mail instead of RP in a conversational scene because it takes forever in my stories!!!
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Post by Anna on Aug 5, 2008 22:33:27 GMT -5
That's where collaboration is handy. Wanna colab?
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Post by Andrea on Aug 5, 2008 23:07:01 GMT -5
Collab rocks!
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Kelli
Weyr Representative
Ista & Telgar
Posts: 116
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Post by Kelli on Aug 6, 2008 0:47:34 GMT -5
Really depends, but I admit, the characters tell the story. I build a concept or a setting, I throw characters at it, and I see what happens. I do like to write dialog but I've been working on giving my characters more time alone so they can't pull that off. I sometimes have a beginning, middle, and end, and fill in the details, but I do really fly by the seat of my pants. I don't like to pen myself too much into something until I really get a feel for what works. And yeah, I blame the characters a lot, too. Nice to know I'm not the only one with em up there jumping around being a pain.
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Post by angel on Aug 6, 2008 13:52:21 GMT -5
My style has been evolving as I've been working to improve my writing. In fandom the timeline was always very important to me. I like making sure my story dovetails in with the "realities" swarming around my characters. I would start with an idea and then build a timeline for it and build from the timeline as my outline of sorts.
In my own writing I tend to have a concept that I flesh into a rough "telling" of the basic story arch. I then take this and begin writting it with no true idea of what is going to happen "next" while still knowing where I'm going.
I've been known to wander off course when I'm really enjoying something and find myself several thousand words later having to back up and cut to get back on track. ::chuckle:: Good thing I type fast and am wordy by nature.
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Post by Andrea on Aug 6, 2008 20:39:52 GMT -5
Oh yeah. In my own writings, I'm much more rigid. I have plots and timelines and notes and everything. But in fandom for some reason, I am all over the place.
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Post by Anna on Aug 7, 2008 9:44:37 GMT -5
That's because fandom is supposed to be pure fun, for your own pleasure. Original writings? That's supposed to be fun, too. But it's also supposed to be work.
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Post by Chantal on Aug 9, 2008 15:15:03 GMT -5
I tend to prefer expressing things or giving information through dialogue when possible. I've found that I dislike writing dialogue interactively sometimes, because you start to get a volleyball effect that hampers good writing. And your characters can get stuck talking about trivial things which don't advance the story. Pleasantries in a story are often a waste of time.
(More later!)
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Post by Hope on Aug 9, 2008 20:12:32 GMT -5
Katherine Patterson (author of Jacob Have I Loved, and Bridge to Terabithia) had a wonderful essay called "Characters I Have Known". She wrote about the process of getting to know her characters, as though they were friends or family. My characters usually announce themselves with frightening rapidity, from original concept to full family history, favorite color, temperment ranges, and hidden dreams. And yet, with all that, they can still surprise me, derailing the most neat plotting with a moment of stubbornness. My plots are always non-linear; A and D and G, oh, there's B, no wait, make that C because this happens first, that's B, oh, yes, there's an E, and hmmm, how can I make it worse? There's my F, and we're done plotting until the characters mess it up. The patented "Take a Bad Situation and Make it Worse" school of plotting is one of the commonalities that brought Charles and me together 18 years ago at Fort Fest 1990. Honestly, any situation can get worse with a little ingenuity. ;D
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Andy
Dragonrider
Posts: 75
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Post by Andy on Aug 10, 2008 1:45:00 GMT -5
I have an idea, or an image will come into my mind of a scene in the story, but as to what will actually transpire….they are doing it. I tried to make the story go one way (once), but they wanted it to go another. I attempted to force my will upon them, this is my world after all…they shut up and would not talk to me for over a month…lol
Andy
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Dave
Weyrling
Posts: 45
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Post by Dave on Aug 11, 2008 12:35:34 GMT -5
I ask myself a question: "What if...?"
What if Darian managed to cast a cannon? What if a blue actually managed to fly a gold? What if a green enjoyed throwing a Healer in the Weyrlake? From there I start writing, and let my imagination and the characters out to play.
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Post by Chantal on Oct 21, 2008 13:54:47 GMT -5
A lot of times, I see a scene, or I get an exchange of dialogue, and I'll try to write a story around that issue. I like outlines in theory; I'm not so good about using them in practice. What I like best about writing is having a whole lot of jumbled puzzle pieces, and then I come up with some logic that suddenly makes all of the disparate pieces fit together and make sense. It is the weirdest, most enlivening feeling in the world.
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