New Meme - Two Questions
Jun. 20th, 2011 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elrhiarhodanMy friend, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aisle_one has chanced upon a new meme, which I am happily ganking. It's just two short, sweet questions:
1. What is your writing process?
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I write in a completely linear fashion. I am almost incapable of writing "out of order." There's a paragraph in Irving Stone's fictional biography of Michaelangelo - The Agony and the Ecstasy - where the artist talks about marble sculpture, and how he "finds" the statues within the block of marble. In many ways, when I write, I'm like a sculptor - finding the story within the wealth of words, chipping away until something emerges. If I wrote out of order - the beginning at the end, or the middle action first, it would be like carving out the finishing details before the rest of the statue has emerged from the rock.
That is not to say I never write out of order. I've got an epic in my WIPs folder - and after 60k, I just got stuck. My alpha reader was anxious to know how it ended, and I took the plunge, writing what I expected to be the final chapter, thinking I still have 10k of story to tell.
Well, I am still stuck, but it's now more of an issue on how to end the damn thing, rather than finding more words (I've cut about 5k in unnecessary action).
I don't outline, either. That's probably a bad thing - because I have often found myself caught up in plot labyrinths that I could have avoided if I knew the steps along the journey. To me, outlining removes a lot of the enjoyment in the writing process - even for my longer fics. I mean I know where a story starts, the general path of action, and then the end. I rarely begin a story without knowing the ending, and I think that most of my abandoned efforts are actually abandoned because I couldn't see an ending.
I basically have two types of writing - and I think that a lot of my flist (and probably a lot of fandom writers) share this trait. I write to prompts I've been given, and I write to my own ideas. I don't know of anyone who doesn't do both (even if they don't attribute a story to a specific external prompt).
I love writing to gifted prompts - whether through a bingo, a challenge or (best of all) one of my fests. Even though these tend to be shorter works (for the most part), I think they are some of my most creative efforts. Which leads me into the second part of this meme.
2. Which of your stories are you most proud of? Why?
Oh, what a wonderful question, for a DVD commentary whore like I am. Because this doesn't say "which one of your stories" I am going to take it to mean I can pick several. So, I am going to restrict myself to one story per category - and I'm not going to go into my ficlets or incomplete A/Us.
Paladin'verse: Gah - this one's difficult. I love most of these stories, for various reasons. But I think the one I am most proud of, the one that resonates with me the most, is Wash the Sins Away. It's the story that has the hardest subject matter, and it also presents the characters in their best, and brightest light. Neal's been damaged - badly - but he doesn't let it define him. Peter's moved from viewing Neal's every action with suspicion to wondering if he's more interested in protecting Peter. And Neal as badass seemed a little out of character at the time - but now that we know more about his backstory, it's not quite so out of character anymore.
I'm also going to fangirl the entire Preamble, Redux, but especially, Provide for the Common Defense, because I almost feel Kripke'd with that one, and Promote the General Welfare, because it's one of my favorite (and certainly jossed) Mozzie tales.
Vinegar Hill Continuum: My pick for this should be These Are the Words I Never Said (this is the fear), but it's not. It's Behold, Thou Art Fair. I love this because - well - I love when my boys get to be really smart. It was inspired by the scene in Company Man where Neal and Peter are reading and translating Latin - JUST LIKE THAT. And I love the idea of Peter and Neal getting off on art and history and poetry - in front of everyone else (or at least, Jones and Diana).
Other, Non-Long, Non-Paladin'verse Stories: This one has to be Live Unbruised (we are friends), which has to be the only deliberately gen/friendship story I've written. Of course, it was so completely jossed by canon - and I was so disappointed that Neal had no consequences for his actions at the end of Point Blank
Long Stories: Easy-peasy. Between the Darkness and the Dawn. This one gave me the opportunity to ride out all of my fantasies about Neal and Peter's backstory and bring them together (and tear them apart). But the whole story was written around the scene of their reunion on the Rialto Bridge - I don't know quite where that came from, but it just popped into my head, and 33k later, this is what I ended up with.
Porn: I am torn between two stories: Take a Seat, Mr. Caffrey and Bolèro. Both of these stories were firsts for me - and "Take a Seat..." is still some of the hottest porn I've ever written. But Bolèro - the music, the dirty talk...well, I just can't decide.
I hope you'll play along, too. Because I am as interested in your processes as I am in mine.
aisle_one has chanced upon a new meme, which I am happily ganking. It's just two short, sweet questions:1. What is your writing process?
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I write in a completely linear fashion. I am almost incapable of writing "out of order." There's a paragraph in Irving Stone's fictional biography of Michaelangelo - The Agony and the Ecstasy - where the artist talks about marble sculpture, and how he "finds" the statues within the block of marble. In many ways, when I write, I'm like a sculptor - finding the story within the wealth of words, chipping away until something emerges. If I wrote out of order - the beginning at the end, or the middle action first, it would be like carving out the finishing details before the rest of the statue has emerged from the rock.
That is not to say I never write out of order. I've got an epic in my WIPs folder - and after 60k, I just got stuck. My alpha reader was anxious to know how it ended, and I took the plunge, writing what I expected to be the final chapter, thinking I still have 10k of story to tell.
Well, I am still stuck, but it's now more of an issue on how to end the damn thing, rather than finding more words (I've cut about 5k in unnecessary action).
I don't outline, either. That's probably a bad thing - because I have often found myself caught up in plot labyrinths that I could have avoided if I knew the steps along the journey. To me, outlining removes a lot of the enjoyment in the writing process - even for my longer fics. I mean I know where a story starts, the general path of action, and then the end. I rarely begin a story without knowing the ending, and I think that most of my abandoned efforts are actually abandoned because I couldn't see an ending.
I basically have two types of writing - and I think that a lot of my flist (and probably a lot of fandom writers) share this trait. I write to prompts I've been given, and I write to my own ideas. I don't know of anyone who doesn't do both (even if they don't attribute a story to a specific external prompt).
I love writing to gifted prompts - whether through a bingo, a challenge or (best of all) one of my fests. Even though these tend to be shorter works (for the most part), I think they are some of my most creative efforts. Which leads me into the second part of this meme.
2. Which of your stories are you most proud of? Why?
Oh, what a wonderful question, for a DVD commentary whore like I am. Because this doesn't say "which one of your stories" I am going to take it to mean I can pick several. So, I am going to restrict myself to one story per category - and I'm not going to go into my ficlets or incomplete A/Us.
Paladin'verse: Gah - this one's difficult. I love most of these stories, for various reasons. But I think the one I am most proud of, the one that resonates with me the most, is Wash the Sins Away. It's the story that has the hardest subject matter, and it also presents the characters in their best, and brightest light. Neal's been damaged - badly - but he doesn't let it define him. Peter's moved from viewing Neal's every action with suspicion to wondering if he's more interested in protecting Peter. And Neal as badass seemed a little out of character at the time - but now that we know more about his backstory, it's not quite so out of character anymore.
I'm also going to fangirl the entire Preamble, Redux, but especially, Provide for the Common Defense, because I almost feel Kripke'd with that one, and Promote the General Welfare, because it's one of my favorite (and certainly jossed) Mozzie tales.
Vinegar Hill Continuum: My pick for this should be These Are the Words I Never Said (this is the fear), but it's not. It's Behold, Thou Art Fair. I love this because - well - I love when my boys get to be really smart. It was inspired by the scene in Company Man where Neal and Peter are reading and translating Latin - JUST LIKE THAT. And I love the idea of Peter and Neal getting off on art and history and poetry - in front of everyone else (or at least, Jones and Diana).
Other, Non-Long, Non-Paladin'verse Stories: This one has to be Live Unbruised (we are friends), which has to be the only deliberately gen/friendship story I've written. Of course, it was so completely jossed by canon - and I was so disappointed that Neal had no consequences for his actions at the end of Point Blank
Long Stories: Easy-peasy. Between the Darkness and the Dawn. This one gave me the opportunity to ride out all of my fantasies about Neal and Peter's backstory and bring them together (and tear them apart). But the whole story was written around the scene of their reunion on the Rialto Bridge - I don't know quite where that came from, but it just popped into my head, and 33k later, this is what I ended up with.
Porn: I am torn between two stories: Take a Seat, Mr. Caffrey and Bolèro. Both of these stories were firsts for me - and "Take a Seat..." is still some of the hottest porn I've ever written. But Bolèro - the music, the dirty talk...well, I just can't decide.
I hope you'll play along, too. Because I am as interested in your processes as I am in mine.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 10:36 pm (UTC)I LOVE to edit. I love to hack away at my stories and throw out the redundant parts and words. I'm a fan of lean writing so I try to do that myself. Also, writing is like music to me and so rhythm is very important.
I'm also very particular about characterizations. And so I sometimes write very short fics about a character or pairing as a means of finding my way through really understanding and getting a full grasp on them.
2. My favorite stories are of two types: those that simply fall out of head and onto my keyboard, and those that require A HECK OF A LOT of work.
The Refuge Series (http://aisle-one.livejournal.com/tag/the%20refuge%20series) is an example of the first type. That story was so darn easy to write (although since it wasn't beta'd I think it could use still use some revision). All I had to do was type and the story came out.
there are no stars aligned (http://aisle-one.livejournal.com/9273.html#cutid1) is an example of the second type. That one was a labor of love. There were times when it was excruciating to write because I had such difficulty pulling the words and creating sentences from them that I was satisfied with. And, yet, I loved it. I love the struggle of writing. And often the harder I have to reach or dig for something, the more I enjoy the process.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-21 01:19 pm (UTC)I think the first stuff I read of yours was the vampire story. I remember thinking "If you had asked me yesterday if I would find a vampire/WC world good, I would have told you to check yourself into the loony bin" but there I was, hooked. I had to see if this writer had written anything else. Found your LJ account and I was hooked!
And as I have said before and will probably say again, even the stuff I don't "Like" is still really well written. That says a lot about the talent of the writer.
Can't wait to see what other rabbits you pull out of your hat! :-)