Writer memeing
Feb. 8th, 2019 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamerinsilicoSnagged from silverusagi.
Comment below with any of the following (and a fic, if the question requires it) and I will answer. (NB: My complete fic index is at the top of my journal. If you want to send some of the fic-specific questions but haven't actually read much/any of my work, just pick something from the list at random! Or tell me to, restricted within a given fandom or not.)
A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?
B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?
C: What member do you identify with most from [insert fic[?
D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [insert fic]?
E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it be about?
F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
H: How would you describe your style?
I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?
J: Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic].
K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?
L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?
N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?
O: How do you begin a story–with the plot, or the characters?
P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)
Q: How do you feel about collaborations?
R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?
S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?
T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?
U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?
W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones?
X: A character you enjoy making suffer.
Y: A character you want to protect.
Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?
silverusagi.Comment below with any of the following (and a fic, if the question requires it) and I will answer. (NB: My complete fic index is at the top of my journal. If you want to send some of the fic-specific questions but haven't actually read much/any of my work, just pick something from the list at random! Or tell me to, restricted within a given fandom or not.)
A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?
B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?
C: What member do you identify with most from [insert fic[?
D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [insert fic]?
E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it be about?
F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
H: How would you describe your style?
I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?
J: Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic].
K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?
L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?
N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?
O: How do you begin a story–with the plot, or the characters?
P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)
Q: How do you feel about collaborations?
R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?
S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?
T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?
U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?
W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones?
X: A character you enjoy making suffer.
Y: A character you want to protect.
Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 12:37 am (UTC)I usually write start to finish. When I write scenes out of order, it's usually because I can't wrap my brain around the whole thing, and then the bits just sit, sad and dejected, in my writing folder and never get finished/published.
The major reason for this is that I rely a lot on previously-established details to build my scenes; elaborating on/playing with motifs is a huuuuuuge part of my inspiration, and for that to be possible for me, I usually need to know the genesis of the motif, if that makes sense? They don't develop for me if I don't have a solid sense of timeline and the... emotional progression of where everything is at the different times the motif has been invoked.
O - How do you begin a story–with the plot, or the characters?
I... am not entirely sure how to answer this! Characters is closer to correct, because of course I have that fic-writer experience of "I'm terribly interested in and emotionally invested in these characters so I want to write about them," but that doesn't feel quite right, either. I think maybe the right answer is a different thing entirely, because if I look at how I approach my original work, it's easy to see that it's neither plot nor characters - it's theme. All of my original work starts with some thematic concept that's separate from both plot and characters. And that still applies to fanfic, too, though I'll also be particularly inspired by a character dynamic - what makes me *actually write the thing* is the intense desire to explore a concept or theme as relates to those characters.
The WIP I presently have open is a Hannibal fic that started with "okay but what would they have said in the car on the way to the cliff house in the finale," the idea of car conversations and the unique form they can take. The idea of passing the time with both a huge amount of intimacy and a huge amount of emotional distance coexisting between two characters.
I have another partially-published WIP that's an absurdist stage play rendering of Overwatch, focused on the Reaper76 ship/dynamic, because I saw a tumblr post that planted a bug in my brain I couldn't get rid of.
U - Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
Firelight_and_Rain on AO3 is a longtime fandom friend of mine and a writer I respect a great deal. Ze does very thoughtful, quietly insightful work that plays with concepts while maintaining a deep connection to characters in a way that works well for my brain.
And then there's Alicorn. I read her Twilight fanfic despite loathing the source material for reasons that are mildly complicated to explain, but uh, if the term "rationalist AU" makes sense to you at all then that's why. It's great and I recommend it to just about anyone, regardless of one's feelings regarding the original material.
And she's written SO MUCH amazing fantasy and sci-fi original speculative fic and I love all of it. She's particularly brilliant at small-scale worldbuilding; a short story in a 'verse never to be revisited nonetheless still carries the sense that it's part of a wider, fully-understood tapestry.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 01:01 am (UTC)...heh.
My very favorite dialogue I've ever written, I'm pretty sure (at least, it feels like it right now; I'm still riding the high of having a scene just really flow for once in a way writing hasn't done for me in a damn long time) is in my open WIP right now.
The WIP just has dialogue; I'm writing the dialogue first and then going back to fill in the narration once the conversation is done. But it's... well, you'll know exactly what it is:
“Going my way?”
“You seem to have a venue in mind.”
“I have a house, about two hours from here, right on the coast.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Yes. Most things about my former life were arranged to be very convenient.”
“Only most things?”
“One could argue that many of the art forms I enjoy are inherently inconvenient. They are certainly laborious and time-consuming, yet I find them entirely rewarding.”
“Nothing convenient about threading tree roots through someone’s veins and arranging flowers in his chest cavity, that’s for sure.”
“No. But it was very beautiful, Will. I wish you could have seen that one in person, where it was meant to be seen.”
(For anyone who's not an obsessive Hannibal fan but might still end up reading this response - I'm proud of it because of the tie-ins to two lines in the final scene of the series finale, which takes place a few hours after this conversation.)
H - How would you describe your style?
...Cerebral, I guess, first and foremost? I'm most interested in what the characters are thinking and feeling and why. While I *do* occasionally write rapid-fire dialogue (like I'm semi-doing in the aforementioned WIP; I've presently got almost 1k of solid dialogue in that doc), that's more the exception than the rule. I tend to avoid action unless it's truly necessary. The emotional arc is always the most important aspect of a fic to me.
But it's probably also still worth mentioning that I've got a predilection for lush imagery that... doesn't dominate my work like it used to, but is definitely still a major contributing factor in most things.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 01:39 am (UTC)I tend to do the same thing - write out a conversation that happens in my head, then fill in the surrounding actions and detail later.
“One could argue that many of the art forms I enjoy are inherently inconvenient. They are certainly laborious and time-consuming, yet I find them entirely rewarding.”
LOL. Perfect Haninbal turn of phrase.
I'm with you on the action - it's so HARD to write - but in some fandoms and situations, it becomes unavaoidable!
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 01:47 pm (UTC)A lot of my fics have titles that are song lyrics, and I strongly associate those songs with the fics themselves. A couple of examples -
Relentless Splinters I Recall (an in-progress Pillars of Eternity longfic) is named from a line in Arena, by VNV Nation. You Sang Me Of Some Distant Past (Dragon Age Big Bang entry) is named from Samain Night, by Loreena McKennitt.
P - Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)
Both! But more an architect, ultimately. If I'm writing anything longer than a couple thousand words, I work from an outline, of varying degrees of detail. I need to know what the major narrative and emotional pillars of the story are going to be, in advance, at the very least.
L - How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
Entirely depends on the fic. I had one particularly troublesome chapter of my first longfic go through something like four rounds of edits and beta reads, including a major re-work, before it ultimately got posted. But I also post a lot of things without more than a once-over for minor tweaks that I do myself.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 01:49 pm (UTC)G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
&&
L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 09:43 pm (UTC)I usually write start to finish. When I write scenes out of order, it's usually because I can't wrap my brain around the whole thing, and then the bits just sit, sad and dejected, in my writing folder and never get finished/published.
The major reason for this is that I rely a lot on previously-established details to build my scenes; elaborating on/playing with motifs is a huuuuuuge part of my inspiration, and for that to be possible for me, I usually need to know the genesis of the motif, if that makes sense? They don't develop for me if I don't have a solid sense of timeline and the... emotional progression of where everything is at the different times the motif has been invoked.
That said, on a micro-level, like, within a given scene, sometimes my writing gets downright spiral-y. I'll write a thing in sequence, and then circle back around to make tweaks continually. I think it's part of my bad habit of editing-while-writing, but feels inevitable when it's happening, so I let it happen.
L - How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?
Entirely depends on the fic. I had one particularly troublesome chapter of my first longfic go through something like four rounds of edits and beta reads, including a major re-work, before it ultimately got posted. But I also post a lot of things without more than a once-over for minor tweaks that I do myself.