Anesor
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Everything posted by Anesor
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Struggling with a chapter since March, RL and block, not unreated. I finally *gasp* wrote out most of an outline, that’s how stuck I was.
And nasty paperwork too.
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Ah, you’ve stumbled on to the great mystery of fiction with any relationship, because there is no true answer. It depends on the writer’s intentions and the specific characters. You seem to have already done some thought, and THAT fits these characters, Another story may have a different answer. Try not to worry about how it will seem to others, the first person you need to please is yourself. (And a writer can do either extreme if set up right)
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Start in the action. That will tell you what needs to be in the start. I started one NaNo in the middle of the escape from a prison and decided it was better to do the worldbuilding in later flashbacks, Memory lane trips are kinda boring starts to me as there’s little tension or relevance to current action. You need to hook the reader and they don’t have any investment in a flashback until they have met and feel for the character… GL!
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I heard that commune as a term existed before the soviets.
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My mind just boggled when the tags for the first chapter of a mashup story elsewhere was seven hundred words longer than the chapter.
LSS, I decided not to read it as there were dozens of chars and worlds I don’t know nuttin about. The big mashups I’ve tried don’t give enough background and the more famous ones are ooc enough I begin to feel they were included more like clickbait. I already have five stories pending to read for a while, no more.
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- BronxWench and JayDee
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I’ve seen some stories like that on here, like every damn tag selected and it’s a drabble about Bobby-Jo getting some cheesecake with “LOL! MORE TO COME!” Like, what’s she gonna do? fuck the cheese cake?
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- BronxWench, Anesor and CloverReef
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Lemme guess… AO3? They let you tag as freely as you want, with the end result that the tags become meaningless.
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- InvidiaRed, Anesor, CloverReef and 1 other
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It was AO3, but stories that are long with large casts in all fairness need more than a handful. I know now I would tag my Choices1 very differently. My current big story has nearly ten viewpoint characters, and they go through all kinds of physical and moral crap.
You know me, I don’t wallow on the physical pain but the moral and strategic when bad stuff happens. How does one deal with the painful crossroads or morality and battlefield tactics, and the emotional aftermaths? What happens when your lover really cannot forgive something done to save lives and shorten a battle? (in this case abandonment and lots of angst)
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I admit I do download stories I like. Not because I have the slightest interest in copying them, but to read/reread/group a series together. I have intermittent connection issues and computer issues, so reading them live can be a problem. I can group stories into bookshelf folders for heat or tropes or themes or pairings. No site lets me set up indexed story lists in a convenient useful way. That doesn’t even touch the sadness I feel when an author has pulled a story I loved for whatever reason and I can never reread it again… even if it was incomplete. The first fanfic I really liked, I lost the bookmark and the author was ill and I only have faint memories over a dozen years old. A friend showed it to me so I don’t even know which site it was on. So I DL my favorites for later, like the worn paperbacks in my room. I have plenty of my own ideas and no interest in being a plague.
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I’ve done it purely a few times, but I find it awkward. I think it’s been done well most often with detective stories, though one of my favorites is the epistolary Sorcery and Cecilia. I rarely write it up as a log or diary, so my last may be a Captain’s log from Isabella(DA) Tho, thinking about it, I actually lean in that direction as most of my writing is rotating 1st person… sort of a perfect personal mental story/log, loaded with “I’s.” My readers get only the interpretation of the POV which is unreliable and may not consciously notice some things. They are telling their story to someone without any real need to censor. I really like when you see the same scene from different views- but not interspersed or omniscient. A lot of older stories, esp romances open up with diary/journal entries before new stuff. I think this is very useful for serial writing since it will be days to months between chapters. The original Trek used that to regain story momentum after a commercial break.
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Day 9 or 10 of my head cold. Awaiting GP callback. Uggh.
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Pooor you, that sucks! Drink a shitton of mint tea! My mother used to steam my head with mint oil when I got head colds. and the ol’ Vick’s slathered around your neck and wrapped in a big scratchy sock trick.
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- BronxWench and Anesor
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Happy NewYear!
Hope yours goes better than the poor schlubs who made the float in Pasedena that broke down and prevented the end of the parade…
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- WillowDarkling and JayDee
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Sad when RL is determined to take away some kinds of fun… have a sand tart.
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Heh, these were ideas for boredom and block. Exhaustion from NaNo and holidays were part of it for me not lack of ideas. I have files of ideas and inspirations, and about 6 that want attention right now, and an original on hiatus until the new year. (I really don't read outside my current fandom, like I won't touch lotr or any anime) I had to skip the whole period of that collection was in the works as we had a major illness in the house and what time I had went to a college-level writing class and the anthology I’m in that just released. Some projects you just have to let pass. I’m trying to wean myself off fanfic into originals for publication, probably my new year's resolution.
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Is it a particular topic or fandom? My worst block on stories come when I’m trying to force a story and refusing to work on something else. I feel bad for stuck stories, but getting mad makes it worse. Most often I break block by working on a new story, often silly/satire. I have to be careful that these side stories don’t take a life of their own as I have too many active stories. I get really stuck when I think I SHOULD work on my more meaningful big stories and then I get stuck across the board. My muse just gets bored, frustrated, and doesn’t like being told what it should do by planning. Right now I’m doing cleanup on all the drafts I did for NaNo and one plot bunny sticking Vader in something like Quantum Leap (no Al) taht is running short and fast. Write anything, even a blog journal, to get the words moving...
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Dunno about you all, but even aside from the hectic tasks to prepare for the holidays, I’m just tired of writing. I have plenty of things I want or need to be writing (I’m six weeks behind in a writing class) but I can’t seem to concentrate for more than an hour or so on writing. Nodding off is the first symptom. I usually get some done on the actual days of the holidays as we just have a quiet meal, our big feast is the 24th and then we relax. Are you managing to get anything done right now, or are you in a hiatus?
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Nothing starts your day off much better than a warm and fuzzy review of a story that has been out for a while and that the reader gets the core concept...
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- JayDee and BronxWench
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I already review almost every story I read. The only ones I don’t, are the abusive and/or creepy OOC ones. My profiles on sites and many chapter notes I include pay it forward requests for people to review all the stories they like. A fair percent of my days I spend more time doing reviews than writing my own. It ’s a good/bad habit.
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I’m less of a reader, more of a writer, so that’s why I don’t review often, simply because I’m not reading that often.
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The anthology I’m in came out a couple weeks before I got notice. So I’m trying to come up with a clever way to do a post about it… and design my Xmas cards. Is ‘Kiln People’ a thing yet?
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Kiln People was an award winning SF book about 15 years ago. The idea is that everyone can make insta-clones of themselves of various qualities. High quality can write a paper for work, medium can clean your closets, and low quality can mow your yard, all graded like porcelin or something. Of course, shenanigans ensue.
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Yeesh, I got sucked in by a special offer betty crocker sent me… how could that be bad? She’s a wonderful baker!
It was for a free 11oz custom mug from shutterfly. My cost was S&H, which was like 10$. I made the mug with my four favorite book cover images I made.
The shutterfly app said the imaages weren’t detailed enough. but they didn’t tell me the WxH so I could reduce the full image to boost the pixel density but forced clipping. But I still like it: The covers for 3 fanfics and placegolder from an original from an earlier NaNo. As I was finalizing I could rotate and look inside the mug, but the image on the recept was more crude. We’ll have to see how it turned out. If I had more credit, I’d order a few more and send as a ‘so there’ gift.
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- CloverReef, JayDee and BronxWench
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It only took two days to get here, which I did not expect. It looks really nice. I’m not sure whether an scanner or camera would get better image.
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Post NaNo reboot in progress… defragmenting. reallocating hours… writer.exe update in progress...
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I took yesterday totally off. Tonight I’m going to split the massive workfile into the various stories. The original novel just required a slower process than NaNo and I hope to resume it for my class later this week. There’s three shorts and two chapters of my big story. And some journal babbling on random topics that will be allocated somewhere. A lot of mine is good, its just RL consequences after Mom’s ulcer final end Friday morning… that was my prime writing time other years but not available this time. Next year I will title my project “Angst, Adventure, and other Tales..”
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I tried getting writing done this weekend…. I swear. Think I just needed a short break myself, after pushing the envelope last month. On the plus side, new pairing I wasn’t anticipating.
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Thanksgiving was good, but it did have its stories. An eager helper rubbed a bunch of pepper in the skin of the bird, for a family who don’t use it. (we keep some for guests). Also my brother said an oops! That all the leftover mashed spuds fell on the floor.
I managed not to cry.
Hope everyone had a less challenging meal...
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Reached 30k words last night.Apparantly, I'm celebrating catching up by totally lacking any ambition to write anything at all for NaNo today...
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- BronxWench, JayDee, GeorgeGlass and 1 other
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I started a side story, semi holiday one as I got a crack idea of Yoda in a Santa cap and grinning at Dooku
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Congrats on breaking 50k!
And so, so early with a week after Thanksgiving to write!
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- BronxWench, JayDee, GeorgeGlass and 1 other
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very nice. Hope you’re feeling better about it now that you got through it…
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Wow, that’s impressive. Well done, BW!
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How do you go about developing a story idea?
Anesor replied to swirlingdoubt's topic in Writers' Corner
I don’t often use photos to help my stories. The images I have in my mind’s eye are usually not close enough to a real image to help the story, they frustrate. A photo can be both too close and too far and this cognitive dissonance is like chalk on a backboard. Most canon characters and events in fanfiction have plenty of images. There are two exceptions that come up in maybe 1 in 12 stories. A fan art can and has triggered a story or a scene. Or when I was trying to build up a cover art illustration for a story, I dug out a bunch of photo references. I went so far as to scrounge enough to pay for an illustration from an artist who paired representational and impression in that fandom whose style I like and had open commissions. They requested refs and then backed out. The money went to another bill then. My art skills are more photoshop than Michael Whelan. That image is very clear in my head. But only in my head. I see enough of my scenes that I forget to include important details. So looking for photos that match that is mostly a way to use the time I could be writing. -
How do you go about developing a story idea?
Anesor replied to swirlingdoubt's topic in Writers' Corner
Yeah, most writers are pantsers or outliners at base. If you have trouble with outlines you are probably a pantser. It is a continuum so there’s no hard edge. I think I have the most problem if I try to plan character behavior or feeling stuff ahead of time. I’ve done detailed grids and flow charts for action sections or to keep track of cast locations when multiplots are at a climax. Background and culture I don’t plan enough, but I do record bits in a separate file/location for later reference. My notes file makes for interesting reading in its own right. My notes mentioned someone wanting to shave someone’s beard as payback in chapter two, it finally happened in chapter 28. That wasn’t planning from before I started writing, but more like weaving in loose threads and plot hooks I left behind me. Often my Maguffins like the beard threat aren’t planned consciously, but my muse makes very good use while my ego is pleasantly surprised. One character got threatened in what I thought was a throwaway chapter ending, but is making an interesting subplot now… It’s not always ME doing the planning, but my muse. Recording the mass means I can weave the story back into itself and look much cleverer by not being totally episodic that ignores earlier changes. Continuity errors make ya look bad.
