Anesor
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How do you go about developing a story idea?
Anesor replied to swirlingdoubt's topic in Writers' Corner
Very much a pantser. I do have a general idea of the ending I’m aiming for, but if I start analyzing the desires and antagonists and obstacles too much it stifles instead of making sparkles. Only in the last week did a revisit of old character friends made the story really flow. I work so much better as a pantser, but that leads to bigger issues for longer pieces. Short ones are usually light on those qualities like theme, development, and world building so I think I’m okay. I’m trying to figure out why my fanfic has gotten so much less spontaneous… and why my originals I’ve made so hard. I suspect it’s because the results of two novel length pantsing ended up messes and wasted of all the time spent on them. I desperately need an editor, but budget-wise that won’t happen anytime soon unless I win a lotto. So I muddle through as best I can with the occasional opinions. I love a good review that points out things… at least once I calm down. :p I get ideas from anything, and keeping them long enough to get them recorded is an issue. I break ideas into fandom/series and a bucket for original ideas. When I finish a story i may take a day or two to relax, and then check my idea files. That is best case, sometimes a plot bunny will not let go, hence a Neverwinter sequel has displaced my NaNo projects for the moment. Usually I have at least two active stories and one or two a semi active. (right now, active original, three active Star Wars, and a Neverwinter… NaNo has kicked my muse into high gear but not the direction I planned on) On a good week I post for two stories, on a bad one, nothing. (that is one thing about NaNo that leaves me antsy, I may not post anything that month) Once I have the basic idea down I usually have the starting point and a major plot arc. That can usually be sumarized in a single sentence or so, no matter the final intended length. Names, quirks, background, etc I make up as I need it. I use highlighting to mark areas to fill in and clean up later, staying a bit generic. ‘Search and replace’ is my friend. character studies killed my muse dead in 2010. There are random generators too for lots of details. I concentrate on the story flow and love cliffhangers, and hiding the answer in plain sight where I hope it was overlooked. Pushing and concealing answers in the story, means I prefer 1st person for the same reason its favored by mystery writers: a fair mystery! I don’t want characters to look incompetent in any genre by making the events too obvious. I also don’t want the readers to get frustrated because the reader didn’t know some obscure fact like one car doesn’t come in stick shift that year, so the clues should be given to the character and reader. That is a tricky balance and sometimes I lean toward underexplaining. One of my bigger problems is that I have too much going on in the last chapter so it ends up huge. But finishing a story is important so every one is a victory. The next big problem is editing and selling, but that’s more a publishing challenge than a writing one as I see the 1st draft as foundation and blueprint. All the revision in the world can’t help if it wasn’t written down. -
Just posted an excerpt from my original that hit the rocks. This short character intro is totally a result of the class I’m taking, as my villain is way more 3D than the terrible attempt years ago…
https://nanowrimo.org/participants/bucolic-scribe/novels/enlightenment-machine
This is a draft, and I’d like to revise, but I still keep the blank slate. filling in as journal at worst. My revisions add 50-100% for length too.
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The NaNo enthusiasm is there but writing is just NOT flowing this year.
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my original novel project has been officially dumped for NaNo. It’s too slow and the new method is too mindful for a nano sprint. I’m going to have to pick and choose from my class. Scene planning like the class, makes me feel like a straight jacket.
I’m gonna see if I can finish my main fanfic project. I probably won’t as I have 6 chapters to go and the wordage will be more than can be done in 19 days.
But tonight I could not resist a diversiin and did a NWN2 sequel scene that links into an oddity the Tuesday MMO release. It’s not much of a plot but something my plot director has nabbed as a clue for a new release...
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I’ve simply used my nano goal as that, a goal, to help motivate when I’m otherwise thinking about procrastinating. I’m not wanting to stray in terms of quality. So, yes, my goal of hitting 200k posted (just over 70k) is ambitious, and I figure the odds are 50-50; I’ll still be further along. Right now, about 60k left to go, though I’ve got 8k on the drive, ready for the next posting. I chose a number above 50k because it’s a comprehensive rewrite, and so it’s a really good “rough draft/outline” exists, some material will be brought over. However, there is a boatload of new material, I’m more than doubling the word count as I revise/rewrite (ie. turning one/two sentence scenes into entire chapters).
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It is a really bad sign when your NaNo crashes and burns on day1. I was using a new (to me) technique that has been stifling my muse.
A total rewrite is just depressing even if it’s only one day.
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Good luck at recovering and re-writing that mofo!
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And keep in mind, this is not a polished draft. This is a rough, dirty, sloppy, total seat-of-the-pants draft, so maybe keep what you did and worry about fixing it later. Move ahead, not backward.
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yeah, but it was so broken it was breaking the story. I wrote enough on friday to make up half the amoutn I was behind. I’ve started NaNo as late as the 7th and finished on time, but i could type faster then. Thanks
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So sleepy, but waiting for agency call back on vile slander...
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I hope you find a way to clear this up. Trouble with some social workers in that they can get a bur up their arse, or go on a power trip, etc….
btw, I prefer my eggs scrambled, with plenty of fried bacon pieces in them
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This wasn’t a social worker but an aide, basically unskilled. as any nursing certs could get another job and she clearly doesn’t have a calling. The other agency (supervisor and aide) vouched against the slander as did the other aide from the same agency. So there was only the slanderer and the agency that believed someone who decided she did want to be blamed for no call no show 3 days. (we’re leaving the agency after sunday night’s shift if I can find out what I should do) That was after the 1st version they told their agency that they could not work over the weekend because they lost their phone and car not working- ALL WEEKEND, and none of their 4 teen+ kids had a phone or car to help. This fast passed to the county overview, where it would follow my family and home forever. It seems to have worked out, but it was a miserable 48 hours where I could not sleep, eat right, write or work on my writing class… The social worker didn’t act on the slander, did the footwork to expose the lie, she’s a peach.
I like mine hard boiled with a little salt. And in many splendid things like greek egg-lemon soup and french toast.
Thanks!
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That the aide wanted to get out of her work by blaming the customer….geez. I mean, I could understand car difficulties, illness, etc, if it were the first thing off their lips.
I’d think some letters of appreciation/thanks to the people who helped you out here would likely do wonders
And cc’ing enough people so they’re in their personnel files for their next performance eval/raise would definitely set you apart! Just an idea….
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It’s just over two weeks until this year’s NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) The goal is to finish the first draft of a story, without any prewritten prose, starting Nov 1st and finishing Nov 30th. There are a bunch of coupon and promos for participants and winner, but the prezzies vary year to year. Createspace used to offer physical printings if you published through them, but they were completely absorbed by Kindle this year. The idea is that a little friendly competition helps a lot pf new writers to finish a story. outlines, character studies, prep is fine. Just no story. Register before Halloween because the servers are usually hit hard on the start and end days. They added a fanfic category for stories last year. I started writing during 2007 NaNo and hit the total eight times. (you submit a file, that you can scrqmbleif you think sojmeone would steak it) A lot of my big fics started during NaNo. It’s fun to see your progress graph inch up every day and see how your friends or town are doing. They also sponsor a couple Camp NaNo sessions earlier in the year, but those can be writing, revising or some other task. I’m restarting my prison ship story after several years in a trunk. I could not figure out why it just withered away when I tried to figure out how to revise it. To keep me insanely busy I’m taking a ‘how to write a novel’ class, and hoping it will provide enough insight to strengthen the story. It’s a 32 lesson self-paced package, but this is the beta and it’s not finished. So I will have to use the later lessons more for future novels… I’m goign to try to fit a chapter of my current big fic in November too. I also hear there is some holiday that month and I’m wondering if a frozen dinner will help. If you want to writing buddy, I’m bucolic-scribe on that site. I use this challenge like a booster shot for my dilligence and organization, because my output drops below 500 words a day every summer and the 2k boost usually lasts me until spring. Give it a try!
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No, what was stinging about it?
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Yeah, I’ve seen too many pro writers who make a well-done character go so far off the rail for clearly meta reasons in books, TV, and games and they thought bending the char is less important than forcing the scene or plot. That happens in fanfic as well, but I see that as less embarrassing, though still bad. I can be open to redeemed villains if they have to work at it, and tarnished heroes if they break, but the changes from canon need to be rooted in some one or multiple hints in the canon. Most annoying to me are the ones who take things far darker without any convincing reasons for the character change beyond bending the character. Because the writer hates that box. I think if you hate the box, why use that character at all? OCs are better than bending the character and rejecting the box. Characters are made up of voluntary and involuntary boxes. We can tweak or grow out of our self-made boxes, but it just doesn’t happen by magic. (even in worlds with magic, there is the spell or curse that forces a change. The better writers figure a way to adjust the box without rejecting the entire box. [BTW i really like this box metaphor, because it handles OOCness well] -- about the number of OCs for the story, that is tricky. If there is no existing character to take the story role the writer needs, I don’t see any problem. But I think OCs should be a minority percent of the cast. People read fanfic for new adventures of characters they love. I know I tend to drop from stories where majority OCs carry the story. I started writing from canons of CRPG, so the lead was almost always an OC which colorizes the story told. I find the bigger reason for limiting the number of characters is that the story will grow almost virally. To make interesting characters or get canon ones to be more than tropes, you have to develop them and give them goals and some small arc. That takes a lot of time when you pass a dozen major characters, that’s how my simple Cthulu coming to attack a high fantasy city exploded to become 300k words and I nearly had an ilcer trying to wrangle it to a conclusion. My current crack derived idea is heading for 200k, (8 POV chars 2 of those OC… 21 major chars, and 5 of those are OC) All those subplots end up detracting from your main story thread. Slices of life are good, but a good story needs a good and meaningful conclusion. Your cast is a bigger box to treasure.
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Twilight Zone realization:
When looking at a fic with psychic characters, and back in June I decided my lead had a peptic ulcer about to burst. Early this month a close family member had a peptic ulcer and emergency surgery, when there is no history in the family. Brother said I was not to write about these things again…
(no more real ailmenta)
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She’s recovering, though anything more than lurching to/from WC is a challenge. Her appetite is still wonky from meds (Ie she hated a recipe that tasted fine)
The problem is more my primary aide called out today and I’m physically miserable... My brother is harried because his car has been broken down since before she got sick and he needs daylight to work on it (and he has a date Sat)
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- JayDee and BronxWench
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well, s’not good, I hope you get better soon too. There’s always hope I guess.
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- BronxWench and Anesor
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In 48 hours my mother should be released and home from hospital/rehab. Yay!
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This was one of those weeks, losing connectivity for days was not the low point: ?ulcer? surgery for my mother is… feh.
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friday she also got dignosedwith gall stones and additional surgery possible, but treating with meds. moving to temp niring facility tomorrow. maybe home friday.
lonely times
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It just gets worse! I am so sorry!
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temp facility and home fridayis an improvement over last friday. she shounds better and I’m actually trying to stop editing and get back to writing
thanks
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I’d go further than that in a lot of settings heroic recoveries have been known to proliferate. Comic book and high fantasy, even especially if you helped bury the body after the funeral… sometimes very necessary if the face character of the setting died without any meaning, or they are too crucial to the franchise. Prof X comes to mind, though all of us can name a dozen more… How familiar are the chars with that trope from myth?
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Wonderful way to enjoy a heat wave: spend 8 hours trying to figure out why email took a powder 8pm last night. settings are fine, but cannot connect. whee!
(even the eweb inteface was down for 6 hours) maybe proxy settings? or I forgot to sacrifice a chicken on Bill Gates’ birhtday) email spotty until further notice
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the servers are up. My email client cannot connect, it looks like 50% chance either my AV or firewall is blocking the login popup and the email client doesn’t have the login anymore. Pop3:por110 was supposed to go byby, but I’ve been using recommended port995 for a good while. or 2)I can’t help but think port 995 isn’t accepting connections at all, and my client never puts up the login window without the connection.
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My ISP email ( POP) uses port 110, while my IMAP email uses port 993. Might be worth a try...
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took 48 hours of pain, but it looks like proxy server settings that affected ONLY the email program, a BFE service, and new AV.
My ISP is discontining thePOP3 110 port and switching to 995. I spent WWednesdayon the phone with comcast. but late afternoon my mom’s comp was fine. so it was not the modem/router/sever settings. the authentication wasn’t happening and there was not way to manually change it in the settings. the popup was the only way and the popup never appeared as it didn’t make a connection… ALL other programs/updates/sites seemed fine.
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It looks like it’s an index of markets, and was just mentioned in a new Writer Beware column. (for a market being delisted) Has anyone used it? Is it worth the time? They do have school memberships. But for me, the modest cost is still a sizable piece and would have to wait for the holidays. I will admit I’d been considering No Man’s Sky for my big gift… But if the magazine is useful to a real person (a shock perhaps, but a writer who hangs out here qualifies) I’m more likely to give it a try. Thnx
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Yes. This is what I’d do. Stay with the main group, with how they saw/heard/felt the smaller group’s possible death. Have it affect them fear and grief. Make sure they are running by the seat of their pants and guessing. But have some guesses be way off, and they get injured/take losses because of wrong guesses. They don’t know why they hear a distant tank and keep wondering when it will catch them. but the tank is helping them indirectly. The main group has sparse and confusing input and IS hearing actions of the smaller group, but they don’t know. This might be tricky, and a grid/timeline with major actors and sound/sight/evidence that crosses groups. I did a bit of this for my first real fanfic and had a spreadsheet with three hero groups and a villain in a magical gate maze/prison. But I swapped POVs between three characters and it was a nightmare to write. I’m attached enough that I can’t judge anymore if it worked.
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Decided to finally put an image in my profile banner. but how do you represent cross-genre interests? <u portrait leans fantasy, so the banner went SF and I can’t draw.
Honestly I’m avoiding some paperwork until after the banking day ends...
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5 frame gif with slow frame change rate cycling through 5 different images?
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I really am fine with a sense of wonder starscape… I don’t have any strong ideas for the other genres.
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Lol. All fair points.
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- BronxWench and Anesor
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Yeah, I really work to start a story with a question/problem/cliffhanger so the reader wants to know what’s next. Needs to know. Chapters either start with the problem the last ended with, or if I’m feeling mean change characters for a different plot thread. I really want to hook the immediate issues in the first couple hundred words. I’m selling curiousity or attachment to the POV to justify the time spent reading. Not always as well as I want, but it’s a work in progress. Some I remember working on more: Good person being sent to life inprisonment despite saving a passel of children in the crime. New mine-slave escaping night of arrival after a brutal march. Meditation on the enemy interrupted by a jealous student. Ghost vision of a murdered child makes lead flee from their duties despite the danger. Some great tragedy is hidden by amnesia and uncovered by symbols in divination cards. Exploring dark tunnels is broken by sliding down steep slope into darkness and noise will bring enemy attackers. Some took far longer to get rolling and I wish I’d done better. (and now I am forcibly trying to resist rewriting all my start!)
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Finished a story that I’m not sure if it’s a novella or novelette over the weekend. I’m casting around to start another original, but feel no sparks. (while a handful of semi fanfic clamored for seed starts last month) …need more time!!
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@CloverReef is clamouring for some tentacle/foot-feetish action.
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That brings a very odd Cthulhu and shoes comic to mind, but no fetish action.
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Ouch, a video or audio novel for a very rare song is way too much work. It’s a very different skill set, the same way watercolors are. I sometimes feel sorry for those on the Youtube content treadmill. I think I’ll stay with words and limit most music mentions to the background. Songfics are foreground.
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That sounds fine in my book because it grows out of events in the story and ties in. I was speaking about pop songs that depend on exterior materials for the story or scene to make sense. Original songs that are written as part of the story must fit the mood of the story. Michael Bolton didn’t know the mood of my story twenty years later and his lyrics may mean something totally different to a reader based on their RL and that takes control of the story’s mood out of my keyboard. Your “Burn It Down” sounds like a useful grace note and the memory of a terrible cover of it by Jerry Lewis will not disrupt your story. (Hope I was clearer this time)
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I will admit most songfics and even ones that allude to a song in detail usually fail- because the song detracts from the characters and mood of the story, almost without exception. Stories come to a screeching halt even more if the song is out of context for the fiction, like popsong and vaguely medieval fantasy that doesn’t have any jet planes… I avoid songfics also because the song also rarely enhances the story unless you already know it, and the lyrics alone don’t cover the mood. Because of that I resist reading or writing songfics. I included a marching song/prayer in one story and found it incredibly hard to write. The artistic payoff for the extra erroft is not worth it. I really resent a writer’s demand that I track down and listen to an unfamiliar song to understand the chapter. I’;m not in the same emotional space when the writer came to love the song. And when I have, the music didn’t move me so it ends up a negative experience. No win scenario.
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There’s have to be some kind of learning on top of the celeb template. You probably don’t want the bot to forget things that happen or please the owner. And the core programs would overlap, leaving interesting code bugs like shutting down in electrical storms for safety or walking into wall when seeing a banana peel on the ground. I would be interested in when a bot, and probably all the bots finally leave the Turing test behind, and become aware instead of very mobile blowup dolls. What happens is one learns the real one is alive and well and had a baby out there? Or if they realize the odd in no period or babies? Even if there is no overt rebellion (Asimov’s laws) that doesn’t mean it will be easy...
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Are you slamming AI linguistics?
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Admittedly, it depends on the author and even the mood of the chapter. Shorter chapters that work well are usually humorous or sharply focused on an emotion like angst or pining. Short chunks are sometimes a drive-by posting without character or plot advancement when an author wants to post something but is verbally flailing as to what. I've written shorter than a drabble when there is a total breakpoint for characters, and up to about 7k which are usually my finales. I prefer to write 1k to 4k. I like to read in that range as well. I can and have spent many hours on one well written and gripping story. (I won a bet with myself as a teen and read a thousand page paperback in one twelve hour binge-) But one of the reasons for chapters is to control the pacing of the stories, balancing plot, character, and climaxes. I know I have to end the chapter when a cliffhanger appears, otherwise I’m wasting the tension and reader’s wishes to know what happens next. One of the sweetest things is to see comments from readers howling to know what comes next. If the chapter seems on the short side I may go back and add or elaborate on a scene, but my muse is usually insistent on stopping if the narrative hits a cliffhanger. Another is to break the story into manageable chunks, as a writer and as a reader. (don’t we all tend to write what we like?) Chapters longer than about 6k, if that is typically clear from story stats, already have a strike against them. They require longer blocks of time and I cannot count on uninterrupted time as I got older. If I often get interrupted by RL I lose track of events and have to go backwards to refresh the story's flow. Really long chapters above 15k are approaching novella (and I'm reluctant to even start stories like that in fandoms I follow). There are several fanfics I've loved but had ended up dropping as I could not easily reenter chapters partway through without a visual marker. (I cannot dog-ear a scrolling page like I did before reformatting electronic books) I kept looking a while back when I started revising an original for professional publication and found answers ranging somewhere below 10k but no upper limit. One of the better suggestions was a chapter that most readers can finish in about fifteen minutes. Guessing that is another story, but 5k in 15 min → 333 words/minute as words per page is a slippery value... The time for editing long chapters or even stories is not a linear relationship either but a steep curve. I can easily edit a 1k flash in a day. A 2k is a day also. A 5k can run a week, even outside any time for a beta. A 60k novel? The sheer bulk is not just intimidating, but tracking all the bits of theme, character, plot and finicky details can drive you mad. I still have not come up with a way to organize it for my novels. I have found as my life got busier, I enjoy strong shorter pieces more, as a reader and as inspiration. One of my favorite writers right now can write an evocative, insightful story that rips your heart out in under a thousand words, many times a week. (Sorry to ramble on in a topic about length but answering tl:dr would not explain why that applies to fiction as well)
