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ravenWeird, weird day. To start with, the days are finally getting longer. I was sitting below the kitchen windows all afternoon, and at eight o'clock I noticed it was too dark to see. I'm looking forward to eleven o'clock daylight. That's the best, and probably the only, good thing about summer. But it was mostly a weird day because I got up in the morning about nine-ish, stayed in doing Economics, didn't get any phone calls or texts, didn't get any emails, went out for a brief walk on which I didn't meet anyone, and when Pedar wandered in, back from Belfast, I realised it was the first contact I'd had with another human being in more than twenty-four hours. No wonder I was disappearing into my head a bit.
Anyway. Nothing actually happened, so I am stealing a meme from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
musesfool before bed. I love thoughts about the writing process, so this was fun. And because it isn't actually clear from the questions, it is about writing!
Name one thing you do consistently well:
Voices. I was going to put "dialogue", but I also mean tight POV in third, internal monologues, that sort of thing. I can hear canon characters' voices very clearly inside my head, what they'd say and how they'd say it. I think this may stem a bit from my time in M*A*S*H fandom, where each character has a very distinctive voice, but since then, there's been a few characters I've written so often that falling into their voice is natural. I was just thinking that today, actually, whilst trying to write the current fic; I've written Remus's POV so much I can slip into it naturally. Bless him. Moving on.
Name one thing you do inconsistently well:
To borrow a phrase fromtroyswann, Japanese ink painting. What I mean is, occasonally I've got the knack of describing a scene or setting sparsely, with just a few key details, but they nevertheless render a rich description because they fill in the blanks, so to speak. Sadly, I can't do this on demand. When it happens, it's great. When it doesn't, it's horrendous, horrendous purple prose. I cringe, I really do.
Name one thing you do consistently badly:
Plot. I have this very, very bad habit of starting a fic, writing the first thousand words or so, and waiting for the plot to occur to me. In fact, I might as well confess - there are two fics of mine I'm quite fond of, Effects and Hunter's Moon. They both have significant plot twists, at the end and midway through respectively, that are significant because they show everything that came before in an entirely different light. For both of them, I wrote the whole fic and thought up the twist afterwards. It's shameful, and I don't know why on earth I'm admitting it.
Name one thing you do inconsistently badly:
Humour. I can be funny, sometimes. I have some fics that are supposed to be funny, and actually are. But I can't do good humour, most of the time, and it bugs me.
Name one thing you don't do well and feel bad about:
I can't get from one scene to another. When I read good fic or profic, I know intellectually that there are breaks, that all the action doesn't happen all in one go in real time, but I don't notice. That, I think, is the mark of a good transition. But I really, really can't do it myself. I think, well, A needs to happen, then B, then C, but getting from one to the next is a nightmare. My greatest fear is the transition I used to use in the infants': "The next day..." Cringe.
Name one thing you don't do well and don't feel bad about:
Writing linearly. People who post WIPs can presumably do this. But I make a point of never posting them - I hate 'em, but that's a rant for another time - and writing each bit of a story in the order it occurs to me. Most of the time, I write the end first, because that's the crucial part, I think; the plot bunny that appears is usually where everything ends up, rather than where everything starts up.
Describe the fantasy story that you'd write if you were the writer you'd like to be:
Oooh. It would be long, longer than the ~15,000 words I've managed to date, and it would be slash, but light with lots of judicious fade-outs. There would be a plot, and there would be funny bits, and a little bit of angst, done with the Japanese ink painting quality mentioned above, and it would all be beautifully paced. As well as that, it would attempt to say something, that is, it'd have a theme, which is something I rarely accomplish but yearn for, and finally it would lead to a plotty ending with a wistful conclusion that builds on all the aforementioned themes that have been explored throughout.
Oh, if only. Siiiiigh.
Sleepy now.
Anyway. Nothing actually happened, so I am stealing a meme from
musesfool before bed. I love thoughts about the writing process, so this was fun. And because it isn't actually clear from the questions, it is about writing!Name one thing you do consistently well:
Voices. I was going to put "dialogue", but I also mean tight POV in third, internal monologues, that sort of thing. I can hear canon characters' voices very clearly inside my head, what they'd say and how they'd say it. I think this may stem a bit from my time in M*A*S*H fandom, where each character has a very distinctive voice, but since then, there's been a few characters I've written so often that falling into their voice is natural. I was just thinking that today, actually, whilst trying to write the current fic; I've written Remus's POV so much I can slip into it naturally. Bless him. Moving on.
Name one thing you do inconsistently well:
To borrow a phrase from
troyswann, Japanese ink painting. What I mean is, occasonally I've got the knack of describing a scene or setting sparsely, with just a few key details, but they nevertheless render a rich description because they fill in the blanks, so to speak. Sadly, I can't do this on demand. When it happens, it's great. When it doesn't, it's horrendous, horrendous purple prose. I cringe, I really do. Name one thing you do consistently badly:
Plot. I have this very, very bad habit of starting a fic, writing the first thousand words or so, and waiting for the plot to occur to me. In fact, I might as well confess - there are two fics of mine I'm quite fond of, Effects and Hunter's Moon. They both have significant plot twists, at the end and midway through respectively, that are significant because they show everything that came before in an entirely different light. For both of them, I wrote the whole fic and thought up the twist afterwards. It's shameful, and I don't know why on earth I'm admitting it.
Name one thing you do inconsistently badly:
Humour. I can be funny, sometimes. I have some fics that are supposed to be funny, and actually are. But I can't do good humour, most of the time, and it bugs me.
Name one thing you don't do well and feel bad about:
I can't get from one scene to another. When I read good fic or profic, I know intellectually that there are breaks, that all the action doesn't happen all in one go in real time, but I don't notice. That, I think, is the mark of a good transition. But I really, really can't do it myself. I think, well, A needs to happen, then B, then C, but getting from one to the next is a nightmare. My greatest fear is the transition I used to use in the infants': "The next day..." Cringe.
Name one thing you don't do well and don't feel bad about:
Writing linearly. People who post WIPs can presumably do this. But I make a point of never posting them - I hate 'em, but that's a rant for another time - and writing each bit of a story in the order it occurs to me. Most of the time, I write the end first, because that's the crucial part, I think; the plot bunny that appears is usually where everything ends up, rather than where everything starts up.
Describe the fantasy story that you'd write if you were the writer you'd like to be:
Oooh. It would be long, longer than the ~15,000 words I've managed to date, and it would be slash, but light with lots of judicious fade-outs. There would be a plot, and there would be funny bits, and a little bit of angst, done with the Japanese ink painting quality mentioned above, and it would all be beautifully paced. As well as that, it would attempt to say something, that is, it'd have a theme, which is something I rarely accomplish but yearn for, and finally it would lead to a plotty ending with a wistful conclusion that builds on all the aforementioned themes that have been explored throughout.
Oh, if only. Siiiiigh.
Sleepy now.
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no subject
on 2006-04-08 04:31 am (UTC)But why is it shameful? Practically every paper I write for any class is like that. I write it all and then afterwards go, "Oh. That's the argument I'm making? Cool." Why can't that work for fic too?
(Okay, so maybe I *shouldn't* write class papers that way, but...)
no subject
on 2006-04-09 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-04-08 10:00 am (UTC)I can hear the voices of the character for whom I have a muse, and occasionally through them I'll hear a line, put it down, and somebody turns around and goes "OMG SO THAT CHARACTER!" - I have trouble other then that. I think it's because since I was 16 I've flipped more to the drawing and ideas side of things, I just lack the knack of hearing all the characters anymore.
xx
no subject
on 2006-04-08 11:39 am (UTC)In theory, anyway. Mine never work like that.
no subject
on 2006-04-09 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-04-09 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-04-09 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-04-09 03:57 pm (UTC)