Possibly off-topic post about writing processes

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Since so many of us are now working on long, plotty stories at once thanks to the big bang challenge, I have a couple of nosey writing processes question for y'all (and feel free to delete this poll if it's not on-topic, Panda & Lan).

Some of us are writing a long-form story for the first time, some of us have written long stories before, and some of us have written long things, but not in this fandom/with a co-writer/under time constraints/etc. What kinds of writing techniques do you guys find useful/helpful? For example, I know some people who have to have an extremely detailed outline before they write, and some who find overly-detailed outlines stifling.


[Poll #1370167]

Also, out of pure curiosity:

[Poll #1370168]

And finally:

[Poll #1370169]

Comments

[mercy-slays.livejournal.com]

Usually it's all in my head but sometimes I'll just like write down a scene, certain facts or background information or just plain important information to remember later on. Depending on the fic, there might be charts, graphs and clusters and other random stuff. ^^;

Co-Writing
I've only done this once but the way we did it was exactly what you would do in a LiveJournal Role-Playing Game. Only write in the point of view of your character without using your partner's character(s) and then flush out the scene from that. There might be some re-writing/editing put in there for coherency.

on editing

[tresa-cho.livejournal.com]

Um. Fanfiction is usually a one-shot deal with me. I write it, look over for any grammar mistakes, and post it. I rarely get a beta to look it over first, because I'm usually impeccable about my grammar. With originals, however, I can go through two to three drafts before I come close to being satisfied.

and because i post before i read...

[tresa-cho.livejournal.com]

For multi-authored fic, whether it be original or fanfiction, what has happened in the past was more of a ghost-writing situation for me. Someone else came up with characters, plot, background, setting and the like, and I dabbled in their universe while they offered advice as to how the story would flow. I'm actually sort of in the middle of one right now, where it is a novelization of an RPG we used to do. I've taken complete control over the plotline and writing, but the other person still owns the characters. I talk to her for advice on how each character would react in which situation, and based off both our knowledge of the RPG, I write the story.

[onewayfreak.livejournal.com]

I tend to shy away from long, plotty stories due to a short attention span, so I usually just have vague ideas in my head and write them down as one-shots.

Also, writing separate drafts hurts my soul.

I'm not a fan of Tony on top and Steve bottoming, but I find a great deal of appeal in Steve loving the cock. I don't get it, I just go with the flow.

[melisus.livejournal.com]

I am not a fic writer in this fandom, but I am a fic writer. And as it happens, I've spent the better part of a year working on a massive series of Doctor Who fics (the equivalency of an entire season worth of episodes) and so I've had to do a lot of planning and plotting to make sure it all connects smoothly.

I start with a loose outline... the general gist of what sort of story I want to write. I make notes about what sort of antagonist or problem I'm going to use, and to be fandom-specific with Doctor Who I also decide what/if alien races I want to use/create and the location of the story. From there I move on to eventually having a summary of the fic (usually about a page long) which gets down what I have churning around in my head. It's usually choosy on details (some parts more detailed than others) and I'll often add to it as I go along or an idea pops into my head.

The important thing I've found is to find some way to sort your ideas when it comes to long fics. I write short ones on the spot and fly by the seat of my pants with only an internal idea of what my overall plot/goal is. But when it comes to longer plots, keeping everything ordered and logical is important. The ongoing summary helps a lot, I find. I can add and subtract ideas as I go along, and once the fic is actually written I find it leads nicely into an editing process.

It's good to have a beta reader/editor who's good with your area of canon (and sometimes one who's not). If you're writing within Avengers canon, I'd find a beta reader who's familiar with it so you can cross check your grasp of canon with them. I think it's doubly important in this fandom where there's so much making up such a long period of canon that it can get downright difficult and confusing at times.

[muccamukk]

I have an outline in my head of Things that Need to Happen. It tends to morph as I go, which is fine, but I usually have clear end in mind and get there. I occasionally write down plot points if I need clarity or to visually work something out (like I recently made a list of plot points I'd included so far and what I needed to do before I could wrap it up... turns out my story is going to be longer than I thought).

I used to outline what should happen when, but I found when I did, I was less likely actually write the story. For me, part of the fun of writing is finding out what's going to happen. If I outline, I can mentally file it under Done Did and move on.

As far as editing. I only use one draft, like I don't keep old copies but keep over writing the original, but I do revise heavily as I go.

There is, in fact, a squid in my story.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

If I outline, I can mentally file it under Done Did and move on.

I have that problem with origfic sometimes (I'll think "nobody but me cares about these characters, so why go to the work of writing the story down. I'll just tell it to myself in my head where it can be as Mary Sue and Woobie-ridden and full of OTT h/c as I want").

With fanfic, a detailed outline lets me shelve fic bunnies for months at a time without worrying about forgetting any details (also, I/we can take a break from writing a particular fic without losing the thread of the story, because the scenes are all blocked out). It also helps us write much faster (since the plot/structure work that apparently some people do in a first draft is already done) and since we know what's coming later, we can set up for it in earlier parts without having to go back once we've finished and work set-up in.

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

Co-writing...

Sometimes I write or tweak all the dialogue and she writes the rest. Sometimes she writes the set up and connective tissue and I write all the action scenes.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

My outlines tend to fall on a sliding scale of rough vs. detailed. I outline chapter-by-chapter, but some chapters will have incredibly detailed descriptions while others will just say "fight scene goes here" or "and then they fuck." I also tend to tweak the outline as I go along, adding or removing or changing scenes as needed.

I write one complete draft, then get comments from at least one, preferably two betas, then go back and revise.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

My outlines tend to fall on a sliding scale of rough vs. detailed. I outline chapter-by-chapter, but some chapters will have incredibly detailed descriptions while others will just say "fight scene goes here" or "and then they fuck." I also tend to tweak the outline as I go along, adding or removing or changing scenes as needed.

That's similar to the way we work - our outlines are scene-by-scene, but some scenes are incredibly detailed, with dialogue included, and some are just a few sentences saying, for example "Peter, Jan, Pietro & Wanda fight aliens. Pietro & Wanda are captured."

We tend to treat outlines kind of like a rough draft, including having them beta'ed a lot of the time (that way, serious plot issues are fixed in the early stages, before repairing them would take a major re-write).

[masterofmidgets.livejournal.com]

I'm not doing Big Bang because I knew I was going to be eaten alive by classes, but my writing process for all my stories involves a lot of me throwing ideas at my fandom-inclined friends until I have the plot worked out to my satisfaction. The most outlining I tend to do is just random lists of events or scenes scribbled in my writing notebook.

Re: editing, if it's less than, oh, 700 words or so I'll have a friend look over it for grammar/spelling/incoherency. Any longer and it gets a full beta and any necessary rewrites. But actually, I'm an insanely slow writer, and a lot of scenes I rewrite during the first draft - I ficspam all my friends all the time over IM while I'm writing.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

my writing process for all my stories involves a lot of me throwing ideas at my fandom-inclined friends until I have the plot worked out to my satisfaction

There are times when I suspect that this is what IM was truly invented for (we get our outlines beta-ed, often by multiple people, even when we're not having the fic itself beta-ed, which I suspect boils down to the same thing).

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

Co-writing -
We do the round robin style put also go back and tweak each others text.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

We do the "two people at one computer" thing, and wrote via long phone conversations during the couple of months in 2007 and 2008 when we were in different physical locations (though some bits of RR&R were done round robin style, and there's at least one scene that was entirely me and one that was entirely seanchai). I always wondered how people who didn't start out physically in the same place did it.

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

Squid is never the wrong answer. I'm just sayin'.

[muccamukk]

Nor is "goat"

Hmmm

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

I tend not to write anything - plot outlines, etc. Until it's clear in my head. Then when everything's clear in my mind, I'll sit down and write. Strangely, I tend to write in longhand (pen and paper) because ideas tend to come to me on public transport, or exercising, so my first draft of major scenes is always by hand.


Then when I get on the PC, I do stuff in word on the first draft. Print it out, make my own edits, write notes in the margins. Do I need to check canon for X event? Or probably basic physics principles for Y?

I go back to the canon to hand and check for character consistency (if I'm writing 616 characters, I tend to focus on a single time line or story arc, so I try to note the details of the character : how they speak, what was the personality traits like at this particular time? etc).

With that in mind, I then go back and recheck and rewrite.

Mostly, I do tend to work alone, but if I do have questions that bug me, I'll speak to anyone I know from the fandom on gchat, or send on a line, or highlighted bits of fic for them to check on.

Then, I'll print out the story in Hard Copy (most times than not) to check on silly errors. Go through the story one last time (by then, I'm heartily sick of it and wish not to see it again).

I angst over titles, then post and forget about it.

Re: Hmmm

[dorcas-gustine.livejournal.com]

I angst over titles, then post and forget about it.
High-five!

[dorcas-gustine.livejournal.com]

Re: writing process, I usually have a vague idea of what I want to write or a nice concept, but the vague ideas get all written in a .txt in my WIPs folders. To start a fic I have to have a scene in mind. Like I suddenly get this scene, or a sentence I want written and I like them so much that I write a fic around it. Usually when writing (even the longer fics) I have an outline with actions and stuff described, and bits of dialogue or narrative/description down. Then I jump forward and backward filling in stuff at my pleasure. The big bang is actually the first time I'm writing in a linear way, scene after scene, and it's very hard for me to do. T_T

Re: drafting, I tend to write as fast as I can, then I sit on the draft for a couple of days (there are exceptions to this, of course), then I re-read it with fresh eyes and I send it to the beta(s). When it comes back, I re-edit it and read it once over, and change stuff because I'm like that.

And then I sit on it a couple of days more because finding titles is a bitch!

Oh Lord, you're telling me

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

I don't know how empty_splendor does it - she comes up with the best titles even before she starts writing.

I cannot do that. Because I find that titles really restrict me, because suppose stuff doesn't go with the title? Oy.

I also tend to angst over the beginning. All I need is the first sentence as a hook, and I'm off!

[lupus-dragon.livejournal.com]

For the editing process, I have a co-author, and we each give a scene/chapter, whatever, an edit before sending it to our beta. Then we, together, look at the entire fic (or what we have of it so far) and edit for continuity and consistency. So revision is, at minimum a four part process, even though we don't write multiple drafts.

[deviouslint.livejournal.com]

*ends lurk to respond to her own co-author because she's lame*

I'm sort of an editing freak. No writing is ever done, it just gets abandoned, and I have separation anxiety. (In fact, I will take the blame; I am the reason nothing of ours has been posted here yet. It's worked its way to a beta, though!)

*returns to lurk*

[lilpocketninja.livejournal.com]

The reason that I never finish anything is, I think, because I plan obsessively. Which makes very little sense to people who aren't me but I swear it's true.

I write multiple outlines so I don't have to actually WRITE. But they are damn fine outlines.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I write multiple outlines so I don't have to actually WRITE. But they are damn fine outlines.


I've heard more than one person say that if they outline too extensively, they lose the drive to write the story, because they've already essentially written it in their head.

[simmysim.livejournal.com]

For longer stories I usually do several timelines side by side of each character's activities, and then a bigger one of the plot as a whole, see if I need to condense or add or omit anything.

When it's fic, I post the first draft and then going back and editing a bunch and cursing myself for not having any patience, lol.

[mela81.livejournal.com]

I write a lot of non-fanfic stuff, haven't written fanfiction in awhile*

I usually start with a generally idea of characters and basic plot, and then build from there. The only time I tried outlining I didn't bother writing the story later. Then I go back and rewrite once I'm done.


*though I might be doing an Ant-Man movie for scriptfrenzy. Which is off-topic, I'm afraid.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I might be doing an Ant-Man movie for scriptfrenzy

Oooh, Hank or Scott?

[axolotl-lan.livejournal.com]

I alone just write I get in a time where it's what I do and I just go. This school semester has been harried though.

Titles are uhhhhm yeah I name things weirdly.... but at least the titles are not as bad as my working files. Not the retitled for beta send or cowriter send... sometimes they are lewd or stupid or have me writing a random sequence of letters.

this is totally tl;dr, I am sure

[velithya]

Captain America: Possibly homosexual? Must investigate further

I LOVE YOU SO HARD. (why do I not have any Rorschach icons yet?! FAIL)

ANYWAY. I answered somewhat contradictorily in the poll, because it totally depends! So, here are some longer elaborations:

BRAINSTORMING: This totally depends on what type of story I am writing. For my fanfic, which I have been writing not that long (~1 year) I have tended to make more specific outlines (as an example, WTF!KITTEN had a short scene by scene outline [ACTUAL PARTS OF THE OUTLINE: 1. Tony wakes up and is a kitty (in his room or in the lab? discuss) 2. Steve is like, why is there a kitty in the kitchen trying to break into the coffee], and my bigbang has a several-paragraph summary (oh god, I have to start writing that really soon) because it came straight out of the Hypothetical AU meme which you might have seen floating around LJ about 6 months ago.

BUT that is all very recent, and mainly for fanfic only; my originals are much more, hurm, organic? I guess you could say - I tend to write those by 'scening them in my head': I 'see' (imagine) the scene in my head played out like a movie, and then write it down. (at least for the action-style scenes, and the really awesome parts; sometimes it's just slogging through with a vague idea of what I want to happen.) I tend to have an idea of where I want the story to go, which characters I want to get together if there are people that are going to end up together, main events to happen and that sort of thing, but I learn the details as I go along.

ALSO I AM TERRIBLE AT MAKING UP TITLES, THAT IS BASICALLY THE LAST THING THAT HAPPENS FOR ALL MY STORIES.

WRITING: when I am posting my originals to my LJ under f.lock, I will basically just post it as-is (I have a habit of writing straight into my LJ create post window, although I have started to use Word more often. Actually, apart from my most recent original, most of my originals in the last year or so have been done straight into LJ). I guess because I'm not worried about characterisation/whatever with the originals, because they're my characters and it's all in my head, or something! With my fanfic, HAHAHA NO, I have a good handful of people I throw them at until I'm satisfied they think it's okay and I won't be lynched by fandom for making Steve OOC (Tony I have down, Steve is more problematic for me) before they get posted.

CO-WRITING: I have only ever co-written one thing, and that was my spn_j2_bigbang from 2008 which ended up being about 42k words :psy: We both talked the hell out of the universe, doing a few little snippets each, and made a reasonable outline of what we wanted to happen. My co-author had previously written the 'end' (final 7k words) for a uni thing, so that was already done. She wrote about 30k words, I did the sex scenes and a few scenes from 'my' characters POV (I say 'my'; I guess I mean the one I most relate to, the one I was better at writing) and then rewrote the end to strip out all the non-canon stuff we had hashed out while sorting out the universe. Then I sent it off to beta, got it back, and did all of the editing. It wasn't really an equal share of the intial writing but we were certainly even on the creative process and hashing out the universe, and I did all the editing so we sort of evened out in the end? Anyway we were both really happy with the way the story turned out, so that was all good :) And hopefully we should be doing a sequel at some stage! ...eventually!

........hopefully some of that was relevant!

Re: this is totally tl;dr, I am sure

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I LOVE YOU SO HARD. (why do I not have any Rorschach icons yet?! FAIL)

Hah! Someone got the reference! (someone else got the PotC portion of the PotC/HP/Watchmen squid reference, which also made me gleeful). I just use a Matt & Foggy icon for the couple of times I've commented on people's stuff on owl_ship or raawlship -- the physical types almost match up for Rorschach and Daniel, if Matt were four-to-six inches shorter and significantly less pretty. One crazy/paranoid orange-haired vigilante beating people up in 1980s New York is as good as another (on that note, a Watchmen/Daredevil: Born Again crossover could be very, very awesome, not least because the Kingpin would pwn Veidt so hard he would make him cry).

I tend to write those by 'scening them in my head': I 'see' (imagine) the scene in my head played out like a movie, and then write it down. (at least for the action-style scenes, and the really awesome parts; sometimes it's just slogging through with a vague idea of what I want to happen.)

That's essentially what we do when writing the detailed version of the outline: some scenes in the outline often have two drafts, the initial bare-bones one that's generally just one sentence, something like "the Argonians torture Tony," and then the detailed one that includes important information like which Argonian is doing the torturing and what questions they're asking and what Tony's response is that's uually a paragraph or so.

The original genesis of a fic is often a handful of vivid movie-style scenes we think of and want to use, and then everything else is structured around those (for salt aliens fic, it was the scene with Steve and Tony in the kitchen, both of them knowing that Tony will have to go back to the front to the Argonians the next day, and the scene where Carol watches Wanda bathe by candlelight, and one further scene that hasn't happened yet that started it all).