General writing fiction discussion thrad.

[Novus]

I've found the boring bits, meaning contemplative descriptions of nouns to be the usually the best part of a book.
With FF7 for example, the characters are very stiff so it's the atmosphere linking them more than I remember more than the FMV sequences like the motor cycle chase. Perhaps the reason they are hard to write for, is because it works against our cognition, which is in a constant state of change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance

I think the famous clip from American Beauty sums it up better, although the bag is still in a state of change:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qssvnjj5Moo

Feast for Crows is my favorite G.R.R Martin book.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by contemplative descriptions of nouns.

 

[Novus]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by contemplative descriptions of nouns.

The poetic moments where the narrative freezes mid-action in order to describe the moment and surrounding setting. An example in GOT would be the trees in this passage:

The tops of half a hundred trees poked up out the swirling waters, their limbs clutching for the sky like the arms of drowning men.

Obviously it has to be relevant to the narrator, but I find this more memorable than the actual storyline. I can understand why some people might struggle with them, because it acts contrary to our instincts.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Ah, okay. I actually really like this kind of writing, when well done. I don't know what's going on in that scene but it looks like GRRM is trying to do some foreshadowing or at least create a mood of dread. Descriptive passages that are too heavy on the similes tend to overwhelm my imagination, but I do like the writer to take the time to set the scene.

Somebody who IMHO does this brilliant is Caroline Lawrence, author of a series of children's historical detective novels called "The Roman Mysteries" . Children's authors can't be self-indulgent or take the time for lengthy Dickensian descriptions, but she can paint an complete landscape in a sentence and a half. C S Lewis was also brilliant at homing in on the one or two salient details that could establish the entire scene.

 

[Dawnbreaker]

Does the book say anything interesting on this matter?

I did find this from the book, which I consider at least semi-relevant:

Too much exposition is even more dangerous. Not only does it slow the pace, it may also explain too much. As I have pointed out previously, fiction normally depends on action and dialogue to maintain the reader's sense of discovery. Exposition, even when filtered through a narrator, nudges a story in the direction of the essay.

While action can enliven your style, too much may make the story superficial. Action-packed plots can take over, reducing the development of characterization and thematic aspects.

The balance of modes shouldn't be a major concern when working on your first draft. Examine it when you start revising. There is no harm in favouring one mode over the others in a particular story, but try to judge how this approach has affected your work. A few revisions at this early stage make a major difference in the work as a whole.

I will continue to read the book and see if I come up with more relevant and helpful passages. Right now I'm actually working on the course Professional Writing Basics not Creative Writing Exploration so I won't have as much information on the more abstract parts of writing fiction, but I'll see what I find.

 

[Keveh Kins]

Do you want a beta, Kevs?

If it wouldn't be too much trouble? Don't wanna impose, but t'would be nice to know ahead of posting whether I've written the anti-christ of fanfic, could get on top of that before it gets too powerful O_o

Still reworking the last chapter. I want to write, I want to write so badly. But my brain is just not functioning the way it should It's like pulling teeth I will finish this fic damn it...even if I do print it off and cast it into the fires of Mount Doom afterwards

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I know that pulling teeth feeling.

 

[Keveh Kins]

^It's fierce agitating. Always end up pacing around, frustrated, more than doing any writing

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I just spent five hours writing five pages of dialogue that went on and on and never got to the point because it evolved into a fight between the two characters, and then I scrapped it and re-wrote it in four paragraphs with all the salient detail include. Sometimes you just have to write out all the crud in order to clear the way for the good stuff.

 

[Dawnbreaker]

My writing teacher said essentially the same--you need to 'garbage write' before the real good stuff comes out. That's why I generally do the first draft in long-hand and then the second draft is on the computer. I feel like I can filter out the fluff and filler. It's not an easy task, as I'm constantly wondering 'would this sound better?','am I being too obvious?', 'is that enough detail?' and etc. Oh woe is to be a writer! lol

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Writing sexy part of larger relationship scene, struggling to find the perfect middle ground between delicate euphemism (totally out of character) cold clinical terms (turn-off) and porn (which doesn't fit the tone of the piece). There are so many words for penis and none of them are right!!!!! Cock is probably the closest one can get to that middle ground, in the sense of it being the most common and therefore least likely to make readers think "funny choice of word" - but for some reason, I don't like it.

 

[Octo]

Spam Javelin?

Neptune Hammer?

I'd list more but I have to cook dinner....

 

[Dawnbreaker]

^LOL

I generally go with 'manhood' or 'member' or mention specific parts like the head or the shaft. It's generally not too challenging if you don't get too self-conscious about it. Writing about a woman's 'womanhood' is more fun, though; all about folds and depths and etc is just so, I dunno, awesome. xD

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I thought of Tseng's Third Gun but that's just cheesy.

Little First Class SOLDIER

Mako Fountain (it's a miracle of nature!)

Grand Horn

Love Tentacle

Shinra Rocket (better not land in Aerith's "church"! It's a holy place.)

Not helping myself here.

"Spam javelin".... kind of salty and greasy and it falls apart when you bite into it....

"Pistol's cock is up." That's Shakespeare.

 

[Octo]

Or, you could just avoid mentioning it all together 'he slid inside' etc.

I like cock the best though, then prick. Never liked dick that much.

 

[Fangu]

There's of course that way to avoid using a noun completely, like '...grabbing for him, noticing he was hard' etc.

Also, re: scrapping - people call it throw-away writing, disposable words etc. Sometimes you need to throw out 30,000 words to end up with good 5,000. Ugh, writing.

 

[Keveh Kins]

Shelved the Turkfic I was working on. The more I worked at it the weaker I felt it was and it was just sapping the life out of me and I've kinda started to hate it. A lot.

Working on a different one now that doesn't make me want to toe punt small children over fences....so far

 

[Cthulhu]

Also, re: scrapping - people call it throw-away writing, disposable words etc. Sometimes you need to throw out 30,000 words to end up with good 5,000. Ugh, writing.

Re: that, I just read Slaughterhouse Five, which is a pretty short book; according to the opening, the author wrote 5000 pages just to finish it. And IMHO it's not even a literary masterpiece or anything, just a to the point reporting kinda deal.

 

[Fangu]

Shelved the Turkfic I was working on. The more I worked at it the weaker I felt it was and it was just sapping the life out of me and I've kinda started to hate it. A lot.

Is there a way you can do something completely different with it? Like, tear it to pieces and deconstruct all of them into something it wasn't, just for the luls? For exercise?

I've never attempted this myself so I can't give you any pointers though

 

[Keveh Kins]

I could turn the whole fic into a parody of itself 'Cept the ending, that's a big enough joke in itself It wasn't a total loss, it kept me writing at least, which is always a plus. I might come back to it someday when I'm not feeling so bogged down in it.

I swore I'd throw it into the fires of Doom when it's done, and I will. It'll just be delayed

 

[Fangu]

Nah, I didn't mean change genre, just more like, flip shit Give A's lines to B, make C a man instead of a woman, or something. I should try coming up with an example.

 

[Keveh Kins]

^I did stuff similar to that...I think. Completely changed the backstory of one character and their traits and whatnot. I sort of ended up taking a different route to basically the same end.

I dunno. It felt like I was spinning wheels and going nowhere with it It was a crappy idea to be honest, and that showed itself the more I wrote. I slogged through it and once the slogging was done I kinda looked at it and went..."Is that it?...This sucks." And I just can't seem to make it not suck.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Just put it aside and one day out of the blue the idea will come to you that will make it not suck.

If you see how long my "novel" DIPOTP is, and consider that I've probably thrown away twice as much again as what I've actually posted, it kind of speaks for itself. It took me a whole year of really painful and thankless chipping away to get the ending to a point where it doesn't suck Irfrit's balls.

I find ideas never come to me if I try and force them. They're wild and shy and you have to approach them slowly so as not to startle them. When I'm stuck I normally go and do something with my hands - garden, iron, groom the dog, make a cake, clean the bathtub - and let the ideas come to me. The best ideas are ironing ideas! It also seems a lot of people get ideas from listening to music.

(BTW I am sorry for neglecting reading others and giving feedback; it's because I have been putting all my mental energies into my own thing and am so nearly, nearly finished.)

 

[Fangu]

I dunno. It felt like I was spinning wheels and going nowhere with it It was a crappy idea to be honest, and that showed itself the more I wrote. I slogged through it and once the slogging was done I kinda looked at it and went..."Is that it?...This sucks." And I just can't seem to make it not suck.

I've had that feeling. Usually the only thing that works for me is to abandon ship. Scrap the idea entirely, and re-use parts for other fics.

The same thing happened for the last chapter of Ally. The chapter is so completely different (better!) than the original draft. The only thing that remains, really, is the skeleton. The yes and no's. Everything else has been remolded entirely at least twenty times before I landed on what I ended up with.

So - maybe look at the skeleton and see if there's a way you can rewrite it to still make it work? To me, it was an extremely useful experience to *not* abandon ship, but to completely rework it into a different ship. (The only thing the first and second ships have in common is they can be named 'a ship'. Not to be confused with 'shipping' though. )


(I also want to add that although my AO3 profile lists 22 fics - those are not all of the fics I've written. I have almost finished fics sitting in my drafts I've never posted because - they turned out to be good exercise, but not something I'd want to post for others to read and maybe review. I was thinking of posting them along with commentary on why they were scrapped, but my fic commentaries on Tumblr didn't gain as much attention as the 'generally speaking writing meta' posts, so not sure I'll bother. Maybe for my private access list on DreamWidth *shrugs*)

 

[Dawnbreaker]

I find ideas never come to me if I try and force them. They're wild and shy and you have to approach them slowly so as not to startle them.

Mother-fucking-troof.

In life, and in writing, whenever you try too hard it slips right through your fingers. The 'getting away' idea is a good one. I tend to get ideas while having a nice bath, or cooking dinner or occasionally when jogging (though I try not to let my 'meditation' time get bogged down in creative ideas).

I've had that feeling. Usually the only thing that works for me is to abandon ship. Scrap the idea entirely, and re-use parts for other fics.

Done that before. I transferred one whole chapter from one of my Warrior of Light fics (yes, you read that right, 'Warrior of Light fic' ) to another. I had reached a natural stopping point and felt that tacking on the chapter would just kill the climax. So I added it to the next fic in the series.

I was reading my Three Genres book last night and it discussed characterization. One of the key things I've missed, in the past in my writing, is the complexity of a character. I tend to have consistency, but complexity is something I've had to make a real effort to insert into each character (except the minor characters only intended for a single purpose, of course). It's a bit challenging to create a character I'd consider 'good' but give them less than admirable traits. Of course, they do tend to be more entertaining, and believable, characters as a result, so there you go.