Normally when I'm writing something I start with a voice of a character. I'm obsessed with weird first person narratives right now. The rest usually just happens. Most of my smut starts out with a single idea that gives me the special tingle and it's not always a sexual idea in and of itselt sometimes it just happens.
The piece I'm working on now which is dirty dirty dirty, started out as a story about a bar fight. I never plan it just happens.
I will often get this very specific character voice relating just the first sentence. It almost always starts with just that little for my original stuff. And the fic I write on my own follows a really similar process. Maybe that is why prompts are kind of a fun, relaxing exercise - I don't have to worry about nearly as much!
One of the things that I love about you writing about your writing is that you find your own stuff hot. I have a really hard time engaging with most of my own supposedly sexy stuff.
to be honest, i haven't written a novel in years. most of the longer work that i'm doing these days involves adapting novels i wrote back in the day.
but when i was writing them, it was very much a game of "follow your nose." i really didn't edit until the second draft. and i've learned to be very brutal to everything.
Do you find that time gives you a certain useful distance on stuff? The novel is based on a short story skeleton I wrote a few years back - having that separation from it let me be a lot more ruthless with certain things.
the larger structure is based on material i wrote at the start of the last decade. some of the stuff i came up with back then, but never bothered to write down, because i wasn't sure what was going to happen with the novels.
so weapons of devotion was all re-purposed material, just in a different order. i knew exactly what happened in class of 63 - i just had to write it down. taste of flesh was an extremely stripped down prior novel. elements of the last two books were previously written, but some are brand new.
having distance allowed me to really work with the structure to make sure it was rock solid. i spent a few months working on that before i started the first book. that was where the writing group helped the most, to be honest. the conversion to graphic storytelling also helped me drop off elements that didn't make sense - the question of "how am i going to illustrate this?" is a great driver for getting rid of scenes that don't work or aren't necessary.
I know when I was writing stuff for the stage, it made me think about story structure in entirely different ways. Translating stuff to a different format is probably a really good exercise in distilling story down to its essentials.
Thinking scenically is a help in general, I've found. I'm a really visual thinker so I tend to have an internal movie of things playing when I write. I've never tried to write a graphic novel though.
I have a couple different things I do. One is to start with reading a call for submissions, and think of a vague story idea, and then the protagonist. I uuuusually end up writing essentially the original story idea, but sometimes staying true to the character takes me elsewhere.
I also have done the come up with a protagonist or a cool first line thing and gone from there with no pre-existing plot ideas. In both cases, I pretty much know how the story will end after I've gotten about a third of the way through, if not before - it's the middle third that often gives me problems.
I'm really into following tropes through a story and structural resonance and etc. as a reader, and because I think that way, the first part of the story suggests to me what the ending has to be, in order for the theme to carry through. I'm not sure I can really explain my process for that without going into a specific story, but it's how I roll.
In fact, I think we should DISCUSS THIS MOAR. *grin* And I've read a bunch of your stories so I've got some context, too.
How much of the ending does the prompt dictate, do you think? I was saying to diseased_inside that one of the things that I like about fic writing from prompts is that plot is kind of set up for me by the nature of the prompt. Do you think calls for specific submissions combined with tropes do the same thing?
It depends. Since I am mostly writing romance and erotica these days, a happily-ever-after or happily-for-now is part of the prompt, either implicitly or explicitly in most cases, which definitely shapes the general direction of the ending. But I also prefer happy endings anyway, myself, so IDK how much that pushes me one way or the other.
Specific instance-wise, you've read my vampire gamers story - in that one, the original call for submissions that inspired it indicated that the editor was particularly interested in the foreverness aspect of vampire love stories, which very much shaped the ending lines.
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There is some zombie kissing - so it is TOTALLY fleshed out with undead flesh.
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The piece I'm working on now which is dirty dirty dirty, started out as a story about a bar fight. I never plan it just happens.
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One of the things that I love about you writing about your writing is that you find your own stuff hot. I have a really hard time engaging with most of my own supposedly sexy stuff.
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but when i was writing them, it was very much a game of "follow your nose." i really didn't edit until the second draft. and i've learned to be very brutal to everything.
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Do you find that time gives you a certain useful distance on stuff? The novel is based on a short story skeleton I wrote a few years back - having that separation from it let me be a lot more ruthless with certain things.
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so weapons of devotion was all re-purposed material, just in a different order. i knew exactly what happened in class of 63 - i just had to write it down. taste of flesh was an extremely stripped down prior novel. elements of the last two books were previously written, but some are brand new.
having distance allowed me to really work with the structure to make sure it was rock solid. i spent a few months working on that before i started the first book. that was where the writing group helped the most, to be honest. the conversion to graphic storytelling also helped me drop off elements that didn't make sense - the question of "how am i going to illustrate this?" is a great driver for getting rid of scenes that don't work or aren't necessary.
Reply
Thinking scenically is a help in general, I've found. I'm a really visual thinker so I tend to have an internal movie of things playing when I write. I've never tried to write a graphic novel though.
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I also have done the come up with a protagonist or a cool first line thing and gone from there with no pre-existing plot ideas. In both cases, I pretty much know how the story will end after I've gotten about a third of the way through, if not before - it's the middle third that often gives me problems.
I'm really into following tropes through a story and structural resonance and etc. as a reader, and because I think that way, the first part of the story suggests to me what the ending has to be, in order for the theme to carry through. I'm not sure I can really explain my process for that without going into a specific story, but it's how I roll.
...I don't know if any of this makes sense! D:
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In fact, I think we should DISCUSS THIS MOAR. *grin* And I've read a bunch of your stories so I've got some context, too.
How much of the ending does the prompt dictate, do you think? I was saying to diseased_inside that one of the things that I like about fic writing from prompts is that plot is kind of set up for me by the nature of the prompt. Do you think calls for specific submissions combined with tropes do the same thing?
Reply
Specific instance-wise, you've read my vampire gamers story - in that one, the original call for submissions that inspired it indicated that the editor was particularly interested in the foreverness aspect of vampire love stories, which very much shaped the ending lines.
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