If right-side-up is normal, and upside-down is backwards, would left-side-up or downside-up be frontwards, sideways, or just plain screwy?
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For Sci's
Mini Challenge #1 And this is actually my tame writing process. You don’t want to be around when the bunnies are on a rampage…
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Most of my writings are crossovers. As such, I usually start off with one idea, and see how to make two worlds mesh without having it completely blow up in my face.
I’ll use my most recent piece as an example.
"Cursed" -- This one’s a xxxHOLiC, D.Gray-man crossover.
1. The initial idea came about like this:
Despite there being 109 Innocence in the DGM world, there are only 19 “conformers” (though, that number has been fluctuating with new people discovering their abilities or dying) when the manga started out. Somewhere in the first volume, we are introduced to the Finders of the Black Order, who are basically people who wanted to become Exorcists, but were unable to.
And so, the big question is: Why, out of the hundreds (if not thousands) of people in the organization, are there less than two dozen individuals who are compatible with the Innocence? Is there some criteria that we are not aware of that would drastically reduce the vast majority of candidates right off the bat?
Of course, I hadn’t even factored in the crossover aspect just yet. Most of my ideas don’t start off as such, and it isn’t until I’m bitten by the Crossover Vampire (it exists, I tell you!) that the bunny starts going crazy on me. That, and xxxHOLiC just makes it ridiculously easy to produce crossovers. Curse you, CLAMP.
2. This is where I get bitten by the Cross-Vamp. (I think I’m going to keep that name from now on).
What if, the Innocence activates because something more is required from the user? Cough. Yuuko is the person who grants the wish of activation by obtaining something else in return?
I forget where, but it was mentioned in passing that constantly using the Innocence drains away at one’s life…
3. My brain explodes at the possibilities.
Enough said.
4. Plan!
The first part of planning involves the medium/tone I want to use. First person, third person, past, present, etc. Do I use this character, or that? Limited so that we only see what the character sees, or omniscient so that it’s like watching a movie?
Sometimes, I have a general outline. That’s very rare, though. Most of my one-shots don’t use outlines because there isn’t a restrictive time frame that I have to adhere to, unless I have a point that I absolutely must include.
Most of the time, though, there’s a certain flow I want to use, or specific events that I want to have happen. I usually end up planning a lot of possibilities (but no concrete scenes) in my head before I even start typing.
If there’s dialogue, I put it in first and fill in the descriptions later. There are a few cases where this doesn’t work because there’s almost no dialogue - like this example.
5. Usually I try to start at the beginning, and work my way up to the end.
I have the basic idea down, now I need to find somewhere to start.
Tonight is the new moon. - was my first thought, because I wanted Yuuko to reflect on how it’s the beginning of a new … month? Eh, that’s not completely right. Like, there are stories that are just starting, and the moon is a representation of it.
Then I had her gravitate towards the small koi pond in her back yard, but thought there was something missing in the process. So I added in the stars, because there isn’t an explanation of why she’s outside in the first place.
I usually don’t jump around too drastically, because I have a pretty good idea of where I want things to go. It’s like a movie clip. Enter here, do this, exit there, character interaction, climax, resolution, maybe a little coda-thing at the end, cut, done.
6. When I get stuck, I leave incomplete sentences here and there as little cues.
This one-shot was surprising in the sense that I didn’t need to use this little step at all. I have so many other pieces that are riddled with green lines because Microsoft Word keeps telling me, “FRAGMENT, CHANGE IT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!”
7. Fill in the blanks.
Yeah. This is the part I have the most trouble with.
8. Edit!?
Stuff like word choices, tense inconsistencies, minor paragraph/sentence rearranging, and lots of formatting stuff. Like italics. I love playing around with those.
However, once I write something, it generally stays the same. I like editing stuff before I write it down (don’t look at me - it sounds weird in my head too), so there’s very little back-tracking. I think my backspace button feels neglected unless there’s a misspelled word somewhere, or I was being incredibly stupid while writing.
That was a joke. I think my backspace button is the most used one on my keyboard, because I end up deleting sentences that sound stupid before I even finish them on screen. My brain likes to take a lot of things back while my fingers are moving.
9. Extra stuff.
Sometimes, I like to interject things to shape the mood more. For instance:
“Yuuko-san, you should stop drinking.”
“Stop drinking, he says!”
“Stop drinking, stop drinking!”
“Nonsense. One more toast!”
That entire dialogue section wasn’t there the first time around, but I thought it would be nice to see Watanuki and the others come in to the picture.
10. Coming up with a title
Stop looking at me funny. I’ll have you know that my brain spawns crossover plunnies like you wouldn’t believe, but it can’t come up with one or two words for the heading.
11. Get lazy.
Yeah. Believe it or not, this is a very big part of my writing process. Interject this point in between every previous number, and there you go.
But at the end, it only means that I’m tired of looking over my works, and I just post whatever I have written so far. If I find a mistake after the fact, I fix it, depending on how terrible it is.
Of course, I get lazy about the fixing part too.
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You know what? Next time, I should just record my process through video or something, because I’m pretty sure I skipped all the five-hundred-thousand-million-twenty-some other steps involved.