jadesfire | Writing Thoughts #1: Jelly beans

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Writing Thoughts #1: Jelly beans

I'm thinking a lot about writing at the moment, and am trying to organise those thoughts into something resembling coherency (no sniggering at the back; I can hear you!). Rather than create a separate filter – I met many of you through writing, after all – I'm going to be very strict about cutting the thoughts, in order to save the scroll fingers of those who'd rather pass on by.

Yesterday, I put up a meme for people to ask me questions about my stories, and I discovered a rather odd thing. While I had certainly learned a lot from each story I wrote, and while some of them had potential sequels, very few of them had things 'left out'. I'm not sure if this indicates a lack of imagination on my part, or if it's another expression of my weird synaesthesia-induced writing method, so I thought I'd ask the rest of you about it.

When answering the question 'what did you leave out?' of a story, my answer was almost always 'nothing'. The only exception to this was my Martha-walks-the-world story, and even then, I didn't exactly leave things out. There were other stories I could have told that weren't sequels to it in a strict sense, but I don't actually know now whether they were part of A Life of Joy and Peace or not. My instinct is that they aren't, that they're part of a bigger story arc. That story is complete as it stands, like all my stories.

My betas will be able to correct me on this, but I don't think I usually have 'missing scenes' from my stories. I'll cut paragraphs, scenes, thousands of words from them, of course. That's not because they don't flow with the story, but because they're not part of the story. They don't belong there, which is why I delete them and re-work the ideas and lines I'm happy with back into the main story.

I'm fairly sure that my synaesthesia plays a big role in this. I write in a wholly linear style, starting at the beginning and working through to the end, and while I'll expand in editing, I rarely re-structure the whole story or write out of order. Even when my story structures play about with time,* I write in the order that you read. That's because I can 'see' the story taking shape in my head. Most stories are sort of jelly-bean shaped, and I can't think of any that have actual corners, although some have spikes. They're mostly blue-toned in colour, although that ranges from near-lilac to midnight-blue, and I have the odd crackfic that's pink. But if I start the story in the wrong place, it just doesn't work, like trying to blow up a balloon from the wrong end. Actually, a balloon's probably the best analogy for how I feel my way through the story. If a part isn't getting filled out properly, or it's not getting filled out at all (don't ask me how I can tell. I just know) then I have to take a deep breath and start again.

I think that's why I tend not to have lots of missing scenes from my stories. If they're not in the story, it's because they're not part of the story. I might find that they're parts of other stories, which are connected to the story I'm writing, but ultimately, they're not missing.

* Like Vegas or Difficulties in Mathematics where the scenes are not shown in chronological order. They weren't written in chronological order either. They were written with much scrolling up and down the page to check I was getting it right.

What about people who take a saner approach to the art of story structure? Do you find that you have missing scenes, the fic equivalent of DVD extras? Or does everything that you write end up in the story?

[apologies for spamtasticness today, folks. Cross-posted link to

heretoutopia]

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Thinking of it in those terms seems to make it easier to manage writing them; also you so need a demo copy of Writer's Cafe if you haven't got one already, it is vere-useful.

Bwah, I would write it to were I not of the opinion that people only write books on how to write when they cannot, in fact, write. Am too proud at this juncture.

Ah, the readers don't know the difference! ;)

I used to not change almost anything about what I wrote, because it was absolute painstaking process to get it down in the first place. It's still rather painful, but it's a little more fluid for me now. But I also tend to think in overall scenes, so the paragraphs and words are a little more flexible and forgiving in that way, I think.

I don't know how I write. Mostly, I need an image, and everything else kind of builds around that. My dS Match fic, Frozen? Happened because I couldn't shake the image of Ray and Fraser dancing together and Fraser noticing how cold Ray's skin was. My most successful stories (ie the ones I can bear to go back and read) usually have a strong sense of 'place' - south of France, war-time London, the frozen north... If I don't have that it doesn't seem to work as well, which is why I spend as long as I do looking at photos and reading about locations.

As for 'missing scenes', I think I do have them. While my stories are complete in themselves, and mostly say what I want them to say, there are always bits and pieces that I don't show. Usually they get left out because they don't add anything to the story - there's nothing wrong with them, exactly, but they just feel like an indulgence, or like treading water. I also like to leave stories in a place where the reader can continue it how they wish - if they want to think that Fraser and Alex lived happily ever after (in Frozen), then that's fine. I didn't explicitly tell them that that's what happened, but I hopefully gave them enough clues to lead them to draw the conclusion I wanted them to. Um. If that makes sense...

(God, that icon never fails to crack me up!)

Wow, that's quite a few beginnings! I think the most I had was about three, also for the gen ficathon. I wound up finishing two of them, the third is still straggling along. Maybe one day...

Sometimes when I write, I can see the entire story from start to finish in my head (like the one I'm going to start working on TODAY). I see body movement, hear the inflection in their voices when they speak. I have to convince myself not to write down every single tic and expression.

Other times, I have a vague notion of what's going to happen. I might know that John and Teyla are going to be captured by Wraith. Why? How? Where were they when it happened? I have to work backward to figure out where to start. Does that make sense?

In "An Infirmary Christmas" my prompt was the gang celebrating Christmas in the infirmary. So I knew the ending. I needed sufficient trauma to keep them all there. So, what happened? The scene where John "sees" his team killed jumped almost fully formed in my head. It's the middle of the story and the first scene I wrote. I had to go backward to figure out where they were and why and then go forward to get them home and to the celebration. Some parts of it (Teyla pressing her forehead to John's when he wakes) were crystal clear before I even got there - even the dialogue. I just have to get them where I want - transitional stuff.

Sometimes the characters learn things I didn't expect. I generally have an idea of where I'm going, but I don't let it keep me in the box if they decide they want to go somewhere else. Usually the moments of inspiration (such as sending John a care package in "Fields of Green" or Rodney building John a golf course in "A Matter of the Heart" or Rodney ripping his diplomas off the wall and replacing them with Ronon's painting in "Until Under a Better Sky") are what I get the most comments on.

Now that I think about it, I almost always know the ending first (maybe not the last line, but where the story is going) even though it's subject to change. Story set up is the hardest thing I do.

Isn't that the best icon! :)

That gen ficathon fic really is the hardest thing I've ever written. I almost fainted when I got the "slave" prompt simply because there is so much slave fic out there (and some really, REALLY good ones). I went a hundred different ways before I finally found the right way for it.

I'm just glad to still have hair because there for a while...

I'm with you on subplot. I haven't ever really tried to do something like that before, and it scares me. Maybe this is the year...

Writers cafe looks very shiny, especially since there's a little penguin sitting next to the apple, which means it will play nicely with my tiny computer. Thanks.

Yeah, I tend to feel like that, which is why I write about the writing process. Anything that begins 'this is how you should write' tends to make me back away pretty quickly.

(So far I've just been greedily mainlining the pinboard function, let me know how you get on with Storylines?)

On keeping stuff - normally I'm a packrat too, and like to keep everything, but I tend to keep ideas or 'what ifs' rather than actual words. I'm terrible at letting go, so unless I actually delete what isn't working, I can't get free enough to write what does, if that makes sense. Would love to see the outtakes, though ;)

On seeing things - *g* I knew it! For me, I blame too much Buffy at an impressionable age, but I could block out the fight scenes in Bibula Harena in my head. If it had been a movie, I could have directed it. And someone once told me that they could see the camera angles in my stories, which I took as a compliment :) I think it's why I love love love having art for my stories - because for me, writing is as much visual as anything else, and the art just backs it up. My dialogue has to be more spontaneous, and early drafts are littered with John says, "You're worse than [something funny]" It's fine as well as I remember to edit them out...

My CM fic is tricky. I have A Point to make, but it's not about the characters, so they don't see the point of cooperating with me :S Once I give Reid an actual arc, he'll be happier, I'm sure.

My stories build themself a bit like yours - they flow, from start to finish, and they form into shape as they do so. My subconscious is a lot smarter than I am. I don't see them in shapes, or in colours - I see them in moods, if that makes any sense. I have a goal for my stories, and they always get there, but they can take some unexpected and twisty paths in order to do so!

Speaking of stories - I have now signed up to TARDIS Big Bang. And it's all your fault. *grin*

That's fascinating. I very rarely cut whole scenes. Re-work them back in, yes, but normally I have enough trouble getting down what I want to say without cutting stuff out ;)

That's interesting. I tend not to do so well off of images - it has to be the idea that comes first, usually a simple but strong one ("John grieving for Elizabeth") rather than an image. Your stories always do have that strong sense of place, so it's definitely working for you.

Like you, I like to leave my endings open, but I'll usually know when I start a scene whether it's going to push things along or not, and if it isn't, I scrap it. It maybe comes back to what I was saying upthread about the idea of "the story" - they'll be details that are part of the world that won't make it in, but for me, 'the story' is kind of a fixed, limited thing.

If that makes sense too... ;D

Oh yes - I can't plot for toffee, so I'd be lost without my subconscious, which always seems to know what it's doing somehow.

YAY!!! *evil enabling grin*

It basically boils down to me wanting to put too much into the stories - which isn't always right for the plot or anything, and which is why I am basically afraid of the Big Bang Ficathons - I see myself writing pages upon pages of crap ~~that would sound just like the Eragon novels~~

I think mine are like badly-rolled joints, kind of lumpy in the middle, and the more subplots they have the more spikes there are, only then it's more like a nerve ganglion than a spiky thing - there are other stories leading off it and you have to be careful not to follow them and just hack them away to get the, the root, the tuber, the story you were after.

Sometimes in longer fic there are missing scenes, missing because I imagined them but didn't write them. Team B has some. Sometimes I just can't be arsed to write a linking section or a sex scene so just leap over it and it never happens, but as my approach to writing stories shorter than a novel tends to be the "DEATH TO THE PIÑATA" approach (flail wildly while swearing until something explodes overhead and rains down more story than you know what to do with) I suppose that's inevitable.

That's not because they don't flow with the story, but because they're not part of the story.

I think that gets to the definition you're using of "the story." The story as its own entity, a complete work. So if something *doesn't* help fill it out, by definition it isn't part of the story. That makes sense in my head...

I have had "missing scenes" and things I'll write down, knowing they're not part of the story I'm working on, but because they're part of the *world* that's forming in my head, I want to save them.

I know I've said before that I find your synaesthesia and linear process fascinating. I'm trying to learn as much as I can about other people's writing processes, and the challenge is to not assume that if I do it differently, I'm doing it wrong.

the "DEATH TO THE PIÑATA" approach (flail wildly while swearing until something explodes overhead and rains down more story than you know what to do with)

I love that image!

I start at the beginning and write until it reaches the end. I'm not able to bounce about as I know others can. Also, if I write it then it usually goes in. That's not to say that things don't get left out. I tend to work through a fic in my head before writing it down...sort of like playing chess and thinking three moves ahead. Sometimes some of the stuff that plays out in my head doesn't end up written down because it doesn't affect the story, doesn't build it, is superfluous or simply doesn't work. But, if it gets written it's unlikely it will be removed.

I find your synaesthesia fascinating, I can't imagine what it must be like to see things that way.

nate

nate

I also write in a wholly linear style, and never from a plan, so there is nothing 'left out' in that sense. But if I go back and read the story again, there is always something that isn't in there that informed the writing but doesn't matter to the plot so isn't on the page. as an example from my meme, in the Thelma and Louise story I wrote, Louise called Thelma but never let the phone ring every day for nearly a month after she was raped in Texas. She never told Thelma, and mostly the story is from Thelma's POV (and wow, what a mess of POV I made in that, but never mind), and so it's not there. But I still knew it.

This year, I plan to master the subplot. It's not something I've ever been able to integrate into my stories, which is ironic considering I write for TV fandoms which are usually predicated on the idea that there is an A and B plot*. I like the idea of it being how you've described - the visual image definitely works for me.

DEATH TO THE PIÑATA should be the name of a writing book. Definitely.

*Unless it's Criminal Minds, in which case what you think is the A plot is probably the B and oh look, you missed the C plot while you were faffing around with that. That'll come back to bite you...

Oh yes - I ended up with Sic Transit Tempus because of that world building. Stuff would happen in a story, and I'd know it was true, but I'd have to go and find out why and how it was true, so the 'verse just kept on going.

Trying to describe the synaesthesia requires more hand-waving than I can manage here (I'm not allowed to talk about writing while near glassware) but it does help, trying to pin it down a little.

One of the things that all the personality typing stuff has been really helpful for has been understanding that I just think *differently* to most people. It doesn't make either of us wrong, it just means that I need to take care when communicating because what's good for me will be gibberish to someone else. I'm learning to take the best bits from other people's advice and integrate it into what I do well. It's always, always a process :)

Do you know the ending when you start? And do you add things on editing? I never do and sometimes do :) I'm intrigued that so many other people write in a linear way. it's kind of reassuring!

it's hard trying to get down in words something that's a sort of nebulous glow behind my eyes. I feel it as much as see it (stories are also squidgy, and some are smooth and some are furry) - all my senses get in on the act!

there is always something that isn't in there that informed the writing but doesn't matter to the plot so isn't on the page.
Do you consider those things to be part of the story, or not? I know what you mean about unseen things informing the story - I had to know exactly what a character had been doing in the war, although only his uniform made it onto the page - but I don't think of them as being part of the story as such. It's intriguing, and those are the things that sometims spawn sequels/prequels/monster-ficverses-that-you-didn't-mean-to-write.

Sanity is overrated.

After reading through a post over at

writers_lair, I started C&P'ing writing scraps in a separate file I like to think of as a "scratchpad". Mostly it's sentences, sometimes words or phrases, occasionally a scene snippet. (Whatever window I'm typing a WIP in looks strange at the bottom.) I don't often have missing scenes, fully written and formed, but I do have a lot of "false starts". Kind of... "I think this is what I want to say, but no, that's not quite right, ENTER ENTER ENTER ENTER, this is what I was really saying... *pause, stare* No, I wasn't saying that at all!" By the time I finish the scene, there's all sorts of things down there, and I'll kindly cut and paste it into the scratchpad, so it's not deleted, but it's out of the way. So there's extras in that sense, but nothing I'd put on a DVD.

As far as structure... uh... it depends on the length? That always usually gets away with me, but if it's a short musing or one-shot, like "Penitence" it kind of congeals and coalesces around the thoughts and bits of narrative, and I have to draw the little bridges connecting them.

Something where I find myself having a plot, I treat it like a movie, in that each scene is separate and contained, and serves some purpose within the story as a whole, and they're steadily working towards the "climax". If I don't know what the "climax" is, that goal that I'm working towards, I'm usually flailing around like mad, and I think it shows. Which is probably part of the problem with the current story I'm working on, come to think of it. I've got no earthly clue what that point is. Just a series of interrelated scenes in my head.

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Writing Thoughts #1: Jelly beans

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