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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I don't really think of 'the story' in a concrete sense. and sadly, definitely not in an awesome blue balloon sense. (I love that) To me the story is just a piece of life put down on the page. like if I told you what I made for lunch yesterday, that's not my whole day. and obviously that is a crappy comparison, but hopefully kind of makes the point. i have no affinity at all for some of the traditional 'craft' of story telling. Arc and conflict and that sort of thing. Mostly, I am just deeply fascinated by character and want to watch them, or write about them. So I guess I consider everything that has ever happened to a character, everything they have seen, heard, can remember, all of it, to be part of the story, but not to be part of the words on the page under a particular title.

I write linearly as well. Only once have I written a scene out of order and that's because it was the crux of the story. Everything that happened before and after depended on how this scene played out. It was strange, but it worked really well.

Sometimes I know exactly where the story is going. Other times I'm along for the ride. I have a general idea of what the story is about and let it flow. For example, I'm working on an SGA story now that is supposed to be the aftermath of rescue. I'm 5000 words in and just got to the rescue. I know in general what's going to happen but no specifics. I have another one in the works that I know exactly how it will end including some dialogue even though I haven't written a word yet.

Strange, no?

*nods* that makes sense. I think because of the boundaries put around my writing by the whole jelly bean thing (NOM!), I'm sort of forced to think terms of 'the story' - it has boundaries by definition, I can touch it and prod it and feel it (they have texture, smooth or furry or whatever, although thankfully not smell. that would be weird ;)) and I know what goes into it and what doesn't.

I think I have a tendency to write from outside a character, which is tied into what will probably be my next meta about how important the visual is in my stories. I remember you saying how you don't necessarily 'see' what's happening in your stories. For me, I primarily see it - I watch the film in my head and write it down - so those extra details are...what? Set dressing, maybe? Everything they've seen and heard is relevant, but to me, it's not exactly part of the story, if you see what I mean. It's part of the world, just not the story I'm telling at that moment.

*tilts head* I have this horrible feeling I'm making less and less sense the more I type... ;)

you must be making sense, because I totally can see what you're saying, even though your experience is so so totally different from mine. One of the things I like best about this art that we do is how it can be experienced so vastly differently by those of us creating the art but look essentially the same to any given reader (and yet be experienced differently by each reader).

WORDS. I LOVE THEM.

That's interesting about your scratchpad. I'll cannibalise lines and phrases and plot bunnies from failed drafts, but I tend not to actually save the stuff like that. For me, it's distracting and I'm better off getting rid of it and starting over.

Instinctively, I would have said I agree with you about structure being different in short or long stories, but I found with writing "Resonance" that actually it isn't for me. All my stories that I'd consider *have* a structure (there are some little character studies that don't, really) tend to fall into three or four parts - set-up, action, [results/more action], conclusion. My brain works in threes so I think it's comfortable there, and again, it's part of the shape - the bend in the middle of the jelly bean.

Um. That one sounded better in my head. moving on.

Out of interest, do you literally 'see' the story as a movie. I ask because that's how it felt to me in 'See No Evil' - it's how I write, and I suspect it's common to writers who like to write action scenes. That you block it out in your head and write it down? Those scenes really *worked* for me, so I just wondered.

the movie analogy is a good one, I think - every scene should push the story along. Is your goal usually a character one or a plot one? I thought I had a point for my Criminal Minds WIP, but it's proved to be a plot point rather than a character one, and the story is floundering as a result. I have to know what I want the characters to have learned/experienced by the end - even if I don't know the method - or I just can't write the story.

Even if I know there's a 'crucial' scene (which most of my stories have), I tend to write in order. I actually found myself blocked in writing a series, because I knew what had to happen in the sixth story, and because it was going to hurt like hell to write, I ended up not being able to write the third one! It's interesting that so many other people write in linear order too. I had the impression that it was a weird Jades-thing ;)

By 'where it's going', is that for the characters or the plot? I'm intrigued as to whether people write with plot direction in mind - I can't, at all. If I don't know what the characters are supposed to be learning or showing, then I just can't write.

I'm very very intrigued by knowing the ending first - does that happen very much?

I hardly ever know where it's going to end, which is probably where I get into trouble with having so many WiPs because they just keep going lol. My editing process usually adds very little, just smooths out the jagged edges and hopefully makes it a bit more readable. :)

You have a multi-sensual experience when you're writing, that's pretty cool. *grins*

nate

Interesting, I don't think I've ever started and changed the beginning. I usually have such a clear first couple of paragraphs in my head I think they're usually the strongest part of the process for me (I dunno if my readers would feel the same) lol.

nate

the more I read about how others write the more I think I'm doing it wrong.

But I do love that you have a 'nope still getting weirder' tag

? What do you think you're doing wrong? Or what do you think they're/we're doing that you're not?

I *have* to over-think things. It's the way my brain is wired and I can't help myself. But there's lots of great writers who just *flaps hands* write. No tricks, no deep thinky thoughts. They just do it. Whatever works for you, works. That's got to be good enough?

Heh. I kept thinking that the more I tried to explain the synaesthesia, the more sense it would make. Yeah, right.

I don't plan things out. At all. Charming the Pants was the result of a brief thought of 'ooh, Jack and Shep in a cave with Jack dead!' That's it. And more often than not I don't fill in details- how did X happen, why, any of those sorts of things I just skip over.

I learned the same thing from

writers_lair. For example, when working on my story for the gen ficathon last year, I wrote no less than 5 (count 'em FIVE) completely different beginnings before I found one I liked. The other beginnings have morphed into completely different stories (well, one still to go, but it's in the works).

Planning? Planning? *hysterical laughter* And that would be...what exactly? You and I start in different places, but the principle's the same. I tend to think "how can I say x about [character]" and force the plot around it. My impression is that you start more with the scene and use that to show us something about the characters. It's the same principle, just mirror-image.

I do think it's possible for writers do be 'doing it wrong' [prosecution exhibit A: Fanfiction.net] but I don't think lack of planning is one of those ways.

Besides, I can also produce your fic as the remainder of my exhibits, so ner ;P [edit - realised that was ambiguous, sorry - as exhibits of how you're NOT doing it wrong *facepalm*. Right. Going home now...]

Interesting. I usually cut scenes for the same reason, but they usually do fit in some way or another, just don't make any sense in that context or are just me rambling and giving too much of the plot away.

Re: Scratchpad

I've found it to be really freeing for me, but I'm also a packrat. I think I'm going to need those words. Every single one of them. What if I'm five pages down the road, and suddenly I want to use something I deleted? (These are my thought processes, not necessarily the sanest or most logical, but ya know.) It sort of... gives me permission to just keep trucking on, because I'm not deleting anything.

I'll have to show you those bits at some point, just because they're so darn odd.

Re: Structure

Okay... I might have been lying a little, because at some point, I do usually realize where I'm going with something. That something doesn't always necessarily resemble it, but in my head that "somewhere" is what I've been calling the climax. Architecturally speaking, it's the "support beam", without it the story is never going to hold much weight.

Out of interest, do you literally 'see' the story as a movie. I ask because that's how it felt to me in 'See No Evil' - it's how I write, and I suspect it's common to writers who like to write action scenes. That you block it out in your head and write it down? Those scenes really *worked* for me, so I just wondered.

I do! And I mean, I literally see it as a movie in my head. With cuts, close-ups, rising swell of music, dramatic pauses, the whole shebang. A lot of the time, I'll generally "block" it out in my head, I know who's standing where, where they move, what happens after that (generally). If there's dialogue, I kind of have an idea of what it's about, sometimes it's fun and snappy and fully formed, other times it's marked as [ACTORS IMPROV] in my head. I usually do this either late at night when I'm falling asleep, while I'm in traffic, or doing some mundane task with my brain turned off and my music turned on.

When the actual prose starts to accompany the action and the movie, that's when I know I'm in trouble.

Is your goal usually a character one or a plot one?

Except on the very rare occasion, it's almost always both. While the plot and characters are separate things in my mind, they both move along at their own pace and are distinct entities, they influence each other constantly, to where they're almost like a piece of string, several threads twined together to make one stronger narrative. (If that analogy fits.)

Sometimes one will overshadow the other in its importance for that climax/something/it moment. The plot, the actual action and motion of the story in "See No Evil" wound up providing the story-wise climax (I still haven't figured out if it was the motorcycle chase or the final fight with Marrick), but both John and Rodney wound up having distinct, emotional arcs that came to a head right around the same time. John's in general had to do with finding his purpose again, in this case in protecting Rodney. Rodney's was in choosing his friend, definitively, over his assignment/getting his life back.

"Wit's End" was all about getting Rodney to his breaking point, so every single thing in that story was working toward that moment, and how he would come back. So there was plot in that story, but it was the character arc that drove it rather than the story's mechanics.

Out of curiosity, what's the issue you're having with the Criminal Minds WIP?

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.

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Writing Thoughts #1: Jelly beans

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