Writing Thoughts #1: Jelly beans

[jadesfire]

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]

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

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.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

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.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

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!

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

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

[rivers-bend.livejournal.com]

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.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

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...

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

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 :)

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

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!

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

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.

[greyias.livejournal.com]

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.

[rivers-bend.livejournal.com]

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.

[wildcat88.livejournal.com]

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?

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

*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... ;)

[rivers-bend.livejournal.com]

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.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

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.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

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?

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

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

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

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

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

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

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

? 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.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

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.

[wildcat88.livejournal.com]

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).

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

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...]

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

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.

[greyias.livejournal.com]

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?