the short and the long of fic
Nov. 1st, 2005 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Writing a long fic is really different from writing a short fic.
I am finding it is qualitatively different, not just quantitatively. It is novel vs short story. I have posted some quite long stories before but I didn't write them as long stories. They were written as a series of short stories, so in sequelised form they morphed into a long story, without my needing to do anything about it.
It is different with long fics and I haven't mastered the art of finishing them. It is this that I miss and don't like about the long fic. There was always, towards the end of a short fic, that wonderful feeling of resolution where I was suddenly typing a sentence and realised, omg, this is it, this is the last sentence and isn't it beautiful? And then I took my fingers off the keyboard and lo, I knew it was done. And I could go off and wait for that post-orgasmic feedback.
Now? Nothing. No tingling pre-climactic anticipation, no feedback, nada, nix. Just an endless slog of plot convolutions, character complications, shifting povs, continuity glitches as I forget what I've written eight months ago, riffling through pages and pages of print-out and lots of wondering, is it even worth it? Will this ever be finished? What is the point if by the time I post Book 7 will be out and the canon will be in shreds around me?
In short fic, I found that one key was to pick 1a) one character whose mind to inhabit, or 1b) choose two characters whose minds to inhabit alternately; 2) hit upon a voice and mood and go with it (breezy, humorous, angsty, lyrical); 3) match mood to style and stick with that and choose words and length of sentence accordingly. This, for me, worked.
It's not working for long fic. I am now really missing that narrator who, I now realise, wasn't really trained when I was writing short fic. In short fic, I found I could rely on voice to do my narrating; that is, my narrator could unproblematically inhabit one of my characters, with the occasional worldly, knowing nod of an external narrator commenting. But in this long fic I'm finding that this is very difficult. I feel the need for an external voice to come in and smooth things over, to connect the dots between the various characters' povs, all deluded in their own ways, in a Jane Austenish manner.
I'm also finding that short fic can be written in the space of a week, a day, a few hours. It is not so difficult to sustain mood and pace over that time span. But with the long fic, I feel as if I'm entering a new mood and voice every time I sit down to write a chunk.
Oh, and this is the HP fic I'm talking about. The one with Draco and Harry and Dudley and Petunia povs.
I would really be interested in hearing other authors' experiences. Especially those who've had experience writing both short and long, and the problems they've encountered. And especially somebody who actually managed to finish a long fic and what strategies they used to get them there!
I feel I just want to get the whole thing out on paper now, never mind the continuity and the gaps in stylistic coherence. But then I'll have something to work on, to revise. But often the fun seems to be taken out of it that way, and I'm losing touch with my character's emotional centres.
I am finding it is qualitatively different, not just quantitatively. It is novel vs short story. I have posted some quite long stories before but I didn't write them as long stories. They were written as a series of short stories, so in sequelised form they morphed into a long story, without my needing to do anything about it.
It is different with long fics and I haven't mastered the art of finishing them. It is this that I miss and don't like about the long fic. There was always, towards the end of a short fic, that wonderful feeling of resolution where I was suddenly typing a sentence and realised, omg, this is it, this is the last sentence and isn't it beautiful? And then I took my fingers off the keyboard and lo, I knew it was done. And I could go off and wait for that post-orgasmic feedback.
Now? Nothing. No tingling pre-climactic anticipation, no feedback, nada, nix. Just an endless slog of plot convolutions, character complications, shifting povs, continuity glitches as I forget what I've written eight months ago, riffling through pages and pages of print-out and lots of wondering, is it even worth it? Will this ever be finished? What is the point if by the time I post Book 7 will be out and the canon will be in shreds around me?
In short fic, I found that one key was to pick 1a) one character whose mind to inhabit, or 1b) choose two characters whose minds to inhabit alternately; 2) hit upon a voice and mood and go with it (breezy, humorous, angsty, lyrical); 3) match mood to style and stick with that and choose words and length of sentence accordingly. This, for me, worked.
It's not working for long fic. I am now really missing that narrator who, I now realise, wasn't really trained when I was writing short fic. In short fic, I found I could rely on voice to do my narrating; that is, my narrator could unproblematically inhabit one of my characters, with the occasional worldly, knowing nod of an external narrator commenting. But in this long fic I'm finding that this is very difficult. I feel the need for an external voice to come in and smooth things over, to connect the dots between the various characters' povs, all deluded in their own ways, in a Jane Austenish manner.
I'm also finding that short fic can be written in the space of a week, a day, a few hours. It is not so difficult to sustain mood and pace over that time span. But with the long fic, I feel as if I'm entering a new mood and voice every time I sit down to write a chunk.
Oh, and this is the HP fic I'm talking about. The one with Draco and Harry and Dudley and Petunia povs.
I would really be interested in hearing other authors' experiences. Especially those who've had experience writing both short and long, and the problems they've encountered. And especially somebody who actually managed to finish a long fic and what strategies they used to get them there!
I feel I just want to get the whole thing out on paper now, never mind the continuity and the gaps in stylistic coherence. But then I'll have something to work on, to revise. But often the fun seems to be taken out of it that way, and I'm losing touch with my character's emotional centres.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-01 10:48 pm (UTC)*sighs all over your journal*
Sorry, your LJ is now all covered in sighs. You'll have to do some vacuuming.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 02:20 pm (UTC)*guffaws at thy icon*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-01 11:02 pm (UTC)The longest stories I've ever written are still in my WIP folder, gasping at the last few hurdles [I just checked, and simply languishing above the 100k mark I've got 11 different stories]. Otoh, I find the writing process of mediumfic much more satisfying than shortfic, because it feels more about skill/fulfilment than cleverness/punchlines.
As for the biggest problem for me, I reckon it's time. The longer a piece, the rougher it will be for longer, the more times I'll lose faith in it, and the less likely I'll be to get a beta involved - because by default it will be further from the finished product and I don't like to waste betas' time. However, without someone to bounce thoughts off, my interest wanes all the faster (and unarticulated problems with the story seem even more insurmountable).
What is the point if by the time I post Book 7 will be out and the canon will be in shreds around me?
You can't let that bother you too much, methinks.
<is cheerfully working on a so-far-20,000 word Draco/Snape that got *hideously* jossed by book 6...<
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 02:24 pm (UTC)because by default it will be further from the finished product and I don't like to waste betas' time. However, without someone to bounce thoughts off, my interest wanes all the faster
Um. You are the beta for this whopper. *bats eyelashes but is not sure why is doing this* Are you still up for this???
*claws at screen*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 02:40 pm (UTC)<flounders in the mire>
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 07:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-01 11:12 pm (UTC)Other than that ... there's not a whole lot of insight I can offer here, except for the fact that I like the slow lazy slide into significance that long stories offer me. With the long stuff, I can really take my time in setting things up, and people care more about the characters (myself included) by the time we get to the end.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 09:30 pm (UTC)I can really take my time in setting things up,
Yes, this is what I like about reading long fics but the writing of them I find very hard. I find it difficult to do all that setting up, to get the balance right -- I'm much more used to plunging straight in, as one does for short fic.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-01 11:28 pm (UTC)It's hard to offer much insight when I don't know what you mean by 'long' and 'short'. I mean, I consider a long story to be over 15,000 words, but obviously
What I like about writing long stories is that they surprise me. When I start, I know where the story begins and where it ends, and I have a few signposts along the way to guide me. But the route it ends up taking often astonishes and pleases me. Short stories rarely do that, because there's not enough room between beginning and end for things to happen on their own.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 09:36 pm (UTC)I was a bit vague about long and short, this is true. I've now gone back and done some word counts on my stories and I've discovered that by 'short' I meant 20,000 words and under and by long I meant 80,000 words plus. Somehow, I never seem to stop between those counts; it's either 2000, 20,000 or 100,000 words, and the 100,000 monsters I never finish! (grrgr)
What I like about writing long stories is that they surprise me.
This is interesting. Now, for me it's been completely different. The short ones (and by short I mean 2000 to 20,000 words) can surprise me, and often have, and I love that. My long ones don't, or not as much. There is too much to keep juggled in my head, all the different plot threads and character arcs, and because I obsess about them endlessly, they are all planned out in my head by the time I even type words. I'm actually really glad you reminded me of this; perhaps I've got to try and learn to be surprised again and somehow to retain that pleasure for writing a long fic otherwise, half the time, I feel bored writing it all down because it's all there in my head already!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 07:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 09:40 pm (UTC)It also opens you up to commentary on the actions of your protagonist without involving their motives or egos.
Yes! I guess this is what I meant by the narrating voice.
I also like the relaxed pace of parcelling out the action and exposition in a longer style.
I like this a lot when reading but find it very difficult and a chore to write. This is the crux of it: a long fic needs exposition, and I am crap at writing exposition. I just haven't yet got a handle on how to do it elegantly and enjoyably.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 01:47 pm (UTC)But in lotrips I've only ever written short fics.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 09:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 09:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 01:31 pm (UTC)You have to understand, too, that when I say a "part" I don't mean today's story parts that are 2-3 pages. Each part was around 65-75 pages in Word, and each part had 10-11 scenes that were each about 5-7 pages long.
Story 1 - I had written parts 1-5 from 1994-1996, and then I didn't touch it again until 2000. At that point I did a heavy revision of parts 1-5 and wrote parts 6-7, then 8, then 9. Then, all that remained was to end it, and I had such a hard time with that! I finally wrote part 10 and a short part 11 (epilogue) in January 2004, and then it was FINISHED!!!!! It was a GREAT feeling, such a relief. It didn't really feel weird at all. And yeah, it is now totally out of my system.
The other long story that I did was begun in 2000 and also ended at the same time as the other one (I set it as my goal in fall 2004 to end both of them by the end of the year). That one was satisfying to finish because of the plot working out the way I wanted it to (and it was more of a mystery with clues and stuff, so that part was fun), but I felt more weird than good about it because I was very attached to my original character that I'd written in a romance with one of the real-life guys, and I didn't want to stop writing him.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 04:18 pm (UTC)Now, just for interest's sake, what are the three stories you describe called? And where do you keep them?
Oh, and another question: When you went back to that nine-year-fic in 2000, did your view of the characters change? Had things happened in your head in the meantime?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 05:45 pm (UTC)When I went back to the nine-year fic in 2000...my view of the characters had changed because of real-life events and the fact that I knew much more about them. It changed the ending, actually, because when I started writing it I had a really naive view of the four main characters teaming up out of friendship, and when I started writing it again, I couldn't bring myself to write it that way because in real-life one of them had proven to be a real ass to one of the others and they were definitely not friends. This particular guy is someone that I have lost all respect for, actually, on a personal basis. So I dragged his character through the mud a little and made him make some stupid, cowardly decisions. ;) It ended up helping the story and making it more realistic and complicated, because they did end up having to work together, but it was more conflicted and full of compromises.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 10:16 pm (UTC)I will now check my lobelia email. I haven't checked that email in about seven months! I do all my tigging and togging via 'recent comments' and scrolling back to posts that I seem to remember having tigged once upon a time. This makes replying to people patchy, as you can imagine.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 10:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-04 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-05 05:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 02:06 pm (UTC)The metaphor I use is fitting it all into view: with a longer story, I have to be able to think of it as a whole before I can usefully edit. The pitfalls, for me, are:
- uneven pacing
- repetition
- contradictions (not quite plot holes, but sub-threads that curl up and die and are then replaced by different sub-threads)
My remedy thus far has been co-writing (it's easier to spot someone else's mistakes / problems than one's own!) and very careful re-mapping of the novel-thing.
In terms of finishing, though: I realised quite early on that left to myself I'd never finish anything. Instead, I write a bad first draft, and then go back and mend it. If I have the final scene, it's much easier to stop fiddling with things in the middle [er ... not meant to sound so perverse!] until it's time to beat the thing, the whole thing, into shape.
For example, if I were editing this comment, I could make it flow much more smoothly, and have Development and Characterisation. But at least I have an ending-point:
I very much like
If I get the knack, I'll let you know!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 09:45 pm (UTC)I realise that I was rather vague about what I meant by 'long'. I've now gone and done some word counts, and I have fic ranging from 2000 to 20,000 words and those fics I thought of as 'short'. And the monster ones I have on the go are 80,000 plus. And I feel just as you do: they're all over the place!
I found interesting all that you said. The thinking of it as a whole seems to me crucial, and so difficult. Otoh, the long fics are more 'whole' for me than the short ones. As I said to Isiscolo, short fics surprise me in the writing but the long ones are all obsessively planned out in my head. In a way, I do know them, but I know the plot and characters, not the mode and voice and style and the actual words. To marry the twain: I find that so hard.
I realised quite early on that left to myself I'd never finish anything.
I wasn't quite sure how you stop yourself from being left to yourself...?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 12:01 am (UTC)Getting someone else involved -- whether as beta, or co-writer, or by posting early sections (though I don't, in principle, do the latter, as I'm an inveterate fiddler-with-intros right up until something is actually finished.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 04:13 pm (UTC)Arg!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 04:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 05:39 pm (UTC)