writing survey
Aug. 31st, 2002 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321This writing-survey was gacked from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
demelzagirl who gacked it from zarah5.
Do ideas come in little tiny pinpricks and then get expanded, or do they start great big and scopy and then get refined?
Definitely tiny pinpricks that then get woven together somehow. Or I start with one sentence, or with one image, or one central idea. Or even a pairing can set me off.
Why do you choose to write in the tenses you do (present tense, or first person POV, or third person) and how do you choose particular styles for particular stories?
Recently, I've been writing more in present tense because it encourages me to be more attentive to the real world and its details in the here-and-now. It also conveys (and, for the writer, perhaps creates) the excitement of not knowing what's going to come next. But most of my stories are in the past tense -- it's just the easiest because the most conventionally straightforward one; it doesn't interfere with telling the story.
I've written first-person singular, first-person plural and third person, but mostly third person. I mostly prefer third person because I'm not the kind of person who likes to write in a confessional way but sometimes the first person fits a particular plot construction (esp. in "Average"). How do I choose? Mostly it comes instinctively, but sometimes I play around with different tenses/povs until one of them clicks.
Do you have music that inspires your writing? (That you listen to while writing, or certain songs that remind you of certain characters.)
O God, tricky one. Some pieces of music are so strongly associated with particular stories or scenes I've written, that I can't ever listen to them for any other purpose again (e.g. "Chaiyya Chaiyya" from the Bollywood movie "Dil Se" is welded to the beach scene from "When the Cat's Away", where Dominic and Orlando first kiss).
But music, I find (for me), conjures up primarily visual imagery. It evokes particular moods but when I want to focus on just the words, I need to turn the music off. Because music can impose such a strong atmosphere of its own.
How do you brainstorm what comes next in a story?
Via self-doubt and self-torment. Via obsession. I think about the scenario while driving, while showering, while reading the kids a bedtime story. Or I just write furiously and it pops out onto the page.
What do you do when you hit a road block?
Hah. More self-torment. I try and write through it. I have a special set of A-5 notebooks for writing, and I just keep on writing, any old rubbish. It helps that my writing is so illegible that I don't need to subject myself actually to having to decipher it later.
But the nicest way to cope is by emailing other people and bouncing ideas around. :-)
How often do you end up deleting a whole bunch of already-written stuff, and how hard is it to let that stuff go?
I delete stuff all the time, and I have learned to let it go easily. Again, it helps that half my stuff is in the form of an illegible handwritten scrawl so that I'm sort of 'deleting' it from memory. But there are favourite words, lines and passages that I often find very hard to let go. Otoh, I have abandoned entire fics.
What if you really, really want to include something but part of you is saying it's not right for that particular story?
I print out everything and revise, and then I print it out again and revise again, and somewhere along the way I mostly start to feel so uneasy by the unsuitable bit that I ditch it. Mostly, it disappears forever. I can't remember using any bit in any other story (but I have recycled some bits as txts, *g*).
Do you take notes longhand, and if so, when?
All the time (see above). But there's a certain something about typing; there's something juicy about the speed and the way that fonts look on the screen. And I can still decipher it later!!
Do you use challenges by other people to inspire you?
I was going to write 'no' but then I remembered lots of instances where I had used challenges! I tortured myself over Viggo in response toviva_gloria's tireless pro-Viggo-crusade. I issued a challenge to write Billy/Karl and promptly decided to take it up myself. An email exchange with azewewish revealed that nobody but her had written Dom/Karl which immediately set my cogs whirring.
I'm also constantly inspired by what others are writing and talking about. E.g., whendemelzagirl posted her girlslash, I felt spurred on to write my own.
Do you do anything in particular to get you into the right mindset to write a certain character or characters?
I am completely ridiculous. I have stared for hours at pics and rearranged them in intriguing combinations on my desktop. I enact dialogues (often in the car!), using the various accents helpfully provided within our fandom (Australian, NZ and Indian is particular fun; I'm not so good at the British accents). I pull my face into positions that remind me of the way the characters look (sideways jaw for Dom etc.)
But mostly I just think about the character a lot (not the rl actor, but the character I'm inventing).
Which characters are easiest for you to write, and WHY?
Dominic (because so confused and so many-layered). Viggo I found surprisingly easy (surprisingly, because when I first wrote him, I disliked the man -- but I liked the poetic, OTT voice he allowed me to adopt). Dave (because he grew up in Sydney, and I spent my teenage years there).
Which ones are hardest, and again, WHY?
Miranda (because I've not written a non-pwp woman before). Orlando (although I love writing Orlando but he is hardest to get right: it's so easy to make him 'slutty' or 'hobbitsnorli-jolly' or 'pretty-elf').
Which characters are most like you emotionally?
Billy comes closest (both of my Billys, "Helping Hand" and "Up Shit Creek").
How often do you feel like what you're writing is fulfilling some emotional need - ie, when you're writing comfort, is it because you often feel that you don't get it IRL?
What I'm writing is always fulfilling an emotional need. This whole slash-thing has unleashed some sort of deep psychic need. These days, I feel fretful and not wholly 'fulfilled' when I haven't got some story on the boil. That's the writing itself, not any particular emotion that I'm writing about.
As to the emotion I'm writing about: well, irl I never get any boy-on-boy loving, so it's fulfilling that particular need! I also write about places I'd like to be, esp. antipodean beaches.
What about writing smut - do you find it easy, difficult?
Strangely easy. This is the strange thing I discovered back in February: I have no problem writing explicit sex scenes. Other parts of a story may be tortuous, but when I get to the sex scene I always smile an inward sigh of relief. I always find it very sexy to write, too, *gg*.
What kinds of smut are easiest for you to write, and WHY?
All kinds. Even girlslash, after languishing in a folder for months, flowed off my keyboard in one afternoon. And even het sex (my latest departure) just pours onto the page. Why? I haven't got a clue. I'm reserved about these things irl. In fact, the writing of the smut has made me heaps more relaxed about smut'n'sex irl!!
Which of your stories is your favorite and WHY? Least favorite?
There are several favourites which were breakthrough-fics, and a few for which I have a soft spot. If I had to pick one only, I'd pick "When We Are Human" because it's the most recent and the most experimental, and that's what I'm struggling with at the moment. Second and third would be "Up Shit Creek" and "Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts".
Least favourite: I have a soft spot for all of the stories (except for my very first fic which I never posted and which embarrasses me now). I suppose the one I have least emotional connection to is "At About Six O'Clock" which is girlslash and shows, I guess, how deep the m/m obsession goes (way back into my childhood).
Which of your titles do you like the most/least, and why?
Least: "Spider in the Bin" because it repeats the 'in' from "Crabs in the Sand" and the spiders aren't really in the bin, but under the bin's lid. But it had to conform to the other titles in the series.
Most: "Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts" because it is so baroque and at the same time symbolises the two men in the story (olives for John, artichokes for Bernard).
How do you choose titles for your stories?
Sometimes the title comes first or in the very early stages of writing ("Up Shit Creek", "Average", "Sauna"). Or I sit for a long time before the finished fic and think, 'What is this about?' I used to find titles very difficult and often had a beta choose one for me but I think I've got a bit better at it.
Do you write differently with a co-writer than you do alone? Is it easier or harder?
I'm only just starting to do it and (so far) it seems like a lot of fun. But that's because we're leaving each other alone and just getting on with it. We'll see how it progresses!
Do you write original fic differently from fanfic (if you write it at all)?
The last time I wrote original fic was around twelve years ago in a different language. There really is no comparison. I'm hoping to get back to it sometime, though, and then we'll see. I hope it won't be too different. As it is, some of my recent fics have been almost not-slash.
For series and long works, do you decide a goal in advance to stop at or are they open ended? If you do choose a goal, how often do you stick to it?
My first series developed despite myself and simply lurched forwards in an unplanned fashion. I love writing without knowing what's going to happen and discovering it in the writing. But I have written some fics that were very meticulously structured and planned ("Average", "Roller Coaster"). I also planned out a long AU series but lost interest in the actual writing once I knew exactly what was going to happen and how.
How do you deal with character plinkage? (Plinkage equals a character developing a mind of his own.)
I love and hate this. It tormented me in "A Perfect Day" and in "Up Shit Creek" and in "Average". It's awful when it happens, but it's also somehow revelatory because the characters do seem to have come alive and exist separately from my own will -- and that's always such a weird and wonderful thing when it happens.
How I deal with it? I've found you have to go with the flow. I struggle at first but if they plink, I've always ended up deleting entire sections or writing entire new fics to accommodate their whims.
When a scene feels forced, what are the first few tricks you try to fix it?
Stop writing and do something else. Think about it. Enact a dialogue out loud. Discard my draft and start from scratch and from memory.
Are most of your fixes deletions or additions?
Both.
How long does it usually take you to write a story? How many revisions do you go through?
I revise endlessly. I do at least one revision per story, and for tricky fics I can get up to, oh, six, seven at least (counting handwritten versions, print-outs with scribbles all over them, beta-revisions). "Crabs in the Sand" was a revelation because I wrote it, liked it, posted it.
Do you use beta readers?
Yes, and I love them! I'm a slave to my beta-readers!! But recently, for "Arthropods", I haven't used anyone -- just to see what that was like (following indemelzagirl's footsteps, and because those were experiments.
demelzagirl who gacked it from zarah5.Do ideas come in little tiny pinpricks and then get expanded, or do they start great big and scopy and then get refined?
Definitely tiny pinpricks that then get woven together somehow. Or I start with one sentence, or with one image, or one central idea. Or even a pairing can set me off.
Why do you choose to write in the tenses you do (present tense, or first person POV, or third person) and how do you choose particular styles for particular stories?
Recently, I've been writing more in present tense because it encourages me to be more attentive to the real world and its details in the here-and-now. It also conveys (and, for the writer, perhaps creates) the excitement of not knowing what's going to come next. But most of my stories are in the past tense -- it's just the easiest because the most conventionally straightforward one; it doesn't interfere with telling the story.
I've written first-person singular, first-person plural and third person, but mostly third person. I mostly prefer third person because I'm not the kind of person who likes to write in a confessional way but sometimes the first person fits a particular plot construction (esp. in "Average"). How do I choose? Mostly it comes instinctively, but sometimes I play around with different tenses/povs until one of them clicks.
Do you have music that inspires your writing? (That you listen to while writing, or certain songs that remind you of certain characters.)
O God, tricky one. Some pieces of music are so strongly associated with particular stories or scenes I've written, that I can't ever listen to them for any other purpose again (e.g. "Chaiyya Chaiyya" from the Bollywood movie "Dil Se" is welded to the beach scene from "When the Cat's Away", where Dominic and Orlando first kiss).
But music, I find (for me), conjures up primarily visual imagery. It evokes particular moods but when I want to focus on just the words, I need to turn the music off. Because music can impose such a strong atmosphere of its own.
How do you brainstorm what comes next in a story?
Via self-doubt and self-torment. Via obsession. I think about the scenario while driving, while showering, while reading the kids a bedtime story. Or I just write furiously and it pops out onto the page.
What do you do when you hit a road block?
Hah. More self-torment. I try and write through it. I have a special set of A-5 notebooks for writing, and I just keep on writing, any old rubbish. It helps that my writing is so illegible that I don't need to subject myself actually to having to decipher it later.
But the nicest way to cope is by emailing other people and bouncing ideas around. :-)
How often do you end up deleting a whole bunch of already-written stuff, and how hard is it to let that stuff go?
I delete stuff all the time, and I have learned to let it go easily. Again, it helps that half my stuff is in the form of an illegible handwritten scrawl so that I'm sort of 'deleting' it from memory. But there are favourite words, lines and passages that I often find very hard to let go. Otoh, I have abandoned entire fics.
What if you really, really want to include something but part of you is saying it's not right for that particular story?
I print out everything and revise, and then I print it out again and revise again, and somewhere along the way I mostly start to feel so uneasy by the unsuitable bit that I ditch it. Mostly, it disappears forever. I can't remember using any bit in any other story (but I have recycled some bits as txts, *g*).
Do you take notes longhand, and if so, when?
All the time (see above). But there's a certain something about typing; there's something juicy about the speed and the way that fonts look on the screen. And I can still decipher it later!!
Do you use challenges by other people to inspire you?
I was going to write 'no' but then I remembered lots of instances where I had used challenges! I tortured myself over Viggo in response to
viva_gloria's tireless pro-Viggo-crusade. I issued a challenge to write Billy/Karl and promptly decided to take it up myself. An email exchange with azewewish revealed that nobody but her had written Dom/Karl which immediately set my cogs whirring.I'm also constantly inspired by what others are writing and talking about. E.g., when
demelzagirl posted her girlslash, I felt spurred on to write my own.Do you do anything in particular to get you into the right mindset to write a certain character or characters?
I am completely ridiculous. I have stared for hours at pics and rearranged them in intriguing combinations on my desktop. I enact dialogues (often in the car!), using the various accents helpfully provided within our fandom (Australian, NZ and Indian is particular fun; I'm not so good at the British accents). I pull my face into positions that remind me of the way the characters look (sideways jaw for Dom etc.)
But mostly I just think about the character a lot (not the rl actor, but the character I'm inventing).
Which characters are easiest for you to write, and WHY?
Dominic (because so confused and so many-layered). Viggo I found surprisingly easy (surprisingly, because when I first wrote him, I disliked the man -- but I liked the poetic, OTT voice he allowed me to adopt). Dave (because he grew up in Sydney, and I spent my teenage years there).
Which ones are hardest, and again, WHY?
Miranda (because I've not written a non-pwp woman before). Orlando (although I love writing Orlando but he is hardest to get right: it's so easy to make him 'slutty' or 'hobbitsnorli-jolly' or 'pretty-elf').
Which characters are most like you emotionally?
Billy comes closest (both of my Billys, "Helping Hand" and "Up Shit Creek").
How often do you feel like what you're writing is fulfilling some emotional need - ie, when you're writing comfort, is it because you often feel that you don't get it IRL?
What I'm writing is always fulfilling an emotional need. This whole slash-thing has unleashed some sort of deep psychic need. These days, I feel fretful and not wholly 'fulfilled' when I haven't got some story on the boil. That's the writing itself, not any particular emotion that I'm writing about.
As to the emotion I'm writing about: well, irl I never get any boy-on-boy loving, so it's fulfilling that particular need! I also write about places I'd like to be, esp. antipodean beaches.
What about writing smut - do you find it easy, difficult?
Strangely easy. This is the strange thing I discovered back in February: I have no problem writing explicit sex scenes. Other parts of a story may be tortuous, but when I get to the sex scene I always smile an inward sigh of relief. I always find it very sexy to write, too, *gg*.
What kinds of smut are easiest for you to write, and WHY?
All kinds. Even girlslash, after languishing in a folder for months, flowed off my keyboard in one afternoon. And even het sex (my latest departure) just pours onto the page. Why? I haven't got a clue. I'm reserved about these things irl. In fact, the writing of the smut has made me heaps more relaxed about smut'n'sex irl!!
Which of your stories is your favorite and WHY? Least favorite?
There are several favourites which were breakthrough-fics, and a few for which I have a soft spot. If I had to pick one only, I'd pick "When We Are Human" because it's the most recent and the most experimental, and that's what I'm struggling with at the moment. Second and third would be "Up Shit Creek" and "Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts".
Least favourite: I have a soft spot for all of the stories (except for my very first fic which I never posted and which embarrasses me now). I suppose the one I have least emotional connection to is "At About Six O'Clock" which is girlslash and shows, I guess, how deep the m/m obsession goes (way back into my childhood).
Which of your titles do you like the most/least, and why?
Least: "Spider in the Bin" because it repeats the 'in' from "Crabs in the Sand" and the spiders aren't really in the bin, but under the bin's lid. But it had to conform to the other titles in the series.
Most: "Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts" because it is so baroque and at the same time symbolises the two men in the story (olives for John, artichokes for Bernard).
How do you choose titles for your stories?
Sometimes the title comes first or in the very early stages of writing ("Up Shit Creek", "Average", "Sauna"). Or I sit for a long time before the finished fic and think, 'What is this about?' I used to find titles very difficult and often had a beta choose one for me but I think I've got a bit better at it.
Do you write differently with a co-writer than you do alone? Is it easier or harder?
I'm only just starting to do it and (so far) it seems like a lot of fun. But that's because we're leaving each other alone and just getting on with it. We'll see how it progresses!
Do you write original fic differently from fanfic (if you write it at all)?
The last time I wrote original fic was around twelve years ago in a different language. There really is no comparison. I'm hoping to get back to it sometime, though, and then we'll see. I hope it won't be too different. As it is, some of my recent fics have been almost not-slash.
For series and long works, do you decide a goal in advance to stop at or are they open ended? If you do choose a goal, how often do you stick to it?
My first series developed despite myself and simply lurched forwards in an unplanned fashion. I love writing without knowing what's going to happen and discovering it in the writing. But I have written some fics that were very meticulously structured and planned ("Average", "Roller Coaster"). I also planned out a long AU series but lost interest in the actual writing once I knew exactly what was going to happen and how.
How do you deal with character plinkage? (Plinkage equals a character developing a mind of his own.)
I love and hate this. It tormented me in "A Perfect Day" and in "Up Shit Creek" and in "Average". It's awful when it happens, but it's also somehow revelatory because the characters do seem to have come alive and exist separately from my own will -- and that's always such a weird and wonderful thing when it happens.
How I deal with it? I've found you have to go with the flow. I struggle at first but if they plink, I've always ended up deleting entire sections or writing entire new fics to accommodate their whims.
When a scene feels forced, what are the first few tricks you try to fix it?
Stop writing and do something else. Think about it. Enact a dialogue out loud. Discard my draft and start from scratch and from memory.
Are most of your fixes deletions or additions?
Both.
How long does it usually take you to write a story? How many revisions do you go through?
I revise endlessly. I do at least one revision per story, and for tricky fics I can get up to, oh, six, seven at least (counting handwritten versions, print-outs with scribbles all over them, beta-revisions). "Crabs in the Sand" was a revelation because I wrote it, liked it, posted it.
Do you use beta readers?
Yes, and I love them! I'm a slave to my beta-readers!! But recently, for "Arthropods", I haven't used anyone -- just to see what that was like (following in
demelzagirl's footsteps, and because those were experiments.