(no subject)

[donutsweeper]

How do people write long fics?

Seriously, it is a skill I have never mastered and barely been able to comprehend. I love reading long fics (within reason), but writing them? I can't do it.

Recently the newest part of an AU series I like was posted. It was 110k words long, bringing the series (of 10 stories so far) up to 600k or so. 600,000 words. And, according to the author, the next part might be double the length of the last one.

Yes, the recent part could have been edited a lot and yes, it used some techniques that result in longer stories (multiple POVs that sometimes retell the same scene from different perspectives) but still... even if it had been cut to half that length, how the heck do people write stories that long?

I really, really wish that was something I could do.

Comments

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Logically I know it's just a matter of getting the words down and *writing* it's just... damn difficult for me. 125k is really impressive!

[nakeisha.livejournal.com]

I do believe some people (maybe most) have different methods/ways of writing depending on the proposed length of the story. But there, for me, lies part of the problem: I rarely know before-hand (unless I'm doing a drabble, limited word count) what length a story is going to be.

Some stories just evolve and grow and become considerably longer than I maybe thought they might be.

Thank you - and it was written in one month for NaNo (and I still managed to fit in some other stories too - I really must have been totally mad that November *g*).

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I never know length either, although usually I don't have a lot planned out, plotwise, which probably is one of the main reasons my stuff tends to be short.

I remember your insane Nano month! I was blown away by your tenacity and what you managed to accomplish!

[nakeisha.livejournal.com]

I don't have much (if any at times) planned out/plotted. Although recently I have played more scenes/stories out in my head than I've ever done before and somewhat surprisingly the scenes end up longer on 'paper' than in my head - which is irksome when you are trying to hit a set number.

Insane sums it up well *g* I had an aim and I got there. I'm still not quite sure how I did it, to be honest.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I'm going to assume copious amounts of chocolate :)

[nakeisha.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, amazingly enough not; which was very silly.