donutsweeper | blither and blather

Signups over at

wipbigbang close tomorrow and I still haven't decided if I want to sign up. I have a fic that meets the prerequisite, 500 words of a story completed and the desire to finish it but....

My brain tends to lean toward freezing, flailing panic at deadlines. Yuletide is immune to this (thankfully), but the last two bigbangs I signed up for I failed to complete and I completely froze and failed to write a thing for last year's

not_primetime despite really wanting to.

That said, probably 95% of what I write is for a challenge, exchange or prompt/comment fic fill of some kind (if not more, only 4 out of last year's 116 weren't written for something in particular).

I actually have 7k of the story completed, which is a LOT of story for me. (I think I have only 6 stories that long?) and probably the first 5k or so is just the set up. The problem is I'm not sure where it's going. Plotting out stories doesn't tend to work for me, my brain goes 'whelp, you know what happens, so why bother writing it?'. I probably write best when I have a general sense of the plot/problem (i.e. Arthur's famous/Merlin's oblivious, there are trials and tribulations but they manage to fall in love or Torchwood is called to investigate a lake haunting, it ties into a case Jack worked in the past and things happen) but a lot of wiggle room and that's just not the case here.

Instead, I have a trope. The 'magical/alien/whatever device/technology/spell sends character to an alternate reality/universe and things happen' trope. I read a bunch of fics with said trope and got fascinated by it. Before I knew it I had the idea for the origin world and alternate world and the manner of the device method and... that's it. I have NO idea where to go next plotwise and having a deadline isn't going to help with that. BUT, if I do manage to finish it then it means I'd get art. And art is awesome.

Sigh. Decisions, decisions.

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I've never signed up for a big bang for that precise reason. I have NO process while writing, and I don't often do long fics and when I do, I nearly break my brain with them. I don't plot, I just go 'wouldn't it be interesting if...' and start writing and see what happens. I think my main problem is I don't care about plot. Plot is very secondary to my interests, it's characters and dialogue I enjoy. The reason I do so many oneshots is because they're all character pieces, but long stories need a plot. It's very annoying.

Your story sounds very interesting at least--'what if' sort of stories are a personal favourite of mine. That sort of 'for want of a horseshoe nail' trope is a very cool idea. One little thing that sends everything off in another direction. I don't have any advice, except that writing should be stress relieving, not stress inducing, so if it will cause you stress to have a deadline, you'd be better off working away at it in an enjoyable fashion.

Also, while I am here:

(http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v32/AWanderingMinstrel/LJ/?action=view&current=valentined2.png)

Aww, thank you!

I think I am going to sign up. Probably. Blargh. That means finding a beta and possibly a first reader or two to make sure it makes sense. I guess I could put up a f-locked post asking or something.

I hate getting beta'd. I'm always afraid they're going to say 'no, this is terrible, you should never write stories, go away' or something like that. Though my beta was very kind last time, and boosted my confidence a lot.

Maybe having a deadline will help you get motivated? I often lose interest and walk away. Hence the 200.or so files in my in progress folder.

Ugh, LJ why aren't you sending me notifs when people reply? I am even tracking this post. Grrr.

Finding a good beta is HARD. I used to have several different ones I could count on not to tear my heart out but not lie either if something needed work and would SPAG and canon check and all that, but nearly all disappeared off the internet. :(

I'm hoping the deadline helps. Who knows.

My beta put in comments about things she liked as well as corrections, which definitely eased things along.

I don't think I'd be a good beta, to be honest. I don't have the SPAG knowledge, and I'm always very reluctant to correct anything that has to do with personal choice, like characterization or plot.

First readers/cheerleaders are always good too! Sometimes it is important to have someone other than the author read a fic to see if the flow is there and enough explanation and bits and bobs are there to make it a coherent story.

Yeah, I used to use my brother's ex-girlfriend for that; I'd read her the stories, and she'd point out things or suggest things. That's helpful for me, to know that something does or doesn't make sense outside my head.

Especially since, as authors, we know what we mean to have happen in a scene... sometimes we just don't write it in a way that reads that way :)

Exactly! I remember one thing my beta pointed out, that I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed after as many re-readings I did, that one character said something that was the exact opposite of something she'd said two sentences earlier. It made complete sense to me as the writer that she could say those two opposing things, but then I saw it through the reader's eyes and went 'yeah, that's probably not very sensical'.

There's also my habit of skipping writing about them moving from the couch to the table or whatever and it's great when the beta says.. ummm when did that happen?

Ha! I still have one Dresden story where people stand up from a table they weren't sitting at, which I only noticed much, much later.

I had a couple of times where my beta was like 'yeah, you might want to mention he's carrying a book earlier, so it doesn't look as though it just materialized in his hands'.

There's also the time issue. I know that's it's been a week since such and such happened, but then I realize I've never actually said it and a lot of stuff has happened in what maybe seems like a couple of days.

*nods nods* a second set of eyes is SO important for all of that.

That's why I find my 'set design' stuff very useful, too, as it helps me create an actual environment to move my characters around in, and cuts down on there being a kitchen to the right, but no, now it's on the left, or four bedrooms, but there are only three. I like having the space to manipulate, even if it's very...thorough of me to take the time to build it.

blither and blather

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