I'm going to regret this

[kerravonsen]

One last fling, because I couldn't resist astrogirl2's appeal: I'm signing up for the multiverse2004 fic-a-thon. Stupid, stupid me.

Comments

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Well, I hope that you *don't* regret it. Nor do I see why you should. I thought the idea was to start writing original fic? No need to stop writing fanfic entirely, unless you feel you're using it to avoid writing your original stories. If that's the case, a short moratorium on fanfic might be in order while you acclimate yourself to your own work, but otherwise, why limit your potential avenues of expression.

On the other hand: stop thinking that you MUST finish every story you start. One of the things that professional writers have to learn is when to kill a piece. Unless it's promised to somebody, you have no obligation to turn every rough practice sketch into a finished oil painting.

Put your efforts where your talent is led to spend itself, whatever that may be. [And here I poke my tongue out at us both.]

[kerravonsen]

No need to stop writing fanfic entirely, unless you feel you're using it to avoid writing your original stories.

I am afraid of it seducing me away from original fiction, because I have, at this point, many more ideas for fanfic, ready-made so to speak. Wheras right now, all I have of original fiction are two paragraphs disjointly describing two unconnected pictures which have no context nor plot joining them. One is a cry in the night, the other is a woman in a column of wind -- but it is so scanty that I don't even know whether she's a prisoner or an elemental.
And if I have no plot, no goal, then I cannot write.

On the other hand: stop thinking that you MUST finish every story you start.

Oh no, that would render this change of course impossible, if I were to try. However I do think I owe it to people to finish the things that were supposed to have sequels, at the least (plus the one that is promised to someone). To write ten, rather than sixty.

To therefore write eleven when I am trying desperately to cut down the number, seems irresponsible.

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

I am afraid of it seducing me away from original fiction, because I have, at this point, many more ideas for fanfic, ready-made so to speak.

Hm. I'm not sure how it could seduce you from writing something that you have no ideas for. Unless you mean that writing on ideas you already have might prevent the generation of other ideas. I know that sometimes it feels that way to me, but it's *supposed* to be true that ideas generate more ideas - using the ones you already have should help. Well, as long as you make a point to spend *some* time regularly on building the new ideas.

Feh. What do I know? But I wish you success.

Wheras right now, all I have of original fiction are two paragraphs disjointly describing two unconnected pictures which have no context nor plot joining them. One is a cry in the night, the other is a woman in a column of wind -- but it is so scanty that I don't even know whether she's a prisoner or an elemental.
And if I have no plot, no goal, then I cannot write.

One thing that works particularly well for me in that case is to find out more about the characters. Interview them, so to speak. Ask that woman who she is, and why is she in that column of wind? How did she get there? And the best question of all for characters, I think, is What do you want? I like to make a list of ten or twelve things the character wants, because at the end I'm reaching for things to put on the list, and those are the things that surprise me and bring the character to life. One character I was working on, I was all the way to the last want, when I discovered that he really wanted a hot bath at the end of the day, and I was completely surprised; it opened up a whole new side to the character that I hadn't planned, and made him more rounded.

Just play with what you've got. Come up with ten things that it *might* be; you don't have to use all of them, or any of them if you don't like them.