Random stuff

[kerravonsen]

Just got off the phone with brother D, that was cool, he rang me up from Thailand. My S-i-L is not well, she has erosive gastritis (or something like that). Though they're giving her stuff for it, it will take a few weeks until the stomach lining has healed, and in the meantime, is painful. Niece L is in Japan with her Aunt, which is a dream come true for her. Hope it goes well.

Today I wrote more of my Romana story. I love it when stuff is flowing.

Note to self: do not discuss plot bunnies with watervole, or at least, don't listen to her when she says they won't work. Very hard to do, because she's a fantastic writer, and I respect her very much, but this is the third time one of my plot-bunnies has withered under her words(*). If I hadn't gone and discussed it with mistraltoes later and been encouraged, I would have given up on it entirely, and that would be Sad.

(*) Which is surprising, really, because we both like writing stories with tight plot and good characterisation, and we have benefited from discussing plots with each other in the past. Hmmmm. 'Tis a puzzlement.

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Flip the problem on its head.

Don't ask me "Does this work for you?", say: "I want to write this, how can I make it work?"

Turns it from a question into a challenge.

[kerravonsen]

But I don't think I ever said "Does this work for you?" in the first place. More along the lines of "Hey, I have this nifty-keen idea, what do you think?" Which is a reasonable enough question, yes? Except that it probably does imply "Does this work for you?" I guess.

I think part of what happened in those cases was that your vision for the idea didn't match my vision; partly because you were proposing solutions to problems that I didn't see as problems, and partly because the solutions ended up side-tracking the plot until it had turned into something completely different, something that I was no longer interested in writing, because the focus had changed away from the thing that had captured my interest in the first place.

I think I'm going to have to say, if/when that happens again, "But I'm not interested in writing that". And possibly invite you to write it yourself (evil grin).

To take the example of the Romana story, you really had problems with the Rose and Romana bit, while liking the Jack bit, but for me, the Rose and Romana bit is the central part of the story, and without that, it wasn't the idea that had captured my imagination, the one that my Muse was dangling in front of me.