fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5489 ]

[ SECRET POST #5489 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5489 ⌋

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Hi y'all, I'm editing a fic right now and I thought it'd be good to open a thread on the weekend for writers to talk about anything on their mind. Questions, tips, ideas, brainstorming, anything you want to talk about in regards to what you're writing or thinking about or even what your writing process is like, please share!

Just google it.

what is your damage

That's hippa protected.

You should probably google HIPAA.

I did my own research.

I joined a writing group a few weeks ago and more and more I've been just sort of lurking in the Discord quietly discomfited at how different my way of writing is from almost everyone else there. They talk about character questionnaires and spreadsheets and plot cards and how if they don't know beforehand that their character hates lemon how could they EVER write ANYTHING. Even if their story has nothing to do with lemons in any way, shape, or form.

Meanwhile I'm all mid-scene writing and going 'well, kay, I need a new character here so this is Bob and he is this, this, and this, that are relevant to the story and if I need to make more up for him later, will do?'

I know both writing methods are perfectly valid but I've never been in a group that skews so heavily towards one side of things. They're very nice to me, don't get me wrong, but... o.o

That sounds....very odd to me. I like to know things about my characters, too, but it kinda just comes along as I write/as I decide? I mean...they are my characters.
Dance, puppets, dance! :D

AYRT. Yeeees, I make them dance to my story!

I honestly can't imagine sitting there and filling out a questionnaire about everything a character likes or dislikes. I don't even have the patience to do that for ME lol.

Heeee! No kidding.

I'm all for 'you do you' and of course, everyone is different, but the writers who talk about a character 'taking over' or 'they just wanted it to go this way and I had to write it like that!!' kind of thing...always weirded me out a little.

Hahah, I remember when the "soulbond" thing started up and was being debated, I posted something about how what I do is more like "soulbonsai". The character gets a certain amount of autonomy, and I will go with it up to a point. But then if something just is not working out for what I had in mind, I snip/train it back into something that is more pleasing.

But man, I do have this one character that has a habit of running off in entirely different ways than I had planned, and I've learned to just let him do it, because almost unfailingly I like what he did better than what I was planning. Dude's a prophet, I guess that makes sense. (Except, of course, for the fact that I recognize he is fictional. ;))

Heeeeeeeee.

I know that some things feel more organic and 'right' for a character than others, but I've never felt as if the character was 'in control'.

But you do you; all that really matters is telling the story. :D

I think what it comes down to is that my style of writing character interaction is basically me RPing multiple characters at a time against each other in my head. So I'm always mentally going "Well, how would this character react?" at each little bit, and sometimes what seems natural for the character is something that is not entirely conducive to where I was trying to get the scene to go. So then I have to do more interactions to get it back on track naturally.

But then sometimes something completely comes out of left field. Like, okay, my OTP. I did not mean to ship them. I had never written m/m and wasn't intending to start, but in the first story I tried to write with them, suddenly one of them goes "...He's hurting, I need to kiss him."

Me: wait what
Him: You heard me.
Me: But I don't.... okay, you know what, let's try it. ...Hmmm...!

I totally get that first part: writing is a lot like RPing a character, and most of what they do/say/how they react seems pretty natural and not something I have to really *think* about, unless it's a character I don't know a lot about.

The latter, though...well, I have never had that experience or a 'conversation' with a character I'm writing. Could be fun! :D

Yeah, considering 20 years on and 600,000 words later, I still find their dynamic interesting, I'm glad I decided to go with that whim. :D (The conversations, too, are me RPing the character with myself as the "director of the action", to be clear. I have never believed they're speaking to me from another plane or anything.)

As for the first part, it's sort of like a butterfly effect. Like, I realize just after writing it that the phrasing of character 1's line might make character 2 wary, so they react differently than character 1 expected, which makes character 1 respond to their reaction rather than continuing along the intended line of conversation. Aaaand then sometimes after doing that for awhile, I scrap it and start over. But sometimes it goes somewhere interesting, and I decide it makes a good addition to the story so I explore that too on my way to the next necessary plot point.

I mean sure, sometimes I'll have some basic notes about things that have to happen for the story to work, but in the interim there's lots of room for improvisation. After all, no word limit on a fanfic! =)

Nope! No word limit and generally no time limit, though we all know that WIPs that stagger on for literal years (*cough* my last J2 fic *cough*) tend to lose some readers if they take too long to resolve.

Oh yeah. Especially with my health, I don't post anything until it's finished and gone over several times to check for continuity and flow and so on. I have a couple WIPs out there I don't know if I'll ever get back to, as much as I was enjoying them, and I feel bad about that but I think after nearly 10 years no one expects anything more (though I have a ton of notes plotted out for how to end the one :/)

na

but the writers who talk about a character 'taking over' or 'they just wanted it to go this way and I had to write it like that!!' kind of thing...always weirded me out a little.

I don't get it, either, as that's so different than the way I write. I have never had a story just 'go' in a direction I wasn't intending. But then, I never start writing until I know what happens.

I frequently only know part of the story, or have a couple scenes that I *really* want to write, and then have to sit and think about how it's going to end. Which means I do have my WIPs, heh.

There are like, super detail oriented writers like that, and total pantsers, and everything in between. No one way is wrong and if they're not telling you that your way is wrong please don't 'hide' for fear of judgement!

I generally choose a name (after choosing race/ethnicity because I like to find meanings of names), then a vague appearance, and then a birth date using one of those astrology sites not because I believe in them but sometimes it's nice to have a breakdown of their personality and a date to go with it lol.

I have a very odd way of writing, in that I usually will only have the vaguest idea of the plot but I plan out the characters and their journeys meticulously. I don't like character questionnaires, though - it's more like "ok, so this person starts out with this backstory and this base way of reacting to things, this is what their journey is about, what character beats do I have to hit to get them there?"

I write character profiles, but usually when I get a bad case of writer's block. Most of the time, I come up with a character name and some details on their appearance and go from there. Their personality starts to come out as I write, but when I get stuck, I'll create a profile of them with a birthday, likes and dislikes, hobbies, favorite foods, class or work schedule, and things like that. That usually helps to unblock the creative juices.

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[ SECRET POST #5489 ]

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