Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 3

[aadler]

 
Continuing the meme/challenge begun and tracked here.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 3
In your own space, talk about your creative process, from what inspires you to what motivates you to how you manage to break through blocks. Does your process change depending on the type of creating you’re doing?

The basic creative process for me is relatively simple. 1) Get an idea. 2) Think about it for awhile. 3) Write the story.

There’s more to it than that, of course, so to break it down:

Get an idea.

Where do I get my ideas? Hey, how do people NOT get ideas? Right now I have a notebook containing four ideas I’ve explicitly decided never to follow out (just no longer interested), six things that can serve as elements within a story, and fifty story ideas that I still plan to use one of these days. The oldest goes back nearly fifteen years; the most recent is less than two months ago. At least one of these ideas is one I came up with because it would allow me to introduce an element I need in another story, later on. Most of it is stuff that just came to me, and I’ve learned to write down these ideas because it’s surprisingly easy to forget one … or to forget it without even realizing you’ve done so.

Some examples of different sources of ideas:

1. The first Buffyfic I ever did, “Point of Focus”, was the result of me thinking, Huh … what if Joyce was a Slayer?
2. “Oaxaca Nights” started with Spike’s first appearance on Angel: he greeted Cordelia by name, inquired if she’d lost weight (before launching another round of violence), and I thought, Wait a minute, did they ever actually meet back in Sunnydale? So I wrote a tale wherein Spike and Cordelia DID meet before she moved to Los Angeles.
3. The idea that would eventually result in “Into the Abyss” came from my recognition that I’d read — and begun writing — Buffyfics in all kinds of different genres, but I’d never seen an actual murder mystery.
4. “Tip of My Tongue” and “the Still, Small Voice” were the result of my annoyance at the canon (and then fanfic) vilification of Hank Summers, Quentin Travers, and Tara’s father. (My version of Travers is hardly a stainless hero, but neither is he a loathsome bureaucrat imposing The Patriarchy on impressionable young girls.)

There’s more, lots more, but most of my stuff falls within three basic categories:

1. What if …?
2. But that would mean …
3. Wait a  minute, that’s not right!

Think about it.

Sometimes I think about an idea to work out the different aspects, let it settle and simmer. More often, I think about it because I’m busy doing (or writing) something else. Sometimes I let it wait because I really like the idea but want to give it proper attention when the time comes. And, a few times — mainly with my Backstage Series — I need (or needed) to get other things in place first.

Mainly, though, Think about it is part of the process of deciding what the story is going to be. When my daughter sroni wanted to try her hand at fanfic, and started naming ideas she’d had, one of the things I kept asking was, “Is this a story, or just a situation?” Because they’re not the same thing …

I observed that “Point of Focus” started with the basic concept of Joyce as Slayer. That was a situation, which still left the matter of where that situation would lead. When I began following out the idea, I wondered, Okay, how did she get to be a Slayer? The answer to that laid the basic framework of where the story would go, and I just built on it.

Similarly, the basic idea for “… Than Meets the Eye” had been in my mind for a few years, but it still just wasn’t right, it still needed something that wasn’t there. Bringing in another character, one I’d used before, provided what was missing and allowed me to write the entire thing within a week. If I’d tried before then, I would have floundered without getting anywhere; it wasn’t ready yet.

At bottom, I think things through before I start writing because I spent a LOT of years beginning stories I never finished, and I learned simply to not begin until I knew what the ending would be and how the story would reach that point. That might change during the writing, and many times has done so, but I stick to it because it works for me.

Write the story.

The biggest bane of my life hasn’t been lack of inspiration, or even the dreaded writer’s block (though I’ve dealt with both), but plain laziness. Sometimes I just don’t feel like writing, and sometimes that’s most of the time. What works for me (when I do it!) is simplicity itself: write at least one page per day. If the fever is on me, if things are really singing, I’ll go on till I have to stop, but just doing one page a day will produce a fair-sized fic in a month. Sometimes I’ll come back the next day and throw out everything I did the day before, but that’s still progress, even something that doesn’t work has engaged the brain.

I begin at the beginning, and write till I reach the end. I revise constantly as I proceed, simply because going back over what I’ve already done is one of the ways I tune in to what I’ll be writing next. Sometimes I’ll leave something in place that I know doesn’t work, because it’s more important to finish the story right then; I’ll take care of loose ends like that in overall revision. I don’t write scenes out of order, though; anyone who can do that, and then rearrange and knit the pieces into the desired whole, more power to them, but for me the main thing is finish the story.

Once finished, I revise. Since all my fanfic is on the Internet, I can keep on revising in minor matters essentially forever, and do so on a continuing basis. Essentially, though, it’s one main revision sweep, followed by a lesser revision sweep, and then I’m ready to post. Seriously: I may have taken months to finish something, but I’ll have it revised to my satisfaction within a day.

What about remixes?

Yeah, can’t forget that, because once I started doing remixes, they’ve comprised roughly half my fic output. I just plain love remixes, and even started cof_remix so I could do it more often.

The remix process is almost the same as my regular writing process, but accelerated. Get an idea becomes Read the stories of my assigned author till I see one really want to re-do, and then decide What can I make of this idea-that’s-somebody-else’s? After that, Think about it has to be done in quick order, because few remix events offer much more than a month to get a story done. Write the story, likewise, is the same but speed-it-up.

Possibly I haven’t really been doing remixes correctly. As I understand the concept, it’s supposed to be something like How would I write this story if it was me instead of X-Author? I’m a lot more likely to go at it like How would I handle this idea, if it had been me instead of X-Author who came up with it? I do like the stories I produce by this process, though, I’ll probably keep doing it that way for as long as it keeps working for me.

…

And, to continue with the original question:

What inspires me?

The fandom inspires me. The characters. The possibilities. What if …? is a big one. Mostly — since this is fanfic we’re talking about here — I want to see more of this world, and writing it myself gives me a better likelihood of seeing what I want.

What motivates me?

Wanting to see the story finished. Wanting to meet a deadline (usually remixes). Sometimes self-loathing: You’ve had three months to get this done, what’s the problem here? Sometimes a particular story will really take hold of me. But you know what works better than anything else? Boredom, when I don’t have anything else to do, no television or Internet access. I’m out of the Army now, but I always did more work on deployment than when I was at home. Give me a free hour in a day, I’ll do my best to spend it writing. Give me the entire day free, I’m lucky to get anything done at all.

Yeah. Boredom works.

How do I break through blocks?

Just keep writing. Write through it. Overpower it with writing. Go into more detail, more description, more analysis. I can always trim and prune later, but the main thing is to keep going.

…

Okay. Do I like to talk about myself, or what?

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I need to take your advice and make myself write a least a page a day. It sure seems to bring great results for you.


Gabrielle

[aadler]

Unfortunately, that’s the ideal. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to hold myself to that.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

I begin at the beginning, and write till I reach the end. I revise constantly as I proceed, simply because going back over what I’ve already done is one of the ways I tune in to what I’ll be writing next. Sometimes I’ll leave something in place that I know doesn’t work, because it’s more important to finish the story right then; I’ll take care of loose ends like that in overall revision. I don’t write scenes out of order, though; anyone who can do that, and then rearrange and knit the pieces into the desired whole, more power to them, but for me the main thing is finish the story.
That's pretty much me too - I'm always rereading as I go to remind myself of where I've been and where it makes sense to go from there. I never deliberately write scenes out of order, but I will occasionally decide that one is better suited to another spot. Not often, though. I am apparently a very linear thinker...

[aadler]

What you said about sometimes moving scenes around, applies likewise to me. If you’re further like me, then it’s not so much a matter of linear thinking; the Think about it for awhile step gives me a general sense of overall structure — a gestalt, if you will — and then I approach building that structure in a linear fashion. Wholistic envisioning, followed by straightforward construction.

[sparrow2000.livejournal.com]

Thank you for a really interesting read. The point about the difference between a 'story' and a 'situation' especially resonates.

The page a day is a great aim. Last year, I said I was going to try for 500 words per day and of course promptly didn't. But you're inspiring me to pick myself and try again this year. We'll see what happens! :)

[aadler]

As I observed, it works really well when I actually do it. It’s just amazing (and dismaying) how easy it is to take something so basic and effective, and NOT do it.