Snowflake Challenge Day 11
Jan. 14th, 2019 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tyrsibsIn your own space, talk about your creative process(es) — anything from the initial inspiration to how you feel after something’s done. Do you struggle with motivation or is it a smooth process? Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to pull out when a fanwork isn’t cooperating? What is your level of planning to pantsing/winging it?
"Inspiration" might be a strong word! I enjoy writing from prompts, like each year's SPN Summergen, though each year I have started the challenge planning to write from one prompt only to switch to a different one after a page or so of writing. Sometimes it takes me that work to figure out what I really want to write--though as a result I have pages of started stories for every finished one. The other things I've done have sprung from a desire to catch up to characters left behind by canon, or to work out (to my satisfaction) what happened "behind the scenes" in the main story. When I start I usually have a core idea, scene, or piece of dialogue that I'm writing towards. I'll have the beginning, and often an endpoint. For the rest, I'm mostly pantsing it.
I try to write from the beginning of a story and work through to the end, though this is not always the case. For my Lisa story, "Nowhere Man", I had the idea and a couple of scenes in mind, but I started it many times before I hit on the structure that worked for me, of having her have recurring dreams. And even after I had that, I got bogged down a bit, and took the unusual step (for me) of writing the last scene out before the rest in order to get back on track. On another story, I started out in third person, only to discover that the main character really wanted to tell the story himself and I had to scrap everything and start over in first person POV. The first story I posted, "You Can't Always Get What You Want," was another thing that grew beyond my intentions. It was originally a one-shot, just the first chapter, but when I posted it on FF.net, I had a few people start to follow it, which caused me to panic, thinking I had to keep going! Each chapter after that initial one came from the idea of "what comes next"--so I would write a chapter, get my main character (in this case, Dean) into a cliffhangery spot, and then leave the story until I figured out how to get him out of it--seriously winging it. I don't know if the story really hangs together as a result, though, so I don't think I would recommend this approach to fellow fic writers.
Physically, I start writing longhand, usually on my breaks--which for me often means taking my lunch out of the library and driving to a park or other quiet spot, and then writing for 10 - 30 minutes depending on how much time I have. My typed draft, then, is my second draft, after which I ask my husband to look it over for feedback and fixing stuff. When I get stuck, in fact, he's the one I turn to--I'll bounce ideas off of him and he almost always makes my thoughts better. He is a very logical person, too, so he will tell me if I've gone too far, if a sequence doesn't make sense, or if I should try something different. (And he only gripes a little--)
So there you go--my process means I'm pretty slow, but it also lets me change course if I need to, so I suppose it works for me. I'm setting myself a goal of writing more this year, though, so who knows? Maybe this time next year I will be doing it differently!
"Inspiration" might be a strong word! I enjoy writing from prompts, like each year's SPN Summergen, though each year I have started the challenge planning to write from one prompt only to switch to a different one after a page or so of writing. Sometimes it takes me that work to figure out what I really want to write--though as a result I have pages of started stories for every finished one. The other things I've done have sprung from a desire to catch up to characters left behind by canon, or to work out (to my satisfaction) what happened "behind the scenes" in the main story. When I start I usually have a core idea, scene, or piece of dialogue that I'm writing towards. I'll have the beginning, and often an endpoint. For the rest, I'm mostly pantsing it.
I try to write from the beginning of a story and work through to the end, though this is not always the case. For my Lisa story, "Nowhere Man", I had the idea and a couple of scenes in mind, but I started it many times before I hit on the structure that worked for me, of having her have recurring dreams. And even after I had that, I got bogged down a bit, and took the unusual step (for me) of writing the last scene out before the rest in order to get back on track. On another story, I started out in third person, only to discover that the main character really wanted to tell the story himself and I had to scrap everything and start over in first person POV. The first story I posted, "You Can't Always Get What You Want," was another thing that grew beyond my intentions. It was originally a one-shot, just the first chapter, but when I posted it on FF.net, I had a few people start to follow it, which caused me to panic, thinking I had to keep going! Each chapter after that initial one came from the idea of "what comes next"--so I would write a chapter, get my main character (in this case, Dean) into a cliffhangery spot, and then leave the story until I figured out how to get him out of it--seriously winging it. I don't know if the story really hangs together as a result, though, so I don't think I would recommend this approach to fellow fic writers.
Physically, I start writing longhand, usually on my breaks--which for me often means taking my lunch out of the library and driving to a park or other quiet spot, and then writing for 10 - 30 minutes depending on how much time I have. My typed draft, then, is my second draft, after which I ask my husband to look it over for feedback and fixing stuff. When I get stuck, in fact, he's the one I turn to--I'll bounce ideas off of him and he almost always makes my thoughts better. He is a very logical person, too, so he will tell me if I've gone too far, if a sequence doesn't make sense, or if I should try something different. (And he only gripes a little--)
So there you go--my process means I'm pretty slow, but it also lets me change course if I need to, so I suppose it works for me. I'm setting myself a goal of writing more this year, though, so who knows? Maybe this time next year I will be doing it differently!
