ask the author

[fahye]

Last seen at schiarire's:

I want to do a creative/meta meme but there is nothing going around, and it's not like I have that much fic to be asked about*. But ask me writing questions anyway?

*I had to remove that part, it is a dirty dirty lie where I am concerned.

'Writing questions' can mean pretty much anything you want it to mean, my sweets. I have a lot of work to do tonight and I'm going to need something to do in my breaks.

Comments

[platypusnoises.livejournal.com]

This is so interesting. I keep refreshing it to read new q&a's.

How do you write? Personally, I rarely write everything chronologically. I get flashes of random scenes in my head and then try to link them together. I also tweak with words an awful lot. A sentence that I write might be perfectly adequate but there is always one word that I have to sit and think of synonyms for awhile before I come to the perfect iteration of that sentence. So, I guess I'm asking more about certain ticks you notice in your writing rather than your process, exactly.

[platypusnoises.livejournal.com]

whoops. guess i was beaten to it... overthought it, ha.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

That's okay! Is there anything else you want to ask about, either generally or specifically? I can talk about particular fics if you like.

[platypusnoises.livejournal.com]

aha. it took me a little thinking, but...

Ever taken a writing class/workshop or gone away to a program? If so, do you think it helped or shaped your writing in any way? If not, ever thought about it?

I've done a little of both and they mostly helped me figure out that I'm not meant to be a Writer, even though I'm constantly told I have talent. What I write may be good but I'll never be able to finish anything that is longer than one scene. (I have two short stories languishing from the last two years and a Merlin future fic based on the apocalypse meme you used in Solfege that keeps looking at me wistfully.)

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Nope! I was a finalist in a short story competition in primary school and went to a one-day workshop with a children's author, but since then: nothing. I would really like to, because I think you can learn from pretty much anyone when it comes to sharing ideas about writing, and I like hearing what other people think of my work, but most workshops take time and money. And I don't have a lot of either.

I would LOVE to go on a writer's retreat thing with a small group of people (though they'd need to be mostly people I know, I think) and spend the time writing and encouraging each other and then dissecting each other's stuff. But again: time, money, most of the people I'd want to do this with being located in other continents...

What I really need is a crash course in how to sustain my writing-attention-span on a single project for long enough to finish a long original work.

[platypusnoises.livejournal.com]

It's very unnerving to get thrown into a pool of strangers and being told to write and share. I went to a youth writing workshop for two weeks where we had to write between six and ten pages of something each week and submit it for workshop. The first week, I was a wreck because I'd written something I hated because there hadn't been enough time to execute it properly. I was terrified that everyone would wonder how exactly I'd come to be there. The second week, I had written six pages of something I loved (and felt I'd redeemed myself) but because it was four random scenes from a larger story that wasn't finished, nobody could properly critique it. And because we were all strangers and kids, it was hard to have heart-to-hearts about writing since everyone just wanted to have fun and get to know each other.

In retrospect, the best part was having two weeks and being forced to do nothing but concentrate on writing. It's luxurious. Iowa City is such a great place for it too... Most people are baffled when I say I wouldn't mind staying there for awhile, as it's thought of as a backwater compared to New York, but they don't understand the kind of feeling there. It's very encouraging of writers and writing in general.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I also have the problem (possibly the point of workshops is to fix these problems, but I feel it would reduce the usefulness of one for me) of being very bad at writing on demand. My inspiration is very random. And sure, I write a lot of good stuff, but if you sat me down and told me to write six pages of SOMETHING then maybe I could and maybe I'd manage three terrible sentences. Depending on whether I had words at the time or not.

[platypusnoises.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much. I got lucky the second week. I also know quite a few people cheated and used material they previously had. One friend just submitted three short pieces that had nothing to do with one another. If I'd known I could've gotten away with that, I would've been all over it.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

PS - MERLIN APOCALYPSE. YES PLEASE.

[platypusnoises.livejournal.com]

Now that someone's asking for it, I have to do it. Ngh, I already know I'm going to be swallowed alive by it. So far I have this:

1. Court Sorcerer Merlin, King Arthur, and Queen Gwen poking at a camp fire because that's all there is for them, really.
2. Mordred has done something. It somehow involves Morgana. (*whines* But I don't want her to be evil!) He has possibly done something that relates to this:
3. Forbidden magics (i.e. alchemy, necromancy) are forbidden because they tear holes in Reality and create Chaos. (I hate that I know I've borrowed this idea from a book I read. It makes me feel like I'm cheating. But the concept of a Chaos Realm is so awesome.)

[lilith-lessfair.livejournal.com]

Hardly. I think you posed the question in a much more interesting way and hit on something I hadn't thought to ask.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I've addressed the 'how I write' above, but the thing about certain ticks is interesting. One of the big ones for me is the sound/rhythm of a line; I am always hearing the sentences I write aloud, more or less, and so I can usually tell if the rhythm is off.

For example, the closing line to the fic I'm writing now is annoying me because it's: She says, "We have a job offer for you."

Now, I don't like the rhythm of that as a closing line. I would prefer: She says, "We want to offer you a job." because the emphasis is on the last syllable, and that sounds better, more final. However, there's a slight shift of meaning between the two versions; in the first, the power belongs to the speaker, they have something, it's theirs. In the second, the listener has the power, because what the speaker has is a desire to offer something. Er. If that makes any sense to anyone not me, which I am dubious about.

I have no idea at this stage whether the meaning or the rhythm will win the war. Ideally I'll find a new way of putting it that is completely different.

So...yeah, both subtle meaning of words/arrangements of words, and their sounds, are very important to me, and I will get stuck when something isn't exactly as I want it to be.

[lilith-lessfair.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does make a good deal of sense; there is, if not a world, a good deal of difference in the meanings of those two lines and also in what the word choice suggests about the power relationships between the speaker and the person to whom the offer is directed. And, yeah, I've spent far too long tweaking sentences because they didn't have the right beat or sound; that tends to be how I figure out a character's voice, based on the sound and cadence.