pocket full of rye
Apr. 10th, 2006 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bonny_kateNote: This is my rant for the month. Please feel free to skip it.
I don't like writing things with other people. Essays I can handle, but only just. I should never write stories with other people, though, for my own sanity and theirs. Part of this is due to the fact that I rarely know what a story is about until it is finished. So, I often change bits as I write it, in order that the story will work properly, based on a kind of intuition. I have yet to use an outline to write a story (although I have found them extremely useful when writing essays). I usually have some idea where I want to go, but it is a fuzzy sense of getting one character from one place to another. I fill in the fuzzy bits as I write.
This makes me, probably, a horrid writer to write with. I change things suddenly, and if you aren't me, you may not see it coming, although it is perfectly obvious to me that a change had to happen. I don't stick to my original outlines for long stories. Outlines exist to be changed as needed (in my mind). Which is not to say that this is a bad way of writing, but that it hasn't yet worked well with anyone else.
Further, I am horribly possessiveof my characters, and my story. I have to be. I throw myself into my stories, I think of them all day and sometimes dream of them. I am invested in them. This makes writing with anyone else difficult because they are making my character do things, which are sometimes not what my character would do.
In short, I don't know what sort of writer I could work with, and write good stories. I am skeptical that such a writer exists. This is, of course, related to the fact that I wrote a Blasted Novel with a friend, and was Not Happy with the result, particularly the ending.
As a joke, I told my friend that I had an idea for a sequel to the Blasted Novel. So she asked what it was. I told her, and also explained that it was a joke. She sounds like she kind of likes the idea. I don't want to write another novel, particularly not a sequel to one that I don't like (which is problematic by itself, because I am usually very happy with a story once I write it, not jaded and wishing to burn it). I don't want to write it with my friend, because we do not write in ways that compliment each other.
So, I will not let myself get talked into writing a sequel. I am banging my head (metaphorically) against the wall for even *suggesting* the thought. The thought may perish, immediately, and preferably permanently. I shall think instead of the lovely story that I am writing now, which I am very much in love with. Under no circumstances would I leave it to write a story that I don't even like. And I better remember it.
I don't like writing things with other people. Essays I can handle, but only just. I should never write stories with other people, though, for my own sanity and theirs. Part of this is due to the fact that I rarely know what a story is about until it is finished. So, I often change bits as I write it, in order that the story will work properly, based on a kind of intuition. I have yet to use an outline to write a story (although I have found them extremely useful when writing essays). I usually have some idea where I want to go, but it is a fuzzy sense of getting one character from one place to another. I fill in the fuzzy bits as I write.
This makes me, probably, a horrid writer to write with. I change things suddenly, and if you aren't me, you may not see it coming, although it is perfectly obvious to me that a change had to happen. I don't stick to my original outlines for long stories. Outlines exist to be changed as needed (in my mind). Which is not to say that this is a bad way of writing, but that it hasn't yet worked well with anyone else.
Further, I am horribly possessiveof my characters, and my story. I have to be. I throw myself into my stories, I think of them all day and sometimes dream of them. I am invested in them. This makes writing with anyone else difficult because they are making my character do things, which are sometimes not what my character would do.
In short, I don't know what sort of writer I could work with, and write good stories. I am skeptical that such a writer exists. This is, of course, related to the fact that I wrote a Blasted Novel with a friend, and was Not Happy with the result, particularly the ending.
As a joke, I told my friend that I had an idea for a sequel to the Blasted Novel. So she asked what it was. I told her, and also explained that it was a joke. She sounds like she kind of likes the idea. I don't want to write another novel, particularly not a sequel to one that I don't like (which is problematic by itself, because I am usually very happy with a story once I write it, not jaded and wishing to burn it). I don't want to write it with my friend, because we do not write in ways that compliment each other.
So, I will not let myself get talked into writing a sequel. I am banging my head (metaphorically) against the wall for even *suggesting* the thought. The thought may perish, immediately, and preferably permanently. I shall think instead of the lovely story that I am writing now, which I am very much in love with. Under no circumstances would I leave it to write a story that I don't even like. And I better remember it.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 04:03 am (UTC)I rarely know what a story is about until it is finished. So, I often change bits as I write it, in order that the story will work properly, based on a kind of intuition. I have yet to use an outline to write a story (although I have found them extremely useful when writing essays). I usually have some idea where I want to go, but it is a fuzzy sense of getting one character from one place to another. I fill in the fuzzy bits as I write.
EEK! Mind-thief! ...Er. Hrm. The closest I have ever gotten to an outline is a five-page-long plot summary with which to acquaint people with a novel in progress enough for them to be able to judge excerpts from it. And notes. Lots and lots of really unorderly notes. But then, Tolkien didn't do summaries either, and he wrote everything backwards and upside-down and out of order and plotlessly and managed to turn out a masterpiece (albeit after thirteen years). Reading accounts of his writing The Lord of the Rings was one of the most encouraging things on writing to me, ever. ^-^
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 07:49 am (UTC)I've never tried to write a chain story. I think it might result in . . . unpleasant consequences. My characters are mine.
Outlines . . . just don't happen. Well, I should be more specific. I write short stories. The outlines happen in my head, what bits of them actually exist. I don't know my plots very well, but I make up for it by knowing my characters (and not in the "what is their favorite color" sense, but in the "this is their reaction when faced with that nasty dragon" sense). Because for me, stories are really all about people who things happen to (when I'm writing them, most of the time, insert some disclaimer here).
I wish I could write out of order. I find that I pretty much have to write the scenes in the order that they belong, because otherwise I have to re-write scenes, and I don't like re-writing.
I shall now stop rambling and go to bed. *wanders off*