cairistiona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cairistiona) wrote2016-08-12 07:18 am
cairistiona) wrote2016-08-12 07:18 am
Entry tags:
Writing meme
Gacked from, erm, myself? LOL And also ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nath . I did this over at tumblr and had some fun, but I have more writer friends here, so have at it if you're interested.
Give me three numbers...
1) is there a story you're holding off on writing for some reason?
2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?
3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?
4) favorite character you've written
5) character you were most surprised to end up writing
6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it's too late/complicated to change now
7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?
8) favorite genre to write
9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?
10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?
11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?
12) your weaknesses as an author
13) your strengths as an author
14) do you make playlists for your current wips?
15) why did you start writing?
16) are there any characters who haunt you?
17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?
18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?
19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, etc.?
20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?
21) what do you think when you read over your older work?
22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?
23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?
24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?
25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of
nath . I did this over at tumblr and had some fun, but I have more writer friends here, so have at it if you're interested.Give me three numbers...
1) is there a story you're holding off on writing for some reason?
2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?
3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?
4) favorite character you've written
5) character you were most surprised to end up writing
6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it's too late/complicated to change now
7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?
8) favorite genre to write
9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?
10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?
11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?
12) your weaknesses as an author
13) your strengths as an author
14) do you make playlists for your current wips?
15) why did you start writing?
16) are there any characters who haunt you?
17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?
18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?
19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, etc.?
20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?
21) what do you think when you read over your older work?
22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?
23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?
24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?
25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of
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Well, in Captain America fic, a part of me would love to bring two of my Bucky Barnes' stories, "Orders Acknowledged" and "Not Fit For Duty" in line with the canon of CACW, but that would require gutting a lot of them and I don't want to do that. They'll just remain AU. In LOTR fic... I'm actually pretty content with how all of the already-posted stories stand. I might change some minor things, clean up some passages so they're not so rambling, but on the whole I'm happy with them. The Bowen Rushlight WIP, however... *sigh* I *may* know what it needs: a clearer idea of the fate of two of my Ranger characters, Eledh and Galadh. I have two directions I could take each of them and I simply can't decide how to go with it. :/
16) are there any characters who haunt you?
Halbarad, definitely. I cannot stand his fate in canon. I'm not interested in writing AU in Tolkien fic, though, so I tried to flesh him out more so that his life has more meaning, to balance out his noble end. I feel the same way about the Bree-landers who died in the Battle of Bree. We get their names but little more. My 3rd Bowen Rushlight story is partly an attempt to shine a spotlight on them. (I do plan to return to that one someday... I'm just stuck in writer's block hell on that one.)
24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?
Well, not sure I could call my self an expert, but I do probably know more about being a first responder than the average joe. I started out writing Emergency! fic, which is about firefighting and paramedics, so there was a lot of intensive research into medical procedures, injuries, and illnesses. I'm a little OCD about trying to get the details right, and that's carried over into both my LOTR and Captain America fic-writing process. I'll fudge a little in the name of dramatic license but I do try to get it as accurate as possible. I don't consider myself an expert in any of it, though. More like "knows just enough to be dangerous"!
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*deep breath* How to answer without sounding like an egotistical twat...
I guess I'd have to say that I'm better now at recognizing written tics, those little mistakes or oddities that crop up over and over but aren't stylistic choices but are more like verbal equivalents of "um", if that makes sense. One of them is a tendency to use "and" a lot. I blame Bernard Cornwell in part for that, because he tends to use sentences linked with "and" a lot in his action scenes. It works for him, but I'm not always positive it works as well in my stories, so I use it a lot less than I used to. I fear I could still go through a more current story and find several to weed out, though.
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Toss up between my Bree-lander OCs and Buck Barnes. All of them took me by surprise!
7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?
Neither of those words but I do tend toward keeping it low key, in large part because when I was getting published in magazines, I'd invariably have to fend off multiple pleas of "could you ghost write my memoirs?" I have a woman I barely knew from 20 years ago contact me out of the blue on FB for that sole reason. :/ Mostly now I just tell people I do manuscript critique and "some academic work", which is true. I just don't do the critique for actual money and the 'academic work' is character exploration through fanfic. *g* When pressed for more detail, I'll tell them about helping Liz with her "Hobbit to Hero" book and helping Michael J. Sullivan with his books... their eyes usually glaze over and that's the end of their interest (and usually the end of any of their tentative inquiries about writing their own life stories).
18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?
My writing style tends to be somewhat fluid, by which I mean it depends on the genre. When I write Tolkien fic, it's obviously influenced by Tolkien and is far more formal in voice and structure. Marvel fic, however, is probably closer to my 'own' voice, as an American writing American characters--the novels I've written that are languishing in a drawer use a voice far more in line with those stories than with my LOTR fic. So that style of writing is influenced by writers like CJ Box and Lee Child. I imagine that Michael J. Sullivan is creeping in there, too, since I so often have to actually critique his writing. When I'm beta'ing for him, I have a feeling my mind subconsciously mimics his style.
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It varies from "oh yuck" to "wow, did I really write that?" depending on the story. :) Mostly I suppose I look back and see the typical inconsistency of new writers and try not too highly of the good stuff nor be too devastated by the ugh stuff. It's all part of the process of growing as a writer.
3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?
(And happy birthday?? LOL You didn't say what month and I can't remember which month, so I'm covering all my bases here)
I tend mostly toward linear writing. I'll scribble out a draft of the ending, if I know it, just so I'll have a target to aim for. And sometimes I've scribbled out a scene that popped into my head that later became part of a full-blown story, but not necessarily the first scene. But once I've got the general idea of a story, I'll start at the beginning and slog on to the end, and then I'll go back and polish it in a series of drafts. In LOTR fic, I have to make sure I'm completely finished with a story before I publish it, because they're usually complex and I often have to go back and fix earlier chapters. Marvel fic I can post as I go, which makes me nervous (I hate the idea of getting writer's block and leaving readers hanging for months or years), but doing it that way is a fun way to kick me out of my comfort zone.
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Lack of organization. I end up wasting time going back and rereading chapters to keep track of details. I think if I were better organized and used a nice notecard system or what have you, I'd do better!
17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?
Write the story YOU want to tell and don't worry quite so much about pleasing readers and don't worry about the readers who choose not to give your stuff a go. If you write the story well, you'll find readers for it, and face it, you don't read every single type of fiction out there, either, so it's nothing personal if someone doesn't give yours a try!
23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?
Hmm. In general, I think my family's bent toward gallows humor as a coping mechanism has informed some of the comic elements in my writing. As for specific events... I wrote an Adam-12 fic centuries ago that I used my fear of railroad bridges to help create a sense of dread and tension for a scene where the police officers had to chase a suspect into a railroad tunnel. That was both fun and mildly terrifying to write (and in no way cathartic... I still have a fear of being on a railroad bridge or tunnel with no way to get out of the way of an oncoming train). The specific incident I based the story on was when I was in police training and we were looking for a missing senior citizen. My group was assigned an area along railroad tracks and at one point I had to choose whether to scurry across a railroad trestle or go down and then back up an icy, rock-lined ravine. :/ I chose the bridge but YIKES that was scary (even though I knew for certain there wasn't a train coming).
My palms are sweating even now as I type this. LOL
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Hmmm... setting and dialogue, methinks. And an ability to balance humor with angst.
14) do you make playlists for your current wips?
Not really. I may hear a song, usually randomly, that makes me think about a character, but I don't usually take the time to find songs to populate an actual playlist. Sometimes I get lucky when entire albums will fit a character--Imagine Dragons "Smoke+Mirrors" really suits Bucky, for example--but usually songs that inspire me are so scattered that it's just sheer luck when I find something. (And usually it's when I'm in the car or somewhere where I can't actually bookmark the song to add to a playlist.)
15) why did you start writing?
To get the stories out of my head, mostly, but also because once I started trying it for the first time, I found I really, really enjoyed the process. I didn't start writing until I got my first word processor, which was a glorified typewriter basically. I don't do well at all writing by hand--my brain gets too sidetracked by the actual act of writing; I need the speed and non-thinking-required of a keyboard. So once word processing typewriters and then of course the PC came along, I really dove headfirst into writing stories.