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      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 11th 2011 edited
     

    Hoo, boy, exactly what it says on the tin…

    Basically, I, personally, have all these ideas milling about in my brain, but none of them are my forte. I just can’t put them onto paper because they’re beyond me. And I usually just chalk it up to being immature as a writer, but it seems more complicated than that. So what in the world does one do?

  1.  

    to quote you:

    I just realized why I have writers block all the time. It’s because I keep gravitating towards these fighty, actiony stories, but I hate writing fighty, actiony scenes. I can always write soft scenes between characters and the long, rambly nothings between points of serious plot and enjoy the heck out of it, but I cannot do the stuff that actually moves the plot forward. Which means all the stories I can think of I’ll never be able to finish because I simply do not have the capacity to write them.
    I do not have the capacity to write my own ideas.
    ...
    W
    T
    F

    So. I guess the first thing to do is twist your weaknesses into strengths somehow. Sounds cliche, but if you can figure it out, it so works. And you get this feeling like you just cheated the system. >:D

    Here are my suggestions to start off with.

    Can you do a Diana Wynne Jones-ish type of thing and have all the important stuff come through in casual conversation and it all turns out to fit together later?

    Maybe you could try and integrate action with random dialogue (eg explore your characters through a silly conversation they have whilst burgling a house). Use that incongruity in a way that makes your story and your writing style stand out.

    Personally, I like stories that are quite reflective and slow-paced and character-focused. These days it’s all about PLOT PLOT PLOT ACTION THIS THAT KABOOM. And not every person is going to want to write that and not every person is going to want to read that. So that’s some encouragement for you.

    And can you give a couple of examples of the plot you wanted to write and then how you got side-tracked or what you failed on? How much of the action do you want to write before you get bored/stuck/sidetracked? How much of your plot hinges on action? Is there a way to take those plots and dial down the action whilst having a similar story?

    (Here’s a thought: you sound like you’d be good at writing Agatha Christie-type detective novels. Just throw a murder or two in and watch the mayhem unfold between your characters. It’s inbuilt tension that you don’t have to work at because it’s so immediate and makes its presence felt.)

    •  
      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 11th 2011 edited
     

    Funnily, I’m quite good at putting in important information with subtetly, though at the cost of information coming in small pieces and never in chunks.

    Unfortunately, I’m a person of exceedinly dry humor, and slow wit. Basically, I think that writing a detective novel or something of the like would be rad as hell, but I’m not clever enough to think of an interesting situation or twist, and I abhor writers who try to write situations that require more intelligence than they have in their brains.

    The thing with the pace is, I want to write something fast-paced, but I like to write things that are slowpaced, so it seems the different parts of my brain are just battling it out, all the time.

    Basically, my first, first story was a collect-the-mcguffins type story where two opposing factions are trying to collect these seven objects that have power to summon this obscenely powerful being into the world—the one faction treats them as objects of annihilation, and the other doesn’t really understand the properties of the objects, but they were granted immortality so they’d have all the time in the world to find them, and at after a point they simply did not care. The main character—because he unknowingly shared blood with one of the members and had quite a bit of power from his father—got drawn into the section faction, but had incredibly close ties with members of the first faction before he realized who they were, not to mention the fact that, as his powers got stronger with the macguffins he collected, he had to deal with the fact he was starting to become less and less human. Every time I sat down an wrote scenes out of context, they’d be some betrayal going down, or some significant character development happening, or some sort of soft moment between people, and whenever I had to write a scene in context of the factions clashing (inevitable, given the story) I just made it up and trudged through the scenes for a month before anything came of it and I could get back to my mushy stuff.

  2.  

    Every time I sat down an wrote scenes out of context, they’d be some betrayal going down, or some significant character development happening, or some sort of soft moment between people, and whenever I had to write a scene in context of the factions clashing (inevitable, given the story) I just made it up and trudged through the scenes for a month before anything came of it and I could get back to my mushy stuff.

    Um, just to clarify, the mushy stuff is the stuff like significant character development or betrayal going down?

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      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 11th 2011
     

    Yep, that would be the mushy stuff

  3.  

    Right. So maybe you need to switch it up and have the epic stuff going on in the background, let mentions of that as well as slightly changing circumstances becaue of the epic stuff drive the plot whilst you concentrate on your characters’ personal journeys.

    It’s like those stories set ‘against the backdrop of the Civil War’. They’re not about the Civil War, that just happens to be going on at the same time and it only intrudes on the narrative when it’s relevant to your characters.

    I admit that in this story it may be hard to do, but does this help at all?

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      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 11th 2011
     

    Yeah. I totally understand what you mean—but it’s really tough to switch into that gear. I feel like my mother’s absolute obsession with taking me to random action movies has really guttered up my mind with random explosions and such. I just need to figure out a way to think of that story so i can just write it. I guess the thing I need to practice on is intrigue—since I think you need that if you want people to stay interested in a plot where there’s no jump actiony type stuff, and I’m not sure if I have any talent in it.

  4.  

    You could even just practise writing action oneshots or something. Throw the reader right into the middle of it, and have a rule where there’s no more than, say, two big moments of introspection allowed.

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      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 11th 2011
     

    But the question is, can I make myself enjoy it? Heh, I get the feeling I’m being unnescesarily difficult…
    I suppose the main question is this: how does one develop a mindset in which someone can say to them, “Write an absurdly long story about a man sitting in one place getting punched in the face for a few hours” and instead of groaning you just go, “Hell yeah!”
    It’s all psychological

  5.  

    Well, I’m of the mind that being difficult and getting all your problems and excuses and contradictions of advice out in the open is the best way to start with something. Then you can start undoing it all and contradicting your contradictions.

    Of course, this tends to mean that I drive people mad when I approach problems like this.

    Eh, I think it’s a skill you need to develop, even if you never enjoy it.

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      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 11th 2011
     

    I did write an action one-shot for school about a month ago…maybe I’ll post and see what’s up.

  6.  

    Sounds cool.

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      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeSep 11th 2011
     

    I have this one story I thought up when I was ten. It was/is brilliant. Thing is, almost twelve years later, I still lack the skill to write the damned thing.

    Cue foaming at the mouth.

  7.  

    Yeah?

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeSep 12th 2011
     

    Yeah? It’s so convoluted that I have issues summarizing it. But basically, one of the main themes is history repeats itself, so I’ve got two major timelines separated by several centuries with the events of said timelines paralleling and contrasting with each other. And the only way to show these parallels/contrasts is to alternate between the two without a) confusing the heck out of readers and b) feeling redundant/blatantly obvious.

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      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 12th 2011
     

    Whoa. Sounds like that’s because that’s a seriously tough plot to put into words, rather than you being deficient as a writer. I can’t begin to fathom the amount of outlining such a thing would take. I guess I’d suggest reading the Cloud Atlas? It’s vaaaguely similar to what you’re trying to do. Maybe it can just be one of those books that’s only confusing when you’re not paying close enough attention—like how people thought Inception was, even though it was pretty straightforward so long as you didn’t get caught up in the CGI and remembered that there was a plot going on. There’s nothing wrong with that sort of story. Besides, you’ll never know how it reads unless you write it.

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeSep 12th 2011
     

    Kyllorac? As a former history major, I APPROVE. Please, oh please, give me a holler if you need any help with research.

    I WANT TO READ YOUR BOOK, WOMAN. WRITE IT, KTHXBAI.

  8.  

    Oh, Kyllorac, I want to know more. Is it like an Anna Karenina thing, where there’s a little bit of interaction between the characters (or in this case, between timelines, such as a person in the future having to dig out the past, or the people in each time are concerned with solving the same mystery, or even time travelling?), but the two storylines are developing relatively separately?

    I’m sorry to say it, but I’ve never quite gotten the point of those stories. If there’s no time travel or weird stuff going on, I don’t understand why they don’t just split the two into separate stories, or only allude to one of them.

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      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeSep 13th 2011
     

    Well, it’s a fantasy work (sorry Willow, though maybe one day I should write some historical fiction…), and though the world is a bit magic light, there is magic, and it is rather essential to the plot. And the only way I can describe the two timelines is that they’re separate, but they’re not. They develop separately, and they seem separate, if repetitive, but the actions in one have a huge, huge, huge impact on the other timeline, though it isn’t apparent at first, and there are a few players who were around during the first timeline that are taking a hand in the second. And that’s not counting the allusions to other timelines. Which are also important.

    Little me, what were you thinking?!

    •  
      CommentAuthorBeldam
    • CommentTimeSep 13th 2011
     

    In a situation like this, I think sticky notes are the best solution!

    Maybe if you simplified the plot…? Though I suppose that would take away tha spect of it that attracted you to the idea of it in the first place.

  9.  

    Well, it’s a fantasy work (sorry Willow, though maybe one day I should write some historical fiction…), and though the world is a bit magic light, there is magic, and it is rather essential to the plot. And the only way I can describe the two timelines is that they’re separate, but they’re not. They develop separately, and they seem separate, if repetitive, but the actions in one have a huge, huge, huge impact on the other timeline, though it isn’t apparent at first, and there are a few players who were around during the first timeline that are taking a hand in the second. And that’s not counting the allusions to other timelines. Which are also important.

    AURGH YOU NEED TO WRITE THIS NOW!!!!!!! NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!

    ...sorry, I know in a thread like this that doesn’t help. I just got my fangirl all over you, too…

  10.  

    Your story sounds awesome, as well as horribly complicated, Kyllorac. I would read it, but I understand why you haven’t written it yet.

  11.  

    Like Beldam said, sticky notes could work… Or, you know, virtual sticky notes, because this sounds long.

    Maybe start with the scenes you want to write, and try to add bits in here and there that work around that until you have a framework?

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeSep 13th 2011
     

    KYLLORAC, IF YOU WANT A WRITING BUDDY, I WILL VOLUNTEER BECAUSE THIS SOUNDS AWESOMESAUCE BEYOND BELIEF. SCREW HISTORICAL FICTION, I HATE IT ANYWAY. START WRITING, WOMAN, OR I WILL START WRITING FANFICTION OF YOUR NONEXISTANT STORY!

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      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2011 edited
     

    Oh wow. I have a not-yet-story with fans before it’s even really written. XD

    You know Steph, I already tried that, but see, I was ten. And I had just been introduced to DnD. And so everything I wrote from then up until I semi-gave-it-up when I was twelve is so mired in DnD cliche and “coolness” that the original storylines of awesome are rather difficult to extract. And I have other projects that I’d like to finish first that aren’t being as stubborn, so backburner.

    But I will write it one day. Probably after I finish my current novel pet project, since I’ll be needing a break from that world and its (many, many) characters.

    And I’ll be sure to recruit you then, most likely, Willow. XD

  12.  

    The easiest way I can think of to make a plot like that work is to make sure that the focal characters in Timeline A aren’t the analogs for the focal characters in Timeline B. If they both proceed at a common pace, you could switch back and forth in regular intervals, and if the cyclical nature thing is evident, the reader ought to be able to fill in what you passed over in one timeline with the stuff that happened in the other.

    It still sounds pretty complicated to arrange, though.

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2011 edited
     

    Really really wants to read Kyllorac’s story

    I don’t want to wait years for rough drafts, dammit!

    Chants in head “must not steal idea for funsies fanfiction, must finish own novel, stop thinking about potential awesome”

  13.  

    ^^ I’m with her.