Stealing this one from ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
recessional, who stole it from lizbee:
I think it would be fun to talk about stories, but the usual memes are like, “What happens next?” “Tell me about Character A?” Which isn’t so much talking about stories as it is writing more of a story. But you know how sometimes you read something and you’re like, “I got ___ out of this story, I wonder if I have that right?” or “What on earth was ____ supposed to be?” and it’s too awkward to ask the author? Now you could totally ask!
I’ve heard people say that writing is hard because you have to make decisions, but we never really talk about the decisions we make with stories or why we make them. We talk about plot bunnies, but not about how we actually turn them into a story.
And it seems like a lot more fun to do that than to do working.
So, if you wanted, ask me questions! (Or use this to ask your flist to ask you questions).
What were you trying to do [here]? Why did you decide to ____? This is what I thought about xyz, is that what you were going for? What made you write ____? Why did you decide to do this? And so on.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/220490.html. You can comment here or there.
I’m curious as to your process. When I try to write a story that is more than ‘some stuff happened’, I always startt with ‘Something or someone is going to change over the course of the story. Who or what and from what to what?’ and hang everythign off that. How do you approach writing?
“Throw some stuff in a pot and see what happens,” more or less. I start out with “this is an interesting idea.” Generally I can see some shape to the idea, where it’s going to go, and then I sit down and see where it takes me. When co-writing, I end up having more form, since E. prefers it, but sometimes the story runs away with me anyway.
In the RPG theroy wonk circles they have come up with three ‘stances’ that describe how people play RPGs: actor stance – putting the character on like a coat and ‘inhabiting’ the game/story world, trying to react and percieve that way (sometimes reffered to as immersion stance). Exemplified by speaking in charter and roughly analogous to 1st person perspective. author stance – where you are ‘outside’ watching the characer and describing what they do/feel/think, but often without internalizing. This can focus more on the visible surface of the characer than the inner workings. Exemplified by describing the characters actions and roughly analogous to 3rd person perspective. director stance – which is where the GM in a game mostly stays. It is a meta level sits above an individual character’s actions. It’s where you act from when you hav a character do thigns for ‘plot’ reasons instead of character goal motivated reasons. I think that fokls approach writing in very similar ways and that, just like gaming, people are more comfortable in some stnaces than other and shift from stnace to stance as they write/game. Assuming that you buy that at all (XD), where do you write from and how much influence does each stance have on your writing?
When role-playing, I often am in Actor stance, although online RP offers me more chance to be director-stance. My writing is a combination of all three.
With Addergoole did the ‘staff’ ideas or the ‘student’ ideas come first?
yes. Sort of. Addergoole started out in my head as a Tír na Cali school… I think Ambrus was the first person I really pictured clearly. Proto!Regine was a lot more human before. And then Emrys-Shahin… although that character was closer to Kai than Sheen. And then the rest fell into place as I went.
I’m curious how Dragons Next Door turned from a few isolated snippets for a meme into a world. When/how does a scene turn into a story turn into a world?
Hrrrm. Generally, I write one story, and then either I say: “I want to know more about these people” or a get another prompt that seems to be heading in the same direction. Sometimes, this fizzles – “Lost and Found” from the “Abandoned” Giraffe call got no real interest, even though I really loved it. But sometimes interest explodes, and I go with it. Or my interest sticks (the Black House series you’re probably not reading) and I run with it.
Hrm. I am failing to find that giraffe call or story, though having failed to find the former I’m not sure where to look for the latter … How does the creation/writing process differ when it’s being pushed by you, or by your readers?
I need to link the summaries on the giraffe call pages! This is the call – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/129872.html The lost and found stories are: http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/274864.html?thread=1583024#t1583024 http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/274864.html?thread=1587120#t1587120 http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/274864.html?thread=1589680#t1589680 My readers push me indirections I wouldn’t think of. They like different things than I’d expect them to, often stuff that I consider tossed out in fun, sometimes not commenting or liking stuf I thought was really good or put a lot of work into. It’s kind of a dance, getting to stuff I like that readers will, too.
Oh! I liked those, and had mostly forgotten about them. Hmm. They feel fairly complete, the three together — you’ve introduced the characters in the local microcosm. There could be lots of other stories that the two keepers of the lost and found are involved in, but it seems like they’d have a different feel. That said, if you *want* to write more about them, I at least would happily read more. And then squeak about some other dropped thread. Greedy! Would you not write if there wasn’t anyone around/available/whatever to read? Certainly an audience can be useful, but is it necessary, for you, for your storytelling?
*boggles* Hunh. Hunh, I really don’t know. I’ve been writing for ~ 2 decades now. I’ve always, always shared my work – not all of it, not back then, but some of it. I think it is necessary. But I may be wrong. The way I put stuff together in my head has changed.
No brain-breaking intended!
Hee, no problem!