Writing Style · 10:02pm Nov 16th, 2013
Kind of wondering how common my style of writing is.
I procrastinate. Always been a problem for me. I'm much better now than I was in the past, but I still have a tendency to leave whatever needs doing to the last possible frigging second. In college, I wrote all of my papers the night before, in one go, no matter the length, driven by nothing but last-minute terror. There was always a measure of pride in how fast I could throw something together in so short a time. Figured maybe I was just really good at writing, but I don't really think it's that, exactly. I think I might just be throwing onto paper what's already done in my head.
I realized not long ago that my mind is always somewhat on the thing I want to write, even when I'm not writing it. I'll be sitting in traffic, or waiting in line for coffee, or in the shower, or washing dishes, and if there's nothing more pressing to think about, that's where my mind will wander. In the case of Sugarfree, the next chapter just floats around aimlessly, piecing itself together over the course of, usually, two weeks. I might write down a scene or a character moment, if one comes to mind and I don't want to lose it, but not always. For this latest chapter, I hadn't written a damn word until yesterday. I have a few scenes I keep pushing back, each chapter, because they never fit, and one or two might be used here, but beyond that, not a thing.
Sometime in the next few days, I'll throw the entire chapter on paper from what's floating around my head, and it will seem completely perfect and completely amazing. Then, one day will pass, I'll reread what I wrote, and be unbelievably horrified by how awkward and awful the entire thing reads. After that, it's like half a week or so of painstaking editing, trying to get it all to read right, then I pass it off to my pre-readers.
I've always heard it said that outlining is important to piecing together a good story, and I think I do that, but it never hits the paper. Is that common? Always wondered how some of you might do it differently.
Also: I just discovered the Cocteau Twins. Oh my god do I love them:
*Sits by his side and offers a mug of coffee*
You must share this problem with, like, 80% of the authors here. We aren't professionals, with busy schedules to accomplish. We are doing it because we love to write.
My fic is written in that exact same way. I know how it can be infuriating sometimes, Wade, but believe me, that's how it rolls for the great majority of us.
I dunno if a magic recipe for being less lazy exist. I try to put schedules for me, but i never managed to accomplish then, so I guess that is pointless.
1512708
Heh, yeah, procrastination is an issue I've definitely seen a lot of writers talk about wrestling with. Scheduling helps, but like you said, I've never really found a way that works.
I don't really mean that it's annoying, really, I mean more that it feels like we're always working on the story, every day, plotwise, even if we don't get a single word on paper. As in, the biggest part of writing each chapter is figuring out exactly what's going to happen and in what order.
I use Evernote to put together ideas for a draft. Details like Character traits, abilities, etc. I have an outline of the entire story and what happens in each chapter, but sometimes things get scrunched together or made into longer chapters. I write when I get the "bug" and then go back and edit it myself, since I don't have pre readers for my first project. Newer projects will have at least 1-3 pre readers.
But yeah, monotony of life is a great place to think about chapter ideas. Showers are always good. It's always a trait among writers to doubt their own work and be their own worst critic, I think that is equally as common as laziness or procrastination.
1512725
Gluing the important plots to smaller events that needs to be there for the story to make sense is a big, horrible pain...
I agree with you that we are writing the story mentally everyday, but putting it on paper is always the challenging part. I bet you got Sugarfree's ending already in your mind, right?
1512747
I actually have two ways the finale could go down. Same ending for both, but just, two ways they could get there. One works better from a character angle, while the other makes for better action. Not sure what I'll go for, but it will probably be the character-driven one. Won't know till I'm there, likely.
Boredom is my one and true muse.
But yeah, daydreaming is pretty much my modus operandi too. When I get enthusiastic for writing something, I'll spend time pondering it. Bed is usually the best place for me. That will lead me to dreaming up scenes I want. And in turn, those are more or less what provide the skeleton for my story; finding ways to string those bits together that I desperately want into the overall direction I want the story to go.
I don't tend to really write outlines or any such thing unless I get stuck. Or in the case of my recent fic, when I'm working with someone else to plot out a chapter.
My writing style is similar. Most of my idea-generation and scene planning happens while daydreaming, and it then gets transferred to written notes when fleshed out enough. The other part in common is that I procrastinate terribly about writing the actual prose (and again about editing it - "Letter of Reference" had pre-reader feedback months ago and I've done nothing with it).
So, I'm not saying that my writing style is a _good_ one
.
The best advice I've heard from elsewhere is to pick a time of the day/week and make it a habit to sit there and write, every time, no matter what. You don't have to be writing anything good, or working on anything important, but getting into the habit of writing will help with that final step.
The fact that I still don't have any of the stories I've been prodded at past the thousand-finalized-words mark will tell you how well I've managed to follow that advice
. Hopefully you will have better luck in that regard than I have!
That's pretty much exactly how I write, except I can't actually go into intimate detail in my head or I'll forget it. So I just sit around and idly keep my mind on the knowledge that I have writing to do while I do other things until I actually sit down and get to it.
I have a general outline planned out in my head though.