Getmewriting - Latest Comments

Re: Feedback

Rob James — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:58:12 -0000

Surely there are online "reading groups” too? Of course, personal contact is always preferred, but if there really isn't any nearby.... Does anyone know of any?

Re: Reworking my WIP

Craig — Sun, 06 May 2012 17:15:51 -0000

Its advantageous writing shorter fiction in this regard isn't it? Not to drag this beaten metaphors corpse from the grave or anything, but Sprinting is much 'easier' than a marathon, right?

With a short story, the ending is always within reach, right? You can sense it, you know its there, and its not that far, so you can throw a burst of energy at it. Longer fiction meanwhile the ending is a loooong way off. You have to knuckle down, accept that the ending is there, even if you cant see it, and work on your endurance. Believe that you can make it there. This is what I've learnt, having the right mindset. Working in different mediums is tougher (short fiction, long fiction, scripts), because you can quite easily slip from one mindset to another without realising it.

Enthusiasm and belief, and hell, even a little faith, are all very goo dthings to have to get you to the end.

Re: Isn’t It Great? It’s My Birthday Gift To Me!

Craig — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:21:41 -0000

So you don't want this funky Leather Jacket I got you then?

Very well, I shall keep it myself!

Re: Is Your Story Spineless?

Matt Roberts — Wed, 02 May 2012 10:04:03 -0000

Dude, I'm not sure I've even read the complete Wasp Whisperer manuscript. Maybe that could be the next novel I read?

Re: Is Your Story Spineless?

Craig — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:23:57 -0000

Yup, this nails it. Not just in my current project, but in my original one. Wasp Whisperer is built of this. I was thinking about it yesterday, and as much as I lothe the idea, I am seriously considering scrapping the final quarter of the book and rewriting it to conform to all the changes I've made.

A serious problem I have is not wanting to give things away. I may have an idea for the ending in mind, but I want to keep it secret. I look upon it from the protagonists point of view. They don't know the reasons behind the antagonists actions, so why should the reader? Of course there is a huge difference between the reader not knowing, and the writer not knowing. Which is where I am.

I took your advice, and started to think about my antagonists motivations. I knew what they were doing, but not why. I had some vague idea about it, but it really didn't hold up in the grand scheme. SO I went back to the drawing board. Why were they doing this? Really? I had an idea and while that made the whole 'spine' a lot more complex, it was at least solid, and seemed to work. It also actually simplified the immediate problem of the section I was having trouble with.

And I'll be honest, I would take a greater overall complexity to simplify a troublesome 'vertebrae' than to have the spine fall apart in the first place.

Re: Writers Lead from the Back

Matt Roberts — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:31:50 -0000

Ha! Yes indeed we do!

Re: Writers Lead from the Back

Craig — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 08:19:51 -0000

I think my writing is a lot like that image of the huskies above. Where it looks like the driver has fallen off altogether, and the huskies go off and do their own thing.

There is a big problem, and you mention above, about a project hitting all those points you can plot out, but giving the characters free reign to get there. Because everything gets messy and bloated. Messy is easier to deal with. Bloated isn't. Messy can be handled by a quick tidy, while bloated needs months of work at the gym.

My, we do like torturing metaphors around here, dont we?

Re: Genesis

Craig — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:47:31 -0000

Y'know, its funny you should mention that, because some of the idea's I've been throwing around in my mind for backstories ties directly into this. While it by no means fleshes out the whole thing, it does tie some of the characters more directly into the world (or worlds). I think one of the issues I'm having is that there is a hugh disconnect between the 'deep backstory' and the shallow, since the deep backstory all takes place in the distant past. I think one of the hardest things I'm facing is trying to get the 'world' to feel lived in, without it all being a crumbling mess.

Re: Genesis

Matt Roberts — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:39:45 -0000

Hi Craig. It sounds as if you've contracted a world, then constructed characters (or maybe the other way around). Ideally (because this is what happens in real life), you would create your world, and as you did so, characters would be born out of ideas that occur to you as you build. That way, your characters are tied directly to elements of your world or backstory.

That's not to say you can't do this in retrospect though. Do you have backstories for each of these characters? If not, I would suggest you create them, and make sure their backstory ties in to some element of the world directly.

Maybe there was a period of planetary occupation by a ruthless conglomerate (for precious resources or something), and one of your characters was born into 'enforced employment' on that planet (that's quite a nice idea actually). Or, maybe there was a scientific discovery that is very important to the backstory of the 'world'. You could make one of your characters the daughter of one of the scientists involved in that discovery.

Re: The End is Nigh…

Matt Roberts — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 03:53:17 -0000

I heard a great piece of advice on the I Should Be Writing podcast (although I think Mur Lafferty was quoting someone else's advice whose name I can't remember).

Write ten endings. Just a sentence for each. The first three/four will come easily; a bunch in the middle will probably be a bit silly; but when you really start digging deep to get the last few, they will be satisfying and hard to predict.

That's the theory anyway. If nothing else, you have a choice then, and it's an exercise that frees up the mind a bit, allowing you to come up with silly things as well, rather than sweat it out over the one perfect ending.

Re: Bad Habits and Backstory

Craig — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:34:28 -0000

It sounds like the piece has a great deal of lore, which of course is the difficult thing to weave into the narrative successfully, is it not? Put in too much and it upsets the flow of the story, too little and it can alienate the reader. It depends upon how willing the reader is to go along for the ride without having everything handed to them (which is, I fear, becoming an increasingly large problem in todays media and entertainment).

As Matt will attest, I have no problems with things getting bigger (and darker too), so congratulations on sticking to your guns and expanding on your project! Far better to expand than to cut it down to incomprehensibility, right?

Re: Bad Habits and Backstory

Matt Roberts — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:42:13 -0000

I'm not sure I'd call that copping out - if the original format doesn't serve the reader than it has to go I guess. That's probably quite a brave thing to do.

I've Instapaper'd that page so I'll be having a read through later. I rather like the feeling of a story running away from me (to a certain extent). It's certainly inspiring when the world starts to take on a life of it's own.

It can often be more fun than writing the story itself though!

Re: Bad Habits and Backstory

Dave Bartlett — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:58:45 -0000

Craig, (and Matt,)

Sorry. Didn't see your responses to my comment.

As I said it's a work in progress, and though It's clear in my mind it's anything but easy to put down on paper. I did an awful lot of planning: both formal planning with pages & pages of notes, as well as working through storylines with family and friends, and though people who were party to the idea tended to 'get it' quite easily, I realised it would be that much more difficult to put across on a printed page. I don't want people getting so confused that they lose interest before they've become involved in the story properly.

So I'm afraid I sold out a little: I extended the story to include more of the affairs of the characters in the earlier time period and started the story there from their point of view, bringing in the characters from the later era (one of whom is my main antagonist,) at a later point in the story, at which point the 'communication over time' idea is expanded.

Of course, this stretched out the story line and required some new plot structures to keep the reader's interest at different stages in the story line, and it has taken some time to work all these out while still keeping hold of the overall plot line. I found more ideas occurring to me than I could really use, and some of them were too good not to use, so what I've been left with, I think will work much better as a saga/series, and it's become my major project (and probably will be for some time to come.)

If you're interested, I included a kind of 'mini-synopsis' for each part of the series in a blog post some time ago at http://bartie-blog.blogspot.co... - it's encouraging to know that I've finally reigned in my imagination and the ideas as outlined there are pretty much the way it has stayed (so far at least, though it's far from being finished.)

Re: Bad Habits and Backstory

Craig — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:59:00 -0000

Hey Dave, thanks for posting.

Sounds like you've got yourself a very interesting detailed read going on there. Its almost like you've got every aspect of my post rolled into one story, new world to flesh out, two distinct timelines but so far apart that they'll each need their own back story, and what could turn out to be a bit of a chronology screw.

Sounds like fun!

Difficult though, like you say. Like Matt asks, did you do a lot of planning when mapping this out, or did you just let it flow all natural like.

Re: Should I “waste” my time on experimental writing?

Robin — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 03:54:12 -0000

Preface to 'Shadows', a work I published (online) just over a year ago.

http://shadows58.blogspot.com/...

Re: Bad Habits and Backstory

Matt Roberts — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:42:41 -0000

Hi Dave! It sounds like you really gave yourself a difficult job there, but it sounds really interesting! Did you do a lot of planning or try to wing it like Craig?

Re: Bad Habits and Backstory

Dave Bartlett — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 05:42:22 -0000

I had a really difficult problem in one of my works in progress.

It's a fantasy tale and the plot relies in part on two characters living a millennium apart actually communicating with each other, so my story line takes place in two different time frames.

Unfortunately, being a fantasy tale of the 'classic' ilk, there's a whole new world to introduce the reader to, so that automatically creates the need for a lot of 'deep back story'.

So if I'm not careful I can end up with my story jumping between two 'intended' time frames, plus having to cope with flashbacks to provide the back story required for both of them.

It's so bloody easy to get lost when writing that kind of thing, so what chance does the reader really stand?

Re: Guilt

Matt Roberts — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:27:57 -0000

Dude! Chin up! If it helps, you're more productive than me. You have a finished novel, don't you? Find yourself a freelance editor to give it a once-over and you're on your way to having a proper finished piece!

Re: Guilt

Craig — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:01:00 -0000

Oh dear god the guilt! I have guilt for not getting on with it, piled on top of the guilt that I felt for not attaining my rather meagre targets, piled on top of the guilt that I've failed in just about every aspect of my life.

It comes down to whther you feel its actually worth it, right? Like if you think you will achieve anything by going through the torturous process of writing and what you will get out of it. Quite frankly, I've lost all hope fo achieving anything with it.

Not very motivational, is it?

Re: What writers can learn from Battlestar Galactica, Part One

Matt Roberts — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:32:15 -0000

The fourth was split in two because of the writers strike.

I guess you could argue that it went on for too long, and therefore became convoluted. The only criteria I use for if something goes on too long is, am I bored with it?I was most definitely not bored with BSG. Loved it right up to the end. I might feel differently if I'd followed it for years, but I doubt it. The only thing that truly ran out of steam was Baltar, who they couldn't really find a purpose for after his trial.

Re: What writers can learn from Battlestar Galactica, Part One

Craig — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:10:47 -0000

I think the problem Battlestar had wasn't at all that they didn't have enough seasons to finish the show, but that it dragged on waaaay too long. This is perhaps the most major problem (i feel) of episodic (particularlyarc-story sci fi) TV in the states. If the show isn't popular enough, then it gets cancelled leaving an unresolved cliff-hanger, or worse yet, as you mentioned, an ending gets rushed which is unsatisfying for the fans (the new V springs to mind here). if on the other hand, a show is very popular, then it will get dragged out long after its use by date, or beyond the length of its supposed arc (there is no more clear example of this that Lost - which incidentally, I feel is a much better example of what can go wrong when a supposedly strongly structured arc-series is made up as they go along)

Battlestar had, what, five seasons? (The fourth split in two for budget/meddling executive reasons) But it couldn't - in my opinion, sustain that length of time. The danger of course in all episodic tv is when exactly the show jumps the shark. And personally, i felt the show jumped the shark when it revealed who the final five cylons were, which actually flew in the face of what had already been established for those characters. The weakness is - and this is perhaps where your point on the dangers of seat of your pants writing comes into play - that the writers had painted themselves into a corner, so they re-wrote what had previously been established as Canon. And we all know that you NEVER re-write Canon. Not once it has been established. Sure, if you have to change it in the editing process BEFORE any material has entered public domain (or writing yourself out of those holes you mention) thats fine. I've had to do that on several projects, and as painful as it is, if its what is needed to make a piece work, then so be it.

The other problem is, episodic TV is never written by just one person. it is downright impossible to have the ENTIRE series plotted out from the get go. If you have a six season outline, then you're never going to be able to have every detail mapped out. So in a way, a certain degree of flexibility is required. You have to find that middle ground between planning everything in detain, and writing by the seat of your pants. Have an outline, a plan, but be prepared to deviate as needed.

Re: Discovering what your story is about.

Matt Roberts — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:18:10 -0000

I say, write what interests you. If you find a story idea exciting, chances are there's a reason for that, even if it's not immediately obvious to you. Trust that it will come, and if it doesn't, move on I guess. Maybe you'll return to the story later and it will reveal itself to you.

Re: Discovering what your story is about.

Craig — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:18:38 -0000

Wasn't it always hammered into us during lessons that we should know a story's theme before we start? I always hated that, because as you say, you may not start (rarely, do you do so, in fact) with that in mind. What I have come to think about in recent years is that you should develop a strong style for your own writing. That way, you can switch things up in terms of settings (if you're someone who writes a lot in thwe same universe) or whether you do the dreaded switch of genre (which we all know is frowned upon by publishers)

I don't know if I just use that as an excuse to revisit the same themes over and over, but when I came to catalogue all of my projects that i was seriously working on, I found - and I was actually quite shocked by this - how many recurring themes I had. In EVERYTHING I've written.

So yes, does that make me a style over substance person? Maybe I should write about that...

Re: Specificity

Matt Roberts — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:07:12 -0000

I've got nothing against singers using their own experiences in their song lyrics. I just wish they'd do a good job of it.

Re: Specificity

Craig — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:58:30 -0000

Ugh! What terrible lyrics. Your pain is painful? Really? See, as you highlight, this is one of those songs by 'female artists of a specific age' where you don't know if its based on experience or not. Christina has a few songs of that nature too. There is, I feel, a certain triteness (yes, I can make up words too) to singers using their own lives as inspiration for their music. Or maybe its just because I've never been that interested in biographies. Why should famous people be the only ones to get them? Thats why I've been writing my life off and on for the past ten years.

On the note of specificity, as given in your second example, yes, it is a very powerful tool. But like most powerful tools, you have to be careful as to how you use it. If not, you can end up loppingt your arm off, then theres blood and screaming and a trip to A&E. Like the sentence prior to this one, you have to be careful lest you mangle a metaphor. Yes, in the example you give, the environment is used as a metaphor for the hopelessness of his search, but in a lesser writers hands this can become tortured and DEAR GOD HELP US NO!!! Melodramatic.

Something with which I (and by extension you, since you've read a lot of my work) am overly familiar with.