[Bunny #4] Post your stucks-

[kalloway]

It happens to all of us. The wall of stuck. The wall of stuck can manifest in a lot of ways. It can come in the form of realizing a plotbunny was really a premise!bunny and there's nowhere for the story to go because there isn't actually much of a story. It can be canon giving a firm backhand. It can be wholly external. It can be a scathing review or even an unintentional comment from a well-meaning friend. It can be an epic decision or a non-epic decision or everything or nothing.

What has gotten you stuck? What has gotten you unstuck?


My stucks are usually... premise bunnies, prompts that seemed interesting at the time, over-excitement and not planning. And character names. I have an entire shelf of baby name books and that makes things worse...

My unstuck methods are all over the place - working on a different section of the story, putting in placeholders for the bits that stuck, making lists of what might be in a character's fridge to get me thinking about them in general, reviewing canon, long walks by the water, imaginary conversation while at the grocery store...

Post your stucks and your unstucks!

If you would like. Perhaps another community member can offer you suggestions to unstick yourself. You do not have to.


This is also a weekly check-in! You do not have to check in, of course, but if you would like to comment on the last week, feel free!

If you have a deadline coming up, you can do it!

Comments

[kalloway]

My worst 'stuck' is something I'm still digging myself out of... A combination of thin skin and, well, rude people. I personally don't care if people make fun of my writing in the privacy of their homes, and I can handle criticism fairly well most of the time, but mocking to my face... Not so much. There's a fic that'll never be finished. (And it killed my creativity for a long, long time...) The whole event was coupled with a bad work environment and a long depressive episode, but yeah... Yeah...

Unstucks are above. New canon always gets me thinking, too... and reviewing old stuff. I'm in the middle of re-watching the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime to work on old prompts that I need to tackle.

As for check-in...

+ edited and posted chapter of meta-Gundam fic
+ edited and posted chapter of FFVII fic
+ wrote/edited/posted SEED birthday fic
+ two gen_battle ficlets (to be posted shortly)

- oh, 0tp prompts are amaaaazing

* still need to finish that unconventional courtship fic
* and a couple of other fics
* movies and fma rewatch haven't triggered any new plotbunnies

[sylvaine]

Hmmm, the thing that gets me stuck most often is comments. Not the content, so much - I've been really lucky with nice comments so far - but the quantity. It always makes me feel awfully entitled, but getting little to no comments does feel pretty discouraging. I try to combat that by setting my expectations lower, making things specifically for other people (that way I know at least one person read/listened to it!), and doing my best to convince myself that I'm only doing this for my own enjoyment (which I do, but not only because of that! If that were the case I wouldn't ever bother putting anything Moines.) So far I have only had limited success with above methods. More successful is signing up to challenges (i get things done because deadlines! But I don't do this very often because creating things for challenges is less fun for me.). And when I get a particularly awesome comment I'm usually inspired to write/record more. ^^

Check-in: haven't done anything creative last week, too busy & too lethargic.

[kalloway]

Busy/lethargic weeks definitely happen. I know I'll have one coming up where if I can put two words together, it'll be a miracle.

I definitely understand that! I think it's hard for us to talk about because we've been told so many times that we're being entitled for wanting comments. But holy fishes, it does feel good to have lotsa people say we did good! I don't think wanting comments is a bad thing (as long as it's not the only thing)--

[ldybastet]

Since the start of December my stucks are sex scenes, which is awfully inconvenient for a porn writer. ;) I have 8 or 9 fics that I have started and they are all stuck where the sex scenes begin. I can blame a few of them for being more premise!bunnies than actual *real* bunnies, but the others... Set-up and start of story is fine, including banter and dialogue, and then the heat cranks up and my brain goes cold. ;)

Other times it can be that I'm not actually as clear on a story or scene or plot as I think I am. Maybe I can sum it up nicely in a few sentences, but when I turn my inner eye to it, it's more like a few snapshots than a movie, if that makes sense.

To unstuck the latter, it usually works if I can manage to find out what actually happens in detail in the scene, get the film rolling in my head. Otherwise I have nothing to describe and put into words. But the trick to *do* this varies. What works on one story may not work on another. :(

I've found that traditional Japanese music in the background makes my muses happy and cooperating, also to fill my bed with pillows and lean against them while writing instead of sitting in the living room... If I could find a trick that I could trust to work more often, I'd be happy. As it is, I have to test a hundred different things every time.

Check-in: one story is in beta! It ended up longer than a lot of things I've written in ages, so I'm happy with that. other than that, just a few hundred words on a new chapter for my WiP.

(Just wanted to add that I, too, get discouraged when for some reason I get very few comments on something, and I start dissecting everything I wrote and judging it hard. Not very good for creativity.)

[kalloway]

Ahaha, I have one last chapter to edit and post for a fic... except there isn't actually and ending on it yet. It stops midway through a sex scene (well, the story is done, the epilogue of happy rolling around naked is what's left) and has been like that for a year and a half. A couple orgasms and the whole thing would be done, but my brain goes tilt when I look at it.

I think part of my problem is that I've read things like fanficrants and fail-fandomanon too many times where people complain about repetition or word choice in sex scene and because there are no words that make everyone happy, I just sort of stop when I get to that point because I think I'm trying to re-invent the wheel or something.

(Me too. I think it's a universal problem.)

[ldybastet]

LOL I understand exactly what you mean about the brain tilt! I write happily and then the sex scenes comes (no pun intended), and brain grinds into a halt. That's not the kind of grinding I want, though. ;)

Yeah, having read a million of people's personal preferences for sex scenes and their pet peeves and so on is not good. Second-guessing word choices and trying to avoid every other person's peeves is only going to result in insecurity and/or a very boring sex scene. *grin* But yeah, I do that too. I feel like I write the same thing over and over, and then I stop and think about it and I realize that, hey my own sex life is pretty repetitive too! LOL I don't do vastly different things each time, and hanging in the chandelier seems a bit over the top. ;) Are we trying to re-invent sex? LOL

One thing I have found that sometimes works to unstuck these scenes or at least to get more inspiration is to watch porn. :) Best excuse in the world. "It's research!" Hahaha!

Good luck with your fic! May there be happy orgasms!

[kalloway]

I pretty much had to stop reading people's general complaints to feel good about writing again, at one point. Okay, not gonna be everyone's cuppa... I'm okay with that now. But sex scenes are definitely still a bit of a thing.

Now, of course, I want to think up a reason for someone to be hanging in the chandelier. ^^;; And you're very right that sex... really isn't new stuff all the time and that's okay.

Thankee! Good luck with your stuff too!

[silverr]

When small snags (being blocked on a scene) happen, I work on other parts of the fic, or finesse the outline, or play with titles. The "motto" here is ' it's okay to write out of sequence."

Lately, though, I find myself not just wrestling with a scene, but with the feeling that I've run out of steam---for the story, for the fandom, or for writing in general. ~ When this happens I set it all aside and do Something Completely Different. SCD doesn't generally get me unstuck, but it does help me not to feel fretful and guilty over not writing.

What almost always reignites my enthusiasm is either re-visiting the canon, or getting a nice, juicy review. (For me, hits without reviews congeal into "it looked interesting so they clicked on it and started to read but didn't finish."

[kalloway]

SCD is good. I'll go play with crafty stuff sometimes, or even sleep. ^^;; Tends to help.

(I tend to get maybe one review per 100 hits, so I'd like to think at least half of those people at least read all the way thru.)

[silverr]

What toasts my gristle, though, is that for almost every pen name I write under, whichever story is the overwhelming #1 in terms of hits (and usually favs) is generally the one that gets little to no reviews.

Case in point: A one-shot I wrote almost 2 years ago for a contest has topped the hit chart every month since it was posted (even over new pieces). It's nearing 7,000 hits, has 50 or so favs, but has stayed at 9 reviews since the contest ended (8 of the reviews are from other participants). ~ So how am I to interpret these numbers? (And then there's the mystery of the hits on it sometimes being three or four times the number of users (it's a one-shot).

Ultimately, I should keep trying to train myself not to look at or care about the stats, I guess.

[kalloway]

I have the stories I wrote ten years ago while still get piles of hits and reviews and the stuff I'm writing now... generally seems to get a tenth of the attention if not less. I want to jump up and down and scream 'new shinies over here, you can quit looking at the old stuff!' or something.

Stats are really fun, but yeah... they can be kinda depressing, too. I'd just assume write what I want, figure any comments are a gift, and have fun.

[silverr]

yeah, pretty much.

(As for old stuff: I suspect that's the Brownian motion of the reccing processes. You either actively ask for recs, or you peek at the favs/bookmarks of author you like.)

[acerbictomes]

The thing that gets me stuck are the bits between the bits you really, really want to write. Like, getting from point A to point B. I'm writing a fic that takes place over the course of one night, so I can't skimp with the standard "they talked a lot and it was awesome" transition, and the whole grind of like, consistent interaction is getting me dowwwwwn.

[kalloway]

Middles are my least favourite, too, most of the time.

Could you do a 'when A got back from the bathroom, they talked about Impressionist paintings for two hours before plot-relevant thing happened...' where some of the time doesn't have to be expanded on?

[acerbictomes]

(Whoops! Didn't get this in my inbox for some reason...)
And yeah, I could do that, or open a scene in the middle of a conversation. Thanks!

[lassarina]

The thing that gets me stuck is a variation on:

1. Thing happens.
2. More different thing happens.
3. ???
4. Profit!
5. Ending?

For un-stuck, I tend to lob the entire existing outline at someone (primary beta is great for this) and throw myself on that person's mercy until the outline is untangled and the question marks are filled in, but sometimes a story just has to sit. (un)fortunately, I have a few dozen other things I could be working on...

[kalloway]

I have at least one NaNo still in the WiP folder that has a note in it that says [middle goes here, figure it out later]. I completely understand!

[pebblerocker]

Names are hard! I was stuck on names for a long time for the current story; I had placeholder names but they weren't the absolute perfect name I was looking for, so every time I opened my story the names jarred and I was put off writing. Names for the secondary characters came more easily; my main characters have names that will do but may need changing again.

My story isn't coming along and I think I'm stuck on something so big I won't be able to get past it. In a way I am writing just to figure out how my universe works -- to find where the questions are as I go along, knowing that this story need never see light of day. Maybe I need to take another step back, look at the situation again and find the right questions to ask.

On the up side, I've been hit by an idea about making what was originally an Insert Macguffin Here into something that relates to the background of my second main character and may help to give his life some interest. So that's good!

[kalloway]

I get kinda bad about re-using names for secondary cast. If I find a name I like that doesn't have any bad associations (or a minimum amount - it's amazing how cranky customers can ruin names forever), I get as much mileage as I can out of it, whoops.

Sounds like you have a good path laid out, and if you do choose to re-write the whole thing at some point and span the gap you've hit, you'll know how.

\o/

[radondoran]

I'm stuck right now on two plot bunnies that actually turned out to be premise bunnies. (Actually, I think most of my plot bunnies are really premise bunnies, but usually I don't write plotty fic so it isn't a problem.) Curiously enough, I think it won't be too hard to work out a plot for the longer fic--it's going to be a long pastiche, so I should be able to construct a plot systematically, if that makes sense? It's just a matter of sitting down and applying myself.

But I'm really stuck on the shorter fic. I know some of what happens, and I have a pretty good handle on the POV character's emotional arc... but in order for it to come together, I need to come up with some kind of clever problem or puzzle along the lines of what the characters face in canon. Without an external case-type problem to turn things on, none of the other stuff I've worked out really has a raison d'être.

I'm probably doing this backwards, haha. Probably you're supposed to come up with the actual main conflict first and then the secondary stuff.

[pebblerocker]

Oh, mystery and police-type fics must be so complicated to build. Some writers manage to pull off something as plotty as a real episode and I'm in awe. How do they do it? Sorry I can't help...

[kalloway]

How much of the 'case' do you really need to put into the fic? You could go with something pretty basic if it just needs to be happening but in the background and isn't super important to the rest of the character development.

If you're comfy doing so, you can make your own post, too, asking for suggestions.

[lunarwolfik]

The getting stuck part is by far the worst thing that plaques me when writing longer fics. I think I'm good for short inclusive 1-2k fics of self-contained whatevers, but beyond that, ugh, it's all stuck, all the time.

And yea, still don't know how to become unstuck. I like the idea of working on other bits and coming back to the stuck parts, because wow, there are scenes that itch under my skin and call to be written in the worst ways, but at the same time, once I get those scenes out of my system, I don't know if I'll even be motivated to work on the other bits because I've lost the part I'm working towards : /

[kalloway]

But I think sometimes knowing exactly what you're working towards can help with the bridge, too. And know what details need to be tucked into the build up.

If I ever discover the secret to 'the middle', I promise to share~!

[meridian_rose]

Character names is a huge thing for me, and I have a ton of name books and website resources and so on but sometimes none of them are right!

I don't have that excuse with fanfic of course. However another problem someone mentioned is one I have with original fic and fanfic; the awful middle. I know how things start and where they end but so help me if I know how to get there!

[kalloway]

I've used Seventh Sanctum quite a bit for names, and randomly opening and pointing. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed with options, too. ^^;;

Trust me, if I ever solve 'the middle', I'll let everyone know. ^^;;

[osidiano]

Hmm. . . most of my stories begin as premise!bunnies that I lovingly hand-feed and raise to plotbunnyhood, so I usually find them to be helpful unstucks. If it's just general stuckness I'm feeling, I'll crawl through my focus fandom's anon meme to see if anything sparks my interest or rekindles my writing desire. If it's story specific stuckness, I usually go back through the fic's comments and bookmarked notes to remind myself that there are people out there who haven't read draft 42 of Chapter X over 9000 times yet and really care how the story ends.

I tend to get stuck when I get too many competing premise!bunnies and canon interpretations all at once. It can be hard for me to keep track of which reasonable meta I'm using for what if I have a lot of projects all going at the same time ("so-and-so's backstory is like this!!" "but wait I'm using the comics canon from 2004--" "*my brain, banging pots and pans together while yelling* THIS IS YOUR CANON NOW!! NO TAKE-BACKSIES!").

[kalloway]

Very, very belated, but I definitely appreciate and resemble this comment.