[Check-In]

[kalloway]

Just a reminder - this is your community, too. Feel free to use it to ask for advice, vent, commiserate, celebrate, etc.


This is 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! If you need a deadline, feel free to ask!


The current Brainstorming Post is here!

Comments

[green]

I wrote about 250 words over since the weekend. It's not much, but it's a GOOD 250 words. :D

[silverr]

Huzzah for good words!

\o/

[kalloway]

There is nothing wrong with 250 good words!

[green]

I also made a spreadsheet to keep track of the ficlets/scenes that make up the story. Which has helped me a LOT to get it straighter in my head. I'm kinda excited about it, to be totally honest. :D

[silverr]

Chugging away on Ch. 10 of the WIP; re-writing the opening for what feels like the eleventy-zillionth time.

Closings? Closings I think I do pretty well, but gads, do I ever struggle with openings.

[kalloway]

Are you sure you're opening in the right place?

[silverr]

I think so? I'm sort of old school in that I want the opening to set the stage, foreshadow the themes a bit, do a bit of "previously on..." (since the time between chapters tends to be weeks and sometimes months), and aim squarely for the unseen destination that is the chapter's end.

In this fic I've also started to look for ways to toss in* the most crucial backstory lore-nuggets, because some of the reviews have twigged me to the fact that I've made incorrect assumptions about how well versed in the Warcraft lore people coming into the fic might be.

Film analog: To me the opening is the long tracking/establishing shot.

I pretty much know what and why; it's more a matter of the "where," of how to sequence all the bits in a way that seems to me to flow as naturally as possible (until my beta comes in and points out everything that is crap :p).


------
* Aside from using footnotes, of course. Because that would be silly. *g*

[kalloway]

Just checking. I know sometimes if I can't nail an opening, after the third or fourth try I need to step back and see if I'm not just opening from the wrong spot. Usually I am and a different angle or something fixes all.

[silverr]

Yeah, I had that type of issue a few chapters back, and pretty much did what you advise.

I also find, if something's fighting me, that stepping back and asking myself why I'm trying to do the scene that way, what I'm trying to accomplish, can be constructive. (Usually a beta is great for expediting that type of analysis, but beta readers certainly aren't available 24/7.

[taichara]

Have (finally!) acquired that last textbook I need to write many words about a very dead person, yaaay --

The past week's been jotting notes about things that may or may not actually be gone ahead with + a new place idea, and messing around with silk and handspindles and getting tangled in everything lolololol. Not really any concrete writing unless you count trying to work at least a few details on all the whackjobs infesting Shiba Danjuro's court (go L5R game go) ;3~

[kalloway]

\o/

[silverr]

"very dead" ? As opposed to "mostly dead"?

* ducks *

[taichara]

Certainly more dead than the kind that haven't been pickled, at the least ~

[adraekh]

I ... I've worked on my MA thesis?

On a more serious note, after taking a long break from story-writing to work on said thesis, I sat down Monday night to flex my writing muscles again and shat out 1,000 terrible words over the course of an hour, which for me is amazingly efficient. But now I must bury my head in my thesis again. >_>

[retsuko]

Go, you, on both counts! :D

[kalloway]

Good luck with the thesis!

[no_apologies]

Congrats! Good luck with getting constructive crit on it from the people who are helping you. :)

[misslucyjane]

Working on rewrites!

[silverr]

Are re-writes a fun thing for you, or something you dread?

[misslucyjane]

I usually enjoy it, especially if I've been pondering a story for a long time and have a lot of new stuff to work in. Sometimes I start from the first word and rewrite everything, and sometimes it's fitting in new scenes around old ones. It can be a lot of fun.

[kalloway]

Good luck with the rewrites! Yay for making things the way you want them to be~

[misslucyjane]

Thanks!

[silverr]

Need a bigger carrot?

[silverr]

oi, I can so relate to all that!

Have fun with the new chapter.

[kalloway]

Awesome! \o/

[leidmotief]

Sometime between the last check-in and this one I managed to write a few words. I don't even know when that happened because everything is a bit fuzzy, but there was some progress.

The funny thing is that it's been a few months since I started this fic, but I still have no idea about the answer to the Will They or Won't They? question. It could go either way, although I was supposed to write about the emotional aspect of their relationship without adding a sex scene later on, if anything because people tend to end up in bed in my fics and I wanted to try something else. If I don't write them having sex, there could be room for another fic where they do, but I'm still not sure I want to go through that route. I guess I won't know until we get there!

[kalloway]

Yay for progress.

I don't think there's anything wrong with seeing what the characters go for. You can even write it whichever way and change it when you edit.

[no_apologies]

I've been struggling on my intense Death Note fic, and I'm writing a a sort of less dark Star Fox fan fiction to get out of writer's block. The plot bunnies for this new story (that doesn't have a title yet) are off! I like my ideas for OC human characters, and I brought back a really old roleplay writing muse, Falco Lombardi.

This story is also a means of practice writing for Falco and so far I got a good grip on his voice. This story first takes place a little before the StarFox 64 (AKA Lylat Wars) time line. :)