Week 3 - MCU Flash Meme Social Post

[dira]

Happily borrowing this idea from our neighbors at starwarsflashmeme, this is your halfway-through-the-prompt-week social post, to bat around ideas, brush up on your fairy tales, or just chat about MCU things with your fellow flashmemers.

This week's prompt is a retelling of a fairy tale, and it runs through Friday--three more days! Are you writing something? Planning something? Have any questions or comments about the flashmeme so far?

Comments

Tips for writing long fics

[helahler]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, so I figured I might as well ask here.

After not writing for over a year, I'm trying to get back into it again, and currently I'm in the process of outlining three big, plotty fics. At the moment it looks like each is going to be around 40k or more, but as it stands the longest thing I've ever written is an 11k WIP that I eventually abandoned due to lack of motivation.

Essentially, my questions are: how do plan for and/or write something that you know is going to span many thousands of words? And how do you sustain your writing output/level of motivation to keep working on it?

I know the process is different for everyone, but I'd be interested to hear any tips or suggestions people might have!

Re: Tips for writing long fics

[dira]

I write a lot of long things! But as you note, the process is different for everyone, so--it depends on what motivates you, basically.

For me, I really rely on reader feedback to motivate me, so while I mostly don't publicly post WIPs, I am constantly recruiting friends to read along as I write things, emailing them scenes or dumping chunks of story into IM/Skype/etc. (This is also helpful because then if I get stuck on something I can poll people about how the next bit should go--or if I've written something that's unclear, they usually ask questions that help me figure out how to make it work better.)

I know some writers need to keep everything under wraps until they're done with the whole story, so that can be harder--you need to not talk about the story at all, to anyone, to keep yourself focused on telling the story by writing it.

Either way, you have to sit down day after day and add some words to the story, and on most days you're not writing The Most Exciting Part and you're a long way from writing the end. That part kind of just sucks and is difficult, but it's the only way to make those long stories happen, so if you love the story at some point you just have to grit your teeth and go for it, one day at a time.

I have a spreadsheet that helps me track how many words I write on various stories each day, plus I often make various writing goals dailies or to-dos in Habitica, but, again, everybody's process/motivation is different. 750words is a website that rewards you for writing at least 750 words each day and encourages you to keep up a streak, and I definitely have found that one helpful at various times. For lower word count, there's written kitten!

Re: Tips for writing long fics

[helahler]

Thanks for the reply - a lot of this is stuff I've had a vague awareness of, but it really helps to see it put into words. I think for me it boils down to getting motivation from an external source i.e reader feedback or a writing app that encourages me to keep a streak, so thanks for reccing 750words, which seems like it might do the trick.

And while I'm at it I should thank you for setting this whole thing up, too; having these weekly prompts to figure out how to fill before a set deadline has been really helpful in terms of encouraging me to get back into writing on a regular basis!

[rootsofthestories]

I would love to know some of your writing goals and whatnot, if you don't mind sharing. I keep trying to set up goals for myself beyond a wordcount but have no idea how I'd like to structure them.

Also, one day I will use habatica again, I fell off trying to use it because I' so horrid about coming up with goals.

[dira]

Eh, most of it is just wordcount--sometimes I'll put in "write to X plot milestone" or "finish this chapter" but usually it's "write X words per day" as a daily or "get to X word count" as a to-do. I mean, ultimately cranking out words is the goal, you know? Whether you quantify that as the actual word count or progress through an outline, that's the goal.

[rootsofthestories]

*nodnod* Yeah, true. I'm just horrible at setting goals in general, even though I get so happy when I accomplish them. It's a skill, goal setting, and somehow I didn't expect that.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

*This* Really, this is one of the things that fails so often and hard.

If you've not seen people set goals, you don't have a model.

A good starting place is taking a task into its parts, chunks you've some idea of how long it takes to do and walk them back from when you want delivery. Start sooner and try to get a bit more done in your allotted time.

[rootsofthestories]

I'm horrible at breaking things down It's a problem and one of the reasons I get so overwhelmed. I'm working on it, I just kind of suck at it.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

It's a skill, you'll get the hang of it. Just do your best and it will improve.

Re: Tips for writing long fics

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I like to do some of the overarching planning, get going and do more planning as I go. Some of that is staying interested for the whole thing. For really long things I'll get a gamma (somewhere between a cheerleader and a sgt. (go ahead, let Clark Gregg in your head get into character)

I tend to work by beats. Then my 'boring bits' are how to stitch the beats together and that tends to make them interesting at least from a craft sense.

Re: Tips for writing long fics

[helahler]

I think my process is pretty similar - for me a lot of the challenge is actually getting going in the first place, since usually once I do I can keep the ball rolling if I like the idea enough and have got the key beats in place -- so filling prompts for this meme has been really helpful in terms of getting practice at that. Thanks for the response - it's really interesting to see how others work!

Re: Tips for writing long fics

[sholio]

I'm going to preface this by saying that for some people, this has the exact opposite of the desired effect, but for me, on a long project, it works very well to jump around in the fic and work on whatever parts interest me most. I have heard some people say that writing the "best" parts makes them lose inspiration for the rest, and some people can only work in strictly linear order, but for me, spending a lot of time on the parts that I find exciting and inspiring, and then sort of filling in the rest, makes the whole process easier. In fact, sometimes I'll find that the "filler" doesn't have to be written at all; having written two scenes with a gap between, I might realize that the bridging scene which I didn't really want to write is completely unnecessary (no, we don't need to see the two weeks that they spent traveling from point A to point B!) or can be cut down to a few paragraphs. Also, I am working from a theory that if the best parts are AMAZING -- at least as amazing as you can make them -- then people will be forgiving of some fillery parts that were written as an afterthought, and the best way to make the high points amazing is to write them when my creative interest in them is at its peak. (I'm coming at it from an artist's perspective -- spend the majority of your time focusing on details in the painting's focal areas, then kind of fill in the rest, and nobody will notice. XD THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY GOOD ADVICE. But it works really well for me!)

When I'm working on a big project I will usually spend a little time while I'm falling asleep thinking about what I'm going to write tomorrow, noodling the next scene around in my brain and deciding small-level details, or just thinking about upcoming scenes and figuring out which one I want to work on and how it's going to go.

I also do the motivational-daily-writing thing. Actually, what I've ended up doing is breaking it down by weekly goals, usually: "This week I'll write 5K on [project]" or whatever. I found that daily goals weren't quite so effective for me because I tend to be more of a binge writer -- I'll get super inspired and write a LOT for a couple of days and then need a day or two to recover. And trying to write every day ended up sapping my motivation and tiring me out. But it took me years of struggling with daily writing goals to figure out that weekly goals are WAY more effective for me. So if you try one way of self-motivating and find that it doesn't seem to be working, modifying it in various ways might be helpful.

Re: Tips for writing long fics

[starmaki]

That is exactly how I write! I to did struggle to write in a linear fashion. I thought I was writing it wrong if I couldn't start at the beginning and work my way to the end. However, I discovered there is no right or wrong way to write as long as you get results. I read in one of those many 'how to write books' if you hit a section of writing that has you blocked just skip over it and keep going. This really changed my outlook on writing. As long as you are getting the words down you are good. Later, you can go back to that scene that had you stumped and work it out.

So in my example, I tend to leave all the action scenes to last as they take more thought to write out correctly. I just insert 'big fight scene here' then move on. The dialog scenes just rush out of me so they get written out first. Later, like a puzzle, I place all the scenes together in a linear fashion. I do work from a rough outline so to include the major beats of the story. Then write them, mostly out of order, then piece them together.

Many times I write the end before the beginning. As I finish, if the end needs some adjustments to line up with the rest of the story I do that.

I also tend to binge write too. It all flows out in a big rush. Then I am kind of empty for a bit until the next big purge. So a weekly goal would work better for me.

So remember, find what works for you, and go for it!