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

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!