Where to begin? :-) Of course, I have the usual technical weaknesses that come with relarive inexperience. However I am going to talk some that get in the way of my writing:
Structure. A weakness, or just difficult? I don’t know. One of the problems with fanfic as a training area for original novels (should one be using it as such), is that short fics do not present the same structural issues as long novels. A writer who appears to have good structure in a short form can have their shortcomings exposed when they try something longer. I do not read a lot of long fic, but structure is often significantly lacking. A novel is not simply a string of scenes. In writing the Giant WIP, structure is something that I’ve really tried to work on at all levels. How to get from A to M in a way that works as a complete story. How far I have succeeded, I don’t know, but I’ve certainly learnt a lot in doing it. I’ve also stalled a lot in doing it. Not quite knowing what comes next can turn into a 3 months hiatus. It’s become very clear to me that the only way I can get round a problem is by thinking a lot about it. A short break to clear the head, yes. But if I don’t know what comes next the way to find out is to sit down and struggle through until I do know.
This, unfortunately, is hampered by that other weakness, procrastination and inability to apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.
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Date: 2014-02-04 03:41 pm (UTC)Structure. A weakness, or just difficult? I don’t know. One of the problems with fanfic as a training area for original novels (should one be using it as such), is that short fics do not present the same structural issues as long novels. A writer who appears to have good structure in a short form can have their shortcomings exposed when they try something longer. I do not read a lot of long fic, but structure is often significantly lacking. A novel is not simply a string of scenes. In writing the Giant WIP, structure is something that I’ve really tried to work on at all levels. How to get from A to M in a way that works as a complete story. How far I have succeeded, I don’t know, but I’ve certainly learnt a lot in doing it. I’ve also stalled a lot in doing it. Not quite knowing what comes next can turn into a 3 months hiatus. It’s become very clear to me that the only way I can get round a problem is by thinking a lot about it. A short break to clear the head, yes. But if I don’t know what comes next the way to find out is to sit down and struggle through until I do know.
This, unfortunately, is hampered by that other weakness, procrastination and inability to apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.
Finally, I use far too many commas.