With one mighty bound she was free
Jan. 23rd, 2012 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nineveh_ukI forced myself to apply the bum to the seat this weekend*, and knocked off 1300 words of fanfic. I tend to think about fic a lot before I write it, which means that I end up with lots of alternative versions of scenes and things in my head that are not necessarily required for the story, but when they’re in my head/notes seem to weigh down the process of getting something on paper. How am I going to incorporate it all? Where does that bit fit? How do I include everything? Which version? Decisions will have to be made, I’ll have to commit to that one story, and even more I need not to include everything because no-one actually cares about quite a lot of it because it is entirely irrelevant to what the story is about**. Hence my notes not only include multiple versions of what the Wittenberg university porters are wearing, but are dotted with little things like “Reported speech!” and “conversation OR robes shop NOT both!!”
And then I sit down to write, and well, it’s easier. The story works itself out, often with something I haven’t thought of, and those three scenes that I worried were going to bog down the narrative however much fun they were to come up with are got rid of in half a sentence, “and then she left for New Zealand”.
Moral: stop worrying, sit down, and write. Though at some point you should probably check if that's a word.
*Except for when I was forcing my feet to the gym treadmill.
**What the story is actually about is of course open to question. As long as it doesn’t end up as “and so Lord Peter Wimsey realised how lucky he was and how he benefitted from an unequal society and decided that henceforth he would give his money to the poor and campaign for political and social reform in the UK, because he had learnt his lesson”.
And then I sit down to write, and well, it’s easier. The story works itself out, often with something I haven’t thought of, and those three scenes that I worried were going to bog down the narrative however much fun they were to come up with are got rid of in half a sentence, “and then she left for New Zealand”.
Moral: stop worrying, sit down, and write. Though at some point you should probably check if that's a word.
*Except for when I was forcing my feet to the gym treadmill.
**What the story is actually about is of course open to question. As long as it doesn’t end up as “and so Lord Peter Wimsey realised how lucky he was and how he benefitted from an unequal society and decided that henceforth he would give his money to the poor and campaign for political and social reform in the UK, because he had learnt his lesson”.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-24 11:07 am (UTC)much less difficult than the how-does-Peter-figure-this-out part
That part is definitely difficult. Isolated clues are all very well in an "ooh! He could see/hear/learn X and think Y" sort of way, but it has to all hang together. I am beginning to understand why DLS's diagram of the structure of Thrones just represents the mystery plot with criss-crossing lines marked Move and Counter-move.
I'd better start thinking about how the bandits are going to fit in as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-25 06:02 am (UTC)I suppose that, just as water rises till it finds its own level, so fics grow until they reach the size they need to be.
DLS's diagram of the structure of Thrones just represents the mystery plot with criss-crossing lines marked Move and Counter-move.
Move and Counter-Move sounds so intimidatingly abstract, I'm not sure I could begin to figure out what it means in concrete terms. Is it like one step towards the solution and one thing that blocks it?
I thought you'd given up on the bandits! I'm gad to hear they haven't given up on you.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-26 07:54 pm (UTC)Is it like one step towards the solution and one thing that blocks it?
I think so, with the steps towards being taken by the detective/his allies, and the blocks being deliberate acts by the murderer, non-deliberate acts by the murderer, random co-incidences etc.
At some point I shall have to work out the mechanics of the mystery plot. Some elements have been arising nicely out of random moments of characterisation (it’s organic, how exciting! Though this may mean that the end result is stodgy and inedible and smells of parsnips.) but it's not enough. There’s the start and the end and various bits and ideas and a great gaping hole in between. Thinking of move and counter move, and thinking of these specifically as a series of questions, seems to be starting to give me a way of imagining structure. It’s a scaffold. At the moment its a scaffold built around air, but the idea of it is helping me feel more confident about filling it in than if it were just air. What I'm actually doing is thinking about it as a series of questions and answers. To take Have His Carcase:
Q: A dead body! Murder or suicide?
A: Suicide?
Q: Sez who?
A: Sez this razor.
Q: But why would he have a razor?
A: I sold him the razor. Honest.
Q: And who are you?
A: Random itinerant barber. See, my alibi checks out.
Q: Let's look at that ablibi. (x10)
And so on. I'm still at a very early stage, and so far it has largely been a lot more random than this. I suspect that whether I actually end up thinking of it in those terms when I come to write it doesn't matter - it's giving me more confidence in the prospect of approaching it.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-28 06:28 am (UTC)LOL! never mind, at least you can feel good about saving the world. Smelling of parsnips is a small price to pay for a fic full of moral fibre.
That series of questions is very helpful. I tried it out and discovered that (a) I have some gaping plot holes - well, not so much plot holes, actually, as sections towards the end where I simply have no idea how LPW gets the information he needs, and (b) it's all a bit simplistic. Things get tidied up awfully fast. I think I might try plotting out the detecting process as a tree diagram with branching nodes (it ought to be doable as a flow chart, but I don't think I'm quite up to that, not unless I had a really ginormous piece o paper).
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-30 04:19 pm (UTC)"Potter/Wimsey crossover fic with mpreg keeps you regular!"
how LPW gets the information he needs
But you do know that he needs it, which is half the battle. Can you think about the general ways in which fictional detectives get information (I mean in general: people tell them/deduction/prior knowledge/entrapment/direct observation/physical evidencet) that sort of thing, and see if any offer scope for exploration? And what does a tree diagram look like? Specifically, is the solution the branchy or root bit of the tree? Plotting things out can be very handy, even though I am idle and often try to avoid it.
it's all a bit simplistic
It isn't what you've got, it's what you do with it that counts.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-31 05:04 am (UTC)Ideal for reading on the loo!
Can you think about the general ways in which fictional detectives get information (I mean in general: people tell them/deduction/prior knowledge/entrapment/direct observation/physical evidencet)
Oooh, I like the idea of entrapment - that provides an action climax as well as an information climax. Thank you! That's very helpful.
A tree diagram should really be called a roots diagram because it branches downwards like tree roots. It's really just a way of thinking about your series of questions - if you have the corpse at the top, it has two possibilities branching off it, MURDER and SUICIDE. MURDER subdivides into the pieces of evidence that support that theory, and the pieces of evidence in turn subdivide into further possibilities (or stop dividing, once an answer is found). It doesn't tell you the structure at a glance, but it helps me to keep things straight in my mind.
It isn't what you've got, it's what you do with it that counts.
Aye, there's the rub!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-31 10:22 pm (UTC)I like the concept of action climaxes vs information climaxes. It's amazing what an English degree doesn't cover about writing...