Writers of CS: Whatcha Doin'?

[Kara]

It's a nice thought, but I officially gave up on art awhile ago. I may think my writing is shit, but I still want to do it because I could turn it into something good. My art? I hate it with a passion.

[SongsOfDragons]

Right now? Researching and chunking (that's scribbling down blocks of text and dialogue I knit together later.

What have I been researching? ...what today? Oxford University in about 1215. Having trouble finding out what they'd wear >.<

Have also concluded that a character shall be mildly dyscalculaic; he has been described thus far as 'the hothead' and 'bad at numbers' (he's the heir to a barony and elder brother of the one I'm researching Oxford for) so I looked up the condition and it fitted nicely. Quirks of my characters like that, non-plot-related, so illnesses, sexualities, occupations, hobbies - tend to not be there initially, they develop as I plan and write more about them. It's always fun to 'discover' that X character is now Y, because it makes sense ^^ and I do let them run away with themselves a lot XP

[Jay 2K Winger]

Kara, I used to have a similar problem, and in some ways still do, in that I could come up with ideas, but not necessarily translate those ideas into a concrete story.

It didn't help that I was often coming up with ideas while I was working at the wholesale club, and losing some of the ideas by the time I got home. So I started carrying a little notepad and pen around in my work vest's pocket. When I got an idea, and the chance, I jotted down as much of the idea as I could into the notepad, so I wouldn't "lose" the idea.

As I said, not all of the ideas I come up with pan out for a story or something worth writing, but it helped me make sure I wasn't "losing" ideas that I came up with.

[AnaKhouri]

Oh how I suck at writing battle scenes. I feel like writing, "Insert Epic Battle Scene Here- After All, You're Not Here for the Fighting, Are You? If So, You Probably Realized You Were in the Wrong Place a While Ago" and moving on.

As for thinking you suck, you do. We all do at first. Roughdrafts are SUPPOSED to suck (mine certainly do, I can't show them to anyone until after they've been revised at least once. Trust me, they're awful), you have to give yourself permission to write it all down and then go back and edit it to make it brilliant. I love revising because I can see things getting better, draft by draft.

You can't be afraid to suck if you want to write, or make art, or anything, really. Suck away!

[KatherineB]

Oh how I suck at writing battle scenes. I feel like writing, "Insert Epic Battle Scene Here- After All, You're Not Here for the Fighting, Are You? If So, You Probably Realized You Were in the Wrong Place a While Ago" and moving on.

You could always take a leaf from C. S. Lewis and have both the viewpoint from a young and experienced young soldier and then find a way to describe the overview of it. (See A Horse and his Boy chapter 13).

[AnaKhouri]

Thanks for the idea! I was exaggerating a bit about the 'epic battle scene' (it's three dudes versus a large supernatural creature) but if I get around to writing a real epic battle I'll keep that in mind.

[dalesys]

... a large supernatural creature...

Who was just sitting there, minding it's own business, when some dudes came up and...

[Kheldarson]

Who was just sitting there, minding it's own business, when some dudes came up and...

Started playing Tiddlywinks right in front of him, the pieces pinging off his belly?

[AnaKhouri]

I'll give you guys a dollar if you actually write that scene.

[BrenDAnn]

I'm... horribly attention deficit, I swear. I have a couple novels started but... writer's block, attention fades, etc. I keep telling myself I'm going to put the damned video game controller down and get some creative work done but... well... I like procrastinating a little too much, I guess. Funny this would be a problem for a woman who has done creative writing since she could hold a pencil!

[Kheldarson]

I'll give you guys a dollar if you actually write that scene.

Maybe will. I'll see what I can piece together after little one goes to sleep.

[dalesys]

Maybe will. I'll see what I can piece together after little one goes to sleep.

It was the shields with spikes around the rim that really ticked it off...

[Kheldarson]

It was the shields with spikes around the rim that really ticked it off...

Only to become further enraged as one of the dudes exclaimed, "Watch this!"

[Dreamstalker]

After hearing a BBC report a few days ago on a ghost ship infested with cannibal rats I got bitten by a plotbunny (plot-rat?). Now to get the free time to actually do something with it...

[Jetfire]

Let's see... last November, I was stuck on the big story I had in mind, so I wrote an unrelated story (still in the setting) that's really opened up a new area of the setting and grabbed some of my cowriter's attention.

I then shifted back to the first one (I'm calling "Cat Scratch Fever", CSF, though the title is meaningless without the background. ). Had another idea when trying to figure out the main protagonists and what would happen. Wrote out the climax scene for one of those protagonists, and really liked it.

The problem is, the protagonists involved there, didn't exist before then at all. So, I ended up going and writing a standalone leadup story to intro those protagonists (and expanding on both a new area for my cowriters, both for character types and a location type).

Since I tossed that origin story out, I've made a lot of progress on CSF; I'm currently working on the final bridge scene from the rest of the story, to the climax of the story and where everything comes together.

We've also been background building more; and I've tossed some other ideas on the setting that my cowriters have expanded, outlining how the planet was colonized, what the other colonies are like, why things went the way they are now, etc...

CSF is now at 37k words long now.... and probably about 10k from completion, depending on how reworking the climax and threading the rescue in work out. (drop me a PM if you want a link to it all. Though between me and my 2 main cowriters, we've got probably a million words spread through the stories now. Not to mention works others have written too)