Resource Fanfic Writer's Desk: Your Place for Writing Discussion, Questions, and Advice

Exactly. The pacing of a particular musical piece might not exactly match up with the timing and dialogue of a scene I write, but it may set the tone for it. I also sometimes select a track out of my collection to serve as a sort of auditory "trailer" for the entire story, or as a theme song for a character.

I love Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech for literally giving away a great and eclectic selection of music from all genres. Many pieces sound just as professional and stirring as anything I could get from an album. I think half of my iTunes library is made up of his stuff, lol.

 

I too can be inspired around song titles or lyrics which suggest fic-titles or themes. Jazz music often sets the tone for whatever I'm writing or if not that, is playing in the background.

 

Music tends to help me more with art; for example, if I'm drawing something crime noir related, I'll listen to a lot of jazz. I've also used music for RPing; having entire playlists made up for a single campaign. For writing, though, I just put on something for noise. It doesn't really matter what it is, as I'd rather have noise than nothing. If I'm typing up something, I'll listen to techno or dance music, as it gives me a good beat and I keep a solid tempo while typing.

I've been inspired by music, but aside from that music being simply a soundtrack for a character or story, I've never really written anything that pertained to it. It doesn't necessarily inspire storylines for me, much rather it just helps to set the mood.

Mostly, though, it's necessary for noise. Hell, I've worked on stuff while listening to paranormal talk radio.

 

Yeah, I find it very hard to concentrate within the voids of silence. Gotta have at least some sort of aural stimulus to help connect me with what's going on in the narrative.

 

I actually do prefer to write in silence to help me concentrate. My fic "soundtracks," though, are put together for my enjoyment while I'm at work. I get to imagine the storyline while I'm occupied doing other things, or riding the bus. If inspiration hits during this time, I'll just briefly open a Notepad file and take a minute or two to jot my thoughts down for later.

This whole thing actually began as a self-challenge to score my stories using anything but SW music. (Would you believe I no longer own the SW soundtracks? Yeah, I know. ) It's terrific, but it'll get repetitive real fast, and they were composed to fit those movies, not new material. I do utilize some John Williams music from other films, though.

 

There's been talk of avatar generators over in the "You know you're a fanfiction writer..." thread, but I'll just leave this here instead. Azalea's Dolls is a site that I use to brainstorm character looks. Some of the doll makers tend to have more options in the way of features and clothing.

 

Hmm. I hear a lot about the notoriety of Troy Denning's "gorn" (I presume that means "gore porn"), and I've been wondering lately if anything I have in my own works approaches that level of nastiness. I haven't read the majority of his SW writing, so I'm not acquainted with what he's done that's been so unpopular. For my own writing, I'm always concerned about accuracy, but I don't know if I'm ever unwittingly toeing the line of TMI by trying to include clinical details. I'm aware of the forum's own limits on what can be reasonably depicted in fics, and am certainly no fan of torture porn.

I don't want to make anyone quote Denning (or, um, traumatize themselves by remembering what he did, lol), but can anyone describe in general some examples that went too far?

 

I can't really point out any examples, as I haven't read his work, yet. Though, I have read Joe Schreiber's Death Troopers and Red Harvest. The gore is on par with what I would expect from zombie splatterpunk horror. If Denning is writing splatterpunk in a non-horror story, then that could be classified as gorn or going too far.

Personally, I'm not bothered much by graphic descriptions of gruesome violence. I like horror and I read it. I've even tried writing it. But, I can understand why it's not everyone's bloody cup of extra-chunky giblet gravy.

 

All of Crucible (or so I'm told, I've never actually read it).

In general, if you are staying within the TOS and Mav or I have not sent you any PMs about your subject matter, you are not approaching anywhere near Denning's level of gorn. Most of his stuff is PG-13 to R rated, while we only tolerate PG stuff here.

 

Lol. No, I definitely don't do much toward the horror genre. I would classify what I occasionally dip toward as...er...humiliating. But realistically so. These things are not ordinarily detailed in movies or even novels just because we fans don't typically want to think about the squick factor, for the same reason that nobody's interested in the heroes needing a bathroom break in the middle of fighting crime or saving the galaxy or whatnot. (Being a hero magically gives you a bladder or bowels of iron. )

But the fact is that in real life, trauma does some really awful and inconvenient things to your body alongside the main injuries. The Accuracy Nerd inside of me doesn't want to sidestep these issues, but at the same time I know most readers probably don't want to know about them.

EDIT: Wow, R-rated gorn in a SW novel? Yikes.

 

As a reader, I think violence/gore for the purposes of accuracy is fine, or if it's important to the story. One of the fics I'm working on had some depictions of torture because it's necessary to the plot and I feel like there does need to be a level of detail to reflect the state of mind of the character - because of the board ratings I will likely post a PG version here and higher rated version elsewhere. But it's a fine line, I think, between making your readers uncomfortable because they're meant to feel uncomfortable about what the character is doing, and squicking them out unnecessarily.

On the other hand, sometimes the implication is just as effective - for example Vader bringing the mind control device into Leia's cell in ANH, or just hearing Han's screams in ESB and not actually seeing what is being done to him.

 

If anyone is ever worried about pushing the TOS limits, or want to see how far you can go without getting into trouble, simply PM Mav and I with the scene in question, we are generally really quick at giving a verdict. And what you can get away with depends greatly on the subject matter. Squicking people out is perfectly acceptable, sometimes it is necessary and adds a lot to a story, but there is a line between making people uncomfortable and unnecessary gore or detail. And yes, sometimes implied torture, gore, etc is equally effective. Sometimes you can leave it to the reader's imagination and let them take it as far as they want to.

Also, a question. Has anyone written a fic out of order? I'm doing a DDC that involves someone's health deteriorating. I have the last few entries planned, but I have a couple entries that I have no idea what I'm going to do or how fast the character's health should deteriorate over those entries. Has anyone tried starting at the end then going back?

 

Aye aye, cap'n. I figured that's the protocol to follow here anyway.

Oy. This is practically my MO. If you're talking about writing/plotting it, I can never manage to write anything sequentially. Scenes come to me at random and I have to just jot them down in a document and think about expanding and rearranging them later.

If you mean posting it out of sequential order - I haven't done this, but it would definitely be interesting since the nonlinear format isn't used often in fics. I know the written medium and film aren't the same, but remember that Memento contained a story told in reverse and it was very effective.

 

Yeah, I was talking about writing it out of order. I always have scenes come to me out of order and I usually write the general gist of them down in some sort of outline, but i always write sequentially.

I didn't mean posting, but that is an interesting idea. I did do one fic where the prologue was from a first-person POV far into the future, then the rest of the story read like a flashback. It actually worked really well for the story, but I made sure to explain what was going on.

 

I've written stuff out of order before. Sometimes a story flows that way.

 

Yep, it's usually dialogue that's notorious for hitting me at random - the worst is when it comes right at bedtime when I can't put it down anywhere, lol. Sometimes I manage to remember it the next morning, and sometimes I don't, and then spend the rest of the day kicking myself.

 

I think Lovecraft do an excellent work with mostly implicating the gore and horror

 

Notebook and pen on the bedside table. That is probably my #1 tip for writing. Things, especially solutions to plot problems, hit me right as I'm falling asleep and that notebook has come in pretty handy.

 

I always write out of order - not only fics but also reports for work or anything else. I always, always write the intro (first chapter, prologue, whatever) first and the conclusion immediately afterwards, then I jot down the outline and write scenes here and there depending on my mood. The upside is that I know where I'm going and always write something I'm in the mood for. The downside is that it implies a lot of back and forth through the text to fill gaps in earlier bits of the narrative or to adjust outcomes in later bits. I'd say that to write this way, you really have to be willing to re-read your own writing a million times, which can become boring after a while. The bonus though is that no typo will survive

 

I used to write out of order, drastically, but it was impeding my focus. Now, with an outline, I can occasionally write out of order but I don't find it helps my productivity so I do my best to write in linear order of story unless I'm so overwhelmed with an idea that I can't not write it down. So I guess I'd say that if you think you can write out of order and still be productive then go for it. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

 

For me it would be Mom noticing my light is on and flipping out that I'm staying up even later than I already do.

 

Evernote on a mobile phone or tablet, dimming the monitor as much as possible. I'm halfway through a 500-page long document without my partner even noticing

 

Mavjade had me edit one of my gorn-ish stories. My fanfic was tame compared to Crucible. That book irritated me to no end. It had potential but I think the torture scenes were too upsetting to me mainly because I liked the character that was suffering. Maybe if Jar Jar was being tortured I would proclaim it the BEST BOOK EVER! But that was not the case.


Question: Does anybody know when Obi-Wan realizes Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader? He knows it in EP4, but as far as I remember EP3 ends up with Vader in the suit and Obi-Wan is on Tatooine. I can't remember if he knew Vader's identity in the novel Kenobi. Or perhaps it is written in some young readers novel. Does anybody know? I am researching for a story that takes place a couple years after Order 66. I am going to write how Kenobi finds out, but if it is already "Legends Canon" how he finds out I will go with that. I realize Obi-Wan knows Anakin went dark, but did he know he was the man in the suit?