Discussion Lost in a Good Fic -- The Well of Lost Plots Social Thread

My sisters are both in Masters programs right now; they've been lucky and don't have much in the form of loans because they've had excellent and prestigious scholarships given to them. And they'll both be done schooling next year and then no more school, which suits them fine since six years of study (four for their Bachelors, two for their Masters) is quite a bit. One of them will have an excellent paying job (speech pathologists earn a lot ) and the other, well, it kind of depends on what goes on in the classical music world. No one ever said being a professional horn player was easy.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do once I have my BFA. I could technically go out and try to work in the field, but the theatre industry is notoriously difficult and wibbly-wobbly - and the more credentials you have, the better, since most people don't make it by getting randomly pulled off a busy Toronto street and asked to be in a movie or something. I might do a one year diploma program at an acting college, but I also want to see if I can get into NTS, either the English or the French side (yay for being bilingual! ). There's also a lot of schools abroad that I want to apply for (mostly ones in Britain), but my chances of getting in are ridiculously slim.

Oh, acting is a silly, silly, silly impossible profession. Hi, unemployment, let's be best friends!

 

I sure feel like I'm a professional student. Here I am working on yet another degree, this time in accounting. So I guess you could say, I'm a freshman yet again. I can relate to paige!

 

Well, I'm heading back to uni tomorrow. I have a feeling my sudden INSANE Muse Fest (I wrote 17 sets of five drabbles last night, and two short vignettes tonight... I am ON FIRE and I've only had one cup of tea! ) is partially due to that. School always seems to bring about the best fanfic writer in me at the start and end of term.

 

Dang, you are on a roll.

 

Today, I took and passed the test for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire again. [Yeah, I got the "not in the pool" card after the last time.] Since the show's started taping, I had to do it through the audience auditions, which means I'm in the audience for three shows that'll air next month. No, I'm not going to tell you what days or where I'm sitting.

 

Salacious_Drabb: that is awesome!

Just like I_M (i really dont want to open up another window so therefore that is how she is gonna be known for me...) my muse just won't shut up. I have the ST drabbles, the Proverbs challenge, one that is already written and one being written out in my head, the Victorian roulette (the quote I have is amazing and is demanding my attention), my two SW epics One NJO AU and one FOTJ AU, MMM (possibly if i can) and... my OC Audrey's fic for Star Trek that is being fixed up as we speak.

And Kirk and Han Solo are fighting as are Jaina and my OC Audrey...this is so interesting!!!

I love writing so much, that I just need to get my punctuation down...

 

Congrats, hope you make it on the show!

For me, two epics is my limit. I've never been any good at one shots.
I've always had a knack for choreographing battle scenes on paper. They're great in epics but not very good when it comes to drabbles.

 

Congrats, Drabb!

Master_Jaina, feel free to call me Idri. I_M usually makes me feel like I'm supposed to be an instant message or something.

I'm moving farther and farther away from the big, fat epics. 75,000 words is ideal for the long ones. I have a Star Wars epic that's +300,000 words sitting on my computer waiting to be finished, but it's so tangled and complicated, I'm having difficulty getting inspiration for it. Also, I'm slowly moving away from Star Wars as my main fan fic base.

Right now, I really like drabbles. They suit the spurts of dialogue that I usually think in. When I'm writing a longer fic, I use the spurts of dialogue as inspiration, but for drabbles I can just use the dialogue.

You know what sucks about moving back to uni? Beer pong. From the people upstairs. When you live in a basement of a very old house. The entire floor is shaking right now. 18 year old boys are going to get on my nerves this year if they keep this up. I miss my quiet room from home already and I haven't even been gone for 24 hours yet!

 

300,000 words! 60,000 words is approximately a 300 page novel! 300,000! That's War and Peace! I hope you had a good supply of Starbucks when you did that.

 

Ok Idri... 300,000? I think the most I have ever had was 75 pages for a very old fic I had. My muse likes to be paid attention to. Now that I'm single and have only myself to worry about, the muse is coming out like no other.

The NJO AU I have is my main worry at the moment, but the drabbles inspire me because I love the limit and the challenge.

And don't get me started on the quotes!!! I would really like to get out of the house today... if the muse lets me.

As for beer pong I feel your pain. For once I live in a fairly quiet community, thank goodness. Those stupid college boys...now could someone please tell me either Jag or James T Kirk is real? I want them!

 

mrjop2, it's still a work in process. I've been writing it for over five years now and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever finish. But whenever someone says "epic", I immediately think of that, which is why "epic" means a hell of a lot of words in my mind.

Master_Jaina - I seldom finish long fics... though I'm getting better these days because I'm better at editing down my ideas. My 300,000 word epic was developed when I was still little (well... fifteen... ) and I had absolutely no control over myself. Right now, the other epics or long stories I have finished are much, much more contained and have a better narrative, IMO. Since December, I've finished two longer fics, one clocking in around 30,000 words and the other at 50,000. I was much happier with those.

Those quotes work wonders! The thing I love about quote roulettes is that they're a good in-between between coming up with a fic completely from scratch and specific challenges. Specific challenges (I'd say the drabble challenges are specific; as well as the title challenge, etc - stuff like that) can be restrictive at times, whereas with quotes you can really do anything with them. You can work them into your story, you can use it as an inspiration board, it's great.

Well, it's not so much the act of beer pong that annoys me, it's the bloody music they play. I live in a basement apartment, so the music shakes the ceiling because the bass is way too loud. Not to mention I think they have particular poor taste in music. I was trying to work on writing last night and my ears started hurting because all I could hear was this thundering, booming bass practically killing my ear drums.

This was my first night back and also school only started today. I'm hoping that the parties and beer pong won't be a common occurrance, but if it is, there's several things my flatmate and I can do. It is a violation of the lease to have parties - last year, both my flatmate and I and the people living upstairs (who have now moved out; I miss them) had a party like once or twice a term each, so we didn't tell on each other since they were mild parties and controlled. But if this continues almost every night over the next couple of weeks, we're going to go talk to our landlord. Also, we have two elderly couples living on either side of us in the houses next door - no doubt they could hear the music. We have a noise limit in the area, so they could technically call the police to deal with it if it gets out of control.

Now, this was just one night, so obviously we're not doing anything yet, but basically... college boys can be a little stupid and irrational sometimes, so we're making plans just in case we do have to do something. Because there's no way in hell that I'm living here for two terms with beer pong going on up stairs almost every night of the week. I've got a crazy schedule and there's nothing worse than showing up for your acting class or rehearsal completely dead tired because you got no sleep.

[/rant about college boys]

 

Idri: I think college boys are the same no matter what country you are in! I have a co workers who is under 21 and lets just say he is such a party boy. (I would totally go after it, but he's a baby, so yeah ) I completely understand the rant.

Yes the quote challenges help out with getting into the characters more and therefore help me develop them in my fics. I posted the first chapter of my Star Trek fic and I like it but I did the drabbles to help me with that.

This Victorian quote challenge though, is awesome. I should probably go work on that...well no I should do the evilness that is laundry...hmm muse or clean clothes?

such a hard decision.

 

Yeah, the guys living upstairs are second years, 18-19 ish. They just got out of residence last year... naturally they're going to go wild since they don't have dons haunting them anymore.

I'm starting to feel old. I'm third year and tetchy. First year was such a long time ago...

I love the quote challenges for another reason, too: they're contained. Usually, I can't stretch the inspiration of the quote out into a 75,000 word fic, which is perfect for my vignette-minded writer self right now. I like writing vignettes; let's me concentrate a lot on the characterization, which helps for longer fics, as you've said.

Eh! Writing > laundry. Unless you have no underwear left.

As for me, I should probably think about making dinner right now, but I've still got the writing bug. Unfortunately, by the time I feel like going to make supper (which can take between fifteen and fourty-five minutes, depending on what I feel like making - though vegetarian chili is starting to sound good right about now), I'm going to be completely famished!

By the way, Master_Jaina, do you have a preferred abbreviation for your user name? I only ask because I'm being super lazy and like using abbreviations.

 

Maybe I should stop calling my stories epic then, because they are going to be no where near that many words. I bet you that's the problem I am having. I call my stories epics, and everything thinks they are going to be at least 100,000 words. I have not written a story over 40,000 words. I am just trying to be able to do 60,000 so I can be able to publish a full 300 page novel of my own. I using this fan fiction as practice.

 

I wouldn't worry about the word count at all. It's more a marker than anything else. I'd take quality over quantity anyday, after all. Find the right pacing for your story (which can change, depending on what you're doing - I couldn't imagine my Hamlet/Ophelia stuff being too much over 30,000 words at the most because of the style, whereas This Time Around, as an epic/adventure/time travel fest, makes sense why it's +300,000 ) and let it be what it will be, rather than trying to hit a certain word count mark.

 

Idri, I used to go by MJ but that's Mira now...so you can do M_J1011.

Anyways I write fanfiction so I can start on a non-fic novel I wanna write in time. Well kinda non-fic...basically based on my group of friends and the line of work we are in. Hospitality has some very interesting stories. So these fics and vignettes and drabbles are just helping me along with that.

And Idri your HP stuff is sooo good. Now that is one fandom I would never touch. I love it but fanfic wise...no! Though having the WWoHP here is amazing inspiration but...man JK Rowling makes it hard to write those characters!

 

I definitely agree. That's why I don't want to tackle to many projects at once.

 

Congrats, Salacious_Drabb!

Because of work, I tend to use a few words as possible in a sentence. It cuts down on my word count.

 

I've learned from witting classes that, contrary to what many think, using fewer words is better. Of course, every author has their different beliefs. I take the approach of my favorite author Brad Thor. He never uses fancy, elegant words. He's as basic as you can get. Pretty much they are teaching witters to avoid sentences like...

"Her billowy hair is like evening sunset."

and use sentences like.

"Her billowy red hair..."

It's a weak example, I am not really good at those fancy elegant sentences. I think really depends on the genre of the book.

 

It depends on the style as to how creative I get with the descriptions. But I tend to use more metaphors (I find they're cleverer) than similes. I am no big fan of the "like", especially when it comes to comparing people's characteristics to sunsets, sunrises, moons, stars, etc. It's so... typical and cliche now and a bit heavy-handed. The one that really gets me is the comparing of eyes to "pools of water." I do not see how eyes are like pools of water, aside from when they're watering because a) you're crying, b) you've got really bad allergies, or c) both.

I'm not saying that never use similes or purple prosian (is that a word? No, it's not, but I'm using it anyway ) techniques, but it completely depends on what I'm aiming for with the specific piece I'm writing. I experiment with styles and genres so much that each story is completely new.

M_J, I'm glad you like my HP stuff! HP is actually one of the fandoms I have the easiest time writing for, just because there's so much stuff there to play with. It's like Star Wars. There's some fandoms of mine that I absolutely refuse to touch, though. I use fanfic to play around with What Ifs?, to expand on canon information, to answer my own questions, etc. The Lord of the Rings and all of Tolkien's works are so complete on their own that I can't touch it, unless for parody purposes. It's just... no. No LOTR fanfic, I don't find it necessary. Also, specifically for LOTR, anything that isn't written in a similar style to Tolkien's I just find downright weird. I don't know why, I just do. So LOTR doesn't offer the same playing field for me as a lot of my other fandoms do - Star Wars, Harry Potter, PotC, Doctor Who, Sherlock... Shakespeare. Well... I only write Shakespeare fanfic because I'm a theatre student and character interactions and staging are what I think about whenever I crack open a play. It's the perfect playing ground for me as a writer.

 

When I went to Christie Golden's panel back at CV, she was talking descriptions and i found it interesting on how much she hated doing them! I like it but I just try to set the tone of the story then get right into it. One of the reason I loved writing SW is I can use a few well placed adjectives here and there and boom, the setting is there and I can see where everyone is.

mrjop2: I love Brad Thor, just because of what you said. You can still visualize everything with so few word!

Idri: I think what scares me about HP is...well I have no idea. Just like you there a few fandoms I would not touch. I have written NCIS, CSI:NY and Criminal Minds fanfics, which are kinda fun, and then I've got SW and Star Trek. HP is awesome in its own right but I just can't seem to get the prose down. I love reading them though, especially ones that take place inbetween the battle of Hogwarts and the epilogue.

I don't even bother with technical mumbo jumbo in either the Star Trek and Star Wars fics, just because one I suck at it and two...sometimes it takes away from the story!

 

Soooo excited tonight! Just had my best day over at the other fan fiction site! 72 hits! Over 50 for my two works currently in progress, that's over 200 in the first 11 days of September alone! I am so thrilled that people are racing to read my stories. That definitely boosts my moral for aiming to become a professional writer! Not many readers here, but I'm not giving up just yet!I might just try to publish something of mine after finishing these stories. Of course, if that works out, I would have to give up fan fiction.

Sorry, when I read that report, I was just so excited, I had shout it out!!!!!

 

Descriptions are funny. Too much and it's overwhelming; not enough and it's bland. I love being more... subtle, with descriptions, I guess. I'm a fan of little details, but little details don't necessarily mean a big block of text describing the icons on someone's shirt. They're more details of a little movement someone makes when talking to you, or the way someone laughs... or doesn't laugh. It all links back to character. Except for place description, because that's something different. Though if it's a house, it'll reflect the person who lives there.

M_J, that's all right! We all have fandoms that we avoid, even if we do like them.

mrjop2, that's awesome! Is that ff.net you're on? It is rather nice having a function that gives you the hit/visitor number, plus whether it's on anyone's favourites, C2s or alerts list. Let's you know that your story is not alone in the world.

 

That's the site. I just didn't say its name here so I wouldn't be promoting another website, but I knew people would know what I was talking About. I think there are quite of few people from here over there as well.

 

I don't think mentioning a site by name would really be promoting it - it's not like you're saying "go post here now, woooo!" . Like you said, a lot of people here do write over there as well, but I can't see anyone really choosing ff.net over here. I love it here; I love the community. I have no community over there, and I pretty much just post to get a larger readership. If I had to choose between the two, I'd go with the JC. It's the place that got me posting fanfic anyway.