The it's a loooooong story thread: Support group for epic fan fic writers - poll 6/14 (red)

For example, one idea we discussed was a Subplot Challenge, writing a short story based on a minor character in one's ongoing epic, something that would sharpen up world-building skills and could lead to new avenues or new ideas.

You mean, people don't do that now???? I keep getting pulling out of my story with all those darn subplots...

Oh, and sorry I haven't been participating much. I've just been so overwhelmed with RL and haven't worked on my epic lately so I figured I had nothing to say.

 

Or how about a scene swap between epic writers? You know, the one scene that's just giving you fits trying to make it work. How about swapping your nightmare for someone else's? We wouldn't have to actually use the swapped scenes in the story (sudden changes in writing styles are always a tad jolting in the middle of a long fic), but it sure might be helpful to get someone else's approach on it. Might be just the trick to break a nasty bout of writer's block. Of course, just taking the time to explain what the scene's supposed to do to someone who hasn't a clue about your fic would probably do the trick as well. But playing in other folks' universes is what we do for fun anyway, right?

 

Hmm... interesting idea in theory, I'm not sure it would work in the context of this thread though. I know I wouldn't be willing to hand over any part of my epic to someone else. I would be kind of surprised if many others would. Even if it wasn't used in my story though, as you suggested, I'm not sure I'd like having someone else write a scene I had an idea for and then have me rewrite it for my story. It might be difficult not to plagerise the other author's version at all in a situation like that so then you're stuck having to find a different way to do it anyway. (if that makes any sense)

Um... here's one idea based on that suggestions: perhaps there could be a "character swap" where author's swap original characters for a short piece. This could give the author some input about how others perceive their OC without having to actually give the story over to someone else. After all, we are all playing with GL's OCs and we all certainly have differing perspectives on many if not all of them. It could be based within a scene in the Epic itself to give further feedback on how others interpret what's going on in the story and how you are bringing your story across.

another idea based on your idea: I'd like to think this thread and the future one will be open for people to come here and ask opinions or other help if they are getting stuck on a story, but it just occured to me that we could even set aside time for authors, at their request, where perhaps they have "the floor" for a week to ask the posters here for help working out an idea for a scene, or other issues in the story they may be having. Would that work/be helpful?

sg

edit:clarifying, I hope...

 

Well, I was kinda going on the idea that the swapped scene would be donated material (accepted with credit, of course) to be used as the author saw fit. I did this once for an author who was just absolutely stuck; I did just a dialog sketch. She only used bits and pieces of what I had suggested, but it ended up helping her a lot. And I enjoyed seeing how she reworked my ideas to fit into the fic.

Someone did this for me once, too, for a lightsaber duel. I didn't end up using much of the actual suggestion, but just visualizing what he had written did a whole lot to help me set a pace for the scene and nail down reactions.

Anyway, I've done stuff like that and found it helpful. It does take the right sort of folks, though. People willing to hand over their baby to see what someone else will do with it, and someone willing to put in a serious effort without getting offended if their ideas don't end up being taken verbatim.

Handing over a character could be interesting... That would work best for OCs, I think.

Turning over the thread to address a writer's problem sounds really neat. Kinda like a massive brainstorming session. It'd be a great way to meet new folks and could be very helpful. I like that one the best so far, I think.

 

That was another concern I had, I wouldn't want to have something like that create bad blood over a written scene not being used etc...

But we could incorporate what you said about "donated material" in the idea I had to give an author the "floor" for a period of time though. Like people could suggest dialogue or fight choreograpy to the author for them to rework as they see fit - if the author requested it. Or alternately, "the floor" could just be used for general suggestions on plot, themes, or character motivation, feedback on a specific scene that is being worked on, or a specific type of scene the author feels they have trouble with (love scenes, fight scenes) etc...

Liz

 

I would be most grateful if people could come up with ways to keep epic writers motivated to write. I don't get lost or stuck, I just get so bored and frustrated with my story I could scream. The buttons for significant "milestones" (or was that "millstones?") helped, but we haven't had a new idea in that vein for a while. People trying to lose weight and do other masochistic things sometimes make deals with friends--I'll walk a mile for every mile that you walk, etc. I suppose you could try that with writing. I'm not very naturally competetive, so the "Whatever you can do, I have to be able to do" aspect isn't terribly motivating for me, but the guilt probably would be. "Ohh, I told so-and-so that I'd write a word for every word she wrote, and she's already gone and posted. I better post too, because I said I would, etc." If it's clear that one author has more writing time or just writes faster than the other, you could match writing times, or use a ratio: for every 1,500 words you write, I'll write 1,000, because I write about 2/3 as fast as you do."

I'm not saying this idea is brilliant or anything, it's just focused in a direction that I would find helpful. Challenges & things are fun, but they're always taking you away from the business of writing your epic, they sort of defeat the purpose.

 

Challenges & things are fun, but they're always taking you away from the business of writing your epic, they sort of defeat the purpose.

This I agree with this completely. As part of a support group I would be looking to help each other with problems on our current stories, be it motivation or writer's block, not looking to build writing skills. There are other arenas for that.

And I agree, spiritgirl. Anything that might stir up hard feelings would not be good. I think the open floor is a better idea for this forum.

 

Ophelia,

I think a combination of moral support and gentle mocking is what I'm looking for, and it seems we're on the same page there. But I have to disagree with you on challenges. The way Liz and I have envisioned them, they're always related directly to the epic, whether creating new background information (invent a history for a key city or ship or people etc.) or exploring new avenues. And that's never a waste of time.

More directly, though, it can help relieve that boredom and frustration while keeping you focused squarely on your epic. Don't undersestimate the value of a fresh perspective, and giving yourself the treat of writing something very different every now and then. It become a part of the story or generate ideas, but whether it does or not it can be refreshing and invigorating.

Liz,

I like that last idea a lot. Maybe that's the way to run the workshop instead?

-Jim

 

ophelia

The only problem I had with that idea was that I'd rather concentrate on things that would help improve writing skills not just force writing out just for the sake of having it out there. You know? That's not really conducive of really "good" writing, I suspect.

However, posters would certainly be free to do that on their own and talk about it here, or even if someone wanted to maintain a list of "competitors" or something like that, within this thread, I'd have no problem with that.

Challenges & things are fun, but they're always taking you away from the business of writing your epic, they sort of defeat the purpose.

I have the exact same problem with most challenges on the board. I'd rather use my free time concentrating on my epic than anything else. Plus I know I'm uber distractable and if I start up a new story I might get caught up in that and never get back to my epic.

But as Cantador said, any challenges would have something to do with the epic the person was writing. For instance, with the idea I had for a minor character/place/item short story, the author takes something from their epic and writes about it. This does not go directly into their Epic (probably) but it is a way to perhaps look at the story through different eyes, find new inspiration from an old OC/place/item, and perhaps something will come from that will help you move forward your epic. Another bonus for something like that is writing and posting a shorter piece that might be able to hook in new readers for your epic who were maybe a little intimidated by the thought of starting a really long story. Perhaps if they read your short piece, and you include a link to the epic the charater or place came from, they'll be interested enough to then give your epic a chance.

Cantador

Liz,

I like that last idea a lot. Maybe that's the way to run the workshop instead?

-Jim


Yeah that might be the best thing to concentrate on, giving author's "the floor" for a week say (or would 2 weeks be better?)and helping them through their problems. Then in slow periods, if we don't really have any authors asking for help we could put in a topic, or start a challenge.

So, let me take a poll: who thinks they may want to take "the floor" for a week and ask for help/ideas for their epic? (either now or in future)

For those of you who think you'd like to do it now, please PM me so I can start a list for the new thread. I'll do it in "first come first serve" order.

sg

 

The idea of taking a minor character and doing a side story about them actually helped me with the story I have. I have been suffering from setbacks that kept me from writing anything worth posting because of all the other plot bunnies I had running through my head. Finally I decided to take one of the pesky buggers and turn it into a small background story for a very minor character in the opening scene of my story. It helped to get me focused and now that I've tackled one of my little furry friends, I've been able to keep writing on my story.

 

I just got bitten hard by the rewrite bunny, because someone requested that I rewrite Lest Ye Be Judged in the context of ROTS and the AU I wrote where Vader meets Padme 10 years after ROTS when she saves his life and three weeks after he leaves her, she's reported dead.

 

*steps onto the thread, reads DarthIshtar's last post.

Goody!

 

a couple more ideas for the new "loooong story" thread

based on Ophelia's idea: what about a month long contest, every couple of months, where the author who writes the most in their epic that month (and posts it of course) wins. I'm not sure what they could win other than bragging rights but perhaps I could keep a list and link to winners somewhere. Or perhaps buttons could be made. We'd need a snappy slogan I think though... and I'm not feeling too snappy today. It's summertime and I've somehow managed to get a bad head cold.

What about setting up Master/Padawan relationships between newbie epic writers and more long standing ones? The older writers could give tips and encouragement to the newer ones and the newer writers could give support and someone to bounce ideas off of in return. Alternately, sort of based on what Ophelia was saying, we could have "epic buddies" (for lack of a better term) where any two authors are paired up to support each other and give each other a bit of competition, if they so choose, for how often they post. To go along with either idea, there could be a trade off of links in profiles to help advertise your "epic buddy's" story and viceversa.

sg

 

Both sound like good ideas.

 

Hello fellow epic writers!

I havent had much to do with this thread since it's creation, but recently ticking over the 100,000 word mark has suitably motivated me to come share in the moral support I generally find that epic writers are getting more and more scarce these days - so keeping one another motivated is somewhat vital to our own survival

So, on to the idea of the workshop - I think it's a really good use of the structured environment that a new loong story thread would give us. I was involved in something similar at another fanfic site, whereby readers would arrange to have their long stories read and critiqued by the others in that particular thread. Everyone got an equal share of time and feedback was always constructive. Though I left the site before I could have my own fic workshopped, I found working on the others so much fun and just by reading more widely, I think our own writing skills will increase. Kinda like Osmosis

Also, Spiritgurl - I like both of your latest ideas. The month long competitions are a good little incentive, and master/padawan setups are always a positive thing

To go along with either idea, there could be a trade off of links in profiles to help advertise your "epic buddy's" story and viceversa.

I'd finally have something else to write in my sig

 

I was involved in something similar at another fanfic site, whereby readers would arrange to have their long stories read and critiqued by the others in that particular thread. Everyone got an equal share of time and feedback was always constructive.

That's another angle we could take with that, featuring a story for a period of time and if it was okayed by the author allow constructive crit to some extent. How did they go about this Mjsullivan? How much time was given to read and respond to the fic? Any other thoughts on this anyone has would be appreciated.

sg

 

Heya Spiritgurl.

The last workshop I was involved in was a pretty small and relaxed affair, and so not all the elements of that kind of set up will be helpful for this kind of group I don't think. But the basic principle went something like this:

- Depending on the length of the fic, time allocated to it was divided into weeks. For example, chapters 1-6 in one week, the next six chapters the week after, and so on. The problem I can foresee with that at the JC forums is that some fics are very, very huge and time allocated to them could stretch into months, which would be unfair on alot of authors with shorter epics.
- There was no mandatory participation requirement, but the general understanding was that if you commented on someone's fic, they would comment on yours also. So basically, the general board ettiquette we already operate under
- An author could request particular things to look out for, or accept the general impressions of the others.


A basic idea, but a few flaws with it that present themselves. Becuase of the wildly varying lengths of fics, some will recieve much more attention than others. I suppose this could be remedied by allocating a fixed amount of time (1 week? 2 weeks?) no matter how long the story, but that may be unrealistic for the ones reading and replying.

I guess the other problem with that is that alot of authors may not really want constructive criticism of their fic The idea of the support group is incentive to keep writing, criticism (no matter how constructive) might actually be detrimental. So to that end, your idea of Authors taking the floor for a period of time to get their questions answered and maybe just niggling issues fleshed out is probably a much better one

Though dont let me speak for anyone What we need is opinions, and lots of 'em!

Have at it, guys

 

and I have yet to have anyone PM me saying they are interested in having "the floor" in future. Very disheartening. Then again, maybe I'll do it, I've been having a terrible time lately.

Mjsullivan

Hmmm... yeah the length of some of these stories makes that difficult to do. Well, one idea is to have a featured "epic of the month" where I just post the link to the story, and some information, perhaps even an excerpt. This way people can read it if it interests them and at their own speed and comment in the story's thread when they are ready.

Another idea is to do that workshop idea but with excerpts as submitted by the author. The author could provide a link to the rest, let us know if they want constructive crit (via PM or in the thread). This way, it could be feasibly kept down to a week or two long period and people wouldn't necessarily have to read the whole epic to give feedback unless they wanted to.

sg

 

*rushes in panting* 34 page thread?! I love you, people! I used to wonder if I was the only epic geek in the universe. I shoulda posted here forever-and-a-day ago, but I'm a bit of a forum lurker.

Ahem. *cough*

Hello, my name is dark_jedi_lover and I'm an Epic Geek. I am currently working on an epic fan-novel which is a continutation of the Galaxy of Fear series (anybody read it? ). Having been working on it for two years you'd THINK I would be a long way into it, but with my procrastination and RL and writer's block, I'm still in the beginning scenes(I had written several scenes, but the floppy disks it was on went blank for no apparent reason Oddly enough this turned out to be a good thing, because my story is much better this time around).

Anywho, now I have a weekly writing schedule, so hopefully I can finish the darn thing before I'm a great-grandma.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings. Epic writing can be a lonely road.

--djl

 

That second idea sounds more feasible. I'd definitely do it.

 

Welcome dark_jedi_lover!

RK_striker

We could actually do both of those, as well as "the floor" idea (if anyone is interested). The "epic of the month thing, would be just a matter of me putting up a link to a story, and a bit of information. I could keep a master list at the beginning of the new thread too.

sg

 

Gutentag, peoples. I've come to pillage and stuff this thread. Well, actually, I've just dropped by to say hello (even if it was in German) to fellow epic-geek fan-novelists. I'm currently trudging headlong through The Fallen Shroud, a Clone Wars novel that takes place three months before Revenge of the Sith. As of this writing, it is 43,042 words and I am only about a little over a third into the story.