Discussion The Scribble Pad (Fanfic Writing Discussions)

I've restored a lot of my old stories, but I had copies of them at other places so I could just get it from those places and copy/paste. There are a few fics that I don't have full ability to restore (I'm always behind putting my stories other places) I've basically just left. I don't remember what I wrote enough to fix it. I have thought about rewriting one or two of them using what I have as a starting guide and not trying to write what I wrote and making a new story.

But I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to rewrite it if it's important to you. I know how terrible it feels to lose something you wrote (I've lost things big things outside of the move because I'm terrible about backing things up) and wanting to have it back is completely understandable. Some people it's too depressing to think about and look at, so they just don't go back. I think that's understandable too. To put all that work into something and then have it disappear is really hard.

So basically, if you enjoy and want to do that, go for it! But don't feel pressured to do it if you don't want to.

 

I had one truncated fic that people kept asking me for, and thankfully it was actually one of the few I had backed up, and eventually I decided to edit it/fix it up (it was like my 3rd long story... it needed some major editing) and in the process, I ended up changing it quite a bit. I had improved so much as a writer and I was able to do better justice to the idea.

But I honestly haven't had any desire to do that to any of my other truncated fics. Granted, I started posting fanfic in mid 2010 and the move was in early 2012 so as a percentage, the amount of my work that was truncated was quite small. I honestly never had the energy to restore any of the other few fics I did have backed up, let alone rewrite, and I think that is from a combination of factors: my disability means even if I do remember how a lost work went, restoring it would be a physically slow process and I was just never attached to anything I wrote to do that... and I'm just a lazy person in general. I did back up everything I was super attached to. Plus, like Mav, I lost a lot of my early stuff (for better or for worse) to other circumstances so I think I'm just kinda used to it.

But I agree with Mav. Both approaches to the truncation are valid.

 

I'm with you, @Briannakin. There is only one story I wish it were possible to retrieve, in total. It's kind of sad that it cannot be restored.

 

Many congratulations for the attention to your craft.

 

And that is why I love @Pandora. I mean, WE love Pandora, don't we?

 

I have restored a fair few of my old stories through the copy-n-paste method. I did have several stories posted in other places, but most of them I had to hunt down inside the Wayback Machine. (I'm not going into the details, but suffice it to say: my story files, and they were backed up every one, all went up in smoke in October 2012, around a month after the move. How's that for timing?) But the story that was the subject of my previous post, and my present rewriting efforts, wasn't in the Wayback Machine--and believe me, I looked--and I didn't have it posted elsewhere.

So there was only this one way that I was going to get it back in completed form. Actually, I had been considering restoring (or rather--rewriting) it for more than several years, but I kept putting the idea aside: I didn't know if it was worth putting that much effort into an old story, when I had, and continue to have, other things to be working on. Oh, and I cannot multi-task, so I knew it would be the one and only story I would be working on.

But a while ago, I opened up the file where I had copy/pasted what remained of the first post, and where I had last rewritten the opening sentence a few times, and I decided to play with it a little and see what happened. No pressure. If I got stuck, or just got bored, I could close the file and move on. And wouldn't you know: I got into it, and now, 15,000 words later, it's still working for me. I have even remembered a few lost details. So as long as it continues to go well, I'll keep rewriting along towards a new THE END.

And yes, I am writing a basically new story. I expected as much going in: there wasn't any way I could write the exact same story I wrote in 2005, over ten years ago. I started out by rewriting nearly every sentence, and--as I wrote before--I'm moving now into larger structural changes.

Obviously, I think everyone has to decide how to handle their truncated stories for themselves. I'm not surprised that in general, people chose to move on--I have done this more than a few times, and it takes a considerable amount of work to write something that was lost again. And I have some old stories of my own that I suspect will remain lost in truncated form.

And I think that's that. If I didn't make something clear, I'm going to just blame it on the busted cover on the "I" key on my keyboard. It is certainly making typing more tricky than usual.

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@pronker: Many congratulations for the attention to your craft.

Thanks! And since I have an MFA in literary writing (and I had it when I wrote the original version of this story in 2005--because when you've spent time being a postmodern writing meanie, there's only a few ways left to rebel), I should hope I know a few things.

@Ewok Poet: Ah, thanks. And speaking of love and other warm feelings: it's good to see you around.

 

So we've all grappled with writer's block, but does anyone else here suffer from writer's paralysis? Sometimes I will sit down with every intention of working on a story, but when I open the document, I just freeze. It's like I'm afraid that anything I write will somehow irreparably screw up the story; it's particularly bad if it's a story I haven't worked on in a while, and the more I want to work on it, the more I feel that I will mess things up. Logically, this is a pretty silly feeling; they're words, after all, and if I don't like them once they're written, I can just delete them and start over. Emotionally, however, I'm convinced that I'm going to Ruin Everything.

Does this happen to anyone else? How do you deal with it? Word race is usually a good way for me to turn off that inner critic and get words on paper (or screen or whatever...), but getting that first word written can be a real challenge

 

I used to suffer from that, quite a bit. I say 'used to' because now, I suffer much less.

For me, it was a case of the more I write and the more I read, the easier it gets to make the plot bunnies dance when I want them to. I've left so many things unfinished, but it's less and less of that the more time goes by.

But I get your idea about ruining everything. To me, writing is an art. Like Picasso. You think Picasso woke up one morning and said, "I want to paint like a little kid and forget about all this namby pamby garbage about 'it has to look like something, Pablo!'"?? Well, maybe he did, idk, but the point is, writing to me is art. Once it's on paper, it's a set thing. If I screw it up badly, then it's a terrible thing that can't be changed.

Bad writer, bad. And then I hang my head in shame and post the darned thing anyway.

So, my point is...
Sorry, I forgot.

 

@Raissa Baiard - put another way, it sounds like you're afraid of writing something that "ruins" the story in that now I've written the characters into this situation and I don't like it or know how to get them out of it.

I figure your stuff is brills anyway and it's profic writers that often should worry about such things, what kind of an idiotic thing was that?! How could you do that to them?

When I read something, not even fiction, I think about the logistics of it, how eloquent it is and well-written, how it presents a concise picture... When I read fiction, I pay attention to the dialogue, the motivations of the characters, their feelings, their growth.
So when I write, I try to put those things into the story and make them oomphy.

Maybe what you could do is write stuff, like a couple sentences/paragraphs, and approach it like a reader, not an author. Is this junk, entertaining, or wonderful?

Perhaps get an objective "pair of eyes" of someone who has similar tastes and have them honestly appraise what you've done. They'll tell you if they've gooified, are on the edge of their seat or something else altogether.

 

Aw, how frustrating after the fic has taken on life.
After I thought hard about it, maybe the issue can be helped by the Preventive Maintenance technique?

In a perfect world there would be no bad story ideas, no bad bunnies. But sadly not only is this not a perfect world, sometimes even good bunnies fall prey to troubled execution and become unwanted, unloved ... Regretted.

If there's a change to be made for the better, try it, even though it feels very uncomfortable. Normally that feeling passes, and after a while you'll be so engrossed in your new and improved bunny enough the old one will fall by the wayside. Just remember it's your fic. You have the ultimate power over it. You can make it into whatever you want and if you want a more interesting fic that you can finish faster? You can make it happen.

1. Go bunny hunting. See how many extractable plot bunnies are in your fic, decide what story you are really telling in the fic and pluck the remainder. You can toss them or save them in a file, but get them out of your way. If you make a fic starting/plot bunny file, put ideas into it in whatever detail it takes to record them except for the fic itself.

2. If you have a scene list for your fic, experiment by removing one or more scenes. Try to analyze if you could make do without the scene. Is it completely superfluous? Can whatever function it fills be handled by a few sentences in another scene? Can you fold two scenes into one? The less scenes you have to write, the quicker the fic will be done.

3. Explore alternate endings to what you originally planned. See if you can prevent the fic from going longer than it has to be. Consider altering the plot if you're early enough into the writing process.

I hope this helps. I enjoyed Everyone Comes to Doran's Place.

 

I get it. The inspiration that made scene one fly out of your fingers hits scene two.
You know what comes next, but the poetry isn't there. And you write a sentence or two and, "ugh. That's boring. What's new in Netflix?".
And the night is lost.

And yeah, maybe the answer is to write the Boring and maybe tomorrow night your subconscious has fixed it in your head.

 

Really, @pronker ? It's wabbit season! Duck season! Wabbit season!

Or go for a walk. Sometimes, fresh air and not staring into that screen is enough to get the ideas popping off by themselves.

 

@pronker: Is it me, or does that still of Dr. Frankenstein look strangely like a young...Mark Hammil?

 

@brodiew *squints* It does, indeed! It's Colin Clive (1900-1937), the mad doctor in the 1931 Frankenstein.

@Vek Talis Pwot bunnies weawy wun faw and fast unless one uses a .22 Wong Wifle.

 

@pronker and @Vek Talis Actually, it’s tennis season...Anyone for tennis?

 

Apparently, Elmer isn't very fond of tennis.

And, @pronker That was weally, weally, intewesting. But schtupid.

 

gg

 

@Kurisan, this is awesomesauce! The last time I opened my big-a55 epic, I was once again discouraged by a chapter that makes me want to pull my hair. The idiot mode might help me.

 

Once only, I was a beta and once only, I used a beta. Would anyone have beta experiences to relate?

 

I allowed one of our new writers to PM me for tips, and for me to read the occasional chapter, and offer ideas on how to proceed, or help him choose which of his own ideas would be worth pursuing.

 

I've done some beta stuff. My particular talent in that area is having ideas bounced off me. Fun.

 

I meant to quote this the other day but I got distracted. This is a fantastic thought, and I agree is very true. But also, at least for me, the opposite. I see the flaw and I can't find a way to stop caring about it. Many times it's really minor and something most people probably won't even pick up on, but I know it's there and I just can't move forward.

A beta really just depends on what you want. Some people only want someone to point out their writing error that they've missed or overlooked. Some people want someone to bounce ideas off of, to help with plot problems and to make suggestions. I've really only ever had someone who looked for the technical problems, but I usually don't write longer things where the other help comes into play all that much. I do like someone who will say "I feel like you could give more/less detail about..." or just suggestions on making me a better writer. I think we all have hang ups about certain things (see above) and if you can find someone to help with those things, it can really help. But not everyone wants that, and that's okay too.

I've done a bit of the both myself, but I'm not a very good technical beta, I just don't see the vast majority of errors.

 

+ Sith I-5 That sounds just like the scope I was thinking of - the person benefited, I'm sure.

+ Cowgirl Jedi 1701 Yeah, the brainstorming stage is great fun!

+ mavjade

Good point, the lapses in logic that we are all prone to. For example, a scene in a dark cave has Character X grimacing or something and Character Y says, "Why the face?" when it'd be too dark to see subtle expressions.

Thanks for replying, everyone. I needed a beta to enter a SW contest and added a detail that helped characterization along, per beta-suggestion, and I was a beta to an established author in one SW pairing who wanted to expand horizons featuring another pairing with a multi-chapter fic on its own LJ community. That was interesting and although the fic remains WIP, it had a very respectable wordcount.

 

I thought I'd be a pretty good beta reader, thought I'm good at catching spelling errors and pointing out sentences that didn't make sense.
Then I had @Findswoman beta a story of mine, and wow! She's super thurough and helpful on everything, it was amazing.