Discussion The Scribble Pad (Fanfic Writing Discussions)

So, has anybody made a somewhat long break from writing and then feared opening their own stories?

I am scared that I'll find the person who wrote them a disgusting freak of nature or something. My outlook of the world has changed noticeably from March last year on - and no, it's not a "new personality" thing in BPD handbooks, I don't meet that part of the criteria and I never did. It's just that I'm somewhat afraid I'll see sadness and pain in my writing.

 

I haven't had this experience just because I don't usually write longer stories, but I am happy top welcome you back! Good to see you, EP!

 

¡Hola! Whatever this day brings, I wish you well.

 

Hey, Kiddo!

So very glad to see you again!

PS. Don't touch your dark ewok stuff, then.

PPS.

Options

- As my company had promoted Working From Home, they have made us aware that laptops can be connected to smart TVs, and I think a lot of monitor-style TVs can display a computer signal;

- Do you work anywhere that you can ask if they are selling off their older monitors?

- Any places that do auctions for companies that have gone bust, where you could try getting a used laptop or screen.



And if you don't have a Dell, and none of the advice is applicable to you, why not see if Youtube can assist with your particular model.

PS. I didn't want to double post from when Pandora posted, and forgot that I had already commented here tonight.

 

Sorry for the double post. Forgot I had already posted here tonight.

 

Yup! Fortunately, due to the board move, half of the postings had disappeared. A few were utterly cringe-worthy, but there were a few which had held up pretty well...well, I thought so.

 

Welcome back (again). This kinda ties into our previous discussion on unfinished WIP.

Personally, I think if you totally want to start on a new blank page, and not look back, go for it. Fanfic is about having fun and there shouldn't be this tying feeling of guilt to past obligations. If you don't want to look back then don't.

I've looked back on old stories when I was going through some of my darkest depression. I grant you, much of it is truncated now, but, I guess for me, it was so long ago that I don't feel anything towards them except maybe how much I've grown and how much better I am now.

 

No worries, that part of the universal storyline was not meant to be different, I stopped because I couldn't remember a very, very minor plot point. And then I got stuck on an action chapter because of my ultimate personality flaw - passive resistance. The more I was asked about it, the more my mind simply did not want to work on it.

It's mostly my Humans who are an issue. Stupid personality growth, getting us all life long, end of history illusion and all.

...and this person here never noticed the obvious. // insert cuckoo chime here

¡Hola!

Don't worry, that one's not going to change.

<3

To three of you, I will respond at once, as things are vaguely similar. Also...hi, new person...I'm an old person. Whatever.

*is triggered by the realisation that she needs to read six months of this, lol*

I didn't explain myself well, I did not mean to start over, but the rest of your reply IS relatable. In my case, I just had a couple of "should have know betters" that projected from RL to fics and that's probably what led to that shocking realisation (shocking to me) that I posted a couple of weeks before I went MIA - that two of my OCs are the different sides of me, the stereotype black-and-white view of the world, one representing dysphoria and the other euphoria, one feeling the supposed emptiness and the other "splitting" on everybody. The passive one lived the life meant for the flamboyant one and vice-versa. And...realising one was your present and the other your past AND your future was a shock.

That led to further rumination.

1. Why do we create characters meant to save others and sacrifice large portions of their lives for them? Even when not manic pixies dream girls - my main OC is the dysphoric moth nightmare creature and a kriffin' ray of sunshine, not. So, what am I going to do with her? I came up with an actual career and life path to her, but does it depend on her current boyfriend too much? Can he be a complete Karma Houdini with all I have planned for him or does he need to face more consequences? Making him an innocent victim of everything ever would be the wrongest of the wrong paths.

2. Real life wrote a much-needed subplot for the flamboyant character, by having her run into somebody who is mild-mannered, rational and with actual goals and plans in life. And now I have all the action, in literal sense, planned out for them and a couple of supporting characters. But I don't know what to do with their interpersonal relationship. I don't want him to be her saviour because that's just plain wrong and a cliché. If I had them paired up, that would be sort of against my personal ethics as it wouldn't even have been possible IRL, like, 20 years ago. I don't want another wish fulfillment thing unless there was a snowball's chance in hell of that in this universe. I want something deeper and meaningful...

....that, plus the chica technically lays eggs.

I should be banned from the entire internet.

 

You could have that they are together as friends, and then as part of a group of friends so they are not just the two of them.

 

gg

 

Not sure if this is the right place to ask (or if I'm even allowed to ask considering that it's about a different site - if I'm not allowed to please let me know) but is anyone here familiar with fanfiction.net? I keep having problems with it and I"m not really sure who I should ask for help?

 

We're not really supposed to do much 'advertising' for other fanfic sites (just the site owner's preferences). We can mention them and people can have links in their signatures, but discussing help for that site would probably cross the line. Your best bet is to PM someone you know to be familiar with the site, or someone will hopefully PM you.

 

Okay thanks for the clarification! The problem I was having actually seems to have fixed itself, but thanks for the advice

 

Odd discussion topic, and this is also me just using this post as a scribble pad to sort out my thoughts in my very tired, scrambled brain. But have you ever had to scrap an idea for a chapter or scene or part of a scene, even though you can see it so clearly in your head (and it works with the plot)?

Basically, I'm working on a fairly angsty fic right now and it's not like baby-killing angst (which I'm no stranger to) but it does deal with some serious topics like trauma, hate crimes, and homophobia. One of the chapters (the one I'm currently working on) has the couple in trauma counselling and I had originally imagined one of the characters (who has attachment anxiety) being forced to face his fears of loved-ones dying. Now, I'm all for realistic portrayals and dealing with real mental illness and fears. But I don't want to write this (for some unexplained reason - maybe I think, the fic already has enough going on and I already have enough angst to cover) and the idea of writing this one bit makes me not want to work on this story at all. I can "cut it" out with no problems to the plot.

I know I could write it and then delete it afterwards if I feel as if I am tackling to many topics at once in this fic (and just as I typed that I realized THAT was my issue with this part in this story) but if you know me, you know I have limited energy and limited time to devote to typing.

But I guess that doesn't help with my question: how do I imagine this scene without that part when it was so vivid?

 

I'd write it up separately and save it in a separate doc. That way, you get it out of your brain and on to paper. It may not work in this fic, but maybe it will work for something in the future. I keep a doc specifically for this type of thing, vignettes that won't leave my brain alone that I don't necessarily have a story for. And sometimes, I'm able to cut and paste into something else. But once I've typed it up, my brain is satisfied and goes on to other things.

 

@Ewok Poet -- I don't write longish things but I had been away from the boards for quite a few months, came back and found the amazing Marzra-verse LOL Yes, as I recall, your stuff is pure hilarity! And writing for me has always been a way to de-stress and indulge my mush-fanatic. But most of all, it's a way to give my favorite characters the outcomes profiction writers don't seem able to.

 

I totally get this. Or I think that I do.

Writing the scene equates to both Tilda Swinton's character in Avengers Endgame describing that each event or decision leads to a different timeline; or in Formula One (racing), the line that your car takes going into a corner, can ease, complicate, or compromise your run into subsequent corners.
So, you writing your scene, will lead to a place that you don't want to go; whilst not writing it, still leads somewhere, but it is far more palatable.

My own example is the Baille Harte (female Imperial pilot), Mitch Nifesta (Twi'lek Force Vampire) dynamic.

Their original scene, within a roleplaying game, Mitch rescues Baille from Imperial custody, they work together on a mission, and whilst he is busy elsewhere, I sacrificed her to help introduce another character into the game, which worked A-OK, but there was no opportunity for Mitch to make this right, the trail was cold, no way to even seek revenge. Clearly he does not cope well with certain kinds of loss. I found that I couldn't write him with any kind of vitality at all. He dropped off from being my primary SGIS enforcer, to someone mired in depression.

I have such a body of work now from rolling back and making sure Baille stays alive. Very rare that Mitch lets her out of his sight, and that just works out better for me.

 

Yeah, kinda. Though it's more like a burger patty. This scene (or part of a scene) adds one more patty. With or without it, its still a burger, and a pretty meaty one at that. I just don't think the burger needs like a 4th patty and would probably get overwhelming with it, and other things, like the pickles, would get lost in the beef.

And thanks everyone. I agree, sometimes you just need to write something to "get the monkey (or plot bunny) off of your back", even if it doesn't make the final cut.

Though I think I MIGHT set it to the side for a week and see what the muse is giving me after that time period. It's already kinda fading (advantages of a bad memory!), so maybe ranting about it and just figuring out WHY I didn't want to write it helped.

 

Here's a idea of what the sequel trilogy would've been like if I had written the story:

30 years has passed after the defeat of the Empire, a terrorist group called the "New Galaxy Order" has risen from the ashes of the defeated Empire over the years, and is now ruled by person who is very strong in the darkside of the force.

So over the years, the New Republic has risen to power and is now in controlled of the Galaxy, and Leia Organa (now Leia Solo) is now a senator for the New Republic. Leia is also now a Jedi. Han Solo is now a general, and over the years has taught people how to fly combat ships. Han and Leia now have twins (1 male and 1 female) who are 15 years old, and they are being trained by their uncle Luke how to be Jedi knights. The twins names are Sam and Kira. Sam would have a love interest in the sequel trilogy who's name is "Lisa Kolulan". Lisa is also a Jedi who is still in training.

Over the years, Luke Skywalker has successfully trained a new Jedi generation, and is now married to a woman named "Marie Skywalker" (who is a Jedi master). Luke and Marie have two sons named "Jake" and "Quinn". Jake is 17 years old, and Quinn is 20 years old. Jake is still learning how to be a Jedi, while Quinn has recently just became a full Jedi knight.

Quinn Skywalker would be like Jacen Solo from Legends, and become the main villain of the sequel trilogy like how Kylo Ren did.

Jake Skywalker, Sam and Kira Solo would be the center trio of the trilogy. And Jake and Quinn would be like Cain and Abel from the bible, and become each other's enemy.

Episode VII would be about how Quinn Skywalker fell to the darkside.​

 

Thank you for the advice regarding my laptop, @Sith-I-5. As it happens, my laptop is an hp, not a Dell, and I couldn't find an equivalent video for hps on youtube. But it may not even matter. As it turns out, the screen might not actually be pixillated after all, even if that is what it looks like: my father thinks it is actually several screens overlapping at the same time, which is an entirely different problem.

So I figure now that my best bet for using it is to hook it up to another monitor. I have even done this before with another laptop. But since the only monitor I have access to is a large clunky desktop monitor, which I would have to haul out of a basement storage room, I'm just not desperate enough to go through that yet.

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Since that doesn't have anything to do with writing fanfiction (well, besides that fact that I wrote fanfiction on said laptop), I shall bring up a topic that does. Basically, I have numerous stories in progress--and have since c. January 2017--and I have one question for those of you with multiple WIPS: how do you do it? Literally, how do you do it? I feel as though my brain is going to explode if I contemplate for too long just how many stories I have unfinished, and too much of the time, I get to a place where I'm so stuck I can't work on any of them. I suppose it does help me to take them one post at a time (don't think to the end of the story, merely to the end of this next post) but that only works for so long.

I should make a sacred vow--though since I don't have a lightsaber to raise to the stars, it would lack a certain "oomph"--that once these stories are done, never again shall I write more than one story at a time. But first, I have to finish these stories.