Confessions!

I’m going to invite the people of the WriYe blogging circle to make a confession about their writing

Hmmm, confessions.... I'm not sure where to start. I could confess that I spend time at work jotting down ideas I've had for stories, but it's not especially scandalous, is it? After all, you're supposed to catch ideas on paper (or screen) when you get them, aren't you?

So my confession is - I often start a story with absolutely no idea where it's heading, but I always seem to know how long the finished story will be.

Last April I decided to write an April Fools novel and I picked something I'd never tried before - a romance. To make things slighty easier for myself I based it on a song, so I had certain lines of the song that I knew would relate to certain instances in the story. But aside from knowing I was going to write a story based on a song, I really had no idea what I was doing. I had no characters, no setting (except that it was going to be on a ship - the song - and the eventual finished story - was called Down With The Ship), and no real idea of a storyline.

But as I was thinking about the story and the ship, the two main characters started to create themselves in the situation. I wrote a couple of scenes which would take place between the two of them and as I did, the world they lived in started to take more shape. Then I could move on to scenes involving more people and more places.

Eventually I knew my characters and setting well enough that I could start to pull the scenes together into a more cohesive story, and eventually I did finish the story.

That's not quite typical for me - usually I start with a character in a situation rather than a song, but it's quite often how I end up piecing my stories together.

Will that do for a confession?

• The song was Down With The Ship by Naomi King, and it is fantastic!

Tumbling about the web...

I've decided to branch out and try out a Tumblr to see if I like it and what it's all about. At the moment I'm keeping it for specific projects, with this one for more general things. We'll see how it goes!

How do you deal with writer's block?

Writer's Block. Two words that strike dread into the heart of any aspiring author.

I had a bad case of De Quervain's Tendonitis in my right hand at the end of last year and it meant I couldn't hold a pen or type properly for a good six weeks. It was very frustrating to keep getting ideas and not be able to jot them down. I even resorted to recording myself notes on my phone so I'd have something to come back to later.

But over the last month (typically, since my tendonitis cleared up!) I've found I've been having trouble thinking of ideas, and when I do get an idea I have no idea what to do with it. This, I'm finding, is infinitely more frustrating than not being able to write down ideas.

I've been quite lucky and not had this problem very often before, but it's really annoying me at the moment. I've tried my 10 word prompts, where I take 10 random words and try to fit them into a story, I've tried random story generators, and I've tried using pictures as prompts, but it's still not shifting the wroter's block.

I'm hoping it's going to be something that will just disappear in time if I keep plugging away, but if anyone's got any good tips on how to get rid of writer's block that would be really helpful!

Same Universe, Different Series

This week's WriYe was more of a prompt than a question:

Stories in the same universe, but not necessarily part of a series. Same Universe, Different Series (SUDS). Maybe.

The first thing that leapt to mind was fan fiction. I love writing fan fiction as a way to get myself writing. Without having to worry about creating characters or settings, I can just get into the story straight away. Once I'm there I'll find myself making up new characters for people to interact with and then, sometimes, they even take on more of a life of their own and I start writing stories about them, with only passing reference to the canon characters of the universe they inhabit.

One example of this is Dawn Bell. She started off as a minor character in a Heroes fanfic I was writing, based on a dream I had. Se was just as someone that Peter and Claire happened to bump into and then go off to another adventure. But I really liked her as a character. She'd got an interesting ability, to be able to 'push' abilities from one person into another. In the story she first appeared in I had her push Claire's healing ability into Peter so that he could heal a gunshot wound.

Then I started thinking, what if someone wanted to use her ability to get more power for themselves? And suddenly she was the star of her own story, with just a quick reference to Peter and Claire at the very start of the story and a whole raft of new original characters to interact with.

Same Universe, Different Series.

It's not just fanfic writers that use this trick though. How many stories have been set in the Marvel universe, with crossovers between various characters, other characters making a debut in one series only to go on and get their own stories, and hidden references to other superheroes in various comic books, TV series and films.

I could probably think of more examples, but I'm going to stop there. I'm getting all nostalgic about Dawn Bell now - high time I resurrected her for another adventure, I think...

The Weird Things You Do When You Plot

The latest WriYe Blogging Challenge was to admit the weird things you do when you plot. Honestly, I don't think I do anything weird when I plot!

Generally when I have an idea I jot it down in my notepad (or in my phone if I don't have paper to hand), then transfer it to my computer to flesh it out. I think about characters, then the story, then the details of the settings, and jot notes down as I think of them, then I rearrange them into some sort of order and save it.

Next I open a copy of the file, change the font colour to something bright, and start expanding on the sections in a black font, deleting the coloured text as I use those ideas. By the time I've finished doing that I've usually got a pretty cohesive plot outline, and sometimes even a couple of short scenes drafted out if inspitation has struck!

Sometimes I'll use Star Trek Online's character creator to get an idea of what my characters will look like, and that can help me when I'm writing later, or if the character is supposed to have a particular quirk. I'm not sure if that counts as weird, but it's the oddest thing I can think of!

OU Creative Writing update

Just thought I'd give an update on the Open University course I'm doing. The course description says:

By the end of the course you should be able to

• Write fiction, poetry, life writing and drama with a mature and sophisticated style and a greater awareness of elements such as repetition and analogy.
• Understand more fully the possible relationships between fiction, drama, life writing and poetry.
• Carry out background research for your writing, including the use of information technology.
• Empathise with characters and fully imagine and realise different eras and imaginative worlds in creating new work.
• Understand how dramatic writing methods might be transferable to other genres, for instance, to improve and develop prose style and voice.
• Demonstrate knowledge of dramatic writing, including knowledge of conventional layout for at least one medium.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the strengths and limitations of writing for different dramatic media, and what might be needed to write dramatic adaptations of fiction or life writing.
• Write with a greater awareness of formal constraints.
• Exercise a disciplined practice including willingness to revise and redraft.
• Present manuscripts and media scripts to a professional standard.
• Give objective evaluations of your own and others’ work through constructive criticism.
• Produce a piece of writing of substantial length which in its style, complexity and editorial awareness is drafted and redrafted to a high standard.

I'm really enjoying it so far, and the radio script writing was a lot of fun. The next assignment is to start planning a story which will comprise the end of course assignment. Must start thinking!

Sidekicks and Secondary Characters

A sidekick is a superhero partnered with another in a lesser capacity. Used for comedy, to relate to readers, but also to move plot, and in some cases to become an integral part of the mythos.

Or so says Comic Vine, which should know about sidekicks.

Sidekicks can often be as heroic as the people they are following. Take Ron Weasley in Harry Potter, or Amy Pond in Doctor Who.

They could be a younger person learning the ropes, like Robin to Batman. Robin eventually went on to become a superhero in his own right, as Nightwing.

Or the sidekick could be an essential part of the hero's armour, like Ando in Heroes. Without him, Hiro wouldn't have been able to get anywhere, because he couldn't drive, or to understand anyone in New York, because he didn't speak English.

For some reason most of my completed longer stories seem to be ensemble casts, but there are one or two which have had secondary characters - I don't think this is one of my strengths as a writer, and it's definitely something I need to work on more!

My main problem with secondary characters is that they either don't have any character at all, or I get too attached to them and end up giving them way to much background and character, then having to cut it all back out again when I realise they've become a main character and they shouldn't be.

Sidekicks are easier in some ways. Everyone loves it when Robin sometimes steps up to save the day. Sidekicks can have a developmental arc that is more dramatic than the hero's - they could go from a shy and scared kid to a brave teenager who helps to save the world. The key is to give them a bit of depth and not let them take over the story.

Yeah, I'm still working on that...!