WIP Challenge: Day 22, Thursday

[enemytosleep]

Another day has come and gone, so now it's time to check in. \o/



How many new words did you write today? Did you reach your goal? Were you editing instead? Researching? Or was today a day of rest?

...and today's discussion topic:

Flashbacks, flash-forwards: there are a few ways to play with the timeline in a story. You can move forward in time and purposefully withhold information until later to increase suspense, you can move back and purposefully give information to develop motivation for your characters. How do you play with time structure, if at all?

Comments

[enemytosleep]

No writing last night, but I edited two more chapters for my buddy.

I play with time a lot. I don't know why? I do enjoy it, though! Especially where a lot of my stories are relatively short, I find it can break up an otherwise boring scene and create more interest in the plot. Here's an FMA fic where I play with time to maximize the comedy (blind date fic): Friday Night, Date Night.

[crowdog66]

Wrote and posted a new chapter of "Impulse" (1400 words or so).

I play with time structure occasionally, sometimes simply because the first scene that comes to me for a fic requires explication by going backward in time in future chapters, or because that out-of-sequence scene is the one I feel will "hook" the readers and make them sit through less dramatic parts. Most of the time, though, I tend to tell stories in a fairly straightforward manner. It's personal preference, really.

[enemytosleep]

Good stuff! \o/ Hope your professional projects are moving along, too.

I love a good hook. I have a handful of fics that begin in medias res for that reason. ^^; My buddy is really good at linear progression that is still gripping and interesting. I need to learn more from reading her stuff, ha!

[snowynight]

I write 1K more. Now I have a weird draft of fic that I'm not sure if it could make sense to anyone including me.

I tend to tell stories in a fairly straightforward manner. It's personal preference, really.

[enemytosleep]

XD Well, I always say fanfic is for fun, so as long as you enjoy writing it!

[littlebutfierce]

Well, this week has been a big pool of suckiness. Nyanko-sensei can try to shame me all he wants, too bad. :P Today I managed a bit of editing, anyway.

I think if I play w/time it's mostly starting w/a scene that will draw the reader in, & then going back to demonstrate how the characters got there.

[insignia]

I'm trying to sort myself out. Still no writing.

[barbayat]

Not yet participating in anything officially - but if I might jump in anyway. Yes - I did write something and hopefully I will be able to edit some parts I marked from the beginning of the chapter that I wrote yesterday so the little mistake I made can be written out and I can finish the chapter.

Thinking about most of my fanfic projects I'd say I am a dominantly linear progress writer .... I even go as far that I had some flashbacks in my Dark Matters story and removed them to place them in their own story. I did that with other stories as well. Sometimes a flashback occurs but that is usually for stories with century old beings and they have to be short for me to keep them in the main story.
I think jumps are interesting narration device - but I somehow don't have stories that would lend themselves to it. For example, I do like how they do it in Once upon a time. A lot of people seem to be confused by it, but I think it is wonderfully done with the small hints were the individual stories are located and it makes the whole experience all the more interesting.

[enemytosleep]

Haha, Sensei is building up quite the collection of bottled writers this week (myself included in that). XD I'm sorry things have been sucky, though.

I do the in medias res semi-regularly. I have no idea why I enjoy flipping timelines around so much!

[enemytosleep]

Bah. I saw your reply about prompts being bad for you. I wish I knew another way to get words flowing, but at the moment I'm drawing a blank. I guess in the very least you should try not to stress about it. It's not for a paying job/deadline, so ideally you should be enjoying the process!

[enemytosleep]

Not all of us are in challenges, so welcome and thanks for checking in! :D Good work getting things sorted and some more words written. Progress can be harder without a deadline, I find, so working at a steady pace on your own is impressive.

Seems I am the only nut to check in so far who can't tell a story in order! XD

[enemytosleep]

btw, I'm a bit fried on writing this week, but tonight I could draw another little art if someone needs it. If someone could use a chibi you can pm me and I will get on that tonight after I'm done with everything else!

[littlebutfierce]

Thanks for the offer! All the pinch-hits are in though. :D (I mean, not that it should stop anyone who wants to do treats! But nobody needs anything at this point.)

[enemytosleep]

Huzzah! \o/ I will see what I end up doing, then. My house has been exactly this lately. ^^;

[lilly_c]

I've been on a bit of roll yesterday and today. Yay. Wrote and finished a fic and finished editing a fic from earlier in the week. The plan with both is to post them some time tomorrow, they are for the same challenge so it makes sense for me to do that.

I like playing with time but only when it's necessary. I used both in If You Asked, flashbacks in Haunted, flash-forwards in the Salt Skin trilogy. The trilogy went from present day to 4 months later to 3 years. Think there's other fics where I've used one or both as well, can't be bothered looking :)

[enemytosleep]

Awesome! Can you come write my fic, now? XD

[barbayat]

I am not sure about the steady pace part, but a few days ago I stumbled upon some old notes for a fanfic and broke through a serious writer's block that had lasted for seven years (in regards to this story) and now I finshed the chapter. It still could use work but in absence of a beta (my betas always get pregnant and then have no time for fanfics anymore *lol*) But yes, I am done with the chapter ...

I should be working on a paper but ... I got to use the moment of inspiration.

If telling a story in a non-linear way works for you - why shouldn't you? I actually find the idea somewhat interesting. I am already wondering if that might be the way to go about that Torchwood plot bunny that keeps bothering me. I hate plot bunnies, I always tending to them and don't have any time to actually write something. So hopefully you guys can keep me a bit in line so I actually do concentrate on finishing something for a change.

[bay_alexison]

No writing today, had been busy betaing a fic. Got most of it done but I want to look over the second half of the chapter again my friend gave me and think over some plot suggestions I should give, which I'll get to later tonight. I would have also get started on betaing the second part of Chapter Six of my FMA Big Bang fic but still waiting for her to send her comments. Going to contact her in a bit as it seems something came up at her end and want to talk to her if she's still willing to look through the story or it's fine with her I just let Beta B look through the rest).

I mostly write straightforward as that's now I feel the story will be best told, but I played around with flashback scenes and flashback chapters before. Most of the time with flashbacks is to give depth on the character's motivations.

[enemytosleep]

Ah, well congrats on unexpected progress! \o/ I find the check ins pretty helpful myself (this week not so much with my schedule, but I sort of figured I'd be too busy to draft stuff beforehand, hence my requesting this week to be the cheerleader). So hopefully they will prove helpful to you, too. :D And hey, maybe write some of your paper too, though no one is as excited about that XD.

I am always bouncing around telling bits of a story, moving forward, moving back. I enjoy it, but there are times when I wish I could be disciplined and write more in order!

[enemytosleep]

Sounds like a plan re: getting beta notes. I hope you can wrangle things together in a timely way. :D

Well, you've read a lot of my stuff. XD You've seen me flashforward and flashback all over the place.

[linaewen]

No writing today. I did some stuff that could be loosely be described as research; not sure if it got me anywhere, but it kept me somewhat in the groove of writing. Sort of... ;-)

I'm very fond of flashbacks! They are great way to remind readers of something that happened a long time back, or a way to connect something that is currently happening that has roots in the past. I've also used them as a means of introducing an original character by giving him a connection to the main character through flashbacks until he was established in his own right. As for flash-forwards, I'm not sure I've done much of that, except for a thing or two where I start in the past and jump forward at intervals until I can tie it all together in the present.

[linaewen]

Also, my stories tend to be pretty chronological in their telling, so it's refreshing for me to be able to throw in some flashbacks to break the linear quality of the writing.

[enemytosleep]

You were sick yesterday, so we can be nice and count this as progress, I think. *Sensei lifts his hammer threateningly*

Yay, someone else writes in a non-linear format on occasion. :D I'm a big fan of in medias res myself, as well as flashbacks (not necessarily in the same fic, mind you!).

[terabient]

Uh, I've been working on a month_of_meta post for the last two days, does that count? It's fandom related, kind of!

I did manage to add about 100 words to one of the bingo fics and reassessed the ending of another, which is, idk, something I guess.

I haven't done too many flashbacks, but I generally use them for foreshadowing or to add an emotional undertone to a present-day scene. Like uh...if there's a scene where, say, a character's experience with spiders led to a phobia, I'll flashback to said experience a few scenes earlier so the reader is aware of the present-day fear. I try to avoid having the flashback scene immediately precede or follow the relevant present-day scene so it's not so its exposition-like qualities aren't completely obvious.

So scenes go something like this: scene -> flashback that appears only tangentially related -> unrelated scene(s) -> flashback-relevant scene

....I think I made that sound unnecessarily complicated. :P

[riceishere]

I think we have the same problem! But I blame it on my short attention span. I'd sit down and think: Self, this is just a one scene story, a simple one, and the BAM there's a forward bit in the end and a line or two of flashback stuff.

[riceishere]

I wrote about 200 words? It's not even half of what I'd projected to do but at least there's progress.

I am all over the place when writing fic, it's hard!! I'm definitely in the can't-stop-using-flash-forwards-and-time-jumps-what category. Especially if there's a long canon behind the fic. It's one of the reasons I never got to finish one Merlin longfic because I kept jumping through King Arthur timeline, then future! then Victorian England and the fic just got too unwieldy that way. I guess whenever I get bored I have a tendency to write flashbacks and flashforwards just to explore the possibilities of the fic.

[crowdog66]

Wrote another ~880 words last night of the next chapter of "Impulse". Yay!

[crowdog66]

Thanks for the kind wishes. :) My professional projects... well, I just finished one and have to leap right onto another, so the pace of work isn't abating. But, like Jell-o, there's always time for writing. D

[enemytosleep]

Making money isn't too bad either. ;) Glad you've been able to strike a balance with all your projects!

[enemytosleep]

I worry about boring people, so I try to keep to the interesting parts with just enough explanation to thread it all together - not sure how successful it is, but I think for me it's mostly a paranoia thing! XD

[enemytosleep]

Writing is writing! It takes me a fair amount of time to prepare mod posts for the groups I run, so I say it totally counts! And 100 words is 100 more words than I managed. XD

Haha, I think I get what you were saying though - the flashback as foreshadowing is slightly different than what you normally see, and I think it can both work and be really intriguing!

[enemytosleep]

Awesome! \o/

[enemytosleep]

200 words a day = 1400 words a week, which is not a bad number at all. Yay progress!

I think we both need some discipline, haha. In recent months I've tried instead to write the scenes out of order if I need to, but then hold onto them and piece some of them back into linear order, so that things aren't quite as all over the place as they were when I first drafted. Still, I have a hard time sitting down to write something in order. Outlines have also become very handy for me in plotting out the story and having the order pre-determined (so if I then write it out of order, I'm simply slotting the different scenes into their places in the story). Moderation is key, right? I keep trying to tell myself this!