WIP challenge check-in: day 11!

[littlebutfierce]

It's the weekend! Does that mean time to work on fic, or are there too many other things you have going on?

Poll #7252 Day 11 check-in!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

View Respondents

What ficcish things did you do today?

View Answers

Write
6 (60.0%)

Edit
4 (40.0%)

Send to beta
1 (10.0%)

Post
0 (0.0%)

Procrastinate
5 (50.0%)

Research
0 (0.0%)

Something else I will describe in comments
1 (10.0%)

How many words, if any, did you write today?

View Answers

1-249
1 (16.7%)

250-499
2 (33.3%)

500-749
1 (16.7%)

750-999
1 (16.7%)

1000 or more
1 (16.7%)

And how are you feeling about it all?

View Answers

& a discussion topic: Beginnings! Middles! Endings! Every story has these. Which are you best at? Which do you hate? How do you try to drag yourself through the worst section of the story in order to get it done?

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

I wrote around 850 words on my poor little help_japan fic, but couldn't bring myself to sit down & start editing the fic (er, not that it's done, but it's inching closer).

I'm definitely worst at endings. Sometimes the characters just keep talking & I think, I have to shut them up! Where's a good point to end things? &... one doesn't always present itself.

Beginnings are easiest for me to write, & not just b/c I'm good at making myself write through the crap. I mean, even when I warm up my brain & excise the crap I wrote, what's left as the beginning of the story often gets to its final form the quickest.

Middles... eh. Sometimes I just flounder around in the middle of the story for a while.

I try to tell myself I should just get a rough draft done, no matter how crappy, & I can edit from there, b/c things will be clearer once I can see the whole story. It... doesn't always work. But sometimes it does!

[glitteryv]

High-five for all those new words!

I hear you on having that moment of "I should wait til the draft is done" vs. "but I want to start fixing it NAO!"

[littlebutfierce]

Thank you! & yeah... sometimes it feels easier to edit bits as I go along -- partly cuz then I get a break from work on the fic always being writing, adding new words, etc. And then that's a little bit less editing to do at the end, & sometimes it clarifies things as I write further.

But editing often takes so much more brain than just pounding out more words, heh.

[jagnikjen]

I worked on my challenge fic a little this morning and then cranked out a drabble that needs a bit of refining (meaning I need to lose about 36 words) and started another drabble that may end up not being a drabble after all. And I worked on a re-watch writeup for Friday Night Lights.

Beginnings, middles, or ends...I don't know which I'm best at or which I'm worst at. I think endings are hardest. Beginnings easiest. Middles could be hard if any of my fics were actually long enough to really have a middle. :( In the romance genre, they don't call 'em sagging middles for no reason. ;P

[jagnikjen]

A quick update to say I have edited the drabble, cut the requisite number of words and have exactly 100 left. YAY!

But now it's off to bed...

[glitteryv]

Yay for working on your challenge fic. :)

Middles are sag-magnets, that's for sure.

[msmcknittington]

In the romance genre, they don't call 'em sagging middles for no reason. ;P

When in doubt, add a kidnapping!

At least, that's how a lot of romances seem to get around the sagging middle phenomenon.

[littlebutfierce]

Heh, I am one of those terrible people that thinks drabbles don't have to be exactly 100 words. I know this means half of fandom wants to kill me & half agrees w/me.

But anyway--yay for getting the drabble done, whatever length you went w/!!! Also re-watching canon=yay!

& augh, sagging middles, indeed! I think shortfic (well, maybe not drabbles) can still have middles--at least I definitely feel like there are middles to mine. Or at least... there's a coherent beginning & something of an ending, both of which I may feel reasonably confident about, & then... what's left in the fic, augh.

[glitteryv]

Did my usual 1,400 words. In truth, I think I could have done more, but I used up most of the day to catch up with the blogs I read, fics I wanted to download and random Tumblring.

Beginnings and endings are equally as easy for me for two reasons: I love setting up the story and I tend to always know how my stories are going to end.

The middle part is a little tricky because every so often I have to scribble down a transitional scene that I might find boring but that it's, you know, necessary for the plot as a whole.

[littlebutfierce]

Yay for keeping on w/the 1400 words -- this is so impressive!! Also yay for what sounds like a productive internet day otherwise--when I'm doing things like that it can be hard for me to stay on target (if I find myself listlessly refreshing my reading page on DW, for goodness sake, self, go do something else!!!).

I don't think I always (or maybe even often?) know how my fics are going to end. Maybe this is partly cuz I do the waffy feeeeeeeling stuff, so my concept of a story tends to be "characters x & y have a series of squishy moments, YAYZ." ;)

I also find it difficult to write transition scenes sometimes--I get bored, or I think things are obvious. I've been pretty lucky in having betas who tell me what they want to see happen (instead of me glossing a scene in a summary sentence or something), phew...

[glitteryv]

Re the boring/obviousness of those damn transition scenes: The one thing that keeps me writing them is remembering that I might know what's going on, but the readers won't. Plus, there's only so much handwaviness one can do. ;P

[lexicalcrow]

Not a lot written, but I did get inspiration at 3am and decided not to keep going or I'd never get to bed. XD So I'll have to finish it today. :P

Possibly endings are the hardest? But it depends on the story. Sometimes I have an ending in mind, and no idea how to get there, but sometimes I start at the beginning and keep going because the story keeps changing as I write it and the ending isn't clear til the very end. So that can make things difficult. But yes. Depends on the story. Most of the time, I just keep writing and hope the damn thing makes sense when it's finished. XD

[littlebutfierce]

Yay for inspiration, & getting to indulge it at least a little bit! Hopefully you'll be able to go back to it today & finish!!

sometimes I start at the beginning and keep going because the story keeps changing as I write it and the ending isn't clear til the very end.

Yeah, me too. This is partly cuz I do less plotty fic, more feeeeelings fic, so I don't always start w/an endpoint in mind!

[linaewen]

I forgot all about an important project that needs doing right away, so I had to scramble to work on that today instead of fic, sigh! Ah, well, I'll get back to the fic soon enough. It's not like it's going to go anywhere without me. ;-)

I struggle some with each of those from time to time -- beginning, middle and end. Beginnings are often difficult, because I know what I want to accomplish, but the first words of a tale or a chapter seem like they need to be significant, and it's not easy to find how to start. The end can be tricky sometimes when I want it to come but people just keep talking!! :-D But usually I just go until the end comes, and when it does, I know it's the right place to stop. It's an intuition kind of thing. ;-) If I'm lucky, sometimes I know the end before I start, and I just have to write the in between stuff!

[xpaperplanex]

Middles are the hardest for me, with ends coming in a close second. I tend to get really good beginnings where I know exactly what I want to happen, and I'll have ideas for an ending, but getting from the beginning to the end is a bit nightmarish. That's where I'm currently stuck. I have the beginning, and I know where I want it to end up, I just need to write all this silly in between stuff. But I managed about 700 words of silly in between stuff last night, so I'm plugging away at it.

[littlebutfierce]

Go you for the 700 words! Especially for the dreaded middle!! Good luck finding enough of the in-between stuff to finish off the fic.

[littlebutfierce]

Boooo on non-fic projects rearing their heads! Hope you managed to get it taken care of, & that you get to get back to the fic soon.

I so hear you on characters who just. keep. TALKING when all you want to do is finish the darn story!!

[msmcknittington]

Middles are totally my downfall. I tend to feel really confident when I start, and I generally know how I want it to end if not the exact words, but middles are where all the doubts creep in and I struggle to connect Point A to Point B. I usually even know what I want the climax and falling action to be, too, but the rising action leading to climax is really difficult to me.

I try to break the plot down into successively smaller pieces, until I know exactly what intermediary steps I have to take to get to where I'm going, but even all that logic doesn't always work. Sometimes I just need to write and fail and then re-write and re-write and re-write until it clicks. Letting things age for a while works, too. Sometimes writing is like a fine cheese -- it stinks, but improves with time.

[littlebutfierce]

middles are where all the doubts creep in and I struggle to connect Point A to Point B

I so hear you on this one!!!

Breaking down things into small steps sounds like a good plan--I should do that more. I don't tend to do much plotting or other story-thinking on paper, but I might try that (using the theory that sometimes trying a different medium--I always write on the computer--will jog free different thoughts & ideas). I don't tend to do much actual plot so I've never really needed to before, ahahahaha.

& yes, I definitely agree that sometimes letting a fic sit for a while is the best thing that can happen to it!

[bay_alexison]

Able to get around 800 words today! I wrote down a scene for one of my stories that had been in my head for sometime and then I finished off another scene I wrote for said same story. Bad thing though is the story quite had a lot of fragmented scenes that are loosely connected, so I need to tie up the plot tighter eventually, haha.

As for me, I can be able to come up with beginnings and endings pretty well, but it's the middle I have a hard time with. Like msmcknittington, sometimes I just write whatever comes on my mind and then will keep rewriting until I'm satisfied.

[littlebutfierce]

Yay for those 800 words! Good luck connecting the scenes together (I'm often really challenged by having to put that kind of glue in place!).

sometimes I just write whatever comes on my mind and then will keep rewriting until I'm satisfied.

Yeahhhhh, me too.

[eggcrack]

Late comment, but I posted a scene I've been working on at my journal (fandom is FF7) and am now wondering what to work on next, while also thinking about some original projects. One such project is to write something in Finnish every day because I've been neglecting my first language when it comes to writing.

Now, my problem tends to be with the beginnings. My inspiration tends to come in bits and it's usually the middle parts that come up first, but it can take ages for me to actually get started with a story. Endings tend to be the easiest for me, although sometimes it can be hard to get the right amount of 'punch' in them.

[littlebutfierce]

Yay for posting the scene! Also setting up some goals & projects sounds v. promising!!

I'm so interested that you're the only person so far who seems to like middles, & even think of them first. I love seeing all these glimpses of how people's brains work!

Sometimes I have trouble making my endings have punch too -- I end up just writing a really rough ending just to get there, & then I start subtracting things until it feels right... I think I get kind of explain-y in my fic sometimes, so it becomes an experiment to see how much I can remove, ha!

[eggcrack]

Yay! :D Yeah, it may take me some time to come up with all of the middle that I need, but generally it's the middle that comes first, then I need to build the rest of story around it. Which is probably why I write scenes, vignettes and introspective stuff most of the time: easiest way to get the story down! :P

I tend to ramble a lot so I know what you mean about removing stuff, ha ha! Trimming stuff is probably my most important phase in my editing.

[lullabymoon]

Finally got my editing finished at ridiculous o'clock this morning and got the fic sent in! It wasn't one of my challenge fics but it was one I need to get out the way before I could start anything else. I'm very pleased with it actually, as it's the longest one shot I've ever managed to write, and it has proper plot! Also, I managed about 100 words of my bb in a quiet moment.

Endings are the worst for me, specifically the last few sentences of a fic. I seem to get everything I want said then despair about how to polish it off satisfactory. I usually spent ages just going over and over it again.

[littlebutfierce]

YAY for finishing the fic & sending it in! I hope the writing session helped (& sorry I disappeared so suddenly, hahaha). I hope finding the title wasn't too hard.

& yay for stretching yourself to writing a longer fic w/actual plot -- this is totally the sort of thing I am struggling w/right now, so I salute you!

[lullabymoon]

:D The writing session definitely helped with my enthusiasm for it anyway! Eh, don't be sorry, these things happen. I won't tell you how long I spent googling things for inspiration for the title, because it was a least half an hour too long. *headdesk*

I wish you luck with the longer fic w/plot. I can't even offer any handy tips other then practise and planning, which are generally the typical thing everyone gets told.

[babs_bee]

Endings are usually the easiest part for me. I often have the ending in mind before I ever have anything else. Middles are the hardest. I usually have no trouble thinking of how things start and end but how they get from here to there is hard for me. And me? I just slog through it. When I do get stuck on a part, I use a trick that I read from an interview with CJ Cherryh. She said when she gets stuck, she simply writes: And then a miracle happens. and then skips ahead to what she knows she can write. I find it helps--usually if I write the scenes I have in mind, the miracle does come to me.

[littlebutfierce]

She said when she gets stuck, she simply writes: And then a miracle happens. and then skips ahead to what she knows she can write.

Hee, I like this a lot!! I usually just put in a bunch of asterisks or "[deep conversation to be added later]" or something, but I like calling it a miracle; it's like coaxing a miracle to actually happen!