WIP challenge - day 16 check-in

[lacygrey]

Hi there. How's progress on the fic today?

Poll #7829

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

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Did you...

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Write
6 (66.7%)

Edit
0 (0.0%)

Get inspired
1 (11.1%)

Read
0 (0.0%)

Beta for someone else
0 (0.0%)

Catch up with circle/FL
2 (22.2%)

Do something totally different
0 (0.0%)

For discussion: Do you find that complex plots are more difficult to write than characters' emotions: Do you favor storyline over slash/romance)? Do you think reader's do? Is is possible to find a happy medium?

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

Plots are WAY harder for me than feeeeelings. I've been struggling w/Actual Plots over the last few months -- I don't know why my inspirations have been taking the form of stories where, y'know, things happen, as opposed to my usual thing where people just emote at each other.

The WIP I'm hoping to finish next, though, has actual plot & my beta said it was well-plotted. So! Fingers crossed.

As a reader I actually tend to prefer the emo stuff too. I can definitely appreciate a plotty fic but given the choice I think I'd take angst/fluff/yearning/etc.!

[lacygrey]

As a reader I actually tend to prefer the emo stuff too. I can definitely appreciate a plotty fic but given the choice I think I'd take angst/fluff/yearning/etc.!

This is really interesting - I think my choice as a reader would be affected by how close I felt to a character or how fannish I was over them; also perhaps by how much I was in need of an emotional 'hit'.

Story ideas that stick in my head tend to be the complicated ones. They are potentially also the most far-fetched and difficult for reader credulity though.

[sharpiefan]

I wrote, if two sentences and producing a fandom newsletter can be considered 'writing'.

I prefer writing characters. I am generally rubbish at plotting; the only multi-part fics I have ever written were (are) from the POV of an original creation, re-telling a canon story.

I do like exploring emotions, though. Depending on what the story is, characters can display some intense and interesting emotions.

I generally only write slash/romance stuff if the story's heading that way anyway; I am really not so big on PWP.

[lacygrey]

I do like exploring emotions, though. Depending on what the story is, characters can display some intense and interesting emotions.

I write in a fandom where life-threatening situations are rare, but I read all over the place so I can see that the palette of emotions used by writers varies hugely. Hikaru no Go has a fairly subtle one.

Ive never written PWP, but hey, never say never! Even that's got to have some sort of 'agenda', even without any plot to speak of.

[sharpiefan]

My own fandom is pretty much full of fairly intense situations - not all life-threatening, although there are a number of those. I think emotional states tend to be generally more black-and-white, but exploring the shades of grey that don't show up in canon is fun. And isn't that why we write fanfic, after all, to fill the canon holes? *g*

It was fairly cracky PWP, admittedly, and written in partnership with a friend.

[jagnikjen]

I wrote over 1100 words today, so that was exciting.

Then I got caught up in trying to work out a few plot elements to my story. Ugh.

Complex plots are by far more difficult for me.

I love romance, but if I could write a good plot along with a romance, I'd be extremely happy.

[lacygrey]

Well done on your word count.

Is it you that's writing about Narcissa from HP? I just, finally, saw the last HP movie today. Boy, was there a lot going on in that! Did briefly think there might be a highly unexpected ending -but no. So my days of avoiding HP spoliers (and fanfic) are over - it was difficult!

I agree that combining romance and at good plot is the ideal. All the ideas I have underway are more on the romantic side though and I sometimes its a struggle - especially if many other people are writing it too.

[jagnikjen]

Thanks! (re: word count)

And yep I'm the one writing the Narcissa fic.

I'm pretty much a romance writer myself. My Robin Hood epic was all romance but it had a really good plot so it wasn't just fluff or PWP. The characters had hard decisions to make and conflicts to overcome to find their happily ever after. I don't know where it all came from, but I sure wish I could duplicate it. :)

[lacygrey]

I was so pleased with myself yesterday that I'd managed to post the check-in post properly - with title and poll - that I went and forgot to reply to it myself. I had, after a big printing session, found that I'd got 15K or so (well on the way to the 20K challenge - great), but no proper ending to the story. Then today I had an epiphany:

A meta idea I'd had running around my head for ages really suits the POV of the character in the final scene I was stuggling with.

Now I just need to write it...

Today's discussion topic (plot vs. romance) was inspired by some feedback I got to an offhand question I asked on another comm. The reactions were all sort of 'plot is difficult', 'romance is more popular', 'all you need is love' and so on. In fact, I was about to about to counter by pointing out that romance is hard too when I realised that (1) perhaps this is only true for some of us and (2) that the Ware-Bunny of Inle was tapping me on the shoulder about this very divide.

So, I think that meta (comm discussions included) and fic can interact to make a superb source of inspiration.

As for the Ware-Bunny, if he continues to make a nuisance of himself, he'll get sent to the kink meme.

[jagnikjen]

In reality, romance novels--the really good emotional ones--are more than fluff and easily overcome situations. I've been a member of the world's largest romance writing organization for eight years and I can tell you - writing a good, real (publishable) romance novel isn't as easy as many people seem to think. It's really not PWP/porn or fluffy stuff.

--I'm not really saying you think this, just in general to the responses you got. I think in the fanfic world, romance as a genre is *typically* more fluff and fun. Or maybe that's just my romance attempts. :)

[ficwriter1966]

I have a dreadful time with plots - the more involved they are, the more bogged down I get. And of course, I always get requests for "More case fic!!!" *headdesk*

I find emotion (angst is my default, but I've also done a lot of lighter stuff) far, FAR easier to write.

I'm not keen on action sequences, either. (Fights, or porn.) They take too darn long to choreograph!

[lacygrey]

I always get requests for "More case fic!!!"
Ah ha! That's interesting, but do you think they want kissing too?
What fandom? SPN?

I think I've only written one fic that might seriously be considered to have plot (Confluence); it was also the longest fic I've posted (6.5K). Some of my shortfic, if considered collectively (most of its from the same universe) could be thought of as plot building, but I doubt that anyone who's read the stories separately would see them like that.

[ficwriter1966]

Yes, SPN. I write mostly gen (with the occasional bit of het), so no, my readership doesn't come looking for a lot of kissing. Or *any* kissing, really.

I'm writing an extended thing now that's a series of connected character pieces. There's a little bit of plot, but I'm more concerned with the character glimpses. It's getting almost no readership, but at this stage of the game...WTH. It amuses me to do it.

[curuchamion]

I wrote! I decided I need to practice writing characters I don't automatically identify with, so I've started a project to write a drabble about each of the main characters from each of my (many) fandoms. I'm using a one-word-prompts comm to give me a bit of fresh inspiration for each character.

Today I wrote a drabble about Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. It's not excellent, but given that I strongly dislike William Shatner, I think it's a good effort. :-)

[katzenjamming]

Today's the first day I broke a thousand words for the WIP in a while, so I'm pretty pleased. I also did some reading of canon, which counts as research!

I've got to agree with everyone else here with plot being a lot harder than a lot of the "lighter" things -- fluff, angst, PWP and the like. I also have a tendency to want to cram too much into a story, which is what I'm currently struggling with. Also, most of my fandoms are rather action-intense, and things like fight scenes are so challenging to write!

Character and relationship sketches have been what I've gravitated toward lately -- damn that "five things" fic format! It's been making me so lazy as of late...

[bay_alexison]

Didn't do any writing today as I got held up with a lot of things, but was able to brainstorm a bit for my Big Bang and wrote those ideas down in my notebook. The last few days I was able to write a short fluff story for a friend's birthday and she loved it very much. ^^

I'm actually pretty good with plot as I'm able to plan out quite a few good scenarios and then make stuff up if I needed an event to get from point A to B. I write much faster though when it comes to emotions as I would just write whatever feelings the characters are having sounds right to me. With plot I tend to be picky over how I'll manage some action scenes sometimes even though I can write fairly fast if I think of something instantly.