Oh, about the other stuffsnorkackcatcherFebruary 3 2009, 00:51:46 UTC
I think when one gets too close to a story - and that one took five months from writing to posting, because it was my first one - I wonder if you do only see the holes? What's your experience with that? I'm thinking in particular of NTLJ as your longest so far; you may of course have other examples!
I tend to see the holes only in retrospect -- certainly with NTLJ I wince at some of the clunky bits and the general ramshackle nature inevitable in a long story written off and on over a period of about two years and large chunks of which were made up as I went along. The early chapters especially feel variously weak, clumsy, and self-indulgent in parts, and there are Issues with characterisations -- one thing the CADOD did make me realise was how much I fall back on stereotypes and shorthands for anyone who isn't like me in some way. (e.g. Americans, Canadians, Irish, even Yorkshiremen!) It's a fairly grievous writerly limitation, and unfortunately one based on personality flaws rather than lack of practice. I did think of trying to match NTLJ up with DH, but I'm not sure I have the energy for it (and it never got a huge audience anyway, at least not one that stuck with it through the long delays).
With Medes and Persians, which also took ages, I went through a few compressed rounds of beta-induced tweaks after it was written, but mostly small ones -- eventually I got to the point of just feeling 'dammit, I need to get this thing posted'. Looking back over it, there are bits I really like where I think I got it spot on (e.g. the little bridging scene with Kingsley's secretary), and bits that seem clunky and insufficiently polished. But although I tend to want to tweak and sand down rough edges every time I look over a fic, I just can't do that months-of-revisions thing, let alone the rewriting-from-scratch, it would drive me up the wall, even though it might improve things noticeably. (Sometimes it goes the other way. Sleeper Awakes was written quite quickly and I thought it was competent and nicely long, it wasn't until the reviews arrived that I realised it might be working better than I thought.)
I must say I'd never noticed a lack of description in your work. I don't know if that is because you have a plethora of other things that catch the reader's eye - canon detail, good dialogue, superb humour - but I know that when I read your stuff it's much easier to come up with a list of the things I admire than to spot any weaknesses.
And that was a really nice thing to say too. Also thanks! But I usually have only the vaguest idea of the 'scenery' in a scene, and hence don't even think of describing it except where it's necessary for stage business. I admire people who can picture their scene with clarity and describe it as if they were there. (Ironically -- as a man -- I tend to have a weak visual imagination. Possibly because I have a bad tendency to spend too much time bouncing around in my own head, my characters do the same.)
Do you write in a linear order? I find it really hard to go back and interpolate!
On reflection, mostly but not entirely -- I usually have some ideas for what the basic scenes are going to be in my head, and write them down more or les in order. The slog is writing the bits that connect ideas A to B. But then in the writing ideas C, D, and E suggest themselves, which then have to be worked in, which usually means going back and tweaking bits and writing anything from a sentence to a scene to set them up ... If I had more discipline I'd leave out D and E, but I tend to have a kitchen-sink approach in practice. And when (as often happens) I only have a vague theme and idea for the story (e.g. 'Percy fights evil through bureaucracy, writes roadblocking notes"), that means a lot of to-ing and fro-ing working out setup and fitting things together. (I find I tend to program the same way, which isn't necessarily a good idea there either, but I suspect it's not uncommon.)
I tend to see the holes only in retrospect -- certainly with NTLJ I wince at some of the clunky bits and the general ramshackle nature inevitable in a long story written off and on over a period of about two years and large chunks of which were made up as I went along. The early chapters especially feel variously weak, clumsy, and self-indulgent in parts, and there are Issues with characterisations -- one thing the CADOD did make me realise was how much I fall back on stereotypes and shorthands for anyone who isn't like me in some way. (e.g. Americans, Canadians, Irish, even Yorkshiremen!) It's a fairly grievous writerly limitation, and unfortunately one based on personality flaws rather than lack of practice. I did think of trying to match NTLJ up with DH, but I'm not sure I have the energy for it (and it never got a huge audience anyway, at least not one that stuck with it through the long delays).
With Medes and Persians, which also took ages, I went through a few compressed rounds of beta-induced tweaks after it was written, but mostly small ones -- eventually I got to the point of just feeling 'dammit, I need to get this thing posted'. Looking back over it, there are bits I really like where I think I got it spot on (e.g. the little bridging scene with Kingsley's secretary), and bits that seem clunky and insufficiently polished. But although I tend to want to tweak and sand down rough edges every time I look over a fic, I just can't do that months-of-revisions thing, let alone the rewriting-from-scratch, it would drive me up the wall, even though it might improve things noticeably. (Sometimes it goes the other way. Sleeper Awakes was written quite quickly and I thought it was competent and nicely long, it wasn't until the reviews arrived that I realised it might be working better than I thought.)
I must say I'd never noticed a lack of description in your work. I don't know if that is because you have a plethora of other things that catch the reader's eye - canon detail, good dialogue, superb humour - but I know that when I read your stuff it's much easier to come up with a list of the things I admire than to spot any weaknesses.
And that was a really nice thing to say too. Also thanks! But I usually have only the vaguest idea of the 'scenery' in a scene, and hence don't even think of describing it except where it's necessary for stage business. I admire people who can picture their scene with clarity and describe it as if they were there. (Ironically -- as a man -- I tend to have a weak visual imagination. Possibly because I have a bad tendency to spend too much time bouncing around in my own head, my characters do the same.)
Do you write in a linear order? I find it really hard to go back and interpolate!
On reflection, mostly but not entirely -- I usually have some ideas for what the basic scenes are going to be in my head, and write them down more or les in order. The slog is writing the bits that connect ideas A to B. But then in the writing ideas C, D, and E suggest themselves, which then have to be worked in, which usually means going back and tweaking bits and writing anything from a sentence to a scene to set them up ... If I had more discipline I'd leave out D and E, but I tend to have a kitchen-sink approach in practice. And when (as often happens) I only have a vague theme and idea for the story (e.g. 'Percy fights evil through bureaucracy, writes roadblocking notes"), that means a lot of to-ing and fro-ing working out setup and fitting things together. (I find I tend to program the same way, which isn't necessarily a good idea there either, but I suspect it's not uncommon.)
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