Semantics
I don't consider myself a writer.
I see myself as more of a storyteller. I've thought up space age scenarios of a sheltered boy ripped from his homeworld, a prisoner's mind slowly dissolving as water drops dripped one after another for years on end.
I once spent a year telling my siblings about a dream, that turned into an epic I spent two hours nearly every day acting out the scenes and jumping around the room. Deserts, and exploding cities, dimensional travel and an assassin with a furry insatiable maw for a pet called Fluffy, magical items that stole one's soul, a fainting guard who traveled most of the way unconscious. In the original dream, I was the heroine. In the story I told I became comedic relief that hardly showed up as the other characters followed their adventures into techno worlds and against magical witches that fought wooden puppet vampires.
I got stuck and ended the story with everyone trapped on a five mile long island in which everything was taxed and billed. It's tens of thousands of inhabitants too far in debt to pay the boat that left the island every day and only cost a dollar. You couldn't leave if you owed anything. The only other way off was a catapult that flung you across the ocean into sure death, called the Bail-out.
Yeah, I couldn't figure a way out of economic slavery. Sigh, still can't.
And all of these stories, and many more, I've never written down. Because I told them to someone. And I felt complete with that. Like I said, I don't see myself as a writer, but a storyteller.
Now, with fanfic it's different. It's more like having a sandbox to play in. A neat little puzzle to break apart and put back together in new shapes, creating contrasts and combinations. Different people will combine things differently, each version a new marvel to enjoy. There's a ready-made audience for it, characters to move about and interactions to explore. So many stories to be told. So I write it down, since it's fast and easy and the best way to spread it about.
Now, my major problem is that if I think too far into it, if I create the details before I write it down, if I tell a single person too much of what I have planned; then the compulsion to write it dies a little. Because even if the only listener is myself, I still consider myself an audience to entertain and once a story is told, there's not much to tell.
Chapter 3 of HoE, five years ago, involved Quistis noting how tired Zell seemed and how much Seifer was looking at him while he sparred with Squall. It involved an exhausted Zell going to the showers and encountering Squall there, followed by awkward talks and Squall's issues. It involved a misunderstanding and then a wet running Zell slipping on the ceramic floors of Garden's hallway knocking himself out to be found by Seifer and carried away. A moment too late, Quistis checks the hall, sees no one and returns to Xu's bed.
There were no friends for Zell, no sensual craving for Seifer that went beyong physicality, no confusing emotions. It really was going to be simply Porn with a barely-there plot.
I couldn't write it, because I had everything planned out too well in advance and so my fingers' stalled at the keyboard wanting to skip ahead and write what happened after that. Because I was curious of where it was going. So I thought of that instead and didn't write it, thought of the next chapter and then the next until I finally thought about post game scenarios and realized it was months later and I hadn't written a single piece of dialogue down.
Then a friend read the first two chapters and told me to write it differently when I explained about why there wasn't any more. To go through a different path and to stop myself from thinking. And so I have. When I write it down I know where I'm going but the journey is a mystery till I get there.
There is an outline, but that's not a story. It is bare bones, numbered in days and locations. Nothing more.
Before I practically pleaded for feedback since I didn't have a live audience to see gasp or laugh, my brother and sister had spoiled me at a young age with their reactions. I'm so curious about what makes people chuckle or seethe, what makes them think. It's funny how what I worked hard on gets a passing glance, but what I thought up on the fly has a stronger connection.
But I've weened myself off that too. Because even though it's still great, I'm here to tell a story, not get attention.
However, that doesn't mean I don't want people to review my work. Ok, ok. I admit I'm not completely on the wagon here.
In any case, yeah. I think I'm done with this post.
I see myself as more of a storyteller. I've thought up space age scenarios of a sheltered boy ripped from his homeworld, a prisoner's mind slowly dissolving as water drops dripped one after another for years on end.
I once spent a year telling my siblings about a dream, that turned into an epic I spent two hours nearly every day acting out the scenes and jumping around the room. Deserts, and exploding cities, dimensional travel and an assassin with a furry insatiable maw for a pet called Fluffy, magical items that stole one's soul, a fainting guard who traveled most of the way unconscious. In the original dream, I was the heroine. In the story I told I became comedic relief that hardly showed up as the other characters followed their adventures into techno worlds and against magical witches that fought wooden puppet vampires.
I got stuck and ended the story with everyone trapped on a five mile long island in which everything was taxed and billed. It's tens of thousands of inhabitants too far in debt to pay the boat that left the island every day and only cost a dollar. You couldn't leave if you owed anything. The only other way off was a catapult that flung you across the ocean into sure death, called the Bail-out.
Yeah, I couldn't figure a way out of economic slavery. Sigh, still can't.
And all of these stories, and many more, I've never written down. Because I told them to someone. And I felt complete with that. Like I said, I don't see myself as a writer, but a storyteller.
Now, with fanfic it's different. It's more like having a sandbox to play in. A neat little puzzle to break apart and put back together in new shapes, creating contrasts and combinations. Different people will combine things differently, each version a new marvel to enjoy. There's a ready-made audience for it, characters to move about and interactions to explore. So many stories to be told. So I write it down, since it's fast and easy and the best way to spread it about.
Now, my major problem is that if I think too far into it, if I create the details before I write it down, if I tell a single person too much of what I have planned; then the compulsion to write it dies a little. Because even if the only listener is myself, I still consider myself an audience to entertain and once a story is told, there's not much to tell.
Chapter 3 of HoE, five years ago, involved Quistis noting how tired Zell seemed and how much Seifer was looking at him while he sparred with Squall. It involved an exhausted Zell going to the showers and encountering Squall there, followed by awkward talks and Squall's issues. It involved a misunderstanding and then a wet running Zell slipping on the ceramic floors of Garden's hallway knocking himself out to be found by Seifer and carried away. A moment too late, Quistis checks the hall, sees no one and returns to Xu's bed.
There were no friends for Zell, no sensual craving for Seifer that went beyong physicality, no confusing emotions. It really was going to be simply Porn with a barely-there plot.
I couldn't write it, because I had everything planned out too well in advance and so my fingers' stalled at the keyboard wanting to skip ahead and write what happened after that. Because I was curious of where it was going. So I thought of that instead and didn't write it, thought of the next chapter and then the next until I finally thought about post game scenarios and realized it was months later and I hadn't written a single piece of dialogue down.
Then a friend read the first two chapters and told me to write it differently when I explained about why there wasn't any more. To go through a different path and to stop myself from thinking. And so I have. When I write it down I know where I'm going but the journey is a mystery till I get there.
There is an outline, but that's not a story. It is bare bones, numbered in days and locations. Nothing more.
Before I practically pleaded for feedback since I didn't have a live audience to see gasp or laugh, my brother and sister had spoiled me at a young age with their reactions. I'm so curious about what makes people chuckle or seethe, what makes them think. It's funny how what I worked hard on gets a passing glance, but what I thought up on the fly has a stronger connection.
But I've weened myself off that too. Because even though it's still great, I'm here to tell a story, not get attention.
However, that doesn't mean I don't want people to review my work. Ok, ok. I admit I'm not completely on the wagon here.
In any case, yeah. I think I'm done with this post.