writing meta
Okay, so as some of you probably know, I'm in a playwriting class right now (and it is awesome), and we basically bring in scenes every class period and read them and critique them, and talk about writing processes and techniques and do some workshopping and basically it's the most fun class ever. BUT anyway, today we were talking about an article about like, people being afraid to write politically-driven plays, and afraid to touch certain topics, and afraid to break out of their shell, that sort of thing. And it got me thinking! Not just about that, because we also did some interesting outlining excersizes. So.... RAMBLING AHEAD. Lots of thinky thoughts about my own writing and stuff. But I really really want to hear about YOUR processes, because this is all very fascinating to me.
I went to this talk with Sam Shepard and he was asked about what he focuses on when writing, and he said he basically hears dialogue in his head, and the story is kind of an afterthought. It's all about the dialogue, for him. He hears it and he gets it out on paper, and it forms itself into some kind of story. (He also hates outlining, lol.) I'm kind of this way, I guess. I hear a lot of dialogue in my head, and I kind of self-edit it, go over and over and over it, all before writing it. Sometimes. Sometimes I just hear it in my head and type/write it kind of as it happens. But since I'm usually writing fic/prose (he was talking about plays), it has a lot more action and description involved. Sometimes I hear that too, almost like narration. (And it's another thing I edit in my head a ton before I start typing, so when it comes out it's very nearly exactly how I want it.) Sometimes, though, it's just dialogue, and I'll jot down the back and forth and any necessary actions like "[throws shot glass against wall]" or whatever, and then have to go back and add in the actions and descriptions, and that's hard for me.
Another thing I tend to do a lot, usually when I'm in the shower or home alone, is act out what I'm writing (in my head) as I think about it, try to get the movements right and the dialogue right, and think about the phrasing of how such-and-such would feel, or things like that. I usually write so much in my head that once I'm actually typing (or writing) it out, I know exactly what I want to say. But when I don't do that, when I'm just like, staring at a blank document or something, I think it's a little more organic, less self-edited. Then I just write what comes to me without thinking about it too hard (unless, like, I can't remember a word and then I'll sit there and try to come up with synonyms to look up in the thesaurus to find the one I really want, and I'll just obsess about it and not move forward until I figure it out, lol).
Whiiiiiiich brings me to editing/rewriting. It's really hard for me to go back and rewrite scenes, ngl. It's pretty much the most awful part about editing, for me. If it's a short fic, usually all I have to do is maybe fix a few word choices or grammar things or typos or whatever, but for long fics, like my LBB for instance, that takes ACTUAL EDITING, OH THE HORROR. I just feel like, when it comes time to add things or take things away, that it feels unnatural, and like it's interrupting the flow of the scene. Especially if I have to add dialogue, because, like I said, I hear the flow of the conversation in my head while I'm writing it. Description is a little better, because it's not "happening" in the scene, and I can say whatever I want about how Tommy's hair looks or how ink-stained Gerard's fingers are and it doesn't impact what the characters are doing at all. (I hope that made sense; it did in my head.)
That's the point I'm at in my play right now, actually. I started editing the other night, and I'm about halfway through it now, and it's still utter torture. For a while I couldn't even stand to look at it, which is how I get about some fics as well, and it's really weird sometimes, because usually I'm pretty okay with rereading my own work and making sure everything sounds the way I want it to. I guess when I'm faced with ACTUAL EDITING, it gets harder? Because I had the same problem with my LBB; I hated it so much that I couldn't even click over to the document (which I'd left open to TAUNT ME, as if that would kick me into gear). I don't know how that changes, but at some point during the forced editing process, I start to like what I'm working on again, and I get excited about fixing it and making it better. Sam Shepard said in his little talk, that you basically have to love what you write in order for other people to love it (which reminded me of RuPaul at the end of every episode of Drag Race, lol). I do write a lot for me, and while I LOVE getting good reactions from people and giving people what they want, in the end, it's usually about what I want to write, and I like what I like, y'know?
We just read a play by Nilo Cruz, and I gave a little report on him, and in the interview I read, and what my teacher told us in class, was that one way he liked to go about rewriting was to just pick up at the end of a scene and keep going, past where he felt the natural end was. And he said that a lot of the meatiest material came after he thought the scene should have ended. That's a really interesting concept to me, because I think I tend to end scenes quickly, especially if I'm feeling uninspired, so now I'm starting to try and push myself to keep going, and just see where it takes me. It might be crap, but if it is, I guess I can just end the scene where I felt like it should've ended in the first place, right? Right!
Okay, now I want to touch on that political article thing. The writer basically said that people shouldn't be afraid to write about controversial topics. I will admit, I'm very afraid of writing about controversial things (besides extreme bdsm, but I'll get to that in a minute). This article did make me want to push myself a little, though. But I'm just so worried about, like, offending people, and saying the wong thing, and being crucified for it, like I've seen happen to many writers in various fandoms, people who just didn't know better. I like to believe I'm a pretty intelligent person, but I know I'm not "up" on all the politically correct shit that'll let me write what I (might) want to write without pushing people's buttons in a way that's not good. So I get scared, and I just avoid it. I'm not quite sure how to "fix" this problem, or even if I want to. I'm not hugely driven to write about things that would upset giant groups of people anyway.
But I do write a lot of... well, fucked up shit. Some of it, I feel it's okay to post. Like my Stockholm Syndrome fic, which had about a million warnings at the top. I still freaked the hell out about it right before I posted it, though. I practically had to be talked down from a cliff. Some of it is stuff that I feel like I need to write, just to get it out of my head, but it's things I don't feel like I could ever share with anyone. ALTHOUGH, I must say, I've found some very awesome, like-minded people in every fandom I've been in, who both appreciate my love of CRAZY INSANE HORRIBLE KINKS and actually have similar ideas of their own, which is just fantastic for me, because, well, I'm not alone, and I get to read awesome ideas/stories that aren't really fit for the general public.
Now that leads me to something else: co-writing. I've tried my hand at it only a couple of times, and it was always really fun, but it's just not something I have much experience with. One of my co-writers actually had a lot of experience with writing with a partner, so I got to pick her brain a bit, but I know that there's a bazillion different ways to do it, and I'm curious. How do you guys write with a partner? What I've done the few times I've tried, is gone back and forth and written a few paragraphs each and we kept surprising each other, and that was super cool. There's also (and I've done this with several people) kind of a brainstorming back and forth, but in my personal experiences, a lot of that ends up with me writing the prose based on the co-written brainstorming or not-fic sessions. Which is really cool, actually, and I think I tend to take direction pretty well in terms of how the story should go in a broader sense than specific words and phrases and dialogue. But I've seen a couple fics that are a lot more... meshed together? I'm not exactly sure of the process, but both writers would write parts of the scene, edit each other's parts, add parts in, and it all sounded very organic and fluid until they arrived at something they were both happy with. Now that is fascinating to me, because I don't think I've ever had someone that in tune with me and my style, in terms of writing. It also takes a hell of a lot of trust. It's something I hear about a lot, writing with other people, and definitely something I'd like to try again, but sometimes it's hard for me to let go of that control, y'know? Tell me all your stories about co-writing. :D
I thiiiiink I'm just about talked out (thank god, right?). I kind of feel like there was another writing topic I wanted to address, but now I can't remember, and I don't want to get too disjointed and rambly (even more than this already is). I want to hear about your experiences! Your processes! Your hopes and dreams and inspirations! EVERYTHING. I love hearing about how writers work. Tell me things. :)
I went to this talk with Sam Shepard and he was asked about what he focuses on when writing, and he said he basically hears dialogue in his head, and the story is kind of an afterthought. It's all about the dialogue, for him. He hears it and he gets it out on paper, and it forms itself into some kind of story. (He also hates outlining, lol.) I'm kind of this way, I guess. I hear a lot of dialogue in my head, and I kind of self-edit it, go over and over and over it, all before writing it. Sometimes. Sometimes I just hear it in my head and type/write it kind of as it happens. But since I'm usually writing fic/prose (he was talking about plays), it has a lot more action and description involved. Sometimes I hear that too, almost like narration. (And it's another thing I edit in my head a ton before I start typing, so when it comes out it's very nearly exactly how I want it.) Sometimes, though, it's just dialogue, and I'll jot down the back and forth and any necessary actions like "[throws shot glass against wall]" or whatever, and then have to go back and add in the actions and descriptions, and that's hard for me.
Another thing I tend to do a lot, usually when I'm in the shower or home alone, is act out what I'm writing (in my head) as I think about it, try to get the movements right and the dialogue right, and think about the phrasing of how such-and-such would feel, or things like that. I usually write so much in my head that once I'm actually typing (or writing) it out, I know exactly what I want to say. But when I don't do that, when I'm just like, staring at a blank document or something, I think it's a little more organic, less self-edited. Then I just write what comes to me without thinking about it too hard (unless, like, I can't remember a word and then I'll sit there and try to come up with synonyms to look up in the thesaurus to find the one I really want, and I'll just obsess about it and not move forward until I figure it out, lol).
Whiiiiiiich brings me to editing/rewriting. It's really hard for me to go back and rewrite scenes, ngl. It's pretty much the most awful part about editing, for me. If it's a short fic, usually all I have to do is maybe fix a few word choices or grammar things or typos or whatever, but for long fics, like my LBB for instance, that takes ACTUAL EDITING, OH THE HORROR. I just feel like, when it comes time to add things or take things away, that it feels unnatural, and like it's interrupting the flow of the scene. Especially if I have to add dialogue, because, like I said, I hear the flow of the conversation in my head while I'm writing it. Description is a little better, because it's not "happening" in the scene, and I can say whatever I want about how Tommy's hair looks or how ink-stained Gerard's fingers are and it doesn't impact what the characters are doing at all. (I hope that made sense; it did in my head.)
That's the point I'm at in my play right now, actually. I started editing the other night, and I'm about halfway through it now, and it's still utter torture. For a while I couldn't even stand to look at it, which is how I get about some fics as well, and it's really weird sometimes, because usually I'm pretty okay with rereading my own work and making sure everything sounds the way I want it to. I guess when I'm faced with ACTUAL EDITING, it gets harder? Because I had the same problem with my LBB; I hated it so much that I couldn't even click over to the document (which I'd left open to TAUNT ME, as if that would kick me into gear). I don't know how that changes, but at some point during the forced editing process, I start to like what I'm working on again, and I get excited about fixing it and making it better. Sam Shepard said in his little talk, that you basically have to love what you write in order for other people to love it (which reminded me of RuPaul at the end of every episode of Drag Race, lol). I do write a lot for me, and while I LOVE getting good reactions from people and giving people what they want, in the end, it's usually about what I want to write, and I like what I like, y'know?
We just read a play by Nilo Cruz, and I gave a little report on him, and in the interview I read, and what my teacher told us in class, was that one way he liked to go about rewriting was to just pick up at the end of a scene and keep going, past where he felt the natural end was. And he said that a lot of the meatiest material came after he thought the scene should have ended. That's a really interesting concept to me, because I think I tend to end scenes quickly, especially if I'm feeling uninspired, so now I'm starting to try and push myself to keep going, and just see where it takes me. It might be crap, but if it is, I guess I can just end the scene where I felt like it should've ended in the first place, right? Right!
Okay, now I want to touch on that political article thing. The writer basically said that people shouldn't be afraid to write about controversial topics. I will admit, I'm very afraid of writing about controversial things (besides extreme bdsm, but I'll get to that in a minute). This article did make me want to push myself a little, though. But I'm just so worried about, like, offending people, and saying the wong thing, and being crucified for it, like I've seen happen to many writers in various fandoms, people who just didn't know better. I like to believe I'm a pretty intelligent person, but I know I'm not "up" on all the politically correct shit that'll let me write what I (might) want to write without pushing people's buttons in a way that's not good. So I get scared, and I just avoid it. I'm not quite sure how to "fix" this problem, or even if I want to. I'm not hugely driven to write about things that would upset giant groups of people anyway.
But I do write a lot of... well, fucked up shit. Some of it, I feel it's okay to post. Like my Stockholm Syndrome fic, which had about a million warnings at the top. I still freaked the hell out about it right before I posted it, though. I practically had to be talked down from a cliff. Some of it is stuff that I feel like I need to write, just to get it out of my head, but it's things I don't feel like I could ever share with anyone. ALTHOUGH, I must say, I've found some very awesome, like-minded people in every fandom I've been in, who both appreciate my love of CRAZY INSANE HORRIBLE KINKS and actually have similar ideas of their own, which is just fantastic for me, because, well, I'm not alone, and I get to read awesome ideas/stories that aren't really fit for the general public.
Now that leads me to something else: co-writing. I've tried my hand at it only a couple of times, and it was always really fun, but it's just not something I have much experience with. One of my co-writers actually had a lot of experience with writing with a partner, so I got to pick her brain a bit, but I know that there's a bazillion different ways to do it, and I'm curious. How do you guys write with a partner? What I've done the few times I've tried, is gone back and forth and written a few paragraphs each and we kept surprising each other, and that was super cool. There's also (and I've done this with several people) kind of a brainstorming back and forth, but in my personal experiences, a lot of that ends up with me writing the prose based on the co-written brainstorming or not-fic sessions. Which is really cool, actually, and I think I tend to take direction pretty well in terms of how the story should go in a broader sense than specific words and phrases and dialogue. But I've seen a couple fics that are a lot more... meshed together? I'm not exactly sure of the process, but both writers would write parts of the scene, edit each other's parts, add parts in, and it all sounded very organic and fluid until they arrived at something they were both happy with. Now that is fascinating to me, because I don't think I've ever had someone that in tune with me and my style, in terms of writing. It also takes a hell of a lot of trust. It's something I hear about a lot, writing with other people, and definitely something I'd like to try again, but sometimes it's hard for me to let go of that control, y'know? Tell me all your stories about co-writing. :D
I thiiiiink I'm just about talked out (thank god, right?). I kind of feel like there was another writing topic I wanted to address, but now I can't remember, and I don't want to get too disjointed and rambly (even more than this already is). I want to hear about your experiences! Your processes! Your hopes and dreams and inspirations! EVERYTHING. I love hearing about how writers work. Tell me things. :)