Workshop: Finish That Epic!

[big_pink]

Finish That Epic!: Using an Outline to Sustain a Novel-Length FicEver started a big piece of fiction with the best of intentions and never got to that final ‘The End’? Worse yet, have you started to post a multi-chapter fic, and then run out of steam, disappointing the very readership you’re seeking to entertain

Comments

[legoline]

I usually write straight through a chapter, scene by scene. I don’t wait for the muse to strike. I don’t have a muse. If I waited around for the muse, I’d never get anything done. I grab writing time wherever I can find it: waiting to pick up a kid from swimming lessons, after the kids go to bed but before I watch my usual 10 o’clock dramas. After groceries, before I have to be at my next thing. Because I’m busy, I have to be efficient and focused.

I think that's really, really the trick if you write novel-length fiction. I'm very sure that every novelist will tell you that to write novels, you need to be, most of all, disciplined. You can't wait for your Muse to pay you a visit, you just have to force you to work on the story. If it's crap, you can all edit it afterwards (that is unless you realise five chapters into the story that it sucks and doesn't work).
That's the one good lesson NaNoWriMo taught me :-)

[big_pink]

I think that discipline has a lot to do with it. But also, once you HAVE finished something long, then you really DO know you can do it, and that the discipline pays off. All discipline without results gets pretty damn tiresome, fast.

[legoline]

I think that's very true. I guess you have to finish a longer fic first to get a taste for blood you know--that feeling that you've done it and that you can look back at the story and think, "Wow, I wrote that"

All discipline without results gets pretty damn tiresome, fast.

Agreed :-)

[innie_darling]

But if you’re writing a fic that has a very low readership, well, that’s a tough one. I very rarely post WiPs, but I do want to say, as a reader, I often don't comment on each chapter of a WiP as it's posted - I usually try the first chapter, decide if it's something I'll want to read later, and then wait until it's done to read. Therefore any comments I leave are much more likely to be on the last installment only, and I'd bet other people read the same way. So the number of comments a first or second installment gets might not be a reliable indicator of the number of comments the last chapter will get. Hang in there, WiP writers!

[big_pink]

You know, you're absolutely right. Usually (but not always) you can expect to see a bump in readership once a fic is done.

[qzxy]

This is true! I usually pick out the WIPs I want to read and start on them once they're finished. I only comment when I get to the end -- unless there's a particular part that blows my mind and I feel the urge to gush, which doesn't happen often. I'm usually one of those folks who comments on a fic way after it's been posted and the author's moved on. :) Which I guess doesn't do much for instant motivation, but I think Big Pink's advice there is good -- if you're liking your story, put it out there, regardless of what happens on the show or with other people. It may be that people just don't know about it yet. I only get my reading through recs and interesting premises on storyfinders, and those don't usually happen until after the fic's finished.

[big_pink]

I was giving a workshop once on how to write a thesis to some grad students, and my advice was that: you better love what you're working on. One, because you'll be in the trenches with it for a helluva long time. Two and more importantly, people can tell when you feel passionate about something, and when you're phoning it in. It comes through.

[pheebs1]

What a very useful and detailed workshop and set of advice - thank you so much for this.

I admire you for writing whenever you have time and for being so disciplined and motivated about it - useful advice for us all!

I haven't personally tried to write a very long fanfic before (though I am trying to with bigbang) but interestingly I do some of these things with shorter fic - outline and so on - though it's interesting to hear what you put in your outline (MUCH fleshier than mine) which I may take the advice of and see how that works!

The allure of shiny new ideas ALWAYS gets me!!! I agree to be strong and ignore them but it's so hard isn't it?!

Thank you for this great workshop!

[big_pink]

If any of this is at all useful, then it's totally worth it! But those shiny ideas, man, they're killer. I honestly have to tuck them away, because they do kill it. I think it was musesfool who said that momentum is so important to finishing something. Putting energy into something other than the Big Thing takes away from that momentum, for sure.

[that_september]

Speaking as someone who loves starting multi-chapter fics but never seems to finish them, this was enormously helpful. I was nodding along with just about everything you said when it comes to the guilt and frustration that accompanies a fic that just kinda...dies on you. A lot of the time, I go into a story with a general good idea, but no real idea of how it will end, how long it will TAKE to get to the end, and exactly what I want to include.

The kind of outlines/in-depth work you're describing sounds like an excellent place to start. One question: does anyone have any advice on what to do when a story just sort of...dies? I mean, I have fics sitting around that are GOOD. They are. I just can't figure out how to jump back in. Would you suggest going back and outlining the whole story (even stuff I've alreadywritten), or maybe re-writing?

[yehwellwhatever]

I have the same problem you're describing. I've got countless of unfinished fics, and most of them are actually not half bad. Usually I just need to read through them to remember where I was going with the plot and start writing from there. Then I edit them together if necessary. This is for shorter ones though, not the multichaptered.

I'm not sure this answered your question, but I hope it helped somewhat anyway.

[big_pink]

I've had this problem more with original fics, I have to say. And I think it's because I don't have the cattleprod of DOOM, the posting. THAT'S what keeps me on track, really. But with the original fics -- I go back, revamp the outline of what I've already written, and then savage the outline of what I HAVEN'T yet written. Somehow, it freshens it up for me. You're right; there are some perfectly good fics out there, malingering, just waiting for the breath of life.

[aussiemel1]

Oh my God, you do so much planning!!

*coughs*

I mean yeah, planning, of course.

I can certainly see the value in laying the groundwork. Last year I got about 60 pages into a multi chap fic before deciding that I liked the overall plot but hated some of the major detail and the thought of going back and amending 60 pages was overwhelming, so the story's just sitting there, forlornly waiting. A little less gusto and a little more planning could have prevented that.

Thankyou for presenting this workshop. I don't think I'll ever be a literary genius, but at least from now on I will have some coherence in my approach, direction from page one. Your thoughts and advice are much appreciated.

[big_pink]

Maybe it'll work for you. My husband -- he writes, too. And he doesn't use an outline. He researches like crazy, but he freeforms -- I swear to God, he writes about 50 times more than he needs and then he prunes. I think it would kill me to write like that. And he never gets anything in on time, either. On the other hand...I sometimes wonder if his finished stuff isn't more creative and inventive because he's let himself go in circles rather than in a straight line.

I think you really have to know what makes you tick.