the souvenirs and lost luggage ;
so there is this meme making the rounds of my flist. it is basically
If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach. - Alfred Hitchcock
When I write a story, what do readers immediately look for?
but we're going to do this a bit differently. i'm going to tell you what you can expect.
1) EXPOSITION BLVD. there is generally a lot of navel-gazing and internal monologuing. this is probably kind of annoying and i am working on doing it less. the thing is, i am not great at plots, so characters are pretty much all that's left to write about. also, this is not a thing that is inherently bad that i should stop altogether, but when taken together, it's like well, can't you actually do anything else? LOL, NOT RLY.
2) so much freaking description of everythangggggg. ngl, i love steinbeck and it probably shows. i could spend paragraphs describing things that could probably be summed up in a few adjectives. this is probably because i'm a really visual writer. i'll get the image of something in my head and then spend like an hour trying to translate that image into words so that it makes sense to people other than me. i have said "probably" so much it has begun to lose all meaning in my mind.
3) you may or may not have picked up on this, but pretty much everything i write is built around a single word, phrase, or sentence. i'll get that down, start obsessing over it, and construct fic around it. my wips are a hot mess because i'll write one thing down and then the rest sort of gets cobbled together in disjointed, movable bits.
4) if there is more than one canon source, i mix the everloving bejeesus out of them. for instance, in sherlock holmes fandom i primarily write sbbc but i take for granted things which have not yet and may not happen on the show but which are part of the larger holmes canon, and i refer to them as if they exist in the same universe. i haven't written much xmfc, but my headcanon for that definitely includes bits of the comics and the other films sort of woven in. i don't know if this is confusing or irritating, but i feel like it definitely helps flesh out something where there is not much of a canon to speak of. for instance, shows with ONLY THREE EPISODES.
5) MY SENTENCES ARE REALLY FREAKING LONG. AND I EXPECT THERE ARE TOO DAMN MANY COMMAS :(
ETA: 6) PRESENT TENSE FOREVER. i think the only fiction-based things i've written in past tense in the last, like, ten years, were really short kinkmeme fills. and they were sherlock acting like charlie sheen. i don't know why i thought they worked better in past tense, but you know what? i still find them hilarious.
7) FEELINGS.PNG. so. many. feelings.
8) i write a lot of gen fic. and pretty much a little bit of everything except my otp. so yeah. you can expect me to avoid writing my otp. it's odd, and i want to do it, i just can't ever seem to finish anything that's them. although, the one xmfc fic i've managed to bang out was charles/erik (SO G-RATED!!), so i guess that's progress. still no darwin/havok though :(
If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach. - Alfred Hitchcock
When I write a story, what do readers immediately look for?
but we're going to do this a bit differently. i'm going to tell you what you can expect.
1) EXPOSITION BLVD. there is generally a lot of navel-gazing and internal monologuing. this is probably kind of annoying and i am working on doing it less. the thing is, i am not great at plots, so characters are pretty much all that's left to write about. also, this is not a thing that is inherently bad that i should stop altogether, but when taken together, it's like well, can't you actually do anything else? LOL, NOT RLY.
2) so much freaking description of everythangggggg. ngl, i love steinbeck and it probably shows. i could spend paragraphs describing things that could probably be summed up in a few adjectives. this is probably because i'm a really visual writer. i'll get the image of something in my head and then spend like an hour trying to translate that image into words so that it makes sense to people other than me. i have said "probably" so much it has begun to lose all meaning in my mind.
3) you may or may not have picked up on this, but pretty much everything i write is built around a single word, phrase, or sentence. i'll get that down, start obsessing over it, and construct fic around it. my wips are a hot mess because i'll write one thing down and then the rest sort of gets cobbled together in disjointed, movable bits.
4) if there is more than one canon source, i mix the everloving bejeesus out of them. for instance, in sherlock holmes fandom i primarily write sbbc but i take for granted things which have not yet and may not happen on the show but which are part of the larger holmes canon, and i refer to them as if they exist in the same universe. i haven't written much xmfc, but my headcanon for that definitely includes bits of the comics and the other films sort of woven in. i don't know if this is confusing or irritating, but i feel like it definitely helps flesh out something where there is not much of a canon to speak of. for instance, shows with ONLY THREE EPISODES.
5) MY SENTENCES ARE REALLY FREAKING LONG. AND I EXPECT THERE ARE TOO DAMN MANY COMMAS :(
ETA: 6) PRESENT TENSE FOREVER. i think the only fiction-based things i've written in past tense in the last, like, ten years, were really short kinkmeme fills. and they were sherlock acting like charlie sheen. i don't know why i thought they worked better in past tense, but you know what? i still find them hilarious.
7) FEELINGS.PNG. so. many. feelings.
8) i write a lot of gen fic. and pretty much a little bit of everything except my otp. so yeah. you can expect me to avoid writing my otp. it's odd, and i want to do it, i just can't ever seem to finish anything that's them. although, the one xmfc fic i've managed to bang out was charles/erik (SO G-RATED!!), so i guess that's progress. still no darwin/havok though :(