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[rose_in_shadow]

So, my fellow fanfic writers, what do you do when you have two characters in a room who won't behave? And I don't mean "wont' behave" in the good way when the characters seem to take on a life of their own outside of your plans for plot and whatnot. I'm talking about when you have two characters who simply stare at each other and do nothing in a

Comments

[voyevoda]

I don't know if this helps at all, but in regards to an ending, I usually do some free-flow brainstorming. I start with point A, then branch off to another Point B, but slap on any C,D,E points that come into my head and ultimately I choose one and branch off that. Even if the idea seems stupid, I put it down, because something else might pop into my brain. :)

Ultimately they end up looking like this:

[sinvraal]

Haha, stuff like this makes me feel inadequate. The amount of notes I keep is laughable. I have a 'notepad' file, which I jot things down in occasionally, but nothing even close to an outline like this.

[saeori]

I'm the same when it comes to this. Don't feel too badly!

[voyevoda]

I also have notepad files! *lol*

Truthfully this sheet is for a particular fic that has been my 'opus' of sorts- still unfinished five years running, two total rewrites that rendered it completely unrecognizable from the original, but always in my head trying to figure out how to finish it. I'm hoping my trip to Paris in two weeks (where the fic is set) might break me out of an almost 2 year writing block.

Most of my fics never get to this level of brainstorming. I keep a lot of it in my head unless the plot is complicated. :P

[kudara]

I hate to say it but if it feels clunky and forced perhaps it is, at least it usually is for me. Sometimes I need to backup to the point where it started feeling that way and ask myself why it feels forced. Sometimes I need to sit down and play some mass effect and re-immerse myself in the canon universe to get inspiration. Sometimes I need to get out of the chair and go do something else for a while and see if an idea pops into my head on it's own.

[rose_in_shadow]

and ask myself why it feels forced

Hmm. Yeah I can answer that question. Because it's supposed to be a SERIOUS MOMENT(tm) and I think I'm too busy flailing around in the angst to realize what they're supposed to say. lol.

Good point about re-immersion. I have been playing Halo: Reach lately... maybe it's infecting my muse...

[rhiannon87]

Oh, I feel your pain. I hate it when they won't talk to each other. Usually I deal with it by getting them talking at all, about anything. Open up a new document, put them in a bar (that's my preferred setting, anyway), get them talking about something. Anything. The rest of the crew, the ship, the planet they're on, the mission, their histories, the local sports team. Once they're chatting I can usually swing the conversation over to where I wanted it to go in the first place much more naturally. Then I just pull out the useful bits and plunk them into the fic.

[rose_in_shadow]

That's not a bad idea. Just keep writing until something good shows up.

Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing... /Dory

[sinvraal]

I found myself watching your icon waiting to wince when I saw a mistake I've made. ;P

[prisoner__24601]

In those cases I usually add an explosion or zombies or ninjas or some kind of outside force/person that they have to react to and hope for something interesting.

If that doesn't work, I usually shelve it for awhile and take a look at it later and hope that the intervening time shakes something loose in my brain.

[arysani]

Zombies and ninjas really do improve just about anything. Amd pirates.

And if it's the remake of Escaflowne, both ninjas and pirates can apply.

[rose_in_shadow]

I might sit on it until the weekend. Let the muse decide if she wants to stop playing hooky, though it's frustrating because I feel like I'm close and I've been working on it all week. Grr.

[ethe_real_ity]

Yeah, I find that taking a break, as much as I don't want to, often helps a LOT. Not just a couple of days, but more like a week or so. Either try working on something completely different, or just forget writing anything for a while. Staring at the computer when your brain is just about fried from looking at your fic so much doesn't really work. XD

[siujerkjai]

When that happens to me, it's usually because I've made a wrong decision somewhere--setting, timing within the larger story arc, which character's POV the narrative follows, the mind-set of one of the characters, etc.

Hang in there! The answer will come to you.

[rose_in_shadow]

Good points. This story did come in pieces: I wrote a bit near the end first and then the beginning and then pieces of the middle. Possibly I screwed up my timing somewhere...