Another one bites the dust

[mewenn]

I hate linking snippets together, yet, each time I start writing a story, I get to a point where I'm stuck and I think it will be a good idea to just write what comes after the bit where I'm stuck. Then my story changes and not only do I have to link snippets together, but I have to go through the snippets again to edit them to fit the new

Comments

[frogs_of_war]

The advice I read when I first wanted to learn to write was to always write in order. Use that fun/interesting scene that you really want to write as the reward for writing all the stuff in between

[mewenn]

Feeling all better. The thing is I get depressed easy past midnight. Well, depressed is too heavy a word for that. I feel down easy. But usually I rant a bit and then sleep and in the morning I feel all better. Thank you for your comment, I saw it before I went to bed and it made me feel better to know someone cared.

And thanks for the good advices. Interesting scene as a reward sounds like a really good idea. Shaping characters for the story might not work well with the way I write but I'll try it too.

Is A Balance of Harmony one of those stories where you tried to fit the characters for the story? Did you come up with the characters first or the plot?

[frogs_of_war]

Yeah, I tried to think of what a relationship needed and passed the parts among them and tried to fit the three together as well as I could. I took the foundation for their relationship from a Cary Grant movie where his wife disappears for seven years, he has her declared dead and get gets gets engaged (or married again), but then she turns up. What would it be like to be in love with two people at once?

Then I gave the characters the lead. I knew I wanted a few things to happen, like how Peregrine's jealousy took form (don't fall in love) and that he'd get over that.

I also came up with a dozen or so side characters, only a few of which found a real place in the story while my men keep meeting more and more people as they go through their day.

But this giving leash to the characters tends to make for a long, long story (I've been working on Harmonies since April of 2010), except if I keep to few characters and no real subplots (which is so hard).

I'm trying to remember if my Uninterrupted characters did anything unexpected (

[mewenn]

I could listen for that long. I love listening/reading about writing.

It's interesting to see even you had trouble forcing characters to do things. I often feel like my characters don't have much personality but then I try to make them do something and they do something entirely different. When I have a clear idea of who my characters are, it's easier to write. For example if I write a follow up story it usually goes much more smoothly than the first story, with much less incidents of characters doing unexpected things. For those I can usually plot my storyline in advance and the finished product is closer than for a first story (which I can never make work with the first scenario I came up with or even the second or the third).

Do you ever feel like all your characters have the same personality? Or that their reaction is too cliché or too goofy (like something one would expect from one of those TV series where a public can be heard laughing)? Do you have some advice for that too?