The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting Nov. 5, 2010

Hah! Over here, Mercedes Lackey (who has a few books under her belt -- 80 something?) gives a pep talk for the nanowrimowers suggesting that fanfiction is a good way to go! Link right here http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3853430 What's fanfiction? Well, take that novel, short story, movie, TV show, or whatever that you really loved, and wish someone would just write a little bit more -- and DIY (DO IT YO'SELF!).

That's right, take those characters, setting, and what not, and write your own episode, scene, etc. Now, if you happen to walk into the story and turn yourself into a shining example of everything that is good, true, and marvelous, that would be a Mary Sue, but you don't have to do that. Pick up that unfinished thread that bothered you, write up the background story that was hinted at, tell us the tale behind the shoe that never fell... whatever you want to do. Not for sale, not for anything else but the fun of it. After all, you enjoyed the original story enough to wish for a little bit more, right? So why not whip it up yourself?

And along the way, during nanowrimo time, you can get a little word count, put it in your account, watch the total words grow! 'saright? Do the fan fiction version of daydreaming, and see how you can tell the tale.

Aha! That actually ties in with this little well-aged bit of advice for nanowrimowers. http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/141507.html I suggested exploring alternatives. After all, even the simplest decision, action, whatever, usually comes at the cost of several other possibilities. In ordinary life, if you decide to have hamburger for dinner, you aren't likely to also have shrimp, steak, tofu, or something really exotic, right? But through the magic of writing, we can do multiple possibilities, right here, write now.

Write the scene with the hero chewing on a hamburger. Then do it again, but have them swallowing shrimp. Sizzling steaks, torturing tofu, or whatever you like. Try writing a scene more than once, with the different possible outcomes, or playing with who is there, the setting, the weather, and whatnot. See how your florid, baroque, overdone wordiness provides an opulent setting for the corruption of the mafia lord, or how the mean streets and simple killing suits the dark Sith? Try things out. Take that list of possible outcomes of the confrontation -- Joe wins, Joe wins but gets a broken arm, Joe loses, Joe isn't quite sure what happened, and the cops break it up? -- take that list, and write them ALL!

How does that go with fan fiction? Well, one of the possible things you can do is to take a story or scene that you like, but wring some variations on it. You didn't like the way it went? Write it your way! And then see what happens next.

Take a decision point, write out the alternative possibilities, and then write up scenes with each of them. Your very own small-scale alternate history, played out on the monitor (or paper, or wherever you write) just for you!

Write! And write again, and again, and again.

Original posting 14 July 2010

I've been doing something for a little while now that I think is kind of an interesting way to practice writing.

See, there's a 15 minute show here in Japan, six days a week, that will run for six months. We're now in week 16. And because I was interested, I've been writing up the show every day. Mostly just translating on-the-fly and taking notes, then later in the day going back and writing up that day's episode.

Part of the fun for me is figuring out which parts need explanations, or where I should "stretch" what was done on the show to help English language folks follow along. I mean, I don't have the visuals, and I really can't expect English readers to have the Japanese background. So I kind of fill in around the corners sometimes. And of course I get to select which actions and dialogue I'm going to bother including.

You might want to take a television show or movie and write it up. Just as a way to exercise or practice writing. How do you convert that visual car chase or whatever into narrative? What do you include, what do you drop out? Feel free to do some transformation or rearrangement. After all, a Mickey Mouse cartoon could turn into a bar scene, or maybe an opera could become a visit to a Turkish harem? Or...

Scribble while you watch, do-de-do-do-do-do-do...