![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Snowflake Challenge Day 11: Creative Process
As a writer whose success on finishing projects is at best unpredictable, I have a few things to say about my creative process.
Those who can't do, teach, and all that.
I've learned precious little over about ten years in fandom, but you are welcome to what I know.
1. Research is never wasted time.
When you're writing period work, or work in an esoteric field loaded with jargon, or you're writing a character from a distinct subculture, you can absorb a lot (diction, thought processes, priorities, terms) by reading or watching appropriate source material. Try pulp fiction from the 1930's, first-hand sailing accounts, technical manuals, period films--not films about the period, but films produced within the period--just load yourself up. Use the speed-reading you've cultivated from years browsing fanfics and skipping over the dull bits. You don't have to understand all of it. You just have to osmose the parts that interest you.
Not only will you be better able to mimic the speech patterns, concerns, and mores of the characters you're trying to portray, your story will be full of weird real bits that you just can't make up. The truth is stranger than fiction.
A good story is like a good lie. It has to have bits of the truth. Your truth, and true facts from the real world.
And even if you don't use it in a fic, you can put it on your resume. "My hobby is historical research with an emphasis on the Cold War and 1930's and 40's popular culture in the United States."
2. Exploit your writing habits.
Different circumstances in which you write will have different pressures on how and how much you write.
Do you get hung up on constant revisions, second-guessing yourself and not moving on to the rest of the story? Write long-hand in a notebook.
Do you stare endlessly at the computer and come up with five words? Set a time limit. Write on your lunch break.
Are the words JUST NOT COMING? Maybe you're actually stuck. Brainstorm. Do some plot mad-libs. Research more. Get maps and diagrams and plan out the particulars of that car chase or conversation; your subconscious might be stepping on the brakes because it can't see where you're going.
3. Don't bore yourself.
If you can't work up the motivation to write a particular passage, ask yourself: is this really that critical? If I'm bored, imagine how the reader feels. Skip to the good bits. Like the reader will.
Think of writing as a one-person game of improv. Say "Yes--and!" When you come up with an unexpected idea, or you forget to write someone bringing along an important item, or your research throws a complication at you, roll with it. Incorporate it into your story. It will only make things weirder, and weird is good. It's a fanfic, for shit's sake, it's supposed to be bizarre.
There should always be something going wrong. Always a problem to be solved. The subconscious LOVES solving problems, and if your story is full of problems to be worked out, it'll keep spitting ideas at you.
4. Don't be ashamed to air your dirty laundry.
It's fanfic. Just do it. Make everything about you: your job, your anxieties, your parents, you, you, you--it's fine. Think about it: what percentage of Supernatural fans watched because they had weird, controlling fathers? What you see in fandom that drew you to it, usually that's a reflection of your history, your fears, your desires. Your truth. Put your truth back into your fanfic. That's what they really mean by "write what you know."
5. How do I finish a WIP?
I dunno, lol. Write shorter.
no subject
no subject