I want to write. I have ideas. I open document. I type four of the worst sentences ever created in the english language. I daydream the rest of the scene. I close document.
Working on filling in this spreadsheet with a generic description of all the townsfolk, like their skin shade and how much vitiligo they have, their hair color, eye color, etc. I felt it important to go look up cattle to get an idea of what kind of colors I could expect. Like we all know about black cows and brown cows and white cows with black spots and stuff, right? But is there anything I’m unfamiliar with?
TURNS OUT that not all brown cows are actually Brown in the way I remember them! There’s brown cows that are actually more like a ginger-red hair color and brown cows that are like… dirt brown. Well! That expands my color palette in ways I wasn’t expecting!
Also discovered shaggy yak-hair cows. Which means now that is an option for hair type.
(Everybody that reads my first chapter really likes Jorgus, a side character that is a little important but not really a major focus of the books. The main characters are Tristan, Alden, and Isolde, with side characters like Jorgus and Tristan’s father getting more page time, and others featuring occasionally in a few scenes. So I’m asking the husband what he thinks Jorgus looks like, what color is his hair/eyes/skin, I show him the cow options, he makes a comment about him having that long yak hair so that when he finally parts his hair he’s Handsome~. And I was like No- and he goes Have him steal the WHOLE show.)
Spent the first couple days of NaNo reworking the scenes I already had in my book, then spent an hour talking about it to my husband and realized I have to rewrite them again. And then he asked me things like “Do you want this character to be prone to emotional outbursts?” in a tone that suggested it was bad and then I got sad. He told me he was just trying to make sure I was making the best story I could, but, you know, oof or whatever.
Today I’ll probably rewrite those scenes to shift the events present in them to a later date so we’re tackling one EVENT at a time.
It was really cute how he mentioned that I was writing to an outline and I had to be like Oh, honey. That outline is already out of date and it’s a broad strokes gesture drawing ass outline. It’s not gospel. When the outline says “Isolde shows up to Tristan’s place and then they go to school together” that isn’t a scene. I gotta expand that out into hundred of more words. Maybe even two chapters. Like. Pfft. Outline.
When programmers invented rubber duck debugging they were right but what they don’t tell you is that this also works for like 90% of other complex intellectual tasks. Nothing solves a problem faster than just trying to explain it to somebody.
i love how there’s the genre of fix-it fic where the author goes into great granular detail of how our heroes manage to avoid or undo whatever character death or other unpopular choice occurred, in a way that abides by the laws of the fictional universe and definitely required a substantial plot outline, and then there are fix-it fics where the author just went “that’s bullshit and didn’t happen,” and we as readers all go “agreed. carry on.”
If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.
Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.
Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.
Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.
This is legit good writing advice, especially the first bullet point! In playwriting class we did a bit where every bit of dialogue had to be an accusatory question and it was glorious.
The plot is good, the characters are awesome, you’re totally motivated, but you have no time to write
The plot is good, the characters are awesome, you have lots of time to write, but you lose all motivation
The plot is weak, the characters are static and one dimensional, but you have lots of time and motivation to write
You have an idea for a one-shot and six chapters in your OTP hasn’t even touched hands
Your multi-chap plot can accidentally be wrapped up in 1500 words
You plot the plot twists and mythology and symbolism for a multi-chap for so long that you’re not a good enough writer to pull it off anymore
You write 20,000 words but don’t trust yourself to start posting the fic until it’s completely written and then it just dies away bc that’s a LOT of pressure
You write any entire perfect one-shot but can’t figure out how to tie it up at the end and so it sits in your drafts until you can’t remember writing it
You start posting a multichapter and realize you’ve written yourself into a morally-dubious corner that you have zero interest in continuing but it’s too late and you have to keep going.
You find the plot of your almost-compete fic in another fandom and you just can’t keep going even if no one will ever know and you didn’t plagiarize to begin with
You write a trope that you can’t find ANYWHERE in your fandom and give up because maybe there’s a reason no one writes that one here
You’ve started to be really bored of your main character and only care about the another character but it wouldn’t make any sense to change POVs now.
Your characters become OOC within your own fic because you forgot you wrote that one scene earlier
You write a long scene and realize it totally messes with your plot and/or character development but it’s long and you can’t bear to delete it so you have to just make it work.
(you give up shortly thereafter and waste 20,000 words instead of deleting 500)
You have to write plot? So that everything even makes sense?
You suddenly have to explain? Why some random fact about your verse happens? And you can’t figure it out? (magic?)
You realize the laws of physics could never allow your plot to work? And you’re not writing in a magical and/or limitless universe?
CANON CHANGES and your 50,000 word canon-verse fic features a character or plot that suddenly is OOC or makes no sense
CANON KILLS YOUR CHARACTER and you can’t deal with writing about their beautiful face in the canon universe anymore. You are twelve chapters into your fic and you cry and cry and cry.
