Writing: 2nd Quarter Goals Update

[opera142]

Improve

* My issues with grammar and punctuation are starting to group nicely. So much easier to define problems and create action plans. Not that I'll feel all-knowing or secure about my writing once those little goals have been conquered, but it'll be nice for once, to take a rest and feel some accomplishment towards this whole improving thing.

* For me, good advice doesn't really sink in until I've seen how disregarding it can make writing go horribly awry. Like I read about avoiding the to-be verb, but clearly the article wasn't talking about my delightful use of "is". I'll write on, blithely certain that my brilliant prose supercedes that rule. It takes a badfic prose badly verbed with is/was/were for me to realize how much to-be clunks.

* Same with good fic. Good writing makes me too asklelsifhjefsfhhe! I can barely think after reading goodfic, let alone learn. Also, I am consumed by jealousy and prefer to sulk rather than write after reading something extraordinary. And then when I do get courage to write again, good writing makes my writing worse.

In good writing, rare and extraordinary plays of language abound. Like a killer use of an adverb. Such joy to read. And I'll want to emulate that. So I'll get free with the adverbs. I want my fiction to have dozens of those rare and extraordinary spots. "Killer" adverbs for every sentence! Yay. Except, it takes a badfic full of mushy adverbed-up-to-its-eyes prose for me to realize it's the rare and extraordinary, not the use of adverbs, that made that goodfic good.

*Style. At this point I'm unsure how to talk about this. Style gets so easily confused with obvious style, and there's always the possibility of what I think is BRILLIANT~OMG now, will seem overwrought and amateurish in a few months.

But I feel like I'm on the cusp of a literary transition (or maybe just a fall off of a cliff). "Crows" is the kind of writing I want to be doing. At least, for now. There's an earthiness to the writing. It's grounded. It flowed, sort of like a comedy routine. Things circled back on one another, little details snowballed through the story.

Finally, I managed both streamlined prose and sturdy descriptions. I'm slowly learning to have fun with my literary tendencies rather than write against them. When I started out I put so much effort into making complex sentences seem simple (readable), but I'm finding I write better by making simple sentences seem complex. One dead-on noun is better than a rhythm section of adjectives.

To cut short a lot of blather-about-self, I'm discovering that I feel more pride in how I don't write. Avoiding clichés and been-said-before's, and tired details and abstracts and melodrama means I have to come up with new, exciting stuff. And I do. I do that. When I buckle down and get willing to scrape away at my writing, I unearth some unique stuff.


Beat Last Years Output

I'm starting to regret this goal. I meant it as push to stop whining and start writing, to stop hand wringing over every little bit of a fic and get writing the rest of it. But, all it's doing is frustrating me. At this point in my writing development, I need to devote lots and lots of time to re-writing, to thinking things through, to outwitting those damn clichés that are determined to crusade into my writing.

I want to convince myself that it's better to complete a few good fics than a dozen mediocre (or laughable ones). I want to content with doing what I can very well-- no matter how long it takes for my writing to get good. Basically, I want to be OKAY, REALLLY with spending weeks/months polishing something because that's how long it takes for my good stuff to emerge. I can have a bunch of stories stocked with clichés, clunky rhythm and needless sentences or I can have Crows and the pride I feel over it.


Constructive Whining

I haven't figured out how to getting from the A of wanting to do this to the B of actually doing it. I know journaling can be a boon for writing. Doing my wrestle recaps taught me tons. I just can't shake the " if you're talking about writing, you ain't writing" lectures. And, I see that notion get re-enforced everyday. For as many announcements about upcoming fics and updates on the status of current ones that Analorien and Allie make over on Lady Jackyl's board, they finished very little of what they start.

I'd want to give myself a pep talk through my journal. If I do a good job at documenting the troubles (and solutions) I deal with while writing, then when I'm in a panic later, I can go back and remember every time I get deep into a story I feel like I'll never get it finished. I always feel like I don't have the words to tell it. I always feel like there’s a huge, giant, pulsing plot hole that I'm missing. Maybe it will eventually sink in that I make it through those doubts and troubles and hurts.

I feel like a lot of my writing problems aren't so much a real problems, as much as problems I've made in my head. I get stuck trying to find a word, and I'll become convinced that this time it won't come. I'll be forever stuck looking for a less pretty version of "trickle". Of course, I'll come up with a word. The Panics just get a day or two or nine out in the sunshine first.

Also I'm stupid about writing. I'll know something is off about a patch of prose, but I won't know what. And I won't really be able to fix it if someone points it out to me. I need to figure the problem out for myself, fail at fixing it a dozen times before hitting on a solution. I can't yet put instinct to words. And that gets frustrating, and the last thing I want when I'm already frustrated over a story is to be doubly frustrated because I can't voice my frustration.


Speak more positively about my writing

* This boils down to fear. Fear that I'll either get proven wrong, or eventually I'll prove myself wrong. I don't want to be one of those people forever praising my own writing, when it's obvious to anyone with a 3rd grade-level reading comprehension that there's problems in the prose.

Doesn't help that exactly what I feared happened. I praise my dialogue in a Things-I-Like-About-My-Writing-type post, and POW! My dialogue gets the most mark-up during editing. Hahaha at me. Loser.

*And, now I'm going to admit something goes so much against my Feisty Opera self-image that it makes me sick. I sometimes keep quiet about my writing because the elements I generally feel the most pride in aren't valued in fandom. I write balls out in a fandom that prefers to duck and angst. I write self-assured characters saying what they think in genre populated by passive characters written in the passive voice.

Now, I can strut around, smug with the knowledge that I write better than that. But, it's hard. Fandom is, after all, a social activity, and if I can't make a ready-made audience care about what I've written, what success will I have with bookstore customers?

Also, by writing against the grain, it's hard to get feedback. The general kind, and the more important "Was this effective? How did this make you feel? kind. I know my style isn't the end-all of good writing (or the only way to write well). I'm aware of the trip-ups possible. I worry that my ballsey stuff reads like Crude For Crudeness' sake, and that I'm like Dark Daria-- blind to just how artless some of things I say are. I know there's a thin line separating pushing the envelope and sounding like a deviant.

Comments

[wolfshift.livejournal.com]

I can barely think after reading goodfic, let alone learn.

That's why you read it again. And again. And again. And again. When you like the way a piece of writing works, and you want to be able to have the same kind of success, you HAVE to pick it apart bit by bit and figure out what makes it tick. Analyse it. Deconstruct it. Look at the adjectives. Then look at the verbs. Then the adverbs. Then look at rhetorical devices. Does the writer use alliteration? Is it intentional? What effect does it have? Once you've done a technical analysis, THEN you should look at the themes and metaphors and narrative style/voice. Look at the plot structure, if there is one--and if there isn't, figure out why not. Then read the story again from the beginning. Try reading it backward. And KEEP NOTES.

It's tedious at first, but you learn to do it nearly automatically in time.

Fandom is, after all, a social activity, and if I can't make a ready-made audience care about what I've written, what success will I have with bookstore customers?

If you confuse fandom with bookstore customers, you won't have much luck with either. Of course there are parallels (formulaic fiction is most popular in both cases, for instance), but most of the people who buy novels are not actively trying to write novels. That alone is a huge difference. People in fandom essentially want to read stuff that mirrors their own writing, and they want their own writing to mirror what everybody else does. People who buy novels, on the other hand, are involved in only one side of the process, the passive, consumptive side, reading but not writing (in most cases). They have different expectations from and demands on what they read.

Popular fanfic is really just mutual masturbation through text, and I'm not even talking about smutfic.

There's also the fact that novels sold in bookstores go through a professional editor, and a lengthy editing and revision process, while quite a lot of fanfic goes through absolutely no review process whatsoever (and it shows).

[opera142.livejournal.com]

I do that with bad fic. The staring at an accident-feel appeals to my bitter, evil heart.

[wolfshift.livejournal.com]

But it probably doesn't help you become a better writer. Some occasional, limited analysis of bad fic could conceivably help you avoid the same mistakes, but only if it's balanced by equal or greater quantities of analysis of good writing. Otherwise the bad fic will just pull you down to its level. If you focus on the good stuff, your own writing will have a better chance of improving. If you focus on the crap, however...