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silveradept[Welcome back to December Days. This year, thanks to a suggestion from alexseanchai, I'm writing about writing. Suggestions for topics are most definitely welcome! There's still a lot of space to cover.]
At the end of the last post, I popped an idea out of my head about two characters meeting and having a significant amount of things to talk about because they've both experienced having the adults and mentors in their lives not telling them the film truth when they feel like they're ready for it.
Some stories plot themselves, or at least give you a hook to start with that you can start writing on and everything proceeds smoothly from the research and/or canon review (or reading works that you like in the universe, style, or structure you think will be appropriate for the story you want to tell.) Those are great ideas.
Some ideas (like this one) have a hook and a thought, but they don't offer anything on the way of direction or the way that they should be written. "Okay, so Steven and Ruby end up in the same space and have a chat about their mentors. How do they get there? Why are they there? What's going on around them? Where is that space?" These questions might be helpful, or they might all get a shrug and a "dunno."
Sometimes, on an idea, a single picture or a line of possible dialogue might jump out as a good place to start. So, knowing that one of Steven's special abilities is that he and other people that he can connect with can transform from two people into a composite entity, there's a little bit of gemological punnery that might go on by pairing Steven Quartz Universe with Ruby Rose. (Quiet in the back. I'm trying to do this as spoiler-free as possible. Yes, there's another way this could go, but it requires knowledge that can only be gained by watching Steven Universe. That might turn up later on in the story, though, if it goes sufficiently far.) As it turns out, there's a red variety of quartz that would fit the color scheme of Ruby's character and the generally lighter pink shirt that Steven usually wears. Since combined entities tend to be given new names that reflect their combined selves, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to call that new entity Carnelian, after the red quartz. As it turns out, there's already a character with that name that exists, so we might have to go further into the gem ideas until we find a pretty-looking red gem that we can call the thing, or we can call it Sard, since that's also a name for carnelian, and it fits the darker red palette that Ruby uses.
The presence of that entity might only exist for long enough to stave off a threat to them, but it might also be the way that the two separate entities can start the conversation about why they combined so well, or the feelings that each of them had about being together, which could lead to some background sharing and then a conversation about the idea topic. And that's still without necessarily thinking about the background of how things came together or why.
Or maybe there's a shared line of dialogue between them, that they both say and hear at the same time, something like "I'm not a child anymore!" That might also prompt investigation and some shared experience. Or letting the scene play in parallel, with dialogue cuts back and forth between the characters such that the disparate lines we read as up to a singular rant that gets the point across. There are all sorts of ways that this scene might play out.
Sometimes that infinite-ness seems paralyzing, but the nice thing about creative work, so long as you're not slammed up against a deadline, is that if something isn't working out right now, you can shelve that idea in a fragments folder and try a new way of going about it. Maybe it will link back up with that fragment later, or you can grab that fragment and rework it into something else. Writing is rarely ever completely wasted. But there are things that get written that aren't likely to every see publication, or that have anything to do with anything, ever. It's practice at the craft, if it ends up being nothing else that's useful for what you are trying to write right now. And even then, it might turn out useful. When we talk about structures, there are more than a few of them that are very kind to fragmentation.
A couple of things that always help me out when I'm writing is to be open to shifts. A well-outlined story still has room for improvisation or for a character to do something that seems out of place now, because sometimes your brain is working on something and it sees and opportunity and gives you a subconscious kick to include a new bit here so that later on, when you need to reference something and not have it seem like you were pulling something out of thin air, there's groundwork already laid.
The other is this, attributed to the late Jim Henson: "If you can't get out [i.e. you're stuck and you can't see a way of moving forward with the scene], you just either blow something up, or you eat something, or you throw penguins in the air." It doesn't have to be taken literally, but it is sometimes useful to note [SOMETHING COOL HAPPENS HERE!] in your work and go forth from there if you're stuck and go on to the next part that you can write. The brain might pop up with whatever that something cool is later.
Noodling and improvising some on a single idea may be all you need to make wordcount for an exchange or a chapter or progress enough to get the wheels unstuck and turning again. Going back and revising and editing, polishing and tweaking is for after the writing part is done. And is often best done with the help of others, rather than chasing the perfect words right now before you can go forward. (It can be hard, we understand.) As you get practice and familiarity with your writing and the style and structure you're using, there will be less edit work need at the end and more of your words will ring true to start with.
alexseanchai, I'm writing about writing. Suggestions for topics are most definitely welcome! There's still a lot of space to cover.]At the end of the last post, I popped an idea out of my head about two characters meeting and having a significant amount of things to talk about because they've both experienced having the adults and mentors in their lives not telling them the film truth when they feel like they're ready for it.
Some stories plot themselves, or at least give you a hook to start with that you can start writing on and everything proceeds smoothly from the research and/or canon review (or reading works that you like in the universe, style, or structure you think will be appropriate for the story you want to tell.) Those are great ideas.
Some ideas (like this one) have a hook and a thought, but they don't offer anything on the way of direction or the way that they should be written. "Okay, so Steven and Ruby end up in the same space and have a chat about their mentors. How do they get there? Why are they there? What's going on around them? Where is that space?" These questions might be helpful, or they might all get a shrug and a "dunno."
Sometimes, on an idea, a single picture or a line of possible dialogue might jump out as a good place to start. So, knowing that one of Steven's special abilities is that he and other people that he can connect with can transform from two people into a composite entity, there's a little bit of gemological punnery that might go on by pairing Steven Quartz Universe with Ruby Rose. (Quiet in the back. I'm trying to do this as spoiler-free as possible. Yes, there's another way this could go, but it requires knowledge that can only be gained by watching Steven Universe. That might turn up later on in the story, though, if it goes sufficiently far.) As it turns out, there's a red variety of quartz that would fit the color scheme of Ruby's character and the generally lighter pink shirt that Steven usually wears. Since combined entities tend to be given new names that reflect their combined selves, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to call that new entity Carnelian, after the red quartz. As it turns out, there's already a character with that name that exists, so we might have to go further into the gem ideas until we find a pretty-looking red gem that we can call the thing, or we can call it Sard, since that's also a name for carnelian, and it fits the darker red palette that Ruby uses.
The presence of that entity might only exist for long enough to stave off a threat to them, but it might also be the way that the two separate entities can start the conversation about why they combined so well, or the feelings that each of them had about being together, which could lead to some background sharing and then a conversation about the idea topic. And that's still without necessarily thinking about the background of how things came together or why.
Or maybe there's a shared line of dialogue between them, that they both say and hear at the same time, something like "I'm not a child anymore!" That might also prompt investigation and some shared experience. Or letting the scene play in parallel, with dialogue cuts back and forth between the characters such that the disparate lines we read as up to a singular rant that gets the point across. There are all sorts of ways that this scene might play out.
Sometimes that infinite-ness seems paralyzing, but the nice thing about creative work, so long as you're not slammed up against a deadline, is that if something isn't working out right now, you can shelve that idea in a fragments folder and try a new way of going about it. Maybe it will link back up with that fragment later, or you can grab that fragment and rework it into something else. Writing is rarely ever completely wasted. But there are things that get written that aren't likely to every see publication, or that have anything to do with anything, ever. It's practice at the craft, if it ends up being nothing else that's useful for what you are trying to write right now. And even then, it might turn out useful. When we talk about structures, there are more than a few of them that are very kind to fragmentation.
A couple of things that always help me out when I'm writing is to be open to shifts. A well-outlined story still has room for improvisation or for a character to do something that seems out of place now, because sometimes your brain is working on something and it sees and opportunity and gives you a subconscious kick to include a new bit here so that later on, when you need to reference something and not have it seem like you were pulling something out of thin air, there's groundwork already laid.
The other is this, attributed to the late Jim Henson: "If you can't get out [i.e. you're stuck and you can't see a way of moving forward with the scene], you just either blow something up, or you eat something, or you throw penguins in the air." It doesn't have to be taken literally, but it is sometimes useful to note [SOMETHING COOL HAPPENS HERE!] in your work and go forth from there if you're stuck and go on to the next part that you can write. The brain might pop up with whatever that something cool is later.
Noodling and improvising some on a single idea may be all you need to make wordcount for an exchange or a chapter or progress enough to get the wheels unstuck and turning again. Going back and revising and editing, polishing and tweaking is for after the writing part is done. And is often best done with the help of others, rather than chasing the perfect words right now before you can go forward. (It can be hard, we understand.) As you get practice and familiarity with your writing and the style and structure you're using, there will be less edit work need at the end and more of your words will ring true to start with.
