writing

So what are YOU writing rtc? :D

nothing, ever. i've honestly never had the slightest urge to try my hand at blank-page creative writing, think i have a gland missing or something

i remember once at school for english lit when i was like 14 we had this rotund happy chappy teacher on an american exchange for a while and one of his homeworks was "write a cowboy story", god i was so deeply disgusted with the man

You're a music reviewer though aintcha?

Ah man, disgust followed by gleeful subversion of the 'cowboy story'. (I was, as you can imagine, a complete fucking nightmare at school)

Garda's absence presumably down to him being candlelit at his scriptures rn

There are quite a few technically excellent writers on ILX who I'd imagine could very well create a thorough literary novel with some effort. Shame that a few of these (darragh, nakh) are big ol' lazyboneses. Very keen for Fizzles' debut.

nah the rtc gonchong holds little ambition beyond wasting its long-suffering host's spare time

what is fizzles writing? (or fizzles what are you writing should you read this thread)

I think my writing ambitions are gone fwiw. I've rarely got time to sit down and properly attack something now. Plus I no longer particularly think I've got anything of general worth to say that someone else won't say better; and anything that's specially mine I'd rather keep to myself.

I do a lot of non-creative writing at work and I'm pretty comfortable with banging out a thousand finished words in a day when I need to. Occasionally I'll have a dab at making those a story, but it's largely a technical exercise for me I think - do the set-up like this, pose the questions in this order, drop the punchline just so. The deeper stuff you need like exploring character and so on, I don't have the urge for.

As for method, do it first thing in your day I reckon, before other thoughts get in the way. When you reach quickstand, stop immediately. But it's a personal thing obviously.

I write fiction (just finished a story). When I'm hot I write two pages a day: one in the morning (a few bit sneaked at work), one at night.

there are enough terrible writings in the world for me to add to the ranks, never mind laziness on my part

cosign fizzles and nakh to bother tho

you are published writer deems

Garda's absence presumably down to him being candlelit at his scriptures rn

you joke but this is 100 per cent true, even down to the candle. (my room smelled a bit fusty so I lit a scented candle, sue me, i love them.)

i ask this cos basically i am going through prob the first phase of my life where i'm writing creative stuff every day.

i'm working on a play, having finished a short story (the first thing i've ever finished, ever) which went down quite well with those i sent it to.

i just heard back from a theatre who liked a two-page submission i did and asked for a script so that's really encouraging for my play.

techniques i'm finding useful:

pen and paper all the way until there's a body of a scene to put into a computer (computer distracts me too easily, like now, when i am supposed to be finishing my first draft.)

eliminating all other hobbies/distractions. i basically buy something quick to make for dinner on my work lunchbreak, then aim to be writing asap after getting in. even two hours sat at desk might only yield a short amount of work, but it's working for me.

i agree with your advice too, matt. i find just getting things down in a way where you know what you want to say, is best, you can always make it better later. it is difficult tho when the "this is shit" voice grows louder during an uninspired spell.

i guess overall the biggest thing i'm finding is that finishing something has amazing worth. it doesn't have to be perfect, just getting that "maybe this'll work" idea out of your head lets you learn.

hard to make a complaint to the irish times stretch out over more than a page tbf

xp mozeltoff ronan

so am i, with a 100% acceptance rate for items sent for publication, although the wire probably get fewer emails than the irish times do green ink jeremiads from gaeltacht fire and brimstone types

add u to the list above of ilxors whose work id steal from the internet lg

xp i can't get joptionpane to work i will not derail this thread in pique

haha I wasn't even joking! the very act of bumping this thread probably the spur you needed to get going

I forgot to link this here: Anonymous Writing Group II: submissions thread, deadline 31 October All this talk, let's turn it into some serious wordcount.

So does my character drive the plot or does the plot drive my character? Like, I keep being unsure as to whether I should make things happen to change him in interesting ways or whether I should have a deep idea of him before I make anything happen to him. If that confusion makes sense... I know there are no rules as such, but interested to hear what people think.

My teacher always said they were the same thing. I think he was quoting F Scott Fitzgerald.

Yeah I guess it's all the one process - I find I start with a loose idea of a story and then it changes a bit along the way. I do reach forks in the road where I wonder about what should happen next, and the indecision can be difficult, like... if I press on with an initial idea what if that is not a good idea, then that's kind of my plot, can I delete that and come back to this junction again without it all falling asunder in my mind?

This is prob a confidence problem, really.

this is for a play btw, i think with a story the two are more easily intertwined, with a play events seem more important, things that are dramatically interesting or whatever. but so far not a lot happens in my play, and it's a monologue, so it's more a dude talking about stuff that happened.

there is some good prose on ilx imo

I hope tim at kfc edu contributes to the next anonymous writing thing

xp

As in life, the totality of events in a plot are beyond the control of any one character. Each character controls only himself or herself. But, depending on the story you want to tell, it may easily happen that most or all of the events in your plot consist of actions or words driven by your characters. There may be some impersonal events, like a tornado or a social movement, which help to drive your plot, but where the actual gears of your plot mesh their teeth together will be driven by your characters, whose words and actions emerge from their individual motives and abilities.

For example, you could ask yourself what drives the plot of Robinson Crusoe?

The fated event I guess - what's interesting and difficult is choosing the event, that's a skill I suppose, what event will show my character in an interesting light, what event will change him or get him to where I want him to go. That's the fork in the road that has me posting on ILX instead of continuing.

Demanding character change, introducing problem/resolution as a driver to this, is the kind of formulaic grind that turns me off reading, let alone writing.

Have a character interesting or well written enough and contrived plot is unnecessary, whatever light shines on yr character can pass for plot enough.

tentatively agree

Yeah that's a fair point. I suppose I'd still like to place him in an unfamiliar situation and spin things out a bit before my ending, I have a decent sense of where I want to end things. Sorry, I realise this is of little interest without knowing the thing I'm doing.

xpost

Nah my vehemence isnt for your posting nor questioning its for the visible mechanics (or demand for them as necessity)

Obv a good plot can cover for sketchy characterisation but its a lot more difficult to do imo?

xp
I'd say the character has to have a problem of some sort or he won't be very interesting. He doesn't need to solve it by the end of the piece. He may not even be aware he has a problem, or he may know it but not be able to articulate it. But he has to have a problem.

It's kind of interesting though, the idea of it as trickery or as you say, visible mechanics. Like, is it an organic process or are you really just thinking "what would be most fun"...

xpost he has a problem alright!

I know lots of interesting ppl without a rubik cube irl. If you claim that this cant translate to written or performed creativity then ill stay irl and enjoy that instead. But i disagree.

imagine if people "developed" as much as characters are expected to while going about their business

Itd be cuntish, theyd be cunts, cunts can be good characters but less so if they must develop imo

ime too i think

^undeveloped cunt

(joeks)

Unrepentant cunt, but i reveal a shocking backstory over time that changes the audience perspective tbph

imagine if people "developed" as much as characters are expected to while going about their business

i guess being realistic is not really a necessity for drama though? maybe to be avoided even.

sure, sure. It's the programmatic insistence on one way of doing things I'd object to

like I'm always reluctant to nail my colours to any partic mask in these convos but I find just taking the opposite position feels p comfy

Cunt

mask mast?

no I'm not imo xp

haha why did I write mask

imagine if people "developed" as much as characters are expected to while going about their business

cf http://www.theonion.com/articles/completely-unrealistic-tv-character-has-complex-mu,33855/

my technique for getting writing done is spending all day worrying about not getting writing done then shitting out a couple of hundred words of shite at 3am. i highly recommend it.

shitting out shite.

To avoid my pirate joke xp

do you think it's good to just go with your gut and write every idea as you have it - and then go back and delete stuff later? like it seems weird to me that one might have the plot going one way on a tuesday evening and then chop it back and make it go another way having read over that work on wednesday. so i sort of am trying to be sure before i put things down... and to use lots of pen and paper before adding to my actual draft. again, i know there's no right answer here.

xpost

har de harr d

well for me it's generally not fiction i'm writing so i'm not sure to what extent useful techniques would cross over, but i find having a pretty clearly defined and tiered structure - e.g. within the one big idea there'll be five main smaller ideas, each of which will again break down to a few smaller ideas, etc - is useful, and then i'll choose a section and start filling it with whatever i have and whatever comes to mind. the big structure will almost always mutate and it means things can start to seem wildly fragmented and stuff that seemed good will eventually have to be deleted, but it helps me to be able to pull things together in that bricolage kind of way rather than having that daunting feeling of 30 pages being in your head just waiting to be typed.