Hello I've just opened the door to the Big Closet as a registered user and I'm buisy finding my way around the place. I've been into TG fiction for years mainly the reading of it and I've found the Internet an Aladin's cave of some good TG material. I'm very fond of reading Petticoat Punishment stories as this has been a favourite fantasy of mine for many years and I would like to write about it.
However, I do suffer from writers block, especially when I'm at the keyboard. When I'm away from it, the thoughts and ideas in my mind flow like the waters of the Niagara Falls, but as soon as I sit down at the keyboard those waters freeze over very quickly. So any help in this area will be greatly appreciated.
I don't wish to compete with any of the writers here, I just want to write something worth reading. Neither do I want to write serials, I much prefer complete stories.
Thanks and best wishes,
Julian
Comments
Carry a notebook ...
... with you when you're out and about, and write by hand. Just put down every idea you have as soon as you can. Don't worry about making it come out fully formed -- there will be time enough later. And don't worry about using every idea that comes to you. The ones that move you to write will rise to the surface and hopefully push the writer's block aside. Also, if you give the other ideas a chance to sit for awhile, they may eventually rise as well.
The best cure I've ever found for writer's block is to just sit down and write. I know that sounds weird, but my writer's block used to come from judging every word as soon as it came out on the page. I would give up in disgust, only to find what I had written weeks later and realize it was actually pretty darned good - but by then, I had lost the thread and couldn't continue the story. *sigh* By just starting to write and ignoring the critique until MUCH later, I'm able to get the job done. It doesn't HAVE to be perfect when it comes out -- that's why G-d in Her infinite wisdom had humans create the word processor. *grins*
Hope this helps! *hugs* And welcome to the closet! Push a few hangers aside and make yourself comfy!
Randalynn
Inspiration
Welcome to BC, Julian.
I'm with you -- story ideas don't come easily, staring at a terminal. Sometimes ideas come to you during the course of a day -- or night, in my case -- and it's a good idea to write it down immediately if you can, but most of it, in my experience, is sort of a slog.
I find that sitting in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee at my side, holding a clipboard and a pen, solves a lot of those inspiration issues. It's nothing more than brainstorming, really. If I'm stuck in a story, need to flesh out a chapter, or if I change my mind about something I've written, I try to write down at least three possible ways that I might find palatable, then select the best option. Inspiration for a story generally comes from outside stimuli, and takes the form of an ending I'd like to see, or a great situation in which to place my protagonist. I don't consider that I have a story "idea," though, unless I have a beginning, an ending, and some vague notion of how to get there.
Aardvark
"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful - just stupid)."
Robert A. Heinlein
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
What I Found
Is that a story completely told in your mind, will always be so much better than the one you type into the computer.
What I mean by that is that before I actually completed a story, I had created many characters in my head, I knew much of their entire life. The problem was that when I tried to write down their stories it was hard to get through the drudgery of set-up and explanation. Damn it, I wanted to get to the good stuff :)
But the good stuff is just a scene, not a story. I always recognized this and thus was easily frustrated. Maybe I could have written the scenes and then filled in the border, but my mind does not work that way. It is not logical.
What finally pushed me over the edge was a what if question, seemingly asked by a cartoon picture I found on the intrarweb. What if a evil wizard turned his apprentice into a babe? My first thing was to grab a setting and a name from a story I had considered nearly 20 years ago about the logic of null (oooh doesn't that sound exciting). Then I began to write an answer to the question, soon doing away with the question completely (it had become meaningless) and discovering the character and his world as I went.
In essence I learned not to put the character's life ahead of the character's story. The first is too large, while the second is manageable. Sure I have ideas about the character that do not fit within the current story arc, but I now find it easier to compartmentalize. With further development of this skill I may one day be able to get out one of those past stories that have coagulated in my mind.
I have also done a couple project stories, these have been shorter and written in a relatively quick time frame. They do not have the same degree of attachment to me, but they have helped me make ideas into words.
I also do not force myself to write. Instead I do it while I play computer games. When the screen is on the game I think of the next sentence or paragraph and then when it is ready I alt-tab back to put it down. There can be nights where I don't alt-tab much, but sometimes it flows.
Such are a few things that have helped me.
Writer's Block
Which is worse, writer's block or writer's diarrhea?
Some of us sit down at a keyboard, and then out pops watery fiction that gurgles in its fetid stench.
Everyone seems to have their own way of writing.
I just write. If the story doesn't flow, I don't care. All I'm looking for is a huge chunk of granite to eventually chip away at until something appears. Some first drafts have been joined by as many as fifty or so rewrites. Others have made it to where they are today with only five or ten rewrites.
Write an outline. Choose a main theme. Decide who is going to be your primary reader. Keep that person's face in your mind as you write every word. If that face is smiling, continue. If not, figure out what will make that face smile, and then continue. Post your main theme where you can see it every moment you write. When you complete the first chapter go back and rewrite it -- making sure you have introduced your story question. Make sure you have reactions to every stimulus in your story and set up stimulus - response chains throughout your story in every scene. Each scene should establish a story question and should either answer that question or raise the stakes. Now write your next four chapters and repeat the above. Write in four chapter chunks until you have completed the story. Now go through and look for more specific nouns and verbs to make your story more interesting. Now that you have a story written it is time to become an author by adding distinct characterization. Get yourself a list of character questions and ask yourself if by adding those facets to your character you can better tell your story. Next work on eacn scene to try to help the reader get into your story. Appeal to all the senses. Now go through your entire story, reading it out loud to yourself. Pay special attention to how the dialogue sounds when you HEAR it. The next step is vital. Have several people read it and value their opinions. Don't allow them to change your story, but do allow them to help you tell it. In some cases that will mean changing the plot here and there and adding and subtracting characters.
Now comes the biggest and hardest step. Put your story away for at least a month. When you read it after a month you will see it from a much different perspective. The holes will be much easier to spot. You will know what it is about your character that you forgot to tell the reader. You will see the scene better and will know more about how to describe it.
Or don't do any of the above and create your own way of moving from story-teller to author.
Good luck. . .and welcome.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
It's personal
Everyone does it sort of the same, but everyone does it differently. For me, I often 'write' while I'm at work, you know doing that mundane day to day stuff that pays your way. It would seldom be possible to actually write things down. I did consider one of those little note taker thingies, but then I'm considered weird already, if I started muttering into my hand or whatever I'd be locked up in no time. So... memory, hasn't totally failed me... yet. Then well sometimes it flows easily other times...arrghh.
I just think my way through it bit by bit, grow each piece as I see it happening. It will usually be close to the original thoughts, but not always.
It a bit like Nike... just do it.
Kristina
ps.. then once you've done it. Re-read and check and then again, and... Then maybe get a second opinion if you have any doubts.
Good luck.
Dear Julian,
I can't really add to the sage advice proffered by the "serious" writers here, and regarding the authoring bowel movements that Angela seems preoccupied by,I know nothing. :) I will offer you a perspective. You used the word "compete" which is in my opinion a really limiting view to start with. You may end up bemoaning who has commented, how many hits your story received and join that endless debate about what matters more and why are the readers so ungrateful? :)
You are a unique person and hopefuylly your stories will be reflective of that. A good story is hard to come by, trust me, I have my share of dogs barking on here. Some still make me want to scratch...but that is the risk. Writing here to me is scary fun...it is a rush. What will they think, who will this piss off, will anyone read it? OMG, every time I press that "Post" button, well, its cheaper than Heroin and a bit safer.
Of course all of that commenting and hit stuff is of interest and rewarding, but it can't be the core of your motivation. Cling to your own notions of what is a good story and tell it as well as you can. If you are lucky you will get some nasty PM's, that is high praise indeed. A lot more goes on here than the public forum, right kids? :)
Take a deep breath and wade in, with your note pad,coffee and whatever else seems to work.
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
Pre-Occupied?? - Me Thinks Thee Protest, Glavyril
Come now, Glavyril -- even Shakespeare wrote of a mass bough movement in Macbeth. Of course, the Bard also left us wondering about the transgendered witches.
Hmmm. Perhaps I should be less inclined to use "come now" on a board that has its share of one-handed fiction.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Vanity of Vanities
I find myself agreeing with Gwen. Which is odd because although she is a quite delightful girl I rarely agree with anyone.
Julian says "I just want to write something worth reading". Well I think that is causing your writer's block. I think it is a mistake to regard yourself as a writer with a public to satisfy. If you have a story to tell then tell it. Nobody is going to pay you for posting here and very few are going to thank you. (See Judi Emmerich's blog 'Incomprehensible Ingratitude')
And as for comments and readership levels both are false gods. The number of people who elect to look at your story is by no means the number of people who enjoy it or even read it. They just log on to it attracted perhaps by the synopsis or the amount of time it stays in a prominent place on the first page. Or perhaps by the number of comments that have been made. But this latter has no relevance to the quality of the story. Those who comment can have private arguments amongst themselves or shoot off on quite bizarre tangents.
What you have to judge is their quality not their quantity.
I think I have been here before but it is worth repeating (In my mind at least :).) I write what I want to write and how I want to write it. Sod the reader. Of course I am delighted if through my writing I find someone to whom I can relate, who is on the same wave length of myself. That makes it all worth while. And I think that I have made friends here and I cherish them. But basically you have to be true to yourself and write it as you see it.
I have just finished reading 'Gould's Book of Fish' by Richard Flanagan. That, or its TG equivalent, would I suspect go down like the proverbial lead balloon in the comments section here but that would not detract from its quirky brilliance.
All this is an overblown version of Gwen's view point. At least as I understand it. The only useful comment I would add is that the imbibing of copious amounts of alcohol does break log jam of creativity. Although alas such indulgence does have a somewhat deleterious consequence on the occurrence of typos. Never mind those can be corrected at a later date. Possibly by proof readers if you are one whose conscience allows such luxuries.
So just write the story as you see it. If you get stuck try drinking some whisky/gin/whatever and let your drunken fancy roam.
Actually I also agree with Angela, just to show how even handed I can be, when she says "I just write. If the story doesn't flow, I don't care." Go it girl!
The rest of her comments are a bit intimidating though. I am just not up for it. Although she does of course also say "Everyone seems to have their own way of writing." of which I totally approve.
One last thing Julian, when you say "Neither do I want to write serials, I much prefer complete stories", can I ask why? Is it because you prefer reading such or is that from a writer's point of view?
I think you may well be right mind you, from both points of view. But what you prefer may not always happen. Such depends upon the person you are and the story you want to tell.
Hugs,
Fleurie
Thanks for being you!
Dear Fleurie,
It took me the longest time for me to realize that God did give me many gifts. As Gods do he cheated me of my one true desire but he populated my world with other gifts at so many levels I have yet to count them all. He left it to me to appreciate them and understand and I am still working on that one. If you do not believe in a God it seems to bog down the process.:)
Still, in my own humanistic way I learn to appreciate my gifts and count you among them.
Thank you,
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
Thank you to all of you who
Thank you to all of you who have taken the trouble to reply to my post and you've certainly given me something to think about. I have one or two things floating in the soup bowl of the mind, it's just a matter of sorting out the wheat from the chaff and getting it down on the screen. The petticoat is definitely stirring and the dress looks so welcoming, the only problem is fleshing it out into a story.
I wonder if old Bill Shakespeare ever had this trouble? Who knows?
Once again thanks,
Julian