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Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

Ugh! I'm having trouble writing the beginning of my fanfic! I know how I want the middle of the story to go but I can't figure out on the beginning. I had to scrap an entire beginning simply because it was too out of character.
 
Ugh! I'm having trouble writing the beginning of my fanfic! I know how I want the middle of the story to go but I can't figure out on the beginning. I had to scrap an entire beginning simply because it was too out of character.

well, you basically have to do two things: establish everything necessary to understand the story from the middle on, and give the reader a hook. do note that i said "everything necessary" - a story that spends its start explaining as much as it possibly can about the characters and setting is going to be very infodump-y and slow. you should try to prioritize what you show in the light of the kind of story you're telling. for example, if it's a mystery story, you should put the focus on the mystery and create intrigue. if it's a character study, the focus should be on the character. so on.

in most stories, though, there's a plot, and for that, it's important to establish conflict pretty quickly. it doesn't have to be the main conflict, but it should at least relate to it. conflict gives direction to the story, and that direction roughly tells the reader what kind of story it will be, based on which they can decide whether they want to see the rest or not. without direction, it can seem like there won't be any direction at all or it'll come in much later, which turns off a lot of potential readers. you can make up for loss of direction with an interesting setting or characters, since finding out more about them sort of is a direction in itself, but you'd still better know what you're doing if you go for that.

i'm a very big fan of fast beginnings and in medias res, generally being a pretty impatient person. that's why i find it a good method to look at your story's timeline and see how much of the beginning could be cut with the rest still making sense, what would be lost if you were to get rid of it, and then finding a good balance between the two. cut too little and you'll have a meandering start, cut too much and things feel too sudden or don't even make sense. of course it also helps to look at the stories you like and studying their beginnings to see what makes them work or not work.

anyway i'm super sick while writing this so if this turns out to make no sense you'll know why
 
Aw man, this winter is terrible! Now the oven's broken and some roguish knave has only gone and nicked our recycling bins. New ones take like two weeks to be delivered. Nuts.
 
a story that spends its start explaining as much as it possibly can about the characters and setting is going to be very infodump-y and slow.
This is why I couldn't get into The Erth Dragons. I'm older than the target audience and I couldn't follow the first chapter, which is an infodump of the entire backstory of the Last Dragon Chronicles.
 
Well. According to goodreads.com, I've read these books this year: Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, Confessions of a Barrister, Erebus: The Story of a Ship (Michael Palin strikes again, fantastic read), Sex and Punishment: 4,000 Years of Judging Desire, War Bows, The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished Tales, The Plantagenets, Natural Histories, The Four Days Battle of 1666, Lords and Ladies, Ptolemy's Gate, The Book of Dust (Dull), Endeavour, The Templars, The Secret Barrister (Like Confessions, rather dull and somewhat smug), Falcon, Mythos, Fire and Blood, and Nelson's Navy
 
Ugh! I'm having trouble writing the beginning of my fanfic! I know how I want the middle of the story to go but I can't figure out on the beginning. I had to scrap an entire beginning simply because it was too out of character.
So write what you can of the middle.

Seriously. There's nothing that says you can't write things out of order. Get it down and in a document. Once you get around to the beginning - writing the middle might even help you get into the groove - change it appropriately depending on how you write there.
 
I'd like to start writing again but I've been stupidly busy lately.

Just not sure what to start with.
 
A combination of factors brought me back to writing this past week. In rough order of significance:

1) Finishing work for the year (I have a month plus summer break)
2) Finally pulling the trigger on SwSh after a month or so of uncertainty
3) Friends bugging me with plot bunnies
 
I was trying to edit my review of Rise of Darkrai because another section got copyright claimed, and while I was doing so, PowerDirector 14 crashed because it couldn't open the trim function. The only reason I used a 30-second-long clip in the first place is because the "video speed" option doesn't always appear. I'm deleting it from my computer as soon as I get a better program.
 
It's been almost one week since I posted my the first half of my Sword/Shield two-shot, and it's managed to accrue nearly 760 views and over 50 kudos. I've never had such an outpouring of support for anything I've written. My mother and therapist were delighted to hear of my success, and now both feel I should try to enroll in a fiction master class being held at the YMCA April 2020. The only problem is it's incredibly selective (six seats available) and requires one to submit a 15-page double-spaced sample of work to determine eligibility. I'm not sure I'm up to it... (All I know is I definitely wouldn't dare submit my current piece for review.)
 
finally finished and submitted my final school project. holidays can actually begin now

i hope to write and read, but most importantly have a good time because i tend to be pretty bad at that due to overstressing stuff. i've made a to do list to stay more organized and have a clearer idea of what's going on, and i hope that'll help in my goal
 
It's been almost one week since I posted my the first half of my Sword/Shield two-shot, and it's managed to accrue nearly 760 views and over 50 kudos. I've never had such an outpouring of support for anything I've written. My mother and therapist were delighted to hear of my success, and now both feel I should try to enroll in a fiction master class being held at the YMCA April 2020. The only problem is it's incredibly selective (six seats available) and requires one to submit a 15-page double-spaced sample of work to determine eligibility. I'm not sure I'm up to it... (All I know is I definitely wouldn't dare submit my current piece for review.)

Hmm. My personal opinion is to be somewhat suspicious of art classes that have gatekeeping standards. But that's really my opinion, and kinda here nor there given that both your mother and therapist are going to know you better. Presumably you could at least start writing something with the intent of submitting it, and lose nothing in the meantime.
 
I started writing the Harry Potter fic I've had in my mind for years now, but I've been considering changing things up a bit. I originally started sharing it online years ago, but I deleted it all because I didn't like how it was turning out and wanted to start fresh. It was originally a songfic that was going to be one massive fic, but I've abandoned that idea. I've been writing it as one smaller fic from Harry's years onward, skipping my OC's years at Hogwarts, which was in the original; I haven't started sharing anything yet because I want to get past the stage of wanting to change everything before I start sharing online.

A lot of what I'm getting torn on now is the finer details about the characters and how events play out in the story. Like, right now I've got my OC teaching Flying lessons and refereeing Quidditch matches, but just today, I was considering having her be the Muggle Studies professor instead. There's other smaller details I've been wanting to work out as well, but I don't wanna get into all of that here.

I guess the main thing I want to ask here is what do y'all do when you want to start changing things in your stories? How do you address wanting to change things with a story, whether you've already started it or you're still in the planning stages?
 
I started writing the Harry Potter fic I've had in my mind for years now, but I've been considering changing things up a bit. I originally started sharing it online years ago, but I deleted it all because I didn't like how it was turning out and wanted to start fresh. It was originally a songfic that was going to be one massive fic, but I've abandoned that idea. I've been writing it as one smaller fic from Harry's years onward, skipping my OC's years at Hogwarts, which was in the original; I haven't started sharing anything yet because I want to get past the stage of wanting to change everything before I start sharing online.

A lot of what I'm getting torn on now is the finer details about the characters and how events play out in the story. Like, right now I've got my OC teaching Flying lessons and refereeing Quidditch matches, but just today, I was considering having her be the Muggle Studies professor instead. There's other smaller details I've been wanting to work out as well, but I don't wanna get into all of that here.

I guess the main thing I want to ask here is what do y'all do when you want to start changing things in your stories? How do you address wanting to change things with a story, whether you've already started it or you're still in the planning stages?
That varies from person to person. Some people are capable of excising undesirable content and replacing it with the new without hassle. Then there are people who want to meet halfway and opt to create something of a chimera of their ideas. Then you have the folks who have to scrap everything they've written and start fresh in order to avoid confusion. I personally tend towards the second approach, but only because I'm clingy when it comes to ideas. If something's not viable to me at all, I discard the entire piece and try to apply myself to projects in the same fandom or genre. I get my ideas gradually though, so I rarely find myself in a position where I abandon anything too substantial.

Regardless, it's far easier making alterations during the planning stages than it is after you start writing. This is especially true for someone like me who has trouble remembering very precise details I have for a story. Unless I write it down the moment I get the idea... well, now you see why I'm loath to change things.

I think there are some questions worth asking before a writer should consider changing content. Am I really not happy with how this is progressing? Is there perhaps a technical or stylistic issue that needs to be addressed? Or am I just concerned with how this will be received? It's all well and good if there's serious structural or intrinsic flaws with the work, those can be fixed. But if you're only discontent because you're worried about what your readership wants, it's best to take a step back and examine the bigger picture.
 
When I'm in the planning stages any changes that need to be made, will be made. That's really what planning boils down to, I think. It's fairly rare that I want to change anything major in a draft I'm already writing. It's a wrench to let go of wordcount sometimes, but I know that if I don't the knowledge that I could have done better will bug me
 
I appreciate both of y'all's advice! I've never been too concerned about people liking a story I write; I know everyone has different tastes and all, and I'm not looking to become a famous author or anything (but it'd be cool if I did!). I just want to be happy with what I ultimately put out. This story is like my child, in a weird way, and I want to be pleased with the final product that I start sharing online. It won't be perfect, of course, but as long as I'm happy, that's what's going to matter.

I think I am gonna go through with some of the changes I've been considering. The only one I can think of now that I'd need to address is whether or not to split the story into three smaller stories or do the one longer one, but I think I'll be able to make a clearer decision in that regard once I really start fleshing it all out and considering if there's anything worth really writing about if I did three smaller ones as opposed to one longer one; I'm sure there'd be content either way, but I also don't want to do a bunch of chapters going over minor details about the characters' lives either. I don't mind filler content, but I don't want a million chapters of it either.
 
What I did when I started to notice I was doing that was I wrote a few chapters where there was only one character. This forced me to think in a different manner, allowing me to construct paragraphs of description more and more, which helped to break the habit of using dialogue as a crutch. Eventually I started to naturally avoid just long, long scenes of mostly dialogue (though they still do happen, because they still do have a purpose).

You don't necessarily have to sidetrack your story to have just a single character doing everything, but it's worth doing as a writing exercise to get yourself in the habit.
 
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