Burbling About Process

[akirlu]

It turns out that having a weekly deadline for producing new short stories may have been just what I needed, just when I needed it.


Promoted, with edits, from a comment over at deathless_pose.

As you know, Bob, since I've barely posted about anything else since it started, I've joined this online fiction writers' group, to play around with fiction a bit. Before athenais came up with the idea, I had been pottering around the edges of a novel and thinking I was ripe to take a more serious run at writing fiction. Having a social support network of writers who are in a similar place/level seemed like a good idea. Now, the thing about deathless_pose is that it's all about the short stories. I had pretty much concluded that short stories are just not my natural length -- and indeed I tend to run on longer than most in any given week. There's a weekly deadline to produce something new, and each week there's a new prompt that everybody has to write to, rather than contributing whatever you were already working on, or whatever. I wasn't entirely sure it would be a natural fit, but the support network potential made it worth the candle and so I jumped.

It's had some surprising results. For one thing, I've now finished four short stories in five weeks.

And I've had some interesting changes in my own process. The story-a-week thing seems to have blown away my tendency to get micro-blocks within a story. I used to hit a point where I could see a place where I needed to get to, and not know how to get there, and just sort of seize up. But when it's late on Sunday night and the sand is running, I go, "Well, fuggit, gotta get there somehow," and just plunge on. And it works. Stuff happens. I am totally amazed that I keep finishing stories. Who would have guessed that just having a regular deadline and a bit of peer pressure would do that?

Also really useful, possibly key, is getting the idea prompts from a variety of people and being forced to come up with something even if the idea doesn't initially ring my bell. Because at least sometimes, it pushes me right out of my comfort zone and I walk into a place I never would have gotten to on my own. I was really frustrated with the prompt for "black silk/red velvet" because it felt backward -- it should be black velvet and red silk, obviously (don't ask me why, it's just obvious, is all). But black velvet/red silk wasn't the prompt. So, what does red velvet mean to me? Victorian whorehouse, no question. And black silk? That's a Chinese tunic-and-trouser suit. So out of the blue I've got a Chinese character in a Victorian whorehouse. In Jack the Ripper's London. And voila, a whole new world starts erecting itself in my head, populating itself with people as it goes. But it's a world I wouldn't have found without the prompt.

And apparently Google and Wikipedia were made for my dilatory, instant-gratification, quick-and-dirty research style. My depth of knowledge may be only a milimeter thick, but a quick googlewalk usually gets me all sorts of details and directions to play with. I love not having to make a special trip to the library to get enough detail to start with, and when I only have a week to get up to speed, it's not realistic to try.

So weird new discovery about writing fiction: it's fun. I enjoy it. Yeah, it's still hard, dragging through sticky bits, but there's a flow to it and it can be a hell of a ride. Who knew?

Comments

[tysolna]

I feel much the same about Deathless Pose, really!

By the way, I knew that "black silk/red velvet" is backwards when I suggested it - I did that on purpose. *evil little grin* And when I look at the story you wrote there, I'm glad I did!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I did that on purpose.

You sneaky person, you. Well, it worked a treat, that did.

And when I look at the story you wrote there, I'm glad I did!

Yes, me too. I've grown quite fond of that character. I almost wrote another passage for that book for the "the ones we don't talk about" prompt, but at the very least, I now have that scene percolating in my head.

What continues to impress me, along with the quality I'm seeing in people's work, is the way the prompts end up pushing people in such completely different directions every time. I keep expecting at least one or two stories to echo each other in terms of how the theme is used, but it hasn't happened yet. Remarkable.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking about the whole running off in different directions myself. It is pretty remarkable that we all seem to do different things with the same phrase. Of course, in my case I attempt to aid this by discarding the first obvious idea that comes to my mind. Maybe I should write that first story one of these weeks.

MKK--percolating the fractured fairy tale

[athenais.livejournal.com]

My discovery is how completely face-value I tend to be when presented with an idea prompt. I'm a bit nonplussed, but my theory is eventually I'll get a real flow going and my creativity will get much, much weirder. The story-a-week is to prime the pump. There is no comfort zone; I wasn't writing any short fiction prior to this unless you count the role playing I was doing as Emily Brontë.

My natural story length has been around 1400 words, I think. I deliberately tried to be super compact with the last one, and I'm not sure it worked that well. But as you say, it's just so much darned fun.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

My discovery is how completely face-value I tend to be when presented with an idea prompt.

But, see, that's the thing. I think of my own responses to the prompt as being, if not completely face-value, then nearly so. I tend to go through a "Well, I guess I'm being very obvious here, but this is what I can think of" sort of process virtually every time I start out. And yet you see how different what we produce is. It's like water to fish -- our own creative impulses will seem natural and familiar to us, and so, invisible. And yet I find your direction with each prompt marvelously quirky and unexpected. Greater weirdness would not, in itself, improve the creative choices you make. They're good choices. They're you choices. Nothing to be nonplussed about.

And yes, negability counts. Of course it does. So keep having fun, I say.