Check-In Post #1

[slashmarks]

The creation period is starting tonight! Each week, I'll make a new check-in post with a few optional discussion questions. You can use this post to update us on our progress, complain, celebrate, or talk to other participants! Also feel free to discuss each week's questions in our discord server.

Optional Discussion Questions:

1. How much planning do you do for your stories? Do you like to outline, or improvise? Do you fill out character sheets, draw maps, or do other story planning? Tell us about your process!

2. Do you find writing or art advice helpful? Tell us about your experiences with tutorials, guidebooks and classes, or recommend your favorite writing, art and comic resources here!

Comments

[capsquared]

I used to fly by the seat of my pants, which is why I have so many WIPs, some of which contradict each other in various points from righting out of order.

For longer fics, I'm trying to at least go into everything with a general outline these days. Leaves plenty of room for adjustments, but still has the plot in place.

For exchange fics, I get a general idea of where I want to go and then start writing.

[the_no_name_system]

I usually don't outline anything, just write what comes to mind as it comes to mind. But for longer pieces, I may write the entire thing start to finish and then scrap it all and write the second draft pretending that I knew how it was going the first time. It generally makes for a pretty decent story.

[slashmarks]

I usually outline longer works, but it tends to be more detailed in the next few scenes or chapters; the end is often a vague idea until I'm very close. That stops me from getting bored. When I'm stuck on the plot, I will usually make a list of events I think are going to happen in a word processor and then cut and paste them to put them in order and come up with logistical transitions between them, although if I'm really stuck I'll do it with sticky notes.

I find writing advice really varies, in part becasue every writer has a different process and advice works for some people and not others, and in part because not all people who write writing advice know that. Some resources I've found helpful:

Steering the Craft by Ursula LeGuin
Patricia Wrede's writing advice blog: https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/blog/
Limyaael's fantasy wrants, for fantasy-specific issues and inspiration: https://limyaael.insanejournal.com/

[sansigma]

1. How much planning do you do for your stories? Do you like to outline, or improvise? Do you fill out character sheets, draw maps, or do other story planning? Tell us about your process!

It varies a lot! 20k, which is what I am aiming for on this exchange, is not long enough for me to feel that I need an external outline (especially as I'm going for fewish scenes described in fairly high detail). I have the full storyline in my head, and whenever I get an idea for specific phrasing or some other detail I jot it down in a jumbled ideas document. (Likewise, I have an approximate map of story livsstils in my head.)

When I do outline, I usually do it by drawing stick figure representations of different scenes on business card-sized pieces of paper, a habit I stole from my best friend. It gives me a quick visual overview of the story, and I can rearrange the scenes as needed without hassle.

For actual novels or novel length stories (of which I have finished 0 this far) I go for more detailed outlines following the story structure beats laid out by the writing guide KM Weiland. Which brings me to...

2. Do you find writing or art advice helpful? Tell us about your experiences with tutorials, guidebooks and classes, or recommend your favorite writing, art and comic resources here!

Yes! The best writing teacher is viscous reading, but second best (that I have found) is the aforementioned KM Weiland. I follow her podcast, Helping Writers Become Authors, religiously, and have also read a few of her writing handbooks. Her Story Structure Database is also really helpful for learning how to sort structural beats in the stories you read/watch/listen to. You can find her at https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/

I've also taken quite a few writing classes – at gymnasiet, the Swedish equivalent of highschool, I a writing focused programme, with classes in fiction and nonfiction writing every week. And I met my best friend (the one with the stick figures) at a writing summer camp for teenagers!

I've tried taking more writing classes as an adult, but whenever I do it feels like they just repeat things I've already learned, which is why I felt so delighted when I found KM Weiland, who actually taught me new things.