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 Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:33 pm
Here's the dealio: I want to write a story of EPIC* length.
The only problem I have with writing stories is I lose the plot, I lose all character flaws and I lose concentration very easily. I've tried many, many times to get back on track but after my mindset changes and I can't keep on with the same tone, the same formality, etc. It's impossible for me to keep going, so I put it down and save it elsewhere.
With some of my longer-ish stories, I've plotted and planned before I've started and that's helped with the character flaws, the plot and my sense of direction - the only real problem I have is getting the same tone and formality. Would anyone have any ideas on how to get this down pat?
*I stress the word 'epic' because I like the word, not because I want it to be epically epic.
Oh, and one more thing: is it okay to just improvise the whole way through an epic-length story? You know, go in with nothing planned and just see where the first chapter takes you?
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Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 1:07 pm
I don't know, I have the same issues with writing. That's why I do poetry. xp
I'm also a procrastinator, I've a bunch of ideas but haven't really done much with them yet.
The best thing I can come up with is practice. sweatdrop I don't know how old you are but I'm still a teenager and I don't expect to write a major bestseller anytime soon.
About improvising... I don't know. I'm not claiming to be an expert but I say try it! In my experience (as an artist of course, in painting not writing) improvising, while in the middle of a painting/drawing or something is totally fine, even encouraged. Apparently it's part of the creative process to see where creativity and your art takes you. I know painting a picture is nothing like writing a novel, but in my opinion they are both forms of art. So maybe you should try it out and see how it goes, you may never know it could end up really good. Or it could be a major disaster...
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Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 9:01 pm
Improvisation is encouraged and discouraged, depending on who you talk to. I've seen disasterous results from improv (mostly from myself), but my two favorite fanfiction.net stories of all time, Tales of Yet Another Self Insert and Tales of Cosplayers (both Tales of Symphonia category) are improved, as far as I know.
What's been recommended to me is, if you will be posting up new chapters at regular intervals, to write four chapters, post one, write another, post one, write another, and so on and so forth. If you suddenly wake up one day and decide you don't like where the story is going, you will not have alrady posted said terrible chapter and can just rewrite it. ^^
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:30 pm
Heart, I really do sympathize. Epics are uniformly challenging because of their length, and I find it very hard to get everything all down, despite the fact that it's all finished up in my head (Sometimes because of it; if I've finished a story to it's ending in my mind, I lose the drive to write after too long, because I already know what'll happen. It's incredibly frustrating.).
I agree with Melo on the writing several chapters ahead of your post, that helped me a lot with writing. I'm more of a planner myself, so I wouldn't recommend improvising as you go; but sometimes inspiration hits, and steers you off course, which I think is just fine! Sometimes it's good to follow new, different impulses with a story. They might work better than your original plan did, and it can drive you to keep going when you feel in a rut.
As far as maintaining tone, one thing I could suggest is thinking of your chapters in moods, or colors. I like to write perspective pieces, with each character having a chapter of their own that follows their experience specifically, and I think of a color that sort of fits the mood, and that helps me keep the tone, because it's entirely in the character's voice, even when I'm writing in the third person. When you're using their voice to guide your hand, I find that it's easier to keep the tone uniform, and the story is told the way I want it to.
Formality is a little trickier, and I'm not quite sure what your trouble is with it specifically, but if you're talking about keeping up third person omniscient narration without falling into a more laid back speech, then one thing I can recommend is creating a separate "Narrator" character in your mind, with specific qualities and mannerisms. I'm an acting major, so characters are kind of my thing, but I find that if there's a voice to my writing that's not my own, but the voice of the character telling the story, it flows easier, and I can keep the writing restricted to ONLY what they would say about it, and how they would say it.
I hope this helps some, and I hope to see something of yours in the threads soon! Good luck with your epics!
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:04 pm
Well, thank you guys a lot. (:
Kassandra, thanks for some of the ideas with the tone. I understand what you mean by the colour-thing now - in most of my stories, it tends to be very hard to keep the perspective of the main character consistant due to either a fairly complicated personality or myself using improv and not writing what I perceive the characters to be like. In any case, fitting a colour to each personality should help a lot.
And with formality, I was mainly referring to speech formality. Some of my characters can be very formal and some can be very casual; depending on my mood, I sometimes either fall back into a semi-formal mannerism or fall forward into a semi-casual one. I think I've figured out how to get around it, but I'll let you know when I can explain it better on paper.
I'll hopefully get going on those epics soon enough. (:
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:42 am
Glad to be of service!
And I'm glad you've found your way around with formality, but if I could just be a pest and suggest one more thing...
One thing I do when I feel like I've lost touch with a character's voice, or way of speech is spend a couple of days writing letters, or journal entries from the character's perspective. I know it sounds a little corny, but it actually does help, and sometimes you'd be surprised what comes out of it. There will be things you discover about the character you're writing about that never occurred to you before.
This is really an exercise in improvisation, so anything can come out of it; but I find it works best when you follow a set of rules, or guidelines about the character that you already absolutely know as concrete. Specific events in their lives that have had a strong impact on their personality, things that they like/dislike, people who have affected them, etc. The more you understand about why they are the way they are, the easier it is to hear (or write) their voice realistically in dialogue.
Hope this helps!
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