Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 517 - 528 of 6,170
Posts 517 - 528 of 6,170
Ummmm....well I do NOT outline. I may write a few pages of informal stuff about the plot, characters, etc., but there's no way I know where the story is really going until I get into it. Past a certain point, you have to pull really hard on the reins or else the story has a way of running away from you.
And yes, any genre (or no genre at all) requires major research in minutiae of all kinds.....So far for this one I've looked up stuff on fondue cooking, emergency childbirth, Judaism, police procedures, Norse mythology, French swear words, glucose metabolism, eviction laws, the life of Copernicus, and 9 or 10 other things. Imagine how much more I'd have to do if it were a science fiction novel!
And yes, any genre (or no genre at all) requires major research in minutiae of all kinds.....So far for this one I've looked up stuff on fondue cooking, emergency childbirth, Judaism, police procedures, Norse mythology, French swear words, glucose metabolism, eviction laws, the life of Copernicus, and 9 or 10 other things. Imagine how much more I'd have to do if it were a science fiction novel!
One thing I enjoy doing (or would if I did it more) is writing small scenes that may or may not end up included in the story, for the sole purpose of figuring out who a character is. I did this once to find out how a lesbian in one of my stories was gonna act, and then never did get around to writing the actual story. 
(My cousin, btw, says I did a pretty good job of portraying a lesbian. I was kinda annoyed at her at that point because every damn thing she wrote had to be FOCUSED on lesbians and lesbian relationships. To my way of thinking, just because you have a lesbian in a story doesn't mean that their sexual preference is the ONLY facet of their existence you hafta mention. It doesn't hafta be the whole point of the story. She never could understand what I was getting at though.) Actually I kinda liked that character. She had some male friend who turned out to have the hots for her and I hadn't quite decided how to have her tell him she don't swing that way. I mean she's shy, but not stupid LOL.
(My cousin, btw, says I did a pretty good job of portraying a lesbian. I was kinda annoyed at her at that point because every damn thing she wrote had to be FOCUSED on lesbians and lesbian relationships. To my way of thinking, just because you have a lesbian in a story doesn't mean that their sexual preference is the ONLY facet of their existence you hafta mention. It doesn't hafta be the whole point of the story. She never could understand what I was getting at though.) Actually I kinda liked that character. She had some male friend who turned out to have the hots for her and I hadn't quite decided how to have her tell him she don't swing that way. I mean she's shy, but not stupid LOL. 
I've never done more than casual writing. I have lots of trouble thinking up plots. Usually I just think of a couple main elements and then draw a blank.
If you think research sucks, imagine what Frank Herbert had to go through. Or worse yet, J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course Tolkien didn't so much research as create the whole world himself. He even created the elvish language in full.
If you think research sucks, imagine what Frank Herbert had to go through. Or worse yet, J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course Tolkien didn't so much research as create the whole world himself. He even created the elvish language in full.
Yeah, but Tolkien was already a scholar dude. Most of his elvish language stuff is based on Old English and stuff. In fact, a lot of the names for the dwarves in the Hobbit are actually from one or another of the Eddas. That doesn't mean it was easy though. I've got some of the stuff about the creation of his works, and even knowing all the shit he did, he still went through many many phases of revision. Compare the Silmarillion with his original conception of all that historical shit and you wouldn't recognize them as the same world, much less the same author.
Onyx, the main character in my book is a lesbian, a teenage lesbian no less, and it has very little to do with the story except for who she's attracted to, and how her mother treats her as a result. If all lesbians (or all of ANY group) were exactly the same, there would be no point in writing a story.
Tolkien knew several languages, and he was a professor for something that involved them. Elvish isn't based on old english, though. It's based on welsch or something.
Most of my stories have started out as a single character or concept. I usually write a few pages with pen and paper, making it up as I go along, until an idea for an overall plot comes to me. Then I work out a broad overview of the entire thing in my mind. Then I switch to the computer and work out things like character names and personalities. Then I lose my original manuscript and find it again a few months later, type it up and heavily edit it, iron out multiple holes in the plot, and rearrange some characters. After that it's just hard work. So far I don't have any completed projects, because I keep abandoning old ones to start new ones. But I've got a sci-fi short story that's probably going to turn into a whole book that I've been working on steadily all summer. It will probably get finished within a year or two.
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