Writing from the head vs. from the heart
Jul. 25th, 2005 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotIn the last couple years I've started to suffer the same syndrome that plagues many authors of multi-part fanfic. Namely, the dreaded "to be continued" that hasn't been. It's something I swore I would never do when I first started writing fic, because I so hated starting to read a good story and never being able to finish it. But now I have a couple incomplete fics that are going on two years old without yet a final chapter. And believe it or not, this is even more frustrating for me, the writer, than it is for the reader.
I could say it's laziness or lack of time, but that's patently untrue, because while I haven't been writing those particular fanfic, I undeniably have been writing. I could say it's lack of motivation, but the truth is, I want them done. Those stories weigh on me. I'll read them again and get personally annoyed that there's no ending, and I feel like I'm betraying, not just the hopeful and/or impatient readers, but the stories themselves.
In the end I write for myself--readers are tremendously important to me, because I don't believe a story can in fact be a story if it doesn't have an audience. But when it comes to the actual creation, it's just me and the keyboard and fifty thousand words to choose from. I love writing, I love the very process of selecting the words, one by one; and the building of emotions and people and worlds out of them. And I love completing stories--the endings are often the hardest part for me, but there's something infinitely satisfying in being able to type "the end". If the greatest joy is creating a story, then a story isn't truly a story until it's finished.
It's not due to lack of inspiration that I haven't gotten there with those fanfic. Endings can be hard, especially when you want them to be as good as possible, but they're not my real trouble. I don't start writing a story until I know how the plot is going to be resolved; that's even more true for my multi-parters than my oneshots. The middle gets worked out along the way, but having a beginning and ending has always been a chief requirement before I start committing something to text. For all my present unfinished fic, I know what the next scenes are, and I know where they're going.
The real trouble is--I have the fan attention span of a gerbil. My incomplete fic are incomplete because I jumped ship to another fandom. And while I think this in itself is fairly self-evident--hard to miss, when all my ff.net author alerts switch from being GetBackers stories to OP stories, and soon YGO--the reasons why this affects my writing might not be as clear. It's not because I stop caring about a story, or no longer enjoy writing it. It's not even that I stop loving the characters or the fandom--some people I know develop strong antipathy to series they used to love, but all my fandoms have a special place in my heart afterwards, and many of them I'll still follow avidly even if I'm not as obsessed.
The trouble is, while I can love many characters and series, there's a certain level of passion that I seem only able to maintain for one fandom at a time. (One exception to this was GetBackers and Saiyuki, which involved me simultaneously, but I burned out pretty fast in both.) When I've changed fandoms, it's not that I don't want to write the old stories anymore. But it's so much easier to write for what I'm obsessing over.
What it comes down to is writing from the head versus writing from the heart. While I tend to write fairly plot-heavy fic, and very much like a plot to drive the action along, what I really enjoy is writing the characters. And it's difficult to write characters when they're not vivid in my heart. I can know exactly where the plot is going, what will happen next, but if I've lost touch with the character's voice, with their motivations--if I've lost my belief in their fundamental (if fictional) reality of being, then writing them becomes an intellectual exercise. Everything a char does, everything they say, I must second-guess, double-check, consciously think back to canon to see if it's plausible. It's slow writing, and it often reads forced, unnatural. While as when I'm writing a current obsession, writing a character I'm in love with, the words just come. I don't have to think out what the char would do or say; I know (at least, I know what the version of the char in my mind would do, and since that's the only one I can know, it's the one I write.) It's not intellect but instinct.
The stories themselves flow in the same way. Writing a story I want to finish for the sake of finishing is different from writing the story that has been playing out incessantly in my head for days, every time I'm walking alone or taking a shower or doing dishes or whatever. The crucial scenes are a joy to finally commit to text; the bits in between are propelled forward by my urge to reach the really fun stuff. There's also the trouble of canon--even my head can only hold so much pointless trivia at a time. When I'm really obsessing, I'll have memorized all the little names and facts and subtle elements of backstories that make the characters and worlds come to life. But once out of a fandom, a lot of the minor points will be forgotten, so when writing I'll have to look that minutiae up, or will just forget them entirely, so the fic loses a degree of detail, a level of faithfulness to the source.
And when I'm writing in a fandom I'm really into, I have an easy way of judging how effective a scene or story is. Some of my short stories are experiments, writing something to see if I can. But my long stories are invariably the stories I want to be reading myself, that no one else has gotten around to writing. The scenes I write are the scenes I want to see. Rather than following the exact plot laid out in my head, I'll deviate when I realize I want to see something else happen to my beloved chars, and the fanfic gains a life of its own, compelling me to take new directions even as I compose it. My inner fangirl acts as my own critic, telling me in no uncertain terms when I'm going the wrong way, becoming entrenched in boring detail or writing someone OOC. Fortunately this fangirl usually is in tune with others out there, so my stories have appeal to fans besides me. While as when I'm writing a story in a fandom I'm no longer active in, no longer reading fic for, I lose that check. I still have interest in my own fic, my own stories, but it's a personal interest, out of touch with the greater fandom.
I've been trying to handle this by not getting into new fandoms, actively avoiding those that might inspire obsession in favor of things like Battlestar Galactica that I can appreciate and enjoy without wanting to write for. This hasn't been an entirely successful tack, because I keep getting blindsided by unexpected series. (No one warned me that One Piece has some of the best characters and gen relationships of anything ever. And YGO--let's not go there. Damn Kaiba brothers.) Moreover, they're unexpected series that no one is writing for--or at least no one is writing what I want to read. So that inner fangirl starts demanding and plotting (and sometimes outer fangirls, too *shoots pointed look at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gnine and naye*).
Seriously--I don't have control over my subconscious, or which chars take up residence there. I don't have muses, I just have Kaiba in my head, NOT SHUTTING UP. And in the throes of a new obsession, it's difficult for me to turn my attention to other things. Especially since fandom is a hobby, it's meant to be something fun, and I like to enjoy it. It's entertaining to have Kaiba in there, dammit! And writing from the heart is not only more fun, but the stories are better reads for it.
(Oddly, I've found that most of the above doesn't apply to my original writing, or at least not in the same way. Perhaps because the chars, the 'canon', for my own creations, is permanently part of my heart; or perhaps it's because, being my chars, I can more easily bend them to match whatever my interests are at the time. I have other problems writing my own stuff, but I've found it consistently easier to slip back into writing my own stories after long breaks than back into fanfic. Unfortunately they're also easier to slip out of...)
This doesn't mean that all hope is lost with my incomplete stories. As mentioned, I almost never lose my love for old fandoms, and I do return to many of them periodically. Immersing myself in canon, maybe some good fic if I can find it, will swing me back into fangirl mode. All my incompletes are in active fandoms with ongoing canon that I'm still following, and I've found myself mentally writing all of those stories in the last couple months (as well as actually writing scenes, though I'm chary to post anything unless I have a good chunk). The chars are still alive in my mind. They might be getting drowned out at this particular moment, but they're still around. And it does help to know people are still interested. I don't write for reviews - honestly, I can't write for reviews; it doesn't work to force myself, I have to want to write. But reviews remind me that other people love the chars, and want to see stories with them, and this can revive my own love. Awakens the inner fangirl, as it were, same as fandom discussion or rewatching or rereading a series will do.
What it finally comes down to is what I've been saying all along--keep the faith, dear readers, the end is coming! I swear, the end is coming! There will just be a couple detours along the way...
I could say it's laziness or lack of time, but that's patently untrue, because while I haven't been writing those particular fanfic, I undeniably have been writing. I could say it's lack of motivation, but the truth is, I want them done. Those stories weigh on me. I'll read them again and get personally annoyed that there's no ending, and I feel like I'm betraying, not just the hopeful and/or impatient readers, but the stories themselves.
In the end I write for myself--readers are tremendously important to me, because I don't believe a story can in fact be a story if it doesn't have an audience. But when it comes to the actual creation, it's just me and the keyboard and fifty thousand words to choose from. I love writing, I love the very process of selecting the words, one by one; and the building of emotions and people and worlds out of them. And I love completing stories--the endings are often the hardest part for me, but there's something infinitely satisfying in being able to type "the end". If the greatest joy is creating a story, then a story isn't truly a story until it's finished.
It's not due to lack of inspiration that I haven't gotten there with those fanfic. Endings can be hard, especially when you want them to be as good as possible, but they're not my real trouble. I don't start writing a story until I know how the plot is going to be resolved; that's even more true for my multi-parters than my oneshots. The middle gets worked out along the way, but having a beginning and ending has always been a chief requirement before I start committing something to text. For all my present unfinished fic, I know what the next scenes are, and I know where they're going.
The real trouble is--I have the fan attention span of a gerbil. My incomplete fic are incomplete because I jumped ship to another fandom. And while I think this in itself is fairly self-evident--hard to miss, when all my ff.net author alerts switch from being GetBackers stories to OP stories, and soon YGO--the reasons why this affects my writing might not be as clear. It's not because I stop caring about a story, or no longer enjoy writing it. It's not even that I stop loving the characters or the fandom--some people I know develop strong antipathy to series they used to love, but all my fandoms have a special place in my heart afterwards, and many of them I'll still follow avidly even if I'm not as obsessed.
The trouble is, while I can love many characters and series, there's a certain level of passion that I seem only able to maintain for one fandom at a time. (One exception to this was GetBackers and Saiyuki, which involved me simultaneously, but I burned out pretty fast in both.) When I've changed fandoms, it's not that I don't want to write the old stories anymore. But it's so much easier to write for what I'm obsessing over.
What it comes down to is writing from the head versus writing from the heart. While I tend to write fairly plot-heavy fic, and very much like a plot to drive the action along, what I really enjoy is writing the characters. And it's difficult to write characters when they're not vivid in my heart. I can know exactly where the plot is going, what will happen next, but if I've lost touch with the character's voice, with their motivations--if I've lost my belief in their fundamental (if fictional) reality of being, then writing them becomes an intellectual exercise. Everything a char does, everything they say, I must second-guess, double-check, consciously think back to canon to see if it's plausible. It's slow writing, and it often reads forced, unnatural. While as when I'm writing a current obsession, writing a character I'm in love with, the words just come. I don't have to think out what the char would do or say; I know (at least, I know what the version of the char in my mind would do, and since that's the only one I can know, it's the one I write.) It's not intellect but instinct.
The stories themselves flow in the same way. Writing a story I want to finish for the sake of finishing is different from writing the story that has been playing out incessantly in my head for days, every time I'm walking alone or taking a shower or doing dishes or whatever. The crucial scenes are a joy to finally commit to text; the bits in between are propelled forward by my urge to reach the really fun stuff. There's also the trouble of canon--even my head can only hold so much pointless trivia at a time. When I'm really obsessing, I'll have memorized all the little names and facts and subtle elements of backstories that make the characters and worlds come to life. But once out of a fandom, a lot of the minor points will be forgotten, so when writing I'll have to look that minutiae up, or will just forget them entirely, so the fic loses a degree of detail, a level of faithfulness to the source.
And when I'm writing in a fandom I'm really into, I have an easy way of judging how effective a scene or story is. Some of my short stories are experiments, writing something to see if I can. But my long stories are invariably the stories I want to be reading myself, that no one else has gotten around to writing. The scenes I write are the scenes I want to see. Rather than following the exact plot laid out in my head, I'll deviate when I realize I want to see something else happen to my beloved chars, and the fanfic gains a life of its own, compelling me to take new directions even as I compose it. My inner fangirl acts as my own critic, telling me in no uncertain terms when I'm going the wrong way, becoming entrenched in boring detail or writing someone OOC. Fortunately this fangirl usually is in tune with others out there, so my stories have appeal to fans besides me. While as when I'm writing a story in a fandom I'm no longer active in, no longer reading fic for, I lose that check. I still have interest in my own fic, my own stories, but it's a personal interest, out of touch with the greater fandom.
I've been trying to handle this by not getting into new fandoms, actively avoiding those that might inspire obsession in favor of things like Battlestar Galactica that I can appreciate and enjoy without wanting to write for. This hasn't been an entirely successful tack, because I keep getting blindsided by unexpected series. (No one warned me that One Piece has some of the best characters and gen relationships of anything ever. And YGO--let's not go there. Damn Kaiba brothers.) Moreover, they're unexpected series that no one is writing for--or at least no one is writing what I want to read. So that inner fangirl starts demanding and plotting (and sometimes outer fangirls, too *shoots pointed look at
gnine and naye*).Seriously--I don't have control over my subconscious, or which chars take up residence there. I don't have muses, I just have Kaiba in my head, NOT SHUTTING UP. And in the throes of a new obsession, it's difficult for me to turn my attention to other things. Especially since fandom is a hobby, it's meant to be something fun, and I like to enjoy it. It's entertaining to have Kaiba in there, dammit! And writing from the heart is not only more fun, but the stories are better reads for it.
(Oddly, I've found that most of the above doesn't apply to my original writing, or at least not in the same way. Perhaps because the chars, the 'canon', for my own creations, is permanently part of my heart; or perhaps it's because, being my chars, I can more easily bend them to match whatever my interests are at the time. I have other problems writing my own stuff, but I've found it consistently easier to slip back into writing my own stories after long breaks than back into fanfic. Unfortunately they're also easier to slip out of...)
This doesn't mean that all hope is lost with my incomplete stories. As mentioned, I almost never lose my love for old fandoms, and I do return to many of them periodically. Immersing myself in canon, maybe some good fic if I can find it, will swing me back into fangirl mode. All my incompletes are in active fandoms with ongoing canon that I'm still following, and I've found myself mentally writing all of those stories in the last couple months (as well as actually writing scenes, though I'm chary to post anything unless I have a good chunk). The chars are still alive in my mind. They might be getting drowned out at this particular moment, but they're still around. And it does help to know people are still interested. I don't write for reviews - honestly, I can't write for reviews; it doesn't work to force myself, I have to want to write. But reviews remind me that other people love the chars, and want to see stories with them, and this can revive my own love. Awakens the inner fangirl, as it were, same as fandom discussion or rewatching or rereading a series will do.
What it finally comes down to is what I've been saying all along--keep the faith, dear readers, the end is coming! I swear, the end is coming! There will just be a couple detours along the way...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 03:16 am (UTC)(you're lucky just having Kaiba living in the back of your head. I have Yugi whining and being a generally angsty h0r all the time... why I'm so obsessed with the idea of this "post-series Not Coping" thing I don't know)
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 04:22 pm (UTC)My trouble is I like long fic, both reading (though they've become so scarce nowadays, at least good ones; or maybe I've just gotten picky in my old age) and writing. Not just because elaborate plots can allow for elaborate char torture - eheh, well, not entirely. And if I'm writing at max speed I can churn out an epic in a couple months, within the time frame of my obsession. Hence I actually have finished about half my recent multi-parters. Wish the others had gone faster...
Heh - because the not-coping is so tragically sweet? If I had aaaangsty!Yugi in my head, I'd be bringing Yami back just to shut him up. I've got a horrible weakness for stupidly happy endings.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 04:51 pm (UTC)damn work, always gets in the way of the important thingsAlthough a while back I insanely enough started probably my first multi-part fic in years. With all these grand schemes that were promptly shoved to the backburner after seven parts due to new obsessions. I really should have known better.And I love stupidly happy endings myself (lets face it, I read Trashy Romance Novels) but I'm also an angst whore. And just find utterly melodramatic angst so horribly easy to write. (although I will admit, there is this crackheaded part of me pondering YGO/Shaman King crossover fic. Because as a spirit medium, Anna could so pull Yami back. And there would be angst, followed by glee. And then I tell myself to knock it off because crossovers are always silly and I'd never get it finished anyway)