Almost ten pages of outline and counting
Jul. 12th, 2014 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkI'm in that mood where I find one song (usually through a fanvid), listen to it over and over for days until I know parts of it by heart, and I can't get it out of my head until either I find a new one or it mysteriously disappears. At least this time it's not a sad one.
Many of my stories start with one image or one idea that I want to get in there. It can be something I dreamed, or a scene I'd really like to see, a character dynamic, anything. So I start to plan a story to tell to go with it, only usually when I think about how to get to this point or what happens after or how it works I have to change things around for it to make sense, and in the end what I originally wanted to write about isn't even in the story anymore. That makes it a lot harder to motivate myself to finish.
It happened like that with my marvel_bang story, but fortunately I got very good beta comments. I cut 2/3 of the plot and went back to "okay but what's these characters' stories?" and now I actually think I have a better story than the first one? I'm a bit confused, usually the process doesn't work like this, but I like it.
(I also realized that among the YA characters Kate has the most straightforward story by far. Superheroes without tragic backgrounds or major angst in their lives are a nice change! Otoh it makes it harder for me to find stories to tell about her.)
Now I have to plot a prison break. With superpowers, so I need to figure out how the wardens/defense mechanisms are powerful enough to pose a threat but not too powerful to be overwhelmed. (Fortunately I've removed two of the team's heavy hitters, but still.) Hmm.
ETA: They're in the middle of a prison break and of course Teddy and Billy are flirting. Dorks.
(This plotting thing is easier when I remember that I don't necessarily have to care about details that canon doesn't.)
Many of my stories start with one image or one idea that I want to get in there. It can be something I dreamed, or a scene I'd really like to see, a character dynamic, anything. So I start to plan a story to tell to go with it, only usually when I think about how to get to this point or what happens after or how it works I have to change things around for it to make sense, and in the end what I originally wanted to write about isn't even in the story anymore. That makes it a lot harder to motivate myself to finish.
It happened like that with my marvel_bang story, but fortunately I got very good beta comments. I cut 2/3 of the plot and went back to "okay but what's these characters' stories?" and now I actually think I have a better story than the first one? I'm a bit confused, usually the process doesn't work like this, but I like it.
(I also realized that among the YA characters Kate has the most straightforward story by far. Superheroes without tragic backgrounds or major angst in their lives are a nice change! Otoh it makes it harder for me to find stories to tell about her.)
Now I have to plot a prison break. With superpowers, so I need to figure out how the wardens/defense mechanisms are powerful enough to pose a threat but not too powerful to be overwhelmed. (Fortunately I've removed two of the team's heavy hitters, but still.) Hmm.
ETA: They're in the middle of a prison break and of course Teddy and Billy are flirting. Dorks.
(This plotting thing is easier when I remember that I don't necessarily have to care about details that canon doesn't.)
