Writing, and personal choice

[Valka D'Ur]

Now that’s a show I haven’t heard about in a good long while.

I found years' worth of episodes on YouTube. I used to watch it when it was in its original run (yes, I'm old enough to have done that, for the later seasons), and during the last 4 years or so I found some episodes and got into it again. I also discovered that Pernell Roberts (Adam) had a fantastic singing voice - second-best rendition of "They Call the Wind Maria" I've ever heard.

Actually, in addition to my major project, I decided to do a crossover fanfic of Bonanza and Star Trek: Voyager: "Voyager Brides for Cartwright Brothers." There are many, many Bonanza fanfics out there, on numerous websites. It seems a lot of authors got fed up with "Bonanza Syndrome" and decided to marry the brothers off (and even Ben in a few stories).

Lots of folks here do a lot of fiction writing, or at least far more than I’ve ever done. I guess coming up with a story and sticking to it isn’t so much in my skillset. Well, I can’t say that entirely—it’s more writing in characters and dialogue.

I suppose if I did more, my style might change? I’m not sure.

The only way to improve your writing is to write. It takes practice and commitment.

The main goal of NaNoWriMo is actually not producing a novel. The ultimate goal is to get people who want to write, or have thought of writing but aren't sure about the commitment, into the habit of writing. It took nine years of trying before I managed to pull off a win - 50,000 words in 30 days. That was back in 2016, and the actual word count was over 60,000 words. My previous best was somewhere in the neighborhood of 22,000 words.

I had to make a conscious decision that I was going to do a minimum number of words per day, and if they weren't good words, so what? That's not the main point of this, although many people do prefer to have good words from the get-go, and some winners have had their books professionally published.

From doing this during the event months, I graduated into making it a daily habit, regardless of whether it's an official event month or not. Of course I don't stress myself doing 50,000 words every month, but in the off-months (like August) I do write something every day. It might be a sentence or it might be pages' worth. It depends on where the characters take me, and if I get distracted. This means I have achieved the original goal of NaNoWriMo: writing something every day, and hopefully advancing my story in some way.

If dialogue and characters are your thing, maybe you should consider trying to write a play. There used to be an event called Script Frenzy (which I did try one year and immediately bit off a lot more than I could chew; it's not as easy as I'd thought it would be and I didn't even come close to finishing) in which people would write one- or two-act plays.

On the issue of style, some authors are able to write in a variety of styles. Others tend to stick with one style that means their writing is instantly identifiable just by reading a couple of paragraphs and not seeing the author's name on them.

My most ambitious fanfic project, style-wise, is a crossover between Sliders and The Handmaid's Tale (novel + 1990 movie). It's a prequel to the novel, and it's proving to be quite a challenge to combine the main Sliders characters, their duplicates in THT universe, and Margaret Atwood's characters... and have everyone speak in the style of their original setting. In other words, the Waterfords and Aunt Lydia will not use the speech patterns of the Sliders series, and the Sliders characters (at least the main ones) will not use Atwood's style of dialogue. The narration style has to match the characters as well, and that's going to be tricky. It's also going to be tricky to ignore the TV series, since I first began this project many years before anyone even thought of turning it into a TV series.

 

[Angst]

1. When you write something, are you satisfied on the “first draft” or do you find yourself frequently revising your writing?

I am connected to a publisher as a part time teacher among other things, and 99% of first drafts need to be rewritten, even manuscripts that get through the needle's eye need to be massively redone to be publishable. For my own stuff, first drafts are absolutely always arse, although they are often publishable in literary magazines that have a more raw edge to them.

2. Is your adherence to grammatical rules or “proper” use of the language something you value in your own style?

My writing uses free spelling and grammar.

3. Where do you get your word choices from? Are they chosen to convey the meaning of the text, or do you view the use of language artistically?

Associations of images and sound play is my prime machine for getting the stuff out on paper. I'm a poet first, though, so this influences how I write things out. I'm also a big character person, so I try to show real character motivation in the text's perspective. The sound plays and the chained images are usually only partially removed a bit later in editing. This transition ensures a text that generally sounds good while having some substance.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

1. When you write something, are you satisfied on the “first draft” or do you find yourself frequently revising your writing?

When writing professionally, like for a journal or article for something important, I edit mercilessly. In casual writing, such as here, I don't care as much, though I do review often to see if I have made any stupid spelling/grammatical errors.

2. Is your adherence to grammatical rules or “proper” use of the language something you value in your own style?

I prefer proper grammar and use of the language. In casual writing, I am less strict.

3. Where do you get your word choices from? Are they chosen to convey the meaning of the text, or do you view the use of language artistically?

I am not an artist or poet. I write to convey meaning and accuracy for the most part. I write what most of you would consider dry, clinical prose. I am branching out a little with some fiction, so let's see where the adventure takes me, style wise.

 

[Zkribbler]

...I am not an artist or poet. I write to convey meaning and accuracy for the most part. I write what most of you would consider dry, clinical prose. I am branching out a little with some fiction, so let's see where the adventure takes me, style wise.

Ah Grasshopper, you shall be following in my shoes. For twenty-five years, I was bound in the straitjacket of the formality of legal writing. Then, being released into the world of fiction writing, I felt a lot like Brooks who, after 25 years of imprisonment in Shawshank Prison, was released into the normal world.

Fiction writing has its own set of translucent rules.