More writing whining, what else is new. [stunt

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Good news: I managed a whole 835 words on my first

springkink fic last night!

Bad news: Not only is it not even close to done, but I haven't even gotten to the sex yet. So this looks like it's going to be another ungodly long fic. Of course it is. You know, some people write whole stories in 400 words. It must be nice.

And also I'm taking the GRE tomorrow so I really need to study which is obviously more important, but I'm about to watch to World Cup right now so I wouldn't get any studying done anyway. So that gives me a little writing time. I just feel like, with the GRE and the operation and job searches and everything coming up, if I fall behind on my fic-writing I'll never get any of my four fics done, and that'd be a shame.

Short-fic-writers on my flist, how exactly do you do it? How do you find the perfect small slice of a scene to write about? How do you condense an idea into such a small space?

Oh, and GO SPAIN. *vuvuzelas*

Mood::

annoyed

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There are 10 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

'You know, some people write whole stories in 400 words.'

That... would be me. ;-) Never written a fic over 3,100 words, and very few over 1000.

'how exactly do you do it? How do you find the perfect small slice of a scene to write about? How do you condense an idea into such a small space?'

I frankly don't know. How do you (and so many other people) expand fairly simple ideas to take up tens of thousands of words? ;P

Um - I'd be happy to write a (longish and rambly) post on my own LJ trying to answer your questions, if you really want. I have trouble formulating my ideas in this typeface... silly, I know...

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The reason my stories tend to drag on so long, I think, is that I feel like I need setup for everything - if I'm writing a ship-fic, I feel like I need to explain how characters started a relationship from the beginning; if I'm writing genfic, I feel the need to explain how the characters got to wherever they are now, thus kind of missing the point of a fragment or whatever. It's why I like doing missing scenes - I've already got context, so I don't end up soending a bunch of time going "and then they did this and then went over here and did this other thing..."

But yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that in your own LJ - I might not get to read it right away, since I have exams and crap in the way, but I'd still love to hear your thoughts. Reading people's Thoughts on Writing is always fun!

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... I have no idea of how I do it, really. On the other hand, I often have problems meeting the requirements for 1000+ words ficathons. DX

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The one time I ever signed up for a ficathon with a 1000-word minimum, I actually couldn't make it to that wordcount, ironically enough. >__> But the other times I've signed up for, say, things with a 500-word minimum I've always ended up with 5000-word plus fics with no idea how or why. It's like, you're missing a decimal place there, brain.

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I frankly don't know. How do you (and so many other people) expand fairly simple ideas to take up tens of thousands of words? ;P

What

curuchamion said.

Personally, I blame my lack of imagination. ;)

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It's all setup, is the thing. I always feel like I need setup if I'm writing anything other than an episode tag or missing scene, and that ends up taking thousands of words that I probably don't need but seem omgessential to me. *shrug* It seems like short fic writers can cut to the chase a lot faster.

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Good luck with the GRE! I did pretty well, and that was after being out of school entirely for two years. I didn't even study for the English section, on which I did well. On the other hand, I studied my butt off for the maths section, and I did pretty abysmally, lol!

Man, I wish I was better at short fics. I think I always want to flesh them out too much. My only advice is to read as many short stories and fics as you can find, and try to ape the style. For me, a "short" story still usually clocks out at 3,000 words or so.

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Thank you! Only 2 more hours until I take it, eek. :( I haven't studied nearly enough, so hopefully I won't do too badly on the math section, but I don't know, I don't remember nearly enough geometry for this.

That's exactly my problem! I feel like I need to set up the real "meat" of the story - i.e. the part of it I actually wanted to write - by explaining why the characters are there and what they're doing, which ends up effectively as thousands of words of padding but which I always feel is completely necessary or the characterization/behavior won't make sense. Like people will call me on "the characters would never do that!" unless I explain why they're doing it, you know?

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Like people will call me on "the characters would never do that!" unless I explain why they're doing it, you know?

Totally. But on the other hand, there's the axiom "Show, don't tell." I think we, as authors, can make a mistake by underestimating our readers sometimes. We see characters in our heads, we know them intimately, and we're so eager to make sure our readers see them every bit as thoroughly as we do that you end up with thousands of extra words. The key with short fics, I think, is to simplify all that, to show the readers ONE thing that's important, instead of feeling like you have to show them everything, and to find ways of personifying character traits in little descriptions and actions instead of big gobs of exposition.

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Good point - I do feel like I need to spell things out sometimes, because otherwise nobody will see what I see in these characters. It doesn't help that I've never been all that adept at those little telling details; it's easier for me to build up repeated incidents and create a pattern than it is to be small and precise.

Practice, practice, I guess.

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stunt_muppet

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July