Writing meme.
Dec. 4th, 2007 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whathoThis 'Personal rules of writing' meme is going around parts of LJ at present, though not so much my flist, but I thought it looked rather fun. These are totally personal guidelines what I tend to find useful to me in my writing (fic and otherwise). Personally. The 'you' addressed is me. Not you.
1. Sit down. You shan't fill very many pages while you're strolling absentmindedly 'round the house.
2. Know the ending before you really get started. Ideally, it ought to be the first thing you write, seeing as how it colours everything that comes before it and all. Also it's good to get it done before you start to flag. Hide the flagging somewhere in the middle.
3. Character and plot are two sides of the same coin or the same side of two different coins or however the bally thing goes. Plot is what your characters do. Characters are what you need to carry out your plot. You can't think of one without the other.
4. Open with a bit of doing, not any sort of telling. Continue in a similar vein. Usually the third paragraph is the one you need to turn into the first.
5. No formal introductions. You hear people or you watch them in action, but no-one actually talks you through it.
6. The omniscient narrator knows nothing more than you do.
7. If you don't know the answer, it's probably best to work on something else till it comes to you three weeks later at half past one in the morning. I've not found anything that can really speed it up.
8. When we're talking about scripts, 90% of the work happens before and around the actual process of getting words onto the page, and you can't take shortcuts. With prose, there seems to be a lot more leeway. But you still need to know the ending.
9. Positive ironic endings for the win. They get what they want, but not in the way they want it, possibly when it's way too late and quite probably at too much expense to make it worth the bother.
10. Be fairly oblique. Come at everything kind of sideways. Leave a lot of room to think.
11. Close LJ.
1. Sit down. You shan't fill very many pages while you're strolling absentmindedly 'round the house.
2. Know the ending before you really get started. Ideally, it ought to be the first thing you write, seeing as how it colours everything that comes before it and all. Also it's good to get it done before you start to flag. Hide the flagging somewhere in the middle.
3. Character and plot are two sides of the same coin or the same side of two different coins or however the bally thing goes. Plot is what your characters do. Characters are what you need to carry out your plot. You can't think of one without the other.
4. Open with a bit of doing, not any sort of telling. Continue in a similar vein. Usually the third paragraph is the one you need to turn into the first.
5. No formal introductions. You hear people or you watch them in action, but no-one actually talks you through it.
6. The omniscient narrator knows nothing more than you do.
7. If you don't know the answer, it's probably best to work on something else till it comes to you three weeks later at half past one in the morning. I've not found anything that can really speed it up.
8. When we're talking about scripts, 90% of the work happens before and around the actual process of getting words onto the page, and you can't take shortcuts. With prose, there seems to be a lot more leeway. But you still need to know the ending.
9. Positive ironic endings for the win. They get what they want, but not in the way they want it, possibly when it's way too late and quite probably at too much expense to make it worth the bother.
10. Be fairly oblique. Come at everything kind of sideways. Leave a lot of room to think.
11. Close LJ.
