Snowflake Challenge Day 11

[muttthecowcat]

In your own space, talk about your creative process(es) — anything from the initial inspiration to how you feel after something’s done. Do you struggle with motivation or is it a smooth process? Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to pull out when a fanwork isn’t cooperating? What is your level of planning to pantsing/winging it?

Hi everyone!  I've had a stressful week at work and another 26 hour shift so I got a bit behind.  Maybe I'll try to catch up on the other days tomorrow or Sunday.

Today I'm going to talk about my writing I think and maybe some about my admittedly bad poetry. So here goes:

I tend to be a planster when I write, meaning I plan a rough outline that gives me room to change things and make up things as I go.  But 99% of the time I know exactly how my work will end before I begin writing it.  Endings and beginnings are very important to me.  I'm most satisfied with my writing when I can complete some kind of cycle, ie the story ends where it began but something vital has changed.  Some of the first dialogue that I write for a story/fic will be the very ending lines most of the time.  The middle parts are much more difficult for me to write and are where my outline becomes absolutely necessary for me to finish the fic.  If I don't know where I'm going with a story, I fall into extreme writer's block.  My outlines prevent this about 89% of the time.

As for my characters, I also tend to write out a kind of additional plot/arc for each main and main supporting character.  Every character changes in some way and has their own motivations.  It helps me to explicitly write what these are for each character that I really want to explore.  This kind of planning also helps me when writing dialogue:  Since my characters have different motivations/views of the world, I try to never write dialogue that matches up 100%.  One character never understands the other character completely through speech, especially if they've recently met.  This helps me reveal character motivations through dialogue and can show how the characters grow closer together over the course of the fic.  Here's an example from one of my yoi fics:

After freeing the roses from Yuuri’s hand, Victor held them up.  “They’re red,” he said, his blue eyes directly on Yuuri.

“Yeah, they’re red.”

Victor glanced toward the roses again, silently observing them.  “Okay,” he said, “I’ll start brewing the tea then.”  He pulled a vase out of a cabinet for the roses, arranging them briefly on the kitchen counter.

So yeah, here the color of the roses is very important to Victor and apparently lost to Yuuri, so when he asks Yuuri about it, the question completely bypasses him.  It's definitely not the reaction Victor was expecting!  Except the thing is that Yuuri knows exactly what the red roses mean vs the other colors, he's just too anxious to think about it or be honest with himself why he really went to see Victor - ok so yeah, you're not supposed to get all of that from that short excerpt but that's what I was going for!!

As for my poetry:

I don't really pay attention to conventions.  I know a lot of modern poets who use free verse but I personally love meter.  All of my poems are written in a natural meter, though I don't adhere to any certain one, it's just whatever sounds the best.  I try to evoke a single feeling with each poem.  This leads me to use much plainer language than I feel like many people use in poetry.  I don't use extensive metaphors that are far removed from the subject I'm actually talking about. Instead, I try to use imagery that's grounded in reality.  If I'm writing about an anxious character, the poem might focus on whatever the character is literally doing (pacing the floor, rubbing their hands), I let the sensations give us insight into the feeling behind them

Baggage Claim

It's been a day.
It's only been a day.

It's been a lifetime,
Eleven years,
Six months,
Seven time zones,
A plane ride.

It's not enough.

You're quiet.
The raindrops on the window
Mingle with your breaths
And mine.

It's rare,
The flush down your neck,
The mist in your eyes.
Exhausted.

Go to sleep.

We'll unpack in the morning.

So in this poem from my yoi poetry cycle, I move from abstract to realistic imagery.  And of course, all my poems don't do this, but it's one of the things I aim for.

Comments

[coyoteclaw11]

Ahh I love when stories end where they started & the difference between where/who they are is just so stark again the same setup!! I rly need to work on plotting my endings and outlining the middle bc oof do I get stuck rly rly easily

[muttthecowcat]

Outlines really have helped me a lot and I try to add dialogue/ideas to the outline as I think of them which lets me write the actual fic in order