Ask meme: 17, 19, 24!
Mar. 12th, 2017 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyshadowdrakevia http://ift.tt/2mfDPVH:
17 - If you could give your fledgling author-self any advice, what would it be?
Gosh. “You will never be satisfied with it”? xD That sounds horrible, but I was absolutely the worst with revisions. About every year I would take down whatever major story I was working on (I was in the Harry Potter fandom then) and start over.
19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?
I tend to have separate documents. Usually, I have a brainstorming document where I keep conversations I’ve had about the story with betas/collaborators, a general outline that just has the major plot points in order, my detailed outline (that I write directly into), and then often another document with notes for things like character or world building history, and several document with parts of things I’ve removed from the main document.
To give you an idea, this is what one of my story folders looks like on the inside:
24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?
I am a bit of research fiend, so there a lot of tiny things that I’ve gone into at significant length to satisfy some plot point. I’ve probably put the most overall effort into medicine, but I don’t know if that really counts because my BFF is a nurse, so I feel like I would have learned that regardless of writing.
Probably the biggest thing that comes to mind is Berlin pre-WWII. @synteis and I watched documentaries, and did quite a bit of research (she was way ahead of me) for Wolves in the World.
To date, Wolves is probably my most heavily researched story.
17 - If you could give your fledgling author-self any advice, what would it be?
Gosh. “You will never be satisfied with it”? xD That sounds horrible, but I was absolutely the worst with revisions. About every year I would take down whatever major story I was working on (I was in the Harry Potter fandom then) and start over.
19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?
I tend to have separate documents. Usually, I have a brainstorming document where I keep conversations I’ve had about the story with betas/collaborators, a general outline that just has the major plot points in order, my detailed outline (that I write directly into), and then often another document with notes for things like character or world building history, and several document with parts of things I’ve removed from the main document.
To give you an idea, this is what one of my story folders looks like on the inside:
24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?
I am a bit of research fiend, so there a lot of tiny things that I’ve gone into at significant length to satisfy some plot point. I’ve probably put the most overall effort into medicine, but I don’t know if that really counts because my BFF is a nurse, so I feel like I would have learned that regardless of writing.
Probably the biggest thing that comes to mind is Berlin pre-WWII. @synteis and I watched documentaries, and did quite a bit of research (she was way ahead of me) for Wolves in the World.
To date, Wolves is probably my most heavily researched story.
