Re: Rambling: the info (+ experiment on reader reaction)

On Dec 25, 12:10 pm, Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(snip)

For me there's the true, original version by the creator, and
anything else is fanfic, not genuine. Like fake money, or forged
paintings. It's not the real thing. It can't be the real thing since
it didn't spring from the original creator's mind.
That's so opposite of how I feel, even about my own writing.

:)

Fortunately, we don't have to agree on that.


True. :)

Even after I've written something, I keep finding new truths in it.

I think that's different. It's still coming from your mind, after all.
(Don't know what would happen if a book were already printed, though.)


Yes and no. Once time passes, sometimes as little as a week, maybe
even a day, I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote something.
Given enough time (a couple of months) and the thing feels as if
someone else wrote it. Which is why my revising as I go is more like
writing and revising later on is more like actual revising. I can be a
lot more objective (What the heck was I thinking here? It makes no
sense. Whack whack whack) than when it's all new and fresh. Then
again, I can change my mind the next day.

Just because it all came from my head doesn't mean I look at it the
same way. And I know that when I read something, no way do I know what
was in the author's head. That goes for people I write with. That goes
for my best friend of nearly 23 years, with whom I've been writing
fanfic and original stories for the past 18 years, and whose mind I
know almost as well as my own (we can complete each other's sentences)
and yet, I still don't get all she intends when we write together. We
write together, each doing the dialogue for our characters back and
forth in IMs at first, and now in Google Docs, and I can miss her
point and she can miss mine and it's only because we discuss it that
we know we're missing the basic truth of what we write. And we'll see
truths in each other's writing that yes, upon reflection, we realize
we did write and like and that those extra levels, at first unknown to
us, enhance what's there. I've even gone back and added a line or two
to reinforce what she's picked up in one of my scenes. Same as I've
changed things to remove a truth I didn't want there.

We don't get to do that after it gets to a reader, unfortunately, and
there will always be things that get past us to the reader which
they'll then interpret as fits their personalities and preconceptions.
I look at it as the basic nature of letting someone read my writing.

I can go back and read stories I wrote years ago and realize it has
things in it I hadn't seen before.

Hm. If I see something after writing (don't know about years later, I
don't have all that many years to look back on writing), I can see where
an impression can come from, but I know that's not actually any goal,
theme or something of what I actually wrote.


I was cleaning out files, looking at fanfic stories I wrote in 1980.
Aside from the cringe factor of my writing style back then, I found a
lot of interesting ideas and character development that I hadn't
realized I'd had in those stories. At the time, I thought I'd simply
been writing adventures.

It's different with the meaning of events within the story. When the
story is still being written, things can (usually do) turn out different
than I expected. That's part of the writing process, though.

I keep learning new things about my characters in the collaborative
stories, for ex, that eluded me at the time, but now I see I wrote
things in there that foreshadowed things I wrote later or I find
things I forgot about and need to work back in to the newer stories.

Except for the collaborative (where I don't think someone else can tell
me something about a character - at best it would mean I portrayed that
character wrongly), I've got some bits where my backbrain wove things
together, most prominent one example in the ME where in the first book
two things don't make sense as shown then, and I was wondering how to
correct them, and then in the second book it turned out they were clues.
But that's still my doing. :)


Yes, but it's all still under your control. Once it's released into
the world, should it get published, it has to exist on its own. You
won't be there whispering in a reader's ear when he or she misses a
point or sees something you hadn't intended. And IMO, no matter how
good you are, there are always unintended reactions when you bring
other people, aka readers, into the mix.

There are some things early in the S&E that I inserted after having
written stuff later, so things add up better (and the species are the
way I want them - as a simple example; at one point they get maps of an
area no one knows much about, because it's not only logical that the
person they met has them, but also in character that his people give
every help they can).

My written truths aren't static. I've even gone back and rewritten
some of the older stories that weren't printed up so they can be
revised to fit the new truths I've discovered.

:) I've change one part/thread/whatever you call it to something I like
better, after I decided I don't like it that way. I've only in the
latest reading removed the markers on those and other spots (to find
them easier), because it's done now. But that's still just making the
story the way I want it. (I couldn't let it stand that A is afraid of B
and removing that is a good thing; it should have been, and is, right
the way it was before the story started, only the reason had to be dug
out while writing. That's another thing where I had to add bits as well
as change some in the first book, to make the characters the way I want
them. While first writing it, I had the wrong idea about who's behind
the raids, which coloured the writing, until I noticed that it couldn't
be them because of the way I want the world. So I had to get rid of most
of that 'colouring' of the writing.)


In my case, the older stories were written years earlier and I was
satisfied with them. They were fanfic stories that I'm basing original
stories on and I didn't think anything about them would need changing
except the names and specifics too tied to the tv show I was using.
And I was wrong. A lot had to be changed. Partly because I had
changed, simply because I was older and my view of the world had
changed in the intervening 20 years. And partly because I'm now
distanced enough from those stories to see how more can be layered in,
how the characters weren't fully realized as they are now, and a lot
of other bits.

In the rare instances when I've reread novels, I also have revised my
view of the characters and stories, because time has passed and I've
brought new experiences of my own to the reading experience. I don't
see written truths in fiction as static, or fixed forever.

For your own writing, when does the truth get fixed/set in stone? At
the time you write it? After revision?

That question is different to how I look at it. Writing wise (word
choice and arrangement), it should be done right away, it just doesn't
work out that my writing is perfect. :)

On the other hand, my backbrain does its own things, so with some of
what goes on, I have to correct earlier stuff. That's still part of the
actual writing of the original version, no revision. I couldn't write
thinking I'm going to revise. I write so later I've got a story to read,
and when I read it again I correct some stuff (wording, or what goes
on).

If everything is perfect, then it's finished, and set in stone. (That
doesn't mean that bits, like which scene is the beginning and what
happens there, can't be set in stone already, while I can still work on
the phrasing.)

So, mainly the raw actions that are right are set in stone. And which
parts are right is a feeling.


Interesting. Once I've written a story, it's done. Revising has been
hard because I've already told the story. Yet the revisions that led
to the first draft each were different enough that it felt like I was
writing 3 different stories. I think for the current revision, I'll be
changing enough, story and character-wise, that it will feel fresh
enough for me to be able to do it.

It's not that things get fixed and can't be changed that gives me
problems. It's that once I've told a story, I get bored and I want to
move on to something new. I don't worry as much about getting the
words right. They need to be sufficient to tell the story and make the
characters feel real so people will care about them.

The S&E doesn't even have all words in it yet (~160k words missing from
the end), so it's one amorphous lump at least until it's written to the
end. I don't know if what happens in the ~160k missing words might
demand that something be added to the first or second book. That's
something I discover while writing.


So it isn't finished yet? That I understand. My WIR needed 2 years for
a first draft and I wrote without an outline or any real idea how it
would end or even who the bad guys ultimately were.

As soon as the story gets into print and is officially on its own,
it's no longer the original, because it becomes a copy for everyone
who reads it.

None of that changes the text or the ideas the writer had, so no.
That's not copies, that's the original (save printing errors, typos,
whatever).
I don't see that as a distinction because the words are still
filtered through the readers and don't belong wholly to me, anymore.

The readers then have their version, not yours. :)


Once it's published, my version doesn't matter. :) It matters only
when I reread it or write the sequel. Otherwise, it's like sending a
child out into the world. It becomes its own entity. I might not have
any fiction pro published, but I've had my stories read by folks, from
fanfic to the stuff I print up myself, for 28 years now and just going
by the letters I've gotten or what people tell me when I see them at
fan cons, they each have their own ideas about what I wrote and that's
fine by me. It's fun hearing their theories because they care enough
to have opinions about my words. My truth becomes irrelevant to their
experience reading my works. I inspired them to care and for some, I
inspired them to write their own stories.

And if I were to write a sequel right away, it would be different
than if I were to write a sequel 10 years later, because my own
interpretation of what I wrote would change over that time and lead
me in a different direction. So I figure anything a fan writer would
do with my stories/characters is as valid, even if I were to hate
it.

<shrug> We don't have to agree on this. :)


No, we don't. :)

But for me the characters are the central thing. Without them
there's no story. (What I object to most is characters doing stupid
things for plot reasons. Just plot, with no one I care about any of
the plot things happening to, and I just yawn, uninterested.)
Those characters aren't real to me. They're plot devices with names.

A nice way to put it.


:)

Characters might do stupid things, same as people do, but I have to
believe that's what's happening. Otherwise, they're just words on a
page.

Perhaps that makes it easier. For me they are real, and I get annoyed
with them for doing these things. (And then wish they'd be shoved off a
cliff to make room for decent characters.)


A character is real to me only if the writer writes them well enough,
which means fleshing them out, giving them unique voices, giving them
feelings. And I don't have to identify with them. In fact, I prefer
not to, because I read more to get away from my life and into a
fictional realm for a while. The few books I don't finish reading are
rarely poorly written (I'm careful to not start any of those), but
ones for which the characters never came alive for me.
--

-- Shelly
.

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