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crystallitanie
crystallitanie
[be_compromised]
13 July 2018 @ 12:46 am
ATTF: The muse, the elusive muse  

Hello Bar!

This week's ATTF is all about inspiration: finding it, keeping it and turning it into a story. 

Every person is moved by different things, and people can draw inspiration from the most unexpected situations. (I once came up with an idea for a fic during a dancing session with my local folklore group.) A song, an image, a gifset, a good prompt... anything goes.

Of course, finding a good idea and putting it into words is a whole different story. If I had a dollar for every abandoned WIP, I would be... well, not exactly rich, but you get the picture.

So, tell us about you! Where do you draw inspiration from? How do you come up with ideas for a story? And, most importantly, once you start writing, how do you keep going? Are you one of these admirable people who can write thousands of words in one sitting? Do you have any tips and tricks to share regarding the writing process?

Pull up a chair, grab a cold drink and let us know in the comments!




Things to remember:
1) Always label NSFW (Not Safe For Work) stuff in the title and post under a cut.
2) Fic and artwork needs to have a rating and warnings (or you can say that you’ve chosen not to use warnings).
3) For people with annoying internet connections, say in the title if a comment is graphic/images/gif-heavy and post picspams under a cut.
4) Have a damn good time! (Because if that’s not happening then this post has clearly failed.)

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sgteam14283: Clint and Tasha[personal profile] sgteam14283 on July 13th, 2018 06:20 pm (UTC)
Music tends to by my muse, I'll throw on Pandora or Playmoss if I'm going for a specific mood. Or I've found that doing NaNoWriMo (or even Camp NaNo which is waaaay more relaxed) helps keep me writing, if I have that goal to meet/daily accountability I find that I'm much more able to get stuff out.

Yesterday on Tumblr I saw a post that was giving some good advice on what to do if you were stuck and one point was just skip ahead to the parts that you want to write. Then when you're editing that when you can go back and make it all come together. I think that's a good thing to do if you're really stuck because you get to the parts that you want to write and makes you want to keep going.
crystallitanie[personal profile] crystallitanie on July 15th, 2018 10:05 am (UTC)
Yeah, I saw that too! And it really works.

Discipline, on the other hand... meh. I deal with deadlines every day at work, so I don't want them dangling over my head when I'm doing something for fun.
I have found though that I write better when I'm alone at home. There's definitely something to be said about peace and quiet!
sgteam14283: books[personal profile] sgteam14283 on July 17th, 2018 01:35 am (UTC)
I can generally write at home but sometimes I just need a change of scenery so I'll go to my local library or a local coffee shop so I can not have the internet distractions and just write.
crystallitanie[personal profile] crystallitanie on July 13th, 2018 06:22 pm (UTC)
The main gist of my own writing process is that there's no writing process. Hurray for chaos.

Usually I start with a scene, because the whole story spins from a specific dialogue, or a fleeting moment I wanted to capture. Recently I've tried writing down the main points in a timeline, and it worked - but only because I actually knew from the beginning how I wanted the story to go.

So WIPs it is, and whenever I have some free time I sit down and play with words.

The fact that I'm not a native speaker doesn't make things easier, but what can you do, eh?

As for inspiration? Scenes of everyday life, mostly. I spend rather a lot of time in the car, stuck in jam, so there's a lot of time to think.



Edited 2018-07-13 06:23 pm (UTC)
sgteam14283: Clint and Tasha[personal profile] sgteam14283 on July 13th, 2018 06:32 pm (UTC)
I love it when you're writing with a clear goal in mind and then the characters are like "how about we do THIS instead?" and you're like "okay I guess we're going in this direction now." ^-^
crystallitanie[personal profile] crystallitanie on July 13th, 2018 07:00 pm (UTC)
Haha, yes, exactly! Isn't it kind of magical?
sgteam14283[personal profile] sgteam14283 on July 17th, 2018 01:35 am (UTC)
sometimes it is, other times it's just "what am I going to do with you?" (in the best way)
alphaflyer[personal profile] alphaflyer on July 13th, 2018 10:10 pm (UTC)
A post box in Schenectady, NY. No, seriously, that's what SciFi author Barry Longyear always says when people ask him where he gets his ideas. (He even wrote a collection of short stories entitled "It Came From Schenectady".) And I've stolen that line a few times...

But in actuality, my inspirations - such as they are - can come from a lot of things

A line from a song - most recently, "one hand on the throttle, the other on the brake" from the White Buffalo version of House of the Rising Sun became the inspiration for the mood in "Heart and Soul". It even was the title for fifteen minutes or so, but then the story got bigger than the image and I had to change it.

A phrase that sounds like a cool title (The Principle of Terrestrial Mediocrity, Second Mouse, Locust Wind, Seventh Crow) may require a story to be built around it.

Something I came across at work can become either a whole story theme (Human trafficking, extremists sabotaging peace agreements) or a throwaway line (the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission - don't ask).

I also love standing prompts on their head (e.g. a request for baby!fic became a mission!fic involving a baby).

All fun!

crystallitanie[personal profile] crystallitanie on July 15th, 2018 10:06 am (UTC)
That's very interesting; I've never heard about it before! So you built the story around the title? And how did you come up with the plot?
alphaflyer[personal profile] alphaflyer on July 15th, 2018 05:04 pm (UTC)
Which story ...? It depends.

For "Terrestrial Mediocrity" I aimed for the idea of having a mediocre planet still come up with something extraordinary (the Avengers) - echoing back to the original Avengers where Thanos and his minions clearly mistook mid-level planet for average, as opposed to the outlier that makes up the average. Then I liked the idea of the 16-yo kid and the "normal" human be extraordinary, through the Luis POV, and the rest kinda fell into place.

For Second Mouse I needed a plot structure where our heroes do all the hard work, get themselves caught and then someone (Natasha) takes advantage of their clearing the way and walks off with the prize - the twist being that there would be a second level where 007 "gets the girl" except Clint ends up with her. The rest is ... just plot! (Plus Skye is my favourite place on Earth and I wanted to set a story there for some time.)

And so it goes - title > theme > structure > plot. Details TBD...

:)

Edited 2018-07-16 06:37 pm (UTC)