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More about how writing works for me: Ideas

  • Mar. 6th, 2004 at 10:55 PM
new england maple leaves manchesterct
Well. Not too shabby.

1304 new words on B&I and some existing pages edited, bringing me to page 473 of 607. I may actually have this thing done in two weeks.

Also, 593 words on the new short story thing, which is being an oddly linear actiony SF/F crossover narrative. I can live with that, as unlike me as it is.

Lot of argument breaking out on a mailing list I'm on about how much research is enough, for writing fiction. My two cents is that there's never enough--there's just as much as you can reasonably manage, and the knowledge that you will get things wrong. But fewer things, and less significant ones.

It seems to me that the more details a writer gets *right*--the more cohesive and authoritative his world is--the more likely the reader is to stay with him when he takes that left turn from reality, changes something for a reason, or just plain bitches something up.

Besides, if I didn't read nonfiction obsessively, look for neat things, watch documentaries, and talk to new people, I would never get half the story ideas I get. I'm with Bradbury and Waldrop on this one: the more you read and the more you look at and the more you do, the more ideas you get. Ideas are like scrip; they have to earned.
  • Mood: tired
  • Music:Wilco - Pot Kettle Black

Comments

( 18 comments — Leave a comment )
[info]faithhopetricks wrote:
Mar. 6th, 2004 11:44 pm (UTC)
You know, now this is going to drive me nuts because I can't remember who it was, but I was just reading an article by a writer talking about research who said there's no way you can hope to get everything -- absolutely all the details -- you work hard and get the essentials, and if you get those right, the reader will sort of fill in around those, like the eye compensating for a gap in its vision. Dammit, he said it much better and I'm not explaining it very well. But yes, it's always possible to do more research. (That's one of the things that halts me a lot of the time when writing sf, unfortunately.) In fact, sometimes it's more fun to just keep researching than do the, oh man, actual writing....

moi
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[info]matociquala wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 08:01 am (UTC)
You know, I agree with that completely. I think of it as the whitespace theory of writing; as in drawing, if you get the whitespace right, the viewer's imagination will fill in the rest.
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[info]faithhopetricks wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 11:54 am (UTC)
I just wish I could remember who wrote it....drat. I suppose Hemingway's iceberg theory is similar, in that if you know enough about the characters, it's OK if you don't spell it all out for the reader, because if you know that will come through in the writing -- like a kind of suggestion. I'm really fascinated by the suggestive aspects of writing, probably because I tend to be really wordy and prolix and struggle to cut things down.

moi
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[info]anaparenna wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 04:23 am (UTC)
Off topic, but I saw this and thought of you. :)

http://www.arts.scotsman.com/headlines_specific.cfm?id=8311
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[info]matociquala wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 08:04 am (UTC)
Ooo. Shiny.

Thanks!
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[info]janni wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 07:14 am (UTC)
I think I think of it not as ideas having to be earned, but as the knowledge to put the ideas into action having to be earned. I have ideas and opening sentences floating around way in disaproportion to the actual number of completed stories, in my case.

But I agree that one can never do too much (sometimes it feels like one can never even do enough) research.
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[info]matociquala wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 08:13 am (UTC)
Ah hah. Different process, yes. (I sometimes suspect that writers actually only think they understand their processes). For me, the ideas come directly out of teh research--I read something, and it triggers an oh-that's-*neat* and then I have to find a way to use it.
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[info]janni wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 12:14 pm (UTC)
(I sometimes suspect that writers actually only think they understand their processes).

Given how often I learn new things about mine, I suspect this is true!

I sat in on a session with a group of (children's) historical writers at a recent retreat/conference, and they all got their ideas the same way you do: research first, and the idea grows out of what they find. I think they pretty universally said they couldn't even start writing until the research was mostly complete, too.
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[info]matociquala wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 12:45 pm (UTC)
I start writing looong before the research is complete, usually. Interesting. Usually something I find somewhere sparks an idea, and I start looking into it, and what I find sparks a few more dozen ideas....
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[info]jandersoncoats wrote:
Mar. 8th, 2004 06:01 am (UTC)
I'm a writer of adult historical fiction, set in the medieval period. For me, ideas come both from research and from independent inspiration. I wouldn't think it would be too different for other genres. Research sparks an idea but then the characters take over and I look into topics as they come up.

Battlefield medicine, town planning, weather patterns, animal husbandry, siege engines, whatever the story evolves into.

And if I didn't start writing till my research was complete, I'd never write a word. I research as I go and fill in the gaps. That's what multiple drafts are for!
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[info]fairmer wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 10:07 am (UTC)
"It seems to me that the more details a writer gets *right*--the more cohesive and authoritative his world is--the more likely the reader is to stay with him when he takes that left turn from reality, changes something for a reason, or just plain bitches something up."

You know, I wonder if that's not the true root meaning behind the phrase "write what you know." And since it's tossed at young and beginning writers with alarming regularity, it gets refuted a lot, but taken in this context, it makes sense.
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[info]matociquala wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 10:16 am (UTC)
Give it another five or ten years and you'll probably discover it's the single best piece of advice you've ever gotten--once you figure out what it means.

The problem is that the figuring out what it means part is such a bitch. What it means is 1) know the topics about which you write, because you will write with authority 2) know the places you write about, whether real or imagined, because you will write more convincingly and more immersively if you do 3) know the characters you write about, and know how people act, because you will write them convincingly 4) know the emotions that your characters undergo, because otherwise your emotional development will seem shallow 5) know everything you possibly can, because that knowledge informs you work--

It is daunting, alas. But it's also true. It's just that all that writing advice is like Zen koans; it does not yeild to a surface reading.
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[info]janni wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 12:44 pm (UTC)
I'm only just coming to understand that "write what you know" means emotions as well as the physical stuff. And also, that I know more, emotionally, than I think; I have to dig for that part of me that understands each character I'm writing, however different we are otherwise.
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[info]lnhammer wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 12:20 pm (UTC)
I find there are times when I have to stop research for a particular story, because any more would get in the way of getting it down. Once it's down, go back to the sources to confirm and fill in.

And then there are those who use research as procrastination tool.

---L.
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[info]matociquala wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 12:40 pm (UTC)
Yes: for me, I have to stop researching when the bug to write gets too strong. too many shiny ideas....
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[info]lnhammer wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 02:43 pm (UTC)
BTW, that icon: it looks like Leighton, or some PRB follower — what painting is it from?

---L.
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[info]matociquala wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 03:08 pm (UTC)
Good eye. It's a detail from Leighton's "Pavonia." I love his work.
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[info]lnhammer wrote:
Mar. 7th, 2004 05:03 pm (UTC)
The PRB was very good at turned intelligent people into gits, but once the party line dissolved, the gang did much good work under the influence.

<off to google a bit>

---L.
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( 18 comments — Leave a comment )

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