Writing more than one story.

IslandCove said:

Hi all
I'm wondering if any of you have written, or have tried to write, more than one story at a time. Do you have any feedback on how you find it? I know people will come back with 'try it and see', but I'm interested in others experiences.

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I have 4 stories posted. I have 3 other stories written that I need to edit before I can post. For the two that are multi-part stories, I have the second part started for both. Here's my experience:

Pros of working on multiple stories at once:
* I can work on editing or writing. Editing works better if I have a time constraint because it is easier to wordsmith than to write from scratch when I am in a hurry or more distracted (kids).
* I can work on one story or the other - depending on my mood. Am I more in the mood for my lighter romance? Or for my very in-depth sci-fi where there is a lot of sexual tension?

Cons:
* I sometimes have difficulty remembering physical characteristics and traits of characters when working multiple stories. So far I haven't had a problem with getting story plot mixed up. But I have to refer to my character development page more than I normally do when working only one story.
* It takes longer to finish and post stories when working on multiples.
* If I haven't worked on one in days to a week, I have to reread a large section to get back into the groove and pick up the story again.

Hope that helps.

One of my problems with having multiple stories pending is that I can duplicate plotlines too closely. From time to time I go through the heap of incomplete stories and put a few in the folder titled 'unlikely'. Most in there are very similar to stories, or parts of stories, that are already posted on Literotica, or have been superseded by more developed versions in the pending folder. A few have been put in the unlikely folder because they just didn't get further than the idea.

When starting a story I almost always know what the ending will be. If the story drifts too far from the proposed ending it will probably be junked.

But with a single exception, my first ever erotic story, none have been completely deleted. They still exist in various folders and have been backed up multiple times.

The first one? It was written back in the early 1980s long before I joined Literotica. It would never have been a Lit story because sexual activity and abuse (as now defined by Laurel) occurred much earlier than would be acceptable here. That early activity was a major part of the later plotline giving justification to the main characters' actions leading to the ending. It was written on a pre-IBM computer using C/PM and a long defunct word processing package. I tried rewriting it in WordStar 2000 but I lost the original version when trying to convert it to a .txt file on a 5.25 floppy. At the time that didn't bother me. The original version was so badly flawed. But it is an irritation that I haven't got it. That irritation now makes me back up even the most unlikely drafts now.

From time to time I try to go back to the second version to see whether I can make anything of it. It has given me plot ideas for later stories, including a long draft still being written, but the second version still couldn't be a Lit story.

That story, and all the failed stories, can provide material for new stories. That's my excuse for keeping hundreds of drafts in various folders. Even back in the days of 5.25 floppies I could keep a hundred .txt versions on a single floppy. Now all the stories I have ever started or written will still fit on a single CD. Storage isn't the problem. Too many ideas is.

oggbashan said:

One of my problems with having multiple stories pending is that I can duplicate plotlines too closely. From time to time I go through the heap of incomplete stories and put a few in the folder titled 'unlikely'. Most in there are very similar to stories, or parts of stories, that are already posted on Literotica, or have been superseded by more developed versions in the pending folder. A few have been put in the unlikely folder because they just didn't get further than the idea.

When starting a story I almost always know what the ending will be. If the story drifts too far from the proposed ending it will probably be junked.

But with a single exception, my first ever erotic story, none have been completely deleted. They still exist in various folders and have been backed up multiple times.
.
.
That story, and all the failed stories, can provide material for new stories. That's my excuse for keeping hundreds of drafts in various folders. Even back in the days of 5.25 floppies I could keep a hundred .txt versions on a single floppy. Now all the stories I have ever started or written will still fit on a single CD. Storage isn't the problem. Too many ideas is.

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That must be what I'm doing wrong.
I very seldom know what a character is going to do or the outcome of an idea.

And that why I have at least 6 stories in various states of conclusion on my hard drive.
Toodle pip!

Handley_Page said:

That must be what I'm doing wrong.
I very seldom know what a character is going to do or the outcome of an idea.

And that why I have at least 6 stories in various states of conclusion on my hard drive.
Toodle pip!

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I almost always start by writing at least an outline of the ending. That way I know where I'm heading. Then the start, the the middle.

ChloeTzang said:

I almost always start by writing at least an outline of the ending. That way I know where I'm heading. Then the start, the the middle.

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I nearly always make it up as I go along.

I'm working on a second collaborative piece right now (again taking established characters, writing turn and turn about) - that gets to be fascinating, since neither of us knows where the other one will take the story. Both of us have history on our characters, and that history interacts and supports motive, but the future gets written as we go along.

It's a lot like real life, since both of us are plugging into semi-autobiographical characters and semi-real events.

electricblue66 said:

I nearly always make it up as I go along.

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I tried that when I started writing and my stories just wandered. I've got some half done ones here where I didn't have and ending in mind and it shows. Works far better for me when I have a clear ending in mind to work towards. I can always change that as I go.

LoquiSordidaAdMe said:

I'm usually a one-story-at-a-time writer, but I recently had a story sort of stall out on me, and I had characters from a previous story clawing at my brain for a sequel.

I took a break from Story A and wrote maybe three pages of the middle of a sequel without bothering with the beginning. It was enough to get the sequel characters in my head to quiet down, and it made the Story A characters jealous enough, that I quickly figured out how to push the plot forward.

It's not quite the same as writing multiple stories at once, but diverting my attention from one story to another for a bit was helpful to me. Story A is with an editor now, and I'm working on the beginning of my sequel.

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This really nails what I find to be the problem with more than one story at a time. Its about the characters. I have to really keep my head in the character of my main protagonists and those they interact with. I can do that for many characters in the same story but not for characters across more than one story at once. In fact even reading a good book while I'm trying to write can throw me off as I get into the other authors characters.

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