Story grafting, procrastination, and unnecessarily dark metaphors

[openthighs_sarah]

When I've been able to actually complete a story, I've done it by writing straight through from beginning to end -- no working my way backward or forward from a particular point of interest, no skipping over the sex scenes until later, etc. I have to become obsessive and sexually fanatical, and single-minded of purpose. This is how it always worked for me in the past, and I was happy.

Lately I've changed my style, in part because I haven't had the time to write a story all the way through without becoming a little disconnected along the way. So I've been trying to piece stories together bit by bit, grafting the arm of one festering erotic corpse into the shoulder socket of another -- or, much worse, into the ass of another. Or at least it seems that way, at times. I write passages from the middle or from the end or from the beginning, just so I'm writing and not procrastinating any further... but it doesn't work for me. I'm left with something dead and heartless and grotesque.

I've come to the conclusion that I have to write straight through in order for the story to work, and in order for me to finish it at all. Even when I know pretty much what's going to happen throughout the story, I have to work my way from start to finish, without taking any detours along the way.

That's all. I don't even have an actual question for anyone. I just had this sudden mental picture of an arm being grafted into an asshole, and I felt the need to express it.

 

[Chicklet]

I've come to the conclusion that I have to write straight through in order for the story to work, and in order for me to finish it at all. Even when I know pretty much what's going to happen throughout the story, I have to work my way from start to finish, without taking any detours along the way.

That's how I have to do it, too, if the story is ever going to get finished. one thing you can do, though, is go back and add and draw out scenes, writing larger descriptions, adding side notes that you didn't think of before.

 

[openthighs_sarah]

That's a good point, Chicklet, and in fact that is how I work. The key for me, then, is just to keep building momentum and make it through to the end, and worry about perfecting it later. If I write a single awkward sentence, though, it can throw me off and make it impossible for me to continue until and unless I figure out how to fix it. (The solution is to just never write an awkward sentence.)

And having a graveyard of story limbs in my mind and computer isn't totally without benefit. Sooner or later I'll find the perfect place for these orphaned smutlets.

 

[TheEarl]

It's alive. It's alive!

Earl Frankenstein

 

[Guest]

too gross for me to handle

I just do a first draft and go from there. No bios, no DNA, no medical records - just rewrite and rewrite and always miss a few typos.

 

[oggbashan]

Frankenstein

Sounds like it could be a candidate for a chapter of The Worst Chain Story Ever.

Disinter all the rubbish, bung it together and you have done AND you have got all the rubbish out of your system.

What it does to the readers is another matter.

Og

 

[Guest]

rhymes with ____

Disinter all the rubbish, bung it together and you have done AND you have got all the rubbish out of your system.

What it does to the readers is another matter.

Og

Ogg: we *know* what it does to the readers; let's stay away from bung and anything that rhymes with it.
Pear

 

[pop_54]

Hmmmmmmm

Straight through start to finish, if I stop and think about it for more than a few hours, it's over with, never be finished, into the bin with it and start something new.

I do occasionally edit and alter once finished, but very little, hey I'm perfect I don't need to edit anything, typro's never make tham.

pops..........

 

[Rainbow Skin]

I'm a big believer in writing from scratch, ignoring earlier versions.

If you've invested enough thought in an idea, you know it, and know most of what you thought of doing with it, and what of it works best. You don't need to look back at earlier drafts to capture the essence of it.

So you can write the most important ideas from the top of your head in a continuous draft. They're enriched by all the picking and mixing you'd done before, but this time you can do the seamless one-stop writing with all the logical coherence that brings.

After you've got the thing down in basic form you can go back to older versions and admire particular little glints of phrase you want to add back in.

 

[gauchecritic]

My feeling is that you can come back to a crossword and you can come back to a jigsaw because everything you need to finish is already there but you can't come back to an unfinished story, or a story in bits that has to be strung together.

To my mind it's like trying to finish someone else's story, which in an holistic kind of semi-mystical way of thinking is true. You're not the same person who started it, things have happened to you and made you a different person in between.

Gauche

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Re: rhymes with ____

Ogg: we *know* what it does to the readers; let's stay away from bung and anything that rhymes with it.
Pear

hung
lung
rung
sung
tongue

 

[Guest]

You're not the same person who started it, things have happened to you and made you a different person in between.

Gauche

I will testify to this, but only in private. Gauche, you are not only a fine writer but quite a wise bloke*.
- Purrrrrr

*I borrow your (royal use) word, love the feel of it.

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: rhymes with ____

hung
lung
rung
sung
tongue

Let's not leave out mung (beans).

 

[Gabriel_Lee]

dung
sprung
among
clung
stung
flung
hoffnung
gotterdammerung

I often write bits and pieces, with the idea that somehow they will fit together in some way, or get developed into something worthwhile. They usually don't, but sometimes they do ... and end up getting rewritten anyway.

 

[oggbashan]

dung

That's the word!

Bring back the ecologically sound garderobe in 3D and smello-vision. It keeps the muck away from the people who matter and spreads it over the people who don't.

Who needs composting toilets?

Og

 

[MaxSebastian]

Well, I for one can - and do - write stories in bits, rarely in one go.

Since most of the stories I've written on Literotica are 10,000 words and longer - and necessarily so, I feel, I've felt the need to cut down on that to tell the story I want to tell - there's no way I'd have the time to write them all in one go.

The thing for me, though, is that I write in scenes. Perhaps if I was just writing a simple story about two people that meet and do the fandango and then cut it off there (the story, that is, not the fandango), I would feel the need to write it all in one go.

Quite often I'll sketch out a rough plan of the story I have in my head, perhaps even going so far as organising that plan into particular scenes I need to write. But then although I usually start writing at least the first couple of scenes, I won't necessarily write those scenes in order. Though that ending is written last because that's the way I work best.

I might write one of the love scenes if I'm in the right mood, I might write some of the build-up if I'm in a different mood. Often, I'll just write a little bit of a scene, not the whole thing. Somehow, it all seems to gel at the end, though apart from the obligatory running of the eye over the first draft, I don't particularly do anything special as far as I know.

So anyway, my constructive tip of the day: think in scenes. Then you might stop from creating a monster.

 

[pop_54]

Ha!!!!!!!!

That's the word!

Bring back the ecologically sound garderobe in 3D and smello-vision. It keeps the muck away from the people who matter and spreads it over the people who don't.

Who needs composting toilets?

Og

Ha!!!!!!!!!! that's true, specially in UK, the ruling classes have always crapped on the masses. Usually from a great height.

 

[Guest]

hoffnung
gotterdammerung

Gabe: you said the magic word, I love the Ring cycle.

What is hoffnung?

- Brunnhilde

 

[gauchecritic]

I love the Ring cycle.

Ooer!

Gauche

 

[Guest]

BritSpeak is getting denser

Ooer!

? ? ?

 

[Quasimodem]

What “Die Gotterdammerung” means to me

Great music! Marvellous singing! Colourful costumes! Spectacular staging! Fantastic special (stage) effects!

Half my paycheck blown in one evening! Five and three-quarter hours in the ‘Luxury’ seating at the Toronto Okeefe Centre!

A nearly terminal case on numb bum! And a bladder the size of one of the smaller timpani!


Still, I wouldn’t trade the evening for all the Depends in Palm Beach.

 

[Guest]

Ho yo to ho!!!

What “Die Gotterdammerung” means to me
Great music! Marvellous singing! Colourful costumes! Spectacular staging! Fantastic special (stage) effects!
Half my paycheck blown in one evening! Five and three-quarter hours in the ‘Luxury’ seating at the Toronto Okeefe Centre!
A nearly terminal case on numb bum! And a bladder the size of one of the smaller timpani!
Still, I wouldn’t trade the evening for all the Depends in Palm Beach.

Same here. I spent $165/seat for my last cycle a couple years ago; worth every work-hour to pay. Went to Seattle for one. Wish I could do a Ring/year. Ultimate fest: Bayreuth.

Re. physiological needs: you've got to prep for late Wagner (Ring, Tristan, Parsifal). I time WC needs, bring snacks (opera houses charge way too much for candy bars but I gladly pay for Tangueray and tonics during intermissions), sleep well the night before, dress comfortably (though I 'dress' for grand opera).

Like your posts, Quasi; said that on another post somewhere.

a would-be Valk, Perdita

p.s. no 'die', only for Die Walkure.

 

[jfinn]

Well, I for one can - and do - write stories in bits, rarely in one go.

The thing for me, though, is that I write in scenes...

Quite often I'll sketch out a rough plan of the story I have in my head, perhaps even going so far as organising that plan into particular scenes I need to write. But then although I usually start writing at least the first couple of scenes, I won't necessarily write those scenes in order. Though that ending is written last because that's the way I work best.

I might write one of the love scenes if I'm in the right mood, I might write some of the build-up if I'm in a different mood. Often, I'll just write a little bit of a scene, not the whole thing. Somehow, it all seems to gel at the end, though apart from the obligatory running of the eye over the first draft, I don't particularly do anything special as far as I know.

So anyway, my constructive tip of the day: think in scenes. Then you might stop from creating a monster.

Thank god, I was beginning to think I was the only one who wrote in the quilt style. A scene here, a scene there, patch it all together with a few strong paragraphs and voila. Story.

But I'm simplifying things a bit. Actually what I do is first create the whole story in my head, then when that's done I write down a brief description of each scene on 3x5s, one per card. If I'm in the mood to really be organized I'll put them up on a bulletin board in order, but usually they just lay on a pile on my desk. When I decided to write (ever notice how difficult a decision that can be?) I'll pick out the scene that appeals to me most at that moment and go for it. Eventually as I accrue some work, I'll start to seamlessly (yeah right) tie them together. I work this way about 75% of the time and I really can't see much difference in the finished work when I compare it to the things I write straight through from beginning to end.

The advantage to scene writing for me is that I can work on what I'm most interested in at the time and often choose a scene because I've had some brainstorm about something that I might lose if I wait. The downside of course is that the last couple of scenes left are usually stinkers I don't even want to think about let alone write. But life is full of little tradeoffs.

Jayne

 

[openthighs_sarah]

*seizes thread by gunpoint, forces hijackers to their knees, straps a ball-gag on each of 'em, and hurls them screaming into the abyss*


Jayne, my approach is similar in the sense that I want and need to capture what interests me right now. The problem is that sometimes that particular scene will end up taking over my attention to such an extent that I'll lose track, just a bit, of the main story thread.

Maybe the real problem, though, is that I started having too many ideas at once; and instead of just taking notes on each of them and finishing them up one by one, I tried to write all of them simultaneously. But they're all different, not just in content but in tone and voice, and I worry that by jumping around so much, each story will lose its unique voice. Any good story should have integrity in both senses of the word -- it should be true to itself, and be consistent and whole.

The other bad thing is that I like obsessing about a single fantasy, and investing all my time and energy into capturing it. I've posted my thoughts on this before -- I want the story to take me over completely while I'm writing it. Otherwise these stories are only exercises -- which is nice, but I want more. I want to reach deeper every time... If I spread myself too thin, creatively, the individual stories may lose something in the process.

I'm finishing one of them tonight, though. No question. I even took off work tomorrow, so if I have to stay up all night, naked and sweaty and glassy-eyed at the computer, that's what I'll do.

 

[oggbashan]

What is hoffnung?
- Brunnhilde

Gerald Hoffnung was a gifted cartoonist, musician and comedian.

His Domestic Symphony which included vacuum cleaners and garden hoses was performed at The Royal Festival Hall in the 1950s by all the most significant musicians of the day who had a wonderful time.

He is best remembered for his speech at the Oxford Union which included The Bricklayer, French Widows and other classic sketches.

My personal favourite is his Advice to Tourists visiting England:

"Ignore all street signs that say Keep Right or Keep Left. These are merely political slogans."

"When entering and leaving a railway carriage be sure to shake hands with every passenger."

"Have you tried the echo in the Reading Room at the British Museum?"

Og