Fic Talk > General Discussion
Question of the day part 6
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: mare on August 25, 2012, 12:34:43 PM ---^ this leads me to a question!
When you are writing and you become conflicted about a direction you want your story to go in, do you tend to go with your gut? Do you refuse to change your mind and stick with what you had originally planned or do you let your readers influence your decisions? Any or all of the above?
--- End quote ---
Good question! When that happens, I tend to stop writing and go write something else instead (*cough*GuiltyRoads*cough*). :)
LOL Honestly, that's a tough question. I try to go with my gut, and I'm not afraid to alter my original idea slightly if it will make it more realistic to the characters and situations I've created in the story. Where I struggle is when my gut is saying, "Your whole idea is flawed." I haven't figured out the trick to completely retooling an idea once the story is started. That's when writer's block happens for me.
As far as letting readers influence my decisions, yes and no. I have let readers influence my decisions in a negative way before, but I think I've learned my lesson about that. When I wrote You'll Never Walk Alone like 10 years ago, the readers guessed who the real killer was early on... and it was supposed to be a mystery, so I stole the Scream twist and added a second killer... which didn't make much sense because her motive was weak and weird. I should have just stuck to the original killer only and let my readers feel good that they cracked the case because I suck at writing mysteries LOL. I learned my lesson and didn't change anything in Secrets of the Heart.
That said, I do value my readers' opinions; if I didn't, I wouldn't post stories while they were in progress. Sometimes their feedback does influence the rest of the story. It doesn't change the whole direction of the story, but it does help me decide what to emphasize, de-emphasize, or clarify in future chapters. Sometimes I will even let my readers vote on things in the story, as long as I'm willing to go with whatever choice they make. I did that with BMS, and I knew either path would be "fun" to write and ultimately lead to the same destination, but I let the readers choose which route to go because I couldn't decide. I just don't let them change my mind on things I've already decided, like whether characters will end up together or apart, whether they'll live or die, etc. Those major decisions are mine to make, and I make them based on what fits the characters and the story the best.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: Rose on August 25, 2012, 02:00:30 PM ---I think the closest you came to asking someone is when you put up a notice asking for help on Code Blue, and then you were asking anyone willing to help lol. I'm the one who drags you into new stories :P LOL.
--- End quote ---
Yep! And then I wasn't asking someone specific; I was asking anyone willing to help who could write a coherent, complete sentence! LOL
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: julilly on August 25, 2012, 12:38:47 PM ---I've definitely gotten away from my outline because of sudden inspiration or because it just didn't feel right when I got to that point. It usually does me in though and then I get stuck lol
--- End quote ---
This!
mare:
I usually go with my gut when I write something. If I feel like my characters are fighting me in the direction i'm going i'll listen to them. As far as my reader's, I do tend to listen to them but never really let them influence my big decisions. I have changed direction before based on reader feedback if I felt like I was becoming too predictable or people were misreading what I was trying to have come across, but as far as life and death or other huge factors, I don't usually stray too far off the path I had originally planned on taking.
mare:
What if anything do you feel most guilty about when it comes to one of your stories or something you read? Give us one big confession about something concerning fanfic?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version