Fic Talk > General Discussion
The Writing Thread
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on January 03, 2021, 08:42:47 PM ---Kudos to you for this editing adventure you've embarked on! The only time I've gone back to a story that was already posted online and drastically revised it (more actual rewriting than just fixing typos and other tiny mistakes) was with Code Blue, and that was a terrible experience. I may have made the story a bit better, but it also killed my inspiration for it, which never really recovered. The fact that it was a collaboration probably made it harder to keep the momentum going, but I vowed I would never do that again with a fanfic. It would be different if I was trying to get a manuscript published, as I know there's a ton of significant editing required with that.
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I've actually had the most fun when I hacked and slashed or wrote new things that I glossed over originally. It's the tiny editing that's killing me slowly because what's there is essentially what I wanted to say, but I want to say it better, cleaner, and more exciting than I did initially.
I think it would be hard to edit a collaboration all by yourself even if it's already been written for a while. It loses the feel of a collaboration at that point (the different perspectives and ideas), that would likely also improve the edit.
If I remember correctly, when you're publishing, something like 80% of what you write ends up being editing. At that point, you're more edits than original. I think there's an author (though can't remember who at this point) that said they write every novel twice. First they write it, then they erase the entire thing and rewrite it from memory. And then they edit that version. Though it might be chapter by chapter, not necessarily writing the whole novel and then rewriting it because that sounds like an exercise in torture.
I've never done that. Could be interesting for a shorter story, but not something I'd want to commit to for PNecklace or something like that!
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on January 03, 2021, 08:42:47 PM ---I also agree that there's value in trying anything new, even if it doesn't pan out. Experimenting helps us grow and gives us more experience to draw on in the future. A history of BSB fanfic sounds cool, but I could see how that would get overwhelming!
Good luck with your sex scene!
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That's me. Great at ideas, terrible at execution! Anybody wants them, take them.
Thanks! I will do my best to not laugh the whole time and not make it terrible. No promises.
FrickingKaos:
See, I'm doing this right now for If I Knew Then. I've written about them on tour before. In Weird World. But this is the first time I've ever followed an actual timeline because most of the time I don't have outlines of what I want to happen in my story. With this one I'm using a real timeline of actual events and it's helping a little bit, but I just have to fill in the rest with dialogue and whatnot. I feel like the timeline has helped tremendously to make the story more realistic. I have a general idea of what I'd like to happen. It's just getting there lol.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on January 03, 2021, 03:50:06 PM ---It definitely required a lot of research, but it was a fun challenge for that story to see how much I could make my fictional storyline fit with real events. I wouldn't want to do that all the time though.
That is probably a good way to plan. Sometimes I wish my stories were more character-driven. I tend to either gently guide my characters in the direction I want them to go or hurl obstacles at them until they're forced to go that way LOL. They don't usually get to decide.
I definitely tend to focus most on Nick and Brian. I've written stories where I alternate between different characters' point of view in a set way, or like in Song for the Undead, we made sure each character got a chapter within each ten-chapter arc, but in Bethlehem, I've just been trying to decide which perspective works best for each particular scene. So it's not perfectly balanced, but each boy has had his moment in the spotlight.
Aww, This Is Us. Yeah, Secrets was a little like the pilot of that show, where you don't realize the storylines are taking place in totally different time periods or how they'll connect until the end. It was a hard story to write, but I'm happy with how it turned out.
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RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: nicksgal on January 03, 2021, 08:59:13 PM ---I think it would be hard to edit a collaboration all by yourself even if it's already been written for a while. It loses the feel of a collaboration at that point (the different perspectives and ideas), that would likely also improve the edit.
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Yeah, it was a disaster. I talked my original co-writer into revising it because I thought we could make it so much better than the original version, but she bailed on me shortly after we started. So I recruited more co-writers to help me finish, and we basically wasted all our motivation on rewriting what was already there and then ran out of steam before we got around to continuing the story from that point. This was my first time learning that huge collaborations don't last long, a lesson I would learn again with 00Carter LOL. It might work out better if I was trying to revise one of my own stories by myself, but I just don't have the motivation. If I ever did, it would be with one of my very old stories that had a good idea but poor execution. I don't think I would ever try it with something like Broken that has flaws, but was well-liked by readers. It would feel too much like George Lucas constantly going back and changing the original Star Wars trilogy. Just leave it alone! (I am not comparing Broken to Star Wars by any means. That is just the first example that came to mind of a writer taking something that people liked and messing with it much later.)
What I've found myself sort of unintentionall y doing instead is taking ideas from my very old stories and writing new stories that take that basic idea and twist it into something totally different. That has been more fun for me because I can explore some of the same topics that interested me back then, but write about them with more depth and maturity than I could have as a teenager.
--- Quote from: nicksgal on January 03, 2021, 08:59:13 PM ---If I remember correctly, when you're publishing, something like 80% of what you write ends up being editing. At that point, you're more edits than original. I think there's an author (though can't remember who at this point) that said they write every novel twice. First they write it, then they erase the entire thing and rewrite it from memory. And then they edit that version. Though it might be chapter by chapter, not necessarily writing the whole novel and then rewriting it because that sounds like an exercise in torture.
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That whole thing sounds like an exercise in torture to me! LOL This is why I will never publish a novel unless I self-publish it because I can never see myself committing to that level of editing.
Mare, how much editing did you have to do with Mel's Tree, and what was that like?
--- Quote from: nicksgal on January 03, 2021, 08:59:13 PM ---Thanks! I will do my best to not laugh the whole time and not make it terrible. No promises.
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I have written several sex scenes, and I think I laughed through every one. Especially the slashy ones! So much giggling. And they're probably all terrible! But I tried LOL.
nicksgal:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on January 03, 2021, 08:56:33 PM ---Sure! It wasn't like "Saw" leg choppage LOL; he lost his leg to bone cancer. Nothing inappropriate about that. Actually, Lurlene McDaniel, who was my favorite YA author as a tween, published a novel during that same time period when I was thinking of rewriting Broken about a swimmer who had his leg amputated due to cancer and later committed suicide. Broken at least had a happy ending LOL.
Editing to add I also read a fantastic YA novel last year that I almost forgot about called "The Running Dream" that was about a track star who loses her leg after a car accident and learns to run again with a prosthesis. It took me right back to researching for Broken. But yeah, choppage can and has been done in YA fiction.
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I guess I always want to remember it as "Saw" leg choppage, even though I know it's not. OMG, poor Nick if he had the cancer, then the leg choppage, then the car accident, then the lung transplant, and then committed suicide. I'm laughing, but it feels so mean!
I remember hearing that one was good! I always love a good YA novel even as an adult.
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on January 03, 2021, 08:56:33 PM ---I think you could keep the characters in a band if you changed the names. A boyband might still be too obvious, but a rock band or something would be less recognizable. Personality traits and even physical descriptions would be less obvious, especially to readers who weren't BSB fans and didn't know it was originally written as a fanfic. I think it'd be much easier to de-Backstreetize a story that doesn't revolve around them being famous and touring and stuff, so a fantasy might be more doable. Is that what you're hoping to do with PBox?
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I've toyed with it as it's spent more and more time in my head/heart, but especially after Nick came running back to gnaw at my brain and as I've been editing. Without giving too much away on my future plot plans, a lot of the entire story (PBox et al. if you will) and its central themes revolve around them actually being boy bands even though most of it's set in a fantastical world. Like PBox was actually about the idea [spoiler ahead, skip it if you care about being spoiled and don't want to know! If you don't care, go ahead and look at it.] [spoiler]"why does the media treat boy bands like 'your time is up and now you're locked up like monsters and no one really remembers you' even when that boy band says 'hey, as long as there's music, there's value in all music, even after it's forgotten'."[/spoiler] I give away a lot about PBox, but I feel like that might a spoiler more than who lives and dies at this point. And I know it's not your thing, so have all the spoils! That and a lot of the beginning has some suspicious seeming similarities with a manga that one of my friends handed me after I let them read some of PBox saying "I think you'll like this." And at the time I was like "Oh no!" and then "Oh well, it's a fanfic and I can always just say the truth, that I hadn't read it at the time." But if I did try to publish it, I would definitely have to overhaul some aspects of the beginning a lot for that reason. That and minimizing all the song imagery would be a hassle!
But as I've said, toyed. And I definitely thought about asking how it went for anyone who's done it. But again, I didn't want to derail my progress at this time and I also can't imagine Nick as anyone other than Nick and a "Nickolas" is a dead giveaway (versus a Nicholas). Also my poor husband would be so confused why my published novel has his name for the main character, not even considering Nick Carter... But I think if I did, I'd go for his appearance over name, since as I said both simultaneously seems suspect.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: FrickingKaos on January 03, 2021, 09:00:31 PM ---See, I'm doing this right now for If I Knew Then. I've written about them on tour before. In Weird World. But this is the first time I've ever followed an actual timeline because most of the time I don't have outlines of what I want to happen in my story. With this one I'm using a real timeline of actual events and it's helping a little bit, but I just have to fill in the rest with dialogue and whatnot. I feel like the timeline has helped tremendously to make the story more realistic. I have a general idea of what I'd like to happen. It's just getting there lol.
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I love it! I've always enjoyed realistic fanfics that incorporate a lot of real life BSB events, and this one being such a throwback to 1998 makes it really fun to read. I know stories that aren't set in a specific time period can seem more timeless, but I love the nostalgia of reading a story set in the past.
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