1. Beginnings, Middles, or Endings: What is your favorite part to write in a story and why?
Endings! Since I write in order, I spend the whole story looking forward to the big climactic moments near the end. And as we've discussed, there are few things more satisfying than finally finishing a story.
2. Same question, but least favorite?Beginnings. While it's exciting to start something new, there's so much uncertainty that comes with a new story. It can be daunting to imagine how I want it to go and then look at the blank page and think about how much I have to write to get to that point. Once I get a few chapters in, it becomes easier if it's going well.
3. When you're writing a beginning, how much time do you like to devote to backstory or do you intersperse it throughout the story?I try to intersperse it as needed instead of doing a big information drop at the beginning.
4. What are backstory elements you know, but don't include? Are these conscious choices or more along the lines of "We're BSB fans reading BSB fanfics"?One of the nice parts about writing fanfic is that it comes with a set of already-developed "characters." I don't spend as much time detailing the Boys' real history, unless it relates to what's happening in the story. I probably include more of this kind of stuff in stories set in the past to help set the scene for what point in BSB history we're in. For example, Heroic Measures was set in 1995, so I did write more about the Boys' formation and early years together than I normally would.
5. Do you always know your main character's (or characters') motivation when you start a story or does it come up later?I guess it depends on the story. In a character-driven story, I definitely have a sense of the main character's motivation and overall arc before I start the story. In a plot-driven story, I tend to think more in terms of what situations I'm going to put the characters in and how they'll react than what their motivation is. Usually their main motivation in my stories is survival LOL. But as I write, other things come up as a subplots, like the Brian political stuff I included in Bethlehem. That was not planned from the beginning.
6. "I won't start the beginning of the story until I know: ____________."The title, the characters' names, and at least a basic sense of what happens in the beginning, middle, and end.
7. What's the easiest thing about beginnings and the most challenging?When I start off inspired, it's easy to stay inspired through the beginning. But sometimes it takes me a few chapters to really get into a new story, so that's not always the case. The most challenging thing for me is usually the first line.
8. "In the middle of the story, I often: ______________ ."Make a prediction for how many chapters long the story will be, which is almost always too low LOL. I was actually pretty close with Bethlehem - first I thought it would be about 25 chapters, then I thought 20, and it ended up at 22.
9. What's something overrated about middles? What's something underrated about middles?These middle questions are hard LOL. I guess the middle is where some authors (myself included - see BMS) get derailed with subplots, which can be overrated. But the middle is usually where most of the character development occurs, which may be underrated.
11. What's the easiest thing about middles and the most challenging?The easiest thing is that you've made it through the beginning, so you should be getting into the rising action, a.k.a. the good stuff. The most challenging thing is staying inspired through this section, especially with a long story. I am not a runner, but I'm going to use a marathon metaphor anyway. In the middle, you're past the starting line, when you're full of energy and excitement, but not yet to the last leg, when you get your second wind and are ready to race to the finish, so you just have to force yourself to keep plodding forward.
12. What's the easiest thing about endings and the most challenging?I am usually uber-inspired by the time I reach the climax of a story. I almost always go on an end-of-story writing streak, so staying inspired is easy. The most challenging is trying to wrap up all the loose ends and not leaving anything hanging. It can also be tough to come up with the perfect last line.
13. "I won't end the story until I know: ____________."I've reached the end of the character's journey and wrapped up the loose ends.
14. Do you always know the end of a story when you start it? If not, when's the last possible point you must decide the ending?I almost always know the end a story when I start it. It's not always set in stone, but at least I have a sense of it or several possibilities that could all work. I guess the last possible point to decide would be the last chapter, but I've pretty much always made up by mind by the halfway point of the story. I can't remember a time when I've drastically changed the ending at the last minute.
15. Do your stories always have an ending or do you leave them open-ended just in case?I've written short stories that were intentionally left open-ended, and I have at least one or two very old novels that I left open to a possible sequel. One of them was the one I wrote at a reader's suggestion and hated, so I ran out of steam and hastily wrapped it up before the ending I had originally planned and said I would save the rest for a sequel, which I never wrote LOL. Nowadays I try to give my novels a satisfying (but not necessarily always happy) ending and don't do sequels, except for my silly pandaskunk saga.
16. What types of endings leave you feeling most satisfied with your story? (Interpret that as you will.)Of course I love happy endings where everything works out, but I'm also a fan of bittersweet ending, which are sad but still leave the characters and readers with a sense of closure.
17. Do you ever leave noodle incidents in your story without a resolution for fun?I had to look up what a noodle incident was. (Here it is, in case anyone else wondered:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoodleIncident) I'm not sure if this counts, but I used to reference a lot of personal inside jokes in my stories that are never explained. Broken, in particular, is full of them. For example, there's a "Dr. Marvin" who only appears in a couple chapters (98-99), and when Nick meets him, I describe all this random stuff he has in his office, but never explain why:
“Good morning, Mr. Carter,” he greeted Nick pleasantly and stretched his hand out across the desk. “I’m Dr. Vin Marvin; good to meet you.”
“You too,” replied Nick, perching himself in one of the two chairs positioned in front of the doctor’s desk and shaking hands.
The Hispanic doctor looked younger than Nick had expected; he was possibly in his early thirties, no older. He had a casual air to him, and his office matched this. It was rather untidy, cluttered with several cardboard boxes containing God-knows-what. Amid university and medical school diplomas, random pictures hung on the walls, from a painting of a grassy green pasture in which several goats grazed, to an old poster from the Broadway play “The Miracle Worker.” The bookshelves in one corner were filled with thick medical volumes, framed pictures, and all sorts of peculiar odds and ends… a figurine of a chicken, a small taxi cab, a model train, things like that. His desk was cluttered with papers and more pictures and… a bat?
The doctor noticed Nick looking at the small, beady-eyed plastic bat lying upside down on one corner of the desk and laughed. “Look at this, isn’t this cool?” he exclaimed, picking up the bat. When he flipped a tiny switch on the bat’s underside, the toy sprang to life, its eyes flickering bright red, while an obnoxious, high-pitched humming noise sounded.
He was based on an online acquaintance that another online friend of mine and I secretly called "Starvin Marvin" and had all these inside jokes about. Some of these references I can remember the story behind, and others I honestly don't LOL.
