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The Writing Thread: Orlando Passaggio (aka The Writing Thread 3)

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RokofAges75:

--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 12:37:04 PM ---I feel like I knew that you wrote the whole thing over the course of about a year, but it's always wild to me when I see it confirmed. Did you ever have times where you didn't write it for long stretches of time or were you always writing fairly consistently?

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LOL Yeah, that just shows how fast I used to write compared to now.  I was very consistent; I think the longest break I took was about a week when I moved to college.  I wasn't sure how much  fanfic writing I would get done in a dorm room, but thankfully, my roommate had a double major, a job, and a boyfriend, so she was gone a lot, which gave me time to write uninterrupted.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 12:37:04 PM ---I think the more time you spend with a character, the more nuanced they become, especially when you're directly in their head. Nick's character arc was great! And only became stronger as time went. Claire is definitely a strong original character and she only got better as time went on when she had more of her own motivations and goals. :) I know we've discussed it before, but it feels like that "care and investment" in the characters and their story might be a major turning point in the "teenybopper versus nuanced writer" divide. Or at least for you and I. While I enjoyed writing stories prior to the 2003 OF/Gobosei/PBox era, they lacked a lot of that care and investment that led me to really try crafting a better piece of work to really depict a complete story and write about things in realistic and believable ways.

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Thanks!  I agree with what you said about "care and investment" of characters.  I have always been more of a plot-driven writer than character-driven, but at a certain point, I started thinking more deeply about not just what was going to happen to the characters, but how that would change them.  I definitely spent more time living in Nick's head and developing Claire's character than I had in previous stories.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 12:37:04 PM ---That's true to your research as well, which I also love your care and attention for the accuracy of the smallest details! It's easy enough to say that Nick's leg was amputated, but in a story full of investment in the character, it almost feels like you gotta do it accurate justice for them, especially when it's something you know nothing about going in. I know I realized that research led to more interesting writing, as I'm sure you did too, so I think we're all better for our days of research. You're much better at keeping yours organized though! I've been slowly trying to recreate mine to keep in a safe place, rather than in the same spot in my head as the lyrics to QPG, haha.

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Thanks again!  Yeah, I couldn't exactly write it like the children's book version LOL.  "Nick, we need to amputate your leg now."  "Oh noes!"  Nick was sad at first, but then he put on his peg leg and limped out of the hospital and lived happily ever after.  The End!

I think the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about it at first actually helped because it forced me to research thoroughly.  Whereas with the cancer stuff earlier in the story, I still relied a lot on the background knowledge I already had, which came mostly from reading outdated and simplistic Lurlene McDaniel YA books from the 80s, and it shows.  Nick's bone cancer is written more accurately than Claire's leukemia and bone marrow transplant because Lurlene didn't have a book about bone cancer, so I did have to look up some stuff for that LOL.  But with the choppage stuff, I looked up everything.  I learned a lot, and that probably did make that part of the story more interesting.  It was interesting to write, at least.

Folders are your best friend when it comes to organizing bookmarks!  I don't know how I would find anything without folders.  I organize everything by story and then by subtopic within the story.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 12:37:04 PM ---I bolded this part specifically because I think this is immensely important advice (sentiment?) for anyone aspiring to write something down. If a work touches you so much that you want to create the feeling of it, then do! (Easier said than done, I know.) But I think that if there's a spark of anything like that in anyone from reading something else, then they have that power to try. We're having a discussion here about breakout novels, but all of us have said we wrote many things before that. Many cringey things. But, we all eventually settled on something where there was care, love, and motivation that switched something on in our brains and forced this progression in writing ability. I'm not going to lie and say that writing is never frustrating (I especially don't think I can), but when there's so many strong feelings about wanting to do it, just doing it helps get you there. Everyone started from somewhere. :)

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Absolutely!  Everyone does have to start somewhere, and no one's first attempt at writing is their best.  (I would hope not - how sad would it be to peak with your first story?  You'd have nowhere else to go but down.)  Practice makes progress!

This also shows how important it is to read and learn from other writers, whether it's fellow fanfic writers or published authors.  Reading inspires us and helps us grow as writers.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 12:37:04 PM ---You know, all those discussions about analyzing literature have always made me wonder how much authors purposefully put things in to be symbolic and how much of it was just them thinking things like "awww, it's so hard for the big one because he loves little things, but doesn't know his own strength" or "I just really like the color green." lmao

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LOL I know, I always wondered that too.  I hated analyzing literature for class for that reason.  I felt like my teachers always tried to get us to interpret the symbols a certain way and didn't leave a lot of room for our own interpretation .  From my teacher perspective now working with younger students who are mostly still pretty literal in their thinking, I get the need to push them to think deeper and model more abstract thinking for them, but it was frustrating to me as a high school student to be forced to read books and then told how to interpret them.  Maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald really did just like the color green! LOL



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 12:37:04 PM ---I was the opposite of mature as a freshman, lmao. Anxious might be a better term. Apparently, I like to write PBox when I'm feeling anxious, haha.

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LOL Oh same here, for sure!  I am an introvert and a homebody, so for me to go away to college by myself and live in a dorm with a roommate I didn't know before the start of the semester was a huge step for me.  I'm sure having Broken to write helped me work through my own anxiety about this change, and I probably channeled a lot of that into Nick's angst.  It worked out perfectly - for me more so than poor Nick, who would have preferred to keep his leg.

Editing to add:  Did you ever read the novel "Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell?  If not, I highly recommend it for any fanfic author.  It's about a girl who writes fanfic for a fictional fandom that's basically Harry Potter and how her life changes when she goes away to college.  It didn't come out until I was out of college, but reading it brought back so many memories of my freshman year and writing Broken.

nicksgal:

--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 01:51:59 PM ---LOL Yeah, that just shows how fast I used to write compared to now.  I was very consistent; I think the longest break I took was about a week when I moved to college.  I wasn't sure how much  fanfic writing I would get done in a dorm room, but thankfully, my roommate had a double major, a job, and a boyfriend, so she was gone a lot, which gave me time to write uninterrupted.
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I blame real life for our current pace, haha. Moving always makes me useless. I think in half those "where is everybody" threads, I mentioned that I was busy moving, lol. I'm glad it worked out for you. What would you have done if your roommate had been around all the time? Even better, what if your roommate was around all the time, but then it turned out that they were also writing BSB fanfics? That would have been crazy!



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 12:11:13 PM ---Thanks!  I agree with what you said about "care and investment" of characters.  I have always been more of a plot-driven writer than character-driven, but at a certain point, I started thinking more deeply about not just what was going to happen to the characters, but how that would change them.  I definitely spent more time living in Nick's head and developing Claire's character than I had in previous stories.
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Your hard work and time speaks for itself. :)



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 12:11:13 PM ---Thanks again!  Yeah, I couldn't exactly write it like the children's book version LOL.  "Nick, we need to amputate your leg now."  "Oh noes!"  Nick was sad at first, but then he put on his peg leg and limped out of the hospital and lived happily ever after.  The End!

I think the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about it at first actually helped because it forced me to research thoroughly.  Whereas with the cancer stuff earlier in the story, I still relied a lot on the background knowledge I already had, which came mostly from reading outdated and simplistic Lurlene McDaniel YA books from the 80s, and it shows.  Nick's bone cancer is written more accurately than Claire's leukemia and bone marrow transplant because Lurlene didn't have a book about bone cancer, so I did have to look up some stuff for that LOL.  But with the choppage stuff, I looked up everything.  I learned a lot, and that probably did make that part of the story more interesting.  It was interesting to write, at least.

Folders are your best friend when it comes to organizing bookmarks!  I don't know how I would find anything without folders.  I organize everything by story and then by subtopic within the story.
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What a short story Broken would have been if you did, lol! Oh noes! Not Nick's peg leg! At least he lived happily ever after with it! I was worried the choppage wouldn't go well! lol

I'm glad we all stumbled on "I know absolutely nothing about this" ideas, because I agree, it forces you to grow and do better. lol, I love that your initial justification for research was "Well, Lurlene doesn't have a book about bone cancer, so I guess I'd better figure it out somewhere else!" Whatever makes it happen, right? That's kind of why I think the "write what you know" advice is a little simplistic. It should honestly be "write feelings/emotions/reactions with what you know; write anything else with what you know or what you can thoroughly research." I think when something is interesting to write, it shines through in the narrative. We've all said it, we can tell when writers are doing things for genuine care and when they're doing things for external reasons.

I just didn't keep those bookmarks back then, let alone with that level of organization! That's the problem, haha.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 12:11:13 PM ---Absolutely!  Everyone does have to start somewhere, and no one's first attempt at writing is their best.  (I would hope not - how sad would it be to peak with your first story?  You'd have nowhere else to go but down.)  Practice makes progress!

This also shows how important it is to read and learn from other writers, whether it's fellow fanfic writers or published authors.  Reading inspires us and helps us grow as writers.
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I'd be curious to hear from someone who thought their first story was their best. It would be an interesting perspective! Because I agree with you, practice makes progress.

That's always the biggest advice I see from published authors is to read as much as you write. There's only so many things to do in a bubble.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 12:11:13 PM ---LOL I know, I always wondered that too.  I hated analyzing literature for class for that reason.  I felt like my teachers always tried to get us to interpret the symbols a certain way and didn't leave a lot of room for our own interpretation .  From my teacher perspective now working with younger students who are mostly still pretty literal in their thinking, I get the need to push them to think deeper and model more abstract thinking for them, but it was frustrating to me as a high school student to be forced to read books and then told how to interpret them.  Maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald really did just like the color green! LOL
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I always hated that too! Unless an author comes out and says "there's a lot of x symbolism" is in the story, why try to force interpretation s on it? Reading is an inherently person activity, so each reader should be able to take out the interpretation s and impressions they like! When they're younger, we're still trying to teach them those higher order thinking skills, so it's important to model and scaffold, but most high schoolers should be able to make interpretation s and connections based on their own experience if they had the skills taught and encouraged at a young age. There was a poetry course I took in high school where we did both analyzing and creating, and that teacher was awesome. She let everyone who wanted to discuss whatever symbolism or connections they had before she even inserted her opinion. If she disagreed, her question was always "I wonder why we thought about that differently" instead of saying "this is it, the only interpretation ." College was more like her teaching as well, thank goodness.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 12:11:13 PM ---LOL Oh same here, for sure!  I am an introvert and a homebody, so for me to go away to college by myself and live in a dorm with a roommate I didn't know before the start of the semester was a huge step for me.  I'm sure having Broken to write helped me work through my own anxiety about this change, and I probably channeled a lot of that into Nick's angst.  It worked out perfectly - for me more so than poor Nick, who would have preferred to keep his leg.

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LMAO, sorry anxiety and learning to channel it productively led to you losing your leg, Nick. I also feel a little bad for Nick that he gets to embody anxiety constantly. It must be really stressful for him.

RokofAges75:

--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 02:20:14 PM ---I blame real life for our current pace, haha. Moving always makes me useless. I think in half those "where is everybody" threads, I mentioned that I was busy moving, lol. I'm glad it worked out for you. What would you have done if your roommate had been around all the time? Even better, what if your roommate was around all the time, but then it turned out that they were also writing BSB fanfics? That would have been crazy!

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So true!  Damn real life adult responsibiliti es getting in the way!

I dunno, I may have had to get more creative or go to the library or somewhere else to write.  She actually had liked BSB back in the day (as most teenage girls our age did at one point or another) and ended up going to two of their shows with me in 2005.  So it was fun to be able to talk BSB with her as a casual fan, but in the three years we lived together, I never let her find out about the fanfic.  It would have been crazy if she was also writing fanfic though.  I've sometimes wondered if I know anyone outside the fandom who has also written fanfic of some sort and never mentioned it.  I might be more willing to talk about it with real life friends if I knew they also wrote fanfic, even if it was for a different fandom.  At least there would be a certain level of understanding there.  Do any of you know anyone in real life (that you didn't meet through BSB) who writes it?



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 02:20:14 PM ---I'm glad we all stumbled on "I know absolutely nothing about this" ideas, because I agree, it forces you to grow and do better. lol, I love that your initial justification for research was "Well, Lurlene doesn't have a book about bone cancer, so I guess I'd better figure it out somewhere else!" Whatever makes it happen, right? That's kind of why I think the "write what you know" advice is a little simplistic. It should honestly be "write feelings/emotions/reactions with what you know; write anything else with what you know or what you can thoroughly research." I think when something is interesting to write, it shines through in the narrative. We've all said it, we can tell when writers are doing things for genuine care and when they're doing things for external reasons.

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LOL I relied on Lurlene's books as my main source of medical information for way too long.  In fairness, I didn't have internet in my bedroom for the first year or two I wrote fanfic, so I had to be fairly stealthy in looking stuff up on my mom's computer in the den where anyone in my family could walk by and see the screen.  I didn't want them to know what I was doing or writing, so I would save the info I needed on a floppy disc and then delete my internet history and take it back to my own computer to write offline.  But I had a whole shelf full of Lurlene books with info on cancer treatments and organ transplants and whatnot in my room, so I used the resources I had on hand.  I think Code Blue was the first story where I really had to do more in-depth research, but not to the level I did for Broken.

I totally agree about "write what you know."  That is so limiting.  Like you said, I think it should be "write what you know or are willing to research."  Especially nowadays, when information is so easily accessible.  It can still be a challenge to write about an experience you've never had, but that's a big part of the fun of writing - you can put yourself in a character's shoes and imagine a life that's vastly different from your own.  That's why I'm so into what I'm researching and writing right now - it's new and interesting.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 02:20:14 PM ---I just didn't keep those bookmarks back then, let alone with that level of organization! That's the problem, haha.

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I bookmark just about everything so I can easily refer back to it if I need to fact-check, instead of going, "I know I read something about this, but I can't remember where..."  I have well over a hundred bookmarks already for My Brother's Keeper alone LOL.  That's why I keep them so organized, or it would take forever to sort through them all.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 02:20:14 PM ---I'd be curious to hear from someone who thought their first story was their best. It would be an interesting perspective! Because I agree with you, practice makes progress.

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I would too.  But so many of us started writing fanfic as adolescents.  I'm sure there are people who wrote their first piece of fic as an adult with more education and life experience than us, so it was probably a lot better written than our first stories were.  I still assume they would keep growing and getting better with practice because I've certainly gotten better since my first "adult" story, but it may go back to that question of if your "best" work is your best-written work or just the one you like best.  I can see how your first story would hold such a special place in your heart that you might consider it your best, even if it wasn't the best-written.  That is not my experience, but I will also say that my first story is not my worst either.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 02:20:14 PM ---I always hated that too! Unless an author comes out and says "there's a lot of x symbolism" is in the story, why try to force interpretation s on it? Reading is an inherently person activity, so each reader should be able to take out the interpretation s and impressions they like! When they're younger, we're still trying to teach them those higher order thinking skills, so it's important to model and scaffold, but most high schoolers should be able to make interpretation s and connections based on their own experience if they had the skills taught and encouraged at a young age. There was a poetry course I took in high school where we did both analyzing and creating, and that teacher was awesome. She let everyone who wanted to discuss whatever symbolism or connections they had before she even inserted her opinion. If she disagreed, her question was always "I wonder why we thought about that differently" instead of saying "this is it, the only interpretation ." College was more like her teaching as well, thank goodness.

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Kudos to your poetry teacher!  I think that's how it should be.  I feel like the most useful skill I learned in my high school English classes was how to bullshit my way through essays, which also came in handy in college.  I would just take whatever interpretation the teacher presented in class and write about that, whether I agreed with it or not, and I would get an A.  I was also the student that would write the essay first and then write the outline based on that if I was required to turn one in with the final draft.  I didn't see outlining as an important part of the writing process until I started doing it for fanfic LOL.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 02:20:14 PM ---LMAO, sorry anxiety and learning to channel it productively led to you losing your leg, Nick. I also feel a little bad for Nick that he gets to embody anxiety constantly. It must be really stressful for him.

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LOL Poor Nick.  We've put him through so much.

nicksgal:

--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 04:29:14 PM ---I dunno, I may have had to get more creative or go to the library or somewhere else to write.  She actually had liked BSB back in the day (as most teenage girls our age did at one point or another) and ended up going to two of their shows with me in 2005.  So it was fun to be able to talk BSB with her as a casual fan, but in the three years we lived together, I never let her find out about the fanfic.  It would have been crazy if she was also writing fanfic though.  I've sometimes wondered if I know anyone outside the fandom who has also written fanfic of some sort and never mentioned it.  I might be more willing to talk about it with real life friends if I knew they also wrote fanfic, even if it was for a different fandom.  At least there would be a certain level of understanding there.  Do any of you know anyone in real life (that you didn't meet through BSB) who writes it?
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But the library is so public! lmao I guess a library, more than most places, people don't really creep on what other people are doing as much. And in a college library, there's more extended hours. You could have done it! Aw, it's fun that she was a BSB fan even if she wasn't a fanfic writer.

I don't know anyone who writes fanfic for any fandom except for you all. I don't know that any of us really tell people away from places like this that we do, so it would be hard to find them unless any of boisterously talked about it! I wonder what percentage of the BSB fandom is into fanfic at all and then what percentage of those people not only read them, but write them too.

We should be more vocal about it and find those people, haha. Maybe that's part of the stigma is people just don't talk about it.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 04:29:14 PM ---LOL I relied on Lurlene's books as my main source of medical information for way too long.  In fairness, I didn't have internet in my bedroom for the first year or two I wrote fanfic, so I had to be fairly stealthy in looking stuff up on my mom's computer in the den where anyone in my family could walk by and see the screen.  I didn't want them to know what I was doing or writing, so I would save the info I needed on a floppy disc and then delete my internet history and take it back to my own computer to write offline.  But I had a whole shelf full of Lurlene books with info on cancer treatments and organ transplants and whatnot in my room, so I used the resources I had on hand.  I think Code Blue was the first story where I really had to do more in-depth research, but not to the level I did for Broken.

I totally agree about "write what you know."  That is so limiting.  Like you said, I think it should be "write what you know or are willing to research."  Especially nowadays, when information is so easily accessible.  It can still be a challenge to write about an experience you've never had, but that's a big part of the fun of writing - you can put yourself in a character's shoes and imagine a life that's vastly different from your own.  That's why I'm so into what I'm researching and writing right now - it's new and interesting.
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So stealthy! Saving things on your floppy disks and deleting your internet history! I used to go to my mom's work with her on the weekends and didn't even think of that. They probably had such a weird search history, haha. I think as long as my mom saw the Boys at the top of whatever website, she didn't question a thing. Or maybe she did? Maybe my mother knows so many things about me that I have no idea. If they're the resources you had, at least you were using your resources. Any research is better than no research if it's a story that needs some level of research. Like if an oncology doctor wanted to write a story like Broken, I would trust them to have the appropriate medical knowledge without research; but for the majority of people, it would need at least something whether that Lurlene's books, internet, whatever.

The wealth of readily accessible things on the internet including academic sources for research is insane! At that point, anything should be researchable. I love researching, especially when it's something I'm interested in; I've learned so many interesting things. I'm glad you're having fun with My Brother's Keeper! :)



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 04:29:14 PM ---I bookmark just about everything so I can easily refer back to it if I need to fact-check, instead of going, "I know I read something about this, but I can't remember where..."  I have well over a hundred bookmarks already for My Brother's Keeper alone LOL.  That's why I keep them so organized, or it would take forever to sort through them all.
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I'm starting to now, but I may need to go back and find things if I need to fact check. I gotta be better about saving, haha.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 04:29:14 PM ---I would too.  But so many of us started writing fanfic as adolescents.  I'm sure there are people who wrote their first piece of fic as an adult with more education and life experience than us, so it was probably a lot better written than our first stories were.  I still assume they would keep growing and getting better with practice because I've certainly gotten better since my first "adult" story, but it may go back to that question of if your "best" work is your best-written work or just the one you like best.  I can see how your first story would hold such a special place in your heart that you might consider it your best, even if it wasn't the best-written.  That is not my experience, but I will also say that my first story is not my worst either.
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Now we need more people who started writing later to weigh in! Is your early work as cringey for you? I couldn't even tell you what my first story was now. It holds no special places in my heart. I've named the three that do and the rest are kind of "eh, I wrote it?"



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 04:29:14 PM ---Kudos to your poetry teacher!  I think that's how it should be.  I feel like the most useful skill I learned in my high school English classes was how to bullshit my way through essays, which also came in handy in college.  I would just take whatever interpretation the teacher presented in class and write about that, whether I agreed with it or not, and I would get an A.  I was also the student that would write the essay first and then write the outline based on that if I was required to turn one in with the final draft.  I didn't see outlining as an important part of the writing process until I started doing it for fanfic LOL.
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"Fake it 'til you make it" is regular life advice I spout to anyone who will listen to it, lmao. I also tailored essays to the teacher, but in a way, isn't that just knowing your potential audience? I also wrote the outline afterward if I needed one. It was not great. I do the same thing for fanfics. I am more than happy to write an outline to keep track of things once it's written, but while writing, I would rather work from vague scribbles and notes.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 04:29:14 PM ---LOL Poor Nick.  We've put him through so much.

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He's gotten stronger for it. I'd say "obviously he survived," but he doesn't always... lmao


--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on March 14, 2021, 01:51:59 PM ---Editing to add:  Did you ever read the novel "Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell?  If not, I highly recommend it for any fanfic author.  It's about a girl who writes fanfic for a fictional fandom that's basically Harry Potter and how her life changes when she goes away to college.  It didn't come out until I was out of college, but reading it brought back so many memories of my freshman year and writing Broken.

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I didn't read that! I'd heard of another one about fanfic for a GOT type series and the main fanfic writer in the story was writing with some dude who ended up actually being one of the actors. The one you're discussing sounds better, haha.

RokofAges75:

--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 05:51:57 PM ---But the library is so public! lmao I guess a library, more than most places, people don't really creep on what other people are doing as much. And in a college library, there's more extended hours. You could have done it! Aw, it's fun that she was a BSB fan even if she wasn't a fanfic writer.

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My college library was awesome because it had like eight floors, so if I needed to go there, I could always find some empty area to work where no one would bother me.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 05:51:57 PM ---We should be more vocal about it and find those people, haha. Maybe that's part of the stigma is people just don't talk about it.

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That's probably true, but I'm never going to be the first to bring it up LOL.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 05:51:57 PM ---So stealthy! Saving things on your floppy disks and deleting your internet history! I used to go to my mom's work with her on the weekends and didn't even think of that. They probably had such a weird search history, haha. I think as long as my mom saw the Boys at the top of whatever website, she didn't question a thing. Or maybe she did? Maybe my mother knows so many things about me that I have no idea.

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LOL I used to read fanfic at my mom's work!  My mom's a computer teacher at the middle school I went to, which is basically right across the street from where my parents still live.  The summer I discovered fanfic (1999), she got mad at me for tying up the phone line all the time by getting on the dial-up and wasting printer paper and ink printing out fanfics to read offline, so she let me come over to the school computer lab where the internet was faster and read while she worked.  I found out what visuals were while I was on one of the school computers - whoops LOL.  I wasn't writing fanfic yet then though.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 05:51:57 PM ---"Fake it 'til you make it" is regular life advice I spout to anyone who will listen to it, lmao. I also tailored essays to the teacher, but in a way, isn't that just knowing your potential audience? I also wrote the outline afterward if I needed one. It was not great. I do the same thing for fanfics. I am more than happy to write an outline to keep track of things once it's written, but while writing, I would rather work from vague scribbles and notes.

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Haha, great points!  As far as actually outlining chapter by chapter, I'm like you - I don't usually do that all in advance, but more as I go if I do it at all.  My outlines are typically more timelines of events and when they happen, character info, and research notes.  If the timeline doesn't matter as much or if the story takes place in a short window of time, it's more just a synopsis of all the major events in the order they happen that I add to as I figure out more.  That's what Bethlehem's outline was, whereas My Brother's Keeper has the timeline-style outline because it takes place in a specific period of BSB history.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 05:51:57 PM ---He's gotten stronger for it. I'd say "obviously he survived," but he doesn't always... lmao

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No, no he does not.  But at least he's always resurrected for a new story.  He's like the Jason Vorhees of BSB fanfic LOL.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on March 14, 2021, 05:51:57 PM ---I didn't read that! I'd heard of another one about fanfic for a GOT type series and the main fanfic writer in the story was writing with some dude who ended up actually being one of the actors. The one you're discussing sounds better, haha.

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I haven't heard of the GOT one, but that sounds interesting too.  Fangirl was a really fun and relatable read!

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