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Writing & Thread (aka The Writing Thread 4)

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RokofAges75:

--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 10, 2021, 11:41:48 PM ---It's definitely getting somewhere, just slowly lurching along. It helps that the chapters feel more like 2500 word ones than 3000 word ones. So all in all, it'll only be about 40,000 words or so. If I can pick up some steam on it, I can be done with that near the end of August, hopefully. Yeah, unless y'all don't find it nearly as funny as I do. Then you'll be like "why did Dee write this weird story that isn't funny at all?" lol I hope you do enjoy it. I've been listening to the Boys all evening while shredding papers, so I'm hoping it puts me in a more BSB writing mood than chores.

I figured you would. I always have too. I had kind of a blah writing day today too. I ended up doing some chores around my house, reading a few more chapters in "Solutions and Other Problems" after like three months, and watching a few BBT episodes. I kept popping back to writing ever few hours or so, but only got a few dozen words here and there. No caffeine?! Oh dear. I had so much caffeine yesterday and then drank all evening. That could be part of my blahs, lol. Today I had a regular amount of caffeine, but felt very lazy all day. I hope your 10pm coffee gives you the energy to do something productive! We have a clear idea of how your neighbors would feel about night lawn mowing. How would they feel about night painting? lol

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That sounds like a perfect length for a story like this!  I'm excited to read it.  And ooh, shredding paper - so satisfying!  Except I usually try to cram too much paper into the shredder at once and overheat it. :(

I think drinking/being hungover was part of my problem yesterday too.  I should have consumed caffeine, but I just lay around and did nothing but watch TV and play on my phone instead.

I finished my coffee and am at least enjoying discussing fanfic more than I felt like the last few days.  Maybe writing will follow.  Or painting.  I haven't decided yet. LOL  My bathroom is upstairs and has no windows, so the neighbors never need know about my night painting.  I don't even think they'll hear my music - because of course I can't paint without blasting music.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 10, 2021, 11:41:48 PM ---Ooh, fun! I've been meaning to watch "This is Pop." Hubs and I were watching the "Dark Side of Football" the other day and apparently the same channel is starting "Dark Side of the 90s" and I am intrigued. But I said that to the hubs and he said "It's probably Kurt Cobain and stuff like that." He seemed skeptical when I said being in a boyband wasn't all sunshine and rainbows either (for the actual boybands, I had a great time in boyband land in the 90s). Lance made that Boyband Con film, I bet he'd go on and talk about ponzi schemes.

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This is Pop is good!  I started with the two episodes I thought would contain BSB (they are mentioned in the first episode, but it really focuses more on Boys II Men than boybands in general), but I've since started watching the other episodes, and they are interesting too.

Ooh, what channel is that with "Dark Side of the 90s"?  That does sound interesting.

Yeah, I don't think people outside the fandom and media have any idea how much drama the Boys have been through in their careers.

RokofAges75:

--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 11, 2021, 12:01:25 AM ---Right? I'm thinking of all the old emails I had that I would have loved to keep if I had known the internet wasn't forever. Not review related, but I probably emailed myself the early version of PBox at one point too -- I wish I knew what the first eight chapters were originally like back in 2005. I wouldn't have any of that saved now though, since it would have been on my various laptops that died. Oh well. Saving your AC reviews sounds like your next fanfic adjacent project when you're done posting SAMS on AO3, lol.

I like to check on Wednesday when I update, just to see what everyone else is doing. Or if anyone else is doing something besides you and Tracy, but only because I know when you both update because you say so. I wonder why it's pops and not sticks. But of course! My point in saying hi was to catch back up. :)

For Lenni specifically, I wondered if she had an AO3 account. There's a lot of turtle love over there that I think would appreciate her stories too (I looked it up). Lenni, if you're lurking and you're not on AO3, you should be. You can log on and confirm or deny. :)

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Oh man, that would be a big undertaking.  We'll see LOL.  It's not like I go back and look at old reviews often, but it's just nice to know I can if I'm feeling nostalgic.

Lenni should totally post her TMNT stories on AO3 if she's not already!  That's the downside to writing for other fandoms on AC; most of us only read BSB fic, so there's not a big audience for anything else.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 11, 2021, 12:01:25 AM ---I will be honest. I did not set myself to "hidden" to lurk while logged in and someone came on and looked at my profile and I chickened out, lol. It might have been Rose if memory serves me correctly. I was also still not writing fanfic at the time, so I doubt my comeback would have been successful. But maybe being here would have made me want to write again too, so who knows!

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Aww, sorry one of us spooked you!



--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 11, 2021, 12:01:25 AM ---That's interesting that you thought about changing the name, but you're totally right, rebranding is a headache! What made you pick Dreamer's Sanctuary to start?

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I don't even really remember.  I guess I was just going for something that sounded pretty and represented what fanfic was to me, which it still does - it's always been my secret safe space.  A lot of the fanfic sites I frequented back then had similar type names - Total Fantasy, Escape from Reality, Dreamer's Reality - so I went with the same vibe.  For as much time and thought as I put into thinking up titles for my stories now, I don't remember spending a lot of time coming up with it or what other names I may have had in mind.  I don't even know what I would change it to now if I decided to change it (which I wouldn't), so I guess it's good enough for me!

RokofAges75:

--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 11, 2021, 12:16:22 AM ---This is now the second time you've talked about this terrible blue print. I want to see it so much, lol.

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LMAO!  Fine... but only because I'm downstairs with both said blueprint and my phone readily available to take a pic of it.  Prepare to be amazed by my architectural skills: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pRSqyD5zQZx_WW9ihLgoErqFL_er88Q9/view?usp=sharing



--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 11, 2021, 12:16:22 AM ---For once, I have an answer to Brian and Leighanne! (I think.) That same article said Brian proposed at "their home in Atlanta," so I'm guessing they had some other home in Atlanta prior to their current home if they didn't buy that one until 2000. (https://people.com/archive/goin-to-the-chapel-vol-53-no-9/)

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That makes sense!  They probably did live in Atlanta before they got engaged because she's from Georgia and seems to get her way, so of course she would convince him to live close to her family and friends and not his.  Their current home is technically in Alpharetta, which is a suburb of Atlanta.



--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 11, 2021, 12:16:22 AM ---LMAO! They are all staying in the same hotel suite in the story, which is almost like living in a beach house in Orlando together except more likely to be accurate (especially without the beach), and more so if Brian was living in Atlanta at the time and couldn't just be at home during tour rehearsals.

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Love it!!



--- Quote from: nicksgal on July 11, 2021, 12:16:22 AM ---Also, once again, I am amazed at y'all keeping track of timelines, because this is literally the timeline I'm trying to keep track of and it is exhausting:

A tiny BSB timeline:


* April 12, 1999 -- IWITW released
* May 11, 1999 -- filmed Disney Channel concert special in New York City
* May 18, 1999 -- Millennium released
* June 2, 1999 -- Into the Millennium tour kicks off in Ghent, Belgium
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LOL!  What do you find most exhausting about it?  I've written a couple of stories (both unfinished) that take place during the Millennium tour, but Guilty Roads diverts from the real timeline pretty quickly in the beginning.  My Harry Potter crossover has only covered a couple of days so far, so once I figured out when to set it, I didn't have to worry much about the timeline.

The closest I've ever followed a real life timeline was with Curtain Call, and that did take a lot of outlining and fact-checking, but I had fun with it.  In some ways, it was easier to write a story set in 2010 because there were so many more resources around to find information - LD was still around, and there was Twitter and YouTube.  If I was writing about a specific show or soundcheck, I could look up videos or threads about that date.  That was actually helpful for giving me ideas and figuring out how to piece everything together.   I was also only writing a few months behind real time, so everything was pretty fresh in my mind.  Not like going back 22 years!  But the downside of that was that if I didn't get something right, readers were more likely to notice than they would be with a story set in 1999.  I don't think anyone's going to call you out if you mix something up.

But aww... looking at that timeline makes me smile.  That was such a magical time in the fandom.  IWITW is what took me from a casual fan to an obsessed fangirl, so everything was so fresh and fun back then.  I remember putting on MTV late at night in hopes they would play the IWITW video and dropping everything when I heard that plane roar in at the beginning. Preordering my copy of Millennium at Sam Goody at the mall.  Listening to it on repeat on my Discman all the way to Six Flags and back for my 8th grade field trip the week it came out. Taping the Disney concert on TV.  Talking my parents into taking me to my first concert and then crying all day when the tickets sold out in a matter of seconds, even though my mom and I were online and my dad was in line at a physical box office when they were released.  Heartbreaking!  We did eventually get tickets for the second leg, though, so it all worked out in the end.

nicksgal:

--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on July 11, 2021, 12:41:48 AM ---You probably missed a chapter.  The same thing happened to me, and that's what it was.  I had to go back and check chapters until I found the one I had apparently skipped over, and that fixed it.

LOL That will be 00Carter, except we'll probably never actually finish it.  2007-???

I adore alliteration!!  Probably too much - sometimes I overuse it to the point of sounding cheesy, but I love that lyrical flow.
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I looked and I didn't skip any. So, not sure what's going on there. Short of readjusting dates, I'm not sure how to fix it.

Did 00Carter actually have a planed definitive end? Maybe it does and I missed that. I think it's fine if it never ends. Let's update it when we're sixty, lol.

Same. It had six couplets in there total, but two of my favorites were "benign and brilliant" and "horrifyingly hellish." There, no spoilers! lol



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on July 11, 2021, 12:41:48 AM ---Yes, that makes me sad, too.  I also cringe every time I see someone talk about the lessons they learned in school, like "show not tell" or "said is dead," confusing them or leading to overwriting/purple prose.  Personally, I don't remember ever really being taught how to write fiction in school.  The focus was on persuasive and expository writing, and the instruction was very formulaic.  We responded to writing prompts, and we used graphic organizers like the hamburger or the house, and we wrote five-paragraph essays.  It wasn't until high school that a teacher finally told us, "You know, an essay can be longer than five paragraphs."  Mind blown. LOL  So I get how kids/newbies can be so rigid in their thinking that they assume the way they were taught is the only way to do it.  Maybe it's a good thing, then, that I was never explicitly taught how to write fiction and learned it on my own by reading and emulating what other writers did.

I do teach fiction writing, and while I definitely teach "show don't tell" and have taught lessons on varying word choice instead of overusing certain words (more so words like "good" and "bad" than "said"), I try to show my students that there are multiple ways to do it.  I write in front of them to model what I'm teaching, but we also study mentor texts to see different ways published authors write.  They have a lot more freedom as far as what they write about and how they write it.  Some of them still tell far more than show, while others over-show by including every mundane detail, but I'm always impressed by how creative they are and how well some of them write.  Hopefully I've helped spark that creativity and not stifled.  I wonder if any of them have discovered fanfic over the years.  That would be cool!
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We had a bit more creative writing, but it was really minimal compared to essays with the organizers. I remember writing some fiction pieces in middle school and definitely in elementary school, but almost nothing in high school. There was a poetry elective we could take and I took that, but I don't remember any on fiction. I would have definitely signed up if there had been. I wonder if there's less creative writing in higher grades because the teachers don't feel equipped to teach or model it effectively. Like maybe they don't consider themselves creative types. As you know, I have a BA in English and took a few courses in the BFA track, but none of those other students said they were also in the School of Ed. I don't want to generalize here and say no teachers anywhere explore creative writing pursuits, but that would make sense why fiction instruction dwindles as time goes. I will also say, it's probably easier to teach someone else conventions, format, word choice, etcetera than deep diving into plot structure, character arcs, and so on. Like you could spend weeks alone talking about Campbell's "The Hero's Journey" without ever writing a single thing down. And if you're really wanting to teach a fiction class, I would think the focus would need to be about output more than analysis, but there also needs to be a good background to provide a foundation. That's probably a lot of why creative writing gets pushed off until the university level. There's also that and the assessment piece. It's way easier to assess "understands how to write dialogue and use creative verbs" versus "tells a compelling story," which is more subjective.

Also, right? The minute I learned that essay paragraphs, like chapters, were as many as the essay needed (and each one was as long as it needed to be), my life changed forever, lol.

I'm sure you're doing a great job teaching them creative pursuits! :) I think as long as you're giving them space to practice and try it out, that's what matters. I don't really think fourth graders are at a place where they're ready for concrit yet (again, on a story telling level, not on a conventions level), but maybe you've inspired the future fanfic writers of the next generation who will one day look up Campbell or whoever to further their writing. :) Let's just hope they stay in the BTS fandom or whoever the next boyband craze is rather than becoming BSB fans and finding you, lol.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on July 11, 2021, 12:41:48 AM ---Yeah, beta readers are good for that.  That seems like a good first step for anyone seriously considering publishing.  Because you're right, most reviewers aren't going to point out something like that.  It seems too nitpicky.  I would only give that kind of feedback if asked to beta read.
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Living life without a beta reader is living life on the edge of disaster, lol. These days y'all are getting author as alpha and beta reader from me. Hope everyone enjoys it! ;) I think the one type of beta reader I'm missing in my OF pursuit is someone in the fandom who will tell me what still screams "Backstreet Boys," lol.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on July 11, 2021, 12:41:48 AM ---That is a good question and a good example with the villain thing.  I can actually relate to that.  I used to write more suspense stories in my early days of fanfic because that is one of my favorite genres.  But I wasn't good at it.  My villains were too cliched - mostly evil NSYNC members out for revenge or evil, gold-digging girlfriends - and my plots were too predictable.  I tried writing a mystery once, and my readers figured out who the real killer was early on in the story, so I tried the Scream trick of adding a second villain, but then the second villain's motive didn't really make sense - not that the original villain's motive was great to begin with.  It was a mess.  I also wrote the Scooby Doo-style villain monologues where they explain how and why they did what they did. ("And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling Backstreet Boys!")  The best suspense story I wrote in the pre-Broken era was inspired by a Lifetime Original Movie, which says a lot LOL.

At some point I realized I sucked at writing suspense and villains and shied away from that type of story for years.  I did enjoy writing Dr. Rough in 00Carter, but he is such a parody that he doesn't really count as a serious villain.  I finally gave suspense another try with Guilty Roads, and we all know how well that went.  But the next time I tried tackling that kind of story, I put a lot more effort into developing the villains as well-rounded characters rather than cliched caricatures.  I worked on the characters first, before plotting the full story.  I did a ton of research into why real people like them do what they do and wrote detailed back stories for them to make their motives believable.  Like other psychopaths, they were charismatic and even likeable characters before their callous nature came out, rather than pure evil.  And no one fully predicted where the story was going, although points to Tracy for being suspicious about one of the villains early on.  I still was able to pull off a twist and get the reader reaction I was hoping for, instead of having people figure out everything in advance.  So that experience gave me back some confidence when it comes to writing suspense and villains.  With the right idea, I would write another one.

But I still prefer cancer as a villain.  Poor little cancer cells, shunned by the regular ones for being mutants.  Of course they want to take over the world!  They're just like Dr. Rough! LOL
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I think that's part of why I never really wrote suspense either. So much of it depends on a villain you don't expect, which can be a real challenge. I think like you said, the way to go about it is to figure out the characters before going into the full story so they aren't caricatures and I appreciate the attention to detail in researching it. That makes it all the more realistic and a great way to recognize what may be underlying traits in certain types of "real life villains" (I'm assuming we're talking about serial killers here).

Tracy is a wizard.

I am dying at "You meddling Backstreet Boys"! lmao The world's hottest boyband is now the world's craftiest team of crime solvers! lol (Or "hottest team of crime solvers" might still work, lol.)

LMAO! They are just like Dr. Rough! Alas, poor misunderstood cancer cells.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on July 11, 2021, 12:41:48 AM ---Going back to your original question, I do remember actively thinking before I started Broken, "If I'm going to write another cancer story, I have to write it well.  I have to research and write it realistically and try to make it at least as good as Swollen Issues II."  I knew my writing wasn't as good as some of the stories I read, and I think it was the challenge of trying to live up to Swollen Issues II, the story that inspired Broken, that forced me to up my game and strive for greatness.  Once I got into my groove on that one, my writing just got better and better.  I'm sure part of that was just maturity and the natural progression of my writing up to that point, but I really did try to step it up with my descriptions and characters' emotions and of course the medical research.  Swollen Issues II is far from the best written piece of fanfic of all time, but it packs an emotional punch and gets the medical stuff right.  Those were the two things I was going for above all, and I think I succeeded the most I could at that point in my life.

2008 was a big year for me learning how to write a setting.  I think setting sometimes gets neglected in fanfic, at least in our fandom, because we use a lot of the same basic settings - cities like LA or Orlando, Backstreet Boys' houses, tour buses, concert venues, hospitals, etc.  I wrote a lot of AU in 2008, between 00Carter, Secrets of the Heart, and Song for the Undead, and that is how I learned to develop more detailed settings.  I remember putting a lot of effort into researching the geography of Antarctica to write the opening scene of the Ice Ice Baby episode of 00Carter.  I also read a lot of Stephen King that year and remember being inspired by 'Salem's Lot as I described the settings in Secrets of the Heart.  Granted, setting plays a more important role in 'Salem's Lot than it did in my story, but at least it got me to put more thought into my settings than I had previously.  I do a lot more Google-mapping while writing these days than I ever did before then.

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I get wanting to do the idea justice. I think for as much as I whined about wishing people read PBox, I think I knew even back then that it really had to be compelling if they weren't "the Boys" 98% of the time. So one of my goals was always to make sure readers "got lost" in it, that it felt real and purposeful rather than just "fantasy Backstreet Boys."

Here's a loaded question for you: Is Broken at least as good as Swollen Issues II or did it surpass it? Feel free to skip if it's too loaded, lol. I've said it before, but I think the care and attention to detail speaks volumes about the growth you made and is shown in the writing. :)

Yeah setting is tough! Especially when a lot of our stories use the same settings that can be really generic if needed. I'd argue that as a fandom, description (at least in terms of establishing characters and places) is not our strong point. Probably for the reason that we just assume the blanks will get filled in. Like sure, use some words to give perfect grounding in this blond-haired, blue-eyed kid's routine when he wakes up on the road again... like how the water sloshes in the sink when he brushes his teeth... or just say "Nick was on his tour bus and then it crashed." Done. Easy. lol This is probably how the misconception "all of Florida = beachfront" started. At least with a little research, we could have had the Boys buy a house together in Miami where that would be more likely to be true, lol. I'm mad that I know so many vocabulary words about features in a desert, but it's worth it to avoid "it was a desert." lol

nicksgal:

--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on July 11, 2021, 12:55:34 AM ---That sounds like a perfect length for a story like this!  I'm excited to read it.  And ooh, shredding paper - so satisfying!  Except I usually try to cram too much paper into the shredder at once and overheat it. :(
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I'm trying to use your excitement to motivate myself, lol. It is, but I also cram too many papers in and it overheats. It got so bad that it just turned itself off then whirred to life an hour later to eat the jammed paper, lol.



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on July 11, 2021, 12:55:34 AM ---I think drinking/being hungover was part of my problem yesterday too.  I should have consumed caffeine, but I just lay around and did nothing but watch TV and play on my phone instead.

I finished my coffee and am at least enjoying discussing fanfic more than I felt like the last few days.  Maybe writing will follow.  Or painting.  I haven't decided yet. LOL  My bathroom is upstairs and has no windows, so the neighbors never need know about my night painting.  I don't even think they'll hear my music - because of course I can't paint without blasting music.
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People laugh when I say I went semi-sober for my novel, but it's true! It makes me way more productive.

Well, welcome back! Glad to have you around again. I'm glad the neighbors will be undisturbed by your night painting. What did you end up doing yesterday? Painting or writing?



--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on July 11, 2021, 12:55:34 AM ---This is Pop is good!  I started with the two episodes I thought would contain BSB (they are mentioned in the first episode, but it really focuses more on Boys II Men than boybands in general), but I've since started watching the other episodes, and they are interesting too.

Ooh, what channel is that with "Dark Side of the 90s"?  That does sound interesting.

Yeah, I don't think people outside the fandom and media have any idea how much drama the Boys have been through in their careers.

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Awesome! I'll have to check it out. It's premiering on Thursday on Vice TV. They really don't. I think it's because of the "squeaky clean" persona of boybands.

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