Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Writing to order, or ordered to write?

There I was, walking around some rather pleasant countryside this weekend, when a question popped up, unbidden, in my head.

That's how most of my story ideas happen, too -- spontaneously, and usually in the most bizarre places. (The shower in the house I lived in two addresses ago was a particularly productive locale. For some reason, I've not found a shower since that has worked so well.) The challenge, for me, is to jot the ideas down before I forget them. Only later on will I tease them out and, hopefully, make something sensible out of them.

I write in fits and starts. This is partly determined by how Real Life is treating me at the time. It is also determined by how inspired I am feeling. If I'm not in a creative frame of mind, it is next to impossible for me to force the words to come, no matter how much I want them to.

And yet... There are other people here who seem to work in a much more regular, disciplined fashion. I'm in awe, for example, at Wendy and Kaethel for producing those wonderful birthday fics, and producing them to deadline.

So, as I said at the beginning of this post, a question popped into my head. Here it is, broken down into more coherent bit-sized chunks:

Do you feel as though you can sit down and write to order, when and where you want? Or do you write when the muse demands it?

Or, as I put it in the topic title: do you write to order, or are you ordered to write?

Chris (who is very curious)

Sometimes I can sit and write for a while. Other times I can't. If I have writer's block, I don't try to force it, I just go and do something else. It all depends on my muse.

It all depends on the Muse. For right now, I'm still trying to figure out my A-plot so the writing is on hold. But most of my inspiration comes from IRC. For some reason, everytime I log on, I have to open up my WIP and at least look at it if nothing else. :p

well, no big surprise here, but count me in as one who gets random ideas at odd times.

i just sort of let part of my mind (henceforth known as "timmy") go wandering around. sometimes, timmy will come across a new and cool idea. sometimes, this idea will be for an invention. usually, it's something that turns out to have been done before... over the years, timmy has independantly invented water distillation, an advanced air mattress, and submarine pressure hulls, among other things.

sometimes, though, timmy will find (or, as seems more accurate, be ambushed by) a fic idea. sometimes, that idea will actually come to something. sometimes, i'll go to the keyboard ASAP and dash the whole thing off in one sitting (note that my average fic length is below 15k). sometimes i'll mull it over and work on it and kick around ideas in my head until they hit critical mass. sometimes i'll just jot them down in a notes file and work on things as i can (i've got about a dozen of those, some of which have been waiting for years). sometimes, nothing comes of it.

then again, there are those handy challenges... those tend to get new and different thoughts going.

still, i've never been able to write to order, and i haven't been much for writing in general lately. been trying to work on some of those old WIPs, but nothing's come of it yet. we'll see.

so, i think somewhere in all that i actually answered the question.

Paul

I used to write when the Muse struck, starting or stopping WIPs according to what she came up with for me... but over the years I've gotten into more and more situations of writing for a deadline -- first, writing for S5/S6, and then later, posting in segments to message boards. I find deadlines to be wonderful motivators.

That's just me; my friend Chris wrote for S6, and declared she was never ever going to do that to herself again <g>

When I have a story in progress, and I know more-or-less where I'm going, and I have some quiet, uninterrupted, "don't have to pay attention to anything but fic" time... then I can write to order pretty well... especially if I'm on a deadline <g>

However, for the last year or so, I really haven't had any uninterrupted time so I expect I'd have more trouble getting back into the swing of things, so to speak.

Occasionally, I'll get struck in the head by a paragraph, a scene, a whole story -- and then it can flow out even under adverse circumstances (Nick Jr. blaring a few feet away, for instance). But that's pretty rare, unfortunately.

PJ

I get ideas, and then play around with them in my head or on paper. Sometimes the muse can be persuaded to work on the idea, sometimes she can't. So when I'm feeling like writing, I'll haul out the ideas that I've written down and work on them until such time as the muse throws in the towel, then I let them rest for a while, and try again later.

Don't know if that makes any sense!

Melisma (under her Rock, trying to persuade the muse to let her work on at least two of her WIPs, both of them LnC, even though she's got a really urgent TNG WIP to work on...)

I can write to order, so to speak - if I have an idea to run with. One thing I do is to jot down ideas as soon as they occur to me. I have two special files, one on my PC and one on my Palm just for ideas.

Unfortunately, however, RL sometimes prevents me from time to write which is frustrating.

Irene

What an interesting question, Chris!

For me, the answer is both. I "write to order" when it's pay-the-grocery-bill time. It doesn't always come easily, which is why I don't always make my deadlines!

Fanfic, however, is being "ordered to write" - when I have the time and the leisure and the desire to write. I can let ideas simmer in the back of my mind and play with them whenever I want. When I wrote "SuperKal" (the filk that took me longer than any other, as of this writing), the first two lines of the chorus popped into my head when I was walking down to do some shopping. I spent the next several weeks working out the chorus in my mind at odd moments, until I was finally satisfied. Then I sat down and did the rest of the lyrics. I couldn't do *that* with my regular work if I ever wanted to get paid!

Fanfic writing is much more fun. Much easier, too. Of course, it doesn't pay the bills, so I can take as much time as I want to get to it... as long as the readers don't lynch me first.

I guess a little bit of both. I've never really been able to write to request. In the past, someone has made a suggestion or come up with an idea for a story for me to write and just by sheer co-incidence the Muse has sparked some interest at just the right time to enable me to do so. But equally there are lots of times when she hasn't and that request has never been answered.

I never plot or plan a story ahead of time. I get a snatch of dialogue suddenly running through my head as I wash the dishes or see some interplay between my character as though I'm watching it on the TV screen while I'm in the bath and I'll jot that down if it interests me. If I get enough such ideas and they connect, a story - or at least the genesis of one - is born and I'll have a file to work on.

I sometimes have a vague idea - or even a solid one - of how I'd like a story to proceed, and often by the time I'm halfway through (especially if there's an aplot that needs to be logical) I'll have a set of scenes I need to write, but they rarely end up the way I'd planned, other than when they need to be for the story to make sense. And quite frequently the Muse will take off in a new direction I definitely hadn't planned, leaving me to scrabble around trying to incorporate what she's suddenly come up with and still get the scene back on track to where it started from.

Masques taught me that I can work to a deadline though if I have to and come up with the goods. In fact that was something of a major revelation for me last year. I couldn't believe how often I ended up with a segment to post on the day it needed to be posted. Often at the eleventh hour, just when I was in despair of ever finding my way. It was an exhilarating, fascinating and fun experience - but it was also deeply scary. <g>

The same thing happened recently with Epiphany - I did make all but one of my deadlines, but it was a close call at the start. Though once the Muse got fired up she pretty much came through with gold stars and didn't abandon me again until it was finished.

So I have something of a love/hate relationship with posting a story unfinished and having to trust to the Muse to get me the rest to deadline. On the one hand, lately it's given me some of my best writing experiences in years, but on the other it's enormously stressful and I'm always terrified I'll fall off the high wire.

Still...I'm pretty sure I'll end up doing it again though. <g>

LabRat

Oh goody! I can hardly wait Please do so soon - I wanna read another RatFic before too much longer

Melisma ( under her Rock)

I'm not talking just as a fanfic-writer - I haven't been one for such a long time - but I've written for a few other occasions, too.

Personally, when I want to write, I write. I believe in the power of inspiration and don't think that someone can write if they lack inspiration, but it's not a problem for me, because I always have a plenty of ideas, and that can lead me to many different stories at the same time, though I prefer finish one and then begin another. The problem is, that, when I'm just thinking about it, I often can't figure it out very well. But when I have a general idea and begin to write it, I always find a way to go on - and, finally, finish it.

Anna_B.

I write to order but my writing brain is somewhat insubordinate and thus doesn't take orders from authority too well.

Yvonne

As a reporter, I'm forced to write on deadline nearly everyday, so I can force myself to write regardless of circumstances or lack of inspiration. However, it sometimes feels like pulling teeth to do so and I don't do it with fanfic unless I really feel like I need to make some progress. Usually once I actually get writing, the inspiration will come, and it's not too bad. I'd much rather write because I'm inspired though. When my muse is on a role I can write for hours on end without taking a break. And I can write regardless of where I am or what kind of distractions are going on around me. Actually, it's much more frustrating for me to be inspired and unable to write (because I'm at work for instance) than to force myself to write without inspiration. When I'm at work or at a friend's house and I want to be writing, I'm really antsy and irritable. I'm not happy until I can get to my computer or notebook and scribble down the scene that won't leave me alone.

Annie

Both.

I suppose the one word answer requires an explanation, though. [g]

Chris, you mention the birthday fics that Wendy and I have written over the past year. Well, yes, in this case for some reason I manage to write quickly and almost as soon as I open the file. I think writing with a co-author helps there, because you're not left on your own with a story. And you see it progress, because you don't get stuck in a circle. Swapping back and forth helps to keep the momentum going. But the main reason for this is that Wendy is much more disciplined about writing than I am, and she's regularly kicking my tushie to force me to write, which has been tremendously helpful in getting *something* written over the past few months, despite a bad case of RL.

When I'm writing alone, though, it's much more complicated. I tend to get a load of ideas in a very short span of time, then nothing at all for weeks. For Near Wild Heaven II for example, I get snippets of scenes pop into my head at the most incongruous moments (especially when I should be working on school preps and have no time whatsoever to think about fanfic, or late at night when I should be sleeping because I have to get up at 7 and it's already 1 am :p ). I now drop whatever I'm doing to at least scribble a note on... something. Whatever it is. Actually there's a row of post-its at the bottom of my computer screen, with description of scenes... hmm. I think there's also a snippet of something on my cheque-book.

But the problem is that if I don't write the scene down immediately, I can't recapture it. The idea isn't enough, because the mood is broken. And so sitting down to write rarely ever works for me.

Kaethel