writing meme

[sabotabby]

Hah, no posts all weekend and now two from me in one day. caudelac picked up a meme that is not the Other Meme that is going around and that I keep promising people I'll post.

Anyway, this meme is to describe the sorts of stories one keeps telling*. Which is intriguing, so I'll play:

The stories I tell are always love stories of a sort. When I was much younger, a much older friend of mine told me that all songs are really love songs; all of my stories are really love stories. Not necessarily love stories between two people (I think that Elephant on a String, which I'm increasingly unlikely to finish, is mostly a love story between the characters and their city.)

Speaking of which, I do a lot of the city as a character. It's something I love to read about.

The human romances I write are nearly always dysfunctional. I have an unfortunate tendency to write about women trying to love men who don't really deserve them; it's a habit that I've tried to break as of late. But beyond that, I'm incapable of writing a straightforward sex scene—when I do write them, they are always awkward or violent or both. I think I have a better sex life than any of the characters I write about so it's largely not from personal experience; it's more that I find awesome sex scenes boring and embarrassing to write, so I'd rather make something go wrong.

Father-daughter relationships (sabotabby has daddy issues, don't ya know?). In stories where family doesn't play a big role (like Elephant, where no one has a family for some reason) there's still usually some strange tension between a younger woman and an older father-substitute. The YA steampunk thing I'm writing is really bad for that. It's also the opposite of my sex scene thing—the father-daughter relationships tend to turn out better than my actual one did.

Apocalypses. I think this is actually a big fascist streak in me. But I like to write stories about massive disasters and people picking up the pieces afterward. It's fun to explode the world.

Hidden agendas and double-crossing. I noticed that both Elephant and Anesthesia, (co-written with annaotto) had as major plot points characters who had, at some point, appeared to betray their own ideals. It's not a coincidence how much both of us love books like Vonnegut's Mother Night.

Conscious use of clichés. Elephant is a Western. The YA steampunk story is a fantasy-quest-bildungsroman. The play I wrote when I was 17 featured stock characters from various movie genres, and it has a hilariously melodramatic romance to boot. I've always liked dicking with people's expectations.

In the last decade or so, I've been incapable of writing anything that doesn't make some sort of political reference. Both of the big things I'm (supposed to be) working on now are explicit; Elephant is about a revolution, the YA thing is about a clash of two engineered utopian cultures. That's also something I'm trying to get more subtle about.

Hmm. I'm sure there's more. Unless there's a really good reason (like it's a story primarily about gay men), my stories always pass the Bechdel Rule. It's not even something I do consciously anymore.

Conversely, my favourite sort of story to read is essentially "bookish girl falls into a whole, winds up in magical world."

* I do write a fair bit but I've barely shared any of it since I was a teenager. I think with so many amazing writers on my friends list, I'm slightly intimidated to blog about my unlikely-to-ever-get-published blather. This from someone who journals rather personal things almost every day.

Comments

[caudelac.livejournal.com]

I love city-as-character too. And the good old End of the World... it is always to make explosions fun. :D And heartless hard sidewalks to gobble one up.

[sabotabby]

Fuck yes, I love sidewalks. And urban alienation. Heh.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

this meme is to describe the sorts of stories one keeps telling

Oh wow, I love this! And your answers are great. (I'd personally like to hear more about your writing, too.)

[sabotabby]

I'm wary of blogging about writing more than I actually write. That's reason #1. Reason #2 is that I don't think my fiction writing is as good as my journalling.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I think the Bechdel Rule is a good yardstick, but if you can write without even thinking about it you're doing even better. (Like how when I was teaching myself about formal verse, I counted syllables and feet all the time. But now I have the feel of it in my head.)

What reasons do you have for saying your work is unlikely-to-ever-get-published? (I mean, I certainly don't write for publication either, in poetry or prose, but I wondered whether you had similar reasons.)

Also, why do you not share it? (For me it's perfectionism; things have to be almost completely polished, so I almost never post anything except for short lyric formal poetry. (The recent f/f Doctor Who slash was an exception because it was an “oh what the hell, why not” written for a competition.)

[sabotabby]

What reasons do you have for saying your work is unlikely-to-ever-get-published? (I mean, I certainly don't write for publication either, in poetry or prose, but I wondered whether you had similar reasons.)

Well, for one thing, I seldom finish anything, especially my Serious Stuff. My Serious Stuff always starts out as something that I write to amuse myself and then I realize that bits of it are actually good, and then I try to turn it into something. And then I lose interest and it becomes all just dialogue for some reason.

The only excerpt of Elephant that I ever posted is here, and even reading it knowing the entire story, it loses any significance out of context. And yeah, I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

I've been known to post writing that I don't intend to publish in completely anonymous spaces too. That's the only way I can do it safely and not be all fretful about it.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Also:

The stories I tell are always love stories of a sort. When I was much younger, a much older friend of mine told me that all songs are really love songs; all of my stories are really love stories.

All songs are stories, aren't they? So (granted the first premise) they would be.

What other stories are city-as-character? I'm not sure I recognise the genre at all.

Also, it sounds like you spend time actually writing rather than just imagining what you might be writing [eta: "unlike me" dropped out there.]. So good for you. What's the secret to it? :)

Conversely, my favourite sort of story to read is essentially "bookish girl falls into a whole, winds up in magical world."

E. Nesbit rules my world.

[sabotabby]

What other stories are city-as-character? I'm not sure I recognise the genre at all.

China Miéville springs instantly to mind. Maybe Jose Saramajo. And Latin American magical realism tends to do a good job of place-as-character, though not necessarily urban.

What's the secret to it? :)

I only write when I'm supposed to be doing something else. I wrote 150 pages or so of the YA thing when I was in school last year.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

China Miéville springs instantly to mind.

OH. RIGHT. Suddenly all is clear.

I only write when I'm supposed to be doing something else.

That makes a lot of sense. Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent procrastination of something boring you were supposed to be doing instead, or something like that.

[sabotabby]

The sad thing is that I also write stories when I'm procrastinating on other stories.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

It is probably wise of you to separate your writing from your blogging. Thoughts on doing so?

[sabotabby]

Two things. First, my blog is public. Even in locked posts, I'm still writing to, like 300 people. I'm too shy to show my not-very-literary fiction to 300 people. I've shown Elephant, which I think is/was my most promising story, to maybe 20, and that includes the writing group that I used to belong to. Two people have read the whole thing (or at least all of what I've written of it).

But there's also the issue of what I, personally, think blogs are for. I gear what I write here to what I think will generate interesting discussion. If I thought that I could post bits and have people dissect the characters and motivations and symbolism, I probably would. But since my writing is pretty personal and largely just plays to my own kinks, I don't think that would really happen. Whereas if I post about subjects that at least some people will have an opinion on or some experience with, then I'll get everyone talking. Fiction is one-way, unless one is a critic or an English major or writing fanfic.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I tried to read the excerpt from E on a S that's online, but I'm very bad in reading winding stories, just don't have the patience.

I'm very shy/anxious to act out or speak personally significant material to people in real life, but when narrating them in a blog I can entirely disregard the possibility of not being understood or reciprocated (somehow getting no comments is much easier than getting blank faces :). That's one of the reasons I blog.

I also wanted to add as an irresponsible critic that "a sudden absence of bees" is outdated, but turns out last winter was even worse than the one before.

[sabotabby]

"A sudden absence of bees" will remain my other LJ name forever and ever because nihilistic_kid used it as the title of one of his short stories (which I have yet to find, dammit). That's probably the closest I'll ever get to good writing. :)

What's a winding story? Anyway, that excerpt was basically me being excited that I'd made a character (and a villainous character, no less!) who seemed realistic. I started writing that story pre-Bush, I think, so no real parallels were intended. (I hate it when writers make their evil fascists be Bush; that was one of the most annoying things about the movie adaptation of V for Vendetta.)

The other thing is that all of my protagonists are either antiheroes or deeply flawed (surprise, surprise, I know), so it's always a challenge to make my villains more evil but still believable.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Does "long winding" make more sense? You know, long.
I was reading a different excerpt. With a woman riding an old mule. Talk about kink ;).

[sabotabby]

Oh, that part. I changed that a lot. Though she still has the mule.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

In unrelated and creepy news... I just thought you might want to give this story to the teacher who preceded you with a note "at least you didn't fail as hard as this guy!"

http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/story.aspx?content_id=a834357f-5808-4231-8fea-39fb99c76309&rss=704

[sabotabby]

Wow. That's like the definition of fail right there. The only way that could have been more fail would be if the porn was of his students.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

poor guy.

[brownsnowflake.livejournal.com]

oh please do post! i'd love to read some of your writing, and you've got a great writing style!

oh, and river is an awesome ass name for a kid. should have posted this comment in the other entry but i'm lazy. you dig. sick. etc.

[sabotabby]

The problem with posting excerpts is that they really don't make sense out of context.

Hmm. Maybe I should just make a filter and post a whole whack of stuff. Especially the YA one, which is cracked out to begin with.

(I love the name River. Both parents have kick-ass weird names so it's unsurprising that they chose a cool name for their kid.)