The Writing of Longer Fic!

[lightofdaye]

So as I mentioned in my 2013 Retrospective. A lot of what I wrote last year was drabbles and flash fic. The longest I think was Smutty claus fic at about 6K and I think in the end alot of my work follows the same basic formula. Simple set up > banging > punchline denouncement. And in the case of drabbles a lot of the first and last bits go by the board. Even the longer fics, the result is mainly longer set up. but still of the simple 'x likes y and finds out y likes x too and bedtime ensues'.

Now I have done longer fic before. 16K of it for my first smutty claus way back in 2011. And even ongoing fics. Though they were more or less the same formula repeated for each chapter.

I did have a point when I started writing this, I am sure. Anyway, I have seen other people in the friends list come up with 12K or 20K pieces for things were i would end up with maybe 1 or 3. So I'm just wondering however to people manage it? Does it take a lot of planning? How does one

Especially I was thinking of UST and slow burning use of it. (for no particular reason, tamlane) how does one right a long fic with UST without action happening? I mean on one level that sounds like my formula but with drawn out lead to up to when a pair actually does it. But I guess what I wonder is how to make it interesting? How does writing longer fic even work? I seem to forgetton.

Thoughts?

Comments

[lightofdaye]

Hmm a scene by scene plan was something I did for that long fic. With each scene just being a sentence or so of what happens.

But i do find a more detailed plan for say the chaptered fics I did on AFF actually didn't help so much. i've got a few stabled together notepad sheets. with things that had to happen in the next like three chapters of 'its not just sex' (covering revised shell cottage and gringotts raid sequences for h/p-AUness) but i've never managed to write that. Like the creativity was drained by writing the plan down.

[luna-plath.livejournal.com]

the creativity was drained by writing the plan down

I understand what you're saying here, I kind of felt that way when I was working on my harryhetbigbang fic (I've been meaning to get back to that for ages) so I left it for a while. I guess you can think of it this way: instead of writing down every scene, just cover the major points that have to happen for the story to make sense, to the point where those events can not be removed.

Another thing that I struggle with, that may effect you as well, is deciding how to end stories. One of my "trademark" tactics is to use an open ending, showing that things are going to turn out more positively or more negatively, but letting the reader fill in the gaps. Eventually I just have to force myself to stop, because I'm constantly wondering "should the end come here?"

[lightofdaye]

OH! That Harryhetbigbang was Harry/Pansy wasn't it? Definitely hope you do get back to that one. (no pressure, lol)

I see what uou mean about the plan. I think the reason I prefer short fics is its easy to get a head around the short fic. Some fics I sort of built around a single moment or punchline, and then building from there. Even the long fic 'sub my coke' was based solely around 'i need a threesome how can i get the characters to the point where they would have one?' and the reason that is so long is because I incorporated the second idea for harry/parvati sixth year that i'd had seperately.

Endings are an interesting thing. Because for a lot of short fics can end immediately post-coitally. But unless you do something like the DH epilogue or movie endings where 'they go x character grew up to be an investment banker' All endings have to be open to some extent or another and its hard to know how or when to stop.

[luna-plath.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about the Harry/Pansy fic more and more recently, but I haven't looked at it on like a year lol.

Hm maybe instead of starting with a punchline/line of dialogue you could start with a concept or event?