Writing: Inspiration and Procedure
 

I can't call myself an author, since I haven't published anything before. However, I've been writing odds and ends since I was fourteen or so, mostly humorous short stories that have circulated between my friends (one cascaded into a 9-part series of short stories, ending in a total length of like 257 pages of Microsoft Word on font 10, co-written by myself and the person you know as Barahad on these forums).

My most 'successful' piece was intended to be a novel, I wrote it between the ages of 15 and 16, over 200 pages of a fantasy called Stradia (the one and only RP I've GMed on these forums, revivals are a fun trip down memory lane). Since then, I've participated in some cooperative fictions on other websites which are still going, and in some roleplays on NPF. I've had one failed fiction intended to be a weekly and bi-weekly online published "issue" in a somewhat novel style (when compiled into one volume). That one has kind of hurt my inspiration and procedure for writing ever since (we're talking almost a year now).

Now to the point of this thread, just a little nonscientific survey of sorts. How do you write your fiction? What is/are your inspiration(s)? How did you come upon it? When I ask how do you write your fiction, I mean how do you like to approach the actual writing process, and what do you do while you're writing.

For example, most of my inspiration is just from random snippets of good books, TV shows, and movies that I've enjoyed immensely. I rarely write about love, but in the rare instance I have (Stradia) I tried to tap my emotions and personal experiences.

How do I write? Well, nowadays I write almost exclusively on the computer, 90% for conveinience, and a healthy 10% because I'm more or less addicted to computers, and remain attached this way. On the computer I can write, amend, delete, and structure in seconds, instead of cursing at the paper and ink loudly, or crossing crap out.

When I write action sequences (oh, and I write lots of those...), I listen to my favorite music. My favorite music is almost always from a Final Fantasy, since I believe a lot of the opera/classical/techno synthetic mixtures of the music you find in Final Fantasy really taps the "heroism" element to me, and heroism is often a staple to fiction.

My weakness is dialogue. In real life, I am not charismatic. I'm soft-spoken and selectively attentive most of the time. With enough trouble carrying on good conversations in real life, you can imagine I piss myself trying to get INTERESTING or ENGAGING conversations going in my writing. I really don't have any inspiration for this. If the dialogue is heated towards a certain emotion or archetype, such as good or evil, or anger, I'll turn to music again, and chances are, it'll be from Final Fantasy again. For sadness, I almost exclusively listen to Nothing Else Matters by Metallica.

How about you?

I just think up things. I am not a very good writer. :( Nope, not at all... All my characters are cliche, or so my brother says...

Fourteen, you say. That's when I started writing for leisure! That means I've been a freelance writer for six years now.

My inspiration; If I'm in my room, my homework is done, I have no chores to do, and I'm bored, with nothing else to do, I write, either journal entries or fiction. Often times, ideas come to me as I'm writing. It's like, I can improvise material on the spot. I do most of my writing on my computer, mainly for convenience, but if I'm too lazy to turn on my PC, I write in my journal, the old-fashioned way, with a pen and some paper. The journal is useful for this; if I hear an interesting quote on a tv show or movie or game, I write it down, to serve as a guideline to follow. I too draw upon my life experiences, since I have so many, and since I can remember so many of them.

I don't normally listen to music as I write. I find the beautiful and/or kickass compositions I have to be distracting from my work, but occasionally, if the situation demands, I'll play music to fit the scene I'm trying to write, and yes, sometimes I use Final Fantasy music for these situations. Oh, and Azisien, try not to be jealous, but I can craft good dialogue. My secret to writing convincing dialogue is to imagine yourself as the character you're writing and think, "What would he, she, or it say in this situation?" If I do have one weakness, it's my ability to suddenly become mentally blocked. I'll have an idea in my head, something like, "Okay, so so-and-so goes here and does this-" but I can never finds the words to properly describe the image in my head. So far, I've yet to find a cure for this condition. Pity me. On the plus side though, I'm better now than I was six years ago. To think, I used to rip off every single game I was playing back then for my material, how my imagination has come a long way since.

I did National Novel Writing Month this past year because I needed something to do during the month of November, and I walked away with a spiffy little book filled with all sorts of humorous nonsense.

When I needed something to write about, what I wrote usually came from a synthesis of some idea, come up with long ago from random stimuli, a burning desire to get the damn thing over with, a vague idea of where I want to get the damn thing over with to and a lack of sleep.

My other writing generally just comes with my taking a good idea and running with it, throwing in whatever other ideas come up and seeing where they take me.

I have been writing since I was 10 years old. Though when I think back to that stuff I cringe.

One of my weaknesses however is my dialogue and description although i have improved on both greatfully. When it comes to writing, I am a jack of all trades but my preferences are with the Fantasy works. What helps me write is listening some good music. Action scenes, my music has to be fast pased rock while regular scenes, I am usually listening to VG music.

Eh, I write here and there. I do have a flare for poetry, but not quite that many stories. And they're always small stories, nothing huge. Problem is, my mind gets bored too easily and wanders off. The short stories I have written are pretty good though.

And when did I start writing? I dunno, not that long ago. Started writing poetry seriously in my first year of college.

Sometimes I plan things out, but my preferred method of writing is tacking down my overall concept and letting the details fill themselves in. It invariably comes out more naturally that way, especially the dialogue.

I like to think dialogue is something I specialize in. But the dialogue I write is more akin to Curb Your Enthusiasm than...something else--not in terms of content, but in terms of creation. Usually, Larry David and the others are given the general idea of a scene, the key moments, and some things they could say. Then they do what they want. I know what I want to get done in a certain scene or chapter, so I figure it out as it goes. I write almost as a reader. It's not a common technique, and can get you into jams sometimes. On occasion I will go for a more pre-structured story, but again, it usually just flows.

Computer is also the only way to go, especially for highly-experimental font/size prose bits.

For inspiration, I find that actively seeking it out will make it cunningly slither away from view. I prefer to have it come up--playing a game, watching a movie, and going..."damn. that's a good idea."

I also started when I was 10. I was poking around on a Pokemon fiction area, and one of the pieces there was just written beautifully. Since then I've dabbled in tons of fanfiction, written original pieces that I threw out, and re-wrote scenes from games/movies/books simply to practice.

I just finished a 90,000 word project. It's a midevil, pseudo-religious book, and I'm really proud of it. It's funny, too, because it all started when I was watching Hero, when the guy lets his lover kill him so she'd 'get the message'. I thought, "damn, that was confusing...but kinda cool."

When I write, I have to structure out the story. It comes with writing DND style fiction, I believe. I plot out the characters appearance and roles, I lay out what they need to do to stop Evil Badguy from Doing Something, and I let the puppets go. From there, everything clicks together.

I've got this romantic, stupid vision. I've always thought that writing, at some points, can be where you tend to 'zen out', and just start typing, the words flowing from seeming nothingness. I try to do that as much as I can, and I get some good stuff and some bad stuff. It's wierd, too, becuase I don't even know why I believe that. It's like meditation through writing. Nothingness and creativity.

"You should come in the box. Then you'll understand."
God damn it. One of these days you are going to say something, and I will not agree with you, and the world will fucking explode.

On topic, my stories generally start with one scene. Usually this already has taken place in something else - like the aforementioned Hero scenario. Then, from there, I'll change the context of what's happening, decide why the scene happened, what caused the events, and it starts to branch out. Then ideas that I hadn't thought of come to me, or ideas that I put on the backburner seem to click into place.

Currently I'm writing another hefty book, and the entire idea started with watching Beast Wars, and laughing my ass off at the following dialogue. Silverbolt comes back from visiting Blackarachnia.

Rattrap: "Where were you?"
Silverbolt: "Scout patrol."
Rattrap: "Ohhhh, yeeeaah, scouting the enemy....find any new positions?"

It's good to see a bunch of writers on here.

I'm currently brooding over starting a new serious fiction (it'll be sci-fi) and I haven't found any good inspiration or ideas yet. We seem to write in a fairly similar way, Mirai, except I guess I listen to more music. I usually just get some idea out of nowhere (or from a good scene in a movie/book/what have you) and start from there, or at the very least VOW to add that scene in there somewhere...and make it important to the story.

Rewrite the Aeneid in space. But disguise it and add to it, otherwise it'll be worthless.