Subject: Plug: How We Write Lots
Author:
Posted on: 2009-09-21 01:06:00 UTC
In the interests of demonstrating our techniques for enabling us to occasionally be a lean mean ficcing machine, we would hereby like to offer some insights into the typical workings of Trojie's brain:
http://agenttrojie.livejournal.com/104960.html
and also Pads's brain:
http://agenttrojie.livejournal.com/109759.html
Warning: NSFW.
Riftangel tells the story of how a Torchwood experiment came through the Rift, made Owen a bad scientist, made Jack go out of his way to seem non-threatening, and gave Ianto a bad case of low self-esteem, and eventually died at the hands of two annoyed PPC agents.
If I may ask a polite question, how do you write missions so quickly? Especially while doing them so well? I've been trying to figure out how to get more productive with my own missions, especially since I have so many Agents, so I thought I would ask. If it's not a bother that is; I was just thinking that maybe I could pick something up. On the whole, just curious and thought there wasn't harm in asking.
I guess in part it seems that I write missions quickly because I've just posted two in nine days. This last one took me about a month to write. The one I posted last week was written in a matter of hours (badfic was posted on the fourth, my mission on the sixth). I have a betareader that responds very quickly.
I think the main thing is that I make time to write missions. And experience probably also plays a part in it: I can write missions quickly because I've written a lot of them. Also, I write missions by hand, so when not able to take a laptop with me (too heavy, battery is on life-support) I can still take the mission with me and work on it.
I think it also helps that I put badfic on FFnet on alerts when I first see it. That way I never have to really hunt for badfic, and I can see which of them have been updated since (and which haven't and likely don't have enough charges for an interesting mission).
Other than that, I'm probably just a fast writer.
Trojie and Pads are very productive too. Perhaps they have some additional secrets to share.
That's not all of it, though, because I know my co-writes aren't exactly going quickly, though it's more my fault than my co-authors', heh. I haven't seen either of them in a long while, but I can ask them if I manage to get in touch with them. And yeah, I know looking for the badfic is always one of the hardest parts for me; I tend to try to do the intro and possibly outro first, then work the actual mission in there once I've got a fic.
I should probably start trying to write things by hand, too. It'd balance out how unreliable this computer is until I've got a better one, for one. Another problem might be the sheer volume of projects (and missions) I'm trying to do all at once, but that's a matter of prioritising I guess.
I'll keep what you've said in mind and work on writing more quickly, as well as getting past writers' block more easily. Next time I see Trojie or Pads, assuming I can get a word in, I'll ask their input on it, too. I try to avoid fics that've updated really recently in case they update while I'm writing, or after I've finished the mission (completed badfics are good for that), but I can start looking at those more, too. Thanks, though, I'm hoping it'll help me actually produce stuff (and stuff worth reading; no point being productive if it's worse than the stuff we're sporking, heh).
We write by dumping the text of the badfic to a googledoc and then one of us starts writing, cutting the bits of fic we want to refer to into the mission with italics and so forth, and deleting the unused bits, until they run out of steam, upon which they gchat the other person saying 'tag' :)
But at least partly it's the experience thing as well - we've been writing together (not PPC) since 2004, and I've been writing PPC missions since 2003. Until Pads joined me here in 2008, though, I'd only completed five missions. Now, we have each other to kickstart us when we're blocked, we have the experience writing *together* (so there's no worrying about if the other one will like what we've done or will get offended if we edit what they've written), and we've had the practice actually doing missions. We know what works and what doesn't. And the only way to get that is to just keep plugging away :)
I think the most important thing is to push yourself past your block. If you get blocked, make yourself write another couple of sentences. Even if they suck. Then quit the doc and go do something else. When you come back, yeah, those two bad sentences will be there, but maybe you'll see a way to fix them and that will spur you on :) And practice, practice, practice!
/end pep-talk :)
Seconding the importance of writing even if the words coming out are crap. Keep going and keep writing anyway, and come back and fix or delete later as necessary (this is the bit badfic authors tend to fall down on). This is sort of how Trojie and I end up writing non-mission things: she's a lot better than I am at getting words written whatever the quality, and I've got a knack for using what she produces as a basis and adding the pretty sprinkles that were eluding her, and between us it works. But without that initial push to just keep writing and get the words down, we'd have nothing to prettify and things would go at a snail's pace.
In the interests of demonstrating our techniques for enabling us to occasionally be a lean mean ficcing machine, we would hereby like to offer some insights into the typical workings of Trojie's brain:
http://agenttrojie.livejournal.com/104960.html
and also Pads's brain:
http://agenttrojie.livejournal.com/109759.html
Warning: NSFW.