Writing thought...

[telophase]

...so how do people who write serial stories that are posted (or published) chapter by chapter manage to do it? I know I have to go back when something's done and clean it up to get rid of the cruft from previous mental versions that drifted in when I was writing it, and if I tried to do a serial, it'd be full of bizarre little things wandering off into nowhere and badly-managed red herrings and places where I fully intended to go somewhere with something-or-other but forgot all about it.*

(Thought sparked by reading the latest chapter of a fic posted to ff.net.)


* Ha. I talk like I've written lots, which I haven't. In my entire adult life, I've written a total of five stories that I've finished, only one of which I admit to, which is the Yuletide story. Doesn't mean there's not lots of stories littering my brain, just means I haven't committed them to paper.

Comments

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

I generally don't start posting a story like that until I've been writing it for a while and have some idea where it's going. That said, I've been posting bits of a still unexpectedly ever-growing WIP for four years. *g* I go back to edit where I have to and reread old parts every so often, and I have readers who tend to tell me if I just contradicted something I wrote a year ago.

I love those times when some things I wrote ages ago unexpectedly add up to some cool plot development in the present, as if I'd always been working toward that.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

If I ever did something like that, I would either make the story very modular to begin with or I would spend a lot of time at the beginning outlining it so I had a very clear road map. :-D

[qem_chibati]

The best way to do it is to write several chapters first and then go back, clean, tighten prose and have it proofread one at a time as your going through it. ;>.>

I know one person advised that when writing, unless it's absolutely necessary - cut it out, as the best way to keep the plot moving (but it's no fun! D:).

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Heheh. I'm not very good at it, I'm afraid. I've finished very few multi-part fics in my time.

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

Having been working on a long, chaptered fic/novel since '99 (I finally finished it! yay!), and other various things like the Carnival fic that come out in chunks, personally, I still find it difficult. I usually have to go back and re-read what I've written before I start working on a new section. For the novel, I also had a timeline roughed out, and I knew where I was going to end up. Actually, that seems to be my problem: I know where to start, and where it's going to end, but tend to waffle my way through the middle. Generally it comes out right, though.

The feedback of readers can be invaluable. I had one great reader in particular who caught small inconsistencies (like: chara left his house without his smokes, but now he's lighting up. where'd they come from?).

Mostly I trust my instincts and my beta reader(s) to keep the story moving in a more or less linear way. And all that drift can be kept for writing AUs or spin-offs or for pulling you out of dead-end threads that writers stumble into. ^_^

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

It depends. Formerly Known As is quite a mess in draft form, as a couple people will happily tell you. It's got things like Insert Name Here and places like the Adjective Name and characters like Detective Name. Plus [then have scene where X does Y and the murder takes place. Yes! Except, wait. What about?....]

A mess. I wrote the full rough draft before I posted *any* of it.

But I confess I have a lot of WIPs that I post chapters of pretty much as soon as I'm done polishing. Girl!Yoji, Home, etc. All the dom!Ayas were written that way. I'm not sure what to tell you. I seed a lot of possible plot into my stories to draw on later if need be, as a sort of compulsive habit from the days when I wrote without enough plot, but most of the time I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.

[madame-manga.livejournal.com]

Just like everyone's saying, long stories usually need detailed outlines. They change in process, of course -- you'll work out another way to get where you were going, or you'll spot a linkup that you hadn't suspected, or go off on a side trip that turns out to be central. All those interesting workings of mental alchemy that take place almost spontaneously when you have the ingredients lined up in some sort of order. You do have to cultivate a habit of keeping the overall scheme constantly in your RAM buffer, even if you aren't actively accessing it at the time. Otherwise, yeah, the details may begin to drift away.

I go through many drafts of each chapter, even with that outline in hand. I do go back and clean up somewhat after the fact, but usually it's just trimming the fat and fixing typos, because of all the front-end work that's already gone into it.

Frankly, for me serials are a *much* easier way to get large amounts written than are short stories, because each chapter is just one link in a chain. You already have characters and established context and an ultimate target -- you don't have to craft that out of whole cloth each time you sit down to write. Keeping it all in a semi-coherent whole once it's well started is actually not the most difficult part of the process. If you're lucky, feedback from readers will help you refill your tank, get through the low periods and let you see the work from the other side, which is a wonderful way to keep it fresh.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I still don't entirely know how I once wrote a novel-length HP fanfic. I would really like to know, so I could write one of my many novel WIPs. Anyway, it took me somewhat over a year; I wrote the first 10 chapters in 2 months and the remaining 7 over 10 months. IIRC, I didn't have any idea where I was going for the first five chapters or so; after that, I had a loose idea of a plot, enough so I could plant clues as I was going on. And I retconned earlier details to fit the mystery, etc.

I periodically play with the idea of trying to write an original novel as a serial in a locked journal, simply because it's the only way to date that I've completed something that long.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Even the multichapters are short enough for me to remember exactly what happened when and how. Also I usually don't even start the outline until I can picture the whole story, including sometimes exact dialog and expressions. XD; Though this may not be totally obvious, I often post stories the instant I reach the last line, without even reading them through once for grammar.

(Ha ha, I am also posting as if I actually wrote things!)

[droiche.livejournal.com]

Pretty much what everyone else said. You need a detailed but flexible outline (In my case, I use the stuff that Minekura and the anime people already published.). Having a proofreader type person around to suggest fine tuning is also a must.

I tackle the chapters one at a time, but I do constantly think ahead about where I'm going and refer back to where I've been to make sure everything stays consistant.

[droiche.livejournal.com]

You're using a timeline too? I had to make one for CTS because I was confusing myself about the dates in the story.

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the timeline is actually for "book 2" rather than the one I finished. *re-reads own comment* Obviously, I have linear time issues. ^_^;; Anyway, I tend to get scenes at random and if I don't jot down the gist of it and tag where it goes in the timeline, I'd be hopelessly lost.

I have the worst time hanging on to character ages, too, so part of the timeline is always: "So x is y-years at this point."

[droiche.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I hear thee. I needed my timeline because CTS is a travelogue style story so we're at X town on Y date. Plus part of the subplot relies on the phases of the moon, so I needed to keep track of when the moon would do its thing too. LOL. :D