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nym_wibblyI mentioned this ages ago on Tumblr but thought it was worth another mention here. When people ask me, 'how do you write?', I'm fairly stumped. I sit down at the computer, or (more rarely these days) with a pad and pen, and I write down what comes into my head. Easy, right? Easy if you know how? Or if you... don't know how but do it anyway?!? Blimey. Actually letting interested parties in on how I arrive at the words I use, the style I choose, tends to elude me.
One tip I can share though is word-lists. Fannish folks have all been there; we see a show, read a book, and one character grabs us by the attention span and becomes the new item of interest. Maybe they're one half of a couple or maybe not. There's something about them that attracts us, holds us and inspires us to creativity. Ideas start coming thick and fast about this amazing character; we imagine their backstory, and how they'd behave in an alternate reality, and give serious thought to the question of what underwear they choose. After a few days of what I call blind squee, I start to get words out of this experience — little ideas and observations, comparisons, as I begin to make sense of the character in my own mind.
My tip is this: Write those down. I first did this with Severus Snape from the Harry Potter novels. Before I penned a word about him, I opened a fresh notebook and filled several pages with lists of words that related to him. Some were obvious descriptions - his physique, his behaviour, his manner of speaking. Others were more speculative - little anchors for what would evolve into my headcanon, or plucked from the fanon that was rapidly gaining momentum (thanks in no small part to Telanu's Tea Series blowing everyone away!). Words that had a Snape vibe to them. Words Snape might relish using himself. Words that made me think Snape. It took a few days, grabbing the pad and pen every few hours to jot down something I'd just thought of.
I didn't slavishly refer to those word lists later as I wrote my own stories about the character. But having made that conscious effort to clarify my thoughts on paper, the words stayed with me. They were ready on the tip of my brain when I needed them in a story, and I found that they were better tailored to the character than descriptive words and stock phrases that I might've reached for otherwise.
It's a process I still enjoy tremendously as part of my initial experience of falling in love with a fanfic-worthy character. For some reason, I never made a list like that for Belle, possibly because I knew by that point that she'd be the observer in A Bed of Thorns; that I needed to work harder to nail down Rumple-words because he's a creature of words. Having missed the opportunity in 2012, I've made my lists before starting work on the 2.0 rewrite of A Bed of Thorns. They're far more elaborate and detailed than the first-impressions lists I have for other fandoms, taking in subsequent canon with the benefit of hindsight. I can feel the characters coming into sharper focus in my mind for having done it.
As a tip for getting started writing about a character - for resolving some of the nebulous squee into concrete, writeable ideas - I can recommend this word-list technique.
One tip I can share though is word-lists. Fannish folks have all been there; we see a show, read a book, and one character grabs us by the attention span and becomes the new item of interest. Maybe they're one half of a couple or maybe not. There's something about them that attracts us, holds us and inspires us to creativity. Ideas start coming thick and fast about this amazing character; we imagine their backstory, and how they'd behave in an alternate reality, and give serious thought to the question of what underwear they choose. After a few days of what I call blind squee, I start to get words out of this experience — little ideas and observations, comparisons, as I begin to make sense of the character in my own mind.
My tip is this: Write those down. I first did this with Severus Snape from the Harry Potter novels. Before I penned a word about him, I opened a fresh notebook and filled several pages with lists of words that related to him. Some were obvious descriptions - his physique, his behaviour, his manner of speaking. Others were more speculative - little anchors for what would evolve into my headcanon, or plucked from the fanon that was rapidly gaining momentum (thanks in no small part to Telanu's Tea Series blowing everyone away!). Words that had a Snape vibe to them. Words Snape might relish using himself. Words that made me think Snape. It took a few days, grabbing the pad and pen every few hours to jot down something I'd just thought of.
I didn't slavishly refer to those word lists later as I wrote my own stories about the character. But having made that conscious effort to clarify my thoughts on paper, the words stayed with me. They were ready on the tip of my brain when I needed them in a story, and I found that they were better tailored to the character than descriptive words and stock phrases that I might've reached for otherwise.
It's a process I still enjoy tremendously as part of my initial experience of falling in love with a fanfic-worthy character. For some reason, I never made a list like that for Belle, possibly because I knew by that point that she'd be the observer in A Bed of Thorns; that I needed to work harder to nail down Rumple-words because he's a creature of words. Having missed the opportunity in 2012, I've made my lists before starting work on the 2.0 rewrite of A Bed of Thorns. They're far more elaborate and detailed than the first-impressions lists I have for other fandoms, taking in subsequent canon with the benefit of hindsight. I can feel the characters coming into sharper focus in my mind for having done it.
As a tip for getting started writing about a character - for resolving some of the nebulous squee into concrete, writeable ideas - I can recommend this word-list technique.