Creative Process? (Read 555 times)

[Kpatch]

Dancing Days asked how long it takes me to write a story, and I thought I would pose that question to all our fancreations creators and ask what is your process?

For me, a story starts with a seed of an idea and sometimes sprouts right away, while other times it takes longer and hits me out of the blue from another direction. I've had ideas for stories that ended up being part of another story rather than a standalone.

I almost always know point A and point Z. Filling in the gap between A and Z is the hardest part. If I'm having a hard time, I start writing out of order, sort of like filming out of order. That usually helps me get unblocked.

As for how long it takes to write a story, it varies depending on the length of the story and how often I write. Sometimes it seems like the story writes itself. I feel like I'm listening to a conversation the characters are having and I'm the stenographer, typing like mad to keep up with what they are saying. I can write a chapter in about a half hour or so. But I'm a big tweaker. I'm often tweaking dialogue even as I'm posting a chapter. And I complete the story before I ever post the first chapter. That way, I'm sure that the beginning is in sync with the end.

I'm interested in knowing how other authors work, if it's very similar or very different from the way I work.

What about the rest of you creative types? Videographers too. How do you get inspired and what is your creative process?

[André DiMera]

My creative process is similar to yours, jkjpatch.

Sometimes, a story comes right off the top of my head. In these cases, I start writing, and I usually don't stop until I've got a full story. However, there are other times when I'll think of a story, and not write it down right away. By the time I start writing it down, I've already thought of four or five changes to the story.

The ending of the story isn't always clear to me from the beginning. Sometimes, I'll be halfway through the story before I figure out how I'm going to end it. I also think of certain scenes before coming up with how I get to that scene. I always have some idea of what characters I want to use and what sort of storyline I want them to have. I just don't always know how to finish off the story until I'm almost halfway through.

There's no way for me to tell how long it takes me to write a story. Some stories were written over a few days and some take much longer to write. I do complete my story before posting it (though, in my early days of writing, I didn't always do that). However, I've gotten much better about it. And, for the last year, I've made sure that all my stories are complete before I post them.

Cool idea for a thread, jkjpatch!