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It's Really Hard!
Topic Started: May 30 2009, 03:49 PM (1,461 Views)
Bionic Kathy
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PineappleAngel
Sep 19 2014, 07:09 PM
Hmm... biggest challenges

1. Not writing a story with some sort of "whump" in it....
- for some this may not seem like a big problem, but I simply can not write a story that does not have SOME sort of emotional or physical "Whump" (aka hurt/comfort or injury to characters..) It's just how I write!! With this would be not writing stories with angst.

2. Ships.
-It's really hard to be original, not too sappy, and please everyone with your ships stories. As a fan, you ship what you ship.. and that may not be what others ship! In a fandom there are usually some basic staple ones that the fans either LOVE or HATE!! (such as Steve/Jaime and Oscar/Jaime). Also, there are things to deal with like Slash, OTPs, and ships with made-up characters.. It's nearly certain that whatever ship you write, SOMEONE will not ship them, and SOMEONE won't be happy.. ALSO, there's the problem of how far to go with them.... (do you leave it as a very subtle K, or add in some hugs and kisses and make it a T, and how far do you go with those things...)

3. Cannon.
-Sometimes (especially in a fandom like this where there are multiple shows to follow) it is REALLY hard to write Cannon when you want to. It's hard to keep the level of detail correct throughout your story.. even with little things such as: How would one character address another one? How would this character react to so-and-so doing blank to another so-and-so? Also, sometimes it's tough to make the decision to NOT write Cannon, and make it slightly A/U, cause there bound to be readers who are just dying for the chance to correct you on all the continuity errors you have in your story.. :/

4. Research.
-it is said that a writer should "write about what they know", however I, and many of us writers, don't really follow this. It's extremely difficult to keep up a certain level of perfection on the details of your story, pertaining to a different time, place, or culture. For example: If you are writing a cannon SMDM story set in the 70's Steve should not answer a cell phone, or things like a "selfie" should not be mentioned. OR, on a more descriptive level, I am currently writing a piece set in A field hospital and the Western Front Trenches of WWI. I have had to do hours and HOURS of research on even the smallest details like "what would the soldiers be eating" and "what colors were the uniforms" and everything like that... Some writers say that it is better to write without research, but I politely disagree. I am a bit OCD about my writing, and to me, it has to be immaculate.. so yeah, research is a big time gobbler... :/

5. THE IDEAS RUNNETH OVER!!
-This shouldn't seem like a problem but sometimes it is.. sometimes, you can have just too many ideas!! You've just decided a full length story you want to write, and you've settled your research and you're sitting down to type.. and then you go and take a break and watch the newest episode of that show and WOOPS, all of the sudden, you have another FANTASTIC idea that's even better than the previous one!! Do you continue with the old, partially written story? OR, do you try and start the new one??? And then what happens when you get another new idea??? (sometimes I can get 5+ stories going at once, all for different shows, and some of them crossovers..NOT FUN!!)

Well... I'm sure there are many more, but this post is getting too long, so I'll just sum it up with everyone's biggest problem:
6. WRITER'S BLOCK!!!
This needs no explanation....well, it probably does, but I can't think of anything fantastic to write...so... I guess I'm done!! ;) see what I did there???? ;)
Pineapple Girl -- I can see where all that would be a problem. For me, since I am a complete amature at writing, I have to say taking my ideas and putting them together into one complete idea. I have the ideas, I just need to have the confidence to take all the different ideas I have in my head and figure out how to put them together into one story idea, no matter what that idea happens to end up to be.
"Look inside yourself -- say what's in your heart -- even if it is made of teflon." Dr. Jaime Sommers Austin

"Oscar, if you want to find us, don't come looking for us." Colonel Steve Austin
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Bionika
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PineappleAngel
Sep 19 2014, 07:09 PM
Hmm... biggest challenges

4. Research.
-it is said that a writer should "write about what they know", however I, and many of us writers, don't really follow this. It's extremely difficult to keep up a certain level of perfection on the details of your story, pertaining to a different time, place, or culture. For example: If you are writing a cannon SMDM story set in the 70's Steve should not answer a cell phone, or things like a "selfie" should not be mentioned. OR, on a more descriptive level, I am currently writing a piece set in A field hospital and the Western Front Trenches of WWI. I have had to do hours and HOURS of research on even the smallest details like "what would the soldiers be eating" and "what colors were the uniforms" and everything like that... Some writers say that it is better to write without research, but I politely disagree. I am a bit OCD about my writing, and to me, it has to be immaculate.. so yeah, research is a big time gobbler... :/

Yes, I agree : researches are a big time gobbler but it could be sometimes delicious because it gives us a great excuse for watching and watching again Bionic Woman and Six million Dollars man episodes.

Of course I think it's necessary when I write a sequel to the episodes. That way, I remember to have watch and watch again (nearly to reach saturation point) the last minutes of episode "Beyond the call" for translating Jaime and Kim words from the 45th minute to the 47th or "Kill Oscar" for writing "A parrallele way to "Kill Oscar 3" . For "Deadly runnings " , I "had";) :D to watch "Angel of mercy "(about how Jaime did dressings) and all episodes in which Oscar was supporting Jaime (in front of Hatch's vault, when she fainted in the train due to fire smoke, in Franklin's son complex) and of course "On the run". I watched also this episode for writing "Eventful Christmas Holidays" when Oscar is remenbering about his relationship with Jaime.

"I watched twice too "The Vega Inluence" , first for the relationship between Jaime and Michael for "Rats, formulas and vacations" , then about the meteorit's waves for "Who is the target?".
"Help me " was based on "Iron ship and dead men" and "bionic showdown". "World is a dangerous place" leaded me to watch "The return of the bionic woman" about Jaime's parachute jump.

It could be silly, but sometimes I watch an episode several time for checking a detail like the ring on Mark Russell's left little finger for "One for the other". I watched also "Fly Jaime" and "Survival of the fittest" in order to wound Russ in a similar (but more serious) way than Oscar and Rudy in "For peace" or "The pepping blonde" for writing a sentence about Oscar's vacations in "Eventful Christmas Holidays" and also for this story, "The return of SMDM and TBW" about Fortress organization.

Bionika
Edited by Bionika, Dec 20 2014, 05:13 PM.
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Bionika
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Researches are delicious...but also interesting and I learnt a lot about topics I would have never been interested in instead like F111 specifications for instance in order to have Rudy coming back as quickly as possible for saving Oscar in "Rats, vacations and formulas".
For this story I also made researches about terrorists groups, about the specific car plates for diplomatic cars, about geography (the names of the streets around Hotel Dieu hospital, the little villages around Mont Saint Michel, the French air bases used by Steve) or history (the name of the US ambassador in France at the story's time or the attempt of assasination of the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. I found this last one while searching if Russ could call General Haig for having Steve coming back!).

I made revisions of biology about blood groups and history about Camp David's Peace Treaty for story "For peace".
Sometimes I use my own experiment like my visit of Tour Eiffel (for "Rats, vacactions and formulas") or the informations I had about avalanches from a mountain guide for "Eventful Christmas holidays".

This is a little part of all the researches I made because I don't remember all (even if for writing this answer I made another delicious thing : read again all my stories! ;) :D )

And last but not least, due to my condition of non English native, I shouldn't forgot all the vocabulary I have learnt.

Bionika
Edited by Bionika, Oct 21 2014, 03:46 PM.
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bionic4ever
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Research... yes, it takes a lot of time but is well worth it because it adds authenticity to a story. If the writer is only fudging the facts, the readers will know - and it's possible that they will drop away, figuring if the writer didn't care enough to put in the time needed to get the facts right, then they don't care enough to read it.

When I first started writing these stories in 2006 (gasp - 8 years), it never even occurred to me that research might be necessary. At that time, when my stories were only about 2,000 words long. To be honest now, some of them too short and too pithy to be called 'stories' and could referred to as vignettes. There's nothing wrong with vignettes but (in my opinion anyhow), it's more satisfying and interesting for the writer AND the readers if a story has more 'meat' to it. And to be able to add depth (and 'meat') to a story, research is quite often essential.

The first story I did any sort of research for was Tightrope - to learn what was involved in tightrope walking and to pick up some circus lingo. The one that took the most research for me was Bite of the Cobra (helicopter types/speed, amusement parks and - it seemed - 101 little details). The others with a LOT of research behind them were the 'Jungle Jaime' stories, where she ran off to a South American jungle after events similar to On the Run and started a jungle survival school. I learned about jungle vegetation (including what was edible and what was not), the wildlife (including the sound they might make) the climate and terrain.

Research can sometimes be fun; other times it is quite tedious - but a story can only benefit if a writer puts in the needed research time.
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Bionika
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bionic4ever
Dec 20 2014, 02:42 PM
Research... yes, it takes a lot of time but is well worth it because it adds authenticity to a story. If the writer is only fudging the facts, the readers will know - and it's possible that they will drop away, figuring if the writer didn't care enough to put in the time needed to get the facts right, then they don't care enough to read it.

a story can only benefit if a writer puts in the needed research time.
I completely agree.

It is said that in fanfiction, you can unleash your imagination but for me, it's a matter of readers'respect to make the story as credible as it can.
Well, this involves only me (I don't want potential writers to not write story because they can't /wan't do lot's or researches, the important thing is to begin to write).

Bionika
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Inanna
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There's an annual book fair that the UofA has that brings in authors from several different genres to have discussions about their books and writing in general. I've gotten a lot of useful advice from those lectures. I remember one romance forum where they talked about research and how easily it was to get sidetracked with it. I remember one author in particular said she always did a lot of research for her books because the settings tended to be futuristic and alien, but she noticed that she rarely used more than a third of the information she researched. They all said that they had time limits on their research, usually not more than 90 minutes a day for the two that wrote full time and much less for the woman who had a full time job and was raising a family and writing. (Yeah, there were a lot of us in the audience muttering "Holy crap" when she mentioned that.)

I try not to spend a lot of time researching because I do notice I can procrastinate myself right out of writing because I'm so drawn into the research, so I try not to spend more than ten minutes researching a specific subject. Longer than that and I notice I'm going off to look at tangents of info that the initial search brought up that has usually little to do with my writing but sounds interesting. Having the time limit keeps me from not writing and eating my time away in research.

When I first started writing in community college, I got told a lot that I needed to research and I did feel like it was a dirty word. It wasn't until about ten years later that I realized, yeah, actually, this is a very good thing.
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Bionika
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I don't know exactly how many time I spend for searching. I don't do researches and then write.
It's when I'm writing (and I write only the fanfictions post on this site) that I think "I must know more on this or this point " so I write this point in blue type, add "????" or "XXXX" for localisations for instance and carry on writing.

Then if for changing the type from blue to black I need to watch SMDM or TBW episodes, I do it while ironing, or eating (when I'm alone with no child around). As I'm writing mainly at end of day, if I'm too tired for doing it or not too much idea then I do searching instead. Or If I think that you can know it better than me or can find it easier than me with Google, I ask a question on part "help me" of this thread. Sometimes too, as the story is progressing, I have to change some things in previous writing...and the thing I had to serach on diseappear by itself! ;) :D

And sometimes I'm searching for fun : in "Rats, vacations and formulas" I could have invented the name of the American Ambassador in France (I think no reader would have check if it was really him) but I found it funnier to write the real name.

Bionika
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Inanna
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I realized last night that I've decided not to publish my story until it's finished is a better idea than I originally gave it credit for. I had a rough idea for the climatic scene before I started writing the story but as I was writing a conversation last night, the scene seemed to hash itself out even more as the conversation kind of preludes to it. Then I realized, Oh, hey, that kind of comes out of left field, maybe you should go back to some previous scenes and drop some hints there so it doesn't seem like it's coming out of the blue... Because I'm thinking if I don't, it's going to come off as a horrible rehash of a Leonard Nimoy In Search Of episode and a heinous retcon. So, I'm now going back in the story and scribbling in the margins "include this here".

Has anyone else run into that problem? Having to jump back and tweek the story because an important part formed in a way you weren't expecting?
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