| Like to Write in English? |
[Oct. 3rd, 2009|04:25 pm] |
I came across a writing competition called Daniil Pashkoff Prize, which is meant for non-native speakers who like to write in English.
This is how it's described on the website:
The Daniil Pashkoff Prize for Creative Writing in English by a Non-Native Speaker is named after the first Russian student to study English at the Technical University of Braunschweig. Its goal is to encourage creative writing in English by writers whose first language is not English and to provide them with a forum where their work will be published and read by others.
The prize money isn't very much, but the winning texts will be published. Of course, the copyright remains with the author.
The competition sounds like fun because you can write about every possible topic. You can also choose between prose and poetry. Even dramatic texts and haikus are allowed.
The original works have to be submitted by 31 January, 2010. |
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| Who Was I Kidding? |
[Sep. 8th, 2009|11:32 am] |
I've dropped out of the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) severusbigbang. I had signed up more than three months ago, but didn't manage to write one single line. Actually, I didn't even come up with a proper outline for a decent story. I thought by signing up I could force myself into writing, but I should have known that it wouldn't work. It's time to stop deluding myself. |
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| On Labelling Fanfics; or On What and How I Read and Write |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|01:08 pm] |
Some of you will have seen all these posts about warnings at metafandom, where people discuss whether yould should warn your readers that your fic contains rape, other kinds of violence, character death etc because these things might trigger people. I do understand why people are in favour of these kinds of warnings, but at the same time I balk at the idea of warning for “art“. I don't really regard fanfics and fanart as art (and of course some are purely pornographic), but it can be only a small step from a fanfic to an original story, and the idea to warn for one of them (in advance) is just alien to me.
But that's not what I really want to talk about. While perusing the posts at metafandom, I came across this post, which intrigued me because it discusses the different things readers and writers expect of fanfics – to be exact what people expect who are (not) interested in genre literature and its usual characteristics.
( I actually replied to the post but decided to post a longer version of my thoughts about labelling here. ) |
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| Not Writing Yet |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|12:03 am] |
I haven't written one word for my severusbigbang story yet. All I did was jotting down some short notes for a little scene that popped into my head the other day and might end up in the story. Unfortunately, if I get an idea for a scene at all, it's usually in the morning when I'm having a shower, and since I always run late in the morning, I never have the time to actually write down the entire scene. The short notes make sure that I won't forget about the scene in the first place, but the characters' voices I could hear in my head are gone by the time I sit down again and try to write the actual scene. Oh well.
I saw that there are nice banners over at severusbigbang now, and if someone will inspire me it's ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sigune's Snape.
Apart from that, I received some nice reviews for a couple of older fics. That should help as well. :) |
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| Commitment |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|07:08 pm] |
I just signed up for the severusbigbang. Since having read Deathly Hallows, I felt that I should write one (final) Snape story that means some closure for me. I've played around with ideas, took notes, researched a little bit, revisited certain scenes in the books, but in the end I never came close to writing the story. I hope that having signed up now makes me feel committed to finally write it.
I know that it's possible to bow out of the severusbigbang - at least if one does so timely enough - but I really hope that I won't do so. I signed up for a short fic at colourful_bat last winter, which I never finished and still feel bad about. Since it wasn't an exchange, I "only" let down the organisor and the potential readers, which is bad enough, but the one person I truly let down was myself. I feel bad for not reaching a goal I set for myself.
This time it just has to work. I haven't written any fan fic or original fic for ages, and I start getting the feeling that I will never do so again if I don't manage to write and also finish some story soon. |
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| The Beginning of the Beginning of the Beginning |
[Nov. 26th, 2008|04:59 pm] |
Continuing my post in which I announced that I would be taking part in a playwriting workshop, here's now what I actually learnt about playwriting last weekend.
With hindsight, I'll have to say that it wasn't very much. First, we discussed which elements are vital for a play, ie characters, plot, structure, language, theme etc. Then, we discussed the different kinds of structure a bit before the teacher launched into a very detailed excursion about language, particularly about phonetics and morphology.
Most of this was familiar to me because I studied literature once. Nevertheless, I didn't exactly mind recapturing it again and refreshing my memories, but I felt that his very detailed introduction into the basics of linguistics was taking things too far. I understood his reasoning that knowing how language works will subconsciously help you when you write (for example if you want to characterise characters by the way they talk), but I couldn't help feeling that he had made the second step before the first. I would assume that these finer details are something I would take care of in a second or third draft but not right away. For the time being I'd be just interested in finishing a play in the first place.
( We didn't write a single line on the first day... ) |
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| Playwriting for Dummies |
[Nov. 20th, 2008|11:30 pm] |
How do I write a play? What's my reason for writing in the first place? What am I interested in the most – my characters, my language, the structure of my play?
From the topic to the characters, from the characters to the plot, from the plot to the scenes, to the specific dialogues and monologues. Writing exercises.
That's the summary of a short (eight hours) workshop about playwriting I'm going to attend this weekend.
I think the summary doesn't sound too bad although I'm not sure how eight hours will be sufficient to get a good grasp on the basics of playwriting.
( But right now it's the best (make that only) workshop that is offered here. ) |
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| A Possible Start |
[Aug. 21st, 2008|11:43 pm] |
Today I sent off an original short story I wrote in order to enter it in a competition. As usual, I finished it almost at the last minute, which is a bit frustrating because, while I actually had an idea what I wanted to write about, I didn't get a real grip on it for weeks.
The best 25 stories will be published together in an anthology, and the best three authors will receive some additional prizes. But I don't honestly expect to be among the best 25. It's too long ago that I wrote anything original in the first place, and it's only the second time that I entered a competition. Therefore, my expectations are very low. For the time being I'm just happy that I managed to finish writing a story at all – even if it was at the last minute but one.
Perhaps it will offer me the inspiration and the frame of mind to write more in the near future. I really need to write on a much more regular basis if I ever want to reach a certain level of competence and perhaps even publish a story. |
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| A New Pairing |
[Jun. 10th, 2008|07:42 pm] |
I received a lovely banner for my latest fic, which was in response to romancingwizard's challenge "Bring Out Your Dead".
I (almost) paired off Snape with Trelawney, which was meant in a humourous way, and consequently several readers expressed their relief that Snape rejected Trelawney.
But it has made me think, and I now wonder whether it would be so impossible to actually pair off the two - for real, not for a laugh. I don't think they would become my new One True Pairing, if I've ever believed in something like that in the first place, but there must be ways to pull it off and make it believable. I might give it a try... |
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| Writer's Meme |
[May. 2nd, 2008|02:01 pm] |
As seen at snokat's and adaveen's LJs.
What's the last thing you wrote?
A Snape/Tonks one-shot. I'm in the middle of editing it one last time.
Was it any good?
Having re-read it after almost two weeks of letting it rest, I think it's not too bad. I think I will have to improve on the POV by writing more stories, though.
What's the first thing you ever wrote that you still have?
That's probably my Frasier fanfic, because I threw away everything I wrote or rather tried to write when I was an adolescent.
Write poetry?
Only as an adolescent, and only a few poems. I'm not really into poetry.
Angsty poetry?
No, they were pretentious poems about the injustice we live in.
Most fun character you ever wrote?
Gilderoy Lockhart. I only wrote about him in a couple of drabbles, though.
( More questions and answers ) |
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| The Narrator as a Know-It-All |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|08:12 pm] |
A few days ago, I finished a one-shot about Snape and Tonks. I wrote it for a challenge, and since I was very much on the late side, I posted it without editing it for one last time, although all in all I edited it a lot before. It's also not beta-read yet. Therefore, I plan to edit it once more and will probably tweak a few sentences, but I doubt that this will help me with the main problem I struggled with during writing the story – the point-of-view.
I wrote the story using the omniscient narrator, which I've never done before. All my stories, with one exception that was written in the first person, are written from the POV of a third-person limited narrator. Since this story concentrates on Snape and Tonks, I originally opted for the third-person limited narrator as well. But the bigger part of the story takes place during an Order meeting, and very soon it occurred to me that it might be interesting to include the thoughts and feelings of the other Order members. Therefore, I switched to the omniscient narrator. And thus the struggle began.
( How does the omniscient narrator work? ) |
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| Ten signs a fic was written by veradee |
[Feb. 14th, 2008|10:31 pm] |
Taking into account how few stories I've written and how short they are, doing this meme, which I've seen all over my f-list, is a bit presumptious, but I'm doing it anyway. Taking stock of my HP fics sounds as if it might help in the future.
1. As long as a story is longer than 100 words the main character is always Severus Snape. Only drabbles might be about different HP characters. All in all, veradee sticks to the adults of the HP world, with the exception of Hermione.
2. veradee's stories usually include quite a bit of research, e.g. about the HP time line, herbs for potions, literary allusions. This also goes for drabbles. Even if there are no annotations, chances are that some research was done nevertheless.
( Eight more signs a fic was written by veradee ) |
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| Losing Touch |
[Jan. 16th, 2008|10:17 pm] |
I received an e-mail from southernwitch69 today, telling me that one of my fanfics had been featured on The Petulant Poetess during the first half of January. I had completely missed that fact, which might be partly due to the fact that I never enter the site via the homepage, where the featured stories are listed.
But all in all I have been losing more and more touch with fanfics in the past few months. I only wrote a few drabbles for romancingwizard last month, and reading-wise I only follow a couple of WIPs and the odd story at sshg_exchange. Despite the fact that I completely failed at my November resolution to come up with a plot outline, I still dream of writing one final Snape fic, but if I'm honest I'm at a complete loss what the story would be about. I don't want to resurrect Snape, but the fact that he's dead is a bit of a hindrance to my muse. |
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| An Old Story Revisited |
[Nov. 20th, 2007|09:28 pm] |
Earlier this year I joined a German online writing group. It offers a monthly prompt to write a story about, and then the other members give you feedback. So far I've been very lazy and only wrote one story. For this month I promised myself to write another one, but today was the last day of posting and I had finished only half of my story. Therefore, I decided to post an old one, which I had written three years ago when I attended a creative writing class. Of course, that's cheating, but I tell myself that it will be enlightening to get a second feedback and see whether the story still works.
At least, I've already downloaded the prompt for December and am determined to write a new story this time. |
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| A Deadline |
[Oct. 25th, 2007|11:15 pm] |
After my disastrous attempt at NaNoWriMo last year, I've decided to do my very own version of it this November. It's even possible that next to no writing will be involved.
I still struggle with myself whether I should write one final story about Snape. Since I finished reading DH, a couple of snapshots, which if at all have drabble quality, came to my mind, but this is about it.
Therefore, I've given myself until the end of November to do some re-reading, research, plotting, note-taking and whatever it takes to come up with a decent idea for a story. I actually plan to invest some time in this project and not just hope for an idea to pop up all on its own, but if by the end of the month I won't have at least a satisfying plot outline, it will be the definite end of my writing stories about Snape. |
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| Snape, and How to Still Write Him Now |
[Sep. 2nd, 2007|10:03 am] |
When I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I thought to myself that this was the end of my Snape fanfic writing days. A few days later, I thought that it would be sad not to write at least one final story, and for the past couple of weeks, I have pondered what I could write about and hoped for something that might resemble a plot bunny. So far I have been unsuccessful, because I hit a problem or two.
( One of the problems is called Lily ) |
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| Frustrating writing |
[May. 16th, 2007|01:21 am] |
I hate writing when I don't really know how the story is going to end.
About a month ago, I signed up for a challenge. Inspired by the prompts, I had a vague idea and thought that four weeks would be enough to come up with a proper story, but after writing about the first quarter of it, inspiration left me.
The deadline was today, or rather 90 minutes ago. Therefore, three days ago, I decided that I had to start again on the fic and somehow finish it. Well, I did (almost, but luckily the USA are a few hours behind), but it was an unpleasant struggle. Every few sentences I came up with another random idea that changed the tone and the outcome of the story, which meant that I constantly deleted sentences again to make it all fit together. Actually, I'm not sure that the finished story is a coherent work now, but my time was up.
Apart from that, I absolutely despise the title I spontaneously chose. I normally need days to pick one - not minutes.
I suppose I'm going to wait a few days now, and then re-read the story to see whether it is worth to be polished and sent to my beta reader at all. |
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| On sugary and rushed story endings |
[Mar. 19th, 2007|11:18 pm] |
My favourites among the fan fictions I read are those multi-chaptered romantic stories that explore Snape and Hermione (or the characters of your choice) in detail and show how they gradually come to appreciate each other, how they turn from former teacher and student to friends, and how they finally come to fall in love with each other. I love it when the unresolved sexual tension (UST) slowly increases so that the first kiss, the first avowal of love or the first sex is 'earth-shattering'.
In my opinion, this would be a good moment to end the story. Another alternative that usually works is to let the plot go on and have some kind of crisis that lets Snape and Hermione doubt their new feelings until they realise that it's not just an infatuation but true love, indeed. Now the end credits should roll...
( Why is it, though, that so many stories go on? ) |
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| How do you do it? |
[Mar. 2nd, 2007|02:55 pm] |
To my knowledge, the mode of narration of the omniscient narrator is unpopular in modern fiction, and actually I prefer the third-person narrator, but for the sake of experimenting I would like to give the omniscient narrator a try. My problem is that I don't know how to do this.
About two years ago, I attended a couple of creative writing classes, and one evening the teacher asked us to write a story using the third-person narrator. She claimed that it was difficult to write a story from one character's point of view only. I disagreed because I've always thought that it is an easy concept. Instead, I asked her about writing a story using the omniscient narrator. What we did in the end was re-write a couple of paragraphs from a novel that was written in the third-person narration and change it to the omniscient narrator. I wasn't very happy with my result.
( So, how do I do it properly? ) |
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| Goodbye, NaNoWriMo |
[Nov. 14th, 2006|02:26 pm] |
I’ve decided to drop out of NaNoWriMo. I haven’t written anything for a couple of days now.
( Here’s why ) |
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