how do you do words?

[certainthings]

When you write stories, how do you do it?

Do the characters talk to you and tell you what they want to say and what actions they want to engage in and such.

Or.

Do you force them into situations, tell them what to say and how they're going to say it?

Can you feel the story as you're writing or do you feel it after? Do you feel your story at all?

Tell me all things about how you write, please.

Comments

[americangrl69.livejournal.com]

When I'm role playing the characters talk to me and tell me what they want me to do with them. As for actually writing a story, it's kind of the opposite I guess. I just get a plot idea and then figure it all out in my head before I actually write it down.

[lavendergaia]

I find that I write better when the characters talk to me. Forcing characters to do something just comes out as forced writing on my part. But I think there are writers who are scribes, who just write what their characters do, and then there are writers who are puppeteers, who put characters in situations and march them around like sims.

[myteethsharper.livejournal.com]

i cry and become filled with self-loathing.

[gwendolynmstacy.livejournal.com]

First option.

[hamarakissa.livejournal.com]

When I RP - I pretty much become the character and let them speak for me.

As for writing - I haven't written in forever :x And the little things I do wrote for land comms - I sometimes force the character, but I try to keep it true to how the character would feel.

[paperscout.livejournal.com]

This is tagged fan fiction so I'm assuming that's what you're referring to. When I write fan fic, in a way, it's very forced because I'm usually doing it to fulfill something I wanted to see in the show or something. I try to stay true to characterization and all that stuff, which is usually easy cuz if you watch/read a lot of something you know the characters pretty well, but I don't stress about it so much.

With original stuff, I try to know the characters and their backgrounds, fears, motivations, desires really well and then I try to figure how that would shape a chain of events and interactions in the loose confines of an overall plot or idea. If that makes sense.

[alwaysenduphere.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the first three but. I feel the story as I'm going. Like, I can't make a plan or an outline really at all otherwise the story never works. I have to just go and let it go where it goes, but I don't like think "oh so-and-so would totally do this" or I'm not thinking in terms of that, I guess. I mean, sometimes I'll write something and be like "dean would never say something like that" and change it after, but I really don't think about it as I'm writing. IDK.

[gottalovev.livejournal.com]

I generally have a rough outline of what the story will be and where I want it to go (the main idea) But the details come as I write, as if I'm following the characters from there. sometimes they do what I had imagined before starting it, sometimes they take a detour, but normally they end up where I intended them to be.

I don't quite know what you mean about feeling the story? do you mean knowing it it works or not, if it's worth continuing? if it's that, I do generally feel it as I do write, or it's really hard to come back and fix afterwards (unless I scratch it all and start anew)

[littlestclouds.livejournal.com]

When I write, I feel like the characters are dictating to me and I'm just recording. I can't really force the characters into doing things that don't "feel" right to them.