pseudo writer's block

[campylobacter]

I usually write bizarre, awful VH (Vignette, Humor) stories for the XF fandom, but I've had a "longer" (approx. 5500 words) story brewing for over a year, about Scully showing Mulder her secret hideout.

The idea for the fic arose from a visit to the Previous eXcursions website, an archive (no longer active) of pre-Pilot stories. There are stories about:

- Mulder, BSU Wonder Boy
- Mulder and Scully, sickeningly cute five-year-olds
- Phoebe Green, college girlfriend from hell
- Diana Fowley, the reason for the Ring
- Skinner in 'Nam
- Bill Mulder beating the shit out of his son
- Dana Sue, high schooler in a summer romance with a handsome stranger named Fox

But for all the cliches, there are unexpected offerings: Deep Throat backstory fic, Samantha POV stories, early Lone Gunmen...

Anyway, my story falls into the slot between sickeningly cute children and horny teens, and tries to hew to canon. It's a challenge; although it's 95% finished and outlined completely, I'm experiencing pseudo-writer's block. You see, I'm being lazy because I'm scared.

I'm scared to finish the story because it might be, um, GOOD. I'm used to thinking of myself as a fringe author who writes fic that only five people will ever read. I'm a self-proclaimed maverick. I'm an impresario who hypes an iconoclast persona. I'm a hoax who hoodwinks myself.

I prefer to read short stories, because at their finest, they're like little clockworks. I prefer to write short fiction, because winding up little clocks is just so fun. Writing longer fic, for me, should be similar to building a grandfather clock. It's a clockwork, on a larger scale:

• Events mirror internal conflict.


• Motifs run parallel between plot and subplot.


• The opening theme is bookended in the ending theme.


• The character arc intersects the mytharc.


• Symbols shift meaning, and return to the literal.


• Loose plot ends are given different closure from unanswered questions.

At this point, you're probably laughing at me for my angst over what is commercially still considered a "short" story (under 7500 words), but it's a big deal! Why shouldn't a 5500-word story be as tightly constructed as a drabble? Why shouldn't each word in a novel be as carefully weighted as a word in a precis?

Yeah, the poor story has had the living fark edited out of it. There's far more Show than Tell. And this is even before I let a beta reader get a hold of it.

Anyway, if you've made it this far, I apologize for boring you. I promise to return to my regularly scheduled, non-serious, vapid LJ posts the next time I get around to updating this thing.

Comments

[jsmichel.livejournal.com]

At this point, you're probably laughing at me for my angst over what is commercially still considered a "short" story (under 7500 words), but it's a big deal! Why shouldn't a 5500-word story be as tightly constructed as a drabble? Why shouldn't each word in a novel be as carefully weighted as a word in a precis?

I'm not laughing, because I agree. I'd definitely read more long fics if I could sense that level of care in them. Otherwise, give me a carefully crafted short story any day.

I've found that my self-editing time doesn't scale up in a linear fashion either. I can write a 155-fic in a couple of nights, and be happy with it. That's maybe 100 words/day, which is quite generous if I look at what paid writers have to crank out (even considering the fact that I have to do most of my writing after everyone's gone to bed).

But it doesn't scale up. The longest fic I've ever completed was about 9000 words, which, at 100 words/day, should've taken me about three months. It took me over a year. But I'm an obsessive self-editor and I wouldn't have been happy with it otherwise. By the time I'm satisfied, I can recite most of the fic off by heart. Very sad.

Glad to hear you're working on this. I'm looking forward to it.

not ignoring you -- just tardy

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

..."By the time I'm satisfied, I can recite most of the fic off by heart. Very sad. "...

Ha! Rudyard Kipling actually used his ear to edit his stories:

"...it was necessary that every word should tell, carry, weigh, and if need were, smell..."

"There is no line of my verse or prose which has not been mouthed till the tongue has made all smooth, and memory, after many recitals, has mechanically skipped the grosser superfluities."

Anyway, thank you for your continued interest in my writerly angst. The moral support has helped me to finally kick my completed story into MaybeAmanda's capable beta-reading hands, if she doesn't altogether deny she ever received the wrtched thing. ;-)